India on Lebanon Issue.

ISRAEL: INDIA’S CONDEMNATION OVER LEBANON OPERATIONS WAS AVOIDABLE

By Dr. Subhash Kapila

Introductory Observations

India’s condemnation of Israel over its current military operations in Lebanon through a resolution in Parliament was avoidable. It has arisen from the Leftists pressure in the Coalition Government and the other disparate political groupings that masquerade as “secularists” but in reality pander to Indian Muslim vote banks.

Strangely, a press report (The Tribune, August, 2006) states that there is strong pressure also within the Congress Party that a Working Committee Resolution should be passed by the Party separately. The arguments advanced in support of such a move is that with UP Assembly elections coming up early next year a strong political message needs to be sent out condemning Israel’s military strikes in Lebanon.

More strangely, this report indicates that within Congress Party circles, linkages are being drawn that the Party’s silence on Lebanon would indicate a pro-US stand and that when added to the Indo-US nuclear deal (also seen as a pro-US step), a wrong political message to the minorities would be conveyed.

India’s Doubtful Foreign Policy Attitudes: Questions

Such stances of the Congress Party, the Leftists and those of the “secular brigade” raise the following questions:

• Is India’s foreign policy going to be determined by Leftists and Indian Muslims?
• In what way Israel’s military operations against the Islamic militias, adversely affect India’s security or strategic interests?
• Is such condemnation of Israel balanced, politically?
• Why is there no parallel condemnation of Syria and Iran which are providing the Hezbollah in Lebanon with heavy military hardware and long-range rockets which daily endanger Israeli civilians security?
• Is it not high time that Indian Governments learn to use restraint in their foreign policy pronouncements, irrespective of doubtful domestic pressures?
• If Indian domestic pressures count so much, then why in the wake of 7/11, the Congress Government, the Leftists and the “secular brigade” were tongue-tied in condemning Pakistan for terrorism attack against Indian civilians resulting in the loss of 200 lives?
• Why are we running to support Palestinian Hamas and the Hezbollah in Lebanon and condemn Israel? Did the Hamas and Hezbollah or the entire Arab community come out vociferously to condemn Pakistan’s religious terrorism ongoing against India?

Sadly, India’s foreign policy has been hijacked from its institutionalised care-takers, the Indian Foreign Service. India’s foreign policy presently is communised and communalised as surveyed in the author’s last paper (SAAG Paper No. 1892 dated 26.07.2006).

Foreign policy today stands divorced from India’s strategic and security determinants and overtaken by the domestic electoral compulsions of political parties.

Coming back to Israel’s military operations in Lebanon, the following need to be analysed:

• Israel’s Military Operations in Lebanon: The Genesis of the Case.
• Israel’s Present Military Strikes are Against Proxy War Militants Infrastructure in Lebanon.
• United Nations Resolution No. 1559: Why Lebanon Has Not Implemented it?
• Crucial Questions for International Community on Counter-Terrorism Operations Against Proxy War and Religious Terrorism Outfits/Militias.

Israel’s Military Operations in Lebanon: The Genesis of the Case.

The Hezbollah has been involved in terrorism violence and asymmetrical armed warfare against Israel for years. Its military hardware and rocket artillery are being supplied by Syria and Iran. Over the years it stands entrenched in Southern Lebanon bordering Israel, which has served as a base for its violent operations and rocket attacks on Northern Israel communities. Till 2000, for a number of years, Israel had occupied a strip of Southern Lebanon as a “buffer zone” to preclude Hezbollah attacks. Under international pressure and on the assurance that Lebanon would not allow Hezbollah to operate in Southern Lebanon, the Israeli forces withdrew.

In the last six years, not only has Hezbollah been made to withdraw by Lebanon, on the contrary they have established a fortification line with concrete bunkers and a network of underground tunnels to make their positions unassailable. It is from here that they have continued their operations against Israel. The latest incident which sparked the present conflagration was the Hezbollah attack on an Israeli patrol, within Israel territory, killing three soldiers and abducting two Israeli soldiers.

Israel as a consequence, against this act of terror, launched military strikes in Southern Lebanon and other sites in Lebanon housing Hezbollah rocket sites, infrastructure and facilities. This has continued for the last three weeks now.

The present military conflict, it must be noted is between Israel and the Hezbollah militia. The Lebanese Army is not involved and nor has Israel targeted Lebanese Army positions or military infrastructure.

It also needs to be noted that the Hezbollah today is a “state within a state”, defiant and unmindful of Lebanon’s government writ, secure as it is with the powerful backing of powerful external Shia patrons.

Israel’s Present Military Strikes are Against Proxy War Militia and Infrastructure in Lebanon

Hezbollah’s operations against Israel from Southern Lebanon and other places in Lebanon stand reported in the international media for a number of years. It appears that besides the Islamic fundamentalist urges and motivations, the Hezbollah is fighting a proxy war against Israel and the United States on behalf of Syria and Iran.

Seemingly, Syria uses the Hezbollah as a proxy to gain bargaining leverage over Israel for return of Golan Heights. Iran in the present context would welcome a Hezbollah escalation as it would divert American and international focus on its nuclear weapons programme. Such a preoccupation would pre-empt a joint US-Israel military strikes against Iranian nuclear weapons facilities.

As stated above Israeli military strikes are primarily against Hezbollah as the proxy war militia, its infrastructure and the arteries and means which support this heavily armed militia operating against Israel. It is not aimed at the Lebanese Army or the Lebanese State.

As far as collateral damages in civilian casualties, one would tend to believe Israel that these are not deliberately targeted. These arise as the Hezbollah rocket artillery uses civilian population centres as human shields for their rocket strikes against Israel.

United Nations Resolution 1559: Why Lebanon Has Not Implemented It?

This UN Resolution under which Israeli forces withdrew from Southern Lebanon gave the following guarantees which Lebanon had to implement.

• Lebanese Army would occupy Southern Lebanon.
• It would ensure that the Hezbollah militia is uprooted from Southern Lebanon.
• Lebanon was to disarm all religious militias and establish a secure Southern Lebanon.
• Hezbollah was to re-invent itself as a political entity.

The position in 2006 is just the opposite. Hezbollah is in full military control over Southern Lebanon and its militia now equipped with much more potent military hardware. It has now politically managed to be a part of Lebanon’s Government Lebanon stands powerless against Hezbollah. Nor has it in these six years sought international assistance to ensure UN Resolution 1559 is implemented.

So logically Lebanon has invited the present conflagration by its inactivity to rein in the Hezbollah. No extenuating reasons exist to absolve it from the blame and its losses, however tragic.

Crucial Questions for International Community on Counter-Terrorism Operations Against Proxy War and Religious Terrorism Outfits/Militias

The present conflict in Lebanon throws up some pertinent questions for the international community.

• Can the United Nations or UN Resolutions control proxy war and religious terrorism?
• Can a self-respecting nation with its security endangered and civilian lives lost await international condemnation and support to counter proxy war/ religious terrorism?
• Does the UN or the international community have the moral right to condemn counter-terrorism military operations against proxy war/ religious terrorism entities undertaken by nations which become a victim of such asymmetrical warfare?
• Can states who by reasons of state failure (incidently or otherwise) be absolved from harbouring proxy war/ religious terrorism entities?

All of the above, infirmities are presently being found in the Israeli military operations against Lebanon. Lebanon’s state failure to neutralize Hezbollah as a combined proxy war/ religious terrorism entity is inexcusable. So is the international community which should have stepped in much earlier to preempt the proxy war raging against Israel.

India also needs to ponder seriously on the above questions as similar challenges are emerging to confront it.

Concluding Observations

Israel is well within its rights to use military force against the Hezbollah to neutralize it. The right of self-defence is enshrined in the UN Charter. It is unfortunate that the whole world reacts when 50 civilians are killed in Qana in a collateral damage in Israeli strikes, but nobody whimpers when Israeli civilians in scores die every second day by religious terrorism strikes. The silence is also similarly deafening when 200 lives were lost last month in 7/11 bombings by Pakistan controlled and based Islamic religious terrorist organisations.

The Indian condemnation of Israel in political forums and by the Government is singularly unfortunate. Israel has been a staunch friend of India for nearly two decades now. Its military aid to India during this Kargil War is unparalleled in terms of speed and response. Calls for breaking of military relations with Israel by the Leftists are politically motivated by reasons other than India’s national interests.

The least that the Indian Government could have done in recognition of Israel’s special relationship with India was to have been reticent, like the Pakistani Government or followed President Putin of Russia in his measured response to the Saudi Foreign Minister that : “The State of Israel has the right to and should live in security.”

(The author is an International Relations and Strategic Affairs analyst. He is the Consultant, Strategic Affairs with South Asia Analysis Group. Email:drsubhashkapila@yahoo.com)