Must a country be strong in order to exist? Or perhaps its only chance of existing lies in its built-in weakness? This is almost a paradox, just playing with words, is it not? Yet it represents the history of Lebanon in its 80 years of independence, real or imagined.
Lebanon was born out of collapsing French colonialism in 1943, a long time before the French had actually planned to give it independence. But the State of Lebanon was designed even earlier. The French and the Lebanese spent three years in writing its constitution at the end of the 1920s. The formula they came up with was so convoluted, so full of contradictions, that its success was completely dependent on the lack of desire on the part of those who compiled it to destroy it, and on the willingness of much stronger neighbors to let it exist.
Syria, for example, which emerged into the light of day at the same time, refused to accept the very idea of a separate Lebanese identity. It thought that what was called Lebanon ought to be part of Greater Syria. Syria refused to establish normal diplomatic relations with Lebanon for decades. If the Lebanese want to talk to it, they should stir themselves and take the high road from Beirut to Damascus.
The idea of Lebanon was dreamt up by Europeans in the nineteenth century. They did so mainly to serve imperial interests. But it was also a romantic notion, accompanied by genuine fondness of the locals. Colonialism was often exploitative and crude, but from time to time it was also generous, and even altruistic.
The first person to think up the idea of a state on the biblical "Mount of Lebanon" was Colonel Charles Henry Churchill, who was the British consul in Damascus for ten years between 1842 and 1852. While he was there, he also conceived the idea of setting up a Jewish state in the Land of Israel. He even shared the idea with the most prominent Jewish leader in Britain, Moses Montefiore. The colonel, like many diplomats who succeeded him, hoped that a new map would create a new Middle East.
Weak-strong Lebanon was never liked. Fifteen years after its independence, Egyptian president Gamal Abdel Nasser tried to destroy the acrobatic formula of its existence, and to impose the rule of his ally Syria on it. A short civil war ended with renewal of the status quo, with the help of the US Sixth Fleet.
Eshkol warns, Rabin executes
It seems that the difficulty in understanding what Lebanon is and what it isn’t lies at the root of its relations with its neighbors, particularly its southern neighbor. A sovereign state with a defined government, with an army, with dignified diplomacy, and a prosperous banking sector, sometimes arouses the impression that it’s responsible for everything that happens on its territory.
A flip through Israeli newspapers of the mid-1960s brings home the dissonance. On October 28, 1965: "Eshkol Warns Lebanon After al-Fatah Attacks" (Fatah was then taking its first steps). Twenty-four hours later: "IDF Forces Blow Up House and Three Wells in Lebanese Villages from which Terrorists Set Out for Israel." That was Israel’s first military operation against Lebanese territory since 1948.
"Ma’ariv" quoted then chief of staff Lieutenant General Yitzhak Rabin: "We wanted to say to the Lebanese residents that if it wasn’t quiet on our side of the border, it wouldn’t be quiet on their side. Lebanon is not immune to Israeli responses, and the proof of that was the operation, the aim of which was a warning and caution in the villages from which the terrorists set out and to which they returned." "Ma’ariv’s" military correspondent described the operation in detail. The forces reached "three wells on the mountainside… from the third well, the soldiers heard the swishing of water."
Two days later, the newspaper reported that southern representatives in the Lebanese parliament demanded that the government should "train and arm all the male residents of the border villages, so that they will be able to defend their homes." The attack "stirred up a storm in Lebanese public opinion… and gave rise to anti-Israel and anti-Jewish declarations."
Prime Minister and Minister of Defense Levi Eshkol explained that "failure to react would have led to greater Fatah activity."
Three years later, the IDF’s Sayeret Matkal commando unit raided Beirut Airport and blew up twelve Lebanese passenger aircraft in response to an attack by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine on an El Al plane. The international condemnation was wholesale. The US, in the last days of the presidency of Lyndon Johnson, who was pro-Israel to the utmost degree, joined the condemnation. There was no proof that the government of Lebanon had any connection to the attack on El Al, Washington said.
Striking at the foundations of Lebanon
The expectations of normal behavior by Lebanon were not consistent with its character and with the reasons for its existence. The wisdom of hindsight again discovered that Lebanon, although it exists on paper, is incapable of imposing its sovereignty. Time after time, Israel punishes it, and thereby fulfils an important role, even if not a deliberate one, in its decay.
If, in 1965, they only started to think in South Lebanon of the need for a militia to protect the villages against Israel, in 1982 those thoughts were realized after Israel’s invasion, with the founding of Hezbollah. In a sense, we are now coping with the long-term consequences of blowing up those three wells.
Of course, the present war was forced on Israel more than any other war in its history. Israel is defending itself. But alongside self-defense, voices are being raised in Israel that arouse the impression that the lessons of the past have not been learned. They call for Israel to "punish Lebanon" because it "allows Hezbollah" to use its territory.
On Tuesday (in a radio interview on Reshet Bet with Eran Cicurel and Yair Weinreb) former Mossad chief General (res.) Danny Yatom called for attacks on infrastructure in Lebanon, to punish it for its passivity, "since much of the infrastructure also serves Hezbollah, so if you hit the ports, if you hit the power grid, if you hit the water system, you have also hit Hezbollah, apart from the fact that you hit the foundations of the Lebanese state."
Hitting "the foundations of the Lebanese state" is thus something that passes from generation to generation, even though history shows unequivocally how barren it is. Not a single one of the previous blows yielded the hoped for results. What is the point of punishing someone who is incapable of learning the lesson of his punishment?
The inability in practice to visit responsibility on a sovereign state for acts that take place within its jurisdiction is of course a source of frustration and despair. What can you do with a country that only exists on paper?
The greatest danger is that another light push, not to mention a heavy one, will put an end even to the façade. What if the hit to infrastructure hands over the country not just de facto but also de jure to Hassan Nasrallah? Will an overt Hezbollah state will be a more amenable or more rational partner?
States are not necessarily destined to continue forever: the Soviet Union, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Yemen, United Ethiopia (with Eritrea) have ceased to exist. For the time being, it is pretty clear that Lebanon is not a candidate for oblivion. The US will not allow Israel to adopt the Danny Yatom doctrine. Lebanon the weak, or actually decrepit, is destined to continue to be a patch of color on the map of the Middle East for at least a while yet.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on September 26, 2024.
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