Desperate to Avert Another Civil War.

last updated 8 January 2015

Lebanon

The Lebanese are “bracing for the worst,” said the Beirut Daily Star in an editorial. Few of them can outright condemn Hezbollah for striking at the Israelis, “who destroyed their country during a brutal invasion and occupation” years ago. But most fear that Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers was “a dangerous gamble.” Israel tends to retaliate through “collective punishment,” holding all Lebanese responsible for the actions of one militia. Now, Israeli bombs are destroying the buildings and infrastructure Lebanon had only just begun rebuilding from the 1975–1990 civil war. Will “the promise of Lebanon’s resurrection” be shattered?

It’s up to the Lebanese, said Bisharah Charbil in Beirut’s Sada al-Balad. Hezbollah certainly was weighing international and regional, not just domestic, considerations when it attacked the Israeli soldiers. The effect of its operation, though, is primarily domestic. Lebanon is not only under attack from without, from Israeli bombs, but from within. When one party acts without the government’s blessing, Lebanese unity is threatened. Still, the most important thing we can do is “adhere to our unity and keep the civil peace,” even if the Hezbollah action “results in wide-scale destruction.”

Surely, America won’t let the Israelis go too far, said Jihad el-Zein in Beirut’s Al-Nahar. When Syrian troops pulled out of Lebanon last year, the U.S. gave us an implicit security guarantee. Lebanon was held up as a shining example of the spread of democracy and freedom in the Middle East. Iraq, the first such example, is now in flames. Unless it wants to see “every country that America touches fall to pieces,” the U.S. will make sure that Israel concentrates its retaliation only on Hezbollah. It’s encouraging that President Bush said recently that the Israeli operation “should not weaken the government” of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora.