A Clash of Authority
Gaza, and now Lebanon.
Once again, events are proving the cardinal rule of the Middle East: that even when it seems that things have gone completely to hell, they can always get worse. This morning, Hizbullah launched a rocket barrage on northern Israel followed by a cross-border raid in which three Israeli soldiers died and two more were captured. The IDF responded with artillery and air strikes and, most ominously, a ground incursion, resulting in four more Israeli soldiers, at least two Lebanese civilians and an unknown number of Hizbullah fighters being killed. Israeli troops are ow on Lebanese soil for the first time in six years.
It's hard to overestimate how potentially bad this could get. Ha'aretz analyst Amos Harel describes the crisis as the most complicated since 2002, but a better comparison might be 1982. The current situation could, if it continues to spin out of control, turn into a regional war. The last Israeli invasion of Lebanon was also aimed at eliminating a threat from a non-state militia that controlled the south, and that ended up as a 20-year nightmare.
The escalation along the Lebanese border is obviously in conjunction with the fighting in Gaza, but the two have differences as well as common dimensions. My thoughts on the Gaza crisis have thus far been very mixed, and I find it hard to reflexively condemn either side. Leaving aside the question of who has authority to fight for the Palestinians (about which more later), the raid that resulted in Gilad Shalit's capture was a legitimate military attack, aimed at a beseiging army unit. The objectives of the Israeli response, which was aimed at liberating the captured soldier and suppressing Qassam fire onto Israeli territory, were likewise legitimate. Both parties have committed serious violations of the rule of proportionality, particularly Israel's destruction of the Gaza power plant and its interference with the delivery of humanitarian supplies, but they both have a reason to fight, and it's impossible to put sole blame for the crisis on either side.
I have no such trouble assigning blame for the escalation in Lebanon. Hizbullah, quite simply, committed an unprovoked act of war, and despite Nasrallah's rhetoric about solidarity with the Palestinians and liberation of Lebanese prisoners, the raid was fairly obviously aimed at maintaining political relevance. Hizbullah was once a genuine resistance group that fought Israeli occupation, but that occupation has been over since 2000, and lately it's been more in the business of provoking Israel than resisting it. The identity of the aggressor in Gaza is ambiguous, but on the Lebanese frontier it isn't.
At this point, though, placing blame is less important than figuring out how to put on the brakes - and that's where the authority problem of which I spoke earlier really comes back to bite. The refrain of the Israeli right that Israel "has no partner" isn't true, but sometimes too many partners can be worse than none at all. One of the greatest problems in resolving both the current crises is the fact that Israel's opponents are non-state factions that aren't answerable to any central authority. Israel can reach an agreement with one faction, but that doesn't prevent a rival militia or a splinter group from disavowing the accord a day later. That in fact seems to be precisely how the Gaza crisis started; to all appearances, the raid on Shalit's unit was carried out on orders of Hamas' expatriate leadership without consulting Haniyeh, and was timed to pre-empt Haniyeh's agreement with Abbas over the prisoners' document. Likewise, Hizbullah carries out its own foreign policy and reserves, to the exclusion of the Lebanese government, the right to define and fight for Lebanese interests. There is no single person or entity that can negotiate a firm end to hostilities on either front.
To be sure, Israel is partly to blame for the authority gap. The fragmentation in Gaza was caused in large part by the destruction of the infrastructure and security forces during the second intifada. Hizbullah owes its existence as a quasi-autonomous militia to the fact that the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon created a power vacuum in which it could develop as such. At the same time, the Palestinian Authority clearly choked on Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal, with neither Fatah or Hamas making more than a token effort to establish a monopoly of force, and Hizbullah's current quasi-state status owes much more to the weakness of the Lebanese state than to any defensive necessity. Whatever Israel's responsibility for the original fragmentation of authority, its continuation is convenient for the Palestinian factions and Hizbullah, allowing them to carry on the conflict while maintaining deniability and keeping it in a legal gray area of non-war.
Both fronts also involve other players. Mubarak's claim that Israel and Hamas had reached a deal but were thwarted by outside agencies is a case in point. Assuming that Mubarak is telling the truth - and despite his diminished credibility, I'm inclined to believe him in light of last week's tentative Hamas leaks that a deal was in the offing - then the fragmentation of authority goes even further: not only aren't the Hamas military wing or Hizbullah answerable to their respective national governments, but they answer to other agendas that have nothing to do with their nominal constituents. This is, on top of everything else, an Iranian and/or Syrian proxy conflict, which adds a new dimension to the authority problem and makes the process of untangling it even more complicated.
With that said some authority gaps are easier to bridge than others. There's at least a possibility that things can be worked out on the Lebanese front. Hizbullah is an establishment faction with experienced foreign interlocutors, a place in the Lebanese cabinet and a quasi-state in Nabatiyeh to protect. It also has a disciplined chain of command and has largely established a monopoly of force in the areas it controls, so there's a chance that speedy and intensive international mediation might restore stability.
To that end, Olmert's characterization of the Hizbullah raid as an act of war by Lebanon is both foolish and irresponsible. This wasn't an act of war by Lebanon. This was an act of war by Hizbullah, that likely caught the Lebanese state as much by surprise as Shalit's capture caught Abbas and Haniyeh. The object of the game right now is not to involve the Lebanese state in the conflict - a move that could not only devastate southern Lebanon but potentially bring in the Syrians - and to end the conflict before it becomes a clash between nations.
Gaza, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be nearly as amenable to a brokered settlement. The outlines of a package deal in which Israel withdraws from Gaza and releases prisoners in exchange for the return of Shalit and an end to rocket fire have been suggested by both sides, and still represents the most viable way out of the crisis. As Mubarak found out, though, the PNA's nominal leadership and even the Hamas politburo don't have the effective authority to make and enforce such an agreement, and the militias are much more dependent on outside support and have too much of an interest in continued hostilities. Until the authority problem is solved, a negotiated settlement or even the balance of deterrence that usually exists along the Lebanese frontier seems unlikely, which means all too probably that we're in for another iteration of pointless violence. I wish I could write something more hopeful, but as things stand now, I don't see much cause for optimism.
UPDATE (13 July, 3:15 p.m. EDT): It's getting worse. As of this writing, 52 Lebanese civilians have been killed and more than 100 injured in Israeli air strikes. Hizbullah has launched a major rocket barrage at northern Israeli cities, killing at least two and injuring 120. Israel has hit the Beirut international airport and imposed an air and naval blockade, ostensibly to keep the captured soldiers from being moved out of the country, and Lebanese observers are reporting leaflets being dropped on Shi'ite neighborhoods in south Beirut as a possible prelude to a raid.
At this point, the only thing that can be said is that everyone's in the wrong. Hizbullah is to be condemned for starting this and for bombarding civilian targets, but the Israeli response hasn't been very discriminate either, and much of it has been directed at the wrong target. The Lebanese people are the bystanders, not the enemy. Israel is lashing out rather than responding intelligently, and is adding unnecessarily to the death toll. Right now I'm angry at everyone - Hizbullah, Israel, Syria, Iran, Hamas, the international mediators who are twiddling their thumbs, and everyone else who's playing with human life like it's some kind of children's toy.
The only sign of hope in all this is coming from the Lebanese cabinet which, after an initial cop-out, is preparing a ceasefire proposal that calls for the captured soldiers to be released and sweetens the deal with an ambiguous hint that the national army might taken control of the border. If the government can impose this on Hizbullah before things spiral too far out of control (which it's apparently hoping to do by seeking a Security Council endorsement), then there might be a way out of this, and it might lead to other substantive negotiations in the future. Whether Hizbullah can be controlled, though, is a very open question, and the window of time before events hit the point of no return is closing.
Once again, events are proving the cardinal rule of the Middle East: that even when it seems that things have gone completely to hell, they can always get worse. This morning, Hizbullah launched a rocket barrage on northern Israel followed by a cross-border raid in which three Israeli soldiers died and two more were captured. The IDF responded with artillery and air strikes and, most ominously, a ground incursion, resulting in four more Israeli soldiers, at least two Lebanese civilians and an unknown number of Hizbullah fighters being killed. Israeli troops are ow on Lebanese soil for the first time in six years.
It's hard to overestimate how potentially bad this could get. Ha'aretz analyst Amos Harel describes the crisis as the most complicated since 2002, but a better comparison might be 1982. The current situation could, if it continues to spin out of control, turn into a regional war. The last Israeli invasion of Lebanon was also aimed at eliminating a threat from a non-state militia that controlled the south, and that ended up as a 20-year nightmare.
The escalation along the Lebanese border is obviously in conjunction with the fighting in Gaza, but the two have differences as well as common dimensions. My thoughts on the Gaza crisis have thus far been very mixed, and I find it hard to reflexively condemn either side. Leaving aside the question of who has authority to fight for the Palestinians (about which more later), the raid that resulted in Gilad Shalit's capture was a legitimate military attack, aimed at a beseiging army unit. The objectives of the Israeli response, which was aimed at liberating the captured soldier and suppressing Qassam fire onto Israeli territory, were likewise legitimate. Both parties have committed serious violations of the rule of proportionality, particularly Israel's destruction of the Gaza power plant and its interference with the delivery of humanitarian supplies, but they both have a reason to fight, and it's impossible to put sole blame for the crisis on either side.
I have no such trouble assigning blame for the escalation in Lebanon. Hizbullah, quite simply, committed an unprovoked act of war, and despite Nasrallah's rhetoric about solidarity with the Palestinians and liberation of Lebanese prisoners, the raid was fairly obviously aimed at maintaining political relevance. Hizbullah was once a genuine resistance group that fought Israeli occupation, but that occupation has been over since 2000, and lately it's been more in the business of provoking Israel than resisting it. The identity of the aggressor in Gaza is ambiguous, but on the Lebanese frontier it isn't.
At this point, though, placing blame is less important than figuring out how to put on the brakes - and that's where the authority problem of which I spoke earlier really comes back to bite. The refrain of the Israeli right that Israel "has no partner" isn't true, but sometimes too many partners can be worse than none at all. One of the greatest problems in resolving both the current crises is the fact that Israel's opponents are non-state factions that aren't answerable to any central authority. Israel can reach an agreement with one faction, but that doesn't prevent a rival militia or a splinter group from disavowing the accord a day later. That in fact seems to be precisely how the Gaza crisis started; to all appearances, the raid on Shalit's unit was carried out on orders of Hamas' expatriate leadership without consulting Haniyeh, and was timed to pre-empt Haniyeh's agreement with Abbas over the prisoners' document. Likewise, Hizbullah carries out its own foreign policy and reserves, to the exclusion of the Lebanese government, the right to define and fight for Lebanese interests. There is no single person or entity that can negotiate a firm end to hostilities on either front.
To be sure, Israel is partly to blame for the authority gap. The fragmentation in Gaza was caused in large part by the destruction of the infrastructure and security forces during the second intifada. Hizbullah owes its existence as a quasi-autonomous militia to the fact that the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon created a power vacuum in which it could develop as such. At the same time, the Palestinian Authority clearly choked on Gaza after the Israeli withdrawal, with neither Fatah or Hamas making more than a token effort to establish a monopoly of force, and Hizbullah's current quasi-state status owes much more to the weakness of the Lebanese state than to any defensive necessity. Whatever Israel's responsibility for the original fragmentation of authority, its continuation is convenient for the Palestinian factions and Hizbullah, allowing them to carry on the conflict while maintaining deniability and keeping it in a legal gray area of non-war.
Both fronts also involve other players. Mubarak's claim that Israel and Hamas had reached a deal but were thwarted by outside agencies is a case in point. Assuming that Mubarak is telling the truth - and despite his diminished credibility, I'm inclined to believe him in light of last week's tentative Hamas leaks that a deal was in the offing - then the fragmentation of authority goes even further: not only aren't the Hamas military wing or Hizbullah answerable to their respective national governments, but they answer to other agendas that have nothing to do with their nominal constituents. This is, on top of everything else, an Iranian and/or Syrian proxy conflict, which adds a new dimension to the authority problem and makes the process of untangling it even more complicated.
With that said some authority gaps are easier to bridge than others. There's at least a possibility that things can be worked out on the Lebanese front. Hizbullah is an establishment faction with experienced foreign interlocutors, a place in the Lebanese cabinet and a quasi-state in Nabatiyeh to protect. It also has a disciplined chain of command and has largely established a monopoly of force in the areas it controls, so there's a chance that speedy and intensive international mediation might restore stability.
To that end, Olmert's characterization of the Hizbullah raid as an act of war by Lebanon is both foolish and irresponsible. This wasn't an act of war by Lebanon. This was an act of war by Hizbullah, that likely caught the Lebanese state as much by surprise as Shalit's capture caught Abbas and Haniyeh. The object of the game right now is not to involve the Lebanese state in the conflict - a move that could not only devastate southern Lebanon but potentially bring in the Syrians - and to end the conflict before it becomes a clash between nations.
Gaza, unfortunately, doesn't seem to be nearly as amenable to a brokered settlement. The outlines of a package deal in which Israel withdraws from Gaza and releases prisoners in exchange for the return of Shalit and an end to rocket fire have been suggested by both sides, and still represents the most viable way out of the crisis. As Mubarak found out, though, the PNA's nominal leadership and even the Hamas politburo don't have the effective authority to make and enforce such an agreement, and the militias are much more dependent on outside support and have too much of an interest in continued hostilities. Until the authority problem is solved, a negotiated settlement or even the balance of deterrence that usually exists along the Lebanese frontier seems unlikely, which means all too probably that we're in for another iteration of pointless violence. I wish I could write something more hopeful, but as things stand now, I don't see much cause for optimism.
UPDATE (13 July, 3:15 p.m. EDT): It's getting worse. As of this writing, 52 Lebanese civilians have been killed and more than 100 injured in Israeli air strikes. Hizbullah has launched a major rocket barrage at northern Israeli cities, killing at least two and injuring 120. Israel has hit the Beirut international airport and imposed an air and naval blockade, ostensibly to keep the captured soldiers from being moved out of the country, and Lebanese observers are reporting leaflets being dropped on Shi'ite neighborhoods in south Beirut as a possible prelude to a raid.
At this point, the only thing that can be said is that everyone's in the wrong. Hizbullah is to be condemned for starting this and for bombarding civilian targets, but the Israeli response hasn't been very discriminate either, and much of it has been directed at the wrong target. The Lebanese people are the bystanders, not the enemy. Israel is lashing out rather than responding intelligently, and is adding unnecessarily to the death toll. Right now I'm angry at everyone - Hizbullah, Israel, Syria, Iran, Hamas, the international mediators who are twiddling their thumbs, and everyone else who's playing with human life like it's some kind of children's toy.
The only sign of hope in all this is coming from the Lebanese cabinet which, after an initial cop-out, is preparing a ceasefire proposal that calls for the captured soldiers to be released and sweetens the deal with an ambiguous hint that the national army might taken control of the border. If the government can impose this on Hizbullah before things spiral too far out of control (which it's apparently hoping to do by seeking a Security Council endorsement), then there might be a way out of this, and it might lead to other substantive negotiations in the future. Whether Hizbullah can be controlled, though, is a very open question, and the window of time before events hit the point of no return is closing.
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