Lebanon-Palestine: Israel will have to refund all destroyed infrastructures

My paper on the Middle-East "The EU must take risks in the Middle-East" was written and published in French (L'UE doit prendre des risques au Proche-Orient - 14/07) three days before Israel launched their attack on Lebanon; it therefore mainly focused on defining a future pro-active European policy regarding the Israelo-Palestinian conflict. In this paper I underlined the necessity for the EU to set up rules designed to « civilise » confrontations between the two parties, in particular during those crises that regularly affect the region.

        
Concerning Israel I mentioned the idea that it was high time for the Europeans to sanction (by means of economic and commercial sanctions) the systematic destruction of public and private infrastructures in Palestine, destructions which have become all along the years a speciality of the Israeli army. It is this approach (combined with its equivalent towards the Palestinian side) that I will advise Newropeans to adopt in their upcoming debates in defining their EU external policy propositions.

I could not imagine that this infrastructure issue was about to become a burning theme of the international news a few days later, with large scale destructions by Israel of Lebanese roads, bridges, ports, plants, airports… under the pretext of terrorist hunt. I say « under the pretext » as in fact those who suffer from these strikes are not the terrorists (merely called « fighters » by others) but the civilians suddenly unable to move, work, heal…  Such rhetoric and brutal military practice remind us how the US, in less than three years, as a result of its invasion of Iraq, lost all the moral credit accumulated by generations of Americans. In the same way, Israel is committing a moral suicide through this unforgivable action. I wrote this to my Israeli friends (mostly, young association leaders whom I met during my December 2005 round of conferences in Israel), highlighting the fact that their current leaders were heavily compromising their future, as much US leaders have with their population’s.

With such unforgivable operations, these leaders are entailing their populations in more and more dangerous political and moral – see economical - deadlocks. Behind the present decisions made by Tel-Aviv, the same circles which supported the invasion of Iraq in Washington (neo-cons, evangelists and ultra-Zionists) are at work. Israelis are about to undergo the same disappointments and snubs as the US citizens who, them too, were 80% to support the same show-demiurges only four years ago!

The same bitter scenario is shaping up already! Hatred of Israel in the Arab and Muslim world is being multiplied tenfold as a result of its double military offensive on Gaza and Lebanon. And incomprehension (one always close to rejection) grows among the European public opinion, regardless of the country. European leaders are disconnected more than ever from the populations, and their collective passivity [1], partly provoked by Washington, conceals a sad reality: for the Europeans, the Hebrew state is becoming the central component of a problem, instead of being part of the solution. Nothing is yet final, but the trend is accelerating and the actions now conducted by Israel are making it more sustainable.

Something is sure already: Israel must be brought back in line with international law. There is no excuse in the world or in History than can justify Israel’s positioning above international law. For the Europeans of the years to come, who intend to turn the EU into a global force striving for the state of law (rather than the use of strength) to found global governance, it will not be acceptable that any state pretends to outlaw itself. Like the Bush administration is painfully rediscovering it, the « rest of the world » weighs too much for anyone, even the strongest state, to pretend free oneself from the constraints it conveys. Consequently and by anticipation, no one should “dream” that the memory of the « Holocaust » will justify in the Europeans eyes that Israel gets the right to any exorbitant status within the international legal framework. Quite the contrary, such actions are committed when certain leaders and political forces, full of contempt for the others and for international laws, are let loose. If the Shoah and its consequences have given a lesson likely to strengthen the legal framework of the Middle-East conflict, it is the one about victims reparation. In this case, whether in Palestine or in Lebanon, the citizens of Israel must be aware that the great destructions conducted by their army will have to be refunded by themselves or their children to the Palestinians and the Lebanese, and that it will be a key component of any regional peace process. This notion of reparation and infrastructures destruction should be integrated as of today to the reflexion on the future of the conflict. I will ask Newropeans to add it to the definition of the future European external policy towards the Middle-East.

In this perspective (I’m now addressing the youngest of my Israeli readers), each day that goes increases your debt towards your Lebanese and Palestinian neighbours. Think about it when your leaders promise you that bombs thrown on bridges guarantee your future! Money cannot cover human losses; however, it can cover material destruction and thus contribute to highlight the political and moral cost of a conflict.

For the Europeans of the years to come, who will be careful that their direct neighbourhood is as prosperous and democratic as possible, the time is ripe to define the axes of their policy towards the various players of the Israelo-Arab conflict. In the same way that the EU will no longer tolerate terrorist acts from the Arab side, it will impose similar rules onto Israel.  And it is in a position to enforce such policy considering Israel’s growing dependence on the EU. Indeed it is now easy to see how little reliable the US is becoming a partner for Israel in the long term. Recent debates in the US (those launched by Harvard in particular) on the excessive influence of Israeli interests over the US external policy, hint at an evolution leading to the progressive disengagement of the « American ally ». Energy interests, political, military and economic weakening, yesterday’s « superpower » is becoming « superpowerless ». Nevertheless, decisions made today by Israeli leaders seem to take for granted that there will always be a US superpower to help Israel transgress international laws with impunity, or resist forever a constantly growing arabo-muslim world.

A Jewish proverb says: “If one man calls you a horse, hit him. If two men call you a horse, call them fools. If three men call you a horse, saddle up! ». It is time that Israel buys the saddle of international law, and the Europeans can help. The Europeans of the years to come will not be the allies of Israel in the sense the US became their allies, i.e. as accomplices. But they will be reliable partners, aware of History, and aware of what It has taught us all: the further away you drift from the international laws built up by democracies, the more likely become the worst moral drifts.