The War in the Middle East and the Destruction of Lebanon

After Gaza, the Israeli armed forces then moved on to Lebanon. They used the pretext of the kidnapping of a few soldiers, despite the fact that kidnappings and assassinations in the Arab and Palestinian territories, whether covert or otherwise, have always been one of the Israeli army’s specialities since the birth of the Israeli State! But it is the civilian population of Lebanon, of all religious persuasions, which is being massacred; and no voice of authority in the West, whether diplomatic, political or trade-unionist, has spoken out to demand that there be an unconditional cessation of the killings. Whilst the number of victims grows as each hour passes, there is just waffle and yet more waffle from the diplomatic money-grubbers.

After a month of fighting there are an estimated 900 Lebanese casualties. These are mainly civilians, along with a few Hezbollah fighters who used the civilians they claim to be protecting as a human shield. And that figure doesn’t include the wounded and the hundreds of thousands of refugees fleeing the bombings. There are 50 dead on the Israeli side, mainly soldiers: Israeli cities bombarded by Hezbollah have shown they have made better preparations to protect civilians.

The UNO puppet-show, with its mock soldiers, is already over there covering up the sound of exploding bombs and the cries of the wounded with its hypocritical sermons; sermons which serve as an alibi for the democratic farce, poisoning the minds of all who listen to them.

The United States announces that they have set out on a war against “international terrorism” in the Middle East personified in Gaza by Hamas, in Lebanon by Hezbollah and by who knows who in Iraq. In Gaza and Lebanon instead of applying force directly they are using Israel.

For over a century the Middle East has been a key strategic region both militarily and economically. Military control of the area means control of the Mediterranean and the routes into Asia. Economically it is important insofar as it represents the most energy rich zone on the entire planet. English imperialism (later to be replaced by American imperialism) had already understood this at the beginning of the 19^th century. Later on, his Britannic majesty’s “international terrorist”, Lawrence of Arabia, would be used to undermine Arab unity: the creation of the State of Israel in 1948 would complete the carving up of the region. This was very unfortunate for the countries which make up the Middle East and the people who live there, constantly getting smashed to pieces by the imperialist countries! Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon have become the theatre of massacres, inter-religious wars and perpetual bombardment.

Iran is designated as the regional power which is menacing the historical ambitions of the great powers; and hiding behind Iran (although clearly operating in both camps) there is the battered Arab bourgeoisie. Iran has recently dared to defy “international opinion” by refusing to renounce its nuclear programme, and the UNO Security Council – a dislocated puppet which for decades now has fobbed us off with the same old rubbish about how it is ’a force for mediation’ – must now take on the role of supreme judge, and drag Iran before its farcical Court of Justice. But Iran, accused of being the main instigator of “terrorists” in Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon – “terrorists” who have the gall to rebel against the masters of the world – is assured of the “moral” support of Russia and China; who are always keen to tinker around with the balance of forces in the Middle East and shuffle the cards around a bit. Syria, which for decades has pulled the political strings in the Lebanon and provided Hezbollah with Iranian aid, has now been taken under Iran’s wing.

But us communists know that Iran wouldn’t have been so audacious unless it was assured of support from the likes of Russia, and China: the latter an unbridled dragon economy with a particularly voracious thirst for raw materials.

In its July 1^st editorial, entitled ’State of Terror’, the “very conservative” Wall Street Journal openly called for intervention in Syria and Iran: «There will be no resolution in Lebanon or the Gaza strip until the governments of Syria and Iran understand that there is a price to be paid…»; and later on it states: «The White House has suggested that Syria and Iran is to blame for this week’s events, but stronger words and deeds than this are required»! Why then are Mr Bush and his “lets get tooled up and go in” cronies hesitating?

Lebanon, like many of the small States created by the victorious imperialist powers after the 1^st World War, is an artificial State. It has no national history and was created by the great powers to prevent a concentration in the area of States which could become potential competitors. Under the auspices of its “great pal”, the French, Lebanon was born out of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire with the aim of preventing the formation of a greater Syria with extensive maritime access. It was named after Mount Lebanon, whose name in its turn was derived from the Arabic word laban meaning “white cheese” referring to the prominent mountain peaks dominating the country. When the new State was first created, Christians formed a majority and the idea was to place a Christian country in the midst of the Arab masses.

Later on a similar thing would happen when the Jewish State of Israel was formed. To inaugurate this phase the Palestinian masses are driven off their land by the Jewish “terrorists” and grouped together in refugee camps by the “friendly” Arab bourgeoisies. Here they would be regularly subjected to repression, massacres, and driven from one camp to the other by the Arab governments. From Jordan they would move to Lebanon, where they would gather in the South and around Beirut along with other proletariats in the region (Arab, Christian and Asiatic). The creation of a pseudo-Palestinian State in Gaza and the West Bank, split up into numerous Bantustans, hasn’t however brought an end to their ’eternal refugee’ status. The ill treatment meted out to them by the Israeli troops since 1948 has pushed them into the arms of groups like the PLO, Hamas and finally Hezbollah. The latter organisation, assisted by mercenaries despatched from Iran, was formed in 1982 following the horrible massacres which were perpetrated against unarmed proletarians in the Lebanese Sabra and Chatila camps; after their so-called PLO “defenders” had abandoned them to their fate.

Lebanon is a bastion in the Mediterranean and situated where the Iraqi and Saudi Arabian oil pipelines terminate, the former in Tripoli, the latter in Saida. Also, just before this year’s G8 summit, the USA inaugurated the new pipeline running from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean, via Turkey. After Iraq, after Palestine, now the great imperialist powers need to see what Lebanon can ’bring to the negotiating table’, and, using civil war and systematic destruction of the infrastructure and the civilian population, negotiate with them and the various regional powers (Iran, Syria) on the basis of the relations of force which on the ground each big imperialism and minor power can deploy (control of a city, a mountain, a port, an oil refinery, a “spectacular” massacre of civilians scandalous according to the criteria if the mediators, etc). If the United States appears as the main instigator of this apparent chaos, operating through its Israeli henchman, all the other imperialist powers present in the region are also intriguing by infiltrating their secret services, deploying their diplomats and non-governmental organisations, and making “donations” of goods or money to this or that side, clan or gang… just like in Algeria, in Afghanistan and in other countries which are the unfortunate objects of the insatiable appetite of the great imperialist powers. They are all there: the United States, Russia and China, and Europe of course – a force more apparent than real – and then there is Japan, and all the other small, ambitious countries which like to pose as prudent diplomats in order not to upset any of the big boys.

The USA controls Egypt and Saudi Arabia which both possess American bases and are equipped with an enormous military arsenal provided by Germany, France and Great Britain. Clearly they are Israel’s masters, a country which they literally allow “to survive” in both a financial and material sense and which they regularly provide with heavy military equipment. Israel is a mercenary State (with therefore no need for American bases within its borders) on which weighs the grim duty of being the executioner of the disinherited Arab masses.

But with the adversaries hiding behind their murderous puppet armies, and the designated enemy just the murderous puppet armies of the other side, what a phoney war this is. As communists we know that the real target of the USA, Israel and the other world bourgeoisies (including the Arab ones, along with the organisations like Hamas and Hezbollah, who kill more civilians than soldiers) is the oppressed masses of the whole of the Middle East; the Palestinians, Lebanese, Iraqi, and so on; they are the real enemy and represent the real peril for the bourgeoisie and imperialism. Sheer desperation has pushed the peoples and proletarians of the Middle East into the arms of extremists such as Hamas, Hezbollah, (and before them, the PLO) all of whom represent the bourgeoisie and all of whom are prepared to betray their followers at the drop of a hat, as clearly evidenced by the succession of horrible massacres of Middle Eastern proletarians which have occurred over recent decades. It doesn’t surprise us that in his recent speech the Israeli prime-minister, Ehud Olmert, congratulated the Arab countries for supporting Israel’s attack on the Lebanon. In particular he was thankful “for the unprecedented international support and the help of the Arab countries who, for the first time in a situation of military confrontation between us and an Arab country, have taken up a position against an Arab organisation”! He referred to Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Jordan, but there are plenty of other governments and Arab organisations which could have gone on the list.

And until the drug addicted proletariat in the Western metropolises rediscovers its party and the path of class revolution; until it imposes its will on the bourgeoisie, these massacres and these nameless wars will continue.

As we have stated before in our press, we are currently still in the preparatory phase for a Third World War, and with war and peace alternating at an ever greater pace, it is a phase when each State will be forced to choose between one of the camps. This is what we wrote in 1981: «The Middle East peace plans prepare the way for the war alignments. The so-called peace plans of one or the other of the imperialist camps are nothing other than expedients by which one or the other seeks to seeks to improve their position ready for a future war which they know to be both inevitable and imminent».

August 5, 2006