For almost four decades France has been a cause looking for an opportunity in Lebanon, and successive Irish governments have supported it, writes Rory Miller
Since that fateful day in June 1967, when President Charles de Gaulle castigated Israel as "an elite people, sure of itself and overbearing", France, at least in terms of its influence in the Middle East, has been a cause looking for an opportunity (to borrow Henry Kissinger's classic description of Russian foreign policy).
Prior to 1967 the French position in the region had been clear - it was Israel's major western sponsor, providing the Jewish state with the armoured jeeps it used to scatter Egyptian forces as its army overwhelmed Sinai during the 1956 Suez War and the fighter planes it used to decimate the combined Arab armies in the early days of June 1967. Most importantly, it was also single-handedly responsible for providing Israel with the means to develop and build its nuclear capability.
In the 40 years since France has had no such clear-cut role, though it has consistently attempted to regain its influence by focusing on two objectives - championing the Palestinian cause and reasserting its historic position as a key player in the domestic politics of Lebanon, a colonial possession prior to the second World War, where even today French language and culture are still very much alive.
From the early 1970s, when it engaged in what one French expert has termed "discreet but tenacious efforts" to bring the other members of the European community into line with its own position, it has had much success in promoting the Palestinian cause inside Europe, though this has had less to do with French diplomacy than with the fact that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza in 1967 greatly enhanced the belief in the West that Zionism was an aggressive, even illegitimate ideology, while the Palestinian struggle was one of liberation.
However, in the face of US and Syrian influence, France has found clawing back its past status in Lebanon a much more difficult task.
It has had limited successes. Following the Israeli destruction of a UN base at Qana in 1996, which killed more than 100 civilians, France capitalised on the international outcry by putting forward a unilateral peace proposal for the region, to the surprise of both its European allies and the US.
France's then foreign minister, Hervé de Charette, flew into Beirut to promote this plan. He was quickly followed by a disgruntled US secretary of state, Warren Christopher. Things got worse for Christopher in Beirut, when a jointly convened press conference was conducted in French and Christopher was left on the platform oblivious to proceedings until a French-speaking state department official bounded onto the stage and started translating in his ear.
Though this French peace proposal ultimately came to naught, France's linguistic victory over the US at the press conference and the fact that it had managed to get the Lebanese government (and its Syrian patron) to conditionally accept the proposals, which included a complete Israeli withdrawal from the country, meant that for a brief moment France had recaptured its place as the key western power in Lebanon.
France's joint sponsorship (along with the US) of UN Security Council Resolution 1559, in September 2004, was also a boost to its efforts to re-establish influence in the country, and in particular to consolidate the close ties that existed between Lebanon's prime minister, the late Rafik Hariri, and French president Jacques Chirac.
Now its success in hammering out a UN draft resolution on the current crisis and its possible leadership of any multinational stabilisation force that is sent to Lebanon in the future provides it with another chance at a time when Syria's influence is at an all-time low and the US is preoccupied with Iran's nuclear programme and the continuing insurgency in Iraq.
What is so interesting from an Irish perspective is how solidly we have backed France as it has attempted to rejuvenate its role in Lebanon over the last few decades.
At the time of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Ireland, then a member of the UN Security Council, joined France as the most vocal European critic of the Israeli offensive.
Indeed, it was primarily due to Irish and French efforts that the community's June 1982 statement on the invasion declared categorically that Israel would only achieve security on its Lebanese border by satisfying the "legitimate aspirations of the Palestinian people". In the same month, Ireland also voted in favour of a French draft resolution submitted to the UN Security Council that called for an Israeli ceasefire and an "initial disengagement of forces", a key Palestinian demand at a time when Yasser Arafat's Beirut headquarters was coming under increasing threat.
Again, in 1996, following the tragedy at the UN's Qana base, Ireland broke ranks with other EU member states who were furious that France had ignored official EU channels in putting forward its peace plan, and backed the proposal.
A spokesman for then minister for foreign affairs Dick Spring explained this decision on the grounds that "anything that the French can do to help improve the situation must be welcomed".
Ireland's support for French diplomacy on these occasions has had little to do with strategic interests and lots to do with concerns for the safety of Irish troops serving with the UN in Lebanon and the fact that the Irish public, as well as politicians from across the political spectrum, have come to hold what the late Brian Lenihan termed a "special interest" in Lebanon because of this massive UN commitment between 1978 and 2001.
It will therefore not be surprising if we rally behind France in this current crisis as once more it looks to capitalise on turmoil in Lebanon.
Dr Rory Miller is a senior lecturer in King's College, London and author of Ireland and the Palestine Question, 1948-2004.