Madam, - Innocent Lebanese citizens - the old, the poor, men, women and children - continue to be killed in large numbers every day. A million Lebanese civilians have been displaced. Humanitarian laws and the Geneva Conventions are broken with impunity. The aggressive and relentless destruction of Lebanon's infrastructure intensifies by the day.
Israel has also suffered the tragic loss of innocent civilian life, each needless death equally devastating.
What is needed are strong diplomatic efforts, international involvement in the resolution of the conflict, strengthening of the UN peacekeeping forces and a multilateral force in southern Lebanon, political and economic stability for the region and a long-term political settlement. For all, or any, of these to take place, an immediate ceasefire is necessary.
Then, the underlying causes can be dealt with using all the international resources and international involvement that is needed to shift the focus of this conflict from military action and military rhetoric to forging a region where there is political and economic stability and, ultimately, no war. - Yours, etc,
CAROLINE GILL,
Brighton Avenue,
Foxrock,
Dublin 18.
Madam, - Chris Ó Rálaigh (August 7th) writes: "If Israel's aim is to end support for Hizbullah, it would be better off withdrawing from all of Lebanon, all of Palestine and all of Syria."
It is truly hard to imagine how Mr Ó Rálaigh has come to this erroneous conclusion. Has he not seen for himself the devastating consequences of Israel's withdrawal from lands which serve as a buffer against attack from its terrorist neighbours? In 2000 Israel withdrew from Lebanon to internationally recognised borders, relying on United Nations guarantees as embodied in Security Council resolution 1559 which calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. In return it got the terrorist Hizbullah firmly ensconced on its northern border, resulting in the situation today where hundreds of murderous rocket attacks are launched against Israeli civilian targets daily.
A year ago Israel withdrew from Gaza, naively hoping for a peaceful agreement with the Palestinian Authority, only to be confronted with the rise to power of Hamas, which also engages in daily rocket attacks against Israeli towns.
Mr Ó Rálaigh goes on to claim that "without this occupation, support for Hizbullah, and indeed Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other groupings would evaporate." In fact, the history of the region proves exactly the opposite: Israeli withdrawal from any territory is interpreted as a sign of weakness and encourages the terrorist groups Hamas and Hizbullah to make the new borders the front line in their malicious war against the Jewish state. - Yours, etc,
BRIAN SMITH,
(TCD alumnus),
Montreal,
Canada.
Madam, - The creation of a new generation of alienated Lebanese will ensure many more insurgents in the future. Israel will have to accept that only a political and not a military solution can provide a lasting peace.
Israel's current invasion of Lebanon - let's dispense with the weasel word "incursion" - is its third, after the previous episodes of 1978 and 1982 as well as the ruthless bombardments of 1996 (Operation "Grapes of Wrath2). The 1978 invasion came in the middle of US-brokered Middle Eastern peace talks and Unifil was created as a way to get the Israelis off the hook and enable them to withdraw, while providing some kind of security to the local population and extending the authority of the Lebanese state down to the border. Unfortunately, the Israelis chose not to leave, setting up their own enclave, arming and equipping a proxy militia and continuing to terrorise the population for over 20 further years. They also instigated attacks, directly and indirectly, on UN forces, while biased pro-Israeli reports in the US media simultaneously derided Unifil in a carefully calibrated propaganda campaign.
The results of the Israelis' actions was negative in every way. Security for their own country was not attained. Their refusal to withdraw fatally weakened the moderate Shia political party Amal, led by secularist lawyer Nabih Berri (from Tibnin, where Irish troops were located) and effectively led to the creation of Hizbullah, which adopted a much harder line. This may have beeen aided, but was not inspired by, Syria and Iran. Israel found itself, as an unwelcome force of occupation, fighting an increasingly immoral and unacceptable war until it was eventually forced out in 2000.
Thousands died unnecessarily, the vast majority at Israeli hands. Most were Lebanese civilians.
In all of this, there was one oasis of relative peace. Unifil made its area of South Lebanon relatively safe for its inhabitants. The number of attacks on Israel from inside the Unifil area was insignificant and would have been zero if the Israelis had left sooner. Ireland can be proud of its role during these years. Unifil's critics, whether on the left or the right, often spoke from ignorance or malice.
The UN approach then, whatever its flaws, is very different from what is now being proposed. After nearly a month of aggression visited on the civilian population of Lebanon by Israel, there are nearly a million refugees, more than on any previous occasion, and yet more dead and wounded.
All parts of Lebanon have been hit, every community has suffered and the infrastructure of the country has been set back for decades, after a painful campaign of reconstruction. This is not to excuse the actions of Hizbullah in shelling civilians in Israel, but there is simply no comparison in scale or numbers, nor can there be any excuse for the perpetration of war crimes by a sovereign state recognised in international law. Yet it is now proposed that the UN should call for a cessation of hostilities without calling for the immediate and unconditional withdrawal of Israel's occupying forces, and that a UN force should be deployed to attempt what an unrestrained Israeli military, with all its weaponry, could not achieve: disarming Hizbullah.
While the US and UK have no credibility left to lose among open-minded people of all nations, the UN risks dealing itself a mortal blow at the hands of its own Security Council. Why should oppressed peoples anywhere in the world look for justice and fair treatment to a body which now proposes to reward the oppressor? And why should a country with an honourable record of peacekeeping, such as Ireland, risk the lives of its own soldiers and risk its even-handed reputation for the sake of a deal that can only unravel in the one country in the Middle East which is capable of operating as a successful multi-confessional democracy? Unless firm guarantees of immediate departure are offered by the occupying forces, we should have no part in this.
I lived in Lebanon for a number of years in the 1980s and have returned since that time. - Yours, etc,
PIARAS MAC EINRI,
Model Farm Road,
Cork.
Madam, - I read with great interest your report on the exchange of views between Michael D Higgins TD and Labour councillors John McManus and Aidan Culhane on the conflict in the Lebanon (The Irish Times, August 5th). As the PRO of the UCD Labour Party, the largest Labour branch in Aidan Culhane's Dublin South constituency, I call on him to support the Labour Party position so ably articulated by Michael D Higgins.
Now is the time for an all-out effort to build an alliance for peace and tackle the causes of the conflict that have had such appalling consequences for the civilian population in Lebanon. Theories about clashes of civilisations are a distraction at best and deserve to be exposed and rejected. - Yours, etc,
PAUL DILLON,
Milltown,
Dublin 6.
Madam, - The term "war", to describe terror and conflict in the Middle East is in many cases not a neutral description. Both sides employ it, not just as a description, but often as a way to excuse the killing of civilians.
The killing of civilians during war is held to be an "unfortunate side effect" (though much less so by Hizbullah). Still, in a war situation, fighting parties are bound by the "rules of war" (unless you happen to win). Inadequate attempts to avoid targeting non-combatants are often explained along the lines of: "well it's a war; what do you expect?".
Still, in the modern world we have come to expect that military action (justified or not) adheres to standards. The Israeli defence forces argue that they do take all necessary precautions to avoid killing civilians. However, the organisation Human Rights Watch begs to differ. In a recent report it states the following: "Since the start of the conflict, Israeli forces have consistently launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military gain but excessive civilian cost. In dozens of attacks, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some cases, the timing and intensity of the attack, the absence of a military target, as well as return strikes on rescuers, suggest that Israeli forces deliberately targeted civilians."
Doubtless, the IDF would reject these claims. Nonetheless, it is evident that we should not take at face value Israel's claims that it is doing its utmost to avoid civilian death and hardship (least of all when it bombs the exit routes). - Yours, etc,
DAVID O'GORMAN,
Delgany,
Co Wicklow.
Madam, - In this era, with GPS, laser, high-speed data transmission, unmanned aerial vehicles, and high-resolution aircraft photo-reconnaissance, in addition to radio, communications are better than ever, and the tragic incidents of civilian dead in Lebanon are not due to inaccurate Israeli weapons, carelessness, or malice, but to the genocidal Hizbullah engaging in the war crime of locating its weapons among civilians. It is quite clear in international law that Israel is entitled to attack the rocket-firing areas, even if in civilian locations. Some of your correspondents show no recognition of these considerations.
If the Israelis really wanted to cause civilian deaths, with over 1,000 artillery and 14 fighter squadrons they have the capability to do so on a massive scale comparable to the second World War, where Hamburg saw 45,000 dead in one week from July 22nd, 1943. Israel clearly does not do so.
In addition to this issue of "discriminate" force, the issue of "proportionality" has been mentioned by many people. Even if you use the much higher recent Lebanese government claim of 925 dead in Lebanon, quoted on Sky News (giving no breakdown if the Hizbullah element which must be a significant part of any such total), that still equals one person dead for every 9.3 Israeli air force sorties, one dead for every five targets hit, and one dead for every 14 Hizbullah-held Irano-Syrian rockets.
Is that either "indiscriminate", or "disproportionate"? - Yours, etc,
TOM CAREW,
Ranelagh,
Dublin 6.