ISRAEL MUST have the assurance of its existence within safe borders. Like all states, Israel also has the right to defend itself against aggression.
So this newspaper unreservedly condemns the attacks on Israel, and the capturing of its soldiers by the Lebanese guerilla group, Hezbollah and similar actions by the Palestinian organisation, Hamas. In that regard, we support the calls for freeing of the Israeli soldiers being held by these organisations.
However, even as we condemn extremism and insist on Israel's right to security, we are clear that, provocation notwithstanding, those rights cannot, in the long run, be assured by 'shock and awe' bombardment of Lebanon and the victimisation of civilians in Gaza and the West Bank. Indeed, we agree with France's President Jacques Chirac that Israel's attack on Lebanon is disproportionate and believe that its destruction, which is a clear and present danger, ultimately, will not enhance the security of the Jewish state.
In that regard, we join with those who have called on the Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to exercise restraint and for the stationing of United Nations forces in southern Lebanon as a buffer against attacks on northern Israel by Hezbollah. For Israel's security will be guaranteed only by a settlement of the Palestinian issue, if it provides the foundation for a comprehensive Middle East peace. Such a settlement demands an overhaul of the Road Map and an even-handed approach to the peace process that includes the condemnation and isolation of extremist elements and support for Palestinian 'moderates'. It demands, at the same time, that Israel's friends and supporters insist that it takes a larger and more pragmatic view of the situation and act accordingly.
In the first instance, Israel must abandon the so-called security fence on the West Bank which has had the effect of carving up Palestinian communities and disrupting people's livelihood. It may appear to provide some measure of security from terrorist infiltration into Israel, but its most severe impact is the heightening of Palestinian resentment. Moreover, Israel should agree to return to its borders of 1967, returning to the Palestinians the land they previously held. For it should be clear to most reasonable people that while Bill Clinton's Camp David efforts came close to an accord, a jig-sawed Palestine could hardly be something that Palestinian leaders can sell to their people. There is something else about which Israel and the United States and others involved in the Middle East process should be keenly aware in any attempt to settle the issues. A substantial part of Hezbollah's legitimacy comes from the assumption that it is standing up to powerful Israel in part in defence of displaced Palestinians, as it did when Israel occupied Lebanon. Israel and its allies should also be reminded that Hamas and other Palestinian militants gained ascendancy as Israel degraded the capacity of the Palestinian Authority and humiliated the late Yasser Arafat.
The point is that Israel may, by its actions, make short-term security gains at the cost of breeding a new generation of
militants and providing legitimacy to extremists and terrorists with their own agenda, who find it convenient to wrap themselves in the Palestinian issue.
THE OPINIONS ON THIS PAGE, EXCEPT FOR THE ABOVE, DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEWS OF THE GLEANER.
