Article from the Sept. 2006 issue of the Socialist
newspaper of the Socialist Party, Irish section of the CWI

Middle East: Israeli capitalism suffers defeat in Lebanon

THE 34-day assault on southern Lebanon by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) brought huge devastation and suffering to the people of the area. However, it will go down in history as the Israeli state’s first decisive military defeat in open warfare since its establishment in 1948, eroding its image as a regional superpower and further weakening the position of imperialism in the Middle East.

DANIEL WALDRON looks at the recent events

OVER 1,300 Lebanese were killed and thousands more injured, while a million people were forced to flee their homes. The Israeli military carried out a massive bombing campaign, obviously inspired by the United States’ “shock and awe” campaign prior to the invasion of Iraq. Many villages were totally flattened, and civilian infrastructure was consciously targeted. The damage caused is estimated at a cost of £2.5 billion, with Lebanese journalists stating that the bombing campaign caused more devastation than the inter-ethnic civil war that ravaged the country for 20 years.

The Israeli establishment said their aim was to “disarm Hezbollah”, although they reduced this to “weakening” Hezbollah when their troops met with much stiffer resistance than expected. However, in reality they attacked the Lebanese people collectively. A leaflet dropped on the Lebanon by the Israeli air force which stated the response to Hezbollah activities "would not be confined to Hassan’s (Hezbollah leader) gang of criminals”, makes it abundantly clear that this was their intention.

Military failure

The Israeli government did not achieve any of its military aims. Hezbollah proved to be a well trained, well armed and determined foe. Their fighters doggedly resisted the advance of Israel into Lebanon. There were instances where Hezbollah armed and organised large proportions of villages’ populations to resist the Israeli troops’ advancement. These difficulties caused splits to open up in the Israeli establishment, with disagreement over whether or not to implement a full-scale ground invasion in the last 48 hours before the negotiated ceasefire came into effect.

Rather than being weakened, Hezbollah have emerged stronger from the conflict, increasing their support among the Lebanese people. Hezbollah is a sectarian Shia Muslim organisation, but among Christians support for their campaign against the Israeli invasion was 85%. A recent poll has shown that Sayyad Hassan Nasrullah, the leader of Hezbollah, is now the most popular figure in the region.

The Israeli forces also failed to secure the return of the two soldiers kidnapped by Hezbollah which was the main pretext for the war. In reality, the Israeli establishment was waiting for any reason to justify this offensive, which had been in planning for at least two years. Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, commented: "Of all Israel’s wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared… By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we’re seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board". (The Guardian, 8 August)

Iranian influence

The bloody assault on Lebanon had nothing to do with rescuing Israeli soldiers. It was an attempt to reinforce the perception of the military superiority of the IDF in the region, which had been weakened by the premature withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000 because of the guerrilla campaign conducted against it by Hezbollah. It also suited the political interests of the United States, Israel’s main backers, who saw the breaking of Hezbollah as an opportunity to counteract the growing influence of the Iranian regime, to which Hezbollah is connected, in the region.

It was completely clear that the Bush and Blair administrations fully supported the Israeli assault. They refused to call for an immediate cease-fire, and rushed bunker-busting bombs to Israel through Prestwick Airport. It is reported that Israel received military advice from the United States, and Condaleeza Rice tried to justify the war by referring to it as “the birth pangs of the new Middle East”.

The regime of Ahmadinejad in Iran is openly hostile to Western imperialist intervention in the region, and to the very existence of Israel, the main client state of the US in the region. Iran is also attempting to develop weapons-grade uranium. However, the US is bogged down in the military quagmire of Iraq, while resistance to the occupation of Afghanistan is resurging. They do not have the military capacity to intervene directly in Iran and instead are looking for other ways to weaken the regime, such as pushing for UN sanctions against its nuclear programme. Israel’s attack on Hezbollah in Lebanon also represented an indirect attack on Iran by the US.

Again, this has totally backfired on the forces of imperialism. Through the political strengthening of Hezbollah by this conflict, the Iranian regime is likely to be more confident in asserting its influence in the region, and will probably use this to force more concessions from the EU and US on its uranium enrichment programme.

The resistance in Iraq will certainly be emboldened by Hezbollah’s victory. Also, the main Shia parties in the Iraqi parliament are strongly connected to the Iranian government. Up until now, the majority Shia population and the militias connected to its parties have played a minor role in the resistance to the occupation of the country. Independently or under direction from Tehran, we could now see Shia leaders taking a more vehemently anti-occupation stance and a stepping up of attacks on Western troops. This would be a nightmare for US and British troops, already struggling to contend with daily attacks by resistance fighters.

The victory of Hezbollah over Israeli aggression will also give confidence to the Arab masses across the Middle East in resisting the policies of imperialism, and thus weaken the corrupt Arab elites who have been at best spineless in the face of imperialism, at worst compliant in their oppressive policies in the region. For example, the monarchical dictatorship in Saudi Arabia allows the US to have military bases in the country, and initially justified Israel’s invasion of Lebanon. These regimes could see huge upheavals in the next period against their rule and the poverty that it means for the people of the Middle East.

Israeli citizens have also suffered as a result of the recent conflict, although not on the same scale as the people of the Lebanon. 118 soldiers were killed in direct conflict with Hezbollah. 39 civilians, both Jewish and Muslim, were also killed by 5,500 Hezbollah rockets fired into the north of the country, particularly Haifa. This is the highest level of civilian casualties that Israel has suffered in any conflict except the Palestinian Intifada.

While socialists supported the resistance to the Israeli invasion by Hezbollah and the Lebanese people, we criticised the tactic of firing rockets at civilian targets inside Israel. This served only to drive Israeli citizens into the arms of the ruling class that was responsible for the conflict. Olmert support drops

The defeat has caused a feeling of insecurity among Israeli workers in a state surrounded by hostile forces. Support for Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has been seriously damaged by the debacle, falling from 70% to 48%, while support for the rump of Likud, led by Benjamin Netanyahu, has dramatically increased. Likud opposed any withdrawal from the Palestinian territories of the West Bank and Gaza.

However, Israeli workers will also be forced to pay for the cost of the invasion of Lebanon and the damage caused by the attacks on Israel, estimated at $5.7 billion. This will come through attacks on public services and workers’ pay and conditions. This has the potential to spark class conflict and renewed opposition to the corrupt Israeli elite.

The UN brokered cease-fire will not solve any of the fundamental reasons for the conflict, but may in fact exacerbate them. It was an attempt by imperialist powers that dominate the UN to offer Israel a way out of the crisis. The agreement suggests that 15,000 Lebanese troops and a similar number of UN troops would take control of an area in southern Lebanon to create a buffer between Hezbollah and Israel. Lebanese troops have been charged with policing Hezbollah in the area. However, they will not disarm the group. This was admitted by Elias Murr, Lebanese Defence Minister, who said, "The army would not ask militants to relinquish their weapons". If attempts were made to force them to disarm Hezbollah, most Lebanese troops would simply refuse.

The Lebanese people see the UN troops, correctly, as merely puppets of imperialism. One resident of West Beirut said, "They are not good. We do not trust them. They did not help the civilians in the south. They are like an instrument in the hands of the Americans." UN attempts to curb Hezbollah activities and organisation could spark military opposition to their presence and further reinforce the reality that they are forces of occupation in Lebanon.

After suffering a humiliating defeat, the Israeli ruling class will again want to repair its reputation in the region, to bolster its position in Israel itself and the wider Middle East. This could initially take the form of heightened repression of the Palestinian people by the IDF in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which would further anger the Arab masses and cause instability for imperialism’s allies in the region.

The system of capitalism is at the root of the conflicts that have plagued the Middle East over the last century and the grinding poverty that is the reality for most of the region’s population. Most of the states that exist in the area were artificially created by European imperialist powers to allow them to divide up the rich resources of the region. They have historically attempted to divide the people of the Middle East by stirring up ethnic and religious tensions. Today, imperialism continues to intervene in the region to defend the economic and political interests of big business. Corrupt Arab elites, interested only in their own profits and power, oppress and exploit their own populations and bend the knee to Western imperialism.

Groups like Hezbollah can offer no real solution to this crisis as they cannot unite the population across religious and ethnic lines to challenge imperialism. Hezbollah has developed a mass support base among the impoverished Shia in southern Lebanon, through their opposition to imperialism and providing healthcare, education and support that the Lebanese government has been unable and unwilling to put in place. Hezbollah developed support among other sections of the population through the recent conflict, but it is doubtful that this can be maintained in the long term.

Hezbollah sectarian fundamentalists

While it has attempted to present a more secular face in the recent period, Hezbollah is essentially a religious and sectarian organisation with an Islamic fundamentalist outlook. At some point Hezbollah will retreat to a more narrow and overtly Islamic direction to maintain its support among the Shia population. Hezbollah are for obvious reasons incapable of winning support amongst the Israeli masses. However because of their sectarian and Shia fundamentalist politics they are also incapable of uniting the Lebanese people.

Hezbollah does not fundamentally oppose the system of capitalism. It currently has two ministers as part of a left block in the Lebanese government who presided over the privatisation of electricity supplies. Privatisation inevitably means job losses, price rises and poorer service for working people. Hezbollah does not base itself on the methods of mass working class struggle but on guerrilla tactics. While guerrilla struggle can be an important part of challenging imperialism and capitalism, imperialism and capitalism can only be defeated by a mass movement of the working class. What is urgently needed across the Arab world is the development of a secular resistance to imperialism and capitalism that bases itself on the independent organisation of the working class. Such a movement could have mass appeal across religious and ethnic divides to unite the Arab masses against imperialist intervention in the region and challenge the oppressive capitalist regimes that accept it.

A united movement of Arab workers could also make a class appeal to workers in Israel. The Israeli working class is the only force that can smash the right-wing Israeli establishment. The Jewish people are not, as some on the left suggest, a homogenous right-wing mass. Due to the insecurity many Israelis feel and the propaganda of the ruling class, support for the invasion of Lebanon was initially at over 90%, but as the conflict continued, it dropped to 67%. There were also reports of Israeli soldiers and pilots refusing to carry out attacks on what they knew to be civilian targets. There is hatred in Israel for the opulent capitalist class that dominates the country and Israeli workers have a proud history of struggling against them to defend their rights.

Capitalism can offer nothing but poverty and further conflict to the people of the Middle East, but if united, the working people of the region can achieve a solution. On the basis of a voluntary socialist confederation of the Middle East, the democratic rights of all religious and ethnic groups could be guaranteed. The huge wealth of the region could be used in a plan of production to meet the needs of all its inhabitants, removing the material basis for conflict and ending the cycle of misery that capitalism has created.