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How Israel And The US Hope To Destroy Hezbollah
By: Franklin Lamb
Mycatbirdseat.com
"I've got these [expletive deleted] just where we want
them Maura! Watch the 1000 slow cuts as we shred Hezbollah?
who do they think they are? And we'll do it by using 1757
and this time we're going all the way. I told Israel to
stay out of Lebanon because the IDF can't defeat Hezbollah
plus the whole region would burn.
I will handle this and it will be my Christmas present to
Lebanon." So said Jeffrey Feltman in conversation with his
former office staffer, now US Ambassador to Lebanon, Maura
Connelly during October 17, 2010 visit with MP Walid
Jumblatt at his Clemenceau residence.
On December 12, 2008, Naharnet.com reported that "Former US
Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman presented Prime Minister Fuad
Siniora with what the American diplomat described as his
personal Christmas present to Lebanon. Mr. Feltman assured
PM Siniora that he will force Israel out of Ghajar village
before the end of 2008."
As it turned out, Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and Lebanon
never did receive Feltman's promised 2008 Christmas present
and Israel still has its tanks and troops in Lebanon's
Ghajar village even as pressure mounts for ending its four-
year illegal occupation of North Ghajar which, in violation
of UNSCR 1701, Israel invaded in July 2006 and from which
it has refused to withdraw.
This holiday season Jeff is again assuring his Lebanese
allies that he's Santa Claus and Hezbollah's head will
adorn his sleigh during his Christmas eve rounds. The
reason for his optimism is that US and Israel are quietly
confident that they can achieve with UNSCR 1757 what was
intended but fell short with UNSCR 1559, which is stripp-
ing Lebanon's Resistance of its defensive weapons.
On November 11th, Vice Premier and Regional Development
Minister Silvan Shalom predicted that "an STL (Special
Tribunal for Lebanon) indictment against Hezbollah will
lead to the implementation of Resolution 1559 and the
forced disarming of the Party as well as the collapse of
the effort at a Syrian-Lebanese-Iranian-Turkish alliance.
The grand trophy would be Hassan Nasrallah
The US-Israel project is said to be based on elaborate
computer models among other calculations and includes the
expectation that members of Hezbollah, possibly even
Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, will be indicted,
tried and convicted, in absentia of course, of involvement
in the February 14, 2005 murder of Lebanese Prime Minister
Rafiq Hariri.
The US State Department Office of the Legal Adviser has
proudly assured the White House that because its office
insisted back in 2005 that the Special Tribunal for Lebanon
be established under Chapter 7 of the UN Charter, anyone
who the STL convicts will face sure UN justice. Chapter
Seven allows for the use of unlimited international armed
force to implement any verdict that the STL hands down.
Washington and Tel Aviv intend that those convicted will
not escape the full power of the United Nations system
anymore than others earlier, including former Serbian
President Slobodan Milosevic.
Israel, serial violator of international law including
more than 60 UN Resolutions is also busy boasting that
international law supports the Tribunal and that high
priced law firms around the world can be hired if
necessary to back up the legal work of the STL office
of the Prosecution, led by Daniel Bellemare of Canada.
Within hours of Israel instructing Secretary of State
Clinton, not to worry, that there is no way for the STL
to be stopped or its final judgment sidetracked and all
the US has to do is fund it, the White House announced
an additional $ 10 million for the Tribunal and got the
UK to pony up another $ 1.8 million. More cash is expected
from France. Today the STL is flush with cash and it will
likely remain so.
Based on interviews with two former staff members of the
Office of the STL prosecution, as well as numerous public
statements by US officials, there are reasons to take
seriously the "all the way" intensions of Jeffrey Feltman
and Silvan Shalom. Their governments assert the that STL
is legitimate under both international law, given that
it was established in accordance with a U.N. Security
Council resolution issued under Chapter 7, and also under
Lebanon's legal and constitutional principles contrary to
what is being claimed by Hezbollah and STL's adversaries
in Lebanon.
In addition, the US State Department points out that the
preamble to the Lebanese Constitution provides that
"Lebanon is a founding and active member of the United
Nations Organization and abides by its covenants and by
the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Government
shall embody these principles in all fields and areas with-
out exception." Moreover, the Charter of the United Nations
obliges U.N. member states to "accept and carry out the
decisions of the (U.N.) Security Council."
According to one State Department lawyer, "If the STL
indicts and convicts one member of Hezbollah we win. A
driver, a boy scout, we don't care. The Security Council
can do a dozen things to topple Hezbollah. For example,
can you imagine the effect of Iranian style sanctions if
applied against Lebanon until the killers are handed over?
The Lebanese only care about money and with all those sects
hating each other anyhow, the country will quickly implode
in recriminations and civil war if they're forced to
diet a bit...And very tough sanctions against Syria? The
US and Israel will only have to collect the pieces and do
what should have been done half a century ago and that was
to install governments that understand regional and intern-
ational realities."
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Efforts by Hezbollah and Syria to derail the STL are viewed
in Tel Aviv and Washington as futile, because Lebanon is
thought to have nothing to say about the STL. It is created
by the UNSC and nothing the Lebanese Parliament, Cabinet
or people do will affect it. The only reason Lebanon is in
the picture at all is that it is the crime scene. And it
happens to harbor some suspects. Apart from that Lebanon
is essentially irrelevant to the STL work.
One congressional staffer advised: "What we will use are
all the many tools, enforcement and other, available to
the international community to bring down Hezbollah. The
coming phase need not even look like the US and Israel
have much involvement. We will just watch like football
spectators from the sideline as the UN employs myriad
legal and political measures to bring to justice those
found to be involved. That's the beauty of this and it's
also why Hezbollah is very, worried. Or for sure they
should be."
Another staffer in the same office added in an email:
"Don't you see, the STL is the perfect international law
instrument to destroy Hezbollah, achieve regime change
in Syria, create deadly Sunni-Shia conflicts everywhere,
cause civil a war in Lebanon and topple the Mullahs in
Iran. It's going to be like Cheney never left office."
Following the STL indictments, assuming they include
Hezbollah, Washington sources expect that the Israel
lobby will launch perhaps history's most massive and
expensive international media campaign of defamation
against Hezbollah, Syria and Iran and they will be
joined by the US government and some of its European
allies, plus the ever-rentable Micronesia.
The objective will be to essentially unite the world's
population against the presumed Shia killers of the Sunni
Prime Minister. More than a dozen US-Israel projects that
failed in Lebanon over the past decade, from an airbase in
Kleiat to street battles to cutting optic telecommunication
lines may come back into play when stamped with the
imprimatur of international law and full UN Security
Council legitimacy.
The current project includes continuing the public threats
and hyping threats that Israel is ready to attack Lebanon
whereas the Pentagon believes Israel is not ready and
may never be ready again and is being rejected regionally
and internationally. According to Hezbollah MP Kamel
al-Rifai U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East
Affairs Jeffrey Feltman, French Foreign Minister Bernard
Kouchner, and U.S. Senator John Kerry informed Lebanese
officials during their recent visits to Lebanon that Israel
is serious in its threats to attack Lebanon and might just
attack. Al-Rifai told the daily Asharq al-Awsat on 11/15/10
that Hezbollah was told that the American administration
gave Israel the green light to do as it pleases in Lebanon,
adding that Kerry sent this message to the Syrian leader-
ship as well.
For these reasons the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is seen
as an extraordinary US-Israel opportunity to maintain
control of the region. The coming media campaign will
employ especially sharp personal attacks on Hassan
Nasrallah who the US and Israel fear as an Arab leader in
the mold of Nasser and as a Muslim leader without modern
parallel. Nasrallah is seen as a leader who has the
potential to heal many Shia-Sunni divisions and for this
he is viewed in Washington and Tel Aviv as very dangerous.
Hezbollah's assessment
On November 11, 2010 Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah
discussed the STL at a neighborhood Martyr's day gathering
in South Beirut. Offering his views on the US-Israel
project, he told his audience that Hezbollah knows the
US-Israel strategy, which he explained is:
"Let's accuse Shiite men of assassinating the most
important Sunnite leader and consequently issue an
indictment in this regard. We will call on the Lebanese
government which had signed an agreement with us to arrest
these men. The latter would set to arrest them and dispatch
army troops and security forces which would be engaged in a
clash with the Resistance."
Nasrallah continued, "Primarily this is the plot. It is not
important for the Americans, the Israelis and the sponsors
of the STL what would happen or what might happen in
Lebanon. Lebanon in itself is not important, neither is
martyr PM Rafiq Hariri, the Sunnites, the Shiites, the
Muslims, the Christians, the Future Movement, March 14
Bloc nor March 8 Bloc. What is important is Israel,
and Israel's interest is that the Resistance be hit,
eliminated, isolated, besieged, weakened, snatched away
from its popular environment and its image be distorted.
Its morals, belief and will must be harmed and consequent-
ly, it would be ready to be hit or to surrender to this
plot."
Hezbollah MP Nawaf Mousawi, one of the most sought after
Hezbollah officials for discussions by visiting American
and foreign delegations due to his intellect and clarity,
advised the media a short time later that:
"The Resistance party is prepared for all scenarios,"
adding that "nothing would surprise Hezbollah...
Hezbollah has prepared a series of responses.
Every option corresponds to a specific scenario. Thus
if things are positive, we're ready. But if things are
negative and the efforts failed in reaching a solution
to the crisis, we're also ready. In brief, we're ready
to face all options," Mousawi said.
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Franklin Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle
East Peace, Beirut-Washington DC, Board Member of The
Sabra Shatila Foundation, and a volunteer with the
Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Lebanon. He is the author
of The Price We Pay: A Quarter-Century of Israel's Use of
American Weapons Against Civilians in Lebanon and is doing
research in Lebanon for his next book. He can be reached
at fplamb@gmail.com
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