Bombing Doesn't Work

And furthermore, shelling civilians is a war crime. You don't do it, according to the Geneva Conventions. America does it in Iraq, Israel does it in Lebanon and Gaza, so I guess the Lebanese Army feels like they can do it with impunity, and no one will call them to account.

My view of this will be unpopular among some of my kinsmen. Sorry. (No, I'm not really sorry. I love my relatives, but I will not remain silent in this case. We will have to agree to disagree)

As'ad Abu-Khalil, with whom I do not always agree, says:

The footage on Aljazeera tonight from inside the Nahr Al-Barid refugee camp is sufficient to condemn all those who stayed silent during another chapter of agony for the Palestinians in Lebanon. I am sickened by the rising manifestations of Lebanese patriotism: by the unending tributes for an Army that was too scared to defend the homeland when Israel invaded last summer.

This bombing is not good for the future of Lebanon. If Fatah al-Islam is such a problem, aren't there other ways to address it than by causing immense suffering among civilians, and thereby creating a whole new generation of future recruits to terrorism?

The decades of attacks on Ain-el-Helweh camp led directly to the events of 1985 that killed my grandmother in Mieh-mieh and uprooted all of my kinsmen. Bombing refugee camps to "eradicate terrorism" just creates more terrorism.

It may be a basic human instinct to want to eradicate (massacre, exterminate, commit genocide) your enemies, but acting on this instinct does not make you or your property safer. Mass extermination of the Palestinians of Lebanon will not make Lebanese safer. Mass bombing with "only" 40 or 80 or 100 dead will not make Lebanese safer, either.

I fear we are in a spiral of death. I fear much worse will follow.

Human Rights Watch is on the case.

Sadly, my American government is too blind, stupid and bloodthirsty to intervene in this. And it looks like the Arab governments don't care, either.

Comments

[BobPixel]

Sigh.

Even though my siblings and I were all trained up in same set of morals, it seems that only two of us understand that "there is no 'way' to peace... peace is the way."

After the death of my father, even my mother has adopted an antogonistic stance towards those who are "other." She voted for Bush... both times! And is angry that I am critical of him and his cronies.

I'm amazed that anyone can look at what happens when using violence to create peace, and then deciding that the answer must be even more violence. Any 12-stepper knows that doing more of the same thing to get a different result is a recipe for disaster!

Oh-- I get it. We need a 12-step program for governments.

"Hi, I'm USA [Isreal, Palestine, Darfur], and I'm addicted to violence."

(chorus): "Hi, USA."

Can you see it?

[Peter H]

Kudos to you, Leila, for speaking out against what's going on in Nahr Al-Barid. It's always disturbing when you see the kind of knee-jerk patriotism that's on display among Lebanese bloggers.

[Leila]

If you read some of the so-called patriots, it seems that there are several arguments: 1) they aren't really targeting civilians; 2) the terrorists are so bad it doesn't matter what happens to the civilians; correlated with the same old canard: the terrorists are hiding among civilians, so we have to clean them out and too bad for anybody in the way; or 3) Syria! Syria! Syria is behind everything! (which isn't a logical explanation for why it's okay to target civilians, but that's the argument). The corollary to Syria, Syria, is that anybody who objects to Lebanese Army actions in Nahr-al-Barid is automatically a dupe - of Syria!

[david bernstein]

so what is your suggestion of how to succesfully deal with terrorists?

[Leila A.]

Same way you deal with gangs and street crime - a combination of good policing and addressing root causes - the social problems that give rise to the gang behavior. The terrorist activity arising from the refugee camps comes out of desperation and futility. Those Palestinians who have the resources to get out and make something of themselves are not wandering around Ain el-Helweh with rocket launchers. In fact, 99.9% of the Palestinians in the camps are not interested in doing what these troublemakers are doing - despite the terrible conditions under which they live.

If you want peace, work for justice.