Above All Law?
By Dr Shireen M. Mazari
With the Israelis
carrying on with the murder and pillage of Lebanon,
as Muslims we must hang our heads in shame. Our
self-imposed helplessness and fear stands in stark
contrast to other nations whose leaders are traveling
to Lebanon while we have yet to see any Muslim leader
visit the besieged state. As for the US, it is now
clearly aiding and abetting the murder of innocent
Lebanese citizens in its grand design -- in which
Israel is a central partner -- of reshaping the
map of the Middle East. The problem is that so far
their scheme of things has been a miserable failure.
Heading a notorious "coalition of the willing"
the US invaded Iraq and all it has managed to do
so far is to totally destroy the country and create
sectarian divisions and hatred, as well as creating
extensive new space for al-Qaeda in a place where
the latter never had a presence. Israel tried to
get the world to accept that the Gaza strip was
not only totally under Palestinian control, it was
the answer to the viable Palestinian state demanded
by the international community through endless UN
Resolutions. The farce of this Israeli duplicity
was soon exposed with the frequent unprovoked military
attacks and targeted killings undertaken by the
Israelis in the wake of the Hamas democratic electoral
victory. The final culmination of the farce was
the policy of collective punishment undertaken by
Israel against innocent Palestinian citizens and
the Hamas elected leaders. Lest we forget, it was
the attack against innocent picnickers in Gaza that
led to the capture of an Israeli soldier and the
unleashing of the Israeli military machine against
the Palestinians.
In Lebanon itself, the US and its many compliant
allies had used the Hariri murder to force Syria
to withdraw its forces and to usher in a pro-US
government in that country. And look what is happening.
Lebanon and its citizens are being killed in a most
brazen and criminal fashion by the leading terrorist
state, Israel, with full complicity of the US. That
the US actually has the gall to justify the massacre
of Lebanese citizens under the claim of Israel's
right to "defend itself" shows only too
clearly that international law, including humanitarian
and other laws of war are not seen to be relevant
for Israel and the US. Even US allies like the UK
are finally seeing the horror of what Israel is
doing in Lebanon and the UN representatives have
actually managed to rise out of their timidity and
declare that Israel is at the very least in violation
of international humanitarian law with its uncontrolled
violence against the Lebanese people. But the US
wants Israel to continue its killing of Lebanese
and Palestinians till its desire of revenge has
been fully sated. So although there will be an eventual
ceasefire, it will only come when the Israelis feel
they have had their fill of murder and mayhem and
a complete abuse of all international norms of behavior.
As the Muslims continue to pay the price for Europe's
Nazi guilt, it is the seeming helplessness and pusillanimity
of the Muslim World that is most frustrating, adding
to the anger of Muslim civil societies. The Arab
World's inability to send any leader to show solidarity
with the Lebanese or even speak out forcefully is
distressing, to say the least. Is it any wonder
that Muslims are fair game for abuse and killing
by the US and its allies, especially Israel? In
contrast, it is admirable to see how Hezbollah and
the Palestinians are withstanding the Israelis murderous
onslaught. Israel has already used phosphorous bombs
in Southern Lebanon and now the US is to provide
smart bombs to the Israelis. Clearly Israel feels
no need to exercise any constraint whatsoever in
its killings and the US is ensuring that this murderous
streak of Israel is allowed free rein for as long
as it appears viable. And the rest of the international
community can only watch as the US uses its veto
in the UN Security Council to circumvent international
opinion and outrage.
And where is all this leading to? Well, not surprisingly,
Israel has now issued a statement that it may accept
an international force if it is headed by NATO.
This is what many of us had feared ever since NATO
came into Afghanistan. NATO, with no Asian or Arab
members, is now moving into areas reserved legitimately
for collective security action by the UN Security
Council and UN blue berets. If NATO takes over this
role, for which it has no legal mandate, effectively
we will have the US and Europe deciding Asian security
issues and perhaps a new political map of the so-called
greater Middle East.
Along with NATO, we are drawing closer to a complete
redrawing of the map of this conflict-torn region
and unless the Arabs wake up to what is happening,
they will find themselves divided and subdivided
into weaker polities with the US controlling the
energy resources and supporting compliant governments.
Closer to home, India also continues to carry on
with its efforts to undermine Pakistan -- the only
state that is still capable of balancing rather
than bandwagoning with it. Even though it cannot
act as Israel has done thanks to the nuclear balance
in the region, it has declared its intent of using
punitive action against Pakistan (similar to Israel's
notion of 'collective punishment'?) through Afghanistan
(if ever there was an open declaration of intent
regarding intervention in Pakistan's internal affairs
this was it) and is still clutching at straws to
link Pakistan with the Mumbai blasts. First, it
was the Lashkar-e-Taiba that was blamed and now
it is the Kashmiri Hizbul Mujahideen leader, Syed
Salahuddin, that they are demanding be handed over.
All this despite the fact that they have no hard
evidence of any of these groups and individuals
actually being linked in any way to the Mumbai blasts.
Like Israel, India sees little relevance for international
norms of inter-state behavior. Like Israel, it continues
to violate international human rights and humanitarian
law in Occupied Kashmir. Additionally, it is only
too apparent that what India is really seeking is
abandonment of the peace process since it has no
intent of moving towards conflict resolution on
any of the prevailing bilateral conflicts with Pakistan.
And India knows only too well that it cannot sustain
atmospherics endlessly in order to fool the international
community that it is actually moving forward on
the dialogue process.
While it is dangerous to subscribe to conspiracy
theories, it is equally foolhardy not to examine
a notion increasingly being given overt expression
by US analysts and political elite -- that the massive
energy resources in the Muslim World need to be
brought under US control and if this requires restructuring
the region under more manageable regimes then so
be it. First the region was redefined as the "Greater
Middle East" -- to include Iran, Afghanistan
and Pakistan -- and the next step was to expand
the chaos and eventually build anew from the ashes
as it were. Israel is doing that almost literally
for the US and the Iraq situation is certainly seeing
a strange anarchic drift. Even the basic tenets
of international law of any type do not seem to
apply to these unilateralist states that have given
state terrorism a completely brazen face.
(The writer is director general of the Institute
of Strategic Studies in Islamabad. Courtesy The
News)
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