Inside the glass house

NEW YORK-- A cartoon in an American news magazine many moons ago showed a Palestinian family huddled together in a refugee camp as US-supplied Israeli phantom jets kept bombarding the neighbourhood in an orgy of destruction — as it currently does in Lebanon. As she looks at the skies raining death and devastation, the hapless Palestinian mother tells her children: "I am sure the UN Security Council has just adopted a resolution against Israel."

The comment was a realistic view of the contempt Israel has continued to display both against the United Nations and its litany of resolutions. Israel has succeeded in doing so primarily because of the umbrella of protection provided by successive US administrations cowed down by the powerful pro-Israeli lobby.

Stephen Zunes, a professor of politics at the University of San Francisco who has closely monitored the violations and non-implementation of Security Council resolutions over several decades, is pessimistic about the enforcement power of the United Nations: an institution where the US rules supreme because of its abuse of veto powers. Last week, Zunes pointed out that Israel is currently in violation of a number of Security Council resolutions, such as: 446, 452, 465 and 471, which call on Israel to withdraw from its settlements in the occupied territories, including East Jerusalem; 497, calling on Israel to rescind its annexation of the Golan Heights; 252, 267, 298, 476 and 478, calling on Israel to rescind its annexation of greater East Jerusalem; 487, which calls on Israel to place its nuclear facilities under the trusteeship of the International Atomic Energy Agency; among others.

And as the Israeli destruction of Lebanon continues into its fifth successive week, the US, till Friday, resisted a UN call for a total withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon.

On Friday, Resolution 1701, drafted by the United States and France, was passed by the 15-member Security Council after days of bitter wranging.

It calls for all Israeli troops to withdraw from southern Lebanon after an end to the fighting — the timing for which has yet to be agreed by Lebanon and Israel.

The agreement calls for “a full cessation of hostilities based upon, in particular, the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks and the immediate cessation by Israel of all offensive military operations.”

It was also linked to the deployment of a 15,000 strong UN force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). But the text is not likely to satisfy the Lebanese who just do not want Israeli forces on their native soil-- and rightly so.

The only "rebuke" by the US so far is to caution Israel against "collateral damage": a euphemism for the killing of civilians caught in the cross fire. But that stand is deemed hypocritical viewed against the US decision last week to once again accelerate the shipment of lethal weapons to Israel in an attempt to reinforce the military. On Friday, the New York Times reported that for the second time since the current war began five weeks ago, the Bush administration has acceded to an Israeli request to speed-deliver weapons, this time short-range anti-personnel rockets armed with cluster munitions. And according to the Times, Israel has asked for these rockets because it is unable to suppress Hezbollah's Katyusha rocket attacks on Israeli settlements.

Last week, the New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) said its researchers on the ground in Lebanon have confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Human Rights Watch researchers also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border, it added. "Cluster munitions are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians", according to Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "They should never be used in populated areas", he added.

A statement by HRW said the use of cluster munitions in populated areas "may violate the prohibition on indiscriminate attacks contained in international humanitarian law." The wide dispersal pattern of their sub-munitions makes it very difficult to avoid civilian casualties if civilians are in the area. Moreover, "because of their high failure rate, cluster munitions leave large numbers of hazardous, explosive duds that injure and kill civilians even after the attack is over," HRW said. Human Rights Watch believes that cluster munitions should never be used, even away from civilians, unless their dud rate is less than one percent.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah has proved that the Israeli army is militarily vulnerable against a well-armed and well-trained guerrilla force. Israel's phenomenal victories against collective Arab armies in 1967 and later against Egypt in 1973 firmly established the Jewish state's legendary military superiority in the Middle East. The 1967 war — called the Six Day War — was so swift it ended in less than a week, with Egypt losing 264 aircraft and 700 battle tanks; Jordan 22 aircraft and 125 tanks, and Syria 58 aircraft and 105 tanks. The only equipment losses suffered by Israel in the 1967 war were 40 aircraft and 100 battle tanks, according to Dilip Hiro, a Middle East analyst based in London and author of "The Dictionary of the Middle East." The war ended with Israel capturing East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, Bethlehem, Hebron, Jenin, Nablus, the Golan Heights and Sharm al-Shaikh — some of which are still under occupation despite U.N. Security Council resolutions seeking Israeli withdrawal.

But as the relentless military attacks against Hezbollah and Lebanon continue into the second month, the duration of the current conflict and the resistance by the Islamic militia have dented Israel's reputation of military invincibility in the Middle East. "What we are facing is an infantry division with state-of-the-art weaponry — night vision gear, advanced rifles, well-equipped — deployed along our border," say Israeli Brigadier General Yossi Kuperwasser.

The bottom line is that Israelis have learnt a bitter lesson: that air superiority and technological prowess cannot win urban guerrilla wars.

Nahum Barnea, a senior commentator in one of Israel's largest newspapers, was more perceptive when he said last week: "We are getting lost in pursuit of a victory that is not there." And in a message to the Israeli prime minister, he advised: "There is no sense in investing in a lost cause. Take what they are offering you, Ehud Olmert. Take it and run."