By Oliver Kamm, the author of Anti-Totalitarianism: the Left-Wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy (THE GUARDIAN, 18/08/06):
British political debate about Israel's intervention in Lebanon has, with rare exceptions, run the gamut of opinion from A to C, but with a unifying theme that Israel's actions have been disproportionate to the provocation. In reality, the principal ethical question concerning Israel's military campaign is whether it has been curtailed too soon. The answer lies with the strengthened UN Interim Force in Lebanon (Unifil), and the interpretation given to its mandate to "take all necessary action ... to ensure that its area of operations is not utilised for hostile activities of any kind".
There is a substantial risk, on historical precedent, that not all necessary action will be taken. Continued failure will be damaging - for Israel, for the government of Lebanon, and for the prospects of a Palestinian state. This was why Tony Blair was right to resist calls at the start of the conflict for an immediate ceasefire, on the grounds that: "If [the violence] is to stop, it has to stop by undoing how it started. And it started with the kidnap of Israeli soldiers and the bombardment of northern Israel. If we want this to stop, that has to stop."
An immediate ceasefire at that stage would have been equivalent to an enduring threat to Israeli civilians from a private army, Hizbullah, aided by a theocratic tyranny, Iran. Much of the anti-war criticism of Blair's position has come from those who condemn his closeness to President Bush and his participation in the Iraq war. But the principle the prime minister was insisting on was fundamental to democratic politics and the integrity of the United Nations. UN security council resolution 1559, adopted in 2004, calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias. That resolution, clearly covering Hizbullah, has not been implemented. In those circumstances Israel is entitled to defend its citizens and its sovereignty.
Israel can't be defeated by Hizbullah, but an existential threat to the Jewish state is not the proper measure of a terrorist group's capacities. So long as Hizbullah remains in southern Lebanon, Israeli civilians face a continuous threat of rocket attacks or periodic incursions. The aim and effect are comparable to those of the suicide bomber in Israeli towns. Death may strike at any time. No democratic government can long survive, or ought to tolerate, a position in which civilians need reserves of courage merely to live within its boundaries.
Israel's acceptance of security council resolution 1701 is comparable in aim to its acceptance of the Oslo accords 13 years ago. It knows that lasting peace requires diplomacy. While pursuing negotiations, however, it must trust to the goodwill of others to support its need for security. Oslo was a noble venture, and had Yitzhak Rabin not been murdered by a religious fanatic, it might have achieved more. But it failed - above all because Israel's Palestinian interlocutor was a duplicitous autocrat more interested in personal aggrandisement than giving Palestinians good government on the road to statehood.
Israel's foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, declared this week: "It was necessary to move on and focus on the political phase, which was in motion from the onset of the conflict." She is right, and her insistence that political negotiation must resolve the conflict on Israel's northern border marks a welcome contrast with Israel's disastrous invasion of Lebanon, and attempted regime change within it, in 1982. But diplomacy, it turned out at Oslo, has a limit as well as a role. That limit will be tested and reached if the enemies of peace draw comfort from the curtailment of Israel's actions against Hizbullah.
On that point, the auguries are not encouraging. President Assad of Syria made an inflammatory speech on Tuesday directed not only at Israel but also at Lebanese political leaders, whom he accused of collaborating with Israel. Most significantly, if Hizbullah is perceived to have been strengthened in a struggle with Israel, the prospects for a pacific southern Lebanon, or a two-state territorial accommodation between Israel and Palestine, are bleak.
Israel's critics will claim that military action has strengthened Islamist militancy in Lebanon and the region. But this is question-begging. Hizbullah and its state supporters also claimed vindication from Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon under the dovish government of Ehud Barak. The bombings of Israeli civilians are a function not of Israeli provocation but of Hizbullah's ideological conviction - that Israel is an illegitimate state - and its capabilities.
Western powers have a particular responsibility. Hopes that the theocratic regime in Iran would moderate over the years have been thwarted. The mere fact that the Khomeini revolution has not spread has apparently made Iran's leaders more determined to operate by proxy, through Shia militias such as Hizbullah. Unifil must now disarm Hizbullah, and be seen to do so. If it does not, then Iran's ambitions in the region, and its transfer of arms, will only burgeon. The prospect that a revolutionary regime headed by a Holocaust-denier and seeking a nuclear capability will enhance its position from an unresolved conflict is the business of all of us.