The war and the ceasefire in South Lebanon are different. The former is less violent: less combat, less occupation of villages, less destruction of cities, fewer massacres, less displacement of children and women. The war is less deceitful and less vile than the ceasefire; it leaves fewer victims and its assaults are more merciful.
Whenever an extension of the ceasefire is announced, we tremble with fear. Why? What exactly is wrong with war? At least war does not pretend to show magnanimity to the people it kills. It does not kill them in the name of a ceasefire and a cessation of hostilities, with the extension of the truce also extending its horrors and obscenity.
Ariel Sharon’s invasion was more “civilized.” The ceasefire has amounted to nothing but crossing the armistice line, further occupation, and a daily multiplication of casualties. It pains us that Ariel Sharon should become a point of comparison, but this is the reality that Benjamin Netanyahu’s ceasefires have created. After the Second World War, Europeans declared the day of the armistice a national occasion of thanksgiving: the day the killing ended and cemeteries stopped spreading across the plains. In Lebanon, the ceasefire announces murderous criminality. Four southern towns were reduced to rubble during the ceasefire. Ten percent of Lebanon’s land was occupied during the ceasefire. A million people were displaced into tents during the ceasefire. And it continues to kill, displace, and threaten.
Where is the American sponsor and guarantor? Where is its explanation of the terms of the ceasefire, its conditions, or even its most basic premises? In what cave is the United Nations sleeping? Does it not fear that it could suffocate from swallowing its tongue? Since the very first announcement of the ceasefire, Israel has not left a single weapon unused in its assault on the South. And we should not forget that this war is being waged openly and officially by America alongside Israel. At the very least, it should play an impartial role in this campaign where Lebanon occupies the position of the perennial weak party, threatened from all four sides.
The smallest danger facing this little country is disappearance, collapse, and civil war. Amid the total absence of national bonds, Lebanon’s state, its president, and its leaders are labeled with the most vile epithets- the mildest among them being Zionism and treason, along with everything punishable by death. Nothing still has meaning or holds truth any longer. The most brazen manifestation of this void is the ceasefire itself.
Leave a Reply