jordan's security council on friday put out a warning, and a timely reminder to everyone that this region remains a fraught and highly explosive place. It has been four years since Israel bombed southern Lebanon to a pulp, killing over 1,000 civilians. It is a year-and-a-half since Israel did the same to Gaza. In both cases, there is clear cause and effect: Israel illegally occupies land and refuses to withdraw from it. Resistance groups, having seen their politicians fail through diplomatic means to end such aggression, assume their right of violent resistance. The consequences are always tragic. There is, of course, a ready cure. Israel must be compelled by the international community to end its occupation of Arab land, whether Lebanese, Syrian or Palestinian. Indeed, Israel is bid to do so by the international community, which nevertheless finds it hard to apply any meaningful pressure on Israel to that end. What exactly is the problem here? Israel may claim that it has a right to security, but why should it be allowed to put the horse before the cart? Israel may have a right to security, but not under circumstances in which it is still illegally occupying other people’s land. Israel’s repeated claim that it is acting in self-defence when it assaults civilian populations with the full military might of one of the best equipped armies in the world simply does not stand up to any mildly critical scrutiny. Israel is the aggressor by the mere fact that it is the occupier. That is all anyone needs to remember. Israel protestations of innocence would be far more convincing if the country had at least undertaken to end its occupation of Arab lands in full, if not actually withdrawn. But it continues to settle the West Bank and East Jerusalem and has illegally annexed the Golan Heights. These are not the actions of a country acting in good faith to restore international and regional order. They are the actions of a rogue and expansionist state that still considers its military might the only important factor in resolving conflict. Israel needs to be told differently.
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