When my discussions with Lebanese friends -- Muslims and Christians -- about the WTC and Pentagon attacks progress past the mutual expressions of shock and outrage, they inevitably turn to U.S. policy in the region. My friends talk about how Bush Sr. turned his back on Lebanon, allowing Assad Sr. to assume control of the country in exchange for Syria's support in the war against Iraq. They question America's unwavering support for Israel -- which invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an attempt to prevent PLO attacks across the border, an action that backfired when a more dangerous opponent, Hezbollah, took the PLO's place. They ask me why Hezbollah soldiers fighting against an illegal occupation are considered "terrorists" while the label is not applied to the Israeli soldiers who in 1996 killed more than 100 innocents by shelling a U.N. shelter in the southern town of Qana. (A top-level U.N. inquiry found that the Israeli claim that the shelling was a mistake was "unlikely.")
The classification of Hezbollah as "terrorist" was also recently challenged by Gibran Tueni, the charismatic Christian publisher of An-Nahar, the country's most prestigious Arabic newspaper. No friend of Hezbollah or its Syrian backers, Tueni wrote in a front-page editorial: "Let us be frank. Hezbollah, which has joined Lebanon's political life and has refrained from any operations against the Israeli army outside the Shebaa Farms (a sliver of land, claimed by Lebanon, that Israel occupied along with the Golan Heights), cannot be classified as terrorist -- even if we disapprove of its politics."
It was not lost on my Lebanese friends that five days after America's tragedy, the anniversary of a horrific massacre committed on Lebanese soil went almost entirely unmarked by the Western press. On Sept. 16, 1982, Christian militiamen allied with Israel began their three-day slaughter in two Palestinian refugee camps that killed 1,800 men, women and children. An Israeli commission held then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon "indirectly responsible" for the atrocities in Sabra and Shatila; recently, Palestinian survivors have filed suit in a Belgian court, arguing that Sharon's culpability is far greater.
In Beirut, around 3,000 people participated in a march to commemorate the 19th anniversary of the massacre. Banners in the crowd conveyed various messages. One acknowledged the suffering in America: "We the victims of terrorism condemn all forms of terror against civilians everywhere." There were numerous posters with variations of the "stop the occupation" theme. And one impolitic sign simply read, "Kill the butcher Sharon."
One British journalist who did acknowledge this anniversary, as he does each year, was the Independent's Robert Fisk. Fisk, who lives in Beirut, also urged the United States to arrest and prosecute those responsible for the attacks, rather than lash out with bombs and missiles. He pointed out that bin Laden and his cohorts perpetrated their crime "to provoke the United States into just the blind, arrogant punch that the U.S. military is preparing."
The hawks in the Bush administration, like Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, are urging a far-ranging military campaign that would target not only bin Laden, but also extend to Iraq and, perhaps, Syria and Lebanon. Cooler heads, like Secretary of State Colin Powell, argue for retaliation on a smaller scale, one that would target the perpetrators of the crime and combat terrorism without endangering Washington's relationships with various Arab leaders. Powell's is the wiser course, but it is still a military response. For now, no one in the White House -- and precious few outside it -- are talking about a larger reassessment of American policy in the region.
Living in the Middle East, I can't help but think that America's safety requires more fundamental changes. I can't help but recall the words of a Sicilian nobleman in Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa's novel "The Leopard." Challenged by the tide of Italian nationalism, he tells his father: "If we want things to stay as they are, things will have to change."
About the writer
Paul Wachter is pursuing an M.A. in Middle Eastern Studies at the American University in Beirut.
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