In 10 days Israel's aerial, naval and artillery war against Lebanon has caused almost 350 deaths, created 500,000 refugees and inflicted billions in damage to its infrastructure. Lebanon has been knocked back 20 years because it harboured the resistance group Hizbullah, which captured two Israeli soldiers and killed eight more in an attack across the Lebanese-Israeli border on July 12th and then began a rocket barrage on Israeli towns linked to a demand for an exchange of prisoners. Israel's war objective is to disable or destroy Hizbullah militarily and it has vowed to continue its campaign until that is achieved. It has been given open-ended support by the United States to do so.
This is an excessive response to unacceptable unprovoked attacks which reopened a conflict settled six years ago when Israeli forces withdrew from southern Lebanon. The Hizbullah action remains unexplained as between an attempt to convince Israel to withdraw finally from disputed territory in Lebanon, force an exchange of prisoners, act in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza or function as a proxy for Syria and Iran.
It is not surprising, in these circumstances, that Israel sees these developments as a major threat. In its response, Israel has defined Hizbullah's aggression as a Lebanese act of war. It aims to force the Lebanese government to disarm the movement and deploy the Lebanese army at the border, disregarding the likelihood that this would provoke a civil war there.
It would have been open to Israel to pursue this issue diplomatically, alongside a much more focused military campaign of self-defence. Instead, it has chosen to react maximally, taking the opportunity to attack what it regards as an outright enemy incapable of becoming a negotiating partner. It is a war of choice presented as a war of necessity, waged against Hizbullah's social base and lines of communication.
That this has involved a generalised assault on Lebanon's human and physical infrastructure testifies to Hizbullah's deep embeddedness in Lebanese society. The general damage done is more likely to create solidarity with the movement than to antagonise the Lebanese public, especially if the strictly military objectives are not achieved. To that extent, Israel's response has been not only disproportionate but will be quite self-defeating in the longer term.
An immediate ceasefire should be brokered by the international community. There is an urgent need for aid to avert a humanitarian catastrophe in Lebanon. At the United Nations, plans for a stabilisation force are being discussed.
This is certainly needed - but not just to enforce Israel's aims by other means after a ceasefire. In turn, these measures should be linked to revived peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians. The pity is that these events have rendered regional peacemaking much more difficult. Once again, the international community, including the UN, seems powerless in the face of the greatest threat of war in this new century.