MB Civic

Stop Bombs, Start Talks
By PAUL SALEM
Beirut, Lebanon

THE international community should urgently insist on a cessation of hostilities. Such a measure is needed for two reasons. First, it will make it possible to organize humanitarian relief for the tens of thousands of civilians in southern Lebanon who are trapped in their villages and have already run out of water, food and basic medical supplies. Second, it would give international political efforts a chance to succeed. A week more of bombing will only delay the political process and cause further devastation and loss of life.

With a break in the violence, the international community could help the Lebanese Army assert its authority throughout the country, particularly in the southern suburbs of Beirut and in the south of the country. The political settlement to follow should induce Hezbollah to return the two soldiers it seized last Wednesday and to hand its heavy weapons over to the Lebanese Army. It should also require Lebanon and Israel to return to the Lebanese-Israeli armistice agreement of 1949, and it should insist that Israel release Lebanese captives from its jails.

— PAUL SALEM, the director-designate of the Carnegie Middle East Center.

An Appropriate Response
By RICHARD PERLE
Washington

ISRAEL must see the current fighting through to a conclusion that is unambiguously a defeat for Hezbollah and Hamas.

The world’s diplomats, always generous with advice for the Israelis, cheered when Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000. They pretended not to notice as Hezbollah poured Iranian-supplied rockets into Lebanon: first a hundred, then a thousand, then ten thousand and even more. None of the world’s foreign ministries described Israel’s failure to respond to Hezbollah’s arming as a disproportionate response to an obvious menace.

The word “disproportionate” re-emerged in recent days as a criticism of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s epiphany: Israel is a country that two terrorist organizations, Hamas and Hezbollah, are dedicated to destroying, and following the advice of diplomats to respond “proportionately” would leave those terrorists free to pursue that goal.

Israel must now deal a blow of such magnitude to those who would destroy it as to leave no doubt that its earlier policy of acquiescence is over. This means precise military action against Hezbollah and its infrastructure in Lebanon and Syria, for as long as it takes and without regard to mindless diplomatic blather about proportionality. For what appears to some to be a disproportionate response to small incursions and kidnappings is, in fact, an entirely appropriate response to the existential struggle in which Israel is now engaged. — RICHARD PERLE, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and Assistant Secretary of Defense from 1981 to 1987.

Bring In the Quartet
By AVISHAI MARGALIT
Jerusalem

WITH crisis comes hope that on all sides, people become sadder and wiser. I am sad and wise enough by now to realize that the very best option — direct negotiations among the Israelis, Palestinians and Lebanese — is unlikely. We need to turn to the next best option: substantial outside intervention based on the Saudi peace plan of March 2002. Israel’s negotiating partner should be the Arab League, led by Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The Arab League can impose its authority on the Palestinians and the Lebanese; even the Islamists might accept an initiative under its auspices as legitimate.

But this course of action is also unlikely. If it doesn’t happen, the so-called quartet (the United Nations, United States, European Union and Russia) should establish an international trusteeship over the Palestinian territories and southern Lebanon, with the goal of preparing the sides for direct negotiations. Like the trusteeship in Kosovo, this one would provide security and help the Palestinians create a viable economy and a credible negotiating team that includes all political factions.

These two options should be tried consecutively: first, the quartet should try to recruit Egypt and Saudi Arabia, so as to resurrect the Saudi plan. If this does not work, the quartet should come up with its own initiative for trusteeship. The prime mover, in any case, is the quartet, and the United States should take the first substantial step. Many of us in the Middle East are sad and wise enough to know that outside intervention is our best shot.

— AVISHAI MARGALIT, a professor of philosophy at Hebrew University and at the Institute of Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J..

Don’t Just Talk to States
By JUDITH KIPPER
Washington

THE Bush administration should give up war and rhetoric and do some meaningful diplomacy instead.

Hamas and Hezbollah, supported by Iran and Syria, have opened a new diplomatic front for the United States. President Bush should undertake a robust diplomatic initiative that, directly or through third parties, engages not only states, including even Iran and Syria, but also non-state parties to the conflict, especially Hezbollah and Hamas. Both are political parties and social welfare organizations, but their lethal military wings must be disbanded. Without engaging Hezbollah and Hamas, any diplomatic effort to end the violence permanently will fail.

Such an American diplomatic campaign would be enthusiastically supported by the international community and the Arab states. Talks should focus on difficult but achievable goals: to rebuild Lebanon physically and politically and to revive the detailed peace plan already negotiated by the parties to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and supported by a majority on both sides. From the blood and destruction in every Middle East crisis arises an historic moment for peacemaking. The president has made war; can he now make peace?

— JUDITH KIPPER, an adviser to the Middle East programs and the director of the Energy Security Group at the Council on Foreign Relations

Resolve to Put Lebanon in Charge
By CHIBLI MALLAT
Beirut, Lebanon

THE United Nations Security Council must pass a new resolution insisting that Lebanon take full charge of its territory. Already, the Lebanese and Israeli governments agree that Lebanese control is necessary; that is sufficient common ground on which to build. This new resolution would also demand that the parties fulfill the militia disarmament clause of a 2004 United Nations resolution — a requirement that, together with the need for free Lebanese presidential elections, remains unmet.

The immediate question is how to minimize casualties, bring the hostilities to a halt and make the cease-fire permanent. Hezbollah should surrender the two Israeli soldiers to the Lebanese government, and ultimately to Israel, whereupon a cease-fire will go into effect. The resolution should demand that the Israeli and Lebanese governments begin negotiations through the Security Council to address all outstanding issues that are governed by international law: borders, refugees, water, Lebanese prisoners in Israel and Lebanese citizens who collaborated with the Israeli occupation from 1982 to 2000.

To keep spoilers and extremists at bay, the Security Council should issue a stern warning that any local or regional party that obstructs the process will face grave consequences, including the seizure of assets, travel bans and the possibility of indictment for war crimes. A robust international force can help the Lebanese government assert its exclusive sovereignty over its territory against any possible Syrian, Iranian or Israeli encroachment.

— CHIBLI MALLAT, a professor of law at St. Joseph University and a candidate for president of Lebanon.

The Terrorism Trap
By RASHID KHALIDI
WASHINGTON needs to understand the real problem in Palestine and Lebanon. Viewing the current crisis through the distorting lens of terrorism, as the Bush administration and the Israeli government do, leads to the unreflective use of force.

Starting from the premise that as long as there is an occupation, there will be resistance, might instead lead the United States to undertake aggressive, multilateral diplomacy with the goal of ending Israel’s presence in the West Bank.

Although the violence that has killed hundreds of Lebanese and Palestinians and more than a dozen Israeli civilians must be halted immediately, no good can come from focusing exclusively on recent events rather than on the underlying problems, which include the denial of rights to Palestinians and the occupation of Arab lands. This crisis is rooted in Israel’s nearly 40-year occupation of Palestinian lands and its occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000.

If the American and Israeli governments do not shift their worldviews away from empty bombast about terrorism, which leads to an excessive reliance on the use of force, and toward resolving the deeper issues through diplomacy, they risk stumbling into a major conflagration, possibly involving Iran.

With 130,000 American troops in Iraq, such a conflict could be as dangerous as any since World War II.

— RASHID KHALIDI, a professor of Arab studies at Columbia University and the author of the forthcoming “The Iron Cage: The Story of the Palestinian Struggle for Statehood.”

Meet Your Enemies
By ROBERT MALLEY
Washington

THE United States must rekindle the kind of diplomatic activity that befits its status and furthers its interests. Of the six players most directly involved in the confrontation — Israel, Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria, Iran and the elected Palestinian government — the only one with which we talk is the one with which we agree. As a result, the United States, facing one of the more severe crises in decades, has been missing in action. Watching the United Nations from the sidelines, it has subcontracted diplomacy in a region it deems vital to a party it doesn’t trust.

American diplomacy should focus on immediate reciprocal and verifiable cease-fires, prisoner swaps, preliminary steps toward Hezbollah’s demilitarization and, on the Palestinian side, allowing the Hamas government to govern by easing the financial boycott. This cannot work without engaging Syria and Iran and renewing efforts to establish a comprehensive peace. None of this will be easy or tidy. But it is certainly preferable to a policy that in one breath tells innocent civilians that our thoughts are with them, and in another that the time for a cease-fire has not yet come. Our thoughts they can do without. It’s action they need.

— ROBERT MALLEY, the director of the Middle East Program at the International Crisis Group.