Israel vs Hizbollah : Lessons for Palestinians.
Described by Al-Jazeera as the 'sixth war' between ' Arabs ' and ' Israel ', the outcome of this war was unexpected for ' Arabs ' as well as for ' Israel ' ! During more than one month of intense 'military operations', the Hizb sustained raining northern Israel ( including Cities, Villages, military bases, Airports and other military targets ) with an average of 200 Katushas per day. This was viewd by the Israeli people as a 'big failure' , while a 'victory' by the Hizb and his supporters .
Away from analyzing this 'war' as a 'defeat' or a 'victory' for the Hizb or Israel , let's have a look at the lessons Palestinians should learn from this 'war'.
First : All that matters during confrontation is unity. In lebanon there are many ethnic and religious backgrounds with different, and sometimnes opposing, interests. We have the Shiaas, Sunnis, Christians ( many groups ). There are parties that have close military and friendly relations with France, Syria and Iran, USA, and possibly others. During this war, they were all ( Muslims and Christians ) UNITED under the Government that has been elected by the whole lebanese People. Even the Hizb showed much unity and respect to the governments positions ( AFTER the erruption of the war ). In Palestine we have theree major important players : Hamas, Fatah, and the Islamic Jihad. Aside from publicly criticizing each other, there were many incidents of internal fighting between these three fractions which led to the killing of tens of Palestinians ( especially in Gaza ). At the time when Fatah was forming the Government, Hamas never stopped its military 'resistance' against occupation and that surely had a very negative impact on the whole Palestinian cause.
Second : There was a solid system of reporting and documenting the Israeli violations of Human rights ( shelling civilians, using internationally banned weapons, etc ). Although we have been in confrontation with Israel for tens of years , and we were occupying the biggest spaces in all international media, we never seemed to be organized or systematic. There NEVER appeared to be enough interest in documenting the Israeli violations. We cannot see much focus on exposing the violations of the Israeli army to the international community. There are severe and serious defects in the Palestinian media and it has never proven ( to the world ) to be reliable or objective. Actually peace organizations , especially Israeli ones, gained popularity and respect in the international media. Israeli Organizations lile Betselem, Peace Now, ICAHD, and PHR are doing OUR jobs instead of us. What is more catastrophic is that we are stil totally UNAWARE of these important issues, and the kidnapping of the 2 reporters in Gaza this week proofs my point.
Third : We could easily see that there is a 'civil society' in Lebanon. Many civil organizations were immediately carrying out plans to help the refugees. Hundreds of volunteers were working to keep order in Beirot, others were helping families through supplying food and shelter. Almost all ministries were taking an active part in overcomming the crisis. During my observation of the last 10 years of confrontation in Palestine, I never saw any 'true' efforts to build any ' NGOs' or 'Support Systems' for the government. Almost all Palestinian Hospitals lack ANY real emergency plans ( even on the pure medical level ). All efforts are put on taking more support from donating countries, but SURELY no one sees any REAL improvements in the SYSTEM.
Fourth : This war has showed that no one really wins a war. Israel has lost a lot, Lebanon surely lost more. This was a huge moral defeat to Israel, it showed that arrogance can work SOMETIMNES but not always. The Israeli army thought it could win the war in few days or one or two weeks at the most, and the political leadership was , as usual, trusting the IDF. They never wanted to look at the situation ( in lebanon, Palestine, and Occupied Syrian land ) in a fair and logical way. They knew they could get it ALL through power, and ONLY power..and they went for it... but this time it simply did not work !We, as Palestinians, cannot have our rights back through force. We do not have the resources nor the ability that enables us to stand in front of Israel, but we surely can defeat them badly when it comes to the moral , human, and legal issues. We never invested REAL efforts in trying these latter weapons against Israel, actually we never invested any effort in doing ANYTHING , other than calling for more donations and more financial support.
Israel, on the other hand, has a strong system that can know exactly where the shortcommings are, learns from mistakes, and refines the performance of all the subsystems so as to learn from mistakes and 'upgrade' and refine the performance. Are we doing the same ??
Finally : it is very clear that we are far away from being professional in almost every aspect of civil life. We never put true efforst in building institutions. We even do not have enough schools and hospitals to work in the most peaceful situations. Most schools are working on a 2 shift basis and many many other hospitals are suffering serious administrative and medical problems that are ranking them as 'defective' even at ordinary loads.
It is time for us to stop talking about the history, stop analyzing and commenting on other people's affairs, and WORK serioussly, at least for ONE time, to solve our OWN problems with our OWN hands.
posted by Osaid Rasheed @ 2:09 PM
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