Lebanon between Israel and France

So, what are the “profound changes” that arrogant Macron has demanded before he returns to Beirut on Sept 1?

On August 4, two consecutive explosions rocked the port of Beirut, in Lebanon. The extremely powerful twin blasts left a 43-metre deep crater in the port and a $3 billion destruction to the city.

Was this blast a result of negligence or was it a terror attack? Owing to Lebanon’s weak governance, perhaps this question, of how the 2,750 kilograms of dry, granular ammonium nitrate lying at the port for the past six years, turned into an explosion all of a sudden, without the aid of an equal amount of explosive material around it, will remain unanswered.

The twin blasts remind us of the 9/11 Twin Towers on two accounts, because it too was never conclusively resolved and like 9/11, the Beirut blast will also change the way things are done around the world. Perhaps the loss of 200 lives, wounding 6,000 and the displacement of 300,000 from their shattered homes, will help in altering the equation of the Middle East that has gone all wrong in Iraq and Syria, and where Lebanon has long been seen as a ticking bomb that Israel is all too ready to strike at.

The narrative of Israel being behind this attack is not without precedence. After the last Israel-Hezbollah war (2006), skirmishes have been ongoing between the two, and Hezbollah has only been emboldened by Iran’s presence in Syria, and Israel has become increasingly wound up of their presence since then.

In 2017, when President Michel Aoun said of Hezbollah that it is an integral part of the country’s government and that “as long as Israel continues to occupy lands… we feel the need to have the resistance army” and that “it is an essential part of Lebanon’s defense”, Israel’s defense minister Naftali Bennett had given a vicious reply that the “next Lebanon War must hit civilians where it hurts… Lebanese institutions, its infrastructure, airport, power stations, traffic junctions, Lebanese Army bases — they should all be legitimate targets if a war breaks out…”. These types of threats have been repeated, only last month Netanyahu when threatened of “a powerful response” and that “Hezbollah is playing with fire.”

And there has been more precedence — Israel’s failure to annex the West Bank decisively on its intended date because of international pressure and for fear of a Palestinian intifada, and because especially when Hezbollah stands as the last bastion of active resistance in the Middle East, just across the border in Lebanon, doesn’t make Beirut an easy pill to swallow. Some might think that making the UAE diplomacy move indicates that Israel wants to slow down and make more grounds in the Gulf before making a decisive move. But others would know that the reaping from the twin blasts and the UAE move were two very long jumps taken under the cover of a seemingly lost annexation. The same Lebanon that the French had carved out of Syria in 1926 under their mandate, as a Christian anchor and gateway into the Middle East, that would become a pillar of support for Israel, has now become the thorn in the flesh that is making the reaping of Middle East for Israel ever more difficult.

And how do you reap the Beirut Explosion? First, in this utter devastation, hundreds of protesters hit the streets of Lebanon, many showing placards against their government, against Hezbollah; and as the whole cabinet resigns under pressure of these protests, then they literally demand that Lebanon should go back under the French mandate.

One should not be so naïve as to forget the previous Arab Springs, when same such placards calling for NATO’s intervention were shown on mainstream media. One should not forget how social media and a bunch of protesters were used then too. So, is Lebanon bracing for a final Arab Spring?

Macron’s readiness certainly shows that he was prepared for the act; within three days he was in the middle of the protesters in the streets of Beirut, promising that he would be the saviour of Lebanon. He said, “France will never let Lebanon go”, just like it hasn’t let go so many of the Francophone states in north and sub-Saharan Africa, where it still holds political and military sway. Only that these things don’t get space in the mainstream media, where France is portrayed as a weakening state.

Surely, the Lebanese government is to blame for the $80 billion debt they have incurred upon their people. They must go. But should not all those international organisations go too that create this kind of debt trap for already failing economies — repeating the same they did to Greece, Ireland, Portugal, Spain and Cyprus before?

So, what are the “profound changes” that arrogant Macron has demanded before he returns to Beirut, his “newly-found kingdom of hope” on September 1? They are “significant reforms in the energy sector, customs, public markets and Lebanese central bank”, perhaps another version of the CEDRE 2018 Conference in Paris, wherein liberal budget reforms were enacted on the Lebanese economy. Note here that ‘liberal’ means ‘austerity’ for the people and ‘open-markets’ for corporate investors. So that while investors sip cheap oil from the bays of Lebanon, the people would be getting ‘more loans’ just to survive.

In this backdrop, Lebanon has also received a Russian delegation headed by the Deputy Minister for Civil Defense and Emergencies and Iranian Minister of Foreign Affairs Javad Zarif, both offering to repair Beirut. And perhaps, Lebanon must be at this time, weighing between a Western intervention or a Russian/Iranian intervention, a bitter choice they will have to make, because French and British warships have already docked in Lebanon’s ruined port on the pretext of bringing aid. Palestinians will also be eagerly looking at the choice made, because they too are stuck between docile Arab states who would rather give them away for retaining their comfortable status quo — and an Iran-Syria-Russia influence that will help the resistance and keep the Palestine Cause alive.

Last year when the United States recognised Golan Heights as part of Israel, President Aoun visited Russia, offering Putin to make a counter-US-Middle East policy. Lebanon hosts a million Syrian refugees, refugees that Europe won’t accept. Refugees that were created because of France and Britain’s backing of the Syrian war. Aoun talked to Putin about helping the return of these refugees and gave Russian oil giant Rosneft a contract for northern Lebanon oilfields; perhaps the battle for Lebanon had started then!

Published in The Express Tribune, August 21^st, 2020.

Like Opinion & Editorial on Facebook, follow @ETOpEd on Twitter to receive all updates on all our daily pieces.