Lebanon - Gillerman's Speech

Dan Gillerman is the Israeli Ambassador to the UN and was been so for about three years. A savvy smooth Corporate type, educated at Tel Aviv and the Hebrew University and had a successful business career before his diplomatic career.

After the not unexpected carnage in Qana, which I kind of expected, (though still nothing new having been the second time Israel has bombed Qana, the first being 20 years ago with the death of 160 people, then again in response to Hezbollah attacks on Israel) The UN Security Council was convened for an emergencu session and still sits as I'm writing this.

The Lebanese Ambassador delivered his spiel, firing the opening salvo and exhorting the Council to pass a resolution based on its conscience,( fair enough didn't know they had one) and the usual sound-bites.

Gillerman then delivered his address, these are the main points:

a. Israel deeply regrets and is sorry for the death of innocent children and would never knowingly target civilians or indeed children;

b. The bombings were in retaliation for the attacks on Israeli civilians by Hezbollah from the said locations;

c. Hezbollah had fired the Katyusha rockets from the town of Qana, hence it was a legitimate reaction;

d. That everytime there appeared to be a peaceful solution in sight, the enemies of peace (Hezbollah, Hamas, Iran and Syria) would always engineer a conflict;

e. That the reaction of Israel to the death of a Lebanese Civilian is regret however the reaction of Hezbollah to an Israeli civilian death or indeed the inadvertent killing of Lebanese civilians by Israelis is great rejoicing in Syria, Iran and Hezbollah strongholds in Lebanon;

f. That the Security Council should not allow itself to be played into the hands of the Terrorists (Syria, Iran and Hezbolla), which is what they had intended from the start.

I was personally impressed by this speech, which marked a departure from the tactless comments of Olmert, who that morning had simply stated that there would be no ceasefire.

This was a statesman-like speech, sober, realistic, frank and soundly delivered. However there is one slight problem, it was to the wrong audience. This speech quite frankly should have been delievered to the Knesset (The Israeli Parliament) and before the bombing started. The simple truth is that if anyone had allowed itself to play into the hands of the Terrorists, it was Israel. Another truth is that the greatest recruiting Agent for Hamas and Hezbollah is....Israel.

When you bomb civilian targets, what you do is simply create fertile ground for Terrorism. Hezbollah no one doubts is a vicious, cynical and cowardly terrorist organisation, even the Arab world thinks so, but the bombing of Qana has just legitimised this organisation, so in simple terms, Israel has just given Hezbollah its Charter of existence. I say a big well done to the moronic Generals in Israel who have hijacked the thought process of this campaign. This is not the Yom Kippur campaign, the dynamics have changed, completely in the last 40 years. There is no doubt that there were two severe miscalculations- a. The Hezbollah action; b. The Israeli reaction. Neither expected the reaction that followed. However Hezbollah has come out on top thanks to the Generals of Israel.

I fear the worst because the well trodden, cyclical path we well know, what scares me is the new paths that may be opened. It is necessary to mention by the way that things have moved on since my last post. The Arab world now seems to be warming to the Lebanese circumstances and that to me is extremely worrying.

Back to Gillerman's speech. I would say that this proves that there are voices of reason in Israel who can override the brainless and vicious Hawks who seem to be dictating things. I don't know how much action most of these Generals have seen, but these certainly are not of the Ilk of Dayan, Sharon and Yitzhak Rabin- in my view one of Israel's greatest Generals and by consequence the most effective advocate for peace. The impossibility of an effective annihiliation of Hezbollah by prompt ground action is slowly dawning on Israel and believe me they ought to know they're in a pickle. The airstrikes, if anyone is being honest, has no effective purpose, after all the saturation bombing of the past weeks, the Rocket attacks on Israel, if anything have increased. Its as simple as that, in addition the Israelis are taking on casualties, albeit less than Hezbollah. However the corresponding results of its ground offensive is minimal. In short if you're killing more children than Hezbollah, then something is seriously wrong with your Intelligence and Battle plan in general.

The simple fact is that Gillerman's speech shows the way forward, no matter how hard it is you cannot and should not stop the talking, no matter the cost. This is not helped by George Bush, undermining the UN and not taking a stronger stand, however I'm not going to waste my time on him. Is there hope? Well I hope so.