Why doesn't the international community help Lebanon?

 

The international community won't interfere for a while. There's no support for an immediate intervention anywhere. America will veto any UN security council resolution to help Lebanon, as they have already done this week, in fact.

In any case, world public opinion is against Lebanon. I'll try to explain why.

Firstly, although many Lebanese conveniently choose to forget, everybody else in the world remembers with horror and hatred the Hezbollah's kidnapping, torturing and murdering of western and Lebanese civilians for so many years in the 1980s.

Many Lebanese might see Hezbollah these days as they have reinvented themselves, heroes of the resistance. We remember them as terrorists who committed terrible atrocities.

Many of my colleagues at the American University of Beirut and Beirut University College were abducted, detained in chains, tortured, humiliated, sold and murdered. Three of my colleagues were sold and murdered, their bodies dumped on a roadside. Several more have had their lives completely destroyed by their hostage experience and the nightmare did not end on release.

When I helped to free a young boy from the Israeli-run Khiam prison camp in south Lebanon, I did it by attracting the attention of the world press to the fact that what Israel was doing to Ali Tayebi was as bad an atrocity as what Hezbollah had done to my colleague Brian Keenan. That's why my two posters were more effective than Amnesty International's 20,000 postcards. Because everyone knew and revolted against what terrible things Hezbollah had done to Brian: that's why Ali and his father were released a few days later.

So most westerners will be happy to see Hezbollah wiped off the face of the earth.

Secondly, we also remember that Hezbollah's avowed aim is to make Lebanon an Islamic state. To achieve that the country must first be completely destabilised and destroyed.

So when Lebanon is destroyed, we see that that's what Hezbollah want. They're happy.

To the west, it looks as if all Lebanese support Hezbollah because the Lebanese government didn't disarm and disband them when it got rid of all the other militias and nobody has stopped them attacking Israel for the last 15 years.

If Lebanon really wanted its occupied territory back from Israel, the right way to act would have been for the Lebanese army to attack Israel. Instead, Lebanon has used the hated Hezbollah. And not only that, calls them "heroes of the resistance".

To Europeans, the word "resistance" means the French resistance against the Nazis. To apply the word to a bunch of thuggish terrorists is felt to be an insult to people who really were true heroes during World War II.

Also, a lot of Lebanese people were seen in our media celebrating happily when Hezbollah announced they'd captured two Israeli soldiers so naturally we see Lebanese as supporting terrorists.

So, we see Lebanese as supporting Hezbollah. We know Hezbollah want the total destruction of Lebanon to achieve their aim of an Islamic state. Therefore, they and their supporters should all be happy with the present situation so why should any of us move to stop this war?

Thirdly, the 9/11 attack on America and the 7/7 bombings here in London have really made many people anti-Moslem. To most westerners, Lebanon is a Moslem country because they think the whole Middle East is Moslem (most westerners are as ignorant as most Lebanese about the world outside their own little area).

So again, the feeling is why should anyone feel sympathy for the Lebanese when Moslems had no sympathy for the civilians who were killed in 9/11 and 7/7? Many were openly gloating on the streets here in London, which naturally fuelled hatred against them.

Fourthly, Lebanon is seen as Arab and westerners have good reasons to dislike Arabs. The Iraqis were too cowardly themselves to fight to get rid of Saddam Hussein and left their dirty work to America and Europe. The Kuwaitis were too cowardly to fight when Saddam invaded Kuwait and left their dirty work to America and Europe. The Saudis, Emiratis, Bahrainis,Qataris and Omanis were too cowardly to defend their own countries at that time and left their dirty work to America and Europe. The Yemenis and Palestinians openly hailed Saddam as a hero for invading Kuwait.

America and Britain fought these battles out of self-interest, for the oil, just as America supports Israel from self-interest because of the strong Jewish lobby. But the Arabs used westerners because they couldn't or wouldn't fight for themselves.

Now the Americans and Europeans have done the Iraqis' dirty work for them, getting rid of Saddam's corrupt and repressive government, the Iraqis suddenly have the courage to fight - and to attack the very people who saved them from Saddam!

The same happened in Lebanon twice - under Camille Chamoun in 1957 and again when the American base at the airport and the American embassy were bombed in 1983. Many Lebanese choose to have short memories but other people remember and learn from their past mistakes. If America or Europe intervenes on Lebanon's behalf now, the ungrateful Lebanese will probably only attack us, as they did twice before and as the Iraqis are doing now. So why should anyone help the Lebanese?

This is how Arabs and Lebanese have used westerners so maybe you can understand why Americans and Europeans are against them for their cowardice and hypocrisy. This is the general feeling here - a BBC online poll shows most Britons think Lebanon deserves what it's getting right now. I'm sure it's similar in the rest of Europe and in America.

We also see almost every day on our news Arab suicide bombers killing innocent civilians in Palestine and Iraq, which again makes normal, decent people despise Arabs.

Fifthly, Lebanese are still seen as violent people because of all the atrocities committed during the war. For years and years, all westerners saw of Lebanon was war scenes and war crimes committed by Lebanese people. It was like Northern Ireland, it all went on so long that Beirut became a byword for violence and sickening behaviour, just the same as Belfast.

That impression hasn't changed because there has been nothing in the western media about Lebanon's peacetime - peaceful existence isn't news! So Lebanese are seen as people who like violence, and again this means no sympathy for them now.

I wish I had some hope that the international community would do something to change the situation but I don't have much. I feel helpless to do anything except send the Lebanese people (but not Hezbollah) moral support and prayers.

I think any change in international public opinion will only come about when Lebanon has been thoroughly destroyed, many many civilians have suffered, many many civilians have been displaced, wounded and killed and Lebanon faces a humanitarian crisis of huge proportions. Then perhaps the world will regard Israel's actions as heinous, pity Lebanon and DO something; too little too late.