Most of my friends spent their summer at the beach, studying abroad or doing grunt work at various federal agencies. I’ve spent the last few months watching my country being bombed.
I’m referring to Lebanon. Though I wasn’t born there, much of my family was. As a child I spent summers near Beirut, taking in delicious food and beautiful mountains, which contrast sharply with the bullet-ridden buildings that serve as a reminder of a costly, bloody civil war.
Throughout July and August, as Hezbollah’s guerilla army traded blows with Israeli defense forces, our family and friends have been lucky enough to either flee northward or to have survived the conflict unscathed. What’s been most difficult for me to reconcile during this war, however, is my place in two different worlds.
Admittedly, I find it easier to identify with my American side. Born in Washington, I’ve been raised on baseball, The Simpsons and unnecessarily large portions of food. Every morning during grade school I stood proudly by my flag and recited, in unison with my classmates, the Pledge of Allegiance. But sometimes it’s hard for me to understand why this “one nation, under God” continues to fail in its foreign policy, especially as it concerns the Middle East. The American reaction to this most recent conflict is, unfortunately, no exception.
Over 1,000 innocent Lebanese civilians have been killed, and southern Lebanon’s infrastructure is thoroughly ravaged. While the fighting may have stopped, unexploded cluster bombs remain scattered throughout the south and have taken nearly a dozen innocent Lebanese lives, including numerous young children, who so desperately wanted just to return home after a month of ungodly violence.
Israel is only one of many actors at fault here. Hezbollah, despite its role as a provider of essential services in southern Lebanon, provoked a response from Israel when it attacked five soldiers near the Lebanon-Israel border. While I condemn Jerusalem’s look-the-other-way approach to Lebanese casualties, I mourn the 159 Israelis killed by Hezbollah’s steady stream of rocket fire.
Lebanon deserves its share of blame too. The government, headed by Prime Minister Fuad Saniora, has little right to maintain its claims of sovereignty until it can rein in Hezbollah. It is often impossible to tell whether Saniora or Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah wields more power within the country.
This summer, before the conflict began, two professors published a relevant and much-criticized paper, “The Israel Lobby,” which claims the United States’ foreign policy is inappropriately skewed to favor Israel, in large part because of the prominence of Israel’s lobbying efforts. Even as a Lebanese-American, however, I can see the strategic value that Israel’s partnership provides the U.S. After all, Israel is a democratic ally nestled in an extremely volatile region that contains a number of our country’s sworn enemies, most prominently Iran.
Many opponents of the article decried the authors as anti-Semites. Name-calling is useless here; we should be more focused on real, meaningful efforts to reevaluate our Middle East foreign policy, including our policies towards Israel. If anything, the authors are guilty of overestimating the power of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee and failing to hold the U.S. government responsible for its actions. I do, however, fundamentally disagree with calls from the pro-Israel lobby for an American policy of disengagement. What best serves this nation is a stable Middle East, and that will never be achieved without forming other strong, lasting partnerships in the region.
Looking at the Bush administration’s handling of the situation, I see much room for improvement. First, the U.S. refused to call for a cease-fire. Then, President Bush balked on sending in troops to maintain stability on the Lebanon-Israel border. To top it all off, Bush stated on Aug. 14 that “Hezbollah suffered a defeat in this crisis.” Any truly unbiased assessment of the conflict would prove such an insinuation to be unintelligent rhetoric, a lie, or some combination of both – and it is characteristic of this president’s mishandling of our foreign affairs.
My experience highlights, at least to some degree, the difficulty many Arab-Americans have with the Bush administration’s attitudes and actions towards the Middle East. The U.S. is by far the most powerful nation in the world, yet it has rarely changed course since 1948. It has failed along the way, to foster any lasting peace in the Israel-Lebanon-Palestine region, which has been marred by violence for as long as anyone can remember.
The last time I checked, the Middle East still had its fair share of problems. Iran is busy enriching uranium. It can be argued Iraq is on the verge of a civil war. Syria is funneling Hezbollah money and weapons, and there is armed conflict between Israelis and Palestinians that seems to have no end.
It’s only logical that we now try something different. Perhaps a start would be to demand that our country’s partisan politicians, who so often pose as statesmen, work to establish better strategic diplomatic ties with more countries and actors than just Israel.
Chris Biggs is a senior government and politics major. He can be reached at cabiggs@umd.edu.
