jon@sdcrdcf.UUCP (Jonathan Gingerich) (10/01/86)
I saw an excellent short analysis of France's troubles in Lebanon in the L A Times which I will summarize. There are three elements making up the problem. The bombings in France, attributed to a fringe Maronite (Christian) Marxist family attempting to extort a member out of French Prison, the kidnappings of Frenchmen in Beirut believed prompted by Iran and carried out by the Hezbollah to pressure France's pro-Iraqi policy, and finally attacks against the French units of the UN forces by the Hezbollah. The first clearly is unrelated to the others. The last is directed against the French only because the French make up a large component of the peace keeping force. Nor is it a 'Muslim' expression of hostility, as previously the majority of attacks upon the peace keeping forces were by the Southern Lebanese Force, an Israeli surrogate. The Hezbollah is motivated by the desire to take the fight to the Israelis. The Amal miltia wants nothing to do with that and is actively defending the UN troops. I post this for two reasons. First the discussion has degenerated into captious rhetorical stances devoid of information. Secondly, I think the original point is important, that there is NOT an international terrorist conspiracy linking France's troubles and Libya's machinations. Giving terrorists more importance and especially more publicity than necessary makes terrorism more effective and more likely to be used. I think the sober realization that a handful of people can cause a great deal of pain and there is little we can do about this will be the most effective thing we can do in the long run. Without excusing the cruel and unjust nature of terrorism, we do need to address underlying problems. One can argue whether the colonial legacy of Lebanon's demographics would have led to her problems without the Israeli-Palestinian war being fought all over her, but it is difficult to imagine things being worse if we had pursued a more active and realistic peace plan. I believe we are still party to an agreement to negotiate autonomy for the Palestinian. Why is this so much harder to do than bombing Libia? Jonathan Gingerich