"International force" to bail Israel out? posted by Richard Seymour

If Israel is having some difficulties taking the south of Lebanon despite their obvious superiority in the means of destruction, the call from President Bush to send in an "international force" is all too predictable. It has been said that Israel must not want such a force if it bombs UNIFIL positions. True in one sense: it does not want a 'peacekeeping force' to uphold a truce while negotiations take place or anything of that kind. What it wants, and what Bush hopes to supply, is an imperial mission force. If the acronym were not already spoken for, we could call it the IMF.

Note that Bush is specifically opposed to a truce or ceasefire of any kind. The point of this "international force" would be to go in and assist Israel in controlling Lebanon. There is some doubt about who will be able to supply these troops, and the US military establishment is resisting any commitment since the army is already overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At any rate, there is a new strategy fermenting in Tel Aviv. The present prediction coming from UNIFIL is that Israel will flatten villages, flatten every single house in south Lebanon "to deny Hizbullah any advantage of urban fighting in the streets". That was the sense of Israel's claims that anyone left in south Lebanon was a terrorist of some kind and therefore a target. Deir Yassin may be about to be repeated several times over.