The German dailies analyse the situation in the Middle East. An editorial in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (27/7), commenting on the summit in Rome, speaks of “… modest results of a meeting in which the military and political protagonists, Israel and Hezbollah, Syria and Iran, did not participate… The wish was expressed to work towards a lasting truce, but it is still not possible to speak of détente” . Writing in Die Welt (26/7), Jacques Schuster observes: “Even though it seems cynical to say so, Olmert is achieving what is prescribed by Resolution 1559: disarming Hezbollah. His objective is in Europe’s interest. If the EU should really be so courageous and intrepid as to send its troops to one of the most explosive areas in the world, it must be interested in weakening Hezbollah. If not, what happened in the past to the American and French forces, which were driven out of the Lebanon in 1983 by suicide attacks, will happen again” . And the Frankfurter Rundschau (26/7), commenting on the possible sending of German troops to the area, headlines its piece “Let’s remain outside” and argues: “Sovereignty means being able to say yes. The Germans did so in Kosovo, in Afghanistan, and more recently in Congo. But sovereignty also means being able to say no. If there’s a case in which a German government must make use of its own sovereignty in this sense, it is just this. History is in the past, but the history of the Holocaust belongs to the German present. No German soldier should be placed in a situation, even a hypothetical one, of having to aim his rifle at an Israeli… That does not mean that Germany cannot play an active role in the efforts to achieve a ceasefire and resume the peace process… A humanitarian, political and diplomatic commitment is possible – and necessary”. “Was there still a need to massacre the Lebanon, already brought to its knees by the flood of Palestinian refugees in the 1970s… and now abandoned to the devastation of a brutal force in the name of security?” asks Daniel Rondeau in the French daily Le Monde (27/07). “The State of Israel has a right to defend itself”- comments Rondeau, but “what is happening concerns not so much the survival of Israel as the death of the Lebanon” , reduced “ by Israel in less than a week to exodus, poverty, solitude and death”. And yet, in the view of the journalist, “In this policy there is something suicidal for Israel; it, and more than ever the Middle East, have a need for Lebanon, an Arab country” that comprises “a Christian presence as old as Christianity itself” and “that, more than any other country, is able to counteract the seeds of hatred that are now threatening the whole world”. “Even if the violence continues on both sides of the frontier, the cards are increasingly in the hands of the diplomats” while “ the idea of sending an international force” to the area is gaining ground, says an editorial in the French Catholic daily La Croix (25/07). Hence the paradox underlined by the author of the piece: “However little seriously interested in the Middle East for the last six years, the West is now far more involved. A proof that indifference to the misfortunes of others is truly a bad counsellor”. “Don’t do it. Do not pretend, yet again. Western intervention cannot achieve what for half a century it has failed to achieve in the Middle East: a political settlement between Israelis and Palestinians”, writes Simon Jenkins in his column in the British daily, The Guardian (25/07). Jenkins finds it “ near unbelievable that anyone can propose sending foreign troops back into Lebanon, as it did in 1958, 1876 and 1982″; all this intervention failed because “neither side wanted it to succeed”. London and Washington, in particular, seem, according to Jenkins, to believe that “ military potency confers a right and a duty to intervene” on the basis of two schools of thought. “ One simply states a humanitarian obligation to show concern for those in pain, whatever the reason and whoever is to blame”, the other is based on the conviction that “ a love of freedom cannot speak for itself but must be imposed by arms”. “Intervention has brought not peace but violence to these poor peoples” which have a need instead for their agonies to be alleviated. “ I would sail the first Red Cross ship into Beirut harbour. But I would sink the first aircraft carrier” is the provocative conclusion of the article. “One could not have expected more. In other words: everything that could have done was done “, says Vittorio Emanuele Parsi in his editorial in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire (27/07) commenting on the summit in Rome. “With some precipitation – he observes – a ceasefire was defined as the prime objective” of the meeting. “ But it remains a distant goal and one that occupies in the final statement less space than the question of aid, humanitarian corridors” and Lebanese sovereignty. “An adequate international military contingent, under the aegis of the Uno, capable of guaranteeing the northern border of Israel, in a finally sovereign Lebanon and with Hezbollah demilitarized, would represent a strategic success for Israel” and “would imply the full achievement of her war objectives” but, warns Parsi, “it is hard to see why the ‘Party of God’ should look favourably on such a scenario”.
