Alberto Cremonesi

NEW YORK, Aug 25 2006 (IPS) — As a multinational peacekeeping force is slowly assembled at the United Nations to preserve the tenuous ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah, U.S. peace activists say the work toward a comprehensive settlement has only begun.

And many say the recent escalation of tensions in the region can be directly traced to U.S. foreign policy, particularly Washington’s adamant support for Israel and the invasion and continuing occupation of Iraq.

On Thursday, more than 120 U.S. coalitions and groups signed a letter of solidarity with people in the Middle East denouncing the “indiscriminate attacks on civilians, whether Lebanese, Palestinians, Iraqis, or Israelis, and the horrific death, destruction, and displacement that is taking place.”

“The aim of this letter is to let people in Middle East, suffering the enormous burden of this war, know that in this difficult moment are not alone. We are doing everything we can to stop the carnage and to come to an end of this difficult situation,” Hany Khalil, organising coordinator of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), told IPS.

UFPJ was the first signatory of the letter, which is being circulated in the United States and Middle East. “I really think that the political effort of peace movements worldwide helped the U.N. to agree on a ceasefire, even though it seems to be very fragile,” he added.

The fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, which began on Jul. 12 and ended with more than 1,300 Lebanese dead and about 150 Israelis, triggered an international response by peace groups, with rallies, marches, press conferences and a global petition to stop the war containing 200,000 signatures from over 100 countries.

UFPJ also organised a demonstration on Jul. 21 in front of the U.S. Mission to United Nations in New York, where activists delivered a letter to U.S. Ambassador John Bolton urging active support for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza.

Finally, on Aug. 11, the U.N. Security Council passed Resolution 1701, which called for “a full cessation of hostilities” and ordered Israel to provide the U.N. with maps of landmines planted in southern Lebanon during its 22-year occupation of the country.

“Now that a U.N. resolution has been adopted, the role of NGOs and other organisations is to try to make sure that it will be fully implemented, as well as to support a bolder attempt for peace and negotiations,” Mark Rosenblum, founder and policy director of Americans for Peace Now (APN), a leading U.S. Jewish peace group, told IPS.

“If someone lost this war, it is civilian people on both sides, in terms of lives and casualties,” he added.

While APN believes that Israel had a right to defend its territory and citizens, it says that in doing so, Israel must ensure that its military goals are defined and achievable, and the means used to achieve them minimise harm to innocent civilians.

Most peace activists also lay blame on Hezbollah for seizing Israeli soldiers and setting the latest conflict in motion. Nevertheless, as Yasmin Hamidi, facilitator for the Network of Arab-American Professionals’ (NAAP) Media Committee, told IPS during a recent briefing by Lebanese evacuees in New York, “The bombing has actually increased the support for Hezbollah among Lebanese people because Israel has done much more damage than Hezbollah.”

Clovis Maksoud, director of the Centre for the Global South at American University in Washington, believes that, “The NGOs and humanitarian organisations from all over the world not only raised awareness of the tragic consequences of Israel’s ruthless and reckless destruction of the Lebanese social and economic fabric.”

“But they constituted the constituency of conscience that not only healed the physical wounds of the Lebanese people, but also emboldened the Lebanese people to withstand and overcome the possibility of despair,” he told IPS.

Others stress the fact that the Security Council has brokered a deal to end hostilities in the month-long war is simply the first step in a long and difficult process.

“The achievement of an U.N. resolution is not sufficient – we have to be sure that it will also be implemented on the ground,” Rosenblum said.

Stephen Zunes, Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy In Focus Project, notes in an analysis of the resolution that “it calls on Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon ‘in parallel’ with Lebanese army forces as they moved into positions throughout that part of the country. The lack of a timetable, however, has raised concerns that a full Israeli withdrawal might take many months.”

In addition, he says, “The compromise language of the resolution… makes no reference to the widespread evidence that Israel – with strong encouragement from the (George W.) Bush administration – had actually been planning this assault on Lebanon for many months or that Israel had repeatedly violated Lebanese air space and engaged in other border violations in the months and years leading up to the July 12 attack…”

Finally, the resolution calls for the “unconditional release of the abducted Israeli soldiers” seized by Hezbollah inside Israel, he says, but only for “encouraging” efforts to settle the issue of Lebanese prisoners currently being held in Israel.

“The resolution’s ‘unclear’ items make it subject and amenable to varied interpretations and this is going to be evident in the coming weeks of devising its implementation,” said Maksoud, who is also the former ambassador of the League of Arab States to the United Nations and India.

“Perhaps the most problematic issue is that there is no reference to an investigation of what Human Rights Watch rightly describes as war crimes,” he said.

Underlining the continuing importance of NGOs in promoting peace in the region, Rosenblum said, “The work has just begun – there a lot of problems we have to deal with.”