German Bundestag, Plenarprotokoll 21/72, pp. 8698-8699.
Herr President. Ladies and gentlemen.
With deep concern we look these days at the present developments in the Near East. While the reporting and the diplomatic attention is concentrated primarily on the situation in the Persian Gulf, the tragedy in Lebanon fades more and more from the field of vision. Yet a few days ago my last year’s IPS [International Parliamentary Scholarship] stipendiary wrote to me from the Lebanon – I cite:
"The last weeks in Beirut were simply a daily struggle for survival in war, especially after the 160 simultaneous attacks on the Lebanon last Wednesday. I was today at work, and the atmosphere was apocalyptic - the roar of the onslaught, the ambulances' sirens, the chaos in the streets. It felt as if one were in a very gloomy movie from which there is no escape, since the attacks hit so many of Beirut's civilian areas. This day alone claimed 375 dead and 1,223 wounded!"
Ladies and gentlemen, at this current affairs hour today, it is thus important to again focus on the situation in Lebanon, and certainly when a ten-day ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel was announced. Since the military operations of the U.S.A. and Israel against Iran and its leading persons at the end of February, and the massive escalation by the Hezbollah at the beginning of March, Lebanon is again in flames. The Israeli operation Eternal Darkness has the declared aim of destroying Hezbollah’s military infrastructure and leadership infrastructure in all Lebanon, and to so lastingly weaken this terror organization that it in the long view no longer presents a threat to Israel.
It is clearly the legitimate obligation and international legal preserve of a sovereign state to protect the physical integrity of its citizens against a permanent terrorist threat. Israel however also reaps hefty criticism for its attacks in the Lebanon. According to international law, indeed as per the fundamental of military necessity in an armed conflict, all military measures are allowed and legitimate for the militarily necessary fight against opposing parties in a conflict, and are not forbidden by humanitarian international law. Yet UN Secretary-general Guterres, among others, is evidently most deeply alarmed over the rising number of civilian victims. We thus demand of all parties to the conflict to observe the precept in humanitarian international law of the minimization of violence and protection of the civilian populace.
Nevertheless, so as to attain a strategic solution by intervention in the crisis, we need to analyze beyond simple narrative Lebanon’s complex interior structures. In the European debate is often underestimated that the Hezbollah acts as a classic hybrid agent, since it is more than just a terror militia. By means of the construction of para-state structures in education, healthcare and in the economy and finance sector, it has established a power monopoly in Lebanon. It has thereby filled every vacuum which has arisen through decades-long war and the chronic failure of state institutions. There is thus for the Lebanese government a strategic dilemma of existential degree.
The repeated international demand for a disarmament of Hezbollah – here today again brought forward – impacts a state the regular armed forces of which are far inferior to the highly armed Iranian militia in terms of material, operations and logistics. A forced crackdown in Beirut, as a result of external pressure – often demanded – would nevertheless not lead to the disarmament of Hezbollah. It would on the contrary ultimately destroy the country’s already fragile stability, and massively increase the risk of a new civil war. Ladies and gentlemen, hereby the Lebanese dilemma becomes a geo-political problem; for a permanent regional peace is not imaginable without the complete disarmament of Hezbollah.
The previous attempts of the United Nations as observer and counselor have nevertheless failed completely. The balance of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, UNIFIL for short, which will end this year after two decades more or less without result, is thus especially disillusioning. The United Nations presence on the scene could neither prevent the massive armament of Hezbollah, certainly not guarantee the control of ocean transport in the Lebanon, nor strengthen the state sovereignty in southern Lebanon.
Thus, for the future, forceful consequences need be drawn. A new UN mission, currently in talks, needs to pursue a clear goal to actively strengthen the power structures of the legitimate Lebanese government, and to purposely diminish Hezbollah’s ability to act. These military and security components need be accompanied by compulsory policy. In the current negotiations in Washington, there needs be at the center the linkage of security guarantees for the Lebanon and a robust build-up of the state.
Security for Israel and the reconstruction of the Lebanese sovereignty are not competing goals. They are two sides of the same coin. Only a sovereign Lebanon, which is in position to exercise the monopoly of force in its entire state territory, can be a reliable guarantor for a stable peace in the region and so also increase Israel’s security.
Many thanks.
[trans: tem]
