BC profs examine Israeli conflict

The recent surge in violence between Israel and Hezbollah has once again brought the tiny Jewish state to the forefront of regional politics, with members of both sides calling for changes that rarely share common ground. The continued effort to solve the Israeli puzzle prompted Donald Hafner, a professor in the political science department, to bring two of his colleagues, Timothy Crawford and Rev. Raymond Helmick, S.J., into Devlin Hall on Tuesday to address the ongoing clash.

"Is a just and feasible solution to this conflict possible?" asked Hafner in his opening remarks. "This issue has become incredibly more complicated in the past few months," since violence between the two sides exploded after Israeli soldiers were captured by Hezbollah forces that had crossed the border.

Crawford analyzed the evolution of the strategies on both fronts of the battle. "In the battle of the narratives immediately after the war, there was this idea that Hezbollah walked away taking the cake and Israel had a disaster on its hands," he explained. "However, Israel now controls southern Lebanon and Hezbollah cannot act there. Its political freedom has been constrained. Hezbollah, meanwhile, showed some surprising effectiveness on the defensive. … There was a presumption that Arab armies could not fight well against the organization and cohesion of the Israeli military, and this has been disproven."

Helmick, who had recently visited Lebanon, described how the violence has intensified. He expressed the viewpoint of the Lebanese population in general: "Hezbollah had been operating under a pattern of using land mines, snipers, occasionally suicide bombers. When that happened, the standard response was the shelling of villages where the Israelis suspected Hezbollah cells were hiding. The Hezbollah response in return was the use of Katyusha rockets against northern Israeli villages. The Lebanese don't see this as terrorist activity. I think the level at which Hezbollah is an accepted resistance group among the general Lebanese population must be examined when looking at the current situation," said Helmick.

Most students stayed after the initial discussion to pepper the speakers with questions ranging from the possibility of Iranian involvement to the future of Palestine. Helmick commented that he believed the Lebanese populace was "eager to see a peacekeeping force" in the country, while Crawford said, "I'm cautiously optimistic about where negotiations will go from here."

Although the audience appreciated the optimistic overtones in establishing a more thorough peace in the region, a debate regarding who was to blame for the violence and how to reach a fair compromise was sparked. A notable vistor, Lebanese immigrant Charbel Batour, offered his distinct viewpoint to interested listeners after the professors had left the building. Batour, a Christian, believed that something had to be done to stop the "logic of violence" in the region before peace could be achieved. "I don't agree with Hezbollah, but I don't agree with the Israeli government's decisions, either," he said. "And I believe some of the responsibility falls on the American government. I worry that next time, both sides will take even harsher stances unless the U.S. policy changes."