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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 12-Jul-06
Israel mobilizes reserves and invades Lebanon

Web Log - July, 2006

Israel mobilizes reserves and invades Lebanon

Calling Hizbollah capture of Israeli soldiers an 'act of war', Olmert promises "very painful and far-reaching" response.

Israel's incursion into Lebanon is just one of several escalations to the Mideast situation in the last day.

For several days, there have been news reports of IDF (Israeli Defense Force) plans for a new "major assault" into Gaza, and it began on Tuesday evening with an incursion into central Gaza that cut the strip in two.

Several Hamas officials, but also several civilians, were killed when Israel dropped a quarter-ton bomb on the Gaza home of a Hamas official.

On Wednesday morning, the Lebanese militia group Hizbollah crossed the Lebanese border into northern Israel, killed three Israeli soldiers and took two more as hostages, bringing them back to a "safe place" in Lebanon.

How the day unfolded, July 12, 2006 <font size=-2>(Source: <i>Times Online</i>)</font>

How the day unfolded, July 12, 2006 (Source: Times Online)

What makes Olmert's declaration that the capture of the Israeli soldiers is an "act of war" is particularly significant because Olmert is accusing the Lebanese government, as opposed to the Hizbollah militia, of an act of war.

(Evening update: According to an analysis by Times Online, Hizbollah's actions today are "hugely popular" among Arabs increasingly furious about the Israeli incursion into Gaza. Hizbollah's actions are fully supported by Syria and Iran, supporting the view given below that these countries, especially Iran, are interested in provoking a war, with Iran to be left as "the last country standing.")

However, the Lebanese government has little control over Hizbollah, which actually has close relations to Syria, Lebanon's perennial enemy, and to Iran.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, there's a patchwork quilt of differences among these countries.

Mideast, showing Israel/Palestine, Muslim countries, and Orthodox Christian countries

Mideast, showing Israel/Palestine, Muslim countries, and Orthodox Christian countries

Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are all on the World War I timeline, having all been part of the (Muslim) Ottoman Empire centered in Turkey. The Ottoman Empire was destroyed in the aftermath of WW I. As regular readers of this web site know, genocidal crisis wars tend to come in 70-90 year cycles, and all of these countries have had their next crisis wars. I've discussed the Iran/Iraq war of the 1980s many times on this web site.

A crisis civil war began in Lebanon in 1975, and it became a war with Syria in 1976. Israel was an off-and-on participant, and the war reached an explosive climax in 1982 when Christian Arab forces, allied with Israel, massacred and butchered hundreds or perhaps thousands of Palestinian refugees in camps in Sabra and Shatila.

Thus, all four of these nations -- Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon -- have all had relatively recent generational crisis wars, and the traumatized populations are in no mood for another genocidal experience. Thus, using the terminology of "chaotic attractors" (in the sense of Chaos Theory) that I've explained many times on this web site, political events in Palestine and Israel are "attracted to war," but political events in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon are "attracted away from war."

But that wouldn't prevent any of these nations from participating in the Israeli-Palestinian war by proxy -- by supplying weapons or other support, and this appears to be what's happening.

The Lebanese government actually has good relations with the United States, and is cooperating with the FBI investigation of the recently revealed al-Qaida plot to blow up New York's train tunnels. Lebanon arrested the prime suspect, Assem Hammoud, and made information from Hammoud's computer available to the FBI.

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However, Lebanon became sharply split last year when beloved former prime minister Rafiq Hariri was killed by a suicide bomber in Beirut. Most Lebanese blamed the killing on Syria, and the Lebanese became polarized into pro-Syria and anti-Syria factions, with the militia group Hizbollah leading the pro-Syria group.

Since that time, Hizbollah has been developing a close 'mentor' relationship with Hamas, and is encouraging further Palestinian terrorist attacks on Israel.

Iran, through its President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has repeatedly expressed the intention to "wipe Israel off the map." As we wrote last January, Iran is positioning itself to be the "last country standing" after an Israeli-Palestinian war, to gain hegemony over the entire Mideast for decades to come. In addition, Iran appears to be joining with China as part of a new "axis" in the coming "Clash of Civilizations" world war, undoubtedly making plans to split the world between them.

The situation between Israelis and Palestinians moves measurably towards war each and every day, and full-scale war cannot be much farther off, as Israelis and Palestinians become increasingly enraged with each other.

From the point of view of Generational Dynamics, we can see that the war between Israelis and Palestinians will be bloody and genocidal, like the war they fought in the late 1940s, after the partitioning of Palestine when the state of Israel was created, and also very much like the 1994 Rwanda genocide, and the genocidal war being fought in Darfur today. Of course, America and Europe will also be drawn into a major Mideast war as well.

But the role of Hizbollah, Lebanon, Syria and Iran remains to be seen. They'll certainly be supplying weapons and logistics to the Palestinians, but whether they also supply armies to the Palestinians remains to be seen. On the other hand, with so much violence spreading so quickly, undoubtedly including the use of weapons of mass destruction, it may not make any difference what they'd like. (12-Jul-06) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 12-Jul-06 Israel mobilizes reserves and invades Lebanon

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 12-Jul-06
Israel mobilizes reserves and invades Lebanon