Lebanon’s Neighbor from Hell: From the British Parliament Perspective

Volume 332: debated on Tuesday 4 July 1972

LORD SHINWELL

My Lords, I beg leave to ask the Question which stands in my name on the Order Paper. The Question was as follows: To ask Her Majesty’s Government for what purpose our representative voted in favour of the recent resolution of the Security Council in condemnation of Israel on the Lebanon issue.

THE MINISTER OF STATE, FOREIGN AND COMMONWEALTH OFFICE (BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE)

My Lords, we voted for the Security Council resolution because however provocative various incidents may have been upon the Israel/Lebanon Border, recent Israeli actions appeared to have gone beyond the right of self-defence.

LORD ROBBINS

My Lords, would the noble Baroness not agree that the power of the Security Council to control these disgraceful activities amounts to zero, and that for that reason any retaliatory action which may be taken by the Israeli Government in self-defence is perhaps excusable?

BARONESS TWEEDSMUIR OF BELHELVIE

My Lords, no one questions the right, under the Charter of the United Nations, to act in self-defence, but we said, as I sought to explain to the House earlier, that the abduction of certain Syrian and Lebanese personnel to Israeli territory and also the bombing of the village of Hasbaiya was really beyond the act of self-defence.

THE EARL OF ONSLOW

My Lords, would the noble Baroness confirm that 30 innocent civilians were killed and 80 wounded in the Israeli retaliatory raid and that therefore it is perfectly reasonable to condemn this over-reaction on the part of the Israelis?

Volume 26: debated on Tuesday 22 June 1982

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Francis Pym)

Everyone has been shocked by the scale and intensity of the fighting in Lebanon, and the terrible casualties, particularly among the civilian population. There has been a severity about this war which many have felt very alarming. To me, the Israeli invasion represents a major setback to prospects for a lasting peace in the region. Lebanon was torn apart in a bloody civil war six years ago, and has now been further battered by the present invasion.

…the Israelis have justified their invasion on the grounds of self-defence. But the fact remains that a State’s exercise of the right to self-defence … and whatever action is taken must be in proportion to the threat.

the quiet was broken by Israeli air raids. Only after these air raids was there artillery bombardment from the Lebanese side of the border. And it was this bombardment which was taken to serve as a pretext for the invasion.

I cannot accept that this background (bombardment at the border) justifies a full-scale armed invasion. Nor does it justify the claim to cleanse an area of 25 miles or so of Lebanese territory. And even if it did, this professed objective would seem to bear little relation to the course that the Israeli armed forces have followed since, which has led them to the outskirts of Beirut.

we certainly want to see Lebanon united under a strengthened central Government and at peace (but) a political settlement in the Lebanon, however desirable it may be, cannot justify an invasion by a neighbouring country.

It would be quite wrong for Israel to impose her own preferred political solution on Lebanon by armed force. And what is more, it would not work.

On invading Lebanon to destroy/disband the PLO

There is also the justification that is related to the PLO. We recognise Israel’s longing for security and understand her unwillingness to deal with the PLO while that organisation refuses to accept her existence and to renounce terrorism as a weapon in its armoury. But the scale of the Israeli invasion has been quite disproportionate to the objective of achieving security from terrorist attack. What is more, the destruction of the PLO’s organisation in Beirut will not, in my view, enhance Israel’s security.

Clearly Israel cannot destroy the entire Palestinian people. The PLO, whether we like it or not, enjoys widespread support among Palestinians throughout the Middle East. The destruction of the PLO’s political structure will lead to frustration and despair — the very conditions in which extremists have always flourished.

Mr. David Steel(Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles)

The invasion of the Lebanon was clearly planned and, unfortunately, the pretext for that incursion was given by the dastardly attack on the Israeli ambassador in London, Mr. Shlomo Argov.

Even if they were pursuing Mosaic law, it is an eye for an eye, not 10 eyes or 100 eyes for an eye. The retribution has been out of all proportion to the provocation … from PLO bases in the Lebanon. We should make it as clear as possible that Israeli interests are ill served by the Israeli Government’s action. Nothing could have been more calculated to lose friends and influence in the world than their actions in the past few days.

Mr. Dennis Walters (Westbury)

On 4 June that sinister terrorist Mr. Begin unleashed a merciless and unprovoked invasion of the Lebanon which he and Mr. Sharon had been preparing for more than a year. Eighteen days later, more than 10,000 Lebanese civilian dead, hundreds of thousands homeless, 16,000 dying or maimed and thousands of Palestinians killed stand testimony to the ruthless brutality of the Israeli armed forces.

In the early days of 1967 and 1970 any criticism of Israel was labelled anti-Semitic. That was a conventional form of blackmail to which we were subjected. A long time has passed, and as the civilised world looks on, shocked and aghast at events in Lebanon, but apparently incapable of doing anything, it is time that the Israelis and their supporters in this country began to feel some sense of shame about what is happening.

The main reason why peace has eluded the international community for over 30 years is that it has funked the task of compelling Israel to respect and discharge the obligations of a peace-loving State, which it accepted when it was admitted to the United Nations in 1949. Every time it has been allowed to get away with defying international censure, its arrogance has increased and its defiance has multiplied.

This is the context in which we should look at Israel’s latest adventure in invading and terrorising its Arab neighbours. Mr. Begin has said that his Government have no designs on even one inch of Lebanese territory. That, of course, is a lie. The intention may be that Israeli usurpation of Lebanese territory should be flimsily disguised by turning over nominal control of its conquests to Lebanese puppets supported by and acting in Israel’s interest.

to restructure the Lebanese State on more durable lines…is certainly no ground for condoning the bloodbath that Israel’s action has just been creating in the Lebanon.

A genuine solution of Lebanese problems needs to be worked out by the Lebanese and cannot be negotiated under the shadow of Israeli occupation.

Sir Hugh Fraser (Stafford and Stone)

I can best describe the situation regarding the State of Israel and the invasion of the Lebanon by quoting Dr. Kissinger, who said:

“No sovereign State can tolerate indefinitely the build up along its borders of a military force dedicated to its destruction”.

Mr. Frank Hooley (Sheffield, Heeley)

The nature of Israeli society was changing, and he is right. Israel now has a racist, militarist and neo-Fascist Government, and the country itself is rapidly developing into a racist society.

In March 1978 the first major invasion of the Lebanon took place — what the Israelis now call by the code word Litani I. In that process, about 1,000 people were killed, thousands were maimed and injured, and 250,000 were driven out of their homes and became refugees. The PLO fought a successful engagement on that occasion, and disengaged with its organisation more or less intact.

Now we have the exercise known as Litani II. As has been said by several hon. Members, about 10,000 people, probably more — I expect that we shall never know the true number — have been killed. Thousands more have been wounded and, according to the Lebanese Government, about 600,000 people have been driven out of their homes and turned again into refugees.

What are the objectives of the Israeli Government in this exercise? Do they seriously believe that they will be able to dictate the political map of the Lebanon? Does Israel want to destroy the PLO or massacre the Palestinian population? What precisely does Israel think it is trying to do in this bestial, savage attack that has been launched into the Lebanon, and, notionally at any rate, against the PLO? We should remind ourselves that most of the victims of the war so far have probably been the Lebanese civil population. Many Palestinians have been killed and injured, but a great many more Lebanese, who, as has been pointed out, have no quarrel at all with the Israelis, have also been injured.

What has happened in the Lebanon during the past three weeks has been a cruel, savage and unnecessary disaster resulting from actions that fall far below acceptable standards of civilised conduct. Let us all hope and pray that out of the suffering of the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples, out of the scarred streets of Sidon and out of the blackened debris of Beirut will come a new international comprehension and will to obtain a comprehensive, honourable and lasting peace. Or do we have to wait until nuclear weapons extend the limits of death and destruction beyond the confines of the Middle East?

The latest outbreak of fighting in Southern Lebanon is a flagrant breach by Israel of the United Nations charter, involving a crossing of a territorial boundary and the violation of Lebanon by Israeli forces with such ferocity and with such a deployment of military might as to cause wholly unacceptable damage to the civilian population of that country.

I have read every news item and watched every broadcast, and I am still waiting to see the Israeli Labour Party dissociate itself from the national consensus in Israel over the invasion of the Lebanon. It just does not exist.

Prior to the incursion of the Palestine Liberation Organisation the Lebanese got together a polity and made it work with what can be seen in retrospect to be political genius of a high order. That does not mean that the previous order can be restored now that Palestinian power has gone temporarily. There is a bitterness between many of the factions which has bitten deep in the Lebanon as a result of the events of the last six or seven years. In many cases there is a vested interest in fragmentation which is encrusted. One cannot be optimistic, therefore, about the forming of a respected and authoritative Lebanese Government.

Further East we see the disintegration of that lovely country, Lebanon; a country which I knew way back in the 1940s. There, I feel, we have almost reached a Humpty-Dumpty situation. I feel, to my great regret, that all the world’s horses and all the world’s men will never be able to put that lovely country back together again.