Two weeks ago I was in Beirut. The streets, instead of teeming with tourists, were deserted; the waiters in the cafes had no one to serve; there was a ghostly quiet. This was a city which, just a month previously, was on the up: a place to invest, to buy property, to visit on holiday. It is a tragedy that Israeli military action has driven thousands of people to flee Lebanon and could well have set Lebanon’s development back a decade.
Yet, it’s important to remember that it is Hezbollah which unquestionably bears the responsibility for unleashing this violent state of affairs. Its murderous cross-border raid into Israel on 12 July was an act of extreme and gratuitous provocation which demanded an Israeli response. Hezbollah knew full well that if it fired its rockets from the middle of Lebanese towns and villages, Israel would retaliate and many innocent civilians would die.
The world media was flooded with graphic images of that death and destruction. It is a cynical ploy that has won Hezbollah sympathy from people who should know better.
Israel has a right to self-defence. But my concern is that their tactics are not achieving their objectives. Rather than weaken Hezbollah, they risk strengthening them. Those angry and in despair become easy prey for Hezbollah’s recruitment drive.
The bloodshed has to stop as quickly as is humanly possible: it has to stop for the sake of common humanity and for the sake of the stability of the whole of the Middle East. This has been our call from the start.
But calling is not enough.
The key to stopping it is an agreement, brokered by the UN and policed by an international force, that would persuade Israel to end its attacks on Lebanon, and Hezbollah stop its attacks on Israel. It needs to include a long-term solution based on UN Security Council Resolution 1559. Hezbollah must understand that it cannot continue to act like an alternative Lebanese government that can attack Israel whenever it chooses to do so.
Most importantly, the democratically elected government of Lebanon must be helped by the international community to extend its authority all the way to the Israeli border. That means that we have to help the Lebanese army by supplying it with training, intelligence and equipment to transform it into a force capable of defending Lebanon’s sovereignty for the whole of Lebanon.
We need to provide the momentum and support that will bring about long-term progress of the region. In the first instance, security and stability. But thereafter the region needs education systems which will allow young people to reach their potential, job opportunities, economic stability and a future of prosperity. This can never be achieved through violence.
The long-running use of violence is inhibiting a collective will to progress. By committing wholly to democratic processes, with no exceptions, the path to peace and prosperity becomes more realistic. The international community should be united and determined to achieve that vision in support of the people of the region. Those who claim to be most concerned about the interests of the people of the region must reject the politics and culture of violent militancy that has seen past and current opportunities for wider peaceful political progress ruined.
This will take action by both Israel and the Arab world. Crucially, Arab governments will have to use their diplomatic skills and contacts to persuade Hezbollah’s armourers and paymasters, Iran and Syria, to stop meddling in Lebanon’s affairs. Syria and Iran have an interest in proving that they are important regional players, and having Hezbollah cause trouble in northern Israel is the most direct way of doing that. Arab governments must show them that they want peace, not a constant cycle of violence. We want Syria and Iran to make a strategic choice to play a constructive role in the region, not a destructive role.
And Israel must be brought to realise that its determination to inflict a lasting military defeat on Hezbollah, which has led to pain for Lebanon through the targeting of the Lebanese civil infrastructure – and the civilian deaths that this has caused, is further weakening the democratically elected Lebanese government, denying it the means for a peaceful democratic progression.
It is time, now, for all of those nations that care about Lebanon to get behind an international force and a reconstruction effort that can help bring peace to a shattered land.
Ultimately, of course, the way out of this endless and pointless cycle of violence is through a political solution. That means ensuring an agreed and secure border between Israel and Lebanon, besides which both populations live in peace. Also crucial to the region’s stability is for the international community to get negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians back on track, make progress towards the two-state solution and discuss the many other related disputes within the region.
It has always been the UK’s goal to achieve the conditions that will create a more permanent, lasting basis for progress in the Middle East. Addressing the underlying issues that engender instability in the region lies at the heart of our foreign policy. Not only is it right that people of the region should enjoy the same security, and the economic benefits that come with it, as other regions, but it is clearly in everyone’s interests to see the violence end.
It is not the absence of political will among the international community that is preventing progress in the Middle East. Rather it is the habitual resort to violence by regional regimes and groups as a tool to pursue their own ends that is the real block to progress. So Syria and Iran have to stop supporting terrorism, Israel has to cease its attacks on Lebanese civil infrastructure and Hezbollah has to cease its attacks on Israel. The world has to reject violence and help Lebanon get back on its feet, and support the Lebanese government in being the sole authority in Lebanon.
Kim Howells is Minister for State in the British Foreign and Commonwealth office