Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, September/October 2006, pages 32-33

European Press Review

Israel Has Committed “War Crimes,” Says The Independent’s Robert Fisk

By Lucy Jones

“Out of proportion,” was how France’s Le Monde of July 14—Bastille Day—described Israel’s response to the capture of two of its soldiers by Hezbollah militants.

“As always,” the newspaper editorialized, “Israel...is responding by using disproportionate military force, in violation of international law.”

The view was shared by Belgium’s De Standaard, which, on the same day, described the Israeli move on Lebanon as “an act of war.”

Spain’s El Mundo of July 14 agreed, saying that while Israel has reason to feel threatened, the solution to “terrorist provocation” does not lie in “massive indiscriminate attacks on its neighbors.”

In Britain, after declaring itself a “pro-Israeli newspaper” which supports “the right of Israel to exist,” The Independent on July 16 also condemned Israel’s offensive.

“It is precisely because we are pro-Israeli that we are so critical of the response of Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, to terrorist attacks,” the newspaper explained. “In both the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, Mr. Olmert has elected to impose collective punishment on entire populations for the sins of a tiny minority.”

The Independent’s Robert Fisk reported on July 24 that the Israelis “ordered the villagers of Taire, near the [Lebanese] border, to leave their homes and then—as their convoy of cars and minibuses obediently trailed northwards—the Israeli air force fired a missile into the rear minibus, killing three refugees and seriously wounding 13 other civilians.

“For the second time in eight days,” Fisk wrote, “the Israelis have committed a war crime.”

Germany‘s Sueddeutsche Zeitung of July 19, however, expressed sympathy toward Olmert, describing him as “trapped.” The Lebanon offensive will “aggravate hatred of Israel across the world,” the newspaper noted.

“The longer this war waged for the purpose of deterrence lasts and the more civilian casualties it causes in Lebanon,” it commented, “the more the images of destruction will push the party responsible for the war, Hezbollah, into the background.”

Looking toward a possible solution, Britain’s Financial Times of the same day welcomed United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s call for an international force to stabilize south Lebanon.

The Lebanon offensive will “aggravate hatred of Israel across the world.”

“The U.N. force would need to be bigger even than the force of about 10,000 that Mr. Annan and European Union leaders appear to be contemplating,” the newspaper said. “[But] it should be possible to build this out of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1559, jointly sponsored by the U.S. and France in 2004, which, in addition to calling for Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon, mandates the disarmament of remaining militias and the deployment of Lebanon’s army throughout the country, including to the border with Israel.”

The U.K.’s Daily Telegraph commentator Con Coughlin took a different tack, warning on July 21 that the crisis in Lebanon was diverting world attention away from Iran’s uranium enrichment program.

“Just as world leaders were steeling themselves to confront the threat that Iran’s nuclear program poses to international security (the subject was also due for discussion [at the] G8 summit in St Petersburg), two Israeli soldiers were kidnapped by Hezbollah, Iran’s proxy militia in southern Lebanon, thereby lighting the current conflagration,” he wrote.

“Just how much responsibility Tehran bears for initiating hostilities remains unclear,” Coughlin added, but certain facts are now emerging that indicate the timing of the Israeli soldiers’ abduction was no coincidence.”

In the same edition, the Daily Telegraph editorialized that, in the short term, Ehud Olmert would prevail. 

“But after the current campaign is over, he and his allies will still be confronted by the long-term ambitions of Iran to dominate the Gulf and destroy the Jewish state,” the newspaper concluded.

7/7 “Has Barely Changed Us,” Says The Guardian’s Jonathan Steele

On the one-year anniversary of the London bombings, British newspapers reflected on how little life has changed in the city.

“The many predictions made that Londoners would never use the transport network as before, or that they might flee the city or turn on those in their midst who shared the faith of the four men who were responsible for the atrocities, have shown to be shallow,” The Times commented on July 7.

“This is not only because ‘life has to go on’: people have chosen that life will carry on, not forgetting 7/7, but not being a prisoner of that date either. Which is why the bombings were a plot that failed,” the newspaper concluded.

“One year on,” wrote Jonathan Steele in that day’s The Guardian, “it seems an event that many thought would mark a collective watershed has barely changed us.

“From our habits of leisure and transport, to our attitudes to politics, to the way we live with each other, the bombings have not had the impact many expected,” he observed.

“Down the years our enemies’ biggest mistake has been to underestimate us,” editorialized the July 7 edition of the tabloid newspaper, The Sun. “They have failed to recognize the stubborn strength that is central to the British character.”

That day’s Financial Times, however, remarked that little still is known about the process of Islamic radicalization.

“Our approach to the assimilation of minorities is muddled,” the newspaper contended. “Our leaders are mostly in denial about how policies seen as anti-Muslim are feeding the wellsprings of hatred.

“The failures of integration are part of the problem,” it continued. “Neither the British laisser vivre approach nor France’s more muscular secularism have prevented the marginalization of Muslim minorities.”

The Independent of July 7 criticized the government for not holding a public inquiry into the bombings. “The attacks constituted the greatest peacetime atrocity this country has known,” it pointed out. “The various police inquiries...are no substitute for a comprehensive investigation conducted in the public eye.”

“Tony Blair’s remark that [an inquiry] would confirm what we already know—that four individuals committed this act—simply begs the question,” echoed that day’s Daily Telegraph. “Even more risible is [Culture Secretary] Tessa Jowell’s objection on grounds of cost.”

Poll: 13 Percent of U.K. Muslims Consider London Bombers Martyrs

A July 4 London Times/Populus poll found that more than 9 of 10 British Muslims believe that they make a valuable contribution to British society, and that two-thirds say their community needs to do more to integrate with it.

“That is heartening,” noted an editorial in that day’s Times. “A high estimation of self-worth is a prerequisite for the moral underpinning necessary to become a good citizen. To respect the society in which one lives—and to wish more fully to be part of it—is the best defense against the kind of marginalized revulsion in which extremism flourishes.

“Just as heartening,” The Times continued, “is the finding that almost nine out of ten British Muslims have close personal friends who are not Muslims.”

However, the poll also found that while only 16 percent of British Muslims believe the London bombers’ cause was just, some 13 percent consider them to be martyrs. “That is not a statistically insignificant figure,” The Times said, noting that “It translates as 234,000 people.”

“Britain’s many Muslim associations, bodies, societies and mosques that claim to speak, often cacophonously, for their religion, must do more to get this figure down. The majority of Muslims must be prepared to show leadership and not allow themselves to be intimidated by a raucous minority,” the newspaper concluded.

According to the June 23 Guardian, a poll by the Washington-based Pew Global Attitudes Project found British Muslims to be the most embittered in the Western world. While the overwhelming majority of European Muslims said Westerners were respectful of women, fewer than half of British Muslims agreed. Only 32 percent of Muslims in the U.K. had a favorable opinion of Jews, compared with 71 percent of French Muslims. The poll also found that British Muslims were more likely than their European counterparts to harbor conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks. Only 17 percent thought Arabs were involved, compared with 48 percent in France.

“Across the board,” the newspaper reported, “Muslim attitudes in Britain more resembled public opinion in Islamic countries in the Middle East and Asia than elsewhere in Europe.”

International Community Called on To intervene in Gaza

Several European newspapers commented on the worsening situation in Gaza. Any hope linked to Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip has been dashed, said Germany’s Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung of July 13. “At the moment the spiral of violence seems unstoppable,” it editorialized.

Germany’s Die Tageszeitung said the same day that the “pointless escalation” of violence shows that the international community must intervene.

“Today we are paying the price for the fact that the U.S., Europe and the U.N. did not force Israel and the Palestinians to make concessions a long time ago,” it opined.

Spain’s El Pais of July 13 thought the situation in Gaza “so serious” that the territory could be “on the threshold of a humanitarian catastrophe without precedent.” Both Hamas and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert are “acting irresponsibly,” it commented, calling on the U.S. and EU to take “more drastic measures than simple calls for calm.”

“Bombing bridges may have some military logic, but the destruction of a power station seems intended solely to intimidate and inflict collective punishment,” editorialized the UK’s Guardian on June 29.

“No other purpose is achieved by cruelly depriving hundreds of thousands of ordinary Gazans of their electricity supply (and shutting down water pumps) in the sweltering heat,” the paper added.

That day’s London Times, however, said Olmert cannot be “remotely indifferent to the fate of his kidnapped soldier,” which had sparked the current escalation of violence. “Incidents such as these have emotional power in Israel, in part because they are rare,” the paper editorialized, concluding that “How Hamas treats Corporal Shalit now is a profound test of its attitude toward all Israelis.”

India Bombings: Musharraf and Singh Both Said to Have Much to Lose

The July 11 bombings in the Indian city of Bombay that claimed the lives of more than 200 people were described the following day by the UK’s Guardian as “terrible news.”

“At such a bleak moment it was heartening to hear the swift and unequivocal condemnation of this outrage from the Pakistani president, Pervez Musharraf, who has overseen a significant thaw in relations with India in recent years,” the newspaper editorialized. “But there are many in India who are already suspicious of the role played by Pakistan’s powerful intelligence services in supporting jihadi groups,” it added.

“There can be no doubt about the perpetrators’ motives,” said the same day’s London Times. “Al-Qaeda and Islamist extremists have every reason for wanting to destabilize India, to disrupt its growing prosperity, stir up sectarian violence and plunge relations with Pakistan back into crisis,” the newspaper editorialized.

But both Pakistan and India have much to lose, it pointed out. “President Musharraf has many enemies, including Islamist dissidents within the army and the security services who have never accepted his abandonment of the Taliban or his crack-down on Kashmiri militants.

“[Prime Minister Manmohan] Singh is also challenged,” it continued, “by Hindu nationalists on the one hand and by those demanding vengeance for the communal killing in Gujarat in 2001. He knows that renewed sectarian violence would set back years of economic and social progress. Both men,” it concluded, “like the humane everywhere, know that extremism must be defeated.”

Lucy Jones is a free-lance journalist based in London.