By FRANKLIN LAMB Beirut
Exclusive to Al-Manar
On October 24, 1970, during its 25th session, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration of Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
Exclusive to Al-Manar
On October 24, 1970, during its 25th session, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Declaration of Principles of International Law concerning Friendly Relations and Co-operation among States in accordance with the Charter of the United Nations.
The UN Declaration provides in part:
“No State has the right to intervene, directly or indirectly, for any reason whatever, in the internal or external affairs of any other State. Consequently, armed intervention and all other forms of interference or attempted threats against the personality of the State or against its political, economic and cultural elements, are in violation of international law”.
Perhaps not since the Vietnam War, with the exception of Iraq, has an American Embassy so inextricably inserted, bullied and entangled itself into the internal affairs of another country. Or so brazenly targeted a nationalist political party that won the largest number of votes in the most recent election and that likely represents a majority of the country’s population. Not since 1982 has it occurred in Lebanon.
Myriad extra-consular activities by ‘Embassy Beirut’, many of which violate American as well as international laws including the 1961 Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations, present serious problems for Lebanon. They ultimately constitute major problems for the American people who increasingly seek an even handed American Middle East policy and friendship with all legitimate countries in the region.
The de-facto American Ambassador to Lebanon and Syria remains Undersecretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs, Jeffrey Feltman who on December 9 during a phone conference with Arab reporters in Washington, London and some Arab capitals, complained: “ the Wilkileaks information is being used to sow strife in Lebanon.” He added that he was “afraid that some Lebanese nationalists would be harmed for cooperating with the U.S and for better ties between Washington and Beirut.” He added, “The release of private conversations calls for disgust and anger.”
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Not for the first time, Mr. Feltman has his analysis precisely backwards . For it is not some leaked cables, which to date have revealed nothing not already widely known or suspected in Lebanon, but rather it is the internationally banned and intense US interference in Lebanese internal affairs on behalf of Israel that is causing deep distrust and suspicion of American motives—all across the region—as well as among American citizens living here and at home.
These fundamental causes include, what every school child in Lebanon has witnessed in one form or another, directly or through relatives or friends. That is the massive US weapon supplies delivered to Israel , used to repeatedly and ferociously attack Lebanese civilians, killing more than 30,000, wounding more than 200,000, and displacing more than two million, during a quarter century of Israel’s use of American weapons against Lebanon.
In addition to regularly unleashing and green lighting Israeli aggression against Lebanon, there is the continuing and ever evolving ‘Embassy Beirut’ based Welsh Club “ Lebanon Project List” (LPL) which lengthened in early 2005 and endures following Mr. Welsh’s retirement in 2009 . It is from this informal unit that State Department lawyers urged the White House to establish the Special Tribunal for Lebanon (UNSCR 1757) under Chapter VII of the UN Charter.
At various times joint US-Israeli Welch Club projects included plans for an airbase to be shared with Israel and NATO at Kleit near the Sunni area of Akkar as part of ‘Northern Sunni army’ to confront Southern Shia Hezbollah, moving the US Embassy and its electronic equipment to a hillside overlooking Dahieyh with the capacity to listen in on virtually to all conversations and watch the movements of many Hezbollah officials, setting up Druze leader Walid Jumblatt as front man to confront the Resistance over its secure telecommunications system, and one of their supporters in charge of aspects of Beirut airport security, to helping bring in Salafists, among others and implanting them in certain areas including Nahr al Bared and Ein el Helwe Palestinian Refugee camps, igniting, at every opportunity, sectarian tensions among, Sunni, Shia and various Christian sects, labeling certain media outlets, and publishing the names of their investors, and social service organizations as “terrorists’, channeling USAID projects, to chosen sects rather than on the basis of equality for all Lebanese and more than a dozen unproven projects to keep Lebanon divided, and weakened in its capacity to confront Israeli aggression, or to emerge from its history of domination by foreign powers.
According to the 12/10/10 Beirut Daily Star, WikiLeaks cables given exclusively to the newspaper suggested that Feltman repeatedly expressed alarm at what he saw as France opening the door to Hezbollah as Lebanon’s political deadlock deepened in late 2007. ‘Embassy Beirut’ blamed Paris for succumbing to “shameless fear-mongering” and empowering the opposition party.
Said Feltman: “Having watched the French badly fumble or [intentionally foul] the presidential elections so far, we assume the Beirut Embassy will need to take on the leadership role in building an international consensus for presidential elections now, without complicating linkages. We recommend starting to point fingers at who is to blame for Lebanon’s presidential vacuum.”
US interference on behalf of Israel, even to the degree of seeming to condone, and sometimes extend, the destruction of much of this country including a willingness to cede Lebanese sovereign territory to Israel, allow daily air and sea invasions of Lebanese sovereignty, has sown strife in Lebanon. It is that, not some leaked Embassy cables that prevents “better ties between Washington and Beirut” which Undersecretary Feltman and no fewer than 43 visiting US officials have bleated to Lebanese media over the past several years.
As it is up to the Lebanese themselves to pass judgment on who is a nationalist and who is a collaborator, it is the right and responsibility of the American people to decide if their ‘Embassy Beirut ‘ serves American or Israeli national interests.
The consequences of ‘Embassy Beirut’ actions are increasingly coming under scrutiny and rejection, as the American public, rather like a huge super-tanker sized sailing ship, sighting danger ahead, adjusts its course, ever so slowly, yet powerfully, tacking 22 degrees aft.
As American public opinion confronts the dangerous current some American political analysts are identifying a harbinger when on 12/9/10 the U.S. House of Representatives approved more than 205 million dollars to help Israel deploy a short-range anti-missile defense system called "Iron Dome." What some find remarkable was the slight margin of the vote, 212-206, hardly the 392 to 7 or 8 votes that Israeli lobby initiatives regularly command from the House side of Congress.
It was on April 17, 1983, after a similar intense period of US Embassy meddling in Lebanese internal affairs and using its diplomatic compound as a base to support one pro-Israeli Lebanese faction that many innocents were killed because the US Embassy had become a virtual command center and hence a legitimate military target.
While the 1983 tragedy will hopefully not repeat during the immediate intense period, barring new revelations or overt actions by the Embassy that green light another Israeli aggression against Lebanon, some here believe that the US Embassy may well be closed down, and experience an imposed ‘time out’ which in the case of the US Embassy in Tehran has lasted for 30 years.
Forcing such an eventuality would serve neither Lebanese or American interests.
Dr. Franklin Lamb is Director, Americans Concerned for Middle East Peace, Beirut-Washington DC, Board Member of The Sabra Shatila Foundation, and a volunteer with the Palestine Civil Rights Campaign, Lebanon. Reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.comRiver to Sea
Uprooted Palestinian
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