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- Herausgeber: Ithaca Press
- Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
- Sprache: Englisch
Examining the prolonged Arab-Israeli conflict, Lebanese civil war and the periodic upsurges of inter-state and internal tensions in the Gulf region, this book looks at how civilians are at the forefront of military conflicts and violence in the Middle East. The unsung heroes and real victims of wars in the Middle East are the civilian populations. Quickly forgotten, they have all too frequently been forced to endure the brutalities of war and its aftermath. Behind political calculations, military strategy and technological innovations, it is the unarmed civilian population that is expected to make the maximum sacrifices. Wars reflect the fears and trepidations of ordinary men and women about the ability of their leaders to lead their nations during critical times and to make sensible choices. Civilians suffer even when clear-cut victories are achieved in the battlefield and their problems often begin when the guns fall silent. Their attempts to reconstruct their lives and livelihood are, however, generally ignored, forgotten and unspoken. This book attempts to redress the balance, and reminds us that the 'collateral damage' of war actually has a serious and enduring impact upon Middle Eastern societies, and should not be neglected.
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Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2008
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Typeset by Samantha Barden
Jacket design by David Rose
Cover photo © Lynsey Addario/Corbis
Contents
Contributors
Introduction
Notes
1 Arab and Jewish Civilians in the 1948 Palestine War
Notes
2 Israeli Civilians in the 1967 Six-Day War1
Notes
3 Israeli Civilians during the 1973 Yom Kippur War
Notes
4 The Pathologies of Protracted and Displaced Collective Violence in Lebanon
Notes
5 Revolution in Iran, 1979 – The Establishment of an Islamic State
Notes
6 The Al-Aqsa Intifada: Snapshots from the Field*
7 Kuwait: Never Before, Never Again
Notes
8 Iraqi Civilians under the 1990–2003 Sanctions
Notes
9 Iraq: The Tragedy and Trauma of Humiliation
Notes
Chronology
Contributors
Stuti Bhatnagar is a doctoral candidate at the School of International Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.Dr Dalia Gavriely-Nuri lectures in the Department of Political Studies, Bar-Ilan University, and in Hadassah College, Jerusalem.Amira Hass is a journalist for the Hebrew daily Ha’aretz. She covers the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.Dr N. Janardhan is a Research Analyst for the Ministry of State for Federal National Council Affairs, Dubai, UAE.Professor Samir Khalaf is Professor of Sociology at the American University of Beirut, Lebanon.Professor P. R. Kumaraswamy teaches Middle East Politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.Dr Meron Medzini was a senior aide to Prime Ministers Levi Eskhol, Golda Meir and Yitzhak Rabin and since 1973 has been Senior Lecturer in Political Science at the Rothberg International School of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Professor Girijesh Pant teaches at the Centre for West Asian and African Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India.Dr Avraham Sela is the A. Ephraim and Shirley Diamond Professor in the Department of International Relations, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.Professor William Haddad is Professor of History at California State University, Fullerton, USA.
Introduction
Unarmed civilian populations are the principal victims of inter-state, intra-state and internal wars, conflicts and other violent upheavals. The evolution of international norms and codification of laws proscribing deliberate targeting of civilian populations has somewhat minimized large-scale violence against civilians and non-military targets. Pre-meditated attacks on civilians are increasingly unacceptable to the international community and states which resort to such practices face widespread condemnation, sanctions and even isolation. Actions by non-state actors and groups are also becoming less tolerated, particularly when noncombatants become the prime victims; yet, caught in crossfire, civilians continue to suffer more than men and women in uniform. Their true suffering should not be measured merely by the number of civilians killed during conflicts. Both during and after wars, their lifestyles are dislocated and they face irreparable personal and emotional damage. Their suffering is a prolonged agony and often is bequeathed to the next generation.
The Middle East is no exception to this general trend and civilian populations have borne the brunt of various conflicts and wars that have haunted the region since the early 20th century. Besides inter-state conflicts, the people of the region have had to endure the twin problems of imperialism and decolonization. European power politics drove major powers, especially Britain and France, to expand their colonial possessions overseas. Their expansionist ambitions came into conflict with the Ottoman Empire that ruled over most of the Middle East. As a result, during World War I, the European powers were not only seeking to defeat the Islamic empire but were also scrambling for post-war spoils. It was this colonial drive for territories that resulted in the British conquest of Jerusalem in December 1917 and its promise for a Jewish national home under the Balfour Declaration a month earlier.
The post-Ottoman political order in the Middle East created more problems than is commonly recognized. The vast area was parcelled into different states and countries, reflecting colonial interests and calculations. In most cases, the process of decolonization and state formation ran counter to the conventional logic of nations aspiring to statehood. The European concept of political entities rooted in territory-based loyalties challenged the prevailing Arab and Islamic identities that revolved around clan and religion-based allegiance.
Thus, while carving out independent political entities, the colonial powers simultaneously sowed seeds of a deep division over national identity.1 The territorial boundaries of these newly formed post-Ottoman states in the Middle East were arbitrary and artificial. In most cases, they also undermined the ethno-national homogeneity. Either different ethnic or national groups were clubbed together under one political entity (modern Iraq) or the same group of people were dispersed into different states (Kurds). In Lebanon, on the other hand, France created a multireligious state by expanding the territorial limits of the Maronite entity. Because some of the new states were created explicitly to serve or further imperial interests, they were accompanied by imposed leadership from outside. Great Britain, for example, installed the two sons of Sharif Hussein of Mecca as the ruler of Transjordan and the King of Iraq. Until the late 1960s, Britain had a military presence in and political control over the littoral states of the Gulf.
While most of these newly independent states of the Middle East eventually regained political control over their territories and economic resources, the political divisions of peoples were harder to overcome. In some cases, the divisions continue to run deep. The formation of the State of Israel in 1948, for example, divided the Palestinians into three distinct categories: those Palestinians who became Israeli citizens in 1948; the residents of the West Bank and Gaza, occupied by Israel in the June 1967 war; and the Palestinian refugees scattered in countries such as Lebanon, Syria and other parts of the Middle East and beyond.2 Elsewhere, internal tensions in Lebanon, the Kurdish regions of Turkey, Iran and Iraq, and the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq can all be traced directly to the arbitrary division of populations.
Such divisions and amalgamations not only generate divided loyalties and tension but also prevent these nations and ethnic groups from functioning normally. Otherwise normal events like family functions, cultural events and social interactions become problematic and politically controversial. For example, divided between Israel and Syria since the June war, the Druze of Golan Heights travel to third countries to meet members of their divided families or to solemnize marriages. In postSaddam Iraq, the relatively heterogeneous central province has became a battleground for sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis.
As if the colonial legacy was not bad enough, since the end of World War II, the Middle East has become a battleground for numerous wars, conflicts, hostilities and civil strife. It has also witnessed innumerable domestic upheavals, military coups, putsches and violent attempts to overthrow unpopular leaders and regimes. During the Cold War years, ideological rivalry between the United States of America and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was played out across the region. Through a steady supply of weapons to their respective clients, both the superpowers ensured a heightened state of alert and tension in the region. The enormous wealth generated by oil-rich countries of the Middle East since the early 1970s thus was funnelled back to the great powers in the form of massive arms exports.
Thus, the Middle East region has witnessed a number of major conflicts, including the prolonged Arab–Israeli conflict, which burst into full-scale wars in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, Israel’s Lebanon wars in 1982 and 2006 and the two Palestinian uprisings of 1987 and the al-Aqsa intifada. The civil war in Lebanon, which began in 1975, continued until 1989 while the US invasion of Iraq in 2003 set in motion prolonged sectarian violence. The Iraqi invasion of Iran in September 1980 led to an eight-year long war between the two neighbours, and a similar adventure by Saddam Hussein in August 1990 ended in a US-led military campaign that expelled Iraqi forces from Kuwait. In 1979, a popular revolution led by Ayatollah Khomeini overthrew the notorious rule of the Shah in Iran. Then there is the prolonged strife in Turkey involving its Kurdish ethnic minority and Islamist-led violence in Algeria. Above all, since the 1970s the Middle East has become the principal playground for international terrorism, where various militant groups explicitly target civilian populations in pursuit of their political agenda.
Important as they are, focusing on military leaders, national interests, strategies and weapons systems, etc does not convey the true impact and magnitude of wars. Rather, violence in the Middle East leaves behind an irreparable imprint and repercussions for the unsung heroes: civilians. While men and women in uniform can return or retire to civilian lives, such options are not available to civilians. In times of crisis, they are expected to rally behind the state, its army, ideals and war objectives. Political miscalculations and shortsighted personal ambitions often drive nations to wars with brutal consequences. In victory or defeat, civilians are expected to pay a high price, in terms of rearmament, re-construction of a war-torn country or other forms of social reconstruction. How do wars affect the daily lives of civilians in the Middle East? How do civilians get involved in conflicts and shape their course? Or, conversely, is it the war that shapes the destiny of civilians?
Casualties Despite growing international concerns, nations and groups have often not hesitated to launch military action deep into civilian locations. Wars in the Middle East, like other parts of the world, have been carried out in densely populated areas, away from traditional ‘battlefields’. In smaller countries, the entire national terrain can become the battleground, leaving little distinction between front and rear. As a result, intentionally or otherwise, civilians account for a large portion of war casualties in the Middle East.
According to B’tselem, a leading Israeli human rights group, during the first intifada (1987–93) as many as 1,346 Palestinians were killed, including at least 276 civilians. Between September 2000 and September 2007 over 4,000 Palestinians, a large portion of whom were civilians, lost their lives in the al-Aqsa intifada. Out of these, as many as 854 were identified as children or minors.3 Israeli civilians have also been badly affected. In its conflict with neighbouring Arab states in 1948, the nascent Israeli state lost about one per cent of its total population. As of April 2007, the number of civilians killed in Israel during wars and other terror attacks since the foundation of the state was estimated at 1,635. Out of these, 874 were killed since the outbreak of the al-Aqsa intifada in September 2000.4 Nearly one fifth of the civilians killed since 1948 were children.
During the eight-year Iran–Iraq war, between one and two million people were killed or maimed. Following the US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 and until September 2007, over 81,000 civilians lost their lives.5 According to one estimate, “67,365 civilians (most of them Iraqi citizens) … have been reported killed or wounded during the first two years of the ongoing conflict, up to 19 March 2005.”6 The number of Palestinians killed during the civil-war-like situation in Jordan in 1970 remains hazy. The pros and cons of the Hashemite crackdown on the Palestinian guerrillas and the expulsion of the PLO leadership to Beirut are well known. However, the actual number of Palestinians who lost their lives during the Black September massacre still remains guesswork and estimates range from 2,000 to many thousands. The ethnic conflict in Turkey is estimated to have claimed thousands of lives, most of them Kurdish civilians. War casualties, however, also include indirect and prolonged side effects. As highlighted by the Iran–Iraq war, there can be a number of long-term effects such as malnutrition, health hazards, physical handicaps, large-scale disability and children becoming orphans.
On a number of occasions, armies and groups have directly targeted civilian populations. This was more pronounced during the Arab–Israeli conflict of 1948 when the demarcation between civilian and combatant remained blurred. The war also witnessed some of the worst pre-meditated violence against civilians. For example, weeks before the formation of Israel, on April 9, 1948, a small contingent of Jewish underground group members from Irgun and the Stern Gang attacked the Arab village of Deir Yassin overlooking the Jerusalem–Tel Aviv road. In the ensuing battle, a large number of unarmed Palestinian men, women and children were killed by the Jewish forces, contributing to Arab fears and their large-scale fleeing from their homes. A few days later, a convoy to the Hadassah Hospital on Mount Scopus in Jerusalem was ambushed near the Arab village of Sheikh Jarrah. In this attack dozens of Jews, mostly doctors and nurses working in the hospital, were killed. This was seen as an Arab retaliatory attack for the Deir Yassin massacre. In both cases, despite the international uproar, no one was ever brought to justice.
Similar events unfolded in September 1982 after the assassination of Lebanese President-elect Bashir Gemayel. Believed to be carried out by Palestinians, this killing angered the Phalange militia affiliated to Gemayel’s political party and their members entered the Palestinian refugee camps in Sabra and Shatila on the outskirts of Beirut. Despite being aware of the prevailing mood for revenge, the Israeli army, which was in control of the areas at the time, did not prevent the entry of the Phalange forces into the refugee camps. During September 16–18, hundreds of unarmed Palestinian men, women and children in these refugee camps were massacred. While Israel was condemned for its failure to anticipate and prevent the killing of unarmed civilians, no member of the Lebanese militia was ever tried, let alone convicted for the massacre.
Excessive use of airpower has greatly exposed the civilian population. With aircraft and missiles capable of deep penetration into enemy territories, warfare is no longer confined to border areas. During the Kuwait war of 1991 for example, Iraq was able to send Scud missiles over 600 miles to strike Israel’s population centres. Though the actual number of casualties was minimal, for the duration of the war normal life in Israel came to a standstill and Israelis were often confined to their sealed bunkers. During the final stages of the Iran–Iraq war, both countries indulged in what was known as the ‘War of Cities’ whereby they pounded each other’s population centres. Their less-than-accurate missiles could not be used effectively against military targets. Therefore, they settled for attacking major cities of the other with the hope of terrorizing the non-combatants. In one such attack, the historic mosque in Borujerd in Iran was destroyed by an Iraqi missile attack.
Militant groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah frequently resort to premeditated targeting of civilians. Their low-range and usually inaccurate missiles have limited military value and are not capable of striking at valuable military targets. In the second Lebanese war in 2006, for example, Hezbollah used Katyusha rockets as an effective tool against Israel’s civilian population. Its leader Hassan Nasrallah repeatedly threatened that even the city of Tel Aviv in the centre of Israel would not be free from Hezbollah targets. During the 42-day conflict, Hezbollah launched over 2,500 missiles.7 Some of these missiles reached as far as the port city of Hadera, about 70 miles south of the Israel–Lebanon border. For similar politico-strategic reasons, since February 2002 Palestinian Islamic groups in Gaza have been striking at Israel with low-range Qassam rockets, especially against the southern Israeli town of Sderot. While the actual military usefulness of these short-range rockets is minimal, they cause havoc and panic among ordinary civilians and disrupt their daily routine.
For its part, Israel has often targeted the Lebanese civilian population and infrastructure as a means of exerting popular pressure against Hezbollah. The actual number of civilians killed during the second Lebanese war remained relatively small: about 600 in Lebanon and 57 in Israel. However, according to one Israeli account, over 5,000 were injured, with almost 40 per cent of the injuries being “psychological rather than physical”.8 As will be discussed, the destruction of infrastructure on both sides has been substantial.
Widely popularized during the operation to liberate Kuwait from the Iraqi occupation, ‘collateral damage’ is the Siamese twin of modern wars. This innocent sounding expression presents wars in gentler terms, hiding the cruel manifestations of death and destruction. This has been used effectively to explain and at times justify the large-scale killing of civilians or the deaths of children. This is most clearly manifested in the Palestinian territories, especially the Gaza Strip. Every major Israeli strike against militants has been accompanied by death and destruction of civilian lives. Victims are often blamed for being there in the wrong place and at the wrong time.
Inaccurate or false intelligence or malfunction of weapons systems have caused some of the brutal killing of civilians. During Operation Desert Storm in 1991, a bunker in Baghdad was identified as the command and control centre of the Iraqi Republican Guards and was bombed. Subsequently it was revealed that dozens of women and children who were taking refuge in the shelter had been killed by the Allied attack. Such incidents became more frequent following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003.9
Similarly, during the Grapes of Wrath Operation in 1996, an Israeli artillery shell landed in the compound of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in Kfar Qana, north of the Litani River, with disastrous consequences. Over one hundred Lebanese civilians who had been taking refuge in the compound were killed. The village once again came under Israeli attack during the second Lebanese war, when dozens of civilians were killed on July 30, 2006.
Lacking an effective military strategy against militant groups, Israel responds to threats by targeting civilian infrastructure that supports these militant groups. The periodic escalation of tensions in the 1990s between Israel and Hezbollah saw both sides explicitly targeting the civilian population. Following the Israeli launching of the Grapes of Wrath Operation in April 1996, an estimated 400,000 Lebanese civilians were forced to flee from the south towards the northern part of the country. Similarly, the second Lebanese war in 2006 witnessed an exodus of over 300,000 civilians from northern Israel to safer areas in the south. The war has expanded along a “line that would run roughly from Haifa to Afula and Tiberius”, thereby affecting the lives of about 1.5 million people unable to maintain their ordinary routines.10
Enumerating the destruction caused by Israel during the Second Lebanese war, a report by Amnesty International observed:
The Israeli Air Force launched more than 7,000 air attacks on about 7,000 targets in Lebanon between 12 July and 14 August, while the Navy conducted an additional 2,500 bombardments. The attacks, though widespread, particularly concentrated on certain areas. In addition to the human toll – an estimated 1,183 fatalities, about one third of whom have been children, 4,054 people injured and 970,000 Lebanese people displaced – the civilian infrastructure was severely damaged. The Lebanese government estimates that 31 ‘vital points’ (such as airports, ports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities) have been completely or partially destroyed, as have around 80 bridges and 94 roads. More than 25 fuel stations and around 900 commercial enterprises were hit. The number of residential properties, offices and shops completely destroyed exceeds 30,000. Two government hospitals – in Bint Jbeil and in Meis al-Jebel – were completely destroyed in Israeli attacks and three others were seriously damaged.11
This is equally valid for the destruction caused by militant groups, which explicitly target civilian infrastructure. Hezbollah, for example, came under widespread criticism for its attacks against the civilian population in Israel.12
Cost Human casualties are a major consequence of wars. However, irreplaceable as they are, human lives are not the only costs involved in wars. Reminding readers that there are no ‘free wars’ in the Middle East, an editorial in Israel’s leading daily Ha’aretz observed:
Wars cost a lot of money, and they cause economic damage to the state and its citizens, whose scope is impossible to estimate while it is happening. Consumer activity declines sharply during wartime, even in areas where no missiles have fallen, and this is liable to cause the economic collapse of families and businesses. The economic price of the current war will become clear one day, but meanwhile, it is impossible to avoid providing immediate answers to those whose lives have changed overnight and are unable to earn a living or support a family.13
This is equally true for the Lebanese civil war, Iran–Iraq war, Kuwait war and the US-led invasion of Iraq.
Since the outbreak of the first intifada in 1987, Israel has frequently resorted to closures whereby Palestinians are prevented from entering Israel for work, education or medical needs. Such restrictions are also extended to east Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in the June 1967 war and was subsequently annexed. These restrictions apply to both people and goods, and hence they are not as harmless or ‘defensive’ as one tends to believe. As the World Bank pointed out in 2003, “Even assuming no physical damage, losses from closure and curfew would still amount to some US$5 billion of an estimated total of US$5.2 billion.”14 According to its estimates, by 2002 Israel had inflicted severe damage to the infrastructure of the already impoverished Palestinian National Authority to the tune of over a billion dollars.15 Because much of the Palestinian infrastructures were built with outside aid and donations, the international community will eventually have to bear the cost of re-building the destroyed public buildings and facilities.
Even Israel was not immune from the economic cost of the Palestinian uprising. As one World Bank study highlighted,
Israel is also paying a heavy economic price. The Israeli economy has experienced a 9 per cent decline in real GDP per capita between September 2000 and December 2002, and the Bank of Israel recently estimated that the costs to the Israeli economy of the intifada in 2002 amounted to between US$3 and US$3.6 billion, a figure well in excess of total Palestinian economic losses in the period …16
Israel has also been slowly coming to terms with the cost of intifada. In 2002 the Bank of Israel disclosed,
In its first year, the Intifada hit mainly tourism, construction, agriculture, and exports to the Territories. Its effects expanded to other areas in 2002, among them private consumption, in the wake of the entrenchment of individuals’ assessments that the Intifada was not a passing phase, but an ongoing situation with far-reaching repercussions on income and taxes, adding up to a fall in permanent disposable income … The Intifada caused the loss of between 3.0 and 3.8 per cent of GDP in 2002 measured against a benchmark scenario in which it would end in 2001 … This loss exceeds that incurred due to the slowdown in world trade, and the slump in the high-tech industry in particular.17
The Palestinian uprising and the resultant tension and uncertainty also affected the flow of foreign investment into Israel, which dropped from US$11.5 billion in 2000 to US$3.5 billion in 2002. Likewise, the budget deficit rose from 0.7 of the GDP in 2000 to 5.6 per cent in 2003.18 Unlike the Palestinian areas however, Israel could easily sustain the war cost primarily because of the larger size of its economy, estimated at about US$100 billion.
A much more devastating picture of war cost can be found in the Gulf. The economic cost of the eight-year-long Iran–Iraq war was astronomical. Apart from the terrible human tragedy, the economic cost of the war was estimated at US$542 billion for Iran and US$524 billion for Iraq.19 Their rich oil resources were spent wastefully on the war and post-war reconstruction. The liberation of Kuwait in 1991 was also a costly affair. The cost of the military operation alone was estimated at over US$75 billion.20
The UN-backed economic sanctions against Iraq also affected a number of other countries.
Turkey lost revenues associated with Iraq’s oil pipeline through Turkey. Egypt lost foreign remittances from workers in Gulf countries, Suez Canal tolls, proceeds from exports to Iraq and Kuwait and tourism revenues. In total, Egypt’s losses were estimated at over $3 billion. Syria, Jordan, Pakistan and several other countries incurred similar costs.21
On the flipside, as part of Operation Desert Storm the United States wrote off Egyptian debts to the tune of $7 billion while Arab state forgave $7 to $9 billion debts owed by Egypt. Cairo also received $10 billion additional loans for its role in securing the Arab League’s backing for the military campaign over Kuwait.
The second Lebanese war caused widespread destruction and damaged about 30,000 housing units in Lebanon.22 Following the August 2006 ceasefire, the Lebanese government disclosed that rebuilding the infrastructure would cost US$1.5 billion and take between a year to 18 months. The rebuilding of buildings destroyed in Israeli attacks would cost an additional US$2 billion.23 A spokesperson for the UNDP put the overall economic loss “at least US$15 billion, if not more”.24 In January 2007, a number of countries met in Paris and pledged $7.6 billion towards the reconstruction of war-torn Lebanon. Whichever billion towards the reconstruction of war-torn Lebanon. Whichever year-old civil war, destruction to Lebanese infrastructure was considerable. Israel also faced a similar problem. Amnesty International reported that between 350,000 and 500,000 Israelis living in the north “fled their homes and became internally displaced”.25 Others suggest that around 16,000 houses and vehicles were damaged during the war and about 90,000 claims would be filed for compensation.26
In many countries, wars and conflict situations severely undermine the tourism industry. Not only Israel but also countries like Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Turkey and the Gulf region have faced the sudden drying up of tourists, which has an adverse effect upon local communities. Sudden cancellation of charter flights, hotel reservations and other economic activities brings enormous loss to those who depend upon tourism for their livelihood. Some of the wars also caused irreparable damage to the ecological system. In the closing stages of the 1991 Gulf War, nearly 800 Kuwaiti oil wells were set alight deliberately by the retreating Iraqi army. Not only could these wells not be used until the fires were fully under control, but also huge quantities of carbon dioxide engulfed Kuwait and its neighbouring countries, creating problems of visibility, breathlessness and long-term disease and ailments.
Refugees As vividly highlighted by the Arab–Israeli conflict, refugees are the most visible manifestation of wars in the Middle East. The establishment of the state of Israel ended the centuries of Jewish exile and statelessness. Prolonged suffering and subjugation gave way to statehood and sovereignty. However, what was an historic accomplishment for the Jews also brought about a major catastrophe for the Palestinians. For over sixty years, the international community had continued to debate over the origin of the problem: whether the Palestinians were forcibly expelled from their homes by the Jewish forces during the 1948 war as claimed by the Arabs and revisionist historians in Israel, or whether the refugee problem was merely the result of hostilities during which basic human instincts compel people to flee from war zones.
For the thousands of Palestinians who became refugees in 1948, deprived of their homes, property and above all identity, the subject is not an academic debate. It is a problem that they and their descendants have had to endure. From an estimated 800,000 at the end of 1948, the number of Palestinian refugees passed the four million mark in March 2003.27 The Palestinians faced another catastrophe in 1967 when Israel captured vast Arab territories including the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Some of the Palestinians who had fled their homes in what became Israel to the West Bank in 1948 ended up becoming refugees for a second time in their lives.
Currently most of the Palestinian refugees are scattered in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and other parts of the Middle East, as well as in the West. While they managed to find a temporary refuge, their living conditions in most refugee camps managed by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNWRA) are barely liveable. These camps are not only highly crowded but also lack many basic conditions like running water, sanitation, health and education facilities.
Their real problem, however, is much larger: loss of identity. From the very beginning, Arab states hosting these refugees refused to grant them citizenship. Bestowing immediate citizenship or through the gradual process of naturalization would have meant absolving Israel of its responsibility for the refugee problem. Jordan has been the sole exception to the general Arab policy on Palestinian refugees. Following the 1948 war, the Hashemite Kingdom sought to integrate territories west of the Jordan River that it had captured. In so doing, it granted full citizenship to the Palestinians, including rights to political participation. Over the years, a number of Jordanians of Palestinian origin have been appointed to different official positions, including Prime Ministers and cabinet ministers. It is widely accepted that Jordanians of Palestinian origin or West Bankers account for more than half the population of Jordan.
The situation of Palestinian refugees in other Arab countries is pitiable. In times of regional crisis, the stateless, homeless and often powerless Palestinian refugees become prime targets for political or military reprisals. Gulf States, especially Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, were angered by the pro-Saddam stand taken by the PLO leadership during the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990.28 Hence, following the liberation of Kuwait by the US-led Allied forces, the Gulf rulers targeted the Palestinians. Within the next few months, nearly 400,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait and other Gulf states. Most of the Palestinians returned to Jordan, a country with few natural resources.
The Lebanese army, which could not act against Hezbollah or disarm its militants, was quick to respond when in May 2007 a splinter Palestinian group challenged the authority of the state. Their location within the dense Nahr al-Bared refugee camp in the coastal city of Tripoli did not inhibit the army from striking against Fatah al-Islam, believed to be linked to al-Qaeda. This campaign, which lasted for over 100 days, enjoyed the support of all major political forces in Lebanon, including Hezbollah. The use of heavy weapons by the army led to 40,000 refugees fleeing to nearby Beddawi camp.29 When the confrontation eventually ended in September 2007, the refugee camp was in shambles and needed large-scale reconstruction. The overwhelming support for the government over this issue compelled even the Palestinian leadership both inside and outside Lebanon to support the army action. Thus, devoid of the protection of a state, Palestinian refugees are often at the mercy of their hosts.
Moreover, most of the Palestinian refugees in Syria and Lebanon dwell in dilapidated and crowded refugee camps. In return for this ‘hospitality’, the host countries have imposed a number of political, economic and social restrictions. The situation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon is a case in point.30 For over four decades, they could undertake only manual and clerical jobs. Granting access to other sectors of the economy was viewed as a ‘prelude’ to their permanent settlement in Lebanon and, in order to maintain their ‘foreigner’ tag, they were excluded from over 72 professions in that country.31 Due to constant internal pressures, in June 2005 the Lebanese government liberalized its employment rules and declared: “From now on Palestinians born on Lebanese land and registered officially with the Lebanese Interior Ministry will be allowed to work in the jobs previously unavailable to them.”32 In practical terms, this will benefit the bulk of the 400,000 registered Palestinians living in the 12 refugee camps in the country, as nearly 90 per cent of these refugees were born in Lebanon.
Palestinians, however, are not the only refugees who endure the consequences of wars and conflicts in the Middle East. The US-led invasion of Iraq has created a major humanitarian crisis with large-scale population displacement and exodus. At the time of the US-led invasion of Iraq, it was hoped that a large number of Iraqis who fled during the reign of Saddam Hussein would return and contribute to the democratic experiment in that country.33 Not only did this not happen but also a large number of Iraqis fled and took refuge in neighbouring countries. The impoverished Kingdom of Jordan alone houses over 750,000 Iraqi refugees, while Syria hosts about 1,200,000 Iraqi nationals.34 “The 2003 war and its continuing aftermath”, Human Rights Watch concludes, “brought new waves of Iraqis to Jordan, at least doubling their number by 2006. Amman’s population is estimated to have grown by as much as one-third since the war began.”35 Likewise, in September 2007 the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR) put the total number of displaced Iraqis at over four million.36
The same sense of disappointment prevails in the Palestinian territories. A number of Palestinians who had returned to the territories administered by the Palestinian National Authority in the 1990s were forced to go back. Their hopes for returning to their homes were short-lived. The harsh realities of post-Saddam Iraq and the post-Oslo Palestinian territories do not offer them any hope of ending their exile and starting a new life in their homelands.
In the wake of the Israeli strikes against Lebanese infrastructure in 2006, Syria opened its borders and accepted an estimated 250,000 Lebanese and other refugees who were fleeing the war zone, while another 750,000 Lebanese were identified as “internally displaced”.37 The prolonged military campaign by the Turkish army against Kurdish militants has also resulted in large-scale displacement of Turkey’s Kurdish population.
Finally, even conflicts beyond the region have resulted in the Middle East hosting a large number of refugees. At the height of the crisis in Afghanistan following the Soviet invasion, for example, Iran found itself hosting as many as 810,000 Afghan refugees.38
Terrorism More than wars, it is terrorism that has become a major menace to the Middle East’s civilians. Terrorism not only threatens the lives of civilians but by bringing wars to the streets also undermines civilians’ right to pursue a normal daily routine. The perennial controversy – terrorist vs. freedom fighter – has prevented the international community from adopting a universal definition but the impact of terrorism continues to be brutal. Since the early 1970s, terrorism has become a highly prominent manifestation of the Arab–Israeli conflict. While it does not pose an existential threat to their state, it has exposed Israeli civilians to profound uncertainties as they go about their daily lives. Such acts have increased since the onset of the Middle East peace process. Indeed, more Israeli civilians have been killed since the signing of the Oslo Agreement in September 1993 than before. Such attacks have not been confined to the occupied territories but have also been carried out within the June 1967 borders of Israel. A host of locations and means of transport used by the civilian population have become targets for attacks, often carried out by suicide bombers. Buses, cafeterias, street crossings, shopping centres, railway stations and other public places where people gather have frequently came under terrorist attack.
Individual hopelessness, a strong sense of injustice, hatred for the other, anger at international indifference and religious extremism and indoctrination have all contributed to scores of young men and women disregarding their own lives and taking the lives of others. Widespread religious sanctity associated with such actions has bestowed a degree of social acceptance and even respectability for suicide bombers and transformed them into martyrs in the cause of Islam.
Such attacks, however, have not been directed only against Israel. Much of the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq clearly falls into the category of terrorism. While resistance against foreign occupation has been internationally recognized, most of the violence does not fall into this category. The resistance against occupation carried out by different groups inside the country has been sporadic, disjointed and lacks any coherent national agenda. While operations against Allied military targets, power centres or infrastructure can be considered ‘resistance’, assaults directed against the support system of the US-backed Iraqi government fall into a distinctly grey area.
However, periodic attacks against religious places, community gatherings, market places and other explicitly ‘soft’ non-military civilian targets cannot really be considered ‘resistance’. These attacks explicitly target civilians and are aimed at instilling fear and insecurity among ordinary Iraqis. By attacking the vulnerable civilian population, which has no military value or motive, these groups have succeeded in terrorizing the vast majority of the Iraqi public. Human Rights Watch admits the difficulties in making an accurate assessment of casualty figures due to the “chaos of the conflict, the partial functioning of Iraqi institutions and the unwillingness of the United States to keep statistics on civilian deaths”. At the same time it concludes, “all evidence suggests that insurgent attacks in Iraq have killed many more civilians than combatants.”39
A number of Shia and Sunni places of worship have come under attacks by rival groups. For example, in August 2003 massive car bombs outside the Shrine of Imam Ali Mosque in al-Najaf, the most holy site for Shia Muslims, killed more than 85 people. Mosques in different parts of the country have come under attack and large numbers of Shia pilgrims were killed while performing Ashura or other religious duties. On scores of occasions, buses have been waylaid by militants, passengers separated along sectarian lines, and members of the wrong community brutally killed. Such attacks have been carried out primarily by militants belonging to the Sunni minority to generate panic and helplessness among different sections of the population. Afraid for their personal safety, many individuals have been forced to organize themselves into smaller militia or flee to safe havens within or outside Iraq.
A number of other countries of the Middle East have also faced the menace of terrorism. While some of the violence is explicitly directed against the West and Israel, other attacks are homegrown and are directed against their respective governments. Anti-American violence in Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries often poses a far more serious threat to the regimes of those countries than to the Western interests. For over a decade Algeria has been riddled with protracted political violence, which is primarily domestic in nature. Terrorism against tourists in Egypt killed more Egyptians than foreigners. The phenomenon of Afghan Arabs often takes its toll in Jordan and other Arab countries. Turkey has endured PKK-initiated violence. In recent years, Lebanon has witnessed numerous terror attacks against individuals and groups who are critical of Syria. Of late, even Syria is no longer safe from the scourge of terrorism. Some of the terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, for example, have claimed the lives of expatriate workers who came to the kingdom in search of a decent living.
Terrorism is not just violence per se but also a form of psychological pressure against the non-combatants. In the 1980s, a number of westerners were taken hostage by various militia groups operating in Lebanon. Kidnapped individuals were often used as pawns to settle political differences between various groups or their patrons in the region. Though most were released, their experiences had a traumatic effect on these individuals. The kidnapping of two soldiers by Hezbollah from inside Israeli territory in July 2006 led to the prolonged Lebanese conflict that lasted 42 days. The kidnapping of BBC journalist Alan Johnston in the Gaza Strip lasted for over 100 days until the Hamas government secured his release in July 2007. A large number of kidnapped victims have not been so lucky, however. The sectarian violence in Iraq has been accompanied by the kidnapping of a large number of Iraqi, Arab and western nationals. Various militant groups and armed bandits have resorted to this tactic. Some of the hostages have been brutally killed and their gruesome executions posted on the internet.
Terrorism thus does not distinguish between friends and foes. Even people who come to the Middle East to offer humanitarian assistance, present unbiased media coverage or even identify and empathize with the suffering of the people of this region have been taken hostage and killed by their captives. These victims were not only far removed from the war, but also were in the region merely to play a part in the peaceful resolution of the problem, or to present Arab voices to the wider world.
Lamenting on this sad state of affairs, one Israeli commentator observed:
The encounter with foreign countries, at least those that are not part of the Third World, is like a blow to the consciousness: In many states, people go about their daily life without Qassam or Katyusha rockets or terror attacks. There are places in the world where civilians are not exposed to news about the security situation from morning to night. There are nations that do not live with the constant moral unease deriving from the occupation of another nation. There are societies that are not surrounded by incessant violence. Public life in most developed states is not suffused with feverish preoccupation with fateful questions about their national survival.40
Thus, ordinary Israelis going to malls, Egyptians in holiday resorts, Yemenites visiting historic sites, Moroccans on the beaches and Iraqis praying in mosques have all been victims of terrorism. It does not distinguish between religious faiths, political ideologies or rights of individuals. Terrorism creates a sense of uncertainty, fear and anxiety in the minds of scores of ordinary individuals who are merely going about their daily routine.
Social Fallout The real social problems of wars begin only after the guns fall silent. Both the victor and the vanquished, even if they can be clearly identified, bear the cost long after the cessation of hostilities. The death and destruction caused by the eight-year Iran–Iraq war is a vivid reminder of the social consequences of wars. Almost every Iranian family was directly affected by the prolonged war and in the process suffered because of it. The presence of a large number of physically handicapped men and thousands of war widows in Iran are directly linked to the war.
War not only destroys the lives and limbs of soldiers but also physically and psychologically cripples the healthy. The desire to secure victory at times drives nations to pursue insane paths. Devoid of sufficient mine-sweeping equipment, for example, Iran’s Ayatollahs sent thousands of child soldiers to the battlefield to ‘clear’ mines laid by their Iraqi enemy. Ayatollah Khomeini and his colleagues presented this cruel decision as a divine mission. Children were assured that, by sacrificing their lives in such brutal operations, they would become martyrs in the cause of Islam. The soldiers even carried a symbolic key to heaven. Thus, a whole generation of Iranian children and young boys became human minesweepers and perished in the battlefield.
Religious sentiments and places of worship are becoming less sacrosanct in wars. President Anwar Sadat of Egypt launched the October war of 1973 on the holiest day in the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur. This offensive also coincided with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. While it gave him a great strategic surprise over Israel, the date selection generated huge resentment over Sadat’s insensitivity. More than two dozen Israelis were killed in March 2002 while sharing the Pessah (Passover) meal in a hotel in Netanya. In November 2001, the United States carried out a major offensive against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan during the holy month of Ramadan. The sectarian violence in Iraq no longer recognizes the sanctity of places of worship as both Shia and Sunni mosques have been frequently targeted by rival sects. The Temple Mount/Harem al-Sharif area of the old city of Jerusalem has often been a battleground for Israelis and Palestinians. In February 1994, Israeli settler Baruch Goldstein gunned down 29 Muslim worshippers in the Ibrahmi Mosque in Hebron, also known as Tomb of the Patriarchs.
Wars and conflicts also affect and at times poison the relations between different groups within a country. Its prolonged conflict with the Arab world, for example, undermines Israel’s ability to treat its Arab population on an equal footing. Apprehensions over their loyalty towards the Jewish State have resulted in Israel perceiving its minority Arab population through the prism of security rather than democracy. The civil war in Lebanon was primarily the outcome of the internal tensions and rivalry between the three principal groups in the country, namely, Maronites, Sunnis and Shias. The willingness of these groups to maintain private militia in defence of their respective sectarian interests eventually plunged the country into a civil war. Likewise, the determination of Hezbollah to pursue an independent foreign policy and resist any attempt to disarm its militia eventually culminated in the second Lebanese war that brought scores of deaths and much destruction to both Lebanon and Israel.
Other groups also faced a similar fate. The war with Iran undermined the status of Kurds in Iraq. Though their relations with the central authority in Baghdad have always been problematic, their situation worsened in the later stages of the war. Apprehensions that they might join forces with Iran and work towards an Iraqi defeat led to a widespread military crackdown against Kurds. The use of chemical weapons in the Kurdish town of Halabja took place while Iraq was fighting Iran. The Shia uprising following the Kuwait war of 1991 also led to similar Iraqi offensives in the southern part of the country.
Sudden eruptions of violence in the Middle East entangle a number of third countries and their citizens. Following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in August 1990, thousands of citizens belonging to a number of countries were caught in the crossfire. Partly to prevent any western military campaign President Saddam Hussein sought to use these foreign citizens as ‘human shields’ and scattered them into different parts of Iraq. Securing the safe release of their citizens thus became a major pre-occupation for a number of foreign countries. At the time of the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait for example, thousands of Indian nationals were trapped in both these countries and ensuring their safe evacuation became a political as well as logistical nightmare for the government of India. Between August and October 1990 India carried out the largest airlift since the end of World War II and brought home nearly 160,000 Indian expatriate labourers from Kuwait and Iraq.41 Such a massive human tragedy also resulted in India adopting a blatantly pro-Saddam position during the early stages of the Kuwait crisis.
Evacuation of third-country nationals is possible only if both the warring sides are prepared to provide safe passage. This was poignantly highlighted during the second Lebanese war when scores of Arab, western and other nationals were caught in the crossfire between Israel and Hezbollah. Even when Israel was prepared to offer a safe corridor, getting a host of foreign ships to the Beirut port and evacuating their respective nationals proved to be an ordeal. As a result, while most of the western nationals were taken to Cyprus by their respective navies, a large number of foreigners opted for circuitous and dangerous land routes to Syria and Jordan. Because of the destruction of many bridges, they had to travel by narrow and dangerous mud roads to escape from Lebanon.
Outline of the Present Volume Taking these broad developments into account, in this book a group of diverse and established scholars examine civilian lives during various wars in the Middle East. The Arab side of the Arab–Israeli conflict forms the focus of the chapters by Avraham Sela and Amira Hass. Examining the role of the Arabs in the 1948 war, Sela highlights the challenges faced by the Arab population and the internal differences that existed between the local Arab communities and external fighters who came to Palestine in their defence. Looking at the al-Aqsa intifada, Hass offers a moving human portrayal of the suffering of the Palestinians. Even though Jewish Israeli civilians also suffered during the uprising, it was the Palestinians who bore most of the sufferings and Hass captures their plight through her first-hand accounts.
Israeli society forms the focus of the chapters by Meron Medzini and Dalia Gavriely-Nuri. Examining the June 1967 war and October 1973 respectively, they reveal the fears and trepidations experienced by Israeli citizens during the days running up to the conflicts. The civilian sense of helplessness was also accompanied by a growing public distrust of the government and its ability to handle the mounting threat.
The civil war in Lebanon and its impact upon different segments of the population is the subject of Samir Khalaf ’s chapter. The remaining four chapters are devoted to wars in the Gulf and their impact. Stuti Bhatnagar examines the popular nature of the Islamic revolution in Iran and its aftermath. The impact of the Iraqi invasion upon Kuwaiti citizens forms the core of the chapter by N. Janardhan. The chapter by William Haddad deals with the devastating consequences of the UN-mandated economic sanctions upon Iraq, while Girijesh Pant presents a poignant picture of the ongoing internal violence in Iraq and its impact upon different segments of the population.
Acknowledgements This volume would not have been possible without the active cooperation of the contributors. Despite their other pre-occupations, they took time off to explore a new area. I remain grateful to them for their labour of love and patience with my endless demands. Special mention is reserved for Sreeradha who has been a great source of inspiration ever since the volume was conceived. In numerous ways I have been blessed with the loving care of Appa, Sreedhar and Lin. All these years I enjoyed the love and affection of Ravi Mama and Jayanthi, to whom I dedicate this volume.
