ALMOST one thousand civilian deaths, almost a million displaced, four UN peacekeepers killed and some 10 injured, Lebanese army barracks destroyed with numerous casualties caused to soldiers who stayed away from the conflict and 60 per cent or more of Lebanon’s infrastructure destroyed.

This is the grim tally resulting from the disproportionate response of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers and of the Bush administration’s decision to view the crisis as an opportunity to redraw the map in the Middle East.

There is no end in sight since it is apparent from the 200 or more rockets being fired every day into northern Israel, some with deadly effect, that the ostensible prime target — Hezbollah’s rocket arsenal — has not yet been destroyed nor has the ability of the Hezbollah to launch such rockets been seriously affected.

If the Israeli air force has failed so far to deliver on the promises that the air force commander is said to have made, the Israeli army’s advance into Lebanon is having even tougher going with the Hezbollah resistance proving to be far more resilient than the Israelis had been led to expect. Press reports suggest that at least twice Israeli forces have been thrown out of the border village of Bint Jebeil. Elsewhere, Hezbollah has claimed that four Israeli tanks have been damaged in villages for occupation of which battles have been raging intermittently since the conflict began on July 12.

The Israelis have been critical of their prime minister’s decision to rely primarily on the air force to destroy Hezbollah and are now deeply worried about the casualty count which is bound to mount as Israel pursues a land offensive with the ostensible purpose of driving Hezbollah out of the approximately 15-mile depth that lies between the Lebanese Israeli border and the Litani river.

Some Muslim commentators have expressed their apprehension that Israeli aggression is aimed not merely at the destruction of Hezbollah’s military potential but at the reoccupation of southern Lebanon at least up to the Litani river. Farfetched this may well be but it is indicative of the deep distrust of Israeli and US motives among the people of the region.

Meanwhile, the Israeli people are also concerned about the damage - relatively light when compared to Lebanese losses - that Hezbollah rockets have inflicted on the morale of the Israeli people and on the image of invincibility that the Israelis had acquired after their lightning fast victories in earlier wars with their Arab neighbours. The killing of 12 Israeli army reservists, who were due to move into Lebanon, just south of the Israeli-Lebanese border at the village of Kifr Giladi has intensified such concerns and prompted an intensification of Israeli air attacks.

In the light of these ground realities Prime Minister Olmert’s claims of having crippled Hezbollah sound almost as bombastic as the claims Arab leaders used to make during their losing wars against Israel. This early and remarkable success on the part of Hezbollah, and the folk hero status its leader Sheikh Nasrallah has acquired in an Arab world sadly bereft of heroic figures, must not, however, blind us to reality.

It is inevitable, given the overwhelming Israeli military superiority and the unending chain of supplies from the US on the one hand, and the cutting off of all supply routes for Hezbollah on the other, that the Israelis will be able to prevail if they are not reined in. What Hezbollah has achieved by denying Israel a quick victory is time — time to allow the resentment and hatred in the Muslim world to build, time for Israel’s supporters in Washington and elsewhere to be questioned about the destruction they are wreaking and the consequences for ties between the West and the Arab and Muslim worlds, time for isolating Israel’s supporters and putting them before the bar of international public opinion. What should be the effect of this?

Olmert, whose disproportionate reaction was owed, in my view, almost entirely to his desire to be seen as a worthy successor to Ariel Sharon, will not be influenced by the international outrage. He believes that even after the recent erosion the support his present posture enjoys in Israel is overwhelming. In his view, friendly or even normal relations with Israel’s Arab neighbours are a distant dream. Israel can and must impose its own “peace” on these neighbours and be prepared to defend it with its military might. If this leads to turbulence and instability in the region so be it since it will only enhance in American eyes the value of the alliance with stable and democratic Israel.

It is only the Americans, pushed ever so gently by the Europeans and an ever more beleaguered Prime Minister Tony Blair, who can rein him in and they have good reason for doing so.

If Israel is allowed to continue, Lebanon will be destroyed along with Hezbollah’s arsenal but Hezbollah, as a movement will live on. Despite the current display of Arab solidarity the deep and chronic fissures in Lebanon exacerbated by economic hardship will reemerge and a new phase of Lebanon’s civil war of the 1970s and 1980s will commence. The Cedar Revolution of which the Americans were the most fervent proponents if not sponsors will wither. Freeing Lebanon from foreign influence will remain an elusive goal.

Lebanon will not be the only country in which Hezbollah will find fresh adherents nor will the Shias be the only recruits. If Al Qaeda chooses to recruit it will run out of enrollment forms but even more ominously other Al Qaeda-like organisations will sprout all over the Arab and Muslim world. Terrorist attacks, with Muslim countries as the first victims, will also spread to the West. Muslims settled or born in Europe and the US will be viewed with increasing suspicion even if they maintain a low profile and offer no more than oral sympathy to their coreligionists and kinfolk in the Middle East. Analysts and scholars will find it increasingly difficult to maintain in the West a distinction between the “radical Islamists” and the “moderates” who reflect the true spirit of Islam.

The incipient civil war in Iraq may turn into a full-fledged confrontation with the occupation forces. Already it appears to me that the demonstrations in Baghdad, larger than those in any other Arab country have caused misgivings and will, in all likelihood, strain relations between the Americans and the Shia alliance. The rejection of demands made when Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki visited Washington for a condemnation of Hezbollah has apparently had an impact on Congress where Israel’s supporters abound.

In these circumstances it is perhaps time for the Bush administration to look again at the Security Council resolution they have virtually coerced the French into accepting and which calls for a cessation of hostilities but permits the Israelis to continue to occupy the Lebanese region into which they have moved. According to the latest reports the Arab League ministers are sending, after their meeting in Beirut, a special delegation to the UN to ask that the resolution be brought in line with the seven-point proposal made by Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and approved by the Lebanese cabinet of which Hezbollah is a part.

Currently, the American president maintains that a ceasefire resolution would not address the root problem which he identified as being the “ability of Hezbollah to operate as “a state within a state” and to establish an armed presence in southern Lebanon while receiving arms from foreign sponsors, notably Iran and Syria. The Lebanese proposal that the Israelis withdraw completely from Lebanese territory and be replaced in that area by the Lebanese army backed by the 2,000 strong UNIFIL force currently in Lebanon seems to meet the American demand. The Lebanese are not opposed to the subsequent introduction of a robust international peacekeeping force but argue rightly that the vacating of Lebanese territory must not be made dependent on the induction of such a force which will take time.

The Lebanese have also demanded the return of the Shebaa Farms. The Israelis argue that the area belongs to Syria and presumably that its return would be part of the peace settlement with Syria. They dismiss as cartographic manipulation the Syrian assertion that the area is part of Lebanon. The Lebanese argument is that since the Syrians and Lebanese are both agreed that this is Lebanese territory Israel should hand it over and thus remove the rationale for Hezbollah retaining a militia that could strive for the restoration of Lebanese sovereignty over Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory. This is not a fundamental issue and could be dealt with in the second resolution which would also deal with the question of the overall Arab-Israel relationship. The question of the exchange of prisoners could also be left to the second resolution.

The Israelis should certainly be required, as a matter of humanitarian law, to provide the Lebanese with the maps of the minefields that they laid in Lebanon during the long years of occupation. It is legally mandatory for Israel to do so but in the present circumstances it is also the sort of gesture that could at least in small measure mitigate the impact of the damage Israel has done.

The Americans have to see that the Hezbollah’s move away from being a military force has been made more difficult by recent events and by the elevated status that Hezbollah now enjoys in Lebanon and the Arab world. Hezbollah, however, is also aware that after the dust settles those who praise it for restoring Arab pride will also blame it for providing the excuse Israel needed to wreak havoc on Lebanon. It will have to tread a fine line and that it is already doing so by endorsing Prime Minister Siniora’s efforts to get an agreement on a resolution that will ultimately lead to the disarming of Hezbollah.

The Americans can tell the Israelis that they risk little in agreeing to this proposal. The Israelis have the force to be able to reoccupy Lebanon if the implementation of the agreement falters or if Hezbollah’s conversion into a purely political force does not occur.

In an election year and with his band of dedicated neo-conservative advisers President Bush may find this a difficult decision to make but it is the only one that can save the region and the world from further destruction turmoil and instability.

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