“Militarism Isn’t a Solution”: Rami Khouri on Rocket Attack in Golan Heights, Israeli Vow of Revenge

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman.

We turn now to the Middle East, where Israel has vowed to retaliate against Hezbollah after blaming the Lebanese group for a rocket attack Saturday in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that killed 12 Druze children at a soccer field. Hezbollah has denied responsibility. The attack took place in the village of Majdal Shams, home to members of the Druze community, an Arab-speaking minority group. Israel claimed the victims were Israeli citizens, though many Druze in the area don’t have Israeli citizenship, are in fact Syrian citizens. This is a resident of Majdal Shams.

HAITHAM: [translated] We are not more precious than children who are killed anywhere else in the country or than innocent killed in southern Lebanon or an innocent killed in Gaza. Our children are not more precious than them. We are human beings. We live our lives in peace and tranquility. Our wish is that every mother who lost their dearest yesterday was supposed to be able to celebrate their birthday, just like Sara Netanyahu, who celebrated with her son. We need to strive now to sign a deal and stop this damn war. We want to live. We don’t want to die.

AMY GOODMAN: The deadly attack has further stoked fears of a wider regional war. On Sunday, Israel’s Security Cabinet authorized Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant to decide on the manner and timing of a military response. Earlier today, Israeli drone attacks reportedly killed two people in southern Lebanon. This is Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

SECRETARY OF STATE ANTONY BLINKEN: We’re in conversations with the government of Israel. And again I emphasize its right to defend its citizens and our determination to make sure that they’re able to do that. But we also don’t want to see the conflict escalated. We don’t want to see it spread.

AMY GOODMAN: Meanwhile, Lebanon is calling for an international probe into the attack. Iran warned Israel against using the attack in Majdal Shams as a pretext for, quote, “any new adventure towards Lebanon,” unquote.

For more, we go to Boston, where we’re joined by Rami Khouri, Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at American University of Beirut, also nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington.

Rami, welcome back to Democracy Now! Talk about the significance of this attack, where it took place and who died.

RAMI KHOURI: The significance of it is that it hit a Druze village in the occupied — the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, which has not been an arena for battle between Lebanese parties, Palestinians and Israelis. The Druze have kind of stayed out of the Arab-Israeli conflict. The Lebanese Druze are supporting the Palestinians. The Druze in occupied Golan are pretty much on their own. And the Druze who are in Israel from 1948 have become Israeli citizens and serve in the police. So, this is a bit unusual.

And to have 12 youth playing soccer killed all at once is dramatic for anybody in the world. So, the facts of the attacks are a little bit more dramatic, but not really much more dramatic than anything that’s happened in Gaza over the last eight or nine months, where dozens of young kids are killed and babies are beheaded. So, there’s a problem here that we’ve had really since the beginning of the Arab-Israeli conflict, which is the imbalance in looking at the suffering of Jews, the suffering of — or, Israelis, the suffering of Palestinians and Arabs. And you see it in this situation. The tragedy of young people dying is a universal tragedy. There’s no difference between them, as the person just said, you quoted.

But we still have a problem here with the political and military confrontation. Israel wants to assert its military strength, that it has power, it will use it. The Americans, as Blinken just said — he stressed Israel’s right to self-defense; he didn’t stress anybody else’s right to self-defense.

So, this is a really deep structural conflict that’s been going on for over half a century, and it will continue going on, with incidents like this intermittently flaring up. But these kinds of deaths happen almost on a daily basis in Lebanon when Israel attacks Lebanon, kills kids, and certainly in Gaza. So, it’s a challenge for everybody, including the news media, to really cover it accurately. And many in the media are not saying that the Golan is Syrian territory occupied by Israel, allegedly annexed by Israel. Some of them are now. So, there’s a series of different dimensions to this situation that are kind of fascinating.

And the last one is that the Israelis — the prime minister, the defense minister, with their usual bravado and macho threats, saying, “We’re going to hit them hard. They’re going to learn a lesson they’ll never forget,” etc., this is standard operating procedure for an Israeli Zionist government that essentially relies on military strength more than political engagement or trying to dispense justice to all sides. And militarism isn’t a solution. Militarism is part of the problem. And the Israelis will not make a big attack on Lebanon, because they’re worried that Hezbollah can hurt them really, really badly, given its technological prowess and its determination, which is far greater than anything Israel has ever experienced.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, Axios reports Hezbollah officials have told the U.N. the deaths were caused by an Israeli anti-rocket interceptor projectile. And, of course, Lebanon is calling for a full investigation. Aren’t there also a Lebanon-Israel peace deal that’s been negotiated? And you’ve got these negotiations, Israel-Palestine negotiations, going on in Rome. How will this affect them? And do you think this could lead to a wider regional war?

RAMI KHOURI: I still don’t think that a wider regional war will come. And, in fact, we haven’t had a wider regional war probably since — I don’t know — 1973, and that wasn’t the whole region. So, no, a wider regional war is not in the cards, because it’ll only lead to wider regional mass suffering, mostly by civilians, infrastructural destruction, a panic fleeing. Already you’ve had tens of thousands of Israelis leaving Israel, and more are trying to get out. Same in Lebanon and other places. So, no, a regional war is not in the cards.

It could happen accidentally, and this is one of the scary things here. This might have been an accident. Nobody in their right mind would deliberately attack children playing soccer. Well, the Israelis do that in Gaza all the time, but the Israelis are not in their right mind when it comes to dealing with Palestinians. They’re fanatics. But most normal people would not attack children playing soccer. So, it seems that this was probably an accident, whether it came from an Israeli shell or a Lebanese shell. And who in Lebanon — there’s five or six groups in Lebanon that have artillery that they can — rockets that they can use. Well, we’ll find out. But the danger is always there that an accident could spark a bigger confrontation.

But what you noticed is the most dynamic sector in the last two days has been American and other diplomats in overdrive trying to calm things down, which has been a tradition of American diplomacy but also one of its greatest failures, because all they do is they go around telling people, “Calm down. Take it easy. You know, the proportional response. Don’t let this expand,” but at the same time they keep feeding Israel with all of the military means it needs to keep the situation tense, and including constant military exchanges, especially with Hezbollah and Israel.

So, really, this reminds us that the whole context of Palestinian-Israeli, Arab-Israeli, Hezbollah-Israeli, Iran-Israeli, whatever you want to look at, has not worked very well. There has been no serious diplomacy that tries to address the underlying causes and resolve them. And they’re all resolvable. They’re all — these are human, man-made, women-made issues that can be resolved by human beings. But the United States is not able to mediate impartially, except on a few technical issues here and there like the oil leases and things like that, but on issues that are dear to Zionism, which is, you know, to assert its authority in the region, the U.S. is fully on the Israeli side. And this is one of the problems that we have.

AMY GOODMAN: Well, Rami Khouri, I want to thank you for being with us. There’s clearly much more to talk about it, and we will over the coming days. Palestinian American journalist, senior public policy fellow at American University of Beirut, also nonresident senior fellow at the Arab Center in Washington.

That does it for our show. Democracy Now! is currently accepting applications for a director of development to lead our fundraising team. Learn more and apply at democracynow.org.

Democracy Now! is produced with Renée Feltz, Mike Burke, Deena Guzder, Messiah Rhodes, Nermeen Shaikh. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks so much for joining us.