The government is incapable of controlling its territory
26 September 2024 - 15:30
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Smoke billows over Nabatieh, amid ongoing cross-border hostilities between Hezbollah and Israeli forces, as seen from Marjayoun, near the border with Israel, September 25 2024. Picture: REUTERS/KARAMALLAH DAHER
One gets used to those with anti-Israel sentiment misleading, misdefining and using non sequiturs and false equivalents to make their point, but Ismail Lagardien takes the biscuit with his latest column (“Israel will prevail despite suggestions of imminent collapse”, September 25).
He says because it is not the Lebanese state that is attacking Israel, but the non-state player Hezbollah, Israel is violating the sovereignty of Lebanon, which therefore has the right to defend itself against Israel’s breach of its sovereignty. He seems to concede Israel’s right to defence, but according to him not by counterattacking the aggressor, because it is a nonstate actor based in a sovereign state.
This is absurd and convoluted, the false premise being that Lebanon is a sovereign state, since one of the requirements of statehood is a “centralised government which possesses a monopoly on rule-making and the legitimate use of force within its territory”.
If Lebanon had not been hijacked by Iran through Hezbollah, its legitimate government would have prohibited Hezbollah from contravening UN Resolution 1701 and using its base to attack a neighbour, putting the state at risk of retaliation.
Not having done so means Lebanon’s government is either incapable of controlling its territory and has forfeited its sovereignty, or is complicit in the attacks on Israel. Either way Israel is entitled to retaliate against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sydney Kaye Cape Town
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
Support our award-winning journalism. The Premium package (digital only) is R30 for the first month and thereafter you pay R129 p/m now ad-free for all subscribers.
LETTER: Lebanon complicit in Israel attacks
The government is incapable of controlling its territory
One gets used to those with anti-Israel sentiment misleading, misdefining and using non sequiturs and false equivalents to make their point, but Ismail Lagardien takes the biscuit with his latest column (“Israel will prevail despite suggestions of imminent collapse”, September 25).
He says because it is not the Lebanese state that is attacking Israel, but the non-state player Hezbollah, Israel is violating the sovereignty of Lebanon, which therefore has the right to defend itself against Israel’s breach of its sovereignty. He seems to concede Israel’s right to defence, but according to him not by counterattacking the aggressor, because it is a nonstate actor based in a sovereign state.
This is absurd and convoluted, the false premise being that Lebanon is a sovereign state, since one of the requirements of statehood is a “centralised government which possesses a monopoly on rule-making and the legitimate use of force within its territory”.
If Lebanon had not been hijacked by Iran through Hezbollah, its legitimate government would have prohibited Hezbollah from contravening UN Resolution 1701 and using its base to attack a neighbour, putting the state at risk of retaliation.
Not having done so means Lebanon’s government is either incapable of controlling its territory and has forfeited its sovereignty, or is complicit in the attacks on Israel. Either way Israel is entitled to retaliate against Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Sydney Kaye
Cape Town
JOIN THE DISCUSSION: Send us an email with your comments to letters@businesslive.co.za. Letters of more than 300 words will be edited for length. Anonymous correspondence will not be published. Writers should include a daytime telephone number.
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