Searching for a consensus on Lebanon

"The international decision makers have short memories", notes the Lebanese historian Georges Corm. "In proposing the establishment of a multinational force to be deployed in southern Lebanon, the 'international community' seriously risks repeating the same mistakes we saw during the creation of the Multinational Intervention Force (MIF) on François Mitterand's initiative at the time of the Israeli invasion in the summer of 1982." Corm recalls that peacekeeping forces were unable to prevent the massacre of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Armed forces are altogether unsuitable for securing peace, he writes. "The UN Secretary General, as well as the White House or the Elysee, would be well advised to swot up on their Lebanon file before proposing that the Beirut government embark on a new adventure. ... Moreover, is it not perhaps time to try another approach in the Middle East than the gun barrel politics that was such a hallmark of the colonial 19th century and which we today see rising anew from the ashes in such an outrageous manner ?"

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