Bloody Sunday: Carnage at Qana

They were hiding for their lives from the bombs. In a basement of a multistory house, several displaced families were asleep in the desperately naive believe that they were save there. But they were not. During the early hours of this Sunday an Israeli bunker buster bomb destroyed the house on top of these poor souls. Their shelter were shattered with their bodies and their lives.

According to ABC (US) and BBC reports, at least 54 civilians died - of which 37 were children. The outrage that is unfolding in Lebanon is a travesty, destroying in two weeks what has been built painstakingly since 2002. It is not the vestibules of Hezbollah that are being destroyed. Rather it is the infrastructure, the nationhood, the very fabric of the Lebanese society that are being pummelled into submission. In one fell swoop, Israel has blown to shards the last remnants of goodwill and whatever respectable reputation might have remained amongst the Arab nations and many Western nations for itself.

For all the sweet talk over how civilians are warned of imminent attacks and how precision strikes are aimed at Hezbollah targets only, the carnage amongst the civilian Lebanese has reached over 400 dead and more than 600 000 displaced, refugees in their own country.

All the ostentatious harangue about eternal Jewish morals and humanism, the bombastic pounding of southern Lebanon turns into a cynical farce in the pantomime of Zionism. The outcry of an unjustly punished society is met by the tentative and bewildered indecision of the West.

Images of the broken Kosova of the 1990's jump to mind. Where is the international leadership to put an immediate end to this futile destruction? Once the emotions have settled for a brief moment before the next scene of devastation, one may contemplate just what the basis for such leadership might be.

Richard Calland of the Mail & Guardian argues that merely learning from examples of successful resolutions to deep-rooted conflict presents no evidence of any progress in those unresolved conflicts such as the Middle East. Rather, the pivotal question is whether the historic tide has changed against the status quo of injustice in the Israel-Palestine affair. More practical, moral weight should be gathered against the injustice and brought to bear upon the protagonists of injustice through sanctions and firm diplomatic pressure.

Tony Leon, leader of the Democratic Alliance of South Africa, is reported in a later addition of the Mail & Guardian, to have said that the best approach to the Israel-Lebanon conflict would be "rights-based". He warns against a simplistic, Manichean world view of good versus bad in which one is forced to align with one of the two poles - good or evil. The Middle Eastern conflict is complex far beyond such naive classification, according to Mr Leon. On that point, Mr Bush might take note. His axis of evil approach has not reaped him any good of lately and brought immense destruction to Iraq. One inevitably wonders who's next to go on his proclaimed axis.

The impunity with which Israel misbehaves in Lebanon is evidence of the lack of real influence that Europe, Russia and Asia have in one of the most acute ongoing international crises of all time. If the US is for us, who can be against us? That seems to be the mentality of the Israeli government and large sections of its political support base.

The lack of real influence also demonstrates how perilous the current international situation has become what with only one real superpower that can do as it pleases. What leadership exists at the head of this muscle-toned crusader leaves the world even more gasping with bated breath. But as history has shown us, the wheel always keeps turning.

As energy and commodities continue to increase in importance, the rise of new superpowers on the international block, such as China, Russia and India, are waiting in the wings. It is only a matter of time before the gauntlet is flaunted for a re-balancing of international power. The change of leadership will come with a change in the status quo at the UN Security Council.

Perhaps the massacre of 54 Lebanese civilians may still lead to more radical changes in the international power play. Perhaps the rest of the world can be shocked out of its indecision. Perhaps real leadership will arise to take us on a road of rights-based international justice. As Bloody Sunday of 30 January 1972 was in a sense a pivotal point for the Northern Ireland conflict, so the carnage in Qana may still prove similarly decisive.