A letter of complaint is what the Lebanese foreign minister should write. Addressed to: Syria. Following threats by the Syrian government to attack targets in Lebanon should the country furthermore harbor Syrian rebels and allow them to operate from its territory, the Syrian air force for the first time has bombed Lebanese settlements close to the border Monday afternoon. President Michel Sleiman condemned the attack as an inacceptable violation of Lebanese sovereignty.
But that is not all: at night-time Israeli flares lit up the country’s southern coastline. “That does not happen often. Possibly something suspicious is going on. However, it just as well could merely be conveying a message: to Hezbollah. Or to the UN which is based there, in order to signal that they are missing out on something and that basically, Israel is doing their work,” an observer in the South of Lebanon assesses. “Whatever Israel wants to see, it can see by day.” However, she concludes, carrying out such actions by night ensures a much greater chance of drawing attention.
Lately however, the distinctive contrails of Israeli fighter jets can often be seen in the blue sky. Side by side they fly the coast and by doing so ensure that no one in Lebanon forgets who their neighbors are.
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First published in German on the Heinrich von Arabien Blog on March 13, 2013
Translated from the German by Christine Kollmar