ALAIN GRESH/SARRA GRIRA Gaza – Lebanon, a Western war

Alain Gresh and Sarra Grira, Orient XXI, 30/9/2024
Translated by Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala

Alain Gresh (Cairo 1948) is a French journalist specialising in the Mashreq region and director of the OrientXXI website.

 Sarra Grira is a doctor in French literature and civilisation, with a thesis entitled Roman autobiographique et engagement: une antinomie? (XXe siècle), and is editor-in-chief of OrientXXI.

How far will Tel Aviv go? Not content with reducing Gaza to a field of ruins and committing genocide, Israel is extending its operations to neighbouring Lebanon, using the same methods, the same massacres and the same destruction, convinced of the unfailing support of its Western backers who have become direct accomplices in its actions.

Hassan Bleibel

The number of Lebanese killed in the bombardments has exceeded 1,640, and the Israeli ‘exploits’ have multiplied. Inaugurated by the episode of the pagers, which caused many Western commentators to swoon over the ‘technological feat’. Too bad for the victims, killed, disfigured, blinded, amputated, written off. It will be repeated ad nauseam that, after all, it was just Hezbollah, a ‘humiliation’, an organisation that, let's not forget, France does not consider to be a terrorist organisation. As if the explosions had not affected the whole of society, killing militiamen and civilians alike. Yet the use of booby-traps is a violation of the laws of war, as several specialists and humanitarian organisations have pointed out [1].

The summary assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, including that of its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, each time accompanied by numerous ‘collateral victims’, do not even cause a scandal. Netanyahu's latest thumbing of his nose at the UN was to give the go-ahead for the bombing of the Lebanese capital at the organisation's own headquarters.

In Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, the members of the UN Security Council are ignoring the opinions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) more and more every day. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is delaying issuing a warrant against Benyamin Netanyahu, even though its prosecutor reports pressure ‘from world leaders’ and other parties, including himself and his family[2]. Have we heard Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron or Olaf Scholz protest against these practices?

For almost a year now, a handful of voices - who would almost seem to be the village fools - have been denouncing Israeli impunity, encouraged by Western inaction. Such a war would never have been possible without the airlift of USAmerican - and to a lesser extent European - weapons, and without the diplomatic and political cover of Western countries. France, if it wanted to, could take measures that would really hit Israel, but it is still refusing to suspend the arms export licences it has granted. It could also lobby the European Union, with countries like Spain, to suspend the association agreement with Israel. It is not doing so.

The never-ending Palestinian Nakba and the accelerating destruction of Lebanon are not only Israeli crimes, but also Western crimes for which Washington, Paris and Berlin bear direct responsibility. Far from the posturing and theatrics of the UN General Assembly over the last few days, let's not be fooled by Joe Biden's anger or Emmanuel Macron's pious hopes for the ‘protection of civilians’, who has never missed an opportunity to show his unwavering support for Benyamin Netanyahu's extreme right-wing government. Let's not even forget the number of diplomats who left the UN General Assembly hall when the Israeli Prime Minister took the floor, in a gesture that had more to do with catharsis than politics. For while some Western countries bear primary responsibility for Israel's crimes, others, such as Russia and China, have taken no action to put an end to this war, whose scope is expanding daily, spilling over into Yemen today and perhaps Iran tomorrow.

This war is plunging us into a dark age in which the laws, the law, the safeguards, everything that would prevent humanity from sinking into barbarism, are being methodically torn down. An era in which one side has decided to put the other side to death, judging it to be ‘barbaric’. ‘Savage enemies‘, in Netanyahu's words, who threaten ’Judeo-Christian civilisation’. The Prime Minister is seeking to drag the West into a war of civilisation with religious overtones, in which Israel sees itself as the outpost in the Middle East. With undoubted success.

Through the arms and munitions they continue to supply to Israel, through their unwavering support for a spurious ‘right to self-defence’, through their rejection of the Palestinians' right to self-determination and to resist an occupation that the ICJ has declared illegal and ordered to be halted - a decision that the UN Security Council refuses to implement - these countries bear responsibility for Israel's hubris. As members of such prestigious institutions as the UN Security Council and the G7, the governments of these states endorse the law of the jungle imposed by Israel and the logic of collective punishment. This logic was already at work in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003, with familiar results. Back in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, occupied the south, laid siege to Beirut and oversaw the massacres in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila. It was this macabre ‘victory’ that led to the rise of Hezbollah, just as Israel's policy of occupation led to 7 October. Because the logic of war and colonialism can never lead to peace and security.

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[1] Read Lebanon: Establish international investigation into deadly attacks using exploding portable devices, by Amnesty International, 20 Sept. 2024

[2] Listen to Karim Khan’s interview by Nick Robinson, 7 Sept. 2024

SCARLETT HADDADDespite criticism of Hezbollah, this is no time for internal discord among the Lebanese

Scarlett Haddad, L’Orient-Le Jour, 28/9/2024
Translated by Fausto Giudice, Tlaxcala

 

Scarlett Haddad is a journalist and analyst for the French-language Lebanese daily L'Orient-Le Jour. She specializes in Lebanese domestic political issues in addition to Syrian, Palestinian and Iranian matters from Lebanon's perspective, including topics concerning Hezbollah and the Arab-Israeli conflict.

 At a time when it is waging a ferocious war, albeit a supportive one, against the Israelis, Hezbollah fears it could face internal unrest. At a time when the inhabitants of the South have taken to the streets again because of the violence of the Israeli bombardments in their region, political and other voices have been raised to criticise Hezbollah and ask it to close the ‘support front’. This may be pure coincidence or the expression of popular unease about this front and the prospect of its enlargement, but it may also be a step in a plan to put Hezbollah against the wall as a prelude to its weakening.

Kamal Sharaf, Yemen

After having more or less avoided criticising Hezbollah too openly, particularly after the Israeli escalation of recent days, some political figures have decided to raise their voices. This may be entirely justified by the intensification and broadening of Israeli attacks on several regions of Lebanon and by the threat of a ground invasion, but the simultaneous nature of these criticisms raises questions for Hezbollah.

At a time when it is the target of murderous attacks and is conducting an internal investigation into possible infiltration, which its opponents are exploiting to undermine its credibility among its supporters, Hezbollah is wondering whether this sudden wave of criticism is spontaneous or whether it is orchestrated by foreign parties. It is also wondering whether this is just an indirect means of putting pressure on it to accept certain conditions or whether there is a wider plan.

What really catches its attention is the timing of this campaign, which comes at a time when truce negotiations are due to be held in New York. These talks, led by the USAmericans and the French, should in principle involve a 21-day halt to the fighting, the time needed to reach an agreement on an in-depth solution to the situation on Lebanon's southern border. Hezbollah and with it official Lebanon are insisting that the agreement should also cover Gaza, but the Israelis and the USAmericans want to separate the two issues. They could therefore try to put pressure on Hezbollah to change its mind on the latter point.

However, Hezbollah is adamant that it will continue to support Hamas in Gaza through the open front in southern Lebanon. It considers that all attempts to change its mind are doomed to failure, especially since, after the latest Israeli attacks, any concession on its part would be interpreted as a defeat. It is therefore prepared to face the consequences of this position, but what would worry them is if this sudden wave of criticism were not the prelude to internal unrest. In addition to the Israeli attacks, they will have to deal with the notorious intercommunal discord that has become an obsession for Hezbollah since the coup of 7 May 2008 and the clashes that followed.

Over the last few months, those close to Hezbollah consider that one of the greatest achievements of the opening of the ‘support front’ has been the consolidation of relations between the group's supporters and the Sunni street that favours Hamas. This sort of ‘honeymoon’ that Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon are currently experiencing, united for the Palestinian cause, means that Hezbollah can feel that its back is protected and it can therefore devote itself fully to the front and its popular environment. Moreover, the fact that from time to time Palestinian fighters and others from various Sunni groups launch missiles against the Israeli North from the South is a way of showing the extent of the understanding and coordination between them and Hezbollah. Similarly, the welcome given to displaced persons from the South in predominantly Sunni regions is further proof of the good relations that currently exist. This is a terrible blow to any attempt to spark discord between Sunnis and Shiites. Even after the so-called beeper and walkie-talkie attacks, many young Sunnis, particularly from Tarik Jdideh neighbourhood, rushed to give blood to the wounded.

As far as the Druze community is concerned, Hezbollah can also rest easy because of the positions taken by its leader Walid Joumblatt, who has repeatedly expressed his support for the Palestinian cause and Hamas in particular in this war that has been going on for over 11 months. He has also made numerous statements urging the inhabitants of the Mountain to open their doors to displaced persons from the South, and has increased the number of so-called reconciliation and rapprochement meetings with numerous parties in the Mountain and elsewhere, with the declared aim of nipping in the bud any attempt at internal discord.

That leaves the Christians, who seem to be more difficult for Hezbollah to manage in the current period. Its relations with the Free Patriotic Movement have become more complicated and it can no longer count on unfailing support from the party's base. Admittedly, the FPM has drawn up a plan to help displaced persons in the South, but the sensitivity of its base is no longer as favourable to Hezbollah. On the other hand, most of the other parties are downright hostile to Hezbollah and even if their leaders waited before openly expressing their criticism, it was already in the air.

In this respect, there is no doubt nothing new. But rumours have been circulating recently that some parties are organising and training for a possible confrontation with Hezbollah. Immediately, the spectre of the civil war, in all its stages, which took place between 1975 and 1990, reappeared. Of course, the parties concerned deny any desire to engage in a new armed confrontation and claim that their criticisms are merely the expression of a justified political position. Similarly, well-informed military sources totally deny rumours of a possible militarisation of the political conflict, assuring us that there are no preparations in that direction. Reassuring statements in these anxious times. So there should not be time for discord.

José Alberto Rodríguez Avila, Cuba