Defiant Lebanese harvest olives in the shadow of war


By AFP
November 18, 2024

The olive groves of Kfeir are just 9 kilometres from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights - Copyright KCNA VIA KNS/AFP STR

Laure Al Khoury

On a mountain slope in south Lebanon, agricultural worker Assaad al-Taqi is busy picking olives, undeterred by the roar of Israeli warplanes overhead.

This year, he is collecting the harvest against the backdrop of the raging Israel-Hezbollah war.

He works in the village of Kfeir, just a few kilometres (miles) from where Israeli bombardment has devastated much of south Lebanon since Israel escalated its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in September.

“But I’m not afraid of the shelling,” Taqi said, as he and other workers hit the tree branches with sticks, sending showers of olives tumbling down into jute bags.

“Our presence here is an act of defiance,” the 51-year-old said, but also noting that the olive “is the tree of peace”.

Kfeir is nine kilometres (six miles) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in the mixed Christian and Druze district of Hasbaya, which has largely been spared the violence that has wracked nearby Hezbollah strongholds.

But even Hasbaya’s relative tranquillity was shattered last month when three journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on a complex where they were sleeping.

Israel and Hezbollah had previously exchanged cross-border fire for almost a year over the Gaza conflict.



– $58 mln in losses –



The workers in Kfeir rest in the shade of the olive trees, some 900 metres (3,000 feet) above sea level on the slopes of Mount Hermon, which overlooks an area where Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli-held territory meet.

They have been toiling in relative peace since dawn, interrupted only by sonic booms from Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier and the sight of smoke rising on the horizon from strikes on a south Lebanon border village.

Hassna Hammad, 48, who was among those picking olives, said the agricultural work was her livelihood.

“We aren’t afraid, we’re used to it,” she said of the war.

But “we are afraid for our brothers impacted by the conflict”, she added, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.

Elsewhere in south Lebanon, olive trees are bulging with fruit that nobody will pick, after villagers fled Israeli bombardment and the subsequent ground operation that began on September 30.

A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon.

It said 12 percent of olive groves in the conflict-affected areas it assessed had been destroyed.

Normally, the olive-picking season is highly anticipated in Lebanon, and some people return each year to their native villages and fields just for the harvest.

“Not everyone has the courage to come” this time, said Salim Kassab, who owns a traditional press where villagers bring their olives to extract the oil.

“Many people are absent… They sent workers to replace them,” said Kassab, 50.


– ‘Love the olive month’ –


“There is fear of the war of course,” he said, adding that he had come alone this year, without his wife and children.

Kassab said that before the conflict, he used to travel to the southern cities of Nabatiyeh and Sidon if he needed to fix his machines, but such trips are near impossible now because of the danger.

The World Bank report estimated that 12 months of agriculture sector losses have cost Lebanon $1.1 billion, in a country already going through a gruelling five-year economic crisis before the fighting erupted.

Areas near the southern border have sustained “the most significant damage and losses”, the report said.

It cited “the burning and abandonment of large areas of agricultural land” in both south and east Lebanon, “along with lost harvests due to the displacement of farmers”.

Elsewhere in Kfeir, Inaam Abu Rizk, 77, and her husband were busy washing olives they plan to either press for oil or jar to be served throughout the winter.

Abu Rizk has taken part in the olive harvest for decades, part of a tradition handed down the generations, and said that despite the war, this year was no different.

“Of course we’re afraid… there is the sound of planes and bombing,” she said.

But “we love the olive month — we are farmers and the land is our work”.

Does Israel Have the Right to Defend Itself?

States do not possess the right of self-defense to uphold illegal occupations.

By Stephen R. Shalom

October 30, 2024

Source: Fpif


k_barghouti - Palestinians throw stones at Israeli soldiers. Flikr.

“Israel has the right to defend itself,” President Joseph Biden, Vice President Kamala Harris, and countless commentators have declared multiple times over the past year. But does Israel in fact have such a right?

Even if there were an Israeli right to self-defense, such a right would be limited by the standard of proportionality. This is not only the requirement of proportionality for any individual military operation, but of Israel’s response to the October 7 attacks taken as a whole: are the harmful effects of Israel’s military campaign outweighed by the benefits of achieving the claimed legitimate aims of the campaign?

Israel’s response certainly does not meet this standard given that it has subjected the people of Gaza to what the International Court of Justice (ICJ) has deemed a “plausible” genocide. Amnesty International called the “intensity and cruelty” of the Israeli government’s bombardment “unparalleled,” with a “pace of death” The New York Times found to have “few precedents in this century.” Oxfam and Human Rights Watch characterized Israel’s military actions as “indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks,” and the United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry found a “concerted policy” to destroy Gaza’s health-care system.

But does Israel have a right to self-defense at all?
Digging into the Arguments

On one level, of course it does. When confronted by someone about to commit an unjust act, such as killing a civilian, there is a right to self-defense. Consider a Soviet or American soldier in World War II preparing to unjustly slaughter a group of Japanese or German civilians. Even though the victims are citizens of evil regimes engaged in an unjust war, they still are not morally liable to being butchered. Therefore, a Japanese or German soldier, despite participating in an unjust war, would be justified in using force in defense of the endangered civilians.

Accordingly, Israeli security forces were engaged in legitimate self-defense when they acted to defend the innocent victims of October 7. Moreover, Israeli civilians who participated in “individual self-defense or defense of others” on that day did not thereby become lawful military targets. (Otherwise, as the International Committee of the Red Cross noted, “this would have the absurd consequence of legitimizing a previously unlawful attack.”) They too were engaged in legitimate self-defense.

On another level, however, Israel does not have the right of self-defense to an attack against its illegal long-standing occupation. Russian troops in occupied Ukraine cannot claim self-defense when they are attacked by Ukrainian forces. Japanese troops couldn’t claim self-defense when they were attacked by guerrillas in occupied China or the occupied Philippines during World War II. Russia’s and Japan’s occupations were illegal and their armies’ only morally legitimate recourse in the face of resistance was to end those occupations. In the same way, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is illegal and unjust and Israel cannot claim self-defense when Palestinians struggle by legitimate means to end the occupation. The proper Israeli response to such Palestinian actions is not self-defense but full withdrawal from the occupied territories.

Nor can Israel’s military operations in Gaza be deemed self-defense as a means of freeing hostages and thus ending an unjust abuse of civilians. The overwhelming majority of freed hostages were released in exchanges (105) or unilateral Hamas actions (4), while the number freed by the IDF (8) was almost certainly exceeded by the number inadvertently killed by them and far exceeded by the number of Palestinian civilians killed in the rescue efforts. Family members of the hostages charge that, in rejecting negotiations, “Netanyahu is knowingly, deliberately and protractedly abandoning the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza.” A former hostage family spokesperson stated that they had learned that “Hamas had offered on October 9 or 10 to release all the civilian hostages in exchange for the IDF not entering the [Gaza] Strip, but the [Israeli] government rejected the offer.” Israel’s assault on Gaza has not been aimed to secure the release of its hostages but to defend (and expand) its illegal occupation, which it has no right to do.
Illegal Occupation

Since the ICJ only issued its advisory opinion declaring the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories to be illegal in July 2024, one might argue that the occupation wasn’t illegal before that date. But the Court’s reasoning did not draw upon any recently occurring event that had rendered the occupation illegal. Rather it pointed to territorial acquisition and denial of self-determination — longstanding features of Israeli policy:


The Court considers that the violations by Israel of the prohibition of the acquisition of territory by force and of the Palestinian people’s right to self-determination have a direct impact on the legality of the continued presence of Israel, as an occupying Power, in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. The sustained abuse by Israel of its position as an occupying Power, through annexation and an assertion of permanent control over the Occupied Palestinian Territory and continued frustration of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination, violates fundamental principles of international law and renders Israel’s presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory unlawful. (Para 261)

In any event, the illegality of the occupation was identified before this ICJ advisory opinion. In 2017, the Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories Michael Lynk submitted a report endorsing the four elements of a test proposed by international law scholars for whether an occupation was legal: (a) The belligerent occupier cannot annex any of the occupied territory; (b) The belligerent occupation must be temporary and cannot be either permanent or indefinite; and the occupant must seek to end the occupation and return the territory to the sovereign as soon as reasonably possible; (c) During the occupation, the belligerent occupier is to act in the best interests of the people under occupation; and (d) The belligerent occupier must administer the occupied territory in good faith, including acting in full compliance with its duties and obligations under international law and as a member of the United Nations. Lynk found that Israel failed all four elements of this test.

And in 2022, the report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory found Israel’s occupation to be illegal, focusing “on two indicators that may be used to determine the illegality of the occupation: the permanence of the Israeli occupation, … and actions amounting to annexation, including unilateral actions taken to dispose of parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territory as if Israel held sovereignty over it.”

Israel argues that its occupation is legal (or even not an occupation at all) because it acquired the West Bank and Gaza as the result of a defensive war against an attack waged by neighboring Arab states. In fact, however, in 1967 it was Israel that attacked first. Those who excuse Israel’s action as justified preemption point to the Arab armies mobilizing on its borders. But whatever panic there was among the public, those who understood the military situation — policymakers in Tel Aviv and Washington — knew quite well that even if the Arabs had struck first, Israel would have easily prevailed in any war. Egypt’s leader was looking for a way out and had agreed to send his vice-president to Washington for negotiations. Before that could happen, Israel attacked. Menachem Begin, then an Israeli cabinet member, recalled that we “had a choice.” Egyptian Army concentrations did not prove that Nasser was about to attack. “We must be honest with ourselves. We decided to attack him.”

Yet, even if it were the case that the 1967 war was wholly defensive on Israel’s part, this could not justify Israel’s continued rule over Palestinians. A people do not lose their right to self-determination because governments that had no legal or moral right to be ruling parts of Palestine (Jordan and Egypt) went to war. Whatever penalties would have been warranted to impose on Amman and Cairo for having started the war, there was no basis for punishing the Palestinian population by forcing them to submit to foreign military occupation.

Moreover, as Michael Bothe has noted, even if Israel’s war in 1967 had been a lawful act of self-defense, “taking advantage of the situation for the purpose of annexation … would go beyond the limits of what is allowed as self-defense[:] namely[,] measures which are militarily necessary and proportionate means of self-protection.”

Israel argues that since it withdrew its forces from Gaza in 2005, the territory is no longer occupied. But both legally and practically, Israel’s withdrawal did not end the occupation. As John Dugard, the U.N.’s then Special Rapporteur on the Occupied Palestinian Territories, noted in 2006, Gaza remained under Israel’s control, with Israel retaining control of Gaza’s air space, sea space, and (with Egypt) land borders. And Human Rights Watch stated in 2008 that “even though Israel withdrew its permanent military forces and settlers in 2005, it remains an occupying power in Gaza under international law because it continues to exercise effective day-to-day control over key aspects of life in Gaza.” As the Israeli human rights organization Gisha observed, if Israel had truly ended the occupation, then it could not prohibit Gaza from trading by sea or air with other nations, or prevent people from coming in and out, or declare “no go zones” within the territory.

The same conclusion follows from basic principles of morality. Regardless of the legal status of the occupation, it surely cannot be morally acceptable to maintain a people under occupation and deny them self-determination for more than 50 years. Accordingly, on moral grounds there can be no right to self-defense on behalf of maintaining that occupation.
The Invasion of Lebanon

The Biden administration has used the same “Israel has the right to defend itself” language with respect to Netanyahu’s war against Hezbollah. Does Israel have such a right in this case?

As in Gaza, Israel’s bombing campaign in Lebanon has placed civilians at grave risk of harm. But it’s not just Israel’s illegitimate war tactics that negate any Israeli right to self-defense here. One of the rules of customary international law is that the exercise of the right of self-defense is subject to the condition of necessity. There is a corresponding moral standard from just war theory of last resort. According to these principles, it cannot be right to go to war when there exists some other, less violent, and less costly (in terms of human lives) means of achieving a just cause.

On October 8, 2023, after Israel launched its assault on Gaza in response to Hamas’s attack the previous day, Hezbollah fired some rockets at military targets in Shebaa Farms, a small piece of land occupied by Israel. Lebanon claims Shebaa Farms; Israel says it is part of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, conquered from Syria in 1967 and annexed by Israel in 1981. Israel’s annexation was declared null and void by a unanimous Security Council resolution and recognized by no country in the world other than Israel, until the Trump administration did so in 2019. Syria claims Shebaa Farms belongs to Lebanon, but neither Syria nor Israel has responded to the UN secretary general’s 2007 proposal for the demarcation of the border.

In any event, Israel retaliated for the Hezbollah attack, and the two sides proceeded to exchange fire across the border, with a majority of the projectiles coming from Israel, and with a large majority of the casualties, both military and civilian, occurring in Lebanon. Tensions increased over the summer, when what was likely an errant Hezbollah rocket killed 12 youngsters in a Druze village in the Golan. Israel assassinated a Hezbollah commander in Beirut (along with several civilians, wounding dozens of others), air strikes and rocket fire ensued, but by the end of August, the border had quieted down. Then in mid-September, Israel unleashed its pager and walkie-talkie attacks (condemned as war crimes by most human rights groups). Israel followed with extensive air bombardment and then a ground invasion into Lebanon. Was this justified self-defense?

Israel could have ended the Hezbollah rocket attacks at any point over the past year had it accepted a ceasefire in Gaza. (During the brief Gaza ceasefire in November 2023, Hezbollah had held its fire.) Of course, no country wants to be pressured to choose a policy by military threat, but morally and legally, the decision as to whether to accept a Gaza ceasefire was not optional for Israel. When one is committing massive human rights violations, it is not discretionary whether to continue doing so. As B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, stated in January, the only way to implement the ICJ order calling on Israel to prevent acts of genocide “is through an immediate ceasefire. It is impossible to protect civilian life as long as the fighting continues.” In May, the ICJ ordered Israel to end its Rafah offensive. Again, for the Israeli government this wasn’t an option.

Israel had another opportunity to bring calm to the border, and perhaps much more, without needing to unleash a new, major war.

A few days after the pager bomb attacks, the United States and France drafted a call for a 21-day pause in fighting to allow for diplomacy aimed at reaching a longer-term truce. Washington informed the UN and Lebanon that Israel agreed. The New York Times reported that “the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, also sent word through an intermediary that his powerful militia supported the call for a cease-fire.” On September 25, the plan was publicly announced, with the backing of Australia, Canada, the European Union, Germany, Italy, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, and Qatar. Peace seemed possible. U.S. officials even expressed hope that the peace might extend to Gaza.

According to The Times report, however:

Two days later, before diplomats could draw up a detailed cease-fire proposal, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel declared at the United Nations that Israel must “defeat Hezbollah in Lebanon.” Soon after, huge bombs fell on Beirut’s southern outskirts, killing Mr. Nasrallah and extinguishing any immediate prospect of a cease-fire.… progress toward a cease-fire was further along than previously known, but it was halted abruptly when Israel killed Mr. Nasrallah.

The Times noted that the killing of Nasrallah was “the second time in 10 weeks that Israel had quashed progress toward a cease-fire by striking a militia leader; Israel’s assassination in July of Ismail Haniyeh, the political leader of Hamas, led to the hardening of that group against any Gaza cease-fire proposal.”

Nasrallah certainly had blood on his hands. Hezbollah’s role in Syria during the civil war there was reprehensible. But his killing and the ensuing war can hardly be described as Israel exercising its right to defend itself. Rather than self-defense, these represented steps toward an unnecessary—and hence unjust— war, with all the horrible consequences that entails.

Self-defense is a basic right of individuals and countries. But it is not justified self-defense when it represents the defense of an unjust occupation. And it is not legitimate self-defense when war was neither necessary nor a last resort.


Stephen R. Shalom (born September 8, 1948) is professor emeritus of political science at William Paterson University in NJ. Among other topics, he writes about U.S. foreign policy and political vision. He is on the editorial board of New Politics and a member of Jewish Voice for Peace and the Real Utopia network.

MENA

Towards Another Uprising

Oct

19

2024

comments

At the end of 2010 an individual act of despair in the town of Sidi Bouzid ignited a daring, enraged, and joyful upheaval that travelled through North Africa into the Middle East and beyond. People defied the oppressive systems they had been immersed in for generations and came together in the streets to topple the political elites at their helm. The authorities, at first stunned by this courageous spirit that they couldn’t understand, then unleashed a cynical and brutal response.

This defeat is still being inflicted on the people in the region, and is also felt all over the world by those who stood in solidarity with the uprisings but were mostly unable to overcome their powerlessness as the uprisings were massacred.

The horrors in the region during the last decade are many. To name some that stick most in my mind: Sisi has turned back the clock in Egypt to military dictatorship with the material support of the US. The regimes in the other North-African countries are paving over any sign of freedom while being coaxed by European countries to shut down the immigration routes over the Mediterranean. Without the murderous military campaigns of Hezbollah and the IRGC in Syria, Assad wouldn’t have survived the uprising. The Iranian regime itself brutally oppressed three different uprisings in the country in the last decade. Most people in Lebanon are in a daily struggle for survival because of the greed of its political leaders while mobs at the orders of Hezbollah beat down street protests. Early on in the uprisings, Hamas, who has shot political opponents in broad daylight on the streets of Gaza, culled attempts at an uprising by rounding up protest organizers and threatening them with murder. Leaders in the region understood once again that they can use any means against the populations under their control without real push-back from outside. Indifference, cynicism and opportunism trump moral appeals, and strategic alliances are always in play. The world churns on. For those of us who have not looked away, how can we not see a connection between Assad bombing Syrian cities into obliteration and Netanyahu razing Gaza?

The authors of “Towards the Last Intifada” (Tinderbox #6) don’t acknowledge these experiences of the last decade. Instead, they propose to join the opposing side of an American geopolitical alliance (keeping true to American centralism in their own way). According to them, the Axis of Resistance shows the path forward for anarchists to struggle against empire. This article seems to confound resistance with ‘the Resistance’. That is to say, they collapse any form of resistance from people in Palestine, and more broadly in the region, into a particular representation, adopting an umbrella term used by states, militaries, para-state/para-military organizations to describe their own activities. The authors of the article warn anarchists against being too sensitive to hierarchy – as if that is the only aspect of ‘the Resistance’ anarchists might find difficult to accept.

It is now a year after the bloody incursion of Hamas into Israel. Apart from discourse, the accomplishments of the Resistance so far are: Hezbollah has launched ineffectual rockets that have only inflicted significant damage on a Druze village, Iranian leaders are busying themselves with making appeals to the West to reign in Israel, militias in Iraq attacked a couple of US military bases in the country early on and then fell silent, while only the Houthis seem to have taken Nasrallah’s “Unity of Fronts” seriously. They succeeded in disrupting global shipping routes and have carried out some unexpected aerial attacks on Israel. In the meantime, Israel has wiped out the leadership of Hezbollah, drops bombs on Lebanon on a daily basis, has regularly bombed sites in Syria without retaliation, and commits executions in Tehran. The Axis of Resistance and the Unity of Fronts are mere slogans that obscure the strategic dealings among political, authoritarian organisations and states with their own (often differing) interests. It’s delusional to see it as something else. And Israel is calling the bluff of ‘the Resistance’ with an exponential military escalation.

Israel’s massacres in Gaza, with the material support of the Western countries, are relentless. The apartheid regime in the West Bank and Israel has been built up for decades, leaving almost no oxygen to breathe for those living under its control. Faced with this bleak reality and an overwhelming powerlessness to put a stop to it, anarchists may be looking for an effective resistance (or rather, as it appears, an image of one). But if we want to fight against oppression, we can’t be content with any opposition. Choosing to join one authoritarian, militaristic system against another will not put an end to the horrors of this world – neither in this conflict nor in any other. It is neither inherently defeatist or a sign of privileged indifference to refuse to take sides between warring groups and states. That conclusion can only be reached if we would reduce reality to simplistic representations. Instead, by being open to complexity and specificity, anarchist action can be a liberating endeavor. It is here that we can find affinities, build relationships on a different basis, and muster the strength and courage – or perhaps, humility and passion – to attack. Anarchists find their effectiveness when they can undermine and destroy oppressive systems. We will not find it in a military prowess which, at the end of the day, produces more oppression and misery. And so those that have a spirit of their own and a memory of past rebellions will fight for another uprising.

From the northern coast of the Mediterranean, with a heavy heart and a soul on fire
Early October, 2024

Lebanese Christians, caught in crossfire, refuse to leave war zone

As Israel and Hezbollah fight all around them, defiant villagers stay put in hopes their presence will deter attacks on their homes.



By Abbie Cheeseman and Suzan Haidamous
October 19, 2024

WASHINGTON POST


QLAAYA, Lebanon — The Israeli fighter jet, roaring overhead, unleashed devastation on its nearby target. The blast shook Marita El Hajj’s house and rattled the windows.

The 9-year-old continued to stare straight ahead. Eyes glazed, face impassive, she barely flinched. In this Maronite Christian village less than three miles from the Israeli border, such strikes are now nearly constant.

Through the past year, Marita has physically felt the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah growing more intense. The symptoms of her autism have deteriorated sharply in the past three weeks, her parents said, as the fight around their village has exploded into all-out war.

“We just want peace,” said Marita’s mother, Manal El Hajj. “We do not want this war.”

While much of southern Lebanon falls under the de facto control of Hezbollah, the ancient valleys here hold a scattering of towns and villages that are predominantly Christian, Druze or Sunni Muslim. None of them have rallied to support Hezbollah. Their neutrality largely protected them during the first 11 months of the conflict, but now the war is creeping quickly toward them.

While most residents have evacuated, people in some Christian towns — and their priests — are refusing to leave their homes again.

Their reasons are a kaleidoscope of defiance, resolve and generational trauma. Some say they can’t afford to relocate. Some believe their presence deters attacks on their lands. Some fear they won’t be able to return.

For Robert and Manal El Hajj, Marita’s parents, and many across the country, this war in particular has brought feelings of complete helplessness: Lebanon’s five-year-long economic crisis has left them unable to escape the danger zone of a war they do not even support.

When Israel issued an evacuation notice to Qlaaya this month, Manal said, she collapsed in tears. She wanted to leave, but it’s not an option. The family, already dependent on food aid before the war, simply doesn’t have the money for accommodation elsewhere. Enduring the “humiliation” of staying in a shelter for displaced people in Beirut would worsen Marita’s symptoms tenfold, Manal said. Her eldest daughter, 15, told her it would be better to die at home. The younger children begged to leave the country.

Her voice and hands shaking, she glanced at the TV, with its endless coverage of children in Gaza and Lebanon pulled, lifeless, from the rubble of their former homes, and cried some more. “All I pray for is that nothing happens to my children, that they don’t end up like the kids I see on TV.”

On Monday, the deep thuds of incoming artillery every few minutes reverberated across the steep open valley, punctuated by the periodic thunder of apartment-shaking airstrikes. As the day wore on, the strikes grew closer and louder. The nights, the family said, are hell.

Their top-floor flat looks out over southern Lebanon and northern Israel. “It’s a strategic view,” Robert said, and laughed. From their living room window alone, they see smoke rising from between 10 and 20 airstrikes each day. Waves of rockets, missiles, artillery and machine gun rounds assault an otherwise serene soundscape. On a border so accustomed to violence, some children can discern the difference in sound of incoming and outgoing fire. The force of the blows has broken tiles in their kitchen.

Israeli ground forces have advanced into Lebanon from several directions to fight Hezbollah in villages emptied of people. They have yet to enter any Christian areas, but they can be heard. Vehicle tracks in satellite imagery taken on Sunday, provided by Planet Labs, show evidence that Israeli troops had been in an area just four miles from the El Hajjs’ house.

Each evening, when the bombing grows heavier, volunteers gather to prepare aid packages for the community. On Monday, it was winter clothes. People need the help, organizers said, but it’s also keeping the community together and distracting them from the sound of war being waged just a few miles away.

“If the village is empty and anyone can come and go then it will be even more dangerous for our homes,” said the Rev. Pierre Raï at St George’s Church. “It’s better if we stay here and protect our home or land. Even if we don’t have weapons, we will protect it with our presence.”

But religion offers only thin protection. In Ebel El Saqi, six miles from Qlaaya, the Rev. Gregorius Salloum, a Greek orthodox priest, was mortally wounded in an Israeli airstrike in September. Christian villages that have largely evacuated, such an Ain Ebel, have also been hit hard.

Mass displacement under relentless airstrikes is testing Lebanon’s fragile sectarian balance. The Israeli air force has brought down entire buildings of displaced people in Christian areas to target single Hezbollah targets passing through the area, including in the north of the country.

The Rev. Phillipe Al Akla, an Orthodox priest in Jdeidet Marjayoun, less than three miles from Qlaaya, said a Hezbollah member fired several rounds at him this month after he barred him from sheltering at his church. He escaped unharmed and the man was detained, he said, but a parishioner who witnessed it said one bullet whizzed past his ear.

People here believed the conflict would escalate and stockpiled food. But they fear the coming winter and the security of fuel supplies, particularly if Israeli airstrikes continue cutting roads to and from the villages. If the fighting continues, it could become increasingly difficult to supply these villages with food and fuel, UNICEF spokeswoman Tess Ingram said.

More than 250 people displaced from mixed-religion villages are sheltering in a church in Rmeish, a Christian village that sits on the Israeli border. It’s one of the most difficult populated areas to reach along the border.

As Israeli troops work to clear a stretch of southern Lebanon of Hezbollah and its infrastructure, people in the few largely untouched Christian villages say they quietly fear they could soon be subsumed into a temporary Israeli buffer zone — or another occupation.

Marjayoun has not yet been issued an evacuation warning, but it’s still a ghost town. Only 121 families, most of them just one person, remain, local officials said. Apples have been left on their trees to rot; abandoned cats and dogs roam streets of shuttered businesses. The one event that gets the remaining residents out of their homes is Sunday Mass. Last week, only 40 attended.

Fighter jets roared overhead. Samy Abla, the mukhtar, or local leader, of Jdeidet Marjayoun, opened his windows in case of an explosion. No one here wants to leave their land, not knowing if they will be able to return or what they will return home to, but his ties to his land now run deeper than ever. He pointed to the grave in his backyard. His youngest daughter died of cancer three years ago at 24. “There is a piece of me here,” he said. “How could I leave her?”

For the most part, Abla and Al Akla said, the choice to stay is rooted in history, not money. Marjayoun was the headquarters for the South Lebanon Army, a Christian-led proxy militia armed funded by Israel during its decades-long occupation of southern Lebanon.

When Israeli tanks rolled through those villages in 2006, all but two or three residents fled, Al Akla said. Israeli aircraft attacked the panicked evacuation convoy, killing six people. At the time, then-Mayor Fouad Hamra told The Washington Post he hadn’t left Marjayoun in previous wars and vowed to return. This week, he said the incident has never left him.

If the tanks returned, would he evacuate? He dabbed tears from his eyes. “Never again,” he vowed.

A convoy of U.N. peacekeepers stops and reverses on the road from Hasbayya to Marjayoun, damaged by an Israeli airstrike. (Lorenzo Tugnoli for The Washington Post)

Imogen Piper in London contributed to this report.

 

Unraveling the Mystery of the Middle East Crisis

Why is a Genocide Supported?

by Dan Lieberman / October 15th, 2024

There are other issues I would prefer to write about; all are affected by the Middle East crisis.

Economics

Economics is a “dismal science” that has a postulate ─ all money is debt. This postulate leads to the realization that the capitalist economy grows and survives with mounting debt and only the government can carry the debt burden. Debt forces the government to manage the economy and a more managed economy continually develops. U.S. Middle East policy generates constant wars, promotes an arms race, and is partly responsible for the continually increasing debt and managed economy.

Foreign Policy

Establishing hegemony by making the world recognize American exceptionalism, regardless of opponents are killed in the process, defines U.S. foreign policy. This one-sided and arrogant policy aligns with Israel’s modus operandi. It has been historical, counterproductive in several adventures, is doomed to failure in the present crisis, and will continue to harm the American people.

Politics

Extravagant divisions in the electorate and political system demonstrate a lack of comprehension of the political system by government officials and political strategists. Israel’s supporters take advantage of the mayhem in the political system and influence politicians and voters.

Media

Knowledge leading to capable decisions has not accompanied the rapid expansion in communications. Money talks and media squawks. Media is a convenient means of controlling and manipulating minds. Israel supporters are adept in using the media to manipulate the American public.

The Middle East crisis, engineered by Israel and the United States, overrides all other issues. It is unfathomable, an artificial construct that is incomprehensible. The issue can be resolved in one minute of time ─ stop the oppression of the Palestinians and grant them equal rights. Instead, deliberate destructions of the Palestinian community and of those who attempt to aid the Palestinians are the avenues of resolution. A spillover into greater destruction of other peoples, including the perpetrators of the genocide, is predicted. Get rid of everyone and the world’s problems will vanish.

The unending crises are a mystery and unraveling the mystery has become more of a detective story than an academic pursuit. Why is there a genocide, why is it supported, and can it be stopped? Historians, foreign policy experts, journalists, political commentators, and wise old men have not provided adequate answers to the questions. There is more to committing genocide than power politics.

At 10:54 PM, October 6, 2024, the world population was 8,226,477,186. Take a guess and estimate that 1.5 billion have sufficient awareness (not knowledge) of the Middle East crisis to attach themselves to a side in the crisis. Only a portion of inhabitants of the western world and India would favor the Israeli aggressive tactics; maybe 100 million in India and 200 million in the western world, compared to 1.2 billion in the rest of the Arab, African, Latin American, Central and Southeast Asia, and China worlds.

Take a more rigid perspective on what is definitely a genocide ─ no mistake in characterizing the violence against the Palestinians by that term. How does the number of those who know it is a genocide and still favor Israel compare with those who view it as a genocide and want it stopped? My guess is that a small clique of 7 million Zionist Jews (the Christian Zionists may favor Israel but do not influence others) actively influence 100 million people to favor their cause, and a billion of the world’s population react in horror to the genocide. A small clique of 7 million people are moving the world to enormous destruction and one billion remain powerless to prevent it. How can that be?

The mystery deepens with the revelation that this scenario has no reason. The argument that Jews, who are the wealthiest group in almost all western nations and occupy positions of prestige and importance in much greater portion than others, fear attack and need a land for themselves falls flat. In the land called Israel, only a small portion of the Jewish population can gain excessive wealth and dominance, while all live in constant fear of attack and animosity from much of the universe.

A one-state Israel, where all ethnicities live together and have equal rights can function as any democratic state. The Israeli Palestinians and Druze have been good citizens. Palestinians in all parts of the world — Chile, United States, Germany, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon — have pursued activities that benefitted their adopted nations. If the Jews in the one-state followed a similar pattern of dominance that Jews in the western world exhibit, then a greater portion of Israeli Jews will achieve enhanced prosperity in the expanded economy. The one-state might benefit the lesser advantaged Israeli Jews.

Let’s clarify nonsense. Jews can live almost any place throughout the western world and not be oppressed or subjected to violent anti-Jewish attacks. In 2020, Mexico had a population of 126,799,054 and a Jewish population of 58,876 people, 0.05 percent, and an infinitesimal part of the Mexican citizenry. On Tuesday, Oct. 1, 2024, Claudia Sheinbaum, one of the relatively few Jews in Mexico, was sworn in as president without incident. Worshippers of contrived anti-Semitism statistics, please explain that happening. There are few cases of physical attacks against Jews, and the ADL promotes the U.S. as a hotbed of anti-Semitism. Compare Jewish life in the United States with the centuries of life of African Americans, who live at the economic margin, are subjected to periodic police attacks that take their lives, and do not consider establishing a land of their own. Anti-Semitism is trivial compared to the discrimination that severely disrupts the lives of other Americans. Let’s not confuse anti-Jewish feeling, due to Jewish support of the genocide of the Palestinian people, with arbitrary prejudice against Jews.

Why is there a genocide?

Israeli murderous rampages lack compassion for Palestinian suffering, show no sympathy for the killed and no remorse for even “accidental” killings. Calculated dehumanization of the civilized, educated, endurable, and heroic Palestinian people certifies the inhumanity and criminal bent of the Zionist Jews.

Israel’s genocidal reaction to Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, a day that will be pressed forever in the American conscience, was unnecessary. The preferred strategy for a responsible military that values life is to reinforce the border, which could easily be made impenetrable. Using Mossad’s network of informers, infiltrators, and military drone and satellite surveillance, the Israeli military has mapped locations and movements of Hamas’ military leaders and fighting wing. Selective targets for drone and commando raids could have disrupted Hamas’ fighting capability. After crippling Hamas, the military could have developed a strategy that totally immobilizes Hamas and minimizes civilian casualties.

Israeli tank battalions could have surrounded schools, apartment buildings, hospital and refugee centers before broadcasting evacuation and surrender orders. After evacuation, which saves civilian lives, the tanks could have probed or shelled buildings they claimed harvested Hamas. No armed brigades surrounded buildings, no evacuation advisories occurred, and no Hamas operatives have been shown to be present in the wreckage. Just the opposite has happened; the Gazans have been told to flee and then have been shot by snipers. Doctors are shocked at the casualties and reports that have an unusual number of children shot in the head. Whole extended families of 30-70 people have been killed without warning. Israel is fighting an army that has no antitank guns, no heavy weapons, and just a few cadres still willing to fight. There is no Hamas army and there is no real war.

The Gaza campaign is not a military campaign; it is an excuse for a deliberate genocide. It has nothing to do with political and military strategies that are developed from able and astute minds. It comes from these minds — depraved, egocentric, inhuman, and criminal bent.

These criminal bent cannot distinguish between right and wrong, are trained to attach themselves to a unique tribe, and emotionally detach themselves from others. The criminal mind drives a great portion of the Israel community. This was shown in an interview by Christine Amanpour with an Israeli woman whose daughter was kidnapped by Hamas. The woman tells Christine Amanpour that “October 7 was a catastrophe for the whole world. Hamas is terrorist and terrorizing its own people. The world thanks us for fighting for them. Hamas is seeking to eliminate us and the free world.”

It is obvious the woman is reciting a script prepared by the Israeli propaganda machine. She does not concentrate on the travails of her daughter and displays a mind trained to attach itself to a unique tribe and emotionally detach itself from others. Only Israelis matter, and the world should recognize that damage to Israelis is damage to the entire word. Israelis are rescuing all of us. Hamas and its slingshots are “seeking to eliminate nuclear armed Israel and the free world.”

Here is the difference between terrorist Hamas that terrorizes its own people and benevolent Israel.

Image Courtesy of CNN Gaza before October 7

Image courtesy of Reuters  Gaza after October 7

Terrorist Hamas has terrorized the population by constructing housing, schools, universities, hospitals, sports arenas, and given Gazans the tools to live, while Israel did all it could to disrupt their lives. Benevolent Israel has no compunction in destroying housing, schools, universities, hospitals, and tools that terrorist Hamas has given its people to survive the continuous onslaught against them.

It’s Gresham’s law ─ bad money drives out good money ─ applied to human existence — bad people drive out good people; in this case, the worst constantly replacing the less worst. There are many Israelis, even settlers, who want to cooperate with the Palestinians, but the plurality that gained government control permits and encourages robbery and murder of Palestinians. The settlers take advantage of the opportunities.

The genocide proceeds from a criminal bent leadership that organizes criminal activities, which is rationalized. Provoke the Palestinians to respond to an attack and then accuse them of attacking ─ a favorite and successful trickster investment by the Zionist Jews, which has given them huge dividends. The Zionists expect those robbed and harmed will seek justice, from within and from without. Way to stop that is to get rid of them. With no them, there is nothing to worry about. There is no resurrection.

Why are nations and groups supporting the genocide?

All those who support the genocide of the Palestinian people are inflicted with the criminal bent plus gene — might makes right and anyone who does not recognize your might has no right to live. Bill Maher, a political comedian who posed as a human rights advocate, revealed how the American conscience reflects the Zionist conscience. In an HBO episode, Maher exclaimed, “The State of Israel is here to stay and the Palestinians will need to get used to it.” At other times, he defended Israel’s war on the Gazans and defended his positions with,

History is brutal, and humans are not good people, and, I would submit that Israel did not steal anybody’s land. This is another thing I’ve heard the last couple of weeks, words like ‘occupiers’ and ‘colonizers’ and ‘apartheid,’ which I don’t think people understand the history there. The Jews have been in that area of the world since about 1200 BC, way before the first Muslim or Arab walked the earth. Other people do not understand the history there.

Bill Maher is considered a political satirist with a large following. He must have been satirizing when stating, “The Jews have been in that area of the world since about 1200 BC, way before the first Muslim or Arab walked the earth.” Any existing Neanderthals to claim the land? Where have the Palestinians prevented Israel’s existence? If they did, how did Israel get so strong? Aren’t the Zionist Jews attempting to prevent Palestinian existence? Aren’t the Palestinians here to stay and shouldn’t the Jews get over it? Maher follows the usual Zionist scheme ─ attribute to the adversary the iniquities and guilt of the Zionists.

The United States, beginning with the landing of the Pilgrims, and Israel, beginning with the landing of the Zionists, follow identical patterns of history. Both obtained assistance from the indigenous people and then obliterated them. Continuous wars, always in defense, never compromising, always killing mercilessly, and each convinced of their exceptionalism categorize the Israelis and Americans ─ partners in crime against humanity, willing accomplices to genocide.

Can the genocide be stopped?

Rays of hope indicate nations will take a firm stand against the genocide and rally support for the Palestinians.

• China has taken an active role in promoting a ceasefire.
• Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told the United Nations General Assembly it should recommend use of force if the UN Security Council fails to stop Israel’s attacks on Gaza and Lebanon.
• Russia has shown sympathy for the Palestinian cause but is unable to act while being tied up in Ukraine.
• France’s President Macron has asked all nations to stop sending arms to Israel. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s response to President Macron’s plea revealed his lack of responsible executive behavior in international relations, his twisted mind, escape from reality, and superior attitude.

As Israel fights the forces of barbarism led by Iran, all civilized countries should be standing firmly by Israel’s side….Yet President Macron and some other Western leaders are now calling for an arms embargo against Israel. Shame on them.

Let me tell you this, Israel will win with or without their support, but their shame will continue long after the war is won.

• Spain, Norway and Ireland have recognized Palestine statehood. Spain announced it would join South Africa’s genocide case before the International Court of Justice against Israel’s actions in Gaza.

Response from Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz repeated Netanyahu’s’ obsessive behavior, the twisted mind, the escape from reality, and the superior attitude. In an X message, addressed to Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sánchez Pérez-Castejón, Katz wrote,

Hamas thanks you for your service….Khamenei, Sinwar, and deputy PM Yolanda Diaz (Spain’s deputy PM) call for the elimination of Israel and for the establishment of an Islamic Palestinian terror state from the river to the sea….Sanchez, when you don’t fire your deputy and declare recognition of a Palestinian state — you are a partner to incitement to the genocide of Jews and to war crimes.

• Iran has entered the hostilities and defiantly said it will not back down. Does Iran have a power that allows its defiance?

The minds and authorities that gave us genocide of the Native Americans, slavery, and genocide of the Palestinians cannot be changed. There is little hope that revolutions in the United States and Israel will occur and correct the situation. Where are the Obamas? Unfortunately, Israel, together with its supplicating ally, the mighty U.S., feels comfortable. It has destroyed its antagonists. Hamas is impotent, Hezbollah is in disarray, with Netanyahu boasting that “Lebanon could face destruction like Gaza,” a confession that destruction of Gaza and not Hamas guides Israel’s military actions. Iran awaits an attack that Defense Minister Gallant describes as “deadly, precise and, above all, surprising. They will not understand what happened and how it happened. They will see the results.”

The rays of hope that indicate nations will take a firm stand against the genocide and rally support for the Palestinians is blocked by the knowledge that all will burn. The world is trapped. Israel has nuclear weapons and will not hesitate to use them, knowing that by its small size and close location to other nations, opponents realize that radioactive fallout from atomic bombs falling on Tel Aviv will jeopardize surrounding nations. The military option is not plausible.

Israel has always posed the crisis as “it’s us or them,” another departure from reality that is used to justify its criminal behavior. “Us” refers to, “They intend to destroy us”(Israel.)” “Them “refers to, “We destroy them before we are destroyed.” Nobody has shown the power or proclivity to have it “us.” Battle maps show Arab nations with large arrows thrusting huge armies to batter Israel. Where are any of them?

With Israel having atomic weapons and a mentality that will use them, stopping the genocide by military means predicts it will be “us” and “them,” where “us” are the peace loving people of the world and them are all the Israelis — Jews, Muslims and Christians. Israel has the world in a “lose-lose” situation and will never accept a “win-win” situation. This leaves little room to maneuver and ability to save the Palestinians. Social isolation and economic deprivation, including sanctions of the criminal nation, are paths to forcing the issue. They are long and difficult and have not proven effective in past genocides.

The solution to stopping Israel’s massacre of the Palestinians lies with the Israelis and Jews around the world. Israel’s genocidal policies have generated internal detractors, social unrest, political divides, an economic decline, and military disagreements. All combat is neutralized by “us” or “them,” supplied by the constant war against the Palestinians, which demands absolute loyalty to the state that is shielding its Jews from another Holocaust. This steady stream of propaganda is similar to the manner in which the Nazi state convinced a plurality of Germans to support the Nazis until the end. It’s a toss up as to who better fits the image of Nazism ─ Deutschland or Zionistland?

The “us” or “them,” reinforced by a population that has been nurtured on a daily cereal of holocaust and enjoys being a victim, explains the bewildering Israeli Jewish position on blithely, and it is blithely, committing genocide. The real Jews, those in the Western world, who understand Judaism and the struggles of their immigrant ancestors, have been thrust into a battle to rescue Judaism and the Palestinians.

As mentioned before, Jews live well and peacefully everywhere, except in Israel. If their sleep is disturbed, it is because of Israel and its partners in crime. The anti-defamation League (ADL), better named the Defamation League, is a business; it exists to find anti-Jewish expressions and the more it can manufacture, the more successful it is as a business. The Israel Lobby is a conspiratorial lobbying arm of the Israeli government, reaching deeply into media, DC “Think Tanks,” government agencies, religious institutions, cultural institutions, and households, providing an invisible army of millions, many born in Israel and sent by Israel to corrode the political system, influence the electoral system, and delude the central nervous systems. Defeating the anti-Judaism branches of the anti-Jewish Zionist extremists is a challenge that is met by numbers, dollars, resources, energy, demonstrations, public relations, media advertisements and strategic thinking, which translates to being one step ahead of the most conniving, lying, cheating, and deceiving assortment of killers the world now sees. In the words of F. Scott Fitzgerald,

Gatsby believed in the green light, the orgiastic future that year by year recedes before us.

It has eluded us now;
Tomorrow, we will run a little faster,
Stretch our arms a little longer.

Boats against the current,
Borne back ceaselessly into the Past.FacebookTwitterRedditEmail

Dan Lieberman publishes commentaries on foreign policy, economics, and politics at substack.com.  He is author of the non-fiction books A Third Party Can Succeed in America, Not until They Were Gone, Think Tanks of DC, The Artistry of a Dog, and a novel: The Victory (under a pen name, David L. McWellan). Read other articles by Dan.

Opinion: Why President Biden hasn't been able to end Israel's  year-old war in Gaza

Raphael S. Cohen
Fri, October 4, 2024 at 4:00 AM MDT·4 min read

The aftermath of an Israeli airstrike on a crowded tent camp for Palestinians displaced by the war in Muwasi, in the Gaza Strip. (Abdel Kareem Hana / Associated Press)


As the world prepares to mark the first anniversary of Hamas’ Oct. 7 terrorist attack and the ensuing war is set to drag into a second year with intense fighting on another front, many Americans are wondering why President Biden has been unable to end the conflict.

Contrary to plenty of commentary, it certainly has not been for lack of trying.

Since the war broke out, Biden has visited Israel and had a host of conversations with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken has made at least 10 trips to Israel. Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III has also made multiple visits to the country since Oct. 7 and had seemingly countless talks with his counterpart, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant. This is all on top of lower-ranking U.S. officials’ continuous efforts to engage with Israel.


And yet for all the time and effort the Biden administration has expended, it has failed to broker a cease-fire between Israel and the militant group Hamas. Meanwhile, the threat of a wider war loomed again this week as Iran launched a missile attack on Israel in retaliation for the escalation of its conflict with the Iran-backed militant group Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Read more: Opinion: Israel's growing war with Hezbollah is traumatizing Lebanon. There's only one path to peace

The Biden administration is hardly alone in its struggle to find diplomatic common ground in the Middle East. Ever since the Oslo accords some three decades ago, a series of American administrations have tried and failed to broker peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

At the same time, although Americans may want wars to be short and relatively restrained, they rarely are. The unfortunate battlefield reality is that any war against a group such as Hamas — with its estimated 30,000 fighters and hundreds of miles of tunnels embedded in one of the most densely populated places on Earth — was going to be a long, bloody slog. There is very little that anyone — even an American president — can do to change that.

Biden’s critics counter that the administration could put more pressure on Netanyahu to force a cease-fire. They note that Israel receives billions of dollars' worth of American military aid and depends on American diplomatic cover. They say that provides sufficient leverage to force Netanyahu’s hand. But does it?

Read more: Opinion: This is Biden's chance to end the war in Gaza. Just threaten to cut off weapons for Israel

In practice, the United States often has less influence over its allies than one might think. Historically, economic sanctions have a poor track record of forcing major concessions, particularly when existential security matters are at stake — which, in Israel’s case, they are. Indeed, threats to sanction the hard-right elements of Netanyahu’s coalition have yet to produce any sort of moderation. At the same time, the International Criminal Court’s announcement that it would seek arrest warrants for Netanyahu and Gallant produced what few other policies could: It united Israel’s fractured political spectrum around the current government.

Even if U.S. pressure were effective enough to motivate the Netanyahu government to try to end the war, it still might not succeed. Ending the war, after all, would require the cooperation of both Israel and Hamas — and more specifically Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar, who shows no signs of budging.

Sinwar could unilaterally declare a cease-fire, release all the remaining Israeli hostages and deny Israel one of its core justifications for the war. But Hamas seems intent on executing hostages and otherwise doubling down on the hostilities. Presumably, despite all the devastation and suffering in Gaza, Sinwar on some level still believes that he is winning.

Even if America had successfully secured a bilateral cease-fire, it would be unlikely to produce a lasting peace. Indeed, all the structural and political reasons that have prevented peace for decades remain.

Because Israel would have to free hundreds of militants serving life sentences for murder in exchange for the release of remaining hostages, Hamas’ ranks would swell during a cease-fire. Eventually the battered organization would rebuild and strike again. Moreover, regional spoilers — most notably Iran — view a continuing proxy conflict with Israel as being in their strategic interest.

A year in, the Biden administration’s diplomatic offensive has yielded some modest results. The rate of casualties — even as reported by Gaza’s Hamas-controlled Health Ministry — has slowed. Aid to Gaza’s civilians, albeit insufficient, is flowing. More than three-fifths of the hostages taken on Oct. 7 have either been freed or recovered, although 97 have not. And, most important, a full-blown, regional Middle East war — widely feared at several junctures over the last year — has been averted, at least for the moment.

All that is admittedly cold comfort to the Palestinians caught in the crossfire, the Israeli hostages who remain in Gaza and the growing displaced populations of southern Lebanon and northern Israel.

In the wake of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, Americans have become far more aware of the bounds of what military power can achieve. But other tools of national power, including diplomacy, have their limits too. Outside mediators can’t end this war, particularly if the combatants themselves don’t want to stop fighting.

Raphael S. Cohen is the director of the strategy and doctrine program at Rand Project Air Force and of the national security program at the Pardee Rand Graduate School.

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Why the U.S. probably can't stop Israel from widening the war in Lebanon

Tracy Wilkinson
Fri, October 4, 2024

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike in Dahiyeh, a suburb of Beirut, on Oct. 3, 2024. (Hassan Ammar / Associated Press)


The relationship between Israel and its closest and most reliable ally, the United States, has started to feel like a case of unrequited love.

Despite being sidelined repeatedly by Israel over the last year, the Biden administration keeps up its nearly unquestioning support — even as Israel all but ignores American efforts to contain the violence and rein in its behavior.

This week, the U.S. government is publicly backing Israel’s march into southern Lebanon, the first such incursion in nearly two decades. The U.S. also supports Israel’s anticipated retaliation against Iran after Tehran’s bombardment of its archrival this week. Both actions could easily push the region into all-out war, a conflict Washington says it doesn’t want.


U.S. officials insist they are working to avert a wider war. But they have little to show for the effort so far. It wasn’t always so hard.

The United States gives Israel around $3 billion a year in aid and much of it in weapons: 2,000-pound bombs, sophisticated air-defense systems, even ammunition. The two countries have long shared intelligence, political goals and foreign policy agendas, and successive U.S. administrations have had considerable sway over Israel and its decisions that had global effects.

An Israeli Apache helicopter releases flares near the border with Lebanon, as seen from northern Israel on Oct. 2, 2024. (Baz Ratner / Associated Press)

That ability appears to have waned in the last year, for a variety of reasons, some less obvious than others.

The unprecedented scale — and horror — of the Oct. 7 attack is one.

A year ago, Hamas-led militants based in the Gaza Strip swept into southern Israel, killing around 1,200 people, maiming many more and kidnapping around 250.

Before that, the Biden administration had kept its distance from the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu because of its radically racist anti-Arab, anti-democratic members. Netanyahu had also been exploiting U.S. partisan politics in recent years, openly courting GOP favor and eschewing the usual Israeli policy of staying neutral in American politics.

After Oct. 7, there was a outpouring of support from the United States. President Biden hopped on Air Force One to pledge American backing. U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken, evoking his own Jewish faith, traveled to Israel 10 times in as many months, trying to address concerns and contain the potential violence.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken arrives in Amman, Jordan, in January, one of his many visits to the Middle East during the Israel-Hamas war. (Evelyn Hockstein / Associated Press)

Netanyahu appears to have read that early administration response as a near-blanket endorsement for an open-ended invasion of Gaza. More than 41,000 Palestinians have been killed in that assault, Gaza officials estimate. The authorities do not differentiate between civilian and combatant deaths.

“The Israelis saw this as essentially a green light,” said Steven Cook, a senior fellow specializing in the Middle East at the Council on Foreign Relations.

At the same time, Israelis, and particularly Netanyahu, have increasingly resisted pressure and advice from the Biden administration when it comes to dealing with Palestinians and other perceived security threats, exerting greater independence.

“Over a period of time, the Israelis have come to believe that the administration has not given them good advice [and] they are determined ... to change the rules of the game,” Cook said.

Increasingly emboldened, Netanyahu repeatedly outplayed and misled U.S. officials, according to people with knowledge of talks aimed at halting hostilities and freeing Israeli hostages.

After having laid waste to much of northern and central Gaza, Israel promised U.S. officials it would not do the same in the southern city of Rafah, where a million Palestinians were sheltering.

Yet as each day passed in the spring, Israeli airstrikes gradually chopped away at Rafah. In recent months, U.S. officials say Netanyahu backed out of cease-fire agreements for Gaza even as some of his spokespeople, such as Ron Dermer, who has the ear of U.S. officials, said Israel was on board.

Just last week, Biden administration officials frantically sought a 21-day cease-fire in Lebanon, backed by France and others. They thought they had secured Israel’s agreement.

Then Netanyahu landed in New York for the annual United Nations General Assembly and made clear he would press ahead unfettered in his offensive against the Iran-backed Hezbollah organization in Lebanon.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addresses the 79th session of the United Nations General Assembly on Sept. 27, 2024. (Richard Drew / Associated Press)

In turning a deaf ear to U.S. entreaties, Netanyahu seems to be taking advantage of Biden’s emotional affinity for Israel and of the political timing that ties the lame-duck president’s hands.

Biden is among the last of the old-school U.S. congressional lawmakers who were reared in the post-Holocaust period where an emerging Israel struggled for its survival against greater Arab powers and won. It seemed a noble cause, and Biden frequently has expressed his undying love for the “Jewish state.”

Fast forward to this season just weeks away from a monumental U.S. presidential election, and Netanyahu probably calculates that Biden will not move forcefully to make demands on Israel when it could cost the Democratic ticket votes in a razor-edge close vote.

“American leverage, and Biden’s leverage in particular, is very small at this point,” said Rosemary Kelanic, a political scientist specializing in the Middle East, now at Defense Priorities, an antiwar Washington advocacy group.

“Politically, it’s really difficult to do anything that seems like it’s changing American foreign policy right before an election,” she said.

Even the most minimal challenges to Israel — such as sanctions on Jewish settlers in the occupied West Bank who kill and harass Palestinians, or the brief suspension of 1-ton bombs being lobbed on Gazan population centers — have generated backlash from the Republican right wing.

“We call on the Biden-Harris administration to end its counterproductive calls for a cease-fire and its ongoing diplomatic pressure campaign against Israel,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said after Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

By moving aggressively in Lebanon now, Israel may be betting it can operate more freely in the political vacuum created by the U.S. election.

A view from northern Israel of the aftermath of an Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon on Oct. 3, 2024. (Baz Ratner / Associated Press)

“I see the Israelis pushing to change the facts on the ground as much as they can” before the U.S. election, said Mike DiMino, a longtime CIA analyst based in the Middle East.

In addition to potentially occupying southern Lebanon while the U.S. is preoccupied with an election, Israel could also force the next U.S. president to confront a regional conflict that also involves Iran, experts say.

Netanyahu “has long wished for a big military escalation with Iran that would force the Americans to join, and perhaps to attack Iran directly,” Dahlia Scheindlin, a fellow at the Century Foundation, wrote in the liberal Israeli newspaper Haaretz. “The circumstances are ripening in a way they never have before.”

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.

Christian villages were neutral in the Israel-Hezbollah conflict. That didn't save them

Nabih Bulos
Thu, October 3, 2024 

Smoke rises after an Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon on Thursday. (Baz Ratner / Associated Press)


For much of the last year, as Hezbollah and Israel traded blows in an escalating tit-for-tat, the predominantly Christian village of Ain Ebel remained mostly out of the crossfire: Hezbollah cadres didn’t use the village as staging ground for attacks, and Israeli warplanes and artillery avoided striking it.

And while Hezbollah-aligned parts of southern Lebanon emptied of residents as the violence increased, many Christians in Ain Ebel and other mixed-religion towns and villages in the region stayed put.

That changed this week when Israel began its ground invasion. About 11 a.m. Tuesday, according to Ain Ebel Mayor Imad Lallous, calls started coming in to residents from the Israeli military, telling them they should evacuate immediately and not return until further notice.

An Israeli tank maneuvers in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border on Monday. (Baz Ratner / Associated Press)


“They told me, as the mayor, I should inform everyone to leave. But we have nothing to do with the fighting, we don’t have any political parties here, no Hezbollah, nothing,” Lallous said in a phone interview Wednesday.

Hours later, an evacuation order came on social media for more than 20 towns and villages, including Ain Ebel.

Much of Lebanon’s south falls under the de facto rule of Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shiite paramilitary faction and political party that the U.S. and Israel deem a terrorist organization. The Shiite majority in the area champion Hezbollah, crediting it for ending Israel’s 18-year occupation in 2000.

Read more: Iran launches missiles at Israel amid ground invasion of Lebanon

But scattered across this region’s tree-covered mountains, tobacco fields and orchards of apples and figs are predominantly Sunni, Christian and Druze towns and villages — most of which are at best ambivalent toward Hezbollah.

Many insisted on neutrality when the Iran-backed group began launching rockets across the border into Israel last year on Oct. 8, a day after allied, Gaza-based Hamas militants attacked southern Israel.

That neutrality has not spared those communities in recent weeks, as Israel has ramped up its assault on Hezbollah with thousands of airstrikes on wide swaths of the country and now a ground incursion.

Smoke rises following Israeli bombardment in southern Lebanon as seen from northern Israel on Wednesday. (Baz Ratner / Associated Press)

Read more: Even before the Israeli ground invasion, Hezbollah was struggling to regroup

Israel says it’s attacking Hezbollah positions, arms caches and infrastructure scattered all over Lebanon’s south. It also accuses Hezbollah of using civilians as human shields, an allegation the group denies.

On Monday, an Israeli strike hit Ibl al-Saqi, another Christian village on the border, wounding the priest there along with several others. The day before that, two missiles knocked down a pair of residential towers in the mixed Muslim-Christian village of Ein al Delb near Sidon, killing 45 people and wounding 58 others, authorities said.

A tally of casualties issued by the Lebanese Health Ministry since Israel began its escalated assault on Hezbollah in September puts the death toll at more than 1,300; it's unclear how many of the dead are Hezbollah fighters, but the toll includes hundreds of women and children, the ministry said.

A wounded girl lies in a hospital bed in the southern village of Saksakieh, Lebanon, on Sept. 24. (Mohammed Zaatari / Associated Press)

Read more: Israel and Iran exchange threats as combat surges in southern Lebanon

That’s why Lallous didn’t consider ignoring the Israeli order. “I couldn’t take the risk,” he said.

By nighttime Tuesday, the village of Ain Ebel was almost completely deserted, with only a handful of residents staying behind while the others fled to a monastery in the nearby Christian village of Rmeish.

“Why did they tell us to leave? I don’t know. I’m as confused as anyone about this,” Lallous said, a note of exasperation in his voice.

Read more: Even before the Israeli ground invasion, Hezbollah was struggling to regroup

As it stands, it was just in time, said Father George Al-Amil, a Maronite priest in Ain Ebel. At 4 a.m. Wednesday, a missile hit a house in the village.

“It was empty and its residents are anyway not in the country,” he said, speaking from Rmeish.

“No one understands why this is happening. We’ve never seen any movement from Hezbollah in these areas.”

An Israeli mobile artillery unit fires a shell from northern Israel toward Lebanon on Wednesday. (Baz Ratner / Associated Press)

The Israeli military did not respond to questions about the evacuations of Ain Ebel and the targeting of other communities.

Confusion has been the dominant emotion among those who left Ain Ebel, joining what authorities say are an estimated 1.2 million Lebanese displaced in the last week. Many are angry, saying that Israel’s actions ensure their homes will become part of the battlefield.

Read more: Airstrike in Lebanon kills pregnant woman, children near border with Israel

That’s what happened in 2006, when the village was the site of clashes between Hezbollah and Israel during a 34-day war, leaving homes destroyed, fields burned and residents besieged with no bread for 20 days. Others echo that point, and reject the Israeli military’s repeated assertion that Hezbollah is using villagers as human shields.

“No one is using us as human shields. If anything, people stay behind to shield the village,” said Jasmin Lilian Diab, who is from Ain Ebel and is director of the Institute of Migration Studies at the Lebanese American University.

She said trauma from earlier conflicts colors how villagers view this one. As a child during Israel’s occupation of south Lebanon, she remembered driving through an Israeli checkpoint to go home, and of hiding under her bed for days during the 2006 war.

“An important reason people don’t leave is also the fear of not being able to return,” she said.

“‘People ask, ‘What if I leave my home tonight, and then like in so many conflicts, we never get to come back? What if I leave my village tonight and it's no longer accessible to me in the morning?’ ”

Diab acknowledged that she, like others from Ain Ebel and areas uninvolved with Hezbollah, had a “complicated relationship” with the group and its entry into a war without the Lebanese people’s consent. But, she said, the anger is “more towards Israel as an occupier.”

Similar fears of history repeating itself are growing in Marjayoun, a Christian town about five miles from the Israeli border and once the headquarters of the now defunct South Lebanon Army, a militia Israel funded to help its troops police occupied parts of southern Lebanon in the 1980s and 1990s.

Read more: What to know about the Israel-Hezbollah conflict, which could bring unprecedented destruction

The Lebanese group, working in concert with Israeli soldiers, was accused of torturing and killing compatriots, forcibly conscripting males over the age of 15 and uprooting families who refused.

On Thursday, after the Israeli military expanded its evacuation list to encompass 20 additional towns and villages, including those stretching north of a United Nations-mandated buffer zone, people in Marjayoun — which thus far has not been included in any evacuation order — girded themselves for a war coming ever closer.

“We’ve heard so many bombs here, even a child can distinguish the sounds now,” said Hassan Al-Abla, a 78-year-old retiree still in Marjayoun. As he was speaking, a bass-drum thump sounded in the air. He raised a finger. “Hear that? That’s the firing sound. Now you’ll hear the impact,” he said. A beat later came a louder bang and a column of smoke rose over a nearby mountain. Al-Abla gave a wan smile.

“See what I mean?" he asked. "This is how it is all the time now."

In the morning hours before the evacuation order for towns and villages near Marjayoun, roads to the north were mostly deserted, except for a few cars barreling past at high speed. During a journey through towns and villages on the road back to the coast from Marjayoun, most places showed no signs of life: no vehicles, no people, only a single stray cat streaking across the road.

The sense of isolation is growing, said Archbishop Elias Kfoury, the Greek Orthodox archbishop for Sidon, Tyre, Marjayoun and other areas in the south. In a telephone interview Thursday, he excoriated the Israeli military for bombing roads linking Marjayoun to other areas in the south.

“People want to be able to go to hospitals or clinics, or their livelihoods," he said. "No one is passing weapons on those roads.”

Asked about what it would mean if Marjayoun too was told to evacuate, Kfoury grew angrier.

"We aren’t in this war. Why are we being targeted? People are living in their homes, and have no link to Hezbollah or any group at all," he said.

“The question should be directed to those who want us out."

This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.