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Israel Has Successfully Provoked Iran to Enter War
An interview with Lebanon expert Mireille Rebeiz, who says that "I would like to believe that Lebanon will not turn into a second Gaza," but now finds itself "in the middle of a major storm."
Oct 02, 2024
After nearly a year since the Hamas-led terror attack on southern Israel that resulted in the deaths of close to 1200 people (roughly 800 civilians and nearly 400 security forces though some Israeli civilians and soldiers may have been killed by friendly fire as the controversial “Hannibal Directive” was deployed on that date, according to reported testimonies of soldiers and officers), Israel’s destruction of Gaza continues unabated.
Israel has rejected calls from the international community for a ceasefire/prisoner swap deal and blatantly ignored an International Court of Justice ruling not to engage in any military offensive in Rafah where the situation in the southern Gaza city was already “disastrous.” Now, however, after having killed more than 41,000 Palestinians (though the toll could reach up to 186,000 dead according to a study published in early July in the prestigious medical journal Lancet) and making Gaza practically unlivable, Netanyahu’s neo-fascist government that makes Europe’s right-wing extremists seem like little farceurs has turned its focus to Lebanon. A joint operation between the IDF and Mossad spread terror by exploding walkie-talkies and pagers that people in Lebanon used, killing many and severely wounding thousands, while the Israeli military carried out massive airstrikes across southern Lebanon that have already killed more than 1,000 people, including many children, and wounded thousands.
Airstrikes have killed scores of senior Hezbollah figures, including its long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah. But the airstrikes on Lebanon did not stop even after Nasrallah’s death despite calls for de-escalation, raising fears of a regional war between Israel and Iran. The Israeli military has even targeted central Beirut, and up to one million people may have been displaced. And as even further evidence that Israel is seeking to provoke a regional war, it launched a ground offensive in the south of Lebanon where heavy fighting is apparently taking place between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters. Indeed, Iran seems now to have been dragged into a regional war by launching a major missile attack on Israel.
What is Israel after in Lebanon? Has Nasrallah’s death altered the direction of the conflict? Are we on the brink of a full-blown war in the Middle East? In the interview that follows, Mireille Rebeiz, a Lebanon and Hezbollah expert tackles these and other related questions. Rebeiz is Chair of Middle East Studies and Associate Professor of Francophone Studies & Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Dickinson College (Pennsylvania).
C. J. Polychroniou: Almost a year after launching its devastating attack on Gaza, which the International Court of Justice, scores of international human rights organizations and leading international law scholars and historians have called a genocide, Israel has turned its focus on Lebanon. It blew up communication devices that the armed group Hezbollah had ordered months before the explosions, killing dozens and wounding thousands, and the Israeli military launched a wave of deadly attacks on Lebanon’s capital, one of which struck Hezbollah’s headquarters killing its long-time leader, Hassan Nasrallah. Israel’s war objectives in the Gaza Strip are to wipe Hamas off the earth and make Gaza unlivable. What is Israel trying to accomplish with its attacks on Hezbollah and Lebanon?
Mireille Rebeiz: From Israel’s point of view, the on-going war on Lebanon falls under its right to self-defense against terrorism.
Last week, we saw a series of attacks on Hezbollah fighters including the explosions of pagers and other wireless devices and the assassinations of several leaders. Although Israel has not officially commented on the attacks, evidence suggests that it has been planning this action for some time now.
Escalation continued with the assassination of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah and several other commanders. Israel dropped at least fifteen-times, American – manufactured, 2,000-pound bombs on south Beirut. Dubbed the “bunker busters” for their ability to pierce the ground before detonating, these bombs leveled several concrete buildings.
More recently, Israel started a ground invasion on south Lebanon and bombed Damascus by air.
The announced goals are clear: eliminate Hezbollah at all costs and send a message to Iran and Syria that Israel will no longer tolerate Iranian-backed militias in the region.
On the surface, one may look at these facts and consider that Israel is justified in its actions. However, international law tells a different story for Israel is piling violations of several rules and regulations related to armed conflicts. Furthermore, the war on terrorism is never innocent and always carries other motives.
Article 7 of Amended Protocol II on the Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps and Other Devices, to which Lebanon, Israel, and the United States are parties, explicitly bans these types of weapons and methods of warfare. Article 2(4) of Amended Protocol II defines “booby-trap” as “any device or material which is designed, constructed, or adapted to kill or injure, and which functions unexpectedly when a person disturbs or approaches an apparently harmless object or performs an apparently safe act.”
Clearly, the pagers and other wireless devices have been tampered with to cause harm irrespective of its holder. As a result, at least 32 people, including two children were killed and thousands more were injured, and it is impossible to argue that every single person killed or injured is a Hezbollah fighter.
Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions specifically states that persons not taking part in the hostilities and those placed “hors de combat” should not be targeted and shall be treated humanely. The wireless communication device explosions and the intense bombing of south Beirut cannot guarantee any protection to civilians and those unrelated to Hezbollah. Many civilians -- Lebanese citizens, Palestinians and Syrian refugees -- live in south Beirut for its affordable housing.
Beirut itself ranks as the 6th most expensive city in the Arab world, coming after Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Doha, Riyadh, and Jeddah. Globally, it ranks as the 113th most expensive city out of 178.
According to the World Bank 2023 report, inflation rate in Lebanon is in the triple-digit. There is serious decline in income as the Lebanese pound lost over 90% of its value. This led to the erosion of the middle class, and half of the population plunged under poverty line with unemployment nearing 30%.
Major events aggravated the financial crisis in Lebanon: the collapse of the infrastructure, the severe shortage of fuel, the pandemic that put a lot of stress on medical care, and finally the Beirut port explosion of 2020.
These factors pushed many Lebanese and others to rent apartments in south Beirut, and Israel cannot guarantee that every resident of this part of town is a Hezbollah fighter.
There is no doubt that these tactics imply a major escalation and a serious violation of international law. Former CIA director Leon Panetta labelled these attacks in Lebanon as terrorism: “I don’t think there’s any question that it’s a form of terrorism.”
Since the United States of America is the one providing many of these weapons, there might be criminal implications under U.S Law as the violation of Article 7 (2) could amount to federal offense. This prompted Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to quickly dissociate the US from the attacks and call for restraints. This comes at a time when the Biden Administration is under investigation for the export of billions of dollars in arms to Israel in assistance of a foreign government accused of committing gross human rights violations including blocking humanitarian aid.
Furthermore, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has a strategy that goes beyond the Israel – Hezbollah war. His political survival is dependent on him staying in power.
Before the October 7 attacks, Netanyahu was on trial for corruption. After winning the election, he aligned himself with extremists, forming a far-right government, one that sought to transform Israel into an autocratic theocracy. For instance, his government proposed a contentious law to reduce minority rights, make it harder to file complaints against corruption, and legalize the annexation of the West Bank. His plans triggered massive protests around the country.
The October 7 attacks were heinous, and they provided Netanyahu with the perfect excuse that would allow him to stay in power: he shifted the narrative to Palestinian rights – including the right to self-determination – as an existential threat to all Jews, justifying thus the need for a long war in Gaza.
In other words, it is in Netanyahu’s interest to keep Israel in a permanent state of war. To do so, he must reject all diplomatic negotiations and place the blame of their failure on the other party.
At this point, Netanyahu is buying time to present the messianic radicals, on whom he relies on to stay in power, with concrete results, ones that would save his image and political career. His undeclared goals would be the annexation of Gaza, the West Bank, and possibly south Lebanon. The hostages are not among his primary concerns.
Under international law, annexation of territory is illegal. The International Court of Justice (ICJ) said Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is illegal and ordered Israel to stop its illegal settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Gaza strip. The United Nations even declared these settlements as “settler-colonialism.” Netanyahu’s response was that the ICJ’s decision is based on lies.
The occupation of the Syrian Golan Heights is equally illegal, and the on-going ground invasion in Lebanon is not only a violation of Lebanon’s sovereignty and an act of war, but also may be the excuse to occupy south Lebanon and annex it.
C. J. Polychroniou: Hezbollah emerged in Lebanon largely in response to the Israeli invasion of that country in 1982. It is an Iran-backed Shiite Islamist militant group and political party with lawmakers in the Lebanese parliament and is seen in fact as something like “a state within a state.” What does Hezbollah do in Lebanon and how much support does it have?
Mireille Rebeiz: Over time, Hezbollah’s popularity shifted inside Lebanon. Hezbollah itself was born in 1982 when Israel invaded Lebanon and imposed a brutal two-months siege on Beirut killing an estimated number of 17,000 to 19,000 people. While Israel retreated from Beirut, it kept south Lebanon under occupation till 2000. During this period, it illegally detained thousands of Lebanese resisting the occupation. Over 200 were detained and tortured in the Khiam Detention Center.
From 1982 till early 2000, many Lebanese supported Hezbollah and saw it as the guardian of Lebanon’s sovereignty and its liberator. The shift began in 2000 when Israel withdrew from the south. Many Lebanese started speaking up against Hezbollah’s armed presence in Lebanon, its alliance to the Syrian regime, and its commitment to Iranian ideology.
As a matter of fact, Hezbollah explicitly supported the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad despite the numerous reports of severe human rights violations in Syria. As to Iran, in its 1985 Manifesto, Hezbollah vowed its allegiance to Iran’s Supreme Leader Ruhollah Musavi Khomeini and made explicit its wish to create an Islamic state in Lebanon.
And many paid a heavy price for speaking out. Former Prime Minister Rafic Hariri was assassinated on February 14, 2005, and fingers pointed at Hezbollah and Syria. Many Lebanese journalists and political figures were also assassinated: a blast killed the anti-Syrian journalist, Samir Kassir. The former Communist party leader George Hawi and the journalist and lawmaker Gibran Tueni were also killed in car bombs.
This wave of killings sparked the Cedar Revolution, which clearly expressed the Lebanese’s opposition to Hezbollah and Syria.
In the past two decades, this opposition continued and took different forms.
In 2005, the anti-Hezbollah and anti-Syria bloc won the parliamentary elections.
In 2015, the environmental movement “You Stink” was born. It criticized the State’s inability to sustainably manage waste, and it opposed all political parties, including Hezbollah. In 2019, massive protests erupted all over the country under the slogan of “All Means All” to denounce the corrupt elites.
There is no doubt that Hezbollah operates as “a state within a state.” In light of the weakness of the State of Lebanon, Hezbollah offers its own healthcare, education system and other social services to the Shiite community. It functions inside and outside the governmental structure and unilaterally holds the decision for peace/war.
In 1992, Hezbollah participated in parliamentary elections and won several seats in the Parliament. In 2005, it entered the government. Alone, they were never a majority. However, their presence was strong enough to oppose any parliamentary or governmental decision that would go against their own interests.
C. J. Polychroniou: Nasrallah was being considered as something of a pragmatist rather than an ideologue. It is now quite conceivable that the next Hezbollah leadership might be more driven by revenge than Nasrallah was. At any rate, what does Nasrallah’s death mean for Hezbollah, Lebanon, and the Middle East? Will Iran become directly involved in the conflict?
Mireille Rebeiz: Nasrallah’s death is a definite blow to the group, and it did not take long for Iran to respond. In fact, Iran launched several missiles into Israel to avenge the killing of three of its top leaders: Hamas Chairman Ismail Haniyeh, Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, and Deputy Commander in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Abbas Nilforushan. Iran made it clear that this is a self-defense attack and that it will respond further should Israel attack Iran.
Ironically, Hezbollah started this war to support Hamas and the Palestinian cause. Now, the attention has completely shifted from Gaza and the West Bank to Iran, Israel, and the United States.
C. J. Polychroniou: Under president Joe Biden, US foreign policy in the Middle East has been a complete failure. Over the past several months, Biden has said on countless occasions that “we are closer than ever” to a Gaza ceasefire only to see Netanyahu turn Gaza into a graveyard. Biden called for a 21-day ceasefire along the Israel-Lebanon border only to see Netanyahu make him look again like a bumbling idiot. How do you explain the US-Israel relationship?
Mireille Rebeiz: The US is Israel’s closest and proudest ally. However, the failure of US foreign policy in the Middle East is in large part to blame for the recent events. At no point in the past two decades did the US lead any serious diplomatic dialogue on Israel – Palestine.
President Biden continues to support a far-right government in Israel irrespective of the consequences in the region and the major escalation we are witnessing. Many Americans are horrified by this support and the US’ potential complicity in atrocities in Gaza.
Netanyahu’s’ visit to the United Nations, his rejection of the 21-day cease-fire, and the immediate attacks that followed in Lebanon indicate a clear separation between what the US would like to see and what Israel wants.
Stephen Collinson speaks of a humiliating pattern indicating American impotency in curtailing Israel’s defiance, and the results are obvious: Gaza is leveled with over 41,000 civilians killed, of which 17,000 are children. Lebanon is under attack with a ground invasion in progress, and violence is escalating in the West Bank.
C. J. Polychroniou: Gaza is gone, and there are fears that Israel could turn Lebanon into a second Gaza. In your view, what does the future hold for Lebanon?
Mireille Rebeiz: So far, the rhetoric is that Israel will only bomb areas where Hezbollah fighters are located or areas suspected of storing Hezbollah’s weapons.
The level of destruction is massive, and the number of casualties is on the rise. I would like to believe that Lebanon will not turn into a second Gaza. However, the situation is fluid, and it depends on on-going diplomatic negotiations and the arrival of other actors on the scene such as the Houthis in Yemen or Kata’ib Hizballah in Iraq or even Iran.
In any case, I pray that Lebanon will be spared. Lebanon is in the middle of a major storm. As US-backed Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah militants are exchanging fires and settling debts, the Lebanese people are caught in the middle of the crossfire.
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In Gaza or the Golan Heights, a Dead Child Is a Dead Child
It is a shame that many of us can stomach the murder of innocents so long as it behooves our political tribalism.
Aug 13, 2024
When was our humanity divided along partisan lines?
Here, I'll give you an example of what I mean. A rocket was fired from Lebanon in late July. It struck a soccer field in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights. And it killed 12 children.
Right-wing media—including Fox News—immediately erupted. Red-faced pundits spent hours lambasting the atrocity as a heinous war crime—which I agree with. Fox News, Ben Shapiro, and all the other partisan media entities decrying the wrongful deaths of those 12 children on July 27 are right.
If we cannot agree that the murder of a child—whether by an Islamic militant or by a politician in a suit and tie—is evil, period, then our moral compass has been rendered useless.
What's odd, however, is that they only seem outraged by self-serving political narratives. Where was their rage the last 10 months, as piles of young Palestinian corpses have been stacked thousands high? It begs the question: Does the murder of children only anger us when it suits our neatly defined, partisan worldviews?
Only the willfully ignorant have been spared the horrific imagery of modern Gaza the rest of us have seen: charred and mangled limbs sprouting from heaps of rubble; the ashen-white, limp bodies of lifeless children; and the soul-torturing wails of a weeping mother or father.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his bloodthirsty cronies aren't being too subtle about their motivations either. See, this isn't just a war against Hamas. This is a war against the Palestinian people as a whole. And those aren't my words. Those are theirs.
"I have ordered a complete siege on the Gaza Strip. There will be no electricity, no food, no fuel, everything is closed (...) We are fighting human animals and we are acting accordingly."
-Yoav Gallant, Minister of Defense
"Those are animals, they have no right to exist. I am not debating the way it will happen, but they need to be exterminated.”
-Yoav Kisch, Education Minister
"I don't care about Gaza. I literally don't care at all. They can go out and swim in the sea. I want to see dead bodies of terrorists around Gaza."
-May Golan, Minister of Social Equality
"The majority of the 12,000 dead Palestinians were terrorists. [...] Good riddance.”
-Yair Lapid, Leader of the Opposition
"The war will never end if we don't expel them all.”
-Nissim Vaturi, Member of the Israeli Knesset
"It is not Hamas that should be eliminated. Gaza should be razed and Israel's rule should be restored to the place. This is our country."
-Moshe Feiglin, Former Member of the Israeli Knesset
"The fighting will continue and expand to any place necessary in the Gaza strip. There will be no sanctuary cities.”
-Benny Gantz, Former Minister of Defense
"One of the options is to drop an atomic bomb on Gaza. I pray and hope for [the hostages'] return, but there is also a price in war.”
-Amichai Eliyahu, Minister of Heritage
"We are the people of the light, they are the people of darkness... we shall realize the prophecy of Isaiah."
-Benjamin Netanyahu, Prime Minister
Not a great look, guys. Especially given that every aforementioned quote came from the tongues of Israeli leaders, the very people whose hands are on the levers of power. The rhetoric is damning, and precisely why South Africa (a country that knows all too well what apartheid looks like) levied a genocide case against Israel, and why the International Criminal Court prosecutor's office has requested arrest warrants for Netanyahu, Gallant, and three Hamas leaders.
Thousands of Palestinians have been murdered. Many more are maimed and starving. Meanwhile, the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem reports that Israel is running "a network of torture camps."Palestinian prisoners, many detained unjustly, allege they've been raped, sometimes with objects, and sometimes by even female soldiers.
Israel's finance minister, Bezalel Smotrich, just recently said, "No one in the world will allow us to starve 2 million people, even though it might be justified and moral in order to free the hostages.”
Put together, the evidence creates a macabre mosaic that is most aptly described in one word: genocide. Indeed, this is an extermination campaign, and one that my government is enabling. (Since October 7, 2023, the U.S. has enacted legislation providing more than $12.5 billion in military aid to Israel).
As Americans, I wanted to think we'd rally, together, against a state-sponsored extermination campaign that we are funding. Though I was wrong. Even today, as Gaza has become a slaughterhouse, so-called intellectuals—even self-described liberals like Bill Maher and Bari Weiss—are unable to see the Israeli government for what it is: a gaggle of bloodthirsty politicians using American dollars to systematically murder innocent Palestinians.
Earnest criticism of rape, concentration camps, and genocide is not antisemitic. A government cannot be inoculated from scrutiny with identity politics. Don't be fooled: Criticizing Israel's shameful war is not Jewish hate by default. Those who say it is are intellectually dishonest and moral cowards.
It is a shame that many of us can stomach the murder of innocents so long as it behooves our political tribalism. Of course I condemn Hamas. But we're well past the point of condemning Hamas as a prerequisite for criticizing Netanyahu. As an American, if I criticize the Bush administration's nonsensical war in Iraq, I am not first asked to denounce al Qaeda or Saddam Hussein. None of my fellow Americans assume that, when I criticize Dick Cheney, the Iraq war, and the White House's lies about weapons of mass destruction, that I am an apologist for Osama bin Laden or that I approve of the deaths of my fellow countrymen on September 11, 2001.
No longer can America lay claim to the idea that we don't negotiate with terrorists. Because on July 24, a terrorist by the name of Benjamin Netanyahu walked into our capital, castigated Americans critical of his war as "idiots,"and was applauded.
I am worried about the soul of America. If we cannot agree that the murder of a child—whether by an Islamic militant or by a politician in a suit and tie—is evil, period, then our moral compass has been rendered useless. If we are more outraged by the students protesting genocide than the genocide itself, we have not only failed the Palestinians, but we've failed Israel. But worst of all, we've failed ourselves. Partisan schisms have sterilized our hearts, I'm afraid. And it's why the term never again is happening again.
I didn't understand this as a boy. Because when I was young, I simply couldn't wrap my mind around how and why the world could allow evil things to happen. Now, I think, I know.
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Fears of Full-Scale War With Lebanon Rise After Israel Bombs Beirut
One group responded to Israel's bombing of "a densely populated civilian area in Beirut" by urging governments to "condemn this dangerous escalation and immediately suspend arms sales to Israel."
Jul 30, 2024
This is a developing story… Please check back for possible updates...
The Israel Defense Forces confirmed Tuesday that it "carried out a targeted strike in Beirut," elevating fears of an all-out war with Lebanon or a larger regional conflict as Israel continues a monthslong assault on the Gaza Strip.
Israel has blamed Hezbollah, a militia and political party in Lebanon, for the recent rocket attack on a soccer field in Majdal Shams, a town in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. Hezbollah has denied responsibility.
The IDF said on social media that its strike in the Lebanese capital targeted an unnamed "commander responsible for the murder of the children in Majdal Shams and the killing of numerous additional Israeli civilians."
BREAKING NEWS: The Israeli army has launched a "precision strike" on Beirut, targeting a Hezbollah commander. This operation comes in retaliation for an attack on the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Saturday. pic.twitter.com/CI0ZOW04Lg
— Mondoweiss (@Mondoweiss) July 30, 2024
Reutersreported that "a senior Lebanese security source said a senior Hezbollah commander had been the target of the air strike and his fate remained unclear."
The Israeli strike "targeted the area around Hezbollah's Shura Council in the Haret Hreik neighborhood of the capital," Reuters added, citing Lebanon's state-run national news agency.
Since the Israeli assault on Gaza began over the Hamas-led October 7 attack, cross-border strikes have killed hundreds of Hezbollah fighters and approximately 100 civilians.
The Peace & Justice Project—founded by Jeremy Corbyn, an Independent member of the United Kingdom's Parliament—said Tuesday that "in the last few moments, Israel has bombed a densely populated civilian area in Beirut. The U.K. and U.S. governments must condemn this dangerous escalation and immediately suspend arms sales to Israel."
Sarah Leah Whitson, executive director of Democracy for the Arab World Now (DAWN), urged U.S. President Joe Biden—who has enabled the Israeli assault on Gaza with diplomatic and weapons support—to put pressure on Israel to prevent war with Lebanon.
"In the days after October 7, President Biden had a message for Hezbollah: 'Don't.' Now it's time for Biden to send the same message to Israel: Don't launch a new war in Lebanon, don't keep evading a permanent cease-fire in Gaza, don't assume American support if you start a regional war," she said. "The U.S. government should be doing everything it can to stop the escalation of the conflict and the only way to accomplish that is to exert enough pressure on Israel to reach a permanent cease-fire in Gaza."
Like DAWN's leader, Win Without War executive director Sara Haghdoosti also connected the airstrike to peace in Gaza.
"The latest round of strikes between the Israeli military and Hezbollah puts the region at the edge of a major war," Haghdoosti warned. "Win Without War is alarmed by the escalation over the last several days. We call on the Biden administration to redouble diplomatic efforts to calm tensions and prevent further violence."
"A cease-fire in Gaza remains the most crucial step in ending this devastating cycle of violence," she added. "We urge the Biden administration to use all the leverage at its disposal to secure a deal that returns hostages held in Gaza, ends the killing and horrific humanitarian crisis in Gaza, and averts a regional war."
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