Speaker 1: Cool the media. Hello everyone, welcome to it could happen here.
Speaker 1: My name is Dana L.
Speaker 2: Kurd.
Speaker 1: I'm a researcher of Arab and Palestinian politics, and today
Speaker 1: I'm joined by Iliya Ayub. Would like to introduce yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, hi Danna, thank you for having me. My
Speaker 3: name is Idiah. I'm motioning from Lebanon. My background is
Speaker 3: in both history and journalism, and I often write about
Speaker 3: the region more subbout Palestinian and I also write a
Speaker 3: lot about Isad in Palestine, and obviously in the past
Speaker 3: few years, I've been covering and also worrying a lot
Speaker 3: about what's been happening.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much for joining us, especially at
Speaker 2: such a difficult time for the listeners. We are recording
Speaker 2: March twenty second, twenty twenty six, and Israel's attack on
Speaker 2: Lebanon is ongoing. So we're really grateful to Ilia for
Speaker 2: joining us and talking to us about what this means
Speaker 2: and what we're seeing on the ground. Yeah, so maybe
Speaker 2: I'll start there. Can you lay out for the listener
Speaker 2: what is happening in Lebanon right now?
Speaker 4: So what's been happening in Lebanon? Is that already connected?
Speaker 3: To the US Israeli war on Iran, which started what
Speaker 3: about twenty two twenty three days ago something like that.
Speaker 3: That was in itself in the context of negotiations between
Speaker 3: the Americans and the Ionians in Switzerland mediated by Arman,
Speaker 3: and just moments later, really that same night, the bombing
Speaker 3: of Iran started in Lebanon, or rather the way Lebanon
Speaker 3: enters this story is a couple of days after the
Speaker 3: assassination of Raminida told of Iran has bought a launched
Speaker 3: the pockets towards Israel, and this was used by the
Speaker 3: Israelis as effectively them saying that we will only held
Speaker 3: on Lebanon.
Speaker 4: And that's often how it's been reported.
Speaker 3: What is often missed even in that context I mean,
Speaker 3: is that there was a so called ceasefire between Israel
Speaker 3: and Lebanon, and hasball obviously for thirteen months before that.
Speaker 3: But that so called ceasefire, the reason I'm saying so
Speaker 3: called seasfire had already been violated by the Israelis. And
Speaker 3: this is the figures that come from the uniform the unpeace
Speaker 3: keeping forces in Lebanon over fifteen thousand times, whereas they themselves,
Speaker 3: in fact, even the BBC today. I saw an article
Speaker 3: today I acknowledged that Hazbola had not violated the seasefire,
Speaker 3: which you know is just I guess that is also
Speaker 3: where the where the mood is add in terms of
Speaker 3: the coverage since then, like in the past three weeks,
Speaker 3: the hell and this term was used by Israeli officials themselves,
Speaker 3: that has been unleased on Lebanon has been unprecedented, and
Speaker 3: even even by Israeli wars on Lebanon standards, which is
Speaker 3: saying a lot. As of time of recording, at least
Speaker 3: twenty percent of the entirety of Lebanon has already been displaced,
Speaker 3: and for the most part, these are people that had
Speaker 3: already experienced this placement at least once in twenty twenty
Speaker 3: four when this war started, if not older patterns of
Speaker 3: displacements going back to the Civil War and the It'saelio
Speaker 3: occupation of South Lebanon in the eighties and nineties and
Speaker 3: so on. And unclear where this is headed because just
Speaker 3: hours before we even started recording, they escalated their bombings
Speaker 3: of bridges connecting South Lebanon to the Guest of Lebanon,
Speaker 3: which is over the Litani River, which is one of
Speaker 3: the rivers in the south as part of the attempt
Speaker 3: to cut off the entire region of Lebanon, of South
Speaker 3: Lebanons from the cost of the country. And yeah, we
Speaker 3: can get into more of the details and the impact
Speaker 3: that this is having on Lebanon itself, of course, because
Speaker 3: this tends to be unfortunately like not covered this much.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so to kind of summarize, because they
Speaker 2: decided to launch a war against Iran, and obviously there's
Speaker 2: so much to say about that, we're not going to
Speaker 2: be able to address every aspect.
Speaker 1: Of this conflict.
Speaker 2: But because of that, and after particularly the assassination of
Speaker 2: the Ayatola, Hasbela launch rockets and then the Israelis, who
Speaker 2: had already been breaking the ceasefire between them and Hesbola
Speaker 2: that had emerged over the past year, decided to kind
Speaker 2: of ramp up their attacks. And when we say ramp
Speaker 2: up their attacks, you've mentioned like the destruction of infrastructure,
Speaker 2: cutting off the south, basically clearing villages, et cetera. The
Speaker 2: Israeli officials, including Natania, who have said they want to
Speaker 2: impose what they called the Gaza.
Speaker 1: Model on Lebanon. So what can we understand from from
Speaker 1: this kind of comment.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thank you.
Speaker 3: It's important to note that such comments are not new
Speaker 3: at all, and they have also been uttered in times
Speaker 3: of quote unquote peace. So when there isn't any kind
Speaker 3: of active conflict. In my own article of ninety seven
Speaker 3: two which I wrote about it, don't know two weeks ago,
Speaker 3: so I quote a number of those politicians, and I'll
Speaker 3: just mention a few of them. Here you have Galant,
Speaker 3: who has of course since been and still has in
Speaker 3: a gust warrant by the International Comment Court. He's threatened
Speaker 3: to send Leblon back to the Stone Agent. This was
Speaker 3: in November twenty twenty four. The Diaspora Affairs Minister Amishai
Speaker 3: quickly declared in September twenty twenty four that Lebanon quote
Speaker 3: does not mean the definition of a state, and he
Speaker 3: described all of the sheare population of Lebanon es quote
Speaker 3: unquote hostile, which is genocide the language by definition, and.
Speaker 4: Even about what two three weeks ago.
Speaker 3: So smart Hitch, who was one of kind of the
Speaker 3: main for great politicians in Israel today said that very soon,
Speaker 3: as I'm quoting, very soon, Dahi will resemble herne newness,
Speaker 3: Dahi being the southern suburb of Bayhood, where a lot
Speaker 3: there's a lot of support for has Bola and has
Speaker 3: always been talked about by the Israelis as like one
Speaker 3: of the quote Bolla's songholds. In fact, they pioneered, you
Speaker 3: might say, the Dahi doctrine in two thousand and six,
Speaker 3: so named after Dahi, and there was a war in
Speaker 3: two thousand and six as well.
Speaker 4: But Venezuela has butla.
Speaker 3: Which is quite explicitly a policy of bombing civilian infrastructure
Speaker 3: in order to put pressure on the enemy in this
Speaker 3: case as Butler, which is basically in acknowledgment that they
Speaker 3: virate international law as state policy. And on March eleven,
Speaker 3: a member of the pigness it for the same party
Speaker 3: of smoothly as smart Hitch said, and I'm quoting, we
Speaker 3: must conquer territory in southern Lebanon, destroy villages there, and
Speaker 3: annex the territory to the state of Israel.
Speaker 4: End quote. There's another one.
Speaker 3: Gad Eisencote, who was the former chief of staff of
Speaker 3: the Israelia Media IDEAF said around the same time, I
Speaker 3: think it was a couple of weeks ago. Quote the
Speaker 3: dog Hit doctin has never been more relevant than right now.
Speaker 3: And it must be implemented and quote dire doctrine being
Speaker 3: the one that I just mentioned. And this is they
Speaker 3: said not new, whether in the context of talking about
Speaker 3: Palestinians in Raza long before the ongoing genocide, whether in
Speaker 3: the context of talking about the Lebanese and so on,
Speaker 3: there has been this stain of open utterances of genocidal
Speaker 3: claiming on behalf of like Israeli politicians and military leaders.
Speaker 3: One needs to notice to understand why they act in
Speaker 3: certain ways in Lebanon. If it was just about like
Speaker 3: you know, targeting their enemies or whatever, that would be
Speaker 3: like one one way of doing warfare. But it willn't
Speaker 3: explain like detonating entire villages as they've been doing during
Speaker 3: the so called ceasefire. It wouldn't explain splaining herbicide, which
Speaker 3: they did about a month ago over like large parts
Speaker 3: of South Lebanon, including parts of Syria for that matter,
Speaker 3: which killed cops and so on. It would explain them
Speaker 3: not allowing farmers to harvest their cops.
Speaker 4: You know, it would explain all of these things.
Speaker 3: What would explain all of these things is if you
Speaker 3: take into account what they say the intentions are in
Speaker 3: Lebanon or the valley is what they want it to
Speaker 3: happen in Lebanon, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it really seems like the Israeli policy, especially now
Speaker 2: that there's been really no accountability for what happened in Gaza,
Speaker 2: it's like basically to pursue maximum violence, including against civilians,
Speaker 2: and create I think kind of like a no man's
Speaker 2: land buffer zone around Israel. Now, there are some elements
Speaker 2: in Israeli society that are like religious Zionists, like Messianic
Speaker 2: types who want to settle and like expand. But aside
Speaker 2: from those those people, like I think even we would
Speaker 2: call like centrists in Israel, or like the liberals in Israel,
Speaker 2: are like, okay, well, yeah, we do need we do
Speaker 2: need a buffer, so.
Speaker 1: We need a flatten Gaza, we need a flatten southern Lebanon.
Speaker 2: And what this translates to, I mean in Lebanon in
Speaker 2: particular is I think you know, some estimates say over
Speaker 2: a thousand have been killed in just the past like
Speaker 2: two and a half weeks.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then millions displaced.
Speaker 4: Right, yeah, twenty percent of the country.
Speaker 3: Lebanon is one of the smallest countries in the world,
Speaker 3: and South Lebanon is one of the only regions in
Speaker 3: the country that you might call like a bread basket
Speaker 3: in terms of agriculture. So yeah, twenty percent of the
Speaker 3: population has already been this place, and those are those
Speaker 3: that could be registered.
Speaker 4: You can imagine numb as being higher than that.
Speaker 3: And as I said, like a lot of those people
Speaker 3: have already been displaced a number of times before, even
Speaker 3: in twenty twenty four when there was like kind of
Speaker 3: the initial escalation, but many of them even going back
Speaker 3: to two thousand and six when there was the war,
Speaker 3: and in some cases even further back in the eighties
Speaker 3: and nineties when these eighties occupied southern Lebanon. And I
Speaker 3: guess this is really important to note because obviously what's
Speaker 3: happening today is connected to the war on Iran.
Speaker 4: Of course it's directly connected.
Speaker 3: But if one only knows this, I think we missed
Speaker 3: what I would describe as a bit of an Israeli
Speaker 3: obsession with Lebanon specifically for a long time.
Speaker 4: There's like historical roots to all of this.
Speaker 3: It even goes back to the Israelis like having ties
Speaker 3: with like the local Christian far right in the sixties,
Speaker 3: especially as the seventies and eighties.
Speaker 1: Like during the civil war, during the.
Speaker 3: Civil war in Lebanon, and a bit of this almost
Speaker 3: I mean ideological thing of like will we will focus
Speaker 3: on the non Muslims and hope that they're on our side,
Speaker 3: that sort of thing, which is a policy that these
Speaker 3: Raelies have done within is A Palestine and in Syria.
Speaker 3: You know, this is an ongoing thing as well, and
Speaker 3: so on and so forth. I really want to emphasize
Speaker 3: this because I have had the experience when I hit
Speaker 3: a lot of the coverage and you know, listen to
Speaker 3: podcasts what have you, that even among people who don't
Speaker 3: support the State of Israel, who are very critical of it,
Speaker 3: there tends to be understandably because Lebanon is less powerful
Speaker 3: than Ions, you know, not as influential on a.
Speaker 4: Global scene or whatnot.
Speaker 3: But there's usually a tendency to link what happens in
Speaker 3: Lebanon there to what's happening in Yon. And this has
Speaker 3: been two in the past few weeks. And as I said, says,
Speaker 3: of course, partly the cases it's not like completely un elevant.
Speaker 3: Has Bala did even stated that the reason why they
Speaker 3: launched those vockets was to avenge the assassination of dieto loss.
Speaker 4: Of course, it's they're.
Speaker 3: Activiated, but there's all of this, like why they're in
Speaker 3: all the context that can help at the bare least
Speaker 3: explain why the Asaetias are doing that in Lebanon and
Speaker 3: also help extending what's happening to Lebanon itself, which tends
Speaker 3: to be not not as focused on.
Speaker 2: I mean, yeah, let's discuss for a moment where Lebanon
Speaker 2: was before these latest attacks, before the ceasefire, before October seventh.
Speaker 2: For the Lebanese people, it has been increasingly unlivable. There's
Speaker 2: been a financial crisis and economic crisis. Lebanon has hosted
Speaker 2: huge amounts of refugees from Syria from Palestine. Continues to
Speaker 2: these conditions now where effectively like what like half of
Speaker 2: the country is like inaccessible or some large portion of
Speaker 2: the country is inaccessible. The capital city has being bombed,
Speaker 2: residential buildings, like there's there's nothing kind of off limits.
Speaker 2: What is the situation now for for regular people who
Speaker 2: first and foremost have not had any kind of like
Speaker 2: sense of accountability from their own government and have had
Speaker 2: also his Babla sort of you know, acting unilaterally in
Speaker 2: some ways. Obviously, this does not excuse Israeli actions in
Speaker 2: any way. But what's the kind of like sense of
Speaker 2: emotion right now among Lebanese people.
Speaker 4: I mean, despair is I guess one word to describe it.
Speaker 4: There's there's definitely a sense of helplessness.
Speaker 3: His Bubble is not a popular party in the country
Speaker 3: in terms of like the percentage of the population there
Speaker 3: is in actions, whether this one or like after October seventh,
Speaker 3: the decision to join the war was unpopular.
Speaker 4: Instead it's unpopular.
Speaker 3: There's something that the Israelis are trying to capitalize on, obviously,
Speaker 3: either because they want to just destroy the parts to you,
Speaker 3: because as part of doing that they also want to
Speaker 3: destabilize all of Lebanon, sort of that both of those
Speaker 3: things are happening at the same time. The current government
Speaker 3: in Leblon is led by the guy who was the
Speaker 3: head of the ICJA when South Africa had started this
Speaker 3: case of accusing is that of genocide like a year
Speaker 3: or so ago, So he's by the only naive of
Speaker 3: what Israeli intentions are. But I think what's really important
Speaker 3: to understand of what's kind of the mood of the
Speaker 3: country is the sense that no matter what we decide
Speaker 3: as a nation.
Speaker 4: It's completely out of our hands.
Speaker 3: And this goes beyond even questions related to has Buddler
Speaker 3: and has Bulah's actions, because, as I said, even when
Speaker 3: Hesbola does not launch cockets or whatnot, Israeli Is continue
Speaker 3: to vide it as far as anyway they in coach Land, anyway,
Speaker 3: they dynamite entire villages, anyway, they've prayed those herbicide and
Speaker 3: so on and so on anyway, And it's one of
Speaker 3: those things that it's also important to know this to
Speaker 3: understand why there are people, for example, in South Lebanon that,
Speaker 3: regardless of their personal feelings towards his bud Law, don't
Speaker 3: see any alternatives because in fact there are none. Something
Speaker 3: that I know isn't talked about as much and certainly
Speaker 3: not covered as much, is the fact that the armed
Speaker 3: force that is supposed to be the alternative to Hasbola.
Speaker 3: The thing that we hear about all the time that
Speaker 3: the Americans, what they want is for Hasbola to be
Speaker 3: disarmed and for the Lebanese army to take over, and
Speaker 3: so on and so forth, and this is basically the
Speaker 3: stated goal of the entire world. In a sense, what
Speaker 3: is a good chunk of it, and in fact it's
Speaker 3: officially the stated policy of the Liberes state itself. That
Speaker 3: is their intention as far as like their public declarations
Speaker 3: and so on, and they have made certain moves to
Speaker 3: that end as well.
Speaker 4: But the Libanese army.
Speaker 3: Is the army of a very poor country that has
Speaker 3: been in economic crisis for a long time. When we
Speaker 3: had wildfires in twenty nineteen, there wasn't even enough like
Speaker 3: equipment to tackle them, and like foreign government had to
Speaker 3: donate helicopters and stuff like that. And that Liberanese army
Speaker 3: is also heavily subsidized, if you want to say, like
Speaker 3: funded in any case by the United States itself, the
Speaker 3: same United States that obviously heavily funds and arms the Israelis.
Speaker 3: Of course, the weapons that the Lebanese get is nothing
Speaker 3: compared to the weapons that the Israelies get. There's no
Speaker 3: such thing as an iron dome in Lebanon. None of
Speaker 3: these things are available to the Lebanese. And so effectively,
Speaker 3: what is being asked of Lebanon itself, and especially of
Speaker 3: South Lebanon, of the Ahia and East Lebanon, ultimately of
Speaker 3: all of Lebanon, is that just accept your fate just
Speaker 3: accept that there's nothing you can do about the Israel
Speaker 3: least there's nothing you can do about their actions in
Speaker 3: Lebanon proper. I'm not even talking about any actions like
Speaker 3: rockets towards it, and I'm talking to their actions in
Speaker 3: Lebanon itself. And they're also asking Haswella, for example, to disarm,
Speaker 3: which in itself I am not opposed to, but in
Speaker 3: the context of what has been happening, in the context
Speaker 3: of what's happening now, I think it's ludicrous to imagine
Speaker 3: that people in the context like in South Lebanon, who
Speaker 3: have decades now long experience of seeing Israeli occupation, of
Speaker 3: seeing Israeli troops on their lands, no matter like multiple
Speaker 3: different you know, different prime ministers in Israel taking the
Speaker 3: charge and whatnot, but that continuing to be this kind
Speaker 3: of almost eternal fact. In a sense at least, that's
Speaker 3: how that's how it feels they're being asked to just
Speaker 3: disarm and hope for the best. That's really like effectively
Speaker 3: the policy towards Lebanon at the moment. Like I saw
Speaker 3: an interview with one of the French ministers a few
Speaker 3: few days ago, and she was asked like why aren't
Speaker 3: we doing more to help Lebanon by someone in the
Speaker 3: audience or whatever, and she said that, like we're sending
Speaker 3: humanitarian aid, and we have UNIFIL forces in southern Lebanon
Speaker 3: and so on. UNIFIL forces, those un peace keeping forces,
Speaker 3: as I said, don't have a legal right to even
Speaker 3: retaliate against the Israels, including when Israel bombs them, which
Speaker 3: it has done at least twice in the past few weeks.
Speaker 3: The Lebanese army really engages with Israelis, they don't even
Speaker 3: have the means in the first place, and so what
Speaker 3: do people expected to do? And this is sort of
Speaker 3: the context in which everything else almost doesn't matter, like
Speaker 3: in terms of whether you personally like the Hasibodla, I
Speaker 3: certainly don't, and whatever, like ones personal feelings or even
Speaker 3: politics is towards a political party because they're also members
Speaker 3: of the Lebanese Parliament, towards the state itself, whatever it
Speaker 3: is that it really feels that ultimately it's like our
Speaker 3: of our hands. And this is like a component of
Speaker 3: this entire thing that I really see, to be honest
Speaker 3: discussed as though like there are like two sides to
Speaker 3: the story, or like two equal armed actors for that
Speaker 3: even none on like equal states for that matter, and it's.
Speaker 4: Just not the case.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you so much for laying that out like that.
Speaker 2: I think that you're right that it's not well acknowledged,
Speaker 2: how disempowered. The international community basically expects people in the region,
Speaker 2: including the Lebanese, to behave and like accept the fact
Speaker 2: that they are collateral damage in Israel's, you know, perpetual
Speaker 2: desire for domination.
Speaker 1: American political scientist.
Speaker 2: Nathan Brown just published this article called Israel's Forever Wars
Speaker 2: for the Carnegie Domat. His argument is that there's been
Speaker 2: a shift in the Israeli policy where he says it
Speaker 2: used to be the terrents domination and diplomacy have long
Speaker 2: blended in Israeli statecraft, and today he's says they've been
Speaker 2: eclipsed by something harsher quote a preference for domination, degradation
Speaker 2: and the prevention of the adversaries recovery. I mean, I
Speaker 2: think he's right, though, I think that we've seen kind
Speaker 2: of a at least a lower intensity, maybe not as
Speaker 2: high intensity, but we've seen a long scale policy of
Speaker 2: domination even before this moment. But I think this moment
Speaker 2: does definitely bring it out, which brings me to my
Speaker 2: question of like for Hesbola in particular, in the last
Speaker 2: year two years, like there have been assassinations, we saw
Speaker 2: the Pager attack. You know, it seems that Hesbola has
Speaker 2: been very effectively weakened. And since the Israelians are now
Speaker 2: kind of going all out, what do you think is
Speaker 2: going to happen to Hezbolas as a group, set aside.
Speaker 1: Perhaps their public support or you know, lack thereof.
Speaker 3: So it's important to note that Hezbola comes from a
Speaker 3: certain context. They hose in the context of South Lebanon
Speaker 3: during the israel occupation of South Lebanon, theyse as the
Speaker 3: alternative to existing party that were either seen as to
Speaker 3: complicity with the Israelis or maybe too weak or complacent
Speaker 3: or whatnot. And essentially because there was a need for
Speaker 3: something like has Ball at the time. And again this
Speaker 3: is completely regardless of my personal opposition to a lot
Speaker 3: of their politics, whether it's a Lebanon or especially in Syria.
Speaker 3: But that question, if you're going to call it the
Speaker 3: Lebanese question, it's completely being side stepped, it's not being
Speaker 3: tackled whatsoever. And in fact, it's it's not that dissimilar,
Speaker 3: I think from the Israeli attempt to erase or triig
Speaker 3: to pretend as of the Palestinian question as well as
Speaker 3: can be completely side stepped. But they can just continue
Speaker 3: to pursue this policy of just complete domination, as you said,
Speaker 3: you know, make these apomic codeas with the UEE and
Speaker 3: other some of the other Arab states, for example, without
Speaker 3: any mentions of Valestine and Palestinians and so on and
Speaker 3: so forth. And in the case of Lebanon is like
Speaker 3: less official because there isn't that component, but of the
Speaker 3: spirit of it is pretty similar. There is a sort
Speaker 3: of like illegal ilegalistic framework of the Land for Peace,
Speaker 3: and I think explaining that at least beef would I
Speaker 3: think connectualize the quote that you even you just read
Speaker 3: out to us here that you know, the Isaelis occupied
Speaker 3: Arab territories in nineteen sixty seven. Palestinitary obviously they're being
Speaker 3: gudz at the West Bank, and is Jerusalem. Egypt, of
Speaker 3: course was the Sinai and Cia was and still is
Speaker 3: the Golden Heights. And so the Land for Peace quote
Speaker 3: unquote worked. In the case of Egypt, they occupied the Sinai,
Speaker 3: and then as part of a peace deal with Egypt,
Speaker 3: they returned the Sinai to the Egyptians.
Speaker 4: It didn't happen with Syria.
Speaker 3: The Sian Golden Heights have been occupied since nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 3: were effectively the factor annexed in nineteen eighty one. They've
Speaker 3: been annexed for so long that Smotrich himself was born
Speaker 3: in an illegal settlement in the Siyan Golden Heights. And
Speaker 3: I'm mentioning this because the Lebanese state, the Prime Minister
Speaker 3: I mentioned earlier about what a week ago, ten days
Speaker 3: ago or so, said that he's hoping for a Land
Speaker 3: for Peace framework, which to me shows just how desperate
Speaker 3: even they are, like they don't know what to do,
Speaker 3: they have no options in front of them. So what
Speaker 3: they're hoping is that by doing all of these things
Speaker 3: public declarations against hezball law I, declaining some of their
Speaker 3: activities illegal by I think, like a few days ago
Speaker 3: they said that the media cannot call them the resistance,
Speaker 3: for example, which is there in Arabic, how they will
Speaker 3: be referred to, and so on and so forth, these
Speaker 3: attempts to placate the Americans especially, and so on and
Speaker 3: maybe like show that you know we're doing something about this,
Speaker 3: can you stop The Israelis essentially haven't achieved anything there
Speaker 3: is really have just escalated, continue to escalate, continue to
Speaker 3: bomb more and more and more larger in.
Speaker 4: Larger parts of the country.
Speaker 3: But that Land for Peace framework, which is the frame
Speaker 3: of since the sixties, basically is, as far as I
Speaker 3: can tell right now, the only thing that the Dobinese
Speaker 3: government hope that they can even use. But the difficulty
Speaker 3: in all of that, like a, I don't think it's
Speaker 3: it's realistic because of the same example, like they haven't
Speaker 3: they have never given up their Golden Heights. I don't
Speaker 3: see any reason why they would if they do decide
Speaker 3: to occupy all of South Lebanon. And also because the
Speaker 3: shift and this is what you're referring to with that
Speaker 3: code of that person you mentioned, the shift in Israeli
Speaker 3: politics in the past few decades. Isn't even that, if
Speaker 3: you might call it strategic, that we're going to do
Speaker 3: the thing even if it's illegal, We're going to occupy
Speaker 3: land if it's illegal. But sort of like the ultimate
Speaker 3: purpose of it is something that resembles some kind of
Speaker 3: diplomatic negotiation it's domination almost for its own sake.
Speaker 4: There is no end go necessarily.
Speaker 3: You mentioned there of course religious Zionists, but you also
Speaker 3: have others that are not interested in settlements. They're just
Speaker 3: interested in destroying the land, like destroying having this so
Speaker 3: called buffer zone, which is a euphemism for just in
Speaker 3: no man's land, just destroying everything. And so the policy
Speaker 3: can shift in a sense, but the intention is to
Speaker 3: just try and dominate for as long as possible for
Speaker 3: its own sake. And this is a wider pattern in
Speaker 3: Israeli politics that I don't know how well understood. It
Speaker 3: is maybe a bit more now than before, because even
Speaker 3: before the ongoing war, you're unstarted theft Tally Bennet, who
Speaker 3: was a prime minister of his and reportedly wants to
Speaker 3: replace Natanya, who in the upcoming elections said that Turkey
Speaker 3: is the next ran. But virtually any Israeli paper center
Speaker 3: and further to the right, which is most of them,
Speaker 3: you read them, there is someone who has at some
Speaker 3: point and this I'm not talking to this a random
Speaker 3: person talking like a high ranking politician and military official,
Speaker 3: at some point this hype like Turkey as being next
Speaker 3: and what needs to be understod with all of this
Speaker 3: is not or can.
Speaker 4: They actually do this or whatnot? Because maybe they can't.
Speaker 4: I don't know. I hope we never find out. But
Speaker 4: it's that like they.
Speaker 3: Can't stops, it's becoming an end in itself.
Speaker 4: There has to be an enemy.
Speaker 3: There has to be a constant creation almost of like
Speaker 3: an external enemy in like in Israeli political discourse today,
Speaker 3: because nothing else works in it's any politics, and this
Speaker 3: is a shift in It'saeli politics in the past. I'm
Speaker 3: gonna say, I don't know, two or three decades, don't
Speaker 3: know how one would start counting that shift. And it
Speaker 3: does go back to the Palestinian question and in the
Speaker 3: sense of like them not wanting to address it at all,
Speaker 3: not even pretending that they're going to, because they've been pretending,
Speaker 3: you know, obviously not actually doing it, but even pretending that,
Speaker 3: you know, they were doing so with the Austro accord
Speaker 3: and whatnot. There isn't even that I think it's useful
Speaker 3: to understand their attitude towards Lebanon as at least in
Speaker 3: part a continuation of that attitude towards Palestinians, and in
Speaker 3: many ways, like the Palestine question, itself.
Speaker 4: He means the one that they want to avoid at
Speaker 4: all costs and whatever that.
Speaker 3: Means, bombing Iran, bombing Lebanon, bombing other countries later, I
Speaker 3: don't know. Obviously bombing year, they've already done that, you know,
Speaker 3: and so.
Speaker 4: On and so forth.
Speaker 1: Genocide is a tool of concept management.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's just domination, I said, for its own sake,
Speaker 3: because they can't imagine any kind of other alternative, and
Speaker 3: they haven't had a need to do so, because you know,
Speaker 3: as you said, they've gotten away with a livestream genocide
Speaker 3: for over two years now, Why would they think differently
Speaker 3: about Lebanon, a very poor country that you know, doesn't
Speaker 3: have that many resources and whatnot. Which isn't to say
Speaker 3: that they will succeed, that they will win and so on.
Speaker 3: But what they've been saying this is the intention.
Speaker 1: I think that's very valid.
Speaker 2: I mean, it's not a coincidence you said, you know,
Speaker 2: you would try to trace it back to like the
Speaker 2: past two or three decades. It's not a coincidence that
Speaker 2: this mentality and this you know, reorientation of Israel's entire policy,
Speaker 2: especially comes after the end of the Second Palistenian Inta
Speaker 2: Falda and then not even just no meaningful negotiations, no
Speaker 2: negotiations at all. Like you said, there was the land
Speaker 2: for peace mantra. The idea with that is that they
Speaker 2: were going to get peace if they give back land.
Speaker 2: But the underlying assumption of that is that they would
Speaker 2: be held accountable by the international community, by their own allies.
Speaker 2: After the second Intafaluda, basically the Americans and the international
Speaker 2: community gave up, essentially even pretending that Palestinians would ever
Speaker 2: get anything. This has culminated in now and Israel that
Speaker 2: as you said, it's domination for dominations, and they think
Speaker 2: that they can maintain control in this way. Now Turkey
Speaker 2: is going to be a different beast than Iran, Turkey's
Speaker 2: and NATO member.
Speaker 1: But as we've seen in the last.
Speaker 2: Couple of weeks, like they don't care about blowing up
Speaker 2: the entire region, they don't care about the Strait of
Speaker 2: Hormus being closed, they don't care about oil fields being attacked,
Speaker 2: and they don't care about you know, the global economy tanking.
Speaker 2: Like it's not inconceivable that they attack Turkey, even if
Speaker 2: the outcome might be different, or we might see like
Speaker 2: further escalations.
Speaker 1: It's not inconceivable. And now I just want to point
Speaker 1: this out.
Speaker 2: The very kind of pro Israel think tank in Washington,
Speaker 2: the Foundation for the Defensive Democracy. Their new line now
Speaker 2: is to say land for peace is outdated. Now we
Speaker 2: need to pursue instead peace for land. Yeah, which means
Speaker 2: acceptance of Zionism earns these people a right to govern themselves.
Speaker 3: It's a politicular vision that does not see the other
Speaker 3: as human, as as having agency, as as deserving anything.
Speaker 3: It's not like they have an opposing side on an
Speaker 3: opponent that they want to defeat, but ultimately have some
Speaker 3: kind of settlement or or and move beyond that or whatnot.
Speaker 3: There is no long term plan, is what I'm trying
Speaker 3: to say. I guess, and maybe to emphasize a bit
Speaker 3: more in the case in the case of Lebinon, like,
Speaker 3: so what happens next for Hesbela, for example, I'm not
Speaker 3: entirely sure.
Speaker 4: I don't I don't think anyone really knows.
Speaker 3: It's it seems clear that the Israelis underestimated their capabilities.
Speaker 4: But to what extent that will matter?
Speaker 3: If the Israelis continue to just bomb and bomb and
Speaker 3: bomb Lebanon, for weeks on end, if not not on end,
Speaker 3: and so on.
Speaker 4: I can't tell.
Speaker 3: What I can tell is that in the same way
Speaker 3: as the Israels want to ignore the Palestinian question, but
Speaker 3: it's still it's still there. It haunts them in in
Speaker 3: in a way because I work on on ontology, and
Speaker 3: in case of Lebanon, there is also that in many
Speaker 3: ways that if you look at the shift in this course,
Speaker 3: even within Israeli politics from like let's say seventies, especially
Speaker 3: eighties onwards. I'm not going to say it was never good,
Speaker 3: but there was a stronger component of Israeli like politicians,
Speaker 3: let's say, like a higher percentage of them anyway, that were,
Speaker 3: for lack of a better term, pragmatic that we're willing
Speaker 3: to have concessions, that we're wanting to have whatever, because
Speaker 3: if only because they just did not want to deal
Speaker 3: with like occupying a foreign country that they had no
Speaker 3: intention to legally annexed, as they did with the legally
Speaker 3: none of this is legal, but like within Israel low
Speaker 3: I mean, as they did with the Golden Heights. And
Speaker 3: so that's what I'm saying in the case of Lebanon
Speaker 3: that it's almost like the worst case scenario is what's
Speaker 3: currently happening. And that's like completely regardless of what happens
Speaker 3: to Hesbola, because Hezbola can disappear tomorrow, and the problem
Speaker 3: will continue to be the same, if not just get worse.
Speaker 4: The country has no economy to speak of. The currency was.
Speaker 3: Already devalued during the economic crisis, was one of the
Speaker 3: highest evaluations in the world. And there are no prospects
Speaker 3: going forward in terms of like making this accountry that
Speaker 3: can even sustain itself. It's already very like import dependent.
Speaker 3: But if you exclude the South Lebanon and it being
Speaker 3: a bread basket, East Lebanon as well, by the way,
Speaker 3: it's also a bread basket, and that's another area of
Speaker 3: Lebanon that these veilies have been constantly bombarding. To paraphrase,
Speaker 3: that is really ministered. That like Lebanon is not a state,
Speaker 3: it's not a nation. It doesn't, it doesn't, it's just
Speaker 3: a place that's on the map. And that will pose
Speaker 3: a problem obviously first and foremost for us, like for
Speaker 3: the Lebanese and people who live in Lebanon, but it
Speaker 3: is also a problem geopolitically, it's a problem internationally. It
Speaker 3: will freak out the EU in terms of the refugee crisis,
Speaker 3: because the EU has actually counted on Lebanon to keep
Speaker 3: a lot of people in Lebanon. They extend like a
Speaker 3: billion euros I think it was two or three years
Speaker 3: ago or something like that. I got about it twice
Speaker 3: a year at a time, actually, because Lebanon had the
Speaker 3: highest percentage, maybe still does now. I don't know of
Speaker 3: refugees per capita, so to speak, like in compared to
Speaker 3: citizens in the world, one million or so serenior refugees
Speaker 3: with a cop three five manion Lebanese or something like
Speaker 3: that along those lines.
Speaker 4: There's no census in Lebanon.
Speaker 3: So I'm saying all of this to sort of emphasize
Speaker 3: the why there is this sense of despair in the
Speaker 3: country and why if that's not even remotely at rest.
Speaker 3: Whatever fires we're seeing now, whatever like hers we're seeing,
Speaker 3: I just don't see any any way. They will stop
Speaker 3: anytime soon, whatever happens, even to his bottle next. There's
Speaker 3: no reason to imagine that some other group wouldn't be
Speaker 3: formed at some point because people live there, people are
Speaker 3: from that lane. We're talking about a million people. They
Speaker 3: have nowhere else to go. It's not like the Lebanese
Speaker 3: passport is so good that you can just you know,
Speaker 3: go on a flight and go us.
Speaker 4: But there's nowhere else.
Speaker 3: They're just going to stay in Lebanon, and many of
Speaker 3: them would want to, of course go back to South Lebanon.
Speaker 4: This problem is not going away. But if you hear the.
Speaker 3: Rhetoric of your Nitan Yaho, you're you're in your other
Speaker 3: politicians like this is not part of the picture. This
Speaker 3: has nothing to do with what their intentions are. They're
Speaker 3: exclusively talking to other Israelis. The debate is not whether
Speaker 3: we should destroy South Lebanon or that we should destroy
Speaker 3: Lebanon itself. The debate is what do we do once
Speaker 3: it's destroyed, And even that it is barely a debate,
Speaker 3: but like that's the extent of where it goes in
Speaker 3: terms of like it's really discourse. And yeah, I guess
Speaker 3: maybe just to drive the point home that if the
Speaker 3: Israelis themselves are not stopped in one way or another
Speaker 3: by their allies, obviously America has the biggest leverage, or
Speaker 3: the EU being the second closest one in one way
Speaker 3: or another, whatever the means are, economic boycott, withdrawing your
Speaker 3: ambassador as Pain has done a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 3: but just like on a global scale, like even maybe
Speaker 3: dwarfing the and the boycott campaign against a Pote South
Speaker 3: Africa at the time, this problem is just going to expand,
Speaker 3: and people in listening to this of course see that
Speaker 3: seeing version of that, Iran can just close the strait
Speaker 3: of Hormus and then suddenly everyone this is everyone's problem
Speaker 3: as well. And America bombing those oil depots, and of
Speaker 3: course Elon has also done that in retaliation, but proportionately
Speaker 3: still more. The Americans in the Israelis has polluted like
Speaker 3: I forgot the number, but like the equivalent of like
Speaker 3: eighty four countries combined in terms of like the toxin
Speaker 3: releasing yea. These are things that people in Iran are
Speaker 3: breathing in, and the entire region relies on design nation plants.
Speaker 3: And the Americans bombed one in Iran, Iran retaliated and
Speaker 3: bombed another one in Bahrain.
Speaker 4: If that continues, who knows.
Speaker 3: There's been increasing attemps, not just attemps, actually strikes, including
Speaker 3: just yesterday against like nuclear facilities or like close enough
Speaker 3: to nuclear facilities, so who knows what would have happen?
Speaker 3: Then to say it's out of control would be like
Speaker 3: meaningless at this point. But there are levels of where
Speaker 3: this can go. And Lebanon is in a sense like
Speaker 3: deceivingly small. There's a book would Beware of Small States
Speaker 3: that talks about Lebanon because a lot of the world
Speaker 3: is happening in Lebanon, to put it to kind of
Speaker 3: put it maybe metaphorically, and the trends that are being
Speaker 3: done to the Lebanese or two people in Lebanon, like
Speaker 3: the Doah doctrine in two thousand and six was then
Speaker 3: used in Gaza, obviously, and now they're saying that they're
Speaker 3: going to use the Gaza methodology in Lebanon.
Speaker 4: It came back to Lebanon in a sense. But the
Speaker 4: point is that this will continue.
Speaker 3: There is no objective reason to believe that if has
Speaker 3: Babla is destroyed and completely disarmed and what have you,
Speaker 3: that this problem is going to go away, because if anything,
Speaker 3: a new beast of some kind is going to be
Speaker 3: to be created in the fires in the.
Speaker 4: Same way that Hesbola was hated in the initial ones.
Speaker 3: And so yeah, the problem ultimately, and I say this
Speaker 3: as someone who has been campaigning writing gotten the death
Speaker 3: threats from like Hesballa supporters in twenty nineteen when I
Speaker 3: was as part of the protest, we were beaten up
Speaker 3: by them. This comes from no sympathy whatsoever towards them.
Speaker 3: It's just an acknowledgment and also a historian that they
Speaker 3: come from a certain context. And if that context is
Speaker 3: not acknowledged at all, and in fact, the conditions that
Speaker 3: brought them are now much worse than even the eighties,
Speaker 3: why would we believe that something else won't come along
Speaker 3: later on in one way or another. And this notion
Speaker 3: that these alies have they're just a buffer zone and
Speaker 3: then destabilized Lebanon and the or whatever it might be.
Speaker 3: It also comes from like the sort of imperilest humists
Speaker 3: that they believe that this won't harm them in one
Speaker 3: way or another, that they can endlessly and permanently have
Speaker 3: enabled to their north that has a lot of armed
Speaker 3: components and also constantly at.
Speaker 4: War or whatever it might be.
Speaker 3: It's hubans, it's imperious hubidts, and it's also extremely extremely
Speaker 3: dangerous even beyond just what would happen to people in Lebanon.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to like you said, underscore how apocalyptic
Speaker 2: this is turning out to be.
Speaker 1: Whether it's we're worried about the refugee waves.
Speaker 2: That are going to be generated because of this, whether
Speaker 2: we're worried about ecological impact, whether we're worried about non
Speaker 2: state actors, militia groups, violent groups emerging in the future.
Speaker 1: Like, on every level, this is not sustainable. I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm screamming into a void, except we've known,
Speaker 1: We've known, like you said, for decades that this is
Speaker 1: not sustainable.
Speaker 2: This is this is not a sustainable situation in the
Speaker 2: Middle East, and I want people to know that this
Speaker 2: is not a trumpet problem. This has long been a
Speaker 2: problem of American decision makers. Biden in particular, also like
Speaker 2: there's a lot to blame for this situation. It's just
Speaker 2: like you said, it's it's an imperial hubrisk, both on
Speaker 2: the part of Israel and the United States. But it's
Speaker 2: also at its root the fact that they completely dehumanize
Speaker 2: people in the Middle East, like they don't see them
Speaker 2: as as human beings that will have human reactions.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't I'm not saying I'm not adding
Speaker 1: anything to what you're saying.
Speaker 2: I'm just emphasizing here because I'm you know, as outraged
Speaker 2: as you Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: And like the thing is that it's it's sort of
Speaker 3: the same principle in the sense of the same understanding
Speaker 3: that also led me to, like for years now to
Speaker 3: oppose the Yronian regime.
Speaker 4: It's the same understanding.
Speaker 3: It's not just that their brutality to whats people within
Speaker 3: ran of course, but they have they have engaged in
Speaker 3: plist campaigns in Cia most notably, but also in Iraq
Speaker 3: and in Lebanon is like a different kind of thing,
Speaker 3: but there is that component of it as well that
Speaker 3: hasn't contributed to make them like a better opponent of
Speaker 3: the Israelis or the Americans.
Speaker 4: If anything, it's made them weaker.
Speaker 3: One of the many problems, but I think the biggest
Speaker 3: one now is that this is and this is completely
Speaker 3: regardless of the ethics of the Ranian regime, which I've
Speaker 3: opposed for several years as well. This has nothing to
Speaker 3: do with supporting them or excusing their actions or anything
Speaker 3: like that, but just understanding why the Israelites are acting,
Speaker 3: specifically the Isais are acting the way they have been
Speaker 3: acting for years now. There is this tendency. I mean,
Speaker 3: if you go on the garden for example. Now you
Speaker 3: see like crisis in the Middle East and you can
Speaker 3: click on it and then you just go book years
Speaker 3: and years and years as though it's the same thing
Speaker 3: as we like, you know, it's just displays that has crises,
Speaker 3: and it's sort of like you expect that this will happen.
Speaker 3: But as I think people know a bit better now
Speaker 3: with the global component of it, this also has a
Speaker 3: globe ramification.
Speaker 4: Even the technologies that are being pioneered if you want.
Speaker 3: By the Israelis and also by the Americans to some
Speaker 3: extent in places like Gaza, then get exported elsewhere. Palenteer
Speaker 3: is now going to be penalty AI is now going
Speaker 3: to be a core component of the US military. These
Speaker 3: are things that are like because that's what I mean
Speaker 3: by like Lebanon is deceptively small.
Speaker 4: It's like it's not important geopolitically for the most part.
Speaker 4: But because that is the case, and of course Gaza
Speaker 4: as well, then it allows it has allowed the Israelis
Speaker 4: to get away with a lot of things.
Speaker 3: So maybe this is I don't know, a cliched or
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's a meaningless thing to repeat. But
Speaker 3: the problem really goes back to impunity. The problem really
Speaker 3: goes back to the fact that nothing the Israelis have
Speaker 3: ever done, at least in the past several decades, has
Speaker 3: had any consequences to them, to what they do to
Speaker 3: the region and so on. And this is absolutely a
Speaker 3: bipartisan problem in America. None of this will be possible
Speaker 3: without the Americans. There's a very good argument to be
Speaker 3: made that if we're talking about the Isaely occupation of Palestine,
Speaker 3: we need to say the American is Gaely occupation of Palestine,
Speaker 3: the bombing of Lebanon, we need to say. It's also
Speaker 3: none of this would be physically possible, diplomatically possible, economically
Speaker 3: possible were it not for this unconditional support that the
Speaker 3: acaets have gotten from the Americans for decades and decades now.
Speaker 3: If Biden had done anything about Israel's genocide in Gaza,
Speaker 3: really almost anything, I don't think we would be where
Speaker 3: we are today.
Speaker 4: And so no, this is not a Trump problem. It's
Speaker 4: just the Trump being Trump is making it much worse,
Speaker 4: speeding it up.
Speaker 3: It's just exploding everything even faster, speeding it up and
Speaker 3: adding new dimensions to it, and so on and so forth.
Speaker 3: But the problem goes back to American imperialist hubris, a
Speaker 3: lot of people not knowing what they're even doing in
Speaker 3: the region and the consequences of it all. So, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm not someone who tends to be very pessimistic necessarily
Speaker 3: and stuff like that, but there's a lot of ways
Speaker 3: in which what is currently happening in terms of the
Speaker 3: Itaely and American war in Iran and Itscaily war in
Speaker 3: Lebanon and so on, that can just go to different
Speaker 3: levels that I generally, and I'm someone who has report
Speaker 3: even reported on conflicts for a long time now, genuinely
Speaker 3: struggled to even imagine. And I don't understand like I'm
Speaker 3: just panicking or anything like that, or there is there
Speaker 3: is a component of that, but it is a real
Speaker 3: problem that if Israel is not stopped in any way
Speaker 3: at this point, this will continue, and there's no objective
Speaker 3: reason to believe otherwise.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Extremely alarming to say the least. But thank you Elia
Speaker 2: so much for making the time to explain this. I'll
Speaker 2: link to the fire these times in the show notes.
Speaker 2: Ilia has a excellent podcast, and it's not love bit
Speaker 2: on specific it's kind of an internationalist perspective. For disclosure,
Speaker 2: I've been on it many times, I've produced some episodes,
Speaker 2: so yeah, there's not a bias. But it really is
Speaker 2: a good, very good podcast. In any case, Thank you
Speaker 2: so much, Ilia, and hopefully we'll have you on on
Speaker 2: better times.
Speaker 4: Thanks, thank you, thank you for having me.
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