Gaza – Lebanon. A Western War

By Alain Gresh & Sarra Grira

How far will Tel Aviv go? Not content with having reduced Gaza to a field of ruins in addition to committing genocide there, Israel is extending its operations to neighboring Lebanon, with the same methods, the same massacres, the same destruction, convinced of the unwavering support of its Western donors who have become direct accomplices in its action.

The number of Lebanese deaths from the bombings has exceeded 1,640, and Israeli “exploits” have multiplied. Inaugurated by the episode of the pagers, which caused many Western commentators to swoon over the “technological feat.” Too bad for the victims, killed, disfigured, blinded, amputated, written off. It will be repeated ad nauseam that this is after all only Hezbollah, a “humiliation,” an organization that, let us remember, France does not consider to be a terrorist organization. As if the explosions had not affected the whole of society, killing militiamen and civilians alike. However, the use of booby-trapped objects is a violation of the laws of war, as several specialists and humanitarian organizations have pointed out1.

The summary assassinations of Hezbollah leaders, including its Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, each time accompanied by numerous “collateral victims,” do not even cause a scandal. Netanyahu’s latest snub to the UN, it was at the organization’s headquarters that he gave the green light for the bombing of the Lebanese capital.

In Gaza and the rest of the occupied Palestinian territories, the members of the UN Security Council are burying the opinions of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) a little more each day. The International Criminal Court (ICC) is slow to issue a warrant against Benjamin Netanyahu, even though its prosecutor reports pressure “by world leaders” and other parties, including personal ones and against his family. 2 Have we heard Joe Biden, Emmanuel Macron or Olaf Scholz protest against these practices?

For almost a year, a few voices, who would almost pass for the village madmen, have been denouncing Israeli impunity, encouraged by Western inaction. Such a war would never have been possible without the airlift of American weapons—mainly, and to a lesser extent, European—and without the diplomatic and political cover of Western countries. France, if it wanted to, could take measures that would really hit Israel, but it still refuses to suspend the arms export licenses it has granted it. She could also advocate in the European Union, with countries like Spain, the suspension of the association agreement with Israel. She is not doing so.

This never-ending Palestinian Nakba and this systematic destruction that is accelerating in Lebanon are not only Israeli crimes, but also Western crimes, for which Washington, Paris and Berlin bear direct responsibility. Far from the gesticulations and theatrics that the UN General Assembly has been the scene of these days, let us not be fooled by Joe Biden’s anger, nor by the pious wishes expressed by Emmanuel Macron on the “protection of civilians”, he who has never missed an opportunity to show unwavering support for the far-right government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Let us even forget many of those diplomats who left the UN General Assembly hall when the Israeli Prime Minister was speaking, in a gesture that is more about catharsis than politics. Because if Western countries are primarily responsible for Israeli crimes, others, such as Russia or China, have taken no measures to end this war whose scope is expanding every day, and spilling over into Yemen today and perhaps Iran tomorrow.

This war is pushing us into a dark age where laws, rights, safeguards, everything that would prevent this humanity from sinking into barbarism, are methodically being brought down. An era where one party has decided to kill the other party deemed “barbaric”. “Savage enemies”, to use Netanyahu’s words, who threaten “Judeo-Christian civilization”. The Prime Minister is seeking to draw the West into a war of civilizations with religious connotations, of which Israel sees itself as the outpost in the Middle East. With certain success.

Through the weapons and munitions they continue to supply to Israel, through their unwavering support for a fallacious “right to self-defense,” through their rejection of the Palestinians’ right to self-determination and to resist an occupation that the ICJ has declared illegal and ordered to be halted—a decision that the UN Security Council refuses to implement—these countries bear responsibility for Israeli hubris. As members of institutions as prestigious as the UN Security Council or the G7, the governments of these states endorse the law of the jungle imposed by Israel and the logic of collective punishment. This logic was already at work in Afghanistan in 2001 and in Iraq in 2003, with the results that we know. Already in 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon, occupied the South, besieged Beirut, and oversaw the massacres in the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Chatila. It was this macabre “victory” that led to the rise of Hezbollah, just as the Israeli policy of occupation led to October 7. Because the logic of war and colonialism can never lead to peace and security.