As a Lebanese, this is deeply saddening. Israel is trying to exact some sort of "lesson" on the Lebanese. I don't want to blame everything on Israel, but the fact that Lebanon is a weak country unable to rein in Hezbollah is very strongly influenced by the US need to make Israel a hegemon in the region. And the vicious cycle continues ... As a Lebanese I feel helpless. And this type of situation only emboldens the "resistance" which in turns justifies Israels actions in Lebanon. It's never ending and we're done with it ...
[Please excuse the following poorly crafted bit of text that follows; I fundamentally agree with your position and this is the kind of writing I do when I am trying to work out why I have both a visceral reaction to this site but cannot look away.]
One of the solid exercises I get from paying attention to this site is
a precise understanding of who the tech-bro class thinks is human (and thus relatable in ways that makes violence against those Others scary)
and those whom they believe to be living in base-biological forms which they themselves could surely never occupy (positions not "really" human and thus naturally the target of things like 'authorized' and 'legitimate' state-violence).
I can't really get my brain into their positions- I generally am opposed to being violent to folks for all reasons, and even if it could be justified ex pos facto, in my understanding violence is never legitimate or authorized.
But the site:
it's kind of like reading a poorly-written epic poem in some kind of horrid and post-modern style:
exegesis of the melted ideas here is work that keeps some of us in touch with what the sociopaths of the tech world think, with their out-sized influence over a world where most of us are simply subject to their fast and violent movement.
However, what is more important than teasing out the aesthetics of the violence they may either like or fear is learning what must be done to avoid being seen as legitimate and human by this class vicious wanna-be capitalists and shitters-out-of toxic technology.
That work seems like a difficult task, but this site provides so much relevant exercise and example.
There used to be a weekly column in the Independent by Robert Fisk, and it frequently discussed life in Lebanon. It sounded amazing, though often rather too war torn.
The Independent seems to have gone to garbage for n recent years, sadly.
Daily reminder that "championing human rights in the middle east" is the easiest thing in the world if you get to determine who is considered "human" and who is considered "cattle".
I would guess Israel as many do not have deeper insights into the general situation there.
Palestinians in Israel in general have full citizenship and rights and as far as I am aware lives relatively well integrated. My experience is from before the mass murdering on 7th October and the following cruel war so things might have changed though.
Let them buy all the defensive weapons they can afford, Iron Dome, etc.
I think US gives them the weapons otherwise, they don't even buy them? No more.
It is insanity to let them just kill whomever they want whenever they want as many as they want
Israel has a right to exist but not kill thousands of innocent people
They also have universal healthcare while US never will because we've spent $21 Trillion since 9/11 on militarization, adding another trillion this year and now have to replace all the tomahawks etc
They're import-reliant. They don't make steel, don't make aluminum, don't have a large chemicals industry, etc. They're very vulnerable to sanctions and trade restrictions.
It frames themselves as under attack, which thereby gives themselves moral justification to attack, and when those attacked attack back they fulfill their justification, and the circle of violence and death perpetuates.
Countries don't have any "right to exist", this very term is thought terminating propaganda created by Israel. Israel does not have a right to exist, countries either are, or aren't. People have a right to live.
And as it stands, Israel is a terrorist nation commiting war crimes and a genocide daily.
"Defensive" weapons also do not exist. If you give Israel weapons, or sell them weapons, you are complicit in their actions.
What he's saying is that Israel itself doesn't have a right to exist based on international law, but its people - be it Israelis or Palestinians have a right to live.
Palestinians are already being hurt by israelis, Palestinian land was stolen by israelis, Palestinians are being put in open air concentration camps by israelis, humiliated, abused, starved, killed, hunted down, so excuse me for not caring much about your "problematic statement". Countries have no legitimacy to exist, however they do have history: Israel as a state is a lot more illegitimate in its existence than a Palestinian state, and considering it is the state committing a genocide right now and it doesn't seem to be sticking: Israel doesn't have a right to exist, and the state that is right now Israel is also a terrorist, genocidal one.
Israelis forced themselves in stolen, colonised land, settled with violence, used the weapons of the western colonizers against local populations and actively worked to destroy every attempt at peaceful cooperation that there has ever been, member of Israel's current government having actively called for the murder of Rabin and might very well be directly involved in it. Israel has made it so that the situation effectively ends with either Israelis dying, or the whole region dying.
>Uses the age old "hurr actually the name Palestine was Judea"
Ok Mossad. Israel attacked Palestine, Lebanon, Iran, Egypt, Jordan, is a terrorist country and doesn't have the right to exist. Israel is the one killing Palestinians and Lebanese citizens right now.
(PS: you know people see through when you post 50 prepared paragraphs of Zionist propaganda, right?)
The West at large continuing to be complicit in Israel's aggression and genocide is a source of great shame to me. Unlike many other atrocities of the past 75 years, this could not have been done without our help.
reply