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