This war needs to be understood in a broader perspective, beyond its stated aims of destroying Hamas and/or Hezbollah. Historically, every resistance movement that has emerged—from leftist and nationalist to Islamist and religious—have been labeled as “terrorist organizations” before being targeted by Israeli violence. This war is no exception and can be understood as a deadly turn in a long and violent history of Zionist settler colonialism in the region—this time fully and openly backed, funded, and armed by the United States of America.
There is also no doubt that Israel’s technological advancement and supply of the most sophisticated and lethal weaponry (provided by the United States and many European countries) made this war clearly disproportionate in terms of military power. Similarly, the unprecedented open political backing of Israel during its televised genocide by most Western governments and, importantly, by the Arab states that have signed the Abraham Accords, has tilted the power dynamics.
Today, fighters in the south—the inhabitants of the villages that are being shelled and invaded by the IOF [Israeli Occupation Forces]—are resisting on the ground with all they have to defend their land, their histories, and their futures. This historical articulation of the struggle for liberation took the shape of political Islam with Hezbollah; if the party does not survive, the next articulation might take another shape, as has been the case with previous secular, leftist, and nationalist articulations of resistance.
Like everywhere else in the world, the most vulnerable always pay the highest price in times of war and crises. This is obviously a matter of class, but also gender, race, disability, and so on. Wars do not fall equally on everyone, and it is often poor women, queer people, disabled people, migrant workers, and refugees that suffer the most.
In such a situation, the position of the revolutionary forces in Lebanon should be clear: the enemy of my (internal) enemy is also my enemy and cannot be my friend! Any reactionary positions that try to minimize the Israeli (and US imperial) danger, or that attempt to dissociate Lebanon from Palestine in time of genocide in order to focus on Hezbollah (and Iran), are missing the point.
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