In 1982 the world watched as Israeli troops invaded Lebanon, taking over the capital city of Beirut. The Americans and International Community made a deal with Israel that if the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) withdrew from Lebanon, Israel would retreat from Beirut.
Under a guarantee that the women, children and elderly would be protected by an International peace keeping force, all Palestinian men of fighting age left Lebanon for foreign shores. What happened after the PLO left is well documented. September 1982, Israeli forces surrounded Sabra/Shatilla allowing their proxy Christian Phalange militia to massacre over three thousand civilians.
There are credible witness accounts of rapes of young girls, mass slaughter, and incidents of pregnant women having their unborn babies ripped from their wombs. Israel provided bulldozers to scoop up the bodies and bury them in mass graves. Palestinians in Shatilla Refugee Camp, describe night as becoming day, because the IDF fired flares to light up the sky making escape for many Palestinian civilians impossible. The massacre lasted three days before the US and international community ordered a halt.
Forty three years have passed: the US, along with their allies Saudi Arabia and Israel, are telling the Lebanese they should disarm the Lebanese resistance movement Hezbollah. On this occasion there is no requirement for Israel to stop it’s military attacks in South Lebanon and the Bekka Valley. There is no promise of stopping the Al-Jolani, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) attacks on the northern broader of Lebanon, or the eastern border region. The Lebanese are being told that disarming Hezbollah will be better for them since Israel is an ally of the West, as is Al-Jolani, (formerly ISIS) the newly recognised leader of Syria.
Western mainstream media reports on the current US demands are deplete of historical context. There is no recognition that Hezbollah represents a third of the Lebanese Government and the role it plays in protecting the sovereignty of Lebanese territory. There is no mention either, of Israel’s expansionist ambitions of establishing its Greater Israel (Eretz Yisrael), even though the Israeli political leadership speak openly about it.
Hezbollah formed as a direct result of Israel’s invasion of Lebanon and the massacre of Palestinian civilians. Ordinary Lebanese citizens – teachers, doctors, builders, tradesmen and so forth, joined Hezbollah in order to create a resistance movement capable of protecting Lebanon from Israel’s recurring attacks on their country.
Israel’s ambition to expand its territorial borders into all of Palestine, Syria and Lebanon, connects the people of these three countries in a bond of brotherhood.
No American, Saudi or Israeli official has a right to dictate policy to the Lebanese on how they should govern their country. They have no right to interfere on matters relating to security and defence. Only the Lebanese Government, with the full support of the people, have a right to make such decisions.
Political Zionism, is a fundamentalist doctrine that holds to the belief that historic Palestine and beyond, belongs to the Jews. The implementation of this doctrine has resulted in a settler colonialist enterprise that is supported financially and militarily by the US, Christian Evangelicals and most of the Western Establishment. Missing from this enterprise for it to be legally and morally binding, however was the pre-requisite that the transfer of statehood from Palestine to Israel be ratified by the people whose country was requisitioned.
Resistance Movements that have grown out of this initial injustice and the humanitarian crimes committed over the last hundred years by modern-day Zionist Israel, have been labelled as terrorist organizations by Israel, US, and its close allies. Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah, Ansarullah and more recently Palestine Action, a U.K. group, all fall within this framework of being a proscribed terrorist organization, hence anyone who speaks out in support of their actions is arrested under section 13 of the terrorism act of 2000.
It has become evident that International Law, once perceived as a moral law set up to address international war crimes, has, in the case of Israel, been repeatedly undermined. The International Court of Justice in coming to the conclusion that plausible genocide was taking place in Gaza, along with the International Criminal Court at The Hague, have faced enormous political opposition in their attempt to give the proper name to the crime of genocide and serve arrest warrants on those deemed guilty.
In International Law those who live under occupation- (A they decide – including armed resistance. As a deeply criminal occupying power, Israel does not have the right to defend itself against those under its occupation. Furthermore, in International Law, all states and movements that are aware that a genocide is being committed are obligated to take action to prevent that genocide from continuing.
In contrast, to the resistance movements that have found themselves listed as terrorist, it is well documented that the US, along with UK and Israeli, have at different times, financed, trained and supported mercenary terrorist militants, such as al-Jolani’s Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), ISIS, and Al-Qaeda.
The International infrastructure is geared toward sustaining the ability for Israel to commit genocide and expand into its neighbouring countries . For justice to ever be achieved, the legitimacy of resistance movements needs to be recognised. Lebanon is currently being given the message: ‘go along with our demands to disarm Hezbollah or resist and face the consequences’. In reality, as with the withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon in 1982, there are no guarantees that Lebanon will be safe from Israeli military incursion and occupation.
Given the current threat posed by Israel’s clear expansionist ambitions, disarming Hezbollah would be akin to leaving the back gate open for the thieves to enter. Most Lebanese support Hezbollah, including non-Shia. Short of an absolute dismantlement of the Zionist Israeli enterprise it is unlikely that Hezbollah will agree to disarm.
The post Deja vu-Lebanon first appeared on Dissident Voice.
This content originally appeared on Dissident Voice and was authored by Heather Stroud.