Repetitive Folly: Israel’s Futile War in Lebanon Deepens |
Call it a repeating script, a rusty template, or simply a creaky model to emulate time and again. The structural and homicidal destruction of Gaza undertaken by Israeli forces is now finding full expression in southern Lebanon, a cause of concern even for those in Washington. The war’s increasing savagery is a reminder of how hollow the exhortations by the Netanyahu government seem following the official cessation of hostilities against Hezbollah in November 2024.
Israel’s pre-emptive war on Iran, commencing on February 28 with the full and criminal connivance of the United States, took place alongside an incursion into southern Lebanon that has become a burgeoning invasion ostensibly to create a chunky buffer against Hezbollah’s attacks. Presumably, the wishful thinking here was to eliminate Iran as a threat, thereby removing Hezbollah’s most ardent patron and sponsor. At the time, coteries of commentators and Israeli leaders lavished praise on the country’s technical and military achievements, forgetting the central point that Hezbollah remains an idea as much as a physical movement, a deep well rather than defined, terminable cul-de-sac. Ideas, which can only really be battled by better ones, prove sleekly stubborn before tanks, missiles and jets.
From March, the southern part of Lebanon was subjected to infrastructural degradation, population displacement and the wholesale destruction of villages, all on the spurious premise that the security of Israeli settlements near the border will be somehow improved.
From March, the........