Last Friday, Israel attacked a meeting of Hezbollah leaders in the southern Beirut neighborhood of al-Qaem. It was an assassination operation following the detonation, days before, of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies that had been packed with explosives.
In al-Qaem, the Israeli military boasted of a “precise strike” in the “heart of Hezbollah’s stronghold in Beirut.” The language conjured images of a brazen operation against a well-protected military compound, a Pentagon of its kind, a wholly valiant endeavor.
In reality, this was a massive strike that completely leveled a residential building, one that killed Hezbollah leaders just as much as it did countless families inside. Many of those families remain under the rubble, with others still missing.
Almost every time news emerges from south Beirut, the Western news media parrots the language of the Israeli military, as if “Hezbollah stronghold” is part of the neighborhood’s name. Defenders of this kind of language may point to the usage of “strongholds” to describe bases of support for the Democratic Party or U.K.’s Labour, but these are usages in a Western context, a use nobody is confused by.
In Lebanon, the connotations are obvious. And they directly serve Israeli interests.
Israel makes civilians pay the price for whatever Hezbollah ostensibly does and, thereafter, blames Hezbollah for the deaths the Israelis themselves cause.
Casting south Beirut, colloquially known in Arabic as Dahiya, as a military stronghold, gives Israel license to apply massive force — targeting civilian infrastructure as part of its main thrust, just as it would Hezbollah leaders. The stated aim is to deter any future attacks by hitting Hezbollah’s most concentrated base of support. Israel makes civilians pay the price for whatever........