Lebanon

Like many in this country, I am distressed by what is going on in Lebanon. I’d like to say “like most in this country”, but I don’t believe it. Perhaps inured by the war in Iraq, most people I’ve run across don’t seem to be giving the whole thing much thought.

The official line of the US government, a line that goes unquestioned by the major media, is that the Israelis are the good guys and the Hezbollah are the bad guys. On July 27, the New York Times even headed an article with the following headline in speaking about the battle over apparent Hezbollah stronghold Bint Jbail, “For Israeli Unit, Hezbollah Lair Is Ambush Site”. “Lair” is generally used to indicate a wild animal’s home. It is also used to describe a person’s home or hiding place but, when used in that way, it is meant to connote a person with bestial characteristics. That is precisely the Israeli government position, that the Hezbollah are beasts, thugs, and criminals.

This sort of characterization has a long and infamous history. Whenever those in power attack the insurgents who rise up against them, they often portray them as less than human. I am currently reading A Distant Mirror: The Calamitous 14th Century by Barbara Tuchman. In one chapter, she talks about uprisings among the plebeian segments of society. There she quotes a chronicler who refers to the English peasants who took part in the revolt led by Wat Tyler as “like mad dogs...like Bacchantes dancing through the country.” When the lowest class of workers rebelled in Florence, they were described as “ruffians, evil-doers, thieves...useless men of low condition...dirty and shabby.” Closer home, it wasn’t so long ago that most white people accepted characterizations of blacks that portrayed them as little more than apes.

The fact of the matter is that the Israelis are the bad actors in this attack on Lebanon. They aren’t just attacking Hezbollah. They’re attacking the people of Lebanon and sending a very aggressive message to all of the Muslim people of the region. Israel was founded as a refuge, a place where Jews could live without fear of pogroms and persecution, but it has transmogrified into an assertive, imperial state. How disappointing.

It has been said that we become like those that we hate and, in indulging in collective punishment of the people of Lebanon for “allowing” Hezbollah to exist in their midst, the Israelis are engaging in the same sorts of practices as the Nazis in the occupied countries of Europe. It’s sad. No, worse than sad, it’s tragic.