Articles

On 28 February, thunder rolled across the world – an abrupt and violent movement. Brutal, certainly. Unexpected? Not quite. The event had long been anticipated – yet its timing, scale and objectives remained unknown. The date is now clear. The scale, however, is still uncertain. As for the objectives – what do they mean for Israel and for the United States? Given the stance of the mollah regime toward Israel – and the foundations of power it has built at great expense to pursuit the goal of eradicating the country and paralyzing Lebanon – Israel is fighting for its survival. So, too, does Benjamin Netanyahu. The objective that follows is stark: eradication.

What is happening in Lebanon today can no longer be understood within the framework of a war or a conventional conflict, but within what René Girard described as the “spiral of violence”: violence is no longer a means, it becomes an autonomous system that reproduces itself through discourse before it does so on the ground. In this context, Hezbollah’s discourse, no less than the statements of figures such as Mahmoud Qomati, cannot be read as situational or emotional expressions. We are facing a coherent discursive structure, one that goes beyond politics to remake society through symbolic and material force alike — the discourse itself becoming an instrument for reshaping reality, not merely reflecting it.

Political circles around the world, and more particularly international markets, lived this Monday, March 23, in anguish over military developments that risked occurring upon the expiration, in the evening, of the ultimatum launched by President Donald Trump to the Iranian regime, enjoining it to ensure free maritime navigation in the Strait of Hormuz, failing which he would order the bombing of power plants and energy infrastructure in Iran. In response, Tehran threatened to attack energy and vital facilities, particularly seawater desalination plants, in several Gulf countries. Monday thus began in a particularly tense climate until the White House chief suddenly revealed in the early afternoon (Beirut time) that discussions had been engaged over the weekend with “the Iranian State,” he specified without any reference to the Islamic Republic, in order to reach an “agreement,” the outlines of which he did not indicate. He merely pointed out in this context that he had postponed the bombing of electrical and energy facilities for “five days,” allowing time for the talks engaged with the Iranian regime to unfold.

It Was Called Palestine In the aftermath of the First World War, and pursuant to the decisions of the San Remo Conference of April 1920, a new geopolitical entity was proclaimed in the Middle East under the name of the State of Palestine, constituted of the sanjaks of Jerusalem, Nablus and Acre according to the administrative division of the defeated Ottoman Empire, with the addition of the Transjordanian Badiya. The constitution of the State of Palestine was signed on 10 August 1922, and the population census was likewise completed on 23 October of the same year. The League of Nations, designated guardian of human civilization and guarantor of its flourishing, had issued a document specifying the conditions imposed on Great Britain, the mandatory power over the State of Palestine, the mandate being due to enter into force on 29 September 1923 and to expire on 15 May 1948.

Almost three weeks of war and nearly a million displaced people. The axe has fallen. Displaced people who have essentially chosen the capital, already stifled in a Lebanon bleeding economically and, above all, devoid of political will to change a status quo that has become totally obsolete. A state of affairs that not only hinders progress but is, let's say it without ambiguity, responsible for all our ills. No country in the world, without a strong or at least respected state, can exist. Today, it is essentially the Shiites who are displaced. The very people that Hezbollah claims to protect. And the most frightening thing is that, destitute in tents and in the rain, many continue to swear allegiance to this party which has no god but itself. One can question the effectiveness of the indoctrination exercised by this militia, but it primarily reveals a political fact: the military entity and the political entity mutually nourish each other and regain strength in a context where the State, incapable of enforcing its sovereignty, finds itself powerless to regulate or integrate an entire community.

The current position of the Lebanese Executive is certainly not enviable. From the President of the Republic and his inauguration speech, to the Prime Minister and his government project. Beautiful speeches, beautiful promises, a certain will to realize them, good faith (at least for the latter), but the obstacle of reality, of the field, of dissensions, of nostalgia, of a dream, of a utopia. Some reproach the Executive for its inertia, its inability to face events, and remind it of Winston Churchill's position facing Chamberlain, the choice between dishonor and war. It is easy to criticize and transpose situations. Except that the policy of the Land of the Cedars is not that of a single man like Great Britain, but that of a consensus, and a confessional one at that.