On the first anniversary of the cross-border incursion on 7 October 2023 and the start of Israel’s genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza, all that the UN can boast of can be summed up in one word: complicity. Western countries have either provided Israel with weapons or endorsed the genocide by reiterating Israel’s fabricated security and “self-defense” narrative. If a colonial, occupying entity has the “right to self-defense”, what about the people under occupation? According to the West and the UN, the colonized Palestinian people deserve genocide punctured by rare humanitarian pauses after which Israel is free to kill thousands more.
According to the West and the UN’s actions, it can now be passed off that committing genocide is a basic human right. Which is exactly what Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promoted on 8 October in his message to the Lebanese people.
“You have an opportunity to save Lebanon before it falls into the abyss of a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering like we see in Gaza,” said Netanyahu, even as Lebanese people were being killed and forcibly displaced, just as Palestinians are in Gaza. “Israel has a right to defend itself, Israel also has a right to win! And Israel will win!” added the war criminal.
And that’s an opportunity to save Lebanon?
What exactly is a “right to win” when Israel is committing genocide? The disproportionate nature of Israel’s military offensive is both grotesque and already established. There is no such “right”, only a relentless bombardment and targeting of Lebanese civilians and civilian infrastructure because Israel enjoys the qualitative military edge in the region, maintained by unlimited US arms supplies. Israel also benefits from Europe’s blatant hypocrisy that chastises the regime as if it were an unruly toddler, but does nothing else.
As Palestinians in Gaza continue to be slaughtered, the people of Lebanon are being told in advance that they will suffer the same fate. Indeed, they are already suffering the same fate. The same tactics honed in Gaza are being applied in Lebanon under the guise of “targeting Hezbollah”.
“Free your country from Hezbollah,” Netanyahu told the Lebanese. But isn’t that what Israel is supposed to be doing? And if Israel is not “freeing” Lebanon from Hezbollah, then what is Israel doing in Lebanon? It is unbelievable, by any genuine standards of human rights, that a national leader can openly state his aims and then literally get away with murder.
Netanyahu’s speech at the UN General Assembly blamed the Lebanese for Hezbollah’s existence; he invented stories about missiles and rockets in garages and kitchens – just one missile in each room – which is preposterous. Next, Lebanon is being bombarded by Israel and the Lebanese are blamed for Israel’s aggression, because according to Netanyahu, it is the Lebanese people who can end this new genocide, when the reality is that only Israel and its accomplices in the West are responsible for doing this.
Netanyahu doesn’t employ impenetrable rhetoric, he just lies. And this is apparently acceptable to the UN and the West’s “moral standards”.
For Israel to exist, genocide must be committed, insist Netanyahu and the allies of the settler-colonial, apartheid state. Having basically endorsed Israel’s “right” to commit genocide, is it possible for Western leaders to sink any lower?
-Ramona Wadi is an independent researcher, freelance journalist, book reviewer and blogger. Her writing covers a range of themes in relation to Palestine, Chile and Latin America. Her article appeared in MEMO.
