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Why Lebanon can’t be saved A full-scale evacuation might be the only option

A billboard in Beirut shows the faces of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr (JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images)

A billboard in Beirut shows the faces of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh, Quds Force commander Qasem Soleimani, and Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr (JOSEPH EID/AFP via Getty Images)


September 27, 2024   5 mins

In 2018, Henry Kissinger observed that Donald Trump was one of those historical characters who “appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences”. The same could be said about last year’s October 7 attacks, the full impact of which we are only now beginning to comprehend.

Before that act of appalling barbarism, the world was strangely optimistic about the future of the Middle East — despite the catastrophic scale of human suffering, millenarian fanaticism and economic collapse that was already evident across the region. The root of the hopefulness could be found in the Abraham Accords, that potentially transformative set of Trump initiatives, the aim of which was — somewhat euphemistically — to “normalise” relations between Israel and some of its Arab enemies. Last September, the great glittering prize of Middle East peace seemed to be in touching distance: Saudi rapprochement with Israel.

The radical idea at the heart of Trump’s plan was that regional peace did not need to wait for “the Palestinian question” to be solved. Instead, that could be put to one side while other grand strategic moves played out. As Mohammed bin Salman “modernised” Saudi with his combination of political repression and social liberalisation, the two great anti-Iranian powers in the region could finally be brought together. A similar assessment was made about Lebanon, a country without a functioning state or economy and at the mercy of Iran’s colonial army, Hezbollah. This, also, was a situation that was thought to be containable — even as Iran exploited the anarchic chaos of Iraq and Syria to supply its proxy with enough weapons to devastate Israel.

The central conceit of the Abraham Accords was that, irrespective of Hamas, Hezbollah and the occupation of the West Bank, once the Israel-Saudi axis was formed, Iran could be pushed back and contained without direct American involvement. But, then, the depth of Hamas’s murderous brutality on 7 October shattered that assumption, leaving not only a traumatised and vulnerable Israel, but also a traumatised and vulnerable Western order forced to confront the stark realities of the Middle East.

Today, Lebanon is a dead state, eaten alive by Hezbollah’s parasitic power. The scale of the catastrophe in the country is hard to comprehend, much of it caused by the disruptive nature of Syria’s civil war. Since its neighbour’s descent into anarchic hell, some 1.5 million Syrians have sought refuge in Lebanon — a tiny country with a population of just 5 million. But, more fundamentally, with Hezbollah fighting to protect Bashar al Assad, the opposing countries — led by Saudi Arabia — began withdrawing funds from Lebanese banks. This sparked a financial crisis that left Lebanon with no money for fuel. 

By spring 2020, the country had defaulted on its debts, sending it into a downward spiral which the World Bank in 2021 described as among “the top 10, possibly top three, most severe crises globally since the mid-nineteenth century”. Lebanon’s GDP plummeted by around a third, with poverty doubling from 42% to 82% in two years. At the same time, the country’s capital, Beirut, was hit by an extraordinary explosion at its port, leaving more than 300,000 homeless. By 2023 the IMF described the situation as “very dangerous” and the US was warning that the collapse of the Lebanese state was “a real possibility”.

With Iranian support, however, Hezbollah created a shadow economy almost entirely separate from this wider collapse. It could escape the energy shortages, while creating its own banks, supermarkets and electricity network. Hezbollah isn’t just a terrorist group. It is a state within a state, complete with a far more advanced army. “They may have plunged Lebanon into complete chaos, but they themselves are not chaotic at all,” as Carmit Valensi, from the Institute for National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University, told the Jerusalem Post.

Then came 7 October, after which Hezbollah tied its fate to that of the Palestinians, promising to bombard Israel with rockets until the war in Gaza was brought to a close. We have witnessed the frightening scale of its power over the past year, its bombardment forcing some 100,000 Israelis from their homes in Galilee to the safety of the Israeli heartlands around Tel Aviv. For the first time since modern Israel’s creation, the land where Jews are able to live in their own state has shrunk; the rockets are a daily reminder of the country’s extraordinary vulnerability, threatened on all sides by states who actively want it removed from the map — even from history itself. The pretence that the Palestinian and Lebanese questions could be contained, ignored or bypassed as part of a wider grand strategy to contain Iran has been shattered. 

“The pretence that the Palestinian and Lebanese questions could be contained, ignored or bypassed as part of a wider grand strategy to contain Iran has been shattered.”

Israel, of course, has not let Hezbollah’s missile attacks go unpunished, replying with raids on Southern Lebanon which have forced 100,000 to flee their homes for the apparent safety of Beirut and its surroundings. But as Israel escalates the war, the Lebanese population — already impoverished and abandoned — are having to flee again. This fight to the death leaves the 5 million people of Lebanon with nowhere to go, trapped on all sides by anarchy and war. The only escape is by sea — which is controlled by the West.

Any worries that Western forces are once again being “drawn in” are moot — we are already involved. In the days following 7 October, Washington redeployed an aircraft carrier into the Mediterranean to cover Israel’s northern flank which would allow Netenyahu to wage his war in Gaza. Since then, Iran itself has launched a direct rocket attack at Israel, prompting an armada of Western forces to intervene. And in the event of a humanitarian disaster, prompted by an Israeli ground invasion of southern Lebanon, it would fall to Britain, France and the United States to organise the mass evacuation of Lebanese civilians that would be required to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.

Such is the scale of that impending catastrophe that I am told that David Lammy, our new Foreign Secretary, has spent around a third of his time dealing with an operation so complex that it resembles a full-scale war plan. Because Lebanon borders Syria to its north and east and Israel to its south, the only option for a mass evacuation would be by sea. And the only powers capable of delivering such a mission are the United States, France and Britain — each of whom is currently distracted by its own domestic political dramas. And in each case, the rise of the nationalist Right makes any mass refugee scheme a political nightmare. 

The French government is locked in a particularly acute fiscal crisis; the Biden administration is limping towards its end; and our Starmer government is only just coming to terms with the anti-refugee riots which gripped the country over the summer. No country could easily cope with a mass influx from another war-torn country in the Middle East.

Hence the extraordinary diplomatic push now underway to avert a full scale war. Yesterday, a joint declaration from Britain, France, the United States and Saudi Arabia called for a 21-day ceasefire in Lebanon. Israel, though, quickly rejected its terms: a ceasefire would only leave Hezbollah in place, free to continue growing in strength, armed by Iran, capable of making much of northern Israel uninhabitable. With Gaza lying in ruins and Hamas devastated but not defeated, Israel has concluded that it is now strong enough to wage war on Hezbollah, and that any delay only serves the interests of its enemies, principally Iran. 

The stakes today are far higher for Israel than the war it has been waging in Gaza for the past 12 months. This war against Hezbollah is one that must reestablish the ability of Israel to be able to shelter its citizens within its own borders. It is, then, a battle for the very purpose Israel was founded.

In its ignorance and arrogance, the West believed it could contain the appalling disorder of the Middle East. But it has simply allowed Iran to grow in strength. Not only did 7 October shatter the failing assumptions of Benjamin Netenyahu’s grand strategy, it also revealed the Western world’s myopic passivity too. Today, the world is reaping the whirlwind.


Tom McTague is UnHerd’s Political Editor. He is the author of Betting The House: The Inside Story of the 2017 Election.

TomMcTague

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Martin M
Martin M
15 days ago

Hard to believe that Lebanon was once a beautiful place where the wealthy of Europe took their holidays. They made (probably still do) good wine too (try Chateau Musar if you ever get the chance).

Arkadian Arkadian
Arkadian Arkadian
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

When I was in school I had a school mate from Lebanon. They had to leave the country because of unrest (we are talking about the early 80s). Even then they were saying that Lebanon used to be a beautiful place. 🙁

Norfolk Sceptic
Norfolk Sceptic
14 days ago

This Christian country took in refugees (of different religion), and the rest is History.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Its nickname was the “Switzerland of the Middle East”.

Brendan O'Leary
Brendan O'Leary
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

They still make the wine. But the educated, entrepreneurial, disproportionately Christian middle classes have been leaving in their droves if they can since before 2019.

Mike Dearing
Mike Dearing
15 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Chateau Musar, a wine that Auberon Waugh enthused about, decades ago, and wit good reason.

John Murray
John Murray
14 days ago
Reply to  Martin M

Yeah, when i was kid (in the 80’s), my father told me when he was the equivalent age Lebanon was held up as a place where people of different religious faiths could all get along and Northern Ireland ought to learn from their example.

Adrian de LeĂłn
Adrian de LeĂłn
15 days ago

The lack of objectivity in this article doesn’t follow the pattern of why I decided to subscribe to this platform. I had been impressed by the depth and scope of views from contributors (a surprise considering the genealogical tree of Unherd links itself to GB news). However, this blatant pro Israeli analysis of the situation with an overwhelming bias and subjectivity is quite disappointing. The situation in the middle east is not independent of Israel’s creation and maintenance; not forgetting their continuous human rights violations. Lebanon’s ‘failed state’ label has a lot to do with how the french left it when it had enough of governing it. Who thought creating a governance platform divided across sectarian lines wasna good idea??

Overall very disappointed and expect better from long format journalism

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
15 days ago

Yes, the regime that started bombing Israel Oct. 8 is the victim here. Israel should suck it up and live with the daily bombings. Of course – I’m not being sarcastic now – the real victims are the innocent civilians living in states dominated by terrorist organizations. We should all count our blessings being born in stable, democractic nations.

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Prior to Oct 7th, the vast majority of attacks were launched from Israel into Lebanon. Should the Lebanese just “suck it up and live with the daily bombings?”

You people can’t even pretend to be objective.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

I didn’t know that. Can you give me a link?

Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

You just made that up.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

This is news to me. Please share links.

Adrian de LeĂłn
Adrian de LeĂłn
13 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

Why are the daily bombings occuring ? Could it have to do with the fact that Israel has failed to live up to any of the constrains placed on it in the 1967 accords ?

David George
David George
15 days ago

Lebanon has been independent from the French since 1943 (they had a mandate to govern following the demise of the occupying Ottoman Empire) and were doing quite nicely until the Islamists took over and turned the place into a hell hole.

Seb Dakin
Seb Dakin
15 days ago

The French left Lebanon a while ago, and for many years it went very well. Beirut was a civilised city with a good standard of living. Then the palestinians that Jordan didn’t want arrived. You are right that things might have worked out differently had Lebanon been a smaller state, organised around a Christian majority, and the French can maybe shoulder some blame for that, but if that was indeed the problem, ie that attempting to share power and territory with Moslems was doomed from the start, then one can’t really complain about Israel being adamant in refusing to do so.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago

I thought it was a simple but accurate appraisal of the situation. Where do you think the bias lies?

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
15 days ago

For goodness sake, subscribers really need to stop whingeing about reading something they disagree with.

Tell us why you disagree, but leave the bleating out of it; we’ll make our own minds up on the strength of the article and legitimate counter-arguments.

james goater
james goater
15 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

Excellent comment — and I suspect you speak for many.

Edwin Blake
Edwin Blake
15 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

I agree with you! I do think this author is irritating and disingenuous. I see he is some kind editor on UnHerd and has an immaculate transatlantic pedigree. But I hate cancelling and censoriousness much more.
I enjoy many other things from UnHerd. It is actually quite fun to be irritated by the likes of him sometimes.

Adrian de LeĂłn
Adrian de LeĂłn
13 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

I’m not sure there was any notion of disagreement but a denouncement of bias and subjective reporting, which I think when you are consuming a product you are well in your rights to leave a review.

James LS
James LS
15 days ago

Totally agree – UnHerd is becoming yet another Zionist propaganda machine

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
15 days ago
Reply to  James LS

There’s always the BBC.

Francisco Javier Bernal
Francisco Javier Bernal
15 days ago

I assume you’re a Latin American, I notice the blame everyone but ourselves attitude. Sir, Lebanon had plenty of time to pull itself together and was doing well before the PLO thugs tried to take over. Israel tried to help the Lebanese but it wasn’t its war at the end of the day.

Adrian de LeĂłn
Adrian de LeĂłn
13 days ago

Pull itself together from centuries of colonialism? Of course. What’s Spain’s excuse then?

Brian Kneebone
Brian Kneebone
15 days ago

Instead of rent seeking and spending absurd amounts of money on already bloated rewards in certain sports, maybe the rulers on the Arabian peninsula could turn their focus, and money, on constructively helping their fellow Muslims in the battered territories nearby.

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  Brian Kneebone

Those rulers (dictators, actually) are Western satraps.

Dr E C
Dr E C
14 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

It must be nice to have such a simple outlook. What a lot of complicated mental strain you save yourself.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
15 days ago

Why is it up to Britain or France to do anything? If two groups of savages want to have a fight in the Middle East why should Britain or France have to choose a side or deal with the fallout of refugees?
Leave the quagmire alone, it’s none of our interest which animals emerge victorious, they’re all as bad as each other

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

That fact is that no other Arab nation cares one bit about the Palestinians. They’re obviously viewed as trouble.

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Au contraire, most Arabs are extremely concerned for the Palestinians’ plight.

But they live in dictatorships that are ruled by Anglo-American satraps… so there’s not much they can do about it.

Mark Cook
Mark Cook
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

The Egyptians and Jordanians did help and look what happened to them .. once bitten , twice shy

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago
Reply to  Mark Cook

..or possibly they are greedy cowards?

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

Every Arab state?

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
8 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

Ever since the Palestinians tried to take over Kuwait in the mid 1950s, then Jordon in 1970, Lebanon in mid 1970s and supported Iraq in 1990, Arab government hve not trusted them . Oman will now allow Palestinians into their country.
Arab governments use the conflict with Israel to distract their countrymen from their corruption and incompetence.
There is good evidence that the lack of economic development of arab countries is due to the expulsin of the Jewish communities post 1948.
When Israel left Gaza, the PLO could have bought the greenhouses, they did not.

Juana Llorente
Juana Llorente
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Yes, but no. They don’t want them in their countries for sure, enough with all the trouble they spread in Jordan, Egypt or Lebanon, but when they take the floor at the UN, all the Arabs and muslim countries without exception, use the Palestinian cause as a weapon against Israel, USA and Western countries.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago
Reply to  Juana Llorente

All of this nonsense is Israeli propaganda that clearly people are too lazy to check – there are over 5 million Palestinians in the direct neighbouring nations and have been for decades and the only time there is trouble with them is when Israel attacks the neighbours to murder Palestinians. FFS stop dribbling such cruel, evil bull.

Brett H
Brett H
12 days ago

Egypt has said consistently that they won’t take Palestinians from Gaza, as has Jordan. Yes there are Palestinians in those states but they will not take any Palestinians from Gaza today.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Typical Anglo-American attitude: bomb a country into the stone age, murder their citizens, loot their resources, set one faction against another and then when there’s no more to steal, up and leave the country in ruins.. and then criticise them for the chaos and animosity you’ve caused.. I’m Irish, I know how it works.

.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Iran want all countries to return to the stone age. Murder is the Islamic number one weapon. The removal of Israel is the stepping stone to the take over of the West starting with Europe. France will fall first

Alan F
Alan F
13 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

It’s never difficult to differentiate between a whining Irish grievance-monger and someone with a valid contribution to make to the conversation. Grow up.

ALIREZA ANSARY
ALIREZA ANSARY
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Iran has not yet taken its revenge on Israel. I hate some Arab countries, especially Saudi Arabia, so we have to see how it will take revenge.

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
14 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Especially those from Gaza so I remember hearing more thsn once in Egypt.

Dr E C
Dr E C
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

When it comes to C9 barbaric failed states, I couldn’t agree with you more. But, to quote TR, ‘Israel is a democracy surrounded by totalitarian, Sharia-driven shitholes’:
https://youtu.be/eiBsZErTk7Y?si=snW35xFzJgO15UKM

WAKE UP PEOPLE.

There’s no reason the Anglosphere won’t fall, the same way Iran, Lebanon & countless other formerly prosperous countries have.

Ethniciodo Rodenydo
Ethniciodo Rodenydo
15 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

The demographic changes suffered by Lebanon tell a story of their own

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

And you look for inspiration to.. Churchill? Thatcher? No …Tommy Robinson? ..why not go the whole hog and quote the little Austrian to us?

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

The little Austrian was rather fond of Islam

L Brady
L Brady
15 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

As soon as I see your name, I down vote/don’t read, move on. Bet I’m not the only one.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Wouldn’t be UnHerd without some knuckle-dragging lefty basement-dweller accusing someone of being a “Nazi”…

Dr E C
Dr E C
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

‘Radical Muslims made their intentions known about Lebanon, and they did what they said they would do. They are now telling us their intentions about the West. And they are working to carry out those intentions. [Brigitte] Gabriel asks, will we learn from the experience in Lebanon? Or will the West close its eyes and pretend the threat of radical Islam does not exist?

The recent incursion of Israel into Lebanon must be seen from the backdrop of the story told in this book. The hatred and venom that Muslims have for Jews is carefully discussed here. The desire of 150 million surrounding Muslims to drive 5 million Jews into the sea is a daily reality for the Israelis.

And as Gabriel shows, the same media manipulation and deception is taking place now, as it did three decades ago. A favourite tactic of the Palestinians then, like Hezbollah now, is to set up rocket attacks from Christian villages. After the rockets are fired, the Islamists quickly pull out, knowing full well Israeli reprisals will then fall on innocent Christian habitations. And the media of course will be there to record the Jewish “barbarism,” while ignoring the initial terrorist attacks.

The horrible tactics and the frightening aims of the Islamists are here carefully laid out. So too are the lies and the deception Islamists are quite happy to resort to. There are even Arabic terms for these: taqiyya and kithman.

Radical Muslims are willing to present themselves as victims and oppressed peoples. And apologists for the Islamists, and those who loathe their own Western heritage, readily find reasons to blame the West for Islamic terrorism. Somehow the West is to blame for acts of Islamist outrage.

Yet as Gabriel reminds us, it is foolish to suggest that we must somehow address their grievances. “Their grievance is our freedom of religion. Their grievance is our democratic process.” These radicals have repeatedly made their goals known: they seek to destroy Western democracies and set up an Islamic state. Says Gabriel, “Unless we take them at their word, and defend ourselves accordingly, they will succeed.”

And she reminds us that there is a sacred obligation to impose Islam on the entire world. This is not a distortion of Islam, nor the ideas just of extremists, but the very heart of mainstream Islam. “It is mandated by the holy writings of Islam, as interpreted by a vast majority of the classical authorities.”

Indeed, we must reject the myth of moderate Islam. While there are many moderate Muslims, the religion itself is not moderate. Religious and political freedoms are just not hallmarks of Muslim societies. Indeed, the “only social liberal thinkers in the Muslim-Arab Islamo-fascist world are dead ones”.

In this important book Gabriel documents the many Islamist assaults on the West, and asks why we even allow terrorists to live in our own countries, as they prepare to carry out their acts of carnage and destruction. The parallels between what is now happening in the West and what took place in her homeland are too ominous to be ignored. Yet the West seems intent on doing just that.

Gabriel says we must wake up to the fact that a war has been declared against the West. Do we have the will and the resolve to defend our way of life, or will we simply give up without a fight?

She closes her volume with a number of hard-hitting recommendations if the West is to prevail in this conflict. For America these include much stricter border controls, development of alternative energy sources, and security profiling of high-risk groups.
These and other stringent steps must be taken if we want to win this battle against the Islamic terrorists. Mere conciliation, arbitration and diplomacy will not reduce the threat. The radical Muslims do what they do because they hate. And until we learn that lesson the casualties will continue to mount, and freedoms will continue to be snatched away.
To understand the hatred, and why this hatred is such a threat, all concerned citizens must read this book. It is a prophetic warning to the free West. If we do not want to see what happened to Lebanon take place on a far greater scale, then we must wake up to the threat that is staring us in the face, and take appropriate steps in response.

This book is a much needed wake up call to a sleepy and indifferent West. But if we do not heed its warnings, we may well find that the free West will be no more.’

Review of _Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America_ by Gabriel, Brigitte (Bill Muehlenberg, 2006)

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

Oh please. As the Nakhba proves, the Zionists are just as happy to steal Christian Arabs’ land.

This conflict isn’t about Islam, it’s about Zionists taking land from from Arabs: Christian, agnostic, atheist, or Muslim.

Juana Llorente
Juana Llorente
15 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

Bravo! A very necessary reading! Thanks.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

“After the rockets are fired, the Islamists quickly pull out, knowing full well Israeli reprisals will then fall on innocent Christian habitations”
..so, the israelis are unaware of all this? ..and have no option but to massacre innocent civilians, right? Yeah, sure.. now where have I heard that before?

L Brady
L Brady
15 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Yawn.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

There is no such thing as general hatred of jews, it was not arabs who committed the holocaust slaughter of jews it was the racist west, and ironically it is now the neo nazis supporting Israel because they hate muslims. 20% of the global population are muslims so might I suggest you stop talking complete crap.

Peter B
Peter B
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Quite. The author makes the assumption that the the US, Britain and France need to do something here. But never explains why.
Are these really our problems ? Don’t we have more pressing problems to address at home in the UK ?
Then, of course, there’s the moral hazard of making ourselves appear responsible for other people’s problems. And most importantly, absolving those who created the problems from responsibility for them. And no, we did not create this generation of problems in this part of the Middle East.
Meanwhile, David Lammy blunders on apparently unaware of the neo-colonial overtones of the UK and France “helping” in this region. On the other hand, if he’s wasting all his time on a planning something that never happens,that might be a win – at least he won’t be doing any damage elsewhere.
Someday someone will tot up the net good and bad done by the do-gooders of this world. My bet is on net harm.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago
Reply to  Peter B

They should have listened to the arab states back in the day, these notes have recently been released on line div > p > a”>Palestine question at the UN (1947-1975)/CEIRPP Historical backgrounder (A/AC.183/L.3) – Question of Palestine The Arab members who participated in the debate opposed adoption of the resolution.
 
The representative of Yemen argued that the partition plan was illegal, being contrary to the United Nations Charter and unjust, since it imposed an institution upon a country without its consent. Furthermore, he said it was unworkable.
 
The representative of Egypt thought that it was clear that the General Assembly was not competent to impose any solution in the matter. In the Ad Hoc Committee only 25 of the 57 Members of the United Nations had supported the partition plan. If the General Assembly’s resolution was passed, he reiterated that it would be taken for what it was: a mere recommendation addressed to the Egyptian Government. His delegation’s position was that it would like to be enlightened by an opinion from the International Court of Justice.
 
****The representative of Saudi Arabia suggested that it was tyrannical that an international organization was intervening to partition a country in order to present a part of it to the aggressor.*****
 
The representative of Syria stated that among those who had approved the plan for dividing Palestine into two independent states, there was perhaps no-one who had really taken into account the legal side of the question. He said no plan had ever been more contrary to logic or to social, political or economic laws.
 
The representative of Lebanon felt that the fact that there was no other plan before the Assembly was not a reason for adopting a plan which did not convince it.
 
The representative of Iraq stated that the General Assembly was being asked to vote upon a plan which had not given the least consideration to the Arab point of view, and that it was most partial and unjust since it had been drafted by a Sub-Committee which contained no neutral members.
 So I think these guys got it right in the 1940’s, the racist west should have listened

Caradog Wiliams
Caradog Wiliams
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

If we become involved, future generations will take on the guilt. We will then have to take in 10 million refugees from Lebanon (all men, of course).

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago

Not under Trump you won’t, and he’s about to be re-elected.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago

The population of Lebanon is just over 5 million, men and women are equal in number. Try not to be a racist clown

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
14 days ago

It might be more than ten million when you consider how many people are likely to jump on the band -wagon and want to get into Europe.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

If we were to ‘leave it alone’ as you suggest, Israel would be crushed in a month. An Islamic caliphate would emerge and OPEC would weaponise fossil fuels in a way that would sink the West’s economies altogether.

Peter B
Peter B
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

They seem to have a pretty good track record of looking after themselves since 1948.

Fraoch A
Fraoch A
15 days ago
Reply to  Peter B

Reall, “by themselves”? Yo’ve forgotten the financial and militay aid.Plus diplomatic shield that has allowed Israel to flaunt UN resolutions with impunity. The result is a monster that thinks it has the right to ignore International Law.

Juan P Lewis
Juan P Lewis
14 days ago
Reply to  Fraoch A

Israel kicked Arab arse over and over again before 78, when US aid started in earnest after peace with Egypt. For the most part, there was an arms embargo. Israel used to be a fairly poor country and broke by inflation and the Arabs got tired of losing against them. Nowadays, they are and economic and technological powerhouse. And the gap with their neighbours is enormous.

UNGA resolutions are non binding. And the UNGA is obsessively focused on Israel. Meanwhile, her enemies don’t respect the resolutions they don’t like, like UNGA 181 on the partition plan or UNSC 1701 on the disarmament and evacuation of Hezbollah. No wonder they used them as toilet paper.

Arab states have been killing Arabs en masse for 15 years. Hezbollah helped Assad to starve and ethnically cleanse the Palestinians from Yarmouk. Yeah, but the monster are the Yahu… when, the Zios… It’s bad to have such obsessions.

JR Stoker
JR Stoker
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Minor point; the West has plenty of fossil fuel; Mad Miliband (for one) just won’t let us save ourselves

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Why should I care if Israel were to turn into an Islamic nation? What strategic importance is Israel to Britain or France? How does Israel currently relate to prevent OPEC from abusing its position?

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

I’m not suggesting that the West couldn’t, with different policies, get along with a fully Islamicised Middle East. But to say that Israel, as of today, is of no strategic importance to the West is to ignore the politics of the region altogether. The US remains in control of Iraq and Saudi Arabia, with toeholds in Syria and elsewhere. It depends on Israel as its boots on the ground, also its eyes and ears, to keep this far-away barracks safe and functioning.
Britain and Europe, meanwhile, are massive net importers of fossil fuels to run their advanced economies. Without the West’s control in the Middle East, they’d be oil thirsty in a day.

Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

If the West were to “leave it alone” rather than keep saving Israel’s enemies with demands of ceasefire when Israel is on the attack, never when they are on the attack, Israel’s enemies would be crushed in no time. However Israel is never allowed to win, only to survive. Until the next round.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
15 days ago
Reply to  Danny Kaye

That’s not the full story, though. Israel is also dependent on US backing to continue to wage its wars on its neighbours. Or why do you think so much American military hardware is being deployed rn?

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

And? Who cares. Why is Israel even there? No one ever asks- the zionists originally wanted Uganda, Argentina or part of Western Australia, being a ”jew” is not a nationality and jews in Europe were not at risk in Europe after the end of the war unless you believe that western liberators were harming them. Why were a few million Europeans allowed to steal most of an arab nation, would any arab nation be allowed to take most of a western nation?

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago

jews in Europe were not at risk in Europe after the end of the war 
And yet here we are, 2024, and Jews experience anti semitism all across the world.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
14 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Why should Britain care if Israel is crushed in a month? It came into being by murdering British troops, it armed the Argentinians during the Falklands etc. Siding with Israel over its traditional Arab allies in the Middle East was one of the worst foreign policy decisions Britain made.
What does Israel have to do with OPEC?

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

“two groups of savages”
There is no equivalence.
If muslims accepted the existence of a tiny Jewish state and stopped launching terror attacks and rockets, there would be peace the next day.

Julie Coates
Julie Coates
15 days ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Well said Samir.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
15 days ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Israel appears to be more than happy to indulge in collective punishment, killing thousands of children in order to take out a few Hamas/Hezbollah fighters so in my eyes they are savages, no better than the terrorist groups they are fighting.
Imagine if the RAF had carpet bombed the council estates of Belfast, killing thousands of civilians in order to kill some IRA commanders, due you think the Americans would have been quite as forgiving?

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

PIRA much smaller than Hamas who are a state. We bombed many cities in WW2 and made people homeless.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

The RAF firebombed Hamburg, killing 43,000 people in one night, many of them women and children. They also wiped Dresden off the map with three days of consecutive bombing. Billy Bob, you sound a bit too inbred to participate in this conversation.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
14 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

The difference is that during the Second World War bombing campaigns were largely targeted at destroying factories and infrastructure used to manufacture weapons, transport troops etc and the technology to do so was much more limited. The IRA at its peak was similar in numbers to Hamas, and also operated inside civilian areas, in this case largely the council estates of Northern Ireland. Therefore in your view would Britain have been justified in razing large areas of it to the ground and murdering thousands of civilians in order to take out McGuinness, Adams and co?

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
14 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

You are comparing apples and oranges.

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

What utter nonsense. It suits you (I don’t know why) to say a “ few Hamas/Hezbollah”, that way it suggests the two areas are not occupied by terrorist organisations. If there were no terrorist organisations in both regions things would be a lot different. This is not war between Israel and Palestinians, it’s between terrorists who hide among civilians and Israel.

JĂŒrg Gassmann
JĂŒrg Gassmann
15 days ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

All of Israel’s neighbours have accepted Israel’s existence. Conversely, Israel (i) refuses to accept the existence of Palestine and (ii) refuses to define its borders.
Maybe if Israel reversed itself on those two issues – where Israel is in flagrant defiance of the UN and international law – progress could be made?

Benson Carr
Benson Carr
15 days ago

The two state solutions have always been presented by Israel until recently when Israel has become too insecure after decades and decades of suicide bombings to believe that Palestine won’t just become captured by Iran and turned into one giant launchpad for the war to fully and finally destroy Israel. If you dont see the evidence for that in Hamas and Hezbollah then you are utterly naive.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
15 days ago

What does this have to do with Lebanon?

John Serrano-Davey
John Serrano-Davey
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

A rather repugnant comment that I feel.
“Neither the Israelis nor the Lebanese nor Gazaians can rightly be described as “savages”(can any human being as a group really be that way described?)

Of course Hamas and Hezbolah are absolutely vile ideologies, and the world would be better off without them, but there are some pretty awful characters on the Israeli hard Right too.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago

Why should they? The land was stolen by jewish terrorists who then slaughtered thousands, committed ethnic cleansing and destroyed hundreds of villages and towns without anyone ever asking the Palestinians what they wanted.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
14 days ago

Hamas, Hezbollah and the IDF are all happy to murder numerous civilians in order to further their aims, therefore I make no moral distinction between them

Dr E C
Dr E C
14 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Can you make distinctions about anything? Eg the difference between attack & defence? or cause & effect? or truth & lies? or up & down?

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
14 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

What is the cause? The Palestinians having their land taken away from them?

Brett H
Brett H
14 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

In the end then, if you had to choose one as an ally, which one would you go with?

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
14 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

The Stern Gang bombed the King David hotel, murdered British Sergeants and booby trapped their bodies and were given state funerals by Israel for doing so. Israel also armed the Argentinians during the Falklands so historically why would Britain choose them as Allies?

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

If you can’t choose then say so. But it’s quite clear what i’m getting at.

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
15 days ago

“anti refugee” riots? An interesting choice of words. I understood that the last true refugees from France were Protestants after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes…
And weren’t the riots really an expression of general anger, with mass immigration being a major strand in that anger?
As for the Middle East, the West’s interventions are the major cause of the trouble all the way back to the (desired) collapse of the Ottoman Empire. But the most recent follies were the Iraq War and the attempt to overthrow the Assad government (previously fawned upon until he wouldn’t do as he was told…)

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

Let’s not forget Obama’s Operation Timber Sycamore, and 2nd hand Toyota utes in America and thousands of tonnes of munitions “mysteriously” winding up in the hands of Jihadis trying to overthrow Assad.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

Not mysterious, it was all planned out in Camp Bucca by the same people who butchered Fallujah.

Edwin Blake
Edwin Blake
15 days ago

What a nasty piece of propaganda for ethnic cleansing. Israel has been taken to the ICJ for that crime. You might not like that fact in your little bubble. Most of the world condemns Israel. It is undeniable. Now you propose the same final solution for Lebanon!

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Most of the world condemns Israel. 
This has come up a few times. What do you mean by “most”?

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

A majority

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Governments, voting population of all countries, the EU, the UN. Who exactly?

Edwin Blake
Edwin Blake
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

All of the above. A little bit of searching will reveal all. Try “countries backing Israel”, “countries against Israel” (my linking could irritate censorbots). There is even a Times article, Wikipedia page, etc.
Not to mention that most of the judges at the ICJ thought Israel had a case to answer.

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

countries backing Israel
Sure, but what do you mean by countries?

Dr E C
Dr E C
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

As Alexander Pope once said:
‘A little learning is a dangerous thing ;
Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring :
There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain,
And drinking largely sobers us again.’

Quoting Wikipedia or the ICJ isn’t good enough I’m afraid.

Try listening to some actual Muslims & ex-Muslims _from the region_, begging for Hamas, the Houthis, Hezbollah & the cruel regime of the Islamic Republic of Iran to be stopped (or at least not to be supported):

Yasmine Mohammed (whose dad was Gazan)
Masih Alinejad
Elica le Bon
Mahyar Tousi
Mosab Hassan Yousef
son of the Shah:
https://youtu.be/Ujt3St6coNM?si=-nNG4euho2MvUOlC

I could go on & on.

What do all these places now have in common:
– women have no rights
– the punishment for homosexuality is death
– the punishment for apostasy is death
– the punishment for adultery is death
– slavery is tolerated & the term for black people is ‘slaves’
– rape, gouging out of eyes, & other torture is state-sanctioned
Etc etc

Why would anyone, with a humanitarian bone in their body, support such regimes?

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

And plenty of Jews decry Israel as a racist apartheid state, and condemn Zionism as an ideology of racial supremacism.

This isn’t a Judaism vs Muslim conflict, this is a Zionist vs Arab conflict. Israel just as cheerfully flattened Christian hospitals, churches, monasteries and homes in Gaza.

Peter B
Peter B
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Again, this is misleading and incomplete.
We simply do not know what most of the people in the world believe here. The fact that most of the leaders take an anti-Israeli position is by no means the same thing as the majority of their people.
And so what if most of the leaders of countries are anti-Israel ? That doesn’t mean they are either wise or correct.
Most people who’ve spent any time on this recognise that there are faults on both sides and no simple solutions.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Voting populations. Governments are much more pro Israeli than their citizens in my opinion

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

Voting populations. 
I’d like to know how you come by that information.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Billy Bob

echo chambers.

Tom Lewis
Tom Lewis
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

To paraphrase Derry girls, “Israel may be run and populated by self interested dicks ( What country isn’t ?), but they’re my dicks”.
As, even an imbecile, could have foreseen, conflict in Southern Lebanon, with Hezbolla, has been ‘inevitable’ for nearly a year. Running around like headless chickens, now that things are kicking off, is the epitome of the stupidity of the ‘international community’, the UN ( UNFIL) first and foremost.

Nell Clover
Nell Clover
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Ah, the kind of Muslim ethnic cleansing that doubles the number of Muslims? Hmmm.

Lebanon was once not a Muslim majority country. Then Islamic sectarian politics beginning in the 1950s increasingly made it intolerable for non-Muslims, who began fleeing. Now it is a Muslim majority country exporting violence – by strange coincidence – to the only other non-Muslim majority country in the region. First it was the Christians, now it’s the Jews. Submission: Islam, the clue is in the name.

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  Nell Clover

Those Muslims were driven out of Palestine and into Lebanon by Zionist conquest. Prior to that, the native Muslims and Christians got along well enough.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

Actually, they were driven there by the Jordnians and their King, who refused to continue hosting palestinian brigands and terrorist and simply marched into the refugee camps killing over 10,000 palestinian civilians in one day – but hey: Zionists!

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Which bit in this article is the propaganda? What exactly are you revolting against or refuting?

B Emery
B Emery
14 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

‘Most of the world’ isn’t everywhere though.
I’m pretty sure this is a publication based in London and the protests supporting Israel were actually very large in the UK.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/14/thousands-attend-london-rally-in-solidarity-with-israel

I think you will find Israel actually has a lot of support here.

Fraoch A
Fraoch A
12 days ago
Reply to  B Emery

London is not the UK. No pro Israel demos beyond London. There are however large demos every week supporting the Palestinians/Gaza in London and the other countries that make up the UK.

B Emery
B Emery
12 days ago
Reply to  Fraoch A

Most of our mass demonstrations take place in London. So the people supporting Israel would have come from all over the country.

I wasn’t aware it was a competition.

Do you dispute that Israel has significant support in the UK then?

I am pleased that in Britain, both sides of the debate can peacefully protest and discuss their concerns in parliament.

Alan F
Alan F
15 days ago

An evacuation to where? And why is it always the fault of the West? Do the local actors and malefactors have no responsibility?

Michael Cazaly
Michael Cazaly
15 days ago
Reply to  Alan F

Possibly because the West has intervened…meddled… so much, with consequences it neither intended or, more importantly, foresaw that it is blamed.
Of course, many of the consequences were entirely foreseeable by those who gave it some real thought and were aware of the local power structure. The “British Empire” was actually quite good at that and acted accordingly.
But generally the West’s rulers pro tem were, and are, appealing to their own base, for their own benefit eg touting “spreading democracy” in countries which didn’t understand or trust the concept…and given the West’s current situation who can blame them?

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
15 days ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

The fact that someone blames me for something does not make me responsible for putting it right. It’s just not that simple.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago

No one is asking YOU to fix or accept responsibility for anything. It is your COUNTRY’S part in the disastrous situation that is at issue.. it is genaccepyed by civilised countries that they take at least some responsibility and remedial action for that country’s wrongdoing in the past. The degree of both depends on the length of time that has passed and the degree of damage done. A third factor is the extent to which further damage is still being done. In this case the UK is up to its oxters in guilt, shame and the overwhelming obligation to make amends under ALL 3 headings!

hugh shull
hugh shull
15 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

The Ottomans were in control of Lebanon for 400 years or so, about 10x the French mandate. So Turkey can take 90% and the French can take the Shihabs. Solomonic solution.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago
Reply to  hugh shull

Ottoman control from 648 to 1917 so a bit more than 400 years.. during which time Palestinian Jews, Christians and Muslims lived side by side in relative harmony.. as they did in Iraq and still do in Iran and Turkey. Read some history that isn’t propaganda..
Btw the said Palestinians were direct decendants ofthe ancient Israelites which 90% of Israeli Jews are NOT.. descended instead from Turkic Khazarians aka Ashkenazis.. the last 5 letters being very appropriate.

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

So you’re saying the Jews were there first and the Palestinians came after as descendants?

ChilblainEdwardOlmos
ChilblainEdwardOlmos
12 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

That Khazar theory has repeatedly been proven to be false. The genetic history doesn’t lie, unlike you old chap.

Stephen Sheridan
Stephen Sheridan
12 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

You are the one who needs to read real history. The term Palestinian only came about because The British re-named the area at the time of the 1917 Mandate to reference the re-naming of the Roman province of Judea under the Emperor Hadrian after the Bar Kochba Revolt.
Under the Ottomans there was no Palestine province – it was divided between the province of South Lebanon and the province of Jerusalem. At the start of the 19th Century the population was minimal as centuries of war between Muslim powers to the North and South had destroyed the agricultural infrastructure. The Zionist movement in the late 19th Century started to buy unproductive land from local Arabs and manage and irrigate it. This created higher levels of economic activity, which attracted Arab settlers from Egypt, Syria and further north.
As to Ashkenazis being descended from Turkic Khazarians, this is an unsubstantiated hypothesis that is highly unlikely given that their paternal descent is Middle Eastern with some admixture of Southern European in the maternal side. A diaspora inheritance therefore remains the most likely origin. The conversion of a Khazar elite to Judaism rests on a couple of accounts from 11th Century Spanish rabbinical scholars without a shred of supporting contemporary or local evidence.
Your vile slur on the Jewish people in your comment on the name Ashkenazi is as childish as it is anti-semitic.
It is impossible to determine whether “Palestinian Arabs” are descended from original Jewish inhabitants, because the area has been flooded with different conquering groups (primarily but not always Arab) since the Arab invasions of the Seventh Century.
Jews and Christians do not live in harmony in Iran. Very few Jews are left in Iran and Christians are severely oppressed as are the pacifist B’Hais. As for the Jews of Iraq – where are they now? After centuries of periodic pogroms they were all thrown out or murdered in the 1950s. The North African and Arab states expelled more Jews from their territory after the creation of Israel than Arabs fled the “Palestine”. Those Jews (who had been present in the Muslim world since its 7th Century creation) had realistically nowhere else to go except Israel. in contrast few of those Arab nations offered places to Arab refugees and those that did like Jordan and Lebanon suffered civil wars and unrest as a result of that decision.
The Arab world did a lot to create the state of Israel through its pursuit of anti-semitic hatred and cruelty, something which was clear when the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem (the first “Palestinian” leader) spent World Two as a guest of Mussolini and Hitler, encouraging the recruitment of Muslim troops to the Nazi armies, such as the SS Handschar Division and the Frei Arabische Legion, whose last surviving unit fought in the ruins of Berlin in 1945.

laurence scaduto
laurence scaduto
11 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

I was speaking metaphorically. I have no control over foreign policy, and disagree with your three degrees of “guilt, shame and overwhelming obligation.”
They can have my head, if they really want it. But they’ll have to deal with my wife first.

Andrew Fisher
Andrew Fisher
14 days ago
Reply to  Michael Cazaly

This is mostly another version of the almost ‘white supremacist’ that everything bad that happens in the world is somehow the West’s fault. Everything is ultimately connected, but the British and French mandates in the Middle East ended over 70 years ago, and neither can plausibly be ‘blamed’ for Wahhabism, modern Shia political Islam, or indeed Zionism. The West mostly was NOT involved in the Syrian imbroglio, with the exception of anti ISIS operations, although almost every other regional power, and Russia, was.

John Murray
John Murray
14 days ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Right. I am sick to the teeth of trying to blame “the West” or Britain, etc, for problems of countries that have been independent for fifty years and more.
Ten years after independence you are still blaming things on an overhang from the British? OK, I can imagine for some things that might be true. Twenty years? Eh, you’re pushing it. Thirty years? Now you are just making excuses. Forty years? Fifty years? Seventy years!? GTFO. Or admit you were better off when the British ran things.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  Andrew Fisher

Very well said. The Western countries are always blamed even when it is obvious that the collapse of decent government is self-inflicted as in Syria. People forget that the most murderous war since WWII has been the Iran/Iraq war with casualties that some historians reckon were almost as great as those of WWI. And the civil wars in Sudan, Mali and Somalia are largely between rival Islamic factions, they are not Moslem/Christian wars. .

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
15 days ago
Reply to  Alan F

There can be no rescue by the UK of the citizens of Beirut … it would be a political impossibility and if attempted would escalate the legal and illegal migrant situation to another level.

Graham Stull
Graham Stull
15 days ago
Reply to  Alan F

It’s the fault of the West because we are literally making and supplying the weapons that are causing this to happen.

Peter Fisher
Peter Fisher
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Religious nutjobs have been slaughtering each other for all of recorded history in MENA. Time to wake up to the reality of religion.

Juana Llorente
Juana Llorente
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

Is the West supplying the weapons to Hezbollah to start attacking Israel non stop since 7/O and displacing 70,000 Israelis? That is a declaration of war to which any state in the world has to respond to protect its borders and its citizens. The international organizations, UN mainly, aren’t they to blame for not trying to avoid this sure outcome by putting all kinds of pressure calling out on Lebanon/Hezbollah /Iran to fulfill Resolution 1701 which ordered Hezbollah ‘s disarmament back in 2006? No, they were too busy following the agenda of Qatar, South África…and blaming Israel for defending itself.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago
Reply to  Juana Llorente

So, if I feel the need to defend myself from you then it’s ok is it, if I go to your neighbourhood and massacre every man, woman and child I find within a radius of several miles of where you live?

ChilblainEdwardOlmos
ChilblainEdwardOlmos
12 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Oh, sweet irony.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
12 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Try to learn something new once in a while… the article stated that this war against Hezbollah has high stakes because Israel is fighting to simply be able to reestablish the right of its own people to be able to live in their own borders. It is the terrorists who don’t care about the women, men, and children they use as their human shields.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

In this case, I believe the pagers were manufactured and supplied by a Taiwanese company.

Jack Martin Leith
Jack Martin Leith
15 days ago
Reply to  Samir Iker

Was it a Taiwanese company? Or a Bulgarian consulting firm? Or the Mossad? Or some other entity?

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago

Manufactured using parts supplied by Motorola, under licence, by a bogus Bulgarian company set up and run by Mossad operatives.. over many years..

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

In what way is that statement inaccurate or unfair to merit so many down ticks? Isn’t the statement 100% true and therefore irrefutable?

John Serrano-Davey
John Serrano-Davey
15 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Well no, it is not “100% true”, and cannot be as it starts with an opinion:
“It’s the fault of the West
.”

That may be slightly true or even largely true, but
A/ Are you really saying that Iran, Hamas and Hezbolah have “zero fault”, and
B/ What do you think would happen if Israel laid down and surrendered all of its arms?

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago

That’s close.. Israeli terrorism began in the
1940s, initially against the British (!) and has never let up.. one massacre after another, ethnic cleansing, concentration camps, Apartheid, oppression, land theft, child abduction, incarceration without trial, all
followed by starvation, torture and rape! and now full scale genocide. These are all inescapable facts attested to by every international organisation on Earth including ISRAELI B’tsalem and Haaretz.. Do you seriously believe this can be perpetrated on a people without consequences? ..for 76 years??
Shall we blame the terrorists of the Warsaw Ghetto for attacking the nice, peace seeking NazÂĄs? Shall we blame the French ‘terrorist’ resistence for attacking the same German occupiers after their own government had agreed to peace terms?
Don’t you realise that, in the event of the Germans overrunning GB, all British freedom fighters would be called terrorists as well? People have the right to fight for their freedom from oppression.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Yes, it’s perfectly true that Irgun and Jewish extreme groups did terrorise Palestinians but the British weren’t to blame, they were themselves subjected to Jewish terrorism in the King David Hotel massacre. Also, the Mufti, senior Moslem authority, in Jerusalem was a rabid anti-semite who openly praised Hitler. I’m afraid there were and are dangerous fanatics on both sides.

John Serrano-Davey
John Serrano-Davey
15 days ago
Reply to  Graham Stull

That’s simply a massive over simplification Graham.
Yes, most of Israel’s weaponry does indeed come from the West, and that includes the UK, but where do you think Hamas and Hezbolah get their weapons?
If we unilaterally stopped supplying Israel do you think Iran and Rusia would do likewise?
No, it would allow a bloodbath and the complete annihilation of Israel.
Is that what you want?

The Lebanese are fantastic people, but they have absolutely no chance of getting back their own country from Hezbolah, whose actual stated aim is “the destruction of Israel.”

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago

So you’re afraid there might be a bloodbath are you.. wow! that speaks volumes for your racial views! ..absolutely appalling.

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

What do you imagine Hezbollah would do if Israel was disarmed? Considering what Hamas did a year ago.

ALIREZA ANSARY
ALIREZA ANSARY
15 days ago
Reply to  Alan F

America is the cause of the Palestinian war. If it wasn’t for America, Israel would have been destroyed by now. Rest assured, Iran will not let it be destroyed because of its interests. As an Iranian, I am certain of Iran because of the JCPOA and the fact that America is behind Israel. Iran is a little worried because if it attacks, the economy will weaken a little. can be
And also the United States imposes more sanctions against it…..

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  ALIREZA ANSARY

Huh?

David McKee
David McKee
14 days ago
Reply to  Alan F

The proposed evacuation does not imply guilt or political responsibility. It falls to us, because Hezbollah, like Hamas, could not give a flying proverbial for the sufferings of the local civilians.

This is par for the course. Look how much Al Assad cares about his own people.

We are nice people, so we make up the leeway.

David Bettney
David Bettney
14 days ago
Reply to  David McKee

Nice people are pushed aside in the Middle East. We can not bring in more Anti-Western people. The place to help migrants is surrounding Muslim countries. We can set up aid there. Or you will just import the fight to UK waters 🙁

Dr E C
Dr E C
14 days ago
Reply to  David McKee

A drowning people cannot help another drowning people or both will go under.

David McKee
David McKee
14 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

Drowning? We’re _drowning_? Please explain.

John Murray
John Murray
14 days ago
Reply to  David McKee

The UK already has too many of the nutjobs who cause the trouble. Importing boatloads more is only going to make things in the UK worse.

J. Hale
J. Hale
13 days ago
Reply to  Alan F

Why do Syrian refugees get to start a new and better life in Germany, whereas Palestinian refugees are somehow entitled to move back to Israel and abolish the Jewish state? Why were the Muslims allowed to take over and impoverish Lebanon, a nation founded for Christian Arabs? Hypocrisy in the Middle East is overwhelming.

Hans Daoghn
Hans Daoghn
13 days ago
Reply to  Alan F

To Canada. There are already 700,000 plus arabs and Palestinians there now. It’s a big country that needs more people.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago

Thank you for an interesting article. It offers an interesting view on the region. The negative comments surprise me a little. One may not fully agree with an analysis but still read it with interest.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
15 days ago

The more I think about this, the more I think the long-term solution is going to be to move Israel.
The shattering of the illusions of this US-dominated, postwar era must include the realisation that there can be no peaceful coexistence between Israel and its Arab neighbours, it’s not possible. The insoluble conflict has just been held at bay all these years by dint of America being the undisputed hegemon. That is no longer the case.
Looking at the immigration/integration problems in Europe in the wake of the refugee crisis/mass illegal immigration (or whatever the correct label is at this point), I am also becoming convinced that the European and Arab worlds can’t successfully blend in other places either. It’s not just an Israel thing, it’s a cultural thing. Which of course also ties into questions of religion. This may or may not lead me to say later on that the Judeo-Christian and Muslim worlds need to be separated out, but I’m not there yet.
A new Israel could be created in Europe or in North America: in return, all Arab illegal immigrants/refugees/asylum seekers (or whatever the correct label is at this point) are remigrated.
America and its western partners then completely withdraw from the Middle East. Any problems that arise there must be dealt with by the natives, free of any western meddling but also free of any western help (i.e. taking in refugees from wars that happen). European asylum laws are recast/reinterpreted so that we only take in people from neighbouring countries (i.e. Ukraine).
This all seems very primitive and anti everything I’ve been taught to believe as a good western liberal, but there is always some realisation lying beneath shattering illusions and this is what I’m seeing.

Benson Carr
Benson Carr
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

What a fanatically simple solution, I can’t believe no one else thought of that!

Benson Carr
Benson Carr
15 days ago
Reply to  Benson Carr

We should move the UK somewhere with nicer weather too whilst we’re at it…!

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
15 days ago
Reply to  Benson Carr

And your solution is….?

Norfolk Sceptic
Norfolk Sceptic
14 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

The solution is in recognising a little sarcasm when it’s deployed.

zee upītis
zee upītis
15 days ago
Reply to  Benson Carr

Except it’s simple only in words, it’s practically impossible in real life.

B Emery
B Emery
15 days ago
Reply to  Benson Carr

I think it’s actually a very pragmatic and well thought through idea.
Whether it it is politically correct, ‘right’, or even a viable solution is another question.

Jo Jo
Jo Jo
15 days ago
Reply to  Benson Carr

Was suggested by Sheldon (Big Bang Theory), he may also have suggested Arizona as a replacement.

Lancashire Lad
Lancashire Lad
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

There’s a great deal of sense in what you write. The problem is Jerusalem, the core of both the Judeo-Christian and Islamic faiths.

To vacate the area around the Temple Mount would be anathema to most Jews, but also why Moslems have “claims” over it – it’s where their prophet ‘ascended to heaven’.

I think my views on religion are pretty well known, but that’s their ‘reality’. We’d all be better off without this thorn in the side of a more peaceful humanity, although no doubt some would claim we’d just find another excuse to fight each other. That doesn’t excuse fighting over an historical emnity forever more.

If the US were to curtail it’s support for Israel – for whatever reason – what you suggest can’t be ruled out.

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
15 days ago
Reply to  Lancashire Lad

I don’t think it would require the US to expressly curtail its support for Israel: rather it may be a natural consequence of US power trickling away and other regional powers becoming bolder.
Whatever solution/new status quo is eventually reache, there is going to be an almighty mess and many, many dead people before we/they arrive at it.

James LS
James LS
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

This is an excellent plan! Israel and the US are basically one country now. The US controls the domestic policy to destroy its own country by allowing unadulterated corporate greed, and Israel controls the foreign policy to destroy the rest of the word.
Perhaps Israel could move to Texas for example (Israel is only 3% of the size of Texas).

Katharine Eyre
Katharine Eyre
15 days ago
Reply to  James LS

I have greater fear of the Middle East becoming one giant and chronic inferno.

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  James LS

The problem is that Zionism rests upon the (ridiculous, admittedly) claim that modern Jews have some sort of claim on Palestine because of a promise made by God to (some of) their purported ancestors.

Plenty of Israelis don’t believe in God, of course… though they do seem to believe He promised them Palestine.

Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

Indeed most Israelis do not believe in God but they do believe in archeology. They speak the language used in 2000 year old inscriptions found all over Israel. They have used this language ever since everywhere they went. Their claim on Palestine is infinitely stronger than that of most people on most lands. Hebrew was spoken in Palestine thousands of years before English and Spanish in the Americas and Australia, or Arabic in North Africa. God has nothing to do with it.

B Emery
B Emery
15 days ago
Reply to  Danny Kaye

The question isn’t who has a stronger claim. The question is can Israel hold its borders if Hezbollah and Iran retaliate and how far will the US be able to extend its support.
The answer to those questions would come from a realistic analysis of what western military power can achieve in the region, not from who has the strongest claim.
The UK and the US should obviously continue to support Israel, but lessons need to be learned from Ukraine, supplying them with enough ammunition has been a problem and the US is also talking of a confrontation with China. Western powers will have to be pragmatic about what can be achieved.

Billy Bob
Billy Bob
14 days ago
Reply to  Danny Kaye

Do the Celts have a claim over English land, seeing as they were on the area before the Saxons?

Dr E C
Dr E C
14 days ago
Reply to  James LS

More like: the Ayatollah of Iran controls your mind. And we’d all appreciate if you moved to one of the human rights-free countries you support.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

“Judeo-Christian and Muslim worlds need to be separated out”
It’s isn’t “Judeo-Christian” – Hindus and Sikhs have been wiped out in Pakistan, Parsis in Iran.

And remember, they were the original inhabitants of those lands. The problem with Israel isn’t it’s location – it’s that they are strong enough to survive.

The problem is that one religion, who can’t coexist with anyone. And if they can’t, why should other religions, where they are safe and in numbers, allow them in?

Edwin Blake
Edwin Blake
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

The Arabs have always maintained that the holocaust was a European crime and the solution has to found in Europe.
In 1943 Ibn Saud, who utterly opposed Zionism, wrote to Roosevelt, concluding: “For if – God forbid! – the Jews were to be granted their desire, Palestine would forever remain a hotbed of troubles and disturbances.”
And so it is.

Dr E C
Dr E C
14 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Of course they have. And have said nothing about how it’s their sacred duty to convert to Islam or kill all of the Jews on the planet.

Or about how the father of the Palestinian Liberation movement liased with, and was paid by, the Nazis throughout WW2 to do his part in extending the Holocaust to the Middle East. All BEFORE Israel was even established.

Mohammed Amin al-Husseini met with Hitler on 28 November 1941 to ask for help opposing the establishment of a Jewish national home at the height of the Holocaust. Hitler promised him that, after Germany had ‘solved its Jewish problem’ within Europe, ‘Germany’s objective would then be solely the destruction of the Jewish element residing in the Arab sphere under the protection of British power’. Browning, Christopher R. (2007). The Origins of the Final Solution: The Evolution of Nazi Jewish Policy, September 1939 – March 1942.

There are even photos of Husseini touring the Nazi death camps – again all BEFORE Israel was created.

B Emery
B Emery
14 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

‘The Arabs have always maintained that the holocaust was a European crime and the solution has to found in Europe’

That’s ridiculous. The Arabs might have ended up subjected to rule by a N*zi German empire if it wasn’t for some of those European nations.
If some of those European nations hadn’t defeated the Germans, Arabs wouldn’t exactly have been allowed to live in the parts of Europe they now live in either, would they. I don’t think the N*zis had much time for minorities, did they?

David Butler
David Butler
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

After your proposed surrender, where are we going to resettle The West?

Danny Kaye
Danny Kaye
15 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

This is an interesting concept. But Israel exists. So here is an even simpler solution: why not establish Palestine, in, say Europe or North America? In Europe there are already so many Arab speakers that they won’t even be noticed.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago
Reply to  Danny Kaye

Why should they be forced out of their ancestral lands to suit a bunch of racists

Dr E C
Dr E C
14 days ago
Reply to  Danny Kaye

God forbid.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

Wow and the millions of poms and Europeans who invaded, colonised and slaughtered millions of Indigenous people could pack up and go back to their own countries.

Dr E C
Dr E C
14 days ago
Reply to  Katharine Eyre

I really appreciate the logic of this and applaud your pragmatic attempt to avoid further bloodshed. There are a couple of problems though:

1. Jews are indigenous to Judea. Even though a couple of million of them came to Israel from Europe, America & elsewhere during & after the Holocaust, they were ‘refugees’ (to use the other side’s favourite term) from the Middle East originally. And the other half of the Jewish population of Israel (bracketing out the Muslims, Christians & Druze for now) is made up of Jews who have had a continuous presence in the Middle East for millennia. Their holiest of sites is in Jerusalem & like any indigenous people anywhere, their connection to homeland is integral to their identity.

2. No other country can be trusted to shelter the Jews. Not America, not Europe, nowhere. They’ve experienced pogrom after pogrom after Holocaust. Heck, after 7/10 they can’t even trust the US & EU to keep their contractual promises re the weapons Israel pays for. Moving to Texas would be like putting their whole population into the shark’s mouth.

No, the Jews must be allowed to have one country on earth where they are self-sufficient & can defend themselves against annihilation. And anyone in the west wanting to see their annihilation could be sent to one of the 50 odd Muslim countries that exist to see how well they fare without their precious human rights.

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago
Reply to  Dr E C

Thank you. How effortlessly anti semitism rises to the surface in this modern world.

Richard Calhoun
Richard Calhoun
15 days ago

Israel must be fully supported in its endeavours to protect its borders and its citizens within its borders.
Hamas and Hezbollah must be destroyed in the absence of an unconditional surrender.
Which leaves us with the Iran problem?

M Harries
M Harries
15 days ago

Over recent decades in their tens of millions, Muslims have abandoned Muslim jurisdictions for the West. Once there, far too many have worked to Islamise the West through milking Western Liberal tolerance and happily accepting and promoting the use of ‘Islamophobia’ to swat away any opposition.

What the BBC and its ilk don’t understand is that Israel is the West. How is it that the BBC and its ilk, and Western academia, seem to think that a ‘Free Palestine’ will somehow be run by the Liberal Democrats holding annual Pride parades rather than the authoritarian theocratic jihadi-allied Hamas regime?

Jim C
Jim C
15 days ago
Reply to  M Harries

Israel is a racist theocracy. WRT to its purported “democracy”, the Arabs in Gaza and West Bank are ultimately ruled by Israel, but (unlike the illegal “settlers” in the West Bank) do not get to vote in Israel’s elections.

The best you can say about Israel’s “democracy” is that it practices majoritarian apartheid.

John Serrano-Davey
John Serrano-Davey
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim C

But Israeli Arabs in Israel DO get a vote , as do all of Israel’s citizens, being Jewish, Christian, Muslim or whatever else makes no difference.

Jim Veenbaas
Jim Veenbaas
15 days ago
Reply to  M Harries

They hate the west too. I kinda thought that was obvious.

Liam O'Mahony
Liam O'Mahony
15 days ago
Reply to  Jim Veenbaas

If you were a Muslim subjected to endless genocidal attacks and looting for hundreds of years by so-called Christians I’m pretty sure you wouldn’t feel too kindly towards those who had murdered, pillaged and destroyed your country.. maybe I’m wrong? Maybe you’re a masochist?
What you fail to see is that Muslims like many of the rest of us, are able to tell the difference between a genocidal government and the ordinary, decent people of a country

Disputatio Ineptias
Disputatio Ineptias
15 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony
UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

What “genocidal attacks for hundreds of years”? Prior to WWI ‘Palestine’ and neighbouring regions were part of the Turkish Empire and the Arab revolt aided by T.E. Lawrence was a revolt against the Turks — Moslems. The Arab world since the Middle Ages has been riven by struggles between Shia and Sunni Moslems which, incredibly at one point, even resulted in fighting with machine-guns in Mecca itself during the last century.

Jimmy le Messurier
Jimmy le Messurier
9 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Since 9/11 there have been an estimated 40,000 lethal terrorist attacks worldwide perpetrated by Islamist groups. Very many of their victims have been other Muslims. Your ‘endless genocidal attacks and looting for hundreds of years by so-called Christians’ claim is fantastical and deluded, on several counts. Christians are by far the most persecuted group over the last several decades, by orders of magnitude, and most of this persecution is perpetrated by Islamists.

Charles Hedges
Charles Hedges
8 days ago
Reply to  Liam O'Mahony

Are you against the Reconquista, expulsion of Turks from Europe, the stopping of the Muslim slave trade, the stopping of the slaughter of Hindus by Muslims in India ?
The Crusades occurred because the Seljuk Turks stopped Christian pilgrims going to Jerusalem. The area of the Crusades had been Christian before the Muslim Conquest.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago

So not just the evacuation of Gaza, but of Lebanon, with the helpful assistance of the US, France and UK. And why? In whose name are you writing, my friend?

Citizen Diversity
Citizen Diversity
15 days ago

The Iranians would have been better off if they had retained their own religion which they once possessed.

Edwin Blake
Edwin Blake
15 days ago

Why don’t you just say they would be much better off if they retained the Shah. You know, the guy installed by BP and the CIA after deposing the democrat who wanted Iranian oil for his own people.
I know you want to.

Arthur G
Arthur G
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

Are you seriously arguing that the Shah wasn’t better than the Mullahs? Iran pre-Revolution was a much better place. Sure there was some repression and regime thuggery, but less than today.

Marilyn Shepherd
Marilyn Shepherd
14 days ago
Reply to  Arthur G

The US imposed the revolution, just like they do everywhere – to get the oil.

W M
W M
15 days ago
Reply to  Edwin Blake

I’ll say it, yes. Iran would be a better place for the vast majority of its populace, and infinitely moreso for its neighbours in the region, if the Shah hadn’t been overthrown.

John Murray
John Murray
14 days ago

Fine chaps, the Zoroastrians. Bloody good singers too.

Benson Carr
Benson Carr
15 days ago

I spent some time in Lebanon in 2019 and found a vibrant, secular Beirut culture that matched the buzzy youthful energy I experience in Tel Aviv. I travelled to Baalbek to visit the ancient temples and see the mystery of the megalithic blocks raised 20ft high. I toured the Beqqa valley vineyards and tasted their magnificent wines. I travelled to a village in the far north near the Syrian border and met warm friendly people in the markets of Tripoli despite the clear lack of organisation and integration of the shanti-esque Syrian refugee dwellings. I also experienced the lights go out every night in Beirut at 10PM because of corruption in the government and mismanaged economics of their national grid. The starkest thing was conversations with liberal Christians who said they wished to visit Israel and Jerusalem, seeing their people’s as brothers and sisters culturally who have been torn apart by nefarious, narcissistic actors in Iran. I sincerely hope Israel can beat Hezbollah and create an opportunity for a balanced secular culture to emerge in a Turkey-like mode on Lebanon because the people deserve it. Somehow, I doubt it is possible though because people have learned too much to hate and dehumanise Israel’s fight or right to exist. Israel’s cause is a noble one. A traumatised people founded a nation, these traumatised people have themselves become traumatised and battle hardened after generations of unrest and war. I appreciate the optics of Israel’s war, but people need to understand that this is the jungle and only the strong can survive. The Jews have endured so much hate and hardship, they deserve to be able to pushback on a terrorist organisation on their border and run a security operation in the west bank to ensure their safety. If the Muslim world puts down their guns there will be peace. If Israel puts down their guns there will be no Israel.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Benson Carr

Who has asked Israel to put down their arms?

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Come on. Don’t be so obtuse.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Help me out

Benson Carr
Benson Carr
15 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

1) it’s a general expression of the situation
2) it’s literally what a ceasefire is

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
15 days ago
Reply to  Benson Carr

A cease fire means there will be no Israel?

Doug Pingel
Doug Pingel
14 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

Almost every day of the last big ceasefire Gazans continued to fire rockets into Israel. If the IDF had not struck back what woud have been the result?

J. Hale
J. Hale
13 days ago
Reply to  UnHerd Reader

A cease fire means the Palestinians and Hezbollah will break it whenever they feel like it.

James LS
James LS
15 days ago
Reply to  Benson Carr

A traumatised people founded a nation? Israel’s cause is a noble one?
What a load of crap!
The settler-colonial Zionist plan was in place long before the first or second world war, from the the times of the Zionist conventions of 1897 and even before. And from the beginning it was understood that the plan was going to involve ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population.
As for a noble cause? Israel’s expansionist plans are anything but noble. The goal of “Greater Israel” only guarantees more pain and suffering for the Middle East.
It’s easy to blame Iran, but if Israel could keep itself within its 1967 borders they could have peace immediately. You can’t keep terrorising your neighbours and expect to have peace.
And let’s be aware that since October 7th, prior to the latest onslaught by Israel on Lebanon, 82% of the cross border fire was by Israel.
Without doubt, Zionism is the biggest threat to peace in the world today.

Addie Shog
Addie Shog
15 days ago
Reply to  James LS

Utter utter nonsense.
Israel accepted the 1947 map. Israel’s declaration specifically calls for peaceful co-existence between Jew and Arab. There was no mass expulsion. How do you explain the 20% non-Jewish population of Israel?
Israel accepted the June borders prior to the Six Day War.
Israel withdrew from huge tracts of land in Sinai in 1977.
Israel withdrew from Gaza in 2005 to give the Palestinians a chance to build a society. The Palestinians spectacularly failed to do so – instead turning the whole strip into an ammunition depot not with the aim of building a home for Palestinians but purely as a means with which to attack and ultimately destroy Israel.
There is no goal of ‘Greater Israel’ except amongst a fringe. none of the main parties have this as part of their platforms.

Oh, and please grow up and stop this ‘settler-colonialist’ claptrap 6th form claptrap.

Samir Iker
Samir Iker
15 days ago
Reply to  James LS

“ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian population”
Doesn’t seem to have worked, though.
The Jews, Hindus, Parsis, Sikhs and Armenians in neighbouring muslim countries do seem to have disappeared though.

“Israel’s expansionist plans ”
If it’s Arab neighbours stopped waving genocidal wars, and losing embarrassingly, Israel wouldn’t expand.

” if Israel could keep itself within its 1967 borders”
Remember Sinai? Egypt agreed to stop attacking, Israel have back all that land.

Gaza, Israel left in 2005, what happened then?

Mark Phillips
Mark Phillips
15 days ago
Reply to  James LS

Hogwash!

Brett H
Brett H
15 days ago
Reply to  James LS

from the beginning it was understood that the plan was going to involve ethnic cleansing
Can you link details about that claim re. ethnic cleansing?

Fraoch A
Fraoch A
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

Ilan Pappe’s book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine is a good place to start.

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago
Reply to  Fraoch A

I can see i’ve entered the quicksands of meaning. I had not realised just how the meaning of ethnic cleansing had been removed from genocide. Obviously ethnic cleansing is related to genocide but has more of a geographic meaning. However ethic cleansing is considered an attempt to create ethnic homogeneity. I don’t believe that is the case with Israel. Just who are they trying to destroy as an ethnic group?

George Venning
George Venning
15 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

You don’t have to look that hard Brett. Here is that hotbed of radicalism History Today
https://www.historytoday.com/archive/feature/herzls-troubled-dream-origins-zionism
Some quotes:
“Our thought is that the colonisation of Palestine has to go in two directions: Jewish settlement in Eretz Israel and the resettlement of the Arabs of Eretz Israel in areas outside the country.” Leo Motzkin
“This friction morphed into violence with particularly bloody incidents in 1921 and 1929. The Labour Zionist leader and head of the Yishuv David Ben-Gurion was not surprised that relations with the Palestinians were spiralling downward. As he once explained: ‘We, as a nation, want this country to be ours; the Arabs, as a nation, want this country to be theirs.’ His opponent, Ze’ev Jabotinsky, leader of the right-wing Revisionist movement, also viewed Palestinian hostility as natural. ‘The native populations, civilised or uncivilised, have always stubbornly resisted the colonists’, he wrote in 1923. The Arabs looked on Palestine as ‘any Sioux looked upon his prairie’.”
That reference to the Sioux is pretty telling is it not? We know what happened to the Sioux.

Brett H
Brett H
13 days ago
Reply to  George Venning

No mention of ethnic cleansing there.

George Venning
George Venning
11 days ago
Reply to  Brett H

A European population coming to a place inhabited by other people and taking control of that land by consciously disposessing the original inhabitants.
In your mind, what is ethnic cleansing exactly?

J. Hale
J. Hale
13 days ago
Reply to  George Venning

If the Jews had ethnically cleansed Israel, then why is 20% of the current population still Arab?

George Venning
George Venning
11 days ago
Reply to  J. Hale

You get that the territory now known as Israel was overwhelmingly arab prior to the foundation of Israel, don’t you? The fact that its is now only 20% arab, is testament to both the inward migration of Jewish people and the (often forcible) displacement of arabs.

Benson Carr
Benson Carr
15 days ago
Reply to  James LS

You make out like the plan was to get a country and ethnically cleanse it. Zionist conventions took place because of the repeated murderous persecution of Jews in basically every country they’ve existed in throughout the thousand years between 1000AD and modern times. Jewish people could not be guaranteed safety in any country they lived in. The push for statehood, in the context of a Europe aggressively building empires in the 1800s would obviously have engendered Jewish intellectuals to ponder on their own statehood in the same way the great empires were creating boundaries and countries in their wakes. Remember these people used the terms of their times. Your oversimplification helps no one. Israel’s cause is only not a noble one if you don’t believe Jewish people should feel safe in a country to feel at home. It’s a tired antisemitic trope that Jews have no right to home. If you believe that Jews have the right to a country of their own – irrespective of where that might be – then you sir, are a Zionist.

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
14 days ago
Reply to  James LS

JamesLS is demonstrating historical illiteracy that is well balanced by bigotry and lack of critical thinking

UnHerd Reader
UnHerd Reader
12 days ago
Reply to  James LS

Expansionist plans?? Lol. Israel takes up 0.2 % of land occupied by Arabs. Do you have at least one eyeball and a map?