Let’s not demonize the truth-tellers. It is normal in times such as these to feel so desperate and frightened by the news that we distance ourselves from information that is too hard, too painful to hear. We seem to be going from horror to horror these days – one minute wringing our hands over the Israeli deliberate obstruction of aid to the starving and homeless people of Gaza, the next, reeling in astonishment at the fact that the largest empire in the history of the world will be “presided over” until late January, 2025, by a man with dementia, who is blindly sending billions of dollars in weapons to a genocidal rogue nation, and the next, learning of a new kind of warfare – injuring thousands of Lebanese innocents and killing many by detonating communication devices, followed by devastating aerial bombings – warfare being conducted, once again by Israel, to terrorize a population.
It is all surreal, and the deep threat posed by these realities gets covered over by media and politicians’ endless absorption in the next US election. And by whether or not you like the writing of Caitlin Johnstone. If you don’t like her writing, don’t read her. Focus on what matters.
What matters in my view is that in the last several months, two of the more moderate leaders in the informal alliance called the “axis of resistance” (Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and the Yemeni Houthis) – Ismail Haniyeh (Head of Hamas’ political wing) and Hassan Nasrallah (Lebanese Secretary-General of Hezbollah) – have both been assassinated by Israel. These are two men who saw the big picture and have shown over the years their willingness and ability to negotiate. Naturally most people don’t know that because attempts to negotiate and offers of peace agreements “from the enemy” don’t make mainstream news. They are rarely reported, unless you go to such independent outlets as Democracy Now!, Helena Cobban/Just World Ed., Canadians for Justice & Peace in the Middle East, Max Blumenthal & Aaron Mate/The Grey Zone, Jewish Voice for Peace, Mondoweiss, Jonathan Cook, and Progressives International, to name a few.
If the moderates are assassinated, it is not rocket science to expect that those more radical will take their place. What on earth is Israel thinking? That is anyone’s guess, but Mouin Rabbani, a Dutch-Palestinian political analyst who has dedicated his scholarly career to Middle East issues, considers that Israel is deliberately using provocation. By murdering Hassan Nasrallah September 27th, and taking hundreds of innocents out with him, it is seeking to engage the countries surrounding Israel in a military conflagration that will necessarily involve the US and “fundamentally transform the strategic equation in the Middle East.”
Rabbani says that Nasrallah was known as a strategic thinker, for playing the long game. That after 32 years in his leadership role, where he had deep personal bonds with his constituents, he may well be replaced by a younger generation focused on seeking revenge for its losses.
Israel wants to de-link Hezbollah from Gaza according to Rabbani, but Hezbollah is “not a small militia. Decades in the making, it is a very deeply entrenched and sophisticated organization…it would take years of much more intensive efforts to dismantle it,…[as it] has a very deep bench”. (Owen Jones interview with Rabbani, 28 September, 2024) Hezbollah has for years
been part of the Lebanese coalition government, is an integral part of Lebanese society, and currently has two government ministries.
Over the course of the last 11 months, we have heard of numerous incursions by Hezbollah into Israel and the displacement of thousands of Israelis from Northern Israel, but it was only a BBC investigation that recently reported that 80% of the armed military exchanges came from Israel against Hezbollah. And how often do we hear that hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have been displaced from Southern Lebanon at the hands of Israel? This is just another example of media bias and why it can be so confusing to unravel.
More on the late Ismail Haniyeh, former Head of Hamas’ political wing, coming soon.
As my dear mum would occasionally say: “I’ve heard both sides and I just don’t know who to blame”. Well, in this case as with the US proxy war in Ukraine, it does not need to be about blame; it’s about responsibility and accountability. Who is supplying the weapons? Who is fueling the fight from the sidelines? What is our role as Canadians? Who is demonizing one side and making diplomacy a non-starter? Most of all for me as an old person, what are we teaching our young ones when we consider this dangerous state of affairs our “new normal”? We all know that violence begets violence and we must not ever become inured to it. We have to take a strong stand for an end to the violence and a return to other ways of resolving conflict. It is easy to negotiate with people we identify and agree with. Much harder and absolutely necessary in these troubled times is the act of “having tea with our demons”. Our leaders have to sit down like grownups and talk about their differences with “the enemy”. This is big work and there are many capable people who can assist in such endeavours, including Antonio Guterres, Secretary-General of the United Nations, who is calling out to the world to recognize its double standards and abide by international law. So let’s not let ourselves become distracted by the blame game. Eyes wide open.
It worked, but I would not recommend this procedure at all. However, if you do, you will need to take a 12 or 16 gauge shotgun shell, insert a knife into the top portion between the folded edges, carefully bend the flaps back, empty out the pellets, then pry out the paper wad below with the same knife, then pour the gunpowder into the wound, and light. This procedure will cauterize the area and decrease the likelihood of infection. Oh, and don’t attempt this near an open jug of kerosene. I learned that the hard way.
