Hazem Saghieh

Hazem Saghieh

On Lebanon's Dark Days, "Schadenfreude," And Other Matters

Today, voices in Lebanon that had been more fearful and reticent in the past are being raised to demand that Hezbollah stop waging this war that leaves civilians vulnerable to gratuitous death. This comes after all of this war’s pretexts collapsed and the theory that "the party is protecting…

Palestinian Rights and the Lives and Deaths of Leaders!

Last Saturday, the British daily "The Guardian" published a piece about "Israel's prime target." The question its Jerusalem correspondent Julian Borger poses is one that has been asked by many in a variety of countries: would killing Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar end the war in the Gaza Strip? Such a…

Lebanon, Jordan and Syria: Reform or Annihilation?

The Arab Levant presents three models for addressing Israel’s war on the Gaza Strip. There is the Lebanese model, which has entailed direct engagement since the day after the war began and rejecting any political solution to end it. However, this engagement has not had a tangible impact on Israel…

On These Religious Settlers!

Not all settlers in the West Bank and East Jerusalem are believers. Some are motivated by practical considerations; among them are those seeking low rents, nature enthusiasts, those trying to escape the burdens of the world, and those pursuing what they consider an optimal environment for raising…

On ‘Names’ and Competently Confronting Israel

We often encounter two parties that have hostile relations or are at war, both calling their opponent by their name. Many, for example, saw the Soviet Union as a cloak that Russia hid behind and the Ottoman Empire as a cover for Türkiye, and they believed that these states enslaved entire peoples…

The Dustbin of History or the Dustbins of Reality?

In familiar debates that accompany major events, as is the case with the Gaza War, some increasingly use "history" against those who do not share their opinion. The latter are presented as not standing "on the right side of history," and, borrowing the phrase that Leon Trotsky used to refer to his…

Afghanistan: More Than a War on Women’s Voice  

When someone is described as "having his voice heard," it means he is influential or powerful. The voice is a tool of power and empowerment, and because it is so, those who object or make demands "raise their voices." If their demands are not met, they raise their voices even higher, eventually…

The Three Wars and The Alternative Consciousness

Sometimes, we are seized by a moralistic tendency to generate an ideal version of reality in which good unites with good to confront evil which, in turn, also unites with evil. On both sides, what is smaller and belongs to lower rank lines up behind what is larger and of a higher rank. However,…

On the Current Moment of Painful Anticipation

The Lebanese grew weary of waiting for the "major retaliation" that Iran and Hezbollah have threatened. But it seems that this boredom didn't last long, as they soon began awaiting a strike the Israelis had claimed they would carry out. That, at least, is what the statements of their rabid…

We See the Zeitgeist Languishing in a Tunnel!

The remark that Hegel made when he saw Napoleon on horseback in the German city of Jena in 1806 would become very famous. To the German philosopher, the French emperor looked like a conqueror bringing the zeitgeist (spirit of the age), as it was unleashed by the French Revolution, to Germany. Thus,…