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 Lebanon" has become extremely difficult to defend. In fact, "Lebanon," with all its weaknesses and vulnerabilities, can do more to "protect the party" than the party can to "protect" Lebanon.
Acknowledging reality and not giving in to conceited denial is not defeatist propaganda, nor is it tantamount to siding with Israel. Rather, it reflects a desire to set a limit for defeat and bring the killing and death to a halt at the point they have now reached. Everything that is happening dictates that we do so and urges us to take any remaining political opportunity to end this tragedy that has gone on for long enough.
There are no miracles on the horizon, and there are balances of power that we may not like but must accept, just as we must recognize that no one will descend from the heavens to change them. The fact is that Israel is behaving like a raging beast. No considerations restrain it from committing massacres, and all assessments point to a major escalation on the Lebanese-Israeli front. Meanwhile, it has become abundantly clear that military retaliation cannot prevent this. Political and diplomatic pressure cannot prevent it either, neither in Gaza nor in Lebanon, which has lost all its leverage in this regard. Those who continue to spur Hezbollah and Hamas on, and to condemn any call to end the fighting, are only causing more bloodshed, creating more victims, and going further along the path that has brought us to where we are today.
“Schadenfreude" has occupied a significant position in the network of emotions that the ongoing dark days have given rise to. Schadenfreude is undoubtedly a sick sentiment, especially when it involves relishing in the suffering of civilians who happened to be near this or that blast. However, aren’t we all sick as a result of chronic rampant hatred and enmity among "brothers"- a state of affairs that has been severely exacerbated by a war that has done nothing to support Gaza but has fractured Lebanon? Is it possible for anyone but angels, who are few and far between, and imposters, who are many, to heed calls for solidarity with Hezbollah, turning a blind eye to the fact that it had dragged them into such a war against their will- and not for the first time- although they have always opposed and stood against its wars, which they see as the biggest obstacle to establishing their state and reforming their politics and society. And this happened against the backdrop of a long history of violence and assassinations that targeted many in Lebanon and Syria, not to mention Hezbollah’s defamation, accusations of treason, and other actions of that sort.
Today, at a time when making any sort of reassessment or acknowledgment is taboo, what could be said to those who oppose a war that they see as an Iranian-Israeli conflict, when they know that the Iranian ambassador in Beirut carries the same pager as the military cadres of Hezbollah? Are "patriotic and honorable" Lebanese citizens expected to show enthusiasm for their death in an Iranian-Israeli war? What could be said to the families of the victims that fell between the 14th February, 2005, and the Beirut port blast and its aftermath, in explosions whose investigations were deliberately obstructed, after the leader of Hezbollah announced that the investigation into who had been responsible for the victims of the communications devices attacks are about to draw to a close? What could be said to Syrians who read the biography of a Hezbollah military leader and discover that he drank the blood of their compatriots? Is the slogan of standing "against the Zionist enemy" enough to overcome all these rifts, as though it were imbued with a magical spark that mesmerizes entire peoples?
Despite everything in the past and present, however, the zeal of the defamation and treason accusations continues to compete with the zeal of weapons. That is because what is required is saying precisely what the war machine and its followers say. If the escalation continues to snowball, we will have no choice but to bid farewell to reason altogether, declaring, for example, that we are being defeated because of how emphatic our victories have been, or that we are retreating because of how far we have come! Only by doing so can we be "honorable patriots"!
It is very likely that this push to erode reason is meant to crown all the previous erosions that changed both our private and public existence. It stems from a tradition with a rich history- one that can be called inverting the apocalypse. According to the Nasserite narrative, for instance, we were defeated in June 1967 amid an explosion of achievements and gains that only traitors were skeptical of. After Syria put the singular genius embodied by Hafez al-Assad’s intelligence on display, Syria itself disintegrated and collapsed...
However, regardless of how this crushing disaster wrapped in pyrrhic victories ends, one thing remains: it may have seemed that the Lebanese were likely to become a nation, but this war has undoubtedly killed any remaining hope that this could happen. Unfortunately, it is now likely that they never will after this war.
