It was a pleasant night in Beirut. The seaside cafes were full late into the night. The city has a habit of concealing its wounds and disappointments, to challenges death and the rubble, and to convince the visitor that bright days are ahead despite the challenges. We used to count the losses and gains and tried to fend off despair. However, the constant buzzing overhead hampered our attempts at forgetting the pain.
A wandering killer roams the skies. It never tires and never sleeps. It counts breaths and captures photos. It searches for its prey, corners it and then makes the call to kill it. The wandering killer flies over the killing fields in Gaza and the West Bank. It violates Lebanon and doesn’t forget to reap woes in Syria. It targets a camp in the West Bank and a car in southern Lebanon. Neither Gaza, Beirut, nor Damascus can stand against it.
When the opportunity for a major mass killing presents itself, the drone turns to the advanced fighter jets. Funerals ensue. Artificial intelligence is a formidable thing. It strengthens the ability of planes to kill and leave maps awash in blood. The planes are like militias: they don’t respect international law and borders.
I paused at two articles in our newspaper. The first said that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps’ (IRGC) Quds Force commander conveyed a clear message from the Iranian leadership to the Iraqi factions demanding that they “avoid all forms of provocations against the Americans and Israelis” to avoid the consequences. The second article reported Iraqi Foreign Minister Fuad Hussein as saying: “Iraq is not part of the ‘Axis of Resistance’ and does not agree to the unity of arenas. We believe in the Iraqi arena alone.”
I also noted the Palestinian Health Ministry’s announcement that 50,000 people have been killed in Gaza since the launch of the Al-Aqsa Flood Operation.
The retired general said he feared that the Israeli jets may have broken the “balance” in the region more so and more dangerously than the way it did during the 1967 war. He noted that Netanyahu’s planes have completely eliminated what remained of the arsenal of Bashar al-Assad's army. It destroyed all weapons and facilities as if to make sure that no power hostile to it could emerge in the years to come. The current Syrian authorities had no choice but to watch as the jets struck airports, facilities and barracks.
Perhaps the jets wanted to deliver a message that there can be no stability under President Ahmed al-Sharaa's rule in Syria if he doesn’t completely abandon the idea of ever waging a confrontation with Israel one day. He must agree to removing Syria out of the Arab-Israeli conflict even as the Golan Heights continue to be occupied by Israel. Israel went beyond that by demanding the establishment of a “safe zone” for itself deep into Syrian territory, even threatening to play the minority card in its favor.
The same planes had changed the scene in Syria. No one had imaged back then that when the Israeli jets were striking the positions or hideouts of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards generals in Syria, that the IRGC would rush to flee Syria years later. No one imagined that the jets would cause President Bashar al-Assad to flee and for al-Sharaa to appear from the palace where Hafez al-Assad and his son used to sit.
The planes carried out a complete coup in Syria. The “Axis of Resistance” lost the Syrian link in the chain that took Qassem Soleimani’s dreams all the way to the Mediterranean.
The jets excessively punished Hezbollah in Lebanon after the party launched its “support front” in solidarity with Gaza following Yehya al-Sinwar's Al-Aqsa Flood Operation. Hezbollah lost thousands of fighters and its most charismatic leader in its history, Hassan Nasrallah. It was an obvious coup. Gone is the “army, people, and resistance” equation from Nawaf Salam’s government statement and President Joseph Aoun was clear during his inauguration speech when he spoke about the state’s monopoly over weapons.
Despite the ceasefire in Lebanon, Israel is continuing its killings. Its aerial hegemony is not being threatened. Hezbollah clearly cannot return to the war given the new balance of power in the region.
The planes changed calculations and plans. Some of the Iraqi factions were tempted to pester Israel from afar the same way the Houthis are doing. So, Israel threatened to turn its planes on Baghdad. Tehran cannot prevent the Israeli jets from targeting its allies in Iraq. Iran itself could no longer carry on trading blows with Israel, while its nuclear facilities file is open at the American-Israeli table. Trump’s Middle East envoy declared just yesterday that Iran cannot be allowed to acquire a nuclear bomb. “It cannot happen, and it will not happen.”
Israeli planes are violating several maps. They kill, destroy and impose conditions. One has to turn to the American mediator for protection. A heavy price will be demanded, starting with quitting the “Axis of Resistance”. It is a harsh but clear reality. There can be no stability in Syria unless it leaves the conflict. There can be no reconstruction in Lebanon if Hezbollah does not abandon its weapons. The strikes on Yemen will stop when the Houthis stop attacking Red Sea shipping and Israel. There can be no leniency with Iran unless is abandons its dream of a nuclear bomb and the policy of proxies.
Israel is hostile in nature and its actions. But did we have the right to plunge our maps in bloody confrontations all the while neglecting the massive technological gap with Israel and America’s unwavering support for it?
The planes reminded me of timeless Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, who used to watch Israeli planes from his balcony as they pounded Beirut, which was then besieged by General Ariel Sharon’s forces. I recalled his poem, “That Is Her Picture and This Is the Lover's Suicide,” in which he repeatedly says, “planes, planes, planes” - a term that couldn’t be a more fitting title for this article.
