Today’s column will host a few excerpts of texts by individuals from southern Lebanon; there is no space for a larger number of them, but the few examples presented here are powerful. Their authors have lost loved ones, property, and homes. In these excerpts (copied from Facebook posts) and others like them, they have tried to recount chapters of the real story, disregarding the narratives imposed by force of arms to share aspects of their pain and ours.
The prominent historian and intellectual Ahmed Beydoun, who hails from Bint Jbeil, wrote about “occupation”: “With our blood we purchased this occupation. We knew we would get to it, that this was inevitable. We would get to it if this meant breaking ourselves in two. We had lost it for a long time, and now we have reclaimed it. Again and again, we pointed our middle and index fingers at it:
“Come back; don’t get used to life away from us. Come back and displace us once more. From these homes we had built again. Or displace the homes themselves, from their images and from ours!
“Displace their limbs piled on top of ours!..
“Yes, we did! We got it again: this horror that was lusted for. It contracted and expanded greatly, and we relentlessly insisted. And so, we attained it with boundless pride. It is the monster we have taken up as the reason for our existence, and that we have shared our bed with. It tightened its grip on our throats and choked us with gratitude.
“We said: We will defeat it eventually. Or our children will defeat it. We say: that is what we say to the future. And we say: It is now what we say to the past as well... With lives, land, and buildings, we have now bartered with occupation,
“For our children, we leave behind the glories we remember and glories we had spun up...
“Over a quarter century or more, half a century or more, or a century or slightly more, we never tired of hosting death at the heart of our homes and squares, clamoring for its return when it would stay away for too long...
“For our children, we leave glory and ruins- ruins of homes, ruins of lives, flourishing cemeteries for idle days, and pavements that begrudgingly shelter them...”
The writer and journalist Rami al-Amin narrated the tragedy faithfully: “October 8, 2023: the ‘support war’ for Gaza. Months of skirmishes between Hezbollah and Israel along the border. The party took the initiative and launched the war the day after October 7, less than 24 hours later. No one was consulted, and the residents of the South were not informed before the front was opened. Zero responsibility and zero regard for people and their lives.
“The American Envoy Amos Hochstein made repeated visits to propose a ceasefire. All of them were rejected by the party.
“Things escalated. Israel launched painful strikes: the pager attack, the killing of the Radwan command, and then the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah. It entered and occupied five positions in the South. The party eventually accepted a ceasefire and agreed again to the implementation of UN Resolution 1701. Neither Israel nor Hezbollah fully complied. The state had been lying to the Americans and the international community about the disarmament of the party south of the Litani.
“The result was five occupied positions and Hezbollah’s militants becoming totally exposed to Israeli assassinations for 15 months. The party was preparing for another round, this time on Iran’s time.
“After the assassination of Ali Khamenei, the party launched another round of conflict, ‘to improve our negotiating position,’ it said. The time for words was over, Hezbollah insisted; it was the battlefield that would speak.
“Nearly two months later, the battlefield says that Israel has advanced in the South and is now preparing to occupy 15 permanent positions along the border. It reached Bint Jbeil. From five occupied points to fifteen. From total destruction in front-line villages to devastation expanded to second and third lines.
“Estimated at $11 billion in 2024, reconstruction costs have risen significantly. The hundreds of dead and wounded to thousands today will become tens of thousands tomorrow if the massacre continues.
“No one disputes the brutality of Netanyahu and his government. Gaza is before our eyes, and we saw how the world reacted and how things went (...) Negotiating with fire against Netanyahu’s Israel is not the same as in 2006 under Ehud Olmert.
“The Iran of 2006 is not Iran today. The Syria of 2006 is not the Syria of today. Hezbollah’s 2006 alliances then are not what they are now. Yet, many continue to read from the same old script.
“Netanyahu wants the battlefield to speak and negotiate. The outcome of these talks is not difficult to predict. Context- how this began and how it evolved - is essential to understanding the current situation. To ignore it and focus only on the present moment alone is to delude yourself.
“And of course, any debate of context, facts, and outcomes is shunned by the hotheads and the merchants of victory on Facebook and elsewhere; like this post, it will be labeled treason.”
In turn, the engineer Nizar Murtada pointed to some of the reasons behind Hezbollah’s conception of ‘’politics’’: “Refusal to negotiate is not always the patriotic position. Sometimes it reflects a refusal to recognize Lebanon as a state but a weak entity that can be exploited to serve narrow projects and private interests.
“Lebanon is not even part of their calculus in the first place. To them, it is nothing more than a battleground. It is not a country but a subordinate entity that is used when needed and violated when necessary, a minor detail in a daily or monthly ledger of gain.”
Criticism, reflection, and pain will have to grow louder.
