Echoes of '67

I wasn't born yet when our side lost Jerusalem to the Zionist state, when the newly minted king of the Hashemites and sovereign over Jerusalem failed to stop the Israelis from taking it. I mention Jerusalem because my mother was born there, so technically, mom and I can be counted among the subjects of his majesty King Abdullah II and his predecessor, under who's suzerainty Jerusalemites lived, loved and prayed a stone's throw away from Israeli forces who had always made it known they would capture the eastern part of the city sooner or later.

Crossing the Al Hussein Bridge into Jordan during the Naksa

 

Today, I hear echoes of the Arab failure of 1967 (Al Naksa) that gave Israel Gaza, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. I hear it in the defensiveness and denialism of many of my Lebanese compatriots when faced with a catastrophic failure by Hezbollah in preventing the cascade of misfortunes that befell them and their wider community this past week. Pagers exploding, walkie-talkies exploding, missiles reducing two seven story buildings to a mound of rubble in the middle of Beirut's southern suburbs, all preventable attacks had the Hezb been alert enough and paranoid enough and suspicious enough to weed out traitors and informants in their midst.

Every explosive no matter how small the quantity used leaves a chemical residue, there are devices that detect these traces, all the Hezb had to do was be more thorough in examining the pagers and more circumspect in choosing how to purchase them, perhaps conceal the real end user, use different middle men to secure the devices even if they cost more per unit. Security is in truth always an illusion, but it is a precious illusion that needs to be maintained to preserve the cohesion of the home front. Once that illusion is shattered, as it has been in Lebanon, its impossible to recover it.

I balk at those who act as cheerleaders to the party of god, who make excuses for their obvious lapses, who continue to spout patriotic nonsense while every Lebanese lives in fear of a major conflict that will engulf their country and see their deep national misery compounded by destitution and loss of loved ones. What will explode next, smart phones? Laptops? Baby bottles dare I say? We are a compromised country, a thoroughly penetrated country, fucked blue and left naked, wet and panting by the side of the road... what an image, no?! Not nice.

When Fouad Shukur was assassinated no one followed up the investigation Hezbollah conducted to find out how Israel knew where he was at what time in order to kill him with drone-fired missiles. Now again, a meeting of senior commanders of the Ridwan brigade with their top commander Ibrahim Aqeel in the heart of Dahyeh, also struck with missiles fired from drones. This is not a mere fluke, Israel clearly has good quality reliable intelligence on the movements of senior Hezbollah leaders and others, and is clearly able and willing to use this information to hunt them down one by one and kill them whatever the collateral damage.

As for those asking if this latest attack will lead to a wider regional war, I can tell you with 80% certainty that a war on Lebanon will be just that, a war on Lebanon, our country will be pounded and left to defend itself alone. Its so called allies or those allies of Hezbollah, chiefly Iran, will help Lebanon in the same way they are helping Gaza today... with a lot of show-off missile strikes of little real world impact, and with a lot of hot air! Brilliant, no!?

When in 1967 newly acquired modern Mig fighters were destroyed on the ground at Egyptian air bases by Israeli warplanes that sneakily struck from the West of the country by flying low over the sea to avoid detection then coming round to strafe and blow up almost 80% of Egypt's active military aircraft, it was the first move in a very short game of real world chess. Israel aimed to win in as short a time as possible and win territory it had long coveted. By destroying the most effective Arab air force on the ground it made sure that Arab ground forces would have no air cover whatsoever, which in turn secured a quick victory for Israel.

Israel plays to win, this time around the stakes for the average Israeli Zionist are greater than they have ever been, the very existence of the Zionist State is at stake as many of the country's leaders have said repeatedly. So, their fight, their game of real world chess this time is no game, its a struggle for survival and losing is not an option. Using questionable methods to say the least has never bothered this settler state and it doesn't much bother it today. Israel is in this war to win. In order to win against such a determined foe Hezbollah had to have planned as diligently and prepared for all contingencies and at the very least make their top secret meetings more secret.

Mom in fact asked me something today: "They have so many huge tunnels, why couldn't they hold their meetings there?" She seemed perplexed at how this obvious solution eluded the top minds of the party of god. I simply said: Dogmatic and doctrinaire organizations rarely do too well with out of the box thinking and are rarely creative or inventive enough to out think a vicious and determined enemy with a lot to lose.