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My friend is an impeccably educated, beautiful woman from one of the wealthiest families in Lebanon. Now retired in her 60s, she lost her wealth in the banking and currency collapse and each day queues alongside fellow Lebanese at the bank for a meager sum that hardly buys food, let alone necessary medicines. Poverty and starvation have become unifying forces in today’s Lebanon.
Following Israel’s detonation of pagers and walkie-talkies last week and the latest escalations, my friend related to me how terrified of each other Lebanese have become. One man in the bank queue caused panic for carrying a first-generation Nokia phone. People urged him to throw it away, but he repeatedly refused, resulting in chaos as those present began screaming at him and beating him, before he was unceremoniously thrown out onto the street along with his phone. Later that day, Israeli planes strafed Beirut and my friend was reduced to cowering under her bed, fearing that long-anticipated war was commencing.
Daily survival in Lebanon is an ordeal of trauma, poverty, humiliation and fear. As pagers exploded, people did not know what could be next; they began throwing away mobile phones, removing babies from incubators, fearing to use computers and avoiding public places, with obvious concerns about what devices were safe to carry on aircraft and public transport. Although a high proportion of victims were Hezbollah members, many who lost hands and eyes were innocent bystanders or family members. The attack’s indiscriminate nature added new levels of horror to this unpredictable, grinding conflict.
With the latest escalations and assassination of prominent commanders, Israel seeks to goad Hezbollah into a war
Baria Alamuddin
Hassan Nasrallah was correct in asserting that the war has turned northern Israel into a no-go zone, but likewise for southern Lebanon. Even if Israel were to follow up on threats to reoccupy Lebanon up to the Litani river, such a cordon would hardly be an obstacle for medium-range Hezbollah munitions and such an occupation would be championed as a cause celebre for Hezbollah’s “resistance” pretentions.
With the latest escalations and assassination of prominent commanders, Israel seeks to goad Hezbollah into a war, which the former would inevitably win through unlimited Western support. But along with the utter destruction of Lebanon, there would be immense costs for Israel.
Already, a year of war has had a hugely damaging impact for Israel. As well as almost the entire population of the north and south being evacuated, economic activity has been harmed by the widespread call-up of reservists and prices have soared. An estimated 60,000 Israeli businesses will shut in 2024, with large numbers of other small enterprises struggling. Spooked by the chronically uncertain security situation, thousands of families have simply emigrated — mimicking a similar brain drain witnessed in Lebanon in recent years due to economic collapse. The result in both states has been a deterioration in the numbers of skilled essential professionals — doctors, teachers, bureaucrats, entrepreneurs. Yet commanders on both side hint that the real war has not yet begun.
Every conflict in modern history — no matter how destructive or decisive — inevitably concludes with negotiations and peacemaking. Hence, the looming regional war would cost tens of thousands of lives and cause hundreds of billions of dollars-worth of destruction, only for all sides to ultimately be compelled to withdraw to their positions prior to the conflict, with nothing to show for the carnage other than grieving widows, maimed orphans and lost futures.
The Ukraine conflict grinds away with comparable futility, with hundreds of thousands of lives on both sides squandered over a few kilometers of territory. Sudan is, meanwhile, being ripped apart by two power-hungry generals, both with scant prospect of winning outright, while unleashing ruinous mayhem and genocide. Through sub-Saharan Africa to Asia, via the Middle East, the planet is wracked by conflict-ridden disintegrating states, causing the number of forcibly displaced people to unprecedentedly soar to 120 million. The vacuous platitudes of countless official statements emanating from global capitals are rendered farcical by the perfect storm of crises the world faces.
Our world lacks guardrails because conflict-resolution bodies like the UN Security Council have been paralyzed by superpower rivalries, while developed nations have retreated from historic peacekeeping roles. When there are no consequences for invading and annihilating a weaker neighbor, we should expect this to be favored as normalized diplomatic practice in a planet bristling with nuclear weapons, while artificial intelligence offers hitherto undreamed-of war-making methods.
The vacuous platitudes of countless official statements are rendered farcical by the perfect storm of crises the world faces
Baria Alamuddin
My friend in Beirut described a sense of numbness and loss of empathy as every day brought with it exhaustively horrendous news — locally and in the world at large: hastily arranged back-to-back funerals, an entire generation of Gaza orphans, new depths of inhuman cruelty.
The land of Palestine is miniscule: Palestinian, Israeli and Lebanese populations live mere kilometers away from one another. Muslim, Christian and Jewish holy sites and residential areas in Jerusalem are practically built on top of each other. If they can peacefully pray that closely alongside each other, why can they not resolve to live together in peace? One side cannot annihilate the other without bringing unimaginable suffering and trauma upon its own citizens.
With the world’s two biggest superpowers, America and China, locked in an arms race, nations are sharply reducing living standards in order to spend greater proportions of their gross domestic product on innovative ways of killing one another.
All wars are futile. The universal lesson from all this misery is simple: If we do not want our neighbors to harbor fantasies of destroying us, then we must find ways of peacefully coexisting with our neighbors. If we want states and leaders to act with morality and justice, there must be vigorously imposed international laws and norms, protecting human rights and outlawing aggression.
Aside from a tiny political warlord class whose egos, reputations and fortunes are staked upon perpetual war-making and saber-rattling, 99.99 percent of humanity desires to flourish in peace and safety, coexisting with their neighbors. For the sake of our offspring, let us make better choices in selecting wise, just and humanitarian leaders.
- Baria Alamuddin is an award-winning journalist and broadcaster in the Middle East and the UK. She is editor of the Media Services Syndicate and has interviewed numerous heads of state.