[News] Israel lobby group deletes call to blackmail Lebanon using aid

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israel-lobby-group-deletes-call-blackmail-lebanon-using-aid
Israel
lobby group deletes call to blackmail Lebanon using aid

Ali Abunimah <https://electronicintifada.net/people/ali-abunimah> - 10
August 2020
------------------------------
[image: Boy stands in front of landscape of destroyed buildings]

A boy looks out over Beirut port, 9 August. Huge explosions at a warehouse
of ammonium nitrate on 4 August killed more than 200 people, injured
thousands and caused widespread damage to the Lebanese capital.
Xinhua

On Sunday, various governments pledged
<https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2020-08-09/beirut-explosion-bares-pitfalls-of-sending-aid-to-lebanon>
almost $300 million in aid to Lebanon, following last week’s
catastrophic explosion
at Beirut’s port <https://electronicintifada.net/tags/beirut-blast-2020>.

The death toll has risen to more than 200 people.

As leaders gathered for the virtual pledging conference organized by
France, one powerful Israel lobby group made clear its agenda.

“International donors are assembling an aid package for Lebanon. Assistance
must be conditioned on the long-promised, long-avoided disarmament of
Hizballah,” the American Jewish Committee tweeted.

“Unless the malignant role of Iran’s terror proxy is addressed, there will
never be meaningful change for the people of Lebanon.”

I made a point of commenting on the tweet on Sunday.

But by Monday morning, the AJC had deleted its tweet:

Why?

After all, using the basic health and humanitarian needs of civilians as a
weapon against them
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-tacitly-admits-punishing-blameless-civilians>
in violation of international law is a well-established Israeli policy, no
more so than in Gaza
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/maureen-clare-murphy/israel-responsible-palestinians-right-health>
.
Israel humiliated

Just as Israel hopes that depriving Palestinians in Gaza of their basic
needs and rights will induce them to surrender, the same calculus
undoubtedly applies in Israel’s approach to Lebanon.

Hizballah, it should be recalled, was founded in the early 1980s as a
response to Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon and the siege of
its capital.

A formidable resistance force, Hizballah expelled Israeli occupation forces
and their collaborator militia from Lebanon in 2000 and humiliated Israel
again when it invaded Lebanon in 2006.

Israeli forces, unable
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium.MAGAZINE-israels-second-lebanon-war-remains-a-resounding-failure-1.5407519>
to effectively counter Hizballah’s well-trained fighters, resorted instead
to indiscriminate bombing of civilians
<https://www.hrw.org/report/2007/09/05/why-they-died/civilian-casualties-lebanon-during-2006-war#>
.

That strategy hasn’t changed. On 6 August, *The Jerusalem Post’s*
editor-in-chief Yaakov Katz outlined
<https://www.jpost.com/opinion/with-hezbollah-in-charge-the-destruction-of-beirut-was-matter-of-time-637780>
what Israel would do if another full-scale war broke out: “This would mean
bombing the airport, the soccer fields, the port, private homes, office
buildings, schools and more.”

In an even more chilling sentence, Katz added that “the constraints we
usually see in Gaza operations would have to be lifted.” Given Israel’s
repeated mass destruction in Gaza, it’s difficult to know what
“constraints” he is referring to.
Targeting Hizballah

Israel knows that while it can inflict untold suffering, it would pay a
very heavy price for such an attack – precisely because of Hizballah’s
deterrent capability.

So Israel
<https://www.jpost.com/international/germany-bans-hezbollah-conducts-police-raids-on-possible-members-626364>,
through its lobby, has been trying to achieve politically what it cannot do
on the battlefield: defeat Hizballah.

Given the large number of attacks Israel has launched against Lebanon since
the 1950s – including repeated
<https://www.britishpathe.com/video/VLVACORZ16NKA4KTBVWZZS0REABHR-LEBANON-ISRAEL-ATTACKS-BEIRUT-AIRPORT/query/Beirut>
attacks
<https://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/13/world/middleeast/13cnd-mideast.html> on
Beirut airport and the many car bombs
<https://mondoweiss.net/2018/05/remarkable-disappearing-terrorism/> for
which it was responsible since the 1970s – it is not surprising that many
in the region and in Lebanon suspect Israel had a hand in last week’s
catastrophe.

But even if Israel did not have any role in detonating the huge stock of
ammonium nitrate warehoused at Beirut port, the explosion presents an
opportunity that Israel and its allies are eager not to waste.

“The question for Israel now is can this unfortunate disaster be used to
change the balance of power in Lebanon, and encourage/inspire the Lebanese
people to turn against Hizballah and remove it from power,” *The Jerusalem
Post’s* Katz observed.

The first stage, apparently, is a campaign of baseless rumors and outright
lies that Hizballah was responsible for the port explosion.

This tweet, for instance, came from a propaganda organization linked
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-destroyer-lebanon-poses-its-savior>
to Israel’s strategic affairs ministry:

There is absolutely no evidence for its claim that “the explosion stemmed
from a storehouse of Hizballah munitions.”

Israeli and pro-Israeli social media accounts have continued to spread
similar propaganda:
Outlawing support for resistance

To be sure, Israel has allies within Lebanon
<https://twitter.com/emile_hokayem/status/1292443454396653569> and in the
region: Saudi Arabia
<https://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/gulf/2020/08/09/Hezbollah-s-continued-destructive-hegemony-raises-concerns-for-all-Saudi-FM.html>
and the United Arab Emirates
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/emirati-ambassador-pens-love-letter-israel>
are both firmly on Israel’s side.

And European states – under Israeli and American pressure
<https://thegrayzone.com/2020/05/13/banning-hezbollah-germany-israeli-pressure/>
– are edging towards making it illegal to even support the notion that
Lebanese people have a right to resist invasion and occupation by Israel.

When Germany recently outlawed what it claims is Hizballah activity on its
territory, its interior ministry justified this by asserting
<https://www.dw.com/en/german-government-bans-hezbollah-interior-ministry/a-53287126>
that the group opposes “the concept of international understanding.”

Hizballah “openly calls for the violent elimination of the State of Israel
and questions the right of the State of Israel to exist,” the ministry said.

In other words, disagreeing that Israel has a “right” to invade and occupy
your country is now a thought crime in Germany.

Israel’s campaign to push for more political persecution of those who
question its “right” to invade, occupy, colonize and kill as it pleases
will continue.

And there is no doubt that European countries, especially France, will be
partners in the effort to re-colonize Lebanon.

So why then did the American Jewish Committee delete its tweet?

According to a tweet it put out Monday, AJC claimed that the deleted tweet
had not met the Israel lobby group’s “standard of nuance.”

It is more likely however that the tweet was simply too harshly honest
about Israel’s agenda.

It was not in tune with the current propaganda message
<https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/tamara-nassar/israel-destroyer-lebanon-poses-its-savior>
that Israel – which has killed and injured tens of thousands of people
during its repeated efforts to destroy Lebanon – now only wants to help.
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