Despite announcement of a ceasefire, Israeli bombing killed 47 people in Lebanon (Photo: Guy Smallman)
The US forced Israel to agree to a ceasefire with Lebanese resistance group Hezbollah on Monday.
Donald Trump fears that Israel’s war in Lebanon will derail negotiations with Iran over the coming 60-days.
But Israeli strikes killed at least 47 people on Sunday night—and Israeli politicians want to grab southern Lebanon.
“For every tear of an Israeli mother, a thousand Lebanese mothers must weep. All of Lebanon must burn!” Israeli security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir said last Friday.
He added that Israel “must not withdraw from any territory that our fighters have captured” and claimed that “Israel is not
subordinate to the US.”
Iran and the US announced a “memorandum of understanding” last week that was meant to end fighting in Lebanon. And a US official announced last Friday that Israel and Lebanese resistance Hezbollah had also agreed to a ceasefire.
In Beirut, Lebanese socialist Ghassan told Socialist Worker that the peace talks have changed nothing in Lebanon. Israeli occupying forces have pushed further north within Lebanon since the start of the war and are refusing to leave.
“Israel is still insisting on maintaining its position,” said Ghassan. “It wants to keep a piece of south Lebanon.
“It seems the US is in support of that. There is some give and take from the Europeans, but it is something the US is behind.
“The Israelis have always wanted to control Lebanon and Hezbollah is keeping them from that. Their strategy is to hurt the Lebanese people as much as possible so they revolt against Hezbollah, but that is not happening.”
Ghassan explained that the armed resistance is holding Israel back though. And Hezbollah has steadfastly resisted pressure from the Lebanese state to disarm.
“Opposition to the government is growing also,” he said. This goes beyond the base of support for Hezbollah. “No-one really trusts them or thinks they can do a good job in the negotiations.”
People are raising issues of environmental and social justice. Ghassan explained that the state has given new licenses for rock quarries for cement production “that were eating up the mountains”.
And there is widespread anger that the state wants to go ahead with national exams in schools, even though schools have been destroyed by bombing. People in the bombed areas and beyond are saying the state can’t do that.
Trump and vice president JD Vance have reminded Israel’s leaders that their country is armed and politically supported by the West. Vance told the Israelis that Trump is “the only head of state in the entire world who is sympathetic to the nation of Israel at this moment in time”.
Israel is the West’s watchdog in the Middle East. Yet it is a watchdog that is straining at the leash. It is increasingly able to assert its own interests in the region, whether it means sending ground troops into Lebanon, genocide in Gaza or backing illegal settlements and driving people from their homes in the West Bank.
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