Losing Lebanon

We suffer from an incurable disease: hope. – Darwish.

Ceasefire is (temporary) suspension of hostilities; an agreement made to effect this; a truce – Oxford English Dictionary.

The United States and Israel have perverted the dictionary. Words no longer mean what they say. How often do we hear the pundits say about statements by Trump or Netanyahu, it depends what they mean. Zionists mean to create a greater Israel … now Israel is openly trying to exploit sectarian differences inside Lebanon— north and south. There is a danger that powerful right-wing Christians will enter direct talks with Israel about surrendering the south and the Bekaa for a Little Lebanon, centred on Mount Lebanon and the coastal regions.

Israel is determined to destroy the south like it did Gaza. The Lebanese people know this well. They remember the civil war and Israeli occupation.

But tonight on the 5th June, in a far-off place — King George Square in Brisbane — Lebanese, Palestinians and their supporters came out to call for an end to the ‘other’ genocide ongoing in Lebanon.

The shadow hanging over the rally was Israel’s constant  bombardment of Lebanon, including Beirut and the Bekaa, despite a so-called ceasefire. People spoke of 8 April 2026, when Israeli warplanes bombed Beirut and other parts of the country, killing more than 300 people in what became one of the deadliest days Lebanon has seen in decades. Residential neighbourhoods are reduced to rubble, hospitals overwhelmed, and families displaced and living on the streets.

We heard from Phil Monsour, who gave an outline of terrible events unfolding. He spoke about Jabal (Mount) Amel hospital in Sour being bombed. This is a historic region of Southern Lebanon long associated with the country’s Shia population and was the subject of bombardment in the 1982 and the 2006 invasions by Israel. The bombardment on the 1st of June 2026 caused a great number of deaths and injuries to hospital staff. The blast damaged the intensive care unit, the radiology department operating areas and knocked out the power forcing the evacuation of patients. He stressed that Israel had occupied a thousand square kilometers of land in Lebanon and Syria since the latest so-called ceasefire in February 2026.

We heard from Elina, who drew strength from Malcolm X and from anarchists who are trying to build their own communities free from government control. Her message was one of resilience, self-organisation and resistance tinged with sadness. She told the story of her Lebanese father during a previous war commuting to work in Sydney and reading the Arabic press crying on the train both to and from work.

A Palestinian man, Omar Ashour, said that the Lebanese support the Palestinians. It was a sincere expression of solidarity and of the ties that continue to bind the struggles of the Lebanese and Palestinian peoples. Omar listed Israel’s wars against Lebanon.

• The 1978 invasion of Lebanon (often called Operation Litani), when Israeli forces invaded, occupied and destroyed parts of southern Lebanon.
• The 1982 war left an indelible scar on Lebanon. It brought the siege of Beirut, years of occupation, and the massacre at Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, where Palestinian refugees and Lebanese civilians were slaughtered by Phalange militia in a crime that remains etched in collective memory. The Butcher of Beirut, Ariel Sharon, later the Prime Minister of Israel, was the architect of this massacre. Israel attempted to assuage international outrage and its own sense of responsibility by establishing the Kahan Commission of Inquiry after the massacre. It was this invasion and murders that led to the formation of Hezbollah. Hezbollah was ably led by Hassan Nasrallah. He was a leader who stood above Lebanon’s sectarian divisions and sought to unite the country in the face of threats from Israel.
• The 2006 invasion of Lebanon by Israel, a July war, fought between Israel and Hezbollah over 34 days and causing extensive destruction in Lebanon. Following the 2006 war, Nasrallah helped build Hezbollah into a force feared by the IDF, one that secured peace in Lebanon after years of occupation.
• The 2024–2026 Israel’s genocidal attack on Gaza. At the beginning of the Gaza war, Hezbollah opened a northern front against Israel, forcing it to commit troops and resources to its northern border and thereby reducing its ability to concentrate all of its military power on Gaza and thus preventing Israel’s plan for a greater Israel.

At the end, we heard from Anne, whose grandmother is from a village in the Bekaa Valley. Anne told the story of her uncle and a group of agricultural workers who were packing fruit for market when Israeli warplanes bombed the packing shed, killing many of the agricultural workers.

Anne explained that southern Lebanon is one of the country’s major food-producing regions and warned that the war will contribute to a serious food crisis in the coming year. Anne described the destruction of Lebanon’s agricultural resources as ecocide. Anne said that two of Lebanon’s leading beekeepers were killed by the Israelis. Their murders will affect not only honey production but also the pollination of crops that depend upon bees for their survival and productivity.

“I’m 70 years old and can’t believe I still have to do this (standing up against occupation and war) while our leaders can’t find a way to stop the wars (Israel’s attacks and occupation of Lebanon).” – Anne Monsour, historian.

What a life to live with — to see this, to remember this, and still go on.

Anne described how Lebanese people have seen these terrors again and again for decades, yet they still get up in the morning and continue with their lives.

Meanwhile, in New York, Donald Trump says he wants to separate Lebanon from the wider negotiations involving Iran, Israel and the United States. Who can believe a word he says? The Americans have called for a ceasefire between Israel and the Lebanese government. The curious perversion of the dictionary here is that neither of those two sides have been firing at each other. The Americans excluded Hezbollah from the talks because they insist on Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon before talks can take place. Israel has never honored a cease fire with Lebanon.

“Ceasefire,” Anne said tonight, “is a lie.”

Anne said that: we need to change the dictionary. It says a ceasefire means stopping hostilities. But what are they doing? They are trying to destroy Lebanon.

And why has no one in Western government stood up to them? And provided the answer. It is because they themselves are Settler Colonial States just like Israel.

Little Lebanon

The idea of “Little Lebanon” (Petit Liban) emerged in the late Ottoman and French Mandate periods as a state centred on the predominantly Christian regions of Mount Lebanon and the coastal cities, politically and economically detached from the south, the Bekaa, and the broader hinterland. The concept is especially ironic today because Hezbollah is the only political and military force capable of defending the sovereignty of Greater Lebanon. Partition or fragmentation would represent a retreat from the vision of a united Lebanon and a surrender to Israel and its expansionist ambitions.

Such a vision of Lebanon represents both retreat and collaboration. It is a retreat from the idea of a united Lebanon and a collaboration with the project of a Greater Israel. The consequence would be the destruction of Hezbollah, a Lebanese movement that, in response to Israel’s massacres of 1982 became a political force within government. Hezbollah is a military force that brought peace to many villages across Lebanon by driving Israel out during the 2006 war and protecting borders from invasion by ISIS via Syria. During Israel’s genocide in Gaza, together with the Houthis in Yemen, Hezbollah has tried to uphold international law.

German economic historian, Gunder Frank said that wealthy “core” nations (like the US, France, Germany, and England ) intentionally underdevelop poorer “periphery” nations like Palestine,  Lebanon, and Syria (mandates of Palestine and Lebanon  in the 1930s and 40s under the Sykes Picot agreement).

One hundred years on, André Gunder Frank’s theory of the development of underdevelopment helps explain the predicament facing Lebanon today. The country’s wealth has been concentrated in the hands of a small elite who, as Lebanon descended into economic crisis during Israel’s wars, transferred their assets abroad, leaving ordinary people to bear the consequences of financial collapse. The rich deserted Lebanon with their money causing the collapse of the central bank. Meanwhile, the majority of Lebanese were left to contend with a collapsing currency, shrinking incomes, and the erosion of public services. Lebanon’s experience illustrates how wealth can be extracted from a country and concentrated elsewhere, leaving the nation weaker, more dependent, and less able to pursue its own development.

To overcome this situation, we must challenge and defeat the political classes in the United States and Israel that have actively supported and enabled genocide, as well as those political forces within Lebanon that accept fragmentation and dependency in place of sovereignty and national unity. The struggle is not only against economic underdevelopment, but against the political structures that sustain it. Losing Lebanon is not an option.

Ian Curr, 8 June 2026