{"id":35029,"date":"2024-09-23T04:13:28","date_gmt":"2024-09-22T20:13:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/?p=35029"},"modified":"2024-09-26T08:31:17","modified_gmt":"2024-09-26T00:31:17","slug":"what-does-putin-have-to-do-with-israels-attacks-on-lebanon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/what-does-putin-have-to-do-with-israels-attacks-on-lebanon\/","title":{"rendered":"What does Putin have to do with Israel\u2019s attacks on Lebanon? | Tarik Cyril Amar"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/h2>\n

How long will it be before China and Russia learn how to blow up their foes\u2019 gadgets, asks one pundit, exposing the West\u2019s collective delusion<\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

On September 17, Israel launched one of the largest and cruelest terrorist attacks in modern history. For Lebanon and Syria, the victim countries, 9\/17 will now have a meaning akin to that of 9\/11 in the US. That date will be remembered for a very long time, and beyond those two states, as the start of two waves of explosions, mostly affecting pagers on the first day and walkie-talkies<\/span><\/a> the following day. There have been reports of other everyday objects, such as laptops and tablets<\/span><\/a> as well as solar energy systems<\/span><\/a> blowing up as well.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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\nWhile some details are still murky, we already know that the attacks were devastating: According to an Amnesty International summary from September 20<\/span><\/a>, more than 2,931 victims were injured and at least 37 were killed. Amnesty International tends to be cautious and conservative with its figures, and it is still too early for a full assessment of casualties and damage. It is certain that the final count will be worse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Events are moving fast. The onslaught seems to have served to either provoke or start a larger war; UN General Secretary Ant\u00f3nio Guterres quickly \u2013 and plausibly \u2013 suspected<\/span><\/a> that 9\/17 was meant as a preventive strike and prelude to a larger escalation. It has been followed by more and increasingly brutal bombings and massacres, in the manner that we know so well from the rogue state Israel. For now, it is already clear that after a horrific scene of mass terror in shops, streets, and homes, many of the victims of 9\/17 have been injured severely, often leaving them with \u201clife-changing injuries<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

An ophthalmologist at Mount Lebanon University Hospital in Beirut told us 60 to 70 percent of his patients \u201chad to have at least one eye removed. [For] some of the patients, we had to remove both eyes. It kills me. In my past 25 years of practice, I\u2019ve never removed as many eyes.\u201d
\n<\/span>
\nEverything is explosive: Israel and Lebanon are on the brink of war<\/span><\/p>\n

Israel, the perpetrator regime, has done what it always does, namely release a barrage of lies. The first step, as so often, has been to boast of its crime without, however, officially admitting it. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, a chief genocidaire in the Gaza slaughter, has spoken of a \u201cnew era\u201d of war with Lebanon and extolled the \u201cexcellent achievements\u201d of the Israeli intelligence services. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink. Get it, get it? By the way, that is a technique that Western propagandists just love to ascribe to Russia. Yet it\u2019s as Israeli as (stolen) shakshuka and (authentically Zionist) ethnic cleansing. But that\u2019s okay in the West. Because \u2013 Israel.<\/span><\/p>\n

Israeli politicians, propagandists, and many cut-outs and useful idiots in the West claim that this was a legitimate intelligence operation to strike at Hezbollah, the resistance organization and political party based in Lebanon with which Israel is, in effect, at war. In reality, things are as clear as can be: Using civilian devices in this manner is a war crime.<\/span><\/p>\n

An ophthalmologist at Mount Lebanon University Hospital in Beirut told us 60 to 70 percent of his patients \u201chad to have at least one eye removed. [For] some of the patients, we had to remove both eyes. It kills me. In my past 25 years of practice, I\u2019ve never removed as many eyes.\u201d<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Legally, two points are decisive as well as incontrovertible: First, Hezbollah is both a military and a civilian organization. Under International Humanitarian Law (IHL), which applies here without a doubt, only those Hezbollah members serving in a military capacity are combatants. All others are and remain civilians, who have and retain a right to protection<\/span><\/a> \u2013 obviously also during armed conflict because (duh\u2026) armed conflict is what IHL is all about. Amnesty International has found evidence that the exploding devices of 9\/17 had indeed been distributed to members of Hezbollah\u2019s civilian offices, too, as was perfectly expectable for the Israeli perpetrators.<\/span><\/p>\n

Second, 9\/17 was, in any case, fundamentally criminal because, as Amnesty International has explained, it was \u201cindiscriminate [\u2026] according to\u201d IHL as \u201cthose who planned and carried out these attacks could not verify who would be harmed when the devices exploded, or even if only fighters had been given them.\u201d Indeed, booby-traps spread throughout a civilian population \u2013 yes, even while perhaps in immediate possession of a Hezbollah member \u2013 are \u201cinherently indiscriminate<\/span><\/a>,\u201d as one expert has put it. That is also why booby-trapping things that are generally associated with civilian use \u2013 such as pagers, which are not, obviously, tanks or trenches \u2013 is explicitly forbidden by the 1996 Protocol on Prohibitions or Restrictions on the Use of Mines, Booby-Traps, and Other Devices, a United Nations treaty.<\/span>
\nThe US has allowed Israel\u2019s attack on Lebanon, and now war may follow<\/span><\/p>\n

Against this background, Western Israel apologists have bent over backwards to spin 9\/17. Indeed, this time they are doing overtime, not only downplaying and justifying brazen Israeli criminality as usual but also celebrating it as exemplary and clever (Ironically, dwelling on the stereotypical \u201ccleverness\u201d of Jews is a classic anti-Semitic prejudice, but let\u2019s not dwell on that.) The Wall Street Journal editorial board has framed 9\/17 as an example of Israel\u2019s \u201cremarkable<\/span><\/a>\u201d abilities. As if being bankrolled and protected by the US is a skill set. For the reliably warmongering British outlet The Telegraph, the attack was \u201caudacious<\/span><\/a>.\u201d Interesting: how? Did the perpetrators show their face for an open fight? The Bild, a powerful, ultra-Zionist German yellow press outlet from the right-wing Springer group, admired the \u201calmost movie-like spy thriller<\/span><\/a>\u201d behind the operation, that is, the criminal infiltration of civilian supply chains to plant explosives.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you think that such comments are ever appropriate for a terror attack, try using them for the 9\/11 assault on the US in 2001 instead of the 9\/17 one on Lebanon and Syria now. See? Not funny, right?<\/span><\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the more sophisticated and yet still completely misguided take. Writing for the Daily Mail, Mark Almond<\/span><\/a>, not a stupid man, also felt he had to acknowledge how \u201cspectacular\u201d the \u201coperation was on its own merits\u201d and dwell on Israel\u2019s \u201cexcelling\u201d at this kind of \u201cwarfare.\u201d That kind of \u201cwarfare\u201d is criminal, and if Hezbollah had used it against Israel, Mark Almond would have found the correct word for it: terrorism. It is a principally wrong step to avoid facing or naming the true legal and ethical nature of an act of violence by focusing on how well it was executed, or, in Almond\u2019s words, its \u201cbrutal ingeniousness.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also, frankly, immature. It\u2019s what young bro\u2019ish boys do, when they admire a war criminal such as Nazi Otto Skorzeny because his glider landing on Gran Sasso mountain to snatch washed-out Mussolini must have looked just so damn commando cool. But a world of Israeli genocide and mass murder forbids such infantilism. In a sadly fitting manner, and quite perversely, Almond has not one word for civilians, except Israeli ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

Almond, however, does see a real downside to Israel\u2019s \u201csophisticated\u201d attack nevertheless: He fears that its perpetrators may have miscalculated this time and, in essence, bitten off more than they can chew, inviting a backlash he compares with what happened to Japan after its \u2013 by the way, non-terrorist \u2013 attack on Pearl Harbor. Again, not a thought about Israel\u2019s victims.<\/span>
\nPager explosion scandal: Will Hezbollah unleash a new war in the Middle East?<\/span><\/p>\n

What\u2019s the worst that could happen, according to Almond\u2019s unfortunately typical Western mind? That the Israeli terrorists get some pain in return for the suffering of their victims which he has painstakingly made sure not to even mention. Not a word, either, about Lebanon\u2019s or Syria\u2019s right not to be attacked by a terrorist rogue regime next door. Not a word about their sovereignty or their governments\u2019 right and duty to protect their citizens. If this isn\u2019t a racist bias, I don\u2019t know what is.<\/span><\/p>\n

And then, finally, it\u2019s time for \u2013 you must see this coming by now \u2013 RUSSIA! Yes, Russia. Not that Almond has any factual reason to bring it up in this context. None at all. Strictly zero. But you see, when we talk about a horrific crime committed by, actually, Israel, but we can\u2019t actually say that, then we talk about Russia. To be on the safe side, let\u2019s add China, too. \u201cHow long before Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping,\u201d Almond dramatically asks, \u201cworks out how to make millions of iPhones around the world burst into flames in the pockets of their foes?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

“(Australian<\/span>)<\/strong> Defence has begun stripping Israeli-developed technology from Army equipment because of fears it could be used to harvest sensitive data from military hardware and systems<\/strong><\/em>” <\/strong>– Source<\/a><\/span>
\n<\/strong><\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n

Holy Sigmund Freud! Displacement is a powerful force indeed. Yet here\u2019s the thing: IF Moscow or Beijing wanted to do the same horrible things Israel routinely does, they easily could. There\u2019s no issue of \u201cworking out\u201d here. What Almond can\u2019t face is that they simply are not like that. Israel is like that, criminal to the core, completely spoiled by decades of US-sponsored impunity, and addicted to underhanded violence and lying. It\u2019s Israel that he supports with the absurd propaganda trick of talking about Russia and China instead of the state that has actually committed the crime and set the precedent he wants to warn about. The West is delusional. Clinically speaking.<\/span><\/p>\n

Source<\/span><\/a>:<\/span><\/span><\/strong> What does Putin have to do with Israel\u2019s attacks on Lebanon?<\/span><\/a> | RT<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

By Tarik Cyril Amar<\/strong>, a historian from Germany working at Ko\u00e7 University, Istanbul, on Russia, Ukraine, and Eastern Europe, the history of World War II, the cultural Cold War, and the politics of memory.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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Fading US empire exploits Israel’s terrorism<\/strong><\/span><\/h3>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u2019Could be compromised\u2019: Calls to ban \u2018weaponised\u2019 Chinese EVs<\/span><\/a> | Jamie Seidel | News Com<\/span>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Hot mess of neglect and decay?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  How long will it be before China and Russia learn how to blow up their foes\u2019 gadgets, asks one pundit, exposing the West\u2019s collective delusion On September 17, Israel launched one of the largest and cruelest terrorist attacks in modern history. For Lebanon and Syria, the victim countries, 9\/17 will now have a meaning […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":35037,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[135,301,113,645,684,145,3,392,683],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-australias-move-to-the-right","category-corruption","category-foreign-policy","category-gaza-genocide","category-israeli-attack-on-lebanon","category-military","category-political-issues","category-racism","category-zionist-influence"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/35037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dingo.news\/voice\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}