Taken from the author’s blog.
Words are used to designate, and ultimately delegitimize violence, so it is important to say them: we are witnessing war crimes (not an escalation), indiscriminate (and untargeted) bombings, a war against Lebanon (and not only against Hezbollah). However, within media stories, words have been overused, used in a misleading or reductive way.
Lebanon benefits from significant media coverage in France, thanks to very strong political and cultural ties between the two countries, and many Lebanese, but also Syrian and Palestinian journalists and observers are able to testify in the media of the ‘Hexagon, to deliver relevant and varied analyses.
However, the debate was dominated by one reading grid: that of the struggle between Israel and Hezbollah, of the river of rhetoric of the defense of Israel against a terrorist organization. As we observed with Gaza, the media treatment has sinned by a lack of contextualization, by the use of clichés which tend to invisibilize and dehumanize civilian populations.
This reading grid established itself as a hegemonic narrative from the explosion of pagers and walkie-talkies on September 17 and 18. French newspapers adopted rhetoric similar to that of their Anglo-Saxon counterparts who praised a “technological feat”: “Lebanon, 3:30 p.m.: the pager operation is triggered” headlines one national daily, while another repeats the words from a former DGSE executive who admires a “masterstroke”. Even though these devices were used by employees of Hezbollah’s aid institutions and structures, civilians lost their lives and thousands of others were mutilated, including caregivers and relatives of the targeted people, including their children. Even though these explosions sowed terror deep into the privacy of homes, reviving the trauma of the port explosion and insinuating paranoia with regard to any electronic object (including medical and humanitarian equipment imported from abroad). Even though Leon Panetta, former director of the CIA, himself conceded that it was a “form of terrorism”.
Since then, the Israeli army has shelled a large part of the country, with strikes in the South, Beqaa, Dahieh, the mixed neighborhood of Basta and Cola in the capital, Jounieh, Baalbeck, Tyre, Chouf, Christian villages in North… It targeted the services of the town of Nabatiyé, the surroundings of hospitals and the mission of the Blue Helmets. Despite the indiscriminate nature of the attacks – assumed by the authorities, with the Israeli Minister of Education affirming that “Lebanon will be annihilated” – the media narrative focused on the straitjacket of the conflict opposing Israel to Hezbollah, and also on the allegiance or rejection by the Lebanese population of the “party of God”. It is legitimate to inform the public about the complex nature of the latter, both a political party, a military organization, a provider of social and charitable institutions, as well as its social roots. But prioritizing this angle to the detriment of others tends to validate the Israeli narrative: we are talking about “targeted operations against Hezbollah” while we are witnessing a war being waged against Lebanon and primarily its Shiite community. It is problematic to talk about “Hezbollah strongholds” without first saying that these are densely populated neighborhoods. To focus on the assassinations of party or Hamas executives without putting civilian victims at the heart of the story, considered as “collateral consequences”. “’War against Hezbollah’: an expression that swallows up civilians,” writes journalist Soulayma Mardam Bey in Orient-Le Jour.
Social networks have proven to be extremely effective in deconstructing the hegemonic narratives of traditional media, and in particular what they can reveal about “double standards”. On the web, images flood, the battle of stories brings together visions of the world: a colonial, imperialist war is denounced. To the extent that the vertical nature of information is called into question, where the dominant media are no longer the only authority for legitimizing the world, it is all the more crucial to reframe the debate, not to obscure the essential issues of what is happening in Lebanon.
The heart of the debate should focus on the designation of Israel’s war crimes, on the fact that the IDF crossed all the red lines of international humanitarian law: violation of the principles of proportionality, distinction and precaution, proven use of white phosphorus , forced displacement… Crimes to be placed in the historicity of the two decades of occupation and Israeli offensives in the Land of the Cedar, in 1978, 1982 (before the founding of Hezbollah) and 2006.
The debate should focus on the immeasurable impunity enjoyed by the Israeli state, on the bankruptcy of international criminal law. Not making this impunity the central theme is to delegitimize international law, it is to acknowledge our renunciation of a world order based on justice.
The ultranationalist shift in the State of Israel should also be highlighted, a development driven by the extreme right-wing of a supremacist and messianic movement, which is spreading to the highest echelons of power. The lack of mobilization of Israeli society, which largely supports the bombings in Lebanon and Gaza, must raise questions for us. It is about understanding the very nature of the colonial and expansionist project, to which is anchored a political culture which condones the mass murder of Arab populations, and which refers us in many aspects to our own history.
What should above all be documented and debated is the continued support of our governments, their complicit inaction which is content with lip service condemnations while giving Israel a free hand, providing it with weapons – the United States and Germany in the lead, while France sells components. However, political and economic leaders have levers similar to those mobilized in the fight against apartheid in South Africa: recall ambassadors, put an end to military cooperation and privileged economic relations (BNP Paribas continues to invest billion euros in arms suppliers to Israel), sanctions… But they choose not to use them.
And this is the pitfall of a narrative exclusively centered on the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah: it avoids the question of our collective responsibility, that of political actors, but also of public opinion. At a time when images of devastated neighborhoods are circulating on our screens, when France like most Western countries is content with a humanitarian response, this question of mobilization and the moral pressure that we could exert on our leaders It’s never been so hot.
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