“Don’t Do It”: Lebanese Lawyer Warns Israel Against Using War to Create a “New Middle East”

NERMEEN SHAIKH: At least nine people, including health and rescue workers, have died in central Beirut after Israel bombed an apartment building housing a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah. At least 14 people were wounded. The attack occurred without warning in the Bashoura district of Beirut near Lebanon’s Parliament and the United Nations headquarters in the city. There are reports Israel fired white phosphorus munitions during the attack. Israel also carried out numerous strikes in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Lebanese authorities say 1.2 million people have been displaced by the Israeli attacks.

Meanwhile, Israel has announced eight of its soldiers were killed in southern Lebanon, which Israel invaded earlier this week.

AMY GOODMAN: This comes as Israel continues to threaten to launch a major attack on Iran after Tehran fired some 180 ballistic missiles at Israeli military bases and other security sites. Israel has also killed nearly 100 people in Gaza over the past day.

Meanwhile, the emir of Qatar has accused Israel of committing a, quote, “collective genocide,” unquote, as he condemned Israel’s ongoing attacks on Gaza and Lebanon. Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al-Thani made the comment during the Asia Cooperation Dialogue Summit in Doha.

SHEIKH TAMIM BIN HAMAD AL-THANI: [translated] It has become clear that what is happening is collective genocide, in addition to turning the Gaza Strip into an area unfit for human habitation in preparation for displacement. … We call for serious efforts for a ceasefire and stop of the attacks carried out by the Israeli occupation on Lebanese territory. Security will not be achieved without achieving a just peace. And this will not be achieved in our region except by establishing an independent Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital on the borders of June 4th, 1967.

AMY GOODMAN: For more on all of this, we’re joined by Nadim Houry, Lebanese researcher, international lawyer, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative. He worked at Human Rights Watch for over a decade, where he established the group’s Lebanon office and covered the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah. He’s joining us now from Paris.

Nadim, welcome to Democracy Now! Though you are in France right now, you have close connections to people on the ground in Lebanon. Israeli airstrikes hit an apartment building in central Beirut overnight in an area considered a safe zone, given its Christian majority population. Can you talk about what you’re hearing from people on the ground, what the situation is right now with, what, 1.2 [million] Lebanese displaced, as well?

NADIM HOURY: Sure. Thank you for having me.

The offices of the research center I run is actually less than a hundred meters away from where the strike happened last night, so I’m very familiar with the area.

The overwhelming feeling today in Lebanon is fear, anxiety and anger, for a number of reasons. Fear because the Lebanese have seen what Israel can do to the country since 1978, repeated invasions, repeated attacks, the destruction of the 2006 war, and they’ve also seen recently what happened to Gaza. There’s also high level of anger because they feel this is a war that they don’t understand. This is a war that many of them feel was imposed on them. They feel that there could have been a ceasefire in Gaza, which would have prevented all of this. But also anger at a totally absent Lebanese state. Many people are actually still sleeping on the streets, many of the displaced, because the Lebanese government was unable to really put together a proper evacuation plan. And people who are being hosted are being hosted either through family or friends or through really a wonderful solidarity movement across the country.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, Nadim, could you explain where exactly these displaced people are going? They’re sleeping in cars, as you had said earlier, as well as being taken in by, you know, friends or family in houses. But where in Beirut? Are there places in Beirut that are still considered safe? Or are they all leaving the city?

NADIM HOURY: Sure. So, people started moving initially from the border villages in the south months ago. But really the movement accelerated in the last 10 days, notably on September 23rd, where Israel in one day killed more than 500 Lebanese, which was the highest death toll in Lebanon since the civil war which ended in 1990. Since then, more — you know, we talked about more than a million people have moved. They’ve moved — they’re being housed by friends, but also the Lebanese government has opened now all public schools. All public schools are being turned into temporary shelter in Beirut, but also all across the country, in Mount Lebanon, in southern cities like Sidon and Tyre. The only problem right now is Israel is increasingly threatening villages and towns further north from its border. Some of the warnings of the last two, three days go way north of the Litani River, which Israel often talks about, and includes some of the major towns around Tyre, the biggest city in the south.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Nadim, you mentioned earlier that the Lebanese government has not been able to come up with a proper evacuation plan, that the state is really not functional. If you could describe what the situation was in Lebanon prior to the Israeli attacks and its invasion, both in terms of the economy but also the government?

NADIM HOURY: Sure. I mean, Lebanon has been in a state of protracted political crisis for years — some would say for decades. But it really accelerated since 2018. And in 2019, we had, basically, a major breakdown of the banking system. It turns out that our corrupt elites were basically running a Ponzi scheme. And since 2019, Lebanese don’t have access to their savings in the bank accounts. They are allowed $200, $300 a month, depending on how much money they have in these bank accounts. We haven’t had a president now for, I think, over a year and a half, so it’s only a caretaker government. It’s really a state that has, in a way, not only become failed, but has almost given up. They almost act as a postal box for messages between different regional, international parties.

And the Lebanese really feel that. They felt it particularly, we have to remember, after the Beirut port explosion on August 4th, 2020, where, there, again, the Lebanese woke up to see large parts of their capital destroyed and learning that many of their politicians knew that nitrate was actually being — ammonium nitrate was being stored in the port right by the city center and no one did anything.

I think there’s a strong effort of local organizing right now. And I would add maybe, perhaps, one of the challenges facing the displaced is, in 2006, Hezbollah’s logistics operation was, you know, a very well-oiled machine. They were very present. Since the beeper attacks that Israel had done against Hezbollah members — and many of those members, by the way, were not combatants, but were actually civilians somehow affiliated with Hezbollah — Hezbollah has not been able, through its various associations and services, to really fully support as well those displaced from the south.

AMY GOODMAN: Nadim, during Israel’s last invasion of Lebanon in 2006, you were at Human Rights Watch in Lebanon, looked into the reasons for civilian deaths there. You tweeted earlier this week you’re, quote, “very worried” they’re the “same patterns” developing now. I’m wondering if you can comment on this. And you also posted a series of comments on X Wednesday in response to what you call, quote, “murmurs amongst Israelis & their supporters (in the West & our region) about creating ‘a new Middle East.’” You write, “Don’t do it. You have tried before & each time it has ended in disaster.” Elaborate on all of these points.

NADIM HOURY: Sure, yes. Thank you very much for the opportunity. So, I spent 33 days in 2006, the entire war, documenting why Lebanese civilians were being killed. And there were really two main reasons, which we’re actually finding again today in Lebanon. The first one is that Israel deliberately treats anyone and anything remotely affiliated with Hezbollah, even if they’re clearly civilian, as a legitimate target, which is clearly something that international law rejects. And that’s why, for example, we saw the attack last night on a medical center. There is no allegation by Israel so far that they’ve hit any military object, other than to say, “Well, it was a medical center affiliated with Hezbollah.” That’s clearly illegal. We saw a lot of these attacks in 2006, and then we’re seeing many of these attacks today in 2024. That’s why we actually have now more than 20 medics in Lebanon who have been killed. A number of them have been affiliated with Hezbollah. I should note, there are some accounts that indicate that Hezbollah is — obviously, we know it’s not just an armed group. They have various civilian offices, services. It’s probably the second-biggest employer in Lebanon after the state, you know, probably with more than 100,000 employees. So, if you consider all of them legitimate, like Israel has been tempted to do, you can just imagine the carnage and the crimes that will be committed.

And the second main reason of such a high death toll is really what, actually, the Israeli leadership called in 2006 the Dahiyeh doctrine, Dahiyeh being the southern suburb of Beirut, where basically Israel decides to use massive and disproportionate force on civilian areas and civilian objects where Hezbollah could be supported as a way of kind of getting collective punishment and of deterring and, frankly, trying to push the population to say, “OK, we give up.” Now, we’re seeing these same patterns. We’re seeing these same patterns in the last 10 days with the intensification of attacks on Dahiyeh. And that explains why we’re seeing such high civilian death tolls — which brings me to my second point.

You know, with these attacks, we started hearing, particularly after the assassination of the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, but also after Iran’s strikes, we saw a number of Israeli politicians, including Naftali Bennett, who’s the former Israeli prime minister, saying, “This is our chance to remake the Middle East.” You know, but we’ve heard this before, for those of us who are from the region. We heard this in 1982, when Israel invaded Beirut to push out the PLO, and they tried to install a president and a regime in Lebanon that will be friendly to them. You know how this ended, other than the massacres and the crimes? It ended with the creation of Hezbollah. We heard that it in 2006 again, when they said, you know, “We’re going to go in, and we’re going to destroy Hezbollah, and this will be the end of it.” Hezbollah came out stronger than before. And in 2008, Hezbollah used that strength to actually control Lebanon even more by using some of its weapons against other Lebanese.

The U.S. made the same mistake in 2003. They invaded Iraq, and they said, you know, “We’re going to refashion the Middle East into our own — you know, into what we would like to see, into these pro-Western governments.” And that has been an utter failure, and the U.S. is about to leave Iraq.

You know, the problem is, with all these strategies, all these campaigns, is we know that this overwhelming use of force cannot change people’s agency. The region does not want to be a satellite of Israel or a satellite of the U.S. And by the way, the region does not want to be a satellite of Iran either. The problem is, the region is not really being given much of a choice. And that’s what’s happening in Lebanon, in Palestine, in so many other places.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: Well, let’s go, Nadim, to comments made by Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, who said on Wednesday that Israel should take out Iran’s nuclear program. He was speaking on CNN.

NAFTALI BENNETT: Sometimes history knocks on your door, and you’ve got to seize the moment. If we don’t do it now, I don’t see it ever happening. And now is the moment. I also want to explain why, because Iran’s strategy, it had two arms that were sort of defending it, or they were its insurance policy against an Israeli strike, and that’s Hezbollah and Hamas. But those two arms are temporarily paralyzed. So it’s like a boxer out in the ring without arms for the next few minutes. Now is the time that we can attack, because Iran is fully vulnerable. The Islamic Republic of Iran, it’s time to hit, destroy the nuclear program.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was former Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett speaking to CNN. And now let’s go to another former Israeli prime minister, Ehud Barak, speaking to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour, who asked him, asked Barak, whether he agreed with the comments Bennett had made earlier.

EHUD BARAK: In order to, one, a full-scale attempt to change the Middle East, we need all this alliance of blessing, led by the United States. … Israel is very strong. Israel cannot rearrange the Middle East on its own.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, that was former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. So, your response, Nadim, to what they were saying?

NADIM HOURY: Don’t do it. Don’t do it. You will fail. You’ve failed in the past. I mean, we know that there is another pathway. Look, there are two central questions that as long as they’re not resolved, the Middle East is not going to know peace. The first one is the Palestine question. And the second one is a question that has been central to the region since 1979, which is: What is the legitimate place of Iran?

And by trying, since the 1980s with the Iran-Iraq War and since so many other conflicts since then of trying to box in Iran and trying to sort of attack it, reduce its size, the only outcome has been Iran sort of pops back out from another door and uses nonstate actors to establish its influence. It’s done this in Lebanon with Hezbollah. It’s done this in Iraq with the Shia militias. It’s helped with the Houthis in Yemen. It’s done this, the same, now in Syria.

So, I think we need to — in my view, if the region is to know proper peace, we need to answer these two questions. You know, either the Palestinians get a full independent state, a sovereign state, à la two-state solutions, which is what the Arab countries are pushing for, or they get full citizenship in one state, Jews and Arabs treated exactly the same. And you also — you know, that equation has to be resolved; otherwise — and this is what October 7th reminded us — there can be no peace. There will be forms of armed resistance. Some you may like, some you may call terrorism, but there will be armed resistance as long as the Palestine question is not resolved in this region.

And the second one, as well, which is Iran has shown us that it can actually be very good at using patience. This is what it did after the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003. And guess what: At the time, I remember a younger Netanyahu telling the Americans in Congress, “It’s all going to be fine. You know, Iran is going to lose. We’re going to have democracy. Everyone is going to welcome us.” Well, guess what: It didn’t turn out exactly the same way. Yes, the U.S. had overwhelming power. Yes, the U.S. invaded and occupied Iraq. And the occupation was a disaster. And today, Iran is stronger than it ever was.

So I’m not sure what Naftali Bennett hopes to achieve. And even Ehud Barak, which is trying to play more of a role of an elder statesman: “I’ve seen it. We have to be more cautious.” But what he’s saying is, “We have to be more cautious, so we need to make sure that the U.S. underwrites this whole enterprise.” I think that would be foolish.

NERMEEN SHAIKH: So, let me ask you about that, just before we end, Nadim. What are the prospects of the U.S. underwriting that plan, the potential for Israel to attack Iran?

NADIM HOURY: Well, look, to be honest, so far what we have seen is basically Team Biden equal Team Israel. You know, rhetorically, they say, “Oh, we’ve asked Israel not to do this. We’ve told Israel this will be bad to do.” And, you know, a few minutes later, we hear about new sales of weapons, billions of dollars being transferred, intel being provided. Right now the U.S. is acting as a full enabler of Israel’s, what I would consider not only aggressive, but actually extremely dangerous policies, which actually lead to Israel acting as a spoiled child of the U.S. and of the West, which leads it to take positions like indicating and treating the secretary-general of the U.N. as persona non grata. Which, you know, rule-of-law country would do that?

AMY GOODMAN: And just to underscore what you’re saying, Israel has said that the U.N. Secretary-General Guterres cannot come to Israel, that he is persona non grata. Nadim Houry, we want to thank you for joining us, Lebanese researcher, international lawyer, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative, speaking to us from Paris, France.

Coming up, we look at a new Fault Lines Al Jazeera documentary, Starving Gaza, in 20 seconds.