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By FABIO BOSCO

Since March 2, the State of Israel has been carrying out devastating attacks against Lebanon, particularly against the southern region and southern Beirut. There are already more than 3100 dead, over a million displaced, and many areas in ruins. How far will Israel go?

To understand these attacks, one must understand the Zionists’ historical view of Lebanon. On May 16, 1955, Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett described in his diary the meeting he had with Ben-Gurion, then Minister of Defense, and his Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan:“According to him [Dayan], all that is needed is to find an officer, even if he is only a major. We must win his heart or buy him with money, to get him to agree to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population. Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territory, and establish a Christian regime that will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani River southward will be fully annexed to Israel…”.

This plan was put into practice in 1978 when Israel invaded southern Lebanon and established a puppet army led by Major Saad Haddad, who was replaced after his death by General Antoine Lahad, both of whom were Maronite Christians. Four years later, Israeli forces advanced to the capital, Beirut, to expel Palestinian forces, defeat leftist forces, and install their ally Bashir Gemayel as president.

Gemayel championed an Israeli agenda: the expulsion of the Palestinians, whom he considered a “surplus population,” and the establishment of an authoritarian government to advance the interests of the Lebanese Christian bourgeoisie.

To achieve this, Gemayel needed time to expel the Palestinians and Syrian forces before normalizing relations with the Zionist state. This was the pact between Gemayel and Israeli General Ariel Sharon in Bikfaya two days before his assassination in the bombing of the building housing his party’s headquarters.

Later, in 1983, the Lebanese resistance, led by left-wing parties, drove Israeli forces out of Beirut and southward. In 2000, the Lebanese resistance, now under Hezbollah’s leadership, expelled Israeli forces and their puppet army.

The second attempt to impose a colonial plan on Lebanon began in October 2024 with devastating attacks on Lebanese territory, particularly the south and the southern outskirts of the capital, as well as towns and cities in the Bekaa Valley. This aggression was suspended at Trump’s behest, but the ceasefire was violated by Israel 15,000 times by March 2, 2026, when Israel resumed large-scale aggression.

In the negotiations imposed by U.S. imperialism, Israel’s objectives are clear: to force the Lebanese government to instigate a civil war to disarm Hezbollah while Israeli forces occupy the south of the country, enabling them to attack any point in Lebanese territory at any time. The Israeli plan would transform the Lebanese government into a representative of its interests in the colonization of Arab lands.

Israel as an outpost of U.S. imperialism

This Israeli plan depends directly on its main sponsor: U.S. imperialism. Since 1973, U.S. imperialism has made the state of Israel its outpost to control the entire Levant region, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula. To this end, Israel receives, free of charge, modern weaponry superior to any other in the region, while the United States sells arms to the rest of the region that would be insufficient for countering the Zionists. Since the Obama administration, Israel has received $3.8 billion annually, and even more when necessary, as was the case during the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Furthermore, U.S. imperialism has developed a series of diplomatic strategies to force Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel. This was the case in 1979 with Egypt, and later with Jordan. Also in 1993, the Oslo Accords transformed the PLO into the manager of the Israeli occupation; and in 2020, the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, as well as ongoing processes of normalization with nearly all of the Arab regimes, with the exception of Algeria, Tunisia, and Kuwait.

This process of expanded normalization was interrupted by the action of the Palestinian resistance, led by Hamas, on October 7, 2023, which put the Palestinian issue back on the international agenda, froze the ongoing normalization negotiations—particularly with Saudi Arabia—and shattered Zionist self-confidence in its security scheme.

Since then, the United States, under Biden and Trump, has provided unconditional support to the state of Israel in the genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and the apartheid in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948.

The failed objectives of the attacks on Iran

Following a 12-day aggression in 2025, U.S. imperialism and Israeli forces launched a brutal attack against Iran on February 28.

Their plan was to impose an allied government to serve U.S. objectives in the inter-imperialist dispute with China, and to eliminate the Iranian regime’s regional ambitions, leaving the field open for Israel’s hegemonic ambitions.

This plan failed due to the success of the Iranian efforts to block the Strait of Hormuz and strangle the international economy. At this moment, there is a stalemate, and Trump is seeking a way out to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to prevent a further decline in the global economy, which would affect the interests of corporations and the U.S. population, as well as those of allied countries.

At the same time, a Plan B is underway on the part of the United States through its representative, Tom Barrack, who is visiting all Arab capitals with the aim of building a regional alliance against Iran. This objective has already made progress with the military alliance under negotiation between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and with the replacement of the Iraqi prime minister.

Saudi ambitions towards a third way

However, this plan faces resistance. First and foremost from the leader of the Arab League, the Saudi regime, which has its own ambitions to become the hegemonic regional power, as an alternative to Iran and Israel.

Eleven years ago, the Saudi regime launched an unsuccessful war against the Yemeni Houthis, which ended after two drones struck the country’s main oil complex in 2019.

Simultaneously, the regime launched the 2030 Vision to diversify the Saudi economy, making it less dependent on oil. However, this plan failed to secure all the necessary resources for its implementation, and is now being called into question in the wake of the imperialist aggression against Iran, which has hit the Gulf countries hard.

Today, the Saudi regime seeks an alternative regional alliance to Israel and Iran, aligning its enormous economic resources with Turkiye and its arms industry, with Egypt and its massive population, and with Pakistan and its nuclear bombs: an explosive alliance. This alliance remains allied with the United States but maintains excellent relations with Chinese imperialism.

One of this bloc’s key positions is to freeze normalization with Israel, making it contingent on the so-called 2002 Arab Initiative, which demands the recognition of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. The Saudi regime is already active in Lebanon, seeking to prevent the normalization of relations with Israel.

A divided Lebanon

The majority opinion among the Lebanese bourgeoisie and the Lebanese population is opposed to full normalization with Israel. But it is divided along religious lines regarding how to end Israeli aggression.

The Christian bourgeoisie wants a ceasefire agreement with Israel and the disarmament of Hezbollah. The Shiite bourgeoisie rejects negotiations with Israel because they represent Lebanon’s colonialist subordination, and supports the armed resistance currently led by Hezbollah, which needs weapons to carry it out. Between these two positions stand the Sunni and Druze bourgeoisie: they want a ceasefire with Israel without this implying normalization, and a negotiated disarmament of Hezbollah.

The division among the population is somewhat different. According to a public opinion poll conducted by the local channel Al-Jadeed, the majority of Christians, Druze, and Sunnis want Hezbollah to be disarmed, while 87% of Shiites oppose it. As for direct negotiations with Israel, over 70% of Christians and Druze support them. Sunnis are divided: 52% support peace with Israel, but 46% reject it. And 53% of Sunnis reject negotiations between Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

Among Shiites, 93% reject it, demonstrating that the rift between Hezbollah and the Shiite population has not occurred, even though there is discontent regarding the party’s various policies, ranging from the 2013 invasion of Syria to the recent Israeli attacks on the country.

As for normalization with Israel, only the Druze are largely in favor: 70% support the opening of an Israeli embassy in Beirut. This rapprochement between the Druze community and Israel occurred following the conflicts in Suwayda between Syrian government forces and the forces led by Sheikh al-Hijri. It is interesting to note the rift between the main Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, and the Druze population. Jumblatt advocates for a rapprochement between the Syrian government and the Druze population in Suwayda, and a distancing from Israel.

The relationship between the left-wing public and Hezbollah is also complex. Scholar Ziad Majed assesses that the Lebanese left is divided into four groupings: the first supports Hezbollah for its role in resisting Israel. The second grouping harshly criticizes Hezbollah for its domestic policies but prioritizes the struggle against Israel over these disagreements. The third grouping opposes Hezbollah regarding its relationship with Iran and the invasion of Syria, but does not align with anti-Hezbollah forces and believes that Israel is the greatest threat to Lebanon. The fourth group believes that an agreement with Israel is necessary to end the aggression.

Other imperialist countries

Still on the international stage, European imperialism, once highly influential in the Middle East, today limits itself to diplomatic statements criticizing Israeli excesses—such as Israel’s actions in Lebanon—but largely remains silent in the face of the Palestinian genocide while maintaining all its diplomatic and commercial channels with the State of Israel.

China positions itself as an ally of Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia at the same time, and has no interest in the fall of the regimes in any of these countries. Russia, meanwhile, maintains important relations with both Iran and Israel, but its actions are currently limited by the massive war effort against Ukraine.

Expel Israel and overthrow the sectarian state

In this situation, it is important to identify the political orientation for the Lebanese working class, which necessarily begins with the need to expel Israeli forces from Lebanese territory and to participate, in whatever way possible, in the resistance. For this to be realized, the main obstacle is the sectarian state and the majority of its bourgeois parties. The sectarian state structure in Lebanon was the result of an imperialist scheme to divide the Lebanese working class into illusory communal interests led by their respective bourgeois sectors. This sectarian state was on the verge of being defeated at the start of the Lebanese civil war, but it was stopped by Syrian military intervention in 1976, which prevented the defeat of the Christian far right.

This sectarian capitalist state is responsible for the country’s economic decline. It is incapable of guaranteeing basic services such as garbage collection or 24-hour electricity. Furthermore, in 2019, the Lebanese bourgeoisie withdrew its capital from the country, leading to a sharp decline in the Lebanese pound and the economy in general, followed by a catastrophic explosion at the port of Beirut that, in addition to the total destruction of the area, claimed the lives of 300 people.

Against the sectarian state, the uprising of October 19, 2019, rose up once more. This uprising called for the end of the sectarian state and brought together different sectors, ranging from a radicalized proletarian sector centered in the city of Tripoli to middle-class sectors centered in the city of Beirut.

The orientation for the workers’ movement must stem from the struggle against Israel, building an independent camp of the working class and youth, separate from the sectarian parties, and inspired by the proletarian youth of Tripoli.

Translated from the original Portuguese

Photo: Bomb damage from an Israeli strike on the city of Tyre.

By SORAYA MISLEH

Abominable. Unacceptable. Despicable. Deplorable. Unconscionable. Barbaric. Degrading. Intolerable. These were some of the indignant adjectives uttered by governments around the world in the global condemnation of the macabre spectacle staged by Zionist Minister Ben-Gvir against the international activists of the Global Sumud Flotilla, which made headlines on May 20. But, contrary to how it is presented, he is not an exception; he is a true face of the Zionist state.

The leaders of the genocidal state of Israel felt the impact of the international crisis and, in a gesture as desperate as it is hypocritical and ridiculous, they tried to distance themselves from the man who, in their service directs the murders and torture of Palestinians in the dungeons of the Zionist state, as well as the state’s repressive apparatus, which includes increasingly arming criminal settlers to kill more in the West Bank, for example. And little by little, solidarity lays bare what the Palestinian resistance never tires of exposing: the brutal nature of a racist colonial project.

Seeking to please the domestic audience and perhaps vie for the position of prime minister in the snap elections following the dissolution of Parliament, which was unanimously approved by the Zionist legislature on the 20th, Ben-Gvir released a bizarre video, as is his custom. He had already done so many times while “overseeing” the treatment of Palestinian political prisoners—whether it was already bad enough or needed to get worse. So confident in Israel’s impunity that he now directed the cameras to show the escalated violence against the international activists on the flotilla.

In it, he appears as the overseer of the humiliation and assaults on the 428 international activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla who were violently seized on May 18 and 19 in international waters by the occupying naval forces. Hailing from some 50 countries, the participants were the remnants and reinforcements of the flotilla following the first interception of 22 ships and 181 activists in late April, including the mission’s leaders, the Brazilian Thiago Ávila and the Spanish-Palestinian-Swedish Saif Abukeshek. The treatment was also violent for everyone, with particularly severe torture against the coordinators and their detention for ten days.

The Zionist “National Security” Minister Ben-Gvir has already visited other activists kidnapped from flotillas last year; this is not the first time, and he always displays a sadistic pleasure in humiliating them. Some dare to shout “Free Palestine,” which costs them further physical and psychological abuse. That is what was seen just now against an Irish woman, whom Ben-Gvir himself shoved to force her to kneel. The scenes are truly bizarre: 428 people forced to kneel, with their heads on the ground and plastic zip ties tightened around their hands.

As part of the torture, they were forced to listen to the Zionist anthem. “Welcome to Israel!” Ben-Gvir sneered. He was mimicking another minister, Transport Minister Miri Regev, who also posted a video on her social media with the image of the hostages from the flotilla in the background.

Ignoring that latest video, since it had no impact, the criminal Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu went so far as to say that Ben-Gvir’s actions do not align with “Israel’s values.” Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar was quick to say: “With this shameful display, you have consciously caused harm to our state, and this is not the first time […].” And he added: “You are not the face of Israel.”

The attempt to reverse the diplomatic crisis and global condemnation—with several countries such as France, Italy, Canada, and the Netherlands announcing they would recall Israeli ambassadors, a gesture of reprimand and a sign of diplomatic discontent—was to present Ben-Gvir as an “extremist,” an exception. Nothing could be further from the truth.

The face and nature of the genocidal state

The true face of Israel is plain to see, for anyone who cares to look. The long history of crimes against humanity spanning 78 years of the Nakba (the Palestinian catastrophe) is finally beginning to be known by a wider audience.

The widely documented genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza over more than 500 days brought that blood-soaked history to light. The Palestinians took it upon themselves to show the world their own martyrdom in real time, aided by new technologies: the refinements of cruelty, with the imposition of hunger, thirst, and a total absence of living conditions; bombings of hospitals, schools, tents, entire residential neighborhoods, sanitation stations, solar panels, universities, churches, mosques—everything. Entire families burned alive and erased from the civil registry, rubble, carnage. Advanced ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, apartheid, and aggressive colonial expansion, with pogroms (violent attacks by Zionist settlers).

The occupation soldiers felt emboldened to also display their atrocities on social media, mocking and boasting of being perpetrators of genocide. Even a Palestinian who had gone missing amid all the killing was displayed online, blindfolded and put up for sale as a slave.

Medieval torture methods were also leaked from the Zionist dungeons where 9,600 Palestinians are suffering, including nearly 400 children, with reports of men and women being raped using large objects and attacked with dogs.

In the resistance’s exchanges of political prisoners, images of the freed Palestinians shocked the world: some had legs amputated due to untreated infections and injuries, others were unrecognizable in their emaciated bodies due to imposed starvation, and many other horrors the world witnessed; and the very same governments that now express outrage over the treatment of the international activists on the Global Sumud Flotilla chose to look the other way. After all, these are Palestinian bodies, and they are not human; they deserve to be killed and tortured.

Hypocrisy and selective outrage

Everything is justified. Israel is legitimized to commit atrocities. Its lying propaganda that it is “defending itself”—when it is the colonizer, the occupier—is validated. Thus, the same outraged governments sleep soundly while continuing to be the recipients of deadly technologies to repress, criminalize, and kill the oppressed and exploited in their own countries. Israel remains the attractive shopping center that serves the extermination and genocide of other peoples, such as Indigenous peoples, Black people, and the poor in Brazil. And the Palestinian people function as a human laboratory for testing and developing innovative weapons, drones, and control and surveillance equipment and software.

The Palestinian resistance, which neither bends nor surrenders, nevertheless shows the way: collective persistence and steadfastness (Sumud). International solidarity reflects and amplifies their voices. And it wears down the Zionist colonial project, accelerating its decline. Governments insist on not supporting them and, aligned with the Zionist lobby, attempt to criminalize and intimidate the defenders of Palestine. But even for these governments, there is a limit.

Palestinian bodies are fine; it’s normal, it’s trivial. Torture, rape, assaults, broken ribs suffered by international activists from the Global Sumud Flotilla—as evidenced by accounts following the release of the 428 hostages—are unacceptable because they exacerbate the crisis of capitalism in their own countries and generate instability. Fifty-three people had to be hospitalized due to the brutal violence they were subjected to by the occupation—very brutal, but not even 1% of what is inflicted daily on Palestinians—now even with political prisoners facing public hanging under Israeli “law.” Ben-Gvir made a video of the structure with the gallows set up to receive Palestinians and received a birthday cake with a drawing of a gallows made by his wife as a gift. It was all filmed, but the outrage remains selective.

The Palestinian cause, as the embodiment of just struggles against oppression and exploitation anywhere in the world, exposes the terrorist state of Israel, but it also exposes the hypocrisy of nation-states, whose governments issue statements and condemnations yet refuse to impose sanctions or sever ties with their genocidal ally.

And so impunity knocks at the door, to the rhythm of the waves of the Global Sumud Flotilla. Israel felt so comfortable seeking the final solution in the ongoing Nakba that it displays its brutal face to the world, even against international observers.

Historical international complicity has not ceased. Netanyahu rushed to try to distance himself from Ben-Gvir to prevent governments from having no other choice but to take that step.

Not only him, but also the “liberal wing” of Zionism, whose project is just as racist, colonial, and genocidal, but far from the cameras and the eyes of the world. As key players in the 1948 Nakba, they fear that the “Zionist far right” will bring that project to collapse by revealing to the world the true face and nature of Israel, and they defend it tooth and nail.

The deepening decline of the colonial project

But the damage is already done. Israel has lost hearts and minds. A Pew Research Center survey conducted between March 23 and 29 reveals that in the U.S., 60% of Americans hold a negative view of the Zionist state. “Six in ten Americans have a very or somewhat unfavorable view of Israel, an increase of seven percentage points from last year and nearly 20 points since 2022,” it notes. In Europe, it is no different. Nor in Latin America.

The Palestinian resistance shows the way. And the Global Sumud Flotilla persists. “When governments fail, we sail.” And it keeps coming back, despite the escalating violence against its members. And it affirms: “For Palestine, we will not stop.” It is Israel that must be stopped.

And solidarity finds new paths. Right now, the Maghreb Sumud Convoy, with nearly 230 participants from 21 countries, is attempting a land crossing to march toward Gaza. It is currently detained and prevented from moving forward, awaiting authorization from Libya. The powerful enemies of the Palestinian cause are revealing themselves. As the Palestinian revolutionary Ghasan Kanafani taught, in addition to imperialism/Zionism, they are: the Arab regimes and the Arab/Palestinian bourgeoisie. But the convoy has already announced that it is determined and will not give up.

Riding that wave and following those steps, the call is to strengthen the mobilization and take to the streets. Not a moment’s peace for the genocidal state. No normalization of apartheid, genocide, colonization, and ethnic cleansing. Now is the time to ramp up pressure on governments and demand an end to complicity with Israel. It is time to deepen the decline of the Zionist colonial project. Do not stop, never give up, do not feel defeated or intimidated.

To the participants of the Global Sumud Flotilla, the words expressed in a letter by the Palestinian photojournalist from Gaza, Abdel Rahmann Alkahlout, shared in Portuguese by the Brazilian oil tanker captain Leandro Lanfredi, one of the flotilla’s participants:

From the mothers of Gaza who fall asleep to the sound of airstrikes,

From the children who wake up terrified, searching for their parents under the rubble,

From the journalists who carried a camera in one hand and the remains of their friends in the other,

From the wounded, from the parents forced to bury their own children with their own hands…

We write this message to you.

Perhaps you will never truly understand what it means, for a besieged and abandoned people, to feel that someone was willing to risk their own life for them.

Perhaps you will never know how the mothers of Gaza wept when they saw your ships sailing toward them, simply because it reminded them that, somewhere in this world, there are still people who see them as human beings.

In Gaza, we have grown accustomed to being left alone under fire. We have grown accustomed to the world watching our children die and then going on with their lives as if nothing had happened. But you broke that silence.

You did not carry weapons. You carried a living conscience. You carried dignity for a people whom they tried to starve, isolate, and erase.

The people of Gaza will never forget those who crossed the sea just to tell them: “We may not be stronger than death, but we refuse to remain silent in the face of it.”

One day, the children of Gaza will grow up hearing stories of people from all over the world who faced threats, imprisonment, and danger just to knock on the door of a besieged Gaza and say: “You are not alone.”

Beneath the rubble, the tents, the overcrowded and pain-filled hospitals, and hearts exhausted by loss and siege… thank you for choosing humanity when much of the world chose silence.

The Palestinian resistance shows the way. And from the rubble of the Nakba, its seeds will blossom, in an unbreakable land that bleeds but refuses to die: A free Palestine from the river to the sea!

First published here by the IWL