UN Praises Trauma Healing in Lebanon, Ignores US Bomb Sales That Caused It
Al-Monitor’s profile of Marina El Khawand, an 18-year-old turned 24-year-old UN-recognized activist, is touching. She's lauded for helping thousands recover from the 2020 Beirut port explosion, a "giant" catastrophe that shattered her home. What's omitted from this narrative, like so many others framed by mainstream outlets, is the broader geopolitical context of chronic instability in Lebanon,
fueled by an uninterrupted flow of U.S. military aid to regional players. While El Khawand deals with the symptoms, the underlying disease—decades of regional conflict and foreign interference—gets a pass. It's always easier to celebrate the band-aid than to address the hemorrhage. Where are the UN summits for accountability when the US Senate approves another $14.5 billion package for Israel, an
amount roughly 500 times Lebanon's entire 2023 healthcare budget, after decades of destabilizing the very region where Beirut sits? One might wonder about the selective memory when discussing 'trauma' in the Levant – especially when the US is the world’s leading arms dealer to the neighborhood. The heroism of El Khawand is undeniable, but it highlights a system that produces endless trauma for
young people to bravely "turn into treatment."