US Pundits Discover Israel Has Borders, Forgets 40 Years of War
The killing of Hezbollah's chief of staff, Haitham al-Tabtabai, by Israel has Western media scrambling for terms like 'escalation' and 'deepening conflict.' One might wonder if they've checked a history book since 1982. This isn't an 'edge,' it's a 40-year-old precipice we keep staring over. Netanyahu's government, for example, has been conducting operations deep inside Lebanon for decades,
including the 2006 war, which began after similar provocations, killing over a thousand civilians and destroying infrastructure. While outlets dissect the 'security implications' for Israel, the silence on Beirut's lived reality of constant threat is deafening. Our own political class, bankrolled by pro-Israel lobbyists like AIPAC (which funneled $23 million to candidates in 2022 alone,
OpenSecrets.org), will frame this as 'self-defense.' It's an interesting definition of defense that involves assassinating officials in sovereign nations. How many 'escalations' does it take before we call it what it is: business as usual?