Israel Invades Lebanon Again: The Greater Israel Project That Keeps Failing

Hello, I'm Ronnie Callick and this is Dispatches. Live on Breakthrough News. Israel says it's

war on Lebanon is about security. What Israeli politicians and media figures are openly

calling to annex territory up to the Latani river and expel entire villages. So the question

is, is this really about his bullet or about expanding Israel's borders? Let's get into it. We've

now entered week three of the US Israeli war on Iran and Lebanon. So far, Israel has killed more

than 800 Lebanese, including over 100 children, and they've displaced over a million people scattered

across the country and they're telling them they may never be able to go home. Israel's now preparing

to expand its ground invasion. Israeli officials say the goal is simply to guarantee security for

residents in northern Israel by clearing out border villages, disarming his bullet and creating

what they call a buffer zone. But that framing hides something deeper because this isn't a new

story. Since Israel's creation, dynast leaders have repeatedly looked to southern Lebanon as part

of their territorial ambitions. That history helps explain the repeated Israeli invasions and

occupations of Lebanon long before his bullet existed. And today, many Israeli leaders are saying

quite openly what the long-term goal is, control of territory beyond their borders. So what exactly

does Israel want in Lebanon? And why has this project repeatedly failed? To discuss all of this,

I'm joined by historian Zachary Foster. He's also founder of Palestine Nexus Zachary. Welcome back

to dispatches. Ron, you know, thanks so much for having me back. Well, I'm really excited to

get into this with you. We're going to be talking about the country I'm sitting in right now,

which is Lebanon and Israel's expansionist project that goes beyond just Palestine. Before I ask

you my first questions, I do want to remind our audience that we here at Breakthrough News are

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like button. It helps boost us in the algorithm. Make sure you engage with the content. Make sure

you're commenting, even if it's just to say hi. All right, Zachary, I think a good place to start

is that, you know, as I mentioned in the opening, Israel has launched this massive escalation

against Lebanon. I'm sure, you know, I know you've been following the news, this bombing relentlessly

more than two weeks now. And of course, they've expanded their ground invasion. And they've

reportedly called up 450,000 reservists suggesting, you know, preparations for a much wider campaign.

And what I want to talk to you about is the fact that this is far from the first time Israel's

invaded Lebanon, there's a very lengthy history of Israeli invasions, occupations, massacres,

military interventions into this country. So before we get into what Zionism seeks in Lebanon

today, I'm wondering if you could walk us through the timeline of Israeli invasions of Lebanon,

because there have been quite a few, I mean, you have a few tweets where you've actually kind of

put up a timeline. And I do want to eventually put one of those up, but it's just so long.

So I'm going to let you take it from here. We can talk about maybe those years of invasions.

And then we can talk about the history, the lineage of Zionism's desires for Lebanon.

The story begins that before 1948, you had Zionist

military officials who were sent by the British actually to Lebanon in the 1940s.

You had a 32 Haganah officers and fighters sent from Haifa in the early 1940s to sabotage

oil facilities in Lebanon. And then in 1948, of course, the infamous 1948 war in which Israel

ethnically cleansed about 750,000 Palestinians from their homes towards the end of that war in

October, November, 1948. Israeli forces entered Lebanon, conquered about 12 Shia villages in the

south, actually pushed forward to the north with plans of conquering the entirety of the region

south of the Latani river. They were forced back to the Rasul Nakhudah line during the

negotiations, the armistice agreements that were reached in 1949. But Ben Gourillon said during

the fighting in early 1948, in March, April, May 1940, he said the plan was to occupy Lebanese

territory south of the Latani river. That was the plan in 1948, and it was only through diplomatic

pressure that Israel was forced back across the border. But that of course didn't stop Israel from

fortifying the border, from depopulating Lebanese and Palestinian towns along both sides of the

border beyond the armistice agreement. For example, Bidayim Eccrit multiple villages along the

Lebanese border were depopulated in 1949. So this is after the end of the war. And then throughout

the 1950s, you have Israeli leaders in particular Moshe Dayan, who was chief of the IDF staff,

then he became defense minister in the 60s. This is the infamous Israeli general who lost an eye

in 1941 on Lebanese soil when he was sent by the Haganat, the Zionist militia in British

military Palestine, to carry out operations in Lebanon. And he had a long standing interest in taking

over a South Lebanon. And part because the Latani river was believed to be critical to secure

Israel's future water resources. If you go back to the 50s and 60s, Israel had about 1,600

million cubic meters of water. The Latani river alone would increase that amount by 50%, adding

another 800 million, 800 million cubic meters of water. So you're talking about a 50% increase in

Israel's access to water. And so you have meetings in Israeli security cabinet meetings between

Moshe Dayan and Ben Gurion all the way going back to the 50s in which they're talking about

taking over Lebanon. And the plan, excuse me, taking over South Lebanon, South of the Latani

river, the plan was to then install a Christian state north of the Latani river based on this

longstanding belief among Israeli political and military leaders that it's critical to install

friendly regimes, regimes that will do Israel's bidding in Lebanon, in Jordan, in Egypt, in Iraq,

in Iran. This is the Israeli military doctrine going back decades and decades. We want to install

friendly regimes. That was the plan in Lebanon. We're going to install a Maranite leader. And you

even have Moshe Dayan saying this will be easy to achieve. We'll just find some general, we'll find

some captain, could be a low level officer, we'll put him in charge, we'll give him some money,

we'll give him weapons, and he'll rule Lebanon for us. And that was the plan. And then of course

that never materialized. But with the advent of the PLO based in Lebanon already in the late 1960s

and you have all these cross-border raids, Israel's interest in Lebanon is once again renewed. And

throughout the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, you have cross-border raids, attacks on Lebanon.

This is long before there's any organization known as Hasbalal in Lebanon. They don't come

about until 1982. In 1976, Israel actually invades Lebanon, kills about a thousand Lebanese,

excuse me, let's back up. In 1976, Israel actually crosses the border, takes control over three

Lebanese villages. These are Christian Lebanese villages. This is in the aftermath of the civil war

that breaks out in Lebanon. So again, this before the 1978 invasion, people don't even know about

this invasion. But Israel exploits this crisis in Lebanon, the outbreak of the civil war in which

Lebanese government is divided and fractured and Lebanese army is totally unable to protect the

south. Israel takes over a few villages in the south, does the same thing in 1978 with a full

on invasion killing a thousand Lebanese. And this is really the beginning of Israel's domination in

Lebanon, because although it's forced with draw back to the border, owing to pressure by

U.S. President at the time, Jimmy Carter, who says, you need to withdraw, and he actually threatens

at the time in 1978. He threatens to cut off Israel from U.S. military aid. This is in 1978,

so Israel withdraws, but manages to install a collaborationist militia, the SLA, in South Lebanon.

And this is a setup for 1982, right? And so basically between 1978 and 1982, Israel's

crossing the border at will to collaborate with this Maranite militia based in South Lebanon.

I mean, then of course, what happens in 1982, Israel is fed up with the PLO. It wants to

dominate Lebanon. And you even have some genocide and rhetoric coming from Israeli leaders during

that invasion. We're going to wipe out Beirut. We're going to destroy them. We're going to level

Lebanon. And that's what Israel does, killing 19,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians,

besieging Beirut for 10 weeks. I don't have to tell this history to you. And then in the aftermath

of the war, Israel effectively imposes a 18-year-long military occupation of South Lebanon,

creating a security zone in which 150,000 Lebanese are subject to

belligerent Israeli military occupation, rounded up arbitrary detentions, torture,

frequent aerial attacks on Lebanese villages in the South. And they're completely defenseless.

The Lebanese government's completely absent. The Shiite population of the South and they're also

Lebanese villages in the South, right? This is a very diverse country. They are subject to

Israeli domination for nearly two decades. After which point these Israelis realize it's

basically a disaster. They're just bleeding troops. They're facing heavy resistance.

Hasbelah is formed in the aftermath of Israel's occupation of South Lebanon. And with support from

Iran, they're co-religionist. They build a militia to resist Israeli domination and Israeli

occupation in South Lebanon. And then you have the 2006 war in which Israel tries to, again,

take over South Lebanon again, faces heavy resistance, forced behind back behind the

Rasinal Kudo border. The US government, the Pentagon, assesses this to be a military disaster.

Israel could not take over much Lebanese territory. And then the same thing happens in the 2024 war,

in which Israel tried, again, to conquer Lebanon. They were forced into a ceasefire in November.

And ever since November, 2024, when Israel signed a ceasefire agreement agreeing to stop firing

at Lebanon, they've slaughtered hundreds upon hundreds of Lebanese, mostly civilians. They've

continued to maintain about five security points in Lebanon during this period, from September 2024

until November, excuse me, from November 2024, all the way to the present day, in which as we

just saw over the past two weeks, as you pointed out in the intro to this stream, Israel has once again

for the fourth or fifth time invaded Lebanon with the stated declaration of controlling

all Lebanese territory, South of the Latinian river. We're talking a massive chunk of Lebanese

territory. And Israeli defense minister Israel Katz just said the other day, no one's going to

be allowed back. And he even likened the situation to Gaza. He said, we will do in South Lebanon what we

did in Bait Lahia and Rafa. Well, if you want to pull up a picture of what Rafa looks like,

he's threatening genocide. He's starting to carry out a genocide on the people of Lebanon.

No, I mean, that was a lot of really important information. And what I hear when I hear you going

through each of those times that Israel has done what it's done since before it's founding,

I just hear like a groundhog day. It's the same thing over and over and over again. Many things stand

out. You mentioned the weak Lebanese government, like kind of leaving the people of the South

totally, unprotected on their own. You mentioned the reasons given are interesting, right? Because

you mentioned Israel really gets into its most violent in the 70s. And of course, back in that time,

Israel would say that it had to do this for security because Palestinians were firing at them from

Lebanon. That was the excuse given. And you know, a lot of Lebanese fell for it. Even people in

the South, like they got annoyed. They were like, why do these Palestinians keep firing from here?

But I just want to like go back to the fact that Israel has created the conditions for all of this.

Like Palestinians were firing at what was then became Israel because Israel had stolen their land.

They were refugees that were pushed into Lebanon trying to get back to their land and trying to

use armed resistance to regain their land. And that would not have happened. Has Israel not

ethnically cleansed all the Palestinians from Palestine that they did, many of whom ended up in Lebanon.

And then you can say the same thing about Hisbola now. Hisbola comes into being because of Israel's

occupation of southern Lebanon in the 80s with help from Iran, obviously. Like no one's dying that.

But like the fact of the matter is that you don't have that group unless, you know, without the

conditions Israel created because obviously people are going to get pissed off if you steal their land,

if you kill their families, and if you demolish their homes. And that's all Israel's ever done.

And so I really appreciate you going through that history because there's a narrative, not just in

Lebanon, but really in Lebanon, where there's a delusion that if hisbola just didn't exist,

Israel wouldn't be bombing us. Israel wouldn't be invading. And it's like Israel was doing this before

hisbola existed. And it was doing it before the PLO existed too. So, you know, from there I want to

go Zachary to a different issue that is much related to this, which is what Israel really wants in

Lebanon. You mentioned the Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz, who said I believe it was yesterday

that the goal of this current war in Lebanon, he keeps saying is to guarantee the security for

Israel's northern residents by creating a buffer zone inside Lebanon, which is the excuse they give

in Gaza in Syria as well. But you know, a lot of this also goes back in time as well. I just,

I just want to show this headline, hang on, let me share this, it's worth it, which you had posted

as well, from the Jerusalem Post. Here we go. Time to implement Ben-Gurion's vision,

Latani River is Israel's natural, not nor natural northern border, right? And you mentioned

Ben-Gurion saying that earlier. And what I want to emphasize in this piece is that it literally

argues that Israel must control the territory up to the Latani River and resettle it with Jewish

communities because security is only insured with a Jewish civilian presence. And that means also

depopulating the Lebanese presence that exists. And some Israeli figures are even being more

explicit about this. We heard recently a former like Hood MK and former IDF, deputy chief of staff,

Uzi Diane, calling for turning South Lebanon into a death zone for this exact purpose. Another

Israeli politician, this religious Zionist Zvi Zucat recently said to conquer territory,

destroy the villages, occupy the territory, and annex it to the state of Israel,

referring to Lebanon. And of course, all of this under the idea of security for Israel's residents.

And then you also pointed out something really interesting based on this article that I have

up right now from the Jerusalem Post. You said that Israel's military doctrine since 1948

has been that Israel decides what kind of government there shall be in Lebanon and where it's

southern border shall be. That's what David Ben-Gurion told his general just a week after

Israel's establishment. So I want you to maybe elaborate a bit on Ben-Gurion and early Zionist

leaders and what they envisioned for Lebanon, and how much of Israel's strategy toward Lebanon

today reflects those early ideas. So Ben-Gurion's vision for the borders of the state of Israel

was outlined actually long before 1948. He co-authored a book published in Yiddish in 1918

with the Yitzhak Ben-Sfi, who is, I believe, one of the first presidents of the state of Israel in the

1950s. And in the book that I identify, Israel's northern border as the Latani river. And Ben-Gurion

says similar things throughout the 1930s that, and recall that actually the northern border of

British Minister of Palestine is, of course, not the Latani river. It's the Rasul Nakuda line,

which is dozens of kilometers south of the Latani river. But for Ben-Gurion,

the goal was to determine not just where the Palestinians would wind up after the war. They

want to push Palestinians out of the eventual Jewish state. But, of course, the goal is also to

determine what kinds of regimes will exist in Jordan, in Syria, and in Lebanon, and, of course,

in Egypt. Israel has long sought to influence the internal politics of its neighbors.

And so, Lebanon, I think, chief among them, because Lebanon has been this multicultural,

a diverse society for many, many decades. And Israel has long sought in places like Lebanon

to install what it perceived to be, it's sort of natural allies, people that at least it

perceived to be aligned with. That would be, of course, the Christians in Lebanon, primarily,

the marinites, who Israel thought were, effectively, natural allies. They look to the minorities

in places like Lebanon and Syria as potential allies. They, of course, had this long vision to

try and empower Kurds and Syria, similar idea. They've wanted to empower marinites in Lebanon,

based on this belief that, that would, that American government in Lebanon would provide Israel,

the security that, that it wants, and it would support Israel's expansionist interests.

Of course, the marinites had no interest in South Lebanon. I mean, going back to the Lebanese states,

and the Lebanese governments from the, from the 1940s onwards, when Lebanon first gained independence,

you had a Christian-dominated government, right? The, the classic six-five balance in which

Christians controlled the government. And in which Shi'as were effectively, completely left out

of politics. I mean, there was no investment in the South. The Shi'as were completely neglected

by the state, no state investment, no funding for schools or for roads or for clinics or for

civilian infrastructure. They were abandoned by the state. And that became all the more obvious

in the 1970s, during the Civil War and beyond in the 1980s. And so what happened? You had

a group that became nominous Hezbollah that, that came to prominence to defend the interests of

that population at a time when it was being completely neglected by the state. But going back to

the question that you asked, as far as kind of Israel's interest in establishing a marinite state

in Lebanon, that was Ben-Gurion's interest, that was Moshe Dayan's interest. And that interest,

you could say, carries through all the way to the present day when you have Israel trying to

build alliances with Lebanese president on an attempt to suppress Hezbollah and suppress any

resistance to Israeli domination in Lebanon. Yeah, and I just, I'm trying to pull up something

that I want to show because, okay, so here in Lebanon, we are subject to something very obnoxious,

which is this, these Israeli Arabic language spokespeople and the people of Gaza have had to deal

this as well, where they issue these like, they call them evacuation warnings, but they're actually

displacement warnings or forced displacement orders, I should say, where they're essentially forcing

people to, to like, they're saying, leave your home, this is now a death zone. So I just want to

share, here's, this is like an order that was issued online, like we have to basically have,

have them on Twitter alert. That's the only way you know, like sometimes they'll be like,

oh, this building has, they'll like put a building in red and be like, you have to evacuate this

building and they'll do it at like two in the morning. So if you're awake and lucky enough to see

it and you're in that building, hopefully you left the building. So that's one way they'll issue

these displacement orders. Another way is they'll put entire areas of the country under forced

displacement. And so here is, here we go. Here is the forced displacement order. It's basically

saying that everybody south of the Latani river, the Latani river is at the top of that area

in red. I like how I'm pointing at it, like anyone can see my finger, but where those yellow

arrows are, everybody in that red zone needs to go north. That's a huge chunk of Lebanon.

And that's that, that top border of it is the Latani river. So they're saying that entire area

of the south is now a kill zone. So if you don't heed their warnings and leave, if they kill you

in your civilian obel, which is of course against international law, this is very similar to what

they did to Gaza. And they're promising to turn that area of south Lebanon that you see in red

into Gaza. And that's the area that Israel seeks for. It's like grand, I guess, greater Israel

that you're talking about. And I just, I just want people to see visually what that means. And

actually, they recently have been posting even north of that. There's another river called the

Zahrani river, which is even north of the Latani. And they're saying everybody must flee even higher.

And then yesterday, the defense minister is real cats. So the Shia population of southern Lebanon

cannot return to that red area until Israeli steel safe, which means never, because Israeli

Israelis will never feel safe. If there are Arabs at their border, who they are constantly killing,

who will fight back. But all that's to say, I did want to talk to you a bit about greater Israel.

I want to play a clip of, I know you know who this guy is, Elon Levy. We haven't seen him as much

lately, but he's a, I think he's a British citizen, but also Israeli, just a total settler. He is a far

right, I would say propagandist for the state of Israel. And he was recently on a show with another

interesting character called Mario Nafel. But that's not the point of showing you, of showing this

video. I want to show this video because he makes a claim in it that I think is hilarious. And then I

want you, I want to get your response. So hang on, I'm adding this, this video file in here so we can

watch. Here we go. Viral argument that I see mainly on Twitter that Israeli somehow interested in

extending its territory from the Nile to the Euphrates is such an absurd hoax that if you ask Israelis

what you think of greater Israel, they assume that you're talking about Judea and Samaria,

and I don't realize there's a whole quarter of the internet that thinks that Israel wants to

extend from Egypt. What about what about Ben Giveran Smotrich? I know they like to be dismissed,

but they're still members of the government as well. So they're significant people with a

significant following. And absolutely none of them are talking about extending Israel's territorial

control beyond the original mandate borders that were assigned as a Jewish state by the League of

Nations. The idea that Israel has this vision of taking over the Middle East is part of the same

whole hive of conspiracy theories and hoaxes we've seen all over the all over the internet. The

fact is Israel and Lebanon should be at peace. I think you should have a conversation with a

US ambassador to Israel, Mike Huckabee, who recently delved into the conspiracy theory of Israel's

control over the whole region. But yeah, I'm wondering, you know, this is me being a bit,

you know, silly, but isn't really a conspiracy theory, Zachary, that, you know,

about greater Israel or does it have roots in Zionist ideology and Israeli political history?

There's a few very important points to make here. The first two points have to do with the

nature of Israel's military doctrine. It's security doctrine. And this doctrine in 1948

set out to not define Israel's borders. There was never any declaration after 1948 or since,

in the past 78 years, the state of Israel has never declared its borders. That's because Israel

has long been unsatisfied with its borders. It was unsatisfied with the Peal Commission proposal

to partition Palestine. It was unsatisfied with the UN partition proposal of 1947. Israel was

also unsatisfied with the 1949 armistice agreement borders. That's, of course, why there are

armistice agreements. They're not political borders. And every Israeli leader from 1948 to 1967

emphasized that those were just armistice lines. They were not political borders. And throughout

the 1940s and 50s and 60s, Israel proved that those were just armistice lines. For example,

I mean, in every border region, right, starting in the north, as we already said, Israel depopulated

a border villages going to the Syrian DMZ zone. Israel was constantly encroaching on those

noman zones in Israel's border with the West Bank from 49 to 67. Israel's constantly taking over

a cure by avert in the Latrune area, that Latrune salient, that little finger that jets out into Israel,

that was part of the West Bank. Israel's also trying to take over a noman's land in the Jerusalem

area. Again, this is at a time when Israel is at peace, right? There's no war. Israel is just

inching and inching and taking over aker by aker, done and by done in the noman lands, in the West

Bank, in the Syrian DMZ zone. And also in the Gaza border region, Israel is pushing the limits

of that armistice line with Egypt. And in fact, Israel has, of course, desire and ambition for

what shall happen to Palestinians beyond its borders. This is the other important key piece of

Israel's security doctrine. It's not just that there's no borders. It's that we decide what will

happen to Palestinians and Lebanese beyond our borders. Throughout the early 1950s, Israel's trying

to expel Palestinians out of the Gaza Strip into Sinai into Egypt, maybe they'll get sent off to

Jordan. At a time when it's Egypt that's controlling Gaza, Israel is working with the United States

and getting Palestinians out of Gaza. This idea that Israel has long been interested in maintaining

its borders within the 48 borders is nonsense. And then, of course, in the 1960s, in 1963,

after Israeli Prime Minister Levy Eshkol is elected Prime Minister, he has a meeting with his

deputy chief of staff who later becomes chief of staff, his name is Hitzrak Rabin. And Hitzrak Rabin

pitches to Prime Minister Eshkol, Israel's ideal borders. And it's all of British mandatory

Palestine. It's the entirety of the West Bank. It's obviously Gaza. And I believe he actually calls

of the Latani. He says, ideally, we'll go up to the Latani. That's in 1963. And then, of course,

what happens in the weeks leading up to the 1967 war in which Israel is escalating tension between

Israel and Egypt, between Israel and Syria. Egypt moves forces into the Sinai Peninsula based on

false information that the Soviets had provided them that there was an Israeli threat in Syria.

Israel, of course, does not see this as a crisis, but as an opportunity. If this was the

opportunity that Israel has long sought for. And of course, if you go back to the 1970s when all the

Israeli security cabinet members came out and said the 1967 war was not a war of annihilation,

there were no threats. We never even, the thought never even crossed our minds that we were on

the verge of being annihilated. Israel sees the moment, sees the opportunity, understanding that

it could wage this war of aggression against Egypt, Syrian Jordan. And it could take over the

remaining parts of British mandatory Palestine. And of course, and of course, beyond, right?

In which Israel took over not just Gaza and the West Bank, but also Sinai, and also the

of the Golan Heights, tripling the size of the country. And the Sinai Peninsula is massive, right?

It literally triples the size of the country. And of course, then plans on keeping, the plan

was to keep Sinai, the plan was not to give Sinai back. And of course, Israel has now annexed the

Golan Heights in the past couple of years. Israel has moved into beyond the Golan Heights and has

moved into, you know, they've gotten, I think, 30, 40 kilometers. That's how the Damascus in the

past year have just bombed Syria at will, planning to presumably maintain Israeli occupation in

Syria forever. Now they're planning on maintaining a permanent presence in South Lebanon forever.

It's an expansionist state. There's no borders. It has ambitions for who shall live where, in what

border regions, and in which states, and those one final point I will make here, which is that,

you know, one of the core pieces of Israel's security doctrine, from 48 to the present, even going

back to the 36 to 39 revolt. This is going back before the establishment of the State of Israel was

that Arabs are inherent security threat because the Zionist presence in Palestine is obviously

antagonistic to Palestinians and generally speaking Arabs in the Middle East. And Zionists have known

that since the beginning, right, because the whole project was, let's transform this country that's

95% Palestinian Arab into a Jewish paradise. Well, how do you do that? Well, you buy a plant,

and then you expel the Palestinians living on the land because they're the wrong religion.

So the Zionists have understand that their project is deeply antagonistic towards the native

population of Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine. And so they understand that Arabs, wherever they are,

are inherent threats. So they cannot exist in border areas. They cannot exist on the frontiers.

They cannot exist anywhere where you have a border. So the whole, and so what do you,

so what do you have? You have an expansionist ideology, which says, we can't have Palestinians or

Lebanese or Syrians on the borders. And we don't want to declare our borders either. And so then

what happens is you take over land, you expel the Palestinians of the Lebanese or the Syrians living in

that land, then you move Israeli settlers into that land. That's what Israel did in the Golan. So

Israel does in West Bank and Gaza. And then you have a new border region. We have a new frontier

zone. And now that new border region and that new frontier zone also needs to be depopulated.

And then you depopulate that zone, then you move settlers in. And now there's a new frontier.

And then you have a new border zone that needs to be depopulated. And this is effectively a

brief history, I think. If you have to sort of encapsulate and summarize and understand the

essence of the Zionist project, it's settle land, depopulate border zones, settle more land,

depopulate more border zones, and so on and so forth.

Yeah, that's a really good way to put it. And it's really mimics. I mean, it's like the American

settler project, right? Like that's basically what the US did until they had Native Americans

placed on these tiny little reservations that just got smaller and smaller. All of these frontiers,

it's just endless expansion. And I think there's a mentality in Lebanon that Lebanese are

somehow different than Palestinians because they're not the, you know, the geographically,

the ones that are geographically closest to what Israel considers its territory. But that said,

the Israelis don't see us that differently or differently at all. And, you know, I just

mentioned a few things about what you're talking about. I mean, there's always been Lebanese

collaboration with the Israelis. I mean, you mentioned, you know, trying to make Lebanon a Christian

state. Even before Israel's founding, there were basically feudal Lebanese families who sold,

because the area was just one big, like it was part of the Ottoman Empire. There wasn't borders.

Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, these weren't like specified countries. They were kind of like,

you know, like Virginia, Maryland, and DC. Like let's think about it like that, right? But part

of the same general general area was actually called, you know, by a lot of people greater Syria.

But back then, you had a lot of feudal families based in Lebanon who sold land to, I think you

would know this better than me. I want to say the Jewish agency, but there might have been a different

name for what I'm talking about at the time. That's exactly right. Yeah, go ahead. Yeah.

So that's all just to say, yeah, there's always been this kind of like Lebanese collaboration.

And I think you could probably say that about all the areas of the region, there's always been

collaboration, especially among the sort of feudal landowners or land owning class. And you see

remnants of that today in this mentality, specifically in Lebanon, because it's such a diverse

country, unlike, you know, a place like Palestine's diverse, but not as multi-sect as a place like

Lebanon is. And if Israel's brilliant at anything, in addition to killing babies, it's also very,

very good at playing on the minority cards across the region. So whether it's like the Maronites of

Lebanon or even the droos of historic Palestine or now Syria, as well as the Kurds across various

countries that they've aligned themselves with, and on and on and on. And so they've really done

a successful job at that in Lebanon to the point where there's certain Lebanese who see the south

as a Shia problem, and only a Shia problem. And who cares? It's the Shia, because there's a lot of

anti-Shia sentiment across Lebanon. So who cares? They're just like the Shia of the South. They're

ready to just give away the South. And it's a very, very sad state of affairs. I don't know if you

want to say anything about that before I go on to the next topic. I did want to make one quick point

because you brought up these landshales by Lebanese merchants and landlords,

capitalists, the most prominent of whom was the Sorsuch purchases. And the Sorsuch were very

prominent Lebanese family based in Beirut. I've actually spent some time in the Kessliq archives where

you have the files of the Sorsuch family, which documents their extensive landshales to

the Zionist movement to the Jewish Agency, as you correctly pointed out. And in those early decades,

really from the 1890s to the 1900s and 1910s and 20s, I couldn't give you the precise figures,

but a huge percentage of the land bought by the Zionist movement was actually bought from Lebanese

landowners. And in fact, if you go back to, if you're in the Zionist archives and looking at

papers from the 1890s, 1900s, 1910s, the Zionist movement is very worried that the Ottoman

government is going to attach the northern districts of Palestine that are currently under Lebanese

and Syrian authority. They're worried that they're going to put them under the administrative

authority Jerusalem, where the Jerusalem notables are much more hostile to Zionist landshales than

are the Beirut emergence, who don't care as much. And so there's all this political wrangling

in the late Ottoman period to ensure that the northern sections of Palestine, what is today

in Marjab and Amar, the Galilee, the Panhandle, all these parts of northern Palestine remain

under the control of the Beirut sub-district rather than the Jerusalem sub-district.

So this goes back many, many decades going back to the Ottoman period. And in fact, you had

a Zionist office inside down in Lebanon in the late Ottoman period as well because there was a

belief that this would be part of the Jewish homeland. And in fact, much of the land that Zionist

went was able to purchase was not purchased in the kind of Palestine heartland, the West Bank,

where you had the largest Palestinian population centers, right? In the mountainous interior,

what I say, the West Bank, right? Jerusalem, Hebron, Bethlehem, Jeanne, Nablus,

Al-Qaqqilia, Al-Qaeda, these are the biggest population centers in Palestine. Zionists were not

able to buy land there because that land was primarily owned by a sharecroppers under these

communal land tenure structures known as the Masha'a land. And they were not able to buy that land,

but they were able to buy the land that had fallen under the largest land-owning families,

primarily in places like Haifa, Beirut, Damascus, Jaffa, and Jerusalem. And again,

and again, like I said, the largest of those was Beirut, the Sarsuk family.

Amazing. I mean, it's just more evidence that landlords are no bueno.

That's right. I agree with that. But that's really, that's like a really, really fascinating

history that I think a lot of people are unaware of. I really appreciate you delving into that.

And I really hope to the Lebanese who are watching, but perhaps hate watching me. I hope you

learned something. Zachary, I want to just very quickly, actually, before I show you a video,

I want to just show people that you wrote out beautifully. I actually hope you've turned this

into like an article because you wrote out very beautifully a lengthy tweet with links

about, you say, a brief history of Israeli attempts to occupy Lebanon. And this is like more and

more in-depth version of everything that you've taken us through. And I just want to scroll down

let's go ahead and scroll down. Just keeps going. Look at that. Keeps going. Keeps going.

We're in the 70s now, 80s, 80s, like 90s. It just keeps going on and on until, you know, we get to

today. But I really appreciate that you did that. And again, I really, I'm encouraging you to turn

that into an accessible article. I think that would be really beneficial for a lot of people,

because I don't think many people are familiar with that history. I think a lot of the last

couple of years since the Gaza genocide started, people have become much more knowledgeable

about Palestine, which is fantastic. But it's really, really important that we understand

the Israeli settler colony as something that impacts the entire region and especially all of

its neighbors. And I'm saying this specifically about Lebanon in this moment, because, you know,

Israel's, you know, expanding this ground invasion. It's terrorizing all of us here in Lebanon.

It's the reason you keep seeing me with different backdrops and different cameras.

But it's, it's a really bleak moment. But, you know, I wanted to also play this video and then I

have a question for you. Let me share this tab. So this is a video that was posted by the lovely

Nicolas Soia, who is Lebanese. If you don't follow him on on on X, you absolutely should. And he

notes, before I put the video, just for those who can only hear it, he says, with Israel's current

invasion of Lebanon in the perilous 1978, I've gone to the archives to rewatch footage from that

invasion. Listen to this man, how similar his legitimate grievances were to those you hear today

from Southerners. Not much has changed 48 years later. So let's go ahead and I'm going to play

this video for everyone. This is from 1978 in Southern Lebanon. Nobody is coming to help us.

We have no bread, no food, not even water, no electricity, nothing, nothing. We are alone,

we have nothing. We need everything. We need help. Where is the Arab soldier? Where is the arm?

Where is the hundred million of the people? We are the biggest country in the world. We can say that

in the Middle East. We are a hundred million. They are the Arab people. The Arab people, yes.

And now, at this moment, we are our own. You see, we are only few thousand, few people, few

civil people. And we get the airplane and the tanks and armship. Everybody, these are also,

they are using everything to destroy the people. And now, if you like to come with me, I will

show you where is the airplane? They are shooting the people. Exactly. You can see with your eyes.

You see, that's what I like you to prove. That's all the people, all the world. We are in

South of Lebanon alone. And we have no fucking government. I am telling that frankly now.

So, I mean, literally the only difference between what you see here and what's happening today

is the man is wearing different clothing from a different time. And the footage isn't in HD.

But it's a very sad state of affairs. But I don't want to be, I mean, what's happening now is

horrible. But I also want to be honest about the fact that Israel has rarely succeeded. It has,

I mean, Israel has invaded Lebanon so many times that even occupied Lebanon for 15 years and was

ultimately kicked out. So, I want to ask if you could maybe talk about the fact that, you know,

Israel keeps trying. It's got this dream. And, you know, I'm not saying nothing's guaranteed,

you know, maybe, maybe this time around, Israel is able to, and I hope it doesn't happen. But maybe

no one knows. We have to wait and see. But can you talk a bit about why up until now, Israel has failed

in this project? Well, the reason Israel is not occupying Lebanon right now,

or at least not very many, not much of it. I mean, we could start the story. I think the first

major attempt Israel made to occupy South Lebanon was 1978. And that wasn't a plan in 1978,

was to occupy South Lebanon. But then, US President Jimmy Carter forced Israel out and actually threatened

with hold to completely cut off US arms, shipments to Israel, in the event that Israel would not

withdraw its forces. So, I mean, Israel would probably have already occupied Lebanon long ago,

had it not been for US diplomatic pressure. And then, in the aftermath of the invasion of Beirut

in 1982, Israel did in fact occupy Lebanon, but what happened? They were forced out. Because

there was a resistance to Israeli occupation, that resistance came in the form of Amal, and of course,

Hasbullah. And Hasbullah, with a support from its core religions in Iran, managed to bring an end

to Israel's belligerent military occupation of South Lebanon. And you probably recall those

videos of the prisoners freed from Israel's torture dungeons in the South that were managed by

the SLA. But basically, Israel was forced out. They were forced out by force. It was because

that it was because the Hasbullah militia was capable militarily of pushing them out. And that

pressure lasted about six years until Israel got expansionist fever once again, tried their hand

again at occupying Lebanon and failed again. Because it's a very difficult place to occupy.

The local population doesn't want you there. The terrain is rugged. This is difficult

mountainous land to cross. Your tanks are going to be targeted with rocket propelled grenade

launchers that Hasbullah can produce in the tens of thousands. These are light arms. These are

manoeunitions that can produce with ease. So Israel has never been a particularly effective

fighting force on the ground. I mean, we've seen that over the past two and a half years. They had

two and a half years to eliminate Hamas. We're talking about a rag tag fighting force of people

producing weapons underground in a besieged territory, one of the most densely populated

places on earth. And two and a half years into a genocide, they're able to manufacture rockets

underground that they're then able to fire at Israeli tanks two and a half years into a genocide,

or actually more like two years into the genocide. The ceasefire was signed in October 2025.

But you're talking about a fighting force that has no weapons coming in from the outside. It's

completely blockaded from the outside world is operating under the most intense conditions that

any fighting force is probably ever operated under in all of human history, living in underground

shelters, living in tunnels for two years. And Israel failed to defeat them. So Israel's

fighting force, obviously they have an incredibly powerful air force. They can bomb civilians

in the tens if not hundreds of thousands without with total impunity. But in terms of conquering

and taking over land, in terms of occupying Palestinian villages or Lebanese villages or Syrian

villages or Egyptian or or Jordanian villages, Israel has a long and tired history of failure

after failure after failure. They're not good at long wars. The infamous Israeli security

doctrine is short not long wars. We don't like long wars. We're a small country. We don't have

that many fighters. It's a huge burden in our economy to call up these hundreds of thousands of

reservists. We're taxing the civilian population at a huge level. And so Israel doesn't like long

wars. And so Israel doesn't like prolonged military occupations. And so it seems to me quite unlikely

that they're going to be able to take over Lebanon. It just strikes me as incredibly unlikely.

Yeah. And I mean, there's fierce battles taking place right now in places like Reem and other

Bala border villages across southern Lebanon between his Bala and the Israelis. And I mean,

if you read the Hebrew press, which I try to, you know, skim in translation mode every morning,

you know, it's not it's not easy for them. It's not going well for them in terms of being on the

ground. I mean, we all know Israel has a more difficult time on the ground. However, what they

are doing in conjunction with their ground invasion is they are obviously punishing Shia areas with

carpet bombing. They're also bombing outside of the scope of areas. They tend to generally bomb

and wars on Lebanon, which is scaring the rest of the population. And it's a meant to pressure

people outside of what's considered his Bala's community to like turn on his Bala and disarm

them themselves. And they also have the Americans holding a gun to the head of the people who are

in charge of the Lebanese government saying either you basically just arm his Bala or Israel will

occupy the country. And what that means to be asking the Lebanese government to disarm his Bala

means essentially having the Lebanese army confront his Bala, which would be a civil war.

They're asking Lebanese to either start a civil war or Israel occupies the south and destroys

the country. That's the choice they're giving Lebanon today. And it's a very terrifying one.

And it really harkens back to their tactics of the past that they're recycling. But man, it just

now there's a million displaced people. They're also using that against the country as well as

like a weapon because having a million people displaced in the rest of the country in a country

that's so sectarian and already has so much communal tension can lead to massive disasters.

It's really history repeating itself. And you know, nothing is guaranteed. But at this point,

you know, I know people who follow me on Twitter or who are reading me on Substack know that I,

you know, I've expressed my criticisms of of his Bala's decision to enter this war that I didn't

think it was strategic or wise at all. But, you know, that said, I do recognize now that Lebanon

has been invaded and people have a right to defend their villages. And it's crazy what's happening

in Lebanon now, Zachary because the Lebanese government is demanding on behalf of the US and Israel

that people stop fighting Israel. As if if they just lay down their weapons, Israel will just,

you know, leave southern Lebanon and stop trying to invade. And that, you know, history suggests

that's not what's going to happen. Um, anyways, all that to say, I want to ask you about a couple more

things here before we wrap up. So I know I've had you for almost an hour and I really appreciate your

time and expertise on all of this. Um, I want to pivot a little bit because another issue that's

come up recently is the possibility of nuclear escalation. And I mean, you might have seen that

tech billionaire David Sacks, who is a Trump advisor, warned in a video interview that if the war

continues, he said, and this is David Zack saying it. So it doesn't necessarily mean it's true.

But he said Israel could potentially, he's scared to use a nuclear weapon. I'm curious how seriously

should we take the possibility of nuclear escalation in this war? And here I'm talking about

the Israelis versus Iran. I mean, I don't think the Israelis would use a nuclear weapon in Lebanon

because then they'd essentially be nuking themselves. Um, but you know, there is something called

the Samson option. I'm not sure if our audience is familiar with that. But yeah, given your understanding

of Israel's nuclear doctrine, uh, is this something that we should be concerned about?

Well, as far as I'm aware, this is the first utterance of a senior US government official

who stated without reservation that Israel has nuclear weapons. I mean, David Sacks is the AI

and cryptos are under the Trump administration. And that places him very close to the commander

and chief himself. And he said Israel has nuclear weapons. Is that a change in the official

US government position? I don't know. But we're in an extremely scary situation,

Rania. I think we're at a greater risk of seeing a nuclear detonation go off in, in this war,

then we have been at any war previously, certainly since World War II, perhaps since the Cuban

missile crisis. But let's let's review the facts. Israel is has 200 or 300 nuclear weapons. We

don't know. Um, they don't allow international weapons inspectors access to those sites

because they don't have nuclear weapons officially. Um, Israel a few months ago, um, actually, uh,

tested a nuclear weapon. There was a 4.2 magnitude earthquake that was detected. And the epicenter

of that earthquake in Israel was in Domona, coincidentally enough, which is where Israel's nuclear

reactor is. So that's an interesting coincidence. Um, and then as you correctly pointed out, Israel

has a nuclear doctrine. It's called the Samson option in which it will, it stated military

doctrines. It will use nuclear weapons as a last resort. There were also, uh, there has also been

reports that Israeli leaders have threatened to use nuclear weapons in the past as a way to draw

in the United States into a military engagement. Well, if you don't engage Iran, if you don't engage,

uh, Iraq, if you don't engage this side of the other, we are going to use nuclear weapons. So

they also use it as a threat to involve, uh, to lure the Americans into military engagements in

the Middle East. So, so that's on the one hand. And then on the other hand, you're dealing with

a prime minister and a security cabinet and a parliament and a society that is Israeli-Jewish

society that has proven itself a totally indifferent to mass extermination of human life.

So when you combine the nuclear doctrine with the nuclear tests, oh, and we forgot to mention,

in 2024, there was reports by Reuters that Israel was actually expanding its nuclear facilities

in Des Moines. They were constructing, um, new edifices and new buildings in the Des Moines nuclear

complex. So when you add all this up, we're talking about, um, a government, and, and then we

haven't even mentioned B. B. Nesson and his personal issues, his four cases of bribery and corruption

and, and breach of public trust. Um, so he is facing, uh, a tremendous amount of risk at a personal

level that he might wind up in prison if he's no longer prime minister. So it's a genocidal country

and society. It's a prime minister hellbent on forever rule to avoid any kind of accountability

for, uh, his failure on October 7th for his corruption and, and bribery and breach of, uh,

public trust charges. Um, and then on top of that, it's layered on top of that, all of these, um,

uh, nuclear doctrines and nuclear tests and nuclear expansions of the nuclear facilities.

On top of that, we know that this war is not going very well for Trump and he's probably looking

for an off-ramp. You saw the reporting that, uh, by drop site, that although Steve Whitkopf has

been sending messages to Iranian foreign minister, the Iranian foreign minister is not replying to

them. And that's because Iran is no interest in a ceasefire. Iran understands that a ceasefire

now means another war in three, six, nine months. So they are of the, a belief that we need to

deal a major blow, uh, to, uh, of the United States and to Israel. Such a blow so big that,

that this will be the last war of aggression they wage on us, which means pain, which means

economic pain, which means closure of the Straits of Hormuz, which means $200, uh, price of, uh,

crude bail of oil, which, which means inflation in the US, which means higher food prices and higher

gas prices and higher prices of everything that involves oil, which is everything. And, and, and,

how price is that everything that involves natural gas, which is everything. So you're talking about

a country, Iran, which is in the driver's seat, and you're talking, and so what that means is that

how is, well, where's the off-ramp going to come from? How is Trump going to get out of this

situation? But suppose he does manage just to find an off-ramp, then it's Israel by itself,

then it's Israel facing off with a power that has an arsenal of thousands of ballistic missiles

that can degrade Israel's defense systems, that could attack the Israeli homeland, and they could

do major damage to Israel. So when you add that into the picture, I can't think of a time in

world history. I mean, I say for perhaps the Cuban Missile Crisis and World War II, where we've

been closer to the brink of war, to the brink of nuclear war than we are right now.

That's a completely terrifying prospect. And I think you made it like, I mean, the way you phrased

it, as this is a country in a society that has demonstrated they're totally fine with mass

extermination. The idea of nukes in their hands is very frightening. And then you think about

Israel. I don't know if the Americans played a role. Maybe they did in murdering or in killing

the top national security head in Iran, Ali Larajani. But there was some theories that the reason

the Israelis killed him is to really kill any potential negotiating partner for the Trump

administration because they don't want any off-grams. They want this word to continue. And you had

Joe Kent, a top, a senior Trump advisor, essentially resigned very publicly today and writing a letter

saying he feels very strongly that it was the Israelis that convinced Trump to go to war

with Iran and that there was no imminent threat, which we know, the national security establishment

in the US, that there was no imminent threat. So yeah, it just seems like pulling us all into

apocalypse. And that's not to take any blame here off of the Americans at all, the completely

incompetent administration of Donald Trump. But the Israelis played a huge role in making this

where it happened. I want to ask you, one last or a couple, a couple last things here, Zachary.

One of which is, you know, I wanted to ask you about another disturbing issue. In addition to

demonstrating that they're totally fine with mass extermination, Israeli society has also

demonstrated that they're okay with sexual violence. And we saw recently that the Israeli soldier

who was captured on camera sexually torturing Palestinian detainees has now been released and

celebrated by many top Israeli officials. And you know, this is a part of a pattern, like I said,

of sexual violence as a tool of domination in this, you know, ongoing conflict, ongoing genocide.

It's been totally normalized. And I'm just curious what these acts do you think say about

Israeli society and their military today? Where do you even begin? I mean, Israeli society,

as far as I can tell, operates the largest network of rape dungeons in the world. Let me

repeat that. I'm not aware of any evidence that has, of any compelling evidence of dozens,

hundreds of reports from Palestinian prisoners, from quote unquote administrative detainees,

detainees, people who have been abducted off the streets of the West Bank, Gaza, and Israel.

They're not charged with any crimes because they haven't committed a crime. That's why they're not

charged with any crimes. They're actually charged with having committed a crime in the future.

And therefore, they can't present illegal defense. And so they're just locked up. And their

detention is renewable, potentially indefinitely. So we're talking about about 10,000 of these

Palestinian prisoners in Israel's torture dungeons. And you've had, at this point, a slew of reports

from Bicellum, from Palestine Children's Fund, from various UN bodies, UNHCR. There's no debate

about this anymore. Every single one of these reports comes to the same conclusion.

Rape, sexual harassment, sexual abuse is systematic. It's not a one-off here or there. You even

had one case where a Palestinian prisoner came out of prison and said, every time he asked to

speak with his lawyer, they raped him. So he stopped asking to speak with his lawyer.

You just had a report in Harvard's yesterday, a describing a case where settlers sexually abused.

So now it's beyond, it's not even leave aside the prison rape, which, like we said, is systematic,

where we have accounts of not dozens, but literally hundreds of Palestinians who have put their own

name on their own testimony, saying, I was raped in prison. I was sexually abused in prison.

This is on top of the starvation. This is on top of the physical abuse. This is on top of the

psychological abuse. So that's happening in prison. And then outside of prison, you just had a

case yesterday. This is in the settlement of Homsa, in the northern West Bank, in the northern

Jordan Valley, where you had settler terrorists, a dozen of them, enter a Palestinian village,

and sexually abuse a 76-year-old Palestinian man in front of his kids. So this is happening

literally daily now, not just in prison, but outside of prison. Not just by Israeli security

forces, but by Israeli settler terrorists themselves, but by civilians.

And then, so you have this widespread sexual abuse, both in and out of prison,

there was a case just the other day as well, by the way, Rania, of you having an Israeli minister,

I forget which portfolio she is. We could pull this up, but she and her husband were reportedly,

or punitively, according to their daughter, who just committed suicide over the weekend,

sexually abusing her entire childhood. And she came out on video a few months back. This is,

I can't remember exactly when, but earlier in the year, maybe last year she came out,

and basically with this video message, kind of telling the world that she was sexually

abused her entire childhood by her mother and her father, and her mother is a minister,

a current minister sitting in the Israeli government. So she's the minister of, is it settlements?

Her name is, or reach, or sorry, a daughter of the settlement's minister. That's right.

And I'm sorry, I'm pulling it up now. So I continue. I just wanted to give you the,

just, yes, I saw some people sharing the story, but please continue, because I didn't understand

the details of it, but the settlement, it's the settlement's minister, or reach straw.

That's right. Her daughter, Shoshana, who's 34 years old, was found dead, but go ahead and continue.

So here you have a 34-year-old woman who was sexually abused her whole life, and then after

she came out publicly with reporting on this story of her own sexual abuse, she is obviously

under intense pressure, right? Because she's exposing, not just an Israeli minister, but her own

mother, and there's a conspiracy. It's a family, and there's probably more people involved. It's not

just her parents. So it's a conspiracy, and then she winds up dead, and she carries out, and she

commits suicide. Israel has a long history. We just saw, it was a long history, by the way,

also of Israeli Americans, or dual nationals, escaping to Israel to avoid charges of sexual abuse,

to avoid charges that they would face in the United States. And this was the case earlier,

I mean, it was 2025. We had a case where a very prominent Israeli businessman fled the United States,

fleeing charges of sexual, was it rape, was it sexual abuse? I don't remember the exact charges.

But this is a long-standing problem, the state of Israel. And again, it's very hard to wrap your

head around why this society is just so sadistic. Why it is that you have sexual harassers,

sexual abusers rape, serial rapists? I mean, we could talk about the absenteen files, obviously,

where you have just the conflation of mass-scale sexual abuse of young girls and women

from Eastern Europe who are lured into this Jeffrey Epsom's island, abused, harassed for years,

and years and years. And it's like everyone in like all the senior players in this Epstein circle

are all either Israelis or their Zionists, or their former Israeli prime ministers,

or their Israeli lobbyists, or their Israeli spies, or the somehow connected to Israel.

And of course, there's others connected that aren't connected to Israel, but like there's

somehow a preponderance of Israeli or Zionist leaders involved in this sex scandal. And it does

make you ask questions, why is society so deranged? Why are there so many sex scandals associated

with Zionist leaders and Israeli prime ministers, and Israeli ministers, and Jewish Americans,

and Israeli Americans fleeing to Israel? It does raise questions, Rania.

Yeah, I mean, it certainly does. And then you think about how they just want to liberate

the women of Iran. And you wonder what that liberation, what that form of liberation would look

like, in addition to bombing and destroying their country, it's like, is this what liberation looks

like? Sex rings, pedophile sex rings? I don't think I don't, and I don't know, those are a lot

of really good points. It's really horrifying and disturbing. There's one last thing I wanted to

ask you about here, and that is, well, there was this recent attack on a synagogue, right,

by this Lebanese man in Michigan, whose relatives had been killed by the Israelis in South Lebanon,

and that included his brother and all of his brother's children.

The Israelis have since claimed that his brother was a member of his fellow,

was a his fellow fighter, but there's no evidence for that. And I just assume anything

Israel says is a lie until proven otherwise. But even if he was, it wouldn't make it okay to

murder his entire family, but that is what the Israelis do, right? But what was interesting was

after this attempted attack, you know, the man was killed by police, and he wasn't, you know,

nobody ended up getting hurt. Obviously it was very scary. But I was, I found it interesting

that commentators were, were immediately pointing out. I think you pointed this out as well,

that this particular synagogue had been openly supporting Israel, and basically like supporting

the genocide in Gaza. And I'm not saying that genocide suffice attacking it, but I am curious

your thoughts on the way that mainstream Jewish spaces have been used and continued to be used

to rally support for Israel's expanding genocidal policies. And what that has done, you know,

to mainstream Judaism in North America. And I'm saying this as somebody who obviously like I'm

sitting here in Lebanon where the Israelis are bombing and invading, you know, my family's country.

And it's really, really, really scary here. And I'm somebody who's in a privileged position,

you know, I don't like live in an area where I've been, you know, just placed, though I do keep kind

of like moving from place to place because some places are a bit scarier than others,

and it's an inconvenience. But I say that I'm asking you this not because I'm sitting here like

making it a priority of like, oh, no, what does this mean for Judaism? But I would assume, you know,

you come from a Jewish background, you should care about that. So anyways, all that's to say,

I'm just curious your thoughts on all those things I mentioned.

Yeah, so much to say, look, I grew up a few miles away from Temple Israel in Westfield,

Michigan. So this does hit very close to home. Obviously, I would never support an attack on any

religious institution or for them in any civilian object of any kind, be a Jewish Muslim or Christian.

Now, having said that, the basic problem here in the institutional Jewish world in the United

States is that, and Israel, obviously, on the UK and almost every other Jewish community in the

world is that these institutions are not really Jewish. They are Zionist.

They raise Israeli flags on their properties. They sing prayers for the state of Israel and

synagogue and Saturday morning. They also wish safety onto the soldiers, the soldiers of

the Israeli army on synagogue in synagogue on Saturday morning. That was the case in the

show I grew up in, just a few miles from Temple Israel and Westfield, Michigan. So there's

the wishing safety on soldiers accidentally sniping Palestinian children in the head twice.

And then they're wondering why they're facing blowback. And then you have Israeli soldiers

lighting the Hanukkah menorah in Gaza on the ruins of Gaza's unmarked graves. And then you have

Israeli soldiers going into Janine, setting up Russia Shana dinner in the ruins

of the Janine refugee camp in September 2025. After they ethnically cleanse tens of thousands

of Palestinians from the camp, now they're celebrating Russia Shana, the Jewish New Year,

inside the refugee camp. And then you have synagogue's hosting fundraisers to sell land

in the occupied West Bank that was stolen from Palestinians. And then you have the chief rabbi,

the UK say that Zionism leaps off every page of the sea door, which is the Jewish prayer book.

So should I go right free Palestine on the sea door? Because it's a political book, not a religious

book. So what you have is, and then of course you have synagogues if you go to their websites.

And I just posted about this, not one or two, but literally dozens of synagogues across the United

States in New Jersey, in New York City, in Florida, and in Oregon, wherever you go, you have synagogues.

You go to their websites. They have a list of helpful resources and helpful links. Donate to

the friends of the IDF. Now, can I ask you something, Rania? If you were an American and you discovered

that a mosque in, I don't know, Texas or Michigan was raising money to send to the RSF forces in Sudan

to help them slaughter thousands, if not tens of thousands, of Sudanese civilians in Elfajr,

how would you feel? So we're talking. We're talking. We're talking about a society.

And a series of institutions that are deeply, deeply complicit in Israel's war crimes,

in its apartheid regime, in its genocidal onslaught, in its wars of aggression and Lebanon and Iran.

I'm sorry. Like, if you want to raise an Israeli flag and wish safety on soldiers carrying on a

genocide and sell land that's stolen from Palestinians, if you want to associate with apartheid

and genocide, well, you better expect to face blowback. And that's not to justify the blowback,

but that's just to be honest about cause and effect. If you're a historian studying the Holocaust,

and you're trying to understand what led to the Holocaust, the murder of 6 million Jews,

and you're trying to understand what it was that led to the Holocaust, you're not justifying those

attacks. If you were, then we'd have hundreds of thousands of Jews in Israelis and Zionists who

justify the murder of 6 million Jews. No, that's not what we're doing. We're trying to understand

the context. We're trying to understand cause and effect, which is different than justifying.

But that's exactly what these communities are doing. They're endangering their own members,

putting them at risk, by brandishing and identifying with and associating with the most

genocidal country in society on planet Earth. Yeah, I think that's a really, really good way to put it.

Listen, Zachary, I appreciate your your scholarship so much. And I appreciate you for coming on

once again to explain so much. And for those who tuned in later, like we spent the first half of

this episode talking all about Lebanon. So if you missed that, please go back and check it out

because it is full of so much important history. And I also want to remind everybody to please,

if you haven't already, make sure you hit the like button. Hit the like button you guys at

help spooces in the algorithm. Also consider becoming a member of breakthrough news by going to

patreon.com slash breakthrough news. We are an independent media outlet. So we need your support.

Zachary, can you tell everybody where they can follow your excellent excellent work?

Yeah, you can find me on Twitter slash x underscore zack foster. But if you want to read my longer

pieces in depth pieces, you can find all that as well as the courses I offer on Palestine and

Zionism and anti-Zionism. You can find all that at Palestinenextus.com.

And there's so many important pieces there and I'm going to keep encouraging you to do one on

Lebanon. Just take that Twitter, that's what you put up and make it into a piece so that people can

just keep looking at it. Zachary, thank you so so much for joining me. I really appreciate it.

Thanks so much for having me, Ronnie.