Dana El-Kurd

It's just an acknowledgement.

I'm also a historian that they come from a certain context.

And if that context is not acknowledged at all, and in fact, the conditions that brought them are now much worse than even the 80s,

Why would we believe that something else won't come along later on in one way or another?

And this notion that the Israelis have that they're just a buffer zone and then destabilize Lebanon endlessly or whatever it might be, it also comes from this sort of imperialist hubris that they believe that this won't harm them in one way or another, that they can endlessly and permanently have a neighbor to their north that has a lot of armed components and also constantly at war or whatever it might be.

It's hubris, it's imperialist hubris, and it's also extremely, extremely dangerous, even beyond just what would happen to people in Lebanon.

Yeah, yeah.

And the thing is, it's sort of the same principle, in a sense, that same understanding that also led me to, for years now, to oppose the Iranian regime.

It's that same understanding.

It's not just their brutality towards people within Iran, of course, but they have engaged in imperialist campaigns in Syria, most notably, but also in Iraq.

And in Lebanon, it's like a different kind of thing, but there is that...

that component of it as well, that hasn't contributed to make them like a better opponent of the Israelis or the Americans.

If anything, it's made them weaker.

One of the many problems, but I think the biggest one now is that this is, and this is completely regardless of the ethics of the Iranian regime, which I've opposed for several years as well.

This has nothing to do with supporting them or excusing their actions or anything like that.

But just understanding why the Israelis are acting, specifically the Israelis are acting the way they have been acting for years now.

There is this tendency, I mean, if you go on The Guardian, for example, now you see like crisis in the Middle East and then you can click on it and then just go back years and years and years.

as though it's the same thing.

It's just this place that has crises and you expect that this will happen.

But as I think people know a bit better now with the global component of it, this also has a global ramification.