ISRAEL’S invasion of Lebanon, a sovereign state, following a series of terror attacks and intensive bombing of civilian areas, is part of a long history of colonial aggression that dates back not just to the invasions of the later 20th century, but more than 100 years ago to the very establishment of the territorial “mandates” by the imperial powers of Britain and France.

At that time, so-called “zionist ideologues,” envisioning a time when the mandate of Palestine would become their new Israel, lobbied the British and French governments to include the water resources of the Litani river, in what had been part of a greater Syrian province, in the mandate of Palestine. Their application was rejected, but the aim to incorporate the Litani as Israeli territory has never gone away, as evidenced by the naming of its first invasion “Operation Litani” (1978).

Israel has invaded Lebanon three times before the current assault: in 1978, 1982 and 2006. Israel’s tactics now are not new and have been homed in on Lebanon as well as Gaza — each time, Israel has targeted civilian populations and infrastructure, killing thousands, driving hundreds of thousands from their homes, and using starvation as a weapon. Between the invasions, there have been constant Israeli air raids and incursions, along with the funding by Israel of far-right sectarian groups. Even prior to the first invasion in 1978, the aggression was constant, with more than 6,000 attacks just between 1968 and 1975.

In this context, Israel’s killing and maiming of thousands using booby-trapped pagers and radios, and its rapid intensification of its bombing attacks — 80 tonnes of high explosives dropped on a handful of buildings in Dahiyeh in a single attack to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, killing hundreds of civilians — was appalling but not surprising.

Nor was the subsequent invasion attempt and the war crimes it is already committing in Lebanon, killing more than 2,000 civilians in its latest assault, including dozens of first responders on the street and medical workers in bombed hospitals, alongside civil defence and rescue workers.

These are not the actions of a handful of rogue units or pilots, but a codified Israeli military doctrine, which it calls the “Dahiyeh doctrine” after the same area of Lebanon that it is now pummelling, formulated during the 2006 invasion. This doctrine, first publicly announced by the Israeli military in 2008, involves the deliberate targeting of civilians with military force in order to try to turn the horrified survivors against the resistance. It was put into practice again during the 2008-9 Gaza war, leading the UN’s Goldstone report to condemn the strategy as “designed to punish, humiliate and terrorise a civilian population.”

Israel’s excuses for the current invasion wore thin as quickly as they were stated. Since October 7 last year, Israel has fired rockets and shells at Lebanon five times more often than Hezbollah fired at Israel — and killed 30 times more people, according to a recent Channel 4 fact-check — so the “provocation” claim fails to withstand scrutiny. 

A campaign initially supposed to create a buffer zone to allow Israelis, displaced by Hezbollah’s retaliatory attacks in solidarity with Gaza, to return to their homes in northern Israel quickly morphed into a plan to wipe out Hezbollah — the same ambition that Israel unsuccessfully pursued in the 2006 invasion. This is an aim that military analysts — including Israeli experts — believe is no more feasible than the eradication of Hamas in Gaza that has seen Israel slaughter well over 40,000 civilians, according to doctors, and potentially more than four times that number according to the medical journal The Lancet. 

According to the Gaza Health Ministry, by October 6 2024, almost 42,000 civilians had been killed in the Gaza Strip since October 7 2023.

Given the unfeasibility of Israel achieving a lasting victory militarily and the now-demonstrated ability of Iran to strike Israel’s military facilities despite the “Iron Dome” and other air defences, the logical conclusion is that Netanyahu’s government, emboldened by expressions of support from Western governments, is rolling the dice in a high-stakes gamble. Netanyahu calculates that Israel’s aggression and atrocities can provoke a severe enough response from Iran that it turns into a full-scale regional war, forcing the US and its pliant allies into hitting Iran directly and heavily enough that it no longer threatens Israel’s ambitions.

Any real pretence that the genocide in Gaza and the attack on Lebanon are not part of Netanyahu’s “Greater Israel” project was shed when, in giving a speech on September 27 2024 to the UN general assembly representatives that had not walked out in disgust, he held up a map of the “blessing” of a victorious Israel that showed Israeli territory extending far up into Lebanon — and no Lebanon, or Gaza or West Bank, shown on the map at all — while Syria, Iran and Iraq became blank spaces. 

Netanyahu, according to media reports and photographic evidence, went straight from that speech to a telephone, where he ordered Israeli intelligence services to execute the terror attack in Lebanon, which followed the previous week’s detonation of booby-trapped devices.

Despite these terrorist tactics and the slaughter of civilians in a replay of the beginning of Israel’s genocide in Gaza, the British and US governments have remained, as some would argue, appallingly devoted to siding with Israel no matter what — and of providing moral outrage as political cover for its actions.

US President Joe Biden and his Vice-President Kamala Harris both called the dropping of 80 tonnes of high explosives on hundreds of civilians living in six residential blocks “a measure of justice.” Keir Starmer broadcasted an emergency video to the people of Britain, as Iran attacked in retaliation for the bombing, in which he said he “utterly condemn[ed]” Iran’s “aggression” — many have pointed out that he falsely claimed Iran was targeting civilians when Iran hit only military targets and killed no Israelis — before promising that the “UK stands with Israel.” 

He made no mention of Israel’s terror tactics in Lebanon or its mass bombing of Lebanese civilians in that speech, or at any time after the atrocities were committed.

The US and Britain continue to back Israel’s war drive. Despite the acknowledged dangers of a war with Iran and Israel’s obvious wish to provoke one, they continue to provide the mass weaponry and logistical support to Israel and to defend Israel against the consequences of its actions. Why?

Despite its aggression and its deliberate targeting of civilians, Israel is still seen as key to US and British capitalist and imperialist interests in the region and the accessibility of the Middle East’s huge oil resources and trade routes. Both Britain and the US, arguably dominated in each case by two parties of similar politics and identical commitment to Israel, continue to support Israel’s aggression and war crimes, despite widespread outrage among their publics.

As early as the 1950s, Israel’s Haaretz newspaper recognised this reality and summarised Israel’s role as to slap down any of its neighbours whose actions or ambitions do not fit with those of the “great” Western powers: “Israel has been given a role not unlike that of a watchdog… Should the West prefer for one reason or another to close its eyes it can rely on Israel punishing severely those of the neighbouring states whose lack of manners towards the West has exceeded the proper limits.”

This dynamic was at play when Israel sided with Britain and France against Egypt over Suez, in Israel’s wars on its Arab neighbours in the 1960s, ’70s and ’80s — and in its latest attack on Lebanon now. Iran and its allies in Lebanon and Yemen threaten the equilibrium that facilitates Western trade and influence. 

In addition to the effect of Israeli lobby group influence in the US, Britain and other Western nations, their governments — or at least big enough factions to be decisive — perceive their own interests to be aligned with giving Israel impunity and free rein, however much hypocritical hand-wringing or talk of the need for restraint or a ceasefire (but never under any circumstances any significant action to compel them) they indulge in as theatre.

Faced with this moral vacuum and political intransigence, those who want justice and an end to the slaughter must redouble their efforts and intensify their boycotts and political pressure if we are not to see war crimes escalate into regional and potentially global war.

Claudia Webbe was the member of Parliament for Leicester East (2019-24). You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe.