Lebanon today stands at a crossroads, facing down both Israeli military occupation and a government committed to normalization with the Zionist state at the expense of the South’s land and people. In the Syrian Golan Heights, the Israeli occupation has seized 350 kilometers of land, roughly the size of the city of Cairo. Instead of condemning the theft, the Syrian government—on the precipice of hosting its first US business forum—has surrendered the Golan, removing the region from its official map of the country. The genocide in Gaza has now passed the 1000 day mark. The IOF claims to have seized 60 percent of the Strip, aiming for 70 percent, while escalating daily bombardment and blocking the entry of critical humanitarian aid.
Despite this vast web of death and devastation, the Zionist state today faces the gravest threat to its existence in half a century.
The war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu and his fellow crooks in the cabinet had believed that Al-Aqsa Flood would unlock the gates to absolute domination in the region. Normalization deals would come in quick succession; the resources of the region would become theirs to loot and plunder; glittering towers would rise from the rubble of Gaza. Emboldened to escalate the genocide they committed with an ever-increasing flow of American dollars and weapons, Israeli politicians convinced the U.S. government to launch an assault on Iran, one that they thought would deal a death blow to the resistance axis.
But the Islamic Republic of Iran did not and will not fall. Not from the Mossad spies that filtered into Tehran and armed monarchists with ambitions to overthrow the government; nor from the violent Zio-American air raids on Tehran that sent fiery mushroom clouds into the air and led to downpours of black rain; nor from the assassinations of senior Iranian figures, including Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Commander-in-chief Mohammad Pakpour, and Ali Larijani. Iran perseveres, not only as a state hostile to Zionist imperialism, but as a staunch supporter of resistance against Israel and a powerful counterweight to the wave of capitulation from governments across the region.
Iran’s resistance remains formidable despite nearly half a century of Western sanctions that have suffocated its economy and imposed immense hardship on its people. While Lebanon’s leaders cobble together toothless words of censure for Israel’s repeated massacres in the South, and self-appointed Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa busies himself with lavishing praise on Donald Trump and celebrating the new warmth in U.S.-Syrian relations, Iran acts with the calculus of a revolutionary republic forged in resistance to Western imperialism.
That calculus has led Iran’s leaders to demand that the lands of the Resistance Axis form an integral part of their negotiations with the Americans. The first point of the Memorandum of Understanding, signed by the U.S. and Iran on June 26, calls for the “immediate and permanent termination of military operations on all fronts, including in Lebanon.” Instead of embracing the protection afforded by this new security framework, the Lebanese government dispatched a delegation to the Pentagon in Washington to meet Israeli officials and sign a 14-point agreement that effectively legitimizes the Zionist occupation of scores of villages across the South: a Declaration of Shame.
This ‘Tripartite Agreement’ calls for the establishment of “pilot zones” where occupation forces withdraw from the land so that Lebanese Army soldiers can enter and clear Hezbollah military infrastructure. Point #13 calls on the signatories to “commit to taking confidence-building measures that reflect positive intent” that “include ending all hostile or negative actions in international political and legal forums” — effectively barring Lebanon from pursuing legal action against the Zionist entity for its war crimes in an international court of law. The document’s accompanying “security annex” presses for coordination between the IOF and the Lebanese Army. The configuration recalls the disaster of the Oslo Accords, which transformed the Palestinian Authority into a police force serving the Zionists and escalated construction of settlements across the occupied West Bank.
Lebanon’s leaders do not hesitate to abandon the hundreds of thousands of southerners whose homes and land have just been destroyed by occupation forces, nor to desecrate the blood of the martyrs that have fallen defending the country from invaders. They dismantle Lebanon’s means of self-defense all the while claiming that this capitulation to Israel will somehow restore Lebanon’s sovereignty.
Where does one begin to understand the folly of this Lebanese government that has pursued negotiations with the enemy of its land and people without any political or military leverage? Its calculations stem from the belief that the West will always be the victor, that the Zio-American order will never fall, and that nations can only rise when their fingers are interlaced with the forces of evil that seek to bury the Palestinian cause in the dust of history. We recall the words of Walid Daqqa: “Our elites are not helpless. No, they lack will. They lack imagination. Full stop.”
But as the Lebanese heads of state extoll this new era of “peace and prosperity,” the true forces of its sovereignty move iron and steel beneath the earth, continuing their work to expel the occupation. The sovereignty of the people is won through resistance, by those who point their arms at the invader.
The people of the South know this, which is why they condemn the actions of their government, burn tires in protest on the roads, and declare that the resistance lives, that it will always live so long as the talons of Zionist imperialism grip the soil of the Levant.
Our struggle continues despite the darkness that threatens to engulf us. Our people continue to endure the daily violence of a beast lashing out in its death throes. The shadow of Zionist occupation stretches across Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon. In Gaza, the daily massacres continue as hundreds of thousands face the burning summer heat beneath thin sheets of plastic. Southern Lebanon suffers Zionist occupation, its soil still waiting to receive the bodies of martyrs left where they fell. In Iran, families grieve sons and daughters crushed beneath the force of Israeli bombs.
But Iran’s undisputed victory can reshape the regional order in favor of the resistant forces working to end the scourge of Zionism. Across the imperial core, a renewed focus is required: expose the enemy’s crimes, exploit its hubris, and grind the imperial war machine to a halt.
This piece appears in the twenty-second issue of The New York War Crimes.