By Jeremy Salt

Public reaction to the death of Hezbollah leader, Hasan Nasrallah, has been compared to the overwhelming grief after the death of Egypt’s president, Gamal Abd al Nasser, in 1970.

There is one critical difference.

Nasser died of natural causes while Nasrallah was murdered.

In any case, the better comparison is with the Egyptian reaction to the resignation of Nasser after the crushing defeat of the 1967 war.

Having suffered such a blow at the hands of Israel, the loss of the beloved leader as well was too much.

Millions poured into the streets, grief-stricken, banging pots and pans, crying “Don’t leave us!” Finally, Nasser did as they asked and dropped his resignation.

The murder of Nasrallah is devastating not just for Hezbollah as an organization but for millions of people in Lebanon, across the Middle East and much further afield. The grief is overwhelming and deeply personal but as hard as it is to believe that this dominant figure in their lives has gone, he has gone and the fight will continue, as he insisted it must during his lifetime.

The assassination of one man has been hailed in the West as a stunning victory against terrorism by a state that in the past year has slaughtered tens of thousands of civilians in Gaza, including over 17,000 children, with its air strikes tearing the arms, legs or both from the bodies of at least 11,000 more.

After turning Gaza into a charnel house, Israel moved on to Lebanon,  where it is killing scores of civilians every day.  None of this is terrorism, of course, in the eyes of the West,  but only Israel’s ‘right’ to defend itself.

In Beirut, Israel’s jets destroyed four residential apartment buildings at least seven storeys high to get at Nasrallah with their ‘bunker buster’ bombs.

Many others were ‘levelled’ or ‘flattened,’ in the language of the Western media – as if this was a standard demolition job and no one was inside these buildings to be levelled and flattened.

The West celebrated the murder of Nasrallah and others with him, including Iran’s IRGC commander Abbas Nilforouchan.

The unknown number of Lebanese men, women and children who were killed immediately with them or were crushed under the rubble as their buildings collapsed rated only a nominal mention.

They were the ‘collateral damage,’ to use that tired inhuman phrase.

‘High Kill Probability’

According to the New York Times, Israeli warplanes dropped 80 bombs (other sources say 85) two seconds apart on four residential buildings within the space of several minutes.

The Lebanese health ministry said six buildings were destroyed in the Dahiyya district with others targeted as the attacks continued.

Amongst the bombs dropped in this mass murder onslaught were “at least” 15 2000-lb (910 kg) bombs,  according to the NYT,  including the US-made 2000lb (907 kg) BLU-109, packed with tritonal (80 per cent TNT and 20 per cent aluminium to increase the heat ‘output’ and thus the killing capacity) and capable of penetrating reinforced concrete to a depth of about two metres.

Many other bombs may have been used.

In early December 2023,  the media revealed that the US had given Israel 15,000 bombs since October 7 including 100 BLU-109s.

On June 28 this year,  Reuters revealed that since the Hamas attack the US had also supplied Israel with “at least” 14,000  MK 84/BLU 117 general purposes bombs (similar to the BLU-109); 6500 500lb bombs; 3000 precision-guided air-to-ground Hellfire missiles;  1000 uncategorized bunker buster bombs and 2600 small diameter bombs.

Israel also has the MPR-500 (230 kgs), 1000 (453.5 kgs) and 2000 (907 kgs) bombs manufactured by Israel’s Elbit Systems.

The MPR 500, as described by Elbit, includes 26,000 controlled fragments “for high kill probability with low collateral damage against a wide range of targets in open terrain,” with “95 per cent reliability” among its numerous key “benefits.”

The MPR 500 can penetrate one metre of concrete, the MPR 1000 1.5 metres and the MPR 2000 2.5 metres and all three are compatible with US air-to-surface guidance systems.

Rafael Defence Industries adds to the pile with its own ‘bunker buster’ weapon, the ROCKS “autonomous extended stand-off range air-to-surface missile” which can be fitted with a penetration or blast fragmentation warhead that can hit its target with “pinpoint accuracy” in “GPS-denied areas.”

Israel also has an outstanding (as far as we know) request for the 5000lb (2267kg) US-made  GBU-72 bomb, which can penetrate six metres of concrete, with a lethality “expected to be substantially higher compared to similar legacy weapons like the [1814kg] GBU-28,” according to James Culliton, the USAF’s GBU-72 program manager.

The London Telegraph describes the GBU-72 as the medicine for “evil regime” deep bunkers.

The weapons pouring out of the US cornucopia include the $14.3 billion pledged under the ‘national security’ package announced last November 28 for Israel’s air and missile ‘defence’ systems and the replacement of expended weapons.  A longer-term contract was signed last August for the supply of scores of warplanes and missiles by 2029.

Should Israel still get into trouble in the current situation, the US has massed warships, planes and amphibious assault craft in the Gulf of Oman and the eastern Mediterranean to defend it or join it in open attacks on other countries.

It recently announced the despatch of more troops to the Middle East “region” without saying how many or where they were going.

Given the range of weapons available to Israel and the intensity of the destruction in Dahiyya over two days, the death and wounded figures coming out of the Lebanese health ministry – 2, six, 10, 33 – were obviously nominal.

Thousands of people had to be living in these buildings and the bombs dropped on them were so massive that hundreds must have been killed.

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

It is not just that few could have survived but that bodies would have been fragmented,  blown into parts now buried under tons of rubble, with few left alive to tell authorities who their neighbors were. As the Israeli politicians and military commanders had repeatedly threatened, they turned Dahiyya into Gaza.

The cumulo-nimbus cloud of brown smoke towering over Beirut was a testament to something – but what? Israeli military efficiency?

Israel’s super-smart intelligence services (unit 8200 and the less known unit 524, which runs the 1391 ‘black’ prison site in northern Israel and is responsible for interrogation and the gathering of human intelligence)?

Barbaric mass murder at the hands of a criminal state or a combination of all these things?

There is a new rider alongside the Bible’s Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (conquest, war, famine and death).

This fifth rider is hyper-modern technology.

In the Book of Revelation, the four horsemen are riding white, red, black and pale horses.

In Gaza and Lebanon this fifth horseman, on the orders of politicians and generals, is flying an Israeli warplane, commanding an Israeli tank and turning human beings into pieces of meat with bunker-buster bombs and missiles.

‘Fungoid’ Barbarism

A successful military assault does not always lead to a successful political outcome but in the past two centuries, superior technology has given the West its military victories across the Middle East and North Africa.

An early example is Algeria where French field artillery and bolt-loading rifles crushed the resistance of tribesmen having to fashion bullets from date pits covered with a thin layer of lead.

In 1882 the British flotilla waiting off the coast of Alexandria had the latest in naval technology, including swivelling gun turrets,  rotating gun platforms and ‘monster’ guns, each one 26 feet 9 inches (more than eight meters) long and firing a massive shell from a distance of up to 5000 yards (4572 meters). The shore guns were popguns, by comparison, quickly destroyed when the order came to open fire.

In September 1898 a British/Egyptian army set out to conquer Sudan.

Its weapons included the Maxim gun, invented in 1884 by Hiram Maxim and then rapidly adapted for battlefield use.  It could be bolted to the deck of a ship, wheeled onto the battlefield or towed by horses (the ‘galloping Maxim’).

The thousands of warriors rushing at the invaders with swords, spears and old guns loaded with homemade cartridges were cut down like ripe corn, 10 – 11,000 in a few hours.

The battle over, the British army then marched into the “fungoid” centre of barbarism, Omdurman, as described by The Times, and basically blew it up with lyddite shells, while slaughtering civilians in the streets.

Winston Churchill was at Omdurman, as a newspaper correspondent attached to a military unit and riding into battle.

He is to be remembered for two comments. One, the battle was “The most signal triumph ever gained by the arms of science over barbarism.” Two, “Talk of fun!! Where will you beat this!”

This is the voice we still hear in the collective West.

Moral Indifference

The ‘turkey shoot’ as US warplanes shot up the stream of trucks and cars trying to get out of Kuwait in 1991.  The sniggering at ‘rock apes’ and ‘towel heads’ that accompanied the US wars on Iraq. The depraved jokes and mocking of the dead in Israel.

The jubilation in the West at the ‘genius’ and ‘audacity’ of the Israelis for rigging pagers and walkie-talkies that killed more than 40 people and wound hundreds. The moral indifference to the holocaust in Gaza and the carpet bombing of Beirut that kills hundreds to get at the few individuals Israel wants.

There is no shock, outrage and horror, just more support for more triumphs of “the arms of science over barbarism.”  Whatever the scale of mass murder, the chant of Israel’s ‘right’ of self-defense continues.

France and Britain could only hold Algeria and Egypt through force of arms.

There was no other way, as their imperial designs and the interests and aspirations of the Algerian and Egyptian peoples were diametrically opposed.  The people had to be held down.

Hearts and minds could only be won by getting out and Britain and France were never going to do that voluntarily.  They would have to be driven out and the moment would come when they would be.

This is the story of all struggles against occupation. They may take time, even a very long time.

Israel is an exceptionally difficult case because its military power is continually fed and replenished from outside but there are numerous examples of how even the most powerful state can be worn down by the endurance of an occupied people.

Contrary to what American and Israeli politicians keep saying, while two countries may share ‘values’ and interests for a time, they do not share them permanently.

Israel and the US are no exceptions to this general rule. Gaza has already caused a significant shift against Israel in US public opinion and as long as it continues to slaughter across the Middle East, it will continue to shift.

Furthermore, while technology alone can decide the outcome of battles it cannot win wars, no matter how long the war continues, except in circumstances of complete disadvantage to an occupied people.

The point has been proven repeatedly, if only by the American experiences in Vietnam,  Afghanistan and Iraq.

While Hezbollah’s leadership has just been decimated, its organizational structure and military capacity remain intact despite Israeli claims.

It is far from down and out.

The murdered senior figures have already been replaced, with Nasrallah’s likely successor apparently known, if not yet officially announced.

Taking advantage of the situation, Israel hopes to drive its enemies into despair and submission through military power. What is more likely is that it will enrage them still further.

The “arms of science” have allowed Israel to stun and humiliate its enemies but the tactical successes are short-term and the costs long-term.  With every death, Israel is dooming its future in the Middle East.

‘Myth of Invincibility’

Dazzled by its own brilliance, armed with enough weapons to destroy whomever it wants, Israel is out to restore the myth of invincibility it once enjoyed.

Its F-15, F-16 and F-35 warplanes and the missiles and bunker-buster bombs that are massacring civilians or driving them into flight will force its enemies into submission.

It will keep killing until its enemies can fight no more. There is no option but surrender.

That is the logic, a war with no rules and no red lines, a war Israel wants and may get in return.

Netanyahu claims that Israel is “winning.”  Yet massacring civilians and destroying residential apartment buildings in Gaza and Lebanon are not ‘wins’ and not even a battle, but state terrorism. Only the destruction of an enemy’s military and the collapse of its political leadership would constitute a ‘win.’

Yes, Israel murdered Ismail Haniyeh and has decimated the ranks of Hezbollah’s leadership but as it has not destroyed Hamas or Hezbollah as organizations, it has yet to achieve its strategic objectives, if they are at all attainable.

As the war ignited by Israel in Gaza has really just begun, ‘winning’ or ‘won’ is a long way off.

‘Operation New Order’ was the code name for the strike against Nasrallah and his colleagues and ‘new order’ – this reheated version of the 1990s neocon plan for a ‘greater Middle East’ –  is what Israel, the US and its Western allies are aiming for across the region and beyond.

Iran “will be freer sooner than people think,” Netanyahu is already threatening.

Hubris has taken over in Israel following the Beirut assassinations. There is apparently no war Israel cannot win, no enemy it cannot kill when and how it chooses.

Official figures show that it has already killed close to 1,000 Lebanese since September 23,  a large number of whom will be women and children.

Across the country, about a million people have been ‘displaced,’ as the Israeli military issues orders for further ‘evacuations’ in Beirut ahead of more air attacks.

With villagers still being slaughtered (45 just in Ain al Delb), with the missile strikes on Beirut widening and air attacks launched against other enemies besides Hezbollah (alleged PFLP members in Beirut,  a Fatah Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade commander in Ain al Helweh refugee camp near Sidon and ports in North Yemen), Israel has now begun its ‘limited’ ground invasion of southern Lebanon.

Architect of ‘Plausible Genocide’

UNIFIL (the UN Interim Force in Lebanon) and the LAF (the Lebanese Armed Forces) have withdrawn five kilometers from the armistice line to get out of the way. The retreat of the Lebanese army within its own borders highlights why Hezbollah had to take on the role of Lebanon’s defender in the first place.

The 1982 ‘limited’ invasion of Lebanon led to the occupation of Beirut, the massacres of Sabra and Shatila and the killing of close to 20,000 civilians but ‘limited’ is not a word Israel understands.

The current ‘limited’ ground operation may be aimed at taking the army to the banks of the Litani River, which it tried to reach in 2006 but could not.

Israel is in the hands of a man wanted by the ICC chief prosecutor for war crimes. He is the architect of what the ICJ long ago called a “plausible” genocide.

Only a year ago the Atlantic magazine was announcing “the end of Netanyahu.” Only a few months ago he was hated across Israel but war fever has caught on and even his enemies have now rallied behind him. Domestically, war has taken him out of trouble.

Hezbollah has just suffered the most shattering blows in its history but still says it is prepared to confront the invading Israeli army. It has the support of the ‘axis of resistance,’ to an extent yet to be seen.

The outcome will unfold in the coming weeks and months.

 (The Palestine Chronicle)