Gilbert Achcar: ‘We are witnessing the first genocide in history to be televised and openly supported by the West’

First published in Portuguese at Revista Movimento.

Israel’s escalating war, the genocide in Gaza and the opening up of new fronts of Zionist-led violence have once again focused the world’s attention on the Middle East region. To better understand the situation and the challenges that lie ahead, Revista Movimento spoke with Gilbert Achcar, a University of London professor and Lebanese activist affiliated to the Fourth International. In this interview, Achcar provides an overview of the complex political situation in the region, situating it within the context of the political project of the global far right of which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a main exponent. The interview was conducted by Israel Dutra and Victor Gorman on September 16.

After almost a year of aggression, we are facing an impasse in terms of a possible ceasefire in Gaza. Meanwhile, the Netanyahu government is confronting major protests and an internal political crisis. What are the short-term prospects for the war under the current Zionist government?

It was clear from the beginning that this war was going to last. The Israeli side made it very clear that it will take no less than one year. That is because they intended to seize the opportunity of October 7 to reoccupy the Gaza Strip and completely flatten this very dense concentration of Palestinians in order to create a condition whereby they could control it forever. And that indeed entailed a genocidal intent — the intent, that is, to kill a large part of the population. They have already killed more than 50,000 people, including the dead estimated to be under the rubbles, and it is not over yet. The onslaught is still ongoing.

Within the Israeli power elite, there is no consensus yet on what they will do with the Gaza Strip after the onslaught. There are disagreements about this between the far right and the Zionist mainstream plus, of course, the perspective of the US election, which Netanyahu factors into his calculations. He is certainly hoping that Donald Trump will win. If this happens, Netanyahu will feel that he can do even worse and more than what he has done until now, not only in Gaza, but also in the West Bank, against Hezbollah in Lebanon, and against Iran, of course. So, these are the factors that determine the present situation.

How do you view the relationship between the current Israeli government and other expressions of the far right in the world?

Netanyahu has been a key figure of the international far right. He came back to power in 2009 and remained prime minister uninterruptedly for 12 years. After a few months of interruption, he got back in government at the end of 2022. He has thus accumulated an exceptional longevity in power, with a specific, very demagogic style in politics, which has been a source of inspiration for the international far right that developed during those years, in the wake of the global economic crisis of 2008.

Netanyahu connected with all the key figures of the global hard right and far right, notwithstanding the antisemitic tradition and current profile of most of them. He befriended antisemites such as Hungarian prime minister Viktor Orbán and Trump. Netanyahu provided the international far right with a cover for their past and/or present antisemitism. He went as far as explaining in a public event that Adolf Hitler had no intention of perpetrating the genocide of the European Jews, and that it was the Palestinian Mufti of Jerusalem, Amin al Husseini, who inspired him to do that. This was a grotesque falsification of history, of course, and it was vehemently denounced by historians of Nazism and the Holocaust, but it shows to what extent Netanyahu is willing to go to please the far right.

This kind of discourse obviously suits them in that it shifts the blame of antisemitism from the European far right to Palestinians and Muslims. It feeds into Islamophobia, which Netanyahu has made a central part of his discourse, in accordance with today’s international far right that is much more Islamophobic than antisemitic because the migrants into Europe today are mostly Muslims. It is easy to see how this works, for instance with Marine Le Pen in France, who is heir to a long antisemitic political tradition. Such far right currents are now 100% pro-Israel and anti-Palestinians, as well as anti-Muslims. They even claim to be against “antisemitism”, which they attribute to Muslims and even to the left. They now accuse the left of being antisemitic because it criticises Israel. This hypocritical discourse has been buttressed by Netanyahu and the Israeli far right, of which he is a major figure.

Why did the Netanyahu government open up a second front in the West Bank, starting with the siege of Jenin?

The genocide in Gaza has been accompanied from the beginning with an escalation of the Zionist settlers’ violence in the West Bank. This violence had already reached a high level after the inclusion of neo-Nazi ministers in Netanyahu’s latest cabinet, in positions crucial to the operation of the settlers. This has radicalised many young Palestinians, leading to new groups forming and taking up arms in the West Bank to fight back against the colonial settlers. The Israeli army is trying to break the Palestinians’ resistance spirit and prevent the further build-up of a network of armed struggle in the West Bank. They want to terrorise the Palestinians and deter any form of resistance. That is why they launched their recent brutal offensive in the West Bank, turning parts of it into Gaza-like scenes of destruction.

What is your opinion on the involvement of Lebanon and Hezbollah in this conflict? Is an escalation from Lebanon possible? Could you also tell us a bit more about Lebanese domestic politics?

The involvement of Lebanon is essentially the involvement of Hezbollah, because the Lebanese state is not involved as such, and neither are most other Lebanese political parties. Hezbollah, however, is a major military force, stronger than the Lebanese army.

When Hamas launched the October 7 attack, they called on Hezbollah, Iran, Syria and Yemen to join them in the fight against Israel, believing — with a lot of illusions and religious thinking — that October 7 would be the beginning of Palestine’s liberation and Israel’s destruction. Hezbollah faced a dilemma, because they felt a moral obligation to act in solidarity with Gaza, especially in light of the terrible violence of the Israeli onslaught that started immediately after the October 7 attack. But they did not want to take responsibility for a major war in Lebanon, like that of 2006. In that year, Hezbollah launched an attack across the border in South Lebanon, killing eight Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two. This led to a major Israeli onslaught on Lebanon, which was highly destructive. Thus, Hezbollah did not want to take the responsibility of offering Israel a pretext for a second onslaught, which could be even worse than that of 2006.

The result of these two contradictory pressures has been that Hezbollah decided to launch a limited war, consisting of a limited exchange of bombing with the Israeli side. This led to a population displacement on both sides of the border: close to 100,000 people displaced from South Lebanon and 80,000 people displaced on the Israeli side. This could happen and remain within limits for almost a year now, because the Israeli army was concentrating its effort in Gaza and would have found it difficult to wage war on both fronts at the same time. But the most intensive part of the Israeli onslaught on Gaza is ending, and it is very likely that Israel will now turn against Lebanon, and against Hezbollah specifically.

It will also depend on the outcome of the US elections, as I mentioned at the beginning of our conversation. If Trump wins, a green light to Netanyahu for a new onslaught on Lebanon will become very likely. If Trump is not elected, Netanyahu will increase the pressure on Lebanon and probably give an ultimatum to Hezbollah: either they backtrack and withdraw from the border to north of the Litani River, or they refuse and face a major Israeli onslaught. Whereas there is some disagreement today in Israel between Netanyahu and the opposition about the next phase in Gaza, there is no substantial disagreement about Lebanon. The opposition is even blaming Netanyahu for prolonging the war in Gaza, instead of dealing with Lebanon, which they now see as the priority.

As for Lebanese domestic politics, Hezbollah is in alliance with another Shia sectarian force, Amal, but most other Lebanese political parties are rivals or opponents of Hezbollah and blame it for involving Lebanon in the war. They argue that there is no reason why Lebanon should be involved and pay the price whereas Syria, which is much stronger than Lebanon and an ally of both Iran and Hezbollah, is not doing anything. Even Iran, for that matter, is hardly taking any risk. So, that is part of the political equation that Hezbollah must consider.

What about the role of other countries in the region, such as Egypt and Jordan?

Both Egypt and Jordan are part of the US military arc of forces in the region. Both are major recipients of US military aid. Therefore, even though they criticise Israel’s war on Gaza to appease public opinions and they do not like Netanyahu because he is too extreme for them, they will not do anything that could provide real support for the Palestinians. Syria also shares a border with Israel, like Jordan and Egypt, and a major stretch of Syrian territory in the Golan Heights has been occupied and even annexed by Israel since 1967. And yet Syria’s demarcation line is Israel’s quietest border. None of these states are willing to take any risk in defence of the Palestinian people. Egypt and Jordan are rather eager to see its resistance subdued.

The Houthis in Yemen have been targeting ships in the Red Sea, which has impacted on global maritime logistic routes. Why are they doing this, and what have been the impacts of their action?

The Houthis are a very reactionary force from a social and ideological standpoint — closer to the Afghan Taliban than they are to the Iranian regime — but they are linked to Tehran because they belong to a sect related to Shi'ism, the dominant branch of Islam in Iran. They are seen in the region, therefore, as part of a sectarian arc of forces led by Iran and composed of Shias in Lebanon; Alawis, the sect of the ruling elite in Syria; pro-Iran Shia militias in Iraq; and Yemen’s Houthis.

The Houthis started their intervention in the Red Sea as a way for them to gain legitimacy against their opponents in Yemen itself, where there has been a civil war in which the Houthis have confronted the southern half of the country, which is Sunni. By outbidding everyone on the issue of Israel with their action in the Red Sea, the Houthis have been doing a propaganda stunt in the face of their rivals in Yemen, as well as in the face of the Saudis, the main enemies of both the Houthis and Iran. The Saudi rulers are annoyed by the way that the Houthis are outbidding them on Israel.

However, the attacks in the Red Sea are not really harming Israel: the country that is most harmed is Egypt, because of the sharp drop in the use of the Suez Canal, a major source of income for Egypt. China too is harmed, because it is a major user of the Suez Canal, and now needs to ship its exports to Europe around Africa, which increases time and cost. By their action, the Houthis have given further incentive to European countries and the US to develop a way to bypass the Red Sea and the Suez Canal through a transport corridor going from India by sea to the United Arab Emirates, and from there by land to Israel through the Saudi Kingdom and Jordan, and then to Europe via the Mediterranean. This project is also obviously designed to enhance the collaboration between the three Arab countries and Israel.

In your evaluation, what has been the impact of international solidarity in support of Palestine? How has this affected the political fight in the US? What does each sector in the presidential election campaign represent?

We are witnessing the first genocide to happen in front of the eyes of the whole world, directly reported on TV, and openly supported by Western countries. It is therefore a major historical event, as well as a terrible disaster for the Palestinian people, of course. The only ray of hope, however; the only little positive point amid this very gloomy, very dark picture, is the spectacular development of international solidarity with the Palestinian people. The cruelty of the Israeli genocidal war has been such that it led to an awakening of conscience in many countries, and the development of solidarity in the Global North, in Western Europe and in the US.

What happens in the US is crucial for Israel, due to Israel’s dependence on Washington. The movement that has been developing in the US among the youth, particularly among students, is very important for the future of the Palestinian struggle. It has already managed to influence the campaign of the Democrats: Biden was denounced for his complicity and full participation in Israel’s genocidal war and could see that this was going to cost him a lot of votes. He somewhat shifted his position accordingly: after having long opposed the call for a ceasefire, the Biden administration started calling for one. Trump, of course, even called Biden “Palestinian”, as if it were an insult. He is accusing the Democrats of being “against the Jews”.

Kamala Harris has a different tone than that of Biden in recognising Palestinian suffering, but she has not dared until now to take any distance from Biden and she will not as she is still Biden’s vice president. If she gets elected, we shall see whether she will continue the very pro-Israeli policy of Biden or revert to the Obama kind of cold support to Israel, with an attempt to moderate the Israeli attitude. The Democrats, in general, are dedicated to the defence of Israel as they keep saying, however, so we cannot expect them to do what needs to be done, which is for Washington to stop arming Israel and force it to withdraw from the 1967 occupied territories in accordance with what is supposed to be the official position of the US. The only way for anything like this to happen is for the solidarity movement to reach enough force to impose it on the US government.

Lastly, what are your views in terms of the strategy or possibilities for building the radical left in the Arab world?

The radical left in the Arab world has been very much weakened by the defeat of the two successive waves of what has been called the Arab Spring or Arab uprising. The first wave in 2011 saw major uprisings in six Arab countries along with a big rise in social and political protests in most other Arab countries. This created conditions in which the radical left could play an important role in several countries, including Tunisia, where it all started, and Egypt. The second wave in 2019 included four countries. In one of them, Sudan, the radical left played a very important role. Unfortunately, however, the defeats of those uprisings — especially the 2013 coup in Egypt, the 2021 coup in Tunisia, and the civil war among the military that unfolded in Sudan after the 2021 coup — all had a hugely negative impact on the radical left in the Arabic-speaking region.

But the key point to understand is that the social and economic crisis in the region is very deep, and it is this crisis that led to the two successive waves of uprisings in 2011 and 2019. Not only is the crisis not solved, but it is getting worse and worse, year after year. This means that there will inevitably be further social explosions. The key condition for the necessary radical change is that young people manage to find new ways and forms of organisations in order to build a new radical alternative to the existing situation.