Radwan Mortada
@radwanmortada · Lebanon, Syria, Turkey, Iraq, Yemen
Radwan Mortada is a Lebanese investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker.
Empty talk, duty-free, from the presidency... Israel is not content with occupying positions in southern Lebanon; day after day, it is working to expand the scope of its control and impose new facts on the ground, while the residents of the villages bordering the Yellow Line are left alone to face attacks, displacement, and the destruction of their property. In the areas outside the Yellow Line, Israeli army soldiers send remote-controlled vehicles and booby-trapped robots to detonate them near civilians' homes, and they fire at houses day and night, alongside repeated artillery shelling. They also set forests and trees ablaze and ignite fires in some homes, in an obvious attempt to make staying impossible and force residents to evacuate their homes and leave their villages. After the residents leave, another phase begins: the soldiers enter the homes and plunder whatever of their contents can be carried away, then blow up the houses one after another. Thus, the process of displacement, looting, and destruction advances in parallel with a continuous Israeli expansion on the ground and the imposition of a new reality in the area adjacent to the occupied Yellow Line, as is happening in Haris and Aita al-Jabal. Yesterday, Israeli soldiers also set fire to a large grove of ancient oak trees between the towns of Beit Yahoun and Aita al-Jabal, even though the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL forces had previously inspected it repeatedly, negating any security pretext for targeting it. All of this is taking place in a clear violation of the ceasefire agreement, while neither the Lebanese Army nor President Joseph Aoun or Prime Minister Nawaf Salam is taking any noteworthy action to stop these violations or protect the residents, their homes, and their land. Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues to abide by the ceasefire, while the people of the south find themselves facing a question repeated with every home that is burned, looted, or blown up: How long will these attacks continue without anyone asking about them? And how long will they be left alone to face an Israeli expansion taking place before everyone's eyes?
Translated from ArabicThe Israeli looting army
Translated from ArabicMark Daou, the MP of American dictates whom people came to know because of a program funded by the U.S. Embassy, forgot all his legislative duties and found no battle to fight except pressuring and targeting a judge—not because he violated the law, but because his offense was that he did not abuse its use. Judge Raja Hamoush issued a clear decision to evict all the displaced people from the Ajram building within a week because they were occupying private property. Then, after a humanitarian review, he gave the occupants an additional month before the eviction, on pain of legal measures being taken against them. What the “sovereignty” MP ignores, or deliberately ignores, is that the Public Prosecution, even in a case involving occupation of private property, has the authority to postpone implementation of the eviction whenever it deems the public interest to require it. In other words, the judge did not strip the owner of his rights, did not legalize the occupation of the property, and did not refrain from applying the law; rather, he used a power the law grants him to assess the timing of enforcement and take the public interest into account. But the “sovereignty” MP could not tolerate a month of mercy. He forgot that these people did not go to the building on a tourist trip; they sought refuge there after Israel destroyed their homes, crushed their livelihoods, and displaced them, noting that their villages remain occupied. He forgot the Israeli attacks, the daily violations, the occupation, and the abuses carried out under the eyes and with the blessing of the Americans. He forgot the encroachments on public property—maritime, riverine, and land—and forgot the corruption in real estate, banks, deals, and contracts, and everything an MP is supposed to ask about and hold people accountable for. He left all that aside and finally found his “sovereignty battle”: a judge who exercised his legal powers and sought a month of mercy for displaced people whose homes Israel destroyed. This is what sovereignty becomes for Mark Daou: silence before the aggressor, a show of force against the victim, and an attack on a judge because the law in his hands did not turn into an instrument of vengeance.
Translated from ArabicDaoud Al-Sharyan, who for years was one of the pillars of the Saudi media machine, never misses an opportunity to use it in carrying out his mission. What he excerpted from this interview is nothing more than another attempt to complete the demonization of Hezbollah among a segment of Lebanese people, ultimately making our being killed by Israel something that can be understood and justified. What I said in the interview is clear, and its context is even clearer: I did not justify the killing of a single civilian in Syria, and I never said that Syrian blood was permissible. I was speaking about a Gulf propaganda narrative that demonized Hezbollah and portrayed it as if it had killed the «children of Syria» and a million Syrians, and that presented its men, through years of systematic campaigns, as monsters, killers, and drug dealers. Facts are not built through tweets. What I said was that the highest estimates for the victims of the Syrian war as a whole put the number at hundreds of thousands killed from all sides, not «a million killed by Hezbollah alone». Syria was a battlefield in which the world funded multiple parties, and in which extremist organizations and factions were armed and committed documented crimes of killing, slaughter, and torture on the basis of identity; some even burned people alive before the eyes of the world’s cameras. Armed and extremist factions also received support and funding from regional and Gulf states, including Al-Sharyan’s country. Pointing to these facts is not a justification for any crime that was committed; it is a rejection of falsifying history and reducing it to a single narrative. This, specifically, was the context of my words: Hezbollah entered the war in Syria and fought extremist organizations that practiced killing, slaughter, and abuse, and I reject portraying its intervention as though it had been a campaign to kill unarmed Syrian civilians. This does not mean justifying any crime or violation. As for Al-Sharyan’s talk today about «justifying killing», the irony is heavy. We did not hear this strict moral language from him regarding the killing of his colleague Jamal Khashoggi and the dismemberment of his body inside his country’s consulate, nor regarding the thousands whose necks are struck in public squares and the users of social media who fill his country’s prisons, nor regarding the thousands of civilians who fell in the Yemen war at the hands of mercenaries led by his country’s army. Selectivity in the sanctity of blood does not create a moral position. The irony is also that the current Syrian authorities, which are meant to be presented as a moral opposite to everything above, deal with Russia with complete pragmatism—Russia, which carried out the most prominent military intervention alongside the former regime—and preserve the relationship with it, its interests, and its military presence. Indeed, the «conqueror», Abu Muhammad al-Julani, Ahmad al-Sharaa, went to Moscow and shook its president Putin’s hand, then thanked him and praised Russia’s historic role in the stability of the region, while its military bases remain in Syria. This is how politics works when interests are involved, but it suddenly turns into a lesson in morality when the goal is to settle accounts with Hezbollah. I do not justify killing, not in Syria, not in Yemen, and not anywhere, and I reject crimes whoever commits them. But I also reject Daoud Al-Sharyan giving us a lesson in the sanctity of blood while the victim is invoked when it serves his political agenda and silenced when the killer is an ally or a state to which he belongs. As for the «staff of Moses» that Al-Sharyan is looking for to change other people’s convictions, perhaps it would be better for him to begin with his selective memory, which sees some bloodshed as crimes and some other bloodshed as mere details.
Translated from ArabicThe best thing about the first “Walima” was that it was prepared with complete spontaneity, without any prior preparation, and yet it created all this resonance and reach. The idea began simply with Dr. Hassan Ahmadian’s visit to Lebanon. We wanted to make use of his presence, so we contacted some friends to gather around a table for an unscripted conversation; a space for discussion that resembles our everyday conversations more than it resembles television programs. Everything was completed within a few days. There was no moderator, no episode topic, and no prepared questions. Everything was spontaneous. Only the table was intentional, despite some objections: we wanted it to be a feast in honor of the guest, starting from there with stories of food, culture, and society, and what brings together and distinguishes Lebanese and Iranian cuisine, before the conversation took its own course. Many people liked the experience, and many criticized it, which is natural; pleasing everyone is an unattainable goal. But what made us happy was that it sparked all this discussion and controversy even before it aired. The debate also included speculation about the identity and financing of the “Walima”; some said it was funded by Qatar, while another called it “Hezbollah’s Walima.” The truth is much simpler: the episode was funded from our own pockets, so much so that we even forgot to promote the place that hosted us, the “Aal Awwal” café in Hamra, owned by our dear friend Karim Hashem, whom we wish every success. As for the upcoming feasts, anyone who wishes may contribute to their production, provided that the contribution remains in the production and does not influence the opinion or position. Anyone wishing to support “Al-Mahatta” productions can contribute through Patreon. We read most of the reactions, both positive and critical, and will take much of them with us to the next feast. “Walima” is not a fixed format that we want to copy and repeat, but rather a space that takes shape each time according to its guests, conversation, and table. The next feast will be cooked over a different fire.
Translated from Arabic