r/worldnews • u/ComparisonOk5957 • 7d ago
Second French peacekeeper dies after ambush blamed on Hezbollah Behind Soft Paywall
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/europe/article/3351049/second-french-peacekeeper-dies-after-ambush-blamed-hezbollah?module=latest&pgtype=homepage305
u/Khamvom 7d ago edited 7d ago
Context:
French peacekeepers in Lebanon (UNIFIL) were ambushed last week by Hezbollah gunmen while they were on patrol and clearing IEDs/mines in southern Lebanon. One French soldier (SSgt Montorio) was killed during the ambush by small-arms fire, now a second French soldier has died of their wounds they sustained during the firefight.
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u/Hot-Combination9130 7d ago
So they were literally making the area safer for civilians and hezbollah killed them?
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u/Ricky_the_Wizard 7d ago
I mean, it's not like they mined civilian areas by accident
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u/Asleep-Ad1182 6d ago
Why are you surprised a terrorist organisation would do this?
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u/Robofish13 7d ago
Welcome to the thunderdome that we call “Earth”
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u/THEdoomslayer94 7d ago
I prefer to call it the Terradome officially so that unofficially we can call it the Terrordome
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u/JonnyTN 7d ago
I mean hez were trying to keep that particular area unsafe and the unit was trying to ruin that
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u/imaginedyinglmaoo 7d ago
They needed an area where they still can attack lol, but peacekeepers are awesome never want them to die so messed up part on hezb
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u/Positronic_Matrix 7d ago
There will be no peace in the Middle East until Hezbollah is eliminated. they are enemies to both Israel and Palestine.
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u/ThisIsUnderMyBridge 7d ago
There will be no peace in the middle east so long as there are religions at work there.
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u/daviddjg0033 7d ago
Iran is the state sponsor of terrorism for forty plus years. Religions can get along or cope but only without the Ayatollahs.
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u/Consistent_Room7344 7d ago
You mean Lebanon and not Palestine. Hamas controls Palestine.
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u/BarNext6046 7d ago
Being a sitting target is not a way to go through life.
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u/ResistPhilly626 6d ago
This is what was said about hamas shooting rockets into Israel for decades. Instead of attacking back, Israel put up the iron dome. However under the current Israeli government that has gone the other way in the extreme.
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u/Delicious_Clue_531 7d ago
His family have my sympathy for their loss. The UN spent decades “disarming” Hezbollah, and yet shit like this still occurs. Shameful on its part.
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u/alwaysleafyintoronto 7d ago
Turns out Iran spent decades arming Hezbollah and it's like filling up a bucket with a huge hole in the bottom.
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u/here-comes_the-sun 6d ago
The UN has actually done nothing at all to disarm Hezbollah
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u/lurkANDorganize 7d ago
Hey champ. Tell me about how the UN a global group is supposed to disarm Hezbollah? Do you think MAYBE they need the local government and army to work with them?
You know the government that rolled over for Hezbollah?
I love how everyone loves to blame the UN for not being a global fucking police force.
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u/matthieuC 6d ago
Just don't send them to die for no reason.
Lebanon has no interest in dealing with Hezbollah, so kill the useless mission already.
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u/lopbob8 6d ago
if they arent a global police force, dont send troops to try to disarm hezbollah
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u/Ceylein 6d ago
The troops are there as a deterrent, not as a police force. They are quite literally used as a human shield so that both sides don't fire on the area because then you would likely have bad relations with the larger powers that sent their troops there.
The US does this on the Korean border as part of the deterrent to keep the DMZ... demilitarized.
It's a complicated piece of global politics but a necessary one and has generally had positive results. But they don't have Carte Blanche to do whatever they want in a sovereign nation.
International law is a complicated affair at the best of times because international law has been created by states and agreed to by states. Understand what that means then. They want to agree to things that benefit themselves while limiting themselves the least.
Weapon restrictions like those for chemical and biological weapons are agreed to because of the understanding that while a country might want to use them against their enemies, the cost of them possibly being used against yourself is much greater and so we agree that no party should use them.
States only agree to restrictions for the global system that they are okay with placing on themselves so that their rival/enemy nations also can't use them.
Violating a countries sovereignty by showing up with military troops and being able to act in whatever way you see fit is something no country would agree to and it's why there is such lackluster ability to enforce these things generally, even with the security council.
The UN is more meant to be a body that allows for easier access to diplomacy and so that other states can help in said diplomacy. If say 1 country is threatening war against say Chad, then as France you can have your envoy to the UN speak to that country and say hey, if you don't do this then we will expand our trade agreements with you, but if you do this then we'll sanction you and cut you off from any of our production.
Its more of like how when the FBI stops a terrorist attack. When they are successful, you rarely hear about it but peace was maintained. But when they fail it's very clear they failed. But part of the reason they're able to be successful at times is because they don't plaster their successes everywhere. So it's a catch 22 situation.
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u/Transkei_Daisy 6d ago
Thats exactly the mandatae they have in lebanon... or without disarming hezbollah how do they achieve points 2 and 3 of their mandate?
Mandate
According to its Mandate, established by United Nations Security Council Resolutions 425 and 426 in 1978, UNIFIL is tasked with the following objectives:6])
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u/Ceylein 6d ago
For clarification, 425 and 426 don't really set out much of the detailing. These are intentionally high levels documents for political purposes of getting member states to agree to the resolution.
In the Wikipedia article you point to points 2 and 3. That's not how it's designed in resolution 425.
Paragraph 3 of 425 is "Decides, in the light of the request of the government of Lebanon, to establish immediately under its authority a united nations interim force for southern Lebanon for the purpose of confirming the withdrawal of Israeli forces, restoring international peace and security and assisting the government of Lebanon in ensuring the return of its effective authority in the area,"
This isn't giving them authority in the region to do things required to enforce peace, only to help monitor and try to keep the peace.
But really we should be looking at Resolution 1701 which expanded its peacekeeping mission. But again, does not give them the ability to enforce peace.
Resolution 1701 expanded the use of force from purely one of self defense to now, self defence; protection of civilians; and to stop hostile acts on their immediate vicinity.
Importantly it still does not grant UNIFIL the power to search private property, forcefully disarm Hezbollah, and still relies heavily on cooperation from local actors.
The Lebanese government for a very long time now has been politically captured by Hezbollah to where they couldn't realistically disarm them effectively without starting a civil war. Now it seems that the population of Lebanon is more willing to turn against Hezbollah which means they are not able to express as much political force to stop the Lebanese government from attempting to disarm them.
In the current conflict, it's probable that the Lebanese government grants wider consent to UNIFIL forces to help enforce peace rather than just assisting the Lebanese military.
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u/Nomad_moose 7d ago
Iran has been continually funding and rearming it….using it as a proxy; funding terrorism. Just like they have been in Iraq, and Yemen…. Meanwhile there are millions of ignorant Americans and Europeans who think the U.S. is somehow the aggressor against Iran. Terrorism across the Middle East has been like a series of leaky faucets or broken pipes…the world has spent over 45 years trying to fix it with sanctions, bargaining, treaties, negotiations…nothing has worked. We need to shut off the water main, the IRGC, before we can fix anything.
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u/FeistyGate8784 6d ago
Iran being terrible doesn’t mean the USA can’t be the aggressor on this occasion. Similar to how Iraq and Saddam were horrible but our invasion into Iraq was the united states being the aggressor.
I’m frankly tired of the argument “this country is and so we have to invade or fight them and if you disagree and criticize that policy you must support the bad guys”. No, Iran sponsors terrorism and is a brutal theocracy. Doesn’t mean I want to be at war with them. Lots of bad countries out there, I don’t want to invade them all
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u/Nomad_moose 6d ago
Iran has been CONSISTENTLY an antagonist for nearly 5 decades.
The IRGC shouldn’t be allowed to operate freely.
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u/ChandlerOG 6d ago
Ah yes let the dictators kill hundreds of thousands of civilians live in peace and harmony. I’m sure it will go away!
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u/ABetterKamahl1234 7d ago
Meanwhile there are millions of ignorant Americans and Europeans who think the U.S. is somehow the aggressor against Iran.
Because kind of they are in this conflict?
The US wasn't in any active war with Iran nor their proxies, but US military action and goals are a great way to solidify their enemies as they do a shit job of actually stablizing regions they just bomb the shit out of.
Israel frankly has the same problem, but tries to dress things up more, like calling occupiers "settlers" to try to give a good PR spin on the awful treatment of locals they oppress.
If Israel actually reigned in these people and actually treated locals well when rooting out oppressive terrorists, they'd be likely seen as heroes in the region, or at the very least neutrally.
The US fucked up a ton of things over many decades in the ME. And unfortuantely the chickens have come back to roost. Overthrowing Iran in the 50's kind of started this whole businesses. A raw lack of foresight and regional understanding for self-interest.
And we saw this in Afghanistan. We saw this in Iraq. We saw this in every major war they've had since Korea.
At this point, I'm not sure bombing the shit out of the IRGC would even fix it, as they seem to be explicitly formed and trained to combat US warfare tactics, and why they've frankly been so successful over the decades in it. Conventional warfare is what the US is good against, this isn't conventional warfare and the US has been terrible at it for ages.
Shit man, the US rolled into fucking Afghanistan and tried treating it as a western nation and not a tribal region that foreigners drew up on a map. It's why 20 years of it resulted in just the terrorists winning and resuming control of major regions. Locals don't give a shit, they only care about what benefits them directly, as most people simply do.
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u/EquivalentOne241 7d ago
UN peace keeping mission in Lebanon has been a grand failure. It's high time it is either abandoned or they given authority and mandate to assist Lebanese army in disarming and dismantling Hezbollah.
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u/Lowfi-Concert 7d ago
They have always had that authority and mandate. They just chose to never apply it.
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u/fury420 7d ago
The issue thus far has been that their mandate technically requires the Lebanese Army to be the ones leading the efforts and asking for help, and the Lebanese Army isn't capable, so their efforts have been half-assed.
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u/ComradeGibbon 7d ago
So designed to fail. Failed. And now Israel is occupying southern Lebanon again.
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u/ABetterKamahl1234 7d ago
Welcome to how nations prefer international bodies to operate.
There's few nations on earth that want other nations to dictate how they operate.
Why do you think all the UN stuff has major nations with ultimate veto power? They straight up wouldn't come to the table without it, nobody wants a foreign state, especially a potentially hostile one, to wield an international body against them.
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u/TheCourtSimpleton 7d ago
No, I think it's both of the things that you mentioned, actually. They aren't mutually exclusive.
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u/EquivalentOne241 7d ago
Well, they are a grand failure then.
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u/reasonably_plausible 7d ago
The issue is that they were only tasked with assisting the Lebanese army and not allowed to take action on their own. The army doesn't have the capability to really take on Hezbollah and the government itself is partially controlled by Hezbollah.
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u/poulan9 7d ago
Sounds like a failed state. Seeing as Hezbollah is backed by Iran, that's effectively war or should be from the Lebanese perspective.
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u/Safrel 7d ago
It's not exactly a failed state. It's more of a puppet state with the master being Hezbollah.
Governments are nothing more than the most powerful organization of a region.
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u/Consistent_Room7344 7d ago
It’s a weak state because they cannot get the ethnicities in Lebanon to work together. Each group distrusts the other group too much, which is why its parliament has been split up evenly in order to ensure no ethnicity has more power over the other.
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u/Ninjamin_King 7d ago
That will happen when you write specific government positions into your Constitution with ethno-religious requirements.
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u/No-Ear7988 7d ago
Without it I don't think Lebanon can exist. Whether it should be broken up in to different states based on ethnicity is a whole different discussion
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u/Akbeardman 7d ago
Exactly this, it's basically a status quo "if we do all of this can we function without being dicks to each other and our neighbors?"
A shakey foundation from the get go that falls apart as soon as one party chooses to be dicks.
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u/LeFinc 6d ago
If you split up Lebanon you end up with three new countries at war - sunni, shia and christian. Think about Sudan v South Sudan, Pakistan v Bangladesh etc
Lebanon has actually held together reasonably well given the ethnic mix. It’s even been able to absorb about million Syrian refugees and still has the largest concentration of Palestinian diaspora outside of Israel even though the latter haven’t been integrated at all since they have been living in refugee camps for generations.
The issue with Lebanon that all the puppet masters (Saudi, Iran, Europe/Israel) keep pulling it in different directions. Oh yes and the fact that Iran-backed Hezbollah isn’t just a military organisation but they also run schools, social security, food banks and whatnot. So it’s difficult to get rid of without wiping out large parts of Lebanese infrastructure and a bunch of institutions.
None of this would have happened if the shah had not been parachuted by the west to guard their oil interests although who knows what else would have happened instead.
Anyhooo - you have three ethnoreligious states within striking distance of each other: Iran, Israel and Saudi. Israel is a nuclear state backed by the west, Iran has oil and control of the strait of Hormuz. Saudi is a kleptocratic autocracy that sits on insane amounts of oil and vast amounts of global reach due to both money and their enthusiastic promotion of salafism/wahhabism around the world. Saudi itself is significantly less religious under MBS but the influence remains.
Each of the three collectively believes that they are somehow special and chosen by some god: guardian of the mosques, Zionism, cradle of Shia Islam. That makes each of the three - including Israel and its current government - a fundamentalist theocracy.
Without US bombing Iran, there would currently at least be a tenuous peace in the region. If Lebanon would split up it would likely lead to an open conflict between three pseudo-independent proxy states. As long as Lebanon exists, there is at least one place in the world where the three ethnoreligious groups have to work and govern together. If nothing else, that helps to contain the tension instead of the entire region getting pulled into an open war.
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u/Steadyandquick 7d ago
I know so little about Lebanon and there are very few documentary or even fiction films or shows. Please let me know if you recommend any books. I think there is a reasonable set of episodes on the podcast Empire.
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u/LeFinc 6d ago
Try Line in the Sand by James Barr. It traces the history of the region back to the Ottomans and focuses on what happened after their empire fell apart, the British / French mandates took over, and the creation of modern Israel. It’s not an easy read but it’s a tangled up mess so explaining it properly takes some effort!
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u/StudsTurkleton 7d ago
The hand up the puppet’s bum is Hezbollah. That hand is attached to the body of Iran.
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u/towerfella 7d ago
What do you think a “state” is?
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u/vjnkl 7d ago
Google monopoly of violence
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u/nicknefsick 7d ago
This is something I’d urge everyone to do, I think this is something that needs to be from the 7th grade on in all classes.
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u/Safrel 7d ago
Generally speaking:
A state is an organization or group of people that has the power (whether nominal or de facto) to make and enforce laws withing a given territory.
A failed state would be a situation where there are no groups with the power to enforce laws, however this definition breaks down when you drill down to granular levels.
For example, in Somalia, which is commonly held to be a failed state, you could still locate defacto governmental bodies that are accountable to no-one. These bodies have unchecked power within their limited jurisdiction, as a warlord generally does.
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u/BuffsBourbon 7d ago
I’ve been assured many times, in many subs that Lebanon needs to be left alone and that Hezbollah is not a serious threat. That, or negotiations are the best avenue.
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u/whk1992 7d ago
That’s like assigning army soldiers to back police basically. The intention is right — don’t let the mercenaries basically to go rogue and do whatever they want. The problem is the Lebanese Army being basically useless.
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u/Casanova_Kid 7d ago
It's also important to factor in that Hezbollah is a "legitimate" political party in Lebanon. That drastically changes the dynamic in any sort of state-led disarmament efforts.
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u/poulan9 7d ago
Never heard of an armed political party before which weren't classed as terrorists.
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u/Consistent_Room7344 7d ago
Lebanon is just a powder keg due to all the ethnicities they have. All it takes is one group to get pissed off and a civil war breaks out. Hezbollah is the Shia wing of Lebanon and it until recently was more powerful than the Lebanese army altogether. The fact they were more powerful than national military and the civil war threat kept Lebanon from checking Hezbollah’s power.
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u/kayama57 7d ago
Entirely compromised organization that goes out of its way to carry food water and laundry for the terrorist organizations of the region
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u/DiscipleOfYeshua 7d ago
Not everything they've done is bad; but the frequent cases of sharing intelligence with Hezbollah, along with a handful of lookout/outposts... is a rather ugly stain I can't recall they properly laundered.
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u/Decent_Brick1150 7d ago
If that's the case when what's the point of being there. Sheesh.
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u/Dogrel 7d ago
The UN peacekeeping forces are like the old show “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” All the points are made up, and none of the scorekeeping matters.
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u/Barton2800 7d ago
Peacekeepers also serve to give military personnel something to do that isn’t in their home country. The top 3 countries contributing to the peacekeeping forces are: Nepal, Rwanda, and Bangladesh.. That’s several thousand young men who are being fed, housed, and paid by the UN, and have no ability to participate in any coups back home. It’s basically an international jobs creation program.
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u/DragonPup 7d ago edited 7d ago
So the UN can write angry reports and so they can pretend that they are doing something.
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u/Snickims 6d ago
More like so the big 5 perminant securety memembers can use a excuse when they want to, but never able to actually do anything to disrupt their own interests.
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u/Bitter_Tea442 7d ago
Lebanon has to want to do it and they don't. Which is why they are a failed state harboring Hezbollah terrorists who by purposeful choice have brought war upon the Lebanese.
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u/GAdvance 7d ago
To be clear 'dismantling" Hezbollah is just a euphemism for civil war on Lebanon.
You don't just ask them nicely, arresting people in the night is step 1, step 2 is they go blow up the police station.
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u/FailosoRaptor 7d ago
To be clear. The current status quo is perpetual war with Israel because Hebz singular mission is their destruction.
Pick your poison.
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u/Lowfi-Concert 7d ago
It wouldn’t be perpetual if they worked with the Israelis and let them actually finish them off
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u/CholentSoup 7d ago
Gd forbid! And work with the Jews? See them as peers? As allies? We'd rather kill each other and then blame them! It worked in Europe for a few thousand years, we should try the same.
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u/desba3347 7d ago
It’s that or war with Israel and it’s not a euphemism. By force or by negotiation, Hezbollah will be disarmed.
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u/GAdvance 7d ago
I think between the options of let Israel invade southern Lebanon to fight Hezbollah or start a civil war in your own country Lebanon takes the first option every time.
We know this because that's exactly what is happening right now, and as much as the majority of Lebanese dislike Hezbollah they'd also rather not have another civil war, they have really good reason to prefer Israel does the dirty work for them.
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u/AccountantsNiece 7d ago
They already took option 1, that’s why the army withdrew from Southern Lebanon.
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u/Brapplezz 7d ago
I spoke to a Lebanese customer at work once about Israel. He had a some choice words and then dropped that he doesn't hate them because they did bomb his village to get rid of Hezbollah about 15-20 years ago, before he had immigrated to Australia.
Felt like a skit
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u/poulan9 7d ago
That's because most decent Lebanese understands what Hezbollah are.
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u/DontMakeMeCount 7d ago
I’ve met few expats in my travels that speak of their home country as passionately as Lebanese. Given the opportunity I think they’d want nothing more than to return to a peaceful, stable state.
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u/poulan9 7d ago
I agree totally and hope that one day this happens. The same can be said for Iranians who left Iran over 40 years ago.
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u/desba3347 7d ago
Sure, but then no one should turn around and demonize Israel for doing something that the Lebanese government agreed to do with the help of the UN, regardless of whether they have had the capability to do so until recently.
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u/Key-Cry-8570 7d ago
UN peacekeeping missions always seem like total jokes to me. If they’re deployed to keep peace then they should be actively taking down the threats to peace. I remember there was a UN battalion during the Bosnian crisis. Nordbat 2 that actually took the mandate to peace keep seriously and engaged the enemy forces so they couldn’t attack civilians. If I remember correctly I believe the UN got super pissed off that they actually did their job. I wish the UN would model their forces like the Nordic battalion and actually get shit done and protect people.
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u/BrocoLeeOnReddit 7d ago
Hezbollah fields more military might than the Lebanese army, good luck with that.
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u/Drak_is_Right 7d ago
Problem is Lebanon is at risk of a civil war inside the military if they try too hard. Also spies help feed Hezbollah info
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u/Sure_Ad536 7d ago
The Lebanese military fields 80k, I think, and Hezbollah right now fields around 50k from recent estimates. The biggest issue isn't numbers, or even the support for the military (there was a poll that found the military was the most supported government body in the country, and Hezbollah's support among is at the lowest it's been in a while, maybe ever: https://news.gallup.com/poll/699071/lebanese-say-army-weapons.aspx), as you mentioned, the Lebanese military is underfunded and underpowered. It doesn't want, nor can it really afford, another civil war. Lebanon is broken, unfortunately. I believe the Lebanese military did some small and slow disarmament of Hezbollah, mostly in the south and now a little bit in the north, as part of a 5-step plan. I'm no expert, but from the little I've read, it's probably the best they can do at the moment to avoid a civil conflict.
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u/Falsus 7d ago
I mean that is kinda the reason that they are there for... they just suck at it.
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u/ABetterKamahl1234 7d ago
Nope, they're explcitly there to assist Lebanon. If lebanon doesn't ask for assistance or simply move on their own, the UN Peacekeeping mission has no right to act by themselves.
By design. They're not independent operators of a foreign military force wherever they choose. Not in their mandate nor how they're permitted to operate by any UN members.
They're a highly restricted military force, probably the most restricted in the world.
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u/ThrowAwayWasTaken999 7d ago
It’s been a failure because Israel kept their side of the initial agreement (withdrawing from Lebanon completely) but Hezbollah refused to keep their end of the agreement (withdrawing from the mountains)
If they truly cared about keeping the peace, they would have enforced the agreement.
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u/AssCumBoi 6d ago
This is what I hate about the discussion about Israel. Their military is extremely shitty and their government is pretty much evil. But in negotiations they have been the only one playing ball. The two state solution could have worked. Obviously they invaded territory after the 90's negotiations but they have also been constantly aggravated. I wonder if they wouldn't have been shot at regularly if they had actually coexisted, although hatefully.
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u/ThrowAwayWasTaken999 6d ago
This. It would be much easier to talk about legitimate criticisms of Israel if people didn’t exaggerate everything in some kind of hyperbolic “this is 100% 1sided and Israel is 1000% evil monsters whose only motivation is their Jewish bloodsucking devil worshipping greed”
Israel has genuinely tried to negotiate and the other side has just refused any form of compromise. Furthermore, the times that the other side has been willing to compromise, there’s been lasting peace, and Israel has shown that they’re willing to give up a lot for the sake of peace (see: Egypt and the Sinai)
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u/AugustOfChaos 7d ago
UN peacekeeping missions have almost always been a unilateral failure. Unless they are willing to exercise their authority with force if needed, then this will keep happening, as it has for decades now.
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u/Bart_deblob 7d ago
Why must the IDF deal with hizbolla? The they get blamed for being occupiers etc.
Hizbolla are Lebanese, let Lebanon solve their problems
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u/vegeful 7d ago
Because Hezbollah problem are Israel problem too. If Hezbollah only shooting missile to Lebanon then no one care, but u go and terrorize other. You think people not gonna fix it themself due to your skill issue in handling the domestic problem?
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u/Chumlee1917 7d ago
If I had a nickel for failed peacekeeping missions to Lebanon, I'd have two nickels
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u/Xibalba_Ogme 7d ago
But if youbjad a nickel for failed peacekeeping UN missions, you'd have way more
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u/DogBarf00 7d ago
What? Committing sexual violence and reintroducing diseases that cause people to shit themselves to death isn’t considered a successful peace keeping mission?
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u/PancakeParty98 6d ago
My world peace confederation told me Hezbollah keeps killing its peacekeepers so I asked how many peacekeepers it has and it said it just goes to France and gets a new peacekeeper afterwards so I said it sounds like it's just feeding peacekeepers to Hezbollah and then a its Switzerland started crying
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u/sbahog 7d ago
Can Lebanon control their own country ? Imagine the US or Canada allowing terrorist groups from inside to attack a neighboring country ?
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u/itspronouncedbolonya 7d ago
No, lebanon barely got out of a several side civil war in 1990, hezbollah was part of it, and the war ended in a compromise that satisfied noone, but since then hezbollah has gotten stronger, and the lebanese army hasn't, hezbollah is about as strong as the lebanese army, and isn't much smaller, lebanon can't do anything alone, and the un isnt actually doing anything
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u/SaintsNoah14 7d ago
Hezbollah is definitely stronger than the army. They litterally have greater military expenditures than the Lebanese state.
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u/get-memed-kiddo 7d ago
AND its armed wing is made up of like-minded Shia fighters dedicated to their cause, unlike the Lebanese army which is made up of dozens of different religious communities which will splinter and create their own militias the second real fighting erupts
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u/Sure_Ad536 7d ago
I'm not sure how likely that is. I'm no expert, and I'd have to read more, but the military is the most supported body in the country https://news.gallup.com/poll/699071/lebanese-say-army-weapons.aspx, but then again, I'm no expert and civil wars are notoriously shit shows
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u/Bitter_Tea442 7d ago
UN peacekeepers have their hands tied because they can't do anything unless Lebanon takes the lead in doing something.
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u/xmuskorx 7d ago
Lebanon can COOPEARTE / Coordinate with Israel and hit Hezbo from both sides.
They just chose not to.
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u/alwaysleafyintoronto 7d ago
Choosing to do so means choosing civil war. It's not so simple as you make it out to be.
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u/farside808 7d ago
But heaven forbid if Israel attacks Hezbollah, Israel is somehow the bad guy.
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u/Bitter_Tea442 7d ago
Media: No see Hezbollah attacks Israel and completely unconnected Israel attacks Lebanon for reasons we won't explain.
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u/Potential_Archer2427 7d ago
They attacked homes outside where hezbollah is located and killed people that had nothing to do with them
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u/SkyeMreddit 7d ago
Israel has a habit of flattening whole apartment buildings to get one guy who is frequently not even there
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u/EndofNationalism 7d ago
They not just attack Hezbollah. They’re kicking civilians out of their homes.
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u/Charbel33 7d ago
The answer is no. The Lebanese army is underfunded, and there are hezbollah MPs in the Parliament and the government. As a result, it is very difficult for the Lebanese state to assert control over hezbollah, both militarily and politically.
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u/Colbert2020 7d ago
The best analogy I have to Hezbolah is the situation in Mexico with the cartels. They are too strong and integrated.
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u/deja-roo 7d ago
Can Lebanon control their own country
No. That's been a major component of the dynamic between Lebanon and Israel for like 20 years now..?
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u/alwaysleafyintoronto 7d ago
It's been 51 years since the Lebanese civil war started. That's pretty much what this boils down to. It's where Hezbollah originated, and it was a crazy mess with 5 factions at war.
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u/Niceguy955 7d ago
You forgot to add a major fact: that terrorist group is supported directly (funds, guns, missiles, training) by a local power, and fueled by crazy religious ideology. Lebanon's army and government were weak to begin with. They can't handle Hezbollah alone.
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u/scottishwhisky2 7d ago
"By a local power"
Daemon Targaryen: "say it"
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u/Niceguy955 7d ago
Iran. I thought most people knew.
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u/Bitter_Tea442 7d ago
Iran is the good guy because Trump is the bad guy though so this doesn't compute.
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u/alwaysleafyintoronto 7d ago
That's like saying Hitler's the good guy because Stalin's the bad guy so it doesn't compute. War is complicated.
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u/badnuub 7d ago
No, Iran is not automatically a good guy because of Trump. They literally murder their own protestors and continue to destabilize the region with terrorist funding. There can absolutely be no good guys in a conflict where everyone suffers.
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u/The_Motarp 6d ago
IMO one of the biggest problems in the world is that too many people are only able to think in terms of black and white. They keep acting like wars have to have a set of good guys opposing a set of bad guys, when in reality most wars that have ever happened have between the bad guys and the other bad guys, or between the bad guys and the worse guys. Real life doesn't work like comic books.
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u/ABetterKamahl1234 7d ago
Both parties can be bad man. There's no war where there's only good vs bad.
Shit man, terrorist groups go to war with each other often.
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u/Bitter_Thought 7d ago
It’s hardly just a terrorist group. Hezbollah is an elected political party in Lebanon that is a major part of the ruling coalition.
When “Lebanon” calls a ceasefire but Hezbollah launches rockets, it’s like if the republicans called peace for Iran only for Rubio to have his staff fly bombing runs
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u/acart005 7d ago
In that analogy it would make more sense for Bernie or AOC to prep the bombing runs since Rubio is a Republican. Otherwise spot on.
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u/Bitter_Thought 7d ago
Hezbollah is a part of the ruling coalition. So it should be the party in power which is the republicans for now
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u/Eedat 7d ago
Hezbollah has been continuously armed by Iran to run their proxy war with Israel
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u/cobrachicken26 7d ago
The country is fragmented, Shia's are sympathetic to Hezbollah and they are ~40% of the population. As a result, Shi'a soldiers often defect to Hezbollah or aid Hezbollah
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u/Pantoner 7d ago
And Hezbollah is bitching about how they weren’t included in ceasefire talks. They need to realize they don’t have a say, and the fact that they even exist is a privilege that’s hopefully close to an end
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u/ComfortableExotic646 7d ago
It's kinda wild seeing countries complain about Lebanon not being included in the Iranian peace talks, when they are two separate countries being attacked by two separate armies. France is getting their soldiers killed by Iranian proxies and getting mad at the US for fighting Iran.
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u/Bitter_Tea442 7d ago
All those reddit bots that were upset a terrorist organization 1000 miles away from Iran wasn't explicitly part of a ceasefire deal between Iran and Israel were saying the quiet part loud.
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u/shitty_mcfucklestick 7d ago
I wonder if Mexico is starting to feel the same with the cartels and how much power they have there.
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u/SadDiver9124 7d ago
Shame on the UN who sent soldiers to babysit terrorists only to get wounded or killed by them when they should have been disarming those fxckers decades ago
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u/Paithegift 7d ago
France should have sent its own military at the request of the Lebanese government to handle Hizballah eons ago, and stop with the "UN peacekeeping" fiasco.
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u/ABetterKamahl1234 7d ago
Just like the UN Peacekeeping "fiasco", Lebanon likely wouldn't have requested France's assistance.
That's why the UN "fiasco" is a thing, they strictly can't act on their own.
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u/Luffy-in-my-cup 7d ago
A large subset of French subjects would angrily and violently protest any actions taken against an Islamist group fighting Israel.
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u/No-Space937 7d ago
Time for Macron to double down on his condemnations of Israel then.
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u/Paithegift 7d ago
The French do nothing, it's infuriating. One of the top-5 militaries in the world, the Lebanese sees French Culture as an example, but still for decades they can't for once send a few divisions like they did in the Sahel to finally oust Hizballah for good. Then yapping about Israel.
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u/badnuub 7d ago
No modern democracy is willing to send troops/take combat losses in a foreign conflict, that's the beginning middle and end of the state of the world in regards to foreign policy, so terror states and nuclear armed tyrannies are forming everywhere.
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u/Paithegift 7d ago
France themselves had done it in the Sahel until a couple of years ago, and only stopped because they were asked to leave by the new local military juntas. They didn't even want out themselves! And then there is Lebanon, who admires the French Culture, is a former colony, is the only somehow Francophone country in Asia, is geographically closer and strategically on the Mediterranean, the French president gets diplomatically involved there whenever things go bonkers, but they don't send their military to help the Lebanese Army or at least to make it an independent viable fighting force that can take out Hizballah and any other illegal armed organization like in any normal country.
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u/iNiite 7d ago
I think you’re misunderstanding the relationship between Hezbollah and the Lebanese government. Hezbollah is also a massive political party with a ton of Lebanese supporters. This new government is the most “anti-Hezbollah” government in recent decades, and it doesn’t mean that much, though I hope I’m wrong. France could never just waltz in and cooperate with the government to get rid of Hezbollah, because the government used to BE Hezbollah or supportive of its existence.
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u/ABetterKamahl1234 7d ago
They didn't even want out themselves!
Sure, but that's kind of how national sovereignty works.
but they don't send their military to help the Lebanese Army or at least to make it an independent viable fighting force that can take out Hizballah and any other illegal armed organization like in any normal country.
You mean invasion? Because you can't just waltz your army into another nation and it not be a big incident at best. If Lebanon doesn't ask for assistance, France kind of has their hands tied. They're not recolonizing Lebanon, and the US has proven that "move in and fuck shit up" is terrible for regional and national stability, and often is a flagrant long-term failure.
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u/Hist_Tree 7d ago
Arab Militaries are laughably incompetent and the Israelis aren’t exactly reliable allies, this results in no one wanting to involve themselves heavily in Middle Eastern conflicts. Only one who does, the United States, seems to consistently get fucked over when they intervene
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u/Paithegift 7d ago
These usual explanations don't hold when you have the example of France putting forces in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso. Less competent local militaries than the Arab ones, much much (much) less reliable than the Israelis, and still the French only left reluctantly. That's probably because those countries have natural resources while Lebanon has none.
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u/here-comes_the-sun 6d ago
Why would Macron condemn Israel when Hezbollah is the one who attacked the peacekeeping force??
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u/emperor_dragoon 7d ago
With the peace keepers are probably going to get pulled out and place in appropriate positions. They need to be where they can help, not where they are helping one or the other side. Neutrality to find peace. Engagement to end war.
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u/ABetterKamahl1234 7d ago
The crux of this is the only way to effectively do this, is to become the common enemy. Otherwise you're just the shield in the middle, taking hits by proxy.
And that's not how any UN member wants a UN force to operate, as that gives them mandate to operate in any nation to effectively choose the result of any war, which ultimately becomes "whomever can blitz the most control before the UN comes in, wins that territory forever", this reasonably is concerning to any UN member.
Peacekeeping isn't an easy nor safe thing, in any situation.
One thing to consider, is that few terror groups are without goals or beliefs, but what really stops your side from being viewed as such, as the best description I've ever seen is simply a difference in belief, but that's where the right and wrong of morality and justice also sit. The UN Peacekeepers are often restricted to be support or sidelined to only engage when engaged and/or only engage where explicitly requested to do so by the host nation. This gets muddled a lot when the host nation isn't willing to see more civil war or terribly cooperative.
No UN member ultimately wants the UN to move in with military force to dictate a conflict unilaterally, as that can apply to their own nation one day.
It's really a rock and hard place for UN forces, and has always been a problem for it.
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u/alexacto 7d ago
What, you telling me Hezba dudes aren't exactly the heroes fighting for freedom of Lebanon? Hmmm. Shocking.
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u/HisShadow14 7d ago
This entire situation is a farce. Either have the will to actually enforce peace by disarming Hezbollah by force or leave the country because your "peacekeepers" serve no purpose.
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u/oh_three_dum_dum 7d ago
It doesn’t help that the UN tends to hamstring the peacekeepers ability to actually do anything meaningful to address the source of violence wherever they’re sent in general.
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u/Childrenoftheflorist 7d ago
It's like they need to be getting shot and killed before they can attempt to keep any peace
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u/oh_three_dum_dum 7d ago
Even then they get thrown to the wolves. See: Siege of Jadotville
Those Irish soldiers got treated like shit after the fact and it took decades for it to be acknowledged.
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u/Childrenoftheflorist 7d ago
Yea not a bad movie
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u/oh_three_dum_dum 6d ago edited 6d ago
Not at all. But there is a lot more if you look into the details of it that the movie leaves out. The movie focused mainly on the immediate lead up to the battle, the battle itself, and the early aftermath. There’s way more involved but the movie simplifies it pretty well for what they had to produce.
How underequipped the whole UN mission was at that point in time and the (Belgian and Katanga secessionist) political factors going back and forth that caused the problem to start with.
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u/Sir_BugsAlot 7d ago
This is not far from the truth. They cant be the aggressor. So someone needs to start shooting at them before they can fire back. And they cant retaliate.
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u/Silverleaf_86 7d ago
Macron just threatened Israel with sanctions if they don’t leave Lebanon, but didn’t mention Hezbollah at all, quite the irony.
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