From lundimatin #490, 01/10/2025
I am nothing
and my words are fleeting
like me,
among people but passing through,
that is why
I speak of you.
Bassam Hajjar
Is it absolute madness that has taken hold of Zionism, driving this ideology born in the heart of European nationalism that emerged in the nineteenth century, through massacres and counter-massacres, and fabricated “founding myths”, even before the two terrible so-called world wars, when European colonies were at their peak, three continents had already been definitively “conquered”, and the various indigenous populations had been either decimated or reduced to a mere fraction of their former numbers? Is it therefore absolute madness that drives this ideology to believe so firmly in its own mystical-mythical delusion, which it has long been able to use and manipulate, and which now overwhelms it on all sides, merging completely with the other great Zionist delusion that preceded it shortly before, Christian Zionism, which emerged from evangelical Christianity, first appearing in Great Britain before flourishing in the United States, each driving the other further and further into this genocidal headlong rush?
Is it this call from the void that nothing can fill anymore, not even this sea of blood, not even this persistent taste of ashes and dust, a call from the void that was just waiting for this tipping point beyond all limits, like this morbid eternal promise, this final sacrifice of the other, of others, all those who were not chosen, these superfluous human beings? The altar is nothing more than that, after all: offerings at the feet of Yahweh or whatever name one wishes to give to this one god. A hellish machine of death that never stops feeding itself, that above all never stops being fed, continuously and with complete impunity, in full view of everyone — whether or not there is recognition of a so-called Palestinian State, that shrinking entity, where yet another puppet would reign.
But when we talk about Israel, the Hebrew state, as it likes to call itself, we are talking about a population of no more than seven million, which cannot grow excessively and cannot truly dominate — let us not forget the very essence of Zionism, all tendencies combined: colonisation, and all colonisation is first and foremost domination — from above, with fighter planes, helicopters, drones, satellites and other instruments of deadly advanced technology, and which cannot therefore occupy the land once it has been invaded. Not enough soldiers and no Alya [heavens] would suffice. “Greater Israel” (extending far beyond the famous river) is impossible, except in a vast mental delusion, a terrifying tale for oneself and for others, starting with the indigenous people condemned to subjugation or disappearance, once again.
Is it therefore this bloody, genocidal, suicidal impasse, or is Zionism today merely a kind of advanced vanguard of hyper-capitalism, the armed wing and open-air security laboratory of a future that is already upon us? The various lobbies and alliances that currently exist cannot alone explain the staggering complicity of more than one country. There are, after all, financial and economic interests at stake, which are enormous to say the least. And this relentless domination exercised by capital — today in its variant largely between the far right and the extreme right-centre (as has been the case more than once since at least the industrial revolution) — is not only at the expense of any population that refuses to be enslaved, that persists in self-determination despite everything, including in the former colonies, or even in the supposedly liberated, decolonised territories, constantly stripped of their natural resources; it is exercised just as much, and even more perniciously, to tell the truth, on its own population, at home, obviously using migratory flows (inevitably pretending that our world is not the result of centuries of migratory movements, without which more than one infrastructure would not exist, but what the hell!) to conceal this increasingly sophisticated exploitation in its demand for voluntary servitude — otherwise: truncheons, Tasers, defensive grenades, gases of all kinds, police custody, at the very least.
This supreme capitalism, even when it plays the national, patriotic card and the entire masquerade that comes with it, has absolutely no boundaries when it comes to profit. And, as we know, with this Moloch, it is always first and foremost a question of interests and profits. Of course, this hyper-capitalism in its Western imperialist version continues and will continue to deeply despise the populations of the so-called Third and Fourth Worlds. Nevertheless, for this eternal supremacism, all populations, or more precisely ‘those at the bottom’, are nothing more than subordinates, subjects, consumers, cannon fodder when necessary, regardless of their origins, or else they are nothing but lumpen, rejects and nothing else, extra mouths to feed. The dominant and the dominated, over and over again, with the hazy middle class stuck in the middle of this terrible ladder. Finance is, in short, the only international (yes, that word) that works. Not a union, though! Sharks tolerate each other at best. This is in contrast to the great illusion of the abolition of borders, which many thought they had finally achieved with the invention of the internet and its spread, forgetting that no scientific or technological research escapes their insatiable appetites, and that it is often even sponsored by these sharks. Virtual reality and artificial intelligence have not finished blurring geography, our minds and boundaries even further, while deepening them even more. And international finance plays on this and makes the most of it; the sinews of war, more than ever.
This endless madness of Zionism would certainly not be possible without the unconditional support of more than one other state and everything that supercapital in all its forms deploys, reaps and crushes, without mercy. After all, this colonial state in continuous expansion does not produce the bulk of its death machine. It is extremely dependent on the complicit states we know (including in the Arab world, as it is called), and more particularly on today’s great imperial power, the United States, built on land entirely plundered at the end of a conquest that lasted nearly four centuries, far from any cameras, any networks, any live broadcasts.
Ghassan Salhab is a filmmaker who reports from Beirut on the situation in Lebanon and beyond.
Ghassan Salhab: The Alter
From lundimatin #490, 01/10/2025
I am nothing
and my words are fleeting
like me,
among people but passing through,
that is why
I speak of you.
Bassam Hajjar
Is it absolute madness that has taken hold of Zionism, driving this ideology born in the heart of European nationalism that emerged in the nineteenth century, through massacres and counter-massacres, and fabricated “founding myths”, even before the two terrible so-called world wars, when European colonies were at their peak, three continents had already been definitively “conquered”, and the various indigenous populations had been either decimated or reduced to a mere fraction of their former numbers? Is it therefore absolute madness that drives this ideology to believe so firmly in its own mystical-mythical delusion, which it has long been able to use and manipulate, and which now overwhelms it on all sides, merging completely with the other great Zionist delusion that preceded it shortly before, Christian Zionism, which emerged from evangelical Christianity, first appearing in Great Britain before flourishing in the United States, each driving the other further and further into this genocidal headlong rush?
Is it this call from the void that nothing can fill anymore, not even this sea of blood, not even this persistent taste of ashes and dust, a call from the void that was just waiting for this tipping point beyond all limits, like this morbid eternal promise, this final sacrifice of the other, of others, all those who were not chosen, these superfluous human beings? The altar is nothing more than that, after all: offerings at the feet of Yahweh or whatever name one wishes to give to this one god. A hellish machine of death that never stops feeding itself, that above all never stops being fed, continuously and with complete impunity, in full view of everyone — whether or not there is recognition of a so-called Palestinian State, that shrinking entity, where yet another puppet would reign.
But when we talk about Israel, the Hebrew state, as it likes to call itself, we are talking about a population of no more than seven million, which cannot grow excessively and cannot truly dominate — let us not forget the very essence of Zionism, all tendencies combined: colonisation, and all colonisation is first and foremost domination — from above, with fighter planes, helicopters, drones, satellites and other instruments of deadly advanced technology, and which cannot therefore occupy the land once it has been invaded. Not enough soldiers and no Alya [heavens] would suffice. “Greater Israel” (extending far beyond the famous river) is impossible, except in a vast mental delusion, a terrifying tale for oneself and for others, starting with the indigenous people condemned to subjugation or disappearance, once again.
Is it therefore this bloody, genocidal, suicidal impasse, or is Zionism today merely a kind of advanced vanguard of hyper-capitalism, the armed wing and open-air security laboratory of a future that is already upon us? The various lobbies and alliances that currently exist cannot alone explain the staggering complicity of more than one country. There are, after all, financial and economic interests at stake, which are enormous to say the least. And this relentless domination exercised by capital — today in its variant largely between the far right and the extreme right-centre (as has been the case more than once since at least the industrial revolution) — is not only at the expense of any population that refuses to be enslaved, that persists in self-determination despite everything, including in the former colonies, or even in the supposedly liberated, decolonised territories, constantly stripped of their natural resources; it is exercised just as much, and even more perniciously, to tell the truth, on its own population, at home, obviously using migratory flows (inevitably pretending that our world is not the result of centuries of migratory movements, without which more than one infrastructure would not exist, but what the hell!) to conceal this increasingly sophisticated exploitation in its demand for voluntary servitude — otherwise: truncheons, Tasers, defensive grenades, gases of all kinds, police custody, at the very least.
This supreme capitalism, even when it plays the national, patriotic card and the entire masquerade that comes with it, has absolutely no boundaries when it comes to profit. And, as we know, with this Moloch, it is always first and foremost a question of interests and profits. Of course, this hyper-capitalism in its Western imperialist version continues and will continue to deeply despise the populations of the so-called Third and Fourth Worlds. Nevertheless, for this eternal supremacism, all populations, or more precisely ‘those at the bottom’, are nothing more than subordinates, subjects, consumers, cannon fodder when necessary, regardless of their origins, or else they are nothing but lumpen, rejects and nothing else, extra mouths to feed. The dominant and the dominated, over and over again, with the hazy middle class stuck in the middle of this terrible ladder. Finance is, in short, the only international (yes, that word) that works. Not a union, though! Sharks tolerate each other at best. This is in contrast to the great illusion of the abolition of borders, which many thought they had finally achieved with the invention of the internet and its spread, forgetting that no scientific or technological research escapes their insatiable appetites, and that it is often even sponsored by these sharks. Virtual reality and artificial intelligence have not finished blurring geography, our minds and boundaries even further, while deepening them even more. And international finance plays on this and makes the most of it; the sinews of war, more than ever.
This endless madness of Zionism would certainly not be possible without the unconditional support of more than one other state and everything that supercapital in all its forms deploys, reaps and crushes, without mercy. After all, this colonial state in continuous expansion does not produce the bulk of its death machine. It is extremely dependent on the complicit states we know (including in the Arab world, as it is called), and more particularly on today’s great imperial power, the United States, built on land entirely plundered at the end of a conquest that lasted nearly four centuries, far from any cameras, any networks, any live broadcasts.
Ghassan Salhab is a filmmaker who reports from Beirut on the situation in Lebanon and beyond.