The Pete Quiñones Show - Episode 1126: The Complicated World of Lebanese Politics and Culture w/ Hunger the Dye Merchant

Episode Date: October 29, 2024

74 MinutesPG-13 The parents of Hunger the Dye Merchant left Lebanon and immigrated to the US. He frequently travels to Lebanon.Pete and Hunger discuss the various political and religious ideologies at work in Lebanon. He also discusses the tensions that have existed between Israel and Hezbollah for the past 60 years.Hunger on Twitter The Delaware Crossing SocietyThe Chatham House Version RecordingsPete and Thomas777 'At the Movies'Support Pete on His WebsitePete's PatreonPete's Substack Pete's SubscribestarPete's VenmoPete's Buy Me a CoffeePete on FacebookPete on TwitterBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/the-pete-quinones-show--6071361/support.

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head on over to freeman Beyond the Wall.com forward slash support. I want to explain something right now if you support me through Substack or Patreon. You have access to an RSS feed that you can plug into any podcatcher, including Apple, and you'll be able to listen to the episodes through there. If you support me through Subscrib Star, Gumroad, or on my website directly, I will send you a link where you can download the file and you can listen to it any way you wish.

I really appreciate the support everyone gives me. It keeps the show going. It allows me to basically put out an episode every day now, and I'm not going to stop. I'm just going to accelerate. I think sometimes you see that I'm putting out two, even three a day. And, yeah, can't do it without you.

So thank you for the support. Head on over to freeman beyond the wall.com forward slash support and do it there. Thank you. I want to welcome everyone back to the Pekignano show for the first time. We've been on streams before together, but not on this show. Hunger the Die Merchant. How are you doing hunger? I'm doing great man. It's a great pleasure to be on the show for the first time.

Well, thank you for coming on, and I apologize for asking you to come on and discuss a subject for your first appearance that is so, yeah, well, I'm sure people can look at the title of this and know that this is going to be one of those talks. It's going to be very personal to you. So, well, let's, if for people who don't know you, why don't you explain why this is a personal discussion to you? Right. So if anybody hasn't seen me on OGC, Pony Express Radio or other streams I've been a guest on, my name's hunger. I am a Lebanese American, born and raised in the States, but descendants of two Lebanese parents. My father escaped the Lebanese Civil War in the 70s. So that's how we got here. My mother stayed for the entirety of the war there and then married my dad came to came to America

But yeah, as as everyone who follows the news and our favorite democracy in the Middle East knows There's a big there's a big conflict going on and I have an I have the interesting experience of I've I've lived in the Middle East I wasn't born there but I lived in the Middle East as a teenager for about eight years you know, very, very long time, very formative experience. And so I know the region pretty well. And I met, and I've met a lot of people at that time. Like, I've met, I've met, I've met Palestinians whose grandparents or great grandparents were kicked out of Palestine. I've met, you know, Syrians who left during the Civil War in Syria. Like, this is a very complicated, you know, tense political region. But, I mean, it's a very, it's always a very interesting part of the world that

most people don't know a lot about, except, you know, outside of, you know, the G-Wa and oil. Yeah, it's unfortunate that when most people hear about this part of the world, it's, uh, it's having to do with, uh, America's greatest ally, you know, saying, hey, they, they hate us because, um, you know, of who we are and, uh, they're, they just, they exist to kill us. And yeah, I guess we've seen a lot of that lately. So how have you, have you been handling what's been going on? Personally, I really try not to, I really try to keep my, you know, Geo Paul hat on when, you know, thinking, thinking about like what's happening, thinking about the wider trends and the war and what is the situation. But, I mean, obviously, I have friends and family, a significant amount of friends and family.

still there who are struggling. Thankfully, you know, people have reached out to me personally and asked. Thankfully, I have nobody in my personal, you know, circles that is close to the border with Israel. You know, Lebanon is a very diverse, you know, spread out country. It's a very mountainous country, actually. So I personally do not know anybody that lives very close to the border with Israel. However, in Beirut, the capital city, the capital is.

being bombed, obviously, but again, it's only being bombed in specifically, not only, definitely not only, but majority bombed in Shiite areas, which Hasbela is a Shiite organization. So Shiite areas are getting the brunt, yeah, getting most of the brunt of the bombings. So my family is safe. I don't know anybody who's died personally. The big thing that's happening there is actually the refugee crisis because a lot of Shiite Lebanese are, you know, heading up north and going into different areas of Lebanon to escape the bombing and to escape the violence. So in my family village, you know, back home, a lot of people have opened up their doors to refugees from the south. I should also mention I'm an Orthodox Christian.

Lebanon has a very significant percentage of Christians. It's the highest in the Middle East by percentage. And it's about, you know, a quarter of. order to 30% of the country is Christian, whether that's Catholic, Orthodox, a little bit of Protestant, you know, a lot of other mixes in between. So that's kind of what's happening immediately in my circle. It's like, yeah, there's a huge refugee crisis. And people are trying to be very charitable and open up their doors and, you know, spread resources around to help people in this time of need. Can you explain, I mean, just an overview of what the, what, why this beef?

I mean, we know that Hezbollah and the IDF have clashed before. We know, I think a lot of us know about the 1980s, the bombings of Beirut, the blowing up of the Marine barracks there for no reason at all. I mean, the Marines were there as peacekeepers, right? You know, it's just, yeah, I mean, don't even get that. Obviously, that's being very sarcastic. I actually have a friend who, he knows people who were stationed there. He knows people who were there. And they've told them about the stories of what they were doing there.

And if anybody thinks that they were peacekeepers, they believe. Yeah, and I don't mean to shit on anybody who served. You know, I totally, I totally understand. And I, nobody I know has any beef personally with any American they met, whether they're in the military or civilian or not. It's really the anti-Americanism in the Middle East, it's not personal. It's extremely, how do I say? It's extremely political. It's extremely like as a result of government policy, you did America.

Not, not, I don't mean you. Not you personally. America or USG. I like I like to say USG because that's not it has nothing to do with what we're doing because we're both American we don't agree with anything that our government is doing what USG has done in the Middle East is create shit show after shit show after shit show that's caused enormous amounts of backlash yeah yeah and many such cases around around the whole region what different and just talk about Libya all night but all right let's let's take let's let's take

to Lebanon. You want me to put that map up? I think right now is a good time. Oh, yeah. Go talk about the, you know, this, the Shiite, what looks to be a Shiite stronghold where, where are we here? It's a terrorist state. Yeah, the terrorist state. All right, here we go. All right. Let me see if I can blow this up just a little bit without making it at a screen. It's not going to blow up. So, all right. So you have it on your end, and you can just explain what we're seeing here, because when you look at this graph and you see basically how this is, it shows by color where there's Shia, where Shia, Sunni, Jruz, Aloai, Maronite, Greek Catholic, Greek Orthodox, Armenian Orthodox, and Catholic. I mean, this is like a patchwork

quilt that you would find in a thrift store in the south that somebody's grandma made from a leftover yarn that she had. Oh, yeah. Oh, basically, yeah. So if for anybody interested, the red, yellow, and orange are all Christian groups, which is not an insignificant part of the country. And there's also a lot of people who live there. That's the red, yellow, and orange sections are all either Maronite Orthodox or, you know,

Eastern Greek or Greek Catholic, which is, you know, like, it's like, how do I say it? The Greek Catholics are, they're Eastern right Catholics, basically. And so it's a very diverse country, as you can see. The green are the Sunni areas. And the purple are the Shiite areas, which is of big concern for us because of the current conflict with Israel. And the blue area is our Druze. And in all honesty, nobody freaking knows what the Drews are.

They don't understand what they are themselves. I don't know. They're religious leaders. Like their clerics don't tell them the religion. It's actually like a incredibly well kept secret. Like they're not allowed to know what the tenants of their own religion are. But it's basically like an ethno sectarian, esoteric like patchwork of like Muslim and Christian beliefs, basically. Yeah.

But ask a Drew's, what is what is Drewsism? Like they have no fucking idea what Drews is. What sounds like aloeite too. Al-A-L-Wite is kind of odd. I've asked that before of people, and you always get the same kind of very mystical kind of answer to that. The only answer I ever get from the al-O-Ats is we're Muslim, but we're allowed to drink alcohol.

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Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I mean. So on this map. Just on that, just on that point of like, the whiteness of, uh, just on that point of the meds. I go, I, I just call myself Mediterranean.

When people think of Arabs, they think of like, you know, sand and words. which is not entirely inaccurate, but the Mediterranean basin has been a petri dish for 4,000 years. Like, we have natural blondes and redheads. I have redheads in my own family who are pale. You know, if you didn't know they were from this area of the world, you would assume they were like Irish or something or British. You would have no idea except for the accent. Just on that point.

I just wanted to say that. Yeah, I mean, Europe is weird, too. I mean, I have Eastern European and Southern European in my family, and I'm brown hair, brown eyes. My brother, my youngest brother's blonde hair, blue eyes. So it's just oddness all around. All right. So looking at this map. Yeah.

Okay. So the IDF has been making incursions into Lebanon. Where on the map have they been making the incursions in? So you're going to get a kick out of this. The incursions that are happening are obviously in the furthest south, where the entire purple is down there. But surprise, surprise, the Israelis have not gotten past two, three kilometers into the entire country, which is absolutely nothing.

It's been a worst performance on the ground, at least, compared to 2006. In 2006, they took like 10, 15 kilometers of territory. And before the invasion even started, the Israelis said, we're going to invade 10, 15 kilometers inland and create a cordon sanitaire buffer zone so that Hizbela rockets are out of reach of Israel. Total failure. Absolute total failure. This is not the best map to go into, but like, I can show you on a Google map of Lebanon, like, how far they've gotten into.

It's like two kilometers or less, which is like nothing. So yeah, on the ground at least, the military campaign has been a failure. By air, you know, I mean, by air, they're causing huge amounts of destruction all over the country. Yeah, I was on one of the telegram channels this morning. It's um, Roram Navarum and they're basically saying that the IDF was pulling out today. the IDF was pulling out of southern Lebanon because they, I saw one report where they had taken 700 casualties and 60 dead. And yeah, like the report was saying is they can't make it, they can't get in five kilometers in. So what, I don't see what their point is of even

trying to make, trying to do this incursion. I mean, unless it's to punish, unless, to punish the population that's there. I mean, it's definitely that, but it's like, I have a hard time. And even though, even though these people are, you know, neighbors and eternal enemies, like I have a genuinely hard time understanding their level of, you know, paranoia and, you know, other psychological ticks they have. But it's like they knew what were they expecting to happen? they expecting to drive all the way to

Beirut, which is like 60, 70 kilometers north of the border? Like, were they expecting to take over half the country? What about the other Shiite areas that are like all the way in the north, all the way in the northeast? Like, those areas are Hesbala areas as well?

Are you going to invade two thirds of the entire country? I mean, I genuinely don't know what they were trying to do. It's like, the same thing with 10, 7. Like, same thing with October 7. which we've talked a lot about and everyone has been talking a lot about for the past year. It's like, why did they do what they did?

They knew this was not going to end the way they thought it would. And these people aren't just going to go away. And it's not for lack of trying. The Israelis have tried everything they could to wreck Gaza and displace two million people out of Gaza. That didn't work at all. I mean, there's still over a million Palestinians in Gaza. The ethnic cleansing, I mean, they killed, you know, almost 100,000 people between 50 and 100,000 people. But there's still a million Palestinians still there.

They haven't been ethnically displaced, which is, which was Israel stated goal. Israel wanted to resettle Gaza with, you know, exclusively Israeli Jews, which didn't work. And then they launched us, they, they open the second front. I mean, Hasbola is the one that opens the second front. And people ask me this as well. It's like, what is the goal of Hasbola? And I keep saying this because this is like, you have to take these people at their word. Hizbelah's goal is not to destroy Israel in this campaign.

Their wider objective is to destroy Israel. But in this campaign itself, their objective was to stop the war in Gaza by opening up a second front. And the war in Gaza did not start, but by boxing Israel in on two sides, you know, they've caused absolute panic and chaos in Israel on top of also the Iranian support and missile strikes that have been happening as well like Israel is in a completely fucked situation and it's all of their own doing it's all of their own making and I can't reason my way into thinking why would why would you put yourself in this situation yeah um yeah I'm looking on that um telegram page it was 8.38 a.m. this morning, central time, Israeli defense force had begun a slow withdrawal from

southern Lebanon. All right. So there's two, but, sorry, yeah, and, in these two areas, in these two areas, there's, so there's four brigades or four divisions that are active on the front line. I heard two of those divisions being withdrawn. The other two I'm not so sure about, but that, that was the information I heard. Okay. Okay. All right. So looking at the map now, you said from from the border down at the bottom by how's that is that pronounced? Bint Bail? Benjabille. So it's it's okay. Don't. BJ. Anyway. So in in 2006, um, Bintagel was taken over by these. The town was was captured by Israel in 2006.

It's been over a month since the starts of the Israeli campaign. They have they are they have not taken the city. They are still on the outskirts. There's a there's a very famous town a kilometer south of Bintesh Bell called Marjayun. And that even that town has not been taken over by the Israelis, which is literally, you know, 800 meters from the border. I mean that that's nothing. Like you're 800 meters away from home base and you can't take this one town of like 5,000 people

when it was taken over in 2006 actually So this is a much worse performance than even I expected compared to the first war that happened in 2006 Okay, if I look up to Beirut let's go to Beirut because that's where when this all started the bombings the massive bombings by the by the Israelis happened and If I look at the colors on Beirut, it looks like it's almost all Sunni with just a couple little stripes of Shia. Is that correct? Not not really.

So I mean, if you look at the tippy, if you look at the tippy top, Beirut is huge. Beirut takes up like a much wider circle. So that purple right south of Beirut is the southern suburbs, which is where all the Shiites are. the eastern suburbs are, you know, vastly like 90% of Christian suburbs. So yeah, at the tip, at the tip of Beirut is mostly Sunnis. West, West Beirut is a Sunni district. East Beirut is a Christian district. And South Beirut is a Shiite district.

And that's just how the demographics played out because of migration and economics and, you know, history. So in South and South Beirut, the southern suburbs is taking an absolute beating by the Israeli Air Force. Like, I don't even have to show you. You can just look this up anywhere. You'll see buildings. You'll see like 12-story apartment buildings, just collapse from, you know, a bomb striking the base of the base of the apartment building.

And during the, during the assassination of the Husbala leader, Hassan Nasrullah, there was a six, there was a six, there was an apartment complex of six buildings where the Israelis dropped 160,000 tons of explosives on the six building on the six building complex which was housing the tunnels where the husbalah was meeting where the husbelah leader was meeting some Iranian officials and I mean those buildings are completely gone and there's a giant you know 50 foot crater in the middle of the city where that building once was you catch them in the corner of your eye distinctive by design they move you even before for you drive. The new Cooper plugin hybrid range. For Mentor, Leon and Terramar. Now with flexible

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Here's a better question. Do the residents of those buildings know that those tunnels are there and who meets there? Yes and no. I mean, yes, yes and no. So it's hard to, if you're not Shiite, it's very hard to get this kind of information. And even if you are Shiite, it's very hard to get this information if you're not directly associated with Husbalah. Because for all the recent events, Hasbullah has extremely good, has extremely good obsec. I mean, there's a reason why they're winning the war in the South.

They're winning the war in the South is because they have extremely good obsequ. And they have a lot of room to maneuver. But in Beirut, which is a very concentrated city, you're just going to have, like, there's spies running all over the place. And Hasbalah, it's hard. It's hard to get around that. There is a huge network of tunnels. I mean, everyone knows this, but no one confirmed. No one ever saw up themselves that I know of.

Everyone knows there's a huge tunnel network under Beirut, under the southern suburbs. This was known for decades because that's what Hasbubla does, because the Husbelah leaders very rarely go above ground because at any one time they can be assassinated by Israel. And they know this. And this is how they live their lives. and the people around them close to them know this as well. But like, there's not like a hidden civilian population living in these tunnels. This is military infrastructure for Hezbollah for the purpose of, you know,

defending themselves against assassination attempts by Israel. What's your opinion of Hezbollah? That is a very complicated question. Well, of course, I believe the State Department saying that they're a terrorist organization. But, uh, I have, um, as a Lebanese Christian, I have no beef with Hasbolo because Hasbola are not my enemy. And Hasbela has never done anything to the Christian community, in my opinion, that deserves any, you know, backlash. A lot of other Lebanese Christians disagree.

They don't like Hezbollah, not because they're pro-Israel, but because they want to open up to the West. they want to they want they want they want they want they want to give the state department a blowjob basically and it's like they know that it's like oh hasbal are Muslim they're reactionary they're allied with Iran we want to we want us we want to be open and European and see the world and have business and do banking with you know the rest of the with the west or the or the gay whatever whatever you want to call and there's a lot of Christians who genuinely believe that. And I know where they're coming from and I understand why they think the way they think because they were Western educated. They have family in the West. I mean, I live in the West. So I'm one

to complain. But they're wrong in the sense that it you're you're pissing off your neighbors, your Muslim neighbors who don't like those governments and what they're doing. And you're inviting in the foreign influence of very, very bad actors. which is not to say the other Arab states are bad actors. I mean, Syria has done many bad things in Lebanon. Syria is also the only thing keeping Lebanon kind of stable at any one point in time. They've done a lot of bad things in Lebanon. I can tell you the things the Syrians did to my family during the war.

But at the same time, we need Syria. Like, this is not a, it's not about my personal desire. It's like, this is the geopolitical reality. like we have to be we have to have extremely close ties to Syria they are they are our only heir of neighbor this is a very tough neighborhood to be and we are a very small country the goal of a very small state is to survive and the goal of a minority the goal of a religious minority or any ethnic minority is to survive and not piss off your neighbors and that's that's that's that's that's a lesson israel has never learned

You make it seem like the Shia or not in Lebanon or not the enemy of Christians. Are the Sunnis in Lebanon the enemy of Christians? The Sunnis don't like anybody. But first of all, the Sunnis think the Shiites are, yeah, the Sunnis think the Shiites are heretics. And they tolerate the Christians, but I mean, if a certain, I mean, there's been a lot of radical Sunni groups who have come up in Lebanon. And they don't like the Christians either.

I mean, Hasbolo was the one kicking ISIS's ass in Syria and who were ISIS massacring in Syria. They were massacring the alloys and the Christians and all the minorities. And so they weren't, we're no friend of ISIS. Absolutely fucking not. I mean, the enemy of my enemy is my friend. Hasbela has never, you know, has never done anything to attack the Christian community as far as I know, or at least outside of the civil war. where everyone was fighting everybody. It was nothing absolutely unique to Hasboha. And defending the regime of Bashar al-Assad and protecting the Christians is kind of the most important thing, in my opinion. And they've never, the Christians are very, very politically divided in Lebanon.

Very much 50-50, actually. The Shiites and the Sunnis are basically one political bloc who oppose each other. But the Christians are actually divided 50-50. Half of them want to be open to the West. And that also means being an ally of the Saudis, the Qataris, the Emirates, and all the Gulf state puppets of America, basically. That half of Christians support that, siding with Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and the West. The other half of Christians side with Hasbola and Syria because it is in their best interest of their survival.

to do so because we're in a very tough region. This is we don't get to choose who our neighbors are. You know, you have to make compromises. You have to, you have to have you have to have a back and forth with these people. Like you can't ignore who your neighbors are and you want to have good relationships with your neighbors. Just like just like Ukraine and Russia. Ukraine and Russia could have gone could have gone along very well and Syria and Lebanon is very similar to Ukraine and Russia in many, many ways. So I mean, there's a lot of people in Ukraine who are pro-Russian and who maybe they don't want to be a part of Russia, but they at least want to be friendly to Russia and not be an enemy

of Russia. I have no reason to be an enemy of Syria. That would not be good for my people to be an enemy of Syria. All right. So I have an important question to come back to you, but I want to ask you this one before we jump into that because that will probably lead us into a new subject. Have you been to Israel? No.

Okay. So you haven't been to Gaza. Okay. But you said that you have. Sorry. Interesting story. My grandmother, when before Israel was, when Israel was Palestine, my grandmother went to Jerusalem for a Christian pilgrimage and she had a tattoo of a cross.

She got that in 1946, actually. And then two years later, Palestine became Israel. I just, just personal, interesting tidbit. You did say that you've known people in Gaza, right, or from Gaza or people who've been, so I'm going to ask you secondhand information here, but you do know people who've been there, right? I know people who have family in Gaza. Okay. So I want to ask the same question about Gaza that I asked about Lebanon. How are the Christians that are left there?

I mean, I think it used to be 30% Christian, and now it's down into the low single digits. How are they treated there? I mean, like, I mean, the Christians, the Christians in Gaza, they're not nothing, but they're, they're negligible portion of the, of the society. It's like there are two million people in Gaza. There's maybe eight, 10,000 Christians. I mean, I mean, like, no one, no one really bothers them. No one really bothers the Christians for being Christian, even though there are radical Sunni groups, but no one bothers the Christians in Gaza because they're struggling under the same occupation as everyone else.

Like, life is not better for the Christians because they're Christian. They don't have more access to the West because they're Christian. They're living in an open-air prison just like the other two million Muslims around them. And they have their own churches and they have their own, they have their own little community. But they're Palestinian. Their culture is Palestinian. Their food is Arab. Their food is Mediterranean. And they're just like everybody else, except they don't wear the hijab. Airgrid, operator of Ireland's electricity grid, is powering up the northwest.

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Lebanese, you live in a rough neighborhood. You're surrounded by, you know, you're surrounded by trouble. Bullies. Yeah. The way, the, what, what we're taught here is that Israel is there to try to stabilize that they're the stabilizing force that before Israel before the Jews went to Israel and decided that they were going to oh buy up all the land I think we know anyone who knows the real story knows that that's bullshit but that they they're the only stabilizing force there that if they weren't there this would just be an eruption of Sunni and Shia killing each other and killing Christians and yada yada so So how does that, how does that narrative play for you?

It's, on its face, it's wrong. But I'll just say, I'll just say this one thing. The grain of truth in that statement, it has nothing to do with the Jews. Okay. The, the immigrants to Palestine have caused nothing but more destabilization, more massacres, more terrorism, more, you know, I don't even have to mention it. You've gone through this on your show dozens of times. Everyone knows what happened in Palestine in the 30s and 40s with the terrorism, the bombings

and all that stuff and the consequences thereafter. And you're talking about, you're talking about Jewish terrorism. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And what the state of Israel has done since. And all the things the state of Israel has done since, the Levant affair. the assassination attempts, the six wars that started because of the creation of Israel.

But the grain of truth in that statement is that, okay, yeah, the Middle East was not pretty beforehand. There were ethnic tensions. There were religious tensions. There were, you know, Muslim Christian massacres. But those things, it's not that those events were a consequence of the Ottoman Empire, the weakness of the Ottoman Empire, the weakness of the Ottoman Empire, the things. failure of the Ottoman Empire and, you know, uppity nationalist movements trying to, you know,

take over their neighbors, which is not, again, this is a rough neighborhood. It's been a rough neighborhood ever since the collapse of the Ottoman Empire. So you have to kind of make compromises to keep the peace and not get like, Lebanon used to be a majority Christian state. Okay, in 1932, the population was 55% Christian. Now it's 25, 30%, which is significant. That's almost a million and a half people out of five, but we're no longer the majority. To survive as a community, you have to make interesting friends. I think that a lot of people would hear that about the Ottoman Empire and they would think

that really the best way for to keep peace. in this area is to have a strong overlord. Like if the Ottoman Empire demanded order was very on the ground. I mean, and we can go back in history and we can talk about Rome, and we can talk about, you know, Alexander and a whole host of people who attempted this. But it would seem to me that-

It wasn't even that long ago. I mean, the Ottoman Empire lasted in the Middle East for 500 years. And only in the last 60 years of those 500 were there significant blood feuds and ethnic you know, massacres those four hundred those other four hundred forty years were very strong stable central government. Yeah. So all right.

Well, let's talk about the, uh, well, let's talk about our greatest ally, Israel. How, how did it start with? the tension between Israel and Lebanon. Where does the genesis of that come from? Well, the story of Israeli-Lebanese tensions, I mean, first of all, it goes back to 1948. It goes back to the creation of Israel. So when Israel was founded and the Nukba,

which is Arabic for the catastrophe, the displacement of almost a million Palestinian refugees, the displacement of Palestinians from Palestine into the surrounding territories. Lebanon received a significant portion of those Palestinian refugees, because it's literally on the border of Palestine. Not surprising. And so from 1948 onwards, there has been a significant Palestinian refugee population in Lebanon. And with the creation of the PLO, the Palestinian Liberation Organization,

and Yasser Audefetz in the 60s, Palestinians started conducting cross-border raids into Israel, you know, for a very noble cause to reclaim their homeland, which everybody understands. But this caused Israel to retaliate in Lebanon, and it led to Lebanese casualties. It led to Lebanese people being caught in the crossfire between the Palestinians and Lebanon and the Israelis.

And a lot of people died. the 60s and 70s because of Israel attacking Palestinians in Lebanon and again civilians getting caught in the cash fire. This caused a huge backlash to you know both sides. The Shiites, as you can see on the map, which is the entire purple area down south, is where all that is where a huge number of the Palestinians were based out of to attack Israel. And so it was almost 80 to 80 percent Shiites getting killed as a as collateral damage. in the Palestinian, you know, Israeli skirmishes. This caused a huge resentment in the Shiite community.

And so a lot of them started traveling up north. That is why the southern suburbs of Beirut received a huge influx of Shiites. Because in the 60s and 70s, when the conflict was going on, a lot of Shiites left the South to move to Beirut to escape, you know, Israeli attacks as a result of Palestinian attacks. that's kind of the animus that's kind of the that's kind of the starting point of how Hasbalah came into being

in the 60s and 70s Shiites were getting killed by being caught in the middle of Palestinians and Israelis and so the Shiites started founding their own militias to protect their to protect themselves and this happened in the 70s to think about the Palestinians in Lebanon

they I sympathize with them very much so, but they also wrecked my country. I mean, unironically, the Palestinians started the Lebanese civil war. Because the Palestinians were majority Sunni, there were some Christian Palestinians who fled, but because 90 plus percent of the Palestinians were Sunni, it upset the entire sectarian demographic balance in Lebanon. and we received hundreds of thousands of these radicalized Sunni fighters who, you know, were interested in conflict and having a war with Israel.

This caused a huge backlash in the Christian community. And the Christian community started forming militias as well to protect themselves from the Palestinians because the Palestinians were trying to take over Lebanon to be the permanent base of attacks on Israel. And yeah, surprise, surprise, the locals did not like being. the basis of attack and getting caught in the middle of these two groups. So this led to the Lebanese Civil War of 1975. It lasted for 15 years. It was a Christian Muslim civil war, but it was actually, it was mostly a Christian-Palestinian war

with the Shiites and the Druze and the Sunnis also committing massacres against everybody. Like the Shiites committed massacres against the Palestinians. The Druze committed massacres against the Christians. The Christians committed massacres against the Palestinians. The Lebanese Sunnis used the Palestinians as their strong right arm to further their Sunni political interests. And Yasser Atafetz, the leader of the PLO, his attacks on Israel eventually caused a backlash in Israel,

which led to two invasions of Lebanon, The first one in 1978. Yeah, so Israel occupied like maybe again 10, 15 kilometers of southern Lebanon, which caused more Shiite refugees to flee north and radicalize the Shiites even more because their land was occupied by Israel now. And in 1982, which was the big invasion, they occupied half of Beirut. They occupied half of Lebanon, half of Beirut. And they got into a war with the Syrians over eastern Lebanon. And this was a huge part of the conflict. The Syrians, after the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War, invaded to reestablish security.

Not really. They just chose side. From one year to the next, the Syrians would play both sides of the conflict and try to get the most out of both sides. Like one year, they would support the Christians and try to stabilize the country. The next year, they would support the Sunnis and destabilize the country, given the fluctuating, you know, events that Syria was very much a part of. And so in 82, the Israelis and the

Syrians, you know, crossed arms. And it was pretty much, I would say it was a stalemate, but I think the Israelis won that exchange in 82, but I mean, it was a very bloody. It was a very bloody exchange as well. The Syrians have always been the best, the Syrians have always had the best track record

of all the Arab states when it comes to fighting the Israelis. So, eventually people eventually the conflict settles down in 1990 there is a peace agreement in 1990 between all the militia groups of all of

of all religions and they agree to have a more they agreed to a new power sharing arrangement where power shifted from the Christians to the Sunnis and Shiites because again like I said when Lebanon was created it was a majority Christian

country and the Christians had majority political power. The Civil War changed that. The Civil War caused the Christians to lose political power in exchange for peace with the Sunnis and with the Sunnis, basically, and the Palestinians. The Palestinian Liberation Organization was actually kicked out of Lebanon by Israel, and they fled to Tunisia or somewhere along that lines until Outtafebac comes back to make peace with Israel. So the Palestinians come in, screw Lebanon up, screw up the demographics,

provoke an invasion by Israel twice and cause, you know, everyone in the country to fight them. So the, in the middle of this, because of the 1982 invasion, all of southern Lebanon is occupied by Israel, a one specific Shiite militia splits off from the other Shiite militias and gets, this is because this is in 1982, they get foreign funding. from the Islamic Republic of Iran. This group becomes Hezbollah, and they are radicalized by the Iranian revolution. Actually, the Lebanese contributed very much to the Iranian revolution happening in the first place, but that's a more complicated story.

So the Lebanese Shiites and the Iranian Shiites radicalize each other in exchange, and eventually after 1982, Shiites and Lebanon form Hezbollah. And Hesbela's main goal is not to fight the Palestinians, it's not to fight the Christians. It is to drive Israel out of Lebanon and retake the Shiite lands that were now occupied by Israel. And Israel occupied southern Lebanon from 1978 till the year 2000. So, yeah, 22 years, the South was occupied, and that was the raison d'etra of Hezbollah. and so after the Israelis left Lebanon in the year 2000, they left unilaterally. But throughout that entire time, even post-Civil War,

Hezbollah and the Israelis were fighting each other in the 90s in southern Lebanon. And a lot of, again, civilians died, even though the country was at peace because the civil war was over. The country was still at war with Israel. And Hezbollah was the main force fighting Israel in the south because Israel occupied Shiite territory. There was a very famous incident, actually. If you look at that, that little orange speck in the middle of the purple, right in the center of the purple in the south, there's an orange speck. That is actually a very famous town.

You might have heard of it in the Bible. It's called Kena or Kana. That is the village where Jesus turned the water into wine at the wedding. And in 1996, Israel was long. launching a military operation in this region of the South. And a lot of civilians fled to a United Nations compound here, looking for safety from Israeli shelling. This was in 1996.

And Israel shelled that UN compound. And, you know, over 100, sorry, over 100 civilians were massacred. It was called the Kana massacre of 1996. And that caused a huge backlash because, you know, UN peacekeepers were there. Some of them were killed as well. And yeah, there's I can go down a list of things that have happened like that,

but that was a big one. Israel leaves in the year 2000. Finally, Lebanon has no Syrian troops or Israeli troops on its territory. It's fully independent, you know, for the first time in basically its entire history. And, I mean, politically shit just hits the fan. America and the West are trying to tear Lebanon away from the Syrian and Iranian sphere of influence.

The Syrian and Iranians push back trying to keep Lebanon in their sphere of influence. And we become basically Ukraine using their client groups in Lebanon to further foreign backers. Tell me if you want to stop or if I should keep going because I've been rambling for some time. operator of Ireland's electricity grid is powering up the Northwest. We're planning to upgrade the electricity grid in your area and your input and local knowledge are vital in shaping these plans. Our consultation closes on the 25th of November. Have your say, online or in person. So together we can create a more reliable, sustainable electricity supply for your community. Find out more at airgrid.i.4 slash northwest.

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Book now at giddlestorhouse.com. Get the facts be drinkaware, visit drinkaware.com. Yeah, no, I have a question. It seems to me that the smart thing that would have happened is if as soon as the Palestinians who are in Lebanon are, you know, troublemakers, they should either be ejected somewhere or dealt with. So the reason the reason the PLO is in Lebanon is because, you know, you know, the PLO is because They were ejected from Jordan beforehand.

The Palestinians tried to overthrow the king of Jordan. And the Arabs got together and schemed like, okay, we can't kill Yasser Arafat. He's too important. We can't kill the leader of the Palestinian National Movement. However, he tried to overthrow the king of Jordan. Where do we put him? We'll put him in Lebanon. Why Lebanon?

We were too weak to stop it. We were two weeks to stop it. We have no leverage. We are a tiny country. Syria. The Palestinians wanted to go to Syria. Syria said, hell no, you're troublemakers. We're putting you in Lebanon where we can keep an eye on you.

And because Lebanon borders Israel so that they can all, they all had an interest in keeping artifacts alive and putting him in a place where he could cause trouble for Israel, but not them. And so Lebanon was pretty much the ideal destination. So it seems to me that. the Palestinians if you're if I'm listening hearing this right wherever they go they're causing trouble is that pretty much yeah and you know people will say well you know if they're in Gaza they're causing trouble if they're on the how many Palestinians are on the West Bank I'm trying

to remember is it I think it's like I think it's like two three million yeah yeah okay so million three million but let's concentrate on Gaza then it's like well, if they're in Gaza, then they're going to be causing problems everywhere. It seems, I've heard the argument that the Palestinians, no matter where they go, they cause problems. And, you know, and I've always joked that Dr. Shlomo Sand and Sheldon Richmond, you know, hold to the theory that the Palestinians are actually like the real Jews, that they have Jewish DNA, that they converted over the centuries and everything. I would say, well, they sure do, they sure do sound subversive.

So there could be some evidence there. But it sounds like they're just fucking troublemakers wherever they go. So, I mean, I think that it would be good. Just on that one point. I mean, if you were kicked out of your ancestral homeland, where your grand, not even your grandparents, your great, great, great grandparents started, built a house or a farm or a factory that goes back to 300 years or even further you know these people

have been indigenous to the land since the time of christ basically and these upstart eastern european migrants come in and because they have guns and you don't your your property is now their property because right of conquest you don't think people are going to have a problem with that I mean, yeah, somebody. I would be a troublemaker. You know, somebody with Spanish lineage who understands the history of Spain and knows that the reconquista there took over 700 years that, you know, never forget and just keep taking back as much of the property as possible.

Yeah, I mean, I get it. Yeah, I get it. And, you know, but it's also, you know, Europe and these are different people. Europe is Europeans or Europeans and people from this place are different cultures, different ways. And so, all right, let's go back to Israel. So what is Israel's purpose? Is Israel's purpose to just basically take all of this land because the Old Testament says it's theirs? Yeah, and I know that they're not religious.

Most of the, you know, Benjamin, I don't think Benjamin and Yahoo is a, is a religious person, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to take a Bible and take the Bible look at as a history book and go, or you just rationalize, well, it says here that God, whoever this person, whoever this guy is, said that this is ours. And it's in this book. And a bunch of Christians all around the world, and especially in the United States, have been brainwashed in to believe in that, We're these people. Then why don't we use this book? Is that what their goal is, is to take back from the river to the sea?

I mean, yeah, that's basically, I mean, when Zionism started in Europe, I mean, there was a religious and secular aspect of Zionism, which still exists to this day. I mean, like you said, not every Israeli is religious, but there are a lot who are. And there are a lot who quote scripture to justify their current holding of the land. The irregular Israelis don't think of, don't believe that at all. The secular Israelis believe, oh, this is a safe place for Jews. You know, this is a safe place for my people. Why would I be anywhere else?

The goal basically, the first goal of the state of Israel is the survival and continuation of the Jewish race. Take it or leave it. That's it. That is their sole reason for existence. Israel is the last homeland for Jews all over the world that whatever happens, whatever happens post, you know, Nuremberg, there will always be a safe place for Jews, run by Jews, controlled by Jews. That is the purpose of Israel. That's what we all know it to be. Now, within that project, there are a lot of different opinions. A lot of them are expansionist. they took the Golan Heights from Syria

and Donald Trump, when he was president, recognized the Golan Heights as a part of Israel. Israel is the only country in the world that doesn't declare its own borders. Why? Because if it declared its own borders, it would have to demarcate where it would stop expanding. But there are a lot of people in Israel

who want to continue expanding. Southern Lebanon has a lot of water resources. It's very hilly. It's very nice area. beautiful mountains, rivers, everything. It would supply a lot of water to Israel, which is still majority desert. That's one. I mean, they want to take the Sinai as well

because the Sinai is very important to the Jewish religion. These are all things that happened. And Israel had to make compromises, giving back the Sinai to Egypt, for example, in exchange for peace. But at its heart, it's about the survival of the Jewish race. And within that project, the expansion of the Jewish state to the natural borders of former Israel.

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Christmas nights at gravity. This Christmas, enjoy a truly unique night out at the Gravity Bar. Sour festive bites from Big Fan Bell, expertly crafted seasonal cocktails and dance the night away with DJs from love tempo. Brett take infuse, amazing atmosphere, incredible food and drink.

My goodness, it's Christmas at the Guinness Storehouse. Book now at giddlestorhouse.com. Get the facts be drinkaware, visit drinkaware.com. Right, so anybody who people need to understand that, to understand that who've bought into the narrative that Israel is just trying to live there peacefully and everybody around them is trying to kill them. As I know, they seek to expand out and go into territories that people already live there, have lived there for thousands of years, just like they did by starting to come there in the early 1900s, is their goal is to take this back. And not only the land that they have now, but to move beyond that.

And it seems that they, anyone who's standing in the way of that, if Iran is helping Hezbollah, I guess there's a good place to go. Why do you think Iran is so intent on helping Hezbollah? And, I mean, we know that Iran has helped Hamas too, which is, you know, Shia helping Sunni. So what's Iran's whole? thing in this. What's their play in this? Iran and Hezbollah. Just like America and Israel, Iran and Hezbollah have a very special relationship.

The Lebanese Shiites, historically, have traveled back and forth to Iran to teach the tenets of Shiite Islam that currently rule Iran today. because she I'm not I'm definitely not an expert on this

that's for sure I am not an expert on Islam but the Lebanese and the Iranians have a centuries long relationship the Lebanese Shiites and the Iranians have a centrally's long relationship going back and forth

and the Lebanese Shiites because of certain imams and sheikhs in the 60s and 50s radicalized again because of the creation of Israel. Because at this time, Iran was pro-Israel. Iran was in the American sphere of orbit.

So Iran was pro-Israel at this time, when we had the Shah of Iran famously. So the Lebanese Shiites became radicalized, having Israel on their border and being the victims of Israel. They started talking to their Shiite, you know, cousins or brothers in Iraq and Iran. And that radicalized them both.

And I don't know the history of Khomeini because Khomeini was one of these other people. I don't know his connection. I don't know his Lebanese connection exactly. But I wouldn't be surprised if there was something there of how Khomeini was radicalized into believing what he believed. That's pretty much the best explanation I can tell you without doing a deep dive. I don't have the background knowledge on that. There was a very famous person. His name was

Musa al-Sadr. He was the first person in Lebanon. He was the first Shiite, Imam in Lebanon to start the Shiite militias for the purpose of defending the Shiite communities from both the Palestinians and the Israelis. Musa al-Sadr was a little troublemaker himself. And while visiting Libya,

he was kidnapped, tortured, and killed by Omar Gaddafi. Why and for what reason? I have no idea. But that was the beginning of Shia radicalization in the 60s, Musa al-Sadr. It's interesting that even into the 80s, Iran had a relationship with the United States, especially with the what a deep state. I mean, they're running arms. Oh, yeah, Iran-Contra.

Yeah. I mean, people don't realize that. It's like, well, this, this. what happened in, you know, so many Americans want to be like, well, you know, they took our embassy in 1979, and I'm like, it kind of overthrew the government 26 years earlier, and these people don't have short memories. You know, they deal with a very low time preference when it comes to things like that. But yet still, after that, and after the hostages are released on inauguration day, 1981, the, yeah, they're still doing, they're calling them their enemy.

Israel is already talking about their two weeks you know there are two months from getting a nuclear weapon and yet they're running weapons for the for the contrary's it's interesting tidbit on that Israel was one of the prime weapons exporters to Iran post revolution this is 81 82 the the Israelis were sending weapons to Iran and the Iranians were accepting them from Israel because the Israelis thought Iraq was the bigger threat Then I ran. It seems like Israel is just the Israeli leadership is schizophrenic when it comes to who their enemies are. It could be Iraq this week.

It could be Iran the next week. It could be both. They have no theory of mind. These people have no theory of mind. The theory of mind is the basis of all empathy. And to understand other people, you need empathy. And that's just something these people cannot. I've never seen these people demonstrate that unless the person they're talking to is also a fellow member of the tribe.

And people who want to talk about how, oh, Israel deserves this land and everything. It was given to them. Okay. Even granting that. Why would they want to move here? If they, it almost seems like you're led to believe that. these Jews wanted to take back their ancestral homeland, and they thought they would just be,

okay, we might need to, and at first it wasn't, oh, we're going to kill everybody there. You could read Ben-Gurian and Ben-Gurians referring to that, well, you know, we have people there. There are brothers. We're going to have to do something. And then all of a sudden, like, overnight, it flips.

Like you're saying, boom, oh, no, we're going to have to kill them all. If you know, and anyone who knows their history knows the tensions in this area, why would you move to this area? The only argument you could make is, well, you know, it's God gave us this, but I mean, most of the people who were in Stern Gang or in Hagan or in Ergun, these weren't religious characters. I mean, these were, these were basically humanists. These were people who didn't believe in God. So it's like, don't they get to get some blame for wanting to take back a land that's surrounded by people they know we're

going to hate them? I mean, it's not, it's not even that. I mean, the, the Ottoman history and the Ottoman Empire, this was not, this was not a very tense part of the world. Free World War I, this was not a tense part of the world. Okay, the Ottoman government was very weak. This did cause ethnic tensions and, you know, sectarian rivalries to flare up, which did happen. There were massacres that happened in the late 19th century. That totally happened

because of the failure of the Ottoman Empire and the tension, the ethnic tension. But pre, like I said, pre-World War I, this was not a very tense area of the world. There were already Jews in Palestine. The thing was they were Arab Jews. And the Arab Jews had been there for 3,000 years or 2,000 years, whatever date post-Roman history you want to call it. These people were indigenous to the land. They were not foreigners. No, Christians, Muslims, and Jews lived in Palestine, uninterrupted for 1,500 years. They didn't lock the doors on their, I remember reading one diary of a rabbi, European rabbi, who went to Jerusalem.

and like, he was from like 1780 or 1790. And he wrote there that on the Sabbath, they didn't even lock their doors. They didn't shut their doors. They didn't have a worry that Muslims were going to come in there and kill them. This wasn't a, everyone that seemed, and Christians, there were Christian churches there too. No one's locking their doors. No one's worried about these kind of things. When these kind of things pop up and they can be hyper political and they can be cultural, sure.

But there wasn't this problem And it wasn't That And there wasn't this problem Because politics was out of their hands I mean literally out of their hands You know these people were just part of the tapestry

Palestine was a region of the Ottoman Empire And Constantinople was where all government authority was centralized They're okay there were yeah there were administrative governors There are there always are but it was not it was not a mass democracy people you didn't you had no you had no say over government policy you had local religious representatives that's interfaced with the regional government and the central government and you went to your priest or your rabbi or your imam and they interfaced with the government on your behalf to represent your interest there was no action there was no mass democracy of like this is

a numbers game and if there's more of us therefore you don't get anything of what you want and this was this was a government people don't understand like yes the government in the ottoman government was okay monarchical yes it was also extremely consensus based extremely consensus based like you had to get everyone on board or at least piss off the least amount of people as possible to achieve anything in the Ottoman Empire. To achieve anything, you had to piss off the least number of people, whether it was the merchants, the Christians, the Druze, the military, anybody. The administrators, you had to piss off the least amount of people possible or they would stop you from enacting your policy, even though you were, quote unquote, the sultan or the emperor. Yeah. Yeah, it's,

it really seems like up until pretty much anywhere you go in the West. And, even in this area, up until the 20th century, when you had rulers, before you had democracy, you just lived your life. You know, some people may be poorer than others. Some people were serfs. But it really seems like the 20th century, this 20th century of democracy where World War I is trying to end every monarchy, and then World War II is trying to end every ethno state that it's after that

that when the people have a say in everything, which means that your government can be subverted by special interests, and those special interests are not going to have your best interests at heart, that everything wants to shit. That we've been dealing with that now for 100 fucking years, where it's just, you know, liberalism. Oh, liberalism, classical liberalism hasn't even started. yet. That's what's going to take us, you know, that's what's going to defeat global homo and

everything. It's like, no, no, no, that's what caused it. That's what brought it here. That's what allows it to, even if it doesn't, even if it didn't bring it here, even if it didn't allow it in. However it got in, it definitely allows it to thrive. It definitely allows it to feed like a cancer. And, yeah, I mean, it seems like this is the same exact thing. Once you have people, who once you have people who are over have a ruler, even a weak ruler, someone who's like the Ottoman Empire who's really not good at what they're supposed to, what they're supposed to be doing here. You have more peace. Everybody thinks that everybody thinks that before the Jews shut up there, that there were bombs blowing up and people were just killing each other. And it was just

these mass slaughters and everything. And it's like probably no more than anywhere else in the world. No, absolutely. And again, the, the massacres that did happen were a result of the breakdown in governments, the breakdown in the Ottoman Empire and the factionalism within the Ottoman Empire. That led to, you know, ethnic groups causing trouble. And not to be a libertarian. I know we're not libertarians anymore. But how did, how did, how did, like, normal everyday people, whether they were Muslim or Christian? Like, how did they hold power? like in the Ottoman government. They held power through private associations.

The private association, the merchant guild, or, you know, the religious community, the church, or I don't know, you were a part of the military, or just anything. You were a high administrative person in the local council. Like this was a very communal, very bottom up. There was not there was there was a people thought like all power was centralized not at all the complete opposite was the case power was extremely decentralized and the job of the sultan was to keep at was to piss off the least number of these decentralized centers of power throughout the entire Ottoman empire whether was the merchants the military the

administrators and the various religious sex. The Sultan was the ruler of millions of people who were not Sunni Muslim and they had to be governed just as well as the Sunni Muslims and they had their own, they had private religious law. Like if you were a Christian, you followed Christian law. You did not follow Sunni law. Sunni law was not imposed on you because you were not Sunni. you followed Christian law or Jewish law if you were Jewish in Palestine in the Ottoman Empire and no one knows it and no one knows anything about this and it's not wrong to say you were a somewhat second-class citizen okay yes Sunnis were privileged the state the head of the state was a Sunni Muslim yes that didn't

mean you didn't have you know that didn't mean your life was that different than anyone else's and they kept the Sultan never forced the Sultan never imposed like Christians to follow Muslim law never happened in the entire and the entire history of the Ottoman Empire

the mass the forced conversions were like in the time of Muhammad which was a thousand years before sounding a little like Hans Herman Hoppa there talking about democracy they got out of the field yeah you can take you can take the you can take the libertarianism out of out of the boy, but you can't take the boy out of libertarianism, or opposite. Yeah, the opposite of that, yeah.

Yeah, it's always, I mean, there's not bad ideas there. They're just making it into a religion is the problem. Making into its own religion as the problem. So, we've been going, yeah, we've been going on a while. Is there anything, anything you want to conclude with? I got, I mean, I could, I could talk about this subject for hours, but I think, I think we covered pretty much the complicated history. I'm sorry for going on huge monologues about the entire history.

It's it's a lot to digest and I have I have a podcast where I have Thomas 777 on once a week. It's okay to go. It's okay to go on. It's yeah. Yeah, it's just a lot of information to digest. I have there is there is one book. I do there's one book I do recommend people read. It's not specifically about Lebanon, but it's a great book. that gives you a perspective of the Middle East and the history of the Middle East in the 20th century. And this book is called the Chatham House version. It was actually recommended to me by a Mr. Curtis Jarvin. Actually, we met briefly in D.C. And he recommended me this book.

And it's an excellent book. The author is an Iraqi Jew who never lived in Israel. He was living in the UK. He was a British academic. and his name is Eli Keduri, K-E-D-O-U-R-I-E, and the book is called The Chatham House Version. It's a collection of essays he wrote on the Middle East, and yes, he's an Arab Jew, which is actually kind of like the most interesting perspective on the entire conflict. But there's so many good tidbits of information in that book.

And me and my good friend Hitman have a series on this book, where he reads out, he reads out each chapter and then we have a discussion on that chapter specifically. It's a great series. If you want to learn like, if you want to learn a fascinating perspective on 20th century, Middle Eastern history, definitely pick up that book by Ali Kuduri, the Chatham House version. Is that series on your YouTube channel or something like that? No, my friend hit man. I'll send you a DM of his channel. Yeah, so I can link to that. Anything else you want to plug?

Follow me at Twitter at Hunger Die, D-Y-E. And I don't know which day exactly this will be coming out. But it's no secrets. I'm a member of the Philadelphia chapter of the OGC. And we are very happy to say this Saturday, November 2nd, we'll be doing an event in Valley Forge. And if you want more information on that, please follow our Twitter account Philly Chap O-G-C

Philly P-H-I-L-L-Y-C-F-L-L-Y CHAP-C-H-A-P-C-H-A-P-C-H-A-P-C-H-A-P-E-C-H-A-P-L-E-C. Okay, I'll get that in there, too. All right, Hunger. I appreciate you. Thank you very much.