Upstream - [UNLOCKED] Lebanon Pt. 1: Resisting Occupation w/ Hussein Assaf

Episode Date: March 17, 2026

This is an unlocked version of the episode "Lebanon Pt. 1: Resisting Occupation w/ Hussein Assaf."  In Part 1 of our new series on Lebanon, Hussein Assaf joins us to discuss the ongoing assault on Lebanon by Israel and the United States. Hussein Assaf is a journalist with Vocal Politics based out of Beirut.  Our conversation begins with an update on the ongoing assault on Lebanon by Israel and backed by the United States. We then talk about the political forces at play in Lebanon, giving a brief history of the political makeup of the country to help put the current assault in context. We talk about Hezbollah and the relationship it has with the Islamic Republic, unpacking the common talking point in the West that Hezbollah is an Iranian "regime" proxy and instead providing a more appropriate analysis (and in doing so, giving insight into how the United States treats its proxies). We close on a discussion on the information and psychological warfare that is a part of the US and Israel's assault on West Asia and on its own populations at home.  Just a quick note: this episode is a bit of a non-traditional Part 1 to a series as it goes into a bit more depth into current events and is not as focused on a providing a more complete historical context for Lebanon like our other series do. If you want to understand what's happening at the moment, this is a great starting point. In the future we will provide even more historical context and take deeper dives into Lebanon's history and politics.   Further resources: Vocal Politics Hussein Assaf Related episodes: Listen to our ongoing series on Lebanon Listen to our ongoing series on Iran Listen to our ongoing series on Palestine Listen to our ongoing series on China Upstream is a labor of love—we couldn't keep this project going without the generosity of our listeners and fans. Subscribe to our Patreon at patreon.com/upstreampodcast or please consider chipping in a one-time or recurring donation at www.upstreampodcast.org/support For more from Upstream, visit www.upstreampodcast.org and follow us on Instagram and Bluesky. You can also subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts.

The people of the South, especially since it's bordering with Palestine, are still defending their land, are saying no to Israel, because as I mentioned earlier, this is an existential war for them. This is not just a passing days of fighting, as some might call it. It's an existential war for them. It's either Lebanon becomes an entire U.S.-Israeli settlement, or we can defend again for our country and try to maintain some kind of sovereignty and not allow the Israelis to expand and turn Lebanon or

southern Lebanon where there will be mainly present as troops into another settlement. You're listening to Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. A show about political economy and society that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about the world around you. I'm Della Duncan.

And I'm Robert Raymond. The price of sovereignty in this world is high. If you refuse to bow down to the dictates of the world's hegemon, you are subject to any variety of punishments, stretching from sanctions to genocide. And yet people resist. They fight back. And what we're seeing right now in Lebanon is the price paid for that resistance.

In this episode, part one of our new series on Lebanon, were joined by Hussein Asaf to discuss the ongoing assault on Lebanon by Israel and backed by the United States. Hussein is a Beirut-based journalist with vocal politics, a Patreon-listener-funded independent news outlet covering global South politics. And just a quick note before we get started, this episode is a bit different from our traditional opening episodes in our various anti-imperialism series, in that it goes into a bit more depth into current events and is not as focused on providing a more complete historical context. We will of course keep this series going, so expect a deeper history of Lebanon in the near future.

And now, here's Robert in conversation with Hussein Asak. All right, Hussein, thank you so much for joining us today. Thank you for having me. Yeah, yeah, of course. I would love to just begin with an introduction. if you could introduce yourself for our listeners and talk a little bit about yourself and the work that you do. My name is Hesana Asaf. I'm a member of the vocal politics team. I'm based from in Beirut. I'm from southern Lebanon. And in the past few years, especially since the Israelis and the U.S. launched a genocide in Gaza, I've been reporting daily on it and I've been keeping track on it of it.

and especially also since the war on Lebanon in 2024. As vocal politics, we tried to not only report on what was being censored in the Western mainstream media, but we have also been trying to give context as to why these things are happening. What's the background? How did we get here? Especially since, as many know, that imperialists always try to not only manipulate headlines, but either cut things out of context or create their own context. So this was our main goal in the past two years, and I was playing a part of it on a daily manner.

Yeah, vocal politics is doing a lot of really great work. So thank you for contributing to that. Thank you. Thank you for your work as well. Yeah, yeah, thanks for saying that. And we'll get a little bit more, I think, as we move through the conversation into a little bit of the sort of information and psychological warfare.

the importance of outlets such as yours, which do such important work in terms of combating the propaganda that we are inundated with so often here in the United States and in the West more broadly. Let's start with just if you could give us a general update just on the atmosphere in Beirut right now. Of course, I'm sure most of our listeners are familiar somewhat with what's going on in terms of what's capturing the headlines, but maybe just give us a sense for yourself what your experience has been like and for those that are around you in terms of, you know, the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. And then maybe in doing so also, if you could bring us up to date in terms of what's been happening in Iran and the region more broadly.

Of course. First, everyone has been keeping up with the war. The Israelis launched. Well, I say war in this context, actually they haven't stopped their attacks for over two years, and especially after November 24 when the so-called ceasefire was signed, which demanded that Israelis and their occupation of several points in southern Lebanon, withdraw their forces and air and ground and sea attacks, which obviously didn't happen. So during from November 2004 to today, there were recorded over 15,000 violations from the Israeli side.

Meanwhile, the resistance, Hezbollah has committed to the ceasefire as per the Lebanese government itself. The French spoke about it earlier ago and the UNIFEL spoke about it earlier ago. So in fact, the atmosphere in Beirut now, well, people have become living in a state. of aggression nonstop since November 2024 but this has escalated since March 2 when the Israelis launched their most intense if you want aggression on Lebanon the newest campaign of their aggression on Lebanon which included the bombings of thousands of targets across southern Lebanon Beirut's southern suburbs Thahi and Beka region almost 1,000 people have been

martyred so far, over 1,500 have been wounded, daily massacres. So the people of Beirut today are either native residents of Beirut or part of the almost 1 million Lebanese people who have been forcibly displaced, especially from southern Lebanon and Beirut Zahia. The atmosphere here is well everyone has been anticipating for this because the Lebanese people have a long history. history with Israeli occupation. Well, people like to bring up the 1978 invasion and 1982, when in reality the Israelis have been committing massacres in southern Lebanon since the 1940s through their Zionist militants, Zionist groups back then, which is not much talked about. But now the Lebanese people are waiting. Many of them have shown great resilience. Many of them are

saying, well, this is a war that has been imposed on us. So this is existential. So it's a fight or die. In many places, people are also scared. You know, families, you have children. Because when you talk about one million people, it's a range demographic. So many of which who didn't find shelters to stay in, schools are being opened and other public facilities to receive. forcibly displaced people. The bombings are increasing on Beirut and many of which are not being with so-called early warning attacks. So you go to sleep in Beirut and you don't know if you will wake up or not and we saw the latest massacre against forcibly displaced people who have erected tents on the beach

in Beirut a few days ago which resulted in 10 martyrs and others wounded. So, Bayoumese, My root is living in a state of war right now. But the people have, in many of the interviews you can find online, me going to meet many of the people, other journalists. There is a sense of that this fight was anticipated. This fight is existential. There is no time for defeatism. There is no time to, there's no time for you to feel you have to give in. There's no time to surrender.

it's a fight-or-die situation, which the Lebanese people have come accustomed to, but especially in the past two years. And just really quick, can you give us just a brief sense of the makeup of Lebanon in terms of the different regions, what neighborhoods and what parts of the country are being targeted? And just to help us give a sense of how vast these displacement orders from Israel are, like you mentioned a million people, that's kind of hard to wrap your head around. right and like how big is Beirut what's the population? Beirut is small when you talk about cities around the world Beirut is a very small city Lebanon is a very small country but Beirut is the center of Lebanon when it comes

not only its capital but because our system is centralized so when you talk about government services schools jobs everything it has been densely centered in Beirut. So it's over a bit over 2 million people reside in Beirut permanently or greater Beirut, which also includes the Beirut's southern suburbs. So 1 million is a very, very, very huge number. It's also mainly coming not only from Beirut's southern suburbs. It's coming from southern Lebanon.

It's coming from the Bikbar region in the northeast. And so a few days ago, if you saw the Israelis released an order to forcibly displaced the people of South Littani River, which is in southern Lebanon, which is populated by hundreds of thousands of people, most of which have been staying there even after their destruction of homes in October to November, 2024 war in Lebanon. But they decided that they will stay because it's their land. and they didn't want to allow the Israeli de facto occupation of southern Lebanon. But now, after these indiscriminate attacks against southern Lebanon,

the Israelis are attacking everything. They're attacking residential buildings or attacking municipalities or attacking medics just in the past few days. They have committed several massacres against medical personnel, which resulted in the martyrdom of over 20 people. So the Israelis are trying to... to create in southern Lebanon, south Littani River, at least, a sense of an area where it is unlivable. So even if you decided to stay there, there is no access to healthcare, no access to public facilities,

they're destroying water pipelines, they're destroying machines related to rehabilitation. And now they are mass bombing residential buildings, committing massacres against families, against families. So many people have chosen to leave and wait and see what is the next step is because Israelis have been talking for the past few days about looming invasion of Lebanon. The IOUF spokesman said it themselves that they're going to launch a wide-scale attack on Lebanon. There's troops being deployed on the border between Lebanon and Palestine, which is nearly 100,000 forces. And so when you say the population is leaving, it's not leaving because they are only have been asked to evacuate. No, the Israelis made sure that the area is unlivable. And they

are making sure that when they want to advance, they want to occupy with no resistance, which is not the case when it comes to Hezbollah, because the resistance in Lebanon is part or the community in the south, it's the people, it's the residents of the villages, the towns. So even after the people have evacuated mass regions into the south, you'd always find that Israeli occupation forces trying to advance into Lebanon are being defended against because Hezbollah and southern Lebanon is the people. Hezbollah and southern Lebanon is the community. So it's people defending their land, people defending.

their homes, people defending their families. So when you take it from this aspect, you can find that with all Israel's intent to occupy south of Lebanon, which has become more of a realistic scenario, I mean the plan is a more of a realistic scenario, you also find another place that the people of the South, especially since it's bordering with Palestine, are still. still defending their land, are saying no to Israel, because as I mentioned earlier, this is an existential war for them. This is not just a passing days of fighting, as some might call it. It's an existential war for them. It's either Lebanon becomes an entire U.S.-Israeli settlement, or we can defend again for our country and try to maintain some kind of sovereignty and

not allow the Israelis to expand and turn Lebanon or southern Lebanon, where there will be mainly present as troops into another settlement. And just for people who may not be fully aware, just to underscore, so Hezbollah is strongest in southern Lebanon and the southern so-called suburbs of Beirut, known as the Dahlia. And I'm wondering, can you actually maybe just give us a bit of a makeup of the Lebanese state right now. Like who holds power, what forces are at play,

what role does Hezbollah play, and what is the role of U.S. imperialism as well in sort of interfacing and shaping these forces? Lebanon has always been a very complex country when it comes to political and social fabric. In the 1970s and 80s, I'm not going to go further than that, but we can, from this, people can understand a bit about modern day Lebanon. Since the 1970s and 80s, there were a civil war in Lebanon, which ended in 1991.

The civil war in Lebanon was dominantly a sectarian war that ended in 1991 in the Taif agreement in Saudi Arabia, which helped define the system that we see today, which is based on quotas divided to a different sects. in Lebanon. The interesting thing is that Hezbollah was then fighting against Israel. It had weapons, but it was excluded from the Ta'ev agreement in 1991, which said that all factions who have been participating in the civil war must give up their arms. Hasbullah was excluded, given that it is a resistance group that is fighting against occupation. So its arms were not part of the deal. after that there is a tree on Lebanon which consists of the Sunnis, Shias and Christians which are the ruling is divided upon and it's between the parliament is for the

it should be headed by Lebanese Shiai the government should be headed by Lebanese Sunni and then you have the Christians who hold the Maronite Christians in particular who hold the Lebanese presidents. and the chief of armed staff. Also, there are other security apparatus that are also divided among the sects, which mainly include the general security, which should be for the Shias. You have the internal security for the Sunnis, and you have other apparatus, which includes the Lebanese intelligence agency, which should go to Maronites.

So this has made it very difficult for a country like Lebanon, to come and deal with challenges because the history and the background of these different sects has been not consistent with the state, if I might say, because the Marianite had always had there, if you want, strong relations with the West, especially with France, the Sunnis with the Gulf countries. It varied between Saudi Arabia and Egypt and Turkey. more recently Turkey is expanding its presence among the Sunni sect, but it's still not influential as Saudi Arabia.

So when it comes to governing in Lebanon, it's going to be a mix of interests of these countries. Meanwhile, the Shi'as, while they were affiliated with Iran, it has always been the case that Iran was not powerful enough to, if it has decided to go down the path, that dictating what's happening among the group it supports, it was not powerful enough to do that. And even when Hezbollah became extremely powerful,

even in the media reports calling it one of the most powerful non-staked actors in the world, it had more weapons than many conventional countries, this did not put Hezbollah in a position to try and, well, what they say, take over the government, take over its, decisions. This was not His-Bullah's view of the

country. It always, Hasbullah always emphasized on trying to find mutual interests, mutual benefits for all the country's parties, for all the country's sects, meeting halfway, resolving the issues. But in the past, I'm saying

this because we need to know what's happening now is that after the Israeli war in Lebanon in October 2004, which we saw led to the martyrdom of Hezbollah's leadership. And with the terrorist pagers attack and the Wauke-Toki attack and then the massacres in Lebanon, Hezbollah was weakened significantly. And this is the reality.

However, when Hezbollah was weakened, despite all the resistance groups' attempts over decades when it was the most powerful to meet people halfway, meet other parties halfway, even parties where it stands in opposition against their supporting countries, for example, Saudi Arabia, whether it's France, whether it's the U.S., there was a complete attack on the resistance backed by the United States, in particular, to finish off, as if I might say, which, as we saw, led to the imposing of the current Lebanese president, Joseph Oon, who was the former chief of army, and the imposing of the current prime minister, Nawaf Salam.

Usually these positions would have been in agreement among all sects, even if it's a Sunni-only position the political parties come together and say, okay, this guy would be good for the job, for the Lebanese president, okay, this guy is, there's a consensus around them, but no, this, the situation now was different. And the moment they came to power, and despite Hezbollah being part of the government, but Hezbollah being having, not a majority, does not have a majority take, and Lebanese is a majority, the parliament depends on a majority vote, the government also depends on a majority vote. Even Hezbollah's internal alliances were weakened, many of the,

conventional alliances of Hezbollah for the past decades suddenly turned on him when it felt that even if they always defined as they are sovereign and they are anti foreign dictation, so they also turned around against Hezbollah because they thought, okay, so the party is defeated, so we should save ourselves. And then when the government came in, in the two months war between October and November, 27 until the signing of the so-called ceasefire, no Israeli force was able to occupy any part of Lebanon. During the entire war, Israelis were not able to establish a permanent presence inside Lebanese territory. They would advance on 500 meters, 1 kilometers inside southern Lebanon, take pictures, make social media footage,

and then they would withdraw under the fire of the resistance. After the so-called ceasefire, the current Lebanese president, Joseph Ome, asked the army, which also the ceasefire said that the army, Lebanese army should spread across Lebanon, especially in the south of Lebanon, and take over positions, which on both sides, under the pretext of not allowing Hezbollah to be present there, and as well as where the Israelis were supposed to be withdrawing, which did not happen. In fact, Aun said that the Lebanese army is not ready to get deployed, which facilitated for the Israeli occupation to occupy vast areas after the so-called ceasefire in southern Lebanon,

which they are still are present in today. And then came the Lebanese prime minister who put voting for twice for the discipline, armament of the Lebanese resistance in the government, which was voted in favor, and then the latest vote which said that Hezbollah's military and intelligence activity is banned. This is, this vote was taken maybe one month ago. So when it comes to creating legitimacy for the Israeli occupation and the Israeli attacks on Lebanon, the Lebanese president and the Lebanese prime minister spared no effort to create this legitimacy.

whether on a governmental level, whether on an institutional level, whether on a population level, and even when it comes to with relations with so-called friends of Lebanon, where the Prime Minister specifically would always indirectly, or the sorry, foreign minister, the President, the Prime Minister, Foreign Minister specifically would say that Israel is not an aggressor. It's Hezbollah's fault, its resistance's fault, which directly and indirectly gives Israel the legitimacy to kill the Lebanese people to continue its attacks, to prepare for an invasion under its so-called protecting its so-called security. So the Lebanese today, if you want to talk about the government,

the government and the president and the prime minister are backed, affiliated and directed by the United States and indirectly by Israel. Meanwhile, the parliament, the parliament, the chief of the parliament, which is Nabi Berri, he's a very close ally with Hezbollah. He's also ahead of the Amal movement, which is a resistance group, but is at a much smaller scale than Hezbollah, is trying to complement what Hezbollah is doing on the ground when it comes to diplomacy. And usually there's a hand-in-hand cooperation between Hezbollah. and the Amal movement, and they even delegated Nabi Berri to be the one who's spearheading diplomacy

and negotiations on their behalf. Today what we're seeing is the president and prime minister trying to sideline Bitteri entirely, which is in other ways saying that they don't seek any kind of negotiations, any kind of diplomacy. They want the Lebanese army to go and disarm Hezbollah, which here is very important to say that the Lebanese chief of arms today, Rudolf Haikal, has been under pressure both from the Lebanese president and the Lebanese prime minister, and more recently under immense pressure from the United States directly to go in, asking him to go in and forcibly disarm Hezbollah, which he has so far declined, because he's saying that that will cause a civil war that the Lebanese military institution should only be concerned about the Lebanon

security, should not be carrying out foreign agendas, that civil war starting a civil war would not only damage the Lebanese military institution, it will fragment the country in a moment that Lebanon should be protecting itself from Israelis. So now there is news reports a few days ago that under U.S. pressure and of course the Lebanese president and prime minister are happy to do that. They want to replace the chief of Lebanese army, Rudolf Heikal. They want someone who will carry out the orders, no questions, ask, someone who doesn't mind spilling the blood of the Lebanese people so that the agendas of the U.S. can be carried out, which is eventually it's weak in Lebanon to a point that it cannot, not even

defend itself against Israel to a point well it's it's willing to do what Israel wants without even thinking about creating any kind of threat to the expansionist Zionist colony and I think that in the next few days we're going to see more Lebanese officials calling for a normalization with Israel normalization here it means submission normalization is another word for submission normalization with Israel, the dismantlement of Hezbollah. We're going to see it at the level of the prime minister and the Lebanese president. But the reality on the ground is much different than the reports being seen.

The Lebanese president and the prime minister have no popular base. In contrast to all other presidents and prime ministers, where they were usually elected because they have a large supporting base, whether in the Sunni community, whether in a Christian community, or the Shia community. Josef and Nawafsalaam have no support base. They don't have political parties. They were imposed.

And Hezbollah was then just trying to facilitate things. They did not put restrictions. They wanted to get things moving. They told the government, okay, let's try diplomacy. These are the Israelis, have them withdraw. This is South Lebanon. Stop the violations. Of course, the...

President and Prime Minister did none of that. They even encouraged more of it. And so today, the reality in Lebanon versus its political representations when it comes to people in the West reading what's happening in Lebanon, whatever the Prime Minister or the president say is not a representation of Lebanon. It does not even represent a majority in Lebanon. It does not even represent 50% of what the population is thinking in Lebanon. These have become the enforcers of a U.S. occupation, and they only represent themselves and some other groups that have decided to carry out the U.S. interests.

They could also be political parties, they could also be officials, but they don't represent the majority in Lebanon, and they don't represent what the atmosphere in Lebanon is when it comes to defending against Israel occupation and normalizing. and defending against the total domination of the United States on the country. One thing I wanted to ask you about, too, is that we hear a lot about how Hezbollah is a, quote, proxy of Iran in the Western media. And this is sort of an attempt to make it seem so that Hezbollah is nothing more than sort of a puppet of the Iranian, quote, regime, right? That's the narrative that they're trying to, I think, establish with that. I'm wondering if you can just kind of give us a sense of Hezbollah's connection with the Islamic Republic. This is a good question you asked. And here I'm going to try to address it from a different aspect.

You know, that saying that Hezbollah's proxy is actually a projection of how the U.S. treats its allies and the West treats its allies, it's not only to deletitimize, it's actually a projection because even with people unfamiliar with the propaganda or unfamiliar of how media works, of how terminology works, they actually believe that the way they treat their allies is how Iran treats its allies because the way they treat their allies is the normal way. They can't even imagine that two different parties,

whether it be a government and the party or two parties or two governments have aligned interests to fight against an imminent threat, you know. So part of it is the misconception that everyone around the world sees everything the same way as Westerners see it. Westerners here I'm talking about Western governments and people who fall for this propaganda. So it's a projection in its first aspect. The second aspect is that I'm going to make an argument here that I don't see much being made, but it's very important even on a material level to understand this alliance. When the Islamic Revolution won in 1979,

and the first steps it took was shutting down the U.S. embassy, the Israeli embassy was given to Palestine, rightfully so. Iran was weak. Iran was weak, and it was more weakened by the imposed war and Iraqi imposed war on Iran, which spanned for eight years of complete brutal violence and killing an occupation, the use of chemical weapons, embargo, and Hezbollah and Lebanon, or the resistance factions when it came to Shiaz was also, I don't want to say insignificant, but it was very small. So on a material level, Iran chose all the wrong options to take for a

country, if it wanted to be seen as powerful or to grow out its influence, Hezbollah had no influence in Lebanon. It was a group of small communities in the South. Resistance fighters were always hiding, even from their families, they had to keep it a secret because the Israelis had infiltrated everything. So, and Iran rather than going, okay, so we took over, Imam Khomeini took over. So, okay, we're going. going to see this country, we're going to have normal ties with the West, but we want more shares in the oil, we don't have an issue against Israel, we will maintain our relations with the U.S. This would have been, if I'm talking from an unprincipled and materialistic point

of view, this could be a better option than going into an 80-year war, going into destroyed Iran because, you know, the Iraqis destroyed the institutions. They targeted the military. They targeted the army, targeted communities. So Iran made all the, when we say materially here, all the bad bets only because this is the ideology that it chose after the victory or it chose for the victory of Islamic Revolution. So Iran chose the worst bet to make in Lebanon, which is Hezbollah, which is an insignificant small group back then. And for that, it had paid a price for many years, and it was very risky. They put all the weight in groups that there was no forecast, if they will win or not,

if they will have influence or not, the other armed parties and Lebanon all had their allies or had the sponsors or had their parties. but Iran chose a group that is ideologically aligned with its ideology when it comes to the US and Israel and anti- and imperialism. So from that sense, you can start to understand choosing Hezbollah as a proxy is a bad bad. The way you see that the Islamic Republic treats its allies, whether it's in Lebanon or in Iraq or in Yemen, this is not how countries treat their proxies.

Countries treat their proxies the same way that Israel treated Abu Shabab in Gaza, the proxy who was ISIS affiliated and was killed. They treated their proxies the same way they treated their proxies in Syria. When they chose, for example, to get rid of a faction because the political circumstances were different, just like we saw with the SDF recently by the United States, they treat their rights. They treat their proxies in a way that is degrading, humiliating, and only serves the interests of their countries, even if it comes against interests of their local proxies. We see that what they did in the United States bases today in the Gulf,

they say the Gulf is their allies, but now they have put their allies under imminent danger because of the war, them and the Israelis. decided to launch war of aggression. They decided to launch on Iran. We see how they treat their allies when they allowed Israelis to attack Qatar back in 2025. Even their patriots were not even activated to rebel the attack. We see how they left their Saudi partners when they were launching a war on Yemen in 2019. They left them without receptors. They were trying to blackmail them into concessions about oil in return for the interceptors

to repel Yemen's rightful retaliatory operations. This is how the U.S. treats its allies, and this is how the U.S. or anyone falling for U.S. propaganda assumes that other parties have built their relationships. It's built on self-interest first. It's built on dictations. It's built on orders. It's built on blackmail, which was never the case with Lebanon, with Iran and Hezbollah, or even Lebanon on the political case, despite in the political scene.

They say that Iran is occupying Lebanon. Everything suggests that Iran has no influence in Lebanon, what at all? The political scene in Lebanon, even the political scene in Lebanon, where it has been decades, the U.S. propaganda and really propaganda that Iran occupying, Lebanon. This is not the case. Even if you watch the most radical propaganda mainstream media, they cannot make a case for Iran occupying Lebanon. It's the US that is imposing its dictates on Lebanon. It's Israelis indirectly imposing their dictates on Lebanon, whether when it comes to their political decisions, their economic models, their trading partners.

So when it comes to partnerships, Hezbollah sees Iran as a complementary country that aligns with its interests, which is to defend against Israeli occupation and imperialism. Anything other than that, you can't make a case for it because it doesn't exist. It's in Lebanon's interest to fight the Israeli occupation, to defend its lands, to liberate its lands, and this is where you see Iran come in. It's within Lebanon's interests to protect itself from U.S. tictats, to protect itself from U.S. blackmail. And this is what the growth of Hezbollah helps to do. But what is Hezbollah fighting that goes against Lebanese interests? There is no case to make about that.

Because when they say here in this context, Lebanese interests, they actually mean the U.S. interests, which is total domination, which is total hegemony over resources, over political power, over the economy. So in the end, saying that Iran has proxies is the same way as saying is that Iran is backing groups, parties, or countries that do not align with U.S. interests. This is what proxy in that context means. It's also a similar way that they use the term regime, right? any government that does not align with U.S. interests is a regime.

Yeah, now it's Al-Sharra's government in Damascus. Damascus yesterday, it was Assad's regime. Yeah. Because, you know, as I said that, the context is how willing is the government to fulfill U.S. interests, and the terminology comes from that. And then the second part of that question was, why does Hezbollah and so many people in Lebanon, and this can, of course, be extended out to the mass popular support for the Palestinian cause in all of West Asia, but since we're speaking

specifically here about Lebanon, where does the support for the Palestinian people come from? Why is Hezbollah and so many of the Lebanese people in support of Palestine? The main thing that the imperial powers try to do is divide causes and assume or make people assume that whatever is happening on the other side of the border is not our issue. If we interfere in that issue, then we will suffer the consequences. If we don't, then we'll be safe. So Hezbollah, from since its foundation, was, if you can say,

conscience of the type of the battle being waged in the region. It was conscious about how imperialism works, it was conscious about how the battle is that it is not limited to a geography, it's not limited to a time period, it's not limited to a group or party. And then so Hezbollah sees the Palestinian cause is a support for a nation that is oppressed by an entity that is, coming for the total domination of the Middle East. It sees the injustice of Palestinians as injustice against its own. The support for Palestine is actually also a support for Lebanon. And since Hezbollah has systematically made the effort to unify the struggle against imperialism, not only Lebanon and in the region, by substitution, the Palestinian cause becomes Lebanese

cause the fight against Zionism in Palestine becomes also part of the fight against Zionism in Lebanon. The fight against US imperialism in Palestine and other areas of the region also becomes part of that. And that's on a mission level. On the public level, the people in Lebanon have grew up seeing the atrocities that the Israeli occupation has been doing in Palestine. They grow up seeing the genocide, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, which did not start on October 7, which started since the Zionist groups started reaching historic Palestine and committing massacres against its people in preparation for the foundation of so-called Israel in 1948. So growing up, seeing all that and having relate to the injustice caused against the Palestinians by the Israelis,

through witnessing firsthand what the Israelis are doing in Lebanon made the Palestinian people seem like they are part of our people, I'm talking specifically on the support base of the resistance and seeing the Palestinian cause as part of our cause. This also we can see it. For example, I will tell you something personal now. the 2008 war on Gaza, my family and many others of my friends. Back down there was no social media. We didn't see the footage. It was not live streamed as the war crimes were not live streamed after day. I remember my family and the families of my friends asking us,

okay, if you want to go out, don't enjoy yourself. Try to go out just to have a fresh air because the people of Ghazah are being killed right now as you are going out and this also is our cause and I remember that I never forget that and we have as Lebanese people of the support base of Hezbollah we lived through that we saw that our families growing up I'm talking about this generation our families grow up always reminded us of Palestine or always reminded of the Palestinian cause whatever the Palestinians go through we felt we should not only feel we should know about, they made sure that the Israeli massacres are always on our TVs, even if it's so-called peace time here in Lebanon,

they made sure that we're always seeing what's happening in Palestine, that we're always seeing what the Israelis are doing against the crimes you're committing against Palestinian people, because they always said that these people are our people. and our cause is one and they are oppressed and one of our main duties is to triumph the oppressed

so it's multi-layered our relationship with Palestine it spans from Hezbollah as a group to the public level of the support base to the families of mentioned support base so we we talk a lot about the United States's ambitions in West Asia. We just had an episode on this, and we've had a very

diverse number of guests come on the show and explain exactly the strategy of subjugating the global south and tying it to capital accumulation ultimately. I'm curious how we could situate Israel in this analysis. I mean, we understand Israel. through its relationship with the United States as the United States' sort of attack dog, I guess you could put it in a sense, the role that Israel plays for the United States. But Israel also has very much its own ambitions, right,

in the region and the forces behind what's happening in Lebanon, in Gaza have their own ideological Zionist impetus behind them. And I'm wondering if you can tie that in, what is happening in Lebanon right now. I mean, you mentioned, you know, there's these indiscriminate attacks, these massacres, this attempt by Israel to make the region unlivable. Why is Israel doing this? Is this another ethnic cleansing campaign that they want to initiate just like with Gaza?

Are they trying to implement their concept of greater Israel, all of the above? Like maybe if you could just talk a little bit about that aspect, of it too. Definitely what you said. It's all the above at this point. It's the ethnic cleansing and it's the total domination over the areas of, it's part of the greater Israel, which they don't even hide. There's no point of making an argument that this is true because they say it themselves, Israel officials say it themselves. They as ambassador to Israel, Huckabee. Recently, if you remember, he's just said that Israel has a biblical right to establish greater Israel, which resulted in some shy backlash from Arab countries, and the United States did not, they made a small comment

on it, but they did not refute it. This is a project they are moving forward with, and today, one of the main obstacles against this project is Iran, and how the war of aggression against Iran ends will decide how successful will be the implementation of Greater Israel. And Arab countries, especially Gulf countries, could condemn all they want, could oppose all the one the greater Israel. But if Iran gets weakened or falls under this war of aggression, they're done. The Gulf countries are done. They will be turned into full proxies now.

you can say you can make the argument that they are proxies they will be turned into full proxies and become a part of settlements of Israeli settlements and of course Israeli settlements controlled and managed by the United States. So one of the aspects that I'm really curious about talking to you about because of the specific work that you do is the significance of and we talked about this a little bit right at the top, right? Like the significance of the psychological warfare taking place around all this. There's, of course, the actual warfare that's taking place, but there's a very, very significant role in the battle over what information is coming out. Like, you know, Israel, for example, has very strict

censorship laws about what people in Israel are allowed to share about the damage that's taking place right now in Tel Aviv, for example, here in the United States. We have our own messy corporate media system that is controlled by, you know, a few people who have very vested interests in weapons manufacturing, in wars, in opening up the global South for further super profits, et cetera. And then we have outlets that are doing work that sort of counters the propaganda of the United States and the West more broadly outlets in the U.S. And, of course, outlets in the global South, such as vocal politics.

I mean, one of the ways I actually first came across your work was through an interview you did with Helia Dutari, who's doing reporting from the streets of Iran right now and reporting that actually shows a reality in stark contrast to the narratives being pushed by Western media and showing a side of Iran that's very intentionally being suppressed in the West because it does not align with the Western Zionist propaganda. So maybe if we could talk a little bit about that and like just your any thoughts you have on on that broader psychological warfare that's taking place any examples or anything that you want to comment on that and then bringing in also the work that you're doing specifically on the ground. So yeah, I'm wondering if you can maybe just talk a little bit about all of that and give us a sense of the role that you're playing right now in terms of all of this. actually it's an interesting point right now because when it comes to psychological warfare I don't think that we can speak of it the same way that we spoke of it before the Gaza genocide

especially since now the populations whether here or in the west or at least a growing number of the population used to deal with media headlines as true until proven otherwise Now, anything that comes from the U.S. or from Israel or from their allies or proxies is treated as wrong until proven otherwise or as a lie until proven otherwise. So from that aspect, I think even the media plays a role in providing this context. We have moved from countering any arguments. All we have to do is provide the context in which it happens, that people are more politically aware, people are more aware of how the imperialist machine works on how it lies, on how it tries to headline its crimes. So I think we're beyond discussing the psychological warfare and we are

now in a position where we need to start talking about the decline of the credibility. They have always been uncredible, but decline of credibility. among the population that has been the victim of the US and Israeli. And when I say here, Israeli, I'm talking about even Western media outlets that are supportive for Israel. The US and Israeli propaganda and lies. So for example, you mentioned something very important which is about, which is with regards to censorship, the Israelis are imposing on the achievements or the achievements or the

damages caused by the Iranian operations against the occupation entity, which is very interesting because people know there is damage. They're not saying there is no damage because we can't see pictures, which maybe just a few years ago, people would have, the first thing they would ask, okay, if Iran is so successful, where's the footage? But people are aware now, people are aware that the tactics are being used. people are aware that Israel lies and the Israel and the US lies. So now you don't have to spread footage to know how much damage in Israel.

You can let your imagination go. You could now assume that the damage is irreversible in many parts of the occupation entity and irreversible here. When I say, for example, for settlers fleeing from areas and deciding not to come back from companies that have exploited the occupation of palace. for years deciding to close, shop and leave, people would assume this is happening and without even seeing any kind of footage. And on the other hand, when the initial strikes, when they start the war of aggression on Iran, both the U.S. and Israel, if you see the headlines,

even when mainstream media tried to play the humane headline, It has always been played to try and fearmonger the Iranian nation to submit, especially when it came with Trump's statements saying, OK, the Basij and the Iranian military should submit or die, which was accompanied by many news headlines, carrying out the same message without actually quoting Trump. But what we saw is different. What we saw is millions,

and millions of Iranians taking the street. And one of the interesting reports that Heliodid was going to the streets and interview people during the night. She was telling us that people are on the street not only to support the government or the military or its leadership. They're in the streets to try and thwart any kind of armed coup that militants and other cells and foreign back agents, could do in the streets while people are asleep.

People are 24 hours on the street trying to repel any kind of foreign-backed military attack on the ground because they know that their government military and security agencies are now occupied by defending against the home country so they think that this is this part they can do on their own. So when it comes to the psychological warfare, Obviously, it's not working in Iran. Obviously, it's not working in the region because we've seen many videos of Arabs in the Gulf

countries who are celebrating the Iranian drones and missiles targeting U.S. bases. Many criticism is growing against U.S. bases in the Gulf. People are asking, these U.S. bases were supposed to be protecting us, but they've only got us destruction. They've only dragged us into wars that we didn't want. And they are only protecting Israel. They are not protecting our countries. What's the point of having them?

And they're asking for the governments to reassess the relationship with the US, to reassess their foreign policy as a whole. I'm not saying that they now prefer Iran over the US. I'm not saying now that they like Iran. They say now that regardless of what our position on Iran is, what was been established is that the United States and the military, the conventional military-industrial complex is not here to protect us. It's not here to grant us safety.

There is no enemy in the region that has proven to be an enemy of our countries except for Israel. And for that, it is time that we as people of the Gulf see where our interests are, see where China is today, see where Russia is today. maybe try a different path with Iran, try a path on a level of to talk with Iran, not from a position of people who are standing behind U.S. bases, but from countries of great wealth when it comes to national resources and treasuries, and talk with Iran as a trade partner regardless of these bases. So all of that proves that the psychological warfare is not working. The media headlines are not working anymore.

People see that the U.S. and Israelis and their partners are lying even before they make the fabricated or manufactured headlines. And I think this is one of the greatest achievements that Iran, the resistance in Palestine, the resistance in Lebanon, the resistance in Iraq, Sala'a, have been able to score in the past two years, which is to, to expose to the whole world that Israel and the United States are not only two genocidal entities, that they're not only to criminals who are willing to go all the way, whether it's within the interests of their proxies or not,

but that they are also lying to their own people, lying to their own people when it comes to the, especially here, the U.S., not Israelis, when it comes to wars being fought abroad, when it comes to wars of aggression, because many people also today are in the United States, even Trump voters are bringing up tweets that he was using during his pre-campaign against Obama, where he accused Obama of wanting to start a war with Iran

to support his election campaign. So he is now doing even worse of what he accused the demonstration. Democrats of doing, which is also bringing, how can I say it, making the public in the US, whether it's the MAGA public, not all, many of the MAGA public, whether it's part of the undecided who also leaned against the Democrats in the last elections, they are also seeing that the United States, whether it's Democrats or whether it's Trump, are lying to them. These continuous wars are not of the benefit of the U.S. citizens, and these continuous wars only serve the oligarchs only serves the elites who are racking up now the profits, whether it's from rising oil prices, whether it's in a military-industrial complex,

whether it's from pharmaceutical companies, whether it's from the finances that are heading towards the Israeli occupation entity. So, in fact, what I want to end, with is that the US and Israel, despite what they think, are launching the psychological warfare against themselves. And just before we close out, I'm wondering if there are any final thoughts or anything you'd like to share with our listeners moving forward that might help with the psychological warfare campaigns and the information war and just any closing remarks that you might have.

Context is everything. People, if only... This is what vocal politics, upstream, and many other great news media outlets with much limited funding and censorship, obviously, are trying to do is to provide context because we have facts on our side. We don't have to make up any news story. We don't have to patch up anything. When we try to present the facts and build the context, this is the objective because we know that when, a normal human being who is still have some kind of empathy with them or is actually looking for the truth if they follow politics.

The context that we and other, again, other much better and great news media outlets try to give would be more than enough to help people understand and know what is right from wrong and know what's actually happening on the ground. So for that, I encourage people. I would ask them to support upstream vocal politics. Any media they see that is providing them the context on the crimes that are being committed by the imperialists and the colonialists and their plans for domination against our nations because the more people are aware, the more it's likely to, doesn't

have to be to thwart these plans to, I can just say to minimize their damage or build a more coherent and popular front against it. And thank you so much for your time. Thank you so much for having me. You've been listening to an upstream conversation with Hussain Asaf, a Beirut-based journalist with vocal politics, a Patreon listener-funded independent news outlet covering global South politics. check the show notes for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode. The cover art for today's episode is a Lebanese Solidarity Propaganda poster by Cuban artist Alberto Blanco. Ustream theme music was composed by Robert. Thank you to all of our Patreon subscribers for making Upstream possible.

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