The Lie I Tell Myself When Covering Israel
Also: Free Bajor
First, some quick admin stuff:
I just published an article for 972mag called “Is Israel trying to foment civil war in Lebanon?” and I think it’s pretty obvious what it’s about. Give it a read if you can.
I still have a few spots available for the next class on modern Lebanese history and politics which will be in May (the five Saturdays of May, 4-6pm UK time). All details on the what and the how here.
My podcast, The Fire These Times, is still not as active as I would like. I’ve had to postpone a few recordings to focus on Israel’s war on Lebanon. That being said, I’m hoping things will change in May.
I still intend on moving this newsletter to Ghost but I don’t have a timeline yet. Same problem: time. If you wish to support me but don’t want to give your money to Substack, which I totally understand, the best way to do so is in Ko-Fi anyway. I would give you a complementary subscription here at no added costs so that your money doesn’t go to Substack.
A few days ago, Israel murdered another Lebanese journalist, Amal Khalil, in South Lebanon. She was effectively haunted by Israel alongside her colleague Zeinab Faraj, a freelancer who often went on assignments with Khalil. Faraj recounted how they were sheltering in a house after Israel had already struck their site twice, the second strike hitting Khalil's car, injuring them both. Israel waited until the two journalists were in the house, and then struck the house itself. The Red Cross managed to get to Faraj on time to save her life, but Israel then opened fire at the rescue workers before they could get to Khalil. By the time they could reach Khalil several hours later, all they found was a corpse.
I used to work as a journalist, which makes Khalil a colleague of mine. Had I stayed in Lebanon, I may have been sent on similar assignments. Very close friends of mine still take the same risks Khalil took, and any journalist in Lebanon, especially local ones, is aware that Israel has killed more journalists since 2023 than all other governments combined. Any journalist is aware that when they put on the press vest and press helmet, they are taking a risk: will this protect them today, or turn them into a target? No one knows, except the Israelis. Several times a month, with or without a “ceasefire,” which Israel never respects anyway, close friends of mine are risking their lives to report on what Israel is doing with the knowledge that their deaths is unlikely to outrage Israel's Western backers. This is why I find most films and series that deal with journalism to be hollow. They have no idea what it's actually like to risk your life as a journalist while racialised as an Arab.
But when I cover Israel today, whether as an analyst or historian, I find myself having to pretend that my life isn't as worthless as it actually is. By that I don't mean that no one would mourn me should Israel murder me one day. I have loved ones and friends, and I'm blessed to have a sizeable number of people who follow my stuff online as well. Should anything happen to me, Israeli embassies better be prepared for a few cocktails. That wouldn't be sufficient to save my life should Israel decide to end it if I ever choose to physically be in my own country.
Israel even struck my hometown of Ain Saadeh, an event so rare it led to a disproportionate amount of coverage (it was nothing compared to what Israel had done to South Lebanon that day alone).
I had to call my 89 year old grandmother to check in on her. I couldn't lie to myself that day.
There was nothing to stop the Israelis from simply killing her if they determined that it was worth it.
And if there's one thing we've learned from how the ethno-supremacist regime's armed wing acts, it's that Arab blood is cheap.
The rest of the time, I lie to and tell myself that my life is worth more than it is. It is a necessary lie. It allows me to explain to you all exactly why and how Israel will only get more violent unless someone - anyone - enacts such a heavy cost on its hypermilitarised political culture that there would be no way to avoid reality anymore. So far, Israel has been able to continue doing what it has been doing with nowhere near the consequences it deserves.
They've even expanded their territory by taking Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese lands in less than three years. You don't embark on such reckless operations if you had any sense of consequences. The job of any person with a functioning conscience in 2026 is to do whatever we can to enact a cost on Israel. If genocide, ecocide, domicide, scholasticide, urbicide and ethnic cleansing do not come with a cost, then people who look like me aren't the only ones who are at risk. Everyone reading these words is also at risk, and that's something I must insist that you understand. Israel is a threat first and foremost to Palestinians and Lebanese (and Syrians, Iranians, and so on), but what Israel has unleashed cannot be contained within our borders.
So I lie to myself, and you get to read these words.
On the days when I am unable to lie to myself, you're unlikely to hear from me. I probably don't publish anything, whether here, the podcast or elsewhere. I probably have to disconnect entirely, or watch Star Trek or something.
That's what happened after the Israeli strike on my hometown. I found myself engaging with entirely fictional scenarios:
Did you know that in Star Trek Deep Space Nine, Cardassians are this alien species that occupied this other alien species, the Bajorans, for over 50 years? And that the Bajorans eventually succeeded in kicking the Cardassians out and are able to keep them out only because a stronger force, the Federation, accepted to help Bajor recover and prepare for Bajor's entry into the Federation? That seems easier for me to believe than to believe that any 2026 equivalent will save Palestinians from the Israelis.
Palestinians Bajorans maintained their traditions and culture despite the Israeli Cardassian genocide. Palestinians Bajorans were abandoned by the wider world. Palestinians Bajorans were described as primitive by Israeli Cardassian ethnosupremacists, their practices deemed too esoteric and irrational. Palestinians Bajorans have martyrs, loads of them. Is it any shocking revelation that someone like me, a Bajoran Palestinian-Lebanese, is able to find parallels between my history and this fictional species?
Without that escape into DS9's 24th century, the lies I have to tell myself in the 2020s would become all the more unbearable, so unbearable as to be paralysing. Without it, I would be like Captain Sisko himself in the episode Far Beyond The Stars, no longer in his post-racial present (the 24th century) but back in 1950s America. The 2020s feel the same to me, and I need to tell myself that this vision of the 24th century is, at its core, attainable, even if I won't live to see it myself. I need to escape to remind myself that all authoritarian projects have fallen, and that no matter how impossible it may seem today, Cardassian Israeli ethnosupremacy is no different.
I need to escape to then come back.
I'll leave you with this reminder for now: From Gallitep to Terok Nor, Bajor will be Free.