This May, Israelis will celebrate their 70th anniversary of "independence" - a grotesque euphemism for ethnic cleansing and the forcible establishment of the state of Israel on Palestinian land. The process entailed the killing of some 10,000 Palestinians, the expulsion of 750,000 more, and the destruction of 500 or so villages.
April, meanwhile, hosts the 43rd anniversary of another terrible regional episode in which Israel played no minor part. This one goes by the name of the Lebanese civil war, a 15-year affair with complex and multifaceted causes, ranging from egregious socioeconomic injustice and a disproportionate distribution of political power and resources to increasingly self-fulfilling efforts to channel public discontent into sectarian antagonism.
The civil war is generally regarded as having commenced on 13 April 1975 - when right-wing Christian Phalangists massacred 27 Palestinianstravelling by bus through the Beirut suburb of Ein el-Rummaneh - and ultimately eliminated an estimated 150,000 people.
An additional 17,000 were disappeared, their surviving family members condemned to continuous psychological punishment and grief due to the Lebanese state's unwillingness - to this day - to exhume mass graves or otherwise pursue accountability. After all, any such resurrection of the past would have obvious implications for the civil warlords who remain in power.
As in the case in the present Syrian conflict, however, the term "civil war" can almost be seen as a misnomer in the Lebanese context, given the extent of outside involvement. And while there are plenty of players - both foreign and domestic - with a surplus of blood on their hands, it’s useful to reflect on the Israeli role in particular, if for no other reason than to highlight the fact that Israel’s habitual terrorising of the Middle East has done nothing to jeopardise its service as BFF and supposed terror-fighting partner of the global superpower. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.