we currently inhabit an alice in wonderland world in which you have to reject reality in order to embrace it; 

 

As with previous rounds of negotiations, the latest US-brokered talks between Lebanon and Israel, held in Washington earlier this month, signalled the laundering of war through diplomacy.

Their function was to normalise Israeli aggression as the background condition of the political process, converting demands for a ceasefire from the prerequisite for negotiations into just one item up for discussion.

The talks are no longer a means to end Israeli aggression. Rather, they have become the operative framework through which that aggression is being administered and legalised.

This is why the Lebanese government is increasingly being labelled not simply as a weak regime under pressure, but as “the occupation authority in Lebanon” – one that has accepted the US-Israeli myth that Israel is not bombing Lebanon, invading its territory, and killing and displacing its people, but merely targeting Hezbollah and its military infrastructure.

The structure of the process itself makes this clear. The State Department announced on 15 May that the “cessation of hostilities” – which supposedly began on 16 April, even as Israel has continued its bombardment of Lebanon – would be extended for 45 days. Immediately following this announcement, Israeli strikes killed at least three dozen people and wounded more than 200 others........more.......