Analyst Laith Marouf: The War Has Entered a New Stage (Interview with Orinoco Tribune)

Orinoco Tribune, September 25, 2024 —

The Zionist entity crossed the red lines of cyber warfare when it blew up thousands of electronic devices, including pagers, walkie talkies, phones, biometric scanners, and even solar power systems in Lebanon, killing dozens and injuring some 3,000 people, said Beirut-based political analyst and journalist Laith Marouf in an interview with Orinoco Tribune. The war has entered a new stage, commented Marouf.

“This is definitely a new form of warfare that we haven’t seen before, and even cyber warfare had its red lines, its rules of engagement, and in fact, there are UN resolutions about targeting civilian electronics, which is defined as terrorism—as a war crime—since the ‘70s,” Marouf said, commenting on the planned detonation of electronic devices in Lebanon carried out by the occupation entity during September 17-18 that shook the world. “You cannot even disguise a bomb, let us say as a radio or whatever, even before we talk about cell phones and pagers and walkie talkies.”

“The Zionists wanted to blow up 3,000 pagers, meaning to kill 3,000 human beings,” he continued. “And they wanted to blow up 2,000 walkie talkies, meaning they wanted to kill another 2,000 human beings at least, all in a moment or two. As [Hezbollah General Secretary] Hasan Nasrallah asserted in his speech, the entity tried to carry out this mass direct ethnic cleansing, and the West cheered it on. The Western media cheered on this genocidal action. They considered it the highest example of intelligence and electronic and military prowess and brilliance… If the Zionists put the Palestinian people in ovens and broadcast it live, the Western media would cheer it as the most successful action on the battlefield. This is the age we live in.”

Laith Marouf is an award-winning journalist and political commentator based in Beirut, Lebanon, who has been working in media since 1999. He regularly appears on television and radio, including The Critical Hour, Press TV, Al Mayadeen, and many other news outlets. He is one of the creators and producers of the new and important volunteer TV station and news outlet Free Palestine TV, which is based in Lebanon. On September 20, Marouf gave an interview to Orinoco Tribune in which he discussed several topics, including the current war situation in Lebanon, the work of the Palestinian Resistance in Gaza, the role of the Axis of Resistance in confronting the Zionist entity, and the role of Resistance media in the age of information warfare.

Lebanese people’s mindset towards the Palestinian Resistance
Marouf explained that the Gaza war has brought about seismic shifts in the opinion of the Lebanese population towards the Palestinian Resistance and the Palestinian cause. “There was decades of Western imperial propaganda pumped into huge sectors of the Lebanese population to blame the Palestinian Resistance for the civil war in the 1970s and the destruction of Lebanon at the hands of the Zionists in the 1980s … So, some sectors of the population didn’t want Lebanon to have anything to do with the liberation of Palestine,” he said. “But right now, we have seen a huge shift … Multiple surveys done on the Lebanese population in the last month or two showed that close to 75% of the population supports the Palestinian people against the genocide, and something like 70% of the population says that Hezbollah is acting in the most rational way, that Hezbollah is trying to protect the Lebanese population from the genocidal actions of the Zionist colony.”

According to Marouf, the inability of the Zionists to mobilize compradors in Lebanon against the Resistance is one of the main reasons behind the recent Zionist military escalation against Lebanon. “What is the main strategic goal of the Zionist colony? It is the permanency of the colony, right?” he commented. “And what is the strategic goal of the United States? It is to remain as the hegemon, the sole empire in this world … So, if the Zionists want to maintain their colony, they have only two options: one, complete ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians, and two, to have a one Palestinian State solution and stay if they want to stay there. And what we clearly see is that Zionists do not want option two. They only want option one.”

Pro- and anti- Palestine axes
Marouf criticized the hypocritical role of Qatar in West Asia, as it presents itself as a “mediator” in Gaza and, at the same time, acts as a vassal of the Zionist entity. “Qatar is the propaganda arm that keeps everybody in check,” he commented. “This allowed it a space to be kind of pitiful towards the Palestinian people but not supportive of the Resistance.”

In this regard, he highlighted the role that Qatari state media Al Jazeera is playing, especially among Western populations. “It is keeping the population within the limitations of what is acceptable speech on every issue other than Palestine. It is pro-Ukraine, it is anti-Syria, it is anti-Venezuela. It is anti anybody and everybody that the Empire hates,” he said.

In contrast, he highlighted the role of Syria in assisting the Palestinian liberation cause, calling the country “the backbone of the Resistance.” 

“Without Syria, there will be no weapons delivered in Gaza, there will be no weapons delivered to Lebanon,” Marouf explained. “Without Syria, the weapons that are being used in Gaza—those weapons that are made in Gaza—would not be manufactured because the Syrian military and the Syrian state smuggled whole factories and machineries into Gaza for it to be able to manufacture these weapons that can sustain the Resistance in a ground war… Weapons and machineries continue to be smuggled in right now from Syria.”

Nevertheless, Syria itself has not responded militarily “because it is under direct occupation by three arms of the Empire,” he continued. “The Syrian Golan is directly occupied by the Zionist entity, overlooking Damascus, and the US is occupying the north-east and Turkey the north-west. That’s a pincer… The whole Axis of Resistance knows that the West wants to turn Syria into a battlefield, because they know that if you destroy Syria, and you take out the Syrian government and the Syrian military, then you cut off the whole supply line of Hezbollah, and then it will be a much easier war to fight Hezbollah. So we should all be blessing Syria and counting the half a million Syrians who died in the last decade [in the Syrian proxy war] as martyrs on the road to Jerusalem, on the road to the liberation of Palestine.”

Rise of Resistance media
When asked about his opinion on the precipitous growth and expansion of the Resistance media amid the war, Marouf commented that there would be no pro-Palestine media without Resistance media, without “Palestinians filming on the ground the truth as it happens and showing us those horrible genocide images. If it was not for the brilliant Resistance media producers, and I mean the military medias of Hamas, Hezbollah, and others that are packaging for us those amazing images of destruction and of resilience,” then the hegemonic Western media power could have carried on its propaganda unchecked.

However, Marouf criticized the lack of “innovation” by mainstream media based in West Asia, such as PressTV, as well as of “progressive media based in the West.” In his opinion, these media outlets have failed in reaching a broader audience in their reporting and disseminating the truth on the ground to the global population.

Decolonization struggle
In conclusion, Marouf reflected on the widely prevalent narrative that the Axis of Resistance is not achieving success because it has not declared all-out war with the Zionist entity and the West. “The gist of the matter is that the Palestinian struggle is a decolonization struggle, and decolonization struggles are long. They require huge amounts of sacrifice,” he stated. “Given that decolonization struggles usually are by an indigenous population that cannot match its imperial or colonial occupier in power and financing, the only path forward is to carry out a war of attrition whose main goal is not to win at the moment, but to frustrate the goal of its occupiers by not letting them win, by dragging on the war.”

“We are not the Empire of white supremacy that spans this planet and that can print money at will and rain a nuclear holocaust down on you in a minute,” he continued. “So, rationally, in order not to have the Empire rain a nuclear holocaust on you, you have to avoid going all out, starting an all-at-once attack on the Zionist colony from all sides… All of us are emotional because we’re watching this genocide, but that should not frustrate us and make us think that we’re losing this war. No, we are winning it. There has not been one tactical, let alone strategic, goal that the Zionists have achieved since October 7. Instead, day after day, it is the Resistance that is scoring tactical achievements.”