A deconstruction of the narrative that Israel is a ‘neighbour’ of Lebanon and Palestine; why this is not only a false claim but a further act of erasure and violence against the countries it has colonised and attacked.

I stood in front of a table of nametags, behind it a woman asking which belonged to me. I pronounced my name with open vowels, knowing it sits uncomfortably on a white Australian tongue, and after much struggle, I decided to just point at my name tag and take it.

I was attending a lecture on Great Power Politics and the evolving tensions between the US and other nations since Trump’s presidency. I knew that this wasn’t a typical way for a 20 year old to  spend their Friday evening, so I was ready to feel out of place, but I just didn’t realise exactly how out of place I would be. I looked to my left to see a venue that was much smaller than I imagined it to be, but also much more intimidating. It was very brightly lit and packed with old white men who looked and sounded nothing like me. Immediately, I felt uncomfortable in my own body, wishing I looked different so I could blend in. Luckily, in a little corner, a sushi bar became my sanctuary—a place where I didn’t have to introduce myself to another person and watch them struggle to pronounce my name. 

After placing the sushi on my plate with shaky hands, I found a table next to a woman closer to my age; finally, someone I could relate to. Next to her, however, stood another, much older woman. I had a strange feeling about her immediately. Her eyes were too focused on me, as if she was analysing me. Her gaze seemed to struggle to register me, another reminder of  how much I stood out. We looked nothing alike and that was very clear.

My hair and eyebrows are dark and thick and my eyes a deep brown. She had sparse hair so blonde it blended in with her pale skin—skin that was almost translucent so you could see the blood circulating beneath. Her blue eyes hung low, too tired to keep looking up. Instead, they landed on my name tag, and that’s when I quickly realised she was trying to figure out where I was from.

“Your name, it’s an Arab name.” she called out. Her voice was weak. I could hear the air struggling to come out of her mouth to make a full sound.

Surprised that a woman like her could recognise the origins of a name most couldn’t even pronounce, I turned to her in surprise, “Yes, it is.”

“Where are you from?” She interrogated further.

“I’m from Lebanon.”

Her eyebrows raised and her once-pale skin became more salmon coloured; “We are neighbours!”

I looked at her a little longer, and in fact, we did not look like neighbours. From then, I knew exactly how this conversation was going to pan out. And I could feel the heat of my body rise to my head and my vision beginning  to blur just a little bit.

Even though I already knew the answer to my question, I reluctantly asked anyway, “Oh really? Where are you from?”

“Israel.”

Gulp.

This is not the first time I’ve had a conversation with an Israeli that has gone exactly like this—it actually happens a lot. “We are neighbours” spills out of them like a line recited dispassionately by a bad actor. The reason why it happens so often is because it is a calculated phrase, one which adheres to a narrative Israel tries so hard to maintain. It simultaneously forces us to acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist,” suggests its indigeneity to the region, whilst erasing Palestine and moving attention away from its violent actions. But most sinisterly, she knew she could get away with enacting this narrative because she knew I would not be able to respond, given we were residing on top of another settler-colonial state that is actively supporting Israel’s zionist mission. By describing us as neighbours, she essentially forced Israel’s existence and presence directly on top of Palestine and in the region upon me, expecting me to imagine this shared history Israel has invented—one without all the displacement and destruction. But all I could think about was exactly that. Israel has never existed without violence and so I can never imagine it without it.

By claiming a neighbourly relationship with Lebanon, she suggested that no other country stood between us, forcing me to recognise Israel whilst neglecting the historical presence of Palestinian interaction with Lebanon. This strategy echoes Israel’s claim that they have a “right to exist” because she immediately insinuated a long-standing relationship between Israel and Lebanon that does not include a rivalry or a forced removal of our previous neighbours—the Palestinians. The alignment of Israel with Lebanon suggests Israel's presence, and therefore its violent actions, as a return to home and a righteous mission rather than one that is colonial in nature. Instead of allowing me to decide the nature of our relationship, she took it upon herself to establish it before even telling me where she was from. Essentially, Israelis attempt to force a relationship with their Arab "neighbours," one where we must accept the violence they impose whilst not retaliating because of their so-called “right to exist.”

The zionist project can no longer frame itself as being openly colonial, especially since the popularisation of decolonial movements cemented by The United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples in 2007. So, it has decided to co-opt the terminologies of decolonial movements. Hence, this claim that “we are neighbours” represents a shift in Israeli and zionist messaging from an openly colonial project to one that is decolonial. However, Israeli  actions can never be framed as “decolonial” when they are oppressive by their very nature and Israelis fail to meet the criteria of an “Indigenous” population. According to the UN, an Indigenous group is not simply individuals who are native to the land in which they reside, rather, they are a group who inhabited or existed in a land from before the arrival of colonists and are non-dominant. Neither category describes Israeli settlers. Eve Tuck and K. Wayne Yang, in their essay “Decolonisation is not a metaphor”, describe this strategy as a metaphoric invasion and co-optation of decolonisation which “recentres whiteness … resettles theory … extends innocence to the settler [and] entertains a settler future.” By describing themselves as our neighbours, Israelis suggest a shared history of oppression with Lebanon in achieving independence from European colonisers, painting their violent actions as one of resistance, while Palestinian resistance is terrorism. It manipulates the casual observer, such as the woman standing next to me, by painting Israel as “Indigenous” so that they fail to realise that its identity is built on the brutal dispossession and continuous oppression of the Palestinian people.

Her comment was poorly timed and only further reminded me of Israel’s recent and ongoing violence. Whilst she was trying to construct a false image of camaraderie, the only image that came to my mind for me was the current state of my neighbourhood in Southern Lebanon—the place where my mum grew up and the only place I can truly call home as a Lebanese diasporan. While our building was miraculously left standing, with only the windows shattered, the front door blown open and a couple of items broken, the same cannot be said for the rest of the neighbourhood. Right next to our building, one stood like the Leaning Tower of Pisa—now demolished because of the severity of the structural damage. On the other side of the road were three other buildings, one laying on top of the other, leaving bystanders unable to distinguish which rubble belonged to which, and a third that looked like it had been nibbled off by a giant. Once colourful and filled with multi-generational families, the neighborhood is now a hollow version of what it was, with the sound of Israeli drones filling the air.

This is not a unique sight, and not the worst of it. More than 90 per cent of Gaza has been decimated, 1.9 million Palestinians have been displaced and an estimated 100,000 people have been murdered since 7 October 2023. In the West Bank, 44 Palestinian herding communities were fully displaced and 10 communities were partially emptied. In southern Lebanon, 10,000 structures were heavily destroyed, and in three municipalities—Yarine, Dhayra and Boustane—the Israeli military destroyed more than 70 per cent of all structures, leaving the towns within them deserted. Most of the destruction occurred during the ceasefire agreement and outside of active combat when Israel had control over the areas. This violence could not have been any more unnecessary and is an indictment of Israel’s cowardice and cruelty.

With this in mind, I hope you would have understood if my reaction had been hostile, if I had screamed at her, called out the elephant in the room. Or even if I had thrown my sushi at her and started crying and playing victim, exclaiming that her presence threatened me. Except, I did not do any of that, because I knew I did not have the upper-hand in this conversation. That I did not have the privilege to play victim in the way she does.

Instead, all I managed to get out of my mouth after a couple of quick blinks was, “oh!”

The power dynamics between Israelis, Palestinians and Lebanese people don’t just go away in Australia, they are amplified. As I stared at this woman with all her audacity I knew this dynamic was one that we were both aware of. And that was what emboldened her to say that to me against  the backdrop of the brutal destruction of multiple Lebanese neighbourhoods, and why I, in return, couldn’t give a more aggressive response. Australia, being a settler-colonial state itself, has to support Israel’s actions to justify its own. It has to follow Israel’s narrative because its reputation cannot afford it being involved in another colonial project. Noam Chomsky highlights this as well in On Palestine; “[In Australia and the anglosphere], I suspect that there is a kind of intuitive feeling on the part of the population. Look, we did it, it must be right. So they are doing it, so it must be right.” Therefore, Israelis are safe to continue to spread their false narratives—it's mutually beneficial for both settler-colonial states. For now, the anglosphere, including Israel, will continue to have a collective agreement to stay silent, to justify and support each other’s actions as they continue to oppress the Indigenous people that reside on these lands. They think they can help each other keep the red stain of blood off their hands, but this stain will forever remain in the foundations of the societies they have built off the profound violence of divesting Indigenous people of their lands.

By claiming we are neighbours, she was not trying to be nice or reconcile peace, it was a complete rewriting of our history, replacing the long-standing interactions between Palestine and Lebanon with a grotesquely false characterisation of Israel and Lebanon’s relationship. This is a deeply offensive act that should have warranted a stronger reaction from me. But by expressing my real emotions, I knew I would risk further demonising my people in a country that barely knows and understands them. I knew I wouldn’t be able to make my case for why the invasion of Palestine and Lebanon is unjustified in a country that has already successfully justified its own violent history of invasion. I stayed quiet because I knew it would keep me safe, and now I write so that I can finally say what I wanted to tell her.

We are not neighbours.