Creative Capsule Reflections - Lebanon
Much has changed over the last several months, from our understanding of great power politics to war across the Middle East
Hunter Williamson and Hantong Wu are Creative Capsule Residents working on a multimedia project on Great Power Competition in the Middle East. Join them for the Creative Capsule Residency Showcase April 22, 2024 at noon Eastern. Register Here.
A funeral procession for Saleh Al Arouri, a top Hamas official killed in Lebanon, makes its way from Imam Ali Mosque to the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Martyrs Cemetery in Beirut on Jan. 4. Photo by Hunter Williamson.
Under a dreary winter sky, a funeral procession moved through the crowded streets of Beirut. The sound of gunfire echoed off buildings and down dampened concrete as funeral bearers carried the casket of Saleh Al Arouri, a top leader in the Palestinian movement Hamas who had been assassinated days earlier by an Israeli precision strike. Waving the green flag of Hamas or the yellow and black flags of other Palestinian parties, thousands of mourners made their way slowly from Imam Ali Mosque to the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian Martyrs Cemetery. Three months prior, war had erupted in Gaza. Within a day, it had expanded to the Lebanese-Israeli border, where it had raged and slowly expanded until finally reaching the capital of Lebanon shortly after the new year.
This was not an event or a war that we had expected to cover when we began our residency project last summer. A week before Hamas launched its surprise operation against Israel on Oct. 7, sparking what has essentially become a limited regional war, US National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan declared the Middle East “to be quieter today than it has been in two decades.” As premature as his comments may seem in hindsight, Sullivan and others had reasonable grounds to make such claims.
All over the region, walls were falling and conflicts were winding down. Months earlier, the Arab League had ended its diplomatic isolation of Syria and welcomed the war-torn country back into its fold. The message was clear: Syria’s president, Bashar Assad, had won the war. Next door, the Iraqi military, backed by a US-led international military coalition, had largely crushed ISIS, and after years of violence and unrest, the country was limping towards reconstruction. In North Africa, a ceasefire in Libya’s civil war was largely holding. Perhaps even more consequently, Gulf leaders were eager for a new era of development through integration. To reach such ends, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Bahrain normalized their relations with Israel in 2020. Saudi Arabia, one of the regional heavyweights, was following suit. Harboring ambitious plans for modernization, the kingdom’s de facto ruler, Mohammed bin Salman, sought to create a more stable regional environment through detenté with Iran and Israel. Through Chinese mediation, rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran in March 2023 enabled a critical truce in Yemen’s civil war that carried hopes for peace talks and an end to one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.
Helping to drive these developments were the US, Russia, and China. At the start of our residency, we assumed that competition between these three powers was shaping their policies in the region. To an extent we were right. The past decade has seen the rise of great power competition. In 2012, the 18th National Congress of the Chinese Communist Party declared a new era of building a “modern socialist country.” That same year, the Obama administration acknowledged major shifts in the geopolitical system. Writing in Foreign Policy Magazine, then US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared the 21st century to be “America’s Pacific Century.” Clinton stated that “the future of the United States is intimately intertwined with the future of the Asia-Pacific” and that as the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “wind down, we will need to accelerate efforts to pivot to new global realities.” Russia too, under the leadership of Vladimir Putin, was seeing the world differently and attempting to assert itself as a key power in an emerging multipolar world.
Turmoil in the Middle East, including the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014, caused major disruptions to Obama’s Asia-pivot, but the direction would be taken back up by Donald Trump. In 2017, the Trump administration released an updated national security strategy in which it declared the return of great power competition. It explicitly identified Beijing and Moscow as Washington’s main competitors, claiming that they sought to upend and change the international order. It cited Russia’s 2014 invasion of Ukraine and Chinese activities in the South China Sea as proof. The strategy paper marked a significant shift in Washington’s security focus and language. After nearly two decades of ground wars in the Middle East, the US would start to turn its attention to Europe and Asia. Competition and confrontation would escalate Washington’s ties with Beijing and Moscow, creating a trade with China and eventually a proxy war with Russia in Ukraine.
In complicated ways, these changing geopolitical dynamics were converging with shifts in the Middle East, giving the appearance that the region, like Europe and Asia, was another arena for great power competition. Last summer, when we submitted the proposal for our residency, China had just upgraded its ties with Palestine and Syria into “strategic partnerships” and surprised the world by brokering the Saudi-Iran rapprochement. In rapid fire, China seemed to be involving itself in the toughest regional hotspots. These moves hyped up speculations about substantial Chinese diplomacy in the future. A new stage of competition with the US for regional influence seemed in sight.
That was especially true given the concerns of some regional actors that the US was withdrawing from the region in order to focus on competing with Russia and China. The US retained a military presence in the region, including in Iraq and Syria, but it was a footprint much smaller than in years past. Its more noticeable engagement was perhaps on the diplomatic front. Under Trump, the US had helped broker the establishment of diplomatic ties between Israel and several Arab states under the auspices of the Abraham Accords. The establishment of ties were as monumental as they were controversial in the region.
On the contours was Russia, arguably the weakest of the great powers. Its involvement in the Middle East has largely focused on Syria. In 2015, Russia intervened in Syria’s civil war in support of Assad who was losing to anti-government factions. Russia’s intervention had changed the course of the war, putting Assad back on the offensive and enabling him to retake much of the country from rebel groups and Islamists. With Assad staying, Russia had retained its foothold in the region and brandished its sought out image of being a great power.
At the start of our residency, we interpreted these events as examples of the great powers jockeying for influence and interests in the Middle East. But as we began to research the countries’ policies and see their impact on the ground, we started to develop a different understanding. At the same time, Hamas leadership in Gaza were making plans for a massive operation.
To an extent, concerns about the US withdrawing from the region were not unfounded. Since Trump, the US has in fact pivoted resources and attention away from the Middle East and to Asia and Europe. But that does not mean it has totally disengaged. Since taking office, the Biden administration has sought to create a more stable Middle East in order to free up foreign policy bandwidth and direct more attention to its competition with Russia and China. A key way it intended to do so was by building upon the Abraham Accords, specifically by brokering a normalization of ties between Israel and Saudi Arabia. In the lead up to Oct. 7, both Israel and Saudi Arabia seemed to be moving closer to a deal. But there was one key sticking point: Palestinian statehood. Saudi Arabia remained critical of Israeli policy towards Palestinians and adamant that a Palestinian state be created before it established official ties with Israel. But efforts to forge a deal still pushed ahead, seemingly ignoring the worsening violence between Palestinians and Israelis in the Occupied West Bank. In late September, a colleague in Lebanon told Hunter that he expected it was only a matter of time before something erupted. Neither expected that it would be the most destructive war between Israel and Hamas in history.
A fireman pays tribute to the recently assassinated Hamas leader Saleh Al Arouri at the Cemetery of the Martyrs in the suburb of Beirut, following the march commemorating Palestinian Martyrs Day on Jan. 7, 2024. Photo by Hantong Wu.
Post October 7
Hunter
October 6 ended in Lebanon with a golden sunset. Summer was technically over, but the warm weather still lingered. I think regularly back to that day, a Friday, to me laying on the beach with a close friend and drinking black iced coffee as we watched the sun set into the Mediterranean Sea. I often wonder how many Palestinians in Gaza, an enclave some 110 miles south of Lebanon, also watched that sunset, for how many it was their last sunset, or the last one before their lives forever changed.
I woke up the following morning to notifications on my phone that Hamas had launched an attack against Israel. Reading that they had fired at least 1,000 rockets from Gaza, I knew instantly that this was something more exceptional than the occasional few rockets launched against Israel. My friends staying at my apartment dismissed it at first, but as more news and images appeared online, their assessment changed. A short while later, Israel declared that it was at war. In Lebanon, people waited to see how Hezbollah — an armed political party allied with Hamas and the most powerful force in the country — would respond. By noon the party had issued a statement that expressed support for Hamas but suggested that Hezbollah did not want to get involved in the conflict. But the next day, the group, which exercises de facto control of southern Lebanon, launched an attack against an Israeli military post. The attack was limited, but it opened what has essentially become a second front in the Israel-Hamas war.
In the nearly five months since, I have shifted my reporting and work for this project to understanding how Washington’s strategy for the region — particularly under the Biden administration — played a key part in triggering this conflict. In a realpolitik sort of way, the US had prioritized its own security and interests over the rights of Palestinians in order to focus more on competition with Russia and China. Washington chose to continue pushing for normalization between Israel and Saudi Arabia even as conditions for Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank and Gaza worsened day-by-day under the most right wing government in Israeli history. In retrospect, I should have seen what my friend saw coming before Oct. 7. The situation had become a ticking time bomb, one that Washington seemed blind to even as it noted persisting tensions between Israelis and Palestinians.
I have covered war in Ukraine and Syria, but reporting on those conflicts was different. I had no prior personal connection to the wars or countries. While I felt a strong degree of empathy for the people I wrote about, there was always a sense of outsiderness. The conflict in Lebanon has been different. I have lived, worked, and studied in Lebanon for the past two-and-a-half years. I have visited and spent time in much of the country, including areas now under regular attack. I have a number of friends from those areas. Before the war had even begun, Lebanon had become my home, a place full of people I love and care about. And that has made reporting on it all more personal and, at times, painful.
Lebanon has not suffered the way Gaza has, where as of this time of writing, more than 30,000 Palestinians have died. Tens of thousands more are wounded or missing. At least 85%of the population has been displaced. The scale of destruction is nearly unfathomable: satellite data suggests that at least two-thirds of infrastructure has been destroyed. And Israel’s limitations on aid and food into Gaza has pushed the enclave to the brink of famine, leaving at least 20 Palestinians dead from malnutrition and dehydration. When this terrible war finally ends, Gaza will never be the same. In Lebanon, daily images and reports keep us attuned to the bloodshed, reminding us constantly of why clashes along the Lebanese-Israeli border escalate and expand more everyday.
Let me be clear, Lebanon has not been destroyed like Gaza, but that does not mean that it has not suffered or that Israel has not threatened to do to Lebanon what it has done to Gaza. The contrary is true. After years of repeated economic and political crises, Lebanese have learned in a twisted sort of way to deal with obstacles and the unexpected. The war, in a way, has become yet another crisis afflicting the country, but it is a crisis that impacts people differently. It is a crisis that carries the constant dread and anticipation of wondering – wondering if a limited conflict will escalate into a full-scale war; wondering if a drone will launch a precision strike into your building or neighborhood; wondering if the jets flying over Beirut are just passing to intimidate or if they are coming to strike. Life goes on. Classes continue. Nightclubs still fill with music and cheer. But the threat of war and strikes at any moment linger. I knew that feeling well in Kyiv. I live with it intimately in Beirut.
For the past several months, our residency project has made me view the conflict and its impact through a unique lense, one in which I have sought to understand how US policy, ironically aimed at stabilizing the Middle East, has in fact destabilized it — once again — and drawn significant US diplomatic and military focus back to a region it has been seeking to pivot from for more than a decade. Furthermore, once more, it has left countless lives in ruin and changed the course of the Middle East.
Hantong
The crowd tightened. The last casket disappeared between the tall concrete walls, painted red and white in the colors of the Lebanese flag, and the procession twisted itself through the checkpoint before the cemetery. I could no longer see the green light reflected off the silky Hamas flag on the caskets. I had to catch up.
I squeezed myself to the side of the procession. The crowd was looser there. I picked up my pace, passing by stern-looking men who stood stationary, their cautious eyes quietly scanning the crowd. Reasonably, the security was tight. Their leader was assassinated days ago, and nobody had claimed the bombing that killed at least 84 people in Iran at a memorial service for Qassem Soleimani, a top Iranian general who was assassinated in Baghdad a year ago. Whenever I slowed down to take photos, these men’s gazes fell on me, and when I stayed in one spot for too long, the question came: “Where are you from?” I get this a lot in Lebanon, being one of the few East Asians — not to mention Chinese — in the country. But this time, they were not curious, and they were obviously not Kpop fans debating whether I was Korean. “Sini, Chinese,” I answered.
“Where are you from?” There was the question again just after passing the checkpoint. I looked up, and three men, standing on a concrete road block, were staring down at me. The cemetery was just steps away now. Speeches and prayers from loud speakers drowned the crowd’s chatters. I shouted my answer and turned away quickly.
“Chashao Bao,” one of the men shouted back. I stopped. The crowd behind was walking into me. Did he just say “barbecue bun” in perfect Chinese?
“Yes, kteer taib (very delicious),” I turned around and yelled back in rudimentary Arabic. The crowd had already pushed me away. He was nodding at me, a big proud smile on his face. It was an inappropriately joyful moment for a funeral.
Having finished my story, I sat back into the sofa, and the buzzing noise of plates and chatter came back. Like usual, restaurants in China are buzzing during the Spring New Year. “What did he mean by Chashao Bao?” My Chinese friends at the dinner were puzzled. The catastrophe in Gaza and the war in Lebanon were too far away, but they knew what barbecue buns were.
“Well, at that moment, I felt that he was no longer a Hamas supporter, member, security guy, or whatever he was. It was just two guys who liked Chinese cuisine — well, good food.”
My friends still looked confused. After a long pause, one of them asked, “aren’t they banned from eating pork?”
My friend was right. Chashao Bao is usually made of pork. Perhaps the guy was not the pious Islamist as I assumed, or not a Muslim at all. Or, perhaps, he had just heard about how good barbecue buns were that day. After returning from the restaurant, I lay in bed and entertained this pointless stream of consciousness. Outside of the windows of my family home were hills with gentle slopes in muted green, touched by a string of steams from a fresh rain earlier in the day. For hundreds of years, countless painters had left works about these timeless hills, sewing their longing for tranquility in the soft landscape of Southeast China. In these hills, for over 1,600 years stood the Lingyin Temple, one of the oldest Buddhist temples in China. A few months ago, the temple broke a rule that it had kept for over a thousand years: it opened its main gate, which was reserved only for emperors in feudal China, for Bashar Assad.
Tutututu…next to the cemetery, the sound of rapid gunshots accompanied the loud speeches. Some mourners were shooting into the sky to pay respect for their martyrs, who were then being buried. Hunter and I did not plan to enter the cemetery so we started heading back to our car. On the way I told Hunter about the barbecue bun story. As I expected, he wasn’t surprised.
At that point, we both knew that Chinese influence in Lebanon — and perhaps the entire region — was like this. It jumped out of nowhere when we least expected it. It seemed everywhere when we were not looking for it. “Everything in Lebanon is made in China,” said my taxi driver earlier that day, after knowing I am Chinese. “I’m made in China too.” The driver laughed, not knowing that I’d lost count of how often I made this joke to comments like his. But when we were searching for Chinese influence and its impacts on the local people, it seemed to vanish. Certainly, there were no dramatic funerals like this to tell the Chinese influence. Instead, the dramas were hidden away in statistics like “China is the largest trading partner of Arab countries”. That day, I knew that my task was to bridge the gap between these statistics and that enthusiastic shout of “Chashao bao” at Arouri’s funeral.
Boom, boom, boom…The sound of explosions echoed in the valley, but the splendid colors in the sky, stamped onto the contours of the hills, told me that I was safe. It was only fireworks. But I knew for this new year in China, the sound of fireworks would be different to me than before. Each explosion would remind me of the drone strikes I heard in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre. It would remind me of the way too many strikes in Lebanon, in Iraq, in Syria, and in Gaza that I did not see. And it would remind me that I must bring people living far from the tragedies to care.
In seconds, the fireworks ended. The sound of explosions ceased. But the hills no longer looked tranquil to me.
In the coming few months, we will finish our residency project. The war and its rapid-fire evolution complicated and disrupted our initial plans for our project, but we have narrowed our focus and identified the places and characters that we believe will best exemplify the policies of the great powers and the impact they have had on the region and its citizens. The funeral procession in Beirut on Jan. 5 was one we never expected to cover, but it became a noteworthy event in this evolving story. From Syrian refugees in the Beqaa valley of Lebanon, to Lebanese citizens displaced from border villages, to Iraqis reaping the benefits of Chinese solar projects, lives around the region are being affected and changed, and we aim to shed light on how with our project. We hope you will read it when it is published.