The Beirut Explosion

By Victor Rosenthal

On Tuesday there was a massive explosion in the port of Beirut, Lebanon. It seems – and there will probably be more information available by the time this article is posted tomorrow – that a warehouse containing some 2750 tons of a nitrate compound exploded. Before the main blast, there were smaller explosions that may have been fireworks or small arms ammunition. There was speculation that the explosive material was some form of rocket fuel, but now it seems that the material was ammonium nitrate that had been left there by a Georgian ship that broke down in 2013 on its way to Mozambique. What set it off is still not clear. More details about this event are here.

Naturally, the usual suspects are blaming Israel. Israeli officials said that we had no connection to it. It would be very surprising if we did, because Israel bends over backwards to avoid hurting civilians (sometimes excessively, in my opinion). Really, the only thing that might tempt Israel to do that kind of damage would be the presence of a nuclear weapon – and even then, I believe the IDF would have found some other way to destroy it.

This comes after several incidents in which Hezbollah has attempted to get even for Israel’s killing one of their operatives in Syria.

Lebanon is in the worst financial condition in its history, and a good part of the reason is Hezbollah. First the Corona, and now this explosion (which, incidentally, wrecked the structure in which 80% of Lebanon’s grain was stored) may push the country completely over the edge. I don’t know what is likely to happen now, but the best option – for Lebanon, for Israel, and for world peace – would be for Hezbollah to be pushed out. It is absolutely criminal that the resources of the country are squandered on being the point of the spear for the Iranian war on Israel. But how do you get out from under the thumb of a terrorist organization that has more military capability than your official army?

If the story about the ammonium nitrate is correct, then the government officials who allowed it to sit for years in a dilapidated warehouse near a highly populated area are guilty of criminal negligence. What brought Lebanon to the state it was in before the explosion was the less dramatic, but equally criminal, failure of those in whom the inhabitants of the country placed their trust.

Now let us come back to Israel, where there hasn’t been a cataclysmic explosion, but where a bloated, selfish, childish, and venal political establishment is failing to carry out its responsibilities to the public. Can we get our house in order before we find ourselves in a place similar to that of our northern neighbor?