526
Israel deliberately starting wildfires in southern Lebanon, firefighters say
(www.theguardian.com)
this post was submitted on 12 Aug 2026
526 points (99.3% liked)
World News
57561 readers
1157 users here now
A community for discussing events around the World
Rules:
-
Rule 1: posts have the following requirements:
- Post news articles only
- Video links are NOT articles and will be removed.
- Title must match the article headline
- Not United States Internal News
- Recent (Past 30 Days)
- Screenshots/links to other social media sites (Twitter/X/Facebook/Youtube/reddit, etc.) are explicitly forbidden, as are link shorteners.
-
Rule 2: Do not copy the entire article into your post. The key points in 1-2 paragraphs is allowed (even encouraged!), but large segments of articles posted in the body will result in the post being removed. If you have to stop and think "Is this fair use?", it probably isn't. Archive links, especially the ones created on link submission, are absolutely allowed but those that avoid paywalls are not.
-
Rule 3: Opinions articles, or Articles based on misinformation/propaganda may be removed.
-
Rule 4: Posts or comments that are homophobic, transphobic, racist, sexist, anti-religious, or ableist will be removed. “Ironic” prejudice is just prejudiced.
-
Posts and comments must abide by the lemmy.world terms of service UPDATED AS OF OCTOBER 19 2025
-
Rule 5: Keep it civil. It's OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It's NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
-
Rule 6: Memes, spam, other low effort posting, reposts, misinformation, advocating violence, off-topic, trolling, offensive, regarding the moderators or meta in content may be removed at any time.
-
Rule 7: We didn't USED to need a rule about how many posts one could make in a day, then someone posted NINETEEN articles in a single day. Not comments, FULL ARTICLES. If you're posting more than say, 10 or so, consider going outside and touching grass. We reserve the right to limit over-posting so a single user does not dominate the front page.
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
Lemmy World Partners
News !news@lemmy.world
Politics !politics@lemmy.world
World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world
Ask Historians !askhistorians@lemmy.world
Recommendations
For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/
- Consider including the article’s mediabiasfactcheck.com/ link
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
I feel your frustration, but bearing witness is not useless. It just feels so lacking because a lot more is needed. But bearing witness is really the first part of Israel's reckoning.
I've been following the conflict since I remember existing. The impunity was always a source of frustration, but it was also how most people had no clue what was happening. Talking about the conflict you'd often get well-meant replies saying "oh, that war has been going for thousands of years" and "it's a religious conflict". People had no clue about the Nabka, the settler violence or the whole way Israel was created.
The October 7th attack changed all that. While the initial reaction was of outrage against the Palestinians and solidarity towards Israel, as soon as the IDF's methods became mainstream knowledge everything changed. The public relations operation Israel had which was successful so far, completely collapsed. Now the whole world is bearing witness to what Israel is. The mask of being a beacon of democracy in the region, fighting against Islamic fundamentalists has completely fell appart. Now the whole world can finally see them for what they are and there's no going back.
Notice how only extremists and anti-islamic sentiment now defend Israel. Normal people just avoid the subject or are outright horrified. But they can't do anything? Not for now, but the isolation towards Israel is becoming a lot real. And they are getting more desperate and erratic. Eventually they'll make an error that will bite them in the ass: commit such an atrocity that even the US can't justify, attack Turkey, etc.
The real question is how the Palestinians come out of this. Because, for a while now, it's clear that Israel is doomed. They have destroyed themselves when they went full-genocide. You can't ungenocide. The label is stuck, the isolation is real and nobody, besides the US, would lift a finger to help them if they were suddenly attacked by their neighbors or Turkey. But the US is not exactly stable right now, is it? When shit hits the fan in the US, Israel is on their own and they are doomed.
So, we have to do this. Keeping talking about it. Let everyone know and don't let anyone forget. And when the IDF goes too far don't allow anyone that is defending genocide to pretend they were always on the good side. Let the genocide enablers be shamed and ostracized for being the psychopaths they are.
Bear witness. Information is everything.
Yeah, I do agree that witnessing it is important. I guess what I am struggling with is a sense of guilt over how much grief seeing this causes me — like, I'm not one of the people being subject to this ruthless oppression.
But I suppose that I should probably follow my own good advice that I gave to a friend recently in a different area. A mutual friend of ours had been going through a rough time, and my friend was one of the primary people supporting them. It was difficult for them, because although they were able to help a little, the problem our mutual friend was faced with was a bunch of big, concrete systemic problems that no-one could do much about besides lament the unfairness and offer emotional solidarity.
When I was checking in with the friend who had been doing the supporting, with the comment that "it's never easy to see someone you care about suffering", she handwaved away her own feelings and exhaustion at first. I reminded her that even if she wasn't the "primary victim" of the injustices our friend was facing, she was still someone harmed by it all, and that her own feelings were valid — that her upset at bearing witness to injustice was not taking away from our friend, but rather a distinct facet of the problem that deserved space to process.
Of course, it's necessary to do that processing in an appropriate context; it wouldn't have been appropriate to vent to our mutual friend about how difficult she'd been finding it. Instead, one should carve out dedicated space for emotional processing whenever one has bore witness to injustices.
I think it was very good advice in this small, interpersonal context, and maybe I should try applying it in this context — because feeling guilty about how upset this makes me feel doesn't help anyone