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The Foundations of Zionism by Sabri Jiryis, translated by Fida Jiryis. Ebb Books, 614 pages. 2025.
In August 2025 Tom Barrack—founder of the private equity firm Colony Capital, the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, and the “special envoy” to Syria and Lebanon—told a group of Lebanese journalists at a press conference that they needed to stop acting “animalistic,” otherwise he would go. The preceding meeting had included Lindsey Graham, who told the current Lebanese president—functionally appointed by Saudi Arabia and the United States—that there would be neither negotiations about Israeli withdrawal from occupied Lebanese lands, nor any discussion of Israel’s daily bombing of Lebanon, until Hezbollah, the only armed group in Lebanon who could meaningfully confront Israel, is disarmed. In a word, sus. The idea is that Israel might reconsider its expansionist dreams in Lebanon once the only measurable barrier to realizing these dreams is neutralized; the last time an armed group was disarmed in Lebanon for Israel’s sake was in 1982, when the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) withdrew from Beirut. What followed was the Sabra and Shatila massacre, as though the Israelis were mocking their enemy’s naiveté, and asserting their ruthless dominance. What endured was the occupation.
