Bibi boasts over Beaufort

Mainstream media have been sharing the news that Israeli forces have seized Beaufort Castle, a Crusader-era high point and fortification on the southern border of Lebanon in a region which is home turf to Israel's foe, Hezbollah. 

The Israelis seem very proud of this conquest, though in modern terms, the ancient "castle" is just some rock piles. Here's the story from Le Monde: 

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed to push deeper into Lebanon after his military took over the medieval castle of Beaufort on Sunday, May 31, calling it a "dramatic shift" in Israel's campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon.

The Iran-backed militant group, meanwhile, said it targeted Israeli forces near the fortress as well as army positions and infrastructure in Shlomi and Nahariya in northern Israel, while air raid sirens blared in the Acre area. Israeli forces used the Beaufort castle, also known as Qalaat al-Chakif, as a base during their previous two-decade occupation of southern Lebanon that ended in 2000.

"We have returned united, determined and stronger than ever," Netanyahu said in a video statement released after the military took Beaufort. "Now my directive is to deepen and expand our hold in places that were under Hezbollah's control. The capture of Beaufort is a dramatic stage and a dramatic shift in the policy we are leading."

Erudite Partner and I had the chance, thanks to a Lebanese friend, to walk about this eerie spot in 2006, just weeks before that year's Israeli assault on the proud and battered country.

The yellow banner of Hezbollah flew defiantly from the castle's pinnacle then. We didn't see any fighters, though there were rumors that they had tunneled somewhere underneath.

Looking south, across the deep ravine cut by the Litani River, we were looking into Israel where a neat modern settlement had been built.

 

Looking the other way, we could see the Lebanese village of Arnoun. It appeared prosperous in its own way that spring, but very much an organic growth on the hillside, not any kind of planned community.

The contrast between the two towns seemed to exemplify two civilizations. Meanwhile the Crusader castle endured, in between. 

 

I wonder if Beaufort will survive its latest occupants. 

 

I am quite certain that the adjoining Lebanese village is by now destroyed and depopulated. Poor Lebanon, fated to try to survive next to its belligerent neighbor.