Writing about war, caring about peace: language that defines how we imagine peace
Hanna Leonardsson | 06 November 2026
In my research on Lebanon, the reality of the war between Hezbollah and Israel is painfully clear. Images of the situation on the ground are everywhere: of bombed houses, vehicles and bridges; of whole families killed and demolished villages; of caravans of cars with people fleeing due to Israeli evacuation orders and the threat of further destruction. Maybe less visible in western media but also available in images are the videos from Hezbollah’s FPV drones, showing attacks on Israeli military equipment or soldiers fleeing for their lives.
While images are omnipresent in our media and social media landscape, the language we use, to describe images and wars, matters for how we can understand war and peace. For anyone who follows academics, media and social media outlets with an ounce of post-colonial critique, the war in Lebanon, as the war in Gaza, has become a clear example of how the words we use also frame what we think about a situation and how we react.
Do we call the Israeli announcements evacuation orders, enabling civilians to flee before (what is described as) Hezbollah targets are attacked? Or do we call it forced displacement of 1,2 million Lebanese from 20 per cent of Lebanese soil and a war crime under international humanitarian law? Do we call Israel’s yellow zone in Lebanon a buffer zone aimed at eradicating Hezbollah and providing security for villages in northern Israel, or is it an occupation of Lebanese soil, aiming at the expulsion of the Shiites and Christians of the Lebanese south, a potential land grab and expansion of Israeli territories and settlements? Similarly, is this a war that has left over four thousand people dead during 2026, or are they killed by the Israeli aggressor? And, is it a war between Israel and Hezbollah as two parties, equally responsible, an Israeli response to Hezbollah’s attacks, or is it an Israeli war of aggression or even a war of invasion and a fight for liberation?
Although I don’t believe in either or, and reality is rarely black or white, what words we use and how we choose to narrate the war means something for what kind of peace we can imagine.
In this light, if we talk about the war in terms of evacuation orders, buffer zone and civilians left dead as collateral damage and unforeseen casualties in a war between Israel and Hezbollah, our stories portray something of a fair and maybe even moral way of waging war. Peace, and the solution to the conflict would contain a cessation of hostilities, where Israel would agree to withdraw if the other party guarantees its safety. This resembles the ceasefire deal that was struck between Israel and Lebanon in November 2024, and repeated in the agreements of May and June 2026, where the Lebanese state is tasked with disarming Hezbollah and Israel has retained the right to attack any by them assumed Hezbollah-linked targets in Lebanon. As a peace researcher, this implies the bare minimum for a negative peace which ends violence but does not necessarily change conflict dynamics and enable a continued and sustainable peace.
During the November 2024 to March 2026 ceasefire period, the unsustainability of the deal was seen in the near daily ceasefire violations and Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, the exclusion of Hezbollah – a party to the conflict – in negotiations, the positioning of the Lebanese state as an intermediary (or proxy – again, words) implementing the terms of the agreement on parts of its own population, and the recurrence of protests against the implementation of the deal, especially within those communities that felt excluded from having a say. The deal, thus, provided a negative peace experienced by some (in Beirut, in the North and central parts of Lebanon), while it was coupled with no peace at all for others.
If we were to use other words to describe the war, including forceful displacement, Israeli occupation of Lebanese territory and the Israeli Defence Forces killing civilians, we would be describing an asymmetric conflict, between, on the one hand, an army that is superior in manpower, equipment and funding, and a non-state military actor with guerilla tactics and forceful determination to not surrender.
In these words, it is easy to see how this war has cost a disproportionate amount of lives and destruction of roads, bridges, electricity installations and waterpipes, as well as civilian homes. Peace, in such a story goes beyond the cessation of violence and includes measures such as the unconditional and complete withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanese soil, compensation for destroyed property, and even moves towards reparative justice towards the civilians harmed and prosecution of crimes against international humanitarian law. This type of peace requires an agreement and peace process that goes far beyond an end of violence and moves into a robust period of inclusive peacebuilding to ensure reconciliation between former enemies, sustainability and the hindering of a recurrence of war.
While peace, in whatever shape or form, seems like an improvement for the many places across the globe experiencing conflict, I urge readers to reflect on what the words we use to describe a conflict does to what we imagine peace to be. In acknowledging that ceasefires and peace agreements are crucial, we also need to ask ourselves whether our understanding of the war makes them a final step, or just the beginning?
This piece is the first of three reflections by Hanna Leonardsson on the theme
Writing about war, caring about peace
Hanna Leonardsson is a lecturer in Global studies at the University of Gothenburg and a researcher at the Swedish Institute of Foreign Affairs. Her areas of research include peace, governance, sustainable transitions and vertical entanglements of the local.
