Lebanon: How Hezbollah’s Arms Serve the Occupation

The latest speech by Naim Qassem, secretary-general of Hezbollah, offers an idea of Iran's bet on the continuation of the Israeli occupation of Lebanon so that the party can retain its weapons. The refusal of the party, and behind it the “Islamic Republic,” constitutes the shortest path to entrenching the occupation and turning the people of southern Lebanon into refugees, like the Palestinians who left their cities and villages in 1948.

One question is enough to refute everything Naim Qassem said, since he is nothing but an Iranian mouthpiece who says what he is told to say. That question is the following. Who caused the occupation? Was it not the weapons of Hezbollah that caused the occupation, even though Israel had withdrawn from southern Lebanon and implemented UN Security Council Resolution 425 in May 2000? Whoever decided to wage the war in support of Gaza on October 8, 2023, and open the southern Lebanon front brought back the Israeli occupation. This is the logic that Hezbollah has sought to evade, refusing to acknowledge that it is merely an instrument serving Iran's expansionist project in the region. Ultimately, the party, which is nothing more than a sectarian militia, is merely a brigade of the Revolutionary Guard, whose members are Lebanese.

The Security Council confirmed at the time that Israel had implemented Resolution 425. No Lebanese territory remained under Israeli occupation, apart from the Shebaa Farms, an issue fabricated by the party to justify retaining its weapons under an understanding with the former Syrian regime. One of the nightmares that plagued the Syrian regime in 2000 was Israel's withdrawal from southern Lebanon. This was because the South, for Hafez al-Assad and then Bashar al-Assad, was merely a mailbox used to exchange messages with Israel.

Weapons have never served Lebanon or the Lebanese. They were, and still are, used to destroy Lebanon and drive the Lebanese from their land. Only belatedly did Iran discover that the rules of the game, agreed upon with Israel, had changed in southern Lebanon and even in Syria. Israel withdrew its protection from Bashar al-Assad and his minority regime, which soon fell in late 2024 as soon as the Israeli side abandoned it.

Naim Qassem, or rather those for whom he speaks, refuse to acknowledge that the weapons mean, among other things, investing in the Israeli occupation and providing justifications for its continuation. There are clear rules governing an exceedingly simple Lebanese equation. There will be no Israeli withdrawal as long as Hezbollah's weapons remain anywhere in Lebanon. Hence the Lebanese army's duty to disarm the group, one way or another, if the people of the South are ever to return to their towns and villages. The Lebanese army should avoid any hesitation in this regard, given that the executive authority, represented by the Council of Ministers, has taken a clear position on the matter.

The army and its commander have no other option but to work to disarm Hezbollah if they truly seek a role for the army in protecting national unity, on the one hand, and the continuation of US support, on the other. National unity is not protected by grand, meaningless talk about accommodating Hezbollah and its weapons to avoid a civil war. Such talk serves to perpetuate the Israeli occupation at a time when it has become clear that the Lebanese issue is no longer an American-Israeli one. There will be no significant American interest in Lebanon, which has been left to Israel, without a clear position from the president of the republic, the government, and the army commander on Hezbollah's weapons!

It has become clear that Hezbollah's weapons have a well-defined function in southern Lebanon. That function is to serve the Israeli occupation. This explains why the party is seeking another function for its weapons. The clearest manifestation of that other function, which can serve to distract people, especially Shiites, from the catastrophe that has befallen them, is the use of weapons against the Lebanese. This other function explains the brazenness of Hezbollah lawmakers in defending the explosives seized in Dahr al-Baydar, explosives intended for use inside Lebanon. The same applies to party members arrested in the Batroun highlands. These two incidents give an idea of the bankruptcy of the party, indeed the bankruptcy of an Iranian policy that refuses to grasp that Lebanon is now beyond the control of the Revolutionary Guard… and that the Lebanese, amid the complex circumstances facing the region and the world, are looking for ways to protect themselves and rid themselves of the occupation.

The question that will always remain is tied to an exceedingly simple equation. There can be no Lebanon with Hezbollah's weapons, only the continuation of the occupation. Either a sovereign, free Lebanon without occupation… or the weapons!

Whether Benjamin Netanyahu stays or goes, whether Gadi Eisenkot succeeds in forming a new Israeli government or not, what will not change in Israel is the continued occupation of Lebanese territory as long as Hezbollah's weapons remain.

Until further notice, Lebanon is an Israeli issue, on the one hand, while on the other, a day is not far off when a debate will take place in Washington, specifically in Congress, over the American aid provided to the Lebanese army and its usefulness.