The True "Humiliation"…

Lebanon is witnessing today a farce that has turned, in reality, into a tragedy. At the heart of this farce lies the insistence of a Lebanese faction organically linked to the "Islamic Republic" of Iran on presenting negotiation with Israel as "humiliation," while the real humiliation consists in doing everything possible to entrench Israeli occupation and serve it. All that the legitimate authority in Lebanon — represented by President of the Republic Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam — has sought to convey is that the "humiliation" of negotiations is in fact an act of honour and patriotism, whereas the "humiliation" of occupation is nothing more than a service rendered to Israel and to its enterprise of occupation.

Whoever denounces the "humiliation" of direct negotiation with Israel, as Hezbollah does, evades any question related to reality and to what a country is going through whose fate has been cast to the winds. Lebanon has indeed been cast to the winds since a time bomb installed itself within it: more than one million two hundred thousand displaced persons from the South, scattered across different regions of the country, of which Beirut constitutes the primary concentration.

Outside of negotiations, there is no path to defusing this time bomb, whose only antidote is the return of the displaced to their villages and towns, one way or another. This return to localities that are largely devastated remains the sole means of saving Lebanon from the fate of a failed state. No other way exists than direct negotiation to achieve this objective, rather than boasting of "resistance" and its weapons, which are precisely what brought occupation back.

It is important to distinguish between real humiliation, on the one hand, and the attempt to erase the "humiliation" of which Hezbollah speaks, on the other. For humiliation lies in serving the Israeli occupation, not in working to be rid of it. One must recall, every day if necessary, that the Israeli occupation of the border strip in southern Lebanon ended at this very time of year, in 2000. Israel had then decided to withdraw in implementation of Resolution 425, judging that such a withdrawal, confirmed by the Security Council, was not at odds with its interests.

Since that Israeli withdrawal to the Blue Line, the former Syrian regime, backed by Iran, sought to keep southern Lebanon as a convenient mailbox for the exchange of messages with Israel. The Hebrew state saw no obstacle in this, particularly since its permanent objective was to focus its efforts on the West Bank. Proof of this was Yasser Arafat's failure to replicate in that territory the experience of the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon.

Abu Ammar paid dearly, at the time, for the "militarisation" of the Intifada. The historic leader of the Palestinian people did not understand that Israel was prepared to sacrifice hundreds of its soldiers in order to retain parts of the West Bank, while it had been willing to withdraw from southern Lebanon in exchange for security guarantees. Those guarantees were indeed secured, before Iran promptly violated them, intent on affirming that the Hezbollah card remained in play and that the return of the Lebanese army to southern Lebanon was not on the agenda.

Up until the war of "support for Gaza" that Hezbollah launched at Iran's request on 8 October 2023, there was no Israeli occupation. In the wake of that war, the occupation was limited to five points. It was the war of "support for Iran," begun in March of this year, that provided the pretext for an extension of the Israeli occupation, for further destruction and for new displacements.

Hezbollah defends its position by arguing that Israel would have attacked it regardless, independently of the firing of six rockets that followed by a few days the assassination of "Supreme Leader" Ali Khamenei in Tehran on 28 February 2026. These claims might carry some weight were they not a reflection of a profound ignorance of politics and the balance of forces at play, on the one hand, and were Hezbollah not harbouring the desire to retain its weapons as an instrument of intimidation over the Lebanese, on the other.

Confessional and militia weapons have never been anything other than a scourge for Lebanon and the Lebanese, and for Lebanon's Shia in particular, given that they have never been capable of playing any role whatsoever in the protection of the country. Their sole function has been to serve the occupation. When the Hebrew state, in the year 2000, judged that it was in its interest to withdraw from southern Lebanon, it did so — Germany having served as intermediary at the time. Hezbollah failed to grasp that Israel had changed in the wake of the "Al-Aqsa Flood," the attack launched by Hamas from Gaza, nor did it understand that its weapons, now in the service of occupation, could no longer be countenanced.

Weapons remain the origin of the problem and the source of every affliction in Lebanon. The simple fact is that Israel no longer needs them today, whereas it was formerly indifferent to the question of who controlled southern Lebanon — just as it was indifferent to who controlled Gaza, willing to allow Qatari funds to flow to Hamas as long as that movement was contributing to the entrenchment of Palestinian division.

A single formula now sums up the Lebanese situation. The weapons held by Hezbollah are the very expression of humiliation, in that they play the role assigned to them in legitimising Israel's extension of the occupation and the ongoing displacement of populations. These populations are the Shia citizens of the South, turned into that time bomb which threatens every attempt at Lebanon's recovery.

Weapons have failed to confront Israel, but they have succeeded in undermining Lebanon from within. Such has always been the function of Hezbollah's weapons since their inception — weapons to which falls the responsibility for all the wars Lebanon could have done without: beginning with the war of the summer of 2006 and up to the war of "support for Iran" and the catastrophe it left in its wake, at every level… a catastrophe that has now become a threat to Lebanon's very existence.