'%3e%3cpath%20d='M29%2034.583C29%2031.4004%2027.7884%2028.3482%2025.6317%2026.0977C23.4751%2023.8473%2020.55%2022.583%2017.5%2022.583C14.45%2022.583%2011.5249%2023.8473%209.36827%2026.0977C7.2116%2028.3482%206%2031.4004%206%2034.583'%20fill='%23083D77'%20fill-opacity='0.12'/%3e%3cpath%20d='M17.5%2022.583C21.6421%2022.583%2025%2019.2251%2025%2015.083C25%2010.9409%2021.6421%207.58301%2017.5%207.58301C13.3579%207.58301%2010%2010.9409%2010%2015.083C10%2019.2251%2013.3579%2022.583%2017.5%2022.583Z'%20fill='%23083D77'%20fill-opacity='0.12'/%3e%3c/g%3e%3c/svg%3e)
By Michel Hajji Georgiou - Published Sep 4, 2026 - 23:28
What remains of Hassan Rifai is the image of a respected, composed jurist, an authority on administrative and constitutional law, arguing in a calm, quavering voice as he pointed out the deviations and failings of politicians in relation to the parliamentary democratic system and the Constitution. And yet, the former MP and minister, who died on September 3, 2025, was also a man in revolt. A dissenter. Even at one hundred. Especially at one hundred! He had been one as a child, haranguing crowds in Baalbeck against the Mandate, and remained one throughout his career as a lawyer and parliamentarian. At one hundred, utterly disillusioned with the Republic and its buccaneers, his quiet anger had not subsided. “Lebanon is an impossible country!” he told the author of these lines in an interview conducted a few years before his death and never published. But make no mistake. Hassan Rifai was neither a nihilist nor someone who rejected everything outright. He had fought all his life for a certain idea of Lebanon. More specifically, for Greater Lebanon, united and plural. And he appreciated the Lebanese experience for what it was worth, including all that was positive in it. But human beings had disappointed him. And yet it was precisely the human being he was seeking. He never found that person on the Lebanese public stage. At least not in the service of the Republic. Rifai was a man of law, always elegant, irreproachable, everything one would expect of a man of his moral and intellectual stature. But he was also uncompromising. Merciless, even. No doubt his attachment to his country and its democratic system had led him to acknowledge only one loyalty: a certain code of values and a certain idea of the Republic. That was why he was critical of every mistake and every abuse, beginning with those committed by his own political friends. He spared no one. Neither communities nor clans, neither religious leaders, he was secular himself, and certainly not political officials. No one escaped his scrutiny, and Rifai took a certain pleasure in dismantling the myths and received ideas that portrayed this or that president of the Republic or prime minister as an exceptional leader. His yardstick was objective: the consistency of actions with democratic principles. As a result, no one truly found favor in his eyes. The conclusion was devastating: none of the country’s leaders, throughout its history, had genuinely respected Lebanese parliamentary democracy. None. That did not mean he placed everyone on the same footing. He had enough critical distance to recognize the qualities and shortcomings of each. He liked to quote Léon Duguit: “Constitutional law has no safeguard other than the good faith of those who apply it.” He had almost made it his republican credo. And his verdict was merciless: that good faith, quite simply, he had not found. Too many politicians, and not enough statesmen. And above all, a great deal of lying and hypocrisy. One day, a senior political figure advised him: “Do not build roads for people. Otherwise they will stop coming to you.” Despite the respect he had for this political ally, the remark left him bewildered and shocked. It contained an entire conception of power: never permanently solve the problem of those one claims to represent, because once their need disappears, so does the very reason for their dependence. The project of the state was thus postponed indefinitely. Or, at the very least, whenever good people did exist, the system prevented them from reaching positions of responsibility. Rifai was a rebel, yes, but one armed with the rigor and precision of a master craftsman of administrative and constitutional law. That was undoubtedly what set him apart within Lebanon’s political milieu. He was rebellious enough, in any event, to pay a price for it. In August 1982, he survived an assassination attempt after opposing the Israeli diktat. At Taif in 1989, he was almost cast out for having immediately discerned the existing flaws and the traps added to the constitutional reforms. From 1992 onward, under the Syrian occupation, he endured political ostracism for opposing the security apparatus underpinning Syrian tutelage and Rafic Hariri’s policies. But he was fair. He could oppose political confessionalism while acknowledging that abolishing it at the present stage would be disastrous for Lebanon, and that a system of majority rule based purely on numbers would once and for all toll the death knell of the Lebanese formula and of the Christian presence in Lebanon. He could agree that Christians had been wronged by the constitutional reforms of Taif, Sunnis too, he maintained, while at the same time recalling the excesses committed in the exercise of power by presidents of the Republic between 1943 and 1990, and warning against a nostalgic return to those practices under the refrain of “Christian rights.” A drift toward a presidential or semi-presidential system would, in his view, endanger Christians. The importance of the parliamentary system inherited from the French Third Republic lay precisely in the fact that the president of the Republic was not politically accountable to the Chamber of Deputies. That placed him, according to Rifai, in a privileged position. Above the fray, he could steer the ship of the Republic safely into port without becoming bogged down in struggles for power. That moral responsibility to preserve the Constitution and the Republic was, in his eyes, far more important than any political responsibility. But the principal parties concerned still had to be persuaded of that. Rifai could recognize the importance of administrative decentralization while refusing to allow that demand to become an ideological slogan concealing separatist ambitions. In this regard, he recalled that Beirut and Mount Lebanon had been favored in the construction of Greater Lebanon, while the peripheral regions, particularly his own, Baalbeck, had been neglected. That had contributed to weakening Lebanese national sentiment, which ultimately depended on well-being grounded in respect for human dignity. Commitment to citizenship presupposed that everyone be treated equally in terms of development. Without equality among citizens, sovereignty could only falter. That, indeed, was the meaning of his first speech in Parliament in 1968. The events that followed gave that warning a singular gravity. Economic, social and territorial imbalances contributed to fueling the demands of the left and of part of the Muslim street in a country already strained by sectarian tensions, foreign interference and the growing power of armed organizations. They thus contributed to the gradual weakening of the state, before the war, successive occupations and the emergence of para-state structures. Ultimately, Hassan Rifai embodies something of that Lebanese model of the cosmopolitan, complex personality who stands outside communal and partisan trenches, enjoys almost unanimous respect, especially beyond political circles, yet is consulted within those same circles only when needed and for self-interested reasons. Lebanon does not like minds that are too independent and too unruly, even if its system still contains cracks through which such people can exist and make themselves heard. They are tolerated, but they must remain on the margins. The survival of the state of zaamat and the state of jamaat depends on it: a system that invariably prefers turning to foreign patrons rather than to people capable of generating, proposing and implementing solutions from within. Lebanon’s political system and its protagonists detest the notion of responsibility, which they find profoundly anxiety-inducing, and prefer dependence or, worse still, servility. Yet Rifai repeatedly said, once again quoting Léon Duguit: “Where responsibility lies, there lies power.” Should it then come as any surprise that in Lebanon, where responsibility is nowhere to be found, power is nowhere to be found either? Or, more precisely, that it is always elsewhere?
Did the Battle End in an Undeclared Arrangement?
By Jad Akhawi - Published Sep 4, 2026 - 15:00
The battle of Ali al-Taher was not merely a military confrontation over a strategic hill in southern Lebanon. Despite its limited size, the site became a point where military, political, and regional calculations converged, exposing one of the core issues at the heart of Lebanon’s ongoing conflict: who controls the territory, who holds the weapons, and who decides on war and peace? What is most striking is not only Israel’s entry into the site, but Hezbollah’s insistence on refusing to hand it over to the Lebanese Army, even though the Army is the only legitimate institution supposed to assume responsibility for Lebanese territory, particularly in border areas directly tied to the country’s security and sovereignty. Why Did Hezbollah refuse? Because handing Ali al-Taher over to the Army would not have been understood as a limited measure on the ground. It would have carried a political meaning extending far beyond the hill itself. Such a move would have amounted to a de facto recognition of the Lebanese state’s authority over security and military decisions in the South, and of the principle that no other armed force can act as though it exercises effective authority on the ground. The site therefore became a test of state authority, rather than merely an advanced military position. Who Killed the fighters? This remains the most obscure episode in the account of the battle. The Israeli version speaks of fighters being killed and others fleeing, while independent information about how many people were present at the site, the nature of their mission, and what ultimately happened to them remains incomplete. The conflicting accounts also raise numerous questions that cannot be resolved through military statements alone. And this is not merely an operational detail: Were most of the fighters killed inside the site? Did they manage to withdraw through tunnels and passageways? Or had they been evacuated before the Israeli operation began? Each of these scenarios carries a different significance. If the fighters remained until the final moments, that would mean the site witnessed a direct confrontation that ended in clear Israeli military superiority. If, on the other hand, they were evacuated beforehand, the questions would concern who made that decision, why it was taken, and whether the evacuation formed part of a broader understanding or was simply a precautionary military measure. And if it were established that a significant number of them had left before Israeli forces entered the site, the central questions would then be: how did they leave, who facilitated their departure, and did it take place with the knowledge of local or international actors? At this stage, there is insufficient public evidence to determine which of these scenarios is correct. But the absence of information does not make these questions any less important. On the contrary, it deepens the uncertainty surrounding what occurred in the hours preceding the capture of the site. What About the U.S. Ambassador’s Visit to Israel? The timing deserves attention. The escalation around Ali al-Taher coincided with U.S. diplomatic moves involving Israel, while reports emerged of discussions concerning the site and the possibility that it might eventually be handed over to the Lebanese Army. This does not necessarily mean that the decision was made outside Lebanon, nor that a fully developed agreement was reached between Washington, Tel Aviv, and Beirut. But it does suggest that the site is no longer being viewed as a purely local military issue. There is no basis for asserting that the U.S. ambassador’s visit was part of a secret deal concerning Ali al-Taher. Nor can it be stated with certainty that everything that happened resulted from a prior understanding among the parties involved. What is clear, however, is that Washington views the future of the site as part of a broader file involving the ceasefire, the stabilization of the border, the prevention of any military presence outside the authority of the Lebanese state, and efforts to ensure that border areas do not become permanent platforms for confrontation. Ali al-Taher thus becomes part of negotiations that extend far beyond its geography. The site may be small on the map, but it is connected to major questions concerning arrangements in the South, the role of the Lebanese Army, the future of weapons outside state control, and the limits of Israeli influence in the region. The Paradox That Embarrassed Hezbollah The central political paradox is that Hezbollah refused to hand the hill over to the Lebanese Army, yet ultimately failed to retain it. If the Israeli operation were to end with the withdrawal of Israeli forces and the handover of the site to the Lebanese Army, the outcome would be very different from the situation Hezbollah sought to impose or preserve: Hezbollah refused to hand the site over to the state, Israel forced it out, and the state then returned to assume responsibility. In other words, Hezbollah refused to establish the Army’s authority voluntarily, but may find itself confronted with a reality that establishes that authority by other means. This is what makes the situation politically embarrassing, because the final outcome may appear to have achieved indirectly what Hezbollah refused to do directly. This raises an obvious question: why was handing the site over to the Army not considered the least costly option for Lebanon? Such a move could have been presented as a strengthening of the state’s role, a means of protecting the South, and a way of preventing Israel from using Hezbollah’s presence as a pretext to remain on the ground or advance further. The refusal to hand the site over to the Army instead kept it within the zone of confrontation and allowed Israel to present its operation as a response to a military presence outside state authority. Ali al-Taher Encapsulates Lebanon’s Problem The issue goes far beyond this hill. Lebanon cannot recover its sovereignty as long as two military authorities coexist: that of the Army and that of weapons outside state control. Nor can it ask the international community to respect its borders while military decision-making within those borders remains divided between state institutions and an armed organization possessing capabilities independent of them. At the same time, Lebanon cannot demand that Israel withdraw from its territory while security decisions concerning that same territory remain the subject of an internal dispute. As long as weapons remain outside state control, the Israeli argument will persist, and the South will remain exposed to further rounds of escalation. Sovereignty cannot be shared. Either the Lebanese Army is the sole military authority, or Lebanon will remain an open arena for regional conflicts in which Iranian, Israeli, and American calculations intersect, while the state and society pay the price of confrontation. This is why the real question after Ali al-Taher is not: Who won the hill? But rather: Who will control it once the battle is over? If the answer is the Lebanese Army, Ali al-Taher could mark the beginning of a transition in the South from the logic of “resistance” to the logic of state responsibility. It could constitute a first step toward redefining national security so that defending the borders becomes the responsibility of state institutions rather than that of any party acting independently. If Israel remains, however, Lebanon will once again have lost part of its sovereignty, regardless of the narrative each side puts forward to justify what happened. In either case, one essential truth remains: Hezbollah cannot substitute itself for the state, and Israel cannot serve as the guarantor of its sovereignty. Lebanese sovereignty can only be restored by the Lebanese state, protected by its Army, and upheld by a clear political decision that puts an end to the duality of arms and authority.
