Opinion

Hezbollah, you probably had something to prove! By launching a "salvo of missiles and a swarm of drones" towards Israel in the early hours of Monday, March 2, you certainly had something in mind. To this day, the consequences are incalculable: more than seven hundred dead, ruthless eradication of entire neighborhoods, nearly nine hundred thousand displaced from their homes, including more than 150,000 who found refuge only in the precariousness and promiscuity of collective shelters! Why didn't you keep a low profile? You could not have shown such immaturity when you knew that the Hebrew state's retaliation would be disproportionate. In your capacity as a "self-proclaimed resistance movement," you were not big enough to measure yourself against the IDF, especially since you had been decapitated on September 17 by the "pagers." What then was the purpose of your act of provocation? Your pathetic fireworks could not reverse the course of the situation, especially since the missiles fired from Iran had proven ineffective and insufficient and had provided proof of the vulnerability of a clerical regime on the ropes.

I belong to a generation that grew up with war, that fears dying with it, and that, in the meantime, will have wasted the best years of its life waiting or hoping for things to get better. I belong to that in-between generation that witnessed the pre-1975 era without being able to salvage any real memories of youth from it. The one that can feel regret without ever truly turning the page. The one that believed that today’s youth–regardless of the camp they belong to–would, much as we did, look back and choose life over dying as so-called martyrs. I am left, like so many others, stunned that my country has been pulled back into an absurd war rather than signing a peace deal. It was that very peace that let the rest of the Arab world make giant strides, while we thought we held the region’s Holy Grail. Instead, we have been demoted to the very last rank, forced to witness the permanent reshaping of our geography and our demographics.

To be or not to be. In this famous tirade, Shakespeare symbolizes life with its share of pain, injustice, and suffering, which we have endured for decades, but it also embodies death and suicide as a way out. If a fanatical splinter group has decided to take this path in the name of an obscurantist cause, the majority of Lebanese openly reject it. The Announced End of a Tyranny The signs are not deceiving. History teaches us this again and again. When a dictatorship such as that of the mullahs and the Revolutionary Guards finds itself cornered, when danger looms, when the delusions and megalomania it long fed on for its survival crash against harsh reality, when the house of cards it painstakingly built for decades at any cost, in defiance of all moral and ethical consideration for a population it believes it holds under its yoke, collapses, when despair takes over and all indicators turn red, then blind fanaticism, furious hysteria, and kamikaze madness take over and prevail over reason.

They have precision missiles, but they have no blankets for the children. This is not an oversight or a logistical failure — it is a choice. Cement was not used to build shelters to protect families; it was used to dig tunnels to protect rockets. In this logic, a warhead holds strategic value, while a civilian is considered replaceable. You simply produce more. Demography becomes, in this way, a form of arsenal. And the suffering of those civilians is not a failure for those who run this system. On the contrary, it becomes a tool. A mother weeping in a school before the cameras of the entire world produces a powerful message that spreads on its own: look at what they are doing to us. What one rarely says is that the enemy did not destroy the shelters. There simply never were any.

Should we mourn Ali Khamenei? Shall we join the procession of the grieving, or perhaps name an avenue in our capital after this martyr? In their complacency, our governments once even gave the name of Hafez al-Assad to a busy street, celebrating in sæcula sæculorum his so-called golden age on our land.* After all, the Iranian Supreme Leader did indeed shape Lebanon and rule it just as the usurpers Assad—father and son—did. And even if it was through intermediaries, he left indelible marks on our history, violating our institutions and tearing apart our uniquely fragile social fabric. For decades, our country was nothing more than a Syrian-Iranian condominium, a strip of land along the Mediterranean where Damascus and Tehran simultaneously exercised their joint sovereignty.

In his latest address, Naim Qassem attempted to present Hezbollah’s decision to launch rockets and widen the war as a reluctant act of defense forced upon it by Israeli violations. According to his account, Hezbollah exercised patience for fifteen months after the November 2024 ceasefire, allowed diplomacy to run its course, and finally acted only when it became clear that Israel would not stop violating Lebanon’s sovereignty. This argument does not deserve to be debated seriously, because it is built on a lie. Qassem is not mistaken, misinformed, or presenting an alternative interpretation of events. He is lying. The facts are neither complicated nor ambiguous, and the timeline itself exposes the dishonesty of his claim. Hezbollah did not suddenly discover Israel’s violations after fifteen months of silence, nor did it decide that Lebanese sovereignty had finally reached a breaking point. The organization chose its moment very carefully, and it did so immediately after the killing of Ali Khamenei.

Lebanon today stands divided along a stark vertical fault line, particularly since the executive branch moved to ban all Hezbollah’s military activity. Meanwhile, the situation on the ground continues to deteriorate, as the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah steadily widens. The opening of the southern front, coupled with Hezbollah’s political and media responses – in which it criticizes the Council of Ministers and the President of the Republic, and attacks Lebanon as a whole – can, at best, be described as irresponsible, if not openly defiant. The first to pay the price are Hezbollah’s own supporters; Lebanon as a whole comes next.

The dramatic circumstances the country is experiencing undoubtedly require the presence of statesmen! Lebanon has known them, and we miss them, especially since their number is limited. Certainly, a statesman must be in power to prove himself, and he can only assert himself in significant circumstances. Thus, since 1943, certain presidents of the Republic have risen to the occasion as head of state in the face of events. They have risen to the occasion either through their vision or through concrete decisions that have spared the country from catastrophe. They have also demonstrated their competence by firmly adhering to the Constitution and the laws in force, through force, diplomacy, or a wise and firm policy. Above all, they have assumed their responsibilities regarding the defense of the sovereign, independent state. Current events demand that those in positions of responsibility within the executive branch (for the legislative branch, one must refer to Mr. Nabih Berri) demonstrate that they are truly statesmen and not mere civil servants or administrators. There are statesmen in the government. The time has come for them to assert themselves and spare the Lebanese people the worst.

Naim Qassem has delivered many speeches over the years. His latest, marking the anniversary of Hezbollah’s “martyr commanders,” was not particularly original—but it was revealing. It was part elegy, part sermon, part warning, and entirely predictable. The martyrs were invoked, the faith was affirmed, Israel was denounced, Iran was praised, and the Lebanese government was gently informed that it is both responsible for everything and entitled to decide very little. It is a remarkable formula: Hezbollah demands that the state defend sovereignty—provided the state does not insist on owning it. Qassem’s central argument is simple. Lebanon respected the November 2024 ceasefire; Israel did not. Therefore, the Lebanese government must confront Israeli violations. So far, so reasonable. But then comes the sleight of hand: while the government is urged to act like a sovereign authority vis-à-vis Israel, it is simultaneously warned not to act like a sovereign authority vis-à-vis Hezbollah’s weapons. Apparently, sovereignty is indivisible—except when it reaches Dahiyeh.

In Lebanon, money opens almost every door. It speeds up decisions, simplifies procedures, brings down many resistances. Yet there is one door it cannot open: the door of dignity, the door of genuine respect, the kind that cannot be bought. He knows it, even if he prefers not to admit it. He succeeded quickly, very quickly. Too quickly. A newly rich man, fortune arriving before recognition, money sometimes opaque, sometimes plainly dubious. Despite the assets, the connections, and the outward signs, he lives with a persistent unease: something is missing. A legitimacy. A place. The feeling of existing as something other than the one who pays.