Lebanese Hezbollah miscalculated on Friday when it launched rocket attacks on the Israeli-held Golan Heights.
Claiming to be the great, loyal servant of the Lebanese people and the best means of resistance to Israeli aggression, Hezbollah’s narrative is one that fuses nationalism to Ruhollah Khomeini’s Islamism. But this narrative has two problems. First, Israel does not occupy Lebanon and has not done so since 2000. The rationale for the resistance is thus moot.
Second, more and more Lebanese are seeing Hezbollah for what it is rather than what it claims to be.
Which is to say, they now see Hezbollah as a kleptocratic band of thugs who are willing to bankrupt and break Lebanon in pursuit of their private war with Israel. In that vein, on Thursday, Hezbollah met some resistance of its own. Just not from Israel.
As a Hezbollah rocket convoy transited a Druze-dominated village in southeastern Lebanon, armed Druze villagers seized four of the group’s operatives. Enraged by the rocket team’s risking Israeli retaliation against their village, the Druze gunmen dragged the operatives from their vehicles. The four men were later handed over to Lebanese army personnel. The video below shows part of what happened.
Possible Hezbollah operatives dragged from their vehicles by local armed Druze villagers pic.twitter.com/PJJk6KYfEE
— ELINT News (@ELINTNews) August 6, 2021
While this show of rage is noteworthy in itself, it sits alongside a broader political rage rippling across Lebanon. Facing power cuts, fuel and basic goods shortages, and teetering on the edge of economic oblivion, Lebanese are demanding political reform.
The main obstacle to that reform is Hezbollah. The group refuses to allow for the appointment of nonsectarian Cabinet officials who could make policy with a view to the national interest beyond sectarian partisan interests. And as Lebanon’s crisis worsens and Hezbollah continues refusing to give ground, the anger against it is only growing.
Put simply, we should expect more incidents like this one. Lebanon’s stability as a state is increasingly in question.
