As Lebanon continues its freefall, a similar trend to what we are seeing in Iran is emerging. The people of Lebanon are rising up and rejecting the actions of the Iranian regime. Now at first glance, you might be asking, why would the people of Lebanon resist the Iranian regime? But the truth is that Iran has had its tentacles all over Lebanon for years, contributing to the chaos and destruction of what was once a thriving example of liberalism in the Middle East.
Everywhere the Iranian regime has exported its violent agenda, suffering and bloodshed have followed, from Yemen to Syria to Iraq – and Lebanon is no different. Since the introduction of Iranian-funded terrorist organization Hezbollah in 1982 with the stated agenda of “supporting” the Shia community in Lebanon, Lebanon has been taken hostage by the agenda of the mullahs and has deteriorated drastically in nearly every way imaginable.
Not long after Hezbollah was established and trained by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), they encouraged the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to set up shop and recruit terrorists who carried out numerous attacks against Israel, leading Israel into the First Lebanon War in 1982. Shortly after, Hezbollah launched a gruesome civil war from 1985 to 2000 against other communities in Lebanon, in particular the Christian Phalangists for their “crimes against Muslims and other Christians,” as well as the French and Americans with a presence in Lebanon; they also called for an Islamic government. Overall, an estimated 120,000 people died during the course of the Lebanese civil war.
But Hezbollah wasn’t done dragging Lebanon into bloody conflict. They continued attacking Israel from 2000 to 2006, and kidnapped Israeli soldiers across the border leading to the Second Lebanon War. The war ended with UN resolution 1701, which was a mutually agreed-upon statement that Hezbollah would be disarmed and cease military activity. Since then, however, at the behest and funding of Iran, Hezbollah has not disarmed and in fact has done the opposite. Continuing right up through today, they continue to attack Israel from the north, as well as calling for its destruction.
But Hezbollah isn’t only problematic when it comes to Israel. Their strength within Lebanon, again with the bankrolling of Iran, has put thousands of Lebanese at risk physically. Hezbollah is known to store large weapons munitions warehouses in civilian areas, including near schools, hospitals, and even the Beirut airport. These storage facilities have resulted in explosions that kill Lebanese repeatedly, but none more prominent than in the Beirut blast in which 2,750 tons of industrial ammonium nitrate belonging to Hezbollah exploded. It had been stored in the port of Beirut since 2013 without safety measures. The tragic incident killed 216 people and left over 6,500 Lebanese injured.
Today, while Lebanon’s economy is rapidly collapsing due to the instability which Iran and Hezbollah created, Hezbollah continues to focus on promoting the Iranian ayatollah’s agenda rather than caring for the people of Lebanon. In 2018, Hezbollah received an estimated $700 million from Iran, but that did not go to the people of Lebanon. Instead it was squandered by Hezbollah’s corrupt terrorist leaders on their sinister operations.
Since its inception, Hezbollah has manipulated Lebanon, a diverse and sectarian country, driving deeper societal divides and exploiting them for political control through whatever means necessary – “democratically” winning large numbers of seats in the Lebanese parliament, and refusing to work with other parties for the betterment of Lebanon. When that doesn’t meet their ends, Hezbollah hasn’t been afraid to assassinate political opposition, even at the highest levels (such as the assassination of prime minister Rafik Hariri).
Their most recent refusal to form a government, along with their demand to control certain ministries (such as the finance ministry) so Hezbollah can circumvent US sanctions on their terrorist activity, has significantly fed today’s instability, as the country is unable to address their people’s basic needs under an extended caretaker government. Yet this status quo of chaos has allowed Hezbollah (and Iran) to continue prioritizing their terrorist agenda in foreign operations in Syria and abroad. Unfortunately for them, the people of Lebanon may just be waking up.
In the last few weeks, Lebanese have taken to the streets over an unprecedented economic crisis. The people of Lebanon are fed up with Hezbollah in a way we have never seen before. When Hezbollah launched rocket attacks on Israel, a stark violation of UN resolution 1701, the residents of the Druze village they attempted to use fought back physically, kicking out the Hezbollah terrorists. Shortly after, Maronite Patriarch Bechara Rai publicly called on the Lebanese army to fight against Hezbollah, to protect the interest of the Lebanese people. On the streets of Lebanon nearly every night over the past week, Lebanese can be heard chanting against Iran, the ayatollah of Iran, and Hezbollah – and is it any wonder?
Lebanese journalist Baria Alamuddin recently wrote that “Hezbollah and Aoun [the current President] have destroyed everything that made Lebanon great.” Indeed, since 1982, Hezbollah has dragged Lebanon into a bloody civil war, multiple foreign wars, a crippling economic crisis, a deeply divided society, a corrupt and undemocratic political system which ignores the needs of the people, countless bloody terror attacks against minorities and assassinations of Lebanese political leaders, and the Beirut blast amongst other “accidents’’ that killed Lebanese.
The terrorist organization Hezbollah, with the backing of Iran, is rapidly turning Lebanon into a failed state. The world must stand with the people of Lebanon against such activity and give back sovereignty to the people of Lebanon, not the ayatollahs.
The writer is the CEO of Social Lite Creative LLC and a research fellow at the Tel Aviv Institute.