Why Lebanon is seen as caught ‘between mafia and militia’

CHICAGO/LONDON: Lebanese experts have painted a bleak picture of the country’s impending future. They describe the country as caught “between mafia and militia” and criticize the US’s inability to intervene effectively in the region.

On the Ray Hanania Radio Show, Hamoud Salhi, professor of political science at California State University-Dominguez Hills, and Jean AbiNader, vice president for policy at the American Task Force on Lebanon, highlighted the strategic missteps the US is making, especially as the tensions between Israel and Hezbollah are increasing.

The US “is strategically influenced. First, can you afford to continue sponsoring this war?” Salhi said, adding that further escalation could draw Hezbollah and Iran’s regional allies such as Yemen and Iraq into a broader conflict.

He explained that the US had so far tried to leverage its influence in the region through Israel to counter growing powers such as Russia and China.

However, after almost a year of conflict, Salhi questioned the sustainability of the current US approach, saying: “The US cannot sustain that. And more than anything else, Israel cannot sustain this war.”

He warned that continued regional instability could lead to mass protests, putting “tremendous pressure” on the US and its Arab allies.

“The US could potentially lose its allies in the region, the leaders they work with,” Salhi said, adding that any potential normalization efforts must include a solution to the Palestinian cause.

He expected that any significant changes in Washington’s position would likely only occur after the US presidential election on November 5. At that point, President Joe Biden, no longer encumbered by election concerns and with just over two months left in office before the president’s inauguration, his successor on January 20, 2025 “could get away with making decisions that would impact the region can benefit.”

Judging from events on Thursday, when Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu arrived in New York to address the UN General Assembly, US influence over Israel is weakening.

The day before Netanyahu’s arrival, the US and 11 allies, including France, the European Union, Saudi Arabia and the UAE, had called in a joint statement for “an immediate 21-day ceasefire across the border between Lebanon and Israel to provide space for diplomacy toward concluding a diplomatic settlement.”

White House and French officials indicated the ceasefire plan had been coordinated directly with Netanyahu. But faced with pressure from right-wing members of his government, Netanyahu’s first act upon reaching the US was to reject the proposal, with a spokesman claiming he had not even responded to it.

Instead, the prime minister’s office said, he had “ordered the IDF to continue fighting at full strength, according to the plans presented to him.”

In recent months, the US, along with Qatar and Egypt, has been a key mediator in ceasefire negotiations between Hamas and Israel in Gaza. Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, had indicated that similar efforts could also halt hostilities between Hezbollah and Tel Aviv.

Over the past week, however, both Hezbollah and Israel have escalated their attacks, and on Saturday Israeli aircraft carried out a massive airstrike in the Beirut suburb of Dahiyeh, killing Nasrallah, along with several other Hezbollah figures and possibly some Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders. came to life.

A Hezbollah statement on Saturday said Nasrallah “has joined his fellow martyrs” but that the group would “continue the holy war against the enemy and in support of Palestine.”

The escalation followed the explosion of thousands of pagers and walkie-talkies used by Hezbollah operatives in two waves of attacks believed to have been carried out by Mossad, Israel’s intelligence agency, that killed dozens of people and injured thousands of others across Lebanon. It is believed that most of the dead were fighters, based on obituaries posted online by Hezbollah.

Subsequent Israeli airstrikes on Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon and the outskirts of Beirut have killed nearly 700 people and displaced hundreds of thousands.

“The Lebanon issue is part of the bigger picture, of the grand design that Israel has,” Salhi said. “We could talk about the Golan (Heights), we could talk about what is happening today, even in Yemen. These are really complex issues.

“But it is also, as we have seen so far, connected to the big, big problem of the existence of an entity like Israel, which sees its security through strength, military build-up and occupation within the context of their bigger picture , which is occupying other countries for the purpose of achieving the right agenda.”

Israel and Lebanon have a long history of conflict, with tensions reaching their peak during the Lebanese Civil War. Israel invaded Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 in response to attacks by Palestinian militants and occupied southern Lebanon until 2000 while waging a guerrilla war against Hezbollah.

After Israel’s withdrawal, Hezbollah’s attacks led to the 2006 Lebanon War, which formally ended with UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The resolution, calling for a cessation of hostilities, Israeli withdrawal and the deployment of UNIFIL forces, remains only partially implemented, leaving Lebanon in a web of unresolved conflict.

“(This situation) goes to the heart of what we have been saying about Lebanon for 40 years,” AbiNader said.

“In other words, most people have the image in their minds of a country torn between Christians and Muslims, which is absolutely false. And now the story is that the country is torn between Christians and Hezbollah, or between Israel and Hezbollah. The predominant images are incorrect to begin with.

“But we are fighting for the soul of Lebanon,” he said, adding that the question at this point was whether Lebanon would become “an outpost for the Iranian paramilitary called Hezbollah, or will it return to its weak roots as a quasi-democratic country?”

He said the current situation highlights the fragile balance underlying Lebanon’s entire political system.

“The expression that many Lebanese use is: they are caught between the mafia and the militia. The mafia, the old political leadership and the militia, which has its own raison d’être.

“And so Lebanon has really gotten itself into a trap that underlines the question of whether or not Lebanon can survive.”

AbiNader said Hezbollah could have filled the vacuum left by Lebanon’s outdated and dysfunctional political system, which in itself was a major obstacle to progress.

“Until you have a (real) state, you have Hezbollah, which has a stronger army, a banking system, supermarkets, all these kinds of things that support people and were done the way the government should, but didn’t” , he said. said.

The Lebanese people are now suffering because “the dominant (Israeli) narrative is that Hezbollah is bad, and therefore, by extension, the Lebanese are bad and so we can do whatever we want to protect our northern border.”

Israel’s current attacks on Lebanon are motivated by its determination to allow an estimated 70,000 Israelis, driven from the north by Hezbollah rocket attacks since October 7, to return to their homes close to the Lebanese border.

But the attempt to push Hezbollah back from the border area, AbiNader said, “has resulted in increased retaliation against the Lebanese people, and very little against Hezbollah.

“Look at the threats Israel is making. They always say, ‘Okay, Lebanese citizens leave these areas because that’s where Hezbollah has its rocket launchers. We’ll go in and clear out the rocket launchers.’

“Well, we just accept what is said about Hezbollah, without really knowing on the ground what is and is not. There is no doubt that Hezbollah is an evil force, but they also represent the Lebanese people.

“So the question is: how can we ensure that the needs of the Lebanese people, who Hezbollah represents, are met without further enmity?”

AbiNader called on the international community to intervene and set clear boundaries to “stop what is happening in Lebanon,” adding that competing US interests in the region have long hampered Lebanon’s integration and progress.

“But that’s not going to happen,” he said.

“Hezbollah and Israel will certainly not change. They both think they are protecting their own people and their own interests, and therefore they are morally right. So if you have two moral rights arguing against each other, you’re not going to find an easy solution.”

He added: “So until there is a dialogue about these dueling stories – without trying to find out who is right, just trying to find out what the middle ground is – we will continue to have this conflict.”