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The Lebanese capital, Beirut, nowadays fills visitors with hope, as well as apprehension. The hope is embedded in a sense of renewal, following January’s election of a president free of interference from Syria, Iran or Hezbollah and their so-called axis of resistance, which for decades has been holding the country to ransom under the pretext of confronting Israel and the Western agenda for the Arab Middle East.
This sense of hope is evident in people as they talk about their new president, Joseph Aoun — another general, but no relation to his pro-Hezbollah predecessor, Michel Aoun — and his promise to revive the ethos of a neutral Lebanon, a state willing to serve all its people under the banner of “Army, People, State.” The banner favored by Hezbollah, “Army, People, Resistance,” had previously dominated the political and popular narratives of the country for more than two decades.
Another reason for the renewed sense of hope in the country is the appointment of a new head of government. Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, a former judge at the International Court of Justice, has assembled a Cabinet that breaks with the previous political elite’s practice of filling the government with corrupt cronies.
Salam’s government might be hard for many members of the nation’s parliament — and their supporters and clients in all communities across the country — to stomach. In particular, it has created further disquiet among the Shiite community, which has for decades formed the backbone of the popular support for Hezbollah’s military and political operations.
The feeling of apprehension is evident from the welcome you get once you land in Beirut, as you are never certain if you will be able to leave the airport safely. Hezbollah-affiliated mobs have often staged protests, burned UN vehicles, dumped trash and erected barricades at Rafic Hariri International Airport because, they say, the Lebanese government refuses to allow Iranian airlines to land there.
The sense of apprehension increases when you see Hezbollah flags lining streets across the country, alongside banners commemorating the deaths of many of the group’s commanders and leaders, while claiming victory and a willingness to continue the struggle. The apprehension comes from the fact that everyone, even Hezbollah’s strongest supporters, knows that things have changed, the war has been lost and it remains unclear who will foot the bill to rebuild the villages in the south that were destroyed during the group’s most recent conflict with Israel.
Some Hezbollah supporters have even blamed the government, unjustly, for not rushing to rebuild and provide assistance in the south, despite knowing full well that successive governments backed by Hezbollah bankrupted the state and drove away vital foreign aid, as well as the support on offer from Arab and international communities. This happened as a result of corruption and their rejection of any efforts to implement economic reforms that would have provided the transparency required to reassure international donors and give them the confidence needed to provide funding for this stricken country and its crippled financial and economic systems.
The feelings of apprehension also sometimes triumph when you see that Lebanon’s army has been slow to implement the ceasefire agreement reached between Hezbollah and Israel through completing its deployment south of the Litani River. Its mandate seems to be unclear. Will it merely remove Hezbollah’s weapons and infrastructure from the areas south of the Litani, or is it supposed to oversee the disarming of the militia that has morphed into a state within the state over the last three decades with help from the deposed Assad regime in Syria, as well the Iranian government and its notorious Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps?
Again, one feels apprehensive when watching the Lebanese return to their villages, farms and businesses only to find them completely destroyed by a war many people in the country believed was entirely avoidable. More than two months of full-blown fighting before the ceasefire took effect on Nov. 27 left villages close to the border with Israel completely destroyed. In addition, the conflict took a heavy toll on the southern suburbs of Beirut and parts of eastern Lebanon close to Baalbek, another Hezbollah stronghold that was flattened.
Meanwhile, the new leaders of the country continue their talks with the US and France in an effort to apply diplomatic pressure on Israel to fully withdraw from Lebanon, denouncing the continued presence of Israeli troops in five strategic locations as an “occupation.” The UN has condemned the failure of Israeli forces to completely withdraw as a violation of a Security Council resolution. One fears that the continuing Israeli presence could be a trigger for further confrontations between soldiers and villagers, as the latter return to their destroyed homes and businesses, thereby providing a pretext for Hezbollah to rebuild, reboot and renew its base of support and, ultimately, engage in another war.
One fears that the continuing Israeli presence could be a trigger for further confrontations between soldiers and villagers.
Mohamed Chebaro
Lebanon continues to oscillate between two extremes. On one side, there are high hopes for the future among a large segment of the population, who believe that, with the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, Hezbollah as a force is massively diminished. This gives the new leadership in Lebanon a golden opportunity to regain control of the state and its machinery to implement reforms and rebuild the country for the good of all its people.
On the other side, there remains the lingering fear that feelings of frustration and a sense of being vanquished might motivate some Hezbollah supporters to turn their guns on the government, the new presidency and their own people. This would create greater domestic insecurity, disrupting efforts to rebuild the nation free from the shackles of foreign influence and interference and ultimate return control of this hijacked country to its own people.
Visitors to Lebanon quickly deduce that the truce with Israel remains fragile. This fragility plays into the hands of the Israeli authorities, which are determined not to allow any repeat of the attacks on settlements close to the border with Lebanon, which forced the occupants to abandon their homes for more than 16 months. It also plays into the hands of Hezbollah, which, though diminished, remains unwilling to accept defeat, lay down its arms, bow out and allow Lebanon to be ruled by its legitimate institutions.
It is time to seize the chance to build a free and fair Lebanon for all. Not one oscillating permanently between hope and apprehension.
- Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy.