Illustration by Gina Koller
Israel is not merely occupying South Lebanon. It is systematically erasing big chunks of it; a large part of the south today is unfamiliar to much of the population; whole villages have been reduced to rubble. Agricultural production has been hindered to almost unprecedented levels. Whole social and family networks have been disrupted. More than a million and a half people have been displaced across the country. Just a few weeks ago, on April 8, Israel killed over 300 people in a single day, in under 10 minutes. In separate incidents, it also deliberately targeted health workers and journalists, the last of whom was Amal Khalil.
One would assume this image of a violent occupier devouring a big subsection of the country would induce a unified Lebanese response. But the reality, contrary to that expectation, is a Lebanon divided: a public edging on a civil war, at least discursively. Hate speech has skyrocketed in the Lebanese public opinion; threats of violence now dominate the country’s social fabric.
If we follow the internal debate, one would assume that it’s primarily about Hezbollah’s alignment with Iran, or Lebanese divisions over Hezbollah’s decision to open a front on October 8, 2023. One would assume this is a debate between those who “want peace” and those who “desire war.” Between those who “wish to succumb” and those who “wish to be defiant.”
While these conversations remain important, they are also surface-level. There are deeper scars that have drawn these divisions in Lebanon historically, particularly at inflection points i in 2000 (the liberation of the south from Israeli occupation) and 2005 (the independence of Lebanon from Syria).
The scars from these watershed moments are political, personal, and deeply spiritual. They also inform the raison d’être of whole political groups and communities. For the individual citizens in Lebanon, the quest for national liberation thus becomes part of one’s search for a “rebellious spirit,” and this is precisely why Lebanon’s youth are part of the conversations surrounding Lebanon’s sovereignty today. It is not necessarily about identitarian tribalism, but about the personal heroism of rebellion, which has captivated many.
The Liberation of South Lebanon in 2000
Lebanon has had a series of developmental challenges following its independence in 1943. For starters, the system was formed in a way where bold and transformative decisions, beyond daily bureaucracy, required a consensus that the new country did not have. This, in part, is due to the fact that there was no consensus over the creation of the country originally. The idea of “Greater Lebanon,” established in 1920 under the supervision of France, was not an ideal foundation for those who preferred unity with Syria, and was also a questionable model for those who preferred an even smaller Maronite-prioritized canton.
Because of this, Lebanon did not have a unified national ethos, which did not allow for a smooth process of decision-making and governance. But things were slowly beginning to percolate in Beirut, which allowed for some contradicting principles to flourish: Arab nationalism, liberal economics, socialism, political pluralism, and the rise of a renaissance in the press, theater, and music, especially among the Lebanese Left.
With the Nakba in Palestine and the increased vulnerability of South Lebanon, a sense of nationalism in Lebanon among the Muslim-majority and leftist forces could not be divorced from Palestinian sovereignty, alongside the question of social justice and political equality. The 1969 Cairo Agreement, while not very popular among many South Lebanese due to the implications of militarizing the region altogether, affirmed the marriage between Lebanese nationalism and Palestinian national liberation, further demonstrated in the political program of the “Lebanese National Movement,” led by Kamal Joumblatt during the civil war six years later.
These events culminated in the Israeli invasion of South Lebanon and Beirut in 1982, which paved the way for the launch of “Jammoul,” the Lebanese National Resistance Front. It also planted the seeds of an Islamic resistance, later branded as Hezbollah. With Iranian support, Hezbollah eventually took charge of the resistance and pushed the Israeli occupation out in 2000, without any political consensus over its arms thereafter. Hassan Nasrallah then became the hero of that liberation, and Hezbollah proved to be a force with national concerns, despite its investment in the transnational framework provided by the Iranian regime.
As a result, for many analysts, activists, and youth today, Hezbollah is positioned not merely as a “regional proxy,” but as part of a longer lineage of ideas, practitioners, and ideologues who rejected a negotiative settlement with Israel, pursued armed struggle as an alternative, and bridged the question around Lebanese nationalism with broader national concerns across the region.
The Independence of Beirut from Syrian Assadist Hegemony
Those who wanted an independent Lebanon disconnected from a “Greater Syria” back in 1943 were not only making a claim about demographics: for instance, how would the country’s national model affect the relative representative strength of Christians, Druze, Sunnis, Shiites, among other religious sects. They were also making claims about Lebanon’s unique archeological and political history, in addition to its modern constitutional and cultural development in the late 19th and early 20th century.
With the rise of Nasserism and pan-Arabism, which failed to unify Syria and Egypt under a coherent governance and market model back in the 1960s, a confrontational alternative was already being put in place by the Maronite and cross-sectarian liberal elite. For some, Nasserism meant irresponsible adventurism and socialism. For others, it meant dictatorship. For everyone in this camp, it meant the end of Greater Lebanon as a “liberal” enterprise with “specific characteristics.” This revived purpose for an independent and “neutral” country was advanced further with the Cairo Agreement and the growing tension between the PLO and Maronite-majority political factions. Ironically, the Syrian regime was called to intervene by that same Maronite elite, led by Pierre Gemayel and other forces under the banner of the “Lebanese Front.”
The regime, however, inevitably became that elite’s primary adversary. Pierre Gemayel’s son, Bashir Gemayel, led that oppositional advance, climaxing in the Battle of Zahle between the two forces in 1981. Zahle was one of Lebanon’s largest and most strategic cities, and the regime was eventually forced to withdraw in June of 1981. A hero of Maronite militant confrontationalism, Gemayel was then assassinated following his election as President in 1982. Toward the end of the civil war, the anti-Syria Maronite camp was represented by the Lebanese Forces led by faction leader Samir Geagea and a part of the Lebanese Army led by then General Michel Aoun.
Both of them were crushed by Syria, which then enforced a security regime over much of the country for 15 years, with a concrete alliance with Hezbollah and its local allies. They all outsourced the economy to then Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who largely based his vision and policies on a neoliberal model addicted to debt, rent-based sectors, monopolies, and the false promises of a regional peace. However, following the liberation of South Lebanon and the death of the late Syrian President Hafez Al-Assad, Hariri became a clear anti-Syrian force in Lebanese politics. He was not alone—before him, major parts of political and civil society, ranging from Syria’s former ally Walid Joumblatt, to the underground Maronite-led forces, to dissident leftists frustrated with the Lebanese Communist Party’s subservience, began to move. This all culminated in March in what was later called the Independence Intifada, following Hariri’s assassination a month earlier.
Since then, the country has been vertically divided, and that divide only grew with a series of episodes: the May 7, 2008 clashes, Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria in favor of the Assad regime, and finally, the October 17, 2019 uprising. Despite the uprising’s unifying posture at first, Hezbollah’s positioning in favor of Lebanon’s political and economic elite encouraged the protests’ cooptation by the group’s sectarian adversaries, primarily the Lebanese Forces.
Between 2019 and 2021, Lebanon collapsed economically, financially, and politically under a ruling class virtually designated and protected by Hezbollah. In light of these crises, Hezbollah opened a front in South Lebanon on October 8.
These sour divisions around Hezbollah, which erupted for the first time in 2005, find themselves in the Lebanese political discourse to this very day. Contrary to the earlier interval, though, the current moment is further complicated by one of the deadliest Israeli military campaigns and occupations in Lebanon’s history, accompanied by an even more contentious discussion about Hezbollah’s near-complete monopoly over Lebanese foreign policy. In such a polarizing context, it’s hard for supporters on either side to imagine anything but their own heroism and victimhood in the face of the alienation of other factions.
Can We Bridge These National Liberations?
These two moments in history address a particular element of the conversation in Lebanon: myth-making, belonging, and historical narration. However, it unjustly leaves out important elements of class politics, geopolitics, and other dimensions that inform Lebanon’s development as a state and society.
Lebanon today is no longer the Lebanon of 1943. The country has drastically transformed. We’ve witnessed an enormous population exchange, the boiling pot centrality of Beirut, and strong forms of economic dependency between regions. It is nearly impossible to discuss alternatives within the state of discuss alternatives within the state of Lebanese politics today, particularly with the rising and violent ethnosectarian tensions in Syria and the threat of Israeli consolidation from the south.
Can we bridge the “heroic” narrations of sacrifice and nationalism present in both liberations: 2000 and 2005? I’d argue that it is indeed possible, even amid Israel’s war of erasure. In fact, this bridge may be the country’s last shot to advance a common mission to restore its sovereignty. Only then can the quest for reclaiming South Lebanon from a brutal occupation and war of erasure become one championed by all components of the Lebanese population and not just Hezbollah’s direct constituency.