If Hezbollah were convinced that a military solution could end the ongoing and renewed uprising since October 17, it would use all its military arsenal to end the revolution. However, they adoptedinstead means of terrorism and intimidation, evoking militia images through organized motorcycle marches to intimidate the squares of Beirut- burning tents yesterday on the Martyr Square alongside and in partnership with Amal Movement.
Read more: The 76th Anniversary of an Incomplete Independence
Hezbollah are used to, as they have done before in past Lebanese internal conflicts, engaging a party vs party conflict. They have done so back in the 80’s in their battles with Amal, and they have waged an armed confrontation in May 7th 2008 with the March 14 coalition through a well-defined conflict that succeeded in subduing its leaders. In their most recent campaign, they lead a sectarian political confrontation that aimed to suppress Sunnis in Lebanon.
Today, Hezbollah faces an unfamiliar landscape in Lebanon. A Lebanese revolution that belongs to no party, no leader, and no sect. They realize that a military solution will not succeed because the revolution has crossed party and sectarian lines. Destroying this revolution may succeed in the short term but its spirit cannot be eliminated. This is why Hezbollah is choosing intimidation and terrorism. These intimidation tactics aim to force their partners in the government to acquiesce on one hand and terrorize the revolutionary squares into retreat and surrender in order to inhibit the continuing influx of civilian participants. All that is prelude to ending this revolutionary spectacle that continues to worry and confuse the figures of power.
In sum, the revolution is aware of what it is doing, so it is reluctant to offer the authority a leader or spokesmen, because it knows who its dealing with. The revolution clings to its Lebanese identity because it is also aware that victory should either be purely Lebanese or not be at all.
