Hezbollah faces, for the first time in their history, a challenge they aren’t prepared for.
Hezbollah are not facing a virtual opposition, as some of their leaders are claiming. They possess a legion of thousands of keyboard warriors that can commit cyber-attacks and shut down opposing sites whenever they please. What Hezbollah are really facing are the people themselves; those who have been sacrificed on the altar of political and financially corrupt government sanctioned deals; a government that is crumblingfrom the weight and burden of sectarianism.
Read more: When Hezbollah’s Resistance Becomes the Authorities Security Force
Hezbollah were unable to convince their base despite their ferocious campaign against the Lebanese protestors and their demands whom Hezbollah went as far as to accuse them of treason. They were unable to convince them that these protests are exclusively targeting Hezbollah and their arms as they continuously attempted to promote. Moreover, Hezbollah’s allies, the Free Patriotic Movement, were also unable to convince their base that the protests were primarily targeting the presidency while being paid for by the Lebanese Forces, Future Movement, and Walid Jomblatt.
The protests in fact, targeted all these aforementioned parties. The biggest and most recent events occurred on Sunday when large and unprecedented riots and demonstrations took place in downtown Beirut, up until dawn on Monday, in rejection to renaming Hariri Prime Minister once again.
This is how the conspiracy theory adopted by Hezbollah and their allies failed. What has occurred has been a massive blow to them. This is because for the first time, Hezbollah and their allies possess a parliamentary majority courtesy of an election law served to them by Hariri on a silver platter. Following the election of President Michel Aoun, Hezbollah reveled in a position of power, or so it seemed, controlling both the legislative and the executive branch, in addition to elevating Gebran Bassil in his attempts to weaken Hariri, Jomblatt, and sidelining the Lebanese Forces.
Today, the old rhetoric adopted by Hezbollah of constantly flaunting the strength of their militia, and the range of their missiles that can turn the tables at anytime is a non-factor against the chants of young suffering adolescents demonstrating against the ruling class whose dealings have marginalized them and left them unemployed and frustrated. The reins of power in Lebanon have become subject to imminent external intervention that is willing to implement a long-term rescue plan at the cost of curbing the power of the current administration in which Hezbollah would be the biggest loser; having been unable to enjoy the majority that they seized once upon a time only to lose it on the night of October 17th. Today at the forefront are those whom Hezbollah and their allies made had no considerations for. They are the people. They are from all sects; and they are here to put an end to all the corrupt political deals by Hezbollah, their allies, as well as their adversaries who all share the same eagerness to abuse their positions of power and authority.
And if Hezbollah’s armsare directed towards the Zionist enemy, which is the slogan the party always echoes, then what happens in the streets is the true test of the sincerity of this position. Considering that Hezbollah know very well that their weapons can no longer works against the state, even through mere posturing, their interests today are no longer be achieved withing a failing government. At best they need an inept government, but a government nonetheless.
