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Many in Lebanon are convinced that on March 2, Hezbollah effectively invited a renewed Israeli occupation in the south of their country, 26 years after Israel withdrew unilaterally after its previous occupation.
The day of that withdrawal, May 25, 2000, was commemorated this year amid fears that Hezbollah’s latest war with Israel will lead to another Israeli occupation, one that this time turns parts of southern Lebanon into an uninhabited “no man’s land,” destroying homes, businesses, agricultural land, lives and, indeed, anything that moves, as part of Tel Aviv’s efforts to prevent Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps from firing missiles into northern Israel whenever Tehran thinks necessary.
As a young reporter, I covered the end of Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in May 2000. The assignment allowed me to travel extensively in a region that had been marred by wars and insecurity for as long as one could remember, since the inception of the State of Israel.
I spent days crisscrossing villages and towns along the border reporting on the feelings of joy about the reunification and reintegration of the land and its people, who against all odds had managed to hold onto their livelihoods, their agricultural and commercial activities, even in the darkest days of occupation.
Many of us journalists were sure Israel’s withdrawal would remove the raison d’etre for the existence of Hezbollah and its caches of weapons, and that calm would once again reign along the border with Israel while the Palestinians and Israelis continued their stalled search for peace.
We did not know that Syria, and behind it the regime in Tehran, had a different agenda, using Israel and the elusive struggle for the liberation of Palestine as a cover for their own hegemony and dominance of the region.
A few months later, on Oct. 7, 2000, I found myself back in southern Lebanon reporting on rising tensions after Hezbollah forces, disguised as UN troops, attacked Israeli military posts at Shebaa Farms, on the border between Lebanon and Syria, and kidnapped three soldiers. The justification given was that Shebaa and nearby villages such as Al-Ghajar, which remained under Israeli control, were part of Lebanon, although Syria also laid claim to them. This was the justification for Hezbollah to retain its weapons and continue its so-called resistance.
The 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel flared up after yet another Hezbollah incursion and kidnapping of soldiers tested Israel’s resolve. The inconclusive result of this 34-day conflict strengthened Hezbollah’s grip on Lebanon and destroyed hopes of unshackling the country from its past history as a conduit for Palestinian, and later Lebanese, resistance against Israel. The Israeli reprisals had destroyed the country’s infrastructure, which had been renewed when its civil war ended in 1990 through a rebuilding project championed, with the support of Gulf Arab countries, by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who governed on a platform that included a pledge to move Lebanon away from confrontation with Israel.
Many of us journalists were sure Israel’s withdrawal would remove the raison d’etre for the existence of Hezbollah and its caches of weapons.
Mohamed Chebaro
After the 2006 war, despite the adoption by the UN Security Council of Resolution 1701 — which called for an end to hostilities, the withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, the withdrawal of Hezbollah from areas south of the Litani River, and the disarmament of Hezbollah and other armed groups — and the deployment in the south of the UN Interim Force in Lebanon and the Lebanese army, Hezbollah, backed by the Assad regime in Syria and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps conspired to make Lebanon the spearhead of Iran’s so-called axis of resistance that slowly began to extend from Baghdad to Beirut, Damascus to Sanaa.
However, in the years leading up to the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas, southern Lebanon enjoyed a golden era in which money sent home by expatriates and expenditures by the ongoing UN mission in the country filtered down to help improve the living standards of most inhabitants.
Hezbollah’s political control, cohabitation and power projection as part of the central Lebanese state apparatus, or its “state within a state,” also added to this sense of calm and stability, despite the occasional infraction along the border with Israel.
During those years, my visits to friends and family in southern Lebanon revealed a growing region with economic activities and opportunities that would be the envy of any developing nation.
All of this came crashing down in the aftermath of Oct. 7 when Hezbollah, on the orders of Tehran, launched a war against Israel in support of Gaza. By the time a ceasefire was agreed in November the following year, Hezbollah’s militia was broken.
As if that was not enough, Hezbollah’s active support for Tehran in its war against the US and Israel has once again resulted in devastation in southern Lebanon, where the homes of thousands of people were destroyed as Israel flattened most villages and towns within a 10-20 kilometer deep buffer zone, displacing more than a million inhabitants.
The consensus in Lebanon now is that no one wants a war, and peace with Israel can be achieved without requiring any formal normalization of relations until a two-state solution to the conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is in place.
The government of President Joseph Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam are walking a tightrope as they attempt to shepherd the country toward peace through rounds of direct negotiation with Israel under US auspices and facilitation. This is taking place against the backdrop of continued meddling by Iran, and direct threats from Hezbollah that it will oppose the peace process violently if necessary.
Hezbollah’s chief, Naim Qassem, last week urged the Lebanese government to abandon direct talks with Israel, potentially positioning a regional agreement between the US and Iran as Lebanon’s only viable path to a full cessation of hostilities.
In his statement he echoed the Iranian rhetoric that only a deal between Tehran and Washington can save Lebanon, and once again rejected, with veiled threats, the idea of Hezbollah giving up its weapons, which is a key requirement for any successful agreement with Israel.
The degree to which Lebanon might manage to distance itself from Iran and its proxies remains uncertain. It is ironic, though, that as Lebanon commemorates the 26th anniversary of the end of one Israeli occupation, there are some in the country who seem to remain hell bent on inviting the same occupiers back in.
Parallel to that, it is equally ironic that Israel is once again attempting something it tried and failed to do decades ago. Boots on the ground in Lebanon could not extinguish the Hezbollah flame then, and repeating the tactic now will succeed only supplying it with more oxygen at a time when the appeal of the group is waning among core supporters who have see their livelihoods destroyed for no other reason than the militia’s blind obedience to orders from Iran.
It is a bad situation when events conspire and result in the occupation of one country by another. However, it is unfathomable that a people might invite the resumption of an occupation, 26 years after their liberation.
Against such a backdrop, peace is likely to remain elusive in Lebanon until people start to learn from past mistakes.
- Mohamed Chebaro is a British-Lebanese journalist with more than 25 years of experience covering war, terrorism, defense, current affairs and diplomacy.
