How Hezbollah Lost Everything
It's not just Israel
I’ve been opposed to Hezbollah for the better part of my adult life. I had initially made an exception for them because they, at least, did something about the Israeli threat. I won't get into this bit as much here as I did elsewhere1 — for our purposes, it is enough to say that you have to understand how Israeli crimes created the conditions for a Hezbollah to rise in the first place. If you don't start there, you won't understand much.
The party’s strategic blunders are obvious for anyone to see. It is hard not to conclude that Hezbollah’s decision to back Hamas after October 7th was a catastrophe for the party. As much as they’d like us to believe that giving martyrs to the cause is something they’re used to, there is also such a thing as giving too many martyrs too quickly.
But how did we get here? There are a number of reasons, some more obvious that others, and the lesser ones perhaps more interesting.
The obvious one first: Hezbollah’s enemy, Israel, is just too strong. It also does not care about international law, or the rules of war in general. The Israelis have long concluded that this is an advantage they cannot give up, and the so-called international community has proven time and time again that Israel can violate international law a dozen times a day. Hezbollah has no such privileges. The party had to be more careful with its targets, even though that still led to civilian deaths.
For reasons I’ll get into, I’m not necessarily convinced that Hezbollah being less careful would have changed things that significantly, but it is still notable. Even as I write these words, Israel continues to violate the ceasefire agreement. This is so common - some 10,000 times or so already, averaging more than once an hour - that the phrase “you cease, we fire” has become, in my humble opinion, the most accurate description of the Israeli version of a ‘ceasefire.'
Having an Orwellian neighbour is not the only reason Hezbollah lost everything, though. It’s not even the main reason.
Hezbollah lost because it never bothered to get the rest of the Lebanese population on board. The priorities of the Iranian state were almost always more important to Hezbollah than what the rest of Lebanon wanted or did not want. Nasrallah made it very explicit in 2006 when he said “we, willing or not, whether the Lebanese are willing or not, Lebanon now and the resistance in Lebanon are engaged in the battle of the Umma.”2 Putting aside the fact that most of the population is either not in the Umma or has never signed on to Hezbollah's interpretation of the Umma, the key phrase here is ‘willing or not.’ That was one of the many mistakes made by the party.
The self-evidently authoritarian tendencies of Hezbollah trace their roots to the 1980s as one of the groups formed to fight the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon. Being part of a cross-sectarian coalition opposing Israel was not part of Hezbollah's vision, however, not unless it meant dominating everyone else through sheer force of arms. Following the Iranian Islamist playbook post-1979, Hezbollah proceeded to assassinate prominent Lebanese Marxist thinkers. I covered this in an older piece so I won't repeat the details here.
This was always a fundamental weakness at the core of Hezbollah as the so-called resistance: the enemy was not just Israel, but other Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians and others who had divergent views over how to oppose Israel, and what a post-Zionist future should look like. From the aforementioned assassinations to Nasrallah sending his thugs to beat us up during the 2019 uprising, passing by even more assassinations after 2005 by Hezbollah and/or their ally Assad and, of course, Hezbollah's military intervention in Syria, the party has often turned its guns against the rest of us at the expense of actually resisting. Killing prominent anti-Zionist voices such as Hussein Mroué and Mehdi Amel (1987) and Samir Kassir and George Hawi (2005) and Lokman Slim (2021) harmed an actual resistance to such an extent that it may never recover — certainly not in this form.
And here we are. As a friend put it, “Hezbollah co-opted resistance and now no one is allowed to resist.” There are now no forces on the ground that can withstand the Israelis, who are more confident than they’ve ever been.3 The resistance has been decimated, by the Israelis, by Assad (see article above), by Hezbollah. That multiple factors led to this decline - and not just Israel - is a reality that many on the Left have simply refused to engage with. Under the banner of anti-Zionism and/or anti-Imperialism, apparently, little critical thinking is allowed.
An effective resistance needs to be inclusive, principled, strategic — qualities that Hezbollah has rarely proven itself to have. Authoritarianism, extreme religious conservatism, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia and an ideological commitment to opposing left-wing ideology are not, it turns out, great ingredients for a long-term resistance opposing a hyper-militaristic state with a long history of violating all rules, and which happens to be backed by a world superpower. You need more people to believe not just in the cause - which many already do - but that you, and specifically you, are best placed to fight for it.
Hezbollah did not give a shit about any of that. They instead sunk further and further into authoritarianism while sending their own men to die for or on behalf of even more authoritarian states like Assad's Syria and Iran.
Hezbollah invading Syria to prop up a brutal dictator did not weaken Israeli settler colonialism. All it did was lead many Syrians to cheer on when Israel bombed Hezbollah, even as Syrian attitudes towards Israel-Palestine remain generally pro-Palestine. Hezbollah invading Syria also required the party to share intel with a notoriously corrupt regime, a fact which evidently made Israeli intelligence's job much easier. (And Hezbollah using War on Terror language to smear any anti-Assad Syrian a ‘Takfiri’ did not make them popular in Syria.4)
Hezbollah unconditionally backing the Islamic republic of Iran and the clerical fascists that run it did not weaken Israeli Apartheid. All it did was lead many Iranians to associate Palestine with their mass murdering regime, who forced Palestine down their throat alongside regressive gender apartheid and ethno-sectarian dispshittery. Nasrallah repeatedly declaring his allegiance to the Ayatollah or Hezbollah hanging posters of Soleimani and Khomenei and Khamenei everywhere never resonated with most Lebanese, as most of us couldn't give less of a fuck about the Ayatollah's hopes and dreams and would rather he fucks off.
Hezbollah killing left-wing anti-Zionist Lebanese intellectuals did not weaken Zionism. All it did was turn anti-Zionism into, at best, an empty slogan and, at worse, an excuse to crush dissent — quite often crushing other anti-Zionists. Essentially, Hezbollah depoliticised anti-Zionism. One had to oppose Zionism without even knowing why — beyond ‘Israel bad.’ Even I had to constantly justify myself to Hezbollah fanboys because it was never enough to be anti-Zionist. You had to accept their specific brand of anti-Zionism and if you disagreed, well, congrats, you are now a Zionist. We make the rules here.
Nasrallah calling for the death of LGBTQ people did not, shockingly, free Palestine. All that did was make it easier for Israeli Hasbara to tell part of its audience “hey, we're nice to gay people — as long as they're not Palestinians, wink wink — unlike those barbarians.” One thing Hezbollah has been remarkably good at is give free Hasbara content.
Hezbollah allying itself with the rabidly anti-Palestinian ‘Free Patriotic Movement’ led by the nepo baby Gebran Bassil or them propping up the corrupt and Saudi-backed prime minister Hariri5 or them attacking protesters in 2019 or them cracking down on journalists, photographers, activists and others when convenient did not, also shockingly, quiet accusations of hypocrisy.
Hezbollah could have tried to understand why actors such as Assad and the Ayatollah are unpopular instead of accusing everyone of being part of a Zionist conspiracy. Hezbollah could have tried to compromise on its commitment to the Lebanese sectarian system, and especially its impact on women, instead of committing itself to arguably the most conservative and misogynistic platform in years, if not decades.
I could go on. Hezbollah has been a right-wing project from the start, a fact which many a communist or leftist has pointed out time and time again. This did not seem to have made a difference to many other leftists, who are usually outside of the region (although don't get me started on Arab tankies) and who seem content with believing that just because an armed group opposes Zionism it makes them immune to real criticism. It's a luxury that Hezbollah's victims could never afford, as they were mostly exiled or killed.
The Israelis did not force Nasrallah to smear and exile and kill Syrians, Lebanese and Palestinians. It is not normal that I, a left-wing grandson of a Palestinian refugee, was smeared as a Zionist by Hezbollah fanboys who also sent me lovely death threats for my opposition to the Assad regime and Hezbollah’s criminal intervention in Syria. It’s not normal that left-wing Lebanese Shias I know are always aware of what they can or cannot say or do lest someone from the party comes knocking at the door. This shit ain't normal.
Hezbollah rarely engaged in movement building beyond the strictly necessary. Dissent, especially coming from other Shias, was rarely tolerated (Lokman Slim and the aforementioned Marxist intellectuals were all Shias). Hezbollah supporters calling anti-Hezbollah Lebanese Shias, whether left-wing or right-wing, “embassy Shias” while repeatedly telling the rest of us that we're not even worth Nasrallah’s shoes created a lot of resentment. How can we liberate Palestine if we're worthless, exactly? Doesn't matter. Lower your head. Keep quiet. El Sayyed6 knows everything.
The problem goes beyond a “it's complicated” situation. Yes, it is complicated, and yes it is still primarily the fault of the Israelis as the superior military power violating international law while committing genocide in Palestine and ecocide and urbicide in Lebanon. This does not change the fact that Hezbollah appointed itself the sole representative of ‘the resistance” — to the point that anyone in Lebanon saying “the resistance” in Arabic (Al Moqawameh) is specifically and exclusively referring to Hezbollah. Not to the broader concept of resisting a genocidal state. To Hezbollah. There could be no resistance beyond Hezbollah's hegemonic dominance. This fucked us over.
The aforementioned are among the many decisions taken by Hezbollah over its four or so decades in existence. When the party appealed beyond its constituency, it gained them supporters. When they demonised, attacked or killed everyone else, it gained them enemies. It was Hezbollah's decision to choose the latter most of the time.
And they had a lot of leeway for a while. There was even a time when those aware of Hezbollah's criminal past could still concede that the party is different than the other sectarian parties. I was one of them. After all, having a criminal part is hardly a rare occurrence among the Lebanese elites, most of whom were/are essentially either warlords or oligarchs or both. Hezbollah once distinguished itself through its temporary successes against the Israelis, particularly given that the Lebanese state has long abandoned south Lebanon to fend for itself. But Hezbollah has also made its way to the levers of power and became so dominant that Nasrallah became the de-facto kingmaker in Lebanese politics for years despite no one ever electing him speaker of parliament.7
And yet, for years and years, Hezbollah's most fanatic supporters insisted on having it both ways. Some criticism is allowed, sometimes, but do not talk about our weapons. Do not talk about ‘the resistance.' Do not talk about El Sayyed. We got this. We're the only ones who got this.
This was always a lie. Hezbollah killed their way to a position of power and demanded to remain there by using and abusing the legacy of a popular resistance. They helped destroy that popular resistance and became ‘the resistance.’ They then weaponised legitimate grievances vis-a-vis the Israeli occupation as well as the Lebanese state's abandonment of the South to maintain that dominance, occasionally unleashing their men and guns against other Lebanese to make sure that lines aren't crossed. They then used their experience against Israel to kill anti-Assad Syrians and Syrian-Palestinians in the name of ‘the resistance.’ All the while, they told everyone that they are playing 4D chess with the Israelis, which turned out to also be a lie.
This piece won't have a satisfactory ending. I don't know what comes next. This is something I'm still struggling with and will explore some other time. All I do know right now is that Lebanon is very vulnerable, and that this was both predictable and avoidable. While this is hardly exclusively Hezbollah's fault — as I said, the Lebanese ruling class is still mostly composed of warlords or oligarchs or both — they still ought to bear responsibility as the self-appointed, unelected kingmakers for so many years.
But they won't.
Related stuff that I've written:
Israel left Lebanon 20 years ago. We’re still fighting for our liberation (972Mag, May 2020)
Hezbollah couldn’t ask for a better enemy than Israel (972Mag, January 2022)
With pager blasts and airstrikes, Israel unleashes its terror on Lebanon (972Mag, September 2024)
Killing Hezbollah leaders failed 30 years ago. It won’t work now (972Mag, October 2024)
Understanding Hezbollah, Israel’s ‘Best Enemy’ (interview - Novara Media, October 2024)
Notes on Assadism, Zionism, Fascism and Hope (Hauntologies, August 2025)
10 things you need to know about Hezbollah - Hauntologies, 21 September 2024
Reprinted in Annahar on 17 July 2006, p.8.
I talk about how that confidence is real problem for Israel in my “Ghosts of Israel's Future” series on Hauntologies.
Fun fact, I was called a Takfiri by an Assad-era Syrian MP. That was fun.
Saad Hariri, not his father Rafiq Hariri who was killed by Hezbollah in 2005.
Honorific used to call Nasrallah.
Under the Lebanese sectarian system, Shias can become speakers of parliament. Presidents must be Maronite Christians and prime ministers must be Sunni Muslims. The speaker of parliament has been Nabih Berri, a Hezbollah ally, since 1992.