No

Support for Hezbollah does not neatly translate into sects. Maronites for instance are evenly divided between pro-resistance and anti-resistance. The last president, a maronite, was pro-resistance and pro-Assad. I cannot confidently speak about other Christian sects but the principle still stands.

;) ;)

It’s slightly complicated. The leader of the party at the time, Bachir Gemayel, would flirt with the idea of normalisation with Israel. And there was an agreement that was put in place after the Israeli invasion in '82 but was subsequently rejected by the Lebanese parliament. The Lebanese Forces, which was the military compartment of the party, was provided with Israeli intel in some of their operations, like the Sabra and Shatila massacre.

One civil war and two assassinations later, the Kataeb party rebranded itself as a progressive opposition party. They haven’t participated in the government for more than a decade now. From the ruling party to an irrelevant group, really makes you think.

Mujaddara!

Will definitely do so, comrade.

Despite the divisions that cut deep into the political fabric, there is always unity in times of crisis when facing an external threat. Many citizens have gladly opened their homes for refugees for free, some enterprises are providing them with free services and so forth. When it comes to military resistance, Hezbollah holds a monopoly over it, especially after all other political groups were disarmed after the end of the civil war in 1990.

Fawwaz Traboulsi is Marxist Historian and political scientist, definitely worth checking out.

Ussama Makdisi is Palestinian but wrote in depth about religious sectarianism in Lebanon.

Also check out kotobli which is a cool website to discover Arabic literature outside the framework of Anglo-American hegemony.

They are politically influential yet not enough to undermine the resistance. Although they have a majority in parliament, it is not enough to make decisions without the consent of pro-resistance parties. This is why we still cannot elect a president, which requires 2/3 of votes. The parliament speaker is also pro-resistance and plays a role in shutting down (illegaly) any decision that doesn’t suit his party’s interests.

From a military perspective, some factions tried to challenge Hezbollah in 2008 but ate shit. Hezbollah has historically directed his arms to the domestic space as a tool of coercion, hence the claim that Hezbollah has taken the country hostage.

The soviet union is rarely mentioned nowadays, be it positively or negatively. I presume this is because the union wasn’t directly involved in the domestic affairs of the country, not even during the civil war. Some old people, usually muslims, have good impressions because they studied in soviet universities by means of scholarships. However the common talking points about soviet tyranny are prevalent here like in any capitalist society. Most true leftists I know defend the union or at least have sympathies towards it.

Opinions on the current Russian administration are mixed. Unsurprisingly the orthodox community is supportive of Russia. People’s opinion also depends on how they view the Assadist regime in Syria, because Russia has been Syria’s biggest ally since the eruption of the civil war. Sometimes you can see pro-Ruasian posters on advertisement signs. I also remember that Russia donated a remarkable quantity of wheat to Lebanon during the crisis.

Thank you for all your wishes, comrade. I dearly hope that your country one day regains its communist ways and surpasses its past glory.

Yes there is a significant “resistance” to the resistance. And your right in regards to blaming Hezbollah for the war. I compare the matter to a parent collectively punishing all of their children for one’s fault, and so all siblings would dislike the one at fault instead of the parent’s action. Except in reality the parent is a genocidal entity with which we had past experiences.

The opposition is not fond of zionists per se, but rather it is against any intervention in Lebanon’s affairs, be it the Unites States or Russia or any other state. This is their official stance, but one cannot be sure what their real intentions are because there is a stigma in the arab world attached to normalisation with the entity.

Unfortunately most of what I write is in Arabic. And for the music I am waiting to upgrade my set up so I can record with better quality but I am currently broke lmao.

Thank you, comrade.

• Ideally, Lebanon needs a proletarian revolution. Practically, refugees from the South are in need of material assistance.
• By mobilising the working class and spearheading the labor movement. Also creating ties with leftist orgs and states abroad.
• leftist movements around the world should encourage mutual aid among themselves, be it financial, technical or cultural.
• if the leftists of the imperial core want to help the global south, they must look inwards. Protest against your governments in any means possible, and more importantly create ties between the native workers and the immigrant populations; the latter, I think, might be the key to decolonize the imperial core.

• Lebanon is characterized by its exclusively tertiary economy. We rely exclusively on tourism, trade and banking. The root cause is the neoliberal policy of the past decades. The port’s explosion and the destruction of the city caused a major economic setback. And that’s without addressing the emotional damage. It was a traumatic experience for many who lost their homes and loved ones. The explosion’s remnants remind us of the incompetence of the government.
• i cannot speak this far into the future with how unstable Lebanon has always been. Nobody really knows. But I hope it’s overthrown and its colonial legacy wholly eradicated.
• The current cabinet is a caretaker one, awaiting the appointment of a new one since 2022 because we can’t decide on president. Constitutionally speaking, the caretaker cabinet cannot issue important decrees and so in other words the country is ungoverned. The cabinet is extremely unpopular and disregarded.
• Beirut is a diverse city containing all constituents. Same with the North.
• Confessional coexistence is an essential pillar in the Lebanese political fabric. There are calls for a federation but this is a minority. I have issues with the unitary approach because the country is a bourgeois nation-state unilateraly established by the French colonizer. But the federal approach is also flawed because it is premised on separation along religious lines which is a recipe for disaster.

• Lebanon’s fate is dependent on that of its larger neighbours. I wish that the working class can take the matter into its own hands but the main two obstacles are, funnily enough, the zionist entity and Hezbollah (which is upholding the bourgeois establishment). I find it hard to conceive any solution other than armed struggle, but this too requires external funding.
• climate change emerged as a serious issue with the 2019 protests. Protestors successfully deterred the authorities from building a harmful dam for example. On an institutional level there isn’t any consideration whatsoever to the climate issue as it is the norm with capitalist states. Agriculture was deeply affected by the increasing temperatures, and there are water shortages due to unregulated underground extractions and neglect of rivers’ pollution. Also unregulated are the resource extraction sites that are popping up on every mountain and are ravaging the natural lansscape. And finally we cannot forget the zionists provoking forest fires on the soutgern border.
• the sudden surge in green energy isn’t out of concern for the environment butvratehr a product of the collapse of publically-sourced electricity. There is power for only two to four hours a day. The biggest profiteers were owners of private generator whose actions exhibit signs of monopoly and criminal cartel, and most of whom have ties with politicians. Solar energy more or less constituted an escape from this reality. This article offers more elaborated explanations. Concerning the public energy sector there are talks of privatising the electricity company, but private generators are a good example of this would be a bad idea. Especially since there is a history of privatisation deals done in the interest of enterprises belonging to politicians and government officials.

• response to nasrallah’s assassination are mixed. Shia muslims were the most affected by it of course. The majority of the population holds sympathies. There is a deafening silence from political parties, allies and opponents alike.
• I am privileged to be safe and unaffected by the war. The targets of zionist attacks have been hezbollah facilities. I don’t live in a Hezbollah area and my town is located at the center of the country. But this would change if the zionist army pushes deep inside, like in 2006. They do not differentiate between a soldier and civilian, between a muslim and a christian.

A good and not-so-long read would be “A History of Modern Lebanon” by Fawwaz Traboulsi, a Marxist professor.

No, the army has never actively resisted since a very long time. I developed further on this matter in another reply.

I didn’t understand your first question. Can you perhaps reformulate it?

The lebanese army is powerless from a political and technical standpoint. It’s extremely underfunded and, more flagrantly, its biggest funder is the United States: a fat conflict of interests. There were for example propositions to receive funds and new equipment from Russia but the US threatened to pull the plug on its funding.

if it and the various faction militias banded together.

That is an interesting point. The mainstream narrative has always put Hezbollah’s militia as an antagonist to the army.

Short answer: no.

Long answer: if we only take into consideration the theoretical doctrines, Hezbollah is a shia islamist movement which, understandably, would alienate the rest of the population. However from a practical sense, since its integration into the political establishment Hezbollah made alliances with other parties from different religions and has abandoned its islamist agenda in favor of multi-confessional politics. But the primary constituency of the party remains shia of course.

Since the 90’s the two biggest sunni and druze parties—respectively, Future Movement and the Progressive Socialist Party—were anti-syrian and anti-iranian. FM had for the longest time tacit Saudi support. In 2008, Hezbollah clashed with both FM and PSP over the former’s telecommunication systems.

Today, FM is inactive after its leader resigned from the premiership in 2019. There is a void in sunni politics, and they are divided among themselves but the populace is generally supportive of the resistance. As for the PSP, its position is a bit ambiguous and its leader seems to be on good terms with Hezbollah; shocking considering that most druze are adamantly opposed to Hezbollah and Iran.

Christians are divided on the issue. Some parties are pro-iranian while others are not. Shias were also divided along those lines historically but they managed to put aside their differences.

I don’t live near saida so I don’t have much info unfortunately.

Kataeb are critical of Hezbollah and the resistance, while still affirming their anti-zionist (more accurately anti-israeli) position. Their contention is that they don’t want paramilitary groups with foreign allegiances to roam freely and challenge the autonomy of the state.

Wallah shu! Then you are my neighbours. May Allah protect everyone. (From the way you wrote your comment I assume you live abroad?)