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Despite the ‘Lebanonization’ of Hezbollah, It Still Wants to Destroy Israel
Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah addresses his supporters through a screen during a rally commemorating the annual Hezbollah Martyrs’ Day, in Beirut’s southern suburbs. Photo: Reuters/Aziz Taher
Hezbollah began in 1982 as an Islamist organization founded and shaped according to the ideological model of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The organization was founded to establish an Islamist regime in Lebanon and conduct a jihadist war against the enemies of Islam: the West and Israel. Hezbollah gradually “Lebanonized,” meaning it claimed to limit the military struggle to Lebanese territory, integrated into the Lebanese political system, and established an extensive civil infrastructure. This transformation was accompanied by a new discourse stressing its role as defender of Lebanon.
But Hezbollah’s Lebanonization has not in any way diluted or moderated its conception of Israel, with which it believes itself to be in a doomsday war. Hezbollah’s military empowerment since the withdrawal of the IDF in 2000 does not correspond with its discourse about defending Lebanon. Hezbollah’s involvement in the fighting since October 8 is not mere lip service, but a demonstration of its total commitment to what it perceives as its deterministic conflict with Israel.
Hezbollah’s enduring enmity towards Israel reflects the ideological concepts on which it was founded. The organization was established by the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps, and its establishment might be considered Iran’s only successful exporting of its revolution. The establishment of Hezbollah would also not have been possible had it not been for Baathist Syria, which allowed Iran to operate in Lebanon’s Beqaa Valley. Hafez Assad’s Syria enabled this as part of the “extensions” strategy it adopted after Operation Peace for Galilee, with the clear aim of exhausting the IDF and bringing about its withdrawal from Lebanon.
Iranian patronage has always been a pillar of strength for Hezbollah, but the most significant patronage it enjoyed was that of Syria. Damascus extended its protection to Hezbollah and guaranteed its continued existence as a military organization within the framework of the Ṭaif Agreement of 1989, which brought an end to the second Lebanese civil war. Syria has served for decades as a conduit for the supply of weapons to Hezbollah.
Since the 1980s, as the alliance with Syria tightened, Hezbollah underwent the process of “Lebanonization.” This process had three main elements. The first was the purported limiting of the armed struggle to within Lebanon’s geography, especially against the IDF’s continued presence in southern Lebanon. The second was the establishment of an extensive civilian arm that focused on providing for the needs of Lebanon’s Shiite community. The third was politicization, meaning the establishment of a political branch and integration into Lebanon’s parliamentary system.
Lebanonization did not, however, cause Hezbollah to forget its dual mission, anchored in its Islamist political and religious worldview: the establishment of an Islamist regime according to the model of the Islamic Republic in Iran on the one hand, and the continuation of the armed struggle against Israel on the other.
Hezbollah’s adherence to Islamist ideology, which in this case is distinctly anti-establishment, means striving to replace the sectarian regime with an Islamist one and perpetually bolstering its weapons supplies to support the armed struggle against Israel. Hezbollah made sure to present the IDF’s unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon as a military achievement of the “Islamic resistance in Lebanon” and not as the result of internal considerations by Israeli society. Following the withdrawal, Hezbollah had to place greater emphasis on the Lebanese dimension of its military struggle, and its discourse changed accordingly.
Until the IDF withdrawal, Hezbollah claimed that its military existence was in the name of liberating the soil of an occupied homeland. After the withdrawal, the organization began to stress the doctrine of defense of the homeland against “Israeli aggression,” with its military power aimed at creating a balance of terror between it and Israel.
As a result, Hezbollah engaged in a Lebanese political-national discourse that ostensibly placed its military existence at the heart of the Lebanese national consensus. This was summed up in three words: people, army, and resistance. The concept reflected the deepening of the Lebanonization trend and a real attempt on Hezbollah’s part to endear itself to Lebanese nationals under the pretense that its weapons were intended solely for defense of the Lebanese homeland.
Since May 2000, the doctrine of defense of the Lebanese homeland has been the common discourse among Hezbollah and its supporters in Lebanon. The adoption of this doctrine coincided with a political reorganization and a more prominent integration within the Lebanese political and public spheres. This was reflected in political alliances with Lebanese political parties and movements, especially among Maronite Christians, and the publication of a second political document in 2009 that for the first time declared Hezbollah’s renunciation of its mission to establish an Islamist regime in Lebanon.
As a military organization and a political movement, Hezbollah represents a totalitarian ideological-religious movement whose worldview is the bedrock of its existence. Whatever it may have said during the Lebanonization process, it is still as committed as it ever was to its two overarching original goals: the establishment of an Islamist regime in Lebanon and the continuation of an endless struggle against Israel. Giving up these goals would mean erasing its ideology, which would amount to destroying its existential essence as a totalitarian movement.
By claiming to have renounced its desire for the establishment of an Islamist regime in Lebanon and redefining its formidable arsenal of weapons as intended for defensive purposes, Hezbollah is conducting a sophisticated pragmatic campaign. Its object is first and foremost to neutralize internal opponents who fear a theocracy and to justify the continued possession of a vast store of weapons outside the state’s authority.
The strategy of balance that has characterized Hezbollah since the end of the second civil war remains a powerful statement of the movement’s adherence to its goals. The balance between maintaining the existence of the Lebanese state and continuing to possess an enormous supply of weapons is a practical formula that produces chronic crisis but does not constitute a renunciation of the struggle against Israel. Similarly, the omission of the demand for the establishment of an Islamist regime in Lebanon in no way implies that Hezbollah has renounced its Islamist ideology, as such a move would contradict its very soul.
Hezbollah joined the Israel-Hamas war one day after the Black Sabbath of October 7. Its participation, even on a local scale, so soon after the barbaric attack by the Hamas criminal terrorist organization on Israel, an attack that was conducted primarily against Israeli civilians and without any provocation on Israel’s part, puts Hezbollah’s doctrine of homeland defense into question. Its limited participation in the current fighting against Israel proves that Hezbollah remains faithful to its worldview and the indoctrination that has accompanied it for four decades. Its support of Hamas in its war against Israel shows that the amendment of a founding document or political-pragmatic discourse that takes circumstances into account does not reflect moderation or a fundamental change.
Indeed, Hezbollah’s joining of the fighting proves its adherence to its primary ideology of eternal struggle against Israel. Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, said in his first speech after October 7 that while the time is not yet ripe for an all-out confrontation, he is convinced that day will come. It is highly doubtful that the huge arsenal of weapons Hezbollah has amassed over the past two decades is intended solely for defensive purposes. While it has adapted its discourse to the needs of time and circumstance, no one should be deceived into believing it has lost sight of its ideological totalitarianism.
Hezbollah retains a conviction that it is capable of delivering a crushing blow to Israel. Following the American withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the scenes of Afghan citizens being crushed under the wheels of airplanes, Nasrallah assured his supporters that such scenes would be repeated at Ben-Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv. Hezbollah is preparing, as it always has, for the doomsday battle with Israel. Its involvement in the fighting right now, however limited, proves that it remains committed to fulfilling its messianic mission to inflict a decisive defeat on Israel.
The process of Lebanonization has created a deceptive smokescreen of moderation that is entirely lacking in Hezbollah. Instead of trusting in false interpretations of Lebanonization, Israel should focus on Hezbollah’s obsession with military power and unwavering determination to destroy the Jewish State.
Dr. Yusri Khazran is senior lecturer in the Department of Middle Eastern and Islamic Studies at Shalem College and a research fellow at the Harry S. Truman Institute for the Advancement of Peace at the Hebrew University. He received his Ph.D. from Hebrew University, after which he was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship at Harvard University. Dr. Hazran is the author of The Druze Community and the Lebanese State: Between Resistance and Reconciliation (Routledge, 2014). A version of this article was originally published by The BESA Center.
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Rubio Condemns Mass Killings of Alawites in Syria, Says US Stands With Country’s Minority Communities
Marco Rubio speaks after he is sworn in as Secretary of State by US Vice President JD Vance at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington, DC, Jan. 21, 2025. Photo: REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
US Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Sunday denounced the mass killing of more than 1,000 people, mostly civilians from the Alawite minority group, in Syria, calling on the newly installed Syrian government to hold the perpetrators “accountable” for the massacres.
“The United States condemns the radical Islamist terrorists, including foreign jihadis, that murdered people in western Syria in recent days,” Rubio said in a statement. “The United States stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities, and offers its condolences to the victims and their families. Syria’s interim authorities must hold the perpetrators of these massacres against Syria’s minority communities accountable.”
In a series of clashes beginning on Thursday, fighters allied with the new Syrian government carried out mass executions of Alawite Muslim civilians in the coastal towns of Latakia and Tartus. According to Syria’s interior ministry, the pro-government fighters conducted “sweeping operations” in the towns to dismantle the remaining “remnants” of the regime of former President Bashaar al-Assad, targeting primarily adult men.
According to Syrian officials, the fighting started when a group of Alawite fighters loyal to Assad killed their forces in a premeditated attack.
The ensuing mass killing of Alawites, who comprise roughly 10 percent of the Syrian population, highlights growing concerns over the safety of minority groups in the country.
Syria’s interim President Ahmed Sharaa decried the massacres, claiming they undermined his efforts to unite the country and vowing to seek retribution for the violence.
“Syria is a state of law. The law will take its course on all,” Sharaa told Reuters. “We fought to defend the oppressed, and we won’t accept that any blood be shed unjustly, or goes without punishment or accountability, even among those closest to us.”
In late January, Sharaa became Syria’s transitional president after leading a rebel campaign that ousted Assad, whose decades-long Iran-backed rule had strained ties with the Arab world during the nearly 14-year Syrian war.
The collapse of Assad’s regime was the result of an offensive spearheaded by Sharaa’s Sunni Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group, a former al-Qaeda affiliate.
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz denounced the Syrian president as a “terrorist” who “switched his robe for a suit and presented a moderate face.”
“Now he’s taken off the mask and exposed his true face: A jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population,” Katz said in a statement. “Israel will defend itself against any threat from Syria.”
Following Assad’s fall in December, Israel moved troops into a buffer zone along the Syrian border to secure a military position to prevent terrorists from launching attacks against the Jewish state. The previously demilitarized zone in the Golan Heights was established under the 1974 Disengagement of Forces Agreement between Damascus and Jerusalem that ended the Yom Kippur War. However, Israel considered the agreement void after the collapse of Assad’s regime.
Syria’s new government has called for Israel to withdraw its forces.
Alawite leaders in Syria have also issued a statement to Israel, calling on the Jewish state to deploy forces in the country to protect its minority civilians.
“Following the fall of Assad’s regime, and after the massacres that took place in Alawite areas against our people, we call on the Israeli government to provide protection, assistance, and support,” the leaders wrote, according to i24 News.
The leaders lamented that “the world is silent about the massacres happening in Syria” and that if the Jewish state offered help, the Alawite Muslims “will be your most loyal and good friends.”
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‘Inflection Point’: UCLA Announces Initiative to Combat Antisemitism
Anti-Israel protesters set up camp on the UCLA campus in Los Angeles, CA on April 25, 2024. Photo: Alberto Sibaja via Reuters Connect.
The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) announced on Monday an “Initiative to Combat Antisemitism,” a move that follows a series of incidents which have fueled allegations that the campus has become a hub of anti-Jewish discrimination.
“With honest reflection, it is clear that while we have made progress in addressing antisemitism, we have more to do in our shared goal of eradicating it in its entirety,” UCLA chancellor Julio Frenk said in a statement. “Through this initiative, UCLA will implement recommendations of the Task Force to Combat Antisemitism and Anti-Israeli Bias.”
He continued, “These recommendations include: enhancing relevant training and education, improving the complaint system, assuring enforcement of current and new laws and polices, and cooperating with stakeholders.”
“This is an opportunity for UCLA to rise to the challenge of being an exemplary university,” Frenk concluded.
The Initiative to Combat Antisemitism is the second stage of a process begun by UCLA when it created an antisemitism task force in February 2024. Commissioned to study the problem and issue recommendations, the task force last year issued a report which noted, among other things, that two-thirds of Jewish UCLA students believe that antisemitism on the campus “is a problem or a serious problem,” and a higher share of them, 70 percent, attributed the atmosphere of hatred to the university’s decision to allow a “Gaza encampment” protest during the final days of the 2023-2024 spring semester.
That decision proved fateful, as it prompted a lawsuit accusing UCLA of fostering a discriminatory learning environment. Filed by several students, the complaint argued that the encampment was a source of antisemitism from the moment pro-Hamas agitators installed it. Students there chanted “death to the Jews,” the complaint recounted, set up illegal checkpoints through which no one could pass unless they denounced Israel, and ordered campus security assigned there by the university to ensure that no Jews entered it.
Alleging that UCLA refused to clear the encampment despite knowing what was happening there, the complaint charged that administrators put on a “remarkable display of cowardice, appeasement, and illegality,” and in doing so, allowed a “Jewish Exclusion Zone” on its property, violating its own policies as well as “the basic guarantee of equal access to educational facilities that receive federal funding” and other equal protection laws.
In addition to students, university officials have also been targeted by pro-Hamas activists — as The Algemeiner has previously reported.
On Feb. 5 some 50 members of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and the allied campus group Graduate Students for Justice in Palestine amassed on the property of Jay Sures — a Jewish member of the Board of Regents, the governing body for the University of California (UC) system — and threatened that he must “divest now or pay.” As part of the demonstration, the students imprinted their hands, which had been submerged in red paint to symbolize the spilling of blood, all over Sures’ garage door and cordoned the area with caution tape.
The behavior crossed the line, Frenk said in an email sent to the entire student body, and he suspended both groups while commissioning the school’s Office of Student Conduct to complete a thorough investigation into the incident. Defying the disciplinary measures, an estimated 150 people — including members of Faculty for Justice in Palestine (FJP), among other anti-Israel groups — the next day marched through the campus demanding that SJP’s punishment be repealed while arguing it is they and not Sures who are victims of racism.
“If you look at who actually experienced violence, it’s overwhelming our own students, and that was the fault of our university administration” Michael Chwe, a professor of political science and member of FJP, was quoted by The Daily Bruin as saying. “For them to be claiming that our students are violent is completely backward.”
That same month, a Jewish faculty group at the university issued an open letter calling attention to a slew of indignities to which they have been subjected in recent months. The missive enumerated a litany of falsehoods spread about Jews by a task force created to study anti-Arab bigotry on the campus — including that Jewish faculty have conspired to undermine academic freedom with “coordinated repression,” promoted the interests of conservative groups, and harmed minority students by opposing “racial justice.”
The group added that discrimination at the David Geffen School of Medicine (DGSOM) has wreaked demonstrable harm on Jewish students and faculty. Student clubs, it said, are denied recognition for arbitrary reasons; Jewish faculty whose ethnic backgrounds were previously unknown are purged from the payrolls upon being identified as Jews; and anyone who refuses to participate in anti-Zionist events is “intimidated” and pressured.
In Monday’s announcement, Frenk called for reforming UCLA’s culture to ensure that all are accepted, regardless of race, ethnicity, and creed.
“UCLA is at an inflection point,” he said. “Building on past efforts and lessons, we must now push ourselves to extinguish antisemitism, completely and definitively. The principles on which UCLA was founded — and which we continue to advance — point us toward a clear course of action: We must persevere in our fight to end hate, however it manifests itself.”
Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.
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Connecticut Men Charged With Hate Crime for Vandalizing Menorah
Illustrative: A menorah knocked to the ground by an antisemitic vandal who attacked a Jewish educational center in eastern Moscow. Photo: SHAMIR.
Police in Guilford, Connecticut have arrested and charged Steven Prinz Jr., 25, and Troy Prinz, 22, for allegedly vandalizing a menorah set up for public display.
The menorah’s owner reported the damage to law enforcement on Jan. 13 and provided surveillance video of the Jan. 5 crime. The suspects hid their faces, one with a gas mask and the other with fabric, and knocked over the menorah before stomping it on the ground, breaking multiple parts. Before discovering the footage, the owner had originally reported that wind had knocked down the menorah.
The two brothers, who were arrested on Wednesday, face charges of second-degree intimidation based on bigotry or bias, second-degree conspiracy to commit intimidation based on bigotry or bias, first-degree criminal mischief, and first-degree conspiracy to commit criminal mischief. Police released both men after they posted $25,000 court-set bonds.
The Guilford Police Department’s Lt. Martina Jakober said in a statement that the investigation “involved significant cooperation between the police and members of our community in order to locate and preserve the essential evidence needed to properly identify these suspects.”
Jakober added that “the men and women of the Guilford Police Department wish to extend our deepest appreciation to all who live and work in the community” and that “our collective efforts, as the police and the community, ultimately resulted in their identification and arrest.”
Rabbi Yossi Yaffe, director for Chabad-Lubavitch of the Shoreline which had set up the menorah, released a statement following the arrests.
“This aberration does not represent the Guilford community. For 25 years, Chabad of the Shoreline’s menorah has illuminated Guilford without incident,” Yaffe stated. “Throughout the years, many residents from different faith communities and from across the political spectrum have expressed their appreciation and pride in having a menorah on the Guilford town green. With G-d’s help, we will continue to share the menorah’s light for many years to come!”
Yaffe announced that the hate crime targeting the menorah had inspired the community to increase its efforts to promote the holiday, with plans to increase displays and distribution of menorahs next Hanukkah.
Jakober said that the police department intends “to reflect on this incident and continuously work to figure out an ever-strengthening partnership with the community.” She added that “together, we can be sure that acts of hate or bias have no place in Guilford.”
Last week, the legal system made further efforts to counter alleged hate crimes in New York and Florida.
In Manhattan on Thursday, prosecutors said that Utah man Luis Ramirez, 23, allegedly proclaimed himself “Hitler reincarnated,” threatened to kill “as many Jews as I killed in [World War II],” and targeted New York City’s Central Synagogue. The judge denied bail for Ramirez and required him to undergo a psychological evaluation.
Prosecutors said that Ramirez had shown signs of paranoia and delusion which included calling himself by the names of “biblical characters.” Court documents stated that Ramirez had been diagnosed as “schizophrenic, suffering from hallucinations, delusions, and not being connected to reality.” A military officer cadet training school had reportedly discharged Ramirez for psychological reasons. Photos from Ramirez’s court appearance show him grinning.
Ramirez faces as much as 15 years’ imprisonment for a terrorism charge. “He is now charged with significant terrorism and hate crime charges and was remanded into custody,” Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg said. “Any form of antisemitism is despicable, and I want Manhattan’s Jewish community to know we are remaining extremely vigilant.”
The judge scheduled Ramirez’s next court appearance for March 20.
Meanwhile, in Florida on Wednesday, the Boynton Beach Police Department arrested Adam Elshazly, charging him with allegedly targeting his former employer with violent and antisemitic threats via texts on July 2, 2024. The messages included antisemitic images and threats of violent sexual abuse against the victim’s wife and daughter. The victim told police that he had hired Elshazly 10 years ago for a job and fired him three days later for poor performance, not to hear from him again until receiving the text messages.
Police charged Elshazly with a count of intimidation with prejudice while committing an offense and released him the next day following the posting of a $30,000 bond. A judge scheduled his arraignment for Thursday.
The post Connecticut Men Charged With Hate Crime for Vandalizing Menorah first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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