Lebanon, a Hostage Nation

Georges Saade

Soldiers at the Blue Line border in southern Lebanon on March 05, 2023 - Lebanese Army/Anadolu Agency | (Via: Middle East Monitor)

Lebanon is a hostage nation, not only to Hezbollah’s weapons, but to decades of state neglect that created the very vacuum that militias filled. What began as a promise of protection has become a stranglehold that left ordinary citizens trapped between state abandonment and captivity to foreign interests.

For centuries, Lebanon’s Shiʿa mainly resided in the rural South and the Bekaa Valley, working the land as laborers and tenant farmers. Their contributions rarely earned recognition or matched investment from political elites in Beirut. Ottoman and later French rulers pushed Shiʿa communities far from the centers of power and denied them representation. After independence, the 1943 National Pact stipulated a confessional hierarchy in which there is a Maronite president, a Sunni prime minister, and a Shiʿa speaker of parliament. This arrangement left Shiʿa underrepresented in executive authority and deepened the neglect of development in the South and Bekaa.

In the 1960s and 70s, Sayyid Musa al-Sadr, a Lebanese-Iranian cleric, emerged as the Shiʿa’s most influential leader, using religious authority and civil political advocacy to demand representation for his people. Alongside allies, he launched the social and political movement Harakat al-Mahrumin (Movement of the Deprived) in 1974 and its militia wing, Amal, the following year.

Then came the wars that deepened the Shiʿa’s struggle. After 1969, the Cairo Agreement between Lebanon and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) formally allowed Palestinian guerrillas to operate in southern Lebanon. Thousands of fighters and refugees, many later expelled from Jordan during Black September in 1970, entrenched themselves in the South and created an occupation that dragged the area into regional conflict with Israel and further destabilized Shiʿa communities. Israel’s 1978 invasion, titled Operation Litani, displaced well over 100,000 civilians; the 1982 invasion pushed all the way to Beirut and unleashed bombardment and long-term occupation. 

The Lebanese state failed to protect its southern citizens, pave roads, or fund clinics. That moral and political collapse widened the power vacuum. In 1982, Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps championed Hezbollah (Party of God) in the South, and the group presented itself as both shield and provider to the Shiʿa. Hezbollah ran schools, clinics, and recruited young men into its formidable armed wing. It quickly eclipsed Amal and recast itself as the community’s primary “resistance” and representative.

Under heavy resistance from Hezbollah in 2000, Israel adopted United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolutions 425 and 426 (1978) and withdrew from most of southern Lebanon after 22 years of occupation. Yet, it remained in the disputed areas of Shebaa Farms and the Kfar Shouba Hills, which Hezbollah seized on as a major justification to continue armed resistance. Hezbollah’s victory in 2000 cemented its legitimacy in Lebanon’s political landscape and opened the door to its widespread representation in government. This transformation elevated Hezbollah from a resistance movement into an armed political party and ultimately a state within a state, heavily backed by Iran. Despite improvements for the southern communities, the entire country paid a heavy price. Wars and clashes tied to Hezbollah’s presence in the South repeatedly destroyed towns across Lebanon. At the same time, Hezbollah built its own security, customs, and patronage networks, weakening the economy and undermining state authority. The UNSC, through Resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1701 (2006), declared that only the state should hold weapons and exercise power. However, Lebanese leaders failed to enforce these resolutions.

In 2011, Hezbollah deployed forces into Syria to support Bashar al-Assad, acting as Iran’s proxy and entangling Lebanon in yet another costly foreign conflict. Since October 2023, following Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Hezbollah has opened fire across the southern border in solidarity with Palestinians and in coordination with Hamas and Iran. It justified its actions as part of the broader resistance against Israel. That resistance, however, drew massive retaliation in Lebanon. Israeli strikes extended far beyond the border, hitting targets across Lebanon and as far north as Akkar (the northernmost governorate in Lebanon). On 27 September 2024, Israeli warplanes destroyed Hezbollah’s underground command center in Beirut and killed Hassan Nasrallah, its longtime secretary-general, which was detrimental to Hezbollah.

Critics who challenged Hezbollah’s rule faced intimidation and, at times, lethal violence. The Special Tribunal for Lebanon convicted 4 Hezbollah members in the 2005 murder of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, but the Hezbollah leadership was not formally charged and rejected the verdicts. Moreover, assassins killed writer and activist Lokman Slim in 2021 after his journalism against Hezbollah, and authorities have still failed to solve his murder. Multiple rights groups and the U.N. condemned that failure, while Hezbollah denied involvement. 

Hezbollah insists its arms defend Lebanon’s Shiʿa and deter Israel. But, carving out a permanent exception to state authority traps the very communities it claims to protect in cycles of coerced patronage and external dependency. In reality, Hezbollah exploited a failure it did not create. The Lebanese government marginalized the South and Shiʿa for decades while political elites baked unequal representation and uneven development into the system long before Hezbollah’s yellow and green flags flew south of the nation’s capital. The Shiʿa Lebanese, like all Lebanese, deserve security and services, and the state denied them both.

Today’s debate over disarmament too often comes from outsiders, reducing Lebanon to a regional bargaining chip. Lebanon already committed to keeping arms in the state’s hands, but the “disarm first, build later” formula has always created vacuums, and thus new militias. Israel, by repeatedly violating UNSC Resolution 1701 and maintaining an ongoing threat, gives Hezbollah the very excuse it needs to justify its continued existence and weapon stockpiles. The only prosperous way forward is to disarm Hezbollah and all militias while simultaneously strengthening the state. Rebuilding the Lebanese Armed Forces into the sole guarantor of security with weaponry capable of defending against threats, investing in development that reaches the South and Shiʿa communities, and reestablishing a functioning judiciary that holds all actors accountable. Only when citizens, especially those under Hezbollah’s hand, see the state protecting them equally will Lebanon finally break the cycle of neglect and militia dominance.

Lebanon cannot survive more neglect. To free every citizen, from Beirut to Tyre, from Tripoli to the Bekaa, leaders must confront both state abandonment and Hezbollah’s arms. The people of Lebanon have shown resilience through war, displacement, catastrophes, and collapse. That resilience must now turn into resistance against foreign domination, against Hezbollah’s weapons, and against the silence and paralysis of a government that long ago stopped serving its people. Lebanon cannot remain hostage to neglect and militia rule. Its citizens deserve a state that protects them, unites them, and treats them as one people. Nothing less will break the cycle.