Lebanon yearns for national unity as war revives specter of 1980s

When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, it exploited the sectarian fissures of a country shattered by civil war.

This time, despite long-running divisions, many Lebanese are desperate to preserve a spirit of national solidarity in the face of the Israeli attack across the southern border, and want to forge a new political order rising above sectarianism now that Hezbollah has been weakened — partly by electing a president after a two-year power vacuum.

None of this will be easy. The challenge of holding together a country devastated by economic crisis — with 85 percent of people estimated to be living beneath the poverty line — is daunting. Lebanon faces its biggest crisis of people fleeing their homes for more than four decades, as Israeli soldiers battle Hezbollah’s Shiite militia in the south, and pummel the country in airstrikes.

Lebanese authorities have opened up 500 schools to accommodate evacuees across the country, but it’s not enough. More than 1 million people have been displaced. Thousands are sleeping on beaches, under bridges and in the streets. And makeshift tent encampments are springing up in the north.

Paul Salem, a longtime observer of Lebanon and former president of the Middle East Institute think tank, said that under pressure there were “risks that tempers might flare” again among the countries’ religious groups, but noted the initial signs of concord were more encouraging.

In his village and neighboring communities, he said, people were “opening up their homes, welcoming evacuees and seeing Shiites, say, not as Hezbollah people but Lebanese.”

“That might, in the longer run, strengthen national unity,” he added. “No party in Lebanon wants civil strife. Civil wars don’t happen just by mistake. No, none of the parties want that. Everybody’s actually afraid of it and doing their best to try to avoid it.”

People’s support for their Shiite compatriots did not mean they sympathized with the political and military objectives of Iran-backed Hezbollah, Salem stressed. “Many Lebanese have been furious with Hezbollah for opening the second front a year ago in support of Hamas and are additionally angry at them for causing this massive attack on Lebanon and the displacement of hundreds of thousands,” he told POLITICO.

Time for a president, at last

Holding the nation’s fractured political landscape together, however, means filling a two-year-long hiatus and electing a president, who can act as a unifying national figurehead.

“For us, what matters is national unity and a return to the state. We need a government that plays its part, so that we can activate all the elements of deterrence and diplomacy to prevent the Israelis from destroying our country,” Michel Helou, secretary-general of the National Bloc, one of the country’s few secular parties, told POLITICO.

Despite anger with Hezbollah — even in some Shiite villages there have been reports of posters of the slain leader Hassan Nasrallah ripped down — one thing all the Lebanese agree on is that they want the Israelis out of Lebanon.

A new president would enable Lebanon to “return under the umbrella of the state and apply U.N. Resolution 1701,” Helou added. That resolution ended the 2006 war between Israel and Hezbollah, and decreed that Hezbollah should not deploy forces south of the Litani River, 29 kilometers north of the Israeli border.

Samir Geagea, head of the Christian Lebanese Forces party, has called in the past week for the speaker of the parliament, Nabih Berri, to summon a parliamentary session to elect a new president, who under the complicated power-sharing arrangements of Lebanon should be a Maronite Christian. Hezbollah’s weakness raises the prospect of a compromise candidate being agreed.

Helou was skeptical, however, that Hezbollah — although knocked back by the assassination of Nasrallah — would seek a quick compromise.

“Eventually, the weakening of Hezbollah could force them to come to the table, but the problem is that Hezbollah has built all its credibility on resistance. It sees the only way to survive is continuing to fight, fighting to the bitter end.”

There have been previous moments when there seemed an opportunity for the country to break out of sectarianism. After the 2005 assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri, and after the port explosion, there were protests and public demands for serious change, only for the old politics to reassert itself.

Bitter memories

The dangers for Lebanon’s stability only increase the longer Israel’s offensive drags on, and people are preparing for the worst — scarred not only by the history of the 1975-1990 civil war and by Israeli assaults, but also by a devastating port explosion on Aug. 4, 2020 that killed more than 200 people and left hundreds of thousands homeless.

A surgeon in Beirut said his hospital was preparing for the worst — as Israel carries out airstrikes on the city — by drawing on the experience of 2020.

“We’ve prepared ourselves to receive, as we did after the blast on Aug. 4, a lot of casualties all at once. We can receive 200, 300 wounded at once. We don’t know [if there will be more], but we’re prepared,” he said. “We’ve reactivated a crisis unit that’s been in place since Aug. 4. We didn’t hold any meetings for a long time, but they have now resumed.”

The suspicion among many Lebanese is not only that the Israelis will stay on their territory for a protracted occupation — they stayed 18 years after the 1982 invasion — but that they also have their sights on territory well beyond the River Litani, the key Blue Line behind which Hezbollah is supposed to withdraw its forces.

Instead, Lebanese civilians are being instructed to flee north of a different river deeper inside Lebanon, the Awali, more than 60 kilometers from the Israeli-Lebanese border.

“[The Israeli army] does not want to harm you, and for your own safety, you must evacuate your homes immediately,” the Israeli military’s Arabic spokesperson, Avichay Adraee, announced Tuesday on X. The Israel Defense Forces have also been phoning mayors, urging them to persuade their villagers to get out.  

This broadening of the designated area for Israeli operations — along with a decision to call up four additional reserve brigades midweek for cross-border operations — is adding to rising Lebanese panic that the country will once again be crushed on the anvil of a war most Lebanese fervently didn’t want.

In July, Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant threatened to bomb Lebanon “back to the stone age” if Hezbollah didn’t cease its rocket attacks on northern Israel, which have forced nearly 80,000 Israelis to evacuate their northern homes.

“The last ‘limited incursion’ lasted 18 years,” Helou noted. “The urgent need is for a ceasefire, given that nearly 2,000 people are dead and 10,000 wounded, many of them civilians. What’s needed is an immediate ceasefire and massive pressure, first and foremost on Israel, which is carrying out an operation of unspeakable violence. And obviously a ceasefire on both sides, [with pressure] also on Hezbollah to stop fighting.”

Lebanese caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati has warned his country is facing “one of the most dangerous phases of its history,” and has pleaded with the UN for emergency funding for the Lebanese displaced by hostilities so far.

Not least among the problems is the economic precipice. Economy Minister Amin Salam told Lebanese television onWednesday the country was not receiving enough international aid.

“Lebanon’s weakness and paralysis will have major repercussions on all neighboring countries,” he said. “Our economy cannot bear another day of war.”