Hezbollah wears many faces — or it used to.
The head of its parliamentary bloc, Mohammad Raad, was parliament’s bully, a frowning and jowly face of formal political power. He looked like he was constantly struggling to contain the violence within him, befitting his role representing the most powerful military force in Lebanon. He was the face Hezbollah sent to meet with political allies and rivals, the man who cracked the whip to get them in line. Speaking from the podium of a branch of government, he always seemed menacing. I do not remember ever seeing him smile.
Wafiq Safa, meanwhile, was Hezbollah’s face for security, an avatar of the group’s intelligence might. His name carried power and was well known throughout the country, despite his rare public appearances. He was the big gun Hezbollah sent to the back rooms to smooth out deals. He mediated with local and international security agencies and was their man for sensitive missions. He dealt with local security flare-ups and is thought to have overseen a sprawling intelligence apparatus that kept tabs on friends and foes.
What face did Naim Qassem, Hezbollah’s newly elected secretary-general, wear before his recent elevation? I did not really associate him with anything before his ascension, except the occasional snippet on my social media feed of a statement here or an interview there: Hassan Nasrallah, but the cheap Chinese knockoff that has time to speak to the international press.
In his first appearance as the group’s new head, his face looked like an angry toad. Qassem, the face Hezbollah chose to put on to address the world in the wake of Nasrallah’s killing in September, is a frightened face. It sweats. It is clumsy and uncharismatic. It is boring to listen to and painful to watch. As Israel unleashed a punishing campaign over Lebanon, one that has killed thousands of civilians and displaced over a million, Hezbollah could only offer their followers one thing after their beloved leader Nasrallah’s demise: a familiar face.
Qassem’s ascension speaks to the dearth of talent in Hezbollah’s higher echelons after its ranks were culled by the Israeli military. Ever since Israel killed Hezbollah’s spiritual father and military guru in an airstrike on Sept. 27, the group has been on the back foot. Many of its elders are now gone.
Almost a month after killing Nasrallah, Israel killed his heir apparent, Hashem Safieddine. A senior figure in the group’s command structure, he was seen as a competent, experienced replacement for Nasrallah. He was even related to him. Raad is no military man and Safa is rumored to be incapacitated following an Israeli strike that targeted him in the heart of Beirut in October.
Even the children of Hezbollah’s senior figures are being killed, men in key positions who were probably being groomed to replace — and outdo — their fathers. Raad’s son was killed in an airstrike last year. Fellow Hezbollah legislator Ali Ammar’s son was killed when Israel detonated pagers carried by the group’s members in September, in what was at the time their biggest security failure yet. The cream of the crop is gone, mowed down by superior Israeli intelligence. The varsity team has left the field and the freshmen do not seem up to the task.
And it shows. In his first appearance after Nasrallah’s killing, Qassem looked like he was speaking to us from a closet. Seeming more schoolkid than orator, he looked like he was reciting homework rather than delivering a speech at a time of unprecedented hardship for his organization, days after their leader was killed. He counted out points with his hand and often referred to a cheat sheet in front of him. He looked like a novice actor failing to convey the emotions demanded by the contents of his script. Any emoting he did looked forced and cringeworthy.
There is a saying in Lebanon that denotes a particular type of pupil: “He memorized it but he does not understand it.” Despite the magnitude of the occasion — the first speech from a senior Hezbollah member after Nasrallah’s killing — he could barely capture my attention, and I found my hand inadvertently reaching for my phone while he fumbled a speech on the TV. “This is supposed to inspire men fighting for their lives at the front?” I asked myself at the time.
It was never meant to be his job, though. To my mind, he was always in charge of Hezbollah’s cultural wing, the man tasked with organizing his community’s views on religion and education. “We have to hold on to the keys of education,” Qassem once remarked in a speech during Ashura, a 10-day holy period marking the historic Battle of Karbala, at which the Prophet Muhammad’s grandson, the Imam Hussein, was killed.
At the time, Qassem lauded Hezbollah’s achievements, not only on the battlefield but also in shaping the lives of Lebanon’s youth. He also had a habit of expounding on women’s rights and place in the world and intervening in educational issues and child-rearing.
“This energetic youth, instead of heading to the clubs and bars, headed to the summits of the mountains to fight Israel and takfiris,” he said, the latter term referring to Syrian rebels, whom Hezbollah often equated with the extremists of the Islamic State group.
Wouldn’t this energetic youth have been better off heading to the bars instead of to Hezbollah’s wars? Men like Ali Haydar, a Hezbollah fighter who was killed just before getting his doctorate in telecom technology? The country’s brightest young brains are being extinguished on Lebanon’s southern front, their sacrifice offering no real strategic gain. I often think about Haydar, of a world where we marry Hezbollah’s experience and battle tactics to a unified policy of national defense, a world in which Haydar is an engineer with the army, working alongside others in a vibrant tech industry to develop capabilities that would deter Lebanon’s neighbors from interfering in its affairs.
Is that naive? It feels like it is.
In its adventures abroad, Hezbollah was often seen as Iran’s senior partner rather than its proxy. That was largely due to Nasrallah. He came to Tehran’s mullahs as their equal in stature and eminence, a learned religious scholar and military miracle worker.
In Lebanon, Hezbollah was largely left to its own devices by Iran, the understanding being that “they are more knowledgeable in their own affairs” — the “they” being Nasrallah. He looked the part. His black turban denoted his lineage as a descendant of Muhammad’s family, known as a “sayyed.” Qassem’s turban is white because he is not a sayyed — it is more fitting for his former role as Hezbollah’s education emissary and women’s affairs pontificator. I wonder how Iran sees him. Does he have the stature to be “knowledgeable in his own affairs”? I don’t think so.
The group has so far thwarted Israeli ground advances into Lebanon, despite heavy losses. Its forces continue to pummel Israel, striking at troop movements and key military installations. But more than a million Lebanese are displaced, thousands killed and wounded. Winter is settling in and many are exposed, living in underequipped shelters or on the streets. The “Party of God” is now enfeebled and weak. Any day now, we expect to hear a loud succession of blasts announcing Qassem’s demise. It wouldn’t even be surprising at this point.
When prominent members are killed, the group often confirms their deaths, but we don’t know exactly how many rank-and-file Hezbollah members have been slain in the past few months. They used to be proud of their losses, boasting of the men they sacrificed “on the path to Jerusalem” fighting in Syria and Lebanon. Now we have no specific numbers.
What happens when we hide what we were once proud of? Does that mean we are ashamed?
Hezbollah’s people will be asking questions, if the war ever ends. They will want to know why they entered a conflict that got their beloved leader killed for no apparent purpose. Why did their loved ones die? Why were their homes destroyed? Who will rebuild them? Where will the children go to school? Who will pay for it? Of course, no response will be forthcoming. Militant groups don’t work that way. Hezbollah will figure out a way to fend off internal pressure. They always do.
They won’t do it alone. Iran will not let its foreign policy crown jewel shatter so easily. Its interlocutors will close ranks, working more intimately with the group to safeguard it in Lebanon and abroad. Iranian commanders are already seen as having a greater role in the direction of Hezbollah’s operations in southern Lebanon. Will that closeness continue once the war ends?
By then, Hezbollah would have completed the cycle of cynicism that has marked most resistance movements in the world: hero, then villain. Hezbollah’s only prerogative would be to rule where it can. Its diminished leadership will be preoccupied with shoring up their internal front and answering those pesky questions asked of them by the Lebanese.
Many Shiites resent Palestinians, blaming them for the wars that have befallen them. My father is one of them. I used to shield my Palestinian friends from my dad, a man who saw his business destroyed and his homes burned for the Palestinian cause. He paints them all with the same broad brush from the 1970s. He sees them as disorganized bandits bringing a foreign war and ruin to his once-prosperous homeland.
Now in his 70s, my father still talks of one day during Lebanon’s 15-year-long civil war. My grandfather was devout and did not drink. He gathered his children and told them to pour themselves some whisky. He informed them that they had lost everything. In the fighting, their business was burnt by Palestinian factions. They now had to go find their own way in the world. He had nothing left to give them. My father has hated Palestinians ever since.
I wonder how many men like my father this war will breed.
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