“We are fed up and we want to live in peace,” Aoun said, adding “(Lebanese people) deserve to live in peace and in dignity, they deserve not seeing their homes being destroyed every five to 10 years.”

Since its founding in the 1980s, Hezbollah has gone to war with Israel multiple times. This year, the group fired rockets at Israel in retaliation for a joint US-Israeli assault on Iran that killed Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and much of his senior military command. Israel’s aggressive response has killed more than 3,500 Lebanese and displaced nearly a fifth of the population.

  • Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.caEnglish
    111·
    4 days ago

    Since its founding in the 1980s, Hezbollah has gone to war with Israel multiple times.

    CNN should probably mention the conditions that led to Hezbollah’s founding.

    Admittedly, Hezbollah hasn’t been great to Lebanese either, but Israel never let up the pressure and aggression that only continued to justify Hezbollah’s argument to exist. And a fractured neighbor is much better than a unified neighbor.

    • mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      101·
      4 days ago

      The Lebanese state neglected the south which led Hezbollah ability to create a state within a state . Hezbollah build ton of civilians infrastructures like schools, hospitals, clinics, and agricultural development centers

      • Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.caEnglish
        13·
        4 days ago

        Israel pulled their occupation out of Lebanon in 2000, the Syrian occupation lasted until 2005 (post Prime Minister assassination). Then 2006 war, then 2008 clashes where Hezbollah attacked Lebanese because their communication system was threatened.

        So to say that the South was neglected as if it was purposefully done by the central government and not that the central government was in disarray is heavily misunderstanding the political landscape.

        Not to mention that Hezbollah and allies have had a majority of seats in parliament for most of that period. So the question is, why didn’t Hezbollah provide more support to the South through the central government rather than their own networks?

        • mrdown@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
          31·
          4 days ago

          Israeli leaders keep talking about greater Israel and you still spew your bullshit here? Why the governments before Hezbollah even existed neglected the south ?

          Since independence in 1943, Lebanon’s political system has been organised around sectarian compromise, elite bargaining, and the concentration of power in a predominantly Christian Beirut and Mount Lebanon. Peripheral regions such as the north, the Bekaa, and the south were frequently treated as secondary spaces, useful electorally but rarely central to state planning.

          https://www.newarab.com/analysis/history-neglect-how-lebanons-state-failed-south

          https://www.nytimes.com/1983/01/17/world/south-lebanon-rejected-neglected-and-occupied.html

          • Rat_in_a_hat@lemmy.caEnglish
            22·
            4 days ago

            I’m not sure what your argument is.

            We can talk about the marginalization of the Shia and also their forced migration from central parts of Lebanon to the South all day long. Yes, it happened. I’m not denying that. But the primary reason that Hezbollah exists is as a resistance group, otherwise they wouldn’t need their weapons.

            You’ll also notice that even in the article you quoted, issa mentions that the South was also unstable with the influx of refugees and skirmishes between them and Israel, AND the marginalization of the Shia.

            The problem was not simply poverty, according to Issa, but government abandonment under the conditions of permanent threat.

            So what’s your argument exactly?