Sectarian tension in Lebanon has further degenerated after a video depicting Hezbollah as characters from the Angry Birds video game prompted online posts attacking the leader of the country's Maronite Church.
The controversy erupted when news channel LBCI, perceived as anti-Hezbollah, published a video on its own website portraying the group's leader, Naim Qassem, and its fighters as caricatures based on the “angry birds” and the Israeli military as more heavily armed “green pigs” – the birds' rivals in the popular game.
This was followed by a stream of images posted online, from accounts perceived as pro-Hezbollah, that depicted Maronite patriarch Bechara Rai as pro-Israeli. One showed him dressed as an Orthodox Jew and shaking hands with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
The delicate relationship between Lebanon's Shiite, Sunni, Druze and Christian communities has been under even more strain since Hezbollah began firing rockets at Israel on March 2 to support its backer Tehran in the Iran war.
The LBCI video appears to condemn Hezbollah's decision to reopen a front on Lebanon's southern border with Israel, with a limited rocket barrage. Israel responded with a ground invasion and bombing campaign that has so far killed more than 2,600 people and displaced well over a million in Lebanon.
Hezbollah, meanwhile, opposes the Lebanese government's move to hold direct negotiations with Israel in a bid to end the conflict.
Mr Qassem did not refer to the Angry Birds incident in a statement issued on Monday. But he did criticise the government for seeking direct rather than indirect negotiations with Israel, which is still regarded as an enemy state by Lebanon.
He said direct discussions would be “a free concession without results, serving the interests of Netanyahu who seeks a symbolic image of victory, and serving [US President Donald] Trump ahead of midterm elections”.
“Is there any country in the world where its authority aligns with the enemy against its own resistance fighting occupation? There is none,” the Hezbollah leader said.
LBCI was ordered to delete the offending video by the newly appointed Attorney General at the Court of Cassation, Ahmad Hajj, but that did not quell the anger in the Hezbollah camp.
Hezbollah said the footage contained “offensive and cheap insults that degrade political discourse to a repulsive level”.
The posts attacking Mr Al Rai, who has regularly adopted a perceived anti-Hezbollah stance, were condemned by his supporters and some officials.
In his Sunday sermon, the Maronite patriarch did not refer to the online attacks but spoke of “the war of words that is raging on social networks”, which he said did not amount to “freedom of expression” but instead “an attack on the dignity of people”.
Michel Issa, US ambassador to Lebanon, condemned the attack during a visit to the patriarch's residence in Bkerke on Monday.
Mr Issa, who is Lebanese-American and a close friend of Mr Trump, insisted a meeting in the US between President Joseph Aoun and Mr Netanyahu, where the Lebanese leader would lay out his demands, would not be a concession.
Lebanese and Israeli representatives met twice in Washington last month – the first such contact in decades. Washington's attempt to arrange a meeting between their leaders has been badly received in parts of Lebanon, as the Israeli military continues to carry out attacks. Both sides continue to trade fire two and a half weeks into a ceasefire during which hundreds have been killed in Lebanon.
Hezbollah has also strongly condemned the government's push, led by Mr Aoun and Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, to confiscate its weapons. The government has sought to demonstrate its capacity to clamp down on weapons outside of state control by bolstering the security presence in Beirut.
However, automatic weapons and even an rocket-propelled grenade were fired into the air at a funeral for Hezbollah fighters in Beirut's heavily bombed southern suburbs on Sunday, in what was seen as a show of defiance by the group's supporters.
The Lebanese army took the rare step of entering the area and arresting one of the perpetrators. Anti-Hezbollah officials, along with the US and Israel, have heaped pressure on the underfunded Lebanese army to do more to stem the spread of arms.
