Hezbollah's priorities seem to have shifted in favour of holding onto its weapons

A poster of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah marks the Lebanese-Israeli border in the village of Marwaheen. AP

In a speech last week on the anniversary of the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, the party’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, let the mask slip a little further on his intentions. In the process, he indirectly showed that Hezbollah is entering an impasse on its future nationally, despite its significant military power.

In discussing the delineation of the Lebanese-Israeli border, Nasrallah declared that there would be no such process. Instead, he declared that there were 12 or 13 border points over which there was continued disagreement between the two sides. Israel was still deployed in these areas and had to withdraw from them, but Hezbollah believed this was an “international responsibility”, therefore the party had not conducted military operations to remove the Israelis from these places.

There were two implicit messages in Nasrallah’s comments on border delineation. First, the refusal to engage in delimiting the border was, in principle, aimed at underlining that the party would not give Israel any legal territorial recognition. Unlike the maritime border, the land border “was delineated” between 1920 and 1923, and these borders “were clear and Lebanon knows its borders”, he stated.

Lebanese Hezbollah fighters take part in staged cross-border raids in Aaramta, on May 21, 2023. AFP

The second message was that Hezbollah seeks implicitly to maintain ambiguity in border delineations, to be able to say that Israel continues to occupy Lebanese territory. This, in turn, allows the party to justify its continued weapons arsenal, which Hezbollah would “not allow [anyone] to attack”, Nasrallah affirmed.

In other words, Nasrallah effectively set down a series of conditions that made it all but impossible for anyone to enter into negotiations with the party on surrendering its weapons and putting an end to what Hezbollah calls “the resistance”. This was hardly surprising, as the party has spent over two decades, since the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000, finding reasons to perpetuate the anomaly of an armed non-state actor preserving its weapons to secure ascendency in a weak state.

However, conceptually where is this likely to lead? In fact, Hezbollah is operating in a highly sectarian context, so that all the options it has left for itself are likely to lead to greater tensions inside Lebanon and potential problems for the party.

If Hezbollah’s goal is simply to consolidate the status quo, as it seems to be, and allow no change that might threaten its power, then all it is really doing is holding together a highly dysfunctional, even failing system. This will exacerbate resentment in the country, because Hezbollah is profoundly wary of all reform efforts that might ameliorate the social and economic situation of the Lebanese, seeing these as steps that may weaken the political elite on which Hezbollah depends to maintain domestic order.

Worse, this resentment will take on an increasingly sectarian colouring. Already, for instance, many Christians are openly opposed to the current, broken social contract, and are calling for greater separation among Lebanese religious communities, whether through federalist models or even partition. If the Shiite Hezbollah wants the state, the reasoning goes, then Christians want to limit their ties with this state.

Realising this situation, Hezbollah could decide to make selective concessions, so as to absorb sectarian discontent, while retaining control over the commanding heights of the state. It would be a case of changing everything so that everything remains the same, to borrow from Giuseppe di Lampedusa’s novel The Leopard.

However, this is unlikely to happen, since even attempts at cosmetic change can trigger dynamics that might reduce Hezbollah’s power. The Iranian leadership, through its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, reportedly regards Mikhail Gorbachev’s attempts at perestroika and glasnost in the Soviet Union as a cautionary tale. In trying to reform the system to preserve communist power, they believe, Mr Gorbachev only hastened its downfall.

A third option, to fundamentally rework the Lebanese constitutional order in such a way as to anchor Hezbollah’s domination, is equally problematic, especially in a sectarian environment where other communities would feel threatened by Shiite gains. In his speech, Nasrallah insisted the Shiite political parties were not seeking to change the constitution to enhance the community’s share of power. But he pointedly added that Hezbollah was willing to develop or alter the system if other Lebanese wanted it.

For now, Nasrallah seems focused on maintaining a status quo. He can do so because he is facing a divided Christian community and largely leaderless Sunni community. In fact, Hezbollah is taking steps to reconcile with the Christian Free Patriotic Movement, its former ally with which it had quarrelled over Hezbollah’s support for Suleiman Frangieh as candidate for the presidency. Hezbollah hopes this will again split the Christians, who have been surprisingly unified in rejecting Mr Frangieh.

The Sunnis are another matter. As, arguably, Lebanon’s largest community, Sunnis pose the main long-term challenge to Hezbollah. While nothing is likely to happen in the short term, Hezbollah’s unwillingness, even inability, to change anything and stabilise its supremacy in a volatile sectarian framework represents a risk. For most communities, Lebanon’s current situation is untenable. As the system erodes further, the party’s strategy of immobility will likely become costlier.