BEIRUT—No contradiction in Lebanese politics is more glaring than the desire of the Lebanese Forces (LF) to see the Israeli enemy resolve their political dispute inside Lebanon. A party that claims to defend state sovereignty routinely seeks foreign intervention against a Lebanese actor with a proven popular and national base.
In the 2022 elections alone, Hezbollah’s candidates received over 365,000 preferential votes, reflecting authentic representation and national legitimacy rooted in communities that view the Resistance as a strategic shield protecting Lebanon from foreign domination, fragmentation, and humiliation.
Hezbollah has long sought a national project: defending Lebanon’s sovereignty, maintaining deterrence against Israeli aggression, and preserving independence in political decision-making.
Conversely, the LF and its allies promote a project built on foreign pressure, sanctions, and external actors deliberately manipulating Lebanon’s domestic political system. Their goal is not reform, but the elimination of a domestic rival through outside force — even if that means the collapse of national institutions.
This approach has now entered a dangerous public phase. The Israeli embassy in Washington recently published a clip of its ambassador to the U.S., Yehiel Leiter, speaking directly to the Lebanese people in an interview with a Lebanese outlet, “This Is Beirut.”
In his message, Leiter asked, “Why allow extremists to stand in our way? We don’t want to harm Lebanon or injure civilians.” He expressed hope that 2026 could be the year of brokering the so-called “Abraham Accords.”
This is not diplomacy — this is psychological marketing aimed at normalizing occupation and erasing the memory of Israeli massacres, invasions, and decades of violations of Lebanese airspace, water, borders, and dignity.
Cognitive warfare on a discount budget
The LF is not merely begging foreign capitals for rescue; it has built a cheap but effective cognitive warfare network that broadcasts Israeli propaganda in Lebanese dialect and color schemes.
Their media platforms specialize in one function: making the Israeli enemy appear reasonable, civilized, modern, while painting the Resistance as backward, fringe, irresponsible, and “bad for business.”
They do not debate. They manufacture perception. They don’t build arguments; they repeat slogans outsourced from Tel Aviv’s talking points. Their entire communication strategy rests on the hope that Lebanese youth forget actual history: Qana, Sohmor, Sabra and Shatila, Khiam, the occupation of the South, and the 2006 destruction of homes, bridges, universities, fuel depots, and power stations.
Instead, LF-adjacent channels pump illusions: Israel wants “development,” “opportunities,” and “peace corridors.”
This is while Israeli fighter jets violate Lebanese airspace every day and drones hover over villages, and threats of war remain permanent. This is not politics. It is psychological laundering of occupation — the oldest colonial trick in the book.
Foreign orders disguised as sovereignty
For the LF, this type of messaging is strategic. Their representatives in Washington advocate not only targeting Hezbollah militarily, but attacking its social and economic powerbase.
They push for U.S. pressure on the Lebanese Army to raid southern regions based on Israeli intelligence claims regarding alleged weapons stores. They propose sanctions on officers, civil servants, merchants, airport and port employees simply because they belong to certain communities or are “suspected” of sympathizing with the Resistance.
They even promote dismantling the Qard al-Hassan association through American decree rather than Lebanese legal process — a shortcut that weakens the state and empowers external actors.
Most dangerously, LF-aligned lobbyists are urging Washington to shape Lebanon’s electoral system from abroad, demanding expatriate voting “reforms” designed solely to benefit anti-Resistance forces rather than serve national democratic integrity.
Kabul tells how mercenary politics ends
Here’s the punchline nobody in the LF wants to hear: Mercenaries don’t get medals — they get abandoned. Ask the Afghan officials who spent years kissing the hands of U.S. envoys, parroting whatever slogans were fashionable in Washington. They signed whatever papers were placed in front of them and believed in the myth of “Western protection.”
When the planes took off from Kabul and the “protectors” suddenly had somewhere else to be, those loyal clients sprinted through airports, clinging to landing gears, begging for evacuation. That is what “foreign partnership” looks like at the end: humiliation on a runway.
The LF keeps dreaming that outsourcing Lebanese politics to the Israeli enemy and Washington is a strategy. In reality, it is a one-way ticket to becoming disposable tools — useful only until the moment outside powers find a cheaper bargaining chip in the region.
Lebanon today faces two visions: One grounded in sovereignty, national decision-making, and defense of Lebanese land through proven deterrence; another that gambles its future on foreign intervention, cognitive warfare, imported talking points, and the fantasy that the Israeli enemy will one day act as a neutral referee in Lebanese politics.
Only one of these visions prevented civil war, deterred the Israeli enemy, and sustained a national identity that rejects partition. Only one protects Lebanese dignity today, and only one understands this truth: patriotism cannot be outsourced — and once you sell your politics to foreigners, they own your future and your failures.
Disclaimer : This story is auto aggregated by a computer programme and has not been created or edited by DOWNTHENEWS. Publisher: tehrantimes.com
