Lebanese people mostly hate Hezbollah. But Lebanese officials and media refuse to say anything bad about the terror group that hijacked their country.

There seems to be a huge disconnect between how Lebanese media and officials are talking about Hezbollah, and how ordinary Lebanese are.

Criticism of Hezbollah is almost non-existent in every Lebanese newspaper I can find. At best, they maintain a careful balance of reporting the facts but no op-eds denouncing Hezbollah. 

The Lebanese health minister, Firass Abiad, was interviewed by The Arab News yesterday. The interviewer tried very hard to get him to say anything negative about Hezbollah and he steadfastly refused, blaming everything on Israel accepting Hezbollah's absurd excuse for building up a separate army in southern Lebanon contrary to UN resolution 1701, and even accusing Israel of targeting civilians:

Interviewer: Israel actually withdrew from Lebanon back in 2000 and Lebanon had a chance to be neutral and protect its interests, but Hezbollah simply wouldn’t let that happen. Isn’t that true? 

Abiad: No, that’s the exact opposite. If you go back to the UN resolutions — especially 1701. In 1701, it was very clear that, first of all, Israel has to withdraw from all the areas in Lebanon, which did not happen. And up till now, Israel still occupies Lebanese territory. Secondly, it very clearly mentioned that Israel should not violate Lebanese airspace, which also did not happen; Israel has been violating Lebanese airspace continuously since the 2000 partial withdrawal from Lebanon. So, indeed, unfortunately, these actions by Israel gave the pretext for Hezbollah to continue today what it is doing now. But let’s be very clear, Israel didn’t fulfill that part of 1701. And even now, Lebanon is saying we are ready to abide by the UN Security Council resolutions.

Interviewer: But is the Shebaa Farms worth what is happening right now, minister? Because surely a negotiated deal would have been a far better option?

Abiad:  But that depends on the other party accepting a negotiation. And, up to now, it has been very clear that Israel is not interested in a negotiated outcome. 

These are all lies, and Abiad knows it. In 2006, Nasrallah justified Hezbollah staying in southern Lebanon and defying 1701 by falsely claiming that it was not meant to be implemented immediately, and that the Lebanese army wasn't strong enough to defend Lebanon. The border dispute wasn't his excuse.

Abiad is toeing the Hezbollah line and spouting Hezbollah propaganda, which is something most Lebanese politicians are doing.

When you look at what Lebanese people themselves are saying, though, you get a different story. In places like Reddit and comments section on newspapers, there is anger at Hezbollah and Iran for dragging Lebanon into their own adventures (although they also generally hate Israel, but they hate Hezbollah and Iran more.)

For example, this thread on Reddit started off with:

I don't seek validation, but I wanna be on the right side of history. I totally admire kicking out the israelis 2 times 2006 and before, thanks hezb. But after that the epitome of human greed consumed hezbollah and messed the country internally.

I simply asked my friends, do you support nasrallah taking lebanon and its citizens to war to free palestine? They said yes he is the only one who stood up for them. I claim that had they not done that, lebanon wouldn't be in flames and explosions. The thousands of lebanese wouldn't have died. They say well israel is evil and they wanna occupy lebanon regardless because of the "greater israel" plan

For 18 years, we had no beef with israel, everytime they attacked us was because they had missiles fired into their country, here is where i was called a zio. Because i said it's natural israel retaliates. Never said it was okay, but you can't expect someone to stay shut when you send rockets over. Hezb shouldn't have started it on Oct. 8, not forgetting the syrians and sunnis; everyone that were killed by him because they opposed him for decades.

Lots of reactions, most anti-Israel but mostly also anti-Hezbollah:

Think about it this way. Israel and Israelis up until the war cared mostly for the economy, and war is bad for business. Also, in 2000, Israel left Lebanon due to internal pressure, so a long term occupation of Lebanon is not popular among Israelis. And if Israel actually wanted to settle or annex Lebanon, I think it would have happened between 1982 and 2000.

Any sane person would be against Hezbollah. A country cannot function when they have a militia that doesn't answer to the government, especially when the army is scared of that militia.

What’s crazy is people still think that hizb was “protecting us” and they’re “10x stronger” than they were in 2006 yet they just got dismantled and defeated within a week.

Lots of people saying “the hizb protected us” “the hizb saved us” wlak why did we need protection in the first place ya maneyek.

In 2006 the IDF came in destroyed the country’s infrastructure and massacred 10,000 civilians then walked out like nothing happened. Where was our victory?

Save from what? Lebanon was a paradise of freedom before hamas/ Hezbollah decided to bite the hand that helped them by accepting Gaza refugees years ago. They thanked them by overthrowing the government an having a civil war cos Allah.its so sad to watch these fuckwits screaming about how bad everyone else is while repressing there own civilians. Do people honestly think Lebanon wouldn't be better off if Hezbollah were gone?

Or this thread:

Praying for a time like this again

Amen. Inshallah.

But first, the Iranian puppets must go.

Israeli puppets first and foremost

Israel isn't the one controlling the Country. Nor are they the extremists that have perverted our land for decades causing my family to flee.

 Israel needs to emphasize, again and again, that it wants to see an independent Lebanon free of Iranian influence and that it has no territorial designs on the country. People there can listen. 

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