The world looked on in shock as a massive explosion ripped through the Beirut port on Aug. 4 killing hundreds, wounding thousands and displacing hundreds of thousands. This comes during the COVID-19 pandemic, and just months after the Lebanese economy collapsed, leaving half the population in poverty. The UN is now warning of a humanitarian crisis.
What the people of Lebanon need now is solidarity and an immediate and massive aid effort, proportionate to the damage done, and given to all without political strings.
But where the people see humanitarian crisis, imperialism sees opportunity. Just as billionaires in the U.S. saw the COVID-19 pandemic as a chance to make ever more profits, the U.S. government sees suffering in Lebanon as an opportunity to manipulate this terrible tragedy to increase its own leverage in the country at the expense of Lebanese sovereignty and to the advantage of Israel.
On Aug 4, 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate exploded on Beirut’s port. The blast, so powerful it was heard and felt in Cyprus, left a 141-foot-deep crater. The death toll so far is 200, including Syrian nationals who worked at the port; 6,000 have been injured, and 300,000 made homeless by the blast.
The explosion demolished some of the wealthiest, mostly Christian neighborhoods in Achrafieh, along with three hospitals. It blasted out windows and doors throughout the city. It destroyed the entire country’s grain supply, stored nearby and closed the Beirut port, which is so necessary for Lebanon’s economic survival.
Gross government negligence
The highly combustible ammonium nitrate, which can be used for fertilizer or explosives, had been stored at the port for more than six years, since it was unloaded from a disabled cargo ship. Numerous officials at the port, in in the trade, finance and other ministries, in the judicial system and elsewhere knew of the situation, yet none sought a solution for disposing of this highly flammable substance. This gross and criminal neglect has enraged the Lebanese people not only against the government, but against the whole ruling establishment.
Even before the horrific explosion wreaked so much devastation, Lebanon was in crisis. For years, under Lebanon’s sectarian and patronage-based political system, the one percent looted the government’s coffers while adhering to an IMF plan charging workers and the poor ever-higher taxes. This economic Ponzi scheme fell apart in October, after the government had became so dysfunctional that it couldn’t even provide 24-hour electricity, tap water or pick up the garbage. The collapse of the economy sunk into poverty fully half the population, including Syrian and Palestinian refugees. Even before the explosion, millions were jobless, with some reduced to stealing food to feed their children, and borrowing from banks to pay rent.
Enraged protests
It is no wonder that after the explosion the reaction of the Lebanese people was pure rage at the government and the political elite that ran it as their private fund. Furious demonstrators have poured into Martyrs Square daily since Aug. 8, sometimes 10,000 strong, fighting pitched battles when police tried to disperse or contain them.
The day after the blasts, a popular WhatsApp message was in wide circulation: “Today, we mourn. Tomorrow, we clean. The day after, we hang them.” Many from all political spectrums were seen in demonstrations holding nooses. The protests had a level of anger against the government and the country’s leaders not seen before in Lebanon.
Reforms blocked by Lebanon’s elite and IMF
The protests forced the resignation of Prime Minister Hassan Diab and his cabinet on Aug. 10. This government of technicians, in office since January, and had been charged with rectifying the economic situation, but had accomplished nothing. Few had expected this government to succeed, however, as there was no change in the relationship of forces.
Diab, who had the backing of Hezbollah and its political allies, said reform efforts by his government had been blocked at every turn by entrenched power brokers in the country’s government. He had no cooperation from the U.S.-backed IMF either, which turned down his April 30 recovery plan and bid for a $10 billion loan. With no reforms and no loans, the Lebanese lira lost 80 percent of its value since October.
Corruption, incompetence built into confessional system
Many protesters are saying the resignations of the Prime Minister and the cabinet are not enough, and are calling for the resignation of the president and parliament as well. Others, including many on the left, feel that even this would be just a change of management.
They feel the corruption and ineptitude that produced both the explosion and the collapse of the economy are built into the neoliberal order that was imposed on Lebanon by international financial institutions in coordination with the country’s ruling elites after the civil war in 1990.
They feel that current state structure’s needs to be replaced, with, in the words of the Lebanese Communist Party, “a modern citizenship state.”
Locked into a caste system
Lebanon has a caste-like political system, known as the confessional system, where each person is defined for life by which of the 18 religious sects they were born into. Rather than being a citizen of Lebanon, one is a member of a certain sect.
Lebanon’s President must always be a Maronite Catholic, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of Parliament a Shia Muslim. Parliament has quotas for each sect. Government positions are apportioned by sect.
This system determines every aspect of one’s life. Education, registering to get married, and even services like garbage disposal are provided by one’s sect. The population is dependent for services on the patronage of sect leaders, a position usually inherited.
By design, this system does not permit country-wide services such as universal health care or public education. It keeps this country of 5.5 million people functioning as a collection of tiny fiefdoms easily controlled by imperialism.
The system is maintained by the U.S and France. Washington likes it so much that it seeks to impose the same system in Iraq, Syria and Libya.
Hezbollah a defender of Lebanese sovereignty
There are two major political blocks in the Lebanese government today. There is the U.S.-and-Saudi-backed March 14 Alliance, consisting entirely of the oligarchs. There is the pro-Hezbollah March 8 Coalition. Hezbollah, which is allied with Iran, and Syria, is not part of Lebanon’s elite.
Hezbollah was founded in the early 1980s as a response to Israel’s invasion and occupation of Lebanon and the siege of its capital. It is based in the Shia community, Lebanon’s largest religious group and traditionally its poorest and most disenfranchised. The group has won Shia allegiance through its social service programs, lifting many out of poverty in that community for the first time in Lebanon’s history.
Hezbollah has its own powerful militia which drove the Israeli military out of southern Lebanon in 2000, ending a brutal 18-year occupation. In 2006 Hezbollah was instrumental in pushing back a massive Tel Aviv invasion of Lebanon. Most recently, the group was crucial to the defeat of ISIS, al-Qaeda, and U.S.-backed extremist groups in both Syria and Lebanon. It has been known among all sects as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty and has often been called “the resistance.”
Hezbollah entered the government in 2018 elections that gave it a majority alongside its coalition allies the Free Patriotic Movement, a Christian party, and Amal, a Shia party. This governing coalition enabled Hezbollah, without serving as the face of the government, to protect its traditional interests, deterring Israel being foremost, and to keep Lebanon from totally falling into the imperialist camp.
The U.S. has been determined to overturn Hezbollah’s 2018 win ever since. They calculate that a government without Hezbollah cannot resist Israel or the extremist Gulf proxies that threatened Lebanon during the war on Syria. They also see ousting Hezbollah from the government as a way of weakening Iran.
U.S. has placed Hezbollah on its “terrorist” list, sanctioned it, and threatened sanctions against its allies any those who have relations with it. In February, at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the U.S. imposed sanctions on several pharmaceutical and medical companies in Lebanon linked with the Hezbollah Martyrs Foundation. The goal was to force the group to cut back its social and welfare programs.
Attempts to blame Hezbollah for the explosion
Hezbollah finds itself in a very difficult positioned right now as the principal backer of the government presiding over a thoroughgoing collapse of the Lebanese state and society. It has been included with other political groups as targets of mass anger. This has not been lost on the imperialist camp, which seeks to use it to its advantage.
Yaakov Katz, the Jerusalem Post’s editor-in-chief, spoke for the U.S. and reactionary Arab regimes too when he wrote on Aug. 6, “The question for Israel now is can this unfortunate disaster [in Lebanon-JC] be used to change the balance of power in Lebanon, and encourage/inspire the Lebanese people to turn against Hezbollah and remove it from power.”
Right after the port explosion, a campaign of lies and rumors was launched blaming Hezbollah for the horrific blast. According to Electronic Intifada, tweets charging this came from a propaganda organization linked to Israel’s strategic affairs ministry, Israeli and pro-Israeli social media accounts have continued to spread similar lies.
The Daily Best reports that immediately after the explosion a number of verified Twitter accounts linked to Saudi Arabia blamed Hezbollah. Within 24 hours, the hashtag “Hezbollah’s Ammonia Burns Beirut” was trending. Intelligence sources say that the disinformation is being generated and spread by four verified Saudi-linked accounts that have been active in recent years in disinformation campaigns designed to hurt Iranian interests.
These falsehoods have reprinted in the Lebanese and other media.
Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary-general of Hezbollah has denied the rumors. On Aug. 12 he said, “I categorically deny the claim that Hezbollah has arms cache, ammunition or anything else in the port.”
France: The former colonial master
Meanwhile, the Western media has treated the visit of French President Emmanuel Macron to Beirut Aug. 6 as the mission of a savior. France is the former colonial master in Lebanon, and in 1926 was the originator of the confessional government system that rigidly divides the government between the country’s 18 religious sects.
To this day, France is a main backer and financer of the corrupt political order that has stifled and starved the Lebanese people for decades. It is also a main supplier of the tear gas and other riot control equipment used by the police against the demonstrators.
French authorities continue to jail Lebanese political prisoner George Ibrahim Abdallah, even though the Lebanese government has officially requested his release and repatriation. While in Beirut Macron was twice confronted by youth shouting “Freedom for Georges Abdallah!”
France and the United Nations led a virtual donor conference where governments pledged nearly $300 million in humanitarian assistance to Lebanon. Citing “the will of the people,” the conference decided that this money will not go to the Lebanese government, but will be “directly delivered to the Lebanese population” through the UN, international organizations and NGOs.
Protesters have expressed the fear that money going to the government will be lost to corruption. But there is no guarantee that the imperialists, aren’t using “the will of the people” as a cover to dole out funds through other channels to the oligarchs whose politics they support, or to U.S.-funded NGOs.
U.S.-backed political parties and groups backed by U.S. agents of reactionary regime-change, such as the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. Institute for Peace, and USAID happily wait in the wings.
What will happen next?
Though the government has resigned, Prime Minister Diab will continue in a caretaker capacity until a new government can be chosen. At a time when so much needs to be done, this government will have little authority. Short of a revolutionary intervention, the new government will maintain its confessional form and will be made up of some combination of the same forces.
Mass actions occur daily, and will continue. Some have been large and very determined, but of a spontaneous character with no consistent direction or program.
Can there be an alliance between the mass protests and Hezbollah?
Right now the Lebanese left calls for the complete abolition of the confessional system, and holds that all those who hold onto this political system are responsible for the current crisis, including Hezbollah.
The supporters of Hezbollah argue that their party has not been in power long enough to change anything. They insist on a strategic alignment with parties, like Patriotic Movement and Amal, in order to protect their capacity to resist Israeli aggression.
To date, there are no political formations currently strong enough to rival those of the oligarchs currently in power, and the US is increasingly determined to try to co-opt the movement for its own goals.
However, the struggle itself is the best educator of the working class. And the struggle is bound to continue and deepen in Lebanon.
