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00:00Well, joining me in the studio is Dalal Mawad, a seasoned Lebanese journalist.
00:03Great to have you with us, Dalal.
00:05Author of All She Lost, which chronicles the collapse of the Lebanese port explosion,
00:10the Beirut explosion, and the stories of women who lived through it.
00:14And one which I think there are still so many answered questions.
00:17There are, particularly over who's responsible,
00:19whether Hezbollah officials implicated, allegedly blocking the investigation.
00:24Let's start the fact that this is personal to you.
00:26You still have family in Lebanon.
00:28Just tell me about what the last 48 hours have been like for you.
00:33I think it's been devastating watching Lebanon from afar,
00:36just like a lot of expats, Lebanese in France and across the world,
00:41feeling helpless and seeing history repeat itself, unfortunately,
00:46history repeating itself once again with these endless cycles of violence.
00:51And I think many of us, you know,
00:55want this to stop immediately because we know how devastating this is going to be for Lebanon,
01:00who's reeling already under a myriad of crises, including the economic crisis,
01:06has not recovered from the Beirut explosion, which you have mentioned.
01:10And there's a sense of longing, I would say.
01:14A lot of us want to be there despite the circumstances, because being here, as I said,
01:18we feel very helpless.
01:19I still have my family.
01:21My parents are there.
01:22My husband still lives in Lebanon.
01:25And so, you know, we just want this to stop immediately.
01:29And I hope that diplomacy is the way out at this point.
01:34I don't see another way out, unfortunately.
01:37We can see behind you what we're talking, just the scale of people
01:41suddenly on the streets, suddenly homeless because they've been displaced from the south
01:45or simply cannot get anywhere to rent in the city because all the apartments are taking up.
01:49The amount of people suddenly there, the vacuum.
01:52And also, we have a situation with hospitals being full.
01:55I wanted your take on just, you know, you've looked at Hezbollah
01:59and I'm just interested to know, there are a lot of people who support Hezbollah in Lebanon,
02:04mourning the fact that Hassan Nasrallah has died.
02:07Your time looking at Hezbollah, is there a, clearly there are people that won't as well.
02:11And I just wonder what you think about the political vacuum that he's created now
02:16and what remains of Hezbollah with your insight into what could happen next.
02:22A lot of questions.
02:24But I think, you know, Nasrallah was the secretary general of Hezbollah,
02:28was the most powerful man in Lebanon, although he wasn't in public office.
02:33He didn't hold like a position in the state.
02:36I think his assassination is going to be a turning point, not just for Lebanon,
02:41but the whole region and for the so-called axis of resistance with Iran at its helm.
02:47It's clear that Hezbollah has been weakened
02:50in the past week with all these blows and hits and now with Nasrallah killed,
02:55but also seven top commanders of Hezbollah have been also assassinated by Israel.
03:01And the airstrikes are still ongoing.
03:05I think what we have to watch is what Iran's reaction is going to be.
03:11And I personally believe Iran wants to preserve itself and is not going to strike back,
03:17at least cannot go into a full-blown war, a regional war.
03:20But I don't know, to be honest.
03:25The speeches that we've heard or the statements do not indicate an imminent retaliation,
03:30but we don't know Iran has the style of, you know, taking the time to
03:34to retaliate and has used proxies throughout histories to,
03:38to, you know, push back or fight back.
03:42When it comes to Hezbollah, I think, you know,
03:45it's true that Nasrallah is probably the most loved politician,
03:49but also the most hated politician in Lebanon.
03:52I'm worth saying, a politician that if you walk around the south of Beirut,
03:55probably in the south, you see his poster on billboards everywhere.
03:59But he's more than a politician.
04:00You know, he represents, he's a political leader, he's a military commander,
04:04but he's also a religious and cultural icon, if you want.
04:09And for many, he's come to represent, you know, became a symbol of resistance.
04:15He was behind the liberation of the south of Lebanon in 2000.
04:20He's seen by a lot of Lebanese,
04:21but also Arabs as someone who brought back dignity to the Arabs.
04:26At the same time, his legacy is stained by the involvement of Hezbollah
04:30in Syria's civil conflict, fighting with Assad and crushing the opposition.
04:35Also, his legacy is, you know,
04:38he's believed to be behind a series of political assassinations in Lebanon.
04:43You know, also putting together a counterrevolution in 2019
04:46when people went to the streets calling the political establishment,
04:50you know, to leave and calling for reform.
04:52So it's a very complicated relationship that the Lebanese have with Nasrallah.
04:57And there's a sense of, I think, defeat and anger in some way,
05:02which I've seen in the past 24 hours among supporters of Nasrallah and others,
05:07because it's Israel that assassinated him.
05:10So, you know, the attacks on Lebanon have been widely seen as an attack on Lebanon's sovereignty,
05:18not just attacks on Hezbollah, per se.
05:22And he's hard to replace, to be honest.
05:28There's a name put on the table.
05:30I think the party has been organizing itself and preparing for this scenario.
05:36But it's going to be very hard to fill his shoes because he filled so many roles.
05:39I mean, many people compare him to Nasr, who was, you know, the former late Egyptian president.
05:48Who wanted, talked about pan-Arabism.
05:51More specifically, Shiites of internationalism.
05:54Nasrallah came to represent this Shiite axis of resistance with the proxies in Iraq and Yemen
06:01as well.
06:02But Hezbollah was the jewel of Iran.
06:05Let's be honest.
06:06And today, I think the axis of resistance is in a deep crisis after all these hits that it's taken.
06:11So you talk about a possible obvious successor.
06:15We're talking about Hersham Sofieddine.
06:17Exactly, the cousin of Nasrallah.
06:18Cousin of Nasrallah, somebody who is also very connected to Iran.
06:22I believe his son is married to the daughter of Suleimani, who was killed.
06:30He's known to be less pragmatic than Nasrallah.
06:34He looks like him.
06:35He sounds like him.
06:36He looks like him.
06:37Even, you know, ruthless.
06:39They say that, you know, Nasrallah was more pragmatic than him.
06:43There are also a lot of question marks as to how much experience Sofieddine has.
06:50Hezbollah is really weakened today.
06:52And there's been a huge breach, an intelligence breach.
06:56And it's believed that it comes from within the organization.
06:59Before, this is, you know, an Israeli security breach.
07:02There's a need to look inside.
07:05And let's not belittle the economic crisis with this security breach.
07:08I think the economic crisis that started in 2019 played a role,
07:12you know, in turning some people within the community against Hezbollah.
07:16This is a very good point.
07:17It's been mentioned by a number of analysts.
07:18The idea that poor Lebanese in the south,
07:21the attraction of being what many, you know,
07:24those who support Hezbollah would say is a traitor to them.
07:27But actually, the intelligence to Israel and the money paid could be a big factor.
07:30Hezbollah provided a lot of social services.
07:33It was a state within the state.
07:35Which brings me on to go back to 48 hours ago,
07:38this explosion in Dahir.
07:39You were there in the summer.
07:40Let me bring up this article you did.
07:42This is Newsline Magazine.
07:44You talk about Hezbollah fighters' stories.
07:47I think we can see it here.
07:49If we can show it in the gallery.
07:50This is the piece that Dalal did.
07:52Fighters' stories as told by their mothers.
07:55I think the gallery can bring it up.
07:56Here we go.
07:57So this is Newsline.
07:58Basically, you were in Dahir over the summer.
08:01You got permission from Hezbollah to have these conversations.
08:04And a very deeper insight rather than a two-dimensional terrorist story
08:09of who fights for Hezbollah and why.
08:12I think it's important to humanise these fighters,
08:15regardless of where you stand,
08:16you know, if you consider them terrorists or not.
08:19They're human beings at the end.
08:21And I think it was interesting to go back to their early life,
08:26you know, their childhood, their teenage years before they were killed.
08:31And I thought mothers are the most powerful storytellers.
08:35This is what I've witnessed throughout my career as a journalist,
08:39women and mothers specifically.
08:40And it's the angle I took in my book.
08:42But so the mothers were there talking about their children who were killed.
08:47And they call them martyrs.
08:49You know, martyrdom is an intrinsic part of Shia identity and Hezbollah's identity.
08:54And these kids, these boys are indoctrinated very early on.
08:59They join what is known as al-Mahdi scouts, Hezbollah's scouts.
09:03And they go on.
09:04You're talking this is like three years old.
09:06As early as three, exactly.
09:07And the indoctrination starts there.
09:10There's religious, there's a lot of religious teachings.
09:13So this is what I've noticed is that the religion doctrine is very, very strong.
09:19And it's stronger than the political identity.
09:22And it's actually what pushes these people to fight.
09:25Because in Shiaism, in their history,
09:28there were two imams, Imam Ali and Imam Hussein,
09:31who were assassinated and considered as martyrs.
09:34And they've come to represent for this community,
09:36the ultimate sacrifice for social justice.
09:40And so these people really believe that it's a religious duty
09:44to be killed for a greater cause.
09:46In this case, you know, fighting against Israel.
09:49And a lot of these mothers, you know, despite their pain,
09:52they're very convinced.
09:54And the doctrine is in the family.
09:57I mean, to a lesser extent.
09:58But some of these children end up in military training
10:01and end up enrolling with Hezbollah as early as 13 and 14.
10:05And they go fighting as teenagers, as underage kids.
10:11And it's just, you know, the majority of the Shia community
10:17believes in these ideals and, you know, in their duty to serve and to fight.
10:25And there's something very interesting that a mom told me,
10:27that it's not martyrdom that's the objective.
10:30It's the victory.
10:31Victory against Israel or whatever cause, you know, they're fighting for.
10:36And yeah, it's very religious for them.
10:38They see their martyrs almost as saints who did something good.
10:44Briefly, because I think actually where you lead us next
10:46gives us an idea of where this can go
10:48in terms of dismantling an organization and to what extent.
10:52You talked about the social fabric.
10:54I think part of your piece, you talked about, you know, widows, mothers,
10:58those that have lost those fighting for Hezbollah,
11:00get a financial package each month.
11:02And that tells you about the fabric of society
11:04in a very poor country right now
11:06and how important this militia politically and militarily is.
11:10Yeah, I mean, Hezbollah, but also other political parties
11:12in Lebanon have weakened the state
11:14and they come in and they fill the shoes of the state.
11:16And Hezbollah is no exception.
11:21It's a state within a state and a community on its own.
11:24It provides the fighters a salary, but also once they are killed,
11:28their families have an income for their lifetime income
11:32and they're provided free medical and educational services as well.
11:37They go to school for free.
11:38They are in hospitals getting treated for free
11:42and they feel like the party is taking care of them.
11:45Of course, the question is if that income stops one day.
11:49And we've seen this with the financial crisis
11:52that I think the means were with the sanctions on Iran as well.
11:57Hezbollah didn't have the means it had
11:59and had to create this criminal network around the world
12:02to finance its activities.
12:04If one day not just Hezbollah is weakened militarily,
12:08that financially also if it cannot fulfill this role,
12:13would it push people to support the party less or not?
12:19But again, there is a very, very strong doctrine
12:21and it's very religious as well.
12:24Dalal, great to have you in the studio.
12:25Great to talk to you.
12:25Dalal Marwad, an author of All She Lost,
12:28Lebanese journalist based here in Paris.