Hezbollah Base Questions Support for Assad
With Hezbollah members increasingly dying in Syria, some of the party’s base are re-evaluating its role in the conflict, writes an Al-Monitor correspondent in Beirut.
There is growing talk within the Shiite community in Lebanon about Hezbollah's new front aimed at defending the regime of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Villages in the Bekaa valley and the south, the strongholds of the party's social base, are beginning to bear the brunt of the war, as they receive the bodies of their sons who died on distant fronts in Syria.
A few days ago, the village of Mays al-Jabal, in the far south near the border with Israel, buried a young Hezbollah member who had gone to Syria just days before and returned wrapped in a party flag. Upon the arrival of his body in the village, a group of Hezbollah members wearing black uniforms received him and accompanied his coffin in a military procession to his parents' home. Among the masses of women dressed in black stood a large woman who broke into loud chants, a tradition of the region's inhabitants when they received the remains of martyrs who had fallen in the face of the Israeli army during its occupation of southern Lebanon. The relatives of Fayez, the fighter who had died in Syria, gave the chant a lukewarm response. His mother stepped aside, her forehead covered in dust, and lost consciousness for a moment as her husband glanced at her with sadness.
Meanwhile, an Israeli warplane left a white trail in the sky as it crossed the area at high altitude. The mourners barely notice these planes, as they have become accustomed to hearing them break the sound barrier on an almost daily basis. The appearance of the Israeli plane at that moment, however, perhaps signified a message to the children of the village — “their fight on the distant front in Syria is taking place while the immediate front with Israel still warns of possible war.” The mourners' steps were marred with frustration. They marched behind a group of party members who carried the coffin of Fayez that had come from the distant front in northern Syria to the cemetery of his hometown in southern Lebanon.
At any moment, any of the mourners might have broken the silence and voiced an objection to the killing of their sons in Syria. “It is simply not our war,” said one of the village residents speaking to Al-Monitor in a hushed voice. According to this citizen, in the past, “Villages in southern Lebanon supported Hezbollah because it defended our land against Israel, and we did not care about the number of our sons who died as martyrs in the party’s ranks. Today, however, the party is leading us into a battle that has nothing to do with defending our land against Israel. We support the Syrian regime, but it is not our duty to defend it. This is the duty of the Syrian army alone. President Assad helped us during the war of 2006 when Israel attacked us, but he did not fight in our place.”
