Strategic Assessment
“Other than the Shiites, there is no one who will say he loves Hizbollah.” This statement was made by a Lebanese Christian woman, who was asked in a TV interview how the average Lebanese relates to Hizbollah. And indeed, this is the essence of Lebanon: the citizens’ ethnic approach to every matter. In Lebanon, there is no ethnic community that is loyal to true democratic principles, and casting the internal confrontation between Hizbollah and the Junblat-Lebanese forces-al-Mustaqbal (the future) trend as a confrontation between a fundamentalist force and a democratic-liberal force contradicts the nature of Lebanon. The identity differences and huge conflict of interests among the communities will only worsen as a result of the current Lebanese crisis, which might lead to a violent internal crisis.