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In the “low-intensity war” it has been waging since October 8 against Israel in support of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Hezbollah has officially mourned the deaths of 273 of its men. But up until now, these sacrifices have not earned the party any gains, and their impact on what is happening in Gaza is almost nil. On the other hand, they have resulted in enormous and equally pointless destruction in southern Lebanon.
Lebanon is divided over this war, which risks destroying the country if it escalates. Hezbollah and the Amal movement see it, in the absence of any questionable military impact, as a “moral duty,” a gesture of essential solidarity toward the Palestinian cause and Gaza.
But within these Shiite groups, reliable sources claim that opinions are divided on its suitability. On the ground, each “mission order” is seen as a game of Russian roulette due to the Israeli army’s aerial superiority. It systematically eliminates the leaders of the pro-Iranian group, its observation and surveillance means and the coordination on the ground of its drones and artillery.
This is why some Hezbollah leaders would like to expand the conflict in order to inflict decisive losses on Israel with the most sophisticated weapons at their disposal, which could have, in Israel’s eyes, a deterrent value. But this reasoning is clearly flawed, as a devastating bombardment of Israel by medium-range rockets will inevitably result in the devastation of Lebanon as well.
In any case, even if some Lebanese among those who defend Hezbollah’s involvement in the war between Tel Aviv and Hamas recognize the value of the “moral duty” invoked by Hezbollah, many believe that this “duty” could have been expressed differently—without causing unnecessary deaths and incalculable destruction. This is notably the opinion among Christians, particularly within the Free Patriotic Movement founded by former President Michel Aoun, who sealed an agreement with the pro-Iranian group in 2006.
According to reliable sources, General Aoun, speaking privately on this issue, essentially believes that “we are heading towards a decisive battle” and that “the United States will not allow Hamas to emerge victorious from the war.” “Lebanon has no interest, in the negotiations that will follow, in standing with the vanquished,” he reportedly emphasized.
But in any case, where will all these deaths, and especially those of Hezbollah fighters, be placed in the national memory if Lebanon wants to remain true to its historical vocation? Some answers to this delicate question have just been provided by the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, in a lengthy interview with Vatican News on the war in Gaza and the immense drama it has caused in an Israel that it has divided in two.
For the bishop, the war in Gaza has changed and will change all the peoples of this country and all the people in positions of responsibility. “No one can claim to remain the same” after this monstrous conflict, asserts the Latin Patriarch, for whom the two-state solution seems increasingly inevitable and will come not through a solution imposed from above, but “through an outcome coming from the grassroots level,” from the people involved, through a “slow and exhausting” but irreplaceable process of rapprochement.
“In this sense,” emphasizes the Latin Patriarch, “I believe that it is also necessary to examine the Christian narrative, which, as I have said, can only be reborn from an awareness of what truly constitutes our identity, always starting from reality, concrete experience, the reality of our faith. (…) In the past, our presence was manifested by the construction of churches, schools, hospitals. Today, we are no longer called to build structures, but relationships: relationships with our ‘others,’ knowing that we are their ‘others.'”
These suggestions can and should be applied here, and the churches must grasp their essence. After this conflict, they will be called not to stop building structures but to undergo a spiritual revolution that will transform them into “relationship specialists” with others, facilitators of friendship among peoples, in the spirit of service and in fidelity to the Gospel.
For Cardinal Pizzaballa, “There is no need for big speeches, just sharing a meal, a drink together can break down the walls that separate us. A dinner together can do more than a conference or a document on inter-religious dialogue.”
The reconquest of Jerusalem, the “City of Peace,” must be through peace, not through the sword. We are no longer in the time of the Crusades. The consciousness of history has made progress since the Middle Ages. It is not on the corpses of 50,000 dead and 100,000 wounded that the Islamic world, whether Shiite or Sunni, must bridge the distance that separates it from Jerusalem, but through a peace agreement between religions, which Pope Francis is painstakingly building. The Pope is currently preparing a trip to Indonesia, the world’s largest Islamic nation, in the spirit of the Abu Dhabi Declaration (2019). A declaration co-signed by the Pope and the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmad el-Tayyeb.
All the churches are now concerned with this transformation and exclusivity, becoming inclusive. It is no longer enough to lecture Hezbollah every Sunday, reminding them that they are acting outside the constitutional rules freely chosen by the Lebanese. These Lebanese who fall “on the road to Jerusalem” are not strangers but compatriots. To the “moral duty” for which they were pushed to sacrifice their lives, the Church is called to respond with the duty of charity to spiritually care for them and to reiterate that vengeance will only strengthen the camp of their killers, and that the future, sooner or later, lies in mutual forgiveness.
