“You have the right to be angry. But we ask you to hold that anger inside and be ready to use it when the time comes to achieve your goals and demands.” With those words, Hezbollah Secretary-General Naim Qassem addressed supporters in his latest appearance last week.
He then went further: “This anger has its time, and it can erupt,” warning in advance that responsibility for the fallout from any such eruption would lie with those who “do not know how to do their job” or who “try to work against the resistance and its people.”
The remarks have raised a broader question in Lebanon: Is Hezbollah preparing its supporters for a stage in which it moves from containing anger in the street to mobilizing it?
The question comes as southern Lebanon and its residents face severe hardship, mounting losses, and growing political and military pressure.
No decision to take to the streets
For now, there is still a gap between anger and a decision to mobilize.
Qassem Qassir, a political writer close to Hezbollah, said the anger Qassem referred to “is real and present within the resistance’s support base, particularly in the south, which is facing Israeli killings, destruction and massacres, which the Lebanese authorities have been unable to stop despite ongoing negotiations with Israel.”
But Qassir said there was “no information so far indicating any change in Hezbollah and the Amal Movement’s decision not to take to the streets.” Amal, led by parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, is a close ally to the Iran-backed party.
Qassir said some groups occasionally stage spontaneous protests, while anger is also expressed through statements and comments on social media.
Still, he said Qassem’s remarks could be “a signal for steps to come,” particularly amid what he described as “psychological preparations” for possible action if the situation moves toward further escalation.
“Hezbollah’s popular base is ready to mobilize,” he said, pointing to large turnouts whenever supporters are called to an event or funeral.
Protest vs. uprising
Political writer and academic Mona Fayyad drew a sharper distinction between anger inside Hezbollah’s support base and the ability to turn it into collective action.
“The main question is whether there is anger among Hezbollah’s supporters that could lead to an explosion, and whether the secretary-general is capable of turning that anger into actual mobilization,” Fayyad told Asharq Al-Awsat.
She said anger was unsurprising given displacement and the difficult social and living conditions facing Hezbollah’s supporters. But, she added, that did not mean it would become a popular uprising.
Collective action, she said, requires several conditions: a shared sense of threat, confidence in the leadership calling for action, and a belief that mobilization can produce results.
She also warned that a leader who identifies his supporters’ anger while asking them to delay expressing it risks widening the gap between the leadership and its base.
Qassem’s limited charisma “does not help him manage Hezbollah’s relationship with its supporters or turn anger into popular mobilization,” she went on to say.
‘Operating on the margins’
Lawyer and university professor Ali Mourad was more critical.
He said Qassem’s latest speech, particularly his effort to place responsibility for the consequences of the war on the state, reflected “a major illusion” and “a continued attempt to evade responsibility by shifting it onto the state.”
“The situation in the south is extremely difficult, and Jabal Amel is facing one of its most dangerous political and social moments after the people of the south were uprooted from their land,” Mourad told Asharq Al-Awsat.
But he questioned where Qassem’s threatened “eruption” would be directed.
“Against whom would this explosion be, and for what purpose?” he asked. “Would it be against the state, which is now dealing with the consequences of a war it was not part of?”
“The current phase is not one of anger or explosion,” Mourad said. “It is a phase of reassessment, limiting losses and dealing with their consequences.”
He said Hezbollah was “incapable of taking serious steps in this direction” and was instead “operating on the margins to escape its responsibility.”
The people of the south understand that the state is not responsible for what happened and that responsibility for the choices that led to the war lies with Hezbollah, he stressed.
Mourad said the “anger, wounds, and sorrow” felt by southerners should instead be translated into politics by ending the existing duality and moving toward a clearer equation based on “land in exchange for weapons,” rather than “fueling the battle or reproducing it.”
“The tragedy of the people of the south now goes beyond the political dispute between Hezbollah and its opponents,” he said. “Everyone must come under the authority of the state as the only available option.”
Mourad ended with a pointed question: What is the value of calling people into the streets to protest when many are already living there after losing their homes and property?
