Traditionally, the strongest response to those who argue that resistance represents a bulwark against “Israel’s ambitions” was that diplomacy and friendships would protect Lebanon from such “ambitions” and also from similar challenges. During the brief civil war of 1958, for example, arms that the “United Arab Republic” had smuggled into the country to undermine Lebanon’s sovereignty were prevented from achieving their aims. Western friendship, embodied by the “Eisenhower Doctrine” at the time, provided protection that was manifested in the US Marines landing on the shores of Beirut.
The argument in favor of friendship has largely been proven sound. It has passed several tests over the years, and its failures were linked to the presence of armed resistance movements launching operations from Lebanon, as happened with the Palestinian resistance and later Hezbollah.
At the very least, this argument was far more credible than that of resistance. The latter has been emphatically and bitterly defeated every time, and some of the repercussions were felt across the entire country. Equally grave, every resistance movement and every instance of militarization detonated relations among domestic religious and sectarian communities, placing Lebanon’s very existence, not the illusions of liberating Lebanese territory, at risk.
In this context, Kataeb Party founder Pierre Gemayel developed a theory that critics and opponents saw as a heresy: “Lebanon’s strength lies in its weakness.” However, that theory was consistent with an order founded on international guarantees and friendships.
Today, however, we face a different international and regional state of affairs that calls for careful reflection and deeper thought, rather than lethargically reiterating the theory that we can rely on friendships and diplomacy. That does not, of course, imply reconsidering the unhinged and wretched theory of resistance. Rather, it calls for enriching the friendship and diplomacy theory, or at the very least, not contenting ourselves with sleeping on its supposed silk sheets.
At this moment, in which international law and multilateral institutions are being ignored and marginalized, small and weak states are losing confidence in diplomacy. With an alliance like NATO now vulnerable to disintegration, and with countries like Denmark and Canada (in addition to Ukraine and Taiwan) worrying about annexation, weak states’ bulwarks against the strong are receding. Amid efforts to shape every consideration through naked power and raw interest, it is incumbent upon the weak to think creatively and develop new ideas. Nothing comes free at this moment, and the price is often heavy and immediate, which does not align with the policy of supporting weak and devastated countries- at the very least, not during their transition and unless they recover from their setbacks.
As many Lebanese contemplate ending the state of war with Israel, an inevitability that will be taken sooner or later, we cannot avoid preempting risks that has become unwise to ignore. In light of the approach that the US has taken to Denmark, what, for example, guarantees that Israel will not “discover” what it deems a “security need” in Lebanon, be it land, a strategic site, or a natural resource?
With Netanyahu and the religious settlers in power, it is difficult to rule out such scenarios, especially since building a broad strategic belt likely to lack the basic conditions of life has become the north star of Israeli policy after October 7.
The fact is that several weak countries have suffered from the powerful’s use of violence in pursuit of their interests, without regard for any law or treaty. The most salient example is Belgium. The Germans ignored its neutrality when the Second World War broke out, invading it in mid-1940. After no more than 18 days of war, the Belgian forces were encircled in a small pocket in the northwest of the country, leading to their surrender, which paved the way for Germany’s occupation of the country until 1944.
Earlier still, during the First World War, neutral Belgium experienced the bitter truth: neutrality means nothing without international law and powers that respect it, either out of conviction or necessity. In 1914, the Germans invaded the neutral country whose neutrality had been guaranteed by several European states, foremost among them Britain; Germany was itself among the guarantors! When Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was reminded of the document his state had signed, he famously referred to it as a “scrap of paper.”
Proposing solutions to such predicaments is certainly exceedingly difficult. It is a Catch-22: we are looking for the eyeglasses we have lost, but can’t find them without our eyeglasses.
As for our only consolation, albeit one that will not necessarily have any practical or immediate effects, it is that the weak of the world are very many. Among them is Europe, which is paying the price for its lack of sufficient firepower as it resists the temptation to surrender to the law of the jungle. One task we can set for ourselves, before the cloud of dumb force weighing on our planet’s chest begins to recede, is to stop cheering for power and the powerful, and to question our excessive assurance that “Lebanon is back.” This country is not strong under the religion of power; it will not be strong, and it should not be.
