How Lebanon's leaders are enabling Israel's war on their own country

How Lebanon's leaders are enabling Israel's war on their own country Submitted by Amal Saad on Fri, 05/01/2026 - 14:53 By adopting a US State Department memo and entering asymmetrical talks, Beirut has enlisted in Israel's counter-resistance project and ethnic cleansing of the south Mourners cry over a coffin during the funeral of three Lebanese Civil Defense members who were killed in an Israeli air strike, in the southern city of Tyre on 30 April 2026 (AFP) On That Joseph Aoun is now widely nicknamed in Lebanon "the president of others on our land" - a reappropriation of his own description of resistance to Israel 's aggression since the November 2024 ceasefire as "the war of others on our land" - is a measure of how thoroughly he has been delegitimised in the eyes of a significant portion of the public. This delegitimisation is not confined to the head of state. It also extends to the executive authority now shared by Aoun and the government headed by Prime Minister Nawaf Salam , which, in trying to conflate itself with the full authority of the Lebanese state, has launched an unprecedented campaign not merely to ban armed resistance, but to portray it as alien to Lebanese social and political life.