The Future of Lebanon and the Stalemate in the Gulf.

Since March 2, the State of Israel has been carrying out devastating attacks against Lebanon, particularly against the southern region and southern Beirut. There are already more than 3,100 dead, over a million displaced, and many areas in ruins. How far will Israel go?

To understand these attacks, one must understand the Zionists’ historical view of Lebanon. On May 16, 1955, Israeli Prime Minister Moshe Sharett described in his diary the meeting he had with Ben-Gurion, then Minister of Defense, and his Chief of Staff, Moshe Dayan:

“According to him [Dayan], all that is needed is to find an officer, even if he is only a major. We must win his heart or buy him with money, to get him to agree to declare himself the savior of the Maronite population. Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, occupy the necessary territory, and establish a Christian regime that will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani River southward will be fully annexed to Israel…”.

This plan was put into practice in 1978 when Israel invaded southern Lebanon and established a puppet army led by Major Saad Haddad, who was replaced after his death by General Antoine Lahad, both of whom were Maronite Christians. Four years later, Israeli forces advanced to the capital, Beirut, to expel Palestinian forces, defeat leftist forces, and install their ally Bashir Gemayel as president.

Gemayel championed an Israeli agenda: the expulsion of the Palestinians, whom he considered a “surplus population,” and the establishment of an authoritarian government to advance the interests of the Lebanese Christian bourgeoisie.

To achieve this, Gemayel needed time to expel the Palestinians and Syrian forces before normalizing relations with the Zionist state. This was the pact between Gemayel and Israeli General Ariel Sharon in Bikfaya two days before his assassination in the bombing of the building housing his party’s headquarters.

Later, in 1983, the Lebanese resistance, led by left-wing parties, drove Israeli forces out of Beirut and southward. In 2000, the Lebanese resistance, now under Hezbollah’s leadership, expelled Israeli forces and their puppet army.

The second attempt to impose a colonial plan on Lebanon began in October 2024 with devastating attacks on Lebanese territory, particularly the south and the southern outskirts of the capital, as well as towns and cities in the Bekaa Valley. This aggression was suspended at Trump’s behest, but the ceasefire was violated by Israel 15,000 times by March 2, 2026, when Israel resumed large-scale aggression.

In the negotiations imposed by U.S. imperialism, Israel’s objectives are clear: to force the Lebanese government to instigate a civil war to disarm Hezbollah while Israeli forces occupy the south of the country, enabling them to attack any point in Lebanese territory at any time. The Israeli plan would transform the Lebanese government into a representative of its interests in the colonization of Arab lands.

Israel as an Outpost of U.S. Imperialism

This Israeli plan depends directly on its main sponsor: U.S. imperialism. Since 1973, U.S. imperialism has made the state of Israel its outpost to control the entire Levant region, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula. To this end, Israel receives, free of charge, modern weaponry superior to any other in the region, while the United States sells arms to the rest of the region that would be insufficient for countering the Zionists. Since the Obama administration, Israel has received $3.8 billion annually, and even more when necessary, as was the case during the genocide against the Palestinians in Gaza.

Furthermore, U.S. imperialism has developed a series of diplomatic strategies to force Arab countries to normalize relations with Israel. This was the case in 1979 with Egypt, and later with Jordan. Also in 1993, the Oslo Accords transformed the PLO into the manager of the Israeli occupation; and in 2020, the Abraham Accords with the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan, as well as ongoing processes of normalization with nearly all of the Arab regimes, with the exception of Algeria, Tunisia, and Kuwait.

This process of expanded normalization was interrupted by the action of the Palestinian resistance, led by Hamas, on October 7, 2023, which put the Palestinian issue back on the international agenda, froze the ongoing normalization negotiations—particularly with Saudi Arabia—and shattered Zionist self-confidence in its security scheme.

Since then, the United States, under Biden and Trump, has provided unconditional support to the state of Israel in the genocide in Gaza, the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank, and the apartheid in the Palestinian territories occupied in 1948.

The Failed Objectives of the Attacks on Iran

Following a 12-day aggression in 2025, U.S. imperialism and Israeli forces launched a brutal attack against Iran on February 28.

Their plan was to impose an allied government to serve U.S. objectives in the inter-imperialist dispute with China, and to eliminate the Iranian regime’s regional ambitions, leaving the field open for Israel’s hegemonic ambitions.

This plan failed due to the success of the Iranian efforts to block the Strait of Hormuz and strangle the international economy. At this moment, there is a stalemate, and Trump is seeking a way out to reopen the Strait of Hormuz to prevent a further decline in the global economy, which would affect the interests of corporations and the U.S. population, as well as those of allied countries.

At the same time, a Plan B is underway on the part of the United States through its representative, Tom Barrack, who is visiting all Arab capitals with the aim of building a regional alliance against Iran. This objective has already made progress with the military alliance under negotiation between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, and with the replacement of the Iraqi prime minister.

Saudi ambitions towards a third way

However, this plan faces resistance. First and foremost from the leader of the Arab League, the Saudi regime, which has its own ambitions to become the hegemonic regional power, as an alternative to Iran and Israel.

Eleven years ago, the Saudi regime launched an unsuccessful war against the Yemeni Houthis, which ended after two drones struck the country’s main oil complex in 2019.

Simultaneously, the regime launched the 2030 Vision to diversify the Saudi economy, making it less dependent on oil. However, this plan failed to secure all the necessary resources for its implementation, and is now being called into question in the wake of the imperialist aggression against Iran, which has hit the Gulf countries hard.

Today, the Saudi regime seeks an alternative regional alliance to Israel and Iran, aligning its enormous economic resources with Turkiye and its arms industry, with Egypt and its massive population, and with Pakistan and its nuclear bombs: an explosive alliance. This alliance remains allied with the United States but maintains excellent relations with Chinese imperialism.

One of this bloc’s key positions is to freeze normalization with Israel, making it contingent on the so-called 2002 Arab Initiative, which demands the recognition of a Palestinian state in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. The Saudi regime is already active in Lebanon, seeking to prevent the normalization of relations with Israel.

A Divided Lebanon

The majority opinion among the Lebanese bourgeoisie and the Lebanese population is opposed to full normalization with Israel. But it is divided along religious lines regarding how to end Israeli aggression.

The Christian bourgeoisie wants a ceasefire agreement with Israel and the disarmament of Hezbollah. The Shiite bourgeoisie rejects negotiations with Israel because they represent Lebanon’s colonialist subordination, and supports the armed resistance currently led by Hezbollah, which needs weapons to carry it out. Between these two positions stand the Sunni and Druze bourgeoisie: they want a ceasefire with Israel without this implying normalization, and a negotiated disarmament of Hezbollah.

The division among the population is somewhat different. According to a public opinion poll conducted by the local channel Al-Jadeed, the majority of Christians, Druze, and Sunnis want Hezbollah to be disarmed, while 87% of Shiites oppose it. As for direct negotiations with Israel, over 70% of Christians and Druze support them. Sunnis are divided: 52% support peace with Israel, but 46% reject it. And 53% of Sunnis reject negotiations between Netanyahu and Lebanese President Joseph Aoun.

Among Shiites, 93% reject it, demonstrating that the rift between Hezbollah and the Shiite population has not occurred, even though there is discontent regarding the party’s various policies, ranging from the 2013 invasion of Syria to the recent Israeli attacks on the country.

As for normalization with Israel, only the Druze are largely in favor: 70% support the opening of an Israeli embassy in Beirut. This rapprochement between the Druze community and Israel occurred following the conflicts in Suwayda between Syrian government forces and the forces led by Sheikh al-Hijri. It is interesting to note the rift between the main Druze leader, Walid Jumblatt, and the Druze population. Jumblatt advocates for a rapprochement between the Syrian government and the Druze population in Suwayda, and a distancing from Israel.

The relationship between the left-wing public and Hezbollah is also complex. Scholar Ziad Majed assesses that the Lebanese left is divided into four groupings: the first supports Hezbollah for its role in resisting Israel. The second grouping harshly criticizes Hezbollah for its domestic policies but prioritizes the struggle against Israel over these disagreements. The third grouping opposes Hezbollah regarding its relationship with Iran and the invasion of Syria, but does not align with anti-Hezbollah forces and believes that Israel is the greatest threat to Lebanon. The fourth group believes that an agreement with Israel is necessary to end the aggression.

Other imperialist countries

Still on the international stage, European imperialism, once highly influential in the Middle East, today limits itself to diplomatic statements criticizing Israeli excesses—such as Israel’s actions in Lebanon—but largely remains silent in the face of the Palestinian genocide while maintaining all its diplomatic and commercial channels with the State of Israel.

China positions itself as an ally of Israel, Iran, and Saudi Arabia at the same time, and has no interest in the fall of the regimes in any of these countries. Russia, meanwhile, maintains important relations with both Iran and Israel, but its actions are currently limited by the massive war effort against Ukraine.

Expel Israel and Overthrow the Sectarian State

In this situation, it is important to identify the political orientation for the Lebanese working class, which necessarily begins with the need to expel Israeli forces from Lebanese territory and to participate, in whatever way possible, in the resistance. For this to be realized, the main obstacle is the sectarian state and the majority of its bourgeois parties. The sectarian state structure in Lebanon was the result of an imperialist scheme to divide the Lebanese working class into illusory communal interests led by their respective bourgeois sectors. This sectarian state was on the verge of being defeated at the start of the Lebanese civil war, but it was stopped by Syrian military intervention in 1976, which prevented the defeat of the Christian far right.

This sectarian capitalist state is responsible for the country’s economic decline. It is incapable of guaranteeing basic services such as garbage collection or 24-hour electricity. Furthermore, in 2019, the Lebanese bourgeoisie withdrew its capital from the country, leading to a sharp decline in the Lebanese pound and the economy in general, followed by a catastrophic explosion at the port of Beirut that, in addition to the total destruction of the area, claimed the lives of 300 people.

Against the sectarian state, the uprising of October 19, 2019, rose up once more. This uprising called for the end of the sectarian state and brought together different sectors, ranging from a radicalized proletarian sector centered in the city of Tripoli to middle-class sectors centered in the city of Beirut.

The orientation for the workers’ movement must stem from the struggle against Israel, building an independent camp of the working class and youth, separate from the sectarian parties, and inspired by the proletarian youth of Tripoli.

Translated from the original Portuguese