On Saturday, Hezbollah’s recently minted Secretary-General Naim Qassem offered his group’s first comment on the downfall of the regime of Bashar al Assad in Syria. The Assad regime was one of Hezbollah’s closest partners and the critical link in its overland lifeline to Iran.
Qassem’s speech broke down into two basic themes: the conflict with Israel and the situation in Syria. The latter, the most critical development impacting Hezbollah, was buried at the bottom, perhaps because it constituted such a major setback for the group. The portion of Qassem’s address focusing on Syria was also the most bizarre because the Hezbollah secretary-general extended an olive branch to groups that, the week prior, he described as unrepentant takfiri terrorists operating on behalf of Israel.
Qassem began by recounting the events leading up to and surrounding the recent war with Israel. Here, despite devoting almost 24 minutes of his 30-minute speech to the matter, Qassem had little new to offer. He restated his claims from previous speeches and insisted, again, that Hezbollah had emerged victorious. Demonstrating this victory, claimed Qassem, was Israel’s eagerness to sign a ceasefire agreement despite Hezbollah altering its terms.
“[US envoy Amos] Hochstein brought a ceasefire agreement agreed upon between Israel and America and presented it to us through presenting it to the Lebanese state and Mr. Nabih Berri. Parliament Speaker Berri had his comments, and we also had comments, and we amended what we could in this agreement. This, then, was the deal. We agreed [to it] based on the details we inserted into the deal,” Qassem said.
Qassem insisted that the ceasefire and its terms were meant to “end the aggression, not the resistance” to explain Hezbollah’s acceptance of the deal. Echoing his previous comments, he again said that “this is an executive deal stemming from [UN Security Council] Resolution 1701,” which ended the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war and requires Lebanon to disarm Hezbollah (but which Lebanon interprets in bad faith to exclude the group from the disarmament requirement). As a mere extension of Resolution 1701, as understood by Lebanon and Hezbollah, this ceasefire deal “only relates to south of the Litani River, whereby Israel will withdraw to the Lebanese border, and the Lebanese Army would deploy as the only armed authority,” Qassem said.
Unlike in his last speech, Qassem did not explicitly say this time that the ceasefire agreement required Hezbollah to withdraw north of the Litani River, only that “there will be no gunmen or weapons in this area [south of the Litani].” He again insisted that this deal “had no impact on the Lebanese interior and Lebanese domestic issues, or the resistance’s relationship with the state and the army, or its possession [literally, the presence] of weapons and all other matters that require discussion and debate.”
Qassem then implied Hezbollah would not abandon its arms or change its orientation. “The resistance” belief system, he said, would remain “equipped with weapons and capabilities to protect this belief against enemies, because the enemies will not stop, they will [also] prepare.” He continued, “Words alone would [therefore] not suffice. Complaints will not suffice. One must inevitably confront them by preparing the necessary strength.” Israel, “this cancerous tumor,” he said, was using Palestine as a base for regional expansionism and, therefore, must be confronted by a united region to “prevent its expansion and annul its occupation”—in this case, meaning Israel’s very existence.
Qassem said resistance organizations like Hezbollah win “in increments,” recalling a statement made by his predecessor, Hassan Nasrallah. Therefore, “it can last for an indefinite period of time—10 years or 50 years.” Uncharacteristically, he said resistance organizations can “occasionally win and occasionally lose,” the closest a Hezbollah leader has come to admitting defeat at Israel’s hands during the recent conflict.
In any case, Qassem insisted that “what’s important for a resistance is its continuity, that it remains on the battlefield irrespective of how limited its resources may be.” Hezbollah’s resistance, said Qassem, “will continue, in both belief and preparation,” arguing Israel was an implacable, expansionist foe that “can only be curbed through resistance, and [our] land can only be liberated through resistance.” Though Hezbollah may alter its confrontation methods to suit the time, “because every period has its own methods,” Qassem argued the important part is that “the resistance remains, and the methods and paths chosen will be determined based on each period, which we will work on.”
“Everyone according to their means and current circumstances, so long as we do not watch idly while Israel devours us one after the next,” Qassem said. In the next phase, like the ones before it, he stated Hezbollah would continue to cooperate with the Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and the people—a reference to the group’s “Army-People-Resistance” equation requiring the symbiotic cooperation of all three components. No option exists to exclude Hezbollah from Lebanon’s political function, he said, insisting Hezbollah remained a powerful force in Lebanese politics—and those who treat it as such “will be welcomed by us and met with our cooperation for the sake of a strong, socially, economically and politically stable Lebanon’s renaissance.”
Hezbollah, Qassem stated, intended to be fully part of that renaissance, first by implementing the ceasefire decision “south of the Litani”—again, without specifying how Hezbollah intended to do so—and by “reconstruction with the assistance of the state, which is responsible for reconstruction and cooperating with all countries, organizations, brothers, and friends who want to help Lebanon rebuild.”
Hezbollah, he also said, was serious about electing a president on January 9, 2025—the date set for the next parliamentary session to elect a president—“to allow the wheels of state to start turning.” Hezbollah would then work from within the state to combat corruption. Finally, Hezbollah would engage in “positive dialogue regarding fundamental issues,” hinting at the question of Hezbollah’s arms.
Of course, we have several such matters: What is Lebanon’s stance regarding the Israeli occupation of its lands? We want to dialogue to unify our perspectives; how will we confront the occupation and liberate our land and not accept the occupation’s continuation? How do we strengthen the army to be a bulwark in defending Lebanon? What is Lebanon’s national defense strategy to benefit from the resistance and the people as a support for liberation?
The framing of these questions took for granted that Hezbollah’s position in Lebanon would remain unchanged. Qassem’s proposed method of resolving these questions—“these questions and more require dialogue between the Lebanese”—would guarantee Lebanon’s continued inaction against the group and its arsenal.
Threaded through Qassem’s speech, naturally, was Hezbollah’s consistent insistence that Israel is intrinsically evil, a greedy and murderous expansionist entity threatening all its surroundings with America’s support and complicity. “Were it not for the resistance’s endurance, Israel would have reached Beirut,” he alleged without proof, before turning more conspiratorial and claiming, “it would then have proceeded with […] settlement in south Lebanon, weakening Lebanon, and controlling its politics and future.”
Qassem continued:
We are not speaking of an unknown enemy. We are not speaking of unrealistic ideas. Look at this enemy’s unparalleled murderousness, look at what they are doing in Gaza. One hundred and fifty thousand martyrs and wounded, near-total destruction of Gaza; they issue statements saying, ‘We don’t want to leave Gaza,’ they say, ‘We want northern Gaza demilitarized, stripped of civilian presence, depopulated, with no homes, with no life.’ They are thinking of settling Gaza, and say they want to annex the West Bank— and are working towards that with total cover by the big murderer, America, which supports [Israel] with all its means. Therefore, America’s entire $850 billion defense budget is in service of Israel if the two parties [Republican and Democratic] are in Israel’s service. More than approximately 500 [cargo] planes reached the Israeli entity laden with weapons and ammunition, in addition to 100 similar ships—meaning that the murder we see is America’s creation and it was America’s decision to grant it cover.
Proof, he claimed, of Israel’s intentions is “what happened in Syria. They destroyed all the capabilities of the Syrian army, claiming preemptive self-defense and fear of the future. […] This is proof of their expansionist desires; they want to neutralize the entire region and would do this to one Arab country after the next if they could. They have their eyes set on neighboring Arab countries first, and further ones next.” Israel’s expansionist intentions require the continuation of the resistance, he said.
Naim Qassem’s concern for a post-Assad Syria was the most peculiar part of his speech. In his previous address three days before Assad’s downfall, Qassem warned that the onslaught of the opposition factions was:
[A]n aggression in Syria sponsored by America and Israel. These takfiri groups were always their tools from 2011 when the problems began in Syria. These [the US and Israel], after they failed in Gaza and the deal to end the aggression on Lebanon, and the failed attempts to neutralize Syria, are now trying to score gains by ruining Syria anew, and through these terrorist groups want to bring about the downfall of the regime in Syria and create chaos in that country, and to move Syria from the line of resistance to an enemy position that serves the Israeli enemy. However, God willing, they will fail to accomplish their goals despite what they did in the past days. We, as Hezbollah, will remain beside Syria to foil the goals of this aggression with all our available means, God willing.
Qassem ended that previous speech by calling on “Arabs and Muslims” to also act to prevent Assad’s downfall because the regime’s demise would be a victory for Israel and its “very dangerous Middle Eastern expansionist” project, “which is a loss for you as well, not just Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon—and will have a negative impact on your countries and future of your children.” He, therefore, beseeched his audience to “prevent the takfiris from [succeeding in] their aggression that serves the Israeli enemy.”
In his latest speech, by contrast, Qassem said, “We cannot prejudge the new authorities in Syria until they settle, take clear positions, and the position of the new regime in Syria stabilizes.” He hoped the new authorities would ensure cooperation between the “two peoples and governments in Lebanon and Syria on the basis of equality and exchange of capabilities,” and would ensure broad representation domestically. Qassem also said, “We hope that the new rulers consider Israel an enemy and do not normalize with it. These decisions will affect the nature of our relationship with Syria.”
Qassem ended his speech by insisting that “the Syrian people have a right to decide their leadership, rulers, constitution, and future—and we hope they make choices that will prevent any of the countries with designs on Syria from controlling it, and which seek to serve the Israeli enemy.” Also contradicting his prior speech, he said, “We do not think what is happening in Syria will affect Lebanon—to the contrary, they’re too busy in Syria dealing with their own particular issues. God willing, Syria will emerge stable and comfortable, fulfilling the desires of its people.”
These were odd statements from the leader of a group that spent significant blood and treasure over nearly a decade murdering Syrians to prop up the regime of Bashar al Assad in service of an Iranian agenda. But Hezbollah is a pragmatic organization and has, per Qassem’s admission, “lost, in this stage, its military supply route through Syria” through Assad’s downfall.
Hezbollah would prefer this supply line’s restoration, and Qassem’s address dovetailed with the overall conciliatory posture the group has adopted towards Syria’s new rulers. For, as Qassem said, Hezbollah’s “loss is a footnote in resistance activity—the new regime could restore this path to its natural course.” That outcome would be ideal for Hezbollah, and it appears to be something both the group and its Iranian patrons are seeking. Otherwise, Qassem said, “We will find other routes. […] The resistance must adapt to circumstances to strengthen its capabilities.”
