Arab Press

بالشعب و للشعب
Friday, Oct 03, 2025

The mood in Lebanon is for revolution

The mood in Lebanon is for revolution

Before the blast, corruption had spread like a malignant tumour
When 2,700 tonnes of ammonium nitrate left in Beirut’s port exploded last week, a three-year-old girl named Alexandra Najjar was torn from her mother’s arms as they ran inside from their balcony. In the same instant, every-thing in the apartment was flying through the air — doors, window frames, shards of glass, the air-conditioning unit, the family’s piano — and something hit the little girl.

She died later from her wounds and on Lebanese social media she has become the ‘Angel of Beirut’, a symbol of the innocent people ‘murdered’ by their government’s negligence and incompetence, as her father, Paul, put it. He gave a restrained and dignified interview to local television, refusing to call her a ‘martyr’, a word local politicians would have used about her had she, more conveniently, been killed by some outside enemy (Israel would be best). Instead, she was simply a ‘victim’.

A photograph shows Alexandra on her father’s shoulders, with curly hair and pink dungaree-shorts, waving a Lebanese flag. This was at one of Lebanon’s many anti-government protests. Addressing the political class now, her father said: ‘You are all criminals… You killed us in our homes… a place where I thought I could keep my family safe.’

The explosion had not killed Christians, Muslims, or members of this party or that, he said, just Lebanese. And now the Lebanese had to unite to overthrow the old, corrupt system. ‘Please, enough. We have to stand together. We have to change things, for Alexou — for every child to live in the country we wish we could have.’

The Lebanese prime minister Hassan Diab and his entire cabinet resigned this week, so you might think that Paul Najjar had won. But power in Lebanon lies elsewhere than the succession of usually bland and forgettable government ministers. A rich and well-connected Lebanese friend told me: ‘The same motherfucking gangsters are still in charge.

Nothing will change until they are gone.’ He listed the geriatric leaders from the civil war or their heirs, all household names in Lebanon: one a notorious war criminal, another a massive embezzler of state funds, a third an obscenely rich but credulous fool, and so on. But as Diab said in his resignation speech, corruption in Lebanon is everywhere, not just at the top. ‘This crime,’ he said of the explosion, was the result of corruption that was ‘bigger than the state’.

Before making that speech, Diab froze the bank accounts of 20 officials overseeing the port and said that Lebanon’s strict banking secrecy laws would no longer apply to them. Exactly what they have (allegedly) squirrelled away over the years may now be made public, the amounts easily compared with their official salaries.

This was an extra-ordinary thing to do in the political culture of Lebanon. Generations of politicians from Lebanon’s successive governments, the permanent administration of generals and security chiefs, and the bureaucrats in their jobs because they’re someone’s cousin or brother will all be sweating, wondering if they are next. This, presumably, is why Diab did not telegraph his intentions, changing the rules at a stroke, through the courts instead of through parliament.

How does ‘corruption’ cause an explosion that killed more than 200 people, injured some 6,000, and made 300,000 people homeless, laying waste to a swath of Beirut? Over six years of failure and inaction, thousands of tonnes of a dangerous material were allowed to slowly decompose in one of the port’s warehouses, turning into an immense bomb.

The officials running the Port of Beirut say they tried to sound the alarm but were ignored by the government.

Diab says the officials were too busy amassing private fortunes to do their jobs. According to one account, the port authority is run by bureaucrats loyal to the (Sunni) former prime minister, Saad Hariri; customs controlled by the (Christian) president Michel Aoun’s people.

The Lebanese government was in overall charge but couldn’t sack anyone. Such a person would answer only to the sectarian leaders or former warlords protecting them. It’s the same across the whole of the Lebanese bureaucracy.

Any account of this would not be complete without mentioning Hezbollah, the Shiite militia and Lebanon’s state-within-a-state. Saad Hariri’s brother, Bahaa, said it was ‘crystal clear’ that the port, the warehouse and the ammonium nitrate were all under Hezbollah’s control.

‘Nothing that goes in and out of the port, or the airport, does so without them knowing. Nothing. Their decision to put it there in the middle of a city of two million people was an utter disaster.’ With Lebanese chanting ‘Rig the nooses’, it’s not surprising that the political class should try to blame each other.

But Hariri was right, the real power in the Port of Beirut was Hezbollah, whoever was nominally in charge. Did they want to keep the ammonium nitrate there in reserve for use in attacks outside Lebanon?

They have used it for bomb-making many times before. The Israeli media speculated that some of the 2,750 tonnes in the port warehouse might have been marked for use in Israel or against Jewish targets around the world.

Hezbollah has kept largely silent, calling for ‘Lebanese unity’ in response to the explosion. That call was echoed by the Iranian media, which also criticised what it called the ‘aid’ (their inverted commas) sent by the British government, the Royal Navy leading the way.

For some, the tragedy in Beirut will be the push the West needs to re-enter the Middle East, reducing Hezbollah’s influence and Iran’s. The chairman of the Defence Select Committee in parliament, Tobias Ellwood, told The Spectator last week that Britain should ‘nudge’ America into ‘repairing the vacuum’ left by a ‘lack of western leadership and resolve’ in the Middle East.

Lebanon has traditionally been a graveyard for such aspirations. Hezbollah has been able to count on perhaps 40 per cent of the population who are behind it. A British gunboat and a few million pounds worth of aid won’t change that, desperately needed and gratefully received though the aid might be.

One problem is that anything that helps Lebanon recover might also help Hezbollah. But Tom Fletcher, a former British ambassador in Beirut, told me he thought the opposite was true: ‘If you don’t help Lebanon at all, then Hezbollah becomes stronger.’

The first task would be to ensure that the international aid wasn’t stolen. Ideally, he said, there should be an international co-ordinator for aid — with a Lebanese in charge of the relief effort.

Fletcher wouldn’t speculate on names but one good pick might be the former interior minister Ziyad Baroud, a man with such integrity that he still drives around in a battered old car, despite having held high office in Lebanon.

Like me, Fletcher had never seen such anger or despair in Beirut. The port explosion seemed like a final blow. The country’s economy was already on the point of collapse last year. Then came the pandemic.

The government has defaulted on its international debt; the currency has lost four fifths of its value; banks have closed their doors, robbing the middle classes of their savings; the poor go hungry; the power is out for 20 hours a day.

All this seemed to be pushing Lebanese back into their own communities, Shia, Sunni and Christian. A few weeks ago a friend in Beirut wrote saying that Lebanon was turning into Venezuela and would soon be Somalia. ‘There is a lot of talk about people buying weapons and arming themselves…’

That was before the explosion. Now the popular mood seems to be for revolution. Corruption has spread like a malignant tumour because it was protected by the sectarian division of power in Lebanon.

Many of the protestors on the streets want that system swept away, so Lebanon can be a ‘normal’ country. There are risks in this. The sectarian division of power stems from the Taif agreement that ended the civil war 30 years ago. Though it has never delivered a stable government, it has kept the peace.

The question now is whether, in their bitterness and anger, Lebanese will return to sectarianism, or if they can break free of their past.
Newsletter

Related Articles

Arab Press
0:00
0:00
Close
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Archaeologists Recover Statues and Temples from 2,000-Year-Old Sunken City off Alexandria
Colombian President Petro Vows to Mobilize Volunteers for Gaza and Joins List of Fighters
Nvidia and Abu Dhabi’s TII Launch First AI-&-Robotics Lab in the Middle East
UK, Canada, and Australia Officially Recognise Palestine in Historic Shift
Dubai Property Boom Shows Strain as Flippers Get Buyer’s Remorse
JWST Data Brings TRAPPIST-1e Closer to Earth-Like Habitability
UAE-US Stargate Project Poised to Make Abu Dhabi a Global AI Powerhouse
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Kuwait opens bidding for construction of three cities to ease housing crunch.
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
Turkish authorities seize leading broadcaster amid fraud and tax investigation
Apple Introduces Ultra-Thin iPhone Air, Enhanced 17 Series and New Health-Focused Wearables
Big Oil Slashes Jobs and Investments Amid Prolonged Low Crude Prices
Social Media Access Curtailed in Turkey After CHP Calls for Rallies Following Police Blockade of Istanbul Headquarters
Gold Could Reach Nearly $5,000 if Fed Independence Is Undermined, Goldman Sachs Warns
Uruguay, Colombia and Paraguay Secure Places at 2026 World Cup
Trump Administration Advances Plans to Rebrand Pentagon as Department of War Instead of the Fake Term Department of Defense
Tether Expands into Gold Sector with Profit-Driven Diversification
Trump’s New War – and the ‘Drug Tyrant’ Fearing Invasion: ‘1,200 Missiles Aimed at Us’
At the Parade in China: Laser Weapons, 'Eagle Strike,' and a Missile Capable of 'Striking Anywhere in the World'
Information Warfare in the Age of AI: How Language Models Become Targets and Tools
Israeli Airstrike in Yemen Kills Houthi Prime Minister
After the Shock of Defeat, Iranians Yearn for Change
YouTube Altered Content by Artificial Intelligence – Without Permission
Iran Faces Escalating Water Crisis as Protests Spread
More Than Half a Million Evacuated as Typhoon Kajiki Heads for Vietnam
HSBC Switzerland Ends Relationships with Over 1,000 Clients from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Qatar, and Egypt
Sharia Law Made Legally Binding in Austria Despite Warnings Over 'Incompatible' Values
Dogfights in the Skies: Airbus on Track to Overtake Boeing and Claim Aviation Supremacy
Tim Cook Promises an AI Revolution at Apple: "One of the Most Significant Technologies of Our Generation"
Are AI Data Centres the Infrastructure of the Future or the Next Crisis?
Miles Worth Billions: How Airlines Generate Huge Profits
Zelenskyy Returns to White House Flanked by European Allies as Trump Pressures Land-Swap Deal with Putin
Beijing is moving into gold and other assets, diversifying away from the dollar
Trump Backs Putin’s Land-for-Peace Proposal Amid Kyiv’s Rejection
Zelenskyy to Visit Washington after Trump–Putin Summit Yields No Agreement
Iranian Protection Offers Chinese Vehicle Shipments a Cost Advantage over Japanese and Korean Makers
United States Sells Luxury Yacht Amadea, Valued at Approximately $325 Million, in First Sale of a Seized Russian Yacht Since the Invasion of Ukraine
Saudi Arabia accelerates renewables to curb domestic oil use
Cristiano Ronaldo and Georgina Rodríguez announce engagement
Asia-Pacific dominates world’s busiest flight routes, with South Korea’s Jeju–Seoul corridor leading global rankings
Private Welsh island with 19th-century fort listed for sale at over £3 million
Sam Altman challenges Elon Musk with plans for Neuralink rival
×