Life in Beirut is akin to living in a “parallel zone,” according to Maha Yahya, director of Carnegie’s Middle East Center and long-time resident of the city. Concerts, museums, and shows all carry on, but with the constant sound of Israeli drones overhead.  

On The World Unpacked, Maha joins Jon to unpack life in a country caught between Israeli occupation and a weakening Hezbollah. Yahya argues that a narrow window has opened to rebuild the Lebanese state and warns that Lebanon’s fate could signal the future of the international order. 

Transcript

Note: this is an AI-generated transcript and may contain errors

Maha Yahya: After October 7th, what we've seen is a complete shift in the Israeli security approach. But you cannot stabilize and survive in a region through that logic. What we're seeing today, whether it's in Gaza, whether it is in Lebanon, or whether it in Syria, it's military might with no political end in sight. For those who care about Israel, this will not make Israel more secure. It is not endearing to. Its immediate neighbors, and certainly not to the rest of the world. And never-ending military occupation is actually helping feed the exact narrative that they're trying to undermine. Today, in the name of security, Iran and Hezbollah are responding in the name of resistance.

Jon Bateman: Maha Yahya, welcome to the world unpacked.

Maha Yahya: Thank you, Jon. It's great to be here. It's good to be in D.C. And on the World Impact.

Jon Bateman: Right, everyone who travels to DC has to make a stop at the world unpacked. You Maha are a preeminent scholar of the Middle East, living in the Middle East, particularly in Lebanon, the country where you were born and have lived in and out of the country and have been there for the last 25 years, witnessing first-hand as a scholar and as a resident, an incredible amount of political, military, and economic ructions in a very small country that often seems to find itself at the center of everything happening in the region, and that is true today. So we're gonna dig into Lebanon. We're gonna talk about the kind of ambiguous state of conflict that the country is in with Israel right now. Fragile truce where much of the south of the country is under. Israeli military occupation, and we're going to talk about other regional dynamics that Lebanon either is at the center of or exemplifies political security, economic, religious challenges. But before we get into all of that, you just flew here from Beirut a few days ago. What is the country like right now? What does it look and feel like on the street? And maybe you could compare today. To the height of war when the country came under Israeli attack back in March.

Maha Yahya: Thank you, John. It's, I mean, living in Beirut right now is almost like living in a parallel zone because you're going about your daily life as if everything is normal. You go out, you go to work, you come back, you see your friends, we go to concerts, we go art shows, museums. I mean it's a normal life in some ways, But then the drones, the sound of Israeli drones is constant above Beirut.

Jon Bateman: What does that sound like?

Maha Yahya: It's like psychological warfare, honestly. It's, I mean, when I'm working at home and there are drones, I close all the windows no matter how hot it is, and I raise the music just so I can focus on something else because it really grates on your nerves. It's just there, and the sense of awareness that you're being monitored, you're being seen all the time. It's not me personally, but that there is something. Flying above you that is monitoring and watching and recording and God knows what else they're doing and maybe looking for targets and you don't know where that target is going to be. It could be in the building next to you or it could be the person walking next to you on the street or it would be the car passing by you on the street, or the motorcycle. So there is this constant awareness and anxiety. That is in the back of our minds all the time, even as we go about our daily lives.

Jon Bateman: Are people going to school? Do people have their shops open? Are they getting married?

Maha Yahya: As I said, normal life, the performance of normal life continues. It's there. Kids are going to school. Health checkups are happening in Beirut, I'm speaking. And in other parts of the country also, not just in Beyrut, where there isn't direct war or direct bombing, And life is continuing as it is, but... Along with that, there is the constant awareness, again, in the back of our, even in places like the southern suburbs, which was badly bombed during the last all-out bout of fighting back in March and April, you'll find now buildings that are half destroyed, and those that occupied these buildings have moved back into their destroyed apartments. Hmm. You'll find shops that are open on the street and the rest of the building doesn't exist anymore. So people are surviving in the rubble in these areas. But again, it really feels to me often like a performance. We're really doing, we go about it as we should, but in the back of our minds, we're aware of how fragile this is. There's a lot of anxiety in terms of... What the future holds, where things may go. The Iran-US-Israel war is one, but what is happening in South Lebanon in particular is another.

Jon Bateman: So let's catch people up a little bit on the history of all of this. And as always with the Middle East, there's a question of where do you start the story, okay? But because we only have an hour for this conversation, why don't we start the stories somewhat recently at the tail end of February of this year when the U.S. And Israel attacked Iran, assassinated the Supreme Leader, wiped out much of the military leadership. And bombed a number of nuclear and military sites, and we all know the rest of that story. At the same time, very shortly thereafter, Israel struck Lebanon. This was hardly the first exchange of violence between the two countries. Israel had targeted Hezbollah with a number of strikes and there was the famous pager attack, Hassan Nasrallah. Was already dead at this point. And so much of the country then.

Maha Yahya: Actually, he was killed after the Pager attack.

Jon Bateman: Yes, I mean, the point that I'm about to get to, which is the beginning of March. Yes. That is when the war essentially began. You were there at the time. What did you experience? And we were just talking about a kind of abnormal normal, but it wasn't that long ago that there was a very abnormal abnormal. What was that experience like for you as a person in this city and country, but also for a population that has been scarred by a lot of internal and external conflict over decades?

Maha Yahya: Very difficult. I mean, you understand the extent to which we have, I mean at least for me, I realize the extent to which I have unresolved PTSD. The sense that this is not the first conflict we've lived through. It's not the fist time I've been in a city that is being bombed by Israel in this case. So, Your life shrinks in ways that you do not predict. I remember talking to a journalist at the time, and I was talking about how the geography of movement really becomes very constricted, because you don't know where the... Some areas you know may be struck, so the southern suburbs, you don't go to the southern suburb no matter what you need.

Jon Bateman: And presumably that's because this is an area of Hezbollah concentration, and that is where Israel is carrying out more of its strikes.

Maha Yahya: Exactly. That was the focus. There was a lot of focus on that area, but they were also striking areas within Beirut proper, if you like. I mean, I could see, it's not just I could hear, but I could actually see buildings being bombed from my own apartment. And my apartment is in the area of the American University of Beirute. So it's the area called Ras Beiru. So I could the fires from my own apartment. So the terror, I mean you hear the planes, you see the strike, and you think okay, this time it's not in my area immediately. As I said, your geography shrinks, where you can go, where, who you visit, how you move about the city becomes very different, the calculation, you try and, I I mean. I was staying at home a lot more than I would.

Jon Bateman: How do you inform yourself during this period? Were you texting with your friends and family? Were telecommunications and internet working?

Maha Yahya: No, that was working. We stayed in touch. I was seeing my family, I was seeing my friends, I'd visit my cousins, they'd visit me. Again, you continue performing normal life, knowing full well you're in the middle of a war zone. I think the most terrifying moment was the final day of that full-blown war. And it wasn't, 2024 also was a full-blown conflict and Beirut was being bombarded. But this past March, April was the final day, was in April, when Israel conducted close to 150 air raids in the space of 10 minutes, 100 or 150 air raid in the the space 10 minutes. Many of them in Beirute were in areas that we did not expect. So all of a sudden you're seeing bombs falling around you or hearing them fall around you. And you're not clear where they are. So the terror of wanting to check on family or friends in case they're on the road, I mean, these are places we frequent, the areas that were being bombed. And in fact, the last bombing happened in an area, I was on Zoom, we were doing our program planning meetings. So this is our annual Carnegie program planning meeting. Right.

Jon Bateman: Right, the height of bureaucratic tedium and behind you bombs are being dropped.

Maha Yahya: And the final bomb of that day, I thought it was right next to, I mean, I panicked and closed the, the, and ran inside because the area I was sitting in, there were those glass in front of me and you worry about glass injuring you. So I ran inside and then it turned out to be actually in a building. My cousin lives two buildings away from that, the area that was bombed. Again, the panic to me, this is a residential building, there's no Hezbollah presence in areas. And the shock of an entire residential building being brought down in one shot. And it's not clear to any of us why these buildings were safe.

Jon Bateman: I obviously don't know either. Maybe one might speculate that the IDF believed there was some kind of target of opportunity or someone living there. You have a different theory.

Maha Yahya: To this moment, I think a big part of it was really a psych-op, just an operation of terrorizing an already terrified population, because to this day, some of the targeted areas we heard, there was a weapons depot in one. That's what we were told. But the rest, we have no idea. The building that was struck near my cousin, they said that the nephew of Naeem Asim, the current Secretary General lives in that building. Of Hezbollah and that he is the secretary of, I mean, he's the nephew and the secretary of the secretary general. You know, you don't bring an entire building down to take out one person if he truly lived in that building. We don't know, this was not, I mean there's a poet and her husband who were killed. The people we know in this building were killed and these are ordinary people who had nothing to do with Hezballah. Or any kind of military activity anywhere. And it was the same story repeated across not just Beirut, but across multiple towns in Lebanon, in Saida and in other places.

Jon Bateman: Going to dig more deeply into the causes and consequences of this conflict, relations with Israel, Iran, others. But we've largely been talking about Beirut up until now. The capital city where I gather about a third of the country lives. Lebanon is a highly urbanized society. 80 percent. Right. So very lots of people packed in a small space, right? But as you mentioned earlier, Beirute is very distinct from the situation in the south of the country, where... I gather that the fighting had been and has been the most intense, and Israel now has forces occupying some meaningful percentage of southern Lebanon. They've kind of cordoned off a number of towns and cities. People may be familiar with the fact that Israel has a long-running occupation of this smaller area, the Golan Heights, but this is much, much beyond that. Describe for us what is the situation in southern Lebanon right now. Has anyone left there or has everyone fled? Is there fighting ongoing? What's happening?

Maha Yahya: Israel today is occupying close to 8 to 10 percent of Lebanese territory. The area that is being occupied, which they often call a buffer zone, this is not a buffer zone because when you want to build a buffer, zone you do it on your side of the border, not on someone else's part of the boarder. This area is there are about 60 to 70 towns and villages that have been completely eradicated. It's like 70 mini Dresdens in one geographic zone, but in Dresden you still had the buildings, some buildings were still standing. In these areas, many of these villages have been dynamited, infrastructure is gone.

Jon Bateman: So, as I understand it, people essentially fled north and then...

Maha Yahya: They fled and everything was dynamited. There are a couple of villages, mainly Christian villages. This area is mixed, it's not all Shias. It's predominantly Shia, but you have mixed villages from different backgrounds or villages that are predominantly Shias or predominantly Sunni. So there are a few villages that people have refused to leave, because they understand that if they leave they may never be able to come back. The Palestinian experience is very much in the minds of many residents of this area. The sense that they're living now their own catastrophe.

Jon Bateman: So Shades of 1948, the idea is if you leave, you may never return.

Maha Yahya: That's the terror that many southerners are living today, particularly given the scale of destruction in this zone. Again, 60 to 70 towns have been totally, I mean, they no longer exist on the map. If you look at the map, they're there, you see the rubble, but that's all that remains. Phosphorus bombs have been used against, and this is internationally banned. They've been used in agriculture zones. Olive trees have been uprooted and burned or uprootted and taken, actually. Entire agricultural groves, I mean, it's gone. And what this does is that even if people were to return, many of the people who lived in these areas were farmers, so you don't have an economic infrastructure to sustain you. If this zone was open, people would go back and live on the rubble of their homes if they can figure out where they are. Because also all landmarks are gone. So public libraries, hospitals, schools, everything, everything has been either bombed or dynamited.

Jon Bateman: So I think at one point over a million people were internally displaced. Where did they go? And are they all still, wherever they are, have some returns?

Maha Yahya: Okay, from this zone specifically, there are about 200 to 250,000 people who have fled, and they're still displaced. They cannot go back, and many of them, there're videos of them. They stand in the areas just outside Israeli control, and they are watching their homes being demolished, and there's nothing they can do. The million that you're talking about who were displaced in March, April, many of Some have come back. Um to the areas that they fled from, especially villages and towns, uh in places where their homes have been completely destroyed, they're still displaced, but in places, where it's partial destruction of their homes, again people have come back and are living in their apartments or in their houses that are partially destroyed and whatever is left. Many some of these buildings are not necessarily sound. But they have nowhere else to go. Don't forget, Lebanon is still suffering from the repercussions of an economic collapse in 2019. People lost their savings and their pensions and their incomes in that collapse. The currency was devaluated. So fast forward to 2024, when the first conflict happened after the assassination and the Pager attempt, et cetera. And then now, the March-April fighting, whatever savings people had managed to collect are all again gone.

Jon Bateman: Yeah, so this war has come on top of five to seven years of economic depression, drastic contraction of the Lebanese economy, and also, I think, depopulation, right? A number of people have left the country.

Maha Yahya: There are many people who've left the country to look for, particularly after 2019. So we saw an exodus, for example, of doctors, because all of a sudden people who spent their lives, you know, in the medical profession, all of the sudden lost their savings. Again, they lost everything. So we see a big exodus. Interestingly, people were starting to come back. Again, I'll speak about the medical field, where I have a lot of friends who left. Were starting to come back to Lebanon, things had stabilized, the economy was starting to pick up, even though reforms had not been implemented and there's an entire, you know, it's... Catastrophic, but there's an entire challenge around getting reform in a very sclerotic system. But that's a different story. People were starting to come back and the economy was beginning to pick up a bit. We were seeing small indications of economic growth in different areas. In the hospitality sector, for example, we saw a lot of new restaurants opening up. It was mind-boggling to me. I mean, why were people investing in the middle of a very unstable situation? They were investing. We saw small industries popping up in different sectors. Just a few weeks ago, they ended in a season of shark tank. I don't know if you know what shark tank? Oh yeah. Exactly. Yeah, Mark.

Jon Bateman: Yeah, Mark Cuban, Mr. Wonderful, it's a great reality TV show where people pitch small business ideas, so did they do a Lebanese version of it?

Maha Yahya: They did a Lebanese version of Shark Tank and it was impressive the kinds of ideas that were being put forward and many of them, these got investments by the shark, what do you call them? The sharks. The sharks, there is a thriving, Lebanon is a very, very entrepreneurial culture, very entrepreneurial. Thank you. Lebanese don't wait around for someone to do something for them. They go ahead and do it themselves. So it's the having the space and the opportunity and frankly, the system that would enable that. I think that is in part missing in Lebanon. But that's a parallel conversation, honestly.

Jon Bateman: You're listening to The World Unpacked with John Bateman, where we dive deep into pressing global issues and make sense of the big forces shaping our world. Now, have you learned anything so far that intrigued or surprised you? Let me know in the comments or just give us a like. And if you wanna hear more of my conversations with the world's most informed and interesting people, you can subscribe right here. Now, back to the show. The security dynamic in the South particularly, and bring in Israel's perspective on these matters. So you describe this as a buffer zone that the Israeli military- They describe it- Excuse me, you cited them using that phrase. I guess from their perspective, there's been a number of periods of hot conflict between Hezbollah and Israel. The Lebanese government, I know you've written about this, doesn't seem to have the strength to restrain. Hezbollah and its armed activities and weapons. After October 7, and on a number of other occasions, Hezballah has launched rockets and missiles against Israeli territory. So I guess the argument from the IDS perspective would be, if we can hold on to a slice of southern Lebanon, then that means shorter range projectiles will be harder to fire. It'll be easier for us to operate forward. We'll have more intelligence collection capability. Maybe there'll be a measure of deterrence or tripwire for any future ground activity or kind of infiltration. What do you make of that?

Maha Yahya: I understand the logic, okay. One cannot, I mean, after October 7th, what we've seen is a complete shift in the Israeli security approach. So I understand where that is coming from. But you cannot stabilize and survive in a region through that logic alone. Because what we're seeing today, whether it's in Gaza, whether it is in Lebanon, or whether it in Syria as well, is it's military might with no political end in sight. It's you're coming in and eradicating entire zones, entire towns, entire villages, making statements about long-term occupation. And in return not wanting to indicate that any kind of you know you that that the the aims the things you're asking for can be achieved diplomatically and I think this is where or there's no political horizon in sight, to my mind.

Jon Bateman: I almost think the Israeli government would agree with exactly what you just said, right? That the mindset now within not only the Israeli security state on its top echelon, but also to some extent within Israeli society as a whole.

Maha Yahya: Oh, there is a, it's completely with it.

Jon Bateman: That the belief is we're in a dangerous region. We feel this now more than ever. Probably the threat perceptions are even higher where Israel now is with the U.S. Relationship, feeling more and more like it might be on its own in the future. And I think they might almost even agree with what you just said, that their strategy now is pure military strength. We're just going to bomb our enemies into submission. And if that's a forever prospect, so be it because whatever we were doing before didn't work.

Maha Yahya: But what they're doing now is not going to make Israel more secure. That's, and I frankly, I say this to anyone who cares to listen, that if... For those who care about Israel, this will not make Israel more secure. It is not endearing it to its immediate neighbors, and certainly not to the rest of the world, the region or the world. And never-ending military occupation is actually helping feed the exact narrative that they're trying to undermine. Today, in the name of security, Iran and Hezbollah are responding in the name of resistance.

Jon Bateman: So are you seeing this unfold in Lebanon, so for example the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon right now, is this bolstering recruiting to Hezbollah and their kind of power and prestige within the country?

Maha Yahya: It's hard to tell whether recruitment has gone up, so that's not something I can comment on. But what I can say is that whereas there is a lot of criticism, particularly within the Shia community that has been effectively the main victim of all of this conflict, in addition to Lebanon, of course, but as a community itself, there's a lot mounting criticism of Hezbollah. For having dragged the country and the community into war that no one wanted to be part of. And we saw it very clearly. I mean, when Hezbollah came out and said back in beginning March, oh, we got into this as a revenge for the assassination of Khamenei, within 24 hours, there was such a big outcry in the community. Within 24 hours they had to backtrack on this.

Jon Bateman: It's an incredible statement, right, starting the war on behalf of.

Maha Yahya: It was insane, and so the backlash within the community was so bad that they had to backtrack on this and say, no, no the Israelis were planning to come in, and so we preempted it. We know Israel was preparing to come in. I mean, this was, I won't say public knowledge, but pretty much out there. They'd been preparing for a military operation in Lebanon. But we, you know. Preparing for a military operation and actually carrying it out are two different things. They saw a pretext in the attack in March and went all in. I'm talking about the IDF. So what we're seeing today is this is a community that is very critical, has become a lot more critical of Hezbollah's activities and of Iran's, because ultimately the decision to launch rockets on Israel. By the military arm of Hezbollah was taken in Tehran. It wasn't taken in Beirut. In fact, the MPs of Hezebullah went to the president, the prime minister, and the speaker of parliament on the eve of the, you know, once the U.S. Had launched its attacks on Iran to assure them that they have, Hezbullah has no intention of getting involved in this war. The decision was not taken there. We know that since the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, the IRGC have been on the ground.

Maha Yahya: trying to deal with the military part of Hezbollah. Hezbullah is, the military is considerably weakened. It doesn't have the deterrence capacities it used to have, or at least that they used to say they had. For me, this war was like someone with a slingshot fighting with someone who had all the technology and all the arsenal in the world.

Jon Bateman: Hezbollah is such a curious and almost unique actor on the world stage, right? I mean, on the one hand, it's an actual political party within Lebanon. It has seats in parliament, like you mentioned.

Maha Yahya: And then the, and ministers.

Jon Bateman: And ministers in the government, right, in the cabinet, yeah. On the other hand, they're a militia that competes with the state for the monopoly on violence and acts on its own. On the another other hand they are sometimes described as a proxy or certainly in close cahoots with Iran, a foreign state, which has funded and supported and collaborated them with them for many years. Did I hear you that... Your assessment is that since Nasrallah was assassinated and the military wing of Hezbollah has been substantially weakened, that Iran's influence over Hezballah has actually grown in some ways.

Maha Yahya: On the military part, definitely, for sure. The former Secretary General, Saeed Hassan Nasrallah, was Iran's man in Lebanon, but he was also Lebanon's man, in Iran. This is someone who was very close to Khamenei.

Jon Bateman: The assassinated Supreme Leader.

Maha Yahya: The assassinated supreme leader of Iran. He was highly respected in those circles. He could influence decision-making not only on Lebanon, but even at the regional level. He had very close relationships with the popular mobilization forces in Iraq, some of whom are also affiliated with Iran, had a very close relationship with Ansarullah, the Houthi movement in Yemen. And so had a say at the regional level, not just in Lebanon. His assassination was a real blow to Hezbollah. And the organization has not recovered from that. The current Secretary General doesn't have the same charisma.

Maha Yahya: as nor the same sway with the decision-making or the centers of power in Tehran that the former Secretary General did. So yes, since his assassination, the assassination, don't forget, it was also, it happened at the same time as the Redouan forces, the elite forces of Hezbollah, the military arm of Hezbollah, were also assassinated. I believe it was 12. Members of the Radwan forces were killed in one shot. This came after the Pager attack. I mean, so there had been a series of military.

Jon Bateman: Dismemberment of the command and control structure, creating confusion, chaos.

Maha Yahya: Exactly. Members of the IRGC came to Lebanon and were helping to, you know, pull things together and over the past year to try and rebuild some of the military capacities of Hezbollah, at least in terms of how they operate, command and control, etc.

Jon Bateman: We have this situation that you're describing where Hezbollah is militarily weakened and also maybe politically weakened in some ways too.

Maha Yahya: Oh, they have been. I mean, Hezbollah internally has lost many of its internal allies. Hezballah did not operate as a sole political actor in Lebanon. It was allied with the movement, the political party of the former president, Michel Aoun, had very close relationships with them. It had other allies. Today Hezbalah is politically, for the most part, isolated. It's lost all of its political allies.

Jon Bateman: So politically isolated, militarily weakened, less charismatic leader, less clear command and control. According to Israel, a lot of their rockets and missiles have been destroyed. Sometimes those are overclaims. So if you are one of the people who's hoping for a post-Hezbollah future for Lebanon, or, at the very least, a situation where the organization's role recedes to the point where it's no longer able to act independently outside of the state and is forced to operate within the realm of Just coalitional politics and the monopoly of forces is somehow taken back by the Israel the the Lebanese state Is there a window for such a future because I think many people in in Washington, you know, there's you know they're pretty cynical about you know the possibility of disarming or weakening Hezbollah, but it almost sounds like you're saying there could be a window of opportunity here. So to what extent is that true? And then what's the path to get there, if any?

Maha Yahya: The demand for the state's monopoly on the instruments of violence is a Lebanese demand before it became an international demand. Let's shut with that. Internally, and not just amongst Lebanon's other communities, it's also a demand within the Shia community. I'll give one example. A few, about a month ago, there was a big call by Nabatiye. Nabatiya is a town in south Lebanon. It's one of the biggest towns. It is the center of its own region. It has been heavily bombarded by Israel. There was talk of the Israeli army perhaps coming into Nabatihe fully. And the people of Nabatie put out a call saying, we want the Lebanese army here. We don't want any other non-state actor. We want the Lebanonese army. We saw the same in Tire, another major town on the Mediterranean, this one. It's one of the biggest coastal towns in the city. It's actually where the Phoenicians supposedly discovered, if you want stories, it's where the phoenicians- Is it where you start the history, right? It's where Phoenician discovered purple dye. The color purple comes from Venetia. So it's a historic town. It has some of the most important, actually UNESCO-listed, heritage-listed cultural sites. And again, there's a demand there. We want the Lebanese army. So the idea that there is a clear request for state monopoly over the instruments of violence, over decisions of war and peace. Is there and it is growing. What is happening today is that within the Shi'a community, while the criticisms are there, while the demand is there, there's no one on the other side offering something. The message that they're getting is, you know, you're being targeted, the community is in an existential crisis, and there is no one on the side saying, look, you can turn to your state, you turn to other actors. There are people who will help you and who will take care of you because it's their responsibility to do so. And if I can just say one thing on this. And this is where I was saying earlier that Hezbollah is winning the narrative war in the sense that what they're saying is we're the only ones who will care of view, even though our means are much less, but we're only ones will take of view. Part of the issue here is there has not yet been a demonstration that diplomatic negotiations, and we can talk about the, you know, for the first time, Lebanon broke a very long, actually a taboo that has existed since both countries were formed, of direct negotiations between Lebanon and Israel. There is this, these negotiations started in part to signal that Lebanon is not part of a deal that Iran negotiates on its behalf. Lebanon is sovereign and can negotiate. On its own. So this negotiation happened. We ended up with a framework that leaves a lot to be desired. We can talk about it.

Jon Bateman: Well, the framework is relevant to everything we've been talking about because it supposedly imagines a future disarmament of Hezbollah piece by piece. We'll get to that. To your point about the positioning of a kind of typical member of the Shia community in Lebanon who's politically engaged and maybe has been favorable to Hezbollah in the past, but is now kind of wavering and like their support is kind of up for grabs. What would the state have to show them? Is it a matter of capacity, like I'm going to practically make your life better by providing security and economic opportunity. Is it a matter of kind of trust and loyalty, like believing that the state actually has kind of my community's interests at heart? What is the barrier to winning over that person, and how is it overcome?

Maha Yahya: I think it's both, honestly. I think, A, there needs to be much, and the prime minister has tried, several ministers have tried, clear communication on the state is responsible for you. You don't need to go to Hezbollah for education and health, et cetera. Where they're handicapped is by the fact that, by two things. One is the state is bankrupt. Because of the economic collapse, so when you know the Prime Minister says we're here for you and we're going to try and rebuild and reconstruct and do all of this, and the question is then okay show us, and he cannot show because everything that they're getting or they have is a trickle of what is needed. It's really a drop in the ocean. Part of the challenge here is that the international community for the past maybe two years now has made any support for the government, any financial support for government contingent on two things, reform to address the economic collapse and financial collapse, which they're absolutely justified to do that. But then the other condition is disarming Hezbollah. These are not opposing agendas. You cannot disarm Hezbollah if you don't have a strong state. And to have a stronger state, this state needs support. This government needs support."

Jon Bateman: So it's a chicken and an egg problem, essentially.

Maha Yahya: No, it's actually for me, it is not a chicken and egg, because if you really want to achieve the goal of peeling away support from an armed non-state actor like Hezbollah that has been in the community, these are members of the community. Iran has invested four decades. Something in the order of $40 billion, if not more, in them, this isn't going to be wiped away with a pencil. You just kind of scratch it off and it's gone. There has to be a coordinated, there is the disarmament issue, but then there is a political socioeconomic track that needs to, a conversation that needs to be happening. If we look at examples from around the world, look at Ireland. Look at Colombia, look at the Philippines, look at other examples around the world where you had an armed non-state actor who eventually was disarmed and integrated in different ways. It's a long process and it requires both military as well as political dialog, military action and political dialog. What we're seeing in Lebanon today is the military part of it in the form of you have to disarm and Israel continues to bombard. And frankly, the Lebanese army is being put in a very challenging situation because they're being asked to carry out the disarmament while the country is being bombarded in a condition of war. And at the same time, very little else is being offered in return, and there's no political discussion happening elsewhere. Now in Lebanon it becomes even trickier because this armed non-state actor, their allegiance is with Iran to a certain extent, to a large extent. And they will take, on the military side, they will taking instructions from Iran because they are dependent on Iran financially. If Iran was to stop all financial aid to Hezbollah today, they would be in serious trouble, serious trouble. And we're seeing the impact, by the way. Of the economic sanctions on Iran and its inability to move money, significant amounts of money in the way it used to before, but also the fall of the Assad regime in Syria and the blocking of that supply route via Syria. We're seeing the impact in Lebanon today.

Jon Bateman: I want to go back to this chicken and egg thing, and I know you said it's not a chicken and egg problem, but maybe from the perspective of, and then I don't know exactly who these donors would be. Are we talking about the United States, Gulf countries? We can get into that because all of those have agendas of their own in Lebanon, to be sure. I guess one challenge to overcome, you just described Hezbollah as a non-state actor. We've also acknowledged that they're more than that, too, right? So if you're trying to fund and build up the Lebanese state, but if actually ministries, some ministries of the Leban state are actually controlled by Hezballah, how do you then fund the state in a way that doesn't also lift up Hezbal at the same time?

Maha Yahya: Look, A, the ministries, honestly, are not controlled by Hezbollah, even those where you have Hezballah-affiliated ministers today. I think it's a misrepresentation. I don't know the Minister of Health, but I hear his colleagues speak very highly of him. We haven't heard any stories of corruption in the ministry or of... You know, favoritism so far. And these things, Lebanon is a tiny country, these things surface very quickly. Until now, I don't want to, again, I do not know him and I do follow that file closely, but I haven't heard anything. Otherwise, particularly I would rely on his colleagues and the government itself. Colleagues that are not aligned politically with him or with the ministers.

Jon Bateman: So there's a relatively strong civil service and kind of checks and balances.

Maha Yahya: From what we can see so far, yes. In terms of Hezbollah controlled ministries, at least with the current ministers that are there at this moment, I personally have not seen any indications of that, nor have I heard of anything of this sort from their fellow ministers who sit in the government, and these are people I know well. So, at least at that level. Some of the ministries in this current government are doing an exceptional job. They're ministries and ministers who the international community has expressed many times their confidence in these ministers and in the way they're working. I'm talking about the Minister of Social Affairs, I'm talking about Minister of Economy, talking about the Minister for Public Works, the Minister of Culture, the Deputy Prime Minister. I mean. There are, this government is something, is a government of people who genuinely know what they're doing and often in most cases, it's the right person carrying the right portfolio. So it's a government that it's in everyone's interest to try and support and to empower and to strengthen their hand in delivering the areas they need to deliver on. Not to mention a prime minister as well, but there is a real need to empower them so that they can deliver on what they need to deliver. The Ministry of Social Affairs during the war did a fantastic job in terms of absorbing the displaced, in terms of coordinating aid in terms of getting service delivery to people. I mean, they really went out. The minister herself was on the ground every single day. And all the, I mean the international community has expressed repeated support. The same goes for the minister of economy, again.

Jon Bateman: I don't want to repeat them. I understand, yeah.

Maha Yahya: So it's a misnomer. Empowering this particular government, I think, is in everyone's interest in strengthening state and its institutions.

Jon Bateman: And maybe just one more question about this before we kind of move on to some broader regional dynamics. But I guess when we talk about empowering and strengthening the state, to a large degree, are we talking about money? Is that kind of the key ingredient? Because as you say, the state is bankrupt, and yet it's got this capacity deficit that it needs to build up in both its ability to be a monopoly of force, but also its ability to provide services to bring in that kind of wavering. Member of the community who might be willing to kind of cut ties with Hezbollah. So where does the money come from? And is it as simple as that, just needing money for a substantial period of time, or is there some other ingredient, political, sociological, that's needed in order to kind build up the kind of state that's need here?

Maha Yahya: I think you need both. Yes, you need money and funding, of course. The country needs reform. The economic and financial reforms to address the fallout of the 2019 economic and financial collapse where Lebanon's currency lost something like I think ninety percent of its value is urgent, it's beyond urgent and should have happened a long time ago. So, both immediate humanitarian support, maybe the beginnings of reconstruction funding for basic infrastructure, needs to come in very quickly to enable the government to, again, begin delivering. But this has to go hand in hand with two other things, push on reforms, internal dialog also.

Maha Yahya: because it's not all about the outside. There are challenges within the country itself where there's a need for a more unified vision on where Lebanon is going, what we want out of it, and what needs to be done to get there. I think the third area or the fourth area I've got, I've lost count now. Where there is need for support is in negotiations and in diplomacy, because we've felt the gap in the negotiations between Lebanon and Israel. The negotiating team on the Lebanese side did what they could, but they need a lot more support than they had, both in terms of experience, in terms of communication, in terms of, I mean, there's a lot and there are other countries that have had a much longer experience in doing things like this. And again, lessons learned from other places around the world. I think we, I see the actors in Lebanon or who work on Lebanon, not only the Lebanese, and it's almost as if it's the only country in the world that has faced this problem. It's not. The problem is a bit more complicated perhaps than other places or has a different level of complication. I don't say more complicated because of Iran's involvement etc. And the current conflict. But it's not the first country that has to deal with an armed non-state act.

Jon Bateman: Yeah, so you're making the case that people in and around Lebanon or who are interested in supporting Lebanon can learn a lot from these other global examples, Northern Ireland, Colombia and so on. What about the inverse? We started off this conversation with the metaphor of Lebanon as a microcosm of dynamics in the region and perhaps elsewhere in the world. I mean, it's, you know, maybe on its bad days. A kind of pawn of greater powers that are, you know, seeking to re-architect the security arrangements in the region. On its good days is the source of such dynamism and demographic diversity, freedom and modernity within the country. To what extent do you see the issues that we've been talking about today as predictive of the future of this region, the future the world?

Maha Yahya: Very predictive, honestly. What I'm seeing in Lebanon today, maybe my biggest fear and concern, is the arrangement, particularly around South Lebanon, is one where the Lebanese are now being asked to negotiate over their right to sovereignty and to territorial integrity. Announcing that you're doing an open-ended occupation of a country or parts of a country, constantly threatening that that occupation can expand at any moment to beyond the current area it's in. At Kudrich Beirut, we've heard this from, you know, on the Israeli policymakers saying this publicly, does not, it basically it's an indication of the extent to which much of the infrastructure and the architecture. Of the post-World War II international order, the post World War II moment is being eroded. In the case of Lebanon particularly, the whole idea that the country has to negotiate over its sovereignty and that in this trilateral framework, Israel is the one that decides whether Lebanon has ticked off the correct boxes, has dismantled Hezbollah, has done this, has that, not, to be worthy of. Being in control of their territory. For me, this is not a canary in a gold mine. This is this could become an indication of where things may be going on a global scale. When Putin invaded Ukraine, and there's no other word, he invaded Ukraine. Everyone was in an uproar. But somehow it was expected because it's Putin and it's Russia and you expect this from autocratic leader, et cetera. If in Lebanon, the whole notion of territorial integrity becomes one that is negotiable, then what's to stop it from being negotiable anywhere else in the world, including Ukraine, including some of the debate we saw around Greenland, the ripple effects will not stay in Lebanon.

Jon Bateman: Yeah, I mean, what sometimes happens with Israel, certainly with the Greenland case, is it's relatively easy for members of the West to push back against, you know, Russian predations, because, you, know, Russia is kind of not really part of the club anyway. But when it's the United States, it's virtually impossible to speak out. And then Israel is kind in this ambiguous situation where it's kind of, is it part of the kind of core political West right now, you that's sort of up for debate? I will say a couple of counterpoints that I think people might offer here. One is, you know, there really is more of a physical threat emanating from Lebanon toward Israel than from Ukraine to Russia, right? I mean, there were really were attacks from Hezbollah over many years of different stripes. And, When that happens, sometimes war results, and then sometimes occupation comes from war. And then unfortunately, as you know much better than I do, Lebanon's sovereignty has been heavily compromised over many decades. Syria, Saudi Arabia, Iran.

Maha Yahya: It's not Saudi Arabia, Syria and Iran, mainly. Was there not the episode of the Prime Minister? Yes, the Prime Minster being... That was pretty bizarre. Very bizarre situation. That's very true.

Jon Bateman: So, you know in other words

Maha Yahya: I was thinking more of territorial violations.

Jon Bateman: No, no, you're right. It's not a territorial integrity issue, but when you've got at least two, three other countries kind of vetoing or killing your leaders, anyway, it's a sorry state of affairs.

Maha Yahya: John, I agree. I mean, Lebanon has, sovereignty has been compromised over a very long period of time. But I think what makes this moment particularly critical is the nature of the, you know, the nature, of the occupation, the Israeli overreach, which we're seeing not only in Lebanon, but also in Gaza and in what's doing it, what it's doing in Syria. Again, there's no political horizon that is visible. At the same time, in Israel, we're seeing what was considered a fringe demand of we should move the borders with Lebanon to Litani and to other places, becoming more and more, moving more and towards the mainstream. So this idea that you can, I mean, you have... Voices in Israel calling for the annexation of south Lebanon.

Jon Bateman: And that's been a pattern in Gaza and the West Bank and elsewhere that the more and more radical demands are kind of moving toward the center.

Maha Yahya: So exactly. There is a shift. And so the issue is not it. Yes, of course, the question of threat is there, but there are different ways you deal with the threat or you can deal with this threat. A continued occupation with what we're hearing puts into question the very existence of the country itself as it is today. Many in Lebanon are asking today, will the country continue to exist in the way it is? It's, I've never heard this before. I have never heard this kind of questioning before. Again, because of the nature of the destruction that we're seeing in South Lebanon and no timeframe, no horizon. Basically part of that concern is coming because we're looking around us and seeing that a lot of the guardrails that were in place. That would have effectively said to Israel, enough, you need to stop here. Let's find the political way out. Would have said to Iran, you to stop. I mean, that would've negotiated something and try to say, okay, there is an overreach, military overreach et cetera. That would have put a stop. All of these guardrails are eroding. And I think that is adding to this moment of angst, where the sense of everything is up in the air. There is a real and genuine attempt to redraw the security architecture of the region, but also the territorial shape of the area. In the occupation in Syria, beyond the Golan Heights, the additional 600-700 square kilometers. That Israel now is controlling in Syria happened after the fall of Assad. At the time when the current president, Ahmad al-Sharia, had sent messages to Israel saying, I don't want any problems with you. There is a sense of a territorial expansionism that does not bode well for the region. And frankly, with time, this is going to fuel more radicalism, it's going to fuel more anguish and more instability for everyone.

Jon Bateman: Fascinating because I hear you really seeing big storm clouds on the horizon as far as the security architecture of the region, the norms around sovereignty and territoriality, this incredibly stark question of will Lebanon continue to exist in its current form. On the other hand, you've also expressed some remarkable hope in this conversation about Hezbollah kind of being on the ropes, being at a moment of historic political and military vulnerability. And a more plausible path toward the reconstruction, the re-legitimation of the Lebanese state standing on its own feet, then we've seen it a long time. Is it kind of like a both-and situation? And it's kind of, like, a race between, like... You know, can we build the Lebanes state faster than the country can be torn to pieces by, you know, Israel or internal forces?

Maha Yahya: I think we can, but the move has to be very, very quick. We've already lost a lot of time. And I think that at this current moment, the window of opportunity has not closed completely. It's still there. But the longer it stays, the longer this persists, the faster it will close. The more time we take to draw a political, again, I insist on this, The harder it becomes. There is a window of opportunity now. There really is a genuine window of opportunities. Despite all the trials and tribulations and successes and failures of the past, I would say, year and a half or two years, the window has not closed. And the Lebanese need to move fast, but also the international community needs to move even faster, to try and take... Advantage of that window.

Jon Bateman: Something they're not known for. Well, we began this conversation, you know, I was asking you about daily life in Beirut right now, and you painted a pretty grim picture. What's your hopeful vision for daily life in your city and your country? Fast forward 10, 20 years, let's say it all works out. What do you picture?

Maha Yahya: Life as it should be, frankly, I would like to see a functioning state. I'd like to be able to go to the border with Israel and visit, you know, the areas there that I cannot go to right now. I'd, like to, I mean, life as it should be honestly. I would, like, to think that it's that we don't have to fight to be able to live a normal life every day. Normalcy is not overrated. It's actually very underrated to be able to walk around the city and enjoy having your family and friends without having to have the anxiety in the back of your mind constantly.

Jon Bateman: Very well said. And I think that's a fitting place to leave this conversation, Maha. Thanks for joining us today.

Maha Yahya: Thank you, John. Thank you for having me.

Jon Bateman: You've been listening to The World Unpacked, a production of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. To get episodes delivered directly to your inbox, use the link in the description, or subscribe on YouTube or popular podcast platforms like Spotify or iTunes. Views expressed are those of the host and guests, and not necessarily those of Carnegie. Learn more at carnegieendowment.org.