Washington Post Op-Ed Shills for Hezbollah Ally

There’s an elephant in the room in a recent Washington PostOp-Ed, “Can Lebanon survive Syria, Israel—and President Trump,” which discusses challenges facing the Lebanese state. That elephant is the open support of the Lebanese government for Hezbollah, the Shi’ite Muslim, U.S.-designated terror group, which has fed off its Beirut host-turned-advocate for decades. The July 25, 2017 Post commentary by former Post correspondent Nora Boustany and writer Daniel Williams effectively whitewashes the country’s current support for Hezbollah.

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Hezbollah, like other Iranian-backed proxies, has been active in Tehran’s efforts to support al-Assad. Aoun’s position, Post reporter Hugh Naylor stated, showed that “Hezbollah has become the dominant player in Lebanon.” In this, it has the active cooperation of the LAF. Indeed, as analyst Tony Badran noted in a July 26, 2017 Tablet commentary entitled “Lebanon is Another Name for Hezbollah”:

“At the same time Hariri is visiting Washington, however, the LAF is taking part in a joint military operation with Hezbollah in northeastern Lebanon, targeting a pocket of Syrian armed groups—including the group formerly known as the Nusra Front—on the Syrian border. Hezbollah, of course, controls the Lebanese government and dictates the operations of its armed forces. Indeed, it was Hezbollah that laid out the battle plans for the current operation in northeastern Lebanon, including what role the LAF would play in it. And it was Hezbollah’s chief, Hassan Nasrallah, who announced the impending start of the joint operation with the LAF during a televised appearance a couple of weeks ago.”

Badran also pointed out that the LAF “chaperoned” Hezbollah on a media tour of the border with Israel—an area in which the terror group used environmental NGOs as cover to conduct surveillance on Israel, as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) noted in an Aug. 2, 2017 Washington Examiner Op-Ed (“Hezbollah’s Media Relations Department”).

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