Random day in Lebanon news roundup

Nothing important happened in the war today. So it's a good time to show you what happens on not important days. I'll start by looking at Lebanese media (most of it is just Agence France Press but they do have a lot of their own stuff, presumably translated from an-Nahar, a newspaper important enough for the Syrians to murder the editor. (If anyone is curious, I have him listed in my notes as killed by a bomb put in another car that was detonated as he drove by. You can't (with a few exceptions like May Chidiac) actually put a bomb on somebody's car because nobody leaves their car unattended for a second, so they resort to this.)

Anyway what do we have?:

Al-Rahi: Hezbollah must draw lessons from this destructive war

Al-Rahi is the patriarch of the Maronite Church (which btw is in communion with Rome, them and the Greek Catholics !catholics). This is moderately serious. It's not really news (he's been putting out the same message for a long time) but in the medium term this a huge problem for Hezbollah. Back in the 2000s when they were popular they had substantial support from Christians. Now in 2024 they just have the support of some Christian politicians because everyone hates all the factions. This may seem counterintuitive since there's been a lot of sectarian violence in the past, but Hezbollah has always relied on Christians to back them up to show that really they're fighting for the whole nation. The population remember the Civil War and what happens when everyone gave up on consensus and just looked out for number one.

It could just as well be the Damour massacre of Christians by the Palestinians and Sunnis a few days before. When it comes to massacres, they're kinda interchangeable.

So what does the Maronite Patriarch do? Who is listening to him? Ayatollah Khomeini came up with this heretical idea that clerics (ain't it convenient that you are one) should have dictatorial powers and run the government. This is really abnormal. In most of the Middle East, Christian or Muslim, religious leaders are important but they're meddling in politics day-to-day. [Think of Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah. When the Patriarch says this, he's not offering advice on what specific policies should be taken, he's just saying that this is a major threat to the Maronite community he's here to protect. In practical terms this may influence some Maronite Christians to see Hezbollah as more of a threat than any ally and go over to the anti-Hezbollah side. (He could be doing all kinds of cloak & dagger stuff because he's constantly meeting with the important people of every religion. He's probably just passing notes to each other, where two guys who are supposed to enemies but they're trying to work for peace. I dunno.)

Salim Ayyash

One of the Hezbollah guys who was indicted by the farcical Special Tribunal for Lebanon was killed. I don't believe he was involved (I believe that Assad used goons working directly for Syria to do it. I am 100% sure some chud will read this and say I support terrorism.) But this does tell us something: He's some mid-level guy in Hezbollah. If he got killed you know that a lot of guys we've never heard of did too.

Hezbollah says not low on missiles, Israel unable to occupy a single town

Boiler plate they put out every day. Notice they're not promising huge success, the emphasis on how long they can sustain this. You know somebody is getting beaten pretty bad. And yes, Israel can't occupy a town, but they can do a raid, take over briefly, and blow it up. I dunno if they've done this to every village yet, but they go in put explosives in all the houses and blow them up. How long until they say this can be a "security zone" or something since nobody lives there anymore?

My big question is: Why don't you just shoot 100 rockets at once? Israeli defenses can't deal with that many in so short a time. But they keep shooting just enough that Iron Dome doesn't have to break a sweat. It's like they're trying not hit anything. They killed Nasrallah. What do you have to lose? The only thing I can think of is they're getting orders from Tehran, and the Iranians just want the war to stop before it actually effects them.