BAALBEK, Lebanon -- It was a sea of yellow as thousands of men, women and children waving Hezbollah flags and wearing the group’s trademark yellow caps rallied on a giant plot of land in the ancient eastern city of Baalbek in support of the heavily armed militant group.
One after another, many attendees vowed to vote Sunday for the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah and its allies in Lebanon’s closely watched parliamentary elections, rejecting any attempt to disarm the powerful group.
Despite a devastating economic collapse and multiple other crises gripping Lebanon — the culmination of decades of corruption and mismanagement — the deeply divisive issue of Hezbollah’s weapons has been at the center of the vote for a new 128-member parliament.
Disarming the group has dominated political campaigns among almost all of the group’s opponents. Those include Western-backed mainstream political groups and independents who played a role in nationwide protests since the start of the economic meltdown in October 2019.
“This is the biggest misinformation campaign. Why? Because they are implementing America’s policy against the resistance weapons,” senior Hezbollah official Hussein Haj Hassan told The Associated Press on Friday ahead of the rally in Baalbek.
Hezbollah was the only group officially allowed to keep its weapons after the 1975-90 civil war because it was fighting Israeli forces occupying parts of south Lebanon. In 2000, Israel withdrew from Lebanon but Hezbollah and others in the small Mediterranean nation insisted its weapons were necessary to defend it against Israel, which has one of the strongest armies in the region.
Hezbollah has since fought a monthlong war with Israel in 2006 that ended in a draw and after the start of the conflict in neighboring Syria the Iran-backed group sent thousands of fighters to fight alongside President Bashar Assad’s forces helping him tip the balance of power in his favor.
Hezbollah’s rivals say its weapons and its backing of regional forces such as Assad's and the Iran-backed Houthi rebels in Yemen have harmed Lebanon’s relations with oil-rich Persian Gulf nations. Those nations have categorized the Lebanese group as a terrorist organization and withheld crucial financial support for the country.
Haj Hassan, a legislator since 1996 and a Cabinet minister three times, said claims that Hezbollah is responsible for Lebanon’s collapse were “a big lie.”
“They forgot the political system, economic system, corruption, the war in Syria and its effects on Lebanon and they forgot the American sanctions,” he said at his home near Baalbek.
The bespectacled 62-year-old lost two brothers who fought for Hezbollah during Lebanon’s civil war and a nephew in Syria.