Lebanon: Debate over fake 'plot' to overthrow government

According to some conservative commentators, the Israeli attack on Lebanon last week, which left over 300 people dead and more than 2,000 injured, actually disrupted a potentially troubling political plot. "It seems Israel uncovered this plot by [Lebanese group] Hezbollah to essentially overthrow the Lebanese government," Erick Stakelbeck, a conservative American commentator with a YouTube show on Middle Eastern affairs, pronounced enthusiastically, two days after the attack. "And Lebanon apparently averted a major disaster here, thanks to the Israeli air force." Stakelbeck's show on YouTube has over a million followers. However, the existence of a Hezbollah plan to topple the Lebanese government has not been confirmed by any organization supposedly involved — neither Hezbollah nor the Lebanese or Israeli governments. DW's enquiries to Israel's ministry of defense and military had not been answered by the time of publication. There were rumors the coup attempt was first reported by Israeli media. But in fact the earliest mention DW could find online came from a social media user called Sufyan al-Samarrai, who is well known for inflammatory anti-Iran, pro-Israel commentary and who has close to 225,000 followers. Only an hour after last Wednesday's attacks, which were launched around 2 p.m., al-Samarrai wrote on X, in Arabic, that "Israel thwarted a … coup against the Lebanese government." Al-Samarrai's tweet, in which he did not specify where the information came from, was then amplified by a number of similarly opinionated users. The coup story was then reported further by media outlets in the region, including Arabic- and French-language outlets in Lebanon. "According to informed sources, Hezbollah was planning to arrest ministers, members of parliament and political figures, and to target the prime minister by bombing the Grand Serail or his residence," Lebanon's MTV wrote a day after the Israeli attack. The "Beirut coup" was meant to "terrorize the Lebanese people [and] … was thwarted by the Israeli strike," it said. Why the coup seemed real There are a number of factors that made the coup story appear believable. For example, Lebanon's prime minister announced on April 12 he would not be travelling to the US for talks with Israel, "in light of the current internal circumstances." Some observers took this as a sign he was staying to deal with a coup. Some locals said the fact that Lebanese secuirty forces were deployed to guard government buildings was also a sign of a possible coup, although others said they were there during protestsImage: Marwan Naamani/dpa/picture alliance There were also rumors that Israel had been able to target mid-tier Hezbollah members in Lebanon last Wednesday because they were all on a Zoom call plotting and had somehow revealed their locations. "This rumor is false," a spokesperson from Zoom told DW. The locations collected during an online Zoom meeting via what are known as IP addresses from individual computers are "only approximate geographic data," they explained. That means a city or region, not an address. Zoom doesn't keep that information and even if it did, it wouldn't provide enough detail for air strikes. It is also true that Hezbollah has a combative history with other parts of the Lebanese government, even as its own ministers from the Amal party sit in the country's cabinet. Hezbollah's critics often argue the group has captured the Lebanese state to a degree.Political competition Hezbollah plays an outsize role in Lebanon, ostensibly representing the country's Shiite Muslims, who make up about 30% of the population. The group has often been described as "a state within a state" because of its social and political outreach and a military wing considered stronger than Lebanon's own national army. Hezbollah presents itself as a defender of Lebanese sovereignty and is currently fighting Israel in southern Lebanon, where Israel has invaded to set up what it says is a "buffer zone" needed for security. But Hezbollah is also closely allied with Iran and in early March, after Israel assassinated Iran's supreme leader, Hezbollah fired rockets at Israel. This led to an upsurge in Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Hezbollah's critics accuse it of dragging Lebanon into war on behalf of a foreign power, something most locals regularly say they want no part of. More recently, senior members of Hezbollah have been critical of the Lebanese government's willingness to negotiate with Israel. During protests in Beirut, locals accused Lebanese Prime Minister Nawaf Salam of being a traitor and a supporter of Israel and some even burned pictures of himImage: Marwan Naamani/dpa/picture alliance On Tuesday, talks between Lebanon and Israel began in Washington. After a ceasefire was agreed to by the US and Iran, and it became clear Lebanon was not part of that after all, these new talks with Israel are meant to address Hezbollah's role in Lebanon. In an interview on YouTube last month, senior Hezbollah member Mahmoud Qomati likened the Lebanese leadership to France's Vichy government, which collaborated with Germany's Nazi regime during World War II. But, as he also said, "we are committed to stability in the country. We are capable of turning the country upside down, we are capable of overthrowing the government. … but we are not doing anything." Experts: Coup unlikely Amal Saad, a political scientist and expert on Hezbollah at the UK's Cardiff University, explains why a coup wouldn't make sense to Hezbollah at the moment anyway. "Hezbollah has always been averse to civil strife but is even more so in the war context because of the displaced," she says. "There are over a million of them and if there was civil unrest, they would suffer. That's why a coup now is not on the cards." Over a million Lebanese have been displaced from southern Lebanon and the Israeli government has indicated they won't be able to return Image: Houssam Shbaro/Anadolu/picture alliance In 2008, Hezbollah fighters were able to take control of parts of western Beirut after the Lebanese government attempted to dismantle Hezbollah's telecommunications network. But, as a former senior Israeli defense official told DW, things are very different now. "I don't think a coup is a real possibility," he said, speaking off the record during an online panel. "I was also told that if Hezbollah initiated a coup, the Shia soldiers in the army would fight with the Lebanese army. Whereas if the Lebanese army decided to dismantle Hezbollah, they'd likely defect or not participate." 'A pretext' for bombing Lebanon? Real or not, the supposed Hezbollah coup has become a subject of debate in Lebanon. Whether one believes the story is true or not seems to depend on political affiliation. The same applies to how Lebanese see this week's talks in Washington, which — to some extent — are perceived as being brought about by last Wednesday's attack. "The country woke up to the possibility of peace under the mistaken impression that the Iran-US ceasefire somehow included Lebanon," Makram Rabah, a professor at the American University of Beirut, wrote for local media outlet, Now Lebanon. "Hezbollah, instead of asking how the displaced might return to their homes, appears to have moved directly to the more urgent national priority of toppling a government still invested in ending the bloodshed." "The Israeli account of a Hezbollah coup appears to be a pretext for disproportionate bombing of Lebanon," local Francophone outlet Liba News, which describes itself as a citizen media initiative, countered. "What bothered Israel was not an imaginary putsch. What bothered Israel was the dynamics of negotiations [between the US and Iran]." The US-Iran talks opened up the possibility of a regional ceasefire, which would have restricted Israel's room for military maneuver in Lebanon, the publication argued."Israel did not prevent a coup that never happened," it said. "It used a political pretext to justify an offensive of overwhelming violence, at a time when diplomatic dynamics might escape it. And it was Lebanon, once again, that paid the heaviest human price." Edited by: Jess Smee