What is Happening in Lebanon, Today Transcript

Disclaimer: This transcript is an edited version of a transcript created using AI technology and may not reflect 100% accuracy.

The video can be found here.

Sarah: Hey, good afternoon and welcome to another topical EMET webinar. Since the war began on February 28th, 2026, there’s been an expanded idea presence in Lebanon. As most of you know by now, unfortunately, Lebanon has become a state within a state where Hezbollah controls very much of what’s been happening there, including the Lebanese armed forces. The objective here is clearly to push Hezbollah back. This has been a standing situation since October 7th, 2023, when Hezbollah first entered the war against Israel. And again, two days after the US and Israel triggered their attacks against the Islamic Republic of Iran on March 2nd, Hezbollah has triggered wave upon wave of munitions against the communities in northern Israel. And the Islamic Republic of Iran has fired well over 400 missiles and a thousand drones. Because of the Islamic Republic’s demands to Hezbollah, the IDF has expanded their presence in Southern Lebanon. The bridge over the Latani River and other smaller bridges have been destroyed so that people can no longer attack Northern Israel. Although the IDF has requested that everyone cleared southern Lebanon. The heavily Shiite population in southern Lebanon has been warned by the IDF to leave. But at the same time, Hezbollah has commanded many to go south. Hundreds of thousands have left southern Lebanon. However, according to my friend, Lieutenant Colonel Sarit Zehavi, the Shiite population, which is the Islamic Republic’s human shield, has not entirely left. Hezbollah is not only attacking military targets in Israel, but communities. Of course, they don’t use the term communities because in their eyes, there is no Israel, only occupied Palestine. So they use the word settlements for all of Israel. There is a lot more for me to say, but I am going to switch to our esteemed guest, Waleed Faris. Walid Faris is a well-established scholar who’s written well over 11 or if not a dozen books. And he is constantly cited over and over in articles having to do with what is happening in Lebanon. So here to inform us all about Hezbollah and what is happening to especially the Christian communities in Lebanon is Waleed Faris. Waleed?

Waleed: Thank you, Sarah. First, can you hear me well and see me?

Sarah: Yes.

Waleed: Thank you so much. I would like to thank you personally for having supported a lot of our projects, joint projects, for inviting me many times at these prestigious EMET functions, including, I remember, 10 years ago, recognizing my work at the US Senate. So our relationship is great and I’m very happy every time you give me the opportunity and a platform to speak to your base, but also to a very larger community of people who wants peace in the region and people who want also to counter the jihadi threat, not just against Israel or against Lebanon or against many countries in the Middle East, but also against the United States. Since 9-11, our history has changed. It continues to go in the same direction. And that’s what the United States and Israel are doing today as we speak in Iran. And hopefully, with the help of the Iranian people that could change the regime in Iran at the end of the day, no matter what the equations are going to be. That’s my little introduction to start our very specific topic today, which is what’s happening inside Lebanon, what’s happening relating to Israel’s intervention in southern Lebanon, what is Hezbollah doing? What is the Islamic regime, while at war with Israel and the United States there, are they trying to do inside Lebanon? Don’t be surprised, I’m a historian, so I will use maybe two minutes to take you on a very quick journey from the beginning of that Israel war with the radical jihadists, the PLO, and everything that happened in Lebanon, very quickly to get to where we are right now. Because when we start, a presentation, yesterday has well a lot of rockets and Israel countered. People need to know what is it coming from?

So as far as we know, I lived a part of that conflict in Lebanon at least 15 years from 75′ till 1990. I was witness to this war. I saw many leaders from all sides, including Lebanese, of course, but also Israelis during the good time of the attempt to sign a peace treaty because one of the first peace treaties way before the Abraham Accords was after the signing of the Camp David agreement between Egypt and Israel. There was in 1983 a peace treaty that was actually signed following the invasion of Israel of Lebanon. Some in Lebanon call it the liberation of Lebanon by Israel and it was on May 17, 1983. I was there, I spoke to people who were part of that agreement. Unfortunately, that agreement was terminated by the Lebanese state under the pressure of then Hezbollah, the militias that are supportive of Hezbollah, like the movement of Amal, and also the smaller factions that have been part of Lebanon’s war, mostly against the communities that resisted the PLO, that resisted Hezbollah, that resisted all the other militias, including Pan-Arabist, Baathist, et cetera. So I will bring in some of my testimonies myself to understand what’s happening right now. But the idea that Lebanon is suddenly in a confrontation with Israel is not true. It was always those who occupied Lebanon who were at war with Israel. I mean, the example that comes to my mind is that Nazi occupied France was not France. They had a government, a regime that collaborated with the Nazis. And in Lebanon, at least over a couple of decades after all of Lebanon was occupied, that was in 1990, after a long series of battles, which we don’t have the time to go and re-discuss, as of 1990, October 13th, Lebanon was fully occupied by Hezbollah, by the Syrian army of Assad at that time. And the remainder area that remained free was called the security zone in Southern Lebanon. For the Lebanese, they called it free Lebanon. It was an area stretching from the water, the Israelis call it the Rosh Hanikra or Ras al-Naqoura, all the way to Mount Hermon. It was free. It was defended and protected by the South Lebanon Army. In Israel, they call it Sadal, like Sahal for the IDF. Sadal, these were their actual allies. I mean, these forces were the only forces who fought shoulder to shoulder. Of course, the United States sent a lot of weapons and equipment, but on the ground, the only military force, though very small, that fought along with the Israelis was Sadal, as South Lebanon Army.

So they also had their experience. And unfortunately, in 2000, under the pressure of the administration here in the United States, at that time, Clinton administration, the Sahal was disconnected and then many of those fighters and their families fled to Israel. So now let’s start in 2000. Hezbollah controls all of Lebanon. The Assad regime controls all of Lebanon. And what they started to do was to bring in Hezbollah to the south and to fire rockets. Their idea, their concept was to create a united, I call it jihadi Baathist front that stretches from southern Lebanon to southern Syria to Gaza and the rest of the areas where the jihadists were taking the control. Now that was the beginning of the end of a dependent Lebanon and the beginning of the Lebanon that is controlled by Hezbollah and by the Assad regime. This back and forth witnessed multiple wars. One of them was in 1996. Another one was in 2006. And many, as they call them in Lebanon, rounds of violence between the two. The idea was that from Tehran to Damascus, to the southern suburb of Beirut, which was the headquarters, still the headquarters of Hezbollah, what they’re trying to do was to destabilize Israel. What they tried to do is make all of Northern Israel, the Galilee and sometimes beyond the Galilee unstable because of the rockets fired and the missiles fired by Hezbollah from the South. So it was a low intensity conflict, but it was continuously a conflict. There was never a period of any agreement. And the reason why is that the Khomeini’s access that would be the Islamic Republic at the time of Iran, the Baath regime in Syria, the also pro-Khomeinist militias in Iraq and Hezbollah in Lebanon, later to be joined by the Houthis in Yemen, a few years later, they’ve decided that they will sign no peace agreement with Israel. That’s it. That’s the principle. They have never changed. Jihadists cannot ideologically sign a peace agreement with Israel, let alone with any other minority inside Syria or Lebanon or Iraq or elsewhere.

So that war continued low intensity, higher intensity all the way till October 7. October 7, Hamas, in my view, at the direction of the Islamic regime in Iran, perpetrated a massacre, a genocidal attack against the Israeli communities in the Naguib. We spoke about it. The trauma is enormous. It not just impacted Israel, but all of Israel’s friend and all of the anti-jihadist communities around the world. This is where the war we see right now has actually started. And that gave everybody in the region, including in Lebanon, the understanding that Hezbollah, Hamas, Hashid, and now, of course, the Houthis and others do not want any form of peace. Now there is probably negotiations possible with some remnants of the regime in Iran. But the core of the ideology that moves all these regimes and of course, including the jihadists, I’m not sparing the HDS jihadist regime in Syria. Being jihadists means that they are struggling to bring down all the governments of the region, including the Arab governments, 20 Arab governments at least are targeted. But the one that is in the front of the struggle is Israel. So now to the fight specifically between South Lebanon, between Hezbollah and South Lebanon and Israel as of October seven. And that’s very important point. October eight, the secretary general Hassan Nasrallah now gone thanks to Israel declared that he and his forces will enter the war on the side of Hamas in solidarity with the jihadi brotherhood. So that’s where the wars actually started. We all witnessed it. Some of us from the United States, others from Israel or from other parts of the world. What the regime in Iran tried to do was to instruct Hezbollah to open a constant fire on Israel, not just in the north of Israel. They have created a concept whereby Hamas would cover the center and part of the south of Israel. Houthis from Yemen will try to cover the south, Eilat and all these places. And from Iraq sustained rockets also to come to Israel. And of course, from Lebanon, Hezbollah’s main mission was to cover from Rosh Hanikra from the border with Israel all the way to Tel Aviv. And that’s not something that was hidden. Hezbollah said it often. So they wanted to paralyze. And the reason to paralyze Israel, including mostly from southern Lebanon, is to allow the Islamic regime in Iran to lob their own long-range missiles. So they wanted to paralyze the country. And then eventually when they will get it, they could use WMDs against Israel. And this is not something to suppose this is something that their ideologues have spoken about, their strategists have spoken about, they argue that if one major blast in Israel, anywhere in Israel, certainly between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, that would break Israel. Israel can retaliate, but it will be too late in their view.

So now the Israelis had to respond. They responded, as we know, in Tehran and Iran during the 12-day war, obviously what has been happening since the beginning of this year. They clashed immensely with Hezbollah. The achievements of Israel, the military achievements of Israel in Lebanon against Hezbollah were tremendous. The type of warfare the Israelis have deployed in Lebanon, never had been seen before, not even by the United States or Russia or any other country. Not only they destroyed most of the long-range missiles by Hezbollah, gathered by Hezbollah, but they also destroyed two thirds of the executives or the commanders of Hezbollah. Never seen before. You could hit one or two in a war, all of them, including the secretary general, including the deputy secretary general, I don’t want to spend our time on what Hezbollah got from Israel. Israel was able to destroy the major long-range missile capability of Israel. So the offensive capability of Hezbollah, was taken out. Now that leaves Hezbollah with the following. Still, they have reserves of long-range missiles, not as much as they had before. Still they have drones, but Hezbollah understands if they want to use it, all of them in one shot, then Israel will pound the remnants of Hezbollah across Lebanon entirely. So, Hezbollah kept kind of calm for all these years because they were replenishing. And one of their problems was that the land route all the way to Iraq and to Iran was no more. First, because Israel pounded the positions of Hezbollah and the IRGC in Syria before the coup, before the change of regime. So that was probably a reason for why the jihadists who were sitting in Idlib, north of Syria, were able to march into Damascus. And as Prime Minister Netanyahu says very clearly, Israel actually destroyed the presence of the regime and of Hezbollah and of the other militias in Syria, leaving Assad alone. And Assad was very close from either changing his regime or imploring the United States. At that time, the jihadists in Idlib, backed by, of course, Qatar and Turkey and Muslim Brotherhood in general said, that’s the moment. There is a breach. There is a vacuum. Let’s go in. And they went in. But still Israel, although this is not about Lebanon, maintained that southern Syria should not be seized by any jihadi regime. Should it be under the Islamic regime of Iran or under the current Muslim Brotherhood or jihadi regime in Damascus? At this point in time, what’s happening is that because of Syria, Israel and the United States have been involved since January in an air campaign to destroy the strategic weapons of the regime in Iran, Hezbollah has made a second mistake. As they’ve done for Hamas, said, we’re going to enter that war and we are going to rescue Hamas and then put pressure on Israel. And what happened to them was historic. They lost a lot.

Now that the regime in Iran is targeted by the Israelis and the U.S. with a lot of imagination on how they’re dealing with it, it’s unbelievable that change. Hezbollah, one more time, instructed by Tehran said, I’m an I am in solidarity with the Khomeini regime and I’m going to engage against Israel. And that is the beginning of that. The second war. I don’t know if it’s a 12-day war, not anymore. It’s now a month war. Second, very important is that the United States now under the Trump administration is fully invested in breaking down the forces of the Islamic regime in Iran and in Lebanon, Hezbollah. If we focus on Hezbollah itself, they are in trouble. They still have a mass of 125,000, maybe more, maybe less fighters. They still have some missiles. They control, and that’s very important for us to understand if we look at a map. Three spots in Lebanon. People say Hezbollah control all of Lebanon. Yes, if they can go and assassinate and arrest and kidnap and torture, they could be present anywhere in Lebanon, but not for too long. You’re going to see why. So Hezbollah has the South, the area from Latani to the border of Israel. Hezbollah has a very large city that the Lebanese call it, southern suburb of Beirut, about one million Shias stronghold, which is controlled by Hezbollah. And then they have the Northern Beqaa. But guess what? Those three enclaves, I call them islands, are not really connected. They are separated by other communities. So that is a very big problem for Hezbollah. Once they are hit in one of the areas, usually the organization, the terrorist organization sends large numbers of civilians outside Southern Lebanon to be able to maneuver. But also what we have realized is that this time as Israel is really warning all the civilians that you need to move, we’re going to come. They didn’t say how and where and in what form Israelis are going to come. We know that decision. So they warned. This is something that jihadists and Khomeneist and Hezbollahist, they don’t want, they just assassinate, you know, they don’t care about the civilian population. So Hezbollah has mobilized a large segment of the population in South Lebanon to go out and they have redeployed in the South. That’s why the Israelis and the United States are now agreed on a green light to do an operation in Southern Lebanon. There will be an operation and that operation obviously unlike in Iran, will be by air, by sea, because Israel controls the coast of Lebanon, and it will be also by land in some places. So let me move now to where this population that is infiltrated by Hezbollah has gone inside Lebanon. Israel is pounding the southern suburb. This is the big headquarter. And population there need to evacuate and leave. What Hezbollah has done was to gather, let’s call them marchers or people who are moving under their control from the south and from the suburb. And they were planning on taking them to East Beirut. East Beirut is a Christian area of Beirut. And so they were trying to do this. They would conquer East Beirut. And when the war settles, they will bring part of that population back to the south. So they will use the war with Israel to conquer an ethnic area inside Beirut. And that’s the most important. That’s where the port is. And that’s where the coast of the Lebanese Christians is as well. And they will be surrounding the Sunnis of West Beirut. But for the first time, the population of East Beirut and to a certain degree West Beirut, but mostly in East Beirut opposed and said, if Hezbollah is going to come and plant itself again or organize itself in our areas, we’re going to fight.

So now Hezbollah realized that they have Israel in the skies, Israel in the airspace, and then a local force on the ground that would oppose them. What was left now so far, we’ll see later, is that the only path for Hezbollah to take some of its demographics would be the northern Beqaa. Now that does not say that Israel is not going to go after Hezbollah everywhere in Lebanon. They come from the air. So you cannot stop them. And there is another issue. which is in the northeast of Lebanon, you have the new Syrian army, which is also, she had a cell of his that may clash with Hezbollah in the north. Hezbollah is in deep trouble. Hezbollah is in deep trouble. And what is needed now is basically someone in Lebanon, a force in Lebanon that would work with Israel because Israel can do the fight from the air. Nobody can, I mean, it’s unbeatable, invincible in the air. So Israel and US are in Iran today. But on the ground, Israel can do as much as it can in the South. So there are certain access whereby they could go up to Jezzine. This is a Christian city in Southern Lebanon or up to the Chouf Drus Mountain. There is an alignment of interest between the Drus and the Christians at this point in time. And that will be new since 2000. That would help the Israelis actually secure areas. As for the other communities, even there are anti-Hezbollah individuals in the Shia community, anti-Hezbollah individuals in the Sunni community. So the landscape this time is going to change. Still what the Israelis need, what the Lebanese people need is that their government, their Lebanese army would stand at least to protect their areas, meaning the Lebanese army three years ago. Myself and a number of NGOs in the United States. Washington, we went and met a number of, that was before the Trump administration, met a number of members of Congress and we submitted a map where we suggested that the Lebanese army, that the US is funding, that the US is training, that Lebanese army at least should take over the areas where Hezbollah doesn’t have a large base. That would be 70% of Lebanon. That would be all of Mount Lebanon, piece of the north of Lebanon, Beirut administrative areas, and then some other parts elsewhere. What is missing from that fight, what is missing from that process is the absence of the Lebanese government president of Lebanon and then speaker of Lebanon. Well, the speaker of Lebanon is already an ally to Hezbollah, but the prime minister of Lebanon.

Only recently, before this activity, the president and the prime minister said that we are going to start the process of disarming Hezbollah, but they never did. We told them, why don’t you start far away? Why do you want to jump at Hezbollah immediately? You know that there are Israeli operations. Start in the mountains, in the high mountains. And yesterday, by the way, there were ballistic missiles fired from the Beqaa Valley across those mountains, targeting most likely the U.S. embassy and the U.S. military presence in Lebanon. So it is happening. What we warned about is that not just Hezbollah, but the IRGC detachment inside Lebanon will start to use this missile force, not just against Israel, but against everybody, including Cyprus, as far as Cyprus. So to conclude here, and I’ll be happy to answer all your questions, what is needed now is for the United States, for the administration, and for Congress to inform the president of Lebanon and the prime minister. I’m not even including the speaker of the parliament. He’s the ally of Hezbollah. That they need to do their job. First, they need to issue a statement. They issued a statement about disarming, but they said, whenever we feel that we can do it. No, you have to say this is under the United Nations Security Council resolution 1559. Because if you make a statement today and a future government will come and say this was a decision by the previous government. No, that is over. You’re going to mention 1559 and you’re going to engage immediately in coordination with Israel. They said, okay, we are ready to form a committee. You know, when they start saying form a committee to perhaps meet, that’s already paralyzing. You’ve got to tell your foreign minister, a great one who has been issuing great statements against Hezbollah to meet with the Israeli foreign minister. And if needed, guess what? Washington will be happy to host both of them. That would be the breakthrough. They still have the legality of May 17, 1983. It’s not dead, it’s there. They should refer to it and then invite the two ministers to come to Washington, meet with the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and then issue a joint plan for the United States, Israel, and the Lebanese army, Lebanese government that are free, because some of them are not free, to start an operation that would help Israel to get rid of the threat, United States to make sure that the regime of Iran is not in Lebanon, and most importantly, the Lebanese people. I see that we are about to get to that summit. We are there, but there need to be a push. And I think no one else, no one other than President Trump can do that push. He’s already a great ally with Prime Minister Netanyahu. They need the third party, the third brother to join so that they could continue that campaign. I’m going to stop here and thank you so much again, Sarah, and I’ll be more than happy to answer questions till 45.

Sarah: Okay, my first question is what would happen to Hezbollah if the Islamic Republic and Iran were to fall? Where would they get their financial support?

Waleed: Nowhere. Hezbollah is Hezbollah because the Islamic Republic or Islamic regime, I like to call it, created them. Let me take you back to places and times I was witnessing in Lebanon. In 1979, the regime in Iran declared Islamic Republic. And then immediately that year, it was in February, by the end of that summer, they dispatched what they call the IRGC, the Islamic Revolutionary Corps, to Syria first. And Syria was dominated by Assad, the father. and he allowed them to come to the Beqaa Valley by 1980. And that’s very important to many of the debates taking place in the West. There was already an IRGC/Hezbollah in Lebanon, 1980. So one year. And people say, well, Hezbollah rose as a resistance to Israel. Are you kidding me? Israel got into Lebanon in 1982. That’s when they marched straight and they were allies to Bachir Jemayin, who was elected briefly as the president. It’s only after Israel reached Beirut and started to withdraw according to all these plans that Hezbollah started to march from the northern Beqaa towards Israel and towards the Lebanese communities. So the first very important fact is that Hezbollah was created by the regime. It’s not a resistance movement. It’s a militia created by the regime. Number two, everything, and these are speeches, hours long speeches by Nasrallah and the previous secretary generals, all dead now, say that says quote, I’m translating from Arabic to Lebanese, “All of our money, all our weapons, all our training, all our protection are coming from the Islamic Republic in Iran.” It’s not as you know, some of these so-called Middle East teachers and experts from our classroom to the newsroom keeps have been saying for the last 20, 25 years that this is a resistance somehow. And then they are the Patriots. No, you’re not Patriots. You are Islamists. And that’s a different thing in many countries. The nationalists are against the Islamists and in Lebanon, those who are Patriots or nationalists, whatever you’re going to call them are against Hezbollah. So to answer your question, they do have reserves, immense reserves. Their reserves are bigger than them. So, first of all, I don’t know how much, but in hundreds of billions of dollars inside Lebanon cash. They had it in Syria, they withdrew it back. They have some money in Iraq. But more importantly, they have established bridges to large parts of West Africa. This is where the cash is. This is where their precious stuff is. And from West Africa, they’ve switched to Venezuela. Now Venezuela regime has changed, but I think that there’s still money for Hezbollah in Venezuela. So we’ll see what will happen between the US and Venezuela to Brazil to Uruguay to the northeastern eastern part of Argentina, but it’s closing on them. Venezuela flipped. Argentina is now an ally against Hezbollah. And then of course, Hezbollah, guess what has investments in Europe and in the United States from the time of the Obama and Biden administrations. Give me just 30 seconds to digress. This is so important. We have given money to the regime and the regime has given money to as well. We all remember 2015 the Iran deal. We should call it the Obama deal with with the regime. $150 billion. Now in normal business and this that was a transaction that was a business 10% goes to the those who make the arrangement 10% is $15 billion. So Hezbollah like the regime and Hamas and others can use endless amount of money. The problem is if they lose the land, what would the money serve for? Most likely Hezbollah will fund into an international mafia for a long period of time.

Sarah: So the Lebanese government has voted to make persona non grata the Iranian ambassador, Mohammed Reza Shalabani and to expunge Hezbollah. Do you believe the Lebanese armed forces has the capability to do this on their own?

Waleed: What a great question. Let me break it down into pieces just for us to understand because I’m close to that situation. The one leader who asked the ambassador of the Islamic regime of Iran. To leave is the foreign minister we’re talking about. His name is Youssef Rajji. He is an official who unlike any other officials, well, there are some other officials, but he’s so unique that he took the responsibility as a foreign minister and he can do that to tell the ambassador to leave. The president of the republic, according to the minister said, okay, but don’t involve me. You know, he’s just sitting at the top. He doesn’t want to do anything. So now it’s really on the shoulders of the foreign minister. That’s why the United States, as our secretary of state should invite him just on the basis that he made that call. Now Hezbollah is saying, we’re not going to allow the ambassador to leave and come and get it. You know, they’re doing the mafia style, come and get him. I don’t know how this is going to end. Most likely the ambassador without accreditation is not going to be able to stay. But that was so significant because the minister who can ask the ambassador to leave can also sit down with Israel and the United States and ask all Hezbollah to surrender their weapons. And we hope that this will be the case quickly on the issue of the Lebanese army. I’ve been asked this question many times. Let me give the news and the news are has to be taken seriously, but also with understanding of the circumstances in Lebanon. If we take the Lebanese army, first of all, there is 20% that is Hezbollah. These are people who during the day have their uniform as Lebanese army. At night, they are guarding the checkpoints of Hezbollah. And this is online. It’s not, I am imagining things. So there is an influence even in the intelligence services. Everybody knows that in Lebanon, everybody in the army knows that. But the command of the president of the Republic and the commander of the army do not want to do anything about it. They are afraid. They were commanders before who were assassinated by Hezbollah. So as long as Israel and the US are not in all the way, this group of people, the neutral group of people are not going to deliver. Now, the two thirds of the army, once you look at it, large Christian and then Sunni and then Druze, those, are in effect about two-thirds of the army. With the officers who can lead them, not at the top, middle officers, I believe they can beat Hezbollah. And I’m saying this because of what I said earlier. Hezbollah is three regions not connected. First thing, they could surround these regions and let Hezbollah sit and the Israelis can do sorties, air sorties until the white flag appears. Now Hezbollah will do a lot of damage, but the Lebanese people and communities who lived 30 years, you know, at the edge of a war and peace and nightclubs and restaurants and all of that have to understand this is the real war of independence. They have to grow, go through it. But also at the same time, the base of Hezbollah is not fully engaged with them. They saw the disasters that happened in the South. They saw how Hezbollah folded though, leaders were taken out by Israel. So the circumstances of having the Lebanese army with the help of the United States, other Arab allies and Israel making sure to disarm Hezbollah is more than possible. The problem, the address, the P.O box is with the president of the Republic and the commander of the army. Both are Maronite Lebanese Christians. So they understand the message.

Sarah: So I know that we have maybe five more minutes.

Waleed: We have more, have 10, 15.

Sarah: Oh, we have 10 minutes, great. Okay, do you believe if for some reason President Trump were to declare a mission accomplished against the Islamic Republic of Iran, that the government of Israel will still continue to fight against Hezbollah and Lebanon?

Waleed: I am sure that’s the case, because even in the 12-day war, let’s remember that phase, I remember hearing Secretary Rubio saying when the first waves of Israeli strikes started, that’s Israel. We are not conducting that war yet. Of course, few days later, I think a week later, we were all over the skies of Iran, and it was an American force that destroyed the three nuclear sites. So this is like the United States and Great Britain fighting the Nazis. They have different timings. The United States stayed one year before it intervened in Europe. So, in my view, first of all, it’s not said… that the administration is really satisfied and on board to strike a deal. What is strikable now, which should have been part two, has been made into part one. I don’t know the reasons, but there are multiple reasons. Is the regime has given us gifts and is allowing us to do one, two, three things. Okay, that’s an economic transaction. But before the economic transaction, you want to make sure that you are transacting not with terrorists. See, that’s all what they have offered would be ideal and great if they were offered by a transitional government, a free government in Iran. And we’re going to soon discover that what the regime in Iran is doing is basically gaining time. Because if the US and Israel continue what they’re doing right now, especially the strikes against the Basij militias in the neighborhoods, which you and I have spoken about last year, if those militias are dispersed, are destroyed inside the cities. Forget about the Strait of Hormuz. Forget about everything else. There will be an armed revolt against the regime by the Iranian people. Now they are not armed. But once those militias are removed, then the Iranian people will rise and will follow what President Trump has said, which is seize your institutions. Continue with your work. I’m still guided by those first tweets or posts by the president. But to answer your question, I think Israel is going to go against Hezbollah full-fledged, regardless of what’s happening in Iran. I even think that the administration is going to help Israel against Hezbollah, because Hezbollah is a threat not just against Israel. It’s a threat against the United States. I mean, the first victims of that regime, first in Tehran, was the hostage crisis. And second, in Lebanon, 1983, who were the first victims? The Marines and the French Marines, so on and so forth. So I think the campaign will continue. And I even bet that the Trump administration, whatever it’s doing on Iran, which I believe they’re going to see very closely and very nearly that this regime is not up for real business.

Sarah: Right, so there are about 850,000 to a million Christians living in Lebanon today. Do you know how they’re faring throughout this war?

Waleed: Not good in general since the full invasion by the Assad regime and Hezbollah in 1990 and then in 2000. The first community that is basically feeling the pressure and many numbers have emigrated are the Christians of Lebanon, especially those who are living in Beirut and Mount Lebanon. I mean, you don’t need me to confirm this. It’s online and they have been calling for all these administrations all that time to come and help them and nothing has happened. Now at this point in time, it’s ironic. The Christians who are about 1.1 million still in Lebanon today, out of a real number of 1.8 million, nearly 2 million, but hundreds of thousands have left to the West, to the United States, Brazil and elsewhere. They will come back. Those who left after those dates will come back to a free Lebanon and they will be willing to rebuild Lebanon along with the Druze, along with the free Sunni and free Shia. but they were the ones the most victimized. But what happened now is after what the US and Israel have done in Iran against the regime, they felt that there is a possibility for a change. And if the pressure continues, as you just asked me before, and the regime will collapse, then you’re going to see a revolt in Lebanon, mostly led by the Christians, but also in coordination with other communities. Second, when they see that Israel and Israel is doing it, striking with very big precision the targets of Hezbollah. This is going to leave all of the Lebanese but specifically the Lebanese Christians a lot of hope. They can see liberation very, very close.

Sarah: Waleed, you are a true patriot and a wonderful individual. I’ve worked with you for so many years and it’s always been an honor and a privilege. I also have to request that whoever’s watching this, please, we need your support. EMET is on Capitol Hill practically every single day. I know the two members of my staff are on the Hill today trying to speak the EMET, the truth to our members of Congress and staffers. And I also want to ask all of you to look up Waleed Faris on amazon.com. He has written at least 11 books. Maybe more.

Waleed: 15 by now.

Sarah: 15 books. You have to read his books. They are absolutely amazing. Thank you so much, Waleed. It is always a pleasure to have you.

Waleed: Thank you, Sarah, very much. And let’s stay in touch.

Sarah: For sure. Bye-bye now.

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