BEIRUT — Washington’s pressure campaign against Hezbollah is not new, but its latest tone is unmistakably sharper.

During a recent meeting with Lebanese figures, a U.S. delegate warned that if Lebanon does not help “dry up” Hezbollah’s financing, specifically by targeting institutions like al-Qard al-Hassan, Israel will “act on its own.”

What is striking is not the threat itself, but the eagerness of certain Lebanese politicians to embrace it. Their reactions illuminate a deeper and more dangerous dynamic: local complicity feeding external aggression, all while Western-backed media normalize the process.

MP Nadim Gemayel’s reply encapsulated this trajectory. When he said, “We’ve been waiting for this moment for 40 years,” he was not merely expressing a personal opinion.

Gemayel is the grandson of Bashir Gemayel, the notorious wartime leader who collaborated openly with the Israeli regime and pursued normalization during the 1982 occupation.

That legacy is not a historical footnote; it is the ideological backbone of a political camp that continues to see foreign intervention as an opportunity rather than a threat.

Today, that legacy reemerges through politicians who view external pressure against the Resistance as a strategic tool to reshape Lebanon’s internal landscape.

This behavior has consequences. For years, Lebanese actors have supplied Western embassies with distorted accounts, exaggerations, or outright fabrications, hoping to weaponize foreign power against their domestic rivals.

These narratives travel from Beirut salons to Washington think tanks, to European diplomats, and ultimately to Tel Aviv, where they are repackaged as “evidence” to justify sanctions, military escalation, or political isolation of the Resistance.

President Michel Aoun once cautioned against Lebanese personalities “spreading poison in the United States”—a phrase that many dismissed at the time, but which now appears prescient. What Aoun described is not a marginal phenomenon; it is a structural trend.

Equally alarming is the role of Western-funded media institutions that echo, sanitize, and amplify these narratives. Their reporting routinely aligns with embassy talking points: vilifying the Resistance, legitimizing American intervention, and presenting Israeli threats as rational consequences of Lebanese “misbehavior.”

Backed by grants, workshops, and diplomatic access, such outlets manufacture a soft consensus that foreign pressure is both necessary and inevitable.

Together, these forces push Lebanon toward a profoundly dangerous moment. They chip away at national sovereignty, embolden the Israeli enemy, and fracture internal unity at a time when regional tensions are already boiling. The stakes are no longer merely political. They are existential.

As Lebanon marks its Independence Day on November 22, the country faces another test of sovereignty, this time in the cultural sphere. Casino du Liban’s decision to celebrate the occasion with three performances by French singer Kendji Girac has stirred intense controversy.

Girac’s public positions and associations reflect clear sympathy toward the Israeli entity, prompting many Lebanese to question how a national holiday rooted in liberation and dignity could feature an artist aligned with narratives hostile to both.

Independence Day is not a neutral festivity; it is a symbol resistance against French occupation and Western hegemony.

Hosting an artist who, through statements or affiliations, legitimizes the very entity responsible for decades of aggression against Lebanon, challenges the moral and historical meaning of the day. The issue transcends artistic taste.