00:00I mean, Israel has obviously been carrying out the airstrikes that have resulted in the deaths of more than 500
00:06people, we're told, amongst 84 children.
00:09Is the public anger directed at Hezbollah? Is it directed at Israel? What would be your assessment, Dr. Bahut?
00:18It's very difficult to separate both. First of all, we can't answer, I mean, with definitive assurance this question,
00:26because it depends on the segment of the Lebanese population to which you are asking the question.
00:33Let me say that without taking too much risks, there is a part of the Shia population that is still
00:40supportive of Hezbollah.
00:42Of course, they will curse Israel and the bombings and accuse it or hold it responsible for their displacement, the
00:51destruction of their villages.
00:52Part of these people will also hold the Lebanese state and government responsible, not only for its inability to defend
01:02them,
01:02but also because during the last year and a half, the Lebanese government, and this is an objective fact,
01:09has not done much to reconstruct the villages in the south, so they have a grief towards that.
01:16But let me say that besides that, or except or outside these segments, most of the Lebanese today would say
01:23or would tell you
01:25Hezbollah has acted irresponsibly. It is taking a risk that is uncalculated, at least for the Lebanese population.
01:33And more than that, this war is without a horizon, and the country is really threatened to go into the
01:40abyss again.
01:41So all this is shedding an additional light on something we know about Lebanon.
01:46It's a divided country. It's a polarized country.
01:49And I think that today with what's happening in the streets, what's happening on the front,
01:55and what's happening on the political level also, the country is even more polarized than ever.
02:01And this is where you could take the risk of seeing it really getting into not only political, let's say,
02:11rifts,
02:11but also some security skirmishes here and there.
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