Hizbullah's Dangerous Game

Al-Hayat is a Saudi-owned paper, so I have some questions about this story which purports to show growing discontent at Hizbullah among Southern Lebanese. Nevertheless, the storyline goes like this: those Lebanese most affected by the war with Israel are getting impatient with Hizbullah's political battles in Beirut, and want them to come home and help them rebuild. Here's a translated segment of the article:

"Last July, Um Qasim was putting the food on the table when a young man from the resistance came in to tell the family that they had to leave the town. The news about Hezbollah kidnapping two Israeli soldiers had just rocked Israel and Lebanon. The preliminary reports pointed to a heavy Israeli response. Um Qasim didn't pay any heed to the young man's talk. The family didn't leave their house in Bin Jbeil. In a single day in the aggression, she lost two sons and a house. Back then she said that her two children died 'for the sake of the Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah.' But seven months later after this personal loss, new questions entered Um Qasim's and other southerners' dictionaries: was it necessary for Hezbollah to capture two Israeli soldiers?

"Meanwhile, Ali spends his time moving along the roads after he lost his sound equipment and was not compensated by anyone. He said: 'the government doesn't know that there is a town called Bint Jbeil that suffered more than any other place during the war.' He adds expressing his anger towards the opposition and the loyalists: 'Not one of them visited us. We don't trust them. Some of the MPs of the opposition visited us then disappeared. Not one of them heeds our demands. The opposition and the loyalists are worse than each other.' Ali received 400$ as 'compensation for the shop' but he doesn't know who will rebuild the shops that were destroyed but he knows that 'even Hezbollah now has other concerns than the south. It is now busy with Beirut.'"

As the article is right to point out, the government missed (or couldn't take advantage of) an opportunity to subvert Hizbullah's patron-client relationship by helping Southern Lebanese rebuild after the war. Though the people in South Lebanon might not be enamored of Hizbullah any longer, the government hasn't exactly welcomed them with open arms. In the absence of another option, the support of the people in Southern Lebanon will probably, grudgingly, remain with Hizbullah.