THIS IS BEIRUT
Hezbollah Emerged from Iran’s Revolution, Not “Resistance” to Israel
Hussain Abdul-Hussain
April 7, 2026

A false claim, now common in Western media and academia, portrays Hezbollah as having emerged in response to Israel’s 1982 invasion and subsequent occupation of Lebanon. In reality, Hezbollah arose in the wake of Iran’s 1979 Islamic Revolution as part of an effort to establish an Islamic state in a Lebanon fractured by warring militias. Since Hezbollah first captured Western attention with its secretive operations and spectacular attacks, the West has produced a vast body of literature describing the group and its rise—often portraying it sympathetically as the movement of the impoverished, the downtrodden, and the victims of Israeli wars and invasions of Lebanon. This narrative is false. READ MORE