Hezbollah and the Workers
Hezbollah’s record shows that the party’s interests are more aligned with elites than with workers.
Though its reputation has waned in recent years, Hezbollah has long earned plaudits from the Left for its military resistance to Israel. Many, too, have pointed to its provision of social services as a sign of the organization’s progressive hue.
This latter claim, however, doesn’t hold up to reality. Hezbollah has over time positioned itself on the wrong side of social and economic struggles in Lebanon and shed some of its former roots, aligning itself with an emerging fraction of the Shi’a bourgeoisie. It and other sectarian movements in the country continue to block the emergence of a broader class politics in Lebanon.
Party of God and the Poor?
Hezbollah has portrayed itself as the party of the oppressed, which challenges deprivation and champions the rights of farmers, the poor, workers, and the homeless. In its 2009 manifesto, the organization claims that:
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