In southern Lebanon, critical voices that only a few years ago struggled to find space to speak are growing louder. They are angrily questioning the enormous gap between what people were told for years about the “resistance,” its strength, and its ability to deter Israel and protect them, and what they see today: occupation, destruction, Israeli advances, and the loss of positions that media close to Hezbollah had, until very recently, portrayed as beyond Israel’s reach.

For more than two decades, Lebanese television screens have been filled with figures promoting Hezbollah’s propaganda. They became known for hyperbole and exaggeration, for raised voices and pointed fingers, and even for threats. But these voices did not appear in the media out of nowhere, especially in an era when traditional media dominated. Hezbollah cultivated them, supplied them with talking points, gave them access to platforms, and assigned them roles and messages it wanted conveyed without formally adopting those messages itself, careful to preserve the image it sought to project.

Recently, however, Hezbollah has appeared to distance itself from the very media ecosystem it helped create, as the party increasingly opts for silence over what is unfolding between it and Israel in southern Lebanon.

On September 9, following controversy over statements by figures associated with Hezbollah after Israel seized the group’s facilities on Ali al-Taher Hill, Hezbollah’s Media Relations Office issued a statement that was widely seen as an attempt to distance the party from figures it had long supported, and who had spoken on its behalf as though privy to its secrets and military capabilities.

Several figures close to Hezbollah had previously discussed its facilities on Ali al-Taher Hill, offering details about their strategic importance and the fighters stationed there, only to downplay their significance later after they fell to Israel.

The statement read: “Several figures and friends make statements through the media and on social media platforms, providing information and details, some of which concern issues and events related to Hezbollah or the Islamic Resistance. The public generally treats these statements and information as though official sources within the party or the Resistance issued them.” The statement warned against treating such information as official.

In an article addressing Hezbollah’s statement and the controversy surrounding it, Al-Akhbar, a newspaper aligned with Hezbollah, noted that before the 2024 war, Mohammad Afif, Hezbollah’s media relations chief who was assassinated during the war, “held regular meetings with most of these figures to brief them on the party’s position on developments. However, the changes that followed the war forced the party to adopt a new media strategy, significantly scaling back its commentary on developments and halting all discussion of the resistance and its affairs…” according to the newspaper.

This account further underscores the direct link between Hezbollah and figures who had routinely received briefings from the party on the messages it wanted to convey.

Within Lebanese media circles, Wafiq Safa’s prominent role as former head of Hezbollah’s Liaison and Coordination Unit is also well known. Safa regularly communicated with journalists and leaked information the party wanted circulated, effectively feeding its messaging even to media outlets opposed to Hezbollah.

But can Hezbollah really disown, overnight, the very figures it cultivated, now that it has lost its battles and adopted a policy of silence over what is happening in southern Lebanon? Is the party’s attempt to distance itself enough to erase how these figures acquired their standing and credibility in the first place? And will this disavowal of what they say be accompanied by any genuine reckoning, when there has been no discernible change in the rhetoric itself? Especially since what these figures say is no different from what Hezbollah officials themselves say.

Emulating Nasrallah’s Style

Hezbollah created a model of political propaganda built around “analysts” repeating the speeches of its late secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, affirming their truthfulness, and rejecting any criticism or even questioning of them. Nasrallah’s rhetorical style, speaking as though he possessed absolute certainty, was also adopted by those whom Hezbollah-aligned media presented as “analysts” and “experts,” and even spread among broad segments of Hezbollah’s support base.

Hezbollah supporters and propagandists increasingly imitated Nasrallah’s style and persona. Their rhetoric became saturated with exaggeration, asserting that the Shiite organization was capable of wiping Israel out of existence, defeating it with ease, and even defeating any power in the world. Following Nasrallah’s example, they began addressing “the entire world,” as though the world were listening to the position of an analyst here or a party supporter there, waiting to hear what they had to say, a practice that illustrates the scale of the illusion.

For more than two decades, Nasrallah’s rhetoric served as the primary reference point for the approach adopted by analysts associated with what became known as the “Axis of Resistance.” Within this approach, there was no room for doubt. Instead, there was absolute certainty, delivered with confidence and assurances that dreams and ambitions would inevitably be realized. It was accompanied by a sense of overwhelming power and by the assumption that those presenting their claims as “certainties” would remain beyond scrutiny or accountability even when proven wrong, continuing to belong to the Axis of Resistance and to appear as permanent guests across its media outlets.

The cultivation of Hezbollah’s political propaganda figures coincided with the party’s golden era. Roles were distributed, and “analysts” were promoted to deliver messages Hezbollah wanted conveyed without the party itself having to assume responsibility for them. It was a game understood by audiences, journalists, and politicians alike. Hezbollah’s intended messages could increasingly be deciphered by following the rhetoric of these figures, who effectively became an unofficial channel for the party.

The conflation of these figures with Hezbollah, which the party’s recent statement warned against, therefore did not emerge from nowhere. It stems from the public’s understanding of the very system through which these figures gained their prominence. Hezbollah cannot now shift responsibility onto its audience for a perception that it helped create.

Two Decades of an Inflated Sense of Power

This propaganda apparatus took shape as Hezbollah emerged portraying itself as the victor of the July 2006 war, reinforcing the confidence of a broad segment of its supporters in Nasrallah’s promises and their acceptance of his rhetoric. This was followed by the events of May 7, 2008, which enabled the Iran-aligned party to impose greater control over the Lebanese state, and later by its intervention in the war in Syria and its celebration of having helped thwart the uprising against the regime at the time.

For nearly two decades, Hezbollah’s power and sense of self-importance continued to swell, while its secretary-general grew increasingly convinced that he was invincible, despite knowing that he could not appear publicly and was forced into hiding to avoid being targeted. Yet he remained a loud, finger-wagging orator, speaking with absolute certainty about how easily Israel could be defeated and how close its elimination had become.

The Axis’s analysts drew both their confidence and some of their mannerisms from him. They sought to emulate Nasrallah’s pointed finger and threats, convinced themselves that they stood on the side of an ever-victorious and superior power, branded as traitors anyone who questioned Hezbollah’s actual strength or Israel’s capabilities as a traitor, and gained fame and material benefits from their rhetoric.

But on September 27, 2024, Nasrallah was killed in his bunker in Beirut’s southern suburbs. With his death, Hezbollah lost much of its ability to speak to its own constituency, while his successor, Naim Qassem, proved unable to replicate his style and presence. Within ten days, Hezbollah’s leadership structure collapsed with a speed few had imagined possible. The Shiite organization turned to Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri to lead negotiations aimed at ending the war, which ultimately took place.

The Fall of Ali al-Taher Exposes Hezbollah’s Media Crisis

Yet what Nasrallah instilled in the media figures he cultivated has endured, even as events on the ground have shattered much of what Hezbollah’s propagandists had promoted. They nevertheless clung to the rhetorical style they had borrowed from Nasrallah, convinced of its enduring ability to captivate audiences. They continued to sell illusions, most recently with the “myth of Ali al-Taher,” which they promoted before the hill overlooking Nabatieh fell to the Israeli army.

The fall of the military position therefore exposed more than a vulnerability on the battlefield. It laid bare, more starkly than ever, a media crisis that Hezbollah had allowed to accumulate over the years and whose manifestations it is now attempting to disown, without undertaking any serious reassessment of the rhetoric that produced them, a rhetoric of which Hassan Nasrallah himself was one of the principal architects.

The problem, then, is not simply a question of who officially speaks for Hezbollah and who does not, as the party’s statement sought to portray it. It is a crisis of rhetoric that was once among Hezbollah’s greatest strengths, but has since become a source of embarrassment as its certainties and exaggerations collided with realities that, in remarkably little time, dismantled much of the image the party and its late leader had spent decades constructing.

The cost of this rhetoric was not merely a media one. For years, exaggerated claims about Hezbollah’s strength and deterrence capabilities were presented not simply as political propaganda, but as facts upon which residents of southern Lebanon were expected to base their sense of security.

They were told that Israel had been deterred, that any invasion would come at a price it could not bear, and that Hezbollah possessed enough capabilities and surprises to protect the land and prevent occupation. Whenever questions were raised about the actual balance of power or the cost of opening the front, those voicing them were often met with accusations of treason, ridicule, or charges of defeatism.

Today, after the destruction, displacement, Israeli military advances, and the fall of positions once portrayed as impregnable, this rhetoric can no longer be dismissed as mere television hyperbole. It shaped people’s understanding of the risks they faced and stifled questions that should have been asked before the war, not after.

Accountability, then, goes beyond the question of who said what on television: Who bears responsibility for reassuring an entire community with promises that failed when put to the test, only to leave that community paying the price of their collapse with their homes, their land, and their security?