Hezbollah is still attempting to recoup its losses following the Israeli targeting of its leaders, including the terrorist group’s iconic leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was eliminated in an Israeli airstrike on his hideout in Beirut on Sept. 27. Hezbollah’s heavily reduced surviving leadership, under the strict guidance of Iran, didn’t have an abundance of choice between politicians to lead.
Accordingly, the election of Shia cleric Naim Qassem, the longstanding deputy of Nasrallah, became a natural choice for the Iranians and Hezbollah, given the dwindling numbers of eligible loyal political figures to run Iran’s terrorist crown jewel in Lebanon.
Qassem is endorsed by the powers that be in Tehran, including the newly elected so-called “reformist president” Masoud Pezeshkian, who stated the following in an official letter to Qassem:
“I am confident that the presence of a brilliant personality and a mujahid (Jihadist) with a bright past like Your Eminence at the head of Hezbollah will strengthen the will in the field of resistance and also continue the bright path of the lofty martyrs of this front.”
Naim Qassem, born in 1953 in the Southern Lebanon village of Kfar Kila, has been the deputy secretary general of Hezbollah since 1991 and was a co-founder of the terror group along with Nasrallah in 1982. His radicalism and extremist views as a Shia cleric are known in the group’s circles, and he has remained a loyal servant of Iran for more than four decades. A chemist by trade, he is considered to be the ideologue of the group, writing a dozen books on jurisprudence as well as chronicling Hezbollah’s history.
While lacking the leadership charisma of his predecessor, Qassem masks his grim nature and exuberant radicalism with fiery speeches of resistance and obliterating the enemy, which remains Israel in all cases.
“You will die of terror, your economy will collapse, you will not achieve your goals, and you will transform the resistance in Palestine into a global movement,” he said in a speech on Sept. 22, threatening Israel.
“Israel became weaker to us than a spider’s web. We look upon it that it will be perished, and if it assaults us, we will answer back,” he said in an old speech that went viral online in late September.
Qassem continued his threatening messages in a speech on Oct. 15 commemorating Nasrallah’s death and urging resistance: “Your order is our command, we will defeat them and extract them from our lands. We can’t separate Lebanon from Palestine or the region from Palestine.”
While his stance on eliminating Israel and rejecting any peaceful resolutions for the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is well known, Qassem shows steadfast loyalty to Iran as he has been a deputy since 1991, which is even before Nasrallah became the head of Hezbollah.
Lebanese journalist and political analyst Mohamed Kawas told Deutsche Welle Arabic TV that picking Qassem as the new head of Hezbollah was the “most logical” given his prior role as a deputy general secretary since 1991, which shows that “the was the most loyal to Iran and [has the] most trust by them.
“He appeared three times to deliver speeches after Nasrallah’s death to elaborate on the stances of Hezbollah,” Kawas said. “Each time, I noticed he was reading the speeches word by word after we all felt that the whole situation is now in Tehran’s hands.”
When asked if his appointment would mean more subordination by Hezbollah to Iran under his leadership, Kawas replied, “I think so, he is very close to Iran and frequently visited there. He was always one of the ideologues of Hezbollah.”
Moreover, media reports over the past two weeks have indicated that he may have traveled secretly to Iran for security reasons and may be leading the group from there.
The subordination to Iran and pushing the Iranian regime agenda are not a novelty, as it has been a stable of Hezbollah since its inception. Members of the terrorist group took unbashful pride in being the agents of Iran for decades. But now they are finally paying a price for allowing themselves to become a clone of the Islamist regime of Iran operating as a dictatorial state within the country of Lebanon.
Qassem and his puppeteers in Tehran are issuing new threats against the Jewish state. But considering Israel’s early retirement of Qassem’s two predecessors and the Israeli devastation of the Iranian defensive system, these boasts betray a real vulnerability to a knockout punch by the Israel Defense Forces.
Hezbollah is now in Chapter 11 thanks to rigorous Israeli real estate construction, i.e., the destruction of Hezbollah’s bank and other terrorist-controlled institutions in Beirut, which have been valued at more than $3 billion. Hezbollah has lost 70% of its commandos, who have been killed or captured. Israel estimates that only 20% of Hezbollah’s missiles remain and are disappearing fast. Unless Qassem wants to join his compatriots “on the road to Jerusalem,” it’s likely we may never see a live shot of the new Hezbollah leader.
