Hezbollah on Saturday deemed “offensive” a video published by a Lebanese television channel caricaturing the leader and fighters of the pro-Iranian group as characters from the famous video game “Angry Birds” in their war with Israel.
This video, tweeted by LBCI on Friday, shows Hezbollah fighters, including their leader Naïm Qassem, in the skin of birds, some equipped with explosive vests and slingshots facing Israelis incarnated by pigs who carry out airstrikes or pilot pig-shaped drones. This video contains “offensive insults that lower the political debate to a repugnant level,” Hezbollah responded in a press release.
Although LBCI was initially founded in the 1980s by the Lebanese Forces (FL), a Christian party opposed to Hezbollah, it distanced itself from it years ago. On social networks, Hezbollah supporters reacted to this video by sharing insulting images of Maronite Patriarch Béchara Raï, Lebanon’s highest Christian authority, provoking numerous reactions right up to the top of the state.
In a press release, Lebanese President Joseph Aoun thus “condemned any attack on the leaders of the Christian and Muslim religious communities as well as on the spiritual figures of Lebanon”.
He also “called on everyone to refrain from personal insults, particularly in the current circumstances that the country is going through, which require great national solidarity”.
Despite the relative freedom of expression that Lebanon enjoys compared to other Arab countries, the media, artists and comedians are regularly victims of harassment campaigns when their comments are deemed offensive towards a political or religious figure.
Hezbollah dragged Lebanon into the regional war on March 2 by launching an attack against Israel, which is carrying out strikes on the neighboring country that have left more than 2,600 dead, according to authorities. The violence continues despite a truce that came into effect on April 17.
