January 28, 2026
Danny Haddad – MTV
Today, Nabih Berri turns 88, of which he spent 32 years as Speaker of Parliament. Berri is perhaps the most astute politician in Lebanon’s modern history. He fought battles, made settlements, and played roles in reconciling families and countries at the same time. He struck with his hammer separating representatives, some of whom resembled students in the “school of rioters.”
Nabih Berri has sacrificed a lot since Hezbollah decided to engage in the suicide war called the War of Support. When the Israelis went crazy and Avichay Adraee issued his threats to bomb the south and displace its people, Berri did not sleep at night in an effort to provide shelter for one family and blankets for another. Then he saw his “south” destroyed in a war “on the road to Jerusalem,” before he played the role of firefighter and negotiated to preserve what was left, or what was preserved by the Israeli crime and Hezbollah’s adventures.
Nabih Berri today is in a moment of unprecedented anger and sadness. Some of those who meet him report hearing words they had never heard from him before, as an expression of his strong censure over Hezbollah’s behavior and the positions of its Secretary-General. Last week, he “disgraced himself” in front of the President of the Republic. The day before yesterday, he was shocked by Sheikh Naeem Qassem’s position on not remaining neutral if a war was launched against Iran. President Joseph Aoun shared the same shock.
The eighty-eight-year-old has had his fill of wars. He does not want the son of the south to be displaced from his land again. He does not want the planting seasons to wither or be burned, and the homes to become without a roof and memories. Whatever is said about Berri in politics, he was never a suicide bomber, nor did he engage in uncalculated adventures, nor did he abandon his Lebaneseness in the service of a war in Syria or in support of Gaza or Yemen, nor did he turn young men in tunnels into a card in the hands of an Iranian negotiator.
Today the rift between Berri and Hezbollah is growing. A close source says that communication with the “party,” which is headed by MP Ali Hassan Khalil, was carried out via a landline phone. A call containing a question or suggestion, then Hezbollah’s response comes two or three hours later. Today, the response is delayed for days, and may never come.
It is not at all fleeting that Berri went to Baabda after the words of President Joseph Aoun and the campaign against him, on orders from Hezbollah, even if its leadership denied it. Berri’s harsh response to the yellow “party” newspaper, with its affiliation and content, is not fleeting at all. It is also not a coincidence that some figures of the “Amal” movement in the media declined to defend Hezbollah’s options at length.
All of the above expresses the reality of Berri’s positioning today, as he has become closer to Aoun, with the latter’s clear speech and frank opinion of Hezbollah, than to “the party.” This is the beginning of an obituary for the “duo” as two harmonious teams in most of the choices, without this meaning reaching the point of public disagreement or any return to the shedding of Shiite blood, which is considered, according to Berri, a red line that should not be crossed.
Amal and Hezbollah will ally in the upcoming parliamentary elections. The difference will not turn into a major disagreement. Berri will be angry within the walls of Ain al-Tineh, or in President Aoun’s office in Baabda. But the man, who turns eighty-eight today, is not just angry. He is afraid for the South and Lebanon of a war that he fears, more than ever, has become inevitable.
It may be a matter of time before Iran is bombed and Lebanon is bombed… How bad this unity is, in terms of path and destiny.
