The confrontation between Israel and Hezbollah was not merely a security event; it turned into a dense curtain deliberately drawn over the most dangerous crime in Lebanon’s history: the theft of the Lebanese people’s money.
Under the smoke of war, deposits vanished from public debate, accountability evaporated, and popular anger shifted from the question of stolen funds to anxiety over survival and existence. The ruling establishment bought itself more time, while people lost what remained of their lives, dreams, and their children’s future.
The questions meant never to be asked is clear and simple:
Why don’t Lebanese demand the recovery of their money?
Why are the people asked to tighten their belts, starve, and endure, while their leaders hoard wealth in foreign banks?
What logic accepts that a Lebanese citizen remains poor, displaced, and without social guarantees, while the ruling class lives in absolute comfort?
What is happening is not the result of a passing crisis, but a systematic policy of impoverishment used to subjugate people and prevent accountability.
We are not talking about imaginary figures, but about more than one hundred billion dollars in frozen deposits and funds smuggled abroad—wealth sufficient to rebuild the state, revive the economy, and restore dignity to an entire society. Yet the Lebanese are meant to believe that there is no option but poverty or emigration, as if the money had vanished, when it is known, traceable, and tied to specific parties.
Even more scandalous is that the countries that preach transparency and anti-corruption know exactly where this money is, who stole it, and how it left Lebanon. Global banks, oversight bodies, and major governments possess the evidence, the routes, and the names, yet they remain silent because their interests with the ruling establishment outweigh the rights of a plundered people. Silence here is not neutrality; it is an undeclared partnership in the crime.
Most dangerous of all, the same authority that looted the Lebanese people’s money now calls for borrowing from global banks and the World Bank.
Why should citizens be shackled with new debts, additional taxes, and humiliating conditions while billions in stolen funds remain piled up abroad? Those who seek to burden the people beyond their capacity are the very ones who smuggled the money and left the state hollow. Borrowing is not a solution; it is a continuation of theft by different means under a false “reform” cover.
When the name Nabih Berri or others from the pillars of the establishment is mentioned, it is neither slander nor defamation, but a legitimate question in the name of the people:
Why aren’t those who drained the treasury for decades forced to return the money to rebuild the South instead of permanently trading in its blood?
Why aren’t the funds hidden abroad recovered and reinvested in the economy instead of letting the country bleed?
Do citizens not have the right to see their money returned rather than settle for speeches and slogans?
It is true that groups of active diaspora organizations and civil society are documenting crimes and waging a grueling campaign of exposure. But these efforts will remain isolated unless they become a broad popular front that imposes the recovery of stolen funds as a national priority that cannot be bypassed or postponed.
Silence over theft is a crime parallel to the theft itself.
There is no homeland without accountability, and no economy without recovering stolen money. Turning anger into action begins by breaking the barrier of fear, naming the thief publicly, exposing him before public opinion, and shattering his sanctity in the eyes of his supporters.
Lebanon will not rise through new loans, but by reclaiming what was stolen from it. Accountability is not revenge; it is a condition for survival. The real battle is not on the borders, but with those who stole people’s livelihoods and harvested their lives, then told them to be patient. And when Lebanese understand that their first enemy is the corrupt, not the slogan, the true path to salvation begins.