David Daoud
speaker
530 appearances
3 recordings
1 series
first heard Mar 2025
last heard 15 Aug
David Daoud’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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recordings per month · last 12 monthsRecordings per month over the last 12 months — 2 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.
Appearances
Now, Israel, as far as we know, according to the Israelis, destroyed something like 80% of Hezbollah's strategic arsenal, built something like 30% of Hezbollah's fighting force, assassinated its top military leadership, a lot of its top political leadership. The organization is significantly degraded. To deny that would be to deny fact. At the same time, and here's the but,
Hezbollah is not down for the count. And anyone who's telling you that would be falsifying information as well. What Hezbollah has been trying to do since the November 27, 2024 ceasefire, realizing its vulnerable state, realizing that its vulnerability could offer an opportunity for enemies domestic and foreign to finish the job. And Hezbollah does have significant number of enemies in Lebanon.
It's been to one consolidated space, right? Because this is the source of its strength in Lebanon. As much as we don't like Hezbollah, Hezbollah is part of the Lebanese political and social fabric because it has large Shiite support. Lebanon is built on this kind of this sectarian power sharing models. And if you are the most powerful representative of a specific sect,
then you get a seat at the political table. Hezbollah represents what is possibly Lebanon's largest and fastest growing sect, the Shiites, a significant proportion of them, according to Recent polling, it was late September of 2024, something like 85% of Lebanese Shiites support Hezbollah to some degree, and for various reasons.
They're not all hardcore ideologues, but they support the organization. Only 5% in that poll that was issued by Arab Barometer were shown to oppose Hezbollah.
So it's not Hezbollah doing the survey. It's an independent organization called Arab Barometer. They tend to be very credible. But also, look, and this is where Hezbollah tried to address these claims in its own way after the war with Nusrullah's February 23rd funeral.
which drew, according to Information International, this is an independent consultancy organization in Beirut that mapped out the square footage of the area where people had congregated for the funeral and estimated that somewhere between 650,000 at a minimum to 900,000 people came out out of a sect in Lebanon, the Shiites, that is estimated to be 1.2 million people.
And that's assuming that the people that stayed home all stayed home for reasons of opposition to Hezbollah. People can stay home for all types of different reasons, logistics, their kid got a cold, they got a cold, they were lazy, whatever.
So as far as we can tell, and this is what Hezbollah intended this to be, not just an outpouring of grievance for their fallen leader, but also, as they said repeatedly, this was a demonstration of their continued viability in Lebanon.
So because of that, whatever you want to do moving forward in Lebanon, because they've demonstrated, at least they've tried to demonstrate the retention of this base, you have to take them into consideration, uh, the same way you did prior to, uh, to, to the war.
Now, two examples of this, uh, uh, Noah Salam, the current prime minister of Lebanon, who was not initially endorsed by Hezbollah, but now Hezbollah is part of the government, uh, at least, you know, indirectly in some ways, um, uh,
In an interview with Lebanon's state broadcaster, Tel Aviv, about a month ago, I want to say, he said that he had to take into account while forming his government, the political realities in the country and the sense of the Shiite community's feelings of being wounded by the recent war. Now, if Hezbollah has been decimated, you wouldn't take these two things into consideration.
He put out a policy statement as his government was gaining the vote of confidence in parliament And this is the division of how the government wants to operate that said, critically, Lebanon will set a national defense policy. Now, this sounds benign probably to regular ears, but this has been a Hezbollah demand.
Because to set a national defense policy means you have to get all the Lebanese factions at the table, which includes Hezbollah, and you have to ask them, what do we do with Hezbollah's arms?
And the outcome that I think Hezbollah is seeking is something like maybe state authorization of their arms or something akin to the PMF law in 2016 in Iraq, where Hezbollah is folded into the apparatus of the state, but remains its own cohesive separate entity. And then it gets funding from the state. I think that's the path that Hezbollah is going to take. Now, again, if they've been decimated,
If they've lost critical mass of support, you don't need to take that into consideration. You don't need to include that in your policy statement as the prime minister of Lebanon.
Look, significant input. Ultimately, Hezbollah is loyal to the Supreme Leader in Iran. This is an ideological link, meaning if Iranian funding and weapons were to stop, Hezbollah's loyalty would not stop. It is a matter of belief.
Now, does that mean while there is a hierarchy in the relationship between Iran and all of its extensions, I don't call them proxies when we talk about Hezbollah because my arm is not my proxy, it is my extension. Now, there is a hierarchy. Iran sits at the top, but it does not dictate Hezbollah's actions. It takes into consideration Hezbollah's local circumstances and how it must navigate.
This is why, and this is part of the, if you will, the genius of the Iranian model, that having local organizations made up of locals. who understand the local environment, the local playing field, obviates the need for, say, intelligence, like a massive intelligence operation in Lebanon for top-down control.
Basically, you're assured of Hezbollah's loyalty to you by this ideological link, so you can allow them leeway to operate as they see fit within Lebanon to shoot their circumstances, to shoot Lebanon's circumstances, because the ultimate objective here is growth. It is not just destroying Israel that is important to the Iranians.
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