Hezbollah’s Long March: How Iran Built a Power Inside Lebanon—and Why the World Should Pay Attention

For decades, the story of Hezbollah has often been framed narrowly as a regional security issue between Israel and Lebanon. But according to Israeli security expert Lt. Col. (Res.) Sarit Zehavi, the rise of Hezbollah represents something far more significant: a blueprint for how a hostile ideology, backed by a foreign state, can gradually infiltrate and reshape an entire society.

Speaking from Israel’s northern border, where she lives only a few miles from Lebanon, Zehavi—founder of the Alma Research and Education Center—describes Hezbollah’s evolution not as a sudden military phenomenon but as a slow, strategic social project supported by Iran.

Understanding how this transformation occurred, she argues, may offer a warning for cities and democracies far beyond the Middle East.

For Zehavi, the ultimate definition of victory in Israel’s conflict with Hezbollah is far simpler than geopolitics.

“Victory for me,” she said, “is that my daughter can go to school for a full year without war.”

But the story of Hezbollah carries implications well beyond the Israeli-Lebanese border.

It shows how ideological movements can build influence quietly—through schools, charities, and social services—long before they appear as military threats.

And it raises a difficult question for democracies everywhere:

How do open societies defend themselves against movements that use freedom itself as a tool to undermine it?

Lebanon’s experience suggests the answer may determine whether future conflicts begin on battlefields—or in classrooms.