It’s the event that has gotten under Lebanese merchants’ skin: Mamdouh L. is a businessman whose dealings include a chain of electronics stores. Thanks to his seniority and reputation, he was able to arrange for himself a monopoly on providing equipment and spare parts for dozens of television channels operating in Beirut. It’s he who purchases equipment, sends technicians, is responsible for the proper operating of broadcasts, and manages the training center. At the end of the month, he stuffs his bank accounts with impressive sums. He lives like a king in an expansive villa, keeps a fleet of cars and a retinue of servants, and his children learn in the US’s most expensive universities.

But a fortnight ago, an economic-political storm landed on Mamdouh. Assistant Secretary for the Department of the Treasury of the United States Daniel Glaser, responsible for intelligence, went to Beirut with a “blacklist” of senior Hezbollah officials and insisted that the governor of the Central Bank close the accounts of 100 commanders in Hezbollah’s military wing, political wing, ministers identified with the organisation, and members of parliament.

When it comes to criminal organisations that work on the lines of an international mafia, Glaser said, we do not differentiate between combatants and propagandists. For us, the political wing gives orders, and the military wing is the architect of their enactment.

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