Hezbollah supporters have reportedly used AI-generated manipulated images to target Cardinal Bechara Boutros al-Rai, the Maronite Patriarch of Antioch and All the East.
Patriarch described the digital attack on him as “a war of words, not freedom of opinion, but a worrying degradation of the standards of language and values and a violation of human dignity, which no one has the right to violate, whatever be its source or form.”
The digital attack included the spread of altered images depicting patriarchy in a derogatory and derogatory manner.
Jovele M. Howayek, a Lebanese civic activist and 2022 parliamentary candidate, argued The campaign is neither spontaneous nor vague in its intentions. “This is both a threat and a communal incitement and it is deliberate,” he said.
Jovele M. Howayek, a Lebanese civic activist and 2022 parliamentary candidate. | Credit: Photo Courtesy: Jovelle M. Haweyek
For Howek, the timing is not coincidental. She links the campaign to a broader political context in which Hezbollah is “losing political ground”, which she describes as a predictable change in strategy: “divert attention from the main issue and create a new confrontation that can be framed as a symbolic victory.”
In his view, “This is not political engagement. This is crisis management through fear, distraction and division.”
He said the campaign also reflects the deepening rift between Hezbollah and the Christian community.
Such digital confrontations are not new to Lebanon’s political landscape, but they carry particular risks in a country built on a fragile and strained social contract.
Howeyack said, “Patriarchy has been targeted in the past because patriarchy represents an authority that cannot be forced or absorbed: a moral legitimacy rooted in national identity.” “Whenever their positions align with state sovereignty, they expose a structural contradiction within the opposition project.”
