BEIRUT: A video published by a Lebanese TV outlet caricaturing Hezbollah’s leaders and fighters as characters from the “Angry Birds” mobile phone games drew a rebuke from the group, which called the clip “offensive” on Saturday.
On social media, Hezbollah’s supporters condemned what they considered the ridiculing of leader Naim Qassem, who is also a Shia cleric, with some reacting by sharing images insulting Maronite Patriarch Beshara Rai, the highest Christian authority in Lebanon.
The video, shared by the LBCI channel on Friday, depicts Qassem addressing his fighters — with all of them depicted as birds from the popular video games — as they fight the Israeli army, portrayed as the series’ green pigs.
Hezbollah said in a statement that the video contained “offensive and cheap insults that degrade political discourse to a repulsive level.”
The group also called on supporters not to be “drawn into” the controversy “orchestrated by the enemies of the resistance.”
LBCI was founded in the 1980s by the Lebanese Forces, a Christian party opposed to Hezbollah.
However, the channel distanced itself from the party years ago and has been trying to present a more independent image since.
“Before our holy symbols and our sheikh (Qassem), all holy symbols fall,” one Hezbollah supporter wrote on X, referring to Maronite Patriarch Rai.
After the wave of insults, Rai was contacted by several officials and religious leaders criticizing the rhetoric.
President Joseph Aoun in a statement on Saturday “condemned and rejected any attacks on the heads of Christian and Muslim religious communities and spiritual figures in Lebanon.”
He also urged the public “to refrain from personal insults, given the negative repercussions of such practices, especially in the current circumstances the country is going through, which require broad national solidarity.”
Despite the relative freedom of expression enjoyed in Lebanon in comparison to other Arab countries, the media, artists and comedians have faced harassment over work deemed by some to be offensive to political or religious figures.
Hezbollah drew Lebanon in the Middle East conflict on March 2 after it fired rockets toward Israel in support of its backer Iran.
More than 2,600 people have been killed in Israeli attacks since then, according to Lebanese authorities, with the violence ongoing despite a fragile truce in place since April 17.
