With its economy ravaged by civil war, Syria has become a center of production of Captagon, a powerful and addictive stimulant used by fighters to remain alert during long operations, and by partygoers to fuel long nights of revelry. Hizballah has partnered with the Assad regime in its Captagon trade—worth about $1 billion a year—which has begun to spill over into Lebanon. In a blow to that country’s faltering economy, Saudi Arabia recently banned produce imports from Lebanon because so many shipments were used to hide illegal drugs. Baria Alamuddin writes:

Hizballah has resorted to diverting illegal shipments [of drugs] to obscure the country of origin, . . . exploiting its connections with the worldwide Lebanese diaspora. West Africa has become a preferred option. . . . This isn’t the first time Hizballah has embroiled West Africa’s Lebanese communities in the narcotics trade. . . . West African states such as Guinea, Togo, the Congo, Guinea-Bissau and Sierra Leone, have played pivotal roles in Hizballah operations, involving money laundering, weapons proliferation, drugs, and organized crime.

One 2021 calculation suggests that this activity nets the group about $1 billion a year, probably in the same ballpark as the stipends Hizballah receives from Iran. With the annual worldwide narcotics trade worth about $500 billion, this could be a gross underestimate. As Lebanon’s economy continues its remorseless slide, the day may come soon when this Hizballah black economy comes to dominate Lebanon’s markets, with the risk that country permanently descends into being a narco-state.

The consequences of Hizballah provoking a ban on exports of Lebanese agricultural produce to major regional markets are massive, and will ruin the lives of farmers who, like most citizens, have been devastated by economic disintegration and the collapse in the currency’s value. Just as in Afghanistan, impoverished farmers turned to growing heroin, which bankrolled the Taliban’s return to power; it is as if Hizballah is doing everything in its power to transform Lebanon into an economy based on the wares of death. The high-profile visit to Beirut by the Iranian foreign minister Hossein Amirabdollahian is a reminder of how Lebanon’s embroilment in Tehran’s economic orbit means embracing pariah statehood.

Last year, the Dubai-based television channel Al-Arabiya, the Times of Israel, and several other media organizations worked together to conduct numerous interviews with residents of the Gaza Strip, taking great pains to protect their identities. The result is a video series titled Whispers in Gaza, which presents a picture of life under Hamas’s tyranny unlike anything that can be found in the press. Jeff Jacoby writes:

Through official intimidation or social pressure, Gazans may face intense pressure to show support for Hamas and its murderous policies. So when Hamas organizes gaudy street revels to celebrate a terrorist attack—like the fireworks and sweets it arranged after a gunman murdered seven Israelis outside a Jerusalem synagogue Friday night—it can be a challenge to remember that there are many Palestinians who don’t rejoice at the murder of innocent Jews.

In one [interview], “Fatima” describes the persecution endured by her brother, a humble vegetable seller, after he refused to pay protection money to Hamas. The police arrested him on a trumped-up drug charge and locked him in prison. “They beat him repeatedly to make him confess to things he had nothing to do with,” she says. Then they threatened to kill him. Eventually he fled the country, leaving behind a family devastated by his absence.

For those of us who detest Hamas no less than for those who defend it, it is powerful to hear the voices of Palestinians like “Layla,” who is sickened by the constant exaltation of war and “resistance” in the Palestinian media. “If you’re a Gazan citizen who opposes war and says, ‘I don’t want war,’ you’re branded a traitor,” she tells her interviewer. “It’s forbidden to say you don’t want war.” So people keep quiet, she explains, for fear of being tarred as disloyal.