How do US sanctions affect Hezbollah and Lebanon?

Afif Diab - Beirut

The United States has imposed a new package of sanctions on Lebanese figures and companies it accuses of belonging to Hezbollah or contributing funds.

The US Treasury Department has allocated $ 10 million to information about the party's financial networks. These new sanctions on the party coincided with an escalation of sanctions against Iran, the main supporter of the party and its political, security and military role in Lebanon and elsewhere, particularly Syria.

The new sanctions against individuals and businessmen linked to Hezbollah - according to the US indictment - find the party only one of a series of sanctions Washington has taken against him or against his social environment incubator.

Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah said in March that Americans "put us on the terrorism list because we defeated them and we defend our countries and our nation."

In more than one speech, Nasrallah stressed that his party would face these sanctions with "patience, endurance, good governance and the organization of priorities."

Repeated penalties
"The new sanctions or the reward that Washington has set up are not new to Hezbollah," said Paul Morcos, president of the law firm of Justicia.

He explained in an interview with Al Jazeera Net that in the law against the financing of Hezbollah in 2015, it was mentioned monitoring the financial reward for those reporting the party's finances.

In the opinion of Markus that the activation of these sanctions will not affect the Lebanese banking system, "able to absorb, because it has built the administrative and information, logistical, technical and human to meet these pressures and absorption and work to audit the accounts of customers and sources of funds.

Morcos believes that US pressure "is likely to affect only the categories of new sanctions whose names are listed in the black lists or those around them as well."

He also believes that Washington is doing its own sanctions against Hezbollah "with the aim of bearing fruit after views in the American administration say these sanctions will not work."

"According to the American concept, sanctions against Hezbollah could expand and target direct or indirect groups that are not directly linked to it, in order to be more effective," he said.

Severe penalties
"US sanctions against Hezbollah are systematically escalating, and the US Treasury is setting specific targets and stages for implementing them," said journalist As'ad Bishara.

He believes that the recent sanctions and the monitoring of reward for cities that give information about the party's financial networks may not be the last, and that "there are new stages of sanctions that may affect personalities who may be allied to the party."

Bishara told Al Jazeera Net that US sanctions against Hezbollah "have become painful and painful, and the sanctions on the party are no different from those imposed on Iran and the Syrian regime."

According to him, Lebanese officials "informed - and did not announce it officially - that the sanctions should be applied firmly and unchallenged by the Lebanese banking system."

But did US sanctions actually target Hezbollah?

Political analyst Tawfiq Shoman told Al Jazeera.net that the party's core financial cycle is separate from the Lebanese financial cycle, so "his finances will not be affected by the new sanctions."

He believes that the real aim of imposing sanctions on figures accused of working for the party is to "remove the party's allies from him and from his internal Lebanese policy."

Shoman explains that the new US sanctions against Lebanese personalities "are a message to them first, and carry more than one message to the two major allies of the party, the Amal Movement and the Free Patriotic Movement, that the sanctions may affect their close associates and later put them on the blacklist."