"After four decades of rivalry between two foes in constant competition for influence, both abusing religion, both weaponizing sectarian identities, the past is no longer history for some. Rather, it is alive in the boiling rancor of the present, and there is no chance of forgiveness. Once obscure, forgotten historical wrongs have been turned into fresh memories in the collective consciousness, as a result of the relentless crescendo of sectarian spin created by Iran and Saudi Arabia. In 2018, Hezbollah did well in legislative elections in Lebanon while Saad Hariri’s coalition suffered losses, even in Beirut. The sentiment of victory was expressed by a Hezbollah supporter in a statement on Facebook: “We will not vote for the candidates of the Yazidi state, the killer of the children in Yemen, the supporter of Daesh and Nusra, but most importantly, the destroyer of the tombs of the Imams, peace be upon them.” Yazid was the caliph who faced off with Imam Hussein in the battle of Karbala in 680 AD, and the term “Yazidi state” was being used to refer to Saudi Arabia, now seen as the ultimate embodiment of oppression of the Shias; the mention of the destruction of tombs was a reference to the cemetery of Jannat al-Baqi, leveled by the Al-Sauds at the turn of the twentieth century. The candidate of this Yazidi state was Saad Hariri, the Lebanese prime minister, who had made many compromises with Hezbollah and had been humiliated by his Saudi patrons precisely for this reason in his bizarre, televised forced resignation in November 2017. After the 2018 election results were announced, Hezbollah supporters on mopeds or hanging out of their cars drove through the city waving the yellow flag of the party, stamped with a fist raising a Kalashnikov. They chanted: “Beirut is Shia, Beirut is Shia”—an echo of the 1980s when young men with beards and women in chadors went on a rampage on Hamra Street, smashing liquor bottles and laying claim to that part of the city. The men on mopeds made a frenzied spectacle of pulling down posters of Saad. They drove up to the Saint George Hotel, site of the 2005 assassination of Rafiq Hariri, Mr. Lebanon. A bronze statue of him stood near the spot where the bomb had cratered the road and changed the political trajectory of the country. Hezbollah supporters attached their yellow party flag to it, declaring their final victory over a dead man."