With a low voice and a tone heavy with wars and collapses, the former head of the Progressive Socialist Party, Walid Jumblatt, appears from Paris, carrying a bleak prognosis for the future of Lebanon and the region. The man who, for nearly 50 years, was one of the most prominent pillars of Lebanese political life, today seems more inclined to contemplation and pessimism, as he watches what he considers to be an accelerating disintegration of the “Orient” he knew.
According to a report by journalist Hala Kadmani in the French newspaper Liberation, Jumblatt, who is 77 years old, spoke during a round of interviews he conducted on the occasion of the publication of his autobiography, “Fate in the East,” about the wars that are “destroying Lebanon and the entire Middle East,” at a time when he described the Lebanese and regional political reality as having entered a stage of “total chaos.”
During the meeting that took place in the offices of the Parisian publishing house, Jumblatt rejected the descriptions of the “Middle East” and the “Far East,” considering them to be “Orientalist terms invented by the colonial West,” preferring to use the term “the East,” which for him includes: Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Palestine, and Israel.
The book, co-written by historian Sebastien de Courtet, comes almost 50 years after the book by his father, Kamal Jumblatt, who was assassinated in March 1977 by Syrian intelligence during the Lebanese civil war. Jumblatt says: “As an only son, it was impossible for me to escape my fate and the fate of my ancestors since the nineteenth century.”
In the interview, Jumblatt recalls the path of his early transition to the leadership of the Druze community and the Progressive Socialist Party after the assassination of his father, noting that he followed in the footsteps of Kamal Jumblatt politically, but not spiritually or religiously, saying that his father tried in his youth to teach him “spiritual joy,” but he rebelled against that.
He also talks about the influence of women in his life, from his Francophone Lebanese mother, to his grandmother, “Sitt Nazira,” who was known as the “Queen of the Mountain,” all the way to his current wife, Nora Sharabati, whom he described as a “partner and protector,” stressing that women do not receive sufficient recognition in Lebanese and Arab political life, and noting that he imposed a 30% women’s quota within the Progressive Socialist Party.
Despite handing over political leadership to his son, Taymour Jumblatt, who was elected as a representative since 2018, Walid Jumblatt confirms that he has not completely left political work, but he feels that his voice is no longer heard amid the sharp alignments.
Jumblatt says in one of the most striking clips: “I can no longer, and I no longer know how, to talk to Hezbollah. In the time of Hassan Nasrallah, I could communicate and discuss with him, but after his assassination at the hands of Israel in 2024, there are no longer any interlocutors. The new leadership is completely under Iranian influence.”
On the other hand, he also criticized Hezbollah’s opponents, saying that “the Lebanese who are against the party are completely extremist,” adding: “Samir Geagea is acting like Moses,” considering that everyone “entered a cycle of violence and insults, while the rational voice disappeared.”
Jumblatt touched on the events of Suwayda and the tensions that the Druze areas in Syria witnessed after President Ahmed al-Sharaa came to power, revealing that he tried to play a mediating role with the Syrian Druze during the confrontations with Damascus forces in the summer of 2025, but he was subjected to severe criticism because of his meeting with the Syrian president.
He said: “I have become considered a traitor by the Syrian Druze,” warning at the same time of the escalation of what he described as “Druze isolationism,” and of the growth of separatist tendencies that are “encouraged by Israel,” as he put it.
Jumblatt added that there is an old project attributed to Israel that is based on “creating sectarian, religious and tribal entities to dismantle the entire region,” considering that this path has reappeared strongly at the current stage.
In his assessment of the regional situation, Jumblatt spoke of “general chaos” striking the Levant, accusing Israel of enjoying “complete immunity” that allows it to “destroy Gaza and southern Lebanon and complete settlement in the West Bank.”
He also expressed his belief that the war with Iran “will be prolonged,” because “there are many parties that benefit from it, from arms companies to oil producers and artificial intelligence companies that find the Gulf a testing ground for their technologies,” he said.
At the conclusion of his speech, Jumblatt seemed immersed in unprecedented pessimism, admitting that he was “completely pessimistic,” in a description that perhaps sums up the feeling of a large segment of the Lebanese who are watching the region enter a harsh redrawing phase that is open to all possibilities.
