CAN YOU PASS THE HEZBOLLAH QUIZ?

By Jeffrey Rudolph (July 2012; last update January 2020)

Hezbollah, a Lebanese Shia Islamic organization, has evolved over the decades from a guerrilla movement to the most influential political and military power in Lebanon.

Given that Hezbollah is a crucial part of the Iran-led “Axis of Resistance,” it is not surprising that the mainstream media in the West uses simplistic stereotypes to demonize it. However, whether the West likes it or not, Hezbollah is clearly fated to continue playing an important role in Lebanon’s future.

The purpose of this quiz is to explore the roots and evolution of Hezbollah, a sophisticated organization that effectively combines pragmatism and militancy, social services and religious faith.

THE HEZBOLLAH QUIZ

1. Did Hezbollah exist before June 1982?

No.

2. Did Hezbollah exist after June 1982?

Yes.

3. What precipitated Hezbollah’s creation?

“Israel invaded Lebanon on June 5, 1982, following an eleven-month cease-fire with the PLO, which Israel claimed had been broken by the attempted assassination of the Israeli ambassador to the United Kingdom Shlomo Argov…It made little difference to the Israelis that the assassination had been carried out by a renegade Palestinian group led by the infamous Sabri al-Banna…, a blood foe of the PLO.” (The 1982 Lebanon War, therefore, was clearly a nondefensive war like Israel’s Suez attack of 1956.)

“The invasion gave Ariel Sharon, then the Israeli defense minister, carte blanche to pursue his own dream of destroying the PLO as a political force in the region [thus consolidating Israel’s hold of the Occupied Palestinian Territories] and putting in place a pliant government in Beirut that would become the second Arab state, after Egypt, to enter into a formal peace agreement with Israel.” (Therefore, the grand plan was “to push the PLO out of Lebanon and into Jordan in the triple hope of crushing the organization, establishing an Israeli-friendly regime in Beirut, and precipitating the fall of the Jordanian Hashemites. [T]hese aims [were] ‘so delusional that nobody dared state them openly.’”)

“Within the Israeli government at the time—as within the American foreign policy establishment—there was little understanding of the developments under way among the Shi’i Muslims of Lebanon and no analysis was made of the impact of this invasion on them. Even if Israel had not launched its invasion of southern Lebanon in 1982, the young would-be revolutionaries among the Shia would have pursued their path of emulating Iran’s Islamic revolution. Undoubtedly, however, the invasion pushed the Shia further in this direction, creating conditions for the establishment and flourishing of Hezbollah.” (Augustus Richard Norton, Hezbollah: A Short History, Princeton University Press, Princeton: 2007, 33. Hereinafter, “Norton.”) (Susie Linfield, The Lions’ Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky, Yale University Press, 2019, 277.)

“After Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982, the Amal Movement’s secular leadership exhibited a pragmatic willingness to deal with the Israelis if it could make a deal that benefited the Shia by bringing stability and economic growth to the South—a flexibility that appeared to the Islamists as a rank betrayal, swiftly driving them to resign en masse from Amal. By then a member of Amal’s politburo, Nasrallah [the current leader of Hezbollah] was one of dozens of Amal leaders who quit in 1982 just as Iran was looking to export its Shia revolutionary fervor and establish a proxy in Lebanon. The Islamic Republic sent 1,500 Revolutionary Guards to Baalbek, and the confluence of interests quickly gave rise to Hezbollah.” (Thanassis Cambanis, A Privilege To Die: Inside Hezbollah’s Legions and Their Endless War Against Israel, Free Press, New York: 2010, 184. Hereinafter “Cambanis.”)

“Iran and Syria share credit for sponsoring [Hezbollah]…although Iran certainly played the leading role. For Iran, the creation of Hezbollah was a realization of the revolutionary state’s zealous campaign to spread the message of the self-styled ‘Islamic revolution.’ From Syria’s standpoint, the new militant Shi’i party was a fortuitous instrument for preserving Syrian interests: supporting Hezbollah allowed Syria to maintain its alliance with Iran, gain the means for striking indirectly at both Israel and the United States, and keep its Lebanese allies, including the Amal movement, in line.” (Norton, 34-5)

“From where had this Shia surge sprung? For a millennium or more…Shia Muslims had struggled, with a few rare historical exceptions, on the margins of politics and wars. Their…senior jurists espoused the dogma of quietism…By the turn of the twentieth century, Shia thinkers had begun to question quietism [and thus argued that Shia should not resign themselves to passivity and injustice]…By the 1970s, a small coterie of passionate, competent, and intellectually formidable men already had begun a new movement among Lebanon’s Shia….Lebanon’s most senior Shia cleric, Ayatollah Muhammed Hussein Fadlallah, was one of the theological architects of the new idea of Shia resistance….[From 1985 onward,] virtually every Shiite who stayed in Lebanon entered some kind of relationship with Shia parties and eventually fell into Hezbollah’s orbit, willingly or not.” (Cambanis, 101-6)

Background to the 1982 Invasion: As a result of the 1948-49 Arab-Israeli War, one hundred thousand Palestinians were expelled or fled from Israel to southern Lebanon and were not allowed to return. (Norton, 14)

“[I]n the wake of the [1967] War[,] the Palestinian armed groups, particularly the PLO’s Fatah and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), emerged as independent entities, no longer just proxies of Egypt and Syria. Using Jordan and Lebanon as staging grounds, they unleashed a series of attacks against military and civilian targets within the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as well as against sovereign Israel. The PFLP, a Marxist-Leninist-inspired organization, cooperating with like-minded groups outside the Middle East, began expanding its operations and attacked Israeli targets abroad, especially the aircraft of the national El Al Israel Airlines.” (Anshel Pfeffer, Bibi: The Turbulent Life and Times of Benjamin Netanyahu, McClelland & Stewart, Canada: 2018, 78. Hereinafter, “Pfeffer 2018.”)

“[F]ollowing the civil war in Jordan in 1970-71, thousands of armed Palestinian guerrillas would move to Lebanon, where the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) would challenge the authority of the Beirut government and establish a virtual state-within-a-state encompassing west Beirut and much of southern Lebanon.” While many Shia had sympathy for Palestinian aspirations, they resented “actions that exposed Lebanese citizens, especially Shi’i citizens of the South, to additional suffering [from, for example, PLO fighting and Israeli reprisals].” (Norton, 14, 18)

“The Rabin government had supplied arms to the Christian militias fighting the Palestinians in Lebanon in 1976. In 1981, as fighting intensified, [Prime Minister] Begin took Israel’s involvement up a notch, ordering air strikes to help the embattled Christians.” (Pfeffer 2018, 142)

In the summer of 1981, “Palestinian rocket and artillery fire forced Israeli civilians into bomb shelters and triggered a demoralizing exodus from border towns and villages. On 17 June 1981 Israel had bombed the PLO headquarters in Beirut, killing between 120 and 300 people. Since then, however, a ceasefire brokered by the US envoy Philip Habib…had more or less held. To Israel’s alarm, however, the PLO had used the intervening period to build up its military strength.” (Ian Black, Enemies and Neighbors: Arabs and Jews in Palestine and Israel, 1917-2017, Atlantic Monthly Press, New York: 2017, 257. Hereinafter, “Black 2017.”)

“[W]hile the PLO might have been weak…militarily, it had in recent years been making steady headway diplomatically. Its spirit of compromise, its readiness to settle for…less than a quarter of [Palestine]…won it international credit.” (For example, in 1980 “the PLO made a significant gain with the European Economic Community’s Venice Declaration, which recognized the right of the Palestinians to self-determination and called for PLO involvement in negotiations…”) “The Soviet Union was soon to ‘recognize’ it; it looked as though Europe might one day…It was President Reagan’s special envoy, Philip Habib who had negotiated an end to the ‘artillery war’ [between the PLO in Lebanon and Israel]…At the same time, Saudi Arabia’s King Fahd, a close friend of Washington, was trying to interest it in a ‘two-state’ Middle East ‘peace plan’. If things had gone on like this, Israel might have found itself dragged into peace talks to which the PLO would have been a party.” Thus Israel had to choose between stark options: “a political move leading to a historic compromise with the PLO, or preemptive military action against it.” (David Hirst, Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East, Nation Books, New York: 2010, 132-3. Hereinafter, “Hirst.”) (Norman G. Finkelstein, Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance With Israel is Coming to an End, OR Books, New York: 2012, 234. Hereinafter, “Finkelstein.”) (Black 2017, 251)

“Free of concern about an Egyptian response [due to the March 1979 Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty which followed the 1978 Camp David Accords], Begin aggressively expanded settlements in the West Bank, and in short order bombed an Iraqi nuclear reactor near Baghdad [in June 1981] and extended Israeli law to the Golan Heights [in December 1981]. Then, in June 1982, he sent the Israeli army into Lebanon, in order to root out the Palestinian Liberation Organization….Begin acknowledged that it was a ‘war of choice,’ unlike all of Israel’s previous conflicts…” (Lawrence Wright, Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David, Alfred A. Knopf, New York: 2014, 279-80.)

“In late August [1982], after [the IDF’s] three-month siege of Beirut, Arafat and 6,500 Fatah fighters left for exile in Tunisia and seven other Arab countries… Sharon claimed victory: ‘The departure of the PLO from Lebanon clears the way for Israel to achieve a settlement with moderate West Bank Palestinians’…” (In other words, powerless Palestinians will have to accept “autonomy” under Israel.) (Black 2017, 260)

“On September 14, the newly elected president of Lebanon, [Bashir] Gemayel, was killed by a bomb planted by a Syrian agent at Phalangist headquarters. Israel defied Washington’s exhortations and sent the IDF into West Beirut, where Palestinian fighters remained in breach of the evacuation deal. The job of going after these fighters, who were sheltering in Palestinian refugee camps, was given to the Phalangists [who were thirsty for revenge after the killing of Gemayel].” The resulting thirty-six-hour (September 16-18) “massacre of hundreds [some estimates go as high as 3,000] of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut by Israel’s Phalangist allies[,] while IDF forces stood by and did nothing”, led to the Kahan Commission “that found Sharon was to blame [for the massacre] and in February 1983 he resigned as defense minister.” (Pfeffer 2018, 145) (Black 2017, 260)

In late September, “Eleven days after the massacre, the Marines returned to Beirut as part of a multinational peacekeeping force that included France and Italy. It was an ill-fated mission. On April 18, 1983, an explosion tore apart the US embassy, killing 63, including 17 Americans. On October 23, an explosives-laden truck smashed into the Marines barracks. A simultaneous attack was carried out on the French base. Altogether, 241 Americans, 58 French, and 6 Lebanese were killed. The attacks were carried out on orders of the Iranian regime. The perpetrators were operatives of a shadowy new Shia organization, Hezbollah. Four months later, Reagan ordered the Marines to leave Beirut. [One ironic result:] Relations between Washington and Jerusalem were on the mend. The targeting of US troops in Beirut had convinced many Americans that they were essentially on the same side as Israel.” (Pfeffer 2018, 146)

Background: Israel’s Use of Terror: From 1980 to 1983, “hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians were killed, and many more wounded, by explosive devices hidden in baskets, on bicycles or mules, in cars or trucks. After each attack, calls to the media were placed claiming responsibility in the name of the FLLF [Front for the Liberation of Lebanon from Foreigners]. Palestinian and Lebanese officials repeatedly insisted that the FLLF was merely a fiction intended to hide the hand of Israel and its Christian rightist allies. Israeli officials rejected such accusations, insisting rather that the bombings were part of an internecine war amongst rival Arab factions.”

“[B]efore Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982 Yigal Sarna and Anat Tal-Shir, two reporters for the Israeli daily Yediot Ahronot, had investigated the possibility that [future Mossad head Meir] Dagan had ‘led a secret unit across the border whose mission was to instigate terrorist events that would justify an incursion….Military censors killed the story…’”.

“In February 2018 Ronen Bergman, at the time the senior correspondent for military and intelligence affairs for Yedioth Ahronoth, published Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel’s Targeted Assassination….[The book] confirms that the Palestinians had been right all along: the FLLF was indeed a creation of Israel, a fictitious group used by senior officials to hide their country’s hand in a deadly ‘terrorist’ campaign.”

“On August 5, 1981, Menachem Begin picked Ariel Sharon [as] Defense Minister. As Israeli historians have long documented, for the next 10 months the Begin government engaged in military operations, from the air and the ground, in order to goad the Palestinians into a military response that would be used to justify a major military offensive into Lebanon. As Rise and Kill First documents in detail, the FLLF bombings were an integral part of this Israeli strategy of provocation.” In fact, “‘By mid-September 1981,…car bombs were exploding regularly in Palestinian neighborhoods of Beirut and other Lebanese cities.’” (“As UPI journalist Fred Schiff wrote at the time, over just two weeks the FLLF’s ‘wave of terror bombings’ in its totality claimed 308 lives.”)

“Importantly, at the exact same time Israeli officials were [also] conducting an extensive public relations…campaign aimed at convincing the rest of the Western world, and especially the US, of the seriousness of the threat posed by ‘terrorism.’ In this narrative, Israelis were the main victims, and never the perpetrators, of ‘terrorism,’ while the Palestinians were the main perpetrators of ‘terrorism,’ never its victims.” Due to Israeli censorship on Israel’s terrorism, Israeli leaders were able “to insist, in June 1982, that the invasion of Lebanon was justified in the name of fighting ‘terrorism.’” https://mondoweiss.net/2019/10/it-is-time-to-break-the-silence-on-israeli-terrorist-campaign-in-lebanon-that-killed-100s/

4. Who said the following? “When we entered Lebanon [in June 1982]…there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and flowers by the Shia in the south. It was our presence there that created Hezbollah.”

Ehud Barak: Prime minister of Israel from 1999 – 2001 and former Minister of Defense. (Another Israeli prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, made the same point in 1987.) (Norton, 33)

Israel had expected the Shiites to greet them with tolerance; and, “thanks to their prior hostility to the Palestinians, most Shiites did at first manifest a kind of ‘positive indifference’ towards the Israelis….But this reception did not last very long….It was Israel itself that changed the Shiites, which turned rice and flowers [tossed mainly by southern Maronites] into grenades and home-made bombs. [While the Shiites had not been Israel’s main target] they had nonetheless suffered more than any other community if only because, as inhabitants of the South, they stood directly in its path. Mainly theirs were the villages—nearly 80 per cent of them—that were damaged or destroyed, theirs the majority of the 20,000 killed.” (Hirst, 197-9)



https://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2020/jan/21/iran%E2%80%99s-confrontation-israel-over-four-decades “In 1983, Hezbollah pioneered the use of suicide bombings to expel Western and Israeli forces from Lebanon. The first bombing against Israel was on Nov. 4, 1983, when a car laden with 600 kilograms of explosives drove into IDF headquarters in southern Tyre. It killed 28 Israelis. Under growing attack, Israel withdrew from a large chunk of Lebanon in June 1985.”

From 1985 until its withdrawal in 2000, Israel maintained its ‘security zone’ in southern Lebanon which comprised 10 per cent of all Lebanese territory and 6 percent of its people. The Israelis set up a 2,000-man South Lebanese Army (SLA) that was overwhelmingly Maronite-officered, and Israeli ‘advisers’ remained in the security zone to oversee it. “If the situation in the South quieted, as it did periodically, Israeli officials held up the zone as a success that could not be safely terminated. When the situation became hotter, the zone became a necessity. [Hezbollah officials reasonably argued] that without effective…resistance…Israel would have little incentive to consider withdrawing…” (Egypt in 1973 and the Palestinians in 1987 and 2000 came to the same conclusion.) (Norton, 81)

Israel’s general strategy in Lebanon from 1985 to 2000 was two-fold: “militarily to smash the guerrillas themselves, their bases and their personnel; politically to persuade the Lebanese state and people, by punishing them too, to turn against Hezbollah, and then to make a final peace with Israel independently of Syria.” For an example of civilians being punished, consider Israel’s 1996 “Grapes of Wrath” campaign which caused “some 500,000” Lebanese to flee north. During the 16-day campaign “25,132 artillery rounds and 2,350 air sorties” resulted in killing only thirteen Hezbollah fighters. “Once again…it was Lebanese civilians who bore the brunt; 165 died, compared with not one Israeli, military or civilian.” (Hirst, 249, 257-8)

“In July 1993, following clashes with Hezbollah on the Lebanese border, [Prime Minister] Rabin launched Operation Accountability, a weeklong bombardment of Hezbollah strongholds in southern Lebanon. Some 300,000 Lebanese villagers were forced to flee and 118 were killed, mainly civilians.” (Pfeffer 2018, 193)

Background: 1996 Grapes of Wrath: “Since early 1996, the situation in south Lebanon had rapidly deteriorated. Hezbollah had intensified both rocket attacks on Israeli towns and clashes with IDF troops in the ‘Security Zone.’ … Peres was convinced that the Iranian regime, Hezbollah and Hamas’s paymaster, was directing the bombardments to scupper the [Oslo] peace process.” (Pfeffer 2018, 228)

With Peres and Netanyahu in the midst of campaigning for the upcoming May 1996 elections, Peres ordered Operation Grapes of Wrath on April 11. “For sixteen days, Israeli artillery and warplanes bombarded Hezbollah targets and Lebanese infrastructure, while the Israeli Navy imposed a blockade on Lebanon’s ports. But Hezbollah continued firing rockets. On April 18, a team of Israeli commandos operating inside Lebanon came under mortar fire [and] called in covering fire. Some of the shells fell near a temporary UN shelter at Qana where Lebanese civilians had gathered: 102 were killed. The Qana massacre added to the international pressure, leading to the operation’s premature end… Operation Grapes of Wrath failed to convince Israeli voters that Peres was taking care of their security.” (Pfeffer 2018, 185, 228-9)

5. Who wrote the following in 1954? “It is clear that Lebanon is the weakest link in the Arab League…[The Christians] are a majority in historical Lebanon and this majority has a tradition and a culture different from those other components of the Arab League…The creation of a Christian state is therefore a natural act…It seems to me that this is the central duty…of our foreign policy. We must act in all possible ways to bring about a radical change in Lebanon…”

Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding prime minister, was expressing his hope to capitalize on tensions that existed in the Middle East at the time to promote a grand design for Lebanon. “On this occasion Sharett [the foreign minister] prevailed: there was no attack on Lebanon…But the idea of one would not go away. In May…1955, Ben-Gurion once again demanded that something be done about Lebanon….Dayan leapt to his support and…outlined a plan by which it should actually be carried out: ‘[T]he only thing that’s necessary is to find an officer…We should either win his heart or buy him with money, to make him agree to declare himself the saviour of the Maronite population. Then the Israeli army will enter Lebanon, will occupy the necessary territory, and will create a Christian regime which will ally itself with Israel. The territory from the Litani southward will be totally annexed to Israel…’” This plan by Dayan eerily anticipated Israel’s 1982 war on Lebanon. (Hirst, 65-6)

Bashir Gemayel, a Maronite Christian leader, had been impressed by Israel’s 1978 invasion of Lebanon. In fact, he “wanted another, and larger, one. … Gemayel resolved that, with Israel’s assistance, the Maronites would regain” their dominance of Lebanon. (Hirst, 122)

Background: 1978 Invasion: On 11 March 1978, during the early stages of Israel-Egypt peace negotiations, “a thirteen-strong Fatah squad, led by [a] Beirut-born daughter of a 1948 refugee from Jaffa”, murdered “thirty-eight Israeli civilians” outside Tel Aviv. “Three days later Israel sent 25,000 troops into south Lebanon and occupied it up as far as the Litani river…The aim was to push Palestinian groups away from the border and bolster Israel’s local proxy, the South Lebanon Army (SLA). Seven days of fighting ended with a ceasefire (notably the first with Israel that was endorsed by all official PLO bodies), the creation of a new UN peacekeeping force [UN Interim Force in Lebanon], and an Israeli withdrawal that left the SLA in the front line of the confrontation with Fatah. ‘Operation Litani’ served as a bloody reminder that the Palestinians could not be ignored–and that Israel’s military might could be unleashed to devastating effect. An estimated 1,100 people were killed, mostly Palestinian and Lebanese….Estimates for the numbers displaced by the offensive range from 100,000 to 250,000.” (Black 2017, 244-5)

According to comments by Fatah, the terror attack “was aimed at scuppering the Israeli-Egyptian peace talks between Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat” and avenging an April 1973 Israeli commando raid on Beirut that killed the PLO chief of operations, Kamal Adwan. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coastal_Road_massacre

The 1978 invasion “was grounded in the long-running Israeli–Palestinian conflict. From 1968 on, the PLO, PFLP, and other Palestinian groups established a quasi-state in southern Lebanon, using it as a base for raids on civilian targets in northern Israel, as well as worldwide terror attacks on Israeli and other targets. This was exacerbated by an influx of 3,000 PLO militants fleeing a defeat in the Jordanian civil war and regrouping in southern Lebanon. Israel responded with damaging attacks against PLO bases.” “When Israel invaded Lebanon in 1977, [President] Carter told [Prime Minister] Begin that Israel’s use of American armored personnel carriers violated the Arms Export Control Act, which prevented American weaponry from being used for offensive operations. Unless Israel left Lebanon immediately, Carter warned, future arms sales ‘will have to be terminated.’” (Carter’s pressure worked.)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1978_South_Lebanon_conflict

https://forward.com/opinion/424591/its-time-to-end-americas-blank-check-military-aid-to-israel/ (20 May 2019)



Background: Sadat and the events of 1978: “On 25 December 1977 Begin reciprocated [Sadat’s November visit to Jerusalem] by visiting Ismailiya…It was there that he unveiled the idea of granting ‘autonomy’ to the West Bank and Gaza. Ezer Weizman, his defence minister, recognized immediately that Begin saw this as a way of perpetuating Israeli rule.” (Black 2017, 244)

In order to conclude a peace treaty and have Israel evacuate all Israeli military bases and settlements from the Sinai, Sadat in fact “backed down on one vital point, dropping his initial strong insistence on a link between bilateral issues and a full withdrawal from the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. Mohammed Ibrahim Kamel, the Egyptian foreign minister, resigned in fury. Sadat’s reward was $1.3 billion in annual US aid to the Egyptian armed forces. Still, when the treaty was signed [on 26 March 1979], it was the most significant breakthrough ever made in the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict…It broke a thirty-year taboo on Arabs dealing with Israel…A second Camp David document, dealing with the Palestinians, agreed that future negotiations would be based on UN Resolution 242 and that any solution must recognize the legitimate rights of the Palestinians, who were to enjoy ‘full autonomy’ during a five-year transition period.” (Black 2017, 246)

“Autonomy never won the backing of any significant Palestinian figures…[In fact,] Begin had no intention of retreating from the West Bank….His view of autonomy was that it was for people but not the territory they inhabited…Years later Ariel Sharon gave a candid description of Begin’s autonomy as nothing but a ‘fig leaf to enable Egypt to sign our peace treaty. The Egyptians needed this document in order to demonstrate their concern for the Palestinian cause.'” (Black 2017, 247-8)

Background: Fragmentation Strategy: “In February 1982, three months before Israel invaded Lebanon in support of the Christian Falange militia, the Likud strategist Oded Yinon published an article in which he called on Israel’s leadership to adopt a policy of fragmenting the Arab world into a mosaic of ethnic and confessional groupings. ‘Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation would prove to be advantageous to Israel,’ he argued, urging that Israel must reconfigure its geo-political environment through the Balkanization of the surrounding Arab states into smaller and weaker states.”

“Building on Yinon’s analysis ten years later, neoconservative historian Bernard Lewis—who would become a key informal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney in the run-up and immediate aftermath of the US invasion of Iraq—wrote in an essay in the journal Foreign Affairs: ‘Another possibility, which could even be precipitated by [Islamic] fundamentalism, is what as of late has become fashionable to call Lebanonization. Most of the states of the Middle East – Egypt is an obvious exception – are of recent and artificial construction and are vulnerable to such a process. If the central power is sufficiently weakened, there is no real civil society to hold the polity together, no real sense of common national identity or overriding allegiance to the nation-state. The state then disintegrates – as happened in Lebanon – into a chaos of squabbling, feuding, fighting sects, tribes, regions and parties. If things go badly and central governments falter and collapse, the same could happen, not only in the countries of the existing Middle East, but also in the newly independent Soviet republics…’” https://lobelog.com/trying-to-exploit-irans-diverse-ethnic-population-to-advance-a-war-agenda/

6. Why did Israel withdraw from Lebanon in 2000?

Hezbollah’s resistance operations against Israel were relentless and effective. From “an average of about 200 a year before 1996” such operations rose to “1,000 a year thereafter, peaking at 1,500 in 1999-2000.” Hezbollah lost 1,248 men between the 1982 invasion and 1999; while the Israelis, between 1985 and 1999, lost 332. And the trend favored Hezbollah: In 1997, Hezbollah “lost 60 men in combat, compared with 39 Israelis…There was only one way the ‘slow bleeding’…could be staunched, and that was to get out…[Israel’s] leaders started to think about…a unilateral [withdrawal] incorporating none of the conditions—the disarming of Hezbollah, the deployment of the Lebanese army along the frontier…on which they had always insisted.” Israel would “do what it had never done before—relinquish Arab territory it had conquered and occupied for nothing in return.” (Hirst, 263-5)

Hezbollah’s resistance focused on military targets in Lebanon. “But for the Israelis, this, as ever, was ‘terrorism’….Rabin, the defence minister, declared that, in order to ‘completely break’ this maddeningly resurgent resistance…‘we feel free to use every means, attack helicopters, aviation, artillery and tanks’. And they did, along with occasional ground incursions to boot. Not surprisingly it was mainly Shiite villagers who died. And as a result of that, back too came the Katyushas. They were the only means by which Hezbollah could deliver an important message: if Lebanese civilians were targeted, Israeli ones, inside Israel proper, would be as well.” (Hirst, 218-9)

In 2006, “Israeli Brigadier General Guy Zur…described Hezbollah as ‘by far the greatest guerrilla group in the world’…” (Norton, 140)

Contributing causes of Israel’s withdrawal was a helicopter crash and the Four Mothers campaign. “To avoid roadside attacks in Lebanon, the IDF had begun shuttling soldiers to the security zone outposts via helicopter instead of transporting them on the ground. On the evening of February 4, [1997,] two helicopters – one carrying four crew members and 32 passengers, and a second, with four crew and 33 passengers, headed for two IDF outposts in southern Lebanon. The helicopters collided over northern Israel and crashed…Everyone on board – 73 soldiers in all – perished.”

“‘For me, the trigger was the helicopter crash,’ says Zahara Antebi. ‘It was like someone sucked the air out of your lungs. We had to do something.’ Antebi…joined with three other women…to form the protest organization known as the Four Mothers, which called for the unilateral and immediate withdrawal of Israeli forces from Lebanon, with or without a peace agreement. … The organization held demonstrations and marches throughout the country, convinced citizens to sign petitions and spoke on radio and television.” https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/the-four-mothers-and-the-end-of-the-war-in-lebanon-628778

After Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, its military “never turned over mine maps, and left behind thousands of buried bombs.” (Cambanis, 74)

After the 2000 unilateral withdrawal, Hezbollah’s chief of operations, Imad Mughniyeh, “traveled to Iran and offered to let the Revolutionary Guard Corps turn Lebanon into its forward base against Israel. Hezbollah, he told the Iranians, will be a sword on Israel’s neck. ‘This was when Iran decided to turn Hezbollah into a real strategic asset and began deploying thousands of missiles in Lebanon,’…” (Yaakov Katz, Shadow Strike: Inside Israel’s Secret Mission to Eliminate Syrian Nuclear Power, St. Martin’s Press, New York: 2019, 254. Hereinafter, “Katz 2019.”)

“Hezbollah is the greatest success Iran has had in exporting the Islamic revolution. It has evolved into arguably the most formidable non-state military force in the world. [As of July 2019,] Hezbollah fields in excess of an estimated 30,000 trained fighters, many of whom will have gained invaluable combat experience on the bloody battlefields of Syria since 2012. Israel estimates Hezbollah’s arsenal includes up to 150,000 rockets and missiles. Hezbollah is believed to have acquired advanced anti-aircraft capabilities as well as an air wing of surveillance and combat drones, and an amphibious warfare unit that is believed to be equipped with semi-submersible craft and swimmer dispersal vehicles for potential seaborne infiltrations of Israeli territory. Hezbollah also has combat units trained to breach Israeli territory in the event of another war. Small wonder, perhaps, that [since 2017] Israel has classified Hezbollah as its number one threat.”

“Nevertheless, the scale of Hezbollah’s military capabilities means that, for Iran, it is a one-shot deal. If Hezbollah was to attack Israel in support of Tehran, it would trigger a devastating war that could last weeks and wreak destruction on both Lebanon and Israel. Depending on the aftermath of such a war, there is no guarantee that Hezbollah would be able to rebuild to its pre-war capacity and continue posing a threat to Israel and, therefore, serve as a factor of deterrence for Tehran. Iran’s leadership understands this and will utilize its Lebanese ally wisely.”

“Much depends on the scale of any conflict between Iran and the US. Short of full conflict, Hezbollah’s role would likely be covert and deniable. Hezbollah cadres are already deployed in Syria, and to lesser extents in Iraq and Yemen, and are well-placed to support the Iranian war effort by providing assistance and guidance to various Iran-backed entities to attack US and allied targets across the region. However, if Tehran calculates that the scale of a US campaign poses a potential existential threat to the Islamic Republic itself, then Hezbollah could escalate its support mission to one of direct attack on Israel, irrespective of the consequences on Lebanon.”

“The question is often asked whether Nasrallah would have leeway to reject a call by Tehran to launch a full-scale attack against Israel, in appreciation of the destruction Lebanon will experience and the subsequent impact on his party’s domestic popularity. In short, Nasrallah has no choice. On a pragmatic level, an existential threat against Iran is equally threatening to Hezbollah. A significantly weakened, or collapsed Tehran would leave Hezbollah orphaned on the western littoral of the Middle East and susceptible over time to the deepening bite of international sanctions and prey to the hostility of Sunnis in Lebanon and elsewhere in the region.”

“But much more significantly, Hezbollah is committed to following the decrees of the Vali-e Faqih, currently embodied by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Hezbollah’s leaders, including Nasrallah, have been quite open for many years on the group’s ideological commitment of obedience to it. If the order to attack is given, Hezbollah will follow through and let the chips fall where they may.”

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/iransource/hezbollah-won-t-stand-down-in-a-us-iran-conflict (2 July 2019)

7. After Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, what was Hezbollah’s policy toward Lebanese who had collaborated with Israel?

When Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000 “it left behind thousands of collaborators, including men who had beaten and tortured Hezbollah fighters on behalf of the Israelis. Nasrallah ordered his followers to keep their hands off all collaborators, leaving their judgment to Lebanese courts.” Nasrallah “emphasized that there would be no retaliatory killings or revenge attacks….[In fact, following the withdrawal,] there was a remarkable degree of calm….Overall, that time will be remembered as a remarkably orderly and humane period, especially when measured against the history of internecine violence that scarred Lebanon for much of the preceding few decades.” (Cambanis, 5; Norton, 89-90)

Hezbollah’s decency and efficiency “was so remarkable that those whom much of the world still looked upon as ‘terrorists’…now earned a grudging respect in unfamiliar quarters, including European officialdom…” (Hirst, 267)

In Israel, “Both those who were in favor of withdrawal and those against are critical of Israel’s abandonment of the South Lebanon Army, which had assisted IDF efforts in Lebanon for many years.” Ephraim Sneh, commander of the security zone in southern Lebanon in 1981 and 1982, comments that, ‘You can’t have a partner who fights for you, dies for you and is abandoned. It is a horrible message.’” https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/the-four-mothers-and-the-end-of-the-war-in-lebanon-628778 (24 May 2020)

8. During the period between the Israeli withdrawal of May 2000 and the war in July 2006, how many Israeli civilians were killed by Hezbollah?

One. “Nine Israeli soldiers died in Hezbollah attacks in the contested [Shebaa] farms area”, a disputed territory in the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights that is recognized to belong to Lebanon, “and eight others were killed in six clashes along the ‘Blue Line’ demarcated by the UN after Israel’s withdrawal. Some of the attacks were in retaliation for Israeli-caused deaths in Lebanon….Generally, however, this six-year period was relatively quiet…and this was frequently commented on by Israeli officials prior to the summer of 2006.” (Norton, 91)

The six years of relative quiet “confounded the predictions of many experts who had predicted that the Israeli exit would leave a vacuum that would likely be filled by mayhem.” (Norton, 117)

From 2000 to 2006, the great bulk of Katyusha rocket firings into Israel proper, according to Israeli sources, came from Palestinian fedayeen not Hezbollah. (Norton, 92)

Ephraim Sneh, Brig.-Gen. (ret.), a longtime Labor MK, commander of the security zone in southern Lebanon in 1981 and 1982, and deputy defense minister under Barak from 1999-2001, argues that “the Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon led directly to the Second Intifada (2000-2005) and to the Second Lebanon War in 2006. … Sneh recalls attending an Israeli-Palestinian meeting in 2000 in Berlin. He recounts that at the meeting, Yasser Abed Rabbo, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, approached him and said, ‘With you, the Israelis, one should talk in Lebanese, because this is the only language you understand.’ The intent of Rabbo’s words was that the Israelis run away when they bleed.” https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/the-four-mothers-and-the-end-of-the-war-in-lebanon-628778 (24 May 2020)

9. What was the “pretext” for Israel’s 12 July 2006 invasion of Lebanon? What was the “context”?

“Since Israel’s withdrawal in 2000, Hezbollah and Israel had clashed sporadically….Nasrallah had said again and again that Hezbollah’s primary military goal was to secure the release of Lebanese prisoners held in Israel and the return of Lebanese dead. The way forward, he said, was to seize Israeli captives and trade them. [In a typical incident, Hezbollah fighters] attacked an Israeli military post in an attempt to capture soldiers. The Israelis fended them off, and not much came of the incident.” Nevertheless, Israel exploited a successful Hezbollah operation to justify its 2006 invasion of Lebanon. On 12 July, Hezbollah commandos succeeded in capturing Israeli soldiers; the commandos had tried similar raids in the past without success. Nasrallah expected that Israel’s response would be similar to past experience. (Cambanis, 63)

“Five months after [Israel’s 2000] withdrawal…, Hezbollah abducted three Israeli soldiers, and some members of the defense establishment pushed Barak to strike [Hezbollah’s] long-range rockets. He refused to attack the missiles, wanting to avoid a larger-scale war. The same happened five years later when Ariel Sharon was prime minister. Then too Hezbollah launched a cross-border attack with the aim of kidnapping IDF soldiers. This time, however, thanks to a single IDF marksman, the mission failed. The Israeli sniper hit an RPG the Hezbollah guerrillas were carrying, setting off an explosion and killing three members of the raid squad….But again, Sharon refrained from attacking the missiles, knowing, like Barak, that if he did so it had the potential to escalate into a larger confrontation.” (Katz 2019, 129)

Hezbollah had negotiated a January 2004 prisoner exchange with Israel. And, “when its fighters attacked an Israeli army unit on 12 July 2006, and captured two soldiers, Hezbollah announced it would exchange them for…Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israel.” (Assaf Kfoury editor, Inside Lebanon: Journey to a Shattered Land with Noam and Carol Chomsky, Monthly Review Press, New York: 2007, 97. Hereinafter “Kfoury.”)

Breaking with Barak and Sharon’s past responses, “On the first night of the [2006] war…Olmert launched a top-secret operation against Hezbollah’s long-range missile arsenal. These were the rockets and missiles, secretly obtained over a period of several years from Iran, that had the ability to reach Tel Aviv.” (“These were not the Katyusha rockets, 4,300 of which would pound Israel during the 34 days of the war, but were Iranian-made Fajr artillery rockets, which had a range of nearly 100 kilometers…”) “The intelligence on the location of the missiles had been obtained by the Mossad back in the early 2000s when Barak was prime minister.” Apparently, Olmert made the decision “to attack the missiles…just hours after the two reservists had been kidnapped…” (Katz 2019, 128-9, 149)

“The Mossad and the air force told the cabinet that the rockets were being stored inside people’s private homes; each home had a special room containing a hydraulic launcher that could be pulled out when it was launch time. … Sixty-eight targets were attacked by dozens of aircraft in an operation that lasted less than 40 minutes. Almost 100 percent of Hezbollah’s Fajr arsenal was destroyed. [However, the attack] also pushed Hezbollah to escalate its rocket onslaught against Israel. And while the IDF managed to locate and destroy the long-range rockets, that success could not easily be duplicated with the shorter-range Katyushas. They were smaller targets and more difficult to locate [and] destroy. As the war ground on, northern Israel became eerily empty.” (Katz 2019, 149-50)

“During the first five days of the…war, the IAF depleted a large percentage of its JDAM inventory [–kits that turn regular bombs into precision-guided weapons–] prompting the US to expedite…a delivery of JDAMs as well as Hellfire anti-armor missiles for Israel’s fleet of Cobra and Apache attack helicopters.” (Katz 2019, 236)

The context, as opposed to the pretext, of Israel’s invasion was clear. The desire within Israel’s “leadership to have it out with Hezbollah increased markedly in 2005 and early 2006.” Israeli officials had had to endure “Hezbollah’s taunting ever since their unilateral withdrawal from southern Lebanon in 2000” and thus desired to reestablish their deterrence power in the eyes of Hamas and Hezbollah in particular. This factor coupled “with reports by respected analysts that Hezbollah was developing a ‘first-strike’ capacity to unleash massive, preemptive rocket attacks on Israel…[made] the prospect of inflicting a devastating blow on Hezbollah very appetizing.” (Norton, 133-4)

“Israel, said Olmert, was now engaged in a two-front struggle whose objective was to create two ‘new orders’ on Israel’s borders, one a Gaza without Hamas and the other in a Lebanon without Hezbollah.” (Hirst, 332)

“In leaked testimony to the Winograd Committee investigating Israel’s mismanagement of the summer 2006 Lebanon war, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert admitted that the war had been carefully planned at least four months ahead of time…Facts such as that Hezbollah fired no rockets into Israel until after Israel’s savage aerial attacks…had begun, or that Israel had left unresolved for years the bitter issues of Lebanese prisoners of war and the occupation of the Shebaa Farms region, only generate more questions when one considers how easily negotiations could have defused growing tensions.” (Kfoury, 157)

It should be noted that Hezbollah did use very limited rocket attacks in a diversionary attack during the 12 July 2006 abduction operation. “Hezbollah fighters based in southern Lebanon launch[ed] Katyusha rockets across the border with Israel, targeting the town of Shlomi [in Israel] and outposts in the Shebaa Farms area [Lebanese land occupied by Israel].” http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5179434.stm

(19 July 2006)

“In confidential discussions with the White House, Israel promised President Bush a ‘quick and decisive result’ that would end with Hezbollah’s demise.” “Israel had a conventional military with US warplanes, smart bombs and sophisticated tanks and intelligence systems. Hezbollah was a small-time guerrilla organization. Yes, it had some Russian anti-tank missiles, but this was not supposed to be something the IDF couldn’t easily take care of.” (Norton, 139) (Katz 2019, 156)

“A week into what had become Israel’s Second Lebanon War, ground troops were sent in. Six IDF divisions, the entire air force, and most of the navy were involved in the fighting, which lasted thirty-four days. In the end, 121 Israeli soldiers and 44 civilians were killed, and while Hezbollah and Lebanese casualties were much higher, the war ended in what most Israelis felt was a humiliating stalemate. Despite being the overwhelmingly superior side, Israel had not stopped Hezbollah from firing on its towns throughout the war and had failed to take out Hezbollah’s top commanders.” (During the war, “Hezbollah fired over 4,300 rockets into Israel.”) (Pfeffer 2018, 300-1) (Katz 2019, 94)

“According to the [Winograd] commission, Olmert went to war too fast and without proper planning or consideration. The cabinet…was presented with ambiguous plans by the IDF, and the ministers voted on vague resolutions that were neither understood by them nor the top military command…The military had failed to warn the political echelon of the discrepancy between what the ministers were asking for and what was realistically possible. ‘The primary responsibility for these serious failings rests with the prime minister, the minister of defense and the…chief of staff…’” (Katz 2019, 155)

“Whereas Israel launched the invasion primarily to undo the damage done by Hezbollah’s rout of it in 2000, the Bush administration hoped the murderous Israeli assault would ‘weaken Iran’s spreading influence’; ‘stick it to the Iranians who had brazenly intervened in Iraq and Syria and were assisting terrorist cells operating against the American army’; and, by ‘neutralizing’ Hezbollah’s fighting capabilities, prepare the ground for an attack on Iran.” (Finkelstein, 51-2)

After the widespread destruction inflicted by Israel, “Hezbollah emerged with its support intact… Its…rapid response to the needs of those whose homes and lives were ravaged…further consolidated Hezbollah’s impressive base of support.” (Norton, 140)

The war split Lebanon between (i) A “coalition of mainly Sunnis, Druze, and Christians” that accuse Hezbollah of “being an agent of Syria and Iran, with the ultimate aim of installing a theocratic Islamic Republic”; and, (ii) A coalition, consisting of much of the Shi’i community and large elements of the Christian community that share “a profound sense of victimization” and cooperate “to expand their share of power in significant measure at the expense of the Sunni Muslims.” (Norton, 152-3)

“Measured by the initial expectations of” Israel and the US, Israel lost the war. “The Israelis failed utterly in their ambition to destroy Hezbollah and kill its leader.” By 2008, Israel estimated that Hezbollah had 42,000 missiles in its possession—this estimate was corroborated by the UN and Nasrallah himself—“making it the tenth largest ‘missile power’ in the world….All in all, the Jerusalem Post estimated, Hezbollah was now four times stronger than it was before the…[2006] war.” According to the respected defense analyst and journalist Alex Fishman, Hezbollah’s rockets and missiles come from Iran, and their “purpose is to strike Israel if Israel attacks Iran’s nuclear facilities. [They are also likely to be used] to hit Israel if Israel starts a war with Hezbollah. That means they’re also there as a deterrent to keep [Israel] from attacking Iran/Hezbollah. Nobody’s planning a massive offensive attack against Israel because it would be suicide for them, and if any of Israel’s enemies were planning suicide, why haven’t they done it until now?” (Hirst, 343, 389) (Larry Derfner, Facebook comment, 21 January 2015)

By 2019, Hezbollah “has accumulated over 130,000 rockets and missiles [that] threaten the entire country [of Israel]….While those missiles and rockets are dangerous, they are conventional threats. They can hurt Israel, but they cannot be used to conquer territory or destroy the Jewish state. Nuclear weapons are a different story.” (Katz 2019, 88)

“Between them, Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah have missiles that can hit every inch of Israel….[The] best way to combat that threat is through sophisticated missile defense systems…; through a credible deterrent…; and ultimately, through peace deals like the ones Israel reached with Egypt and Jordan. Occupying the West Bank, by contrast, offers less protection at much higher cost.” (Peter Beinart, The Crisis of Zionism, Times Books, New York: 2012, 62.)

After the 2006 war, Hezbollah recognized that it “simply could not afford the risk of provoking more hostilities in any foreseeable future. Less than ever would its own Shiite constituency, let alone the Lebanese people at large, now stand for that.” Thus when Israel conducted its brutal war against Gaza in 2008-2009, Hezbollah, unlike in 2006, did not provoke Israel. (Hirst, 380)

“By 2019, the world’s opinion of the war had changed. Almost 13 years of quiet along Israel’s border with Lebanon…showed that even with all of its presumed failures, the Second Lebanon War had been successful. It deterred Hezbollah…In the years that passed, and despite thousands of Israeli strikes in Syria, Hezbollah had yet to retaliate even once.” (Katz 2019, 156)

“If Israel’s brutal attack on Gaza in 2008-09 “was where Israel would restore its deterrence capacity, one theater of the 2006 war hinted at how it might be done. In the course of its attack, Israel flattened the southern suburb of Beirut known as the Dahiya, which was home to Hezbollah’s poor Shiite constituents. After the war, Israeli military officers gestured to the ‘Dahiya doctrine’ as they formulated contingency plans: … ‘The next war…will lead to the elimination of the Lebanese military, the destruction of the national infrastructure, and intense suffering among the population. Serious damage to the Republic of Lebanon, the destruction of homes and infrastructure, and the suffering of hundreds of thousands of people are consequences that can influence Hezbollah’s behavior more than anything else. (Head of Israeli National Security Council Giora Eiland)” (“The use of disproportionate force and targeting civilian infrastructure constitute war crimes under international law.”) (Norman G. Finkelstein, Gaza: An Inquest Into Its Martyrdom, University of California Press, Oakland: 2018, 21, 22.)

In 2017, “By continuing to bomb Syrian arms destined for Hezbollah – which Israel has admittedly done nearly 100 times in the last five years – as well as periodically killing Hezbollah and other pro-Syrian fighters along with the occasional Iranian general, Israel is making the next…war in the north a self-fulfilling prophecy. Sooner or later, Hezbollah or Iran or Syria is bound to strike back, at which point Israel can be expected to fight the war it’s been training for and talking about. You have to wonder if Netanyahu and the military brass are deliberately trying to provoke [its] enemies to the north into hitting back, so they can then claim that Israel has ‘no choice’ but to fight another ‘war of self-defense.’” (Between 2017 and September 2018, it is estimated that the IDF conducted strikes on more than 200 Iranian targets in Syria.)

The common belief, particularly among Likudniks, “that Hezbollah, Iran and Syria are itching for a war with Israel, that they’re just waiting to attack, is a delusion. Absent Israeli provocation, such an attack would have no parallel…in history.”

“[T]he reason Hezbollah, Iran and Syria don’t want war with Israel, is because the weak don’t want war with the strong, especially when the weak have been getting their heads handed to them by the strong for years and decades on end. Whatever arms [its] enemies to the north have, Israel has many times better ones, and [its] ‘qualitative edge’ is only growing. [According to Israeli Maj. Gen. Tamir Hayman,] ‘If Hezbollah’s capabilities have grown linearly, ours have grown exponentially, in intelligence, in targets and in the ability to attack,’…”

“But what better proof is there of Israel’s clear military superiority over Hezbollah, Iran and Syria than the long, long list of Israeli attacks on them that went unanswered. In addition to those mentioned above, Israel has destroyed a Syrian nuclear facility. It has killed five Iranian nuclear scientists. It flies spy planes, drones and balloons over Lebanon continuously. And it has made the Golan Heights part of Israel, when the Syrians, not to mention the rest of the world, say it rightly belongs to Syria.”

“Has Hezbollah, Iran or Syria ever destroyed an Israeli nuclear facility? Do they bomb Israeli weapons convoys and depots…? They don’t hit back, except on very rare occasions, because they’re scared stiff of Israel’s power, and rightly so.”

“[I]f you look at the tremendous and growing imbalance of power between the two sides, and add to it the long, ongoing record of Israeli military humiliations of these enemies, isn’t it likely that Hezbollah, Iran and Syria intend to build up their forces not to attack Israel, but to deter Israel from attacking them? Isn’t it likely that their weapons, at least with regard to Israel, are there for defensive, not offensive, purposes?”

“However, this does not mean the strong can blast away with impunity at the weak forever. In March [2017], Israeli jets bombed weaponry in Syria that was destined for Hezbollah, and the Syrian army fired antiaircraft missiles at the jets. They missed; if they’d hit those jets, the Third Lebanon War might have begun right there. In 2015, Hezbollah killed two Israeli soldiers on the border a week and a half after Israel had killed six Hezbollah fighters and an Iranian general. In 2012, Hezbollah was likely behind the killing of five Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, which was evidently payback for Israel’s lethal acts against Hezbollah and Iran.”

“[Jewish] fear is born out of a memory of Jewish powerlessness and persecution, but Israel is the opposite of the powerless, persecuted Jews of history. Israel is the colossus of the Middle East. If you go by their actions instead of their words, Israel has its enemies scared to death. And everybody seems to know it except the Jews. It’s time to let go of this primal Jewish fear, at least as far as Israel is concerned.” http://mondoweiss.net/2017/09/israel-start-lebanon/ (28 Sept. 2017)

Israel, as of 2020, continues to bomb “Hezbollah just for getting weapons, not for attacking. Israel’s rule is that we can have all the weapons we want, but if our enemies try to get something we don’t want them to have, we will bomb the crap out of them. That’s not self-defense, that’s aggression. [Israel] also fl[ies] spy planes over Lebanon a couple of times a week and get[s] away with it. If somebody flies a spy plane over Israel, they’re dead. Israel’s ‘morality’ is nothing but might makes right.” (Larry Derfner, Facebook comments on an Allyn Fisher Ilan post, 5 Aug. 2020)

-“In the course of the [Syrian] civil war, Israel has launched at least a hundred military operations on Syria. Most go unclaimed, even though all parties know where they come from.” (“Israel has hit a wide range of sites, including convoys of Hezbollah or Iranian fighters near the Golan, trucks ferrying missiles and rockets destined for Hezbollah en route to Lebanon, bases for Iranian drones, and an Iranian command-and-control center.”)

As of early 2018, Israel’s campaign has intensified as it realizes that the victors are Russia, Iran, Hezbollah, and Assad. The following quotes reflect Israeli thinking. “Hezbollah and Iran have now embedded in bases in Syria, and they have recently become much bolder.” “The goal now is to prevent Iran and Hezbollah from crossing Israeli red lines—basically so they have no presence close to the border with Israel and no activities that harm the interests of Israel.” “Hezbollah already has a hundred and twenty thousand rockets and missiles pointed at Israel from Lebanon. [Israel] can’t let them do the same thing in Syria…”

https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/israel-wages-a-growing-war-in-syria (9 Apr. 2018)

In February 2018 an Israeli Apache helicopter downed a drone, likely headed for an IDF base, that was packed with explosives. The Saegheh drone, which was launched from a Syrian airbase near Homs, “was Iranian and the drone operator was Iranian.” Four Israeli F-16s destroyed the Syrian-based “Iranian caravan from which the drone had been operated”. One of the F-16s was downed by an S-200 surface-to-air missile; the pilot and navigator ejected to safety. Israel was shocked as “over 30 years had passed since an Israeli fighter jet was shot down by an enemy missile.” This event could have led to a serious confrontation between Israel and Iran. (Katz 2019, 9-10)

10. True or False: Human Rights Watch reported that in the twenty-four cases of Lebanese civilian casualties which it examined in detail, it found no evidence that Hezbollah deliberately used civilians as shields to protect its fighters from retaliatory Israeli attack.

True. http://www.hrw.org/reports/2006/lebanon0806/2.htm

“Was Hezbollah ’embedded in,’ ‘nested among,’ and ‘intertwined’ with the civilian population? An exhaustive investigation by HRW concluded that, overwhelmingly, it was not: ‘We found strong evidence that Hezbollah stored most of its rockets in bunkers and weapon storage facilities located in uninhabited fields and valleys, that in the vast majority of cases Hezbollah fighters left populated civilian areas as soon as the fighting started, and that Hezbollah fired the vast majority of its rockets from pre-prepared positions outside villages’; ‘In all but a few of the cases of civilian deaths we investigated, Hezbollah fighters had not mixed with the civilian population or taken other actions to contribute to the targeting of a particular home or vehicle by Israeli forces’; ‘Israel’s own firing patterns in Lebanon support the conclusion that Hezbollah fired large numbers of its rockets from tobacco fields, banana, olive and citrus groves, and more remote, unpopulated valleys.'” (Finkelstein 2018, 24-5)

In many towns and cities in Israel, such as Ashkelon and Sderot, “military bases and other installations are located in or around residential areas…[In its 2014 conflict with Gaza, for example,] Israeli forces launched daily artillery and other attacks into Gaza from [such] areas along Gaza’s perimeter.'” (Finkelstein 2018, 269-70)

Hezbollah, as Nasrallah admitted on a 21 July 2006 broadcast, underestimated Israel’s grossly disproportionate attack: “strikes on roads, bridges, [hospitals, schools, densely populated areas,] seaports and airports throughout Lebanon…” “Even a member of [Tony Blair’s] cabinet, Deputy Foreign Minister Kim Howell, was moved to declare, during a visit to Beirut, that it was ‘very, very difficult to understand the kind of military tactics that have been used…You know, if [you’re] chasing Hezbollah, then go for Hezbollah. You don’t go for the entire Lebanese nation…’” (Norton, 135, 138; Hirst, 360-1)

Israel “targeted clearly marked Lebanese ambulances with missile fire during the 2006 war, even though, according to HRW, there was ‘no basis for concluding that Hezbollah was making use of the ambulances for a military purpose.'” (Israel repeated this horrific practice in its 2008 Gaza conflict.) (Finkelstein 2018, 53)

Israel (like other states) regularly flouts international law. For example, Israel “routinely sends F-16 fighter planes over Lebanon, in violation of a UN Security Council resolution that ended the 2006 war. The Israeli planes have often broken the sound barrier over Beirut and other places as a show of strength, most recently after [a Hezbollah drone flew over Israel].” http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/world/hezbollah-says-it-sent-drone-over-israel-1.1251699 (12 Oct. 2012)

11. True or False: Just before the launch of the July 2006 Lebanon War, Israel’s Chief of Staff Dan Halutz instructed his stockbroker to sell certain investments that were likely to be negatively affected by the war.

True. “In the afternoon of 12 July, after the abduction of Goldwasser and Regev [by Hezbollah], and as more soldiers were dying in a futile bid to rescue them, Halutz found time to confer with his stockbroker and instruct him to dump a $36,000 investment portfolio liable to be adversely affected by the war into which, unbeknown to anyone else, he was about to send his nation.” (Hirst, 345)

“Within a few months [of the end of the war]…Halutz and key commanders had resigned in disgust or disgrace; the reputation of the Israeli army, most sacrosanct of institutions, fell to an unprecedented low.” (Hirst, 381)

12. True or False: Saudi Arabia supported Hezbollah during the 2006 conflict.

False. Saudi Arabia voiced “quick disapproval of Hezbollah’s actions…and Jordan, Egypt, and United Arab Emirates followed suit. The Sunni Arab governments were understandably apprehensive about the rising profile of the Shi’ite power Iran in the Arab world, the emergence of a Shi’i-dominated government in…Iraq, and the influence of Hezbollah in Lebanon. All these forces might well inspire domestic opposition forces in their own countries, especially as Hezbollah gained enthusiastic support even among the vast Sunni population of the Arab world” primarily because it provided the only effective Arab opposition to Israel. (Norton, 136)

“In Saudi Arabia, during the…war, in an attempt to forestall Shi’i-Sunni solidarity, the regime reiterated the admonition of some anti-Shi’i clerics that Saudi Muslims were not permitted to pray for Shi’i Hezbollah.” (Norton, 148)

At least Egypt and Saudi Arabia were being consistent. While “President Mubarak of Egypt denounced the [1982 Israeli] invasion [of Lebanon] as ‘illegal, inhumane and contrary to the spirit of the Camp David agreements’,…he resisted all guerrilla appeals to repudiate the agreements in retaliation. [And,] King Faud [had] steadfastly rejected Palestinian appeals to use its oil and financial power against Israel’s incorrigible superpower supporter [the US].” (Hirst, 145-6)

“Many secular Arabs, Sunni Muslims, Christians—forces for moderation who had suffered at the strengthening arms of the Iran-Syria-Hezbollah-Hamas ‘Resistance Axis’—yearned for a death blow to Nasrallah’s movement. But as the arc of Israel’s punishment expanded, the outrage toward Hezbollah subsided to a chirp. After Qana it fell silent completely.” The “Israeli bombing of Qana on July 30” that resulted in the deaths of “twenty-eight civilians” ended the “support for Israel’s campaign in” Arab states like Saudi Arabia and Egypt due to “the heat of public outrage”. In Saudi Arabia, for example, “by late July, public expressions of solidarity with the Lebanese and Hezbollah were expressed by Saudi officials, albeit grudgingly.” (Cambanis, 81; Norton, 140, 149)

“Across the Arab and Islamic world people on the street began hoisting Hassan Nasrallah’s portrait into the air. Here was a leader who resonated like no one had since Ayatollah Khomeini in 1979 or Gamal Abdel Nasser in the 1950s and 1960s.” Hezbollah had shown that resistance, not the accommodation of states like Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, worked against Israel. And, as all Arabs knew, “in 1967 Israel had vanquished all the Arab armies in six days, but in 2006 [Israel] had fought thirty-four days and failed to take control of a thin sliver of South Lebanon” despite a massive ground offensive of some 30,000 troops in the last two days of the war. (Cambanis, 119, 120, 122)

For the confluence of interests between the US, Saudi Arabia and Israel, see the Saudi Arabia Quiz.

13. Does Hezbollah receive substantial support from Iran?

While much of the funding for Hezbollah’s extensive “social and medical infrastructure is raised domestically[,] Hezbollah…receives significant subsidies from Iran. The amounts are often estimated at $100 million a year…A significant portion of Iranian support is for Hezbollah’s militia wing.” (Norton, 110)

“[W]ithin a year after the 2006 war, ‘Iran had rebuilt 504 roads, 19 bridges, 149 schools, 48 mosques and churches, and 64 power stations.’ In addition, in the two decades prior to 2007, Iran constructed around 330 schools teaching a total of around 700,000 students, 20 hospitals and clinics, and 550 miles of roads in Lebanon.” (Amin Saikal, Iran Rising: The Survival and Future of the Islamic Republic, Princeton University Press, 2019, 159-60. Hereinafter, “Saikal 2019.”)

Hezbollah does have meaningful sources of funding besides Iran. “Donations from Lebanese Shia in West Africa, from Shiites in the Gulf, and in the form of Islamic tithes have made the organization largely self-sustained.” (Kfoury, 96)

“Nasrallah [makes] no apologies for his party’s links to Tehran and Damascus, publicly thanking Hezbollah’s patrons in speech after speech.” In fact, “Every Lebanese faction [has] received money, weapons, and political cover from foreign powers” such as Saudi Arabia, the CIA and Israel. (Cambanis, 113, 182)

Hezbollah’s capacity for force that has made the party so important depends almost entirely on Iran and Syria, not just financially but logistically. “The fall of the Baath regime in Syria would leave Hezbollah high and dry. Its rockets and other weapons, and some of its communications and code-breaking abilities, depended on Syrian help….The downside of any weakening of Hezbollah is that it could encourage Israeli expansionism in South Lebanon, as in the 1980s and 1990s (Israel’s leaders have long wanted to steal the water in south Lebanon’s rivers).”

https://www.juancole.com/2012/07/top-ten-implications-of-the-damascus-bombing.html

As a mature organization, “Hezbollah is no mere proxy, and seems to enjoy something closer to the status of a junior partner or favored ally with Tehran.” “The speed with which Hezbollah [has] attacked, counterattacked, and improvised during clashes with Israel [makes] clear the local command in Lebanon [makes] its own decisions.” “[W]ithout Hezbollah, Iran would lose much of its ability to project power, pose an active threat to Israel, and perhaps most important, influence Arab politics.” (Cambanis, 223, 225)

Iran’s assistance to Hezbollah is dwarfed by US assistance to Israel. According to the 12 March 2012 US Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, “Israel is the largest cumulative recipient of U.S. foreign assistance since World War II. To date, the United States has provided Israel $115 billion in bilateral assistance. Almost all U.S. bilateral aid to Israel is in the form of military assistance, although in the past Israel also received significant economic assistance….In addition to receiving…foreign assistance, Israel also receives funds from annual defense appropriations bills for joint U.S.-Israeli missile defense programs.” http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL33222.pdf

“The United States and Israel…signed a new 10-year military-assistance deal on [14 September 2016], representing the single largest pledge of its kind in American history. The pact, laid out in a Memorandum of Understanding, will be worth $38 billion over the course of a decade, an increase of roughly 27 percent on the money pledged in the last agreement, which was signed in 2007.” “There are [four] straightforward explanations for why this particular deal got done. [1.] Politically, the spending package was partly a response to the nuclear deal that the United States and other world powers finalized with Iran in July [2015]…The new money is an attempt to pacify Israeli concerns about continued threats from Iran…” “[2.] The money is also an attempt to satisfy congressional Republicans….While this may be the US’s biggest-ever military-aid deal, the GOP has pushed for even greater spending.” “[3.] Defenders of the deal [point to the] ‘fraught neighborhood’ surrounding Israel: war-torn Syria to the northeast, Hezbollah-influenced Lebanon to the north, and an Islamist insurgency in Egypt’s Sinai to the south, all of which help explain the historically high promise of $5 billion in missile funding over the next 10 years.” “[4.] The deal also directs more money back toward the United States. It eliminates a provision in the previous aid agreement that allowed Israel to spend 26 percent of its Foreign Military Financing on weaponry and other resources produced within Israel, rather than in the United States—a provision intended to help Israel build its own defense industry. Now that Israel’s defense industry has developed [to the point it is a world leader in several areas],…that money will go toward purchases benefitting the defense industry in the United States.” http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2016/09/united-states-israel-memorandum-of-understanding-military-aid/500192/

14. Is the following an official Hezbollah statement? “Israel’s final departure from Lebanon is a prelude to its final obliteration from existence and the liberation of venerable Jerusalem from the talons of occupation.”

The statement is part of Hezbollah’s 1985 open letter addressed to the “Downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World.” “There have been periodic hints from leading Hezbollah officials, including Nasrallah…, that the 1985 open letter is obsolete…” and belongs “to a certain historical moment that” has passed. In any event, despite what it may wish, Hezbollah cannot destroy Israel. (Norton, 39, 46)

In the “modern Middle East racist attitudes thrive even among populations that coexist peacefully…Whether sincerely or not, [Hezbollah] has excised hatred of Jews from its official doctrine….[However,] Hezbollah’s updated manifesto declares Israel ‘an unnatural creation that is not viable and cannot continue to survive.’” (Cambanis, 9-10)

Hezbollah “will wage unyielding war against Israel as long as that approach expands its power base. If war with Israel were to become more costly, or if by some change in circumstances it endangered Iranian support, Hezbollah could shift its focus to other enemies.” (Cambanis, 227)

When asked whether he “was prepared to live with a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine, Nasrallah said he would not sabotage what is finally a ‘Palestinian matter.’” (Kfoury, 97)

15. Why hasn’t Lebanon had an official census since 1932?

Following Lebanon’s independence from France in 1943 the “political system…was formalized into a system of sectarian communities…Each of the country’s seventeen recognized sects was accorded political privilege, including senior appointments in the bureaucracy, membership in parliament, and positions in high political office, roughly proportionate to the community’s size….Thus, the Maronites, considered the plurality, were accorded the presidency, which carried preeminent prerogatives and powers, and the second largest community, the Sunnis, won the premiership, decidedly second fiddle to the presidency. The Shi’i community, third largest, was awarded the speakership of the parliament, a position with far weaker constitutional powers than either the presidency or the premiership. The provenance of this allocation of power was a 1932 census of dubious reliability and, in fact, the last official census ever conducted in Lebanon….The imbalance of power…was rectified significantly by” the Ta’if accord; however Ta’if left in place the destructive sectarianism of the original constitution. “As a result of the Ta’if accord of 1989, which marked the end of the civil war [which claimed 150,000 lives], seats are divided equally [in parliament] between Muslim [including Druzes] and Christians, in contrast to the prior distribution that favored Christians by a 6 to 5 ratio. The 128 parliamentary seats are subdivided along confessional lines: 27 seats each for the three largest sects—Shia, Sunni, and Maronites…” (Norton, 11-12, 97)

In 1932, Shiites were “a mere 16 per cent of the population”. However, by 2005, they had risen to “35 per cent of it.” (Hirst, 308)

It should not be surprising that the domestic Maronite-Sunni-Druze coalition that opposes Hezbollah want to stop it from using its arms and political standing from changing the sectarian system’s political and economic balances. Lebanon’s dilemma is that while the percentage of Shia in the population has grown over the past decades, “the constitution does not” enable this fact to “be translated at the level of politics….So, every time a sect wants to move…upward in the political hierarchy” strife results. “In a regular democracy” votes would address the issue. (Norton, 155)

“Not a single powerful political party in Lebanon, with the exception of Hezbollah, argued for a wholesale redesign of the political system because all of them knew that a more fair, just, or representative system would cast them from their perches. None of the movements allied with the moderates or with Hezbollah had anything resembling internal elections or party congresses. They were run like family mafias.” (Cambanis, 261)

As of November 2019, “The mass, spontaneous, and leaderless protests that have taken over Lebanon’s major cities constitute a…scream in the face of the country’s political class. Enough is enough, cried the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese who took to the streets. They called it a revolution against the sectarian, inefficient, and corrupt elite that rules the volatile country.”

“The overwhelming numbers that have joined the uprising and its demographic, social, and sectarian composition – representative of Lebanon’s multi-faith society – make these protests unprecedented. But there have been similar demonstrations before. The prelude to the latest uprising came in late August 2015 when people of different sectarian communities revolted against the failure of the Lebanese government to solve a garbage-collection crisis. That crisis was one among many. Thirty years since the end of its bloody war between 1975 and 1990, Lebanon continues to lack the basic public goods of a modern social order: 24-hour electricity, access to drinking water, efficient garbage collection, safe and organised roads, clean and accessible public spaces, or a fair judiciary.”

“Lebanon’s political system is institutionally sectarian, with seats in the country’s parliament distributed according to the size of each sect…Sectarian leaders’ dominance of state institutions and their allocation of government jobs to their supporters has deepened the divides between these groups. It has also fuelled corruption and nepotism, increased the public debt, and tarnished the public sector. Political rivalries and sectarian mobilisation since the assassination of Prime Minister Rafic Hariri in 2005 paralysed the economy and state institutions. The flow of more than a million refugees as a result of the Syrian war has also exacerbated both the political and economic situation facing the country.” https://www.juancole.com/2019/11/hezbollah-lebanons-sectarian.html

“The presence of Palestinians in Lebanon has long been a source of major internal tension, as the Lebanese state has consistently dealt with Palestinian refugees as foreigners neither to be integrated nor awarded citizenship, but rather to be tolerated until such time as they return home….For Lebanon’s political elites, the integration of Palestinian refugees represents an unacceptable political risk, lest it upset the favorable status quo guaranteed by the retention of the confessional system for those in power….The majority of the [almost 400,000] Palestinian refugees are Sunni Muslims [with roots in northern Israel].” They suffer from various restrictions such as being barred from employment in scores of professions. (Kfoury, 84)

16. What percentage of the popular vote did Hezbollah and its allies receive in the 2009 elections?

In the June 2009 parliamentary elections, “Hezbollah and its allies…decisively triumphed in the popular vote, denying Saad Hariri and his backers an opportunity to trumpet the election as a great victory for the moderate axis….Of the roughly 1.5 million people who voted, 54 percent voted for Hezbollah [and its allies], and 46 for the governing coalition.” In June 2011, Lebanon’s new prime minister, Najib Mikati, announced a government dominated by members and allies of Hezbollah. (Cambanis, 286)

In the May 2018 elections (the first held in nine years), “Hezbollah and its political allies expanded their share of seats in Lebanon’s Parliament, increasing their political clout at the expense of the country’s Western-backed prime minister… While the number of seats held by Hezbollah itself remained largely unchanged at around 13, victories by political allies who support its maintenance of a vast arsenal increased the chances the group would play a key role in a coalition government and diminished the prospects for legislation that would challenge its status. The election’s biggest blow was to the movement lead by Prime Minister Saad Hariri, the country’s most prominent Sunni Muslim politician and an ally of the West [and Saudi Arabia].” (Iran’s political allies in Iraq are also expected to do well in upcoming parliamentary elections.)

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/07/world/middleeast/lebanon-election-hezbollah.html?hpw&rref=world&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&module=well-region®ion=bottom-well&WT.nav=bottom-well

Hezbollah “has been part of the Lebanese government since 2005…[It] is motivated by its war with Israel and rivalry with the US and Saudi Arabia. [I]t has painstakingly established a resilient base in the Shi’a community, a durable alliance with its Shi’a political partner the Amal Movement, and a cross-sectarian alliance to ensure its legitimacy.” https://www.juancole.com/2019/11/hezbollah-lebanons-sectarian.html

Not only is the world preoccupied with their own economic crises, traditional friends of Lebanon are no longer willing to help a country so steeped in corruption, particularly after the state defaulted on its debt in April. Moreover, the country is led by a Hezbollah-supported government, making it even more unlikely that Gulf countries would come to the rescue. Lebanon’s only hope is an IMF bailout…” https://gulfnews.com/world/mena/often-on-brink-lebanon-headed-towards-collapse-1.72955534 (3 Aug. 2020) In August 2020, Lebanon is struggling with hyperinflation, rising poverty, and collapsing institutions–not to mention the coronavirus pandemic. “[T]he current crisis is largely of Lebanon’s own making–a culmination of decades of corruption and greed by a political class that pillaged nearly every sector of the economy….Unlike in previous crises when oil-rich Arab nations and international donors came to the rescue, Lebanon this time stands very much alone.

In March 2013, Prime Minister Mikati resigned largely due to domestic fall-out from the ongoing civil war in Syria. “His decision to step down was caused by an apparent Hezbollah attempt to exert wider control of the country’s security…[L]ebanon has followed an official policy of ‘dissociation from Syria’. But in practice, both Hezbollah and the Sunni opposition have been actively involved, backing opposite sides of the Syrian conflict.” (Financial Times, 25 March 2013, World News 4.)

“Lebanon was without a president for twenty-nine months from May 2014… The issue was finally resolved not by an internal settlement but rather by Tehran and Riyadh, which came to an agreement on the choice of the Maronite general Michel Aoun, who assumed the presidency on October 31, 2016. Aoun is allied with Hezbollah… In March 2016, Riyadh cut off $4 billion in military aid to Lebanon’s security services in protest against Hezbollah’s political obstructionism, a counter-productive move since it turned out to undermine the military vis-à-vis the paramilitary Hezbollah.” (Saikal 2019, 200)



http://www.juancole.com/2012/05/romney-wants-to-fight-whole-muslim-world-not-concentrate-on-bin-laden.html “Hezbollah…has members of parliament and cabinet positions…so it is part of the Lebanese political establishment.” All over the Arab world, the “old Muslim fundamentalist movements have for over a decade been…drawn into parliamentary, Westminster-style politics.” We see this with Turkey, Egypt, Tunisia and other states.

“Israel had pushed for decades to secure its northern border through an amicable government in Beirut. Its interventions instead had midwifed the opposite outcome….Two years after Israel had failed to destroy the party’s infrastructure [in the 2006 war], Hezbollah had made a deal through which it gained control of one-third of Lebanon’s ministries, and approved a president who believed in Hezbollah’s right to bear arms.” (Cambanis, 252)

“Hezbollah draws unrivaled reserves of power from the total devotion and trust it has won from its constituents, most of Lebanon’s estimated 1 to 2 million Shia. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese from other sects, including non-Muslims, have allied with Hezbollah, despite widespread hostility on the part of moderates and secularists toward the Party of God.” However, regardless of election results, “Hezbollah…established that it wouldn’t let any coalition rule the country without giving the Party of God veto power. It had the street power to back its demand.” (Cambanis, 13, 284)

17. True or False: Hezbollah campaigns for votes primarily by promoting religious issues.

False. “[M]ost striking about Hezbollah’s political campaigns is the extent to which nonreligious themes [such as economic and security issues] are habitually emphasized. Hezbollah’s electoral strategy does not dwell explicitly on religious themes at all, in stark contrast to, for example, Christian fundamentalist groups in the United States.” (Norton, 102)

The Shia in southern Lebanon “were known as an easygoing and hospitable lot, who liked their food…tobacco…liquor…Once in the 1980s Hezbollah tried to preach austerity, in the manner of the Iranian ayatollahs, and popular support plummeted. They retreated quickly, and never again tried to enforce any moral code on the general public.” (Cambanis, 58)

“Nasrallah and his colleagues have repeatedly declared that the prospects for establishing a state based on Islamic rule will probably never exist in Lebanon, as such a state could only be established on the basis of broad consent. Hezbollah, its leaders have promised, is committed to the survival of Lebanon as a diverse, multicultural society, because it is precisely Lebanon’s diversity that defines its unique appeal and character.” Hezbollah pragmatically recognizes that Christians, Druzes and Sunnis “combined still far outnumber the Shiites” in Lebanon; and, “according to one survey, only 13 per cent” of Shiites support a theocracy. (Norton, 158; Hirst, 241)

In municipal elections Hezbollah has engaged in “pragmatic political bargains [with] ideological opposites” and has done well. In municipalities where it has controlled the local council it has shown a capacity for good governance and it has not prohibited the sale and consumption of alcohol. Hezbollah leaves it to individuals to choose whether to consume alcohol or not, and it recognizes that Christians have no prohibitions against alcohol. However, Hezbollah expects its members to not drink alcohol as Islam normally prohibits alcohol. (Norton, 103-4)

“Without ever shedding its Islamist character and conservative moral code, Hezbollah has in fact built alliances with other parties, secular and non-Shiite, in order to get a larger representation in the government. When it put up candidates in…parliamentary elections, some of those on its electoral list were Christians…” (Kfoury, 100)



http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/05/an-overwhelming-majority-of-lebanons-christians-believe-hizbullah-protects-their-country/ A fall 2014 “poll by the Beirut Center for Research and Information…found that two thirds (62.6%) of Lebanese Christians feel that, contrary to its vilification by members of the NATO alliance, Hezbollah has in fact protected their country from its most determined enemies—Israel, IS (known locally as Da‘ash), and Wahhabi-style terrorist groups linked to the Syria-Iraq conflagration.”

Hezbollah operates a well-funded think tank that studies issues ranging from electoral reform to telecommunications regulation. The think tank is one element of Hezbollah’s efforts to enable its parliamentarians and ministers to be effective at governance. “And, unique among Middle Eastern Islamist movements, its political scientists…engage in intellectual dialogue with Westerners [by, for example,] sending delegates to meetings in Europe…” (Cambanis, 139)

18. What are the two main reasons Hezbollah is supported by the bulk of Lebanon’s Shia and by many from other sects as well?

Hezbollah Provides Dignity:

Hezbollah’s effective resistance against the legendarily effective Israeli military forces “embarrassed virtually all regular Arab armies and undermined the notion, deeply embedded in the Israeli psyche, that Arabs are inherently inferior in the arts of war.” Hezbollah thus gives Shiites a deep feeling of pride, for this it is honored. (Hirst, 247)

Lebanon in the 1980s was drenched in violence. “[I]n a landscape of nihilism Hezbollah understood the intrinsic appeal of spiritual clarity. Lost souls bobbing on a sea of violence, adrenaline, and Hobbesian political competition longed for meaning. Hezbollah taught not mere violence, but violent struggle in the service of a higher power. Hezbollah wouldn’t tolerate…thuggish, gang-style violence like many other Islamist and other militant groups…” (Cambanis, 110)

Consider the following words of an educated Lebanese Shiite to understand the deep support of Hezbollah: “The people of the South had grown accustomed to feeling downtrodden. But Hezbollah was able to give people a sense of pride so strong that people were willing to lose material things, and even to give family members as martyrs, so long as they could keep this sense of honor.” (Cambanis, 178)

What good, Nasrallah can fairly ask, have the many years of negotiations between the PLO and Israel achieved? While the Palestinians continue to lack dignity under occupation, Hezbollah’s long resistance has led to dignity and freedom from occupation for Lebanese. (Cambanis, 8)

Gazans feel a similar pride in their resistance. “[W]hile the Israeli army can drive up to any house in the West Bank and arrest its members[,] it was unable to step foot in Gaza. At least not without incurring a beating. … Of course, the occupation persists, but it is no longer in people’s homes. Palestinians in Gaza celebrate being able to go about their lives without the daily indignities of having Israeli teenagers armed with rifles harass and humiliate them. … Complaining about Hamas’s governance of the Gaza Strip, even if in silent whispers, rarely extended to criticizing ‘the resistance.’” (Tareq Baconi, Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance, Stanford University Press, California: 2018, xvi-xvii. Hereinafter, “Baconi 2018.”)

Hezbollah Provides Services:

As the “Lebanese government offers paltry social welfare services for its citizens” Hezbollah’s welfare provision is needed. And, unlike other Lebanese parties and militias, its “discipline, integrity and dedication generate feelings akin to awe among many Lebanese, Christians and Muslims alike.” (Norton, 107; Hirst, 240)

Hezbollah engages “in a vast range of public services and infrastructural projects—from which Christians and Sunnis, not just Shiites, often benefited—such as hospitals and schools, cut-price supermarkets and pharmacies, low-cost housing, land reclamation and irrigation. [In some areas] it has assumed responsibility for most of the water supply, electricity, refuse collection, sewage disposal” and policing. (Hirst, 240)

Deriving from Hezbollah and other Shia entities is “a palpable sense of community and religious commitment” which holds that “a mark of faith is to offer a helping hand to others and participate in the community….It is impossible to appreciate the striking durability and loyalty that modern Shi’i groups, such as Hezbollah (or comparable groups in Iraq, for instance) generate unless one understands that their strength derives from the strong social fabric that they have woven over the years.” (Norton, 111-2)

While support for Hezbollah is unquestionably genuine, Hezbollah does also deftly use “instruments of coercion” to maintain its dominance over its community. It has “its own intelligence network, its own army, police, court, and prisons…Shia political rivals who contested Hezbollah could be humiliated, slandered, or economically pressured. Social critics could face ostracizing, harassment, or loss of benefits.” (Cambanis, 179)

19. Did Hezbollah praise the 9/11 terrorists?

Hezbollah was placed on the US Terrorism list in 1999 but “was taken off the list a couple of years later following Hezbollah’s strong condemnation of the 9/11 attack on America. Hezbollah was returned to the list when Dick Cheney opined that a ‘presumed Hezbollah operative’ probably met with an Al Qaeda representative in South America in 2001.” “A study undertaken at the American University of Beirut in January – February 2007, benefiting from research and surveys from a variety of international and Israeli human rights organizations, tabulated no fewer than 6,672 acts of Israeli state terrorism directed against Lebanon and Palestine between the years 1967-2007. Not only is Israel absent from the US State Department Terrorism list, Israel appears to determine who is on it.” http://www.counterpunch.org/2007/04/06/why-is-hezbollah-on-the-terrorism-list/

“An annual report delivered [in early 2015] to the US Senate by James Clapper, the director of National Intelligence [at the time], removed Iran and Hezbollah from its list of terrorism threats, after years in which they featured in similar reports. The unclassified version of the Worldwide Threat Assessment of the US Intelligence Communities, dated February 26, 2015, noted Iran’s efforts to combat Sunni extremists, including those of the ultra-radical Islamic State group, who were perceived to constitute the preeminent terrorist threat to American interests worldwide.” “[H]ezbollah…has been fighting the Islamic State, independently of the American-led campaign, both in Syria and Iraq.” (“[I]ran and Hezbollah were both listed as terrorism threats in the assessment of another American body, the Defense Intelligence Agency.”) http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-report-scraps-iran-hezbollah-from-list-of-terror-threats/ (16 March 2015)

Thousands of Hezbollah “members and supporters operate with few restrictions in Europe, raising money that is funneled to the group’s leadership in Lebanon.” Essentially, “the European Union continues to treat [Hezbollah] foremost as a Lebanese political and social movement.” According to the foreign minister of Cyprus, “There is no consensus among the EU member states for putting Hezbollah in the terrorist-related list of the organizations…Should there be tangible evidence of Hezbollah engaging in acts of terrorism, the EU would consider listing the organization.” “[W]here the American and Israeli governments see Iran and Hezbollah gearing up their long-dormant capacity for international terrorism, Europeans strongly differentiate between an international terrorist network like Al Qaeda and what is viewed here as a conflict pitting Israel and the United States on one side against Iran, Syria and Hezbollah on the other.” http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/world/europe/hezbollah-banned-in-us-operates-in-europes-public-eye.html?_r=1&hp&pagewanted=print

In July 2013, European Union “governments have agreed to list the armed wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist group because of concerns over its activities in Europe. But the EU ignored pressure from the US and Israel to ban the Lebanese organisation outright, allowing contacts with its political representatives….The US and Israel have spent years urging the EU to outlaw Hezbollah outright. In 2008 the UK borrowed from its experience with the IRA and Sinn Féin to ban Hezbollah’s military wing while allowing contact with its political representatives. Elsewhere in the EU, only the Netherlands had previously banned the entire organisation.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jul/22/eu-ban-hezbollah-terrorist-wing

In January 2020, “Britain’s finance ministry…said it had added Lebanon’s entire Hezbollah movement to its list of terrorist groups subject to asset freezing. The ministry previously only targeted the Shiite organization’s military wing but has now listed the whole group after the government designated it a terrorist organization [in] March [2019]. The change requires any individual or institution in Britain with accounts or financial services connected to Hezbollah to suspend them or face prosecution.” https://www.timesofisrael.com/uk-adds-entire-hezbollah-movement-to-terror-blacklist-and-freezes-assets/

“Germany on [30 April 2020] banned the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah from carrying out any activity on its soil and declared the group a terrorist organization, in a move, long sought by Israel and the United States…” The terrorism designation prohibits fundraising, disseminating propaganda, and “any public display of the organization’s symbols, whether during demonstrations, in print or online. It also allows the authorities to seize funds and investigate associated subgroups.” (“Germany’s intelligence services believe that the group has as many as 1,050 followers in the country. Although they meet secretly in mosques or cultural clubs, they advertise their association openly on the internet.”)

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/world/europe/germany-hezbollah.html

For more information, see the Terrorism Quiz:

https://detailedpoliticalquizzes.wordpress.com/terrorism-quiz/

20. True or False: Hezbollah normally sends its most dispensable fighters on martyrdom (suicide) operations thus preserving its elite fighters.

False. Only Hezbollah fighters “of exceptional battlefield prowess [can] apply for martyrdom operations, and only a small subset of that elite [is] accepted. A martyrdom operation was meant to cap a notable career…If Hezbollah deployed callow throwaway teenagers on martyrdom operations the party felt it would cheapen rather than ennoble the cult of death. The party’s military planners reserved death missions for otherwise unattainable military objectives.” (Cambanis, 164)

“Militarily, Hezbollah has evolved into a classic guerrilla warfare organization, discarding the early tactics that branded it a terrorist organization in the eyes of America and Israel. Even though it cultivates a vibrant culture of martyrdom among its supporters, the party hasn’t launched a suicide bomber since December 30, 1999, when a Hezbollah fighter drove a car bomb into an Israeli military convoy.” (Cambanis, 12)

“While self-sacrifice in the context of national armies and the defense of one’s homeland is celebrated the world over indeed is a foundation of nationalism, Palestinian self-sacrifice is studied as a perplexing anomaly. What compels suicide bombers to don a vest? Why are teenagers eager to join Hamas’s military training sites? Why is resistance praised when it has brought catastrophe on Palestinians? The worldview of Palestinian resistance fighters is that they are engaged in a justified war against a violent and illegal occupation that terrorizes them and their family members.” (If a US marine charged an enemy sniper position to save comrades under fire he might receive the Medal of Honor, the highest military decoration awarded by the US government.) (Baconi 2018, xix-xx)

Ayatollah Fadlallah’s theology “permitted the Muslim to reclaim his political rights by force. The fighter who didn’t have access to an F-16 jet fighter…could deploy himself as a bomb…” (Cambanis, 110)



https://original.antiwar.com/ted_snider/2018/05/10/trumps-ten-lies-a-response-to-the-iran-nuclear-agreement-speech/ “The 1983 Hezbollah [suicide truck] bombing of the American barracks in Beirut that killed 241 members of the American military was an attack on a military base in Beirut belonging to a foreign invader that was actively and currently bombing Lebanon.” The bombing was not, therefore, a terrorist act.

According to former UNIFIL spokeman Timur Goksel, Hezbollah and the Islamic Jihad Organization used suicide bombings very differently. Hezbollah’s “were very well planned” and focused on the Israeli occupiers—they were used as an effective military tactic, not as random terrorism. (Sulome Anderson, The Hostage’s Daughter: A Story of Family, Madness, and the Middle East, Dey Street Books, New York: 2016, 136-7.)

21. Who made the following public statement after meeting with Nasrallah? “[H]is key concerns were essentially how to free his country from domination…and how to go about building the nation up again…So it was a logical, reasonable presentation….[J]ust an intelligent man talking about serious issues…”

Edward Peck: Former American diplomat and former deputy director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism. Peck was part of an American delegation that met Nasrallah in February 2006. (Kfoury, 94-5)

Jeffrey Rudolph, a college professor, was a regional representative of the East Timor Alert Network and presented a paper on its behalf at the United Nations. He was awarded the prestigious Cheryl Rosa Teresa Doran Prize upon graduation from McGill University’s faculty of law; has worked at one of the world’s largest public accounting firms; and, has taught at McGill University. He has prepared widely distributed quizzes on Israel-Palestine, Iran, Hamas, Terrorism, Saudi Arabia, US Inequality, the US Christian Right, Hezbollah, the Israeli Ultra-Orthodox, Qatar, China, and Egypt. These quizzes are available at, https://detailedpoliticalquizzes.wordpress.com/

Comments can be sent to: Israel-Palestine-Quiz@live.com

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