Hezbollah

Hezbollah or Hizbullah (Arabic for “Party of God”), Lebanese political party and militia group committed to promoting Islamic activism in Lebanon. The group was founded during the Lebanese Civil War (1975-1990). In June 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon and sided with one of the war’s Christian factions over the many other, mostly Muslim, factions. Other powers, including Syria and several Western countries, also played varying roles in this civil war. Largely in response to Israel’s invasion, a group of Shia Muslim clerics led by Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah established Hezbollah to promote Islam and resist Western influences in Lebanon. The clerics’ politics and theology were inspired by the Islamic Revolution of Iran, which had culminated in the overthrow of Iran’s secular government in 1979, and they hoped that Iran, which was then fighting Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War, would be able to export its revolution to Lebanon. Hezbollah provided a more radical alternative to Lebanon’s mainstream Shia faction, known as the Amal movement (Afwaj al-Muqawimah al-Lubnaniyya, or Lebanese Resistance Detachments), which also sought greater power for Muslims in Lebanon.

In early 1983 Hezbollah fighters launched a guerrilla war that forced Israel out of most of Lebanon, although the Israelis maintained a self-proclaimed “security zone” in southern Lebanon. In April a suicide bomber destroyed the United States embassy in Beirut, and in October another bomber destroyed the U.S. Marines barracks in the city. More than 300 people died in the attack on the U.S. Marines, ultimately forcing the United States to withdraw from Lebanon. Press accounts linked Hezbollah to both attacks. In the next several years the group allegedly orchestrated the kidnappings of several Westerners living in Lebanon, prompting the withdrawal of many of the country’s remaining Westerners. The governments of Iran and Syria appear to have aided Hezbollah in a number of these acts.

In the late 1980s two events changed Hezbollah’s course. First, Iran and Iraq reached a cease-fire in 1988, ending their long-stalemated war. The war’s end—with little gain on either side—made it clear that Iran would not export its Islamic Revolution to Iraq and points beyond in the Middle East. Second, the Lebanese Civil War ended in 1990, signaling the gradual return of Lebanon to parliamentary rule. After these events many of Hezbollah’s leaders argued that the group should try to achieve power through politics, not just military action. Hezbollah ran candidates in Lebanon’s 1992 parliamentary elections, winning several seats. It also sought to enhance its public image by establishing television and radio stations, philanthropic institutions such as hospitals and orphanages, and several private businesses.

In 1992 an Israeli helicopter gunship attack assassinated Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Abbas al-Musawi. He was replaced by Sheik Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, who became the organization’s secretary general.

Nasrallah continued guerrilla operations against Israel, and Israel, maintaining its security zone in southern Lebanon, responded with counterattacks. Its ongoing resistance earned Hezbollah increased popularity among Shia Muslims, particularly those who had fled their homes to escape this and other fighting and had settled mainly in the slums of Beirut. In April 1996 the United States negotiated an agreement between Hezbollah and Israel to restrict the fighting to the security zone and to place civilian targets off limits. Nevertheless, sporadic firing between Hezbollah and Israel in southern Lebanon continued, with each side accusing the other of violating the agreement on numerous occasions. In June 2000 the Israeli government abruptly withdrew its troops from southern Lebanon after a breakdown in peace talks between Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. Hezbollah received much of the credit for the Israeli withdrawal among Lebanese people, and the group’s popularity increased. It won several additional parliamentary seats in the 2000 elections and took up a Cabinet position in the government.

In 2004 Nasrallah negotiated an agreement with Israel to release 400 Arab prisoners, mostly Lebanese and Palestinian detainees, in exchange for the release of a kidnapped Israeli businessman and the bodies of three slain Israeli soldiers. The prisoner exchange raised Hezbollah’s stature among many Arabs in the Middle East. However, Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon withheld three prisoners, and Nasrallah said he would “reserve the right” to capture Israeli soldiers unless the prisoners were released. The same year heavy international pressure was brought to bear on Lebanon to disarm militias, particularly Hezbollah’s, in an attempt to make Hezbollah a purely political force that renounced violence. The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 1559, which called for the disbandment of all Lebanese militias.

Then, in July 2006, Hezbollah staged a cross-border raid into Israel, killing eight Israeli soldiers and capturing two. The raid came after a similar cross-border incident in which Hamas guerrillas from the Gaza Strip took an Israeli soldier prisoner. Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert declared the Hezbollah raid an “act of war,” and Israel began a heavy aerial bombardment of southern Lebanon and Beirut, targeting the homes and offices of Nasrallah and other Hezbollah leaders. Hezbollah responded with rocket attacks on civilian areas of Israel. Many observers believed that the punishing Israeli air campaign, which destroyed much of Lebanon’s infrastructure and killed thousands of civilians, would isolate Hezbollah from other Lebanese. But the heavy civilian toll and seemingly indiscriminate air attacks appeared to have the opposite effect. Many Lebanese reportedly rallied to Hezbollah, particularly after its guerrilla forces in southern Lebanon put up heavy resistance to an Israeli invasion force.

The conflict led to a ceasefire in August 2006 after 34 days of heavy fighting. Under a UN Security Council resolution, an international peacekeeping force and the Lebanese army were to occupy southern Lebanon and Israeli troops were to withdraw. The resolution also called for the disarmament of all militias in southern Lebanon, but most political observers believed that neither the international force nor the Lebanese army would attempt to disarm Hezbollah. In November 2006 indirect talks between Israel and Hezbollah reportedly involved a prisoner exchange.