Category: Lebanon

Here is the announcement for my June 1 talk on Hizbullah in Washington DC. It’s a one-hour, lunch-time event; prior RSVPs to the Middle East Institute are, apparently, required.
MEI is where, way back in January 1985, I launched my first little study of the emergence of Shiite political power in Lebanon.

I ceased being surprised by any “startling” new political developments in Lebanon in, oh, around 1983, when Fateh’s bosses suddenly started aligning with the Phalange.
But still, this burgeoning Aoun-Hizbullah lovefest does give one that little scintilla of excitement to realize that once again, the country’s body politic is capable of yet another thrill, yet another twist of the political kaleidoscope.
I’m wondering what the terms of this new relationship are… Maybe I should head over to the Al-Intiqad website sometime, see how they’re reporting it over there.
Basically, though, I’m quite happy about this development, as it would seem to reduce the likelihood of sectarian violence erupting in Lebanon over the summer quite considerably.

My recent long article on Hizbullah has continued to evoke a broad– and fairly predictable– range of reactions in various places. I’ll be giving a public presentation on the subject in DC on June 1, in case any of you is able to get there. (More details later.) The date is a little delayed, I know. But I really do need to focus on finishing my violence-in-Africa book. Then in late May, I’ll be teaching a summer course over at Eastern Mennonite University….
Anyway. Bottom line here. I’m a member of an on-line discussion group on (mainly) Gulf affairs, and recently started reading some postings there on the topic of Bush and Hizbullah. So yesterday I dashed off the following comment:

It is extremely “rich” that the same Bush administration that has handed over a lot of the security work in Iraq to the Pesh Merga (and some to foreign mercenaries) should be the one saying that party militias can absolutely not be allowed in Lebanon! However, the general principles that the state should have a monopoly on the means of force and that security forces should come under the governance of the civilian political leadership (preferably, a democratically constituted one) are very valuable ones indeed.
In Lebanon, the state, being itself weak, has until recently in essence subcontracted many of the security reponsibilities in South Lebanon to Hizbullah, which had “won” that right by being the force that liberated the area from foreign military occupation. (How many other people remember the Israeli-forced “high noon at Kawkaba” back in March 1978?) Hizbullah’s command of this private militia is certainly not a desirable situation over the long or even shorter term. But it is overwhelmingly the business of the Lebanese themselves to deal with it. It was interesting to see the very low degree of support the recent Zogby poll found, in many segments of Lebanese society including Maronites, for the idea of a forced disarming of Hizbullah. The Lebanese seem clearly to prefer negotiations to regularize the situation of the people who currently staff the Hizbullah-affiliated territorial defense and deterring-Israel formations in the South. Perhaps this could be done along the lines recently suggested by Sheikh Naim Qasem. This would broadly parallel the efforts Abu Mazen has been pursuing to fold the combatants from Hamas and other militant groups into the centralized PA security structure.
Let’s all continue hoping and working for a comprehensive peace in the area– Israel-Syria, Israel-Lebanon, intra-Lebanese, Israeli-Palestinian, etc. In that context, the amounts of national revenue that all these parties keep tied up until now in military preparedness could be radically reduced. Until then, some form of citizen-based, territorially organized defense probably makes a lot of sense for the people of south Lebanon.
I’d like to be able to argue that a completely nonviolent civilian mass movement might “hold off” the Israelis better than such a force. But the comparative records of the Palestinians’ (largely nonviolent) first intifada, which won them nothing lasting from Israel, and Hizbullah’s exactly contemporaneous pursuit of armed struggle, which in combination with expert civilian organization did succeed in liberating national territory, would make that argument a very hard sell indeed…
Helena Cobban

Oh heck– just because the argument would be a hard sell, I shouldn’t make it? What on earth kind of un-Quakerly thinking is that??
So I’ll make it:

The people of south Lebanon could do really well to study the nonviolent means by which Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha movement not ony resisted the entire weight of the British Army in India but was also able to persuade the British to pull their forces out of India completely.
Go for it!
Using these means successfully requires a strategic and very deeply philosophical commitment to the principles of nonviolence. But since Hizbullah has already shown its high level of experience and expertise in civilian mass organizing it already has much of the groundwork in place for such a campaign.
And no: nonviolence is by no means anathema to Muslim teachings. One of Gandhi’s key lieutenants in his principled and successful movement against British occupation was the Pathan leader Badshah Khan, the “Gandhi of the Northwest frontier.”

Ach. That stuff is so important, I’ll have to come back to it again sometime soon.
But for now, I just want to add into this post some points that were made in that same on-line discussion forum by the Beirut-based writer Nicholas Blanford, who gave me permission to reproduce them here.
Nick, who’s been following Hizbullah a lot more closely than I have and has done so for a number of years, wrote the following:

A few points perhaps worth noting.
1. The debate has yet to begin in earnest on the future status of Hizbullah’s military wing, the Islamic Resistance, and it probably won’t begin until at least after the parliamentary elections scheduled to be held at the end of May. What Hizbullah has been doing through its various declarations is staking out its initial bargaining position. Essentially, their position is as follows: They want the Islamic Resistance to remain intact and under Hizbullah’s chain of command while accepting increased coordination with the Lebanese Army (i.e., the government). They will not initiate military confrontations with the Israelis along the Blue Line (the UN name for Lebanon’s southern border with Israel and the Golan Heights/Shebaa Farms) with the exception of the Shebaa Farms theater in the south east corner. They will, however, reserve the right to respond to Israeli acts of aggression (overflights, ground breaches of the Blue Line etc). Since 2000, Hizbullah has cultivated a public image of defender of Lebanese sovereignty from Israeli aggression, and its initial bargaining position deviates little from its current modus operandi along the Blue Line.
2. The Islamic Resistance is the beating heart of Hizbullah and the party will do what it can to retain it. They will play for time in the hope that domestic and/or regional developments will intervene to rescue them. In the meantime, the party is even willing to subordinate potential political gains for the sake of the Resistance. That means co-opting and appeasing other Shiite/Sunni political groups to retain them as allies and defenders of the Resistance, rather than alienate them by competing aginst them politically and turning them into opponents.
3. The big question is how far Hizbullah will go to keep the Resistance intact. Will they risk destabilizing Lebanon for the sake of the Resistance or will they yield if the majority of Lebanese clearly support disarmament?

Continue reading “Bush, Hizbullah, and disarmament”

Lebanon’s latest PM-designate Najib Miqati has now named his government. The new government’s main role will be to steer the country through its much-needed parliamentary elections, which should take place before the term of the current parliament ends May 31.
Miqati, who is apparently a mild-mannered guy with links to most parts of Lebanon’s political spectrum, has named a much smaller government than usual– only 14 members instead of the usual 30 or so. (The 30 figure had become traditional as a way of getting all the extremely intricate balancing of this tiny Armenian church sect versus that Greek Orthodox church sect versus that Druze sect, etc, etc, exactly “right”… It had nothing at all to do with actually delivering a decent level of government service to citizens on an accountable basis– much more to do with divvying up the national patronage cake among its greedy claimants.)
Organizing the elections–which still also requires passage by the existing parliament of a new election law, which has to happen each time in Lebanon!– will be in the hands of new Interior Minister Hassan Sabei, a retired General Security officer who’s considered close to the Hariri family.
My dear old friend Ghassan Salameh, who had previously served in a Hariri-led government as Culture Minister, comes back as Minister for Higher Education and Culture, both.
Ghassan served as political advisor to Lakhdar Ibrahimi when Lakhdar was the UN’s representative in Iraq in mid and late 2003. In November 2003, Ghassan delivered this interesting presentation on the Iraq situation to a gathering in London. In it, he urged the international community to transform the US military presence in Iraq into a truly multinational force operating under a UN mandate. He urged the occupying power to go slow on privatization of the Iraqi economy, and to work hard on trying to engage all of Iraq’s neighbors cooperatively in the project of reconstruction…
But I guess for the next few weeks, at least, Ghassan will be busy primarily on Lebanese political issues.
I strongly hope that Miqati and his team, and the whole of the present Lebanese parliament can succeed in having an election that is free and fair, and effectively insulated from all outside influence; that its results are accepted as legitimate by the vast majority of Lebanese; and that it generates a parliament and a new government who see their first duty as being to serve Lebanon’s citizenry rather than line their own (or anyone else’s) pockets.
If this latter outcome is won, that would truly be a first for Lebanon.
(If you haven’t yet seen my big Boston Review article on Hizbullah and Lebanon, you can find some good background material there on the role Hizbullah has played in Lebanese electoral politics over the past 13 years.)

I got my paper copy of the April-May issue of Boston review in the middle of the week. It has my big piece on Hizbullah in it. It looks pretty good, except they insisted I take out the footnotes. Waaaah! I love footnotes! A writer can have an entirely different kind of a conversation with the reader if she is allowed to use footnotes… But no. The copy-editor, Josh Friedman, said they “want to look more like the Atlantic Monthly“, or something.
Oh well. Even worse news is that they haven’t put my piece up on the website yet. I thought maybe when they do, I’ll upload my footnoted version here, and y’all can choose which one you want to read.
Meanwhile, however, Roula Khalaf of the Financial Times has snagged an intriguing interview with Hizbullah #2 Sheikh Naim Qassim, in which he suggests that Hizbullah could find a formula for its militia to coordinate even more closely with, or become a “reserve wing” of, the Lebanese Army– but not until after Israel pulls its forces out of the Shebaa Farms district, a tiny and almost unpopulated portion of land that both Lebanon and Syria say is Lebanese, but Israel and the UN say is Syrian.
Khalaf writes:

Mr Qassim confirmed that one potential alternative would be for Hizbollah fighters to become a kind of

There’s a lovely piece in Thursday’s Daily Star (Beirut) by Adnan El-Ghoul, titled John Paul II’s legacy to Lebanon. I’m pretty certain Ghoul is a Sunni Muslim, which makes the piece all the more meaningful.
In it, he recalls the visit the Pope made to Lebanon in 1997:

When the pope came to Lebanon the political and religious situation at the time posed distinct challenges in the wake of Lebanon’s bloody 15 year civil war. Among them, the status of the Lebanese government, largely dominated by Syria and set in place by the Taif Accord in 1989. He was also faced with the task of convincing extremists of both Christian and Muslim faiths to embark on a permanent dialogue with one another and to persuade young Christians not leave their homeland at a time when they were exiting in large numbers.
… Eight years later, the number of Syrian troops has dropped from 40,000 to less than 8,000 and they are scheduled to leave by the end of this month. Israel pulled its troops out of South Lebanon and western Bekaa Valley in May 2000; at least according to the United Nations.
… So what difference did the pontiff’s trip make to Lebanon? Did we have a Poland moment, where his visit glavanised his fellow countrymen to throw off the shackes of communism?
We didn’t have the drama of a Polish moment, but in my view the papal visit did make a difference to this country. I would assert he actually helped establish a new political climate that paved the way for the current political uprising. He came here and said openly that Lebanon and the Lebanese needed to embrace change.
…[S]ince the papal visit many realities changed in accordance with the pope’s wishes and guidance. He called for greater dialogue between this country’s myriad of religions. In his document “A New Hope for Lebanon,” he outlined the need for coexistance and for all Lebanese to look toward Lebanon for their future, calling all Lebanese to “open with confidence a new page in their history.”
In this respect the visit laid the foundation for dialogue that helped trans-sectarian alliances and cooperation in this country which in turn has reaped rewards for Lebanon’s political opposition. His plea for reconciliation was most plainly seen in the visit by Sfeir to the Chouf Mountains to meet with Walid Jumblatt for the first time since the civil war. That visit can arguably seen as the first seeds in the flowering of the broad based united Lebanese opposition that the country currently has.

Ghoul also recalled fondly the Pope’s 2001 visit to Damascus when:

Tens of thousands of Muslims and Christians attended the Mass celebrated by the pope in Damascus soccer stadium.
The pope told the stadium crowd, speaking in French, “In this holy land, Christians, Muslims and Jews are called to work together with confidence and boldness and to work to bring about without delay the day when the legal rights of all peoples are respected and they can live in peace and mutual understanding.”
Following in the steps of St. Paul, the pope’s visit to Syria took him to a landscape rich in Christian history. Syria’s 17 million people include two million Christians, and the pope’s presence there highlighted the rich mix of cultures and history of Syria.
Pope John Paul traveled in what he called the Millennium Journey as a pilgrim to the Umayyad Mosque. He was the first pope to enter a mosque, stepping into a historic shrine alongside Muslim leaders.
By visiting Umayyad Mosque, in the heart of the Old City of Damascus, the pope made a point on how Christianity and the preceding Roman Empire, were deeply rooted in the Middle East.
The Umayyad Mosque has been a place of worship for more than 3,000 years…

And finally, this:

Back in Beirut, the images of his 1997 visit which have been reshown on television following his death are a reminder that Beirut had not witnessed million-people marches since that time until the current crisis this year.
One million people of all sects and religious beliefs attended the Sunday Mass the pope celebrated in Downtown Beirut close to Martyrs’ Square. I was one of them. Less than eight years later one million people of all sects again filled Martyrs’ Square to show their support to a united political opposition calling for Syrian withdrawal and political freedom.
What is John Paul’s final legacy to Lebanon? I think we are seeing it: dialogue, tolerance, political freedom. As I write we seem to be on the verge of a return to sectarian rigidity and political bickering which looks set to threaten the principles outlined by the pope when he visited our small country.
The “Apostolic Guidance,” which was published after his trip here would come in handy as a blueprint for containing the current political crisis before it develops into a communal conflict. It is worth reading now more than ever.

Blessed indeed be the peacemakers.

I think there was another bomb in (predominantly Christian) East Beirut today, though thank G-d it didn’t kill anyone. I’m sure it must be very disquieting to live there these days. Exactly 30 years ago, I was a young journo working in Beirut, and I remember Lebanon going through an eerily similar period of great unrest… In February, 1975, the eminent Sidon-based Sunni Muslim politician Maarouf Saad had been assassinated while leading a march in his hometown… There were isolated clashes, unexplained happenings, rumors of war…
Then on April 13, 1975, occurred the ambush (of a Palestinian bus, by followers of the Maronitist pol Camille Chamoun) that killed 27 people and ignited the entire, extremely lethal, 14-year civil war that followed.
This time round, most Lebanese seem keenly aware of the danger of going down that escalatory path again. There is one larger and one smaller piece of good news from Beirut today.
The smaller one is that Bahia Hariri, the parliamentarian and sister of the late, lamented Rafiq, announced that the Beirut Marathon Association will be holding hold a 5-kilometer “Unity Run” to mark the occasion of the start of the civil war.
I think it is excellent that that anniversary should be remembered and publicly marked, and marked in that “forward-looking” way, as well as other ways.
The larger piece of good news is that the Lebanese Druze (and political “opposition”) leader Walid Jumblatt late on Sunday night went to call on Hizbullah sec-general Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, in the latter’s heavily guarded HQ in the south-Beirut suburbs.
This is the first time the two have met since Hariri’s assassination. The Daily Star’s Leila Hatoum wrote:

Lebanese opposition leader Walid Jumblatt insisted any UN-led international probe into the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri should not involve the deployment of foreign troops in Lebanon. Speaking after an unexpected late-night meeting with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Jumblatt also insisted any international probe would be restricted to Hariri’s death and would not involve the issue of the resistance group’s arms.
He said: “We will not accept that any international investigation will be allowed to expand outside the framework of Hariri’s assassination.”
… Jumblatt also reiterated that he would not call for the resistance group [i.e. Hizbullah] to be disarmed.
He said: “The arms issue is not proposed. It is not open to discussion at this stage,” adding: “When our ambitions are met, in agreement with the resistance, over Shebaa Farms, then we will talk about arms.”

In other words, he’s backing Hizbullah on the rationale it gives for keeping its militia in operation.
Hatoum noted, too, that Jumblatt’s comments on the proposed international investigation,

follow those of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, who insisted he would welcome an international probe into Hariri’s assassination.
In a statement from the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Lahoud stressed his commitment “to do whatever it takes to reveal the circumstances surrounding Hariri’s murder, in cooperation with the United Nations by whatever method it adopts.”
… Lahoud pledged full cooperation with the UN after meeting with Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.

Sfeir, by the way is another Middle Eastern religious leader who, along with Iraq’s Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, should certainly be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize, for his tireless and thus far successful efforts at keeping his co-religionists and the rest of his countrymen back from the brink of civil war.
Anyway, back to the Sayed Nasrallah-Jumblatt meeting. Hatoum has this intriguing additional little tidbit of information:

The surprise meeting took place in the Hizbullah stronghold of southern Beirut. Jumblatt said: “Nasrallah has offered to visit me in my house in Clemenceau in Beirut, but I refused. At this time of security chaos, the safety of the Sayyed is the safety of the nation. We don’t want to suffer a second loss after Hariri’s death.”

There’s some wonderfully delicate diplomacy at play there. In Lebanon, as in most cultures around the world, it is often an issue of significance “who has to go out of his way to visit whom.” (Leaders from around the world flock to Crawford, Texas to pay their homage…) Someone like Walid Jumblatt, who is the paramount chieftain of the entire world Druze community and a political successor to the Druze lords who ruled over Lebanon’s inter-sectarian system for three centuries, 1516-1832, would normally perhaps not have to go to pay a visit to the “home” of a poor village boy from an insignificant village in South Lebanon, which is what Nasrallah’s family lineage is.
But in terms of that decidedly modern phenomenon, political parties, Nasrallah’s wins hands down over Jumblatt’s rather sad “Progressive Socialist Party”. In fact, Hizbullah is described by many Lebanese analysts as the only– as well as by far the largest– truly “political” and clearly ideological (rather than quasi-feudal) party on the scene in Lebanon today.
(The Falangists once laid claim to that honor. But first, the party came close to becoming a familial fiefdom for the Gemayyel family; and then, under Karim Pakradouni, it sold its soul to the Syrians. Sic tempora, sic mores.)
So with Walid going to visit Sayed Hassan today, a number of things were happening. He certainly was paying a great deal of respect, if not exactly “homage”, to his host. (Though we can’t rule out the claimed “security” rationale, either. After all, Sayed Hassan has been on the Israelis’ hit list ever since he became party head in 1992; and Jumblatt’s place in Clemenceau is certainly far less secure for him than the Hizbullah-secured areas of the Dahiyeh.) But Jumblatt also noted that Sayed Hassan had “expressed his readiness” to make the trek up to Clemenceau instead. So everyone’s face got saved, and everyone ended up looking extremely gracious.
Those kinds of diplomatic skills– as shown by these two Lebanese patriots as well as by the “other Nasrallah”, i.e. the Maronite Patriarch– are exactly what Lebanon needs if it is to be steered safely through the shoals that currently beset it…
Meanwhile, a few final thoughts from me on the April 13 “Unity Run”:
(1) Yes, I’d love to go and run in it!
(2) I think the Daily Star’s reporter and editors might be wiser not to call it a “fun” run? Somehow, while the idea of the run is good, I don’t think “fun” strikes quite the right note for the war-remembrance occasion…
(3) Wouldn’t it be interesting if Hizbullah turn their people out in huge numbers to run it? (And that could be their women, as well as their men… Beirut’s observant-Muslim runners have already started displaying a very suitable and modest line of “Islamic women’s running gear”, as I blogged about when I was there last fall.)