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Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 June 2000 Issue No. 485 
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Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Al-Ahram Weekly 8 - 14 June 2000 Issue No. 485
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| Published in Cairo by AL-AHRAM established in 1875 |
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Egypt Region International Economy Opinion Culture Features Travel Living Sports Profile People Time Out Chronicles Cartoons The greater Jihad
By Graham UsherIn the southern port of Sidon a vast red and gold banner is slung over a busy intersection. "The Islamic Resistance + Victory = Freedom," it reads. In Lebanon, "Islamic Resistance" is of course code for the Lebanese Shi'ite movement, Hizbullah. "Victory" refers to the retreat from south Lebanon it above all others forced on the Israeli army after nearly 20 years of sustained warfare. And "freedom" will have meanings as multiple as the contending political and confessional forces that make up Lebanese society.
The presence of such a tribute in this place at this time is redolent of the new reality in Lebanon caused by Israel's flight and of the pre-eminent niche Hizbullah has carved for itself within it. For Sidon is a mainly Sunni Muslim rather than Shi'ite town. Nor has it ever been a political stronghold for the Islamic resistance as compared with the south, the Bekaa or Beirut's sprawling southern suburbs.
Yet -- as in just about every other nook and cranny in southern Lebanon -- the banner in Sidon shows just how far Hizbullah has become equated with "victory" and how both have been adopted "as a triumph for Lebanon as a whole," says Lebanese political analyst, Nizar Hamzeh. The task now is whether the "resistance" can "meet the challenge of 'peace' as effectively as it met the challenge of war."
And whether Lebanon can meet the challenge of Hizbullah, says Lebanese writer and avowed secularist, Elias Khoury. By virtue of its victory, the Islamic Resistance has become "part of the Lebanese national consensus," he says. Unlike the action of the earlier PLO fighters -- whose conduct of armed struggle ended up losing whatever friends the Palestinians had in Lebanon -- "Hizbullah changed the practice of the resistance."
For the best part of the last decade Hizbullah fighters waged an almost textbook guerrilla war against the Israeli occupation and those Lebanese in its pay, the South Lebanon Army. And it did so overwhelmingly in and for Lebanon. When it did strike within Israel, this was in reprisal for Israeli and SLA attacks on Lebanese civilians. For Khoury, such tactics "earned Hizbullah the respect of the people because it quietly accepted the diversity of opinion in Lebanon about the extent of the resistance" -- above all, the understanding that the struggle was about freeing Lebanon's borders rather than those of other occupied Arab lands beyond them.
The respect has continued in the aftermath of the liberation. Despite the weight of its fighters and guns in the south, Hizbullah has conducted its triumph with a scrupulous attention to detail. They have demanded "justice not revenge" for their former SLA adversaries. But they have not tried to weigh the scales of what that justice should be. "It is not our job to determine the SLA's fate," says Hizbullah's Head of Political Council, Mohamed Raad. "It's the job of the Lebanese judiciary."
As hundreds of Lebanese flock to the area near the border between Lebanon and Israel, a south Lebanese boy facing toward an Israeli army outpost gives the sign for victory
(photo: AP)In the Christian villages in south Lebanon -- including those that were the labour pools of Israel and the SLA -- Hizbullah have been cautious in the extreme not to parade themselves as "victors." Where they have a presence -- usually in the form of festooned "tourist" buses allowing all of Lebanon to witness first hand the liberation -- it is unarmed. Where there is contact, it is between Muslim and Christian clerics and in the name of "the victory for all sects," not the rectitude of one.
Even at the border with Israel -- whose most explosive points Hizbullah activists now secure -- the instructions are clear: avoid major confrontations with the Israeli army and prevent anyone with arms getting too close to the fence. The only latitude occasionally given is for Lebanese youths to vent their anger by throwing rocks at the despised Israeli army watchtowers.
Does this mean the armed struggle is over? Not at all, says Raad. "Hizbullah's right to resist will be preserved, but on condition that it serves the interests of the Lebanese people and government." And will it be exercised to recover the disputed areas of the Shebaa Farms, 25 square kilometres of land the government claims is Lebanese but the UN (and Israel) insists is Syrian and so outside the remit of Israel's withdrawal as governed by UN Resolution 425? "If there is a dispute between the Lebanese government and the UN, Hizbullah will comply with the government's decision on Shebaa," says Raad. "But we are not going to act carelessly. We will resist any occupation of Lebanese land, but in the right way and at the right time."
For Hamzeh -- who specialises in the study of Lebanese Islamism -- such caution in word and deed anticipates a shift in Hizbullah's activities from the military to the political, but not immediately. As long as the dispute with the UN simmers, Syria especially will want Hizbullah somewhere near the border, if only as a leverage for its track of negotiations with Israel. "Hizbullah never created a balance of power with Israel in south Lebanon, since Israel could destroy Lebanon's infrastructure and hit Syrian troops in Lebanon any time it chose," he says. " But it did create a balance of deterrence. For all Israel's military might it knows it could never prevent a Hizbullah missile from reaching Haifa. One should not underestimate the psychological impact of this on Israel."
If and when the dispute with the UN is resolved -- and the Lebanese army deploys on the border -- "the resistance will be over," says Hamzeh. And the challenge then will be for Hizbullah to wean itself off the "smaller Jihad" of the fight against the Israeli enemy to the "greater Jihad" for the soul of the Lebanese people. In the short term, this is likely to mean Hizbullah translating the kudos it has gained from the resistance into increased representation and power in Lebanese parliament and perhaps executive. In the longer term, the aim is to extend the movement's base beyond the Shi'ites too make good on the claim that Hizbullah's was a "national resistance" rather than simply the military actions of a confessional party. Hamzeh is unsure whether Hizbullah can pull this off, given the sectarian realities of Lebanon. But he is pretty sure they will try. "Hizbullah has already demonstrated through its social and political programmes that it can offer alternatives to the armed struggle," he says.
Hizbullah's resistance certainly offers an alternative to the various snarled tracks that presently pass for the Arab-Israeli "peace process." And it may well be that the ultimate impact of the resistance will be felt less within Lebanon than in the trail Hizbullah has lit there. It is the threat of a good example Israel would do well to digest, says Khoury. "If peace does not result from the negotiations, the resistance need not erupt on the Lebanese border. It can start in Gaza, the West Bank, the Golan Heights, even along the Jordanian border. On all fronts -- if the 'strategic choice' of peace fails -- the Hizbullah model will become the model for the region."
