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| Volume XII, Fall 2005, Number 3 |
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BOOK REVIEW
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Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism,, by Judith Palmer Harik. IB Tauris, 2004, xii 241 pp., 2 maps. $24.95, hardcover.
Robert Brenton Betts
Professor, University of Balamand, Al-Kura, Lebanon
This is the third book by a woman author in recent years on the phenomenon of “The Party of
God,” and the first by an American of non-Arab descent. Judith Palmer Harik, who is married to a
Christian Lebanese (Antun Harik), is a long-time resident of the Middle East and professor of
political science at the American University of Beirut. My past familiarity with Dr. Harik’s academic
achievement has come through her articles on the Lebanese Druze, but it is clear that she has
devoted a great deal of time and effort to following the political development of Hezbollah, a grass-
roots movement among the Shia Muslims of Lebanon that began after the disappearance and
presumed murder of Imam Musa al-Sadr in Libya in 1978.
Ironically, it was the Israelis who were responsible for the ensuing “Shiite political mobilization”
(p. 21), the direct result of their invasion and continued devastation of South Lebanon in and
after 1982. The majority Shia population had until that time been politically neutralized by the
unpopular military presence and activity of PLO forces in their region. The poorest of Lebanon’s
sectarian communities, the Shia were adopted by both Syria (controlled by the heterodox Alawite
clique of Hafiz al-Asad, which was recognized by Imam al-Sadr as brother Shia shortly before his
disappearance) and the Shiite Islamic Republic of Iran. They were effective proxies in the struggle
against the Zionist occupation of most of Palestine after 1948, the West Bank and Golan region of
Syria after 1967, and finally the so-called “Security Zone” of South Lebanon from 1982 to 2000. So
effective were the Hezbollah fighters in resisting the latter occupation by Israel and its SLA allies
that the area was returned to Lebanese political control in 2000, but not to its armed forces, for
complex reasons that are still being played out.
Harik’s study differs from previous efforts to analyze the mechanics and motiviation behind
Hezbollah’s ability to emerge as a force in the region to be reckoned with, “by dealing in depth with
its strategic and foreign-policy thrust and focusing on the interrelationship, dynamics and
manifestations of the terrorist/resistance controversy” (p. 4). The challenge that she set for herself
was far from easy, and she has accomplished it with considerable success. She possesses extensive
knowledge of the region, has contacts at the highest level in Hezbollah and other Lebanese
political networks, and is able to put two and two together and come up with four – unlike the so-
called “experts” made up of neocon amateurs in Washington.
The book is divided into thirteen concise chapters, the last entitled “Conclusions and Implications,”
which takes the reader only up to a year after September 11, 2001, even though the book’s
publication date is 2004. A great deal has happened in Lebanon in the two years since her book
ends. It would have been particularly interesting to have her insight into the current growing
opposition to the Syrian occupation that was imposed more or less in perpetuity by the Taif
Accords of 1989, which brought formerly bitter civil-war rivals into a previously inconceivable
political embrace in support of UN Resolution 1559. The assassination of former Prime Minister
Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005, strengthened the opposition even further, somewhat to
Hezbollah’s discomfort.
Nevertheless, the book is extremely valuable for the depth of information that it provides on
the transformation of the party from a “radical, clandestine militia” violently opposed to foreign and
especially U.S. and Israeli intervention in Lebanon, to a highly sophisticated, “moderate, mainstream
political party with a resistance wing” (p. 2). It has formed the largest single bloc of seats in
the Lebanese Parliament from 1992 (12) to the present (9) and maintains highly effective, extensive
and popular social and economic outreach programs to the poorest members of Lebanese society
(pp. 82-99).
Hezbollah, however, does not represent all the Lebanese Shia Muslims. Its strongest base is
not in the area of South Lebanon that its forces liberated from Israeli occupation, but in the
northern Bekaa Valley around historic Baalbek and among the thousands of emigrants from that
economically depressed region who now live in the sprawling slums of Beirut’s southern suburban
district of Al-Dahiyeh. The principal force of the Shia in Lebanon’s south is still the Amal movement,
founded by Imam al-Sadr and led by the speaker of the Lebanese parliament, Nabih Birri.
Hezbollah candidates in the 2001 parliamentary elections did run embarrassingly well (from the
Amal perspective), however, riding high in Lebanese public esteem following the Israeli pullout (p.
150). In the recent Lebanese parliamentary elections in May and June 2005, generally recognized as
being free of Syrian influence and intervention, Hezbollah and Amal emerged as the largest pro-
Syrian bloc in a parliament where 72 of the 128 delegates are from the various anti-Syrian opposition
parties.
Part of Hezbollah’s domestic policy has been to reach out to Lebanon’s large Christian
population, which might otherwise have been wary of its openly Islamic agenda. One way of doing
this was to have its candidates stand with Christians on the same electoral ticket in mixed confessional
districts in order to “attract Christian votes as well as Shiite ones,” thereby allowing
“Hezbollah to win seats in parliament while garnering specific Christian support for the resistance
— both vital parts of the push to undermine the terrorist image” (p. 75). In another effort to gain
Christian support following the Israeli withdrawal from the South, the Hezbollah forces that
replaced the fleeing SLA militia — whose leadership was largely Christian, though the rank and file
included many Shia and even a few Druze mercenaries — made it clear that there would be no
reprisals against Christian villagers in the largely Shia region, announcing “that they considered
the civilian population as having been held hostage to a few misguided individuals and in no way
to blame for the Israeli occupation” (p. 136). Such examples of local political diplomacy, however, do
not in any way alter the basic Islamic religious nature of the movement or the determination to use
its military arm to assist Palestinians in removing what they view as the Israeli usurper from
occupied Muslim lands, including Jerusalem. The dramatic color photo on the book’s cover, taken
in 1996 and showing uniformed Hezbollah soldiers marching through a street in Beirut over an
American flag painted on the pavement, dramatically attests to the party’s military resolve.
The Party of God recognizes that its stated goal of a government based on Islamic law is out of
the question in Lebanon with its large Christian population and the equally large numbers of
secular Druze, Sunni and even Shia Muslims who oppose it. According to Harik, the Hezbollah
leaderership ruled out the possible offer of a cabinet position after the 2001 elections, resisting the
temptation to thumb its nose at the United States, because it “did not have the means to achieve its
policies [and] preferred not to seek any part in the government” (p.149).
The insistance by the United States and Israel that Hezbollah is a terrorist organization, a
charge Europe’s leaders have consisently rejected, is given serious consideration by the author.
She was present in Beirut at the time of the bombing of the U.S. embassy and the Marine barracks
at the airport in August 1982 and the subsequent kidnappings of Americans, and always traveled
with a bodyguard (a Shia, wisely) during those troubled times. She is careful to point out, however,
that “it has never been established by any party directly involved (including the UN contingent on
the ground) that the Party of God has perpetrated a single terrorist attack against Israeli civilians”
(p. 2). Unlike Palestinian resistance groups, it has always been very careful to confine its attacks to
Israeli military targets alone. The handful of Americans taken hostage in Beirut in the 1980s were all
suspected of having official U.S. connections, and those five who were killed included a U.S. army
officer and the Beirut CIA station chief. One of the most wanted men on the U.S. terrorist list, Imad
Mugniyeh, the alleged killer of the U.S. Navy diver on the highjacked TWA flight from Cairo in
August 1985, has been labelled by the United States as a Hezbollah operative, but, according to
Harik, “no party has substantiated the link between Mugniyeh and Hezbollah to this day” (p. 193).
In contrast, the CIA in one of its many suspected attempts to assassinate Hezbollah leadership,
managed to kill 83 Lebanese civilians while trying to assassinate its top spiritual leader, Sayyed
Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, in 1983. He emerged from the carnage untouched (p. 37).
The way in which the Party of God has transformed itself into the force it represents today is a
tribute to its organization and clarity of purpose. It has greatly frustrated both the United States
and Israel in their attempt to discredit it. This leads the author to conclude that Hezbollah’s
legitimate claim to be “a resistance movement rather than a terrorist group” has resulted in what
she entitles Chapter 12, “America’s Half-hearted War against Terrorism” (pp. 177-91). As a Lebanese-
Armenian colleague of mine once astutely observed, the Israelis have tried to treat Hezbollah
as though they were dealing with the so-called “Arab mind” they claim to understand, when they
are up against something much older and more sophisticated – the Persian mind. This entity has
been quite capable of intercepting (and wiping out) an elite group of naval commandos intent on
assassinating Hezbollah leaders near Sidon in 1997 and successfully setting off a roadside bomb
that killed Brigadier General Eretz Gerstein, the top Israeli military liaison officer in South Lebanon,
in February 2000. Asked how such successful operations were achieved, “a Hezbollah spokesman
said off-handedly, ‘We just penetrated Israeli intelligence, that’s all” (p. 130). In the recent Lebanese
parliamentary elections in May and June of 2005, generally recognized as being free of Syrian
influence and intervention, Hezbollah and Amal emerged as the largest pro-Syrian bloc in a
parliament where 72 of the 128 delegates are from the various anti-Syrian opposition parties.
As a political and religious force in Lebanon, Hezbollah is not going to disappear any time
soon, something the Lebanese know very well and the United States and Israel need to recognize.
Dr. Harik has given us an excellent analysis of its strengths and prospects. No one can see the
future, but if I had to trust anyone to tell me what was in the immediate future for the Party of God
and its relations with the powers in the region, it would be Judith Palmer Harik.
That said, there are a few errors that should be noted, particularly as they refer to the Lebanese
political scene. The Maronites were not “in the majority” according to the census of 1932 (p. 17),
but a plurality of not even 29 percent. The seats in parliament were not determined (from 19441989)
on a “50-50” ratio between Muslims and Christians” (also p. 17), but on a ratio of six Christians
to five Muslims. Thus, in a parliament of 99 deputies, there would be 54 Christians and 45
Muslims and Druze. The Taif Accords intoduced a 50-50 ratio (64 seats for each in a Parliament of
128 members), but this was not “a change in the ratio of Muslim-Christian seats in parliament in the
Muslims’ favour” (p. 45), only parity. Moreover, two of the Muslim seats were given to the Alawite
sect, which the Sunnis do not even consider to be Muslim. MP and Minister Bishara Mirhaj is a
Greek Orthodox, not a Syrian Orthodox Christian (p. 150). The Syrian Orthodox are represented by
the one MP from Beirut for “minorities,” who is almost always a Protestant and usually an Armenian.
One of the reasons the Israelis were hesitant to occupy the village of Ghajar on the Lebanese
border in the Golan Heights in 1967 (p. 157) was that its inhabitants were all Alawites, the sect from
which the Asad family stems — an obvious political consideration at the time. Finally, not all
Lebanese Christians are opposed to the Syrian occupation, as the author appears to assert (pp.112113).
It may be largely true of the Maronites, but many Greek Orthodox are historically attached to
the Syrian Nationalist party.
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