Middle East Information Resource
Political Entities - Hizballah
Hizballah is a Shi`ite-Muslim political movement and party established in Lebanon. The term Hizballah (the Party of God) is mentioned twice in the Qur`an. Its strongholds are in poor and underdeveloped areas with an overwhelming Shi`ite majority: the Southern Suburb of Beirut; the Beqa` Valley, especially the town of Ba`albek; and South Lebanon.
Hizballah is a loose coalition of Shi`ite radical political groups. They are mostly cleric unions and militant groups that broke away from the more moderate Amal movement. It was founded during the 1982 war in Lebanon, inspired by the Iranian Revolution three years earlier and by the presence of approximately 1,500 Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran), including both soldiers and religious clerics, sent by Iran to the Beqa` valley. Its founders were young Shi`ite clerics, who were adherents followers of Shaykh Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah. Fadlallah was a high-ranking cleric, who is looked to as the movement`s spiritual leader. They were all educated in the Shi`i religious centers of Qom in Iran or al-Najaf in Iraq. They returned to Lebanon to established Shi`i religious colleges there.
Although it purports to be a tightly-knit party, Hizballah lacks formal organization and its various constituent groups exist in their separately. Their cohesion relies upon both on the religious authority of charismatic leaders and on family and clan loyalties. The movement is financed by donations and outside aid, coming mainly from Iran. Hizballah involves itself in social, political, and military matters.
Hizballah has not attempted to gain standing with the Lebanese establishment, but has offered a complete political alternative in the form of an Islamic state in Lebanon based on the Iranian model. Hizballah is a bitter opponent of Amal, the secular Lebanese Shi`ite movement, which has persistently tried to gain recognition from the Lebanese state. The disagreement and the competition between Hizballah and Amal for the support of the Shi`i community, led to violent military clashes between 1988 and 1990. Amal aligned more closely with Syria, which became the dominant force in Lebanon after 1983, and Hizballah found aid and guidance from Iran.
Iran`s overt animosity towards the US and Israel encouraged Hizballah`s hatred. Israeli and American military presence in Lebanon, especially in Shi`i areas, was further provocaton to Hizballah, and starting in 1983, Hizballah carried out attacks against American and Israeli targets using suicide bombers, abductions and airplane hijackings. There were over fifty Western diplomats kidnapped in the 1980`s but Hizballah denied responsibility for some of them. The movement`s radical views and bold tactics appealed to young Shi`i militants, who left Amal and joined Hizballah.
Syria allowed Hizballah to operate quite freely in Lebanon, using it as a proxy in its struggle against the Israeli forces in South Lebanon and against the Western Multinational Force in Beirut. They were responsible for the bombings of the American embassy in Beirut, the US Marine headquarters and the French headquarters in 1983. These attacks did succeed in causing some of the foreign forces to withdraw. However, Hizballah came into conflict with Syria, because Syria wanted to preserve the Lebanese state and Hizballah would have preferred to bring it down. The Lebanese government was an instrument of Syrian hegemony, but it was only an obstacle to Hizballah. Syria did not hesitate oppose Hizballah with military force, despite the alliance between Syria and Iran. In 1987 when Syrian forces moved into West Beirut, they killed twenty-three Hizballah supporters in what was described as a "massacre" by Shaykh Fadlallah.
As the Lebanese Civil War neared an end in the early 1990`s, the Lebanese Government did not disarm Hizballah, as it did all other Lebanese militias. The government adopted the policy that Hizballah was entitled to keep its weapons and use them for "resistance" against the Israeli occupation in the South. At the same time, Hizballah entered the Lebanese political arena as a political party, and in 1992 and 1996 participated in the Lebanese parliamentary elections and sent deputies to the Lebanese parliament.
Since the start of the Middle East peace process in 1991 and negotiations between Israel and Syria, the Hizballah leadership has been concerned over charting a future for the movement in the event that peace comes. Lebanese officials have stated that Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon will lead to the disarmament of Hizballah. Hizballah leaders believe that if they are disarmed it will be the end of Hizballah as an effective organization. However, rather than directly challenge the Lebanese government, Hizballah has begun to act in the name of "the Lebanese Resistance Movement." It was the main force behind the continuous guerrilla war staged against the Israeli Army and its surrogate, the "South Lebanon Army" in South Lebanon. It inflicting heavy casualties upon both forces.
The current secretary-general of Hizballah is Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah (b. 1953). He was elected in 1992 after his predecessor, Shaykh Abbas Mussawi (b. 1952), was killed in an Israeli air attack. Nasrallah is considered relatively moderate compared to the more radical former Secretary-General, Subhi Tufaili (b. 1948). Nasrallah expressed willingness to cease the movement`s military engagement against Israel once it had withdrawn to the international border, but Tufaili maintains that the war against Israel must continue until the liberation of Jerusalem from Israel`s hands.