The shattered myth of Hezbollah

I have struggled over the past months to come out with a position on Hezbollah’s actions in Syria. I say struggled because I have long held a firm conviction that Hezbollah remains the last active fighting force engaged in direct combat with the illegal State of Israel. As the son of a Palestinian father I clung on to the hope that some day Hezbollah would form the vanguard of an army that would liberate Palestine. How naïve one can be, even while chiding others for their own naïve beliefs. Alas, this is the human condition: selective blindness.

To turn a blind eye to the Hizb’s activities within Syria was easier before the bodies started coming home. The simple villagers give the returning Shaheed a hero’s welcome; it’s almost a celebration, after all their son died defending Shiite holy places. Unfortunately there are no such holy places in Al-Qusayr and Aleppo, unless the Hizb is referring to the regime itself and to its defense and protection as being a sacred duty. That could well be the case. The close alliance between the ‘Party of God’ and the Syrian regime has been unshakable since the darkest days of Lebanese civil war in the mid 1980s.

Both communities, one which spawned Hezbollah in Lebanon and the other that led to the Assad regime in Syria, share a common experience, the experience of being a sect on the fringes of a majority Sunni society. For the Alawites, their opportunity came through their domination over the army in Syria soon after the French left. Up until the Mandate period, Syria’s Alawites had been subjected to Sunni majority rule, that included their steady marginalization over centuries and the issuance of numerous Fatwas in that time that cast doubt over the Alawite sect’s Muslim credentials. The Army in Syria paved the way for Syria’s late President Hafez Al Assad to take control of the country at a crucial historical juncture. In many ways his strict suppression of radicals in 1982 gave the country an extended period of stability unknown in modern Syria. In Lebanon, a Shiite community that had long been looked down upon by the wealthier Sunnis, attained greater prominence during Lebanon’s 1975-90 Civil War. Thus, both communities rose up to greater power and prominence under similar if not identical circumstances. It is little wonder then that they would defend their gains against what they see and what is in many ways a modern extremist Sunni tide.  

But for the Lebanese Hezbollah’s deep involvement in the civil war in Syria represents a threat to internal stability and inter sectarian harmony. Hezbollah’s support of regime forces in Al Qusayr is threatening to plunge Lebanon into a deadly civil war, more bloody and brutal than the last one. The first breach was in Tripoli in the North of Lebanon where Sunni and Alawite communities clashed, as they had countless times before, only this time they used heavier and more deadly weaponry. So far attempts to defuse the situation have failed. There is no denying that Sunni Lebanese are also fighting in Syria alongside Syrian rebels, and there is no doubt they are motivated by similar sectarian passions to those of Shiite Hezbollah fighters in Syria, and that is the tragedy. I had always believed that Hezbollah was better than this; that it could rise up above petty sectarian conflicts; I always looked on this disciplined political and paramilitary force as having an unshakable coolness and calculation about every step and measure it took. Now the mask of coolness and reasonableness has fallen forever.

In strategic terms, Hezbollah's committed and fierce assault against rebel positions in Al-Qusayr alongside regime forces is a fight to control the main access route linking the Capital city Damascus to Syria's Mediterranean coast. Access to the sea is part of a vital supply line for the regime. The coastal areas and cities also constitute the traditional Alawite heartland. Maintaining a link between the administrative center of the regime in Damascus and the coastal areas is of vital importance. If the tragic events in Syria worsen and the country is divided along sectarian lines, the regime would want to retain control of the Alawite heartland and access to it. The battle for Al-Qusayr is therefore a pivotal one for both sides. The rebels want to retain control over Homs and surrounding villages in the event the war settles into a stalemate whereby clearly defined rebel (Sunni) and pro-regime (Alawite and Shiite) areas emerge and evolve into de facto mini States, a sad outcome but in light of the intense sectarian hatred a very plausible outcome.

The Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, said in a televised address tonight that fighting should be limited to Syria that those Lebanese who support the rebels and those who support the regime should fight only in Syria. Presumably when they return to Lebanon their sectarian passions can be moderated and brought under control by their leaderships. Maybe a disciplined force like Hezbollah can control their fighters, but can the other side control their own fighters as effectively? If history teaches us anything it’s that human recklessness, base passions and events on the ground overtake and supersede orders from any political hierarchy. Civil war, and more to the point a deeply sectarian civil war, cannot be controlled and its impact cannot be limited to certain areas. The sectarian civil war in Syria has already spilled over on to Tripoli's streets and this I fear is only the beginning of a protracted and sad episode in our national and regional history.
 

Maybe it is true what they say about the Arabs, maybe we are nothing more than a bunch of angry, foolish, ridiculous people, over wrought and anxious, wrapped up in mysticism and superstition, unable to join the ranks of modern nation States because we are still just quarrelsome tribesmen led by ego and by our own base passions. Hezbollah has shattered any hope I may have had of witnessing the liberation of Palestine in my lifetime.