Oliver Holmes
The Guardian / September 18, 2024
Pager explosions have refocussed spotlight on powerful Islamist movement engaged in tit-for-tat conflict with Israel.
An escalating tit-for-tat conflict between Israeli forces and Hezbollah has brought renewed attention on the battle-hardened militant group, and the role it plays in Lebanon.
The violence has forced tens of thousands of people to flee on both sides and is seen as the most likely avenue for the war in Gaza to explode into an uncontrollable regional conflagration.
Here is a guide to the “Party of God” and its position in – and testy relationship with – the fragile Lebanese state.
What is Hezbollah ?
Hezbollah is a powerful Islamist movement that was founded by Iran during the middle of the Lebanese 1975-90 civil war. It was further shaped by its fight with Israeli forces after their 1982 invasion of Lebanon.
While the US and other western governments deem it a terrorist organisation – and Hezbollah has conducted mass-casualty attacks on civilians – the group’s reach extends far beyond militancy.
The Shia Muslim movement has become a political and social powerhouse in Lebanon, running medical clinics, schools, a regional television network and even a hilltop museum that has been popular with European tourists.
What is Hezbollah’s current position in Lebanon ?
For years, Hezbollah has played an official political role, with ministers in government and lawmakers in parliament. It currently holds the ministry of public works and the ministry of labour, and has often formed coalitions with other political parties, including Christian ones, under power-sharing agreements.
Fractured, sectarian politics means the government in Lebanon has remained weak, politically divided and plagued by corruption. Currently, there is no president due to infighting. The upshot is that even Hezbollah’s domestic adversaries are unable to reel in the group. Lebanon’s caretaker prime minister, Najib Mikati, for example, describes himself as “liberal” and is not part of Hezbollah, but he has little control over what it does.
It is widely accepted that Hezbollah could overpower the national army if it wanted to, although the group appears to have preferred to keep its current status as a powerful player.
How has Hezbollah become so influential ?
Lebanon’s 15-year civil war, which was fought largely along religious and sectarian lines, ended with warring militias laying down their arms. Hezbollah, however, was the exception, keeping its weapons ostensibly to fight the Israeli forces that occupied southern Lebanon at the time.
Hezbollah garnered widespread domestic support for pushing Israel out in 2000, even among Christian, Druze and Sunni Muslim sections of society outside its main Shia base in the south of Lebanon. It later fought a five-week war with Israel in 2006.
Substantial backing from allies in Iran and Syria has also allowed Hezbollah to play an outsized role in the Lebanese state.
How popular is Hezbollah in Lebanon ?
The local support Hezbollah received as the only Lebanese force able to provide a deterrent to Israel’s attacks has been chipped away over the years, most significantly after it helped the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad suppress a pro-democracy uprising with bloody and lethal force.
As Iran’s most powerful proxy force in its region, Hezbollah could have been forced or at least coerced into fighting for Assad, who is a close ally to Tehran and part of its “axis of resistance” against Israel and the US.
However, many Lebanese people saw Hezbollah’s attacks on Syrians as an unjust intervention in a foreign conflict – one that risked drawing their fragile state into more unrest while it was still recovering from the scars of its own civil war, decades after it formally ended.
What is Hezbollah’s relationship with Hamas in Gaza ?
Hezbollah has allowed Hamas to operate in Lebanon and coordinates closely with the group.
However, while they share a common enemy in Israel, they are certainly not strong allies. The Sunni Muslim Hamas is also considered an Iranian proxy force but it operates with independence, notably by initially backing anti-Assad forces during the Syrian civil war, which strained its relationship with Hezbollah.
Oliver Holmes is a Guardian journalist; he was previously Jerusalem correspondent and has reported across the Middle East and Asia
