History of Hezbollah
The two most important positions of the presidency and premiership were given to the Maronites and Sunnis respectively, with the Shia receiving the speakership of the parliament in recognition of their status as the third largest demographic group in the country.
[6] The za'im system was strongly criticized from early on, most notably by the Najaf-educated cleric Muhammad Jawad Mughniyya who wrote newspaper editorials against capitalism, feudalism, and the pro-Western Baghdad Pact in 1956, and demanded justice for peasants from the "wicked politicians and ruling clique".
[13] Although Amal had its genesis in the Movement of the Disinherited (Harakat al-Mahrumin), founded by the charismatic Musa as-Sadr, when Sadr was abducted it turned briefly to the secular leadership of Husayn Husayni in 1979, and since 1980, Nabih Berri.
[14] Under Berri's leadership, Amal alienated many religious Shias by supporting the Syrian-backed presidency of Elias Sarkis and compromising Sadr's struggle for social and political reforms.
[15] This group organized under supervision of Iraqi Ayatollah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (the cousin of Musa), one of the leading clerics in the Shia seminary (hawza) of Najaf in Iraq.
[17][19] According to Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh in "In the Path of Hizbullah", four crisis conditions catalyzed the emergence of Hezbollah:[20] When Lebanon became independent on November 22, 1943, "the Shiites felt that they were the despised stepchildren of a state governed by a Maronite-Sunni alliance.
Shias were politically underrepresented, based on the National Pact of 1943, which vested legislative and executive as well as military positions in rough proportion to the demographic size of the country's eighteen recognized sectarian groupings.
Almost 85 percent lived in the rural region of South Lebanon and in one area of the Beqaa Valley, and subsisted on what they earned, mostly from selling tobacco to the state monopoly or growing vegetables.
Military defeat followed by foreign occupation opens the way for militant movements fostering political organization or employing guerrilla warfare and enjoying widespread grassroots support.
[citation needed] Israel's 1982 invasion and occupation of Lebanon bolstered the fortunes of Hizbullah by "providing a politic-military environment that legitimated the group and gave a rationale for its guerrilla warfare.
[33] Another version states that it was formed by supporters of Sheikh Ragheb Harb, a leader of the resistance killed by Israeli Shin Bet agents in February 1984.
In summer of 1982, around 1,000–2,000[35][36][37] IRGC troops, notably the 27th brigade which distinguished itself in Battle of Khorramshahr and was considered among the best in the Iranian army, and the 58th elite unit, made way into the Beqaa Valley, where they conducted training for thousands of young fighters.
Many politicized Shias also felt victimized by the entry of an American and European multi-national force (MNF) into Beirut in 1982, not only because it was perceived as pro-Israeli, but also because its mission was to support a government beholden to the right-wing Christian Phalange Party (led by then-President Amine Gemayel) and Sunni Beiruti notables (e.g. Prime Minister Shafik Wazzan) and quick to assert its newfound strength by unceremoniously ejecting Shiite squatters from posh neighborhoods of West Beirut near the airport.
The following year, in the face of mounting Hezbollah attacks, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) began redeploying to a thin "security zone" in the south.
[3] Jeffrey Goldberg writes in The New Yorker that during this period Hezbollah quickly became the most successful terrorist organization in modern history, [serving] as a role model for terror groups around the world, ...and virtually invent[ing] the multipronged terror attack when, early on the morning of October 23, 1983, it synchronized the suicide bombings, in Beirut, of the United States Marine barracks and an apartment building housing a contingent of French peacekeepers.
Despite targeting military forces - actually peacekeepers - the bombing is considered an act of terrorism because it was carried out by illegal combatants acting outside of the Combatants Privilege provided by the Third Geneva Convention) According to Robert Pape's Dying to Win,[49] Hezbollah conducted three distinct suicide bombing campaigns against forces it deemed to be occupying Lebanon: In addition to these campaigns, Pape documents six other isolated suicide attacks taken by Hezbollah between 1985 and 1999.
[citation needed] Hezbollah, along with the mainly leftist and secular groups in the Lebanese National Resistance Front, fought a guerilla war against Israel and the South Lebanon Army.
[65] Popular feeling that the shelling of Qana was intentional fuelled Shia radicalism and enhanced support for Hezbollah, as did resentment of large-scale civilian evacuations made necessary (on as little as two hours notice) by the fighting.
[66] In January 2000, Hezbollah assassinated the commander of the South Lebanon Army's Western Brigade, Colonel Aql Hashem, at his home in the security zone.
The UN recognizes the Shebaa farms as part of the Golan Heights, and thus Syrian (and not Lebanese, though both countries deny that) territory occupied by Israel since the 1967 Six-Day War.
[citation needed] Hezbollah's retaliatory anti-aircraft fire, doubling as small caliber artillery, has on some occasions landed within Israel's northern border towns, inciting condemnation from the UN Secretary-General.
[86] On November 7, 2004, Hezbollah responded to what it described as repeated Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace by flying an Iranian-built unmanned drone aircraft over northern Israel.
[87] On October 7, 2000, Hezbollah abducted three Israel Defense Forces soldiers (Adi Avitan, Omer Soued and Binyamin Avraham) from Shebaa Farms[88] and sought to obtain the release of 14 Lebanese prisoners, some of whom had been held since 1978.
[89] For the entire period between the abduction (October 2000) and the end of the negotiations (January 2004), Hezbollah did not provide information about the death of the 3 kidnapped soldiers (Adi Avitan, Beni Avraham and Umar Suad) even though Israel intelligence has suspected them to be already dead.
[100] Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, secretary general of Hezbollah, responded[101] that "It is every freedom loving peoples right and duty against occupation to send arms to Palestinians from any possible place.
"[48] During 2002, 2003 and 2004, the Israeli Security Forces thwarted numerous suicide bombing attacks, some of which Israel claims were planned and funded by Hezbollah and were to have been carried out by Tanzim (Fatah's armed wing) activists.
[citation needed] After Israel's assassination of Hamas spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in March 2004, Hezbollah attacked the IDF along the Blue Line.
In spite of having a foot inside the government, Hezbollah has been frequently at odds with certain members of Fouad Siniora's cabinet and in early 2006 formed an alliance with Michel Aoun and his anti-Syrian Free Patriotic Movement.
The conflict started on 12 July 2006, and continued until a United Nations-brokered ceasefire went into effect in the morning on 14 August 2006, though it formally ended on 8 September 2006 when Israel lifted its naval blockade of Lebanon.
[citation needed] May 2008's crisis saw the worst sectarian fighting since Lebanon's civil war, with over 80 people killed and sections of West Beirut taken over by Hezbollah in a bid to push the Siniora government to give in to its demands.
