The participation of Hezbollah in the Lebanese
Government following the withdrawal of the
Syrian troops from Lebanon marked a
qualitative development in the party’s political
trajectory. Despite earlier opportunities and its
undoubted influence on power and on the
political balance in Lebanon, Hezbollah had
abstained many times from participating in
government, because it had always viewed
political authority with some reservations.
Since May 2000, when Israel withdrew from
Southern Lebanon because of the actions of
the resistance, it has been impossible to
constitute a Lebanese government that does
not reflect the impact of the war, nor to define
its political orientations, especially in relation
to the country’s foreign policy and strategic
choices pertaining to the conflict with Israel.
The resistance movement acquired a moral
weight that was reflected in the form of a
parallel authority that fulfils a normative
function. The participation of Hezbollah in the
Government was not in effect a transformation
or a sudden change but rather an evolution;
and its influence on the structure and
orientations of political authority in Lebanon
was not tied to its entry into Government.
Towards Participation in Government
The relationship of Hezbollah to political
authority, although special, raises the
problematic relationship between a religious
movement and non-religious political authority
and indicates the necessary changes that the
Islamic movement needed to undergo to adapt
to its political and social environments.
Prior to its participation in Government,
Hezbollah could be described as an authority
without authority. It was able to play a
decisive role in the area of conflict with Israel
and other strategic choices but, in fields related
to the administration, institutions and civil
functions of Government, Hezbollah had no
noticeable role or influence.
During two decades of resistance, Hezbollah
approached political authority with militant
puritanism, which not only excluded seeking
power but also led it to consider access to
power as contradicting the rationale and
requirements of the resistance. What
compelled Hezbollah to take the dramatic step
of joining the government was the profound
transformations in the Lebanese political
balance after the withdrawal of the Syrian
troops. Syria’s withdrawal left a strategic void
in the State’s administration, altering the
relative size of the various forces, revealing
some of the key choices in State policies and
exposing Lebanon’s vulnerable position in the
regional equation. As regional factors lost
some of their weight in the political equation,
the domestic forces and trends expanded to fill
the political space, according to their size, and
to reposition themselves in a new political
constellation.
In Hezbollah’s view, it was no longer possible
to pursue the resistance project and correct the
State-building process from outside the
structure of power. These goals constituted
two major reasons for entering the
government. Neither was it possible for the
government to enjoy the credibility of wide
popular support with Hezbollah outside. This
would have left a significant constituency – if
not the largest - outside state institutions, with
the likely disturbances and instability that this
could cause in the Power structure and in its
ability to govern.
Lebanon is currently facing a serious political
crisis. Although the current government
includes all major trends and forces in the
country - with the exception of the Free
Patriotic Movement chaired by General
Michel Aoun and some other pro-Syrian
political parties - there are nonetheless deep
divisions within it which have affected its
ability to govern. In an effort to overcome
these divisions, a framework for national
dialogue was established on the margins to
deal with the major issues around which the
Lebanese disagree. This dialogue became, de
facto, the highest centre of power in the
country.
Lebanese politics is divided along two main
lines, each reflecting a different rationale. First
is the so called March 14 coalition (which later
became known as the February 14 block
following the withdrawal of Michel Aoun
from it). This coalition holds Syria responsible
for the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik
Hariri, calls for freedom and independence,
and bases its positions on the international
resolutions concerning Lebanon, and
especially Resolution 1559 that calls for the
disarmament of the Lebanese and non-
Lebanese militias. This coalition also calls for
the dismissal of President Emile Lahoud, the
drawing of borders with Syria, including the
occupied Shebaa farms, the disarming of the
resistance (Hezbollah) and of the Palestinian
organizations based in Lebanon. Second is the
March 8 coalition whose political stance and
demands are based on an integrated vision of
nationalist and pan-Arab concerns. In addition
to requesting the building of institutions based
on balance and participation, it gives priority
to preserving the position of Lebanon in the
equation of the conflict with Israel; hence its
support for maintaining the weapons of the
resistance to liberate those parts of Lebanon
still under occupation (Shebaa and Kfarshuba),
achieving the release of Lebanese detainees in
Israeli prisons, and confronting the threats
from Israel. The coalition sees that any
decision about the weapons of the resistance
should be based on a national defence strategy
agreed by all Lebanese. It also sees no reason
for changing the President of the Republic as
long as there is no agreement on a political
project for the country and on the name of the
substitute President who would be able to
execute this project. As for the Palestinian
weapons, the coalition considers that the issue
should be decided in the framework of
Lebanon’s national interests and the
requirements of the conflict with Israel, and
should be based on a dialogue with the
Palestinians while providing them with all
their civil rights in Lebanon to allow them to
live in dignity. The March 8 coalition insists
on maintaining special relations with Syria and
does not object to drawing the borders with it,
except for the Shebaa farms as long as this
territory is under Israeli occupation; nor does it
object to opening diplomatic representations
between Lebanon and Syria once mutual trust
and normal relations between the two
countries are established.
The difference between the two coalitions also
extends to regional and international alliances.
While the February 14 block is characterized
by good relations with the American –Western
axis, the March 8 block gives priority to
relations with the Syrian-Iranian axis and
insists on the need to involve the Arabs in
resolving the Lebanese political crisis. It is
therefore clear that the central division
between the two groups is about foreign
policy, first and foremost about the strategy
towards Israel as well as alignments and
alliances within the regional environment. This
main cleavage naturally influences positions
over internal and domestic issues, but these
divisions remain less serious than those over
external issues.
Within this complex and divided political
map, the Hezbollah constitutes the heart of the
March 8 coalition and is treated by local and
international forces as its focal point.
Hezbollah’s ideas and behaviour in relation to
the crisis over the past year, as well as its
vision of power constitute an important
example of an Islamic movement that practices
both political action in a plural environment
and armed militancy against occupation. Let
us start with Hezbollah’s electoral policy
during the parliamentary elections held
immediately after the Syrian withdrawal, when
the movement was able to break the prevailing
political alignments on several key and
interconnected issues: the position vis-à-vis
Syria, the accusation against Syria for its
alleged involvement in the assassination of
Prime Minister Hariri, the suggested
establishment of an international criminal
court for Lebanon and the position vis-à-vis
UN Security Council Resolution 1559.
The new electoral understanding was called
the ‘quartet understanding’, comprising the
Hezbollah and the Amal Movements on one
hand, the Movement of the Future led by
Saadeddine Hariri and the Progressive
Socialist Party led by Walid Joumblat on the
other. It was a very unusual alignment
compared to the positioning of the various
political forces in the context of the
withdrawal of the Syrian troops, yet it paved
the way for the formation of the current
government with its various components. The
compromise that led to the ‘quartet
understanding’, and ultimately the constitution
of the Government, was based on the
preservation of national unity, the rebuilding
of the State and the protection of the
resistance. The potentially divisive elements
within UN resolution 1559 were left to the
national internal dialogue to address.
This settlement survived deep internal
contradictions for almost seven months before
it ran into serious trouble following the violent
exchange of accusations in the media and
divergences in positions on the weapons of the
resistance, the Syrian-Lebanese relationship
and the fate of the Presidency. These new
tensions hindered the Government’s
performance and stability but did not lead to
its breakdown. Instead, the aforementioned
national dialogue was created.
Hezbollah’s attitude towards its political
adversaries was reflected once again in the
political understanding reached with the Free
Patriotic Movement headed by General Aoun.
A memorandum of understanding was drafted.
It reflected the movement’s attachment to
dialogue, its willingness to conclude pragmatic
settlements on the basis of political balances,
and its concern for political stability. The
document constituted a qualitative change in
the nature of the existing political coalitions:
the two parties represent arguably the two
most popular movements in Lebanon, from the
Muslim community and from the Christian
community respectively, with very different
political backgrounds and histories. They
succeeded nevertheless in reaching a joint
political understanding based on mutual
concessions and built consensual approaches
to thorny political issues. The memorandum
takes a comprehensive view and covers a
broad set of issues but its most important pillar
is the Free Patriotic Movement’s agreement
that the resistance should retain its weapons
until liberation is completed and the Lebanese
detainees in Israeli prisons are free. For its
part, the Hezbollah agreed to exchange
embassies with Syria and to draw the borders
provided confidence-building measures are
also taken.
The memorandum of understanding created a
new political and social atmosphere in the
country. It re-shuffled the internal game and
shifted political divisions away from the
traditionally vertical (inter-sectarian) lines
towards a horizontal (intra-sectarian) direction.
While the Shia community was united, the
agreement revealed deep rifts within the
Maronite community. Most importantly, the
agreement seems to have ended the old
Muslim-Christian cleavage in Lebanon, which
has been shown to be the most threatening for
stability and civil peace.
Another key feature of Hezbollah’s behaviour
and political thinking as reflected by the
memorandum is its assertion of the consensual
nature of the Lebanese political system. The
consensus rule became Hezbollah’s motto,
especially since the government crisis erupted
following a majority vote on a number of key
issues and in face of what the party saw as an
attempt by the majority side to monopolize the
decision-making process. Hezbollah’s
insistence that Lebanon’s political system is a
democratic consensual one based on the rule
of ‘con-sociationism’ as stipulated by the
Preamble of the Lebanese Constitution cannot
be understood merely as a political response to
a particular moment of deep divisions. It
reflects a deep transformation in Hezbollah’s
understanding of the requirements of the
Lebanese political system as well as its
appreciation that internal stability is central to
every national project if it is to succeed in its
pan-Arab and Islamic dimensions.
Hezbollah’s adherence to the consensusbuilding
principle departs from the traditional
revolutionary logic that sees in conflict a way
to achieve progress, and promotes the idea of
complementarity as a way forward. While it
acknowledges that politics is an ongoing
process of conflict and complementarity, it
sees that the majority rule creates an unstable
balance of power and is inadequate in the long
run to protect the interests of all. The
movement seeks therefore to invest its strength
and capacities to promote balance rather than
to achieve domination in the Lebanese
structure.
Behind the positions: visions and ideas
Hezbollah’s response to the political crisis and
its decision to participate in the Government
reflect the complex interaction between its
original intellectual structure as a
revolutionary movement and its subsequent
transformation imposed on it by the
complexities and challenges of reality. The
movement is currently facing a number of
challenges and a lively debate that have
become more visible as the Lebanese divisions
have increased. Diverse sensitivities and
histories of the political coalitions exacerbate
these differences. Some are seen as lying at the
core of the political debate, others as reflecting
underlying theoretical, intellectual and
political differences of view over issues such
as the relationship between the nature of a
resistance movement and the functioning of a
State with its institutions and its logic. The
other problematic issue concerns the religious
political parties in terms of their capacity to
reconcile their national, i.e. Lebanese identity
with their pan-Islamic identity, and the
obligations that this imposes - by virtue of
belonging to both a nation and a religion - visà-
vis the nation and the wider context, in
particular the Palestinian cause, the conflict
with Israel and the role of the US in the Arab
and Islamic world.
These and many other problematic issues are
linked to each other, and require
comprehensive and coherent answers at the
theoretical level to explain the relationship
between a religiously ideological party and a
plural socio-political environment. Even if the
Hezbollah has attempted to resolve this
relationship through praxis, it is still important
to formulate it theoretically at the level of its
political thinking. By capturing the concepts
and positions with which Hezbollah
approaches the Lebanese reality and
organizing them into a coherent theoretical
framework, we will be able to understand the
foundations of Hezbollah’s political thinking
and compare it with that of other
contemporary Islamic movements and how
they relate to internal and external challenges.
This system of thought can be described as a
new Arab political rationalism. By this we
mean a new rationale that combines
methodology and goals in a new framework
for the formulation of ideas and programs.
This political rationalism situates itself
between the “political agenda” and the
“political mind”. Political agendas are most
often fluid, versatile and contingent, while the
political mind is more stable and durable,
because it is grounded in history and is often
constituted through complex processes arising
from different epochs. While rooted in
tradition, it continues to evolve in response to
the present reality. Therefore, the “rupture” or
the transformation in the “political mind”- that
some Arab thinkers call for to rid it of the
burden of tradition is a thorny issue that may
not be as easily feasible as some suggest.
What is the new political rationalism?
The “political rationalism” we call for is a
reference framework for thinking that is based
on purely strategic choices and can be
translated into a set of thoughts, convictions
and positions. It is based on two pillars:
internal stability and societal development.
Stability is a basic condition for a sound and
capable society. Internal conflicts often
impede the growth and development capacities
when they encroach on the space of civil peace
and challenge the bounds that are set in
institutions and laws. Stability is also a
necessary condition for a society to face
external challenges. Therefore, stability is
necessary for internal development and for
facing external challenges. The democratic
peaceful struggle is the natural mechanism for
regulating differences and divisions between
the government and the opposition and
between the different political or confessional
groups, in order to reach stability.
As for societal development, it requires a set
of political, economic and social conditions,
first among those is a consensus between the
authorities and society because society, in all
cases, must be allowed to make full use of its
potential. An oppressed society either
withdraws from public affairs leaving those to
government in the case of indifference, or
heads towards explosion. This suggests the
need to distinguish between the problematic
issues raised by societal development in
Lebanon, a country that enjoys its own special
democracy, and the problematic issues raised
in other Arab arenas which are usually nondemocratic.
In Lebanon, sectarianism overrides the debate
over democracy and is eating up the benefits
of democracy.
Examining societal
development raises the problematic
relationship between the State and society and,
within it, the problematic relationship between
the State and the Resistance. The participation
of Hezbollah in the government and in the
administration of public affairs reflects a
reconsideration of its political thinking
regarding the State; namely that it is no longer
possible to ensure stability and protect society
with a weak State, exhausted institutions and
inconsistent political choices. But while
Hezbollah’s participation in government is a
mark of its reconciliation with the State, it
does not necessarily signify reconciliation with
the current political authority. This can occur
only after a process leading to the rebuilding
of the State as a state for all its citizens, a State
which reflects the convictions of all the
Lebanese and is an open space for promoting
their different ambitions and beliefs.
Hezbollah tends to define the State as a
concretization of public will. This definition
transcends the structural aspects of the State,
and stresses the importance of the society itself
in State building. The State is more than a
bureaucratic body, it is about functions, and
society must help the State accomplish its
functions. The State is, at the same time, a
land, a people and a set of institutions. The
society is part of the State and it has to support
it until it is able to carry out those functions
independently. It is clear that this societal
approach is different from the one that
considers the State a superior and isolated
body. In its true image, the State is only a
result of the development of society itself.
Both society and the State must be integrated
in one equation. Therefore, it is not possible to
concentrate on protecting the State when
society is exposed. This approach can help
shift the debate on the state-resistance issue to
where it should be, that is, where the
theoretical meets the political.
The Lebanese did well when they invited each
other to a dialogue as a framework for dealing
with their divisions. Consensus is essential to
end the illusion that political stability or
societal development can be achieved through
the rule of predominance. While some
Lebanese remain attached to the weapons of
the resistance, others have reservations, for
various reasons, and propose different
formulas and time frames for disarming the
resistance. On this issue, retaining the status
quo carries the risks of division, while
consensus means the search for settlements
that will bring the debate from an examination
of the fate of weapons to a discussions about
common concerns and reciprocal guarantees:
how do the various Lebanese groups define
reciprocal guarantees towards each other so
that the resistance strategy can be reconciled
with the State’s strategy? And how do they
address their concerns in order for the
weapons to keep their defensive functions for
Lebanon as a whole and not threaten the
internal balances or depend on sectarian
priorities at the expense of the Lebanese
national priorities? How can national security
be preserved to prevent the Lebanese from
being exposed to the Israeli exploitation that
has lasted decades? How can the meaning of
sovereignty be extended to include liberation
from occupation and freedom from the
influence of external equations or international
hegemony? In reality, the national dialogue or
bilateral dialogues have not gone far enough to
find answers to these questions, but these are
being tackled.
The Secretary General of Hezbollah Sheikh
Hasan Nasrallah has indicated on many
occasions, including in the national dialogue
sessions, that the resistance movement will not
be using any weapons outside the scope of the
liberation of the occupied Lebanese territories
and the defence of Lebanon against the Israeli
challenges and aggressions. Hezbollah does
not hide its inclination to Islamic and Arab
causes, neither does it hide its regional
alliances. At the heart of its ethos lies the
struggle against Israel in which the Palestinian
cause is the main issue. Therefore, for over
two decades its political discourse has
contained positions related to the Palestinian
cause. But its positions and discourse reflect a
constant effort aimed at reconciling its
political ideology, based on the concept of one
Umma (one Islamic nation) with common
concerns, interests and fate on one hand, and
on the other hand, its agenda as a Lebanese
national liberation movement and a key
component of the political power system in
Lebanon, with all the complexities and the
national specificities that come with this role.
There can be two alternative visions in
defining the practical relationship between
Hezbollah’s domestic and regional roles, or
more precisely, between its Lebanese function
of resistance and its regional function.
1- The vision of inter-related roles which
calls for a regional mission for the
resistance to play a direct supportive
role in any dramatic development that
might be caused by an aggression on
any of the resistance forces (e.g.
Hamas).
2- The vision of inter-related balances
which sees that the success of the
resistance movement in its domestic
role - and the principle applies to any
other regional movement that succeeds
within its national framework -
constitutes in itself a contribution to the
overall objectives of the resistance
because the regional balances are all
inter-related.
Within this latter vision, the supposed
contradiction between the domestic and
regional roles of the resistance movement that
usually raises many sensitivities and
complexities, no longer exists. The
contribution to the consolidation of the
regional equation from this angle becomes an
automatic result of the achievements of the
resistance movement in its domestic national
role. This means that the Lebanese national
interests are the essential criterion for the
behaviour of the resistance movement. Its
contribution to the regional struggle - and not
the pursuit of any hidden agenda- thus
becomes an automatic result of its successes at
the national level. Sheikh Hasan Nasrallah’s
position includes very clearly a commitment to
the second vision, namely that the practical
behaviour of the resistance movement comes
within the rationale of inter-related balances
and not that of inter-related roles.
In the Aftermath of the Israeli War
It would be naïve to believe that Israel’s
offensive on 12 July 2006 was motivated by
Hezbollah’s kidnapping of two of its soldiers.
In a nutshell, the advent of a new Middle East
as spelled out by the United States is a
strategic objective that requires first a radical
change of the Lebanese political equation and
might end with a military attack against Iran.
The strikes against Hezbollah and attempts to
dismantle it using the same methods of
destruction and terrorizing that the US tried in
Iraq, was based on the assumption that the
attack would trigger a series of desired
consequences in a domino-like process. The
total failure of this strategy in Iraq is flagrant,
and the same failure has just been experienced
again in Lebanon.
From Hezbollah’s perspective, the kidnapping
of the two Israeli soldiers had a limited
objective: it sought to engage in a process of
exchange of the two soldiers against Lebanese
prisoners held in Israeli jails. There was no
intention to escalate or expand the
confrontation.
The confrontation is already yielding farreaching
consequences. Hezbollah’s influence
has grown to become a symbol of resistance
and awakening in the Arab and Islamic worlds.
While there was little ambiguity in Arab
governments’ positions throughout the crisis
and a deepening rift between regimes and
public opinion, resistance as an alternative
option to negotiations or stagnation, has
gained credibility because it now rests on a
concrete experience.
The post-July 12 context is radically different
from the previous situation. Hezbollah is
clearly facing new challenges at different
levels as a result of its victory over Israel: the
Lebanese domestic situation which has grown
more complex and is now constrained by an
international consensus embodied in UN
resolution 1701; and the Arab regional scene
where Hezbollah finds itself in a de facto
leadership role for Arab public opinions from
different intellectual and political
backgrounds. These developments however
have not changed Hezbollah’s agenda which
remains a specifically Lebanese agenda
whether for resistance or for reform purposes.