Islamic Movement
The origins and birth of the Hizbullah and the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon
By Khalil Osman
[Crescent International, September 1-15, 2000.]
Israel’s ignominious expulsion from south Lebanon under the unrelenting and determined attacks of the Islamic Resistance has focused attention on the Lebanese Hizbullah that spearheaded this intrepid and successful resistance movement. So, who or what is Hizbullah? What is the reality of the West’s bete noir, the architects of the West’s defeat in Lebanon? To understand Hizbullah and its remarkable achievements is to unravel the complexities of an evolving Islamic movement that helped infuse a sense of mission into the hearts and minds of many, not least a major segment of the Lebanese people. The task of constructing a clear historical picture of Hizbullah takes one from a fluid coalition of activist individuals and small groups, full of Islamic revolutionary zeal and a profound determination to reverse the shock of the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon; to a mature, dynamic, broad and multifaceted political organization, displaying outstanding political acumen, astute organizational and mobilizational competence, shrewd coalition-building and, most importantly, incisive strategic and tactical skills.
The origins of Hizbullah date back to the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982. During the early days of the invasion, the country’s then-president, Ilyas Sarkis, set up a six-man National Salvation Committee, ostensibly to deal with the effects of the Israeli invasion and work towards national reconciliation. The decision of Amal’s president Nabih Berri to attend the meetings of the Committee, alongside the pro-zionist Phalangist military commander Bashir Jumayyil, was met with a flood of protest from the movement’s rank and file, some of it expressed by a wave of resignations. The Amal dissenters also looked askance at the fact that the Committee held its meetings at the presidential palace in Ba’abda in the occupied zone. Most of the resignations camefrom religious elements and cadres who had been working within Amal in the hope of transforming it into an Islamic movement committed to the establishment of an Islamic state in Lebanon. Among those who resigned were several of Amal’s 25-member Command Council, including Hajj ‘Ali ‘Ammar, Hajj Hussein al-Khalil and the Council’s deputy head Hussein al-Musawi, who split away to form his own group, which he called the Islamic Amal Movement. The defectors also included members of Amal’s politburo, such as Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, now the secretary-general of Hizbullah.
These defectors came together with a range of other activists, led mainly by graduates of the Najaf religious schools in Iraq, who included former students of the late Ayatullah Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr. These represented a broad trend that had emerged in the 1970s, maintaining its separateness from the activities of Sayyid Musa al-Sadr, the founder of Amal. Those who found their place outside al-Sadr’s movement for the most part rejected the "finality" of the Lebanese nation-state to which he had vowed allegiance. Others were affiliated with the Iraqi Da’awa party, some of whom, having joined the party during their educational sojourn in Iraq, were active in the clandestine activities of its Lebanese branch. A number of Lebanese Da’awa activists were also active in the Lebanese Union of Muslim Students (al-Ittihad al-Lubnani lil-Talabah al-Muslimin), which operated under the spiritual patronage of Ayatullah Sayyid Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah.
Another group of radical elements found its organizational expression in the Islamic Action Committees (Lijan al-’Amal al-Islami). The Committees maintained close ties with the Palestinian Fatah movement and Iranian revolutionaries who operated in Lebanon against the Shah’s regime during the 1970s. This group consisted largely of student activists following the revolutionary ideas of Imam Ruhullah Khomeini, but lacked the leadership of a prominent local ‘alim. However, some Committee activists sought guidance from Sayyid Hani Fahs, a junior ‘alim from the southern Lebanese village of Jibshit, who was famous for his eloquent polemical writings against the Lebanese left, his literary criticism, his elegant literary style, and his experimentation with uniquely Islamic literary genres.
Having enjoyed close ties with Islamic Iran, this loose coalition gained guidance, aid and training, as well as importance, from hundreds of Iranian Revolutionary Guards (Pasdaran) who were sent to Lebanon to help resist the occupation. The broad ideological spectrum represented in this coalition makes the success of the efforts to mold it into a cohesive, tightly integrated supra-factional political movement a testimony to superb persuasive and organizational skills.
At first this coalition, which represented the embodiment of a new political awakening for the Lebanese Shi’ah community, went largely unnoticed. Then, late in 1982, the government of Lebanese president Amin Jumayyil arrested a group of Islamic activists, including a number of ‘ulama, accusing them of working to form what were described as "Khomeinist cells" (khalaya Khomayniyyah). This was a sign of the coalition’s growing importance as a cohesive political movement in Lebanon.
Gaining confidence, organizational experience and sizeable numbers (mainly from disaffected members of Amal), the coalition increasingly decided to make a public debut on the Lebanese political arena. The first signs of its existence came through numerous sundry attacks and mass rallies and protests against the occupation. In the fall of 1983, Hizbullah fighters took part in gun battles with contingents of the Lebanese army and their Phalangist allies in the southern suburbs of Beirut. They also engaged US Marines stationed around Beirut Airport as part of a multinational force.
The group officially announced its existence on February 16, 1985, when it released its political programme at a rally held in a husayniyyah in al-Shayyah, a suburb to the south of Beirut, to commemorate the first anniversary of the martyrdom of Shaykh Raghib Harb, the Imam of Jibshit, who had been assassinated by Israeli agents in February 1984. The program characterized Hizbullah as a broad movement ("an Ummah linked to the community of Muslims all over the world") rather than a political party. Most notable among the goals identified in the program were ending the zionist occupation of parts of Lebanon "as a step toward the annihilation of Israel and the liberation of holy Jerusalem from the throes of occupation", and the establishment of an Islamic state.
Subsequent events have proven that Hizbullah’s commitment to the liberation of the south was no mere rhetoric of the kind that had prevailed thoughout the Arab world for decades. Hizbullah quickly came to play a significant role in attacking the Israeli occupiers and their Lebanese collaborators. Of course, Hizbullah, was not the only group active at the time; other groups, including Amal and various leftist groups, were also involved in the resistance. These were organized in the Lebanese National Resistance (al-Muqawamah al-Wataniyyah al-Lubnaniyyah).
But the Hizbullah-led Islamic Resistance (al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah) displayed an unparalleled ability to sustain protracted military and civilian resistance despite the climate of terror and violence inflicted by Israel’s so-called "Iron Fist" policy, while the Lebanese National Resistance, by contrast, withered away. This resistance was dominated by the military skills of hundreds of trained resistance fighters, infiltrated from Beirut and the Beqa’a into the south to carry out attacks. These military operations were backed up by a network of village ‘ulama affiliated with Hizbullah, who made significant contributions to the resistance efforts, both in planning military operations, and in mobilizing mass protest rallies and demonstrations. It was from this basis that the Hizbullah fought for well over a decade, until the victory finally achieved.
[In the next issue, Khalil Osman will discuss the Hizbullah’s strategies in its fight against the zionist occupation of southern Lebanon.]