Asherman wrote:Set, Do you see Hezbollah as primarily an organization devoted to the social welfare of its constituency, or as an agency devoted to the violent elimination of the State of Israel?
You have a major disconnect going on here, Ash. I did not at any time suggest or state that Hezbollah is an organization devoted to the social welfare of its constituency. I made the remark that
Hamas has long run large and effective social welfare programs, which explains in large measure why they attained the electoral support of a majority of Palestinians. The post you have made is predicated upon an assumption about what i had written which is false.
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As for Hezbollah, i see it as simply another Lebanese militia, and the "last-man-standing" in the Lebanese milita game. If you go back to read carefully what i wrote, i pointed out that Hezbollah has not attracted the support of even the majority of the Lebanese they claim to represent, the Twelver Shi'ites. Perhaps i ought to have stated in bold face and all in caps what was implicit in that. That is that i don't see Hezbollah as representative of any group in the Lebanon.
When the Lebanese civil war began, before Israel became involved, and while the Shah still sat upon the "Peacock Throne," there was only one discrete and intentionally organized militia in the Lebanon, the Christian Maronite militia. But the Maronite Phalangists were seen, justifiably, as a fascist majority intent on dominating all the other Christians of the Lebanon and the Muslims. Local militia groups, organized around villages or city neighborhoods effectively disrupted the shakey status quo through attacks on the Maronite militia. This lead to the civil war, and the then Prime Minister of the Lebanon (forget his name, anyone interested can go look it up) bascially blackmailed Syria to intervene, because Lebanon was the terminus for imports and exports for Syria. Therefore, Syria intervened on behalf of
the Christian, Maronite militia.
Long ago, perhaps in this thread, i provided a break-down of religious confession in the Lebanon, based on information from a site maintained by the Lebanese government, but i'm not going to repeat the exercise. Therefore, very roughly, this is the breakdown: significantly less than 50% of the population are Christian, divided between Maronites, Syriac Christians, Greek Orthodox and all other sects. Among those sects, except for the Greek Orthodox, of course, they are divided between "Catholics" and "Orthodox" depending upon whether they recognize the spiritual supremacy of the Pope or the Patriarch. They don't get along, and the Maronites are nobody's pals, especially because of the Phalange. Of the remaining considerably more than 50%, betwen 5% and 10% are Sunni Muslims, roughly 5% are Druze (whom neither Sunnis nor Shi'ites consider to be Muslim at all), about 5% are Sevener Shi'ties (i've explained this distinction too many times to want to rehearse it), and almost 40% of the entire population are Twelver Shi'ites, the largest single confession in the Lebanon.
The Syrians were never comfortable supporting a Christian militia, and especially one with a murky, possibly fascist past. They began to organize another, counterbalancing militia, the Syrian Socialists (the Syrians were still slitting each others throats within the Ba'athist Arab Socialist Party--Assad had not yet come to power). But as they were centered in the distinctly minority Sunni population, they only ever survived because they were organized, supported and supplied by the Syrians. The Shi'ites remained without a central militia, and no resource to equip and support one--and that refers only to the Twelvers--i don't believe the Sevener Shi'ites ever had a militia of their own. The Druze had no formal militia, but they were suspected of being supported and supplied (they were heavily armed) by their Druze confreres in Israel--the Druze in Israel overwhelmingly support the government.
All of this occurs before the Shah is overthrown, and before Israel invades the Lebanon. After the overthrow of the Shah, the Persians began to develop an anti-Israeli propaganda. This is not surprising, as the Shah's secret police, the SAVAK, were organized, trained and supported by the CIA and Israel's Mossad. After the seizure of the American embassy, the Persians had a lot of documentary evidence that Mossad has supported SAVAK after the Americans had pulled out (late 1950s). That only fueled anti-Israeli sentiment in revolutionary Iran. In 1982, Israel launched Operation Litani, in which they invaded southern Lebanon. This was in response to attacks by the PLO, which had been established in southern Lebanon since being driven out of Jordan in 1970-71. The PLO can't reasonably be seen as the cause of the civil war, but they were a major destabilizing factor, and the mortal enemies of the Maronite militia, who wanted them out of the Lebanon.
In 1982, after the Israeli invasion, the Persian Revolutionary Guard decided to redress the imbalance (as they saw it) in the Lebanon. After the Israeli invasion, and within Israeli controlled territory in southern Lebanon, the Maronites had slaughtered thousands of Palestinians in the refugee camps at Shatilla and Sabra. This may have been the deciding factor with the Persians, who infiltrated the Lebanon, and organized and funded a Shi'ite militia. The Persians are overwhelmingly Twelver Shi'ites, and so they were attempting to build a base with the largest single confessional group in the Lebanon. That was the origin of Hezbollah. Despite claiming to represent the Shi'ites of the Lebanon, they have never captured even as much as 10% of the Lebanese parliament, which means they can't claim the support of more than a quarter of Lebanese Shi'ites, if even that many. But as the largest single group from which to recruit in the Lebanon, and with the withdrawl of support by Syria of the Maronite militia after Shatilla and Sabra, and the collapse of the Sunni militia--the "Syrian Socialists"--this left the Hezbollah militia as the last truly effective militia in the Lebanon. I have no specific knowledge that Hezbollah carries out significant social support programs in the Lebanon, and have never made such a claim.
