Amid the current conflict and mutual enmity raging between the predominantly Shia Hizbullah and the state of Israel, it should be remembered that both the first and second time Israel tried to create a “buffer zone” in south Lebanon, in 1978 and then again in 1982, Israeli forces were overwhelmingly welcomed by Shia villagers and political leaders alike, many of whom had come to regard Yassir Arafat’s Fatah guerrillas as an outright menace to the delicate socio-economic fabric of the area.
Indeed, in 1982, some Shias spontaneously poured into the streets to shower the invading army with rice and sweets. Some Israeli soldiers even married Shia women.
The hated Fatahland would be no more, thanks to the Israelis.
Thus, when Arafat and his men did in fact largely evacuate Lebanon under armed multinational protection in August 1982, the scourge of a “state within a state,” long borne by the Shia, really did seem to be at an end. Jabil Amal, the Arabic name for the mainly, though not exclusively, Shia south, would finally be freed to address some of the deep depravation which the area had historically suffered from under the dual weight of Lebanon’s inequitable confessional system and the presence of Palestinian militias.
But this was not to be. The Israelis stayed, creating, in effect their own preferred state within a state, the mostly Christian South Lebanese Army (SLA). The Likud government under Menachem Began announced plans for diverting precious water resources from the south. Israeli produce immediately flooded the markets of Lebanon, effectively undermining the always-fragile agricultural economy of the area. Right-wing groups loudly trumpeted David Ben Gurion’s founding vision for a State of Israel as far as the Litani River (a marker which, to the horror of the Lebanese, now returns again under the auspices of yet another “buffer zone” for Israel)
As the now deputy Prime Minister Shimon Peres acknowledged long ago, these aspects, together with a stubborn occupation that quickly descended into brutality, occasional arrogance and outright mismanagement, all effectively “unleashed” the wrath of the Shia upon the Israelis.
Sadly, this narrative would repeat itself only a few years later in the West Bank and Gaza in the first Intifadah: As Israeli scholar Benny Morris points out, a formerly quiescent population, even welcoming in the case of the Shia, eventually decided to mobilize itself, and radically so, motivated in large part by living conditions which had become only bleaker with time.
And indeed, that is precisely what happened in Lebanon, though at a far faster clip.
It is true that Hizbullah was formed almost immediately in the wake of the Israeli invasion of 1982. But that is only part of the story. For Hizbullah was also formed because the main Shia political party, Amal, had joined a national unity government with the Christians and other sects in an effort to stabilize the country in the wake of the Israeli invasion and the ongoing Civil War. Indeed, Hizbullah would later, in 1985, be officially formed by leaders of the breakaway Islamic Amal of 1982.
Leaders of the mainline Amal party, however, to the consternation of Islamic Amal, worked behind the scenes with the Israelis in efforts to uproot PLO guerrillas, developing a sort of working relationship with Israeli forces over the first six months of occupation.
No matter the growing anger of the radicals, Amal was the overwhelmingly dominant Shia force in 1982 and for years afterwards – not Hizbullah. Mainly secular, but bolstered by the huge popularity of its deceased clerical founder, Imam Musa Sadr, Amal might have carried the day for the Israelis.
But as an American UN officer at the time, Professor Richard Norton, wrote, “The IDF and the Israeli security services operating in the South mistook the alienation of the Shia from the Palestinians as positive evidence for the possibility of establishing close formal ties between Israel and the Shia community…Clumsy efforts to co-opt Amal…failed. While the Southern leadership did not eschew a quiet dialogue with Israeli personnel, they were both unwilling and unable to allow themselves to follow the… prototype of open clientship.”
As the occupation wore on, and as Israel began to fight a nascent insurgency in late 1983, propelled mainly by Hizbullah, the Israeli response of overwhelming force and sometimes-systematic brutality only served to further alienate the Lebanese Shia, Amal and indeed many Lebanese across the confessional spectrum.
Thus, Israel and the architect of the invasion of 1982, Ariel Sharon, won the day in the south – Arafat was expelled and Fatah rocket attacks largely ceased.
But in its place, Israel had sown the seeds for a far more powerful foe, one which would, 18 years later, lay claim to having been the only Arab force ever to defeat Israel on the battlefield of occupation.
That a small band of 30 or so young, Lebanese fundamentalists – including Hassan Nasrallah – would rise to this level of prominence and power is not simply due to the original or ongoing efforts of Iran. Indeed, at this moment of great danger in the region and perhaps the world, Israel and its primary ally the United States must look within to understand some of the deep roots of the current conflict, not to mention some of the tragically squandered lost opportunities.
Nicholas Noe is completing his dissertation at Cambridge University’s Centre for International Relations and is the founder of the Beirut-based Mideastwire.com, a news translation service covering the Arabic and Persian media.