Hizbullah: an Islamic Jihadi movement.

• Author: Alagha, Joseph
• Position: Book review

Norton, Augustus Richard. Hezbollah: A Short History. Princeton NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007. 200 pages. Hardcover $20.95.

Harik, Judith Palmer. Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism. London, UK: I.B. Tauris, 2004, 2006. 256 pages. Paper $20.95.

Sobelman, Daniel. Rules of the Game: Israel and Hizbullah After the Withdrawal from Lebanon. Memorandum No. 69. Tel Aviv, Israel: Tel Aviv University: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, 2004. 128 pages. Paper $33.00.

Hamzeh, Ahmad Nizar. In the Path of Hizbullah. Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2004. 196 pages. Hardcover $24.95.

Smit, Ferdinand. The Battle for the South Lebanon: The Radicalisation of Lebanon's Shi'ites 1982-1985. Amsterdam: Bulaaq, 2000. 345 pages. Paper $30.56.

SINCE ITS INAUGURATION, HIZBULLAH (1) has issued seemingly divergent declarations and statements, thus indicating the need to think of its identity in evolutionary terms. When Hizbullah released its "Open Letter" or "Political Manifesto" in 1985, it propagated its political ideology, but hardly any discernable political program. The confusion of equating Hizbullah's political ideology with its political program presents a problem in understanding Hizbullah's role as a political party, after the Ta'if Agreement. (2) What adds to the confusion is that Hizbullah states in its Open Letter, "[w]e in Lebanon are neither a closed organizational party nor a narrow political framework. Rather, we are an umma tied to the Muslims in every part of the world by a strong ideological-doctrinal, and political bond, namely, Islam." This seems to imply that Hizbullah abides by Imam Khumayni's theory that considers political parties in the Islamic context as a Western phenomenon. Thus, in its political ideology, Hizbullah clearly states that it is not a political party, yet it developed a political program and participated in national elections. Authors who have adopted this relatively undifferentiated approach with respect to Hizbullah's ideology have misunderstood and misrepresented the party's identity. The confusion arises especially when authors use quotations from Hizbullah's preTa'if discourse and apply those to the post-Ta'if Hizbullah.

For instance, a reading of Smit suggests that he tends to confine Hizbullah's ideology to its religious ideology. He narrows the latter solely to wilayat al-faqih (guardianship of the jurisprudent), without referring to the other two components, namely, "belief in Shi'a Islam" and "jihad [holy war] in the name of God." (3) Relying mainly on secondary sources, Smit tends to conflate Hizbullah's political ideology with its political program. This seems evident, for example, in his reference to Hizbullah's "Open Letter" as the party's political program, when it constitutes Hizbullah's political ideology (249ff). Hizbullah's Open Letter is not an embodiment of the party's political program rather it constitutes religio-political ideology, as Norton and Sobelman have already argued. Norton labels the "Open Letter" as Hizbullah's "ideological framework", (4) and he explicitly considers the "Open Letter" as Hizbullah's "first political, ideological platform," (23). Hizbullah's political program appeared for the first time in 1992 when the party contested the parliamentary elections. Another argument that the Open Letter does not constitute Hizbullah's political program is that the Open letter rejected any participation in Lebanon's sectarianconfessional political system--which rendered Hizbullah a rejectionist, seclusionist, and reactionary movement, at the time--while its 1992 political program sanctioned such a practice.

Since the end of the Civil War in 1990 and its acceptance of the Ta'if Agreement, Hizbullah had to contend with major developments in Lebanon: primarily, the emergence of a pluralistic public sphere and increasing openness toward other communities, political parties, and interest groups. By a new interpretation of wilayat al-faqih, Hizbullah altered its discourse, priorities, and overall political outlook. The mixed confessional space in Lebanon led Hizbullah to move from marginalisation to infitah ("opening up"), and the party became a major player in the Lebanese public sphere, participating in the parliamentary and municipal elections as well as joining the Cabinet. Since the early 1990s Hizbullah started promoting its Islamic identity and agenda by following a pragmatic political program, mainly to placate Christians and other Muslims who were opposed to the Islamic state. Hizbullah remained faithful to its Shi'ite constituency by employing a bottom-up Islamisation by establishing

Islamic institutions within the civil society. When the party decided to contest the parliamentary elections of 1992 and subsequent legislative and municipal elections, it developed a down-to-earth, pragmatic political program, concentrating on broad problems and concerns that were deeply embedded society and worrisome to the majority of the voters irrespective of their denomination or political orientation.

Harik reiterates Hamzeh's and Norton's premise that Hizbullah is a popular nationalist resistance movement when she rightly argues, "During the course of Hezbollah's 17-year struggle with Israel along the Lebanese/Israeli frontier in southern Lebanon, it has never been established by any party directly involved (including the United Nations contingent on the ground) that the Party of God has perpetuated a single terrorist attack against Israeli civilians... Hezbollah made an early strategic decision to exclude terrorist tactics from its jihad against Israeli occupation and stuck to it" (2; 168). Unlike Hamzeh who relies on a good number of primary sources, Harik makes very scanty and frugal references to primary sources; aside from an interview with Nasrallah, she does not produce reliable evidence to substantiate her...