To most of the world, Hezbollah is known as a Lebanese Shiite militia that takes an anti-western stance, and despises Israel and the United States. To the Arabs, Hezbollah is known as a resistance group that provides socioeconomic and social services to Shiite communities is southern Lebanon.# The group as been held accountable for several attacks against Israel and Western targets, but yet provides social services in Lebanon by running hospitals, schools, orphanages, and media outlets. It has adopted the strategy of constantly altering public opinion by using a mixture of political and ideological agendas.# The group has adopted the strategy it has in order to continue growing and to remain relevant in both Lebanon and the global sphere, thus becoming a success story in Lebanon. Hezbollah can be examined in two aspects: (a) its ideological changes; and (b) its political behavior.
From 1943 to 1975, Lebanon was dominated by the Maronite majority. The Maronites had external support from France who intervened to ensure Maronite dominance until the 1950s, after the Suez War.# Around the same time, the demographic balance was beginning to fall into a Muslim advantage. In 1975, Lebanon broke out into a civil war due to the mixture of ideological radicalism between the various religious groups present.# The Maronite status began to decline and Sunni and Shiite representation began to expand. Israel intervened in the late 1970s to try and help the continuance of Maronite dominance. Israel’s invasions of Lebanon in 1978 and 1982 displeased the Sunni and Shiite communities in Lebanon, and increased the likelihood that Syria would be welcomed as an internal and external balancer.#
In 1982 Amal, a Shiite group founded by Musa as-Sadr, ...
... middle of paper ...
...w from Lebanon. Hezbollah grew politically from the withdraw because many people saw it as a Hezbollah victory. Hezbollah became empowered from the event, and went from being a small militant group to a massive political group.# Political growth of Hezbollah can be shown in the mere fact that it holds 12 out 128 seats in the Lebanese parliament.
Hezbollah has proved through its political behavior and ideological changes that it can cooperate with other governments. It has kept its ideological tone low-key in order to exist. Hezbollah grew from a small militia to an undeniable force in Lebanese politics. It is considered a radical Shiite group, a social movement, a political party, and a revolutionary movement. By not keeping a certain identity, Hezbollah has been able thrive off of ideological contradictions, and therefore remain successful politically in Lebanon.
The French had control of Syria and Lebanon. France had a direct rule, meaning that they sent officials and their army to govern their mandates. The Druze revolt caused the French to separate Lebanon into a country of their own. They appointed the government as people of different religious groups, Christian, Shi’a Muslims, and Sunni Muslims. During World War Two (WWII), Syria and Lebanon tried to gain independence. In 1946 Syria and Lebanon were free. During the time of the French Mandates they made many improvements towards the roads, education, agriculture, and health; which laid the groundwork for modern Syria and
Laura Deeb’s An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi’i Lebanon seeks to rectify post-9/11 notions of political Islam as anti-modern and incongruous with Western formulations of secular modernity. Specifically, Deeb is writing in opposition to a Weberian characterization of modern secular Western societies as the development of bureaucracies through social rationalization and disenchantment. Within this Weberian framework Deeb asserts that Shia communities are in-part modern because of the development of beuorocratic institutions to govern and regulate religious practice. However, Deeb makes a stronger argument oriented towards dislodging the assumptions "that Islamism is static and monolithic, and that
Sunni’s comprise the modern Ba’ath party in Iraq, which came to power in the 1960’s after Arabs losing the six day war to Israel. The Ba’ath Party is a highly centralized, authoritarian, socialist reform party with strong communist ties opposing imperialism and colonialism. During Saddam’s rule, Ba’athists received preferential treatment. Fallujah, with cities like Tikrit (Saddam’s home town), formed the power base for the Ba’ath party.
HAMAS, an Arabic acronym meaning “Islamic Resistance Movement”, is the name of the socio-political organization currently in power over the Gaza Strip. For decades Jews & Muslims and Israelis & Palestinians, often one in the same, have fought for control over the region. Each have killed thousands of the other, destroyed infrastructures and used underhanded tactics to gain an advantage. Nations such as Japan, the European Union, the United States and (of course) Israel classify the group as terrorists, while nations such as Turkey, Russia and Switzerland do not. (King, 2010) Many factors are taken into consideration before a Nation-State denounces an organization as a “terrorist group”. A profile of HAMAS may help make clear why it is not uniformly denounced by all nations and with historical context, if they truly are freedom fighters in a resistance movement.
The Haganah, the Irgun, and the Lehi were different Zionist military underground movements that were active during the duration of the British mandate. Their goal was to establish an independent Jewish state in Palestine. These movements fought hard and used particular strategies in order to reach their goal. However, many of the strategies they used to deal with the British and the Arabs during the period of the mandate are frowned upon by some and even viewed as acts of terror. In my opinion, the movements were definitely effective in attaining their goal of establishing an independent Jewish state as Israel currently exists; the methods the movements used to reach their goal can be viewed as immoral at first, but some of the movements' actions were justified whereas others were not.
The Middle East has since time immemorial been on the global scope because of its explosive disposition. The Arab Israeli conflict has not been an exception as it has stood out to be one of the major endless conflicts not only in the region but also in the world. Its impact continues to be felt all over the world while a satisfying solution still remains intangible. A lot has also been said and written on the conflict, both factual and fallacious with some allegations being obviously evocative. All these allegations offer an array of disparate views on the conflict. This essay presents an overview of some of the major literature on the controversial conflict by offering precise and clear insights into the cause, nature, evolution and future of the Israel Arab conflict.
As the relationship between Iran and the Amal movement was affected by the political differences between them which opened the door to the creation of Hezbollah, the same misunderstanding occurred between revolutionary Iran and the Fatah movement. Iran viewed the Palestinian revolution as a card in its struggle against the West, while the Fatah movement considered its relations with Iran as a way to enhance their power in the national struggle for the restoration of the occupied Palestinian territories. Just as the differences between Iran and Amal movement led to the birth of Hezbollah, the differences between Tehran and the Fatah led to the birth of Hamas and Islamic Jihad later.
The Middle East has historically rebuked Western influence during their process of establishing independence. When Britain and France left the Middle East after World War II, the region saw an unprecedented opportunity to establish independent and self-sufficient states free from the Western influence they had felt for hundreds of years. In an attempt to promote nationalistic independence, the states of the region immediately formed the League of Arab States in 1945. The League recognized and promoted the autonomy of its members and collaborated in regional opposition against the West until 1948 when Israel declared independence. Israel represented then and now an intrusive Western presence in the Arab world. The ongoing Arab-Israeli conflict typifies this cultural antagonism. The Cold War refocused attention to the Middle East as a site of economic and strategic importance for both sides, yet the two hegemons of the Cold War now needed to recognize the sovereignty of the Middle Eastern states. With their statehood and power cemented, the Middle Easte...
In his 176-page volume, the leading German Islamist, Heinz Halm is able to trace the roots of the Iranian Revolution back throughout the history of the Shi’ism. Contrary to many western thinkers and Iranian militants, Halm feels as though Shi’i Islam’s character was not inherently revolutionary, but that the transition to revolution marked a milestone and a watershed in the history of Shi’i thought and history. The title of his book, “Shi’a Islam: From Religion to Revolution” really synopsizes Halm’s point quite adequately. Heinz Halm is currently a professor of Islamic Studies at the University of Tubingen and is the author of numerous other works on Sunni Islam, Shi’ism and Isma’ilism. Some of his works include: “The Empire of the Mahdi”, “The Rise of the Fatimids”, and “Shi’ism”.
Based on the constructivist view, the Civil War in Syria is initiated by the identity conflict between two groups which are the Assad’s regime and the rebel. Assad’s regime originates from minority Alawite, who made up 12 percent of the Syria population and also dominates most of the position in Syria government (citation). However, this identity conflict is not on religion based as the rebel’s side consists variation of group such as Sunni sect, Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other citizens. Besides, the Assad’s regimes as well consist of other society despite of the Alwite. Based on this condition, it is clearly portray that, even though a group is made up of multiple identities, they still can pursue t...
Lawson, Fred H. "Syria." Politics & society in the contemporary Middle East. Boulder, Colo.: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2010. 411 - 434. Print.
...most distressed by outcome of a war, could exercise only inadequate control on the issue of armed action against Iraq. Most of the regional actors discarded the U.S. policy towards Iraq with varying intensity as they feared insecurity after Iraq’s disintegration (Reuters, 2003) whereas; Jordan decided not to endanger its rewarding ties with Washington. Another key actor at this level is the Baathi party in Iraq which was based on tribal division, domestic oppression and economic enticement. Under Baathi regime military, bureaucracy and security services was divided into several competing institutions which reinforced Hussein’s dictatorship in Iraq. In the post war Iraq, the USA in collaboration with the Iraq National Congress and the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution started to make Iraq a democracy that is similar to the American political culture and values.
This group was created in 1978 and continues to expand its power today. It began as a branch of Egypt's Muslim Brotherhood. This terrorist group has several goals ranging from creating a Islamic state to continuing the armed struggle against Israeli occupation of Palestine territories. Their acts of terrorism to date have included suicide bomb attacks against Israeli civilians to attacks on suspected Palestinian collaborators.
She then analyses three theoretical explanations of the resurgence of sectarianism: constructivism, neoconservatism and neorealism. The constructivist approach argues that transnational ethnic and religious identities have strengthened, but overestimates the homogeneity of both Shia and Sunni identities. The neoconservative approach attributes increased sectarianism to a ‘Shia revival’ orchestrated by Iran, but exaggerates Iran’s economic and ideological capabilities. The neorealist approach treats the Shiite-Sunni conflict as a product of a geopolitical struggle between Iran and Saudi Arabia, but undervalues identity politics. Luomi’s work is particularly valuable as it explains why the Shiite-Sunni split has changed since the 1970s. However, Luomi’s approach gives little thought to the longer historical divisions or sectarianism outside the Middle East, and hence must be supplemented with other
The abrupt end of decade long dominating regime in three weeks had created a political vacuum, that is evident in shifting coalitions and divisions among religious groups, ethnic groups, regional groups and even classes (Barnett et al. 2003, 25). US did not realize, moreover, the depth of the hostility between Kurds and Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites, and the members of different tribes and local religious groups. Furthermore, to deal with destruction in Iraq new plan was decided by the US. The plan was to pull out all troops and hand over the responsi...