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Source: Getty

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Malcolm H. Kerr Carnegie Middle East Center

Hizbollah and Its Changing Identities

After the war of last summer, Lebanon had settled back into a pretense of normality, shattered periodically by massive demonstrations in the streets of the capital, as Hizbollah mustered its supporters in an attempt to force the government to call for early elections. The government refused to give in. Hizbollah is now trying to break the impasse.

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By Amal Saad-Ghorayeb and Marina Ottaway
Published on Jan 29, 2007
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Democracy, Conflict, and Governance

The Democracy, Conflict, and Governance Program is a leading source of independent policy research, writing, and outreach on global democracy, conflict, and governance. It analyzes and seeks to improve international efforts to reduce democratic backsliding, mitigate conflict and violence, overcome political polarization, promote gender equality, and advance pro-democratic uses of new technologies.

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Middle East

The Middle East Program in Washington combines in-depth regional knowledge with incisive comparative analysis to provide deeply informed recommendations. With expertise in the Gulf, North Africa, Iran, and Israel/Palestine, we examine crosscutting themes of political, economic, and social change in both English and Arabic.

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Source: Carnegie Endowment

During the last week, the confrontation between the Lebanese government and Hizbollah has reached a critical point. A Hizbollah call for a general strike on January 23, enforced by barriers of burning tires on all major roads—giving people no choice but to stay home—brought the country to the brink of violence. Two days later, fighting erupted among students at the Beirut Arab University, quickly spilling over onto the streets. After the war of last summer, Lebanon had settled back into a pretense of normality, shattered periodically by massive demonstrations in the streets of the capital, as Hizbollah mustered its supporters in an attempt to force the government to call for early elections. The government refused to give in. Hizbollah is now trying to break the impasse.

From Washington, the crisis in Lebanon looks like a confrontation between a moderate, prowestern government and a radical movement doing the bidding of Iran—the western tip of the Shiite crescent through which Teheran hopes to impose itself as the dominant power in the Middle East. From Lebanon, Hizbollah looks like a movement trying to reconcile three identities and agendas increasingly at odds with each other, and blundering in the process. One Hizbollah is the movement that looks to Iran for support and is a player in the new geopolitical game of the Middle East. A second Hizbollah is the resistance movement that gained heroic stature last summer in the eyes of all Arabs, Sunnis and Shiites alike, for standing up to Israel and depriving it of a military victory. And there is a third Hizbollah, a player in the Lebanese domestic political scene, seeking to increase its power and change the byzantine rules by which politics is played in the country.

Click on the link above for the full text of this Carnegie publication.

This is a web-only publication.

About the Authors
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb is a visiting scholar in the Carnegie Middle East Center. A leading expert on Hizbollah, she has written extensively about Lebanon’s Shiites and Lebanese politics.

Marina Ottaway is a senior associate in the Democracy and Rule of Law Program and
director of the Carnegie Middle East Program.

About the Authors

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb

Former Visiting Scholar

Marina Ottaway

Former Senior Associate, Middle East Program

Before joining the Endowment, Ottaway carried out research in Africa and in the Middle East for many years and taught at the University of Addis Ababa, the University of Zambia, the American University in Cairo, and the University of the Witwatersrand in South Africa.

Authors

Amal Saad-Ghorayeb
Former Visiting Scholar
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb
Marina Ottaway
Former Senior Associate, Middle East Program
Marina Ottaway
Political ReformForeign PolicyLevantLebanonMiddle EastIran

Carnegie does not take institutional positions on public policy issues; the views represented herein are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of Carnegie, its staff, or its trustees.

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