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Abstract
Hezbollah’s direct military presence in Syria and Iraq confirms that their actions transcend Lebanon as a political stage. But why can Hezbollah still not be contained within the boundaries of Lebanon? Exploring how the Taif Agreements both tamed Hezbollah’s rhetoric while simultaneously laying the conditions for transnational activities, this article argues that the conditions of the Taif Agreement have assisted in the rise of Hezbollah’s self-coined Resistance Axis. Post-Taif, Hezbollah has tended relationships with the external forces that helped broker the peace while unlocking the potential in the exceptional decision to allow Hezbollah to retain arms in the name of “resistance.”
Notes
Notes
1 See, for instance, J. Alagha, The Shifts in Hezbollah’s Ideology: Religious Ideology, Political Ideology, amd Political Program (Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2006); A. N. Hamzeh, In the Path of Hezbollah (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2004); A. Saad-Ghorayed, Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion (London: Puto Press, 2002).
2 Nizar Hamzeh, “Lebanon’s Hezbollah: From Islamic Revolution to Parliamentary Accommodation,” Third World Quarterly 14, no. 2 (1993): 321.
3 A. Nizar Hamzeh, “Lebanon’s Islamists and Local Politics: A New Reality,” Third World Quarterly 21, no. 5 (2000): 742.
4 Adham Saouli, “Hezbollah in the Civilizing Process: Anarchy, Self-restraint and Violence,” Third World Quarterly 32, no. 5 (2011): 926.
5 Eyal Zisser, “The Return of Hezbollah,” The Middle East Quarterly 9, no. 4 (2002): 3–11.
6 L. E. Andersen, “Bahrain and the Global Balance of Power after the Arab Spring” (Danish Institute for International Relations Working Paper, 6, 2012).
7 Pat Proctor, “The Mythical Shia Crescent,” Parameters 38, no. 1 (2008): 30–42, 34.
8 Maximillian Terhalle, “Are the Shia Rising?” Middle East Policy 14, no. 2 (2007): 79.
9 Marc R. DeVore and Armin B. Stahli, “Explaining Hezbollah’s Effectiveness: Internal and External Determinants of the Rise of Violent and Non-violent Actors,” Terrorism and Political Violence 27 no. 2 (2015): 331–57.
10 Abbas William Samil, “A Stable Structure on Shifting Sands: Assessing the Hezbollah-Iran-Syria Relationship,” Middle East Journal 62, no. 1 (2008): 32–53.
11 Saouli, “Hezbollah in the Civilizing Process,” 929.
12 See, for example, Joseph Bahout, “The Unravelling of Lebanon’s Taif Agreement: Limits of Sect-Based Power-sharing” (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2016), https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep13072.
13 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities (New York: Verso, 2006), 164.
14 Saouli, “Hezbollah in the Civilizing Process,” 930.
15 Christopher Anzalone, “Zaynab’s Guardians: The Emergence of Shia Militias in Syria,” Combating Terrorism Centre 6, no. 7 (2013). https://ctc.usma.edu/zaynabs-guardians-the-emergence-of-shia-militias-in-syria/ (accessed 25 March 2018).
16 Aymen Jawad al-Tamimi, “Shi’i Militias in Iraq and Syria,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 19, no.1 (2014): 79–83.
17 Aymen Jawad al-Tamimi, “Hezbollah, the Jihad in Syria, and Commemorations in Lebanon,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 19, no. 1 (2015): 8.
18 “Fidaki Ya Zainab,” The Muslim Net TV (2015), http://www.themuslimtv.net/view_video.php?viewkey=673602300 (accessed 25 March 2018).
19 Bashar Saade, Hezbollah and the Politics of Remembrance: Writing the Lebanese Nation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016), 65.
20 Lara Deeb, “Exhibiting the ‘Just-Lived-Past’: Hezbollah’s Nationalist Narratives in Transnational Political Context,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 50, no. 2 (2008): 376.
21 Ibid., 372.
22 Ibid., 371.
23 Ibid., 376.
24 Anderson, Imagined Communities, 164.
25 Ibid.
26 Deeb, “Exhibiting the ‘Just-Lived-Past,’” 376.
27 B. M. Seaver, “The Regional Sources of Power-Sharing Failure: The Case of Lebanon,” Political Science Quarterly 115, no. 2 (2000): 247–71.
28 H. Nasrallah, “Speech by Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah before Assuming Office,” YouTube, www.youtube.com/watch?v=OE:WzEdh20U (accessed 4 Jan. 2016).
29 H. S. Nasrallah, “Sayyed Nasrallah’s Speech on al-Quds Day, Thursday 14 July 2016,” Syrian Free Press (2016), https://syrianfreepress.wordpress.com/2016/07/14/nasrallahs-speech/ (accessed 22 April 2017).
30 H. S. Nasrallah, “‘In His Name’”: Full Televised Speech Delivered by Hezbollah Secretary General, His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Friday March 27, 2015,” al-Ahed News, 2015 http://www.english.alahednews.com.lb/essaydetails.php?eid=29009&cid=562#.WP8lUWe1vIU (accessed 20 April 2017).
31 Amal Saad, “From Classic to Post-Resistance: On Hezbollah’s Transformation,” al-akhbar, 6 March 2015, http://english.al-akhbar.com/node/23760 (accessed 25 April 2017).
32 Cited in Ibid.
33 Saade, Hezbollah and the Politics of Remembrance, 13.
34 Ibid., 18.
35 Oren Barak, “‘Don’t Mention the War?’ The Politics of Remembrance and Forgetfulness in Post War Lebanon,” Middle East Journal 61, no. 1 (2007): 52–53.
36 Strindberg and Warn, Islamism, 125.
37 Ibid.
38 Samil, “A Stable Structure on Shifting Sands,” 40.
39 Ibid., 39.
40 Adham Saouli, “Lebanon’s Hezbollah: The Quest for Survival,” World Affairs 166, no. 2 (2003): 73.
41 Devore and Stahli, “Explaining Hezbollah’s Effectiveness,” 346.
42 Samil, “A Stable Structure on Shifting Sands,” 38.
43 Mohammed Ayoob, “Challenging Hegemony: Political Islam and the North-South Divide,” International Studies Review 9, no. 4 (2007): 629–43.
44 Naim Qassem, Hezbollah: The Story from Within (London: Saqi, 2007), 187.
45 Martin Kramer, “Hezbollah: The Calculus of Jihad,” in Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance, edited by Marty and Appleby (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), 539–56.
46 DeVore and Stahli, “Explaining Hezbollah’s Effectiveness,” 332.
47 Samil, “A Stable Structure on Shifting Sands,” 51.
48 al-‘Ahd, 27 May 1989, cited in Saade, Hezbollah and the Politics of Remembrance, 121.
49 Saade, Hezbollah and the Politics of Remembrance, 153.
50 DeVore and Stahli, “Explaining Hezbollah’s Effectiveness,” 333.
51 Krista E. Wiegand, “Reformation of a Terrorist Group: Hezbollah as a Lebanese Political Party,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 32, no. 8 (2009): 669–80.
52 Jacob Høigilt, “Islamism, Pluralism and the Palestine Question: The Case of Hezbollah,” British Journal of Middle East Studies 34, no. 2 (2007): 125.
53 Al Manar, 5 Sept. 2004.
54 Strindberg and Warn, Islamism, 135.
55 Ibid., 136.
56 “Lebanon’s Second Army: Hezbollah’s Armoury is Growing,” Economist, 12 Aug. 2017, https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2017/08/12/Hezbollahs-armoury-is-growing (accessed 19 Oct. 2018).
57 Ibid.
58 W. Harris, “Crisis in the Levant: Lebanon at Risk,” Mediterranean Quarterly 18 (2007): 38.
59 Hamzeh, “Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” 321–37.
60 M. Harb and L. Deeb, “Culture and History and Landscape: Hezbollah’s Efforts to Shape the Islamic Milieu in Lebanon,” Arab Studies Journal 19 (2001): 10–41.
61 Cited in Kramer, “Hezbollah,” 549.
62 Al Jazeera, “Hezbollah Demands Hostages in Syria be Freed,” 1 June 2012, http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2012/06/20126118451618239.html (accessed 15 July 2012).
63 Wiegand, “Reformation of a Terrorist Group,” 677.
64 Marisa Sullivan, “Hizbollah in Syria” (Middle East Security Report 19, Institute for the Study of War, 2014), http://www.understandingwar.org/sites/default/files/Hezbollah_Sullivan_FINAL.pdf (accessed 22 Dec. 2017), 4.
65 Cited in ibid., 5.
66 Haytham Maouzahem, “Hezbollah Torn between Its Local and Regional Roles,” Al-Monitor (2017).
67 Sullivan, “Hizbollah in Syria,” 19.
68 Nicholas Blanford, “Hezbollah, Warily Lines up with the ‘Great Satan’ to Fight against IS,” Christian Science Monitor (17 Sept. 2014).
69 S. Nasrallah, “Sayyed Nasrallah’s Full Speech Addressing University Students,” Al Ahamed News, 23 Dec. 2016, https://english.alahednews.com.lb/36500/570 (accessed 16 Oct. 2018).
70 Mouzahem, “Hezbollah Torn between Its Local and Regional Roles.”
71 “Lebanon’s Second Army: Hezbollah’s Armoury is Growing,” Economist.
72 Ibid.
73 Naharnet, “As Syrian War Winds Down, Israel Sets Sights on Hezbollah,” Naharnet Newsdesk, http://www.naharnet.com/stories/en/235623 (accessed 16 Oct. 2018).
74 ‘Hezbollah Party of God’, Global Security.Org https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/para/Hezbollah.htm (accessed 16 Oct. 2018).
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Notes on contributors
Samantha May
Samantha May is a lecturer at the University of Aberdeen. Awards include Leverhulme Early Careers Fellowship and British Academy Small Grants. Dr. May completed her AHRC-funded PhD in 2011 and teaches on areas related to religion and politics.