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War against Hezbollah was a political disaster

By Gary Gambill - posted Friday, 8 December 2006


While 1701 calls for the "the immediate cessation by Hezbollah of all attacks", it calls for Israel merely to cease all "offensive military operations" - a deliberately vague phrase that allows Israel to justify virtually anything as a defensive military operation.

Notwithstanding the tough language of Resolution 1701, its lack of a Chapter VII mandate leaves UNIFIL subordinate to the authority of the Lebanese Government.

Prior to the war, Lebanon’s ruling March 14 coalition was too politically weak to make any major policy decision without Hezbollah's endorsement. The most ambitious aim of the war was to change this.

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The political outcome

The crux of the Lebanese Government's weakness is the fact that overriding Hezbollah's objections would lead to the departure of all Shiite ministers from the cabinet.

Thus, defiance of Nasrallah is feasible only if the coalition can find credible Shiite public figures willing to defy a Hezbollah boycott and join a new cabinet, or if it is resolved to rule without any pretence of legitimacy in the eyes of Lebanon’s largest sectarian group.

The first scenario requires a substantial erosion of Shiite support for Hezbollah, while the second requires a substantial hardening of non-Shiite perceptions of Hezbollah.

Public opinion polls conducted in Lebanon during and after the war confirm that the Israeli bombardment achieved the opposite on both scores. The Israelis do not appear to have had any strategy for undermining support for Hezbollah within the Shiite community other than elevating its level of collective suffering.

Hezbollah may not have expected the Israeli campaign, but it acted with the confidence of knowing that Iran could afford to rebuild far more than Israel could afford to destroy without alienating the outside world.

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It appears that both the Israelis and the Americans were banking primarily on a souring of non-Shiite public perceptions of Hezbollah to push the Lebanese Government into accepting the deployment of a robust multi-national peacekeeping force.

While the immense collateral damage of Israeli air strikes was heavily concentrated in Shiite areas, the abrupt annulment of Lebanon's lucrative summer tourist season, cessation of air and sea traffic into the country, and destruction of major bridges and highway interchanges were acutely felt by all Lebanese.

However, public anger at Hezbollah was quickly overshadowed by outrage toward Israel as the economic toll of the bombardment mounted, and then began dissipating as the progression of the war (seen through victims' eyes) appeared to corroborate longstanding Hezbollah propaganda claims. The targeting of Lebanon's infrastructure and industry gave credence to Nasrallah's warnings that Israel was looking for any pretext to destroy the Lebanese economy.

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Article edited by Allan Sharp.
If you'd like to be a volunteer editor too, click here.

This is an edited version of an article first published in MidEast Monitor in September-October 2006. The full article can be found here.



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About the Author

Gary C Gambill is an Associate Fellow at the Middle East Forum.

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All articles by Gary Gambill

Creative Commons LicenseThis work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

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