Shiites Against Hezbollah
Schenker, David
Shiites Against Hezbollah The other struggle in Lebanon. by David Schenker Hezbollah rockets stopped raining on Israel nearly two months ago, but the Shiite organization's onslaught continues....
...Over fifty intellectuals, including Sunnis, joined a follow-up case...
...Adonis, aka Ali Ahmed Said, Lebanon's most prominent man of letters (who happens to be a Sunni), described the fat-wa as an "act of aggression...
...You must be with the zionist and Israeli projects...
...Convincing the long-suffering Shiites in Lebanon that they can remain influential without Hezbollah is going to be a tough sell...
...And if Hezbollah is ever going to be stripped of its dominant power over the Shiites in Lebanon, these voices will have to be promoted and encouraged...
...In her widely translated article, "To Be a Shiite Now," Fayyad questioned the imposition of Hezbollah's ideology—and the consequences of Hezbollah's authority— over Shiites and Lebanon...
...In addition to being the leader of the "resistance," Hezbollah represents the culmination of years of Shiite effort to have a significant role in Lebanon's political system...
...Mattar's lawsuit, filed in January 2006, was joined by five prominent Shiites—some of whom had the legitimacy of being direct descendants of the prophet Muhammad—and three Christians...
...Following her controversial op-ed, Fayyad gave a lengthy and courageous interview in September to the Kuwaiti political daily As Siyasah, where she criticized Hezbollah's alliance and allegiance to Syria and Iran...
...It is open to question whether the judge—a young Sunni hailing from the Hezbollah stronghold of Bekaa— can be counted on for an impartial ruling...
...Not only does the organization provide health, welfare, and education services to its constituents, its military prowess is a source of honor and pride for the community...
...cute the murder of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri...
...Reaction to the case, which has been well covered in the media, has been fierce...
...That means never to question whether pride takes precedence over the lives of others...
...The ministers' departure brought government business to a standstill, but set in motion even more Hezbollah mischief...
...Rather, it demonstrates nothing but contempt for democracy, operating instead within a theocratic-autocratic context...
...For the plaintiffs, the action was a clear case of church-state separation: Hezbollah, via Sheikh Nabulsi's threatening fatwa, had deprived Shi-ite Lebanese of their constitutional right to participate in public life...
...And if Hezbollah's leader won't even respect his own party's rules, how is the party going to be persuaded to observe all the niceties of multiparty democratic government...
...embassy in Beirut...
...Fayyad was also one of the signatories to the lawsuit against Sheikh Nabulsi...
...Closely allied with Syria, the lead murder suspect, Hezbollah opposed the notion of an impartial tribunal...
...Finally, "if you are a Shiite and you dare write such writings and think such thinking, then you must be a foreign agent and a traitor...
...This ominous "warning" set off a tempest among the Lebanese intelligentsia...
...For Fayyad, to be a Shiite means that "you do not question the meaning of resistance...
...Eleven months ago, in December 2005, Hezbollah and Amal ministers bolted from the government cabinet to protest consideration of an international tribunal to proseDavid Schenker is a senior fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy...
...As a Shiite, "you can only thank Hezbollah for its heroism and sacrifice—it is not your role to contribute to 'weakening' it...
...Today, instead of directly attacking Israel, the Party of God is targeting Lebanese intellectuals and politicians who have the temerity to question Hezbollah's hegemony over local Shi-ite politics...
...Some have been voicing their opposition to the "resistance" agenda, and not surprisingly, Hezbollah is attempting to strong-arm these dissidents into line...
...Hezbollah has launched a countersuit...
...He is now serving his fifth three-year term, exceeding Hezbollah's two-term limit on secretary generals...
...Hezbollah's quest for hegemony— and its efforts to enforce party-line discipline over all the Shiites in Lebanon—predates the summer war with Israel...
...While they do not represent majority sentiment in Lebanon's Shi-ite community, Mohammed Mattar and Mona Fayyad do represent an important and apparently growing segment of the population—Shiites who have no use for Hezbollah, Amal, or Iranian or Syrian suzerainty over Lebanon...
...Instead, you defer to the leader of the resistance, General Hassan Nasrallah, in "his role as a loyal hero to the cause of the Arab nation...
...Lokman Slim, a Shiite who runs a Beirut-based, European-funded NGO focused on diversifying political representation of the Shiite community, is another outspoken critic of Hezbollah...
...The intimidation has not yet degenerated into violence, but, given Hezbollah's track record (the terrorist organization is, with Syria, a leading suspect in several political assassinations in Lebanon since 2005), it is certainly wont to...
...She was also critical of Hezbollah's continued possession of weapons, saying "Hezbollah's arms provide it with a type of hegemony . . . inspiring fear for security among all the Lebanese...
...There's no debating that Hezbollah is a popular organization in Lebanon and particularly among Shi-ites...
...Mat-tar et al were not looking for damages or jail time, but rather, for a well-reasoned and widely promulgated court ruling preventing further Hezbollah encroachment on Shiite political expression...
...Achieving pluralism within Lebanese Shiite politics is a long way off...
...More recently, in the aftermath of fighting between Hezbollah and Israel, perhaps the highest profile Shi-ite refusenik in Hezbollah's sights is Mona Fayyad, a professor of philosophy at The Lebanese University...
...Lebanon's Shiite community is not monolithic: There are alternative voices, articulating moderate agendas...
...This raises an interesting point: Hezbollah was indeed elected to the Lebanese parliament, but the organization is not constrained by the precepts of democratic government...
...Meanwhile, pro-Hezbollah weblogs in Lebanon have savaged Mattar, alternately describing him as a CIA agent, a Mossad agent, and an employee of the U.S...
...You are simply obligated, she quips, to "incapacitate your mind and leave it to [Iranian Supreme Leader] Sayyid Khamenei to guide you...
...Worried that the government might appoint non-Hezbol-lahis to the apportioned Shiite cabinet seats, cleric Afif Nabulsi issued a fat-wa "forbidding any Shia to enter into the cabinet...
...Slim, who speaks critically about the "monopoly on representation," claims Hezbollah has "undermined" the level playing field among Shiites by preventing moderates from emerging...
...So incensed was one Shiite lawyer, Mohammed Mattar, that he brought a class action lawsuit against Sheikh Nabulsi...
...But in the current environment of intimidation, the hope that moderates like Mona Fayyad, Mohammed Mattar, and Lokman Slim will emerge to seriously challenge Hezbollah dictates sadly remains a distant dream...
...But not all Shiites support Hezbollah...
...The most aggrieved party, however, were clearly the Shiites themselves...
...From 2002 to 2006, he was the Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Palestinian affairs adviser in the office of the secretary of defense...
...on August 8, Fayyad penned an acerbic op-ed in Lebanon's paper of record, An-Nahar, assailing Hezbollah's political and intellectual dominance over her confession...
...Nasrallah himself feels no compunction to abide by even the bylaws of his own party...
...Slim's point, of course, is that such moderates could play a role in Lebanese politics if the intimidation stopped...
Vol. 12 • November 2006 • No. 9
