## NOTES

### INTRODUCTION

1.“Who is Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah?” August 31, 1993. See Statement 8.

2.“Hezbollah leader Nasrallah details life history, political career,” Ya Li Tharat al-Hoseyn, August 2, 2006.

3.Ibid.

4.Civil War & Resistance, March 11, 1986. See Statement 1.

5.See Statement 6.

6.Major Christopher E. Whitting, “When David Became Goliath,” MA dissertation, US army Command and General Staff College, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, 2001.

7.Towards Liberation, June 21, 1999. See Statement 13.

8.Victory, May 26, 2000. See Statement 15.

9.Interview with New TV, August 27, 2006. See Statement 32.

### 1. CIVIL WAR AND RESISTANCE (MARCH 11, 1986)

1.By this point, Israeli forces had withdrawn from Beirut, as well as from the major southern port cities of Sidon and Tyre, to a self-declared “security zone” near the Israeli-Lebanese provisional border (as demarcated by the UN’s Blue Line, see below n.15 p.30), and in parts of the southeastern Bekaa Valley, covering approximately 1,100km2, or 11 per cent of Lebanese land. After Hezbollah captured two Israeli military personnel on February 16, 1986, in the southern village of Kounin, the IDF reoccupied seventeen villages outside the security zone, and undertook an expanded campaign against both the party and locales seen as supportive of Hezbollah operations. It was not until July 21, 1996 that the bodies of the two Israelis were traded for forty-five men and women held by Israel in south Lebanon, as well as the remains of 123 fighters.

2.The term mujahidin—literally “strugglers”—is generally employed by Nasrallah to name those individuals fighting against an occupying enemy.

3.Nasrallah uses the term “occupied territories” not only to refer to the “security zone” in south Lebanon, but also to the whole of Israel.

4.The acronym Amal, forming the Arabic word for “hope,” stands for “The Brigades of the Lebanese Resistance.” The Amal Movement was, at the time, the main political and military party representing the Lebanese Shia. Although founded in 1974 by the popular Iranian-born cleric Imam Mousa Sadr, the secular lawyer Nabih Berri (1938–) took control of the movement after Sadr disappeared while on an official visit to Libya in 1978. Berri’s stewardship of Amal subsequently came under harsh criticism from the Islamists in the movement, eventually precipitating the exit, in the summer of 1982, of leading figures, who soon formed the nucleus of Hezbollah.

5.Especially after the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, Amal worked behind the scenes with the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) and military intelligence in their efforts to uproot Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) guerrillas. Indeed, for Amal, and arguably for the Lebanese of the south generally, the PLO had come to be seen as a mostly menacing presence. But as the occupation wore on, and as Israel began to fight a nascent, Hezbollah-dominated insurgency in late 1983, the Israeli response of overwhelming force and brutality only served to further alienate the Shia community, Amal, and many Lebanese across the confessional spectrum. By 1986, Israeli efforts to treat Amal or Amal areas of control differently from Hezbollah had mostly ceased—or, at best, were pursued only half-heartedly. For the most illuminating account of these events, see Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shia, (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987).

6.In addition to founding Amal and serving as the spiritual leader for many Shiites in Lebanon, Imam Mousa al-Sadr (1928–78) was also a noted philosopher–theologian and a fierce public advocate for the rights of all the economically and politically disadvantaged in the country.

7.For details of Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon, see Introduction.

8.The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) were composed of members highly loyal to the radical Islamist project of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah al-Musavi al-Khomeini (1900–89), who was, by the summer of 1982, still attempting to consolidate his control over post-Revolution Iran. Estimates vary, but it is generally thought that as many as 1,000 IRGC personnel were stationed by Iran in Lebanon after the Israeli invasion.

9.Literally, “the Jurisdiction of the Jurist–Theologian.” As expounded by Khomeini in his Najaf juridical lectures of 1969–70, wilayat al-faqih practically meant a dramatic expansion of the governing role and power of clerics, and of one supreme, learned cleric in particular—thus providing for a major reinterpretation of traditional Shia theory, which had generally separated the political realm from the religious one. For Hezbollah, allegiance to the principle of wilayat al-faqih opened the party to charges that it followed non-nationalist—and in particular Iranian—dictates, since it apparently had to comply with any final decision issued by the faqih.

10.Though occasionally strained by competing interests, the relationship between the Iranian and Syrian governments had already been employed on several occasions by 1986 to contain conflict between Amal and Hezbollah.

11.Amal long resisted allowing Hezbollah to operate—politically or militarily—in any territory vacated by Israel and/or its indigenous proxy, the South Lebanon army. In the following years, however, Amal’s ability to physically control Hezbollah’s influence in south Lebanon would decline precipitously.

12.Presumably by Amal members.

13.Relations between the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) and Hezbollah had steadily worsened as inter-party conflict mounted across the country. In the middle of that same year, the killing of several Communist Party leaders—“The Noous incident”—was attributed to Hezbollah by the LCP. Hezbollah strongly denied that it had had any hand in the incident, but violence between the two nevertheless broke out on several occasions, prompting the intervention of Syria in an effort to calm matters.

14.A reference to the Tripoli-based Islamic Unification Movement, which operated primarily in northern Lebanon.

15.Nasrallah is referring to the so-called War of the Camps that raged from 1985 to 1988, mainly between the Shiite Amal party and various Palestinian groups based in refugee camps across Lebanon, but especially in the South Beirut camps of Bourj al Burajneh, Sabra and Chatila. By some accounts, Amal had been recruited by Syria’s president and ruler, Hafez al-Assad, to break the control that Palestinian leader Yassir Arafat’s Fatah movement, as well as other PLO-affiliated parties, still exercised over the Lebanese scene, despite Arafat’s exiting of the country following the Israeli invasion of 1982. The effort was designed to further assert Syria’s control over the country, and to reduce the possibility that such relatively independent actors might provoke another Israeli invasion of Lebanon. The War of the Camps was officially estimated to have claimed 3,781 lives.

16.As head of the PLO, and its largest party, Fatah, Arafat (1929–2004) had coordinated operations against Israel from Lebanon since his effective expulsion from Jordan in 1971. Following Israel’s June 1982 invasion of Lebanon, and a subsequent agreement brokered by Washington, Arafat left Beirut on August 30 for Tunisia, accompanied by thousands of his fighters. He remained based in Tunisia until his return to the occupied Palestinian territories in 1994.

17.The Syrian-brokered Tripartite Agreement of December 28, 1985 was meant to bring an end to the decade-old Lebanese Civil War. Signed by Nabih Berri of Amal, the Druze and Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt (1949–), and the Christian Lebanese Forces (LF) leader Elie Hobeika (1956–2002)—who had led a breakaway group from the main Christian party, the Phalange—the agreement effectively collapsed when Hobeika was ousted, in January 1986, by Lebanese Forces commander Samir Geagea (1952–).

18.The largest Christian sect in Lebanon, the Eastern Catholic Maronites, also held title to significant political power, both through their patriarch (currently Cardinal Mar Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir) and through the country’s decades-old National Pact, whereby the president, the army commander, and the head of the central bank were required to be from the Maronite sect.

19.During the mid-1980s, the Lebanese Forces and Phalange, or Kataeb, were the two main right-wing parties vying for power and influence among Lebanon’s Christian communities—although the Lebanese Forces had originally been conceived as the military arm of the Phalange. Both the LF and Phalange militias were subsequently disbanded in the wake of the 1989 Taif Accord, which effectively ended the Lebanese Civil War.

20.Nasrallah is probably suggesting that any form of contact with Israel’s allies in Lebanon would be shunned, almost as surely as would contact with Israel itself. As the years wore on, however, Hezbollah and Nasrallah would steadily step back from this position, eventually engaging even some figures who had previously publicly allied themselves with Israel—foremost of which were those individuals leading both the right-wing Christian parties, the LF and the Phalange.

21.The code of Islamic law derived from the Quran, and from the teachings and examples of the Prophet Muhammad (c.570–632).

### 2. SHIITE RECONCILIATION (FEBRUARY 3, 1989)

1.See Introduction.

2.Hafez al-Assad (1930–2000) was head of the Syrian Baath Party, president and absolute ruler of Syria for almost thirty years, after assuming power in a 1970 coup. In June 1976, he sent Syrian troops into Lebanon, ostensibly in response to a request for Syrian assistance in bringing the Lebanese Civil War to an end from the then Lebanese president, Suleiman Frangieh. Syrian troops were finally withdrawn from Lebanon in May 2005, following the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri. Unlike his son and successor Bashar, Hafez al-Assad was said never to have met with Nasrallah.

3.Dr. Ali Akbar Wilayati was foreign minister of Iran from 1981 to 1997.

4.At the time of the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in the summer of 1982, Hojatolislam Ali Akbar Mohtashemi was the Iranian ambassador in Damascus. Widely viewed as having helped foster the emergence and subsequent rise of Hezbollah, he also tried to broker several agreements between Amal and Hezbollah.

5.Nasrallah may be referring to Syria’s backing of Amal in its attempt to crush certain Palestinian groups in Lebanon during the War of the Camps (for which, see above, p. 30 n. 15), as well as Iran’s moral obligation to prevent intra-Shiite violence.

6.Presumably the ceasefire arrangement called for in advance of the negotiations that led to the Tehran–Damascus Agreement.

7.The exchange that follows is perhaps illustrative of precisely the ambiguities that ultimately contributed to making the first Tehran–Damascus Agreement unworkable. It also stands as a reminder of how opaque Nasrallah can be when he chooses not to reveal certain operational details.

8.Most likely a reference to Lebanon’s Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah (1935–), an Iraqi-born scholar and clerical figure often identified in the Western and Arab media as Hezbollah’s spiritual leader. A supporter of Iran’s Islamic Revolution, his Islamic Sharia Institute in Beirut produced several prominent religious scholars, including Sheikh Ragheb Harb (see below, p. 53, n. 8). While he has been a major political and religious reference for Hezbollah cadres, and one of Shiism’s pre-eminent jurists, both Fadlallah and Hezbollah have long denied any official relationship. Despite this, however, Fadlallah clearly has had an enormous impact on the religious, military and political ideology of Hezbollah—an impact that arguably moderated the party as it sought to embed itself ever deeper into the Lebanese body politic.

9.Presumably a reference to the beginning of the War of the Camps, in April 1985.

10.Uri Lubrani (1926–) was Israel’s long-time coordinator of policy in Lebanon. He previously served Israeli Premier David Ben-Gurion (1886–1973) as his advisor on Arab affairs and was, before the 1979 Revolution, ambassador to Iran.

11.A reference, in particular to the Phalange and the LF. The Iraqi Baath Party, for its part, had long been seeking to undermine Syria’s interests in both Lebanon and Syria, and had regarded the rise of Shiite power anywhere as a potential danger vis-à-vis its own majority Shiite population. Iraq’s president and Baath Party leader, Saddam Hussein (1937–2006), skirmished with Assad and the Syrian Baath Party for much of the 1980s.

12.Especially, Nasrallah seems to suggest, among the Shia.

13.Many Shiite residents of Beirut fled the intra-sect and general civil war violence, which became especially bloody after 1985, for the relative safety of home villages in the south and the Bekaa. Indeed, Beirut’s Southern Suburb, a loose grouping of several mainly Shiite neighborhoods just south of the capital, were major flashpoints during the Amal–Hezbollah conflict—all the more so because the suburbs included the Palestinian refugee camp of Bourj al-Barajneh. In subsequent years, the Southern Suburb, also referred to as Dahiyeh (the suburb), would come to be identified as a staunchly pro-Hezbollah area, where many official party activities were centered and where Hezbollah maintained a “security zone” of several blocks.

14.In other words, back to a time when Amal exercised near-unchallenged control over the political and military activities of the Shia, especially in regard to operations in the south.

15.Perhaps a reference to the April 1987 agreement, which ended the Amal siege of several Palestinian refugee camps.

16.The town of Naqoura, which headquarters the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), created by the Security Council in 1978 to confirm the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon, restore international peace and security, and assist the Lebanese Government in restoring its effective authority in the area, lies south of the main port city of Tyre on the Mediterranean. Lwaiza lies to the south-east of Tyre.

17.Presumably in relations between the various parties to the Agreement.

18.After the civil war, the southern suburbs continued to remain outside the administrative control of the Beirut municipality, thus underlining the de facto independence that the area had already gained, partially as a result of Hezbollah’s ascendancy.

19.Nasrallah is referring to the complicated and contentious issue of dividing the spheres of control in the Shiite areas around Beirut between Hezbollah and Amal. Since many such areas were home to supporters of both parties, the issue proved to be one of the most difficult hurdles to jump in order to end the violence. For Hezbollah, too, the issue of the precise locations and numbers of Syrian and Lebanese army personnel was particularly sensitive. The Syrians had strongly backed Amal throughout the conflict, and its forces had been responsible for the deaths of Hezbollah cadres and supporters. Indeed, in 1987, Syrian forces had executed 24 Hezbollah fighters who had resisted Syrian attempts at controlling mostly Muslim West Beirut—an event that prompted some 50,000 party supporters to march through the streets of the southern suburbs chanting “death to Ghazi Kanaan,” then head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon.

20.As before, Nasrallah is asserting that the intra-Shia conflict had prevented a unified Muslim front in fighting both Israel and what Hezbollah regarded as a grossly inequitable system of political power, especially with regard to the Maronites.

21.In Geneva one year earlier, Yassir Arafat had moved to meet US preconditions for direct talks and negotiations by effectively stating that the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist within its pre-1967 borders.

### 3. ELEGY FOR SAYYED ABBAS MUSSAWI (FEBRUARY 18, 1992)

1.Sayyed Abbas Mussawi (c. 1952–92).

2.Sheikh Subhi Tufeili was one of the founding members of Hezbollah, and became the first elected secretary-general of the party in November 1989. After Mussawi replaced him in May 1991, however, he was increasingly sidelined by both the party and by Iran. Staunchly opposed to Hezbollah’s participation in the 1992 parliamentary elections, by the late 1990s he would lead a revolt among some of Bekaa’s Shiites centered on the alleged lack of resources devoted to certain Shia areas by the party and the Lebanese state (especially in the eastern Bekaa), as well as the pernicious influence of Iran.

3.Nasrallah is referring to the Battle of Karbala, which took place on 10 Muharram, 61 AH (October 10 680CE) in Karbala, Iraq. Although the events and their subsequent interpretation are highly contentious, the battle and the ensuing martyrdom of Hussein (626–680), the son of the first Imam Ali (599–691; also martyred), and himself the third Shia Imam, at the hands of Yazid, the Umayyad caliph, stands as a founding narrative of resistance and suffering for the Shia. It also marks a culmination of the major split in the Islamic nation after the death of the Prophet Muhammad, and is annually marked by the Ashoura commemoration. Ali, in particular, is seen by the mainline Twelver Shiites as the true guardian of the Islamic nation after the death of the Prophet.

4.Zeinab bint Ali (c.628–682), the sister of Hussein and granddaughter of the Prophet, was forced to march unveiled back to Damascus by Yazid’s army after the Battle of Karbala, along with other prisoners also taken as spoils of war.

5.Abbas (648–683), the half-brother of Hussein, was also eventually martyred at the Battle of Karbala, having had both his arms cut off early in the conflict.

6.A term for the United States. Israel is customarily referred to by both Hezbollah and some Iranian leaders and media as the Little Satan. Nasrallah is also using the word nation (ummah) here as he usually does—that is, with a certain degree of ambiguity as to whether he is referring to the Lebanese nation, the Arab nation, or the Islamic nation, or all three as one.

7.Literally, striving in the way of God. Although a multifaceted term, most contemporary references to jihad are associated with an armed struggle fought in the name of Islam.

8.For al-Sadr, see above, p. 26 n. 6. Sheikh Ragheb Harb (1953–84), from the south Lebanon village of Jibi Sheet, was an influential Shiite cleric and founding Hezbollah member assassinated by Israeli agents on February 16, 1984.

9.Sayyed Ali Husseini Khameini (1939–) was elected wilayat al-faqih of Iran in June 1989, after the death of Khomeini, and subsequently acknowledged as such by Hezbollah—although his religious credentials were to be greatly challenged by both indigenous Iranian figures and notable figures in Lebanon, such as Sayyed Fadlallah. See p. 40 n. 8 above for Fadlallah.

10.Qibla is the direction that Muslims must face while praying to God. The Al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem was the First Qibla until that position was accorded to the Holy Kaaba in Mecca.

### 4. AFTER THE ASSASSINATION (FEBRUARY 27, 1992)

1.The US Central Intelligence Agency, “Lebanon’s Hizballah: Testing Political Waters, Keeping Militant” (The US Central Intelligence Agency: 1992), released under the US Freedom of Information Law, November 13, 2001.

2.For Mussawi, see Statement 3.

3.See p. 53, n. 7.

4.For the Amal–Hezbollah conflict, see Statement 1

5.These two villages, located directly to the east and north of Naqoura (see above, p. 46 n. 16), but just outside Israel’s security zone, were briefly advanced upon by Israeli forces three days after Mussawi’s assassination.

6.For Sheikh Ragheb Harb, see above, p. 53, n. 8.

7.Supplementing Nasrallah’s clarification here on this issue, the deputy secretary-general of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem (1953–), would later write: “For the first time, the Resistance launched Katyusha rockets at the settlements in northern occupied Palestine in response to the assassination [of Mussawi], thereby introducing the rockets as a new factor in the confrontation. Afterwards, Hezbollah clearly tied such action to reciprocity of the same suffered by Lebanese civilians at the hands of Israeli aggression, the latter not sparing an opportunity to target civilians of any town or village alongside civilian infrastructure.” Naim Qassem, Hezbollah: The Story From Within (London: Saqi, 2005), p. 109. The Katyusha rocket, originally built and employed by the Soviet Union during World War II, has a maximum range of 20 kilometers and can be launched from either fixed or mobile positions. It carries a 30 kilogram warhead.

8.See Statement 1.

9.Rabin was widely quoted as saying, in regard to the subsequent Israeli occupation of parts of Lebanon, “We let the Shia genie out of the bottle.”

10.The Taif Accord, signed on October 22, 1989, by Lebanese parliamentarians in the Saudi Arabian city of the same name, marked the beginning of the end of the Lebanese Civil War. Under Taif, part of the 1943 National Pact, Lebanon’s tacit outline of a multi-confessional (cont’d over) (cont’d from previous page) political system, was restructured via amendments to the Lebanese Constitution. Parliament’s composition was equally divided between Christians and Muslims, and greater power was given to the Sunni Muslim prime minister. Notably, however, the Shia, a plurality among the 18 official confessions in Lebanon were still restricted to disproportionately fewer seats for their confession, while their leaders remained barred from anything higher than the Speakership.

11.See p. 31, n. 20.

12.For the Lebanese Forces and Kataeb, or Phalange, see above, p. 31 n. 19.

13.One 1997 report by Amnesty International said, “Amnesty International knows of 21 Lebanese nationals who have been captured in Lebanon and transferred to Israeli prisons either without ever having been sentenced or held beyond the expiry of their sentences. These are just some of the detainees whom Amnesty International believes Israel to be holding as hostages. Most of them were captured by the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) or by one of the pro-Israeli Christian militias in Lebanon, the Lebanese Forces or the South Lebanon army [SLA]. Many of them were held in detention centers in Lebanon under Lebanese Forces’ or SLA control before being transferred, usually secretly, to Israel. For many years they were scattered among different prisons and they were frequently moved from one prison to another.” Amnesty International, “Israel’s Forgotten Hostages: Lebanese Detainees in Israel and Khiam Detention Center,” July 10, 1997, accessed online. The mainly Christian-led South Lebanon army was commanded by Major General Antoine Lahd (see below, p. 97 n. 23), and operated inside, and in some areas beyond, the Israeli-declared “security zone” in South Lebanon after 1985.

14.The term refers to non-Muslims who live in the Islamic state, and who must therefore pay sums of money to the government in order to bring them into line with Muslims who already pay part of their income to charity and/or as a contribution to the state.

15.Here, Nasrallah is probably referring to the presence of Muslim Druze and Shia in the ranks of the SLA.

16.A reference to the 1980–88 Iran–Iraq War.

17.See Statement 11 for Nasrallah’s discussion of United Nations Security Resolution 425 of 1978—a resolution that, key among four provisions, called upon Israel “immediately to cease its military action against Lebanese territorial integrity and withdraw forthwith its forces from all Lebanese territory.” In June 2000, twenty-two years after UNSCR 425 was passed, the United Nations determined that Israel had complied with the Resolution—a contentious claim especially for Hezbollah, who argued that parts of Lebanon remained occupied by Israel. Moreover, despite the ruling, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon remained at numerous points along the provisional Lebanon–Israel border, ostensibly as a buffer force between two states still officially in a state of war.

18.See Statement 8 for more details on the structure of Hezbollah.

19.For Khameini, see above, (p. 54 n. 9), and wilayat al-faqih (p. 26 n. 9)

20.Nasrallah is referring to Hezbollah’s recent prohibition on the display of arms other than in direct operations against Israeli or Israeli-backed forces—a prohibition which would mostly be upheld, save for periodic military parades, and in some areas of the country where Hezbollah operations were centered.

21.See above, p. 24 n. 1.

22.The systematic kidnapping of Western civilians in Lebanon first came to the fore with the abduction of American University of Beirut President David Dodge in 1981, although he was freed the following year. In just one year, 1984/85, seven US citizens were kidnapped, among them the CIA’s station chief in Beirut, William Buckley (March 16, 1984; died in captivity June 1985); the US journalist Terry Anderson (March 16, 1985; released December 4, 1991); and the US Navy diver Robert Dean Stethem, a passenger on board the hijacked TWA Flight 847 (shot and killed June 15, 1985). In January 1987, two citizens of West Germany were abducted by an organization calling itself the “Struggle for Freedom,” shortly after the West German government had arrested Muhammad Ali Hamadeh, a Lebanese Shiite who had allegedly masterminded the (cont’d over) (cont’d from previous page) 1985 TWA hijacking (Hamadeh was imprisoned, and eventually granted parole by the German government in 2005). In 1988, the hostage-taking began to subside: indeed, that year, the last French hostages were freed. In 1991, the last American and British hostages were released (among them Anderson and the Archbishop of Canterbury’s envoy Terry Waite), while the remaining two Germans were released in 1992. In addition to denying any involvement, Hezbollah officials would routinely note that the Western hostages taken during the Lebanese Civil War were small in number, in light of the fact that, by September 1987, an estimated 6,000 Lebanese had been kidnapped and/or had disappeared since the outbreak of the civil war in 1975.

23.Nasrallah is referring to the Shiite Islamic Dawa party’s prisoners, held by Kuwait for an earlier attempted assassination of the Emir of Kuwait. The prisoners, some of whom had direct familial connections with Lebanese Shiites, escaped (although Nasrallah uses the word “release”) from jail following the chaos of the Iraqi occupation of Kuwait in 1990.

24.Presumably, those collaborators who had assisted Israel in Lebanon.

25.Although Taif identified the abolition of political sectarianism as a national priority, neither Taif nor the amended constitution provided a timeframe for doing so. In a similar vein, and to the further consternation of Hezbollah, since Taif and a subsequent constitutional amendment mandated an equal number of parliamentarians between Christians and Muslims, the one-man, one-vote system of universal suffrage was therefore, once again, precluded. Thus, both a (presumed) Muslim majority within the borders of Lebanon and the full electoral weight of the Shia were also deferred.

26.Nasrallah would, however, soon lead Hezbollah into Lebanon’s first post-civil war parliamentary elections, during the summer of 1992. The turnaround had required the approval of Iran’s Ayatollah Khameini, as well as a special Hezbollah delegation, which after much debate voted 10:2 in favor of participation. The electoral platform announced by Nasrallah in July 1992 elaborated on a number of themes originally propounded by Hezbollah’s Open Letter of 1985: it stressed the essential need for thoroughgoing resistance to Israel; building a fairer political system ultimately freed from the confines of confessionalism; and the stimulation of wider socio-economic development. Overall, though, it was a frank declaration that in order to fight Israel’s continuing occupation of Lebanese land (and quite possibly in order to fight Israel in perpetuity), Hezbollah would have to embed itself deeply within the fabric of the Lebanese, not just the Shia, body-politic.

27.See p. 52, n. 3.

28.The Fatimids were a Shiite dynasty that ruled over parts of North Africa, Egypt and the Levant from 910 to 1171 CE. The Mamelukes were a Turkic military caste who converted to Islam, and who ruled from 1250 to 1517 CE. From the eleventh to the thirteenth centuries, Shiites migrated in large numbers from Syria, Iraq, and the Arabian Peninsula to the areas of Keserouan, north-east of Beirut and Jbeil, directly north of Beirut. In 1308 the Mamelukes crushed a Shia rebellion in these regions.

### 5. VICTORY AT THE POLLS (AUGUST 25, 1992)

1.The towns of Baalbek and Hermel—in the eastern Bekaa region and north-eastern Lebanon, respectively—were both staunchly supportive of Hezbollah (and remain so), with the former having served as the original rallying place for the party’s founding members.

2.Hezbollah nominated only four party members out of six candidates allocated to the Shia in the district of Baalbek-al-Hermel, choosing instead to leave two seats empty for the purposes of bargaining with other tribal leaders – although some observers argued that the purpose of the maneuver was in fact designed to avoid completely humiliating al-Husseini.

3.Hussein al-Husseini (1937–) was secretary-general of Amal from 1978 until his resignation in 1980. He was elected speaker (a post referred to as president by Lebanese in order to draw equivalency with the Premiership and the Presidency) of the Lebanese parliament in 1984, and presided over the 1989 Taif Accords (for which see above, p. 64 n. 4).

4.Zahle is the capital of the Bekaa governate, and a majority Christian city.

5.The interviewer is referring to the extremely bloody, decade-long Algerian Civil War, triggered in December 1991 when the government canceled elections after first round results showed an impending victory for the Islamic Salvation Front. The resultant conflict between Islamist guerrillas and government forces, as well as intra-Islamist fighting, is estimated to have resulted in the deaths of up to 200,000 people.

6.For Mussawi, see Statement 3.

7.Nabih Berri (1938–) is head of the Shia Amal Party, and currently speaker of the Lebanese parliament. Berri became leader of Amal in April 1980, and led the movement through the Lebanese Civil War.

8.Despite Nasrallah’s agreeable tone here, participating on joint lists with Amal would serve as a particular point of contention for Hezbollah in the future—especially as far as Syria was concerned. Indeed, Damascus would at times force Hezbollah to scale back its parliamentary demands in favor of its preferred Shiite ally, Amal.

### 6. “HEZBOLLAH IS NOT AN IRANIAN COMMUNITY IN LEBANON” (SEPTEMBER 11, 1992)

1.For wilayat al-faqih, see above, p. 26 n. 9.

2.Albert Mansour (1939–) had been nominated for the Catholic seat on Speaker Hussein al-Husseini’s list. He called for the cancellation of the election results in the Baalbek-al-Hermel district—due, he alleged, to forgery committed by Hezbollah delegates at the polling stations. Professor Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh, formerly of the American University of Beirut, would later write that “Hezbollah security forces immediately seized all centers threatening to use arms against anyone who would call for cancellation,” although the use or appearance of force is vigorously disputed by Nasrallah in the interview that follows. Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh, “Lebanon’s Hezbollah: from Islamic revolution to parliamentary accommodation,” (Third World Quarterly, Vol. 14, No. 2, 1993; accessed online).

3.By the end of the rolling elections, Hezbollah had secured an impressive political bloc from a number of districts, which included the following MPs: Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyid (Shia), Baalbek Hermel; Ali Taha (Shia), Baalbek-al-Hermel; Muhammad Hasan Yaghi (Shia), Baalbek-al-Hermel; Khodr Tlays (Shia), Baalbek-al-Hermel; Ibrahim Bayan (Sunni), Baalbek-al-Hermel; Munir al-Hujayri (Sunni), Baalbek-al-Hermel; Rabiha Kayrouz (Maronite), Baalbek-al-Hermel; Saoud Rufayil (Greek Orthodox), Baalbek-Hermel; Muhammad Finaysh (Shia), the south; Muhammad Raad (Shia), the south; Muhammad Ahmad Berjawi (Shia), Beirut; Ali Fadl Ammar (Shia) Baabda.

4.For Zahle, and, Baalbek, see above, p. 79, n. 3 and p. 77, n. 1, respectively.

5.According to one study by American University of Beirut professor Farid El Khazen, the 1992 parliamentary elections “were greatly blemished by irregularities and defects in preparation, the most important case of which being the administrative chaos prior to the elections, and on Election Day, especially in the north and the Bekaa. This is not to speak of the overt, armed presence by some militias, specifically, Hezbollah and Amal in the Bekaa and the south, which had a direct impact on the election campaigns, and of course, on the election results.” Khazen further points out that the rolling elections saw the lowest level of voter turnout since independence—30.34 per cent, compared to a post-1960 percentages that had fluctuated between 50 and (cont’d over) (cont’d from previous page) 53 per cent—which was greatly exacerbated by a concerted Christian boycott in some areas of the country, especially in Mount Lebanon. Nevertheless, Khazen notes, “we can say that Hezbollah’s crushing victory in winning eight seats … was an obvious sign of the Party’s influence and high level of organization in the region, and that this result did not surprise some observers.” Farid El-Khazen, “The First Post-War Parliamentary Elections in Lebanon: Bulwarks of the New Democracy,” in Farid el-Khazen and Paul Salem, eds, Lebanon’s First Postwar Elections: Facts, Figures, and Analysis (Lebanese Center for Policy Studies: Beirut, 1993; accessed online).

6.Hezbollah’s parliamentary representatives would later take their seats as the “Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc.” Ras al-Ain Square is in Baalbek.

7.See p. 85, n. 2 and Statement 5.

8.Sami al-Khateeb, a Sunni from the western Bekaa, was a brigadier-general in the Lebanese army before being appointed interior minister under Prime Minister Rashid Al Solh in 1992. Khateeb eventually settled the running dispute over the election results in the Baalbek-al-Hermel elections by declaring them accurate and legitimate.

9.Amal and Hezbollah had formed an electoral alliance that would soon take 22 of 23 seats in the south. But the strong showing was generally viewed as a boost for Hezbollah at the expense of Amal, not least because two of the party’s candidates garnered more votes than did the southern stalwart Berri himself.

10.The National Pact (see above, p. 31 n. 18) stipulated that the office of president always be held by a Maronite.

11.For Algeria, see above, p. 81 n. 5.

12.The US State Department, in its annual reports on global terrorism, repeatedly charged through the late 1990s that Hezbollah received approximately $100 million annually in financial support from Iran.

13.Iran supplied humanitarian aid, including fuel, to Bosnian Muslims throughout the brutal Bosnian War that was fought between March 1992 and November 1995 in the former Yugoslavia. Iran was believed to have also funded various political parties and armed groups, however. Indeed, in one well-publicized incident, UN officials found weapons in an Iranian aircraft that was supposed to be delivering relief supplies—a violation of the UN arms embargo then in place.

14.Ever since the Madrid peace conference of 1991, which had brought together Israel and its neighbors in multilateral talks, US and Lebanese officials had been engaged in negotiations to end the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon. But the insistence of Syria’s Hafez al-Assad that any deal between Lebanon and Israel conclude only after a deal with Syria (his famous “Syria First” dictate) greatly obstructed any separate progress on the Lebanese track. Still, as one former Lebanese ambassador would later note, the various terms that Israel insisted on also served as powerful impediments in their own right. Lebanese officials involved in the discussions, the former ambassador said, “had [their own] problems with conceding anything beyond the armistice framework. [And] Israel wanted to keep monitoring stations on Lebanese territory, for example, which was unacceptable to us.” Nicholas Noe, “The Relationship Between Hezbollah and the United States in Light of the Current Situation in the Middle East,” MPhil Dissertation, Cambridge University Center for International Studies, p. 58.

15.Nabatieh, one of the largest cities in south Lebanon, and only 25km from the provisional Israel-Lebanon border, stood just outside the “security zone” that Israel occupied until its withdrawal in 2000.

16.Although the Arabic text is unclear at this point, Nasrallah is most likely suggesting, as he had previously, that Israel would not have withdrawn from the environs of Beirut or elsewhere unless pressured to do so by resistance operations.

17.Syria’s Golan Heights, as well as the West Bank, the Gaza Strip, and Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, were all lost to Israel during the Six-Day War of June 5–10, 1967. The term “1948 territories” refers to the land upon which the state of Israel was declared in May 1948 by future Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, as well as the additional land included in the 1949 Armistices signed between Israel and her Arab neighbors after the hostilities of the previous year had ceased. The borders of the state of Israel before the Six-Day War thus comprised approximately 78 per cent of British Mandatory Palestine, compared to the pre-1948 54.5 per cent allotted by the UN Partition Plan of November 1947.

18.The first intifada (or “shaking off,” alternatively “rebelling”), which effectively lasted from 1987 until the signing of the Oslo Agreement in 1993, came to define the seemingly untenable Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories—all the more so as Palestinian expressions of discontent, directed both at Israel and to a certain extent the Tunis-based PLO, became overshadowed by street violence, bloody crackdowns, and, increasingly, Palestinian-on-Palestinian violence. Some 1,500 Palestinians and 400 Israelis were killed during the uprising (see http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/First_Intifada_Tables.asp).

19.A Member of the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) for the right-wing Likud Party, Yitzhak Shamir (1915-) served as Israeli prime minister from 1983 to 1984, and again from 1986 to 1992. Labour’s Yitzhak Rabin (1922–95) was prime minister from 1974 until 1977, and again from 1992 until his assassination at the hands of a radical Orthodox Israeli, Yigal Amir, in Tel Aviv in 1995.

20.Nasrallah is presumably referring to the “Greater Israel” vision promulgated by Israel’s founding father, David Ben-Gurion, which imagined a Jewish state encompassing territory beyond British Mandate Palestine, including south Lebanon, the western parts of Jordan, and southern Syria around the Golan Heights. During and preceding the second Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in 1982, various political figures in Israel made it clear that Ben-Gurion’s vision was not only achievable, insofar as Lebanon was concerned, but was also fast approaching realization

21.Lt.-Col. Ron Arad’s F-4 Phantom was shot down over Lebanon in 1986. The Amal leader Nabih Berri (see above, p. 25 n. 4) announced that Arad (1958–?) was being held by Amal, and proposed exchanging him for Shiite and Lebanese prisoners held in Israel. Hezbollah has constantly denied having any knowledge about Arad; in 2006 Nasrallah publicly stated that he believed Arad was dead, although some accounts have said that Arad was sold by Amal to the Iranian government, where he is currently being held.

22.See p. 72, n. 22.

23.Major General Antoine Lahd (1927–) led the Israeli-backed SLA in the “security zone” in south Lebanon, following the death of the SLA’s founder Saad Haddad in 1984. Seriously hurt in an assassination attempt in 1988, Lahd later moved to Israel following the May 2000 Israeli withdrawal, and the SLA’s subsequent collapse.

24.Khiam Detention Center, probably the most notorious among the Israeli-controlled prisons on either side of the provisional Israel-Lebanon border, was located in the town of Khiam, south Lebanon, near Nabatieh. Controlled by Israel’s proxy militia, the SLA, it was routinely cited by human rights groups as a center for torture and abuse. Its liberation in May 2000 brought incredible scenes, broadcast live around the Arab world, of stunned prisoners, some of whom had been in solitary confinement for over a decade, stumbling out of the prison into the embrace of cheering crowds of Lebanese. Although Khiam was later turned into a Hezbollah-affiliated museum, Israeli jets destroyed the site in the first days of the July War.

25.On July 23, 1992, US Secretary of State James Baker traveled from Syria to Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley to meet Lebanese President Elias Hrawi, Prime Minister Rashid Solh, and Foreign Minister Fares Bouiez.

26.Amine Gemayel (1942–), son of the founder of the Kataeb or Phalange Party Pierre Gemayel, was elected president of Lebanon by the National Assembly on September 21, 1982, shortly after the assassination of his brother, President Bashir Gemayel. He served as president until 1988. The Sheikh Abdullah barracks became the locus point for joint Hezbollah-Iranian activities throughout the decade and was rumored to have been the holding site for numerous Western hostages.

27.For the Taif Accord, see above, p. 64 n. 10.

28.An area of south Lebanon north of Nabatieh and east of Sidon.

29.The interviewer is referring to the so-called “No-Fly Zones” instituted by the US and its coalition allies after the Gulf War of 1990–91. The prohibition on Iraqi air movements below the thirty-third parallel (a similar prohibition was put in place in Northern Iraq to protect Iraqi Kurdish areas) came as a belated effort to protect the Shia in southern Iraq from the increasingly brutal campaign waged against them by Saddam Hussein immediately following the end of hostilities.

30.Perhaps the most notorious attack by Iraqi forces in the Kurdish-dominated northern region of Iraq occurred in the town of Halabja in 1988, when chemical agents were allegedly used to kill thousands of mostly Kurdish civilians. At least 5,000 people died, and another 7,000 were injured. That incident was part of the especially brutal 1986–88 Anfal Campaign, which led to the deaths of as many as 100,000 Kurds and the displacement of hundreds of thousands more.

### 7. THE FIRST UNDERSTANDING WITH ISRAEL (AUGUST 27, 1993)

1.The 1993 Oslo Accords, the result of secret Israeli–PLO face-to-face negotiations, called for the withdrawal of Israeli forces from parts of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank (what became known as “Gaza and Jericho First”), while affirming the Palestinian right to self-government within those areas through the creation of a Palestinian Authority. Permanent issues, such as Jerusalem, the return of refugees, Israeli settlements, security, and borders were deliberately excluded from the Accords, and left for future negotiation.

2.For US–Lebanese negotiations, see above, p. 94 n. 14.

3.Nasrallah is referring to Yitzhak Rabin’s “Jezzine First” proposal, so named after a Lebanese town north of the “security zone,” but controlled by Lahd’s SLA. The proposal, like so many later iterations, called for a phased pullback of Israeli forces from south Lebanon as long as a range of conditions—including a sustained ceasefire, the disarming of the party and the guaranteed presence of Israeli monitoring stations on Lebanese territory—were met by Hezbollah, the Lebanese government, and various other actors.

4.As Judith Palmer Harik notes in her book, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism, in a November 1992 press conference Rabin “conceded that Hezbollah had not fired on [settlements in Israel] without provocation from the Israeli army.” Harik quotes Israeli General Shlomo Gazit as later acknowledging, “Hezbollah did observe the ‘rules of the game’ for a long period. They refrained from shelling Israeli territory and from infiltration. They limited their operations to the ‘Security Zone.’ It was our retaliation for their skilful strikes at our soldiers inside the zone that made them escalate the fighting. We bombed and shelled many targets in Lebanon, including some far to the north. Only then did Hezbollah retaliate by shelling some Israeli localities—with no casualties.” Judith Palmer Harik, Hezbollah: The Changing Face of Terrorism (London: IB Tauris, 2004), p. 177.

5.Nasrallah at this point provides an interpretation of the 1993 Understanding that would presumably permit a Hezbollah rocket assault on civilian areas within Israel even if Hezbollah combatants were targeted directly (as was the case after the 1992 assassination of Mussawi and his family, although see Qassem on the subject p. 61 n. 7). Space is also potentially left open – at least in this passage – for attacks on any Israeli targets outside the theatre of conflict, given certain Israeli actions. This ambiguity would at least in part buffer charges by both the US and Israel, in particular, that Hezbollah had played a role, possibly under Iranian direction, in the March 1992 bombing of the Israeli embassy in Argentina as well as the July 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural center, attacks which killed 114 people and injured hundreds more. Although both bombings came shortly after major incidents in Lebanon (the assassination of Mussawi and his family in the first instance, and, reportedly, a devastating Israeli raid on a Hezbollah training camp in the Bekaa in the second), Hezbollah vehemently denied any linkage, arguing that the party had long committed to only launching or supporting operations in the immediate theater of conflict between Lebanon and Israel. Subsequent to the 1994 bombing, Hezbollah would not again be accused of direct involvement in overseas acts of terrorism, save for a 2001 US indictment of one unnamed Hezbollah member accused of assisting in the bombing of the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia in June 1996, an attack which killed 20, including 19 US military personnel. Moreover, after the April Understanding of 1996, the scale and scope of Hezbollah’s military operations became ever more rigidly tied to the narrower terms of the new “rules of the game” – rules which greatly mitigated the effects of violence against civilians on all sides.

6.The Shihine operation—a strike against an IDF patrol in south Lebanon on August 19, 1993—resulted in the deaths of seven Israeli soldiers.

7.The South Lebanon army (see above, p. 66 n. 13).

8.The South Lebanese village of Bara Sheet lies just north of the “security zone.”

9.The village of Jenta is located in the eastern Bekaa, near to the Lebanese–Syrian border.

10.The “three presidents” refers to the three highest political offices—the republic’s president, premier, and speaker of parliament.

11.Maydun, Yatir, and Kafra are small villages in south Lebanon.

12.Grand Ayatollah Muhsin al-Hakim (1889–1970) and Ayatollah Sayyed Abol-Qassem Mostafavi Kashani (1884–1961) were both leading Shiite clerics in Iran. Kashani was also an ardent nationalist, who played an influential role in the 1951 nationalization of the Iranian oil industry.

13.Respectively, the four major sites of Shia jurisprudence and scholarship. Najaf and Karbala lie in central Iraq, south of the capital Baghdad; Qom is located in central Iran, south-east of the capital Tehran; Jabal Amil customarily refers to the entire area of south Lebanon, although a more narrow definition excludes such major cities as Sidon and Jezzine.

14.Grand Ayatollah Abul-Qassem al-Khoei (1899–1992) lived and taught in Najaf, Iraq, and became the most prominent Shia Grand Ayatollah after the death of Muhsin al-Hakim

15.See p. 100; n. 1.

16.The Sunni business mogul Rafik Hariri (1944–2005) served as prime minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998, and again from 2000 until his resignation in October 2004. Although his relations with Hezbollah were strained over the years—not least because of his close ties to the West, as well as his sometimes controversial redevelopment initiatives—Hariri would later develop a close working relationship with Nasrallah in the years prior to his February 2005 assassination in Beirut.

17.Hezbollah’s construction company, Jihad al-Bina, would later assert that it had restored and rebuilt 4,873 damaged homes—or nearly all of the homes affected by Operation Accountability.

### 8. “WHO IS SAYYED HASSAN NASRALLAH?” (AUGUST 31, 1993)

1.The Karantina-Maslakh district of East Beirut was largely populated by various refugee communities—most notably Palestinians, who gradually gained control of the area through the PLO. A strategic location on the road between Christian East Beirut and the Christian mountain villages to the north, Karantina-Maslakh became a major point of conflict in the first year of the Lebanese Civil War. On January 18, 1976 it was overrun by Christian militias bent on revenging a recent massacre of Christians in the town of Damour, south of Beirut, who killed as many as 1,500 fighters and civilians.

2.For Fadlallah, see above, p. 40 n. 8. Fadlallah had centered his activities in the mainly Shiite Nabaa district near to Karantina, which also came under siege by Christian militias in January 1976.

3.The south Lebanon village of Bazourieh lies next to the city of Tyre.

4.For Jabal Amil, see above, p. 110 n. 13.

5.For Najaf, see above, p. 110 n. 13.

6.The mainly Shiite south Lebanon town of Bint Jbeil lies 4km to the north of the provisional Israeli–Lebanese border. Long a center of Hezbollah support, it was also the site of Nasrallah’s “Victory” speech after the Israeli withdrawal of 2000 (See Statement 15), and an area of considerable fighting during the 2006 Summer War.

7.Ayatollah Mohammad Baqer al-Sadr (1935–80) was a leading Shiite activist and religious authority in Iraq, and the father in-law of the radical Shiite cleric and current Mahdi army leader Moqtada al-Sadr. He was executed by Saddam Hussein in 1980.

8.For Mussawi, see Statement 3

9.The Shia consider the Iraqi city of Karbala to be one of their holiest cities, after Mecca, Medina, and Najaf. It is the location of the tomb of Ali, grandson of the Prophet Muhammad, and is a place of pilgrimage, in particular on Ashoura, the anniversary of the battle. For the Battle of Karbala, see above, p. 52 n. 3.

10.For Qom, see above, p. 110 n. 13.

11.Ayatollah Shamseddin (1943–2001) was the head of the Supreme Shia Council of Lebanon, until his death in 2001.

12.A reference to the Twelfth Imam, who adherents of the main Twelver Shia Islam believe went into occultation in the ninth century CE. The missing Imam, it is thought, will return as the Mahdi (the “Guided One”) to defeat tyranny and bring justice and peace to the world.

13.The prayer hall area of a mosque complex.

14.See p. 25, n. 5.

15.See above, p. 26 n. 8.

16.Al-Amin and Yazbek, alongside Mussawi and Tufeili, were founding members of Hezbollah, and both remain members of the Shura Council.

17.Ellipsis in original transcript of interview.

18.For Ragheb Harb, see above, p. 53 n. 8.

19.See above, Introduction, p. 7–8.

20.For a discussion of problems between Amal and Hezbollah, see above, Statement 1.

21.Qassem retained the post of deputy secretary-general of Hezbollah, although he ranked higher than Nasrallah—a development which raised speculation that Qassem was, in effect, passed over for the top post, perhaps because of Nasrallah’s allegedly closer ties to Tehran and Khameini.

22.Harb was assassinated on the same day, but eight years before, on February 16, 1984.

23.For al-Hakim and al-Khoei, see above, pp. 110 n. 12 and p. 110 n. 14 respectively.

24.For this concept, see above, p. 26 n. 9.

25.In October 1978, Khomeini took up residence in Neauphles-le-Chateau, France, where he remained until returning triumphantly from exile to Tehran on February 1, 1979.

26.For Khameini, see above, p. 54 n. 9.

27.Hezbollah, as a matter of policy, withheld its support for successive governments, preferring to stay outside of and opposed to any ruling authority constituted under what it argued was an unjust sectarian framework. Hamzeh points out that “It was only Hezbollah that proclaimed its opposition to the nomination [of Rafik Hariri as premier], having proposed the name of Ibrahim Bayan (a Sunni from Baalbek loyal to Hezbollah) to fill the post of prime minister. Furthermore, during the vote of confidence on the new government of al-Hariri, Hezbollah’s deputies voted against the government’s political program, arguing that it neglected the two most important issues: the official recognition of the Islamic Resistance and a time table for the elimination of political confessionalism.” Hamzeh, “Lebanon’s Hezbollah,” accessed online.

28.Zakat is obligatory almsgiving for Muslims, and one of the five pillars of Islam. Akhmas, the plural of Khums, or “five,” is the requirement for Shiites to pay one fifth of their surplus annual income to charity, customarily via religious institutions.

29.For Fadlallah, see above, p. 40 n. 8.

30.Most notably, of course, through the party’s founding statement—the 1985 “An Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and in the World.”

31.For kidnapping in Lebanon during the 1980s and 1990s, see above, p. 72 n. 22.

32.For Khiam see above, p. 97 n. 24.

33.Nasrallah is most likely referring to the February 24, 1987 killing of 24 Hezbollah fighters in the Basta district of Beirut by Syrian units. The blow to Hezbollah by the Syrian army, which was bent on exercising greater control over West Beirut, marked a low point for relations between the party and Damascus—not to mention Tehran and Damascus.

### 9. THE APRIL UNDERSTANDING (APRIL 30, 1996)

1.See p. 66, n. 13.

2.Dennis Ross, The Missing Peace: The Inside Story of the Fight for Middle East Peace (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004), p. 250.

3.Hezbollah would later be criticized by human rights organizations and the UN for the actions of its fighters who were determined to have fired on Israeli forces from positions within several hundred meters of the UN compound.

4.The text of the April Understanding, as posted on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, reads as follows: “The United States understands that after discussions with the governments of Israel and Lebanon and in consultation with Syria, Lebanon and Israel will ensure the following: 1. Armed groups in Lebanon will not carry out attacks by Katyusha rockets or by any kind of weapon into Israel. 2. Israel and those cooperating with it will not fire any kind of weapon at civilians or civilian targets in Lebanon. 3. Beyond this, the two parties commit to ensuring that under no circumstances will civilians be the target of attack and that civilian populated areas and industrial and electrical installations will not be used as launching grounds for attacks. 4. Without violating this understanding, nothing herein shall preclude any party from exercising the right of self-defense. A Monitoring Group is established consisting of the United States, France, Syria, Lebanon and Israel. Its task will be to monitor the application of the understanding stated above. Complaints will be submitted to the Monitoring Group. In the event of a claimed violation of the understanding, the party submitting the complaint will do so within 24 hours. Procedures for dealing with the complaints will be set by the Monitoring Group. The United States will also organize a Consultative Group, to consist of France, the European Union, Russia and other interested parties, for the purpose of assisting in the reconstruction needs of Lebanon. It is recognized that the understanding to bring the current crisis between Lebanon and Israel to an end cannot substitute for a permanent solution. The United States understands the importance of achieving a comprehensive peace in the region. Towards this end, the United States proposes the resumption of negotiations between Syria and Israel and between Lebanon and Israel at a time to be agreed upon, with the objective of reaching comprehensive peace. The United States understands that it is desirable that these negotiations be conducted in a climate of stability and tranquility. This understanding will be announced simultaneously at 1800 hours, April 26, 1996, in all countries concerned. The time set for implementation is 0400 hours, April 27, 1996.”

The text of the side letter, also posted on the website of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs and written by US Secretary of State Warren Christopher to Peres on April 30, 1996, reads: “Dear Mr. Prime Minister: With regard to the right of self-defense referred to in the Understanding dated April 26, 1996, the United States understands that if Hezbollah or any other group in Lebanon acts inconsistently with the principles of the Understanding or launches attacks on Israeli forces in Lebanon, whether that attack has taken the form of firing, ambushes, suicide attacks, roadside explosives, or any other type of attack, Israel retains the right in response to take appropriate self-defense measures against the armed groups responsible for the attack. With regard to the prohibitions on the use of certain areas as launching grounds for attacks, the United States understands that the prohibition refers not only to the firing of weapons, but also to the use of these areas by armed groups as bases from which to carry out attacks.”

5.The March 13, 1996 “Summit of Peacemakers,” as the conference at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm al-Sheikh was known, ended with a declaration by the 29 world leaders (including 14 Arab leaders) that strongly condemned “all acts of terror in all its abhorrent forms … including recent terrorist attacks in Israel.” A working group on terrorism was also created, in order to enforce the parties’ aim of bringing the “instigators of such [terrorist] acts to justice.”

6.The Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad movements had already taken responsibility for numerous attacks on Israeli civilians by the time that Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for four suicide bombings, in nine days during February 1996—bombings that had killed 59 Israelis. As both movements were headquartered in Damascus, the US and Israel demanded that Assad crack down immediately, in order to prove his commitment to the ongoing Israeli–Syrian peace negotiations. As a result of his unwillingness to do so, Syria was excluded from the Sharm al-Sheikh conference.

7.For the 1993 understanding, and for Operation Accountability, see Statement 7.

8.Although the “rules of the game” embodied in the April Understanding were meant to restrict military conflict only to non-civilian and/or depopulated areas (including areas free of certain civilian infrastructure), human rights groups would repeatedly criticize the logic promulgated here by Nasrallah which, they argued, violated international law that, “requires [Hezbollah’s] forces ‘to the maximum extent feasible … avoid locating military objectives within or near densely populated areas.’ This rule,” one 1997 Human Rights Watch report continued, “clearly encompasses the positioning of mortars and Katyusha rocket launchers within or in close proximity to concentrations of civilians, including displaced civilians sheltered on U.N. bases” – just as it does the positioning of leadership facilities and operational bases even if actual firing from such areas does not take place and even though a civilian area may be under direct threat from invading and/or attacking forces. See Human Rights Watch, “Military Operations by Lebanese Guerilla Forces,” September 1997, accessed online.

Human rights groups would further argue over the years that, quite apart from the April Understanding, Hezbollah was bound by the requirements of international humanitarian law prohibiting the targeting of civilians or civilian infrastructure, even if Israel violated such law. As one 2006 Amnesty international report put it, “The fact that Israel in its attacks in Lebanon also committed violations of international humanitarian law amounting to war crimes, including indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks, is not an acceptable justification for Hezbollah violating the rules of war, whether as a deterrent or as a means of retaliation or retribution.” Amnesty International, “Israel/Lebanon under fire: Hizbullah’s attacks on northern Israel,” September 14, 2006, accessed online.

9.Ehud Barak (1942–) would later become the tenth prime minister of Israel, from 1999 to 2000—a period that arguably represented the peak of Arab–Israeli peace efforts. Amnon Lipkin-Shahak (1944–) had succeeded Barak in 1995 as the fifteenth chief of general staff.

10.For Antoine Lahd, see above, p. 97 n. 23.

11.Here, Nasrallah appears to offer an interpretation that would allow Hezbollah to place weapons within populated areas – or, in other words, to stage or base attacks from populated areas without actually firing from these same areas—but that Israel and its proxy, the SLA, were prohibited from doing so. Christopher’s side letter, of course, states that “the [Understanding’s] prohibition refers not only to the firing of weapons, but also to the use of these areas by armed groups as bases from which to carry out attacks.” Both sides, therefore, held interpretations, buttressed by the fungibility of the term “launching,” that prohibited the other side from using civilian-populated areas as staging grounds for attacks.

12.Although an earlier Israeli version of the Understanding may have used this term, the version made available by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs corresponds to the accepted international version.

13.The 1993 Understanding was, of course, not signed since it was an unwritten agreement.

14.For Khiam see above, p. 97 n. 24.

15.For Jabal Amil see above p. 110 n. 13.

16.Nasrallah is presumably referring to the Clinton administration’s efforts to achieve peace along the Palestinian and Syrian tracks—efforts bolstered by the 1993 Oslo Agreement and the ongoing (though at this point frozen) negotiations with Syria that focused on returning the occupied Golan Heights, as well as the 1994 Jordan–Israel peace agreement.

17.Assad, of course, was more than just a full party in the negotiations. Although he himself would periodically warn US officials that his control over Hezbollah was limited, given the party’s influence on the ground as well as its relationship with Iran, Assad nevertheless exercised a preponderance of power over Lebanon (where his tens of thousands of his troops and intelligence agents remained) and, arguably to a lesser extent, over Hezbollah. Indeed, as a critical regional player as well, he was often the first and last voice in any negotiations in which the US involved him, especially as far as Lebanon was concerned.

### 10. THE MARTYRDOM OF SAYYED HADI NASRALLAH (SEPTEMBER 13, 1997)

1.The September 5, 1997 Hezbollah operation at Ansariya, near the southern port city of Sidon (and therefore outside both the “security zone” and the territory controlled by the SLA) resulted in the ambush of an elite Israeli commando unit. The ensuing clash left numerous dead and wounded on both sides, with Hezbollah succeeding in gathering Israeli body parts that were later used in the prisoner–body exchange that saw Hadi’s body, among others, returned to Lebanon for burial.

2.Nasrallah is referring to the series of high-profile Israeli commando raids deep into foreign and enemy territory through the 1970s and 1980s that, at the time, seemed to confirm Israel’s daring, global reach vis-à-vis its opponents.

3.The agreement is presumably the Gaza–Jericho agreement that resulted from Oslo (for details, see above, p. 100 n. 1).

4.A now heavily Shiite area of the Southern Suburb, where Sayyed Fadlallah lives and where the Hezbollah-affiliated Al-Manar TV is located. The area also bears indications of its majority Christian past, with the Maronite church of Haret Hreik still serving as a place of worship.

5.For Ragheb Harb, see above, p. 53 n. 8; for Mussawi, see Statement 3.

6.See in particular the account given by Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation: The Abduction of Lebanon (New York: Thunder’s Mouth Press, 2002), pp. 236–7.

7.Madeleine Albright succeeded Warren Christopher as US Secretary of State in January 1997.

8.The full name of Muhammad’s cousin, and, according to Shia, the first rightly guided Caliph (for further details, see above, p. 52 n. 3).

9.Imam Zein al-Abidin (658–713 CE) was the fourth Shia Imam, after Hussein.

10.As a sayyed—an honorific title especially employed by Shia when naming males accepted as descendants of the Prophet Muhammad, through his daughter Fatima Zahra—Hadi was also therefore a Hashemite, i.e. a descendent of Hashim ibn Abed al Manaf, the great-grandfather of the Prophet.

### 11. ON CONDITIONAL WITHDRAWAL (MARCH 29, 1998)

1.The full text of UNSCR 425 can be found at: http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/qpalnew/resolutions_new_qpal.htm

2.For the SLA, see above, p. 66 n. 13.

3.Daniel Sobelman, New Rules of the Game (Tel Aviv: Jaffe Center, January 2004), p. 25.

4.As a result of the 1996 parliamentary elections, which saw an end to the previous boycott by many Christians, Hezbollah held nine seats in total—down from the 12 seats it had won after the 1992 elections.

5.Iran’s Jewish population may have been as high as 140,000 persons in 1948. However, as a result of emigration to the new state of Israel, as well as relatively heavy emigration following the 1979 Revolution, Iran’s Jewish population is currently thought to number between 25,000 and 40,000 persons. Although officially recognized as a religious minority group, Jews in the Islamic Republic of Iran, like other religious minorities, suffer from officially sanctioned discrimination in a number of social, political, and economic domains. Iran nevertheless still accounts for the largest Jewish population in any Muslim country—a population represented by one member of the Iranian parliament—and is home to eleven synagogues, as well as several educational and charitable organizations.

### 12. ON JEWS (MAY 7, 1998)

1.Magnus Ranstorp, “Between a Rock and a Hard Place,” St. Andrews Working Paper, October 2000, p. 20.

2.For the significance of this date in the Shia calendar, see above, p. 52 n. 3.

3.Jewish tribes in central Arabia that clashed with the Prophet and his followers, and who eventually submitted to the rule of Islam.

4.For the concept of “Greater Israel”, see above, p. 95 n. 20.

5.Khaybar, in the modern state of Saudi Arabia, was an oasis community north of Medina inhabited by Jews. The Prophet Muhammad conquered it in 628 CE.

6.For the first Palestinian intifada, see above, p. 95 n. 18.

7.Nasrallah is referring to the vigorous US–Israeli–Palestinian negotiations over the percentage of land that would be included in Further Redeployments (FRDs) of Israeli forces, as called for by the 1995 Interim Agreement and the 1997 Hebron Protocol. Under the eventual formula worked out at Wye River, the first and second FRD was to have consisted of the transfer to the Palestinian Authority (under either full Palestinian control or mixed Israeli military/Palestinian civil control) of 13 per cent of the territory that had previously been under full Israeli control.

8.See Statement 9 on the April Understanding.

9.The son of Ali, the first Shia Imam. For further details of Hussein, see above, p. 52.

10.For Lahd and the SLA, see above, p. 66 n. 13.

### 13. TOWARDS LIBERATION (JUNE 21, 1999)

1.Sobelman, New Rules of the Game, p. 28.

2.For Madrid, see above, p. 93 n. 14; for Oslo, see above, p. 100 n. 1.

3.The southern city of Jezzine lies roughly equidistant between Beirut and the provisional Israeli–Lebanese border.

4.See above, p. 101 n. 3.

5.See above, p. 170 n. 1.

6.Nasrallah is presumably referring to the frontline between “liberated” south Lebanon and the combined territory held by Israel (the “security zone”) and the SLA.

7.Shaul Mofaz (1948–) was appointed Israel’s chief of general staff in 1998. His tenure was noted for his tough tactics against Palestinian guerrilla warfare in the Occupied Territories.

8.For the April Understanding, see Statement 9.

9.By 2007, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East reported that there were 405,425 registered Palestinian refugees living in twelve camps across Lebanon—the result of widespread flight and exile following the 1948 and 1967 Arab–Israeli conflicts. See http://www.un.org/unrwa/publications/index.html.

10.The Multinational Force, made up of British, French, US, and Italian “peacekeeping” soldiers, was greeted upon its arrival in August 21, 1982, with far greater acceptance by various Lebanese parties than had been the conquering Israelis, then entrenched around mostly Muslim West Beirut, as well as the southern half of Lebanon itself. Originally sent to the country in order to expedite the withdrawal of PLO forces from Lebanon, and thereafter protect the remaining Palestinian refugees, the Multinational Force nevertheless hastily began pulling out from Lebanon almost as soon as Yasser Arafat and many of his fighters had left the country. When Phalange leader and recently elected Lebanese President Bashir Gemayel was assassinated—on September 14, 1982—Phalangists, under the watch of the Israeli troops who had just recently entered West Beirut, stormed through two of the capital’s Palestinian refugee camps—Sabra and Chatila—massacring, by some accounts, hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese, including women and children (for one seminal account, see Robert Fisk, Pity the Nation, pp. 359–400). After a series of deadly suicide bombings, constant attacks, and increasing interventions into what was by then a full-blown civil war, the Multinational Force withdrew at the end of March, 1984.

11.Among several objectives and stipulations, the May 17, 1983, peace agreement between Lebanon and Israel was designed to end the state of war between the two countries, while providing for a phased withdrawal of Israeli forces. Such a withdrawal was premised on the Lebanese army, already badly split by years of escalating civil war, establishing a tightly controlled security zone in the south. Although the agreement was signed by Phalange leader and Lebanese President Amine Gemayel almost one year after the June 1982 Israel invasion of Lebanon, it was effectively abrogated only one year later, after the withdrawal of the Multinational Force and the collapse of the army forced Gemayel to travel to Damascus to make amends with the regime that many held responsible for the earlier assassination of his brother, President Bashir Gemayel, in September 1982. For Hezbollah, the agreement—especially its call for an end to any “hostile propaganda”—epitomized the maximalist demands that Israel, it argued, would always pursue in the absence of any countervailing power on the ground.

12.See above, p. 98 n. 28.

13.Although the Israeli public and the Knesset were indeed deeply divided, partly reflecting divisions over peace negotiations, Barak had won the Israeli Premiership with 55.9 percent of the votes, compared to 43.9 percent polled by Netanyahu, in what the US Cable News Network at the time termed “a landslide triumph by Israeli standards,” and one that exceeded almost all pre-election forecasts.

### 14. “A PEACEFUL RESOLUTION IS A VICTORY FOR THE RESISTANCE” (FEBRUARY 16, 2000)

1.In January 2000, Hezbollah fighters killed seven Israeli soldiers and wounded scores of others, during a bloody three-week period. Israel’s ostensible response, designed primarily to put pressure on the Lebanese government to rein in Hezbollah, was to bomb three Lebanese power plants, which cut 50 per cent of the country’s electricity supply, and wounded 20 Lebanese civilians.

2.Statements from the Barak government had repeatedly underlined that dire consequences “that would not spare Lebanese civilians” and “that would surprise the terrorists” would follow Hezbollah attacks against Israeli forces in the “security zone.” Harik, Hezbollah, p. 124.

3.For the April Understanding see Statement 9.

4.Israeli Deputy Defense Minister Ephraim Sneh (1944–) is generally considered a “hawkish” member of the Israeli Labour Party.

5.The Falashas are the African Jews of Ethiopia, who came to prominence in 1984 when 12,000 of them were airlifted to Israel from refugee camps in the Sudan, in an Israeli military effort known as Operation Moses.

6.For the Taif Accord, see above, p. 63 n. 10.

7.A reference to the US-mediated negotiations in Washington in December 1999 between Barak and Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa.

8.For the concept of Greater Israel, see above, p. 95 n. 20.

9.For Sadr, see above, p. 26 n. 6.

10.For the presence of Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the Bekaa valley in the early 1980s, see Fisk, Pity the Nation, pp. 468–70.

11.See p. 134, n. 27.

12.The Mujahidin Khalq is an Iranian politico-military exile organization, based mainly in Iraq, which has long fought the government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The US and the European Union, among others, list the Mujahidin Khalq as a terrorist organization. The three islands Nasrallah is referring to are located in the Lower Persian Gulf—Abu Musa, Tunb, and Lesser Tunb—and were seized in 1971 by the Shah of Iran. All three are currently claimed by the United Arab Emirates.

13.The interviewer is referring to the Muslim Brotherhood organization officially banned in Syria. After a brutal crackdown by Hafez al-Assad in the Syrian city of Hama in 1982, which may have killed as many as 10,000 Syrians, membership in the Sunni Islamist organization became punishable by death. In Egypt, the group had long been banned, but it was increasingly tolerated by the authorities during the presidential reign of Hosni Mubarak in the 1980s, and through to the present day, although arrests, torture, and official suppression continue.

14.Indeed, the puritanical Sunni Taliban regime then controlling the majority of Afghanistan fought a series of running battles with Shia minorities in the country, as well as with the Iranian government itself, regarding both as apostates to be eliminated.

15.A reference to the secular party organization which provided the backbone for Hafez al-Assad’s ascendancy to power in Syria, beginning with the Baath-led coup of 1966.

16.Although Nasrallah undoubtedly plays down the degree to which there was “general” co-ordination with Syria, especially in regard to the timing of military operations, his response to the question of Syrian involvement in the specifics of Hezbollah’s planning and implementation is generally plausible. Hezbollah and Nasrallah have long maintained that fighters operate with a large degree of autonomy, even from the central party leadership, engaging targets of opportunity when possible, and according to the fighters’ immediate context. Additionally, as Dennis Ross points out, Assad had made it clear to Israel and the US that Syria would not put itself in a position of engaging Hezbollah if Israeli actions, such as the shelling of civilian areas or actual incursions, created a rationale for Hezbollah responses. “If we exert efforts and they [the IDF] don’t stop shooting, then the resistance will turn their guns on us.” Ross, The Missing Peace, p. 233.

17.See p. 92, n. 12.

18.The Lebanon-based Jihad al-Bina Developmental Organization, under the direct control of the party, was established in September 1988.

19.For Khoms and Zakat, see above, p. 136 n. 29.

20.Taqiyya is an Islamic dispensation that allows Muslims to conceal their faith if threatened by persecution. Taqiyya is generally seen as a Shia practice; some Sunnis view it as a deceptive and hypocritical act.

21.In other words, since the beginning of Shiism. See p. 75, n. 28 and p. 52, n. 3.

### 15. VICTORY (MAY 26, 2000)

1.For which see above, p. 68 n. 17.

2.Ross, The Missing Peace, p. 626.

3.The third Shia Imam (see above, p. 52 n. 3).

4.For Khomeini and Sadr, see p. 26, n. 8 and p. 26, n. 6.

5.Muslim scholars engaged in Islamic studies.

6.General Emile Lahoud (1936–), the former commander-in-chief of the Lebanese army, was first elected president in 1998. He was later granted an additional three years in office as a result of a Syrian-engineered Constitutional amendment in 2004. Selim al-Hoss (1929–) served as prime minister three times: from 1976 to 1980; from 1987 to 1990; and then finally from 1998 to 2000.

7.For Khameini and Assad, see above, p. 54 n. 9; p. 34 n. 2 respectively.

8.For Sharm al-Sheikh and Assad’s non-invitation, see Statement 9.

9.A small village south of Marjayoun next to the provisional Israel-Lebanon border.

10.For the SLA, see above, p. 66 n. 13.

11.For Khiam, see above, p. 97 n. 24.

12.Nasrallah is here listing in succession a number of small villages that lay within the “security zone.”

13.UN secretary-general Kofi Annan’s special envoy for Lebanon was Terje Roed-Larsen. See p. 343, n. 9 below for details on Roed-Larsen.

14.A town in south Lebanon heavily damaged by Israeli shelling in previous fighting.

15.Nasrallah leaves out any mention of the Lebanese army, whose presence in the south had long been contested by Hezbollah, and which did not meaningfully deploy in liberated south Lebanon until after the July–August 2006 war; that is, after Syria’s May 2005 withdrawal from Lebanon, following the assassination of ex-Prime Minister Rafik Hariri the preceding February, and concurrently with the deployment of an “enhanced” UN force of more than 12,000 troops. Nasrallah’s reference to the state being “in charge” generally would also not correspond to the reality on the ground in the coming months and years.

16.For Baalbek, see above, p. 77 n. 1.

17.The Shebaa Farms is a 25km2 strip of strategically positioned, water-rich territory astride the occupied Golan Heights which the UN, after the Israeli withdrawal, determined as being Syrian land subject to negotiations between Israel and Syria, as per UNSCR 350 of 1974—that is, not UNSCR 425, which covers Lebanon. After the declaration, a raft of evidence emerged, some produced by Israeli scholars, supporting the Lebanese government’s and Hezbollah’s claim that Shebaa was historically a part of southern Lebanon, and that Syria had in effect occupied it in the 1960s.

18.Three of the highest-profile Lebanese detainees in Israeli jails. Samir Qintar (1962–) holds the distinction of being the longest-held Lebanese prisoner. A member of the Palestine Liberation Front, he has been held since 1979 on charges of murder and terrorism. Sheik Obeid, a fiery Hezbollah cleric, was kidnapped by Israeli commandos in 1989. Al-Dirani (1952-), kidnapped in 1994, was the head of security for Amal during the 1980s, and was believed to have played a role in the capture and transfer of missing Israeli airman Ron Arad (for whom see above, p. 96 n. 21).

19.Most likely a reference to Fatima’s Gate, a border crossing located near Kfar Kila.

20.Izzeddin al-Qassam (1882–1935), a Syrian immigrant to Palestine, was killed by the British in 1935 for his role in leading violent opposition to both their rule and continued Jewish immigration. Fathi al-Shiqaqi, secretary-general of the Islamic Jihad movement, was assassinated by Israel in 1995 in Malta. Yahya Ayyash (1966–96), Hamas’s chief bomb-maker, was killed by an exploding cell phone in 1996, although Israel has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility.

21.For the Falasha, see above, p. 216 n. 5.

22.See above, p. 95 n. 20.

### 16. THE SECOND INTIFADA (OCTOBER 5, 2000)

1.Col. Elhanan Tannenbaum (1946–).

2.The second, or Al-Aqsa intifada (September 29, 2000 to the present) has been significantly more violent than the first intifada. To date, it has resulted in the deaths of over 4,000 Palestinians and 1,000 Israelis. For further details see http://www.btselem.org/English/Statistics/Casualties.asp.

3.Then Likud opposition leader, Ariel Sharon, had entered the Al-Aqsa mosque compound of Jerusalem’s Haram al-Sharif, on September 28, 2000—a visit generally seen as marking the beginning of the second intifada. Sharon became Israel’s Prime Minister in March 2001 and served until his official incapacitation in April 2006 following a stroke.

4.Of course, these criticisms were some of the main points for negotiation between the Israelis and Palestinians at the Camp David Summit, held in the US on July 11–24, 2000, and were still points then being negotiated by both parties in an effort to reach a final status settlement.

5.For the first intifada see above, p. 95 n. 18.

6.Bashar al-Assad (1965–) had succeeded his father as president of Syria a week after the latter’s death on June 10, 2000.

7.For the Oslo Accords see above, p. 100 n. 1. Permanent status issues such as Jerusalem were deliberately excluded from the Accords. Moreover, although Arafat eventually assented to the principle of “what is Arab is Palestinian and what is Jewish is Israeli,” as far as the neighborhoods of Jerusalem were concerned, an overall agreement, including this point, was not forthcoming.

8.The UN-delineated Blue Line indicates the deployment of the IDF at the northern Israeli border prior to the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon on March 14, 1978. The Line, while not an official border between Lebanon and Israel, was subsequently acknowledged by the UN, in June 2000, as means of confirming the belated Israeli withdrawal.

9.Nasrallah is most likely referring to Ehud Barak’s frequent threats during his term as prime minister that any cross-border attacks following an Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon (or, for that matter, any attacks on Israeli forces still within the “security zone”) would be met with a massive response. Nasrallah’s allusion to an overseas embassy attack also harks back to the June 1982 assassination attempt on Israel’s ambassador to the United Kingdom, Shlomo Argov (1923–2003), probably by an Iraqi-backed Palestinian faction opposed to the PLO—an event that provided the ostensible justification for then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin (1913–1992) to launch Israel’s second invasion of Lebanon that same summer.

10.See above, p. 244. Cardinal Mar Nasrallah Boutros Sfeir (1920–) is patriarch of Lebanon’s Maronite Christian community. Elected head of the Maronite Church in 1986, he served thereafter as a major power-broker in Lebanese confessional politics.

11.Although, in June 1976, President Suleiman Frangieh (1910–1992) had requested Syrian intervention in the one-year-old civil war as the result of mounting internal pressures, especially on the Maronites, Assad’s assent to the request was arguably predicated less on intra-Lebanese issues than on Syria’s regional interests—in particular with regard to Israel and the increasing radicalism of leftist and Palestinian groups in several countries, including Lebanon and Syria itself.

12.See above, p. 30 n. 17.

13.In January, a small band of radical Sunni Islamists based in the northern-Lebanese town of Dinniye declared an Islamist mini-state. It took a reported 13,000 Lebanese soldiers several days to defeat and scatter the partisans, some of whom fled to Palestinian refugee camps that continue to lie largely outside the authority of the Lebanese state.

### 17. “THE AMERICANS HAVE SENT US A POLITICAL BOMB” (NOVEMBER 16, 2001)

1.Nicholas Blanford, “US officials sought visit with Nasrallah,” Daily Star, November 18, 2001, p. 1.

2.In August 1998, the Taliban took the northern Afghan city of Mazari Sharif, and executed as many as 5,000 locals, including a number of Iranian diplomats stationed there.

3.See above, p. 251 n. 10.

4.Nasrallah may be referring to the successive US air strikes on October 10, 2001 on the Sultanpur mosque in Jalalabad, which killed as many as 190 people.

5.For the April Understanding see above, Statement 9.

6.A reference to the alleged link between continuing Hezbollah operations and Syria’s desire to regain the occupied Golan Heights from Israel.

7.See Statement 16.

8.See p. 170, n. 1.

9.See above, Statement 10.

10.Labour’s Benyamin Ben-Eliezer (1936–) was then serving as Israeli defense minister.

### 18. “HOW CAN YOU AFFORD THAT?” (FEBRUARY 16, 2002)

1.See above, Statement 3 on Mussawi’s funeral.

2.For Tufeili, see above p. 51 n. 2.

3.International Crisis Group, Old Games, New Rules, November 18, 2002, p. 27.

4.For Emile Lahoud, see above, p. 234 n. 6. Although Lahoud had made an inaugural pledge to crack down on corruption, little was eventually achieved—to the disappointment of many Lebanese, who thought the well-regarded army commander might be one of the few people in the country up to the task.

5.See above, p. 245 n. 3.

### 19. ON THE THIRTEENTH ANNIVERSARY OF AYATOLLAH KHOMEINI’S DEATH (JUNE 4, 2002)

1.See above, p. 26 n. 9.

2.Nasrallah may here be referring to Khomeini’s vocal opposition to Shah Muhammad Reza Pahlavi’s “White Revolution”—a program of reform officially announced in January 1963, which called, among other things, for land reform, the sale of state-owned infrastructure, and a national literacy campaign. Khomeini accused the Shah (1919–1980) of violating Iran’s Constitution, and of submission to America and Israel. He was arrested on June 5 the same year, and, although released, was rearrested the following year and sent into exile.

3.For Zakat and Khoms see above, p. 136 n. 29.

4.The Savak was Iran’s brutal internal security organization under the Shah.

5.Respectively, the Muslim names given to the three Prophets: Abraham, Moses and Jesus.

6.In the Persian calendar, the third month of the year, which usually starts on May 21 and finishes on June 21.

7.Nasrallah is referring to a number of massacres in recent Middle East history: the massacres in the South Beirut Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Chatila in September 1982, when Phalangist Lebanese militiamen, under the watch of the IDF, murdered hundreds of Palestinians and Lebanese; Israel’s bombing of the UN compound at the South Lebanese town of Qana during Israel’s April 1996 Grapes of Wrath campaign (for which see Statement 9); and, the farthest back, the Deir Yassin massacre in April 1948, when over 100 Palestinians were killed by Jewish forces. In April 2002, Israel launched Operation Defensive Shield against a number of towns in the West Bank, including Jenin’s refugee camp, which was partially destroyed by bulldozers. For further details about Operation Defensive Shield, see below, p. 279 n. 9.

8.For Sadr, see above, p. 26 n. 6.

9.Operation Defensive Shield, which lasted from the end of March 2002 until mid-May the same year, was directed at a number of West Bank towns, most notably the refugee camp at Jenin and the city of Ramallah, where Arafat remained under effective siege. The operation was ostensibly prompted by a month of violence against Israelis in March, which left more than 135 Israeli civilians dead in attacks committed by Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. According to a UN report of August 2002, Operation Defensive Shield claimed some 497 Palestinian lives, with a further 1,447 wounded (for the full report, see http://www.un.org/peace/jenin/). Human Rights Watch subsequently criticized the report as being a “watered-down account of the very serious violations in Jenin” (http://hrw.org/english/docs/002/08/02/isrlpa4185.htm).

10.“The 1948 territories” refers to the boundaries of Israel that existed up until the June 1967 war.

11.Three Palestinian cities located in the northern West Bank.

12.Israel’s “Iron Fist” policy in south Lebanon obliterated numerous villages, and instituted a particularly harsh crackdown on any persons believed to sympathize with or be a part of militant activities in the area. It was initiated in concert with Israel’s redeployment to the “security zone” in early 1985.

### 20. “ARABS ARE NOT RED INDIANS” (OCTOBER 22, 2002)

1.“Red Indians” remains a common reference for Arabic speakers to Native Americans in the United States.

2.Hezbollah’s Deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem would later write that “During the Israeli ‘Defensive Shield’ operation … the Resistance escalated its activities in the Shebaa Farms, increasing the frequency to a daily basis … sending a message of solidarity with the Palestinian people’s uprising and pain.” Qassem, Hezbollah, p. 136.

3.The annual Francophone Summit, only days before Nasrallah’s speech, brought French President Jacques Chirac to Beirut, as well as the leaders of 55 states around the world. In a well-reported appearance, Nasrallah attended the opening ceremonies.

### 21. THE IMPENDING IRAQ WAR AND “MUSLIM–CHRISTIAN ALIGNMENT” (MARCH 13, 2003)

1.For Lahoud see above, p. 234 n. 6.

2.In contrast to Prime Minister Hariri, who had publicly criticized Hezbollah on a number of occasions over the previous two years—in particular when operations in the south had put his long-standing efforts to organize an international debt bailout in jeopardy—President Lahoud had vigorously and consistently defended the resistance’s actions.

3.Sharon had been Israeli defense minister during the Sabra and Chatila massacres. See p. 204, n. 10.

4.In 2003 Syria was still believed to have over 14,000 troops stationed across Lebanon, in addition to thousands of intelligence agents and other officials.

5.At this point Bashar al-Assad was 37 years old. As the second son, Bashar was not originally groomed as his father Hafez’s successor, only coming to prominence after the death of his elder brother, Basil, in a car accident in 1994.

6.Nasrallah is referring to the Syria Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Act (SALSA), which was passed by the US Congress in early 2003, but which would remain unimplemented by President Bush until May 2004, when he signed the law into effect. The measure was designed essentially to cut all trading ties between Syria and the US, and thus to further isolate and pressure the Assad regime internationally.

7.Possibly a reference to predictions variously expressed by supporters of an invasion of Iraq (and most famously by Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi and Iraqi–American academic Kanan Makiya) that US-led forces would be widely welcomed in their assault on Saddam Hussein’s regime.

8.In his 2002 book Bush at War, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward described President Bush as “casting his vision and that of the country in the grand vision of God’s master plan”—a point greatly reinforced for Nasrallah, and many Muslims, by Bush’s speech the day after the September 11 attacks, when he declared that the United States was about to embark on a “crusade” against terrorism. See Bob Woodward, Bush at War (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2002) p.67. Although the White House soon retracted the statement, Bush’s 2004 campaign for re-election later issued a letter that praised the president for “leading a global crusade against terrorism.”

### 23. AFTER OCCUPATION (APRIL 22, 2003)

1.For Hussein see above, p. 52 n. 3.

2.Nasrallah is referring to the events of October 16, 1983, when, during the Ashoura festival in the southern city of Nabatiye, an Israeli military convoy provoked a violent reaction by insisting on traveling through the middle of a crowd of 50,000 worshippers. Two Lebanese Shiites were killed and 15 wounded by the IDF, in what came to be seen as a formative moment both for Hezbollah’s ascendancy in Lebanon and for the decline of Israeli–Shia cooperation.

3.For Karbala see above, p. 52 n. 3.

4.The Vatican, as well as numerous religious leaders of many faiths, had spoken out strongly against the impending war in Iraq, with Pope John Paul II saying that war “is always a defeat for humanity.” He had qualified this elsewhere, however, by saying that “the political leaders in Baghdad have an urgent duty to cooperate fully with the international community, to eliminate any motive for armed intervention.” Reverend Wilton D. Gregory, “Statement on War with Iraq,” (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, March 19, 2003), p.1.

5.By November 2003, the US State Department’s leading Arabist, Hume Horan, had met three of the four Grand Ayatollahs in Iraq. But he never met the main religious reference in Najaf, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, although one meeting was reportedly scheduled, and then canceled after helicopter trouble. Following an assassination attempt on Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Sayyed al-Hakim in August 2003, Sistani publicly refused to meet directly with the Americans.

6.See above, p. 285, n. 6.

### 24. PRISONER EXCHANGE (JANUARY 29, 2004)

1.See Statement 16.

2.For Mussawi and Harb, see above, Statement 3 and p. 53 n. 8 respectively.

3.Surah, al-Maaida, Verse 32.

4.After the April 1983 suicide bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, that killed 49, the embassy relocated to Awkar, north of the capital. A second bombing there, in September 1984, killed eleven.

5.A reference to Israeli-controlled prisons in south Lebanon. For Khiam, see above, p. 97 n. 24.

6.UN Secretary General Kofi Annan held a meeting with Nasrallah on June 20, 2000, described by Qassem as “a victory for Hezbollah in the sense that recognition of the Party had come through the highest representation of the international states, indicating the stature and importance that the Party had achieved in the eyes of global powers.” Qassem, Hezbollah, p. 142.

7.The lead German negotiator was Ernst Uhrlau, coordinator for Germany’s intelligence community.

8.Most likely a reference to Hezbollah’s missile strike on an IDF bulldozer that had crossed the Blue Line on January 19, 2004, in an effort to clear explosives—an operation that resulted in the death of one IDF soldier.

9.Niser was convicted of spying for Hezbollah in 2002 by an Israeli court, although it is believed that he was held several years prior to his conviction. Israel denies holding Skaf, but has acknowledged holding an “illegal alien” that Hezbollah, among others, believes is the Lebanese citizen Yahya Skaf. Hezbollah would later argue, during the 2006 Summer War, that Israel held a fourth Lebanese prisoner, fisherman Ali Faratan. For Qintar see above p. 97 n. 24.

10.Eid al-Adha is a three-day Islamic festival, commemorating the Prophet Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for God. In 2004, it fell on February 2.

11.See above, p. 96 n. 21.

12.See above, Statement 15. Speech in Jibi Sheet

13.Yaacoub and Badreddin were the two religious scholars who accompanied al-Sadr to Libya. Both also disappeared with him.

### 25. THEY ARE A GROUP THAT “LIVES IN THE MIDDLE AGES” (MARCH 2, 2004)

1.See above p. 52 n. 3.

2.Nasrallah is referring to the Broader Middle East and North Africa (BMENA) initiative, which was in fact only announced at the G-8 summit in June 2004, after having been substantially derided, and then watered down, in both public and private during initial discussions with both European and Arab states. The centerpiece of the initiative was a US-led effort to promote democracy and broad-based reform in the Arab world.

3.In coordinated bombing and suicide attacks on March 2, 2004, 181 Shiites celebrating the Ashoura festival in Baghdad and Karbala were killed. Fifty-eight people in all were killed in Baghdad at the al-Kazimiya shrine, one dedicated to the Seventh Imam, Imam Musa al-Kazim (b.746-d.799) For Karbala see above p. 52 n. 3.

4.Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim (1939–2003), a prominent Shiite Iraqi religious leader, was son of Muhsin al-Hakim (see above, p. 110 n. 12). In exile in Iran, he was founder of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), dedicated to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. He was assassinated in August 2003 by a car bomb, in Najaf, Iraq.

5.A reference to the shrine and possible burial site of Imam Hussein.

6.Nasrallah would repeatedly voice his rejection and condemnation of Sunni extremists, including but not limited to al-Qaeda, who embraced the principle of takfir in fighting Shiism—that is, declaring that the Shia were apostates, and therefore subject to punishment by death.

### 27. “YOU WILL TODAY DECIDE THE FATE OF YOUR NATION AND COUNTRY” (MARCH 8, 2005)

1.Omar Karami (1934–) served a disastrous year-and-a-half as Lebanon’s prime minister, from 1990 to 1992, and later succeeded Hariri, in October 2004, after the latter resigned following his falling out with Damascus over Lahoud’s mandate extension. Karami himself resigned on February 28, 2005, following protests in the aftermath of Hariri’s assassination on February 14, only to be reappointed on March 10 by President Lahoud (although he served only a few more weeks as a result of renewed protests).

2.For the Taif Accords, see above, p. 64 n. 10.

3.A term introduced by the US State Department, following Hariri’s assassination, that attempted to link developments in Lebanon with the 2003 “Rose Revolution” in Georgia, the 2004/05 “Orange Revolution” in Ukraine, and the “Purple Revolution” in Iraq—the last so named after the ink marks on voters’ index fingers, designed to prevent fraud during the 2005 Iraqi elections.

4.Of course, Hafez al-Assad’s “protection” of Beirut, initially (and most notably) during the first Syrian intervention in Lebanon in 1976 (ostensibly to prevent a Palestinian–Leftist–Druze defeat of the Maronites), was not a purely humanitarian gesture. Indeed, Assad had long coveted Lebanon, which in pre-colonial days had been a part of Greater Syria, and he was, more importantly, motivated to intervene in great part by his own regional interests. Which is to say nothing of the estimated human and economic costs of Syrian “protection” over the years, widely—and publicly—decried after Hariri’s assassination.

5.The Council was created following the 1991 Treaty of Brotherhood and Cooperation between Syria and Lebanon. Its main function was to provide a democratic and balanced veneer for what was essentially a Syrian-dominated political process in Lebanon.

6.The France–US sponsored UN Security Council Resolution 1559 called upon Lebanon to establish sovereignty through the whole country. It also stipulated that all “foreign forces” (implicitly, but not limited to, Syria) should leave the country, and that all militias in the country—foreign and Lebanese—should disband, as a prelude to a “free and fair electoral process” (for the full text of UNSCR 1559, see http://www.un.org/Depts/dpa/qpalnew/resolutions_new_qpal.htm). Although the 1989 Taif Accord was arguably the result of a national consensus, and did call for a phased withdrawal of all Syrian forces, as well as an eventual complete evacuation by mutual agreement, Syria had long used Taif’s other unimplemented, and highly contentious, stipulations—such as deconfessionalization—to argue that redeployment was only mandated after all of Taif had been implemented.

7.A reference to the various meeting places of opposition and pro-government political parties and alliances.

8.Only three days before, Bashar al-Assad had said in a televised address that Syrian forces would withdraw to the Bekaa, and then to Syria, although he failed to provide a specific timetable.

9.Especially, for Hezbollah, deconfessionalization of the Lebanese political system, and thus, as a consequence, electoral reform.

10.David Satterfield was at this point US Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. He had also been Ambassador to Lebanon from September 1998 to June 2001.

11.Now retired, General John Abizaid was from 2003 to 2007 Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), which oversaw US military operations from Africa to Central Asia, including the Middle East.

12.For Awkar, see above, p. 303 n. 4.

13.The Likud politician Silvan Shalom (1958–) was Israel’s Foreign Minister from 2003 until 2006.

14.The Arabic word for “lion” is assad.

15.See above for Qintar, Skaf and Niser (p. 240 n. 18).

16.Tripoli, Lebanon’s second-largest city, lies in north Lebanon. The powerful Karami family as well as some pro-Syrian parties are based there.

17.Although Hezbollah and its allies organized a 200,000-person-strong rally in the southern city of Nabatieh the following week, the massive anti-government protest in Beirut on March 14 convinced the party that subsequent rallies would not be in its interests.

### 28. A MESSAGE TO FRANCE (APRIL 13, 2005)

1.For which see above, Statements 7 and 9.

2.For the April Understanding see above, Statement 9.

3.Cooperation with the Lebanese army did not, of course, mean submission to its ultimate authority—especially if that authority was under the sway of a largely anti-Syrian government; nor, for that matter, could several of Hezbollah’s various operations through the years, including the capturing operations executed in October 2000, be construed as purely defensive in the strictest definition of the word.

4.Although, according to the Lebanese Constitution, the president was permitted to serve only one six-year term, Emile Lahoud was granted an additional three-year extension until 2007 by Lebanon’s parliament. Critics of the extension argue it was illegal because heavy Syrian influence was brought to bear on the voting process.

5.For which see above, p. 64 n. 10.

6.See above, Statement 27.

7.In Bashar al-Assad’s March 5 speech to the Syrian parliament, broadcast live to jeering (and intermittently cheering) protesters in downtown Beirut, the president said not “all our [Syria’s] acts in Lebanon were correct.” Donna abu Nasr, “Threats Alienate Syrians from Lebanon,” Associated Press, March 19, 2000, accessed online.

### 29. “WE WILL CONSIDER ANY HAND THAT TRIES TO SEIZE OUR WEAPONS AS AN ISRAELI HAND” (MAY 25, 2005)

1.Fouad Siniora (1943–), a key ally of Rafik Hariri and member of his Future Movement Party, had previously served as Finance minister during Hariri’s second term as prime minister, from 2000 to 2004.

2.See Statement 3.

3.Eid al-Fitr is the Muslim holiday that marks the end of the month of fasting during Ramadan. For Eid al-Adha see above, p. 306 n. 10.

4.For UNSCR 1559 see Statement 27.

5.UNSCR 425, issued in 1978, called for Israel’s unconditional withdrawal from Lebanese territory. See above, p. 179, n. 1.

6.See above, p. 250. n. 8.

7.Arab states, especially Saudi Arabia, also played a key role in convincing Syria to withdraw from Lebanon. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, a close friend of Hariri, allegedly told Bashar Assad before the latter’s March 5 speech to the Syrian parliament that Syria would have to quit Lebanon within weeks or risk upsetting Syrian–Saudi relations. Nicholas Blanford, Killing Mr. Lebanon, p. 158.

8.The 2000 election law was generally viewed as being particularly unfavorable to Lebanon’s Christians, since it was based on 14 large, gerrymandered districts in which pro-Syrian confessional candidates were assured of victory, instead of small districts where confessional candidates were more likely to be chosen directly from their respective confessions. In the case of the Christian vote, this generally meant that pro-Syrian Christian candidates were elected on the backs of (more likely than not pro-Syrian) Muslim votes. It should be said, however, that the 2000 law was drawn up under the auspices of Syria’s head of security in Lebanon, Ghazi Kanaan, as a means of shifting more electoral power away from President Lahoud and towards Hariri, with whom Kanaan had a good relationship. It is therefore not entirely surprising that, despite the complaints of Christian members of the former March 14 alliance, especially General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement (which had yet to formally align with Hezbollah), Samir Geagea’s now legalized Lebanese Forces, and the mainly Christian Qornet Shehwan, the “Quadripartite Alliance” – composed of Saad Hariri (1970–) and his father’s Future Movement (Sunni), Walid Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party (Druze), and Amal and Hezbollah (Shiite)—nevertheless decided to keep the 2000 law in place for the upcoming parliamentary contest, although Amal and Hezbollah repeatedly stressed their preference for delaying the elections until a new law could be put into place.

9.The Norwegian diplomat and UN Special Representative for the implementation of UNSCR 1559, Terje Roed-Larsen (1947–) was also a key facilitator for the 1993 Oslo Accords.

10.Taif divided Lebanon into six governorates for the purposes of parliamentary elections—Beirut, South Lebanon, Nabatieh, Mount Lebanon, Bekaa, and North Lebanon. Under the 2000 law voters cast ballots within 26 smaller, gerrymandered electoral districts, often composed of several smaller districts known as cazas. Seats were allocated by caza, but since candidates won by a majority vote, a popular candidate in one caza might not be secured a place unless he or she fared well in the other cazas within the district.

11.For which see above, Statement 27.

12.According to Hezbollah, the Quadripartite Alliance deal struck with Hariri and Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, and which Hezbollah would later argue delivered as many as ten seats in one district alone to the Hariri list, ensured that the new government would protect Hezbollah’s resistance from outside pressures, in exchange for Shiite votes for its candidates. The understanding was enshrined in a subsequent cabinet policy statement, which read: “The government considers that Lebanon’s resistance is a sincere and natural expression of the Lebanese people’s right to defend its land and dignity in the face of Israeli aggression, threats, and ambitions as well as of its right to continue its actions to free Lebanese territory.” Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, “In Their Own Words: Hizbollah’s Strategy in the Current Confrontation,” Carnegie Policy Outlook (Washington, D.C., 2007), pp. 2–3.

13.For Musa al-Sadr, see above, p. 26, n. 6.

14.Hezbollah had already shown its grassroots strength in the 1998 municipal elections, and thus had effectively asserted its power on the ground in the face of its rival, Amal. In the next municipal elections, in 2004, Hezbollah, largely unrestrained by Syria as in the successive parliamentary contests, thoroughly trounced Amal, winning 21 per cent of the municipal seats countrywide.

15.A reference to Paragraph 3 of UNSCR 1559, which “Calls for the disbanding and disarmament of all Lebanese and non-Lebanese militias.”

16.Husam Hariri was Rafik Hariri’s third son. He was killed at age 18 in a car crash in 1991.

17.See above, p. 52 n. 3.

18.Surah, Al-Hajj, Verse 39.

19.A reference to the alleged flushing of a Quran down a toilet by a US interrogator at the US military prison in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. The story, first reported by Newsweek magazine on May 9, 2005, was later retracted. Nevertheless, according to subsequently released declassified documents, detainees at Guantánamo Bay were recorded as having complained repeatedly to US FBI agents about disrespectful handling of the Quran by military personnel and, in one case in 2002, said they had flushed a Quran down a toilet. Neil A. Lewis, “Documents Say Detainees Cited Koran Abuse,” New York Times, May 26, 2005, p. A1.

### 30. AL QUDS DAY (OCTOBER 28, 2005)

1.See above, p. 343, n. 9.

2.See above, p. 337, n. 3.

3.For Operation Defensive Shield, see above, p. 275 n. 9. Since April 2002, Jenin has been under the direct control of the IDF. This may also be a reference to the recent (October 23) Israeli military operation in the West Bank town of Tulkarm, resulting in the death of Luai Saadi, head of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad. The Israeli operation had broken a recent lull in the violence.

4.A reference to the US-brokered Camp David Accords of 1978, signed by Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin, which effectively took the most powerful Arab military actor, Egypt, out of the so-called “circle of confrontation” between the Arab states and Israel.

5.As part of the “Disengagement Plan” advocated by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and approved by the Israeli government, all Israeli residents and soldiers were evacuated from the Gaza Strip between August 15 and September 12, 2005.

6.See above, Statement 15 and p. 204, n. 11.

7.See above, Statement 27.

8.These four highly contentious and much-debated UN Resolutions arguably lie at the core of Arab claims towards the state of Israel—although the legitimacy of some of the Resolutions was only publicly recognized later by various Arab states. Among several stipulations, UN General Assembly Resolution 194 (1948) resolved “that the refugees [of the recent Arab–Israeli War] wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbors should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date.” UNSCR 242 (1967) came in the wake of the June 1967 Arab–Israeli War, and enshrined the broad principle of trading land for peace. UNSCR 338 (1973) called for an immediate ceasefire in the October 1973 Arab–Israeli War, and the implementation of UNSCR 425 (for which, see above, p. 68 n. 17).

9.Riyadh Hashem, 40, and Hussein Zahra, 15, were Lebanese farmers detained by Israel on September 20, 2005, in the disputed Shebaa Farms area. Israel released the two to UNIFIL after it said it had determined neither was involved in Hezbollah intelligence-gathering operations.

10.See above, p. 240 n. 18. It should be further noted that the Israeli government has publicly acknowledged holding more than two dozen persons of Lebanese origin, all of whom are either Israeli or Palestinian citizens.

11.Larsen actually refers to the “death of one Israel Defense Force’s soldier, the wounding of four others and the death of two Hezbollah fighters.” No UNIFIL personnel were killed or wounded in the incident. “Second semi-annual report of the secretary-general to the Security Council on the implementation of resolution 1559 (2004),” October 26, 2005, p. 8.

12.Najib Mikati (1955–) served as interim prime minister from April to July 2005, after which time he handed over power to Fouad Siniora (1943–). See above, p. 335, n. 1 for Siniora.

13.See above, p. 345, n. 12.

14.Although Syria had stated publicly that the Shebaa Farms were in fact Lebanese, it had refused to clearly demarcate the border area in general—a point that greatly hampered any renewed UN examination of the issue, since the UN had earlier determined the area to be Syrian, but under Israeli occupation.

15.Nasrallah is referring to a leaked draft of the Mehlis Report, which was widely circulated by the Lebanese and international media, and which allowed Microsoft Word users to reveal changes made to the document—including changes that eliminated specific names.

16.The date by which a second report from UN Investigator Mehlis was expected to be submitted to the secretary-general.

17.According to a June 2006 UN Security Council report, “On 30 August [2005], three suspects were arrested: Brigadier General Jamil al-Sayyed, the head of the Lebanese general security; General Ali al-Hajj, the head of the former Lebanese internal security forces; and General Raymond Azar, former Lebanese military intelligence head. At the same time, Mustafa Hamdan, the head of the presidential guard handed himself in. A fifth former Lebanese security official, Ghassan Tufeili, was arrested in November after he was named in the Mehlis report. All five had close ties with Syria. To date, they are still detained in Lebanon.” http://www.securitycouncilreport.org/site/c.glKWLeMTIsG/b.1714865/k.6929/June_2006BRLebanon_UNIIIC.htm.

18.Mr. X was widely thought to be Speaker Nabih Berri, head of the Amal Movement (for Berri, see above, p. 25 n. 4).

19.For al-Qassam and al-Shiqaqi, see above, p. 241 n. 20. The paraplegic Sheikh Ahmed Yassin (1937–2004), the co-founder (with Rantisi) of Hamas, was assassinated by an Israeli helicopter gunship on March 22, 2004 in Gaza City. Rantisi (1947–2004), Hamas’s political leader after Yassin’s death, was also assassinated by Israel on April 24, 2004, in Gaza. Mustafa (1938–2001), the secretary-general of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, was assassinated by Israel on August 27, 2001, in the West Bank city of Ramallah. Abu Jihad (1935–1988), a co-founder of the PLO, was assassinated by Israel on April 16, 1988, in Tunisia. For Mussawi and Harb, see above, Statement 3 and p. 53 n. 8.

### 31. “I ASSURE YOU ONCE AGAIN [SAMIR], THAT YOUR HOPES ARE SOUND AND IN THE RIGHT PLACE” (APRIL 24, 2006)

1.Former Lebanese army commander and acting Prime Minister and President (1988–1990) Michel Aoun (1935–) had returned to Lebanon in May, following the Syrian withdrawal in April 2005, after almost 15 years of exile in France. Although he had fought the Syrians in his self-styled “War of Liberation” towards the end of the civil war, and though his secularist Free Patriotic Movement had been an integral part of the original March 14 alliance, he declined to join the electoral coalition under Saad Hariri, eventually striking an agreement with Hezbollah in February 2006, known as the “Paper of Common Understanding Between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement.” See http://www.tayyar.org/files/documents/fpm-hezbollah.pdf

Almost immediately, the Understanding provided Hezbollah with the valuable sectarian cover, not to mention votes, that it needed more effectively to counter the parliamentary majority’s control of the legislative and street-level political processes. This effort had become especially pressing by February 2006, as Nasrallah had only recently extricated Hezbollah and its ally Amal from a two-month-long boycott of the government. In the wake of a riot by mostly Sunni extremists the previous day in downtown Beirut—an action prompted by cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed that were deemed offensive, and which led to the burning of the Danish consulate—the Understanding also provided a welcome example of new efforts to establish Muslim–Christian cooperation.

Nasrallah, for his part, would consistently stress the strength of his partnership with Aoun in the coming months, proclaiming at one point during the signing ceremony at Beirut’s Mar Mikhail Church that “Between Aoun and I there is transparency. Be honest and tell me I disagree with you over this and that or I want to disarm you next year … today we created a clear document and we both have enough courage and honesty to commit to it.” (“It’s Official: Aoun and Hezbollah Are Allies,” YaLiban, February 7, 2006, accessed online.)

Notwithstanding this, for Hezbollah as a political party, the Understanding was more than just a clear document or even an immediate political play. The result of months of negotiations between two parties that had long been opposed in both religion and politics, the Understanding was essentially the first comprehensive update to the party’s 1992 parliamentary platform and the 1985 Open Letter respectively—even though there had been periodic predictions of just such a comprehensive effort following the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000.

2.In July 2005, an act of parliament released Geagea (see above, p. 342 n. 8) from prison, where he had been incarcerated since 1994 for the murder of several Lebanese political figures. For the Lebanese Forces, see above, p. 31 n. 19.

3.See above, p. 240, n. 18.

4.Nasrallah had only recently met for the first time with family members and leaders of the civil society group Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE), whose main focus was gaining the release of Lebanese presumed held in Syrian prisons.

5.Likely a reference to the recent discovery of human remains in and around former Syrian military and intelligence facilities in Lebanon.

6.For the Shebaa Farms, see above, p. 240 n. 17.

7.A reference to the April 17 suicide bombing by Islamic Jihad and Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade at Tel Aviv’s old central bus station, which killed 11 Israelis and wounded 60 others.

8.See above, p. 251 n. 10.

9.For Saad Hariri, see above, p. 355.

10.Subsequent to the Understanding between Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement—the latter having been an integral part of the million-person, March 14, 2005, protest and, for a time, the March 14 alliance—opposition parties insisted on referring to the remaining March 14 parties as the February 14 forces, in a reference to the date of Rafik Hariri’s assassination.

### 32. INTERVIEW WITH NEW TV (AUGUST 27, 2006)

1.As it had after previous conflicts, Hezbollah would later claim that government estimations of the war damage were grossly overstated, perhaps, Nasrallah himself argued, as a means of frightening the population and lining certain government pockets at the same time. As far as casualties were concerned, by late December 2006, Associated Press reported that, “More than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and combatants died during the summer war between Israel’s army and Hezbollah guerrillas, according to tallies by government agencies, humanitarian groups and The Associated Press. Israeli authorities put the death toll for the Jewish state at 120 military combat deaths and 39 civilians killed by Hezbollah rockets fired into northern Israel during the July 12–14 Aug conflict. Both sides have revised their figures of Lebanon’s war dead. The latest Lebanese and AP counts include 250 Hezbollah fighters that the group’s leaders now say died…” “Lebanon Sees More Than 1,000 War Deaths,”Associated Press, December 28, 2006, accessed online. Additionally the Lebanese and Israeli governments estimated that the July War displaced 974,184 Lebanese and 300,000-500,000 Israelis.

2.For Roed-Larsen, see above, p. 343 n. 9.

3.Nasrallah is referring to a raid by Israeli commandos deep into eastern Lebanon more than five days after the international ceasefire was accepted by all parties. The raid may have been designed to capture a top Hezbollah commander, although Israel claimed at the time that their actions were designed to interdict weapons allegedly being smuggled into Lebanon from Syria in violation of UNSCR 1701’s ban on weapons transfers to non-governmental entities.

4.See above, p. 250, n. 8.

5.A reference to “frontline” towns and villages in south Lebanon that were the sites of major battles during the Summer 2006 Israeli invasion. The town of Bint Jbeil was the location of fierce fighting between Hezbollah and the Israeli military. Dozens were killed and injured on both sides, and much of the town was reduced to rubble.

6.A reference to Israeli Defense Minister Amir Peretz (1952–), Israeli Premier Ehud Olmert (1945–), and Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni (1958–).

7.A reference to key pro-government figures like Walid Jumblatt, who argued that the Shebaa issue was a joint Syrian–Iranian–Hezbollah “invention” to prolong and justify their tripartite influence in Lebanon.

8.Both the US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh and Egyptian journalist (and former editor-in-chief of the pro-government Egyptian daily Al-Ahram) Muhammad Haykal had recently contended that the 2006 Summer War between Israel and Lebanon had essentially been planned in advance, with Hersh writing in the New Yorker magazine that Israel had shared its plans for a massive attack on Lebanon and Hezbollah months earlier with Washington (Seymour Hersh, “Watching Lebanon,” New Yorker, August 21, 2006). In March 2007 Olmert would reportedly tell an Israeli investigating commission that such planning had indeed been undertaken as a means of strategically exploiting a probable future Hezbollah capture along the border (see, for example, Conal Urquhart, “Israel planned for Lebanon war months in advance, PM says,” Guardian, March 9, 2007, accessed online).

9.The Rafeh network was named after Mahmoud Rafeh, (b. 1947–), a retired policeman from the Lebanese town of Hasbaya, who confessed in June 2006 to having headed an Israeli-backed spy and assassination ring since at least 1999.

10.Al Bassam is referring to the spiraling series of Israeli political scandals that were then coming to light, including alleged corruption by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert during his tenure as Finance Minister in the previous government; former Justice Minister Haim Ramon’s resignation on August 18, 2006, and trial over charges of sexually harassing an 18-year-old female soldier; the charging of Israeli President Moshe Katsav for sexual harassment and assault; and Chair of the Knesset’s Foreign Security Committee Tzachi Hanegbi’s indictment on corruption charges.

11.The “Battle of Ayta al-Shab” in the south Lebanese border village just 1km north of the provisional Israel–Lebanon border seemed to epitomize the inability of the IDF to penetrate and successfully hold even those areas closest to its territory. The IDF lost as many as 13 soldiers in fighting in and immediately around the village.

12.The two primary Hezbollah-affiliated media outlets. Despite an Israeli air-strike on Al-Manar’s headquarters in the Southern Suburb of Beirut at the outset of the war, the station continued to broadcast throughout the 34 days, virtually uninterrupted.

13.See Statement 29.

14.What remained of the March 14 alliance had recently demanded that the government conduct an investigation into the causes of the war—a call which, it was understood, would mean an examination into Hezbollah’s role in “provoking” the war.

15.Rice (1954–) was appointed US Secretary of State in January 2005. She was a vocal supporter of Israel’s “right to defend itself” during the July War.

16.In other words, by striking civilian-populated areas and infrastructure.

17.Defying some expectations, Aoun pursued a supportive, if sometimes cautious, approach towards Hezbollah after the July 12 operation, at one point penning an article in the Wall Street Journal strongly critical of Lebanese and international parties who, he argued, had flatly refused to address Hezbollah’s arms, as well as other related issues, in the same manner as he had in the Free Patriotic Movement’s February 2006 Understanding with the Party. See also above, p. 370 n. 1, on the “Paper of Common Understanding.” (Michael Aoun, “History Will Judge Us All On Our Actions,” Wall Street Journal, July 31, 2006, accessed online.)

18.A reference presumably to Oslo, Norway, the site of negotiations that eventually led to the Oslo Accords of 1993.

19.A reference to two leading Lebanese Shiite critics of Hezbollah. Sayyed al-Amin had, on several occasions, asserted that Hezbollah’s actions in “provoking” the summer 2006 war did not represent the will of the Shia community in general.

20.Nasrallah is here referring to mixed Muslim–Christian and, in the case of north Lebanon, heavily Sunni areas, which, together, emphasize his point that deprivation in Lebanon is not restricted to the Shia.

21.The former editor of the Lebanese daily newspaper An Nahar, Ghassan Tueni (1926–) was also the father of March 14 leader, Gibran Tueni (1957–2005), who was assassinated by a car bomb in 2005.

22.For the Taif Accord, see above, p. 64 n. 10.

23.Although the Siniora government exhorted foreign states not to meet with President Lahoud, two states—France and the US—were the primary forces behind the relative isolation of Lahoud.