Since October 8, 2023, Hezbollah has been engaged in a limited war with Israel, which Netanyahu’s government escalated last month in a series of attacks on Lebanese society. Jacobin spoke to Lebanon scholar Joseph Daher about the dilemma the party faces.
Hezbollah fighters parade during a ceremony in Beirut’s southern suburb on April 5, 2024. (Marwan Naamani / picture alliance via Getty Images)
A day after October 7, Hezbollah, opened a front against Israel as part of its “unity of fronts” strategy, hoping to lend support to Hamas and other elements of the Palestinian resistance. Until last month, the party had succeeded in maintaining a limited war, which forced sixty thousand to evacuate from northern Israel without significantly degrading Hezbollah’s own military infrastructure and keeping its leadership intact. The war on the northern front seemed to bystanders a rerun of the 2006 conflict, which ended in Israeli defeat. With Hezbollah’s military capabilities far greater than they were eighteen years ago, it seemed that Israel was facing a genuine existential threat.
In less than a month, Israel has dealt the “Party of God” significant blows, from a pager attack that killed civilians alongside large sections of the party’s officials to assassinations of its political and military leadership, including Hezbollah’s charismatic general secretary, Hassan Nasrallah. Jacobin spoke to Joseph Daher, author of The Political Economy of Lebanon’s Party of God, about Hezbollah’s origins, its sources of support both domestically and internationally, and the strategic dilemmas it faces.
John-Baptiste Oduor
The current war between Hezbollah and Israel is a rerun of the thirty-three days conflict that took place in 2006. How was Hezbollah able to grow into a force capable of going toe to toe with Israel, and what brought that earlier war to an end?
Joseph Daher
The creation and development of Hezbollah is the product of two forces: the Israeli occupation army, which invaded Lebanon in 1982 and occupied it until 2000, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has seen its own regional ambitions as aligned with the fate of the party. The first military operations accomplished by Hezbollah before its official establishment in 1985 were suicide attacks on Western embassies and targets, as well as kidnappings of Westerners in the 1980s. But since then, and up until the 2000s, the development of Hezbollah’s armed apparatus has been closely linked to the organization’s militant activities against Israel, while the party’s resistance narrative allowed it to expand its social base among Lebanon’s Shia population. In 2000, Israel’s occupation army withdrew from the south of Lebanon, ending an occupation that started in 1978.
Following the liberation of the south and the withdrawal of Israeli troops in May 2000 (excluding antiaircraft weaponry) from along the border, the Shebaa Farms, a disputed area of land that straddles Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights, became the exclusive site of official Hezbollah activity. Despite these strategic victories, the party’s military actions nevertheless took on a mostly defensive character following the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation army.
A major difference between the current Israeli war on Lebanon and the 2006 one is that not a single high-ranking cadre of Hezbollah was killed during the thirty-three days of conflict.
The Israeli occupation army launched another war against Lebanon in 2006, with the support of the United States. By Israeli standards, casualties were high; 124 troops were killed along with 43 civilians, and shelling by Hezbollah forced 300,000 to evacuate from areas within the north of the country. On the Lebanese side, around 1,200 were killed by Israeli occupation forces and a further one million made temporary refugees. Despite the toll of Israel’s bombardment, it was unable to achieve its objective of significantly weakening Hezbollah, a result that lent credibility to the party. A major difference between the current Israeli war on Lebanon and the 2006 one is that not a single high-ranking cadre of Hezbollah was killed during the thirty-three days of conflict, despite numerous attempts by the Israeli occupation army. Israel dropping twenty-two tons of bombs on a bunker in Beirut allegedly holding senior members of Hezbollah, as well as its attempts to kidnap key leaders, all ended in failure.
Hezbollah would go on to use this victory to increase its popularity in Lebanon and the wider Middle East and North Africa. Hezbollah was celebrated for its well-disciplined military and propaganda capabilities and its ability to effectively resist the Israeli state. Portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, the movement’s general secretary, could be seen in demonstrations in major capitals in the Arab world.
However, Hezbollah had started, after the end of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000, to shift its narrative by arguing that its military capabilities did not exist to liberate Palestine from the “Zionist enemy,” as it had claimed since its creation, but rather to protect Lebanon from renewed Israeli aggression. This evolution was reflected in Hezbollah’s 2009 manifesto. The section regarding “resistance” limits the movement’s role to liberating Lebanese occupied lands and defending the sovereignty of the country against Israeli threats. The document made no mention of direct participation of the Lebanese resistance in the liberation of Palestine.
This evolution of Hezbollah’s discourse was further reinforced at the beginning of the uprising in Syria in 2011, in large part to justify Hezbollah’s increasing military involvement on the side of the Syrian regime. The war in Syria however allowed a substantial increase in recruitment, with an increasing number of young fighters with significant experience. The exact number of Hezbollah soldiers is difficult to estimate, but prior to the war in Syria it was believed to range from 5,000 to 7,500 full time soldiers and some 20,000 reservists. After 2011, some estimated the total number of Hezbollah troops at around 45,000 to 50,000, including at least 20,000 full time.
Hezbollah’s military capacities also massively expanded after the 2006 war. Notably, it has developed a vast arsenal of rockets and missiles, including different types of Fadi missiles (middle-range missiles). These were used for the first time since October 7 at the end of September 2024 to strike military sites in the outskirts of the cities of Haifa and Tel Aviv.
But moreover, the main evolution in Hezbollah came from its growing significance as the leading nexus of Iranian influence in the region, particularly following the eruption of the revolutionary processes in Syria and the Middle East and North Africa since 2011. While Hezbollah is a Lebanese actor with some forms of political autonomy, the party has been the main actor fostering Iranian regional political interests. Its role has been essential for the consolidation and expansion of Iran’s network of regional allies, including state and nonstate actors. The assassination of the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Qasem Soleimani, in 2020 only strengthened connections between Iran and Hezbollah.
In other words, Hezbollah’s resistance against Israel, which stood at the core of its identity at the time the party was established, had been increasingly subordinated to the national political objectives of the party, its allies, and its sponsor Iran. Between 2006 and October 2023, the weapons of the “resistance” were increasingly diverted from the struggle against Israel and used both inside and outside of Lebanon instead, especially in Syria but also to attack Lebanese political parties.
Consequently, Hezbollah’s military confrontation with Israel became secondary to the political fortunes of the party and its regional allies. Rhetorical support for the so-called Axis of Resistance and the armed apparatus of the party have been used by Hezbollah to justify its policies and actions, including its military involvement in Syria. This did not and does not mean that Hezbollah’s military component has not been playing a role against Israel’s aggression and wars, as it has since October 7. But it does mean that Hezbollah’s forces have been increasingly used for other purposes, especially after the 2006 war.
John-Baptiste Oduor
Hezbollah is, of course, not just a paramilitary organization but part of the institutional fabric of Lebanon, organizing a banking system as well as a welfare state of sorts. What is the extent of this administrative structure, and how destabilizing would any attempt to uproot Hezbollah by force be for Lebanon as a whole?
Joseph Daher
Indeed, Hezbollah is not a simple party. Alongside its own highly organized army with military capabilities, superior to the Lebanese army in many respects, the organization is most certainly the largest employer in the country after the state, reaching between its armed and civilian branches 100,000 employees. If we also consider that each member has a family and that a family, on average, is three children and two parents, we quickly reach half a million.
Hezbollah has never sought to strengthen the state and particularly its public services. It has instead consolidated a popular base dependent on its own institutions and charitable actions.
The party structures the life of a whole section of the Shia population through its own civil society, including a network of institutions and charitable organizations offering a multitude of social services, including to the most popular Shia sectors. Hezbollah’s organizations can be seen as part of what Antonio Gramsci described as the “multilayered associations and voluntary groups” that constitute civil society: associations, educational and religious institutions, the media, a construction company (Jihad al-Bina), the Hezbollah scouts (al-Mehdi), private companies, and so forth.
This support includes direct financial aid through the organization’s “good loan institution” (mu’assasa Al-Qard al-Hassan), which was established in 1982 and distributes loans without interest according to Islamic religious law. According to its website, Al-Qard al-Hassan has lent more than $4.3 billion since 1983, in a total of over two million loans. These loans are funded through donations, religious taxes, administrative fees, and subscriptions to the institution. Al-Qard al-Hassan became the largest microcredit organization in the country and expanded its activities after the outbreak of the October 2019 financial crisis. This institution now employs nearly five hundred people and has around thirty branches across the country, almost all in predominantly Shia areas. The association had more than 400,000 contributors. At the same time, the party has also most probably used the institution for its own financing needs. Several of the organization’s branches in different regions have suffered damage as a result of air strikes by Israel.
Hezbollah, like the other dominant Lebanese political actors, has never sought to build or strengthen the state and particularly its public services. It has instead consolidated a popular base dependent on its own institutions and charitable actions. This is one reason, among others, that it maintains a solid base within the Shia population. Another is the lack of an alternative political force mobilizing around an inclusive discourse promoting democratic and social rights for all in Lebanon.
In the current war, Israel has actually also targeted some of Hezbollah’s network of economic and social institutions in the country, including supply centers, logistical infrastructures, warehouses, and workshops affiliated with the party in many localities in southern Lebanon, the southern suburbs of Beirut, and Baalbek-Hermel. Moreover, alongside the deepening of the economic and financial assault on Lebanon, the war has dramatically increased the pool of people in need of assistance, which stretches the capacity of Hezbollah’s institutions to deal with the current crisis, as Israel continues its bombing and attacks against civilians. The future reconstruction process after the end of this war will also constitute a challenge for the party, whose popular basis will be significantly impacted by the destruction of their homes and other civilian infrastructure.
Hezbollah has used its social institutions as a means of building popular consent and support, as well as the capacity for coercion. Nonetheless, their vision should not be understood as a complete, antisystemic challenge to society as a whole. Hezbollah’s process of engagement with civil society has not challenged contemporary hierarchies within Shia society nor encouraged any form of independent self-mobilization from below. Instead, popular activities have been used to further inculcate the religious values and are typically carried out in a top-down fashion, from the executive levels to the social base.
This is also why Hezbollah, much like the other ruling neoliberal and sectarian political parties in Lebanon, has acted in practice to prevent the emergence of a cross-sectarian popular movement in Lebanon, which would be able to confront deeper social and economic issues. The potential emergence of such a class dynamic could challenge the sectarian and neoliberal system and the positions of the dominant political parties, including that of Hezbollah.
In the past, Hezbollah has not hesitated to collaborate with other Lebanese elites in opposition to various social movements challenging sectarian and neoliberal dynamics in the country, despite some political differences, especially during periods of heightened social mobilization. After the Lebanese Intifada of October 2019, Hezbollah, much like the other establishment parties, reinforced rather than challenged the sectarian and neoliberal system dominant within Lebanon.
John-Baptiste Oduor
Hezbollah’s base of support is largely within the Shia community, although recent polls show that its resistance to Israel has somewhat increased its support nationwide; nevertheless, 55 percent of Lebanese say they do not trust the party. Why is Hezbollah so heavily bound up with the Shia community, and what, broadly, are the main reasons for opposition to it within Lebanon?
Joseph Daher
It is important to remember that political representation in Lebanon is organized along sectarian lines, all the way up to at the highest echelons of the state. The president is required to be Maronite, the prime minister Sunni, and the president of the chamber of deputies Shia. Lebanon’s sectarian system (like sectarianism more generally) is one of the main instruments used by the ruling parties to strengthen their control over the popular classes, keeping them subordinated to their sectarian leaders. At the same time, Lebanon’s sectarian system arose alongside the development of Lebanese capitalism and in interaction with colonial rule. Since Lebanon’s independence in 1943, the sectarian nature of the state in Lebanon has served the political and economic elites of the ruling sectarian groups, which have relied on the liberal economic orientation of the country to consolidate their power. Following the end of the civil war, such power has only been reinforced.
Hezbollah is not exceptional within the Lebanese political scene in being rooted exclusively in the religious sect to which it claims to belong and represent. Hezbollah has not been in any way engaged in building a counterhegemonic project that challenges Lebanon’s sectarian and neoliberal system. In fact, it has actively sustained it by becoming one of its main defenders.
This said, Hezbollah remains the largest political party in the country, with a broad popular base among Lebanon’s Shia population, including support among the working and middle classes, the liberal professional classes, and fractions of the bourgeoisie both within and outside the country.
Hezbollah’s hegemony within the Shia population originated in the context of a society ruled by militias and a weak Lebanese state during the Civil War. In the absence of a functioning state, Hezbollah built a highly visible social base in these areas during the 1980s and 1990s. A key reason for Hezbollah’s success is its deep penetration of civil society, expressed through its wide network of social institutions and extensive cultural apparatus. The weakness of the Lebanese state in the post–Civil War period increased following the 2019 financial and economic crisis. This allowed Hezbollah to strengthen its grip over the Shia population by embedding them within its institutions and social welfare, building social support while strengthening its capacity for military resistance against Israel. The party also utilized the reconstruction projects associated with the aftermath of Civil War and Israeli invasion to provide much-needed social services to Shia populations.
Iran’s strategic aims have been to improve its political standing in the region so as to be in the best position for future negotiation with the United States.
The growth in influence that you mention within the non-Shia sections of Lebanese society is significantly less than the bump in support for the party following the Israeli war against Lebanon in 2006, when Hezbollah enjoyed greater popularity among other religious communities. Even though there has been a mood of national solidarity following the wave of civilian casualties caused by Israel, much has changed since 2006. In May 2008, Hezbollah took up arms against other Lebanese when it invaded west Beirut in response to the government’s attempt to dismantle the party’s communications network.
In addition to this internal conflict, Hezbollah later participated in the murderous repression of the Syrian popular movement alongside the despotic Syrian regime, a move that stoked sectarian tensions in Lebanon. Finally, Hezbollah has been part of every government since 2005 and is therefore seen as one of those responsible for the economic and financial crisis of 2019, like the other dominant Lebanese parties. Hassan Nasrallah was very critical of the protest movement, which he accused of being financed by foreign embassies, and sent party members to attack the demonstrators.
Over the past few years Hezbollah members have also been involved in several sectarian tensions with members of other religious sects, and Hezbollah has been accused of being one of the main actors obstructing the investigation into the explosions at the port of Beirut in August 2020.
Combined, these elements have isolated Hezbollah, both politically and socially, from large sections of the Lebanese population outside of the party’s base. This is one of the reasons, among others, why the party has been attempting to avoid an all-out war against Israel, by adopting calculated and moderated actions targeting Israeli military targets in order to prevent this conflict from being exploited by its internal political enemies, which would make Hezbollah the main actor responsible for all the country’s misfortunes.
John-Baptiste Oduor
Core to Nasrallah’s strategy since October 7 was the idea that Hezbollah could engage in a limited war with Israel, forcing civilians to evacuate from the north of the country in order to force a cease-fire and concessions to Hamas’s demands for a release of some of the thousands of Palestinian prisoners being held by Israel. To what extent was this decision a military-strategic one, and to what extent was it based on Hezbollah’s worry that initiating a significant confrontation might put it at odds with other sections of Lebanese society?
Joseph Daher
There were several levels to this decision. First, before the outbreak of the genocidal war of the State of Israel against the population of the Gaza Strip, the strengthening of the alliance between Hezbollah and its Palestinian allies with other groups supported by Tehran in the region was intended to strengthen its deterrence capacity against Israel, although Hezbollah never believed it could achieve parity. This materialized after October 7, with the “unity of fronts” strategy put forward by Hezbollah officials. The first targets of the Lebanese movement were the Shebaa Farms in occupied Lebanese territory, and not the Israeli territories directly.
Subsequently, they carried out calculated and moderated attacks targeting Israeli military sites, despite Israel’s violation of all red lines and expansion of its murderous campaign against Lebanon. They have only recently increased intensity in response to escalation in mid-late September by Israel. Hezbollah’s objective was to show their solidarity with their Palestinian political allies, so that the party would have credibility when it attempted to mobilize its popular base and wider constituencies within Lebanon. The party also sought to protect the interests and alliances linked to Iran in the region. In addition to this, Hezbollah did not want this conflict to be exploited by its internal political enemies.
Israel’s current war against Lebanon, with the support of the United States, has challenged this plan. The Israeli occupation army indeed escalated its war against Lebanon in mid-September 2024, leading to the death of more than one thousand individuals, injuring several thousand, and causing massive destruction of civilian infrastructure as well as the forced displacement of more than 1.2 million people in less than a month. It is clear that the Israeli occupation army is trying through ground offensives to reoccupy territories of southern Lebanon, causing wide destruction in the process. Hezbollah’s soldiers have however destroyed several Israeli Merkava tanks, killed thirty-nine soldiers, and injured many more in response to the ground invasion.
The party certainly did not suspect that the war would last so long or rise to the level of intensity that it has. It is probable that Hezbollah underestimated Israeli military superiority — although the party does have military capabilities much greater than it did 2006, particularly in terms of its missiles.
On the regional level, Hezbollah’s main supporter, Iran, has shared a similar position to that of the Lebanese party. It has also been attempting to avoid a regional war, despite the assassination of Palestinian leader Ismail Haniyeh on its territory and numerous other Israeli attacks against Iranian assets across the region. Iran’s strategic aims, particularly since October 7, have been to improve its political standing in the region so as to be in the best position for future negotiation with the United States, especially regarding the nuclear and sanction issues, and to guarantee its political and security interests, while trying as much as possible to prevent a direct regional conflict with Israel and America.
However, if Hezbollah is degraded too much, that would be problematic for Iran’s geopolitical strategy and regional network of influence. Within Lebanon, critics sympathetic to Hezbollah have pointed at what they perceive to be Iran’s insufficient support for its ally. The Islamic Republic’s launch of nearly two hundred missiles at Israel should be understood as an attempt to reassure these critics and restore its own credibility within the so-called Axis of Resistance.
In the context of an expected Israeli retaliation — carried out, of course, with the full support of the United States — the “unity of front” strategy has therefore become more and more difficult to defend, internationally and also domestically among the Lebanese population. Moreover, there has been a political evolution on this issue by Hezbollah. The party’s main and most urgent priority is first of all to protect its internal structures and its chain of command, including by filling the vacuum at the top by electing a new secretary general and replacing its political and military leadership, all of whom were assassinated by the Israeli occupation army.
This is also part of its attempt to maintain and protect its military capabilities, including long-range missiles and rockets, against Israeli attacks and offensives. These priorities partly explain the recent rhetorical evolution of Hezbollah regarding the objective stated since October 7, 2023, of not separating the fronts of Gaza and Lebanon until there is a cease-fire in the Gaza Strip. Deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem, and party MPs Hussein Hajj Hassan and Amin Sherri, stated after the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah that their priority was to end the Israeli aggression against Lebanon and to support a cease-fire, regardless of a halt to the fighting in Gaza. Similarly, during his tour in the Gulf, Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi confirmed the separation between the Lebanese and Gaza fronts, saying “there must be a cease-fire in Gaza and Lebanon, but the idea that stopping the fighting in Lebanon is a necessity and a priority is also correct.”
The party certainly did not suspect that the war would last so long or rise to the level of intensity that it has.
Israel has, of course, disregarded these statements and has continued its murderous war against Lebanon. In addition to this, Israeli officials from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to spokesperson Avichay Adraee, who serves as the head of the Arab media division of the Israeli occupation army, have attempted through their statements to create and promote sectarian tensions among Lebanese populations to provoke the conditions for internal strife or, worse, a civil war in the country.
The genocidal war continues in Gaza despite Hezbollah’s military actions, and Lebanon has suffered massive destruction. Moreover, Israel’s objectives in Lebanon are, as I’ve mentioned, most probably not only limited to the withdrawal of Hezbollah’s military capacities from the south of Lebanon to the north of the Litani River, as stated in UN resolution 1701 of 2006, but to considerably weaken the party and the so-called Axis of Resistance led by Tehran and the connections between the different actors.
Hezbollah is definitely facing its greatest challenge since its foundation, with the assassinations of key military and political leaders, including Nasrallah, who ruled over the party for thirty-two years. However, the party still remains the most important political actor in Lebanon, with strong military capacities and a large network of institutions. Although these institutions have been undermined by the war and are under pressure because of the significant needs of the population, the party will continue to have an influence exceeding its national borders, particularly in Syria, and to represent the upper limit of Teheran’s ability to project power within the region.
John-Baptiste Oduor
Given the strategic constraints that Hezbollah faces, both domestically and internationally, how should the Left, or anyone interested in a just end to the bloodshed, interpret the current moment?
Joseph Daher
Attention to the strategic constraints faced by Hezbollah, as well as its political limitations, should not, however, prevent socialists from maintaining that Palestinians and Lebanese have a right to resist Israel’s racist, colonial, apartheid state violence, including through military resistance. This includes defending the right of Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in Palestine, which are the main actors involved in the armed confrontation with Israel’s occupation army, to resist. Israel’s war against Palestinians and Lebanese is part of its attempt to pursue its historical objectives as a settler-colonial state serving Western imperialism. Central to this project is the elimination of the Palestinian populations through a continued Nakba and the consolidation of a regional order serving US imperial interests. These objectives are, without exception, a mortal threat to the whole region.
Defending the right of people to resist oppression should not however be confused with political support for the specific political projects of Hamas or Hezbollah in their respective societies, or lead us to imagine these parties will be able to deliver Palestinian liberation or that they have a strategy that could lead to it.
Finally, socialists must continue to denounce the complicit role of Western ruling classes in supporting not only the racist, settler-colonial, apartheid state of Israel and its genocidal war against the Palestinians but also the Israeli war against Lebanon. They must participate in movements pressuring those ruling classes to break off any political, economic, and military relations with Tel Aviv. No one should expect Western ruling classes to easily change their political positions regarding Israel. But never in history have the ruling classes granted genuine democracy or justice except under pressure from working-class mobilization from below.