New government in Beirut, old problems in the South

  Eyal Zisser

In early November 2009, Saad al-Hariri finally succeeded in forming a new government in Lebanon. This was five months after the citizens of Lebanon had gone to the polls to elect their representatives to parliament. Hariri was and remains the leader of the Sunnis in Lebanon and winner in the elections. However, there is no doubt that the events of the previous five months, during which the Lebanese political system was almost completely paralyzed, reveal clearly the difficulties and challenges confronting the country.

The spring 2009 parliamentary elections aroused great interest both within Lebanon and abroad. This was first of all on account of their possible implications for the character of the country's political system. People wondered how the elections would affect the survivability of the post-Taif agreement (October 1989) political system, the so-called "Taif republic". In the short term, the main issue was the confrontation with Hizballah, which involved that organization's efforts to force itself on its rivals, at times violently. In the long term, Lebanon's main problem was how to integrate the Shi'ite community into the state's institutions and political and social systems insofar as Shi'ites had evidently become the largest community in the country.

A second reason for the wide interest in the spring 2009 parliamentary elections in Lebanon was the perception that they reflected and paralleled the current struggle between the "axis of evil" in the Middle East, established and headed by Iran, and the moderate camp in the Arab world, led by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. The elections were thus perceived as a test case, if not a battlefield, in which Iran's ability to advance its aspirations and desires in the Arab world would be tested.

Public opinion polls conducted in Lebanon prior to the elections indicated that Hizballah and the parties supporting it would be victorious. However, after the votes were counted it turned out that, contrary to all pre-election expectations and assessments, the March 14 camp was the victor, albeit by a small margin. Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah quickly declared that he was prepared to acknowledge his defeat and accept the results of the elections. At the same time, he advanced the demand that the victors accept Hizballah as an equal partner in the government. Nasrallah viewed this as a direct consequence of the uniqueness of the Lebanese political system; as he put it, the victors must forget that they won in the elections. Nasrallah stated, furthermore, that Hizballah would not give up its long-range aim of bringing about a change in the rules of the political game in Lebanon in order to make it possible for the organization to exploit the demographic advantage of the Shi'ite community, which Hizballah claims to represent.

Hariri understood Nasrallah's message. And so, following the elections he tried to establish a national unity government with representatives from Hizballah, the Amal movement and even representatives of Michel Aoun. He was prepared to accept most of Hizballah's conditions. When Hariri found himself immersed in personal quarrels with Michel Aoun, he resolved them by making additional concessions. And he began hinting that he might be prepared to put aside his hostility to Syria. Hariri considers Syria responsible for the murder of his father, former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri. Still, he indicated that he might be willing to open a new page between the two countries, the implication being that he would go back to serving Syrian interests in Lebanon.

Thus it appears that the March 14 camp's June 2009 electoral victory was only partial and short-term, merely one clash in a long battle that is still far from finished, a battle over the path Lebanon takes and the future of the country.

In parallel, and without any direct connection with what was taking place in Beirut, tension returned to South Lebanon after three years of relative quiet following the Second Lebanon War of July-August 2006. During the late summer and fall of 2009, a number of mysterious explosions occurred in the area, some of them in ammunition depots covertly established by Hizballah in the homes of Shi'ite villagers in the area south of the Litani River. Hizballah acted under the watchful eye of the Lebanese army and under the noses of UNIFIL, which, although it dominates the area, was limited in its ability to supervise what was going on inside the local Shi'ite villages. During the same period several rockets were fired toward Israel, evidently by an extremist Sunni organization inspired by al-Qaeda, with the apparent aim of heating up the border and drawing Israel and Hizballah into a confrontation.

At the beginning of November 2009, the Israel Navy intercepted a container ship making its way from Iran to Lebanon and thus thwarted an effort to smuggle a large quantity of weapons, mainly missiles, into Lebanon for Hizballah. Despite this success, Israeli spokesmen admitted that it touched just the tip of the iceberg. They noted, however, that this weapons smuggling attempt showed clearly how Iran was striving to strengthen and arm Hizballah in preparation for a possible confrontation with Israel.

As a matter of fact, between the end of the Second Lebanon War and the fall of 2009 Hizballah almost tripled the number of missiles at its disposal. In November 2009, it was estimated that the organization possessed 40-50,000 missiles of the type it had used against the residents of the north of Israel during the Second Lebanon War.

Notably, and in contrast to the state of affairs existing between Israel and Syria, the situation along the Israeli-Lebanese border remained quite explosive. Syria, after all, is a state and not a militia organization like Hizballah, which lacks the mentality and political interests of a state that obligate it to act responsibly and with restraint.

Now, in mid-November 2009, it may be assumed that the new government formed in Lebanon is based upon a balance of fear between Hizballah and its opponents, especially Hariri and the Sunni community he heads. It may also be assumed that a tense calm will continue to prevail along the Israeli-Lebanese border in the absence of either side having any interest in disturbing the quiet. However, on both fronts, that of the Lebanese political system and the border with Israel, the situation is fragile and explosive. The present moment may be merely an intermission between two episodes in the struggle within Lebanon and in the conflict between Israel and Hizballah. Either or both of these fronts could explode at any time.- Published 19/11/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org

Eyal Zisser is director of the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern Studies, Tel Aviv University.