Middle East Intelligence Bulletin
Jointly published by the United States Committee for a Free Lebanon and the Middle East Forum
  Vol. 2   No. 10 Table of Contents
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November 2000 


Hezbollah Returns to the Spotlight
by Gary C. Gambill

Hezbollah supporters
Hezbollah supporters demonstrate in the Palestinian city of Nablus
[Abed Omar Qusini/Reuters]

The capture of three Israeli soldiers and a reserve colonel by Hezbollah last month has catapulted the Shi'ite Islamist movement to unprecedented heights of popularity in the Arab-Islamic world. Defying expectations that the group would withdraw from the international limelight and concentrate on domestic political concerns after the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon, Hezbollah has masterfully thrust itself back into the spotlight at a time when popular sentiments throughout the region are extremely responsive to attacks against Israel. The political payoffs of these power plays are still unfolding, but it is clear that Hezbollah has dramatically increased its influence throughout the Palestinian political spectrum, a development which may lead to friction with Damascus.

The Operations

Hezbollah's sensational return to the forefront of Arab politics began on October 7 with an operation which had been planned for months, but timed to coincide with rising Arab hostility toward Israel stemming from the Al-Aqsa Intifada. Three Israel army technicians conducting a routine check of the border fence near the village of Shebaa suddenly came under rocket and machine gun fire from a team of Hezbollah guerrillas. During the fifteen-minute clash, in which all three of the soldiers were wounded (one of them seriously), another team of guerrillas proceeded to cut through the border fence and abduct the soldiers, while nearby Hezbollah units launched a heavy artillery bombardment of neighboring Israeli outposts to pin down IDF reinforcements, wounding six Israeli soldiers. The captured men, later identified as Omar Suwad, 25, Benyamin Avraham, 20, and Adi Avitan, 20, were shoved into three get away cars on the Lebanese side of the border which sped off in different directions, while an estimated 400 guerrillas deployed in forward positions in neighboring villages to prepare for an Israeli ground offensive.

Israeli television stated that "a severe ultimatum" threatening to "retaliate very forcefully" unless the soldiers were returned had been issued to the Lebanese government, while the Lebanese media reported that the Israel threatened to bomb Beirut if Hezbollah failed to release them within four hours.1 Although Israeli air force planes penetrated Lebanese air space after the abduction (which had been meticulously avoided since the IDF pullout in May), no retaliatory action was forthcoming.

On October 15, speaking before a joint session of the Arab and Islamic Nationalist Conferences at the Carlton Hotel in Beirut, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah announced the capture of a fourth Israeli, later identified as Elhanan Tennenbaum, a 54-year-old reserve air-force colonel. "God help the prime minister today," he added, turning to Lebanese Prime Minister Selim al-Hoss and other government officials in attendance, "in dealing with the many phone calls he will get from Albright."2

Nasrallah later said that Tennenbaum was an undercover Israeli intelligence operative who had been attempting to infiltrate the group. According to this account, he was lured to Lebanon by the prospect of meeting with a senior Hezbollah official (with whom he had established contact through an intermediary) and was seized upon entering the country. Israeli officials insisted that Tennenbaum was a civilian employed by a consulting firm linked to two prominent Israeli electronic and military communications companies, Tadiran and Rafael, and that he was kidnapped in the Swiss city of Lausanne. Hezbollah is known to have active cells throughout Europe involved in raising and transferring funds to Lebanon, purchasing weapons, and intelligence gathering.

The Objectives

Hezbollah officials initially indicated that the operation to abduct the Israeli soldiers was intended to secure the release of 19 Lebanese currently held in Israeli prisons, including Abdul-Karim Obeid, a prominent Hezbollah official, and Mustafa Dirani, the head of the Believers' Resistance. "We decided to capture a group of Israeli soldiers to exchange them with the detainees in Israeli prisons ," said Hezbollah Deputy Secretary-General Naim Qassem on November 8, adding that the location of the operation was intended to "confirm the importance of Shebaa as occupied Lebanese territory."3

IDF soldiers
IDF file photos of the three captured soldiers

This position was quickly abandoned as Hezbollah officials began to appreciate the enormous propaganda value of linking the fate of the Israeli captives to the Palestinian cause. On October 9, after meeting with representatives of various Palestinian factions, Qassem announced that the group's demands "will be much broader than just the Lebanese prisoners and will cover others."4 This position soon evolved into an explicit demand for the release of all Arab prisoners held by Israel (estimated to be around 1,600). Indeed, when Nasrallah announced the capture of Tennenbaum, he dedicated the operation to "the people of the Al-Aqsa Intifada, to its martyrs [and] to every prisoner and detainee in the enemy prisons."

This invited a flood of requests from around the Arab world. Damascus soon weighed in with a demand for the return of a Syrian air force pilot who defected to Israel ten years ago, while Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi raised the issue of four Iranians captured by the pro-Israeli Kata'ib militia in 1982.

The Implications

The most readily observable implication of these developments is the enormous rise in Hezbollah's influence among the Palestinians. Of course, Hezbollah's popularity in the West Bank and Gaza had been on the rise since the success of its war of "liberation" against Israel in May. However, while this accomplishment was admired by many Palestinians as a model of resistance, it was perceived to be the outcome of a parallel struggle by the Lebanese in pursuit of bilateral gains, rather than a blow against Israel on their behalf. In fact, Arafat and other Palestinian officials privately resented Hezbollah's success precisely because it highlighted their failure to achieve similar objectives through peaceful means.

Hassan Nasrallah
Hassan Nasrallah

Hezbollah's new "victory" has had a dramatically different impact since the operations were undertaken (or at least retroactively justified) as part of the overarching struggle against Zionism, on behalf of Palestinian (as well as Lebanese) beneficiaries. Broadcasts from Hezbollah's Radio Manara, in which Nasrallah regularly calls upon the Palestinians to kill Israelis, can easily be picked up in both the West Bank and Gaza and are now said to be more popular than any local radio programs. Hezbollah flags and banners have become nearly as commonplace in mass rallies as the emblems of indigenous Palestinian groups.

This growth of popular appeal is mirrored by an improvement in Hezbollah's relations with Arafat's Fatah movement. The recent flurry of high-level contacts between Hezbollah and senior Fatah officials (rather than the Fatah's representatives in Lebanon) would have been unimaginable two months ago.5

The most far-reaching impact of these events is Hezbollah's success in defining the Palestinian struggle as an essentially Islamic cause and projecting itself as the natural leader of all Islamist movements fighting Israel (a remarkable achievement in light of the sectarian divisions that exist, in principle, between the Shi'ite Islamist group and its Sunni counterparts).

Hezbollah's growing regional influence and involvement in Palestinian politics may lead it to run afoul of Damascus, which has always sought to limit the group's autonomy within Lebanon and regulate its activities abroad in accordance with Syrian objectives. There are already some signs of increased tensions. A well-informed Lebanese source told MEIB the US recently sent emissaries to Damascus to pressure Syrian President Bashar Assad into securing the release of the captives. The meeting was stormy, the source said, with the Americans threatening at one point to withdraw their tacit support for the Syrian occupation of Lebanon unless more cooperation was forthcoming. Assad was "dumbstruck" by the encounter, after which he began pressuring Hezbollah to transfer Tennenbaum to Syrian custody. Nasrallah responded by telling the Syrians to talk to the Iranians and the matter remains unresolved.

Notes

  1 Channel 2 TV (Jerusalem), 7 Oct 2000; Voice of Lebanon (Beirut) 7 October 2000.
  2 The Daily Star (Beirut), 16 October 2000.
  3 Al-Nahar (Beirut), 9 October 2000.
  4 Al-Jazeera TV (Doha), 9 October 2000.
  5 Al-Wasat, 24 October 2000.

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