While Hezbollah has become widely revered throughout much of the Arab world since the withdrawal of Israeli forces from south Lebanon in May 2000, the militant Lebanese Shiite movement's popularity at home may have begun to wane. While it still enjoys considerable popular support, public criticism of Hezbollah within the Lebanese Shiite community - once virtually nonexistent - is slowly growing.

This is especially evident among members of the Shiite community's traditional political elite, which lost influence to radical secular and Islamist movements during the 1975-1990 civil war in Lebanon. Most recently, Ahmed Asaad, the son of former Parliament Speaker Kamel Asaad, launched a scathing diatribe against both Hezbollah and its rival, the Syrian-backed Amal movement of current Speaker Nabih Berri. "Some may think that . . . those two groups represent the will of our community and the people of the South, but this is false," he said in an October 7 speech at Le Bristol Hotel in Hamra that the local media characterized as his political debut. "Most Southerners reject this reality," said Asaad, "but the will of the people has been confiscated with the policy of the carrot and stick." Asaad also called for a "review" of bilateral relations with Syria, which he said "are not built on mutual respect."[1]

A day later, Hezbollah suffered a major public relations setback. On October 6, Hezbollah operatives had opened fire on an Israeli patrol on the other side of the border, killing one soldier. During a subsequent barrage of retaliatory Israeli artillery fire, a five-year old boy was killed and another wounded by explosions in the village of Koura, three miles from the border. Hezbollah officials called the boy a martyr and used his death to whip up anti-Israeli sentiment. However, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) conducted an independent inquiry and concluded that the explosion was caused by a Katyusha rocket - the mainstay of Hezbollah's rocket arsenal - that either fell short of its target (presumably northern Israel) or was deliberately fired at the village.[2] Although Hezbollah denied involvement and some of its sympathizers in the press were quick to point out that some armed Palestinian factions in Lebanon, such the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), have a handful of Katyushas, the incident was nevertheless a public relations nightmare.

Fortunately for Hezbollah, concerns in the Shiite community about the identity of the group responsible for the rocket firing were diverted by controversy surrounding the treatment of the wounded boy. Due to the lack of adequate medical facilities in south Lebanon, the profusely-bleeding victim had to endure a 45-minute drive to Beirut, whereupon the American University of Beirut Medical Center refused to admit him into the Intensive Care Unit for several hours until the family could put down a cash deposit.[3]

Meanwhile, tensions between Hezbollah and Amal are growing steadily as Lebanon's 2005 parliamentary elections (about a year and a half away) draw nearer. The two groups are vigorously competing for public support, particularly in areas formerly occupied by Israel. In recent months, both have dispatched activists to plaster every nook and cranny of the former "security zone" with posters of their respective leaders, leading to inevitable clashes. An Amal activist, Hussein Alaa, was killed in an early September shootout and two Hezbollah members were arrested and charged with murder. On September 21, a massive brawl between Hezbollah and Amal activists erupted in the southern township of Jbaa, prompting the army to intervene and separate the combatants. Although local media accounts vary on what happened next, a shouting match between Hezbollah activists and Lebanese soldiers somehow ended with three of the former lying in a pool of blood, one of them dead.

Notes

  [1] The Daily Star (Beirut), 8 October 2003.
  [2] "UN says Lebanese boy near Israeli border killed by Katyusha rocket," Agence France Presse, 8 October 2003.
  [3] Al-Nahar (Beirut). 9 October 2003.