Lebanon: Guest Post

In comments on an earlier thread, our commenter Ara mentioned having family in Lebanon, and some people asked him what they were thinking. Taking my cue from this, I (hilzoy) emailed him and asked whether he would be interested in writing a guest post. He graciously agreed, and emailed me back the following.

***

I will warn you that I am suspicious of my own point of view. I'm suspicious that I only know Lebanon through Armenian lenses, and that there are a great many Lebanons. It would be very wrong to subject others to my inherited myopia, and I am in a position where I suspect that I might have some great blind spots, but I do not know where those blind spots are (as opposed to those blind spots whose exact location I know, right in the center of my field of vision!)

And one other reason you might not want to include what I say here is that my family is in one of the safest parts of Lebanon, far east of Beirut and away from the Shi'ites. When the Israelis bomb that part of Lebanon, they will bomb in the Bekaa Valley and they will bomb Baalbek and they will bomb southern Beirut. On the one hand, of course the Israelis have a moral obligation to keep their bombing to a minimum. On the other hand, the ethnically selective pattern of attacks really reinforces an impression that not all Lebanese are regarded or protected equally.

But no matter how (ethnically) selective the Israelis might be in bombing, the consequences are carrying over to the whole state. I heard from my uncle that his village, almost entirely Armenian, whose population I would put generously at 5000, has been overwhelmed by maybe 2000 Arab refugees. They have opened up the Catholic Church and the local school for the refugees. They are fine right now, but they're receiving no new supplies. Obviously that can't continue for more than a few more weeks. Electricity is fine, but the water supply is fickle. The roads are too dangerous for shipping. Just yesterday a truck carrying food and medicine was bombed along the road between the village and Syria.

I also heard that the conversation going on with these refugees has been sharp. Of course commercial Lebanon and non-Shi'ite Lebanon wants Hezbollah to lay down its arms. I have noticed many anecdotes in the press of Arabs unified in blaming Israel and America. Everybody there blames Israel and America, to be sure. But in addition to that there's simply not going to be that kind of unity between Christian Lebanon and Muslim Lebanon. Now Muslim Lebanon, at this point, outnumbers Christian Lebanon 2 to 1. It is not a conflict in which Christians are in any position to press the argument.

Right now, there's no business whatsoever. Working life has stopped. The farmers in eastern Lebanon are very dependent on seasonal Syrian laborers, and understandably seasonally employed Syrians in Lebanon found it easiest to leave. In a sentence, there are not enough hands to collect the harvest. The Armenians there largely have no sympathy for Hezbollah. In fact, my uncle's first response to all this was joy that Israel would "wipe them out" [the quotation marks are a translated quotation, not scare quotes]. I think it would be fair to say that they regarded Syrians as oppressors and Hezbollah as a growing nuisance. Now a number of Armenians have already left, many to Syria, and then from Syria to Armenia itself. It would also be fair to say that those in my family are more afraid of the Shi'ites than they are of the Israelis. In particular, they are afraid that the Shi'ite refugees will occupy these abandoned homes.

I know how ridiculous and cowardly this might sound -- to fear refugees more than bombardment from the sky. But I think it gives an accurate picture of the character of the place. Lebanon's peace is fragile, and it was secured by everyone keeping to his own and everyone keeping guns. The ethnic distrust goes back to the foundation of the state. Still today, even after the Cedar Revolution, seats in parliament are divided by ethnicity and religion. The prime minister must always be a Sunni Arab, and the president must always be a Maronite Christian, and so forth. It's bizarre, unfair, and self-weakening as a system of government. The same ethnic distrust that makes this the only government which is acceptable also hampers this triumvirate government from acting as a single coordinated unit. I think it is instructive that bargaining has failed to change these institutions. My hunch -- and this is only a hunch -- is that if there is no incentive to cooperate, if groups would rather have no government at all than a government even slightly tilted against them, then there is no other bargain they would accept. It just goes to show how small a role the national identity plays in political life.

A few months ago, at a dinner, I was taken to task by a Lebanese Arab who complained that the Armenian community of Lebanon regarded itself as Armenian first and Lebanese second. Unfortunately for Lebanon, this problem is not at all peculiar to the Armenians. So this is what Lebanon is today: a free-for-all, where ethnic groups vie for power, often with very little legal restraint. In fact, the successive governments are regarded as no more than representatives of one or another of these groups. Imagine a city cut up by gangs, where what you regard as the government is just the most powerful gang at the time.

If even that: the Lebanese are accustomed to having no functioning government whatsoever. For years, for example, there were no Lebanese police at all, just the Syrian army manning checkpoints along the roads, checking people's papers. Throughout the Civil War years, villages in the East that had electricity famously never paid for it. There was simply no one to pay. There is little regard for the legitimacy of elections, in part because of this "biggest gang on the block" mentality and in part because of widespread accusations of bribery and intimidation. As a legacy of the civil war, people often see the government as pursuing its own interest, which usually involves enriching itself. Sometimes protecting you is part of that plan, and sometimes antagonizing you is part of that plan.

Now, I spoke of bribery. Why would people bother? And where's the money coming from? When Lebanon failed as a state, that failure invited in a number of foreign players interested in filling the vacuum in one way or the other. Rather obviously, it invited in the Syrians and the Israelis for armed occupations. It invited in the PLO after its expulsion from Jordan. But it also invited in money in the pursuit of influence. And this is how the Iranian relation with the Shia militia began. The antagonists of Iranian influence are the Saudis, who pump money into Sunni militia and investment into Beirut itself. Often groups have greater ties to foreign influence than to other domestic groups, and this makes Lebanon a dangerous place where there is less incentive to cooperate than there ought to be (a kind of microcosm of the international community). Over the last 10 years or so, these dollars have competed for the hearts and minds of the Lebanese in different ways. Iranian money was spent in the South, re-creating infrastructure and social services that had been decimated by the occupation and by general neglect. Saudi investment went to Beirut itself in the form of high-profile building projects that reconstructed the city. There is a measure of populism versus elitism in the difference between the use of Saudi money and Iranian money. If you think of your government as being whatever agency provides services for you, it is not far-fetched to imagine two different governments in Lebanon: one for Beirut, and another for the south.

Hezbollah is, so to speak, the last remaining militia in a country that was ruled by ethnic militias not so long ago. Hezbollah remained because it was focused in the sole remaining place of active fighting, southern Lebanon. Hezbollah will be reluctant to disarm because in many ways it operates as the only government of southern Lebanon. That is to say, the Shi'ites might be just as afraid of the rest of Lebanon as they are of Israel.

What I want to emphasize is that as a Shi'ite in Lebanon, you have no natural allies. You have been historically oppressed by the other ethnic groups within your state. Israel, across the border, has invaded, occupied, funded paramilitaries, and regularly bombed at something like five-year intervals. The Syrians are largely Sunni Arabs who think you are a heretic. Besides, the Syrian government is Baathist, socialist, and politically opposed to your religiosity. The Iranian government is with you religiously, but they aren't Arabs, they don't speak the same language, and you are not sure how much their support of view reflects an interest in casting a longer shadow on regional politics. We in America see a single image of Muslim unity, but the truth is that the only thing which unites these groups, of whom many have grudges which run far far longer and far far deeper than the conflict between Israelis and Arabs, is contempt for these policies. The regional strategy of successive empires (I'm thinking of the Ottomans) and then colonial regimes (I'm thinking of the English and French) was to pit these groups against one another (and to prop a compliant and then dependent demographic minority over demographic majorities). And you see the same diplomatic strategy being pursued today.

The other consequence of this is that as a Lebanese Shi'ite, having no natural allies, you have nowhere to flee to. Immiserating Lebanon is only going to increase emigration, and those groups with greater mobility will emigrate in greater proportions. The Shi'ites were already gaining on everyone demographically. In a country where seats in the parliament are apportioned by census figures, these considerations will ensure a future Shi'ite dominated state.

I've read much about how Israelis keep with them the memory of their many wars of survival against the Arab states. But I have not read so much about the flipside of this: how Arabs keep with them the humiliation of having lost those wars and just being generally unable to defend themselves. Right now, the Lebanese government can only respond to this as if responding to a natural disaster. And it is not doing much of the job of that. Now what Lebanon ought to be doing as a state is defending its citizens against Israel, but it is completely helpless against Israel. So it is failing at two of the most basic functions of any state. I mention all this because in a place where state legitimacy rides on what you can deliver, the Lebanese government right now is delivering very little. Lebanon will be in the hands of whoever can deliver, which is why a strong clue as to the future character of the Lebanese state will come from the source of the reconstruction budgets. Time and time again, external capital is the way things get done, and it is no good for the stability of the state. This also helps explain the staying power of Hezbollah, which I have read is the second-largest employer in Lebanon. The Lebanese Prime Minister has made two interesting public moves so far. First, he threatened to use the Lebanese army to defend an Israeli invasion, would seemed to serve as deterrent: if the IDF destroys the Lebanese army, as it easily would, there would be nothing left to prevent Lebanon from falling into Hezbollah's hands besides a full-fledged occupation. Second, he is asking the Israelis themselves for reparations. There is some politics, not just rhetoric behind this. Proponents of a strong Lebanese central government would rather have that state propped up by Israel than by neighboring Arab states.

So hopefully it is clear by now what kind of picture I am painting: deep ethnic distrust, a weak central government that borders on irrelevance, many middling foreign powers in a country that sometimes feels like two different nations superimposed on the same territory. I think everyone agrees on the goals: peace along the northern Israeli border, the disarmament of Hezbollah, peace in southern Lebanon. The question is: how do we get there from here? Even if the military wing of Hezbollah were annihilated, would it bring us any closer to this? And what are the costs expressed in terms of our other goals of achieving that military annihilation? Historically, big strong states on your border are a recipe for security, and weak states are a recipe for conflict. Is there such a thing as a weak state of Lebanon that is secure for Israel? Again, if we all agree on the goals, how do we get to them from here?

Comments

[Slartibartfast]

Wow, Ara. I need to go back and reread this in a non-skimming way, but thank you. This is a look at Lebanon that you don't get in the newspaper front-pager.

[Jesurgislac]

Thanks very much, Ara - and thanks to Hilzoy for thinking of asking you.

Like Slarti, I'll need to digest this a bit before asking questions.

--
Could someone on the kitten please do me the favor of deleting the previous comment, made with a joke name that I forgot to edit out? I'd really rather not distract this serious thread with silly jokes like that.

[hilzoy]

Jes: done.

[CaseyL]

What a fascinating post. Particularly fascinating, justaposed with a news report I heard on NPR this morning, about how the Saudis are sending entire fleets of trucks with humanitarian aid to Lebanon - and how they're in such a hurry to get there, they're taking shortcuts through dangerous territory.

So, if the fate of Lebanon rests on those who are first in line for the reconstruction, it sounds like the Saudis are aware of that, and determined to be first in line.

Oddly enough, Ara's post puts me very strongly in mind of Tip O'Neal's famous dictum, that "All politics is local/"

[CharleyCarp]

Like the post. Since the Cedar days, I've been wondering when the Taif structure would be brought into sync with demographic realities. What do you think?

[Dantheman]

Nice post, and my thoughts parallel CharleyCarp's question. Is there any provsion for reexamining the division of power in the government at a future date based upon census (since consensus seems to be unlikely)?

[JakeB]

Thank you very much for the post, Ara.

One question: Do you mean 'meddling' instead of 'middling' in the last paragraph? I guess it could be read either way.

[Bernard Yomtov]

Thanks, Ara. This is very informative.

[abb1]

Well, this is pretty much in accord with everything I ever heard from Lebanese Armenians I know. Short version: they don't blame Israel for anything and they don't like the quota system in Lebanon (refused a government job for being a Christian, etc.). Those I know usually emphasise more that they get along perfectly alright with all other groups - have no problem with Arabs, etc.

But thanks for reminding us once again that the people of Lebanon (including its Shia population) has the right to defend itself against Israel. For some reason this doesn't seem obvious to most Americans.

[liberal japonicus]

Ara, thanks for this. Another piece that might be of interest is Totten's longer discussion on Lebanon, though I didn't look at the comments, as there has been a very nasty troll infestation over there.

[lily]

Thank you, Ara, and thanks Hilzoy for inviting this post from Ara.
It would probably be a smart move for us to be first or at least second in line with reconstruction money, but such a thought would never occur to this administration.

[abb1]

CSM reports: http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0728/p06s01-wome.html>Israeli strikes may boost Hizbullah base
Hizbullah support tops 80 percent among Lebanese factions.

The stakes are high for Hizbullah, but it seems it can count on an unprecedented swell of public support that cuts across sectarian lines.According to a poll released by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, 87 percent of Lebanese support Hizbullah's fight with Israel, a rise of 29 percent on a similar poll conducted in February. More striking, however, is the level of support for Hizbullah's resistance from non-Shiite communities. Eighty percent of Christians polled supported Hizbullah along with 80 percent of Druze and 89 percent of Sunnis.

[rilkefan]

Excellent post.

"Second, he is asking the Israelis themselves for reparations. There is some politics, not just rhetoric behind this. Proponents of a strong Lebanese central government would rather have that state propped up by Israel than by neighboring Arab states."

I wonder how Israeli reconstruction funds would be viewed by Hezbollah supporters - e.g. I can't imagine Syria would enjoy the Lebanon being propped up by anyone besides themselves.

[ckreiz]

deep ethnic distrust, a weak central government that borders on irrelevance, many middling foreign powers in a country that sometimes feels like two different nations superimposed on the same territory.

Has it occurred to anyone that this sounds like Iraq?

[Tom Scudder]

The major difference between Iraq and Lebanon is that Lebanon has (or had) a very strong civil society - or, depending on how you look at it, several loosely-interlinked civil societies (one for each sect, more or less). In Iraq, the central government is for shit, and there's nothing to take its place. In Lebanon, there is a vast network of private schools, private (or religious) hospitals, private charitable foundations, and so forth that pick up the slack. This is something that is mentioned a fair amount in stories about hizbullah, but I think it's important to note that hizbullah is a purely typical political party in the social services network it works with and is allied with - every other sectarian group has a similar network.

[ScottM]

Great post; there's a lot to this that I haven't heard before. Thanks for helping remind me how complex the world can be.

[kari]

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