Qifa Nabki | A Lebanese Political Blog

Hezbollah secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced today that his party had adopted a new program, the first time this has happened since Hezbollah’s inaugural “Open Letter” was published in 1985 (an English translation can be found here).

One should be advised that there is very little in it that is going to surprise you. In my opinion, this program merely formalizes the shift in Hezbollah’s orientation that we’ve witnessed over the past two decades, from a guerilla outfit to a full-fledged political movement. Still, this is a significant development, and I welcome your thoughts on it.

Tune in tonight for the next post in our series on reform in Lebanon: abolishing political sectarianism. A propos of this subject, here’s the section from the new Hezbollah program that addresses it (in uncommonly strong language: “the fundamental problem in the Lebanese political system, which prevents its reform, development, and renewal, is the problem of political sectarianism…”)

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إنّ المشكلة الأساسية في النظام السياسي اللبناني، والتي تمنع إصلاحه وتطويره وتحديثه بشكل مستمر هي الطائفية السياسية. كما أنّ قيام النظام على أسس طائفية يشكّل عائقاً قوياً أمام تحقيق ديمقراطية صحيحة يمكن على ضوئها أن تحكم الأكثرية المنتخَبة وتعارض الأقلية المنتخَبة، ويُفتح فيها الباب لتداول سليم للسلطة بين الموالاة والمعارضة أو الإئتلافات السياسية المختلفة. ولذلك فإنّ الشرط الأساس لتطبيق ديمقراطية حقيقية من هذا النوع هو إلغاء الطائفية السياسية من النظام، وهو ما نص “اتفاق الطائف” على وجوب تشكيل هيئة وطنية عليا لإنجازه.
وإلى أن يتمكن اللبنانيون ومن خلال حوارهم الوطني من تحقيق هذا الإنجاز التاريخي والحساس – نعني إلغاء الطائفية السياسية – وطالما أنّ النظام السياسي يقوم على أسس طائفية فإنّ الديمقراطية التوافقية تبقى القاعدة الأساس للحكم في لبنان، لأنها التجسيد الفعلي لروح الدستور ولجوهر ميثاق العيش المشترك.
من هنا فإنّ أي مقاربة للمسائل الوطنية وفق معادلة الأكثرية والأقلية تبقى رهن تحقق الشروط التاريخية والإجتماعية لممارسة الديمقراطية الفعلية التي يصبح فيها المواطن قيمةً بحد ذاته.
إنّ إرادة اللبنانيين في العيش معاً موفوري الكرامة ومتساوي الحقوق والواجبات، تحتّم التعاون البنّاء من أجل تكريس المشاركة الحقيقية والتي تشكّل الصيغة الأنسب لحماية تنوعهم واستقرارهم الكامل بعد حقبة من اللاإستقرار سببتها السياسات المختلفة القائمة على النزوع نحو الإستئثار والإلغاء والإقصاء.
إنّ الديمقراطية التوافقية تشكّل صيغةً سياسيةً ملائمةً لمشاركة حقيقية من قِبَل الجميع، وعامل ثقة مطَمْئِن لمكونات الوطن، وهي تُسهم بشكل كبير في فتح الأبواب للدخول في مرحلة بناء الدولة المطَمْئِنة التي يشعر كل مواطنيها أنها قائمة من أجلهم.
إنّ الدولة التي نتطلع الى المشاركة في بنائها مع بقية اللبنانيين هي:
1-      الدولة التي تصون الحريات العامة، وتوفر كل الأجواء الملائمة لممارستها.
2-      الدولة التي تحرص على الوحدة الوطنية والتماسك الوطني.
3-      الدولة القادرة التي تحمي الأرض والشعب والسيادة والإستقلال، ويكون لها جيش وطني قوي ومقتدر ومجهَّز، ومؤسساتٌ أمنيةٌ فاعلةٌ وحريصةٌ على أمن الناس ومصالحهم.
4-      الدولة القائمة في بنيتها على قاعدة المؤسسات الحديثة والفاعلة والمتعاونة، والتي تستند الى صلاحيات ووظائف ومهام واضحة ومحددة.
5-      الدولة التي تلتزم تطبيق القوانين على الجميع في إطار احترام الحريات العامة والعدالة في حقوق وواجبات المواطنين، على اختلاف مذاهبهم ومناطقهم واتجاهاتهم.
6-      الدولة التي يتوافر فيها تمثيل نيابي سليم وصحيح لا يمكن تحقيقه إلاّ من خلال قانون انتخابات عصري يتيح للناخب اللبناني أن يختار ممثليه بعيداً عن سيطرة المال والعصبيات والضغوط المختلفة، ويحقق أوسع تمثيل ممكن لمختلف شرائح الشعب اللبناني.
7-      الدولة التي تعتمد على أصحاب الكفاءات العلمية والمهارات العملية وأهل النزاهة بغض النظر عن انتماءاتهم الطائفية، والتي تضع آليات فاعلةً وقويةً لتطهير الإدارة من الفساد والفاسدين دون مساومة.
8-      الدولة التي تتوافر فيها سلطة قضائية عليا ومستقلة وبعيدة عن تحكّم السياسيين، يمارس فيها قضاة كَفُؤون ونزيهون وأحرارٌ مسؤولياتِهم الخطيرة في إقامة العدل بين الناس.
9-      الدولة التي تُقِيْم اقتصادها بشكل رئيس على قاعدة القطاعات المنتِجة، وتعمل على استنهاضها وتعزيزها، وخصوصاً قطاعات الزراعة والصناعة، وإعطائها الحيّز المناسب من الخطط والبرامج والدعم بما يؤدي الى تحسين الإنتاج وتصريفه، وما يوفر فرص العمل الكافية والمناسبة وخاصةً في الأرياف.
10-    الدولة التي تعتمد وتطبق مبدأ الإنماء المتوازن بين المناطق، وتعمل على ردم الهوّة الإقتصادية والإجتماعية بينها.
11-    الدولة التي تهتم بمواطنيها، وتعمل على توفير الخدمات المناسبة لهم من التعليم والطبابة والسكن الى تأمين الحياة الكريمة، ومعالجة مشكلة الفقر، وتوفير فرص العمل وغير ذلك..
12-    الدولة التي تعتني بالأجيال الشابة والصاعدة، وتساعد على تنمية طاقاتِهم ومواهِبهم وتوجيههم نحو الغايات الإنسانية والوطنية، وحمايتهم من الإنحراف والرذيلة.
13-    الدولة التي تعمل على تعزيز دور المرأة وتطوير مشاركتها في المجالات كافةً، في إطار الإستفادة من خصوصيتها وتأثيرها واحترام مكانتِها.
14-    الدولة التي تُوْلي الوضع التربوي الأهمية المناسبة خصوصاً لجهة الإهتمام بالمدرسة الرسمية، وتعزيز الجامعة اللبنانية على كل صعيد، وتطبيق إلزامية التعليم الى جانب مجّانيته.
15-    الدولة التي تعتمد نظاماً إدارياً لا مركزياً يعطي سلطات إداريةً واسعةً للوحدات الإدارية المختلفة (محافظة/ قضاء/ بلدية)، بهدف تعزيز فرص التنمية وتسهيل شؤون ومعاملات المواطنين، دون السماح بتحوّل هذه اللامركزية الإدارية الى نوع من “الفدرلة” لاحقاً.
16-    الدولة التي تجهد لوقف الهجرة من الوطن، هجرة الشباب والعائلات وهجرة الكفاءات والأدمغة ضمن مخطط شامل وواقعي.
17-    الدولة التي ترعى مواطنيها المغتربين في كل أصقاع العالم، وتدافع عنهم وتحميهم، وتستفيد من انتشارهم ومكانتهم ومواقعهم لخدمة القضايا الوطنية.

إنّ قيام دولة بهذه المواصفات والشروط هدف لنا ولكل لبناني صادق ومخلص، ونحن في حزب الله سنبذل كل جهودنا وبالتعاون مع القوى السياسية والشعبية المختلفة التي تشاركنا هذه الرؤية من أجل تحقيق هذا الهدف الوطني النبيل.

Three quick things:

First, the reader response to the first post in our “Lebanese National Agenda” initiative — which deals with #9 on the Top 10 List of priorities — has been quite inspiring. As of this writing, the number of comments is up to 120 already. If you haven’t read it yet, do so now and chime in with your thoughts about how to approach the issue of the legal disenfranchisement of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon.

Second, for those of you in Boston for the Middle East Studies Association conference, here are a couple relevant panels that you may want to hit.

• “Alternative Media as Sites of Resistance” — Sunday 11:00 AM
• “Lebanon and the Lebanese” — Sunday 2:00 PM
• “Crossing Over: Negotiating Levantine Borders During the Mandate and After” — Sunday 4:30 PM
• “A Material Nahda?” — Monday 8:30 PM
• “Thinking Outside the State?” (with Marc Lynch & Greg Gause) — Monday 11:00 AM
• “External Intervention, Civil Peace, and Post-Syria Lebanon” (with Rex Brynen & Bassel Salloukh) — Monday 11:00 AM
• “Patronage & Clientelism in the Contemporary Middle East” — Monday 2:30 PM
• “The Secrets of Eloquence: Linguistic Expression in Medieval Arabic Thought and Practice” — Tuesday 10:30 AM

That last one is my own panel, which is relevant only to people who have an inexplicable craving for discussions about medieval Arabic literary theory and encyclopedic literature.

Finally, for those of you who haven’t yet joined the Qifa Nabki Facebook page, here’s one more reason to do so: “QN Sings the National Unity Blues…”

Have a good weekend!

There are few issues that provoke such a strong response among the Lebanese as the question of the Palestinian refugees’ future in Lebanon. Interestingly enough, unlike most other controversial issues, there is a remarkable degree of consensus about this one. I have met very few Lebanese who do not strongly believe that the Palestinians must never, under any circumstances, be settled permanently in Lebanon as citizens.

The reasons advanced for this view are many, and I will consider the most prominent of them below, in the hopes of generating a good discussion. But first, a few background remarks.

There are over 400,000 registered Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The actual number is unknown, and estimates vary between 250,000 to upwards of half a million. The living conditions of these refugees — most of whom were born in Lebanon — is dismal. They have few civil rights; they are banned from working in over seventy trades; they are dependent almost entirely on the welfare of UNRWA for basic social services like education, water, food, etc. Of all the Palestinian communities in the diaspora, the Lebanese one is surely the worst off.

It seems to me that while most Lebanese are solidly against the naturalization of the Palestinians, most also believe that their conditions should be improved. The question is: how can this be achieved without risking the integration of the communities into Lebanese society, which — as people will tell you — is the thin end of the wedge.

Now, I’ve had the so-called “tawteen” (naturalization) conversation so many times that I can practically rehearse in my sleep the arguments that are commonly advanced. They break down into the following four genres:

I. The Sectarian Argument

“Lebanon’s political system, which is based upon a delicate sectarian balance, cannot handle the influx of several hundred thousand new citizens, the majority of whom are Sunni Muslims.”

I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard this argument. It’s usually the opening gambit, particularly when listening to either a Shiite or Christian politician, whose communities will (allegedly) be politically disenfranchised by the swelling of Sunni ranks.

There are several problems with this argument, as I see it.

1. First of all, it implies that the current system of political confessionalism is actually functional and worth preserving.
2. Second of all, it assumes that the current system is an accurate and just reflection of demographic realities, when it is not. Given the fact that the quotas accorded to each sect in Parliament are already out of sync with the actual sectarian balance in the country (and yet, nobody is making a big deal out of this), and given the fact that (for example) there are nine thousand voters per MP in Bsharre and twenty thousand voters per MP in Sur, isn’t it intellectually dishonest to pretend that the sectarian system mirrors the sectarian reality?
3. Thirdly, if Lebanon moves to abolish its system of political confessionalism, as called for in the Ta’if Accord, then why is the influx of additional Sunnis an insurmountable problem? Often enough, even the most fervent Lebanese proponents of secularism will continue to argue against naturalization on sectarian grounds. “Yes, of course I am for abolishing sectarianism. But this will take generations, and this is why we cannot naturalize the Palestinians,” is a common refrain. I find this deeply unconvincing.

II. The Socio-Economic Argument

“Lebanon is barely big enough for its own people. We don’t have room for anyone else. “

The Maronite Patriarch made a comment along these lines last week. I find this to be a very strange objection. Don’t these politicians realize that the refugees are already in Lebanon? They’re not arriving by the shipful, Moldovan-bouncer-style. They already live here. Obviously, they’re disconnected from the services of the state (such as they are), but is integration really going to cause mass shortages of kibbe nayyeh for everyone else?

This argument sounds especially disingenuous when it is advanced by people who simultaneously argue that the Palestinians’ conditions must be improved. Where do they think the improvements are going to come from? UNRWA? Obviously, they want the Lebanese state to step in and play a stronger role, but when it comes to integrating the Palestinians into that state as full legal citizens, the charity ends.

III. The Moral Argument

“We did not create the refugee problem — Israel did. Therefore, Israel should be responsible for solving it either through the right of return, or through compensation. Naturalizing the Palestinians deprives them of their right to restitution.”

This is usually the argument that people whip out to browbeat you when the previous two run aground on the shoals of common sense. In its basic outline — the idea of a right of return or compensation — it is not that problematic. But let’s say we accept its premise. What happens then?

In other words, what if we imagine a hypothetical scenario where Israel signs a peace deal with Lebanon and Syria, accepting a certain number of returning refugees and compensating the rest? Should those compensated refugees be entitled to naturalization in Lebanon?

“No!” insist the anti-tawteen crusaders, reverting back to either the sectarian or socio-economic argument. “We can’t accept them! Lebanon is too fragile! Lebanon is too small! Why can’t another Arab country take them?!”

Which brings us to the final argument, one of my favorites…

IV. The “Why-Can’t-Someone-Else-Take-Them?” Argument

“Why can’t they go to Saudi Arabia or Jordan? In a larger country, four hundred thousand new citizens would be nothing. It’s the size of a small city in Syria!”

So let me get this straight. When politicians in a certain country to the south start advocating the mass transfer of Palestinians to other Middle Eastern nations, we refer to this with terms like “the destruction of a nation,” “the persecution of a people,” etc.

But it’s ok for us to insist that these same people be uprooted again and transplanted in a foreign country, despite the fact that they’ve been living in Lebanon for three generations? Why is it acceptable for us to deport a few hundred thousand Palestinians to a specially-constructed Refugeeville, built for them in the middle of the Saudi desert, but it’s not ok for Israel to do it? (Note that I’m NOT arguing that Israel should be able to do it either.)

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This post might anger and frustrate some readers. Please be assured that my objective is not to diminish or make light of the bitter experiences of the Lebanese Civil War; I understand where the distrust between many Lebanese and Palestinians comes from. However, I also feel that there is a poverty of rational thinking around this issue, and I’d like to see that change.

Finally, please note that this entire discussion is predicated on the idea that a peace deal is reached which provides a solution to the refugee crisis that does not involve a massive return of Palestinians to their homeland. If Israel agrees to take them back, then this discussion is moot. Furthermore, I am not advocating that the refugees be naturalized prior to a peace deal, only that their living conditions be dramatically improved.

The floor is yours…

Update: See the bottom of this post for Joshua Landis’s response to Nick Noe’s article.

The much-promised post on the subject of Palestinian naturalization is coming soon, but in the meantime I thought I’d put up Nicholas Noe’s latest article for Bitter Lemons, to see what the QN readership makes of it.

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Hizballah in war and peace

by Nicholas Noe

Four and a half years after Syrian troops were unexpectedly cajoled out of Lebanon, and more than three years after the end of a (nearly) “open” war with Israel, the Shi’ite movement Hizballah appears not only militarily stronger, as many of its enemies attest, but also politically and ideologically more secure, confident and, to a certain degree, coherent.

Indeed, as far as Hizballah is concerned, the March 14 movement that helped kick the Syrians out and that managed to maintain a narrow parliamentary majority in last summer’s election (reportedly with the help of more than $750 million in Saudi financing) has effectively ceased to exist. There is, quite simply, no domestic power right now that can substantially challenge or even “contain” Hizballah’s independent arsenal–all the more so since there is also no credible external power to provide the kind of support that would be vital in such an effort.

Reconciliations and “thawings” with nearby Damascus are instead the order of the day, as Saudi and Egyptian power in the country retreats and regional differences sharpen around the unexpectedly swift decline of the “settlement camp” as a whole.

These external factors, of course, have greatly helped in solidifying and clarifying Hizballah’s overall position. But as key theoreticians in the party, including its current head, Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah, have long argued, the main existential danger threatening the movement’s twin goals of fully liberating Lebanese territories and hastening the demise of the Jewish state of Israel (setting aside the threat that a regional peace deal may pose) has always been the specter of internal division–not the army divisions that the IDF or the US Marines could conceivably muster up.

This was the lesson learned early on by Hizballah during the end of the Lebanese Civil War when conflict broke out with the Shi’ite Amal movement. Those bloody months saw the only sustained drop in Hizballah attacks on Israeli forces and their proxies during the occupation of South Lebanon and raised the possibility of a Shi’ite implosion.

Now, with the crumbling of domestic opposition, Hizballah finally feels confident enough to take a much-needed breather on the home front and concentrate its energies more fully on what it views as the main event with Israel–a confrontation that party leaders and cadres believe is nearing.

This is not to say, however, that there are no domestic vulnerabilities. There are, and, for the most part, they remain just under the surface as a spider web within which Hizballah still must operate.

Briefly, one would include on the list: the 2006 July War that ravaged the movement’s Shi’ite base and raised the countrywide “reasonability test” for any future conflict (is Hizballah going to go to war for a good enough reason?); its use of arms internally last year that magnified its sometimes violent, sectarian aspect; its loss in the June 2009 elections, demonstrating the overconfidence and atrophy in Hizballah’s vital political alliances; the “Shi’ite Bernie Madoff” scandal that sullied Hizballah’s reputation for incorruptibility; and, certainly, the Iranian election unrest that damaged Nasrallah’s increasingly tenuous claim to be heading a party that effectively synergizes reason and faith.

The problem here for Hizballah’s opponents is that these vulnerabilities (of which there are certainly more) would have to be activated and organized around in order to create a new domestic alliance able to decisively undermine Hizballah’s desire and ability to use violence. Unfortunately, as it currently stands, the potentially preponderant actor in Lebanon, the United States, appears unwilling and/or unable to invest in this particular course of action. This applies especially to convincing the Israelis to lend a critical hand by not objecting to sophisticated arms transfers to the Lebanese army, turning over to the UN small parcels of territory considered as occupied by the Lebanese government and shifting away from IAF over-flights that baldly violate UN resolutions and risk sparking another devastating war.

An internal debate may finally take place very soon in Washington over Lebanon policy–perhaps because policymakers have woken up to the idea that a war between Hizballah and Israel is more likely in the near term than a conflict with Iran. Yet deep divisions within President Obama’s “team of rivals” combined with the political and intellectual vortex that Lebanon has long been for Americans, all lessen the chance that any unconventional thinking on how to approach Hizballah might actually be translated into action.

In the absence of a “peace process” then, and without an oblique, non-military strategy on the part of the US to tighten the political, ideological and moral spider web around Hizballah, the movement has declared that it is now even more certain another victory is in the offing–war or no war, as Nasrallah argued recently.

If Israel launches a preemptive strike because it discovers a “game-changing” weapons transfer, for example, or as a prelude to an attack on Iran, Hizballah will be domestically protected since its response will likely be deemed as justified by important segments of Lebanon’s body politic. Even if Israel somehow resists attacking in the event of a strike on Iran, there are numerous other means by which Hizballah can become involved in an open conflict with the domestic backing it deems vital. Shooting down and/or capturing an Israeli pilot overflying Lebanon, for example, would likely entail a wide response by Israel but would be difficult for Hizballah’s opponents to condemn, given the violation of Lebanese sovereignty.

Either way, Hizballah is supremely confident that it can adequately protect itself both politically and militarily in any new conflict with Israel. In fact, the overwhelming sentiment within the party seems to be that a confrontation is not only inevitable, but that when it comes it will finally lead to the total collapse of Israel. This means, above all else, that the relative quiet of the past few years has not brought restored Israeli deterrence, but instead the deferment of a conflict that Hizballah feels vastly more secure in waging.

But what if there is no new war? Here, too, Hizballah sees a strategic gain since it believes Israel has passed a turning point such that the Jewish state’s perceived internal factors of decline (much discussed by Israelis themselves) can be decisively accelerated with the increasing application of pressure.

Revenge for Commander Imad Mughnieh’s assassination, then, does not have to be had in some kind of a spectacular attack and it does not have to be rushed. The revenge is ongoing and permanent, Nasrallah suggests, since as the missile capability of the “resistance axis” extends over and around Israel, fear multiplies the corrosive effects of occupation, demography, international missteps, political corruption and a military might that (supposedly) cannot sustain large casualties.

Of course, Nasrallah might very well be radically mistaken in all of this. The crucial point, though, is that both he and the party seem to firmly believe otherwise–a certitude and a righteousness mirrored by many of Hizballah’s Israeli opponents who are apparently no less eager to put their own Dahia doctrine, as well as Nasrallah’s “Tel Aviv doctrine” of mutual maximum destruction, to the test.

Sadly, if such a war does indeed come, as appears increasingly likely, one thing is certain–it will cost far more lives on both sides than the last round did.

Published 19/11/2009 © bitterlemons-international.org

Nicholas Noe is the editor-in-chief of Mideastwire.com and the author of a 2008 Century Foundation white paper entitled, “Re-Imaging the Lebanon Track: Towards a New US Policy”.

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QN’s Response

Here are a few quick thoughts from me. While I do think that Nick’s diagnosis of Hizbullah’s current strategic position is probably accurate — with respect to the party’s strengths and vulnerabilities — I also suspect that the threshold of the “reasonability test” for any future conflict is a little lower than he portrays it to be.

There is very little appetite in Lebanon for another conflict with Israel, even among Hizbullah’s staunchest allies. And while the Lebanese may indeed rally behind the party if Israel launches a preemptive strike, I just don’t see that happening. Much more likely, in my opinion, is a preemptive strike on Iran, and any overt attempt by Hizbullah to retaliate would be, in my opinion, deeply unpopular in Lebanon.

I think back to the shooting of Samer Hanna, the Lebanese Army helicopter pilot who was accidentally killed by a Hizbullah fighter last year. The incident enraged large swaths of the Christian population, including the Aounists. Sure, they found ways of excusing Hizbullah and turning their anger upon the March 14 politicans who tried to score political points out of the tragedy, but the anger and frustration were there.

How forgiving are Hizbullah’s co-nationalists going to be in the wake of a war that is more destructive than the 2006 conflict?

Joshua Landis’ Response

It is hard to believe Hizbullah is really as confident as they make out. Certainly, “the resistance,” and that includes Hamas and Syria, must do something. The ball is in their court. Israel has won, at least it would seem that way for the time being.

What do I mean by won? The Gaza solution. Israel has defied Obama, who claims that only the two-state solution is viable. It has presented an alternative solution, the Gaza solution. By bombing Hizbullah hard and bombing Hamas hard Israel has mapped out a policy. It seems to be working. No Western power complained when Israel smashed Gaza, nor have they complained since.

No Hizbullah attack in over 3 years and quite on the Gaza front as the population languishes in its tents – that is success of the starkest kind. If the “resistance” does not respond within the year, there will be precious few remaining Israelis – or Westerner politicians for that matter – who will argue that concessions need to be made for peace. Hizbullah may talk a confident game, but the Israelis have promised that Lebanon will be Gaza’ed if Hizbullah strikes. I believe them.

Free Patriotic Movement leader General Michel Aoun went on Kalam al-Nas (the most widely-watched political talk show in Lebanon) last Thursday, and had a long conversation with Marcel Ghanem, the show’s famous host.

The entire interview is available on YouTube in ten-minute installments. You can catch the first one here, and then navigate to the subsequent bits in the sidebar.

Some of the more interesting sections:

Section 2: Discussion of the constitutionality of majority governments, and Ta’if vs. Doha.

Section 6: The defense strategy and Hezbollah’s weapons.

Section 7: The possibility of reform in the electricity sector.

Section 8: Rafiq Hariri’s assassination, and on who will succeed Aoun in the FPM, Christian politics, etc.

Section 10: Aoun explains the steps towards de-confessionalism (i.e. secularization).

Based on Aoun’s hints and allusions, I wouldn’t be surprised if the Free Patriotic Movement and the Future Movement announce a Memorandum of Understanding within the next couple of months.