the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Oct 24, 2024
We translated the following article from one that appeared in Lutte de Classe, #243, published by comrades of the French Trotskyist organization, Lutte Ouvrière, November 2024.
On October 8, 2023, in support of Hamas, Hezbollah—the “Party of God”—sent rockets into Israel from southern Lebanon. It could not remain aloof from the conflict triggered the day before by the Hamas attack, since its legitimacy had been based for forty years on its image as a pillar of the axis of resistance to Israel. Yet its entire attitude afterwards showed that Hezbollah wanted to avoid getting involved in a warlike escalation that the Lebanese population did not want. But today, Hezbollah has been unable to prevent Netanyahu and the Israeli leadership from turning their weapons against Lebanon after a year of destructive war against Gaza.
The Lebanese population is once again plunged into war, suffering from both the barbarity of the Israeli state and from the consequences of Hezbollah’s political calculations. The “Party of God” had no doubt hoped that a rapid cease-fire in Gaza would have enabled it to stop firing without losing face. But a series of Israeli attacks decapitated part of the Hezbollah leadership and killed its leader Hassan Nasrallah—after which Israel’s air force relentlessly pounded southern Lebanon, parts of Beirut and the Plain of Bekaa, as its troops entered the country.
Thanks to American support, the Israeli army enjoys overwhelming military superiority, and has learned from the failure of its previous operation against Lebanon in 2006. Its blows fell in areas where the Shiite population lives, punishing it for its alleged support of Hezbollah. From the outset, thousands of civilians were killed or wounded, and over a million Lebanese were driven to flee, no longer knowing where to turn for safety.
This is the fourth time since 1978 that the Israeli army has invaded Lebanon. Israel’s air force carried out innumerable raids and bombardments during the 1975–1990 civil war, followed by repeated raids between 1996 and 2000, and finally by Israel’s 2006 war against Hezbollah. The destruction of power grids and numerous infrastructures during those years has left Lebanon in a state of disrepair from which it still has not recovered.
Right from the start of the war in Gaza, the Lebanese population—fed up with these successive wars and exhausted by a succession of crises—showed that, despite their sympathy for the Palestinian cause, they did not wish to be drawn into the conflict. Lebanon had already faced an influx of 1.2 million refugees following the war in Syria, the economic collapse of 2019 and the consequences of the 2020 explosion in the port of Beirut—all of which plunged it into poverty.
Taking these feelings and the balance of power into account, Hezbollah tried to limit its involvement and its military initiatives, which remained relatively moderate compared with the violence of the Israeli attacks. But Israel’s long-prepared offensive turned this dangerous game into a catastrophe. The entire Lebanese population is now living in fear of suffering the same fate as Gaza’s, and Hezbollah’s political adversaries are sure to blame it.
In the aftermath of the First World War, colonial France separated Syria from Lebanon, the better to dominate that part of the Middle East it had wrested from the Ottoman Empire. Lebanon’s borders were drawn so that Maronite Christians would be in the majority, to the detriment of Sunnis, Druze and Shiites. Ancestral trade links with the Arabs of Syria and Palestine were severed.
Lebanon’s independence in 1943 did not put an end to the religious divisions created by the colonial power; on the contrary, independence perpetuated them. The political institutions created by France favored the Christian Maronites, who were by that time a minority. The post of President of the Republic was reserved for them, while the post of Prime Minister went to the Sunni Muslims, and the post of Speaker of Parliament to Shiite Muslims.
In the 1950s and 1960s, social and territorial inequalities widened between the capital and rural areas, and between religious communities. While Beirut was becoming a major Middle Eastern financial center, home to an opulent Christian bourgeoisie, the inhabitants of the rural Shiite areas of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley were living in destitution. Infrastructure, communications, roads, schools, clinics and hospitals were rudimentary. Many villages had no electricity and no running water. In the 1950s, the standard of living of the Shiite population was five times lower than that of the inhabitants of Beirut. Twenty years later, in 1970, 50% of their children still were not in school. Many emigrated from rural areas to Beirut’s southern and northern suburbs, which became known as the “misery belt.” They settled next to camps for Palestinian refugees who had been driven off their land by Israel in 1948. They shared their condition as workers in the factories and construction sector where they met, and felt the same revolt and the same hopes. The courage and determination of the Palestinians became a factor politicizing and encouraging the others to raise their heads. In the early 1970s, the poor Lebanese and Palestinian masses increasingly found themselves side by side in strikes and demonstrations.
The Lebanese Christian extreme right attempted to put a stop to this growing mobilization in April 1975. Palestinian and Lebanese occupants of a bus returning from a meeting in solidarity with the Palestinians were massacred as they passed through the Aïn El-Remmaneh district of Beirut. This massacre and the armed clashes that followed, often referred to as “Black Sunday,” started a civil war that was to last until 1990, with Lebanese and Palestinian left-wing militias fighting side by side against those of the extreme right. The Palestinian leaders, dragged unwillingly into this conflict, wished to confine themselves to national objectives, and neither they nor the Lebanese left-wing parties envisaged leading a policy at the head of the popular masses that would have met the masses’ aspirations for an overthrow of the social order.
In 1976, the Syrian army, on the initiative of Hafez el-Assad, intervened to put an end to the successes of the so-called “Palestinian-progressive” militias against those of the extreme right, leaving the right to massacre the Palestinians of the Tel al-Zaatar camp. Hopes of the poor masses that the conflict would be a success were soon dashed. Lebanon, ravaged by civil war, became the arena in which the regional powers—Syria, Israel, Saudi Arabia and then Iran—clashed through sectarian militias dependent on these regimes.
In 1982, with its “Peace in Galilee” military campaign, the Israeli army invaded southern Lebanon, intent on eliminating Palestinian fighters and their Lebanese supporters. Israel benefitted from the neutrality of Nabih Berri, who had approved the plan to expel the Palestinians. Berri was the leader of the powerful Syrian-backed Shiite Amal militia. The Israeli army besieged and bombarded Beirut, with the aim of installing its Christian ally Bashir Gemayel, leader of the far-right Phalangist party, in power. The offensive ended with the expulsion of PLO fighters to Tunis and the massacre of the inhabitants of the Palestinian refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila, carried out in September 1982 by Christian militias, with the complicity of the Israeli army. However, Israel’s plan to install a political power in Beirut at its command came to nothing: Bashir Gemayel was soon killed in an assassination attempt, probably carried out by Syrian forces.
By the early 1980s, the civil war had reached an impasse, and the organizations of the Lebanese left and the Palestinian nationalists of the PLO had proved incapable of carrying out the revolutionary policies that the situation required. It was then that Hezbollah found the space to root itself, particularly within the Shiite community, which represents 40% of the Lebanese population and is its poorest fraction.
Israel, which had failed to install its own regime in Beirut, remained in southern Lebanon and created the South Lebanon Army (SLA) drawn from the far-right Christian militias.
Hezbollah arose in reaction to the Israeli occupation, starting from a small military faction of militants determined to fight the Israeli army and the SLA. It included militants from the Islamist Dawa party, Shiite students and ulama scholars, as well as dissidents from the powerful Syrian-backed Amal Shiite militia. That 30,000-strong militia had split when Nabih Berrri approved the plan to expel Palestinians from Beirut.
With the ebb of pan-Arabism, the failures of the PLO and the obvious betrayal of the Palestinian cause by the Arab states, eyes turned to Iran. The prestige of the revolution, which in 1979 had ousted a regime subservient to the United States, was immense, even if it had ultimately brought the ayatollahs to power and established the reactionary regime of the Islamic republic. Throughout the Shiite and Sunni Muslim worlds, many of those yearning for change turned to radical fundamentalist tendencies.
Khomeini’s Iran sent 1,500 Revolutionary Guards to train Hezbollah’s future fighters, including Hassan Nasrallah. Seduced by the audacity of the Islamist party’s military operations, more and more young people determined to put an end to the Israeli occupation joined it. In 1985, the hitherto clandestine organization proclaimed its existence with its “Letter to the Oppressed of the World.” It placed itself under the direction of the Supreme Iranian leader, oracle of the Islamic resistance. While advocating for the establishment of an Islamic republic in Lebanon, the letter castigated “confessionalism.” It called for a fight against North American imperialism, Israel and NATO, but also against the USSR and communism. Shiite youth, who had before then been influenced by left-wing movements, were more attracted to Hezbollah’s anti-American rhetoric and fierce opposition to the Israeli occupation than to its Islamic state project.
Hezbollah broadened its social base by organizing networks of assistance for the most disadvantaged around mosques. With demagogic appeals, it imposed itself as the exclusive representative of Lebanon’s underprivileged. It may have claimed to help the poorest, but the Party of God expected them to remain under its thumb and submit to the rules laid down by Islam. It ordered the closure of liquor stores and pressured women to wear veils. It violently fought his rivals in the Amal militia. Fiercely opposed to the class struggle, Hezbollah also led a campaign of targeted assassinations against left-wing organizations with influence among workers. In 1987, for example, Hezbollah leader Subhi al-Tufayli directed the assassination of some thirty cadres of the Lebanese Communist Party, including Mahdi Amal and Husayn Muruwwa, both well-known intellectuals.
In 1989, the Taif Accords in Saudi Arabia, concluded under the aegis of the United States, put an end to fifteen years of civil war in Lebanon. Thanks to the support of their respective sponsors, the militias of the different communities emerged militarily and financially strengthened. Their leaders were able to seize companies and public services, undermining a weakened state. The national electricity company, water company, tobacco company, social security fund—nothing escaped their control. Lebanon, whose south continued to be occupied by Israel, overall continued under the tutelage of Hafez el-Assad’s Syria. Syria had defended Hezbollah’s right to lead the resistance to Israel: as such, Hezbollah was able to keep its heavy weapons, unlike the other Lebanese militias, which surrendered them in 1991.
In the mid-1990s, social discontent began to be expressed again in Lebanon, and a wave of strikes shook the country. Faced with this workers’ protest, the various warlords were able to unite themselves to defend the interests of the bourgeoisie. The government of Sunni Rafic Hariri, backed by Saudi Arabia, was able to set aside its rivalry with Hezbollah and Amal, working with them to suppress the strikes. They also devised a strategy to neutralize the General Confederation of Lebanese Workers (CGTL), which they set their sights on. The CGTL brought together workers of all denominations. In the midst of the civil war, it had been able to organize demonstrations against the Israeli occupation by opposing sectarian divisions and the power of the sectarian militias.
Thus, in July 1995, during the general strike called by the central trade union, Rafic Hariri’s government banned all demonstrations and was able to count on the support of the Syrian army, which had deployed in Beirut and other cities. Two years later, a revolt by the poor population of the Bekaa Valley was put down by the Lebanese army, with military support from Hezbollah. In 2004, when workers mobilized by the CGTL were subjected to army repression that left four dead, Hezbollah justified it by invoking a “red line” that must not be crossed.
In fact, party leaders agreed to set up unions along the lines of religious denominations in agriculture, transport, construction, printing, the press, the health sector, cooperatives and electricity. This proliferation of federations and unions, often empty shells, enabled the majority of CGTL leadership seats to pass into the hands of Amal and Hezbollah. In the name of the interests of the Shiite community or of resistance to Israel, these union leaders opposed all offensive struggles by workers. Hezbollah, which claimed to represent the poorest strata of society, was first and foremost a defender of the interests of the bourgeoisie, of which it in fact represented a fraction.
The ongoing war with Israel in turn enabled Hezbollah to gain credit and consolidate its power. Its popularity was reinforced during the 2006 war, when its fighters forced the Israeli troops who had invaded southern Lebanon to turn back. All the more so as the Lebanese army stood by, while many towns were razed to the ground and much of the country’s infrastructure destroyed. Even beyond the Shiite population, Hezbollah represented a bulwark against the Israeli threat.
Subsequently, its economic, political and military clout grew steadily in the midst of a decaying state, thanks in part to Iran’s financial support, which is said to have ranged from 700 million dollars to one billion a year throughout the period.
Hezbollah entered parliament for the first time in 1992, and the government in 2005. In the spring of 2008, it carried out a military coup west of the capital in reaction to a decision by the Council of Ministers that threatened its interests. At the cost of sixty-five dead and almost two hundred wounded, Hezbollah obtained a de facto right of veto over government decisions, to the extent that from then on, nothing was decided without its approval.
Over the past forty years, Hezbollah has become a key player in Lebanese politics, particularly among the Shiite population. Whether it’s healthcare, employment, sports, culture or education, you have to go through Hezbollah to access these services. It has become the largest employer, and the charitable networks and institutions it controls have expanded considerably. The collapse of the banking system in October 2019 has reinforced clientelism and corruption. The population, no longer able to access their savings, turned to Hezbollah’s micro-credit organizations, which provided foreign currency in exchange for gold on the spot.
In military terms, Hezbollah’s capabilities have become far superior to those of the Lebanese army, whose under-equipped troops are hardly motivated by wages ranging from a little more than $50 a month for soldiers to $100 for officers. Hezbollah, on the other hand, has been able to claim 100,000 men and an arsenal including devices of all kinds, drones, 150,000 rockets and missiles. Nevertheless, its popularity has been dented by its intervention after 2011 in the war in Syria, supporting the contested regime of Bashar al-Assad. The dispatch of 7,000 armed fighters under Iranian command earned it the disaffection of other communities. With a bloody dictatorship, it came to be seen as largely compromised as a force acting on behalf of Iran.
While Hezbollah’s regular rocket attacks on Israel and its warlike rhetoric have made it a deterrent in the service of Iran, it is above all defending its own interests and those of the Lebanese bourgeoisie.
This has included indirect exchanges and compromises with the Israeli state. Thus, in 2022, Israel and the Lebanese government, in which Hezbollah predominates, reached a compromise concerning Total’s exploitation of a gas field in the Mediterranean. Hezbollah thus demonstrated that the interests of the Lebanese bourgeoisie came before any other consideration.
The Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, followed by the destruction of Gaza, the massacre of Palestinians by the Israeli army and now its offensive in Lebanon, has changed the situation. Buoyed by the unconditional support of the United States, Netanyahu and his generals have embarked on a headlong rush into war, with Israeli tanks taking roads they have already traveled several times. Their aim in destroying Hezbollah is not only to restore security to the populations of northern Israel threatened by the rockets of the Party of God, but also to reduce to impotence a nationalist party representing a significant fraction of the Lebanese bourgeoisie. In line with all Israel’s military interventions against its neighbors, the aim is to nip in the bud any attempts by neighboring national bourgeoisies, or even fractions of them, to achieve a degree of development and escape the tutelage of imperialism.
Clearly, not having learned from their previous failures, Israeli leaders seem ready to renew their attempts to install a power in Lebanon that is subservient to them. Netanyahu’s speeches show that he even dreams of doing the same in other countries in the region, in Syria and even in Iran. His warlike madness will not bring more order to the Middle East, but on the contrary greater disorder. He can only lead the Israeli power into new impasses. Sadly, this heralds new massacres and destruction in Lebanon, on top of those in Gaza.
This growing barbarity is the exorbitant price required to maintain imperialism’s domination of the Middle East, reinforced by the power of its servant Israel.