Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

The Lebanese Hizballah and Israeli Counterterrorism

2011; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 34; Issue: 12 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1057610x.2011.621114

1521-0731

Daniel Byman,

Middle East Politics and Society

Abstract This article examines Israel's attempts to weaken and defeat the Lebanese Hizballah. It reviews Hizballah's rise after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Hizballah's successful effort to force Israeli forces to withdraw from Lebanon in 2000, the 2006 war, and Israeli attempts to deter Hizballah. The article argues that Israel has largely failed to defeat Hizballah militarily and politically. Israel's experience offers lessons for how terrorist groups learn, the effectiveness of terrorist attrition strategies against casualty-sensitivity states, the difficulties in coercing terrorist groups, and the importance of an information strategy. Finally, Israel's clash with Hizballah indicates the importance of thinking of groups that are large and multi-faceted from a counterinsurgency paradigm. Notes 1. Rebecca Leung, “Hezbollah: A Team of Terrorists,” 60 Minutes Report, 18 April 2003. Available at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/04/18/60minutes/main550000.shtml. “Hizballah” and other Arabic and Hebrew transliterations have been standardized throughout the text of this essay. However, transliterations in the footnotes have not been changed from authors’ preferences. 2. This article draws on my book, A High Price: The Triumphs and Failures of Israeli Counterterrorism (New York: Oxford University Press, 2011). 3. Martin Kramer, “The Oracle of Hizbullah: Sayyid Muhammad Husayn Fadlallah,” in R. Scott Appleby, ed., Spokesmen for the Despised: Fundamentalist Leaders of the Middle East (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1997), pp. 83–181. Available at http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Oracle1.htm 4. Augustus Richard Norton, Amal and the Shi’a: Struggle for the Soul of Lebanon (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1987), pp. 49–51; Kramer, “The Oracle of Hizbullah”; and Martin Kramer, “Hizbullah: The Calculus of Jihad,” in M. Marty and R. S. Appleby, eds., Fundamentalisms and the State: Remaking Polities, Economies, and Militance (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1993), pp. 539–556. Available at http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/Calculus.htm 5. As quoted in Daniel Helmer, Flipside of the COIN: Israel's Lebanese Incursion between 1982–2000 (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2007), p. 46; Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986), p. 200; and Hala Jaber, Hezbollah (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997), p. 14. 6. Kramer, “Hizbullah: The Calculus of Jihad.” 7. As quoted in Helmer, Flipside of the COIN, p. 48. 8. Ian Black and Benny Morris, Israel's Secret Wars: A History of Israel's Intelligence Services (London: Hamish Hamilton Ltd., 1991), p. 395. 9. “An Open Letter: The Hizballah Program.” Available at http://www.standwithus.com/pdfs/flyers/hezbollah_program.pdf 10. As quoted in Martin Kramer, “The Moral Logic of Hizballah,” in Walter Reich, ed., Origins of Terrorism: Psychologies, Ideologies, Theologies, States of Mind (Washington, DC: Woodrow Wilson Center Press, 1998). Available at http://www.geocities.com/martinkramerorg/MoralLogic.htm 11. Magnus Ranstorp, “The Hizballah Training Camps of Lebanon,” in James J. F. Forest, ed., The Making of a Terrorist: Recruitment, Training, and Root Causes (Vol. 2) (Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2005), p. 255. 12. Magnus Ranstorp, Hizb ‘allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis (London: MacMillan Press, 1997), pp. 46–49; and Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah: Politics and Religion (Sterling, VA: Pluto Press, 2002), p. 16. 13. A. Nizar Hamzeh, “Islamism in Lebanon: A Guide,” Middle East Review of International Affairs 1, no. 3 (Spring 1997). Available at http://www.meforum.org/362/islamism-in-lebanon-a-guide-to-the-groups 14. Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah, p. 14. 15. Syrian support for Hizballah is also bound up in the pariah status of the ‘Alawis, who dominate the country's leadership. ‘Alawis are a minority sect within Islam and are considered by many mainstream Sunnis to be near heretics. Like the Shi’as, the ‘Alawisvenerate ‘Ali, the prophet Mohammad's cousin (and son-in-law) and the fourth caliph of Islam. Because the Shi’as are generally more recognized and respected among Muslims, the venerated Shi’a leader Musa al-Sadr, who founded Amal, granted the Syrian regime legitimacyby embracing the ‘Alawis as part of the broader Shi’a community. 16. Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah, p. 12. 17. Yitzhak Latz, “HaSochnim nechsafu Beintifadat Al-Aqsa” (The Agents Were Revealed in the Al-Aqsa Intifada), Globes, 13 September 2001. Available at http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=521979 (Translated by Eleazar Berman). 18. Christopher Walker, “Shaikh's Murder Fuels Shia Resentment over Israeli Occupation,” The Times (London), 23 February 1984. 19. Nicholas Blanford, “Hizbullah Attacks Force Israel to Take a Hard Look,” Jane's Intelligence Review 11, no. 4 (1 April 1999), electronic online version; and Augustus Richard Norton, “Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon,” Journal of Palestine Studies 30, no. 1 (Autumn 2000). Available at http://www.palestine-studies.org/journals.aspx?id=2722&jid=1&href=abstract 20. David Rudge and David Makovsky, “Rabin: We Won't Tolerate Attacks in North; Message Sent to Assad after Three More Soldiers Die in Fierce Fighting in South Lebanon,” The Jerusalem Post, 11 July 1993. 21. Ethan Bronner, “Israeli Ships, Planes Continue Lebanon Raids,” The Boston Globe, 27 July 1993. 22. “Civilian Pawns: Laws of War Violations and the Use of Weapons on the Israel-Lebanon Border,” Human Rights Watch, May 1996, pp. 110–112. 23. Sergio Catignani, Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas: Dilemmas of a Conventional Army (New York: Routledge, 2008), pp. 81–83. 24. “PM Rabin to Knesset: Political Statement on Action in Lebanon,” 28 July 1993. Available at http://www.mfa.gov.il/MFA/Archive/Speeches/PM%20RABIN%20TO%20KNESSET-%20POLITICAL%20STATEMENT%20ON%20ACTION 25. Ibid. 26. “Civilian Pawns,” pp. 8–9, and footnote 11; and “Israel/Lebanon: Unlawful Killings During Operation ‘Grapes of Wrath,’” Amnesty International, 1996. Available at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/MDE15/042/1996/en/d971c8d1-eaf6-11dd-aad1-ed57e7e5470b/mde150421996en.html 27. As quoted in Thomas L. Friedman, “No Pain, No Gain, No Peace,” New York Times, 31 March 1996. 28. David Bar-Ilan, “Lebanon Scenes,” The Jerusalem Post, 6 August 1993, as cited in Helmer, Flipside of the COIN, p. 56. 29. As quoted in “Civilian Pawns,” p. 59. 30. See the website of his squadron, “Patishim.” Available at http://www.planetnana.co.il/yonire/69vfs/real_squadron.htm (accessed 30 June 2009, translated by Eleazar Berman). 31. Ami Pedahzur, The Israeli Secret Services and the Struggle against Terrorism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009), pp. 83–85. 32. Catignani, Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas, p. 70. 33. As quoted in Judith Harik, “Syrian Foreign Policy and State/Resistance Dynamics in Lebanon,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 20(3) (1997), p. 257. 34. “Civilian Pawns,” p. 26; and “Invei za’am” (Grapes of Wrath), Israel air force website. Available at http://www.iaf.org.il/Templates/FlightLog/FlightLog.aspx?lang=HE&lobbyID= 40&folderID=48&subfolderID=324&docfolderID=390&docID=5542&docType=EVENT 35. “Lebanese-Israeli Cease-Fire ‘Understanding,’ April 26, 1995,” Journal of Palestine Studies 25(4) (Summer 1996), p. 138. 36. Norton, “Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon.” 37. Jaber, Hezbollah, pp. 178–199. 38. Catignani, Israeli Counter-Insurgency and the Intifadas, p. 67; and Clive Jones, “‘A Reach Greater than the Grasp’: Israeli Intelligence and the Conflict in South Lebanon, 1990–2000,” Intelligence and National Security 16(3) (Autumn 2001), p. 21. 39. Black and Morris, Israel's Secret Wars, pp. 393–394; and Clive Jones, “Israeli Counter-Insurgency Strategy and the War in South Lebanon 1985–97,” Small Wars and Insurgencies 8(3) (Winter 1997), pp. 82 and 96. 40. Jones, “Israeli Counter-Insurgency Strategy,” p. 94. 41. Jones, “A Reach Greater than the Grasp,” pp. 10–11; and Ofer Shelach, “Ani zocher et atzmi be-matzav shek keos” (I Remember Myself in a State of Chaos), Shisi, Channel 10 News, 19 September 2008. Available at http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=583096&sid=126 42. Matt M. Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared: The 2006 Hezbollah-Israeli War (Fort Leavenworth, KS: Combat Studies Institute Press, 2008), p. 10. 43. Amos Harel and Avi Issacharoff, 34 Days: Israel, Hezbollah, and the War in Lebanon (New York: Palgrave MacMillan, 2008), p. 22. 44. As quoted in Daniel Sobelman, New Rules of the Game: Israel and Hizballah after the Withdrawal from Lebanon (Tel Aviv: Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies, January 2004), p. 29. 45. Magnus Ranstorp, Hizb’Allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis (London: MacMillan Press, 1997), p. 127. 46. Interview with Shaykh Hassan Nasrallah, “Peace Requires Departure of Palestinians,” Middle East Insight (March–April 2000), p. 32. 47. For background, this section draws on Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days; Sobelman, New Rules of the Game; Andrew Exum, Hizballah at War: A Military Assessment (Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, December 2006); Stephen Biddle and Jeffrey A. Friedman, “The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy” (Carlisle, PA: Strategic Studies Institute, U.S. Army War College, September 2008); and Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared. 48. Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, p. 40. 49. Jerusalem Post Staff, “Tannenbaum: I Was in Lebanon for Drug Deal,” The Jerusalem Post, 21 December 2006, p. 8. 50. Margot Dudkevitch, “Released Prisoners Praise Hizbullah,” The Jerusalem Post, 30 January 2004. 51. “Hizbullah Attacks Along Israel's Northern Border May 2000–June 2006,” Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Available at http://www.mfa.gov.il 52. As quoted in “Israel/Palestine/Lebanon: Climbing Out of the Abyss,” International Crisis Group, 25 July 2006, p. 10. 53. Hanan Greenberg and Sharon Rofe-Nir, “Hayal tzhal neherag ve-’arba’ah niftz’au me-esh hizballah” (An IDF Soldiers Was Killed and Four Were Wounded from Hezbollah's Fire), Ynet, 30 June 2005. Available at http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3105782,00.html 54. Sharon Rofe-Ofir and Hanan Greenberg, “Yom krav be-tzafon: 12 hayalim ve-ezrachim niftz’au” (Battle Day in the North: 12 Soldiers and Civilians Were Wounded), Ynet, 22 November 2005. Available at http://www.ynet.co.il/articles/0,7340,L-3172608,00.html 55. As quoted in Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, p. 8. 56. Michael R. Gordon, “Militants Are Said to Amass Missiles in South Lebanon,” The New York Times, 16 July 2006. Available at http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/16/weekinreview/16isra.html 57. See Borzou Daragahi, “Report Links Hizballah, Deputy to Hariri Assassination,” Los Angeles Times, 23 November 2010. Available at http://articles.latimes.com/2010/nov/23/world/la-fg-lebanon-hariri-20101123 58. On the claim that the patrol was not careful, see Nir Hasson, “Khevrei hakhatofim: lo hayu fakadot, lo haya maspik coakh adam” (Members of the Hostages: No Commands, there was not enough Personnel), Haaretz, 14 November 2006. Available at http://www.haaretz.com/hasite/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=787670&contrassID=1 59. See “Behind the Headlines: The Second Lebanon War—One Year Later,” Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 12 July 2007. Available at http://www.mfa.gov.il (accessed 12 July 2007). 60. “Hezbollah Warns Israel over Raids,” BBC News, 12 July 2006. Available at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5173078.stm; and Roni Sofer, “Olmert: Medina ribonit takfa otanu ve-tisa ba-totzaot” (Olmert: A Sovereign Country Attacked Us, and it will Bear the Consequences), Ynet, 12 July 2006. Available at http://www.ynet.co.il/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,2506,L-3274330,00.html 61. Richard Pendlebury, “Southern Beirut: Only the Dead or Insane Remain,” Daily Mail, 21 July 2006. Available at http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-396821/Southern-Beirut-Only-dead-insane-remain.html 62. “Interview with Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah,” al-Jazeera, 20 July 2006. 63. Biddle and Friedman, “The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare,” p. 31; and William M. Arkin, Divining Victory: Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War (Maxwell Air Force Base, AL: Air University Press, 2007), pp. 55–56. 64. As quoted in Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared, p. 33. 65. Augustus Richard Norton, Hezbollah: A Short History (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007), p. 136; some reports claim that Iranian forces operated the C-802s. 66. Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, p. 101. 67. Amos Harel, “Halutz, Olmert ve-Adam holchim le-hazia” (Halutz, Olmert and Adam Are Going to Sweat), Haaretz, 25 January 2007. Available at http://www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/spages/817958.html 68. As quoted in Harel and Issacharoff, 34 Days, p. 231. 69. As quoted in Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared, p. 33. 70. “English Summary of the Winograd Commission Report,” New York Times, 30 January 2008, par. 11. 71. “War Was a Catastrophe,” Ynet, 30 March 2007. Available at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3383151,00.html 72. Alastair Crooke and Mark Perry, “How Hezbollah Defeated Israel: Part 3: The Political War,” Asia Times Online, 14 October 2006. Available at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/HJ14Ak01.html 73. Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared, p. 36. 74. As quoted in ibid., p. 43. 75. “The Main Findings of the Winograd Partial Report on the Second Lebanon War,” Haaretz, 30 April 2007, par. 12b and 12c. 76. Halutz had dismissed many of the traditional IDF tasks as outdated. In 2001 he declared, “We … have to part with the concept of a land battle,” as quoted in Zeev Schiff, “The Foresight Saga,” Haaretz, 11 August 2006; for an excellent discussion of new doctrinal concepts, see Eleazar Berman, “Meeting the Hybrid Threat: The Israel Defense Force's Innovations against Hybrid Enemies, 2000–2009” (M.A. diss., Georgetown University, 2010). 77. “Nasrallah: Soldiers’ Abductions a Mistake,” CNN.com, 27 August 2006. Available at http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/27/mideast.nasrallah/index.html 78. “Israel Warns Hizbullah War Would Invite Destruction,” Ynet, 10 March 2008. Available at http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3604893,00.html 79. Ibid. 80. See Nicholas Blanford, “‘Return to Arms’: Hizbullah and Israel's Preparations for War,” Jane's Intelligence Review, February 2010, pp. 14–19. 81. Carl Anthony Wege, “Hizbollah Organization,” Studies in Conflict and Terrorism 17(2) (1994), p. 155; see also Jaber, Hezbollah, pp. 45–73. 82. Magnus Ranstorp puts the full-time figure at five hundred, see: Ranstorp, “The Hizballah Training Camps of Lebanon,” p. 246; Augustus Richard Norton believes that by 2000 there were only five hundred full-time Hizballah fighters, with another one thousand part-time fighters, see: Norton, “Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon,” pp. 22–36; Steven Simon and Jonathan Stevenson say it is no more than a thousand, see: Steven N. Simon and Jonathan Stevenson, “Declawing the ‘Party of God’: Toward Normalizing in Lebanon,” World Policy Journal, Summer 2001, pp. 31–42; Hala Jaber puts the entire Hizballah armed forces at around five thousand, see: Jaber, Hezbollah, p. 38; other sources put the number of full-time fighters even lower, at around three hundred, see: Nicholas Blanford, “Hizbullah Attacks Force Israel To Take A Hard Look.” 83. Norton, “Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon,” pp. 22–36. 84. As quoted in Jones, “Israeli Counter-Insurgency Strategy,” p. 92. 85. Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh, In the Path of Hizbullah (New York: Syracuse University Press, 2004), pp. 71–72. 86. Ehud Ya’ari, “Hizballah: 13 Principles of Warfare,” The Jerusalem Report, 21 March 1996. 87. Matthews, We Were Caught Unprepared, p. 10. 88. Zeina Karam, “Hezbollah Fighters in Beirut Melt Away,” USA Today, 5 October 2008. Available at http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-05-09-2834862695_x.htm 89. Magnus Ranstorp, citing Ahmad Nizar Hamzeh, claims Hizballah's internal security branch has over five thousand people, see: Ranstorp, “The Hizballah Training Camps of Lebanon,” p. 251. 90. Jones, “‘A Reach Greater Than the Grasp,’” pp. 10–13; Norton, “Hizballah and the Israeli Withdrawal from Southern Lebanon,” pp. 22–36; and Noa Tzifer, “Hishvu ‘al ha-korbanot” (Think of the Victims), NRG, 11 June 2007. Available at http://www.nrg.co.il/online/1/ART1/593/680.html. The Israeli figure also includes losses to Amal and other groups in Lebanon. 91. As quoted in Jones, “Israeli Counter-Insurgency Strategy,” p. 89. 92. See, for example, Haj Halil's teachings described in Ya’ari, “Hizballah: 13 Principles of Warfare.” 93. As quoted in Judith Harik, “Between Islam and the System: Sources and Implications of Popular Support for Lebanon's Hizballah,” Journal of Conflict Resolution 40 (1 March 1996), p. 51. 94. Martin Rudner, “Hizbullah: An Organizational and Operational Profile,” International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence 23(2) (Summer 2010), p. 232. 95. Sobelman, New Rules of the Game, p. 90. 96. Ranstorp, “The Hizballah Training Camps of Lebanon,” p. 245. 97. As quoted in Mideast Mirror, 17 October 1995. 98. Judith Harik, “Syrian Foreign Policy and State/Resistance Dynamics in Lebanon,” p. 254. 99. Saad-Ghorayeb, Hizbu’llah, p. 119. 100. See “Civilian Pawns,” pp. 11, 19, and 26. 101. “Hezbollah's Use of Lebanese Civilians as Human Shields,” Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, November 2006, p. 45. Available at http://www.terrorism-info.org.il/site/html/search.asp?sid=13&pid=167&numResults=7&isSearch=yes&isT8=yes 102. “U.N. [sic] Chief Accuses Hezbollah of ‘Cowardly Blending’ Among Refugees,” Associated Press, 24 July 2006. Available at http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,205349,00.html 103. “Israel/South Lebanon: Israel's Forgotten Hostages: Lebanese Detainees in Israel and the Khiam Detention Center,” Amnesty International, July 1997. Available at http://asiapacific.amnesty.org/library/Index/ENGMDE150181997?open&of=ENG-390 104. “Israel: Fear of Torture,” Amnesty International, 30 May 2000. Available at http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/info/MDE15/021/2000 105. Marvin Kalb, “The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media as a Weapon of Asymmetrical Conflict,” Research Paper #29, Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics, and Public Policy, February 2007, p. 4. 106. Yehuda Ben Meir, “Israeli Public Opinion and the Second Lebanon War,” in Shlomo Brom and Meir Elran, eds., The Second Lebanon War: Strategic Perspectives (Tel Aviv: Institute for National Security Studies, 2007), p. 87. 107. Amos Harel and Yoav Stern, “Lebanon Police: 15 Die in IAF Strike on Van in South Lebanon,”Haaretz, 14 July 2006. Available at http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=738611&contrassID=1&subContrassID=0&sbSubContrassID=0 108. See “Address of General Secretary of Hizballah, Hassan Nasrallah,” 14 July 2006. Available at http://electronicintifada.net/bytopic/historicalspeeches/447.shtml (Translated by Eric Mueller); and “Hezbollah Leader Promises Victory in Address to Lebanon, Arabs, Israel,” 15 July 2006, BBC Monitoring Middle East. 109. Kalb, “The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006,” p. 13. 110. Deborah Howell, “A War of Images and Perceptions,” The Washington Post, 13 August 2006. 111. William Arkin, “Divine Victory for Whom? Airpower in the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah War,” Strategic Studies Quarterly (Winter 2007), p. 101. 112. Kalb, “The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006,” pp. 18–26. 113. See “Report: Mughniyeh's Israeli Killers Infiltrated to Syria from ‘Kurdistan,’” Yediot Aharonot, 7 February 2009; and “Mossad's Most Wanted: A Deadly Vengeance,” The Independent, 23 February 2010. 114. See Seymour Hersch, “Iran and the Bomb,” The New Yorker, 6 June 2011.