I drove to Hizbullah's stronghold in South Lebanon to survey the devastation from the war last July, to check in on the United Nations peacekeeping force and to talk to civilians who were used as human shields in the battle with Israel.
My American colleague Noah Pollak from Azure magazine in Jerusalem joined me. We went under the escort of two professional enemies of Hizbullah who work for the Lebanese Committee for UNSCR 1559, an NGO which advises and lobbies the Lebanese government and the international community on the disarmament of illegal militias.
The Second Lebanon War: JPost special report
The two men picked us up at our hotel first thing in the morning.
Said rode up to the front door on his motorcycle. Henry arrived in his car.
"Shall we go in your car?" Said asked.
Hizbullah supporters in the streets of Beirut.
Photo: AP [file]
It was probably better that way. Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah hysterically accuses Toni Nissi, the man Henry and Said work for, of heading up "the Beirut branch of the Mossad." Best, I thought, to show up in Hizbullah's bombed-out southern "capital" of Bint Jbail in a rental car rather than one that might be recognized.
It's not worth taking Hizbullah's Mossad accusation seriously. Nasrallah also says Prime Minister Fuad Saniora is a "Zionist hand" because he is pushing for Hizbullah's disarmament.
Normally you can drive from Beirut to the Israeli border in just over two hours. Lebanon, though, isn't normal right now, especially not in the south. The Israel Air Force bombed most, if not all, the bridges on the coastal highway. Reconstruction moved along quickly enough, but snarled traffic had to be rerouted around the construction sites, at times onto side roads that were too narrow and small to handle the overflow.
"What do you think about Israel's invasion in July?" I asked Said and Henry.
"Of course what Israel did wasn't good," Said said. "They only care about themselves. Hizbullah doesn't pay taxes, so the rest of us have to pay for all the infrastructure the Israelis destroyed."
"What do you think about Israel in general?" I asked. "Aside from the war in July?"
"I have nothing against Israel," Henry said. "They are good people and they do good for themselves. We need to make peace with everyone. They are open-minded people, but we have no way to communicate with them since the Syrians came."
"Is UNIFIL doing much in the south?" Noah asked from the back seat.
"The multinational forces don't have the authority to stop Hizbullah unless they are smuggling weapons out in the open," Said said. "The Lebanese army is not taking sides because of the volatile political situation and the violent clashes taking place in Beirut."
The Lebanese army has actually confiscated a small amount of Hizbullah's weapons smuggled in across the Syrian border. One of Nasrallah's recent demands is the return of those weapons, even though Hizbullah's existence as an autonomous militia is against Lebanese and international law.
Said is right, though, that the army does not have the authority to disarm Hizbullah. Hizbullah is better armed, better trained and overall more powerful than the army, which suffered 15 years of deliberate neglect and degradation under Syrian overlordship. Some of the army's top officers were also installed by the Syrians, and they are still loyal to the regime in Damascus. Most important, though, are fears that the army would break apart along sectarian lines if orders to militarily disarm Hizbullah were given. The army split during the civil war, after all, and would likely do so again. More than a third of the soldiers are Shi'ite conscripts. Many are more loyal to Hizbullah than they are to the legal authorities.
"The Lebanese army is partly controlled by Syria, not like before 1975," Henry said. "Before 1975 the Lebanese army was pro-Western and neutral toward Israel."
A SHORT WHILE after we passed through the conservative Sunni coastal city of Saida, a young man stood in the middle of an intersection and waved glossy pamphlets at cars. Said pulled alongside him and said something in Arabic.
"What is he handing out?" Noah asked and rolled down his window.
"Hizbullah propaganda," Henry replied.
Said stepped on the accelerator.
Noah tried to grab one of the pamphlets.
"I want one of those," he said. But the Hizbullah man kept the pamphlets tightly clutched in his fingers.
"He is selling them," Said said, "not giving them away."
"Oops," Noah said. "I wasn't trying to steal one."
"He doesn't care about money or propaganda," Said said. "He is watching. This is the beginning of their territory. He reports on who is coming and what they are doing."
"Whenever you see something blown up from here," Henry said, "it is because it was owned by Hizbullah people or because Hizbullah had something to do with it."
If you're familiar with Lebanese politics, it's obvious whose territory you're in just by looking at roadside political adverts and posters. The Shi'ite regions are divided between the Hizbullah and Amal parties. Amal, also known as the Movement of the Disinherited, is Hizbullah's sometime rival and sometime ally. It's a secular party that was founded by the Iranian cleric Moussa Sadr to advance the interests of the long-neglected and voiceless Shi'ites, the poorest and most marginalized Lebanese sect. Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri is the chief of Amal today, and he has forged an uneasy alliance with Hizbullah and with the Syrians. Berri's face is plastered up everywhere in Amal strongholds, and Nasrallah's face is even more ubiquitous in Hizbullah territory. Occasionally you'll see both Berri and Nasrallah together.
What you rarely see in either Hizbullah or Amal areas are Lebanese flags. The Sunni, Druse and Christian parts of Lebanon are blanketed with the national cedar-tree flag, as well as those of various political parties and movements. Only the Shi'ite towns and villages are bereft of noticeable signs of patriotism.
