Abstract
This chapter focuses on the often-overlooked Lebanese Shi’ite organization known as Amal. The chapter begins in the 1960s with the foundation of the Movement of the Dispossessed in south Lebanon by Imam Musa Sadr and the emergence of its associated militia, Amal. Sadr successfully reoriented Shi'ite ideas of political mobilization and resistance away from the leftist narrative espoused by the PLO and toward an entirely new, Lebanese Shi'ite political project. This enabled Amal to rebound from and even improve its position after the 1978 Israel invasion codenamed Operation Litani. On the other hand, Amal’s gradual transformation after Sadr’s disappearance in 1978 into a tightly controlled Syrian proxy cost it a great deal of autonomy and credibility in Lebanon.
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Szekely, O. (2017). Amal. In: The Politics of Militant Group Survival in the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40141-6_3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-40141-6_3
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-40140-9
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-40141-6
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