Abstract
The Middle Eastern regional system has developed around two central lines of confrontation: an internal competition over the hegemony of the Arab world and the Arab-Israeli conflict. The establishment of the state of Israel at the very heart of the Muslim world played an important role in designing the pan-Arab and the pan-Islamic identity. It provided a common denominator for the players of the regional system—the animosity toward Israel and regarding it as a foreign entity that must be rooted out so as to ensure the Arab identity of the entire area.1 Within the regional front there are two subsystems that are important for our discussion in this chapter. The first is the “Arab regional front,” which includes Syria, Lebanon, and Hezbollah (a nonstate player). Iran, though it is not an Arab player, shall be analyzed along with this system. The common denominator for all of the above players is the struggle against Israel. The second is the state of Israel. The current discussion shall examine the level of the regional system’s influence on the movement’s development and on the characteristics of its activity.
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Notes
Avraham Sela, The Decline of the Arab-Israeli Conflict (State University of New York Press, 1998), 9–15.
Asa’d Abu khalil, “Syria and the Shiites: Al-Asad’s Policy in Lebanon,” Third World Quarterly 12, no. 2 (April 1990); Shimon Shapira, Hezbollah between Iran and Lebanon (Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2000), 9–10, 51–52
Magnus Ranstrop, Hizb’allah in Lebanon: The Politics of the Western Hostage Crisis, (London: Macmillan, 1997), 111.
Wadah Sharara, Dawlat Hizb Allah, Lubnan mujtami’an Islamiyyan (Beirut, 1996), 108–09; Ranstrop, Hizb’allah in Lebanon, 25–26; Shapira, Hezbollah between Iran and Lebanon, 77.
Uri Sagi, Lights in the Mist (Yediot Aharonot, 1998), 97–98
Ayre Naor, Government in a War: The Israel’s Government Functioning during the Lebanon War (1982), Lahav, 1986. (Hebrew version), 29–42, 50–52.
Baily Clinton, “Lebanon Shi’is after the 1982 War,” in Shi’sm Resistance and Revolution, ed. Martin Kramer (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1987), 230.
Eyal Zisser, Asad’s Syria at a Crossroads (Tel Aviv: Hkibutz Hameuad, 1999), 152. Ayre Naor, Government in a War, 150–64; Maoz, Israel Syria the End of the Conflict? 157–61.
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© 2009 Eitan Azani
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Azani, E. (2009). Hezbollah as a Regional Player. In: Hezbollah: The Story of the Party of God. The Middle East In Focus. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116290_7
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230116290_7
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-0-230-10872-1
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