Shaping Lebanon’s Borderlands: Armed Resistance and International Intervention in South Lebanon 9781784532536, 9781350988026, 9781786730572

Table of contents :
Front cover
Author biography
Endorsements
Title
Copyright
Contents
List of Illustrations
List of Abbreviations
Note on Transliteration
Acknowledgements
Introduction South Lebanon as a Vantage Point
Part I Struggles over the Borderland
1. The Fida’iyyin in Lebanon: Armed Struggle, Ideology and Belonging
2. The Struggle for the South: Israeli Occupation and Lebanese Resistance
3. Hizbullah: Resistance as an Identity and as a Means
Part II The Borderland’s Narratives
4. Ordering the Borderland: Hizbullah’s Socio-Political and Cultural Strategy
5. Crossing/Bypassing the Border: Palestinian Civil Resistance (sumûd)
6. Hegemony over Geography: UNIFIL and the Drawing of the Blue Line
7. Pending Issues: Sovereignty at Stake on Maritime and Aerial Borders
Conclusion South Lebanon as a Regional Issue
Notes
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

Daniel Meier is a research fellow at CNRS in Grenoble and was Senior Associate Member at St Antony’s College, Oxford University. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies (IHEID) and teaches at the University of Geneva.

‘Shaping Lebanon’s Borderlands examines a tiny patch of the earth’s surface – but one of immense contemporary significance. This is the borderland of Southern Lebanon – that unmarked boundary between Israel, Lebanon, and Syria. Meier draws upon his deep understanding of Palestinian–Lebanese relationships to inform this intelligent and intriguing study of the political relationships between space and identity in the limited territory of Southern Lebanon. This book is of tremendous importance in understanding the complex relationships of the Lebanese people with four major actors: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon; Hizbollah; the UN military presence in the area (UNIFIL); and the Lebanese state. These relationships and the nature of bordering will become critically important to understanding the post-Arab Uprising era to come.’ Dawn Chatty, Emeritus Professor of Anthropology and Forced Migration, Oxford University ‘A comprehensive study on a region that, since the 1970s, has been the most volatile frontline of the Arab– Israeli conflict. It is essential reading not only for students of the modern Middle East but also for those who are interested in border dynamics worldwide, in militant non-state actors and in identity construction in conflict zones.’ Asher Kaufman, Professor of History and Peace Studies, Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of Notre Dame ‘Reading Shaping Lebanon’s Borderlands was like navigating uncharted waters. Spatial issues, as inextricably linked with sovereignty and national self-understanding, are analysed in a new light. The book eloquently recapitulates how various narratives were constructed.’ Tarek Mitri, Director of The Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs, American University of Beirut

SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS Armed Resistance and International Intervention in South Lebanon

DANIEL MEIER

In the memory of my father

Published in 2016 by I.B.Tauris & Co. Ltd London • New York www.ibtauris.com Copyright q 2016 Daniel Meier The right of Daniel Meier to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Every attempt has been made to gain permission for the use of the images in this book. Any omissions will be rectified in future editions. References to websites were correct at the time of writing. Library of Modern Middle East Studies 176 ISBN: 978 1 78453 253 6 eISBN: 978 1 78672 057 3 ePDF: 978 1 78673 057 2 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Garamond Three by OKS Prepress Services, Chennai, India Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

CONTENTS

List of Illustrations List of Abbreviations Note on Transliteration Acknowledgements Introduction South Lebanon as a Vantage Point Part I 1. 2. 3.

4. 5. 6. 7.

1

Struggles over the Borderland

The Fida’iyyin in Lebanon: Armed Struggle, Ideology and Belonging The Struggle for the South: Israeli Occupation and Lebanese Resistance Hizbullah: Resistance as an Identity and as a Means

Part II

vii viii x xi

35 61 93

The Borderland’s Narratives

Ordering the Borderland: Hizbullah’s Socio-Political and Cultural Strategy Crossing/Bypassing the Border: Palestinian Civil Resistance (sumuˆd) Hegemony over Geography: UNIFIL and the Drawing of the Blue Line Pending Issues: Sovereignty at Stake on Maritime and Aerial Borders

123 148 175 205

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SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

Conclusion South Lebanon as a Regional Issue

231

Notes Bibliography Index

243 259 276

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Figures Figure 1.1 ‘Glory to the heroes of Beaufort Castle, symbol of Lebanese –Palestinian steadfastness’ Figure 4.1 Down in the Abyss, an Israeli tank as fragile as a spider’s web (beit al-anqabuˆt). Mleeta museum, 2012.

52 147

Maps Map I The lines that have shaped South Lebanon (1916–76)

30

Map 1.1 The emergence of the Palestinian resistance in South Lebanon

60

Map 2.1 Development of the security belt in South Lebanon (1976– 78)

91

Map 3.1 The 1982 Israeli occupation and steps of withdrawal from Lebanon (1982– 2000)

118

Map 6.1 Lebanese reservations about the Blue Line

203

Map 7.1 Lebanon’s EEZ delineation and the contested zone

229

Table Table 6.1 Description of LAF reservations about the Blue Line

194

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

ADF AFL ANM DFLP EEZ EU FAI FPM ICRC IDF IS ISF JGIS LAA LAF LCP LNG LNM LNRF NGO OACL OETA OPT PA PEF

Arab Deterrent Force Army of Free Lebanon Arab Nationalist Movement Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine exclusive economic zone European Union Fe´de´ration Ae´ronautique Internationale Free Patriotic Movement International Committee of the Red Cross Israel Defense Forces Islamic State Internal Security Forces Joint Geographic Information Service Lebanese Association for the Arts Lebanese Armed Forces Lebanese Communist Party liquefied natural gas Lebanese National Movement Lebanese National Resistance Front non-governmental organisation Organisation de l’Action Communiste au Liban (Communist Action Organization in Lebanon) Occupied Enemy Territory Administration Occupied Palestinian Territories Palestinian Authority Palestine Exploration Fund

LIST

PFLP PFLP-GC PLA PLF PLO PSP SDN SLA SPP SSNP TF UAV UN UNCLOS UNIFIL UNRWA UNSCR US USAID USSR

OF ABBREVIATIONS

ix

Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine – General Command Palestine Liberation Army Palestine Liberation Front Palestine Liberation Organization Progressive Socialist Party Socie´te´ des Nations (League of Nations) South Lebanese Army Syrian Popular Party Syrian Social Nationalist Party Technical fence unmanned aerial vehicle (drone) United Nations United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon United Nations Relief and Works Agency (for Palestine Refugees) United Nations Security Council resolution United States United States Agency for International Development Union of Soviet Socialist Republics

NOTE ON TRANSLITERATION This book uses the Arabic transliteration guide of the International Journal of Middle Eastern Studies (IJMES), with simplified diacritics. Names and places that have a common English spelling (e.g. Shebaa Farms, Rafic Hariri) will be written accordingly, without diacritics.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

A book is always a long and collective process of knowledge construction, and this particular publication serves as a good example. My postdoctoral research project was shaped by a period of reflection in 2008 – 09. During this time, the Graduate Institute in Geneva and the University of Geneva’s Faculty of Humanities were really helpful and my students supportive while I shaped a research programme bridging borders/boundaries and identity issues in Lebanon. My warm thanks go to Professors Riccardo Bocco and Silvia Naef for their encouragement and constant support. I left for Lebanon thanks to a postdoctoral fellowship from the Agence Universitaire de la Francophonie that allowed me to start new fieldwork. I was fortunate to receive the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNF), although its intermittent funding forced me to improve my research design and expand my knowledge through literature. I am also thankful to the Institut Franc
ais du Proche-Orient (IFPO) and the CEMAM at the Universite´ Saint-Joseph for hosting me during the two years I spent in Lebanon. May Myriam Catusse, Elisabeth Longuenesse, Franck Mermier and Christophe Varin find in these lines my utmost esteem. My greatest debt goes to all those I met during my research: Lebanese borderlanders, Palestinian refugees, former fighters, people in Mleeta, those working at NGOs, researchers, journalists, military officers, Lebanese and Palestinian officials and several UN troops as well as political officers in Beirut and Naqoura. Thank you so much for taking some time to answer my questions, guide me and sometimes care for my safety. It was an unforgettable human experience.

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SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

I then moved to the University of Oxford – St Antony’s College – on the advice and thanks to the kindness of Rosemary Sayigh and the support of Eugene Rogan, then-director of the Middle East Centre (MEC). This outstanding intellectual environment helped a great deal to focus my ideas, raise my interest in border studies and bring me into new academic networks, hence enabling me to meet fascinating scholars. Everybody at St Antony’s made me feel at home there, in particular the people at the MEC. I am also thankful for having been hosted and receiving a stipend as research fellow at the Centre for Lebanese Studies in 2012– 13 thanks to its chairman, George Asseily. The conferences and meetings at which I presented papers opened the door for me to meet two outstanding scholars, Liam O’Dowd and Asher Kaufman. Thanks to their high professional skills, both provided me with accurate references and helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. Liam was very supportive in welcoming me at the Centre for International Borders Research (CIBR) at Queen’s University in Belfast over the summer period in 2013 when I started writing this book. I am very grateful to all of you for feeding my reflections on borders/bordering Lebanon and sharpening my arguments. I ended my trip with this book as a research fellow at Joseph Fourier University in Grenoble thanks to Anne-Laure Amilhat-Szary and the EUborderscapes programme. Her broad vision of contemporary border issues as well as the inspiring conversations we shared nourished my thoughts and framed my doubts. Thank you for this and also for the freedom and the resources you provide to me, which I consider invaluable. All my warm thanks also go to the professionalism of Andre´ Crous, the copy-editor of this volume, and the great staff at I.B.Tauris, from Maria Marsh to Thomas Stottor. Friends and family played another big part in the development and completion of this book. I need to mention my long-time friends who have supported me at various moments of this research, each of them in his or her own way. In Lebanon, Hisham Ashkar, Fre´de´ric Alpi, Denise Badaoui, Khalil Chemayel, Matthieu Cimino, Carla Edde, Dida Guigan, Amine Kammourieh, Lina Kennouche, Basile Khoury, Olfa Lamloum, Cle´mentine Laratte, Suheil al-Natour, Michel Naufal, Nicolas Puig, Michael Oghia and Boris Richard, and in Europe, the UK and Canada, Dunia Achcar, Sergio Bianchi, Marc Dubois, Katie Hayward, Halbert Jones, He´le`ne Laffont, Loı¨c Le Pape, Giuseppe Merrone, Ce´dric Parizot, Sara Saci, Keith Seaman and Vincent Romani. I thank you all

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

xiii

from the bottom of my heart for all the support, care and love you have provided to me. I hope this book will be a testimony of my acknowledgement, gratitude and friendship. Finally, I would like to dedicate this book to my parents, who value creativity, perseverance and independence. It goes without saying that any mistakes and errors are my own.

Re-use permissions The postdoctoral research that I conducted laid the groundwork for several publications along the way to the publication of this book. Therefore, the book borrows from some of these papers that have already been published elsewhere. Taylor & Francis Ltd, www.tandfonline.com, kindly granted the permission to re-use some parts of the following papers. Chapter 1 draws on a paper entitled ‘The Palestinian feda’i as an Icon of Transnational Struggle: the South Lebanese Experience’ (Meier, 2013b). The main ideas of Chapter 2 have been published in ‘(B)ordering South of Lebanon: Hizbullah’s identity building strategy’ (Meier, 2015). And Chapter 6 elaborates on a previous paper entitled ‘The Southern Border: Drawing the Line in Shifting (Political) Sands’, (Meier, 2013c). An excerpt of Chapter 4 was published in ‘From Frontline to Borderscape: The Hizbullah Memorial Museum in South of Lebanon’ (Meier, 2015c). And aspects related to the bordering of Lebanese Economic Zone have previously been explored in a 2013 ‘Papers on Lebanon’ series entitled ‘Lebanon’s Maritime Boundaries. Between Economic Opportunities and Military Confrontation’ (Meier, 2013d). Finally, I want to thank Samar Mikati at the American University in Beirut/Library Archives for granting me the right to reproduce the poster ‘Glory to the heroes of Beaufort Castle, symbol of Lebanese – Palestinian steadfastness’ which appears on p. 52.

INTRODUCTION SOUTH LEBANON AS A VANTAGE POINT

At the end of the 1980s, while I was visiting the north of Israel as a teenager with my parents, we came to the town of Metulla and the border crossing with Lebanon known as ‘the good fence’. I remember being really surprised. All I knew about Lebanon were the images of the brutal civil war that had ravaged the country. I also remember the moment I discovered with my own eyes the hilly landscape of South Lebanon, watching Lebanese workers crossing the border fences every day and wondering how and why an apparently peaceful place was at the heart of such intense violence. This work originates in a will to understand what seemed to be a complicated conflict zone, Lebanon and in particular its southern part, where the many topics regarding regional and local contradictions of an enduring war zone during the civil war (1975– 90) and after have converged. This work is also built on a deep interest in Middle Eastern politics and the central position of the Palestinian issue, which affects Lebanon specifically and the region more generally. In brief, it draws upon key questions of collective identity, relationships between groups and the fluctuation of those categories and their boundaries in time and space. The emphasis on the spatial feature of the issue, namely the South Lebanese borderland, underscores the decision to raise theoretical questions linking the notion of identity with those of space and power. The main goal here is to discuss the cross-effect of different types of actors – from Lebanese state to foreign powers as well as nonstate armed

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groups – on a borderland’s territoriality and society as well as the border’s impact on those actors’ identity and strategy. I see this doublebinding process as the shaping of the borderland. The inquiry that mixes history with political sociology focuses on the political, geographical, social or cultural means that have shaped South Lebanon over the years. The book looks at three central issues. As territory remains an important factor of identity (Kaplan, 1999), the first is the fluctuation of the border line, which affects the borderland’s identity defining it as a disputed entity that has been permeated by social struggles and ravaged by wars and occupation. The second issue concerns the border effect that the region may have on the four main actors that have shaped the borderland: Lebanese state, the Palestinian refugees and their armed resistance, Hizbullah and the United Nations local mission, UNIFIL. Each of them has had to adapt to a local and regional environment while acting on the ground. This point links to the third issue, which is everyday bordering (Jones & Johnson, 2014). This last issue facilitate a better understanding of how local/national agents, as well as refugees or foreign agents, are bordering South Lebanon by means of diplomacy, security, culture and crossing/circumventing the border. The exploration of these bordering processes and their actors was carried out through in-depth research based on several fieldworks trips since 2009 but also on previous and parallel research investigating the issues affecting Palestinian refugees. The book is organised into two sections. The first shows a progression through time, while the second probes the borderland’s many layers of contemporary meaning. The seven chapters that comprise these two sections explore the ways in which different actors b/order South Lebanon’s borderland, as well as their interrelationships and the border effect on them. In the first section, three chapters analyse several armed struggles that have marked the borderland’s identity. In line with Bourdieu’s theory, any struggle over a physical entity is also a struggle over its classification.1 This point highlights the double dimension (material and representational) that any relationship with a territory entails. In other words, each armed struggle is also a struggle over the interpretation of the symbolic definition of the coveted space. After a long period of marginalisation following Lebanon’s independence, ‘the South’ (al-Janoub) became a vantage ground for the Palestinian resistance. The civil war broke out in 1975 and eased Israeli

INTRODUCTION

3

penetration for security purposes, transforming the southern strip of South Lebanon into a buffer zone. Two invasions (in 1978 and again in 1982) helped to consolidate Israel’s influence over the South but simultaneously saw the emergence of two different types of Lebanese resistance movements: Lebanese National Resistance Front, which was a mixture of several leftist groups2 and remaining Palestinian resistance fighters, and the Shiʽi Islamist movement of Hizbullah. The latter tied its political identity to South Lebanon’s borderland through its armed struggle under the banner of Islamic resistance before developing a national dimension. After its breakdown as a local actor in 1976, the disappearance of Lebanese state was counterbalanced by the arrival of the blue helmets of UNIFIL in the aftermath of the 1978 Israeli invasion, following the passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 425. In the second section, focused on borderland narratives, the book’s remaining four chapters delve into the main narratives of the border: those of Hizbullah, of the Palestinian refugees, of the international institutions with direct implications for the UN, and of course of Lebanese state itself. Once again, the meanings of the border are made up of collective experience, cross-border relationships and partnership or authority over this land that have all formed different ‘mental maps’ (Migdal, 2004). Hizbullah’s refers to its cultural redefinition of the landscape through, among other things, tourist sites as an extension of its Islamic sphere (Halaˆ Islaˆmiyya). The one of the Palestinians is linked to a narrative of exile and reconnection across the border, most of the time by circumventing the Lebanon– Israel border. The experience of the UN in this borderland also provides a peacekeeping narrative that draws a political line on the ground and brings enemy states together to administer this line. Finally, Lebanese state claims national sovereignty over its land, airspace and maritime exclusive economic zone in the face of Israeli violations and claims. The conclusion takes a broader view by questioning South Lebanon’s meaning for a region that currently finds itself in turmoil. The direct meaning is tied to South Lebanon’s place in the geopolitical context of the current crises in the Middle East as one axis of confrontation among many others. South Lebanon’s indirect meaning is what the theoretical framework shows, namely that the triple process of bordering, ordering and othering tends to illuminate the arbitrary and man-made origins

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SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

of borders. It also underlines the importance of the state – society relationship as well as the changing face of borders/boundaries understood as the cross-result of individual impacts on limits and the power of borders/boundaries over social actors. While borders can be mobile, history teaches us that they tend to persist over time. In an era of the breakdown of Libya and the spreading of the Islamic State across the Iraq – Syria border, it might be less the change of borders than the shift in political regimes that is at stake in the aftermath of the Arab uprisings. *** Examining social interactions in a borderland region is a way of raising issues about the periphery’s tangible and symbolic realities, but it also conveys a broader perspective, a vantage point, to observe the regional processes that are at work. As Popescu (2012) puts it, the ‘concept of borderlands poses that a border, because of its influence over the surrounding areas (known as a “border effect”), creates its own distinctive region’. In South Lebanon, this effect seems particularly noteworthy in the light of the persistent tension between Hizbullah and Israel, which can be read as a larger confrontation between Iran, Syria and Hizbullah on the one hand and Israel, the US and the West on the other. Moreover, for decades, this borderland was the sounding board of the Israeli– Syrian confrontation but was rarely investigated per se as a piece of land with a local population, historical changes and relationships with the border itself. This book does not intend to cover all of these domains but more modestly focuses on the political sociology of South Lebanon’s borderland relationships. To start with, I will follow Widdis’s (2005: 154) definition of the borderland as ‘a physical, ideological, and geographical construct, a region of intersection that is sensitive to internal and external forces that both integrate and differentiate communities and eras on both sides of the boundary line’. Borderlands are areas where borders have an impact on how and where social processes induced by borders, such as perceptions, stereotypes and actions, are experienced and reproduced (Paasi, 1996; Newman, 2006). Borderlands resemble the frontiers of the pre-nation state era. As such, they provide insight about the centre’s limit of power and serve as a vantage point in the confrontation with

INTRODUCTION

5

the enemy. A vantage point allows observers to see new links and relationships between actors, dynamics and spaces. Understood as a point of view onto the borderland, a vantage point is not neutral, as L’Estrange & O’Dowd (2008: 11) emphasised: ‘Our understanding of borders [. . .] very much depends on the vantage point from which we analyse them – whether it is from the perspective of those who impose or manage them, or of those who challenge, circumvent, and contest them.’ This approach echoes Ferdinand de Saussure’s aphorism that ‘the point of view creates the object’ (Saussure, 1972), a warning pointing to the necessity of firstly identifying the many actors or groups that shape the borderland and being aware of their points of view and representation of the borderland and, secondly, of building our own reading of South Lebanon’s borderlands with theoretical tools. In the Middle East, societies and states show strong fragmentation along sectarian, tribal or regional lines and a variety of political trajectories. Among other aspects, the Arab uprisings (2011) highlighted the many divisions that persist in the region and the uncertainties affecting many borderlands due to the expansion of nonstate armed groups across borders and/or the breakdown of some states. Socio-political segmentations in Lebanon have made it the fragmented state case study par excellence. While Lebanon’s political system is fragmented along sectarian lines, its political history is marked by almost continuous international interference in politics and strong social and political divisions (Corm, 1986). Two epochs can be identified, as they are marked by different types of interferences. The first is the ‘imperialist era’ that started with the establishment of the Mutasarrifiyya (1861),3 continued with the French Mandate period (1920) and ended with the election of Fuad Chehab as president (1958). This latter date followed the local revolutions in the Middle East that were sparked by French and British colonial actions, which included these two Western powers’ decision to launch a military operation on the Suez Canal in 1956 and subsequent withdrawal because of international pressure. Until then, foreign influence had been powerful enough to transform and define new boundaries before their decline. A few years later, by the end of the 1960s, new actors emerged in an era characterised by several modes of resistance to confront new forms of imperialism and occupation. This period that symbolically started with the defeat of all the Arab armies in

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SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

June 1967 after the Six-Day War launched by Israel can be labelled the ‘resistance era’. It is marked by a significant rise in crises and tensions in South Lebanon, by Israel’s occupation of large swathes of this borderland and by the emergence of armed resistance groups that have undergone some mutations over the years. Interestingly, the type of resistance fighters changed according to ideologies, from Arab nationalism to Shiʽi Islamism, with their concomitant perceptions of regional space and relationships with local borderlanders. This research highlights the question of the shaping of the southern borderland of Lebanon during the ‘resistance era’. This focus raises the question of the relationship between the politicisation of space and the identity of the different players. In the aftermath of the Six-Day War in June 1967, a turning point for the balance of power in the region, four of them became major forces in the shaping and re-drawing of lines on the ground as well as of the boundaries among people in this area: the Palestinian resistance, UNIFIL and international actors, Israel and Hizbullah. While the Palestinian resistance regionalised South Lebanon with cross-border operations starting in 1969, Israel brought it clearly within the scope of the Arab–Israeli conflict because of its invasions. The interventions of the United Nations and its UNIFIL troops on the ground since 1978 have internationalised this borderland, although the UN already monitored the borderland between 1949 and 1951 during the armistice demarcation process following the war of 1948 (Hof, 2000). The Israeli occupation of 1982 had a double effect by bringing external players like the European Union (with its multinational force), the US and Iran into Lebanese game and in the meantime by returning military confrontation to the level of a national struggle for the liberation of the South. Lebanese national resistance mobilised for such a purpose, as Hizbullah did on a Shiʽi religious repertoire – a change observable with the figure of the martyr that moved from the fida’i to the muqawim. While the fida’i embodied in its naming the sacrifice of its life for the sake of the cause, the muqawim acts as a disciplined fighter of a resistant front (Rougier, 2008). Both use(d) the label of ‘resistance’: the Palestinians struggle against Israel with a secular and leftist vision intending to bring a social revolution, while the Shiʽi mobilisation is built on the politicisation of Islam and tellingly shifted from ‘Islamic resistance’ to simple ‘resistance’ during the process of Lebanonisation in the 1990s.

INTRODUCTION

7

The definition of the borderland space then became a function of the actors’ perception and policy. The identity of the newcomers was important, as Hizbullah had slowly monopolised anti-Israeli operations in the occupied zone of South Lebanon by the mid-1980s. As a result, South Lebanon moved from a Palestinian sanctuary from where to liberate Palestine to a national space occupied by a foreign power to fight for in a Lebanese national struggle. During the 1980s, it eventually became a mix of the two – a sanctuary for Hizbullah and a place to fight against the occupant – and incorporated an international dimension as a battleground for regional powers. Among them, Iran helped to create and back Hizbullah, and Syria found in Hizbullah’s agenda of national resistance against the occupation of South Lebanon a surrogate militia able to maintain a level of tension with Israel. Meanwhile, the Shiʽi movement took advantage of this position to build its legitimacy as a resistance movement in the post-civil war era (since 1990) through the violent use of the borderland. This post-civil war era has provided several narratives with regard to the South Lebanese border. Palestinian refugees have offered a new perspective through an alternative form of resistance based on kin and a national network. It includes movement across or in circumvention of the border in order to maintain relationships with their relatives in Palestine. The Israeli withdrawal of 2000 allowed UNIFIL and Hizbullah to build new narratives and means in shaping the borderland. When the latter invested in cultural and political transformations of the landscape, the former drew a line (the Blue Line) that contributed to redefining a political geography that took shape mainly after the July War in 2006. Finally, it is worth considering in greater detail the national narrative regarding Lebanese sovereignty over its airspace, which Israeli aircraft regularly violate, to raise questions about the persistence of a red line affecting Lebanese skies and impacting the margins of manoeuvre of Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF). In the same vein, the sovereignty dispute over Lebanon’s southern maritime demarcation line with Israel pinpoints economic interests, as oil and gas resources could lie under the seabed. In summary, during this period marked by invasions, resistance struggles and war, this borderland has been shaped in many different ways, depending on the type of actors involved, their resources and strategies, the type of power exercised and their relationships with other states and social groups inside and outside South Lebanon. By linking

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the territory with the collective identities that developed in the bordering process, the question is raised as to how this relationship created differences in bordering or institutionalised them through a double-binding process of representing and materialising limits between people on territories. In the context of the shaping process that is under scrutiny, the research question concerns the interdependent movement between territories and actors, specifically the impact actors may have in shaping the land and defining and ordering the borderland space. At the same time, a ‘border effect’ is working to change these actors (from international organisations to nonstate armed groups), and their own identity is being transformed by their relationships with the South Lebanese space itself. This general idea can be detailed in a few more basic questions: . . .

By which means are nonstate actors able to use the borderland environment to build their own identity and military strength? Considering the ‘border effect’, how are identities, strategies and categories affected by the ruling or struggling in that borderland? How have local and international actors (e.g. Hizbullah and Southerners, Palestinian Refugees, UNIFIL) dealt with the border issue at different moments in history? And how do they contribute to shaping South Lebanon’s borderland and building alternative representations of the border?

Observing social and political interactions from the angle of the borderland requires the researcher to bring together local identity belongings, space delineation and actors’ involvement in this territory on a delimited period of time. The theoretical tools that are available to the researcher borrow from several disciplines and have been discussed in recent border studies research. Although all the chapters will provide specific literature to reference the concepts that are considered, I would like to draw up the general framework that will link the abovementioned dimensions to literature devoted to South Lebanon.

Theoretical reflections and tools It seems clear that in our case study a reflection on border/boundaries is linked to the collective belongings that local actors are promoting in the

INTRODUCTION

9

borderland territory. In the following pages, the terms ‘borders’ and ‘boundaries’ or ‘frontiers’ will be used to define different realities. Following Didier Fassin (2010), I have chosen to make a distinction between the border and the boundary. The former describes the physical limit that separates territories or lands, while the latter refers to the symbolic and immaterial limits between groups of people. The notion of ‘frontier’ will designate a blurred physical space unclearly delineated, like the Roman Empire’s frontiers or pre-nation state limes, as indicated by Raffestin (1986). The notion of identity that I will use in this work is not conceived as a concept but refers to collective identity and its relationship with space and territory. This notion is seen as a theoretical understanding of other categories of belonging, such as ethnic, national, communal and religious affiliations. Identity will not be understood as a fixed and clear category according to which actors would be determined but on the contrary as a changing process of co-construction between groups that is contingent on power relations. The Middle East offers a wide range of categories of belonging that illustrate the porosity of their boundaries and their fluctuation in time and space. In a previous work on mixed marriages, I have shown how actors accommodate sectarian and national identities, although political discourses tend to draw straight lines between them (Meier, 2010). Historians have shown the malleable characteristics of sectarian belonging, one of the strongest infra-national identity systems, and their contingent and political dimensions (Beydoun, 1984; Salibi, 1989). Arab nationalism (al-qawmiyya al-‘arabiyya), as well as the Islamist vision of the Islamic community (‘ummah), is an invention or a re-invention of supranational categories (Volpi, 2012). As a result of the failed implantation of a nation state in the Middle East, most of those categories of belonging are not defined within a bordered space and straddle state borders, which weakens the legitimacy of local powers. Border issues are spatial issues. With Lefebvre (1991), the notion of space can be understood as one that has physical, mental and social dimensions. In order to reveal the process by which space is produced, Lefebvre posited the dialectic relationship between the ‘representation of space’ (le concu), ‘representational spaces’ (le ve´cu) and ‘spatial practices’ (le percu). The first dimension is associated with power and a hegemonic order that defines and conceives. The state’s policies, the militia’s social order and dominant religious behaviours over a territorial space are

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classical examples. The second dimension embodies the symbolic meanings of experienced space and the codification that powerful actors try to produce in order to shape and control the social environment. The third dimension focuses on what people do and how actors behave given their perceptions of the borderland space. Within this framework, space can be seen as a social product, a human construction more than a geographical factor, that allows a conceptualisation of the notions of border and territory. In the border studies literature, several disciplines have provided tools to link the two dimensions of identity and space. Hastings Donnan (2012) recalls the seminal reflection of Fredrik Barth (1969), who showed that borders and boundaries are a necessary process during a group’s identity building to define, characterise and delineate the group. In this context and following Brubaker (2001), identity is understood here as an evolving process permanently redefining its boundaries in a constant building process. The other powerful idea about borders came with the spread of the vision of a ‘socially produced space’, which opened the question of the reproduction and institutionalisation of borders through central power as well as through the day-to-day lives of actors at the border (Morehouse, 2004). By the end of the 1990s, the ‘spatial turn’ that had occurred in the social sciences affected border studies and their ‘territorialist epistemology’ (Lapid, 2001). It allowed researchers to go beyond the conception of the border as a line to a vision of the border as a space, be it territorial or nonvisible, ‘the space of the political itself’, as Balibar put it (in Brunet-Jailly, 2011). Following this step, cultural anthropology used the key concept of ‘borderland’ to analyse borders and boundaries, which spread thanks to the well-known study of Robert Alvarez (1995) on the workers crossing the Mexico–US border and subsequently by the seminal research of Paasi (1996) on the Russian– Finnish borderland. It paved the way for a major development of research in anthropology, geography and international relations (Brown & Pratt, 2000). In the geopolitical approach, the dynamics of territorial changes evolved, and the scope of the border’s definition was extended to other domains, which facilitated a territorial reading of the actors’ strategy and forged a certain type of order and belonging (Newman, 2001). In line with those visions, and to make the link between identity and space, I will rely in this research on three concepts – ‘bordering’,

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‘ordering’ and ‘othering’ – that describe three interrelated processes. Seen as a principle of the organisation of social relations (Popescu, 2012: 76), bordering captures the changing face of borders, implies the study of the social space of the borderland, its process and context and involves all types of actors and institutions, as well as companies, individuals and social groups, involved in the ‘borderwork’ (Rumford, 2008). Bordering is a means of ordering (Albert & al., 2001) and also of othering. As Henk Van Houtum & Ton Van Naerssen (2002: 134) wrote, ‘making others through a territorial fixing of order is intrinsically connected to our present image of borders’. The authors explain as follows: ‘(B)ordering rejects as well as erects othering. This paradoxical character of bordering processes whereby borders are erected to erase territorial ambiguity and ambivalent identities in order to shape a unique and cohesive order, but thereby create new or reproduce latently existing differences in space and identity’ (Van Houtum & Van Naerssen, 2002: 126). In other words, while the bordering process refers to the definition of and sovereignty over a defined space, the ordering process primarily deals with identity building, as the group needs values, symbols and a sense of belonging, while the othering process – like building the figure of an enemy or of an ally – is a facet of the collective identity building that relates to a specific borderland territory. Therefore, in South Lebanon’s borderland, it is possible to investigate many sites where a process of (b)ordering is taking place. In the selection of sites to consider, three main spatial directions can be identified, following Popescu (2012), within the emerging global border regimes: border lines, borderlands and networked borders. Classical border lines refer to the physical delimitation on the ground – not always as visible as it appears to be on a map. Their persistence is observable through their vitality, as 26,000 km of new borders have emerged in the past two decades and, since 9/11, a physical reinforcement in walling/fencing has taken place (Diener & Hagen, 2009; Jones, 2009). But what the border line in South Lebanon is dealing with is a rather complex issue resulting from imperialist actions that occurred long before these recent developments. Mandatory French and British powers laid the foundations of the allocation of territories between states at the beginning of the twentieth century but left several unclear delimitations (see below). Some of these old questions appeared as contemporary problems that triggered antagonism between Israel

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and Lebanon. The interventions of the United Nations resulted in a delineation and marking of a ‘Blue Line’ of which some segments are in dispute between Lebanon and Israel. Recent security policies, like the walling of a short section of the border, have tried to respond to many uncertainties on both sides (Chapter 6). Other cultural policies, supported by the state and performed by Hizbullah, have tended to re-use former front lines in the South in the form of the museum sites of Mleeta and Khiam to disseminate a narrative as well a specific ideology through leisure and tourism (Chapter 4). Finally, the maritime delimitation issue that emerged more recently underlines the conflicting interests with regard to space and resources, both symbolic and economic (Chapter 7). Borderlands are less easily noticeable, as there are no clear signs to identify them, but their landscapes and social relations set them apart from the rest of the state’s territory. This lack of signs underlines the borderlands’ relationship with the more or less violent process of border making, which has often left claims unresolved (Rumley & Minghi, 1991). For Paasi (1996), borderlands offer a vantage point for confrontation with ‘others’ and clearly refer to the identity shaping of the group boundaries. South Lebanon’s borderland offers the opportunity to focus on the meaning of this land for Lebanon as a poor periphery, for the borderlanders as the Jabal ‘Amil homeland, for the Palestinian fida’iyyin as a sanctuary (Chapters 1 and 2), a stronghold for Hizbullah (Chapter 3), a buffer zone for Israel or one of the biggest peacekeeping missions on the planet for the UN (Chapter 6). The local Shiʽa had been marginalised Lebanese citizens but ended up constituting the backbone of the constituency of Hizbullah, the most powerful nonstate armed group in the Middle East, until the emergence of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria in 2014. But this borderland also drew attention to the cross-border exchanges during the Israeli occupation and the relationship Israel developed with local Christians during the civil war, as well as the one Hizbullah cultivated with locals through social care and reconstruction since its takeover in 2000. Borders perceived as networks capture the spatial nature of these border-making developments with the label of ‘networked borders’ (Walters, 2004; Rumford, 2006), which describes the dispersion of borders throughout societies and re-creates a network spanning across several states. People and goods are checked and scrutinised before they

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reach the state border and after they enter its territory, therefore the border becomes embedded in the flow (Sassen 2006). South Lebanon, the hotspot of the networked border after the closure of the border in 1948, has mainly been linked to Palestinian refugees. Lebanese state had various discriminatory policies towards those specific refugees, while Israel simply prohibited the vast majority of them from entering the territory of Palestine. The span of the Palestinian refugee network involves Jordanian territory that some Palestinians enter or cross to meet their relatives living in Palestine/the Occupied Palestinian Territories/Israel. In Chapter 5, I will show how important Jordan has become in the networked borders and how this system works as an identity reminder each time refugees cross checkpoints, gates or border lines. The thickness of those lines conveys the burden of Palestinian identity and the alternative forms of resistance they deploy. It also shows a significant shift in the political context and in the representation of Palestinian refugees in comparison with the transnational struggle of the fida’iyyin in the 1970s, when movement across Arab borders was much easier (Chapter 1). In sum, this research will delve into several related themes in contemporary border studies, including boundary demarcation, power relations and the management of the border and borderland as a frontier zone, border narratives and the ethics of bordering (under occupation). The general framework for border concerns and disputes in the Middle East was established in the early decades of the twentieth century, when the Ottoman Empire broke down and a transition from a logic of empire to a logic of nation state occurred. But things turned problematic as Great Britain and France had different and conflicting political projects in the region. For example, the Sykes– Picot Line (1916) that divided the region into British and French spheres of influence and the Balfour Declaration (1917) both clearly interfered with the pledge made to the Sharif Hussein Ibn Ali al-Hashimi, the protector of the holy land in the Hejaz province (Mecca and Medina), to support the creation of a great Arab kingdom. In this context of betrayal and strong Arab nationalist mobilisation, the division of the region into states under international mandates generated a clear distrust among the locals, including those living in South Lebanon. Before examining the socio-political context since Lebanon’s independence, I would like to clarify the origins of the international border line between Lebanon and Israel, and to a lesser extent between Lebanon and Syria.

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Border line: origins of the border demarcation and sovereignty issues With the aim of investigating how things came to be in the South Lebanese border area, I will rely on Foucault’s concept of genealogy (Walters, 2006). A genealogy could be of some interest as it should retrace events that have shaped and/or reinvented what Foucault called ‘regimes of practice’ (re´gimes de pratique). At present, the border regime between Lebanon and Israel is characterised by a closed-border policy dating back to the creation of the Jewish state and the Armistice Line of 1949. But until 1949, the area was under another type of border regime instituted by the two main imperialist powers in the region, France and Great Britain. Ironically, they are the ones that implemented the shift from a logic of empire to a logic of state. With regard to the imposition of the modern state system, I would like to focus on the process that led to a line being drawn where nothing was meant to separate the local population: between South Lebanon and North Galilee. Related issues (the status of the Shebaa Farms, the division of Ghajar and the fate of the seven villages) originated in this period and therefore require a proper introduction, as they have triggered major problems between the two states and could continue to be ad hoc justifications for confrontations on the Lebanon– Israel border. The drawing of the southern border between Palestine and Syria (Lebanon was seen as part of Syria and was not mentioned per se in the commission’s work) was a competition among the great powers, France and Great Britain, and started in the Middle East with a first line, Sykes–Picot, in 1916. This line already organised areas of influence for both colonial empires. On the one hand, the French were mindful of the expansionist ambitions of their local allies, the Christian Maronite nationalists, who were keen to expand the ‘Petit-Liban’ of the Ottoman Empire’s Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifiyya to include Tripoli and the Akkar plains in the north, the Beqaa Valley and Jabal ‘Amil in the south. On the other hand, the British had their local allies, the Zionists, to whom the British government granted a national homeland in Palestine in 1917. In 1918, as a regional result of World War I, the British and French established a provisional line, the military-run Occupied Enemy Territorial Administration (OETA) that divided the former Ottoman territories of Syria and Palestine. This line was an amended version of the

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Sykes–Picot Line (Blanford, 2008) but ran horizontally eastward from Ras Naqoura to the northern end of the Huleh Valley and granted Britain a portion of land north of the Sykes –Picot Line (See Map I.1). The president of the World Zionist Organization, Chaim Weizmann, wrote to British Prime Minister Lloyd George that Palestine needed water supplies to produce electricity and that the main source should be Mount Hermon ( Jabal al-Sheikh) and the Jordan and Litani rivers. Thus he made a firm recommendation to draw a northern border to Palestine so as to include the entire Litani Valley as well as the western and southern flanks of Mount Hermon (Hof, 1984). With a firm commitment to the Zionists’ position, the British succeeded in granting Palestine the panhandle of Galilee but were unable to obtain any other point of access to South Lebanese water resources. After the proclamation of Greater Lebanon (September 1920), the British and the French signed a treaty in December 1920 that defined the borders in the Middle East under their supervision. A joint British– French border demarcation committee was established in March 1921 to draw a line between Lebanon and Palestine with the support of an 1881 Palestine Exploration Fund (PEF) map to delineate the border. Lieutenant Colonel S. Newcombe, the British delegate, and his French counterpart, N. Paulet, were sent to undertake this task. The English Lieutenant suggested drawing a more appropriate line regarding local ownership and strategic concerns, but his suggestions were dismissed, and he was ordered to follow the terms dictated by the treaty. The second received instructions from the high commissioner, General Gouraud, ‘to try to retain the Shia populated villages in the area inside Lebanon on the grounds that they were a natural part of the new country [i.e. Lebanon]’ (Blanford, 2008: 7). He added that the border should run ‘along the edges of villages’ properties and as close as possible to the mountain crest’, as indicated on the PEF map. Both delegates finally completed the job and marked the land with 38 neat stone piles between Ras Naqoura (west) and Jisr el-Ghajar (east) between 24 June and 8 July 1921. They recorded this delineation on two hand-drawn maps and included a written description referring to landmarks that would hardly be reliable over time (paths, bushes, trees). The demarcation was ratified more than a year after the boundary commission had submitted its report, because the mandates only received late approval by the League of Nations in February 1923. In the 1930s, the French authorities discovered mistakes

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in this delineation in the region of the Shebaa Farms (see below), and in 1940 by the British Army in Palestine. Instead of amending the border in favour of the French position, the British authorities tried to compensate it by a rectification on another location to include a gravel road near Houla in Lebanon (Biger, 2004). Until that time (February 1923), the legal demarcation between Palestine and Syria (present-day Lebanon) was the OETA line, slightly south of the Newcombe –Paulet Line. There was another problem when the French mandatory authorities organised an election for a Representative Council following a census in the spring of 1922. The accuracy of this initial census in mandatory Lebanon was questioned due to a clear lack of participation by local inhabitants of the new regions (including South Lebanon) comprising Greater Lebanon. The census covered the area in the south up to the border delineated by Newcombe and Paulet but also included the area north of the OETA line that covered the Galilee panhandle and 24 villages and farms where people had received Lebanese identity cards for the April 1922 election. These villages covering a surface area of 2,729 ha were transferred from the sovereignty of Greater Lebanon to mandatory Palestine in 1923, and the process was completed in April 1924. Their inhabitants were granted Palestinian citizenship instead of their previous Lebanese nationality. Among these villages, seven were populated by Shiʽa (one of them was evenly divided among Shiʽa and Greek Catholics) and became a sort of anomaly, as they had been separated from the other Shiʽi villages in the neighbourhood by the drawing of the international border. During the 1990s, Hizbullah denounced this old anomaly. In 2008, its international relations chief claimed those villages as originally Lebanese and asked for their return to Lebanese sovereignty.4 Apart from the political motive of the moment, Hizbullah manifested its commitment with a sectarian concern for Shiʽa, even though its claim over those villages was inconsistent with its acceptance of the 1949 Armistice Line based on the 1923 Newcombe– Paulet Line. Two other oddities along the South Lebanese border, the village of Ghajar and the Shebaa Farms, are located at the farthest reaches of the Lebanon– Israel –Syria border. This tripoint border area has been investigated by several scholars who provide different angles of study owing to their points of view, nationality and academic tradition. In English, Asher Kaufman (2002, 2006, 2009, 2014), a prominent

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scholar working in the US, has probably carried out the most extensive and intensive work on that section of the border from a historical and geographical point of view. In Arabic, Issam Khalifeh (2007, 2008, 2009) conducted a more traditional historical investigation from Lebanese viewpoint. In French, Matthieu Cimino completed a PhD at Sciences Po Paris (2013) that mixes political history with a great concern for identity and layers of sovereignty at this tripoint border crossing. Contrary to the previous Lebanon– Palestine border, this segment is characterised by an absence of any Syrian– Lebanese border treaty because of the former French mandatory presence in Syria and Lebanon. Moreover, this shared border long remained undetermined and porous. After they gained independence, both Syria and Lebanon asked the French authorities for some maps and documents pertaining to their common boundaries, but France did not cooperate. In 1964 a joint Lebanese –Syrian demarcation commission was created but was ultimately unsuccessful (Khalifeh, 2006). The confusion that resulted from the cartographic mistakes and the time lapse affected the village of Ghajar, whose population is mostly Alawite. According to Kaufman, Ghajar could have been a Syrian village prior to 1967, but a cartographic inconsistency blurred its location. Kaufman (2009, 2014) undercuts the notion that Ghajar was composed of two villages (al-Ghajar and al-Wazzani) by demonstrating that the village of al-Wazzani was created and appeared for the first time on a Lebanese map in 1963 (Kaufman, 2014: 55) in order to guarantee that the Wazzani springs could be included as Lebanese territory. The failure to resolve this odd situation during the post-independence era results from a lack of political will to solve a complex question that could have inflamed the already tense relationships between Syria and Lebanon. Moreover, the US had an interest in preserving peace in this area, as the Tapline pipeline that brought oil from Saudi Arabia to the Zahrani terminal was crossing the country close to Ghajar. The situation changed with the regional tension and the Six-Day War in June 1967. The local inhabitants called for Israeli support and assistance when Lebanese authorities did not respond. Under these circumstances, Ghajar came under Israeli tutelage thanks to the Golan Heights occupation, and the local inhabitants received Israeli identity cards. Subsequently, the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon occurred, and the UN commission drew the Blue Line. The belief in a

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two-village origin of present-day Ghajar guided their delineation, as the Blue Line eventually cut the village in two, leaving two-thirds of the village in Lebanon and the other third in Syria’s occupied Golan Heights. In 2006, Israel re-occupied the northern part of the village, then accepted to withdraw its forces but delayed the move, despite its security cabinet’s recognition of the legitimacy of the Blue Line cutting through Ghajar. After the July War in 2006, local inhabitants demonstrated in favour of remaining part of Israel. This event provided an opportunity for the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Lieberman, to propose the building of a wall between the southern and northern parts of Ghajar. All residents would be free to join the southern part and keep their Israeli nationality. In the meantime, UNIFIL proposed easing the Israeli withdrawal from the northern part of the village by taking control over it. While Lebanese authorities approved this latter proposal (dating to 2011) to evacuate the northern part of the village, there was no response from Israel. This proposal was a compromise between international law, Israeli security concerns and the recovery of Lebanese sovereignty. Nevertheless, the status quo has persisted and has rarely concerned either Lebanese or Syrian authorities, as both countries have faced other major blows to their sovereignty in more recent years. At present, the other main territorial issue on the Blue Line related to the Shebaa Farms (mazari’ shib’a), a portion of land between 28 and 48 km2 in size,5 located north-east of Ghajar on the western slopes of Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Sheikh). This piece of land came under the spotlight during the spring of 2000, when Hizbullah claimed Israel’s withdrawal was incomplete and cited the Shebaa Farms. The French officers who drew the line between Syria and Lebanon in declaring the independence of Lebanon on 1 September 1920, did not consider the practices of the region’s local inhabitants. Most owners of the Shebaa Farms used to cross the new state delimitations and considered themselves Lebanese. Most of the farmlands were used and owned by people living in the village of Shebaa. Kaufman (2002) showed that residents used to pay their taxes and conduct all their legal administrative affairs in Hasbaya or Marjayoun rather than in Quneitra (in Syria). Nothing changed after independence, as the new state did not care about this area so ‘far south’, while local residents lived their lives indifferent to the artificial, unmarked border line.

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The Syrian Army used this territory as a vantage point during the 1950s to control the smuggling route between Lebanon and Syria and to threaten the pro-Western regime of President Chamoun by claiming this piece of land as Syrian. In 1967, during the Six-Day War, the farms fell under Israeli occupation along with the Golan Heights. The Palestinian resistance in the Arquˆb region, where the farms are located, led Israel to securitise the area by building military posts, demolishing some farms, erecting fences and paving roads. Although initiatives from notable South Lebanese locals brought attention to the area when an Israeli – Lebanese agreement was signed in 1983, no clarification was ever made as to the ownership of the land. After the Israeli withdrawal from the occupied zone in May 2000, Kaufman (2014: 170) noted: ‘Hizbullah did not fabricate a non-existing border problem but rather exploited the cartographic irregularities relating to the Shebaa Farms as a reason to continue its armed struggle against Israel.’ In Chapter 3 I will return to the strategic interest of some local and regional players to focus on the Shebaa Farms territory after Israel unilaterally withdrew from South Lebanon in 2000.

Borderlands, between state and nation building There are several reasons for the significant role that armed struggles in borderland areas play in the bordering process. Those who engage in armed struggles cut off some segments of the national border from the centre, as they monopolise violence in the region. Subsequently, they broaden a consideration of the relationship between the political centre and the periphery, for instance through the lens of economic or identity issues. They also mix with neighbouring forces and develop external alliances to continue their struggle. This can trigger international intervention, either to come between belligerents, to protect a population, to defeat an invader or to secure a space. Therefore borderlands in particular are subject to de-bordering and re-bordering processes during wartime and raise the matter of state or nation building. Lebanon’s territory is an issue, as the country’s present delineation was carried out in 1920 because of a French decision made in Paris following the breakup of the Ottoman Empire and because of strong pressure from the Francophile Christian Maronite elites. That year, French authorities

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received a mandate from the League of Nations to lead Lebanon and Syria on their way to independence. ‘Greater Lebanon’ (Grand-Liban) was formed by adding Syrian territories to the small autonomous Mount Lebanon. The peripheral regions of the Beqaa Valley on the eastern flank, the Akkar with Tripoli in the north and Jabal ‘Amil in the south along with Saida and Tyre were added to Mount Lebanon overnight without any consideration for the local population, mainly Sunni and Shiʽi Muslims. Regarding South Lebanon, Max Weiss (2010) underlines the process of transformation of the Shiʽi identity, which accompanied the incorporation of Jabal ’Amil and the Beqaa Valley into the modern Lebanese state, and the increasingly self-conscious community’s focus on religious practice. Sabrina Mervin (2010) shows that the local ‘Amili’ identity was not already fully formed, despite the region’s many intellectual and religious exchanges with other Shiʽi places in the Arab world (in Iraq and Iran). This local identity took shape because of the Arab nationalist struggle that occurred between the two world wars and as an affirmation of a specific Lebanese Shiʽi identity during the French Mandate. The mass boycott of the first census organised by the mandatory power in 1922 was indicative of the lack of interest and legitimacy of the newly born Lebanon for people at the margins (Zamir, 1980). It took ten more years to create a sense of belonging and local interest in the state system, although the second census, in 1932, had clearly political aims in proving that the majority of Lebanese citizens were Christian Maronites (Maktabi, 2000). By promoting the Maronites, the census served the purpose of the mandatory power policy to secure reliable subservient local elites, and the Maronites, due to their longstanding relationship with France as Christians of the Middle East, filled this role with enthusiasm. Their willingness to collaborate with the French High Commissioner was reinforced by the representative system set forth in the 1926 Constitution, which allocated high positions in the state (president, prime minister, speaker of Parliament, chief of staff, first-category civil servants) according to sectarian affiliation. This system resulted in a Maronite monopolisation of the highest positions (president of the republic and chief of staff of the Defence Forces), while the Sunnis received the seat of prime minister and, after independence, the Shiʽa were granted the seat of speaker of Parliament as a reward for Shiʽi landlords’ collaboration during the struggle for independence.

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The communal system of governance that emerged is the legacy of the Ottoman division of the population into sects (millet) and of the process of these sects’ politicisation during the nineteenth century that led to Mount Lebanon’s autonomy from Ottoman rule under international supervision in 1861 (Makdisi, 2000). Power was divided on the basis of sectarian belonging, and this division became known as the ‘Mutasarrifiyya system’. It lasted through more than 50 years of peace (Akarli, 1993) and was tacitly prolonged by the French Mandate, although the state design was clearly inspired by the secular French Third Republic. The end of the mandate was provoked by a collective revolt of Lebanese elites in 1943. That year in November, Sunni and Maronite elites agreed on a definition of Lebanese nation known as the National Pact (1943). Often described as ‘a double negation’, this agreement stated that on the one hand Muslims would not ask for Lebanon to be merged into a Greater Syria or an Arab kingdom as previously anticipated, and on the other hand that the Francophile Maronites and their partisans would not seek Western tutelage or protection (Rabbath, 1973). ‘Neither the Orient nor the West’ (ni Orient, ni Occident) was the slogan defining Lebanese nation. Although the national struggle for independence mobilised a significant part of the population, mainly in cities and towns, the ‘nation’ did not really exist, as ordinary people used to refer to their local chief, the zaim (plural zu’ama), often a sectarian leader acknowledged for his capacity to provide services in exchange for their loyalty (Hottinger, 1966). South Lebanon, like other peripheral regions of Lebanon (Akkar, Hermel), was a vivid example of the incomplete nature of this independence process. In this region, local elites from the Shiʽi community were still exploiting local inhabitants in a feudal style, treating them like pawns in their power games as if they possessed their votes because of the patron – client relationship mediated by their sectarian belonging. Such dyadic and local relationships and the sectarian group feeling have continued to be the two main variables that undermine Lebanese national feeling of belonging. The National Pact also suffered from its quick obsolescence as the political environment shifted to the Cold War era, and the Middle East faced the birth of the state of Israel and saw hundreds of thousands of Palestinians seeking refuge in neighbouring countries as they were

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chased away from their homeland. The first Arab–Israeli war took place in this context. Lebanon faced Israeli troops entering its southern territory and then, after the signing of the armistice, pulling back to the Armistice Line, which was largely based on the 1923 Newcombe– Paulet Line. Lebanese government never recognised this international border in order to avoid recognising the state of Israel. Nevertheless, the emergence of this enemy state had several important consequences for Lebanon: the closure of its southern border with Palestine, the arrival of approximately 100,000 Palestinian refugees and its location as a state directly on the confrontation line with the so-called ‘Zionist entity’. Tellingly, the refugees were settled in camps in the vicinity of the country’s main cities in order to provide assistance in the agricultural and building sectors. The rise of Beirut as a vantage ground for the tertiary sector of economy (services) and as an international place for banking and import-export quickly generating easy money contributed to a growing indifference to the periphery, and South Lebanon became one of the most neglected locales in the country. Nevertheless, Lebanese state faced a challenge involving the periphery because of the rampant polarisation of the Middle East along the US – USSR ideological lines. Locally, in 1955, Great Britain initiated the ‘Baghdad Pact’, an anti-Soviet alliance that included Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan. After the nationalisation of the Suez Canal by Nasser and the aborted Suez Crisis thanks to an ultimatum by the US and the USSR, the East– West polarisation in Lebanon led to a division between the pan-Arab nationalists and the pro-Westerners. Piece by piece, Lebanese national consensus slowly crumbled from the top to the bottom when President Chamoun agreed to adopt the Eisenhower Doctrine – economic and military aid to all countries facing the ‘communist threat’ – in the spring of 1957. MPs from local areas like the Beqaa, the North and the South chose to resign from Parliament to protest the violation of the National Pact. In 1958 the situation turned critical when Syria and Egypt proclaimed their union as the United Arab Republic. The situation flared up after the assassination of a journalist who criticised the unionist position of Lebanese citizens. The insurrection spread among all Muslim strongholds, from the Basta suburb in Beirut to classic Sunni Arab nationalist towns like Saida and Tripoli and to a lesser extent to Shiʽi towns like Nabatyieh and Tyre. The sectarian leaders of each region were leading the protest, either on the insurgent or the

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loyalist side, although the mass mobilisation was organised by the Baath and Communist parties for the former and by the Maronite Phalangist and the Pan-Syrian Syrian Popular parties for the latter. Obviously, panArab nasserism became a catalyst for Muslim claims, mainly from the periphery of the state, and a tool for political profit for some Sunni leaders like Saeb Salam (Picaudou, 1989). The crisis came to an end when US Marines turned up in Beirut, forced Chamoun to quit and brought to power the chief of staff of the Defence Forces, General Fuad Chehab. His moderation and sense for the delicate Lebanese balance returned the country to stability with a new statist and development policy towards the peripheral regions of Lebanon. Palestinian refugees also dealt a blow to national consensus and took a toll on sovereignty and security issues. Following a political mobilisation that started with the creation of the PLO (1964) and the rise of an armed struggle by Fatah and a few other radical factions against the Israeli occupation of Palestine, some Palestinian combatants started armed operations across the southern border by the late 1960s. The tensions grew between Lebanese Army and the Palestinian armed factions, and several clashes turned into a political crisis in 1969, when the Internal Security Forces (ISF) killed pro-Palestinian demonstrators. An agreement was reached in November of that year and signed in Cairo between Lebanese state and the Palestinian resistance. It basically gave the green light to the Palestinian fida’iyyin to continue their armed operations and infiltrations across the southern border in exchange for military coordination with Lebanese Army. After the Palestinian military defeat in Jordan, known as ‘Black September’, the central command of the Palestinian resistance moved to Lebanon and intensified its organisation in South Lebanon, which the rightist Christian movements came to view as ‘Fatahland’. This move increased the polarisation among Lebanese and contributed to the formation of armed branches of political parties. The revolutionary ideology of the Palestinian cause pushed large segments of the Muslim population to support the resistance with the perspective of changing Lebanese political system by force. Eventually, the state collapsed, and civil war broke out after clashes erupted between Christian militias and Palestinian fida’iyyin in April 1975. The Palestinian armed struggle that operated from South Lebanon to claim Palestinian land deeply affected the South Lebanese borderland,

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which experienced a process of brutal Israeli military retaliation before a two-step invasion – in 1978 and again in 1982 – that crushed the Palestinian resistance. This violent de-bordering and re-bordering process, followed by a 22-year occupation of South Lebanon (until 2000), affected tens of thousands of people who were either displaced by combats or caught up in Israeli domination in the occupied zone close to the border. The collaboration system put in place inside this small society of Lebanese borderlanders collapsed after the 2000 Israeli withdrawal, when thousands of former militiamen of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) surrogate militia fled to Israel. Hizbullah’s takeover and (b)ordering of this borderland region of Jabal ‘Amil took place as part of an already sophisticated political project based on armed resistance against Israel and the edification of a ‘society of the resistance’ (mujtamaa’ al-muqawama). The latter rests on an ‘Islamic sphere’ (Haˆla Islaˆmiyya) informed by moral principles and Islamic values organised by the Party of God. The notion of an ‘Islamic sphere’ is taken from Hizbullah’s official discourse and describes an environment shaped by a tight network of Hizbullah institutions that ‘produces a collective identity generating a strong sense of belonging, which gives meaning to individual’ (Harb & Leenders, 2005), because they are based on religious involvement in the resistance. The manifestations of cultural investment, detailed in Chapter 4, expand the scope of the ‘Islamic sphere’, in which tourist projects in South Lebanon mix tourism with education and landscapes with ideology and memory. After the July War in 2006 and the subsequent loss of Hizbullah’s full hegemony over South Lebanon to the United Nations troops and Lebanese Army, the party started to emphasise such types of cultural projects that obviously include an ideological posture.

Networked borders: from the civil war to the Palestinian camps Networked borders, understood as dispersed borders throughout societies and re-created in a network form spanning multiple territories and states (Popescu, 2012), can result from armed struggles and take the form of buffer zones or refugee camps. Both of these can filter and scrutinise people and goods before and after they enter a territory. But they can also appear in the territorial fragmentation of states during civil

INTRODUCTION

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wars due to the interplay of regional state actors and local armed groups. In the case of Lebanon, this process is well-documented. Already at an earlier stage of the civil war, Lebanese citizens were defined by their sectarian belonging and immediately labelled ‘friends’ or ‘foes’. This labelling reinforced the sectarian fragmentation of the country, as it became very dangerous for people to cross lines because of the kidnapping and disappearance of civilians resulting from militia warfare. Identity checks formed part of the control system that militias imposed at the entry points of the area under their control but also on the inside, where checkpoints appeared in the middle of a road. Regional (mainly Syrian and Israeli) powers were able to control part of Lebanese territory by using this type of militia-style system of ordering space under their control. Syrian military troops and – later in the post-civil war era – secret services (mukhabarat) used to have fixed checkpoints, to the point that long after the civil war had ended, the networked system of borders in Lebanon was still working. It lasted for as long as the Syrian Army troops were installed in Lebanon. Syrian intelligence officials were the clearest expression of this de-multiplication of the border and the prolonged nature of Syrian tutelage over the country. As a territory on the edge of its international border with Lebanon, Syria kept a sort of buffer zone over the Beqaa Valley until the withdrawal of its troops in 2005, which mimicked Israel’s buffer zone strategy in South Lebanon. Contrary to Syria’s actions in the Beqaa Valley, Israel erected a sophisticated system of networked borders through its occupation of the ‘security belt’ thanks to a surrogate militia and a social network that spanned across every village and town to link each Lebanese inhabitant of this region to their system of control. Mounzer Jaber (1999) highlighted this panoptic web showing how each family was financially depending on the industry of occupation either directly, by having one of its members involved in the SLA, or indirectly, by being permitted to cross the international border to work in Israel for a better salary than in Lebanon. While the international border lost its relevance as an international line, it kept its importance to define the beginning of a buffer zone, a security belt. On its northern flank, inside Lebanon’s mountainous southern Jabal ‘Amil area, the border of this belt was defined as a military frontline that could only be crossed by the zone’s inhabitants thanks to a system of double permits: one to leave and one to re-enter the zone.

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Despite the end of the Cold War with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, these two territorial belts over Lebanon’s eastern and southern parts persisted as a sign of confiscated Lebanese sovereignty for strategic regional purposes. The best illustration of the continuation of this external logic, following the Israeli (2000) and Syrian (2005) withdrawals, is the Israeli Air Force’s ongoing control of Lebanon’s airspace. The international balance of power allows such a constant violation of sovereignty, while at the same time Lebanese Army is not allowed to receive any warplanes to rebuild its air power. On that point, in the aftermath of the end of its civil war, I would argue that Lebanon discretely became an airspace buffer zone in the Middle East. This can be explained by the paradigm shift that occurred in the Middle East by the early 1990s with the new US investment in the region in the form of the Gulf War (1991) and the subsequent Israeli– Palestinian peace talks in Madrid and Oslo. Another example is the international coalition against Saddam Hussein in Iraq that included Syrian support in exchange for the US giving it the green light to take control of Lebanon. The Taı¨f Agreement signed earlier in 1989 announced this pax syriana, which cost Lebanon a part of its sovereignty (Maila, 1989). The only remaining red line for Syria in Lebanon was Israel’s occupation and its tacit hegemony over Lebanese skies. In the process of recovering sovereignty, the post-civil war Lebanese state ensured that all militia disbanded, in line with the Taı¨f Agreement. Apart from the SLA patrolling the Israeli-occupied zone along the border, only Hizbullah was able to keep its weapons thanks to full cover from Damascus after an agreement with Tehran, the sponsor of Hizbullah, with the argument of continuing the struggle to liberate the occupied lands in South Lebanon. As a consequence of the end of the civil war in 1990, the Shiʽi militia transformed into a party and built its political stronghold in the southern suburb of the capital (al-dahiya). The perimeter came to be a place where individuals were scrutinised and asked what they were doing there. Although there was no checkpoint, at least not until the recent attacks against Shiʽi residential areas, the dahiya worked as an untold networked border space. On the same model but with evident military purposes, the ‘liberated South’ after the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 became a networked border with several checkpoints and entrance gates monitored by Lebanese Army with the support of Hizbullah security

INTRODUCTION

27

officers or, more recently, LAF intelligence officers affiliated with Hizbullah. To receive authorisation to enter the zone, foreigners have to register at Lebanese Army intelligence office in Saida as a way of filtering and controlling people’s movements. In the same vein, goods have to be checked and receive approval to be brought into the area, as if this part of the country was under a special borderland regime ‘for security reasons’, as officers explain at the checkpoint.6 In Lebanon, Palestinian refugees are another category of people bound by a networked border system. Their national identity is like a stigma in this society compared with other regional policies towards these refugees (Al-Husseini and Bocco, 2010). For Palestinians in camps, the situation they face means very poor living conditions and a lack of individual and collective perspectives. Their position within Lebanese society changed from peasant refugees to revolutionary militants and fighters, until Israel besieged Beirut in 1982 and the main Palestinian institutions moved to Tunis while the mobilisation shifted to the OPT. The camps followed this political trajectory – from space of freedom and stronghold for revolutionary movements to more or less closed perimeters under strong ISF/military surveillance (Meier, 2015). After the dark period of the 1980s, when they were targeted by Israel and later by Syria with surrogate Lebanese militias, the camps returned to a generally closed space because of Lebanese Army/Syrian intelligence checkpoints. In most of the camps today, Palestinians have to go through a control point to move in or out of the camp by showing identity papers. Such a process provides more opportunities for humiliation and the restriction of movement (Puig, 2013). These border controls also operate inside the camps, and in the suburbs there are internal divisions between people’s identities, political affiliation (which leads to polarisation and even deadly attacks). These social status are bound by a conservative order and rules of behaviour. This social control is also present in Palestinian refugees’ lives outside the camps, although the less confined space allows for more freedom and opportunities. The web of control is scattered throughout Lebanese society in the form of restricted access and closed boundaries for Palestinians on the work market. Until 2010, more than 70 jobs were forbidden to Palestinian refugees – this number has dropped to 25 today thanks to a parliamentary vote on a new law – and they continue to have very few possibilities to be granted a work permit. This means that

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wherever they live in Lebanon, their identity belonging serves as a ‘red line’, a stigma that has both an economic and a social impact on their lives, as most of Lebanese continue to perceive the Palestinians as socially and politically problematic.7 In line with this perspective, official state policy banned any Palestinian political representation in Lebanon until the Syrian withdrawal in 2005, which opened the door for setting up official political representation of the Palestinian Authority that could defend and mediate between the refugees and Lebanese state (Meier, 2008). Although most of the refugees did not see any change in their daily lives, this move represented progress over the arbitrary situation that had affected the refugees in the previous postwar period (1990– 2005) under the supervision of Syrian intelligence. At that time, the Syrian remote networked border system targeted the Arafat supporters among the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, as they represented a potential threat to Syria’s control over Lebanon. In the post-Syrian era, the new threat identified by the state is linked to jihadist cells hidden in camps, and the violence that erupted between the army and a jihadist group led to the destruction of the Nahr el-Bared camp in 2007 (Rougier, 2010).8 Subsequently, there was also been a suspicion that Jahbat al-Nusra Salafists were hiding in camps after the beginning of the Syrian uprising (2011). In a broader sense, the networked borders stretch far beyond Lebanese territory, as the entire Middle East appears to be a difficult place for Palestinian refugees in which to move around. Great challenges remain with regard to family relationships across the border between Lebanon and Palestine (see Chapter 5), because Jordan plays the role of gatekeeper for Palestinians who want to meet their relatives or enter the OPT when Israel authorises such movements. The dark shadow of the ‘Black September’ period has not disappeared and continues to hang over the fates of Palestinian refugees as a permanent threat to their hope of visiting relatives in Jordan or the OPT.

On methodology The three spatial dimensions mentioned above – border lines, borderlands and networked borders – provide topics for investigation. In relation to border studies, they pertain to different disciplines in the social sciences, from geography and anthropology to political science,

INTRODUCTION

29

sociology and history. There would be no point in expecting this research to be all-inclusive, and choices had to made. Drawing on my previous research interest – Palestinian– Lebanese relationships in the post-civil war era – the research started to consider the political relationships between space and identity in a limited territory (South Lebanon) focusing on the movements taking place in order to cross the Lebanon– Israel border, in the case of Lebanese citizens, or to circumvent it, as is the case for some Palestinian refugees. Building upon this original angle, I am basing my research on the dialectic process of bordering as it relates to the South Lebanese people’s relationship with four major actors that have a significant impact on the borderland and/or on the bordering process: the Palestinian refugees of Lebanon, Hizbullah, UNIFIL and the Lebanese state. Each of them has seen its perception, practices and strategies changed because of a ‘border effect’. This double-binding interaction between space and identities is found in literature and on the field, as well as in policies and strategies deployed on political, military, diplomatic, social and cultural levels. While this work follows an interdisciplinary approach, it also relies on fieldwork inquiries that combine several methodologies used in social sciences: interviews, primary source documents, political statements, as well as regular observation over the years. Most of the research was conducted between 2009 and 2014. It brings together around 100 interviews with former Palestinian combatants, Southerners from the former occupied zone, officers and troops of UNIFIL, Palestinian refugees and the institutions/NGOs officials dealing with their issues, Hizbullah militants, guides and officials at Mleeta and Khiam, LAF officers and Lebanese officials, Lebanese political activists and researchers. Of course, colleagues and local contacts have helped to improve my understanding of the processes that form part of this study, and secondary literature provided major frameworks and made it possible to link time and space in (hopefully) a coherent sequence of chapters. Thus this work does not constitute ethnographic research among the communities of the South, although I did interview some locals about their experience at the border or within the borderland. I rather chose to investigate concrete borderwork practices (Rumford, 2008) stemming from the major actors’ policies and strategies. This has led me to analyse the role played by South Lebanon in the building of the figure of the fida’i, to follow UNIFIL’s strategy of building trust between enemies in the marking of

Map I

The lines that have shaped South Lebanon (1916–76).

INTRODUCTION

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the Blue Line, to understand the meaning of Hizbullah’s establishment of the memorial museum of Mleeta on the former frontline and to assess state policy towards the demarcation of the maritime boundaries. In other words, this study delves into the South Lebanese borderlands from the perspective of the practices related to the border, as they tend to highlight a changing perception of the border. In the meantime, such practices reveal the changing identities among actors and the relational links between space shaping and identity building.

PART I STRUGGLES OVER THE BORDERLAND

CHAPTER 1 THE FIDA'IYYIN IN LEBANON: ARMED STRUGGLE, IDEOLOGY AND BELONGING

In 1948, a wave of about 100,000 Palestinian refugees arrived in Lebanon, mostly from the countryside and the coastal cities of Galilee (Sfeir, 2008). People fled or were forced to flee by the Jewish Army, which had launched the war for an independent Israeli state created on a significant portion of Mandatory Palestine in May 1948. This process was defined by the Palestinians as a disaster (al-Nakba), as it resulted in the departure of 730,000 Palestinian inhabitants out of a total of less than a million. In Lebanon, although the political class helped and supported the refugees at first, enthusiasm waned as it became clear that their return would not be possible in the short term. Some of my older interlocutors emphasised that, as refugees, it was very difficult to accept the reality of exile (Meier, 2008). Moreover, these people were suddenly dispossessed and often had no other choice than to rely on assistance from the International Committee of the Red Cross. First tents, then camps to shelter these refugees were put up near the main cities, which constituted pools of cheap labour. Following the confessional division of Lebanese society, Palestinian Christian refugees were gathered in separate camps. This marks the first attempt to divide Palestinians along sectarian lines. During this first phase, the Palestinian refugees were ‘invisible’ to Lebanese population. Later on, during the presidency of Fuad Chehab (1958– 64), those in the camps were subjected to police harassment, but

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thanks to the militarisation of the Palestinian resistance movement, which would alter their position on Lebanon’s chessboard, their power increased. Such a shift usually results from a context of war, a collective displacement and a feeling of strong political and national grievance. These variables prevailed in Lebanese context, which became a cradle for intense political activity (national politics, as opposed to integrative political participation) and had fostered the development of a political organisation and several radical groups since the mid-1950s (Brynen, 1990b). South Lebanon then played a significant role in the shaping of the Palestinian resistance’s identity, but in the meantime the region itself was under the influence of the resistance movement and turned into a battleground. In this chapter, I will focus on the politicisation of Lebanese– Palestinian diaspora during its time in Lebanon. More specifically, I will look at the ‘golden age’ of the resistance between 1969 and 1982. During this time, South Lebanon played a major role as a vantage ground in the struggle for Palestine and in the shaping of the Palestinian national movement. Moreover, this southern Lebanese experience links the local to the global dimensions of the struggle for a Palestinian state through the symbol of the Palestinian fighter, the fida’i (literally ‘the one who sacrifices himself for the cause’, plural fida’iyyin), and the evolution of the scope of the category it encompasses during this ‘golden age’. Following Kearney (1995), transnationalism – understood as a space both imagined and real where migrants circulate in which all migrant communities (diasporas) sustain a myth of origin and an interest in their homeland – could serve as a framework analysis in this chapter. In this sense, transnationalism is a phenomenon that links diasporas to their homeland in many ways (Basch et al., 1994). One of these ways is political mobilisation in Lebanon, as illustrated throughout the political history of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), or more specifically through the building of a Palestinian identity in exile (Karmi & Cotran, 1999). It is linked to the development of an armed resistance movement and, in the case of Palestinians in Lebanon, to the development of a less territorialised collective identity and the construction of an idealised homeland (Schulz, 2003), which will be explored in more detail in Chapter 5. Community organisations in the diaspora population have always been at the core of Palestinian nationalism and nationalist politics

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(Brand, 1988; Brynen, 1990b). In contemporary Palestinian history, what happened in South Lebanon between the late 1960s and 1982 was in many ways a formative experience. I will focus on the importance of this Lebanese experience for the building and the significance of the figure of the fida’i for Palestinian identity as well as for Lebanese leftist militants. As a former leader put it in 1973 during the golden age of the fida’iyyin: ‘to declare a Palestinian identity no longer means that one is a “refugee” or second-class citizen; rather it is a declaration that arouses pride, because the Palestinian has become the fida’i or the revolutionary who bears arms.’ (Sayigh, 1997: 195). This statement sheds light on the fida’i as a myth, a narrative of the Palestinian fighter. Examining the figure of the fida’i makes it possible to look at history from the perspective of the men who fought on the battlefield and to understand the fluctuations in the word’s definition: how it was used by other Arabs, including Lebanese, and why the fida’i became a transnational icon in the area of southern Lebanon, a porous space historically linked with Palestine (Biger, 2004; Hof, 1984). There are several questions that have to be addressed. How did the fida’i ‘appear’ in Lebanon? How did the local space of southern Lebanon help to create this revolutionary figure? And what was the political scene that favoured its developing, iconic stature? How was it defined (what was the meaning of resistance?), and did this definition change? And finally, how did it influence Lebanese militants during Lebanese Civil War (1975– 90)? I will contend that this symbol of the fida’i underwent a process of ‘Lebanonisation’. This paradoxical process can be explained by showing the fluctuations in the definition of the fida’i over time and in its content. On an ideological level, the revolutionary struggle of the Palestinian movement allowed international mobilisation, which conferred a transnational dimension upon the struggle in the context of the 1970s and thus expanded it far beyond the Palestinian boundaries, as many non-Palestinian partisans appropriated the cause and contributed to its transformation. My aim is to link the physical aspect of the border and borderland area of southern Lebanon with the more symbolic dimension of boundaries, and the construction of and changes in Palestinian identity through the figure of the fida’i. In other words, the Palestinian resistance’s bordering process of South Lebanon followed several steps of de-bordering and re-bordering both space and identity. Although an approach mixing these two dimensions through the lens of

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borders/boundaries has been explored (Donnan & Wilson, 1999; Migdal, 2004), the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon offer an opportunity to reflect on the changing nature of a well-known category of actors, the fida’i, because of a specific borderland context and the (b)ordering effect that the resistance had on South Lebanon. In the next few lines, I will firstly contextualise the appearance of the fida’i on Lebanese political and military scene, as well as the formation and development of the Palestinian resistance movement. Secondly, through Palestinian revolutionary literature, testimonies and narratives of former fida’iyyin, I will investigate what it meant to resist in South Lebanon at the time and the implications were of being a fida’i. The definition and boundaries of this naming will be considered here in order to explain its changing definition. Thirdly, in line with the global dimension of the Palestinian struggle and its local appropriation, I will focus on a specific group of actors within the Palestinian resistance – the student brigade (al-katibe al-tullabiyya) composed of many Lebanese militants – to observe and assess in detail the impact of fida’i ethics. Interviews, as well as several passages by one of the brigade’s theoreticians, Mounir Shafiq, will reveal some of the commitments that were assigned to the fida’iyyin and had a significant moral dimension. The spread of fida’i values and norms contributed to the ordering of South Lebanon along with its bordering (through the armed struggle) and othering (definition of the self and the enemy).

The arrival of resistance fighters in Lebanon: towards a new configuration The symbol is important enough to start with. On 1 January 1965, the Fatah movement launched an attack on Israeli territory from the southern border of Lebanon in order to proclaim its birth and the birth of a Palestinian armed struggle. This action also sought to denounce the existence of the state of Israel because of the spoliation it represented for the Palestinians in exile. The contestation of this political entity included its borders, and by crossing the line this operation symbolically embodied this contestation and the will of those who did it to re-border Palestine by de-bordering Israel. Such operations were unacceptable from Lebanese authorities’ point of view, and Palestinian militants were soon arrested after right-wing Lebanese politicians asked for the

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eradication of any Palestinian armed groups. In the surrounding Arab states, Palestinian combatants were dismissed, viewed as troublemakers and certainly not considered as a serious strategic option against Israel. After the Six-Day War in June 1967 and the breakdown of the Arab armies, a new political configuration for the Middle East emerged in which the Palestinian resistance was to play a significant role (Pearlman, 2012). As Rex Brynen stated, ‘1967 served to stimulate the growth of the fida’iyyin, who were seen as a viable alternative to the failed option of regular military confrontation’ (Brynen, 1990a: 38). Moreover, in the eyes of many Arabs, the Palestinian combatants appeared to be the ones trying to do anything they could, highly motivated as they were (but as yet without much success), to avenge the June disaster (Cobban, 1984). The camp populations became a staunch mainstay of support for the guerrilla warfare that Fatah promoted. Unlike the Palestinian middle class, these former peasants – transformed into a working class and relegated to the slums of the camps – had a radically different experience of the ghurba (the Palestinian diaspora), and so their most important goal was a Palestine by means of a revolution. According to Rosemary Sayigh (1979), the revolutionary profile of the popular peasantry is rooted in the preservation of its traditional peasant values in exile, including the re-organisation of camps around small units (suburbs, streets, group of houses) that mimic their lost villages in Palestine. After the successful battle of Karameh against Israeli troops in March 1968, a large number of volunteers enrolled in Palestinian commando units. One estimate suggests that the number of fighters bearing arms for the Palestinian cause increased from 200 to 2,000 after 1967 and reached 15,000 after Karameh (Hudson, 1969: 300) including women (Peteet, 1991). By the end of 1967, the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), which had previously been opposed to separatist Palestinian ambitions, decided to join the armed struggle under the banner of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). Furthermore, in the PLO, commando members took numerous seats at the National Congress of 1968, and the following year, Fatah took control of the PLO, ‘transforming it into a vehicle of Palestinian nationalism’ (Brynen, 1990b: 208). In many ways, all Arab states now had to take into account the symbolic and military weight of the Palestinian resistance, and all of them hoped to influence the PLO by financially supporting their own Palestinian group (e.g. Saiqa, PFLP-GC, PLA).1 Even President Nasser

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of Egypt began to recognise – and contribute to – the ascendancy of Fatah within the PLO, choosing to back Arafat and encouraging increased autonomy for the PLO, as opposed to the situation under the previous leadership of Ahmad Shukeiri, when the PLO was seen as an Egyptian-driven organisation (El-Rayyes & Nahas, 1977; Sayigh, 1997). This is the wider context for the arrival of the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon, in the aftermath of its defeat in Jordan during Black September. However, Fatah’s strategy of expansion into Lebanon predated these events. The main reason behind this expansion was the advantage of this border crossing for military operations: The more the Jordanian ceasefire line in the Jordan Valley increased Israeli security (Hudson, 1972), the easier it appeared for southern Lebanon’s porous border with Galilee to be used as a way to launch operations (Amos, 1980). South Lebanon provided a more welcoming space, with many hills for shelter, an important Palestinian refugee community and a local population that was pro-Palestinian. As explained by one former Fatah commandant (qaˆ’id) in the ‘Arquˆb region, Lebanese locals, from intellectuals to peasants, were sincerely convinced about the righteousness of the Palestine cause despite their sectarian affiliation (Cimino, 2009). Moreover, a close relationship between Palestinians and Lebanese existed before the forced migration of the Palestinians in 1948 (Hudson, 1997), because of a long history of shared space between north Galilee and southern Lebanon’s Jabal ‘Amil. Many mixed marriages, trade routes and migrations occurred at that time and forged connections above the 1923 border line that separated Lebanon under the French Mandate from Palestine under the British one. Large sections of Lebanese population supported the Palestinian resistance. Cobban (1984: 65) underlined their heterogeneity by pointing out that they ranged from Muslim traditionalists to socialists, trade unionists and Marxists, Christians as well as Muslims. However, two dimensions united this political opposition: the status quo of the Maronites’ political domination and their support for the Palestinian resistance movement. Many in the opposition, including some partisans of Mustapha Sa’ad, the Nasserist leader of Saida, the biggest coastal city in the South, criticised the inappropriate behaviour of some fida’iyyin.2 Still, there was a clear rise in the popularity of the resistance during the national funeral of the first Lebanese martyr, Khalil al-Jamal, who was killed as he was participating in a cross-border operation led by the

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fida’iyyin. The procession numbered hundreds of thousands of citizens and several officials. During the procession, marchers chanted a slogan that would later become a political demand: ‘freedom of action for the guerrilla’ (hurriyat al-‘amal al-fida’i). For Fatah, these indigenous developments were an opportunity and a dilemma, as their own ideology stressed a principle of non-intervention in Arab states’ internal affairs. In any case, the mobilisation targeted the Palestinian refugees first: Palestinian political parties, including the PFLP and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), mobilised the refugees in the 17 camps where they both were well-known, while Fatah targeted students and the General Trade Union of Palestinian Workers. A collaborative social and political environment among the different Palestinian groups, which would lead to an increasingly tense relationship with Lebanese government and confrontation with Lebanese Army, characterised the establishment of Palestinian armed groups in Lebanon. With regard to the local context, most of the population in southern Lebanon – predominantly Shiʽa, but also many other communal groups close to the southern border – was historically heavily dependent on landowners. Until the mid-twentieth century, they lived under a feudal regime due the central state’s lack of interest in this area and a sort of laissez-faire policy of delegation to the local zu’ama, the influential political entrepreneurs (Picard, 2002). By and large, the local population saw state intervention as repression (by the Internal Security Forces (ISF) or by the army). Thus, after the arrival of the Palestinian refugees, many Southerners saw the ISF’s tightening of security control in the South as a means to control them. As a result, a certain solidarity developed between the Palestinian refugees and Lebanese locals, as it seemed that both of them fell prey to the state security apparatus, which created common ground for social and political demands. This part of the country is historically marked by a long leftist tradition, mobilised during the 1958 civil strife under the banner of Arabism, with a strong local alliance between Arab Nationalists, Communists, and the Ba’athists. After 1967, the split between Nasserists and Marxists and the concomitant rise of the Palestinian cause with the phenomenon of the fida’iyyin catalysed social and political demands (Khalil, 2000). A further radicalisation took place after the leftists’ defeat in the 1968 Lebanese parliamentary elections. The legacy

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of the Arab Nationalist Movement became visible in Lebanese formations with the Arab Socialist Action Party close to the PFLP and the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon (OACL) that became close to the DFLP. These formations based on a transnational ideology strengthened the links between Lebanese National Movement (LNM) and the PLO once formal relations between the two had appeared after the Cairo Agreement in November 1969 (see below). In this context, the rural disintegration of the South, the forced migration of the Shiʽa in Beirut’s ‘belt of misery’ (hizam al-bu’s) because of Israeli retaliation bombings and their political marginalization lay the ground for their involvement among Leftist movements (Jurdi Abisaab & Abisaab, 2014). At the same time, in late 1960s, the Movement of the Deprived (harakat al-mahrumin) emerged under the leadership of Musa al-Sadr, an Iranian cleric who had come to Lebanon in the early 1960s and succeeded in mobilising the Shiʽa thanks to a mix of sectarian pride, religious symbols and progressive values (Norton, 1987). Apart from the social class position of the Shiʽi majority, the Shiʽi religious tradition views legitimacy in the Muslim world as having been lost with the murder of Imam Hussein, the grandson of Ali, fourth caliph of Islam, and founder of Shiʽism. Since then, Shiʽi religious and political consciousness has, arguably, been driven by a systematic refusal of external political power (Picard, 1985: 1004). For various reasons, during the first half of the 1970s in South Lebanon, a wider social configuration of Lebanese and Palestinian groups was mobilised under the umbrella of a revolutionary project for society as a whole. In such a context, it is easy to understand why the local population mostly welcomed, fed and helped the fida’iyyin, with information and intelligence regarding the intentions and activities of Lebanese Army as well as Israeli troops. Another reason for the successful establishment of the resistance in South Lebanon can be found in a trigger event: the destruction of several civilian aeroplanes of Lebanese National Company in Beirut by an Israeli commando unit on 28 December 1968. This attack had two major effects in plunging the country into a political crisis that lasted until 1975 with brief intermissions. Firstly, it led to a radicalisation of the pro-Palestinian groups that supported and helped to increase infiltration operations of the Palestinian resistance. Secondly, it widened the gap between the government, Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and rightist

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Christian parties on the one hand and leftist groups, the Palestinian resistance and Muslims and working-class Christians on the other. This radicalisation took place because the LAF deployed heavy weapons against the Palestinian resistance but failed to stop Israeli operations inside Lebanon. The situation turned quite bad in April 1969 when the army shot dead several protesters during a demonstration and thus provoked months of political crisis and a significant divide among Lebanese population. In September of that year, things deteriorated even further when all Palestinian refugees launched a mass protest, ousting ISF, Deuxie`me Bureau officers and Lebanese social workers from the camps (Sayigh, 1994). However, for the resistance and for Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees, the Cairo Agreement changed everything. After a six-month crisis and in the context of increasing pressure on Lebanon from Arab states, it was signed under Egyptian patronage in November 1969 (Picaudou, 1998). The Cairo Agreement cleared up the relationship between Lebanese Army and the resistance first by freeing the 16 UNRWA camps from the heavy hand of the army’s Deuxie`me Bureau. But most importantly, this agreement basically ratified Palestinians’ acknowledgement of Lebanese sovereignty in South Lebanon and of the military actions of the resistance against Israel across the border in coordination with Lebanese Army.3 To put it simply, this agreement intended ‘to reconcile Lebanese sovereignty with the implications of the Palestinian military presence in the country’ (Sirriyyeh, 1976: 79). From that moment on, the main goal in Lebanon for the Palestinian resistance was to secure a sanctuary from which the Palestinian commandos could launch their raids across the southern border inside Israel/Palestine. According to Brynen (1990a) who sketched his reflections on the Palestinian experience in Lebanon, a sanctuary can be defined as a secure base where a group of insurgents is able to organise the political and military infrastructure required to achieve its objectives. Acting as sanctuaries, borderlands play an important role – either externally, as protected zones, or internally, as free zones. This led him to define the host state of the sanctuary as a ‘sanctuary state’, as opposed to the ‘disputed state’ in which guerrillas set up an internal sanctuary against the central power. Host states acting as sanctuaries can be either a political choice or something the state cannot prevent. Several factors can

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influence a state in the decision to host a sanctuary, such as a high level of internal support that the insurgents find with the state, which sometimes includes support and assistance or even the enrolment of national combatants alongside insurgents. In the case of Palestinian resistance in southern Lebanon, the building of such a sanctuary can be read as a bordering process, which implies the spreading of the core values of political commitments among the resistance in the area – an ordering process to reject Israeli othering. But this (b)ordering provoked retaliatory measures from Israel as well as internal opposition in Lebanon from the state, despite insurgents’ efforts to improve the host state’s support for their cause. The relationship with Lebanese authorities, and specially the LAF, was not easy, as there was also a struggle for local sovereignty. As early as mid-March 1970, the resistance slowly expanded in Jouaya and in the Qana district by opening new offices, training camps and arms stores (see Map 1.1). The strenghtening of guerrilla warfare was highlighted when Israel launched an attack on 23 May 1970. The moment they withdrew, the resistance retook the position as if nothing had happened: Arafat brought a battalion from the Syrian Golan that merged with a local unit of fida’iyyin to form ‘The Eagles of ‘Arquˆb’ (al-qita’ nusuˆr al-‘Arquˆb) on the eastern side of the southern borderland. This was a 500-man battalion with heavy weapons, mortars, machine guns, RPG and antiaircraft battery (Sayigh, 1997: 193). In the central region of the borderland, a 300-man battalion was also launching operations, on an almost daily basis, under the name ‘Central Sector’ (al-qita’ al-awsat). In the western area, Fatah set up a 200-man unit of intelligence and armed smuggling into Palestine with its headquarters in the Rashidiyyeh camp on the coast, 12 km south of Tyre. By mid-1970, the number of fida’iyyin on the borderland totalled 1,600. Enrolment in the resistance was growing fast, although the modus vivendi signed in Cairo clearly restricted military actions across the border, and southern Lebanon was a politically marginalised space at the time. After a significant slowdown in 1971, military operations accelerated in 1972 and put the relationship between Lebanese authorities and the resistance at risk when violent Israeli retaliations killed dozens and destroyed villages in South Lebanon. During one of these operations, in February 1972, the LAF succeeded in taking over when Israel withdrew after a four-day war thus replacing the fida’iyyin in their positions in ‘Arquˆb

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(El-Rayyes & Nahas, 1977). Infiltrations and armed operations were almost stopped thanks to LAF pressure in the autumn of 1972. Unfortunately, Israel broke this calm and ignited a new round of confrontation between the resistance and the LAF in the summer of 1973, under pressure from the rightist Lebanese politicians. The trigger was the assassinations of three PLO leaders in Beirut by an Israeli commando unit in April 1973. This led to a major political crisis, and the effective de-legitimisation of Lebanese Army in the eyes of the country’s left – a decisive moment in the breakdown of Lebanese state that would lead to the civil war. During the 1970s, the resistance found a space for itself on Lebanese political scene because of the support it received from the LNM, which developed into a political alliance during the civil war. One can argue that the resistance was trying not to make the same mistakes that had led to its political isolation in Jordan; however, it is clear that these new engagements contradicted Fatah’s doctrine of non-intervention. However, the views of DFLP and PFLP, both of which were influential among Palestinians in Lebanon, ran completely counter to those of Fatah, because they both thought that the revolution had to be Arab before being Palestinian. In the meantime, discontent among Palestinian fida’iyyin vis-a`-vis Lebanese government had dramatically increased the number of fighters participating in crossborder operations. The civil war, which broke out in April 1975, started to change things for the Palestinian resistance the moment the right-wing militias, mainly the Phalangist (katae¨b), stormed and besieged Palestinian camps located in the eastern part of Beirut, an area that had become a sort of Christian fiefdom, in the early part of 1976. The Dbayeh and Karantina camps were quickly sacked and their population expelled to West Beirut before a blockade was imposed on Tel el-Zaatar and Jisr el-Bacha. These attacks on and the clear declaration of war against the Palestinians had an impact on the guerrilla fighters’ core system, as Fatah’s primary political base had always been the refugees living in the camps (Cobban, 1984: 68). From this moment on, the leadership of the resistance and of Fatah, which had tried to keep an open dialogue with all sides, decided to transfer the bulk of their fighting forces from their frontline bases near the southern border northwards to Lebanon in order to take part in Lebanese Civil War against the Phalangists. This involvement alongside the MNL, the Kamal Jumblat-led leftist coalition and the subsequent

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creation of a ‘joint forces’ military command led to an intervention by Damascus with a massive deployment of military troops in early June 1976. For the Palestinians, this move against the MNL –fida’iyyin coalition also put stress on their supply lines to southern Lebanon. If a modus vivendi with Damascus was finally reached in October 1976 to preserve the guerrillas’ freedom of action, the Israelis profited from this opportunity to develop some relationships with Christian villages in southern Lebanon across the border during the spring and summer of 1976. Supplying them with medical assistance and food first, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) soon supported the creation of a surrogate militia under the leadership of former Lebanese Army Major Saʽad Haddad. This counter-(b)ordering initiative from Israel against the Palestinian resistance became efficient when Haddad’s militia took control of the regional capital of Merjayoun, a market town located along the supply route for the Palestinians between the southern Lebanese ports and guerrilla bases in the ‘Arquˆb hills. This military move persuaded the resistance to redeploy its forces and materiel to confront Haddad’s militia. Since then, what was at stake between the IDF and the resistance was guerrilla access to Palestine.

The fida’i, a symbol during the golden age of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon At the time, the Palestinian resistance was perceived as ‘a model of resistance to neo-imperialist domination’ (Cendar, 2000: 70), as Fatah stated in one of its public declarations (1 January 1969) linking the Palestinian struggle to other struggles against colonialism and imperialism around the world. The international ideological framework in which the Palestinian resistance developed was the result of the work of many political activists and theoreticians, including Mao Tse-tung on the invincibility of guerrillas, Frantz Fanon’s defence of armed struggle as the only road to political change and Che Guevara’s ‘foco’ theory, which recommended a warfare strategy based on mobile attack (Chaliand, 1976). For many Palestinians, the Palestinian cause seemed to be part of a broader revolutionary movement, a sort of ‘call of history’ that encouraged an enthusiastic mobilisation. Fanon’s theory of political change through violence also had an immense impact on some political and social segments of Lebanese society in the midst of social and

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political discord regarding the Maronites’ hegemony over the political system. It should be noted that in the first part of the 1970s, Fatah presented the revolutionary dimension of the Palestinian struggle as the beginning of an Arab revolution that would lead to liberation and development (Khader & Khader, 1975). This transnational dimension of the struggle also penetrated ideology. ‘Colonial borders’ became irrelevant and could be used against the imperialist forces, as explained in a PFLP-GC battle report from ‘Arquˆb.4 This political utopia has subsequently been enhanced in songs and poetry; for instance, as Mahmoud Darwish put it, those dealing with the myth of resurrection after death (e.g. martyrdom). This powerful myth served the Palestinian resistance ideology and helped it to mobilise on an international scale by clearly showing newcomers that such commitments required putting the Palestinian cause above their own lives (Carre´, 1972: 51). Three main Palestinian parties supported and enforced a revolutionary ideology within the resistance during that period: Fatah, the PFLP and the DFLP. In Palestine and inside the Palestinian resistance, anti-imperialist ideology was a mix of Marxist – Leninist popular war and class struggle theory and had a big impact. In this ideological context, the resistance became a sort of educational and cultural faction in Lebanon that built the idea – and forged the reality – of an ‘armed people’ thanks to the militarisation of some elements of Lebanese political spectrum. For them, the resistance played a leading role in providing a revolutionary perspective (Khalidi, 1984c). But within the resistance, one can notice several differences between the PFLP – whose aim was a revolution in every Middle Eastern country that would bring peasants and workers to power – and the DFLP – which had the same objectives as the PFLP but emphasised the importance of democracy and rejected any kind of chauvinistic nationalism. The third was Fatah, whose ideology remained nationalistic and which did not challenge the Arab states, given the support the resistance received from several of them. As Carre´ (1993:134) remarked, the variations within the Palestinian resistance ideology – its ordering, as it defined its ideological identity – corresponded with general Arab political tendencies and exemplified a mix of local loyalties and national (qawwmiya) Arab loyalty. For their part, many Lebanese leftist groups agreed with the PFLP’s radical ideology and with Abu Jihad’s radical vision within Fatah. Among the leftists, only Lebanese Communist

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Party (LCP) was torn by a debate around national sovereignty, which some felt was challenged by the Palestinian armed groups in South Lebanon (Mroue´, 2009). The term fida’i attained a high level of symbolic power and became an icon as several Arab leaders used it to legitimise their behaviour. In the statements made by the Palestinian elites or in Palestinian political texts, one can identify several elements that contributed to building this image. First of all, in the National Charter of July 1968, the fida’i appeared to embody the behaviour required of each Palestinian– every citizen had the duty to sacrifice his/her goods and life if necessary until Palestine was liberated. In 1970, a distinction began to be made between commando actions launched by the fida’iyyin and popular action involving a wider struggle that encompassed every possible form of unarmed action. This differentiation between the fida’iyyin as soldiers and the rest of the population as civilians can also be seen in the 1972 PFLP Congress paper, as well as in the attitude of the DFLP, which changed its approach after the military defeat in Jordan that played such a significant role in the leadership’s decision to reorganise the resistance. In 1969, Nayef Hawatmeh, the leader of the DFLP, conjured up a vibrant image of the fida’i that would live long in the popular imagination. He depicted himself as a revolutionary from a poor social background who made a total commitment to the cause and never gained any bourgeois comfort of the kind that would undermine his spirit (Hawatmeh, 1969). On the battlefield in southern Lebanon, all the men I interviewed explained that several fighters ( fida’iyyin) were not Palestinian. Many of them came from other Arab countries, and a significant number of them were in fact Lebanese. During 2011, I collected testimonies from former Palestinian fighters who had been involved in different parts of the resistance and had fought in Lebanon’s southern borderland during the 1970s. Most of them were living in the camps or in the surrounding areas in quite poor conditions, but none of them expressed regret or were overcome by a sense of failure. Also drawing on other literature, several meetings with Palestinian officials and on former Lebanese combatants who fought among Palestinians, I uncovered new perspectives on the notion of the fida’i. Firstly, there were objective signs of the professionalisation of the fida’iyyin. Among other things, they received a regular salary and were

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based in a specific geographical location – in the southern part of the country, near the border – for long periods of time. This looks like a very particular kind of life and was described as such by former fida’iyyin, who told me that it meant ‘no private life’, for the sake of the cause. For many of them, ‘being a fida’i was sacred’, for the simple reason that the Palestinian cause itself was sacred. As Abu S. explained to me: I didn’t have any private life at that time: We were fighting and also losing a lot of our humanitarian sensibility in such an environment. As a team leader, I used to give my men money for the fighters [muqaˆtil], to provide tobacco and food and, once a month, they had permission to go to a town where they were seeing women if they were not married [. . .] Being a fida’i was somehow a concrete thing [. . .] without this rough aspect of life, you ended up with the feeling of psychological emptiness. Being a fida’i meant taking part in the struggle with your own body.5 Secondly, there were specific moral requirements to become a fida’i. As one former regional PLO chief commander put it: You must have a revolutionary attitude to hold a machine gun [. . .] Being a fida’i means first of all to have a cause [al-qaddiyah] to defend, an idea. At the basis of every idea, he added, there is a principle of dignity: To liberate Palestine is a question of dignity, it is the heart of a fida’i’s value.6 Other main characteristics heard during interviews include being honest, understanding that life is important, obeying orders and agreeing that the cause is the most important thing – ‘so it is better for men to be single’. Being able to confront death was also a requirement for volunteers. The fida’i had to be fit and well-trained. The PLO, the resistance in general and the LCP used to send their fighters for military training in the USSR. This shared training ground and political environment created several links among these groups and points of reference that would facilitate military collaboration between them. The numerous military infiltration operations that took place before the appearance of Haddad’s militia in 1976 shed light on the different aspects of the life of a fida’i that are mentioned above.

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Commandos were formed of groups of between six and 12 men, but because of the efficiency of the Israeli reactions and the heavy loss among fida’iyyin, such an organisation was not sustainable, and the size of the groups dropped to between three and six men (Mark, 1970). As bordercrossers, the fida’iyyin embodied the (b)ordering principles of the Palestinian resistance that ranged from ideology to physical investment at the edge of the enemy’s border lines. Abu Khaled, a 63-year-old former local commander of the DFLP and former fighter heading patrols across the border, told me how the combatants mounted and performed infiltrations: Look how things looked like [Abu Khaled makes a drawing of the border line with the fence and the obstacles]: Firstly, the fida’i had to cut the wire, but previously we used to throw small stones on the wire to see if it was electrified. If yes, it was important to destroy the electrical generator before taking any further step. Then we had to cross by foot 3 meters of soil covered with sand. We used to wear protection around our shoes not to leave any traces on the sand that the Israeli patrol would notice. Sometimes we had a ladder to climb over the wire. After the sand, there was a hole [hafra] 3 meters deep, where we used the ladder, too. Then we reached the technical road that we crossed once the patrol had passed. And then we were able to infiltrate Palestine for the proper operation.7 Groups of combatants were divided into two types: the ones carrying heavy weapons, mortars and RPG and the ones tasked with seeking and destroying, who carried the dynamite (Amos, 1980: 203). The crossings happened at night, under certain conditions and with specific orders, explained Abu S., a 69-year-old former fighter affiliated with the PFLP: The fighter [muqaˆtil] was carrying a light and a collapsible ladder, his food and drink, a lighter, a shovel, his gun and grenades. This was not that heavy, around 15 to 20 kilos. The crossing itself was as fast as possible and sometimes lasted only a few minutes. All the infiltration operations took place after collecting intelligence about the enemy’s moves along the border, thanks to local informants. They were also hiding weapons and

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providing information about the Israeli patrols. Fida’iyyin were carrying operations in groups of four or so, in order to protect each other, and in case of casualties they revised or changed the scope of the mission. Operations lasted between several hours and two days. Well, you’d better be a young guy to do this. Me, I did it as I was alive and kicking, strong and I got used to living with little. Generally, a fida’i stayed on the front line for one year. If he stayed and survived longer, after three years he was climbing the hierarchy. Me, I stayed two years fighting in the ‘Arquˆb region and then received a political duty and came back as a battalion leader for five years.8 The definition of the fida’i implies a division of tasks that was developed in Lebanon. All of those interviewed repeated how important it was to separate tasks for the sake of the cause. In the first period, starting in Jordan and lasting approximately until the beginning of Lebanese Civil War in 1975, the fida’i designated all of those committed to the cause who fell under the umbrella of the resistance command. These could include non-fighters and non-Palestinians. The main idea behind this was to show that every man or woman working with the resistance was potentially a fida’i, ready to take up arms to fight once he or she received military training. In the second period, which started after 1975 – more likely, with the involvement of Palestinian fighters in several big battles during the civil war (Tall al-Zaatar, Damour and the South) – a more clearly defined division emerged between civilians and combatants ( fida’iyyin). The PLO’s strategic objective in South Lebanon was to build a real Palestinian armed force as a means to confront the Israeli threat on the battlefields of southern Lebanon (Sayigh, 1997). Consequently, the notion of fida’iyyin during this second period designated a smaller group of specialised men performing military tasks. Among them, however, there were still numerous or at least a significant number of Lebanese fighters, which contributed to the blurring of the boundaries of the definition of fida’i. In other words, from a nationalist understanding focused on the Palestinians as an indistinct group of people, the designation of the fida’iyyin as icons of the resistance shifted to that of a narrow group: the warfare professionals, understood as a transnational category that included combatants from other Arab countries. In this sense, the poster that celebrates Lebanese – Palestinian cooperation

Figure 1.1 ‘Glory to the heroes of Beaufort Castle, symbol of the Lebanese–Palestinian steadfastness’

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during the battle at the Beaufort Castle (Qalat shqif), one of the most glorious shared resistance fights of the 1982 invasion, is telling with regard to the blurring of the boundaries between Palestinians and Lebanese as fida’iyyin (see Figure 1.1). The importance of this intermingling of Lebanese and Palestinians within the resistance can be seen as the consequence of the Jordanian defeat in the aftermath of Black September. Significantly, during the entire 1971 there were not many cross-border operations, because of a preoccupation with a collective self-criticism regarding what had happened in Jordan. In a critical internal paper, the PLO recognised some of the political weaknesses in the resistance’s mobilisation in Jordan and pointed to the lack of a network and of communication between the Palestinian and the Jordanian masses. In the case of Lebanon, the Cairo Agreement laid the foundation for a sort of ‘Lebanonisation’ of the resistance in two ways: through both its commitments with leftist Lebanese groups and the involvement of Lebanon’s Palestinian refugees in the armed struggle, thanks to the freedom of movement this agreement offered. More broadly, the Jordanian experience had a double effect on the structure of the resistance in Lebanon. The creation of a Unified Command and Central Committee unified groups and factions facing adversity and pushed their leaders to seek political alliances with Lebanese political parties or simply reduce tensions with others, such as the Kataeb (at least, before the civil war). This ‘Lebanonisation’ process effectively led to the polarisation of Lebanese political groups that merged the resistance with the National Movement against the rightist parties, mainly after 1973, and, in part, due to the brutal Israeli retaliation policy in the South. It was also encouraged by the decline in Lebanese Army’s legitimacy after Mossad’s assassination of three Palestinian leaders in Beirut. The evolution of the role of the fida’iyyin in the resistance, as a professional group of military men devoted to warfare, is also the result of the political process that happened in 1974. That year, the Palestinian leadership sought international recognition, and the PLO’s National Assembly voted for the ten-point programme that opened the way for PLO/Israeli negotiations.9 A few months later, at the Rabat Arab Summit, the PLO was recognised as the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people. This local recognition eventually brought the PLO

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petrodollars in support of the cause (Khalidi, 1986: 32). This allowed the resistance in Lebanon to buy weapons and to create a quasi-state in the southern part of the country, which was denounced by Lebanese Front as ‘a state within the state’ (Brynen, 1990a) following the Israeli labelling of the Southern guerrillas stronghold as a ‘Fatherland’. This was also in part a result of Israeli pressure on southern Lebanon after the establishment of its Christian surrogate militia along the border under Major Haddad’s authority. The professionalisation of the fida’iyyin as a proper Palestinian army structure was given a strong boost by the Litani Operation in March 197810 and the subsequent creation of a 10kilometre deep ‘security belt’ inside Lebanese territory, following the 1949 border line, occupied and controlled by Haddad’s surrogate militia under the banner of the Army of Free Lebanon. The civil war had another effect on Palestinian combatants. It broke the idealistic and iconic image of the fida’i by marginalising intellectuals and undermining the moral aspects of the fida’i figure (due to corruption, lack of discipline, etc.). The decline in the iconic value of this figure also resulted from the collapse of the National Movement after the assassination of Kamal Jumblat in 1977 and rising tension with the Shiʽi Amal movement that had increasingly come under Syrian patronage after the disappearance of its founder, Musa al-Sadr, in 1978. The common image of the fida’i as a myth full of hope and pride had effectively faded from the minds of Lebanese actors by the end of the 1970s, before the Israelis crushed the Palestinian resistance during their brutal invasion of Lebanon in 1982.

The fida’i as a model for the resistance fighter: the case of al-katibe al-tullabiya (the student brigade) For a limited period of time, the various Palestinian groups tended to identify the actions of the fida’iyyin differently – as a people’s liberation war or a people’s war, as theorised with regard to Vietnam and China, respectively. As Yezid Sayigh concluded, ‘Fatah asserted that fida’i action is evolving, inescapably, into a total people’s liberation war, and the PFLP concurred that developing fida’i action into a people’s war is a principal issue that forms the core of our strategy’ (Sayigh, 1997: 197). Despite their differences, all factions held a common view of Israel’s military predominance, which led groups to favour guerrilla war as a strategy,

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which is a nonlinear technique practised by militias or partisans. A comparison with the Algerian struggle, where the ‘depth of land’ was seen as a strategic resource, convinced Fatah’s leaders to extend the fight against Israel to the borderlands close to Palestine and to use the adjacent countries such as Lebanon as sanctuaries and potential base areas. The conception of Israel as the stronghold of Western imperialism facilitated the identification of the Palestinian cause as one that is antiimperialist. In the image of the Other (the imperial power or its local surrogate, like Israel), the principle of group identity building found a means to define itself by opposing and rejecting the othering. This ideological context of the early 1970s saw the emergence of the student brigade (al-katibe al-tullabiya), established in 1973 when Lebanese student members of the Communist Action Organization in Lebanon (OACL) merged with a Maoist group named the People’s Revolutionary Core Group (Nuwat al-sha’ab al-thawri). It gathered Lebanese activists and Palestinian senior executives opposed to the moderate tendencies that Arafat had adopted in 1973– 74 (Dot-Pouilard, 2008: 7). It also involved another Maoist group that was incorporated into Fatah, the Federation of Marxist –Leninist Cells (Fidiraliyyat al-khalaya al-marxiya al-lininiya).11 A dissident group of OACL, the People’s Faction (al-qita’ al-sha’abiy), eventually also joined the brigade for the first two years. Commenting on his commitment to the Palestinian cause and why his group moved to Fatah, a former leading figure of OACL explained: At that time, we had a theoretical debate around the core element of the Palestinian cause and the resistance for Lebanese society and its revolution. For us, the Palestinian Revolution had a leverage effect on Lebanese left [. . .] And we were trying to spread this idea among the masses. There was also another statement: the breakdown of the official left – and as a consequence for us, a break with the USSR – and the adoption of the Maoist ideology. The first Israeli invasion on 16 September 1972 produced a division inside OACL. We, as the ‘student sector’, were in favour of the military struggle: We wanted to go south to fight Israel. We used to say that OACL’s ‘raison d’eˆtre’ was to join the Palestinian cause, and so we must join the resistance to fight on the southern border. We then chose to

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follow this line in contacting Fatah, and we went to the South to join the struggle.12 Ideologically, this ‘student brigade’ (al-katibe al-tullabiya) was trying to bring about a utopia that would involve commitment to the Palestinian struggle in South Lebanon. What characterised Lebanese members of the brigade was their commitment not to sectarian or local Lebanese politics but to the Palestinian cause, understood as the core dimension of the anti-imperialist struggle in the Middle East. The three mottos of the brigade were ‘Palestine’s liberation, Arab unity and struggle against imperialism’, but the core aspect that all the brigade’s members acknowledged was the Palestinian cause as the primary cause of the Arab nation, as Mounir Shafiq, one of the co-founders of the brigade, explained (Shafiq, 1994: 88). This shaped the core identity of the brigade and defined its commitment to the Palestinian cause as an ordering principle that guided its actions. Within Fatah, the brigade was independent and critical towards the resistance leadership, as it was following Abu Jihad’s critical views on the ten-point programme of Arafat at the NPC of 1974. Viewed from the outside, however, the brigade considered it its duty to defend the political choices and options that the leaders of the resistance had chosen. On the ground, the brigade members often acted as middlemen between the local population in the South, the resistance and Amal.13 Their members, who came from several countries, were well-known and appreciated in southern Lebanese villages for being reliable, honest, committed and not compromising their principles. In fact, they effectively incarnated the fida’i model that the Palestinian command would eventually use as a political resource (for local actors, allies and the society). At its peak, the brigade had several thousand members and several hundred senior military personnel. They all believed in a close link between ideology and military commitment in order to ground their theoretical insights in practical action. Saoud al-Mawla, who stayed with the brigade in the southern Lebanese borderland between 1976 and 1978, recalled his political work with the local population and their enrolment in the struggle as follows: ‘In 1978, with the brigade, we stood fast in Bint Jbeil against the Israeli Army, and we had 14 martyrs, all Lebanese but from several sects.’ Michel, a Lebanese

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Maoist and a senior member of the resistance close to Abu Jihad, gave his analysis: In 1978, after the Israeli invasion [i.e. Litani Operation], several groups of the brigade were acting behind the enemy lines. We also had some groups fighting in the Shouf Mountain, near Sofar. For me, going to the South to fight Israel was the beginning of a work on primary contradiction.14 In his book, theorising this experience, Mounir Shafiq mentioned several qualities required for a member of the brigade: ‘courage without limit, a big soul, the capacity to be a hard worker’, and he added, ‘a strong will, an independent character, and being ready for sacrifice (martyrdom)’ (Shafiq, 1994: 8). He also emphasised moral and ideological qualities and paid particular attention to the lifestyle of the members of the brigade in order to create a reliable combatant. The recruitment process, Michel explained, was focused on these aspects: ‘the selection was tight, because this brigade was supposed to be a model of correct behaviour in everyday life on the front line, as well as in town’.15 All of this was meant for the brigade to be seen as a palliative movement (harakat al-sahiyya) whose members acted as a benchmark (model) for others in the resistance. As several of my interviewees put it, a certain ethic was at stake, because the brigade was trying to promote an ideal, Weberian type of ‘revolutionary man’ who had to be seen as an example to follow. One of the themes that several actors highlighted in Shafiq’s book is the struggle against corruption, because it was widespread and started to damage the iconic figure of the fida’i and more largely the popular support the resistance enjoyed in the southern Lebanese borderland. At the core of the system of fida’i ethics was the idea of self-sacrifice, not as a goal in itself but as a way to act consciously and independently for the sake of the Palestinian cause. Shafiq explained it in these words: As a fighter of the brigade, we had to go into the most difficult places to fight and avoid entering into fighting among ourselves. It was important to be ready to sacrifice our lives in order to stay strong. Another aspect was to avoid serving any type of political interests and keep our moral integrity, so although we were following Fatah, we stayed independent and critical towards it.

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Sometimes, we had a different assessment and reached different conclusions, and so acted differently. I remember in 1976, we decided by ourselves to go fighting in the South, that meant leaving our military strongholds in the Shouf facing the Syrians. I remember having explained this decision with the argument that our goal was not primarily to fight against the Syrians or against other Lebanese but against Israel. As the South was then falling into the hands of Saʽad Haddad and because we were reaching an agreement at that time of the civil war, we decided the brigade had to go to the South.16 Therefore the brigade was instrumental in widening the significance of the fida’i, giving it a transnational Arab reference (because of its multinational composition – Palestinian and other Arab members) and becoming a vivid testimony of what an Arab resistance struggle – characterised by a revolutionary spirit and self-denial – could ultimately be. Michel, recounting the siege of Beaufort Castle where fierce Lebanese–Palestinian resistance blocked the Israeli Army during its 1982 invasion, summarised it as follows: ‘The brigade? They were fida’iyyin.’ Before it was dismantled, the student brigade had succeeded in kidnapping six Israeli soldiers near the town of Bhamdoun in September 1982, after the Israeli invasion. This act touched a nerve with the Israeli Army, and one year later Israel agreed to exchange the six soldiers for 4,600 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners detained in South Lebanon or Israel (Al-Taher, 2013). While the 1982 Israeli invasion signalled the physical disappearance of the fida’iyyin the figure of the fida’i survived, particularly among fighters. This happened when brigade members spread to the various secular or Islamist movements of Lebanese resistance that appeared in the aftermath of the Israeli occupation of Beirut and, later on, when the brigade transformed itself inside the occupied Palestinian territories into al-saraya al-jihaˆd al-islami, the precursor of the Hamas movement. (Dot-Pouillard, 2008: 19).

Conclusion By considering the golden age of Palestinian resistance in Lebanon, I have highlighted the construction and fluctuations of the image of the fida’i through its concrete everyday life experience in (b)ordering

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southern Lebanon as a vantage ground for resistance during that period. My main thesis is that the fida’i, the key figure of the Palestinian national struggle, experienced a process of ‘Lebanonisation’ through the struggle that developed in South Lebanon and thus affirmed its transnational identity more strongly. To explain this transformation, I have shown that considering the historical moment of this figure’s appearance and its ideological significance after the 1967 defeat helps us to understand why the resistance moved to a new location in Lebanon’s southern borderland and also the impact it subsequently had on leftist groups and on the local Lebanese society: the borderlanders. The socio-political context explains why and how this Palestinian resistance ideology made sense to Lebanese Southerners and succeeded in ordering large swathes of land. The bordering process of the Palestinian resistance rallied Lebanese locals to support the cause and get involved in the resistance struggle, while a counter-(b)ordering process monitored by Israel in Christian villages along the border led to some former Lebanese soldiers of these villages forming a surrogate militia that hindered resistance operations across the border. I have also illustrated what being a fida’i meant to various people, with the analysis of documents and through interviews, by asking former fida’iyyin what it meant ‘to resist’ in South Lebanon at that time. In this way, I traced the fluctuations of the meaning of the fida’i definition over time and in context. Contrary to the classical view in which the concept of the fida’iyyin is joined with Palestinian identity, I see it as effectively transnational, although strongly associated with the Palestinian resistance. In the meantime, the idea put forward several times during interviews that all Palestinians were fida’iyyin has been challenged. We have seen that the meaning of the word narrowed from the middle of the 1970s onwards, as the term gradually began to describe only men-at-arms: soldiers. I have shown that this process accelerated after they became politically involved in Lebanon and also as a result of the professionalisation of the role of fighters during the building of a more classical Palestinian Army. The ‘bordering effect’ of othering clearly started with this slow transformation of the fida’i, the iconic figure of the Palestinian resistance. Finally, on an ideological level, the Palestinian revolutionary struggle encouraged an international mobilisation of its ranks, which conferred a transnational dimension upon its struggle. In the case study of al-katibe al-tullabiyya, the testimonies of former militants make this transnational

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Map 1.1

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The emergence of the Palestinian resistance in South Lebanon.

dimension clear. Together with the distinctive position of the theoretician of the brigade, Mounir Shafiq, they show the impact of fida’i ethics on Lebanese fighters, an ordering process visible through their commitment and their belief in the vanguard mission that the notion of fida’i was intended to incarnate. In short, both ideological and political dynamics have shaped the characteristics and features of the figure of the fida’i. This idealistic and romantic representation of the anti-imperialist struggle deeply affected the involvement of Lebanese actors in the armed struggle against Israel and so contributed to the (b)ordering of South Lebanon as a revolutionary stronghold and a hotspot for the armed confrontation. Unfortunately, this transformation of the southern Lebanese borderland led to war in many villages through indiscriminate Israeli retaliations on civilians. This brutality ended when segments of borderlanders turned their backs on the Palestinians, and for some of them supporting the surrogate militia Israel succeeded to forge among local Christian villagers living on the border. In this sense, southern Lebanon turned from being a vantage ground for building the powerful image of the Palestinian fighter into a quagmire and a pitfall for the Palestinian resistance as a result of the Israeli invasions of 1978 and 1982.

CHAPTER 2 THE STRUGGLE FOR THE SOUTH:ISRAELI OCCUPATION AND LEBANESE RESISTANCE

A major characteristic of South Lebanon between the mid-1970s and mid-1980s is the logic of Israel’s military occupation, understood here as a major (b)ordering attempt over Lebanese territory. It started with the rampant ‘satellisation’ of the Christian border villages in 1976 and 1977, which included the creation of a local surrogate militia, followed by the 1978 invasion that helped to secure a territorial stronghold for this group of combatants. This process reached its zenith with the massive 1982 invasion that shone a clear light on Israel’s interest in the southern part of Lebanon as a territorial resource for its own purposes (security, water, strategic locations). These steps do not preclude references to the territorial strategy that the Zionist movement used in Palestine, which is based on Jewish domination over a space before its colonisation (Chagnollaud & Souhia, 2008). One has to remember that the occupation of the Golan Heights (Al-Julan) in 1967 and its annexation in 1981 spread fear among Arabs about the expansionist designs of the Israeli state. A few similarities and differences with the situation on the South Lebanese borderland will help to understand the various dynamics that resulted on the ground. The first aspect that the two regions have in common is the strategic interest they represent for the Jewish state as a water resource (Kipnis, 2013). A second aspect concerns their high locations along the eastern Mediterranean coast with respect to their neighbourhoods: the Shebaa

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Farms and the surrounding hills overlook the international border with Lebanon, while the Golan dominates the Hula Valley. They also offer privileged access to either the Beqaa or Damascus. The hills in the South Lebanese area and Jabal al-Sheikh (Mount Hermon), the highest mountain, offer a wider strategic depth over Lebanon and can protect the lower plateaux of Galilee. The social component that important religious minorities represent can be seen as another feature common to the two regions. Both are multisectarian places with Sunnis, Christians and Druze, although the Shiʽa are the most numerous in southern Lebanon’s Jabal ‘Amil (at least 60 per cent of the local population), while the Golan is home to other minorities such as the Alawites, Circassians, Armenians and Bedouins. One difference between the two regions is the Palestinian refugees who found shelter in great numbers in South Lebanon’s main towns (Saida, Tyre, Nabatieh). But the major difference comes from the dramatic fate of the local inhabitants of the Golan in 1967 – most of the 153,000 Syrians were expelled, and only 4 per cent of them, mostly Druze, were able to stay1 – and from what happened to the main locality, Al-Qunaytra, which Israel destroyed the moment the Syrian –Israeli disengagement agreement was signed (31 May 1974). The subsequent colonisation and annexation of the Golan (in 1981) traumatised the surrounding states. Even though no states have ever recognised its annexation, the Golan’s total integration in Israel’s economic, cultural, military and political sphere of influence is worrisome, as it tends to show that strength is paying, and international law cannot be enforced against Israel. Another similarity that the two regions share is their peripheral location, the weak development of both the Golan and Jabal ‘Amil with respect to the central state power and their marginality regarding state investments towards the people, the land and local infrastructures. Both borderland spaces also met previous Israeli interests, clearly expressed by the Zionist proposal at the Versailles Conference in 1919. At that time, the Jewish movement envisioned including a large territory running from Saida on the coast to Rashaya in the South Beqaa Valley, which would include the entire Golan area as well as the Jabal al-Sheikh mountain based on religious motives but with the pragmatic idea of having a viable land in terms of water resources (see Map I). The preventive war of 1967 allowed Israel to occupy the Golan but not Jabal ‘Amil, as Lebanese government chose to keep a low profile once the

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battle had begun.2 But contrary to the Egyptian government, with whom Israel succeeded in obtaining peace negotiations in exchange for the retrocession of the occupied Sinai Peninsula, the Syrians refused to even recognise Israel, referred to the UN resolutions and demanded the liberation of its occupied territory in the Golan. Although the 1973 Yom Kippur War seemed to offer an opportunity for Syria to recover its territory, it resulted in the disengagement agreement of 1974 that paradoxically allowed Israel to continue its annexation vision, under pressure from its right wing. Because of the Yom Kippur War, from the Syrian point of view, ‘Lebanon entered into the orbit of a rejuvenated and expanded Eastern Front strategy proposed by Damascus in the wake of the conclusion of the first Egyptian – Israeli Disengagement Agreement’ (Salloukh, 2005: 1). This front aimed at protecting Syria from any Israeli manoeuvres through the Beqaa Valley, Syria’s soft underbelly. The occupation that occurred in Lebanon happened in a really different context from that of the Golan Heights, notwithstanding the abovementioned similarities. The first and most important difference results from the strong Palestinian armed guerrilla presence and the politicisation of a significant segment of Lebanese population that supported the Palestinian cause and its operations across the border. Another difference is due to the context of the beginning of the Lebanese Civil War and the subsequent breakdown of Lebanese state and its army (El-Khazen, 2001). A third difference is the formation of a Lebanese resistance movement comprising several groups, from Communists to Islamists, that cooperated in mounting operations and compelled Israel to make a strategic, staged withdrawal between 1983 and 1985. The spirit of resistance is not specific to the Middle East; it is the relationship between people and power that is at stake in this region of the world (Tripp, 2013) and must be investigated as such. As we will see in this chapter, the Israeli strategy in Lebanon has been a key factor in South Lebanon’s fate since the 1970s. IDF invasions and military occupations generated local and regional resistance and mobilisation and stirred up comparisons to the Israeli occupation of the OPT. Some differences with the OPT have been underlined as key elements of the specificity of the South Lebanese context of resistance, including the many national disparities (in religion, the economy and the military) and the changes in the status of Israeli soldiers in both territories (Kuttab, 1985).

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In the following pages, I want to illustrate how Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon has built on the support and help of local Christian inhabitants living in the border villages against the Palestinian combatants and their supporters in other Muslim Lebanese borderland villages. It is quite evident here that the process of othering fuelled animosity between sects and villages and served as a hegemonic strategy over a piece of land for Israel alone. Lebanese resistance, for its part, assembled several groups of Lebanese militants as well as some Palestinian fida’iyyin, who staged a popular struggle that eventually succeeded in expelling the IDF troops from the southern borderland, with the exception of a strip of land (850 km2 in size, located along the border) that remained occupied until 2000. The historical sequence studied here covers the period between what historians of Lebanese Civil War3 call ‘the war in the South’ (1976) and the three-stage Israeli withdrawal that ended in 1985, although the logic of both the occupation and resistance will sometimes require extending the spectrum of historical events to before and after these specific dates.

Battleground in the South, 1976 – 82 ‘The crux of the Israeli policy was to hold Lebanese government and various Lebanese groups accountable for the PLO’s military activities’ (Sahliyeh, 1986: 4). After all, this strategy had previously worked against Syria and Jordan, both of which succeeded in subduing the PLOinspired military activities that had been emanating from their territories. In addition to its policy of reprisals against Palestinian positions and its occasional targeting of Lebanese civilian symbols (everyone remembers the spectacular destruction of several aircraft of Lebanon’s Middle East Airlines on the tarmac of Beirut Airport on 28 December 1968), Israel initiated a policy of recruiting local allies to stop the infiltrations of Palestinian commandos across its northern border and more generally to fight the PLO’s troops, thus protecting Israel’s northern area from infiltrations by Palestinian combatants. As early as 1975, Israel began to covertly support the mostly Christian Lebanese Phalanges Party with regular meetings thanks to Mossad officers in Jounieh and to train Christian soldiers of Lebanese Forces in Israel (Abou Khalil, 1992). The Israelis saw the Christians in Lebanon as a familiar religious community among the Arabs to set up a strategic

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alliance against Arab Muslims; and since the time of David Ben Gurion, Lebanon had been seen as a possible ally in the region, provided it found a Christian leader whom it would also support financially, thus following Moshe Dayan’s recommendation (Peretz, 1994: 112). In June 1976, the second year of the civil war, considering the clear imbalance of power in favour of Lebanese National Movement (LNM) and its Palestinian allies, the Syrian leadership decided to intervene militarily in Lebanon after Hafez al-Assad had claimed that the Phalangists’ leader, Pierre Gemayel, had asked for his help. In fact, Syria’s intervention in the conflict was less to support the Christian right-wing militias and more to stop the leftist/Palestinian alliances, control its environment and impose a balance of power under Syrian patronage in Lebanon (Khalidi, 1984: 261). This invasion can be seen as a pre-emptive measure to avoid any imbalance among Lebanese factions that could drive Israel to intervene, weaken its Eastern Front strategy and isolate its regional position (Salloukh, 2005). By the fall of 1976, after 19 months of fighting and at the end of the ‘two-year war’, the guerrilla movement had been considerably weakened after losing hundreds of members and supporters, while Syria emerged from the Cairo Arab Summit (October 1976) with a de facto mandate to interpose and control Lebanese military scene. Under the banner of the Arab Deterrent Force4 (ADF), the Syrian troops deployed in all parts of Lebanon, ‘except to the south of the “Red Line” drawn by the Israelis across southern Lebanon as the southern limit of ADF deployment’ (Cobban, 1984: 82). In the aftermath of the Riyadh and Cairo summits that brought an Arab-sponsored ceasefire, the PLO had to find a new modus vivendi with the ADF. One of the consequences of Syria’s intervention in Lebanese Civil War was the return of Christian militias to East Beirut (backed by Damascus) and subsequently the strong clashes with the LNM that precipitated an exodus of many Beirutis to the still peaceful South. These refugees accused the Palestinians and the LNM of being responsible for their fate. Another consequence of the civil war was the breakdown of Lebanese Army Forces (LAF) and the subsequent return of demobilised Christian soldiers to their hometowns in the South (Beydoun, 1992: 69). Overrepresented in the army, people from the rural areas and particularly from the Akkar (North) and Jabal ‘Amil (South) felt frustrated with events and abandoned by the state at a time when there was also a shortage of

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resources. Faced with the breakdown of the state and a security vacuum, a formerly anti-Palestinian local force named the Army’s Partisans (Ansaˆr al-jaysh), created before the civil war, sped up the militarisation of several Christian southern border villages that felt threatened by some pro-Palestinian Muslim villages. In this context of deprivation, Israel offered some health care, food/ water supply and even work permits to several of the Christian villages.5 This new relationship was built by Israel as a strategy to create a dependency of the Christian villages, thus weakening their previous relationships with Muslim villages. Christian Phalangist militiamen with heavy weapons arrived from Israel6 to mobilise the former LAF Christian soldiers to open a new line of confrontation with the pro-Palestinian villages, even though some villages (like Ain Ebel) had had very good relationships with their Muslim neighbours. By the end of the summer of 1976, most of the Christian villages were under the spell of the Israelis because they had received full weaponry, food supply and military training (Beydoun, 1992: 71). In just two years (1975–77), Israel and its Labour government invested $150 million to build up Maronite forces in Beirut and in the South. This strategy had two objectives: without directly intervening, Israel aimed to weaken the PLO and oppose any Syrian designs on establishing hegemony over Lebanon (Sahliyeh, 1986: 5). The bombing of pro-Palestinian villages by the Army’s Partisans started in September 1976, and a group of militiamen under the command of a dissident, Lebanese Major Saʽad Haddad, moved from the hilltop village of Qleia and took control of the army barracks in the regional capital, Marjayoun, a formerly prosperous inland market town whose Christian population used to support the Palestinians. The positioning of Haddad’s headquarters in this town cut the Palestinian resistance’s strategic supply route to the ‘Arquˆb region. When the Palestinian resistance redeployed its forces and materiel back to the South, Haddad’s group took advantage of the situation to mobilise the poor villagers on the border who had borne the brunt of Israel’s successive, harsh rounds of retaliation since 1968 and blamed the Palestinians for their distress. Haddad’s coercive tactics started to turn the villagers from the South – even former supporters of the Palestinian guerrillas – into a deadly division of Southern villages against each other, burning Sunni and Shiʽi villages to the point of transforming a place like Khiam, a pro-Palestinian multisectarian village, into a heap of ruins and a training

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ground for Haddad’s troops (Beydoun, 1992: 73). In other words, by the time the first round of Lebanese Civil War concluded at the end of 1976, a war in the South had broken out between the Israelis and their local allies on the one hand and the Palestinians and their allies on the other. This confrontation between two rival (b)ordering processes shaped by two strong political identities in a confrontation over land, namely the Palestinians and the Israelis, built and rejected othering; moreover, this agonistic vision spread between Lebanese Christian and Muslim villages. In the early months of 1977, the resistance reinforced its units of combatants in the South ‘to the same strength as that which they had enjoyed before the Fateh leadership’s decision of January 1976 to build up their military presence further north’ (Cobban, 1984: 83). The coming to power of the Likud coalition in 1977 further consolidated Israeli links with the Christian Maronites, as the IDF took a more active part in the fight against the Palestinian forces in South Lebanon. Egyptian President Anwar Sadat’s decision to sign a peace treaty with Israel forced the PLO to radicalise its position, as most of the Arab countries strongly condemned Sadat’s behaviour and viewed it as treason. At the subsequent Arab Summit in Tripoli (Libya), the participants asked Syria to halt its relationship with the Christian militias of Lebanese Front to guarantee a line of defence in South Lebanon. However, the main outcome of this summit was the creation of a body called the Steadfastness and Confrontation Front (Jabhaˆt al-sumuˆd wa al-tasaddi). As a consequence on the ground in South Lebanon, the LNM, which had seen its leader, Kamal Jumblatt, assassinated in the spring of 1977, was rising from the ashes with the goal of creating a central Lebanese authority to preserve the country’s Arab identity and protect the resistance (Petran, 1987: 241). The PLO intensified its collaboration with leftist groups and triggered bitter military confrontations with more violent infiltrations in Israel that culminated in a Fatah commando entering Israel by boat on 11 March 1978 and hijacking a bus on the main Israeli coastal highway, leaving 37 dead, including the six members of the commandos. Under the pretext of this operation, Israel launched ‘Operation Litani’, throwing 25,000 troops into a full-scale invasion7 that left scores of Lebanese villages devastated and some 2,500 dead, most of them civilians. Some analysts immediately saw a relationship between the Egyptian peace policy that had freed the Israeli military from the Sinai

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front to concentrate almost entirely on targets along Israel’s northern border. For three months, Israel occupied an area in South Lebanon that stretched 40 km inland, all the way up to the Litani River (see Map 2.1). This occupation resulted in heavy air strikes against Palestinian positions north of the Litani. During the last step of its military withdrawal, late in June of that year, Israel turned over a 10-kilometre ‘security zone’ to its Christian allies led by Lebanese Major Saʽad Haddad. By refusing to heed UN Resolution 425, which asked for the IDF’s full withdrawal and UN monitoring of the borderland up to the international border, Israel revealed the main goal of its invasion: the consolidation of the ‘security zone’ thanks to the territorial unification of the three enclaves that Haddad’s militiamen controlled and patrolled. For their part, the remains of Lebanese Army under the lead of President Elias Sarkis tried to deploy but was never granted access to the border nor to the occupied zone that Haddad ruled with the help of the IDF and some detachments of Phalangist Party militiamen ‘sent down from the Maronite heartland further north to sharpen their military skills in the south’ (Cobban, 1984: 98). This new situation on Lebanese soil altered the previous modus vivendi between ADF and Lebanese Front militias in eastern Beirut and the Christian enclave to the north. This led to the ADF/Syrian forces’ violent shelling of the Christian Beiruti suburb of Ashrafieyh in 1978 and a closer alliance between the Phalangist/Lebanese Forces and Israel. Under international pressure and with the goal of deploying its troops in South Lebanon by mid-April 1979, Lebanese Parliament decided to reform the LAF. One aspect of this reform was to put an end to the state cover protecting Saʽad Haddad and his associate Sami Chidiaq, the two renegade officers serving in Israel’s surrogate militia in South Lebanon. A former deputy, Albert Mansour, raised the issue of bringing to light the existence of an Army Intelligence office (under the direct supervision of President Sarkis) that was in touch with two high-ranking officers, Haddad and Chidiaq, whom they provided with information, orders and salaries (Petran, 1987: 244). On 14 March 1979, the reform went through in Lebanese Parliament, and the LAF moved southward, where Haddad’s forces confronted them and proclaimed that the border strip was under their authority as ‘Free Lebanon’.8 This anti-constitutional move forced President Sarkis to expel Haddad from the LAF and charge him with treason. One year later, Israeli Prime Minister Menachem

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Begin recognised Haddad’s militia under the label of the ‘Free Lebanese Army’, a militia of between 2,200 (Jaber, 1999) and 3,000 troops (Petran, 1987: 251) covering a strip of land along the international border, 90 km long, 8– 10 km wide and home to approximately 100,000 inhabitants. The full-scale war that affected South Lebanon in 1979 led to vast destruction, the deaths of thousands of people, ruined local economies (affecting the tobacco industry) and caused an exodus of 250,000 people. In January 1980, Lebanese government provided the following statistics regarding South Lebanon: 25,000 houses partially damaged; 10,000 completely destroyed; 10 villages erased and five main cities severely damaged (Tyre, Nabatieh, Hasbaya, Bint Jbeil and Tibnine). Although the exact number of human lives lost was unknown, the figure was in the thousands, and more than 10,000 orphans and more than 3,000 families were without any support. The International Committee of the Red Cross estimated that 80 per cent of villages in the South had been damaged to various degrees since the beginning of the confrontation in 1976 (Petran, 1987: 254). The same year, the success of the Iranian Revolution caused much rejoicing among the Palestinian ranks, and Yasser Arafat was the first leader to visit Tehran on 17 February 1979 after a new slogan started to appear in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon: ‘Today Iran! Tomorrow Palestine!’ The expected constitution of an Eastern Front thanks to the recent reconciliation between Damascus and Baghdad fell apart when Saddam Hussein brutally eliminated his rivals and replaced Hassan al-Bakr as president in July 1979. Soon, the Iraqi relationship with Damascus and then with Tehran worsened to the point of open war, which erupted between Iran and Iraq when Saddam Hussein sent his troops across western Iran’s border in September 1980. Israel took advantage of these internal divisions among its enemies to put pressure on the Palestinian guerrillas and their allies in Lebanon. The strongholds of the resistance in the South and in Beirut were frequently hit, by boat and by plane, following the new pre-emptive defence policy that Israeli Defence Minister Ezer Weizman promoted in January 1979. As it dominated Lebanese skies and roamed in its waters, Israel was rendering any Syrian attempt to contest its domination over South Lebanon suicidal. The region in question refers to the area beyond a ‘red line’ brokered by the US (see Chapter 7) that defined the South as a no-go area

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for Syrian troops and a free-fire zone for the Israelis and the Haddad surrogate militia. The borderland became a constant battlefield, as Israel kept shelling Muslim villages and even towns like Sidon and Tyre with the help of Haddad’s surrogate militia. This policy had simple aims: to deepen the rift between the PLO and the local Lebanese, including the Shiʽi peasants who ended up paying a heavy price, thus compelling the local Lebanese to evict Palestinian fida’iyyin from their areas (Reilly, 1982). But as Cobban (1984: 108) explains, ‘The Israelis launched repeated and damaging air, land and sea raids against the PLO/Joint Forces positions throughout 1981 but were ultimately unable [. . .] to dent them significantly.’ In April 1981, the Syrians moved batteries of SAM-6 air defence missiles into the east Lebanese Beqaa Valley, which shows how far the struggle between Syria and Israel progressed for influence over Lebanon. The Israelis postponed their decision to destroy these batteries with air strikes because of bad weather, and in the meantime US diplomacy intervened to avoid any direct Israeli –Syrian confrontation. Newly elected US President Ronald Reagan sent his special envoy, Philip Habib, to solve the crisis. At the same time, in Lebanon, the cycle of Israeli– PLO violence reached its most egregious climax to date with air strikes on 10 July and retaliation shelling by the Joint Forces on northern Israeli settlements. New air strikes resulted in a rising death toll over the following days, reaching 200 deaths during the bombing of a single building in Beirut’s Fakhani district on 17 July 1981. In order to return to peace, UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim sent a personal message to Yasser Arafat asking for a PLO agreement to a ceasefire. On the same day, Reagan sent a firm message to Begin with the same request. Both parties agreed to the request, which was a clear indication of the PLO’s acceptance of the UN as a mediator. For the US, this event marked the most explicit recognition of the necessity of involving the PLO in issues relating to war and peace in the Middle East. Ahmed Jibril’s PFLP –General Command did not feel bound by this agreement and continued to shell the area in the South under the control of Saʽad Haddad. ‘Two days later, Arafat met with Jibril, in the presence of Lebanese leftist Muhsin Ibrahim’ (Cobban, 1984: 112) the leader of OACL, and by 29 July the shelling had stopped, while clashes between Fatah and PFLP-GC occurred in Lebanon’s southern areas. The different sides did not understand the ceasefire in the same way. While the PLO

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claimed it covered nothing outside South Lebanon, Israel claimed it covered any action taken against Israeli targets anywhere in the world. For Israel, the expansion of the crisis in South Lebanon crossed all borders, while for the PLO it was confined to South Lebanon. Strategic reasons can explain the two sides’ differing interpretations of the ceasefire. The PLO was interested in continuing its land incursions and guerrilla war across the international border, while Israel sought a pretext to launch a massive retaliation that would enable the IDF to crush the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon. During the fall of 1981, a serious crisis emerged between the Syrian leadership and the PLO when the latter crafted a peace plan with the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia known as the Fahd Plan.9 Bypassing the Syrian regime, it aroused both jealousy and fear from Assad in the context of Syria’s internal problems (Khalidi, 1984). Several Palestinian factions found this plan unacceptable, which put Fatah at odds with most of the other Palestinian groups. The Syrian powers seized this opportunity to increase their influence inside the PLO by supporting the factions that opposed the Fahd Plan at the expense of the established leadership, following a strategy designed to divide the Palestinian resistance, even though Assad had said the opposite to George Habache in a meeting in Damascus a few years earlier (Habache, 2008). A summit was set up in Fez by the end of 1981 to grant Arab support to several leading states, but Assad chose to boycott the meeting and thus demonstrated his political weight in the region. The convener, King Hassan II, withdrew the Fahd Plan from the agenda and postponed the summit sine die. Although the Southern Front line was quiet during most of the 10 months between September 1981 and June 1982, everybody seemed to know that Israel was preparing to undertake a major military action.10

Modes of occupation in the South In the perspective of its expansionist policy, Israel took advantage of Lebanese Civil War to set up a new Lebanese policy based on the formation of an allied surrogate militia along the international border. It started with three enclaves of Christian villages (see Map 2.1) that soon defined three sectors (western, central, eastern) in which Israeli officers promoted the authority of Saʽad Haddad to set up a unified

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armed Christian front against the fida’iyyin and their local supporters. Thanks to the medical assistance in Metulla initially provided to villagers coming from Qleia and Khirbe, the ‘good fence policy’ was inaugurated as early as spring 1976 and was announced in newspapers in June 1976 (Hamizrachi, 1988: 66). The official opening of the gates (al-bawabet) occurred in early August 1976 at three points along the border: Dovev in front of Rmeish, Metulla in front of Kfarkila and Hanita in front of Alma al-Shaab (opened in September 1976); five other gates were opened in the following years. These gates created links between Israeli Galilee and South Lebanon’s Christian enclaves, later on the Israeli-occupied territory, which allowed the transit of humans (workers/visitors/Lebanese militiamen/IDF soldiers) and goods (food/ water/medicines/weapons). Jaber (1999) lists 11 more border crossing points (maabar) that differed from the previous ones because they were smaller and restricted to local use, although one of them in Arihan/Kfar Houna became an official gate in 1996. The hidden aspect of this ‘good fence policy’ was its arbitrary rules, including humiliation and the discretionary power of the IDF. The corresponding policy towards northern villages (outside this Israeli sphere of influence) can be defined as ‘the bad neighbour policy’, as it consisted in the promotion of military confrontation with the Muslim villages supporting the fida’iyyin. This ‘Janus’ policy resulted in a slow transformation of the southern border zone. By means of the re-bordering process, it succeeded in pushing the line of confrontation northward to the international border and in the meantime creating links and a normalisation of the passage between Israel and the three Christian enclaves across the international border line. After 1985, the front line was extended northward by a strip of land about 150 km long with 59 military outposts on the hills. The security issue management that was at the heart of Israel’s vision of the occupied zone’s function had a central axis: the recruitment of local Lebanese collaborators. The social components of Haddad’s Army of Free Lebanon (AFL) are telling about the way Israel played with the sectarian and local belonging of the South Lebanese. The initial composition of the FLA was a mix of former LAF troops in Qleia, Rmeish, Dibl and Ain Ebel, other Christian militiamen (from the National Liberal Party and the Phalangists) that had previously been located in the South and defectors of the LNM in Muslim villages that provided the IDF with intelligence on the enemy. Motivations for

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joining the FLA were ideological as well as pragmatic and related to the degrading Lebanese environment and the resources and comfort Israel was providing to militiamen and their families. In 1977, around 400 Lebanese were crossing the border every day to work in Israel (Hamizrachi, 1988: 122). Although the FLA initially comprised many Christians, it had internal divisions that originated in rivalries between villages (like Rmeish and Ain Ebel) or sectors, and the Israelis played on these rivalries to appeal to more subservient collaborators. The weakness of the local command in the central sector led to the fusion of the western and central sectors prior to the 1978 invasion. Israel also developed contacts with some Shiʽi villages in the eastern and central sectors in order to forge future collaboration in the aftermath of the 1978 invasion, during which those who refused to help the fida’iyyin were protected. Another direct advantage of having such good relationships with Shiʽi villages was the opportunity to facilitate Haddad’s movements from one enclave to another, without constantly having to cross the international border on the Israeli side, and to open a new border crossing point in Meiss alJabal. After the creation of the 1978 security belt of 450 km2, which formed a continuity consisting of the three Christian enclaves on Lebanese side of the border, the Israeli intelligence department advising Saʽad Haddad decided to reorganise the AFL. It recruited in the Muslim villages, most of them Shiʽa, to have a larger sectarian diversity that better matches the social environment of the occupied zone. Initially facing only mild success, Israel granted full access to the Israeli labour market for families that had one of their members serving in the AFL (Beydoun, 1992). This led to an overbidding among clans that generally speaking agreed to get involved in the FLA because people were expecting financial profit from this arrangement.11 The 1982 invasion changed the political geography of the South once again. During the first six months of the invasion, Israel opened its border to Lebanese citizens and cancelled the permit requirement for each Lebanese from the security zone entering Israel. Facing an intense backlash, the permit was reintroduced by the end of the year. In order to secure and involve the new villages under their control, the IDF set up communal guards in every town and village12 and upped the pressure to recruit, mainly in the villages south of the Awwali River. Three levels of involvement were available for inhabitants in the southern borderland:

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in the army proper, with the communal guards or for the simple surveillance of villages, which was a mandatory security requirement for every man eligible to serve.13 To avoid this task, many people chose to pay a tax, which was a significant financial resource for the AFL. The death of Saʽad Haddad in early 1984 occurred during a strategic pullback process that generated two completely different attitudes in the occupied population, depending on the Southerners’ perception of Israel: the will to leave the occupied zone or to bow and submit to the IDF and strengthen ties with them. At the time, Israel’s ‘iron fist’ policy towards a recalcitrant population (that used to resist the occupation with civil disobedience and boycott) was implemented in a brutal way by the surrogate militia of Haddad and later on under the supervision of his successor, Antoine Lahad.14 The main objective of this policy was to create new boundaries within South Lebanese society between two antagonistic groups that received weapons: the Sunnis (a minority located in a few villages, like Chebaa) and the Shiʽa. This attempt to build new lines of division among Southerners did not work, as the armed resistance against the IDF merged with a social will to end Israeli occupation. In one year (from May 1983 to May 1984), the resistance coming from all political persuasions as well as what remained of the Palestinian resistance carried out 508 operations, killing 70 IDF troops and injuring 376 (affiliated with the IDF or Lebanese surrogate militia). Prior to the 1985 final stage of the three-step Israeli withdrawal (see Map 3.1), the mutation of the Israeli-occupied areas seemed to be a fait accompli the moment Saʽad Haddad passed away in 1984 and was replaced by a former Christian officer in Lebanese Army, Antoine Lahad. The new name/definition of the surrogate militia, the ‘South Lebanon Army’ (SLA), defined the resizing of Israeli ambitions in Lebanon quite well and revealed the failure of their grand design of a Christian-allied regime in Lebanon. The 1985 occupied zone can be defined as a new territory that Israel (b)ordered as a vantage point to secure its northern border, a larger territory when compared with the one from 1978 at two locations: on its eastern side and in Centre-East (Jezzine area). The withdrawal resulted in a new political geography of South Lebanon in which the occupied zone – also named ‘buffer zone’ by strategists or ‘security zone’ by Israeli officials – formed a half-moon and included high positions in the northernmost region.

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This system provided Israel with a strong offensive posture that allowed IDF troops to intervene quickly and launch an attack in the Beqaa as well as along the coast. At the beginning of 1986, a highranking Israeli officer said one-third of the SLA troops defected because of threats they received before and during the 1985 withdrawal (Petran, 1987: 374). At that time, an expression appeared to describe the status and role of the SLA soldiers and their relationship with Israel: From their opponents’ point of view, the SLA militiamen were ‘sandbags of Israel’ (Beydoun, 1992: 78). The withdrawal process was traumatising for several Lebanese SLA collaborators when they heard Yitzhak Rabin explaining the choice to withdraw as being one to defend primarily Israeli territory instead of protecting the Christians. Hundreds of former collaborators flew to the southern occupied zone as they feared reprisals (Jaber, 1999: 395). During this process of withdrawal from the occupied zone, Israel built a sophisticated defence complex along the international border, a ‘technical fence’ consisting of ‘electrified fences, anti-personnel mine fields, patrol roads, and barbed wire’ (Luft, 2000: 108). Security reasons pushed the IDF to adjust the layout of this fence along the 1923/1949 border line, adapting to the terrain by sometimes protruding into and sometimes retreating from Lebanese territory. The delineation of this line, known in Israeli military jargon as the ‘Purple line’ (Eshel, 2001: 80), explains why in 2000, during the final withdrawal from Lebanon, the UN mission sometimes found a gap between the technical fence and the international border line (1923/1949), then defined as the ‘Blue Line’. In 1985, this fence marked a physical separation enclosing the occupied zone and its Lebanese population in a space isolated from Israel. At that time, the SLA counted approximately 2,000 troops with 60 –65 per cent Christians, and a quarter of the total were communal guards. Until mid-1987 significant numbers of Muslim militiamen were fleeing northward, but an Israeli commander took over the training of troops, and Israel offered better salaries, free health care and education to attract younger people of the occupied zone, and eventually it succeeded in reaching a total of 3,000 troops in the early 1990s. Following Rabin’s vision of a new task for the SLA, the aim was to forge an inter-sectarian force capable of patrolling and securing the occupied zone by all means. The IDF turned a blind eye to extortion at checkpoints, and the SLA became an intermediary for drug dealing and trafficking between

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Lebanon and Israel as the price for hashish varied on the proportion of 1 to 10 from Beirut to Tel Aviv.15 At the beginning of the 1990s, during the post-Lebanese Civil War era, almost half of the SLA troops in the occupied zone were Shiʽi citizens, but none of them were among the general command structure of the militia. The occupied zone had a population between 130,000 and 150,000 inhabitants. This small society of people who were living in a poor economic environment, completely dependent upon Israel, rendered internal resistance to Israeli domination almost impossible. Thus defection meant fleeing from the zone and contesting its political order from the outside. Many SLA collaborators and their families strongly relied on Israel as it provided social protection and a level of life they could not expect to have in Lebanon. But this little ‘security society’ acting in a rather dangerous and confined environment had no future, as its purely mercenary behaviour could not justify its continued existence.16 Increasingly discontented voices within Israel raised the issue of the heavy human cost that Hizbullah had on IDF troops in the zone every year. From the point of view of Lebanese SLA members, the reasons for emigration at that time were linked primarily to people’s strong isolation – a permit was required to enter and to leave the zone (to go to Lebanon but also to Israel, which was easier17) – as well as the lack of security, the constant surveillance, the strong corruption and the omnipotent role of SLA members as the zone’s central institution (Beydoun, 1992). Economic perspectives were also gloomy, as exportation was almost impossible (strong restrictions on Lebanon and high taxes on Israel), which meant local production was only destined for the local market. The remittances also underwent a significant reduction due to the Gulf War in 1991, even if the work market did not change. Since 1987, between 4,000 and 5,000 people crossed the southern border of the zone (the international border) on a daily basis to go to work in Israel. Another aspect of the occupation relates to the exploitation of soil resources, namely water resources. As mentioned in the introduction, in the light of the water needs of the Jewish state, South Lebanon has long been seen as a strategic land to control. Although it primarily targeted the Litani River as the largest water resource, the Hasbani River that starts in Haqzbieh, about 20 km north of Ghajar, was also a focal point of interest, as it flows down to the Huleh Plain. Initially a quagmire, Israel

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drained this plain in the 1950s, which resulted in the transformation of the Hasbani River into a tributary of the Jordan River. In becoming a local resource of the Tiberiade Lake, the Hasbani River gained a strategic position in Israeli water policy. During the 1960s, Israel launched two military strikes against water pumps when Lebanon tried to exploit the Hasbani River by transferring some of its water into either the Litani River (1964) or the Yarmouk Dam (1967). This ‘tutelage’ over the use of the river was completed with the 1978 invasion, as Israel occupied the catchment basin of the Hasbani River. The local hydraulic infrastructure was destroyed when the IDF built its military supply roads. IDF engineers disassembled all the piping in order to compel the local inhabitants to turn towards the Israeli company Mekorot. This progressive linking of the South Lebanese water network with the Israeli one was celebrated by Saʽad Haddad on 13 November 1979. The policy turned out to be a disaster for some villages that would be deprived of any purified water after the 1982 invasion, as they depended only on Mekorot, which had a monopoly on water distribution in the central sector of the occupied southern borderland until the withdrawal of the IDF in 2000 (Jaber, 1999). In the mindset of the Southerners, the reason for the Israeli occupation of South Lebanon was the local water resources. And it is a fact that, soon after its 1982 invasion, Israel set up a ‘Direction for the Litani River’ parallel to its Lebanese counterpart, ‘Lebanese Office for the Litani River’, in order to draw up plans on the exploitation of this river thanks to a canal that would bring water down to the Tiberiade Lake. Lebanese government planned a new irrigation project in 2002, after the end of the occupation, aimed at pumping in the Wazzani River, a tributary of the Hasbani, to bring water to Marjayoun Plain. Israel immediately threatened this project, and a final agreement was concluded to pump less than 1 million cubic metres a year out of a total of 135 million cubic metres – just enough to bring drinking water to the villages but definitely not enough to irrigate agricultural lands. Thus Israel continues to claim its sovereignty rights over a river thanks to military deterrence.

The 1982 invasion The green light for Operation ‘Peace in Galilee’ was given step by step, as coordination with Lebanese Christians affiliated with Bachir Gemayel

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required a division of tasks. The Israelis had to crush the Palestinian resistance forces and the Phalangists to propose, organise and elect their candidate, Bachir Gemayel, in order to build an official alliance between Lebanon and Israel. Yet the main Israeli goal remained: evicting the Palestinian resistance from South Lebanon and signing a peace treaty with Lebanon. On the road to this military invasion, several of the gatekeepers of Begin’s extremism vanished. The first happened in the 1980 presidential election when US President Jimmy Carter was defeated by Ronald Reagan, a Republican leader who approved this Christian–Jewish military alliance. Then, in Israel, moderates like Moshe Dayan and Ezer Weizman were also replaced in Begin’s second government by hawkish figures like Yitzhak Shamir at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ariel Sharon at the Ministry of Defense, with Rafael Eitan as the chief of staff at the latter. The whole region had become bitterly divided (Sahliyeh, 1986: 8 –10). In Syria, with the Islamic uprisings in Hama in 1982, the relationship with the PLO went from bad to worse, as Assad accused Palestinian officials of supporting the fundamentalist opposition with arms and funding. This situation led to weak resistance by Syrian forces in the aftermath of the 6 June 1982 Israeli invasion and the signing of a ceasefire by 25 June that protected them from the subsequent seven weeks of Israeli pressure on the Palestinian resistance. On the side of the Joint Forces in the South18 and in Beirut, the situation was peculiar: Deep divisions fractured the anti-Israeli coalition, as the Shiʽi movement of Amal, supported by Damascus, asked for the eviction of the Communists from the South. A tense relationship with the local Shiʽi population and the Joint Forces were a key element in this division, and fights occasionally erupted between the resistance and the Joint Forces against the Amal movement. Finally, in Lebanese capital, anarchy caused many problems for the five most important political actors,19 which assembled the military forces in West Beirut while approximately 58 armed groups were disrupting any kind of coordination. By contrast, we were then really far from the original Palestinian – LNM alliance that ‘stimulated a progressive conscience among people, giving support to popular demands for social and economic reforms and so decisively helping to erode the power of traditional zu’ama and the army’s Deuxie`me Bureau’ (Petran, 1987: 271).

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In order to give a pretext for Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, Israeli diplomats started to reshape the 1981 agreement brokered by Habib by expanding its scope to the entire world. It was then possible to exploit the assassination attempt on the Israeli ambassador in London, perpetrated on 3 June 1982 by the Abu Nidal group, a dissident cell banned from all the Palestinian institutions. Israel retaliated with two days of aerial bombings that killed dozens of people, and finally, the PLO unleashed its long-range artillery giving the Israeli cabinet the pretext to declare war against the PLO on 6 June 1982. Israel’s military goal was said to be the creation of a 40 km security zone in South Lebanon free from any fida’iyyin in order to provide safety and security to its citizens living in the northern part of Israel. In fact, the military operation, ‘Peace for Galilee’, extended the scope that was initially declared, as IDF troops headed to the suburbs of Beirut. By the end of the first week of the invasion, some of the real aims were revealed: crushing the PLO’s political moderation, affirming Israel’s regional military preponderance with economic and religious justifications and securing access to the Litani River for a period of time.20 Sahilyeh outlined the situation in general terms, saying ‘the Likud administration waged its war against the Palestinians in Lebanon to avoid some risks and unwelcome regional and international developments and to create new realities and opportunities’ (Sahilyeh, 1986: 16). Instead of stopping its progression, the IDF continued northward and encircled the western sector of Lebanese capital. Simultaneously, the Israeli Air Force raided the Syrian anti-aircraft missiles in the Beqaa Valley and destroyed a large number of Syrian warplanes, although the Israeli government had previously dismissed any confrontation with the Syrian Army. During their invasion, unlike in 1978, the ‘Israelis did not push a solid, massively protected front up through the country; instead they “leap-frogged” commandos units, armour and artillery in over the heads and round the sides of the terrain’s Joint Forces defenders, using their total air and sea superiority’ (Cobban, 1984: 120). Battles for total ground control of some of the heavily defended camps in the South lasted for more than a week after they had been cut off from Beirut. By 14 June, on the western slopes of the Shouf Mountains, the IDF joined with the Phalangist-dominated Christian militias who had been their allies since 1976. The resistance and their allies were trapped in Beirut between the right-wing Christian militias in the east and the

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Israeli Army in the south. The defence in the south broke down and failed for several reasons, including the internal divisions among the LNM and the fracture of a once-solid alliance with Southerners, most of them from the Shiʽi sect and under the influence of Amal. Although key places in the South like Saida were quickly abandoned, the PLO’s High Military Council inaugurated a new kind of warfare with a more static defence of the capital city of Beirut by spreading a spirit of home defence among their local supporters and even among the Shiʽa of the Ouzai suburb. Despite easily making their way to Beirut, the IDF troops suddenly understood the city could not be taken without sustaining significant Israeli casualties. Then started the three-month siege of West Beirut with bombardments coupled with frequent interruptions of food, water and electricity supplies, all signs of Israel’s resolution to obliterate the PLO. Prevented by the US and other world states from continuing its indiscriminate bombing of the capital city, which caused thousands of deaths and culminated in a death toll of 300 on 17 August 1982, Israel demanded the withdrawal of all foreign troops from Lebanon. Arafat agreed to withdraw his troops from Beirut but asked – and did obtain – a US guarantee ‘for the security of the civilians in Beirut’. As the first group of fida’iyyin were leaving Beirut, Bachir Gemayel was elected the new president of Lebanese Republic, according to the initial plan set up with Begin to sign a peace treaty with Israel very soon. Things turned differently when Bachir was assassinated along with colleagues on 14 September when a bomb hit the building where he was having a meeting. In the following hours, armed Christian militiamen sought revenge, encircled the Palestinian camps of Sabra and Shatila and started a three-day massacre of civilians with technical assistance from the IDF (Kapeliouk, 1982). This massacre was then used by Arafat’s opponents, who accused him of having believed the US words, which resulted in the weakening of the Palestinian position in Lebanon. The 1982 Lebanon War appears to have ended the PLO’s ability to engage the Israelis from a contiguous Arab country. After the departure of the bulk of the fida’iyyin, the Palestinian presence in Lebanon was mostly reduced to the unarmed civilian population. Guerrilla tactics were no longer possible, South Lebanon’s military infrastructure had been lost and Lebanon was no longer a sanctuary nor a military base. All of these aspects diminished the relevance of the PLO’s possession of

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conventional and heavy weapons. By the end of 1982, the willingness of the Jordanians to explore the opportunity of taking a central role in solving the Palestinian question signalled the diminishing influence of the resistance commandos. The blow also came from the inside. In the spring of 1983, a Syrian-supported revolt inside Fatah broke out and was led by some of its ablest and most popular military commanders. Although Arafat succeeded in keeping his legitimacy among the Palestinians, Syria defined more narrowly than before the freedom of action of those regional actors who were not completely under its influence. During a first period, following their departure from Beirut, most of the Palestinian combatants disembarked in Lattaqieh (Syria), and the Syrians drove them back to the Beqaa Valley in Lebanon – less to support the Palestinian cause itself and more to use the Palestinian anger towards the Israelis and the Phalangists. After several months, a major controversy arose among Palestinian Fatah members whose vision differed from Arafat’s on three issues: his lack of consideration for Fatah’s internal organs and their recommendations; his mismanagement of the Israeli invasion; his postwar diplomacy, including his meeting with Israeli peace-camp figures and him opening dialogue with Jordan and Egypt, which deviated from the PLO charter (Sahliyeh, 1986: 144 – 8). This gap between Fatah members first became visible with the multiplication of contradictory spokesmen and the erosion of the main PLO political bodies (its Central Council and National Council), none of which was able to solve the dispute (Sahliyeh, 1986: 90). The open split in the PLO’s main faction resulted in a battle between Arafat supporters and opponents, the Syrians siding with the mutineers. Damascus’s interest partly lay with its desire to take control of the Palestinian card in Lebanon but also referred to Syria’s political strategy: gaining attention from the US and playing a pivotal role in the region, one that Arafat’s post-1982 policy undermined. Within six months (June–December 1983), the rejectionists, labelled Fatah–Intifada, moved northward to Tripoli from where Fatah was expelled after heavy combat at the end of that year with full Syrian support. With the benefit of hindsight, one can assess that the eviction of the PLO from Lebanon did not lead to a significant weakening of Fatah’s superstructure in Lebanon. However, the division within Fatah weakened the rejectionist front more than it did Arafat and his partisans.21

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The PLO’s re-establishment in the refugee camps happened thanks to a semi-overt network of social and medical services and funding for the reconstruction of houses. Fatah also sent numerous guerrilla cadres and military supplies to Lebanon by sea, although Israel set up a naval blockade that would last for years. At the end of 1988, the Saida region gathered an estimated 10,000 fida’iyyin (Sayigh, 1989: 256).

The post-1982 resistance More than this division that mainly affected the northern part of Lebanon under Syrian control, the presence of the Phalangists allied to the IDF in the South appears to have been one of the worst parts of the occupation, as vengeance carried out against the Palestinians was quite common to the point of embarrassing the Israelis (Khalidi, 1984b). Palestinian marginalisation was also part of the new relationship that was put in place at the level of the state22 as well as on the ground with the local Shiʽi community. Most commentators mentioned their surprise at seeing Shiʽi people cheering the IDF troops entering Lebanon to chase away the Palestinian fida’iyyin. The meaning of their behaviour related to a change in the southern Shiʽa’s perception of the Palestinians, as the Palestinian resistance was perceived to be a ‘burden’ to local inhabitants who suffered Israeli retaliation with a feeling of injustice. Once the Palestinian resistance had left Beirut after being uprooted from South Lebanon, the positive feeling among the Shiʽa towards Israeli troops slowly changed, as the IDF did not leave Lebanon but instead tried to transform the southern part of Lebanon into an Israeli satellite through diplomacy and coercion. According to Petran (1987: 310), the 17 May Agreement between Israel and Lebanon – as a precursor to a peace treaty between the two countries – would have been a disaster for the South if Lebanese Parliament had ratified it. This agreement would have destroyed an already very weak economy, transformed the area into a large security zone, freed its air and maritime spaces to Israel and expanded the scope and the power of Haddad’s militia. A key moment in the local change of mood towards the Israelis occurred when an IDF patrol tried to disrupt the ‘Ashura procession in Nabatieh during the fall of 1983, killing several demonstrators and provoking deep anger that was unleashed when Shiʽi clerics called for civil disobedience, thus providing Lebanese resistance with tacit support.

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It is worth mentioning here the importance of the South Lebanese local identity, its embeddedness within the Shiʽi sect and the reality of an esprit de corps among residents of the Jabal ‘Amil (‘asabiyya ‘amiliyya) since at least the beginning of the twentieth century (Mervin, 2000). Far from having a narrow-minded sectarian affinity, local Shiʽa were able to mix with many other sects living in some villages in Jabal ‘Amil, like the Maronites, the Druze and the Sunnis. The importance of the intellectual history of South Lebanon and the Shiʽa also provided them with tools and arguments to develop their own relationship to Lebanese state. Although the South used to be marginalised by the central state after independence, the civil war brought with it a strong feeling of national Lebanese belonging among the Shiʽa mobilised under the banner of Musa Sadr’s ‘movement of the deprived’ (harakat al-mahrumıˆn) and its affiliated militia, Amal.23 The first Israeli invasion in 1978 saw thousands of Shiʽa fleeing from the South and gathering in a shantytown in the southern suburbs of Beirut, in a growing crowd of disenfranchised people for whom Amal represented ‘hope’ in this bleak environment where the state had just broken down (Beyhum, 1994). After 1978 and the mysterious disappearance of Sadr on a trip in Libya (Ajami, 1987), Amal slowly fell under the influence of Syria, a process that was completed with the accession of Nabih Berri24 as the Politburo’s secretary-general, who played on the sense of sectarian belonging against the Palestinians (Sayigh, 1994). Lebanese National Resistance Front (LNRF), known as ‘Jamul’, its Arabic acronym for Jabhat al-Muqawama al-wataniyya al-lubnaniyya, publicly appeared in Beirut by mid-September 1982. It was a mixed result of the old leftist tradition – the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP),25 created in 1932, and Lebanese Communist Party (LCP), the oldest political party in the country, founded in 1924 – gathering new leftist groups like the OACL and what remained of the Palestinian resistance located in the Beqaa (Itani, 1984). The Amal and another Shiʽi religious group that came to be known as Hizbullah years later also took part in resistant operations in October 1982. Although Hizbullah’s militants were disconnected from the LNRF proper,26 all the operations they conducted were labelled as LNRF. The first operation for which Hizbullah claimed responsibility only happened in May 1984 (Daher, 2014). In summary, all the previous members of the LNM took part in

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Lebanese resistance front and thus were credible in redefining the occupied zone in the South as a resistance front. According to Georges Hawi, the secretary-general of the LCP and Muhsin Ibrahim, the leader of OACL, they issued a call to resist the Israeli invaders that went out on 16 September. Both had coordinated with the Palestinian resistance prior to its departure.27 On the ground, West Beirut came under the influence of Amal and later of Hizbullah because of the weakening of the Progressive Socialist Party’s Druze militia and the Murabitun’s Sunni militia, both allied to the Palestinians. Several operations targeting the Israeli occupation forces in Beirut were mounted immediately, and three commemorative plaques are still visible in Hamra (Mermier, 2010). Although the number of fighters was very low at the beginning (amounting to several dozens), the pace (one operation every five hours) and the urban guerrilla tactic that created significant harassment for Israeli soldiers and several losses within days led the IDF to pull back from Lebanese capital as early as 27 September (Traboulsi 2007). The Palestinian central command was located in the Beqaa, and several thousands of men were acting within a general plan of action against the IDF. A former Palestinian fighter28 recalls this period: In case of important operations, there were written orders. We as Palestinians were claiming the operations we carried out, as the LNRF did for theirs. Of course, there were joint operations. But I remember no one [claimed responsibility for] the bombing of the Israeli Intelligence headquarters in Tyre [carried out on 11 November 1982; it killed almost 100 IDF officers], but everybody knew it was Amal that had done it. And the October 1983 Drakkar blast that killed hundreds of Marines and French soldiers sounded like Hizbullah’s arrival on the field of resistance. In South Lebanon, the resistance took time to rise up, as the war emptied villages of young people, but Amal soon appeared as the major force in the South able to organise civil resistance after the withdrawal or the fall of the last Palestinian stronghold, like the Beaufort Castle.29 By midSeptember, the Israelis tried but failed to convince LNM officials to stay outside any confrontations with the IDF (Collins, 1983a: 100). The coordination continued to work between former LNM groups

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(SSNP, LCP and OACL) and Palestinian factions, mainly PFLP, DFLP and PFLP – General Command, but very few operations were coordinated with the Islamists.30 This double resistance front caused huge casualties among the IDF, as the LNRF launched 444 operations in 1983 and 567 in 1984, while Amal alone seemed to have performed more than 100 operations every month by early 1985 (El-Ezzi, 1990). Amal took advantage of the Shiʽi population to try to monopolise the resistance operations in southern Lebanon. Its main targets were LNRF militants (most of them Communists or OACL leftists), but another of Amal’s goals was to oust any Palestinian operations if they were not affiliated with Damascus. Such a selection can be explained in the light of the general confrontation between the supporters of Arafat and the Syrian regime following the split within Fatah in 1983. It is significant to note that, after the Israeli invasion, Palestinian volunteers for resistance gathered in Syria, where they received training in camps but without the official authorisation to enter Lebanon. Only those with connections to a pro-Syrian Palestinian faction got the green light to enter Lebanon, while others had to stay in Syria and sometimes chose to cross the border in secret.31 With the backdrop of communal strife in the Shouf Mountains between Druze and Christians, the IDF faced daily attacks in different regions of the South, the most significant being the car bomb that blasted the IDF Intelligence headquarters in Tyre on 11 November. Marwan,32 a former Communist fighter who had fought alongside the Palestinians in the South since the end of the 1970s, bluntly declared that ‘our main goal was to kill the enemy’s troops that occupied our country’. He explained that during his training in the USSR in 1981– 82, the focus changed when Israel invaded Lebanon from a war of position to guerrilla tactics, which centred on the capacity to shift from one target to another following a change of opportunity. He also explained the strong presence of Amal militiamen controlling identities at checkpoints in South Lebanon and trying to stop Communist militants from mounting operations: Quite often, when we carried out an operation, we had to hide from the Israelis, the militiamen of Haddad’s militia and Amal. After 1982, they used to arrest and jail us for a short period. I was arrested and kidnapped four times [. . .] Once I was arrested during

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one month as I was smuggling weapons in the southern part of the country. They were beating me with electric cables (he shows his wounds), they wanted me to quit the party (LCP). They also tried to buy me saying I could become the chief of a commando, having a huge car and money because I was a Shiʽa, they said. Of course I refused, my life and my conviction are with the Communists until today. Among other things that passed under their control, the Israelis were managing a large prison camp, known as ‘Ansar’, where they detained between 6,000 and 8,000 people, most of them Palestinians. Few of them were transferred to Israeli jails, but some Lebanese were also sent to the Khiam prison located in the former French military compound close to the border, where detainees received bad treatment. Both these prisons were illegal and outside any jurisdiction, and all of the prisoners were detained without judgment. Other types of profit stemmed from the Israeli occupation in South Lebanon. The IDF reportedly spent more than NIS 200 million (approximately $40 million) building new roads linking military installations to Lebanese road network (Collins, 1983a: 140). The connection with Israel was also made with the introduction of the Israeli currency, the shekel, up to Saida (with the opening of Israeli bank branches) and the development of economic links33 – including Lebanese businessmen’s visits of Israeli sectors and their activities – in order to draw Lebanese southern borderland into its sphere of influence in a sort of rampant annexation. On a daily basis, the true face of this ‘collaboration’ was expressed in the export of Israeli fruit and vegetables to South Lebanon. Their very low prices broke the local market, while Lebanese goods were not allowed to reach Israel. In September 1983, in the face of the failure of its strategy in Lebanon and the heavy price of its presence in Lebanon (several hundred IDF troops had died since the beginning of the invasion), Israel started a de-bordering process. Beginning the three-stage withdrawal in the Shouf Mountains34 provoked a bloodbath between Christians and Druze. Israel decided to isolate the south bank of the Awwali River from the rest of the country by leaving a single entrance point on the Qasmiyeh Bridge that became a de facto border that year (Petran, 1987: 304). The following year, in January, this passage was closed and replaced with the only entrance gate at Bater inside the

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Israeli-dominated area, north of the Christian village of Jezzine. As a consequence, the cost of transportation between the South and the rest of the country rose up to sixfold, leading to the bankruptcy of 80 per cent of the industries in the South. This was a means to drive the southern borderland to rely on the Israeli economy and market. The failure to span a web of Israeli informers over the entire South Lebanon region, by means of locally recruited collaborators, led to more brutal methods of collaboration and denunciations: the brutalisation of civilians, including the kidnapping of parents to pressure resistance fighters to surrender, the destruction of hospitals and the killings of villagers or local Shiʽi leaders in front of other inhabitants all contributed to the spreading of terror. Schechla (1985) identified three main goals for this ‘iron fist policy’: breaking collective cohesion in order to end local support for the resistance; encouraging people to leave the southern area; exacerbating factionalism. In this task the IDF was helped by its surrogate militia in South Lebanon, renamed the South Lebanon Army (SLA) in 1984 after the death of Saʽad Haddad. The IDF then created special units of ‘national guards’, death squads composed of local Shiʽa who collaborated with Israel and were targeting any member of the resistance. In 1984, Lebanon twice tried to put a UN resolution up for a vote in order to stop such brutalities, but the United States blocked them (Petran, 1987: 371 – 3). By early 1984, Lebanese scene underwent a political shift with the coup on 6 February that allowed Amal to take control of the western sector of Beirut thanks to the defection of the Shiʽi 10th brigade of Lebanese Army. At that time, their rivalry with Hizbullah, the other Shiʽi movement that was just emerging in the middle of the civil war, led Amal’s leaders and their Syrian backer to describe Hizbullah in the media as extremists and an Iranian surrogate group. For their part, the Israeli media and their ideological machinery jumped on this new profile of the country’s opponents portrayed as a providential evil in order to justify their actions against this ‘terrorist Muslim threat’. In 1985, the third and final step of the IDF’s withdrawal from South Lebanon to the ‘security zone’ – a strip of land of 850– 1,100 km2 that created a de facto border between Lebanon and the Israeli-controlled area – saw boundaries and alliances between Lebanese, including Palestinians, moving and being redeployed in a way that foreshadowed the process of Syrian tutelage over Lebanon.

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The Syrian Army and sometimes its ally Amal took over the positions that IDF troops had previously occupied in the South and, in the meantime, Palestinian combatants supporting Arafat took advantage of this withdrawal to return to the camps in the South. This second process provoked a reaction from Syria when Amal received the order to get rid of Arafat’s partisans in camps, which started the war of camps (1985– 88). This apocalyptic scenario for the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon devastated many camps, Sabra and Shatila in particular (Sayigh, 1994), and unfolded within the broader perspective of Syrian domination over other groups on a space of land (Hagopian, 1988). In the context of the negative perception of the Palestinian refugees, Amal showed how to ‘discipline’ them, hoping to find Shiʽi support by acting as a quasistate.35 But this attitude referred more to a militia-style way of dealing with security issues. It also affected other former partners of the national resistance, as S. remembered:36 The moment the IDF pulled back, the Syrian Intelligence [mukhabarat] came to visit the Palestinian representatives involved in the resistance against the Israeli occupation and told us to stop any type of resistance, as Lebanese Shiʽi Southerners should be the only ones to wage such resistance, because the South is their land. They sent the same message to the Communists and other leftist groups that were carrying out resistance operations. Things went wrong for the LNRF with respect to their access to the new battlefield after the redeployment of the IDF. In the meantime, as Elias Atallah,37 a former leader of OACL, explained, the marginalisation process took place progressively: It was a slow-motion process of degradation. I remember that in 1984 we asked Damascus for five sniper rifles, but for once they refused. Then a second step happened with our marginalisation during the Lausanne and Geneva conference meetings that finally created an internal debate among the LCP [. . .] but the strategic alliance with Damascus prevailed, and nothing was said to upset the Syrians. But one day, in 1985 after the IDF had pulled back from Sidon, we had a meeting with Ghazi Kanaan, the chief of the Syrian secret services. He explained that he just needed to know

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each time we wanted to mount an attack against the Israelis. He also said we should work alongside Hizbullah. We refused categorically to fall under Syrian control. Kanaan was furious and promised that hard times would lie ahead for us. A few months later, we started to face targeted killings among our military leaders and intellectuals like Hassan Hamdane [Mahdi Amıˆl]. The gradual elimination of the LNRF as a player on the military chessboard in South Lebanon was part of the process of Syria’s progressive territorial hegemony over this part of the country, along with Hizbullah, which led to a monopolisation of the ‘resistance card’ against Israel. Southern territory worked as a political goal, and control over its bordering and ordering clearly illustrate the link with the othering process. Syria as well as Hizbullah wanted to monopolise space and define the norms, rules and power over this space in order to control access to the enemy, Israel. In this regard, they were both ready to pay a heavy price to eliminate former allies, as it granted territorial control that embodied the definition of the other as an enemy and the strategic use of the land and its human resources. Marwan,38 a former Communist militant already quoted above, explained how military operations continued under such circumstances on a daily basis: I remember one day, it may be by the end of 1985, the party (LCP) told me to stop carrying out armed operations against the Israelis and their associates in the SLA. But in fact, although I was affected by the logistics of the operations, the LCP continued to carry out operations in partnership with the PFLP. We both claimed those actions under the name of ‘Jamul’ (the LNRF). We finally stopped operations after the Taı¨f Agreement [1989], but also because there was no Communist population in the south of Lebanon, as Amal and Hizbullah gradually chased them away either by assassination or by acts of intimidation. Following its inception during the Israeli invasion, Hizbullah (backed by Iran) achieved an impressive expansion with its undeniable warfare capacity linked to strong discipline. The first clash broke out between the Syrian Army and Hizbullah shortly after the former took control of

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West Beirut on 1 June 1987, in the form of a message sent to Tehran that claimed full Syrian sovereignty over that part of the city. In the South, a battle with Amal occurred at the end of 1989 about the monopolisation of the resistance battlefield, which concluded with the victory of Hizbullah after a long ‘war of Iqlim al-Tuffah’, a mountainous and hilly environment located east of Saida (Lamloum, 2010). Most of all, it was about the privileged access to the ‘security zone’ controlled and patrolled by the SLA, Israel’s surrogate militia, and the final agreement that both parties reached in 1990, in accordance with their state brokers, Iran and Syria. It lay the groundwork for a strategic division of labour in the post-civil war era by granting Amal management of state affairs while Hizbullah was tasked with carrying arms as part of the resistance against the occupier of the South, Israel.

Conclusion Israel’s occupation of South Lebanon followed a rationale that refers to security as well as previous plans to secure resources for the Jewish state. The context of the civil war in Lebanon provided the IDF with an opportunity to intervene indirectly alongside the Christian villages to re-border the area, thus defining a political order and contributing to the building of the other in an agonistic perspective. Although the Israeli strategy to control the southern borderland is understandable from the perspective of state security, the consequences of involving Lebanese actors as surrogate militiamen in such a context of scarcity created a deep division among Lebanese population, and this (b)ordering process contributed to fragmenting the society in Jabal ‘Amil. The ordering of the occupied South by the IDF and their Lebanese allies largely contributed to this fragmentation and polarisation. Firstly, the security issues, a core aspect with regard to policing and controlling the territory, implied the recruiting of collaborators among locals, beyond the first Christian militiamen who freely joined Haddad’s militia. Firstly the 1978 invasion but then surely the 1982 occupation tended to organise and manage society by providing rewards for collaboration, for instance easier mobility and job market access to Israel. The ordering process included in this bordering of South Lebanon is also highlighted by Israel’s capacity to divide Lebanese along sectarian lines and play with this discord to improve

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Map 2.1

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Development of the security belt in South Lebanon (1976–78).

their control over society. The bordering of the South also had physical implications that added more to the dependence on Israel. The process of ‘satellisation’ was not only palpable at the economic level but could be seen through the linking of South Lebanon’s water network to the one in Israel, which disrupted the link between the water network in the South and the rest of Lebanon. The occupation as an enforced process towards a society generated rebellion and resistance. The othering process thus took place within the larger occupied area between 1982 and 1985 and later on at the border of the occupied zone. The resistance movements had different goals in their vision to de-border the Israeli occupation. Only the Syrian Army and the Hizbullah militia eventually succeeded in dominating swathes of land in South Lebanon, from where the IDF withdrew by re-bordering these territories with different means. Their rivalry eventually turned to an internal struggle, as the control of South Lebanese territory and society represented a strategic axis in regional politics. The capacity to define the territory as a battleground went along with the definition of the social and political order applied

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to that space and the type of relationship with the southern neighbour, Israel. This section of political history of South Lebanon shows the interlinked aspects of the bordering, ordering and othering processes. Control over any territory provides the capacity to define norms and values, a legitimate identity and a dominant discourse on the relationship with others.

CHAPTER 3 HIZBULLAH:RESISTANCE AS AN IDENTITY AND AS A MEANS

Although many scholarly investigations have studied Hizbullah, very few of them have referred specifically to the group’s use of Lebanon’s southern borderland for its political identity building. This chapter delves into the (b)ordering process of South Lebanon, monitored by Hizbullah, that encompasses territorial control, the spreading of political values and norms and self-definition by confronting Israel. Hizbullah (hizb Allah literally meaning ‘The Party of God’) appeared in 1982 under the Iranian umbrella. It underwent political and military development in South Lebanon during the second part of Lebanese Civil War and reached national stature when it received political recognition in the 1990s and gained control over Beirut’s southern suburbs (Harb, 2010). Since its appearance on the scene, Hizbullah has created a commonality among the Shiʽa by using religious arguments and the duty of putting up resistance against Israel. The Party of God became a powerful political movement thanks to the post-civil war Second Republic that emerged under Syrian tutelage. It became a wellorganised, professional mass communication movement with a political stronghold in Beirut and a military stronghold in the southern borderland along the Israeli-occupied zone. In 2000, it eventually took the lead over the entire South Lebanon (al-Janoub) thanks to the Israeli Army’s withdrawal from the occupied zone in May and the nondeployment of Lebanese Army up to the international border. It subsequently became one of the most powerful actors on Lebanese

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political and military scene: It joined the state at the government and security levels, and since 2011 it has been involved alongside the Syrian regime to preserve its strategic alliance. In order to understand how this Islamic movement managed to create such a powerful political force, I would like to examine the role that the South Lebanon area has played in this successful strategy. To this end, I will question the political identity of the group via the notion of ‘resistance’, which Hizbullah claims as a major component of its own definition and is seen as ‘the backbone’ of the party’s identity (Saad-Ghorayeb, 2002). How does ‘resistance’ connect the two dimensions at stake here, namely the borderland space and the party’s identity? And what is the meaning of the South Lebanese borderland for Hizbullah’s political programme? In other words, this chapter will look at the importance of the southern borderland area in the political strategy of Hizbullah’s identity building. The notion of ‘resistance’, as is the case in the Palestinian resistance movement, draws on the figure of the enemy, Israel. In this sense, Hizbullah is using the enemy to build its own identity to the point of creating a sort of intimacy that tends to show interdependence with the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). As Ernesto Laclau (1990) explains, the enemy’s identity becomes a ‘constitutive outside’ supporting the identity construction of the self. To link the sense of belonging to a place, Henk Van Houtum & Tan Van Naerssen (2002: 134) explained that ‘making others through the territorial fixing of order, is intrinsically connected to our present image of borders. Others are both necessary, constitutive for the formation of borders, as well as the implication of the process of forming these borders. Others are needed and therefore constantly produced and reproduced to maintain the cohesion in the formatted order of a territorially demarcated society.’ In the case of Hizbullah’s movement building in relation to the South Lebanese borderland, such an articulation is of great interest as it raises questions about the means the party deployed to shape and border its own group of partisans, legitimise its armed resistance strategy and use it to promote a political identity at the national level. Two Arabic concepts, al-‘asabiyat (a group feeling/ group of solidarity)1 and al-daʽwa (the religious/ political call),2 will provide a comprehensive picture in articulating the group formation and its legitimisation. In the following lines, I will look at the origins of the movement in order to understand the context of its emergence and how it is linked to

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the South Lebanese borderland. The confrontation strategy (armed resistance) adopted by Hizbullah and its ideology will help to clarify the shaping of group and the shaping of the borderland for the political purpose of the movement. Hizbullah knew that the ‘Lebanonisation’ process of the 1990s helped to make South Lebanon a sanctuary – and a stronghold after the 2000 Israeli withdrawal – and acquiesced to an identity shift from Islamic resistance (Muqawama islamiyya) to national resistance (Muqawama wataniyya). The evolution of the meaning of ‘resistance’ in Hizbullah’s view since its appearance in Lebanon is thus showing the double aspect it encapsulate, as a means to shape the party’s empowerment and as an identity to define both itself and its enemy.

Origins: the Shiʽi community, the Israeli invasion and the Iranian Revolution When Hizbullah appeared in 1982, the borderland of South Lebanon was a war zone that the Israeli Army had recently invaded a second time, and locals faced serious human and physical casualties. The social and political mobilisation of the Shiʽa started by the end of the 1960s but experienced significant growth due to the political tension within Lebanese society regarding the Palestinian refugees and their cause. The Palestinian resistance built its sanctuary in South Lebanon (Brynen, 1990), which provoked Israeli retaliation in response to their daily infiltrations across the Israeli –Lebanese border, as we have seen in previous chapters. During the first year of the civil war, the South escaped the turmoil, but by the summer of 1976, Israel started to support a local militia that patrolled the border area to stop Palestinian infiltrations. As seen in Chapter 2, the Israeli invasion of 1978 granted this militia a territorial space, a strip of land approximately 10 km wide along the international border that functioned as a buffer zone. In the area of South Lebanon, the idea of resistance had two meanings: first as a mobilisation of the Shiʽa built on forging a collective identity that was based on a ‘communitarian-class’ conception (Picard, 1985), and second as a Palestinian national cause, namely the struggle to recover their land, bearing arms and shaping an ethic of combatants ready to lay down their lives for the cause. After a period of admiration and close collaboration between Southerners and the Palestinian resistance, the civil war erupted and yielded more shifting alliances. In the South, the

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perception of Palestinians as firebugs responsible for Israel’s deadly retaliations slowly started to spread among the inhabitants, most of them from the Shiʽi sect. Political shifts between Amal, the dominant Shiʽi movement at that time, and the PLO in the late 1970s also contributed to this change of mood towards the Palestinian resistance. The brutal invasion of 1982 broke down the resistance, and the Southerners were relieved of the Palestinians. Hopes were short-lived, as a major part of civil society in the South started to oppose Israeli occupation in order to avoid the collaborationist policies that Israel intended to promote and the economic dependence it sought to create through large-scale importation and full territorial and gate control (Beydoun, 1992; Jaber, 1999). Lebanese National Resistance Front, which brought together many actors and groups from different ideological origins and sects, produced a fiercely popular opposition to Israel’s military occupation in the southern part of the country. Hizbullah emerged as a direct consequence of the Israeli invasion and as the manifestation of an evident desire by Iran to support an Islamic movement inspired by the 1979 revolution. But far from being a ‘pure creation’ of Iranian politics, Hizbullah found its roots in a deep and complex process of mobilisation located in Lebanon and involving Shiʽi clerics and militants (Hamzeh, 1993; Mervin, 2008; Saad-Ghorayeb, 2002). Hizbullah is the outcome of multiple groups meeting prior to and during the Israeli invasion of 1982. First of all, it is based on the political mobilisation of the Shiʽi Movement of the Deprived (harakat al-mahrumıˆn), which Musa Sadr had founded, and later of Amal, its military branch, which soon came to embody the Movement of the Deprived in the context of the civil war. Amal was an important secular militia during the civil war, although some of its leaders were sympathisers of the Iranian Revolution. In the context of the breakdown of the state in Lebanon, this new sectarian consciousness brought with it religious beliefs and sectarian belonging to the forefront of some movements’ and militias’ collective identities. As the Iranians wanted to export their Islamic Revolution to Lebanon, following the Shiʽi network linking the Jabal ‘Amil with Iran (Mervin, 2000), they encouraged Amal dissidents to set up an Islamic movement of their own, ‘Amal Islamic’, which later merged to create Hizbullah. Another branch of the Party of God originates with Shiʽi clerics of the Iraqi party al-Daʽwa and with some Shiʽi religious schools

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(hawza) founded in Lebanon. Partisans initially received religious education and military training in the Beqaa Valley from Iranian Pasdaran (Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps) sanctioned by the Iranian government after the 1982 invasion. The name of Hizbullah refers from two suras of the Qur’an, and the group’s flag is clearly inspired by that of the Iranian Pasdaran: a hand holding a machine gun over a globe (Daher, 2014). Their goals were revealed later on in a manifesto and can be summarised as waging armed resistance against the Israeli occupying force in the context of the militarisation of all the sects (Bozarslan, 2011: 90) and establishing an Islamic republic in Lebanon. Asef Bayat (2005) has underlined the difficulties that the social scientists face in their attempts to provide tools that would accurately explain the social movement among Islamist groups. In an attempt to discard any perceptions of such phenomena in terms of reaction (of traditionalists against modernity or by claiming a cultural difference facing post-modernity), he suggested looking at how these movements work towards finding commonality. Karagiannis (2009), by applying the frame analysis to Hizbullah, shed light on the different frames that ensured successful mobilisation for the Party of God. Among the important external factors, the breakdown of the secular pan-Arab narrative and the impact of Iran’s Islamic Revolution significantly empowered the Shiʽi identity, which had historically been (socially and politically) marginalised in Lebanon. This meant that a belief system provided to the Shiʽi population through clerics close to Hizbullah was used to articulate a definition of the enemy, Israel, and a strategy of armed resistance against it (to liberate Palestine and spread the Islamic Revolution). These aspects made sense for local Shiʽi groups in the Beqaa, where Hizbullah leaders first built their training camps, and in occupied South Lebanon, as well as the southern suburbs of Beirut, where displaced South Lebanese Shiʽa had sought shelter. This mobilisation also had an impact on former Palestinian fighters close to the Palestinian radical leader Abu Jihad and among Shiʽi Amal dissidents (in Amal Islamic Movement). Apart from the mosques and the training camps, the religious belief and resistance values were spread through the media, including on the radio (in Baalbek) and in the weekly Al-Muntalaq, in which Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, a prominent Shiʽi cleric, played the role of organic intellectual, as he wanted to shape and organise Hizbullah as a party for the masses (Lamloum 2009).

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The 1980s: defining the movement’s boundaries through confrontation Between June 1982 and June 1985, the South Lebanese borderland was under full Israeli occupation, and several militant groups, from Communists to Islamists, launched daily attacks against the IDF. Facing mounting resistance from the local population, Israel implemented the ‘iron fist’ policy, which was intended to compel the inhabitants of the South to collaborate, and Israel retaliated with collective punishment every time an IDF patrol was attacked (Schechla, 1985). This policy was clearly counterproductive, as many residents enlisted in local resistance groups, including Hizbullah. From mid-1983, sheikhs or ulamas mobilised Shiʽi Southerners, and mosques became core venues where to organise resistance and link/define resistance as a religious duty. A sort of competition in modes of resistance spread after strike operations in South Lebanon, such as the Ahmad Qassir suicide bombing that destroyed the Israeli Intelligence headquarters in Tyre (November 1982) and caused a heavy death toll among Israelis officers. Clerics also banned any collaboration with Israelis following the commemoration of Ashura in Nabatieh (October 1983) after the IDF had disturbed the Shiʽi ritual. Hizbullah slowly moved in behind Israeli lines to increase its presence and spread its religious beliefs and ideas about armed resistance among the predominantly Shiʽi population, even though the Southerners were initially suspicious of Hizbullah and perceived it as a religious movement originating in the Beqaa (Go¨ksel, 2007). One of the key players who helped to integrate the movement in the South was Ragheb Harb. In his speeches, this cleric from Jibshit in South Lebanon railed virulently against the Israelis and their local surrogate militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), and called for disobedience and resistance, even though he was not a full member of Hizbullah. His popularity soared after his first arrest in early 1983, when thousands of locals took part in demonstrations. After his release, Harb coordinated armed struggle and was eventually killed by the SLA in February 1984 (Daher, 2014). His assassination ignited the South, and his followers joined Hizbullah. This event marked a significant step forward for the social acceptance of Hizbullah among the Southerners. Another key aspect that rooted the party in South Lebanon was the nomination of Hassan Nasrallah as a local leader of the

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party, as he is a native from the South like the then Secretary-General Abbas Mussawi. The movement appeared in public for the first time in February 1985 with an open letter published in an Arabic newspaper in Beirut.3 Published under the name of ‘The Islamic Revolution in Lebanon’ (Al-Thawra al-Islamiya fi Lubnan), Hizbullah sought to establish an Islamic state in the country (Norton, 2007) and claimed to be followers of the Iranian religious authority of Khomeini and his theory of the guardianship of the jurisprudent (wilayat al-faqih). It also stressed the necessity for the oppressed to unify under the banner of Islam through armed resistance, defined in religious terms as a ‘defensive jihad’, thus giving permission to wage war against the oppressors: Israel (depicted as an entity to be erased) and the Western imperialist powers (that should be chased away). From this point of view, borders are artificial and imposed by imperialist powers in order to divide the Ummah, the Muslim community. The clerical approval of this programme, led by Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, slowly but seriously increased support among local Shiʽa. The context of civil war and the absence of a reliable state power in Lebanon implicitly validated the logic of resistance supported by the use of violence. In order to enforce these objectives, Hizbullah launched attacks against Israeli soldiers in South Lebanon, just as many other political groups did, including the Nasserists, Communists, other leftists and of course Amal. Israel had invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO and install a friendly government in Beirut but lost all hope of a positive political outcome when Lebanese government failed to ratify the Khaldeh Agreement of 17 May 1983, a peace treaty with Lebanon (Picard, 1988). After the summer of 1983, the IDF started a three-stage withdrawal by moving out of the Shouf Mountains, where Christian and Druze militias were locked in a war.4 The reasons for the pull-back concern the heavy human cost of the occupation: ‘By 1984 the pace of attacks was so intense that an Israeli soldier was dying every third day’ (Norton, 2007: 80). In three years (June 1982–June 1985), 640 Israeli soldiers had died in South Lebanon, a number that persuaded Israel to pull back to the buffer zone along the border where IDF and SLA militiamen hunkered down on a territory of 850 km2. Hizbullah presented this withdrawal as a major success that their resistance policy was able to achieve. This approach towards Israel is also rooted in the party’s commitment to fulfil

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its religious and legal obligation to wage war through defensive jihad against its oppressors, in line with certain interpretations of passages in the Qur’an. These interpretations of defensive jihad are of course useful for Hizbullah in such a situation and allow the party to use the Qur’an to legitimise its military actions. In fact, the Shiʽi history of oppression and suffering and the exemplary defensive jihad waged by Imam Hussayn meant the Shiʽi militants had primacy over religious tenets (SaadGhorayeb, 2002: 123– 5). In a way, the mobilisation of the Shiʽi identity that started with Musa Sadr reached a more religious and politicised level with Hizbullah, which used the same theme but in a religious universe of meanings that makes sense to more Shiʽi locals. Hizbullah’s de-bordering/re-bordering process of South Lebanon appeared as a multilayered approach to the territory that borrowed both nationalist and Islamist ideologies. The sacralisation of the land that is to be liberated is the core principle of Hizbullah’s attitude towards Israel. Thus, the continued occupation of the southern border area defended by the Israel-sponsored SLA was an opportunity for Hizbullah to increase mobilisation among the Shiʽa. The main discourse was based upon the premise that the military resistance was there to protect the country against this surrogate militia and the Israeli Army, a notion that would legitimise the fight against Israel and its local allies. This legitimacy of waging war against Israeli soldiers and surrogates also stems from the religious duty mentioned above that included all Muslim actors in this commitment to resistance. On the other side, for Israeli political and military leaders, daily attacks against their ‘security zone’ in South Lebanon became a sort of proof of the insecurity that reigned in Lebanon and provided a justification for continuing the occupation of that portion of Lebanese territory. Hizbullah was becoming a major concern for the IDF, as well as a significant factor for Israel to intervene in Lebanon. It is key aspect of Israel’s ‘violent diplomacy’ in order to reach a security agreement with Lebanese state in exchange for Hizbullah’s disbanding (Murden, 2000). Alongside the re-bordering process of the South, Hizbullah worked on the othering process and cultivated the perception of its enemy as the incarnation of evil. To illustrate and spread this vision, the Party of God enhanced its discourse with the atrocities perpetrated by Israel, such as the Sabra and Chatila massacres.5 The occupation of South Lebanon was seen to underscore the hidden Israeli objective in the region: to

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depopulate it of its Arab inhabitants in order to shape the Holy Land (Greater Israel) (Saad-Ghorayeb, 2002: 136). The ideologists of Hizbullah also sought to find ‘proof’ of these malevolent intentions in the Torah and cited passages that they linked with concrete cases of what had happened during the 1982 war. In this way, the brutal and wellprepared military withdrawals that led to civil strife in the Shouf Mountains in 1983 and east of Sidon in 1985 were explained through the perpetrators’ Jewish sectarian belonging. The main idea behind this demonisation was to show that one can neither trust them, reach reconciliation nor normalise the relationship with them. From the beginning and until the present, Hizbullah has had a one-way interaction with Israel – confrontation – and closed the door on any peace agreements.

South Lebanon as vantage ground for building the Hizbullah ‘asabiyat This final phase of the three-step Israeli withdrawal in 1985 transformed the Party of God’s adopted mode of resistance, as Israel withdrew its army forces from inside the South Lebanese zone that had been fortified by the SLA – Lebanese militia that was an Israeli surrogate in South Lebanon (see Map 3.1). The security system of this zone – mainly barbed wired and minefields with military watchtowers – compelled Hizbullah to shift from constantly operating behind the lines to a warfare strategy on the front line, although infiltrations across that line allowed the Party of God to transform the so-called ‘security zone’ into an ‘insecurity zone’ (Norton, 2007) where many Israeli soldiers continued to be targeted and killed. As an internal border in Lebanon’s national territory, this delimitation lasted for 15 years and became a clearly visible fragmentation of South Lebanese territory because of Israel’s military occupation, which de facto changed the southern limit to which Lebanese sovereignty was able to expand. This became clear in 1990, when Lebanese state started to rebuild its authority after the war and was unable to deploy beyond the limit defined by the occupied zone in South Lebanon. The 1985 withdrawal was accompanied by Hizbullah’s military monopolisation of key launch pads in the South from which to attack SLA or IDF troops in the occupied zone or beyond. In their speeches,

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Hizbullah’s leaders started to describe and define the occupied South as ‘a battlefield’, ‘a confrontation area’ and ‘a quagmire for the Israeli Army’. Behind such martial sentences, a violent process of hegemony building over Lebanese-controlled areas in the South was taking place to eradicate other resistance groups by threats or by force, including Amal, the Syrian-led Shiʽi militia (Lamloum, 2010). This monopolisation went along with a more hegemonic name: the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon (al-Muqawama al-Islamiyya fi Lubnan). The goal of assuming that confrontational name was intended to bring a symbolic type of profit, as stated by Hassan Nasrallah (interviewed in 1986): ‘Our strategy is to build ourselves a future through confrontation with the Zionist enemy’ (Noe, 2007: 29). The link between the movement’s identity and its military action in South Lebanon is clear in this statement. Depicting Israel as the supreme evil (sharr mutlaq) allowed the party to call for the duty of holy war ( jihaˆd) and hence justify armed resistance in a religious way. Any spatial strategy, according to Michel de Certeau (1980), requires a place that can be identified as one’s own in order to manage relations with an exterior party: competitors or enemies. While Lebanese state would become a competitor in the 1990s and 2000s in the welfare strategy towards the Shiʽi population, in the 1980s rival militias became enemies, as the main goal was territorial control over the southern borderland. In order to (re)define the meaning of ‘resistance’, Hizbullah needed to have full control over territorial access to and operations against IDF and SLA troops, as Henk Van Houtum and Ton Van Naerssen (2002) remind us: ‘the making of a place must hence be understood as an act of purification, as it is arbitrarily searching for a justifiable, bounded cohesion of people and their activities in space’. In this regard, Hizbullah seized the opportunity that arose from the 1985 withdrawal to build a new definition of ‘resistance’, still under the previous Palestinian legacy, to control and progressively monopolise the anti-Israeli struggle. To this end, Hizbullah rooted its political and military apparatus more firmly in the borderland and involved the population in the military struggle in each village by means of a re-organisation of tasks and a division of work/territory (village guard units, liaison officers, informants etc.). It also increased its influence over South Lebanon’s Shiʽi inhabitants, who constitute a majority of the population in this area and whose values and cultural references fitted

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well with Hizbullah’s religious –political message. In so doing, it sought to create a community by defining, in cultural, religious and political terms, a group bound by common perceptions of reality. This process of defining a group – and of ordering and bordering a community – can be analysed as the articulation of the formation of the ‘asabiyat (group of solidarity) and the diffusion of a daʽwa (a religious/ ideological call). Al-‘asabiyat describes a bond of cohesion in a community, a ‘patriotism’ and ‘party-spirit’, as translated in the first edition of the Encyclopaedia of Islam.6 The French political scientist Jean Leca (1994) views ‘asabiyat as a specific ‘esprit de corps’ in a contemporary context to highlight the relationship between a group and a political power, either as an adjunct power for the state or as a dissident movement.7 Al-daʽwa originally means the call for religion, the invitation or propaganda.8 In contemporary use, al-daʽwa also involves propaganda for any type of ideology, whether sacred or not (Bozarslan, 2011). The forming of Hizbullah’s ‘asabiyat is primarily linked to the sectarian Shiʽi affiliation, as its main bond is the religious daʽwa, which is dominated by the key figure of Khomeini as the supreme leader and his theory of wilayat al-faqih (guardianship of the jurisprudent) that places politics and religion in the hand of one leader who spreads revolution and establishes an Islamic state. Following this lead, Hizbullah’s vision is a revised version of political Shiʽa that offers a new representation of Shiʽi individuals as multazim (partisans socially, religiously and politically involved) and a new conception of its commitment to the wilayat al-faqih. This involvement consequently implies that every Muslim has a duty to put up resistance (Qassem, 2005). In this specific context, individuals’ adherence to these principles and values in Lebanon’s Shiʽi community created the conditions for group solidarity, ‘asabiyat, to emerge. Harb (2010) has carefully analysed these processes under the label of Halaˆ Islaˆmiyya. This notion describes a cognitive matrix that produces a collective consciousness and beliefs common to many Shiʽa. This creates a sense of belonging through norms, values, behaviours (Harb, 2010: 186– 7) that are continually spread via resistance ( jihaˆd), martyrdom and commemorations via mass communication such as television, radio, periodicals and newspapers (Khatib et al., 2014). The authors explain how the notion of resistance works as a theoretical interface between pious behaviour and the duty to bear arms to confront the enemy.

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More than simple military action, says Harb (2010: 144), resistance should be understood as a personal path, a cause (qadiya), a mission of life and a methodology (manhajiyya) with a religious meaning. To adhere to the cause of resistance is a personal choice and a religious duty ( fard) that a Shiʽi Muslim should make, as long as he acknowledges the guardianship of the jurisprudent. This political interpretation by Khomeini, born out of religious tradition, can be identified as a da’wa. It works as a set of moral principles for life (Mervin 2008) and defines a collective solidarity restricted to a particular group, the Shiʽa. The term used in Arabic to describe the type of bond that ties people, iltizam, means a religious commitment at social and political levels that conveys ways of behaving (in dressing, talking, acting, etc.) and thus creates a strong sense of collective belonging. The strength of this ‘asabiyat created by Hizbullah also comes from its clear boundaries regarding the moral order over which it rules. All alternative social practices are stigmatised as shameful (‘ayb), corrupt (mafsuˆdıˆn) or illegal (haraˆm).

‘Lebanonisation’ of Hizbullah or South Lebanon as a sanctuary The death of Khomeini in 1989 and the Taı¨f Agreement agreed to in the same year, which put an end to Lebanese Civil War and led to the restoration of Lebanese state, opened a process of necessary aggiornamento for Hizbullah’s profile. The Party of God had to fit with the design of Lebanon’s Second Republic, which took shape after the end of the civil war (1990) and in which militia were supposed to be disarmed, as stated in the Taı¨f Agreement. Following a path of shared strategic and diplomatic interests in the Middle East since the 1980s, Syria and Iran supported internal change with the aim of keeping Hizbullah as their military asset oriented towards Israel (Goodarzi 2009). In this regard, another agreement was signed on 9 November 1990 between Iran and Syria regarding the two Shiʽi militias (Syrian-backed Amal and Iranianbacked Hizbullah) in the aftermath of the Taı¨f Agreement. In essence it stated that, in the post-civil war context of disarmament, if both militias became political parties, Amal would be entitled to manage state resources, whilst Hizbullah would have the nationalist duty to continue the armed struggle against Israel in order to liberate Lebanon’s southern borderland (Lamloum 2009). The ‘Islamic Resistance in Lebanon’ label

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that used to describe Hizbullah slowly became simply ‘The Resistance’, a change that undermined its Islamic dimension but fit the national scope of its mission. In other words, Hizbullah had to change its revolutionary identity9 in order to remain the key resistance player in South Lebanon. The core identity of the party, as noted by Saad-Ghorayeb (2002), resides primarily in its duty to put up resistance, which renders the Party of God dependent on direct access to its enemy on the borderland.10 If Hizbullah needed to build its enemy during the 1980s, in the 1990s, in order to succeed in its transformation into a nationalist party, it needed to continue the struggle against Israel and to build a legitimate identity as a national resistance group for all Lebanese and not only for the Shiʽa. One can see that these interlinked aspects of othering as part of a general process of identity definition relate to territoriality and more generally to space and the (b)ordering process. Until 1990, the party conceived the borders that divide the Islamic world as fake or colonial and advocated for their removal.11 Recognising the right for Lebanese to resist the Israeli occupation in South Lebanon, the Taı¨f Agreement eased the way for Hizbullah to acknowledge the legitimacy of the borders of Lebanese state. This recognition was a good deal for Syria and Hizbullah, as it matched (Lebanon’s) sovereignty with (Hizbullah’s) sanctuary thanks to Syria’s control over the political scene in Lebanon. This new official role as the national resistance helped the Party of God to convert its social capital into politics, as illustrated by several of its MPs entering Parliament in 1992 and embodied in its parliamentary bloc labelled ‘Allegiance to the Resistance Bloc’ (kutlat al-wafaˆ’ lil-muqaˆwama). In large part, this political dimension came about thanks to the party’s welfare capabilities and massive support of the Shiʽi population during and after the civil war, when the state was absent (Catusse and Alagha, 2008). This normalisation of a former militia as a political resistance party has been defined as a Lebanonisation process (Alagha, 2006). Its political discourse is closely related to a grid of nationalist issues with keywords showing that resistance is the only option for Lebanese citizen, as stated in the party’s electoral programme in 2000: ‘Safeguarding the security and dignity of our people, liberating the land, and realising true national unity’ (cited in Hoigilt, 2007: 132). In order to set up its sanctuary, Hizbullah deployed a multilayered strategy based on its welfare capabilities that mainly targeted the

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southern suburbs of Beirut as a way to support Shiʽi migrants from the South (Rostami-Povey, 2010). Hence, it promoted a sense of collective belonging in a defined space with its specific authority: a mix of religion principles and social policies. The important investment in Beirut can be understood as a political step in its general strategy to spread values of resistance by playing on its image of a Shiʽi movement building social welfare institutions to bring the Shiʽa out of marginalisation. The military step was carried out in South Lebanon with daily operations against the occupied zone and the Israeli occupation. In this light, South Lebanon can be identified as being in the process of sanctuarisation for Hizbullah, in the sense defined by Brynen (1990a) for the Palestinian resistance. At first, this movement gained military control over the entire area by waging armed resistance against the occupier over ten years (1990–2000) and was able to rule the area for six years (2000–06) until the deployment of Lebanese Army following the July War of 2006. In short, Hizbullah ordered South Lebanon as a sanctuary for 16 years, bordered the place with weaponry and a sophisticated surveillance system and eventually used its power of resistance as a political asset in Lebanese politics. The edification of the sanctuary went through a war of attrition inside and on the fringes of the occupied zone and during two major Israeli invasions (in 1993 and 1996). After the first operation (‘Operation Accountability’), an agreement was reached that stated that Israel would not attack civilian targets in Lebanon, and Hizbullah would focus its actions only on the ‘security zone’ (Sobelman, 2004). Meanwhile, ‘civilians were regularly killed “by accident” and in greater cumulative numbers than either members of the resistance, the IDF, or the SLA’ (Norton, 2007: 87). There is an explanation for the weak position of the civilians from each camp in this fight. Among Israeli military staff, Lebanese civilians are not considered to be neutral individuals, and their death in a military operation is considered collateral damage, despite Israeli attempts to diminish the level of such civilian casualties and deaths (de Crousaz, 2008). On the Hizbullah side, Israeli civilians are viewed as part of the Zionist ideology and harbouring expansionist designs of Zionism by their very presence in the state of Israel. Despite this justification for the use of violence against Israeli civilians, Hizbullah never pursued killing them and deemed Israeli civilians to be neutral in the group’s struggle with Israel out of ‘humanitarian Islamic consideration’ (Saad-Ghorayeb,

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2002: 143). At the same time, however, Hizbullah agreed to use katyushas attacks, which randomly target civilians living in Israel, as an invaluable ‘element of force’ in its endeavour to liberate South Lebanon. The IDF and Hizbullah continued to play their ‘ruled’ game in South Lebanon until they both broke the rules in 1996, when Israel responded with operation ‘Grapes of Wrath’. The main goals were to undermine popular support for Hizbullah among Lebanese population and oblige Syria and Lebanon to react by seeking a way for peace (Bishara, 1996). At this level, in the eyes of Israel, Hizbullah appeared as an excuse to deal with Syria, as if Hizbullah’s militiamen were under Syrian – or at least foreign – control. At that stage, Hizbullah was not recognised as a full and responsible actor. In fact, during this operation, Israeli strategy failed because of the deaths, intentional or not, of 106 civilians who were seeking safety inside a UN compound in the small but symbolic town of Qana. This massacre inspired more hatred for the Jewish state in Lebanese population and appeared to confirm Hizbullah’s criticism of the ‘barbarism’ of the ‘Zionist entity’. Instead of cutting the movement from its social basis, this Israeli operation and the Qana massacre reinforced a common belief about the legitimacy and necessity of Hizbullah as a deterrent force. The intervention of US Secretary of State Warren Christopher led to a new agreement known as ‘the April understanding’ that was approved (but not signed) by the two sides. This agreement redrew the set of rules, like three years before, with the same red lines. There would be no Israeli attacks on Lebanese civilians, no Hizbullah attacks on Israeli territory and a mutual understanding to avoid launching attacks from civilian areas. This time, however, a monitoring group (with representatives from some international countries, as well as Syria and Israel) was in charge of implementing this agreement and receiving complaints of violations. The agreement started a kind of enmity routine. Both belligerents had found a space in which to fight each other for their own interests and purposes. Both of them had a right to self-defence and, more revealingly, ‘Israel never challenged the right of Hizbullah to attack its soldiers in Lebanon’ (Norton, 2007: 85). In other words, the opposing otherness became interdependent. They both needed each other’s enmity in order to build/ legitimise their own identity (Meier, 2009). This way of being bound to the enemy has found neutral ground for cooperation in the occasional hostage exchanges (including dead soldiers’

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bodies or fighters’ remains). Periodic and indirect negotiations occurred through German negotiators or UNIFIL officials, with the support of local staff of the International Committee of the Red Cross. Such exchanges took place either at Bab Fatima (in Lebanese village of Kfarkila) or more often at Naqoura, on the coast, the other ‘gate’ monitored by the United Nations. Six exchanges took place during the 1990s; however, the most famous and sensational prisoner exchange was conducted in January 2004: ‘In return for three bodies and one living retired lieutenant colonel who had been captured in Beirut, Israel released 23 Lebanese and 400 Palestinian prisoners’ (Norton, 2007: 80). In July 2008, a few months after the Doha Agreement had put an end to the crisis between Hizbullah and its rivals – respectively gathering in the March 8 Alliance and the March 14 Alliance,12 – Hizbullah secured its last exchange to date and the eighth since 1991.13 The symbolic capital that Hizbullah had cumulated was at its peak as the two Israeli soldiers captured in July 2006 – which sparked the 33-day July War – were exchanged for four Hizbullah combatants captured in 2006 as well as Samir Kantar, the oldest Lebanese prisoner jailed in Israel in 1979 after an armed operation conducted with the Palestinian Liberation Front.14 This exchange, labelled ‘Operation Radwan’ (a symbolic reference to Imad Mughnieyeh, whom the Mossad probably killed in Damascus in 2008), also included some 200 dead bodies of Lebanese from Hizbullah and Amal and Palestinians from the DFLP. With the support of Lebanese state, which proclaimed a public holiday, Hizbullah monitored a parade from the border to the southern suburb of Beirut where Hassan Nasrallah appeared in person to hug the five men and deliver a speech to conclude the ceremony. This strange cooperation between enemies led to a win– win solution that worked well for Hizbullah. If such exchanges tended to show Israel’s concern for its own citizens, they also served Hizbullah’s image of wisdom and capability to obtain freedom for Lebanese prisoners. Hizbullah also succeeded in bringing home remains and dead bodies, most of them from Palestinian fida’iyyin. At that time, in the eyes of the Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon (but also of those living in Palestine), Hizbullah received credit for its mission to help achieve the ‘liberation of Palestine’, which contributed to an expansion of the scope of its duty of resistance, following the 1985 manifesto that stated the need to erase ‘the Zionist entity’ from Palestine.

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The 2000 Israeli withdrawal: from sanctuary to stronghold On 22 May 2000, a popular protest of unarmed residents of villages in the South headed towards the northern edge of the occupied zone to put pressure on SLA members. The latter were utterly surprised to find IDF troops already on their way back to Israel. They chose to flee their checkpoints as they understood Israel had abandoned them. Commenting on this ‘victory’ over the enemy’s army, the secretary-general of Hizbullah, Hassan Nasrallah, talked about the Israeli cowardice, its weakness and shameful behaviour in abandoning its Lebanese collaborators, which is ‘one thing that Hizbullah would never do’.15 By contrast, Nasrallah advertised the morality of the resistance that followed strict discipline among the rank and file and did not allow individuals to take vengeance on collaborators who chose to stay in Lebanon. Very few incidents (like personal revenge) occurred at this time, although testimonies of great suffering quickly turned up, most notably from the Khiam prison, located in the southern part of the occupied zone and used by Israel as an extrajudicial torture centre.16 The withdrawal of the Israeli Army from this area in South Lebanon returned the issue of Hizbullah’s sanctuary to the forefront of the political game. Lebanese opposition, at the time comprising Christian political parties, wondered about the purpose of continuing armed resistance after Israel had left Lebanese soil. In a clear allusion to the previous Palestinian domination over South Lebanon, the opposition raised the question of Hizbullah’s monopolisation of violence over the South by using the term ‘Hizbullah-land’, a clear reference to the ‘Fatahland’ that right-wing Christian parties had denounced in the 1970s. After internal discussion and consultation with its Iranian sponsor Ali Khamenei, Hizbullah through its secretary-general replied that armed resistance would not stop, because the Shebaa Farms still had to be liberated (Cimino, 2009). And even if they were liberated, a new file would be opened concerning Palestine and Jerusalem (Abbas, 2008: 32). For its part, the pro-Syrian government immediately laid claim to several territories dismissed by the UN Delineation Commission, the most significant of which were the Shebaa Farms. The Shebaa Farms are located inside the confines of South Lebanon, at the tripoint where it meets Syria and Israel. This area is a strip of land of approximately 40 km2 that ranges from 800 m up to 2,600 m above sea

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level and offers a vantage point over the Southern Beqaa Valley, the Jabal ‘Amil and the Huleh Valley and Galilee (see Map 3.1). This territory was loosely demarcated during the time of the French Mandate.17 In 1948, during the war, the Syrian Army coveted and occupied it, and the first official map of Syria as an independent state that was sent to the UN even included this area. Syrian shepherds and military troops used to think this area was theirs up until the 1967 Israeli invasion. The Farms were occupied by Israel and, while some were destroyed, the soil was cultivated, and new Jewish migrants settled in the lower farms by the end of the 1980s. In 2000, when Israel pulled out of South Lebanon, the UN considered the Shebaa Farms to be Syrian territory and did not follow Lebanese line of argument claiming this area belonged to them. At the time, Syria was interested in continuing to spread tension along the northern border of Israel by means of Hizbullah’s continuing military action; the Shebaa Farms were a convenient pretext, and no quick solutions were expected. After the war in 2006, the Syrian government and Hizbullah followed the same line under the slogan of the ‘liberation of the Shebaa Farms’ but did not work towards solving the case. The Syrian government only offered verbal recognition of Lebanese sovereignty of the Farms but refused to formulate any agreement on the matter under the pretext of continued Israeli occupation of the land.18 Territorial human strategy involves classifying space, communicating a sense of place and enforcing control over the place (Sack, 1986). This three-step plan of action could be a guideline to observing and assessing what Hizbullah did in the aftermath of the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000. As part of the territorial control strategy over the ‘liberated south’, Nasrallah symbolically delivered his first speech from Bint Jbeil, defined as ‘the capital of the liberation’, thus giving new meaning to the town and classifying it in opposition to the formerly occupied capital town of Marjayoun. He also talked about the resistance as ‘a positive force for Lebanon’ and reminded his audience that the resistance had to thank all the former martyrs from Amal, Lebanese and Syrian armies and the Palestinian fida’iyyin for their role in achieving victory in 2000. In this speech, Nasrallah blurred the boundaries between resistance fighters from different times and political orientations in order to make Hizbullah appear to be a synthesis – the heir apparent – of all these other groups. He also defined South Lebanon as a region that had been a

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victim of Israel’s behaviour and required order, respect and unity among Christians and Muslims. From this perspective, he made statements lumping Hizbullah and the local population into one single group with regard to what needed to be done: ‘We, in this area, should prove that we deserve this victory [. . .] This area needs to be reinforced (morally) after the dark period it went through.’ This task was eased when Lebanese government refused to deploy the national army in this part of the country because Lebanon did not want to acknowledge the Israeli withdrawal as complete by taking position along the line of withdrawal (Picard, 2000). Under these circumstances, the Party of God was able to set up its own local governance of the South and had full sovereignty over it, reminiscent of previous local governance systems during the civil war, for instance the civil administration of the Shouf Mountain by the Druze (Harik, 1993). This status as a quasi-state that Hizbullah enjoyed in the former occupied zone allowed the movement to define new social rules (e.g. compliance to the party, Islamic morality, refraining from vengeance) and fortify itself as a stronghold ready to face the worst scenario of an Israeli invasion, as the July War of 2006 proved to be. Another strategy linking Hizbullah with South Lebanon was to promote the local martyrs of the movement, natives from Jabal ‘Amil. To satisfy the logic of resistance that promotes defensive jihad against Israel as a duty, the party promoted martyrdom from the start, as it is a significant aspect of Shiʽi cultural references. Rooted in the religious culture of the Shiʽa is the figure of the ‘shahid’ (martyr) who gives his life for God (Dizboni, 2005). In the 20th century, martyrdom was transformed as a nonlinear tactic to fight the enemy and was also used by other sects and even by secular militants during the civil war. In one of his speeches, Imam Khomeini acknowledged the central role of the martyrs defined as ‘the engine, the soul of History’ (Daguzan, 2007). As part of their belief, the Shiʽa of Lebanon, under the influence of the Islamic Republic of Iran and Hizbullah, found in the combatant who gives his life for the cause the figure of the hero (batal) as a martyr (shahid). The rationale that Hizbullah promotes tends to enhance the honourable life that results from the resistance, in opposition to the humiliating life that one lives under occupation (Saad-Ghorayeb 2002). The dissemination and public displays of the figure of the martyr links the three processes highlighted by Henk Van Houtum and Tan Van

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Naerssen (2002). Firstly, it allows the party to mark and value the local territory in speeches and with images of martyrs on billboards (bordering). Secondly, it thus promotes a clear political identity based on sectarian affiliation (ordering). Thirdly, it values the involvement of ordinary social actors and pays respect to their extraordinary acts of duty (by othering the enemy) by means of a public display in honour of their memory. Valuing martyrdom allows Hizbullah to profit internally, generates devotion to the party and presents a model of behaviour for local profit. In more recent years, Hizbullah has chosen to celebrate a day of martyrdom on 11 November, which references the first massive suicide bombing carried out by Ahmad Qassir against the IDF Intelligence compound in Tyre in 1982. It has also recently been displaying yellow flags along the motorway19 south of Saida to mark the entrance to their territory in a symbolic way. The flags show the three ‘top’ martyrs (al-shahid al-qaid), all natives of the South. Ragheb Harb, the first, was a local sheikh who mobilised Southerners against the Israeli occupation and was murdered by SLA militiamen in 1984. The second, Abbas Mussawi, was the former secretary-general of Hizbullah. Israel killed him and his family in his car with a missile strike on a road in the South in 1992. The third, Imad Mughniyyeh, was a top military officer in the party and was killed by Israel in Damascus when his car exploded as he switched on the ignition in 2008. In a similar vein, the prisoner exchanges with Israel mentioned above turn into celebrations that glorify martyrs – both theirs and the Communists or Palestinians killed in the 1970s and 1980s. In the prisoner exchanges in 2004 and 2008, all these martyrs ended up being gathered under the flag of Hizbullah and seemed to have been used as a means to unify South Lebanon’s history of resistance with all previous forms of resistance subsumed under the banner of Hizbullah (Chaib, 2010).

The 2000s: from external to internal shifts and their effects on the borderland From a regional perspective, there was a major shift, caused by several interconnected events, that can be described as a change in the ‘configuration’ that slowly took place, following Norbert Elias’s concept describing an interdependent balance of power (Elias, 1993). In effect, there was a shift in the configuration of the Middle East following the

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death of Hafez el-Assad, the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon and the launch of the Second Intifada in 2000, along with the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001. In the eyes of the US administration, the latter event brought up a new ‘terrorist hunt’ on the scale of the entire Middle East, which would lead among other things to the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and it slowly identified Hizbullah as a threat to the Middle East (Droz-Vincent, 2007: 267). The reasons partly included this new division of the world into friends and foes, as US President George W. Bush argued, which also promoted Israel’s security agenda with regard to its neighbours, and the promotion of a ‘vision’ for a free Middle East. The latter identified Syria, Hizbullah’s close ally, as an obstacle to the emergence of a free and democratic Lebanon. Regarding this issue, one has to keep in mind that the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000 generated grievances from Christians and Sunni Lebanese politicians who raised the question of a Syrian withdrawal as a sort of symmetric treatment of both foreign armies in Lebanon.20 After 9/11,21 a major change in US doctrine towards the Middle East led the US Congress to discuss restrictions on Syria, and by the end of 2003 it had passed the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act.22 Thanks to a US –French agreement, this condemnation of the Syrian regime for its continuing military occupation of Lebanon finally reached the level of a UN vote in September 2004 with Resolution 1559 (Salloukh, 2009). This resolution threatened the Party of God by stating that all militias, Lebanese as well as non-Lebanese, must disband. The non-Lebanese militias mentioned in the UN Resolution 1559 targeted the military wings of a few pro-Syrian Palestinian parties.23 The discussions clearly identified ‘the resistance’ receiving support from Syria as the main bone of contention between Lebanese diplomats on the one hand and US and French diplomats on the other. The assassination of Prime Minister Rafic el-Hariri in February 2005 led to internal polarisation that sparked two massive demonstrations on 8 March and 14 March, the dates after which the two political coalitions that have shaped the political scene in Lebanon since then would be named. International pressure, in addition to internal discontent over Syrian tutelage of Lebanon, led to Syria withdrawing its military forces by the end of April 2005, after the breakdown of the last pro-Syrian government. Hizbullah understood that those who were anti-Syrian

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would likely lead the next government, which meant a lifting of the political protection that Damascus had used to guarantee Hizbullah during its tutelage over Lebanon to monitor any strategic decisions in Lebanese politics. Faced with this issue threatening its political power, the Party of God chose to seek executive power in the legislative elections in the summer of 2005, and for the first time it took part in the government. This position allowed the Party of God to oppose several issues raised by the Siniora government that came to power in late summer that year. Tensions inherited from the past, mainly from the sectarian system of power sharing in Lebanon, increased the rift between the two political blocs: the pro-Western March 14 coalition led by major Sunni, Christian and Druze parties and the pro-Syrian March 8 coalition headed by the Shiʽi parties Amal and Hizbullah and the Christian-led Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of Michel Aoun. By signing a memorandum of understanding with the FPM early in 2006, Hizbullah expanded its political cover related to its resistance posture and succeeded in blurring the traditional political boundaries.24 Although the general tone of this memorandum insists on state reforms, the message goes deeper, as it raises the security issue as a matter of institutionalising or nationalising its concern for a state of resistance. Together with the FPM, Hizbullah defined the conditions under which its weapons would no longer be necessary: the liberation of the Shebaa Farms, the freeing of Lebanese prisoners still jailed in Israel and the setting up of a national conference with a common defence strategy agreed to by all Lebanese. If the first and last conditions seemed difficult to reach, the collective agreement expected to set up a national defence strategy is the means Hizbullah used to align the state with its security concern and, beyond that, its vision of what Lebanese state should be. Symptomatically, this issue was regularly among the first to be discussed by the ‘national dialogue’ committee, which is basically a parainstitutional gathering of the leaders of all the political groups.25 The July War in 2006, when Israel launched its attack against Hizbullah following the abduction of two Israeli soldiers on the Blue Line, led to a transformation of the borderland space. After a disastrous 33 days of war that caused 1,183 deaths, 4,059 injured and approximately 1 million internally displaced persons among Lebanese population and huge material damages, Israel failed to reach its initial goal (to eradicate Hizbullah from Lebanon) and had to withdraw its

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forces. Hizbullah talked about a ‘divine victory’, a religious qualification working as cement to stick together the Shiʽi constituency, even if the war increased cleavages between the two competing political coalitions. The key leverage for the shift in space allocation in South Lebanon came thanks to UN Resolution 1701, which allowed the return of Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) after 28 years of absence: a sort of state re-(b)ordering of South Lebanon. This resolution also strengthened of UNIFIL battalions up to 15,000 with a clear mandate to confiscate all weapons carried by unauthorised personnel in South Lebanon, namely anyone who is not an LAF member. As a consequence, Hizbullah had to redeploy its troops north of the Litani River with new hiding places for weaponry and training. Unable to continue its war of attrition against Israel, Hizbullah stressed the need to focus its goal on the erection of a ‘state of resistance’. This strategic choice was already made during the 1990s, probably as a way to preserve the sanctuary and within a strategic Iranian– Syrian vision of an ‘axis of resistance’ (International Crisis Group, 2010). The southern borderland area can therefore be understood as a sanctuary and a stronghold from where to wage resistance operations and spread a spirit of resistance. The importance of this part of the country for the Party of God should not be underestimated, as it has allowed Hizbullah to convert the symbolic capital accumulated during 24 years of armed resistance (1982–2006) into political resources with a strategic objective: implementing its vision of the state as a ‘state of resistance’. Taking this change into account, Hassan Nasrallah underlined in his first speech after the war, at Bint Jbeil (September 2006), the necessity for the party to turn to a new form of resistance called ‘al-mumana’a’. As Amal Saad-Ghorayeb (2007) clarifies, ‘the term mumana’a – derived from the Arabic word “to prevent” and which connotes all forms of non-military resistance, confrontation and rejection – refers to the politically confrontational stands assumed by Iran and Syria. In this vision, the state is the new location, as was the South before, for Hizbullah to display its political program of resistance in order to build “the State of Resistance”.’ This move followed Hizbullah’s deeper involvement in national politics with its participation in the first government after the Syrian withdrawal in 2005. The two processes ended with the fall of Sa’ad Hariri’s government in January 2011 and the setting up of a pro-Syrian, March 8 government under the

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leadership of Najib Miqati, a moderate ally of Damascus. If the national dimension of the party had been secured thanks to the liberation in 2000, the July War in 2006, when the South was under international scrutiny, drove it to turn its power inward, affirm more clearly its political ambition and publicly express its national vision with a new manifesto (December 2009). In this document, Hizbullah defined itself through a process of change: ‘From a force of liberation, the resistance has then reached a balance in its confrontation, and has now become a defensive and deterrent force in addition to its political role in Lebanon, which allows it to influence the construction of the State as an efficient and fair entity’ (Alagha, 2011).26 Unfortunately for the movement, the Syrian uprising that began in 2011 gradually pushed Hizbullah to turn eastward and sing a different tune towards the Syrian people when compared with other Arab peoples whom they congratulated for getting rid of their respective dictators. Hizbullah’s force of resistance slowly became a force alongside the Syrian regime that was obviously oppressing its population by means of brutality and fear. The de-legitimisation process that Hizbullah knew in 2013 – 14 was revealing, as common speeches by political opponents recalled the glorious years of Hizbullah’s legitimacy, when the party was fighting for the safety of the nation on its southern border against Israel. The political leaders of March 14 recalled the warning of 2008 when the party turned its weapons inward in order to secure its political position. Far from South Lebanon, Hizbullah was helped by the al-Nusra Front and later by the Islamic State when all of a sudden, during the summer of 2014, thousands of jihadi militiamen took position in the Qalamoun Mountains, a strategic borderland between Lebanon and Syria, took the town of Arsal (Beqaa Valley) and held dozens of Lebanese LAF officers hostage. After the disastrous 2013, during which the party and the Shiʽi people at large were targeted on Lebanese soil, this attempt at Lebanese sovereignty sounded like an opportunity for the movement to regain some symbolic capital by fighting alongside Lebanese Army to push back the Islamist threat that Hassan Nasrallah had been talking about since 2012 to describe the war in Syria as the real threat for Lebanon. The strategy of bordering here finds the related process of the othering of an enemy that can be described as a constitutive other that is as indefensible as any Israeli soldier trying to cross into Lebanon.

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Conclusion Recent events related to the Syria uprising that have affected Lebanon seem to shed a crude light on the motives of Hizbullah in its use of the notion of ‘resistance’. In May 2013, a public statement by Hizbullah’s secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, about the party’s involvement with the Baathist regime of Bashar el-Assad would seem to show the duplicity of the Party of God. On the one hand, Hizbullah applauded popular uprisings in most of the Arab countries of the Maghreb and the Gulf; on the other hand, it raised the flag of ‘resistance’ against the popular uprising in Syria with the justification of facing a ‘threat’ posed by Islamists, their external supports and ‘takfiris’ to the axis of resistance that includes Iran and Syria. The demonisation process of their enemy is not really surprising in itself, but it is shocking that Hizbullah targets a popular resistance movement that faced an authoritarian and repressive regime, and that it has taken sides with this regime. The idea and the spirit of ‘the resistance’ that the party promoted to fight the ‘oppressors’ (mustakbirıˆn) have been swept away in the face of political and strategic considerations. This approach shows how devious Hizbullah can be in order to survive and continue its struggle against ‘imperialist powers’. Hizbullah made its statement of military support to the Syrian regime because of the serious military threat the Assad regime was facing, which required stronger support than before of a well-trained force capable of recapturing territories that had fallen to the anti-Assad forces and thus re-bordered the Baathist regime. And symptomatically, the first move after this declaration was the ‘Battle of Qussayr’, which the Assad regime won thanks to the military skills of Hizbullah’s militiamen. In short, these latest developments seem to highlight the limitations and contradictions of the ‘resistance’ discourse when faced with a threat. It unveiled the reactionary potential of the party the moment its allies are under pressure and underlined its dependence on them. Its relationship with Syria and Iran has been explained (Goodarzi, 2009), and the religious vector compelling Hizbullah to follow Iranian policy, strategic choices and the regional orientations of the Iranian regime have been clearly illustrated. The support Hizbullah is providing to the Assad regime today should remind one of the party’s trajectory during the civil war. While it was waging war against Israel, Hizbullah

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Map 3.1 The 1982 Israeli occupation and steps of withdrawal from Lebanon (1982–2000).

was also violently fighting internal rivals, mainly Amal, that constituted a threat against its resistance project in South Lebanon. If resistance defines Hizbullah’s very identity, its raison d’eˆtre, the content of the term ‘resistance’ has to be questioned. Its political dimension today appears to stand in opposition to the early definition. The re-bordering of the South during the 1980s, thanks to a monopolisation of military force and a progressive ordering of the

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population through its religious involvement that defined resistance as a religious duty, helped to reject othering and thus contributes to its core definition: a movement that struggles for the liberation of the South. The 2000 withdrawal tends to show the way Hizbullah succeeded in becoming a powerful force on Lebanese scene but moreover on the regional stage of Middle Eastern politics. Since its 2006 military success resisting the Israeli ground invasion, Hizbullah has presented itself as a major defender of national Lebanese sovereignty and a significant actor on the military map of the region. This new role was shaken as new issues arose with democratic protests in Iran (2009) and with the Syrian uprising (2011). The two authoritarian regimes in Tehran and Damascus put Hizbullah at odds with its public image and discourse in Lebanon, while the party was bound to its ideological and strategic alliances with these two regimes and their uprisings. For Hizbullah, at that point in time, the ‘resistance’ justification appeared to be more of a means or tactic than an identity. Less legitimate than ever, the ‘resistance’ discourse needs an othering – if not Israel, Sunni Islamists or local powers supporting jihadis – as a scapegoat to avoid the ‘Syrian disease’ that the Assad regime faced with the Baathist ideology: emptying its contents by making its use routine. In this respect, the Party of God’s expressed desire to erect a ‘state of resistance’ in Lebanon sounds like an answer linking Lebanon’s fate more deeply to the Syrian and Iranian regimes.

PART II THE BORDERLAND'S NARRATIVES

CHAPTER 4 ORDERING THE BORDERLAND: HIZBULLAH'S SOCIOPOLITICAL AND CULTURAL STRATEGY

In the process of shaping the borderland, Hizbullah is deploying several strategies that all contribute to the ordering of South Lebanon as part of the party’s political identity building. Its socio-political and cultural investments in this region are viewed as major assets for the party’s current strategy with respect to the military changes that took place after the July War of 2006. This war changed the balance of power in the southern part of the borderland because of the deployment of 15,000 UN troops and the arrival of Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in the southern part of the country after the passage of the UN Resolution 1701. As seen before, Hizbullah’s political and ideological apparatus hinges on a significant hegemony over the South, which it has been building up since the middle of the 1980s and is rooted in a culture of resistance largely spread among the Shiʽi population. The religious dimension of this resistance can be identified as a set of symbolic events that have meaning in the day-to-day lives of the Shiʽa. The most salient ones are the Battle of Karbala and the Ashura demonstrations, both of which are rooted in Shiʽi eschatology, assert a communal identity and form a solid background for Hizbullah’s values and actions on the ground. The Shiʽi narrative is tied to the disappearance of the twelfth imam, who will return to Earth as the Mahdi to judge the living and dead.

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Based on Khomeini’s theory of the guardianship of the jurisprudent (wilayat al-faqih), Hizbullah spread the idea of an Islamic state during the 1980s as an ideal ‘divine state of justice’ that will not ‘remain confined within its geographical borders and is the dawn that will lead to the appearance of the Mahdi, who will create the state of Islam on earth’ (Nasrallah cited in Noe, 2007: 90). The abandonment of the project of an Islamic state in 1990, when Hizbullah adopted a pragmatic view of its position within Lebanon’s political society, resulted in the acknowledgement of the national borders as legitimate, in line with its resistance mission to liberate South Lebanon. The evolution of this religious narrative also shows the double dimension the values can have: either moral, in other words with religious values, social justice and the defence of the oppressed (mustad’afıˆn) against the oppressors (mustakbirıˆn), or political, with an anti-imperialist and anti-globalist discourse.1 For the Shiʽa, the Battle of Karbala is a key historical event that works as a paradigm to understand their martyrology (Dizboni, 2005; Harb, 2010). The battle took place in 680, when Hussein, the grandson of Ali, who was the son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, was murdered along with 70 of his followers by the Sunni caliph Yazid in the city of Karbala. He is commemorated during a popular demonstration called the Day of Ashura. In Harb’s view (2010, 170), Ashura is a mobilising myth that imposes a collective meaning and creates a political commitment. In his mobilisation theory, Lagroye (1993: 254) states that a political organisation can maintain its reference group by revitalising cleavages and oppositions. In this case, Ashura utilises Shiʽi rhetoric that invokes the injustices suffered by the Shiʽa. The oppressor is symbolically pictured as any enemy of the Shiʽi community (and also any enemy of the ummah, the Islamic community), which conveys the idea that resistance against the oppressor is the natural fate of every Shiʽi individual. As a cultural and highly symbolic commemoration, Ashura has been revamped by the party, and it became a turning point for mobilising the local population of Jabal ‘Amil to resist Israel when in 1983 the occupying IDF troops disturbed the procession. In the following years, Hizbullah has transformed Ashura from a commemoration procession into a political demonstration (Deeb, 2006), and it is now a vector of political mobilisation (Mervin, 2008). For Hizbullah, the character of Hussein is an ideal type that every Muslim should follow, as he embodies the spirit of martyrdom. Other demonstrations have been added to the

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mobilisation calendar (Martyr’s Day, Adha, Ramadan, Day of Jerusalem, Liberation of South Lebanon, Prophet’s birthday etc.) to sanctify memory and the contemporary political history of the Shiʽa. All these demonstrations help the party to accumulate more symbolic capital2 and naturalise the idea of resistance as a collective destiny. They also provide the Shiʽi people with a strong cultural narrative that links their fate with South Lebanon. Two sets of actions have sprouted from these cultural and ideological roots. Firstly, along with a media apparatus, a giant socio-political intervention was gradually set up thanks to different institutions ranging from health and services to employment and schooling sectors. The involvement was such that Hizbullah was sometimes seen as a quasiwelfare state for the Shiʽa of Lebanon – primarily in the southern suburb of Beirut, where Shiʽa found shelter during the civil war. After the Israeli withdrawal of 2000, the party indirectly took on this role in the former occupied region, close to the border, because the state was unwilling to deploy its army troops. The 2006 war did not change this dynamic but put stress on its socio-political and cultural trends. Following the urgent needs after the massive destruction faced by the southern villages, the party deployed its welfare capacities to rebuild houses and the family support structure, as well as its cultural values, and thus it shaped and ordered the southernmost part of the country, as if each square kilometre of land should be invested, enrolled and claimed as a ‘resistance area’. The study of the reconstruction process in the aftermath of that war deserves particular attention, with specific focus on the mode of action of the largest Hizbullah-affiliated association dedicated to reconstruction, Jihaˆd al-bina’. A second aspect worthy of deep exploration is the dissemination of cultural production that combines heritage, memory and leisure with politics, education and morality. The memorial museum in Mleeta can be considered as a relevant case study on this topic, as it clearly mixes tourism with a specific vision of history and the memory of a land. The museum was constructed on the site of a former (15-year-long) front line between the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and Hizbullah. As part of the resistance society building, the blurring of the boundaries between tourism and ideology, politics and aesthetics inscribes Mleeta as a means to reinvest the landscape. This way of ordering the landscape and the natural environment of the southern borderland makes it a vantage ground for the spreading of an alternative

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vision of the world. After presenting its origin and the importance of its location, I will discuss its meaning and the symbols that Mleeta uses. Both these cultural policies can be seen as part of the process consisting in ordering the environment – in the sense of Van Houtum & Van Naersen (2002) – by linking memory with the history of South Lebanon, which reveals the politicisation of nature, landscape and architecture.

Building the resistance society During the spring of 2014, Iran decreased its support of Hizbullah, and the party immediately took measures to cut the budget by laying off employees working in the party’s social, health, media and service institutions.3 Thus, Hizbullah was revealing its dependence on external funding – most of its own financial resources come from Lebanese diaspora in Africa – but also the huge financial impact of Hizbullah’s involvement in Syria. Moreover, this economic slowdown underlined part of the weakness of Hizbullah’s social apparatus and the reasons behind its powerful social strategy. The consequences of this difficult context could prove risky for the party, as its social investment supports the spreading of its core values and the creation of its Islamic sphere (Halaˆ Islaˆmiyya), both of which knit social sectors together in the Shiʽi social environment. In other words, this cultural policy and collective identity of resistance are underpinned by socio-economic institutions providing services to Hizbullah’s constituency. Some commentators think such institutions are deliberately building a patron–client relationship. Research on the Arab world (Clark, 2004; Daher, 2014; Furniss & Meier, 2012) has shown that such institutions are advancing a specific image and supplying the ethic of the movement they belong to. Hizbullah’s popular support stems from these values and from institutions’ ethical behaviour, which makes sense for the actors and constituencies directly interested in the services the party can provide. Most of these institutions labelled as NGOs ‘have sister institutions in Iran, and have directly transported the Iranian model of community and service provision’ (Abboud & Muller, 2012: 48), while others have been set up according to specific domestic needs. But all of them openly claim their affiliation to the party and believe in the building of a ‘resistance society’ that would challenge the authority and legitimacy of the state’s institutions.

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Two types of institutions can be identified here: those with a clear purpose to take part in and support the struggle of the resistance by providing care and funds to the families of fighters killed in combat or by paying for material losses; and those that have a communication task to spread the narratives and values of the armed resistance (cultural, social and educational support) through the media (radio, TV, journals and newspapers).4 Among the institutions offering support, one can also list banks, financial companies as well as the Islamic Charity providing micro-loans or institutions that help the victims of war or Israeli strikes in South Lebanon, and the well-known Martyrs Association (Mu’assasat al-shahıˆd). Jihaˆd al-bina’, the Foundation for the Effort of Reconstruction (Mu’assasat Jihaˆd al-bina’ al-inmaˆ’iyya), is one of the most important ones, as it assisted a large number of people in Beirut and in the South. Jihaˆd al-bina’ attracts strong Shiʽi support thanks to its provision of civilian construction services (hospitals, schools, social centres for disabled people and orphans as well as the installation of water and electricity). In the immediate aftermath of the July War in the summer of 2006,5 the reconstruction process of the southern suburb (al-dahiya) and of the damaged villages in the south of the country was promoted thanks to an association for reconstruction named ‘pledge’ (wa’d), set up by Hizbullah’s central committee to support the people affected by the war. In these circumstances, Hizbullah appeared as a local actor deeply embedded within Lebanese society, at least among the Shiʽa, and thus seemed to be something very different than the ‘Iranian surrogate militia’. Owing to a lack of state intervention during the civil war, Hizbullah’s social institutions hinge on a repertoire of social injustice stemming from its first ‘Open Letter’ of 1985 that drew a contrast between the weak (mustad’afıˆn) to the powerful (mustakbirıˆn) in order to defend human rights (huquˆq al-insaˆn) and the fate of the Shiʽa. Those institutions have competed with Lebanese state since the Second Republic, after the end of the civil war (1990), to the point of being essential in the everyday lives of those living in Beirut’s southern suburb (Catusse & Alagha, 2008). Two principles guide the party’s institutional action towards the people it wants to reach: a holistic management based on functional and territorial rationalisation, as well as the modernity of those institutions characterised by their religious dimension (Harb, 2010). Jihaˆd al-bina’ was created in 1985 as a subsidiary of the Iranian

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association and was initially active in rebuilding damaged buildings during the war period and then, by the end of the 1980s, in collecting the garbage and providing the inhabitants of al-dahyia with water and electricity when the state completely failed to do so. More recently, the association has been active in local development among rural areas with micro-credit loans for peasants and social insurances and has collaborated with international development agencies. On the postwar scene in 2006, Jihaˆd al-bina’ appeared as a key local actor at a time when the state lacked a clear policy to face the many challenges of the post-conflict era. During a slow process, the state raised international support and distributed monies in the form of compensation (only reaching the south in late October 2006)6 to those who had lost their homes (al-Harithy, 2010: 8 –9), which left the door open to alternative actors who seized the opportunity and led a proper reconstruction strategy. Hizbullah undertook outreach work, conducted surveys, met families and liaised with local authorities and financial donors. Thus, for many people, money had a face and a name: Hizbullah. The reconstruction programme initiated by Jihaˆd al-bina’ sounded like a pledge (wa’d) to compensate for and support losses;7 in return, this reconstruction gave Hizbullah an opportunity to evaluate its impact and influence on the population affected by this war: ‘More than 90% of the households that lost their dwellings legally delegated responsibility to wa’d for the reconstruction process, including tasks such as collecting public financial compensation, developing architectural designs, and supervising the construction of homes, in their names’ (Abboud & Muller, 2012: 49), with the guarantee of retaining the same type (surface, access) of living spaces they had had before the war. In South Lebanon, the role of Jihaˆd al-bina combined with that of the local state institution, the Council of the South (Majlis al-janoub), controlled by the other Shiʽi party, Amal. Amal is a member of the same political alliance (March 8) that had jurisdiction over much of the reconstruction. Thus, although the funds were coming from abroad (like in the well-known case of Bint Jbeil supported by Qatar), local people saw Jihaˆd al-bina’ men acting on the ground as they assumed control over the physical reconstruction thanks to a division of tasks with the Council of the South (Chapuis, 2015). In order to act on the ground, Hizbullah divided its activities into two parts: compensation and reconstruction. The party provided

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financial compensation of about $12,000 to each family that had lost their house or flat. This sum helped the family to find another accommodation for one year and was renewed every year as long as the family was not rehoused. The party was very quick to provide cash to support the affected people. Hence, millions of dollars were paid in a few days, and apparently 75 per cent of the total amount was paid out within 48 hours! This is telling regarding the capacity of mobilisation and organisation that the party can have when it comes to ordering space and society. The reconstruction process was launched a few hours after the end of the war on 14 August 2006. Hundreds of civil engineers were also mobilised through Jihaˆd al-bina’ thanks to an interpersonal network. Being the first to act on the ground on those two fronts of post-conflict reconstruction, Hizbullah provided a sense of care to a significant number of traumatised people in the southern suburb of Beirut and in many Southern villages. In the South, the fishing sector, deeply affected by the maritime blockade imposed by Israel, received direct compensation from Hizbullah, while in the Ain el-Hilweh camp, the Palestinian refugees whose houses had been damaged by shelling also received allowances. On the whole, because of such quick help and support, Hizbullah saw thousands of people leave their fate up to the party during that postwar period. Providing aid and care in such a personalised relationship and giving from hand to hand contributed to a strengthening of the belief in Hizbullah’s efficiency amongst local inhabitants, most of them from the Shiʽi sect. Intimacy and immediacy were thus two key words of the reconstruction process for Hizbullah to win the heart of its constituency (Chapuis, 2015). Municipalities ensured an important follow-up in the months after the end of the war, thanks to the party’s investment in those local power structures.8 While huge municipalities were able to decide on financial allocations and had enough funding for major rebuilding projects, small ones, like most the municipalities in South Lebanon, had to find agreements at the level of municipal federations. But one of the most difficult aspects of reconstruction for such municipalities came from the Ministry of Interior, the superior authority for municipal powers. Between 2006 and 2008, the minister in charge, Hassan Sabeh, was a political enemy of Hizbullah, because he was close to the Hariri family. Negotiations regarding reconstruction were uneasy between these two levels of power. External stakeholders, among them the government of

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Qatar, helped several municipalities (Khiam, Ait al-Shaab, Ainata), but Hizbullah succeeded in appearing locally as the main actor of the work being done on the ground and tried to preserve its idea of ‘national resistance’, as it was the main provider of completed projects. Contrary to a widespread idea, Iran was not sending much money, as the Siniora government initially refused to give the Iranians the authorisation and then signed an agreement restricting their help on infrastructure. As such, its donation of $1 million was sent directly to Lebanese government, and other Iranian forms of supports – like its proposal to provide Lebanese Army with anti-aircraft weaponry – were rejected (Daher, 2014). In other municipalities in the South, local elected Hizbullah authorities had to work with unusual stakeholders. The case of Nabatieh is particularly interesting, as several projects were funded by USAID, the big US development foundation that is well-known for providing the US government with intelligence. Hizbullah found a way to justify this cooperation by saying USAID ‘changed the origins of its donations as they were in fact coming from France, Japan and Germany’, all of them more acceptable as stakeholders for Southern villages under the sway of Hizbullah (Chapuis, 2015). On the other hand, some commentators thought this cooperation was a means for Hizbullah to watch more closely over the US agency’s local actions. As seen in Chapter 3, the act of resistance is the backbone of Hizbullah’s identity although the use of this term by the party recently revealed its ideological scope. Within the framework of the 2006 reconstruction, Jihaˆd al-bina’ transferred this vision to the urban planning, as it was the case in two major cities in the south of the country: Nabatieh and Bint Jbeil. In Nabatieh, the municipality’s reconstruction plan envisioned a patrimonial perspective that included the preservation and restauration of several buildings in line with the idea of the city as a centre of resistance that welcomed the Ashura ceremony every year. In Bint Jbeil, however, there was a completely different scenario because of the enormity of the destruction. The municipal reconstruction committee started to work on a tabula rasa scenario: cleaning the place by clearing the ground and erasing all traces of the war. In the meantime, an alternative project by urban planners from the American University in Beirut was proposed with the idea of preserving the city centre as a local memory of the spirit of resistance. The municipal committee decided to bring into their scenario the

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heritage aspect by preserving several historical places as signs of the resistance. With regard to this kind of transformation/restoration in an urban space, Habib Debs (2010), a well-known Lebanese urban planner, talked about the urban space as a locus for competing forms of expression – given that they convey a meaning, a political affiliation – instead of conflicting attitudes towards a system of use, which is the socio-economic dimension. It means that reconstruction plans have been imposed on the residents as part of a resistance narrative and transformed into a physical reality. Social services like the Jihaˆd al-bina’ reconstruction department appeared as a means for Hizbullah to exert social control and leverage its capacity of ordering, as Harb (2010) showed to be the case in the southern suburb of Beirut (al-dahiya).

Cultural production: moral norms and political message Although the party’s role in the leisure sector in Beirut’s southern suburb (al-dahiya) is less powerful than it looks, Hizbullah still plays a leading role in the South, mainly thanks to the leading role played by entrepreneurs and religious leaders. In this region, Hizbullah’s investments and direct forms of intervention began after Israel’s withdrawal and the liberation of this southern area of Jabal ‘Amil right down to the border, including significant villages like Bint Jbeil, renamed the ‘capital of the liberation’. Two main local sites, the Mleeta memorial museum and the Khiam detention centre, are vivid reminders of the ideological construction of land and nature. They translate a specific understanding of culture (thaqafa) but more broadly correspond to a new market demand for Islamic entertainment. The latter ‘reflects the grassroots success of the efforts of Lebanese Shiʽi religious and political leaders [. . .] since the 1920s to forge a sectarian community consolidated around specific moral norms’ (Harb & Deeb, 2011: 14). It is also an indirect result of the closer sociability that developed in the aftermath of the civil war, the capital city itself being divided alongside new sectarian lines for a long time after the end of the war, thus keeping people segregated and limited to their own areas. The emergence of a new generation of young Shiʽa in Lebanon who grew up inside such an Islamic milieu and the growing religious and political tourism industry incorporating visits to cultural Islamic sites on tours of Lebanon (Hazbun, 2008) are also part of the development of Hizbullah’s tourism policy.

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To serve the party’s investment in this field, an organisation called Lebanese Association for the Arts (al-Jam’iyya al-Lubnaniyya lil-Funun) (LAA), which brings together designers, graphic artists and advertising specialists, was established to produce exhibitions and generate media coverage about the ideals of the ‘resistance society’. It shaped myriad signs around Hizbullah during meetings, celebrations or simply on regular billboards, flags or advertisements for social events put up in the subway in the southern part of the country. This legitimisation of the party took many forms, including multilingual leaflets, tour guides and the shaping of the landscape with the building of architecture. One of the branches of the organisation was responsible for the building of large-scale structures such as the memorial garden in Marun al-Raˆs on the border or the memorial museum of Mleeta in the eastern mountains of Saida. The garden in Marun al-Raˆs was funded by Iran after the July War in 2006 but designed by the association mentioned above; it includes a playground for children that mimics a military training ground, landscaped areas, family spaces, barbecue pits and a mosque. In this way, visitors can experience ‘the border’, as the village is located 100 m above the Blue Line and offers a great point of view over ‘Palestine’. Other resistance sites are located in the Beqaa Valley – such as the memorial of Sayyid Abbas Musawi in Nabi Sheet – or are signalled on billboards as the location of anti-Israeli operations in the past. The goal appears to be to put in place a ‘resistance trail’ throughout the southern part of the country.9 The main tourist sites (Mleeta and Khiam) are fascinating examples of this combination of ideological and education goals coupled with leisure and tourism. Thanks to such achievements, Hizbullah is able to define its own vision of history and memory and make it work as the dominant vision largely known and diffused, as it refers to people’s relationship with the land in South Lebanon. In an insightful reflection on bridging geography with anthropology and following the seminal thought of Don Mitchell, Mona Harb and Lara Deeb (2011) suggest looking at landscapes as built environments as well as representations. In line with this theoretical framework, one can analyse the party’s action as one that constructs culture through and within space thanks to a production of landscape with materials, texts, sounds and symbols, and thus it creates the social conditions for ordering the region according to Hizbullah’s values and norms. It can disseminate its vision of the world

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and penetrate all ‘nonpolitical’ sectors of society thanks to its understanding of culture and the specialised service of its LAA organisation. In one of its campaigns, the LAA promoted religious morality and social norms under the label of ‘The Values of Order’. Such an ordering of the social and natural environment is clearly at the heart of the current process of codifying behaviour and values. The Khiam detention centre illustrates this link between politics and tourism in the shaping of the landscape. Once a barrack for French troops in the 1930s, the Khiam camp was occupied in 1982 during the Israeli invasion and transformed into a secret prison of the Israeli government, a sort of offshore detention centre – one that was a precursor to more recent extrajudicial US practices in the post-9/11 era – that allowed the degrading treatment of prisoners, most of them Lebanese or Palestinian. In May 2000, when IDF troops withdrew from Lebanon, Israel’s proxy Lebanese militiamen, the SLA, abandoned the site and left behind 145 detainees. Informal tourism started immediately, as a committee of volunteers who were former detainees administered the site ‘in loose consultation with Hizbullah’ (Harb & Deeb, 2011: 19) and provided tourists with explanations of the various spaces, cells and kinds of torture equipment. At the entrance, alongside a cafe´ and a small store, a plaque showed the faces and names of those Lebanese who worked as Israeli collaborators. I visited the site in 2001 and remember being able to wander and discover it by myself. However, former detainees were already guiding visitors (as they are today) and providing detailed information on the place and personal narratives about their degrading and brutal conditions in detention. Such public openings had three goals: to show evidence of what Israel did there and thus contribute to changing the perception of the resistance; to narrate the pain and suffering that people experienced in this jail; and to provide the new generation with a vivid recollection and a legacy for history. This argument is still the same today, but the local guide has added a new dimension, as IDF aeroplanes bombed the Khiam site in 2006. He explained that such destruction underscores the Israeli guilt, as it ‘tried to erase the proof of the atrocities they committed here’.10 Before the bombing, Hizbullah had invested very little in the detention centre but took advantage of its existence as a nationalist site that is part of the Islamic milieu and its own geographical sphere of influence.11

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After the 2006 bombings that destroyed most of the centre and only left a few rooms standing in the middle of the rubble, the LAA planned to transform the place into a proper tourist site with full amenities (parking, restaurant, theatre). The plans changed in 2009 when a draft project included other areas on the Khiam prison for the purpose of focusing on detention, so that people would see the bigger picture of Hizbullah’s resistance and struggle against injustice and imperialism. A more recent project was brought up in 2010, this time stressing the history of Israeli prisons in Lebanon and Palestine along with a partial rebuilding of the site with a reference to the direction of Al-Aqsa Mosque in the architecture of the project. These projects highlight the interest the party has in the Khiam site as a potential source of symbolic capital (Bourdieu, 1980) to the resistance. They also show the steps in the building of the landscape in line with a codification of Hizbullah’s narrative about a larger discussion of detention, and they illustrate the fact that culture is a strategic topic for Hizbullah that prolongs its political thought by producing a comprehensive landscape narrative. To promote its own history, the party finally decided to set up a memorial museum, a cultural site whose purpose is tourism and to teach by transforming a former war zone – clearly a former front line – into a ‘landmark’ narrating a particular history, a legacy of Hizbullah’s resistance. In this way, the party shows a profound interest in nature and land as a nationalistic symbol that illustrates the broader meaning of culture (thaqafa) and its clear link to politics. The following detailed study of the site at Mleeta will provide a clear illustration of that relationship.

Mleeta: origin, location and description of the site The genealogy of the Mleeta landmark highlights the reasons for its creation at its location on the south eastern mountain flanks of Saida at that particular point in Hizbullah’s history in 2010. As seen before, the context of the 2000s led the party to invest more effort in shaping a counterculture as part of its baseline ideology. As explained by one of the LAA designers, Mleeta is part of this project because of its anti-imperialist narration: You can control people by narrating a specific heritage and memory. This is what the Israelis do. We are fighting their culture

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by providing a counterculture. We want to fix our memory through architectural and design language. Few people read books, but many people come to visit a building, a museum or a heritage site.12 The local context that saw the development of this project is first of all the aftermath of the Israeli withdrawal on 22 May 2000, which Hizbullah labelled ‘the liberation of the South’ and was discussed in the previous chapter. But Mleeta’s project is more precisely linked to two geopolitical changes that occurred: the withdrawal of the Syrian Army in the spring of 2005 and the July War in 2006 that saw Israel confronting Hizbullah in South Lebanon. If the first event caused Hizbullah’s more direct involvement in politics (at the executive level) and then revealed the party’s intentions and visions at the national level, the second pushed it away from the South, seen as a military stronghold, and created an environment for a renewed vision of South Lebanon as a land of memory and culture. Hizbullah’s narrative of the history of its resistance was rejected by the state leadership in the form of the Siniora government (2005– 09) and led to the subsequent polarisation of political life. In order to spread its vision of the world, Hizbullah took advantage of its military efficiency during the July War to set up a memorial museum on a symbolic place, a former front line during Israel’s occupation of the South between 1985 and 2000. This front line was an active stronghold for Hizbullah fighters during these 15 years and a hotspot for the confrontation with Israel before the IDF withdrew its troops. The mountainous landscape is located east of Saida in the highlands of Iqlim al-Tuffah and is said to have been one of the main gates (bawwaba) to the occupied zone. This location immediately conveys the image of the victory of the armed resistance: Mleeta is no longer a borderline location but instead lies in the middle of rocky hilltops of South Lebanon, and as such it visibly highlights the Israeli evacuation because of the pressure from Hizbullah’s deadly resistance (Norton, 2007). In other words, the Mleeta site itself legitimises the party’s military efficiency. In line with this first meaning of Mleeta, one can remember the two previous memorials the party set up in Beirut’s southern suburb (al-dahyia) during the fall of 2006 and in Nabatieh in the spring of 2008. Both exhibited pictures and destroyed Israeli weapons to show the weakness of the enemy and pay tribute to Hizbullah fighters (mujahidin)

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who died in combat as martyrs. Mleeta appeared as a well-conceived project that condensed previous narrative attempts in a location that worked as a demonstration of its ability to protect Southerners and, more broadly, the population of Lebanon from invaders. Following Johnson (1995), the geographic location of a museum or a memorial has a direct link with the message the site is communicating. This dimension is clearly stated by one of the public relations officers in Mleeta appointed by Hizbullah: We decided to build it here so it appeared far more credible as a resistance museum: The visitors are immediately confronted with reality, embedded in the original context of war zone. It is much closer to the real thing.13 The site covers 60,000 m2, mainly in the open air, of which only 4,500 m2 are built-up. The entrance stretches over a long, rising road with flags of Lebanon and Hizbullah on both sides until one reaches the ‘Square’ that allows people to gather in groups to start the visit under the lead of a guide in one of the many languages now available (Arabic, English, Farsi, French, Italian, Spanish and Turkish). Most of the time, the visit starts with viewing two movies in a hall of approximately 150 seats. Usually, the first short film presents the building of the site of Mleeta with the voice of Hassan Nasrallah, and a second film narrates the history of Hizbullah’s confrontation with Israel. Both are in Arabic, subtitled in English. The visit continues to an 350 m2 exhibition centre showcasing Israeli military equipment and devices seized by the fighters, as well as billboards and posters on the walls (in Arabic only) attesting to Hizbullah’s knowledge of the structure of the Israeli Army by detailing the chain of command, each IDF battalion and including satellite imagery and topographic coordinates of potential military targets in Israel. The outside visit then starts with the ‘Abyss’, a 3,500 m2 round art installation (see Figure 4.1), a few metres below the ‘Square’, which shows Israeli tanks and jeeps or helicopters in a so-called ‘cemetery’ of the Israeli Army (whose acronym is spelled out in Hebrew with large concrete blocks). The tour continues along a 250-metre ‘Path’ running up and down the hill, amid the trees, exhibiting life-size figures of combatants in their everyday activities on the front (with different weapons, treating the wounded, carrying supplies). One can find spots

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along the trail marked with red flowers where a fighter died as a martyr. Symbolically, the ‘Path’ starts at a small place where Abbas Mussawi, the former secretary-general of Hizbullah, used to sit and pray, and it ends at the spot where a fighter’s story is narrated on a poster (translated into Farsi) to illustrate his devotion to the cause. In the middle of the ‘Path’, visitors enter a handmade tunnel (the ‘Cave’) dug by fighters over three years as protection against Israeli raids. Inside the ‘cave’, several rooms open along the tunnel – a prayer room, a command centre with maps and recordings of fighters’ voices during operations and a kitchen. At the end of the tunnel, the visitors reach the ‘Lookout’, which offers a surrounding panorama on the western side of the hill (in the direction of the sea). This platform allows people to gather before climbing the ‘Path’ up along the ‘Line of Fire’ to the ‘Sojouk Buncker’ (sic), where a heavy machine gun points at a former Israeli position above a hill. Then comes the ‘Liberation Field’, a garden that showcases several types of weapons used by the resistance during the 2006 war and a memorial place where one can listen to the Bint Jbeil speech that Hassan Nasrallah delivered after the liberation of the South in May 2000. At the end of the tour, the guide suggests a climb up ‘Martyrs Hill’ to discover/enjoy a large floral landscape and a view over the surrounding mountains, among them Mount Safi, a strategic mountain held by Hizbullah and protected thanks to Mleeta’s key location along the former front line. Few significant evolutions and transformations have occurred on the site since its inauguration. There have been a small number of changes to the destroyed Israeli weaponry shown in the Abyss, and a few billboards in English have been added along the path but although it is planned, there is still no translation at the ‘Exhibition’ centre. Major efforts have been undertaken to provide visitors with comfort thanks to a growing number of multilingual guides and the construction of a large parking area and a restaurant (in 2012) to deal with the massive number of visitors: an average of 47,000 per week in 2010 and a total of 1.2 million visitors in the first 18 months after it opened.14 Although access to the site remains a challenge – several road signs have been put up to guide tourists to the site, as the roads are not all in good condition – many visitors from Lebanon and Arab countries, Iran and European countries and the US pay a visit, with the first two categories representing approximately two-thirds of the total number of visitors.15 The start of the war in Syria reduced the number of Iranian visitors who used to visit both Lebanon and Syria.

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In the context of an increase in visitors, Hizbullah succeeded in securing the classification of Mleeta as a site promoted by the Ministry of Tourism, and the museum was granted its official status by mid-June 2011, as soon as the new Mikati government was formed.16 The label already appeared on leaflets available at the site during the same summer. The site itself was a complete concept from its onset, and any subsequent additions focused on bringing more people to Mleeta to grasp the multilayered message. The state legitimisation and improvements in infrastructures with regard to both space and personnel (the multilingual guides) provide insight into the building of a transnational resistance identity, or at least about the will to spread Hizbullah’s ‘resistance’ point of view on the history of the conflict with Israel in South Lebanon.

Framework, symbols and meaning of Mleeta In order to understand the meaning of Mleeta, I will examine the most important symbols that one can find at this memorial museum. To an extent, they highlight the site’s location on the former front line in South Lebanon between Hizbullah and the IDF. With this site and with the one in Khiam, which is viewed as being less important, Hizbullah seeks to enforce its own perception of history – its vision of the world – as memories of the past are not produced from accurate images of the past but rather interpretations of this past (Nora, 1997; Veyne, 1996). Such sites in former war zones/detention camps, which mix landscape and history, help to bring to fruition such a vision by means of a cultural narrative that condenses symbols, architecture, narration, images and other devices. Nothing is left to chance. Everything is done and shaped with a purpose so as to convey a specific message and meaning. The general framework of Mleeta found its motivation in the will to tell a story, namely of Islamic resistance, as explained by Abu Mustapha, the director of the site: We have faced much criticism for our armed resistance, with some people arguing we are terrorists or thieves, but all of them are writing and explaining reality from their own perspective and beliefs. Starting from there and after all the sacrifices we made, we decided to appear in another way – to show the world how we lived here, how we fought and died, in short, what resisting means. The world must know that.17

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In the meantime, based on the visitors’ behaviour, Mleeta can be considered a leisure area where people gather in small groups for a visit with friends or family, in scout groups, school classes or more organised tours for foreigners. This leisure activity thus takes place within Hizbullah’s Islamic sphere (Halaˆ Islaˆmiyya), which conveys narratives, values and education. This latter aspect was underlined by our interlocutor as a key dimension of the site: ‘Mleeta is a school for the generations to come. We are actually writing history, reading history, preserving and keeping the memories of the combatants [mujahidin] to serve as lessons for the future.’ The primary contemporary lesson that is immediately visible in Mleeta is the military victory of Hizbullah over the Israeli Army and its powerful capacity to transform the military landscape into a leisure environment, as if the entire scenery surrounding Mleeta was acknowledging the military and cultural supremacy of Hizbullah. The narration of Mleeta’s story starts with the slogan and the logo that everyone can see/read on the leaflet available at the entrance: ‘Mleeta: where the Land speaks to the Heavens’ (hikaˆyat al-‘ard lilsamaˆ’). It explains that the land here is full of tales of fighting against the enemy (Israel), and it recounts the story of fighters resistance ‘to the heavens’ where the martyrs of Mleeta are. In this sense, Mleeta can be called sacred because of the many lives that were lost here during the 15 years of resistance when it served as a local stronghold for Hizbullah. Mleeta’s logo depicts the sparrow hawk, a local bird that symbolises the spirit of the fighters because of its steadfastness, agility and resistance. Fittingly, the catchphrase for Mleeta is ‘a tourist attraction about resistance’ (ma’lam siyahıˆ an muqaˆwama). The leaflet is clear about the location of the museum on the former front line and stresses the key role Mleeta’s location played in protecting the northern area. It also underlines that Mleeta was the point of entry for fighters to access the occupied zone and mount armed operations against the occupiers, thus acting as a ‘school of faith and jihad’. The presentation also explains the site’s central role in the promotion of tourism in South Lebanon and the surrounding villages that suffer from a chronic lack of support from the state. Mleeta is also presented as promoting the natural environment and raising awareness of nature in general among the visitors. Appropriately, the architecture of the buildings fits quite well with the natural environment. The bunker-style low-rise concrete structures are

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rather discrete, as they are painted in natural colours, and their sharp lines and slanted roofs perfectly embody this military ambiance, as the head architect explained in an interview with Mona Harb and Lara Deeb (2011: 25): ‘We brought in the military by using diagonal walls, tilted ceilings, irregular openings, deep windows [. . .]. We wanted to show how architecture can challenge straight lines, just like resistance challenged the enemy.’ Symbols are also apparent in the topographical orientation of the site, as the entire site faces towards Mecca. In the east, the highest point (Martyrs Hill) is described as ‘the sunrise of the resistance’, while in the west, the lowest point of Mleeta (The Abyss) designates ‘the fading star of occupation and tyranny’. The two films shown at the very beginning of the tour give insight into Hizbullah’s reading of the events since 1948 and more largely into its agonistic relationship with Israel and the justification of an armed resistance and into Mleeta’s stronghold testimony towards the history of resistance. The second film, which for many months was the only film shown to visitors, offers a striking vision of history through the lens of Hizbullah’s resistance. In the span of approximately seven minutes, the film highlights a number of significant events. In the historical narration, symbols of oppression are first selected from the viewpoint of Hizbullah and not from the perspective of South Lebanon. When 1948 is mentioned as the date when Israel occupied Palestine, nothing is said or shown about the arrival of more than 100,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The calendar jumps up to 1978 – obviously avoiding the SixDay War in 1967 and the evolution of the Palestinian resistance – to display images of the ‘Litani Operation’ that the IDF launched in South Lebanon to create a buffer zone, but again without any reference to the Palestinian guerrilla that Israel was fighting. All subsequent dates refer to South Lebanon’s military history, for example the massive Israeli invasion in 1982 and the first suicide bombing against Israeli Intelligence headquarters in Tyre, for which Hizbullah claimed responsibility. It continues with 1984 and the figure of Ragheb Harb, a Southern Shiʽi cleric assassinated by SLA militia whom Hizbullah considers as one of its symbolic founders. Next is 1985 and the final phase of the IDF’s three-step withdrawal from the occupied zone. The film then skips forward – past the end of the civil war and the subsequent transformation of the Hizbullah militia into a political party – to reach 1993 and 1996 and show suggestive images of two

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brutal Israeli operations storming South Lebanon and causing a massive exodus of refugees because of heavy shelling and numerous deaths. By contrast, the film then displays symbols of victory, including the ‘liberation of the South’, when Israeli troops withdrew and symbolically shut down the fence in Kfarkila, while the joy of prisoners being liberated from Khiam prison represents the wider liberation of the South. Pictures of this initial success are followed by images of the liberation of Lebanese prisoners in Israel during the border exchanges that occurred in 2004 and 2008 and thanks to which Hizbullah scored many political points. There is also Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah’s deterrence speech from 2010, in which he warned Israel of symmetric retaliation measures in case the IDF bombed the Beirut Airport or other targets in Lebanon (which is what had happened during the war in 2006). He had delivered the speech on 17 February, which is date heavy with symbolism, as Israel had killed Abbas Mussawi (the former secretary-general) and Imad Mughniyyeh (the former head of Hizbullah’s military wing) on the same day in 1992 and 2008, respectively. Several recordings of bombings and missiles launched by Hizbullah’s fighters accompany this martial speech in a quick montage that suddenly stops when Abbas Mussawi appears and explains, in a speech delivered after 1985, that ‘Israel is collapsing’ (Israıˆl saˆqata). His words are followed by an image of Imad Mughniyyeh making a corresponding gesture. Other symbolic meanings are communicated during the visit and work as ‘circuits of memory’ (Akc ali, 2010); physical and visual signs stimulate people’s imagination and convey a collective identity. Although the Abyss delivers quite a clear message with the Hebrew letters in concrete that form the acronym of the Israeli defence forces, ‘Tsahal’, the guide mentioned that the pillars supporting the path that turns around the Abyss were crooked and are meant to depict the Israeli battalions’ weakness. He also commented the fact that ‘the path around the Abyss symbolises a hurricane, the resistance, and the Israeli Army will be destroyed in the eye of the storm’.18 He further explained to visitors the meaning of an enemy tank stuck in a huge net symbolising a spider’s web, a recurring metaphor from the Qur’an used by Hassan Nasrallah in his speeches when he refers to Israeli power as being as ‘fragile as a spider’s web’ (beit al-‘anqabut). A few metres away, barrels of oil recall the Israeli strategy of bombing the hill of Mleeta with oil

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barrels in order to ignite the forest where fighters used to hide during the 1980s. At the beginning of ‘the Path’, a small cave on the left shows the very simple place where Abbas Mussawi, the former secretary-general of Hizbullah, used to pray, communicate and take shelter from Israeli bombing as the camouflage net, the small prayer rug, the Kalashnikov and the phone make clear. Hence, his devotion to the cause seems obvious given his simple and committed way of living on the front line. This spot calls to mind an image from the film, in which Abbas Mussawi is shown holding a Qur’an that each fighter kisses before leaving for the battlefield. Along the path, the guide showed a fibreglass rock used to disguise mines, which illustrates Hizbullah’s skills at adapting its weaponry to the natural environment. In the tunnel, one can find a prayer room open to all and used by mujahideen during the war years with a sentence in Arabic written on the wall that reads: ‘My soul and my weapon are twins’. However, two giant portraits of Imam Khomeini and his successor Ali Khamenei also hang on the wall, making clear Hizbullah’s affiliation with the Shiʽi belief and its Iranian walis. Further up the hill, on the ‘Liberation field’, amongst weapons of war, two little cedars are said to have been planted by two political allies: Emile Lahoud, the former president of Lebanon, and Michel Aoun, the current leader of the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM).19 The cedar has a great deal of meaning in a place like this, as it is known as the symbol of strength, prosperity and peace. In the final ‘Exhibition’ building, the billboards provide intelligence information about the Israeli commanding forces. The locations on the map of Israel, including satellite coordinates, has a tone of deterrence that is reinforced by the image of Hassan Nasrallah claiming, ‘If you hit us, we will hit you.’ Moreover, the intention of this last section of the site is to send a message to Lebanese visitors, too: it tells them that Hizbullah is ready to protect the citizens of Lebanon thanks to the capability of the resistance. To some extent, Mleeta is a place where Hizbullah tends to prove that its armed resistance is crafted for the entire Lebanese population and that Hizbullah could protect all of Lebanon. In this way, it expands its scope of action and therefore its scope of legitimacy up to the national level. In summary, Mleeta helps Hizbullah to claim that its para-state defence system could be the state system or more precisely could be a model on the basis of which to design a state security system in a post-Syrian era.

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Memory and history of the land As noted by Harb & Deeb (2011), the tensions between Hizbullah and its political opponents in the aftermath of the 2005 Hariri assassination and Syrian military withdrawal reduced the possibility for Hizbullah’s resistance narrative to become the state narrative. The July War in 2006 added further tensions between the two political coalitions at odds and eventually resulted in the May 2008 crisis and the Doha Agreement that gave Hizbullah the opportunity to secure its position within the state system (on the Council of Ministers, in the security apparatus and as an influential socio-religious actor). By 2014– 15, the negative image that had resulted from the party’s declared involvement with the Syrian regime in 2013 was gradually countervailed thanks to the rising tensions that were brutally affecting the Shiʽi community in Lebanon. Several car bombs targeted Shiʽi regions, including the dahyia, in 2014. First as a victim then as an armed force struggling alongside the LAF, Hizbullah recovered its image as a defender of Lebanese entity while fighting on the western borderlands of Lebanon against the rise of the Islamic State in the barren lands of the Qalamoun region. As a force of resistance against this new invader, Hizbullah is feeling more comfortable claiming the need for its military strategy, as the memorial museum of Mleeta clearly illustrates. The latter appears as part of a general exhibition strategy that was set up to spread Hizbullah’s cultural narrative in the post-July War context and to reach the local youth and Lebanese citizens in general, as well as foreigner visitors. The shaping of memory that Hizbullah promotes is the result of many dynamics and a deliberate strategy. The designers of Mleeta present it as a survey in different museums and memorials around the world and claimed their inspiration referred to the resistance’s own experience, leading to a unique museum that is ‘different’ in their vision.20 In fact, Mleeta is part of a contemporary trend of memorial museums favouring ‘minimalist and abstract design over the grandiose and authoritative; de-centred and incommodious space over that which is central and iconic; bodily visitor experiences that are sensory and emotional rather than visual and impassive; interpretive strategies that utilize private, subjective testimony over official historical narratives; salt over stone’ (Williams, 2007: 3). In general, memorials have helped to engender and consolidate social practices of visitation, and memorial

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museums attain cultural significance thanks to repeated viewing and visitors’ experiences. In Europe, such practices were influenced by extreme political developments, the growth of urban architecture and the mass media and by broader access to education. Lebanon does not have the same type of tradition and historical timing related to memorials, as most of them emerged in the aftermath of World War II, but the key factors are roughly the same: an extreme political development related to the civil war; an increase in urban architecture, which is remarkable given the cultural identity of Hizbullah; and the development of the mass media and education, which are both important sectors in Lebanon as they have had an impact on Lebanese citizens. Memorials have to deal with the expectation of being memorable, unique and iconic with some metaphorical visual tie to the event and at the same time accommodating messages that support commemoration amongst the populace at large, ‘which often means upholding conservative values of national tradition and religious salvation’ (Williams, 2007: 5). Mleeta fits this description as it plays with the uniqueness of its location, including clear visual references to well-known events and values that invoke this ‘Islamic milieu’ whose remembrance of martyr combatants (shahid) is clearly tied to the sacralised land. Beyond the conventional wisdom according to which we should preserve markers of what was glorious and destroy evidence of what is reviled, memorial museums can blur the lines and play on both registers, as in Khiam and Mleeta, to provide a spatial sense of memory. Evidence of the importance and brutality of the enemy – the destructions it caused, its weapons, its war strategies and its military capacity – is used here to glorify the resistance fighters. Among institutional spaces converted into memorial museums, former prisons are the most common sites, and most of the time they have been turned into entertainment-oriented prison museums (Clink Prison in London, Alcatraz in San Francisco etc.). The link between history and memory is also made through the political use of nature itself, as shown along the path and the wooden hill of Mleeta, and the sanctification of the soil as the ‘motherland’ to fight for in a very nationalistic fashion. In 2009, in an effort to root the resistance in the southern soil of Lebanon, Jihaˆd al-bina’, Hizbullah’s reconstruction department, organised the planting of 1 million trees in South Lebanon. The Secretary-General himself planted the 1 millionth tree and delivered a political speech linking the ecological cause of

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deforestation with national security, as combatants can use the trees to hide from the enemy. The party then continued with tourist projects linking ecology and resistance, like in Mleeta, including summer scout camps or eco-tourism sites in the South to show pathways and caves where combatants were hiding during the Israeli occupation of the southern part of the country. Such projects demonstrate the party’s desire to promote national belonging through a physical experience with nature, which creates a symbolic relationship between visitors and the ‘martyr’ land of the South, and by extension its defenders, namely the fighters of Hizbullah. Both Khiam and Mleeta are part of a codification process of history and memory, as they are the incarnation of defensive lines where armed struggles exemplify both the deep meaning of their existence (as defenders of the nation) and the evil nature of the enemy. They both can be defined as ‘representational spaces’ in the sense of Lefebvre (1991: 38 – 9), as they are heavily loaded, deeply symbolic spaces that call on shared experience. In sum, they are the loci of meaning in a culture. Such representational spaces are often based on images and symbols that are superimposed on physical space and make symbolic use of its objects. The political use of Mleeta’s landscape has been underlined, as the site itself is defined as a ‘landmark’ that brings together history, education and nature. The consolidation of those dimensions helps to create this representational space, as Mleeta is full of meaning to Hizbullah’s supporters, and the guides present it to foreigners as proof of Hizbullah’s role of resistance in Lebanon. In fact, historical facts are distorted or incomplete, as in Mleeta no mention is made of any other armed resistance groups, neither Lebanese (from Communist to Shiʽi Amal) nor Palestinian (whether secular, Islamist, pro-Syrian or Arafatist). The intention of this hegemony is to compete at a transnational level with other memories and histories, most notably the Zionist history supported by the US, and it can be read as a response to Holocaust museums. Finally, as mentioned by Harb & Deeb (2011), nature itself is part of this powerful organisation of signs and representations. The concern for the environment, including the great value and care put into creating the park-like ambiance, is linked to the military actions that took place here. Thanks to the symbolic value of the soil, the land takes on a meaning as ‘the cradles of the soldiers’ that holds ‘very precious memories’.21 In other words, Mleeta is becoming a sacred

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place thanks to the memorial museum and the actions of cultural and political entrepreneurs at a very well-defined moment in time for political interests.

Conclusion The process of Hizbullah ordering the southern borderland accompanied the party’s bordering strategy in the 1980s and 1990s. The many institutions that took part in this process are intertwined but all served the same purpose: to have control over this land and its population. In line with the formation of this previously examined Islamic sphere (Halaˆ Islaˆmiyya), the social and cultural policies that Hizbullah promotes are part of a link between cultural and religious belonging and political involvement through the key notion of resistance. As a norm or a spirit that inspired designers or workers, the idea of resistance informs every strategy that the party adopted, from a religious event like Ashura commemoration or its reconstruction policy in a village in South Lebanon to cultural production affecting the landscape. Religious symbols like Ashura have been revamped into political demonstrations as part of a larger political calendar of mobilisation. While the Southerners have been a primary focus of religious belonging in order for Hizbullah to build up a new constituency, more recent and sophisticated developments of the party’s social apparatus have shown a meaningful capacity for welfare, particularly in the post-2000 era and after the July War in 2006. The two examples studied in this chapter illustrated this way of ordering the borderland through social and cultural interventions. The building of a resistance society goes along with the concrete process of rebuilding houses in a postwar period thanks to the professionalism of the party’s local workers and the general coordination between Jihaˆd al-bina’ and other institutions. For Southerners, aid has been personalised, and the support they receive is seen to come from Hizbullah, even though the funding lies with different sources and countries. Cultural production increased the moment Hizbullah had to change its modus operandi in the South following the July War. The broader meaning of culture appeared in the way Hizbullah defined its messages, which visitors can read at its Khiam and Mleeta museums. The combination of ideology and education with leisure and tourism is

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Figure 4.1 Down in the Abyss, an Israeli tank as fragile as a spider’s web (beit al-anqabuˆt). Mleeta museum, 2012. Author’s work

contributing a dense amount of history and memory to the landscape. The party’s cultural investment across the South influences the production of the landscape as a signifier: a nationalistic, local, religious and political symbol. The sacralisation of land and territory is thus part of the ordering of the southern part of Lebanon. All of these cultural and social aspects are mobilising local communities, affecting the everyday lives of people and acting on their perception of reality, history and their neighbour. Israel’s central role as the immediate and declared enemy links the social order circulated through norms and values with the production of the enemy, which is the othering. Resistance makes sense from the perspective of opposing this enemy. Thus, the acts of celebrating, commemorating and mobilising constituencies and locals in the South support a strategy of legitimising Hizbullah’s actions in the South as if it were state policy.

CHAPTER 5 CROSSING/BYPASSING THE BORDER:PALESTINIAN CIVIL RESISTANCE (SUMÛ D)

South Lebanon today is a place where Palestinian refugees are both very close to and (paradoxically) very far from their homeland, because of the closed border that separates Lebanon from Israel. I will therefore focus on the flow/non-flow of Palestinian refugees across the border since its closure in 1948 and how it is circumvented, as such crossings or bypassing experiences are part of the everyday bordering process (Jones & Johnson, 2014). Moreover, the movements of these individuals and the steps required to cross or bypass the border in order to reach relatives in Palestine or elsewhere refer back to their status as Palestinians, thus linking the place where they live with the place to which they want to move/travel. To conceptualise this relationship from the viewpoint of the border, the notion of ‘networked borders’ may be helpful and needs to be assessed within the context of the Middle East, far from the environment of the European Union where it was forged. Networked borders are a matrix of control of identities and movements that several European governments have set up to facilitate the exchange of information and expand police cooperation that makes it possible for patrols to intervene before and beyond traditional borders. Saskia Sassen (2006) said that network borders are embedded in the flow, which means the border travels within each actor, because they are defined by their status, and provide insight into control over the movements of certain types of

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actors. Among them, refugees have traditionally occupied a specific place, as their fragile status tends to reveal the bordering of space (Popescu, 2012). In the Middle East, Palestinian refugees span places and spaces that follow their family networks; thus, they link South Lebanon (where there are numerous Palestinian camps and gatherings) with Palestine in an alternative way because of the constraints they face and the circumventions they take to reach their relatives. In other words, network borders can serve as lenses through which to read and reflect upon how space is deployed for this specific category of actors – despite there being different types among them – and takes part in the bordering of the South Lebanese borderland. My aim is to understand what these trips mean, in terms of travel constraints for Palestinian refugees as well as the representation of Palestine that those refugees from Lebanon have. This topic implies resuming the debate on the right of return as seen by Lebanese– Palestinian refugees who have returned briefly to see/discover their homeland. The primary link with Palestine, namely blood ties, remains a significant motive for refugees living in Lebanon to want to travel back. Family ties beyond the border embody the relationship with Palestine and can give refugees the momentum to plan a trip.1 Indeed, in Palestinian representations, the family is seen as the only permanent institution amid the collapse of the link with the homeland – to the point that it becomes a guardian of collective memory.2 A study on the social effect of the securitisation of the border between Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories (OPT) revealed what a clear obstacle to connectivity within families such border systems are. It also pointed out that women play a major role in maintaining family ties in such difficult contexts (Hanafi, 2003). Another matrix link for Palestinian refugees is the memory of the land, their villages in Palestine, largely fuelled by the narrative work of those who have lived there and mediated by the Palestinian authorities and political parties. This link is further strengthened by new technical means with respect to the internet that allow connectivity with those who live in Israel or the OPT and make it possible to join forums in order to respond to the need for memory (Aouragh, 2012; Picaudou & Rivoal, 2006). This chapter will focus less on family relationships and more on the ways and strategies that the refugees choose to mobilise when they travel to Palestine, the temporality of the access that they have and their personal

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experiences of such a journey, including virtual ones via the internet that can be read as steadfastness (sumuˆd) or civil resistance (Rijke & Van Teefelen, 2014). At the crossroads of issues of collective identity, the study of diasporas and border studies, I have been inspired by the work of Barth (1969), who showed that borders are fundamental to the production of identity, because they define the self and point out otherness. I also took note of the remarks by Cunningham and Heyman (2004: 293), who underlined that movements in border crossing are shaped by an asymmetrical balance of power. Regarding the present context of border closure between two states that are still technically at war, what about the actors who place their deep sense of belonging beyond the border, in Palestine? How do they cross the southern border or bypass it and cross through another country like Jordan? When it is possible to cross directly into Israel–Palestine from Lebanon’s southern border – even though only a small number of people are affected – how do ‘temporary returns’ operate, and under which conditions do they occur? What do these travels stir up in terms of representations of the homeland? What is the connection between the passage and its perception or, to put it differently, what are the effects of the passage on the discourse about Palestine? I have conducted several interviews with Palestinian refugees living in and outside the camps and informal settlements in Lebanon (mainly in South Lebanon and in Beirut), visited NGOs involved in issues related to Palestinian refugees and spoken to other qualified interlocutors like activists, politicians and local researchers. It should be noted that access to the actors’ discourse on their experience of a trip to Palestine from Lebanon is hampered by a form of censorship regarding movement to Israel/OPT, because some consider such a journey comparable to collaboration with the ‘Zionist enemy’. This chapter is divided into three sections. Firstly, I will comment on the evolution of Lebanese– Israeli border from the point of view of the movement of populations since 1948, with a short introduction on the particular events of May 2011, when tens of thousands of Palestinian refugees gathered in South Lebanon, along the Israeli border fence, for a demonstration to commemorate the Nakba. Secondly, I will identify the conditions and effects of crossing the border – or of bypassing it by going through a third country – on the representation of Palestine (both the restricted OPT and the one marked out by the 1948 delimitation). And thirdly, I will indicate the similarities between these stories of such

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a special experience that, when analysed through the notion of myth, display an ambivalence regarding ‘temporary returns’ to Palestine. The conclusion will raise the question how these crossings or circumventions of the border have shaped South Lebanon as a ‘locked’ space with regard to the experiences of Palestinian refugees who have tried to travel to Palestine or Jordan to meet their relatives. For those who have had the chance to travel in Palestine, this bordering of the South is reinforced by the perception of Palestine as a mythical and almost unreachable entity and a country where they discovered the otherness of the Palestinians living there.

A war-prone border: between resistance and invasion in South Lebanon The events of 15 May 2011, which occurred on the South Lebanese border during the Nakba commemoration, put the spotlight back on Palestinian refugees’ relationships with the border or, more generally, the connotations of limitation and prohibition that it carries for them. On that day, a committee representing various Palestinian and Lebanese political activist groups had organised a March of Return (Masirat alAwda) and had invited Palestinian refugees from across Lebanon to gather in the border village of Maroun al-Raˆs, located on a vantage point over the border line (UN-monitored Blue Line delimitation). At the same time, a similar march was being organised in southern Syria along the fence erected by Israel on the Golan. In the Facebook post that had first given this information, dated 21 April 2011, organisers said they wanted to advocate Palestinians’ right of return and demand the liberation of Palestine ‘from the Jordan River to the sea’.3 Thanks to the active support of Hizbullah, hundreds of buses were rented to transport around 50,000 Palestinians from the north, centre and south of the country to Maroun al-Raˆs. One of the organisers stated ‘the purpose of the march is to remind new generations born outside the homeland (Palestine) that the lands of our fathers and grandfathers were stolen by the Jews; we were driven out, and we need to recover these lands’.4 Hizbullah and Lebanese Army provided on-site security. Despite its deployment below the hill of Maroun al-Raˆs, the army was unable to prevent hundreds of demonstrators from approaching the ‘technical fence’ built by Israel. The Israeli Army’s brutal reaction left ten dead and

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112 wounded among the unarmed demonstrators who had engaged in symbolic acts (attaching Palestinian flags to the border fence, throwing stones to the other side and in a few cases climbing the fence). At the same time, 200 demonstrators among the thousands assembled on the Golan front crossed the fence marking the ceasefire line and entered the occupied territory. Again, the Israeli Army opened fire – this time on Palestinians who crossed the fence – killing two and wounding four others.5 The same day, in Gaza, a commemorative march near the Erez checkpoint ended with around 100 wounded demonstrators. A dozen Palestinians were wounded at other checkpoints in the West Bank. In Jordan, the Jordanian Army brutally repressed the attempts of about 500 demonstrators to approach the Israeli border, a few kilometres upstream from the Allenby Bridge. While considering the spontaneous nature of the protesters’ actions, we should not overlook the power relations between the parties that are in conflict with each other, nor the strategic stakes behind them. The role of Syria as an international actor is evident, and so is that of its Lebanese ally Hizbullah. Their common interest in maintaining the tension with Israel is not new. It was shaped by two decades of coordinated actions on the front in South Lebanon. But from 2006 onwards, that front witnessed a significant lull in armed clashes following Lebanese Army’s deployment thanks to UN Resolution 1701. The resolution made the possession of any weapon in this border zone illegal and tasked Lebanese Army and UNIFIL forces with tracking and confiscating all unauthorised war materials. In the context of a difficult environment for the Syrian regime, which was just starting to face a popular uprising and was repressing it with terror, the commemoration of the Nakba in that year preceded renewed tension on Lebanese –Israeli border. The brutality of the Israeli response to the Palestinian demonstration, which a UN internal report6 subsequently underlined, allowed Hizbullah and supporters of the Syrian regime in general to draw attention to the danger posed by the ‘Zionist enemy’. The casualties of that day were also a grim bonus for the Palestinian authorities in Lebanon, especially the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), which used the incident to focus attention once again on the aggression of the ‘enemy’ and stir up memories of the many Palestinian martyrs who lost their lives in the struggle for Palestine.

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To understand the political and social dynamics that played out that day on the border – and therefore understand how this border became so war-prone – it is necessary to detail some aspects of this region’s history from the perspective of the movement of people across the border. As seen before, the 1949 Armistice Line that marks the border line between Israel and Lebanon is based on the French– British demarcation of 1923. The latter had been an open border facilitating considerable human movement, even though France and Great Britain had approved a peculiarly shaped border cutting against the social interactions that took place between Galilee and Jabal ‘Amil (Hof, 1984). The war in 1948, the creation of the state of Israel and the signing of the Armistice Agreement on 23 March of the following year created a new border regime characterised by the halting of the free movement of goods and people across the Israeli – Lebanese border. But it must be noted that there were many illegal crossings of the new border over the following decade. They were mainly the result of the human tragedy that many Palestinian families were experiencing. Palestinian refugees in Lebanon arrived in large numbers (over 100,000) and were divided in camps across the country. Under the mandate of Camille Chamoun (1952–58), some Palestinian of a Christian sect – about 15,000 – as well as the wealthiest among the refugees received Lebanese citizenship (Courbage, 2002: 193). President Chamoun also imposed a settlement distance of 10 km from the border on Palestinian refugees to avoid civilian infiltration into Israel/Palestine (Beydoun, 1992). Another consequence of Palestinian refugees living in Lebanon was the construction of a collective identity struggle that came about through the politicisation of refugees and the transformation of Palestinian camps into autonomous spaces preparing operations by the fida’iyyin from South Lebanon. This activist identity emerged from the fertile ground left by the failure of Arab armies against Israel in June 1967 and was carried on a wave of sympathy. Fida’iyyin were then invested with the mission of restore the Arab dignity towards Israel. This mobilisation that transformed peasants into revolutionaries (Sayigh, 1979) announced the rise of the Palestinian resistance materialised by the military victory of Karameh in 1968. After the signing of the Cairo Agreements in 19697 and the brutal expulsion of the resistance from Jordan (during Black September in 1970), the PLO moved its headquarters to Beirut. The entire southern region contiguous

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to the border became a combat zone where Israel did not hesitate to respond indiscriminately by targeting many Palestinian and Lebanese civilians. This period saw the development of a ‘security belt’ managed by local militiamen from Christian villages under the lead of Saʽad Haddad, based on a collaboration system known as the ‘good fence policy’ (see Chapter 2). To secure a continuous buffer zone alongside the international border line, Israel invaded the south of the country for the first time up to the Litani River (March 1978) and withdrew three months later while leaving a significant portion of the area under the command of Major Haddad’s surrogate militia. This process signalled the militarisation of the border and an increase in Israel’s security apparatus until the second Israeli invasion in June 1982. In terms of access to Palestine, several Palestinians were interviewed about the formal turn that 1982 represented. Safa, a Palestinian refugee whose close family straddles the Lebanon– Israel border, explained what happened to her family: ‘I went to Palestine in 1982 to see my family. There was a system of temporary licenses8 for family visits, and my brother also came with me. Later on, this was no longer possible [. . .] we had some family meetings in neighbouring countries, especially in Jordan.’9 At the time, the ICRC was in charge of the management of these passages as intermediaries between the applicants and the Israeli authorities to allow members of the same family (first-degree connections) to pass between Lebanon and Israel. However, the ICRC faced great challenges in this regard because of the outbreak of the civil war (1975), the heavy intensification of fighting in South Lebanon during the summer of 1976 and the 1978 invasion (Operation Litani) that created an intermediate area – a buffer zone patrolled by Major Haddad’s militiamen – between Lebanon and Israel. One month after its June 1982 invasion, when Israel took control of an area stretching from the international border to the suburbs of Beirut, the government of the Jewish state opened its northern border with Lebanon in order to promote the image of Israel and begin economic collaboration with Lebanon. This decision was a new step of the ‘good fence’ policy inaugurated in 1976. On this occasion, Lebanese businessmen had accepted an invitation by Israel’s Ministry of Commerce to attend an agricultural fair and were encouraged to develop commercial ties with Israel. This open-door economic policy,10 which is more akin to a creeping annexation (El-Ezzi, 1990: 152), also

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allowed thousands of Palestinians to travel to their homeland. However, the crossing was not allowed for any men affiliated with a Palestinian resistance group or simply if they were between the ages of 15 and 60. This policy ended in April 1984 after a deadly DFLP operation that had infiltrated Israeli territory from Lebanon. After the failure of the agreement of 17 May 1983,11 matters turned against the US and the multinational forces, as they were hit by car bombs that killed dozens, and the US eventually cancelled its political investment in Lebanon. More isolated than ever in Lebanon, Israel proceeded to a unilateral withdrawal in three phases but maintained a ‘security zone’ as a buffer area, and held with the assistance of SLA militiamen. Therefore, between 1985 and 2000, there was a double border: one to filter the entrance from Lebanon inside the ‘security zone’ (mainly restricted to its inhabitants) and another one located on the previous international border that allowed residents and Israelis to move between Israel and the occupied zone. Inside that zone lived an estimated 70,000 people forcibly or voluntarily cooperating with Israel, which affected Christians as well as Shiʽi Muslims.12 While for Palestinian refugees the 1980s were a long journey through the desert and the enemies seemed to multiply (Sayigh, 2004), in the post-civil war era this antagonism and the subsequent marginalisation of the Palestinians were slowly institutionalised (Meier, 2008). By means of procedures (laws, decrees) and official discourses, Lebanese state defined the Palestinian refugees as a burden for Lebanese society. For the Palestinian refugees, the post-civil war era was also accompanied by an ambiguous position on the right of return that resulted in the maintenance of their economic and social insecurity. Largely fuelled by the Syrian agenda in Lebanon during the period of tutelage (1989– 2005), Lebanese government’s discourse was rebranded under the slogan of ‘rejection of the implantation’,13 which eased the rise of a xenophobic feeling towards Palestinians, as ‘implantation’ roughly equated ‘invasion’. The unilateral Israeli withdrawal from southern Lebanon in May 2000 allowed Hizbullah to score an undeniable political victory and gain de facto authority over the southern part of Lebanon when Lebanese Army refused to deploy, as detailed in Chapter 4.14 Since then, among the Palestinians, only veterans killed during infiltration operations crossed the Blue Line15 during the body and prisoner exchanges that

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Hizbullah set up, especially in 2004 and 2008.16 Officially, no one could cross into Israel from Lebanon to visit relatives; neither Israel nor Syria would allow anybody to cross this segment of the border. Few exceptions were and still are possible, according to the ICRC, like first-degree relative meetings or marriages among extended families or sects straddling the border. The July War, which Israel launched against Hizbullah in 2006 after the Syrian military’s withdrawal from Lebanon in April 2005 and UN Resolution 1701’s banning of all militias’ weapons in the southern zone, forced the Party of God to withdraw its arsenal north of Litani thus easing the deployment of Lebanese Army and the ‘robust’ UNIFIL forces south of the Litani. Since then, under the process of delimitation, the Blue Line seems to have become a space that updates the balance of power between the two armies of the belligerent countries without improving in any way the movement of people across it.

Palestinians of Lebanon crossing or circumventing the border of South Lebanon In what follows, I want to look at the passage of Palestinian refugees (civilians) from South Lebanon to Palestine, including the circumvention of the border, in order to show the practical and symbolic impacts of the system of networked borders on this category of migrants. This system refers primarily to the types of conditions and constraints that refugees have had to face, at various times in history, as a consequence of their status as Palestinian refugees. This point also brings up the issue of the differences between their narratives, whether they are about the territory of Palestine in general (before the creation of the state of Israel) or the OPT. In sum, I will try to relate the effects of the crossing to the speeches discussing Palestine. In order not to distort reality through the prism adopted, I would first like to mention Palestinian refugees who can hardly meet their relatives because of their status. Among them, it is important to mention the bidoun (stateless), who arrived in Lebanon after the Six-Day War of 1967. Veterans of the Palestinian resistance, who are still wanted by the Jordanian security forces, are also largely hampered in their travel plans to Palestine. Secondly, most of the refugees simply have neither the money nor the network of relationships necessary to move out of Lebanon and get to Jordan – or elsewhere – in order to meet their relatives.

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Apart from these specific cases, Palestinian refugees in Lebanon are divided into three categories. The first, numerically the lowest, comprises individuals with passports from another country (e.g. in Europe) that enable them to enter Palestine/Israel. The second group is the largest and includes Palestinians who only have travel documents issued by Lebanon’s General Directorate of General Security. The third one consists of refugees who acquired Lebanese nationality by marriage (for women) or naturalisation in the 1950s or with the 1994 Decree.17 While it goes without saying that the type of document determines access opportunities to Palestine, there is not yet any automaticity between the two things, as individual choices on one side and political and military circumstances on the other have to be taken into account when it comes to people’s ability and willingness to undertake such a journey. At the administrative level, Lebanese state does not limit the external movement of Palestinian refugees.18 However, during the Chehabist era19 and up to the Cairo Agreement (1969), Lebanon introduced measures to restrict the movement of Palestinian refugees inside camps for monitoring and control.20 In addition, when the Oslo peace process was launched, many of the most striking refugee restrictions were put in place to minimise the chances that the Israeli–Palestinian negotiations could result in refugee settlements (Jaber, 2006). More recently, Lebanese government designed and controlled a refugee control policy whose pilot project was the rebuilding of the Nahr el-Bared Palestinian camp, which had been largely destroyed during fighting between the Fatah al-Islam group and Lebanese Army in the summer of 2007.21 For its part, Israel, with the exception of the period following its 1982–84 invasion of Lebanon, has continuously restricted traffic from Lebanon by only allowing meetings of affiliated persons in the first degree while, through its policy of collaboration in occupied South Lebanon (1985–2000), unilaterally restricting access to families.

Passage through South Lebanon’s border Passage through the southern border of Lebanon is de facto a passage that allows visitors to penetrate directly into Israeli territory. By contrast, crossing through Jordanian border posts would bring visitors directly into the OPT, although Israel controls and monitors all access to the OPT. The only period during which refugees have been able to cross the

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South Lebanese border into Israel is also one that saw mass movement. It occurred as a result of the Israeli invasion in 1982, when the Jewish state opened its northern border to visitors for about a year and a half. The rest of the time, both before and after that period, passage was only possible either for a few people whose (first-degree) family members were living on the other side of the border, under the auspices of the ICRC or with Israeli authorisation for family reunification, subject to Israel’s good will and often depending on security issues. With respect to individual cases, women22 were apparently often the ones permitted to cross the southern border into the Palestine of 1948. One Christian interviewee explained the importance of local Maronite religious networks in facilitating access to border crossing permits. Umm Saad, an 88-year-old woman whose relatives can almost all be found in Haifa, decided with her husband to go and try their luck in Lebanon during the Nakba in 1948. She was able to return to Palestine in the 1970s only twice through relationships with the church community and by crossing through Jordan. In 1982, 1992 and again in 1993, she crossed Lebanon’s southern border with special authorisation from the ICRC on the grounds of family reunion to visit her daughter who lives in Israel and who is married to a Palestinian cousin with Israeli citizenship. Once, after 1982 when the border was open, we were able to go through South Lebanon. I remember we had to file an application with an Israeli officer stating that we had family in Palestine. It was easy. But everything changed in 1992 when I tried again. We went through an officer of the South Lebanon Army who [our family] knew, because it was Mieh Mieh – the village next to the Palestinian camp. He could only take me to the border and arrange a meeting with my daughter who had come to Ras alNaqoura [. . .] The last time I managed to go was 1993. It was my daughter who had filed an application with the Israeli authorities for a permit that the ICRC had sent me, so I was able to go and visit her. Then I no longer tried again; you know, I find it hard to get around. The first time I went back, I cried all the time. After that, I cried as well, but a little less, even now I cry just thinking about Palestine. We were housed in Haifa, because our house was

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destroyed with the village [i.e. Tyra], and they built a kibbutz instead. But we still see the stones, and there is also the school building, which is still standing. I stayed for a month the first time, and I visited much of Palestine: Jenin, Jerusalem and Jaffa. For the license, it was simple: We had to ask the Israeli authorities to renew it after two weeks. Nevertheless, it is the Jordanians who made me pay JD 40 [Jordanian dinars] for the extension. 23 In 1982, Israel’s northern border opened for visitors from Lebanon. The permits they obtained allowed them to visit the whole of Palestine and Israel for a period of one or two weeks. However, there were arbitrary selection conditions to get there. Palestinian men were generally not allowed, because the majority of them were associated with Palestinian political parties. An official of the Palestinian diplomatic mission in Beirut assured me that some took advantage of this opportunity to go to Palestine in order to sell properties they still had in the territory of Palestine in 1948.24 A Palestinian man, a naturalised Lebanese in the 1950s, tells about his journey: It’s paradoxical [. . .] I was happy as ever when entering Palestine, when reaching our house, our garden. But when we looked around, we were shocked, we had become strangers at home, it was not our place, even though you know here [he points his finger at his head] you’re right. Now I’ve forgotten buildings, I just remember the garden and people [. . .] After that first trip, my brother wanted to go back and was able to go with his own car. Me, I could not, I was broken. When attached to a place, we think that everything is possible, which is not the case, in fact. No, it is not an experience, a shock that I could forget. You cannot forget. Now, if there was peace and we could return to Palestine, I would go and reclaim the place, for my children who were born here [in Lebanon], so that they continue to have this memory, so that they keep this place with them and hand it down.25 All the individuals that I met, who were able to make such a journey to the Palestine of 1948, were unanimous in saying how the discovery of Palestine had filled a void while making room for a lot of frustrations and a feeling of dispossession. Some noted that it had enabled them to

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discover their country in a concrete and objective way rather than through a theoretical sense of belonging. Such experiences had a profound impact on Palestinian travellers, whose joy mingled with disbelief and pain, especially when seeing their occupied homes or destroyed villages.

Crossing/bypassing The profiles of the refugees who were able to go to Palestine vary, although the majority of them held the travel document issued by Lebanon’s General Security. However, a minority have foreign passports (from countries in Europe or the US) that allow them open entry to Israel/Palestine through Egypt and Jordan but more often directly by air to Ben Gurion Airport. In the latter group, there appear to be two profiles. The first category I met are those who say they cannot return for ideological reasons (due to the occupation) or because of a ‘personal block’ – the term one of them used to express this feeling.26 By contrast, the second category is composed of people more committed to the Palestinian cause who use the possibility of open access to Israel/ Palestine to build new relationships with local groups, cultural associations and academics or to engage in development projects. It should be noted here that their movements in Palestine are not limited to the OPT and may include the 1948 Palestine territory (Israel). But their relationship with the land of Palestine is ‘uninhibited’, as one of my interlocutors noted, who is a Palestinian born in Palestine and for whom this relation was instead linked to pain and resentment. Recent research on the Palestinian ‘modes of subjectivity’ of people who grew up outside Palestine and far from the Middle East has noted a process of ‘distant nationalism building’ that has two components: one based on antagonism, the promotion of roots and tradition; and the other based on a collection of identity components, hybridity and cosmopolitanism (Loddo, 2008). The main group among Palestinian refugees in Lebanon did manage to meet their relatives by bypassing the southern border and going to Jordan, where they were reunited with their families; most of them failed to enter the OPT. Some families also met in other countries bordering Palestine (Turkey, Cyprus, Egypt), but there does not seem to be many of them, likely because of the expense and difficulties such travels require. Refugees who have made trips to see

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their family – mostly via Jordan – were rather poor, lived in camps and had a low level of education. But all of them were aware of the previous and contentious history between the Jordanian regime and Palestinians during the early 1970s. Jordan is the primary destination outside Palestine where refugees from Lebanon find their relatives. Depending on their means, they rent apartments, hotel rooms or stay with friends to spend some time with their relatives. However, in order to be allowed to enter the territory of the Hashemite Kingdom, refugees must all make a financial guarantee deposit27 of JD 5,000 (about $7,000) to the Jordanian Embassy in Beirut.28 When an institution invites a Palestinian refugee from Lebanon to Jordan, the deposit is JD 500. Any acceptance is subject to the requirement for refugees to have an official entry in the register of Lebanon (to ensure that the individual ‘belongs’ to Lebanon) and to have been approved by the Jordan’s General Intelligence Directorate, which can deny any person entry without reason. Those who have connections with NGOs sometimes use this particular channel. This alternative can be vital, as it allows individuals to avoid having to pay the deposit, which in large part essentially discriminates against the refugees living in Lebanon. The refugees see this deposit as an obstacle to their movements but also as a means to deter any extension of stay (since fees are deducted for each unauthorised additional day) or any illegal immigration by a Palestinian. For this reason, the refugees who were interviewed see the Hashemite Kingdom as a ‘watchdog’ of Israeli policy. With regard to networked borders, it is clear that Jordan is central to the control of refugees’ movements between Lebanon and Palestine. The Jordanian Embassy in Beirut thus filters those among the refugees who want to travel to (or through) Jordan. As the only points of entry to Israel/Palestine are located along the Jordan River,29 Jordan is a nexus for the region’s Palestinian refugees who want to travel to Palestine. In the meantime, this networked borders system is incomplete, as there is only security coordination with Israel but not with Lebanon regarding applicants’ profiles. Lebanese state takes no part in the travel project. It obviously does not coordinate with Israel on movement across its southern border and only deals with the ICRC in this respect. Therefore, this incomplete networked borders system in the Middle East appears to be a stratified system of borders or layers of border constraints that affect Palestinian refugees.

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The wealthiest families meet in Cyprus or Turkey. Cyprus’s entry into the Schengen Area has made the authorities more restrictive, but the destination is feasible, albeit expensive. In Turkey, there are no particular difficulties, but a visa is still required, even though it was abolished for holders of Lebanese and Syrian passports shortly before the Arab uprisings.30 It is rather in terms of political alliances that tensions may arise, as the more pro-Palestinian policy of the ruling AKP in Ankara seems to be undergoing some fluctuations because of energy interests in the Mediterranean.31 But a big recent change has resulted from the civil war in Syria, as it has rendered Turkey unreachable by road, and therefore the costs have increased because meeting up there requires the purchase of plane tickets. However, for many refugees I met, neither of these two countries offers – because they do not have it themselves – the social comfort that Jordan provides, in terms of language and cultural references. Moreover, these two destinations are much more expensive than a trip and stay in Amman. Finally, among the remaining neighbouring destinations, Egypt is of little interest following the military coup against Mohamed Morsi and the negative stance General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi adopted towards the Palestinian question, which is linked to external financial support, mainly from the US. One particular category of Palestinian refugees was able go to the OPT in the summer of 2009, and their reactions deserve to be compared with those mentioned above who succeeded in making it to Israel (the territory of 1948 Palestine). In July 2009, a small group of 70 Palestinian personalities, representatives and Palestinian Fatah executives, visited Palestine and Bethlehem in the OPT for a congress organised by Fatah to renew its delegates. The PA32 proposed the list of participants to Israel, which alone made the decision whether to allow them to enter via the crossing at the Allenby Bridge.33 For some, this was the only way to return to Palestine and visit/explore Palestinian cities, but none of them had been allowed to enter Israel. They all received a residence permit for a period of one month that only applied to the OPT. A Democratic Front activist describes these technical aspects with a largely political meaning: We had to pay our visa [. . .] and also got a guarantee that our passports would not receive an Israeli stamp. The visa itself is an A4 document valid for one month. This is similar to the

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temporary residence document with the name, age and place of birth headings. For me, they had put Israel in the latter category [. . .] because I was born in Akko. Yet, in fact, I was born in 1947, before the creation of Israel! For many others, they simply put the country of their exile, because mentioning their native village in Palestine was denied or remained unknown by Israeli officials. Moreover, the amusing detail is that the items were in Arabic, English, Hebrew, and the text on our personal details was in Hebrew. This authorisation was valid for travel throughout the West Bank, defined as all areas connected by inner cities.34 While the Fatah delegates, like other travellers to 1948 Palestine, agreed that these days of discovering or rediscovering their homeland were emotionally charged, they were all struck by the harshness of the Israeli military occupation. One interviewee expressed a feeling of awareness of the yoke of the Israeli occupation and the violence carried out against every Palestinian living in the territories: ‘It changed my understanding of what daily occupation means. It is a question of humanity and not just a political issue.’35 Another interlocutor explained that he had a new perception of the Palestinian issue when he saw the wealth of the land (specifically agricultural resources) and unmanned space around: ‘I felt that my commitment to the struggle gradually increased as I realised that the Israelis would never give us back our land if we ever agreed to compromise.’36 Lastly, a delegate of the Fatah congress testified that she was upset by her visit to the OPT because she did not really believe that one day she would see her homeland. It gave a new breath to her commitment after a symbolic detour to Ramallah: We went to see the monument of Arafat in Ramallah, and I felt as if he was there, beside us, telling us, ‘Here I promised you that we would pray together for Palestine’ [. . .] For me, this visit was to be the beginning of our right to return, our return actually: Israel is not a fatality.37 The comparison between the different trajectories of actors able to move at least to Jordan or Palestine reveals a common, particularly strong feature. Each border crossing is a reminder of their statutory assignment, that of Palestinian refugees, and as a corollary, that of being under

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arbitrary authorities in different countries of residence or transit.38 There is an evident reminder of identity in the nature of the authorisations (temporal and geographical limits of the authorisation, deposit recalling the distrust of a state vis-a`-vis these visitors) during the process that leads to obtaining them (need for a support network, ad hoc funding and the long wait that temporally constrained Palestinian actors) and even the forms that these authorisations take (data in the Israeli papers obliterate historical truth). With regard to Palestine, there is a difference in people’s perceptions of the OPT and the 1948 Palestine territory. In the descriptions of the 1948 Palestine made by Palestinian travellers, the reality they described seemed to be located somewhere outside of them, as if they were not feeling this environment as theirs anymore. They underwent a psychological pressure that resulted in an inability to project themselves as people, because their houses have changed, and traces of the past are gone, including the villages that have been erased or removed. By contrast, the experiences recounted by refugees who were able to travel to the OPT showed quite an active dimension, a willingness to increase mobilisation. If none of them mentioned the return as a personal choice, all spoke of the right of return as a necessity, which is even clearer in the light of the occupation. This difference in perception also shows the detrimental impact that the standardised relocation of refugees to the OPT had on the right of return for the entire Palestine territory, including Israel. It reflects the incorporation of the pragmatic logic adopted by the Palestinian leadership at the turn of the century with the Taba Accords (2001), which gave up the return of the 1948 refugees in the 1948 Palestine territory in favour of the OPT (West Bank and Gaza).39 In 2003, the Geneva Initiative proposed the return of a small number of ‘returnees’ to Israel from a selection of individuals carried out by Israel for the purpose of family reunification, not because of a right of return (Keller, 2004). The same year, a survey of refugee communities in Jordan, Lebanon and the OPT seemed to have acknowledged a strategic option to return exclusively to the OPT. In fact, on average, only 10 per cent of the refugees who were interviewed actually thought of implementing their right to return, if recognised, to return and settle in Palestine.40 For our purposes, two aspects deserve attention in this survey. On the one hand, there is a large difference in the views across

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countries, with Lebanon being the country where refugees have the most enthusiasm to return to Palestine (23 per cent). On the other hand, the refugees interviewed almost unanimously seek recognition of the right of return itself. To complete this sub-chapter, it is worth mentioning another way of circumventing the border – in a virtual way, through the internet and specifically electronic social networks such as Skype, MSN and Facebook. Since 2000, these networks have helped many Palestinian refugees to get in touch with their relatives in Palestine via portals and forums for dialogue, where some have ‘found’ and (re)connected with their family members. This virtual bypass, however, entails a much more laborious process than in developed countries, at the least because of the dreadful electricity shortage that Lebanese society is facing on a daily basis. For refugee camps, things are even worse, as the supply of electric current is more rationed. I would like to mention that this alternative method of meeting with relatives in Palestine or simply with the rest of Palestine emerged as a case study that several scholars conducted (Aouragh, 2012; Khalili, 2005). A well-known Palestinian NGO, Al-Najdeh, in cooperation with Beit adfal al-Summud, developed a project to bring the internet to three major refugee camps in Lebanon (Shatila, Nahr el-Bared and Burj al-Shemali) under the suggestive banner of ‘Crossing the border’. In 2000, it was a relatively new concept for a company to provide free internet access to refugees. Initially, all the software was in English, which required a minimum knowledge of this language and reduced the opportunities for refugees to express themselves in their mother tongue and address their relatives in Palestine. However, now that Arabic keyboards and software have been installed, and because there has been greater societal integration of the new communication technologies, a new generation of young Palestinians is surfing the web almost daily (Aouragh, 2012; Khalili, 2005). They build new links, make new connections and fuel discussions on forums and websites that are created in an attempt to reconstruct a virtual Palestine. This medium builds a new relationship with the homeland that they do not know in a physical sense. Two users in their thirties shared their experience via the internet and Palestine relations arising from it. Karim (Shatila), who works in an international NGO, had the following to say:

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We have almost daily contacts from here with our parents in Palestine. And I found a cousin via the internet by searching his name. I found him, I saw him via webcam. So we set up an appointment in Jordan along with my wife’s parents, and he came with them. They are friends now. He is from Safouri, a village near Safad. The internet here is very convenient, but the quality is poor in the camp, because there is a provider that has an internet cafe, but the guy also provides [internet access] to 50 households. The best time to connect is at 4:30 a.m.41 Khouloud (Saida), who works as a teacher for associations in the camp of Ain al-Hilweh, explains her dissatisfaction with communication technology: I know I have a lot of uncles, but I don’t know them personally; I just saw them on the computer with the webcam, like on TV. I felt nothing; I did not have any special feelings when I saw them for the first time. Sometimes I have to force myself to just say ‘Oh, it’s nice to see you’ [. . .] Otherwise, we are in contact with them by phone, and a year ago [in 2009], Lebanon opened a line for us to make calls to Palestine. Before that, only they could do this. We can send SMSs, but they don’t receive them all the time.42 Between enthusiasm and disappointment, as a mirror of frustrations, including the fact of ‘not being there’, the internet and electronic media provide direct access to Palestine without being there for real. One of the paradoxical aspects of the new connectivity is the creation of a virtual link that can stay hollow. How can this relationship continue if it is not updated with physical experience? The lack of feelings when some people see ‘images’, as Khouloud noted, highlights some Palestinians’ status as refugees because of their incapacity to be/stay there. For them it is difficult to build a deep relation of belonging to a land based on a virtual existence of contacts, away from places and landscapes. In other words, it appears that the internet can be a palliative to the physical experience or at least direct testimony of those who have lived or been there.

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The experience of a ‘dreamed’ Palestine: between myth and reality This social implication for the recognition of a right is the sense of belonging to the land and the difficulty to maintain a link with this land, if one takes into account the circumstances of the Israeli occupation and politics. The emphasis the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon put on this brings out the feeling of returning to the land of their ancestors. On the one hand, it helps to have their difficult social and economic situation in Lebanon taken into consideration (Jaber, 2006), but on the other hand it also comes as a consequence of the rejection policy conducted by Damascus, the tutor of Lebanon during a significant post-civil war period that literally institutionalised the marginalisation of Palestinians in Lebanon (Meier, 2008). If Lebanese ruling vassal class seemed all too happy to find a scapegoat in the Palestinian refugees on which to vent their frustrations and their condemnation by depriving them of many basic rights, their Syrian patrons saw this strategy as an additional means to pressure the Jewish state by maintaining the refugee problem and their risky location at the top of the political agenda. The Syrian appropriation of the Palestinian question seemed more apparent when its power over Lebanon suffered a setback, once Damascus had to withdraw its army in 2005 and the Palestinian Authority (PA) took over the Palestinian issue in Lebanon. The effects of Syrian control are equally noticeable when comparing the treatment of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon with those in Syria, where their rights (housing, labour, internal displacement) were recognised, and a process of normalisation for camps was introduced (AlHardan, 2012; Fadhel, 2011). The gap becomes even more prominent if we compare Lebanese situation with the one in Jordan, a state that chose the option of integration, which did not create any problems.43 All discriminatory measures endorsed by Lebanese authorities seem to have created the desired effect: to give the refugees the desire to leave Lebanon. Their emigration to Europe can be seen as a by-product of this system of marginalisation (Dorai, 2006). Recurring elements can be noted in the speeches of Palestinian refugees who crossed Lebanese – Israeli border or were able to go to the OPT. Their narratives sometimes seem to contradict the observed reality and often what prevails is latent44 disappointment. These narrations can be conceptualised with

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the notion of myth45 in that the movement for the liberation of Palestine, including the Palestinian resistance that operated from Lebanon, has produced many symbols and myths that laid the foundations of a national imagination as much as a representation of Palestine (Sayigh, 1997). These myths are embedded in collective memory as an organised dimension, ‘a form of the production of socially shared representations’ (Picaudou & Rivoal, 2006: 19). The origin of such a collective memory is mythologised in the uprooting and its concomitant dynamic deployment of interpersonal relationships. The first similarity is observed around a sort of mythical Palestine that showcases the beauty of its land, its fruit and landscapes. Clearly, lived reality feeds the myth of an eternal and immutable Palestine – sung and promoted by the Guirab association, as shown by Puig (2006) – as an identity that bridges an obvious rift: the inaccessible land of origin (Lindholm Schulz & Hammer, 2003: 102). As for food and products, they are thought to be better in Palestine, as simply put by Umm Salman,46 a Palestinian woman who has memories of the Palestine of her childhood: ‘It is my country. I do not know if the earth is rich, but the olives are bigger.’ The ubiquity of references to olives is a distinctive feature of the Palestinian nationalist discourse that symbolises roots, an attachment to the land of Palestine. It implicitly refers to an attachment to the land and the steadfastness (sumuˆd) that the Palestinian officials have promoted as a strategy against Israeli occupation since 1967 (Lindholm Schulz & Hammer, 2003: 104–6). Just like Umm Salman, those who brought back food and products felt as if they were receiving a share of Palestinian identity, as reported by Amneh, one of the delegates at the Fatah congress in 2009: ‘People have brought back various things from Palestine, but it was usually soap, oil, thyme, and I have brought candles to the Church of the Nativity. Some have brought back baby olive trees to plant them here’.47 Marwan,48 a Palestinian militant of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, openly laments the disappearance of thyme in Nahr el-Bared and, in a political context, makes a link between memory and earth, thereby combining the Palestinian camp with the Palestinian land: ‘We planted thyme in the camp, thyme that came from Palestine. We had obtained plants from our parents on the southern border in the days following the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000. During the war in the summer of 2007, we lost these trees, and above all we lost our memory.’49

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Here the association between the natural product of the land of Palestine (thyme) and collective memory appears to reveal the relationship between a mythical land and a land of adoption, namely the camp in Lebanon. Another recurring element in the narratives of Palestinian refugees who went to Palestine revolves around its clear demystification thanks to an awareness of local issues. These can be the conditions associated with the occupation, the questioning of potentially corrupt institutional actors or inequality of access to viaticum in Palestine because of arbitrary rules and favouritism. Ghassan,50 head of the Palestinian Human Rights Organization (PHRO) in Lebanon, an independent institution of the Palestinian Authority and political parties, summarised the situation as followed: ‘In addition to organisations like ours, there are people who have intermediaries, and the Jordanian Ministry of Interior is the one that delivers travel visas to Jordan [. . .] If not, who among the refugees has JD 5,000?’ The Israeli military occupation has an uneven place in the stories narrated by Palestinian travellers. It is less a demystification than an awareness derived from the concrete link between the occupation situation in the OPT and local living conditions. All those interviewed who were able to visit Israel and the OPT agreed that this was an intense period that seemed to eliminate, at least for some time, the existing political differences and disputes between factions within Fatah. Some stories relate the prevarication, corruption or institutional abandonment in some cases, as the case of Sajida shows. She has lived alone with her daughter in Lebanon since the departure of her husband, a Palestinian Fatah fighter who came in 1967 with the fida’iyyin and who was expelled from Lebanon in 1991 under the policy of forced Palestinian disarming undertaken by Lebanese authorities as soon as the war ended in 1990 (Brynen, 1994). Employed at the PA security in Ramallah since 1996, he can neither return to Lebanon nor have his wife and daughter join him: His children [from a first marriage] and I tried to bring him back three months ago: We filled out a form at the Embassy of Palestine. You know, some may come, but they have connections with the embassy [. . .] Unfortunately, we don’t know any official. Then it is Lebanese General Security that ruled and refused to let him come back, as he is not a registered 1948 refugee. So we communicate by phone.51

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Finally, a third recurring element seems to provide a general explanatory frame for this ambivalence between myth and reality. It is the notion of ‘dream’ that the actors express to describe their experience in Palestine and translate what they felt during the trip. Beyond the strong emotions aroused by the reunion with the homeland, these individuals’ feelings upon discovering Palestine are also in conflict. Its ‘reality’ is constantly being questioned, at least implicitly, clearing away the striking impression of the experience of unreality and confusion that seems to be sparked sometimes, especially among the less militant visitors. Their narrative tends to show an ideal Palestine backed by a recurring perception observed with other Palestinian refugees outside Lebanon, a Palestine that appeared as an ideal place with this image of a lost paradise (Lindholm Schulz & Hammer, 2003: 108– 10). In his work on the Palestinians of the Jordan Valley, Van Aken (2003) already stressed the idea of an inaccessible land when the refugees watch the lights of the houses on the West Bank, on the other side of the river and the border. He emphasised the role of kinship and family ties in the construction of ‘emotional bonds’, ceremonial feelings and the practice of Palestinian culture (music, dance) through which refugees refer to the lost land (lost home). Umm Alia, an old woman from Tetaba, a village in northern Palestine that she had to leave as a child, talked about her feelings after her only trip to Palestine in 1984: Overall, this trip was like a dream. I wanted to die on the spot, and now I want to be buried there with my family. I have no regrets. It was so sudden, we just had to enjoy it. It was almost unreal to be there; we were barely aware of it. This trip has fulfilled my dream, but now that dream is still intact, because it is as if it was a lie, a night dream, as if nothing had happened and I woke up the next day. My dream will be fulfilled if I can return to Palestine permanently.52 Ahmad, an activist,53 explains his similar feelings: ‘I felt reborn, because I spent my whole life thinking about this country and fighting to return. In fact, I had not really thought I would come one day [. . .] it was a mixture of pain, the loss of a dream, an image and a large happiness! It was [. . .] inexplicable.’ H., another activist,54 echoes his words:

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‘After the initial shock and the realisation that I could see my home country for the first time, I felt that I could not be close to Palestine; there were obstacles [. . .] It was like a dream that had come to us.’ A resident of Shatila told me about his emotions as he looked out over Palestine, where he never returned to, because his past political activism rendered him persona non grata in the eyes of the Jordanian security services: That was when everybody could go to the border, you know, in 2000, for a few days after the withdrawal of the Israeli Army. From the outskirts of the village of Maroun al-Ras, you can see my village 3 km away as the crow flies. There was a long silence, before he showed a picture of him watching his village off on a blurred horizon. Commenting on this picture, he explained: ‘In reality, we cannot see my village, because it was destroyed.’55 The temporary returns, tied to Palestinian refugees’ identity question par excellence, namely the issue of return to Palestine, bring up an image that is already widespread among refugees in general: the dream. It also adds a second layer of pain resulting from what they saw but also from the helplessness they feel as a result of the occupation and their return to refugee status without the right of return (Mardam-Bey & Sanbar, 2002). Even after the very brief contact with this desired Palestine, a major frustration was building in our interlocutors, both because of the absence of a law allowing them to stay in the land they belong to and because of the disappointment they experienced when they discovered the dark side of the myth – the reality of daily oppression and the transformation of the Palestine from 1948 into otherness.

Conclusion All the testimonies heard and all the stories about these brief returns to Palestine, including inside present-day Israel as well as the OPT, underscore the critical importance of the Nakba as an initial step in the formation of collective memory and the Palestinian national identity (Sa’di & Abu Lughod, 2007). In her historical study of Palestinian

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refugees in South Lebanon after fleeing Palestine in 1948, Jihane Sfeir (2008) shows that the real dimensions (the impact of the border on actors’ practices) and the imaginary ones (inherent in representations of the self and of the other separated by the border) undergo significant changes as a result of this move and their long-term settling in Lebanon. The purpose of this chapter was to evaluate what is possible and conceivable for these refugees to undertake, at various times, when they travel to their homeland. In so doing, my intention was to identify how Palestine works as an identity binder for refugees living in Lebanon and how those visits and trips to Palestine form part of the shaping of South Lebanon, where most of the refugees started their trip. Thus we have seen that the bordering results from the great difficulties Palestinian refugees faced when they tried to reach Palestine. The networked borders or stratified system of borders filters and complicates their movement across borders, a situation that is reinforced by the perception of Palestine as a dream and a myth that remains more or less elusive. And finally, the bordering process takes place when those who did travel and visit Palestine discovered people from another country, even though the name was still Palestine. In conclusion, I would like to reflect on what the crossing practices (travel attempts to Palestine/TPO) of past and present actors generate under each of the social dimensions of the border (reality, symbolic and imaginary). At the level of reality, as it refers to concrete changes and developments of the border systems, it must be noted that the Palestinian civilian actors have adapted to the tightening of border control by Israel. Oscillating between circumvention strategies and occasional opportunities to cross the border, the actors’ practices underlined the great distance between Palestinian refugees and their motherland in terms of the procedures, means and obstacles that state structures interpose in order to reduce access. The networked borders or stratified system of borders is well illustrated with several individual trajectories that faced both Israeli as well as Jordanian requirements to cross into Palestine. Jordan appears as a gatekeeper for reasons that are both historical (Black September) and political (the peace treaty with Israel in 1994)56 and have left large numbers of Palestinian visiting returnees in search of their relatives. At the symbolic level, related to the evolution of belonging, while the quest for Palestine is made from Lebanon, actors are embedded in the

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social reality of the latter, and they depend on it. Another Palestine has been rebuilt in camps with a complex network between villages of origin and/or clans through interpersonal links among Palestinian refugees. After their brutal separation with their country in 1948, refugees tended to reshape their lost world, and gradually this other Palestine evolved at a different pace from the original one. The first opportunity to travel to the homeland came in 1982. Therefore, a ‘Lebanese’ Palestinian identity has been forged just like in other countries where significant diasporas have settled (Al-Husseini & Signoles, 2009; Dorai, 2006). Moreover, this Palestinian identity from outside Palestine is strengthened by actors who have experienced a temporary return or even meetings with those who live there. At the level of the imaginary, meaning at the level of classifications and representations of the self and of others, the boundary between Lebanon-based Palestinians and those in Israel/Palestine showed that by separating the land of Palestine from the place of living, the conditions for a myth are created. Political mobilisation has largely used this register; a mythical Palestine has emerged, fuelled by stories of those who knew it before the Nakba. The trips to Palestine have therefore contributed to feeding this mythology of the land of Palestine, magnified and decked out with superior qualities. However, as we have noted, the facts show otherwise, demystifying and counterbalancing part of the myth. Between reality and myth, Palestine suggests an unfinished dream, a perpetual quest. Finally, at the political level, a question has to be asked. Does the failure of this dream, the return to Palestine (or at least the recognition of the right of return), partly explain the emigration of Palestinian refugees to Europe? Probably, but not only, as is evident from the harsh living conditions faced by refugees in Lebanon. Is it also possible to talk about the emergence of a new frontier for Palestinian refugees who left Lebanon for Germany or Sweden, far from the Palestinian border, where the primary reference is now the Palestinian land of their camps in Lebanon? In sum, the ‘return to visit’57 Palestine, far from simply mending ties, also allows a reaffirmation of belonging to Palestine, albeit at a very limited scale. However, the interesting paradox is that as this identity is experienced in exile and is therefore rooted in various social and political contexts, it emphasises the logic of separation that exists between the Palestinians and their land, with, in the case of refugees in Lebanon, a

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strengthening of this distance because of the difficulty of access and the choice of emigration that some make. What Palestine [. . .] ? [. . .] To us, you and me, it’s just something we are looking for in the dust of memory. And look what we found in the dust [. . .] another layer of dust! (Kanafani, 1997: 125)

CHAPTER 6 HEGEMONY OVER GEOGRAPHY:UNIFIL AND THE DRAWING OF THE BLUE LINE

On a map, one can find a border line between Israel and Palestine that is, most of the time, the Armistice Line of 1949. Both the Israelis and Lebanese agreed upon the position of this line in the aftermath of the first Arab–Israeli War and on the basis of the British–French boundary line of 1923. The current paradox in the South Lebanese borderland is that scholars, along with officials, speak a lot about a so-called ‘border’, but almost none of them have actually ever seen it. On the ground, many physical bordering signs can be seen or heard about: blue barrels that designate the ‘Blue Line’ (the May 2000 Israeli Withdrawal Line); a technical fence (TF), which is a wire fence around 3 m high; remains of an older technical fence still visible in some spots along the border zone; and even blue paint on the ground. In fact there is no official ‘border’ recognised by both of the belligerents, as Lebanon does not recognise Israel. The two countries only recognise some blue barrels that constitute segments or pieces of the ‘Blue Line’.1 As seen above, these many lines have been shaped by several actors throughout a time span of almost 45 years. Among them, the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) played a significant role in the bordering process and has therefore become an important actor in South Lebanese history. How did this local mission of the UN become a major player in South Lebanon’s borderland? What was its relationship with the local actors and militias? Which forms did the bordering process take as a result of these

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long-term relationships? What was the general meaning of the Blue Line identified in the aftermath of Israel’s withdrawal in May 2000? How was it possible to mark this line on the ground after the July War in 2006, and what were the intended consequences or outcomes for the borderland’s actors? These questions need to be considered, as the Blue Line does not contain its own definition but appears as a highly political line. UNIFIL also needs to be conceptualised as a major actor in order to understand the many relationships that led to the UN’s delineation of the Blue Line, its recognition, limits and challenges. In this chapter, I will argue that by its acts over such a long period of time and specifically by creating and marking this Blue Line, UNIFIL was de facto defining a new political geography. The UN affirmed its hegemony over a thin segment of the borderland along the 1949 border line and erected an artefact of what it expected the accepted border line between Israel and Lebanon to look like in the future. In so doing, the thickness of the line and the multiple dimensions of the borderland are illuminated: Paradoxically, as the border is gradually disappearing under the Blue Line, new frontiers are opening up (again) in some of the contested segments of the delineations that the UN declared in 2000. After the July War in 2006 and the subsequent UNSC Resolution 1701, both UNIFIL’s mission in South Lebanon and the boundaries between Israel and Lebanon were gradually redefined during the process of technical cooperation. This took the form of a civil – military cooperation (CIMIC) between UNIFIL and local municipalities in the South. It also led to agreements concluded at the Tripartite Committee’s monitoring meetings between the two belligerents. If the institutionalisation of cooperation with Lebanese locals helped to implement the new political geography, I will contend that the Tripartite Committee meetings de-politicised the border questions by dealing with them as purely technical issues. These meetings also showed the growing interdependence among enemies, a process illustrated with the erection of the wall in Kfarkila. Thanks to the conceptual framework proposed by Foucault (2001a, 2001b) and based on processes of ‘governmentalisation’ and ‘subjectivisation’, I would like to apply this two-level analysis of international/state power and local tactics (by UNIFIL, the IDF and Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) in the local context of the border) to this very specific environment as it refers to international norms and

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regional armies that are at odds. The following lines focus on the first dimension – the UN’s bordering of the Blue Line as a mode of governmentalisation, i.e. the building and the imposition of international legitimacy over the delineation and marking of an international line separating Lebanon and Israel from each other. But my analysis also deals with the subjectivisation of this line in terms of the relationships that UNIFIL developed with local actors and their evolution in time. The subjective aspect of the process arose when UNIFIL troops adapt to a human environment in specific circumstances (like the civil war) and also as discussions brought together enemies to deal with technicalities and everyday issues resulting from the Blue Line. In both cases, actors readjusted their behaviours towards each other and slowly redefined the boundaries between them. The chapter will follow events chronologically in order to apprehend the evolution of UNIFIL’s international hegemony over this border line in South Lebanon. Firstly, I will highlight its appearance in the context of the Israeli invasion of March 1978 in South Lebanon. In the context of a seriously damaged country that had been through three years of war and the breakdown of its state, it was up to UNIFIL to deal with several interlocutors. The most important ones in South Lebanon were the factions of Palestinian resistance, Israel’s local surrogate militia led by the renegade Major Haddad and, during the 1990s, the Islamic movement of Hizbullah, which continued to wage war against the South Lebanon Army. The collaborative way in which UNIFIL acted to support the local population experienced a qualitative change in 2000, as the Blue Line was drawn immediately after the Israeli troops had withdrawn from Lebanese soil during the night of 23 May 2000. The war in 2006 brought about another change in local relationships, as the internal balance of power in Lebanon changed again with the return of the LAF to the South Lebanese borderland and the institutionalisation of CIMIC. Resulting in a process that marked off the Blue Line, regular tripartite meetings had major consequences for the borderland space as well as the actors involved in the process.

Origins of UNIFIL and the 1978– 2000 period On 11 March 1978, a Palestinian commando reached the Israeli coast in the area of the Haifa–Tel Aviv road and carried out a violent attack on a

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bus. The determination of the Palestinian commandos and the brutal intervention of an anti-terrorist unit left 36 Israelis dead and 76 injured. Three days later, Israel mobilised divisions of troops that entered Lebanon during the night of 14–15 March. The main argument was to push the ‘terrorists’ 10 km north of the international border. According to General Motta Gur, the chief of staff during this invasion, the Israeli government was divided on the scope of this invasion, mainly on the question of accepting the presence of a UN force at the international border. The hardliners’ point of view prevailed, and the Israeli invasion continued north up to the Litani River (Skogmo, 1988: 15). At the behest of US President Jimmy Carter, a formal request for an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council was submitted on 17 March and, after a one-day debate, the US draft was voted on with USSR abstaining on 19 March. Thus, Resolution 425 was issued, which gave a mandate for a permanent military force in South Lebanon, UNIFIL, with instructions to confirm Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, to restore international peace and security and to assist Lebanese government in reasserting its authority in the area.2 The question remains as to the intention behind the Israelis’ decision to launch this disproportionate invasion. One explanation lies in the recent involvement of Israel as the ‘protector’ of Christian villages in the South Lebanese border zone. This interpretation is rooted in Israel’s strategy to provide food and health care to these villagers – under the label of the ‘good fence’ policy (see Chapter 3) – and to support and train a local militia able to stop fida’iyyin commandos ahead of the international border with the help of Phalangist militiamen. Lebanese arriving from the Maronite heartland (east of Beirut, from Metn and Keserwan) helped to train Christian Southerners in Israel, and soon the Christian villages had several enclaves along the border, each of them with a local militia (Beydoun, 1992). When they succeeded in taking the central town of Marjayoun, a unified command was set up under Israeli supervision and led by Major Saʽad Haddad, who had been officially appointed chief of the Army of Free Lebanon (AFL) in 1977. Israel’s goals during the 1978 invasion can also be understood in the light of the justification provided by the country’s diplomats and the strategic moves the IDF made on the ground. Whilst Hamizrachi (1988: 165) contended that the buffer zone strategy emerged during the invasion and came from the Israeli intelligence service, which was

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dedicated to Haddad’s militia, the purpose of an invasion that was 10 km (6 mi) deep seemed incoherent, as Katyusha rockets were fired from the more northern positions, and retaliations targeted Palestinian camps, not Palestinian positions close to the border. If the scope of the invasion could possibly have been changed during the invasion – surprisingly, no high-ranking IDF commanders justified the initial depth of the invasion – its goal could not have been purely based on retaliation only but was clearly to support Haddad’s militia from day one. On the ground, Haddad’s militiamen took over IDF positions during the last phase of the Israeli withdrawal on 13 June 1978, which Skogmo (1988) described as ‘the most serious problem for UNIFIL’ for the next decade, as the militia converted the area closest to the border into a buffer zone. Tellingly, IDF officers immediately settled inside the ‘security zone’ and continued the monitoring of Haddad’s militia. This analysis appears even more plausible when taking into account the political dimension: For Israel, this invasion was timely to convince the then Egyptian President Anwar Sadat to sign a separate peace treaty and avoid any such violence against Egypt (Martin, 1978). One can add that historically, the diaries of Ben Gurion or of Prime Minister Moshe Sharrett mentioned previous strategic plans by Israel to find a Lebanese Christian officer to ally with in order to occupy and annex territory south of the Litani (Ball, 1984). UNIFIL was unable to confront Haddad’s militia – labelled the ‘de facto forces’ in UN lingo – as Major Haddad still had provisional recognition from the Beirut government and also because the UN force commander thought ‘the IDF manipulated these groups at will to circumvent earlier agreements with UNIFIL whenever they desire it’ (Skogmo, 1988: 22). In September 1978, when Lebanese government changed its mind about Haddad, it was already too late, and the FLA zone was a fait accompli. In any case, this force prevented UNIFIL from fulfilling its mandate, although during the summer of 1978 the Secretary-General succeeded in deploying 24 UNIFIL military positions within the Haddad enclave. Frequently isolated in a hostile environment, these positions became a liability, as Haddad’s militiamen harassed them to put pressure on the UNIFIL headquarters (HQ). Set up in Naqoura inside Haddad’s enclave, the HQ was captive to Haddad’s militia’s will with respect to its daily movements on the ground (Go¨ksel, 2007). This period of harassment lasted from the summer of 1978 until

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the July 1981 ceasefire and included peaks of shelling with casualties, closed roads and infiltrations of Haddad’s militiamen as well as fida’iyyin into UNIFIL areas. Some of the most striking events occurred after UNIFIL had restaffed five UN observation posts along the Israel – Lebanon demarcation line in March 1980. Haddad’s militia started a campaign of harassment after a Palestinian commando succeeded in infiltrating and killing people in the Israeli kibbutz of Misgav Am. Acting as an Israeli proxy militia, Haddad’s militia waged a war against UNIFIL, kidnapping soldiers and murdering several of them, including two men of the Irish battalion. A similarly tense confrontation that led to the killing and wounding of UN troops occurred during the spring of 1981, and again the actions of Haddad’s militia were met with condemnation from the Security Council, while Israel rejected any responsibility for such actions but noted that ‘the excesses of Major Haddad’s forces were bad public relations for Israel’ (Skogmo, 1988: 28). Between 1982 and 2000 and mainly because of the massive Israeli invasion in 1982 that killed over 20,000 people, the UN limited UNIFIL’s mandate to primarily humanitarian assistance and suspended its military functions, although the number of its troops remained constant, at around 6,000 men (Skogmo, 1988). During this time, Israel occupied most of Lebanon’s southernmost area, withdrawing in 1985 to a ‘security belt’ that ran along the border (see Map 3.1) with a size fluctuating between 850 and 1,100 km2. At the Naqoura talks, which took place at the UNIFIL headquarters before the final withdrawal in the summer of 1985, Israel presented a proposal for a complete redeployment of UNIFIL troops ‘in the entire area to be evacuated by the IDF’,3 but Lebanese government, worried that a UN deployment north of the Litani River would solidify the Israelis’ control over the South, strongly opposed it. In the meantime, Lebanese government expressed its concern over the creation and normalisation of a ‘buffer zone’ or ‘disengagement zone’ between militias. On 10 June 1985, UNIFIL was able to resume its original mandate as defined by Resolution 425. In fact, the real border separating Lebanon from Israel was located at the gates of the occupied zone, 10–15 km north from the 1949 Armistice Line and patrolled by the South Lebanon Army (SLA), as Haddad’s militia was renamed after his death. In the meantime, this international delimitation remained in place as a filter for the Israeli government to control the local Lebanese population.4 During the

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1990s, the UNIFIL position was to some extent ‘protected’ by the Amal – Hizbullah Agreement (1990), and the arrival of Hassan Nasrallah on the scene as the new secretary-general meant a new style of dealing with UNIFIL in a more professional manner (Go¨ksel, 2007: 71). In the 1990s, as seen in Chapter 3, Hizbullah maintained a war of attrition against the Israeli occupation. It defined this task as a ‘national duty’ of resistance supported by Lebanese state and its Syrian patron. It led to heavy losses in the ranks of the IDF ranks and unprecedented controversy about the continued Israeli occupation of South Lebanon.

Drawing and marking the Blue Line The IDF finally withdrew from South Lebanon in May 2000, and the UN mission immediately came to monitor the IDF’s compliance with UN resolutions 425 and 426. Lebanese government contested the idea that the withdrawal from its national territory was completed, especially from the area of the Shebaa Farms, and on 11 July 2000, it submitted a request to the Security Council to extend UNIFIL’s mandate and help to restore its full sovereignty over Lebanon’s territory. Hizbullah used this argument to justify the continuation of armed resistance, so that the Shebaa Farms may be liberated. On the ground, the party deployed its troops in the former occupied zone the moment Israeli and SLA troops withdrew. The state authorities, namely President Lahoud, explained that the unilateral, incomplete Israeli withdrawal meant the LAF could not be deployed up to the Armistice Line. In his special report on 22 May 2000, the UN Secretary-General stated the need for the UN to draw a line on the ground of South Lebanon for the technical purpose of confirming Israeli compliance with UNSC Resolution 425 (1978), in other words its withdrawal from Lebanese territory. The report also stressed the fact that the UN was not seeking to establish an international border. Regarding the area of the Shebaa Farms that Lebanon was claiming as part of its national territory, the UN Secretary-General stressed that these farmlands had been registered as Syrian territory in UNSC Resolutions 242 (1967) and 338 (1973) and were already part of the UNDOF area operations.5 He also said that the identification of the Blue Line as a withdrawal line would ‘be without prejudice to any internationally recognised border agreement that Syria and Lebanon may wish to conclude in the future’.

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In this first step of the bordering process, one can primarily notice the ‘technical’ justification for drawing the Blue Line, which is in fact clearly political. The second step is linked to the creation of the line itself that is referred to and labelled either as the ‘Blue Line’ or the ‘Withdrawal Line’. Aside from there being no clear designation for the border itself (at least in theory), these names appear exceedingly technical, as if there were no political components: The ‘blue’ is the colour of the UN and intends to show the neutral dimension of the line, while ‘withdrawal’ is meant to describe an obvious fact on the ground. These two steps mentioned above express a clear desire to set up a norm based on ‘facts’, a neutral reference that defines a space and assigns a regime of power on each side of that space. At the same time, it is granting the UN eminent authority over the line that can be conceptualised through the process of governmentalisation that involves the two belligerent states. The redefinition of UNIFIL’s mission appeared for the first time in the next report on 16 June 2000,6 in which the UN Secretary-General mentioned that UN experts, under the supervision of his Special Envoy and accompanied by a team of experts had ‘identified’ the Withdrawal Line, between 24 May and 2 June 2000. In Foucault’s theory, identifying such a limit actually defines power over space (Walters, 2006). This point challenges the way the team of experts identified the line, considering that the mission of the Special Envoy had brought with it a prepared map based on UN cartographic information collected on 15 May 2000. The line drawn on this map, entitled the ‘Practical Line’, was perceived as the best approximate international boundary of South Lebanon (Hof, 2001) and supported by a wide range of cartographic research carried out in France, Great Britain, Israel and Lebanon (by Miklos Pinther) on border maps from 1923 and on the 1949 Armistice Line. Slight ‘refinements’ were made during this mission, as noted under point 7 of the 16 June UN report mentioned above (2000:11). The mission was first conducted on the Israeli side of the line. Regardless of the reservations expressed by Israel and Lebanon, the mission identified the Blue Line and listed electronic locations of 198 points of this line. On that basis, the UN headquarters in New York City prepared a physical map (scale 1:50,000) and sent it along with the Electronic Line (consisting of the 198 points) to the UNIFIL Force Commander, who transmitted it to Lebanese and Israeli sides on 6 June 2000.

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At Lebanon’s behest, a verification exercise was carried out along the ‘boundary pillars’ (sic), but this time on Lebanese side. Firstly, on 21 June 2000, General Hoteit, chief of Lebanese delegation, declared his acceptance of the Withdrawal Line with three reservations and reaffirmed the official government position regarding the Syrian– Lebanese border. Then on 7 July, Lebanese President Emile Lahoud enumerated seven reservations that were sent to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan. On the other side, Israel also expressed reservations but never made a note of them. On both sides, the report stated that the Blue Line was accepted ‘particularly with reference to any implications for an eventual agreement on the international boundary between them’ (United Nations, 2000: 15). At that stage, the Blue Line consisted of three complementary elements: the physical map, the list of 198 selected points entitled the ‘Electronic Line’; and the markers on the ground. Lebanon recognised the three components; however, Israel only recognised the physical map, which became the sole common ground between the two countries. The map is on a scale of 1:50,000, on which the Blue Line is represented with a line 0.8 mm thick; transposed onto the ground, it represents a band 40 m wide. In his last report of the year, written on 31 October 2000, the UN Secretary-General stressed in point 11 that the management of the Blue Line had been turned over to Hizbullah members with the official Lebanese justification that as long as there was no comprehensive peace with Israel, ‘Lebanese Army will not act as a border guard for Israel and will not be deployed to the border’.7 This situation precluded the return of the LAF as a symbol of state sovereignty in the area and hindered UNIFIL’s mission, as one of its goals was the return of South Lebanon to the authority of Lebanese state. Obviously, Hizbullah’s presence stopped any attempts to mark the Blue Line at that time, as they contested Israel’s legitimacy. In a broader picture, Picard (2000) mentions the Syrian agenda in Lebanon as the main explanation why Lebanon did not deploy its national army to South Lebanon, which allowed Hizbullah to fuel the tension on the border zone as a bargaining chip with Israel. Is the Blue Line a border line or a ‘Withdrawal Line’, as the UN keeps repeating? Identified by the UN, it has been respected by both parties as the provisional result of maps and cartographic data of the border since 1923. One could have expected that a real withdrawal line could have been located absolutely anywhere, as it is in fact not related to the 1923

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border line/1949 Armistice Line but primarily to Israel’s military pullback. In fact, the main purpose of identifying this Withdrawal Line with the location of the 1949 Armistice Line was to confirm Israel’s compliance with UN Resolution 425. As this resolution calls for the withdrawal of the IDF from Lebanese territory, the Blue Line demarcation – defined as the Withdrawal Line – highlights the evacuation of the IDF from Lebanon’s recognised borders. In other words, in the search for a withdrawal line, UN experts automatically raised the question of the border (understood as the 1949 Armistice Line). Officials on both sides were aware of it, since they set reservations on the Withdrawal Line, as if it was a border line. The final sentence of the conclusion of the UN report of August 2000 expresses this equivalence quite clearly: ‘It can be stated that the withdrawal line best approximates the international boundary, and it is of sufficient precision to verify and confirm the withdrawal of armed forces’ (United Nations, 2000: 16). Such a transformation makes sense, as Khamaisi (2008) showed with the study of the Green Line separating occupied Palestinian territory from Israel. That line, first determined by military considerations, changed over time into a de facto boundary and later became regarded as an international border. This example makes it clear that temporariness in the bordering process can quickly become (or at least be perceived as) permanent, an evolution/transformation that may be possible at some point in South Lebanon with the Blue Line. From the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 up to the July War in 2006, Hizbullah (and Syria behind it) tended to use the South Lebanese border zone as a reminder to Israel of the key role the Syrian/Iranian powers were playing in the region by firing rockets over the border, setting up ambushes, heightening tensions and shelling Israeli outposts. It was particularly true during the Second Intifada, when the Palestinians faced the reoccupation of the West Bank in 2002. For Hizbullah, challenging the Blue Line became a means of attacking Israeli troops in a legitimate way; they eventually kidnapped soldiers and consequently enticed the IDF to cross the Blue Line (Blandford, 2004). A strategic parity gradually emerged between the IDF and Hizbullah as a result of the transformation of South Lebanon into a military stronghold. This came to be clear with the 33-day war launched by Israel in July 2006, when Hizbullah succeeded in repelling IDF troops, although the latter’s airstrikes had destroyed many civilian facilities in Lebanon.

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As an outcome of this war, UNSC Resolution 1701 significantly enhanced UNIFIL’s mandate8 by monitoring the cessation of hostilities, supporting the LAF as they deployed throughout the South for the first time since 1976, creating a buffer zone in South Lebanon free of armed personnel other than the UN and the LAF, extending assistance by providing aid to civilians for return and humanitarian purposes and cleaning the area of any armed personnel, assets or weapons. They were also expected to help Lebanese government to secure the border and to support the extension of its authority over all parts of its national territory. In its report dated 18 August 2006, the UN Secretary-General called for the reinforcement of UNIFIL from 2,000 to 15,000 troops.9 Marina Calculli (2014) contends that Italy’s prominent role within the mission was decisive in accomplishing the legitimisation of post-2006 UNIFIL in the eyes of Lebanese political actors and borderlanders. Two factors made Italy the most reliable player to interact with both the society and the government of Lebanon after the Israeli invasion of 2006: a longstanding tradition of ‘equidistance’ (equidistanza) towards the Arab– Israeli conflict and a positive memory of the Italian contingent, ITALCON, operating 1982– 84 in Beirut. In the aftermath of the July War, UN Resolution 1701 requested that both parties respect the Blue Line. During a tripartite meeting on 12 February 2007, the UNFIL Force Commander proposed to the LAF and the IDF’s representatives that they visibly mark the Blue Line at selected points, which would indicate the limits of the states’ sovereignty with precision in order to avoid any further problems such as kidnappings, which could lead to war. All parties agreed on this process and formed a technical subcommittee for the Blue Line. In a working paper issued after the 2 May tripartite meeting (United Nations, 2007), it was stated that the UNIFIL’s Joint Geographic Information Service (JGIS) would provide both parties with a digital version of the Blue Line and a list of its coordinates and all its vertex points in centimetre resolution (the list contained 741 coordinates).10 Although this digital line was approved by the UN Security Council after the completion of verification during the summer of 2000, UNIFIL had no authority to change the line in any way. Both the LAF and the IDF were asked to indicate which points of the list would be acceptable to mark on the ground, as explained by Michael Iseli, deputy chief of JGIS and technical leader of the marking project.11 During this process, six ‘mistakes’ made

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by the 2000 UN mission were found on the Blue Line. These increased the number of LAF reservations to 13, as shown in Map 6.1. Finally, the process of marking the Blue Line on the ground started with 470 coordinates (chosen among the 741 coordinates on the list) that were accepted by both belligerents. Out of these, 192 were located in reservation areas (including contested Shebaa Farms area and the 13 LAF reservation areas). By the end of 2014, the marking process concerned 527 agreed coordinates along the Blue Line. Almost all the markers (313) located on the approved sector (in contrast to reservations sectors, like the Shebaa Farms or the 13 LAF reservations) have been demined. Among them, 228 blue barrels have been erected, and 11 are awaiting the process, as they have already been measured and approved by both parties.12 Since the digital version of the line was issued, it has been used by all UNIFIL force commanders to meet objectives and carry out actions on the ground year after year. The UN 2007 Working Paper also outlined the technical aspects and workflow of the marking of the Blue Line. Firstly, it defined the conditions for a common agreement between parties: Each had to conduct separate on-site visits to every marked point agreed on,13 after having demined the way to the area, and take measurements ‘using instruments with the same level of precision’, in the presence of UNIFIL (United Nations, 2007: 2). Secondly, it defined an acceptable measurement of the Blue Line’s location in order to generate an agreement to put up a blue barrel. The rules set up by UNIFIL stated that the distance between the two measuring sticks provided by the IDF and the LAF could not exceed 50 cm; if it did, the point could not be validated. Thirdly, it explained how to erect a Blue Line barrel at each approved point of the line, specified what to mention on it and gave the JGIS the mission to follow up.14 The process for the marking of the Blue Line starts during a Tripartite Committee meeting, where IDF and LAF delegates agreed on ‘opening a sector’ by isolating a segment of the Blue Line to demarcate. The demarcation process means that each of the players had to start the process of locating several points of the Blue Line by means of geodesic data on the ground (as provided by the JGIS, i.e. the 470 coordinates). Then the IDF and the LAF put the measuring stick in the soil in order to physically mark the existence of the Blue Line. If both Israeli and Lebanese sticks were close enough, the marking of the Blue Line was approved, and UNIFIL built and put up a blue barrel on the point marked on the ground. At this stage, because of

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what the Blue Line means, it is by far more of a border line than a strict withdrawal line, as it involves dealing with and agreeing on marks on the ground. Delineating the Blue Line shows the door is open to recognise the Blue Line as the international border line between Lebanon and Israel once it is complete.

Alternative UNIFIL bordering of South Lebanon While delineating a line is probably the most obvious way to border South Lebanon, an alternative UNIFIL bordering process – understood as a principle of organising social relations – was already on track since the 1980s and has taken the form of multilayered interventions to support and protect the local population. Although the first years of UNIFIL’s mandate were deeply unsatisfactory with regard to the implementation of its mission, the AFL/SLA policy that restricted UNIFIL battalions’ movements and later the 1982 Israeli invasion that brought UNIFIL behind Israeli occupation lines sounded like a setback to the peacekeeping mission. In such a context, UNIFIL became an active part of humanitarian assistance to the local population, which was facing the breakdown of the state, regional isolation and the burden of war. This significant involvement with Lebanese inhabitants of the South gave meaning to a mission that had slowly become disconnected from its primary objective, as there was no peace to keep. Instead, UNIFIL had to find ways to manage a low-level conflict, provided support and slowly gained the trust of the local population. When it comes to assessing the ‘first’ UNIFIL (1978– 2006), the quality of its relationship with the local people in the South was its greatest success. Despite the lack of financial resources to deliver humanitarian aid, UNIFIL managed to provide by means of its own resources many services to Southern civilians who decided to stay on in their village. The array of those services ranges from repairing schools and demining land to providing medical services. The Norwegians and Finns also mobilised their own national funding to assist the people of the South. The effect of such compassion and assistance on the Southerners to rebuild their lives and environment brought a new link between the land and the UNIFIL mission. The pacification that UNIFIL succeeded in bringing between Southerners was reciprocated with better security for the battalions: ‘the people not only welcomed UNIFIL personnel to their homes and

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workplaces, but they also provided UNIFIL with information on potential threats against the force and at times even intervened with hostile elements to thwart any potential attacks against the UN troops’ (Makdisi & al., 2009: 18). For instance, the press conference at the Tyre logistics base, outside the closed compound of UNIFIL at Naqoura, became a hub for reliable intelligence from the villagers and people working in this area. Being bound by such a relationship with the local population transformed UNIFIL into a force capable of having sensitivity towards local sentiments. The bordering process took this silent and slow path of building trust with Southerners, as UNIFIL participated in parades and ceremonies, paid attention to customs (by banning troops from eating and smoking in public during Ramadan), replaced public services when roads were blocked by snow in the winter, provided villages with water or fuel and even intervened by making the UNIFIL fire brigade available when fire erupted. In the same vein, UNIFIL set up channels of communication with all relevant forces in the South, despite a restrictive policy from the headquarters that wanted to restrict interactions to official parties in conflict (the PLO and Israel before 1982). From the pro-Israeli SLA’s illdisciplined militiamen to the Amal Shiite grassroots movement, all parties at war were contacted by UNIFIL to establish and maintain workable relations, for the sake of local security as well as for UNIFIL’s own safety. The same attitude prevailed when Hizbullah appeared on the battlefield, despite its virulently anti-Western and anti-UNIFIL stances. UNIFIL experienced a long and lonely process to establish contacts with the leaders of Hizbullah, bypassing initial opposition from New York City and Tel Aviv. In so doing, UNIFIL helped to secure the area and built its legitimacy as a nonpartisan and people-friendly force. At a time when there was a lack of any state authority in the South, UNIFIL provided the region with services normally within the purview of Lebanese state. UNIFIL’s imprint on South Lebanon during the civil war is considerable enough to ensure the mission’s credibility, and it created the conditions for further pacified collaborations. After the end of the civil war and the emergence of the Second Republic (1990), this efficient presence of UNIFIL troops was of some help at a time when the state’s takeover of services in the South was slow. The good relationship between UNIFIL and the Amal movement surely eased this process, as its leader, Nabih Berri, took charge of the Council

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of the South, a state body that primarily sought to advance the reconstruction process in South Lebanon. Facing the continuation of Israeli occupation in South Lebanon and the daily military operations waged by Hizbullah, UNIFIL’s weakness became all the more visible during the two Israeli military operations in 1993 and 1996, during which the force looked like a hostage caught in the middle of the battlefield. The contradiction of an impotent ‘force’, unable to denounce and reprimand mutual violations, tended to erode its legitimacy and underlined the divergences of opinion between its contingents, mirroring different national interests. Nevertheless, UNIFIL was able to capitalise on the local Southern communities’ large tolerance and contributed to the bordering process by linking its existence to the local populations in many regards – among them, intermarriage was not rare. The Israeli withdrawal from the occupied zone seemed a good opportunity to re-affirm UN authority over the region, but unfortunately, Lebanese government left the management of the region to Hizbullah. The challenge of working alongside Hizbullah and the impossibility of cooperating with the LAF, in addition to an absence of violent events on the border (when compared with the previous decade) during the 2000– 06 period, played a major role in the reduction of the contingent to a skeleton corps of 2,000 troops. A second period of alternative bordering took place in the aftermath of the July War in 2006, once the UN Resolution 1701 had established a new mandate for UNIFIL. Its strengthening and full support from the UN member states assured the mission a ‘robust’ number of fresh troops, which ranged up to 15,000. In the same paragraph (11) of this resolution, the UN mission is defined as assisting and supporting Lebanese Army and Lebanese government (to secure the country’s border) in order to ‘extend its assistance to help ensure humanitarian access to civilian populations and the voluntary and safe return of displaced persons’ (11.d). With regard to CIMIC, UNIFIL II unveiled a completely different peacekeeping mission design. While the 1978 contingents improvised humanitarian aid without any financial support to do so, the 2006 contingents, which brought together military personnel and civilians from 36 countries, deployed a massive amount of money and full humanitarian coordination as part of the peacekeeping mission. This change can be explained by looking at the post-Cold War doctrine shift that affected all member states of the UN. In the UN’s

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‘Peace Agenda’ (1992), this doctrine promoted crisis management through humanitarian actions as part of UN peace operations.15 In the 1990s, NATO’s concept of Civil – Military Cooperation (CIMIC) provoked a heated debate between humanitarian and military actors (Rehse, 2004). CIMIC experiences in the Balkans refined the doctrine – by including humanitarian law as a key reference for military actors – and the UN Peacekeeping Operation Department now considers it a full component of the global response to any crisis. In the post-2006 UNIFIL, such CIMIC was institutionalised, had its own budget of half a million dollars and supported ‘quick impact projects’ (QIP) for a maximum of $25,000.16 In the meantime, various UNIFIL national contingents – particularly those of the EU member states – also contributed their own funds through CIMIC procedures but oriented their support in accordance with their respective national interests. As an example, France built a French Cultural Center in Bint Jbeil thanks to an agreement with the municipality in order to promote French culture and language. The CIMIC staff of each contingent tried to be in touch with local authorities (municipalities) in its zone of deployment in order to implement projects regarding the needs and also according to their interests. In the first year after the 2006 war, most of the budget was allocated to social and physical infrastructure, electricity, waste management and medical care (Chapuis, 2012). The impact on people is meaningful when one examines the number of people affected by such investments. For instance, in 2009, UNIFIL medical teams treated more than 40,000 local patients.17 Furthermore, foreignlanguage lectures were provided to local people for free (an average of 160 students/week for the French classes).18 While officials at UNIFIL explained the main goal of CIMIC was to build confidence among the locals, the operational goals of UNIFIL’s command force was rather to use this integration in the local environment to ease the mission’s military goals. The CIMIC of each national battalion tended to have independent goals connected with their own national interests, which can be described as a military instrumentalisation of humanitarian actions. In sum, this transformation and institutionalisation of the humanitarian support in a well-funded CIMIC system usually show the expansion and the limitations of the bordering process. On the one hand, this professionalisation of aid within the military apparatus tends to be more efficient and benefit more local people, while, on the other hand,

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this linkage and the nature of the relationship are based on a strategic move and not on sincere compassion for the Southerners. Despite a quite neutral official discourse of Hizbullah toward UNIFIL since 2011, recent statements of political allies of Hizbullah tend to focus on a suspect passivity of the Force toward Israeli operations in South Lebanon (Cimino, 2016).

The emergence of frontier zones and their effects Every UNIFIL general force commander since Alain Pellegrini19 has had to show how much the Blue Line marking has grown under his command, including the demining, location agreement and erection of blue barrels. Although it was not clearly defined in UN Resolution 1701, this task has appeared as part of UNIFIL’s mandate since 2009 (Resolution 1884). Politics is a key player in the evolution of the Blue Line marking, which explains why, since the beginning of 2007, things have evolved at an irregular pace, sometimes working well, sometimes being at a standstill. It is easy to understand that the Southern Lebanese border is multifaceted in its composition. All areas that have been agreed, where blue barrels have been erected or are on the verge of being built, theoretically create a safer space than unmarked areas or all contested unmarked areas. The latter can be divided into two kinds: areas where there is complete disagreement over the delineation (Shebaa Farms) and smaller contested areas along the Blue Line of 2000. The case of the Shebaa Farms is a vivid illustration of a contested borderland area. As mentioned above, the UN refers to the maps in their possession that put the Shebaa Farms on Syrian territory that Israel occupied during the Six-Day War in 1967. Still, in the view of Lebanese government, as made clear by the country’s Defence Ministry, the Shebaa Farms have clearly been located on Lebanese side of the border since the establishment of Greater Lebanon in 1920, and historians refer to property titles and Lebanese land ownership for these farms.20 Issam Khalifeh (2007), a Lebanese historian of national borders, as well as other researchers (Kaufman, 2006; Soueid, 2000), defends this position, which explains the confusion over which country (or countries) this land belongs to, as detailed in Chapter 1. Because of the French Mandate’s authorities’ lack of interest, errors occurred during the delineation

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process of the southern border in 192021 and were never corrected, even though French geographers highlighted them during the time of the Mandate. As for the special case of Ghajar, it should be labelled an uncontested area, because both states agreed on the Blue Line delineation that cut the village into two parts in 2000.22 Israel recognised this delineation, but re-occupied the northern part of the village during the war in 2006. It announced its withdrawal in 2010 but did not budge. The UN tried to ease the withdrawal by proposing to take over the northern part of the village; however, Lebanon refused. Meanwhile, the people living in Ghajar are unhappy, as most of them are Alawites from Syria and have expressed their will to remain unified under Israeli sovereignty. The South Lebanese border retains multiple layers of meaning, and thus its definition should not be overlooked. Accordingly, we can follow Casey’s (2011: 385) discussion of ‘La Frontera’ between Mexico and the US, which shows how different definitions of space depend on where one is standing on the border. He described borders as thresholds (‘They often serve as the initiatory phases of established rituals, such as welcoming someone into one’s home’), where prisoner exchanges or tripartite meetings take place (in Naqoura), or as frames (‘unlike thresholds, frames act to enclose or limit from the outside from just beyond that which they surround as a frame’) where, in the case of Lebanon/Israel, blue barrels are set up like a final step for a ‘peaceful closure’, as if it was a boundary pillar. Of course, there are many other spaces of uncertainty along this border zone, but the Shebaa Farms area and Ghajar are more porous than delineated and remain contested sections of the line. This porosity refers to shepherds’ crossings, mainly because of a lack of precise delineation of the border line in such contested areas, as well as to the smuggling or drug trafficking deployed by Hizbullah to infiltrate the IDF23 or espionage techniques deployed on the ground by Israel.24 As interesting as it could be, a border categorisation based on levels of porosity that follows Casey (2011) misses a key aspect of the conceptualisation of a border, namely the one related to its timing. A historical perspective of the past 45 years in South Lebanon shows the many changes that have happened at the level of the border/borderland, as mentioned above. This changing dimension of the border is part of its definition. Such change occurred in 1982– 83, when South Lebanon’s

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border was smashed by the IDF’s invasion and then opened in preparation of the southern borderland ‘satellisation’ (Soueid, 2000). Moreover, this porosity categorisation is not really helpful for some segments of the contemporary border/Blue Line delineation: the ones that are contested. In this case, the political dimension plays a major role that Casey does not mention. Several of our UNIFIL/UN interlocutors said they clearly had the impression that each side uses their objections of the blue barrels’ location or disputed areas for specific agendas and purposes. On the Israeli side, they could be used as a general bargaining chip at the right moment for future peace talks. As for Lebanon, our interlocutors mentioned the preservation of a level of insecurity in the border zone, to justify Hizbullah’s raison d’eˆtre. There are 13 Lebanese reservations about the Blue Line. By contesting them, Lebanese authorities are challenging the original Blue Line delineation drawn by the UN in 2000. These challenges affect the process of Blue Line marking – and of building blue barrels – on these 13 locations as long as an agreement has not been achieved between Israel and Lebanon. The 13 disputed areas differ a great deal in their importance and size, as shown in Table 6.1. Adeisseh, one of the largest contested areas, experienced violence on 3 August 2010 when an Israeli truck cut tree branches north of the technical fence (TF), a three-metre-high wire fence, leading to an exchange of fire that caused several casualties. This dramatic event brought to light the existence of a sort of grey zone, a disputed zone of 66,000 m2 between the Blue Line and the Armistice Line of 1949 (materialised by the TF). In real terms, it means this fence (the TF) built by Israel does not match the Blue Line delineation, as it had existed prior to the demarcation of the Blue Line and so was erected without any coordination with Lebanese authorities. Paradoxically, however, Lebanese government contest the Blue Line, not the TF. On some parts of the Blue Line, like in Adeisseh, the space between the Blue Line and the TF is big enough to be confusing. In such a context, the LAF tends to consider all territories north of the TF Lebanese, a perception that clashes with that of Israel, which refers to the Blue Line drawing regardless of the TF. We could attempt to define such a grey zone as a new ‘frontier’, following Ganster & Lorey (2005), whose definition advances a blurred border that comes from the pre-modern formation of states that entails unilateral measures to

Alma al-Shaab Alma al-Shaab Alma al-Shaab Al-Bustan Marwahine Rmeish Yaroun/ Maroun al-Ras Blida Meiss el-Jabal Adeisseh Adeisseh-Kfarkila Metulla-Wazani

Ras el-Naqoura

Location

Sources: Lebanese Ministry of Defence, UNIFIL * High: political problems; Low: technical problems

BP28 – BP29 B71 B79 – BP37 BP37 – B86 BP38 – BP38/3

B10 – B11 B13 BP6 – BP7 B21 – B22 BP9 BP16 B47 – B50

2 3 4 5 6 7 8

9 10 11 12 13

B1 – BP1

1949 Armistice Line points

High Low High High High

Low Low Low Low Low High High

High

Level of concern*

Descriptions of LAF Reservations on the Blue Line

1

No

Table 6.1

Water well in the middle of BL Infringement of TF BL 110m East of 1949 Armistice Line BL 10 – 20m North and 4400m length BL 100m North and 4500m length, cut farmlands

Point B1 10m North, starting point for the maritime border Bush in a talweg Infringement of TF Infringement of TF Mistake during drawing process Mistake during drawing process BL 120m North, cut farmlands TF 2 – 3m North and 3000m length

LAF Request/ Description

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erect a physical limit. Another relevant characteristic of the frontier is the interpenetration between the two sides and, obviously, its unclear limits, since there is no shared delineation. Such imprecise spatial definitions or blurred space as a result of contradictory signs on the ground (TF and blue barrels/no markings of the Blue Line) sometimes put actors in an awkward situation. My interlocutors have reported several incidents. One of them, which occurred in a contested area of minor dimensions near Kfarkila, is of particular interest to exemplify my point. In 2010, an amount of plant rubbish and some other garbage started to obstruct a small wadi (tributary of the Hasbani River) that flows from Lebanon to Israel. The IDF requested through UNIFIL that Lebanese authorities clear this rubbish. LAF replied, through UNIFIL, that they were not able to do that because of the location of this amount of rubbish, which was on the TF itself (the water flow was pushing the rubbish from north to south). In fact, the exact location of the rubbish was technically on the Israeli side of the Blue Line but on the ‘Lebanese’ side of the TF. ‘And the most unbelievable thing is that none of the belligerents wanted us to do the job’, explained UNIFIL General De Woillemont.25 Another UNIFIL officer stated that, for Lebanon, the rubbish problem was a minor one but was used by LAF to put pressure on the IDF. More rubbish gathered, along with some other garbage that obstructed the viewing angle of the border zone from the Israeli side, which raised a security matter for the IDF and grew to be considered a ‘threat’ during a tripartite meeting. After several months of tension, UNIFIL was allowed to remove the garbage in order to calm down the tension. ‘This state of tension works like a game that both enemies share and play with in order to add things or problems in a bargaining system; it’s a sort of power “show off” they seem to use as a way of dialogue.’26 Ideology can also play a role in some absurd situations, like the flow of water from Israel to Lebanon: Lebanese authorities asked UNIFIL to send this ‘Zionist water’ back to Israel. It meant we had to set up a basin to hold water, then pump it [. . .] back in[to] Israel. In the meantime, Lebanese authorities changed their mind, saying that in fact the water was able to serve in Lebanon agricultural lands, because it had been purified through UNIFIL pumps!27

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Kfarchouba, contested hills west of the Shebaa Farms, is the setting for another water story that occurred few years ago and a good example revealing that on this border, because of the volatile political environment and disputes over the land, small incidents can trigger a tension that might get out of hand. After the winter season, plenty of water accumulated in a natural bowl normally used during the summer to provide water to livestock. But during the spring, an ‘Israeli cow’ succeeded in penetrating the old TF and crossing the place in order to drink from that ‘Lebanese’ water bowl. In the following days, other thirsty ‘Israeli cows’ gathered there after crossing the old TF that was falling over. At some point, Lebanese shepherds complained to UNIFIL when they noticed more than 65 ‘Israeli cows’ entering on a daily basis to drink the ‘Lebanese’ water. Israel answered saying that it was their right not to repair the TF, and that Lebanese government should erect its own fence, which is precisely what Lebanese authorities wanted to avoid. Therefore, the LAF moved closer to watch over the water bowl, threatening Israel with firing on its cows if they continued to drink on Lebanese soil. The IDF responded by moving its outpost to the ‘Lebanese’ side of the TF, which the LAF viewed as provocative behaviour. To mitigate the situation, UNIFIL first tried to ask its local battalion to chase away the cows. Coincidentally, however, the battalion was Indian and thus could not touch the cows, as their culture consider these animals to be sacred! Finally, UNIFIL found a solution by building a wire fence around the bowl with three locked points of access for Lebanese shepherds only, so that exclusively ‘Lebanese’ livestock could drink the ‘Lebanese’ water.28

New boundaries among actors By the end of August 2012, in a context marked by regional tension because of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s repeatedly expressed desire to launch a strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities, the IDF and the LAF agreed on further discussions to find common ground with regard to the 13 reservations during a tripartite meeting held in Naqoura. The agreement took the form of a common will to ease the demining process at these 13 sites with the goal of turning from a ‘cessation of hostilities’ stage to a ‘ceasefire’ stage. UNIFIL prepared full topographic documentation to provide the two sides with all the documentation

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needed for discussions in bilateral meetings that ought to open the door for a global view on these reservations. The regional tensions in Syria and Egypt dealt a serious blow to any progress on contentious topics, while several incidents on the border erupted in 2013 and 2014 and contributed to increasing the tension at the tripartite meetings. This Tripartite Committee was established just after the July War in 2006 in order to deal with everyday issues and as a technical follow-up group composed of LAF and IDF representatives under UNIFIL authority. They started with weekly meetings to deal with the IDF withdrawal south of the Blue Line in coordination with UNIFIL, then IDF left the ground to LAF.29 The predecessor of this committee was the Monitoring Group, which had been set up in the wake of the April 1996 Israel– Hizbullah conflict with the clear task to prevent small incidents from sparking a war. ‘Before the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000’, as Nicholas Noe puts it, ‘the Monitoring Group operated as an innovative and largely effective conflict resolution body [. . .] After the Israeli pullout, however, the Monitoring Group was quickly disbanded, leaving no formal mechanism for any kind of transparent, balanced mediation, despite the continued presence of UNIFIL troops.’30 The period after the 2006 war is characterised by ongoing tension in Lebanon and a fear of ‘Israeli revenge’ that may have made it easier for Lebanon to continue such meetings. Moreover, Lebanese acceptance of the meetings is linked to the post-Syrian era that Lebanon experienced. The reputation of UNIFIL as a legitimate actor in the eyes of all belligerents on the local scene is also part of the explanation of this successful proposal. The tripartite meetings, held once a month, can be seen as a facilitating mechanism for dialogue in order to avoid any spill-over. These meetings intend to deal with political issues at a military level by examining the practical and technical aspects, as neither country’s representatives are allowed to make any political decision. Six or seven representatives from each force (LAF, IDF) gather in the same room for a few hours under the mediation of 15 UNIFIL representatives31 and try to build confidence measures. The two delegations exchange facts (Blue Line violations) and try to find solutions to improve the situation, thus fulfilling UNIFIL’s mission. Both are committed to the specific issue of maintaining peace and monitoring the marking of the Blue Line at the southern border. Although the ambiance can change quickly because of local or regional political shifts, the two belligerents’ delegations have kept the

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same chief officers for several years (Lebanese General Chehaitly and Israeli General Orion). This permanence helped to build confidence as Lebanese and Israeli delegates tend to know each other better, which has worked to cool down the working atmosphere. As a UN political advisor stated, ‘If something changes on the ground (i.e. on the Blue Line), it’s due to the bilateral relations, the convergences and agreements they facilitate.’32 After several years of work in common, the Tripartite Committee seems to incarnate a confidence-building system that is valuable when a crisis occurs. At such moments, words from one side are perceived as reliable by the other. My interlocutors mentioned one specific example of an event that occurred during the Maroun al-Ras demonstrations in May 2011, when IDF soldiers shot Palestinian demonstrators climbing the TF. When the situation worsened, the LAF asked UNIFIL to contact the IDF in order to allow LAF soldiers to cross the Blue Line and intervene to repel the protesters in Lebanon for the sake of avoiding more bloodshed. The IDF immediately gave the green light to LAF deployment; LAF troops, armed with their light weapons, crossed the Blue Line in order to cooperate with the IDF to calm down the border zone. Although it was clear that IDF troops had just killed and injured dozens of Palestinian refugees, no further incidents occurred on this day. This example enhances the ability to react quickly by relying on the confidence built over time between enemies thanks to their regular tripartite meetings. After each event, the two sides know that their behaviour will be discussed and evaluated at the next tripartite meeting, and from time to time a certain good will seems to prevail. One participant explained that ‘self-restraint/attitude control is one of the main characteristics of the general behaviour of the participants, all military professionals’, he added.33 In an attempt to demonstrate the efficiency of the Tripartite Committee meetings, several UN officers provided me with details about several border disputes that were solved thanks to these interactions.34 One of them was located in Blida, where the LAF had expressed a reservation (Number 9 on Map 6.1) over an area of a few dozen metres. The main problem was that local farmers have their olive trees located south of the Blue Line but north of the TF, in such a grey zone that I call ‘frontier’. Although the Israeli government did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the LAF’s reservation at this location, UNIFIL convinced the Israelis to let Lebanese farmers cross the Blue

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Line to cultivate their olive trees. However, this gentlemen’s agreement negotiated in October 2009 was temporary and clearly appeared unsustainable when Israel decided to end it in March 2011, when it did so to show its disapproval of other issues on the Blue Line at that particular point in time. This example demonstrates how fragile and contingent such agreements can be. This contingency of belligerents’ behaviours can also be illustrated with an example about the failure of a bilateral security procedure that reached a dangerous threshold and shows the limits of the efficiency of the tripartite meetings. On 3 August 2010, an Israeli patrol decided to cut down a tree located north of the TF, which led to a major incident at Adeisseh, as mentioned above, where the TF is far from the road, and the Blue Line delineation is in a contested area (reservations 11/12 on Map 6.1). The procedure set by UNIFIL implies that belligerents have to warn UNIFIL ahead of time before taking such actions in the neighbourhood of the TF, since it is a sensitive area. Apparently, on that day, the IDF had warned UNIFIL ‘only two hours before they started to cut down the tree’,35 as confirmed by a French military officer who received this call. This attitude of disregard by the IDF can be understood as a way of reminding UNIFIL that Israel had no duty towards other parties, this tree being located on their national territory – even if it was in a contested area. Unfortunately, in this case, the situation turned bad, as an LAF soldier shot an Israeli guard, and the IDF retaliated by shelling a military vehicle, killing three Lebanese soldiers.36 Tripartite meetings can also prevent the need for measures to deescalate tension on some sections of the Blue Line, as was recently the case in Kfarkila. At this site, Lebanese citizens were allowed to use the road north of the TF but technically south of the Blue Line delineated in 2000. All UN officers agreed that this segment of a civil road was very dangerous, as it left a wide open space for provocations on both sides of the fence because of the obvious proximity (1 –2 m) between the civilians’ road and the TF. As an example, one of the rituals set up by Hizbullah was to gather partisans for celebrations such as Earth Day, the Day of Liberation, Martyr’s Day etc. and encourage them to throw stones at the Israeli side, an action that calls to mind the stoning of the devil, a ritual during the hajj in Mecca. At some point in 2011, during a tripartite meeting, the new IDF North Commander proposed the erection of a wall along the Kfarkila junction road to prevent any flare-up

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in this location. He argued a wall might reduce visual and phonic contact between both sides and reduce the risk of tension in the area around the Blue Line. Lebanese Army delegates agreed on this wall proposal, as General Chehaitly had previously talked about erecting a wall there in order to stop Hizbullah’s provocations.37 Once both parties had agreed, in the winter of 2012, the erection of the wall took only three weeks to replace the TF with a high structure, 3– 5 m in height, made of blocks of concrete on a 1,200-metre section of the former TF. During a short period before the construction, the LAF disagreed on the precise location of the wall, arguing that the foundations of the wall were encroaching 65 cm onto Lebanese territory. UNIFIL helped belligerents to find an agreement, keeping in mind the gentlemen’s agreement that had initially prevailed, and resolved the problem by applying the measurement on the ground.38 Finding a difference of 40 cm instead of 65 cm, UNIFIL proposed to divide it into two equal parts that both belligerents agreed to concede. During the building process, sections of the TF were destroyed – they proceeded with sections 100–150 m in length – leaving an open space between Lebanon and Israel that required security measures. One has to acknowledge the full cooperation of the LAF that helped secure the building of this wall around the clock during its construction. By agreeing on the principle of erecting this wall on the Israeli side of the ‘Withdrawal Line’ and replacing the former TF, belligerents showed that discussions around the location of the Blue Line can lead to bilateral agreements on the location of a delimitation, as was the case of this wall. In this sense, the Blue Line can be seen less as a line to abide by and more as a negotiated process based on common interests. As seen with the construction of the Kfarkila fence, two years after the Adeisseh incident mentioned above, Israel seemed to have learned to engage in dialogue with Lebanon before doing anything on the ground. Moreover, the Kfarkila wall shows an adaptation with regard to urbanisation processes taking place on Lebanese side, as the road of Kfarkila was not as wide in 1949, when the Armistice Line was drawn, as it is today.39 This section between Israel and Lebanon reminds us of the ‘border wall’ concept, which has been quite significant in the Middle East since 9/11, as underlined by Vallet & David (2012). With half of the fences in the world, the Middle East shows how often the wall appears as a border solution within post-modern international

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relations. Walls are set up for security reasons and have a common frame of viewing the populations they govern as ‘problematic’ (Pallister-Wilkins, 2015), which appears to be the case behind the lines of official Lebanese statements. By isolating each side from the other, they maintain both security and a sense of identity (Ritaine, 2009). In so doing, they mix several functions of the process of walling in/out (Novosseloff & Neisse, 2007), like protecting against external threats, separating or pacifying (as is the claim in Belfast) but most often segregating from outsiders, be they poor, sick, immigrants or terrorists – and sometimes, a mix of all these categories. In the present Lebanese/ Israeli case, the Falke’s (2012) analysis can be applied to both states involved. ‘The building of a physical demarcation/fence (re)generated a national unity deeply related to the origins of the state and the construction of its identity over the last century’ (Falke, 2012: 115). In other words, the South Lebanese wall acts as a demonstration of the successful process of ‘governmentality’ (Foucault, 2001) imposed by the states, this closed border section being built with a common agreement and in a collaborative spirit as it allowed belligerents to affirm their own collective identities. For Lebanon as well as for Israel, the wall helped authorities to continue the ‘othering’ process (Van Houtum & Van Naersen, 2002) that is part of the borderland shaping. In any case, this example underlines the common interest the two countries had in bordering/fencing their shared limits. But finally, we should keep in mind that such collaboration does not mean that the relationships between the two countries will automatically improve and gradually become peaceful. The present context of the Syrian uprising and Hizbullah’s military investment in Syria has recently led the IDF to continue its harassment and spying strategy in South Lebanon despite the strong presence of LAF and UNIFIL troops. Following the explosion of the Labbouneh bombs in the Shebaa Farms area, which injured several Israeli troops during an infiltration/spy mission in Lebanon in mid-March 2014, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah claimed responsibility for this action and presented it as a measure as a deterrence strategy towards Israel after the IDF’s bombing of a Hizbullah military site in Janta (Beqaa Valley) on 24 February 2014. Nasrallah explained in an interview40 that the Labbouneh deterrence operation would send a message to ‘the enemy’ that any change in the rules of engagement would be rejected.

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Conclusion The UN bordering process of South Lebanon took several forms and encompasses a physical as well as a representational level. The UNIFIL mission built up legitimacy as a positive force in the eyes of the South Lebanese through support and aid that it provided to local inhabitants caught in the middle of a combat zone. Its ordering process started at the level of the local actors and changed qualitatively following the Israeli withdrawal, when the Blue Line was drawn and recognised by both belligerents. The July War in 2006 and the force’s subsequent empowering institutionalised the cooperation with local actors and provided UNIFIL with a new opportunity to enforce its Blue Line through the marking on the ground. The means of legitimising the bordering process is linked to the imposition of accepted norms. Set up to meet the requirements laid out in UN Resolution 425 and as an indication of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon, the Blue Line’s delineation as well as the marking process on the ground have created an artefact of border. Both belligerents’ recognition of this norm as a legitimate line – albeit with reservations – signalled, as early as 2000, the success of UNIFIL’s ordering process. In a wider picture, the entire UN intervention in South Lebanon since 1978 has helped its expansion as a ‘robust’ UNIFIL after 2006, when it was granted the support of the international community and progressively defined a new political geography in South Lebanon. Its main actors, the UN and the two military delegations, LAF and IDF, took part in the process of identifying the Blue Line. In so doing, they were ratifying this new norm, as both countries recognised – with reservations but also adaptations – the new delineation achieved by the UN mission between May and June 2000 and drawing on the map as a common reference of what the ‘Blue Line’ is. As the mission relied on the 1949 Armistice Line to define the line of withdrawal, both Israel and Lebanon indirectly agreed that the Blue Line is an artefact of the border line. The naming itself functions as a sort of euphemism to describe a reality, the border line, which is diplomatically unacceptable for Lebanese authorities. Things are happening as if all the actors involved in the Blue Line process (delineations, marking) knew what the situation is actually about but maintained the fiction by hiding their actions under the label of the ‘Blue Line’. In other words, the creation of the Blue

Map 6.1

Lebanese reservations about the Blue Line.

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Line and its technical enforcement and marking process have depoliticised the question of the border. Given the redefinition of space, the reservations expressed by Lebanese authorities, understood as ‘frontiers’, reveal the multidimensional nature of the borderland space. In the meantime, such ‘no man’s land areas’ provide a vantage point on how enemies can deal with each other for the sake of finding ways to monitor, control and manage these potentially dangerous zones. We have seen several cases and problems solved by UNIFIL and also noticed the nodal importance of the tripartite meetings in the process of building confidence between enemies. Tripartite meetings started in the aftermath of the July War in 2006 as well as the subsequent UN Resolution 1701 that strengthened UNIFIL’s mission. At first, it brought together the two sides to monitor the IDF’s withdrawal to behind the Blue Line. Then it functioned as a coordinating, cooperative structure to manage the Blue Line. These meetings were an active dimension of the othering process: The (b) ordering process at stake became a vantage ground for common management under UN supervision for security purposes. Through those meetings, both army delegates tend to affirm their national identity through requirements. Deals and cooperation that sometimes happen are contributing to the production of the self and the image of the other, be it good or bad. As an interface between enemies, these monthly meetings succeeded in creating and maintaining a relationship between the IDF and the LAF, thanks to the management of the bordering process, defined as a technical task. During the wall building in Kfarkila, the LAF and the IDF appeared more linked to one another, as both of them could affirm their national identity claim by completing this walled fence, which can be read as a definition of the two states’ type of relationship. The territoriality of the linkage between Israel and Lebanon in the fencing/bordering of the border line provides belligerents with physical support to their claim, shaped by UN ordering, and reinforces othering process. Interdependence between enemies underlined here and elsewhere in the Middle East (Meier, 2009; Parizot & Abdallah, 2011), increases when a (b)ordering collaboration contributes to the process of othering by erasing ambivalent identities.

CHAPTER 7 PENDING ISSUES: SOVEREIGNTY AT STAKE ON MARITIME AND AERIAL BORDERS

Nation-states extend into the air and over the waters bordering their land. Zureik & Slater (2005) have singled out these three as the dimensions that international borders encompass. The state narrative at stake in this chapter is bound by the principle of sovereignty applicable to three levels: land, air and sea spaces. The territories of nation-state can be subsumed under the category of ‘territoriality’, understood as the legal construct encasing the sovereign authority of a state (Sassen, 2012). In other words, a reading of sovereignty in line with the work of Max Weber entails legitimate domination over a territory that includes both aerial and maritime extensions. While the previous chapters have already discussed the struggles for sovereignty over land in the country’s southern area, it is important to clarify the origins and juridical aspects of aerial and maritime sovereignty in order to understand how those two other types of borders are taking part in the (b)ordering/othering processes in South Lebanon. Aerial sovereignty was first codified in 1919 during the Paris Convention Relating to the Regulation of Aerial Navigation, whose Article 1 mentions a state’s ‘complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory’. The limits of this control were fixed more clearly in the Chicago Convention on International Civil Aviation in

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1944, in which sovereign states were granted ‘complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above (their) territory’, the latter defined as land areas and territorial waters. This correspondence between legal territorial boundaries and the state’s airspace was completed with the eventual specification of the upper limits of this sovereignty 100 km above sea level, known as the Karman Line, recognised by the Fe´de´ration Ae´ronautique Internationale in 2004 (Williams, 2012). The monopoly of the state’s power over its airspace increased sharply thanks to the sophistication of warplanes during the twentieth century and the subsequent dissemination of weaponry for every sovereign state to defend its own airspace, which created a process of securing vertical international borders against perceived threats. Among the legal treaties that govern the use of airspace, the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), signed in Montego Bay in 1982, provides a number of measured offshore points that states with coastlines are entitled to claim.1 Article 2 of the UNCLOS elaborates on the state sovereignty of a coastal state whose limits of sovereignty extend beyond its land and maritime territories ‘to the airspace over the territorial sea’ (Article 2.2). For their part, maritime boundaries started to be delineated by the end of the 1950s in the Gulf region based on agreements between states for economic reasons linked to the oil industry (Bundy, 1993). Examples include the first maritime line in the region, the result of an agreement struck between Saudi Arabia and Bahrain in 1958, and the maritime boundary between Abu Dhabi and Dubai in 1968. In the Eastern Mediterranean zone, tensions about maritime borders arose mainly because of Turkish – Greek rivalry in the early 1970s (Eissler & Arasil, 2014). Since the beginning of the 2000s, more maritime boundary delimitations have been carried out, as more and more states around the world want to exploit the maritime resources of the sea (from fishery to oil and gas) and thus have an officially defined exclusive economic zone (EEZ). According to international regulations and to the UNCLOS,2 the delimitation of an EEZ requires an explicit proclamation and clearly expressed intention in the state’s domestic laws. It facilitates the exploitation of natural resources in the overlying waters (fishery resources) and deals with underwater exploration, exploitation, conservation and management of the natural resources in the seabed and subsoil.3 Proclaiming an EEZ is now part of customary law, as it is

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done by international lawyers4 and therefore applicable even to nonsignatory states of the UNCLOS, such as Israel. In the case of overlapping claims, UNCLOS Articles 74 and 83 mention the need to reach an agreement on the basis of international law ‘in order to achieve an equitable solution’. In the eastern part of the Mediterranean, several previous agreements among states were concluded using the equidistance line as a basic point of reference.5 And in the absence of any agreement, a median line has to be drawn as an equidistance line from the baselines. This rule leaves the door open to negotiation but also has a customary value in international jurisprudence (Rambaud, 2012). In this same mindset, Article 59 of the UNCLOS mentions the interests of the parties in conflict that should be considered in the light of the relevant circumstances and the international community’s interests, too.6 Finally, as the Mediterranean Sea can be defined as semi-enclosed, in the sense of Part IX of the UNCLOS, the states of this area have a general obligation to cooperate when facing a disagreement. Before exploring these aerial and maritime sovereignty issues, let us recall the direct link those two dimensions have with land sovereignty and the political fancies that have shaped the state narrative at different points in time. Since the establishment of the Second Republic in 1990, in the aftermath of the civil war, the sovereignty of Lebanese state has faced great challenges: the disarmament of former militias and the recovery of the state’s authority over Lebanon’s territoriality while the civil war had exhausted its structure and some infrastructures destroyed (Picard, 2002). Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) gradually took control of the checkpoints along with the Syrian intelligence services, thus fragmenting the national territory and leaving significant decisionmaking power regarding issues of national security in the hands of Syrian officers. The LAF checkpoints to enter or exit the South, the Beqaa and the North continue to illustrate the fragile securitisation of Lebanese territory and the fragmented sovereignty that has resulted from previous foreign occupations, new UN resolutions in the South, contemporary challenges by armed nonstate actors (Hizbullah, PFLPGC) and local insecurity due to the political breakdown. Both the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and Hizbullah escaped the demobilisation process in 1991. While the SLA was out of reach for the state because of the Israeli support of its occupation of the ‘security zone’ along the international border in the South, the Shiʽi militia received

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providential backing from Iran and Syria and the legitimisation to continue its armed struggle against the SLA and the Israeli occupation in the South. ‘Until the Israeli withdrawal in 2000, it had substituted for the army in South Lebanon [and] after the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000, the Islamic Resistance took exclusive military control of the “liberated” areas down to the international border’ (Picard, 2009: 264) and only allowed a contingent of 1,000 LAF troops south of the Litani River. In the post-2006 era, the LAF deployment of 15,000 troops in South Lebanon and its collaboration with UNIFIL II helped to mediate with Hizbullah forces in this area. Although the UNSCR 1559 and 1701 called for the disarmament of the Shiʽi militia and the freeing of South Lebanon from any other armed groups than LAF and UNIFIL, respectively, Hizbullah continued to pose one of the most significant challenges to state sovereignty and the monopolisation of legitimate violence. While some of its military activity was moved north of the new security zone, as defined by UNSCR 1701, other weaponry and hiding places remained, as illustrated by several explosions or incidents that have occurred in Southern villagers since then. Neither the LAF nor UNIFIL were able to interfere and decisively disarm Hizbullah, which remains the main challenger of the state security apparatus. Since 2005, the armament of Hizbullah has been one of the main bones of contention between the March 8 and March 14 political coalitions, even after the Doha Agreement that highlighted the necessity to ‘promote Lebanon’s state authority all over Lebanese territory’. As a consequence of Hizbullah retaining its weaponry, divisions increased among LAF officers as the Army is politically divided alongside the March 8 and March 14. In the meantime, the uprisings in Syria aggravated this polarisation, while March 14 MPs were suspicious of LAF neutrality in several violent clashes in 2013 and 2014 with radical Islamists in Tripoli and Arsal, near the Syrian border in the Beqaa Valley. This new bordering of the Second Republic, including the changes it underwent in 2000 (Israeli withdrawal), 2005 (Syrian withdrawal) and since the beginning of the Syrian uprising (2011), defines new ‘othering’ processes. A first political state of mind in postwar Lebanon accompanied the period of Syrian tutelage. During this time (1990 – 2005), apart from the Israeli occupants and their Lebanese surrogates, Lebanese state identified two dangerous profiles: Arafat followers among the Palestinian refugees and Aoun followers among the

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Christian opposition. These groups had in common a refusal of the Syrian political order in Lebanon. By the end of the 1990s, the category had expanded to include any Lebanese protesters calling for an end to Syrian control over Lebanon. During the parliamentary election in the summer of 2005, after the Syrian withdrawal that had followed the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafic el-Hariri, a popular uprising and international support for the anti-Syrian movement brought to power the first anti-Syrian majority. New calls to restore national sovereignty went out with demands to negotiate a new framework for Lebanese – Syrian relationships and draw much clearer international borders between the two states. The state narrative changed when two dangerous figures threatening the state emerged: jihadists and Israeli spies. The bordering process, linked to sovereignty claims and internal/regional political struggles, is clearly linked to the othering process that defines the enemy in order to value and coalesce the national collective. Hizbullah played a key role in shaping both these categories and in casting suspicion on people among Lebanese citizens7. After the beginning of the Syrian uprising, radical religious anti-regime refugees from Syria became identified as jihadists. Clashes between the al-Nusra Front and the LAF, powered by the dark shadow of fear, gave credence to the belief that the rise of the Islamic State (IS) threatened the entire region. Among the reasons for Lebanon’s inability to establish its authority over its national territory, including its national waters and airspace, Picard (2013) mentioned the regional and international tensions that relate to the Arab– Israeli conflict. During Syria’s political and military domination (1990– 2005), ‘Syria worked to domesticate Lebanese Army, police and security services through the allocation of significant budgetary resources and economic privileges, and by upgrading the social status of the officers’ (Picard, 2013: 163). Until the end of its tutelage, Syria did not provide Lebanon’s Army with other armaments than worn equipment and very little foreign aid. The Syrian military pull-back in 2005 clearly modified the status quo ante, but some red lines remained. Even if the post-Syrian government was committed to Western powers regarding the security sector, with the US and Saudi Arabia providing Lebanese Army with weaponry and training to fight the jihadist threat,8 Lebanese skies remained under the supervision of the Israeli Air Force while the West tacitly prioritised military supremacy of

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the IDF over their neighbours. This strategic dimension provided a general framework that clearly linked border and boundary issues with the regional balance of power issues. It is equally patent that airspace is directly linked to ground warfare, as the story of Lebanese airspace shows.

The vanished sovereignty of Lebanese airspace The last time the Lebanese Army was able to use its warplanes in an armed confrontation happened during the May 1973 strikes against the Palestinian camps in Beirut. But in the context of the violent confrontation that had started in April 1973 between Lebanese Army and Palestinian groups and of the very sensitive topic of the resistance among Lebanese segments of the population after the LAF had brutally killed Lebanese protesters during a pacifist march on 17 April, President Frangieh had to step back after strong condemnation by Egypt and Syria and major sectarian issues paralysed the political system (Kassir, 1993: 75). Since then, the LAF had completely lost its legitimacy as a neutral actor in the turmoil. During the civil war, both sides have accused the LAF of being either against the Palestinians and the anti-imperialist forces or incapable of maintaining its authority and monopolisation of weapons over the national territory. This crisis ruined the LAF and signalled the slow breakdown of Lebanese state, which became obvious once political parties started training their militants and taking control over swathes of national territory in the time leading up to the civil war that erupted in 1975. Owing to internal developments that saw leftist Palestinian forces threatening the rightist militias and the regime itself, Damascus wanted to intervene in order to stabilise the balance of power. In April 1976, within this context, US officials brokered a set of ‘red line understandings’ between Syria and Israel relating to Lebanon. Israel promised not to intervene with Syria’s insertion of troops in Lebanon in return for several Syrian assurances regarding its military deployment in Lebanon.9 The agreement stipulated that no Syrian troops could be dispatched beyond a line running directly east from Saida towards the eastern Beqaa Valley. It also stipulated that Syrian troops south of the Beirut– Damascus highway could not number more than a single brigade, that Syria could not deploy surface-to-air missiles in Lebanon

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and that Syria could not use its air force against ground targets in Lebanon (Rabin, 1979: 219). As a result, Lebanese warplanes, already in poor condition, suffered a strong reduction of their flying capacity because of Lebanon’s two influential neighbours within this Cold War context and the ‘red lines’ policy that included the country’s airspace. In a military assessment report comparing the military capabilities of Israel and Syria, Cordesman & Nerguizian (2008: 24) note that Lebanon reached a maximum of 27 aircraft in 1977, a number that declined at the beginning of the 1980s to several units and reached zero by the 2000s. However, the authors mention that grounded aircraft in Lebanon numbered 14 units – six Hawker Hunters, English combat aircraft built during the 1950s, and eight CM-170 Magisters, French aircraft built during the 1950s and designed to train military pilots,10 Moreover, during the civil war, the military airport in the northern town of Al-Qulay’at soon fell under the control of the Syrian Army, and an alternative runway was found in the Christian enclave north of Beirut, on a segment of the motorway in Halat, where General Aoun was using a few warplanes that were still in running order. Even after the end of the civil war, all the pilots knew that Saida was the southernmost point reachable by air, because of a clear red line that was (and has remained) in place for private pilots and international aircraft.11 The missile crisis in 1981 is a revealing aspect of the normalisation of Israeli domination over Lebanese skies. After the Israeli ‘red line’ limits were instituted in South Lebanon in 1976, the 1981 crisis expanded the scope of those limits. The crisis started with the Syrian siege of the Christian village of Zahleh in the Beqaa Valley. Although having started a few days earlier, on 25 April the Syrian Army was transporting troops by helicopter up to the heights of Mount Sannine when it dislodged Lebanese Forces,12 the Christian militia allied to Israel. Three days later, the IDF sent its warplanes and shot down the two helicopters. The operation was justified because of the rupture of the strategic Syrian– Israeli status quo ante brokered by Henry Kissinger in 1976.13 The IDF escalated the confrontation throughout April with several airstrikes on Damour, Nabatieh, Tyre, Saida and the Beaufort Castle prior to those on the Sannine heights, as if, as a deterrence strategy, Israeli provocations would change the axis of confrontation between the two belligerent states (Kassir, 1994: 456).

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The Syrian Army replied with a deterrence military measure by deploying SAM-6 missiles in the Beqaa Valley. This decision immediately flashed the red alert in Washington, D.C., as well as in Israel. Israel was prepared to retaliate and invoked the ‘red line’ agreement of 1976 to claim the missiles posed a threat to its monopoly over Lebanese airspace. Finally, the US presidential envoy, Philip Habib, mediated the creation of a nonbelligerent status quo that left the SAM-6 missiles where they were and for the first time brought the airspace of the Beqaa Valley under Syrian control, as Israeli drones had been shot down by Syrian missiles. However, in the South as well as in Beirut, the military campaign against the Palestinian resistance saw many Israeli aircraft dominating Lebanese skies along the coast (mainly in July 1981), as pro-Palestinian Joint Forces fired more than 1,000 rockets on the Naharhiya-Kyriat Shmoneh area. It came as no surprise when Israel categorically refused Habib’s proposal in September of that year, when he negotiated the PLO’s withdrawal of heavy weapons from South Lebanon in exchange for Israel’s pull-back from the border zone and the freezing of low-altitude flights over Lebanon. Israel knew how powerful its aerial domination was and demonstrated its capabilities by destroying the Syrian SAM-6 missiles in the Beqaa in early June 1982, during the first days of the ‘Peace for Galilee’ war. The ability of the IDF to move beyond the fixed Palestinian positions in South Lebanon during the first week of the 1982 invasion is part of the explanation for its quick success, although the heavy Palestinian losses were also the result of a static Palestinian perception of Lebanese space (Kassir, 1993: 478). This Israeli monopoly over Lebanon’s skies remained in place until the very last moment of the civil war, although there were some shifts because of what happened when Michel Aoun’s forces collapsed. Early in the morning on 13 October 1990, while Aoun was leading a single Lebanese Army battalion against the Syrian Army, which had encircled his enclave, the Israelis gave the green light to Washington, D.C., for Damascus to send its warplanes over the Baabda Presidential Palace and launch the final assault on Aoun’s positions. This example reveals the full extent of Israel’s domination over Lebanese skies as well as the extension of the ‘red line’ agreement to the north for Israeli warplanes to cover almost the entire airspace over Lebanese territory. Israel’s domination became quite obvious when their warplanes patrolled Lebanese skies on a regular basis during the 1990s, crossing the sound barrier over the

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capital city at noon every Wednesday just to remind the population who was in control of the country’s airspace. Such acts of intimidation continued after the Israeli withdrawal from South Lebanon in May 2000 (Sobelman, 2004), while unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) like drones started to fly in Lebanese skies to take pictures and document Hizbullah’s management of and control over the southern borderland. The response came in the form of a Hizbullah drone that flew over the north of Israel for the first anniversary of Israeli withdrawal at the end of May 2001 (Abu Khalil, 2001). Since then, Hizbullah has developed its own capacity for producing drones in collaboration with Iran and shown an impressive high-tech capability to subvert Israeli drone images and send spy drones over Israel. These include several devices such as the ‘Mirsad’ and the famous ‘Ayoub’ that reached the southern part of Israel in October 2012 and flew over the nuclear facility in Dimona before being shot down. In his speech delivered a few days later,14 Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah acknowledged his group’s responsibility, underlining the drone was ‘Lebanese’ but had Iranian components. The deterrence message was clear the moment Nasrallah mentioned the drones as an answer to the 20,864 airspace violations since the July War of 2006. One of the recent drones sent over Israel reached 30 km south of the international border before the IDF shot it down off the coast near Haifa.15 In a strategy of keeping total secrecy about its military tactics, Hizbullah denied the ownership of this UAV, but it seems quite obvious its intelligence relied on such counter-spy tactics. Despite the Hizbullah drones, the July War showed that Israel was able to rely on aerial hegemonic control over Lebanese skies, and this full control functioned as a baseline for its strategy of the systematic destruction of Lebanon’s transport infrastructures (107 bridges, 630 km of roads) in order to isolate regions of the country and the South in particular. Israel also launched airstrikes on fuel tanks and electric plants, which interrupted water distribution in the South. Airstrikes also targeted Hizbullah’s infrastructure in order to destroy the party’s ability to continue to function. Comparing the financial losses of houses and companies between regions after the end of the war, Verdeil (2007) shows that 49 per cent of the total estimate of $2.406 billion concerned South Lebanon, where a few local cities were almost completely flattened (Bint Jbeil, Khiam) or seriously damaged (Tyre).

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Nevertheless, Israel was not able to win the war and failed to reach any of its war goals. At the end of the war, UNSCR 1701 allowed the return of the LAF to the South and extended Western cooperation with the LAF to include surveillance of Lebanese territorial waters, the national airport and land border control between Syria and Lebanon (Picard, 2013). However, as a sign of Lebanon’s incomplete recovery of its territorial sovereignty, nothing changed regarding Israel’s power over Lebanese airspace. Since then, the skies over Lebanon have continued to be dominated or at least controlled by Israel, while the United Nations documents every violation of Lebanese aerial sovereignty and responds with an official condemnation but without any consequence for Israel. To explain this absurd situation, Williams talked about ‘a chronic decline of the sanctity of aerial sovereignty’ and an asymmetry of warfare in which ‘powerful states enable them to violate and render contingent sovereignty airspace with continued impunity’ (Williams, 2010: 57). Apart from drones, another example of the military bordering of the Lebanese skies by means of Israeli weaponry and spying devices appeared a few years ago, when balloons were sent over several towns, like Baalbek, or small villages close to the border. Equipped with sophisticated communication devices, they dispatched the collected data to Israeli surveillance command centres. They seemed to operate on gas and were less expensive than drones, as LAF General Amine Hoteit explains.16 He further details what it means to be able to dominate the airspace above a state: The Israeli balloons are generally positioned in Lebanon at an altitude that varies between 75 and 300 meters and carry a selfdestruct device. This way, the other side cannot benefit from the material that was gathered if the balloon is hit and brought down [. . .] It has become very hard to face the Israeli espionage operations, especially since Lebanese airspace is open to them. The best way to counter these threats would be to acquire an air defence arsenal that includes radars and missiles. But we should also note that Israel mainly relies on its espionage activities from the satellites that it possesses. Lebanon is under surveillance from six different spy satellites that can capture the smallest details.17

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Although it seems to be an asymmetrical confrontation if satellite technology is included, aerial sovereignty also relies on adequate weaponry, as General Hoteit mentioned, to repel any intrusion or violation of Lebanese airspace. As seen above, warplanes in Lebanon were at best old and slowly becoming inefficient. After the Syrian Army had rebuilt and trained Lebanese Army in an obsolete fashion (Picard, 2013), the LAF faced a big challenge when the Syrian Army troops withdrew from Lebanon in 2005. At the same time, the Western powers became more involved in the Eastern Mediterranean, but unfortunately Lebanon missed the opportunity to adopt a new defence strategy because of internal divisions and the tendency of Lebanese elites to become proxies in order to win the local balance of power. Equipment and materials were badly lacking and used to be provided by foreign states. Until the July War in 2006, this help was very limited, and purchases essentially comprised equipment of a defensive nature. Before 2006, neither Syria nor the West was interested in any Lebanese military empowerment. While Syria feared a resumption of the civil war, the West was not keen to support a military force so tightly connected with the Syrian Army. To date, every confrontation – during the July War (2006) in Nahr elBared (2007) and more recently against Sheikh al-Asıˆr in Saida (2013) or the Islamists in Arsal and Tripoli (2014– 15) – has revealed a lack of adequate training and equipment. In the context of a struggle against terrorists and jihadist cells, the US granted Lebanese Army $720 million of support for a ‘domestic counterterrorism mission’ and to counterbalance the influence of Syria and its local ally Hizbullah (Picard, 2013). The 2014 support from Saudi Arabia for $3 billion worth of armament18 provided by France is in line with such a ‘counterterrorist’ strategy in the context of the rise of the IS. In the meantime, no one is raising concerns about Lebanon’s warplane capacity or at least the full control of its airspace with a real deterrence capability. The only deterrence strategy that matters is provided by Hizbullah with Iranian support. Tellingly, the recent Iranian proposal to fund Lebanese Army immediately resulted in a US warning to Lebanese government that mentioned its own support of the LAF precludes any Iranian military aid.19 This illustrates the uncomfortable position of Lebanon on a confrontation line between an ‘axis of resistance’ led by Iran and a pro-Western vision of the world led by the US, which wants to keep Lebanon on its side of the game.

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The US – Iranian Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, agreed in April and signed in July 2015, reshuffled the cards in the Middle East and affected Lebanon’s LAF armament supply. In June 2015, the US State Department approved the sale of weapons to Lebanon as part of its fight against Islamic insurgents advancing from Syria’s border, which superseded the lingering concern over the part that Hizbullah plays in Lebanese government. While the US had already supported the LAF in the past years, the new type and scope of support has changed. Among other things, the new weaponry included six A-29 Super Tucano aircraft, all paid for by a Saudi grant to the value of $1 billion.20 This sale sets a new step in military aid, while the status quo with regard to Israel remains in place. The new aircraft are designed for ground attacks and training, and the maximum ground speed of the aircraft (around 600 km/h) cannot compete with that of any Israeli fighter aircrafts (F-15 or F-16). Their mission is clearly limited to surveillance of the state’s eastern border and ground attacks against IS militants. This last development shows that Western powers do not really want a powerful Lebanon able to defend its aerial borders and retaliate against any kind of violation. Only certain types of threats are legitimate targets and only appropriate weaponry is allowed to guarantee the safety of the state in a context marked by an increase in the number of insurgents from the IS. Therefore, Lebanon has to submit to a limited sovereignty system, which is the only option international and regional players permit with regard to the bordering of Lebanese airspace. In December 2014, under cover of the Syrian civil war, the IDF reaffirmed its supremacy over Lebanon’s airspace when it bombed a repository of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles purportedly bound for Hizbullah, which would have endangered Israel’s absolute aerial command.21 In the South, nothing has really changed, and the vacuum regarding national aerial sovereignty persists, because the movements of the LAF’s new warplanes, destined for the eastern frontline, have not yet affected the skies in South Lebanon. This situation leaves the door open to other players that could quickly overrun Lebanese troops from the air or have a deterrence capacity by air against Israel. Hizbullah again proved its capacity to play this role during the spring of 2015, when it sent two UAVs from Naqoura over Israel. Both returned safely after hovering for less than half an hour over Israel and the OPT.22

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A disputed maritime boundary In recent years, the delimitation of a maritime boundary, which several states have undertaken in the Eastern Mediterranean basin, has triggered tensions between Lebanon and Israel. What is at stake? And how can one assess who is right in such disputes when there is an ongoing attempt to border Lebanese maritime zone? In the next two sections of this chapter, in order to shed some light on this disputed maritime boundary, I will draw on a timeline of the emergence of the dispute and on each party’s arguments and actions before exploring the associated narrative about offshore natural resources (gas and oil) for Lebanon that the country’s government has developed. I will also discuss the economic context of this line of argument. Both maritime territorial claims and oil/gas offshore resources are linked to each other in a narrative that is oriented towards renewed state sovereignty over national territory. The delimitation of Lebanon’s EEZ was carried out in several stages, but the first one was probably the most decisive. Following the new interest raised by the US geological surveys in the Eastern Mediterranean basin that showed great potential for oil and gas exploration, Lebanon decided to sign a first delimitation of its EEZ’s western edge with Cyprus in 2007 that defines six equidistant points along a line running from the south to the north (see Map 7.1). Lebanese Parliament did not ratify this agreement; however, two years later, another delineation of Lebanese EEZ was adopted by the Council of Ministers (Decision No. 51) on 21 May 2009. Contrary to the 2007 agreement, the 2009 delineation, which was confirmed with a list of geographical coordinates sent to the UN secretary-general in July and October 2010, added two points to the six points of 2007: the northern and the southern limits of the EEZ, which provided new coordinates for a tripoint border in the north (with Cyprus and Syria) and in the south (with Cyprus and Israel). These two added points, numbered 7 (north) and 23 (south), are the northwestern and southwestern limits of Lebanese EEZ, respectively. Lebanese authorities drew the 2009 delimitation based on a map by the British Admiralty, also recognised by Israel, and the northern and southern sections were delineated by drawing median lines equidistant from the baselines, as recommended by the UNCLOS. To explain why Lebanon did not completely define the western line (including points 7 and 23) in 2007, specialists in international law

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explained that it is a frequent practice in bilateral delimitation agreements to stop before reaching the triple point, since this would require the participation of the third state concerned (ASDEAM, 2012) in this case, Israel (for the southwestern point) and Syria (for the north western point). As Lebanon does not recognise the state of Israel, it is obvious that it would not enter into direct negotiations about a maritime boundary. Lebanon decided to define its EEZ the moment its interests in hydrocarbon became clearer but also because of a smoother internal political environment.23 The reason why Lebanese Parliament did not ratify the 2007 delimitation could be explained by a possible mistake made by Lebanese negotiators, who did not specify the value of point 1. However, this seems contradictory to the clear intention expressed by Lebanon in the Cyprus – Lebanon Agreement (Article 1), which states that the delimitation could be revised in the future in accordance with specific agreements with the states concerned. More likely, the lack of ratification of the 2007 delineation was due to political pressure from Turkey, unhappy with any agreement unilaterally concluded by Cyprus (also with Egypt and Israel) that neglected the interests of the northern part of Cyprus (Eissler & Arasil, 2014). Moreover, Lebanon was engaged in negotiations with Turkey on a free-trade agreement that was signed at the end of November 2010. During the summer of 2010, in order to comply with the spirit of the UNCLOS, then Lebanese President Michel Suleiman promulgated a law ‘on petroleum resources in the maritime waters’ (no. 132) that was adopted by Parliament. Although this law mentioned the EEZ and regulated the exploitation of petroleum resources, it did not provide the legal basis for doing so, as it did not properly identify the area to be exploited (ASDEAM, 2012: 9). To rectify this issue, Lebanese Parliament adopted ‘The Delineation and the Declaration of the Maritime Zone of the Republic of Lebanon’, known as Law no. 163, on 25 August 2011, and on 1 October 2011 it adopted decree no. 6433, entitled ‘The Delineation of the Boundaries of the EEZ’, of which the UN was notified on 16 November 2011. All of these documents confirmed the delineation adopted in 2009. The agreement between Cyprus and Israel, signed on 17 December 2010,24 marked the renewal of legal activities in the maritime boundary delimitation. Unfortunately, the 12 points (from north to south) of this

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delimitation ignored the margin left in the Cyprus– Lebanon Agreement of 2007 and took point 1 as the terminal point of the northwestern limit of the Israeli EEZ. Surprisingly, its coordinates (33-38’-40’’ latitude, 33-53’-40’’ longitude) are exactly the same as the ones of point 1 defined in the 2007 Cyprus– Lebanon Agreement. In fact, this location falls short of the triple points between Lebanon, Cyprus and Israel, and it overlaps with Lebanon’s declared EEZ (see Map 7.1). By extending 17 km north of Lebanon’s claim, the Cyprus– Israel Agreement overlaps with 870 km2 that fall under Lebanon’s rights over the maritime area. In July 2011, Israel’s Cabinet approved a map of its maritime boundaries based on this Cyprus –Israel Agreement before sending it to the UN and ignoring Lebanon’s objections. Explaining their choice, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu justified Israel’s decision by referencing a ‘contradiction’ in Lebanon’s position on the 2007 agreement and the 2009 EEZ delineation (which added point 23). He stated, as if it were a fatality: ‘We have no choice but to set the borders ourselves.’25 One of the Israeli calculations was to render Lebanon accountable for its 2007 decision. But of course, as this delimitation was not ratified by Lebanese Parliament, it was simply not possible to ask Lebanon to abide by that particular delimitation. Moreover, the Israeli behaviour reveals a blatant violation of public delimitations (the ones of 2009) pointed out to the United Nations office in 2010 in two letters sent by the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the UN in New York City.26 For its part, Lebanon lodged an official protest to the UN secretarygeneral in two separate letters in June and September 2011. They both underlined that the Cyprus– Israel Agreement is incompatible with the geographical points that Lebanon registered with the United Nations, and that such an attitude could imperil international peace and security. Lebanon also defined point 31 on the Israeli land border as ‘an assault on Lebanese sovereignty’, as it was north of the B1 point acknowledged by the UN (i.e. the first landmark of the Blue Line), which referred to the 1923 Paulet –Newcombe Agreement later acknowledged by the 1949 Armistice Line and at the foundation of the UN Blue Line delineation in 2000, as seen in Chapter 6. The potentially major conflict that the Israeli EEZ delineation provoked over a previously well-defined Lebanese EEZ area of sovereignty is one of the typical unilateral measures that do not depend

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on chance or a mistake by Lebanon, as Israeli officials appeared to suggest. Several analysts understood that this strategy was related to the anticipated gains in potential gas resources in this contested maritime space. There is evidence of a similar strategy in the OPT with respect to oil resources.27 In sum, Israel’s strategy regarding its maritime border with Lebanon is political. It does not rely on strong juridical or geographical evidence but on a political strategy. Two elements illustrate this point. Firstly, observers noted that Israel removed their buoys floating along this new delineation at the beginning of 2011, shortly after the Cyprus– Israel Agreement was signed, whereas the same buoys were floating farther south prior to this date without resulting in any Israeli claims.28 Secondly, Israel designed its northern blocks for exploration and drilling following the southern Lebanese EEZ delineation set out in 2009 and sent to the UN in 2010 but did not follow their territorial claims farther north. In the meantime, through its agreement with Cyprus, Israel acknowledged a bounding by virtue of customary international law, as it referred to the UNCLOS provisions in its preamble. One of the outcomes of this recognition is to abide by the maritime delimitation system based on an equidistance line that should be drawn to delineate its EEZ. This method, which Israel and Lebanon both recognise, should also be applied by Israel to the southern maritime boundary delimitation, but that is not the case. An explanation of the behaviour adopted by Israel in this matter today could simply be related to oil and gas exploration and economic rivalries in the gas sector. It is well known that recent explorations and the current exploitation of Israeli blocks close to the maritime border have led Israeli experts to expect great potential for the gas reserves in the Israel-licensed Leviathan and Tamar gas fields. Another consequence of the dispute is that Lebanon cannot provide companies with guarantees of security during exploration and drilling in this section of its EEZ. International law also sets some limits on these activities: ‘it is not permissible for a party to a dispute to undertake any unilateral activity that might affect the other party’s rights in a permanent manner’.29 Nevertheless, Lebanese government decided to divide its EEZ into nine blocks and to put out to tender the five first in early September 2013. One of these blocks, no. 9, straddles the disputed zone (see Map 7.1). In the meantime, in 2012, the US administration had tried to mediate the dispute and proposed to divide the contested

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zone into two sectors: The one under international control would be identified as a quasi-‘buffer zone’ of 340 km2, while the second sector of 530 km2, located on Lebanese side of the disputed zone, would be recognised as part of Lebanon’s offshore area.30 Although this plan implicitly acknowledged the injustice done to Lebanese sovereign waters, Lebanon rejected it, as it was perceived as bargaining with its national sovereignty. Israel also rejected the plan, which meant further delays to the development of block no. 9.31 In order to avoid any unpleasant surprises from Cyprus, Article 3 of the Cyprus– Israel Agreement mentions that the parties are bound to consult with each other before concluding any final agreement with another state on the delimitation of their EEZ. This will likely stop any pull-back from Cyprus, as Lebanon has attempted to discuss a revision of the 2007 agreement.32 One question remains: Why did Cyprus sign such an agreement that contradicts Lebanon’s previous EEZ claim? At least, one can ask why Cyprus did not consult Lebanon during its negotiations with Israel. One of the answers could relate to defence issues and the joint exploitation of resources that Cyprus agreed on with Israel, notably regarding liquefied natural gas (LNG) and the building of an LNG plant on its territory, including security cooperation that Israel would guarantee. While security emerges as a significant concern with regard to the maritime border, the securitisation of energy seems to be the primary concern for all the states in the area, referred to as an ‘energy security complex’ (Buzan & Waever, 2003). This theoretical tool highlights the interaction between two or more states in a limited geographical area that includes an energy dependence relationship. The interest of this model lies in its ability to render visible the current shift in the energy power resources of Israel, which gained energy autonomy from Egypt, its former gas supplier, and of Cyprus. It also shows the current process in which Lebanon is involved that, following the development of the country’s autonomy in the sector of energy, will likely go through several stages and could change its relationships with its neighbours.

Gas resources as a narrative to regain sovereignty In March 2010, an estimate by the US Geological Survey evaluated the unexplored potential reserves in the Levant Basin at 1.7 billion barrels of

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recoverable oil and 122 trillion cubic feet – or 3,450 billion m3 – of gas. The 2D and 3D seismic surveys carried out by Spectrum, a UK-based Norwegian company, and Petroleum Geo-Services (PGS) revealed that Lebanon’s offshore potential is greater than the other countries in the area. They estimated that Lebanese waters they surveyed (covering an area of 3,000 km2) contained around 25 trillion cubic feet of gas. This is a massive amount of resources considering that the total Lebanese offshore area covers 22,730 km2. On 6 September 2012, the CEO of Spectrum said Lebanon’s offshore gas reserves could be larger than those of Cyprus and Syria.33 These statements were made based on assessments by the company’s partner, Dolphin Geophysical, which had sent its Polar Duke vessel to survey Lebanese coast. In the meantime, 26 companies announced their interest in exploring Lebanon’s gas and oil resources along the EEZ by purchasing data (GeoPackages) from the Ministry of Energy and Water that provide basic geographical and geological information, and they are waiting for the first licensing round. This sudden interest in hydrocarbon resources raised several questions about the regulatory framework and high expectations for public financial profits. To set up the regional picture of the matter, one should note that Lebanon still has a long way to go before reaching the level of development of its local neighbours Syria, Cyprus and Israel, all of which are at different stages of exploiting their gas and oil resources. In the meantime, Lebanon seems to have several assets to play with on the international stage, as an international evaluation in 2012 ranked the country sixth out of 12 in the Middle East and 71th out of 147 in the world for its attractiveness in terms of tax rates, costs, regulations, trade barriers and security threats. The international context of the gas market has changed significantly since 2008 because of three factors.34 Firstly, significant input and investments made primarily in the Gulf (Qatar) to promote LNG have resulted in a more dynamic and wider market for producers using maritime circumnavigation to export gas. This market made up 30 per cent of the total gas market in 2011. New producers, like Australia, are appearing on the market with big investments in LNG. In the eastern Mediterranean Sea, Israel and Cyprus have established a cooperation model, and an LNG plant will be built on Cypriot soil to export gas by boat in order to reach international markets. In a recent public presentation, Cyprus advocated for synergies among eastern

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Mediterranean countries, including Lebanon, to ‘turn the region into an area of sustainable and balanced economic development’.35 Secondly, nonconventional gas resources like shale gas are facing greater public demand, as is the case in Europe and the US. Thanks to new effective drilling methods (fracking, horizontal drilling), the international gas market exploded, as the US became self-sufficient and started exporting gas. In the coming years, this new orientation in nonconventional gas exploitation should result in a shift among the leading gas producers in the world from Russia, Iran and Qatar to the US, China, Russia and Australia, as noted by Marwan Iskandar (2012), who has also outlined the subsequent fall of the price of a cubic feet of gas from $13.50 to $2.00 in just four years (2008– 12). For Lebanon and its neighbours, this reorientation of the international market with a larger offer and lower prices also means a tougher exportation environment for profit making, while the amortisation of any investment could take longer. The third step in this energy revolution could be the recent discovery of massive gas resources in deep waters. It appears that eastern Africa and the eastern Mediterranean seabed contain the biggest gas well found in decades. Nevertheless, such a bright picture was filled with gloom when the actors realised the investments deep-water gas requires. Infrastructures are pricey, and while it is almost certain that there will be a strong demand for gas in the future, the level of prices is becoming less attractive, as more and more countries want to export gas. A second weak point is that exploration and drilling requiring high investments sometimes have very disappointing results compared with initial estimates. A third issue arises when it comes to drilling in deep waters: The environmental cost can be heavy, because drilling can endanger fragile maritime ecosystem, as the World Wildlife Foundation highlighted after a major incident in Scotland in 2010, which means there would be a need for tight regulation. At the government level, Lebanon reacted quickly by setting up a law on ‘petroleum resources in the maritime waters’ (no. 132) that was promulgated by President Suleiman and adopted by Parliament on 24 August 2010. This initial law ‘contains provisions on health and safety whereby contractors must ensure that all necessary measures are taken to prevent and reduce harm to persons, property, and environment’ (ASDEAM, 2012: 27) resulting from the risks of deep-sea exploration,

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such as a spill that could harm the natural environment. The role of the Ministry of Energy and Water became more intense under the leadership of Gibran Bassil, when it renewed the contracts with both Spectrum and PGS,36 which enabled petroleum companies to efficiently review hydrocarbon prospectivity ahead of the first offshore licensing round thanks to a unique dataset. Another step was taken when a six-member Petroleum Administration was established in November 2012. Its role was to oversee the bidding and licensing processes. The nomination of this staff seemed to have gone through the sectarian balance system so as to represent the interests of the main sects, as the first message sent out after their nomination emphasised the sectarian affiliation of each of them. This commission plays an advisory role in operational decisions, as it prepares technical and commercial files and makes recommendations in case of a political decision. The Minister and the Council of Ministers retain the power to make final decisions and orientations in the name of the state of Lebanon. This means being engaged in four fields of action: the bidding process, the attribution of licenses, the discussion of commercial plans proposed by companies owning a licence and the extension of the duration of operating licences. In the spring of 2013, the first offshore licensing round was celebrated with a party in a five-star hotel in Beirut attended by the Minister of Energy. Of 52 companies that sought to pre-qualify, 46 were accredited by Lebanese Petroleum Authority.37 However, the first round was delayed until early September 2013 due to the politicisation of the oil sector. The process of block delineation and selection for the first tender had to incorporate several parameters, including geological questions and economical and operational aspects, in order to offer homogeneous blocks for exploitation. The technical aspects at stake concerned the depth of drilling (as a larger investment is required if the depth exceeds 500 m), the potential resources in the blocks and the geological components of the seabed. In this phase, the new 3D survey that Spectrum had carried out of 2,200 km2 provided promising results for blocks 3 and 5.38 These results helped the government to choose how to proceed with the tender process. Instead of following Cyprus, whose strategy bet on adding value to most of the blocks by attributing only one block during the first licensing round, Lebanon chose to bet on a large opening with a

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licensing affecting five out of nine blocks.39 The politicisation of the process was already apparent in the composition of the Petroleum Administration that provided the Minister of Energy with advice. This politicisation was even clearer when it came to delineating the blocks and then choosing some of them for the first round, as some leading sectarian players expanded their zone of influence over the national waters. The first offshore licensing round, during which companies could submit their prequalified package, had to be extended because the ministerial cabinet missed a deadline to pass decrees to confirm the demarcation of the blocks on which to bid. The Minister of Energy contributed to the polarisation on the topic when he laid the blame for the delay on other Lebanese parties responsible: ‘There are some Lebanese parties which served the interest of other countries by downplaying the importance of oil wealth in Lebanon. Some of these parties seem to serve the interests of the Turkish side, and for this reason they tried to hamper an oil agreement between Lebanon and Cyprus.’40 He also warned against ‘Israeli oil agents in Lebanon’.41 These delays brought some preselected oil companies to pull their offers, while others began to lose patience; the process struck a blow to the credibility of Lebanese state in the oil sector. Internal turmoil as a result of the increasing polarisation among the two leading coalitions with regard to the Syrian crisis paralysed many political decisions. The ten-month crisis in forming a government left only a caretaker government in charge of the decision-making process. In the spring of 2014, after a new cabinet was formed under the lead of Tamam Salam as Prime Minister, the new Minister of Energy, Arthur Nazarian,42 had to reassure the commercial partners that he was still committed to developing the oil sector, and he called on the government to press forward with the first licensing round and approve the two decrees related to block definitions and the specification of conditions for exploration and production. Forty-six companies were still in the running, 34 as ‘non-operators’ and 12 as ‘operators’43. Unfortunately, the political turmoil was prolonged and affected the presidential seat, which was vacant for more than a year and brought the oil and gas file to an impasse. To date, the two decrees mentioned above have still not been passed, as internal corruption may slow down the process as can do the regional oil powers that are concerned by the implications of the arrival of Lebanon on the oil and gas market.44

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As Lebanon opted for a relatively transparent process to allocate its offshore blocks through a competitive bidding process that could encourage financially strong and technically competent companies to offer the best terms for exploration and production rights, some issues other than the political ones already mentioned remained at stake and put the process at risk. Firstly, a prospective study should establish proven commercial resources, as geological uncertainty could work against large bids. Economic conditions and fiscal terms with political risks could also dampen investors’ enthusiasm. In a clear warning to Lebanese government, Carole Nakhleh, an energy economist at the Surrey Energy Economics Centre in the UK, stated that ‘weak administrative capacity and unfamiliarity with the bidding process among domestics stakeholders need to be addressed’ and added that ‘strong governance, an anti-corruption framework and non-discriminatory treatment of bidders (especially during the solicitation and evaluation process) are the most important ingredients’.45 Lawyers and economists underline the major importance of a proper regulatory framework for the exploration and exploitation of hydrocarbon resources that ‘balances the interests of the oil companies and that of the state and ensures that such activities will not harm other sectors of the economy or create environmental harm’ (ASDEAM, 2012: 26). In this regard, Lebanon’s Law no. 132 of 2010 contains some indications and safety measures that contractors have to take in order not to harm individuals, the environment or properties. In the meantime, this law is not precise enough with regard to gas resources, because it was designed for oil. Among the differences, economics between oil and gas can vary greatly. Investment in an offshore deep-water gas field is typically more capital-intensive and expensive than it is for oil, and ‘its development can take longer as investors need to ensure long-term market access for their gas before committing to expensive infrastructure’.46 This puts stress on the need for political stability in Lebanon and on an internationally competitive fiscal regime that can whet investors’ appetite. In view of the pride in national sovereignty that the oil sector seems to crystallise in the media and in political discourses, popular expectations are quite high despite the economic turmoil the country is facing at present. There is a debate over the use of hydrocarbon resources for national consumption or international exportation. Issues related to

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these two options affect the orientation of the business that companies are planning to undertake. Regarding the national use of gas resources, the question seems to be whether such resources would ‘help to reduce the national debt’ (Wahlisch, 2011) or, on the contrary, worsen the present situation.47 Specialists in economics or energy industries are stressing several aspects of the problem. Firstly, they make a distinction between resources in place that are ‘technically recoverable’ or ‘commercially recoverable’, and they warn that the latter category regularly has a smaller quantity of gas resources available. Secondly, the exploration and appraisal phases can last a very long time (years or even decades) before gas production starts. Thirdly, the expected results should be realistic compared with other regional experiences, as Carole Nakhleh underlines: ‘it is rare for an exploration well to have a chance of discovery in excess of 45%, on average’. She adds that ‘the odds of making a commercial discovery are even lower, particularly at deepwater locations’.48 A fourth issue, which could be the most problematic, is being labelled ‘the paradox of plenty’. The problem of hydrocarbon resources lies in the management of its revenues, which creates slower economic growth in poor countries because of stewardship in making the most of natural resources.49 The paradox of plenty is well documented in many oil- and gas-rich countries from the South that do not have strong state and democratic rules. The disputed area in the southern maritime zone of Lebanese EEZ raises the same question as during the Gas and Oil Summit held in Beirut in April 2013. Would companies take the risk of drilling in such contested spaces even if ‘tempting conditions’ were provided for such blocks, as MP Mohammad Kabbani, chairman of Lebanese Parliamentary Committee on Oil and Gas, suggests?50 Naturally, for oil companies, the balance between investments and risks is at stake, but their commercial consultants do not seem to be worried and are more concerned about the terms and conditions that Lebanon might propose. So the focus may now be turning to another question. Which companies will be able to work it in Lebanese context? According to Sohbet Karbuz,51 director of Hydrocarbons at the Mediterranean Observatory for Energy, Lebanese government would prefer to choose companies backed by big international actors. Two main reasons could be behind this choice. Firstly, such companies would legitimise the right of Lebanon over the disputed zone. And, secondly, they would have the

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weight to address the issue of maritime borders from a different angle, which could add incentive for a peaceful resolution.

Conclusion In the hands of the authorities, the sovereignty of Lebanese state is still more of a goal to be reached than a clear fact. Through the lens of the bordering process, this chapter showed how internal as well as external powers, either as rivals or as foes, are challenging the full authority of Lebanese state over its national territory, including its air and maritime spaces. These three dimensions of state sovereignty are directly affected by the political turmoil and the current crisis in Syria as well as regional rivalries and Arab– Israeli confrontation. What is true for territorial border issues may be even more true for maritime and aerial borderlands. For the state to impose its sovereignty over those spaces means affirming its capacity to order, exploit and securitise those spaces. Both of them are currently under threat by Israel, which jeopardises a full state capacity and reinforces the rejection of othering. South Lebanon was the primary zone of interest targeted with regional ‘red lines’ that the US brokered in 1976 and took away part of Lebanese sovereignty in order to maintain peace in the region. These lines failed the moment Israel invaded Lebanon in 1982 and aggravated the ongoing de-bordering of the state that resulted from the civil war. During the 1980s, Lebanese airspace tacitly became a chasse garde´e of the Israeli Air Force and was carried over when Damascus succeeded in imposing its political order on Lebanon at the end of the civil war. Although there were positive developments in terms of regaining territorial sovereignty when the Syrian troops pulled out from Lebanon under national and international pressure in 2005, or when the LAF succeeded in deploying in South Lebanon after 2006, Israeli warplanes continued to violate the airspace. A new actor, in the form of Hizbullah, appeared in the sky when the group took the initiative to respond to Israeli violations of Lebanese airspace by sending drones over Israel. Thus, Hizbullah appeared to be the only ones capable of challenging Israel’s monopoly over the skies above Lebanon, in line with its policy of ‘resistance’ and confrontation directed at Israel. Since 2000, South Lebanese airspace has become a vantage space for Hizbullah from which to claim Lebanese pride in re-bordering and national sovereignty thanks

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Lebanon’s EEZ delineation and the contested zone.

to drones it has launched over Israel’s airspace. In this way, the party is challenging Israel, Lebanese state and the LAF. Among the reasons for this status quo is the lack of clear Western support to the LAF in order to recover full national sovereignty, including airspace. The type of weaponry provided to Lebanon as a military support is primarily aiming at fighting the jihadist threat and is not challenging the balance of power in the Middle East. Despite the US –Iranian nuclear deal that was adopted in October 2015, Israel’s security claim continues to work as an invisible red line when it comes to weapons’ supply. By contrast, Lebanon’s maritime space and claims to its EEZ are among the strongest national narratives bordering Lebanon since the concern for maritime resources emerged. The active posture adopted by state authorities on the matter contrasts with its position regarding

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airspace. Maritime resources are either physical, with anticipated new financial resources, or symbolic, thanks to the territorial claim based on international rules. Israeli policy regarding the delineation of its northern maritime border points to opportunistic behaviour. In response, Hizbullah has once again seized the opportunity to threaten Israel in case it tried to prospect or drill in the contested area. And, again, the international community is unable to undermine Hizbullah’s position supporting Lebanese rights against Israel without conceding to the Jewish state. The refusal of any partition of the contested area by Lebanese authorities is testimony to the sensitivity of this topic in both physical and symbolical terms. The bordering and ordering of Lebanese maritime EEZ are also subject to internal constraints, namely the blocking by national institutions, sectarian bargaining and corruption. External constraints stem from regional oil and gas producers that have an interest in slowing down the process of exploitation of oil and gas resources. In 2015, enthusiasm among the public for the possibility of new state resources arising out of oil and gas faded, while other threats appeared due to the current developments of the Syrian civil war.

CONCLUSION SOUTH LEBANON AS A REGIONAL ISSUE

At the beginning of my fieldwork, the southern part of Lebanon was implicitly defined as one of the most dangerous places in the world to which to travel. Following the popular uprising in Syria and the spreading of war along Lebanon’s eastern and northern borders, the southern borderland appeared quite peaceful by contrast. Despite appearances, South Lebanon remains a volatile and highly unstable region in the country, where any border issue can get out of hand, spark an exchange of gunfire and cause casualties, depending on the agenda of the belligerents. Therefore, the primary concern of this book was to understand the many reasons why war has continued to affect this area during the post-civil war era. The angle of analysis focuses on the intersecting effects of different types of actors – from Lebanese state to foreign powers, as well as nonstate armed groups – on the borderland’s territoriality and society over the past 50 years. It also questions the border’s impact on those actors’ identity and strategy. Four main actors were investigated, namely the Palestinian armed resistance, Hizbullah, UNIFIL and Lebanese state. Other actors have been closely linked to these four because of their military occupation (Israel, the SLA and Syria), armed resistance (the LNRF and other Lebanese militants) or their capacity to cross or bypass the southern border (Palestinian refugees). All of them have contributed to shaping the borderland of South Lebanon and creating competing representations of the border. In the meantime, the border has confronted and transformed all of

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them at different levels (identity, strategy, agency) during the process of ruling or their engagement in the struggle. And finally, the borderland itself faced several changes in terms of political authority due to a shifting border line that resulted from various invasions and resistance struggles. In all the chapters of the book, I have chosen to discuss the interactions between state and society, as well as space and identity building, within an interdisciplinary framework that makes it possible to describe the changing processes at the border and what they mean in terms of power, practices and representations. I relied on three concepts understood as interlinked processes: bordering, ordering and othering. These concepts have shaped my reading of the actors’ behaviours in the borderland under scrutiny, as they facilitated the interlinking of sovereignty and political issues with identity building and representations of the self and of the other. Border studies also helped to draw a distinction between border line, borderland and networked borders, which resulted in a more accurate link between space and conceptual wording. Each of these terms allows a more precise questioning of specific aspects of South Lebanon, from military confrontation to refugee networks, to which the (b)ordering– othering concepts apply.

The meaning of South Lebanon In order to highlight the meaning of South Lebanon as a borderland shaped by social and political relationships, it may be worth looking closely at each of the main actors we have selected for our inquiry that took part in the bordering process of the region. As seen in the previous chapters, the meaning of the border/land of South Lebanon has changed and can be contradictory, depending on positions, perceptions, ideologies and the goals of each player. Lebanese state is probably the first actor to consider, although the French authorities of the Mandate (1920– 43) were the leading actors in the process of creating the state and specifically the borders. Regarding the delineation of the southern border line, the bordering took place in a context of rivalry with the British Empire and left a scar on the map, as people on both sides of the line used to live together. In this sense, South Lebanon seems to fit the description of an imperial frontier created by this rivalry. The ordering of the region took many years, as the local population of the

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newly integrated margins did not acknowledge the legitimacy of the new Lebanese state during the 1920s. The state gained its legitimacy through the creation of an independent Lebanese nation resulting from an othering process towards the French power. Nevertheless, the southern part of the country, as well as other borderlands in the eastern and northern regions, remained isolated and almost ignored by the central state. Chehabism1 signalled the return of the state to the South and its ordering of that space. In practical terms, it brought light and electricity to most of the Southern villages. In the meantime, a Shiʽi political mobilisation under the leadership of Musa al-Sadr and his Movement of the Deprived marked the entry of the South into politics alongside the growing Palestinian resistance armed groups. The breakdown of the state that resulted from the polarisation of its parts and the eruption of a civil war put an end to its presence in the South when the army broke up in 1976. While some institutions remained (presidency, Parliament, Council of Ministers), elections were no longer possible, and no state control or actions over its territory could be carried out, as the country fragmented into sectarian, militia-controlled areas. In the post-civil war era, in the framework of the Taı¨f Agreement, Lebanese state fell under the political influence of the Syrian regime. The Syrian influence on the bordering of Lebanon is evident in the way the Syrian authorities and Lebanese institutions under their influence supported the para-state militia of Hizbullah to continue the armed struggle against Israel in the occupied zone of the southern borderland. This occupation of an area of 850 km2 ended in May 2000, but Hizbullah militiamen soon took over the area all the way to the international border and thus replaced the state’s army. A change in the perception of the border occurred when the Shebaa Farms issue was raised in the aftermath of Israel’s unilateral withdrawal in 2000. The interest in this mountainous edge of the state continued with the postSyrian authorities, under the leadership of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, thanks to the Syrian military withdrawal of Lebanon under international pressure in 2005. But the state’s bordering of the South only happened after the July War in 2006 and the subsequent passage of UNSCR 1701, when LAF troops were deployed alongside the ‘robust’ UNIFIL presence in all parts of Jabal ‘Amil up to the Blue Line. Although the cooperation with UNIFIL to mark the Blue Line was a way for the state to play an active role in the bordering of its national

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territory in the South, Lebanese authorities faced some limitations because of Hizbullah’s influence among the Southerners and the LAF’s intelligence corps (Moussa & Gade, 2015). Sovereignty is also at stake in Lebanon’s aerial and maritime territories and spaces. The country’s allies and foes continue to jeopardise the full sovereignty of the state over these spaces. While Israel took advantage of the strategic depth granted by Western power brokers over Lebanon’s skies since the mid-1970s, the UN continued to document the thousands of violations of Lebanese airspace by Israeli warplanes. An alternative bordering of South Lebanon’s airspace appeared after 2000, when Hizbullah started to launch drones that crossed the southern border and collected data over Israel. Regarding maritime boundary delimitation, the oil and gas interests of all the states of the Eastern Mediterranean led to a competition in the delineation of Lebanon’s EEZ. A segment of approximately 870 km2 of Israel’s maritime space (and depth) overlaps with Lebanon’s EEZ and tends to be among the factors that slow down any exploitation in the contested area. Moreover, regional oil and gas producers as well as internal bargaining2 are currently undermining Lebanese state’s capacity to order and value its maritime sovereign space. A second major actor still involved in the bordering of South Lebanon is the Palestinian resistance, especially with regard to its relationship with the state of Israel and Palestinian refugees. The border was perceived as an illegitimate line, less because of the pan-Arab ideology that existed and more because of the perceived illegitimacy of the state of Israel by the Palestinians. During the golden age of the Palestinian armed struggle in Lebanon (1969– 82), the fida’i experience of life appeared to be meaningful for the (b)ordering of South Lebanon as a vantage ground for resistance. While the resistance movement used the Arquˆb region and progressively larger swathes of Jabal ‘Amil to build a sanctuary, the region itself produced a shift among the resistance fighters towards a more transnational identity, and the resistance’s ideology spread among segments of Lebanese society. The involvement of some Lebanese (as well as other Arab citizens) in the Palestinian movement and its revolutionary project has been investigated by looking at the student battalion, al-katibe al-tullabiyya. The ordering of the region was made easier, as this battalion mediated between the resistance troops and the Southerners on several occasions.

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The breakdown of Lebanese state offered Israel a golden opportunity to help and support Christian border villages, provide weapons and thus build up a surrogate militia in order to construct a buffer zone protecting the north of Israel from Palestinian commandos. The de facto building of such a rival bordering to the one of the Palestinian resistance and the subsequent solidification of a fully occupied zone contributed to reinforcing the figure of the other. The picture then blurred for Southerners faced with the destruction caused by Israeli retaliation. The identification of the enemy slowly changed, and the Palestinian resistance was increasingly being accused of bringing war to South Lebanon. The Israeli bordering reached its pinnacle with the 1982 invasion, at first well received by many Southerners who saw the IDF as a means to get rid of the Palestinian fida’iyyin. The siege of Beirut during the summer of 1982 convinced many Lebanese to enrol in a resistance front (LNRF) that had several ideological components (from Islamists to Communists) and commit to the struggle against the Israeli occupation. Facing the failure of its strategy to bring to power a Christian president in Lebanon friendly to its interests when Bashir Gemayel was assassinated, Israel shifted its perception of the southern borderland from a possible economic area of influence to a military buffer zone. Consequently, it pulled back its troops to a large strip of land along the international border patrolled by the SLA surrogate militia that had the full support of the IDF. During this period, a symbolic step was taken when Israel opened the international border to allow Lebanese citizens to visit Israel. Dozens of Palestinian refugees took the opportunity to go back to Palestine for the first time and came face to face with the effects of the Israeli (b)ordering of Palestine. Later on, other Palestinians succeeded in visiting relatives in Palestine/the OPT but felt as if they had found people from another country, even though they shared the same Palestinian identity and belonging. The border effect is quite pronounced here, as Palestinian refugees in Lebanon appeared to be caught in a network of several state borders’ rules. Their collective identity reflects their local history in Lebanon – their own political and social trajectory that appears different from the one of those living in Israel/the OPT. The act of crossing the border or more often bypassing it through Jordan revealed an active capacity for actors to affirm their collective belonging towards the closed border between Lebanon and Israel/Palestine and the supremacy

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of Israel’s bordering. In terms of othering, this state of mind conveys a mythical image of Palestine to the Palestinian refugees of Lebanon and for some of the refugees strengthens the image of the Israeli enemy as the other. Following the disbandment of the Palestinian resistance after the siege of Beirut in 1982 and the evacuation of the fida’iyyin by boat, a new political and military actor emerged in the Beqaa Valley, trained and supported by Iran: Hizbullah. The movement was able to capitalise on the social mobilisation of the Shiʽa of Jabal ‘Amil and their experience and skills for armed struggle because of their previous affiliation to Amal or their involvement with the Palestinian resistance. Its growing power over South Lebanon during the years of national mobilisation against the Israeli occupation became apparent the moment Syrian protection allowed Hizbullah to monopolise the war zone in South Lebanon. After the 1985 withdrawal of the IDF from the ‘security zone’, Hizbullah’s capacity to order the society developed along with its capacity to border South Lebanon by launching daily operations on the edge or inside the area occupied by the SLA. People inside this zone were thus pulled between a strong Israeli military ordering based on collaboration and the daily attacks of Hizbullah, targeting IDF as well as SLA troops. In this context, the motto of ‘resistance’ took concrete form as a means for Hizbullah’s self-definition and as a religious ideology. The othering of the figure of Israel as ‘the ultimate evil’ also helped the party to define its core action of armed resistance under the banner of an Islamic revolution (Saad-Ghorayeb, 2002). A shift occurred in Hizbullah’s ideology in 1990, as Syrian rule over Lebanon and the end of the civil war brought an aggiornamento to the party. Hizbullah’s mission was recalibrated within the scope of the state borders of the Second Republic, and therefore it recognised these borders as legitimate. The 15 years of ordering South Lebanon’s area, followed by six years of full management of the former occupied zone, provided Hizbullah with strong political capital at the national level. The Syrian withdrawal in 2005 forced the party to commit to executive power and to spread its resistance ideology within the state apparatus, which can be analysed as ordering the ‘state of resistance’. In accordance with such a perspective, the party positioned itself as a nationalist movement on each territorial issue faced by Lebanon: the southern, low-intensity front, the maritime dispute with Israel and the jihadist threat in the barren Qalamoun lands along the

CONCLUSION

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eastern border since 2013. The movement is clearly linking its capacity to define the national space with a capacity to act on that space, define its values and name its foes. In its process of ordering South Lebanon, Hizbullah invested in the production of an ‘Islamic sphere’ of values, norms and commitment to the resistance in order to build a society of resistance. In this context, regular commemorations mixing religious belonging, moral values and political messages as well as a strong investment in the reconstruction of Southern villages in the aftermath of the July War or the creation of memorial museums as part of the party’s process of cultural production draw a web of relationships between the party and local actors at the level of their life experience. This social presence in the South goes along with Hizbullah’s redeployment north of the area patrolled by UNIFIL and the LAF in the borderland region. Rebuilding cities and houses and providing Islamic leisure spaces to its constituencies both points to Hizbullah’s welfare capacity. In this regard, the recognition of Mleeta as an official site labelled by the Ministry of Culture is significant. The linkage of tourism with political messages and a narrative that legitimises armed resistance in the South is also part of the process of othering Israel as a persistent enemy and thus of bordering the South as a place under constant threat. In sum, Hizbullah used the southern borderland for its own political purposes, which did not exclude social profit, while its original message became ‘Lebanonised’, and South Lebanon became the vantage ground for its conversion to a nationalist view of bordered national territory. The current trend followed by the party in the defence of the Syrian regime went through a critical phase, but the disqualification of the insurgents as extremists and the threat posed by the Islamic State on Lebanon’s eastern borders helped Hizbullah to reinforce its powerful nationalist message. The UNIFIL mission in South Lebanon is the last key actor in the process of shaping the borderland. The duration of its presence in the area (ongoing since 1978) partly explains its impact on the region: its strong and constant humanitarian investment in the local population and the heavy human cost this mission has faced built trust among the Southerners. It is this bordering process involving human relationships and a more representational dimension that was at stake during the first 22 years of the mission, when the SLA and Israel did not allow UNIFIL

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to deploy up to the international border. The ordering process was transformed when the IDF unilaterally withdrew from South Lebanon and a special UN mission came from New York City to delineate the Blue Line. This international intervention had several goals and embodied international hegemony over the region. Firstly, the aim was to define a ‘Withdrawal Line’ for the IDF troops from Lebanon, which, secondly, led to the Secretary-General’s statement declaring that UNRSC 425 had been fulfilled. Thirdly, the delineation of the Blue Line was intended to start a process in which the belligerent states would raise their claims and recognise the capacity for the UN to mediate. In the end, UNIFIL succeeded in providing a map that both belligerents agreed on in early June 2000. While Lebanese state, under Syrian influence, chose not to deploy its troops in the southern borderland, Hizbullah took the lead and for six years (2000 – 06) blocked the implementation of the Blue Line. The July War in 2006, which saw Israel trying to destroy Hizbullah, eventually contributed to drawing a new geopolitical map for South Lebanon. The document that embodied this shift is UNSCR 1701, which bans South Lebanon from having any nonstate weapons and increasing the UNIFIL mission to 15,000 troops that would enforce this surveillance along with the LAF. Consequently, the bordering of South Lebanon took place in a new context of stronger international involvement in terms of peace building and a reconstruction process under the influence of the US and France. Civil – military cooperation led to the creation of many bilateral projects between UNIFIL state members and local municipalities. This cooperation, which drew upon the previous relationships between UNIFIL and the Southerners, accompanied another key measure in the ordering of the region: the marking of the Blue Line. The mediating role of UNIFIL between belligerents at the tripartite monthly meetings that took place at the border post in Naqoura illustrates the legitimacy of the UN mission rather well. It also points to the common ‘nationalist’ interest that Lebanon and Israel have in marking the Blue Line and erecting a fence in Kfarkila. Both Lebanese and Israeli state behaviours pertain to the othering process that profited from what a border fence represents today. Nevertheless, the tangible effect of the ‘technical meetings’ between enemies so far has been to allow the erection of blue barrels along almost half the length of the Blue Line.

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Challenging borders Hizbullah’s weapons cannot be without effects on the sectarian boundaries between Sunnis and Shiʽa in Lebanon. In the same way, the process of the commonly agreed upon delineation of the Blue Line between Lebanon and Israel – with international support – has a border effect already observable when looking at the low number of incidents that have occurred along this border since the end of 2006. But, as Middle Eastern observers well know, erecting fences and marking borders are no guarantees against tension and war. Moreover, border walling in the Middle East has often occurred after wars or political tension with the justification of national security, although the trend of border fencing is a global dynamic. The current civil wars in Syria, Libya and Yemen as well as the progress made by the Islamic State, which straddles the border between Syria and Iraq, tend to highlight the regional pressure on borders, challenge states’ powers on their edges and sometimes reveal the deep crisis of the system of nation states in the Middle East. The various processes at play in Lebanon demonstrate, at the scale of a state, what types of pressures there are on borders and what the implications of such challenges are. The most significant external military threat that Lebanon is facing at present on a daily basis is the jihadist armed operations in the region of Qalamoun since the spring of 2014. The al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State are threatening the northeastern corner of Lebanon’s borderland and have shown a capacity to mobilise thousands of militants. When Lebanese Army troops were kidnapped in 2014, Hizbullah repeatedly proposed to intervene on the outskirts of Arsal and Ras Baalbek and finally took the lead in the battle against the jihadists. This action sounded like an attempt to expand the scope of its ability to border Lebanon. Presented by the party as the logical extension of its investment alongside the Syrian regime, this battle allowed the movement to openly criticise Lebanese Army and thus justify its actions and weaponry. This battle was also seen as an opportunity for Hizbullah to regain symbolic capital among some Lebanese, mainly the Christians, after its involvement with the Syrian regime. Tellingly, Hizbullah defined the barren lands and outskirts of Arsal as an ‘occupied zone’ and used its strong position as Lebanon’s defender to accuse the opposition – which criticised its involvement in

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this battle on the edge of the Beqaa Valley – of supporting the jihadists,3 raising suspicion over the Sunni political party of the Future (mustaqbal) and its links with Saudi Arabia. On the southern border, two recent developments show the intricate relationship between South Lebanon’s borderland and others close by. First of all, Israel is operating strategically on its side of the Israel – Lebanon border. It is carrying out work on parts of the border and bulldozing some of the natural environment in order to securitise the area against Hizbullah’s infiltrations. Thus the IDF declared the space between the technical fence and the Blue Line a military zone and transformed the landscape. It is focused on re-shaping the north Israeli borderland by filling holes and uprooting trees in order to turn the tactical advantage of Hizbullah fighters hidden in the natural environment into a failure.4 This physical re-bordering accompanies a second change currently affecting South Lebanon. The civil war in Syria and the fragmentation of its territory is creating a potential enlargement of the front line between Israel and its foes that could stretch along the entire length of the Syrian –Israeli border to the northwestern tip of Jordan. A regional effect of the Syrian turmoil can be seen in the spreading of the Islamist militia of the al-Nusra Front, which took control of the Quneitra area adjacent to the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms in September 2014. Hizbullah felt squeezed in the Arquˆb corner between this anti-Syrian regime movement and the IDF in the Shebaa Farms. It apparently tried to explore new avenues for expanding its anti-Israeli operations along the Syrian –Israeli border on the northern side of the Golan Heights. On 18 January 2015, a Hizbullah-led convoy of six militiamen that was on patrol along this fence with a high-ranking Iranian officer was targeted and killed by an Israeli drone.5 Ten days later, on 28 January, Hizbullah struck an Israeli convoy in retaliation, killing one and injuring two. Israel did not fight back, as there seems to be a mutual understanding in South Lebanon since the involvement of Hizbullah in the Syrian uprising: both Israel and Hizbullah know they have an opportunity to de-escalate the tension on the border and avoid a spillover process that would launch another war. To facilitate this coolingdown attitude with the IDF, Hizbullah mounted its retaliation operation in the disputed area of the Shebaa Farms, a non-Israeli territory, thus not breaking the rules of the game between the two enemies.6

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A recent UN report (2014) mentioned Israeli medical support to the Syrian rebels since 2012 and more recently a possible collaboration between the IDF and the Islamic militants of the al-Nusra Front, who took over Syria’s southern borderland. More broadly, for the ‘axis of resistance’ (Iran– Syria, Hizbullah), there is clear collaboration between Syrian rebels (FSA), the local al-Qaeda franchise al-Nusra, Jordanian intelligence services and Israeli operatives, including IDF aerial support, to confront the Hizbullah – Damascus–Tehran axis. According to Nicholas Noe (2015), Israel is now considering securing a ‘buffer zone’ in Syria between Israel and Hezbollah. The border effect of their confrontation has been spreading to Syria since 2013, when Israeli warplanes entered Syrian airspace and started to regularly hit military convoys that were purportedly transferring weapons from Syria to Hizbullah’s arsenal in Lebanon. More recently, the scope of the bordering related to the tension in South Lebanon has extended all the way to Russia. It started in December 2014, when IDF warplanes hit some containers of Russian ammunitions destined for Hizbullah7 and has continued with Russian warplanes bombing anti-Assad forces, as well as IS militants, in Syria and supporting the Syrian regime with weaponry,8 which contributes to securing Hizbullah’s position in Lebanon. Furthermore, the support by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey of several types of anti-Assad movements has played a role in the re-bordering of Syria and shown the importance of the Syrian regime for Hizbullah as a strategic belt to secure its position in Lebanon. In sum, the weakening of the Syrian state has allowed external actors to shape new lines that could affect the order in South Lebanon. While Hizbullah’s influence remains a key element on the ground, the weakening of Lebanese state resulting from the regional turmoil highlights the limits of UNIFIL’s capacity to prevent the situation from flaring up. South Lebanon appears as a vantage space from which to observe the changing process of bordering and its extension for political and military reasons. As a war front, the southern border conveys a broader understanding of its meaning if considered at the scale of regional change. In a wider vision, the understanding of Lebanon’s position within the current crisis of the Middle East views the country’s territory itself as a buffer zone at the scale of the sub-region (Machreq). Following O’Dowd’s (2002) reflections on borders as barriers, bridges, resources and symbols, the South Lebanese borderland can be seen simultaneously

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as a barrier and a bridge – as illustrated by the construction of blue barrels as well as the collaboration that occurred in the building of the wall in Kfarkila – but in the meantime as an area for symbolic performances, from building a memorial museum to carrying out a retaliatory operation like the one that targeted an Israeli patrol in the region of the contested Shebaa Farms in late January 2015. As long as it is safeguarded from internal war, Lebanon may stay on the safe side. But its position at the edge of a war zone and the weakness of its institutions along with the internal divides pervading politics and religion have put it on the brink of the war’s dynamics and on the line of confrontation between the two political axes in Syria.

NOTES

Introduction

South Lebanon as a Vantage Point

1. In an attempt to add a symbolic dimension of the class struggle, Bourdieu (1979) elaborated the theory of classification struggle (lutte de classement) with the cultural capital at stake. 2. Including the Shiʽi Amal movement under Syrian influence. 3. Mount Lebanon was instituted as a separate province, the Mutasarrifiyya, within the Ottoman Empire under pressure from Western powers after the 1860 massacres of Christians in the mountains and in Damascus (Chaitani, 2007). 4. Nawaf al-Moussawi, Al-Manaˆr, Lebanese News Agency, 3 November 2008. 5. The two different sizes refer to the different figures given by Kaufman (2006) and Khalifeh (2007). The latter included Nkheileh, the Kfar Shuba hills and Jabal Rous al-Summaq in the definition of the Shebaa Farms. 6. For those who know the roads well, it is of course possible to bypass those controls and enter the borderland zone without any authorisation, but you run the risk of getting stopped if you are driving a car with rental registration plates! 7. The arrival of more than 1 million Syrian refugees has not changed this perception, as Palestinians continue to represent a core issue in the Middle East without any foreseeable solution with regard to their safe return to Palestine/Israel. 8. This camp was destroyed after a three-month battle between the Lebanese Army and the jihadi-led group Fatah al-Islam, which caused immense distrust among Lebanese citizens towards the Palestinian refugees. For details on this case, see Adam Ramadan (2009).

Chapter 1

The Fida’iyyin in Lebanon: Armed Struggle, Ideology and Belonging

1. That was the case for Syria, Iraq and Libya. See El-Rayyes and Nahas (1977).

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NOTES TO PAGES 40 – 62

2. To the point that Saʽad lost the 1972 parliamentary elections. I thank Nicolas Dot-Pouillard for reminding me of this consequence. 3. The Cairo Agreement also granted Palestinian refugees civil rights and in this sense significantly helped to improve the refugees’ living conditions. 4. This report, entitled ‘The ‘Arquˆb between two invasions’, explains the lessons to be learnt by the Palestinian resistance in Lebanon from the Vietnamese and Algerian resistance struggles with regard to their ways of using state borders to deploy the guerrilla strategy more broadly. See PFLP-GC (1973). 5. Interviewed in the Palestinian camp of al-Bass (Tyre), Beirut, March 2011. 6. Interview with Abu Khaled in a Palestinian camp, South Lebanon, May 2011. 7. Interviewed in a Palestinian camp, South Lebanon, My 2011. 8. Interviewed in the Palestinian camp of Mar Elias, Beirut, March 2011. 9. This new orientation led to a division within the National Palestinian Council and the formation of the Rejection Front after the PFLP allied with the PFLPGC, the Arab Liberation Front and the Palestinian Popular Struggle Front. 10. This first invasion took place over an area of 2,020 km2, displaced 285,000 Lebanese, affected 150 villages and caused the deaths of 1,000 people in Lebanon. The project to transform this area into a buffer zone – which started with the creation of the Lebanese Free Army under the supervision of Saʽad Haddad, a renegade Lebanese Christian major in the LAF – over a strip of land along the international border as a pillar of defence for the north of Israel was the idea of Ariel Sharon (Soueid, 2000). 11. Interview with Michel in Beirut, November 2011. He was a former member who emphasised the effect that the Yom Kippur War had on them to incorporate Fatah. 12. Interview with Saoud al-Mawla, former member of the brigade stemming from the ‘The People’s Revolutionary Core Group’, Beirut, July 2011. 13. This new Shiʽi militia was the Movement of the Deprived military wing, formed early in 1975, that took over the movement after the disappearance of its founder, Muˆsa al-Sadr. Amal is the acronym of the ‘the battalions of the Lebanese resistance’ (afwaˆj al-muqaˆwama al-lubnaˆniyya) and also means ‘hope’ in Arabic. For more details, see Norton (1987). 14. From an interview conducted in Beirut, June 2011. This means that instead of fighting the Lebanese opponents, everybody should have fought the main enemy, Israel, as the incarnation of the primary contradiction. 15. Interview with Michel in Beirut, June 2011. 16. Interview conducted in Beirut, June 2011.

Chapter 2

The Struggle for the South: Israeli Occupation and Lebanese Resistance

1. These Druze were granted the possibility to stay, as their Israeli co-religionists were able to secure their historical links with this land.

NOTES

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245

2. Israel tried to discuss a new delineation for the South Lebanese border line, but this effort was rejected by the Lebanese government. 3. See, for instance, Corm (1986), Kassir (1994), Traboulsi (2007) and Hiro (2010). 4. Its mandate was to deter the conflicting sides from resorting to violence, maintain a ceasefire, handle heavy weapons and help the Lebanese government to restore its authority. See Issele´ (1986). 5. Most of these Christian villages in the South, like their Muslim counterparts, depended on the tobacco industry. That year (1976), the Re´gie Nationale was not able to pick up the crops of tobacco, which meant no money was received by Southern farmers. Seizing the opportunity, Israel decided to substitute the Re´gie by buying tobacco (Beydoun, 1993). 6. Early on in the civil war, the Phalangists were contacted by Israel’s Mossad in order to built a secret alliance, and the IDF provided training in Israel for Christian militiamen. Sent by boat from Jounieh to Israel, some of them came back to Lebanon by crossing the international southern border of Lebanon thus trying to take the lead in those Christian villages along the border. 7. During the first week of this invasion, the Palestinian resistance lost approximately 100 combatants but succeeded in moving all its heavy weaponry northwards (Petran, 1987: 241) 8. By 18 April 1979. 9. This plan called for Israel’s withdrawal from all Arab lands occupied in 1967; the establishment, after a short transition period under US auspices, of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza; and in controversial clause 7, ‘That all states in the region should be able to live in peace’ (a statement that was understood as implying the recognition of Israel). See Cobban (1984: 113). 10. During the spring of 1982, several journalists and US commentators developed various scenarios and maps in the US media to speculate about the scope and the intensity of the ‘inevitable’. Moshe Arens, then the Israeli Ambassador to the US, kept repeating that an Israeli operation in Lebanon was ‘a matter of time’. See Sahliyeh (1986: 13) 11. One should also mention the recruitment of foreign volunteers (from the Netherlands, US, Great Britain and France) and about 300 Christian fighters who came from Beirut, including from the Armenian community. See Jaber (1999: 388). 12. A Hasbaya graduation ceremony occurred in early September 1982 to confer the status of communal guard upon 60 newly appointed individuals, mainly Druze, while in Bint Jbeil notables formed a high committee to discuss social demands and daily needs with the IDF. 13. In the villages close to the international border, only IDF troops did that job out of a concern for security (Jaber, 1999: 390). 14. Antoine Lahad had a full career in the Lebanese Army Forces and took the lead in Army intelligence in 1966. He reached the level of general-major but resigned from the Lebanese Army in 1983. In 1984, he replaced Saʽad Haddad

246

15. 16.

17.

18. 19. 20.

21.

22.

23. 24.

25.

26. 27.

NOTES

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74 –84

and served until the Israeli withdrawal in 2000 and the subsequent disbanding of the SLA. He now lives in Tel Aviv. See Jaber (1999), chapter 10. The Israelis themselves knew the uneasy aspect of occupying South Lebanon, as one official in the Ministry of Defense already explained in 1985 when trying to justify the occupation: ‘This was neither the best nor the worst solution but the only solution’, cited in Jaber (1999: 412) In line with this point, it was common for the Lebanese inhabitants of the zone to travel abroad from Tel Aviv airport. It was even easier to get Western visas from there than getting the same visas in Lebanon. See Beydoun (1992: 80). After 1978, these forces were composed of the Palestinian Liberation Army (PLA), supported by Iraq, the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) and the OACL. Namely, the Progressive Socialist Party (PSP), the Nasserists (Murabituˆn), the Syrian Social National Party (SSNP), the LCP and the OACL. The Israeli rabbinate even characterised the war in Lebanon as ‘a holy war’ and as ‘divinely ordained’; see Sahlyieh (1986: 21). Such an argumentation recalls the ‘divine victory’ expressed by Nasrallah in the aftermath of the 33-day war that saw Israel failing to destroy Hizbullah. See Kassatly (2008). Yezid Sayegh (1989: 249) assesses this marginalisation on the scale of the Middle East saying the rejectionists were unable to maintain grassroots support in the occupied territories. One of the first measures that the new President Amine Gemayel took with regard to the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon affected those living and working abroad with a refugee ID card from Lebanon. The Lebanese embassies refused to renew these documents unless the owner signed a paper to certify he/she would not go back to Lebanon (Khalidi, 1984b). This came to be the first step of a whole process of marginalisation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, and the abrogation of the Cairo Agreement in 1987 was a tough setback for their social and political rights (Meier, 2010). An acronym that spells ‘Afwaj al-Muqawaman al-Lubnaniyya’ (The battalions of the Lebanese Resistance) and at the same time means ‘hope’ in Arabic. Contrary to his predecessor, Hussein Husseini, a leading za’im of the Beqaa Valley, Nabih Berri was a Shiʽi lawyer of African extraction without any local political support or legitimacy (Norton, 1987). This weakness was used by Syria to give him a powerful position on the tacit condition that Berri would serve Syria’s goals in Lebanon (Sayigh, 1994: 183). This secular party was created by Antun Saadeh and advocated the gathering of all countries of the Near East into a Greater Syria. The party is responsible for two coups targeting power in Lebanon. One of its members was found guilty of the assassination of President Bachir Gemayel in 1982. As mentioned by Elias Atallah, a former member of the LCP, interview in Beirut, July 2014. In his narrative, Georges Hawi (2005) emphasises a meeting among leftist movements (the most important ones are LCP, OCAL, the Work Party and

NOTES TO PAGES 84 –94

28. 29.

30. 31. 32. 33. 34.

35.

36. 37. 38.

247

the Popular Nasserist Organization). Another meeting with the Palestinian leaders – among them Yasser Arafat (Fatah) and Nayef Hawatmeh (DFLP) – took place, according to a former high-ranking DFLP officer, in order to agree on the transfer of Palestinian heavy weapons and on the launch of a massive and popular resistance to the IDF. A chronology of the events that occurred during the autumn of 1982 mention the PLO Lebanon Representative Shafiq el-Hout as presiding over the transfer of PLO stores and heavy weaponry to the Lebanese Army on 4 September 1982 (Collins, 1983a: 94). Interview conducted in Beirut, April 2012. The IDF besieged the place for more than ten days, but none of the fighters surrendered. Around 30 fida’iyyin of the Student Brigade (al-katibe al-tullabiyya) opposed the fierce resistance to the IDF troops, a fact that even the IDF officers acknowledged. Interview with Michel Naufal, former member of the brigade, Beirut, June 2011. See also Chapter 1. Interview with Suheil al-Natour, former DFLP liaison and press officer during the 1980s in Beirut. Mar Elias, September 2011. Interview with a former Palestinian fighter, Beirut, March 2011. Interviewed in Saida, March 2011. For instance, the Israeli government announced by early December 1982 that the total amount for its exports to Lebanon reached $100 million. The Druze were seeking revenge against the Christian Phalangist militiamen who had behaved very badly since the arrival of the IDF, which protected them. Regular confrontations between the two militias broke out in the mountain during the fall and winter of 1982– 83, and anger was strong the moment Israel left the Shouf at the end of the summer in 1983. This resulted in a Druze surge towards the Christian positions and in targeting civilians, which eventually ended with a dramatic exodus of Christians from the Shouf. See Petran (1987), Picard (1988), Picaudou (1989). This strategy was not approved by all other Lebanese militias, like the PSP of Jumblat which decided to help the besieged Palestinians with heavy weapons. Interview with a PFLP officer, Beirut, March 2012. Interview with a former DFLP fighter and leading official in the party today. Mar Elias, April 2012. Interview conducted in Beirut, July 2014. Interview conducted in Saida, June 2010.

Chapter 3 Hizbullah: Resistance as an Identity and as a Means 1. See Franz Rosenthal’s translation in ‘Ibn Khalduˆn’, Encyclopedia.com http://www. encyclopedia.com/topic/Ibn_Khaldun.aspx#2-1G2:2830902289-full (accessed 24 July 2013). 2. The use of da’wa as a political call follows Bruno Etienne’s (1987) analysis of political Islam.

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3. Hereafter, I rely on the English translation and comments of this document provided by Alagha (2011). 4. For a historical account on the ‘war of the Mountain’, see Petran (1987). 5. This massacre was perpetrated by Phalangist militamen led by Elie Hobeika, a high-ranking officer in the Lebanese Forces. See the testimony of his former bodyguard, Robert F. Hatem (2003: 58). 6. ‘Asabı¯ya’. (Houtsma al., 2013) http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/ ˙ encyclopaedia-of-islam-1/asabiya-SIM_0875 (Accessed 29 July 2013). 7. One can also see the adaptation of ‘asabyiat by Michel Seurat (1986) and Riccardo Bocco (1995) in contemporary contexts in the Mashreq. 8. ‘daʿwa’. (Bearman al., 2013) http://referenceworks.brillonline.com/entries/ encyclopaedia-of-islam-2-Glossary-and-Index-of-Terms/dawa-SIM_gi_00796 (Accessed 29 July 2013). 9. Some of its high-ranking members did not accept such a shift. Among them was Subhi al-Tuffayli, the first secretary-general of the movement, whom Abbas al-Mussawi replaced in 1991. 10. However, Hizbullah’s secretary-general tended to minimise this disadvantage thanks to long-range rockets able to reach major Israeli cities. See his Martyr’s Day speech (11 November 2009). http://english.alahednews.com.lb/essaydetai ls.php?eid¼9510&cid ¼ 450#.UgEW7xYzUn4 (accessed 20 December 2009) 11. As mentioned in their Open Letter of February 1985 (Alagha, 2011). 12. These two coalitions representing pro-Syrian political groups (Hizbullah, Free Popular Movement, Amal, SSNP) under the label of March 8 and antiSyrian groups (Hariri’s Future Movement, Lebanese Forces, PSP, the Phalanges Party and other smaller Christian formations) under the label of March 14 were founded in 2005 following the two respective mass demonstrations that materialised the cleavage of the Lebanese society and politics in the post-Syrian era. 13. See AFP communique´, 16 July 2008. 14. Samir Kantar was condemned to five life sentences and 47 years in jail after the killing of two men and a child during the armed operation in which he took part in 1979. Upon his return to Lebanon, he was appointed to the ‘saraya’ brigade, the non-Shiʽi battalion of Hizbullah fighters. 15. Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, 26 May 2000, speech available at: http://english.alahednews.com.lb/essaydetails.php?eid¼14178&cid ¼ 359#. UfzqxRYzUn4 (accessed 10 February 2014). 16. See, for instance, Souha Be´chara’s (2000) testimony. Other oral testimonies have been collected by the author; see Meier (2008). 17. While Asher Kaufmann (2006) underlined the French confusion about the clear location of the border and the recognition of this mistake by a French cartographer in 1936, Issam Khalifeh (2008) highlights that the delineation process that followed was geographical and not random, meaning the borders followed the ridge lines and fairly divided the run-off water between Syria on the eastern slopes and Lebanon on the western slopes.

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18. See Foreign Minister Walid Moallem’s statement on 27 September 2006, in Tarraf (2007). 19. The party already used billboards on the motorway after the end of the July War, when huge signs with the number ‘1271’ appeared representing the death toll of martyrs South Lebanon suffered during that war. One of the pages on Hizbullah’s website is dedicated to Southern martyrs. See http://english. alahednews.com.lb/essaydetails.php?eid¼ 23193&cid ¼ 378#.Uf6oshYzUn4 (accessed 24 February 2014). 20. In the Taı¨f Agreement (1989), Syrian withdrawal was scheduled to be carried out three years after the implementation of the new Lebanese – Syrian relationship. Unfortunately, once the 1991 Cooperation and Coordination Agreement was signed, Damascus maintained its troops in Lebanon to the point that local politicians talked about a ‘diverting of the Taı¨f Agreement’ (al-Inqilab ‘ala Ta’if). See Mansour (1993). 21. The administration of George W. Bush promoted this new doctrine that shifted away from ‘constructive engagement’ to a more pressure-oriented strategy (Droz-Vincent, 2007). 22. Available online at https://www.congress.gov/108/plaws/publ175/PLAW108publ175.pdf (accessed 1 November 2015). 23. See the UN Resolution available at: http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2004/ sc8181.doc.htm (accessed 15 July 2015). 24. See this memorandum in its English version available at: http://www.english. alahednews.com.lb/essaydetailsf.php?eid¼4442&fid ¼ 25 (accessed 8 September 2015). 25. Agne`s Favier (2006) raised the question of the legitimacy of such a group of leaders, underlying the devaluation of the state’s institutions (Parliament, government, all elected bodies and key positions at the top of the state). There is a noticeable evolution of the components of this ‘national dialogue’ committee in a more sectarian-based representation. 26. See the document in Arabic on Hizbullah’s website: http://www.moqawama. org/essaydetails.php?eid¼16230&cid ¼ 199#.VGPpeUsYn75 (accessed 5 March 2014).

Chapter 4 Ordering the Borderland: Hizbullah’s Socio-Political and Cultural Strategy 1. In a frame analysis, Karagiannis (2009) sees these two dimensions as master frames. The one that is pan-Islamist allows a resistance discourse about corrupt Arab regimes and Israel, while the anti-globalisation one inscribes Hizbullah among the many movements struggling against capitalism around the world. 2. In the sense that it is a sort of self-affirmation of legitimacy through which the power makes itself known and acknowledged (Bourdieu 1980). 3. See The Daily Star, 15 May 2014. 4. See, for instance, what Naim Qassem (2005) had to say about this in his book.

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5. Apart from infrastructure (bridges, roads, airport etc), the reconstruction concerned approximately 30,000 units (homes, shops and offices) at a cost of $3.4 billion. See Al Safir, 17 August 2006. 6. The delay of this payment was due to the very late payments from foreign states that had pledged millions of dollars at the Stockholm Conference in late August 2006. 7. One should remember that in his statement of 16 July 2006, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah promised the rebuilding of every home damaged or destroyed during the conflict. See L’Orient le Jour, 16 July 2006. 8. I would like to thank Julie Chapuis for providing me with information about the 2006 reconstruction policy. 9. As mentioned by the Director of the Lebanese Association for the Arts (see Deeb & Harb, 2013: 239). 10. Interview with the local guide in Khiam detention centre, September 2013. 11. Between 2000 and 2006, only Hizbullah carried arms in the former occupied area along the border. 12. Cited in Harb & Deeb (2011: 29). 13. Interview in Mleeta, April 2012. 14. This figure was available on the Mleeta website in 2012. See http://www.mleeta. com (accessed 7 November 2012). 15. Interview of Hizbullah’s chief of public relations committee in Mleeta, April 2012. 16. It is worth noting that the new Minister of Culture visited Mleeta on 1 July and was received by a Hizbullah MP at the entrance of the site. 17. Interview conducted in Mleeta, July 2011. 18. Interview with Mohammed, a guide on the site of Mleeta, in Mleeta in July 2011. 19. The FPM signed a memorandum of understanding with Hizbullah in February 2006 in order to forge a political alliance after Michel Aoun’s party had been marginalised by the 14 March coalition during the forming of the government, even though the FPM had been received a significant number of voters among the Maronite constituency. 20. With the aim ‘to build a unique museum that makes a strong impact on the visitor’, as explained by Mleeta’s head architect, Hajj Adil, in Harb & Deeb (2011: 24). 21. These are the words that Shaykh ‘Ali Dahir, a Shiʽi religious member of Hizbullah, used when he commented on the physical and symbolic relationship between nature and resistance. See Harb & Deeb (2011: 27).

Chapter 5

Crossing/Bypassing the Border: Palestinian Civil Resistance (sumuˆd)

1. A FAFO study shows that in 2005, 10 per cent of refugees in Lebanon had one or more relatives in a direct line in Israel and 8 per cent in the OPT. In addition, the number of departures and naturalisations that have occurred since 1948

NOTES

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7.

8. 9. 10.

11.

12. 13.

14.

15.

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should be subtracted from this figure. See Courbage (2002). In a 2010 study, the American University of Beirut (AUB) took into account these variables and proposed the figure of 260,000– 280,000 individuals. See AUB-UNRWA (2010). Thus, confining women to traditional roles that have otherwise gradually been empowered. See Latte Abdallah (2006). http://www.facebook.com/Return.To.Palestine.May15 (accessed 8 November 2011). Al-Nahar, 16 May 2011. Al-Safir, L’Orient le Jour and The Daily Star, 16 May 2011. Under the title ‘Briefing to UNIFIL Troop Contributing Countries’, Beirut, 23 May 2011. Following many clashes between the Lebanese Army and the Palestinian resistance, these agreements were signed in Cairo, under the auspices of President Nasser, between the head of the Lebanese Army, General Boustany, and PLO leader Yasser Arafat to grant fida’iyyin the right to conduct military operations from Lebanese territory against Israel in exchange for full recognition of Lebanese sovereignty over the South. See Picaudou (1998: 182). Provided by Israeli authorities after an application was filed by the ICRC. Meeting held at the Chatila camp, 22 July 2008. It is important to remember the unilateral aspect of this measure, since only Israeli goods could be sold across the border and flooded the Lebanese market (because of low prices). The agreement of 17 May 1983, also called Khalde´ Agreement, was signed by Israel and the government of Amin Gemayel as a peace treaty. Never ratified by the Lebanese Parliament, this treaty will remain unimplemented to the chagrin of the Israeli authorities who had made it the cornerstone of their invasion of Lebanon in 1982. See Picard (1988). Meeting with Mondher Jaber, Beirut, May 2010. An otherwise legitimate claim by the Lebanese government not to allow Israel and the international community to shirk their responsibility for Palestinian refugees by allowing them to settle in Lebanon at the expense of their legitimate rights to return to their land. However, this discourse served as a bulwark against any improvement in their living conditions. See Meier (2009b). The Israeli withdrawal, endorsed by the UN, was challenged by the Lebanese government on several grounds, including the status of the Shebaa Farms area. Therefore, in order not to support a withdrawal deemed incomplete, then President Emile Lahud refused to deploy the army to the border. See Rougier & Picard (2000). This is the official name given by the UN to the line drawn by the UN mission late May/early June 2000 to separate Israel from Lebanon. The line is also known as the ‘Withdrawal Line’ of Israeli troops in 2000. This taxonomy avoids ratifying the Israeli fait accompli, and in the meantime it tells the UN to monitor the line. See Hof (2001).

252

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16. Under the policy of defending the Palestinian cause that Hizbullah has inscribed as a principle of its militant actions. 17. It is the Naturalisation Decree (no. 5247) presented by the Minister of the Interior at the time, Michel el-Murr, under pressure from Damascus, which involved tens of thousands of Palestinian people but also Syrians, mostly Muslims. This decree was attacked by the Maronite League through an action for annulment, which led to a reopening of certain cases by the Lebanese security and withdrawal of nationality or several Palestinian families. See Meier (2008). 18. With the exception of the period between 1995 and 1999, when an entry visa to Lebanon was asked of Palestinian refugees who went to work abroad. Such measures were taken by the Lebanese as an attempt to deter Palestinians from Lebanon to return to Lebanon. 19. Chehabism is a ‘statist’ orientation of governance implemented by President Fuad Chehab during his mandate (1958 – 64), which lasted until the presidential election of 1970. State control over the economy of Lebanon (development, social justice) and the security apparatus became a significant problem with the growing power of the intelligence service (Deuxie`me bureau) in politics and over the Palestinian refugees (Kabbara, 1988). 20. During that period, the intelligence service held undivided authority over individuals and Palestinian camps (grid, brutality, humiliation). The Cairo Agreement put an end to this arbitrariness. 21. On the reconstruction of the camp, see the report of UNRWA at the following address: http://www.unrwa.org/userfiles/2011042974549.pdf (accessed 10 June 2013). 22. Unless it is mostly women who dare speak about their experiences. A trip to Palestine still has an ambiguous dimension, since there hangs a suspicion of collaboration over those who are allowed to cross. 23. Interview conducted in Saida in October 2009. 24. Interview conducted in Beirut in June 2010. 25. Interview conducted in Beirut in July 2008. 26. Meeting held at AUB in Beirut with a Palestinian-born professor, August 2004. 27. It is about a certified deposit in a bank account. 28. This deposit was introduced in 1982 following the departure of fida’iyyin from Lebanon, as a large number tried to return to Jordan. Jordanian security, taking advantage of the military weakening of the PLO, introduced this deposit to limit returns, negotiate with Arafat and discriminate among Palestinian refugees (due to their previous activism in the resistance in Jordan). 29. As entry through Rafah in the Gaza Strip is no longer possible since the Hamas takeover of Gaza in 2006. 30. Diplomatic agreements in February 2010. 31. See Ha’aretz, 14 February 2013.

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32. After an internal debate about including Palestinians outside the ballot. See Salinge (2009). 33. According to a DFLP militant, one of the participants would not have received the green light from the Jordanian authorities for security reasons, even though Israel had given permission for him to come to the OPT. 34. Meeting held in Mar Elias camp, October 2009. 35. Meeting held in Saida, September 2009. 36. Meeting held in Beirut, March 2010. 37. Meeting held in Saida, September 2009. 38. On this double-dimension binding status of Palestinian refugees and arbitrary, see Bontemps (2012). On the relationship between perception and passage, see Puig (2013). 39. See Al-Husseini and Bocco (2010: 273). 40. See the Palestinian Centre for Policy and Survey Research, http://www.pcpsr. org/survey/polls/2003/refugeesjune03.html (accessed 7 October 2010). 41. Meeting held in May 2008. 42. Meeting held in March 2010. 43. They both relate to the Jordanian identity of Palestinian refugees. See Chatelard (2009). 44. Characteristic of other experiences of ‘visiting returnees’. See Lindholm Schulz & Hammer (2003: 214–8). 45. We use it in the sense of a belief related to concrete elements symbolically expressed and shared by a large community of people. See Bonte & Iznard (2004). 46. Meeting held in Saida, March 2010. 47. Meeting held in Saida, September 2009. 48. Meeting held in Beirut, August 2009. 49. Marwan referred to the three-month long confrontation that pitted the Lebanese Army against the jihadist group of Fateh al-Islam that caused the destruction of a large part of the Palestinian camp of Nahr el-Bared in the summer of 2007. 50. Meeting held in Mar Elias camp, March 2010. 51. Interview with Sajida in Saida, March 2010. 52. Meeting held in the Ain el-Hilweh camp, October 2009. 53. Meeting held in Saida, September 2009. 54. Meeting held in Beirut, April 2010. 55. Interview in the Chatila camp, June 2010. 56. Article 2 of the treaty emphasises the importance of controlling ‘involuntary movements of people likely to prejudice the security of either of the parties’, and Article 4 highlights the importance of security cooperation. See Valadou (2012). 57. A word used here to translate and adapt the taxonomy of ‘visiting returnees’ mentioned earlier.

254

Chapter 6

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Hegemony over Geography: UNIFIL and the Drawing of the Blue Line

1. The three blue barrels that UNIFIL unilaterally put near the Shebaa Farms in order to open the process in 2007 were never recognised by Lebanon as they rest on the UN demarcation line of 2000 that put the Farms in Syria, a decision contested by Lebanon. 2. See the UNIFIL website: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unifil/m andate.shtml. 3. Statements of the Secretary-General’s report of April 1985 (Doc. S/17093). 4. Mainly because it is Israel’s work force and collaborators’ network in the occupied zone. 5. The mandate of the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force (UNDOF) is based on a Disengagement Agreement between Israeli and Syrian forces on 31 May 1974. 6. Available here: http://www.un.org/en/peacekeeping/missions/unifil/reports.shtml (accessed 2 November 2015). 7. General Hoteit, interviewed in Beirut, 26 May 2011. 8. See UNSCR 1701: http://www.un.org/ga/search/view_doc.asp?symbol¼ S/ RES/1701%282006%29 (accessed 2 November 2015). 9. See paragraph 29 of the UN report dated 18 August 2006 http://unscol.unmissi ons.org/portals/unscol/1st%20Report%20(18%2008%2006).pdf (accessed 2 November 2015). 10. This was a Lebanese requirement expressed by former Prime Minister Fouad Siniora in a tense and polarised internal context in which the protection of national sovereignty became a subject of rivalry between the March 8 and March 14 coalitions. 11. Interviewed in the Naqoura JGIS Office, July 2011. 12. Data provided by the JGIS, December 2014. 13. Their location is chosen with regard to the technique approved by UNIFIL in order to secure the borderland space. From one blue barrel, it should be possible to see the previous and the next ones in order to warn people about the line they should not cross (as written on each blue barrel in English and Arabic). 14. See, for instance, the DVD film made by UNIFIL at its Naqoura headquarters, which explains its post-UNRSC 1701 mission. 15. Similar examples include the ‘Provide Comfort’ military-humanitarian intervention in the north of Iraq and UN peace enforcement in Somalia (UNOSOM II). 16. QIP as small-scale projects intended to produce immediate material benefits for the populations and symbolically compensate for a lack of major economic programme in the mission’s mandate (Pouligny, 2006). 17. Josh Wood, ‘How Peace Pays’, Executive, 1 June 2010. 18. As mentioned on the website of the French CIMIC, see: http://www. ambafrance-lb.org/La-Cooperation-civilo-militaire-au (accessed 27 April 2015).

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19. French general in command of the UNIFIL mission during the July War in 2006. He was responsible for initiating the blue barrel building process in the spring of 2007 (see note 1). All parties took a position that launched the process of marking the blue line. Cf. Pellegrini (2010). 20. Our interview with a high-ranking officer of the Lebanese Army, Ministry of Defence, Yarzeh, April 2011. 21. Apparently owing to a lack of interest to clearly mark this delineation between two states under the French Mandate. 22. Asher Kaufman contends that this division is an erroneous belief in the existence of two villages (Ghajar and al-Wazzani) by pointing out that the village was entirely Syrian prior the war in 1967. See Kaufman (2009). 23. See, for instance, elaph.com 26 March 2008. 24. Since 2006, Hizbullah has identified and destroyed several spying devices, issuing a statement after each operation in order to highlight the persistence of an Israeli threat. 25. Interview in Naqoura, April 2011. 26. Interview with a UNIFIL liaison officer, Beirut, May 2011. 27. Interview with a French UNIFIL commander, Naqoura, April 2011. 28. Story reported by a UNIFIL liaison officer, Beirut, May 2011. 29. Interview with a UN political advisor, Beirut, September 2012. 30. Nichloas Noe, ‘The Nasrallah roadmap’, The Guardian, 5 October 2007, available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/oct/05/thenas rallahroadmap/ (accessed on 27 September 2012). 31. Including the Force Commander, Deputy Head of Mission, Deputy Force Commander, Deputy Political and Civil Affairs, Chief Liaison Officer, technicians, GIS, political officers. Interview with a political officer conducted in Tyre, June 2012. 32. Interview conducted in Tyre, May 2011. 33. Interview with a high-ranking UN officer, Tyre, May 2011. 34. Interviews conducted in Tyre and Beirut, May/June 2011. 35. Interview with a UN political officer, Tyre, May 2011. 36. Al-Nahar, 4 August 2010. 37. Interview with a UN officer, Naqoura, June 2012. 38. The Israelis asked the LAF to provide acceptable measures to prove their demands; then, separately, each geographical team set measures on the ground, with UNIFIL also agreeing to the 40 cm difference. The difference between the two countries is due to the difference of national geodetic networks that are by definition slightly distinct. Interview at the JGIS–UNIFIL, Naqoura, June 2012. 39. In the future, it will be possible for Israel to use this agreement to ask for an accommodating Lebanese position in their favour, as was the case of Misgav Am, a settlement that grew and crossed the 1949 Armistice Line: The UN drew the Blue Line in a way so as not to infringe on the settlement, creating a Lebanese reservation (Number 11 on Map 6.1 and Table 6.1). 40. See Hassan Nasrallah’s interview in Al-Safir, 7 April 2014.

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Chapter 7 Pending Issues: Sovereignty at Stake on Maritime and Aerial Borders 1. Document available at http://www.un.org/depts/los/convention_agreements/ texts/unclos/unclos_e.pdf (accessed 2 November 2015). 2. Acceded to by Lebanon by virtue of Law no. 295 (22 February 1994). 3. As mentioned in Article 7 of Lebanon’s Law no. 163 on the Delineation and Declaration of the Maritime Zones (17 August 2011). 4. See ASDEAM (2012). 5. Like in the case of Cypriot delimitation with Egypt (2003), Lebanon (2007) and Israel (2010). 6. The International Court of Justice does not recognise oil concessions and wells in themselves as relevant circumstances in several of its decisions. See ASDEAM (2012: 15). 7. In the aftermath of the July War in 2006, Hizbullah took security measures that brought to light spying actions for Israel by dozens of Lebanese citizens, even within the party or allied groups. This added to border tensions that have not ceased since 2000 and have given rise to constant skirmishes and security incidents. 8. Between 2005 and 2010, the US pledged about $720 million worth of military material to Lebanon. By the end of 2013, Saudi Arabia promised French weapons and ammunition to the LAF for a total amount of $3 billion. See Picard (2009) and The Christian Science Monitor, 30 December 2013. 9. Bassel Salloukh (2005) noted that Kissinger brokered the red line agreement as part of a diplomatic strategy to slowly end the state of belligerency between Israel and its Arab neighbours. 10. At present, only three of them could be refurbished, and one Hawker Hunter flies on Independence Day once a year. 11. Interview with a military pilot officer, Rayak, June 2012; interview with a civil pilot at Balamand University, June 2012. 12. The Lebanese Forces (al-quwwaˆt al-lubnaniyya) gathered the former Christian militias of the Lebanese Front in 1980 under the leadership of Bashir Gemayel, the leading figure of the Phalange militia. 13. Although one could oppose the fact that Israel violated this agreement by invading Lebanon in March 1978. As seen in Chapter 2, the IDF secured a ‘buffer zone’ thanks to the local Christian surrogate militia when it pulled back its troops three months later. 14. Speech aired on 11 October 2012. Available at: http://www.youtube.com/ watch?v¼ bGc_4M0iCWw (accessed 25 July 2015). 15. See Al-Monitor, 26 April 2013. 16. Interviewed in Beirut, May 2011. 17. Quoted in Al-Sharq al-Awsat, 29 August 2010. 18. Basically combat and transport helicopters, armoured vehicles, anti-tank missiles and heavy artillery. 19. See Al-Monitor, 10 October 2014.

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257

20. See the Pentagon document listing the armament of the new selling. Available at http://www.dsca.mil/major-arms-sales/lebanon-29-super-tucano-aircraft (accessed 6 August 2015). 21. Al-Monitor, 16 December 2014. 22. See: Al-Akhbar English, 15 February 2015. Available at: http://english. al-akhbar.com/content/lebanese-drone-enters-israel-airspace-israeli-media. 23. In 2007, political tensions reached a peak between the two coalitions. The situation eventually flared up in May 2008, which brought parties to the negotiating table in Doha for an agreement to restore peace. By the beginning of 2009, the government’s formation allowed ministers to resume normal activity after a two-year political crisis and a six-month power vacuum. 24. http://www.un.org/depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/ TREATIES/cyp_isr_eez_2010.pdf (accessed 2 November 2015). 25. Jerusalem Post, 10 July 2011, cited in ASDEAM report, op. cit., p. 19. 26. See references for these points at: http://www.un.org/Depts/los/ LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/PDFFILES/DEPOSIT/lbn_mzn79_2010. pdf and http://www.un.org/Depts/los/LEGISLATIONANDTREATIES/ PDFFILES/DEPOSIT/lbn_mzn79add1_2010.pdf (accessed 2 November 2015). 27. See, for instance, Al-Monitor, 24 February 2013 and 28 February 2013. 28. Interview with UNIFIL’s political officer, Naqoura, September 2012. 29. See the Arbitral Award of 17 September 2007, cited in ASDEAM (2012: 20). 30. See Middle East Strategic Perspectives, 25 October 2012, available at: http://www. mestrategicperspectives.com/2012/10/25/oil-gas-updates-an-end-in-sight-to-themaritime-border-dispute-between-lebanon-and-israel/ (accessed 6 August 2015). 31. See Globes, 29 October 2013, available at: http://www.globes.co.il/en/article1000889521 (accessed 8 August 2015). 32. This happened on 18 August 2011 in the context of Cyprus’s allocation of rights for exploration and exploitation of blocks adjacent to the border with Lebanon. 33. See The Daily Star, 7 September 2012. 34. See the special issue on that energy sector in Le Commerce du Levant, No. 5635, December 2012. 35. See the presentation of Solon Kassinis from the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Tourism of the Republic of Cyprus at the International Oil & Gas Summit, Beirut, 3 December 2012. 36. See International Law Office, 9 July 2012 (online newsletter). 37. 12 of 16 were qualified as operators – companies willing to undertake drilling and extraction activities – while 34 of 38 were selected as non-operators, as they will share the ownership and expenses of drilling, development and extractions with operators without being responsible for operations. (Salem, 2013.). 38. See Energy-pedia News, 1 May 2013, available at: http://www.energy-pedia.com/ news/lebanon/new-154479 (accessed 12 September 2013). 39. The drilling should reveal the richness of gas resources and then add more value to the other blocks. 40. The reference to Turkey is made on purpose because of the tension that existed with the Shiʽa-led March 8 coalition regarding the kidnapping of Shiʽi

258

41. 42.

43.

44. 45. 46. 47. 48. 49. 50. 51.

NOTES

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pilgrims. Their families in Lebanon lay the blame on the Turkish authorities and urged the caretaker Energy Minister to exclude any Turkish company from offshore exploration tenders. See Middle East Strategic Perspectives, 28 April 2013, available at: http://www.mestrategicperspectives.com/2013/04/28/oil-gasupdates-weekly-roundup-april-29-2013/ (accessed 30 August 2013). Quoted in Energy-pedia News, 5 September 2013, available at: http://www. energy-pedia.com/news/lebanon/new-155893 (accessed 26 September 2013). The new minister is a member of the Tachnag party, an Armenian group allied with the March 8 coalition that includes the Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of Michel Aoun. His stepson, Gebran Bassil, was in charge of the ministry, and FPM insisted on staying in control, which contributed to holding up the formation of the new Cabinet. See Energy-pedia News, 9 March 2014, available at: http://www. energy-pedia.com/news/lebanon/new-158451 (accessed 12 February 2015). See the booklet of the Lebanese Petroleum Administration presenting in detail each of these companies and available on http://www.lpa.gov.lb/pdf/Pre-qualifi cation%20Companies%20Booklet.pdf (accessed 25 October 2015). See BBC News, 24 February 2015 available on http://www.bbc.com/news/ world-middle-east-31604143 (accessed 28 February 2015). The Daily Star, 4 March 2013. The Daily Star, 11 February 2013. Prof. Ahmad Beydoun, interview in Beirut, December 2012. In The Daily Star, 11 February 2012. Ibid. See: Interfaxenergy.com, 26 April 2013 Interviewed during the Oil & Gas Summit, Beirut, 22 – 23 April 2013.

Conclusion

South Lebanon as a Regional Issue

1. See note 19 in Chapter 5. 2. Following a recent visit by the special envoy from the US Department of State to Beirut, Foreign Minister Gebran Bassil and former Energy Minister explained that the border issue with Israel was not impeding the exploitation of Lebanese EEZ oil and gas resources but rather the government’s failure to approve the last two decrees that would allow the launch of the exploration and investment process. See: Al-Monitor, 15 July 2015. 3. Sheikh Nabil Qawuq, the spokesperson for the movement, The Daily Star, 30 May 2015. 4. See Al-Monitor, 26 March 2015. 5. See Le Monde, 19 January 2015. 6. See Al-Monitor, 29 January 2015 and the analysis of Daniel Sobelman, ‘Israel, Hezbollah recalibrate mutual deterrence’, Al-Monitor, 6 October 2014. 7. See Al-Monitor, 16 December 2014. 8. See Le Monde, 8 October 2015.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Interviews (officials) Abbas, Mahmoud M. (Abu Moujahed), Director of Children & Youth Center, Chatila camp, 2 September 2009. Abdel Samad, Ziad, Executive director of Arab NGO Network Development, Beirut, 13 February 2010. Abdulal, Marwan, PFLP political bureau member, Mar Elias camp, 15 November 2010. Abou, Mustapha (hajji), Director of the Memorial Museum of Mleeta, Mleeta, 28 July 2011. Al-Mawla, Saoud, Former combatant in the Student Brigade (al-katiba al-tullabiyya), Beirut, 5 July 2011; Venice, 4 March 2013. Anonymous, High-ranking Air Force LAF officer, Beirut, 4 November 2013. Atallah, Elias, Former leader of the OACL, Beirut, 18 July 2014. Ayat, Karen, Eastern Mediterranean energy analyst, Natural Gas Europe, Beirut, 23 April 2013. Chehaitli, Abdul Rahman, Major-General LAF, director general, Ministry of Defense, 30 June 2011. De Woillemont, Xavier, UNIFIL chief of staff-general brigadier, Naqoura, 28 April 2011. Debsi, Hisham, Vice president of Tatwir, Beirut, 4 October 2013. El-Natour, Suheil, Human rights consultant, Mar Elias Camp, 10 October 2010; 17 March 2011; 5 July 2011; 1 November 2011; 17 September 2012. Fanny, M. UNIFIL CIMIC lieutenant, Beirut, 15 April 2011; 3 December 2011. Flint, Ruth, Ambassador of Switzerland in Lebanon, Beirut, June 2012, September 2013. Ghandour, Farouk M., Chairman of the Ghassan Kanafani Foundation, 30 April 2011. Ghobril, Nassib, Head of economic research, Byblos Bank, Beirut, 20 April 2013. Go¨ksel, Timur, former UNIFIL force commander, 10 November 2011. Haifa, Jammal, Coordinator of Norwegian People’s Aid, Beirut, 3 July 2011. Hamdan, Lina, Communication & strategy advisor, Lebanese – Palestinian Dialogue Committee (LPDC), Beirut, 7 November 2009.

260

SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

Hasan, Rami, Public relations coordinator at Mleeta, 11 April 2012; 26 September 2013. Hauser, Richard, Chief liaison, Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO), Beirut, 11 July 2011. Hoteit, Amine, General, former LAF chief of staff, Beirut, 26 May 2011. Iseli, Michael Thomas, Deputy head of UNIFIL Geographic Information Service, Naqoura, 22 July 2011; 29 September 2011; 20 April 2012; 20 June 2012; 18 September 2012; 25 April 2013 and e-mail exchanges. Iskandar, Marwan, Chairman of Banque de Cre´dit National SAL, Beirut, 12 September 2012. Issa, Jamal, Palestinian Embassy, Beirut, 17 March 2011. Jomaa, Mahmoud, Beit Atfal al-Summud, Beirut, 24 October 2009. Kaminara, Androulla, European Union fellow (hydrocarbon resources), University of Oxford, Oxford, 22 February 2013. Karbuz Sohbet, Director of Hydrocarbons at the Mediterranean Observatory for Energy, Beirut, 23 April 2013. Kattura, Edward, Palestinian Human Rights Organization (PHRO), Beirut, 25 April 2013. Mohammad, Tour guide at the Memorial Museum of Mleeta, Mleeta, 5 July 2011; 7 November 2011; 19 July 2013. Manca, Francesco, UNIFIL deputy director of political and civil affairs, Tyre, 17 May 2011; 20 May 2011. Montani, Ju¨rg, ICRC head of delegation, Beirut, 27 September 2011; 18 August 2012. Naba, Roger, Former combatant in the Student Brigade (al-katiba al-tullabiyya), Beirut, 11 November 2010. Naufal, Michel, Former member of the Student Brigade (al-katiba al-tullabiyya), Beirut, 18 June 2011; 22 June 2011. Seignon, Thomas, UNIFIL colonel, chief liaison officer, Beirut & Naqoura, 27 May 2011; 3 July 2011. Shafiq, Mounir, Former leader in the Student Brigade (al-katiba al-tullabiyya), 28 June 2011. Soueid, Mahmoud, Chairman of the Institute for Palestine Studies, Beirut, 17 September 2009. Strugar, Milos, UNIFIL spokesperson, Beirut, 24 August 2009. Sultan, Sleimane, UNIFIL civil affairs officer, Beirut, 23 May 2011. William, Lord Michael, UN special coordinator in Lebanon from 2008 to 2011, London, 17 July 2011.

Interviews (fieldwork) Seven former combatants in the LNRF, met in Beirut/Saida (LCP) on 18 March 2011; 21 March 2011; in Beirut (OACL) on 27 March 2011. 14 former fida’iyyin, met at Mar Elias camp (PFLP, PFLP-GC) between 17 March 2011 and 31 March 2011; at al-Bass camp (DFLP) on 23 May 2011. 25 Palestinian refugees met in Saida, 29 September 2009, 6 October 2009, 2 December 2009, 15 March 2010; in Beirut Chatila camp, 7 September 2009, 12 June 2010; in Mar Elias camp (Beirut), 3 March 2010; in Ain el-Hilweh camp (Saida), 15 October 2009; in Damour, 5 May 2010; in Burj el-Chemaly camp (Tyre), 24 June 2010.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

261

Several informal meetings and interviews with local inhabitants, journalists, humanitarian actors and militants occurred in South Lebanon between 2009 and 2014: Ain Ebel, Bint Jbeil, Hasbaya, Khiam, LAF checkpoint (Naqoura road), Maroun al-Ras, Mleeta, Nabatiyeh, Saida and Tyre.

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INDEX Adeisseh, 193, 194, 199, 200 ADF (Arab Deterrent Force), 65, 68 AFL (Army of Free Lebanon), 54, 68 –9, 72 – 4, 178, 179, 187 see also Haddad, Saʽad Ain al-Hilweh, 129, 166 Ain Ebel, 72 airspace, 3, 7, 206, 210– 16, 228– 9 1981 missile crisis, 211– 12 aerial sovereignty, 205 –6 buffer zone, 26 Hizbullah’s UAVs, 213, 216, 228– 9, 234 IS, 215, 216 Israeli domination of Lebanese skies, 209, 211– 14, 216, 228, 234 Israeli spying, 214 Israeli violation of Lebanese skies, 3, 7, 26, 69, 214, 228, 234 July War, 213– 14 Karman Line, 206 LAF, 215– 16, 229 Lebanese aircraft/weaponry, 211, 215– 16, 229 Lebanese limited sovereignty over, 3, 7, 210– 11, 216, 228, 233 South Lebanon, 216, 228 Amal movement, 78, 83, 84, 85, 87, 188– 9 Hizbullah and, 83, 87, 90, 96, 118, 236

political recognition and transformation into a party, 104 reconstruction process in the aftermath of 2006 war, 128 Syrian patronage, 54, 88, 104 ANM (Arab Nationalist Movement), 39, 42 Aoun, Michel, 114, 142, 208, 211, 212 Arab Nationalism, 6, 9, 13, 20, 39, 42 pan-Arab nationalism, 22, 23, 97 Arab Uprisings, 4, 5 Arafat, Yasser, 28, 40, 55, 70, 81, 208 ten-point programme, 53, 56 Armistice (1949), 6, 14, 22, 153 Armistice Line (1949), 14, 16, 153, 175, 180, 181, 182, 193, 194, 219 Blue Line, 184, 202 Arquˆb, 19, 40, 45, 46, 51, 66, 234, 240 ‘The Eagles of Arquˆb, 44 Arsal, 116, 208, 239 al-Assad, Bashar, 117, 119, 143, 241 2011 Syrian uprising/current civil war, 116, 117, 119, 208, 209, 228, 230, 240 al-Assad, Hafez, 65, 71, 78, 113 Atallah, Elias, 88 – 9 Awwali River, 73, 86 Balfour Declaration, 13 Beaufort Castle, battle at, 52, 53, 58, 84, 211 Begin, Menachem, 69, 70, 78, 80

INDEX belonging, 21 categories of, 9 collective belonging, 8, 104, 235 Hizbullah, 24, 102– 4, 106, 123, 126, 141, 146 sectarian belonging, 9, 21, 25, 72, 83, 96, 101 sense of belonging, 11, 20, 24, 94, 103, 160, 167 Beqaa Valley, 14, 20, 25, 63, 81, 97, 132, 208, 212, 236, 240 Berri, Nabih, 83, 188 Bint Jbeil, 56, 69, 128, 130, 131, 213 Blue Line, 7, 17 – 18, 75, 151, 156, 182, 203, 238, 239 1949 Armistice Line, 184, 202 blue barrels, 175, 186, 191, 192, 193, 195, 238, 242 contestation and disputes over, 12, 191– 6, 197–200, 203 de-politicisation of the border question, 176, 182, 204 digital version of, 185–6 drawing and marking of, 182– 7, 191, 193, 202 Electronic Line, 182– 3 Ghajar, 18, 192 governmentality, 177, 201 Hizbullah, 177, 183, 184, 201, 233, 238 IDF, 184, 186, 195– 6, 197, 198, 199– 200, 201, 202 international border line between Lebanon and Israel, 187 July War, 177, 184–5, 202, 238 LAF, 181, 183, 186, 194, 195– 6, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 233 Practical Line, 182 Shebaa Farms, 18, 186, 191– 2 ‘technical’/political justification, 182 Tripartite Committee, 176, 177, 186, 197– 9, 204, 238 UNSCR 425: 184, 202 UNSCR 1701: 185, 238

277

Withdrawal Line, 181, 182– 3, 184, 187, 200, 238 see also Ghajar; Shebaa Farms; UNIFIL border: border/boundary/frontier distinction, 9 border effect, 2, 4, 8, 29, 59, 231– 2, 235 border regime, 14, 153 categorisation based on levels of porosity, 192– 3 challenging borders, 239– 42 changing dimension of, 4, 192– 3, 232 definition, 9, 10, 192 demarcation of, 15 identity/border link, 10, 150 institutionalisation of, 10 Lebanon–Israel–Syria border, 16–17 Lebanon – Syria border, 17 – 19, 241 literature on, 10 – 11, 16 – 17 meaning of, 3 persistence over time, 4 a ‘socially produced space’, 10 see also the entries below for border; airspace; Lebanon – Israel border; maritime borders border, crossing of, 7, 13, 29, 150 see also checkpoint; gate; infiltration; Palestinians’ crossing of borders; permit border line, 14 – 19, 30, 175, 232 definition, 11 fluctuation of, 2, 184 French mandate, 11, 13, 19 – 20, 110, 191– 2 Great Britain, 11, 13, 232 Green Line, 184 Lebanon’s present delineation, 19 see also Armistice Line; Blue Line; border; fence/wall; Lebanon – Israel

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border; Lebanon – Syria border; Newcombe – Paulet Line (b)ordering, 11, 24 bordering as means of ordering, 11 Israel, 46, 59, 61 South Lebanon, 37 – 8, 58 – 9, 60, 72, 90, 228, 238 see also bordering; ordering bordering, 10 – 11, 184, 232 agents of, 2, 3 – 4 bordering, ordering, othering: man-made origins of borders, 3 –4, 232– 8 everyday bordering, 2 interlinked aspects of bordering, ordering and othering processes, 92, 105 Israel’s bordering supremacy, 235– 6, 240 means of, 2 see also (b)ordering; de-bordering/ re-bordering; ordering; othering borderland, 10, 232 actors shaping the borderland, 2, 6, 7, 8, 29, 231 armed struggle in, 19 between state and nation building, 19 –24 borderlander, 6, 12, 24, 59, 60, 185 definition, 4 double-binding process shaping borderland, 2, 8, 29 identity, 2, 12 internationalisation of, 6, 8 buffer zone, 12, 25, 241 airspace, 26 networked border, 24 – 5 security belt/security zone, 74, 155 South Lebanon, 2– 3, 12, 25, 178– 9, 235 Burj al-Shemali, 165 Bush, George W., 113

Cairo Agreement, 42, 43, 44, 53, 153, 157 Carter, Jimmy, 78, 178 census, 16, 20 Chamoun, Camille, 19, 22, 23, 153 Che Guevara, 46 checkpoint, 13, 25, 26, 27, 75, 85, 109, 152 LAF, 207 see also border, crossing of; permit Chehab, Fuad, 5, 23, 35, 157, 233 Chidiaq, Sami, 68 Christian Maronite, 14, 19, 20, 21, 40, 67 Army’s Partisans, 66 militia in South Lebanon, 64– 7, 68, 71 – 2, 75, 77 – 8, 79, 82, 86, 90, 95, 154, 178, 179, 235 Civil War, 1, 2 – 3, 45 – 6, 54, 63, 93, 210, 233 sectarian belonging, 25 South Lebanon, 67, 95 – 6 civilian population, 80, 153, 172, 189 casualties and deaths, 42, 106–7 colonialism, 14, 46, 47, 105 Cyprus, 160, 162, 217, 222, 224, 225 Cyprus –Israel Agreement, 218– 19, 220, 221 Darwish, Mahmoud, 47 Dayan, Moshe, 65, 78 de-bordering/re-bordering, 19, 24, 37, 240 fida’i, 37 –8, 59 Hizbullah, 100 South Lebanon, 72, 91, 228 see also bordering DFLP (Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine), 41, 45, 47, 48, 85, 108, 152, 155 diplomacy, 2, 70, 81, 82, 100 Doha Agreement, 108, 143, 208 the Druze, 62, 83, 84, 85, 86, 99, 111, 114

INDEX EEZ, 3, 206– 207, 229, 233 contested zone, 220–1, 227– 8, 229, 230 Cyprus– Israel Agreement, 218– 19, 220, 221 delimitation of, 206, 217– 21 UN, 219, 220 see also maritime borders; oil/gas resources Egypt, 22, 40, 43, 63, 81, 160, 162, 197, 219, 221 emigration, 76, 167, 173–4 enclave, 68, 73, 179, 211 enemy: Israel as enemy state of Lebanon, 22, 89, 94, 97, 102, 150, 152, 236, 237 othering, 11, 38, 89, 94, 100, 112, 209, 236 EU (European Union), 6, 148, 190 Fadlallah, Muhammad Hussein, Ayatollah, 97, 99 Fahd Plan, 71 family: challenges to family relationships, 28, 149 crossing borders for family visit, 7, 13, 149, 154, 157, 158– 9, 235 a guardian of collective memory, 149 link with the homeland, 149 Fanon, Frantz, 46 Fatah, 23, 38, 39 – 40, 44, 67, 162–3 Fatahland, 23, 109 ideology, 41, 45, 46, 47 internal disputes and fragmentation, 81 Fatah al-Islam, 157 Fatah– Intifada, 81 fence/wall, 50, 201, 239 2011 May events, 150, 151– 3, 198 ‘good fence’ policy, 72, 154– 5, 178 Kfarkila fence, 141, 176, 199–200, 204, 238, 242

279

othering, 201, 238 technical fence, 75, 151, 175, 193, 196, 198, 199, 240 walling of borders, 12, 18, 141, 176, 200– 201, 204 see also border line fida’i, 35– 60, 80, 82, 153, 234 de-bordering/re-bordering space and identity, 37 – 8, 59 definition, 6, 36, 38, 51, 59 disappearance of, 58 ethics of, 38, 48 – 9, 54, 56, 57 – 8, 60 infiltration operation, 23, 45, 50 – 1 ‘Lebanonisation’ of, 6, 53, 59, 60, 234 a myth, 37, 47, 54 Palestinian identity and, 37 professionalisation of, 48 – 9, 51, 53 – 4, 59 a symbol, 46, 48, 54 transnational dimension of, 37, 58, 59 see also Palestinian resistance FPM (Free Patriotic Movement), 114, 142 French mandate, 5, 20 – 1, 232 border lines, 11, 13, 19 – 20, 110, 191– 2 Deuxie`me Bureau, 43, 78 Palestine –Syria border, 14 frontier zone, 191– 6 Galilee, 35, 40, 72, 110, 153 panhandle, 15, 16 Peace for Galilee Operation, 77, 79, 212 gas, see oil/gas resources gate, 13, 26, 72, 135, 180 see also border, crossing of; permit Gemayel, Bachir, 77 – 8, 80, 235 Gemayel, Pierre, 65 Ghajar, 14, 16, 17 – 18, 192 Golan Heights, 17 – 18, 19, 61 – 3, 151, 152, 240

280

SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

Great Britain: Baghdad Pact, 22 border lines, 11, 13, 232 Palestine– Syria border, 14 – 15 Greater Lebanon, 15, 16, 20, 191 guerrilla, 46, 63, 65, 80, 82, 84, 140 guerrilla war as strategy, 39, 44, 54 –5, 71, 85 see also militia Habache, George, 71 Habib, Philip, 70, 79, 212 Haddad, Saʽad, 46, 58, 66 – 7, 68 – 70, 71 – 2, 73, 77, 154, 178– 9 death of, 74, 87 see also AFL Hamas, 58 Hanita, 72 harakat al-mahrumin (Movement of the Deprived), 42, 83, 96, 233 Harb, Ragheb, 98, 112, 140 el-Hariri, Rafic, 113, 143, 209 Hasbani River, 76 – 7, 195 Hasbaya, 18, 69 al-Hashimi, Hussein b. Ali, Sharif, 13 Hawatmeh, Nayef, 48 Hawi, Georges, 84 Hizbullah, 3, 83, 93 –4, 236–7 2000 Israeli withdrawal, 109– 12, 119 Amal movement and, 83, 87, 90, 96, 118, 236 ‘asabiyat, 94, 101– 4 belonging, sense of, 24, 102– 4, 106 criticism, 76, 138, 239– 40 al-da‘wa, 94, 103, 104 defensive jihad, 100 Hizbullah/Israeli confrontation, 4, 7, 93, 97, 98 – 101, 106– 7 ideology, 12, 24, 130– 4, 138, 142 Iran, 7, 26, 89, 93, 96 – 7, 104, 119 IS/al-Nusra Front, 116, 239– 40, 241

Islamic state, 99, 103, 124 legitimacy, 7, 105, 116, 135, 147 origins of, 95 – 7, 236 othering, 100– 101, 102, 105, 107, 116, 119, 147, 236 political recognition and transformation into a party, 26, 93, 104– 5, 236 a powerful political force, 93 – 4, 102, 114, 115– 16, 119 resistance, 3, 24, 95, 102, 114, 116, 117, 118– 19 resistance in Hizbullah’s identity, 94, 95, 100, 102– 4, 105, 118, 130, 236 Shebaa Farms, 19, 110– 11, 181 the Shi’a, 3, 7, 12, 83, 93, 96 –7, 98 – 100, 102– 3, 106, 236 South Lebanon, 7, 89, 90, 91, 93, 98 – 9, 233, 236 South Lebanon as sanctuary/ ‘Lebanonisation’ of Hizbullah, 104– 8, 237 South Lebanon as stronghold, 95, 111, 115, 135, 184 ‘State of Resistance’, 115, 119, 236–7 Syria, 91, 93 – 4, 116, 117, 119, 143, 233, 236, 237 al-Thawra al-Islamiya fi Lubnan, 99 UAV, 213, 216, 228– 9, 234 UNIFIL, 177, 181, 188, 189, 191 wilayat al-faqih, 99, 103, 124 see also the entries below for Hizbullah; Islamic sphere; July War Hizbullah as actor shaping the borderland, 2, 6, 7, 29, 95, 114–15, 146, 231 Blue Line, 177, 183, 184, 201, 233, 238 de-bordering/re-bordering process, 100 external/internal shifts and their effects on the borderland, 112 –16 Hizbullah-land, 109

INDEX Hizbullah, socio-political and cultural investment, 237 collective belonging/identity, 123, 126, 141, 146 cultural production: moral norms and ideology, 131– 4, 138, 142, 146– 7, 237 Iran, 126, 127– 8, 130, 132, 142 Jihaˆd al-bina’, 125, 127– 8, 129, 130, 131, 144, 146 landscape, shaping of, 126, 132, 133, 134, 139, 144– 6, 147, 240 memory and history of the land, 143– 6, 147 al-mumana’a, 115 Nabatieh and Bint Jbeil, 130– 1 NGO, 126 reconstruction in the aftermath of 2006 War, 125, 127– 31, 146, 237 the Shi’a, 123– 4, 129, 142 society of resistance, 125, 126, 132, 138, 146, 147, 237 socio-cultural investment, 24, 123, 126, 146 socio-economic institutions, 126– 7 tourist policy, 3, 24, 131– 2, 139, 145, 146– 7, 237 values, 126, 127, 132– 3, 147, 237 see also Islamic sphere; Khiam; LAA; Mleeta homeland, 36, 149, 163, 165 hostage/prisoner, 25, 58, 87, 114, 116, 180, 239 exchange of, 58, 108, 112, 155– 6 Hussein, Saddam, 26, 69 Ibrahim, Muhsin, 70, 84 ICRC (International Committee of the Red Cross), 35, 69, 108, 154, 156, 158, 161 identity, 1, 9 belonging, 9 borderland, 2, 12

281

collective identity, 1, 8, 9, 11, 24, 36, 126, 141, 150, 153, 235 identity/border link, 10, 150 identity building, 9, 10, 11, 31 identity/space link, 10 – 11, 31 othering, 150 Palestinians’ crossing of borders, 164, 171, 172– 4 power relations, 9 resistance in Hizbullah’s identity, 94, 95, 100, 102– 4, 105, 118, 130, 236 Shi’i identity, 20, 95, 100 territory and, 2 ideology: anti-imperialist ideology, 46 – 7, 55, 60, 99 Fatah, 41, 45, 46, 47 Hizbullah, 12, 24, 130– 4, 138, 142 al-katibe al-tullabiyya, 56 Palestinian resistance, 6, 23, 46 – 7, 59, 234 IDF (Israel Defense Forces), 46, 67 attacks on, 84, 85, 98, 99, 101, 240, 242 Blue Line, 184, 186, 195– 6, 197, 198, 199– 200, 201, 202 Hizbullah/Israeli confrontation, 4, 7, 93, 97, 98 – 101, 106– 7 Shi’i community and, 82 see also Israel; Israeli invasions imperialism, 5 anti-imperialist ideology, 46 – 7, 55, 60, 99 border lines, 11, 14 imperialist Lebanese era, 5 Palestinian resistance, struggle against imperialism, 46 – 7 infiltration: fida’i, 23, 45, 50 – 1 Palestinian resistance, 64, 67, 95, 101, 180, 155, 240 see also Palestinian resistance internet, 149, 150, 165– 6

282

SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

Iran, 6, 215 Hizbullah, 7, 26, 89, 93, 96 – 7, 104, 119, 126, 127– 8, 130, 132, 142 Iran– Syrian confrontation, 89 – 90 Iranian Revolution, 69, 95, 96, 97 Pasdaran, 97 US– Iranian Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, 215– 16 Iraq, 4, 12, 20, 22, 26, 69, 113, 239 IS (Islamic State), 4, 12, 116, 143, 209, 215, 216, 237, 239, 241 see also jihadist ISF (Internal Security Forces), 23, 27, 41, 43 Islam: Islamic community, 9, 124 politicisation of, 6 Qur’an, 97, 100, 141, 142 see also the Shi’a; Sunnis Islamic sphere (Halaˆ Islaˆmiyya), 3, 24, 103, 126, 139, 146, 237 see also Hizbullah Israel: as actor shaping the borderland, 6, 231 airspace, 3, 7, 26, 69, 209, 211– 14, 216, 228 Arab –Israeli conflict, 6, 185, 209 attacks by, 42, 44, 79 (b)ordering process, 46, 59, 61 bordering supremacy of, 235 –6, 240 Cyprus– Israel Agreement, 218– 19, 220, 221 enemy state of Lebanon, 22, 89, 94, 97, 102, 150, 152, 236, 237 Hizbullah/Israeli confrontation, 4, 7, 93, 97, 98 – 101, 105, 106– 7, 117 Israeli– Syrian confrontation, 4, 7, 63, 69 – 70, 152, 211– 12, 241 maritime borders, 69, 217, 218, 219– 20, 228, 230, 234

al-Nusra Front, 241 oil/gas resources, 220, 221 ‘satellisation’ of southern borderland, 61, 91, 193 state of Israel, 21 – 2, 38, 106, 153, 218, 234 surrogate militia, 25, 46, 54, 61, 74, 87, 95, 177, 235 Syria – Israel agreements related to Lebanon, 210– 11 see also IDF; Israeli invasions; Lebanon – Israel border; SLA; Zionism Israeli Air Force, 26, 79, 209, 228 Israeli invasions, 6, 19, 63 1948 occupation, 35, 40, 140, 153, 173 1967 invasion, 19, 61, 110, 168 1978 invasion, 3, 24, 61, 67 – 8, 73, 90, 95, 177, 178–9 1982 invasion, 3, 6, 24, 54, 58, 61, 73, 77 – 82, 86, 90, 96, 118, 154, 180, 235 Ansar (prison), 86 fait accompli, 74 ‘iron fist’ policy, 74, 87, 98 Israel and local allies, 66 – 7 Israeli retaliation and brutality, 53, 60, 66, 69 – 70, 71, 74, 82, 87, 96, 98, 151– 2, 154, 235 modes of occupation, 71 – 7, 87, 91, 96 Operation Accountability, 106 Operation Grapes of Wrath, 107 Operation Litani, 54, 57, 67 – 8, 140 Operation Peace for Galilee, 77, 79, 212 South Lebanon, 90, 95 – 6 withdrawal from occupied zones, 7, 18, 19, 24, 63, 68, 74, 75, 86, 87, 88, 91, 99, 101, 109, 113, 118, 155, 184, 238 see also IDF; South Lebanon Israeli spying, 201, 209, 213, 214

INDEX Jabal ‘Amil, 12, 14, 20, 62, 153, 233, 234 (b)ordering, 24 the Shi’a, 83, 236 Jabhaˆt al-sumuˆd wa al-tasaddi (Steadfastness and Confrontation Front), 67 Jezzine, 74, 87 Jibril, Ahmed, 70 Jihad, Abu, 47, 56, 97 jihadist, 28, 209, 215, 229, 239 see also IS Joint Forces, 70, 78, 79, 212 Jordan, 28, 81, 152, 167 Black September, 23, 28, 40, 53, 153, 172 bypassing the border through Jordan, 161, 162, 172, 235 a gatekeeper, 28, 172 networked border, 13 July War, 7, 24, 106, 108, 111, 114, 143 airspace, 213– 14 Blue Line, 177, 184– 5, 202, 238 LAF, 115, 123 reconstruction in the aftermath of, 125, 127– 31, 146, 237 UNIFIL, 123, 185, 197 Jumblat, Kamal, 45, 54 Kanafani, Ghassan, 174 Kantar, Samir, 108 Karameh, battle of, 39, 153 al-katibe al-tullabiyya (student brigade), 38, 55 – 8, 59 – 60, 234 fida’i ethics, 56, 57 –8, 60 ideology, 56 Khaldeh Agreement, 99 Khamenei, Ali, 109, 142 Khiam, 145 Khiam prison, 86, 109, 131, 133, 141 memorial museum, 12, 133– 4, 138, 144

283

Khomeini, Ruhollah, Imam, 99, 103, 104, 111, 124, 142 LAA (Lebanese Association for the Arts), 132, 133, 134 see also Hizbullah, socio-political and cultural investment LAF (Lebanese Armed Forces), 7, 26 – 7, 68, 210, 215 1969 political crisis, 23 airspace, 215– 16, 229 Blue Line, 181, 183, 186, 194, 195– 6, 197, 198, 200, 201, 202, 233 checkpoint, 207 Palestinian resistance/LAF confrontation, 43, 44 – 5 UNIFIL, 185– 6, 189, 208 UNSCR 1701: 115, 123, 152, 156, 214, 233 Lahad, Antoine, 74 Lahoud, Emile, 142, 181, 183 LCP (Lebanese Communist Party), 47– 8, 49, 83, 84, 85, 86, 88, 89 League of Nations, 15, 20 Lebanese Front, 54, 67, 68 Lebanese sky, see airspace Lebanon – Israel border, 14, 153, 175, 187, 240 closed-border policy, 14, 153 dispute over, 11 – 12 Palestine –Syria border, 14 South Lebanon/North Galilee separation, 14 see also border line; South Lebanon ‘Lebanonisation’ of resistance, 6, 53, 59, 60, 95, 104– 8, 234, 237 Libya, 4, 67, 83, 239 Litani River, 15, 76, 77, 79, 115, 154, 178, 180 LNM (Lebanese National Movement), 42, 45, 65, 67, 72, 78, 80, 83– 4

284

SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

LNRF (Lebanese National Resistance Front), 3, 84, 85, 88 – 9, 96, 231, 235 Jamul, 83, 89 Mao Tse-tung, 46, 55 maritime borders, 217– 21, 229– 30 airspace over the territorial sea, 206 demarcation line, 7, 12, 217– 19 Israel, 69, 220, 228, 230, 234 Lebanese sovereignty, 3, 214, 221, 228, 234 Lebanon– Israel tensions, 217, 218, 219– 20, 234 maritime boundaries, 206, 217 maritime sovereignty, 205, 206, 217 seabed, 7, 206, 223, 224 territorial waters, 206, 214 see also EEZ; oil/gas resources; UNCLOS Marjayoun, 18, 66, 77, 110, 178 Maroun al-Raˆs, 132, 151, 171, 194, 198 martyr, 6, 40 – 1, 47, 56, 57, 110, 144, 145, 152 Hizbullah, 111– 12, 124, 136, 137 Meiss el-Jabal, 73 mental map, 3 methodology, 2, 8– 19, 28 – 31 Metulla, 72 Mieh Mieh, 158 Middle East, 9, 113 border demarcation, 15 current crises, 3, 239– 42 fragmentation, 5 militia, 25, 45, 210, 233 disarmament of, 104 Israel’s surrogate militia, 25, 46, 54, 61, 71 – 2, 74, 87, 95, 177, 235 ordering, 25 UNSCR1559: 113, 208 see also guerrilla; Hizbullah; SLA Mleeta, 131, 134– 8, 145– 6 July War, 135

memorial museum, 12, 125, 132, 134– 8, 143, 144, 146, 237 symbols, 137, 138– 42, 145 Mossad, 53, 64, 108 Mount Hermon, 15, 18, 62 Mughniyyeh, Imad, 112, 141 museum, 143– 4 memorial museum, 144, 237, 242 see also Khiam; Mleeta Mussawi, Abbas, 99, 112, 137, 141, 142 the Mutasarrifiyya, 5, 14, 21 myth, 36, 124, 168 fida’i, 37, 47, 54 Palestine, mythical image of, 151, 167– 71, 172, 173, 236 Nabatieh, 69 Nahr el-Bared, 28, 157, 165, 168, 215 al-Nakba, 35, 158, 171 Nakba commemoration, 150, 151, 152 Naqoura, 180, 179, 188, 216 tripartite meeting at, 180, 192, 196, 238 narrative, 134– 5 anti-imperialist narrative, 134 landscape narrative, 134 peacekeeping narrative, 3 state narrative, 143, 205, 207 Nasrallah, Hassan, 98 –9, 102, 109, 116, 117, 136, 181, 201 speech by, 108, 110– 11, 115, 137, 141, 142, 213 Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 22, 23, 39 – 40 National Pact (1943), 21, 22 Netanyahu, Benjamin, 196, 219 networked border, 11, 12 – 13, 24 – 8, 232, 235 buffer zone, 24 – 5 checkpoint, 25, 26 definition, 12, 24, 148 family network, 149 Hizbullah, 26 – 7

INDEX Jordan, 13 refugee camp, 24 security belt, 25 see also Palestinians’ crossing of borders Newcombe –Paulet Line, 15 – 16, 22, 219 NGO (non-governmental organisation), 29, 126, 150, 161, 165 al-Nusra Front, 116, 209, 239, 240, 241 OACL (Communist Action Organization in Lebanon), 42, 55, 70, 83, 84, 85 occupation, see Israeli invasions; Syria OETA (Occupied Enemy Territory Administration), 14 –15, 16 oil/gas resources, 206, 217, 219– 20, 230 allocation of offshore blocks, 224– 6 Cyprus, 222– 3, 224 disputed EEZ area, 227– 8, 234 Israel, 220, 221 laws on, 218, 220, 223, 225, 226 liquefied natural gas, 221, 222 national consumption or international exportation?, 226– 7 politicisation of the oil sector, 224– 5 PTO, 220 securitisation of energy, 221 Tapline pipeline, 17 see also EEZ; maritime borders OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territories), 27, 63, 220, 235 family, challenges faced by, 28, 149 Palestinians’ crossing of borders, 150, 157, 160, 162– 3, 169 right of return to, 164 ordering, 11, 232– 3 identity building, 11 militia, 25 see also (b)ordering; bordering; othering othering, 11, 67, 94, 208, 232

285

collective identity building, 11 enemy, 11, 38, 89, 94, 100, 112, 116, 209, 236 Hizbullah, 100– 1, 102, 105, 107, 116, 119, 147, 236 identity, 150 Palestinian resistance, 38, 44, 55, 59 South Lebanon, 90, 91, 92, 235 walling of borders, 201, 238 see also bordering; ordering Ottoman Empire, 13, 14, 19, 21 PA (Palestinian Authority), 28, 167, 169 Palestine, 3 1967 Israeli invasion, 19, 61, 110, 168 Israeli – Palestinian peace talks, 26 mythical image of, 151, 167– 71, 172, 173, 236 OETA Line, 16 Palestine –Syria border, 14 – 16 Palestinian sanctuary, 7, 12, 43, 44, 55, 80, 95 perception of, 159– 60, 163, 164, 235 see also the entries below related to Palestine Palestinian camp, 22, 27, 88, 153, 168 attacks on, 45 internet access, 165– 6 networked border, 24 restriction of movement, 157 Sabra and Shatila, 80, 88, 100 sectarianism, 35 UNRWA camp, 43 see also Nahr el-Bared Palestinian refugee, 21 – 2, 23, 35, 140, 153 1948 forced migration, 35, 40, 140, 153, 173 as actor shaping the borderland, 2, 29, 231

286

SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

discrimination/marginalisation of, 13, 27, 82, 155, 167 politicisation of, 153 stateless (bidoun), 156 stigma, 27 – 8 see also al-Nakba Palestinian resistance, 2, 3, 233 1969 political crisis, 23 as actor shaping the borderland, 6, 7, 231, 234 armed resistance, 36, 41 (b)ordering of South Lebanon, 37 –8, 58 –9, 60 de-bordering/re-bordering, 38 formation and development of, 38 –46, 153 ‘golden age’, 36, 37, 46 – 54, 58, 234 ideology, 6, 23, 46 – 7, 59, 234 militarisation of, 36, 41 othering, 38, 44, 55, 59 repression of, 38– 9 South Lebanon, 23, 41, 63, 64, 74, 78, 80, 82, 85, 95 sumuˆd, 148 support for, 40 – 2 transnational dimension of, 37, 58, 59 –60 see also fida’i Palestinians’ crossing of borders, 148 2011 May events, 150, 151– 3, 198 bypassing/circumventing the border, 3, 7, 29, 150, 154, 156, 160– 5, 172, 235 conditions and constraints, 155, 156– 7, 161, 172 family visit, 7, 13, 149, 154, 157, 158– 9, 235 fida’i, infiltration operation, 23, 45, 49 –51 ICRC, 154, 156, 158, 161 identity, 164, 171, 172– 4 internet, 149, 150, 165–6 mythical image of Palestine, 151, 167– 71, 172, 173, 236

networked border, 13, 27, 148– 9, 156, 158, 161, 172, 235 passage through South Lebanon’s border, 157– 60 perception of Palestine, 159– 60, 163, 164, 167– 70, 172, 173, 235 restriction of movement, 27, 155– 6, 157, 161 right of return, 149, 151, 155, 163, 164– 5, 171, 173 temporality of the access, 154 ‘temporary return’ to Palestine, 150, 171, 173 travel document, 157, 160, 162– 3, 164 see also border, crossing of; infiltration Parliament, 20, 22, 68, 105, 217, 218, 219, 223, 233 PEF (Palestine Exploration Fund), 15 permit, 25, 27, 66, 73, 76, 158, 159, 162, 216 temporary license, 154 work permit, 27 see also border, crossing of; checkpoint PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine), 39, 41, 45, 48, 54, 85, 89 PFLP-GC (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine– General Command), 47, 70, 85, 207 Phalanges Party/militia, 45, 64 – 5, 66, 68, 72, 78, 79, 81, 82, 178 PHRO (Palestinian Human Rights Organization), 169 PLA (Palestine Liberation Army), 39 PLO (Palestine Liberation Organization), 23, 36, 39 – 40, 70, 153 1982 Israeli invasion, 79 –81 fragmentation, 81 international recognition, 53 – 4, 70 South Lebanon, 64 – 7, 70 – 1 political sociology, 2, 14 power, balance of, 6, 26, 140, 150, 229

INDEX prisoner, see hostage/prisoner Progressive Socialist Party, 84 Qasmiyeh Bridge, 86 Ras Naqoura, 15 Reagan, Ronald, 70, 78 red line, 7, 26, 28, 65, 210, 211, 212, 229 resistance: armed resistance, 6 Lebanese resistance, 63, 64, 83 – 5 resistance Lebanese era, 6 muqawim, 6 see also Hizbullah; LNRF; Palestinian resistance right of return, 149, 151, 155, 163, 164– 5, 171, 173 Rmeish, 72 Russia, 241 Sadat, Anwar, 67, 179 al-Sadr, Musa, 42, 54, 83, 96, 233 sanctuary, 43 Palestinian sanctuary, 7, 12, 43, 44, 55, 80, 95 ‘sanctuary state’, 43 – 4 South Lebanon as Hizbullah’s sanctuary, 104– 8, 237 Sarkis, Elias, 68 Saudi Arabia, 17, 71, 206, 209, 215, 216, 240, 241 sectarianism, 21, 105, 106, 114, 131, 224, 230 Lebanese state, 5, 22 – 3, 25, 43 – 4, 131, 207, 210, 233 Palestinian camp, 35 sectarian belonging, 9, 21, 25, 72, 83, 96, 101 security belt/security zone, 54, 73, 74 – 5, 87, 90, 91, 100, 101, 106, 154, 179, 207, 208, 240 a buffer zone, 74, 155 consolidation of, 68

287

Israeli withdrawal from, 75, 236 networked border, 25 permit, 25 Shafiq, Mounir, 38, 56, 57 – 8, 60 Sharon, Ariel, 78 Shebaa Farms, 14, 18 – 19, 61 – 2, 109–10, 233, 240 Blue Line, 18, 186, 191– 2 Hizbullah, 19, 110– 11, 181 Israeli occupation, 19, 110, 181 Newcombe – Paulet Line, 16 Syria, 19, 110, 181 the Shi’a, 6, 20, 41, 42, 62, 74, 111, 239 belonging, sense of, 103 forced migration of, 42 Hizbullah, 3, 7, 12, 83, 93, 96 –7, 98 – 100, 102– 3, 106, 123– 4, 129, 142, 236 IDF and Shi’i community, 82 jihad, 100 Karbala, Battle of, 123, 124 Lebanese belonging, 83 Shi’i identity, 20, 95, 100 Shi’i Islamism, 6 Shi’i mobilisation, 42, 83, 95, 97, 100 South Lebanon, 83, 88, 233 Palestine –Syria border, 15, 16 politicisation of Islam, 6 Siniora, Fouad, 114, 130, 135, 233 Six-Day War, 6, 17, 19, 39, 61, 62, 110, 168, 191 SLA (South Lebanese Army), 26, 75 – 6, 109, 207– 208, 231 Christians, 75 Israeli surrogate militia, 24, 25, 74 – 5, 87, 90, 101, 235, 236 UNIFIL, 177, 179– 80, 181, 187, 188, 237– 8 smuggling, 19, 44, 86, 192 South Lebanon, 2–4, 6, 22, 231, 232–8 1982 Israeli invasion, 73, 77 – 82, 86, 154

288

SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

airspace, 216, 228 a barrier and a bridge, 241– 2 a battleground, 36, 64–71, 91–2, 154 (b)ordering of, 37 – 8, 58 – 9, 60, 72, 90, 228, 238 buffer zone, 2– 3, 12, 25, 178–9, 235 ceasefire, 70 – 1 Christians, 64 – 7, 68, 71 –2, 75, 77 –8, 79, 82, 86, 90, 95, 154, 178, 179, 235 de-bordering/re-bordering, 72, 91, 228 fragmentation and polarisation, 90 Hizbullah, 7, 89, 90, 91, 93, 98 – 9, 233, 236 Hizbullah’s ‘asabiyat, 94, 101– 4 Hizbullah’s sanctuary/ ‘Lebanonisation’ of Hizbullah, 104– 8, 237 Hizbullah’s stronghold, 95, 111, 115, 135, 184 importance in the current Middle East crises, 3, 239– 42 Lebanese resistance, 63, 64, 83 – 5 leftist tradition, 41 ordering, 232 –3 othering, 90, 91, 92, 235 Palestinian resistance in, 23, 41, 63, 64, 74, 78, 80, 82, 85, 95 passage through South Lebanon’s border, 157– 60 PLO, 64 –7, 70– 1 post-1982 resistance, 82– 90 the Shi’a, 83, 88, 233 Syrian hegemony over, 88 – 90 see also Israeli invasions sovereignty, 3, 18, 43, 233 challenges faced by Lebanon, 207– 10, 229 fragmented sovereignty, 207 Lebanon’s inability to establish its authority over national territory, 209, 228

limited/lost, 26, 228 territoriality, 205 violation of, 26 see also airspace; Lebanon; maritime borders; state space, 6, 9 identity/space link, 10 – 11 physical, mental and social dimensions of, 9 – 10 ‘representational space’, 145 SSNP (Syrian Social Nationalist Party), 83, 85 state, 14, 232– 3 as actor shaping the borderland, 2, 29 borderland, between state and nation building, 19 – 24 breakdown of Lebanese state, 3, 45, 63, 66, 96, 187, 210, 233, 235 fragmented/sectarian Lebanese state, 5, 22, 23, 25, 43– 4, 131, 207, 210, 233 ‘sanctuary state’, 43 – 4 state narrative, 143, 205, 207 state/society relationship, 4, 232 see also Lebanon; sovereignty Suez Canal, 5, 22 Suleiman, Michel, 218, 223 sumuˆd, see Palestinian resistance Sunnis, 20, 21, 23, 74, 239 Sykes – Picot Line, 13, 14 – 15 symbol, 64, 112, 242 boundary, 9 fida’i, 46, 48, 54 identity building, 11 Mleeta/Hizbullah, 137, 138– 42, 145 ‘representational space’, 145 see also myth Syria, 78, 231 2011 uprising/current civil war, 116, 117, 119, 208, 209, 228, 230, 240 Amal movement, 54, 88, 104 hegemony over South Lebanon, 88 – 90

INDEX Hizbullah, 91, 93 – 4, 116, 117, 119, 143, 233, 236, 237 influence on the bordering of Lebanon, 233 Iran– Syrian confrontation, 89 – 90 Israeli– Syrian confrontation, 4, 7, 63, 69 – 70, 152, 211– 12, 241 Lebanon invasion by, 46, 65, 233 Palestine– Syria border, 14 – 16 Palestinian refugee, 167 Shebaa Farms, 19, 110, 181 sovereignty, 18 Syria– Israel agreements related to Lebanon, 210–11 Syrian Army, 91, 26, 113, 135, 167, 209 Syrian intelligence, 25, 27, 88, 207 tutelage over Lebanon, 25, 93, 113– 14, 155, 208, 209, 233, 238 see also Beqaa Valley; Golan Heights Taba Accords, 164 Taı¨f Agreement, 26, 104, 105, 233 territoriality, 2, 105, 204, 205, 207, 231 terrorism, 87, 113, 178, 200, 201 counterterrorism, 215, 216 Tibnine, 69 transnationalism, 36, 37, 58, 59 – 60 Turkey, 160, 162, 218, 241 Tyre, 20, 62, 69, 70, 188, 211, 213 IDF Intelligence headquarter, 84, 85, 98, 112, 140 UN (United Nations), 3, 6, 70 EEZ, 219, 220 UNCLOS (UN Convention on the Law of the Sea), 206, 207, 217, 218, 220 see also maritime borders UNIFIL (UN Interim Force in Lebanon), 12, 108, 202, 233, 237– 8, 241 1978 Israeli invasion, 177, 178– 9

289

1982 Israeli invasion, 180 as actor shaping the borderland, 2, 6, 7, 29, 175, 231, 237 Amal movement, 188– 9 attacks on/harassment of, 179– 80 borderland internationalisation, 6 CIMIC, 176, 177, 189– 90 governmentality/subjectivisation, 177, 182, 201 Hizbullah, 177, 181, 188, 189, 191 humanitarian assistance, 180, 187, 189, 190– 1, 202, 237 international hegemony over the Blue Line, 177, 182, 238 JGIS, 185, 186 July War, 123, 185, 197 LAF, 185– 6, 189, 208 shortcomings, 189 SLA/Haddad’s militia, 177, 179– 80, 181, 187, 188, 237– 8 success, 187– 8, 197, 202, 238 UNSCR 425: 3, 178, 180 UNSCR 1701: 115, 152, 156, 176, 185, 189, 204, 238 UNSCR 1884: 191 see also Blue Line UNSCR (UN Security Council Resolution), 63, 87 Resolution 242: 181 Resolution 338: 181 Resolution 425: 3, 68, 178, 180, 181, 184, 202, 238 Resolution 426: 181 Resolution 1559: 113, 208 Resolution 1701: 115, 123, 152, 156, 176, 185, 189, 191, 204, 208, 214, 233, 238 Resolution 1884: 191 US (United States), 6, 17, 22, 70, 107, 155, 162, 215 investment in the Middle East, 26 Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act, 113

290

SHAPING LEBANON'S BORDERLANDS

values, 11, 124 Hizbullah, 126, 127, 132– 3, 147, 237 vantage point, 4– 5, 12, 74, 110, 151, 204

armed struggle, 2– 3 Gulf War, 26, 76 Yom Kippur War, 63 see also Civil War; Israeli invasions; July War; Six-Day War water resources, 15, 62, 76 – 7, 195– 6 Israeli claims of sovereignty rights over, 77, 91 al-Wazzani, 17 Wazzani River, 77 Weizman, Ezer, 69, 78 Weizmann, Chaim, 15

war: 1948 Arab – Israeli War, 6, 22, 153, 175 1985– 88 war of camps, 88

Zionism, 14, 15, 22, 61, 106, 107, 108, 145, 195 World Zionist Organization, 15 Zionist enemy, 102, 150, 152

US– Iranian Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, 215– 16 USAID (United States Agency for International Development), 130 USSR (Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), 22, 49, 55, 85, 178