El Husseini, Rola. "Hezbollah and the Axis of Refusal: Hamas, Iran, and Syria". Third World Quarterly, Vol.31, No.5 (2010): 803-815.

El Husseini, Rola. "Hezbollah and the Axis of Refusal: Hamas, Iran, and Syria". Third World Quarterly, Vol.31, No.5 (2010): 803-815.

• In October 1983, Hizballah attacked the barracks for French and American soldiers in Beirut, killing over 240 US marines in the second-deadliest terrorist attack on Americans after the 9/11 attacks. The attack shaped US views of Hezbollah for decades, seeing them as a critical threat to the United States. This is despite the fact that, unlike Al-Qaeda, the Hizballah does not generally target the United States and only did so because the US was directly intervening in Lebanese politics. Hizballah has overwhelmingly concentrated its attacks on Israel and has not perpetrated a terrorist attack against the United States since the early 1990s (803).
• Hizballah is seen as a very different political actor in Israel and Lebanon. In Israel, it is a terrorist organization that seeks to use violence against the Israeli government. In Lebanon, it is seen as a legitimate political actor that has regularly won seats in local government and the national legislature since 1992, and runs a number of charitable organizations (803-804).
• The refusal of Israeli and Western governments to recognize Hizballah as a legitimate representative of a significant portion of the Lebanese population drives the group towards alliance with Iran and its allies, because conciliation with the West is not seen as an option. Recognizing Hizballah as a legitimate political party would encourage it to continue its process of moderating and focusing on electoral politics rather than armed struggle (812-813).
• Ayatollah Khomeini framed the Iranian Revolution as a conflict between the poor and disenfranchized against their oppressors. It also incorporated religious symbols, such as the story of Hussein bin Ali's martyrdom at the hands of the Umayyads at Karbala in 680 as a justification for revolution and a call for martyrdom in the name of Shiism. Although the Umayyads were originally supposed to represent the Shah, over time it was also repurposed to represent the Israelis, the US, and Iraq (804-805). In Lebanon, this metaphor was used to justify resistance to Israeli occupation (805).
• The predecessor to Hizballah was Harakat al-Mahrumin, the Movement of the Deprived, founded by the Iranian cleric Musa al-Sadr in March 1974. Musa al-Sadr had immigrated to Lebanon in the 1950s on the invitation of Shia clerics in Tyre, where he was given a position of prominence among the Islamic community. The movement was an outreach of his broader attempts to mobilize the Shia community of Tyre in the 1960s and 1970s. As Lebanon shifted towards civil war in the mid-1970s, Musa al-Sadr added an armed wing to the Harakat al-Mahrumin in 1975, called the Afwaj al-Muqawama al-Lubnaniyya [Lebanese Resistance Brigades or AMAL] (806).
• After the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, a faction of AMAL seceded to establish their own militia to fight against the Israeli occupation. In February 1985, the group named itself Hizballah and published a manifesto. The 1985 manifesto divides the world into oppressors and oppressed, and blames US imperialism as the underlying force supporting the Israeli oppression of Muslim Lebanese (806).
• Beginning in 1989, Hizballah made a conscious effort to become a political force in Lebanon, achieving success during its participation in the 1992 parliamentary elections. Hizballah changed the rhetoric in their 1991 manifesto to reflect this new domestic focus, calling for reconciliation with other Lebanese groups, including Christians, and the use of Hizballah resources to distribute social services. This decision generated significant turmoil inside the organization, as some members were concerned about participating in an electoral system that did not reflect their Islamist beliefs. They only approved participation after receiving the blessing of Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (807).
• This transition to electoral politics inside of Lebanon was the result of a number of changes in the world, including the death of the more militant Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini in 1989, the end of the Lebanese Civil War that same year, more limited funding after the end of the Cold War, and the assassination of Hizballah's Secretary-General, Abbas Musawi, which allowed Hassan Nasrallah to become the new party leader (807).
• Between 1992 and the final Israeli withdrawal in 2000, Hizballah took the lead in the insurgency against Israeli occupation in southern Lebanon and its policies of armed resistance were broadly popular within Lebanon. Significant Christian communities also supported the group after the 1996 Qana massacre occurred under Israeli oversight. This broad acceptance of Hizballah in Lebanese politics was cemented in 1998 with the election of Emile Lahoud, an ally of Hizballah, as president (807-808).
• The Israeli withdrawal in May 2000 left many issues unresolved, including Israeli refusal to return Lebanese POWs, supply Lebanon or Syria with maps showing the location of land mines, or reliquish occupation of a 15-square-mile border area known as Shebaa farms. In response to Israeli intransigence, Hizballah argued that the war was still incomplete and that more violence was needed to force Israel to complete its withdrawal. There was a dispute with the organization after Israeli withdrawal in 2000 about whether to impose imperialism more broadly, to focus more specifically on Israel and Palestine, or to abandon armed struggle. With the blessing of Ayatollah Khamenei, Hizballah elected to continue fighting Israel as a special enemy (808).
• Many other political parties, especially Christians and Sunnis, saw Hizballah's continuation of war against Israel as a political ploy to avoid losing support after the cessation of the war. The claim that the occupation of Shebaa farms justified continued war was seen as weak by many Lebanese audiences (808).
• Despite this dedication to keep the conflict alive in Lebanon, as well as rhetoric calling for the liberation of Jerusalem, Hizballah has taken no real moves towards fighting Israel. Hizballah has not serious attempted to wrest territory from Israel or inflict serious losses on Israel within its own territory (811).
• Conflict between Israel and Hizballah flared up again during the Summer of 2006, when Hizballah kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israel responded with a massive military retaliation, killing over 1,000 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and displacing over 1 million people. The war recatalyzed Lebanese support for Hizballah and between 80% and 90% of Lebanese supported Hizballah's actions during the war, including Sunnis and Christians. Hizballah emerged from the 2006 war with massively increased public support in Lebanon and the admiration of Islamists elsewhere in the Middle East, particularly among Palestinians (808-809).
• Hizballah has a very strong relationship with Iran, ascribing to the idea of wilayat-e faqih created by Ayatollah Khomeini, receiving millions of dollars in funding from Iran, and recognizing the Iranian Supreme Leader as the head of the organization, with all matters that cannot be decided by the party's governing council being referred to the Supreme Leader. Iran has provided military trainers from the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps in the 1980s, which was invaluable to making Hizballah an effective fighting force against Israel; this training has continued and as recently as 2007 around 500 Hizballah recruits were sent to Iran for military training (809-810).
• Iran does not directly control Hizballah, although it does exercise a large amount of control over the organization and has been critical in Hizballah's success. Much of Iran's control over the organization is informal and based on the benefits of Iranian patronage and common ideological outlooks among Hizballah leadership and the Iranian government (810).
• Both Hizballah and its predecessors AMAL and Harakat al-Mahrumin recognized Alawites as true Shias and backed the al-Assad government in Syria. Syria's support for Iran during the 1980 Iran-Iraq War cemented ties between Syria, Iran, and Hizballah. Syria's main role in Hizballah has been as important partner in smuggling Iranian weapons and funds to the group and as a mediator between Hizballah and other Shia militias, especially AMAL. Syria and Hizballah do not actually like each other very much, but the al-Assad government views Hizballah's as essential for maintaining legitimacy among Shias and having some control over Lebanese politics, while Hizballah needs Syria to access Iranian smuggling networks (810-811).
• Hizballah has been a consistent supporter of Hamas. This alliance began in the 1990s, when Hizballah trained exiled Hamas members as suicide bombers and arranged their return to Israel. Major Hamas initiatives, like the Al-Aqsa Intifada in 2000, were enabled by Hizballah support, and most Hamas attacks depend on Hizballah assistance in acquiring weapons. This relationship exists because, despite the Shia-Sunni divide, both groups are opposed to Israeli and American influence in the Middle East (811-812).
• Popular support for Hizballah is based on the perceived threat of Israel and a legacy of resistance to Israeli intervention. Any attempt to force or bully Hizballah into disarming with almost certainly fail, as support is based on confrontation. The organization might moderate, or it might lose popular support, if Lebanese felt less threatened by Israel and the West, thus weakening the justifications for Hizballah's armed struggle (812).