DAR AL HARB/ISLAM: IS IT USEFUL TO CLASSIFY HIZ B'ALLAH AS A TERRORIST ORGANIZATION?!?

Is it useful to classify Hezbollah as terrorist?

Text of commentary by Jean-Baptiste Gallopin, masters student in Arab studies at Georgetown University, Washington DC, formerly of the Institute of Political Studies in Lyons and author of a dissertation on relations between France and Hezbollah

Nicolas Sarkozy has revived the debate on the nature of Hezbollah. Is it a terrorist group? A resistance movement? A political party? During his visit Monday [ 9 July] to families of Israeli soldiers captured in Lebanon the president said he wanted "Hezbollah to abandon terrorist action." The use of that word is no accident and threatens France's position in Lebanon. The issue made front-page headlines in Lebanese newspapers of all tendencies Tuesday [ 10 July].

The Lebanese press regards the president's use of this word as an indication of a change of course in France's position on the Lebanese crisis. Shortly after his election Nicolas Sarkozy said that the orientation of his Lebanese policy would be characterized by continuity with that pursued by Jacques Chirac. However it was Jacques Chirac, in 2000, who publicly accused [former Prime Minister] Lionel Jospin of imprudence when he described Hezbollah as "terrorist."

Though the pressure exercised since 2004 by former President Chirac in support of Hezbollah's disarmament expressed a rapprochement between Paris and Washington, French diplomacy was at the same time characterized by its systematic refusal to include Hezbollah on Europe's list of terrorist movements. French diplomats spoke, rather, in terms of the Hezbollah "militia," indeed recognized as a legitimate political "party."

The use of the word "terrorist" does indeed raise serious problems. Though members of the party were implicated in several attacks on Western interests during the 1980s, the movement has been careful, since the mid-1990s, to attack only military targets. The exception to this strategy was the war of July 2006, during which Hezbollah bombarded civilian areas in northern Israel, in response to the Jewish state's bombardment of Shi'i Lebanese areas.

To describe Hezbollah now as a "terrorist" movement is a political choice, and an analytically ineffective one that jeopardizes the mediating role that France wants to perform in the Middle East crisis. It is the United States that has, since 2001, been behind a campaign to have the movement recognized as a terrorist group. The US Government has brought pressure to bear on EU members to include Hezbollah on its list of terrorist movements. In April 2003 Undersecretary Richard Armitage said that "Hezbollah is perhaps the A team of terrorism, Al-Qa'idah being perhaps only the B team." The fact that the State Department acknowledges that Hezbollah has not targeted US interests since the mid-1990s nevertheless shows that this classification has less to do with the antiterrorist struggle than with a policy of supporting Israel. What is at stake with the word "terrorist" is France's alignment with the US policy of unconditional support for Israel.

Beyond its strictly political aspect, the term "terrorist" applied to Hezbollah is analytically ineffective. The word "terrorist" suggests marginal actors, lacking legitimacy, and casts a smokescreen over actual political conditions in Lebanon. Its use by the president sets France on the slippery slope of a Manicheanism inconsistent with the inherent complexity of the practice of international relations.

The maintenance of a French policy autonomous from the United States is what enables France now to engage in dialogue with all the Lebanese political forces and thus in particular to organize the Lebanese meeting at La Celle Saint Cloud. To treat Hezbollah now as a "terrorist" movement jeopardizes this autonomy, threatens France's credibility in the Arab world, and could deprive France of any influence in Lebanon.

This, because, ultimately, if Hezbollah is a terrorist movement, what justification is there for authorizing its representatives to come to France for today's meeting? In fact to class the party as "terrorist" achieves nothing and merely reduces the leeway for French diplomacy.





Pertinent Links:

1) Is it useful to classify Hezbollah as terrorist?