Current Analysis Hizballah's Domestic Growing Pains The term dahiya (suburb) is a staple of Lebanese political discourse, practically shorthand for Hizballah, the Shi‘i Islamist party seated in its infamous headquarters just south of Beirut. Before the civil war, the suburb, or more precisely suburbs, consisted of several small towns surrounded by or Marlin Dick • 17 min read
MER Article Drawing the Wrong Lessons from Israel's 2006 War For many military critics of COIN, the future of war is not to be found in the steamy jungles of Vietnam but rather on the rocky hillsides of southern Lebanon, where Israel was fought to a standstill by the guerrilla army of Hizballah in the summer of 2006. Israel possesses one of the world’s most p Steve Niva • 11 min read
Current Analysis Democracy, Lebanese-Style Just as reports from Lebanon were indicating that a cabinet would be finalized within days, the notoriously fickle Druze leader Walid Jumblatt announced, on August 2, that his Progressive Socialist Party would withdraw from the governing coalition. Jumblatt criticized his coalition partners in the M Melani Cammett • 15 min read
Current Analysis Lebanon’s Brush with Civil War When Israel commenced its bombardment of Lebanon on July 12, 2006, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his general staff declared that the air raids were provoked by Hizballah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that day. As the destruction piled up over the ensuing 33 days, then, Lebanese did not ask t Jim Quilty • 23 min read
MER Article Sanctioned Pleasures Beirut is known internationally for a youthful jet set that likes to be identified with the world clubbing circuit, including such stops as B018, an underground nocturnal haunt reminiscent of a coffin built by Lebanese architect Bernard Khoury upon the remains of a war crime. Lara Deeb, Mona Harb • 23 min read
Current Analysis Rallying Around the Renegade Back in the fall of 2006, student elections at the American University of Beirut produced an unexpected aesthetic: female campaigners for the predominantly Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of the ex-general Michel Aoun sporting button-sized portraits of bearded Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah on their stylish attire. “Hizballah stands for the Heiko Wimmen • 24 min read
Current Analysis The Rome Fiasco Two weeks into the Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, the United States stands with only two other countries—Israel and Britain—in opposing an immediate ceasefire. Even Iraqi Prime Minister Jawad al-Maliki, in Washington for reassurances that the Bush administration will “stay the course” in its Mesopo Chris Toensing • 3 min read
MER Article The Second Time as Farce Following Israel’s intense bombardment in the summer of 2006, Lebanon had to undertake a new reconstruction effort before it had made a dent in paying for rebuilding damage done by the 1975-1990 civil war. The government swore to pursue reconstruction policies that would strengthen the state—an open Lysandra Ohrstrom, Jim Quilty • 29 min read
MER Article The Lebanese Impasse On November 11, 2006, the six Shi‘i ministers in the Lebanese government, affiliates of Hizballah and the Amal movement, left the cabinet in protest of their colleagues’ rejection of their demand for a government of “national unity.” Such a government would give the Shi‘i parties and their Christian Fawwaz Traboulsi, Elias Khoury • 8 min read
MER Article Deconstructing Hizballah and Its Suburb During the Israeli war against Hizballah in the summer of 2006, the innocuous Arabic word dahiya, meaning simply “suburb,” achieved an unprecedented notoriety. For several days, Israeli warplanes pounded one particular dahiya, the southern suburb of Beirut, whose neighborhood of Harat Hurayk contain Mona Harb • 14 min read
MER Article Documents: Statement by Workers in the Public Cultural Sphere in Lebanon The month-long war in Lebanon elicited diverse reactions from the Lebanese left. We reproduce here two examples. The first statement, distributed on July 25, 2006, was signed by Ibrahim al-Amin and Joseph Samaha of the new al-Akhbar newspaper, leftist intellectuals Fawwaz Trabulsi and Samah Idriss, al-Safir editor Talal Salman, filmmakers (Author not identified) • 7 min read
Current Analysis Humanitarian Crisis in Lebanon is Huge After passage of United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701 and the ensuing "cessation of hostilities," hundreds of thousands of displaced Lebanese are venturing across bombed roads and bridges returning to their destroyed homes and villages in the south. Although Israel’s aerial bombardment h Samia Mehrez • 2 min read
