Abu Ahmed is one of Hizbullah’s point men in the reconstruction of the dahiye , the Shiite-dominated southern suburbs of the Lebanese capital that housed Hizbullah’s offices and TV station that were hit hardest by the Israeli attacks of recent weeks. Outside his office, many neighborhood residents have lined up with deeds and other official papers to request compensation. Abu Ahmed claims that Hizbullah is paying out an average of $12,000 dollars, roughly equivalent to one years’ rent in the neighborhood, to families who lost their homes during the monthlong war. The next phase of activity will focus on shops and businesses that have been damaged.
As the ceasefire with Israel takes a tentative hold, Hizbullah’s political moves are proving as skillful as the military strategy that denied the legendary Israeli Army a decisive victory. Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah moved swiftly to take control of the reconstruction process—or at least create that impression. In a victory speech Monday night, he offered the rent and furniture money to any Lebanese who lost their homes in the war. With disciplined supporters fanning out through Beirut and into the battered south to start the rebuilding, the move was certain to bolster the group’s support among Lebanese who already admire its resistance to Israel and its strong network of social services. “The issue now for Hizbullah is to prove they are as efficient at peace as they were in war,” says Patrick Haenni, an analyst from the International Crisis Group.
Already, Hizbullah has spearheaded the reconstruction efforts in the bombed-out Shiite areas of south Beirut. Huge cranes and jackhammers clear mangled concrete from roadways. Volunteers with red T shirts and hats that read VICTORY FROM GOD sweep away rubble in residential areas. At one intersection, a volunteer poured buckets of shattered glass out of the second story window of a shop called Yukon. Many crushed buildings in the neighborhood have been marked with a banner made from plastic sheeting. The banner notes which regional office the owner should go to for compensation, the opening hours (9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and is signed: HIZBULLAH.
Most analysts believe the money for this effort is coming from Iran, one of Hizbullah’s main backers. Abu Ahmed, who sports gold-rimmed glasses and a silver ring, insists that the cash is coming neither from Tehran nor the Lebanese government but is vague when pressed on where it does originate. “We have an emergency crisis here,” he says. “We can’t wait for the government. If the government sends someone to assess the damage it may take two months. I can’t let my people wait for two months.”
Few Lebanese politicians would argue against the need for a quick reconstruction effort. But some say Hizbullah’s program, accompanied by congratulatory posters and banners, smacks of political opportunism. Nayla Moawad, the minister for social affairs, says Nasrallah’s organization has even taken credit for reconstruction works funded by the government. “Many things the government is funding are being exploited by Hizbullah,” she says. “They took it to their advantage.” Moawad was so frustrated that she complained to two Hizbullah parliamentarians.
Complaints probably won’t help much, though. Moawad and her political allies in the March 14 group—an anti-Syrian political movement formed shortly after the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri—have taken a hard hit as Hizbullah’s popularity has increased in recent weeks. There’s a perception among many Lebanese that the March 14 group was ineffectual in trying to stop the conflict and was abandoned by its sympathizers in Washington. Still, the group does hold the majority in Parliament and will have to play a key role in hashing out sensitive issues like disarming Hizbullah, which holds two ministries and 14 seats in the 128-seat legislature. At the moment, that prospect seems unlikely. “March 14 has no cards,” says the ICG’s Haenni. “How can they pressure Hizbullah? You can’t do more than moral pressure.”
Meanwhile, the Lebanese Army fanned out into Hizbullah strongholds across South Lebanon this week to fulfill a portion of United Nations Resolution 1701, which was approved last week to stop the fighting. Hizbullah members, however, remained as elusive as ever. Many of those doing the physical work of rebuilding were fighters who had appeared out of the rubble of many small towns, stashed their weapons and donned civilian garb. “After this war it’s impossible to disarm Hizbullah,” says one senior Lebanese military official who wasn’t authorized to speak on the record. “Disarming Hizbullah is not popular for the government and not popular for the army. The people of Hizbullah are from these villages and towns. They’re not going to leave.”
Will a strengthened Hizbullah militia set the stage for another Lebanese sectarian war? Perhaps not. One group that could play a key role in convincing Hizbullah to lay down arms: Christian Gen. Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement. Earlier this year, the FPM, which claims to represent the majority of Christians in Lebanon, signed a memorandum of understanding with Hizbullah. This alliance has helped defuse the tension between Shiites and Christians, many of whom blame Hizbullah for dragging them into a war they wanted no part of. “The main factor is General Aoun,” says the same Lebanese military official. “It’s the only way to prevent civil war. If he switched to the other side the situation would change in all Lebanon.”
The political alliance was a savvy move for both Aoun and Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah. And both groups saw the benefits during the current conflict. Thousands of displaced Shiites from South Lebanon were given shelters at schools in Christian areas in and around Beirut overseen by the FPM. Many of the young Christian volunteers, often wearing T shirts with the party’s check-mark logo, were interacting with Shiites from the southern portion of the country for the first time. A handful of these volunteers were working in south Beirut today. Gebran Bassil, head of the FPM’s political office, helped hammer out the agreement with Hizbullah earlier in the year. He says the FPM has helped temper the views of some of the more radical elements in Hizbullah. In return, the agreement “protected the Christians” during the current conflict, Bassil says.
In the southern suburbs of Beirut this afternoon, Ayman Kraydly, a 21-year-old computer science student, walked away from the ruined apartment block where he lived with his family holding two plastic bags. One bag was filled with clothes and the other was filled with family photos and a Qur’an—all he’d managed to salvage. He’d applied for the Hizbullah stipend a couple of days before but hadn’t received any money yet. Still, he said he wasn’t bitter about the loss of his home and many of his belongings. And he didn’t hold out hope for a lasting peace. “It’ll happen again,” he says with a shrug. “It’s a matter of time. We get used to it.”
