Skip to footer

Hezbollah 101: Who is the militant group, and what does it want?

The Shiite militant group and political party is a player not just in Lebanon, where it is based, but across the broader Middle East. It remains a staunch opponent of Israel, which it fought to a standstill in 2006, and a close ally of Iran and Syria – despite both regimes' crackdowns on citizens Hezbollah purports to champion. 

What are the origins of Hezbollah?

Mohamed Zatari/AP/File
Iranian-backed Hezbollah guerrillas, wrapping themselves with explosives, parade in a show of force in the southern Lebanese market town of Nabatiyeh on May 27, 1996 on the holiday of Ashura. In The background is Hezbollah's flag.

  • By Nicholas Blanford Correspondent
  • Arthur Bright Correspondent

Hezbollah was founded by a small group of Lebanese Shiite clerics as a response to Israel's 1982 invasion of southern Lebanon. They were inspired by the teachings of two radical religious scholars: Mohammed Baqr as-Sadr of Iraq and Ruhollah Khomeini, who led the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran.

With the assistance of Iran's Revolutionary Guards, Hezbollah's early leadership mobilized Lebanon's Shiite population to resist the Israeli occupation. Beginning in the Bekaa Valley in eastern Lebanon, hundreds of new recruits were given military training and religious indoctrination. During the 1980s, Hezbollah's influence spread from the Bekaa to Beirut, where it was blamed for the 1983 suicide bombings of the US Embassy and the US Marine barracks, in which more than 300 people perished, as well as the kidnappings of foreigners. Hezbollah denies any role.

Lebanon's civil war ended in 1990, and all the militias were obliged to disarm. Only Hezbollah was permitted to keep its weapons so that it could continue resisting Israel's occupation in south Lebanon.

1 of 5
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.