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Lebanon: Managing the Gathering Storm
LEBANON: MANAGING THE GATHERING STORM Middle East Report N°48 – 5 December 2005 TABLE OF CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS................................................. i I. A SYSTEM BETWEEN OLD AND NEW.................................................................. 1 A. SETTING THE STAGE: THE ELECTORAL CONTEST..................................................................1 B. THE MEHLIS EFFECT.............................................................................................................5 II. SECTARIANISM AND INTERNATIONALISATION ............................................. 8 A. FROM SYRIAN TUTELAGE TO WESTERN UMBRELLA?............................................................8 B. SHIFTING ALLIANCES..........................................................................................................12 III. THE HIZBOLLAH QUESTION ................................................................................ 16 A. “A NEW PHASE OF CONFRONTATION” ................................................................................17 B. HIZBOLLAH AS THE SHIITE GUARDIAN?..............................................................................19 C. THE PARTY OF GOD TURNS PARTY OF GOVERNMENT.........................................................20 IV. CONCLUSION ............................................................................................................. 22 A. A BROAD INTERNATIONAL COALITION FOR A NARROW AGENDA .......................................22 B. A LEBANESE COURT ON FOREIGN -
Spotlight on Iran (November 18 – December 2, 2018)
רמה כ ז מל ו תשר מה ו ד י ע י ן ( למ מ" ) כרמ ז מה י עד מל ו ד י ע י ן ול רט ו ר Spotlight on Iran November 18 – December 2, 2018 Author: Dr. Raz Zimmt Overview The 32nd annual Islamic Unity Conference was held in Tehran and attended by Iranian senior officials and representatives from about 100 countries, including the Deputy Secretary General of Hezbollah, Naim Qassem. The Head of Hamas’ Political Bureau, Ismail Hanniyeh, gave a speech via video? conference and thanked Iran for its support to the Palestinians. At the end of the conference, an advisor to the Iranian minister of foreign affairs said that the conference decided to adopt the families of those killed in protests along the fence in Gaza. Meanwhile, the organizers of the fence protests confirmed that Iran is financing the medical care for those injured in the protests and compensations for the families of those killed in them. The United States’ Treasury Department announced the imposition of sanctions against a number of individuals and entities that operated as part of an Iranian-Russian network that provided millions of barrels of oil to the Syrian regime, which were used, in part, to finance the activities of Hezbollah and Hamas. According to Syrian sources cited in the newspaper al-Sharq al-Awsat, Iran recently stepped up its efforts to recruit Syrian citizens into pro-Iranian militias operating in northeastern Syria. Iran continues to exert effort to cement its economic foothold in Iraq, against the backdrop of the re-imposition of economic sanctions on Iran and the formation of the new government in Baghdad. -
Song, State, Sawa Music and Political Radio Between the US and Syria
Song, State, Sawa Music and Political Radio between the US and Syria Beau Bothwell Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2013 © 2013 Beau Bothwell All rights reserved ABSTRACT Song, State, Sawa: Music and Political Radio between the US and Syria Beau Bothwell This dissertation is a study of popular music and state-controlled radio broadcasting in the Arabic-speaking world, focusing on Syria and the Syrian radioscape, and a set of American stations named Radio Sawa. I examine American and Syrian politically directed broadcasts as multi-faceted objects around which broadcasters and listeners often differ not only in goals, operating assumptions, and political beliefs, but also in how they fundamentally conceptualize the practice of listening to the radio. Beginning with the history of international broadcasting in the Middle East, I analyze the institutional theories under which music is employed as a tool of American and Syrian policy, the imagined youths to whom the musical messages are addressed, and the actual sonic content tasked with political persuasion. At the reception side of the broadcaster-listener interaction, this dissertation addresses the auditory practices, histories of radio, and theories of music through which listeners in the sonic environment of Damascus, Syria create locally relevant meaning out of music and radio. Drawing on theories of listening and communication developed in historical musicology and ethnomusicology, science and technology studies, and recent transnational ethnographic and media studies, as well as on theories of listening developed in the Arabic public discourse about popular music, my dissertation outlines the intersection of the hypothetical listeners defined by the US and Syrian governments in their efforts to use music for political ends, and the actual people who turn on the radio to hear the music. -
Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds an End to Antisemitism!
Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds An End to Antisemitism! Edited by Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, and Lawrence H. Schiffman Volume 5 Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds Edited by Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, and Lawrence H. Schiffman ISBN 978-3-11-058243-7 e-ISBN (PDF) 978-3-11-067196-4 e-ISBN (EPUB) 978-3-11-067203-9 DOI https://10.1515/9783110671964 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. For details go to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Library of Congress Control Number: 2021931477 Bibliographic information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data are available on the Internet at http://dnb.dnb.de. © 2021 Armin Lange, Kerstin Mayerhofer, Dina Porat, Lawrence H. Schiffman, published by Walter de Gruyter GmbH, Berlin/Boston The book is published with open access at www.degruyter.com Cover image: Illustration by Tayler Culligan (https://dribbble.com/taylerculligan). With friendly permission of Chicago Booth Review. Printing and binding: CPI books GmbH, Leck www.degruyter.com TableofContents Preface and Acknowledgements IX LisaJacobs, Armin Lange, and Kerstin Mayerhofer Confronting Antisemitism in Modern Media, the Legal and Political Worlds: Introduction 1 Confronting Antisemitism through Critical Reflection/Approaches -
Avoiding Another War Between Israel and Hezbollah
COUNTING THE COST Avoiding Another War between Israel and Hezbollah By Nicholas Blanford and Assaf Orion “He who wishes to fight must first count the cost.” Sun Tzu, The Art of War ABOUT THE SCOWCROFT MIDDLE EAST SECURITY INITIATIVE The Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative honors the legacy of Brent Scowcroft and his tireless efforts to build a new security architecture for the region. Our work in this area addresses the full range of security threats and challenges including the danger of interstate warfare, the role of terrorist groups and other nonstate actors, and the underlying security threats facing countries in the region. Through all of the Council’s Middle East programming, we work with allies and partners in Europe and the wider Middle East to protect US interests, build peace and security, and unlock the human potential of the region. You can read more about our programs at www.atlanticcouncil.org/ programs/middle-east-programs/. May 2020 ISBN-13: 978-1-61977-099-7 This report is written and published in accordance with the Atlantic Council Policy on Intellectual Independence. The authors are solely responsible for its analysis and recommendations. The Atlantic Council and its donors do not determine, nor do they necessarily endorse or advocate for, any of this report’s conclusions. This report is made possible by general support to the Atlantic Council’s Middle East Programs. COUNTING THE COST Avoiding Another War between Israel and Hezbollah CONTENTS EXECUTIVE SUMMARY .................................................................................................2 -
Stable Instability: the Syrian Conflict and the Postponement of the 2013 Lebanese Parliamentary Elections
This is a repository copy of Stable instability: the Syrian conflict and the postponement of the 2013 Lebanese parliamentary elections. White Rose Research Online URL for this paper: http://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/88404/ Version: Accepted Version Article: Assi, AF and Worrall, JE orcid.org/0000-0001-5229-5152 (2015) Stable instability: the Syrian conflict and the postponement of the 2013 Lebanese parliamentary elections. Third World Quarterly, 36 (10). pp. 1944-1967. ISSN 0143-6597 https://doi.org/10.1080/01436597.2015.1071661 Reuse Items deposited in White Rose Research Online are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved unless indicated otherwise. They may be downloaded and/or printed for private study, or other acts as permitted by national copyright laws. The publisher or other rights holders may allow further reproduction and re-use of the full text version. This is indicated by the licence information on the White Rose Research Online record for the item. Takedown If you consider content in White Rose Research Online to be in breach of UK law, please notify us by emailing [email protected] including the URL of the record and the reason for the withdrawal request. [email protected] https://eprints.whiterose.ac.uk/ Stable Instability: The Syrian Conflict and the Postponement of the 2013 Lebanese Parliamentary Elections Dr Abbas Assi Center for Arab and Middle Eastern Studies, American University of Beirut Dr James Worrall School of Politics & International Studies, University of Leeds 1 Stable Instability: The Syrian -
Hezbollah's Growing Threat Against U.S. National Security Interests in the Middle East
1 Hezbollah's Growing Threat against U.S. National Security Interests in the Middle East Dr. Matthew Levitt Fromer-Wexler Fellow and Director, Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy; Author of Hezbollah: The Global Footprint of Lebanon’s Party of God (Georgetown University Press). Testimony submitted to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa March 22, 2016 Chairman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Member Deutch, and Members of the Committee, thank you for this opportunity to appear before you today to discuss the relationship between Hezbollah and Iran, which is only growing strong in the wake of the nuclear deal with Iran. Barely ten days after the JCPOA was signed in Vienna, Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah stated that, “Iran's relationship with its allies is based on ideological grounds and come before the political interests.” 1 In April 2015, Nasrallah noted that even under sanctions Iran funded its allies, and anticipated that a now "rich and powerful Iran, which will be open to the world" would be able to do even more: "I say that in the next phase Iran will be able to stand by its allies, friends, the people in the region, and especially the resistance in Palestine and the Palestinian people more than any time in the past, and this is what the others are afraid of."2 Hezbollah officials are comfortable and confident that Iran will not abandon the group. As one Hezbollah official told al Monitor: “‘Hezbollah is more than just an ally for Iran.’ The relationship is similar to ‘that between father and son’… Hezbollah’s importance as an ally for Iran in the region has also become quite clear … The group has played a pivotal role in preserving the leadership of President Bashar al-Assad in Syria, Iran’s No. -
Defending Damascus, Betraying Beirut: Hezbollah's Communication
Defending Damascus, Betraying Beirut: Hezbollah’s Communication Strategies in the Syrian Civil War Research Thesis Presented in partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation with research distinction in International Studies in the undergraduate colleges of The Ohio State University by Maxwell Scurlock The Ohio State University April 2017 Project Advisor: Professor Jeffrey Lewis, International Studies Table of Contents Part 1 – Background Information and Historical Context Introduction – 1 1. Historical and Contextual Background – 6 a. Shi‘ism in Historical Context – 9 b. French Mandatory Period, 1920-1945 – 10 c. Independence to Black September, 1945-1970 – 14 d. The Early Years of the Lebanese Civil War and the Emergence of Hezbollah, 1970-1982 – 17 e. Hezbollah’s Formation – 21 f. Hezbollah’s Early Ideological Framework – 23 g. Syrian and Israeli Occupations of Lebanon, 1982-2005 – 24 h. Political Turmoil, 2006 Lebanon War, and 2008 Lebanese Political Crisis – 29 i. Hezbollah’s 2009 Manifesto – 31 j. The Syrian Civil War – 32 k. Sunni Islamists in Lebanon and Syria – 34 l. Lebanese Christians – 37 Part 2 – Analysis of Hezbollah’s Communications 2. Theoretical Approach to Hezbollah’s Communications – 40 3. Hezbollah in Syria – 44 a. Hezbollah’s Participation in Syria – April 30th, 2013 – 44 b. The Campaign for al-Qusayr, Part One – May 9th, 2013 – 48 c. The Campaign for al-Qusayr, Part Two – May 25th, 2013 – 50 4. Hezbollah’s Responses to Terrorism – 54 a. An Attack in al-Dahieh – August 16th, 2013 – 54 b. The Bombing of Iran’s Embassy – November 19th, 2013 – 56 5. Further Crises – 62 a. The Assassination of Hezbollah Commander Hassan al-Laqqis – December 3rd, 2013 – 62 b. -
Confessions at a Funeral
Confessions at a Funeral Barry Rubin A funny thing happened at the funeral of Imad Mughniyah. Those who had for years been denying any connection with him and his international terrorist activities – Iran, Syria, and Hizballah – suddenly admitted that he was one of their favourite people. At the same time, other critical points came out. Mughniyah’s critical position as the link between those three allies, in their conduct of terrorism and subversion, stood out clearly. In addition, Mughniyah’s career as an international terrorist, who often operated against Western targets, showed how Hizballah – along with its backers in Tehran and Damascus – were second only to al-Qaeda in their global operations of violence. Let’s first look at the record of the man who Iran, Syria, and Hizballah were so eager to praise and ready to revenge. Mughniyah, a Lebanese citizen, first worked with the PLO and then with Hizballah, leading the latter group’s main terrorist operations. During the 1980s alone, Mughniyah was involved in killing 340 American and French soldiers in a peacekeeping force, 63 civilians in bombing the U.S. embassy in Beirut; kidnappings and sometimes executions of Westerners living in Lebanon; attacks on the U.S. embassy in Kuwait; hijacking an American airliner in which a U.S. citizen was murdered; killing two U.S. officials in Lebanon; and hijacking two Kuwait Airways’ planes. In 1994, he organized the bombing of a Jewish Community Center in Argentina, killing 86 civilians. The official Argentinean investigation concluded Iranian intelligence had hired Mughniyah and his unit for this job. -
Hezbollah's Nasrallah: the "Great Man" of the Levant Nathan William Swanson Iowa State University
Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Retrospective Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2008 Hezbollah's Nasrallah: the "great man" of the Levant Nathan William Swanson Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd Part of the International Law Commons, and the International Relations Commons Recommended Citation Swanson, Nathan William, "Hezbollah's Nasrallah: the "great man" of the Levant" (2008). Retrospective Theses and Dissertations. 15387. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/rtd/15387 This Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Retrospective Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Hezbollah’s Nasrallah: the “great man” of the Levant by Nathan William Swanson A thesis submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS Major: Political Science Program of Study Committee: David Cunningham, Major Professor Robert Urbatsch Hsain Ilahiane Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2008 Copyright © Nathan William Swanson, 2008. All rights reserved. 1454686 1454686 2008 ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT............................................................................................................................. iv I. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... -
Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War and Hezbollah by Megan
Momentary Memorials: Political Posters of the Lebanese Civil War and Hezbollah By Megan Elizabeth Miller Department of Art and Art History, University of Colorado Boulder Defended on 4 November, 2014 Thesis Advisor: Dr. Kira van Lil Defense Committee: Dr. Kira van Lil, Department of Art and Art History Dr. Robert Nauman, Department of Art and Art History Frances Charteris, Program for Writing and Rhetoric Miller 2 Abstract The Lebanese civil war (1975-1990) is a product of its diverse participating factions. With more than a dozen political, religious, and social parties, the streets of Lebanon became flooded with contradicting political imageries, influencing public perception of the ‘other’ and inciting military action. Their unique role in Lebanon’s political atmosphere allows such graphics to transcend mere propaganda to become physical sites of memorialization, despite their ephemerality. Posters exhibiting martyrs, political icons, and spiritual references control viewers’ field of vision and prompt their physical accumulation around the images, much like one would see at a funeral or sculptural memorial. These images give cause for public commemoration. Though several militias are disbanded at the end of the civil war, Hezbollah gains notoriety for its rapid advancement, made possible, in part, by the party’s media strategies. Once dominated by images of martyrs, Hezbollah posters begin to memorialize moments in time – their subject matter as ephemeral as their medium. This thesis is an examination of political poster aesthetics and how such is situated within the larger discourses of art history and graphic design, ultimately arguing for Lebanon’s prominent role as an artistic hub in the Middle East. -
Ethnicity and Values Among the Lebanese Public: Findings from Avalues Survey
ETHNICITY AND VALUES AMONG THE LEBANESE PUBLIC: FINDINGS FROM AVALUES SURVEY Mansoor Moaddel In the spring of 2008, Mansoor Moaddel, in collaboration with researchers in Lebanon— Hilal Khashan, Political Science Professor of American University in Beirut, Johan Gärde from Ersta Sköndal University College/Sweden, and Jean Kors of the International Center for Organizational Development, Beirut, Lebanon—launched the first world values survey in Lebanon. The objective of this project was to understand the mass-level belief systems of the Lebanese public. The project was designed to provide a comprehensive measure of all major areas of human concerns from religion to politics, economics, culture, family, and inter-ethnic and international relations. This survey used a nationally representative sample of 3,039 adults from all sections of Lebanese society. The sample included 954 (31%) Shi’is, 753 (25%) Sunnis, 198 (7%) Druze, 599 (20%) Maronites, 338 (11%) Orthodox, 149 (5%) Catholics, and 48 (2%) respondents belonging to other religions. It covered all six governorates in proportion to size— 960 (32%) from Beirut, 578 (19%) from Mount Lebanon, 621 (20%) from the North, 339 (11%) from Biqqa, and 539 (18%) from the South and Nabatieth. The interviews took approximately 50 minutes to complete and were conducted face-to-face by Lebanese personnel in the respondents’ residences. The total number of completed interviews represented 86% of attempted observations. Data collection started in April 2008 and was completed at the end of September 2008. Turbulent political and security situation in Lebanon in the spring and summer prolonged the survey period. The respondents had an average age of 33 years, 1,694 (55.7%) were male, and 998 (32.8%) had a college degree.