No. 135 y July 2007 Introduction What Went Wrong? International policies and in particular EU and The Impact of Western Policies US policies towards Hamas and Hizbollah have had multiple and interlocking effects in the last towards Hamas and Hizbollah two years. Most visibly, western policies have impacted upon the two movements themselves, on the domestic governance systems in Palestine Nathalie Tocci and Lebanon, and on the relations between populated by Shiites. In articulating its resistance Hamas and Hizbollah and their respective domestic identity, Hizbollah opted for an ideological, political rivals. In turn, they have also had an impact on internationalist and revolutionary outlook, taking as its the conflicts between Israel and Palestine/Lebanon, and inspiration the Iranian revolution, which over the years on the mediating roles of the international community. was consolidated through Iranian finance and training. The balance sheet is far from positive. Paradoxically, Hizbollah’s resistance identity persisted after the 1989 western policies have often hampered the quest for Taef accords, when it retained separate militias in the international peace, democracy and good governance, south, which ultimately contributed to Israel’s withdraw as well as inter- and intra-state reconciliation. This from Lebanon in 2000. Policy Brief offers a comparative analysis of the impact of western policies on three principal domestic and Yet beyond resistance, Hizbollah gradually also international dimensions of the Middle Eastern developed into a Lebanese political force. While its conundrum: 1985 ‘open letter’ placed primary emphasis on Hizbollah’s international rather than Lebanese character the transformation and popularity of Hamas and and rejected participation in Lebanon’s institutions, Hizbollah, Hizbollah’s identity progressively changed with and Lebanese and Palestinian governance and after its participation in the 1992 elections. This entailed intra-Lebanese and Palestinian reconciliation. a growing focus on Lebanese rather than international problems. Hence, Hizbollah refocused its attention The impact of western policies on the exclusively on Israel’s continuing occupation of the transformation and popularity of Hamas Sheba farms post-2000 rather than of Palestinian and Hizbollah territories. It also entailed a growing acceptance of the specificities of the Lebanese political system and in Western policies have not succeeded in their intention particular its confessional nature, which it had hitherto to weaken Hamas and Hizbollah, and have on the opposed. In turn, Hizbollah renounced any aspiration to contrary entrenched their popular legitimacy. Both enforce Islamic law in Lebanon and accepted that Hamas and Hizbollah are mass political movements Lebanon could only be governed through a delicate with large-scale and growing popular bases, a fact that inter-confessional balance. western policies seem to have willingly ignored. This transformation in the nature and strategy of Hizbollah first emerged as a highly ideological/religious 1 Hizbollah was determined above all by changing Middle and internationalist resistance movement. The party Eastern politics and power balances. Just as the Iranian was established in the context of the Israeli invasion of revolution and its success in overthrowing the Shah had Lebanon in 1982, which hit Lebanon’s south – densely inspired Hizbollah’s early internationalist and revolutionary outlook, the death of Khomeini coupled 1 Talal Atrissi (2007), Hizbollah and Political Islam in with the post-cold war and post-Gulf war Lebanon, CEPS Working Document, forthcoming, CEPS, reconfiguration of the Middle East induced Hizbollah to Brussels. redirect its attention to Lebanon. At the same time, Nathalie Tocci is is a Senior Research Fellow at the Istituto Affari Internazionali, Rome and a Research Fellow at CEPS. CEPS Policy Briefs present concise, policy-oriented analyses of topical issues in European affairs, with the aim of interjecting the views of CEPS researchers into the policy-making process in a timely fashion. Unless otherwise indicated, the views expressed are attributable only to the author in a personal capacity and not to any institution with which she is associated. Available for free downloading from the CEPS website (http://www.ceps.eu) y © Tocci, 2007 Israel’s occupation of Lebanon until 2000, its ongoing policies played no role in inducing Hamas’ occupation of the Sheba farms and its war in Lebanon transformation into a mass domestic political force. in the summer of 2006 continued to feed Hizbollah’s Western policies did not even influence noticeably the resistance identity, even while it was abandoning its progressive shift in Hamas’ political strategy, and in revolutionary character. Finally, the 2003 war in Iraq, particular its growing implicit acceptance of a two-state the 2005 assassination of Refik Hariri and the ensuing solution, which was consolidated with the February Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon have all strengthened 2007 Mecca agreement. According to all interlocutors in the rationale for Hizbollah’s tightening ties with Iran the region, the principal reasons for these shifts lie in and Syria – political, financial and, in the case of Iran, Hamas’ decision to enter the PA and the PLO, and ideological. Western policies do not appear to have had Hamas’ awareness of the necessity to compromise with a discernible direct role in these developments, beyond Fateh in order to do so. naturally influencing the wider Middle Eastern If western policies have had any impact on either Hamas spectrum. or Hizbollah and their respective roles in Palestinian and In contrast to Hizbollah, Hamas has transformed itself Lebanese societies, they have been, in this author’s into, rather then being born as a resistance movement. view, counterproductive. The US, in particular, and to a Hamas emerged in the 1980s as a social movement lesser extent, the EU have opted for a strategy of hard conducting charity-based social work, and only later negative conditionality towards both movements, i.e. the developed into a militant group in the 1990s. Like threat of inflicting punishment (such as sanctions) or Hizbollah, by the turn of the century, Hamas also withdrawing benefits (such as aid or diplomatic shifted into the domestic political arena, entailing its contacts) unless certain conditions are met. Hizbollah is growing co-option into Palestinian political dynamics. included in the US terrorist list, while Hamas is Moving away from its rejection of both the PLO2 and considered a terrorist organisation by both the EU and the PA, Hamas has participated in municipal elections the US. In addition, since Hamas entered the PLC and since 2004, in the 2006 parliamentary elections and in the PA, both the US and the EU in the context of the the ensuing PA governments. It has also officially Quartet have insisted on three ‘principles’ (see below), requested to be included in the PLO since the March which evolved into becoming de facto conditions for 2005 Cairo Declaration. Hamas’ co-option into the their having contacts with the Hamas government, and Palestinian political system has led to an incremental the delivery of aid to it.4 change in its political strategy. Its participation in the In view of the inclusion of Hamas on the EU and US PLC (Palestinian Legislative Council) and the PA since terrorist lists, some form of conditionality was 2006 meant that its outright rejection of the Oslo necessary. Most evidently, for normal diplomatic accords (by which the PA was legally founded) was no contacts to take place, Hamas would have to be longer tenable. Likewise, its claims to enter the PLO, removed from the terrorist lists and to do so it would whose 1988 Charter endorsed a two-state solution, have to demonstrate its disavowal of terrorism. Yet the meant that its categorical non-recognition of the State of US and the EU, and in turn the rest of the Quartet, went Israel became more nuanced. This gradual co-option much further, a mere five days after the Palestinian into the Palestinian political system is by no means elections. On 30 January 2006, the Quartet announced irreversible. Far more than Fateh, which particularly that only if Hamas i) renounced violence, ii) accepted during Arafat’s era was highly centralised, Hamas, like previous agreements and iii) recognised Israel (or Hizbollah, has a diversified leadership. There are according to some, Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish several currents within Hamas pushing the movement in state), would the Quartet deal with the PA government. different directions. These can be roughly sub-divided between currents closer to the Muslim Brotherhood, With the exception of the conditionality on violence, currents that are more pragmatic and technocratic in these political conditions are legally dubious, a fact nature, and currents that are more prone to whose seriousness is magnified by the participation of confrontation and violence. In other words, Hamas’ the UN, in the Quartet. The conditionality on Israel’s transformation is the product of the movement’s recognition has no legal grounding in so far as only changing internal balances. states (and at most the PLO as the internationally recognised representative of the Palestinian people, of The reasons for Hamas’ transformation lie first and which Hamas is not yet part), and not political parties, foremost in domestic Palestinian politics. Hamas’ entry can recognise other states. Furthermore, as Palestinians into the domestic political arena is the product of promptly note, the peace process between Israel and domestic political calculations, i.e. its growing other Arab states has never been made conditional upon popularity due to the failure of the Oslo process and the Arab world’s recognition of Israel or its right to Fateh’s failures in governance and the peace process exist. Yet this demand was placed on the PA, leaving with Israel.3 As in the case of Hizbollah, western 2 See for example Hamas’ condemnation of the PLO’s 4 On the evolution of this policy, see Alvaro de Soto secular nature in Article 27 of its Charter.