Sunset near Beirut, Lebanon
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
My friend Bill Hamblin and I published this article in the Deseret News<\/em> back on 9 August 2013:<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Middle East has faced an abundance of conflicts, rival groups and, for many Americans, difficult names. It\u2019s often hard to tell the players without a scorecard. Here, as a possible aid to understanding the background behind the headlines, is a brief primer on two of those organizations, Hezbollah and Hamas. The first of these \u2014 the \u201cHizb Allah\u201d or \u201cParty of God,\u201d whose name is properly pronounced with emphasis on the last syllable \u2014 is a radical Shi\u2018ite Muslim group that was formed in reaction to the Israeli invasion and occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982. Not surprisingly, it\u2019s strongly anti-Western and anti-Israeli.<\/span><\/p>\nAlthough it\u2019s quite capable of acting on its own initiative, Hezbollah, being Shi\u2018ite in an overwhelmingly Sunni neighborhood, is closely allied with, and has often apparently been directed by, the Shi\u2018ite government of the Islamic Republic of Iran. As a proxy in Iran\u2019s campaign against Israel and the West, it has received substantial financial assistance, training, weapons and explosives and political, diplomatic and organizational aid from Tehran and, at least before Syria\u2019s current troubles, from Tehran\u2019s allies in Damascus.<\/span><\/p>\nHezbollah is known to have been involved in numerous anti-U.S. terrorist attacks and was notorious in the West for its seizure of Americans and other hostages during the decade of 1982-1992. It\u2019s viewed by most local Lebanese Shi\u2019ites, however, as the only effective organization to have offered resistance to rival Lebanese groups during the Lebanese civil war, and against U.S., Syrian and Israeli attacks and oppression.<\/span><\/p>\nHezbollah has its base in the Bekaa Valley slightly less than 20 miles to the east of Beirut, in the southern suburbs of the city itself, and in southern Lebanon, but it has established cells in Europe, Africa, South America, North America and Asia. In recent years, it has become a significant military and political force within Lebanon, including representation in Parliament. Its status was considerably enhanced by its stout resistance to Israel during the 2006 Lebanon War.<\/span><\/p>\nHamas \u2014 or, perhaps more properly, HAMAS, since its name, which plays off the Arabic word \u201chamasa\u201d (\u201cvalor,\u201d \u201ccourage\u201d), is an acronym from the Arabic of its official title, \u201cIslamic Resistance Movement\u201d \u2014 is a Sunni organization that emerged from the Muslim Brotherhood during the first Palestinian \u201cintifada\u201d or \u201cuprising\u201d against Israel in 1987. (Emphasis, again, should be placed on the last syllable of the name.) It has become the primary anti-Israeli religious opposition in the occupied territories, with centers of strength in the West Bank and with dominant popularly elected political power in the Gaza Strip.<\/span><\/p>\nHamas is rather loosely organized, but is mainly known to Americans for the volleys of rockets that it sends into southern Israel and for its use of suicide bombers, which it pioneered along with the non-Muslim \u201cTamil Tigers\u201d or \u201cLiberation Tigers\u201d of Sri Lanka. While it condemns American policies favoring Israel, it has not targeted the U.S. directly. Instead, it focuses on attacking Israel itself, whose right to exist it has adamantly refused to recognize.<\/span><\/p>\nHamas is willing to agree to occasional truces, but won\u2019t sign a peace treaty with the Jewish state. In this respect, it maintains a more overtly radical position than does Fatah, the largest faction of the more secular Palestine Liberation Organization or PLO, which dominates the West Bank area and is much more open to negotiations with Israel.<\/span><\/p>\nHezbollah and Hamas (along with the Muslim Brotherhood itself in Egypt) have garnered a great deal of popular support through their willingness and ability to provide social services to the poor \u2014 hospitals, welfare, educational facilities, free clinics and clean water, for example \u2014 in places where governments have long been corrupt and ineffective while, at the same time, autocratic and oppressive. In effect, they\u2019ve filled vacuums of social and economic services that badly needed filling.<\/span><\/p>\nTyrants throughout the Middle East \u2014 most recently Bashar al-Asad of Syria \u2014 have ruthlessly suppressed political opposition but have been generally unwilling to suppress Islam. This has left resistance to Middle Eastern dictators largely in the hands of Muslim religious movements. The rise of Islamic fundamentalism over the past three decades rests on many factors, but the fecklessness of secular institutions and ideologies across the Muslim world, including the lack of freedom and of vibrant, open markets and opportunities for socio-economic advancement, ranks prominently among those factors. In a sense, today\u2019s Islamic extremism represents the unpaid socio-political bills of modern Muslim states, which have gravely failed their citizens.<\/span><\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
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![\"Beirut,](\"https:\/\/wp-media.patheos.com\/blogs\/sites\/186\/2018\/06\/800px-Beirut_sunset51.jpg\")
<\/a>