Identity, Anxiety, and War: Hezbollah and the Gaza Tragedy

المؤلفون

  • المؤلف

  • Adham Saouli

الكلمات المفتاحية:

Hezbollah، Ontological Security، Anxiety، Gaza، War، Identity

الملخص

This study explores Hezbollah’s puzzling engagement in Israel’s ongoing military campaign in Gaza. Why has it limited its war to the Lebanese-Israeli border area? Why did not it engage in a full-scale combat akin to the 2006 war with Israel? Why did the movement, despite all the domestic and regional constraints it faced, enter war on 8 October? Drawing on Ontological Security Theory (OST) and primary data, the article finds that Hezbollah faced a predicament: if it abstained from supporting its Palestinian allies, it would threaten its ontological security (core being, reputation, and role as a resistance movement); conversely if it engaged in extensive warfare, it would endanger its physical security. To address this predicament, Hezbollah engaged in constrained warfare that aimed to restore its ontological security and preserve the cohesion and survival of the regional Axis of Resistance. The study argues that, in this way, Hezbollah was also constructing the future.

المراجع

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  3. Mearsheimer; Walt; Waltz.
  4. Max Weber quoted in: Adham Saouli, Hezbollah: Socialisation and its Tragic Ironies (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2019), p. 32.
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  8. Saouli, Hezbollah , pp. 158-202. Source: Adopted from: Brent J. Steele, Ontological Security in International Relations: Self-Identity and the IR State (New York: Routledge, 2008), p. 52.
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  17. Quoted in: Steele, p. 51.
  18. Steele, p. 51. See also: Rumelili; Krickel-Choi.
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  26. I prefer to use in the case of Hezbollah critical “episode” rather than “situation” as episodes denote an event that is part of a sequence of events, which in this case is the decades-long conflict between Hezbollah and Israel.
  27. Berenskötter, pp. 275.
  28. This section draws heavily on Chapter 2, “Being Hezbollah,” in: Saouli, Hezbollah , pp. 45-85.
  29. Quoted in: Ibid., p. 63, see: pp. 63-67.
  30. Quoted in: Ibid., p. 70.
  31. Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyid quoted in: Ibid., p. 70.
  32. For a more elaborate discussion of this concept of “socialization”, see: Ibid., pp. 26-32.
  33. Ibid., pp. 124-125.
  34. Quoted in: Ibid., pp. 130-131.
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  44. Nasrallah declared these goals in his first speech on 3 November 2023. See: “al-Sayyid Nassrallah: Ṭūfān al-Aqṣā Assasa li-Marḥala Tārīkhiyya Jadīda.. wa-Kul al-Iḥtimālāt fī Jabhatinā Maftūḥa.”
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  49. Quoted in: Emanuel Fabian & Jacob Magid, “Gallant: Israel moving to full offense, Gaza will never go back to what it once was,” The Times of Israel , 10/10/2023, accessed on 22/2/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/2tx4ypyr
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  64. See Nasrallah’s speech on 3 November 2023: “al-Sayyid Nassrallah: Ṭūfān al-Aqṣā Assasa li-Marḥala Tārīkhiyya Jadīda.. wa-Kul al-Iḥtimālāt fī Jabhatinā Maftūḥa.”
  65. “Death Toll in Lebanon,” Lorient Today – Instagram , accessed on 30/3/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/bd2nv5kz
  66. Justin Salhani, “Israel’s toxic legacy: White phosphorus bombs on south Lebanon,” Aljazeera , 25/3/2024, accessed on 30/3/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/4mmw3cxu
  67. See Naim Qassem interview on Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation aired on 5 March 2024: “Naʿīm Qāsim, Ḥalqa Khāṣa.”
  68. “al-Naṣ al-Kāmil li-Kalimat al-Sayyid Naṣrallah bil-Thikrā al-Sanawiyya al-Rābiʿa li-Istishhād al-Qāʾidayn Sulaymānī wa-al-Muhandis,” Almanar , 4/1/2024, accessed on 29/3/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/yznw9y5v. Italics added.
  69. Mitzen, p. 342; Steele, p. 2.
  70. For the letter, see: “Naṣrallah Ṭalab Tasmiyat ʿAnāṣir ‘Ḥizballah’ al-Lathīn Saqaṭū Munthu Tishrīn al-Awwal bi-’al-Shuhadāʾ ʿalā Ṭarīq al- Quds’,” Elnashra , accessed on 29/3/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/5n6ex3b3. Italics added.
  71. Qutoted in: Amal Khalil, “Shuhadāʾ al-Ḥaraka ‘ʿalā Ṭarīq Lubnān’ | Amal fī Qalb al-Muwājaha: ʿAwda ilā al-Juthūr,” Al-Akhbar , 6/2/2024, accessed on 3/4/2023, at: https://tinyurl.com/muzpn5es. I thank Wassim Mroue for pointing out this idea to me.
  72. “Kalimat al-Amīn al-ʿĀm li-Ḥizballah Samāḥat al-Sayyid Ḥasan Naṣrallah fī Iḥtifāl Yawm al-Shahīd 11-11-2023,” Almanar , 11/11/2023, accessed on 3/4/2024, at: https://tinyurl.com/bdfmpjju
  73. “al-Sayyid Nassrallah: Ṭūfān al-Aqṣā Assasa li-Marḥala Tārīkhiyya Jadīda.. wa-Kul al-Iḥtimālāt fī Jabhatinā Maftūḥa.”
  74. “Kalimat al-Amīn al-ʿĀm li-Ḥizballah Samāḥat al-Sayyid Ḥasan Naṣrallah fī Iḥtifāl Yawm al-Shahīd 11-11-2023.”
Cover of العدد 15, Almuntaqa

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2024-09-01

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51 مشاهدة 78 تنزيل

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مجلد 7 عدد 015 (2024): العدد 15

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