Region | Lebanon
Hezbollah cultivates bond with left-leaning and peace groups
Hezbollah has extended its international reach by establishing contacts with left-leaning, environmental and peace groups opposed to US-led economic globalisation, analysts and people tied to the group say.
- By Raed Rafei, Los Angeles Times-Washington Post News Service
- Published: 23:47 August 30, 2008
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Beirut: Hezbollah has extended its international reach by establishing contacts with left-leaning, environmental and peace groups opposed to US-led economic globalisation, analysts and people tied to the group say.
The Lebanese Shiite group and political party, which is designated as a terrorist organisation by the United States, has participated through a front organisation in dozens of gatherings where participants criticised US foreign policy and financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.
The aim, say analysts, is to rally support for armed opposition to Israel among groups who already regard the West's policies as a threat to developing countries and damaging to the environment.
"Hezbollah succeeded in incorporating the idea of resistance as part of the international anti-globalisation movements," said Abdul Halim Fadl Allah, the vice-president of Beirut's Center for Strategic Studies, a Hezbollah-affiliated think-tank that often participates in activities abroad.
Despite significant ideological differences, opposition to US-led military operations abroad and free-market economic policies fostered by Washington have brought them together.
Hezbollah has long sought to downplay its previous calls for establishment of an Islamic state in Lebanon, where Shiite and Sunnis make up more than 60 per cent of the population. It has dramatically shifted its political rhetoric away from religious politics since the 2006 conflict with Israel, now often depicting itself as a universal movement fighting Israeli domination.
Annual gatherings
"We think of the sacrifices of all the militants [fighters] in Lebanon and Palestine and the Arab world from Islamists, to nationalists, to Arabists or any ideological background they come from," said Hezbollah's leader, Hassan Nasrallah, during a speech in July.
Hezbollah-affiliated officials represent the group in the annual gatherings of the World Social Forum, the largest convention of leftist political parties from around the world and organisations opposed to international financial institutions.
Fadl Allah said members of the Hezbollah-linked think-tank were invited in 2007 to an exclusive decision-making meeting of the organisers of the forum.
Ebrahim Moussawi, a Lebanese journalist close to Hezbollah, explained the group's positions on a speaking tour in Britain in February despite strong opposition to his visit. In Lebanon, Hezbollah hosted American radicals such as Norman Finkelstein and Noam Chomsky in recent years.
To bolster ties with Western scholars, Hezbollah-linked research groups set up academic-style lectures and conferences. In the aftermath of the 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and Israel, hundreds of activists and intellectuals from Latin America and Europe arrived in Beirut for one such gathering.
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