Hezbollah – Back to Terrorism? (Part 1)

   The horrendous attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria a few days ago (July 18^th, 2012) has yet again raised the discussion of whether Hezbollah is in fact a terrorist organization. The State of Israel and American security agencies argue that it is, and Hezbollah asserts that its connection to terrorism is a myth.

   The attack in Bulgaria can only be classified as a terrorist attack, as it targeted civilians and was conducted in a civilian place. Hezbollah might argue that the attack should be classified as an act of resistance, but this argument would be entirely unreasonable. The common definition of a resistance act is that it must be executed against an occupying force on occupied soil, or on that occupier's soil. To the best of the author’s knowledge, even if the first section of the definition was left open to discussion, Bulgaria has yet to be occupied by Israel.

   A few hours after the attack, Matthew Levitt from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy stated that “Hezbollah is the leading suspect, and for good reason… this attack is much alike as the AMIA building attack in Argentina in 1994.” This is what the Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared minutes after the attack occurred – Hezbollah and Iran were natural and evident suspects because they have repeatedly declared that Israel is their mortal enemy.

   Hezbollah does not have a long history of terrorist attacks like Hamas, but the organization was held responsible (and never claimed responsibility) for some of the deadliest attacks on Americans during the 1980's, such as the bombings of the U.S. embassy and Marine barracks, both in Lebanon in 1983. The U.S. Government blacklisted Hezbollah as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997, after the Khobar Towers attack in Saudi Arabia in 1996, and gave it Specially Designated Global Terrorist (SDGT) status in October 2001.

   The Khobar Towers attack, one should note, was the last apparent terrorist attack Hezbollah executed against Western targets. All other attacks were executed against Israeli targets, on Israeli or Lebanese soil. The last terrorist attack Hezbollah executed against Israeli targets, i.e. was held responsible for, was the AMIA building attack in Argentina in 1994, the 18^th anniversary of which was only a few days ago.

   It seemed as the organization had changed through the years and the terrorism tag was left only in the Western beholder's mind, most noticeably in Israelis and Americans. Hezbollah’s leadership called it the terrorist myth. Judith Palmer Harik referred the American approach as “settling old scores with Hezbollah” and the Israeli approach “calling Hezbollah terrorists in order to halt the war of attrition being waged against them.”

   The organization became a legitimate part of the Lebanese municipal and national political system and a provider of wide social institutions to the Shiite community. However, with the generous funding of Iran, Hezbollah concentrated its military efforts in resistance-defined actions against Israel. The party occasionally used a limited amount of political violence against domestic political enemies. It seemed as though Hezbollah's leadership was determined to prove to the world that its terrorism was not more than the myth its enemies created.

   The attack in Bulgaria has blown up all efforts Hezbollah made to be a legitimate organization in the eyes of the world, and proved that the terrorist is not a myth anymore. It is the reality.

http://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/view/did-hezbollah-do-it

Judith Palmer Harik, The Changing Face of Terrorism