The renewed fervor for Palestinian liberation has allowed for resistance discourse to take center stage, and Lebanese people have not shied away from giving their two cents as they grapple with the issue of Lebanese resistance. Some controversial deliberation has taken place since October 7, and as the Israeli aggressions against Palestinians continue to worsen, Arab response falls short, and the international community frantically scrounges for an exit strategy for Netanyahu, Lebanese people are still pondering the question: should Lebanon be involved in the fight for Palestinian liberation? Data collected by Beirut Urban Lab from October 8 until January 19 indicates that Israel has struck Lebanese territory over 4,500 times. The Lebanese Ministry of Health published its first official report on November 11, citing 77 deaths, 251 injuries, and 26,232 forcibly displaced.
The recent hostilities along Lebanon’s border with the occupied territories also revived an anti-war rhetoric that utilizes exclusionary language. The most repeated and arguably one of the most problematic phrases used in relation to the events is “mahsoura bel-jnoub” (محصورة بالجنوب), or “limited to the south”. Such phrases have been used to isolate the south as predominantly Shi’a, affiliated with the Islamic resistance, primarily by individuals who follow opposing sects or hold anti-Hezbollah dogma. The narrative draws an invisible border that effectively isolates the Lebanese south from the rest of the country, thus holding the region—and more specifically its resistance combatants—responsible for any escalations with the apartheid state. The use of such exclusionary language, most evidently by right-wing politicians and social media users across has resurfaced fractures in the Lebanese identity that are reminiscent of the Civil War. However, such divisive discourse appeared many years prior to the Civil War, as the region enjoys a rich history that stretches beyond the south’s deep-seated involvement in Palestinian liberation.
Before Nation-states
Prior to the formation of nation-states, the region witnessed more fluid demographic changes as Arab travelers and merchants circled the region, with trade networks passing through modern-day Syria, Palestine, South Lebanon, and Beirut. Migration patterns mirrored prevailing conflicts along the Eastern Mediterranean, most notably between the Byzantine and the Sassanian Empires, which were followed by other caliphates and dynasties in later years. Its geographical importance made Lebanon highly contested territory, and so migrating to and from different regions was not uncommon. While Lebanon’s sectarian framework has an influence on the demographic, a look into the history of migration within the territories of modern-day Lebanon shows that many sects have historically occupied multiple regions. There is no inherent association between a particular sect and a specific region, although this narrative often makes an appearance in modern sectarian discourse.
Syria, Lebanon, and Palestine have been historically bound by their sacred landscape, with major pilgrimage networks traversing their paths according to Associate Professor of History Toufoul Abou-Hodeib at the University of Oslo in her study Sanctity Across the Border. The history of northern Palestine and South Lebanon, as well as its geography prior to the formation of the nation-states, helped shape its interconnected modern-day identity. The region was characterized by multiple religious sites and shrines frequented by Jewish, Shi’a Muslim, and Druze communities who traveled via routes that crisscrossed the region’s yet to be defined borders. Those partaking in these pilgrimages would engage in communitarian exchanges that helped shape a shared identity that connects northern Palestine and South Lebanon, where the religious sites of Nabi Sujud, Nabi Yusha’, and Nabi Shu’ayb were said to be located. The British Palestine Exploration Fund’s Survey of Western Palestine conducted in the 1870s even grouped South Lebanon with the mapping of Palestine, noting its geographical layout based on the important historical, archeological, and religious sites.
After Nation-states
Along with drawing the borders between Lebanon and Palestine came the establishment of border control between the new nation-states. French and British colonial authorities managed movement across the borders by establishing crossing points and road networks that facilitated travel under their surveillance. This also allowed commercial activity to flourish in the region, as the pilgrimage and trade routes were now accessible via newly paved carriage and automobile roads. This was especially true in the hinterlands, to which French authorities had no vehicular access. Local souks became meeting points and waypoints for travelers going from Syria to Palestine, and vice versa.
Important negotiations surrounding Nabi Yusha’, which held great religious and communitarian significance to the Shi’a communities, would later take place between the French and British as they drew the borders of the Mandate states. The initial Sykes-Picot Agreement included Nabi Yusha’ as part of the French mandate for Lebanon, but the territory was later annexed to Palestine and came under British rule. The French authorities had also decided to conjoin the predominantly Shi’a regions from southern Lebanon and Jabal ‘Amil to Greater Lebanon.
South Lebanon was characterized by violent uprisings against French authorities, with many villages raising the Arab revolt flag as a declaration of their support for Prince Faisal bin Al-Hussein bin Ali Al-Hashem. After the Mandate was officially introduced, the south quickly became a problem for French authorities and the period was characterized by clashes and uprisings against foreign rule, most notably during the tobacco uprising, which took place in 1936 in light of the establishment of the Régie’s monopoly over production and sale of tobacco in Lebanon. Farmlands in the south produced high-quality tobacco, and it became a major source of income for farmers and the country’s agricultural sector. The uprising echoed voices of mounting resistance against the French authorities in Lebanon, alongside the Arab Revolt which was taking place in Palestine against British colonial rule. The British Mandate had endorsed Jewish settler violence against Palestinians—particularly by Haganah forces, a Zionist militia—as they helped capture, torture, exile, and execute many Palestinian revolutionaries in a bid to suppress the uprisings.
Abou-Hodeib also remarks in her study: “The stigma about the South continued into the period of Lebanese independence, which stamped the region negatively as backward, agrarian, and Shi’i”. One of the social implications of the tobacco uprising would thus be an instance of the active “othering” of the Lebanese south, which would contribute to the stereotyping of communities from this region. In an exclusive interview with chronicler Dr. Abbas Wehbe from the southern Lebanese city of Nabatieh for Watchdogs Gazette, he believes in the importance of the tobacco uprising in 1936 as a crucial historical event that laid the groundwork for the Lebanese Civil War and the issue of resistance and Palestinian liberation. Even prior to the French mandate, amid Ottoman rule, the millet system granted religious autonomy and a degree of self-governance to communities within its empire according to Cleveland and Bunton’s History of the Modern Middle East, thus creating a ripple effect in the Lebanese social fabric as the French mandate continued the practice of allocating powers based on religious affiliation. The country’s history in sectarian social dynamics enabled the establishment of such a stigma surrounding the southern region, further exacerbated by colonial rule whose existence relied essentially on the country’s religious diversity. Additionally, there were certain communities that continued to advocate an imperialist line in their ideologies and media, even after Lebanese independence, which represented an extreme that countered those championing liberation.
In his book Nabatieh fi al-falakayn al-mahalli al-‘Amili wal-iklimi, which chronicles the history of Nabatieh and the region as a whole, Wehbe alleges that a rather problematic letter was sent to Britain’s foreign minister from Patriarch Ignatius IV Hazem as plans to partition Palestine were underway. The letter reads:
“There is a rumor circulating in Beirut that His Majesty’s government intends to cut off a portion of northern Palestine to annex it to Lebanon. If the project is true—which is something we do not wish for—it will lead to an increase in the number of Muslims in the country. Your Excellency is not unaware that Lebanon has always been a land for Christians in the East, and we hope that His Majesty’s government will preserve this characteristic so that Christians can have a refuge and practice their religion in complete safety. If it is necessary to adjust the borders, it is desirable for us as Christians that a portion of southern Lebanon be cut, for example, up to the Litani River, to annex it to Palestine and reduce the number of Muslims in Lebanon. This is to restore Lebanon to its true nature as a country.”
The National Pact negotiations of 1943 in Greater Lebanon had already placed the Shi’a population at a disadvantage at the time, as the representation of their communities, which had limited access to formal education, was monopolized by traditional Shiite families.
Lebanese Resistance and Palestinian Liberation
The aggressions of Zionist settlers in Mandatory Palestine, and in the period between its independence from the British colonial authority leading up to the declaration of the colonial state of Israel, the region witnessed some of the most horrific atrocities in the 20 century. The UN Partition Plan of 1947, which conjured up two separate Jewish and Arab states, required the displacement of thousands of Palestinians from their homes in territories that would come to make up the Jewish state. This plan was ultimately rejected by both the Palestinian and Israeli sides, and over 700,000 Palestinians were forcibly displaced as Zionist forces’s genocidal campaign depopulated and destroyed hundreds of Palestinian villages.
Lebanon participated in the subsequent 1948 war along with other Arab states, and most notable was the battle between the Lebanese army and Zionist forces in the village of Al-Malkiyah in the south. Months after the declaration of the apartheid state of Israel, a massacre took place on October 31 and November 1 in the Lebanese village of Houla along the southern border at the hands of Israeli officers. The Houla massacre saw the expulsion and execution of many village residents. The sentiment of Lebanese resistance would only strengthen following these events, followed by a history of hostilities along the borders of Lebanon and occupied Palestine.
The resistance gained momentum after the birth of the Palestinian Liberation Organization in 1964 and the establishment of its offices in Beirut under the leadership of Shafiq Al-Hout, which was well-received by then Prime Minister Hajj Hussein al-Oweini. According to Al-Hout in his book My Life in the PLO, “the office of the PLO would be considered a diplomatic mission like any other Arab embassy, with all the privileges and obligations prescribed by normal diplomatic protocol”. The organization had garnered a great deal of support, the combatants in the Lebanese south were prepared to aid in resistance operations against the apartheid state. Lebanon housed a large community of Palestinians following the Nakba, and then again after Black September which led to the expulsion of the PLO from Jordan in 1970.
In 1978, Israel’s invasion of Lebanon was facilitated by the establishment of Israel-backed South Lebanon Army (SLA) under the leadership of right-wing former Maronite Lebanese Army commander Saad Haddad. The purpose of the invasion was to push back Palestinian and Lebanese resistance forces further from the border and prevent any attacks against the colonial entity. Zionist forces launched a second, much larger, military invasion in 1982, imposing a siege on Beirut, and committing multiple massacres including the infamous Lebanese Forces-assisted Sabra and Shatila massacres. In response to this invasion, the Lebanese National Resistance Front (Jammoul) was founded in 1982 to counter both Israeli forces and their Christian Lebanese militia allies. The coalition, whose key members were from communist and leftist nationalist organizations, would go on to execute many military operations in their struggle for the liberation of occupied Lebanese territories. . While the PLO was forced to withdraw from Lebanon to Tunis under an internationally brokered agreement to end the war, ending an era of Palestinian revolutionary struggle from South Lebanon.
The resistance later took on a Shi’a identity after the Israeli forces withdrew from Beirut and the Chouf region but continued to occupy parts of the deeper south. The Amal movement and newly formed Hezbollahl became active players in defending predominantly Shi’a communities that were still under Israeli occupation at the time.. Hezbollah, also known as the Islamic Resistance, would then lead the charge in the post-Taif era, engaging in a long war of attrition with the SLA and remaining Israeli forces in the South up until its liberation on May 25, 2000. The party subsequently repelled a third Zionist invasion of Lebanon in 2006, enacting a historic loss on the IDF, despite its horrific barbarism and crimes against civilians, and forcing a prisoner exchange that freed all remaining Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails.
After October 7
Martyrs have greatly been ignored in discussions of human losses. Apart from being regarded as perpetrators in disrupting the “peace” on the borders with the apartheid state, news and media platforms shedding light on the lives lost focus their headlines solely on Lebanese civilians and journalists, often briefly mentioning or downplaying the number of resistance militants who have been martyred since October 7th. Regarding such losses as losses of the Islamic resistance rather than the nation contributes to the desensitization of the Lebanese population to the continuous aggressions of the apartheid state against the nation’s territories, which justifies its attacks under the auspices of targeting Hezbollah militants.
Fatima Nasrallah from the southern village of Majdel Selm, who is also a member of the Martyrs Foundation, emphasizes that the discourse that is fueled by certain individuals, online communities, and media platforms pointing accusatory fingers at the resistance for supposedly “dragging Lebanon into war” works only in favor of Israel and the Zionist project which threatens all Lebanese territories, not just the south. She says, “Our fellow compatriots should see the truth for what it is and stand with the resistance. Unfortunately, those representing the resistance in such a manner are many, but people should be fair in discerning the truth. If not fair, then at least, patriotic.”
A resident of the southern city of Sour, this woman, whose husband was martyred in 1991 as an Amal movement combatant, chose to remain anonymous for the sake of this interview. She drew parallels between the current bombardments and the unsettling resemblance they bear to the escalations leading up to the attacks in 2000 and 2006, although she noted the atrocities she had witnessed at the time were far worse. As for the forced displacement of numerous individuals from the southern regions seeking refugees in areas further north, she remarked: “It is not like home. No one will feel comfortable unless they’re in their own home, in their own country—even if they’re living at ease elsewhere.”
The interviewees notably displayed a different lexicon in their linguistic behavior compared to individuals who are not directly affected by the current hostilities in the southern region and are contributing to the discourse surrounding Lebanon’s involvement in the war on Gaza. The interviewees did not refer to the war as “a war on the south” but rather referenced the current circumstances as a war on all Lebanese territories, and their answers did not make any geographic or demographic distinctions that separated their experience from the rest of the population. Dr. Abbas Wehbe also remarked that such divisive language is “nonsense”, as there are no invisible borders that separate the south from the rest of the country. Ultimately, the idea of Lebanese resistance thrives independent of any sect, political party, or region, as it is tied solely to the fight for liberation against an apartheid state that threatens the entire region.
Edited by Bachar Bzeih