ANALYSIS-Hizbollah eyes recovery, not new war with Israel http://today.reuters.com/news/articlebusiness.aspx?type=tnBusinessNews&storyID=nL21913145&from=business
Mon Aug 21, 2006
By Lin Noueihed
BEIRUT, Aug 21 (Reuters) - Hizbollah may have declared victory against Israel and lives to fight another day, but with Lebanon in ruins and thousands of families homeless it may not risk provoking such a war again any time soon.
The Israeli government has come under fire at home for its handling of the 34-day war. It failed to destroy Hizbollah whose guerrillas fought fierce battles on the ground against the overwhelming military might of the region's superpower.
But the price in lives and destruction was high for Lebanon, highest among Hizbollah's own Shi'ite Muslim support base.
"Hizbollah does not want at this stage a resumption of violence. That is why Israel has escalated, because it sees Hizbollah is in a tight spot," said Michael Young, commentator for the Beirut Daily Star newspaper.
"You have an up and coming Shi'ite middle class. These people have invested time, money and effort. People don't want everything to be flattened every 5-10 years. Hizbollah has to take that into account."
Aware of the potential for rising discontent, Hizbollah has scrambled to compensate Lebanese for homes that were hit in a war that displaced around a million people -- a quarter of the population.
No sooner did a truce take hold last week than the group began handing out up to $12,000 in cash to help cover the cost of rent and furniture for those who lost their homes -- jumping in before state relief efforts had even got off the ground.
The sheer scale of the destruction, estimated at 1,200 dead and $3.6 billion in physical damage, not to mention a potential surge in unemployment as businesses shut down, make the coming months tough for Lebanon.
While most Shi'ites blame Israel and the war has failed to dent their support for Hizbollah, no one is in hurry for a rerun. "Hizbollah will now wait. It has to recover. Its priority is now reconstruction. The same guys who did the fighting are now doing the reconstruction," said Timur Goksel, who was spokesman for U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon for over two decades and now teaches at the American University of Beirut.
"But if the Israelis are still in Lebanon in a couple of weeks we will see skirmishes. Hizbollah will not shy away from local skirmishes but the problem is these can escalate."
Israel began its campaign after Hizbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid that it had hoped to swap for Lebanese detainees in Israeli jails.
TENSE TRUCE
The United Nations says Israel has already violated the truce that has held for the past week with a commando operation in the eastern Bekaa Valley. Hizbollah fought back and killed an Israeli officer but did not retaliate with an attack of its own.
It agreed to allow the Lebanese army to deploy to southern Lebanon in order to facilitate a truce -- a concession it had resisted for years to keep sole control of the southern border.
While Israel failed to wipe the group out, Hizbollah spent a lot of Iranian- and Syrian-supplied firepower it had been building up since the Israeli withdrawal from south Lebanon in 2000. Analysts say Israel also hit some of its longer-range rocket capabilities.
Israel, for its part, lost military prestige and credibility but got a U.N. resolution to end the war that implicitly allows it to take defensive actions in Lebanon. With no clear winner and an uneasy truce, that is a recipe for future escalation, analysts say.
"I don't think Hizbollah will rush into another war but Israel may impose it upon them to come out looking like they did better," said Paul Salem, director-designate of Carnegie Middle East Centre.
"Hizbollah will fight if they have to fight but they are not looking for it. They were not looking for it the first time but they played with fire. This time they will not."
The truce has held so far, but the longer it takes for international troops to join the current UNIFIL peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, the more likely an escalation is, analysts say.
Israel has said it will not fully withdraw from southern Lebanon until UNIFIL reinforcements arrive.
Hizbollah will not let Israel troops stay forever. Hizbollah may have let the Lebanese army into the south but that does not mean its guerrillas are gone.
"In my 20 or more years in the south, I never saw a uniformed, armed Hizbollah fighter in the streets," said Goksel. "That has not changed. They live in these villages but now they have put the uniform and the gun under the bed."
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