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Beirut, Lebanon. The leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah recently delivered an odd but deeply important political message to his followers: Heed traffic signs and pay your electric bills.

The call may not seem particularly significant, but it was widely seen as the latest sign that the Shiite movement — long considered Iran’s militant arm in Lebanon, running its own state-within-a-state — is reinventing itself as a more conventional political force in Lebanon.

The group remains fiercely anti-Israel and is highly unlikely to give up its extensive arsenal of rockets and other weapons. Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, gave a fiery speech on Tuesday vowing to fire rockets at targets deep inside Israel, including Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport, if Israel’s military strikes Lebanese infrastructure.

But despite the tough talk, Hezbollah seems more concerned these days with its position at home, trying to show it can work with Lebanon’s many other political factions, some of which oppose any military entanglement with Israel. That means moderating its actions and playing within the system.

The shift was forced by the seismic events that have shaken Lebanon over the past few years, analysts say. In particular, Hezbollah’s 2006 war with Israel and 2008 sectarian clashes with political rivals raised criticism among some Lebanese that the movement was dragging the country into violent conflicts. Moreover, Hezbollah now has a place in a fragile national unity government, putting further pressure on it to stay in line.

Notably, Hezbollah has not carried out a single rocket attack on Israel since the 2006 war. It has also yet to avenge the assassination of its top military commander, Imad Mughniyeh, who was killed in a 2008 car bombing in Damascus that was widely blamed on Israel. Nasrallah on Tuesday repeated pledges that revenge would eventually come.

Hezbollah “is emphasizing that it also has other roles to play besides the resistance,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an analyst specializing in Hezbollah. The group is trying to highlight its “nationalist dimension” as opposed to its strictly Islamic or Arab identity.

A key step was Nasrallah’s announcement in November of the group’s platform, only the second since Hezbollah was founded in 1982 following Israel’s invasion.

The new language was strikingly conciliatory. While the group’s first platform, released in 1985, called for an Islamic republic in Lebanon, the new manifesto does not mention an Islamic state and underscores the importance of coexistence among Lebanon’s 18 religious sects.

It also speaks of a “consensual democracy” and says it seeks a “sovereign, free and independent” Lebanon with a strong state that preserves public liberties.

Since it was founded at the height of Lebanon’s civil war, Hezbollah has grown into one of the most sophisticated resistance groups in the world with a small army of about 6,000 fighters. With an annual budget of more than $100 million largely supplied by Iran, it also runs schools, charities and clinics, and has its own satellite television and radio stations.

Since Israel withdrew from south Lebanon in 2000 — removing the main motive for its armed struggle against Israel — Hezbollah’s opponents in Lebanon have grown bolder in demanding it relinquish its weapons and in criticizing it as a rogue element.

Today, Hezbollah has two cabinet posts in a national unity government between pro-US parties and the Hezbollah-led opposition, and it holds 11 of the Parliament’s 128 seats.

In a Dec. 23 speech on a Shiite holy day, Nasrallah told supporters that heeding traffic laws and paying electric and water bills to the government was a religious duty. Many in its south Beirut stronghold have long been accused of simply stealing from electricity cables and water systems.

But not everyone is impressed. Sami Gemayel, a right-wing Christian lawmaker, recently accused the group of “waging a cultural war” on the Lebanese.

He pointed to recent incidents in which Hezbollah campaigned against the distribution in Lebanon of Anne Frank’s diaries and forced the withdrawal from a festival of a French comedian of Jewish descent on grounds he served in the Israeli Army.

“Hezbollah today is imposing its view on all the Lebanese,” he said.



Associated Press