Shaping Lebanon's Borderlands: Armed Resistance and International Intervention in South Lebanon

by Daniel Meier

Overview

Regional struggles, wars and local confrontations have marked the south of Lebanon since the end of the 1960s. They have transformed this marginalized and rural region into a battlefield and redefined the relationships between international, regional and local actors. The most recent of these actors the Palestinian refugees and their armed resistance, the Islamic Shi i movement Hizbullah, and the UN local mission (UNIFIL) have marked and shaped the place, and in turban operating in this borderland has affected their identities. Based on Daniel Meier s extensive fieldwork in the region, this book offers interviews with militants, his own observations of this conflict-ridden and dangerous region as well as incisive political analysis concerning the armed militias operating in the area. It is through this in-depth examination of the southern borderlands of Lebanon that Meier sheds new light on some of the major Middle Eastern confrontations of the last half a century."

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781784532536
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	09/28/2016
Series:	Library of Modern Middle East Studies
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.60(h) x 1.10(d)

About the Author

Daniel Meier is Visiting Fellow of the Centre for Lebanese Studies at the Middle East Centre, St Antony s. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Graduate Institute for International and Development Studies (IHEID) in Geneva."

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations vii

List of Abbreviations viii

Note on Transliteration x

Acknowledgements xi

Introduction: South Lebanon as a Vantage Point 1

Part I Struggles over the Borderland

1 The Fida'iyyin in Lebanon: Armed Struggle, Ideology and Belonging 35

2 The Struggle for the South: Israeli Occupation and Lebanese Resistance 61

3 Hizbullah: Resistance as an Identity and as a Means 93

Part II The Borderland's Narratives

4 Ordering the Borderland: Hizbullah's Socio-Political and Cultural Strategy 123

5 Crossing/Bypassing the Border: Palestinian Civil Resistance (sumûd) 148

6 Hegemony over Geography: UNIFIL and the Drawing of the Blue Line 175

7 Pending Issues: Sovereignty at Stake on Maritime and Aerial Borders 205

Conclusion: South Lebanon as a Regional Issue 231

Notes 243

Bibliography 259

Index 276