‘War’ Against French Is Less Than It Seems

The Franco-Shia “war”--one might almost say the Franco-Lebanese war--has been made to look real only because of the panicky French reaction to bombings in Paris and because of French, American and Israeli insistance in seeing a sinister conspiratorial connection between events that are almost certainly unconnected.

There are three areas of anti-French violence in this war: the bombings in Paris, the kidnaping and killing of French civilians and military men in the Beirut area and attacks on members of the French contingent in the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in southern Lebanon. The first actions, the Paris bombings, were carried out for specifically personal reasons by a strange terrorist group, a family of Maronite Marxists from a remote village in the northeastern corner of Lebanon. The second and third actions, carried out in Lebanon by Shias of the Hezbollah group, have impersonal motivations.

Taking the last first, UNIFIL first came under attack eight years ago, in 1978, when it moved into position. Up to 1984 the attacks on it came almost exclusively from the local Israeli-supported surrogate, now named the South Lebanon Army, formerly known as the Free Lebanon Army, which Israel positioned along its northern border. The presence of these variously named forces has impeded UNIFIL from fulfilling its mandate under Security Council Resolution 425, which was and is to supervise the total withdrawal of the Israeli army from Lebanon and the full restoration of Lebanese sovereignty, right down to the international frontier.

Hezbollah hostility toward UNIFIL developed only after the Lebanese National Resistance--including the pro-Syrian Shia Amal group, the pro-Iranian Hezbollah, Lebanese socialists and communists and some Palestinians--coalesced and the Israelis withdrew most of their forces from southern Lebanon 15 months ago. Flushed with victory, the fervent, dedicated Hezbollahis--who with some Palestinians formed a subgroup, “the Islamic Resistance”--perceived the whole of UNIFIL and its Resolution 425 mandate as an obstacle to their ultimate objective of eliminating the Israeli and SLA presence in Lebanon so that they could carry their war into northern Israel and, finally, to a liberated Jerusalem.

This objective has never been shared by the Shias in Amal. Amal, too, wants to see the end of Israeli occupation and of the SLA presence, but it would prefer to see UNIFIL doing that job through the full implementation of its mandate. Once that is done and peace is restored along the border, Amal has repeatedly said that it would then police the border zone itself and would be prepared to enter into a cease-fire and nonaggression agreement with Israel.

So, until recently, Islamic Resistance hostility toward UNIFIL was directed at the force as a whole. But since the French provide the largest contingent, they, inevitably, were involved in most of the incidents. Also, and this is a major anti-French motivation, the Hezbollah group is very attached to its spiritual homeland, Iran, and bitterly resents France’s support for Iraq against Iran in the Iran-Iraq War.

Hezbollah’s direct attacks on the French became important after Aug. 11 when, by inadvertence, French UNIFIL soldiers killed a local Shia leader, actually an Amal member. His death was seized on by Hezbollah as a pretext for expressing underlying pro-Iranian and anti-French feeling.

Amal promptly apologized for--and demonstrated against--Hezbollah’s attacks. Indeed, the division between Shia Amal and Shia Hezbollah in southern Lebanon has become so sharp that, in the past month, their militiamen have been shooting at each other--Amal in defense of the French, of UNIFIL and of U.N. Resolution 425, and Hezbollah against them. This destroys the myth that there is a generalized Shia jihad, or holy war, against France.

The second group of anti-French actions, the killing and kidnaping of Frenchmen, both civilian and military, in the Beirut area--persons who have nothing to do with UNIFIL--is motivated by Hezbollah’s anger against France’s anti-Iranian role. Here, again, Amal has actively opposed Hezbollah actions.

Very different from these impersonal anti-French motivations among pro-Iranian Lebanese Shia militants are the personal reasons given by the Maronite and Marxist Abdallah family clan. They demand release of their leader, Georges Ibrahim Abdallah. The group is extremely angry with the French government for allegedly agreeing last year to swap him for a French official kidnaped in Tripoli, Lebanon, then reneging on the deal.

Last Wednesday, French Premier Jacques Chirac said that there could be a single group behind the various anti-French actions, but not any one particular state. Israel has been particularly active in trying to pin the blame on its regional enemies, in the hope that they would be attacked by the United States or France. The Israelis have suggested two stories: one, that top-ranking officials from Iran, Syria and Libya jointly planned the attacks, the other, that Iran alone was responsible. The latter charge was repeated last week by Israeli Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin: He said he was “certain” of Iranian complicity but then added, “I can’t prove it.”

While Iranian responsibility for actions in southern Lebanon and Beirut is absolutely clear, the linkage with other countries and with Paris is improbable. Syrian and Iranian policies in Lebanon are in discord; Iran and the Hezbollahis strongly oppose both Maronites and Marxists and so are not likely to assist the Abdallahs.

Hence the Franco-Shia war is a more complex and fragmented affair than it may appear at first sight. But its root cause in Lebanon is obvious--the armed presence of Israel might on the wrong side of the border.