The history of Hezbollah

NPR’s Scott Detrow speaks with Randa Slim, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, about the history of Hezbollah, and the groups their current role Lebanon and the region.

SCOTT DETROW, HOST:

As the war between Israel and Hamas in Gaza continues, there has been growing concern about it spiraling out into a much broader regional conflict. That’s especially true after the White House announced today that an Iranian-backed militia group killed three U.S. service members in Jordan with a drone attack. Another area where things could escalate is Israel’s northern border with Lebanon, where there’s been an ongoing trade of rocket fire between the Israeli military and Hezbollah, a powerful Shiite Islamic militant group based in Lebanon. To learn more about this group, its history and their role in the conflict, we called Randa Slim. She’s a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. And when we spoke earlier this week, she began by telling me how the group formed in reaction to Israel’s occupation of southern Lebanon in 1982, in the midst of Lebanon’s civil war.

RANDA SLIM: And then they started playing a role in fighting Israel in the southern zone, which was occupied by Israel after the war ended. But then Israel decided to keep a security belt along the border with Lebanon. After the Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah said, we still have disputed border issues with Israel, and then used that as a basis for continued military resistance against Israel. However, since their formation in the ’80s, you know, and that announcement in a public letter of their, you know, organization in 1985, Hezbollah started entering Lebanese politics. And so it’s not only a military group, you know? It’s also become part of the – I mean, it had members elected to the Parliaments (inaudible).

DETROW: And let’s talk about that for a moment because, you know, often America and other Western countries…