Michael Rubin
Israel continues to battle Hezbollah, with diplomatic efforts for a ceasefire scuttled by the travel freeze that International Criminal Court (ICC) Prosecutor Karim Khan imposed on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
While the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) tries to uproot Hezbollah infrastructure and eradicate missiles acquired or tunnels dug under the watchful eyes of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL), it has made significant progress. With the deaths of much of Hezbollah’s leadership, many in spectacular ways, the group’s bluster is gone or empty.
Certainly, Israeli leaders can celebrate Hezbollah’s demise in Lebanon and the United States, France, and United Nations can seek to negotiate Hezbollah’s disarmament inside Lebanon to put Lebanon into compliance with U.N. Security Council Resolution 1701, but that alone addresses only half the Hezbollah problem.
Lebanon’s greatest export has always been its people. Historically, the country’s Shi’ite community was largely feudal. Shi’ites were subsistence farmers with little hope for political power or advancement. In The Innocents Abroad, American writer Mark Twain described his 1867 travels through Lebanon to Palestine; the Shi’ites whom he surely saw did not merit his inclusion. With little prospect for upward mobility, many Shi’ites emigrated to engage in business and trade, especially elsewhere in the Middle East, Africa, and South America. Today, the Lebanese diaspora population just in Brazil and Argentina is equal to Lebanon’s population. Not all Lebanese emigrants were Shi’ite, of course, but they were disproportionately so.
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