Can Hezbollah join the Lebanese consensus?

An essential yet difficult point to understand and explain is the relationship between Lebanon as a state and a society and Hezbollah. The answer is in the political system and its weakness, which is at the same time its strength. Its weakness is that it leads to foreign intervention, breakdowns and violence, while its strength is that it has the ability to reset and grow stronger after every crisis.

Lebanon skipped the 20th century; it never became a sovereign, homogeneous, secular nationalist state with a unified national identity and strong state institutions. It remains a collection of communities, each with its own historical roots and regional as well as international connections. It is not really that complicated, all it means is that the Lebanese acknowledge and recognize each other’s identities and accept the idea that they may have extraterritorial affinities.

This is not new. The system is based on a centuries-old practice that dates to Mamluk and Ottoman times. The millet system not only allowed religious communities to have their own personal status and religious laws, but they also accepted that they have foreign protection and interests. Thus, in Mount Lebanon, the Maronites as a community were under French protection, the Druze under British, the Orthodox Christians under Russian and the Melkites under Austrian. They coexisted by agreement, compromise and recognition of their differences.

The system occasionally broke down and resulted in violence but it found balance again through slogans like "let bygones be bygones," "no victor, no vanquished," and "one Lebanon, not two," as well as agreements between the communities that they have to live together despite their differences.

Lebanon remains a collection of communities, each with its own historical roots and international connections

Nadim Shehadi

This explains how the Palestine Liberation Organization took hold in the country in the late 1960s and 70s and how Hezbollah emerged with allegiance to Iran and the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps. Both were in response to strong regional developments that carried with them one community or another.

In the 1950s, a wave of Arab nationalism, led by the charismatic Gamal Abdel Nasser, was impossible to resist. Lebanon managed to avoid its ripple effects in 1952 and 1956 and broke down in crisis in 1958, but it kept out of the six-day war in 1967 and ended up with the Cairo Agreement in 1969, giving the PLO freedom of action on its border with Israel. This was a compromise between Lebanese communities as much as it was a regionally sponsored agreement with Yasser Arafat.

The PLO effectively took over Sunni representation and established itself as a state within a state with the support of a significant part of the population. It developed its institutions, achieved international recognition and Arafat went to the UN under Lebanese sponsorship. The PLO could not have flourished anywhere else in the region — it was effectively kicked out of Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Kuwait, but Lebanon provided freedom and support.

However, it all ended in tears, triggering a civil war, a Syrian intervention and an Israeli invasion, leading to what was described as turning Beirut into the Stalingrad of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Did Lebanon have a choice? Could the state have suppressed support and prevented the rise of the PLO? Maybe, but it would not be Lebanon if it did that.

Arafat was escorted out of the country and, 10 years later, we saw the communities that supported him and their leaders become part of the Taif Agreement, fully integrating them into a new Lebanon. In the Lebanese model, the weakness is that it allows you to opt out; the strength is that you can get back in and all is forgiven and forgotten.

Hezbollah is a similar phenomenon. The Shiite revival of the 1950s and 1960s, which started in Iran, was a strong movement that swept the region. Imam Musa Al-Sadr was its representative in Lebanon. His charisma earned him respect from all communities in the country. He was eventually joined by his comrades from the liberation movement of Iran and the result was the creation of the Amal Movement, in which Al-Sadr’s friend from Iran, Mostafa Chamran, played a significant role.

It is in Lebanon’s nature to allow the likes of the PLO and Hezbollah to flourish and it is in these groups’ nature to take over the country

Nadim Shehadi

The Iran-Iraq war further increased tensions and radicalized the movement out of which Hezbollah was born as the vanguard of Ayatollah Khomeini’s export of the revolution. The result was that we rejected the compromise of Israel’s withdrawal in 1983 and Hezbollah gradually took over the representation of the Shiite community through a series of assassinations of Shiite opponents in the 1980s and a war of brothers with the Amal Movement. It also monopolized the resistance to Israeli occupation before negotiating a withdrawal in 2000, launching another war in 2006 and gradually capturing the state, launching war after war on behalf of Iran until we reached where we are now.

In an old legend, a scorpion that cannot swim asks a frog to give him a ride across a river, promising not to sting him. The frog hesitates at first and then is reassured. Halfway across, the scorpion stings the frog and the dying frog asks the scorpion why it did what it did, even though it means they will both die. The drowning scorpion answers that he could not help it, as it is in his nature. It is in the nature of the frog to help the scorpion cross the river and it is in the nature of the scorpion to sting the frog, even though it dooms them both.

Likewise, it is in the nature of Lebanon to allow movements like the PLO and Hezbollah to flourish and it is in these groups’ nature to take over the country. In any other state in the region, they would have been suppressed along with their supporters. The Lebanese solution is always possible and here is how.

Before he was assassinated in 2013, economist and diplomat Mohammed Chatah was in dialogue with Hezbollah. His proposal was to acknowledge that their disagreements were related to regional divisions that could not be solved in Lebanon. Neither side had a real say in the standoff with Iran or the nuclear issues between the US and Tehran. His solution was that, while the Lebanese can disagree on these issues, they can respect each other’s opinion and agree on two things: First, that Lebanon should not be the battleground where these regional issues are fought; and, second, that they could still resolve things like water, electricity and refuse collection and make people’s lives better.

This is what every Lebanese hopes for: that the Shiite community will get over the Iranian phase, just like the Sunnis and the Druze did with Nasserism and the PLO, and that it will join the Taif consensus and work toward rebuilding the country. In the story of nations, the first 100 years are always difficult and, for Lebanon, it is time to move forward.

• Nadim Shehadi is an economist and political adviser. X: @Confusezeus