Lebanon was carved out by France out of the Ottoman Middle East as the one bare majority (50%) Christian state - so the Christians got all the important power and property. The Sunnis were number 2, the Shias number 3.
Years later, the Sunni and Shia populations grew, the Christians started emigrating West, but the power was still split in the old way. Cue the Lebanese Civil War + the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah was the party that organized to provide social services and protection to the Shias, since they were the least taken care of by the state. Iran formed a natural alliance with Hezbollah, but they have their own independent base of support.
The Lebanese Civil War was insanely complicated (it included Hezbollah kicking out the US intervention with a suicide bombing), but in the end Israel was forced to withdraw and a more equal power-sharing agreement was reached with power being allotted roughly based on giving each religion a proportional number of seats/offices. However, crucially, anyone can compete for the seats allotted to a religion, so the Shia Hezbollah has Sunni and Christian members who run to represent them in parliament. And because Hezbollah got accepted into government, they've dropped terrorism as a tactic.
As a result, despite Hezbollah being a Shia faction in origin (and allied with theocratic Iran), there's a lot of secular government and cross-religious alliances going on. Plus, Lebanon is a modern and internationally-oriented state in general. So Hezbollah teaches sex ed in their Shia schools, they're not the "terrorist Party of God" you hear about in propaganda.
Thanks to weapons and training from Iran and their origin in fighting against the Israeli occupation and for the Shias in the Civil War, Hezbollah is one of the most powerful armies in the Middle East (at least per capita). In the 2006 war with Israel, they won. They took more casualties, of course, but Israel failed to advance into Lebanon as they wanted, failed to weaken Hezbollah, and took too many casualties and spent too much money for the government to justify fighting on.
In the Syrian Civil War, Hezbollah intervened again - and they won their battles, kept Assad in charge (which means retaining supply routes to Iran), and got more modern fighting experience. They're a real check on the power-projection by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US.
Nowadays there are more Muslims than Christians. The Christians outnumber the Sunnis and Shias individually, but the Christians themselves are split between various Catholic and Orthodox sects, so there's no single dominant faction in Lebanon - there's coalitions of political parties. One aligned with Iran, the other with Saudi Arabia and the West. The pro-Iran side has had more power for a long time, but there's a lot of power-sharing, factional fighting, and the government as a whole is weak and unpopular. For instance, a few years back Hezbollah endorsed the protests against the government - despite it being their coalition in charge.
Ha, I guess I didn't explain it too well. Lebanon is a microcosm of the Middle East - lots of tiny moving parts.
In short, Hezbollah is based and full of winners. An enemy of the West allied with Iran, but better (more secular/modern/democratic) than Iran. Shia in origin, but not exclusionary; has Christian and Sunni allies. In Western discourse you'll hear them smeared because they're anti-Israel and super-successfully attacked US soldiers with a suicide bombing, forcing Reagan to evacuate.
Lebanon was carved out by France out of the Ottoman Middle East as the one bare majority (50%) Christian state - so the Christians got all the important power and property. The Sunnis were number 2, the Shias number 3.
Years later, the Sunni and Shia populations grew, the Christians started emigrating West, but the power was still split in the old way. Cue the Lebanese Civil War + the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.
Hezbollah was the party that organized to provide social services and protection to the Shias, since they were the least taken care of by the state. Iran formed a natural alliance with Hezbollah, but they have their own independent base of support.
The Lebanese Civil War was insanely complicated (it included Hezbollah kicking out the US intervention with a suicide bombing), but in the end Israel was forced to withdraw and a more equal power-sharing agreement was reached with power being allotted roughly based on giving each religion a proportional number of seats/offices. However, crucially, anyone can compete for the seats allotted to a religion, so the Shia Hezbollah has Sunni and Christian members who run to represent them in parliament. And because Hezbollah got accepted into government, they've dropped terrorism as a tactic.
As a result, despite Hezbollah being a Shia faction in origin (and allied with theocratic Iran), there's a lot of secular government and cross-religious alliances going on. Plus, Lebanon is a modern and internationally-oriented state in general. So Hezbollah teaches sex ed in their Shia schools, they're not the "terrorist Party of God" you hear about in propaganda.
Thanks to weapons and training from Iran and their origin in fighting against the Israeli occupation and for the Shias in the Civil War, Hezbollah is one of the most powerful armies in the Middle East (at least per capita). In the 2006 war with Israel, they won. They took more casualties, of course, but Israel failed to advance into Lebanon as they wanted, failed to weaken Hezbollah, and took too many casualties and spent too much money for the government to justify fighting on.
In the Syrian Civil War, Hezbollah intervened again - and they won their battles, kept Assad in charge (which means retaining supply routes to Iran), and got more modern fighting experience. They're a real check on the power-projection by Israel, Saudi Arabia, and the US.
Nowadays there are more Muslims than Christians. The Christians outnumber the Sunnis and Shias individually, but the Christians themselves are split between various Catholic and Orthodox sects, so there's no single dominant faction in Lebanon - there's coalitions of political parties. One aligned with Iran, the other with Saudi Arabia and the West. The pro-Iran side has had more power for a long time, but there's a lot of power-sharing, factional fighting, and the government as a whole is weak and unpopular. For instance, a few years back Hezbollah endorsed the protests against the government - despite it being their coalition in charge.
Thanks for the fascinating info! Hezbollah is :halal:
Damn sounds complicated.
Ha, I guess I didn't explain it too well. Lebanon is a microcosm of the Middle East - lots of tiny moving parts.
In short, Hezbollah is based and full of winners. An enemy of the West allied with Iran, but better (more secular/modern/democratic) than Iran. Shia in origin, but not exclusionary; has Christian and Sunni allies. In Western discourse you'll hear them smeared because they're anti-Israel and super-successfully attacked US soldiers with a suicide bombing, forcing Reagan to evacuate.