There is a lot of conflicting reporting being generated from the fighting that took place over the past several days in Choueifat (a mixed area in Beirut) and the Shouf mountains. According to this jumbled and poorly sourced LA Times article, Hezbollah fighters have already captured strategic Druze areas in Niha and Aley, although it is difficult to ascertain whether the reporter is conflating the Lebanese army taking over these areas with Hezbollah gaining control of them. The reporter also quotes anonymous “analysts” stating the motivation for these Hezbollah attacks is “consolidating strategic gains that…would be used in confrontations with Israel”, since it is well-known to military observers in the region that Aley overlooks several important Israeli military installations, including the various Starbucks scattered across Beirut. However, other sources have pointed to Druze victories against Hezbollah military incursions (see here and here). Smoke sparked by any civil conflict tends to obscure facts and a precise accounting of events in the near-term (especially in such a polarized media environment like Lebanon), but it is worth emphasizing what has been noted by most reporting: the almost mystical Druze solidarity when their community is under threat. Sectarian dynamics in Lebanon cause all confessional groups to close ranks under crisis, but the tiny Druze population (maybe 5-6% of a country of nearly four million) is renowned for rallying under centralized leadership (in this case Walid Junblatt) and defending their ancestral territory. As a British traveler in Lebanon noted in 1833, “although the Druze army did not exceed 2,500 men, due to their resolute action each man is worth twenty.” In fact, during sectarian conflicts, the Druze have decimated their historical Maronite rivals twice, once in 1860 amidst the peasant uprisings of the time and again during the Mountain War of 1983 between the Maronite Lebanese Forces and the Druze Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) militias. This communal cohesion is also the reason the Druze were the only sect not to become factionalized during the Civil War. In these most recent clashes with Hezbollah, similar phenomenons of mass mobilization of the male population in towns have also been reported. And while Hezbollah has one of the most impressive para-military organizations in the Arab world, fighting the Druze in their Shouf base is a choice they make at their own peril.
