Leaving Beirut for the South of Lebanon is similar to leaving any metropolis – traffic jams, new expressways, roadways that cut through residential areas. The Paris of the Middle East has lost much of its charm. It is heavy until the view of the blue green Mediterranean waters calm the atmosphere. Banana groves, similar to those that camouflaged the Hezbollah rocket carriers during the 2006 summer war, are prominent. Also prominent are posters of Rafiq Hariri, the assassinated and previous Prime Minister.

After the Sunni city of Sidon, a peaceful countryside of groves and orchards, with newly repaired bridges that cross ready-to-be-paved roads, leads to Tyre. The Shiite city has freshly sanded beaches and a picturesque seaside promenade. The poster have changed – they now feature Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s political leader,

Tyre is the home of Sheik Nabil Kaook, Hezbollah commander of South Lebanon. The Sheik narrowly escaped death when Israeli warplanes bombed his home in 2006 war.  

In his presence, women are not greeted with handshakes, but with hands respectfully placed over the heart. The women sit veiled and separate from the men. The cleric is well groomed and well tailored – his white turban shows his status and his brown cloak matches the brown chair on which he sits, Words are spoken politely and softly. Nevertheless, the message, interspersed with feelings for the dispossessed, is harsh and accusatory: The Hezbollah Sheik has one succinct message: “The United States took the decision to go to war and to continue the war. It treats Lebanon as just another occupation.”

Tyre is also identified with the Al-Sadr foundation, which manages an orphanage under control of Rabab al-Sadr, sister of disappeared Shiite cleric Sayyid Musa al-Sadr. Shi‘a clerics who have the title of sayyid claim descent from Muhammad.  Sayyid Musa al-Sadr is more famous than his designation. His life, a story of dedication, success and an eventual mystery, reveals strong links between Shiites from Iran, Iraq and Lebanon. 

Born in Qom, Iran in 1928 to a Lebanese family of theologians, Musa al-Sadr studied theology in Najaf, Iraq. Being related to the father of Iraq’s Muqtada al-Sadr, Iraq was another home for him. In 1960 Musa al-Sadr moved to Tyre, his father’s birthplace. He soon became recognized as a strong advocate for the economically and politically disadvantaged Shi'ite population.  His role in establishing schools and medical clinics throughout southern Lebanon led to the 1974 founding of the Movement of the Disinherited, whose armed wing became Amal, the other Shiite party in Lebanon. While successfully improving economic and social conditions for a disenfranchised Shiite population, he made enemies of landlords, corrupt officials, political establishment and members of the Palestinian Liberation Oganization.  In 1978, while attending a conference in Libya, Musa al-Sadr mysteriously vanished. No clue to his disappearance has ever surfaced.

Musa al-Sadr‘s eventual disassociation with, what was then, a corrupt Amal, created other groups, some of whom later coalesced into Hezbollah. On February 16, 1985, an “Open Letter to the Downtrodden in Lebanon and the World,” alerted the world to Hezbollah’s formal existence.

Elegant chalets grace the barren hills of southern Lebanon. Many of them are homes of expatriate Lebanese, who have always been principal contributors to Lebanon’s economy. The expatriates from Sierra Leone, Gulf States and many from Dearborn, Michigan and other U.S. cities, send funds to their Lebanese relatives and purchase properties throughout Lebanon. Southern Lebanon has many retired Dearborns who have returned to their families and to a land they always cherished. But that’s not all – informed persons claim Southern Lebanon has diamond and drug smuggling that help finance Hezbollah and local communities. For expediency and revenue, the Party of God can depart from being a religious movement.

The elegant chalets emphasize the destruction to villages during the 2006 summer war. Bint Jbiel, “the daughter of the mountain,” rested in a path of the invading Israeli army. Israel’s military dropped leaflets that ordered the population to leave the village.

The inhabitants obeyed the order and now the old city, not the new part, is 70% destroyed; a mound of rubble that includes the 600 year old mosque. Homes along a near by dirt road are pocked with shell and bullet holes, evidence of tanks having discharged random fire at empty houses for no apparent reason except they were close to the path of the tank. A total of eighteen Israeli tanks broke down, crashed or were destroyed by Hezbollah ambush during the Israeli invasion.

The Israeli border is several kilometers away. From a hill close to the mined border with Israel, the deputy mayor of Marjayoun pointed to the verdant fields of Northern Israel. He claimed that in 1948 Israel seized one kilometer of Lebanese territory and that the houses in the distance are mainly empty.