The Arab League and Hezbollah: A shift in policy?

Last month, the Arab League’s Assistant Secretary-General Hossam Zaki made remarks about the 22-member institution ceasing to classify Lebanon’s Hezbollah as a terror group.

Subsequently, it was reported that the Arab League had denied the move, with Zaki saying his previous comments were taken out of context.

Regardless of whether the regional organisation delists Hezbollah, the possibility of it speaks to some important shifts in the Middle East as the Gaza war rages into its tenth month and Arab statesmen consider a potential scenario whereby Hezbollah and Israel engage in full-scale war.

Talk of Hezbollah being removed from the Arab League’s terror list should be understood within at least two important contexts. The first is the changing relationships between Arab states and Iran. The second is public opinion in Arab countries which is increasing pressure on regional governments.

On 2 March 2016, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. The Arab League followed suit nine days later. Emotions and sectarian temperatures were high at that time with some Gulf states taking the perceived Iranian threat very seriously.

Only two months earlier, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain had fully severed diplomatic relations with Tehran, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) had downgraded them.

Leaders in Riyadh and other Gulf Arab capitals believed Hezbollah was playing a dangerous and destabilising role in numerous countries at Iran’s behest while Yemen’s Houthi rebels were at war with all GCC states, except Oman.

But the Saudi-Iranian détente and improvements in relationships between other Arab states, such as Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Sudan, Tunisia, the UAE, and Tehran have opened the door for reduced tension between a handful of Arab governments and Hezbollah.

There has been some engagement between GCC states and Hezbollah which underscores this point. In May, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Lebanon and Hezbollah’s head of Arab and international relations met at an event that Iran’s embassy in Beirut hosted shortly after the late president Ebrahim Raisi’s death. In March, Wafiq Safa, a high-ranking Hezbollah official, paid an important visit to the UAE.

Dr Karim Emile Bitar, a professor of international relations at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut, sees the possibility of the Arab League softening its position on Hezbollah as primarily an outcome of the Riyadh-Tehran détente as well as Syria’s reintegration into the Arab League last year.

“Many actors consider that Hezbollah is an actor that they have to talk to, and they can’t simply dismiss it,” he told The New Arab.

Public opinion in Arab countries is important too. As the barbaric Israeli war on Gaza continues, populations in Arab countries are looking at factions in the Iran-led “axis of resistance” differently. As demonstrated by polling conducted late last year, Hamas’ image in the eyes of the Saudi public improved significantly in the first few months of the ongoing Gaza war.

Dr Bitar explained that the current conflict dynamics in the Middle East have also served to improve Hezbollah’s standing in Arab societies. This is despite issues over the past 10-15 years which made many Sunni Arabs in the Gulf and elsewhere in the region view the Lebanese organisation negatively.

“Gulf countries also had to take into consideration the change in the geopolitical landscape and the change in Arab public opinion after 7 October,” he told TNA.

Although Hezbollah’s role in the Syrian war and its actions in Lebanon’s domestic political arena led to many “hard feelings in the Sunni world,” Dr Bitar said that there has been a “significant amount of Sunni sympathy for Palestinians being massacred” since 7 October and such sentiments reflect on “all movements in the region who are perceived as supportive of Palestine, so it is yet another psychological gain for the so-called ‘Axis of Resistance’”.

Egypt's role

Competition among Arab states and Cairo’s position in the Arab League are likely important factors to consider too.

Egypt is trying to regain some of the influence that it had in the Arab world decades ago while trying to prevent some GCC states from taking on this leadership role in the region.

In pursuit of Egypt’s own national interests, Cairo's attempt to engage Hezbollah is perhaps part of President Abdel Fatah el-Sisi’s efforts to ease friction between Arab states and Iran at a time in which the whole region is focused on the possibility of a full-scale Hezbollah-Israel war.

Such a conflict could be multicontinental and add to the security and economic challenges which Egypt faces amid Israel’s war next door in Gaza and insecurity in the Red Sea.

“The Arab League is trying to communicate with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, in addition to solving the issue of the presidency in Lebanon, and using its capabilities to prevent the spread of the war between Hezbollah and Israel throughout the region,” Dr Javad Heiran-Nia, the director of the Persian Gulf Studies Group at the Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies in Iran, told TNA.

“The presence of Egypt in the group of five countries to solve the Lebanon issue has also been effective in this decision of the Arab League. Egypt knows that Hezbollah is an important player in the Lebanese scene, and any agenda to solve the political crisis in Lebanon requires cooperation with Hezbollah and of course Iran. In addition, the lack of opposition from Saudi Arabia and the UAE will facilitate the removal of the terrorist label of Hezbollah by the Arab League,” he added.

A win for Iran

Riyadh’s renormalisation of relations with Assad’s government and Syria’s return to the Arab League in 2023 both proved to be huge wins for Tehran. The Arab League delisting Hezbollah would constitute another important victory for Iran. This development would further boost Iran’s sense of confidence in the Islamic Republic’s ‘Neighbours First’ foreign policy strategy.

The Arab League delisting Hezbollah would speak to the extent to which Saudi Arabia and other Arab states are moving away from Washington’s hardline anti-Iranian positions. These regional states are becoming increasingly accommodative of the Islamic Republic while trying to find ways to “share the neighbourhood” with Tehran as then-US President Barack Obama called for in 2016.

“Hezbollah is considered the [crown jewel] of [Iran’s] Islamic revolution. The fact that even [Iran’s] arch-rivals among the Sunni Gulf monarchies are recognising that Hezbollah is an essential player of the Lebanese scene and that therefore they cannot simply dismiss it, put a label on it, and avoid engaging it is something that will be perceived as a symbolic victory for Iran - yet another one after the reintegration of Bashar al-Assad which came without any meaningful concessions offered by Assad to the Saudis or Emiratis,” said Dr Bitar.

From Washington’s perspective, the Arab League’s mixed signals on Hezbollah’s status is a sign of decreasing regional support for US policies aimed at squeezing Iran and Tehran-aligned actors in the Arab world.

With Saudi Arabia seeking to negotiate a lasting peace with the Houthis while also supporting Syria’s full reintegration into the Arab League, the US is frustrated with what it sees as an unwillingness on the part of Riyadh and other Arab capitals to not join Washington in following through with plans for countering the expansion and consolidation of Iran’s regional influence.

Nonetheless, this is a time in which GCC states are keen to chart their own foreign policy paths without taking orders from the US. Focused on their own countries’ economic development and diversification, Gulf Arab officials are determined to promote the type of stability required for their long-term goals to become realistic.

In practice, this means finding a way to live with the Iranians and their allies such as Hezbollah, pointing to why the Arab League is possibly moving towards treating Hezbollah more as a legitimate Lebanese political actor rather than a terrorist organisation.

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics.

Follow him on Twitter: @GiorgioCafiero