No Man's Land

For the rendezvous with Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the turbaned leader of Hizballah, the time and place are kept secret. Eventually you are driven into a barricaded neighborhood protected by bearded militiamen and hustled into an apartment block with mirrored windows. Wallets, key chains, and even belts are removed from you and taken away for inspection. Finally you are seated in a room dominated by an acrylic painting of Ayatullah Ruhollah Khomeini. At the far end is Hizballah's yellow banner, the words "Islamic Revolution of Lebanon" written in Arabic beneath the silhouette of a holy warrior's rifle.

It may seem like a journey to the center of one of the world's deadliest terrorist organizations. But appearances never tell all. The Party of God has come a long way since its founding in 1982, when even most Lebanese considered it nothing more than the fanatical stalking horse of revolutionary Iran. Having since sacrificed 1,375 "martyrs" in the fight against Israel's 22-year-old occupation of southern Lebanon, Hizballah has seen its profile in Lebanon, even among many Christians, transformed into that of a heroic resistance army.

With Israel promising a final troop withdrawal by July, Hizballah is being hailed for doing what Egyptians, Jordanians, Syrians and Palestinians have never done: driving Israeli soldiers off Arab land by force. Hizballah leaders can barely contain their eagerness for the day when their fighters, crying "God is great!," will march into the buffer strip along the southern Lebanese border that Israel calls the Security Zone. The Lebanese postal service is issuing stamps in honor of the jihad. And though still on the State Department's list of terrorist groups, accused in the suicide bombings of U.S. diplomats and military forces in Beirut and the kidnapping of Westerners in Lebanon, Hizballah is reinventing itself as an increasingly respectable Lebanese political party. They've even relaxed their enforcement of Islamic codes on drinking and women's veils.

Israel's planned withdrawal is a pivotal event for Lebanon. Lebanese see it as a chance to rebuild their nation. The streets and cafes of Beirut are filled with ambitious, entrepreneurial Arabs from around the region, eager to transform the country. Visions abound: some see Lebanon as a kind of Singapore of the Middle East, a technology and business center for the entire region. Others dream of a more cosmopolitan nation that recalls Lebanon's days as one of the Mediterranean's most opulent jewels.

In southern Lebanon, where Hizballah is still grinding out a war against Israel, those visions can seem incredible. The area around the Israeli occupation zone is a no-man's-land of mines, barbed wire and abandoned villages. But it is in that desolate and hilly country that Hizballah has begun its transformation. Shunning outward extremism for the sake of attracting the broadest support among its mainly Shi'ite constituency, it now holds nine seats in the Lebanese parliament. It dominates scores of municipal councils. And, using millions of dollars given by Iran and donations collected from Lebanese, Hizballah has won support by opening hospitals, health clinics and dozens of private schools.

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