No Man's Land

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The group's accomplishments also dot much of the country, hinting at its nation-wide ambitions. Hizballah runs one of the country's finest schools, the Shahed (Witness) School--just a few minutes' walk from the Beirut barracks near the airport where a suicide bomber killed 241 U.S. servicemen in 1983. Children of Hizballah martyrs make up a quarter of the 1,000 students there, who are drilled in daily English classes. Another symbol of the new Hizballah is its al-Manara (Lighthouse) TV, which broadcasts news, soap operas, kiddie programs and with-the-guerrillas footage of attacks on Israeli fortifications in southern Lebanon. The station--managed by close-shorn Islamic revolutionaries--recently climbed to No. 3 in overall viewership in Lebanon, a sign that the group is as intent on fighting a ratings war as it is on continuing a guerrilla war.

The architect of the improbable makeover is the 40-year-old Nasrallah, who took over as secretary-general after Israeli planes killed his predecessor and mentor, Sheik Abbas Musawi, in 1992. In a 90-minute interview, Nasrallah strongly emphasizes Hizballah's commitment to working within the political system and avoiding any provocation, including Hizballah's preference for an Islamic state, that might trigger a return of the 1975-90 Lebanese civil war. "We are for partnership," he says, "so that the Christians do not ignore the Muslims and the Muslims do not ignore the Christians." When it comes to discussing Israel, however, Nasrallah is vehement. "Let us be clear," he says. "In our opinion, the Jewish state is an illegitimate and illegal state and will remain so in the eyes of the Arab and Muslim people, even if it is 50 years, 100 years, 200 years." Nasrallah lost his eldest son, Mohammed Hadi, then 18, in the resistance, and has another currently at the front.

The "Lebanonization of Hizballah," as the trend is dubbed, is evident in Hizballah's efforts to improve the lot of its grass-roots base, the country's more than 1.5 million mostly impoverished Shi'ites. Far from fixating on Islamic law, Hizballah's representatives in parliament have busied themselves winning funding for projects that will benefit their constituents. One recent morning, as Hizballah fighters were launching attacks on Israeli outposts in southern Lebanon, a Hizballah M.P. was walking Lebanese journalists around Beirut to highlight the more mundane problem of potholes. Says Mohammed Baydoun, an M.P. for Amal, a rival Shi'ite party: "They are pragmatic. They understand the political game."

Will Hizballah play the game as well, once the resistance shine wears off? Evolving beyond the battlefield will demand geopolitical finesse--a tough requirement for any political group, to say nothing of holy warriors. U.S. diplomats say they regard Nasrallah's protestations of moderation with a very wary eye, and if the slippery rapprochement between Washington and Tehran ever gets traction, Iran might start writing smaller checks to the group. Deprived of that largesse, Hizballah would find its intra-Shi'ite rivalry tougher going against Amal, whose support from Syria, with its 30,000 troops in Lebanon, has helped it seat twice as many M.P.s as Hizballah. If Syria and Lebanon ever wind up at peace with Israel, Hizballah will be under intense pressure to disarm--by force if necessary.