Quote Originally Posted by tribeguy View Post
Interesting subject - us Americans are just beginning to start studying tribes. The Brits were better at it 100 years ago, but they are as bad as we are now.
I don't know how bad Americans are, but I can tell you that having travelled or lived in Algeria, Tchad, Niger, Jordan, Israel and the Sinai, from 1984 to the present day, you'll find Brit Anthropologists researching tribes.

As I am sure you know, the largest Archive of English Language Research into Arab Tribes in the Middle East is in Jerusalem - and far outstrips that recorded in any other language - and 90% of it done by Brits, and still being done!

Hezbollah:
As Rex, - someone extremely familiar with Hezbollah - notes, the tribal issue is almost certainly a "so what." If indeed you can trace a tribal structure to Hezbollah, where does it get you?

Extended family structures seem to have pretty thin within the PLO and PFLP. Yes, certain families/Clans backed the PLO at certain times, but I never spoken to anyone who has ever reference those affiliations within the organisation. - Rex may add to that.

- now Clans and extended families are extremely important in the "internal politics" of the West Bank - and to some extent Gaza - but again not really relevant to that part of thier politics that cause a problem - opposing Israel.
If they were not fighting Israel, they would and some days do, kill each other in quite large numbers.