Hezbollah Is A Terrorist Group

[Rasputin]

BY THE TIME Israel launched its savage attack on every inch of the Lebanese territory, with the occasional exception of the heavily Christian sections of Lebanon that were ethnically cleansed during the Lebanese Civil War, in mid-July 2006, there were every reason to believe that Lebanon was on its way to survive its historic woes--with civility, grace, and hope--leave behind and forgive the previous barbarisms of its Zionist neighbour, and the vicious civil war that it had deliberately instigated and fueled with evident and conniving treachery. There was hope for Lebanon in the aftermath of the "Israeli" withdrawal from its southern territories. The invasion and occupation had happened and ended in disgrace. The civil war had exhausted all internecine factionalism and Lebanon was still intact--in body and soul.

The Syrians had packed and left. The Gucci revolutionaries had demonstrated in their hundreds of thousands in March against Syria and made their presence felt, as had the poor and the disenfranchised of Lebanon, the Shias in particular--that they too were a force to contend with. There seemed to be a fair balance of classes and interests, a fairly representative coalition from across the political divide. The bizarre combination of pro-American, Francophone, bourgeoisie, (not even hiding their Sri Lankan maids), were met and matched by the wretched of the Lebanese earth, the poor Shias, the disenfranchised Palestinians, and an array of temporary slaves heralding from Syria, Iraq, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and all across the world.

The road and the struggle ahead of the Lebanese seemed to sustain a proactive economy and a thriving political culture. Whatever the late Prime Minister Hariri did or did not do, and how ever he did or did not do, downtown Beirut looked and exuded an emerging confidence--shops were full of goods and customers, fruits and vegetables were in full abundance, cultural activities, TV programs, the rambunctious press, the university campuses, the art scenes, the money that Ford and other American and European foundations were investing in the Lebanese creative imagination--all indicated that there was not just hope but a trust in what was happening--and what was happening was good, promising, beautiful, hopeful. Between the enterprising bourgeoisie (and their colorful SUV's) and the accumulated suffering of the labour class a difference was evident, a struggle was in process, of which history is made, political parties are formed, ideological formations take place--and in the midst of that a people are named, a nation of common sentiments collected, a country is called home. You could tell by the number of native Lebanese living outside their country but going back for their summer holidays, the money and gifts they brought back to their families, and those members of the same family who were leading a happy and satisfying life inside Lebanon, that Lebanon was collecting itself and once again calling itself a homeland.

ALL INDICATIONS came together in the summer of 2006 that there was hope for Lebanon. Syria was out, Hizbullah was part of the government, religious factions were regrouping, Gucci revolutionaries were adamant, the white-washed bourgeoisie were visibly invisible, the progressive left was challenging the complicitous anti-Syrian, pro-American air of the older generation of Lebanese intellectuals--so all was well. Lebanon could have been a contender as a model of ecumenical tolerance, ideological diversity, political pluralism, societal syncretism. The walk on the Corniche between Rawda Restaurant and Gamal Abdel-Nasser's monument in Beirut had as many veiled women as women in their bikinis, songs of Abdel-Halim Hafez and Fairouz out loud, nargilas at full blast, huge TV screens on which people were watching the Algerian-French striker Zinedine Zidane headbutting the Italian defender Marco Materazzi. Lebanon was no hotbed of religious fanaticism--neither a Jewish state, nor an Islamic Republic, nor indeed a Christian colony of the American empire was evident in the graceful but valanced countenance of Lebanon.

If this sounds a bit too innocent a reading of Lebanon before the savages descended upon it, then it is precisely that innocence that Israel is hell-bound to murder.

A QUICK LOOK at the vicious savagery with which Israel invaded Lebanon, particularly at the bombing pattern of the Israeli air force, navy, and army that commenced on 12 July 2006 and continued apace despite a global call for ceasefire--every country in the world except the US, the UK, and Israel itself--indicates that the Israeli invasion was (1) long in preparation, (2) nation-wide and by no means limited to Hizbullah targets; and (3) intended, on the Rumsfeldian model of "shock and awe," to cripple the Lebanese national sovereignty, polity, society, and economy for yet another generation. As verified by world press and confirmed by Amnesty International, Israel mounted "more than7,000 air force attacks and 2,500 naval bombardments particularly concentrated on civilian areas . . . . The majority of the 1,183 Lebanese deaths were non-combatants, and about a third were reportedly children" (Financial Times, 23 August 2006).

[Rasputin]

ON THE EVIDENCE of the facts on the ground, the death and destruction and the rubble and ruin that this wild European beast has left behind in Lebanon, it is quite evident that the purpose of this latest criminal atrocity was to destroy the very possibility of any kind of cosmopolitan culture in Lebanon. The failed launch of "Israel" as a mini empire, modeling itself clumsily on the pattern of the neocon artist in Washington DC (as AIPAC tries to prove to Washington that it can be useful in Bush's war on "terrorism"), has an evident agenda far beyond Palestine and Lebanon--and the fact that it has miserably failed to achieve it must not blind us to the projected agenda that this mutated stage of Zionism is projecting. The mutation of the Zionist settlement into a mini-empire wannabe means that all the positive and hopeful developments in both Palestine and Lebanon, that both Hamas and Hizbullah were now part and parcel of a more embracing political process, were in fact inimical to the Israeli imperial aping of the US in the region. In that respect, all the hogwash of European and American so-called liberals that the Israeli response to Hizbullah was "disproportionate" is sheer nonsense. Israeli's war crimes in Lebanon were perfectly proportionate to what it wanted to do--to bomb Lebanon back to sectarian warfare, to reduce the cosmopolitan character of Lebanon to Muslims and Christians fighting against each other in order to make the Jewish state look normal and at home in the neighbourhood. That Israel miserably failed to achieve that malicious objective speaks volumes both to the medieval tribalism that is at the heart of the Jewish state and the cosmopolitan character of the Lebanese national resistance.

THE KEY QUESTION in drawing any enduring lesson from Lebanon in the aftermath of July 2006 Israeli savagery is how do we read the phenomenon called Hizbullah. Not just in the heartland of US neocons, Washington DC, where Hizbullah is synonymous with terrorism, but even more pointedly amongst the supposedly more progressive European observers there is a palpable unease, a bit of a bafflement, and a conspicuous hesitation to identify with the Lebanese national resistance to the military adventurism of the mini-empire. In practically every dispatch he has sent from the war-torn Lebanon, and as the Lebanese of all walks of life were putting up a heroic resistance against the predatory killing machine called "Israel," the veteran British journalist Robert Fisk did not lose a single opportunity to vilify Hizbullah and squarely blame it for the commencement of the war, at times in a language identical with the right wing of the Israeli Likudnicks, the US neocons, put together with the erstwhile Phalangists, unabashedly equating "Hizbollah atrocities" with "Israeli atrocities" (Independent, 11 August 2006), insisting that "it was Hizbollah which provoked this latest war," and warning that by invading Lebanon, Israelis "are legitimizing Hizbollah, . . . a rag-tag army of guerillas" (Independent, 5 August 2006)--as if this "rag-tag army" lacked such legitimacy before it represented and defended the dignity of an equally "rag-tag" multitude of poor and disenfranchised Lebanese masses.

From the neocon operations in the US to Robert Fisk, the phenomenon of the Lebanese Hizbullah has been the chief focal point of the propaganda machinery on behalf of Israel--all behaving as if this thing they call "Hizbullah" fell off from the sky on the innocent Lebanese, preventing them to live in peace and prosperity with their splendidly democratic, peaceful, and generous southern neighbour. But aren't the Hizbullah fighters, and the mass of Lebanese they represent, Lebanese too? In all such dismissive assessments of Hizbullah, there has been a misplaced concreteness, a pervasive surrogate confusion, as to what exactly this Hizbullah thing is. Hizbullah is not a band of Martians who have landed in Lebanon. Hizbullah in Lebanon is what Hamas is in Palestine, and what the Mahdi's Army is in Iraq--the political manifestation of the historically denied and politically repressed subaltern components of three national liberation movements.

Too much emphasis on Hizbullah, Hamas, and the Mahdi's Army as three political organizations confuses a subaltern political reality (the poor and the disenfranchised in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq) with its accidental organizational manifestation. Israel can kill Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and Khaled Mashaal in Palestine, as the US might Muqtada Sadr in Iraq, tomorrow (if they only could) and ten more Nasrallahs and Mashaals and Muqtada Sadrs will emerge from the Dahiya neighbourhood in Beirut and from Gaza in Palestine and from Najaf in Iraq. Hizbullah and Hamas and Mahdi's Army are three accidental expressions of three essential and deeply rooted political and demographic realities. The poor of the southern Lebanon (who happen to be Shias) have historically been denied their fair share in Lebanese politics; as have the poor and the disenfranchised among the Palestinians (who happen to be Muslims), and the poor and the disenfranchised among the Iraqis (who too happen to be Shias). Hizbullah, Hamas, and Mahdi's Army are not manufactured banalities and militant adventurers like al-Qaeda, created and crafted by the US-Pakistan-Saudi alliance to fight the Russians and prevent the spread of the Iranian Islamic revolution eastward. Hizbullah, Hamas, and Mahdi's Army are grassroots movements--the shame of the national liberation movements in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq that had historically failed to include the most disenfranchised subaltern communities in their emancipatory projects.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

The lead role here is with Palestine, and in particular in the historic signatures of Marwan Barghouti, the leader of Fatah in the West Bank, Sheik Abdel-Khaliq Al-Natshe, a Hamas leader, as well as the signatures of the leaders of Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine on the so-called "Prison Accord." The formation of a cross-section of Palestinian national liberation movement is unprecedented in its history. By virtue of this document, Hamas has achieved something far more important than an implicit recognition of a colonial settlement on Palestinian homeland. With this document, Hamas has joined the formation of a historical balance between all the factions and forces integral to the national liberation of Palestine--and as such has learned the art of political compromise for a larger and more significant goal.

The condition in Lebanon were not half as ready and were just in the embryonic stage and a contingent process of fermentation when the Israelis made the monumental stupidity of invading Lebanon hoping to destroy Hizbullah. This was not a mere military folly, for a conventional army cannot defeat a guerrilla operation fighting to defend its homeland. The Israeli invasion of Lebanon in July-August 2006, and particularly in the enormity of death and destruction it rained on civilians, instantly turned Hizbullah from an erstwhile Shia guerilla operation into the chief organ of a national resistance. Israel has always been a gargantuan military with a colonial state apparatus built around it. But this time around it committed the monumental stupidity of thinking that with military thuggery it can impose its will on the region--not just in Palestine and Lebanon, but through the evident logic of USrael, the degeneration of two state apparatus into one imperial design, in Iraq and Afghanistan and by design in Iran and Syria. They cannot. The USrael has just expedited the sublation of Hizbullah into a national resistance in Lebanon--and as such a model of syncretic and cosmopolitan revolutionary uprising in the region.

IN THE REALM of political possibilities there is of course nothing impossible. Is there thus the danger that the Lebanese Hizbullah might degenerate into an Iranian Hizbullah and opt thoroughly to Islamise the Lebanese national liberation movement and work towards the creation of an Islamic Republic of Lebanon (the way that the Khomeini Islamists did early in the course of the 1979 Revolution)--or, extending the same argument, could Hamas equally Islamise the Palestinian national liberation movement and degenerate into demanding and exacting an Islamic Republic of Palestine, or, just to complete the regional picture, is it possible that the Mahdi's Army do the same and demand and exact an Islamic Republic of Iraq?

Nothing will make Israel and its US supporters happier than such a nightmare, and they will do anything in their power to achieve precisely that--the self-fulfilling prophecy of degenerating syncretic and cosmopolitan national liberation movements into tyrannical religious fanaticism that ipso facto justify the existence of a Jewish state in their vicinity. The Israeli treachery has already started conniving for such an eventuality in Lebanon by sending its commandos to fight the Hizbullah fighters while dressed in Lebanese army uniforms. But one fundamental fact articulated in three diverse settings speaks against such a possibility and promises the creation of three pluralist and cosmopolitan political cultures that would be the identical nightmare of the Jewish state, the Islamic republic, and their Christian imperial arbiter. That single abiding fact is the demographic disposition of Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq.

In Lebanon and in Iraq the Shias are a slight majority with a significant minority complex, and in Palestine Hamas is but one of four major political factions. With a historical draw of luck for Lebanon and the entire region, Hizbullah has to (has to, not that it might or should or could--it simply has to) share power and contend with the Sunnis, the Christians, and the Druze with almost exactly the same logic that in Iraq, the Shias have to share power and contend with the Sunnis and the Kurds, and in Palestine Hamas has to share power and contend with Fatah, the Islamic Jihad, the PFLP and DFLP.

In this respect, the Islamists in Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq are exactly the opposite of the Islamists in the Islamic Republic of Iran where the Shias constitute the overwhelming majority of the population. The fortunate demographic diversity of Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq works much to the advantage of a pluralistic society and a cosmopolitan political culture. Whereas in the Islamic Republic the 95% plus Shia population projects the false assumption that the society at large is an "Islamic" society--a false assumption that both the Islamic Republic and even its so-called opposition among the reformists corroborate and put to a brutal political use to destroy and dismantle the cosmopolitan Iranian political culture that certainly includes the Islamists but is by no means limited to it. This sectarian reading of the regional politics is only pertinent if we think of these nations in terms of their sectarian breakdown and religious disposition and disregard the long and arduous history of their national liberation movements. In Lebanon, Palestine, Iraq, and even Iran, the Islamists have had to garb their religious sentiments in blatantly nationalist terms--and thus the emancipatory power of national liberation movements that still mobilizes these nations to rise up against all colonial and imperial designs against their sovereignty.

THE SINGLE MOST IMPORTANT lesson from the latest military thuggery of Israel in Lebanon is the fact that the Jewish state wants to see the region in its own traumatized image: Jewish tribalism running amuck, for in effect the legitimacy of the Jewish state is entirely contingent not just on one but preferably on a multitude of Islamic republics in the region, so that with the Christian empire that presides over them all and the Hindu fundamentalism that lurks in its background the European Zionist colonial settlement finds itself in a natural habitat and is thus ipso facto legitimized--and so that with a Jewish state, a Christian empire, an Islamic republic, and a Hindu fundamentalism the whole world can go to hell in a hand-basket.

To defeat Israel in terms emancipatory not just to the entirety of the region but in terms that in fact includes the six million plus inhabitants of Israel itself, and thus liberates them from the claws of their own tribal fanaticism, nothing can be more effective than generating and sustaining a multitude of pluralist civil societies and cosmopolitan political cultures in which grassroots Islamist movements like Hamas and Hizbullah will always be integral but never definitive.

[Sepideh_UK]

Intresting article.
mersi agha Siamak.

[Rasputin]

جنگ لبنان
آنكه برد
آنكه باخت!
عباس عبدی




پس از آن كه در ابتدای جنگ اخير لبنان صحبتهای من درباره خطای استراتژيك حزبالله در حمله و اسير گرفتن سربازان اسراييلی منتشر شد و روند تحولات نظامی بطور نسبی به سود حزبالله جريان يافت، عدهای از دوستان معتقد بودند كه آن ارزيابی از سوی من، قدری زود هنگام بوده است، اما در همان مصاحبه هم اعلام كردم كه ارزيابی موجود از خطای حزبالله مستقل از نتايج نظامی جنگ اخير است، و جنگ واقعی برای حزبالله پس از پايان اين جنگ آغاز خواهد شد. اكنون بيش از دو هفته از آتشبس لبنان میگذرد و مصاحبه اخير سيدحسن نصرالله صحت آن تحليل را روشن كرده است. البته اين بدان معنا نيست كه اسراييل پيروز جنگ بوده، زيرا اسراييل پس از آغاز جنگ اهدافی را اعلام كرد كه طبعاً نرسيدن به آن اهداف شكست تلقی میشود، همچنان كه اين جمله نصرالله نيز كه: اگر میدانستيم چنين نتايجی بر اسارت دو سرباز مترتب میشود اين كار را نمیكرديم، چيزی جز پذيرش شكست نسبت به تحقق اهداف اوليه حزبالله تفسير نمیشود. بنابراين میتوان گفت كه هر دو طرف جنگ در رسيدن به منويات اصلی خود شكستخورده محسوب میشوند، همان طور كه در جنگ ايران و عراق نيز شاهد چنين وضعی بوديم؛ عراق قطعاً شكست خورده جنگ بود، اما ايران هم پس از شروع جنگ چون اهداف بلندی را در تقابل با عراق مطرح كرد و به آنها نرسيد، جناح پيروز محسوب نمیشود، اما اگر اهداف خود را فقط به اخراج عراق محدود میكرد، طبعاً پيروز محسوب میشد.

عدم موفقيت حزبالله از جهتی ديگر هم آشكار است. نصرالله معمولاً در اظهارات خود، كلامی منطقی و معقول و غيرمتناقض را بكار میبرد، اما در مصاحبه اخير از يك سو تأكيد میكند كه اگر يك درصد هم احتمال چنين واكنشی را میداديم، چنان اقدامی را مرتكب نمیشديم، از سوی ديگر مدعی است كه اسراييل در صدد حمله به حزبالله در آينده نزديكی بوده كه اگر آن واقعه در زمان مورد نظر اسراييل رخ میداد خسارات حزبالله بيشتر بود. بديهی است كه اين دو ديدگاه با يكديگر متعارض است و طبعاً هر كدام برای نوعی از توجيه اتفاقات رخ داده است و تناقض در سخن حكايت از نامطلوب بودن وضعيت جاری است.

در هر حال گزاره اول سيدحسن نصرالله پذيرفته خواهد شد، اما اين گزاره تبعات خاص خود را دارد كه من قبلاً در گفتگوی خود با تلويزيون هما آن را توضيح دادهام، بدين معنا كه اظهار عدم پيشبينی (آن هم حتی به احتمال يك درصد) حمله اسراييل (خصوصاً پس از وقايع غزه) از سوی حزبالله، ممكن است به لحاظ روحی و روانی و حتی اخلاقی تسكيندهنده آلام موجود مردم لبنان باشد، ولی بلافاصله اين سوال را از سوی گروههای ديگر مطرح میكند كه در اين صورت حزبالله صلاحيت سياسی لازم را برای در اختيار داشتن سلاح ندارد، و دليلی ندارد كه ادامه وضع موجود و در اختيار داشتن سلاح از سوی حزبالله مجدداً به بحران مشابه ختم نشود. ديگران خواهند گفت كه اين اظهارنظر سيدحسن نصرالله اگرچه شجاعانه و مسئولانه است، اما مستلزم پذيرش تبعات آن كه خلع سلاح است نيز هست.

حتی اگر حزبالله خلع سلاح هم نشود، به دليل آمدن به شمال رودخانه ليطانی، عملاً از رودررويی با اسراييل منع شده است و حفظ سلاح در منطقه بقاع برای مبارزه با اسراييل كارآيی ندارد و فقط هزينه نگهداری را به آنان تحميل میكند، مگر آن كه آنان قصد استفاده از اين سلاحها را در مسايل داخلی لبنان داشته باشند كه با توجه به پيشينه سياسی حزبالله بعيد است كه چنين اتفاق خطرناكی رخ دهد.

آيا آنچه كه گفته شد به معنای نابودی حزبالله است. مسلماً خير. حتی لزوماً به معنای تضعيف حزبالله هم نيست، بلكه نقش منطقهای حزبالله بصورت يك نيروی مستقل زايل میشود و حزبالله از اين پس تنها میتواند در عرصه داخلی لبنان فعال باشد، و نقش منطقهای آن هم عمدتاً از خلال لبنان و حكومت آن خواهد بود كه موضوع بسيار مهمی در منطقه تلقی نخواهد شد. بنابراين جنگ اخير مقدمهای است برای محدود شدن حزبالله به مسايل داخلی لبنان كه نكتهای مثبت برای اسراييل است.

اما در كنار آنچه گفته شد، اسراييل هم با خسارتهای مهمی در اين جنگ مواجه شده است كه خسارات مادی و انسانی بخشی از آنهاست، اما نفس توقف اسراييل در برابر حزبالله منجر به قوام مقاومت در ميان فلسطينیها و حمايت بيشتر افكار عمومی جهان عرب از آن خواهد شد و موضع روحی روانی اسراييل را نيز در برابر مقاومت تضعيف خواهد كرد. كه پرداختن به اين موضوع مجال ديگری را میطلبد

[Rasputin]

Hezbollah, a Shiite terrorist organization based in South Lebanon, began its latest campaign against Israel on July 12, 2006, when it entered Israeli sovereign territory and killed eight Israeli soldiers, kidnapped two others and began launching rocket attacks against Israeli cities.

In response to Hezbollah's continuing attacks, which have killed and wounded scores of civilians so far, Israel has resolved to remove the Hezbollah threat from its border and cripple the military capabilities of the group, whose goal is the destruction of the Jewish State.

Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, claimed the kidnapping was planned five months ago in order to force Israel to trade Lebanese prisoners for the soldiers. Nasrallah also pledged further "surprises" for Israel.



The last time Hezbollah carried out a similar operation against Israel was in October of 2000, when an Israeli business man and three Israeli soldiers were abducted. Hezbollah released the businessman and the bodies of three soldiers in 2004 in exchange for more than 400 prisoners and 59 bodies of Lebanese fighters.



The arsenal that Hezbollah is using against Israel illustrates the extent to which the terrorist group has succeeded in acquiring weapons from Iran and Syria, which have backed the group since its founding in 1982.



Despite the Israeli army's withdrawal from its buffer zone in South Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah has refused to relinquish its arms and continues to attack Israel. For its part, the Lebanese government refers to Hezbollah as a "national resistance group," despite the fact that Hezbollah's continued activity in South Lebanon is a violation of UN Resolution 1559.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Claims of extensive deaths in Hezbollah’s ranks are either unverified by neutral observers or by the foreign press, or turn out to be civilians killed in their houses or shelters, as confirmed by Red Cross reports. While, undoubtedly, some Hezbollah fighters have been killed or wounded (probably on the same ratio as the Israeli military casualties) their numbers are still largely intact, especially where ground combat has been sporadic (between Bint Jbail and the Litani, the coastal plan to the South of Saida, Southern, Central and Northern Bekaa, the suburbs of Beirut).

Hezbollah has also come out on top of the psychological war in Lebanon itself. The blanket sending of SMS propaganda messages and telephone calls to the Lebanese, or the hacking of al-Manar television for a few minutes, has not changed the Lebanese’s largely positive attitude towards Hezbollah’s military actions (even though there have been criticisms of the underlying political strategy of this party).

This, of course, brings us to the point of the missiles sent into Israel. If the Israeli Army can advance further than the few kilometers around Taibe, Houle, Maroun al-Ras, Marouahine, etc. it still has to confront forces deployed further back, either South of the Litani (the general area around Tibnine, the coastal plain, Tyre or the Marjayoun-Ain Ebel-Khiam triangle) or North (Nabatiye, the hills blocking the access to the Bekaa). These are the main advance routes used ever since Pharaonic times, so there can be no strategic surprises; these are also the exact same routes used by the Israelis since 1978. But the problem of the missiles will not be solved by occupying these areas.

The option of pushing up to Rayak, Baalbek or Hermel (ie occupying all of the Bekaa, and thus half of Lebanon as has been proposed in the press and on blogs by “experts”) seems improbable. Advancing up the Bekaa (in pure ‘classical’ military style, as was the case in 1918, 1943, 1978,1982 etc.) implies a ‘classical’ war between armies, which is not the case today. It also brings strategic centres such as Damascus and Homs (Syria’s petrochemical and industrial centre) unacceptably close to Israel’s army with the risk of an all-out regional conflict.

While the Hezbollah missiles might then be out of range of Israel, the Israeli Army would be in very close range of Syria’s own missiles, whose deployment there are not contravened by the 1974 disengagement agreements over the Joulan/Golan. Israel itself and the Israeli forces in Lebanon would also be in close range of the Syrian SCUDS. But of course, one could also suggest that the Israelis should lunge even deeper into Syria (Hama, Aleppo, Soueida) to get rid of the Syrian missile threat but that would put these forces into an even closer position vis a vis the Iranian missiles. Et caettera ad infinitum.

Whatever the case, Israel would still have to control the territory it managed to occupy. While its troops battle against small, but determined positions in house to house and hand to hand combat, their positions would suffer by roadside attacks, snipers, and possibly even suicide operations, all reminiscences of the previous Israeli occupation of Lebanon. This occupation would however have the advantage of not being hindered by the presence of the local population, as it has, on the whole, moved to Central Lebanon.

Several questions emerge. The excuse of the two soldiers abducted on the frontier (the official Israeli excuse for the war) is of course secondary, and only used for internal propaganda. The real reason for the destruction of Lebanon must be sought elsewhere, with C. Rice and G.W. Bush giving tell-tale hints about a ‘˜New Middle East’ being prepared in Washington with Israel used as the local military vector. However, ‘crushing Hezbollah’s military capacity’ would take months, with no real long-term solution in sight, creating a real internal political, psychological, ideological and economic problems in both Israel and Lebanon.

Lebanon’s infrastructure and production are largely destroyed, its delicate political balance dangerously shaken, and a major humanitarian and ecological disaster clearly visible. It is improbable that the country will achieve any degree of normality in the near future; the solution of a civil war, with possible partitioning of the country is evoked by the population. In Israel, the balance-sheet of the last 50 years reads like a list of missed opportunities, lack of political vision, provoked crises and violence. The existential question is finally being posed inside Israel itself: What is the future of this State? Is Zionism and continual military mobilization a real long-term solution?

One then of course can ask whether this war was really worth it: surely the points of contention between Israel and the Hezbollah (or between Lebanon and Israel) could have been settled by negociation. It’s all about Lebanese prisoners still in Israel in spite of decisions by the Israeli High Court to free them; of continual and daily overflights of Lebanon by reconnaissance aircraft or of intrusions in its territorial waters; of killing of Lebanese and Palestinian activists or civilians in Lebanon; of the question of the Chebaa farms; of details along the Blue Line.

The fact that this solution was not chosen by the Israeli power structure (who rejected even the notion of a cease-fire even after international condemnation for the Cana massacre) points to a lack of understanding that the type of war has changed. It is not a classical war (as was the case in 1967 and 1973), nor an insurrection (the Intifadas), nor a guerrilla war of liberation (the PLO in Jordan or Lebanon before 1982). It also points to a lack of understanding that the population of the Arab world has a very different world-view than its leaders, and the Israeli system (as well as that of the “New Middle East”) is not a model that raises any enthusiasm.

In this context, the military option and brute force will bring no solution, only continual long-term violence. The game must thus be played through diplomacy, freely-consented reciprocal negotiations and discussion of all points, without any vetoes, threats, forced decisions or taboos. The alternative is too dangerous to contemplate.

[mike435]

[Parinaz_M]

رزمندگان حزبالله در آمادگي كامل براي رويارويي با تجاوز احتمالي

حجت الاسلام شيخ حسن بغدادي، معاون فرهنگي دبير کل حزب الله لبنان، عصر جمعه پس از ديدار با حضرت آيت الله لطف الله صافي گلپايگاني، در گفتوگو با خبرنگار رسا درباره نقش حمايتهاي مراجع معظم تقليد و مردم ايران در پيروزي حزب الله لبنان اظهار داشت: پيامهاي مراجع معظم تقليد، حمايت حوزه هاي علميه و راهپيماييهاي مردم ايران، به رزمندگان حزب الله روحيه دو چنداني داد.

وي افزود: برخي از مراجع تقليد و نيز طلاب حوزه ها، كمكهاي مادي خود را به مردم مظلوم و بي پناه لبنان ارسال كردند و اين امر، به موقع بود و تاثير زيادي در روحيه مقاومت مردمي داشت.

معاون فرهنگي سيد حسن نصر الله اظهار داشت: علاوه بر مراجع، طلاب حوزوي و مردم ايران، برخي تجار و سرمايه داران مسلمان از سراسر جهان و نيز مردم ديگر كشورهاي اسلامي، با ارسال كمكهاي مادي، از مقاومت اسلامي حمايت كردند.

وي ادامه داد: ما حزب الله هستيم، حزب خدا و با توکل به حضرت امام زمان (عج) و دعاي مومنان، رهبر معظم انقلاب اسلامي، مراجع و علماي حوزه هاي علميه به پيروزي رسيده ايم.

شيخ حسن بغدادي ادامه داد: رزمندگان حزب الله با اخلاص و بدون اهداف مادي ميجنگند و از تماميت ارضي لبنان و هويت ملي و ديني خود دفاع ميكنند. آنان حاضرند براي دفاع از كيان اسلام، شهيد شوند.

اين مقام مسوول حزب الله تصريح كرد: رزمندگان مقاومت اسلامي امروز در آمادگي كامل براي رويارويي با تجاوز احتمالي رژيم غاصب قدس هستند و خوب فهمند اسراييل کيست.

وي افزود: آنان ساليان زيادي است كه با اسراييل مي جنگند و نسبت به نقاط ضعف و قدت سربازان، فرماندهان و دولتمردان صهيونيست كاملا آگاه هستند.

معاون فرهنگي دبير کل حزب الله لبنان اظهار داشت: اسراييل نمي فهمد شيعه چيست و ما شيعيان داراي چه قدرت معنوي هستيم؛ ولي ما مي دانيم اسراييل کيست.

وي ادامه داد: ما به خوبي مي دانيم اسراييل چه سلاح هايي دارد؛ ولي اسراييل تنها سلاح هايي را که ما به کار برديم مي شناسد و ديگر هيچ.

معاون دبير کل حزب الله لبنان، پيروزي حزب الله را پيروزي تمام مسلمانان دانست و خاطر نشان كرد: اگر برخي دولتمردان عرب، از روي غفلت بيش از اين به اسراييل در منطقه مشروعيت دهند، خودشان مورد آماج حملات و تجاوزات بي رحمانه اين رژيم قرار مي گيرند.

وي در پايان، با تقدير از رهبر معظم انقلاب اسلامي، مردم ايران اسلامي را بزرگترين حامي مردم مسلمان فلسطين و لبنان دانست.

[Rasputin]

The terrorists started it and once again Israel is forced to defend itself in order to just survive.

What would it be like if all your neighbors wanted to destroy you and your family? You would think, that according to the drive-by media that Israel attacked its neighbors and are a war mongering nation, when in fact it was their soldiers that were killed and kidnapped on Israel's own soil.

Everytime they give in to the terroists and give back teritory they gained the last time they were attacked they end up getting kicked in the teeth once again by the international community. All the while the UN stands by doing nothing, not even enforcing their own resolutions. Just fix the problem Israel. If your neighbors want to openly destroy you and preach this everyday in public then finish them off while you have the chance and before the holocaust round two becomes a reality. If you don't your enemy's certainly will some day.

[Rasputin]

[Rasputin]

Hezbollah's leader has said two Israeli soldiers held by his group will only be released if a Lebanese militant held by Israel for 27 years is also freed.
Hassan Nasrallah said that any deal with Israel would have to include Samir Qantar, convicted of several murders after a cross-border raid in 1979.

The capture of two Israeli soldiers in July sparked a month-long conflict.

On al-Jazeera TV, he was also critical of UK PM Tony Blair, labelling him an "accomplice in the killing".

Sheikh Nasrallah had sharp words for the Lebanese Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, who this week welcomed Mr Blair to Lebanon for the first time.

"Tony Blair is an accomplice in the killing. Why then do you bring him to my house and to my family and receive him warmly?

"Do they not have feelings?"

Civilians killed

Discussing the prospects for a prisoner exchange, Sheikh Nasrallah explicitly denied Hezbollah would agree to any proposal that did not include Qantar.


You ask me, will there be a deal without Samir, I say absolutely not

Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah
Hezbollah leader


Who are the prisoners?
Samir Qantar was captured during a cross-border raid into the northern Israeli town of Nahariya in 1979.

Several people, including a policeman and a young girl, died in the attack on a civilian apartment block. A baby girl was accidentally smothered by her mother as she hid in a cupboard.

Qantar was sentenced to several life sentences after the attack, and Hezbollah has consistently sought his release during prisoner negotiations since his capture.

"You ask me, will there be a deal without Samir, I say no. Absolutely not," the Reuters news agency reported Sheikh Nasrallah as saying.

Sheikh Nasrallah added that negotiations over a potential prisoner exchange were expected to start next week, but said he was still awaiting the arrival of a European UN mediator.

More than 1,100 Lebanese and about 160 Israelis died in the 34-day conflict, sparked by the capture of the two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

[Rasputin]

سازمان مدافع حقوق بشر عفو بين الملل، حزب الله لبنان را متهم کرد که در درگيری با اسرائيل به جنايات جنگی دست زده است.
عفو بين الملل می گويد که حزب الله در جنگ 34 روزه خود با اسرائيل با حمله آگاهانه به شهروندان عادی "قوانين بين المللی را به شدت نقض کرده است."

سازمان عفو قبلا در گزارشی ديگر دولت اسرائيل را متهم کرده بود که با حمله آگاهانه به مؤسسات زيرساختی، به جنايت جنگی دست زده است.

سازمان عفو بار ديگر از سازمان ملل متحد خواسته است که درباره تخلفات هر دو طرف تحقيق کند.

"غيرقابل توجيه"

در گزارش تازه عفو آمده است: "حملات موشکی حزب الله به شمال اسرائيل به حالت هجوم آگاهانه و ضربات کور به افراد و بنيادهای غيرنظامی در آمده بود، که طبق قوانين بين المللی جنايت جنگی به شمار می رود."

بنا به اين گزارش، حزب الله حدود 4000 موشک به شمال اسرائيل پرتاب کرده است که بر اثر آن 43 شهروند عادی به قتل رسيده و صدها نفر آواره شده اند.

هرچند حزب الله نخست اعلام کرده بود که قصد ندارد به شهروندان غيرنظامی آسيب برساند، اما حسن نصر الله رهبر حزب الله گفت که اين سياست به تلافی حملات اسرائيل تغيير کرده است.

آقای نصرالله گفته است: "تا وقتی دشمن در تجاوزات خود هيچ حدی قائل نمی شود، ما نيز در حملات خود هيچ حدودی را رعايت نخواهيم کرد."

عفو بين الملل می گويد که تخلفات اسرائيل، عمليات غيرانسانی حزب الله را توجيه نمی کند. شهروندان غيرنظامی بايد در هر دو طرف از تعرض مصون باشند.

سازمان عفو بار ديگر از سازمان ملل خواسته است که برای احترام به قربانيان به "تحقيقات دقيق و مستقل و بی طرفانه" دست بزند.

ايرن خان دبير کل سازمان عفو بين الملل می گويد: "اگر بخواهيم قوانين جنگی جدی گرفته شوند، عدالت حتما بايد رعايت شود."

انتقاد از نحوه عملکرد ارتش اسرائيل

سازمان عفو در گزارشی که در 23 اوت منتشر کرد گفته بود که ارتش اسرائيل به عنوان بخشی از استراتژی خود، مؤسسات مدنی را زير حمله گرفته و اين تخلف از قوانين بين المللی بوده است.

دولت اسرائيل گزارش سازمان عفو را رد کرد و رفتار ارتش خود را منطبق با قوانين رايج در زمان جنگ دانست.

در درگيری های جنگ جنوب لبنان، حدود 1000 لبنانی جان خود را از دست دادند که بيشتر آنها غيرنظامی بودند. در سوی مقابل 161 اسرائيلی کشته شدند که بيشتر آنها نظامی بودند.

در 12 ژوئيه حزب الله در يک درگيری مرزی دو سرباز اسرائيلی را به اسارت گرفت. به دنبال آن ارتش اسرائيل به جنوب لبنان حمله کرد.