Love of the Land: When the Resistance Passes It's Expiry Date

When the Resistance Passes It's Expiry Date

Abdul Rahman Al-Rashid
Asharq Al- Awsat
19 January '10

At the UNESCO palace in Beirut, Arab resistance groups were reunited, and each resistance leader was able to recall his heroism [during the Forum of Arab and International Support for the Resistance]. The leader of Lebanese resistance, [Hezbollah chief] Hassan Nasrallah attended the conference via a video-link, while Iraqi resistance leader Sheikh Harith al-Dari, and Palestinian resistance leader Khalid Mishal attended in person, along with other figures such as [Lebanese politician] Selim al-Hoss, whose resistance affiliated is not yet known.

The word resistance has become obsolete with time and as a result of misuse, and so this word has lost its sanctity. How can someone respect the resistance in Iraq when witnessing thousands of innocent victims killed as a result of the deliberate targeting of schools, markets, residential areas, and civilian and governmental areas? How can the resistance be sacred in Palestine when on the one hand the Palestinians are fighting against one another, whilst at the same time [one Palestinian faction] is guarding the Israeli border against infiltration by other resistance elements? Why is it that today in Lebanon, the resistance is not playing this role, but is ruling the people of Lebanon by force, and this is almost nine years after Israeli troops withdrew from the country?

This is the state of the resistance today. This is the state of any type of resistance that passes its expiry date, such as Hezbollah in Lebanon whose resistance became an internal problem after the movement was practically transformed into a local militia [following the Israeli withdrawal]. The resistance is just a title, and it seems that its real job is to dominate the internal situation through force of arms and by silencing the opposition in the name of confronting the enemy. In Palestine, where there is occupation and an armed enemy, some resistance factions have become foreign tools.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: When the Resistance Passes It's Expiry Date

Love of the Land: It won’t just go away

It won’t just go away

Now Lebanon
New Opinion
18 January '10

When asked about the Irish question, Oliver Cromwell was alleged to have said, “If we forget about it, it will go away.” That was in 17th century England; over 300 years later the English are still trying to answer the Irish “question”. If the great parliamentarian were alive today, he might have a word or two to say to the Lebanese, many of whom appear to have forgotten about quite a lot.

For a while many of our politicians have kissed and made up with their so-called former rivals, and while senior diplomats have echoed their respective nations’ approval of the reconciliations, there is still the little “question” of Hezbollah, its weapons and its martial posture, which, if the rhetoric of the last few days is anything to go by, is becoming increasingly belligerent. In fact such is the level of saber rattling that we have to ask ourselves who is running the show in Lebanon.

Sunday saw the wrapping up of a three-day Arab and international forum in Beirut on supporting the Resistance. In the final statement, the delegates called for Arab states to announce the failure of the Middle East peace process and adopt a “confrontational” approach with Israel. Nothing new there you might say, but it was the call for the “strengthening of resistance culture in educational curriculums, literature and arts” that will send a shiver down the spines of Lebanese who have witnessed firsthand what the Resistance has achieved in recent years.

(Read full article)

Love of the Land: It won’t just go away

Love of the Land: Medal of Honor

Medal of Honor

nowlebanon.com
28 October 09

Hezbollah members parade during a rally marking Quds (Jerusalem) Day in Beirut on September 18, 2009. AFP PHOTO/RAMZI HAIDAR

In a meeting with Loyalty to the Resistance bloc leader MP Mohammad Raad on Monday, Iran’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Mohammad Shibani, said that not only was the greatest accomplishment of his tenure in the country his service to the Resistance, but that its achievements in recent years were a “medal around the neck of the Arab nations.”

The comment to the Lebanese media was more than a sound bite; it spoke volumes about the state of play in the region and was a worrying reminder that Lebanon could have a government tomorrow and 3 million tourists the next day, but as long as Hezbollah casts the shadow of conflict over our lives, the country will remain on the brink of chaos and viewed with chronic suspicion by the international community.

The “achievements” of which Shibani spoke are, of course, a work in progress. On Tuesday, Katyusha rockets were yet again fired into Israel. Whether it was Hezbollah that did the actual firing is irrelevant. The culture of aggression in a conflict whose aims are as outdated as the Cold War is still rooted in Lebanon’s tragic soil.

Four decades ago, the PLO urged us to join it in its glorious struggle and look where that led us. Today, Iran, at its most confrontational and most muscular in 30 years, has taken up the battle flag to advance its own agenda. The whiff of Uranium wafts across the Middle East and the international community surveys its limited options, while the normally placid countries of the GCC are so twitchy that they are rumored to be arming to the tune of $100 billion amid fears that Tehran will acquire the technology to make a nuclear device. The latter is in all likelihood a very expensive exercise in window dressing, but the message is clear. The mullahs are making everyone nervous.

Hezbollah, as all but the most blinkered or naïve must surely now acknowledge, is a key asset in this regional stand-off and the medal that Ambassador Shibani spoke of with such pride has been won at the expense of both the Lebanese people who refuse to embrace Hezbollah’s martial code and the path those same people have chosen toward a modern, democratic and sovereign state.

For let us not kid ourselves. Hezbollah is the biggest long term obstacle facing Lebanon. Forget about the absence of a government. Forget whether or not Gebran Bassil gets his old job back at the Telecom ministry, and forget Walid Jumblatt’s fickle reading of the political runes. Quite simply, the world doesn’t really care.
.
When Lebanon does get a government, do not think for a second that the international community will breathe a huge sigh of relief and go back to rectifying CO2 emissions. It won’t, because, rightly or wrongly, what the world really cares about is Hezbollah, its arsenal and the potential destruction that that arsenal can wreak as part of its contractual obligations to the Islamic Republic. If Lebanon has to be sacrificed to snuff out this threat, then so be it.

And yet we are still so blinkered by parochial concerns that we continue to convince ourselves that Hezbollah is a party that is brave, just and good and has Lebanon’s best interests at heart; that it fills a void in the South created by successive disinterested governments or – and this is a favorite of Michel Aoun – that it is the lesser evil to the still-unproven threat of a Wahabi sandstorm poised to turn the region into a medieval caliphate. “At least we can talk to Hezbollah,” the Aounists argue.

The trouble is history has shown they won’t listen. The fact of the matter is that we have been taken for a ride. We loved them in 2000 and tolerated the cheeky claim that the armed struggle had to continue because of a rocky outcrop called Shebaa Farms. Now, after numerous changes to the conditions required for total disarmament – essentially it isn’t going to happen voluntarily – we have the Iranian ambassador saying that the high point of his mission was serving the Resistance at a time when his country gears up for high stakes poker with the international community.

Maybe he should just come clean and say that it was Iran that presented Hezbollah with that medal in the first place.

Love of the Land: Medal of Honor