Love of the Land: Lebanon's AK-47 index may be pointing to war

Lebanon's AK-47 index may be pointing to war

Mitchell Prothero
The National (UAE)
03 February '10

BEIRUT // Abu Mahdi spends most of his day sitting in a plastic chair in front of a dilapidated concrete block shack on the outskirts of Beirut’s southern suburbs puffing on a water pipe and pouring coffee for a steady stream of visitors and customers that have come to examine his inventory.

Two of his first customers on a cold winter morning are young fighters in their late teens from the militant Shiite movement Hizbollah who are enraptured with a selection of gleaming new 9mm handguns from Belgium, the United States and the Czech Republic.

But these young fighters make only about US$400 (Dh1,500) a month for their work in “The Resistance”, putting the sleek automatic pistols, listed at $2,000 each, well outside their price range.

Although Hizbollah obviously issues military-grade weaponry to its fighters, the boys say only the highest-ranking members – leadership, undercover operatives, bodyguards and security teams – are given pistols, making them a critical, if expensive, status symbol among the youngest fighters, who have been known to take second jobs or save for years just to add private weapons to their inventory.

The group does not buy its weaponry on Lebanon’s back market, according to people familiar with its acquisitions process, but from the international black market. Hizbollah’s arms also come direct from Iran and Syria.

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Love of the Land: Lebanon's AK-47 index may be pointing to war

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.

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

Love of the Land: The Resistance Strategy: The Middle East's Response to Calls for Peace and Moderation

The Resistance Strategy: The Middle East's Response to Calls for Peace and Moderation

Barry Rubin
GLORIA Center
19 January '10

Have you heard from any of the Western mass media about the Resistance strategy of Middle East radicals? I'm sure you haven't. Yet without understanding this powerful and widely accepted worldview how could anyone possibly comprehend events in the region?

"Resistance" is the slogan used by Syria, Hamas, and Hizballah especially but also is used by Iran's regime, other Lebanese supporters of the Iran-Syria bloc, and assorted radicals throughout the region. While the word has echoes for any Western auditor of the French Resistance against the Nazis, this is not the origin of this Middle East usage.

Rather, it means on the one hand, Resistance to supposed U.S., European, and Israeli intentions to turn the Arabs into slaves and destroy Islam. It also signifies Resistance to Westernization and modernization. And then, too, of equal significance, it means Resistance to attempts to promote peace or even a peace process with Israel and moderation in general.

Most obviously, Resistance means rejection but it also implies the use of violence, to resist is to reject diplomatic solutions and to fight instead. No matter how many people die, how much destruction will hurt the societies of those resisting, how long bloody conflict will continue, and how remote the prospects for victory seem to be, this is the preferred option. In contrast, moderation, compromise, and negotiation are seen as cowardly and treasonous.

But those preaching Resistance also believe they will be victorious by dividing and wearing down their opponents. Indeed, they think-even though they are more wrong than not-that they are winning now. They think the West is weak and corrupt, while Israel is going to fall apart and give up. A lot of the arguments made and policies put forward in the West-apology, concession, misconception, self-criticism-feed this confidence and thus contribute to more violence and conflict.

In many ways, the Resistance philosophy is a close parallel to Arab thinking in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, a new version of what used to be proudly called Rejectionism by Arab regimes. Now, however, it is reformulated in a version to be palatable to Islamists as well as nationalists and semi-Marxists.

If there was a founding statement regarding the Resistance strategy it was the speech of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to the Syrian Journalists' Union on August 15, 2006. Assad said he was formulating his alternative to the "new Middle East" proposed by the West and Israel in which political peace would produce prosperity, democracy, and stability. "The world does not care about our interests, feelings and rights except when we are powerful," Assad stated. Otherwise, they would not do anything."

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Love of the Land: The Resistance Strategy: The Middle East's Response to Calls for Peace and Moderation

Love of the Land: For Hezbollah, Lebanon is an afterthought

For Hezbollah, Lebanon is an afterthought

Tony Badran
NowLebanon.com
08 December 09

Two things were unsurprising about Hezbollah’s political document,unveiled on November 30 by the party’s secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, namely its content and characterization in the media. The document reaffirmed the party’s determination to defend its parallel state while simultaneously forcing its priorities on Lebanon’s state and society, without abandoning its ideological principles or strategic objectives.

A closer look at the document shows that what has been hailed as a “new” platform is in fact a point-by-point expansion of the principles laid out in Hezbollah’s founding document, the so-called Open Letter, of 1985. And what is not explicitly laid out in the document, Nasrallah clarified in his press conference, as did other Hezbollah officials in media outlets.

First and foremost, the party remains as determined as ever to safeguard its autonomous armed status in an open-ended way, reaffirming the “duality” between itself on the one hand and the rest of Lebanon on the other. In fact, as Nasrallah himself remarked to the assembled journalists, the “Resistance” (by which he meant Hezbollah’s autonomous armed status), “still holds first place.” The document’s section on Lebanon outlines Hezbollah’s conception of the country as being directly intertwined, both thematically and structurally, with the Resistance. In other words, there is no Lebanon without the Resistance. As Nasrallah’s deputy, Naim Qassem, put it in 2007, Hezbollah’s objective is to integrate the rest of society into the Resistance, not vice versa, as some are claiming.

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Love of the Land: For Hezbollah, Lebanon is an afterthought