How Should We View the Hizbullah? Nazi or Islamic Jihadist, or Both?

UPDATING added 8-28-2006: Must read [in French] on Hizbullah
& Lebanon, here & here.
UPDATING [Arab Stabs & Murders Communist in Jerusalem -- see at bottom]
What does the Hizbullah stand for? That should be a criterion for dealing with the self-styled "Party of God." Hizbullah's own public utterances contain some slick propaganda designed to fool those ignorant about Islamic jihad and history in general. In fact, Hizbullah sometimes tries to disguise itself with Marxist-sounding rhetoric about the "oppressed" or "the oppressed of the earth," echoing the words of the anthem of the Communist movement about the "wretched of the earth." Of course, all these terms have meaning for Hizbullah itself only in a Muslim or Shi`ite Muslim context of meanings. A rather lengthy programmatic statement by a Hizbullah leader can be found here.

The Hizbullah also favors the label "resistance" as a self-description. This term became an honorable one during the Second World War when the Resistance fought the Nazis and their occupation of many countries in Europe and North Africa. The resistance movements did not go around massacring German or Austrian civilians. They fought for freedom, not for Islamic supremacy or the imposition of Shari`ah [Muslim law]. So the differences between the real resistance movements and Hizbullah, originally appearing in the Western press as "the Party of God" [simply the English translation of Hizbullah], are many. But the poisonous superficiality of the Western press and the contemporary "left-wing" movements does not bring out these differences.

Hizbullah wants Lebanon to be an Islamic state [or "Islamic regime"], in the Shi`ite version. Which, if and when implemented, would make many Lebanese Christians, Druze, and Sunni Muslims unhappy. Hizbullah wants to institute shari`ah law, which means that non-Muslims are inferior, exploited subjects of the Muslim state, called dhimmis. Hizbullah shares many things with its chief moneybags, the Teheran maniacs. And Hizbullah shares the Judeophobia of the Iranian regime too. Back in 1987, as I recall, there was a French election. The results did not please Hizbullah. One of the Hizbullah newspapers blamed the results on "the Jewish vote" in France. But they didn't stop there. They concluded that: "The Jewish microbe is everywhere" [Le microbe juif est partout- published in LeFigaro, 1987]. That kind of talk sounds Nazi to me. So it's no surprise that Hizbullah and its sponsors in Teheran deny the previous Holocaust while openly calling for another one, and fighting to destroy Israel.

Another Hizbullah sponsor is Syria of course. Junior Assad who inherited the company from his father, Senior Assad [also called Hafiz al-Assad], used more traditional religious Judeophobia when the Pope visited Damascus in 2001 in the footsteps of Paul, the Christian missionary apostle. Junior told the Pope that not only had the Jews killed Jesus, but they had poisoned Muhammad and caused him to die a slow death. In fact, there is a Muslim tradition that after he forced a Jewish woman to marry him at the oasis of Khaybar in Arabia, after murdering her husband, she served him some poisoned lamb, which eventually led to his death. This legend may or may not be true but it is the kind of account that cannot be verified. Note that Hizbullah renamed the Fajr missile the Khaybar, after the defeat, massacre, and enslavement of Jews there, celebrated in jihadist lore [There is even an Arab battlecry against Israel: Khaybar Khaybar Ya Yahud, Jaysh Muhammad sa ya`ud!! = Khaybar Khaybar O Jews, Muhammad's army is coming back!!].

Another Judeophobic propaganda effort by Hizbullah's sponsor, Syria, lies in the assiduous efforts by Mustafa Tlas, former Syrian minister of "defense," to elaborate and spread the big lie that Jews have killed non-Jews to use their blood for Passover unleavened bread [matsoh]. Specifically, Tlas has written a few books on the 1840 Damascus Affair, when Damascene Jews were accused of murdering a European priest serving as a missionary in Damascus. The French consul in Damascus at the time, Count Ratti-Menton, vehemently supported the torture of scores of local Jews by the Muslim governor, plus the jailing of Jewish women and boys, etc. Four Jews died under torture. One of them testified to having seen the priest leaving the city with his servant [also vanished] in a direction away from the Jewish Quarter. In order to get this Jewish witness to recant, he was tortured to death without ever recanting his testimony. Massacres of local Christians occurred in Damascus twenty years later, in 1860.

Now, at the end of the 20th century and the start of the 21st, the Syrian government, through its war minister, Tlas, has been promoting the big lie of Jewish ritual murder, which is actually fairly common in the Arab press. The Nazi character of Hizbullah's sponsors, Syria & Iran, is clear, as is the poisonous Judeophobia of Hizbullah itself [on the Damascus Affair, see Jonathan Frankel's book, The Damascus Affair, and an article summarizing it in Midstream magazine --also on the web somewhere-- of March-February 2003, and called "From Damascus to Jenin"].

So Hizbullah rests on two broad ideological foundations. One is classic Muslim jihad [in the Shi`ite version], imposing shari`ah and dhimmitude [dhimma] on non-Muslims. The other is Judeophobia, deriving from both classical Islamic and modern European Judeophobic roots, including some lies of Nazi inspiration.

The implications of Hizbullah's continued existence and freedom of action in Lebanon mean that Lebanon cannot become a sovereign or democratic state, since Hizbullah's armed forces are stronger than the official Lebanese army which anyway is made up of 40% or 50% Shi`ites, mostly sympathetic to Hizbullah. Lebanon's non-Muslim population is under threat too, although for the time being Hizbullah pretends to be a patriotic Lebanese body. Yet, the programmatic statements linked to above express deep hatred for Maronite Lebanese Christians, plus Israel [of course], the USA [of course], and even for France --ironically-- which works hard to defend Hizbullah diplomatically. The tone of the statements is typically paranoid and based on falsehood. Shaykh Fadlallah [see link above] condemns the USA but forgets that the Carter Administration of the USA made it possible for Khomeini, the founder of Hizbullah in fact, to take over Iran in 1979. This was at a time when Carter's national security advisor was Zbigniew Brzezinski. Zbig was notorious for encouraging Muslim extremists without considering the consequences. Zbig's support for Khomeini was expressed in terms of democracy, civil rights, and human rights, by the way.

A few other considerations involve Hizbullah's repeated violation of the international laws of war. These laws mandate that prisoners be made available for visits by the International Committee of the Red Cross. Three Israeli soldiers captured by Hizbullah in October 2000 were murdered in captivity [one was a Muslim Arab in fact]. The two Israeli soldiers recently captured may be dead already, if experience is a guide. In fact, Hizbullah armed operatives are illegal combatants in international law, since they often do not wear uniforms in combat and hide among civilian populations, although they are well supplied with some advanced weapons [the Kornet anti-tank rocket, etc]. Hizbullah's very existence, let us repeat, is a violation of Lebanese sovereignty. On the other hand, when Hizbullah does wear uniforms, it is an instructive sight to see. The international TV networks [Fox, CNN, etc] have repeatedly shown Hizbullah troops goosestepping in perfect synchronization on the main street of the al-Dahiya neighborhood in Beirut, which has been an enclosed Hizbullah-controlled compound within the city. In other words, access to the area was restricted by Hizbullah guards at the entrances. This neighborhood has been devastated by Israeli aircraft bombardments in the past month and is a media exhibit for how poor civilians are suffering because of Israel. In fact, al-Dahiya was a closed compound, with underground bunkers, some of them very large and equipped with modern communications equipment, etc.

The publicly made claims of Hizbullah for the release of Lebanese prisoners are typical hypocrisy. In fact, there are hundreds of Lebanese who were arrested by Syrian forces in Lebanon and put in jail in Syria. Hizbullah is not concerned about them, nor does it request that its Syrian sponsors give the prisoners' families information about their loved ones.

The very existence of Hizbullah is a threat to civilization. France, which used to boast of its mission civilisatrice, now collaborates in destroying civilization.
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UPDATING -- Arab Fanatic Murders a Friend of the Arabs Once Again
Last night, Thursday, 10 August 2006, an Italian volunteer who had come to Jerusalem precisely to help the Arabs, the Arab nationalists in fact, was stabbed to death just outside the Old City wall near the Flower Gate [שער הפרחים] [called Herod's Gate in English]. He was in fact a Communist [following in his father's footsteps]. And one of those whom he pitied murdered him.

He was connected with the Rifondazione Comunista, an especially hard-line offshoot of the old Communist Party. The RC publishes Il Manifesto, a virulently anti-Israel paper. To show that these people are slow learners, a female reporter for Il Manifesto was taken hostage in Iraq last year [Sgrena]. In fact, he favored violence, of course, if it was employed by the politically correct: "We must recognize that non-violence is a luxury for many corners of the world. We indeed do not seek to abrogate legitimate defense" [only Israel's legitimate defense-Eliyahu]. He was in love with the slingshots of the Arab boys of the "first intifada." He was a victim of the lies of his own movement. He sympathized with the Arabs in the Land of Israel one of the "colonized peoples." But he couldn't recall how the Arabs had helped Rome suppress the ancient Jewish revolts, and how Arabs oppressed, humiliated and exploited Jews in Israel after the Arab conquest [see earlier posts on this blog site]. The Arabs usurped the Land of Israel and oppressed Jews in the Land for more than a thousand years. But he learned nothing of this, it seems, in school or in the Party. He came here on August 1st after weeks of fighting between Israel and Hizbullah. But he did not come to help Israelis living in bomb shelters in Qiryat Shmonah or Nahariyah. He wanted to help Arab children in the Gaza Strip and the "occupied territories." He "was not an extremist," we are told, "He was a pacifist." And those whom he pitied murdered him.

La politica era la passione di Angelo. Ereditata dal padre Michelangelo, conosciuto in Comune per aver collaborato con alcune delle giunte di centrosinistra che negli anni si sono passate il testimone da queste parti. E il figlio aveva seguito le sue orme. Come testimonia una lettera inviata pochi mesi fa al giornale locale di Rifondazione: «Dobbiamo riconoscere che non violenza è un lusso per molti angoli del mondo, noi infatti non chiediamo di abrogare la legittima difesa. Mai (!) – aveva scritto il giovane volontario – Mai mi sognerei di condannare la Resistenza, il sangue del pueblo vietnamita, la riscossa dei popoli colonizzati e le fionde dei ragazzi palestinesi della prima intifada».
E proprio ai bambini della striscia di Gaza e dei territori occupati aveva deciso di dedicarsi nel corso di queste vacanze. Angelo ne aveva parlato a lungo con gli amici della sezione di Rifondazione e del circolo Arci. E la scelta alla fine era caduta sul campo lavoro organizzato appunto dall’Arci in collaborazione con la Cgil. Era partito il primo agosto, con altri undici ragazzi. «Era un entusiasta, credeva in quello che faceva ed era sempre pronto ad aiutare gli altri», raccontano davanti alla sede di Rifondazione.
«Ripeteva sempre che non si poteva assistere impotenti a quello che stava accadendo in Medio Oriente, diceva che bisognava andare a portare soccorso ai bambini del posto, alle vittime innocenti della guerra». I genitori – raccontano i vicini - erano preoccupati per questa «vacanza diversa» del figlio piccolo. Ma erano anche orgogliosi. E non si erano voluti opporre... dice una vicina. E poi scoppia in lacrime: «... Faceva politica ma non era un estremista. Era un pacifista.».
Paolo Foschi -- Corriere della Sera
11 agosto 2006

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Coming: Britain on the Arab side in Israel's War of Independence, Jews in old Jerusalem, etc.