Israel, Bush, Hezbollah, and Lebanon

While watching Nasrallah’s A’shoura speech being replayed on Mannar, I decided to think loudly on some issues. Yes, I do agree with Hassan Nasrallah’s logic of how Bush was worried over 3 soldiers and their families while overlooking Israel’s butchery and terrorist acts over civilians with over 11,000 detainees.

What Bush doesn’t understand is that the majority of the Lebanese if given the choice between Israel and Hezbollah, they would choose Hezbollah. When I say majority, I surely don’t mean 50% plus 1%, rather like two years ago, almost the whole Lebanese population was with Hezbollah in the middle of the July War.

Bush doesn’t seem to understand that Israel’s past cost Lebanon a lot. Ever since Israel did the Litani operation back in the 1970s, a lot of the South despised Israel. Actually, then they also despised the Palestinians, but more the Israelis for killing their relatives. Almost everyone in the South has a relative who was kidnapped by Israel, killed, wounded, mutilated, shocked in traumas, and had material destruction. When Israel decided to invade Lebanon back in 1982, everyone in West Beirut had known someone who got killed by Israeli shelling. When Israel suddenly pulled out, the majority of the Christians in East Beirut and Mt. Lebanon felt they were abandoned and left to rot in the face of the other camp. When Israel occupied Southern Lebanon till 2000, a lot of families were brutally treated by the SLA, several tortured and even worse. When Israel broke out lashing Lebanon with missiles in 1993 and 1996, the Lebanese sat in anger as they watched helplessly Israeli plans killing fellow citizens. When July 2006 broke out, one quarter of the Lebanese (a whole million) were refugees, 1300 were killed (and still get killed from cluster bombs), 5000 wounded, a lot in trauma shocks, and land/agriculture/different industries were burnt to the ground. Even Samir Jaajaa (Israel’s ex-ally) stated out bluntly that the Lebanese Force sustained three martyrs during the July War. Hence, every Israel remains in the collective memory of the Lebanese as the spoiled prostitute of the United States. The fact Israel remains unpunished, special thanks to the US Veto power at the UN, will never allow peace to reign over between Lebanon and Israel (and even much worse between Palestine and Israel because Israel was constructed at the blood and houses of Palestinians). I also didn’t mention how many times day to day Israel’s warplanes and artillery randomly bombed people’s houses during their occupation.

In a nutshell, peace with Israel will never take place. The Lebanese cannot tolerate such peace with Israel. If given the choice between Israel and Hezbollah, the Lebanese would choose Hezbollah (Christians included) due to the previous butcheries and treacheries of Israel to Lebanon. Meanwhile, what Mr. Cowboy from hell Bush doesn’t understand, his blunders and Israel’s unpunished butchery make Hezbollah stronger and stronger only when it comes between the choice of Israel and Hezbollah. The Israeli humiliated retreat of 2000 transformed Hezbollah from a religious party to a Lebanese National Liberation Party. Nasrallah was smart when he dedicated his victory in the name of all Lebanese when Israel was kicked out from Southern borders. The victory even got anti-Hezbollah parties to respect their military victory. This transformation appeared clearly in the July War. While Israel and the US hoped for a civil war in Lebanon to cripple Hezbollah (probably hoped to give anti-Hezbollah supporters Israeli Air Force support), the Lebanese stood as a single line. Actually, at the ground, that was one rare moment whereby the Lebanese stood as a single line. This doesn’t mean we forget what happened to racist practices towards Palestinians living in Beirut (those who didn’t have a Lebanese identity were locked out of schools).

The other dimension is Bush’s failure to promote Hezbollah as a terrorist organ in the International Arena. So far, only the US administration and Israel recognize Hezbollah as a terrorist organ while all the rest of the world regard Hezbollah as a legitimate body with full rights to be existent in Lebanon. Even European Community members meet with Hezbollah, and the US administration itself meets indirectly with Hezbollah through mediators. Henceforth, the question goes, what did the US do? Get the Christians to support Hezbollah? Well done Mr. Bush. If any proper war against Hezbollah to be waged, get Israel punished severely for its entire war crimes so that the survivors in Lebanon (and I do say survivors, because the whole country since 1982 have been survivors of Israeli aggression, and 1977 the whole South civilians have been survivors). Hezbollah isn’t born out of scratch because certain people are born wicked, may be he should do a research why Hezbollah got all that popularity, and at least why all coalitions would support Hezbollah amidst a war with Israel who pathetically is still trying to promote that their war was not with Lebanon, rather with Hezbollah. All 14th of March, opposition, and independents directed their energy on relieving the refugees by helping them out 2 years ago, and if they didn’t do that, only then the Shiites would have hated Nasrallah and the Israeli plan would have worked to cripple Hezbollah. So again, to all stupid Zionists (and when I say stupid Zionists, I seriously mean that anyone pro-Zionism is stupid), go research history, and not what Israel says…

MFL