Hizbullah and Israel: who is the terrorist?
Lebanon-Israel, Analysis, 7/29/2006

Hizbullah is being described as a terrorist organization by Israel, and the US has not gotten over the fact that it had an old problem with Hizbullah.

Hizbullah's action was always limited to acts inside Lebanon and defending Lebanon. The US unfortunately due to domestic politics, has made itself the enemy by supporting Israel, even when Israel was clearly in the wrong. Israel's might and weapons and its intimidation of Lebanon, and others, would not be possible without US support.

Lebanese Christians can be proud of Hizbullah, even if they don't share the same internal political agenda, and support it as a strong factor of Lebanese defense and identity, just like Christians have themselves been a most rich identity and contribution in Lebanon's character and history. Hizbullah provides social services with efficiency a government could wish to emulate. It also represents a class of Lebanese people that for far too long were treated as second class citizens in Lebanon. Neither Sunnis, Christians or others should have much to fear from Hizbullah. There are those who hate Lebanon or want to see it divided across sectarian lines, playing any religious card they can. Sunnis and Christians can avoid falling into such traps.

Hizbullah has constituted a deterrent against Israel, a function that Lebanon's army was and is not able to do. Israel on near daily basis violated Lebanon's sovereignty, air and sea space, and was told repeatedly by the UN not to do so. Israel attacks, assassinates, and detains Lebanese people at will when it can or wants to. Israel allows their settlers to carry arms and do security duties. Lebanon is in essence allowing the same to take place; call it a national militia or national guard; it is just a better and more powerful version of the Israeli settlers. The logic being that Lebanese citizens defend their country against foreign countries when the Lebanese army is not able to do so by itself.

In light of Israel's aggressions, one can ask how much is an Israeli citizen worth compared to a Lebanese citizen? 1 kidnapped Israeli soldier to 10 Lebanese civilian deaths? How about 1 to 100 as a ratio? 1 to 1000? or 1 Israeli soldier kidnapped per 500,000 civilian Lebanese displaced and livelihood destroyed. Maybe the Israelis are a special bunch of human beings, and of much higher worth. Who knows.

In Chtaura neighborhood, for example, a quite area in the Bekaa valley far removed from the border, Israel targeted a glass making factory, a carpet making factory, and a cement factory among others. What exactly is Israel doing? Hizbullah does not have capability to precisely aim at a military targets inside Israel, while Israel with precision chooses to target civilian installations intentionally. These targets serve nothing more than to kill and injure civilians and their livelihood.

Israel's aim, one can see, was not to see a country in the Middle East that is vibrant politically and economically. That is why then, as well as now, Israel always targeted civilian critical infrastructure whenever it sees an opportunity to, or more frequently makes up its own excuse to do so. It bears repeating that Lebanon then, was passing an economic point of having reached a certain respectable GDP level, that would have put Lebanon at a very respectable standard of living internationally. Israel's actions demonstrated then it does not want this. It wanted poor and vulnerable neighbors that are subject to its influence and be depended on it. This is the character of past Israeli governments, an example of man's worst instinct: destroy others and put them down to be in control of them, instead of lifting them up, to feed one's own insecurity.

You may choose to justify this in your own mind and ideology, but let there be no doubt about it: The most neutral organizations and countries in the world said clearly and emphatically that Israel is a criminal nation: Amnesty International said Israel committed war crimes. The Red Cross said that Israel broke the Geneva Convention (committed war crimes). Switzerland said that Israel broke International Humanitarian law (Geneva Convention, therefore committed war crimes). The UN Human Rights commission decided to investigate Israel's acts and send a mission in this regard.

Having impunity and the United States protect you from being made subject to international law by its veto power at the UN has no moral relevance to the question at hand: Israel's government and officials have committed war crimes and are outlaws, and as such Israel is an outlaw nation. The fact they are not being prosecuted has no bearing on this fact.

Others can choose to call Hizbullah a terrorist organization, but Hizbullah has shown itself as a patriotic organization that defends its country without the objection, and with moral support, of the Lebanese people. It sought not to terrorize the Lebanese, take over government by power, coerce anyone to its objectives forceful, and has done much to help in providing hospitals, social relief work that other schooling functions for the needy, and has had politicians elected to government. It is kind of hard to call such an organization terrorist. Either the Lebanese in general support terrorism, or we have to strike a different tune.

Israel has once again acted or reacted and aimed squarely at destroying Lebanon's economy and peoples' livelihood. Its ways are a brutal, aggressive, and primitive culture's thinking. It is an eye for 1000 eyes type-of-thinking, and Israel is certainly entitled to its own image. There maybe nothing fundamentally wrong with being primitive.

Israel wishes to strip Lebanon of this important defense organization that has provided an important role to it. In the absence of Hizbullah, what does Lebanon have? Israel's constant intimidation of Lebanon that they would invade Lebanon or do so-and-so at their wishes and drop of a hat. Maybe Israel can do so, but with Hizbullah at hand, Israel has to count to one thousand before doing so. If that is a balance of terror, it seems like a position to have when facing such an aggressive militant country. The international organizations have spoken clearly as to who is the aggressive and brutal occupier of people and nations, and is a war criminal.

By,
Jamil Kazoun

Previous Stories:
  Resistance kills 8 Israeli invading soldiers, wounds 20   (7/26/2006)
  US opposed to halt of Lebanon's bombing   (7/26/2006)
  800,000 Lebanese civilians displaced by Israel's aggression   (7/26/2006)
  Israel deliberately bombs UN peacekeepers in Lebanon   (7/26/2006)
  President: Lebanese army, groups to defend Lebanese lands   (7/24/2006)
  The grand march: Palestinians crash Israel's border   (7/20/2006)
  UN Human Rights Council calls for independent inquiry into Israeli war crimes in Gaza   (7/20/2006)
  Switzerland: Israel has violated international humanitarian law   (7/4/2006)
  Israeli attacks 'war crimes', says Amnesty International   (7/4/2006)

Please add a link on your webiste pointing to ArabicNews.com and bookmark ArabicNews.com & subscribe to our daily email news bulletin.

Search