Israel creates more and more terrorists as it tries to destroy Hezbollah
Everything has digressed onto another level - the G8 summit, the increasing bloodshed in Iraq and other world problems. Everyone has one word on their lips - Lebanon. More and more often another word is mentioned together with this one - Hezbollah, until the last few days unheard of by probably 99% of readers and listeners. It is with this word that we must begin. The Arabic word combination Hizb Allah, meaning the Party of Allah, is pronounced in Farsi as Hezbollah which gives the word an additional hidden meaning. The organization was formed in 1882 as the Lebanese branch of an Iranian party with the same name. The words Iran and Hezbollah are inextricably linked.
At the time when Hezbollah was formed, Lebanon was seized by a civil war in which everyone participated: the long-ruling Maronite and Sunni members of the Palestinian Fatah with Yasser Arafat as their leader, based in the South of Lebanon, in the very place where Hezbollah now rules. External forces also became involved: Israeli, American, French and Syrian troops. Then suddenly Lebanese Shiites, whom no-one had even paid attention to during the civil war, appeared in the form of the most selfless and fanatical fighters. Although the greatest in number, they were always the poorest, most oppressed and backward of the Lebanese confessional communities. But on the 23rd October 1983, a Shiite terrorist, operating a lorry with explosives, broke through the gates of American barracks in Beirut and killed 241 soldiers as well as himself. An American sentry, who shot at the terrorist but missed, subsequently recounted how he had seen the driver’s face a few seconds before his death and the man had been smiling. He went straight to heaven. Around that same time, another condemned man blew up 58 French soldiers. Both America and France removed their troops from Lebanon after this, and Israel followed their example. This was how Hezbollah first announced itself and since then, not only Lebanon’s Shiite community, but Sunni and Maronite political organizations admit that this is the most militant, desperate and effective terrorist group of all. As if to confirm their already well-established reputation, in 2000 Hezbollah achieved the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Southern Lebanon, where they had been since 1885, when Israel left other parts of the country. In Southern Lebanon, there was a buffer zone, where Israeli troops and a small, local, armed contingent, mostly consisting of Maronites, was in command. Conflicts with Hezbollah wore out the Israelis and then Prime Minister Ehud Barak preferred to withdraw troops, although the entire right camp was strongly against this decision and warned that Hezbollah would enter the space they left. This is exactly what happened.
Now, Hezbollah is far from just another one of many Arabic extremist groups. It is a real army with a body of well-trained officers, with great arms, provided by Iran and Syria (it is believed that it includes 3.5 thousand selected fighters and the yearly subsidy from Iran is between 100 and 200 million dollars.) It is also a political party, for which most of the Shiites in the South of the country voted. It has seats in parliament and two ministerial posts in the government.
Hezbollah remains a terrorist organization and it has long outgrown the stage of HAMAS, which has mainly organized explosions using condemned prisoners. By agreeing to exchange prisoners with Hezbollah, the Israelis are somehow acknowledging it as a military organization rather than a terrorist one. Back in 1985, they released one thousand Hezbollah fighters in exchange for three of their own soldiers, but a number of members of Hezbollah have been in Israeli prisons for many years, and their liberation in particular has become an official motive for the measures recently taken, during which the fighters crossed the Israeli border and took two soldiers captive.
The original motives were, of course, different. Firstly, Hezbollah was officially under threat of having its detachments disarmed last year after, as a result of the scandal brought about by the supposed participation of Syrians in the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Hariri, Syria was forced to remove its troops and special services from Lebanon, The UN Security Council in special resolution 1559 demanded the disarming of all the Lebanese militia, and Hezbollah was the main topic of discussion. Of course, in practice it is difficult to imagine (the Lebanese army would be unable to do anything even if they received that order since they are nothing compared to Hezbollah), but officially, this is what things came to. Now, having entered into conflict with Israel, Hezbollah has closed off even the possibility of suggesting their disarming. Herein lies the counter-productivity of the current Israeli military response: Hezbollah fighters have become national heroes and even Sunnis and Maronites cannot rise up against them whilst Israeli bombs are being dispersed across Lebanon.
