The
Palestinians Of Sabra-Shatila:
26 Years After The Massacre: Part II
By Franklin Lamb
24 September,
2008
Countercurrents.org
Twenty-six years following the Sabra-Shatila Massacre and the
founding of Hezbollah: Will the Party of God deliver the Palestinians
from exile?
"The response to the massacre at Sabra-Shatila was for the resistance
to become active in Lebanon. If the Lebanese people had given up on
the resistance, they too would have been complicit in the massacres
of Qana and Sabra and Shatila."
– Hasan Nassallah June 4, 2002
"We
renew our pledge to Jerusalem, to the Palestinians, and to the cause
and Imam of Jerusalem; their city will forever remain in our souls,
and will continue to be our cause, our battle, and our ultimate objective."
– Hasan Nassallah October 28, 2005
Haifa School, Shatila Refugee Camp: The fundamental consequences of the 1982 Massacre at Sabra-Shatila and the founding of Hezbollah are two seismic events from the same time and place which some argue are locked in a swirling expanding embrace that will return Palestine to the Palestinians.
In fewer than 45 minutes following the explosion in Islamabad at the 315-room Marriott Hotel during the Ramadan Iftar mealtime, Saturday, Hezbollah security units nearly invisibly secured the area of the 162-room Beirut Marriott Hotel. One of the embassies they secured was that of Palestine, which opened last year.
The security precautions were less out of love for the Bush administration, which the movement and increasing numbers internationals consider a rogue terrorist regime, or love for the Zionist-owned hotel chain, than the fact that the Marriott is within one of Hezbollah's densely populated base areas. Dahiyeh, which includes several southern Beirut neighborhoods, often erroneously referred to as "suburbs", is less than a mile from the Palestinian refugee area known as Sabra-Shatila.
Hezbollah works regularly to intercept elements openly boasting of or secretly planning on attacking its neighborhoods. Some being watched and infiltrated are Al Qaida inspired Sunni Salafist cells, who consider Shia Hezbollah more their enemy than they do the US or Israeli governments. Contrary to brother Robert Fisk's recent reports, these groups are indeed growing in Lebanon and inside the Palestinian Camps, particularly Ain el Helwe, Bedawi. They are trying to launch in the so far peaceful camps near Tyre. This observer would agree with Fisk that it will not be easy for Al Qaida to find enough supporters and adherents of the Salafi-Jihadi ideology to challenge the strength of Hezbollah's well-organized partisans. Yet, no fewer than 11 Al Qaida-inspired groups, eager to destabilize Lebanon, and sometimes related to US-Israel projects, have been organizing according to Palestinian Popular Committee Representatives inside the Camps. Some of their goals are being telegraphed by the rising campaign of threats coming from their sometime-sponsors in Tel Aviv and Washington.
The Angry Bear Returns to the Levant: From Russia with Love
When the rest of the story is able to be told concerning what really was happening during the late April and early May events in West Beirut, the facts will support a very different conclusion than the narrative offered by the Welch Club. Researchers expect to elucidate contents of ten and one half hours of taped conversations between Washington and its Lebanese surrogates. Conversations are referred to during a meeting between Hezbollah's number two, Sheifk Naim Qassim, and a former US Ambassador with his American delegation during a July 2008 dialogue in Dahiyeh. A full report of the May events will also document details of what is known by many here, that every incoming and outgoing communication at the US Embassy is carefully monitored, analyzed and contemplated. The same with Israeli Sunday Cabinet meetings.
This week the Israeli Army's Information Security Chief, Colonel Ram Dor, complained in the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot (Latest News) that Russia is relaying intelligence information to Hezbollah. Dor said Russian Navy spy ships and Russian personnel serving at monitoring stations on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights carry out intercept and hacking missions and relay Israeli secrets to Hezbollah.
"My evaluation is that such facilities can cover most of Israel's territory," Dor said.
The US intelligence unit in the American Embassy in Beirut also blames the hacking and sharing of its 'most secured communications' on the Russians while others claim its tit-for-tat for what the Mossad and CIA did early last year in Georgia.
US Embassy Internet security experts are unclear to what extent the Russian military is directly responsible for "communication compromises," but they claim that the traffic patterns and servers used in the operation are definitely coming out of Russia and result from increased Russian activity in the Middle East.
Some in Beirut speculate that this explains why the meticulously planned US/Israeli "May Surprise" turned out to be a "May Surprise" for its sponsors and their local teammates, who were dropped like a bad habit when the project imploded.
To counter this problem, the US Defense Intelligence Agency's newly created Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center is authorized for the first time to carry out "strategic offensive counterintelligence operations" in Lebanon and against any group anywhere which the Bush administration considers "terrorist," according to Mike Pick of the DEA, who will direct the program.
Covert offensive operations will be carried out in Lebanon and abroad against people known or suspected to be connected to foreign intelligence or international terrorist activities, according to Toby Sullivan, Director of Counterintelligence for James R. Clapper, Jr., the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.
According to Walter Pincus, who covers counterintelligence for the Washington Post, these sensitive, clandestine operations are "tightly controlled departmental activities run by a small group of specially selected people" within the Defense Department. The new unit is designed to thwart what groups like Hezbollah might be trying to do to us and to learn more about what they're trying to get from us," Sullivan said. In the case of "terrorists," the object would be to identify people who might be "trying to do harm, collect information about us, and keep them from doing that. So far we don't know if Hezbollah is trying to do anything to us but we will watch them," he stated.
"You stop, we stop," is the Putin offer to the next US administration, according to Congressional staff sources on the US Senate Intelligence Committee. Many in power in Moscow also consider the Bush administration a "terrorist cabal" and are awaiting the November election results, hoping Obama wins.
The Student Laptops and the KKK Kid
Hours before the Marriott was attacked in Pakistan, Fairouz Husseini sat with her girlfriends in the courtyard outside Haifa Middle School across the road from Shatila Refugee Camp, which is administered by UNWRA in Bir Hassan. Fairouz and her friends were giddy two days after receiving laptops at the 26th Anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre Memorial.
"I love it! I can't believe it's mine to keep!", Fairouz exclaimed as she protectively dusted off the pale green cover of her new XO laptop, and recorded an interview with the screen sized video and built-in camera. The XO laptop is part of an advanced teaching tool developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that some believe can revolutionize education in developing countries.
"That American man told us that if we used it properly it would open the doors to the Great Library of Alexandria for us and we can learn as much as any student at the best schools anywhere in the World!" she added.
Amal, a very loquacious 13 year old friend of Fairouz chimed in, "We are making a laptop club at our school. We call it: Learn for our Return! Is that a good name? What do you think? Our friend Ahmad says it's a silly idea. Anyway, Ahmad does not behave properly and is sort of wild. He is what we call a KKK kid - Kalashnikov, Kassem and Katyusha. Anyhow, most students in the camps are peaceful and we want to rebuild our country when we go back and we need lots of knowledge to do it!"
Fairouz and her Ramadan-fasting pals were already out of school for the day even though it was not yet noon. Lebanon's camp Palestinians are severely challenged by a shortened school day due to overcrowding. On average around there are 35, but sometimes there are as many as 50 students per class, and because UNWRA must run two shifts daily. Student and teacher absenteeism is high, standards are low, text books insufficient, infrastructure poor, and dropout rates increasing.
Of the 59 Palestinian camps in the Levant (Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon) only the camp schools in Gaza are as bad, indeed worse, as those in Lebanon.
Gaza Director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) John Ging reports that up to 60 percent of Gazan children at UNRWA schools had failed their math exams last year, while 40 percent failed their Arabic exams at the beginning of the year.
UNRWA provides schooling for Palestinian refugee children from grade 1 through 9, but offers limited secondary education and, as in Lebanon, these schools are forced to operate double shifts due to overcrowding. "Many children come to school hungry and unable to concentrate," according to Ging.
Haifa Fahmi al-Agha, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Education Ministry's Director General in the Gaza Strip, has documented that failure rates at schools in Gaza were deliberately lowered the past few years to cope with overcrowded classrooms, too few schools and limited educational funds. The same "lowering of the bar" trend is creeping into Palestinian schools in Lebanon.
Shatila Camp, as well as its sister, Burj al Baraneh, is located in Ghouberi Municipality, whose Council is now controlled by Hezbollah, whose party members won all 21 Council seats in both the 1998 and 2004 elections. Hezbollah security protects the whole area around Shatila Camp, and Haifa and other Palestinian Schools with their Shia, Sunni and Christian students. The Sabra-Shatila area is an increasingly close-knit area bringing together the Sunni Palestinians and the Shia Hezbollah.
More than 90% of Lebanon's Palestinian students interviewed recently, in an admittedly unscientific poll, appear to believe that Hezbollah holds out their best hope to return to Palestine, and insist their parents would vote for Hezbollah in next year's critical election if Palestinians were allowed to vote in Lebanon.
Before leaving for home, Fairouz introduced this observer to her lovely mother, Nour. Nour is a community organizer who had come to collect her daughter. She elaborated on why the Sunni and partially secular Palestinian community of Bir Hasan (where the first killers assembled 26 years ago before being sent into the Camp) have come to support the Shia Party of God despite a sometimes troubled past relationship.
The Non-ID Issue and Palestinian Gratitude
Besides shared values regarding education, Hezbollah supports the project that is now finally happening to give Palestinians identification cards for the first time.
"This is so important to our people in Lebanon. Actually Hezbollah worked quietly with Prime Minister Siniora's people to achieve this much needed progress," the community organizer explained. "They do a lot for us but they don't announce it to the public so much."
Many Palestinians credit pressure and dialogue from Hezbollah with the announcement last month that the government of Lebanon will finally issue temporary identification cards to perhaps as many as 5000 Palestinian families (around 20,000 individuals) who have no documents and who habitually hide from the authorities or risk imprisonment. PM Fouad Siniora, in bed with the Bush Administration, wins kudos for his work on this issue. Siniora appears to reject the Bush/Cheney and Israeli intense antipathy toward Resistance supporting Palestinians.
The Lebanese authorities have thus agreed after 40 years to give temporary ID cards to "non-ID" Palestinian refugees. Palestinians without any ID documents are subject to more capricious treatment by authorities than those holding UNWRA ID or Ration Cards or NR ("Non Registered") cards.
Most non-ID Palestinians are either former "Fedayeen" or descendants of the Palestinian fighters who came to Lebanon in the 1970s after being driven from Jordan during the "Black September" conflict with the Jordanian monarchy.
To qualify for the new IDs these individuals need to get a residence notice from a Mukhtar and submit it to the Lebanese General Security. The Non-ID card will help settle the legal status of thousands of Palestinians living in Lebanon and is about the only good news for the Palestinians here since their PLO protectors left Beirut in 1982, when the camp's steep descent into misery accelerated. Lebanon's new PLO "Embassy," which was allowed to open in May of 2006, has already received 2,600 names of applicants.
Like all Palestinians, the new ID-holders will still not be allowed to work in professional vocations or to own property, but at least their marriages will be legally registered and, theoretically, they can no longer be rounded up by the authorities at whim.
Sidon Mukhtar Mohammad Baasiri explained that dozens of Palestinians were flocking into his office on a daily basis seeking IDs. "I have hundreds of applications from Palestinians who want to get a residence notice as a starting point toward getting an ID," Mukhtar Bassiri noted.
Over the past two years, more than 350 non-ID refugees had been arrested in Sidon alone and more than 200 students were denied the right to access its schools and universities. To its everlasting credit, UNRWA often allows non-ID children to "sneak" into its schools - but they cannot pass their examinations at age 18 and gain qualifications because that requires legal papers. As reported by Daily Star's Fayez Najjar, an unregistered Palestinian father of 14 children from Ein el Helwe Camp explained that his sons had been arrested for lack of ID several times as they stepped outside the autonomous security system of Palestinian-controlled camps. Hezbollah is credited with helping advance this project.
Fatima Khalife's Quadruplets and Hasan Nasrallah
This is another example of Hezbollah "good neighborliness" mentioned by Hajjah Nour, which this observer had actually learned about earlier while conducting research in Mar Elias Camp in Beirut.
Many foreigners may not be familiar with the 6000-resident Mar Elias Palestinian Refugee Camp located just to the Northwest of Sabra and Shatila. It is small, one of the original camps set up in 1948. It is heavily made up by Christians from Nazarath and surrounded by Gulf-funded high rise construction projects. Salivating investors eye its boundaries and prime location near the sandy beach of Ramlet al Baida and Hamra.
Last month, this observer, en route to an appointment inside the Camp, was negotiating the sharp turns of alleys so narrow and dark that they have likely never been warmed by direct sunlight, barely enough space to advance along on a motorcycle.
Suddenly I noticed a gaggle of squealing pre-teens lining up for motorcycle rides and practicing their English with "hello!", 'how are you?", "welcome!" The kids apparently recognized me and the trusty steed "Silver" from an earlier visit. But this time it was necessary to apologize and explain in very weak Arabic what "next time" meant because I was rushing to an appointment with a camp social worker, who told me yet another "Hezbollah story" which affords insight into the Party's relationship with Palestinians in Lebanon:
On August 9, 2005, a Palestinian mother named Fatima Khalife gave birth to Quadruplets in Shatila Camp. One of the four babies, Omar, was very ill and not expected to live. He needed life-saving surgery and his family inquired at the nearby Safah Hospital. Being Palestinian, Lebanese law forbids any assistance from the National Social Security Fund, meager as it is. UNRWA contributed around $2000 and some local NGOs another $1,500. Still about $37,000 shy, the family was very happy when an article about the boy's plight was published in the local daily, As Safir. Two wealthy humanitarian Lebanese women came forward and offered to help the infant by paying for his surgery.
The Palestinian community was ecstatic and prayed for success with the delicate operation. Shortly before the scheduled surgery, a call was received at the hospital business office that caused its cancellation. When it was learned that Omar is a Palestinian, the well-to-do Lebanese ladies, perhaps with memories of the civil war and lost loved ones, withdrew their offer of medical assistance.
Word of what happened circulated in the crestfallen community. A local TV station, New TV, ran a story about the Khalife family's desperate plight as Omar's brain infection took a virulent turn. Within minutes of the program being aired, the office of Hezbollah's Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called Omar's father. Hezbollah said it would like to pay for the boy's surgery and all subsequent expenses until the boy was well. And it did. Nasrallah had watched the program and was deeply moved. Today, Omar is healthy, sweet, rambunctious, beautiful, three years old who just learned how to press the ignition button and start a foreigner's motorcycle.
Hezbollah cannot solve all the Palestinian's problems in Lebanon pending their return to Palestine, but with no one to rely on but themselves, Palestinians appreciate enormously such gestures as saving Omar.
At the risk of over-simplification, one concludes that these kinds of "Robin Hood" stories have created a broad admiration for the Hezbollah-led Resistance in Lebanon's Palestinian community - as do Hezbollah's straight-dealing with the Shatila and Burj al Burajneh Camps in the Ghoberi Municipality, where it helps with infrastructural, sewer and water projects (probably against "the law" and wishes of many in Lebanon).
This is not to say that there are no lingering personal grudges within Lebanon's Shia/Palestinian community from individuals who suffered at the hands of the other over the past four decades during the civil war and Zionist occupation. Yet, one Palestinian friend, Samer, a Mar Elias Camp social worker, reported that both communities want to let bygones be bygones. He points out that marriages between Shia and Sunni and Christian Palestinians are increasing (his wife is Shia). He also pointed out and that he personally has more Hezbollah friends than Palestinian, as he introduced me to his best friend, Ali, a Shia and Hezbollah party member.
Franklin Lamb can be reached at [email protected]. The SabraShatila website is www.sabrashatila.org. He is finishing a book on Hezbollah.
Part Three: Why Lebanon's Palestinians are Hopeful about an Election
in which They Cannot Vote
The Palestinians
26 Years After the Massacre at Sabra-Shatila
Franklin
Lamb
Gouberi Municipality Building
Dahiyeh
Running on a 1932 New Deal Platform, Hezbollah intends a government of all the People, by all the People and for all the People
"We
in Hezbollah want to demonstrate to our adversaries and doubters what
we can achieve for our fellow Lebanese and our Palestinian brothers
and sisters and to show them that our Party is 10% about military
matters and 90% about ending corruption and improving the quality
of lives of all who live in Lebanon. We will offer the voters a clear
choice and they will decide. If we win, our friends and foes alike
can observe and evaluate our achievements and then work with us on
a basis of mutual respect, dialogue, and cooperation if they so choose
or, if we fail, vote our deputies out of Parliament. We must respect
their decision."
- Zeinab, a Hezbollah supporter studying at the American University
of Beirut 12 September 2008
Lebanon's 2009 election campaign is underway!
As this note is written, Hezbollah election strategists are meeting nearby studying, analyzing, debating and formularizing plans for Lebanon's make or break 2009 elections. That poll, if it happens, may determine the foreseeable future of Lebanon and is arguably this fractured country's most important referendum since the French more on less left in 1943.
The Hezbollah-led opposition may become the solid majority in Parliament following next May's election, taking as many as 70 of the 128 up-for-grab Deputy Seats.
Some in the March 14 current majority will join Hezbollah out of self interest. Others will try to use the election to eliminate rivals and gather the confetti and posters from the 2005 "cedar revolution." Others may, following the election, retire from politics. And some of Lebanon's old soldiers and chieftains like Michel Aoun and Amin Gemayel will likely never officially retire but will slowly fade away with their boots on and waiting for the call to serve yet again.
The Hunt for Votes
As recently as this week, given the publicity over the 26th Anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre, Samir Geagea apologized at a campaign rally for "mistakes" committed by members of his party :
"I fully apologize for all the past mistakes that we committed when we were carrying out our national duties," he said, with a straight face, avoiding direct comment on the Sabra-Shatila Massacre and gliding over the slaughter and presumable "mistakes" of raping and cutting open pregnant women and bashing in the heads of babies. Geagea did not explain to those whose votes he is seeking which part of "our national duties" such acts "carried out".
Running on an undisguised anti-Hezbollah plank, and seeking to push his rival Amin Gemayel aside in order to motivate and unify the younger Phalange and Kateib elements, Samir declared: "I ask God to forgive us and so I ask the people whom we hurt [evidently the victims of the Sabra-Shatila slaughter and their surviving relatives who received no compensation from the state or from any other source] in the past to forget."
He added, "I want to tell those who are exploiting our past mistakes [read: such acts as commemorating the 26th Anniversary of the Massacre on September 16, 2008 at Martyr's Square, Shatila Camp and distribution of student laptops to deprived Palestinian children] to stop doing so because only God can judge us," he concluded.
Yes we can!
With its power at its apex—inside and outside of Lebanon—many Hezbollah members are excited at the prospect of finally being able to demonstrate what the Party is all about.
Some pro-Hezbollah voters are happy to learn the results of the just-released Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll. The poll found that by a majority of 51 to 43 percent American citizens now believe their country's leaders should talk with the leaders of Hezbollah. Eighty-three percent of Americans—including 81 percent of Republicans and 88 percent of Democrats—think that improving their nation's standing internationally should be a "very important" foreign policy goal.
It's the Economy, Stupid!
It is common to hear in the Halifee Sandwich shop in Haret Hreik, or at various 2006 July War commemoration events, comments like "some of our former adversaries are in for a surprise—and we want to make it a pleasant surprise!"
The reference is to the "human face of Hezbollah" which some are urging be presented. One Hezbollah member studying at the American University of Beirut explained: "Of course we are good at beating up the Zionist thieves of Palestine but there is much more to our social movement that we can do for our Country. Like stop the decades of corruption by Lebanese officials, help the Palestinians, fix the electric, water, telephone systems, get some traffic laws enforced and address the need for a social security system that serves all of Lebanon and improve the education system. And how about a real health care system?"
"There are an awfully lot of New Dealers among Hezbollah advisors", according to one member of the Party's politburo.
Hezbollah Burnishes Its image: Contrition with a Plea for Patience and Understanding
Some political observers of Lebanon believe that if there is relative peace in the country, Hezbollah will do very well in the coming polling and that this will be good for the Palestinians. Others, including many in Hezbollah, think maintaining the current calm may not be easy given intensified efforts by those working to cause turmoil.
Space only allows for a brief mention of the fact that in the run-up to the coming election, Hezbollah has been trying to reduce doubts about last May's image-damaging bloody events. Hezbollah is reaching out to undecided voters and has participated in the following initiatives:
· A flow of Hezbollah offers for dialogue addressed all the factions in Lebanon and giving high priority to last week's presidential-sponsored dialogue, the next session of which is scheduled to be held on November 5, the day after the US Presidential election.
· Hezbollah's Politburo member Mahmoud Qmati and other Party leaders have been calling for the launching of "a new era" based on "forgetting the past, despite all its pain and wounds."
· Hezbollah has refrained from boasting about its victory in achieving the new Lebanese policy statement which allows (for the time being– pending the 2009 election) Hezbollah to keep its weapons, and underlines the "right of Lebanon's people, army, and resistance (referring to Hezbollah's military wing) to liberate Israeli-occupied areas and "defend the country using all legal and possible means."
· Working on maintaining the fragile peace that it helped broker between the majority and opposition on May 21 in Doha, Qatar, leading to the creation of a unity Cabinet, in which the opposition achieved veto power over Government decisions.
· Hezbollah is also working on setting up a substantive meeting(s) with the leader of the March 14th alliance leader Saad Hariri through the efforts of Hizbullah's coordination liaison and coordination committee head Wafik Safa. On September 7, Hasan Nasrallah announced that Hezbollah "recognizes the popular representation of the Future Movement within the Sunni community and we are ready to cooperate with them provided there were no preconditions." Executive Council chief Hashem Safieddine or deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem will likely head the Hezbollah delegation. Meetings during 2004 and 2005 between Saad's father Rafiq and Hasan Nasarallah are thought to have been positive for the Country.
· Hezbollah's Wafik Safa has been working on achieving a entente with Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze Progressive Socialist Party
· In an important public relations move, aimed at improving relations with the Sunni community, Hezbollah has made the decision to create a new department of Arab relations. The purpose of the new unit is to "monitor the party's relations in the Arab homeland with the different forces, parties, popular groups, and elites, as well as with the governments with which Hezbollah has relations or with which it is going to establish relations." These developments come in the context of structural modifications that Hezbollah has decided to implement in light of developments that have occurred since the July-August 2006 War. Hassan Azzadine, a member of the Hizbullah politburo, will likely preside over the department.
· On 8/18/08 the head of Hezbollah's political council, Sayyed Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed signed a Memorandum of Understanding with 14 Tripoli based Lebanese Sunni Salifist groups (Tripoli is Pro-Saad Hariri-but becoming restive and his support is softening. Hezbollah wants to prevent civil strife in the area following the May incidents which some writers, including Al Akbar's Al-Amine, have written witnessed the collapse of the infrastructure of the Future Movement). The Sunni and Shia signatories pledged that both sides would work together to stop Sunni-Shia incitement and bloodletting and would continue Muslim dialogue. This bold initiative was too much for the Welch Club which moved quickly to force a 'temporary freeze' by encouraging the pro-US March 14 "ruling team." Cash and threats were allegedly quickly exchanged and suddenly one of the key signatories from the Sunni Salifist side "got religion" following his uncle's "displeasure" and claimed perhaps further study of the issue was prudent. Others have claimed that massive pressures were exerted by security bodies on the Salafist forces who signed the agreement and contacts were made by regional sides to create a front to undermine this understanding.
The Bush Administration does not feel its interests are well served by Shia-Sunni peace whether in Iraq or Lebanon. Still, the fact that the MOU was negotiated and signed demonstrates to Lebanon's electorate that Hezbollah is reaching out to all fellow Muslims in the coming election, even their takferi "kafer labeling" nemeses who view Shia—and basically all but themselves—as heretics.
· Apologized for the shooting and killing of the Lebanese Army helicopter pilot Captain Samer Hanna and sent a delegation to meet with his family. Hezbollah Sec-Gen Nasrallah expressed condolences to the family, saying: "I address the father of the martyr Samer Hanna, and send you my deepest condolences."
· In a bid to prevent armed incidents in Lebanon, Hezbollah's number two Sheikh Naim Qassem recently asked Lebanese immigrants who support Hezbollah in its struggle against Israel "to respect the laws and policies of their host countries and know that the fight against Israel should take place in Lebanon and not anywhere else." Qassem told a delegation of Lebanese immigrants in Dahiyeh that "Our brother emigrants should be aware that they are not supposed to be fighting Israel in their host countries, especially that these countries are not occupied by Israel."
· Separate reconciliation talks were already held last Monday between Hezbollah and Mr Jumblatt, following the assassination in a car bombing of a senior member of a rival Druze party allied with Hezbollah.
Despite conciliatory initiatives such as the above, it's been a tough, intense and pressured spring and summer for the Hezbollah led Lebanese Resistance.
Indeed, these past 24 months since the end of the July 2006 "hot war" Hezbollah has again had to play defense to Bush Administration-Israeli attacks, this time in the form of a sustained "cold war" of dozens of projects aimed at weakening Hezbollah's resolve, discrediting its message, attempting to scare its supporters and with dire threats of bombing "of all of Lebanon" if Hezbollah wins, all the while facilitating and excusing Israeli violations of UNSCR 1701.
In addition to countless threats from Washington and Tel Avi , on average of twice a week over the past 104, local friends of the Welch Club continue to dutifully, and sometimes on cue by monitored instructions from abroad, disparage the Party.
A Page from a 1960s US Presidential Campaign Playbook
Hezbollah has done its best to counter what it considers mis/disinformation attacks with what some local observers have come to refer to as Hezbollah's "Defense Department." This moniker, coined by an American researcher in Dahiyeh, refers to Hezbollah's "boiler room" operation similar to what was first seen in American politics during the 1968 Robert Kennedy Presidential Campaign and which is now standard fare for every major US political campaign.
Hezbollah's Defense Department works in Lebanon as follows. When attacks on the Lebanese Resistance are unleashed in the media Hezbollah's Defense Department morphs into rapid response mode. Its Media Relations Office, well known to the international media for its work during the 33 days of Israeli bombing of Lebanon, may quickly issue a rebuttal, or one of Hezbollah's 7 members of Parliament or one or more of its political allies will respond quickly with detailed information contradicting, clarifying, or exposing what Hezbollah considers erroneous or scurrilous attacks. A recent example was the other day when Hezbollah quickly denied false reports about deployment of members of its armed units and missiles in Sannine mountain, terming them lies. A statement released by Hezbollah's media office said the March 14 "forces have adopted a policy of lie, lie and lie until people believe you."
Some seasoned Lebanese-based journalists claim Hezbollah's Defense Department is the most efficient media relations unit of its kind in the Middle East, second only to the international Zionist narrative juggernaut.
Long discredited claims are still heard from time to time when its adversaries need to score political points at its expense, such as that if Hezbollah wins next spring's election it will impose an Iran style Islamic Republic, discriminate against non Shia, or repress women. Yet anyone living in Hezbollah's society quickly learns that women not only control decision making and events in the three key rooms in their homes, the kitchen, children's room and bedroom, but that they are the key pillars in the Party administration social programs.
In the face of these efforts to discredit it, Hezbollah is preparing with gusto for next year's crucial Parliamentary elections from which it and its allies, including a majority of Lebanon's Christians and significant Sunni and Druze supporters, hope to win and end what many Hezbollah members consider the US-Israel control of Lebanon's government. It would also re-codify the right of the Lebanese Resistance to retain its military prowess pending the new government's decision on exactly how the Islamic Resistance and Lebanon's fledgling army will work together to defend Lebanon from foreign projects.
On the Hustings
On any given day, several key Hezbollah members are on the campaign trail. A recent and typical Sunday saw Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassim in Hermel in the Bekaa telling supporters that the Party wants to reach out to all the confessions with dialogue and partnership to build a prosperous Lebanon that can defend itself against Israeli aggression. Shortly Nawaf Musawi, one of Hezbollah most effective and popular speakers, and a favorite with visiting American and Western delegations, was in Eita Shaab and Nabiteyeh rallying Hezbollah voters and discussing Hezbollah's position on various issues.
Yesterday (September 21, 2008) Mohammad Fneish, Hezbollah leader, Member of Parliament and Lebanon's Labor Minister, who led Hezbollah successful support for raising Lebanon's minimum wage which was announced this week, told voters that dialogue meetings should discuss means of protecting Lebanon and complement the process of liberating the currently occupied territories. During an Iftar banquet in the Southern port city of Tyre, Fneish said Hizbullah's weapons should not be considered a problem because the resistance "gave a meaning and a value to the state." Fneish said that international concern about Lebanon was intended to restore Israel's dignity after the achievements of the resistance during the summer 2006 war. He said Hizbullah would "seriously discuss all issues "because Hezbollah's agenda does not contradict that of the state."
Other Party members were preparing for the coming election by checking voting lists, vetting candidates, honing the Party's message to skeptical and undecided voters and urging the Party faithful to fulfill their national duty and show up at the voting booths on election day.
A pastry chef at the Patisserie across from Shatila Camp explained that Hezbollah is eager to have the voters decide such issues as "whether Lebanon remains a resistance state or yields to current US administration-Israel projects."
If Hezbollah and its allies become the majority in the next Parliament and thus the government, it will be, according to the young Shia woman, Nala, who works in the Western Union office next to the Palestine Red Crescent Akka Hosptial "for the new US administration to decide to either recognize the poll results in Lebanon and honor its countless pledges to support the will of Lebanon's voters or once again dump a democratically elected government in the Middle East in favor of supporting the collapsing colonial enterprise still occupying Palestine." Ali, her fiancé and co-worker added, "Internationally, there is not much left but ridicule for the US Zionist-Neocon "New Middle East Democracy" project, but it is not quite dead yet, fueled as it is with hundreds of millions of dollars for its foot soldiers and supportive mercenaries."
After the election will we get normal electricity, water, Internet, road repairs?
This observer has detected among Hezbollah friends a genuine excitement about the Party's opportunity, as one Party member related to a meeting with visiting Americans: "We in Hezbollah want to demonstrate to our adversaries and doubters what we can achieve for our fellow Lebanese and to show them that our Party is 10% about military matters and 90% about ending corruption and improving the quality of lives of all who live in Lebanon. We will offer the voters a clear choice and they will decide. If we win, our friends and foes alike can observe and evaluate our achievements and then work with us on a basis of mutual respect, dialogue, and cooperation, or vote our deputies out of Parliament. We must respect their decision. We aim to restore true democracy, transparency and accountability for all Lebanese and as I think you know Hezbollah does not love the dysfunctional confessional system but we prefer one person one vote. The same that will eventually be achieved for Palestine. Personally I believe that as we prepare for a new government and hopefully real change, a new census would be good. It has been about 76 years since the last one."
Speculation is increasing regarding Hezbollah's economic program for Lebanon but the Party is keeping the wraps on until it is finetuned in the coming weeks. Hasan Nasrallah has made plain that the Hezollah platform will focus on social and economic issues, including education.
Before getting up from an outdoor cafe table, next to a group of Madhi Boy Scouts returning from a clean up a beach outing and from a long discussion about next year's election, one Hezbollah organizer leaned over and whispered, in an apparent reference to a particular US Presidential candidate, "Yes we can!". He winked and gave a thumbs up as he vanished into the unlit southern Beirut night.
So what's in it for Hezbollah if they help the Palestinians?
Much will no doubt be written about Hezbollah's electoral prospects and program during the coming months, but one issue which Hezbollah is being lobbied on is improving the conditions of Lebanon's approximately 405,000 Palestinians (more than 10% of Lebanon's population), half of whom live as pariahs in 12 currently baking Palestinian Refugee Camps which will bcome fetid and swampy with fall rains.
Some Lebanese electoral strategists are advising Hezbollah "not to touch this sure loser constituency" for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that there is not one Palestinian vote to be had for Hezbollah in the coming election since Palestinians can't vote. Others counsel that Hezbollah needs to broaden its base among Lebanon's feuding 17 confessions, some of whom continue to blame the Palestinians for many of their woes. Still others have warned Hezbollah and to play down its vocal opposition to the US-Israel project of naturalizing the Palestinians in countries where they have been forced to settle.
Additionally, it is not forgotten that the PLO for years ran roughshod over many Shia in South Lebanon during its "state within a state" Rambo days. Some bitter Palestinian feelings also remain toward the Shia (Amal-on behalf of anti-Arafat Syria) attacks and widespread destruction and killing of more than 3,000 Palestinians during the 1986-89 'Camp Wars'. While Hezbollah refused to join the brutal assault on the camp Palestinians and worked to end it, other anti-Palestinian sentiments persist among some Shia from personal loses deemed to have been caused by PLO 'hoodlums' between the late 1970's and 1982.
Both groups appear willing to let bygones be bygones and Hezbollah is serious about its Islamic duty to help the Palestinians. Some in Hezbollah even argue that the Sunni PLO remains the step-mother of Shia Hezbollah. Did not the PLO train Iranian Islamist dissidents years before the successful 1979 Khomeini Revolution? Weren't Khomeini and Arafat close? Was it not the PLO's Abu Jihad (assassinated on the orders of Ariel Sharon exactly 6 years to the day, April 16, 1988 of the 1982 Massacre) who helped Islamist groups with weapons as the PLO prepared to sail from Beirut's ports in late August of 1982? Some of Hezbollah's key members had previously fought with the PLO. Some still feel a sense of nostalgia for "the good old days" of their adolescence.
As Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nassarallah has often stated, the Party has a moral, religious, and political duty to help return Lebanon's Palestinian Refugees to their stolen lands.
Franklin
Lamb can be reached at [email protected].
The SabraShatila website is www.sabrashatila.org.
He is finishing a book on Hezbollah.
