Hezb-Allah. The party of God, or, as taken from the Holy Koran, His “chosen people”. The demarcation line is clear between party members and non-members, even if they were from the Shia faith. A little more insidious is the “hezb” or “party” aspect, which defines this entity as a social movement organization, albeit a violent and militarized one. In my in-depth analysis of their manifesto I go through their entire ideology and framing (pun unintended) system, but let’s just say that they claim to have identified both the “problem” in the world – everyone else, and the solution – themselves. Their flag embodies this clearly, illustrating a god-ordained military overtake of the entire planet. The historical fact is that Khamenei issued a fatwa in 1992 changing their name in a deceitful manner from “Islamic revolution” to Islamic resistance. Indeed, the connotation of “resistance” is accepted and respected by friends and foes alike, giving credibility where Islamic revolution would lead to raised shields.
Their mind-twisting play with words will become more intricate and insidious, giving us a 1984-style newspeak whereby war is a divine duty, peace is submission, prosperity is corruption, honor is death, freedom is enslavement to their agenda, and so on and so forth. Two emotions are allowed: hatred of others and loyalty to their ideology. They even twist history to “erase” frames of reference that we may long to go back to, to control what we long to go forward to. This intricate process allows for thought duality, as in simultaneously believing one thing and its opposite. (Their staunchest opponent, for instance, is both a Nazi and a Zionist. They even added an ISIS image to the same individual, in trying to destroy that last rampart standing up to them, and keeping what’s left of Lebanon pieced up together.)
HA is the only terrorist entity in the history of mankind that has succeeded, reaching its political goals through wanton violence. That agenda is the hostile takeover of Lebanon, but not just. In their Islamo-fascist ideology, the world is divided into dar el harb and dar el islam. They live in the latter and wage perpetual war upon the former until it submits. In 1992, Khamenei issued another fatwa allowing them to participate in Lebanese elections, as they don’t recognize Lebanon nor international order. In their manifesto, and regular public appearances, they clearly pledge total and blind allegiance and obedience to the supreme guide of the revolution, the walee el fakih, Iran’s spiritual leader. This is the secret behind the success and their ability to induce permanent socio-political changes: a structured, well financed and managed entity with clear and undisputed command structure. (Unlike Sunni extremism, which is limited to haphazard terror attacks with no political gains.) Their true “day One” was April 26th, 2005: the withdrawn Syrian army left them the entire Lebanese field to overtake. Until then, they were just a Syrian-controlled Iranian foreign diplomacy asset serving a joint policy.
As with any manipulating narcissist, one of HA’s centers of gravity (together with financing structure and military machine) is public perception. Terror attacks must be seen as divine and noble eliminations of the devil’s advocates, fallen operators are martyrs enjoying everything forbidden in paradise. But back to perception, how many people are aware of HA’s true history? Do they know that they started by assassinating everything “law and order” in their turf, from the LAF to the ISF, then moved against leftist and anti-Israeli militias and on to their ONLY existential war ever, against fellow movement Amal? A war where Israel helped them and which resulted in more than 2500 killed… And speaking of Israel, can anyone recount of a single HA flag raised on a “liberated” SLA outpost under actual Israeli fire? Would the shia ex-SLA soldiers who are now members of the HA remember how they used to vacate their (isolated) positions when their calls for (Israeli) fire support went unanswered? And on to the big one: had Israel intended to invade, in 2006, would it have bombed every road and bridge? How would its troops invade? And why were these troops (Israel is an army with a nation, not the other way around; all soldiers are reservists) not called up? We can go on deconstructing everything they claim, including the 2006 CANA “massacre”, a staged operation (an investigative article was published on that) designed to force a cease-fire at the time Israel (finally) decided to actually call its reservists, gather up its ground forces and get serious. US secretary of state was visiting Israel back then, and the timing was perfect. Would it help to remind the reader that Saddam Hussein was literally erasing Iran from the map, were it not of direct Israeli military support? So let’s make this point clear: for as long as Iran does not pose an existential threat, Israel and Iran are allies. Military action would only seek to keep said threat under an acceptable threshold. In brief: HA is a FAKE.
So what does HA fear? What are his fundamental enemies, in his war of ideas, perception and control? The first is a good economy. Should the people not need his financial support, he’d lose a major raison d’etre. The second is security. Again, should the people not need his protection, he’d become obsolete. Speaking of protection, his third enemy is the Lebanese Army, its only true competition. Fourth is of course rule of law. HA doesn’t even have the right to exist, constitutionally, and of course they want to impose their own law. Last but not least, HA’s fifth fundamental enemy is… freedom and human rights. There is no need to dwell on that I am certain. We will NEVER have any of [1] a good economy, [2] security, [3] a strong and sovereign army, [4] Rule of Law, and [5] Freedom and human rights for as long as HA is here…. HA is the antithesis of every single pillar of human-kind.
But how did HA reach this stage of control over every state instrument, over so many hearts and minds, and over this geographical span? The answer is to simplify, but in a structured and extremely well-coordinated plan that has been in the works for decades. The fact that they are an outgrowth of the Iranian Islamic Revolution means that they enjoy the full resources of an oil rich nation, as well as obey its commands, with no internal bickering. Their actual start date was the day the Syrian occupying forces left the country, on account of the terror attack they did in killing PM Rafic Hariri and his companions. Everything before that was preparations. They inherited and kept in place the corrupt network of politicians the Syrians had and which was covering their presence, for the same reason, holding criminal evidence on every corruption scheme they organized and partook in. In short, the political class was “bought”. This network soon extended into all political and security institutions, and even the academic and social services assets. The oil stain effect became nation and system-wide. Forced demographic colonization gave them strongholds in every region. As to making the present system fail, they used the same methods (borrowed from Chinese schools of thoughts) they used in Irak, and which are fail-proof against any structured entity, be they weak such as ours, or almighty such as the US. (Indeed, while everyone asks what was the US doing in Iraq, the real question – or answer, is what was Iran doing in Iraq?) To make a long story short, this method, which works better when war is waged amongst the population, collapses the strategic, operational and tactical aspects into a very simple two-step procedure: [1] Create chaos and [2] Blame someone else. And indeed, since they have their own structure for all aspects of life, social to security, they and only they can survive in a chaotic environment since they are impervious to it. What happened in Lebanon is that they pushed this concept too far, and the fact that the corrupt class they were part of and controlled was too greedy and myopic, leading to the drying up of their milking cow, the private and public Lebanese state. The financial and ensuing social breakdown lifted the fog on their veiled perception, as carried on by the October 17 2019 revolution. The decades-long, 1984 style mind control over their nurturing environment and public perception started to lift, leading to the present situation whereby their secretary general needs to address people twice a week. From an unknown underground shelter while simultaneously claiming to have 100,000 trained combatants. The oxymoron of their reality does not match perception anymore, except for the hardcore and blindfolded.
What do we do now? The answer is the same and unique answer that every people under foreign occupation did for freedom. Confront and fight. Asking kindly won’t work. The remnants of perception will fall once their entire war and mind machine has to confront fellow Lebanese. When every Shia compatriot in our beautiful nation will need to choose between weleyet el fakih and welayet el arz. Of course this confrontation is best done through state instruments, be they legal or security assets and resources. Finding the gaps in their network is crucial, and exploiting said gaps is critical: these are the gaps our light will filter from. We are fighting dark masters of Evil with a well-structured security perimeter of political prostitutes who have sold themselves out of greed. Every free soul in this nation must have the courage to confront, in whatever way they can, by uniting in action and thought. HA’s last attacks on LF party and its leader, as well as on the judicial investigation on the port explosion showcases their desperation. We must unite around both issues, the LF being the last rampart against them, (witness the shameful silence of the entire corrupt political class…) and the port investigation being the first crack in their armor. These are the first steps in nation-building our dear Lebanon out of their terror net.
For now, we are trying to be a normal and civilized society, in pursuit of a decent life and happiness. They are the antithesis of that. A counter-society. And the two cannot mix.