Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
I AM HEZBOLLAH! - MUST READ!
Conversations with the supporters of Hezbollah
About Resistance and Disarmament
In Palestine and Lebanon
Posted By Dr. Irum Shiekh
As I traveled from the airport to downtown Beirut in mid September 2006, I noticed large ?Divine Victory? billboards mounted along both sides of the freeway. Written in English, French, and Arabic, these colorful posters displayed multiple messages. One sign praised the heroic fighters of Hezbollah. Another one criticized the Israeli bombings and implicated the US in the killing of over 1,000 innocent children, by juxtaposing the pictures of dead children with phrases like ?Made in the US? and ?Extremely Precise Targets.? While the billboards communicated multiple meanings to the area?s diverse ethnic and religious population, the underlying messages connecting them were resoundingly clear: we are victorious and the civilian deaths and suffering in Lebanon resulted from US support for Israel.
About Resistance and Disarmament
In Palestine and Lebanon
Posted By Dr. Irum Shiekh
As I traveled from the airport to downtown Beirut in mid September 2006, I noticed large ?Divine Victory? billboards mounted along both sides of the freeway. Written in English, French, and Arabic, these colorful posters displayed multiple messages. One sign praised the heroic fighters of Hezbollah. Another one criticized the Israeli bombings and implicated the US in the killing of over 1,000 innocent children, by juxtaposing the pictures of dead children with phrases like ?Made in the US? and ?Extremely Precise Targets.? While the billboards communicated multiple meanings to the area?s diverse ethnic and religious population, the underlying messages connecting them were resoundingly clear: we are victorious and the civilian deaths and suffering in Lebanon resulted from US support for Israel.
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Irum Shiekh can be reached through [email protected]
*The views expressed herein are of the individual author and do not necessarily reflect views/policies of Progressive Films.
As I am writing this article five months after the capture of an Israeli solider in Gaza, the area is still under siege and most of the democratically elected parliament members of the Palestinian government are in jail. Compared to this dismal situation, in South Lebanon, a ceasefire has been signed. Today the fact that Israel is out of Lebanon and not out of Gaza shows the power of resistance. Hezbollah with its strong resistance was able to stop Israeli attacks and it is the only reason that the overwhelming majority of people living in the South cannot even begin to think of Hezbollah?s disarmament.
Today, I look at the countless pictures that I gathered from the West Bank and Lebanon. I note complete destruction of homes, businesses and other public areas in South Lebanon yet the people in these areas are vibrant, optimistic and full of energy. They may have lost their homes but not their hope.
Similarly, another woman who was a member of a Palestinian resistance force during the 1970s and spent five years in an Israeli prison told me that she supports Hezbollah?s resistance to end the occupation of Sheba farms in Lebanon and to free their long-held prisoners. She said, ?During World War II, when Nazi Germany occupied France, the French resisted through armed struggles and the allied forced were supporting them. We are resisting a foreign occupation and the world has just reduced our efforts to terrorism. Tell me what is the difference.?
While most Palestinians were in favor of resistance, both peaceful and armed to end Israeli occupation, they were against violence and killing to promote a certain political or religious ideology. For example, one young Palestinian woman called Al-Qaeda a terrorist organization and said, ?Usama Bin Ladin was working with the United States for years in Afghanistan and never uttered the name of Palestine.
These fighters were hailed as heroes. At the entrance of each village, I saw large posters of martyrs decorated with banners and flags in highly visible areas.
I heard similar sentiments in the West Bank where many individuals explained the importance of resistance by comparing the situation in Gaza to Lebanon. On June 25th a militant group in Gaza captured an Israeli solider and since then Israel has deprived the entire population of food, water, and electricity.
I personally noted a few recent examples of Israeli aggression after the official ceasefire of August 14,th which continue to fuel the sentiment of distrust between the two nations. For example, Israeli soldiers remained within Lebanese borders, sporadically set up temporary checkpoints along border towns and forced locals to show their identity cards.
One young woman differentiated between national and local armies and said, in the past, ?Tribes used to defend their lands with their local armies. Today, it is legitimate to fight with national armies but not with tribal armies. Lebanon does not have a strong army and therefore Hezbollah has to stand up to defend its land against Israeli occupation. The people of the South as a tribe have established the legitimacy of Hezbollah.
Before my trip to Lebanon, I had spent three months in Palestine where I also noticed a similar sentiment of victory for Hezbollah. Of course Israel being a common enemy was the primary reason, but more than that accounted for Hezbollah?s popularity. One local professor told me, ?Watch and see, something important will come out of this war. Israel learns to negotiate only after it is vulnerable. The war in Lebanon had shown that Israel is not as mighty as it has been trying to prove. This is not only a victory for Lebanon, it is an important victory for Palestine and for the entire Middle East.?
On the day of ceasefire, Israeli planes dropped leaflets in Lebanon blaming Hezbollah for starting the war so I asked several individuals if they thought Hezbollah had started the war by capturing two soldiers.
It seemed that the people felt a sense of moral victory over Israel. Waving and wearing Hezbollah flags, the locals told me stories of hiding in their homes during the war, women cooking food for the fighters and young men delivering messages between fighters.
A spirit of victory prevailed in the south signified by green and yellow Hezbollah flags and banners and photos of Nasser Ullah. From a statistical point of view, the complete destruction and deaths of over 1,000 civilians did not signify victory so I asked the locals specific questions about the outcome of the war.
The reconstruction assistance from Hezbollah uplifted the local people because they did not feel abandoned. I saw individuals rebuilding their homes and they articulated a sense of optimism. Many times they smiled when I asked about their damaged/destroyed houses and they told me, ?Inshallah (God willing), it will be rebuilt, not a problem.? At this time, they were happy for having been able to halt Israel.
This welfare assistance serves as the glue between Hezbollah and the local community in the South and other impoverished neighborhoods of Beirut. Historically, these predominately Shiite Muslim areas were neglected by the central government until Hezbollah opened schools, built roads and provided other basic infrastructure. This is one of the major reasons that Hezbollah thrives in the South and in the other impoverished areas of Lebanon.
Close to this desolate area, the noise of bulldozers, dust from the demolition of homes, large trucks moving rubble from destroyed homes to landfills, and the laborers working on construction sites demonstrated that the reconstruction was in full swing. Less damaged stores had been rebuilt and were open for business. Many times I saw a single store open in a building and the rest of the stores were damaged and closed. Broken glass windows and blown out doors did not stop the flow of life. In one of the damaged houses that I visited, I found two women making traditional bread on a big oven in one of the rooms. When I opened the back door of the room, I encountered a big crane destroying the rest of the house, and saw a child on a small bike watching the destruction of his home. Seeing young children playing in the dust and rubble made me concerned about exposure to hazardous chemicals from the Israeli bombs.