Posts Tagged ‘Imam Moussa Sadr’
Part 3. Genesis of Hezbollah of Lebanon: Accounts of Robert Fisk
I have published three articles on the genesis of Hezbollah: One article described the geopolitical and social context of Iran Islamic revolution, and the living condition of the citizens in south Lebanon during the 22 years of Israel occupation.
How the Lebanese resistance to the Israeli occupation, particularly Hezbollah, got organized, developed, and managed to kick out Israel in the year 2000 without preconditions or any negotiation?
It is recommended, in order to appreciate the facts, eye-witness accounts, and reports of Robert Fisk, which points to the creation of Hezbollah and how it started to resist Israel occupation of Lebanon from 1982 to 2000, to read https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2011/09/19/south-lebanon-living-conditions-under-22-years-of-israel-occupation/
Robert Fisk wrote the book “Affliction of a Nation” and I am reading the Arabic translated version. Fisk was the correspondent to the British The Times in Beirut and covered Lebanon civil war for nine years. I am summarizing one of the chapters.
“By 1983, a tight bonding between the political demands of the citizens in the south and religious belief set in: A close relationship between seeking peace and tranquility in isolated south region of Lebanon and the duty to martyrdom.
Every blow suffered by Israel occupation force was perceived as a means to emulating what Imam Hussein Bin Ali endured in the battle of Karbalaa against the Omayyad dynasty.
When Israel foolishly named Karbalaa one of its hired factions of militias of “Lebanese guards” to maintain “peace and orders”, the Shias comprehended the gesture as direct blasphemy.
In early October 1983, Israel threatened to close the bridge of the Awali River, the only passage to the towns and villages in the south. Sheikh Shams el Din declared “total civil disobedience to the Israeli occupation forces”.
On October 16, the 10th day of the religious ceremony of Ashoura, an Israeli military convoy barged amid the crowd in the square of Nabatieh. The people pelted the Israeli soldiers with stones, overturned military vehicles, and set fire in them. Israel soldiers reacted by firing live ammunition, killing two and seriously injuring 7 worshipers.
Suheil Hamoura, 19 year-old, was one of the casualties, shot in the back. Suheil was not that religious, and he came from Beirut to visit his family for the holiday. Within a week, Israeli troops suffered 9 ambush attacks. The Shia members in the stooges “South Lebanon Army” of Major Saad Haddad, resigned their posts and joined the Amal party, created by late Imam Moussa Sadr, and headed by Nabih Beri (current chairman of the parliament).
Many collaborators with Israel were executed. Italian landmine named Shatchi were planted on the sides of road.
Israel blamed the two sheikhs Ragheb Harb and Abbas Harb (no relation) to be behind the escalation. Consequently, Israel bulldozed down the house of Abbas Harb in the town of Hallousieh, in January 1984. Young sheikh 3Adel Mo2ness replaced Abbas in leading the prayer. He told me that a helicopter flew Abbas and 5 of the townspeople to the detention center in Tyr. When Abbas was released, he was in a terrible condition.
Sheikh Ragheb was released and rumors spread that Israel intended to assassinate Ragheb. He was indeed killed by 3 bullets on February 1984. Within a week of the assassination, Israeli troops suffered 15 ambushes. Israel reacted by executing dozens of prisoners in Ansar prison. When I was visiting the town of Adlun, two Israeli jet fighters flew very low over us.
A young member of Hezbollah pointed to the jets and said: “They have no power over us”
In January 1984, Saad Haddad died of cancer and was replaced by General Antoine Lahd. Lahd was to sustain several assassination attempts, and one seriously injured him. Dozens of Shias quit the “South Lebanon Army” and joined the Lebanese resistance movement.
One Christian soldier in that army told me: “The Israelis are all pimps: They just abuse of us with daily chores“. An Israeli soldier told me: “I don’t want to be here. Definitely, this Ariel Sharon is a testified lunatic”
Israel began constructing bunkers, 60 meters long, 6 m wide, and 15 m high. Military buses were always escorted by tanks. In April 12, 1984, the 20 year-old Ali Safi el Din crashed his car, packed with explosives, in an Israeli convoy at Jesr Deir Kanoun. Ali had lost his brother who was detained in Israeli army headquarter in Type. (To be continued)
Genesis of Hezbollah in Lebanon: The background and Accounts of Robert Fisk
My knowledge of my country and the reports and field accounts of Robert Fisk in his book “Affliction of a Nation” permitted me to join the dot of how the Moslem Shias resistance movement of Hezbollah in Lebanon emerged, and developed to becoming the main resistance force to the Israel occupation of the land.
Robert Fisk was a correspondent to the British “The Times” in Beirut for nine years during Lebanon civil war,
This part of the post will lay the background of the political and social conditions in Lebanon so that the follow-up article could be dedicated to strictly the chronological reports and accounts of the development of the Lebanese resistance movement to Israel occupation, after the preemptive war of 1982.
Background: Imam Moussa Sadr was born in the town of Qom (Iran) and was dispatched by the Iranian clergy (Ayatollah Khomeini, residing in Iraq) to Lebanon in the early 70’s to head the clergy of the Moslem Shias. Sadr settled in Tyr and his sister Rabab married to a prominent family in the south.
The Shias in Lebanon were majority in the south and in the Bekaa Valley, but were under represented in the public services. South Lebanon was almost forgotten in the allocation of budget for development, infrastructure, and public services such as schooling and health facilities.
Tacitly, the successive Lebanese governments, since the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, estimated that Israel is intent on occupying south Lebanon, and that Israel had the tacit support of the US and the western European States for implicitly reaping the water resources and rich fertile land of South Lebanon.
South Lebanon was firmly ruled by the feudal landlords such as the Sharaf el Dine, the Baydun, the Solh...and particularly the Al Asaad clan, called the Beiks… Many of these feudal landlords sold their properties in Palestine to Israeli Jews, and settled in Beirut to run for political offices…
Sadr was in fact the link between the opposition forces in Iran and Khomeini, and the city of Tyr became the hotbed of Shia religious teaching , beside al Najaf in Iraq.
In fact, most leaders of the Iranian Islamic revolution, before the success of the Khomeini revolution in 1979, studied and taught in the city of Tyr in Lebanon and its neighborhoods. For example, Mahdi Bazerkan (a later prime minister to Khomeini) followed religious courses and taught at the religious clerical school of Jabal Aamel (3amel) , which was established by Moussa Sadr.
Also, studied in Tyr Sadek Tabtabai (a later vice PM to Bazerkan and one of the closest right hands of Khomeini); Ayatollah Mohammad Baheshti (later minister of Justice and the head of the Islamic Republic Party); Sadek Kotb Zadah (later minister of foreign affairs and who was the first counselor to Khomeini while the latter was residing in Paris); Mustafa Shomran (later minister of defense, and one of the members who instituted the Jabal Amel clerical school). All these leaders visited Tyr, at least once a year, after the success of the Iranian revolution.
As Imam Moussa Sadr landed in Lebanon, the inhabitants in South Lebanon were flocking to the southern suburbs of Beirut called Dahiya, quickly becoming a shantytown suburbs of “belt of poverty“. These neighborhoods were adjacent to many Palestinian camps of Borj al Barajneh, Sabra, Chatila…
The Shia of the south were fleeing the constant shelling of Israel on their towns and villages, under the smokescreen of retaliating to Palestinian missile Katyusha or infiltrations across the borders…
Before 1968, the Lebanese army was in control of the south, and then the Palestinian Resistance Organization (PLO) in Jordan was defeated militarily by King Hussein in 1970, and a political agreement was struck by the Lebanese government with Egypt Gamal Abdel Nasser and many Arab leaders to allocate the south-east region of Arkoub to the PLO.
Explicitly, preventing the Lebanese army from harassing the PLO training camps in that region. The PLO was not to launch attacks from the Arkoub or fire missiles, but implicitly, the Lebanese army had to have prior consent from the government for any intervention in the Arkoub, consents that were never given.
Slowly but surely, the PLO, headed by Yasser Arafat, became the main military power in Lebanon and effectively controlled and ruled in West Beirut and South Lebanon. Moussa Sadr created the Shias political party called AMAL for the “disinherited of south Lebanon” and in West Beirut, and encouraged the Shias to own arms as “symbol of manhood” and protect their properties and villages…
By the time the civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975, the Amal movement and militias were a substantial power to reckon to in Beirut and in the south.
Qadhafi assassinated Moussa Sadr in August 1978 while on visit to Libya, after Algeria President Boumedien pressured him to visit Qadhafi during his visit to Algeria. It is known that the Shah of Iran and Israel were keeping close watch on Sadr movement: The Shah knew the direct link of Sadr to Khomeini, and the Shah was the most powerful ally to Israel in the region…
The goal of the leaders of Iran revolution was to overthrow the absolute Shah who ended considering the treasury of the State as his own and for his megalomania aggrandizement. Besides the implicit purpose of Khomeini, although religion was a fundamental sources of inspiration, the political objective of the leaders of the revolution was not the imposition of a theocratic State.
In fact, the source and origin of the Khomeini revolution didn’t start in Qom or Iran, but in South Lebanon and Tyr, since the early 70’s.
In 1980, at the instigation of the US, France, and Saudi Arabia, Saddam Hussein of Iraq found the opportunity of “recapturing” lands in Iran that he claimed was “Arabic” and belonged to the “Arab Nation”. Saudi Arabia and the US goal was to incite the Iranians to deposing Khomeini, and as a revenge for taking American hostages at the US Embassy in Tehran…
Within a year, Iraqi troops were withdrawing to Iraqi borders, but Khomeini had decided to resume the war of liberation by occupying portions of Iraq and get done with Saddam.
Khomeini decision was a strategic shift in the doctrine of the Iranian revolution: It was to become Islamic and no longer a Republic with Islamic sources of how to rule and to instituting justice (Sharia). Consequently, this extended state of war, which lasted 8 more years, was an excuse to eliminate all power leaders who begged to differ with Khomeini’s ideology.
All the aforementioned leaders who visited Tyr of Lebanon every years were assassinated and disappeared from the political scene (See note 3).
The factions of the new theocratic regime in Iran won the internal war and had to implement that success in Lebanon. The US, France, and Israel were the “axe of evil” and the “US the great Satan”. It is in that perspective that the wave of abduction of foreign journalists, correspondent, and personalities is to be understood.
The prisoners were for the keep until negotiations with Iran are undertaken. The kidnappers were known as “Islamic Jihad” and Fisk had no idea who they were until much later. It is reported that Sheikh Muhammad Hussein Fadl Allah was the spiritual leader of that Shia faction, and the CIA attempted to assassinate him in March 9, 1985, but the bomb killed 80 civilians instead.
The Shias “Islamic Jihad” faction was re-baptized Hezbollah and the Moslem extremist Sunnis, under the leadership of Osama Bin Laden or Al Qaeda, and funded by Saudi Arabia, adopted the name of “Islamic Jihad”
Consequently, the new theocratic factions in Iran created a new movement among the Shias in Lebanon in order to replace Nabih Berri, leader of AMAL, after the disappearance of Moussa Sadr in Libya. The new movement, first called “Jihad Islamic”, focused on military resistance against the Israeli occupation forces in Lebanon.
The Amal movement (and militias) under Nabih Berri was stooges force to Syria and attacked Palestinian camps, under the excuse of preventing the return of the military wing of Yasser Arafat and their establishment in the camps. Berri militias also attacked the militias of the Druze leader Walid Jumblat in Beirut for dominance of West Beirut. However, Berri comprehended that, unless he joins forces in resisting Israel, he will lose the leadership of the Shias.
Note 1: A cease-fire in the Iran/Iraq war took hold in 1989, shortly before Khomeini died. It is reported that Khomeini, knowing he is to die shortly, he decided to put an end to the war while still alive. Otherwise, the war of attrition would go on indefinitely and ultimately defeat the theocratic regime.
Note 2: By 1984, after Imam Moussa Sadr disappeared on a visit to Qadhafi of Libya in 1982, Nabih Berry became the leader of AMAL, and a formidable militia leader, totally backed by Syria of Hafez Assad, and holding the ministry of Justice in the Lebanese government.
After the civil war in 1993, Berri will head the successive Lebanese Parliaments, till today. Actually, all militia leaders will be members in governments and the deputies in the Parliament, in recompense for devastating Lebanon and killing over 200,000 and three-fold that numbers in injured casualties.
Note 3: Kotb Zada was condemned and executed. Shomran was accounted dead on the Iraqi front. The headquarter of the political party of Mohammad Baheshti was blown up during a general convention: All the leaders of the party died.
Rafsanjani (one of the richest, and later President of Iran) was 15 minutes late for the start of the convention (Was he participating in the plot? Had he been forewarned of the bombing?). Baheshti was next in line to succeed Khomeini in the Wilayat Fakih, but he opposed Khomeini decisions to eradicate the communist Tudeh party, as well as the two left leaning political parties of Mujahedeen and Fidaiyee Khalq.
I had witnessed the activist Iranian students at the University of Oklahoma at Norman in 1978: They were mostly constituted of Mujahedeen and Fidaiyee Khalq parties, and kept the pressure with frequent demonstrations, marches and public meetings on campus… And the bloody leaders who didn’t plan and work for the revolution at its beginning came to power.
Note 4: You may read my article https://adonis49.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/uncontested-palestinian-leader/
Hezbollah (God’s Party) and Nasr Allah (God’s Victory
Note: I decided to re-edit this article of May 25, 2009
Hassan Nasr Allah is currently the Secretary General of Hezbollah.
He was born in August 31, 1960 in the poorest section of East Beirut called Nabaa. Hassan was the eldest among 9 offspring and his father supported this vast family selling vegetable.
Hassan refrained from playing soccer with the neighboring kids or joining them for a swim; he was deeply religious and admired greatly Imam Moussa Sadr (dispatched to Lebanon by Khomeini in the early 70’s) and who gave the Moslem Shiaa sect a sense of their pride and potentials in the Lebanese fabrics.
The regions of the Shiaa in south Lebanon and in the Bekaa Valley were neglected by the central government since the independence in 1943. The Imam of the Mosque that Hassan patronized and where he prayed in Nabaa was late Muhammad Fadlallah who is currently the highest Imam of the Shiaa in Lebanon.
At the age of 14, Hassan moved with his family to their home village Bazourieh in south Lebanon. He aided Sheikh Ali Shams el Deen opening a small library of religious manuscripts, and Hassan started teaching religion in the village and then finished his high school in Tyr.
By the age of 15, Hassan joined the “AMAL” movement of Imam Moussa Sadr and was quickly appointed officer of the Bekaa district and then a member of the politburo.
Sheikh Muhammad Ghrawy facilitated to Nasr Allah higher religious learning in Najaf (Iraq). Nasr Allah met in Najaf with Abbass Moussawy (later the first Secretary General of Hezbollah).
By 1978, and after two years spent in Najaf, Nasr Allah returned to Lebanon. A couple of months later Imam Moussa Sadr disappeared after a visit to Libya in August 1978.
In 1979, Khomeini came to power in Iran and the Shah went to exile.
The geopolitical condition in the Middle East changed drastically. Iran was now against the USA interests in the region. Iran then supported the Palestinian cause, and was the first State to officially allow the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) to open and embassy in Tehran.
Israel invaded Lebanon in June 1982; the operation was baptized “Peace in Galilee”. Israel put siege to Beirut for two months and Yasser Arafat and 11,000 Palestinian fighters were forced to leave Lebanon to Tunisia.
The Lebanese President of the Republic Elias Sarkis invited Nabih Berri (leader of AMAL) to join Walid Jumblat (Druze leader) and Basheer Gemayel (leader of the Christian Lebanese Forces) to forming a national rescue team.
Thus, many AMAL cadres quit Nabih Berry such as Abbass Moussawy, Sobhi Tuffaily, Hussein Moussawy, Ibraheem Amin Sayyed, Naeem Qassem, and Nasr Allah. They created Hezbollah and blew up the US Marines and French barracks in Beirut in 1983.
Nasr Allah had said that Hezbollah was the consequence of Israel entering Beirut in 1982.
Hezbollah postponed declaring its formation until 1985 after Israel assassinated one of Hezbollah’s leaders Sheikh Ragheb Harb. The Iranian leaders Ali Mohtashamy was then the spiritual father of the Party and Muhammad Akhtary the military father.
Hassan Nasr Allah learned from Ragheb Harb the famous dictum “The verb is taking a stand and shaking hands is necessarily acknowledgement of assent” and thus, Harb never shook hands with any Israeli army officers who were trying hard to win Ragheb over to supporting the Israeli occupation of south Lebanon.
In 1987, Nasr Allah was appointed member of the highest legislative institution in Hezbollah and then chairman of the executive branch.
In 1989, Nasr Allah resumed his religious studies in Qom (Iran) and returned in a hurry to Lebanon when military skirmishes with the AMAL movement spread.
The AMAL party was executing the orders of the Syrian regime to entering the Palestinian camps and disarming the Palestinians of any heavy arsenal.
Hezbollah followed the policies of Iran to leave the Palestinian out of harm. After many months of fighting both parties settled out their differences as Syria and Iran reached a compromise.
Israel assassinated Hezbollah leader Abbass Moussawy in 1992. Nasr Allah was the closest aid to Moussawy, had extensive contacts with the base, and studied in Qom.
The young Hassan Nasr Allah surprisingly replaced Moussawy as Secretary General; he was only 32 of age. Nasr Allah said: “A movement that witnesses its leader falling martyr can never be defeated”. Hezbollah evolved into a qualitative phase in organization and political acumen.
Israel invaded Lebanon in July 1993 for 7 days under the code name “Settling Accounts” and then re-invaded in 1996 under Shimon Peres (Nobel Peace prize winner!) and the operation of total destruction lasted for 17 days under the code name “Grapes of Wrath” and shelled a UN compound in Qana where civilians had taken refuge and over 100 died and 300 were gravely injured.
Hadi, the eldest son of Nasr Allah, fell martyr during a resistance operation in September 1997; it was the night before Nasr Allah was to deliver a major speech and he insisted on speaking and said: “In Hezbollah we do not save our children for the future; we honor them when they fight in the front lines against our enemy Israel; we stand tall when they fall martyrs”
Israel had to unilaterally retreat from all of Lebanon, with the exception of Shebaa Farms and the hills of Kfarshouba in May 24, 2000 without pre-conditions or negotiations.
The Arab masses recognized Hezbollah as the main resistance movement that vanquished Israel and acclaimed Nasr Allah as the Hero of liberation.
In the large town of Bent Jbeil Nasr Allah delivered the Victory Speech and offered this liberation in the name of all the Lebanese. Nasr Allah said: “Israel has nuclear arsenals and owns the most lethal air force in the region. Yet, Israel is much weaker than the spider web” (It was a reference of a spider web on a cave that saved the Prophet Muhammad from being caught by the Kuraich tribe persecutors while fleeing to Yathreb in 630)
In 2003, Israel bombarded the villages in south Lebanon and then raided Beirut in 2005. Israel re-invaded Lebanon on July 2006 for 33 days and failed to achieve any of its proclaimed political objectives.
Nasr Allah was recognized as the most charismatic and powerful resistance leader in the Arab and Moslem World. Nasr Allah played the catalyst for the Shiaa in Lebanon to participate in projecting the living messages in the symbolism of the Koran verses and thus be capable of assimilating and accepting changing social and environmental conditions.
According to the famous journalist Seymour Hirsh it seems that Cheney, Eliot Abrahams, and Bandar Ben Sultan conspired to finance and whisk the members of Fatah El Islam (radical, salafist, and extremist Sunni Moslems) into the refugee camp of Nahr Al Bared with the purpose of destabilizing Lebanon and starting civil war between the Moslem Shiaas and Sunnis and thus, immersing Hezbollah into a potential civil war.
It didn’t work because the Lebanese army was hurt in its pride after many soldiers were executed by severing their heads in the summer of 2007. The army lost over 160 soldiers and many hundreds were severely injured but the Moslem extremism objectives were defeated after 6 months of engagement in the camp.
Deputy Bahiya Hariri (sister of late Rafic Hariri) acknowledged that she contributed substantially in financing extremist Palestinian groups in the refugee camps.
The Israelis take very seriously Nasr Allah’s promises and threats because he can deliver.
The Lebanese Government of Seniora PM failed to understand that “A word is a commitment”. Nasr Allah had said that Hezbollah will never turn its arms internally, excepting when coerced to relinquish its arms; especially its secured ground communication lines considered the most potent arm it had during the war in 2006.
In May 5, 2008, the “illegitimate” Seniora PM Government (with no Shiaa minister representatives in its cabinet) executed a plan to dismantle Hezbollah secure communication network.
Hassan Nasr Allah delivered a speech demanding the government to retract its decision. By May 7, the AMAL militias confronted the security forces of the Moustakbal movement (The Hariri clan) in Beirut and quickly closed down those arm caches intended to start civil disturbances.
The AMAL forces were controlled by cadres of Hezbollah in order for the confrontation not to degenerate into sectarian infighting. For example, the rioters saved the huge pictures of late Rafic Hariri PM and removed the pictures of Saad Hariri and Seniora PM. Israel admitted that its patient work of infiltrating Hezbollah for two years vanished within a couple of hours.
Hezbollah has joined the Parliament since 1992 and has increased the number of its Deputies; it has cabinet ministers since the year 2000. Lebanon is getting ready for Parliamentary election in June 7, 2009 and all the indications point to victory of the opposition headed by Hezbollah, AMAL, and the movement (Tayyar) of Change and Reforms of General Michel Aoun.
Over 20 Lebanese agents spying for Israel have been apprehended. Nasr Allah is demanding that the traitors be hanged.
Note: The biographical sections were extracted from the recent Arabic/Lebanese book “Shock and Steadfastness” (Sadmah wa Sumoud”) by Kareem Bakradouny.
Adonis Diaries 