GUILTY BY ASSOCIATION   Jihad al-Bina's Reconstruction Terrorism   Interview			No. 3 - 2008
(page 3 of 6) Why, then, did Hezbollah, the group that politically represents you and JaB, become part of the Siniora government after the assassination of Rafic Hariri in 2005? Because Hezbollah didn’t have a choice. Lebanese local politics are based on a well-defined balance of power embodied in the Taif Accord. Hezbollah’s elected parliament representatives and appointed cabinet ministers act in the best interest of communities they represent. The Syrians, with full American backing, removed General Michel Aoun from power by force in 1990 and controlled Lebanon for over 15 years. Rafic Hariri entered the Lebanese government through the Syrian/American door. Throughout the 1990’s Hezbollah had no representation whatsoever in Hariri’s cabinet nor was it represented in other official Lebanese cabinets. But the party felt that it had to take part in the Siniora government after Hariri was assassinated in 2005. This came although it was still reluctant to participate in a corrupt Lebanese political order that it had intentionally boycotted for the previous decade—if not for longer. Where did Hariri come from? What was his political platform for Lebanon during the 1990s? It was simply to service business interests with Saudi financial and political backing. Which nightclubs and pubs did his son Saad come from in 2005? Participation in the government is a big ethical and moral problem for Hezbollah’s leadership. However the party’s involvement with such political players was precipitated by the nature and composition of the political establishment. Unfortunately the party was not in a position to refuse the rules of the game, so it acted in the national interest of Lebanon by electing to participate inside of the Lebanese political system—and not outside of it. But Hezbollah could no longer participate in the current administration after a war had been waged against our existence as a people and as a party, and when officials in our own government were scheming against us during the war. In the context of the Israeli occupation of our lands, Hezbollah has a strategic collaboration with Syria. But the party’s view goes beyond the terms of the Israeli assault on Arab lands: We value the principle of good neighborly relations and the historical ties with the Syrian people and those of the other Arab countries, regardless of the nature of political regimes in place within each country. In some cases my interlocutor seems to interchange “we” for Hezbollah, which, in my mind, is in line, however superficially, with the same conflation in the U.S. terrorist designation. Do you think there is a possibility of mending or changing the relationship with the United States, and what would be the catalyst for such a change? The U.S. administration has fully signed onto the Israeli project in our region—a project to weaken us and exhaust our pillars of support in order to dominate us. The U.S. administration considers such a policy part and parcel of Israeli national security. With such an American posture, we are talking about a zero sum game. If Israeli security comes at our expense, what about our own security? Israel carpeted the South with cluster bombs most recently. I personally own an olive grove where I don’t dare set foot for fear of losing life or limb. Those bombs were manufactured in the U.S. The Bush administration shipped weapons to Israel (footnote 1) and tried to rush M26 cluster submunitions (footnote 2) during the last days of the 2006 war. Such American actions do not constitute goodwill toward our people by any standard. We do not attack the U.S. on its territories across the ocean or anywhere else, but the opposite is true: America attacks us by proxy right here in our homeland using all means at its disposal—military, financial, political, media, cultural, religious (conflating our religion with Fascism)—even if that requires threatening the civil peace between Sunnis and Shi’a or Christians and Muslims in our country, or instigating sectarian strife as a divisive weapon. The possibility of sectarian strife is real, and I feel the increasing tension in his voice. I write on my notepad with equal fervor, and the words seem to be locked in a race with his voice. Terrorist or not, right or wrong in his political views, this man is trying to portray a story of moral courage and steadfastness of a civilian population under direct military, economic and political fire. It is an experience that would penetrate the timber of humanity of any listener, friend or foe. And I listen. On the rare occasion when the U.S. aids the Lebanese national army with munitions and military equipment, it does so in bad faith because military aid of any size is contingent upon two factors: 1) that weapons are directed internally to combat people within Lebanon, and 2) that the weapons have such a low level of sophistication and utility that they could never serve to protect Lebanon from routine Israeli assaults on the country. Ever since I was born, I have witnessed incessant Israeli bombings of our houses and destruction of our lands. Successive U.S. administrations would block any attempt to hold Israel accountable at the United Nations. My childhood experience—as a witness to continual Israeli incursions and bombings—is no different from the experience of any person—young or old—in any town in southern Lebanon today. And you ask why we don’t love you. Why should we? Is it possible for the world to separate between JaB and Hezbollah? JaB is a social and development nongovernmental organization licensed by the Lebanese government; it’s been operating on the ground since 1988. Our initial activism as an NGO was prompted by repeated Israeli assaults on different parts of Lebanon. This is in addition to operations masterminded by the U.S. and financed by Saudi Arabia, such as the assassination attempt on the life of Sayyed Mohamad Hussein Fadlallah. The CIA targeted Fadlallah with a massive car bomb that was detonated in the Beirut neighborhood of Bir el-Abed in 1985. The failed attempt did not kill Fadlallah. However it managed to kill around 100 civilians, to injure tens of others and to instill fear in thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, more. This is to say nothing of the damage to buildings, stores, cars, etc., surrounding the site of the bomb explosion. Footnote 1: According to a 21 July 2006 report by Reuters, “The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign. … The decision to quickly ship the weapons to Israel was made with relatively little debate within the Bush administration, the officials said.” (return to corresponding paragraph) Footnote 2: "In the last 72 hours we fired all of the munitions we had, all at the same spot, we didn’t even alter the direction of the gun. Friends of mine in the battalion told me they also fired everything in the last three days—ordinary shells, cluster, whatever they had.” (Israeli reservist quoted on 8 Sept. 2006 in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper). The same newspaper, Haaretz, quoted the head of an IDF rocket unit on 12 Sept. 2006 saying “What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs.” According to a 24 July 2006 report by Human Rights Watch, “Israel has used artillery-fired cluster munitions in populated areas of Lebanon ... Researchers on the ground in Lebanon confirmed that a cluster munitions attack on the village of Blida on July 19 killed one and wounded at least 12 civilians, including seven children. Human Rights Watch researchers also photographed cluster munitions in the arsenal of Israeli artillery teams on the Israel-Lebanon border … According to eyewitnesses and survivors of the attack interviewed by Human Rights Watch, …the artillery shells dropped hundreds of cluster submunitions on [Blida]. [Eyewitnesses] clearly described the submunitions as smaller projectiles that emerged from their larger shells.” (return to corresponding paragraph)
TABLE OF CONTENTS | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6