Most Lebanese where not happy with the fact that there still existed a relic of the civil war, armed to the teeth, governing its own territory despite the existence of a national and sovereign Lebanese government, by principle, even amidst the current power vacuum. But we accepted it because the Lebanese military, after the divisive civil war, had been made week and a non-entity and could not face the Israeli or Syrian occupiers. This is not to say that the other factions, the feudal lords of the Christians, Druze or Muslims, where any better. They were corrupt to the core and did not do much for the nation. They were still a menace; it’s just that they were no longer armed. Only Hezbollah remained armed. And only Hezbollah remained standing in the face of a brutal invader who killed, heedlessly, children, women and unarmed civilians under the guise of defense against those who would “drive them in to the sea”, and that is how they sold their war to the west, and especially to the Americans and gained their support by sympathy for what had been done to them in second world war at the hands of one demonic man named Hitler. But history has a strange way of repeating itself, the Nakaba, Tal Zaatar, Sabr and Shatila….
Hezbollah was seen, weather correctly or erroneously, by the Lebanese as the only national struggle for our sovereignty. Hezbollah was not seen as a terrorist organization as it has been branded by the west. Hezbollah became the face of the legitimate Lebanese resistance against the illegitimate Israeli occupation. But as we all know, Hezbollah high jacked this cause from the communist party. Soon, all memory of who started the resistance evaporated and all that remained was the face of the Islamic resistance under the leadership of Hezbollah.
In the year 2000, the Israelis unilaterally withdrew from Lebanon. We all rejoiced and thought this was truly the end of war and the beginning of long lasting peace. We all thought that Hezbollah would now abandon their militant ways and join the rest of us in the formation of a peaceful and prosperous Lebanon. Things never work as we would like them to. The Israelis withdrew but they kept hold of one disputed piece of land, the village of Shebaa, that the west claimed as Syrian territory, and thus subject to a peace talks along with Golan heights with the Syrians, but the Lebanese and Syrians agreed that the Shebaa farms where Lebanese. Did anyone bother asking the Shebaa farms inhabitants who they thought they belonged to? No one bothered.
Anyway! This gave Hezbollah a reason to continue existing, as Lebanon was not yet completely liberated. And in all sense of the word, Shebaa or not, Lebanon was indeed still occupied. A small village by the Israelis, but most of the country by the Syrians, who were allied with Hezbollah.
It took the assassination of yet another corrupt Lebanese leader, former prime minister Rafik Hariri, a Sunni allied with western allied Saudi Arabia. Hariri, had just recently begun to voice his opposition towards Syria’s hegemony in Lebanon, probably at the instigation of the Saudis who were instructed to curtail the influence of Syria in Lebanon as part of the bush administrations post 9/11 fight against terrorism and the precursor to the war against the so called axis of evil, branded by bush, that included Iran, Syria and North Korea. Yes. It’s that complicated and more.
Anyway! After the 2005 assassination of Rafik Hariri, the Lebanese people rose up in the cedar revolution that falsely claimed to finally “unite” all the sects of Lebanon against the Syrian occupation. This of course was not a true union. This so called revolution was nothing more than a lie orchestrated by feudal lords who seized the opportunity to get rid of the Syrians, who were carving up a big pie of Lebanese financial interests for themselves. The truth is, the feudal lord of Lebanon only wanted more power for themselves, not for the Lebanese. It is for this reason that I cannot support such malicious liars, for they, like Hezbollah, do not have the interest of the Lebanese people at heart. Their only interests are for themselves and their own pockets. This was change from above, and we all know that true change comes from bellow. But that too is yet another story altogether.
So finally the Syrians left and we were left with a bunch of corrupt feudal sectarian lords to the right, and an armed militia to the left. A dangerous mixture by all means.
And to think that secularism in Lebanon is not yet considered as an essential necessity.... that just boggles one’s mind..
In order for us to have peace, Hezbollah must relinquish their weapons
We can no fight Israel with violence
We can use weapons against Israel.
The only way to defeat Israel is by creating an educated and economically prosperous Lebanon. Peace must prevail, and we will inevitably, one day, be at peace with both Israel and Syria, but a lot has to happen between now and then, and our mentalities have to change.
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