Hiz'bulaha- Hezzbollah - And Naziism

[American Patriot]

Hezbollah's Nazi roots
Across the Middle East, radical Islamists yearn for a new Holocaust

Islamic jihadis on parade.
Photograph by: Suhaila Sahmarani, AFP, File

Daniel Johnson, The New York Sun
Published: Friday, August 04, 2006

This is the first Middle East war in which the main threat to Israel comes, not from secular Arab nationalism, but from Islamism.

Both Hezbollah and Hamas draw their main inspiration, armaments and funding from Islamist sources, ranging from the Sunni ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood to the Shiite demagogues of Iran. What unites them all is a fanatical dedication to the destruction of Israel. Sounding like a modern-day Hitler, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad this week repeated his call for the "elimination" of Israel, home to six million Jews. Hezbollah, Iran's proxy army in Lebanon, shares that objective. Its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, has urged the world's Jews to collect in Israel in order to facilitate the task of exterminating them.

In this regard, there are parallels between the present war and previous campaigns waged against Israel by Arab nationalists. One thing that Arab nationalists and Islamists clearly have in common, though it is usually ignored in the Western media, is their explicit debt to the Nazis.

This extends even to overt Nazi symbolism. I am indebted to one of the most seasoned observers of the Middle East, Tom Gross, for a photograph of a Hezbollah rally on the Lebanese side of the border fence, shortly before the present conflict. With houses in the Israeli town of Metullah in the background, hundreds of uniformed Hezbollah terrorists are raising their arms in a Nazi-style salute. This obscene ceremony, complete with yellow standards and mullah commanders taking the salute, was happening in full view of Israeli civilians. Mr. Gross asks pointedly, "Are all those now attacking Israel around the world even capable of imagining what an elderly Holocaust survivor who happened to glance across the fence might have felt?" Hezbollah's Nazi salute evokes memories of Hitler's support for Arab agitators such as the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the leaders of a pro-Nazi coup in Iraq. The Nazi legacy also manifests itself in Holocaust denial or revisionism, a Middle Eastern obsession that unites the most extreme Islamists, including Iran's president, with "moderate" secularists such as Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Arabs appropriated anti-Semitic ideology directly from the Nazis and have recycled it ever since. In the 1950s, the Baathist parties in Syria and Iraq modelled themselves on Hitler's heady brew of nationalism and socialism. Charismatic dictators from Nasser and Gaddafi to Saddam Hussein and Yasser Arafat turned themselves into little Hitlers, weaving anti-Semitism into their political agendas. However, the Nazi connection is usually mentioned by Arab nationalists and Islamists sotto voce, because they constantly identify Zionism with Nazism in their propaganda.

A second key similarity between today's Islamists and past Arab nationalists relates less to ideology than to geopolitics. As the British historian Efraim Karsh convincingly shows in his new book, Islamic Imperialism, the pursuit of empire through ruthless military conquest has been a constant theme from the time of Muhammad till that of Osama bin Laden, whose jihad is aimed at creating a timeless, universal Caliphate.

Yet the dominant historical narrative stands this on its head, portraying the Arabists and Islamists as anti-imperialist. Even as Gamal Abdel Nasser dreamt of what John Dulles called "an empire stretching from the Persian Gulf to the Atlantic Ocean," the Egyptian dictator posed as the champion of the "non-aligned" nations, struggling against European colonialism and superpower hegemony.

The whole issue of imperialism is invariably accompanied by much hypocrisy. Today, for example, America is criticized because of its refusal to intervene to stop Israel from retaliating against Hezbollah. America's critics are demanding that a superpower should intervene to prevent a sovereign state from defending its population against bombardment by proxies of a government that has declared its intention of wiping that state off the map. What could be more imperialist than such an intervention?

The classic example of Arab exploitation of the West's confusion over imperialism was the Suez crisis of 1956. Fifty years ago this week, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, thereby precipitating an international crisis.

The British prime minister, Anthony Eden, decided it was his duty to reject appeasement and stop Nasser. But President Eisenhower, campaigning for re-election, refused to have anything to do with it. And American and Russian pressure eventually forced the British and their allies to back down.

So Nasser snatched victory from the jaws of defeat, and the Arab war against the West began. Fifty years on, it is by no means over. Indeed, if those Nazi-saluting Hezbollah thugs are anything to go by, we may have seen nothing yet.

© National Post 2006

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/n...e-a3c06a460e73

[American Patriot]

Syria's Christians rally behind Hizbollah
Reuters UK ^ | Aug 4, 2006 | Khaled Yacoub Oweis



Seventy-seven-year-old Mona Muzaber lights a candle for Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah at the Orthodox Church of the Cross in the centre of Damascus.


"I love him. I never felt Nasrallah was a religious zealot. He is a patriot who doesn't seek personal gain," she said. "I light a candle daily for him to remain under God's protection."


Israel's offensive against Lebanon has brought Christians in neighbouring Syria closer to Nasrallah, a Shi'ite Muslim, reviving Arab nationalist feelings and blurring sectarian divisions.


Bishops and priests say Syria's Christians, a devout community of around three million out of a population of 18 million, identify strongly with Nasrallah's battle with Israel, which has occupied Syria's Golan Heights since 1967.


"Pray for the resistance, pray for Hassan Nasrallah. He is defending justice," Father Elias Zahlawi told the congregation at special mass held at the Lady of Damascus, a Catholic church.


Across Damascus Christians, like Muslims, sit glued to Nasrallah's al-Manar television, receptive to his portrayal of the war as one in defence of all Arabs, as well as Muslims.


At the biblical-era Straight Street, Khaldoun Uzrai hung the yellow flags of Hizbollah all over his liquor and grocery shop.


"We are Arabs at the end of the day. Nasrallah is one of our own. He is realising our dreams," Uzrai said.


(Excerpt) Read more at today.reuters.co.uk ...

[American Patriot]

Hezbollah

aka hezbollah, hizbollah, hizbullah, huzbollah, hizbalah, "party of god"

Throughout the 1980s, the nation of Lebanon had a number of deeply complex and storied problems worthy of a 400,000-word explanatory thesis, condensable to four words: There was no government.

Lebanon had hosted thousands of Palestinian refugees in the 1970s. At the end of the decade, Israel invaded Lebanon to get at Palestinian terrorists. They decimated the country before withdrawing under heavy U.N. pressure. In the ensuing power vacuum, virtually every religious and ethnic group in the country formed its own gang, clique or terrorist cabal.
Hezbollah was one of those cabals.


Backed by Iran and Syria, Hezbollah's original goals were to end the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and to institute a Shi'ite Islamic theocracy. The group later expanded these goals to include liberating the Palestinian territories and dropped its theocratic aspirations in favor of participating in a parliamentary government.


Hezbollah used terrorist tactics to push its political agenda, which slowly but surely drove Israel out of Lebanon, inch by bloody inch. It became famous as an innovator in suicide bombing, as well as kidnapping Westerners, hijacking aircraft, and other terrorist activity.


A 1983 terrorist bombing in Beirut that killed 241 Marines has been tied to Hezbollah and Iran (although it's also been tied to half a dozen other groups as well). This attack is widely considered to mark the dawn of the modern age of terrorism. After a similar attack in 1984, the tough-talking Reagan Administration got the hell out of Lebanon, an embarrassing retreat that most Americans don't like to talk about or even remember.
As terrorist organizations are wont, Hezbollah slowly but surely spread its reach into other countries, sending operatives to the United States and elsewhere. One such Hezbollah spy was named Ali Boumelhem. After moving to Michigan, Boumelhem went to U.S. gun shows and illegally bought weapons for shipment overseas (he was a naturalized U.S. citizen, but had a felony conviction which made it illegal for him to buy weapons). Several other Lebanese immigrants in Michigan were charged with sending money and supplies to Hezbollah, which the U.S. government officially designated a terrorist organization in 1996.


The problem with that declaration was that the horse had already long fled the barn. In fact, the horse had fled the barn, run around for a while and come back of its own free will. Through the late 1980s and early 1990s, Hezbollah's "terrorist" phase was at its height, with suicide bombings and hostage-taking galore. After Lebanon's civil war officially ended, however, the organization began repackaging itself as a legitimate political party that had sprung from what it argued was a legitimate revolutionary movement.
While it seems patently obvious to Western observers that Hezbollah is a terrorist operations, what with the bombings and kidnappings, that presumption is far less obvious to governments in the Middle East and Asia, not to mention the people of Lebanon. As a 2003 report by the Brookings Institution notes:

Syria and Iran openly support (Hezbollah), and much of the Arab world regards it as heroic, for its successful resistance against the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon (the only time that Arab arms have forced Israel to surrender territory), and legitimate, because of its participation in Lebanese parliamentary politics. Even officials in France, Canada, and other Western nations have acknowledged the value of its social and political projects.

That same report, however, clearly defined the group as perhaps the pre-eminent terror organization in the world, with operational cells all over Europe, Latin America and North America.

But when the group won eight seats in the Lebanese parliament in 1992, it gained that crucial legitimacy which made it much more entrenched. The decision to abandon its call for a strict Islamic fundamentalist government made Hezbollah palatable to Lebanon's Christians and Sunni Muslims. Its focus on social services in a country with virtually no government infrastructure made it flat-out popular. Not many terrorist organizations have their own television network. Hezbollah does. They run Al-Minar ("the lighthouse"), a worldwide satellite TV station from Lebanon. And its successes against Israel made the organization into an icon across the Middle East. In 2000, Israel withdrew the last of its troops from Lebanon, a development almost entirely credited to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah today is led by Hassan Nasrallah, who styles himself as "secretary-general of the party," a clear sign that the group isn't planning to yield its veneer of respectability any time soon. As a young man, Nasrallah studied in Iraq with a radical Shi'ite cleric named Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr (whose nephew Muqtada al-Sadr is currently making life difficult for the United States in Iraq).
Nasrallah was involved in the first efforts to beat the Israelis back from their occupation of Lebanon, but the original Hezbollah revolutionary cadre soon split over whether or not to accept a non-Islamic government in the country (he voted for "not"). With support from the governments of Syria and Iran, Nasrallah soon regained control over the organization. He used terroristic tactics, with often brutal efficiency, to ensure that the cost of occupying Lebanon was a steadily increasing body count.


By 1992, Nasrallah was ready to drop his insistence on theocracy, which helped move Hezbollah into the mainstream of Lebanese politics. Once in the parliament, Hezbollah began funding social services and charitable work in the country out of its own pockets (or rather, out of the pockets of Iran and Syria). The charitable work was assisted by a network of expatriates and non-governmental organizations similar to the one employed by al Qaeda.


The legitimate face of Hezbollah makes it difficult for the West to directly confront the ongoing problem of its sponsorship of global terrorism and its extensive organization of training camps for terrorist operatives. You'd think the same factor would inhibit Hezbollah from directly confronting the U.S., but you'd be wrong. Both before and after September 11 threw a sharp focus on the issue of global terrorism, Nasrallah maintained a steady stream of virulent anti-American and anti-Israeli rhetoric (to him, there is no difference between the two). Nasrallah has said Hezbollah is proud to be called a terrorist organization by the "Great Satan." He has repeatedly argued that the United States is the cause of all Lebanon's woes. In the wake of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, he explained that "death to America is not a slogan. Death to America is a policy, a strategy and a vision."


Despite all this, Washington has wisely decided not to press its "zero tolerance" terrorism policy in Lebanon... yet. The problem with the policy is, of course, the implication that zero terrorism will be tolerated. While an admirable notion, the practical application of zero tolerance is a decidedly tricky thing, especially in the ever-ready-to-explode environment of the Middle East.


Hezbollah and al Qaeda are known to have cooperated in the past, but it doesn't appear they have worked together closely. The main reason for this is sectarian. al Qaeda is mostly made up of Sunni Muslims and Hezbollah is mostly Shi'ite Muslims. However, there is a recent trend for Sunnis and Shi'ites to cooperate against a common enemy, i.e., the United States, so don't be surprised if something more turns up.
President Bush's April 2004 decision to endorse an extremely unpopular Israeli plan to withdraw from Palestinian territories can only inflame Hezbollah further. But in the final analysis, the outcome of the Iraq war will likely determine the organization's future. If the U.S. pulls off an increasingly unlikely "happy ending" in Iraq by installing a democratic West-friendly regime that makes oil plentiful and allows America to base forces on its soil, the "War On Terrorism World Tour" will likely set its gunsights next on Syria and Iran -- Hezbollah's primary state sponsors.
If that happens, the global network of Hezbollah will almost certainly get its second test in an all-out war on America.


Hezbollah's infrastructure within the U.S. has mostly given logistic support a very focused and successful guerilla war against Israel employing terror tactics. As a fighting force, the sleepers haven't been tested. The post-9/11 dragnet certainly swept up some of those sleeper agents, but how many? And Hezbollah's high-impact, high-body count strategy has already caused the U.S. to turn tail and run once before.
Let's hope we don't find out whether it could happen again.

[American Patriot]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hezbollah

[American Patriot]

The Hezbollah's History

The history of Hezbollah begins with the 1982 occupation of Beirut and southern Lebanon by Israel. Israel had re-invaded the country in an effort to control members of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) who had settled there and were carrying out attacks on Israel. In response Shi'ite Muslims with the assistance of Iranian Revolutionary Guards formed Hezbollah to combat the Israeli presence, and ultimately to assist the Palestinians in their fight for statehood. The group began to execute a series of operations against Israeli and U.S. targets; the U.S. forces were in Lebanon as part of a UN Peace-keeping mission, and between 1983 and 1985, elements of Hezbollah attacked the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut, car-bombed the U.S. Embassy and later attacked the embassy's annex. The bombings forced a withdrawal of the western forces and civil war between various Christian and Muslim factions, along with Israeli and Syrian fighters, continued in Lebanon for several years. Hezbollah continued its attack on westerners, most notably the kidnappings of American, British and French citizens throughout the mid-1980s. The last western hostages were release after the end of the Civil War in 1992. In 1989 the Lebanese parliament accepted an Arab-brokered peace accord for national reconciliation, and Syria assisted Lebanon's national army to control the country's various factions. The activities of Hezbollah, which Syria had used as a proxy in its efforts to combat Israel, were momentarily put in check, but the group had built cultural and political institutions that would insure its survival into the post-civil war era. In recent years the group has focused its attacks on the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) and the South Lebanon Army (SLA), an armed group allied with the Israelis that has greatly damaged Hezbollah's armed forces. Hezbollah efforts to end Israel's occupation, which included several well-publicize kidnappings in 2000, paid off as Israeli forces withdrew to the border in the summer of 2000. Hezbollah has increasingly demonstrated independence from Iran and Syria, and has recently begun to play the two governments off each other, as a complex power-struggle has emerged for influence in Lebanon. In the wake of the September 11 attacks, which Hezbollah has officially denounced, the U.S. has asked Lebanon to freeze the group's assets, a move that has so far been resisted by the government in Beirut. Iran also has fought U.S. efforts to portray Hezbollah as a terrorist organization, claiming the group is a legitimate political party. Hezbollah currently has 12 elected members in the Lebanese government.