Hezbollah Unmasked

[Alamuti Lotus]

50. I don't agree with the suggestion that it was only founded because of the war

Many of the influences that eventually came together because of the war had been building for decades, and those really deserve proper attention. I would suggest that the revolution and formation of the Islamic Republic in Iran had nearly as much of an effect on the formation of the party as had the barbarity of the zionist enemy (that is to say, I would hesitate to give the latter altogether too much--or rather, exclusive--credit in the matter). The period that was the build-up to the Revolution had a massive effect particularly on key players and future leaders like the Martyr Abbas Musawi, Sayyid Nasrallah, the Martyr Imad Mughniyah, and Muhammed Husayn Fadlallah(RA). Particularly in the period before the revolution, many key players from different regions had coalesced on the center of Najaf and exchanged powerful ideas and formed organizations that eventually had effects which stretched far beyond any borders -- figures in Lebanon such as the above named, also Khumayni(RA), Muhammed Baqir as-Sadr(RA), Muhammed Sadiq as-Sadr(RA), Allamah Tabatabai, Muhammed Baqir al-Hakim, Murtada Mutaheri, etc etc..

In particular, the formation of the Da'wa party in Iraq (which is the present governing party) was of great importance to the early history of Hizbu'llah. Lebanese & Kuwaiti members of the armed wing of the Da'wa party (Shahid as-Sadr, named and formed after the hanging of Muhammed Baqir as-Sadr by Saddam Husayn) was the first organized Shiite resistance to the zionist invaders in 1982 (in advance of the famous Ashura incident in Nabatiyeh that is usually credited as the end of collaboration and foundation of Shiite resistance--I find that this gives too much credence to the zionist myth that their invasion forces were ever greeted as anything but invaders), which around the same time was also making pro-Iraqi embassies and Iraqi Baathist officials disappear all over the mideast with a cunning use of car bombs. It's hard to believe that the party which destroyed the French, Kuwaiti, Iraqi, and US embassies in various countries is presently the ruling party of Iraq and tacitly collaborated with the occupation forces to achieve this dubious honor.

Besides the Revolution in Iran, the specific period in which the Party was founded also was the period which saw the violent break between the salafi-jihadi tendency and the al-Saud/Wahhabi authority, the killing of the collaborator Sadat and the radicalization of the Egyptian militants, the involvement of the Soviet Union in the western-backed civil war between the hardline Afghan Communist faction and the western-backed jihadists (a faction of which was also backed by revolutionary Iran, incidentally). So, it was a time where a lot of other powerful events were occurring. The disappearance of Musa Sadr (and this is a convoluted story to end all convoluted stories, which I actually don't fully understand) was another key factor, leaving a leadership vacuum in the community that early figures like Tufayli, Fadlallah, and Musawi stepped up and filled during the war. The corruption of Musa Sadr's AMAL movement by the Syrian invasion provided another important pillar in the formation of Hizbu'llah, as large sections of dissatisfied members of the AMAL movement became involved in the new movement.

It is of course true, however, that the zionist invasion greatly accelerated the bringing together of forces that by 1985-1987 formally became Hizbu'llah. The clumsy brutality and complete arrogance of the occupation forces provided a focal point for the otherwise divergent tendencies, and the result was their own defeat and the well-deserved fear that remains to this day for what has developed since that time.

As would be implied by the very incomplete, rather scattershot recitation of ideas above, I could go on like for quite some time. At this time I won't, so this post ends on a note of "eh..." that I tend to end quite a few posts on.