SHN Speech on The 9th Memorial of South Lebanon's Liberation

[yaraman]

Originally Posted by abou sandal

leik you call yourself a free thinker, so why don't you just go and read a little about history and facts then come back and think freely.

And please, try to not put words in other people's mouth and turn other's replies into cheap sarcasm like the words that i highlighted in your post because it's easy, and disrespectful.

I thought at first that you were just candid, and ignorant about few facts. Now you give me the impression of someone who's trying to act smart.

This kind of rhetoric is not fruitful, but only irritating.try another type of approach please.

الله يستر إلي بيلعق بلسانك :)

[Ataraxia]

Every time I hear Nassrallah speak, I feel sad that we still have to praise criminals and warlords and liers and deceivers and racists like Waleed Jumblat just to preserve the unity of Lebanon.

[Convergence]

Originally Posted by Freethinker

All I've been trying to do is to clearly understand the perspective of those who support the maintenance of Hezbollah's weapons.

The general answer is clear. It is the same reason Israel keeps it's weapons, it is a source of leverage or power regardless how that leverage or power plays out when it comes to the specifics of the situation at hand. We can't do it through a regular army, so we have to do it through a para military force.

Originally Posted by Freethinker

All I need is for someone to convincingly and rationally explain what would have happened if Hezbollah had surrendered its weapons to the Lebanese army in June 2005.

Lebanon would lose it's only effective deterrence against Israel. One does not have to predict the specifics of what this will lead to in order to conclude that this weakens the Lebanese leverage whenever there is conflict of interest with Israel, and there are many the most prominent of which are the Palestinian refugee issue and the water and lands of the south.

Originally Posted by Freethinker

In cold, hard realpolitik terms, I want someone to explain to me what would have transpired had things gone differently in 2005. It will help us understand how to move forward on this extremely divisive issue.

People are not oracles, no one can say what could have happened had Hezbollah gave it's weapons in 2005. What proponents of the arms can do is provide rationale for their position.

In addition to the reasons above (needed leverage), many people feel that Israel is simply an expansionary entity armed to the teeth and backed by a hardcore non compromising ideology. So yes, it is not irrational at all to consider the possibility of Israeli expansion and conquest of lands through military power.

Remember Israelis argue that lands won in defensive wars are kosher to keep, and that for example the 1967 war defensive. By creating any pretext which is not difficult to create no matter how tightly the power is in the central government's hands, Israel can invade and take over lands in a so called defensive war. Israel's borders are still not defined, and a northern border on the river of Litani has been discussed since the inception of Israel.

Put it in short, the rational of maintaining the resistance weapons is as follows: Assume the worst and be prepared. The strategy of not giving pretexts for Israel aggression is a failure, so we will try the strategy failing the goals of any such potential offensive as a means to deter it.

[Freethinker]

Originally Posted by Convergence

Put it in short, the rational of maintaining the resistance weapons is as follows: Assume the worst and be prepared. The strategy of not giving pretexts for Israel aggression is a failure, so we will try the strategy failing the goals of any such potential offensive as a means to deter it.

I really appreciate your well thought out response Convergence. This is what i was looking for.

A weakness in your rationale is that for the negotiation leverage to be really effective, there needs to be Lebanese consensus on the weapons, and we are far from that. The divisiveness can be easily exploited by the Israelis and others to turn the weapons from an asset to a liability.

The main objective reason that many Lebanese (including myself) are uneasy about Hezbollah's weapons is the suspicion that they serve a purpose bigger than Lebanon. That Lebanon and the Lebanese, while near and dear to the hearts of the Hezbollah leadership, are not the end all and be all. That there is a much wider struggle for the fate of the region, a conflict between good and evil, a war of civilizations of sorts. And the Lebanese and Palestinian resistance movements play a very critical role in this war as the sharp tips of the spears, but also the shields that protect the heart, which is outside Lebanon and Palestine.

I remember Nasrallah's response when Mar 14 first came up with the "Lebanon Fist" slogan, he said something like..."as if Lebanon is the centre of the universe, and nothing else mattered but Lebanon..." It was a bit of a slip, but quite revealing. What worries many Lebanese is that in the fervor to defeat the "American-Zionist" project in the Middle East, we lose Lebanon. And many Lebanese feel we have already paid a huge price over the years for "the cause", and all we want now is to live in peace and harmony, raise families, make a decent living, enjoy all this beautiful country has to offer, and let some other brave nations take up the mantle of the fight for the destiny of the region.

[khressali]

الأيام تثبت بأن السيد حسن نصرلله أعظم قائد لبناني و عروبي ف هنيئاً لنا جميعاً بهذا القائد العظيم حفظك الله يا سيد حسن وإلا الأمام مع حلفاؤنا العونيون إلى النصر المنتظر

[Ana3arabi!]

Originally Posted by Freethinker

You cannot compare the post 2005 period to the last 22 years. There is no way anyone can rationally argue that Israel would have attacked Lebanon, the darling of France and the US, heroes of the Cedar Revolution, and the only middle eastern triumph in GWB's entire mid east policy, if Hezbollah had given up its weapons in 2005!!

Lebanon was never, and never will be the "darling" of the west, esp. zionist-controlled usa. some of the people who chose to serve american agenda were darlings of usa and zionists but only those, and not most or all of Lebanon. they don't care about lebanon's welfare , they just want to control it because they want to eliminate zionist's enemies, meaning the resistance. you would be crazy to think that france or america would have done something if isra2il chose to bomb cedar "revolution" headquarters even. and anyway, these people never viewd lebanon as a whole and never wanted to unite it, on the contrary, they wanted to divide us and still do, which is why isra2il did not bomb their headquarters and instead bombed us , it's not becz isra2il or america loves them.
why would we give our weapons and live at the mercy of known terrorists? let's say you're standing in a room with three other people, one is a member of your family, the other a known serial killer, and the third is a friend & accomplice of the serial killer, and you have a gun pointed at the serial killer, and the accomplice is trying to convince you that he will not let the serial killer kill you because he has given money and support to your relative , so you should give him your gun. tell me, where is the logic in giving your gun which is your only tool for self-defence ? never. we will never give up our weapons as long as there is no real power to protect us the way the Hezb has protected us.

It was the Spanish repulican revolutionary La Passionaria who said that, but in western culture, the value worth dying for is Freedom not "sharaf". Westerners do not slaughter their own sisters to maintain the family "sharaf"!

[] yes of course westerners do kill their sisters to maintain family sharaf, it's just that those don't hve a category of their own in the west, and besides, never heard of crimes of passion ? it's not much different, and yes, there are also honor killings in the west, there was one in italy not long ago, and there are others too just not talked about as much, bcz the ones talking so much about Arab honor killings are actually racist & want to "prove" that we are inferior and kill our own loved ones, so by "proving " that, they think they can justify killing our loved ones too bcz of course why respect those who don't respect themselves? freedom & dignity are interrelated. there is no dignity without freedom and there is no freedom without dignity. it's funny that you change the topic and claim it is about freedom, fine, so it's about freedom, our resistance was about freedom too, our resistance is about ensuring our freedom , without it we will be slaves of zionists, and we do not accept that. got it?

[Ana3arabi!]

Originally Posted by Freethinker

So basically, you are all arguing that Israel's reasons for attacking Lebanon are not related to perceived threats from Lebanon, it's for pathological or instinctive reasons, something in their genes. They want to hurt us for the heck of it, or they want our water, and our mountains, and our tabbouleh!

OK, by extension then, not even a comprehensive peace treaty signed by all Arabs and Iran and guaranteed by the UN will stop Israel from attacking Lebanon (since it would still want all these things!). The only thing that would stop Israel is the resistance's weapons (even if they have not in the past, but leave that aside for now). So we are talking about maintaining the resistance's weapons indefinitely or until Israel ceases to exist?!! If that's the case, fine, I just want to understand your argument...

yes sure, do you think we should disarm our national army once there is peace with isra2il bcz of course it has never happened that those countries that have peaceful relations with each other have attacked one another right? and isra2il is known for not being greedy and not launching more than 6 wars in 60 years. that's an avergae of a war every decade. wow. really, let's disarm our army too, or what are you planning on having an army for in case we sign peace with isra2il (which will never happen anyway ) ? to defend our tabbouleh? or act as traffic police ? the defense strategy should be same in the case of peace treaty as it is now. if the army doesn't have enough weapons and ability to defend Lebanon from isra2il even in case of peace treaty, then we should keep our weapons until it does.