Hizbullah - The Story from Within

At a time when the Islamic banner was perceived as an unattractive, inadequate source of persuasion in the face of confrontation against Israeli occupation and international pressure, Hizbullah emerged as a distinct party because of its very adoption of this Islamic banner, as well as of its conduct as a resistance force. Islamic resistance operations were of such unique success that they earned the praise of supporters of liberation and adherents of justice, as well as the wonder and disbelief of the occupiers. Enemy aggression was thwarted many times, and the occupiers’ dominant position shaken. Hizbullah’s importance rose further with actual victory, achieved on May 25, 2000, when Israeli troops were forced to withdraw from Lebanon as a result of Hizbullah operations – an unprecedented achievement in fifty years of struggle with the Israeli enemy. Many questions surrounded Hizbullah: about the Party’s reasons for its inception, its goals, vision and values, about the time-frame it has set as an objective … Is Hizbullah a temporary faction playing a definite role, it has been asked, or does it have the potential for continuity? Equally, many answers, analyses and assumptions were put forward. Numerous published writings blemished the Party’s image, with shreds of facts gathered mostly in presumptuous fashion. Gradually, the truth emerged through Hizbullah’s open and declared mode of work, through its field operations, the expressions of its leaders and the practical implementation by its partisans and institutions. Where, then, is the truth amidst this amalgam of facts and suppositions? Since the circumstances surrounding the Party’s inception forced the deployment of all recruits directly in the field of operational resistance, little time was left for Party leaders to draw up frameworks and articulate visions or write manifestos, raisons d’être and manuals. Although such guiding beliefs were quite clear to Party leaders, they had yet to be laid in a format that addressed the queries of intellectuals, academics and concerned groups.