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Speaker 2: As we come, Margin Martin and the Beauty of the Day,
Speaker 2: A million dark in kitchens, one thousand mil last grade
Speaker 2: are branden by the beauty, his sun Sun discloses, and
Speaker 2: the paople here as bretten' roses bad Roses.
Speaker 1: Hi everyone, and welcome to the second episode in our
Speaker 1: Radical Reads series, a series in which we talk about
Speaker 1: historical and political texts that we think are important for
Speaker 1: workers and radicals to read, discuss, and inform our organizing.
Speaker 1: A quick note that this episode contains discussion of war crimes,
Speaker 1: sexual violence, and torture. Our Radical read for this episode
Speaker 1: is Alia A. Yub's recent article hes Bolla Ten Things
Speaker 1: You Need to Know. Elia would introduce himself properly in
Speaker 1: a moment, but as a brief introduction to his introduction.
Speaker 1: He's a Lebanese Palestinian activist and co founder of the
Speaker 1: excellent Fire These Times podcast, which seeks to developed properly
Speaker 1: internationalist perspectives on politics, not just in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: but more generally in the Global South or what they
Speaker 1: sometimes call, quite usefully in my opinion, the global Periphery.
Speaker 1: So we invited Eleion to discuss his article on Hezbollah.
Speaker 1: We felt that it was important to do so as
Speaker 1: a year after beginning its genocidal campaign in Gaza, Israel
Speaker 1: has now expanded its military actions into Lebanon, supposedly with
Speaker 1: the aim of degrading Hesbela's military capability and allow and
Speaker 1: evacuated Israelis to return to their homes in northern Israel
Speaker 1: and the occupied Goden Heights. The reality of this is
Speaker 1: that Israel has launched yet another monstrous invasion of Lebanon.
Speaker 1: Beyond the supposedly targeted pagro and radio attacks, which we
Speaker 1: discuss in more detail later, thousands of Lebanese civilians have
Speaker 1: already been killed and over a million displaced. Israeli attacks
Speaker 1: have also not been limited to southern Lebanon, but also
Speaker 1: the capital Beirute, where whole tower blocks have been leveled
Speaker 1: by Israeli bombs, and even the North. Israeli attacks have
Speaker 1: forced hospitals to close, and firefighters, emergency rescue and hospital
Speaker 1: workers have all been killed while trying to save the
Speaker 1: victims of Israeli aggression, with euromed human rights monitors suggesting
Speaker 1: that the Israeli army is intentionally targeting rescue workers and
Speaker 1: for those laboring under the impression that somehow Israel's invasion
Speaker 1: is supposed to protect Lebanese Christians. Israel has also bombed
Speaker 1: a church housing displaced people in southern Lebanon and a
Speaker 1: Christian majority town in the north. If all of this
Speaker 1: feels chillingly familiar, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya who spelled
Speaker 1: it out explicitly in a recent televised address. In it,
Speaker 1: he threatened the Lebanese people with quote the abyss of
Speaker 1: a long war that will lead to destruction and suffering
Speaker 1: like we see in Gaza.
Speaker 3: End quote.
Speaker 1: Here we see the genocide that Israel claims not to
Speaker 1: be carrying out in Gaza used as a threat against
Speaker 1: Lebanon and indeed others in the region. Unsurprisingly, much of
Speaker 1: this has even been left out of or de emphasized
Speaker 1: in mainstream accounts of the conflict and of Hesbula itself. Furthermore,
Speaker 1: much of the narrative talks about Lebanon as a monolith
Speaker 1: and speaks about the conflict between Israel and Hesbola in
Speaker 1: in a way that simplifies a much more complex reality
Speaker 1: in Lebanon, not just in terms of religious and sectarian divisions,
Speaker 1: but also in terms of the class struggle and social
Speaker 1: antagonism in the country, some of which we discussed in
Speaker 1: this episode. I've already gone on for far too long,
Speaker 1: but before we start, it's important to say that in
Speaker 1: our discussion me and Elijah sometimes mentioned some things that
Speaker 1: we didn't get around to explaining who or what they are.
Speaker 1: So here are some brief explanations of some of the
Speaker 1: key terms and names that we mention. These are also
Speaker 1: gathered together in a glossary that will put in the
Speaker 1: show notes. So Sunni and Shia refer to the two
Speaker 1: main branches of Islam, with Sunni Islam being the far
Speaker 1: larger of the two. Sunni Islam is the official religion
Speaker 1: of Saudi Arabia, while Shia Islam is the official religion
Speaker 1: of Iran. Hassan Israla was the former General secretary of
Speaker 1: Hezbollah until his assassination by Israel earlier this year. Bashar
Speaker 1: al Asad is the current President of Syria, a position
Speaker 1: that he's held since July two thousand and when he
Speaker 1: took over from his dad, Hafez Alasad, who had himself
Speaker 1: been president since nineteen seventy one. Within these fifty plus
Speaker 1: years of dictatorship run by father and son, Syria occupied
Speaker 1: Lebanon for almost thirty years, which Ala will speak more about.
Speaker 1: The occupation spanned almost the entirety of Halfes' reign, starting
Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy six and only ended when Bashah withdrew
Speaker 1: in two thousand and five. The PLO refers to the
Speaker 1: Palestine Liberation Organization. The PLO is made up of a
Speaker 1: number of largely secular nationalist groups and is the official
Speaker 1: representative of the Palestinian people recognized by the UN and Israel. However,
Speaker 1: while in the past the PLO was called for the
Speaker 1: dissolution of the State of Israel and took part in
Speaker 1: armed action against it, and indeed some of its constituent
Speaker 1: members still do. It is often seen as having been
Speaker 1: co opted due to its official renunciation of political violence
Speaker 1: and recognition of Israel in the nineties. Notably, Hamas is
Speaker 1: not a member of the PLO. The Muslim Brotherhood is
Speaker 1: a transnational conservative Sunni Muslim organization that originated in Egypt.
Speaker 1: In Palestine, the Muslim Brotherhood was fundamental in creating the
Speaker 1: institutional basis for what would become HAMAS. In Lebanon, the
Speaker 1: Muslim Brotherhood is represented by a political party called the
Speaker 1: Islamic Group, which has its own military wing. We mentioned
Speaker 1: Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and Syria. In both cases, many
Speaker 1: of these are individuals and their descendants who are expelled
Speaker 1: from Palestine by Zionist paramilitaries during the nineteen forty eight war,
Speaker 1: also known as the Nakba, which is the Arabic word
Speaker 1: for catastrophe. We cover these events in more detail in
Speaker 1: our podcast episodes eighty six and eighty seven. There are
Speaker 1: around one hundred and seventy four thousand Palestinian refugees in
Speaker 1: Lebanon and four hundred and thirty eight thousand in Syria,
Speaker 1: all refuse the right to return home by Israel and
Speaker 1: with diminishtriting in their host countries, and in the case
Speaker 1: of Syria, victims to a number of massacres at the
Speaker 1: hands of pro Sad forces during the Syrian Civil War,
Speaker 1: such as the Armuk massacre in twenty fourteen. Finally, we
Speaker 1: mentioned the Sabra and Shatila massacre, which was the nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty two massacre at the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps
Speaker 1: in Beirut. Over a forty hour period between two thousand
Speaker 1: and three thousand, five hundred Palestinians were killed by Lebanese
Speaker 1: Christian forces. This was done with the full support of
Speaker 1: the Israeli army, who had surrounded the camps to block
Speaker 1: Palestinians from escaping and allowed the Christian Malicius to enter,
Speaker 1: at which point they carried out acts of murder, rape
Speaker 1: and torture against the civilian population, including children as young
Speaker 1: as three or four. With that important and often harrowing context,
Speaker 1: will now let Eliyah introduce himself.
Speaker 3: So my name is Idi, a yub from Lebanon.
Speaker 4: Acre up there also better in origins, which has informed
Speaker 4: part of my politics, first within a Lebanese context, and
Speaker 4: then let's say internationally or towards like having more nuanced
Speaker 4: take on internationalism. Let's put it that way for now.
Speaker 4: I'm a post doctor researcher. I have a PhD on
Speaker 4: post to Elebanon from the University of Zurich, currently based
Speaker 4: in the UK. And yeah, I have a podcast qualified
Speaker 4: these Times, a newsletter called Ontologies. I do a bunch
Speaker 4: of projects here and there. I contribute to a Jazeera
Speaker 4: at ninety seven to two mag a bunch of other
Speaker 4: places others. I'm an editor for Shadow mag. I do
Speaker 4: different tasks here and there, mostly on the Middle East,
Speaker 4: but not only Well, yeah, I know.
Speaker 1: You sound extremely busy. I'm very pleased that you've found
Speaker 1: the time to come and chat to us.
Speaker 3: I guess, yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean the first thing really would be to say,
Speaker 1: you know, why do you feel the need to write
Speaker 1: this article right now at this moment.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I wrote this piece on hesball Llah for my newsletter,
Speaker 4: mostly to kind of get it out of my head,
Speaker 4: to be honest with you, It did get much more
Speaker 4: attention than I expected it, especially as I framed it
Speaker 4: in the form of realistical, which is not I've never
Speaker 4: done that, but I kind of felt that it was
Speaker 4: important to do because I'm gonna say, eighty plus percent
Speaker 4: of things I've read in at the very least the
Speaker 4: English press, although honestly the French press has been more
Speaker 4: or less the same.
Speaker 3: On hesbald Lah has been not.
Speaker 4: Necessarily factually inaccurate all the time, although that has been
Speaker 4: a big problem.
Speaker 3: But let's say, just missing the.
Speaker 4: Mark a lot of the time, or focusing on certain
Speaker 4: things and not others as part of a wider narrative.
Speaker 4: That is not surprising. It's not the first time that
Speaker 4: this happens sot, not the first time that there's a
Speaker 4: war between Hesball and Israel, but I think the stakes
Speaker 4: have been so much higher now since the genocide Satin.
Speaker 4: This is about twelve over a year ago now that yeah,
Speaker 4: I felt like something to be said for whatever that's worth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, absolutely, I mean I think for me, I
Speaker 1: think one of the starkest things was after the Israeli
Speaker 1: kind of pager attacks and kind of the response from
Speaker 1: a lot of the mainstream media being like, how could
Speaker 1: you want an attack to be any more precise? You know,
Speaker 1: It's like Hezbollah militants had these pages and how much
Speaker 1: more precise do you want Israel to be? And it's
Speaker 1: you feel like you're going mad because it's felt like
Speaker 1: so many people were saying something so insanely wrong that
Speaker 1: you don't even know where to start, you know. And
Speaker 1: I guess we'll get onto that later about the page,
Speaker 1: but sor, I don't know if you wanted to.
Speaker 4: Oh no, just that I think the very words targeted
Speaker 4: and precise and all of these have been just kind
Speaker 4: of meaningless been used in very different ways that and
Speaker 4: also used in ways that like they can be literally
Speaker 4: accurate and like for example, or this was the targeted
Speaker 4: strike on the hospital, Yeah, it was still a targeted
Speaker 4: strike on the hospital, right, like the fire.
Speaker 3: That was targeted doesn't.
Speaker 4: If anything, it makes your culpability higher because we also
Speaker 4: have intent now. So I don't know, there have been
Speaker 4: quite a lot of politics of language, which is actually
Speaker 4: part of my background as well, so I've been a
Speaker 4: bit obsessed on that.
Speaker 3: But we can get into that maybe.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely, I mean, I mean I guess
Speaker 1: now would be a great time to go into kind
Speaker 1: of what is his boola? And also, you know, can
Speaker 1: you say a little bit about their origins. Where did
Speaker 1: they come from?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure, I've gone through this, the genesis
Speaker 4: of the party. I think i've memorized it by now.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So they really came into the scene roughly a decade
Speaker 4: into delib In in civil war. That's extremely important to understand.
Speaker 4: There was an entire decade before they were of any
Speaker 4: heat relevance. They didn't exist before eighty three, more or less,
Speaker 4: but they officially formed in eighty five, and the Liliberines
Speaker 4: Civil War, I should say, started in seventy five.
Speaker 3: Even Thelibanese Civil War as a term is a bit.
Speaker 4: Of a misnomer, just in the sense that there were
Speaker 4: a bunch of different wars, a munch of different episodes,
Speaker 4: a bunch of different actors, some not being there, you know,
Speaker 4: not being around by the time it ended in nineteen
Speaker 4: ninety and.
Speaker 3: So on and so forth.
Speaker 4: So that's important for number of reasons, because by the
Speaker 4: time they came into the scene in Lebanon, there were
Speaker 4: a bunch of different things already happening. There was they say,
Speaker 4: in invasion in seventy six. There were multiple Israeli incursions,
Speaker 4: including the Factor invasion that was short lasting, before eighty two,
Speaker 4: and then obviously in nineteen eighty two the Israelis did
Speaker 4: the fal Skin invasion and siege of Bayhood, which was
Speaker 4: followed by the Sabuncatina massacre by their allies differentists, where
Speaker 4: the israet Is quite literally preventing partestinants from leaving the
Speaker 4: camps for three entire days. And then of course the
Speaker 4: as I said the siege of Baywood and then they
Speaker 4: would do and they occupied South Lebanon until two thousand,
Speaker 4: so that's eighteen years of occupation. And it's in that
Speaker 4: period that Hesbula came into the game. There was no Hasbala.
Speaker 4: Before there was a movement called Amal, which means hope
Speaker 4: in Arabic. I'm gonna be genuinalistic about Amahe because they're
Speaker 4: very messy. But it started off as a working class movement,
Speaker 4: largely among Shias in the South, but not just. One
Speaker 4: of their founders was a Greek Catholic Melchite bishop. It
Speaker 4: was secular and orientation borderline nationalists at times, but because
Speaker 4: it was mostly working class and most of the South
Speaker 4: was working class, and most of the working class in
Speaker 4: the South was Shias, it was mostly a Shia Muslim
Speaker 4: Out of Amal came a number of different parties. Long
Speaker 4: story short, Hesbela was one of them. Some of the
Speaker 4: early members of Hesbadla, some of their founders were part
Speaker 4: of Nosola himself. If however, briefly, they were disillusioned with
Speaker 4: Amal for various reasons. One, Ammal did not have good
Speaker 4: funding and good weaponry. They by that time were already
Speaker 4: very corrupt because they had participated in the libyanes of
Speaker 4: war for ten years by then moles and so there
Speaker 4: was a lot of corruption, a lot of warlordism, all
Speaker 4: of that stuff. Moktata Sudd, who was the founder of Amal,
Speaker 4: was forcibly disappeared in Libya, very likely killed by Kadaffi.
Speaker 4: That he hated the power vacum, which led to Nebhiberia, who
Speaker 4: is still in power to this day, who is not
Speaker 4: oliously curbed. Long story short, They were seen as complacent
Speaker 4: at the very least, if not complicit, in this radioccupation
Speaker 4: of South Lebanon.
Speaker 3: Amal was battling a bunch.
Speaker 4: Of Palestinian armed groups at the same time at that time,
Speaker 4: and that he hated a bunch of resentment. If you want,
Speaker 4: we're want to put it that way, that led to
Speaker 4: the oas of Hesbadla, which unlike Amal, had.
Speaker 3: A very religious character.
Speaker 4: So Hesbela came out of the Iranian revolution in nineteen
Speaker 4: seventy nine, the theocratic one that put the Iotola in power.
Speaker 4: Now we're with the second Ayatola. Of course, doesn't mean
Speaker 4: that they are an Iranian party. They are a Lebanese party,
Speaker 4: but they were filmed with that ideology constructure in a
Speaker 4: very specific context, which was South Lebanon. Their leaders, whether
Speaker 4: it's Mussawi the first leader, obviously Noscula after him, whether
Speaker 4: it's a made Mornillier who was actually the leader of
Speaker 4: Islamic Jihad organization but then became the number two of Hesballlah,
Speaker 4: and others that are Some have minor roles, some have political,
Speaker 4: overtly political roles, other more like let's say, religious leaders.
Speaker 3: Some both. Nozula was both a clerk and a wordlord
Speaker 3: at the same time.
Speaker 4: They managed to kind of, let's say, impose discipline on
Speaker 4: a nascent militia that then became a de facto army
Speaker 4: to resist the Israelio occupation in South Lebanon, and for
Speaker 4: many people this was the first time they see anything
Speaker 4: remotely effective targeting the Israelis, which has helped has.
Speaker 3: Balalah go in power. Now.
Speaker 4: Parallel to all of this, hasbal Llah launched a campaign
Speaker 4: of assassinations against prominent leftists who were also from the
Speaker 4: same community, so she has This was two prominent names
Speaker 4: that are usually mentioned, or there were more than that.
Speaker 4: Seen Rue who was in his Ibeti seventies or eighties,
Speaker 4: even better than I think, suffering from cancer or something
Speaker 4: like that, and was assassinated in the middle of the
Speaker 4: night like gunshot, and about three months later I believe
Speaker 4: this was in nineteen eighty seven, Mehdia Amel, who was
Speaker 4: by then already in hiding because he knew that Hesballa
Speaker 4: was coming for him, and he wrote about it at
Speaker 4: the time. They found him after three or four months
Speaker 4: and they killed him as well. This served the same
Speaker 4: purpose kind of. I described it as kind of the
Speaker 4: Iranian playbook. For those who know the Iranian Revolution had
Speaker 4: a pretty sizable participation of communists in the early days
Speaker 4: until the toppling of the show, and then once that happened.
Speaker 4: Even if I'm not missing, I don't know Irani history
Speaker 4: as well. But if I'm not mistaken, even before that
Speaker 4: that really happened. They cracked down started against them by
Speaker 4: the nascent aetol Cotola movement effectively, which would become the
Speaker 4: the theocratic regym, which.
Speaker 3: Which continues to this day.
Speaker 4: So Hesbeula kind of did more or less the same thing, really,
Speaker 4: but in the Lebanese context, and this did not really
Speaker 4: stop or most recent assassination was twenty twenty one against
Speaker 4: the Lacom and Slim in early days in early twenty
Speaker 4: twenty one.
Speaker 3: Sorry, so this is the eighties.
Speaker 4: By the time the Libinies of war officially ended in
Speaker 4: nineteen ninety, all of the militias were expected or were
Speaker 4: supposed to hand their weapons to the army or be
Speaker 4: absorbed into the Libine's army. There was an exception that
Speaker 4: was imposed by halves Lessad, Serian dictator at the time
Speaker 4: Basha's father, of course, that the exception would be to
Speaker 4: Hasbela because of Hesballa's role and resisting. Is again the
Speaker 4: quick background to that is that Hesbella and Ammal were
Speaker 4: actually at war. They called it the harbel Ekue the
Speaker 4: War of brothers in the late eighties.
Speaker 3: They later called it that.
Speaker 4: At the time, they did not call it that, and
Speaker 4: The long story shoot again is that Ammal was backed
Speaker 4: by the Syrians and Hesbella was backed by the Iranians.
Speaker 3: They fought each other, they killed each other.
Speaker 4: Hesbala I that battle or battle, and part of that
Speaker 4: compromises that Hesbella would take care of weapons stuff, military stuff,
Speaker 4: resistant stuff, and Amal would get into government. Hence why
Speaker 4: and Nebhibberia became the leader of Amal became a Speaker
Speaker 4: of parliament in nineteen ninety three, three years after the
Speaker 4: end of the civil war and the Toifik came in
Speaker 4: which officially ended it, and remains speaker of Parliament basically
Speaker 4: my entire life to this day.
Speaker 3: That was the nineties, so the nineties has Bla grew.
Speaker 4: By then, the communists, secular nationalist pro Palestinians, including Palestinian
Speaker 4: militias and armed groups, had been, if not entirely crushed
Speaker 4: by the various invasions, first the Syrion one Houfves Lesserds
Speaker 4: and then the Israeli one, who were both invading Lebanon
Speaker 4: with the stated intention of crushing the Palestinian resistance against
Speaker 4: is Raeli occupation, including Hufs Lessered, which people don't like
Speaker 4: to think about too much, and then yeah, so they
Speaker 4: were kind of weakened by the nineties and Hesbala was
Speaker 4: basically the only game in town.
Speaker 1: That brings us to the end of this episode. Preview
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