Hezbollah: Media's Hidden Narrative
Hezbollah: Media's Hidden Narrative
Research Question:
Is the Media hiding the truth or rather is it mediatizing a carefully crafted
Hezbollah message?
The media’s primary duty is to present us with information and alert us when important
events occur. This information may affect what we think and the actions we take. The
media can also place pressure on government to act by signaling a need for intervention or
showing that citizens want change. For these reasons, the quality of the media’s coverage
matters.
A few years after the liberation, during the war with Israel in the summer of 2006, the
portraits of Hassan Nasrallah, the party’s General Secretary, could be seen in
demonstrations in major capitals in the Arab world. Hezbollah’s declared victory in 2006
consolidated its role as a regional force and established Nasrallah as an Arab icon. The
emergence of Hezbollah as a regional resistance movement was the conclusion of
decades of struggle where military, political, socio-economic strategies were carried out
alongside a complex and efficient media discourse, announcing Hezbollah as a liberator.
II. To what extend is that true? And how Hezbollah managed to take
over?
The Story of Hezbollah which was never told:
Its exact translation from the Arabic language means the “Party of God”.
Hezbollah is a Lebanese group of Shi’a Muslimi militants that has developed into a political
party and a major force in Lebanese society. Hezbollah is ideologically inspired by the
Iranian revolutionii and Ayatollah Khomeiniiii.
Hezbollah, led by Secretary-general Hassan Nasrallahiv, opposes the West and seeks to
create a Shi’a Muslim fundamentalist state, aiming to:
The Hezbollah logo shows a hand holding a machine gun aloft against a background of the
globe, its slogan is a verse from the Koran: “Only Allah’s congregation shall be
victorious.”vi Since its establishment, Hezbollah has based its policy on what he called it
“Islamic-Resistant”, “Moqawama Islamieh”vii, directed primarily against Israeli, American,
and European targets, coming together, in a very strange blend, political and religious
motives.
<<In the aftermath of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in June 1982, Hezbollah appeared as
the result of a mobilization of several groups of Islamic Shi’a militants (clerics, al-Da’wa
Party members and dissident members of Amal Movment) that wanted to go to war
against the Israeli occupier (Mervin, 2008).
Hezbollah Objectives:
<<Our Objectives:
1. Let us put it truthfully: the sons of Hezbollah know who are their major enemies in
the Middle East - the Phalanges, Israel, France and the US.
2. The sons of our Uma are now in a state of growing confrontation with them, and will
remain so until the realization of the following three objectives:
2.1. To expel the Americans, the French and their allies definitely from Lebanon,
putting an end to any colonialist entity on our land.
2.2. To submit the Phalanges to a just power and bring them all to justice for the
crimes they have perpetrated against Muslims and Christians.
2.3. To permit all the sons of our people to determine their future and to choose in
all the liberty the form of government they desire. We call upon all of them to
pick the option of Islamic government which, alone, is capable of
guaranteeing justice and liberty for all.
Only an Islamic regime can stop any further attempts of imperialistic infiltration into our
country.ix>>
Speaking to 15,000 cheering Hezbollah supporters on Thursday in Bint Jbeil, the scene of
fierce fighting between the Iranian-backed group and Israeli soldiers in July 2006,
Ahmadinejad said the town was a symbol of resistance.x>>
<< Once again, at the hands of Hezbollah, the group responsible for more than a decade
of guerrilla resistance that saw the Israeli army literally run out of South Lebanon in 2000,
the Israelis lost.
Israel's psychology in this defeat was so much worse because people hoisted banners
around the world proclaiming: "We are all Hezbollah." With the banner came the flag,
carried by young Muslims, old Muslims, middle-aged English ladies and anti-Zionist rabbis.
It was pervasive, and it has stayed.xi>>
<< It was formed as a resistance movement during the Israeli occupation of southern
Lebanon in the early 1980s.
The militant group's capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack led to a month-
long war with Israel in 2006.
But last month, its political wing was awarded three cabinet posts in the newly formed
Lebanese cabinet after it made gains, alongside its allies, in the 2018 parliamentary
elections.
The group, which is backed by Iran, has sent thousands of its fighters to Syria to support
forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in battles against predominantly Sunni Muslim
rebel forces and the jihadist Islamic State groupxii.>>
The Israeli media was playing a significant role in promoting the image of Hezbollah
indirectly by publishing almost every statement of Hassan Nasr Allah the general secretary
<< Nasr Allah: I'm 'Surprised' Israel Took So Long to Discover Hezbollah Tunnels
Nasr Allah told Lebanon's Al-Mayadeen TV station that one of the tunnels discovered by
Israel is more than 13 years old, predating UN Security Council Resolution passed after
Second Lebanon War.xiv>>
<< Netanyahu and Nasr Allah, the Middle East’s Two Messianic Leaders
<< Hezbollah chief says Israel ‘scared,’ not ready for war
Nasr Allah claims deployment of US anti-missile system shows Israelis don’t trust their own
military capabilities; calls for supporters to give donations amid Western sanctions.
In a televised speech, Nasr Allah pointed to the US military’s deployment this week of the
advanced THAAD missile defense system in Israel for joint exercises as proof of what he
said was Israeli insecurity over the country’s ability to counter Hezbollah rocket fire in a
future conflict.
“Every day you hear that Israel is not prepared for war in one way or another and this week
you saw Israel began using the American THAAD system. They don’t even trust the
missile defense systems they developed themselves,” he added, according to Israel’s
Channel 13.
Hezbollah is believed to possess between 100,000 and 150,000 rockets and Israel has
warned it is working to develop precision missiles with Iranian assistance. While the IDF
and the Defense Ministry have invested significant resources in aerial defense, army
officers have said that these anti-missile systems will not be able to stop all
projectilesxvi.>>
Some sources in this category may be untrustworthy, and can be misleading, was
Hezbollah resistance? Was their aim liberating Lebanon from Israeli occupation or
controlling Lebanon to establish the state of Hezbollah?
Who initiated the resistance against Israel and what was the roll of Hezbollah
in it?
When Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied Beirut 1982, Hezbollah did not exist, initially
the Shiite population, frustrated with Palestinian presence in Lebanon, had welcomed the
Israeli army.
Ehuda Barak as a former Israeli prime minister in one of his interviews said “when we
entered Lebanon … there was no Hezbollah. We were accepted with perfumed rice and
flowers by the Shi’a in the south of Lebanon.xvii”
In 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon and occupied Beirut, on September 16, 1982, the
same day the Israeli army entered West Beirut, the secretary general of the central
committee of the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) George Hawi xviii, the Secretary
General of the Organization of Communist Action in Lebanon (OCAL) Muhsin Ibrahim xix,
announced the Lebanese National Resistance Front – LNRF.
Elias Attallah xx, the leader of that resistance, Explained how did the confrontation with the
Israeli occupation began, in one of the press interviewsxxi held with him Saturday 15
September 2015, On the 33rd anniversary of the launching of the resistance against the
Israeli occupation of Lebanon , the following is the exact translation of it .
<< When the secretary of the Lebanese Communist Party, the late George Hawi, and the
secretary-general of the Communist Action Organization, Mohsen Ibrahim, announced the
establishment of the Front on June 16, I was in a secret apartment in Beirut to launch field
operations. There is no longer room to fight Israel, where Beirut was filled with tanks, and I
went to Mar-Elias Street, and I saw thousands of soldiers lying on the sidewalks with all
their military equipment. "
On the night of the 20th of the same month, Attallah decided that "if he did not die, it would
be a shame to die a coward." "The groups carried out the first operation in Beirut with
grenades. We targeted an Israeli group stationed in front of Bestros pharmacy (The
beginning of Hamra Street in the capital). >>
<< What is worth mentioning is that between September 1982 and April 1985, the Israeli
occupation forces withdrew from 2,600 km 2 of the 3,450 km 2, the total area occupied by
the Israeli enemy in its invasion of Lebanon in 1982.
According to official figures announced by the occupation authorities, the losses of the
army as a result of the operations of the resistance front reached between September 16,
1982 and the end of 1985, 386 dead out of 657 dead until May 24, 2000. The Israeli army
casualties in that period amounted to 2326 out of 2966 until the day Editing. >>
It also called for the "adoption of the Islamic system on the basis of free and direct
selection of the people, not the basis of forceful imposition".
There have been many assassinations carried out by Hezbollah against the Lebanese
intellectuals, the only reason being their intellectual and political opinions, as if there is a
desire not to have any voice of opposition.
The great thinker and prolific writer Suhail Tawileh was assassinated in 1986, after he was
kidnapped from his home next to the Iranian Embassy in Beirut.
The intellectual writer Dr. Hussein Mrouweh had his appointment with death at the hands
of supporters of backward ideologies, on 17 February of the following year in his home,
where his pen was silenced with bullets from a gun equipped with a silencer, so he never
attained eighty-years of age.
Mahdi Aamel (Hassan Hamdan), who held a Ph.D. in philosophy from the Sorbonne, he
met baseball bats in the darkness on 18 May 1987, which succeeded in assassinating him
in cold blood on his way to his university lectures in Beirut.
<< Speaking about the resistance against Israel, Murtada reveals a meeting he had with
Mr. Hawi with Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah in 1998 to present an idea
or initiative aimed at securing a national cover for the resistance after the idea of
establishing the Resistance Brigades failed. Achieve this goal.
The initiative came after the Communist Party and the factions of the National Resistance
Front (NRF) were prevented from the resistance action.
Namely, Iran and Syria can use Hezbollah as a proxy to fight Israel, and others groups
opposing them to extend their control on Lebanon and Syria. For Syria, Hezbollah being a
party in the Lebanese internal conflict, it became an important focal point for its future
policies and its regional role in the region.
As a result, it agreed to support Hezbollah, supply it with weapons, and re-draw the map
of power in Lebanon in harmony with Syria’s vision of the international and regional
transformations.
As a result, Syria contained or marginalized, through a series of procedures, most of the
Lebanese national forces (leftist and nationalist) which at that point had an active role in
resisting the occupation since the early 1970’s.
<< Lebanon's small but highly active Communist Party was disastrously hurt by the
recent fighting in West Beirut, with many of its leaders and members killed or
missing.
Party members said that nine of the group's main leaders were killed here and in
southern Lebanon and that 32 members were killed and 17 were kidnapped and
were still missing in the street fighting in Beirut.
The daily newspaper of the Soviet-backed party, AL-Nidaa, reported that Shiite
Moslem clerics in the Nabatiye area of southern Lebanon had issued a religious
edict urging the killing of all Communists in that area.
After Israel withdrew from Lebanon in 2000, Hezbollah claimed that a tiny bit of land called
Sheba'a farmsxxv, part of the Golan heights and some other places that are on the Israeli
side of the border are really Lebanese, though the United Nations claims it is not so.
UN Security Council Resolution 1701, adopted in August 2006, called for the delineation of
the international borders of Lebanon, especially in those areas where the border is
disputed or uncertain. It also called on the Lebanese government to “secure its borders
and other entry points to prevent the entry in Lebanon without its consent of arms or
related material”.
In August 2008, in a meeting between then President Michel Suleiman and President
Bashar al-Assad, it was announced that Syria would establish formal diplomatic ties with
Lebanon for the first time and that steps would be taken to jointly demarcate their border,
also another first for the two countries.
The decision required in the beginning the demarcation along Lebanon’s northern border
and ending with the Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms area in the south.
However, to date no steps have been taken to begin the process of demarcation, and none
are likely in the foreseeable future given the situation in Syria.
<< .. Asked whether that includes the Shebaa Farms, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid
al-Moualem said: “The demarcation of the Shebaa Farms cannot happen under
occupation.”
The Lebanese Shi’ite group Hezbollah, which is backed by Syria and Iran, cites the
occupation of the Shebaa Farms by Israel as one reason for keeping its weapons.
Israel considers Shebaa Farms part of the Golan Heights, Syrian territory which it
has occupied since 1967. Syria and Lebanon say the land is part of south Lebanon,
from which Israel withdrew in 2000.
The United Nations declared Israel’s withdrawal from south Lebanon complete. A
2006 U.N. Security Council resolution urged Syria to demarcate its borders,
especially in areas where they are uncertainxxvi. >>
Following the expulsion of Syrian forces from Lebanon, the Hezbollah were
supposed to have been disarmed under the terms of UN resolutions 1559
and 1680. Instead, the Lebanese government allowed Hezbollah to keep its arms
and to participate in Lebanese elections. Once they entered the government,
Hezbollah paralyzed attempts at reform and reducing Syrian influence.
From the moment Hezbollah stepped into the Syrian conflict alongside the pro-Assad front
in May 2013, the Lebanese Shiite party and armed group has undergone a big
transformation.
In 2012, Hezbollah fighters crossed the border from Lebanon and took over eight villages
in the Al-Qusayr District of Syria, (15 kilometers Southwest of the Lebanese border) in
2013, when the party made official its involvement in the conflict – Hezbollah has
undoubtedly taken on a new role, one that goes beyond the traditional “resistance” against
Israel in Southern Lebanon, Nasr Allah said that Hezbollah fighters have died
in Syria doing their "jihadist duties".
To justify Hezbollah’s right to continue to bear arms, Nasr Allah aimed in particular at
a Christian and Shiite audience, it carved out for itself the role of security guarantor on the
Lebanese border to prevent any movement of what he called them Syrian Terrorist from
crossing Lebanese border and use Lebanon as a stage against Assad regime.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s military involvement in Syria and against Israel risk drawing all of
Lebanon into regional conflicts. Although the United Nations has tasked Lebanon’s military
with supervising Hezbollah’s disarmament, Hezbollah has managed to build up its military
capabilities and presence in Lebanon under the eyes of the Lebanese army. Hezbollah
and the Lebanese military have also coordinated against Syrian rebel groups.
Hezbollah has also created its own parallel institutions within Lebanon’s educational,
social, and economic sectors. International sanctions targeting Hezbollah have also
Hezbollah has become a State inside the Lebanese State, with 150,000 rockets, and
thousands of Armed Militants, Hezbollah was and still looking forward to announce his
Islamic State, without taking in consideration the diversity of Lebanon where it is the only
Arabic country with a Christian president.
This is a small part of Hezbollah story, and it is the internal Lebanese part where the party
built its position, with bullets from a gun equipped with a silencer. At the international level
the story of Hezbollah needs more than 5,000 words to explain its role as an international
terrorist organization, including the assassination of the Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq al-
Haririxxvii.
In response, Nasr Allah condemned the tribunal and swore never to turn over the
suspects. A fifth suspect, also a member of Hezbollah was identified in 2013. In January
2014, the trial of the suspects in absentia began. From Lebanon, to Iraq, to Syria, to
Palestine, to Africa, to Europe, to Argentina Hundreds of Hezbollah Stories related to
international terror, and yet they call themselves “Liberation Movement”, “Resistance”,
members of such organization can be called by one significant name “Terrorists”.
George Hawi, the former head of the Communist Party who had been campaigning for
opposition candidates in the final round of elections, died after being ripped apart by a
small bomb around 9:30 a.m. Only about a pound of explosives was used, the police said,
placed beneath the passenger seat of his black Mercedes and detonated as it drove out of
his house where he was going to meet the elected member of the new parliament Elias
Attalah the First leftist who managed to be part of the Lebanese parliament since it was
established Elias was the Operational leader of the Lebanese National Resistance Front"
against the Israeli Occupation at its time, and was the general secretary of the democratic
left which was part of the 14 March Alliance. Both men wanted to discuss future plans after
being in the Parliament, and how can they unify all left wings to be part of a liberation
movement toward a new Lebanon a sovereign, free, and independent country.
The blast appeared to be identical to the one that killed a prominent journalist, Samir
Kassir, the member of the Democratic Left Leadership who was assassinated on June 2-
2005.
Since 2004, a series of bombings and assassinations have struck Lebanon, most of them
occurring in and around the capital, Beirut. This wave of bombings began with the
assassination attempt on Marwan Hmade, and then peaked with the assassination of
former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri on 14 February 2005, which touched off the Cedar
Revolution and the withdrawal of Syrian troops. After the massive protests sparked by
Hariri's killing, several more bombings hit Lebanon.
These bombings and assassinations came after September 2004, when the Lebanese
Parliament was forced to extend the term of pro-Syrian former president Emile Lahoud, a
move that was unconstitutional. The MPs, journalists, and activists that opposed this term
extension were then subject to a series of slander campaigns and eventually assassination
attempts, all where planed approved by Syrian and Iranian regimes while executed by
members of Hezbollah.
The assassinations carried out by Hezbollah have spread beyond the borders of Lebanon
and targeted Iranian opponents, on 17 September 1992 members of Hezbollah where part
of the assassination team Murdered Dr. Sadegh Sharafkandi the general secretary of the
Kurdish Democratic Party of Iran with other Iranian-Kurdish insurgent leaders Fattah
Abdoli, Homayoun Ardalan and their translator Nouri Dehkordi at the Mykonos Greek
restaurant in Berlin, Germany. In the Mykonos trial, the courts found Kazem Darabi,
an Iranian national who worked as a grocer in Berlin, and Lebanese Abbas Rhayel, guilty
of murder and sentenced them to life in prison. Two other Lebanese, Youssef Amin and
Mohamed Atris, were convicted of being accessories to murder. In its 10 April 1997 ruling,
the court issued an international arrest warrant for Iranian intelligence minister Hojjat al-
Islam Ali Fallahian after declaring that the assassination had been ordered by him with
knowledge of supreme leader Grand Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and president Ayatollah
Rafsanjani. Rhayel is a member of Hezbollah, he was released from prison in an exchange
operation between Hezbollah and Israel intermediated and sponsored by Germany.
IX. Conclusion:
<<The growing intrusion of media into the political domain in many countries has led critics
to worry about the approach of the "media-driven republic," in which mass media will usurp
the functions of political institutions in the liberal state. However, close inspection of the
evidence reveals that political institutions in many nations have retained their functions in
the face of expanded media power. The best description of the current situation is
"mediatization," where political institutions increasingly are dependent on and shaped by
mass media but nevertheless remain in control of political processes and functions.>>xxviii
Modern propaganda uses all the media available to spread its message, including: press,
radio, television, film, computers, fax machines, posters, meetings, door-to-door
canvassing, handbills, buttons, billboards, speeches, flags, street names, monuments,
Hezbollah did not hesitate using all mentioned means to promote his version of the story,
but that was not the real story, because there was another story describing the same
events, and can be summarized by the following few words:
Partnering with Iran and Assad regime and practicing oppression against Syrians,
changing Lebanon ethnical and religious identity, promoting Terror locally and
internationally, acting as an insurgent of Iran in Lebanon, Iraq, Yemen, Bahrain, Syria,
Palestine, and many European, African and Latin American countries.
REFERENCES:
i
Shiites are the second-largest branch of Islam, after Sunnis. A Shiite believes that Mohammed's son-in-law, Ali, was
his legitimate successor as political and religious leader and prophet.
ii
Iranian revolution was a series of events that involved the overthrow of the monarch of Iran, Mohammad Reza Shah
Pahlavi, and the replacement of his government with an Islamic republic under the Ayatollah Khomeini.
iii
He was the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran and the leader of the 1979 Iranian Revolution that saw
the overthrow of the last Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and the end of 2,500 years of Persian
monarchy. Following the revolution, Khomeini became the country's Supreme Leader, a position created in
the constitution of the Islamic Republic as the highest-ranking political and religious authority of the nation,
which he held until his death. He was succeeded by Ali Khamenei on 4 June 1989(WIKIPEDIA).
iv
He is the third and current Secretary General of the Lebanese political party Hezbollah since his
predecessor, Abbas al-Musawi, was assassinated by the Israel in February 1992.
v
COUNCIL on FOREIGN RELATIONS, Profile: Hassan Nasrallah, by Eben Kaplan, August 11, 2010,
https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/profile-hassan-nasrallah.
vi
Kuran, Sourat Al Maaida, the Aiet 56.
vii
Arabic Term its exact translation in English is (Islamic resistance).
viii
Daniel Meier. (B)ordering South of Lebanon: Hizbullah’s identity building strategy. Journal of Borderlands Studies,
Taylor, HAL Id: halshs-01337732 https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01337732 Submitted on 27 Jun 2016,
https://halshs.archives-ouvertes.fr/halshs-01337732/document.
ix
Web Archive, 1985 founding document of Hezbollah,
https://web.archive.org/web/20071029000205/http://www.standwithus.com/pdfs/flyers/hezbollah_program.pdf
x
Al Jazeera, News MIDDLE EAST, 15 October 2010, Iran leader in Hezbollah stronghold, Thousands flock to hear
Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Lebanon village close to Israel border on second day of his visit,
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2010/10/2010101416133587181.html .
xi
Middle East Eye, Is the UK pushing a false narrative on Hezbollah?, Arzu Meraly, 28 February 2019 16:36
UTC, https://www.middleeasteye.net/opinion/uk-pushing-false-narrative-hezbollah.
xii th
BBC News, 27 Feb 2019, Labour row erupts over Hezbollah ban, https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-47380311.
xiii
Haaretz, Hassan Nasrallah, https://www.haaretz.com/misc/tags/TAG-hassan-nasrallah-1.5598889.