by Eric S. Margolis
October 4, 2024
New York - I was with the Israeli army in 1982 when it invaded Lebanon and battled a new resistance militia, Hezbollah. Ten years later, I was in Afghanistan with a new Muslim resistance movement, Taliban.
Both groups have been demonized by western and Israeli media and governments as “terrorists” a meaningless but effective propaganda label that reduced both movements to the status of mad dogs and criminals. The term “terrorist” implies that the object of this libel can have no legitimate political or moral rights. Dropping 2,000 lb bombs on apartment buildings, as Israel is doing in Gaza and Lebanon, is “anti-terrorism” to the biased western media.
Today, many Americans have been fooled into believing that anyone who opposes US imperial policies abroad is a terrorist - a mad dog that must be destroyed on sight. In US media, Hezbollah, Hamas, Iranian are usually accompanied by the attached term “terrorist”. This is the old Soviet practice of incessantly repeating an accusation until everyone believes it.
Hezbollah, or the Party of God, was founded in southern Lebanon at the end of its 15-year civil war, 1975-1990, as a local Shia militia to battle the Amal militia.
Hezbollah’s conflict with Israel began when Israeli armored units shot their way into the Lebanese market town of Nabatiyeh which was thronged by Shia celebrating the important holy Day of Ashura. Israeli forces dispersed the local Shia with gunfire. Some Shia shot back. Their struggle was on. Hezbollah’s stated objective was to advance the cause of Shia Islam, purge Lebanon of corruption and foreign influence and found a state for the hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees created when the new state of Israel was set up by Britain and the US.
Hezbollah refused to cooperate with the US. It became allied to Iran, and then to Syria just as the US and Israel sought to overthrow Syria’s Assad government. The so-called “conservative” Arab regimes in Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf - all of them under Washington’s thumb - were terrified by Hezbollah and other Muslim reformist movements.
Israel targeted Hezbollah for special attention after its forces invaded Lebanon three times and were bloodied by effective resistance from Hezbollah fighters armed with improved infantry weapons. Hezbollah became the “bête noire” in Washington which relied heavily on Israeli intelligence data for its views of the Mideast.
Now, Israel is trying to provoke Iran into a larger war and drag in the US as well. Iran’s nuclear facilities and its oil industry would be prime targets. Israel’s hard right is calling for the destruction of Iran’s industrial base and the overthrow of its Shia theocracy. This is pretty rich coming from a nation dominated by far-right religious parties that want to return Israel to its biblical borders.
The bottom line here is that Iran huffs and puffs but has amazingly little military capability after over half a century of punitive western sanctions. Tehran will keep on dodging Israeli provocations. But the next ones could be aimed at Iran’s Shia leadership. The low-IQ legislators who make up the US Congress will clap like trained seals when this happens.
In fact, watching the conflict between Iran and Israel reminds me vividly of the 19th century Zulu and Sudan Wars in which British troops used quick-fire artillery and maxim machine guns to mow down their hapless, spear-armed African opponents.
Copyright Eric S. Margolis 2024 reprint via author permission.