Syrians Attack Hezbollah

by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem

I receive messages over the internet from Syrians attacking Hezbollah, calling it a satanic, American-Israeli party, and threatening the party with reprisal should the Syrian popular movement succeed. One writer has even taken to calling Hezbollah “the Party of al-Lat” and Mr. Hassan Nasrallah “Nasr al-Lat” — this alongside lists of Syria’s declared enemies headed, invariably, by the name of Sayyid Hassan.

There is no doubt that the Arab peoples yearn for freedom, and that the Arab regimes, the Syrian regime among them, must carry out broad, radical reforms — structural, institutional, and formal — at every level. But it is also required of the regime that it continue to stand firm against external challenges, and that it reorganize its military and security posture so that Syria remains capable of confronting Israel and liberating the occupied land.

There is one clear, primary demand in the demonstrations in Syria, and that is freedom. But another demand is expected to emerge alongside it: liberation. It is true that internal freedom is a precondition for liberation from external subjugation, but overlooking the slogan of liberation in the popular marches does a great disservice to the Syrian popular movement. The slogan of liberation would do justice to those who have held firm over the years, and would strengthen the hand of the resistance, whether Lebanese or Palestinian. It would affirm that the whole of Bilad al-Sham is a land of ribat — one land, with one people — and it would ease the atmosphere within Syria in a way that facilitates the process of political, social, and economic change, and so on.

The people of Lesser Syria are a great people, and cannot but remain great; they will remain defenders of their national causes and of the causes of the Arab nation. This is a people that made enormous historic sacrifices for the honor and dignity of the nation, and it will not disown its history, nor will it allow anyone to hijack the Syrian popular movement and divert it from its national course. It is clear that there are figures within Syria linked to America, some of them linked to Israel, who are trying to turn the popular movement into a movement against the homeland; there are also Lebanese, Jordanian, and Palestinian factions exploiting the situation in order to sabotage Syria and undermine its capacity to withstand Israeli and American pressure. As for the funding, encouragement, and incitement, it comes plainly from America, Saudi Arabia, and other Arab and European states.

We do not want a repeat of the Libyan tragedy, which allowed for foreign intervention — a hostile intervention that is trying to turn Libya into a mere instrument of the Western states. We are for change, for the freedom of the Arab citizen, but it is the duty of every Arab nationalist — from national and Islamic movements alike — to close every door to foreign intervention, and to the corrupt Arabs who ally themselves with Israel and America.

Returning to Hezbollah: if only those Syrians who curse the party would show us how the party has harmed Syria and the Syrian people, how it conspired against Syrians and destroyed their homes. Did Hezbollah take the people’s money and their sustenance? Did it support Israel so that it might remain in the Golan? Did the party administer Syria’s internal affairs so that it should bear responsibility for them? If only someone would tell us what the party has done, over the years, to wrong the Syrian people.

Hezbollah relied on Syria to ease matters of training and logistics; it did not rely on it for financial support, nor did it cost Syria any exertion or effort. Syria — all of Syria — provided the party with great and abundant logistical services, and supplied it with rockets of its own manufacture without any material cost to the party, yet the party remained far removed from interference in Syria’s internal affairs, and never drained a single piastre from the Syrian budget. Hezbollah’s orientation toward Syrian support holds regardless of circumstance, and regardless of whoever governs.

[…] Was it required of him to be defeated before Israel? Could his defeat before Israel possibly have satisfied the Arabs of apostasy and betrayal? Perhaps there are those angry at Hezbollah because of its relationship with Iran and its arming by Iran. But the party has no objection to obtaining weapons from Arab states, should they find the courage to supply it with so much as a rifle manufactured in 1914. The only Arab state that has provided weapons is Syria, and it continues to do so. And could Nasrallah possibly have entered the world of the faithful had he left Israel to roam and range freely through Lebanon as it pleased? And could sin have passed for piety, had he surrendered South Lebanon to Israel?

There are those who say that Hezbollah now stands firmly with the regime, and that its media outlets are trying to portray the Syrian popular movement as a movement of agents and infiltrators. This is a fair criticism, and Hezbollah is required to correct its coverage of events in Syria so as to distinguish between the movement of the Syrian people and a movement of hirelings receiving money from abroad. There are those who have infiltrated the Syrian ranks, those trying to do harm, those concerned with Western, American, and European intervention in Syria, and Israeli spies stirring trouble, and so on. But it is required of Hezbollah’s media, and of Syrian media as well, that they not generalize the acts of a few onto the mass of the people.

We may find someone justifying the party’s position, saying that Hezbollah has no choice but to stand against change in Syria because it fears the rise of a new order that would block aid from passing through Syrian territory, and that would endanger the party. They add that it would be immoral for the party to stand against the regime that supported it over the years. Hezbollah is not required to stand against anyone, but it is required to present both the dialectic of the people demanding change and the dialectic of the regime, and it is required to stand against any foreign intervention that harms the Syrian people. Hezbollah, and all Arab nationalists, pan-Arabists, and Islamists, stand against tampering with Syria’s security and the security of the resistance, and against foreign intervention. And all of these, including the Syrian president, stand for change and for the freedom of the Syrian people. The Syrian president has himself acknowledged the existing dysfunction, and acknowledged the necessity of reform.

And so I sum up as follows:

A great step is required of the Syrian president, one in which he takes bold measures against security apparatuses that appear to treat Syrian blood with contempt. It is important to cut off the path to foreign intervention, and the longer reform is delayed, the faster and more intense that intervention becomes. The Arab situation in general cannot bear a security breakdown on both the Syrian and Lebanese fronts, and the primary responsibility rests on the president’s shoulders. Firmness, in the current Syrian situation, matters far more than wisdom. Wisdom takes precedence over firmness in times of stability, but firmness takes precedence over wisdom in times of crisis.

The use of rifles against demonstrators must be stopped, and this is, first and foremost, the responsibility of the president of the republic, since it is clear that there are those carrying out acts that directly contradict the president’s statements immediately after he makes them.

The Syrian people are expected to focus on liberation alongside their focus on freedom, and not leave matters to a handful of figures allied with the West to take the lead in demanding change. Someone has already praised the idea of American and NATO intervention in Syria as happened in Libya, and this does the Syrian popular movement a great disservice. The patriotism of the Syrian people is beyond question, and its history bears witness to that; people expect a focus on strengthening the resistance and liberating Arab land.

Hezbollah is required to maintain balance in its media coverage, and it is not required to go easy on foreign intervention in the Syrian situation. It is a matter of integrity and morality for Hezbollah to expose every attempt at interference in Syria’s internal affairs, and no blame attaches to it for doing so.

The masses of the Syrian people are expected to form popular committees in the various cities and villages to serve as the movement’s frame of reference, and to block the path of those who wish to speak in the name of the Syrian people according to foreign designs. Daraa may well be the candidate to produce a provisional central committee.

Source: Translated from the original Arabic, “سوريون يهاجمون حزب الله” by Dr. Abdul-Sattar Kassem.