Hezbollah
op Zionism and Israel Information Center
The
Hizballah Program
The Jerusalem Quarterly,
number Forty-Eight, Fall 1988
Source - http://www.ict.org.il/Articles/Hiz_letter.htm
Note -
This is a slightly abridged translation of "Nass al-Risala al-Maftuha
allati wajahaha Hizballah ila-l-Mustad'afin fi Lubnan wa-l-Alam",
published February 16, 1985 in al-Safir (Beirut), and also in a
separate brochure. It carries the unmistakable imprint of Sheikh
Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, the Hizballah mentor, and is inspired by
his book Ma'maal-Quwma fi-l-Islam (Beirut 1979). See also his article
in al-Muntalak (Beirut), October 1986.
Our Identity
We are often asked: Who are we, the Hizballah, and what is our
identity? We are the sons of the umma (Muslim community) - the party of
God (Hizb Allah) the vanguard of which was made victorious by God in
Iran. There the vanguard succeeded to lay down the bases of a Muslim
state which plays a central role in the world. We obey the orders of
one leader, wise and just, that of our tutor and faqih (jurist) who
fulfills all the necessary conditions: Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini. God
save him!
By virtue of the above, we do not constitute an organized and closed
party in Lebanon. nor are we a tight political cadre. We are an umma
linked to the Muslims of the whole world by the solid doctrinal and
religious connection of Islam, whose message God wanted to be fulfilled
by the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., Muhammad. This is why whatever
touches or strikes the Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines
and elsewhere reverberates throughout the whole Muslim umma of
which we are an integral part. Our behavior is dictated to us by legal
principles laid down by the light of an overall political conception
defined by the leading jurist (wilayat al-faqih).
As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Koran, the Sunna and the
legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation (marja'
al-taqlid). Our culture is crystal clear. It is not complicated and is
accessible to all.
No one can imagine the importance of our military potential as our
military apparatus is not separate from our overall social fabric. Each
of us is a fighting soldier. And when it becomes necessary to carry out
the Holy War, each of us takes up his assignment in the fight in
accordance with the injunctions of the Law, and that in the framework
of the mission carried out under the tutelage of the Commanding Jurist.
Our Fight
The US has tried, through its local agents, to
persuade the people that those who crushed their arrogance in Lebanon
and frustrated their conspiracy against the oppressed (mustad'afin)
were nothing but a bunch of fanatic terrorists whose sole aim is to
dynamite bars and destroy slot machines. Such suggestions cannot and
will not mislead our umma, for the whole world knows that whoever
wishes to oppose the US, that arrogant superpower, cannot indulge in
marginal acts which may make it deviate from its major objective. We
combat abomination and we shall tear out its very roots, its primary
roots, which are the US. All attempts made to drive us into marginal
actions will fail, especially as our determination to fight the US is
solid.
We declare openly and loudly that we are an umma which fears God only
and is by no means ready to tolerate injustice, aggression and
humiliation. America, its Atlantic Pact allies, and the Zionist entity
in the holy land of Palestine, attacked us and continue to do so
without respite. Their aim is to make us eat dust continually. This is
why we are, more and more, in a state of permanent alert in order to
repel aggression and defend our religion, our existence, our dignity.
They invaded our country, destroyed our villages, slit the throats of
our children, violated our sanctuaries and appointed masters over our
people who committed the worst massacres against our umma. They do not
cease to give support to these allies of Israel, and do not enable us
to decide our future according to our own wishes.
In a single night the Israelis and the Phalangists executed thousands
of our sons, women and children in Sabra and Shatilla. No international
organization protested or denounced this ferocious massacre in an
effective manner, a massacre perpetrated with the tacit accord of
America's European allies, which had retreated a few days, maybe even a
few hours earlier, from the Palestinian camps. The Lebanese defeatists
accepted putting the camps under the protection of that crafty fox, the
US envoy Philip Habib.
We have no alternative but to confront aggression by sacrifice. The
coordination between the Phalangists and Israel continues and develops.
A hundred thousand victims - this is the approximate balance sheet of
crimes committed by them and by the US against us. Almost half a
million Muslims were forced to leave their homes. Their quarters were
virtually totally destroyed in Nab'a, my own Beirut suburb, as well as
in Burj Hammud, Dekonaneh, Tel Zaatar, Sinbay, Ghawarina and Jubeil -
all in areas controlled today by the 'Lebanese Forces',. The Zionist
occupation then launched its usurpatory invasion of Lebanon in full and
open collusion with the Phalanges. The latter condemned all attempts to
resist the invading forces. They participated in the implementation of
certain Israeli plans in order to accomplish its Lebanese dream and
acceded to all Israeli requests in order to gain power.
And this is, in fact, what happened. Bashir Jumayyil, that butcher,
seized power with the help also of OPEC countries and the Jumayyil
family. Bashir tried to improve his ugly image by joining the
six-member Committee of Public Safety presided over by former President
Elias Sarkis, which was nothing but an American-Israeli bridge borrowed
by the Phalangists in order to control the oppressed. Our people could
not tolerate humiliation any more. It destroyed the oppressors, the
invaders and their lackeys. But the US persisted in its folly and
installed Amin Jumayyil to replace his brother. Some of his first so
called achievements were to destroy the homes of refugees and other
displaced persons, attack mosques, and order the army to bombard the
southern suburbs of Beirut, where the oppressed people resided. He
invited European troops to help him against us and signed the May 17th,
[1984] accord with Israel making Lebanon an American protectorate.
Our people could not bear any more treachery. It decided to oppose
infidelity - be it French, American or Israeli - by striking at their
headquarters and launching a veritable war of resistance against the
Occupation forces. Finally, the enemy had to decide to retreat by
stages.
Our Objectives
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. The sons of our umma are
now in a state of growing confrontation with them, and will remain so
until the realization of the following three objectives:
(a) to expel the Americans. the French and
their allies definitely from Lebanon, putting an end to any colonialist
entity on our land;
(b) to submit the Phalanges to a just power and
bring them all to justice for the crimes they have perpetrated against
Muslims and Christians;
(c) 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 tentative
attempts of imperialistic infiltration into our country.
These are Lebanon's objectives; those are its
enemies. As for our friends, they are all the world's oppressed
peoples. Our friends are also those who combat our enemies and who
defend us from their evil. Towards these friends, individuals as well
as organizations, we turn and say:
Friends, wherever you are in Lebanon... we are
in agreement with you on the great and necessary objectives: destroying
American hegemony in our land; putting an end to the burdensome Israeli
Occupation; beating back all the Phalangists' attempts to monopolize
power and administration.
Even though we have, friends, quite different viewpoints as to the
means of the struggle, on the levels upon which it must be carried out,
we should surmount these tiny divergencies and consolidate cooperation
between us in view of the grand design.
We are an umma which adheres to the message of
Islam. We want all the oppressed to be able to study the divine message
in order to bring justice, peace and tranquillity to the world. This is
why we don't want to impose Islam upon anybody, as much as we that
others impose upon us their convictions and their political systems. We
don't want Islam to reign in Lebanon by force as is the case with the
Maronites today. This is the minimum that we can accept in order to be
able to accede by legal means to realize our ambitions, to save Lebanon
from its dependence upon East and West, to put an end to foreign
occupation and to adopt a regime freely wanted by the people of
Lebanon.
This is our perception of the present state of affairs. This is the
Lebanon we envision. In the light of our conceptions, our opposition to
the present system is the function of two factors; (1) the present
regime is the product of an arrogance so unjust that no reform or
modification can remedy it. It should be changed radically, and (2)
World Imperialism which is hostile to Islam.
We consider that all opposition in Lebanon voiced in the name of reform
can only profit, ultimately, the present system. All such opposition
which operates within the framework of the conservation and
safeguarding of the present constitution without demanding changes at
the level of the very foundation of the regime is, hence, an opposition
of pure formality which cannot satisfy the interests of the oppressed
masses. Likewise, any opposition which confronts the present regime but
within the limits fixed by it, is an illusory opposition which renders
a great service to the Jumayyil system. Moreover, we cannot be
concerned by any proposition of political reform which accepts the
rotten system actually in effect. We could not care less about the
creation of this or that governmental coalition or about the
participation of this or that political personality in some ministerial
post, which is but a part of this unjust regime.
The politics followed by the chiefs of political Maronism through the
'Lebanese Front' and the 'Lebanese Forces' cannot guarantee peace and
tranquillity for the Christians of Lebanon, whereas it is predicated
upon 'asabiyya (narrow-minded particularism), on confessional
privileges and on the alliance with colonialism. The Lebanese crisis
has proven that confessional privileges are one of the principal causes
of the great explosion which ravaged the country. It also proved that
outside help was of no use to the Christians of Lebanon, just when they
need it most. The bell tolled for the fanatic Christians to rid
themselves of denominational allegiance and of illusion deriving from
the monopolization of privileges to the detriment of other communities.
The Christians should answer the appeal from heaven and have recourse
to reason instead of arms, to persuasion instead of confessionalism.
To the Christians
If you, Christians, cannot tolerate that
Muslims share with you certain domains of government, Allah has also
made it intolerable for Muslims to participate in an unjust regime,
unjust for you and for us, in a regime which is not predicated upon the
prescriptions (ahkam) of religion and upon the basis of the Law (the
Shari’a) as laid down by Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets.
If you search for justice, who is more just than Allah? It is He who
sent down from the sky the message of Islam through his successive
prophets in order that they judge the people and give everyone his
rights. If you were deceived and misled into believing that we
anticipate vengeance against you - your fears are unjustified. For
those of you who are peaceful, continue to live in our midst without
anybody even thinking to trouble you.
We don't wish you evil. We call upon you to embrace Islam so that you
can be happy in this world and the next. If you refuse to adhere to
Islam, maintain your ties with the Muslims and don't take part in any
activity against them. Free yourselves from the consequences of hateful
confessionalism. Banish from your hearts all fanaticism and
parochialism. Open your hearts to our Call (da'wa) which we address to
you. Open yourselves up to Islam where you'll find salvation and
happiness upon earth and in the hereafter. We extend this invitation
also to all the oppressed among the non-Muslims. As for those who
belong to Islam only formally, we exhort them to adhere to Islam in
religious practice and to renounce all fanaticisms which are rejected
by our religion.
World Scene
We reject both the USSR and the US, both
Capitalism and Communism, for both are incapable of laying the
foundations for a just society.
With special vehemence we reject UNIFIL as they were sent by world
arrogance to occupy areas evacuated by Israel and serve for the latter
as a buffer zone. They should be treated much like the Zionists. All
should know that the goals of the Phalangists regime do not carry any
weight with the Combatants of the Holy War, i.e., the Islamic
resistance. This is the quagmire which awaits all foreign intervention.
There, then, are our conceptions and our objectives which serve as our
basis and inspire our march. Those who accept them should know that all
rights belong to Allah and He bestows them. Those who reject them,
we'll be patient with them, till Allah decides between us and the
people of injustice.
The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel (See ICT Note)
We see in Israel the vanguard of the United
States in our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought
until the hated ones get what they deserve. This enemy is the greatest
danger to our future generations and to the destiny of our lands,
particularly as it glorifies the ideas of settlement and expansion,
initiated in Palestine, and yearning outward to the extension of the
Great Israel, from the Euphrates to the Nile.
Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states that the
Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on lands
wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of the Muslim
people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this entity is
obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire, and no
peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.
We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel, and regard
all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation is
nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation
of Palestine. Therefore we oppose and reject the Camp David Agreements,
the proposals of King Fahd, the Fez and Reagan plan, Brezhnev's and the
French-Egyptian proposals, and all other programs that include the
recognition (even the implied recognition) of the Zionist entity.
ICT note:
This paragraph did not appear in the original translation published by
the Jerusalem Quarterly. It is possible that this omission is due to
the fact that the source (al-Safir) for the translation did not include
this text, which appears in the original Hizballah Program. The
original Program was published on 16 February 1985. The organization's
spokesman, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Amin read the Program at the al-Ouzai
Mosque in west Beirut and afterwards it was published as an open letter
"to all the Opressed in Lebanon and the World". It should be emphasised
that none of Hizballah's web sites have published the full text of the
organization's program, and they prefer to publish the 1996 electoral
program which was intended for the specific propoganda campaign before
the Lebanese Parliamentary elections in 1996
