What Does Nasarallah Want?

Following the assassination of Imad Mughniyah on Tuesday night in Syria, Hassan Nasarallah, the leader of Hezbollah (“God’s Legion” in Arabic) threatened Israel in a very unique speech over the Al-Jazzera and Hezbollah TV networks.

Sheik Nasarallah; the man to blame for struggling Lebanon. Image courtesy of Flickr user delayed gratification published under the CC license.

In his speech, the vicious murderer and master-terrorist, Nasarallah had the guts to quote David Ben-Gurion, the first prime minister and one of the founders of the State of Israel. Nasarallah wanted to surprise us with his knowledge of Israeli society, as one www.Haaretz.com reporter described as another effort to impress his followers with the fact the Israel lost the war in Lebanon (August 2006). Nasarallah, who declared a war against Israel, also said that,

His (Mughniyah) blood would lead to the elimination of Israel.

Well, we have heard Ahmadinejad (Iran’s president) say the same, so this is not of a surprise anymore.

But does Nasarallah have an action plan? Well, if we are to rely on the man’s speech, he offered Israel an ongoing battle:

If you want an open-ended war, it will be an open-ended war.

To me, it is sound like exactly what we have already known and sadly experienced on this border for the last 20 or so years.

Hezbollah was long established in the region, and guess who suffered the most? The Lebanese people in general, and the residents of South-Lebanon, in particular. After the first Israel-Lebanon war in 1982, when the Syrians and the Lebanese armies were defeated from the border and Hezbollah took over. The South-Lebanese welcomed the Hezbollah with flowers. Many opened their homes for hosting Hezbollah fighters and offered their basement to use for artillery storage.

Hezbollah in fact, started as a guerrilla terror organization. It is mainly supported by the Shiite party in Lebanon, and financed by Iran and Syria. Syria also holds a diplomatic interest in the region with its four decades of control over the majority of the Lebanese territory. As per today, Hezbollah runs the schools and has built an efficient social system to support many weak communities, in terms of education, health-care and municipality.

And what did they receive in return? The city of Beirut, which was once was considered as the “Paris of the Middle-East” where hotels were built and tourism soared. This same region became an area of war and hatred, with corruption, instability and a negative growth of GDP. South Lebanon is clearly one of the poorest areas of the world, and offers a quality of life equal to that of a third world region.

In early 2008, Lebanon is a divided country, as much as Iraq. At one side there are those who support Prime Minster Fouad Seniora. They hope to put an end to Syrian involvement in the area and blame the Syrian government with the responsibility for the murdering of the former president Rafik Harriri (three years ago). On the other side there are government opponents; the Sunnis groups, and Hezbollah supporters.

Lebanon, has lacked a president since November and any resolution to agree on an election date has failed. But the biggest concern I have is not if Nasarallah would choose to use his party popularity to gain more control in the new government, or if he will simply wait and see what compilation with the current prime minister’s call for unity would bring.

It is more of concern to me to know that, in this situation, it is up to this man’s determination whether or not Lebanon would go into another war.