It Is A Day of Hope For Continuing The Liberation!

By Pierre Abi Saab, Al-Akhbar Newspaper

This year’s commemoration of the liberation of southern Lebanon from “Israeli” occupation, which falls on May 25, comes at a time of difficult national and regional conditions. Perhaps these present-day challenges give the Resistance and Liberation Day greater importance and a broader dimension, at an emotional, political, symbolic and strategic level. After nineteen years, there are still people who will spare no effort to undermine the heroic moment that paved the way for subsequent historical achievements and victories on Lebanese land, along its borders and in the Arab strategic depth. There are those who want to erase a historic moment that upset the balance of power in this existential and fateful struggle, which the Lebanese people have been fighting for the past seven decades, in order to subjugate colonialism, liberate the land and restore dignity and rights.

May 25 is the culmination of our people’s painful and costly struggle against a brutal, bloody, racist and arrogant enemy that has founded its entity on massacres, settlements and Apartheid. It took some of them decades to discover this fact with the adoption of the Jewish State Law. There are still those that have not seen it yet! May 25 is a victory over the colonial West, which is biased in favor of our murderer. The West protects it, supports it, arms it, covers up its crimes, justifies its massacres and legitimizes its criminal policies. And finally, May 25, is a defeat for the regimes of tyranny and surrender in the Arab world. These regimes are responsible for perpetuating the lie of ‘“Israeli” superiority”. That myth, which began to teeter in 2000 before finally shattering in the summer of 2006, fed itself for a long time on the inability of the Arab regimes, their weakness and collusion with the occupation. “Israel” is trying to pick up the pieces and repair the cracks by causing civil strife in our countries and utilizing Arab betrayals that have come out openly in recent years.

On May 25, 2019, more than ever, we realize that liberation is a difficult and an ongoing process. There are those who celebrate the occasion shamefully in Lebanon, and dare not name those who liberated the land and actually defeated the Takfiris. There are those who face the occasion with denial and disregard, as if it never happened. Do they prefer the “Israeli” occupation? Of course not, except for a small handful of conspirators, mercenaries and agents. The rest are hostages of fanaticism and interests, campaigns of ignorance and brainwashing, colonial pressures, national illiteracy and perhaps cowardice, regardless of their rank or position in the decision-making circle. If it is true that resisting the occupation in any place or time does not wait for a popular referendum or consensus of the elites who have been defeated or preoccupied with increasing their privileges, the task of fortifying the Mujahideen who conquered “Israel” depends on building national awareness that transcends regions, sectarian barricades and wraps around the resistance, embraces it and supports it. Resistance also means confronting efforts to infiltrate that awareness, exposing the distortion discourse that obscures the essence of the conflict and exposing the mechanisms that promote a culture of surrender and submission.

The regimes that surrendered to “Israel” are the same regimes that exploit their people and enslave their citizens. Lebanon is an example of that. The sectarian system incapable of confronting “Israel” is the same corrupt system that starved the Lebanese people and is today confidently dragging them into disaster. The people who have offered martyrs and resistance fighters are threatened with poverty and deprivation. It is the responsibility of the resistance to liberate the people and the land as well as to resist political injustice, just as it resisted the oppression and brutality of the occupation. On the other hand, the struggle for social and civil rights as well as the development of the society towards greater justice, democracy and progress cannot be achieved or obtain national legitimacy if it is not based on a fundamental principle. It may even result in an unknown destination for a disguised subordination and a dangerous shallow display. This principle is: “Israel” is the enemy. Resisting it with all means is an individual, collective, religious, secular, civil, partisan and political responsibility.

May 25^th is the culmination of sacrifice and heroism that began with the national resistance, leftist and nationalist, and then continued and expanded and grew with the Mujahideen of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon who broke the myth of “Israeli” superiority. Thanks to them, the enemy is now fading behind its defensive lines. It is being increasingly isolated inside the ghetto, surrounded by walls and fences, trying to compensate in misguided ways all it lost in the decade of decisive Arab victories. The resistance today stands against the American cowboy who thinks he can still subjugate the world. This alone is proof of the resistance’s firmness and strength as well as the legitimacy of its struggle.

The soft wars, disinformation campaigns, global fraud, internal collusions, strategy of extortion, siege and sanctions are but a desperate attempt to circumvent and weaken the resistance and prevent it from continuing its struggle. At this difficult juncture when a group of white fundamentalists surround the happy idiot in the White House, who is beating the drums of war against Iran, we celebrate the Resistance and Liberation Day loudly.

We also celebrate that key moment, which saw the defeat of the enemy, paying attention to the need to maintain, consolidate and complete it by all means! On May 25, we celebrate the coming defeats of that vast cosmic machine that is desperately trying to besiege Hezbollah. We recall the images of the liberation of Khiam Detention Center with its high symbolism. We imagine another liberation that ‘must come’ in the near future. The liberation of the Kafrshuba Hills and the Shabaa Farms is a foregone conclusion today. All eyes are directed at the occupied territories, which are within range of a rifle of the resistance fighters. We look forward to the moment when we will celebrate the liberation of all of Palestine. May 25 is the day of hope of continuing resistance and liberation!