40 Years On: The History of Hezbollah’s Emergence [Part 1]

By Mohammad Youssef

June this year marks a very important historical event, the 40th anniversary of the advent of the Islamic resistance or the emergence of Hezbollah; the first and the most important and the mightiest and most influential non state actor in the world, as described by western sources.

Why all of this? Is it a kind of exaggeration? This is what we will be discussing in this article.

In June 1982, the ‘Israeli’ occupation forces invaded Lebanon and reached its capital Beirut. The leader of the ‘Israeli’ invading forces entered the presidential palace in Baabda and took pictures sitting in the presidential office.

The announced ‘Israeli’ goal behind the invasion named “Operation Galilee” was to ward off the threat of the Palestinian shells away from the border with the Occupied Palestine. Nonetheless, as the time passed, the real goals started to be revealed gradually.

After occupying Palestine, ‘Israel’ wanted to annex Lebanon as a whole into its western-backed colonialist expansionist strategy.

The ‘Israeli’ leadership planned and succeeded to impose a so-called ‘peace’ treaty with Lebanon. The treaty was known as the May 17th Treaty. This treaty would definitely compromise the country’s sovereignty and would also violate its basic rights as an independent state and would threaten its very existence on the long run.

Lebanon was once and for a long time called the weakest ring, the country whose official policy and philosophy was that its strength is in its weaknesses, and the country which the ‘Israelis’ paid the less attention to as a threat to their plans and made series of jokes mocking its fragility and weakness.

This very country has presented a full surprise to the occupiers, not a good one of course. Thanks to the resistance leaders.

The ‘Israeli’ occupation forces, from the very first hours of their invasion, have been confronted by the resistance of many parties inside Lebanon.

Operations were carried out by many resistance groups. One of the groups that has started the resistance early enough was a group of people who joined ranks to fight the occupation, they had something in common which is the religious commitment under the banner of what came to be known and called later, the Islamic Resistance, or Hezbollah.

The party spearheaded the resistance for a quite long time, and thus has become the vertebral column or the backbone of the resistance.

This group was characterized with high discipline and firm organization. It was not only distinguished with its close relation with the Islamic Republic of Iran, but also with the unshakable conviction of its followers in the Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist [Wilayat al Faqih] system which represents the legal and constitutional governmental system in Iran.

To be continued…