The "Crime" of Liberation
Mohamed Nazzal
The world was moving in a certain direction - and this region was at the heart of it - until a "crime" took place. Everything changed. All the blueprints from all the meetings were scattered - everything hidden was revealed. Something new was about to happen to the "New World" order. That was 17 years ago.
We have been paying the price ever since that date. All the blood spilled in the region, to this day, is the result of that "crime". The world and the Arabs - regimes and people - were not ready to accept that ‘Israel' could be broken. Regimes have been exposed. Over a century worth of efforts - broadcasting the propaganda of weakness - was abolished in a day. ‘Israel' was driven out of Lebanon, by force, by resistance, unconditionally! This can happen! What will we say to our people now?
Let us resort to sectarian strife. This was the thinking of the regimes. But the people were addicted to their helplessness and fear as they reconciled with the enslavement of their backwardness. And the one who will come afterwards to move the pains of memory, from a catastrophe to a setback to an invasion, and mountains of false promises, disappointments and failure will be cursed. Their unspoken slogan of humiliation was "we can't". These are the people, here. Forget relying on them.
The pains of the past have made the liberation an occasion inappropriate for its time. It came late. No cause remains the same as it has been passed on from generation to generation. This is the tax we have to pay for time. This is about the honest people, who have been exhausted by their truthfulness, and have become ill. As for the low lives who have always harmed the resistance, even in ideas, that's another story.
At the moment of liberation, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah presented the victory to "all"; to "every Lebanese"; to the "nation". He was making the argument: "Yes we can". You cannot expose a lowlife for his wrong doing without him hating you. Sayyed was, and may still be, dealing with Arab regimes, specifically the Gulf, as something other than the enemy. He is not alone in this. This is a general conviction among all "Unioinist" during the conflict.
Internally in Lebanon, there has been a lie being repeated since the liberation which is "everyone was with the resistance". But isn't it time to refute this debauchery? Hasn't the moment come to end courtesy for the sake of histor? The story of the liberation will be passed down from generation to generation and thus needs to be safeguarded from distortion. It is against nature if you were to be victorious and someone else writes history. At least your history. No, no one was with the resistance except for the resistance. Only the resistance fighters. Who shot at the resistance under the airport bridge in 1993? Who committed that massacre? Forget the killers, but that happened under Rafik Hariri's government, meaning moral responsibility. Who planned, and later gave orders, to the army to hit the resistance in the south. Then it did not happen because the "soldiers" refused to implement the order? Who adopted the "Jezzine First" option?
This was in 1997 (and the debate continued until 1999). These are things that many people who are in their 20s would not know. They must know, at least who wants to know from them. Jezzine is not a Muslim area but a Christian one. Some were shouting and calling for a unilateral ‘Israeli' withdrawal, with restrictions and conditions, that is with a special security agreement. We had a patriarch who always said - in a statement and not a leak: "The area of Jezzine is caught between two fires, the ‘Israeli' occupation's fire and the fire of Hezbollah, and in both cases the innocent are killed and the blood of the martyrs is shed." Who are the martyrs? The likes of Akel Hashem, a colonel in the "Lahad militia" (the ‘Israeli' sandbags). At the burial ceremony of the agent who was assassinated by the resistance, the Patriarch will participate - represented by one of them - and his speech will be delivered in the southern village of Debel (occupied back then): "I stop at the life of the deceased (the agent Akel Hashem). We knew him as a man of faith and a kind, compassionate father and a loving human being.
He has washed with his blood the lands of this region ... I offer my deepest condolences to the late General Antoine Lahad." So this was how things were back then. It was "normal" for a deputy and a minister (Nadeem Salem) to come out and call on Hezbollah to stop operations targeting ‘Israeli' agents in Jezzine, because it "harms the city and does not liberate it." This is one of many. And if memory serves, you would hear again and again that "everyone resisted the occupation". No one was with the resistance except the resistance. Those who supported it, genuinely, and paid the price - those who were martyred and those living - are also resistance. They are known.
In 1996, the whole world met in Sharm el-Sheikh against the principle of resistance. They decided it was "terrorism". This was before Donald Trump visited Saudi Arabia. The green light was given to the "peace makers", from the West and the Arabs, to strike the resistance. Hence, the "Qana massacre" and the many that came after. The resistance remained. On this day, we won in 2000. The liberation came. ‘Israel' is weaker than a spider's web. We have done it, we who resisted, paid and are still paying the price of that "crime".
Al-Akhbar Newspaper, Translated by website team
