"Hezbollah has yet to tell its story, about which millions of Arabs and Muslims unfortunately remain ignorant. Not enough is known about the long list of martyrs it lost in its 20-year struggle against the Zionist occupation in South Lebanon. Too few remain unaware that such sacrifices have literally changed the history of our region forever."
Supporters of Lebanon's Hezbollah movement shout slogans while waving Hezbollah flags in Mashghara in the western Bekaa Valley on 25 May 2013 during a ceremony marking the 13th anniversary of Israel's military withdrawal from Lebanon. (Photo: Mahmoud Zayyat)
The Arab press no longer talks about the “Zionist entity,” as Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah calls it, or even “Israel,” as they tend to refer to it. Today, our petroleum-fueled media is single-mindedly focused on the Hezbollah menace.
On the day I write these sentences, for example, there are at least six opinion pieces directed at the Resistance in al-Hayat and Asharq Alawsat, the two main Saudi-funded, pan-Arab newspapers.
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Over the past five months, former editor of Asharq Alawsat Tariq al-Homayed has written 30 articles about Hezbollah. Abdul-Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of the Saudi al-Arabiya satellite channel, has penned 15 Hezbollah-related articles over the same period in the same newspaper. Eight out of the last 10 articles written by al-Hayat columnist Hazem Saghieh have focused on the Resistance.
In the last week of May, the Gulf’s official outlets went into a Hezbollah frenzy, using every possible media outlet to heap abuse on the party, with some of the heavy-hitters developing new theories to revise its long history of resistance. Even Bahrain’s foreign minister gave his two cents, daringly tweeting that “Nasrallah is a terrorist.”
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Al-Jazeera’s buffoonish talk show host, Faisal al-Qassem, panicked when he did not get the answer he was hoping for to his show’s survey question, “Do you think Hezbollah is now seen as an enemy by the majority of Arabs and Muslims?” He then appealed to one of Saudi’s more distasteful clerics to help him boost the numbers, producing the desired results just in time.
Aside from using the tried and true method of simply changing the facts – like outright adding their own content to Nasrallah speeches – there is a new trend in anti-Hezbollah propaganda today, which says the party has not so much changed since its liberation struggle against Israel, but that Arabs were fooled by the Resistance and are only now discovering its true nature.
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In a recent piece, Saghieh gives this brilliant theory a whirl, arguing that Hezbollah wasn’t really after liberation. The Resistance, he writes, “was not too comfortable” with Israel leaving Lebanon. Rashed makes the same argument, suggesting that the Arab masses were deceived in the past, and only now are they beginning to see the ugly truth: The party is nothing more than a sectarian tool in the service of Iran.
So, according to this incredible theory, Hezbollah somehow managed to hoodwink millions of Arabs for 30 years. Or better yet, that the Resistance lost thousands of its fighters in hundreds of operations against the occupation, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t truly seeking liberation.
Another approach that is increasingly common in outlets like al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, Asharq Alawsat, and their ilk is to treat what is essentially a political disagreement over the crisis in Syria as a purely sectarian one. Increasingly, they have taken to hosting Shia clerics opposed to Hezbollah instead of political commentators, as if the problem is religious in nature.
In the face of all this, Hezbollah has yet to tell its story, about which millions of Arabs and Muslims unfortunately remain ignorant. Not enough is known about the long list of martyrs it lost in its 20-year struggle against the Zionist occupation in South Lebanon. Too few remain unaware that such sacrifices have literally changed the history of our region forever.
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect Al-Akhbar's editorial policy.
Want to publish a (thoughtful) response to one of our opinion pieces? Send your contribution to our Submissions editor.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.
On the day I write these sentences, for example, there are at least six opinion pieces directed at the Resistance in al-Hayat and Asharq Alawsat, the two main Saudi-funded, pan-Arab newspapers.
Over the past five months, former editor of Asharq Alawsat Tariq al-Homayed has written 30 articles about Hezbollah. Abdul-Rahman al-Rashed, general manager of the Saudi al-Arabiya satellite channel, has penned 15 Hezbollah-related articles over the same period in the same newspaper. Eight out of the last 10 articles written by al-Hayat columnist Hazem Saghieh have focused on the Resistance.In the last week of May, the Gulf’s official outlets went into a Hezbollah frenzy, using every possible media outlet to heap abuse on the party, with some of the heavy-hitters developing new theories to revise its long history of resistance. Even Bahrain’s foreign minister gave his two cents, daringly tweeting that “Nasrallah is a terrorist.”
Al-Jazeera’s buffoonish talk show host, Faisal al-Qassem, panicked when he did not get the answer he was hoping for to his show’s survey question, “Do you think Hezbollah is now seen as an enemy by the majority of Arabs and Muslims?” He then appealed to one of Saudi’s more distasteful clerics to help him boost the numbers, producing the desired results just in time.
Aside from using the tried and true method of simply changing the facts – like outright adding their own content to Nasrallah speeches – there is a new trend in anti-Hezbollah propaganda today, which says the party has not so much changed since its liberation struggle against Israel, but that Arabs were fooled by the Resistance and are only now discovering its true nature.
In a recent piece, Saghieh gives this brilliant theory a whirl, arguing that Hezbollah wasn’t really after liberation. The Resistance, he writes, “was not too comfortable” with Israel leaving Lebanon. Rashed makes the same argument, suggesting that the Arab masses were deceived in the past, and only now are they beginning to see the ugly truth: The party is nothing more than a sectarian tool in the service of Iran.So, according to this incredible theory, Hezbollah somehow managed to hoodwink millions of Arabs for 30 years. Or better yet, that the Resistance lost thousands of its fighters in hundreds of operations against the occupation, but at the end of the day, it wasn’t truly seeking liberation.
Another approach that is increasingly common in outlets like al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya, Asharq Alawsat, and their ilk is to treat what is essentially a political disagreement over the crisis in Syria as a purely sectarian one. Increasingly, they have taken to hosting Shia clerics opposed to Hezbollah instead of political commentators, as if the problem is religious in nature.
In the face of all this, Hezbollah has yet to tell its story, about which millions of Arabs and Muslims unfortunately remain ignorant. Not enough is known about the long list of martyrs it lost in its 20-year struggle against the Zionist occupation in South Lebanon. Too few remain unaware that such sacrifices have literally changed the history of our region forever.
The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect Al-Akhbar's editorial policy.
Want to publish a (thoughtful) response to one of our opinion pieces? Send your contribution to our Submissions editor.
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.