Hezbollah: "Defying Occupation Through The Recognized Right For Self-Defence"
Lebanon's best hope under "a neglectful and derelict government"
My reading group for selected literature of resistance just finished Hizbullah: The Story from Within by Naim Qassem, current Secretary-General and a co-founder of the party. It’s admittedly out of date — published in 2005, with a long preface to the English translation that brings the narrative forward to 2008. But some things haven’t changed — Lebanon still labors under “a neglectful and derelict government” — while many current events are foretold in Qassem’s comprehensive account.
Born of resistance to Israeli occupation and land theft, Hezbollah (however you want to spell it in English) is, in that sense, an elder brother to Hamas. Both political parties arose from the desire to respond to Israeli occupation, both are focused on resistance by many means, and both are notorious in the West for their successful armed resistance. Cue the Zionist bots: Do you condemn Hezbollah? No, I do not.
From “Destroy, displace, dismantle: Israel’s Gaza doctrine comes to Lebanon” by Jonathan Whittall in Aljazeera March 2026:
In the first Lebanon war in the 1980s, Israel sought to install a sympathetic government. Gaza has shown that Israel has abandoned that aspiration. The goal is no longer to determine who governs a territory but to ensure that no coherent governance exists at all. ..
Israel has issued evacuation orders for the entirety of southern Lebanon and southern Beirut.. But Lebanon is not Gaza. Hamas was fighting with an improvised arsenal inside a besieged strip of land, and this already proved challenging for Israeli forces. Hezbollah commands more sophisticated weaponry, hardened infrastructure, and decades of preparation for this kind of war. It has shown it can absorb heavy blows and strike back, surprising both Israel and outside observers with the depth of its capabilities. Israeli ground operations in southern Lebanon and the Bekaa have already met significant resistance. It is here that the doctrine may encounter its limits.. through asymmetric military reality.
From the substack Palestine Will Be Free:
More than half of the 1,000 square km that the Israelis have seized since the Al-Aqsa Flood operation of the Palestinian resistance is in Lebanon..
Last November, extremist settler groups were advertising land sale in southern Lebanon. “Annotated maps shared by the settler group have been shared on various websites and social media platforms seen by The New Arab, and show areas including the west Beqaa, Hasbaya, Chebaa farms, Tyre, Bint Jbeil, and Marjayoun labelled with Hebrew names,” The New Arab reported at the time. “The map states that each plot of land will be priced at around 300,000 Shekels, or $80,000.”
The vision should be for freeing the land and man, whatever the cost may be, not for acquiescence and submission to an abject life.
Qassem’s most interesting point for this reader was an explanation of how martyrdom functions for Shia Muslims as a sort of kryptonite that neutralizes the efficacy of Zionist violence and threats.
It is only normal for [Zionists] to launch an organized and intensive assault destined to condemn martyrdom, describing it in various notorious ways. For the notion is a weapon that is primarily beyond their control and, secondarily, one that cannot be defeated..
The enemy only possesses the weapon of inflicting danger on life, and such weapon is only effective with those who seek life. It is consequently futile to combat those who believe in martyrdom.
And I was reminded of Mao’s On Contradiction, another text my group studied, which advised putting aside differences while the battle for survival still rages on. Or in Mao’s terms, when the primary contradiction is still between the forces of imperialism on the one hand and diverse resistance groups on the other. Qassem explains Hezbollah’s big tent approach:
By assigning the priority to resistance for the sake of liberation, and thus postponing debates about the future and strategies in anticipation of the fruits of confrontation with the Israeli enemy, all concerned would have a chance to participate in the struggle against the Zionist project, each from their respective positions and within the boundaries of their convictions and capabilities.
People in the West have been told so much nonsense about the alleged desire to impose “Sharia law” on non-believers that Qassem and Hezbollah's views on not proselytizing interested me. One manifestation of this in the party’s early days:
Hizbullah suffered the discontent of its family of supporters as a result of tense relations between Palestinians and Shi‘is existing prior to the Israeli invasion [of Lebanon]. Pressure groups insisted that Hizbullah participate in the war against Palestinians in the camps. However, the basic priority on which the Party was founded was that of combating Israel. Any internal strife, whatever its justifications, was simply refused.
It’s a resistance grounded in ethics. What a sharp contrast with U.S. warmongering for imperial gains and corporate profits.
we, in the leadership of Hizbullah, do not spare our children and save them for the future. We pride ourselves when our sons reach the frontline, and stand, heads high, when they fall martyrs.
Consider where 47’s and Netanyahu’s draft age sons are while your neighbors’ kids die on the front lines of the Zionist war on Iran.
Hezbollah isn’t going away anytime soon. On the topic of U.S. and Israeli demands that Hezbollah be disarmed, Qassem had this to say twenty years ago:
Experience has clearly shown that Resolution 425, diplomatic efforts and US promises did not liberate Lebanon from a twenty-two-year occupation. Lebanon was liberated through resistance and public support for such resistance.. Since we are in possession of such effective means, why would we intentionally incapacitate them? What do we fear by maintaining them? And who could guarantee a deterrence of Israel should we lose them? [emphasis mine].
Why, indeed?
Exactly. Cause and effect. Massacres, dispossess and genocide creates RESISTANCE. Basic common sense.
Excellent! Pleased you have read Mao's On Contradiction." Next up: his "On the Correct Handling of Contradictions Among the People," This is one of the most significant influences in my own political evolution.