Our Identity
We are often asked: Who are we, the Hizballah, and what
is our identity? We are the sons of the umma (Muslim community)
- the party of God (Hizb Allah) the vanguard of which was made victorious
by God in Iran. There the vanguard succeeded to lay down the bases of a
Muslim state which plays a central role in the world. We obey the orders
of one leader, wise and just, that of our tutor and faqih (jurist)
who fulfills all the necessary conditions: Ruhollah Musawi Khomeini. God
save him!
By virtue of the above, we do not constitute an organized
and closed party in Lebanon. nor are we a tight political cadre. We are
an umma linked to the Muslims of the whole world by the solid doctrinal
and religious connection of Islam, whose message God wanted to be fulfilled
by the Seal of the Prophets, i.e., Muhammad. This is why whatever touches
or strikes the Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq, the Philippines and elsewhere
reverberates throughout the whole Muslim umma of which we are an
integral part. Our behavior is dictated to us by legal principles laid
down by the light of an overall political conception defined by the leading
jurist (wilayat al-faqih).
As for our culture, it is based on the Holy Koran, the
Sunna and the legal rulings of the faqih who is our source of imitation
(marja' al-taqlid). Our culture is crystal clear. It is not complicated
and is accessible to all.
No one can imagine the importance of our military potential
as our military apparatus is not separate from our overall social fabric.
Each of us is a fighting soldier. And when it becomes necessary to carry
out the Holy War, each of us takes up his assignment in the fight in accordance
with the injunctions of the Law, and that in the framework of the mission
carried out under the tutelage of the Commanding Jurist.
Our Fight
The US has tried, through its local agents, to persuade
the people that those who crushed their arrogance in Lebanon and frustrated
their conspiracy against the oppressed (mustad'afin) were nothing
but a bunch of fanatic terrorists whose sole aim is to dynamite bars and
destroy slot machines. Such suggestions cannot and will not mislead our
umma, for the whole world knows that whoever wishes to oppose the
US, that arrogant superpower, cannot indulge in marginal acts which may
make it deviate from its major objective. We combat abomination and we
shall tear out its very roots, its primary roots, which are the US. All
attempts made to drive us into marginal actions will fail, especially as
our determination to fight the US is solid.
We declare openly and loudly that we are an umma
which fears God only and is by no means ready to tolerate injustice, aggression
and humiliation. America, its Atlantic Pact allies, and the Zionist entity
in the holy land of Palestine, attacked us and continue to do so without
respite. Their aim is to make us eat dust continually. This is why we are,
more and more, in a state of permanent alert in order to repel aggression
and defend our religion, our existence, our dignity. They invaded our country,
destroyed our villages, slit the throats of our children, violated our
sanctuaries and appointed masters over our people who committed the worst
massacres against our umma. They do not cease to give support to
these allies of Israel, and do not enable us to decide our future according
to our own wishes.
In a single night the Israelis and the Phalangists executed
thousands of our sons, women and children in Sabra and Shatilla. No international
organization protested or denounced this ferocious massacre in an effective
manner, a massacre perpetrated with the tacit accord of America's European
allies, which had retreated a few days, maybe even a few hours earlier,
from the Palestinian camps. The Lebanese defeatists accepted putting the
camps under the protection of that crafty fox, the US envoy Philip Habib.
We have no alternative but to confront aggression by sacrifice.
The coordination between the Phalangists and Israel continues and develops.
A hundred thousand victims - this is the approximate balance sheet of crimes
committed by them and by the US against us. Almost half a million Muslims
were forced to leave their homes. Their quarters were virtually totally
destroyed in Nab'a, my own Beirut suburb, as well as in Burj Hammud, Dekonaneh,
Tel Zaatar, Sinbay, Ghawarina and Jubeil - all in areas controlled today
by the 'Lebanese Forces',. The Zionist occupation then launched its usurpatory
invasion of Lebanon in full and open collusion with the Phalanges. The
latter condemned all attempts to resist the invading forces. They participated
in the implementation of certain Israeli plans in order to accomplish its
Lebanese dream and acceded to all Israeli requests in order to gain power.
And this is, in fact, what happened. Bashir Jumayyil,
that butcher, seized power with the help also of OPEC countries and the
Jumayyil family. Bashir tried to improve his ugly image by joining the
six-member Committee of Public Safety presided over by former President
Elias Sarkis, which was nothing but an American-Israeli bridge borrowed
by the Phalangists in order to control the oppressed. Our people could
not tolerate humiliation any more. It destroyed the oppressors, the invaders
and their lackeys. But the US persisted in its folly and installed Amin
Jumayyil to replace his brother. Some of his first so called achievements
were to destroy the homes of refugees and other displaced persons, attack
mosques, and order the army to bombard the southern suburbs of Beirut,
where the oppressed people resided. He invited European troops to help
him against us and signed the May 17th, [1984] accord with Israel making
Lebanon an American protectorate.
Our people could not bear any more treachery. It decided
to oppose infidelity - be it French, American or Israeli - by striking
at their headquarters and launching a veritable war of resistance against
the Occupation forces. Finally, the enemy had to decide to retreat by stages.
Our Objectives
Let us put it truthfully: the sons of Hizhallah know
who are their major enemies in the Middle East - the Phalanges, Israel,
France and the US. The sons of our umma are now in a state of growing
confrontation with them, and will remain so until the realization of the
following three objectives:
(a) to expel the Americans. the French and their allies
definitely from Lebanon, putting an end to any colonialist entity on our
land;
(b) to submit the Phalanges to a just power and bring
them all to justice for the crimes they have perpetrated against Muslims
and Christians;
(c) to permit all the sons of our people to determine
their future and to choose in all the liberty the form of government they
desire. We call upon all of them to pick the option of Islamic government
which, alone, is capable of guaranteeing justice and liberty for all. Only
an Islamic regime can stop any further tentative attempts of imperialistic
infiltration into our country.
These are Lebanon's objectives; those are its enemies. As
for our friends, they are all the world's oppressed peoples. Our friends
are also those who combat our enemies and who defend us from their evil.
Towards these friends, individuals as well as organizations, we turn and
say:
Friends, wherever you are in Lebanon... we are in agreement
with you on the great and necessary objectives: destroying American hegemony
in our land; putting an end to the burdensome Israeli Occupation; beating
back all the Phalangists' attempts to monopolize power and administration.
Even though we have, friends, quite different viewpoints
as to the means of the struggle, on the levels upon which it must be carried
out, we should surmount these tiny divergencies and consolidate cooperation
between us in view of the grand design.
We are an
umma which adheres to the message of Islam.
We want all the oppressed to be able to study the divine message in order
to bring justice, peace and tranquillity to the world. This is why we don't
want to impose Islam upon anybody, as much as we that others impose upon
us their convictions and their political systems. We don't want Islam to
reign in Lebanon by force as is the case with the Maronites today. This
is the minimum that we can accept in order to be able to accede by legal
means to realize our ambitions, to save Lebanon from its dependence upon
East and West, to put an end to foreign occupation and to adopt a regime
freely wanted by the people of Lebanon.
This is our perception of the present state of affairs.
This is the Lebanon we envision. In the light of our conceptions, our opposition
to the present system is the function of two factors; (1) the present regime
is the product of an arrogance so unjust that no reform or modification
can remedy it. It should be changed radically, and (2) World Imperialism
which is hostile to Islam.
We consider that all opposition in Lebanon voiced in the
name of reform can only profit, ultimately, the present system. All such
opposition which operates within the framework of the conservation and
safeguarding of the present constitution without demanding changes at the
level of the very foundation of the regime is, hence, an opposition of
pure formality which cannot satisfy the interests of the oppressed masses.
Likewise, any opposition which confronts the present regime but within
the limits fixed by it, is an illusory opposition which renders a great
service to the Jumayyil system. Moreover, we cannot be concerned by any
proposition of political reform which accepts the rotten system actually
in effect. We could not care less about the creation of this or that governmental
coalition or about the participation of this or that political personality
in some ministerial post, which is but a part of this unjust regime.
The politics followed by the chiefs of political Maronism
through the 'Lebanese Front' and the 'Lebanese Forces' cannot guarantee
peace and tranquillity for the Christians of Lebanon, whereas it is predicated
upon 'asabiyya (narrow-minded particularism), on confessional privileges
and on the alliance with colonialism. The Lebanese crisis has proven that
confessional privileges are one of the principal causes of the great explosion
which ravaged the country. It also proved that outside help was of no use
to the Christians of Lebanon, just when they need it most. The bell tolled
for the fanatic Christians to rid themselves of denominational allegiance
and of illusion deriving from the monopolization of privileges to the detriment
of other communities. The Christians should answer the appeal from heaven
and have recourse to reason instead of arms, to persuasion instead of confessionalism.
To the Christians
If you, Christians, cannot tolerate that Muslims share
with you certain domains of government, Allah has also made it intolerable
for Muslims to participate in an unjust regime, unjust for you and for
us, in a regime which is not predicated upon the prescriptions (ahkam)
of religion and upon the basis of the Law (the Shari’a) as laid
down by Muhammad, the Seal of the Prophets. If you search for justice,
who is more just than Allah? It is He who sent down from the sky the message
of Islam through his successive prophets in order that they judge the people
and give everyone his rights. If you were deceived and misled into believing
that we anticipate vengeance against you - your fears are unjustified.
For those of you who are peaceful, continue to live in our midst without
anybody even thinking to trouble you.
We don't wish you evil. We call upon you to embrace Islam
so that you can be happy in this world and the next. If you refuse to adhere
to Islam, maintain your ties with the Muslims and don't take part in any
activity against them. Free yourselves from the consequences of hateful
confessionalism. Banish from your hearts all fanaticism and parochialism.
Open your hearts to our Call (da'wa) which we address to you. Open
yourselves up to Islam where you'll find salvation and happiness upon earth
and in the hereafter. We extend this invitation also to all the oppressed
among the non-Muslims. As for those who belong to Islam only formally,
we exhort them to adhere to Islam in religious practice and to renounce
all fanaticisms which are rejected by our religion.
World Scene
We reject both the USSR and the US, both Capitalism and
Communism, for both are incapable of laying the foundations for a just
society.
With special vehemence we reject UNIFIL as they were sent
by world arrogance to occupy areas evacuated by Israel and serve for the
latter as a buffer zone. They should be treated much like the Zionists.
All should know that the goals of the Phalangists regime do not carry any
weight with the Combatants of the Holy War, i.e., the Islamic resistance.
This is the quagmire which awaits all foreign intervention.
There, then, are our conceptions and our objectives which
serve as our basis and inspire our march. Those who accept them should
know that all rights belong to Allah and He bestows them. Those who reject
them, we'll be patient with them, till Allah decides between us and the
people of injustice.
The Necessity for the Destruction of Israel (See ICT
Note)
We see in Israel the vanguard of the United States in
our Islamic world. It is the hated enemy that must be fought until
the hated ones get what they deserve. This enemy is the greatest
danger to our future generations and to the destiny of our lands, particularly
as it glorifies the ideas of settlement and expansion, initiated in Palestine,
and yearning outward to the extension of the Great Israel, from the
Euphrates to the Nile.
Our primary assumption in our fight against Israel states
that the Zionist entity is aggressive from its inception, and built on
lands wrested from their owners, at the expense of the rights of
the Muslim people. Therefore our struggle will end only when this
entity is obliterated. We recognize no treaty with it, no cease fire,
and no peace agreements, whether separate or consolidated.
We vigorously condemn all plans for negotiation with Israel,
and regard all negotiators as enemies, for the reason that such negotiation
is nothing but the recognition of the legitimacy of the Zionist occupation
of Palestine. Therefore we oppose and reject the Camp David Agreements,
the proposals of King Fahd, the Fez and Reagan plan, Brezhnev's
and the French-Egyptian proposals, and all other programs that include
the recognition (even the implied recognition) of the Zionist entity.
ICT note: This paragraph
did not appear in the original translation published by the Jerusalem Quarterly.
It is possible that this ommision is due to the fact that the source
(al-Safir) for the translation did not include this text, which appears
in the original Hizballah Program. The original Program was published on
16 February 1985. The organization's spokesman, Sheikh Ibrahim al-Amin
read the Program at the al-Ouzai Mosque in west Beirut and afterwards it
was published as an open letter "to all the Opressed in Lebanon and the
World". It should be emphasised that none of Hizballah's web sites have
published the full text of the organization's program, and they prefer to publish
the 1996 electoraral program which was intended for the specific propoganda
campaign before the Lebanese Parliamentary elections in 1996.