Lebanon, May 27, (Pal Telegraph - By Shabbir Hassanally) The 25th of May 2010 marked the 10th anniversary of the victory of the resistance in Lebanon against Zionist occupation. This day also marks the first time that the Zionist Entity suffered a humiliation at the hand of the Arabs and Muslims. A humiliation that even ten years later, it is unable to recover from.
This day marks a major milestone in the struggle of the Resistance bloc against Zionist occupation and American hegemony, it revives the hope of the millions of Palestinians living across the world, who have been forcibly evicted from their homes, have had their inheritance stolen, and who now live in perpetual exile, without a nationality, without a nation.
To understand this, we must examine a little history:
When the Zionist Entity was initially established in 1948, the Arab and Muslim world was caught off guard. History is a witness to the various ill-conceived knee jerk reactions of various Arab and Muslim leaders. For the most part, the strategies employed by the various Arab and Muslim leaders failed, in some cases miserably, and didn't lead to any positive or tangible gain for the Muslims, Arabs and above all the Palestinians. Indeed in some cases these actions led to results that were detrimental to the Palestinians overall wellbeing.
In the midst of all of this, at the start of 1979, a movement that had started well before 1963 within the cloisters of the Islamic Seminaries in Iran attained victory. The Islamic Republic of Iran was established under the leadership of the late Imam Ruhullah Khomeini.
From the start Imam Khomeini's foreign policy and stance towards the Zionist Entity and her allies was very simple. Imam Khomeini and the newly formed Islamic Republic of Iran, said clearly that they refused to recognise or have any sort of relations with the Zionist Entity. Rather, they recognised the Palestinians as the rightful inhabitants of the land of Palestine. Indeed after the victory of the Islamic Revolution, Tehran became the first capital to host a Palestinian Embassy, thereby formally cutting all diplomatic ties and recognition of the Zionist Entity.
The stance taken by Imam Khomeini, and the Islamic Republic of Iran provided a new injection of morale to the beleaguered Palestinian resistance movement, and dealt a massive public relations blow to the Zionists and their allies - at the very least within the Arab and Muslim world.
When the Zionists invaded Lebanon in 1982 in an attempt to remove the Palestinians who were making their resistance from various areas in Southern Lebanon, initially, they met some - albeit minimal resistance, and as a result were successful in occupying much of south Lebanon, and forcing the bulk of the Palestinian resistance out of Lebanon and into its neighbouring countries such as Syria, Jordan and elsewhere.
However, the Zionists then made a fundamental and to all intents and purposes catastrophic mistake with regard to Lebanon. They decided they would stay. They felt they were "comfortable" in Lebanon. Amongst the reasons that analysts cite for this was the fact that Lebanon was unique in the Arab world in that it had a significant non-Muslim population, as a result it was felt that Lebanon saw it's alliances more with the so-called Christian West, and less-so with the Muslim East.
What the Zionists didn't count on was a fundamental truth that holds for any person, from any creed, from any nation, from any culture; when invaded, when violated, when harmed, after the initial shock of the trauma has dissipated, the oppressed people will fight back. Initially they will be few in number, but over time, as the atrocities and crimes of the invader multiply and the length of occupation increases, that resistance will grow, indeed it will grow exponentially.
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At this point it is crucial to understand what exactly constitutes a resistance. A resistance is not merely the soldiers who go to the battle field and fight the invading enemy, the resistance is the mother, the wife, the child, the grandfather, the grandmother and so on, who give succour to their youth, who give their full support to the fighters, who dress their sons, husbands and fathers in the clothes of resistance and with an open heart and happiness encourage them to go to the battle front and fight the invaders and those who have usurped the land from the innocents.
The resistance is an organic movement, that grows with every second the invaders stays, that growth is exponential. With each passing day the resistance becomes stronger and stronger. Once it reaches critical mass, that growth becomes unstoppable, both locally in the occupied lands and abroad, as its influence spreads to its neighbours and even further to all the oppressed people who are fighting to liberate themselves from the yoke of occupation. Be it a direct occupation as is the case in Palestine, or a psychological occupation like that in the Western World.
The struggle of the Lebanese, their subsequent victory in 2000, the eviction of the Zionist occupier from the bulk of occupied Lebanese territory is testament to this absolute truth.
This truth was further reinforced in 2006, when the Zionists felt that they could rekindle their project in Lebanon, six years after having been ejected. The Zionists once again attempted to re-invade Lebanon, using the kidnapping of three Israeli soldiers as their pretext for war. But again, in 33 days they were forced to leave Lebanon, with none of their war objectives achieved, and with their tail between their legs.
Indeed in 2006, they saw that they were no longer fighting a faction of the Lebanese community, rather they were fighting the entire nation, the Army, the People and the Resistance were all together as one in defending their nation against the Zionist aggressors. They were now fighting an enemy capable of surprising them, and hitting them where they felt most secure.
In 2006, the Zionists saw that they could destroy the buildings and physical infrastructure of Lebanon, but they could not break the spirit of the people who had allied themselves with the Resistance.
They saw that regardless of whether they bombed the civilian areas of the Daheih Jnoubiyyeh (Southern Suburbs) of Beirut, or the Beirut Airport, or the Biqaa Valley, or the village of Qana, or anywhere in Lebanon, they saw that they couldn't break the spirit of the people or their loyalty to the Resistance.
Even with the world's media supporting the Zionists in its so-called "War on Terror", with the full backing of Washington, London, Paris and indeed Cairo and Riyadh; the Zionists saw that the people were looking constantly to the local Lebanese channels for accurate news, and above all they were looking at al-Manar TV, the television channel of the Resistance.
In places where al-Manar couldn't be received for reasons that are part of the larger psychological and technological war against the Resistance; the masses were moving to the new media; to the internet and obtaining their news and information from places like YouTube, various blogs and independent news sites, as well as from people on the ground in Lebanon through emails and SMS messages.
Information now had a grassroots distribution channel, not organised but rather organic, which made it that much more resilient and reliable; there were no ulterior motives; only to get the information out of the crimes that the Zionists were committing. Like the internet it relied on, this information chain was and indeed is virtually unbreakable, as long as one person with a cell phone remained in Lebanon, as long as one person had an internet connection, the information and news could be given to the people. The lies of the Zionists could be exposed.
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The Zionists aware of the impact of al-Manar TV, the television channel of the Resistance, chose to target the channel directly - an act that is clearly a violation of international law and without a doubt a war crime - but they saw that their flattening of the al-Manar Television Complex in Beirut's Southern Suburbs, resulted in the channelling being off the air for less than 5 minutes.
The Zionists on the online front, also attempted to take down web sites and email groups that gave out information on what was happening in Lebanon during the 2006 campaign (and also during the 2008/2009 Gaza adventure), but again these attempts by groups such as the "Internet Haganah" and "Sofir" and others such as the IDF Spokesman to cover the truth of the Zionist atrocities were futile and never achieved their goals and indeed will never achieve their goals.
Thirty-three days after starting their adventure in Lebanon in July 2006, the Zionists were forced to leave, under the pretext and protection of UN Security Council Resolution 1701. The Zionists left, with their "home-front" exposed, their military in disarray, their "elite brigades" completely demoralized, and without having achieved any of their war objectives.
The Zionist left Lebanon in 2006 far weaker than when they entered; in 33 days they had been devastated.
The Resistance on the other hand, became much stronger, and today the Resistance enjoys a place of honour and dignity not only in Lebanese society but in the hearts of the Arabs and Muslims in the streets, and across the world, from Los Angeles, to Okinawa, from Reykjavik to Sydney and everywhere in between. Indeed one of the slogans of the various demonstrations against the Zionist Campaign in 2006 was "We are all Hezbollah!".
In 2008/2009 when the Zionists made their campaign in Gaza, they again got a taste of defeat and humiliation; this time in 22 days they were forced to abort their attempt to re-occupy the Gaza Strip, and were forced to leave, again dragging their tail between their legs. Once again, the world over, at demonstrations against the Zionist campaign against Gaza, slogans such as "We are all Hamas!" could be clearly heard.
In the opinion of many analysts, the morale of the heroic Gazans was boosted by the fact that in the 21st Century, it was an absolute fact that even a small resistance movement - while ill equipped militarily, but with determination and the sheer will to not be subjugated - could hurt and bring to its knees the well equipped Zionist Entity.
The Gazans were confident that the victory of blood over the swords of the aggressors was guaranteed; they had but to be patient and continue the resistance, but that over time, they would achieve victory.
At this juncture, I am reminded of a speech, delivered in 2002 by Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of Hezbollah, wherein he said (and I'm paraphrasing):
"When a person thinks of resistance against an aggressor, the person must not think that they will see victory themselves, rather they should work in a manner that victory may take generations, but that every action will make that victory closer and closer."
It was this philosophy and mentality, that gave Lebanon victory, and it would be this same mentality that will guarantee victory to Palestine.
The liberation of Lebanon in 2000, heralded a paradigm shift in the entire balance of power in the region; it proved that the people DO have the power; that might is NOT right; and that resistance IS the way to remove the yoke of occupation and secure freedom and dignity for the people.

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