Hezbollah

Hezbollah (حزب الله, "Party of God), alternatively Hizbullah, Hezbullah, or Hezballah is a Lebanese militant group. Hezbollah's creation has been unclear, some say it was created in 1982, 1983 or even as late as 1985. Surely Hezbollah had been building up its existence since 1982 in response to the Israeli invasion, namely the "Peace for Galilee" the same year. Hezbollah's activities have been also reported since 1983, most notably when fighting broke out between it and the Amal Movement, a rival Shia militia.

In 1985, Hezbollah formally proclaimed its official existence and presented its manifesto. It included a desire to create an Islamic State in Lebanon based on the Iranian model whose foundation relates to the Shi'a theological understanding, practices and laws. Another controversial desire in Hezbollah's manifesto is the destruction of the state of Israel.

When Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah took leadership from his predecessor Sayyid Abbas Al-Musawi (who was assassinated by Israeli gunships) he set out to further implicate Hezbollah into the political framework in Lebanon. By the year 2000, the Israeli leadership had promised to withdraw from Lebanon because of the problems Hezbollah was causing for the IDF, which provoked a retaliatory attack from Israel, causing many civilian casualties. Hezbollah retaliated against Israel, creating a bloody cycle of civilian casualties on each side.

After Israel's withdrawal from Lebanese occupied territory named the "security zone" on 25 May 2000, Hezbollah was hailed as the victor simply because it was believed they were the sole entity responsible for Israel's departure from Lebanese land. These unfolding events, as well as the many escalations on the international border, where in one incident three IDF soldiers were kidnapped and a number of other wounded or killed in a croos-border raid in the disputed Shebaa farms area on 14 October 2000, the Lebanese government and Parliament voted Hezbollah as the "national resistance", placing full responsibility on it to solely protect the Lebanese border and defend the nation against any Israeli attacks. Which was what they set out to do, until breaking point on 12 July 2006.

The summer Israeli-Hezbollah war in July 2006 sparked by Hezbollah's abduction of 2 Israeli soldiers and leaving 8 others dead. Although at the time a lot of analysts and even Hezbollah's secretary general Sayyid Hassan Nasrallah claimed that the war had already been pre-planned and would have been executed by October that year whether or not Hezbollah attacked or kidnapped. The declaration of war on 13 July 2006 by Ehud Olmert using the Abduction as his excuse was seen as just a pretext for a well, and long, planned operation that would have taken place regardless of Hezbollah's actions.

The claim by these few during the war was shrugged off as a mere conspiracy theory by most of the media and nearly all of the western media. Until Olmert admitted the truth being that the war had been planned by Aerial Sharon before he fell into a coma and that he had himself personally ordered for preparation of a war as early as March 2006, four months before the war.

Many controversial issues were sparked during the summer war which would take a 500 page book to describe generally, so I will do it briefly. Hezbollah claimed it had the co-ordinates to hit an oil refinery in northern Israel, and they did. Then Nasrallah came on TV and told the Israelis to remove the tons of chemical products nearby the oil refinery because it would cause a huge massacre if these containers were hit. The Israeli leadership denied to respond to these reports until 23/03/2007 - 8 months after the war claiming that there truly had been dangerous chemical at the site and if they were to be targeted and hit, it would have caused casualties in the "hundreds".

- The chief of staff Dan Halutz was forced to resign after the war. - Olmerts ratings were as low as 2% after the war. - Amir Peretz's ratings were 1%. Mr Peretz also claimed during the war that Nasrallah would never forget his name. I doubt he will. - It was the first time that a conflict was called an actual war by many Israeli's. - Askenazi, the new chief of staff, claimed that the IDF would need a very long time to recover its strength for future combats with any force, including Hezbollah. - Israel admitted that more tanks had been damaged or destroyed than previously claimed just after the cease-fire. The new estimate is 100 tanks above the previous claim of 14 tanks. - The majority of public opinion in Israel believes that the IDF lost the war. - Olmert said while testifying in the winongrad commission that everyone who had rallied against Hezbollah and by Israel was a traitor, double faced and back stabber, because, according to Mr Olmert, had the allies been true friends, they would have tried to stop the war in the first 3 days instead of making Israel "crash into Nasrallah's bunkers" - During the war, Israel estimated that 800 Hezbollah fighters were killed. Mathematically, that came out at least 600 people above the maximum estimate concerning the percentage of children (0.33%) and women (40%) killed during the war out of a total of 1050 people could have no way ended up with 800 male Hezbollah fighters being killed in action. - Nasrallah was found to be more trusted by northern Israelis than the Israeli leaderships. - The only man of authority and representation of any country in the world (i.e. president, PM, king, queen) to claim that Israel had genuinely "won" the war was the US President George Bush Jr. Not even the Israeli president nor PM claim that. - It was found during the war that most Hezbollah soldiers had dressed the same uniforms as those of the IDF. This was called a terror tactic, but later on it was revealed that IDF commandos who participated in the Baalbeck raid after the war had dressed up as Lebanese soldiers.

The list goes on. Watch this space because it will be regularly updated. For more information please click [here http://www.slickblog.wordpress.com].