A victory for the resistance
Lebanese joyful as released prisoners return
Published Jul 27, 2008 7:27 PM
Cheering, dancing, throwing rice and rose petals, hundreds of thousands of
jubilant Lebanese gave a heroes’ welcome to five people from their
country released on July 16 in a prisoner swap with Israel. Among them was
Samir Kuntar, the longest-held Lebanese prisoner, who, on his return after 30
years in an Israeli jail, called for armed struggle.
The other four were Hezbollah fighters captured in the 2006 Israeli war on
Lebanon. The remains of 199 Arabs who over the years had fought the Israeli
occupation of Lebanon and Palestine were also turned over. Now all the Lebanese
who were held prisoner by Israel are free.
The government called the release “a victory for all Lebanese” and
declared a national day of celebration. However, it was Hezbollah, not the
Lebanese government, that brokered this historic release. The hard-won release
was a triumph for this armed national liberation movement and underscored that
Hezbollah is the only force able to guard Lebanese sovereignty and wring
concessions from the Israeli-U.S. colossus.
Most of all, it was a victory for the people of Lebanon and their iron will to
fight occupation and oppression. Feeling their own strength, the Lebanese and
Palestinians in Lebanon used the return of the fighters’ remains as an
opportunity to praise and honor the heroes from all Arab countries who have
given their lives for the Lebanese and Palestinian cause, reaffirming the
worthiness of armed struggle.
Humiliation for Israel
In return for the released Lebanese, Israel received the coffins of two of its
soldiers seized by Lebanese fighters at the border in July 2006 and a box
containing the remains of Israeli soldiers killed in the war that followed.
Hezbollah seized the two Israeli soldiers as a bargaining chip to restart
long-stalled talks with Israel for a prisoner release. But Israel refused to
negotiate. Instead, with a green light from Washington, Tel Aviv invaded
Lebanon, ostensibly to recover its soldiers but really to try to break the back
of Hezbollah.
The 34-day invasion left 1,000 dead Lebanese—many of them civilians and
about one-third children—and 160 dead Israelis, mostly soldiers. But the
fierce resistance forced Israel to withdraw.
Today, “Hezbollah has grown into a force more powerful than the state
itself, militarily, politically and socially.” (New York Times, July 17)
Israel has been forced to participate in a prisoner exchange after all, but now
it is for the remains of Israelis who would still be alive today had Tel Aviv
not invaded Lebanon. In marked contrast to the response in Lebanon, in Israel
the exchange was seen as a reminder of its humiliating defeat in 2006.
‘We will come back to Palestine’
Thousands of cheering, confetti-throwing Lebanese greeted the five released
prisoners as, dressed in military fatigues, they crossed from Israel onto
Lebanese soil and a red carpet, flanked by a Hezbollah honor guard. Two
Lebanese Army helicopters then flew them to the Beirut, where crowds throwing
rice mobbed their cars and carried the men to a rally.
As fireworks lit the night sky, tens of thousands of smiling, flag-waving,
joyous people gathered for the huge homecoming under the banner
“God’s achievement through our hands.” The victory rally was
held in Beirut’s impoverished and mostly Shia southern suburb of Dahiya,
which two years ago had been flattened by Israeli bombs. All arteries in the
district were gridlocked for hours as cars streamed in from southern Lebanon to
join the celebration.
Samir Kuntar, who was captured when he entered Israel with a group from the
Palestine Liberation Front, was 16 at the time. He spent 30 years in an Israeli
jail, yet he strode up to the podium and told the whistling, cheering and
roaring crowd, “I return from Palestine, only to go back to Palestine. I
promise families in Palestine that we are coming back, me and my brothers in
resistance.” Kuntar is from Lebanon’s Druze community.
Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, referring to how Israel’s
10-year occupation of Lebanon was ended by popular resistance in 2000,
explained, “As we have said in the year 2000, the time of defeat is long
gone. And today is the time of victory.”
Of the released prisoners, he said, “These people have proved to the
world, to their friends and their enemies, that they cannot be defeated. ...
This people, this nation and this country, which gave a clear image today,
cannot be defeated.” He called on all to “rally round the
resistance.”
Indeed, the resistance was celebrated everywhere. When Kuntar entered his
hometown of Aabey in a triumphal convoy the next day, the road was lined with
joyous people under the banner, “From Palestine to Iraq to Lebanon, the
resistance is victorious.”
‘Rare national unity’ greets fighters’ remains
A convoy of eight trucks carried the coffins of the 199 Arab freedom fighters
killed in decades of fighting Israel to Beirut the next day from southern
Lebanon. With the coffins draped in Lebanese and Hezbollah flags and decorated
with ornate flower wreaths and victory banners, the trucks resembled
celebratory floats.
A Beirut newspaper reported, “In a rare spectacle of national unity,
Lebanese and Palestinians from all political and religious affiliations lined
the roads to greet the procession, forcing the trucks to make repeated stops as
onlookers spilled out onto the road to throw rose petals and rice.”
(Daily Star, July 18)
Mosque and church bells rang as the entourage passed. People lining the roads
carried flags and photographs of martyred relatives. “It’s like
he’s coming back to me alive,” said Hajj Hassas Wazwazz, whose son
Ali had been killed in 2006 after 13 days of fighting.
“Ahmad Khalaf, a Palestinian who was expecting a relative’s body to
be returned, said, ‘I wish the Palestinian revolution would regain its
lost fire,’ clearly impressed with Hezbollah’s success.”
(Star)
Five thousand people attended a memorial service the next day in Beirut for the
eight Hezbollah fighters killed in 2006. Hezbollah leader Hashem Safiedine
explained at the service, “The brothers of these martyers will confront
the enemy if it ever thinks of making the mistake of attacking Lebanon.”
Uniformed Hezbollah fighters carried the coffins through the southern suburbs
as thousands of people followed. “Israel has fallen,” read the sign
of one onlooker.
Palestinian heroine honored
Among the remains returned were those of Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian woman
guerrilla who, in 1978 when she was 19 years old, led a raid on Israel. She is
a heroine of the Palestinian resistance. The Star reported that “Her
sister wept as her coffin, draped in the Lebanese flag, arrived in Naqoura to a
military salute by some 100 Hezbollah fighters, with a team of horses galloping
down the green carpet.” The respect given her remains by the Lebanese
resistance stands in marked contrast to the way the Lebanese government
confines Palestinians to their camps, under an apartheid-like system.
Bodies of members of secular Lebanese and Palestinian political parties, among
them the Lebanese Communist Party, the Amal Movement and the Syrian Social
Nationalist Party, were also returned. There were also the remains of fighters
from other Arab countries who had died for Lebanon and Palestine.
The mood in the Arab world toward this release was best explained by a blogger
on the angryarab.com site: “Make no mistake about it: the supply of Arabs
willing to fight Israeli occupation will never deplete. Never.”
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World.
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