Report Number Four from Lebanon: The Mountain of Radam and Jihad al-Bina’

Samia A. Halaby
Sept. 18, 2006

On Sept. 15 as we were returning from our trip to the south, we saw the insignia of an organization of Hisbullah called Jihad al-Bina’. Western press, for obvious reasons of greed and conquest, deliberately misinterprets the term jihad--the name ascribed to Muslim service to the community. It is much like the insistence on saying that Allah is the god of the Arabs, refusing to translate this particular word as God, the same god along with the same accompanying religious discourse that forms the core of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Jihad as service to the community can be military or social. Jihad al-Bina’ is the service of building for the community, and it is amazing. The energy and enthusiasm with which work is going on to rebuild the damage created by Israeli delivered, U.S.-made weapons is amazing. The effort is historic--rapid, vigorous, optimistic.

The jihad of evacuation of disaster areas was equally amazing. Dahye and its surroundings were evacuated in approximately 36 hours. Now, after the war, the people have received enough money to rent a home for a year and buy new furniture.

Jihad al Bina’ also is clearing the rubble and moving it at an amazingly rapid pace to form a mountain of rubble, Jabal al Radam. Trucks loaded with rubble arrive at the rate of one each minute. As we climbed the mountain, we saw embedded in the rubble the torn bits of family life. Shoes, clothes, curtains, shards of furniture, bits of rugs, closet doors, children’s books, school books, shards of kitchen utensils, all torn to shreds, all smashed, all dusty, all mixed in an ugly salad of dust, shattered cement, broken glass, and bent steel. But the dust formed the largest percentage of the mix. I try to imagine the power that made dust out of life.

Meanwhile, to cover the horrors of the crime in Lebanon, the western press has been redefining the dictionary. "Terrorism" is the defense of one’s own community and the preservation of its life and culture. "Democracy" is the racist practices and the apartheid of Zionism, the destruction of nations, the assassination of leaders, the theft of resources. "Self-defense" is the hostile killing of civilians on neighboring lands, the bombardment and destruction of a neighbor’s land. "Freedom" is the kidnapping of others, their torture and imprisonment. "Piety" is Jewish and Christian blindness to Islam. "Fascism" is the moral practices of Muslims in the Arab world.

Many are confused here and everywhere. Hizbullah keeps its head and its commitment, and its influence with those who have no influence grows.

Report Number Three from Lebanon: Occupied Palestine 48

Sept. 18, 2006

As we approached the southern border and were only yards away from the many Israeli posts where invisible Zionist soldiers could and did spy us, some members of the delegation and southern Lebanese referred to it as Israel. I immediately reminded them that that was Palestine, occupied and learning the lessons of the Hisbullah’s success. But what I saw was neither Palestine nor southern Lebanon as I looked over the fence from the several points that we visited. What became clear was that Israel was not the enemy of Palestine and now Lebanon, crawling always with its movable borders and its racist destruction. What disappeared was the specificity of nations and what appeared was the digestive system of imperialist greed on the march--the greed of desperation in the background of a disintegrating capitalist economy.

I looked at the Dutchmen in the delegation and told them that if Israel bordered the Netherlands, they would be experiencing this attack and the demonization of the western press. Israel is the face of imperialist attack, and Judaism is a pawn manipulated against Islam. People here talk about the many different sects that will render Lebanon an arena of civil war. Yet they overlook the basic sectarian division that is Zionist Judaism on the one side and Hisbullah Islam on the other. The religious nature of Zionism escapes them, is made invisible by media brainwashing. Yet, the religious aspects of Hisbullah’s Islam blinds them to its heroic accomplishments.

Hizbullah works against sectarian division within Lebanon, a divisionism promoted both on the diplomatic and military fronts. On the political front the U.S. does its utmost to make arrangements with some sects, and leave out others. On the military front, the Israeli selective targeting of U.S.-made weapons is obvious even to a donkey. Hizbullah country was hit while non-Hisbullah areas were left unharmed, even while the infrastructure was attacked in all places.