Radio War Nerd #92—2006 Israel-Hezbollah War, with Amal Saad
Guest: Amal Saad, author & professor
On the 11th anniversary of the pivotal 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war, the War Nerd talks to one of the great scholars on Hezbollah, Amal Saad—author of "Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion" and professor of political science at the Lebanese University in Beirut. Hezbollah is perhaps the most powerful resistance movement in the world, and it remains a mystery to outsiders in the West. Hezbollah's victory in the 2006 war shocked Israel, the US and the world. We discuss the war, its effect on Lebanon politics, Hezbollah's role in the Syria and how it's helped or hurt them, and the history and politics of Hezbollah...
Here are some useful maps of the 2006 war:
Afterwards, Ames and the War Nerd discuss one of the topics raised by Amal Saad — western leftists who fetishize the Syrian Salafist rebels...
Amal Saad is author of "Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion"; she's published in Open Democracy, Foreign Affairs, and Al-Akhbar.
Recommended reading for this show: Amal Saad article on Hezbollah strategy, "The Hizbollah project: last war, next war"
Total time: 2:14:45
Comments (18)
Have you all done an ep on the Futah-Hamas conflict 06-7? Probably not the time, obviously, but would love to get your thoughts + a rundown
Man the music on this episode is so good. Anyone got a link?
Mark does a great job with the music. I'll ask him. My tastes stretch from RL Burnside to Professor Longhair and back.
Your listeners should know they heard one, extremely skewed point of view regarding the lead-up to the war. The fact that the west supported the Cedar revolution does not change the fact that it was a broad-based, popular, non-sectarian and non-violent uprising against foreign and belligerent occupation by an outside power. The idea that it was fomented by America or the West on unwilling Lebanese dubs is insulting and inaccurate. In the aftermath of the Syrian withdrawal, Hezbollah was under increased pressure from the opposing political bloc to disarm and integrate their military forces into the Lebanese military. It was this pressure that led to their decision to escalate their conflict with Israel, in an attempt to demonstrate that their arms were meant to be used to Israelis, and not Lebanese. The idea that they did so to help the Palestinians in their intifada is nonsensical - the intifada had died out over a year beforehand and Hamas had recently won the Palestinian elections. The idea that Israel had planned this attack for a long time previously at the insistence of America seems unlikely too, given their lack of preparation. Your repeated attempt to link Shia religious theory with leftism is pretty silly too. Yes, their theologians stress the injustice of the world and their affinity with the suffering. But so do christians, even of the most nutbar variety - Pat Robertson and his ilk talk about the suffering and the poor just as often as Nasrallah. Yes, Hezbollah isn't as horrible as ISIS and they don't want to kill everybody with a different belief. But neither does Jerry Falwell, and that's really the best analogy. Jerry Falwell with guns and, more importantly, training. Ultra reactionary religious fanatics who just by coincidence have similar enemies to the global left today. That doesn't hide the fact that their ultimate beliefs and goals are totally opposed to anything we might call "leftist". And by the way, they're just as anti-semitic as the far right Ukrainian movements Ames rightly criticizes. I see no difference between liberals ignoring that fact in regard to Ukrainian militias, and the left ignoring that fact when it comes to Hezbollah. Lastly, there was very little about the war itself! Even the most foaming right wing zionist, if they're being honest, has to admit it was a remarkable war and a remarkable achievement for a group like Hezbollah! Yet we got almost no war-nerdist analysis of the conflict, instead having to settle for embarrassing tripe about Israel's strategy being a "genocide" of Shias by airstrike. Bombing people you can't identify from the air is an interesting way to conduct genocide, especially in such an ethnically mixed region as southern lebanon (lots of christians), and especially in light of the repeated Israeli warnings of Lebanese civilians to flee the region. That's depth of analysis that would make Michael Weiss look sophisticated. Oh and to preempt the inevitable response, I'm not a sunni muslim or an israeli
We offer a lot of perspectives on the show. It's hard to get info on Hezbollah. Saad is one of the few people who's devoted her career to it. As far as balance, absolutely everything in the Engl-lang press is negative so I don't see we're over-balancing by offering an interview to a supporter. If you have an Israeli Hezbollah specialist willing to be interviewed, we'll talk to them too.
Thank you for the great episode! Very rare to hear anything accurate in the Anglo media about the topic.
Really interesting episode!
I was nervous about this episode just out of my own conflicting emotions about most things Lebanon/Hezbollah, but it turned out great.
Does anyone have a link to Max Blumenthal's open letter to that editor at The Nation in support of Rania Khalek?
Darryl did an incredible podcast series on the early history of the Israel Palestine conflict "Fear and Loathing in the New Jerusalem". He would make for an excellent guest on the show, he has an incredible breadth of knowledge and is a great storyteller.
Would be great to have an Israeli guest discuss the same war from a knowledgeable source on the other side
Agree! If anyone knows a likely candidate please let us know.
hmm gotcha, thanks mark
Could it be that the Hezbollah are the actual moderate jihadis we keep hearing about?
lol, "a fascist of sorts"
not sure where best to ask this off topic question, but i figure this might get the attention of people that know: in a previous WN ep there was discussion about Russian lit. Mark was praising one particular writer, I don't remember much else beyond the writer criticizing Solzhenitsyn for 'never shutting up about those damn gulags!'. Who is this writer??
Limonov? Trifonov?
Fantastic guest and great interview. Thanks!!