Hassan Nasrallah

Hassan Nasrallah


Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah (Arabic: حسن نصرالله‎) (b. August 30, 1960, Burj Hammud, Beirut, Lebanon)[1] is the current Secretary General of the Lebanese Islamist party Hezbollah. He is also a Shi'a cleric who is a protege of Ali Khamenei[2]
Personal life
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah was born the ninth of ten children in East Beirut's Bourj Hammoud neighborhood on August 31, 1960. His father, Abdul Karim, was a vegetable vendor from a small village near the city of Tyre in South Lebanon. Although his family was not particularly religious, Nasrallah was interested in religious studies. He attended Al Najah school and later a public school in Sin el-Fil, Beirut.
In 1975, the civil war in Lebanon forced the family to move to their ancestral home in Bassouriyeh,[1] [3] where Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah terminated his secondary education at the public school of Sour(Tyre). Here he joined the Amal Movement, a militia representing Shiites (Shias) in Lebanon.[1] [3] After a period of Islamic study in Najaf, Iraq he returned to Lebanon in 1978 when Iraq expelled hundreds of Lebanese religious students. He studied and taught at the school of Amal’s leader Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi, later being selected as Amal's political delegate in Beqaa, and making him a member of the central political office. After the Israeli invasion in 1982, Nasrallah joined Hezbollah to dedicate himself to the resistance of the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley.[4] His fiery sermons drew the admiration of Shiite followers who joined Nasrallah in organizing Hezbollah. In 1987, Nasrallah traveled to a seminary in Qom, Iran for religious studies. He returned to the war in Lebanon in 1989. Later that year, Nasrallah returned to Iran to represent Hezbollah.
In 1991, Musawi became secretary general of Hezbollah and Nasrallah returned to Lebanon. Nasrallah replaced Musawi as Hezbollah's leader after the Sayyed was killed with his wife and child by Israeli forces. [1][5]
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah lived in South Beirut with his wife Fatima Yassin (who comes from the Lebanese village of Al Abbasiyah)[3] and five children: Muhammad Hadi (d. 1997), Muhammad Jawad, Zeinab, Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Mahdi. In September 1997, his eldest son Muhammad Hadi was killed by Israeli forces in Jabal al-Rafei in southern Lebanon.[3]
Nasrallah is a devoted Muslim and has spent periods of his life studying at religious centres in Iraq. In the mid-1970s he moved to a Shiite Hawza (Islamic Seminary) in the Iraqi city of Najaf to study Qura’anic divine sciences, completing the first stage of his studies in 1978 before being forced to leave by the Iraqi authorities.[1] Despite his ongoing commitment to Hezbollah, in 1989 Nasrallah resumed his efforts to become a religious jurist by moving to the sacred Iranian city of Qom to further his studies. Nasrallah believes that Islam holds the solution to the problems of any society, once saying, “With respect to us, briefly, Islam is not a simple religion including only praises and prayers, rather it is a divine message that was designed for humanity, and it can answer any question man might ask concerning his general and private life. Islam is a religion designed for a society that can revolt and build a state.” [6]
Leadership of Hezbollah
Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the movement’s leader Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi in 1992.[1] [3] Under Nasrallah's leadership, Hezbollah became a serious opponent of the Israel Defense Forces in Southern Lebanon, managing to improve the organization's military capabilities and increasing the killing rate to approximately two dozen Israeli soldiers per year[citation needed]. Hezbollah's military campaigns of the late 1990s were believed to be one of the main factors that led to the Israeli decision to withdraw from Southern Lebanon in 2000, thus ending 18 years of occupation.[1]
Consequently, Nasrallah is widely credited in Lebanon and the Arab world for ending the Israeli occupation in Southern Lebanon, something which has greatly bolstered the party's political standing within Lebanon.[7]
Nasrallah also played a major role in a complex prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2004, resulting in hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners being freed and the dead body of his son with many more returning to Lebanon. The agreement was described across the Arab world as a great victory for Hezbollah with Nasrallah being personally praised for achieving these gains.[8]
National Compact with Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun
Nasrallah negotiated a compact with the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun, the former premier and a Maronite Christian. Aoun described the ten-point compact in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published July 31, 2006. A key point is that Hezbollah agreed to disarm upon the return of its prisoners and the occupied Shebaa Farms. It also agreed to the pardon and return of fugitive South Lebanon Army (SLA) members now declared traitors. The Free Patriotic Movement in turn agreed to work for reform of the confessional electoral system of the Parliament of Lebanon and move it in the direction of one man, one vote. Aoun made the point that the political process was in effect disarming Hezbollah without the any loss in lives from unnecessary wars.[9] Critics of this agreement say that is not very clear concerning the disarmament, and that it strengthened Hezbollah internally, giving it a non-Shiite cover.
2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict
On August 3, 2006, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah vowed to strike Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israel's bombardment of Lebanon's capital, Beirut. "If you hit Beirut, the Islamic resistance will hit Tel Aviv and is able to do that with God's help," Nasrallah said in a televised address. He said in his television address Hezbollah forces were inflicting maximum casualties on Israeli ground troops. [10]
Even before the conflict ended, Nasrallah came under intense criticism from pro-Western Arab regimes, including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned on 14 July of the risk of "the region being dragged into adventurism that does not serve Arab interests," while Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal called the Hezbollah attacks "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts." He went further, saying, "These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them."[11]
Nasrallah also came under intense criticism from some in Lebanon. Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon and the most prominent leader of the Druze community, spoke out quite forcefully: "Great, so he's a hero. But I'd like to challenge this heroism of his. I have the right to challenge it, because my country is in flames. Besides, we did not agree..."[12] Jumblatt is also quoted as saying: "He is willing to let the Lebanese capital burn while he haggles over terms of surrender."[13]
Following the cease-fire, which Nasrallah and Hezbollah declared a great victory, came what is known as the "Green Flood" (Al-sayl al-akhdhar), according to Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri. "This refers to the massive amounts of U.S. dollar notes that Hezbollah is distributing among Shiites in Beirut and the south. The dollars from Iran are ferried to Beirut via Syria and distributed through networks of militants. Anyone who can prove that his home was damaged in the war receives $12,000, a tidy sum in wartorn Lebanon."[14]
In a TV interview aired on Lebanon's New TV station, Sunday, 27 August, Nasrallah said that he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war: "We did not think, even 1 percent, that the capture would lead to a war at this time and of this magnitude. You ask me, if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not."[15]
Views on international politics
The Arab-Israeli conflict
"There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel," said Nasrallah. He was referring to the Israeli intentions of establishing a zionist state by clearing out the Palestinians, and claiming that if Israel relented then there would be peace in the region. [16]
Despite declaring "death to Israel" in his public appearances, Nasrallah said in an interview to The New Yorker, "At the end of the road no one can go to war on behalf of the Palestinians, even if that one is not in agreement with what the Palestinians agreed on." [17] When asked whether he was prepared to live with a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine, he said he would not sabotage what is a Palestinian matter. [18].
In another interview with The Washington Post, Nasrallah said "I am against any reconciliation with Israel. I do not even recognize the presence of a state that is called 'Israel.' I consider its presence both unjust and unlawful. That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel and brings that accord to the Parliament our deputies will reject it; Hezbollah refuses any conciliation with Israel in principle." [19].
According to Sayyed Nasrallah's website Wa3ad.org in regard to the State of Israel he is quoted as saying, "We do not want to kill anyone. We do not want to throw anyone in the sea. Give the houses back to their owners, the fields back to their landlords, and the homes back to the people. Release the prisoners, and leave us alone to live in this region in security, peace and dignity." [20].
On 9/11
• "What do the people who worked in those two World Trade Center towers, along with thousands of employees, women and men, have to do with war that is taking place in the Middle East? Or the war that Mr. George Bush may wage on people in the Islamic world? ... Therefore we condemned this act -- and any similar act we condemn. ... I said nothing about the Pentagon, meaning we remain silent. We neither favored nor opposed that act .... Well, of course, the method of Osama bin Laden, and the fashion of bin Laden, we do not endorse them. And many of the operations that they have carried out, we condemned them very clearly."[21]
The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon
• "The Lebanese refuse to give the Palestinians residing in Lebanon Lebanese citizenship, and we refuse their resettlement in Lebanon. There is Lebanese consensus on this...we thank God that we all agree on one clear and definite result; namely, that we reject the resettlement of the Palestinians in Lebanon."[22]
Pre-2000 Israeli occupation of Lebanon
• "If we are to expel the Israeli occupation from our country, how do we do this? We noticed what happened in Palestine, in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip, in the Golan, in the Sinai. We reached a conclusion that we cannot rely on the Arab League states, nor on the United Nations .... The only way that we have is to take up arms and fight the occupation forces."[21]
The Taliban
• "The worst, the most dangerous thing that this Islamic revival has encountered ... was the Taliban .... The Taliban state presented a very hideous example of an 'Islamic state'."[21]