Friday, August 11, 2006

Who's responsible?

Every time the Hezbollah katyusha rockets hit an Arab village or town and victims fall the Israeli media asks: isn’t Hezbollah and Hassan Nasrallah responsible for this damage and killing? Don’t you see that they don’t distinguish between Arab Palestinians and Israelis? Why don’t you condemn them?
After what happened today in Deir al Asad where a young mother (25) and her son (5) were killed and other members of her family were injured, some of my foreigner friends asked the same question. And they added: if such a rocket of Hezbollah hits your house and killed your daughter or wife or brother how would you react?
The Israeli media had many answers from me and from many others including members of the families themselves. So this answer of mine is addressed mainly to my friends everywhere in the world. And I hope that I can explain my point of view.
Until now 17 Arab Palestinians in the north of occupied Palestine 1948 (the Galilee and Haifa) were killed, among them 4 children: the twin brothers (7 and 4) from Nazareth Mahmmoud and Rabie’, Doa’a (15) from Mghaar, and Fathi (5) from Deir al Asad. The other 13 are adults from Haifa, Majd el Koroum, I’bilin, Mghaar, Tarshiha, and A’ramshe. They belong to all the communities in Palestine: Muslims, Christians and Druze. No doubt that what happened for these families is a big tragedy regardless who’s responsible.
I believe there are 2 kinds of responsibilities. The first one I call high ethical responsibility, which every great leader should have (but also normal people should have it too). Hassan Nasrallah, not only as Hezbollah leader, but also as an Arab leader and as distinguish human leader enjoys a high ethical responsibility. This means that he takes care of his fighters and his people, he does everything he can to keep them safe, and he feels very sad if anyone is hurt. He’s responsible for them. After the twin brothers from Nazareth were killed he said in his speech when millions of people saw and heard him: “I apologize to the family, apology is not enough, I take the whole responsibility, it was not done on purpose” and then he said: “we considered those who were killed today in Nazareth martyrs of Palestine, Lebanon and the nation. We send them our condolence and apology and we hope they will accept it”
All the 17 who were killed are martyrs of Palestine, Lebanon and the Arab nation. And in this meaning Sayed Hassan Nasrallah is responsible for what happened.
But on the other hand there’s the practical responsibility. Who’s responsible for all this misery, all this killing and all this destruction? Now the whole world points to the Israeli government and the American administration. Hassan Nasrallah said from the first day and repeated that in every speech: we don’t want this war, we want ceasefire, and we want indirect negotiation for prisoners swap. While the Israeli sent their war machine to destroy all Lebanon, and kill more than 1000 and uproot more than 1 million people. And the Americans give the political cover, the time and the bombs.
Hassan Nasrallah asked Israel to stop targeting the civilians, and in spite of the unbalance let the fighters meet in the field. But Israel responded with the Qana massacre and with more massacres. So, what do you want from him to sit with tied hands and simply watch how his people is slaughtered? How his country is destroyed? He has no F16, no Apache, no tanks; he has what I call the weapon of the poor: Katyushas and Kalashnikovs.
Finally, I propose to all of us, and to the local leadership (the follow up committee, political parties, civil society association, etc.) to add these 17 martyrs to the list of our martyrs of October 2000 and of Land Day and to all who fell defending our just cause.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

The case may be just, but are the means? To me 'martyr' implies a choice. Who wants to be killed by a bunch of desperados fighting another bunch of twisted desperados? "There must be a way out of here", the joker said to the thief..
Nura

Ali Zbeidat said...

I believe that just case can be achieved by just means only.I think one must see the whole picture with all its sides and not stop before relative details. after all you are not alone in this conflict and can't chose all your means. to be martyer is question of choise from one side and commitment from other side. contradictions are united and change to its opposite under different circomstances. I don't think one who lives in Europe can understand this complicity.