On September 29, 2024, The Globe and Mail published a highly sympathetic portrayal of a mass murderer.
An op-ed entitled: “Israel’s attacks have revealed Hezbollah’s fatal flaw,” was written by John Bell and John Zada — the founders of a British conflict-resolution non-governmental organization, one of whom, the column shared, has “met twice with [recently-assassinated Hezbollah leader] Nasrallah in a diplomatic capacity and can attest to his charisma and cleverness.”
Though the article’s title gave the impression that this will be a sober political analysis of the implications of recent events, the piece actually read as little more than an admiring eulogy.
Nasrallah Had The Blood Of Thousands Of Innocents On His Hands
Hassan Nasrallah was the leader of Hezbollah — an internationally-designated terrorist organization, including by the Canadian government. He first got involved in the group during its early days of bombing US peacekeeping forces and embassies in the 1980s, and by 1992 he became its overall leader and ruled with an iron fist for the past 33 years, turning the guerilla group into a massive military, political, and mafia force that wreaked havoc and left a trail of terror, blood and tears all over the region and beyond. His fingerprints were on everything from the bombing of a Jewish community centre in Argentina, to bus bombings in Bulgaria, to the murder and kidnapping of various Israeli soldiers, to international drug trafficking and organized crime. Most recently, Nasrallah spent the last decade of his life reshaping the region to build his terrorist organization into a dangerous and powerful military force advancing the agenda of the Iranian regime, usurping control of Lebanon from the legitimately elected government, violently suppressing freedom-seeking anti-regime rebels in Syria, and launching the past year’s non-stop rocket attacks on northern Israeli communities. When Israel finally tracked down and assassinated him on September 27, millions of people across religious, national, and ethnic lines celebrated the end of his reign of terror.
But the authors of this Globe and Mail piece were seemingly not among them.
Their memory of Nasrallah was as a “large and charismatic figure in the Arab and Islamic worlds,” a “rare historical figure who could manifest [his ideas] in his person,” and a “celebrated and quasi-deified” leader. While this may be how his terrorist army and its supporters viewed him, why on earth would any Western commentator be describing Nasrallah in these terms — let alone those supposedly interested in conflict resolution? Can anyone imagine a similar piece being written about Osama Bin Laden or Charles Manson after their deaths in a mainstream newspaper? No one in their right mind would be focused on the personality quirks and charms of those cult-leaders and mass murderers, so why are Nasrallah’s thousands of victims less worthy of respect?
Nasrallah Committed to Israel Destruction and Jewish People’s Genocide
The authors went on to inform readers that Nasrallah’s famous public anti-Israel, anti-LGBTQ+, religious fundamentalist tirades were “riddled with a mix of apparent wisdom and defiance,” that they “captivated millions,” and that he now “leaves behind a legacy of bravado, and … a dream as yet unfulfilled.” Aside from the disgusting tastelessness of these adjectives being used to describe the hate rallies he led, what exactly is the “dream” he has left “unfulfilled” in the writers’ minds? If it’s not obvious enough from who Nasrallah was, then it’s confirmed almost explicitly by the writers’ comparison with former Egyptian president Nasser — it’s the dream of destroying the Jewish State and Jewish people. Nasrallah once said: “If Jews all gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of going after them worldwide.” Would a mainstream Canadian newspaper allow fantasies about the genocide of any other nation to be nonchalantly referred to as a “dream” on its pages?
In describing Nasrallah’s mission and ideology, readers were told that he was “the most able and articulate confronter of Israel and its occupation of Arab and Palestinian land,” and that “so long as Israeli oppression remains, [his supporters] say, so the resistance will persist.”
Are Bell and Zada knowingly legitimizing and spreading Hezbollah propaganda, or were they just so starstruck by Nasrallah’s apparent charms that they can’t think straight? There is no border dispute between Israel and Lebanon, and no “Palestinian” land claimed by Hezbollah. The only possible reference this could be alluding to is Hezbollah’s baseless extortionary demand brought up during ceasefire talks that Israel should give up various points of its internationally-recognized sovereign territory simply because Hezbollah hopes it has tormented them enough into being willing to do so.
These locations, such as Ghajar and Shebaa Farms, are largely in the Golan Heights — which Israel took from Syria, not Lebanon, after being attacked in 1967. The only illegal occupation of any Lebanese land in this conflict is Hezbollah’s takeover of the entire border region in clear contravention of 2006’s UNSC Resolution 1701. Importantly, in 2019, former U.S. President Donald Trump has officially recognized Israeli sovereignty over the Golan Heights.
And just what is the “fatal flaw” of Hezbollah’s that the authors believe their recent setbacks have revealed? In short, even with their capabilities, Israel is still stronger than them, meaning that the “attention paid to him and his inflammatory bravado could have been better spent on a cooler and more pragmatic reading of the enemy.” Once again, this language leaves most sane readers wondering whether they accidentally picked up a copy of a Hezbollah internal newsletter rather than the Globe and Mail.
There are only two brief acknowledgments anywhere in this article of any critical views towards Nasrallah and Hezbollah. The first is a passing mention of the fact that “Israelis and many Americans … view Hezbollah as a terrorist organization,” and that “many Arabs regard [their] actions … as those of a violent and coercive cult-like mafia dressed up in ideological garb.” The second is a musing, right before the very end of the column, noting that “there will never be a healthier Middle East, nor a better Lebanon, until ardent ideologies such as Hezbollah’s give way to more helpful paradigms.” As correct as these two statements are, they fall well short of giving most readers any semblance of an actual picture of all the horrible things on this man’s resume that should define how he is remembered by everyone.
This piece offered many more insights into why conflict resolution attempts in Lebanon have been a colossal failure than it offers regarding who Nasrallah was and how Canadians should feel about his death.
