Saturday, December 03, 2016

Hizbollah article in Jacobin

The article on Hizbollah in Jacobin (which basically says that Hariri and March 14 were leading Lebanon toward a socialist republic but Hizbollah prevented them from doing so) offers a most original theory of what happened on May 7, 2008: "As explained by trade unionist Ahmad Dirani, Hizbullah’s military intervention was “aimed against the possibility of a large trade union and workers mobilization taking the lead against the government in a democratic way. Hizbullah did not favor this option.” Dirani argued that such a mobilization would not only have achieved social gains around economic issues but also could have addressed the threat to Hizbullah’s telecommunication system."  So the evidence is this one person. Can we know who this person is? What is his politics? And what is his evidence? Or evidence when it used in an argument against Hizbollah is not really important? "Reassessing Hizbullah’s Socioeconomic Policies in Lebanon," Joseph Daher, Middle East Journal, Summer 216., p. 412.  This is rather comical: so his entire (highly original theory which not even hard-core foes of Hizbullah in Lebanon have peddled) is based entirely on the opinion of ONE person, who just happens to be a political operative active in the political camp of Hizbullah's enemies of Lebanon.  The best part is this: this guy's dissertation on Hizbullah has been published (or will be published) by the University of Chicago Press, and one of the blurbs of the books says, to the effect that this is a good book because it is politically hostile to the agenda of the party.  I kid you not.  Look: there are legitimate and credible leftist critiques of Hizbullah but in Lebanon and Syria: there is a political propaganda effort to criticize Hizbullah for not being a leftist but from supporters of the Saudi regime. This is like whose in Lebanon and Syria who say: that they don't like Hizbullah because it is sectarian and not secular but they themselves are part of the Saudi coalition.  But politics aside, one expects scholarly documentation and substantiation and not accusations what are commonly leveled in Qatari regime and Saudi regime media.