Appeal on the Necessity of Enacting a Law to Ban Hezbollah and Fascist Parties in Lebanon

1. Decisive moments in the lives of nations and societies sometimes impose the adoption of extraordinary decisions—decisions that can be considered as “revolutionary” in defense of their existence and future. For instance, the laws enacted to combat Nazism, both as an ideology and as an organization, at the end of World War II, in funtions to the immense sufferings and atrocities it inflicted on the Jewish people and on all the nations of Europe, including the Germans themselves.

1. Similarly,  the “Tokyo War Crimes Tribunal” was created in April 1946, and sentenced seven senior military leaders, intelligence officers, and a former prime minister to death. It reviewed the files of nearly 750,000 Japanese officials accused of participating in or supporting the war. The Allies, also, forced the Japanese authorities to acknowledge that the Emperor was “a human being” and not “a god,” as the Japanese emperors had been revered for centuries.Or, consider the decision to “dissolve the Soviet Union” and to ban the ruling Communist Party following the failed coup against President Gorbachev in 1991.
2. Lebanon witnessed a similar situation after the “military coup” of December 31, 1961,  carried out by the Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP). The party was dissolved, and thousands of its members were arrested. Unfortunately, they were mistreated in military prisons.
3. For the second time since 2006, Hezbollah leaders, loyal to a foreign regime, have caused the destruction of Beirut’s southern suburbs, large parts of southern Lebanon, and the Bekaa Valley. The destruction is still ongoing, and its consequences could be worse than the 2006 war. In both cases, a militia adhering to a radical religious ideology that is not part of modern civilization, dragged its country into war without the consent of its official authorities or its people, under the slogan “whether the Lebanese like it or not,” declared openly by its leader on television.
4. Starting in 2012, Hezbollah, loyal to Iran, engaged in an aggressive war against the Syrian people to defend a bloodthirsty dictator who inherited power from his father, causing the deaths of tens of thousands of Syrians. Thousands of Lebanese youth, particularly from the Bekaa and southern Lebanon, also perished or were wounded in a war that had no justification against their Syrian neighbors who were uprising for their freedom.
5. Hezbollah turned hundreds of young Lebanese into “mercenaries” to suppress the Iraqi revolutionaries against the Iranian occupation of their country. It also sent hundreds or even dozens of its members to train Iran’s Houthi militia on cutting off international maritime shipping lanes.
6. The people of Iran know that elements of Hezbollah and Hamas participated in the violent suppression of protests in Iran in 2009, after the presidential election was rigged to ensure Ahmadinejad’s victory. At the time, “Shaffaf” published images of Hezbollah and Hamas members suppressing Iranians in Teheran.
7. Starting in 2004, Hezbollah carried out numerous assassinations, the first of which was the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The goal of these assassinations was to terrorize the Lebanese people and institutions, undermining them in order to exercise illegal authority based solely on fear.
8. Hezbollah succeeded, through a known “terrorist” operation on May 7, 2008, in occupying the capital of the country, thanks to the complacency of military and security authorities. It gradually subjugated Lebanon and its institutions, even installing its ally Michel Aoun as president. It also prevented the legitimate parliament from electing a president for two years.
9. Hezbollah, serving the Iranian religious dictatorship, caused the destruction of the Port of Beirut in the largest non-nuclear explosion in history, yet its leader denied even knowing that there was a port in Beirut!! The party and its leaders did not even consider  “apologizing” to the Lebanese people for the devastation and humiliation they inflicted. Moreover, Hezbollah’s “policeman,” Wafiq Safa, blocked investigations into the explosion until this day.
10. For years, Hezbollah has cooperated with Colombian drug cartels and, in recent years, together with its Syrian ally, it became the largest producer and distributor of Captagon in the Middle East.
11. As of the ongoing war, Hezbollah’s aggression against Israel, initiated without provocation on October 8, 2023, has led to the deaths of over 3,000 young Lebanese, the majority of whom were members of the party (to us, they are Lebanese citizens irrespective of their doctrinal affiliations). This war has also caused the displacement of up to half a million Lebanese and the destruction of more than 10,000 houses in the south alone, in addition to the southern suburbs of Beirut and the Bekaa Valley. There is fear that the death toll could rise to tens of thousands if the fighting continues.
12. Hezbollah has destroyed national unity among the Lebanese people, tarnished the image of Lebanon as a diverse and beautiful country known for the culture of its people, its schools, universities, hospitals, and banks. It played a major role in the collapse of the Lebanese banking system and in shielding corrupt bank owners who stole the savings of the Lebanese. Hezbollah also contributed to the spread of a sense of despair among the Lebanese, leading to accelerated emigration and convincing many that “Lebanon is finished.”
13. There is, now, an urgent need for decisive actions that restore hope and confidence to the Lebanese people and convince them that their state is capable of protecting and caring for all its citizens. It is not true that there is a sense of “frustration” among Shiite Lebanese alone; the frustration is felt by all Lebanese. The enactment of firm decisions by Lebanese authorities will signal the return of Lebanon, with the Shiites being an integral part of it.
14. Based on the above, “Shaffaf” proposes the initiation of an open debate and calls for the enactment of a law that bans religious and fascist parties in Lebanon, foremost among them Hezbollah, which operates without legal authorization. The law should prohibit calls for destructive wars under the guise of fake nationalist slogans (such as “fighting Israel and destroying it”) or mythical religious slogans that, in reality, aim only to control Lebanon and turn it into a colony for Iranian militias.

The moment Lebanon is living through is a decisive one, demanding bold decisions to save Lebanon, particularly its south and its capital, from total destruction. Recently, the Lebanese have realized that their salvation will not come through international interventions, especially French and American proposals that aim to maintain Iranian and fascist control over Lebanon. Instead, it will come through the restoration of their “sovereignty” and their own free national decision.

Just as the small state of Kuwait succeeded in regaining its independence from the Saddam Hussein invasion in 1991, Lebanon too can achieve its third full independence.

The enactment of a law banning Hezbollah and religious, fascist, and aggressive parties will convince Arab countries to support the reconstruction of Lebanon and will encourage Lebanese expatriates to contribute to the rebuilding of their homeland. It will mark the return of Lebanon as “the beacon of the East,” a haven of peace, and the fall of Lebanon as a center of terrorism, drugs, and religious extremism.

Finally, this appeal reflects not only the opinion of “Shaffaf” as a “secular” and “liberal” platform, but also the point of view of diverse Arab elites in the Gulf countries, Syria, Iraq, and Yemen. It also enjoys support from prominent Palestinian elites in Lebanon and the West Bank, as well as from Lebanese people of various political and religious orientations.

(First published, in Arabic, on October 7, 2024)