Ideas not people are indestructible

Lebanon is a land planted with idols, the living, the dead and those made of marble, throughout its length and breadth, from its coast to its highest mountains, we are a country that raises high a person, a human being, and brings low another. We forget or ignore high ideals and values, or working together for a common good, or the value of organization that outlives flesh and blood. We are out for our own personal gain and we admire those who succeed at taking what isn’t technically theirs. We also admire the superman until we discover he is just a man, fragile flesh and blood. Christian and Muslim, secular, agnostic and atheist, each of us have his or her own idol, in this case a word with multiple connotations.

What Israel fails to understand is the power and indestructability of an idea and a belief. For one, the audacious idea that an inferior force of guerillas formed into a resistance movement can dare to think it can defeat Israel, a powerful idea. That’s an idea that’s hard to remove or erase from the culture of a people. Faith and belief in the righteousness of the shahid who falls fighting for right and justice against wrong and injustice, and that his or her inevitable destination is an afterlife so much better than our present Lebanese reality, that too is hard to argue with. Trust me, I’ve tried arguing with men of faith as an atheist myself and I have failed.

 

Israel acts like any practical western state would, stupidly thinking that killing Hezbollah’s senior most leadership, or denying rescuers access to their last known location, buried beneath piles of rubble, will somehow demoralize fighters and confuse the whole organization into throwing down their arms and surrendering. Granted, I understand why they think that way, I studied in the west myself and I know the logic behind targeting underground meetings of the party of God. Except, the party’s adherents pray and wish for such an end for themselves and their senior leadership. A beloved leader who is approaching his 70s is killed by the hated Israeli enemy, seems less a tragedy, as it would to a westerner, and more of a blessing to his followers, to achieve al shahada even at such an age, is a gift from the Almighty.

 

Israel will fail to defeat Hezbollah, not the many physical manifestations of the party certainly, the ambulances, the civilian homes, the fire trucks, those are too easy not to find and destroy; no, they will fail to destroy the idea of resistance and the determination it instills in every successive generation not just to keep fighting but to fight better and learn from their mistakes and, more importantly, never stop fighting and resisting until victory. I truly believe that when they ultimately win, and they will, it will be such a letdown for those left alive.

 

With every expensive bomb or missile or plane they use, the Israelis may not know it, but they are laying the foundation of a future victory for Hezbollah and the lack of a future for Israel.

 

I can never understand that which motivates the fighters and followers of Hezbollah, I have always fled from danger and always sought to live my life to achieve my own personal goals and attain personal financial independence and comfort, and yet there are people who are willing to lay down their life for an idea they believe holy and good. They sacrifice their lives so others may live. I include here fire fighters and rescuers and paramedics who willingly go into harms way to save lives.

Hezbollah is not its senior leadership, the party is strong in its youngest followers, who follow the same path laid down for them by the older fighters, grounded in a deep belief in ultimate victory, how can you not admire such strong convictions.