Hassan Nasrallah

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Hassan Nasrallah
السيد حسن نصرالله
Hassan Nasrallah
In office
1992 – present
Preceded by Abbas al-Musawi
Born August 30, 1960 (1960-08-30) (age 47)
Bourj Hammoud, Beirut, Lebanon
Nationality Lebanese
Political party Hezbollah
Religion Twelver Shi'a Islam

Hassan Nasrallah (Arabic: حسن نصرالله‎) (b. August 30, 1960, Bourj Hammoud,[1] Beirut, Lebanon)[2] is the current Secretary General of the Lebanese Islamist party Hezbollah.

Contents

[edit] Personal life

Hassan Nasrallah was born the ninth of ten children in East Beirut's Bourj Hammoud neighborhood on August 31, 1960. His father, Abdul Karim, was a vegetable vendor in a small village near the city of Tyre in Jabal Amel in South Lebanon. Although his family was not particularly religious, Nasrallah was interested in religious studies. He attended Al-Najah school and later a public school in Sin el-Fil, Beirut.

In 1975, the civil war in Lebanon forced the family to move to their ancestral home in Bassouriyeh,[2][3] where Hasan Nasrallah completed his secondary education at the public school of Sour (Tyre). Here he joined the Amal Movement, a militia representing Shiites in Lebanon.[2][3]

Nasrallah and Lebanese religious leader Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah studied at a theological college in the Beqaa Valley town of Baalbek. The school followed the teachings of Iraqi-born Ayatollah Mohammad Baqir al-Sadr, who founded the Dawa movement in Najaf, Iraq during the early 1960s.[4] Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had Sadr executed in 1980. After a period of Islamic study in Najaf, Nasrallah returned to Lebanon in 1978 when Iraq expelled hundreds of Lebanese religious students. He studied and taught at the school of Amal’s leader Abbas al-Musawi, later being selected as Amal's political delegate in Beqaa, and making him a member of the central political office.

Nasrallah joined Hezbollah after the Israeli invasion in 1982.[5] His fiery sermons drew the admiration of Shiite followers who joined Nasrallah in organizing Hezbollah. In 1987, Nasrallah traveled to a seminary in Qum, Iran for religious studies. He returned to the war in Lebanon in 1989 and later that year, went back to Iran to represent Hezbollah.

In 1991, Musawi became secretary general of Hezbollah and Nasrallah returned to Lebanon. Nasrallah replaced Musawi as Hezbollah's leader after the latter was killed with his wife and child by Israeli forces.[2][6] Nasrallah lived in South Beirut with his wife Fatimah Yasin (who comes from the Lebanese village of Al-Abbasiyah)[3] and five children: Muhammad Haadi (d. 1997), Muhammad Jawaad, Zainab, Muhammad Ali and Muhammad Mahdi. In September 1997, his eldest son Muhammad Haadi was killed by Israeli forces in Jabal al-Rafei in southern Lebanon.[3]

In the mid-1970s he moved to a Shiite Hawzah (Islamic Seminary) in the Iraqi city of Najaf to study the Qur'an, completing the first stage of his studies in 1978 before being forced to leave by the Iraqi authorities.[2] Despite his ongoing commitment to Hezbollah, in 1989 Nasrallah resumed his efforts to become a religious jurist by moving to the Iranian city of Qom to further his studies. Nasrallah believes that Islam holds the solution to the problems of any society, once saying, “With respect to us, briefly, Islam is not a simple religion including only praises and prayers, rather it is a divine message that was designed for humanity, and it can answer any question man might ask concerning his general and private life. Islam is a religion designed for a society that can revolt and build a state.”[7]

[edit] Leadership of Hezbollah

Nasrallah became the leader of Hezbollah after Israel assassinated the movement’s leader Abbas al-Musawi in 1992.[2][3] Hezbollah's military campaigns of the late 1990s were believed to be one of the main factors that led to the Israeli decision to withdraw from Southern Lebanon in 2000, thus ending 18 years of occupation.[2]

Consequently, Nasrallah is widely credited in Lebanon and the Arab world for ending the Israeli occupation in Southern Lebanon, something which has greatly bolstered the party's political standing within Lebanon.[8]

Nasrallah also played a major role in a complex prisoner exchange deal between Israel and Hezbollah in 2004, resulting in hundreds of Palestinian and Lebanese prisoners being freed and the dead body of his son with many more returning to Lebanon. The agreement was described across the Arab world as a great victory for Hezbollah with Nasrallah being personally praised for achieving these gains.[9]

A December article in the London-based Asharq Al-Awsat reported that command of the organization's military wing was transferred from Nasrallah to his deputy, Na'im Qasim in August 2007.[10] Hezbollah has refuted this claim, declaring it an attempt "weaken the popularity" of the movement. [11]

[edit] National compact with Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun

Nasrallah negotiated a compact with the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun, the former premier and a Maronite Christian. Aoun described the ten-point compact in an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal published July 31, 2006. A key point is that Hezbollah agreed to disarm upon the return of its prisoners and the occupied Shebaa Farms. It also agreed to the pardon and return of fugitive South Lebanon Army (SLA) members now declared traitors. The Free Patriotic Movement in turn agreed to work for reform of the confessional electoral system of the Parliament of Lebanon and move it in the direction of one man, one vote. Aoun made the point that the political process was in effect disarming Hezbollah without any loss in lives from unnecessary wars.[12] Critics of this agreement say that is not very clear concerning the disarmament, and that it strengthened Hezbollah internally, giving it a non-Shiite cover.

[edit] 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

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Main article: 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict

On August 3, 2006,Hassan Nasrallah vowed to strike Tel Aviv in retaliation for Israel's bombardment of Lebanon's capital, Beirut. "If you hit Beirut, the Islamic resistance will hit Tel Aviv and is able to do that with God's help," Nasrallah said in a televised address. He said in his television address Hezbollah forces were inflicting maximum casualties on Israeli ground troops.[13]

Even before the conflict ended, Nasrallah came under intense criticism from pro-Western Arab regimes, including Jordan, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. Jordan's King Abdullah II and Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak warned on July 14th of the risk of "the region being dragged into adventurism that does not serve Arab interests," while Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal called the Hezbollah attacks "unexpected, inappropriate and irresponsible acts." He went further, saying, "These acts will pull the whole region back to years ago, and we cannot simply accept them."[14]

Nasrallah also came under intense criticism from some in Lebanon. Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Progressive Socialist Party of Lebanon and the most prominent leader of the Druze community, spoke out quite forcefully: "Great, so he's a hero. But I'd like to challenge this heroism of his. I have the right to challenge it, because my country is in flames. Besides, we did not agree..."[15] Jumblatt is also quoted as saying: "He is willing to let the Lebanese capital burn while he haggles over terms of surrender."

Following the cease-fire, which Nasrallah and Hezbollah declared a great victory, came what is known as the "Green Flood" (Al-sayl al-akhdhar), according to Iranian-born journalist Amir Taheri. "This refers to the massive amounts of U.S. dollar notes that Hezbollah is distributing among Shiites in Beirut and the south. The dollars from Iran are ferried to Beirut via Syria and distributed through networks of militants. Anyone who can prove that his home was damaged in the war receives $12,000, a tidy sum in wartorn Lebanon."[16]

In a TV interview aired on Lebanon's New TV station, Sunday, 27 August, Nasrallah said that he would not have ordered the capture of two Israeli soldiers if he had known it would lead to such a war: "We do not think, even 1 percent, that the capture led to a war at this time and of this magnitude. I'm convinced and sure that this war was planned and that the capture of this hostages was just their excuse to start this war, but if I had known on July 11 ... that the operation would lead to such a war, would I do it? I say no, absolutely not. but the war didn't start because of the oparation anyway, it's a written war, they would've chosen any excuse to start it anyway"[17]

[edit] Views on international politics

[edit] The Arab-Israeli conflict

Hezbollah
Flag of Hezbollah

Articles

"There is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel," said Nasrallah.[18]

Despite declaring "death to Israel" in his public appearances, Nasrallah said in an interview to The New Yorker, "At the end of the road no one can go to war on behalf of the Palestinians, even if that one is not in agreement with what the Palestinians agreed on."[19] When asked whether he was prepared to live with a two-state settlement between Israel and Palestine, he said he would not sabotage what is a Palestinian matter.[20]

In another interview with The Washington Post, Nasrallah said "I am against any reconciliation with Israel. I do not even recognize the presence of a state that is called 'Israel.' I consider its presence both unjust and unlawful. That is why if Lebanon concludes a peace agreement with Israel and brings that accord to the Parliament our deputies will reject it; Hezbollah refuses any conciliation with Israel in principle.".[21]

According to Nasrallah's website Wa3ad.org in regard to the State of Israel he is quoted as saying, "We do not want to kill anyone. We do not want to throw anyone in the sea. Give the houses back to their owners, the fields back to their landlords, and the homes back to the people. Release the prisoners, and leave us alone to live in this region in security, peace and dignity.".[22]

[edit] On 9/11

  • "What do the people who worked in those two World Trade Center towers, along with thousands of employees, women and men, have to do with war that is taking place in the Middle East? Or the war that Mr. George Bush may wage on people in the Islamic world? ... Therefore we condemned this act -- and any similar act we condemn. ... I said nothing about the Pentagon, meaning we remain silent. We neither favored nor opposed that act .... Well, of course, the method of Osama bin Laden, and the fashion of bin Laden, we do not endorse them. And many of the operations that they have carried out, we condemned them very clearly."[23]

[edit] The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon

  • "The Lebanese refuse to give the Palestinians residing in Lebanon Lebanese citizenship, and we refuse their resettlement in Lebanon. There is Lebanese consensus on this...we thank God that we all agree on one clear and definite result; namely, that we reject the resettlement of the Palestinians in Lebanon."[24]

[edit] Pre-2000 Israeli occupation of Lebanon

  • "If we are to expel the Israeli occupation from our country, how do we do this? We noticed what happened in Palestine, in the West Bank, in the Gaza Strip, in the Golan, in the Sinai. We reached a conclusion that we cannot rely on the Arab League states, nor on the United Nations .... The only way that we have is to take up arms and fight the occupation forces."[23]

[edit] Taif Agreement

Hassan Nasrallah, in a speech delivered in November 1989, confirms the long standing strategy of rejecting the Taef accord. At the time the "Scholar" Hassan Nasrallah, speaking on behalf of "Islamic resistance" in a Shiite mosque in Burj el-Barajneh during a memorial service said: "In the midst of the current events in Lebanon, the main problem is something called the Taef Agreement, and another is called Michel Aoun. It is not true that the Taef Agreement is only rejected by Michel Aoun, no. The problem with the Taif is that it enshrines the Maronite sectarian system (...) Our problem in Lebanon is this sectarian system that fosters the deprivation [of our community]. The alternative as said by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei is that this regime must fall, and the people are to decide the formation of the new, and what we wish for is that the people in Lebanon be able to choose this new system without pressures. On the other hand, the problem with Michel Aoun is that he represents an Israeli -Saddamist confrontational and destructive force, and he perceives only his personal interests (...) The alternative to the Taif accord is the resistance. "".[25] "".[26]"".[27]

[edit] Nasrallah in popular songs

Two popular songs were written about Nasrallah during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, with vastly different views of the Hezbollah leader: The Hawk of Lebanon in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and Yalla Ya Nasrallah in Israel. More recently in 2007, Lebanese singer Alaa Zalzali composed a tribute song entitled Ya Nasrallah. Another popular song composed in tribute to him was by Lebanese Christian singer Julia Boutros, called "Ahebba'i" meaning "my loved ones", which was inspired by Nasrallah's words in a televised message he sent to hezbollah fighters in southern Lebanon during the 2006 War.

[edit] References

  1. ^ TKB profile of Hassan Nasrallah
  2. ^ a b c d e f g "Profile: Sayid Hasan Nasrallah", Aljazeera.com, 2000-07-17. Retrieved on 2006-07-30. 
  3. ^ a b c d e Biographical sketch of Hassan Nasrallah: “The Nasrallah Enigma” (PDF). Al-Bawaba (2003-11-10). Retrieved on 2006-07-30.
  4. ^ O'Dwyer, Thomas. Hizbullah's ruthless realist. Violence and Terrorism 2000, p. 70. Dushkin/McGraw-Hill, ISBN 0-07-031072. - "He has lived up to our initial assessment," said an Israeli intelligence source. "He is tough, but more intellectual in a broader sense than Musawi. But he has steered close to Musawi's line and kept good relations with Amal, the Syrians, and [Iran]" The source said Nasrallah has kept an eye on making Hizbullah a legitimate political force as well as a military one.
  5. ^ Profile: Hasan Nasrallah
  6. ^ Profile: Hasan Nasrallah
  7. ^ Profile: Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
  8. ^ The Brooking Institution - Hezbollah's Popularity Exposes al-Qaeda's Failure to Win the Hearts
  9. ^ "Hizbullah, Vanguard and liberator", 2004-03-04. Retrieved on 2006-08-09. 
  10. ^ Report: Nasrallah replaced as head of Hizbullah military wing
  11. ^ Resistance dismisses 'rumors' of high-level shakeup
  12. ^ See History Will Judge Us All On Our Actions
  13. ^ "Hezbollah threatens to strike Tel Aviv", 2006-08-03. Retrieved on 2006-08-03. 
  14. ^ "Correct the damage", 2006-07-16. Retrieved on 2006-08-28. 
  15. ^ "Lebanese Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt Accuses Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria for Lebanon Crisis", 2006-07-20. Retrieved on 2006-08-28. 
  16. ^ "Hezbollah Didn't Win", 2006-07-25. Retrieved on 2006-08-28. 
  17. ^ "Hezbollah leader says he never thought capture would lead to war", 2006-08-28. Retrieved on 2006-08-28. 
  18. ^ Markus, Andrew. "Little choice for a defiant Israel", The Age, July 15, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-07-30. 
  19. ^ Hersh, Seymour M.. "The Syrian Bet", The New Yorker, July 18, 2003. Retrieved on 2006-08-07. 
  20. ^ Shatz, Adam. "In Search of Hezbollah", The New York Review of Books, April 29, 2004. Retrieved on 2006-08-07. 
  21. ^ "Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah Q&A: What Hezbollah Will Do", The Washington Post, February 20, 2000. Retrieved on 2006-08-08. 
  22. ^ "Promise For the Support of Resistance Movement". Retrieved on 2007-01-07. 
  23. ^ a b Wright, Robin. "Inside the Mind of Hezbollah." washingtonpost.com. 16 July 2006. 18 November 2006.
  24. ^ Passner, Deborah. "Hassan Nasrallah: In His Own Words." CAMERA: Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America. 26 July 2006. 18 November 2006. This article was reprinted in CAMERA's On Campus magazine in the Fall 2006 issue.
  25. ^ "Fares Khachan digs into the archives". Retrieved on 2006-12-13. 
  26. ^ "Fares Khachan digs into the archives". Retrieved on 2006-12-13. 
  27. ^ "Nasrallah on Taef & Aoun in November 1989". Retrieved on 2006-12-13. 

[edit] Official Websites

[edit] External links

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[edit] Speeches and interviews

Preceded by
Sayyed Abbas al-Musawi		 Secretary-General of Hezbollah
1992-present		 Succeeded by
Incumbent


Persondata
NAME Nasrallah, Hassan
ALTERNATIVE NAMES حسن نصرالله (Arabic)
SHORT DESCRIPTION Secretary General of Hezbollah
DATE OF BIRTH August 31, 1960
PLACE OF BIRTH Burj Hammud, Beirut, Lebanon
DATE OF DEATH living
PLACE OF DEATH
Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hassan_Nasrallah"
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