This story is brave and tragic. In every era, in order to rise in power, tyrants find a "them" to blame for the evils/problems of the world. Many people in the west, where Trump is compared to Hitler, do not seem to understand the scale or brutality of atrocities Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others executed. These dictators targeted and massacred specific groups of civilians. That same ideology is used today by Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist entities. Stories like this young man's bring a glimmer of hope to a world where terrorists are equated with democracies, wrong and right change depending on the groups to which one belongs(religion, race, gender), and where people refuse to acknowledge that evil will unfortunately always exist.
To borrow from the current Islamist rhetoric, let me just change the names: Iran is the "Great Patron Satan", Hezbollah the "Big Satan", Hamas the "Little Satan", the Houthi's a "Wannabe Satan". You said it well - "For decades it [Hezbollah] has harmed millions of Arabs and Muslims it supposedly champions. Hezbollah is a tyrant in its native Lebanon, an occupier in neighboring Syria, a transnational mafia of sex and drug trafficking, and the nerve center of Iran’s empire in Arab lands—what it calls the “Axis of Resistance”—stretching across the Levant, Yemen, and Iraq. Hamas, which has ruled in Gaza for a generation and committed the atrocities against Israel on October 7, is also a proxy for Iran. But Hezbollah’s size and reach dwarf that of Hamas." Hamas, a mini-Hezbollah, was thrown out of Jordan, it's equivalent, The Muslim Brotherhood, ejected from Egypt. None of the Arab Nation genuinely welcomes them with the exception of their patron, Iran. One stupid question "isn't sex and drug trafficking against the beliefs of Islam? I don't want to believe that this is what the Arab world truly desires for themselves or anyone else. So why do they not take matters into their own hands. It is their destiny, unfortunately it is also now entwined with ours.
I love this "Hamas made us kill the Gazans" argument. It's remarkably similar to what German civilians said when the Allies marched them through the camps: "What terrible people they must have been, to deserve this!".
.
I remember the good old days, the PLO would bomb a bus in Tel Aviv and the IDF would scramble a jet and go stafe some refugee camps. The 1970s, remember? There was a ratio, there Palestinians for every Israeli, or maybe it wa 10 for one. Whatever. It was detente. It worked.
What happened to that? It wasn't perfect but a helluva lot better than this slow moving genocidal horror we're watching unfold.
Genocidal? 99% of the Gazan population is still alive after almost a full year of war. Must be a veeeeerrrrryyyy "slow moving genocidal horror" when you compare it to 2/3 of Europe's Jewish population being killed in a six year span during WWII
The Hezbollah example of crime-for-fundamentalism was and still is reprised here in South Africa. The revolutionary modus operandi of the African National Congress prior to liberation in 1994 employed criminal enterprises to fund their lofty idealism.
This criminality has remained endemic in present-day South Africa, and is ably supported by the Marxist agenda of erasure of western components of South African identity.
Hezbollah and Iran, partners to Putin's genocide, are identical to the regrettable history of ANC failure to free South Africa. These Global South mercenaries must be fought with every wisdom available to the West.
Wherever they go, they bring hardship to their population and to the country. Do you wonder why the Egytians built a huge wall separating them hermetically from Gaza at the very outset of the war? You have the answer !
Yes Hezbollah ruined Lebanon. In the sixties and seventies Lebanon was a prosperous and beautiful country. It was called the Switzerland of the Middle East . Baalbeck had an incredible history art festival. The disaster started with Arafat’s terrorist group the PLO which settled in Lebanon and gangrened it from within. The Lebanese society was multicultural and religious groups themselves were in deep opposition with one another. So the lebanese did not throw them out. This is how the disaster started with the lebanese, many of whom have fled abroad, especially the Christians (maronites).
Israel will never permit a successful neighbouring arab nation state to exist. Ever. All those regional economies have been systematically destroyed, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, etc.
I'm going to stop you right there by saying I'm no fan of Hezbollah, or Hamas, or Israel or Syria or Iran. I hold all of them in very low regard. I'll happily trash any or all of them.
You I believe have chosen a side. That's a very weak position to be in because you have to be right and you have to keep proving it or you'll implode.
Oh not just Israel, that's not fair. Didn't I mention the role every major US foreign policy failure since '67 has played, up to and including the Irish - oops, I mean Arab - Spring? The worst disaster by far since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.?
So add Libya and Tunisia to the list of failed states. They're not land of Goshen either but what the heck.
Thanks for your intellectually abstruse lesson on written discourse.
And no it isn't. Israel IS the U.S. They can't go running to Congress for fifty billion dollars every time Hamas breaches their border, then turn around and say, "Uncle who? We're an independent nation state and blah blah blah". No they're aren't. They're an extension of U.S. foreign policy, nothing more, and some desert to park some nukes , a U.S. protectorate with delusions of grandeur. Israel has literally NO friends..Without Iran and Syria they wouldn't even be that. Geography is Israel's one asset. Ridiculous. You're in the ozone hun, stick to your cognitive peers.
Haha I love that first you wrote literary discourse then realized that you could get -closer- to making sense. Well done.
Does realizing you’re wrong make you want to amp up the rhetorical pomposity? Are you accustomed to bludgeoning idiots into thinking you’re smarter than them and that’s how you usually bully folks on the internet?
And is functions like an equals sign, making both sides equivalent.
It’s funny. I guess it’s part of the psychology behind Trumpism? There’s something so arresting about your grand ego confidence and aggressive bluster and the way you just come up with new untethered insults and accusations in response to real rebuttals of your points. But in me it provokes a strong desire to smash, not admiration.
But this is not worth my time. Go find a Twitter thread to ruin.
When Bari interviewed the Muslim who was raised among Israeli Jews, she (the Muslim) talked about how all Israeli Jews were taught when young to hate and want to kill the Palestinians, it was floated over without comment. Hmmm, wonder why?
“All Israeli Jews were taught to hate and kill Palestinians”? It is not at all what was said. You might want to listen to the interview again to understand what was said.
Her name is Lucy Aharish. She grew up in a right-wing town, and that is not at all what she said. She was describing going to school during the 2nd Intifada, when there were weekly terrorist attacks inside Israel. In the aftermath of each suicide bombing, the kids at school were saying "death to Arabs" and other such things. They were not "taught" anything. They were spontaneously expressing a desire for revenge.
When demonstrations against Israel have taken place over last decades in muslim countries, what always stroke me was the hatred expressed on all the faces. When in Israel there has been terrorists attacks, what you could see was essentially devastating pain for the dead and the wounded, rarely hatred
The first thing is the biggest Hezbollah's hostage, the country of Lebanon. Although certain Lebanese don't or won't see it, most get it. They just can't say it.
I watched the first episode with my partner. She left Lebanon at the height of the Civil war. Hezbollah has destroyed Lebanon. Thanks for making this available so it can be shared with everyone. People need to understand how Hezbollah operates and what it truly stands for! Well done!!
Axis of resistance indeed
Proof positive that being a woke progressive is a mental disability, disease or brain injury.
Hmmm.....strange how there was no talk of "Hezzbolah's Hostages" before Oct. 7th.
This story is brave and tragic. In every era, in order to rise in power, tyrants find a "them" to blame for the evils/problems of the world. Many people in the west, where Trump is compared to Hitler, do not seem to understand the scale or brutality of atrocities Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, and others executed. These dictators targeted and massacred specific groups of civilians. That same ideology is used today by Hezbollah, Hamas, and other terrorist entities. Stories like this young man's bring a glimmer of hope to a world where terrorists are equated with democracies, wrong and right change depending on the groups to which one belongs(religion, race, gender), and where people refuse to acknowledge that evil will unfortunately always exist.
Oh I get it now. The IDF are liberators. They're freeing the Gazans from the Hamas yoke.
Uh...yippee?
Oh, and it also solves the problem of lebensraum, everybody wins!
If the Israelis are trying to ethnic cleanse Gaza it is only possible because Hamas giving them cover and reason to do so
Yippee indeed.
I'm in favor of a ceasefire and a permanent truce. But I fear that's not enough to satisfy your thirst for blood
Another colaboration with the Centre for Peace Communications, looking forward to the rest of the series! Really nice graphic animation too 👍🏼
A brave young man, but braver yet, his momma. Way to call him back Mom!
Thank you for this simple understanding of the relationships, countries involved, and complicated culture.
To borrow from the current Islamist rhetoric, let me just change the names: Iran is the "Great Patron Satan", Hezbollah the "Big Satan", Hamas the "Little Satan", the Houthi's a "Wannabe Satan". You said it well - "For decades it [Hezbollah] has harmed millions of Arabs and Muslims it supposedly champions. Hezbollah is a tyrant in its native Lebanon, an occupier in neighboring Syria, a transnational mafia of sex and drug trafficking, and the nerve center of Iran’s empire in Arab lands—what it calls the “Axis of Resistance”—stretching across the Levant, Yemen, and Iraq. Hamas, which has ruled in Gaza for a generation and committed the atrocities against Israel on October 7, is also a proxy for Iran. But Hezbollah’s size and reach dwarf that of Hamas." Hamas, a mini-Hezbollah, was thrown out of Jordan, it's equivalent, The Muslim Brotherhood, ejected from Egypt. None of the Arab Nation genuinely welcomes them with the exception of their patron, Iran. One stupid question "isn't sex and drug trafficking against the beliefs of Islam? I don't want to believe that this is what the Arab world truly desires for themselves or anyone else. So why do they not take matters into their own hands. It is their destiny, unfortunately it is also now entwined with ours.
I love this "Hamas made us kill the Gazans" argument. It's remarkably similar to what German civilians said when the Allies marched them through the camps: "What terrible people they must have been, to deserve this!".
.
I remember the good old days, the PLO would bomb a bus in Tel Aviv and the IDF would scramble a jet and go stafe some refugee camps. The 1970s, remember? There was a ratio, there Palestinians for every Israeli, or maybe it wa 10 for one. Whatever. It was detente. It worked.
What happened to that? It wasn't perfect but a helluva lot better than this slow moving genocidal horror we're watching unfold.
If Israel wanted to commit a genocide, it could. But it doesn't.
If Hamas Could commit a genocide, it would. But it can't.
That sums up the war in Gaza very neatly.
Genocidal? 99% of the Gazan population is still alive after almost a full year of war. Must be a veeeeerrrrryyyy "slow moving genocidal horror" when you compare it to 2/3 of Europe's Jewish population being killed in a six year span during WWII
Biden's holding up the parade.
🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄🙄
Cannot roll eyes any harder
🤡
The Hezbollah example of crime-for-fundamentalism was and still is reprised here in South Africa. The revolutionary modus operandi of the African National Congress prior to liberation in 1994 employed criminal enterprises to fund their lofty idealism.
This criminality has remained endemic in present-day South Africa, and is ably supported by the Marxist agenda of erasure of western components of South African identity.
Hezbollah and Iran, partners to Putin's genocide, are identical to the regrettable history of ANC failure to free South Africa. These Global South mercenaries must be fought with every wisdom available to the West.
Wherever they go, they bring hardship to their population and to the country. Do you wonder why the Egytians built a huge wall separating them hermetically from Gaza at the very outset of the war? You have the answer !
Yes Hezbollah ruined Lebanon. In the sixties and seventies Lebanon was a prosperous and beautiful country. It was called the Switzerland of the Middle East . Baalbeck had an incredible history art festival. The disaster started with Arafat’s terrorist group the PLO which settled in Lebanon and gangrened it from within. The Lebanese society was multicultural and religious groups themselves were in deep opposition with one another. So the lebanese did not throw them out. This is how the disaster started with the lebanese, many of whom have fled abroad, especially the Christians (maronites).
...wasnt there a civil war thing?
Who meddled in that?
Three guesses, first two don't count.
Israel will never permit a successful neighbouring arab nation state to exist. Ever. All those regional economies have been systematically destroyed, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, etc.
The Levant is Mistah Charlie's ...
What exactly do you know about the problem?
I'm going to stop you right there by saying I'm no fan of Hezbollah, or Hamas, or Israel or Syria or Iran. I hold all of them in very low regard. I'll happily trash any or all of them.
You I believe have chosen a side. That's a very weak position to be in because you have to be right and you have to keep proving it or you'll implode.
Save yourself some grief and move on.
Yes you are absolutely right . I made a choice and I have chosen for a long time democracies versus totalitarism….
Wow you do ... make stuff up. But so confidently! The power and aggression of a mediocre white man.
Jordan, Egypt, Saudi, Bahrain, UAE, Morocco, ... are they not Arabs? Not successful?
You impressively find the Jews in the region responsible for the dysfunction of all the other states. Sure are good at being nefarious, aren't they?
Only Jordan among those borders Israel.
Are you TFP's latest diversity hire?
.
Oh not just Israel, that's not fair. Didn't I mention the role every major US foreign policy failure since '67 has played, up to and including the Irish - oops, I mean Arab - Spring? The worst disaster by far since the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.?
So add Libya and Tunisia to the list of failed states. They're not land of Goshen either but what the heck.
Impressive! That's batting a thousand I believe.
This is why the written word is so wonderful. Harder for people to be slippery and rude.
You wrote “Israel will never permit a successful neighbouring Arab nation state”.
Is the house two doors down not your neighbor? You didn’t say bordering. If you had, Jordan would still be a counter example to your NEVER statement.
And saying Israel but meaning the United States isn’t only unfair, it’s intentionally misleading.
Thanks for your intellectually abstruse lesson on written discourse.
And no it isn't. Israel IS the U.S. They can't go running to Congress for fifty billion dollars every time Hamas breaches their border, then turn around and say, "Uncle who? We're an independent nation state and blah blah blah". No they're aren't. They're an extension of U.S. foreign policy, nothing more, and some desert to park some nukes , a U.S. protectorate with delusions of grandeur. Israel has literally NO friends..Without Iran and Syria they wouldn't even be that. Geography is Israel's one asset. Ridiculous. You're in the ozone hun, stick to your cognitive peers.
Haha I love that first you wrote literary discourse then realized that you could get -closer- to making sense. Well done.
Does realizing you’re wrong make you want to amp up the rhetorical pomposity? Are you accustomed to bludgeoning idiots into thinking you’re smarter than them and that’s how you usually bully folks on the internet?
And is functions like an equals sign, making both sides equivalent.
It’s funny. I guess it’s part of the psychology behind Trumpism? There’s something so arresting about your grand ego confidence and aggressive bluster and the way you just come up with new untethered insults and accusations in response to real rebuttals of your points. But in me it provokes a strong desire to smash, not admiration.
But this is not worth my time. Go find a Twitter thread to ruin.
Beautifully done.
When Bari interviewed the Muslim who was raised among Israeli Jews, she (the Muslim) talked about how all Israeli Jews were taught when young to hate and want to kill the Palestinians, it was floated over without comment. Hmmm, wonder why?
Yeah, that's why over 250,000 Gaza & West BankPalestinians are treated in Israeli hospitals every year.
“All Israeli Jews were taught to hate and kill Palestinians”? It is not at all what was said. You might want to listen to the interview again to understand what was said.
Her name is Lucy Aharish. She grew up in a right-wing town, and that is not at all what she said. She was describing going to school during the 2nd Intifada, when there were weekly terrorist attacks inside Israel. In the aftermath of each suicide bombing, the kids at school were saying "death to Arabs" and other such things. They were not "taught" anything. They were spontaneously expressing a desire for revenge.
When demonstrations against Israel have taken place over last decades in muslim countries, what always stroke me was the hatred expressed on all the faces. When in Israel there has been terrorists attacks, what you could see was essentially devastating pain for the dead and the wounded, rarely hatred
The first thing is the biggest Hezbollah's hostage, the country of Lebanon. Although certain Lebanese don't or won't see it, most get it. They just can't say it.
I watched the first episode with my partner. She left Lebanon at the height of the Civil war. Hezbollah has destroyed Lebanon. Thanks for making this available so it can be shared with everyone. People need to understand how Hezbollah operates and what it truly stands for! Well done!!
A Hezbollah hating Lebanese expat. Now there's an objective opinion.
In your mind what positives has Hezbollah contributed to Lebanon?
Can’t wait to watch the series.