13 January 2015
By Tariq Alhomayed
It is not surprising that a merchant of death like
Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Lebanese Shi’ite
group Hezbollah, has attempted to use the terrorist
attack on the offices of French satirical newspaper
Charlie Hebdo to burnish the public image of his
group. Nasrallah claimed Sunni takfirist groups, such
as those assumed to have carried out the attack, had
insulted the Prophet Muhammad more severely than those
they attacked ever had.
But the truth—which everyone in our region knows—is
that Hezbollah is hardly concerned with people’s
freedom, nor protecting them, and that the group is
not one that seeks to avoid bloodshed, or even respect
the religious beliefs of others. Hezbollah, and all
Iran’s allies in the region, are guilty of inflaming
sectarian tensions there—and, of course, guilty of
much more than that. Nasrallah claims that through
carrying out the attacks in Paris, the takfirists
themselves have managed to besmirch the image of the
Prophet more than their enemies were ever able to. At
this juncture, one might put to him the following
question: why then did you, and Bashar Al-Assad,
support the many marches through Lebanon and Syria
which condemned the cartoons by Danish newspaper
Jyllands-Posten depicting the Prophet Muhammad?
Abdulrahman Al-Rashed has also pointed out in this
paper recently how Iran issued a fatwa against the
author of The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie,
threatening to kill him and arm anyone or any group
willing to do so. He also reminded us how “Iran, which
fumed over Rushdie’s novel, also allows thousands of
books to be printed each year which directly insult
the Prophet’s companions.”
But it doesn’t stop there. One could also ask
Nasrallah, this man who has the blood of thousands of
Syrians on his hands and is also apparently a guardian
of free speech, why the Assad regime’s thugs broke the
hands of famous Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat, who had
been critical of Assad, shortly after the revolution
against the regime began? Back then, Nasrallah didn’t
move an inch to defend Farzat or freedom of speech.
One can also ask Nasrallah the following: what is the
difference between these takfirists who kill thousands
of people, and the Assad regime and its supporters,
among them Hezbollah and Nasrallah himself, who also
kill thousands of people? Moreover, if the leader of
Hezbollah is so “moderate,” as he claims to be, then
why does he not tell us who assassinated Samir Nusair
and anti-Syrian editor and politician Gibran Tueni in
the same year in Lebanon?
The truth is that Nasrallah is simply attempting to
polish his image in front of Lebanese and regional
public opinion, and the rest of the world, by
portraying himself as “tolerant,” in order to brush
over the crimes his group has committed in Lebanon,
Iraq, Syria and Yemen. For Nasrallah is fully aware
that the world is now a different place following the
Paris terror attacks. The region and the world must
all be aware of this deception by Iran and all its
allies. Before it, of course, came the first
deception— a prime example of taqiyah
(dissimulation)—which occurred right after the 9/11
attacks. What the world must not forget is that
Hezbollah not only fans the flames of sectarianism and
terror in the region and beyond, but that it is also
one of the most prolific practitioners of these dark
arts. The most obvious example of this is of course
what the group is currently doing in Syria, where it
is at the very least complicit in the Assad regime’s
horrendous crimes.
Tariq
Alhomayed is the Editor-in-Chief of Asharq Al-Awsat,
the youngest person to be appointed that position. He
holds a BA degree in Media studies from King Abdul
Aziz University in Jeddah, and has also completed his
Introductory courses towards a Master's degree from
George Washington University in Washington D.C. He is
based in London.
©
EsinIslam.Com
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