Hezbollah’s Palestinian problem………and vice versa

Franklin Lamb

Beirut

Many Lebanese and Syrian supporters of the region’s Resistance

culture, increasingly led by Hezbollah, are chastising, for a number of
reasons, their former Islamist ally Hamas. Pillorying them with accusations
that the latter are ingrates who are creating a host of problems for
Hezbollah and its support for the Syrian regime, during the continuing
crisis. Unnecessary problems, it is frequently asserted, that inure to the
benefit of their mutual arch enemies, the Zionist colonizers of Palestine
and their American and Arab enablers.

An outsider living near the center of the Hezbollah security zone in

Dahiyeh, South Beirut, as does this observer, hears from friends and
neighbors both sides of this rancorous domestic argument. Having respect

for, and being a supporter of both, one feels a bit awkward– rather like a
good friend of a married couple, who are engaged in an increasingly
acrimonious marital spat.

While sympathetic to each friend’s seemingly legitimate complaints with
the other, one does not want to take sides for, among other reasons, the

risk of appearing disloyal to mutual friends and alienating perhaps both

while being labeled a weak, “friend betrayer.”

Yet one cannot disagree with the Palestinian community in both Syria and
Lebanon who repeatedly assert that they want to stay neutral in the Syrian

crisis which appears unlikely to end anytime soon. Palestinian refugees,
in Palestine as well as in Syria and Lebanon, want to stay out of internecine
conflicts and focus on trying to survive and confronting their real enemies,
those who stole and are still living on their land.

Some supporters of Hezbollah and the Palestine Resistance seek to avoid
exhibiting dirty laundry to public view, but given the voracious craving of

media outlets linked to various local parties as well as foreign sponsors,
there is much pressure and opportunity to condemn each side for, some real
but many illusory, Hezbollah-Palestinian cross-border conflicts. This mutually
destructive phenomenon appears to be spreading.

Hezbollah’s local Palestinian problem started to form in the spring of 2011
as the Syrian crisis quickly gained momentum. Some Palestinians joined the

rebels and nearly 28 months into the maelstrom, continue fighting the Assad
government. The numbers appear to this observer to be a tiny fraction of
the unemployed, discouraged Palestinian youth. Some have succumbed to
the allure of $200 per month, free cigarettes, and an AK-47 and have joined
one or the other of literally hundreds of jihadist militias operating in Syria,
some currently scoping out Lebanon.

Some point out that those Palestinian refugees in Syria should not be seen as
betraying those who have helped them most. The undeniable fact is that
Palestinian refugees in Syria have for more than six decades been granted by
the government rights to education, medical care, housing, employment,
and in many instances, preferential treatment. In addition, Syria has granted
them identity and travel documents, to an extent that no other Arab League
country has. This despite decades of Arab potentates blathering interminably

about supporting the “bloodstream and sacred cause of Palestine.”

So there is festering resentment when certain media blare that Palestinian
groups such as Hamas are with the rebels and are insisting that Hezbollah

fighters not enter Syria under any pretext. Hamas stands accused of closing

their Damascus offices, accepting a $400 million grant from Syria’s nemesis Qatar

and of joining the US-Israel axis by harming their own people as well as
undermining the resistance to the Zionist regime in the process. Certain
other Palestinians in camps such as Yarmouk in Syria and Shatila in Lebanon
tacitly accuse Hamas of abandoning the Palestinian cause and misguidedly
sparking sectarian strife with Hezbollah. Others argue just the opposite
and blame Hezbollah.

Some Palestinians are also said to be carrying guns for the Saida-based,
Lebanese Salafist cleric Sheikh Ahmed al-Asir, the imam of Saida’s Bilal bin

Rabah Mosque, while supporting his anti-Hezbollah-Assad regime

which is trying to unite Sunnis who make up roughly 85% of the world’s
Muslim population, to eliminate all Shia Muslims.

Syrian government forces claim that Hamas has even trained Syrian rebels
in the manufacture and use of home-made rockets. Some Hezbollah fighters

complain that they taught Hamas many of their battlefield skills which they
turned around and used against Hezbollah forces in al-Qusayr and are

preparing to do the same, with larger numbers, in the coming battle for
Aleppo, Syria’s largest city.

Many supporters of Hezbollah believe Hamas and some other Palestinian
factions were being needlessly provocative when a few officials issued an

unusual admonishment of Hezbollah on June 13, demanding it direct its
firepower at Israel and withdraw from involvement in the Syrian conflict.

“We demand of Hezbollah to withdraw its forces from Syria and call on it
to leave its weapons directed only at the Zionist enemy,” read a statement
allegedly from Hamas, posted on the Facebook page of its deputy political
leader Moussa Abu Marzouq.

Despite its withdrawal from Syria in early 2012, Hamas, as an Islamic

organization, has been wary of publicly criticizing Hezbollah for its military
support of the Assad regime. On June 13, the London-based daily Al-Quds

Al-Araby reported that a schism existed within Hamas regarding its attitude
toward Hezbollah. Hamas’s military wing, the Izz Ad-Din Al-Qassam
Brigades, reportedly endorsed the alliance with the Syria-Hezbollah axis,
while its political leadership opposed it. Some have questioned the accuracy
of this report.

Other more petty accusations have been made by some Hezbollah

supporters, for example that some Palestinian camp residents in Ein el
Helwe camp near Saida and Jalil camp near Baalbek, were encouraged by
Hamas to burn refugee aid packages provided by Hezbollah for Syrians
and Palestinians forced to flee Syria. The reasons cited by the Palestinians
for this odd act were that they felt they could not, given moral Islamic

values, accept “blood” gifts, even of much needed food.

This observer met with some Palestinian leaders from different factions and
is satisfied by their explanations that this was not the case. Hezbollah has
given emergency aid to all the Palestinian camps. What happened with the
symbolic burning of a few parcels was entirely politically motivated and
organized by certain Salafists in Saida and a few troublemakers from the

pro-Saudi/US factions, including rump elements from the pro-western

March 14 alliance. That issue has now been resolved by Palestinian popular

committees and the Hezbollah donors. Hopefully it will not recur.

Some Hezbollah partisans complain that certain Palestinian factions have

circulated rumors in the media accusing Hezbollah of wrongdoing and

thereby are in effect collaborating with the US and Israel to divide and
weaken the National Lebanese Resistance.

Yet additional criticism of certain Palestinian factions, specifically Hamas,

relates to the nature of the movement’s relationship with the state of

Qatar which is accused of essentially appointed itself godfather of all the
Islamist and Muslim Brotherhood movements in the region. According

to some, this has caused Hamas to lose the credibility and popularity that
it once enjoyed from diaspora Palestinians.

The Palestinians’ Hezbollah problem

Revisiting the “marital spat” analogy, some of the accusations against

certain Palestinian groups mirror those made against Hezbollah. Some

Lebanese analysts and some camp Palestinians have warned that
Hezbollah’s foray into Syria is fueling a Sunni-Shiite polarization that
threatens to feed extremism on both sides and catapult the conflict to the
wider region

Syrian opposition groups reported on May 30 that Hezbollah had

ordered Hamas’s representative in Beirut, Ali Baraka, to leave the country

immediately because of Hamas’s public support for Syrian rebels
fighting Assad. Baraka denied the report, telling Lebanese media (and
his neighbors) that there was no change in the relationship between the
two organizations. As of today, this observer’s kitchen balcony overlooks
the Hamas office in central Haret Hreik and it is clear that it is still

functioning.

The Hamas disagreement with Hezbollah still stands but both parties
have agreed to discuss it by holding a series of meetings. In response to a
question on this subject, former Foreign Ministry undersecretary in the
ousted government in Gaza Ahmad Youssef, pointed out that Hamas
needs and very much wants the support of all the powers and sides in the
region to face the colonial Zionist implantation, what some refer to as
“the 9th Crusade.” Youssef explained: “We needed and still need Iran and
Hezbollah. However, the movement’s position is that this behavior had
damaged the relations which we wanted to be close and strong with the

party.” Next month, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, who has his
own problems with Hamas, will reportedly visit Lebanon to meet with
Palestinians who fled Syria and is expected to attempt a Hamas-Hezbollah
musalaha (reconciliation).

The resistance to the Zionist colony has multiple pillars, two of which
are Hezbollah and the Palestine National Movement. Both of these

as well as a growing number of others, including hundreds of militia

now fighting in Syria, share one principle objective, to liberate occupied
Palestine and ensure the Palestinian’s right-of-return to the 531 villages
that were ethnically cleansed 65 years ago, by whatever means required.

Neither Hezbollah or those Palestinians now fighting each other in
Syria, and, God-forbid, soon in Lebanon if the US-Israeli is successful in
achieving it’s divisive project, need 2-cents worth of advice from this
foreign observer. But surely, most from each camp will agree that this
is not the time for Hezbollah and the Palestinians to use their scant
resources to battle each other over perceived wrongs. There will be time
enough to discuss these, if either group is still feeling wronged, after

Palestine is freed from its racist colonial yoke.

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Syria and Lebanon and can be

reached c/o [email protected]

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