In one of the most daring anti-terror operations the world has ever seen, Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu wiped out the entire top leadership of the Hezbollah, including Hassan Nasrallah, the terrorist body’s secretary general, last Friday, on 27 February. However much the efforts to normalise and legitimize Nasrallah as a spiritual leader and the ideologue of the Hezbollah “militia”, the fact is that it was under Nasrallah that the group became a major force of terror, targeting the Jewish community as well as Americans in significant terror attacks all over the world. To give just two instances, in Argentina in 1994, Hezbollah targeted a Jewish community centre in a suicide bombing that killed 85 Jews and injured 300. While in 1996, in Saudi Arabia’s Khobar Tower bombing, it killed 19 US Air Force personnel, injuring 372. Prior to Nasrallah taking charge of the Hezbollah in 1992, the group—Nasrallah was one of the founders of Hezbollah and therefore complicit—the group carried out major terror attacks against western forces, killing hundreds of soldiers and civilians. Two of the biggest such attacks was the April 1983 suicide bombing of the US embassy in Beirut, that killed a total of 63 people, including 19 Americans; and the October 1983 terror bombing of the US and French marine barracks in Beirut that killed 299 soldiers. The Hezbollah’s charter mentions destruction of Israel as its main goal, hence the intention is to cause another Holocaust of the Jewish people. No wonder the worst of Hezbollah’s attacks have been directed at Israel—not just soldiers, but civilians. Incessant rocket attacks, kidnaps, assassinations—all have been part of Hezbollah’s playbook. Its kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers in July 2006 resulted in a war with Israel. The UN Security Council Resolution 1701 of 11 August 2006, which ended the Israel-Lebanon war, speaks of the creation of a demilitarised zone between the Blue Line, which is the Israel-Lebanon border, and the Litani river. It was Hezbollah that violated the demilitarized zone, by not only bearing arms but also by setting up rocket and missile launch pads there. Over a period of time, the Lebanon government was hijacked by the Hezbollah, which started controlling the levers of power in Lebanon by calling itself a political party, even though it had assassinated Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. Hezbollah’s terrorist activities extended abroad, where the Jews in particular were targeted. Hezbollah has had huge caches of weapons hidden even in civilian homes and on UN compound. One day after the horrific massacre of Israelis by Hamas on 7 October 2023, Hezbollah declared war on Israel and has ever since fired thousands of rockets and even ballistic missiles on Israel, which has displaced over 70,000 Israelis from the northern areas. It was actively planning to carry out a Hamas like massacre in northern Israel. Nasrallah ran the Hezbollah with an iron hand. He was very much a dictator, and his influence extended on other terrorist groups of the region. Nasrallah ran a reign of fear and terror and under him Hezbollah committed several atrocities against civilians, even against the Lebanese population. Whatever Nasrallah said were cues to the Hezbollah fighters to unleash mayhem on their enemies and adversaries.
The short point is that Nasrallah, if he is to be considered a spiritual guide of the Hezbollah, their ideologue, then he had a singular ideology—that of the destruction of Israel, and he worked hand in hand with Tehran in trying to get this objective fulfilled. That this would result in mass murder, was not a problem for him. In fact he supported the worst kind of torture, brutalities and massacre that the Hamas committed. That this would result in Israeli retaliation and heavy civilian casualty in Lebanon, did not worry him. Lebanese citizens were “cannon fodder” for him. All this shows a complete lack of moral compass. How is such a man worthy of respect? Hence, it’s strange to see rallies even in India supporting him. Why should Nasrallah become an election issue in Kashmir? What kind of radicalistaion has been spread, what kind of brainwashing has taken place that thousands of people would come out to mourn his death? What relevance does Nasrallah have for India that he is to be mourned as if he is a martyr? These are serious questions that may even have security implications for India. And even if some people mistakenly believe that Nasrallah was a saint, the least they can do is not to demonstrate on the streets in his support. It raises many doubts in the minds of onlookers.
