Hizbollah, zionism, geopolitics and democracy

As people in the Arab world increasingly face their destructive, corrupt and incompetent ruling classes, we should have no time for anyone who denies that Western Imperialism and Zionism remain the single most poisonous reality affecting all of the Arab world. But we also should have no time for those who use this to let the destructive, corrupt and incompetent ruling class continue in its rule. So much was made clear during the Arab Spring.

We should have no time for anyone who denies that Arab Nationalist movements emerged with a genuine desire to struggle against anti-imperialism and Zionism. But we should have no time for anyone who denies that Arab Nationalist movements failed to defeat Zionism and Arab nationalism became an ideology of elite reproduction and nothing more.

We should have no time for those who cannot see that zionism and imperialism have to be resisted at a macro, geo-political level. but we should also have no time for anyone who cannot see how geopolitical anti-zionism and anti-imperialism became, particularly in Iraq, in Syria and in Libya, the ideology for the perpetuation of international, regional and local economic and geopolitical interests that increasingly accommodated itself with a perpetual modus vivendi with Western imperialism and zionism and had little to do with the struggle against them.

The same goes for Lebanon. We should have no time for anyone who denies that Hizbollah and Hassan Nasrallah have a heroic past freeing Lebanon from Zionist occupation, for which all Lebanese should all be grateful. And we should have no time for those who think that Lebanon is better off without a resistance movement. But we should have no time for the pontifications of Hassan Nasrallah at the moment: While, in the short term, he certainly has traced a new heroic path of resistance to zionism, in the long term, he is walking along the same old well-worn path of the primacy of geopolitical anti-imperialist and anti-zionist sloganeering at the expense of people's aspirations for a decent life. 

Despite the tragic and murderous consequences of its Syrian involvement, for which it should one day be held accountable, there is still time for the resistance to trace for itself a path that differs from all the resistances that have preceded it.

We should have no time for anyone who denies that Hizbollah as a resistance movement has a better chance of contributing to the defeat of zionism, if that is really its main concern, if it allies itself to the Lebanese and to other Arab world's popular uprisings rather than struggle against them. It can also help protect those movement form zionism which will no doubt attack them when they look successful.

But at the moment we should have no time for anyone who denies that Hizbollah is moving in the same direction as Arab Nationalist movements before it prioritising the geopolitical and economic interests of its' own elite and that of it's international backers. That is, like all the Arab nationalist movements before it Hizbollah's anti-imperialism and anti-zionism have turned into a defence of an established elite and of a sclerotic geo-political status-quo. 

And we should say this as people who, let us repeat, have no time for anyone who denies that Western Imperialism and Zionism remain the single most poisonous reality affecting all of the Arab world.