Hezbollah (Party of God)
Hezbollah is an Islamic movement founded in 1982. The English translation for Hezbollah is Party of God. It was established during the Lebanon War by Lebanese Shiite Muslims who had the desire to create an Islamic state in Lebanon. They began to develop in response to the Israel Defense Forces invasion of Lebanon. Ultimately they wanted to free their land of Israeli occupation and domination.
Hezbollah draws its ideology from the Iranian revolution and the teachings of Ayatollah Khomeini. “The Hizballah Program” was their first manifesto that detailed what they were about and what they sought to achieve. Their ideological principles were:
- To expel Americans, the French, and their allies definitely from Lebanon, putting and end to any colonialist entity on our land.
- To submit the phalanges to a just power and bring them all to justice for the crimes they have perpetrated against Muslims and Christians.
- To permit all the sons of our people to determine their future and to choose in all the liberty the form of government they desire. We call upon all of them to pick the option of Islamic government which alone is capable of guaranteeing justice liberty for all. Only and Islamic regime can stop and future tentative attempts of imperialistic infiltration onto our country.
Basically, the document continues on to say that the United States and Israel are the prime enemies and that they need to be eliminated.
Hezbollah continued to gain notoriety throughout the Muslim world due to their efforts against Israel and the United States. Iran and Syria played a part in their continued rise by providing funding to them. Hezbollah supported Lebanese infrastructure by providing services such as medical clinics, hospitals, charities, and schools. This proved to be a great way to win the support of the Lebanese people. With the end of Lebanese Civil war Hezbollah needed to refocus their goals away from a military...