SOUTH LEBANON — Southern Lebanon, according to the Israeli enemy’s distorted biblical narrative, represents northern Galilee, and the Zionist regime has launched a movement intended to establish a settlement in southern Lebanon as part of “Greater Israel”.

This colonial call received support from members of the Knesset. Investment companies also took the initiative to announce settlement projects in southern Lebanon.

The danger of this expansionist proposal is that settlement plans in the West Bank seemed impossible five decades ago, but they were established despite the Oslo Accords and repeated calls to establish a Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied in 1967 in a blatant violation of international law and condemnation by the United Nations.

Therefore, it should not be surprising what the settlement movements suggest regarding the northern Galilee (southern Lebanon), which may become a reality one day. 

Any absence of the army’s deterrent force will only help in invading Lebanon again, and what is happening in Syria is the best evidence. 

Relevant sources have confirmed that the Lebanese army received orders from the United States not to bring any weapons for the resistance found in areas south of the Litani River into its warehouses. 

Information has conflicted between seizing weapons and ammunition left by the resistance fighters in the south inside special warehouses or detonating them directly, knowing that the Israeli enemy had informed Washington of its desire to destroy the weapons so that they would not fall again into the hands of Hezbollah. 

In the time of the late Arab leader Abdel Nasser, Abdel Halim Hafez sang the song “Keep the weapon awake” and roused the nation.

Today, in a time of inaction and stupidity, certain people sing like a fool, “Keep the weapon exclusive!”

This call is repeated until you almost think that the weapon is the magic wand of sovereignty by the anti-Hezbollah team known for their subservience and humiliating submission to the West. Obviously, they seek to abort the resistance doctrine against the Zionist project.

These sell-outs intended to deny that resistance is inherent in human history and has existed wherever there is injustice or oppression.

As for the exclusivity of weapons, it is a new political concept that appeared with the emergence of the nation-state. However, it has never abolished the right to resistance when any country is exposed to a blatant threat.

History is full of armed resistance to occupation, from Algeria to South Africa, Vietnam, etc.  Resistance has never been confined to the state or even to one faction.

On the international legal level, the right to armed resistance is an inherent right stipulated, without ambiguity, in United Nations General Assembly Resolution No. 45/130.

The resolution stipulates “the legitimacy of the struggle of peoples for independence, territorial integrity, national unity and liberation from colonial domination, apartheid and foreign occupation by all available means, including armed struggle.”

Article 51 of the UN Charter also grants any state the right to defend itself in the event of armed aggression. It does not grant it the right to monopolize the resistance weapon. 

The legitimacy of the weapon stems, in the final instance, from the legitimacy of the cause for which it is raised, which is the liberation of the land and the defense of the people’s right to live in security and dignity. 

The Lebanese resistance, with all its spectrums, liberated the south after 22 years of occupation and protected it through its deterrent forces for nearly half a century. 

As for the Lebanese army, despite the bravery of a number of its members, it never deterred the Israeli enemy. In fact, in some historical stages, groups split from it to deal with the occupation against the southerners and contributed to the division of Lebanon.

During the past two months, in light of the army’s inaction, the popular resistance, represented by the return of the southern residents, contributed directly and effectively to accelerating, if not imposing, the withdrawal of the Israeli occupation from the frontline villages.

This popular resistance that we witnessed in the south, along with the military resistance that preceded it, thwarted the US-led Israeli aggression. It does not contradict the role of the army, diplomatic work, etc. Rather, it complements them.

Is the Lebanese army capable of protecting southern Lebanon from Zionist settlement?

A question for those who demand the disarmament of the resistance movement after the repeated scenes of the Lebanese army’s inability after more than two months of Israeli violations. The army did not carry out any military measure to liberate the land and prove confidence in its capabilities.