A Video and Transcript from 9-30-2006
".....I would say there are about 3 or 4 significant changes as a result of this war.
Number 1, Hezbollah demonstrated that you can defeat Israel. And you don't need a large conventional army of the kind that Egypt had in 1973. You can defeat Israel through a guerilla war. That much is pretty obvious.
There's a 2nd crucial lesson, which I think is much more important. Hezbollah showed not only that you can defeat Israel. It showed how to defeat Israel. It proposed a relatively simple, but to my thinking fundamental, formula. So in this speech, the last speech (09.23.2006), Nasrallah raised this issue: "what is the Hezbollah model?" He considers it as follows: "Resistance depends on planning, organization. This resistance experience, which should be conveyed to the world, depends - on the moral and spiritual level - on faith, certainty, reliance [on God], and readiness to make sacrifices." Ok, you have to be committed. You have to be willing to go the full nine yards. The next sentence I found remarkably interesting. It says: "It also depends on reason, planning, organization, armament, and, as is said, on taking all possible protective procedures.... The pious, God-reliant, loving, and knowledgeable resistance is also the conscious, wise, trained, and equipped resistance that has plans. This is the secret of the victory we are today celebrating, brothers and sisters." To most of you this doesn't sound like anything particularly profound but, in fact, it is because at the end of the day Israel always depended on the fact that its adversaries were stupid, incompetent, blowhards and windbags, and hot air baloons, and, in fact, they were right... That when they were dealing with a Nasser, he was a blowhard; a Saddam Hussein, he was a windbag; when they were dealing with Yasser Arafat, he was a hot air ballon. They were nothing of any substance... [inaudible]... That was Israel's ace in the hole. Now comes along an Arab leader who says we have to use "reason." It's a very remarkable thing to read. We have to use "reason." We have to think, plan, organize. And he didn't just say it ... [inaudible]... As I'm sure, as most of you know, that the Israelis were reporting that their [Israeli] population was waiting anxiously for each speech from Nasrallah to find out what's going on [Poll: Israelis believed Nasrallah over Peretz,Ynetnews.com, by Anat Breshkovsky, 09.03.2006]. They [Israelis] stopped believing their own media and they only believed what he had to say. No more of the Arab windbaggery -- on the second day of the war in '67 Nasser says 'we destroyed all of the Israeli Air Force.' Or when the hot air baloon Saddam Hussein, after defeat in 1991, gave out Victory Medals to the Iraqi Army. That era is over. This is a serious leadership whose commitment is matched by its intelligence and its incorruptibility. And that really is the formula. And now the United States and Israel are in living dread because they don't fear Hezbollah -- it's 3,000 fighters -- that's not what they fear. What they fear is, throughout the Arab world all the anti -- they call it American, I'll call imperialist -- all the anti-imperialist movements will now be emulating the Hizbullah model. Those who want to defeat the Americans, the American designs in the region, they're going to look for the Hezbollah model and the Hizbu'llah model says you have to "reason," you have to think, you have to "plan," you have to anticipate, and if you do that, you can win. And the fact is, it's true. If you do that, you can beat them.
Because as a fundamental fact, as Azmi Bishara (a leading member of the Palestinian member of the Israeli Knesset, an extremely smart fellow, he said -- I thought it ahead of time [audience laughter], I was glad he confirmed it -- he said, Israel can't win. They can't win because, for the older people in the room, there was an era of the proverbial farmer-fighter, the Israeli who was the farmer and the fighter, it was the equivalent of our own American West when you had the Settler-Fighter -- that era is over. Israel is, for better or for worse, it's a Westernized society and they don't have... they're interested in hi-tech, they're interested in a good time, they cannot fight and win against the types who embody Hezbollah values. It's just not going to happen. When they described in the newspapers how Hezbollah organizes, they said this is not an organization that you can knock on the door, can I join? No. They start from a quite young age and they learn discipline. What does discipline mean? [The Guardian, 07,29.2006] They tell a fellow, you go over there in that barn and you wait there until we call you. And sometimes they sit in that barn for 2, 3 and 4 days, waiting to be called and until they're called, they don't leave. You know, most people in the West can't do that. I'm not knocking it. May be it's for the better. I don't know. But that kind of mental discipline, commitment, it's not going to be replicated any longer.
The old Israel, yes, they could do it. That generation. The truth of the matter is, the old Zionist generation was completely incorruptible. They really were. They were totally dedicated on a level of dedication that is really quite awesome. Take someone like Abba Eban, he graduated with triple honors, triple A's, from either Oxford or C ...[inaudible]... and he goes to work for this crumby little organization called the Zionist Movement, you know, it was nothing then, when he joined. This is pre-'67. From commitment. From ideals. Now, the Israeli government, for those who follow, almost every single member of the government is now under indictment. [audience laughter] Who saw that article a couple of days ago, by Uri Avnery? He's going through it, every single member is under indictment. One for sticking his tongue down 6 women, one for... [inaudible]...it's now a level of moral corruption where they can't compete. At the end of the day they always depended that they're adversaries were corrupt, stupid blowhards who wanted to become part of the American system. Nasser wanted to be in the American system, the Americans rejected him. That's when he went to the Soviets. They all want to be part of the American system. Hezbollah doesn't. As far as one can tell now.
And that leads me to the last point because some people think that I am "anti-Israeli." Actually, I don't even know what the term means. Those concepts are totally alien to me.
But let's say, you're entitled to, I suppose, your first allegiance, your first commitment, your depest convictions are with Israel. My view is, if that's how you feel, then -- I'm not going to dispute it for the moment -- really, you have more reason than anyone else to want to find a peaceful resolution to the conflict. Because now, I think, Israel is facing a very serious threat.
Its old tactic -- the tactic has always been the same from the very first days of the Zionist movement -- "the Arabs only understand the language of force." So whenever they get out of line, take out the club and break it over their skull. That's been the Israeli approach. And the Americans have now pretty much internalized it -- that is the lunatics let loose, the Condoleeza Rices and the Rumsfelds that during the last war... take out the club and break it over their head -- that isn't gonna work. You know, the first day of the war, I'll never forget, Nasrallah said "the universe can blow up, the stars can crash, the planets can collide -- you are not getting back those two prisoners. There's going to be a prisoner exchange, you'll not get them back unilaterally from us." Well, Israel unleashed its Air Force, it unleashed its Army that went to work for 5 weeks. They didn't get them back.
Taking out the club and breaking it over their skull won't work. What's happening is very different. This time they attacked Haifa -- first time Israel's rear was hit. There's no question that next time it will be Tel Aviv. And then the time after that, well frankly, I don't know if we'll be around to see it.
So if your 100% commitment is to Israel, Israel Uber Alles, or whatever... I say, you should work with all of us to try to resolve this conflict peacefully, reasonably. Use the principles of international law and try to achieve, together with all of us, a just and lasting settlement to the conflict. Thank you. "
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