Hezbollah is a Shiite Muslim political party and militant group based in Lebanon, where its extensive security apparatus, political organization, and social services network have fostered its reputation as “a state within a state.” Founded in the chaos of the fifteen-year Lebanese Civil War, the Shiite group is driven by its opposition to Israel and its resistance to Western influence in the Middle East.

Led since 1992 by its Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah. Hezbollah's paramilitary wing is the Jihad Council, and its political wing is the Loyalty to the Resistance Bloc party in the Lebanese Parliament.

Hezbollah was established in the wake of the 1982 Lebanon War by Lebanese clerics who had studied in Najaf. It adopted the model set out by Ayatollah Khomeini after the Iranian Revolution in 1979, and the party's founders adopted "Hezbollah" as the name chosen by Khomeini. The organization was created with the support of 1,500 Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps instructors, and aggregated a variety of Lebanese Shia groups into a unified organization to resist the Israeli occupation of Southern Lebanon.

During the Lebanese Civil War, Hezbollah's 1985 manifesto listed its objectives as the expulsion of "the Americans, the French and their allies definitely from Lebanon, putting an end to any colonialist entity on our land". From 1985 to 2000, Hezbollah also participated in the 1985–2000 South Lebanon conflict against the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and Israel Defense Forces (IDF), and fought again with the IDF in the 2006 Lebanon War. During the 1990s, Hezbollah also organized volunteers to fight for the Army of the Republic of Bosnia and Herzegovina during the Bosnian War.

Since 1990, Hezbollah has participated in Lebanese politics, in a process which is described as the Lebanonisation of Hezbollah, and it later participated in the government of Lebanon and joined political alliances. After the 2006–08 Lebanese protests and clashes, a national unity government was formed in 2008, with Hezbollah and its opposition allies obtaining 11 of 30 cabinet seats, enough to give them veto power. In August 2008, Lebanon's new cabinet unanimously approved a draft policy statement that recognizes Hezbollah's existence as an armed organization and guarantees its right to "liberate or recover occupied lands" (such as the Shebaa Farms). Hezbollah is part of Lebanon's March 8 Alliance, in opposition to the March 14 Alliance. It maintains strong support among Lebanese Shia Muslims, while Sunnis have disagreed with its agenda. Hezbollah also has support in some Christian areas of Lebanon.

Since 2012, Hezbollah involvement in the Syrian civil war has seen it join the Syrian government in its fight against the Syrian opposition. Between 2013 and 2015, the organisation deployed its militia in both Syria and Iraq to fight or train local militias to fight against the Islamic State.

From 2006, the group's military strength grew significantly, to the extent that its paramilitary wing became more powerful than the Lebanese Army. Hezbollah has been described as a "state within a state", and has grown into an organization with seats in the Lebanese government, a radio and a satellite TV station, social services and large-scale military deployment of fighters beyond Lebanon's borders.The group currently receives military training, weapons, and financial support from Iran and political support from Syria, although the sectarian nature of the Syrian war has damaged the group's legitimacy. In 2021, Nasrallah said the group had 100,000 fighters.

Megathreads and spaces to hang out:

reminders:

  • 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
  • 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
  • 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
  • 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
  • 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog

Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):

Aid:

Theory:

  • KittyBobo [he/him, comrade/them]
    ·
    1 year ago

    I'm on a small art forum and I could just be being paranoid but like 15 minutes after posting a drawing I did someone made a post complaining about art that looks like it was drawn by a middle schooler and they're not wrong but I didn't need to be called out like that. kitty-birthday-sad

    • KittyBobo [he/him, comrade/them]
      ·
      1 year ago

      Didn't help I was already kind of feeling shitty thinking about my stepmother and all the abuse I went through that kept me from drawing until now. I draw like a middle schooler because that's where I left off before I was basically made to live in an empty room and withheld food like Harry Potter but without the wizardry or antisemitism. That's right, libs, I'm saying it. My stepmother was my Voldemort.

      • SaniFlush [any, any]
        ·
        1 year ago

        You don’t have to be to be good at drawing to draw. Look at some of the comic strips in the funny papers.

        • KittyBobo [he/him, comrade/them]
          ·
          1 year ago

          I can see how I'm getting better all the time, though I wish I had started earlier. But I'm doing it, it's just I was in a very vulnerable mental space and then to be hit with that made me feel very yea

    • Judge_Jury [comrade/them, he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      someone made a post complaining about art that looks like it was drawn by a middle schooler

      What a shitty, self-important and toxically insecure thing to do on an art forum. Whoever they were talking about, it's petty bully behavior

    • ElGosso [he/him]
      ·
      edit-2
      1 year ago

      Ascend to true posterhood by copying and pasting the following message as a response to their post:

      Hmm maybe if you rubbed both brain cells together you'd realize that people are posting on an art forum to ask for advice from artists on becoming a better artist? I understand that new ideas in general may be foreign and scary to you, but if you swim a few more laps around your bowl maybe it'll sink into your puny goldfish brain.

    • Commiejones [comrade/them, he/him]
      ·
      1 year ago

      You should say they are "probably just jealous because even with all their technique they cant meet the creativity of a middle schooler."