## EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION

Nicholas Noe

Even before the July War between Hezbollah and Israel, there was a clear need for a comprehensive English-language volume of speeches and interviews given by Hezbollah secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah. Indeed, for almost fifteen years Nasrallah’s prominence and power in the Arab and Islamic worlds had been steadily growing, a function both of Hezbollah’s various accomplishments (whether viewed positively or negatively) and of Nasrallah’s own compelling oratory. At the same time, concern among some Western policymakers and analysts, especially in the United States, increasingly focused on both Hezbollah and Nasrallah as key impediments to resolving—ostensibly in the West’s favor—a number of burning issues, including the Arab-Israeli conflict, the “War on Terror,” and the Iranian nuclear program.

However, even as recent public interest has grown beyond the boundaries of the policy and media elites, there are still relatively few reliable, full-length texts readily accessible to English-language readers who want to consider, compare and/or criticize the ideas expressed directly by a leader routinely mentioned alongside some of the modern Middle East’s most significant figures.

To this end, the present volume is devoted.

It should be noted at the outset, though, that the task of pulling together relevant material was hampered by a number of factors which necessarily shape, and to a certain degree limit, what is offered below. Although post-war confusion in Lebanon certainly provided a number of obstacles, perhaps the primary impediment was the destruction of the Hezbollah-affiliated Consultative Center for Studies and Documentation in the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Although we will probably never truly know whether there was some kind of military target lying beneath the Center, or whether it was purely dedicated to shaping historical discourse—much like the Khiam Detention Center museum in south Lebanon, also destroyed by Israel (Khiam’s former jailers) in the first days of the war—the fact remains that researchers lost a wealth of original documents concerning the party and Nasrallah himself. According to Dr. Ali Fayyad, the Center’s long-serving director, 55,000 books, countless speeches and lectures, a special library of maps and recordings, and his own personal papers reflecting over twenty years of work on Islamic movements were all lost. With the destruction of the nearby offices of the Hezbollah-affiliated TV station Al-Manar, an equally significant archive—including recordings of many of Nasrallah’s speeches and interviews throughout the years—was also destroyed.

In order to gather, in a timely fashion, the original Arabic materials translated below, we therefore had to rely on the excellent archives provided by the Lebanese daily newspaper As Safir, in addition to the several Arabic volumes of published Nasrallah speeches available on the market in Beirut. In this way, my research assistant Aya Eldika and I were able to locate a good number of complete—or almost complete—texts, as well as interviews in a variety of Lebanese and pan-Arab publications. Towards the end of the process, we came to rely on transcriptions of original recordings provided by Lebanese media outlets and official transcripts provided by the Lebanese National News Agency, as well as an invaluable resource that only became accessible to us in November 2006—bound volumes of Hezbollah’s weekly magazine Al Intiqad, going back to its founding in the mid-1990s.

One difficulty in relying on newspaper, agency or book reproductions of speeches, however, is that one cannot be certain of the accuracy of the Arabic transcription itself. Moreover, all three sources tend to excerpt speeches, either in the interest of space or for some other unknown reasons (missing text therefore is represented in this volume by parenthesized ellipses, while our own periodic omissions of text, either in the interest of length or relevancy, are represented by square-bracketed ellipses).

Another downside to our focus on published material is that many significant interviews given by Nasrallah on radio and television are not included in the present volume—a gap largely attributable to the relative inaccessibility of the material after the destruction of some of the major in-country archives. The reader will note, however, that one such presentation is indeed included: a 2003 60 Minutes piece on Hezbollah that, while not necessarily representative of the limited number of English-language interviews granted by Nasrallah, is nevertheless unique in standing as his most high-profile (and, to date, last) televised interview before an American audience.

Perhaps as a consequence of this focus on published material, the reader will find that the statements we have included in the present volume overwhelmingly center on the long-running conflict with Israel and/or the United States. This is partly because we found that many of the clippings of interviews and speeches available at the As Safir archive and elsewhere focused on this (admittedly expansive) topic, rather than on, for example, Hezbollah’s social programs, its domestic political efforts unrelated to the conflict, or strictly religious and cultural issues. The gap may, however, be the result of Nasrallah’s status as the primary communicator and advocate for resistance against Israel—with other issues left to Hezbollah’s Parliamentary bloc or Shura Council representatives. Either way, it underscores the absolutely critical point that Voice of Hezbollah is intended as an introduction to Nasrallah’s thinking, and not as any kind of a comprehensive, final word.

As far as the organization of this volume is concerned, the statements that follow below are divided into three periods, which I believe follow the three major periods in Hezbollah’s relatively recent history: Radicalism and Resistance, 1986–99; Repositioning after the Israeli withdrawal in May 2000; and, finally, the period following the assassination of ex-Premier Rafik Hariri on February 14, 2005. Because Nasrallah’s speeches and interviews during the July War were almost all reliably translated into English, we have chosen not to include these statements, save for the New TV interview (Statement 32), which is not readily accessible in English. (Readers who wish to view accurate translations of most of Nasrallah’s speeches and interviews during and after the war are advised to visit Nasrallah’s Wikipedia page, as well as Hezbollah’s website at www.moqawama.org/english.)

It is also important to say that Hezbollah was informed at various points about the materials we were interested in obtaining and translating. Hezbollah’s media unit received a rough listing of materials we intended to include, as well as examples of Ellen Khouri’s translations. A final set of proof pages was provided to a third party, approved by Hezbollah, for comment on issues related to the accuracy of the translation, as well as the accuracy of the original text.

I would like especially to thank my research assistants, Aya Eldika, Nick Greenough and Maya Ammar, without whom this project would not have been possible, especially given my own still limited grasp of the Arabic language. I would also single out Ellen Khouri, as well as Tom Penn at Verso, who were more than tolerant of my delays and occasional indecision as the amount of relevant material only grew ever larger.

Leila and Majdoline Hatoum, my partners at Mideastwire.com, provided invaluable assistance throughout, especially in facilitating permissions, as did my thesis supervisor, Professor George Joffe, who guided my approach to the party at the earliest stage while I was working on my M. Phil. thesis at Cambridge University through 2005–6. Mirella Dagher and Ali BouMelhem, who headed up the Mideastwire.com translation effort for this book (statements 7, 11, 12 and 32 were translated by Mideastwire.com), deserve particular praise for going beyond their duties at our small company.

Several individuals should be thanked for providing initial advice on how to approach the project and, in some cases, which statements to include. Among them were Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, Timur Goksel, Nicholas Blanford, Daniel Sobelman, Judith Palmer Harik, Alastair Crooke, Mark Penn and Michael Young.

I also owe special thanks to Ibrahim Mussawi at Al-Manar, who provided assistance, advice and—perhaps most importantly—encouragement throughout.

Nicholas Noe
Beirut, March 2007