Talk:Hezbollah

Anti-Semitism vs Antisemitism

Hi there. It is now more accepted to use Antisemitism instead of the outdated 'Anti-semitism'. The latter was a term created as a pseudo-scientific explanation for the hatred of Jews, often associated with the Nazi ideology of racial classification (https://holocaustremembrance.com/resources/spelling-antisemitism / https://www.adl.org/spelling-antisemitism-vs-anti-semitism). Thanks 81.108.69.245 (talk) 01:11, 22 April 2024 (UTC)

Wikipedia has a WP:NONAZI policy.

This is the article for Hezbollah. I think you might have added this topic to the wrong talk page. Do you have something for the Hezbollah article?

RCSCott91 (talk) 18:29, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Hezbollah Is a terrorist organization and should be categorized as such

Per the United States government and the basic premis of their stated goals Hezbollah is and should be describes as a terrorist organization. According to the US government (citation below), "Hezbollah (“Party of God,” also spelled Hizballah) is an Iran-backed Lebanese Shia militia and U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO). Hezbollah is an Iranian partner force, helping Tehran project power across the region, train allied militias (reportedly including Hamas), and threaten U.S. interests and allies across the region." Also "According to the U.S. government, the External Security Organization (ESO, also known as the Islamic Jihad Organization), headed by Talal Hamiyah, is the arm of Hezbollah responsible for overseas terrorist attacks."

There is no excuse for Wikipedia to label Hezbollah as a "political party" when their stated goal of the destruction of the Jewish State. They are a terrorist group with roots in Islamic Jihad and should be labeled as such for the proper education of those researching.

https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF10703#:~:text=Hezbollah%20(“Party%20of%20God%2C,Foreign%20Terrorist%20Organization%20(FTO). 2601:58B:E80:7B20:1DB8:234:24E2:895A (talk) 03:48, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

There are at least 3 things that you don't appear to have considered or don't care about

• MOS:TERRORIST
• To categorize in Wikipedia means to describe something using Wikipedia's unattributed editorial voice i.e. to state something as an objective fact, which would be inappropriate in this case. When there are a variety of labels depending on POV, a "proper education" requires attribution to the labelers.
• Wikipedia is not part of the US government. See WP:NPOV. Sean.hoyland (talk) 04:33, 7 June 2024 (UTC)

@Kentucky Rain24: Clearly there is no consensus for the addition of this category. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:24, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't think the above discussion from months ago is related to my recent edit. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 15:28, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kentucky Rain24: It is indeed not related to your recent edit, but related to the content of your recent edit, and that is the addition of a terrorism category. Please self-revert now that you are aware that there is more opposition than support to your edit. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:16, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

That someone opposes an edit I made is not enough of a reason to revert my edits. There's also someone who support it. Check oy the Terrorism in Lebanon article - there are whole paragraphs there about Hezbollah's activities. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 11:56, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

@Kentucky Rain24: Your edit was reverted because it is POV of certain nations. Now after you have been notified that there are three opposers, and that is enough of a reason to self-revert. Pinging @Selfstudier: and @Sean.hoyland: who have commented on this bit. Makeandtoss (talk) 12:23, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I think you are confusing labeling Hezbollah as a terrorist organization with categorizing this article as relevant to the category of terrorism in Lebanon, It is not the same thing. Is there a specific reason why you are only inviting people who support your position to this discussion? @user:Prodrummer619 Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 12:29, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I don't appreciate the false accusation of canvassing, as I have only pinged the two confirmed users who have participated in this discussion. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:40, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

I pointed out what you did. The user I pinged is the one who added this category - surely you saw that? Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 15:00, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The cat is a subcat of Islamic terrorism in Lebanon, which already contains H (idk whether it should, I don't like cats). So seems redundant anyway. Selfstudier (talk) 12:31, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

It's the other way around - Islamic terrorism in Lebanon is a subcat of this. But yeah, that makes sense, we only need the more specific sub category. Kentucky Rain24 (talk) 12:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

Now I am wondering if we should add the state terrorism category to Israel. Makeandtoss (talk) 13:45, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

There is the State-sponsored terrorism cat which includes Terrorism by (various countries), you could probably add one for Israel. Selfstudier (talk) 15:04, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

State terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism are both possibilities, I wonder how much RS support there is for applying those labels to Israel. I can think of examples of both but I'm not an RS. My guess is there is also enough RS support for categorizing Hezbollah as terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism by Iran, but I've never looked it up. Levivich (talk) 18:28, 5 July 2024 (UTC)

The last sentence of the last paragraph, fourth paragraph, to mention this fact, is too late. This should be the first or second sentence of the lede. Wikipedia is not part of the US Government, but the designation by the US Government and others is important enough to warrant immediate mention in the article. Drsruli (talk) 06:02, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Nope, and shouldn't have to respond to non EC speechifying, either. Selfstudier (talk) 11:49, 4 July 2024 (UTC)

So if United States, United Kingdom, European Union, Canada, Gulf Cooperation Council, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, United Arab Emirates, Argentina, Colombia, Estonia, Germany, Honduras, Israel, Kosovo, Lithuania, Malaysia, Paraguay, Serbia, Slovenia, Gautemala, and others claim Hezbollah as a terrorist group isn't enough for wikipedia to label them as such. However somehow they have enough sources to label Proud Boys as far right pro fascist militant organization. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2603:90C8:503:BE18:21EC:8324:97A:8257 (talk) 05:51, 24 September 2024 (UTC) WP:ARBECR

There is literally a list, Under foreign relations, breaking down countries that list Hezbollah as a terrorist group. Possibly the main reasons Hezbollah is not listed as a terrorist group on Wikipedia is: it acts in a hybridized political/paramilitary form one that usually doesn't exist for long periods in a democracy, normally a group like that will either take over to become a ruling regime or the government will attempt to squish them, generally they don't become a political party that coalition with the dominate political party in parliament.

The second reason probably stems from the fact that the UN has refrained from adding them to the consolidated terror group list, the majority of countries don't keep an active list of terrorist groups outside their own country or interests; they instead largely differ to the consolidated list, example would includes India who has a running list of internal terrorist groups but also includes any group of the UN list.

Editors are supposed to remain neutral, so having a broken down list in a complex situation like this makes the most sense.

With the Proud Boys, they have been labeled a fascist paramilitary group by their host nations. (US and Canada; and certain Oceania and European countries that the group exists (ed). Hezbollah is not labeled a terrorist group by Lebanon.

RCSCott91 (talk) 18:46, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

"Hezbollah is a left-wing political entity focused on social injustice"

This claim is made in the "ideology" section under "1985 manifesto". The source given states "The ideology of Hezbollah has changed: it has nowadays a left-wing political speech focused on social justice." The author of that source cites The Failure of Political Islam by Olivier Roy, but I can find nothing here that explicitly says Hezbollah is left wing. In fact, that source only mentions Hezbollah a handful of times. The closest I can get are some lines detailing how Islamist movements had aligned with Marxists in the 50s, 60s, and 70s. The author goes on to state "they have in common the cult of the return to the past, of authenticity and purity; the concern with dress, food, and conviviality; the rebuilding of a "traditional" way of life". That sounds more conservative than left-wing to me, but I'm not going to argue that.

Scrolling through the talk page archive shows some old discussion about how Hezbollah is/isn't right or left wing.

Regardless of what their actual ideology is, I don't think there's a reason the line in question shouldn't be removed.

StalkerFishy (talk) 22:12, 7 September 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 20 September 2024

Under "Ideology " in the "Manifesto" section: "The ideology has since evolved, and today Hezbollah is a left-wing political entity focused on social injustice.[123]"

[123] refers to a source "From Terrorism to Politics. Ashgate Publishing, Ltd. p. 36. ISBN 978-1-4094-9870-4." The source doesn't support this claim as stated in the wiki article. You should remove the above sentence from the text as it neither reflects the source it claims to reference, nor the reality of what the group represents.

The stated source has a more extended quote: "The ideology of Hezbollah has changed: it has nowadays a left-wing political speech focused on social justice. It is the champion of minorities' rights. The fight against Zionism is not the first goal anymore and the movement hardly speaks in public of founding an Islamic republic in Lebanon, because it frightens other communities. The political speech has taken over the radical speech. The ideology is nevertheless double-faced: there is on the one hand the speech for the public and on the other hand a hard and radical speech for Hezbollah's real supporters, denouncing the occupation of Palestine, targeting Israel as the enemy and willing to establish an Islamic republic. Consequently, the movement has a double discourse. Sometimes this double discourse is quite incoherent as Hezbollah tries to please its electors and its militants at the same time."

As you can see, this is quite a U-turn from the one-sentence statement currently featured on Wikipedia.

Bellka12 (talk) 19:14, 20 September 2024 (UTC)

If you want to suggest additional specific information from the source to be added, feel free to do so. I don't see the text as a U-turn from the perspective of this article. The article already covers the complicated nature of this organization, including the parts covered by the extended quote. The article should describe all of the notable features of the organization without any expectation of internal consistency or simple narratives. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:04, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

GA Reassessment

Hezbollah

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

Article (edit | visual edit | history) · Article talk (edit | history) · Watch • Watch article reassessment page • GAN review not found

Result: Delisting because consensus has been reached to delist, and discussion has subsided. It is a wonderful world (talk) 18:16, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

This article has several citation needed type tags, violating WP:V. It last went through GAR in 2008, thus making it very likely it is unduly weighted toward that time period. Also were the standards for GA in 2008 lower?

This article is obviously very important right now, so an unwarranted GA status is very bad for the reliability of Wikipedia. It is a wonderful world (talk) 20:50, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

The article relies too much on newspaper reports and speculation by biased parties, it should be scrapped and rewritten. The lead has it that Hezbollah failed to disarm after the 2006 withdrawal from Lebanon but the Shabaa Farms are still occupied. Keith-264 (talk) 21:49, 21 September 2024 (UTC)

I know it's probably not my place but small examples like the article is still quoting polled support numbers published in 2006 by The Christian Science Monitor. It listed 80% support for Druze, assuming they weren't polling children, nearly half the current population was not in that 2 decade old poll. Does having sources that may reached some level of obsolescence at least when talking in present terms mean something against verifiability? Regardless article's subject is such a complex entity because of its paramilitary/political party hybridizing, that's the argument that has been made in the UN which keeps it off the consolidated terror groups and individuals list. I can't think of any other examples of non state actor groups that are in the same position. Not withstanding all that, just in the past week, so much has happened that may fundamentally change their structure that a whole new section would need to be added to attempt to give context to an unprimed reader. Even before last week I'm not certain if meets broad coverage with news coverage pushing the bulk of its sources and now just this last week such drastic numbers that can only be estimated at this point, the article might as well have a time date describing the group before that date while refraining from describing them after last week. RCSCott91 (talk) 05:35, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

I haven't read the entire article, but just from reading the lede, it seems to have had a major expansion in recent years, which has turned it into a rather incoherent and bloated summary. Given the intensity of the past 16 years with regards to Hezbollah, I suspect if there was no organized and centralized effort to keep the content top notch in that period, most expansions were likely made randomly. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:15, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Not a GA article imo. Selfstudier (talk) 16:22, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Word count according to prosesize (web tool version) is now: 11,513. That puts it at the probably should be split size; still a little short of the definitely split size on word count according to the article size guideline. BUT the prosesize word count does not include tables and lists, which this article has, and may not include long quotations since these are not highlighted as part of the "prosesize" count and the article has several long block quotes. The random increases in the size of the article and its overall size alone would seem to be enough to change the assessment to B class from GA. Donner60 (talk) 07:50, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

UNSCR 1701

@XDanielx: Why do you think so? I don't think it is appropriate for the lede; just as much as we don't mention Israel's violations of UNSCR 242 in its lede to mention one example. [1] Makeandtoss (talk) 10:12, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

Israel has been the subject of many UN resolutions, and there has been some controversy about how UNSC 242 should be interpreted, how it should be implemented (considering other parties' noncompliance), and whether it's legally binding. It seems a bit nuanced for the lede of Israel, which does contain plenty of other negative information.

Hezbollah on the other hand has been the subject of mainly two UN resolutions, both clearly binding (Chapter VII), and its noncompliance with either is more of a simple and unambiguous matter. I'm not adamant about including this in particular, but I feel the updated lede was unbalanced overall, generally portraying Hezbollah as a legitimate organization besides the last sentence. — xDanielx ^T/_C\^R 15:32, 22 September 2024 (UTC)

@XDanielx: UNSCR 242 is the prominent resolution relating to Israel, as it focuses on its occupation of WB, EJ, GZ and GH. It dates back to to at least half a century and has been consistently neglected by Israel. It is much more notable than 1701. So I don't think this is a convincing argument. Plus this does not summarize the body appropriately, as a lede should do. Makeandtoss (talk) 10:41, 25 September 2024 (UTC)

Request to Remove Source

Request to remove source and affiliated information.

Reason: ~8 years ago, an undergraduate University paper was added as a source, and about 2 paragraphs worth of information was added from this source to the article. At least one portion of that information has gone almost completely unedited since then.

I'm requesting removal under

WP:RSSELF,

WP:RSDEPRECATED

WP:QUESTIONABLE

The source in question is nearly 14 years old. In italics is the main portion of information that I am requesting to be removed, it is nearly identical to how it appears in the source material. The citation opens to the source paper.

"In the Arab world, Hezbollah is generally seen either as a destabilizing force that functions as Iran's pawn by rentier[clarification needed] states like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, or as a popular sociopolitical guerrilla movement that exemplifies strong leadership, meaningful political action, and a commitment to social justice.[396]"

Because this source's material has been present for years, I do need consensus to remove it regardless of my evaluation of it.

RCSCott91 (talk) 06:44, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Support. Unclear if it has gone though any peer review. It is a wonderful world (talk) 08:46, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

It has not been peer reviewed. It is an undergraduate assignment; I'm assuming, he did it as an honors paper although it is not labeled as such. I could contact him for questions.

RCSCott91 (talk) 09:12, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

I don't think there's any need. Even if it has been peer reviewed, it isn't enough to support such a strong summarizing statement, especially because of its age. It is a wonderful world (talk) 09:24, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Removed, source is not good enough (PHD at least would be usual and no evidence of citations by other RS). Selfstudier (talk) 09:32, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

@Selfstudier Historically, the source was used in the article more than once, the other portion(s) lost their citation a number of years ago as well, the only difference is I suspect they were edited into the article whereas the italic text is almost identical to when it was first added 8 years ago. I have the revisions date time, of when it was added, in my edit summary of the retrieval of source. RCSCott91 (talk) 09:48, 23 September 2024 (UTC)

Turkey's position

Turkey is listed as being in opposition to Hezbollah. While this was the case during the Syrian civil war, since the Israel v Hamas War of 2023, Turkey's position has changed. Turkey and Hezbollah's opposition to Israel have aligned. While Turkey has not (yet) stated its support of Hezbollah as it has with Hamas, it also shouldn't be considered in opposition to Hezbollah anymore.

https://responsiblestatecraft.org/turkey-israel-gaza/ Betoota44 (talk) 14:13, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

I agree with your statement that "...[Türkiye] has not [yet] stated its support of Hezbollah...". Their prior official stance has been against Hezbollah, until they officially change that stance, any change would be based on political commentary that requires speculation.

There is a foreign relations section where this ultimatum tipping point can be added for context on Türkiye's complex and evolving political view of Hezbollah. RCSCott91 (talk) 15:26, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 24 September 2024

This sentence needs to be changed or removed: "Since then, close ties have developed between Iran and Hezbollah." The rest of the article makes clear that Iran played a critical role in the formation of Hezbollah. The "close ties" have been present from the organization’s founding. Suggested replacement text: "…after the Iranian Revolution in 1979 and has maintained close ties to Iran since then." Blocky1OOO (talk) 17:42, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Rejected, not because of form of request or disagreement with your objection to the wording but because Hezbollah was officially founded in 1982. You are welcome to re-word the request and submit again. RCSCott91 (talk) 18:03, 24 September 2024 (UTC)

Lede

@OdNahlawi: WP:LEDE is a summary of the body, not a standalone article. [2] The burden to achieve consensus and initiate a discussion lies on the inserter of the contested material. Makeandtoss (talk) 11:59, 26 September 2024 (UTC)

I think that edit isn't the best representation of Hezbollah's ideology. It talks about "destruction of Israel", not even mentioning that in 1985 Israel was occupying Lebanon. The source used isn't particularly scholarly. Professor Al-Aloosy writes Hezbollah's original ideology was rebellious in nature, distrustful of authority. Hezbollah's resentment of Israel stemmed from the dire humanitarian conditions facing the Shi'ites. He goes and writes that by 2009 Hezbollah's ideology became "unrecognizable" when compared to the 1985 manifesto. For one, by 2009 it had become Lebanese nationalist, and secondly, they argued in favour of a plural democracy (but not liberal democracy) as opposed to Islamic theocracy. I'll go ahead and make those edits.VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 05:46, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

This is also confirmed by Dr Farida who writes that Hezbollah's anti-Israel ideology is rooted in "the religious and ethnic persecution of Shi’ite communities in southern Lebanon during the Israeli occupation in 1973 and 1982" and "Hezbollah’s success in driving Israel out of southern Lebanon gained it widespread support among Lebanese Shi’ites". VR _{(Please ping on reply)} 05:55, 28 September 2024 (UTC)

Targeting policy

The targeting policy section seems to focus on attacks that Hezbollah has condemned, rather ironically, pulling from sources like Saad-Ghorayeb, Amal in her book Hizbul̉lah: politics and Religion, where she explains Hezbollah's avoidance of attracting unwanted international attention by avoiding attacking Western targets.

Would it make more sense to rework this section to explain their targeting policy, pulling from the same sources, or simply rename the section something more in line with its content? RCSCott91 (talk) 02:58, 27 September 2024 (UTC)