Hizbullah's Political Document

So I read carefully the new Political Document of Hizbullah which was read yesterday by Hasan Nasrallah. This was highly anticipated because this is the first open letter by the party to the world since that awful Open Letter addressed by the party to the world in 1985 which reflected the orientations of the party in what I call "the scary phase." So after reading it I reached the following conclusion: it reflects the style and thinking of Nawwaf Al-Musawi, who is very important in the party in terms of theory and ideology and their formulation. Secondly, it is not that important or significant. It is not that the political document will mark a new era in the life of the party, but that the past era of the party--the Nasrallah era--is being reflected on paper in this document. So it is telling us something that we have known: that Nasrallah took the party in a different direction. The document has annoying tributes to Lebanese nationalism although it stopped short of saying that Lebanon is a "final homeland" which has become a refrain for Lebanese political parties. Lebanon, should not be a final or temporary homeland, as far as I am concerned. Both Lebanon and Jordan were created as entities to protect Israel. Lebanon, in fact, is a far more dangerous and sinister political project but that is another topic. I was planning to write a long critique of the Political Document but I did not find enough material or news development to warrant that. The document has some general Third Worldism and that also reflects the thinking and readings of Nawwaf Musawi. I have only three points to make about the contents: 1) there is absolutely no clear position on social justice in Lebanon or beyond. In fact, on the question of social justice, the party seemed confused. On the one hand, there is some leftist jargon used about MNCs and about the cruelty of capitalism, but the language used makes it clear that the party is not opposed to capitalism in principle, but to extreme and cruel kinds of capitalism. In the 3rd part of the section on Lebanon, there are references to the economy in articles 9, 10, and 11 but they are very general and talk about "closing the gap" between regions in terms of development. Hardly revolutionary or leftist. 2) The Party takes a clear position against an anti-Semitic view of the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is important, I think, especially for any Islamic fundamentalist (Sunni or Shi`ite) political party. In fact, Nasrallah added a few lines while reading the text, and one of them dealt with this matter. He said clearly: "Our problem with them (Zionists) is not because they are Jewish." And the document said in the section on Zionism: "[The conflict] is not based on ethnic, religious, or racial confrontation on our part." (This is in the 3rd chapter). 3) The reference to women is not common for a religious party. It says in the section on Lebanon when it identifies the characteristics of the future state that it seeks: "The state that strengthens the role of women and develops its participation in all fields, in the context of benefiting from their uniqueness, impact and respect for its status." Of course, I don't like the last part because when men speak about "respecting" women's status they usually have in mind traditional roles for women. So in sum, the Political Document came to juridically enunciate and articulate the political development of the Party under the leadership of Hasan Nasrallah. No surprises. Of course, the Party Congress that produced and ratified this document must have also agreed on documents that you and I don't know about.