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Hezbollah Dot Com:

Hezbollah’s Online Campaign

Gabriel Weimann 1

1 Professor at the Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Israel.

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Abstract

A media-savvy organization, Hezbollah operates a radio station (Al-Nur) and

a television station (Al-Manar) and was among the first terrorist organizations to

establish and operate an extensive network of linked websites. Hezbollah treats the

Internet as an extension of its propaganda apparatus; together with its publications and

television and radio programs, the group uses the Internet to showcase its political

agenda and its “benevolent” presence in Lebanon, as well as to propagate religious

messages. Hezbollah thus targets and reaches a global audience, addressing local,

national and international issues in real time. During the 2006 war with Israel,

Hezbollah upgraded its Internet presence and improved its sophistication and

technical knowhow. The Internet has been a boon for Hezbollah, boosting its publicity

and communication within and outside its constituency.

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Media-Minded Hezbollah

Hezbollah has been a master of propaganda and psychological warfare since it

was founded in 1982. Hezbollah, meaning “Party of God,” is a Lebanese group of

Shii Muslim militants that has developed into a political party and a major force in

Lebanese society. Ideologically inspired by the Iranian revolution and Ayatollah

Khomeini, Hezbollah, led by Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, opposes the West

and seeks to create a Muslim fundamentalist state modeled on Iran, liberate Jerusalem

and ultimately eliminate Israel, advocating the eventual institution of Islamic rule in

Lebanon. Hezbollah is closely allied with Iran and has been assisted by Syria. The

Hezbollah emblem portrays a hand holding a machine gun aloft against a background

of the globe; its slogan is a verse from the Koran: “Only Allah’s congregation shall be

victorious.”

Since its establishment, Hezbollah has based its policy on global terrorism

directed primarily against Israeli and American targets, blending political and

religious motives (see Jaber, 1997; Harik, 2004; Diaz and Newman, 2005; Norton,

2007). The organization relies on an international network of supporters recruited

mostly among Shii Muslim communities worldwide, including those in the United

States, Europe and South America. This network serves several purposes: Information

gathering, fund raising, maintaining latent cells and activating “high-quality” attacks

in various places throughout the world, such as the two incidents perpetrated in

Argentina. Hezbollah’s activities include many anti-American and anti-Israeli terror

attacks, some with a heavy toll of victims, including the suicide bombings of the US

embassy and US Marine quarters in Beirut (October 1983) and the US embassy

bombing in that same city (September 1984). The group was responsible for the

kidnapping and detention of US citizens and other Westerners in Lebanon in the

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1980s. Three members of Hezbollah – Imad Mughniyah, Hasan Izz-al-Din and Ali

Atwa – are on the FBI’s list of most-wanted terrorists for their part in the 1985

hijacking of TWA Flight 847, in which a US Navy diver was murdered. Hezbollah

has carried out numerous attacks on Israeli targets as well, from shelling towns in

northern Israel to suicide bombings, kidnappings and other assaults.

Schleifer (2006) describes Hezbollah’s military strategy as twofold: Guerilla

warfare and psychological warfare. He points out that the visual media are one of

Hezbollah’s most effective weapons in the war against Israel: “By its astute use of the

video camera Hezbollah demonstrated how it was possible, with only a few simple

pieces of equipment and some creative thinking, to net huge military and

psychological dividends” (Schleifer, 2006:6). Schleifer also discusses what he calls

Hezbollah’s distinction between the “enemy audience” (Israel) and the “neutral

audience.” He asserts that the enemy audience must be shown the Israeli army’s

weaknesses and faults, adding that to wage an effective propaganda war against Israel,

Hizbollah’s media operators separated the enemy audience into two parts, military

and civilian, singling out subgroups among them that they could target specifically.

The neutral audience is perceived as “a variety of neutral countries, organizations and

individuals, which although not directly involved in the conflict, did or could have

some influence over events” (Schleifer, 2006: 9).

Hezbollah has long used mass media to promote its agenda and messages.

Commenting on the group’s early use of propaganda, Nasrallah stated in a 6 March

2005 press conference aired on Al-Manar: “The media know this game very well; we

are part of you because we worked in the media during the resistance days.” In

commentary published by The Daily Star in Beirut, Hussein Naboulsi (2002:12),

Hezbollah’s press attaché, noted:

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Having lived in the United States for a couple of years, it never ceases to

amaze me the mainly one-sided and biased reporting in the mainstream

media. This is true in American reporting on the Middle East conflict.

Though I don’t relinquish the hope that Americans will one day unmask the

deception that has trapped them, I would be pleased to see Arab nations

adopt the methods practiced by the US media…Is it not time to appear on

CNN and BBC to proclaim the truth? I am not calling for the use of

weapons to regain your rights, but I am calling on you to defend yourselves

through the media and use technology and other modern means to explain

your cause.

A media-savvy organization, Hezbollah operates Al-Manar TV, Al-Nur Radio,

Al-Intiqad Weekly Journal, Baqiatollah Islamic Magazine and other publications, as

well as a large network of linked websites, in several languages, including English

and Arabic (Conway, 2003; Weimann, 2004, 2006). In her study entitled

“Hezbollah’s Virtual Civil Society,” Dallal (2001) states that the Internet became a

useful tool for this organization to form a virtual community and even a virtual civil

society. “This has been achieved through increasingly sophisticated and compelling

uses of the new media and information technologies,” she argues (2001:367), pointing

to Hezbollah’s use of the Internet to reach out and connect constituencies in Lebanon

and overseas. She emphasizes the interactive nature of this medium, that has allowed

development of “transnational media forms that do not conform to nor are in dialogue

with dominant forms.”

One of the most significant components of Hezbollah’s media and propaganda

strategy is its television station, Al-Manar (Arabic: The Beacon). According to the

Al-Manar website, transmissions began in 1991, followed by regular broadcasting in

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Lebanon, covering the Islamic Resistance Movement and its activity. While many

terrorist organizations use mass media to advertise their views, few have an entire

television station at their disposal. Al-Manar, which also goes by the name Qanat

Al-Moqawama (Station of Resistance) is an integral part of Hezbollah’s

communication strategy. According to Jorisch (2004:1), “It has become a potent

instrument in what Hezbollah calls its ‘psychological warfare against the Zionist

enemy’ in the Arab world, focused on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.” Jorisch goes on

to say that “Al-Manar is propaganda in its most undiluted form. Every aspect of

Al-Manar’s content, from news to filler, is fine tuned to present a single point of

view: that of a militantly Islamist sponsor, consistently urging the recourse to violent

‘resistance’ as the only legitimate response to Israel’s existence and the US presence

in the Middle East” (Jorisch, 2004:2). In the early 1990s, Hezbollah began covering

Islamic Resistance guerilla attacks on Israeli soldiers in Southern Lebanon,

videotaping guerrilla raids and airing them on Al-Manar. As Magnus Ranstorp (1998:

103-4) explained:

[Hezbollah uses] its own camera-crews to record the efficiency of its attacks

against IDF [Israel Defense Forces] soldiers and posts, which it regularly

broadcasts on its TV station, Al-Manar, from Beirut and al-Fajr from Biqaa

and, at times, distributes to foreign media. [ . . . ] In particular, daring

resistance operations boost the morale of its own fighters and undermine the

morale of soldiers, who recently in some instances have been seen fleeing

from advancing Hezbollah fighters. The movement also regularly publicizes

the acquisition of new and upgraded weaponry in a concerted effort to instill

a degree of uncertainty for IDF units without actually using them.

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Over the years, Al-Manar has evolved into a leading news station in the Arab

world and has introduced new technology into its operations. Its audience increased in

2000, for example, when it began broadcasting worldwide via satellite. In 2004, the

United States declared Hezbollah a terrorist organization, joining France in banning

the station’s satellite link broadcasts, that may still be received throughout the Middle

East, Africa and parts of Europe. Al-Manar television operates on an annual budget of

approximately $15 million. In the 1990s, funding was obtained from various sources,

including commercials: At that time, agents purchased advertising slots for Coca-Cola

and other Western products. This source of revenue dried up only when the channel

was placed on a list of terrorist organizations in 2004, following which Western

companies stopped airing their commercials and European satellites were no longer

allowed to transmit Al-Manar’s signal. Nevertheless, the station succeeded in

obtaining financing in the Arab and Muslim world, particularly Iran.

Al-Manar’s website describes the station as “the first Arab establishment to

stage an effective psychological warfare against the Zionist enemy.” The site offers

video broadcasts of television programs, as well as texts from the station’s English

news. One document presents the conspiracy theory that 4,000 Jews intentionally did

not go to work at the World Trade Center on September 11 because they knew of the

attack in advance. Hezbollah uses the Al-Nur radio station website to provide

streaming and downloadable broadcasts of five Arabic daily radio news programs.

The group is also amply represented on Nasrallah’s personal websites.

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Nasrallah: Mastermind and Celebrity

Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the group’s leader and

frequent spokesperson, may well be a major component of the Hezbollah information

and media campaign. Today’s ubiquitous celebrity worship and infatuation bears

unmistakable similarities to the celebrity culture prevailing in the world of terrorism.

In her book Mass-Mediated Terrorism, Brigitte Nacos discusses one instance in which

Nasrallah wanted to address the American public and Ted Koppel offered him the

opportunity on Nightline: “While the Unabomber was behind bars and unable to wage

his campaign of terror, when showcased by Time magazine and courted by its scooped

rivals, Sheik Nasrallah was still leading the organization that continued to engage in

mass-mediated political violence” (Nacos, 2002:94). Numerous websites present

Nasrallah’s pictures, lectures and declarations, including threats directed at the United

States and Israel. In 1998, on the fiftieth anniversary of Israel’s establishment,

Nasrallah’s posted message concerned “the bitter and distressing historical

catastrophe of the establishment of the state of the grandsons of apes and pigs – the

Zionist Jews – on the land of Palestine and Jerusalem.” He closed his declaration with

these words: “…We reaffirm the slogan of the struggle against the Great Satan and

call, like last year: ‘Death to America.’ To the murderers of the prophets, the

grandsons of apes and pigs, we say: ‘Death to Israel.’”

During the 2006 war with Israel, Nasrallah participated in several televised

interviews and issued declarations, online statements and threats, vowing to strike at

Tel Aviv if air sorties on Beirut continued. His pronouncements were carried on every

major television network, both nationally and internationally. Throughout his

speeches, Nasrallah focused on the loss of innocent children in Lebanon – a

phenomenal propaganda tool that arouses rage among audiences, especially in the

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Arab world. Even if Hezbollah maintains rockets and hideouts in schools, churches or

playgrounds, people are more concerned with the death of children than with why

they were killed. It is abundantly clear that Nasrallah is highly aware of such feelings,

as he stated, “When we bombard settlements, it is a reaction and any time you decide

to stop bombarding our villages, we will not hit your settlements. We will fight you

face to face on the battlefield; ‘we are men of this war.’” In every speech and

statement, he reversed the blame, effectively portraying Hezbollah as the defender of

Lebanon against Israeli aggression.

Nasrallah continues to persuade the media to air his speeches and

proclamations. During the 2006 war, already targeted by Israeli bombings, he invited

Al-Jazeera’s Beirut bureau chief to his hideout for a televised interview (see

Jiddu-Bin, 2006), in which he stated: “I can confirm at this moment, this is not an

exaggeration and not part of psychological warfare, but facts, that the command

structure of Hezbollah has not been harmed.” He continued: “Certainly, I would like

to tell you and the viewers that when a martyr falls, we inform his family and we then

announce this. We do not hide our martyrs until the end of battle. We have never done

this. On the contrary, we always take pride in our martyrs.”

Hezbollah Online

The Internet has become one of Hezbollah’s most important communication

tools (Weimann, 2006). Beginning in 1996 with its first website, hizbollah.org,

Hezbollah has expanded its Internet presence to at least fifty active sites that use a

variety of means to propagate the group’s political and religious stance on national,

regional and international issues: Some advertise the group’s social services or

religious and educational institutions, others are devoted to Hezbollah’s leadership

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and key religious figures and still others compile and present news items and op-ed

pieces from a Hezbollah perspective.

The Internet has proved instrumental for Hezbollah in many respects,

contributing to the growth of the group’s regional and international support base. It

provides Hezbollah with a forum for direct, two-way communication between

audiences and operatives, according the group an interactive channel for contact with

its local and international constituency. Reliable information on Internet usage and

reach is difficult to find. According to InternetWorldStats, however, almost 17% of

the world’s population uses the Internet (in 2007) – a 208% increase since 2000. In

contrast, nearly 10% of the Middle East’s population (4% of the total world

population) now uses the Internet—a 490% increase since 2000 (see Appendix 1).

Lebanon reports 700,000 users, or 15.4% of its population and accounts for 3.6% of

Middle Eastern Internet usage (statistics updated in April 2007; information on

InternetWorldStats.com is sourced to Nielsen/NetRatings and the ITU).

Hezbollah’s Internet strategy has shifted from concentration to delegation,

from broadcasting to narrowcasting. The original website, hizbollah.org,

encompassed a number of functions that have since been distributed among numerous

other Hezbollah sites. For example, hizbollah.org once contained an archive of

Hassan Nasrallah’s speeches that is now are archived on Nasrallah’s personal website

and Hezbollah’s numerous news sites. The original website featured a lengthy history

of the group and explained its origins and purpose. A second unique feature was a

section called Hezbollah in the Press, that contained news articles from the Lebanese

Arabic press tracking Hezbollah activities and statements. Hizbollah.org also

contained an extensive photo archive divided into various sections, including Military

Operations, Lebanese Brigade, Islamic Resistance, Al-Aqsa Intifada, Attacks, Qana

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Massacre, Mansoura Massacre and Other Massacres. Hezbollah maintains other

websites in Arabic, English, German and French. The Arabic versions of the sites

differ from the others in both text and design; they contain more content, adopt a more

aggressive and militant tone and – unlike the other versions – repeatedly refer to

Israelis as “Nazis.” According to the Jihad Online report published by the

Anti-Defamation League, the Islamic Resistance Support Association site, that

complements the Central Press Office site, consistently places the term “Israel” in

quotation marks, reflecting Hezbollah’s belief that Israel does not actually exist. The

site documents the group’s activities with videos of its rallies and military operations,

daily reports describing its attacks on Israeli targets and an encyclopedia of its

“martyrs” – suicide bombers and others killed in the fight against Israel – complete

with their photos and information about their families. To justify its violent activities,

Hezbollah posts “legal documents” on the site that purportedly validate armed

resistance. (Anti-Defamation League, 2000: 26)

The numerous websites affiliated with Hezbollah (some 40-50 sites: the

number varies according to shutdowns, hacking, etc.) may be classified into six major

groupings according to their content, most of them used for propaganda, recruitment

and psychological warfare:

• News and Information: Hezbollah operates 6-8 news and information websites,

all of which are central to the group’s propaganda efforts. These sites are

characterized by their dynamic form and constant updating. They claim to provide

news and information from various sources but are clearly highly selective in the

views, facts and interpretations displayed. They present “the world according to

Hezbollah” in original analyses or articles selected from other news sources. The

various websites differ in focus: For example, the Moqawama site deals almost

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exclusively with the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories, the status of the

Lebanese-Israeli border, the strategic position of Hezbollah vis-à-vis Israel and all

other issues concerning Israel, Zionism and Al-Moqawama al-Islamiyya (the Islamic

Resistance).The Intiqad site and inbaa.com, on the other hand, feature news about

Iranian, Iraqi and Lebanese political developments that may have little to do with

Israel, Zionism or the Palestinians. The Al-Manar site offers transcripts of Al-Manar’s

daily television news broadcasts, that deal mostly with regional and international

news from a Hezbollah perspective. The same applies to radio news broadcasts

available as downloadable or streaming clips on the Al-Nur website.

• Welfare and Social Services: Hezbollah also maintains several websites that

represent six different welfare organizations. Beyond detailing their social services to

Hezbollah’s constituents, these sites also highlight the social values of Hezbollah and

their religious background. They serve as important propaganda tools, as they channel

Hezbollah’s social activities towards political and militant commitment.

• Religious Indoctrination: Certain Hezbollah websites are devoted to religious

education. Based on strict Shia religious principles, they present Hezbollah’s religious

values to core cadres and potential converts. The sites often have links to Iranian

websites, highlight Iranian religious figures and base their values on the Khomeinist

vision.

• Personal websites: Hezbollah administrates and promotes several “celebrity

websites.” These are the personal sites of Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah, his

deputy Naim Qassem and Lebanese Shia cleric Musa al-Sadr, who played a crucial

role in politically mobilizing the Shia in the 1970s, before Hezbollah was established.

The sites offer photos, biographies and selected writings of the respective

personalities.

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• Anti-Israel websites: Hezbollah devotes numerous sites to its war against Israel,

focusing on “Israeli atrocities,” promotion of Palestinian history and awareness and

Israel’s history of conquest, bloodshed and occupation of Arab lands. Some sites

focus on the Israeli army, the war launched by Hezbollah against Israel, its martyrs,

achievements and goals. The Israeli enemy is portrayed frequently as supported by

American interests and as a part of Western plans to conquer the world.

• Bulletin Boards: Hezbollah manages several open online bulletin boards,

including hadeel.net (launched in July 2001) and al-Maaref, providing a virtual forum

for Hezbollah members and sympathizers from around the world to interact and

engage in discourse guided and moderated by Hezbollah-appointed web

administrators.

• Youth-Oriented Features: Hezbollah also targets children and adolescents. In

2003, Hezbollah began online promotion of a computer game simulating terrorist

attacks on Israeli targets. According to a report in Lebanon’s Daily Star (Cited at:

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31323), the game,

called Special Force, was developed by the Hezbollah Central Internet Bureau over a

two-year period. Its producers point out that Special Force, that positions players in

various Hezbollah operations against Israelis, is based on actual Hezbollah battles.

Special Force can be played in Arabic, English, French or Farsi and is available online

(http://www.specialforce.net/english/indexeng.htm). The violent game also features a

training mode in which participants can practice their shooting skills on [former]

Israeli Prime Minister Sharon and other Israeli political and military figures. A “high

score” earns a special certificate signed by Hezbollah leader Nasrallah, presented in a

“cyberceremony.” At the end of the game, players view a display of Hezbollah

“martyrs” – fighters killed by Israel. In the above cited interview for the Daily Star,

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Hezbollah representative Mahmoud Rayya said it was the movement’s leaders who

decided to produce the game. “In a way,” he added, “Special Force offers a mental

and personal training for those who play it, allowing them to feel that they are in the

shoes of the resistance fighters.”

Wartime Propaganda Online

Hezbollah operated numerous websites during the summer 2006 war. Some

were defaced or hacked into, but the organization maintained its web presence in

many forms, including several veteran websites, augmented by new ones focused on

propaganda. On July 21, 2006, one website became Hezbollah’s primary domain:

ghaliboun.net, hosted in Malaysia and serviced by an American company, Network

Solutions, of Herndon, Virginia. This website was used for almost all Hezbollah’s

campaign purposes: News and updates, psychological warfare, propaganda and

recruitment. It contained Nasrallah’s speeches, statements and televised interviews;

news briefings and updates; cartoons and pictures; stories of victims and “freedom

fighters”; links to web pages on Israeli atrocities or American aggression and more.

There were two versions – Arabic and English. Despite similarities in design and

topics, a careful comparison of the two reveals interesting differences in emphasis,

use of words and titles, reference to religious issues, etc.

The ghaliboun.net main page presents news headlines and stories, usually

cited selectively from international sources such as newspapers, news agencies, online

news sites and even Israeli media. Main page links include Flash Gallery (Flash

Media clips with titles such as Destroying Israel, Long Years of Wars, etc.”); Images

[sic] Gallery (over 900 photos from the recent war, categorized according to content),

Video Files (clips for downloading or viewing); Archive (an online search engine for

stories or other material by date and/or keywords) and Poll System (an online survey

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including “questions” such as “Disarmament of resistance is a. Treason; b. Time

unsuitable; or c. Logical.” Distribution of answers is as expected – 61% see it as

“treason,” 15% as “time unsuitable” and 23% as “logical”). Also on the main page is

a photo column entitled Scenes of Israel and America [sic] Terrorism” (in the Arabic

version, the title is different: Scenes from American and Israeli War Against

Terrorism). Similarly, in the same main page, a picture of a dead girl from Kafr Kana,

victim of an Israeli air strike, is captioned sarcastically in English as The New Middle

East, while in Arabic its title is Western Civilization.

Ghaliboun is a rather sophisticated, all-purpose website: It highlights the

terrible victimization of Lebanese citizens (with gruesome photos of torn bodies,

corpses of children, destroyed houses) but also launches a scare campaign against

Israel, including photographs emphasizing the death and destruction in Israel caused

by Katyusha missiles. The site targets various audiences, including the Lebanese

people, world public opinion, Israelis, international media, Shiites in Lebanon, the

Muslim world and others. To appeal effectively to such varied audiences, Hezbollah’s

website is structured in classified catalogue style. The photo link, for example,

includes such titles as:

1. Israeli Aggression in Lebanon (152 photos)

2. Waiting for Rescue under the Ruins (13 photos)

3. Hassan Nasrallah (100 photos)

4. The Echo of Resistance (48 photos of anti-Israel demonstrations throughout the

world)

5. The Refugees in Lebanon (96 photos)

6. Massacre in Kafr Kana (29-30 July 2006)

7. The Resistance (55 photos).

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Many of these photos found their way to international media outlets and news

agencies.

A special section of the site is devoted to cartoons – dozens of them are posted

and several are translated into English. Most are devoted to criticism of “enemies,”

particularly the four major enemies – Israelis, the Americans, the United Nations and

even the Lebanese government.

Virtual Exchanges

Israeli hackers attempted to disrupt Hezbollah’s Internet presence. During the

war, the Israel Defense Forces [IDF] Intelligence Corps managed to hack into

Hezbollah’s Al-Manar television station and several Hezbollah websites. Israeli

airstrikes on communications facilities in Lebanon were largely unsuccessful in

stopping Hezbollah broadcasts, but the IDF hackers were able to air defaced images

of Nasrallah, accompanied by the sound of three gunshots. Above Nasrallah’s image

is a framed caption reading “Your day is coming, coming, coming” and below it the

words “The State of Israel.” This virtual assault included images of dead Hezbollah

militants, an apparent effort to counter Nasrallah’s refusal to admit any IDF successes

in southern Lebanon. The Israeli attack deleted the content of most Hezbollah

websites.

But Hezbollah found a way to survive the virtual attacks: Hezbollah hackers

trolled the Internet for vulnerable sites to communicate with one another and to

broadcast messages from Al-Manar television, banned in the United States. Following

the Whac-a-Mole principle, named for the popular arcade game, Hezbollah sites pop

up, are whacked down and then pop up again somewhere else on the web. “As the

Israelis tighten the noose on Hezbollah in Lebanon, these communication nodes

become critical,” Fred Burton, a former US counterterrorism official, told Time

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magazine (Hylton, 2006). Hezbollah thus hijacked the websites of cable service

providers in south Texas and a suburban Virginia, as well as web hosting servers in

Delhi, Montreal, Brooklyn and New Jersey. According to that same Time article:

Al-Manar, widely considered a mouthpiece for Hezbollah and categorized

as a terrorist group by the US, linked to the small cable company’s IP

(Internet Protocol) address, which can be thought of, in simple terms, as a

telephone number. Hezbollah essentially added an extension on that

telephone line allowing their traffic to flow. Hezbollah then gets the word

out through e-mail and blogs that it can be found at that IP address and the

hijack is complete.

Hezbollah used these hijacked websites to run recruitment videos, post

Al-Manar’s broadcasting online and to list numbers of bank accounts in which

supporters could deposit their donations. In another case, a web hosting company

located in Montreal discovered it was unknowingly hosting material for the Hezbollah

organization. The group reportedly hacked into a server operated by iWeb, which was

tipped off to the website’s presence by an anonymous e-mail message.

Many of the Hezbollah sites that have been forced to move have reappeared,

using servers based in Middle Eastern countries. For example, sites dedicated to

Nasrallah and to his deputy Kassem, as well as the Moqawama site, have moved to

Dubai-based servers. A number of other sites are now located on servers controlled by

the Computer Research Center of Islamic Sciences, an Iranian organization based in

Qom. Some Hezbollah sites continue to run from US and Canadian-based servers or

use American companies for other Internet-related services necessary for website

maintenance (such as name registration). These sites include Intiqad, a weekly

newsletter; sites of charities established by Hezbollah such as Al Jarha and

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Hayaa and the Al-Nur radio site, that currently uses services in the USA, Canada and

the UK.

Conclusion

It is now evident that the Hezbollah organization and leadership are extremely

media savvy, having mastered the art of propaganda and effective communication.

Moreover, they have learned to identify their target audience and direct their

messages to varied targets using multimedia campaigns. They also know the

effectiveness of having a “celebrity,” whose name and face are recognized instantly,

associated with the organization and therefore deemed a credible representation

thereof in the media and to the public.

Hezbollah’s media empire –including Al-Manar television, Al-Nur radio and

numerous websites led by the official moqawama.net – has been an inseparable part

of the psychological war. At every stage of the fighting in the 2006 war, Al-Manar

was the station that broadcast Hezbollah’s messages. Its role in the war began on the

morning of July 12, when Hezbollah abducted IDF soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud

Goldwasser. Al-Manar was the first station to report the kidnapping, about two hours

after it took place. Once the fighting began, Al-Manar’s pronouncements had a major

influence on other media, including Israeli media.

“We won a strategic and historic victory, without any exaggeration,” declared

Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah in August 2006, several days after the fighting

ceased. This was a rather strange way to describe the outcome of an Israeli attack that

destroyed much of the terrorist army’s military infrastructure, laid waste its

operational strongholds and bunkers, killed untold numbers of Hezbollah fighters and

culminated in a “ceasefire” that effectively allows international forces to prevent the

return of Hezbollah to southern Lebanon. Nonetheless, in line with the tradition of the

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Hezbollah campaign, Nasrallah was referring to the psychological victory. What

constituted “victory” for Hezbollah were the mediated war images, ranging – from

dead Lebanese children in a house bombed by Israeli planes to the deserted streets of

a northern Israeli town whose residents were forced to leave their homes after

numerous missile attacks.

In the summer 2006 war, Hezbollah clearly proved its competence as a

propaganda and communications machine and perfected the art of mass-mediated

terror. More generally, Hezbollah’s psychological victory again proved that modern

wars are won on television screens and Internet websites. These are the battlefields

that really matter, the arenas that frame the war and the scoreboards that determine the

losers and the winners.

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Weimann, G. (2004). WWW.Terror.Net: How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet.

Special Research Report, Washington DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.

Weimann, G. (2006). Terror on the Internet: The New Arena, The New Challenges.

Washington, DC: United States Institute of Peace Press.

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Appendix 1

Internet Usage Statistics in the Middle East 2000-2007