BeiruT: It doesn’t seem to matter whether you are a follower, admirer or ardent foe of Hezbollah chief Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah — something about his new Facebook site just seems to draw people in.
Of course, with such a diverse group of “friends,” comments tend to swing to the extremes, everything from “God bless you, our leader” to “burn in hell, you killer” has been posted on the page since it appeared on Friday.
Nasrallah, 49, is the head the Lebanese Shiite resistance movement Hezbollah, a group that has vowed to fight Israel until all occupied Lebanese territories are liberated. Most recently, Hezbollah forces fought a 33-day war with Israel, which left 1,200 Lebanese and 159 Israelis dead and destroyed about half of Lebanon’s infrastructure.
There are already more than 20 online forums dedicated to Nasrallah and Hezbollah, but the entry onto Facebook expands his audience even further.
Facebook is a free, popular social networking website that requires users to sign up so they can share pictures, thoughts and updates with other members.
Nasrallah is just one of millions to have joined. However, his membership is a new way for Hezbollah to reach out to supporters worldwide. By Tuesday many people in Lebanon and around the world had added him as their newest friend.
“He is our sole leader and we are proud to be his friends on Facebook,” said Hala Madi, a Shiite from Beirut’s southern suburbs, a hotbed of Hezbollah.
On a tour of Internet cafes across Beirut on Tuesday, it was easy to find people looking at Nasrallah’s profile and pictures on Facebook.
Some were only doing it for curiosity but others were submitting their comments.
The tone of those comments depended on the neighborhood in Beirut, which is heavily segregated by political affiliation.
In areas where the ruling majority reside, some called on Nasrallah “to love Lebanon more than Iran,” a reference to Hezbollah’s financial and political backing from Iran.
Meanwhile, in areas where the majority are followers of the Hezbollah-led opposition, comments tended to be more in the vein of: “Nasrallah being the leader of all Lebanese and the Arabs.”
In Israel, former Internal Security Minister MK Avi Dichter and the Jewish Internet Defense Force (JIDF), which fights anti-Semitism and terrorism on the Web, called for the removal of Nasrallah’s page from Facebook.
So far the page still exists, despite Israeli media reports that it was removed. Last week, Facebook took down a fan page dedicated to Hamas leader Ismail Haniya.
In addition, there are forums where people can gather to state their support for or opposition to Nasrallah. On one of the pages dedicated to Nasrallah, Israelis were calling on the Lebanese “to kick Nasrallah out and live in peace.”
In another forum, called “Hezbollah out of Lebanon,” people were expressing their dismay and sometimes anger toward Nasrallah and his movement, considered a terrorist organization by the US and many other Western nations.
“Hezbollah is a major threat to Lebanon,” said one comment on the forum “Hezbollah out of Lebanon.”
Hezbollah, which currently has a 13-member bloc in the 128-member Lebanese Parliament, has refrained from commenting on the issue and said people are free to express their backing or support for the leader of the movement.
