What’s the Matter with Jawad, Or, Who Says There is No Fun in Islam?

by Hugh Fitzgerald

Hassan and Jawad Nasrallah

Hypocrisy, thy name is Hezbollah. Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah who has helped bring Lebanon to near ruin, economically, politically, and of course morally, has a spoiled son, Jawad. Jawad Nasrallah is a chip off the old block, living a life of leisure, secure in the knowledge that his father has amassed a fortune of $250 million dollars, a fortune skimmed off the amounts Hezbollah raises among rich Shi’a abroad, and from its role in the drug trade, smuggling heroin and cocaine from South America to Europe. It’s not as much, admittedly, as Mousa Abu Marouk and Khaled Meshaal stole from Hamas when they were running it — each having made off with at least a cool $2.5 billion, but that $250 million is nothing to sneeze at.

Jawad is just as overweight as his father, his embonpoint – think of Sidney Greenstreet at the Blue Parrot — mute testimony to the many fine meals he must have had in Beirut and in his travels hither and yon, paid for by his doting dad, or perhaps by Hezbollah itself.

He is 39, has four children, and has been declared by the State Department to be a terrorist who tried to activate a cell of suicide bombers on the West Bank.

Here is a 2018 story about Jawad Hasrallah:

The son of Lebanon’s Hezbollah leader designated by the U.S. State Department this week as a “global terrorist” is a poet and music lover who is said to move around without security and whose role within the group is shrouded in secrecy.

Jawad Nasrallah, the 37- [now 39-] year-old father of four, is the second eldest son of Hassan Nasrallah who has been at the helm of the Iran-backed Shiite group since 1992.

In its designation on Tuesday, the State Department described him as “the rising star of Hezbollah,” saying he has recruited people to carry out terrorist attacks against Israel in the West Bank, and in January 2016 tried to activate a suicide bombing and shooting cell based there.

People who know Jawad Nasrallah, however, disputed the State Department’s description of his role within Hezbollah, with one resident of Beirut’s southern suburbs, a Hezbollah stronghold, saying Nasrallah is not even a senior official within the group.

The man with close links to the group, who met the young Nasrallah on several occasions, described him as a modest man, adding it is almost impossible to believe that he is the son of the group’s leader.

“He moves around without security and visits shops to buy stuff or to eat,” the man said. “People respect him because he is a humble person and the son of Sayyed Nasrallah,” he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was speaking about matters related to the group’s security. He said Jawad is religiously moderate, unlike some other members of the group, and likes to listen to music.

Of course, a “religious moderate” who tried, but did not succeed, in creating a cell of suicide bombers. Not succeeding is what makes him a “moderate.”

“He is not a big official with the party. I never heard that he has a security or military post,” the man said.

Another person familiar with the group also cast doubt on the “rising star” narrative or that he was a high-ranking member of the group.

Hezbollah declined a request by The Associated Press to comment on the State Department action. The group generally dismisses sanctions imposed on Hezbollah members as ineffective and part of psychological propaganda against the group. The Israeli Foreign Ministry also declined comment, while a Palestinian senior security official said Hezbollah stopped its activity in the West Bank and Gaza after the second intifada, or uprising, which ended in 2005.

Hezbollah “stopped its activity in the West Bank and Gaza”? No, Hezbollah has been very busy since 2018, building terror tunnels from Lebanon into the West Bank, and amassing an armory that by now includes 140,000 rockets and missiles in southern Lebanon.

Although his rank and role within the group have remained ambiguous, the round-faced Nasrallah is not the reclusive type, as senior Hezbollah commanders tend to be.

He has appeared publicly on numerous occasions, including at book signing events in 2007, when he published a collection of poems called “Resistance Letters.” The book focuses on the role of poetry in resistance with poems that glorify those who died fighting Israel, including his elder brother, Hadi, who died while fighting Israel in south Lebanon in 1997.

In one poem called “Shukran,” or “Thank you,” he writes: “From the heart, thank you to the most beautiful father, thank you for being my inspiration, my father and my commander.”

In an interview with a local TV station in that same year, Jawad refused to give details about his role within the group, only saying that he dedicated his life to the resistance. He said he likes music and movies, including comedy films, history and documentary movies.

He gives thanks to his father “for being my inspiration” – this demonstration of filial piety should arouse admiration or disgust, depending on your point of view. Personally, I favor “disgust.” His father is the terrorist leader of a terrorist group, a would-be mass murderer, and also someone who has taken for himself huge sums that were meant for the “poor Palestinians” in Lebanon whose suffering supposedly moves him so.

Recently an amusing contretemps arose when a photograph surfaced of Jawad Nasrallah wearing an American-made shirt, with the logo of Timberland, a well-known American clothing company. The father, Hassan Nasrallah, has tried to impose a boycott in Lebanon on US products, and the photograph of his son flaunting his American-made shirt, while everyone else under the thumb of Hezbollah has to make do with shirts made elsewhere, ideally by fellow Shi’a in Iran or Syria, has prompted considerable criticism.

The story – and the photograph of Jawad in his real-American-guy shirt, is here.

The son of the leader of the Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah has aroused a storm of criticism on social media after he was photographed wearing American-made clothing.

Israeli news site N12 reported that Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah’s son Jawad wore the clothing despite a boycott imposed by his father on US products.

The rage on social media was immediate, with one user expressing anger that Jawad was wearing American products “instead of clothing manufactured by Iran or Syria,” which are allies of Hezbollah.

In one picture, Jawad is seen with two friends while wearing a shirt with the logo of the American company Timberland with “USA” underneath.

One comment on the photo said, “Jawad Nasrallah has to burn that shirt.”

Another comment accused Hezbollah of hypocrisy, saying, “Wow, hilarious — your salary is in dollars, your cars are American, your mobile phones are American, and even half your weapons are of American manufacture” despite the group’s anti-US rhetoric.

Echoing this, a third critic wrote, “Before you call on the public not to buy American products, take off your son’s shirt and dress him in an Iranian shirt.”

Right on. Or just let him go around shirtless, a Palestinian descamisado.

Some commenters were sarcastic, with one saying, “Don’t worry, he wore the shirt before his father started his campaign against American commodities.”

These critical comments, aimed right at the son of Hassan Nasrallah, bespeak the growing anger at Hezbollah even among Shi’a. They are fed up with Nasrallah having supported the corrupt Lebanese government and, even worse, having denounced the protesters instead of taking their side. Now Lebanon’s economy continues to plummet, the new president, Diab, has gone on tour hoping to raise money among the Gulf Arabs but, because he and the new government he heads are correctly seen as dominated by Hezbollah, none of the Gulf Arab leaders will deign to see him.

Jawad himself both tried to take the high ground and denied all the charges, stating, “All of them writing against me — I won’t attack in response. I don’t buy American products; I’m even planning to sell my iPhone.”

If he doesn’t buy American products, how did he get the Timberland shirt? Perhaps, in a spirit of Jesuitical logic-chopping, he means it was given to him, so he can’t be faulted for having bought it. Why didn’t Jawad simply say “I was given this shirt” or “I bought this shirt long before my father announced the boycott”?

And what are we to make of his remark that “I’m even planning to sell my iPhone”? Why didn’t he get rid of it just as soon as his father announced the boycott? What’s taking him so long? Now he’s “planning” to get rid of it? How many days, weeks, months go into this “planning” stage of his existence? Just get rid of it, and buy a nice equivalent from ….where? Anti-Islam China?

As for Timberland, it was quite the fashion not just in America, but even more in Europe, especially in Italy, in the 1990s and 2000s.. Lots of people wore Timberland boots. Then the company branched out into clothing. The Timberland brand made Europeans into American lumberjacks and cattle-ranchers. The product was well-made. But the brand is not quite so fashionable now. Jawad is behind the times. He is not the glass of fashion and the mold of form that he thinks himself to be.

One last parting bit of information for Jawad: Timberland was founded in New Hampshire in 1952 by Nathan Swartz and his two sons. One of them, Sidney Swartz, took over the running of the company, until he was succeeded by his son, Jeffrey Swartz, who ran one of the “100 Best Companies To Work For.” Jawad, if you know English you can find out more about Jeffrey Swartz, who comes across as thoroughly admirable in his views, here. These people, Jawad, who owned and ran Timberland and produced that shirt you like to wear, were not just Americans, and Novahantonians, but Jewish Americans. What do you make of that? Take off that shirt,and become a descamisado of the desert, or keep it on? Decisions, decisions.

First published in Jihad Watch.