As widely reported, Hezbollah’s vast network of social welfare services has played an integral role in cultivating the loyalty and support it receives from the Lebanese people.
However, Hezbollah leader Sheik Nasrallah has apparently become “fed up” with the large number of idle men sitting around in cafes, watching repeats of Al Jazeera’s SportsCenter and smoking water pipes. The Sheik has therefore issued an edict to “blow up welfare as we know it.”
Nasrallah related anecdotes about a Lebanese “welfare queen” who ripped off $150,000 from a mosque, using¬†80 aliases, all ending with the name Mohammed, as well as¬†four fictional dead husbands, a clear red-flag in a culture where it is the men who have multiple spouses.¬† The “Welfare Queen” loading her hummus into a Hummer has¬†now become permanently lodged in Lebanese political folklore.
Under the new plan, alternatively known as the “Third Century Way,” or “Welfare to Warfare,” all recipients of Hezbollah handouts will be required to actually put in an 8-hour day as a terrorist. ¬†For those not physically able to fire Katyusha rockets or engage in guerrilla assaults, there are office jobs for headhunters –¬†hunting for people who will hunt for heads.
Nasrallah emphasized that the best way for the unemployed to permanently get off the welfare rolls is to volunteer as a¬†suicide bomber — “or as your President Clinton put it, ‘a second chance, not a way of life’.”
Thus, unlike¬†Western¬†welfare reform, Hezbollah’s policy is to encourage welfare mothers to have more children.
However, as far as Israel is concerned, Hezbollah’s policy still remains “end it, don’t amend it.”
