Ibrahim Mousawi (Arabic: إبراهيم الموسوي; also spelled Moussawi or El-Moussaoui, born 1965) is a Lebanese journalist and spokesman for the Islamist group Hezbollah, which is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.[1][2] He has engaged in anti Western rhetoric and works in the Hezbollah TV station Al Manar.
He joined the Hezbollah TV station Al Manar (the Beacon), which does not include Israeli officials in its broadcasts because, according to Mousawi, "It [Israel] is an enemy state," and "Why would you put spokesmen for an enemy state on the air?"[6] He hosted a political talk show and worked as editor-in-chief of foreign news at Al Manar. In an article for the Daily Star in 2002, Mousawi explained the religious basis for suicide attacks in a fatwa of Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah.[7]Jeffrey Goldberg wrote in the New Yorker magazine that Mousawi had said to him that "Jews are a lesion on the forehead of history."[8] When Al-Manar was banned from French satellite TV for airing a 29-part Ramadan special Ash-Shatat (Diaspora) during October–November 2003, which featured the "Blood libel against Jews" and quoted extensively from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, Mousawi said the ban resulted from "political pressure by the Jewish lobby".[9] He earned his MA in Political Science from the American University of Beirut (AUB) in 2003.
Mousawi rose to prominence during the 2006 Lebanon War as a spokesman for Hezbollah. He said that "Pain is the only language that the enemy understands".[10] Following the cessation of hostilities, Mousawi was invited to speak to European audiences in Ireland, Germany[11] and the UK,[12] where he was announced as a Hezbollah spokesman on posters of the Stop the War Coalition.[13] Mousawi received a PhD in Political Islam from Birmingham University in 2007.[14] The title of his dissertation was "Compatibility between Islam and democracy; Shiism and democracy under Wilayat Al-Faqih, Iran as a case study". He co-authored an article on "Hizbullah's Jihad Concept"[15] and lectures on Political Science at AUB.[16]
In February 2009, Hezbollah publicly appointed Mousawi as its new media relations officer.[21] When Mousawi was announced for a UK visit in March 2009, campaigners from the Centre for Social Cohesion pledged to seek an arrest warrant for him.[22] He was banned from the UK in March 2009.[23]
In 2024, Mousawi addressed the World Workers Party's International Assembly in which he said that they were united in one front against the United States and Israel.[24]
^in an interview with Al J. Venter "Middle East Mind Games: Interview With Hezbollah," Soldier Of Fortune, January 1998. p. 63 according to The Political Warfighter Mr. Erik Evans, Small Wars Journal, Feb 2006 - and: Violence escalates along Israel-Lebanon border CNN, December 23, 1998
^Hizbullah’s Jihad ConceptArchived 2011-10-28 at the Wayback Machine by Hilal Khashan (American University of Beirut) and Ibrahim Mousawi (Birmingham University) in: The Journal of Religion and Society Vol. 9 (2007) ISSN 1522-5658