Tag: lebanon

Crap

crap.jpg

Fisk’s latest bit has an interesting fifth paragraph—he claims that Hizbullah is encouraging erstwhile residents of the now flattened southern suburbs of Beirut to rent, not buy. Seems that someone’s thinking tactically here, and has decided that there’s no point in rebuilding quite yet.

Lebanon and Iraq are beginning to look like a giant fire sale, with Iran buying everything in sight, including the matches.

Saad Ibrahim’s op-ed in the Washington Post is worthwhile complimentary reading. Ibrahim points out quite rightly that the White House and its clients are simply being outplayed by the Islamists, and declines to say that this is a bad thing. Not only does he manage to write about the Middle East without getting democracy and electoral politics hopelessly tangled up (check out Fred Kaplan’s “What a moronic presidential press conference� in Slate), but he even uses the word “inimical.�

Kaplan meanwhile treats us to a classic bit of Bush fumble-mouthed idiocy, but is unfortunately disingenuous in his presentation. He claims that Bush is too stupid to understand that terrorism and “democracy” (which Kaplan unhappily conflates with electoral politics) can, and do, mix. Face it: Bush knows the difference between democracy and electoral politics (he’s made a career out of undermining the former with latter), and anybody who works with Karl Rove at home and “shock and awe” bombing campaigns in the great outdoors knows damn well how terrorism and electoral politicking go steel hand in velvet glove.

Unfortunately, Kaplan owns up to this in his last para, where he switches from his thesis (that Bush is a moron who can’t grasp the basic flaw in his own spin) to admitting that it is in fact Bush’s refusal to discuss, rather than his failure to understand, that is getting his goat. In the end it looks like Kaplan who doesn’t see the tree for the forest.

Seems apropos here, if late in the news cycle, to congratulate beleaguered Brit Deputy PM, Stetson wearing Big John Prescott, for his characterization of Bush’s handling of the Middle East: “crap.â€�

Hamzawy: Democracy lost

That Amr Hamzawy — he’s so hot right now (you have watched Zoolander, haven’t you?):

This widening ideological divide between ruling elites and oppositions will make it more difficult to adopt political reform measures, which require at least some consensus and flexibility on both sides. More troubling is that the positions of putatively democratic Arab opposition movements on the war in Lebanon have exposed their totalitarian and populist tendencies. There is a great difference between adopting a rational discourse that rightly condemns the Israeli military for its crimes against civilians and criticizes unconditional American acceptance of the war, and cheering the death of Israeli civilians as a step toward the destruction of the “Zionist entity.” This goes beyond the tendency of Islamist and pan-Arab opposition movements to opportunistically capitalize on popular feelings to rally support. It shows that these movements lack a key characteristic of reformist political forces: a willingness to combat ideologies of hatred and extremism rather than using them for political advantage.

Furthermore, although they call for democratic reform in Arab countries, Islamist and pan-Arab movements have failed to acknowledge the fundamentally non-democratic nature of the actions of Lebanon’s Hizbullah. By unilaterally making a decision of war and peace on July 12, Hizbullah confiscated the right of Lebanon’s government, of which it is part, to determine the country’s fate. Israel’s response , by targeting infrastructure and the civilian population, was surely extreme, legitimizing resistance; however, Hizbullah acted like a state within a state, taking advantage of the weakness of Lebanon’s formal institutions and transgressing the principle of consensual decision-making.

The regional shadows of the war in Lebanon will persist for many years. They may well be a long and painful reminder that the hope for any near-term democratic transformation of the Arab world was perhaps the greatest loser in a war that produced tremendous damage on all sides.

Harsh words indeed. While I agree with him that Hizbullah acted irresponsibly on 12 July, it’s quite a stretch to say that it took a decision of war and peace. It was Israel that took the decision to escalate the conflict into a full-scale war. As for the opposition being opportunistic in capitalizing on the Hizbullah-Lebanon war for local advantage, I don’t really see that as a problem (they’re politicians, after all) as much as some of the delusions about this war. But there is a real concern in that the opposition does not realize that cheering for Hizbullah is a dead-end street: there is no real support in Egypt (and I suspect in all other Arab countries) for going to war against Israel. The need for a rational discourse about the region is indeed great, and it would have been nice to see less grandstanding from certain parts of the Nasserist left (which does indeed have totalitarian impulses). But it’s a bit of a chicken-and-egg argument: can you have a quality democratic debate in the absence of democracy and when the only avenue open to dissidents is populism? Rational debate lost out on all sides here: in both the Arab world and in Israel (actually, particularly in Israel), jingoism triumphed.

Roy: Hizbullah has redrawn the Middle East

French specialist on Islamist movements Olivier Roy has a very interesting op-ed in the FT, reproduced below.

Hizbollah has redrawn the Middle East
Published: August 17 2006 20:29 | Last updated: August 18 2006 01:49

The perceived victory of Hizbollah in Lebanon may be short term but has highlighted some new and important developments. For the first time, the Israel Defence Forces were unable to prevail in an all-out war. More significantly, the winner this time is a Shia Muslim, non-state, armed movement supported by Syria and Iran. In Israel’s previous wars, from 1948 to 1982, the challengers were Sunni Arabs.

Continue reading Roy: Hizbullah has redrawn the Middle East

Greasy trigger fingers

Holy shit, look at that burger!

Tell me this is an elaborate spoof.

Two websites claim they can arrange delivery of pizza and burgers to IDF units on the Lebanese border and “around Gaza,� and boast that they coordinate with the security forces so that there’s no “security risk.�

Imagine the hassle these guys could have saved in Lebanon—all that unloading from ships, piling into trucks, and jouncing down the highway only to be incinerated by an IAF missile when pizza and burgers were just a couple of mouse clicks away.

Food’s only the start of the fun, however. The chuckles really come rolling in once you get to the messages accompanying overseas orders—seems that the sites are set up for (mainly American) well-wishers who want to show their support. Check out this page of notes from a second grade class in Florida telling the boys to “stay safe and keep fighting.” Or this mess of wackiness from just about all over (just try a keyword search on “chosen”). My favorite, however, is this thank-you letter from an IDF soldier who appears to have mixed up the words “supper” and “sniper.” An understandeable slip-up when you’re trying to write and peg one of those pesky little terrorists at the same time. (Footnote: 42 out of the 184 Palestinians killed by the IDF in Gaza since June 28th have been children, according to a recent UN report.)

Anyway, I can see how this won’t seem so funny if you’ve had these guys shooting up aid convoys and fast food outlets all around your country for the last month, or if you’re feeling a little peckish in Gaza because the navy won’t let you fish (same UN report), but look at it this way: a piping hot all-dressed with extra cheese and chili peppers is just a call (and $16.95) away.

There’s just one problem…