Tag: lebanon

For the majority of Arabs, Hezbollah won

My friend Nadia Abou El-Magd of AP wrote this report today:

For the majority of Arabs, Hezbollah won, Israel is no longer the undefeatable army
CAIRO, Egypt (AP) _ Babies have been named “Hezbollah” and “Nasrallah.” Even some die-hard secularists are praising the Shiite fundamentalist militia in the wake of its cease-fire with Israel _ saying its fighters restored their feelings of honor and dignity.
But behind the outpouring of support for Hezbollah in recent days, some in the Middle East are increasingly worried about the rising power of religious extremists.
“The last thing I expected is to fall in love with a turbaned cleric,” wrote Howeida Taha, a strongly secular columnist in Egypt, writing in the Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper this week. “I don’t like them, and of course they will never like somebody like me … (but) I feel I’ve been searching for Nasrallah with my eyes, heart and mind. I feel Nasrallah lives within me.”
Yet, she added, “No matter how much we admire Hezbollah’s fighters’ bravery, the last thing we want to see is the rise of a religious party in Egypt.”
Around the Arab world, Hezbollah was widely seen as the victor in the 34-day war with Israel, because of the tougher-than-expected resistance it put up under Israel’s relentless bombardment and heavy ground assaults _ and because it survived an onslaught that Israel had initially wanted to cripple the guerrilla group.
As a result, Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, have emerged as popular heroes.
“Thanks be to God and to Hezbollah,” read the banner of an opposition independent weekly, Al-Destour, in Egypt on Wednesday.
More than 120 babies born during the war have been named after Nasrallah in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, says the official registrar there. In Gaza City, there are at least a dozen newborns named Hezbollah, (Party of God) Nasrallah (Victory from God) or Hassan.
On an Islamist web site for youth, based in Egypt, many women wrote saying they would love to marry someone like Nasrallah.
“I want to marry one of Nasrallah’s three boys and dedicate myself to resistance and pride of my (Islamic) community,” said Noha Hussein, a university student in Cairo.
Necklaces and key chains with his image are now in style, the web site notes.
Much of the enthusiasm has come from finally seeing an Arab military force dig in against Israel.
Arab nations fought several wars with Israel _ in 1948, 1956, 1967 and 1973, as well as Israel’s previous two invasions of Lebanon. The first three were heavy defeats for Arab armies, and though Egypt’s army saw dramatic successes in 1973, the battle had swung to Israel’s favor by the time it ended.
In the eyes of many Arabs, Hezbollah’s performance shook the Israeli military’s image of invulnerability.
“The Lebanese people may have lost a lot of economic and human resources …. but away from figures and calculations, they have achieved a lot of gains,” said Youssef al-Rashed, a columnist for the Kuwaiti daily Al-Anba.
“Its heroic resistance fighters have proven to the world that Lebanese borders are not open to Israeli tanks without a price,” he wrote Tuesday. “Lebanon was victorious in the battle of dignity and honor.”
Also, the image of a guerrilla force doing what a regular army could not has apparently deepened the popular resentment toward Arab governments.
“The crux of the problem in Lebanon is that a political movement became bigger than the state,” said Mamoun Fandy, the director of the Middle East program at London’s International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The same syndrome _ a perceived lack of legitimacy of governments that are being challenged by armed political movements _ can be seen in many Arab and Muslim states. …. Their message is that movements can do what states failed to do, and can restore the honour that governments have squandered.”
Awni Shatarat, a Palestinian refugee from Baqaa camp, is among those who strongly view Hezbollah as victorious.
“Israel was defeated by a small group, which succeeded in demolishing the image of the undefeatable army,” he said.
But others are far more critical of Hezbollah and pessimistic about what the war might bring.
Jordan’s former information minister, Saleh Qallab, said Hezbollah’s new strength could now be turned against the anti-Syrian, pro-democracy movement that gained power in Lebanon last year _ “which means that a civil war is imminent in Lebanon, unless a miracle occurs.”
“Do we call this a victory?” he said.

Debate among Lebanese Shia about Hizbullah

Interesting story in the Boston Globe about a Shia intellectual who has sparked a storm with an essay denouncing Hizbullah. If anyone has the link to her original essay, please share.

Meanwhile, here in Cairo, last night I walked past a car that had a poster of Hassan Nasrallah on its side window. I looked closer at the poster, which described Nasrallah as “the man who vanquished Israel,” I saw it was from the liberal-ish weekly Al Destour. Al Destour is edited by Ibrahim Eissa, one of the most vibrant voices against the Mubarak regime and a self-described liberal. Somehow all the paradox of why most Arabs cheered Hizbullah is there: even if people don’t like Hizbullah’s ideology, they’re always going to cheer for it when it is responding to attacks that tried to destroy an entire country.

Update: Praktike has photos.

Nasrallah’s speech: full text

I thought Arabist readers would be interested in reading a translation of Hassan Nasrallah’s recent “victory speech.” It’s reproduced below (from BBC Monitoring). I found the passage about where he condemned some of the statements of parts of the political elite particularly interesting: they express both a great deal of anger at unnamed politicians (Jumblatt etc.) and a concern not to inflame an already fragile situation. You have to wonder which sentiment will prevail.

I commend myself to God’s protection from the Evil one, the Rejected. [Koranic verse]

In the name of God, the Most Compassionate, the Merciful. Praise be to God the Lord of the universe. Praise be to God alone, who fulfilled His promise, supported His servant, and alone defeated the parties.

Peace and blessings be on the last prophet, our master Muhammad; his chaste household; virtuous companions; and all prophets and messengers.

God’s peace, mercy and blessings be upon you.

On this great and revered day on which our honourable and chaste people return to their villages, towns, houses and neighbourhoods, I address my message to you. I would like to emphasize some issues and matters in this message.

First of all, I do not want to assess or discuss in detail what we are currently witnessing, but I want to say briefly and without exaggeration that we stand before a strategic and historical victory for Lebanon – all of Lebanon, for the resistance, and for the whole nation.
Continue reading Nasrallah’s speech: full text

Google Earth map of attacks on Lebanon

People at this website have worked very hard to create a layered map for Google Earth showing as many of the attacks on Lebanon as they have been able to account for through media coverage. Just download the file (which I am caching here because a lot of people might want to see it), install it and Google Earth and follow the links (there’s a lot of them as you can see from the pic below – click it to see it full-size.)

If you look into some of the options you have, not only can you see the day-by-day attacks but also other information such as the position of Israeli army positions in Northern Israel (often close to civilian areas, by the way), the spread of the oil spill off Lebanon’s coast, minute-by-minute summaries of each day of the war, and more. This map has been deemed so useful that the UN is reportedly using it to plan humanitarian efforts.

Googleearthsnapshot

A brave woman I hope to meet one day…

I never met Lebanese journalist Hanady Salman, but I’ve been receiving her daily dispatches of reports and pix of Israeli war crimes in Lebanon since the war started, via Cairo-based journalist and friend Ranwa Yehia.
I didn’t post any of them before, but the reports she supplied always guided us to where to look for info. Issandr also uploaded many of the pix she sent to his flickr account. Hanady’s first hand account of the war on the ground has been extremely touching, sad, tragic, but also brave, relentless, with a strong spirit of resistance. The Lebanese people are blessed to have someone like Hanady, as her emails played a crucial role in the international solidarity movement, even when she’s stuck in Beirut. I hope I’ll get the chance to meet her one day in Beirut or Cairo…
I’m sharing with you her dispatch today, which she said will be the last:

This would probably be my last letter to you.
I will miss you all. Some of you I never met, but I feel that you are all so close to me. More than that, you probably already know it: without you I would not have made it throughout this hell. You were there, by my side and that made me stronger. Everyday, you gave more meaning to all this: people’s stories were heard, people’s suffering was shared. This was what I could do to my people : tell some of their stories. Knowing that you will listen, knowing that you will care made the whole difference.
As of yesterday, new stories will unveil : those returning to find .. nothing. Those returning to find their loved ones under the rubble. But returning anyway. 7 a.m. (or 8 a.m.) was the official time for the cease fire on Monday morning. People were on the roads at 7 sharp. I am so proud. Sad, hurt, but proud. Proud of my people, proud of their resistance, proud of their commitment and dignity.
Hussein Ayoub, my colleague, finally found his mother today. Ten minutes ago actually. He went to Aynatha in the morning and the rescuers were able to pull her out of the rubble of a house where she, and some 17 other people had taken refuge. We don’t know when she was killed. But at least he was able to recognize her body. She was 75. His father was killed by the Israelis in 1972.
We will be fine, I hope. We will burry our dead, the way they deserve to be buried, we will remember them as long as we live. We will tell their stories to our children; they will tell their own children the story: the story of a great people, one that never lost faith despite all the crimes, pains and injustices.
One that started rebuilding the minute the fighting stopped. Rebuilding although they know that the enemy might destroy everything again, as it did so many times before.
We will also tell them the stories of our enemy : how they killed our children , our elderly , how they hit us from the air, from the sea and from the ground and how we prevailed. How they starved our families in their villages, killed them on the roads, bombed their houses, their shelters, their hospitals, they even bombed vans carrying bread to them; and how in return we did not give up.
My grandmother used to tell me how people starved during World War One. I used to think I would never have similar stories to tell Kinda. Kinda, my heroine , Kinda my sweet little heroine who now , every time she hears the sound of a plane, rushes to my arms , points to the sky and says : Israel , Hweiyda wa wa.
Kinda my baby who survived her first Israeli aggression. To that, I will always be grateful, and I promise I will never forget that other babies were not spared. For them, I will keep telling Kinda the story. For them, Kinda will never leave this land. Kinda will know who her enemy is. Kinda will know this enemy can not beat us. Kinda will grow to respect all the men who fought for her on the front lines, and those who will rebuild her country again.
Kinda will also grow to know how important you, all of you, were part of her life during a long painful month in the summer of the year 2006.
To those I knew through this list: I hope I will get to meet you one day. To all of you : thank you for your support , your encouraging messages, your prayers, and your feelings for Kinda.
My love and gratitude to all of you.
Hanady Salman
PS : later today I will send some pictures from the villages where people returned.

Kinda

Israeli soul-searching

When I saw this lead to a Washington Post article this morning, I was momentarily confused:

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Monday acknowledged mistakes in the war against Hezbollah as the Israeli government confronted widespread criticism and political recriminations over the conflict.

“There have been failings and shortcomings,” Olmert, with deep circles under his eyes and a haggard look on his face, told a special session of the Israeli parliament. “We need to examine ourselves in all aspects and all areas. We will not sweep anything under the table, we will not hide anything. We must ensure that next time things will be done better.”

The article said that Israel was engaged in “national soul-searching.” For a moment, I thought they meant over the damage done to a neighboring country, the high civilian casualties. Silly me. Israeli society is engaged in “national soul-searching” over why they weren’t more successful in wiping out Hezbullah. Everyone’s souls are completely at peace regarding all those dead Lebanese.

And Netanyahu will be the next prime minister.

I have to stop

The New York Times’ coverage of the Lebanon war is a scab I can’t stop picking.

The latest, from Steven Erlanger, is as dumb-founding as always.

Written entirely from the strategic viewpoint of the Israeli government, this “news analysis” posits that the ceasefire depends on the Lebanese blaming Hezbullah for the damage the Israelis have done. If the Lebanese don’t turn on Hezbullah, and the UN doesn’t disarm the group, Israel will be forced to reinvade.

Erlanger ends with the following paragraph:

The Lebanese war also raises even more serious questions, suggests Shai Feldman, director of the Crown Center for Middle East Studies at Brandeis, about the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside Israel.

Israel respected the international border with Lebanon as verified by the United Nations, and it was Hezbollah that violated the border. “If international borders mean nothing,� Mr. Feldman asked, “why should the Israeli public support a withdrawal from the West Bank to create a Palestinian state?�

Preserving the idea of a two-state solution is one reason Mr. Olmert went to war, Mr. Feldman said. And it is one reason the Security Council acted as strongly as it did to defend the integrity of the international border and mandate an expanded United Nations force to protect it. But whether Israelis will trust those guarantees is yet another open question.

I must be dreaming. Israel is now the upholder of international borders? Israel invaded Lebanon to help further its plans to give the Palestinians a state? Did Mr. Erlanger ask Mr. Feldman about the many borders that Israel has crossed or erased? Did he point out that according to UN observers Israelis have crossed the Lebanese border about 10 times more often than Hezbullah has? Did he ask him if pounding Gaza as well as Lebanon is part of Israel’s hopes to establish a Palestinian state?

How can a New York Times reporter not only let an interviewee get away unchallenged with statements such as these, but go on to print them? The only answer I can find is: because the reporter is a propagandist.

Bombed again

According to a reader familiar with New Yorker magazine, Seymour Hersh and his nameless friends are at it again this month.

If what Hersh reports being told by “a Middle East expert with knowledge� is correct, we have further evidence (like we needed it) of the crowded confusion that occupies Bush Jr.’s oval cuckoo’s nest. According to this expert, the invasion of Lebanon was a plan cooked up collaboratively with the White House, and one of the goals was to make the Lebanese government stronger.

The best laugh, however, comes from a “U.S. consultant with close ties to Israel� who says “The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits … It would be a demo for [an American strike on] Iran.�

Back in April Hersh wheeled the same anonymous cast on stage to assert that Cheney et al are forging ahead with plans bomb Iran back to the stone age, with nukes if at all possible. Hard to know what any of it’s worth when you don’t know who’s saying it, but a pleasant bit of echo-chamber reading for the pessimistic.