Take worth reading
Amal Saad-Ghorayeb has an interesting take on the whole situation:
And frankly, I agree with her. I think Hezbollah knew Israel would retaliate- although, possibly, they misjudged the scale.
And if, as Saad-Ghorayeb says, this conflict has taken on a wider meaning: Israel- the removal of Hzbollah an all related elements;Hezbollah- survival and a greater role as protector of the ummah in the region- then the destruction of Lebanon is minor compared to these goals.
Saad-Ghorayeb says further:
After Bush's statements, the Senate's vote, the (non-existent) evacuation strategy and now the rush order missles, who cares if Rice saunters in to lecture everyone. She doesn't appear to have any constructive solutions to offer anyway.
read the rest
As a scholar who has devoted much of my career to following Hezbollah, I have a simple answer. I'm sure that Hezbollah had envisaged, though perhaps not expected, a response of this kind. By provoking its southern neighbor, Hezbollah knew it would present Israel with a ghastly choice. Hezbollah is a popular social movement, and it is well aware that it can be destroyed only if the Israeli army is prepared to commit mass murder, genocide, ethnic cleansing -- use whatever unpalatable term you will -- against the entire Shiite community.
Israel won't win without wiping out a religious group. However angry the Israelis are, there must be many who won't be able to stomach that possibility, with its hideous historic implications. That's what Hezbollah was counting on 11 days ago when its fighters took Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser captive near the Lebanese border.
And frankly, I agree with her. I think Hezbollah knew Israel would retaliate- although, possibly, they misjudged the scale.
And if, as Saad-Ghorayeb says, this conflict has taken on a wider meaning: Israel- the removal of Hzbollah an all related elements;Hezbollah- survival and a greater role as protector of the ummah in the region- then the destruction of Lebanon is minor compared to these goals.
Saad-Ghorayeb says further:
It is hard to gauge public opinion here today. From the snippets of conversation I pick up, people remain polarized, as they were before the war: On one end are those (mainly non-Shiites) who lay the blame for Israel's destruction of Lebanon squarely on Hezbollah for having picked the fight; and on the other are those (overwhelmingly Shiite) who believe, as one man told me, that "we should fight to the death." But there are also many in between whose initial anger at Hezbollah is being replaced by rage at Israel. Those sentiments remind me of 1982, when Israel's invasion of Lebanon gave birth to Hezbollah.
Given its current position of strength, Hezbollah is in no mood to settle for anything less than its original demand for a prisoner exchange, as Nasrallah asserted in a recent interview on al-Jazeera. Why would Hezbollah agree to any of the diplomatic proposals being floated? The idea of deploying the Lebanese army to the south to serve as a buffer between Israel and Hezbollah would be tantamount to the party's military neutralization. And the notion of stationing multinational troops there is even more far-fetched, given that Hezbollah and the Shiite community would view them as occupiers.
After Bush's statements, the Senate's vote, the (non-existent) evacuation strategy and now the rush order missles, who cares if Rice saunters in to lecture everyone. She doesn't appear to have any constructive solutions to offer anyway.
read the rest
