Mideast crisis--Blog from Jerusalem
HAIFA, ISRAEL--What happened to Hezbollah? Despite earlier statements that it would oppose a foreign force in south Lebanon, Hezbollah accepted the deployment of an armed U.N. force in its midst. Despite earlier statements that it would continue to fight after the cease-fire began as long as Israel remained in south Lebanon, Hezbollah not only has not shot a single Katyusha since Israel began slowly pulling out; it did not react when Israeli soldiers shot and killed some of its armed men. Hezbollah even agreed that it would not let its fighters walk around with their guns showing.
Did Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, the man who throughout the 35-day war showed strength, courage, and endurance in the face of an overwhelming power, get weak knees? Some Israeli commentators say Hezbollah is so weak it had to take a breather. Yet it appears Nasrallah was not running out of ammunition or able fighters. The day before the cease-fire went into effect, Hezbollah launched a record 250 Katyusha rockets on Israel in one day-almost double the war's daily average.
Maybe Nasrallah just doesn't need to fight anymore. Maybe, unlike Israel, he knows when to leave the battle in its zenith. He got a promise for a prisoner exchange and the return of Israeli-occupied Shebaa Farms to Lebanon. Maybe he realizes that he has garnered enough success among his people (at least the Shiite ones) and in the Arab street and that any more pain caused to Lebanese by continuing the battle would be to his detriment.
As the Israelis say, "Lech basi"--Leave at the peak. Maybe now he can turn his successes inward and start demanding a fair share of resources and political clout for the Shiites of south Lebanon. Maybe he can leave the Katyushas and go into politics.
August 15
HAIFA-The war is over (for now) and the Arab and Israeli streets have determined the winner: Hezbollah. Now, not only does Israel have to develop new strategies toward unfriendly Arabs but so do Arab world leaders who have long called for conducting diplomacy with Israel.
The leaders of Arab nations such as Egypt, Jordan, and Saudi Arabia despise and fear Hezbollah's fundamentalist Islamic doctrines, which support an agenda of violent "resistance" to the Jewish state, and see the "Party of God" as a tool of Shiite-Muslim Iran.
But what can they do when across the Arab and Muslim world people are now hailing Hezbollah's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, as their hero, claiming that his use of violent "resistance"- not diplomacy - has proved to be the way to get results from Israel? The new United Nations brokered cease-fire calls for a prisoner exchange and the eventual transfer of the disputed, occupied Shebaa Farms from Israel to Lebanon-both of which have been Nasrallah's long-stated goals. (Following the 1967 Six Day War, the 10-square-mile Shebaa Farms area was recognized by the United Nations Security Council as part of the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Height, not part of Lebanon. Syria, though, has backed Hezbollah's claim that it remains Israeli-occupied Lebanese territory).
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