Hizbullah is Lebanon’s largest political party, with 12 members of parliament. It is deeply rooted in the Shia community, the country’s largest, and enjoys enormous prestige for having liberated the south of Lebanon in 2000. It is allied with major political forces, such as General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement, the Lebanese Communist party, the Syrian Social Nationalist party, and with influential figures including Sunnis Usama Saad and Omar Karami, and the Maronite Sleiman Frangié. To claim that Hizbullah is a pawn in the hands of Iran or Syria is absurd.
[...]
About the rockets fired from Gaza into the Israeli town of Sderot, Gideon Levy, an Israeli journalist who writes for Haaretz, asked: “What would have happened if the Palestinians had not fired Qassams? Would Israel have lifted the economic siege that it imposed on Gaza? Would it open the border to Palestinian labourers? Free prisoners? Meet with the elected leadership and conduct negotiations? Encourage investment in Gaza? Nonsense. If the Gazans were sitting quietly, as Israel expects them to do, their case would disappear from the agenda here and around the world. Nobody would have given any thought to the fate of the people of Gaza if they did not behave violently” (9).
[Much the same can be said Six Nations people at New Caledonia and aboriginals elsewhere in Canada. -jlt]Recommend this Post
Sunday, August 20, 2006
Alain Gresh, "Middle East: what will emerge from the ruins?" Le monde diplomatique, August 2006.tives.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
0 comments:
Post a Comment