[lit-ideas] write your own headline
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Fri, 28 Jul 2006 00:51:13 -0700
The New York Times
July 28, 2006
Changing Reaction
Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezbollah
By NEIL MacFARQUHAR
DAMASCUS, Syria, July 27 — At the onset of the Lebanese crisis, Arab
governments, starting with Saudi Arabia, slammed Hezbollah for
recklessly provoking a war, providing what the United States and Israel
took as a wink and a nod to continue the fight.
Now, with hundreds of Lebanese dead and Hezbollah holding out against
the vaunted Israeli military for more than two weeks, the tide of public
opinion across the Arab world is surging behind the organization,
transforming the Shiite group’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, into a
folk hero and forcing a change in official statements.
The Saudi royal family and King Abdullah II of Jordan, who were
initially more worried about the rising power of Shiite Iran,
Hezbollah’s main sponsor, are scrambling to distance themselves from
Washington.
An outpouring of newspaper columns, cartoons, blogs and public poetry
readings have showered praise on Hezbollah while attacking the United
States and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice for trumpeting American
plans for a “new Middle East” that they say has led only to violence and
repression.
Even Al Qaeda, run by violent Sunni Muslim extremists normally hostile
to all Shiites, has gotten into the act, with its deputy leader, Ayman
al-Zawahri, releasing a taped message saying that through its fighting
in Iraq, his organization was also trying to liberate Palestine.
Mouin Rabbani, a senior Middle East analyst in Amman, Jordan, with the
International Crisis Group, said, “The Arab-Israeli conflict remains the
most potent issue in this part of the world.”
Distinctive changes in tone are audible throughout the Sunni world. This
week, President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt emphasized his attempts to
arrange a cease-fire to protect all sects in Lebanon, while the
Jordanian king announced that his country was dispatching medical teams
“for the victims of Israeli aggression.” Both countries have peace
treaties with Israel.
The Saudi royal court has issued a dire warning that its 2002 peace plan
— offering Israel full recognition by all Arab states in exchange for
returning to the borders that predated the 1967 Arab-Israeli war — could
well perish.
“If the peace option is rejected due to the Israeli arrogance,” it said,
“then only the war option remains, and no one knows the repercussions
befalling the region, including wars and conflict that will spare no
one, including those whose military power is now tempting them to play
with fire.”
The Saudis were putting the West on notice that they would not exert
pressure on anyone in the Arab world until Washington did something to
halt the destruction of Lebanon, Saudi commentators said.
American officials say that while the Arab leaders need to take a harder
line publicly for domestic political reasons, what matters more is what
they tell the United States in private, which the Americans still see as
a wink and a nod.
There are evident concerns among Arab governments that a victory for
Hezbollah — and it has already achieved something of a victory by
holding out this long — would further nourish the Islamist tide
engulfing the region and challenge their authority. Hence their first
priority is to cool simmering public opinion.
But perhaps not since President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt made his
emotional outpourings about Arab unity in the 1960’s, before the Arab
defeat in the 1967 war, has the public been so electrified by a
confrontation with Israel, played out repeatedly on satellite television
stations with horrific images from Lebanon of wounded children and
distraught women fleeing their homes.
Egypt’s opposition press has had a field day comparing Sheik Nasrallah
to Nasser, while demonstrators waved pictures of both.
An editorial in the weekly Al Dustur by Ibrahim Issa, who faces a
lengthy jail sentence for his previous criticism of President Mubarak,
compared current Arab leaders to the medieval princes who let the
Crusaders chip away at Muslim lands until they controlled them all.
After attending an intellectual rally in Cairo for Lebanon, the Egyptian
poet Ahmed Fouad Negm wrote a column describing how he had watched a
companion buy 20 posters of Sheik Nasrallah.
“People are praying for him as they walk in the street, because we were
made to feel oppressed, weak and handicapped,” Mr. Negm said in an
interview. “I asked the man who sweeps the street under my building what
he thought, and he said: ‘Uncle Ahmed, he has awakened the dead man
inside me! May God make him triumphant!’ ”
In Lebanon, Rasha Salti, a freelance writer, summarized the sense that
Sheik Nasrallah differed from other Arab leaders.
“Since the war broke out, Hassan Nasrallah has displayed a persona, and
public behavior also, to the exact opposite of Arab heads of states,”
she wrote in an e-mail message posted on many blogs.
In comparison, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice’s brief visit to the
region sparked widespread criticism of her cold demeanor and her choice
of words, particularly a statement that the bloodshed represented the
birth pangs of a “new Middle East.” That catchphrase was much used by
Shimon Peres, the veteran Israeli leader who was a principal negotiator
of the 1993 Oslo Accords, which ultimately failed to lead to the
Palestinian state they envisaged.
A cartoon by Emad Hajjaj in Jordan labeled “The New Middle East” showed
an Israeli tank sitting on a broken apartment house in the shape of the
Arab world.
Fawaz al-Trabalsi, a columnist in the Lebanese daily As Safir, suggested
that the real new thing in the Middle East was the ability of one group
to challenge Israeli militarily.
Perhaps nothing underscored Hezbollah’s rising stock more than the
sudden appearance of a tape from the Qaeda leadership attempting to grab
some of the limelight.
Al Jazeera satellite television broadcast a tape from Mr. Zawahri
(za-WAH-ri). Large panels behind him showed a picture of the exploding
World Trade Center as well as portraits of two Egyptian Qaeda members,
Muhammad Atef, a Qaeda commander who was killed by an American airstrike
in Afghanistan, and Mohamed Atta, the lead hijacker on Sept. 11, 2001.
He described the two as fighters for the Palestinians.
Mr. Zawahri tried to argue that the fight against American forces in
Iraq paralleled what Hezbollah was doing, though he did not mention the
organization by name.
“It is an advantage that Iraq is near Palestine,” he said. “Muslims
should support its holy warriors until an Islamic emirate dedicated to
jihad is established there, which could then transfer the jihad to the
borders of Palestine.”
Mr. Zawahri also adopted some of the language of Hezbollah and Shiite
Muslims in general. That was rather ironic, since previously in Iraq, Al
Qaeda has labeled Shiites Muslim as infidels and claimed responsibility
for some of the bloodier assaults on Shiite neighborhoods there.
But by taking on Israel, Hezbollah had instantly eclipsed Al Qaeda,
analysts said. “Everyone will be asking, ‘Where is Al Qaeda now?’ ” said
Adel al-Toraifi, a Saudi columnist and expert on Sunni extremists.
Mr. Rabbani of the International Crisis Group said Hezbollah’s ability
to withstand the Israeli assault and to continue to lob missiles well
into Israel exposed the weaknesses of Arab governments with far greater
resources than Hezbollah.
“Public opinion says that if they are getting more on the battlefield
than you are at the negotiating table, and you have so many more means
at your disposal, then what the hell are you doing?” Mr. Rabbani said.
“In comparison with the small embattled guerrilla movement, the Arab
states seem to be standing idly by twiddling their thumbs.”
Mona el-Naggar contributed reporting from Cairo for this article, and
Suha Maayeh from Amman, Jordan.
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Forwarded to the list lit-ideas for scholarly purposes
by Robert Paul [robert.paul@xxxxxxxx]
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