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Hezbollah image in Arab world less shiny
The Shiite militant group's temporary takeover of West Beirut and
fighting with Sunni rivals have been criticized, but it's still
popular in the street.
By Raed Rafei
Special to The Times

May 24, 2008

BEIRUT =97 Hezbollah's offensive against mostly Sunni Muslim political
rivals in Lebanon has sullied its image in the Arab world as an armed
force engaged in a righteous struggle against Israel.

But interviews with analysts and Arab news media accounts suggest that
the Shiite Muslim group still came out ahead. It won major concessions
from the Lebanese government after its assault and largely retained
its popularity despite turning its weapons against fellow Muslims.

Hezbollah fighters this month briefly took over Sunni-dominated West
Beirut in what they described as legitimate protection of their
military might from a Lebanese government targeting the movement's key
telecommunications and intelligence assets.

Satellite television channels across the region broadcast images of
Shiite militiamen armed with rocket launchers and assault rifles.
West-leaning TV stations spoke of a Hezbollah "occupation" of Beirut
streets and described the events as an "armed coup orchestrated by
Iran," playing on the growing rift between Sunnis who dominate the
region and Shiites who control Iran.

Hezbollah had broken a promise, they said, by using its formidable
arsenal against domestic rivals.

"For many Arabs, Hezbollah lost much of its glow as a pure resistance
group fighting against Israel," said Mishari Thaydi, a Saudi columnist
for the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Sharq al Awsat. "By laying
siege to the residence of lawmaker Saad Hariri, a symbol of Sunni
leadership in Lebanon, and attacking other Sunni figures, Hezbollah
projected an irreparable image as a sectarian militia."

U.S. officials have voiced optimism that the offensive will damp Arab
enthusiasm for the Iranian- and Syrian-backed movement.

"Hezbollah lost something very important, which is any argument that
it is somehow a resistance movement on behalf of the Lebanese people,"
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters Thursday in the Bay
Area.

But the swiftness of Hezbollah's operation and the political
compromise that followed Wednesday, giving the movement veto power
over major government decisions while bolstering its U.S.-backed
rivals' election prospects, may have helped the group retain its
popularity and calm sectarian tensions that work against its
influence, analysts said.

Aiding Hezbollah's cause is the deep hostility in the Arab streets
toward the United States and its allies, which often extends to the
Lebanese government.

"If the clashes had remained a week or two longer, that would have
fueled a strong sectarian cause," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an
independent Lebanese researcher and author. "But if the turning point
will produce a final settlement, most of the people are going to say
at least we had this conflict over with."

The Lebanese violence also coincided with the 60th anniversary of
Israel's founding, an event widely viewed by Arabs as the Nakba, or
disaster. Whatever flaws Hezbollah may have, to many Arabs it remains
the group that fought Israel to a standstill in Lebanon during the
summer of 2006.

"Hezbollah might be seen as representing Iranian interests, but the
Lebanese government on the other hand failed to draw sympathy to its
cause by associating itself to U.S. projects and vision in the
region," said Mohammed Masri, a political scientist at the University
of Jordan in Amman, the Jordanian capital. "Hezbollah's actions were
perceived as a measure of self-defense."

During the recent violence, news media, politicians and clerics
throughout the Sunni Arab world refrained from depicting Hezbollah's
push as a Shiite or Iranian coup d'etat, as it was described by
pro-government Lebanese politicians and TV. The widely watched
Qatar-based Arab satellite news channel Al Jazeera described the
unrest as a political conflict rather than a sectarian clash.

Many Sunni Arabs voiced support for Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan
Nasrallah, not for the Sunni-led government.

"Arab unity is built on the resistance to the occupation in Lebanon,
Palestine, Iraq and throughout the Arab land," a number of Jordanian
activists wrote in a letter addressed to Hezbollah and published in
the London-based pan-Arab daily Al Hayat. "The fate of the Arab nation
and its future are all decided now in the battles between the
resistance forces and the occupation forces."

In Egypt, despite some religious leaders' warnings of the danger of
"Iranian-sponsored expansion of Shiism in the country," many voiced
support for Hezbollah, which regularly describes Lebanon's government
as a dupe of Israel and Washington neoconservatives.

"Serving Israeli interests is the foremost concern of moderate regimes
backed by the U.S. in the Arab region," Ibrahim Issa, editor in chief
of the Egyptian opposition daily Al Dustour, wrote May 12. "These
regimes wage fierce media, political and financial attacks against
Hezbollah."

"In reality," he wrote, "the Buddhist who stands up against Zionism is
closer to our hearts than the Sunni who allies with Israel."

Still, sectarian tensions between Sunnis and Shiites have been rising
in Lebanon since the February 2005 assassination of former Prime
Minister Rafik Hariri, an eminent Sunni politician and tycoon, and
Saad Hariri's father. The killing was widely blamed on
Hezbollah-backer Syria.

The recent violence, which left dozens dead, exacerbated the tensions,
though the most ferocious battles were between Druze and Shiites
southeast of the capital and between Sunnis and secular pro-Syrian
factions in the north.

Hezbollah appears to have recognized the danger of Sunni anger. It has
launched a media campaign to reduce the repercussions of its military
action.

The Hezbollah-run television station Al Manar gave voice to Sunni
families who support the Shiite resistance group, casting the takeover
of the capital by its fighters as an "upheaval of Beirut families"
against pro-government thugs. It also has aired live Oprah-style talk
shows in which Sunnis and Shiites discuss their anger and hope.

"Hezbollah will have to exercise serious damage control," said
Saad-Ghorayeb, the researcher and author. "It's going to have to reach
out to Sunnis more than it ever has before."

Times staff writer Borzou Daragahi in Beirut and Noha El-Hennawy of
The Times' Cairo Bureau contributed to this report.

<http://www.brookings.edu/opinions/2008/0114_middle_east_telhami.aspx>
Shibley Telhami, Nonresident Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy, Saban
Center for Middle East Policy

The Washington Post

January 14, 2008 =97

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Many Arab governments are of course concerned about Iran and its role
in Iraq, but not for the same reasons as Israel and the United States.
Israel sees Iran's nuclear potential as a direct threat to its
security, and its support for Hezbollah and Hamas as a military
challenge.

Arab governments are less worried about the military power of Hamas
and Hezbollah than they are about support for them among their
publics. They are less worried about a military confrontation with
Iran than about Iran's growing influence in the Arab world. In other
words, what Arab governments truly fear is militancy and the public
support for it that undermines their own popularity and stability.

In all this, they see Iran as a detrimental force but not as the
primary cause of militant sentiment. Most Arab governments believe
instead that the militancy is driven primarily by the absence of
Arab-Israeli peace.

--=20
Yoshie
<http://montages.blogspot.com/>