'HezbSjitan' ¶ A Blogger from Beirut

Promoted by Steven D.

The Minister is Moroccan
by Abdelkader Benali

BEIRUT (VrijNederland) July 18 — Today I was told the number of victims runs into the hundreds. In Prague a friendly Italian tells me the city will run out of their gas supplies within three days.

I live in Hamra close to the AUB, the large university campus at walking distance from the Mediterranaen Sea. They say the Israelis will not bomb the AUB because it’s American property. But as I’m writing this, I keep thinking they will do it, they will do it.

«« click on pic for BBC profile
Minister of Defense - Amir Peretz

The Israeli Minister of Defense, Amir Peretz, the man who appears to be leading this operation, left Morocco in 1956 for Israel. He is, just as I, of Moroccan descent, we are both second generation. He in the Jewish state, I in the Netherlands. Had he stayed in Morocco, somewhere in Middle-Atlas, perhaps we would have met this summer. I could have bought a carpet from him or I would have read him from my own published book. Now he is in Tel Aviv, surrounded by military staff. I watched him on television yesterday with his moustache and bright Moroccan eyes. He was made totally useless by the military. He tried to make a pose as a strong man, he attempted to look like a leader. However, you could see that shame got a hold of him: a political man diminished to irrelevance, Amir Peretz from Middle-Atlas in Morocco.

The military are Ashkenazi-Jews from former Eastern-Europe, they have positioned the Arab Jews in an inferior position in their society as second rank citizens because they arrived later in Israel with their strange Arab customs. They do not belong to the hard core, Peretz is not one of them. That is how you get these merciless TV screen shots. A Moroccan with a moustache but void of might.

Al Jazeera has a continuous presentation of various commentators from Israel, analysts and ME political experts. Most of them speak Arab, some fluently, and a few make a worthwhile comment. One of them even got me to laugh, although there is no place and time for laughter. He called Hezbollah ‘HezbSjitan’, Party of the Devil. He pronounced it with so much sharpness and contempt that it drops right in your lap. The population is fooled by their military and political leaders. Leaders who are not willing to exchange soldiers for Lebanese prisoners. Israel has met a partner in battle: Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah (meaning Party of God) is a governmental and militant Lebanese Shia Islamic group, with a military arm and a civilian arm, founded in 1982 to fight the Israeli Defense Forces who occupied southern Lebanon until the year 2000. Its leader is Hassan Nasrallah.

Hezbollah was “inspired by the success of the Iranian Revolution” and was formed primarily to wage war (both defensive and offensive) against Israel.

Christian Science Monitor — Hizbullah winning over Arab street

Negotiate? Interview Shlomo Ben Ami
Military means won’t end Israel’s abduction crisis

TEL AVIV (Radio Netherlands) — … Furthermore, Prime Minister Olmert’s popularity has been dipping of late, and his main aim – a unilateral withdrawal from the West Bank – has been put on the back burner by events in Gaza. It could, therefore, be to the long-term advantage of the prime minister to do what his cabinet has so far steadfastly refused to contemplate:

“In the history of the conflict between the Israelis and the Arabs and the Palestinians, leaders who felt they are politically strong and had the stamina and the political authority did negotiate and did conduct exchanges of prisoners.”

In the 1980s, for example, then prime minister Yitzak Rabin controversially exchanged six Israeli soldiers 1,500 Palestinian prisoners. Later, ‘hardliner’ Ariel Sharon swapped 400 prisoners with Hizbollah for the release of one Israeli citizen. Mr Ben-Ami comments:

“He [Sharon] did it because he felt he was politically strong and had sufficient authority to sustain criticism.”

‘Friendly advice’

«« click to enlarge
Ehud Olmert and Ariel Sharon

Despite Mr Ben-Ami’s belief that Ehud Olmert (photo) needs to show such strength and realise that military means alone will not resolve the current crisis, he also thinks that such a change in attitude,

“will have to be assisted by some ‘friendly advice’ from the United States and third parties.”

The question then is whether such ‘friendly advice’ will be enough to sway the Israeli government. Shlomo Ben-Ami believes, in any event, that Washington will not apply serious pressure on Mr Olmert:

“You see, the Americans are not pressuring, because they have confused the issues in a way. Because of that ‘War on Terror’ of President Bush, to him what is happening in Gaza is an extension of that same war, and he doesn’t feel he should put pressure on Israel because Israel is doing – presumably – in Gaza what he is doing in Iraq. I think that his advisors need to explain to him that, yes, indeed, there is a problem of terrorism, but the political context is entirely different.”

Exclusive interview with opposition leader Benjamin Netanyahu
“Israel is subject to restraint, we are a moral country facing immoral savages, having no moral boundaries”.

Click on VIDEO button in article –