July 28th, 2006
Secretary of State Condi Rice’s prediction of a “New Middle East” may have been dead on, but I don’t think what’s happening over there now is what the White House and Israel had in mind. As a result of the US’s refusal to publically support any call for any sort of cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah and in fact, the US’s apparently brazen and seemingly hypocritical encouragement of Israel to bomb the hell out of a weaker country on the very verge of the kind of democracy the US supposedly promotes, the U.S. and Israel may have finally done what no one has been able to accomplish in the Middle East in ages — Unite the Middle East.
Well, unite most of the Middle East against Israel and the U.S. anyway. It seems like organizations and countries and religious groups who would normally never consider cooperating are rushing to Lebanon’s aid and Hezbollah’s defense.
(emphasis mine)
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. [“Tide of Arab Opinion Turns to Support for Hezzbolla”(The New York Times)]
Hat Tip: Brilliant at Breakfast
Tags: Israel, Lebanon, Hezbollah, Egypt, Arab governments, Middle East, Saudi Arabia, Sunnis, President Hosni Mubarak, Iran, al-Qaeda, al-Zawahiri, Palestine, Condi Rice, Shiiti, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, King Abdullah II of Jordan
July 19th, 2006
I’m not a big fan of Secretary of State Condi Rice. That’s no secret. However, I do give props when they are deserved and I must say that I was quite stunned when I read this morning that she had made the decision to waive the transportation fee to Americans evacuating from Lebanon. Kudos to her!
I will add a comment that a number of bloggers were blaming the Republicans solely for the transportation fee in the first place, but a little research does reveal that while “un-fucking-believable,” it is apparently a leftover U.S. policy from a 1956 law. Maybe it’s out of date and we should look to the governments of France, Ireland, Britain and Italy who didn’t delay in evacuating their citizens or worry about charging them for the trip.
It did seem a bit outrageous of the U.S. considering all the money we have to throw about in the Middle East.
“A nation that can provide more than $300 billion for a war in Iraq can provide the money to get its people out of Lebanon,” the California Democrat said in a statement earlier Tuesday.
I saw a cartoonist’s take on this earlier today who questioned whether the American people were even on the American agenda anymore. Good question. Especially considering the complaints from people trying to find out what’s going on from their government and finding out more information from the media…
Several of the Americans in Lebanon wrote e-mails to CNN, expressing their frustration with the evacuation process.
“We are desperately trying to evacuate and have become more and more disappointed and angry with the way the evacuation is being handled,” said Lina Fleihan, of Greensboro, North Carolina. “We hear more about what’s going on from CNN than we do from the U.S. government and the American Embassy here.”
Natalie Kerlakian of Denver, Colorado, wrote that she had not heard from the embassy in a week.
“I hope this response will be better than that of Katrina,” she wrote, referring to the heavily criticized government response to the hurricane that struck the Gulf Coast in August.
Susan Omar, of Clifton, New Jersey, wrote that she has family stuck in the southern Lebanese city of Maryajoun, and her phone calls to various governments’ offices have been fruitless.
“We have begged and pleaded with anyone and everyone, but our kids still don’t have water, food or medicine,” she wrote. “The media is telling everyone that those with medical necessity have already been evacuated. I guess that only means those lucky enough to be near Beirut!”
Kellee Khalil of Los Angeles, California, wrote that she was trapped in Lebanon while vacationing with her father, who has diabetes and a heart condition.
“The embassy has not put him on a priority list,” she wrote. “It has been several days of airstrikes and the United States seems to care little about the 25,000 Americans that are trapped here.” [“U.S. waives fee to flee Lebanon” (CNN.com)]
Tags: Lebanon, U.S. Embassy, CNN, Condi Rice
