Giving Aid and Comfort to Hezbollah
What are we thinking, we in the West? Hezbollah, that very same organization extraordinaire encompassing social aid agency, extra-territorial defender of Islam and the Arab street, parliamentarians, Islamist jihadists whom we have named a terrorist organization - really is not. We have it, albeit for our digestion tacitly from none other than the newly-democratic Prime Minister of Iraq, we have it from Lebanon's Prime Minister who while he rejects terrorists on the one hand, like the PM of Iraq, Hezbollah is definitely not a terrorist group. Oops, our mistake.Arab nations have their own, inscrutable-to-westerners ways of divining truth and reality. Look here...while Sunni and Shia groups are murdering one another in ever-increasing numbers within Iraq, Moqtada al-Sadr, the radical Shiite cleric, held street demonstrations where protesters shouted "Death to Israel," and pledged support for Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah. That's on the Shia side, right? The Sunni speaker of the Iraqi parliament, Mahmoud al-Mashhadani pronounced that escalating violence in Iraq (not intra-tribal warfare or civil war, mind) is "not the work of Iraqis. I am sure that he who does this is a Jew and the son of a Jew." Right. Case made.
Now how about the suffering people of Lebanon, those who live in southern Lebanon, the stronghold of Hezbollah and whose places of worship and homes and businesses have been in the direct line of fire in Israel's attempts to protect itself from rocket attacks, because those launchers and the militants have embedded themselves directly within the civilian infrastructure? Do they hold Hezbollah accountable? Actually no, since Hezbollah is continuing its double-edged presence, giving succour to the Shia Muslim Lebanese displaced by their very own rash assaults on Israel.
Fleeing southern Lebanese are finding shelter, food and medical attention, all set up for them and operated by Hezbollah volunteers. "We are providing the refugees with everything they need," said Mahmoud Massoun the Hezbollah official in charge of shelter locally. "Nobody else is helping them" he added. Well, international aid cannot get through the embattled area; while Hezbollah has not stopped its rocket-launched war heads within Israel, Israel has not stopped its aerial bombardment of Hezbollah command posts and launching sites.
"When people are in need, they remember who helped them. It's human nature" said Rana Zein, who works with a local relief group that was rebuffed by Hezbollah when it offered help at a shelter. Not surprising at all, for it is indeed human nature to cleave to those to claim to care for you, who take steps to offer assistance (even if they were the cause of the disaster, which grateful Shia Lebanese do not, in any event, believe, nor care to believe). Clever, clever Hezbollah, and its diabolical leader, Sheik Nasrallah.
"We will live here for as long as Hezbollah needs us here", said one of the grateful refugees, finding temporary shelter with their protectors. "For them we will suffer with honour."
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, July 27, 2006
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