This is pretty huge: Lebanese Christians rallied against Hezbullah. Note, however, the AP bias.
BEIRUT, Lebanon Sep 24, 2006 (AP)— An anti-Syrian Christian leader dismissed Hezbollah’s claims of victory in its war with Israel as tens of thousands of his supporters rallied Sunday in a show of strength that highlighted Lebanon’s sharp divisions.
The rally north of Beirut came just two days after a massive gathering by the rival Shiite Muslim Hezbollah that attracted hundreds of thousands. The two sides have been at sharp odds over the future of the Lebanese government since this summer’s Israeli-Hezbollah war.
Wait a minute, I haven’t gotten to the bias yet.
Samir Geagea, a notorious former leader of a Christian militia, scoffed at Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah’s declaration that his guerrillas achieved “a victory” against Israel.
A quick look at his Wikipedia biography brings this nugget of information:
Several public figures openly conceded that Geagea’s arrest, trial, and incarceration were engineered by the Syrian-backed political order in response to his movement’s hostile stance towards the Syrian presence in Lebanon.
So how do they describe Nasrallah and Hezbullah in the article a few days ago about the pro-Hezbullah rally?
Hezbollah is armed with thousands of rockets and Nasrallah has said his arsenal survived the Israeli onslaught. He boasted in a TV interview last week that the guerrillas and their weapons were still at the Israeli border in south Lebanon.
The guerrillas have long kept a low profile. They rarely carry weapons in public and have sought to calm the fears of other religious communities in Lebanon by insisting that their arms are to fight Israel and won’t be turned against their fellow Lebanese.
And old Chipmunk Cheeks himself?
The black-turbaned cleric told a crowd of hundreds of thousands of flag-waving supporters in Beirut’s bombed-out suburbs that his guerrillas will give up their weapons only when Israel’s “threats” end and the Lebanese government is strong enough to protect the country.
Holy crap, that’s some mean description there for the man who’s the leader of a terrorist organization that’s killed hundreds. A black-turbaned cleric! Wow, watch out for that AP!
All kidding aside, it looks like the road may get a little rocky for the Hezbies.
Here’s hoping.
Say, wait a minute. I thought Hezbullah was Lebanon. No, wait, it wasn’t. No, wait, it was. Well, when the media makes up its collective mind, someone let me know.
Hezbolla says it will retain its arms to make sure Israel doesn.t attack Lebanon. But Hezbolla attacks are making sure that Israel will attack. Israel hasn’l attacked Lebanon before, it was always, first attacked from Lebanon.
Bernie M
“The Associated Press, the reliable just-the-facts news agency you and I once knew, no longer exists. Amoral propagandists have taken over.”
– Jules Crittenden in the Boston Herald
No country or nation can stand, the indefinite, existence of a powerful “state within the state” such as Hezbollah. They are a threat to the very stability and existence of Lebanon, Hezbollah are the proxies of Syria and Iran, when it suits them. Unless and until Hezbollah are neutralised and their military force neutered then there will be some form of conflict in the north of Israel.
Nasrallah is doing the same thing that Saddam did at the end of the Irac-Iran war. No-one won that fight but ole Saddam quickley set up a huge monument to himself declaring victory.
Thats why too, there are so many versions of middle east history.
Nobody wins wars. Hezbollah selfishly enjoys satisfaction because they proved themselves destructive to Israel, but they do not care that fighting Israel shielded by Lebanese civilians, they brought destruction to the Lebanese.
To read the AP report, good old uncle Nazrala will save the silent majority of downhome lebanesse from the evil Israelites.
I think it unnecessary to remind anyone that nazrala attacked Israeli civilians with rockets fired from Lebanese civilian homes.
It remains to be seen the real delineation between “Lebanon” and Hizbala.
What are the real numbers of those for and against.
I still ask myself: where was the lebanese army during the war, or perhaps hizballa is just a branch of the lebanese army.
the clue to this riddle lies in the real numbers of participants in the two rallys. The AP tally puts them as one and the same.
good thing to know that there are reasonable people in Lebanon
Hezbullah has brough nothing but pain and destruction to Lebanon
Hezbollah is the first terrorist in the world.
IDF must destroyed them.