Hezbollah critics may bring progress, if not unity

[barb162]

Times July 19, 2006


Hezbollah critics may bring progress, if not unity
Foreign Editor's Briefing by Bronwen Maddox


WILL the Middle East crisis prompt the Arab League at last to do something coherent and useful? Surely not; it is hard to imagine that day ever arriving.

On the contrary, Hezbollah’s attack on Israel has exposed deep divisions in the Arab world that have paralysed the league, the 22-member bloc that has often served only to advertise how little in common the region has.

But the bitterness of that rift holds out hope for profound change in the region’s politics. The most important remarks in the past week may turn out to be those from Saudi Arabia, which has criticised Hezbollah openly, despite knowing the instinctive support that many Saudis will feel for a group able to take on the US-Israeli might.

The seizure of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, the Shia militant group based in Lebanon, has placed many Arab governments in a quandary, particularly the Sunni ones. They are well aware that their people, even if Sunni not Shia, watching the unstinting satellite pictures of Lebanese children killed by Israeli missiles, may embrace Hezbollah as champions. Many Arab governments have played to those instincts in reflexively supporting those who attack Israel.
snip

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2276414,00.html

[tocqueville]

1. This analysis contradicts the statement

made in your other thread. And everything peaks towards that above is nearer the truth.

[barb162]

2. I post articles that may disagree as I find the diff of opinion

interesting. (It won't be the last time I do this sort of thing)