Lebanon United.
I wanted to point out some of the replies to a recent post of mine by
communistmonkey, aka Din, an 18-year-old female art student who lives in Beirut, Lebanon. She has a rather interesting and nuanced point of view on the current conflict for someone her age, so I thought I would share some of the excerpts, cleaned and edited for public display and widespread Western consumption, and copiously linked to relevant supporting articles.
"I'm still in Lebanon, and couldn't get out if I wanted to. (They've bombed all the roads to Syria...) and numbers wise, one quarter of my people are now refugees. That's something over 950,000 human lives.
Yesterday, Israeli leaflets were dropped over the coastal city of Tyre, threatning and assuring that ANY CIVILIAN VEHICLE that may be circulating south of the Litani River will be deemed "suspicious" and bombed immediately, trapping countless families in Tyre, which is constantly bombarded. If this isn't civilian intimidation and an overuse of "psychological" warfare, I don't know what it is. I have friends down there, they're going insane, there's no electricity nor much water left, and humanitarian aid can't get there, because, well, the roads are cut and they're afraid. (a Red Cross ambulance was bombed on the road not so long ago.)
I'm sure "Western" media censors the footage they get, which is just as well, because frankly if I see another mutilated corpse of a child or men picking up fuming pieces of human bodies off the last building bombing site, I'm gonna puke. I hate Hezbollah and the Israeli warfare equally for this, because the people paying the highest price are actually the Lebanese and Israeli civilians. May those murdered by war rest in peace.
Sorry I've rambled on for so long, but I've been caged at home for 3 weeks and if I don't tell people the horrors that are happening, I'll blow up. Try going to sleep with the sound of jets rumbling over your house, and bombs shaking said house every few minutes... it's time for peace for good, both parties must learn to compromise. Give us our land and prisoners back, You'll get yours and Hizbollah will be disarmed. It's really as simple as that. Why are politics always so complicated??"
I then asked her about how she felt about Hezbollah when they are fighting Israelis on Lebanese soil, and about the Lebanese army, other potential resistance or paramiliary groups, and whether others were opposing the invasion, to which she responded:
"As long as Hezbollah fight soldiers trying to invade my country, I must admit I am very grateful. But the firing rockets AT CIVILIANS has got to stop. On both sides. Even though we're getting a lot more than they ever will.
Hm, well, as an answer to your questions: Nasrallah is a very smart man, though I do not support him, I admit to that. Hezbollah aren't a simple militia, they're a powerful high-tech army. Don't let the beards and heated "Allah w Akbar" chants fool you. They have impeccable strategy, weaponry, paramedics and doctors accompanying their troops. They are a fully fledged army and intelligence agency, with hospitals, orphanages, retirement homes, and a TV station, with better chances to stand up to Israel than our measly army will ever have. why?
After our civil war ended, the USA sold the Lebanese army the only weapons it *allowed* them to yield -- mostly M-16, basic anti-aircraft weapons (useless against Israel's supersonics) and some tanks. . . It's common knowledge that if that part is damaged, you might as well throw the tank away. This is our Lebanese army, a crippled old man, unable to fight off anything. If it tries to re-arm, the international community and UN (not to mention Israel) will quickly "condemn" it. and we, unlike the USA / Israel axis, *have* to obey the UN.
The only ones capable of resisting Israel are the Hezbollah, although I must say, they have monopolized and capitalized on resisting Israel. Even if someone else wanted to help, they'd have to either join hezbollah or forget it. (I'm mainly refering the communist resistance that once existed and was quite effective in Lebanon.)
About civilians, i should tell you that Lebanon is made of 40% Christians and 60% Muslims. Half of those Muslims are Shi'ites, and an overwhelming majority of them support Hezbollah. (They are located mainly in the south and Dahieh.) By support, I mean "are directly helping them" as in hiding weapons for them in their houses, taking care of the soldiers, providing intelligence, food, helping them dig up the huge underground web of tunnels and facilities they use to surprise Israeli troops, etc. A lot of Shi'ite families are proud to say their sons are part of Hezbollah, so they have a HUGE following of civilians who would follow Nasrallah to the grave. Right now, because of the war, all of the lebanese people support Hezbollah, but it hasn't always been this way. Before the conflict started, the government was in constant "dialog" with its different parties to convince Hezbollah to disarm, but they said they will only do so "when all of Lebanese territory is free of occupation" (they refer here to Chebaa). so it was really going nowhere.
As for the Israeli-dictated peace, the Lebanese goverment has already unanimously rejected it. Until the conditions of the cease-fire stop depicting Israel as the poor helpless victim and Lebanon as the evil bloodthirsty terrorists, there will be no cease fire, which is exactly what the USA and the Israeli government want, as they are now planning to further their invasion of Lebanon, which might take, according to Israeli newspapers "at least a month". Long enough for the international community to get bored of us. Just so you know . . . Israel is the one who wanted the Lebanese army to take possession of the south so they could pull out, but now that the Lebanese government (including Hezbollah) is ready to send in their troops to secure the south, suddenly the Israeli government deems them "not strong enough" to contain Hezbollah. I'll remind you why they arent so strong thoough *points upward* as I said before, because this how strong the USA will allow them to be..."
I then mentioned that I felt that the people of Lebanon need to find ways to resist the Israelis, without becoming the puppets of Hezbollah, to which Din replied:
"I basically agree with you, we should resist without falling into Hezbollah's hands, but the Lebanese balance is very fragile and so the government has decided to back up Hezbollah all the way now as some kind of "united" resistance, and also, I believe, in order not to trigger another civil war because of parties vehemently throwing the responsibility of this conflict at each other and building up hatred between the Lebanese. So for now, backing up Hezbollah is the only way out. When it's all over it will be time for expressing differences of opinion again, but right now the words on every Lebanese's lips are "united" and "resisting".
So, there you have it. Spoken by an eighteen-year-old art student, but spoken like a true patriot.