[Peace-discuss] Angry Arab speaks on Lebanon

[David Green]

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2010/08/mood-in-lebanon.html

There is a mood of anxiety in Lebanon. People are really concerned about the 
prospects of an Arab-Israeli war. A friend called me from South Lebanon 
yesterday because his wife was freaking out being there and wanted assurances 
from me that there is no war. I tell people who ask me daily that there is no 
war coming here, but that it is hard to prove. I had a long argument/discussion 
with Norman Finkelstein last week about this issue: he thinks that war is coming 
and I don't. Don't get me wrong: all sides are preparing but Israel does not 
have any more tricks up its dirty sleeves against Hizbullah. They tried all that 
they had and got humiliated back in 2006. Why would killing more Lebanese 
civilians and destroying many more buildings advance the Israeli cause, you 
would as. Israel ran out of options against Hizbullah a few years ago. The 
uncovering of wide network of Israeli spies in Lebanon is the biggest espionage 
story in the history of the Middle East conflict. Israel "uncovers" one Arab spy 
in Israel and it becomes a sensational international headline. Lebanon and its 
police--Lebanon for potato's sake--are producing Israeli spies at the rate of 
one a week--and the international press is barely taking notice. This is big. 
This will set back all Israeli criminal espionage decades backwards. That is 
what Hasan Nasrallah meant about the "blind elephant." Gulf tourists did not 
show up in large numbers this summer: partly due to anxieties about war and 
partly because the Gulf tourists now prefer Syria and Egypt because the people 
there don't cheat them like the Lebanese do. A Lebanese can't see a Saudi 
without seeing dollar signs over his/her head. It is pathetic. One should say 
more about Saudi Arabia: the ruling elite is fragmented more than ever. Every 
prince is practically running his own media and his own foreign policy. 



      
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