Arab-Unity

Arab-Unity
New Arab unity may arise from the carnage at Qana
Email
Print
Normal font
Large font
August 1, 2006
Page 1 of 2 Single page
AdvertisementAdvertisement

What next? Hezbollah is firm, Israel is bloodied and the US is irrelevant, writes Rami Khouri.
THE Israeli attack that killed scores of elderly people and handicapped children in the southern Lebanese town of Qana early on Sunday has triggered reactions that collectively may prove to be a turning point in the fighting, and perhaps even in the 58-year-old Arab-Israeli conflict.
Television images throughout the world on Sunday focused on two parallel scenes: the removal of smashed bodies in Qana, most of them children, and an angry demonstration in front of the UN building in central Beirut, where enraged young Lebanese entered the facility and trashed parts of it.
Those sentiments of rage by Lebanese citizens are the core of wider political feelings that may soon be translated into novel, and potentially historic, diplomatic action. This was reflected most dramatically on Sunday morning when Lebanon's Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, and the Speaker of the Parliament, Nabih Berri, told a news conference that, in view of the massacre at Qana, the Lebanese Government had nothing to discuss except an immediate and unconditional ceasefire.
Berri, the highest Shiite figure in the Government and a key link with Hezbollah, said that all Shiites and Lebanese stood firmly with the Government position. The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, then announced that she was postponing her scheduled visit to Beirut to discuss how to end this crisis.
The unprecedented nature of these moves comprises the convergence of five forces in the Arab world that have never come together as they do this week:
■Impassioned public opinion.
■Sustained armed resistance by non-state actors.
■Firm government positions that align with both of these elements.
■Non-stop mass media dissemination.
■A sense of Israel's military vulnerability.