Hizballah, Nasrallah Heroes to Many Arabs
By Patrick Goodenough
CNSNews.com International Editor
Link to Story
(CNSNews.com) - Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah’s popularity is growing across the Middle East, with many Arabs setting aside religious and other differences to embrace him as an Islamic hero who has taken on a reviled Israeli enemy.
While low-key criticism has been heard from some Mideast and Arab governments about Hizballah’s “adventurism,” among the Arab people, the Shi’ite terrorist group is drawing strong and vocal support, according to regional media outlets.
As the conflict in Lebanon and northern Israel moves into its third week, Arabs frustrated by their own governments’ cautious reaction are hailing Hizballah and its black-turbaned leader.
From secular leftists in Egypt to Sunnis in Syria, Jordan and the Palestinian areas, Arabs are singing the praises of the “courageous,” “devoted,” “charismatic” and “powerful” Nasrallah, whose image appears on t-shirts and posters.
Even before the current crisis, Nasrallah was admired by many Arabs and Muslims, particularly after Israel’s decision in 2000 to withdraw from a narrow strip of south Lebanese territory it had used as a buffer against cross-border terrorism.
“Nasrallah is the only Muslim in history to defeat Israel on the battlefield,” said the pan-Arab media organization al-Bawaba in one glowing 2003 tribute.
The 46-year-old cleric’s stature has grown as Hizballah has fired rockets into Israel and fought the Israelis on the ground in recent weeks.
In Syria, Nasrallah is likened by some to Saladin, the Kurdish Muslim warrior who conquered Crusader-held Jerusalem in the 12th century, and whose tomb is located in Damascus.
Middle East Online quoted residents of the city calling the Hizballah leader “the Saladin of our time,” and expressing the hope that he will capture Jerusalem and restore Arab pride.
One Syrian was quoted as contrasting Hizballah’s military performance against Israel to the collapse of Arab armies during the 1967 Six Day War.
A trader in the Damascus market said he was selling hundreds of t-shirts bearing Nasrallah’s face every day. Another shopkeeper said pictures of Nasrallah had been popular in the past, but mostly among Shi’ites. Now Syrian Sunnis and Christians were also buying them.
Middle East Online also noted that on widely displayed posters in Syria depicting President Bashir al-Assad, his father Hafez, and his late brother Basil, Nasrallah’s image was replacing that of Basil.
This was “a significant sign of popular and official support for the Hizballah leader.”
Noble quest’
While Syria’s backing for Hizballah is well-known, the governments of Jordan and Egypt - the other two countries defeated by Israel in 1967 - have not supported the militia’s recent activity.
King Abdullah and President Hosni Mubarak jointly warned earlier this month against “dragging the region into adventures that don’t serve the Arab issues and interests.”
Whatever their leaders’ public position, among the predominantly Sunni citizens of Jordan and Egypt feeling is reportedly running high against Israel and in favor of Hizballah.
“Suddenly Egyptians have found a hero,” Cairo’s Al-Ahram reported, saying that for some, Nasrallah was offering strong competition to Egypt’s iconic former leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser.
The paper described how a gathering of largely left-wing “activists, intellectuals, journalists and academics” had sent a message of support to Nasrallah, calling his campaign against Israel “a noble quest for self-defense in the face of a vicious imperialist project.”
“You restored the [Arab] nation’s confidence,” the message said. “Israel is built on the fear others have for it. You broke that fear.”
Al-Ahram noted with some surprise the fact secular leftists were embracing a Shi’ite cleric. It quoted one left-wing academic as saying Nasrallah had become “the most credible Arab leader in the Arab world.”
Professional organizations and political parties in several Arab countries are voicing support for Hizballah and condemning Israel.
Earlier this month, at a conference arranged by Egypt’s Bar Association, the body’s head, Sameh Ashour, said that if the Lebanese resistance to Israel was Shi’a, “then we are Shi’a.”
“Hail to the leader who reigns in the highest place in the hearts and minds of the Arab umma, Hassan Nasrallah,” Ashour said in a speech.
A number of speakers at the conference condemned Arab governments’ criticism of Hizballah.
The Association of Jordanian Writers has launched a campaign to collect one million signatures on demand that the government annul in 1994 peace treaty with Israel. The Israeli Embassy in Amman should be closed and Jordan “cleansed” from the presence of Zionists, it said in an announcement carried by the Al-Quds Al-Arabi paper.
A similar call came from Egypt, where opposition parties including the Muslim Brotherhood want their country’s 1979 peace treaty with the Jewish state canceled.
A lawyers’ body in Yemen condemned Arab governments’ “silence” and called for Arabs and Muslims to “gather around the noble Arab and Islamic leaders who support jihad and resistance.”
It said Arab governments should activate an Arab joint defense treaty - a document signed in 1950 between Syria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Yemen - to enable Arab and Muslim youths to take part in jihad to support the Lebanese and Palestinians.
“Hizballah is riding a wave of popularity at the street level because of its confrontation with Israel,which is seen as heroic and as restoring Arab and Muslim honor,” says the Barnabas Fund, an international charity working among Christian minorities in Islamic countries.
In Islamic theology and tradition, it said in a briefing, Jews were meant to be a weak and despised people.
Because of this, Muslims’ repeated defeats at the hands of Israel were deeply humiliating.
“Anyone who can hurt the despised enemy who has inflicted such shame on Muslims and Arabs is celebrated as a hero by the Muslim masses.”
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