Middle East - Fresh Perspectives

There are some interesting perspectives coming out of the British media now that the dust is steeling in Lebanon.

I mentioned maverick Brit MP, George Galloway, yesterday. He quit Blair's Labour over the Iraq war. Now he has a thing or two to say about Israel; as has a leading Christian politician, Samir Geagea, about Hezbollah.

Galloway said Israel's 39-year occupation of swathes of Arab territory had spurred militants to attack the West. Galloway says Israel poisoning West-Islam ties

"The poison which circulates as a result of this unresolved conflict is poisoning our own lives in the West and making our people more endangered.

"Every time we see a martyrdom video from a young Muslim who was ready to swap his life for many of ours it is Palestine at the heart of this man's motivation.

"It is now the duty of the backers of Israel to impress upon the Israeli leadership... a comprehensive peace." he said at the end of a visit to Lebanon and Syria.

The basics aren't new and have been canvassed here and elsewhere, but not with such precision.

A post-Blair foreign policy, Galloway said, should re-engage Syria, which he described as "moderate, progressive, secular, nationalist" and respect the fact that the country, ruled by the Baath Party since 1963, is not a U.S. "slave"

"Israel lost but it does not mean Hizbollah won," said Samir Geagea, chief of the Lebanese Forces political movement. Lebanese Christians "don't like this triumphalism", he said. Christians deny Hizbollah victory

"First of all they don't see that it was a victory. They feel on the contrary that it was a big loss for Lebanon, even though they acknowledge that the guerrillas of Hizbollah have done well on the battleground."

"On the Arab and Islamic front they gained fame and Sheikh Nasrallah has become a celebrity," he said. "But this is not something you can touch or spend.

"Inside Lebanon, the Lebanese who didn't agree with the strategy of Hizbollah have become more open in their position." These include Shia critics of the organisation "who are now much more outspoken then before".

For Lebanon to progress, Mr Geagea says, Hizbollah will have to give up its weapons. The paradox is that having proclaimed victory it has now less justification than ever for maintaining its arms.

"Its strategy has been shown to be faulty," he said. "They said they should be allowed to keep their weapons to maintain an 'equilibrium of terror' with Israel. As long as they had them, Israel would not dare to attack. This has been shown to be an illusion.

"They justified not handing their arms to the state by saying that if they used them the Israeli response would be localised rather than affecting the whole country. This has also been shown to be wrong. Many things have been broken by this war. Not only the Lebanese infrastructure but many theories and assumptions."

Geagea believes that with Hizbollah now under pressure to become a conventional political party, the war may have created an opportunity for progress. "The road is open for us to have the Lebanon the majority dream of," he said. "We have the potential to be a real democracy in the Middle East - pluralistic, scientific and modern."

All that depends on Hizbollah disarming, however

No need for my two cents...