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There is only one Hassan Nasrallah
The Hezbollah leader has long outgrown his Shiite audience and comes across today as a pan-Islamic and pan-Arab leader.
- By Sami Moubayed, Special to Gulf News
- Published: 00:00 July 25, 2006
Millions of Arabs and Muslims across the world today are betting on Hassan Nasrallah. In the past, the Arabs used to say that being a Shiite cleric limited Nasrallah's audience within the Arab world.
Some Arabs, after all, are neither too fond of their Persian neighbours nor are they pleased with the rise of powerful Shiite Islam in countries such as Iraq or Lebanon.
This argument, however, true at some points in Nasrallah's career, is completely irrelevant today. Nasrallah has long outgrown his Shiite audience and comes across today as a pan-Islamic and pan-Arab leader.
The Americans cannot - and do not want to understand how popular Nasrallah really is. They want this war to continue - and will push Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for more action if need may come - in order to crush Nasrallah.
The Hezbollah leader, who is landing missiles on Israel for the first time in the Arab-Israeli conflict, is waiting until Israeli public opinion turns against Olmert.
He is waiting until enough Israelis die to force Olmert into a ceasefire. Olmert is waiting until enough Lebanese die to turn the Lebanese against Nasrallah and blame him for this war.
That is why he is indiscriminately bombing all of Lebanon, to upset Shiites, Sunnis and Christians.
This to date, has not happened in Lebanon. Since Olmert is bombing all of Lebanon, the Lebanese are showing great unity, claiming that this is a war on Lebanon and not a war on Hezbollah.
If it were on Hezbollah, why have missiles hit a church in Rashayya or the Christian district of Al Metn or the Ashrafiyyieh neighbourhood?
Perhaps explaining why many Christians have not turned against Nasrallah is the support he has from General Michel Aoun.
Aoun does not believe in sectarianism and does not want Lebanon's Christians turning against the Shiites. He has done Nasrallah great favours since this war started on July 12.
Nasrallah is friends with the camera and in the age of satellite TV, gets an A+ in how he is using the media to inflame Arab emotions.
Just when the people were getting disappointed, Nasrallah promised them surprises and landed missiles on an Israeli warship off the coast of Beirut, then attacked deep in the Israeli heartland, hitting Acre, Safad, Haifa and the Biblical city of Nazareth.
He cannot end this war or search for an exit strategy at this stage, however, because the Lebanese prisoners in Israeli jails have not yet been released.
If he stops fighting now, he would be considered a traitor for having dragged himself and Lebanon into such a war where he was defeated, Lebanon was destroyed, and its prisoners remained in Israeli jails.
Demonise
The Americans want to demonise Nasrallah and it's easy to do that in the western media. He automatically is depicted as next-in-line of Islamic fanatics such as Osama Bin Laden and Abu Musaab Al Zarqawi because he is turbaned, bearded, preaches military Islam, allied to Iran and has arms and ammunition - plenty of them - that he is using at will against Israel, the number one ally to the United States.
That is why they have blocked all attempts in the western and American media to humanise Nasrallah. If he spoke English and directly addressed the Americans, this would have been more difficult for the US media to de-humanise him.
When I wrote in one of the elite US dailies that Nasrallah was a resistance leader, no different from George Washington for many Americans, I received an unbelievable amount of hate mail from US readers.
I drew parallels between Nasrallah's war and the Great American Revolution, moving further up into history and making reference to American icons such as Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King.
I was humanising Nasrallah by drawing parallels between him and ideas and figures familiar to American culture.
The Americans did not like that: a Syrian, educated at American institutions, using the English language and examples of American history and culture, defending Nasrallah in the western media.
This explains why I was accused - very incorrectly - of being a Holocaust denier and anti-Semite. That is the price I paid for respecting Nasrallah.
Let us try to look at Nasrallah 100 years from now. Had George Washington been defeated in the American Revolution, then British history would most probably have labelled him an outlaw and in some cases, a terrorist, from jeopardising the interests of Great Britain.
History however, is written by the victors. So long as America and Israel continue to write history then Nasrallah will be remembered in the West as a "terrorist" like Osama Bin Laden.
If the Arabs write their history - or the Americans write it freed of Israeli influence, then Nasrallah would get his due place in history as a selfless uncorrupted nationalist.
Some argue that if he is killed in combat, then 100 Nasrallahs will replace him. That is very incorrect. He is an exceptional leader who comes once in a lifetime.
There can be 100 Khalid Mesha'als, for example, but there is only one Yasser Arafat. There is only one George Washington.
There is only one David Ben Gurion - who was an Israeli nationalist par excellence. And there is only one Hassan Nasrallah.
Sami Moubayed is a Syrian political analyst.
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