Search results

This commentary argues that Hezbollah felt duty-bound to open a front in Southern Lebanon to ease Israel's military pressure on Hamas. Hezbollah indicated that its participation in the war will continue until reaching a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, apparently expecting the hostilities to last only for a few weeks. However, the war dragged on for months as Israel pledged to keep it going until destroying Hamas and, contrary to what Hezbollah expected, pushing it away from the border area to ensure the safety of its residents in the upper Galilee settlements. The fighting in Southern Lebanon turned into a war of attrition against Hezbollah as Israel eliminated most of its field commanders by drone attacks. Should Israel succeed in evicting Hezbollah from the border area, it would lose its claim to resistance to liberate Lebanese territory still occupied by Israel, increasing the pressure on it to disarm like all other Lebanese factions when the civil war ended in 1989.

The claim by a recent public opinion poll that only 1% of adult Lebanese Sunnis are supportive of the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) must be taken with a large pinch of salt since there is a vast gulf between how people say they behave and how they actually behave. In fact, since Lebanese Sunnis are willing to support whoever can defeat their enemies and restore their pride, many of them find ISIS appealing for quite a few reasons: They have an aversion to Shiites and feel estranged from the Lebanese state while harboring nostalgia for the caliphate. The rise to preeminence of Lebanese Shiites began after the Amal movement evicted the Lebanese army from the southern suburbs of Beirut in February 1984. When Hezbollah shattered the main Sunni leadership, the Lebanese army watched but decided not to interfere. Weak Sunni leadership, both clerical and political, created a vacuum and caused the sect to drift apart and turn to radical Islamic leaders. Adapted from the source document.

Contrary to the conventional Muslim wisdom that the Crusades ended a mythic period of Muslim-Christian coexistence, the indigenous Christian population of the Middle East had been compelled by its Muslim conquerors, much before the Crusades, to either convert, be slaughtered, or accept a second-class existence (dhimmitude). Payback for the humiliation of Crusader incursion took many different shapes over an extensive period of time. Despite the early promise of a better future that accompanied the collapse of the religiously-rooted Ottoman Empire and the subsequent establishment of a secular Middle Eastern state system, Christian fortunes as a whole did not improve. At first, Christians found themselves in a privileged economic and educational position because they eagerly embraced Western education and served in the local administration of colonial governments. But the militarization of Arab politics dampened their hopes and contributed to their continued marginalization. Middle East Christians are a casualty of historical processes that do not bode well for their future. Adapted from the source document.

In an untypically abrasive speech, Saudi King Abdullah welcomed the ouster of Egypt's pres Muhammad Morsi, stating: Let the entire world know that the people and government of the Saudi kingdom stood and still stand today with their brothers in Egypt against terrorism, extremism, and sedition. However dramatic, this apparent shift from Riyadh's traditional accommodation of perceived enemies, such as the Muslim Brotherhood and its regional affiliates, to a more daring foreign policy is too little too late to reverse the decline of its regional power. And nowhere was this weakness more starkly demonstrated than in Riyadh's botched Syrian intervention, led by its most celebrated diplomat -- Prince Bandar bin Sultan. Son of the late Saudi crown prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz al-Saud (d. 2011), Bandar began his political career in 1978 as King Khaled's personal envoy to Washington bypassing Ambassador Faisal al-Hegelan. Washington perceives Riyadh as a quietist player dependent on US power to ensure the kingdom's safety from external threats. Adapted from the source document.

Lebanese society has had a remarkable ability to overcome deep-rooted sectarian and religious divides that could readily have imploded less problematic countries. This has largely been due to its pragmatic political system, which avoids acting upon polarizing issues on principle, opting instead for pragmatic loopholes. Given their confessional political system, Lebanese are conditioned to think pragmatically even when the issue at hand is divisive and does not lend itself to resolution. Three vivid illustrations of this dynamic can be seen in the handling of the issues preoccupying Lebanese decision-makers these days: Hezbollah's continued militarization, the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, and the Syrian connection. Adapted from the source document.