A lonely Lebanese voice in Congress

WASHINGTON -- Since the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah started, 22 members of Congress have flown to Israel. Only one went to Lebanon.

``Logistically, it was difficult," Representative Darrell Issa, a California Republican who was the lone Lebanon traveler, explained as he drove to his Capitol Hill office this week. ``The Israelis were shooting at vehicles and so on."

And it's only marginally safer for Issa at home. One of five Lebanese-Americans in Congress, Issa occupies a no man's land in US politics: a conservative Republican with a powerful sympathy for the Arab cause. He supports the Iraq war and voted for a resolution backing Israel in its fight with Hezbollah, but he has also accused Israel of ``apartheid" and scolds the Bush administration for ``missed opportunities" to win Arab friends.

His reward? Al-Jazeera propagandists ridicule him, and the radical Jewish Defense League tried to bomb his office after a WorldNetDaily.com commentator dubbed him ``Jihad Darrell."

But Issa persists. On Tuesday, he was at the National Press Club under the banner of the ``American Task Force for Lebanon," giving a bleak slide show from his weekend trip to Lebanon and scolding all parties in the conflict.

He condemned Israel's ``wanton" violation of Lebanese territory and its ``somewhat failed attempt" to defeat Hezbollah: ``You can't end an idea or a terrorist organization by guns alone."

He disparaged the ``few million dollars" the United States gave Lebanon after last year's eviction of its Syrian masters: ``The Cedar Revolution was . . . our opportunity to seize, and we did not."

And he dismissed an Al-Jazeera correspondent who argued the Hezbollah line that Israel caused the war by occupying the land called Shebaa Farms. ``The return of Shebaa is in the hands of the United Nations," Issa said.

Al-Jazeera's Mohammad al-Alami was evidently unsatisfied with Issa's demand for vast US spending to rebuild Lebanon, or by his photos of Lebanon's fallen bridges and oil-soaked coastline. ``You mentioned the oil slick and your concern about the eggs for the fish, and you didn't mention 1,000 civilians who got killed," Alami charged, ``children seen all over the Arab world, you know, torn to pieces by Israelis with the American blessings and the American weapons."

``Classic Arab propaganda," Issa said of the harangue as he got in his car that sports a ``United We Stand" bumper sticker.

Playing Middle East peacemaker was not the role that Issa, a former car-alarm magnate who favors slicked-back hair, had planned when he was elected to Congress in 2000. He is known best as the antitax activist who led the effort to recall Governor Gray Davis, then wept when he announced that he himself would not be a candidate for governor.

But after coming to Washington, he felt the pull of the land his grandfather left in 1914. ``When your last name is Arabic for Jesus," he explained, ``you sort of get a natural ability to go through the region and be accepted a little bit more quickly." But only a little bit. Issa says that as an Arab American with generally pro-Bush views, he isn't trusted by either side, an awkwardness that dates to his time as a Lebanese Christian delivery boy for a kosher butcher.

The awkwardness continues. He protested a House resolution last month condemning Israel's enemies, but voted for it anyway after his alternative version failed. He opposed sanctions against Syria, but he vigorously supports the US campaign in Iraq.

Issa portrays his moves as evenhandedness.