Hezbollah balances image vs. inroads
Remains popular despite its attack on fellow Muslims
BEIRUT - Hezbollah's offensive against mostly Sunni political rivals in Lebanon has sullied its image in the Arab world as an armed force engaged in a righteous struggle against Israel.
But interviews with analysts and Arab media accounts suggest that the Shi'ite group still came out ahead. It won major concessions from the Lebanese government after its assault while largely retaining its popularity despite turning its weapons against fellow Muslims.
Hezbollah fighters briefly took over Sunni-dominated West Beirut in what they described as a legitimate protection of their military might against a Lebanese government targeting the movement's key telecommunications and intelligence assets.
Satellite television channels broadcast images of Shi'ite militiamen armed with rocket launchers and assault rifles. Western-leaning TV stations spoke of a Hezbollah "occupation" of Beirut streets and described the events as an "armed coup orchestrated by Iran," playing on the growing rift between Sunnis, who dominate the region, and Shi'ites, who control Iran.
Hezbollah had broken a promise, they said, by using its arsenal against domestic rivals.
"For many Arabs, Hezbollah lost much of its glow as a pure resistance group fighting against Israel," said Mishari Thaydi, a Saudi Arabian columnist for the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Sharq al-Awsat. "By laying siege to the residence of lawmaker Saad Hariri, a symbol of Sunni leadership in Lebanon, and attacking other Sunni figures, Hezbollah projected an irreparable image as a sectarian militia."
US officials have voiced optimism that the offensive would dampen Arab enthusiasm for the Iranian- and Syrian-backed movement.
"Hezbollah lost something very important, which is any argument that it is somehow a resistance movement on behalf of the Lebanese people," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters Thursday in the San Francisco Bay area.
But the swiftness of Hezbollah's operation and the political compromise that followed Wednesday, giving the movement veto power over major government decisions while bolstering its US-backed rivals' election prospects, might have helped the group retain its popularity and calm sectarian tensions that work against its influence, analysts said.
Aiding Hezbollah's cause is the deep hostility in the Arab streets toward the United States and its allies.
"If the clashes had remained a week or two longer, that would have fueled a strong sectarian cause," said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, an independent Lebanese researcher and author. "But if the turning point will produce a final settlement, most of the people are going to say at least we had this conflict over with."
The Lebanese violence coincided with the 60th anniversary of Israel's founding, an event widely viewed by Arabs as the "Nakba," or disaster. Whatever flaws Hezbollah might have, to many Arabs it remains the group that fought Israel to a standstill in Lebanon during a summer 2006 war.
"Hezbollah might be seen as representing Iranian interests, but the Lebanese government on the other hand failed to draw sympathy to its cause by associating itself to US projects and vision in the region," said Mohammed Masri, a political scientist at the University of Jordan in Amman. "Hezbollah's actions were perceived as a measure of self-defense."
