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[stevemcgarrett]

CNN International is currently running a news segment on life in Beirut in the aftermath of last year's conflict with Israel.

Hezbollah has opened a temporary museum in the city commemorating the "magnificent Muslim victory" over the Jews. This is no ordinary exhibition of war memorablia. It is a sickness of hateful indoctrination.

Instead, it shows displays of dead Israeli soldiers, a mock up of a crashed Israeli helicopter with dismembered bodies of the crew and a neon display to replicate fire as a patriotic song plays.

There are displays of Israeli weapons confiscated from POWs or otherwise captured on the battlefield and marked cases of personal items, eerily similar to those one views in Holocaust museums in Europe and America.

Most egregrious, however, is the gift shop. It sells video games to kids that reinact the war with points awarded for the number of Israelis killed, including civilians. There are children's books triumphantly chronicling the "victory of Islam" or the infidel and advice books for parents about the Jewish faith and why it is a threat to Islam that must be guarded against.

REWIND 40 YEARS...

My father visits Beirut, then called the "Paris of the Mideast," on R&R from his Air Force post in Malta, in the Mediterranean. He was to visit it briefly, again, in the wake of the Six Day War, in 1969, from Wheelus AFB in Tripoli (the one in Libya), just before a colonel named Khadafy came to power.

The airy and cheerful cafes lining the boulevards and the liveliness of the city were all in abundant evidence. Lebanese were proud of their heritage but even prouder of their city's artistic bent, outward looking geniality, and its ambience.

What has happened since? Of course, there has been the rise of Hezbollah, the colonization of the Syrians, and the subsequent infiltration of Iranian extremists and later Qud advisors. Two border conflicts with Israel and the assassination of a president. The recent suppression of a militant stronghold by the Lebanese authorities lingers on.

But what of the citizenry? How might this sordid metamorphosis have managed to transpire? And what does this portend for other moderate states in the region, of which there are already precious few?

If Lebanon cannot revive its glorious past, then what's to keep the large Palestinian refugee community in Jordan from dethroning the monarchy, of economic terrorism from destabilizing the Gulf States and Egypt becoming a hotbed of radical unrest fulfilling the threats of those who assassinated Anwar Sadat a quarter century ago?

For myself, I hold out little hope in the short run. Radicalized Islam is on the verge of doing what Nasser's nationalism could not: providing a theme uniting all the disenfranchised and disgruntled elements in the region, with terrorism as its tactic of choice and extremist intolerance as its guiding principle.

[Adventurer]

As one who knows the region well, I can say that Hezbollah built this museum for political posturing. It is a game of political chess to play to internal politics. Steve, you used the word Islam. Which Islam? You are making it seem that people are monolithic. That they are not. While the Christians were divided recently in an election and voted for a candidate in a by-election that was allied to Hezbollah the Sunnis unequivocally in another by election voted for a Sunni allied to Hariri who is strongly opposed to Hezbollah. Christians in Lebanon among the Maronite Catholics were complaining that Muslims in Lebanon were not enough on the same page about Syria. Now, the Sunnis are more on the right page, but not enough Christians are... It is a paradox. However, the good news is that the Maronites have strongly moved away from the camp of General Michel Aoun who is allied to Hezbollah. Did you read in detail about the election before commenting? I did. The results showed the Maronites are nervous about Aoun's alliance with Hezbollah and voted for Gemayel. The pro-Aoun candidate won, because a slight majority of Greek Orthodox voted (56%) voted for the pro-Aoun candidate and the Armenians were instructed (it was dumb) to vote for the pro-Aoun candidate. If the Armenians voted differently Aoun would have been smashed. Hezbollah probably would suffer losses in a parliamentary election because the Sunnis and Maronites have backed away. A slight minority of Shiites have as well. How can Hezbollah get very far if more Christians and Sunnis and most Druze say no? They can't unless the Shiites want to fight all those groups.

As far as Jordan, they are weary of Al Qaeda. They are used to Israel.
The Jordanian bedouins are loyal to the King of Jordan. Everyone knows that. Enough Palestinian-Jordanians don't want trouble, but they want the suffering of their Palestinian relatives to end naturally.

What you are seeing is not things getting worse, but things that have existed manifesting. Also, do not forget the fact that Sunni elements in Iraq are fighting Shiite elements has pushed many non-Palestinian Sunnis away from liking Hezbollah.

[bucheon bum]

[stevemcgarrett]

bucheon bum wrote:

[Adventurer]

[mindmetoo]

Yes. I've heard this Paris of the Middle East every decade. The place blows itself up. People remind us it used to be the Paris of the Middle East. It rebuilds. It is pronounced the Paris of the Middle East again. Repeat.

[Adventurer]

[Tiger Beer]

Way too many cities in the world claim to be the "PARIS OF _____" in this world.

If Beirut isn't the Paris of the Mideast right now, there are probably two or three of four other ones this year alone which are claiming to be.

[duns0014]