Israeli experts say many Lebanese are not celebrating

[notfullofit]

When he saw TV coverage of Hizbullah members and their supporters celebrating Samir Kuntar's release on Wednesday, Tel Aviv University professor and Mideast expert Eyal Zisser wasn't surprised. But footage of red carpets prepared for Kuntar and crowds waving yellow Hizbullah flags in Beirut doesn't reflect the majority of Lebanese popular opinion on the matter, who see the event as a victory for the enemy, Zisser and other Mideast experts said Thursday.

snip

However, Wednesday's celebration may increase Hizbullah's prestige and unite a fractured Lebanon. It was framed as "a national victory," Timor Goksel, a former United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon senior adviser told reporters on Thursday. "It's a way of restoring dignity," he said. "It might even contribute to Lebanese internal peace because it was not an exclusive Hizbullah event."

Hizbullah's organizers calculated it so no one in the country could oppose the return of prisoners, said Goksel. Among those who appeared at the celebrations were Lebanon's Maronite Christian President Michel Suleiman and anti-Hizbullah political leaders.
Lebanon's US-backed prime minister, Fuad Saniora, kissed the freed prisoners at the Beirut airport. Saniora is Sunni and has been in conflict with Hizbullah since his election in 2005.

Zisser said the response in Lebanon was completely different from one that would have been seen in Israel due to cultural differences. Israel wouldn't use the return of soldiers for political gain, and the celebration in Israel would have been about "the return of the individual," and not victory, he said. "This is something you can only find in primitive societies," said Zisser.

So why is there a need to celebrate the return of a terrorist known to have killed a child? "When you have an ideology that Zionism is the epitome of evil, when you dehumanize your enemy, you can justify anything," said Litvak. "He didn't kill a child. He killed a Zionist."

Moshe Maoz, a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at Hebrew University, said the need to defeat Israel was deeply entrenched in the Arab culture.
"Anything they can recover from the feeling of humiliation is welcome," Maoz said.

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[Igel]

1. "Anything they can recover from the feeling of humiliation is welcome"

Which is why I think some rather mean-spirited measures are appropriate.

The mad bulldozer's family? Give them a choice: They go on air saying, in Arabic, that the mad bulldozer was a pig, worse than the Zionists, a defamer of Islam and an infidel for what he did, or the house is destroyed the next morning, and they're evicted as dogs and supporters of a murderer, unworthy of drawing air and making people ridicule and mock Islam and dishonor not only his family and clan, but Arabs--or, if they happen to be some of the few Xians left, Xianity instead of Islam. In other words, remove the gray area: "We disagree with what he did," the left side of the mouth says, "but he's a great hero and martyr, restoring Arab dignity," the right side says.

Don't take weaselly apologies for real apologies. Make them admit their degradation and humiliation, speak truth to disgrace instead of playing the face-saving and truth-effacing games that honor-based cultures are forced to play.

Playing Arafat's game was humiliating, I think. Broadcasting his quasi-apology for a suicide bombing in English, the apology being that it makes them look bad and doesn't advance their cause, and then not dubbing over the "million martyrs to Jerusalem" line that ended his apology ... duplicitous and dishonest on the part of Western media. What was left out was more important than what was left in.

Abbas' admiration for Cuntar should be included in this. He should be called a two-faced liar, and that if he's like that then the Palestinians are sharing in his falsehoods and dishonesty, and there is no honor to be found in them. In lies there is no honor, just deceit and corruption, chaos and dishonor, bringing shame on his people and on Islam--which must be the religion of liars and cheats. Be clear. Pull no punches.

Apologize to the 4-year-old kid's family, but show the picture of her corpse (there must be one), with series of captions: The fearsome warrior that the epitome of Lebanese manhood and bravery slaughtered to restore Arab dignity and honor. "Did Allah joy in this child's death? Nasrallah and his worshipers did." "This child was murdered by a pig. Abbas and Haniyeh admire the pig. Perhaps they'd like to kill your child?"

Recast their victories as humiliation, and things they consider humiliation to be victories. Shame them. Don't shake hands with Abbas, since he was probably complicit in the killing of diplomats, until he apologizes for that and other crimes--not on the grounds that they're inexpedient, but on the grounds that they defamed Allah and equated Muhammed with child killers and the murderers of innocents. Don't give them a face-saving out, except by means of things that actually *are* honor-promoting: Peace, tolerance, etc., etc. They weren't tactical errors. They were wrong, and stripped him of his honor and his manhood, and he should be treated as the scum he is.


The peace process will collapse for a while, but building it on lies hasn't worked out very well.

[LeftishBrit]

2. Wow. Sorry, but couldn't disagree with you more on most of this.

'The mad bulldozer's family? Give them a choice: They go on air saying, in Arabic, that the mad bulldozer was a bulldozer was a pig, worse than the Zionists, a defamer of Islam and an infidel for what he did, or the house is destroyed the next morning, and they're evicted as dogs and supporters of a murderer, unworthy of drawing air and making people ridicule and mock Islam and dishonor not only his family and clan, but Arabs--or, if they happen to be some of the few Xians left, Xianity instead of Islam.'

Would you do this to the family of a mass murderer in other circumstances? Few people, however ashamed they are of a family member, (and even if they were themselves badly treated by him) will be prepared, especially shortly after his own death, to denounce him in those terms. As far as I'm concerned, there are two possibilities with regard to the family of any terrorist, or murderer of any sort: either they colluded with him and knew about and concealed his plans, in which case they should be prosecuted under the law, or they didn't, in which case it's a tragedy for them as well, and they should not be punished.

'Don't take weaselly apologies for real apologies. Make them admit their degradation and humiliation, speak truth to disgrace instead of playing the face-saving and truth-effacing games that honor-based cultures are forced to play.'

And what good is that going to do? It will just store up bitterness. The true difference between a 'real' and 'weaselly' apology is not how much one degrades oneself, but whether one's apology influences one's future actions or not. With politicians, rather few statements or apologies are going to be truly sincere. The point is to get things moving in the direction of peace. Not to rub people's noses in shame. And 'face-saving and truth-effacing games' are common to all international relations and diplomacy - not just those of 'honour-based cultures'. They may seem nasty and insincere - until you consider all the alternatives, such as war and violence!


'Apologize to the 4-year-old kid's family, but show the picture of her corpse (there must be one), with series of captions: The fearsome warrior that the epitome of Lebanese manhood and bravery slaughtered to restore Arab dignity and honor. "Did Allah joy in this child's death? Nasrallah and his worshipers did." "This child was murdered by a pig. Abbas and Haniyeh admire the pig. Perhaps they'd like to kill your child?"'

So you want the Israelis to stir up their own people to war against the Palestinians? One of the ways in which mainstream Israeli leadership and media are better than current Palestinian (or most other Middle Eastern) leadership and media are that they do NOT generally engage in the same sort of hate-propaganda. That's one thing that I don't want changed!


'Recast their victories as humiliation, and things they consider humiliation to be victories. Shame them. Don't shake hands with Abbas, since he was probably complicit in the killing of diplomats, until he apologizes for that and other crimes--not on the grounds that they're inexpedient, but on the grounds that they defamed Allah and equated Muhammed with child killers and the murderers of innocents. Don't give them a face-saving out, except by means of things that actually *are* honor-promoting: Peace, tolerance, etc., etc. They weren't tactical errors. They were wrong, and stripped him of his honor and his manhood, and he should be treated as the scum he is.'

Whom do you want to 'shame' - all Palestinians, or Abbas? The first is cruel as well as counterproductive; the second will either push Abbas to the right, or cause him to be assassinated or exiled and the most right-wing elements in Hamas to take over.


'The peace process will collapse for a while, but building it on lies hasn't worked out very well.'

Wars don't work very well, either!

I am glad that other approaches to the sort of 'humiliations' that you propose were ultimately taken on both sides in the Cold War, or we probably wouldn't be here exchanging our views; it would have been :nuke: long ago.

[notfullofit]

4. No truer words were ever spoken!

'With politicians, rather few statements or apologies are going to be truly sincere.'

[notfullofit]

3. As the English would

say.....bloody hell!