Reconnecting with reality

NOW Lebanon
New Opinion
31 May '10

Last week, the London Times reported that Hezbollah had been transferring weapons from secret arms depots in Syria to the party’s bases in Lebanon. It was the latest installment in a story that has been running since April and which has highlighted not only the heightened tension in an already-bristling region, but the voracity with which Hezbollah has rearmed after its 2006 war with Israel and the apparent inability of the Lebanese state to curb the party’s appetite for confrontation and conflict.

The ongoing story, along with NOW Lebanon’s constant editorials arguing that Hezbollah’s non-state activities are not only criminal but that they will ultimately visit death and destruction upon the nation, have created an ongoing cyber polemic. The debate is occurring among those who oppose Hezbollah’s activities because they lie outside the state and yet have consequences that will involve the state up its national hilt, and those who, for political, moral or religious reasons, believe in the party’s right to keep Lebanon teetering on the edge of an apocalyptic cauldron.

“It doesn’t matter if the decision of war was taken in the parliament building or in Damascus or Tehran since the majority of the Lebanese citizens and the majority of the parliament will back Hezbollah's militarism,” commented one NOW Lebanon reader. Another declared “Those who support the resistance will die for Sayyed Hassan. You will have to kill us all, before Hezbollah is gone.”

It is easy to lose touch in cyberspace, to get enmeshed in political and sectarian one-upmanship and forget of the dangerous reality of the times in which we live.

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