Juan Cole Comment on Hezbollah Leader

Juan Cole of Informed Comment has consistently been one of the more thoughtful commentators and analysts on the Middle East. Republicans on the far right dislike what he says because his analysis often doesn't not square with their preconceived notions. Cole does not appear to be pro-Arab or pro-Israeli or pro-Shiite or pro anything except pro facts as far as he is able to find those facts (though sometimes he can be blunt). Here's an excerpt of what he had to say yesterday about the Hezbollah leader Hasan Nasrallah:

[Ar.] Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hizbullah (Hezbollah), gave a televised speech on Sunday explaining his own strategy. He said in an eerily calm and calculating voice that he had aimed his rockets only at military targets, not at Israeli settlements "in Occupied northern Palestine" (i.e. Israel). In contrast, he said, the Israeli military had from the beginning targeted civilians. (In fact, Nasrallah's katyushas are impossible to aim with any precision and in loosing them on Israel, he inevitably killed and wounded civilians; likewise in Haifa. His opening statement is a self-serving lie.)

(snip)

He also denied that there were any Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Lebanon or that he had had Iranian help. He said people were always putting down the Arabs and saying they could not accomplish anything, but, he said, look at the Israeli warship in flames. That was an Arab accomplishment.

Uh, wouldn't an Arab accomplishment be more like, oh, inventing something or building up something nice? Destroying things and killing people is not an accomplishment.

I watched in horror as this maniacal speech unfolded in which Nasrallah actually threatened the Israelis with releasing chemical gas from local factories on civilians in Haifa. Despite fighting them for all those years, he clearly does not understand the Israelis' psyche or the trauma of the Holocaust. A threat like that. The Israelis don't like being caught in a quagmire any more than the next person, which is why Nasrallah could get them to leave southern Lebanon. But his victory appears to have given him megalomania, and he has now gone too far.

Israel is not without its faults and one could easily compile a list of mistakes Israel has made in the last thirty years. But Palestinians and the larger Arab world has made a number of repeated errors over the years as well and the one that seems to happen again and again is giving to much attention to megalomaniacs like Yasser Arafat and now apparently Nasrallah. An honest criticism of Arafat is that he knew how to fight but he did not know how to govern or how to keep the peace. Building peace in the Middle East would be an accomplishment and the major components of that accomplishment will have to come from within.