Hezbollah chief becomes Facebook star

SOURCE-DAWN.COM
BEIRUT: Love him or loathe him, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah has earned himself celebrity status — at least on Facebook, where a good 20 forums are dedicated to the Lebanese Shia militant leader.

Many are favourable to Nasrallah but others are extremely hostile to the controversial figure, whose organisation is claimed by Israel to have a stockpile of 40,000 rockets.

‘May God bless you Nasrallah,’ ‘Nasrallah deserves to burn in hell,’ ‘God is with you, oh symbol of dignity and the resistance,’ and ‘Nasrallah is a goddamned Nazi’ are just some of the comments posted on forums dedicated to the charismatic 49-year-old, who has headed Hezbollah since 1992.

He has not appeared in public for over a year and resides in an undisclosed location in Beirut but his visibility on the social networking site could hardly be higher.

The Facebook groups have titles ranging from ‘Fans of Hassan Nasrallah’ to ‘Support the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah,’ and they are loaded with fervent comments in English, French, Hebrew, and Arabic, many from subscribers identifying themselves as Lebanese or Israelis.

In July 2006, Israel launched a devastating 34-day war against Hezbollah after the militant group kidnapped Israeli soldiers Ehud Goldwasser and Eldad Regev in a cross-border raid. Three years on, the ‘July War’ remains a hot topic for the online forums.

A French-language forum entitled ‘For the elimination of Hassan Nasrallah,’ demands the Israeli government get rid of Nasrallah ‘to avenge the blood of Ehud and Eldad,’ whose remains Israel reclaimed in 2008 in a comprehensive prisoner swap with Hezbollah.

Visuals, too, send strong messages: some groups show a softer side of the Shia leader, posting pictures of the child Nasrallah smiling in a garden by a bowl of fruit, or carrying a little girl in his arms. Others display cartoons of Nasrallah dressed in a bikini, portrayed as a cockroach or at the centre of a target.

People are ‘free to express what they want’

Hezbollah maintains that people are ‘free to express what they want. If they want to express their love for Sayyed Nasrallah, the party will not forbid them to do that.’

The Lebanese themselves are divided on how they feel about Nasrallah.

For some Facebook members, the Hezbollah leader is ‘fighting to protect the fatherland against Americanisation, Zionism.

‘He is the cedar in our Lebanese flag, the master of all,’ reads one post, in a reference to the symbolic tree of Lebanon.

But on a forum called ‘Hezbollah out of Lebanon right now!’ members using screen names openly express their hostility towards the pro-Iranian group, which they say is ‘a major threat to Lebanon.’

Israelis, too, have much to say on Hezbollah, which is blacklisted as a terrorist group by the Jewish state and Washington though its political wing forms a bloc of 13 MPs in Lebanon’s 128-seat parliament following elections in June.

‘Take the advice: Kick Nasrallah out and you can have living standards like we have in Israel,’ writes one subscriber, who identifies himself as an Israeli soldier.

‘Look, before 2006, Lebanon was booming,’ writes Avi. ‘Your economy was good, many tourists came and so on. After 2006 Lebanon was wasteland because of Nasrallah.’

A rush of heated reactions flowed in moments after Avi’s post surfaced, accusing his country of having ‘destroyed Lebanon’ and slamming Israel as Lebanon’s ‘first enemy.’

‘Avi, shut up and find yourself a hole where you can hide! May God protect Nasrallah!’ writes Nihal.

The 34-day July War killed some 1,200 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 160 Israelis, mostly soldiers, and destroyed much of Lebanon’s major infrastructure.

ISRAEL AND US TRYING TO STOP RUSSIA FROM SELLIN S300 SAM TO IRAN

SOURCE ALJAZERA
As mutual fear, mistrust and polarisation increases between Iran and Israel, an arms race between the two sworn enemies is gathering momentum.

Central to this is the Russian-made S-300 missile system.

It is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft missile systems in the world today and air power experts say it represents a formidable defence against conventional aircraft.

In 2005, Iran sought to buy five batteries of the S-300 from Russia in a deal believed to be worth around $800 million.

The S-300 would significantly boost Iran's defence capability at a time when it is concerned about the US military's presence in neighbouring Iraq and Afghanistan and Israeli threats to target its nuclear facilities.

But the S-300 deal has yet to go through and Israel has been engaging in some diplomatic wrangling in an attempt to ensure that it does not.

In early June 2009, Avigdor Lieberman, Israel's Russian-speaking foreign minister, visited Moscow.

He was on a mission to convince Russia to put an end to its arms deals with Iran and Syria and, in particular, to halt the sale and delivery of Russia's S-300 missile system to Iran.

Lieberman had a bargaining chip: If Russia went ahead with the sale to Iran, Israel might continue to provide hi-tec weapons to neighbouring Georgia, which engaged Russia in a war last year.

Filmmaker Abdallah el-Binni investigates this high-stakes game of brinkmanship as it threatens to spread to other countries in the region.BELOW IS THE FOUR PART REPORT .

Israeli strike on Iran just a matter of time?

RT....Despite all diplomatic efforts the US has undertaken to dissuade Israel from striking Iranian nuclear facilities, the attack now seems virtually inevitable.
In light of Israel’s recent military preparations, it can only be a matter of when.
The recent visit of Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Jerusalem only proved Israel is determined to act, taking “no option” off the table regarding Iran’s nuclear program.


“This is our position. We mean it,” Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said, pointing out at the same time that the current priority should be diplomacy.
When it comes to the US mediating role, diplomats appear to have used up their tools.
“Mr. Obama has no new strategic thinking on Iran. He vaguely promises to offer the country the carrot of diplomacy – followed by an empty threat of sanctions down the road if Iran does not comply with US requests. This is precisely the European Union’s approach, which has failed for over six years,” American diplomat John Bolton, former US Ambassador to the UN, wrote in the aftermath of the meeting in The Wall Street Journal. “There is no reason Iran would suddenly now bow to Mr. Obama’s diplomatic efforts, especially after its embarrassing election in June.”
Calling the outcome of Gates’ visit to Israel “polite but inconclusive”, Bolton says, “It will be no surprise if Israel strikes by the year’s end.”
Indeed, recent actions from the Jewish state – including long-range air force maneuvers and the recent movement of Israeli warships and submarines through the Suez Canal – are eloquent enough.
As for Iran, it shows no sign of halting its nuclear ambitions. Rejecting calls to curb its uranium enrichment, it continues to insist the program is for legitimate energy needs. This makes Israel believe that, in just a few months, Tehran will produce enough uranium for a warhead. However, Western intelligence has put that capability several years away.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah has put up to 40,000 rockets on the Israeli-Lebanese border and is training its forces to use ground-to-ground missiles capable of hitting Tel Aviv, The Times reports.
“Hezbollah’s rearming is in the name of resistance against Israel. The real reason, however, probably has more to do with its ally Iran. If Israel carries out its threat to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, the main retaliation is likely to come from Hezbollah in Lebanon,” the British newspaper writes in its online edition.
However, Amos Harel from the Israeli online edition of Haaretz.com does not deem a military conflict with Lebanon possible under the current circumstances:
“It will be exceedingly difficult to rally international support for a Third Lebanon War, particularly if it were to erupt over surface-to-air missiles, which are already today deployed in Syria. And if a confrontation erupts between Israel and Iran, Israel is unlikely to ignite a secondary front that would divert resources from the main theater,” Harel believes.
Whether or not Tel Aviv considers the Lebanese option “it could be that Israel is indeed accelerating its preparations for a strike, out of a circumspect reading of the situation and a growing belief that Washington will not come to its aid,” concludes Amos Harel