In the wake of the UN ceasefire, opinion polls and debates will show how deep and critical the political rifts are in Lebanon, reports Lucy Fielder from Beirut Afif Baddah bears no ill will towards those who doubt the victory declared by the man he calls simply "the Sayid" -- Hassan Nasrallah. "We're not going to turn against the people who supported us when we were homeless," said the taxi driver, returning to his temporary home in the Beiruti neighbourhood of Verdun after checking the damage to his southern Beirut flat. "There's bread and salt between us now," he said, a local saying that means sharing food creates a strong bond. Two days after the "cessation of hostilities" came into effect, it was unclear how many Lebanese shared Baddah's vision of unity. A majority of Lebanese believe a victory was won by Hizbullah's "resistance" against Israel, including almost all Shias, many Sunnis and the supporters of the country's most popular Christian leader, Michel Aoun. But questions are coming out into the open even as the smoke still rises from the rubble of the southern suburbs, which Israel bombed with unprecedented ferocity on Sunday in the apparent realisation that there would be no tomorrow for its destruction spree. Nasrallah, who has taken on the air of a head of state since the conflict with Israel broke out on 12 July, gave a typically dignified speech to mark the first day of calm on Monday and said his fighters had achieved a "strategic victory" against Israel. But he said it was a "big mistake" that people were already discussing Hizbullah's disarmament." We have exerted a great effort to prevent any reactions because what happened was insulting. I call on the people, the resistance supporters to pass over what they have heard." The first few days of the ceasefire were testimony to Lebanese resilience -- with thousands of the nearly one million displaced by the Israeli bombing braving unexploded Israeli ordnance to return to their homes in the south of the country or in Beirut's southern suburbs, and others going to take stock of the losses. The feeling of freedom after a month of avoiding roads, all unnecessary journeys and in some areas, all ventures into the open, was tempered by shock at the scale of the devastation. "There's nothing I wouldn't expect from Israel," says a woman who gives her name only as Fatima, returning to look for her home in the southern suburb of Bir Al-Abed for the first time, clutching her daughter's hand. "But all the television pictures couldn't prepare me for this destruction." Mountains of rubble offer up the detritus of ordinary life: bathtubs, balconies, toys and sofas, and rise from the dust- strewn roads every few buildings. Many still smoulder and relief workers and residents clamber over them looking for signs of life, some wearing masks to filter the acrid smoke and putrid stench. Lebanese flags and banners with "Made in USA" scrawled over them adorn some heaps of rubble. One sign on a flattened pile says: "New Middle East. Design: USA, Execution: Israel, Assistant: UN Security Council, Finance and Support: Major Arab Regimes." It's a theme that will refuse to go away in the coming months. Many feel the conflict laid bare, after a year of growing tensions, Lebanon's political players' loyalties to outside powers and in turn those powers' designs for Israel's tiny, but strategically placed, northern neighbour. "The Iranian-Syrian-Hizbullah-led camp sees itself fighting back against Israeli and American hegemony in the region, while the US, closely allied with Israel, for its part speaks openly about creating a 'new' Middle East of societies closely linked to Western values and interests," columnist Rami Khouri wrote in the Beirut-based Daily Star on Wednesday. Condoleezza Rice's suggestion that Lebanon was experiencing the "birth pangs of the new Middle East" was taken by many as proof of a wider US plan to mould the region to Israel's advantage, with Lebanon following other pro-Western Arab regimes. News that Washington had rushed more bombs to Israel to shore up a bombardment that had killed more than 1,000 Lebanese, according to the government, and the US decision not to call for a ceasefire, angered many Lebanese who would once have fallen into a pro-American camp. Whether the US can court them back again, or will even choose to try, remains to be seen. Those who suspected the pro-West and anti-Syrian parliamentary majority led by Saad Al-Hariri and Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora of serving US and by extension Israeli interests feel proven right. At the other end of the spectrum, Hizbullah's links to Iran and Syria are now being openly questioned, focussing on suggestions that Hizbullah's seizure of the soldiers was timed to deflect attention from the debate about Iran's nuclear weapons. "The timing is not entirely innocent," said Osama Safa, head of the Lebanese Centre for Policy Studies. He said Israel was already under pressure because of the seizure of one of its soldiers and Hizbullah knew it would hit back hard, though it probably miscalculated the magnitude. "And I think the Iranians will want to extend the use of their Hizbullah card until the end of the month," he said. Hizbullah sources say Iranian money for rebuilding the south has already started to flow and are optimistic that the budget will be vast, the buildings better than before. If Iran does fund the rebuilding of the devastated Shia regions, there seems little chance of reducing its influence or persuading people already furious with the US that they should not cultivate links to Iran because Washington tells them not to. "Completing the victory can come with reconstruction," Nasrallah said on Monday night, and promised the displaced rent for a year and money for furniture, while cautioning others against pushing the prices up to profit from misfortune. He promised rebuilding would start forthwith. "We cannot of course wait for the government and its heavy vehicles and machinery, because they could be a while," he said. Tensions between the Shias in particular and Lebanon's other sects have been growing for more than a year, as many Shias feared the anti-Syrian movement and its US and French supporters wanted to exchange Syria's dominance for subservience to the West and fell in behind Hizbullah's weapons to an unprecedented level. That Israel's bombs forced so many, mainly Shias, to rely on help from other sects and appeared to target them as a community in response to their broad backing for Hizbullah, while making sure the rest of the country suffered at least economically, seemed set to stir up sectarian tensions. Victory parades by youths on motorbikes or hanging out of car windows with Hizbullah flags around the centre of Beirut have met a stony response from many quarters. People have returned to work but the economic losses that experts estimate at $7 billion have knocked nearly everyone, and a naval blockade remains in force at the time of Al-Ahram Weekly going to press, causing fuel shortages and power cuts. Bashar Al-Assad's comments on Tuesday added fuel to the fire at a time when most Lebanese leaders, including Nasrallah, have tried not to inflame sectarian sentiments. As well as praising Hizbullah's victory, he accused what he called "Israel's supporters in Lebanon" -- a none-too-veiled reference to the "14 March" forces -- of wanting to sow discord by demanding his ally Hizbullah's disarmament. "Hizbullah wants gains commensurate with the success it feels it has gained on the battlefield. But the fact is that Lebanon has picked up the bill and Hizbullah is expected to ease the plight by cooperating with the government," Safa said. London-based Al-Hayat has reported that the Lebanese government, of which Hizbullah is a part, is hammering out a compromise deal to allow Hizbullah's weapons to remain hidden in the south. Timor Goksel, former spokesman for UNIFIL, said Hizbullah had been an increasingly pragmatic player on the Lebanese political stage for years. "What would be a real disaster is if the pressure got so bad that Hizbullah left the government and decided to go it alone," he said.
