Support for Hizbullah among the Lebanese is at an all time high, reports Lucy Fielder from Beirut Gaby Elias is proud of his daily sorties to the southern city of Sidon to bring displaced people to shelters in Beirut. "I see bombs, I see planes, and I am not scared," he says. He pulls a pendant from under his T-shirt and a cross beaten into the metal catches the light. "Jesus saves me. Do you know Jesus?" In this orange house in the Beirut area of Achrafieh, the headquarters of Christian leader Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, people clad in its trademark orange run around registering the displaced and handing out whatever supplies local donors or concerned Beirutis have brought in. If Israel hoped one by-product of its devastation of the Shia-dominated areas of Beirut and the south would be to stoke smoldering conflicts, as many here believe, there are few signs of success, for now at least. A segment of Lebanese opinion remains quietly against Hizbullah. But in response to the killing of more than 800 Lebanese civilians, at the time of writing, and displacement of approximately one million people -- nearly a quarter of Lebanon's population -- opinion has rallied. Despite the tendency of Hizbullah's critics to dismiss its support-base as a hard core of brainwashed Shias, the last couple of weeks have seen a clear emergence of majority support for the self- styled 'Islamic Resistance', in fractured Lebanon as well as across the Arab world. A poll by the Beirut Centre for Research and Information between 24 and 26 July found that 70 per cent of respondents, spread across Lebanon's main sects, supported Hizbullah's seizure of the soldiers on 12 July. Support for Hizbullah's current resistance against Israel rose to 87 per cent of the 800 respondents. For some, support is moral and political as well as humanitarian. Asked whether they back the resistance, two young FPM supporters and volunteers at the nearby Tabaris state school immediately say 'to the end'. Few would have believed a year ago that a majority of Maronite Christians would support Hizbullah's capture of two Israeli soldiers and subsequent fight against Israel, even while the West with which they are traditionally allied blames the Shia group for Lebanon's ruin. Aoun returned from 15 years' exile in Paris last year riding high on a wave of anti-Syrian sentiment and with close ties to the West. He advocated implementing UN Security Council Resolution 1559, which stipulates disarming Hizbullah and which Israel says it is out to enforce through military might. But instead of joining the so-called 14 March movement, the former army commander, who fought a ruinous campaign against the Syrians at the end of the civil war, aligned with Hizbullah to weaken the anti-Syrians and commandeer a majority of popular opinion. The alliance has stood the test of a brutal assault on the country and forged national unity more than any other factor apart from the Israeli bombing. Hizbullah came under growing domestic pressure to disarm after former Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri's assassination in February 2005 upped pressure on its Syrian backers. The Shia, traditionally disenfranchised and still unequally represented in Lebanon's denominational political system, bore the brunt of Israel's 22-year occupation of their southern heartland and were determined to retain the means for defence that few believe the conventional army can provide. They also suspected, "and they were not alone", that as Syria withdrew its troops from Lebanon under domestic and international pressure, the United States waited in the wings with plans to reshape Lebanon's political scene to benefit its ally Israel. With US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice describing Lebanon's agony as the "birth pangs" of a new Middle East, few now dismiss fears of US designs on Lebanon as a conspiracy theory. Political columnist for Al-Akhbar newspaper Ibrahim El-Amin says the minority who are against Hizbullah's resistance seem larger to the outside world than they are. "Because the media is with them, Hariri's media and (Christian channel) LBC as well as the American and Western media, they seem like a majority. But on the street they are small," he said. To the streets of Beirut, which have lost their frenetic chaos, some bustle has returned. Speeches by Hassan Nasrallah, Hizbullah's secretary-general, blare from passing cars and through the windows of darkened homes. In the deeply Sunni and pro-Hariri district of Tarika Jadideh, posters of Hariri the father and the son deck the streets and adorn balconies. But a group of young men playing cards on the pavement say there is no longer a contradiction between supporting their Zaim, leader of the 14 March anti-Syrian movement Saad Hariri, and backing Hizbullah. "We are all with the resistance now," says Ali Azzab, a Hariri supporter. "Our country is under attack. Who else are we going to side with, Israel?" The poll showed that most Sunnis, who are known to be the guardians of pan- Arab traditions in the country, have for the moment rallied behind Hizbullah because of its pan-Arab and anti-Israel stands. Sunnis are believed to form between 35-40 per cent of Lebanese population. Many may have fallen behind Hizbullah after catching a whiff of victory. Hassan Nasrallah's confident speeches and the resistance movement's success in inflicting losses on Israeli soldiers, so far repelling ground invasions and surviving Israel's hammering of their areas, have changed many people's perceptions despite the battering Lebanon has taken, says Samah Idriss, editor-in- chief of Al-Adab magazine and co- founder of a movement to boycott Israeli products. "If there is a sincere resistance that achieves victories, people will stand behind it," he says. "Okay, the Shia are principled backers of the resistance because this is their fate. But others want to see who is winning. It is natural." Idriss has collected the signatures of nearly 300 intellectuals from Lebanon, the Middle East and beyond who not only condemn Israel, but who actively embrace Hizbullah's fight against Israel. The statement was published in leading Lebanese papers As-Safir and An-Nahar this week. "The first reason for this declaration is to show the world that there are intellectuals, including Lebanese intellectuals, who support the resistance," Idriss says. "The second purpose is to let the resistance itself know that it is not isolated. In the first five or six days, before the resistance started to accumulate victories, most of the Lebanese were suspicious of the resistance, saying it was bad timing for the operation seizing the soldiers, that it gave a pretext to the Israelis to attack." Further evidence of the emergence of a united stand with Hizbullah came in a surprise letter published in As-Safir by two leaders of the Democratic Left -- a secularist party that has aligned itself firmly with the anti-Syrian (and sometimes pro-US) camp over the past year. Writer Elias Khoury and activist Ziad Majed acknowledged their differences with Hizbullah over the past year but said it was time to unite. "When the nation is subjected to aggression, the duty of nationalists is to defend it and to resist the occupation powers by various means," they wrote. Like Idriss, many secularists and leftists are strong supporters of the Islamic Resistance, despite its religious character. "The left, usually, is against oppression, against aggression. So can the left be against oppression and with Israel?" Amin says. Perhaps no one has gauged the change in mood more carefully than Nasrallah himself. In a powerful address on Saturday, Nasrallah made a conscious appeal for unity among the various groups in Lebanon. "This will be a victory for every Arab, Muslim, Christian and conscientious person on earth who stood against this aggression and defended Lebanon in words, deeds or support," he said.
