Despite being a bona fide resistance movement and a hero to many Arabs, Hizbullah suffered a bashing, writes Rasha Saad In the wake of the recent confrontation between Hizbullah and the Lebanese government pundits described Hizbullah as a state within a state. In 'Hizbullah: The end of a legend' Tariq Al-Homayed wrote in Asharq Al-Awsat that the legend of Hizbullah had ceased after it turned its weapons on Lebanon. "In the wake of [Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan] Nasrallah's speech and after declaring war on Siniora's government, Hizbullah has been exposed for what it truly is." Al-Homayed accused Hizbullah of being unconcerned with a balanced Lebanon and does not care much for a Lebanon for all Lebanese. He argued that what was happening in Lebanon today was evidence that Hizbullah must be disarmed and that the state must impose its authority over all Lebanon and should not be in the hands of either Nasrallah, Iran or Syria. "Lebanon must be a state administered by a cabinet, not from secret hideouts. Hizbullah's legend has most certainly ended. But the price of discovering the lie of Hassan Nasrallah and his party will be costly for Lebanon and the Lebanese and the Arab world as a whole. We are facing a new chapter that is as bad as the previous one, one in which the Lebanese citizen will pay a very heavy price. Therefore, those toying with Lebanon must pay a price that ensures an end to the era of violations against the country," Al-Homayed wrote. Also in Asharq Al-Awsat Mshari Al-Zaydi wrote that those who find reason to boast about Hizbullah's rockets and its challenging of the state should be concerned about the future and the repercussions following the raping of the state. Hizbullah's confrontations, according to Al-Zaydi, indicate that delving into Lebanese politics with all that it entails of concessions, understandings and amendments in the interest of the state and Lebanese society is not fundamentally or originally included in Hizbullah's politics or that of its political players in parliament. The only objective that commands the party, Al-Zaydi charges, is to protect the resistance. It is what the ideological basis and discourse are founded upon. "When resistance becomes associated with salvation and the notion of a coup d'état against society and state, it becomes against life rather than for the sake of life. "It is neither fair nor beneficial to cut off our noses with the knives of the resistance," Al-Zaydi wrote. In the London-based pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat Elias Harfoush compared Hizbullah's "victory" in 2000 and in 2008. In "A ' victory' the size of defeat" Harfoush wondered how great the difference was between May 2000 and May 2008. According to Harfoush, Hizbullah's victory over Israel during the former was a Lebanese victory that achieved the withdrawal of Israeli troops. He said the defeat of Israel then was accompanied by national consensus and near unanimous rallying around the resistance, as well as praise for the exceptional role it played in this liberation. Even those who opposed the resistance, for their own political reasons and sectarian fears, could find no shortcomings in its behaviour, whether during the battles for liberation or the celebrations of victory. May 2008 is a "victory" of another kind for Hizbullah, argues Harfoush. "One tainted with bitterness, because the districts taken over by Hizbullah in Beirut and elsewhere are inhabited by Lebanese citizens, and because the consensus of those who rallied around the party eight years ago is today being torn apart by sectarian and political strife, turning the resistance party into just another faction in an internal conflict." While most Arab pundits criticised Hizbullah, Jihad Al-Khazen in Al-Hayat accused both the government and the opposition of abusing the country. "I condemn both the government and the opposition. I accuse both sides of having made mistakes, and of having pushed the country into what may turn into a second civil war, while the wounds of the first have not yet healed." Al-Khazen criticised Al-Siniora's government for considering the communications network set up by Hizbullah illegal and a transgression against state security, and condemning the surveillance cameras on runway 17, reserved for private airplanes, in Beirut Airport. According to Al-Khazen, the issue of the network and that of the cameras have been known for a while, and in fact the government itself mentioned them in the past. To choose to take such decisions on the eve of an announced labour strike, Al-Khazen wrote, is as if the government wanted to give its opponents a pretext, or as if it wanted to escalate, believing it could win such a confrontation. The events of the last 24 hours have proven that the government has made a mistake. However, Al-Khazen adds, these events have shown that Hizbullah (and Amal) have made a bigger mistake than the government: the weapons in the hands of Hizbullah should remain pointed against Israel. "Assaulting the country's public utilities, and, more particularly, the outrageous assault against the government's media is a black spot on Hizbullah's record. Hassan Nasrallah will never be able, whatever the excuse, to remove the impression that he resorted to violence against a TV station and newspapers, as if he feared what they had to say, or as if to prove the point of the US and Israel that Hizbullah is a terrorist organisation that cannot be reasoned with. "I say Hizbullah is a national liberation movement, but I also say that as a normal citizen I am only and always against Israel," Al-Khazen wrote.
