Looks like the mostly(?) Christian Maronites do not seem to like Hezbollah all too much. Interesting to follow their discussion, the ones in English that is.
http://www.bachirgemayel.org/forum/showthread.php?t=1146
Just another viewpoint to keep in mind.
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
Khekeshan, I don't think anybody is saying Hezbollah enjoys 100% support, which would mean that there are people who "oppose" Hezbollah.
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
It's not just about supporting Hezbollah, but the hatred towards Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and the Palestinians that surprised me. The Lebanese are very nationalistic it seems.
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
Lebanese have a lot of hatred and wounds from the Civil war that were not healed. Historically, Lebanon has a civil war, or at the very least extreme sectarian and ethnic tensions, every 3-4 decades.
Lebanese people never put the hate behind them. Instead they brush it under the bed in the name of national unity, only for it to re-emerge one or two generations later.
Like Iraq, it is nothing but a colonial hodge-podge of peoples whose natural state was never as a unified nation. Like Iraq, it was historically always just provinces of other countries.
Lebanon is a fake country. Until 1917 it was a part of the Ottoman province of Syria; with special status enforced by the West because of its predominantly Christian population. After 1917 it became a seperate administrative region that was expanded to include so much Muslim populated land that Christians formed only a small majority; which over time turned into a large minority.
As a nation, it is as utterly fake and unnatural as Iraq.
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
It's to be expected...it wasn't too long ago these groups were slaughtering each other...so long as the bombing is in Shia majority areas, the fact that fellow Lebanese are being bombed may take a back seat to sectarian divisions and a memory of the civil war.
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
Yes, but its sad to see such disunity and hatred. Reminds of Afghanistan and Pakistan to some extent.
This was particularly sad to read:
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
Time to revist these forums
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
The Shia's should just give the Maronites some slaps.
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
Another interesting fact I learned is that many of these Lebanese don't consider themselves as Arab but Phoenicians. That is why they are against the Palestinians and Pan Arabism.
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
Slaps would fix that problem.
Re: What some people from Lebanon are saying
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n16/glas01_.html
Hizbullah’s achievement, perhaps ironically for a religious party headed by men in turbans, is that it belongs to the modern age. It videotaped its ambushes of Israeli convoys for broadcast the same evening. It captured Israeli soldiers and made Israel give up hundreds of prisoners to get them back. It used stage-set cardboard boulders that blew up when Israeli patrols passed. It flew drones over Israel to take reconnaissance photographs – just as the Israelis did in Lebanon. It had a website that was short on traditional Arab bombast and long on facts. ** If Israelis had faced an enemy like Hizbullah in 1948, the outcome of its War of Independence might have been different. Israel, whose military respect Hizbullah, is well aware of this. **
Hizbullah’s unspectacular showing in the first post-Syrian parliamentary elections was largely due to changes in electoral law but may also be traced in part to its perceived pro-Syrian stance. ** Now, Israel has rescued Hizbullah and made its secretary-general, Hassan Nasrallah, not only the most popular man in Lebanon – but in the whole Arab world. An opinion poll commissioned by the Beirut Centre for Research and Information found that 80 per cent of Lebanese Christians supported Hizbullah; the figure for other communities was even higher. It was not insignificant that, when false reports came in that Hizbullah had sunk a second Israeli warship, the area that fired the loudest celebratory shots in the air was Ashrafieh, the heart of Christian East Beirut. Unlike in 1982, when it could rely on some of the Christian militias, Israel now has no friends in Lebanon.
It has bombed comprehensively, destroyed the country’s expensively restored infrastructure, laid siege to it and sent its troops back in. Israel still insists that it will destroy Hizbullah in a few weeks, although it did not manage to do so between 1982 and 2000 when it had thousands of troops on the ground and a local proxy force to help it. What is its secret weapon this time? **