Lebanon again

In the book of Genesis there is a story of how Jacob is tricked into marrying Leah rather than his true love, Rachal, and how later on he gets his own back on his father-in-law by some sort of jiggery-pokery with spotted sheep. Jacob (whose other name was Israel)had already tricked his brother Esau out of his birthright with a mess of pottage.

It appears that in the Middle East whatever side you are on a good trick is better regarded than the truth. I have spent some time over the past couple of days combing the internet trying to work my way through the propaganda coming from both sides in this nasty little war. As they say, in any war the first casualty is the truth.

In this post-modern age when absolutes are dead you just don't know who to believe. I take it for granted that The Independent and the Guardian have a left-wing bias ane The Mail and the Telegraph, a right wing bias. The BBC is consistently pro-Arab and Fox News pro-Israeli. Journalists are basically lazy, prefering to be fed slops rather than forage for the truth and most bloggers are doing it becuase they want to hear their point of view listened to.

So I was pleased to find this blog from a Lebanese Christian. Here is where he is coming from:

"The last civil war that ravaged my country taught me a very important lesson, and that is, no foreign country wishes any good for Lebanon. They all seek to complete their own agendas, at the expense of the Lebanese people, regardless of religion:

The Arabs (Gulf and Egypt): after two unsuccessful wars against Israel, in 1967 and 1973, found it easier to fight Israel using Lebanon as a proxy
The Palestinians: after seeking refuge in Lebanon, they used it to launch attacks against Israel
The Americans: they usually made sure Israel’s best interests were kept , and they also wanted to resist the spread of communism to the Middle East Region.
The Soviets mainly supported the Arab countries in their fight against Israel, as they saw it as an opportunity to export communism to the area.
The Israelis: even though they assisted the Christian militias in their fight against the Palestinians (PLO) from the mid seventies to the early eighties, they were doing so for their own benefits
The Syrians: many of them refuse to consider Lebanon as a free sovereign state and consider it a part of Syria. In 1976, they entered Lebanon as a peace keeping force and soon turned into an occupation force, an occupation that lasted to the year 2005.
The Iranians: after the Iranian revolution in the late seventies, they saw the Lebanese Shiites as a medium to expand their Islamic revolutionary ideologies and export them to the other countries"

With that degree of realism I feel that I can to some extent rely on what he says. His message is that although he hates what the Israelis are doing to his country, he lays the blame at Hizbollah. He gives witness to the fact that they really are sheltering behind the skirts of women as they fire their rockets from built up areas, but even worse hold the villagers there at gun point so that innocents bear the brunt of Israeli retalliation for propaganda purposes. Try reading his blog. I guess it will offend any Shiite Muslims who read this.