While the western backers of Israel are pointing accusatory fingers at Syria and Iran for these countries' alleged backing of the Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem said on Sunday that his country is ready for a regional war.
Of course, Syria's military strength is no match for Israel's, let alone history's mightiest military power, the US, which is providing its protégé with all the material and diplomatic assistance it can use to reoccupy parts of southern Lebanon. Yet in the longest war to date that the Arabs and Israel have fought, the Zionist state has failed to defeat a vastly outnumbered and outgunned adversary.
Meanwhile, the death and destruction caused by Israeli attacks on Lebanon, and the US's own unjust and immoral assaults on Muslim countries is deeply impacting public opinion in the Arab nations as well as the wider Muslim world. So frustrating is the situation for the region's people that even in a country like Kuwait, a member of parliament recently reacted to the Lebanese situation in these words: "It will make all of us terrorists." Western media persons have also been reporting seeing secular women in the forefront of pro-Hezbollah rallies in Beirut.
Pakistan, of course, has borne the brunt of US wars. It faces a fully blown insurgency in its tribal belt. So far, Madrassahs were known to play a major role in providing recruits for the Jehadi causes, but a recent incident points to the emergence of a disturbing new reality. According to reports a young man from Peshawar, the son of a retired non-commissioned army officer and a soldier himself, left his job to train as a suicide bomber. He went into Afghanistan and accompanied by another volunteer, slammed an explosives laden car, on July 22, into a Coalition vehicle, killing three Canadian soldiers and eight others in Qandahar.
Those who knew him say that he was a quiet young man who had no nexus with any religious or sectarian outfit, which makes his family wonder as to how he came into contact with the 'Jehadis'. Apparently, he had sought them out to avenge the atrocities that the US has been committing in Afghanistan and Iraq in the name of 'war on terror'. Its open support for Israel in the current conflict is further fuelling Muslim anger. Reports indicate that hundreds of volunteers in the northern areas are ready to join the Hezbollah in its struggle against the Zionist aggressors.
Our government, of course, is not going to allow them to proceed to a new battlefront against the US. But the Arab street is overflowing with pro-Hezbollah sentiments. For reasons of proximity it would be hard for Arab governments to prevent their volunteers from slipping into Lebanon, or from opening new fronts, in case the wanton US supported Israeli aggression in Lebanon continues.
With the US having achieved unprecedented military power and its inclination to use it too against weaker nations, it is no longer possible for governments to engage in a traditional war with it. Only non-state actors can take on the world's mightiest military power. They have proved it in Iraq and are proving now in Lebanon that it is possible to defeat the superpower through a determined and long drawn-out guerrilla warfare.
The Middle East has come a long way from 1967 when Israel vanquished the combined armies of Jordan, Syria, and Egypt. A highly motivated and well-trained group like Hezbollah can provide the nucleus for a new regional war and draw volunteers who see it fighting for Arab rights. The US and its allies may still think it is possible to impose the law of the jungle on the Muslim world. That law though goes against basic human instinct to fight for what is right and just.
Those leading this fight may be Islamists, but the causes they have taken up touch a chord among all those who have a strong sense of right and wrong, and wish to see the world become a civilised place. There is an imminent danger that the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict will draw volunteers from the Arab world and beyond, leading to unforeseen consequences for the region. Wisdom, therefore, demands that the US and the EU should stop promoting Israel's expansionist designs.
They can do good to themselves and provide security to Israel by creating a just peace. Israel can hope to live in peace with its neighbours only if it gives up its claims over other people's lands and honours UN Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 which require it to vacate all occupied Arab territories.
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