In the News

Those of you who picked up a copy of this morning's New York Times probably noticed the following top-right headline: "HEZBOLLAH'S ACTIONS IGNITE SECTARIAN FUSE IN LEBANON."

When I first read this (last night, online, actually), I thought, oh crap, what has happened now? But the piece tells us nothing new; rather, it merely attempts to make sense of last week's events and Lebanon's possible future. The Times' reporters are without a doubt top of the line journalists who consistently provide far more depth and breadth than just about any other news source in America, if not the world. The reporting in this article seems impeccable.

The problem I have is with the Times' analysis of the situation. I find it misguided and, itself, capable of "igniting" a certain "fuse" in the region. First, there is the immediate perception that Hezbollah and Hezbollah alone is to blame for Lebanon's current crisis. If the headline does not say enough, the article begins by describing how "militiamen loyal to Hezbollah had kidnapped [a Sunni man] at a checkpoint after killing his nephew right in front of him." It goes on to describe how the kidnappers tortured the man before finally releasing him. I don't doubt that a man was killed and his brother kidnapped and beaten. The Times does not make things up (Jayson Blair and Judith Miller notwithstanding). But this statement is deceptively misleading. The key words here are "militiamen loyal to Hezbollah." This could have been a number of different people. Hezbollah did not, by any stretch of the imagination, act alone during last week's West Beirut clashes. The Syrian Social Nationalist Party, Amal, and various individuals used their weapons to temporarily take control of West Beirut neighborhoods before handing over power to the military (likewise in the Chouf and in and around Tripoli). To lay this Hezbollah blanket over everything that was done by anyone allied to them is to over-simplify the conflict, distort the historical record, and unfairly blame Hezbollah for the actions of others. To be sure, it is just as misleading to completely divorce the actions of Hezbollah's allies from the group itself, as the parties were, to a great degree, acting in concert. But if Lebanon's history tells us anything, it is that alliances disintegrate as quickly as they form; and they can break up because of differences over methodology, among other factors.

(In a similar, but even more egregious, piece of journalism, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal falsely claimed that Hezbollah burned down the Future TV offices. When I wrote to him to tell him that I know people who saw with their own eyes not Hezbollah, but Syrian Social Nationalist Party, militiamen burn it down, he acknowledged that I was right. But he still hasn't changed his factually incorrect statement on the newspaper's website.)

Moreover, while those loyal to the March 14th governing coalition would most likely agree with the Times' assessment of who is to blame for last week's violence, many others would argue that it was the government's two unprecedented decisions that targeted Hezbollah, which ignited the fighting. I am not trying to suggest that one or the other interpretation is correct; but to definitively argue that Hezbollah is to blame for the crisis is a claim that belongs on the opinion page, not the front page.

Second, the article downplays the progress that has been made since last Thursday's official cessation of hostilities, when the government revoked its two decisions and all sides agreed to engage in diplomacy under the auspices of a Qatar-led Arab League. As I mentioned in a previous post, things are certainly not "back to normal," but they are at least moving (however slowly) in that direction rather than toward the opposite end of the spectrum, as they were last week. The talks currently underway in Doha, Qatar could, conceivably, lead to a power-sharing agreement, electoral reforms, and an end to Lebanon's 18 month-old political crisis. But the Times quickly dismisses such a possibility, offering only a single paragraph about the talks amidst its 17,000 word article:

Although the crisis eased Thursday after Arab diplomats brokered a deal to restart political talks among the factions, the questions that have crippled the government for 18 months remain unresolved. It is not yet clear that enough international consensus exists among the key powers involved in Lebanon — Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and the United States — for a durable power-sharing agreement.

The difficulty in achieving such an agreement should not be underestimated. But the Times' dismissal of the Doha talks erases the extraordinary attention nearly everyone in Lebanon is giving right now to them. There is cynicism, to be sure, but there is also hope (here, as well as even here) that the talks can at least advance the political parties toward a peaceful settlement. Further violence is not inevitable (although it certainly is possible).

The danger with the kind of analysis found in today's Times is that it further reproduces two myths about Lebanon. One, it suggests that this country is rife with (sectarian) violence and is destined for more violence. Two, the article begins to lend credence to the idea that an Israeli-led war with Hezbollah, in particular, is both inevitable and necessary. There is already the notion that Hezbollah is a threat to Israel. But if politicians and the press can paint a Gaza-esque impression where Hezbollah is also tormenting its own citizens by violently seizing power, there will be all the more political capital for an Israeli led and American sponsored military invasion.

In order to avoid such an attack, we don't need to support Hezbollah. But we do need to remind the US and Israeli governments that Hezbollah is not politically, socially, or geographically isolated from the rest of Lebanon. If the world did not learn this from the July 2006 war, when Israeli bombs ended up killing nearly 1,000 Lebanese civilians and more than two hundred Hezbollah fighters (and Hezbollah rockets killed 43 Israeli citizens and 115 soldiers), they especially need to learn it now.