‘A new civil war has been averted in Lebanon, and Israel and Syria are back at the negotiating table. But Hezbollah is stronger than ever, and its arsenal is brimming with weapons — partly because the United Nations monitoring program has failed,’ the SPIEGEL reports.
Anyone looking for traces of violence will quickly find them in the streets of Beirut. The worst of the potholes, barely more than three weeks old, are the handiwork of the Hezbollah “devils” and their enemies, says a frustrated driver in the city’s Bashura district. The militia fighters set fire to tires that burned for days, burning holes into the asphalt.
Farther south, in the Shiite neighborhood of Haret Hraik, the streets are in even worse condition, with gaping craters left over from the Israeli bombardment in the 2006 war. But billboards for the Waad construction company, which has close ties to Hezbollah, promise that the area will soon be transformed into a blossoming landscape of tree-lined streets and larger, more attractive buildings.
Hezbollah’s newly confident party leadership is even allowing foreign visitors into its bastion once again. Nevertheless, this has done nothing to change the fact that Haret Hraik is in a state of emergency. In the heart of the radical Islamic movement, the group’s own security forces continue to provide order. In fact, regular Lebanese police and soldiers have never been welcome in the Shiite neighborhood. And since the bloody fighting over control of Beirut three weeks ago, and the triumphant victory of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, this is now unlikely to change.
Hezbollah is now basically in charge of Lebanon. It can do whatever it wants to; it can get away with everything, while knowing that the Lebanese government is either nor willing or not able to take it on.
Hezbollah wins, humanity loses.
As usual.
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