NYT: Hezbollah Leads Work to Rebuild, Gaining Stature

[DeepModem Mom]

Hezbollah Leads Work to Rebuild, Gaining Stature
By JOHN KIFNER
Published: August 16, 2006

BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 15 — As stunned Lebanese returned Tuesday over broken roads to shattered apartments in the south, it increasingly seemed that the beneficiary of the destruction was most likely to be Hezbollah.

A major reason — in addition to its hard-won reputation as the only Arab force that fought Israel to a standstill — is that it is already dominating the efforts to rebuild with a torrent of money from oil-rich Iran.

Nehme Y. Tohme, a member of Parliament from the anti-Syrian reform bloc and the country’s minister for the displaced, said he had been told by Hezbollah officials that when the shooting stopped, Iran would provide Hezbollah with an “unlimited budget” for reconstruction.

In his victory speech on Monday night, Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, offered money for “decent and suitable furniture” and a year’s rent on a house to any Lebanese who lost his home in the month-long war.

“Completing the victory,” he said, “can come with reconstruction.”...

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/16/world/middleeast/16hezbollah.html?hp&ex=1155787200&en=cff9f8a0eef01127&ei=5094&partner=homepage

[elliswyatt]

1. this war

is the best thing that ever could have happened to Hizbollah. I think in a year's time it will be hard to say they "lost," as Dubfuck insists. Hizbollah will end up helping the Lebanese people more than the US ever did, even though they are partly responsible for destroying Lebanon

[Blue_In_AK]

2. Well, THAT worked out well for Israel, didn't it?

:sarcasm:

[madrchsod]

3. boy, oh, boy ..everything bush touches turns to shit

amazing how these two stupid asses completely fucked over their respective citizens..

[rodeodance]

6. Hez.. was wrong to abduct soldiers, yet over the 30 days, they have

"won: in their region-and that is what counts.

.....Hezbollah’s reputation as an efficient grass-roots social service network — as opposed to the Lebanese government, regarded by many here as sleek men in suits doing well — was in evidence everywhere. Young men with walkie-talkies and clipboards were in the battered Shiite neighborhoods on the southern edge of Bint Jbail, taking notes on the extent of the damage.

“Hezbollah’s strength,” said Amal Saad-Ghorayeb, a professor at the Lebanese American University here, who has written extensively about the organization, in large part derives from “the gross vacuum left by the state.”

Hezbollah was not, she said, a state within a state, but rather “a state within a nonstate, actually.”

Sheik Nasrallah said in his speech that “the brothers in the towns

[David__77]

4. That's wonderful!

I'm glad that Hezbollah cares for the victims of the aggression.

[breakaleg]

5. They helped rebuild after Israel's last occupation and that's the reason

they had any support at all. This just cements their position in Lebanon.

As much as Israel and the US likes to call them terrorists, they do perform a service to the poorest sector of the population and their support will continue to build. It has had the opposite effect that Israel intended, but they should have known that.