John Howard under attack

joffa corfe · PREMIERS 2010 Joined: 13 Nov 2003

Was sickening to see John Howard being attacked by Lebanese Australians yesterday i think in Perth although not sure on that one.

I dont really understand what the latest conflict in the middle east is all about, fighting to them is like us having breakfast every day.
But i want to try and understand one thing and im hoping someone can set me straight.
Hezbolah hope i've spelt that right have been operating out of southern Lebanon for quite some time the Lebanese people would have known this, well the point im making is we all know hezbolah is a dirt scumbag terrorist organisation why havnt we seen world wide protest by the Lebanese people in denouncing this terroroist group ?.... well before they kidnapped the israel soldiers and also why did not the lebanese governement try and do something about having this terrorist organisation operate within it's borders ?
The world knows you dont stuff around with israel they will make you pay tenfold...so to these people attacking our PM where were you say two months ago knowing that Hezbolah a terrorist group was operating in your country!!

Pa Marmo · Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 10:59 am

Very good point Joffa. They have not siad anything because deep down inside they all want Israel gone.

Magpie 24 · Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:45 am

Congratulations on your elevation to moderator, Tess.

sherrife · Posted: Sun Jul 30, 2006 11:46 am

Joffa to give a quick and simple response to your question. If you don't care about all of the detail, you can read the first and last paragaphs and get a general gist.

You need to know two contextual facts regarding Lebanon and HA before i can explain anything:

1. Hezballah as an organisation is made up of quite a few 'wings' eg. the political party, the paramilitia, the welfare-givers, etc. Now the important thing is that almost everyone in HA belongs to a sect called Shiite Islam. This sect is the biggest group in Lebanon; about 40% of the total population (3.2 million people).

2. The Lebanese parliament has rules which force it to place (not sure of the exact positions but something like this) a Christian Maronite as President, a Sunni as Prime Minister, etc etc. It's pretty obvious that such sectarian rules make it pretty hard to form a convincing government, especially when religious tensions were so near to the surface only 20 years ago. Anyway as you might have heard, last year after the assasination of Hariri (the president of Lebanon) huge support for anti-Syrian polititians meant that an anti-syrian (only in the sense of Syrian forces in Lebanon) coalition was formed, that actually includes some Shiites and maybe even some HA people (can't recall atm)

Now, the reason that is important is that most of the armed forces in Lebanon are actually made up by Shiite Muslims... So you can imagine if you sent an essentially Shiite army to disband a Shiite resistance/terrorist group it would be VERY likely that they would either side with HA or ignore the order completely. Either of these two scenarios would basically spell the end of the weak coalition that is currently in power, and Lebanon would return to basically what is anarchy. In this situation HA would be free to act as it wished against Israel... so for Lebanon to have attempted to disarm HA without international support would have been completely counterproductive and ineffective.