Word: syrians
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...help facilitate the Bush plan, says an Arab source, is to settle the fate of the territory known as Shebaa Farms, wedged between Lebanon and Syria and occupied by Israel since the 1967 war. Although the territory had been part of Syria at that time, both the Syrian and Lebanese governments insist it belongs to Lebanon (although the United Nations disagrees), and that gives Hizballah a pretext to continue bearing arms against Israel on the grounds it is trying to liberate occupied Lebanese land. Arab officials are suggesting that if the U.S. package deal were to return the Shebaa Farms...
...long ago, Berri's role as Hizballah's representative at the bargaining table would have been unthinkable. Amal and Hizballah were once rivals for authority among Lebanon's Shia - their militias fought each other during the Civil War - but the two pro-Syrian groups have become close ever since the end of Syria's occupation of Lebanon last year. The fight with Israel has brought them even closer...
...districts. In the kidnapping gambit, however, Hizballah's normally cautious leaders may have overreached. Some Lebanese political insiders speculate that either the group misjudged the probable Israeli response or Iran or Syria ordered Hizballah to deliberately provoke Israel. "They are a tool in the hands of the Syrian regime and for Iran's regional ambitions," says Walid Jumblatt, veteran leader of Lebanon's Druze community. Iran created Hizballah in 1982 in response to Israel's invasion of Lebanon that year. A Lebanese official told TIME that Iran recently doubled its cash infusions to Hizballah, to about $300 million a year...
...year and a half ago, Lebanon responded to a tragic political assassination with a show of people power so massive that it not only inspired advocates of democracy in the Middle East but eventually scared away the Syrian forces that had occupied and controlled the country for two decades. The Lebanese politician whose death conjured up the demonstrations was Rafic Hariri, the billionaire former Prime Minister, who had engineered the country's economic renaissance after a ferocious and debilitating civil war. Lebanon appeared poised to join the ranks of modern, democratizing states. Then the current war started. Rafic Hariri...
...moment, however, this newfound recognition of reality seems to have only one result: strengthening Syrians' support for Hizballah, whatever the consequences for Lebanon. I see posters of Nasrallah plastered on private cars and police motorcycles, and the yellow of the Hizballah flag darts across my vision wherever I look. The support is genuine - the average Syrian is much more passionate about the Palestinian cause than the most ardent Lebanese - as is the anger at Israel, and at the United States. But it is a targeted anger...