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Many Lebanese Are Not Celebrating

[ Jerusalem Post] Nathan Cohen - Hizbullah's celebrations in Beirut do not reflect the majority of Lebanese popular opinion on the prisoner exchange with Israel, who see the event as a victory for the enemy, Tel Aviv University professor and Mideast expert Eyal Zisser said Thursday. For most Lebanese, the impact of any Hizbullah victory is negative. Hizbullah faced opposition from Sunni Muslims, Christians, Druze and other groups in Lebanon, Zisser noted. Why is there a need to celebrate the return of a terrorist known to have killed a child? Meir Litvak, a senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University, answered, "When you have an ideology that Zionism is the epitome of evil, when you dehumanize your enemy, you can justify anything. He didn't kill a child. He killed a Zionist." Moshe Maoz, a professor of Islamic and Middle Eastern studies at Hebrew University, said the need to defeat Israel was deeply entrenched in the Arab culture. "Anything they can recover from the feeling of humiliation [following past losses against Israel] is welcome," Maoz said.
2008-07-18 01:00:00
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