Recently I came across:

Hezbollah not to blame for war, reports show

which provides an alternate viewpoint of Hezbollah, some known (if not in mainstream media) and others quite new (at least to me). I hope to do a bit of additional fact-checking on the info, shortly. Here are some of the highlights:

• Israel routinely violates Lebanese airspace (source: UNIFIL)
• Hezbollah responds to such with anti-aircraft fire
• Capturing and using “hostages” has been employed by both sides in the past
• Hezbollah immediately after the capture of the soldiers called for an exchange
• 9000 Palestinians and others are held in Israeli jail today, without recourse
• This includes that oft-repeated category: women and children
• Only six of the 192 U.N member nations classify the Hezbollah a terrorist organisation
• Of course that six includes the usual suspects: Israel, U.S, Britan, Australia
• The Hezbollah arose as a response to the Israeli invasion and occupation of Lebanon (1982)
• Hezbollah has condemned the Sept 11 attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York
• They have also called the killing of Nicholas Berg in Iraq a “despicable act”
• Israel has carried out more bombings and assassinations than all terrorist groups in the world combined

Here is a segment of the page:

Brigadier Caliphi said the Hezbollah was well aware of Israel’s ability to respond forcefully if the rockets deployed in southern Lebanon were fired against Israel.

In an extraordinary admission he said any attack would bring havoc to the Lebanese civilian population, and in a reference to proportionality, he inferred any response would be one hundred times that inflicted.

‘If rockets fly over the north, it is better that 100 mothers in Beirut mourn than one mother in Haifa. The Hezbollah know that in such a case, we will take off our gloves and it does not want to be viewed as responsible for bringing disaster on Lebanon’s citizens,’ he said.

Then in an even more extraordinary admission, he threatened another, ‘Jenin.’

‘They saw that in Jenin we were willing to ravage a refugee camp in order to gain quiet, even if we did not use F-16 aircraft. They know the implications to their region,’ he said. The Brigadier General had no qualms about saying that any incursion by Hezbollah could result in an attack on the Lebanon government, and also said Syria could be a target.

And:

Last year, February 18, at the annual meeting of the annual Jerusalem meeting of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Israel’s then Deputy Prime Minister Ehud Olmert reportedly pounded the podium and passionately supported Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon.

‘Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon is a model which Israel would apply to Gaza and Samaria.’ he said. Olmert went on to say Hezbollah ‘terrorists’ now stationed in former Israeli army positions throughout Southern Lebanon had accumulated 15,000 missiles and mortars in Lebanon.

Continuing to pound on the podium, he said, ‘they have never, never, never used missiles against Israel on the northern border since Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in May, 2000.’ (It was later pointed out that 5 Katyusha rockets had been fired into northern Israel in the period to 2004, a declassified Israeli army document showed).

Juan Cole notes in a blog entry today that:

[...]
Ayman al Zawahiri today made a change in both policies. He wants al Qaeda to pile on in Gaza and to defend Hizbullah in Lebanon.
[...]

From Al Jazeera:

While western analysts are describing Hezbollah as merely an extension of Iran, and therefore "Shia interests," the people of Cairo and Amman, predominantly "Sunni cities" took to the streets carrying pictures of Hasan Nasrallah the Shia Arab leader, defying the "Sunni-Shia rift," described by Peretz.

Most western observers have conveniently ignored widespread Sunni support for Hezbollah throughout the Arab and Muslim world.

Consider also that Nasrullah has extended support to Sunni Palestine. As Juan Cole notes:

As usual, Israel is radicalizing the Muslim world. The US, too, will suffer.

[via Polling Report]

At first blush, a lot of the surveys regarding the Israeli attack on Lebanon are discouraging in that they reflect the effects of media propaganda, but if you look closer there is evidence that the public is not entirely buying the single side. Here are some polling results:

• 65% think the U.S should not support either side (USA/Gallup)
• 45% blame Israel a great or moderate aount (USA/Gallup)
• 43% (to 39%) want Israeli cease-fire (CNN)

Of course this is all co-existant (in the polls) with huge sympathy for Israel, and it probably looks like I am clutching at straws here.

Here is part 2 of the Guardian 3 part series on Israel and apartheid. You can click on the title of the article to view the original piece.

Guardian Unlimited | Brothers in arms – Israel’s secret pact with Pretoria

During the second world war the future South African prime minister John Vorster was interned as a Nazi sympathiser. Three decades later he was being feted in Jerusalem. In the second part of his remarkable special report, Chris McGreal investigates the clandestine alliance between Israel and the apartheid regime, cemented with the ultimate gift of friendship – A-bomb technology

Guardian (UK) is running a three part series on the criticism of Israeli treatment of Palestinians as apartheid, comparing the situation in Palestine/Israel with South Africa. The first part is linked to below. It is fairly meticulous and provides data, anecdotes and quotes to illuminate the issue.

As Noam Chomsky has pointed out multiple times, it is worthwhile to note that criticism of Israel within the country itself is well and alive (as it should be in any nation that claims to be a democracy) in contrast to the blind faith or apologism/defense of all Israeli action within the US, by the administrations and by many Jewish organizations, and even otherwise liberal Jews (multimedia). [Also see: Finkelstein's Beyond Chutzpah].

Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Worlds apart
[...]

Some Jewish South Africans and Israelis who lived with apartheid – including politicians, Holocaust survivors and men once condemned as terrorists – describe aspects of modern Israel as disturbingly reminiscent of the old South Africa. Some see the parallels in a matrix of discriminatory practices and controls, and what they describe as naked greed for land seized by the fledgling Israeli state from fleeing Arabs and later from the Palestinians for the ever expanding West Bank settlements. “Apartheid was an extension of the colonial project to dispossess people of their land,” said the Jewish South African cabinet minister and former ANC guerrilla, Ronnie Kasrils, on a visit to Jerusalem. “That is exactly what has happened in Israel and the occupied territories; the use of force and the law to take the land. That is what apartheid and Israel have in common.”

Others see the common ground in the scale of the suffering if not its causes. “If we take the magnitude of the injustice done to the Palestinians by the state of Israel, there is a basis for comparison with apartheid,” said the former Israeli ambassador to South Africa, Alon Liel. “If we take the magnitude of suffering, we are in the same league. Of course apartheid was a very different philosophy from what we do, most of which stems from security considerations. But from the point of view of outcome, we are in the same league.”

[...]