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Reading into Nassrallah’s Speech

Posted By Mustapha On May 8, 2008 @ 3:36 pm In News Analysis | 11 Comments

Some observations into Sayyed Hassan Nassrallah’s [1] speech.


Pointing the finger… (Photo credit: Reuters)

1- He was trying to pacify those I would call “wavering Sunnis”, impressionable Muslims — Lebanese or Arabs — who are not completely sold on the ideas of March 14 and still regard America as Lebanon’s #1 enemy.

2- He was targeting Mr. Walid Jumblat, a Druze, instead of Mr. Seniora, to attempt to avoid the Sunni backlash that scuttled his previous plans to topple the government. I think it’s a bit late for that.

3- He tried to evoke Hezbollah’s mythical image: “If we wanted to stage a coup, the entire government would wake up one day in Prison before they even realize it”. Of course, that’s not true, but it can be helpful for his supporters’ morale.

4- There was a high undertone of us-versus-them in his speech, and he never made an effort to defend his non-shia allies. That confirms the [2] theory that the Shiaas are headed in an isolationist direction.

5- (From Lebanese-forces.com) There was no mention whatsoever in Mr. Nassrallah’s speech of the airport’s container cameras which started this entire kerkfuffle.

Please send in your valuable thoughts so that I could add them to the list.


Article printed from The Beirut Spring, a Lebanese Blog: http://beirutspring.com/blog

URL to article: http://beirutspring.com/blog/2008/05/08/reading-into-nassrallahs-speech/

URLs in this post:
[1] speech: http://www.beirutbeltway.com/beirutbeltway/2008/05/nasrallah-i-wan.html
[2] theory: http://michaelyoungscolumns.blogspot.com/2008/05/heading-toward-lebanese-divorce.html