On True Partnership

Nassrallah’s unilateral call for an open war with Israel ridicules the opposition’s cause célèbre of “true partnership.”

I want war and I don’t care what you think! (Yahoo!)

A little more than a year ago, pro-Syrian ministers abruptly quit the government. After that, hundreds of thousands of their supporters marched against the government of Mr. Seniora.

They set up camps in the middle of the city, suffocated commerce and destroyed the livelihoods of thousands of employees in that area. 

All this in the name of “true partnership”

The “true partnership” they seek by force is their ability to veto government decisions by getting more than a third of government seats. 

But the slogan also has political and mobilization uses. To the opposition, “true partnership” is a rallying cry. It’s the magic cause they use to hammer a sense of injustice and victimhood in their supporters. “All we want is true partnership” is a refrain designed to paint the loyalists in the ugly colors of selfishness and greed.

The majority has always retorted that they also wanted “real partnership”, that they also wanted a veto in matters of war and peace. Sayyed Nassrallah’s’ latest speech where he called for an open war against Israel gives them an excellent case in point.

One party cannot drag a country into a war that will harm everyone. To me, that sounds like the essence of “true partnership”