RAMALLAH: By offering tough resistance to the Israeli army in south Lebanon, Hezbollah has strengthened those favouring the armed Palestinian struggle to the detriment of those supporting negotiations with the Jewish state, analysts say.
Just like most Arabs, a vast majority of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip see Hezbollah’s charismatic leader Seyyed Hassan Nasrallah as the great victor of the month-long war in south Lebanon.
“What happened in Lebanon has strengthened the belief among Arab people that resistance is more effective than negotiations with Israel,” said Ghassan al-Khatib, a former minister and political commentator.
Hezbollah was already an inspiration for Palestinian armed movements after its attacks forced Israel to retreat from south Lebanon in 2000 after 18 years of occupation, he pointed out.
“The outcome of the war in Lebanon and Hezbollah’s pugnacity have weakened the Arab current that favours negotiations and given a boost to the resistance,” Khatib explained.
“In my opinion, the outcome of this war has left no chance to negotiations the way they have been conducted in the past,” he added.
Former independent Palestinian MP Azmi Shuaibi argued that Hezbollah’s success in foiling Israeli military plans “would have a positive impact on the ideology of Palestinian resistance.”
“What Hezbollah has achieved has also exposed the mistakes of the Palestinian resistance and this will lead the Palestinians to examine means of strengthening it,” he told AFP.
Ali Jerbawi, a political analyst and the Dean of Bir Zeit University’s Law Faculty, said many Palestinians “observed Hezbollah’s resistance with a dose of nostalgia.”
Palestinian President Mahmud Abbas, who has the backing of the West, supports the principle of peace negotiations and has been criticised by the more radical groups, including the governing Islamist movement Hamas.
He nevertheless admitted that the technology gap was huge between Hezbollah and Palestinian armed groups, that carry out their attacks against Israel mainly with suicide bombers and homemade rockets.
Jarbawi also argued that the ideology of resistance is all the more popular because years of peace negotiations with Israel have failed to yield tangible results.
“All these years of negotiations have produced nothing, neither for the Palestinians nor for the Arabs,” he said.
The month-long fighting in Lebanon, which left more than 1,000 Lebanese and 160 Israelis dead, stole the spotlight from another deadly offensive in the Gaza Strip.
Israel launched a punishing assault on the Palestinian territory following the June 25 capture of an Israeli soldier by three Gaza militant groups, including the armed wing of Hamas.
Hamas official Mahmud al-Ramahi argued that the defeat Israel suffered at the hands of Hezbollah in south Lebanon could force Israel to revise its opposition to a prisoner exchange. Israel “is now ready to negotiate in the case of the captured soldier because its defeat in Lebanon has forced it to admit that it cannot obtain his release through violence,” he said.—AFP