أرشيف موقع العهد الإخباري من 1999-2018
ارشيف من : 2005-2008
Jihad al-Binaa provides people in need with useful help
just
how profoundly it misunderstands the issues at hand. On Tuesday, the US Treasury announced sanctions against Jihad al-Binaa, a construction company affiliated with Hizbullah. On the surface the tactic means very little since Jihad al-Binaa is unlikely to hold substantial assets in the United States that can be frozen under the sanctions. As a gambit in the battle for hearts and minds that US President George W. Bush joined by declaring his intent to democratize the Middle East, however, Treasury’s move could not be more counter-productive.
In July 1993, an Israeli military onslaught in South Lebanon demolished or badly damaged more than 4,700 homes; Jihad al-Binaa restored virtually all of them. Three years later, the Israelis went on an even more destructive rampage that completely or partially destroyed about 7,000 residences; Jihad al-Binaa rebuilt or repaired 6,714. This past summer, Lebanon’s wrathful neighbor to the south lost all sense of proportion and damaged or destroyed at least 86,000 homes; Jihad al-Binaa sent some 1,000 engineers and 5,000 volunteers to conduct site surveys (although actual rebuilding has been delayed by the current political impasse in Beirut). Leaving aside questions of right and wrong, what can the Bush administration hope to achieve with an empty statement of hostility toward an organization that has done so much good for so many Lebanese who have suffered so much heartache because of so many bombs and shells supplied by the United States?
Is America ready to take care of all those made homeless by the munitions it has lavished on its troublesome ally? This is an important question to any US policymaker hoping to wean great swathes of Lebanon’s population off affection for and/or reliance on Hizbullah, and history is not encouraging about the answer. Successive US governments did absolutely nothing, for example, to end the 1978-2000 occupation of South Lebanon. And far from reining in the Israelis last summer, the current administration actually rushed them extra bombs – and provided them with diplomatic cover so they could extend a vicious offensive that accomplished no important military goals (unless one considers women and children legitimate targets).
The bottom line is that Jihad al-Binaa provides people in need with useful help. The United States arms the power that makes them needy, pressures the organization that wants to assist them, and provides riot gear to the security forces that are supposed to keep them silent.