Hizbollah and Hamas Looking More And More The Heroes

Who champions the Palestinian and the Shia of Lebannon? It's Hamas and Hizbollah. Virtually all of the Arab leaders have been critical of both terrorist organizations, both born of past Israeli conflicts and growing in power and statue with each confrontation. Neither organization cares about casualties or war materials as much as they do as viewing themselves as central players in confrontation with Israel.
And both Israel and the US simply don't understand how they create their own enemies and ensure a new generation of recruits by martyring their members.
Newsweek

Yet the main target of Israel's war, Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah, remained cool, confident, apparently unperturbed. A few hours after the Israelis dropped 23 tons of explosives on a bunker where they thought he was holed up, Nasrallah appeared on Al-Jazeera television, smiling affably as he chatted with the network's Beirut correspondent. "The command structure of Hizbullah has not been harmed," he said. The militia "has managed to absorb the strikes," and it would still "offer some surprises." Indeed, Hizbullah rockets continued soaring into northern Israel; 30 landed in and around Haifa in a single day.


[...]The history of earlier drives into Lebanon shows that even as the Israeli war machine gains momentum, so do the chances of terrible accidents and atrocities. In 1982, under the protection of Israeli forces, Christian Lebanese militias carried out the now infamous massacre of hundreds of Palestinians in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps. Ten years ago, during a campaign against Hizbullah similar to the one now underway, Israeli gunners blasted a United Nations monitoring post at the South Lebanese town of Qana, where terrified locals had taken refuge. More than 100 civilians were killed in a barrage that lasted only a few ghastly seconds. International outrage quickly forced Israel to end its offensive.


[...]The problem is both dangerous and complex. When Nasrallah started his war, he claimed he was supporting the people of Gaza, who had been under siege since the June 25 kidnapping of an Israeli soldier by Hamas operatives. The Hizbullah leader makes no secret of his ambitions to speak not only for his Lebanese Shiite followers, but for the Palestinians as well—indeed, for Muslims all over the world. At the same time, Egypt, Jordan and others have been working behind the scenes to arrange an end to the Gaza fighting and the Israeli soldier's release, and they've done their best to keep Nasrallah from stealing any credit.


So far, however, he seems to be prospering no matter what happens. While moderate Arab governments have lined up against Hizbullah and its provocations, many of their people have been pouring into the streets to cheer for Nasrallah's war. Tehran is gloating over the way its client has held out against the Israeli onslaught—and crowing at the seeming contradictions of U.S. policy. "America has spent millions of dollars on satellite TV and radio programming trying to promote the Greater Middle East Plan and in 10 days Israel has destroyed all of that," says Mohamad Ali Mohtadi of Tehran's Center for Scientific Research and Middle East Strategic Studies. MORE