Hezbollah rebuilds south Beirut

The high-profile campaign to rebuild south Beirut gives Hezbollah a political boost in its yearlong power struggle with Saniora’s government. Since the 34-day war between Hezbollah and Israel ended in summer 2006 — leaving swaths of south Beirut and many towns and villages in southern Lebanon in ruins from Israeli bombardment — the two sides have competed to show who can do the most for the Lebanese people.

“If this project succeeds, it will give credit to Hezbollah on a political as well as a popular level,” Adnan Sayyed Hussein, a professor of international relations at Beirut’s Lebanese University, said of the south Beirut reconstruction

BEIRUT, Lebanon – The Shiite Muslim militant group Hezbollah has launched a massive project to rebuild south Beirut, devastated in last year’s war with Israel — and it’s paying for much of the construction with international donor funds that were meant to strengthen its top rival, the Lebanese government.

Western-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora’s government has been distributing the funds as compensation to families whose homes were destroyed by Israeli bombardment so they can build anew.

But in south Beirut, long a Hezbollah stronghold, most of the families have promised to give their compensation — about $53,000 each — to the militant group to redevelop the devastated area in an ambitious plan likely to bolster Hezbollah’s standing.

Posted by Unite
"And this wind from below, that of rebellion and dignity, is not just an answer to the wind from above. It is not just an angry response. Rather, it carries with it not just a call for the destruction of an unjust and arbitrary system but a new proposal: the...