It was preposterous, scandalous, shameful to listen to these robed apparatchiks – most of them are paid, armed or otherwise supported by the West – shed their crocodile tears before a nation on its knees. The Egyptian Foreign Minister, Ahmed Aboul Gheit, had already said in Cairo that the Beirut meeting “is a clear message to the world to demonstrate Arab solidarity with the Lebanese people”. In the southern suburbs – where they do not take this nonsense seriously – Abbas was telling me of a female neighbour who had supported the rival Shia Amal movement until her house was destroyed by the Israelis. “She told us, ‘We are all Hizbollahi now’,” And I recall that less than three years ago, we – we Westerners, we brave believers in human rights – were saying that we were all New Yorkers now. ~Robert Fisk, The Independent

If anyone wanted to raise the status of Hizbullah and give it a new dose of political credibility with all Lebanese, I know of no better way than the way Israel has been proceeding over the last four weeks.