By Barak Ravid
Reports Haaretz
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Turkey's PM Recep Tayyip Erdogan
“The eastern Mediterranean will no longer be a place where Israeli naval forces can freely exercise their bullying practices against civilian vessels,” a Turkish official was quoted as saying.
As part of the plan, the Turkish navy will increase its patrols in the eastern Mediterranean and pursue “a more aggressive strategy”.
Saturday, September 3 2011| +972blog
Six weeks after Israel’s largest social protest began, protesting the high cost of living in Israel, the J14 movement holds its ‘March of a Million’ protest tonight. The movement aims to bring a million Israelis across the country out into the streets. The protest is projected to be the largest ever in Israeli history, a culmination of the J14 movement, with 17 cities across the country holding demonstrations.
+972 Magazine is blogging the events live. Check here for updates throughout the night.
12:06 pm: Some incredible photos from the night from ActiveStills:
(Rome) Names like Hamas and Mujahideen and Islamic Jihad and Hezbollah that ring strange and scary to the Westerner’s ear and cited over and over in the news create sensations of tension and fear. Hezbollah is a familiar name, often linked to repetitive scenes of tightly knit military formations marching shoulder to shoulder over streets of the Arab world. The more curious observer should wonder who they really are.
As the Deputy Director of Ronald Reagan’s White House Task Force On Terrorism, Edward Peck once said, “The terrorist is in the eye of the beholder.” It depends on where and when the terrorist act occurs, on one’s point of view. Peck meant that what for the oppressed is resistance to naked power, for the oppressor smacks of terrorism. Nationalistic Hungarians in 1956 considered themselves freedom fighters; for their Soviet oppressors they were terrorists in a conspiracy against the New Order. When Israelis were fighting for the establishment of their state, their English oppressors considered them terrorists.
An Arab friend told me this: the best way to understand Hezbollah is to think of it first of all as a Shiite political party—the name means “Party of God.” In Arabic Hizb-allah. Hezbollah was founded in 1982 on the heels of the Iranian Revolution to lead a guerilla war against Israeli occupation of south Lebanon. When the Israeli troops abandoned Lebanon in 2000 after 22 years of occupation the entire Arab world considered it a great victory. Guns shot in the air to celebrate the first victory against Israel. PHOTO (Left) Remains of a semi-destroyed Hezbollah neighborhood in Lebanon, after Israeli strikes. Hezbollah has no air force, or tanks, of course. 
Hezbollah emerged as a Shiite resistance movement against the Israeli invasion of Lebanon twenty-five years ago. Fifteen thousand Lebanese died in that war. The victims were Shiites, the poorest people of Lebanon who constitute 40% of the population and the majority in the Iraq the U.S. is about to abandon, in a horrible state after being sacked, tortured and killed in seven years of war against it. Hezbollah became the protector of Lebanese Shiites. Even non-believers felt socially driven to collaborate, despite the party’s initial religious fervor.
Though Hezbollah perhaps gets some support for its military operations from Syria and Iran—just as Israel gets everything it needs from the USA—and though it does a job for Iran and Syria too, it is more and more autonomous. Long ago it ceased to be an Iranian-dominated and controlled militia.
Hezbollah rebutted that HRW is nothing but an American mouthpiece. Islamic organizations, groups and splinter groups are not only elusive; they often change sides. They are also at war with themselves, just as Al Queda is at war with the Arab world. To many Arabs the suggestion of a war between civilizations is laughable. Some Arabs consider that an idea of western quirks. Or American religious fanatics. Or journalists trying to make a name for themselves. Friends today, enemies tomorrow. It is hard to know who’s who among the Arab peoples. They forget themselves. You see it every day in Iraq. PHOTO (right) Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah’s charismatic leader, and a key figure in Mideast politics, is unknown to practically all Americans. Senior Editor GAITHER STEWART serves as The Greanville Post’s European Correspondent. His most recent novel is The Trojan Spy.
