More from the Associated Press on Hezbollah
I had pointed out an earlier Associated Press article last Friday, where a claim of Hezbollah moderation was tacked on to the end of an otherwise irrelevant story by the Associated Press. Now the Associated Press has a long form piece about how Hezbollah’s moderation is set to win it the June Lebanese elections:
With quiet campaigning and moderate talk, Hezbollah is building its strength for Lebanon’s June 7 parliamentary elections – and the militant Shi’ite Muslim group and its allies stand a good chance of winning.
That could mean a stunning shake-up for one of the Middle East’s most volatile countries if the pro-U.S. government is replaced with a coalition dominated from behind the scenes by Hezbollah, the political movement and guerrilla group widely seen as the proxy of Iran and Syria in Lebanon.
Somehow in this two page story, they manage to leave off yesterday’s criticism of Hezbollah’s intimidation from U.N Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, which one would think would be relevant to a discussion of the upcoming election.
The AP does manage to work in the bit about The British recognition of Hezbollah’s Political wing, which occured way back in March, but fails to mention Hezbollah’s insistence that it doesn’t have a “political wing”, but that all decision are made by the same (terrorist) leadership.
Update: I wanted to add this bit of irony as well:
The moderate tone is in part because Hezbollah does not want to suffer the same fate as its Palestinian militant ally Hamas, which won legislative elections in 2006 but was boycotted by the West and crippled by an Israel-led closure of the Gaza Strip.
“There are pitfalls for winning or losing,” said Hezbollah expert Amal Saad-Ghorayeb. “They [Hezbollah] see the dangers of winning.”
Most of you will remember at the time, the numerous stories which were run about Hamas’ moderation just before and just after it’s election. The CNN story I linked there even includes the popular phrase, “military wing,” as if Hamas’ founding charter (presumably a “political” document) didn’t call for genocide against the Jews.