Galloway is also silent on Hizbullah’s desire to control events, allowing journalists to see what it wished them to see. He characterises the Lebanon conflict as the empowerment of the Arab world against Israel, yet he ignores the subtext of Arab nationalist against Islamist, and Sunni against Shia. Arafat’s Fatah, ironically, would have been happy with a more decisive Israeli performance in Lebanon, because it would have assisted it in its struggle against Hamas. Israel has many lessons to learn from this conflict, but one will be to construct quiet alliances with those opposed to Iran’s imperialist aims.
Dr Colin Shindler
SOAS, University of London