Last week, Sheikh Nasrallah came out with his first public statement supporting Bashar Assad. Now Syrian protesters are burning pictures of Hezbollah’s head honcho.
What the heck was Nasrallah thinking with a thumbs up to a regime whose latest outrage was the alleged torture and killing of Hamza Al-Khatib — a 13-year-old boy whose body was returned to family members horribly mutilated?
Tariq Alhomayed suggests that Nasrallah violated the cardinal rule: don’t believe everything you see on TV. In this case, we’re talking about Hezbollah’s very own Al-Manar TV:
Perhaps Nasrallah believes the official Syrian story, however this is inconceivable. Even if truly did believe the official story, this is no excuse, especially after he saw his picture being burnt by the Syrian protestors. Rather, Nasrallah should be advising the Syrian regime to change its official media discourse. The other possibility is that Nasrallah only watches the [Hezbollah affiliated] Al-Manar TV, in which case the Hezbollah leadership must use the remote control to change the channel, in the same manner that the Arab viewers have changed the channel since Hezbollah’s occupation of Beirut. The Hezbollah leadership should not be watching the Iranian [Arabic language] Al-Alam TV channel, for this means that nothing has changed, rather they should be watching respectable television channels, as well as reading newspapers, which would allow them to see the bigger picture, and help them to think.
Here’s footage of one group of Syrians torching Nasrallah’s photo. You won’t see this on Al-Manar.
