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| Syria-Lebanon-Iran |
| The head of Hezbollah has found someone he hates even more than Israelis |
| 2016-09-28 |
| [VOX] If there were any doubt as to just how toxic sectarian politics has become in the Middle East, the latest statement from the leader of the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia holy warrior group Hezbollah should clear things right up. Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of a group that has been fighting Israel for decades, declared on Tuesday that "Wahhabism is more evil than Israel," Leb’s Al Akhbar newspaper reported. Wahhabism is the ultra-fundamentalist strain of Sunni Islam that Soddy Arabia ...a kingdom taking up the bulk of the Arabian peninsula. Its primary economic activity involves exporting oil and soaking Islamic rubes on the annual hajj pilgrimage. The country supports a large number of princes in whatcha might call princely splendor. When the oil runs out the rest of the world is going to kick sand in the Soddy national face... ’s government promotes and that strongly influences the ideology of Sunni jihadist groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS. In other words, things have gotten so bad that Hezbollah, Israel’s mortal enemy, now considers Wahhabis -- that is, fellow Moslems -- to be worse than Israel. Bear in mind, this is coming from the same man who has described Israel as "a cancerous entity and the root of all the crises and wars" and pledged that Israel’s destiny "is manifested in our motto: 'Death to Israel.’" It’s also coming from a man at the helm of a group that has engaged in numerous conflicts with Israel, including a horrifically bloody all-out war in 2006 that resulted in the deaths of around 1,300 Lebanese, mostly civilians, and 165 Israelis, 121 of whom were soldiers. Israeli security officials say the group now has the capacity to batter their country with more than 1,000 rockets a day. But despite how it may seem, Nasrallah’s statement is not, at its base, a conflict about religion. Though there are certainly strong religious disagreements between Sunni and Shia -- and especially between extreme fundamentalist Sunnis and extreme fundamentalist Shia -- the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia has little to do with dogma. It’s actually about something far less exotic: power and influence. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #4 I thought they feared Evangelical Christians more than anything else. Oh well, they fall to #2 or #3. |
| Posted by: jvalentour 2016-09-28 11:49 |
| #3 Thanks LG, most of that new to me. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2016-09-28 08:43 |
| #2 "...the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia has little to do with dogma..." VOX describes its work as explanatory journalism but on this issue they are woefully ignorant of the sectarian history of the region. Until the 16th century Persia was Sunni but a ruler at the time converted the country to Shia by force. Saudi Arabia is a relatively modern country that was created out of the ruins of the Ottoman Empire but which has been predominantly Sunni the whole time (btw, Egypt was mostly Shia until the 13th century when it was converted to Sunnism by the sword). |
| Posted by: lord garth 2016-09-28 04:44 |
| #1 Don't say there is no progress. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2016-09-28 04:33 |