It was not Egyptian or Arab troops that forced on Israel its decision to pull out of southern Lebanon by July; nor was it they who killed seven Israeli soldiers in a fortnight during the recent clashes between Hizbullah fighters and the Israeli military that led to Tel Aviv's humiliating decision to put its population in northern Israel in shelters: a precaution against expected attacks by the Islamic resistance. Yet it was president Husni Mubarak of Egypt who claimed the credit for siding with Lebanon against Israeli aggression on the basis of a belated visit he paid to Beirut on February 17.

Mubarak's "sudden and unexpected" decision - as almost all media reports described it - to visit a fellow Arab country for the first time in years came after Hizbullah had been widely (and rightly) praised for giving the Israeli generals a bloody nose. Even officials of Unifil, the longstanding UN monitoring operation in southern Lebanon, joined the chorus of praise. One Unifil official, for example, told the London Guardian on February 11: "I can't say they [Hizbullah] ... have a complete upper hand on the ground, but when they really put their mind to it they achieve what they want." Another Unifil official told the Guardian that Hizbullah would continue to concentrate exclusively on military targets, adding that this was a smart thing to do and that Hizbullah has been showing "amazing political maturity".

In the western and Muslim press, Hizbullah was also credited with victory, while Israel was seen as having been humiliated. The London Economist commented on the events of February 12 as follows: "Israelis on their side of the border either had fled south or were packed in and around shelters for fear of retaliatory rockets. This in itself was a success for Hizbullah and an intensification of the pressures on Mr Barak."

Ehud Barak, the Israeli prime minister, finding the pressure unbearable after Hizbullah had killed five Israeli soldiers, bombed Lebanese electrical installations on February 7, cutting off power to Tripoli, Baalbek and parts of Beirut, and causing damage to the tune of $40 million which Lebanese officials say will take a year to report. Barak, who had calculated that the bombing would warn Syria and Lebanon to control the Islamic resistance, was disappointed when Hizbullah launched a rocket-attack the following day (February 8) on a heavily defended Israeli position, killing a sixth Israeli soldier. The Hizbullah mujahideen have only recently replaced their obsolescent Russian-made Sagger anti-tank missiles with American-made ones. According to another Unifil official also quoted in the Guardian, "they sure know how to handle them."

This singular victory, achieved by the Islamic resistance and praised widely by friend and foe alike, is a clear though indirect humiliation for Arab governments and organisations that stood by doing nothing while Israeli aircraft bombed Lebanon. Some, like the Egyptian government, were content to act as errand-boys for Uncle Sam and Israel, exerting pressure on the Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese to settle their disputes with Tel Aviv on Tel Aviv's terms.

The only action that Cairo was prepared to take after the Israeli bombing of Lebanese property and equipment was to call on the US ambassador and express his concern about what the attack would do to the Middle East 'peace-process'. The Egyptian foreign minister would not even consider pulling in the Israeli ambassador and lodging a protest against the bombing, let alone suspending diplomatic relations with the aggressor.

In fact the Israelis were so confident that Egypt would not complain that Barak took the liberty of issuing a threat to bomb Lebanon during a press-conference with Mubarak in Cairo - a singular diplomatic affront that no self-respecting head of state could accept without a strong protest and appropriate apology. Egyptian officials used the feeble excuse that the threat had been issued in Hebrew.

Mubarak's sudden appearance in Beirut, ten days after the bombing, to express solidarity with Lebanon against Israeli aggression, had more to do with the embarrassment caused by Cairo's silence and Mubarak's envy of the praise heaped on Hizbullah than with his desire to side with Lebanon. After all, Mubarak visited Beirut after neither Israel's invasion in 1982 nor the Qana massacre (April 1986), when Israeli bombers killed more than 100 civilians.

Mubarak, effectively an agent of the US, must have cleared his visit with Washington and Tel Aviv, which would both rather have him seen as a champion of Arab causes than of an Islamic group such as Hizbullah. With Arab dictators and western governments cooperating to suppress Islamic movements in the Middle East, the spectacle of a resurgent and victorious Hizbullah is inconvenient, to say the least.

Mubarak was quick to assure them that he had not become a revolutionary overnight by visiting Beirut. While at a press-conference there, he was asked whether he would go as far as to sever diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv if it continued to bomb southern Lebanon. He wasted no time in answering that that was out of the question, as such a step would be an "inappropriate over-reaction". Mubarak said that maintaining diplomatic relations would enable him to put pressure on Israel without going through the US.

The Egyptian president appeared in Beirut to steal the Hizbullah mujahideen's clothes and credit, but only succeeded in showing up his own utter nakedness and bankruptcy.

Muslimedia: March 1-15, 2000

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