Al-Jazeera reporter Faisal Al-Kassim posed the following question to his followers on Tweeter: According to the news, the US has warned Lebanon that Israel could launch a strike against the terrorist organization Hezbollah soon. If such an attack took place, which side would you support, Hezbollah or Israel?
With a total of 15,643 votes cast, 26% said they would support Hezbollah, while a whopping 74% would be squarely behind Israel.
Apparently, there is no love lost in Sunni circles for the Shiite movement, as the Arab League on Friday declared Hezbollah a “terrorist” group, only days after the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) adopted the same position. The Saturday vote came during an Arab League foreign ministers’ meeting at their Cairo headquarters.
Twenty out of 22 Arab League members supported the decision, with Lebanon and Iraq expressing “reservations” for obvious reasons: Lebanon because the Hassan Nasrallah led terrorists are in their midst in Beirut, and Iraq because it is currently governed by the pro-Iran Shiite majority.
The Arab League’s vote came one day after Nasrallah had accused Saudi Arabia of pressuring Lebanon to repress his group. “Saudi Arabia is angry with Hezbollah because it dares to say what only a few others dare to say against [the Saudi] royal family,” Nasrallah said on Thursday.
In late February, Saudi Arabia cut $4 billion in aid to Lebanon’s security forces, saying the money went to Hezbollah, which ended up using it against the Saudi-backed fighters in Syria. The Saudis and the Gulf States also urged their citizens to leave Lebanon, for fear of reprisals.
The US, Canada and Australia have listed Hezbollah as a “terrorist” group, while the EU has blacklisted its military wing.