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Civil Unrest to Israel’s North and South

Anti-Hezbollah protests in Lebanon; anti-Mubarak ones in Egypt

by
Marc Tracy
January 25, 2011
Demonstrators in Cairo today.(Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)
Demonstrators in Cairo today.(Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images)

Despite the fact that the new prime minister of Lebanon, billionaire businessman Najib Mikati, is a Sunni Muslim, it is the Lebanese Sunnis out protesting his appointment in Beirut and northern Lebanon today. The reason, of course, is that Mikati is backed by Hezbollah, the radical Shiite group sponsored by Iran. (The Obama administration today threatened that control of Lebanon by Hezbollah—a State Department-acknowledged terrorist group—could affect bilateral relations.) Though Mikati is presenting himself as a neutral, consensus pick, Sunnis see him for the Hezbollah pawn that he, um, pretty much undoubtedly is. “If Iran wants to fight us then we have no choice but al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden,” said one angry Sunni Lebanese citizen. Gulp.

That’s Israel’s northern border. On its southern border, Egypt today is experiencing unprecedented pro-democratic protests against President Hosni Mubarak, whose “emergency rule” is in its fourth decade. The thousands who flooded a central Cairo square seem to have been inspired by Tunisia’s Jasmine Revolution, to which the United States just essentially lent its imprimatur. The New Yorker’s Website has a great dispatch, and contributing editor Jeff Goldberg posts the following video, with the headline: “This Is Not Something That Usually Happens in Egypt.” Indeed.

Marc Tracy is a staff writer at The New Republic, and was previously a staff writer at Tablet. He tweets @marcatracy.