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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 09-Mar-05
Hundreds of thousands rally in Lebanon, morphing freedom movement to anti-Israeli protest

Web Log - March, 2005

Hundreds of thousands rally in Lebanon, morphing freedom movement to anti-Israeli protest

Hezbollah militia sponsors pro-Syrian rally dwarfing the previous opposition protests asking Syria to leave.

Last week, thousands or tens of thousands of Lebanese demonstrated peacefully to demand Syria's withdrawal from Lebanon after 30 years. These demonstrations have united America, France, and even several Arab governments in calling for Syria's withdrawal by May.

However, hundreds of thousands demonstrated in yesterday's pro-Syria rally. This significantly changes the picture.

Generational Dynamics focuses on the beliefs and actions of large masses of people, not on the words or deeds of any politician or group of politicians. That's why the two demonstrations, taken together, represent a major turning point in Middle Eastern politics.

Mideast, showing Israel/Palestine, Muslim countries, and Orthodox Christian countries

Mideast, showing Israel/Palestine, Muslim countries, and Orthodox Christian countries

To sort out what's going on, we have to understand the adjoining map.

Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and Turkey were formed after WW I from the remains of the (Muslim) Ottoman empire. Generational Dynamics predicts that countries fight new crisis wars in 70-90 year cycles, and these four countries have all had new crisis wars, including the Lebanon-Syrian war that began in 1976.

That means that all four of these countries are in generational "awakening" periods, which are times of political conflict. But as I've been saying for two years, a new civil war in Iraq is impossible, and now I'm saying that a new Lebanon-Syria war is almost impossible. What is likely is large, mostly non-violent public demonstrations, such as happened in America in the sixties.

So people who are talking about an "explosion of democracy" in these countries don't understand that the reason that countries are really seeing fairly standard awakening-type events. I just wish some of our politicians understood some of this.

The situation is complicated because adjoining countries are on different timelines. Israel, Gaza, the West Bank, Jordan and Saudia Arabia are all in generational crisis periods, in most cases because of the genocidal Arab-Jewish war of the late 1940s.

Generational Dynamics predicts that the 1940s genocidal war will be refought within the next few years, in a new Mideast war that will engulf the entire region. As with most Generational Dynamics predictions, we know the final destination, but we don't know what path we'll take to get there.

It's possible that the situation in Lebanon will simply simmer down. But if the political situation keeps escalating, then it will have consequences.

As we said last week, the withdrawal of Syria from Lebanon is going to leave a political vacuum that may well suck in some of the crisis-level conflict from next door.

This is not exactly a stretch. A lot of the car bombing and other insurgency in Iraq is directly related to the war-ready Palestinian terrorists in Jordan.

Today's overwhelming public response to Hezbollah's call for support for Syria shows that the vacuum we discussed is going to be filled by Hezbollah, resulting in significant changes for the region.

Hezbollah is a Shi'ite militia organization funded by Syria and Iran. Hezbollah Secretary-General Sayid Hassan Nasrallah has openly stated his belief in using suicide bombings against Israel. Nasrallah and Hezbollah became greatly respected in 2000 in the Arab world when their use of suicide attacks forced Israel to withdraw its forces unilaterally from southern Lebanon in May 2000. Nasrallah himself claims that this was a major victory against "the Zionists," has also said that he can use suicide attacks to force Israel to leave the entire region.

Hezbollah's power and influence may expand considerably now, if Syria withdraws from Lebanon. The unexpectedly massive turnout yesterday can only be addictive Nasrallah, and lead him to believe that he can succeed in his program against Israel.

Thus, we don't know the scenario that's going to lead us to a new Mideast war, but it may well be Hezbollah is going to play a much larger part than it has before. (09-Mar-05) Permanent Link
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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 09-Mar-05 Hundreds of thousands rally in Lebanon, morphing freedom movement to anti-Israeli protest

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Generational Dynamics Web Log for 09-Mar-05
Hundreds of thousands rally in Lebanon, morphing freedom movement to anti-Israeli protest