Hezbollah's friends
Bookworm remembers an interesting gathering in Beirut:
In September 2004, there was a huge gathering of anti—American, anti—Israeli organizations in Beirut to attend a conference entitled 'Where Next For The Global Anti—War And Anti—Globalization Movements? An International Strategy Meeting.' The resulting manifesto, simultaneously turgid and strident, has as its primary goal attacking the U.S. war in Iraq. It's secondary goal is to challenge Israel's 'occupation' of Palestinian lands. It's a nasty document, with a decidedly anti—American tone. What makes it interesting today is the identity of one of the organizations playing host to all these anti—American Leftist organizations: Hezbollah (identified on the last page as one of the Local Welcoming Committees). [emphasis added]
Guess who was there? One interesting group, in particular.
...one of the participants from the United States was a group called United for Peace and Justice. Ordinarily, this would just be one of the icky little anti—American groups that America produces, along the lines of Code Pink : Women for Peace (which also attended this little American and Israel hatefest). What distinguishes United for Peace and Justice is that Teresa Kerry funds it. So, in 2004, a couple of months before Americans decided whether to put John Kerry in the White House, his wife's money was being used to fund one of the participants in a virulently anti—American meeting held in Beirut and hosted by Hezbollah. Once again, we have reason to be grateful that American voters put their money on George Bush.
Hezbollah has a lot of friends on the left, most of whom are rather silent at the moment.