When Hezbollah guerillas abducted two Israeli soldiers from behind the demarcating blue line on that dreadful Wednesday 12th July 2006, the first reaction of the majority of the Lebanese is “where the heck are we going”…

In fact most of the country, after a year of gaining its independence from Syrian occupation was looking forward to the coming summer season…the 2005 summer had been sabotaged by a series of strategically positioned bomb blasts and killings of key Syrian opponents, so many looked forward to the coming season with great anticipation…many expats had finally decided to come back to their homeland after an absence that, for some, lasted for almost thirty odd years.

Add to this that there had been promises by Mr. Nasrallah himself that his militia would not undertake any action against Israel that might jeopardize the summer; the general feeling that reigned was “finally, Beirut is going to regain its place as the Paris of the East”. The estimated return from the tourism industry was in the region of two billion US Dollars. But all this was like counting the chicks before they hatched…

Israel’s retaliation to the abduction was as rapid as it was destructive.

Within 48 hours, they had neutralized Beirut International Airport, destroyed all the major bridges and isolated the south of Lebanon from the rest of the country…a major land, air and sea blockade completed the isolation of the country and the shelling continued: there were bombs from everywhere: from the air, from the sea and from the land…people could not escape.

Many Lebanese felt that this was not their war.

In fact, even though they resented the Israelis for their occupation of the South for a long period, they hated Hezbollah even more for taking the initiative to go to war without consulting with the rest of the country…they felt like they were taken hostage by a group of terrorists.

But, today, on the 16th day, most Lebanese feel trapped between two destructive entities that will not give up. And to make matters worse, no one dares to voice his opinion…for if you speak against Hezbollah, you are automatically labeled as an Israeli agent, and if you speak against the Israeli attacks, the world sees you as a supporter of the Islamic group.

What the whole world is not seeing is that there is this large section of the Lebanese population, from all religions and sects, that wants neither…they simply want to live in peace, be allowed to grow their kids like any one in the world, without having to worry when the next meal will be, or whether there will be enough baby formula in the supermarket to last them for the unknown duration of the conflict…

What the whole world does not see, is the even worse threat of civil war that hangs above the head of every Lebanese citizen should he decide to undertake any action from the interior of the country…at this point, tensions are very high between the major sects (Christian, Sunni and Druze) and the Shiites (composing sect of Hezbollah) despite the efforts of all the leading politicians and religious people to calm tempers down.

It must be noted that the country has been ravaged by civil war from 1975 to 1990, and many Lebanese, from all walks of life, were affected by this war…some still bear the psychological scars to this very day.

Add to this fact that the regular army, which was systematically weakened during Syrian occupation in order to strengthen the Party of God, is made up of a large majority of Shiites, any request by the government to disarm Hezbollah by force would lead to a split in the ranks, and ultimately to the dreaded civilian war. All this combines to put the government in a very weak position.

So, despite their disagreement and discontent with the Islamic party, many Lebanese citizens feel it is safer to stick to negotiations and talks, attempting to work out the issues in the most peaceful way possible.

The image of the hostage situation gone bad gets clearer day by day…the Lebanese people have been taken hostage by the Irano-Syrian militia and whoever that offered to rescue them, namely Israel, does not care about them as much as it cares for destroying the party and getting rid of the threat it poses on its own safety…

Some of the people have even succumbed to the Stockholm syndrome (The Stockholm Syndrome comes into play when a captive cannot escape and is isolated and threatened with death, but is shown token acts of kindness by the captor. It typically takes about three or four days for the psychological shift to take hold), and have come to accept Hezbollah as a legal entity.

Caught between the hammer and the anvil would be, alas, the best way to describe the whole situation…was it not said that when two elephants battle, it is the grass that suffers the most?