A boil is coming to a head

I am posting from a dial-up location and cnnot put together a well-done post, but the message is too important to put off. (Of course the world is hanging on the edge of its seat to know what Hoots is about to say. But again I have to get this off my chest.)

David Hirst, writing at Saudi Debate says that a Sunni-Shiite unity is emerging from the current crisis. Unfortunately it is not the kind of unity that Christians think of when they yes the word ecumenical. It is, instead, a secular unity that can very well threaten not only the stability of non-Muslim societies and countries, but historically Muslim places as well.

This Nasrallah guy is rapidly emerging as a populist hero to millions of Muslims, not just Shiite but Sunni as well. At some level he knows exactly what he is doing and this trans-Muslim appeal is part of the plan. The big picture is that "kings and presidents" seem to be just talking when their constituents are expecting them to do more. Nasrallah is issuing from his bunker a call to arms and action that reaches the most distant corners of the Muslim world. Read the whole piece by David Hirst.

The longer Hizbullah holds out, the more blows it deals the awesome Israeli military machine, and the more the Hizbullah leader Hassan Nasrallah – described by one newspaper as 'the Arab and Muslim leader closest to the hearts of one and half billion Muslims' – will stir the Arab public against their paralytic kings and presidents. It was Sunni Muslims who demonstrated in the streets of Cairo, Amman, Damascus and elsewhere last week. It was Egypt's Sunni Muslim Brotherhood movement that gave voice to what Arab commentators – secular as well as Islamist – are everywhere, and more forcefully, saying: 'Hizbullah, with its modest capabilities, achieved what several Arab governments, with their organized state armies, did not – and contented themselves with silence about the slaughter of our Palestinian brethren.' From his bunker beneath the bombs, Nasrallah – composed, charismatic, brilliantly articulate – quietly suggested to the Umma – or 'Muslim nation' - that if their leaders were not up to their jobs, then their peoples could, like him, do the jobs in their place.