Published: 07.27.08, 12:45 / Israel News
A week has gone by since the implementation of the prisoner swap deal between Israel and Hizbullah, but the winds have not yet died down in Lebanon and the Middle East. Most of the Lebanese reactions commend Hassan Nasrallah and his organization, but a select few have uttered criticisms without reprieve.
One of those critical voices comes from Kuwait, a country that has despised Hizbullah ever since one of the organization's leaders, Imad Mugniyah, was involved in the abduction of a Kuwaiti plane in 1986, which killed two passengers.
Fouad al-Hashem, a columnist for the Kuwaiti daily Al-Watan, wrote that Lebanon should consider itself lucky to be blessed with a neighbor such as Israel, rather than Iraq, for example. "Samir Kuntar lived in Israeli prisons for 29 years," al-Hashem wrote.
"No one cut off his ears, tore out his fingernails, or raped him. He ate three meals a day, watched television, and read newspapers. He was even allowed to study at one of Israel's open universities, where he received an academic degree."
The columnist continued, "Pictures published following his release testify to his health. Now he can begin his new life by going to a restaurant, eating humus with pine nuts and meat, and smoking a hookah. He can even sip a glass of arrack and say, 'thank you, Israel' for being more humane than Saddam Hussein and his party of terror.
"Hizbullah and Kuntar's family should thank their maker for making Israel their neighbors rather than Hussein's Iraq. Otherwise, Kuntar would not have come back to his homeland on his feet, at a healthy weight of 90 kg, but rather in a little plastic bag containing a few bones, as our Kuwaiti prisoners returned to us."
Al-Hashem went on to say that despite the fact that the Kuwaiti prisoners were innocent, they were fed "pieces of bread as hard as rock" and "polluted water", and finally "led into the desert together, where they were murdered Nazi-style, and buried in mass graves without trial, law, attorneys, or involvement of the media."
Al-Hashem was not the only one critical of Nasrallah's accomplishment. Voices from within Lebanon also rose to the occasion. Al-Mustaqbal, a paper known for rivaling Hizbullah, challenged the organization's leader to answer for the 200 Lebanese prisoners that remained lost to Syria.
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