Hizballah Sends Mixed Message, Denying Haifa Bombing, Yet Continues Threats And Nazi-Like Symbols

Hizballah again denied Friday morning that it was responsible for the bombing of the Israeli port city of Haifa yesterday, yet the Islamic organization continues to threaten Israel often using Nazi-like symbols such as open-handed salutes and goose-stepping parades.

The mixed messages of denial and continued threats were part of the morning package of news programming and propaganda newsreels on Hizballah’s Al-Manar television station, which continues to broadcast despite Israeli airstrikes on Hizballah strongholds in Beirut.

The newsreels feature film of Hizballah putting a symbolic “bulls-eye” on various Israeli villages and towns, and then the footage shows Hizballah soldiers blowing up Israeli targets while placing Hizballah’s distinctive yellow flag in the ground.

Throughout the Hizballah broadcasts, the Israelis are called “the enemy” or “the Zionists,” but never Israel.

There is a sense that perhaps the Hizballah leadership of Sheikh Hassan Nasserallah, who has bragged about attacking Israel and kidnapping two of its soldiers from inside Israeli territory, may be feeling isolated inside Lebanon.

The Hizballah tv station has broadcast a great number of film interviews and montages showing archive footage of support for Nasserallah, who is apparently being criticized inside Lebanon for endangering innocent civilians.

“We are all with Sheikh Hassan and with Hizballah,” said a teenage boy interviewed on the Al-Manar tv station, in a broadcast late Friday morning.

Some Israeli analysts said they believed Hizballah was denying the bombing of Haifa as a way of forestalling more Israeli airstrikes on Hizballah headquarters in the crowded Shiite neighborhood of Dahiyye in southern Beirut.

The sense of the mixed message of threat and fear also appeared in the long staged press conference Wednesday of Sheikh Nasserallah in which the Hizballah leader sweated uncontrollably, patting himself continuously with a handkerchief, while other people in the room appeared to be cool and calm.

Meanwhile, the Hizballah tv station continues to feature prominently statements of support from Syrian President Hafez Assad and Iranian President Muhammad Ahmadinajad, leaders who have supplied ideological and logistical support to the terror organization.

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Dr. Michael Widlanski is a specialist in Arab politics and communication whose doctorate dealt with the Palestinian broadcast media. He is a former reporter, correspondent and editor, respectively, at The New York Times,The Cox Newspapers-Atlanta Constitution, and The Jerusalem Post. He has also served as a special advisor to Israeli delegations to peace talks in 1991-1992 and as Strategic Affairs Advisor to the Ministry of Public Security, editing secret PLO Archives captured in Jerusalem.