Well... why can't hezbollah return the favor and support the leftists. Why can't american leftists just their support to the Lebanese (and other west asian) leftist or liberal democratic groups, if they can be found. In the 1950s and 60s, Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq and other largely muslim countries in the region all had rising liberal and worker's parties and quite a bit of modernization - and islamism became the only remaining venue of popular resistance after Russia/the U.S./domestic right-wing groups absolutely suppressed these movements and installed puppets and dictatorships.
In California, Diane Feinstein argued for complete support of the Israeli undertaking at a rally, and the green candidate for governor, Todd Chretien, held a counterrally where he called Hezbollah a grassroots national resistance force. I was wondering why he felt he had to do this, when there are lots of secular liberals and progressives there who really could use international support, because they have very little of this (in contrast to Hezbollah which does receive foreign funding). Is it like he couldn't identify the name of any sister-green group over there? Does he need help with that? When Saddam Hussein fell, there were photos of people coming out with red flags, after surviving 20 years in the closet. Chretien sort of bugs me because he is from the ISO, and he seems to constantly pop up as a spokesperson for every new issue that comes up. Even though he has name recognition, it might be better if the greens had a more 'green' candidate rather than someone voicing the ISO position, because it could end up hurting their brand image. Even though I'm aware of his faults, I've always been a fan of Ralph nader. At a fundraiser after his 2004 bid, to pay off his debt, Nader was stuck in traffic so they pushed Chretien out on the stage.... and he can really monologue with ease for long periods. There were one or two SF Bay area genuine anti-jewish conservatives in the audience, who are well known because they are sort of a plague on antiwar marches, such as Joseph Webb. They serially join antiwar groups and disrupt them by insulting and challenging the patriotism of jewish participants, and spam email listservs with articles from American Conservative etc. and no one else really knows how to deal with them. So it is embarrassing to see them showing up for left antiwar candidates and causes.
http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2006/07/24/BAG6GK4AKO1.DTL http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2006/07/23/18290848.php
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