Second Panamanian protest against Israeli invasion of Lebanon

Scenes from an antiwar protest

photos by Eric Jackson

On August 3 several hundred people, mainly from Panama's Lebanese community but also including Palestinians and members of several of this country's leftist groups gathered at the El Carmen Church parking lot and marched to the Banco General building, which houses the Israeli Embassy. Though the rhetoric was sometimes strident and various effigies were burned, the protest was peaceful.

By and large the protesters blamed the United States for supporting, or in some cases accused them of inciting, the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.

Here in Panama, Shiites represent substantially less of the Lebanese community than the 40 percent of Lebanon's population that they comprise. However, here as in Lebanon, Lebanese-Panamanian Shiites, Sunnis and Christians all joined in the protest against the Israeli actions. It seems that even Lebanese who fought against Hezbollah in the civil war and disagreed with them over Syria's role in their country are tending to blame Israel and the United States more than Hezbollah for the destruction that has rained down on their country, and that trend appears to be reflected among Lebanese-Panamanians as well.

In past political crises when Arab-Panamanian protesters have converged on Israeli diplomatic missions, there have usually been a few pro-Israeli counter-protesters. We didn't see any of them this time.

TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Waving colorful banners and singing protest songs, a tireless band of Israeli demonstrators is trying to end the war in Lebanon.

Few are taking notice.

"We understand we don't represent the consensus. Everyone is asleep," said Uri Even-Chen, 36, a computer programmer from the town of Ranana, during a weekend street march in Tel Aviv.

Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Israelis back the war against Hizbollah, sparked when the guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

The death, damage and panic caused by Hizbollah's rockets have only hardened attitudes -- more than 2,700 missiles have slammed into northern Israel, killing 48 people.

Those views have been reflected in the tiny street protests.

By contrast, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated at the height of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when the army sought to cripple Palestinian militants living there.

In one of the biggest rallies to date, around 2,000 people turned out in Tel Aviv at the weekend. Many carried communist and anarchist flags and banners belonging to Arab Israeli movements -- hardly the Israeli mainstream. Continued...