Polls are a controversial way to assess the public's mood. Polls during wartime are even more problematic. So we must gingerly absorb the implications of the poll conducted this week among a national sample of Lebanese citizens, by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, to assess attitudes toward Hizbullah, the US and the Lebanese government. Stressful conditions no doubt generate skewed and dramatic results. Some of the poll's findings - e.g., that 80 percent of Christians support Hizbullah's ongoing resistance against Israel, and that 89 percent of all Lebanese believe the US has not reacted positively to Lebanon and is not a fair mediator in this conflict - will be questioned as distorted by wartime angst. Fair enough. When the fighting stops and we revert to political contests inside Lebanon and around the region, some of these sentiments will revert to their normal proportions. Nevertheless we should consider important lessons that can be gleaned from the trends in the polling data. One is that Lebanon sinks or swims according to its ability to foster national unity, and the capacity of its citizens to work together in the interests of their collective sovereignty, security and well-being. Higher support for Hizbullah across the board while Lebanon is under Israeli attack suggests that a similar rallying around the common good can be achieved in times of peace, if political leaders stop putting their narrow sectarian interests before all else.
Another lesson is that we must be vigilant in how we engage foreign powers that we want to assist us in our legitimate national aims. Growing disappointment in the United States for supporting Israel's attacks against Lebanon, so soon after Washington trumpeted Lebanon as a beacon of American-aided democracy and freedom, suggests to all that foreign friends in the Middle East are often fickle friends.
We are reminded again about what brings us together, and what sends us scattering to separate fates. We need to learn these lessons well. A time will come soon when political reconciliations will stare us in the face, and we will have to respond more effectively than we have done in the last quarter-century.
