When Hassan Nasrallah, the charismatic leader of Hezbollah, the Shiite political party and militia, gave a public speech in Beirut on Friday — something he rarely does these days for fear of assassination — he told his Arab audience to stay focused on resisting Israel. “We the Shiites of Ali bin Abi Taleb will not abandon Palestine,” he declared to the rapturous applause of several thousand supporters in a party stronghold in the southern suburb of the capital. Shiites consider Ali bin Abi Taleb, the cousin and son-in-law of the Prophet Muhammad, to be his rightful successor rather than Abu Bakr, who became Islam’s leader upon the Prophet’s death.
In central Beirut, whose residents tend to be more affluent and better educated, the reaction was different. Fewer people here buy Nasrallah’s line anymore since Hezbollah seems to have neglected Palestine in favor of the war on its eastern doorstep.
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