I was very hesitant to comment on what happened recently in Egypt, where state security announced the arrest of a terrorist cell affiliated to the Lebanese Hezbollah movement. The cell was planning to carry out armed military operations and had managed to recruit dozens of people to its ranks. The cell is led by a young Lebanese national who is officially a member of Hezbollah.

To be honest, I was not too keen to take part in the campaign of attacks against Hezbollah, and it is clear that Hezbollah has become something of a punch-bag following its confrontation with Israel in the summer of 2006, due to its short-sighted actions and policies, which earned the movement the anger of various trends, and eliminated important popular gains that the party had secured over many years of work and struggle.

It is difficult to swallow Hezbollah and Nasrallah’s justification that they had entered Egypt to support the Palestinians because it raises a question that must be answered rationally and logically in order to explain what happened. Why did Hezbollah not enter Palestine through the Lebanese borders? There is yet another question that will not receive an answer but should nevertheless be asked and that is: why didn’t Hezbollah, with all of its weaponry and soldiers, help the Palestinians by crossing the Syrian border with the occupied Golan Heights? It is an innocent question for a crafty person to answer.

The Lebanese and Syrian borders are only meters away from Hezbollah’s bases in South Lebanon and Beqaa Valley, which are, logistically-speaking, closer and far more effective for transporting supplies rather than shipping all the military supplies to Sudan and then smuggling them into Egypt, all the way from Upper Egypt to the north of the country and then to the Sinai Peninsula to cross from Rafah to Gaza.

The odd relationship between Hezbollah and the Iranian regime is no secret. These two entities have become inseparable. If the Iranian regime’s main objective is to export its revolution, then Hezbollah has become Iran’s sole agent in the region and the party responsible for promoting it. Unfortunately, however, Iran’s revolution has gone bad and cannot be sold on to others.

Iranian violations are distressing and it is these violations that are diverting the world’s attention from the most extreme government that has ever been formed in the history of the hostile state of Israel. Everybody should be observing this government’s performance and be cautious of its direction, as it might cash in on the already-tense situation between the Iranian camp and the Arab camp to commit more violations.

Hezbollah has made a habit of violating state sovereignty in its own country and has come to believe that all Arab regimes are as fragile as the Lebanese government. As a result, Hezbollah has sought to take action in some Gulf States and now it is trying to do the same in Egypt, which brings to mind the bitterness that the Iranian revolution has always felt towards the Egyptian state. Ever since Khomeini’s rise to power, the Iranian regime has never been able to stomach Egypt. Iran has never forgiven late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat for taking in the Shah of Iran before the collapse of his regime. Iran gradually continued to increase its hostility towards Egypt on a number of levels. This was evident in reckless statements at times, and at other times it would be manifest in irresponsible film productions. The ultimate goal of all this is to destroy Egypt’s image.

This is the situation of the struggling political, resistance movement that has transformed slowly into a strange, incomprehensible entity guided by the whims of Iranian policy. Hezbollah is becoming more and more unpopular. Perhaps what is happening in Egypt affirms that Hezbollah’s political scandal has transformed into a major embarrassment.