This article was originally published in the Jordan Times and is republished with the author's permission.

Lebanese rescue workers search through the rubble for survivors after an Israeli air strike in the Shiyah district in south Beirut killed 31 people. (Raoul Kramer, Maan Images)

Thanks to the US' latest intervention in Lebanon, Hizbollah and Islamic Jihad are gaining ascendancy in the Arab world. The lesson learned from this latest Lebanese war is that the only thing that has a chance of working in the Middle East is the emergence of a powerful force, which will act as a deterrent to the United States' unconditional support of Israel's illegal and unjustified actions.

The Lebanese should incorporate Hizbollah fully into the Lebanese army as an elite force and continue to arm and train it. To the Arab and Muslim world, far from being a "terrorist" organisation, Hizbollah is now a symbol of Lebanese and Arab pride.

Imagine Lebanon now as a coliseum and the world as spectators in it. The US is the Roman emperor, surrounded by yes-men who will finally point their thumbs up or down. The gesture is pre-determined and the two opponents in the ring are vastly mismatched. The spectacle promises to be satisfyingly gory, though lacking in suspense.

As the gates open, Israel sprints into the arena and blankets the skies with its winged beasts. Approving nods are seen on the western side of the coliseum. Outraged jeers emanate from the other side. As warm-up exercises, the Israelis mow down Lebanese children.

Because of Israel's military strength and the backing of the emperor all bets are off, especially as the game is scheduled to last for only a few minutes. The object of the game is muddled, but various speculations from both the East and West generate an energetic buzz in the media. Attention is diverted from Israel's other power game in town, where it is simply lining up Palestinians against the wall and shooting them, having already built a wall and torn up and sectioned their land.

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This is how much of the Arab and Muslim world sees what's happening in Lebanon.

Then Hizbollah's men walk stealthily into the arena. Lo and behold, they are in possession of some effective weapons, of courage and resourcefulness. The emperor is surprised and bewildered, persisting in dismissing and undermining them as members of a "terrorist" organisation that must be eradicated for the good of Lebanon. He stubbornly sees no reason to deviate from his thinking even as the mayhem unfolds. Those on the eastern side of the coliseum sit up, incredulous and hopeful. The lopsided number of deaths and utter devastation in Lebanon mount.

The fact that Hizbollah is able to stand up to Israel's superior power (meaning they do not cave in after six days, as in the Arab ignominy of 1967), reverses a miserable decades-long series of humiliations. Furthermore, Hizbollah's relative success injects Arab rulers with a new sense of dignity — enough to make them belatedly speak up against the US-French Security Council draft resolution, which they know will inevitably drive Lebanon into another civil war, a price the US is willing to pay as in Iraq.

In the Middle East, it is the force of power that has prevailed, not that of human rights or justice. This philosophy of might is so persuasive that some Arab rulers have taken the diplomatic stance that armed resistance against Israel is either "adventurous" or irresponsible. They worry about its seeming futility and Israel's savage retaliations. Israel, in the meantime, continues steadily and successfully to implement its expansionist and colonial project in the occupied Palestinian territories unchecked. It has changed the map unilaterally and instigated increasingly desperate measures among Palestinians, the vast majority of whom live in miserable refugee camps in the occupied territories and surrounding countries, or in Israeli prisons. They are expatriate nationals prevented by Israel from visiting or residing in the Palestinian territories. They are besieged and isolated in East Jerusalem, Palestinian and Arab land that Israel has annexed outright.

The prevailing dynamic between Israel and the US on the one hand and Arab countries on the other is one of powerful and authoritarian adults dealing with backward, recalcitrant and warring children who understand nothing but the stick. There is also a wilful ignorance of (not to say prejudice against) Arab Islamic culture and heritage, a heritage that teaches that "a Muslim is strong and does not like to be humiliated by anyone or that anyone should act superior to him, and he does not like to be insulted, for he himself does not like to insult anyone. This is because Islam moves us as far away as possible from injustice and aggression." (This is from a children's book on the conquests of the Prophet Mohammad.)

The dynamic is also characterised by a false "moral superiority" that allows the US and Israel to make fake distinctions. Israel's massacres of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians are "mistakes" or "collateral damage" and its destruction of homes and lands are "defensive actions." But suicide bombings of Israeli civilians or Hizbollah missiles are "terrorist acts" equated with the terrorism that the US has suffered at the hands of Al Qaeda. Israel "arrests" Palestinian officials while Hizbollah or the Palestinians "kidnap" Israeli soldiers.

For Bush, it's all about good and evil. In a recent Arab cartoon, the artist dropped the last letter of "Alsharq" in the Arabic phrase that means "The New Middle East" (Alsharq Alawsat Alajadeed), thus changing it to mean "the new evil". The Arab public knows full well where the evil lies. Bush has the gall to talk about instilling goodness (democratic values) in the occupied Palestinian territories at the same moment that Israel is kidnapping elected Palestinian officials and placing them in solitary confinement. Dr Aziz Dweik, a former professor at AnNajah University, the minister of justice and speaker of the Palestinian Legislative Council, has just been moved to hospital after being captured and tortured by the Israelis. He joins thousands of Palestinians who have received the same treatment.

No matter what happens now (and the scenarios are depressingly familiar), the Arab world has had a little taste of poetic justice. Arab rulers who had caved in to Israeli might in the past are reassessing their strategies. Until Israel and the US understand the simple concept that Arabs do not like to be humiliated, they will continue to adopt the wrong policies and lose the hearts and minds of the Muslim world.