bint jbeil, lebanon -- Some would say Fatmeh Shaheen should know better. The 45-year-old psychologist is trained to recognize how a desperate mind might override its own sensibilities in search of solace.
But here she is, piling into this chapel-like building in southern Lebanon with hundreds of other Lebanese Shiites to pay homage to a miracle tree.
A dead, shellacked poplar trunk had somehow sprouted leaves after it was adorned with the names of 43 fighters for the Islamic militant group Hezbollah. They were killed in the war with Israel last year, a conflict that left hundreds of Lebanese dead and destroyed huge swaths of the country's Shiite Muslim heartland, perhaps setting the nation's most economically disadvantaged sect back even further.
"Can you have any doubts now?" the well-educated, trilingual professional asks as she stares, eyes aglitter, at the bright green leaves wiggling out of the dark brown tree trunk.
Hezbollah Secretary-General Sheik Hassan Nasrallah declared the war a "divine victory" for Lebanese guerrillas fighting against one of the most powerful armed forces in the Middle East. In the run-up to today's anniversary of the war's end, Hezbollah pulled out all the stops in reinforcing its version of history.
In mostly Shiite southern Beirut, a ruined district of the capital subjected to Israeli airstrikes last summer, Hezbollah has opened a museum called the House of the Spider to celebrate the "divine victory" and demonize Israeli armed forces.
It includes the re-creation of a Hezbollah guerrilla base, with mannequins in camouflage uniforms looking at maps of northern Israel and punching Israeli grid coordinates into laptop computers. Visitors navigate past the wreckage of Israeli tanks, captured Israeli walkie-talkies, a downed helicopter and bloodied boots.
A television screen loops a video game in which a Hezbollah fighter hunts down enemy armor. Footage of exploding Israeli tanks and crying Israeli soldiers plays inside a darkened theater.
Large photographs of President Bush, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert accompany embarrassing quotes. "Hassan Nasrallah won't forget the name of Amir Peretz," says the former Israeli defense minister, who was pushed out of his job largely for his handling of last summer's war.
And then there is the miracle tree. A Hezbollah official, who gives his name as Abu Mohammed, stands on a stage inside the building and tells the story of the tree as visitors walk in.
