Compare and Contrast

This video at the Washington Post is very instructive. The video starts out showing a Southern Lebanese refugee family walking to a relief point manned by a local aid agency. Then it cuts to a sweltering kitchen, with a running fan, boiling rice and onions somewhere in Lebanon full of sweating volunteers filling up small meals for displaced people.

After that the video cuts to an office in Lebanon where international aid associations and relief organizations coordinate relief for Lebanon. It is an air conditioned office, full of well-dressed, suit and tie clad men and smartly dressed women doing what NGOs do.

So, what's strange about the video? Well, the Lebanese minister filmed in his office claims to be helping almost 75% of the refugees. But then so does the man linked to the kitchen in Southern Lebanon. The bureacrat is making excuses in the video but the local aid agency is actually cooking and putting food on the table.

Do you know who the local aid agency is? Exactly, Hezbollah.

And we wonder why the Lebanese have rallied around Hezbollah?

Regardless, watch the video closely and see how many tropes and stereotypes you can identify.