Most commentators, experts, you name it, I have heard have said Hizb'Allah is the winner here in almost any outcome. I agree.

For good or ill, I go with the latter, I see it very difficult NOT to say that Hizbullah will end up stronger from this round, at least thus far.

Note I say Hizbullah, not the scores of people murdered and maimed, the millions or billions of property damaged, etc. Not Lebanon. Not necessarily the Shiite population of Lebanon. Not necessarily Syria or Iran. Hizbullah.

From all indications (at least in the media, if not from any reliable public opinion surveys), Nasrallah seems to have topped the legendary Egyptian President Nasser in genuine popularity among Arabs and Muslims. This never changed for Nasser after his 1967 defeat, as people continued to worship him as a hero, and I don't think it would change for Nasrallah either, no matter what the outcome of the war is.

I had lunch today with a Lebanese friend of mine who fled soon after the fighting started, but is now contemplating whether he should go back to help with humanitarian work. An Orthodox Christian, he is extremely displeased with Hezbollah and says that this the same holds true for the vast majority of Christians and Sunnis and even many of the Shias. Rather than a rally-around the-flag effect, "When a Christian neighborhood is bombed, the people there don't say 'Fuck Israel' but 'Fuck Hezbollah.'" He sees Hezbollah coming out of this seriously weakened, with the beneficiaries including traditionally important Shia families who have always opposed Hezbollah.

One of the more interesting things he told me was that as refugees streamed into relative safe northern (Christian) Lebanon from the (Shia-dominated) south of the country, some of them put Hezbollah flags in the ground, something very offensive to the local population ("If Christians put Phalangist flags in the south, they'd be massacred for it.") The army intervened, removing the flags to stave off trouble.

dubaiwalla,
There are Lebanese (Christians and otherwise) who would watch the sun sits and then curse Hizbullah; and not only these days, but before this whole thing started, and going back all the way to 1982. There is really no love lost between certain sectarian communities in Lebanon, despite the thin veneer of the national state (and many times actually because of it).

The sectarian division and hatred in Lebanon is as green, old and wild as the cedar on the flag. The scores of the civil war have never been settled completely. That plus the ancient loyalties and prejudices will make many Lebanese blame whom they perceive as their sectarian nemesis for practically anything, regardless of the degree of guilt or blame.

On the other hand I've seen many examples of the opposite; Christians (not just politicians and intellectuals, but also ordinary people) calling TV stations and expressing support for the Hizb or criticizing those more obsessed with blaming Hizb than standing united in the face of a military attack from Israel.

As for the flags story; it's not inconceivable, though it sounds a bit too dumb to do; I probably just as dumb as it would be for Phalangists to hoist their flags in the middle of a Shi'i area. I don't know if they would be "massacred" for something like that though; more likely get a good beating).