International reactions to the 2006 Lebanon War 39% disapproved, and 16% were not sure. When asked to think about the events of the past week in the Middle East, 54% of Americans answered that their sympathies are more with Israel, 11% answered more with Arab nations, 11% both, 11% neither, and 13% not sure. In August 2006, University of Chicago political scientist John Mearsheimer accused Israel of using the kidnapping of its soldiers by Hezbollah as an excuse to attack Lebanon and start the 2006 Lebanon War. Mearsheimer stated that "Israel had been planning to strike at Hezbollah for months. Key Israelis had briefed the administration about
Syrians in Lebanon 29 year old Syrian occupation of Lebanon created negative sentiment in the Lebanese people towards Syrians. According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW), the Syrian armed forces detained, without trial, thousands of Lebanese citizens, many of who not only remained arrested, but were transported to Syrian prisons in violation of international law. Coupled with the kidnapping and assassination of critics to the Syrian regime, what HRW described as a terror campaign, resulted in the Lebanese press censoring any sentiments against Syrian policies in Lebanon. In July of 1991 forty supporters of Michel Aoun were arrested in in Kesrouan for handing