The Foreign Service Journal, October 2010

O C T O B E R 2 0 1 0 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 11 party’s political and military wings. Britain has placed only the military wing on its list of terrorist groups, and E.U. officials have sought contact with Hezbollah’s political representatives in Lebanon. In contrast, U.S. officials appear to have little interest in meeting with Hezbollah, and some insist that this is entirely appropriate. A report on Hez- bollah issued last month by Ash Jain, a visiting fellow at the Washington Insti- tute for Near East Policy, questions the value of seeking closer ties with the group ( www.washingtoninstitute. org/ ): “Engagement could merit con- sideration at some point in the future, when the group has been weakened and appears willing to accept a mean- ingful accommodation.” In the meantime, a potential disas- ter looms, as the unresolved conflict between Lebanon and Israel triggers armed clashes on the border that could lead to war. The International Crisis Group sounded the alarm in an August report: “The deterrence regime has helped keep the peace, but the process it perpetuates — mutually reinforcing military preparations; Hezbollah’s growing and more sophisticated arse- nal; escalating Israeli threats —pulls in the opposite direction and could trigger the very outcome it has averted so far” ( www.crisisgroup.org/ ) . —Mohammad Alhinnawi, Editorial Intern State Tops Survey of Best Employers For the fifth year in a row, the De- partment of State has been ranked among the top 10 ideal employers in an annual poll of college undergradu- ates reported by Business Week ( www. businessweek.com/ ) . This year’s “Hottest Employer” sur- vey, conducted by Philadelphia-based Universum Communications, was based on the responses of 56,900 stu- dents attending 345 leading universities around the country between Decem- ber 2009 andMarch 2010. The under- grads were asked to choose from among the top 100 companies and agencies most frequently mentioned by students in the previous annual survey. (Write-in responses were also permit- ted.) While State came in sixth overall, behind (in order) Google, Walt Disney Co., the Federal Bureau of Investiga- tion, Apple and Ernst & Young, under- graduates majoring in the humani- ties, arts or education ranked it second. (The department fared less well among business, engineering, information technology and natural sciences stu- dents.) As for other federal agencies with a foreign affairs component, the Peace Corps came in eighth; the Central In- telligence Agency was 14th; and the U.S. Army ranked 55th. ■ — Steven Alan Honley, Editor C Y B E R N O T E S P akistan is facing a slow-motion tsunami. Its destructive power will accumulate and grow with time. ... Make no mistake: this is a global disaster, a global challenge. It is one of the greatest tests of global solidarity in our times. — United Nations Secretary- General Ban Ki-moon, addressing a special session of the U.N. General Assembly on the floods in Pakistan, Aug. 19, www.un.org/ .