TV, ISLAMIC EXTREMIST-STYLE

By LARA MARLOWE, IN BEIRUT

Lighthouse TV is on a war footing. The station, owned and operated by the Lebanese Hizballah-or Party of God-broadcasts from a dusty cellar in Beirut's southern suburbs. "We own a beautiful new building nearby," says Lighthouse's general manager, Mohammed Afif Ahmad, 37. "We don't use it because the Israelis might bomb it."

Israel probably has more important targets in its long-running conflict with Hizballah, whose Shi'ite militiamen have been attacking Israeli troops in Southern Lebanon almost daily. But a look at one of the station's propaganda films shows why Yitzhak Rabin would be happy to see Lighthouse knocked out of commission. While martial music blares in the background, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, Hizballah's leader, is seen embracing departing fighters. Documentary footage shows guerrillas planting their flag, Iwo Jima-style, as they storm an Israeli position. Israeli troops load casualties onto stretchers and into helicopters. "Thousands upon thousands are waiting for their martyrdom," says Nasrallah of his forces. Cross hairs are superimposed over footage of Israeli soldiers on patrol. Voices chant, "Resistance! Resistance! Resistance!"

It's pretty effective. So is the station's news operation: with 18 correspondents (two of its cameramen have died in Israeli bombardments), Lighthouse has earned a reputation for in-depth coverage of Lebanon's conflict with Israel; even political opponents tune in to the evening newscast.

But propaganda and battlefield reports can't fill an entire broadcast day. The rest of Lighthouse TV's schedule is a wildly disjunctive cocktail of prayers and quiz shows, Egyptian sitcoms, jingle-filled ads for imported detergents and computer-generated graphics of holy men. General manager Ahmad, who abandoned a career as a mechanical engineer to join Hizballah, thinks he can "participate in the resistance" as well as turn a buck. He claims Lighthouse ranks fifth among some 50 Lebanese TV stations, and that advertising provided a third of last year's budget.

Ahmad is more liberal than most in the fundamentalist group. Female employees at the station wear Islamic head scarves-but not severe black Iranian chadors. Ahmad has also phased out dour Iranian movies in favor of more popular Egyptian and Western fare: last week's schedule featured Under California Stars, a 1948 Roy Rogers western (Trigger is captured by horse thieves) and The Day of the Triffids, a 1963 British sci-fi film about man-eating plants. Not that Lighthouse TV will ever be confused with hbo; scenes enlivened by Hollywood staples like sex and alcohol are deleted, and voice-over commentaries interrupt American movies to criticize U.S. "oppression" of blacks or to point out that "in the real world, Americans don't always win." But the West wins small victories on Hizballah screens. "We use Western classical music with most of our productions," says Ahmad. "It's more sober than Arab singing." Which is why, between guerrilla recruitment ads, Vivaldi's Four Seasons wafts over the airwaves.