Michael Young in Ottawa: Mixing narratives on Lebanon and the 'Arab Spring'

Summary from video:

Lebanon in 2005 wasn’t probably spark for the Arab spring but there are ingredients that are the same from what we are seeing in other Arab countries now and before 2011.

What happened in 2005?  Iraqi elections, Lebanon’s Beirut Spring.  No one mentions now these two events when speaking about Arab Spring.  But many of the features of these two events are present in the Arab Spring.

In 2005, ten and hundred thousands occupy Martyr Square demanding the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon, the resignation of the government and the security apparatus. Syria was a key actor in the assassination of Rafik Hariri.

Syrians pulled out of Lebanon after 29 years of continuous presence.  Lebanon earned this.  It wasn’t a revolution, it was an emancipatory movement.

Those who went to Martyr Square represented all walks of Lebanese society except the Shias.

In investigating this moment Young finds in it 4 major salient issues:

1.     Use of public space

2.     Demand for overhaul of instruments of repression

3.     Role of foreign intervention

4.     Aftermath

These 4 salient issues can be found in current Arab revolutions.

1.     Use of public space: The need to secure a public space with symbolic and geographic relevance, under the eyes of media.  In the case of Lebanon, Martyr Square was an easy location, green line, place of reconciliation and the place where Hariri was buried.  It is next to the old city that Hariri built and to An-Nahar newspaper building.  The public will come to visit the tomb of Hariri.  The security cannot prevent them from doing so.  They assemble after the visit and the place becomes difficult to clear, under the watch of the media.  There was a replication of this in Arab revolutions: Tahrir, Pearl roundabout, different and rival squares in Yemen, a whole city in Libya, Benghazi, where a rival government was established.  In Syria revolts proliferated in many cities but took hold in Hama, Homs and Kurdish area.  Public space occupation becomes a tent city and who occupies a tent city?  Young people.  Idealistic, convinced of their position.  It is in this context that frustration is high.

2.     Instruments of repression:  In 2005, senior security chiefs were removed by the government under popular pressure. It doesn’t happen often that security personnel leave office under pressure from street.  When Jamil el Sayyed  was removed, Young called Qasir to congratulate him because of his editorials against the security apparatus but Qassir was assassinated 15 days later and Young is convinced that the two events are connected, the removal of El-Sayyed and the death of Qassir.

Security apparatuses are difficult to change or remove.   Lebanese protesters in 2005 played the differences and the competition between different tools of repression, security apparatus and army, playing on the nationalism of the Lebanese army who avoided attacking protesters.  The army also was playing it both ways, implementing order but not firing on crowd.   The value of any revolution in the aftermath is by the severity order is imposed.

In Egypt and Tunisia the army didn’t fire on the crowd. 

In Libya, it is the balance of power between two armies that was responsible for order.  No accountable security force in Libya, same in Syria, it is the balance of power.

3.     Foreign intervention (outside intervention).  Lebanon didn’t get its due in 2005.  Chirac was for foreign intervention but Bush came late to it.  The trend in the Arab world was against foreign intervention, not against Hezbollah and Syria.  Lebanon's revolution was seen as Bourgeois revolt (Prada revolution).  Those who could protest were relatively rich and educated.  Liberals in the west were more pro-March 8 because they felt the movement was more popular.  In the Arab world today, foreign intervention is being accepted in Libya, in Syria.  Now it’s OK.  It is not what it used to be for Iraq and Lebanon back in 2005, there is no more opposition in the Arab world to foreign intervention.    We shouldn’t underestimate the role narratives play in the acceptance of foreign intervention.  In the narrative, you have to make people (natives) part of the foreign intervention, mix narratives, and inside one meant for the outside, hence the importance of placards in English, and an outside one meant for the  inside.  Make people on both sides want to be part of it.  In Lebanon narratives played an important role.  Here Young mentions the ad agency role in Lebanon's revolution.  Symbolism and colours created a narrative that was both mobilising on the inside and easy for western audience to understand what was going on.  

Lebanese understood how the west wanted them to be!

There is symbolism in Tahrir, in Benghazi.

One thing that became important in Lebanon is the STL functioning under a Canadian prosecutor.  It is the first time the UN investigates in other countries and it will be replicated.  Young said he was disappointed with the STL, accused Brammertz who he called the second prosecutor of derailing the investigation, but says that there might still be possibilities for other indictments, Syria.

4.     Aftermath.  In Lebanon: parliamentary elections, political acrimony, 2006 Hezbollah-Israel war, domestic conflict leading to almost armed conflict.

The aftermath tend to shape the perception of the revolution.  It is a mistake to interpret things with such an absolutism and only from the point of view of the aftermath.  The outcome shouldn’t delegitimize the initial impulse if it fails.   Such delegitimisations go like this: ‘if Islamists win, then revolution is undemocratic’  This is currently the problem at the center of Arab revolts. It is a shame to adopt these interpretations because they fall into Arab dictators argument ‘either them or us’.  ‘I am not religious, but Islamists are legitimate, they’re 60% in Tunisia’.  We shouldn’t assume that if Islamists do well then the initial revolt failed.  Instruments of repression are important in the aftermath.  The aftermath won’t be like the Canadian system but at least could have some accountability.  The accountability of the instruments of repression is a question that the west has to ask (and answer?)

Conclusion of the talk:  there is a recurring pattern between 2005 and 2011.  2011 is the second impulse.  We can find some authenticity in this recurring pattern.  Lebanon in 2005 is as authentic as Iraq in 2005 as Tahrir in 2011.

Authenticity bestowed from outside, the tag of inauthenticity for Lebanon in 2005 was made by Arab world.

There are 20' questions at the end of the video.  Questions and answers are interesting.

Lebanon: A Tale of Two Governments and Two Visits (part III)

Part I and Part II

We divided our overnight stay in the north between a B&B in a small village high in the mountains surrounding the Qadisha (holy) valley and a hotel in Ehden.  The latter, perched at around 1800 meters above sea levels around the same valley, is the summer residence of former president Suleiman Frangie and current Marada movement leader MP Suleiman Frangie jr and an Aoun and Hezbollah political ally.  Opposite Frangie's den, and only few kilometers away, is Gea'gea's village Bsharre.  Samir Gea'gea' is the chief of the Lebanese Forces militia who fought in the civil war and is suspected of having played the main role in the slaying of the actual Marada movement leader's parents Tony Frangie, his wife and his daughter.  He was pardoned in 2005 by the new Lebanese parliament for other crimes and got out of prison to become an MP for Bsharre. Another Qadisha village, Diman, is also in the surroundings, is the summer residence of the Maronite Patriarchate.

The Qadisha valley is known for having contionuously hosted Maronite hermits and other Christian hermits since the 13th century, according to records, but probably before because there were hermits in the Maronite religion as soon as the 5th century.   Its mountains are interspersed with villages that reach for the sky.  Lebanon's mountainous regions have vibrant rural communities.  The Qadisha valley is at the heart of the Maronite religion history and yet, around it, the civil war has left the memory of dramatic events and deep divisions that run in the Maronite community until today.  There is a beautiful description with pictures of the valley on this blog.

During our stay we made frequent visits to my native village. 

On our first visit to my village, my cousin promised me that for every meal we eat with them he was going to accompany us on a tour of the land.  The land is outside the village and although I am acquainted with it, I couldn't remember its limits.  And for three consecutive days, we would arrive around 10 a.m. to the village, spend the morning visiting relatives, eat lunch with my cousin around 1 p.m. and head to the fields between 4 and 6 p.m.  

The village has expanded.  Nobody really leaves the village, even though they work outside, villagers keep houses in the village and so do their grown-up and married children.  Part of the agricultural land has been invaded by houses and I discovered the price went significantly up from what my father told us, partly because of housing expansion, partly because the dramatic increase in prices in Beirut is having a snowball effect on the rest of the country, and also because many wealthy Christians are fleeing Iraq and other Arab countries and settling in Lebanon, so much so that the Lebanese government had to set a limit on how much land and property a foreigner can buy. 

We visited the house where we were born my brothers and I.  It is uninhabitable right now, it has been empty for more than 20 years.  I arranged for an architect to visit and we are working right now on plans for renovations.  It was quite emotional to visit my parent's house.  There were some pictures and books covered in dust.  I rescued some of them.  I remember that at the start of the civil war my father, afraid that Christian Phalangist militia, who were executing their political enemies in the village, would find socialist litterature in our house, made me burn some books.  I remember my rage and my sadness but I also understood that my father was trying to protect us.  I promised myself that we would bring the house back to life.  Only thing left was to convince my brothers.

Outside our village visits, always warmly welcomed and eagerly expected, we toured the Qadisha valley, its mountains, villages, trails, fields and monasteries.  We also trekked the LMT in the area.  There  are beautiful Cedar reserves around Tannourine, Bsharre and Ehden, and we visited some of them.

One of the most beautiful monasteries is Saint Antoine of Qoshaya.  It hosts the first typographic printing machine of the ME on which the first Arabic bible was printed. 

We also went to the beach in the north.  One day we hired a fisherman boat to Rabbits' island near Mina, Tripoli (Lebanon's northern city).  The island has some insignificant ruins from the time of the crusaders and became a training ground for Palestinian factions before and during part of the civil war.  It is now a natural reserve.  

Tripoli is a very poor city and poor children were lining the Rachid Karame street begging drivers for money on red light stops.  It is also a recruiting ground for Hariri militia.  Another day on the beach was spent in Byblos. There was a big family reunion in Byblos.  My husband's niece, who was studying Arabic in Damascus, came for the day all the way from Damascus to see us. 

In the north, mostly Christian, very few were supporters of the western Saudi leaning March 14th movement led by Mr. Saad Hariri and his Christian ally Ge'gea'.  Despite the difficult situation in neighbouring Syria, and probably because of it, most Chritsians were apprehensive and wary of any western political influence and most Lebanese Christians in the north supported the Hezbollah-Aoun led coalition that was in the process of forming the next government.  Dennis Kucinich understood it better when, appearing on New TV (Lebanon) after a visit to Bashar El Assad in Damascus, one July morning, he said to the interviewer that after meeting El Assad for about three hours he was convinced that foreign intervention won't resolve tensions in Syria and that the best solution is dialogue.  The new Lebanese Patriarch, Al Ra'i, who took it upon himself to tour Maronite communities everywhere in Lebanon during this summer, visited my village on the day we left the country.  We saw the preparations and we were told that he will be met with orange scarves (orange is the color of the political movement of Hezbollah's Maronite ally Michel Aoun).  Al Ra'i got the message of the majority of Christians in Lebanon, they don't count on the West anymore.  It is no surpirse then to see his most recent statements about Syria and the necessary support for the resistance in Lebanon.

One thing is certain, Lebanese want to move forward, they don't want to make wars.  Past governments since Taef  applied neoliberal economic policies which saw Lebanese savings evaporate.  Lebanese used to be savers and not borrowers.  It isn't the case anymore.  The country is in a very difficult economic situation.  On our way to the airport, the taxi driver described to us how he lives.  He has a family of four.  He earns around 3000 dollars a month.  As real estate is high and exceeds budget he decided to live outside the city, but then gaz prices are high.  Good schools and good health are private.  By the end of the first week of every month, he has already spent most of his salary, mainly on reiumbursing borrowed money.  He goes to the bank, borrows again and waits for the next month.  Driving tourists is an additional income for him and he works as intermediary in real estate deals.  He told us that Lebanese don't possess their country anymore, they don't possess themselves.  He was hoping the new government would do something but was skeptical.  He was an angry man.  Most people who live on fixed income in Lebanon are like him.  

During our stay in Lebanon we watched on TV the debates in parliament around the confidence vote for the new Mikati government.  The debate was at times very acrimonious.  This is the first non-Hariri, non neoliberal, pro-people government since the 90s.  I had come to Lebanon in a first visit in Januray for my father's funerals with some anxiety over what might happen after the fall of the Hariri government and finished my second visit in July after a new government from a new coalition was formed.  Lebanon was in a post Hariri mood and it was hoping for some positive change.

Special Tribunal for Lebanon: A Prosecutor's "Tunnel Vision"

Al Akhbar English, strong aletrnative to non Qatari non Saudi media, is out.

This is a link to the latest article on the Special UN Tribunal for Lebanon (STL) from Omar Nashabe.

The STL is the first international tribunal to indict someone for a terrorism crime. Instead of targeting suspects affiliated to internationally recognized terrorist organizations such as al-Qaeda, the first terrorism indictment is aimed at Hezbollah, a Lebanese resistance movement. This does not come as a surprise for those who monitor events in the Middle East. Hezbollah represents a threat to the security of Israel, something unacceptable to the United States and other Western powers. The investigation into the assassination of Hariri may have been a golden opportunity to undermine Hezbollah.

Lebanon: A Tale of Two Governments And Two Visits (part II)

Part I

My father had died last January leaving each one of us, me and my brothers, few parcels of his land in the north. I was in Lebanon for his funerals back then and I came back this summer, this time with my family, to visit his land.

My father worked hard to acquire and maintain his land. He inherited some of it and bought the rest. He had a spiritual connection to his land. Before the Lebanese civil war he was unemployed for two consecutive years and the land saved us. With the usual olive harvest, he planted tobacco and was able to pay for our private school and maintain our living standards. During the civil war, he became unemployed again and we lived from the land. Even though we were children, we learned to acknowledge the material security the land afforded us.  In Lebanon's rural communities, the house and the land are what define persons first, no matter how much this person earns and no matter what her social position is. My father was proud of his land and he made us participate in the olive harvest every year. During the civil war he refused to sell and leave the village and Lebanon alltogether. He stayed in the village during its darkest hours while we were in safety away from him. He later sent my brothers abroad for fear of indoctrination by the militia. Even though we all ended up living and working outside Lebanon, we kept the land and the house, my father taught us to love the land.

I have vivid memories of my father's land. I remember accompanying him to the tobacco field and marveling at the sight of the morning dew hanging on the furry tobacco leaves. I remember the olive harvest, the delicious meals eaten under the olive trees, the itinerant seller of sweets wandering from one field to another and announcing his arrival with a bell and chansonnettes. I remember the donkeys carrying olive bags and children at the end of the day, the family meal of the evening with the Syrian workers who used to help in the harvest. I remember my father working late into the night after dinner to separate the olives from their leaves and the sight of olives rolling on a board to achieve this process. I remember the end of the harvest season, the goodbyes, and the sadness that settled afterward with the coming of the cold season, a sadness that would go only at easter time when the flowers came back to their trees promising another harvest. All these images were rolling in my head while we were driving from Beyrouth to the north this July.

It took some time to leave Beirut. The traffic was heavy and we were told that this was nothing. 'Wait until the gulfies show up'. Beirut was waiting for tourists from the gulf and unsure whether they were going to show up. And we learned that they did show up after all. Because of the traffic inside and around Beyrouth, the city keeps well its visitors. During our one week stay there we hardly left the city, only once for the Chouf area and another time for Kesrouane. Leaving Beirut for good this time was liberating.

The day we left Beirut, there were news that the long anticipated indictments of Hezbollah members were issued by the STL. These news appeared barely two days after rumours that the Hezbollah approved Mikati government had reached an agreement on its position of principle on the STL, and that the newly formed government was going for a confidence vote in the parliament. This positive denouement for the Mikati government was not anticipated by Hezbollah's political rivals, Hariri and March 14th. Nor did they anticipate before that Lebanon would find a Sunni politician to form a government, after the ousting of Hariri, and that Mikati would be able to form a government. The only thing March 14th and hariri could count on to cloud the political climate for their opponents were the STl indictments and here they came, divinely timely to throw suspicion at Hezbollah. However, the reality among Lebanese, relatives and non relatives, from all political backgrounds, would unravel in a different way. Nobody among Lebanese we encountered during our subsequent two weeks stay would care about the STL. The indictements, along with other measures taken by the US to criminalise Hezbollah and its members, are not affecting Hezbollah's standing in Lebanon. But then they are maybe targeting the wider Arab public opinion. This is the most relevant context within which to interpret the current campaign to criminalise Hezbollah as the battle is ongoing to control the Arab spring and transform it into a cold Sunni-Shia war.

On our way to north Lebanon, we stopped at my aunt in Kesrouane. Lebanese customs obligent, the conversation veered toward politics very quickly. My aunt and her grown up children are all for the general (Aoun). Past governments mismanaged the country, made Lebanese poor, bought Beirut downtown on the cheap, sold it to gulf money, estranged Lebanese from their city downtown by making it look like any gulf rich city center. They used the shock doctrine to implement neoliberal policies that wrecked Lebanese traditional subsistance economy and way of life. Before my two visits this year to Lebanon, the last time I was there was in 2005. And I could see that the economic situation of the people and their way of life have greatly deteriorated. Lebanon is far from being self sufficient for its energy needs. Every household pays for the electricity twice, once for the state owned electricity company and once for a private provider. The state provides barely 12 hours of electricity per day. Add to that the soaring price of gaz and you have Lebanese with good jobs scrambling to make ends meet.  Only the super rich are not affected. Talking to my aunt, I realise how much Aoun's populist discourse has touched nerve among Lebanese. My aunt's household is an integrated economy, all inhabit the same building that they own, each one has a floor in the building and share everything from meals to transport to maids...They are four adults working good jobs to make ends meet, for a family of seven in total.

My parents' house in the village, a traditional white stone house, needs extensive renovations. We had booked two locations in the Qadisha valley for our two weeks stay in the north. During this time we were going to shuttle between the village and the two locations, visit the beautiful Qadisha valley, maybe Tripoli if all is well, Byblos, and walk the cedar reserves as well as small sections of the LMT, especially the ones that follow the old trails used to connect people and animals between the mountain villages of the north.

During my stay in the north I watched parts of the parliament sessions preceding the vote of confidence and an interesting interview with Dennis Kucinich on Al Jadeed TV after he had a three hours meeting with Syria's Assad.

Part III and final to follow...

The Special Tribunal For Lebanon: Justice For All Or Justice For The Cedar Niggers?

Days after the nth leak, the Special Tribunal For Lebanon (STL) announced his indictments on July 2nd accusing, what we now know at least since 2009, four members of Hezbollah. The announcement coincides with the new Lebanese government's statement of principle on the STL going for a confidence vote in the Lebanese parliament soon, and with the positive developments for Assad in Syria coming after an intense diplomatic and political activity in which the Syrian president met with representatives from the US and the UK, and in which the regime and the internal opposition seem to be willing to find a way out of the crisis.

Hezbollah reacted immediately yesterday with a speech from its leader Hassan Nasrallah aired on major Lebanese tv channels.

Nasrallah's speech after the indictment.

The STL has been biased and politcised from its inception and a tool against the Lebanese resistance. It is no coincidence that he first leaks pointing to a possible Hezbollah role in the assassination of Rafiq Hariri were published in the Figaro just after Israel's defeat in the 2006 war against the Lebanese resistance. This was an indication that the tribunal became very quickly a tool for the US and Israel to achieve against the Lebanese resistance what they were not able to achieve with the July 2006 war.

Nasrallah spoke of the flaws in the investigation at lenght and provided new disturbing material about the corruption, politicisation and the infiltration of the tribunal by Israel and the CIA. here are some points:

1. The lonely trail of the investigation or the mono rail.  While Brammertz, the second UNIIC chief prosecutor who came unde fire fromm March 14th, pursued more than one trail of investigation, the focus of the investigation of the first and third prosecutors (Mehlis and Bellemare) was alternatively on Syria and Hezbollah.  They never pursued the business trail and never considered seriously that Israel might have interest at throwing the country in civil war again.  This is despite the fact that Hezbollah provided evidence that Israelis were monitoring the site of the bomb that killed Hariri and his daily route days before and on the day of the assassination. The evidence was judged circumstancial and was not investigated.

2. The tight cooperation between Israel and the tribunal. Not only Israel was not investigated but the tribunal sought information from Israel. It also tranferred its computers and files through Israel when it moved its operations center from Lebanon to the Netherlands, instead of transferring them through Beyrouth airport. This last information was obtained thanks to Hezbollah intelligence and Al-Manar aired a picture of the Israeli customs authorisation as a proof. Israel has its footprints all over the tribunal up to its president, Antonio Cassese, 'a great friend of Israel'. Al Manar aired a video in which one of cassese colleagues was paraising him as a great friend of Israel at the 2010 annual Herzilya conference where Cassese was due to attend.

3. The role of foreign western intelligence agencies in the investigation, unsavoury characters. Hezbollah, once again, was able to gather information on some key individuals who worked for Daniel Bellemare, the chief prosecutor at the STL. There is Najib Nick Keldas, australian, ex CIA, had a role in the massacre of Bir El 'Abd (one has to be aware here that most western sources consider Imam Fadlallah, the target of the bomb that killed more than eighty, erroneously as the spiritual guide of Hezbollah, which is not true, Fadlallah was the spiritual guide of the Shia community in Lebanon). Than there is Robert Baer, the much talkative ex-CIA, who was a special agent assigned to track Mughniyyeh and failed to kill him. Mughniyyeh was a high ranking Hezbollah operative who was later killed in Damascus. Baer also had a role in Bir El Abd Massacre. Then there is Michael Taylor, who worked for Scotland Yard on Islamist terror. Dorede Bcherraoui (Lebanese living in France), who had a role in the false witnesses who previously misled the tribunal to accuse Syria and the four Lebanese generals. And finally, Darrel Mandir, who continues to work for the CIA.

4. The corruption of prominent members of the tribunal. As in the case of the Israeli customs document, Nasrallah's speech was interrupted with a video showing Gerhard Lehman, deputy to ex chief prosecutor of the UNIIC, a UN commission for the assassination of Hariri on which premises the STL was created, taking bribes for solding files, infos and documents produced by the UNIIC. It is known in Lebanon that some of this material was sold to local TV stations. The STL is also famously known for its leaks, many of which were sold to the media. This was a damning moment for which the March 14 parliamentary minority in lebanon who were behind the creation of the STL had nothing else to say to the media after the video was aired other than the video only showed that Lehman was being bribed but it did not show who was bribing him! Then there was the false witnesses testimonies. It was very damaging to the UNIIC and made the STL irrelevant. It was the first scandal to be widely known by the Lebanese public. It is since this scandal and ensuing video aired by New TV showing Saad Hariri, the son of the murdered, discussing one the false witnesses testimonies in the presence of Gerhard Lehman that Lebanese started to look at the STL with great suspicion. But this did not affect the current chief prosecutor of the tribunal, not only he did not investigate the false witnesses but he also prevented personally the tribunal form prosecuting one of them, Zuhair Siddique.

5. The non confidentiality of the investigation and the politicisation of the tribunal. Every leak in the press concerning the indictments, and there were many, were timed to influence local politics. There were leaks by members of the tribunal for money, there were leaks by March 14th in order to attack Hezbollah and other Lebanese parties who are not members of their coalition, and there were leaks by the STL, the last of them being the release, days before the official indictment, of the complete names of the accused. The last leaks and the indictment were timed to hinder the confidence vote in parliament for the new Mikati government which put March 14th, for the first time since the assassination of Rafiq Hariri, out of the government and in the opposition.  Initially, March 14th thought that the Miakti government will not reach a consensus on how to deal with the tribunal, but when the consensus was reached and the new government was heading for a confidence vote, the accused names appeared in full and the indictment was issued promptly days after the leak. Where is justice? There were leaks in 2009 before the elections, and then during the formation of Saad Hariri's government where Hezbollah were asking to be officially recognised as the national resistance. There were leaks when Saad Hariri's government fell. All these leaks served politically one party in Lebanon, March 14.

This is a very one sided, politicised tribunal controlled by Israel and the US and aimed at one party in Lebanon, the resistance. The tribunal is presided by Antonio Cassese, 'a great friend of Israel' who consider the resistance as terrorists. How justice can be done with such a tribunal?

The Israelis now are saying that Lebanon is in the eye of the tempest. That's their hope and the hopes of some in March 14th that Sunnis will fight Shias, that by accusing a Shia group, Hezbollah, of the assassination of a Sunni prime minister, Lebanon will descend into civil strife. But there will be no such a strife. Lebanese want to live in peace. They have more urgent priorities, the economy that was neglected by the former corrupt government, jobs, electricity, basic needs. The Siniora and the Saad Hariri governments are obsessed by Hezbollah and put this obsession first as their government priority at the expense of more urgent priorities. Hariri could not even tolerate alternance in Lebanon, he sees himself as PM for life.

Hezbollah does not recognise the legitimacy of the STL and will not let this corrputed and politicised government arrest his accused members. March 14th should not ask the current government to deliver the accused to the STL, they could not ask from the Mikati government what they cannot ask from themselves. Saad Hariri signed a document recognising the special status of Hezbollah as the national resistance. Even a pure March 14th government could not comply with the STL's demands. The Mikati government should be given the chance to work for all Lebanese and Lebanon, and Lebanese should be protected from civil strife. The STL is just a stage in the war waged at the Lebanese resistance and at the Arab resistance in general since 1948. When the Lebanese resistance was created in 1982, it was small and without allies. Today the resistance is strong. Lebanese should not worry.

Indeed, the reactions to the STL indictments were only seen among March 14. Lebanese are busy fighting a difficult economic situation and the STL has been discredited in their eyes a long time ago. There was no surprise when the indictments were announced. Lebanon's debt is equivalent to Greek debt, a debt created by Hariri father and son, and Siniora who is a member of their Future movement, who ruled the country while enriching themselves. This is while the cost of the STL payed for by the Lebanese government is projected to be around the 200 millions and counting, millions that serve as a tool in a war waged by the enemies of Lebanon.

The STL is a farce. If it were to operate in the same way in any other country it will be judged differently under different judicial standards. It will be scrutinised. So why the UN and USrael want this kind of justice for us? Who do they think we are? Cedar niggers perhaps.


"Pffft" went the UN special tribunal for Lebanon

Friday Lunch Club summarising the Special Tribunal for Lebanon.

March 14 to the US, Gulf states: Help us regain power in Lebanon through the STL (this link as well as links to screen shots in this post were produced by FLC)

UPDATE: More proof of the transfer of the tribunal documents through Israel.

UPDATE: Omar Nashabe (Al Akhbar) speaking on the STL at the LSE in Januray 2011.
UPDATE: Robert Parry: Troubled History of the Hariri probe

Flash update: follow the latest developments about the Hariri tribunal (STL) on my twitter account.

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Iran, Syria, Regime Change, And The Resistance Axis

This is an opinion article by Elie Shlahoub in the June 27th edition of the Lebanese daily newspaper Al Akhbar.

“The Syrian turmoil is targeting the Islamic resistance in Lebanon; and defending Damascus constitutes protection for Beirut and Tehran. This is in short, the Iranian approach to the events taking place in the Levant as “We will not allow the hand of the Sayyed of the Resistance to be broken” and at the same time “we will not allow that the spring of the Arab revolutions be pirated.” Relations with Saudi Arabia are severed and relations with Qatar are frozen. As for Ankara, it must be cautious: Syria is a red line even if this calls for bombarding the American bases in Turkey."

That is to be expected.  Iran will not allow the overthrow of Assad.  Clearly, the Syrian revolution 2011, by accepting sponsorship from Hariri, Saudi Arabia, Israel and the US, is presenting itself as a threat to Syria's long time allies.  The Syrian revlution 2011 is targeting mainly Syria's foreign policy and not so much domestic policy.  That is another feature of the Syrian revolution 2011 that is not found in the Egyptian and Tunisian revolutions which kept mostly the same foreign policy as hte old regimes they overthrew.

Much has been written and said about Turkey's role in the Syrian crisis but Iran is a powerful regional player and the guardian of the resistance axis. It will not allow any attempt at breaking this resistance axis to easily succeed.

Opposition and conspiracy in Syria

When I listened to Bashar El-Assad's speech, I first thought that his outside conspiracy accusations were exaggerated. I thought this is classic talk by leaders when they are challenged by their own people.

After all, Mubarak also claimed that the Egypt uprising was also an outside conspiracy. But in his case, he could hardly blame anyone from the outside, Mubarak was like a violent man who beats his wife but is absolutely charming and docile with everybody else except of course his own people and Hezbollah whom he sees as challenging Saudi hegemony. But how could Hezbollah mobilize women and children and millions to protest against him? What we saw in Tahrir square was a genuine popular movement by all classes and age range of the Egyptian society, men and women.

I was thinking recently that this is what is exactly missing in the protests in Syria. The protests in Syria are not reaching a critical mass and are not comprised of men, women, children, and all classes of the Syrian society, from the whole age range. And they are sparse...

Moreover, when I heard recently that Syrian security were shooting at the army because the army refused to shoot at protesters, I thought this is gross propaganda. If you want to intimidate a group, you kill one of them, not in the back, but in the front, and one, not 9! And on Joshua Landis blog, there is a picture of a document supposed to be an order to shoot at the army. The document was sent to the blog's author and it has blood stain. The staging and the fabrications were becoming more and more ridiculous.

There are also the videos circulating on the web and propagated by 'protesters'. I devoted a night watching all of them. I could not believe what I saw, few agitated men shouting and very little information. Most of these videos seem staged.

I believe there is indeed an outside conspiracy in Syria and it is not difficult to imagine who is behind. There are the classic enemies of Bashar himself, Rif'at and Khaddam. There are also enemies in Lebanon who are experienced in sowing sectarian discord and financing militias to spread rumors and kill in the streets. There is also the regional context. The regional context, since the fall of Mubarak is unfavorable to the Saudi-US-Israel axis and tipping in favor of the Hezbollah-Syria-Iran axis. An overthrow of the Syrian regime might give the former axis some gains.

But beside all this, there is clear malaise in Syria and real need for reforms. I am not sure what started first, the opposition expressing this malaise or the agitators. But I believe that given the regional context for a possible sectarian flare that will certainly spread to Lebanon, the real Syrian opposition, the one that vies for reforms and not destruction, has a responsibility. It cannot sit and watch hopping for the balance to tip in their favor. This is destructive not only for Syria and the region but also for the Syrian opposition. If the true opposition in Syria makes itself passively accomplice with conspirators, it discredits itself as a movement representative of the true aspirations of the Syrian people.

Lebanon's final revolution?

I read this analysis from Nicholas Noe in the Times. Agree with much of it. But the central question raised in the article is: how much is the US willing to go against its own interests in the region in order to please Israel? And the answer in my opinion is: to the point of political suicide.

By Noe's own admission, the New York Times was sensitive to everything concerning Israel in his article and suggested rewriting...

Lebanon has always been the mirror of the power equation in the region and for now, the US has lost, but I am not sure that Israel won either. Israel's intransigence derives from a deep belief that it can resolve anything to its own advantage by wars, not political strategy, not negotiations, not anything else except war and spin... So it is pretty sure that there will be another war with Lebanon. But Israel's wars are turning worldwide and Arab public opinion against Israel. This is a country that can only live through wars...

It is an extraordinary phenomenon that a small country imposes its own hostile agenda for years with no respect for international law and human rights and get cheers, nods, and material and monetary support from other countries...This is something I can hardly understand...

The tribunal of discord

The killers of Lebanon, its economy and its population, before, during and after the civil war, were never brought to justice. They were freed and pardoned and elected to parliament in the name of national concord and unity.

From the beginning, the STL was a political instrument and an instrument of discord, because it accepted 'doing justice' to one man, while forgetting the many victims of those who are claiming justice for this man.

If Saad Hariri wants unity and peace for Lebanon, so he must shut disavow the tribunal. If the international community wants justice for Lebanon, so it must bring total justice, not partial and misguided justice.

Lebanon's 'unity' government falls.

Shut down this tribunal!

Lebanon Wikileaks Documents Expose Deep Strife And Treason At The Heart Of The Current Lebanese Government

The US cable is one of several that have been published in Beirut by the leftwing al-Akhbar newspaper which has apparently been leaked as part of the WikiLeaks cache obtained by the Guardian, the New York Times and three continental European publications.

Al-Akhbar has highlighted contacts between the March 14 movement led by the current prime minister Saad al-Hariri, the US and the Saudis, prompting denials or defensive reactions from those named.

Marwan Hamadeh, the Lebanese minister of communications, warned the US charge d'affaires of the risks involved after Hezbollah indicated it would see any action against the telecoms network as "equal to an Israeli act of aggression".

Hamadeh also reported interference with Lebanese mobile communications by Syria and Israel.

...Lebanon's defence minister, Elias Murr reported in other leaked documents as telling US officials that the (Lebanese) army would not involve itself in a future Israeli attack on Lebanon...

Source: The Guardian via Al-Akhbar

Spiegel's article on Hezbollah's involvment in Hariri's murder or the reinvention of Detlev Mehlis: a story in two acts by Netanyahu and Lieberman

Under the title 'New Evidence Points to Hezbollah in Hariri Murder', the German daily Spiegel joins the ranks of those who are trying to inlfluence the outcome of the coming legislative elections in Lebanon where Hezbollah and its christian coalition are expected to win.

Basically, nothing is new in the article because it recycles the first hypothesis for Hariri's murder: Hariri was killed by Syria and its allies in Lebanon. Strange enough, this hypothesis was advanced by the German Detlev Mehlis who was appointed to lead the special tribunal investigating Hariri's murder. Mehlis's work was described as lousy: he interviewed only people close to the Hariri clan, he did not conduct extended investigations, many of his witnesses were discredited, and finally Mehlis was disgraced, a disgrace that threatened to taint the way the UN does international justice. The UN appointed then the Belgian Serge Brammertz to conduct the investigation. Brammertz's method was different: he relied more on facts and solid evidence than on hearsay. Moreover, Brammertz's investigation seemed to lead to a new hypothesis: the business dealings of the late murdered Hariri.

Nevertheless,the Spiegel article, ignoring a considerable amount of evidence pertaining to the credibility of both prosecutors, affirms nonchatlantly:

In late 2005, an investigation team approved by the United Nations and headed by German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis found, after seven months of research, that Syrian security forces and high-ranking Lebanese officials were in fact responsible for the Hariri murder. Four suspects were arrested. But the smoking gun, the final piece of evidence, was not found. The pace of the investigation stalled under Mehlis's Belgian successor, Serge Brammertz.

The tribunal is now headed by judge Daniel Bellemare. If you listen to the careful and media shy Bellemare in a press briefing answering journalists' questions you wonder how Spiegel was able to access such 'explosive' revelations. Israel's new foreign minister was the first to react calling for

And if this latest piece of disinformation from Spiegel is meant to influence Lebanese who are going to vote on June 4th, it surely missed its target. Lebanese media, from all sides, are skeptical and unmoved. But the main target for such an irresponsible piece of journalism (or can we still call it journalism ?) is maybe the international opinion who is opening up to Hezbollah as a political force in Lebanon. Is Lebanon going to be the new Gaza ? Are we going to try to stall the democratic process there, and stall the Israeli-Arab peace process knowing that: 1) Lebanon and Hezbollah are at the center of the Israeli-Arab tensions, not Hamas and the lousy Abbas who were defeated and are unable to speak for their people ? 2) That Israel's new right wing government does not want to hear of any peace process and is reluctantly preparing for a new war on Lebanon after experiencing a humiliating defeat at the hands of few hundred Hezbollah militants in 2006. 3) That Hezbollah is a very popular movement inside Lebanon, and who are, contrary to Hamas and the representatives of the Palestinians, widely supported and respected in the Arab world ?

Having failed in the war against Hezbollah, Israel is now trying to manipulate international justice against its most serious ennemy in the Arab world who are at the brink of winning a historic election in a country Israel occupied twice, and desperately wanted to neutralise its resistance. The next act ? If Hezbollah wins the elections, Israel might contemplate another war on Lebanon. However, Israel never learned the lesson: Lebanon is not and will not be a second Gaza.
Angry Arab reminds us that on this day in 2000 Israel humiliatingly fled Lebanon, thanks to Hezbollah. This was before the 2006 defeat.

Read here why Spiegel's article is probably a 'plant'.

And once again, French blogger Loubnan Ya Loubnan gives us a socratic tour of the western media reporting on the latest developments in the Hariri investigation and the Spiegel's article.

Hassan Nasrallah poisoned: Haaretz spreading false rumours again

At least that's what Haaretz is claiming today, that Hezbollah's leader was poisoned last week and was in critical condition.

Haaretz's source is an Iraqi website Almalaf. And Almalaf sources are western diplomats in Beirut as well as workers at international Beirut airport who noticed a team of 15 Iranian doctors 3 days ago with heavy equipment coming out from a Russian made plan Antonov 74 that landed at 11 p.m. on sunday.
And then the report goes on to claim that the same diplomatic sources told Almalaf that Nasrallah could have been shuttled to Tehran if Iranian doctors were not going to be able to save his life. The same sources reported also that they suspect that Israel is at the origin of the attempt.

Now I can't go on and translate the amount of non sense contained in Almalaf on the nature of the poison and the way Nasrallah was poisoned...on which Haaretz's report is based with some translation errors as to the time of the arrival of the Iranian doctors at Beirut's airport.

The story has no serious sources. Western diplomatic sources and airport workers reporting on two different aspects of the narrative, Nasrallah's illness and airport activity, something that cannot be cross-checked in any possible way. In addition, who would believe that Nasrallah's health would depend on doctors in Iran, and not right beside him ? And why transport Nasrallah to Tehran if heavy equipment was brought in to save him ? The whole story transpires nonsense and sensationalism.

The only attempt made by Almalaf to check the information was to call Hezbollah's secretary general who denied the story stating that Nasrallh was fine, even though, insists Almalaf, he didn't see him last week ! Almalaf claims that it is hard to verify the information given the lack of transparency in information coming from Hezbollah and that the party would never aknowledge such a thing especially since the assassination of one of his own, Imad Mughniyeh, in Damascus.

In a nutshell, Almalaf is just throwing a story, reverberated by Haaretz, or is it the other way around ? The story was planted in Haaretz from internal sources and offered under the disguise of western diplomatic sources and airport workers to Almalaf ?

In both ways, the story could have at least two purposes:
1. Provoke a reaction from Hezbollah as to Nasrallah's whereabouts. One may think that the party of God is not naive but it may engage in a press reaction just to dissipate doubts about its leader's health;

However, in my opinion, the most important aspect of the story is this:

2. Distract Shia in Iraq from the fact that Iraqi-born Lebanese Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah who is a top Shia cleric in Lebanon and a respected and esteemed figure among shias in Iraq wrote an edict against the coming US-Iraqi security agreement calling it 'legitimization of the US occupation' while the local top cleric Ali Al-Sistani did not come against it nor expressed himself openly on the subject. The Haaretz article mentions that the Saudi Al Watan has announced that the Iranian speaker of parliament Ali Larijani will meet Hezbollah's leader next week and convey to him Sistani's position on the US-Iraqi security agreement. For that matter read here 'Iraq won't sign US deal'.

And of course, not one single serious news source has published the story, except Haaretz, Almalaf, and exclusively other Israeli news sources like the Jerusalem Post.

Coming from Almalaf, the propaganda is understandable, but why Haaretz is spreading the rumour ? This is not the first time Haaretz engage in spreading propaganda for the state of Israel and its allies, through manipulative and unprofessional journalism.

UPDATE: Well, at last, Haaretz is maybe trying to repare its reputation because when I said not one serious source published the rumour, that was true even days after it was published by Haaretz.

Thanks Annie for this update.

Israel and hezbollah exchange prisoners

From Angry Arab

Watching the prisoner release in Lebanon, somebody of my generation can only reach this conclusion: Israel has been humiliated in Lebanon in the last 2 decades, and its ability to inflict pain on Lebanon and the Lebanese without restraint or punishment (as it has done in 1950s, 1960s, 1970s) has been deterred. What Israel has said (racistly) about all Arabs (that the only language they understand is the language of force) paradoxically applies to Israel itself.

Hezbollah's babes

Thanks Homeyra


Hezbollah's and Aoun's

McCain, Hezbollah, Arab-Americans and Bigots

A post worth mentioning from a Kos diarist.

Hezbollah militant killed in a car bomb in Damascus or targeted Killings as a war tactic for the impotent state

Click on the picture to see ex-Mossad agent and Beyrouth bureau chief in 1982 surrounded by the pictures of Bachir Gemayel, ex president of lebanon during the Israeli occupation, and brother of Amine, now part of March 14th and Hariri's coalition in Lebanon. Read here the related article.

Mughniyeh, 45, was Hezbollah's security chief in the 1980s. He was believed to have directed a group that held Westerners hostage in Lebanon. Among them was journalist Terry Anderson, a former Associated Press chief Middle East correspondent who was held captive for six years.

Mughniyeh, who had been in hiding for years, was one of the fugitives indicted in the United States for the 1985 hijacking of a TWA airliner in which a U.S. Navy diver was killed. He is on an FBI wanted list with a $25 million bounty on his head. The bounty is equal to that the U.S. has put for al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

Official declarations from all parties involved and accusations put aside, my little thumb is telling me that the Syrian regime is ready to stray away from its old alliance with Hezbollah. We might not see the implications of this shift quickly unless the current US administration is preparing, with current Israeli prime minister Olmert, a last minute operation or showdown in the ME, being on the war front or on the peace negociations front.

Now, Israeli experts, and not the state, have been boasting about the targeted killing of Mughniyeh while denying it:

The Israeli killing men are trying to contain their grins. The government issued a non-denial denial "Israel rejects the attempt by terror groups to attribute to it any involvement in this incident. We have nothing further to add" -- i.e. they reject terror groups saying they were involved, but do not say that they were not involved.

Both the US and Israel, USrael, claim that it was a 'just' killing and that it might have been done by Israel as a way of sending a message to Hezbollah about Israel's ability, and also the US - Yes, Yes, despite its faltering everywhere from Afghanistan to Iraq - to reach ennemies everywhere. Well, there is no doubt in my mind that Israel can do that. As a matter of fact, Israel has proved it can do only that. It cannot win wars against organised guerrilas in Lebanon like those it won against weak and underequipped armies in the Arab world and against Palestinian civilian population. So all what Israel can do is targeted killing as a way of delivering 'justice'. 'Justice' for what? For its failure of course, this is justice as a revenge. The US approves this way of chasing the ennemy because in our world 'justice' equals, not only targeted killings, but also unlawful wars, Torture, and everything that makes us feel good and stems from a sense of entitlment to kill, an entitlemnt not given to others.

Former Mossad chief Danny Yatom on Wednesday welcomed Mughniyah's death, calling it "a great achievement for the free world in its fight on terror."
"Mughniyah was one of the most dangerous and cruel terrorists of all time," said the Labor MK. "There are numerous intelligence agencies and countries that have been pursuing him, and the one that was successful in reaching him [has proven itself] - to have a high intelligence and operational capability."
Yatom called Mughniyah's death a serious blow to Hezbollah, both in terms of morale and in terms of its operational capabilities, saying the assassination could only have been made possible by penetrating deep into the organization.
"Whoever can take him out can take out anyone in Hezbollah," he said. "It will take Hezbollah a long time to find an heir."

Why is it that Israel didn't find Mughniyeh before ? Well, despite its might, having to operate for this killing in the strongly police state that is Syria, Israel must have had some local collaboration at some level. On the same day of Mughniyeh's killing, vague threats from Bush against Syrian officials might have helped, as the present Syrian regime is known mostly for its acute sense of survival. It might be also that Israel, having had to listen to Hezbollah's leader recent challenge to collect its dead soldiers' bodies that were left behind on the battle scene of July 2006,impotent as it is, wanted a quick revenge through a high profile action to restore its mighty image. And Mughniyeh's killing was the 'best' thing Israel could do to show its strenght; killing a Hezbollah member in an ennemy's capital, even though its importance in the movement is now way exagereted by all parties, and for different reasons. And it might be also that Israel is trying to drive Hezbollah to similar actions, like conducting terrorist operations outside Lebanon against Israel. But this is definitely the last thing Hezbollah will be willing to do. And it might be also that, even though Hezbollah will not be willing to conduct terror operations against Israel or the US, Israel could always do some operations that might appear as coming from Hezbollah and attribute them to the movement, as a retaliation. Israel did attribute the Argentina synaguogue bombing to Hezbollah despite many doubts (why on earth Hezbollah would chase Israel in Argentina?) and despite the fact that there never was a solid proof that the bombing was the doing of Hezbollah.
Israel is behaving as always; when it is defeated on the war front or on the diplomatic front, it resorts to high profile operations like the Entebbe raid to guard its image as a state that must be feared, while attributing the aftermath of these operations and their dramatic consequences to its opponents.
Assassination is a two-edged Sword: this analysis by one of Israel's intelligence epxerts proves that one of the goals of this assassination id to push Hezbollah and Iran to the edge and maybe to adopt the same tactic, therefore fueling accusations of terrorism. Because, never forget, for western minds, when Israel assassinates, it is an accomplishement for its own security and when Israel's ennemies assassinate, it is called terrorism.

Related:

News and Comments: Big Killer Takes Out Smaller One. "Wipe Out a Neighborhood." Life By Mafia Rules in the Israeli - US Domain.

Angry Arab:What role did the Syrian government play, if any, to facilitate the assassination?

UrShalim: Winograd Lamentation.

Alan Dershowitz (OJ Simpson's lawyer): Targeting Mughniyeh was the right thing to do.

And look how the Jeru Post has inflated Mughniyeh's role beyond any reasonable limit in order to present his killing as a smart coup by Israel.

Global Voices has some interesting links to the Arab blogosphere on Mughniyeh's assassination:
A reaction from Egypt
From Bahrain
From Syria
And I am still waiting for Moussa Bashir to give us a synthesis from the Lebanese blogosphere...

The General Of The Dead Army

Hezbollah says they have in their possession body parts of Israeli soldiers dead during the July 2006 agression on Lebanon and abandoned on the battlefield by the Israeli army. (Reuters 19.01.08. 22h30 by Yara Bayoumy,)

I read this yesterday and asked myself what is the point of Israeli soldiers' body parts thrown in the middle of a speech on 'Achoura day ? 'Achoura for the Shias designates the tenth day of the first month of the Muslim year during which the community commemorates the killing on year 680, at the orders of the Umayyad Caliph, of Imam Husayn, son of Imam Ali, and grand'son of the prophet. It is a day of atonement, remembrance and mourning.

"O zionists, your army has been lying to you. Parts of your dead soldiers' bodies were left behind in our fields and in our orchards", Nasrallah declared to a crowd of hundred thousands gathered for the commemoration of 'Achoura.
"Our moudjahidins are used to fight these zionists, to kill them and to keep whatever left of their bodies (...) I am telling Israelis, We have your soldiers heads, we have their hands, we have their legs", added Nasrallah, who was speaking on a rare appearance. He has not been seen in a public appearance since months.

The 34 days of the Israeli agression on Lebanon left Israel with 157 deaths, most of them soldiers, while there were more than 1200 victims on the Lebanese side, mostly civilians.
"We even possess an entire body, we also have half bodies or more, from the head to the chest", insisited the head of Hezbollah.

Israel condemned the speech as a disregard for elementary humanitarian principles and even the religious principles of Islam. Some in Israel were of the opinion to ignore the speech as not to give importance to Nasrallah. Some analysts believe that Nasrallah's speech is meant to pressure Israel into releasing Lebanese prisoners in exchange of the two Israeli soldiers detained by Hezbollah and whose kidnapping officially started the 34 days Israeli agression on Lebanon. Twice this month, Israel detained temporarily for interrogation, from Lebanese territory, two Lebanese shepherds. Israel continues also to violate Lebanon's airspace almost daily.

"We believe that Israeli attacks against civilians on the border are humiliations for the lebanese nation and its people. We cannot stay silent in the face of these attacks and we must confront them one day, if God's willing." Threatened Nasrallah.

The head of Hezbollah doubted the capacity of the political and military leadership of Israel to launch another war on Lebanon. But he added that if this were to happen, "We promise them a war that will change the destiny of the region."

Despite the fact that it was delivered to a civil audience, and on a religious occasion, Nasrallah's speech is 100% military speech, destined in the first place to Israel's implicit Lebanese allies, Sanyura, Hariri, and March 14th. Everybody knows that an army that respects itself doesn't leave bodies of soldiers behind or, if it leaves them, it tries to have them back by time of peace either through negotiations or through war. Israel has been ignoring this fact and doing neither, probably becuse it neither wants negotiations nor another defeat.

The theme of dead soldiers' bodies and armies' honor has inspired poets and novelists. One of the most interesting novels on the subject was written by Albanian author Ismail Kadare, "The General Of The Dead Army".

Twenty years after World War II, an Italian general, armed with maps, measurements, and dental records, and accompanied by a priest, is sent to Albania to recover the remains of his country’s fallen soldiers. In addition to the brutal weather, they have to be wary of the hostility of the Albanians working for them. This may be an errand of mercy for the general, but the chance to humiliate their one-time conquerors offers the Albanians a welcome vengeance. But there is an escalation, at a wedding, the Italian general must answer for the crimes of his country and all countries that have invaded this 'land of eagles', seeking to destroy its people.

Beside the fact that Nasrallah is emulating Imam Ali's speeches, this speech is clearly a challenge for Israel to revisit the battlefield where it was defeated because an army that leaves its soldiers behind is an army without honor. Some may think that Nasrallah has gone mad. Why provoke Israel ? To receive the same reply as in July 2006? But we are now in 2008, and, through Israel and its defeat in 2006, Nasrallah is sending a signal to his opponents in Lebanon who are refusing any compromise. We know that Sanyura and March 14th were hoping for a swift Israeli victory over Hezbollah in 2006. Nasrallah is now taunting them. He is showing them how not even Israel wants to visit its battlefield with Hezbollah once again.

Lebanon is going through its worst political crisis since the 1975-1990 civil war, and negotiations between the Hezbollah led oppostion and the government on a consensus presidential candidate are stalling to the point many are evoking the risk of a new civil war. Nasrallah has stated on many occasions that Hezbollah will never use its military power against other Lebanese, as he has never done so in the past, an act from which Hezbollah takes pride and popularity. Nasrallah was conciliatory to a maximum with the government and March 14th who are showing no will to talk to his powerful alliance, betting on the inability of Hezbollah to engage in internal warfare and risk losing its popularity. And so Nasrallah is sending a signal to the Sanyura government telling them that Hezbollah can engage at any time in hostilities against Israel, recreating the kind of consensus around him that emerged spontaneously during the Israeli agression on Lebanon. This might be Sanyura's and March 14th's worst nightmare. They would rather prefer a civil war in which they receive US and Israeli support to terminate Hezbollah. But Nasrallah is fully aware of this and aware that this is exactly what is behind the stalling of the negotiations on the future president while the country is without a president since the end of August. So if one party is determined not to engage in a civil war when it had many chances to do so during the last two years, there won't be a civil war, despite the many efforts made by Saudi paid Sunni extremists, renegades from the Iraqi insurgency, to throw chaos in Lebanon leading to a new civil war.

Then the only way this is going to end is, most probably, and if Hezbollah has the means, by a new war with Israel. And don't expect Israel to listen to Sanyura or any other anti-Hezbollah politician in Lebanon, but it will do so only when feels the time is right. Now, fresh from ist defeat, the time isn't right for Israel to launch another war on Lebanon. Hence, Nasrallah,s taunting of Israel about its dead soldiers left behind. Recently, the web has been buzzing with reports from military strategists reflecting on the Israeli debacle against Hezbollah in July 2006 and on future prospects.

And so it seems that Nasrallah's mention of Israel's dead soldiers held by Hezbollah is just a reminder to the lousy politicians in Lebanon that an agreement is unescapable.

UPDATE ON february 16th: Sanyura warns Hezbollah that an open war against israel is bad for Arabs and Muslims.
Le Hezbollah affirme détenir des "restes" de soldats israéliens.

Michel Aoun: The US government is working to destabilise Lebanon

On August 9th, general Michel Aoun, the leader of the Free patriotic Movement and a Hezbollah ally in Lebanon, gave this post-election interview to Le Temps (Genève). The interview appeared in Le Monde. It is part of their paid archives now.

By Alain Campiotti

Lebanese live in bubbles, against their own good, prisoners of archaic and sectarian institutions set by the French mandate which administered the country after the fall of the Ottoman empire until 1943. There are maronite bubbles very high in the mountains. Shia bubbles at the periphery of Beyrouth and in its south. Sunni bubbles in Tripoli and Hamra... Michel Aoun's bubble is in Rabieh, on a wooded hill, where luxurious villas are protected by multiple layers of high-tech security. "Six assassination attempts including three who died around me", says Aoun.

Since his return, two years ago, from a 15 years exile in France for fighting the Syrian occupation in his country, this politician and military has been fighting the sectarian bubbles. Or at least that's what he declares forcefully he is doing in Politics. His adversaries in the Sanyura government, furious at his alliance with Hezbollah, accuse him of the contrary. As a justification, Michel Aoun accpeted to be interviewed by le Temps in his eagle's nest, the headquarters of his political party, the Free Patriotic Movement.

Le Temps : Since you defeated ex president Amine Gemayel in an election last sunday, Your Maronite adversaries are saying that you lost, that you don't control, like in 2005, the Maronite community.

Michel Aoun : They are deluding themselves and they still have an old way of thinking politics in Lebanon. Those among them who are in parliament today were elected by a sunni majority in an elctoral law devised by Rafiq Hariri and Syria destined to dilute the Christian vote. Our candidates' electorate is half Christian and half non Christian. I am ready to sacrifice 20% of my popular support if this is the price to pay in order to prevent a confrontation in the country. That's what we were looking for when we signed last year an agreement with Hezbollah.

Le Temps : Is putting an end to the system of confessional parity in the state's institutions, inherited from the French mandate, the goal of such a move ?

Michel Aoun : This is a bankrupt system destined to become extinct. We want to establish, step by step, a secular state. Lebanese must get themselves used to excercise power and take decisions on a political level without resorting to a confessionnal organisation of¨Politics.

Le Temps : Isn't your agreement with Hezbollah an example of this confessionnal organisation ?

Michel Aoun : Our agreement with hezbollah is not an empty agreement meant to exercise parity for the sake of parity. It is a political program ! On the reform of the state, its independance, relations with Syria, and with the Palestiniens (Aoun actually wanted to discuss this program with other parties and sects in Lebanon but they were not interested). Hezbollah is convinced by the idea that Lebanon needs a civil code. Its chief, Hassan Nasrallah, declared, ten days ago, that he was ready to discuss the following: laying Hezbollah's arms and armistice between Israel and Lebanon, independant of the situation in the rest of the Middle East. I challenge our adversaries, supported by th West, to have the courage to come up with such a program as we did.

Le Temps : But is Hezbollah independant ? Aren't they tied directly to the supreme guide of the Iranian revolution by the principle of "Velayat al-faqih" in the Shia religion ?

Michel Aoun : Political leaders, as ordinary people change over time and according to circumstances. To assume that Hezbollah's allegiance lies outside Lebanon, within the Shia principle of "Velayat al-faqih", is to assume that the human being is a rigid stone that does not change over time. Hezbollah used to refer to "Velayat al-faqih", as much as Samir Geagea, the Maronite chief of the Lebanese Forces, used to refer to some areas in Lebanon as Christian cantons, and as much as Walid Joumblatt, the Druze chief, used to refer to Druze frontiers in Lebanon. Times have changed. Hezbollah, today, is claiming its fair share of power in Lebanese politics, nothing else.

Le Temps : Isn't Syria still yielding much more political influence than Iran in Lebanon ? And didn't you meet recently in Germany, according to the Saudis, with a Syrian emissary ?

Michel Aoun : That's a fabricated and defamatory lie intended to hurt me. I caught Amine Gemayel repeating this calumny. Syria is playing against me. Some pro-Syrian movements have called last sunday to vote for my candidate. This has costed us votes because Lebanese have developped a rejection of the Syrian diktat.

Le Temps : Do you consider the West, and especially the US, as your adversary ?

Michel Aoun : The US is refusing any attempt at ending the isolation of Hezbollah in giving their full support to the Sanyura government in order to maintain this isolation. George Bush had announced last week the freezing of assets of any individual who acts against the "legitimate government" of Lebanon. We have been disputing the legitimacy of this government for a year now. Bush's announcement came three days before the August 5th sunday election as to scare those donors who support us.

Le Temps : You have called for a national unity government. Do you believe that Lebanon's unity is under threat ?

Michel Aoun : Our agreement with Hezbollah on a political program for Lebanon, and the unity we are calling for, are the only way to salvage the country. The West doesn't want to discuss our proposal. I suspect the US is working to destabilise Lebanon, after having destabilised Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, etc. I believe that the US wishes for a new armed confrontation in our country. Their goal is to create, amid the confusion of a new confrontation, the conditions for a permanent implementation of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. That's because the US does not intend to give those Palestinians a homeland.

Lebanon's Partial Parliamentary Elections: The Metn's Christians Say 'NO' to March 14th

Amin Gemayel was so afraid of loosing these elections that he adressed a request to the minister of interior asking him to post a public notice about the different titles the voters might add to his name when voting, in order not to invalidate the vote. The interior ministry complied, and it was contrary to the Lebanese electoral law.

Mr. Gemayel listed on the public notice his different titles, former deputy, former president of Lebanon, sheikh, and how might the voter designates him on the ballot according to these titles:

His excellency the president Amin Al-Gemayel;
His excellency the president sheikh Amin Al-Gemayel;
The president Amin Al-Gemayel;
The president sheikh Amin Al-Gemayel;
The sheikh Amin Al-Gemayel;
Amin Pierre Al-Gemayel;
Amin Al-Gemayel.

But that did not prevent him from loosing the battle for a doctor*, Camille Mansour Khoury, who is quite new to Politics, who is not former president, and who is not a former sheikh. And there are more titles Camille Khoury doesn't have and which Gemayel has; former warlord, former Syrian collaborator, former Israeli collaborator, and an ally to the Sunni-Saudi dominated March 14th's government.

Aoun is accused by March 14th of being pro-Syrian because he is against them. It is only since 2005 that March 14th like to describe themselves as anti-Syrian and everybody else as pro-Syrian. "You are either with us or against us". Some other critics of Michel Aoun have also pointed to the fact that his alliance with Hezbollah, an Islamist party, was going to loose him votes. However, there is a reality on the ground felt by Christians every day. The Gemayel and Lebanese Forces alliance with Hariri is diminishing the role of Christians in Lebanese Politics. Christians in the March 14th movement are not even playing second fiddle to Hariri. They have lost the support of their community for blatant corruption, special interest politics, and political incoherence. In a country used to freqent shifting in political alliances, they beacme the champions of the process to the point they are unable to make their moves intelligible for the community; allied to syrians one day and then to their ennemies the day after. However these leaders are acting like their fathers, grand'fathers, and grand grand'fathers, as if the people of Lebanon were going to vote along sectarian lines for the Zaim (local leader of the community), without accountability. And so Hariri, in his alliance with them, has been thinking the same, that by buying the Zaims he is buying the popular vote. But it didn't work that way for him since 2005. The emergence of general Michel Aoun, a former Syrian foe when everybody else was allied with the Syrians, and his party, The Free patriotic Movement, after Aoun's return from his exile in France after the Syrian withdrawal, has changed the political landscape in the christian community and beyond. The Hariri-Merch 14th coalition first tried to discredit him by depiciting him as a fool and a marginal of Politics but his popular support among Christians stayed unchanged. They then tried to strirr up the sectarian divide when they realised that this was not working enough for the March 14th coalition. But the more they try to push the people of Lebanon along this line and the more they discredit themselves in part of the population, the disappointed of 15 years of civil war, of two years of sectarian agitation since Hariri father died, and of the slow economic and social decline of the country that has emerged in Lebanon under the Hariris.

Christian leaders are only a screen for Hariris who, with the help of Saudi Arabia, continue implementing a one family rule (the Hariri family) of Lebanon marked by a shift from interreligious balance to affirming a Sunni-Saudi inspired and monitored takeover of the country, its economy, and its future. March 14th Christians are not even heard on decisions taken by the Hariri backed government and concerning their community in the first place;
The financing of Sunni extremism in Lebanon (for which many proofs have been given during the recent clashes between the Lebanese army and an extremist group in Nahr El-Bared);
The supression of the good Friday as a national holiday;
The signing by the Sanyura Hariri backed government of the Islamic chart for children's rights;
Many decisions disregarding the Christian community, the Hariri and Saudi backed Sanyura government has been taking, couldn't have been taken without the servility of March 14th Christian allies, and in total disregard for Lebanese political traditions in interreligious dialogue and balance of power between the different religious communities (in times of peace of course because when there is no dialogue they fight). Christian representatives allied to Hariri, like the Gemayels, Chamouns, Eddés, and Gea'gea, having lost the popular support, are just happy to be supported themselves by the all powerul Hariri and his money while sticking to the same sectarian politic of their ancestors.

The other reality is that the alliance between Michel Aoun's Christians and Hezbollah is different from the one between Christians and Hariri in March 14th. In the alliance between Aoun and Hezbollah, Christians are playing a major role and will continue playing this role on decisions concerning the fragile politico-religious equilibrium in Lebanon and the oecumenic character of the country. And because Hezbollah needs them in order not to appear as a southern only, shia only, political party, their influence extends to the way Hezbollah has practised and may continue to practice governance and power sharing in Lebanon. In addition to the fact that in the presence of a strong Christian party as an ally, Hezbollah, as Sheikh Nasrallah has expressed it in many occasions, will never govern Lebanon as an Islamic country, unless it is the will of all Lebanese. And as long as the voice of the Christian community will be heard, there will not be an Islamic republic in Lebanon. The other option being a secular Lebanon but under present circumstances in the Midlle east this option appears as an utopia.
On the other hand, as there is no written agreement between Hariri and his Christian allies on governance, Hariri feels he has free hands to do whatever he likes in all aspects of Lebanese life. The Saudi born and educated Hariri is islamising the country by small decrees under total silence from his Christian allies.

There is rhetoric and there is reality. Lebanese Christians may be sensitive to the rhetoric of March 14th and their propaganda. However, most of them, having lived through the civil war, are still more sensitive to reality because it allows them to sense danger and threats on their future in their country. The reality of the Christian community now in Lebanon is about the insecurity they feel for the place they might occupy in the Lebanese political chess game in the future. Changes for this future are hovering around. Who will choose the next Lebanese president, Hariri and Saudi Arabia or the people of Lebanon ? What will be the prerogatives of the new president to be elected in September in order to counter the monolithic Sunni ruled government and the all powerful Hariri and his holding that is sucking the blood of Lebanon, Solidere ?

No matter how much Aoun's political adversaries will try to pin on him the image of a Syrian collaborator - because of his alliance with Hezbollah - a man chosen by Syria and Iran, the reality is different. Because this same man had fought savagely the Syrian occupation while others like Gemayel and the Lebanese Forces have accepted unscrupulously the external American diktat of the time on collaborating with the Syrians. And no matter how much the March 14th will portray Hezbollah as an Islamist party, March 14th are the ones who are fighting sunni extremists who have gotten out of their control and of their pockets...

We can say many negative things on Lebanese and Lebanon's Politics but there is one thing the civil war taught Lebanese as communities: to evaluate danger on their survival. Hariri father and son have been transforming Lebanon and have achieved what a fierce civil war for survival and power sharing between religious communities had not achieved; putting Lebanon under the influence of one community while disregarding the others. The Mansourieh, Metn, Christians, and with them the whole Christian community who have been doing a soul search as of late, do no trust the Hariri coalition for their own future and the future of a multireligious Lebanon, the only viable option for Lebanese Christians.

"That General Aoun’s candidate, a virtual political unknown, proved a tough competitor to Mr. Gemayel, the onetime president who curried sympathy and campaigned in his son’s memory, underscored the level of discontent many Christians here have been feeling and the resonance of General Aoun’s message.

The general, in alliance with Hezbollah, has led the revolt against Lebanon’s political system, demanding greater inclusion and an end to control by a series of political dynasties."

Read this excellent analysis of the meaning of Gemayel's defeat by Joshua Landis at Syria Comment.

Angry Arab: Why I am worried about the safety of Armenians in Lebanon.

Angry Arab on Walid Jumblatt's Racism against Lebanese Christian Armenians

Mustapha Mond at Ms Levantine: Going Ugly early.

Angry Arab on Gemayel's reaction

*The results of the election are being contested by Gemayel as of Monday 1. a.m. local. This indicates that the tallies are in favour of Khouri. But even though Gemayel might be declared winner, given all his former titles and the fact that he led his campaign to replace the seat of his slain son, his 'victory' would only reflect the political loss Mr. Gemayel is incurring within his own community because of his alliance with Hariri.

P.S: The other partial election was in Beyrouth and the only challenger to the Hariri candidate was a secular communist. hezbollah boycotted the elections because they were not called by the president of the republic but by the March 14th government in disregard for the constitution. The participation was 18.9 % and the results are 22988 votes for the Hariri candidate and only 3556 for his communist rival.