French newspaper Le Monde reported on Saturday that a group affiliated with Hezbollah took photographs of the headquarters of the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in The Hague, as well as its surrounding area.
The paper quoted Special Tribunal Registrar, Robin Vincent, as saying, “Deduce the political conclusions you want.” Vincent noted that the Dutch security services registered three such incidents.
The daily also quoted a Lebanese source as saying that the UN International Independent Investigation Commissioner Daniel Bellemare requested to interrogate eight Hezbollah officials, noting that the party refused his request.
Hezbollah has mounted some of the most spectacular terrorist attacks ever, both inside Lebanon (the 1983 US Marine Barracks bombing) and outside (Buenos Aires, Argentina), is second only to al-Qaeda in the number of Americans it has killed over the decades, and has dragged Lebanon into a destructive war in 2006, and currently maintains 30,000 missiles in the Lebanese south pointed at Israel.
Good Luck, Holland!
Hanibaal
Saturday, February 28, 2009
Wednesday, February 25, 2009
FBI Warns of Possible Hizbullah Attack in the US
FBI chief Robert Mueller said the Federal Bureau of Investigation is tightening its vigil against a possible Hizbullah attack inside the United States.
Mueller, who labeled Hizbullah a "terrorist group," said the Shiite organization has proven itself over the years. "Hizbullah has potentials around the world," Mueller said in an interview published by the Kuwaiti daily Al Rai on Wednesday. "That's why we keep our eyes open on them inside the U.S.," he added.
Mueller said a number of U.S. cities are likely to be targeted by Hizbullah, similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Beirut, 25 Feb 09 (From Naharnet)
Mueller, who labeled Hizbullah a "terrorist group," said the Shiite organization has proven itself over the years. "Hizbullah has potentials around the world," Mueller said in an interview published by the Kuwaiti daily Al Rai on Wednesday. "That's why we keep our eyes open on them inside the U.S.," he added.
Mueller said a number of U.S. cities are likely to be targeted by Hizbullah, similar to the 2008 Mumbai attacks.
Beirut, 25 Feb 09 (From Naharnet)
Monday, February 23, 2009
Waltz with Bashir on the Graves of Damour
Finally, the Irrelevance of Israel’s Moral Dilemma
As the Haaretz piece below shows, the failure of Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir to win an Oscar yesterday is "heart-wrenching" for the morally superior Israelis who can't seem to understand why the world insists on seeing them as "regular" folks who, like everyone else, are sometimes victims and sometimes perpetrators. For that failure not only underscores the irrelevance of the Israeli role in the Sabra-Shatila massacres, but it also reveals the angst of Israelis at becoming irrelevant themselves, now that they realize that the world cannot go on judging them as the eternal victims of a long-past Holocaust, but simply as humans who have their foibles, and as they may have been once victims of a horrible crime, they themselves can be, as boringly, perpetrators and butchers in their own right, just like everyone else.
For as I have argued many times before, the myth of the moral dilemma posed by the Israelis' role as enablers or watchers of the Sabra-Shatila massacres carried out by Lebanese militias in 1982 against supposedly unarmed Palestinian refugees, is an insult to the Lebanese people. Here are a few reasons why:
No one seems to understand the pain that the Lebanese people feel when their other "massacres", in which the Israelis had basically nothing to do (except perhaps on a broad historic scale), are totally ignored by the selective morality of the press and historians in general, both in the Arab world and the West. For one, my own hometown of Damour which, in an overnight of orgiastic plunder and mayhem on a cold January 1976, was razed to the ground by the same Palestinians (and Syrians and others too) who were to be butchered in Sabra and Shatila in 1982, 1,000 of its townspeople were slaughtered - literally, with machetes, with the evisceration of babies before their parents' eyes, the chopping off of arms, genitalia and heads, the rapes, the hangings upside down, the draggings behind trucks, and other Islamo-Palestinian forms of killing fine art. The remaining 5,000 residents of Damour had to flee by boat on that cold January to safer areas further north.
You know why there is no moral dilemma worth making movies and writing books and establishing inquiry committees for the Damour massacre? Because it does not involve Westerners and Israelis. In the condescending mindset of the racist elitist Western and Israeli Left, Arabs are supposed to kill Arabs and there is nothing shocking about it. In fact, it is expected and therefore does not pose a moral dilemma. Only when a morally superior being - like an Israeli or a Westerner - becomes involved in gruesome acts – even as an observer - that the floodgates of moral angst open up to a deluge that has yet to stop 30 or 40 years later.
In the Lebanese War of 1975-1990, there have been many other massacres of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese, and many other massacres of Lebanese civilians by Palestinians, and many other killings on a grander scale of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians by the Israeli and Syrian armies (as if the term "army" ought to present us with a more respectable manner of accepting killing people than the term "militia"), but somehow, all that the Israelis and all that the Western press, the Left in particular, seem to have a moral dilemma with, is the Sabra-Shatila massacres to which the Israelis were, in a worst case scenario, mere observers who did not rush to the rescue of the victims.
Another reason why the Lebanese feel insulted by that subtle moral superiority argument is that no one bothers to look at the real victims and the real perpetrators of the Sabra-Shatila massacres: The Palestinian refugees and the Christian militias. Isn’t it there that the real horror must be the most striking, instead of the placid ruminations of an observer? What drove the Christian militias to commit this act? What is the narrative from the perspective of the butchers? Would these massacres be minimally justified – as attenuating circumstances – if the Christian militias committed Sabra-Shatila in a direct act of revenge against the Damour massacres, as is generally well known?
I was dreading the moment when “Waltz with Bashir” would win an Oscar, because not only my pain would subside further down some sewer of Western morality, but also because it would guarantee that the knife was going to be constantly moved in my wound for a few more decades. I am exhilarated now that “Waltz with Bashir” has not won, because it should now be relegated to the trash bin of movie-making where it belongs.
To the Israelis: If the pain of others does not stir you beyond your own self-obsession, you should just leave it alone. Take your hurt and go home – yes, indeed, just move on, and don’t exploit mine for fame, fortune and a place of moral superiority. In fact, take the Palestinian refugees back to the land of Israel where they belong because they do not belong in Lebanon and the Lebanese will never accept them. That’s your real moral dilemma: The Palestinian tragedy in which you are much much more than observers who have the luxury to ponder at length about the death of others make them feel. That’s the moral obligation you ought to write long and wide about, make movies, set up inquiry commissions, and hope one day to win an Oscar.
Hanibaal
______________________________________________________________________
Winslet, 'Waltz,' and how Hollywood likes its Jews
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Oscar, Kate Winslet
Hollywood is about message. It is not, strictly speaking, about subtlety, nor idle fretting over obvious irony.
So when Israelis woke up before dawn on Monday to watch the 81st running of the Oscars, the message was clear enough. Hollywood knows exactly how it likes its Jews: Victims. Civilian victims. Targets of genocide. None of this Goliath stuff. None of these pre-emptive, disproportionate, morally amorphous behaviors.
My wife, the child of Auschwitz survivors, saw it right off, even in the dark. Even before they announced the winner of the Best Actress award.
Against a well-deserved paean to eventual winner Kate Winslet, a giant screen showed hunted, gaunt, clearly doomed figures. "This is how Hollywood likes its Jews," my wife said. "Hunched over and dressed in rags."
Minutes before, as if to underscore the Hollywood principle that Jewish history ended in the Holocaust, and Israeli history ended with "Exodus," the Oscar ceremony enlisted Liam Neeson - star of the ultimate Hollywood version of the Good Christian-Bad Holocaust epic, Schindler's List - to deny the Oscar to a film showing Jews not as they may have been, but as they, in fact are.
The narrative of Israel has become increasingly uncomfortable for the limousine left of Hollywood. Not necessarily because of the specifics of occupation and overkill. No, there are wider problems with these Israelis. Their story arc doesn't work.
They are neither cutesy, comedic Yiddishers nor noble, chiseled, ascetically moral kibbutzniks. They bear as much resemblance to Zohan as Adam Sandler does to Tsipi Livni. Israelis are complicated, angry, unhappy, family-oriented, insular, often flawed human-beings.
Perhaps, in the Hollywood context, the problem with these Israelis, is that they are not identifiable as Jews at all.
Last year, "Beaufort," an exceptional Israeli film about IDF soldiers at war in Lebanon was one of the five nominees, but lost to the Austrian entry, in which a Jewish concentration camp prisoner forges currency for the Nazis.
This year, "Waltz with Bashir," an extraordinary, soul-shattering Israeli film about IDF soldiers at war in Lebanon, was one of the five nominees. Its only connection to the Holocaust, however, is an uncomfortably authentic one. As Neeson's announcement suggested, with his small but ringing note of incredulity, a nominee it will forever stay.
There were at least eight films classed as Holocaust-based, released in 2008. "Waltz with Bashir" was not one of them. But in dealing with searing honesty about war, memory, the violent death of innocents, as well as about the complex darkness at Israel's heart, it has fundamentally more to do with the Holocaust than any of the eight.
Ari Folman, the director of "Waltz with Bashir," is also the son of Holocaust survivors. The Holocaust informs the film in ways that Hollywood is literally incapable of imagining. Because this is the real thing.
"Waltz with Bashir" was not made for Hollywood, it was made for human beings. It was made for the people who went through the horror it shows, and who are still going through new horrors which feel exactly as unbearable.
The story of how Hollywood likes its Jews has been told before, of course, never more succinctly - or with a heavier cargo of irony - than when Kate Winslet played a satirized version of herself in a 2005 episode of the U.K. series "Extras."
Winslet, then winless in four trips to the Oscar nomination altar, explains to series star Ricky Gervais, why she's decided to act in a Holocaust film.
Gervais: You doing this, it's so commendable, using your profile to keep the message alive about the Holocaust.
Winslet: God, I'm not doing it for that. We definitely don't need another film about the Holocaust, do we? It's like, how many have there been? You know, we get it. It was grim. Move on.
I'm doing it because I noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust, you're guaranteed an Oscar. I've been nominated four times. Never won. The whole world is going, 'Why hasn't Winslet won one?' ... That's why I'm doing it. Schindler's bloody List. The Pianist. Oscars coming outta their ass ...
Gervais: It's a good plan.
This year, despite general agreement that her performance as a 1950s-era Connecticut housewife in Revolutionary Road was far better than her role as a former SS guard in The Reader, life imitated Gervais, and the Oscar was finally Winslet's.
Back in Israel, meanwhile, the debriefing of the Academy Awards had begun. On an early morning television news show, Meital Zvieli, the lead researcher for "Waltz with Bashir," said that despite their disappointment, the crew members watching in Israel felt that, in any case, "The film won." It had been seen by people who needed to see it, people who in many cases began to speak to their families about their own experiences only after having experienced the film.
That may be the only point that really matters.
In the end, the cultural distance from the Jews of Hollywood to the Jews of Israel may be impassible.
The oldest and most basic need of the Jews who invented the film industry, the compulsion to reinvent themselves, early on developed into the need to reinvent the Jewish people. There, after all these years, the industry remains.
Perhaps, after all these years, it's time for Hollywood, at long last, to take seriously and with intelligence another piece of Gervais' scripted advice.
Move on.
As the Haaretz piece below shows, the failure of Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir to win an Oscar yesterday is "heart-wrenching" for the morally superior Israelis who can't seem to understand why the world insists on seeing them as "regular" folks who, like everyone else, are sometimes victims and sometimes perpetrators. For that failure not only underscores the irrelevance of the Israeli role in the Sabra-Shatila massacres, but it also reveals the angst of Israelis at becoming irrelevant themselves, now that they realize that the world cannot go on judging them as the eternal victims of a long-past Holocaust, but simply as humans who have their foibles, and as they may have been once victims of a horrible crime, they themselves can be, as boringly, perpetrators and butchers in their own right, just like everyone else.
For as I have argued many times before, the myth of the moral dilemma posed by the Israelis' role as enablers or watchers of the Sabra-Shatila massacres carried out by Lebanese militias in 1982 against supposedly unarmed Palestinian refugees, is an insult to the Lebanese people. Here are a few reasons why:
No one seems to understand the pain that the Lebanese people feel when their other "massacres", in which the Israelis had basically nothing to do (except perhaps on a broad historic scale), are totally ignored by the selective morality of the press and historians in general, both in the Arab world and the West. For one, my own hometown of Damour which, in an overnight of orgiastic plunder and mayhem on a cold January 1976, was razed to the ground by the same Palestinians (and Syrians and others too) who were to be butchered in Sabra and Shatila in 1982, 1,000 of its townspeople were slaughtered - literally, with machetes, with the evisceration of babies before their parents' eyes, the chopping off of arms, genitalia and heads, the rapes, the hangings upside down, the draggings behind trucks, and other Islamo-Palestinian forms of killing fine art. The remaining 5,000 residents of Damour had to flee by boat on that cold January to safer areas further north.
You know why there is no moral dilemma worth making movies and writing books and establishing inquiry committees for the Damour massacre? Because it does not involve Westerners and Israelis. In the condescending mindset of the racist elitist Western and Israeli Left, Arabs are supposed to kill Arabs and there is nothing shocking about it. In fact, it is expected and therefore does not pose a moral dilemma. Only when a morally superior being - like an Israeli or a Westerner - becomes involved in gruesome acts – even as an observer - that the floodgates of moral angst open up to a deluge that has yet to stop 30 or 40 years later.
In the Lebanese War of 1975-1990, there have been many other massacres of Palestinian refugees by Lebanese, and many other massacres of Lebanese civilians by Palestinians, and many other killings on a grander scale of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians by the Israeli and Syrian armies (as if the term "army" ought to present us with a more respectable manner of accepting killing people than the term "militia"), but somehow, all that the Israelis and all that the Western press, the Left in particular, seem to have a moral dilemma with, is the Sabra-Shatila massacres to which the Israelis were, in a worst case scenario, mere observers who did not rush to the rescue of the victims.
Another reason why the Lebanese feel insulted by that subtle moral superiority argument is that no one bothers to look at the real victims and the real perpetrators of the Sabra-Shatila massacres: The Palestinian refugees and the Christian militias. Isn’t it there that the real horror must be the most striking, instead of the placid ruminations of an observer? What drove the Christian militias to commit this act? What is the narrative from the perspective of the butchers? Would these massacres be minimally justified – as attenuating circumstances – if the Christian militias committed Sabra-Shatila in a direct act of revenge against the Damour massacres, as is generally well known?
I was dreading the moment when “Waltz with Bashir” would win an Oscar, because not only my pain would subside further down some sewer of Western morality, but also because it would guarantee that the knife was going to be constantly moved in my wound for a few more decades. I am exhilarated now that “Waltz with Bashir” has not won, because it should now be relegated to the trash bin of movie-making where it belongs.
To the Israelis: If the pain of others does not stir you beyond your own self-obsession, you should just leave it alone. Take your hurt and go home – yes, indeed, just move on, and don’t exploit mine for fame, fortune and a place of moral superiority. In fact, take the Palestinian refugees back to the land of Israel where they belong because they do not belong in Lebanon and the Lebanese will never accept them. That’s your real moral dilemma: The Palestinian tragedy in which you are much much more than observers who have the luxury to ponder at length about the death of others make them feel. That’s the moral obligation you ought to write long and wide about, make movies, set up inquiry commissions, and hope one day to win an Oscar.
Hanibaal
______________________________________________________________________
Winslet, 'Waltz,' and how Hollywood likes its Jews
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Oscar, Kate Winslet
Hollywood is about message. It is not, strictly speaking, about subtlety, nor idle fretting over obvious irony.
So when Israelis woke up before dawn on Monday to watch the 81st running of the Oscars, the message was clear enough. Hollywood knows exactly how it likes its Jews: Victims. Civilian victims. Targets of genocide. None of this Goliath stuff. None of these pre-emptive, disproportionate, morally amorphous behaviors.
My wife, the child of Auschwitz survivors, saw it right off, even in the dark. Even before they announced the winner of the Best Actress award.
Against a well-deserved paean to eventual winner Kate Winslet, a giant screen showed hunted, gaunt, clearly doomed figures. "This is how Hollywood likes its Jews," my wife said. "Hunched over and dressed in rags."
Minutes before, as if to underscore the Hollywood principle that Jewish history ended in the Holocaust, and Israeli history ended with "Exodus," the Oscar ceremony enlisted Liam Neeson - star of the ultimate Hollywood version of the Good Christian-Bad Holocaust epic, Schindler's List - to deny the Oscar to a film showing Jews not as they may have been, but as they, in fact are.
The narrative of Israel has become increasingly uncomfortable for the limousine left of Hollywood. Not necessarily because of the specifics of occupation and overkill. No, there are wider problems with these Israelis. Their story arc doesn't work.
They are neither cutesy, comedic Yiddishers nor noble, chiseled, ascetically moral kibbutzniks. They bear as much resemblance to Zohan as Adam Sandler does to Tsipi Livni. Israelis are complicated, angry, unhappy, family-oriented, insular, often flawed human-beings.
Perhaps, in the Hollywood context, the problem with these Israelis, is that they are not identifiable as Jews at all.
Last year, "Beaufort," an exceptional Israeli film about IDF soldiers at war in Lebanon was one of the five nominees, but lost to the Austrian entry, in which a Jewish concentration camp prisoner forges currency for the Nazis.
This year, "Waltz with Bashir," an extraordinary, soul-shattering Israeli film about IDF soldiers at war in Lebanon, was one of the five nominees. Its only connection to the Holocaust, however, is an uncomfortably authentic one. As Neeson's announcement suggested, with his small but ringing note of incredulity, a nominee it will forever stay.
There were at least eight films classed as Holocaust-based, released in 2008. "Waltz with Bashir" was not one of them. But in dealing with searing honesty about war, memory, the violent death of innocents, as well as about the complex darkness at Israel's heart, it has fundamentally more to do with the Holocaust than any of the eight.
Ari Folman, the director of "Waltz with Bashir," is also the son of Holocaust survivors. The Holocaust informs the film in ways that Hollywood is literally incapable of imagining. Because this is the real thing.
"Waltz with Bashir" was not made for Hollywood, it was made for human beings. It was made for the people who went through the horror it shows, and who are still going through new horrors which feel exactly as unbearable.
The story of how Hollywood likes its Jews has been told before, of course, never more succinctly - or with a heavier cargo of irony - than when Kate Winslet played a satirized version of herself in a 2005 episode of the U.K. series "Extras."
Winslet, then winless in four trips to the Oscar nomination altar, explains to series star Ricky Gervais, why she's decided to act in a Holocaust film.
Gervais: You doing this, it's so commendable, using your profile to keep the message alive about the Holocaust.
Winslet: God, I'm not doing it for that. We definitely don't need another film about the Holocaust, do we? It's like, how many have there been? You know, we get it. It was grim. Move on.
I'm doing it because I noticed that if you do a film about the Holocaust, you're guaranteed an Oscar. I've been nominated four times. Never won. The whole world is going, 'Why hasn't Winslet won one?' ... That's why I'm doing it. Schindler's bloody List. The Pianist. Oscars coming outta their ass ...
Gervais: It's a good plan.
This year, despite general agreement that her performance as a 1950s-era Connecticut housewife in Revolutionary Road was far better than her role as a former SS guard in The Reader, life imitated Gervais, and the Oscar was finally Winslet's.
Back in Israel, meanwhile, the debriefing of the Academy Awards had begun. On an early morning television news show, Meital Zvieli, the lead researcher for "Waltz with Bashir," said that despite their disappointment, the crew members watching in Israel felt that, in any case, "The film won." It had been seen by people who needed to see it, people who in many cases began to speak to their families about their own experiences only after having experienced the film.
That may be the only point that really matters.
In the end, the cultural distance from the Jews of Hollywood to the Jews of Israel may be impassible.
The oldest and most basic need of the Jews who invented the film industry, the compulsion to reinvent themselves, early on developed into the need to reinvent the Jewish people. There, after all these years, the industry remains.
Perhaps, after all these years, it's time for Hollywood, at long last, to take seriously and with intelligence another piece of Gervais' scripted advice.
Move on.
Friday, February 20, 2009
NOPAL: The Lebanese People on the Palestinian Refugees
The position of the Lebanese people on the Palestinian refugee problem is best expressed by the series of articles and opinions in this blog by NOPAL Coalition (No Palestine in Lebanon):
http://nopalestineinlebanon.blogspot.com/
http://nopalestineinlebanon.blogspot.com/
Wednesday, February 18, 2009
Golan Border Between Syria and Israel Open for Export-Import Business!
While "pro-Syrian", "anti-Israel", "pro-Iran" and viciously "anti-Lebanese" Hezbollah is kidnapping and killing people for allegedly "spying" for Israel;
While the "anti-Syrian", "anti-Israel", "pro-West", "pro-Saudi" but always "anti-Lebanese" Siniora government is arresting Lebanese for allegedly spying for Israel;
And while both Siniora and Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah always speak highly of Syria, as a sister Arab country, as a resistor to Israel, and defender of Arab causes, even though Syria - over 35 years of occupation of Lebanon - killed many more Lebanese and imprisoned many more Lebanese than Israel ever has, we discover today that Syria is officially buying Israeli products and dealing with the "enemy" Israel.
Here is the news as reported by the press today:
Israel and Syria Agree to Apple Exports from Israel to Syria.
Truckloads of apples were sent from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to Syria on Tuesday after both Israel and Syria signed an agreement authorizing the export of 8,000 tons of apples to Syria. The first shipments went through the Kuneitra crossing on Tuesday morning.
"The International Red Cross is acting as an intermediary at the request of the farmers of the occupied Golan and with the approval of both the Syrian and Israeli authorities," the humanitarian organization said in a statement. The transfer of the apples is expected to take between six and eight weeks.
Apple production is a a main source of income for Syrian farmers in the Golan, which Israel occupied first in the 1967 Six-Day War, then in the following October 1973 Israeli-Arab war, and finally annexed in 1981. Despite the occupation and annexation by Israel, Syria has maintained friendly borders between the two countries since the 1974 cease-fire agreement, and there has never been any hostile actions or resistance movements by the Syrian side against the Israeli occupation, in contrast to the so-called Palestinian and Hezbollah "resistances" and other terrorist groups which Syria continues to support and arm in Lebanon, but not in Syria.
Since the Israeli occupation of the Golan, the original Syrian population of the plateau has declined from 150,000 to about 18,000, mostly Druze, while Jewish settlements have steadily raised the Israeli population of the Golan to 25,000 Jewish settlers.
I pity the idiot Sunni and Shiite Lebanese, such as Siniora and Nasrallah, who continue to deny themselves a chance at stability and peace by maintaining a state of war with Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border (under pressure from Syria), while Syria itself has enjoyed 40 years of stability and economic development by never resisting Israel's occupation of the Golan.
Hanibaal
While the "anti-Syrian", "anti-Israel", "pro-West", "pro-Saudi" but always "anti-Lebanese" Siniora government is arresting Lebanese for allegedly spying for Israel;
And while both Siniora and Hezbollah's Hassan Nasrallah always speak highly of Syria, as a sister Arab country, as a resistor to Israel, and defender of Arab causes, even though Syria - over 35 years of occupation of Lebanon - killed many more Lebanese and imprisoned many more Lebanese than Israel ever has, we discover today that Syria is officially buying Israeli products and dealing with the "enemy" Israel.
Here is the news as reported by the press today:
Israel and Syria Agree to Apple Exports from Israel to Syria.
Truckloads of apples were sent from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights to Syria on Tuesday after both Israel and Syria signed an agreement authorizing the export of 8,000 tons of apples to Syria. The first shipments went through the Kuneitra crossing on Tuesday morning.
"The International Red Cross is acting as an intermediary at the request of the farmers of the occupied Golan and with the approval of both the Syrian and Israeli authorities," the humanitarian organization said in a statement. The transfer of the apples is expected to take between six and eight weeks.
Apple production is a a main source of income for Syrian farmers in the Golan, which Israel occupied first in the 1967 Six-Day War, then in the following October 1973 Israeli-Arab war, and finally annexed in 1981. Despite the occupation and annexation by Israel, Syria has maintained friendly borders between the two countries since the 1974 cease-fire agreement, and there has never been any hostile actions or resistance movements by the Syrian side against the Israeli occupation, in contrast to the so-called Palestinian and Hezbollah "resistances" and other terrorist groups which Syria continues to support and arm in Lebanon, but not in Syria.
Since the Israeli occupation of the Golan, the original Syrian population of the plateau has declined from 150,000 to about 18,000, mostly Druze, while Jewish settlements have steadily raised the Israeli population of the Golan to 25,000 Jewish settlers.
I pity the idiot Sunni and Shiite Lebanese, such as Siniora and Nasrallah, who continue to deny themselves a chance at stability and peace by maintaining a state of war with Israel along the Lebanese-Israeli border (under pressure from Syria), while Syria itself has enjoyed 40 years of stability and economic development by never resisting Israel's occupation of the Golan.
Hanibaal
Tuesday, February 17, 2009
"Pro-West" Siniora Government Muzzles Artistic Expression in Lebanon
(Based on a Daily Star report)
Feb. 18, 2009
BEIRUT: "Help," a new Lebanese film that was due to open this week, now hangs in limbo as the license granted to it last summer by the Siniora government's censorship department has been revoked.
Apparently, the backward Sunnis and Shiites in the Lebanese government feel the need to apply variations of oppressive Islamic Law to an otherwise vibrant and liberal art scene and other freedoms of expression that are sacrosanct in Lebanon. As if the Muslims of Lebanon have not done enough in 40 years to destabilize the country and bring it to ruin, they now are attacking the fledgling resurgence of liberal free thinking, long the hallmark of Lebanon in the otherwise repressed Middle East. Since they lack the testicular fortitude to attack the windmills of the so-called "Israeli enemy", the Don Quixotes Siniora and Hassan Nasrallah are now busying themselves attacking the last residues of intelligent life in Lebanon, with the goal of finally turning Lebanon into yet another drab, controlled and repressed Arab country.
Permission to show the film in Lebanon was granted on July 10, 2008 under the license serial number 1460. That license was pulled this past Monday, February 16, just three days before the scheduled opening, and four days after the avant-premiere on February 12, when the film received largely positive reviews from the press.
Siniora's government says it is recalling the license due to a "technical error" that granted the permit to "Help" instead of another film. In order to pass censorship regulations again, the department is requesting that 28 minutes of the 87-minute-long film be cut.
A psychological-social drama, "Help" tells a story of choice and destiny in a Lebanese context, bringing together the lives of a prostitute, a juvenile delinquent, a wealthy businessman, and a cab driver, among others. The film also tackles homosexuality and prostitution by presenting actors in a realistic light intended to reveal the basic humanity behind these issues. The 28 minutes in question largely contain scenes that include swearing and homosexuality.
"This is the first Lebanese film that talks about these subjects," said actress Joanna Andraos, who plays the role of prostitute Soraya. "Many films talk about politics, war, conflict ... but the singularity of this film is that it just tells a story ... Unlike 'Caramel,' which was sweet, 'Help' is raw and violent in speaking about a lot of taboos from the perspective of multiple generations" she added.
Interest has been shown in the film from a representative of Cannes, and the team is working on getting distributors for the United States and France.
"I won't accept to change even one second of my movie," movie director Abi-Rached said, adding that "I already had the permit; I did everything by the book. I don't want to challenge the system, I just want my movie. People have the right to see this film."
Hanibaal
Feb. 18, 2009
BEIRUT: "Help," a new Lebanese film that was due to open this week, now hangs in limbo as the license granted to it last summer by the Siniora government's censorship department has been revoked.
Apparently, the backward Sunnis and Shiites in the Lebanese government feel the need to apply variations of oppressive Islamic Law to an otherwise vibrant and liberal art scene and other freedoms of expression that are sacrosanct in Lebanon. As if the Muslims of Lebanon have not done enough in 40 years to destabilize the country and bring it to ruin, they now are attacking the fledgling resurgence of liberal free thinking, long the hallmark of Lebanon in the otherwise repressed Middle East. Since they lack the testicular fortitude to attack the windmills of the so-called "Israeli enemy", the Don Quixotes Siniora and Hassan Nasrallah are now busying themselves attacking the last residues of intelligent life in Lebanon, with the goal of finally turning Lebanon into yet another drab, controlled and repressed Arab country.
Permission to show the film in Lebanon was granted on July 10, 2008 under the license serial number 1460. That license was pulled this past Monday, February 16, just three days before the scheduled opening, and four days after the avant-premiere on February 12, when the film received largely positive reviews from the press.
Siniora's government says it is recalling the license due to a "technical error" that granted the permit to "Help" instead of another film. In order to pass censorship regulations again, the department is requesting that 28 minutes of the 87-minute-long film be cut.
A psychological-social drama, "Help" tells a story of choice and destiny in a Lebanese context, bringing together the lives of a prostitute, a juvenile delinquent, a wealthy businessman, and a cab driver, among others. The film also tackles homosexuality and prostitution by presenting actors in a realistic light intended to reveal the basic humanity behind these issues. The 28 minutes in question largely contain scenes that include swearing and homosexuality.
"This is the first Lebanese film that talks about these subjects," said actress Joanna Andraos, who plays the role of prostitute Soraya. "Many films talk about politics, war, conflict ... but the singularity of this film is that it just tells a story ... Unlike 'Caramel,' which was sweet, 'Help' is raw and violent in speaking about a lot of taboos from the perspective of multiple generations" she added.
Interest has been shown in the film from a representative of Cannes, and the team is working on getting distributors for the United States and France.
"I won't accept to change even one second of my movie," movie director Abi-Rached said, adding that "I already had the permit; I did everything by the book. I don't want to challenge the system, I just want my movie. People have the right to see this film."
Hanibaal
Saturday, February 14, 2009
Campaign for Secular Lebanon Continues
Lebanese say pretend “I do’s” in Valentine civil weddings
February 14, 2009
This year for Saint Valentine's Day, Rana Khoury and Rayan Ismail have decided to say "I do" in a civil marriage in a Beirut pub, even though such weddings have no legal basis in Lebanon.
"I am not really married, that's true, but I have said what I think and I hope it will be heard by politicians," said Rana, as radiant as a true bride, clasping a bouquet in her hand. "I am joyful because it is a cause which is very dear to me."
Civil weddings are recognized in Lebanon but cannot take place on national territory. Marriage, divorce and inheritance are regulated according to the conventions of Lebanon's 18 religious faiths. The campaign for parliament to approve the option of civil marriage has been running for more than 10 years.
Earlier this week, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud decided to grant Lebanese citizens the right to decline to state their confession on official identification, the first decision of its kind. Civil weddings, however, remain a remote possibility.
"It is a real shame that Lebanese people who don't believe in religious weddings should have to go abroad to get hitched," said Marc Daou, who performed the ceremony in the role of "mayor". Ougarit Dandache, who married a journalist colleague in a civil ceremony in the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus a year ago, proudly shows off her second "marriage certificate".
A few minutes earlier, when the "representative of the Lebanese Republic" asks her whether she is making her vows of her own free will, she replies with a pretense of gloom: "After a year of marriage? Yes I accept it, it is not the end of the world." Marc then states in a formal tone: "In the name of the responsibilities bestowed upon me by the Lebanese authorities, I declare you man and wife."
Amid a chorus of cheering, the newly wedded couples dance to traditional Lebanese music with a glass of champagne in their hands. Some guests act as if they are at a genuine ceremony, and Rayan's friends call out "Mabrouk, mabrouk" (“Congratulations”), slapping him on the shoulder.
Some couples come from different religions while others are from the same faith, but all the people here see themselves as secular.
Rayan, who dreamed up the not-quite official marriage event, is an activist in the Democratic Left, a member of Lebanon's ruling coalition. "I am working for a secular Lebanon. The option of a civil marriage is just as much a right as a religious marriage. The world has changed and laws cannot remain the same," he said. "A general election is coming and we hope candidates will listen to us."
Elias Atallah, an MP and leader of the Democratic Left, has turned out to support the young people. "The religious communities have all the rights in Lebanon. A Lebanese person, as a citizen, has nothing," he said.
February 14, 2009
This year for Saint Valentine's Day, Rana Khoury and Rayan Ismail have decided to say "I do" in a civil marriage in a Beirut pub, even though such weddings have no legal basis in Lebanon.
"I am not really married, that's true, but I have said what I think and I hope it will be heard by politicians," said Rana, as radiant as a true bride, clasping a bouquet in her hand. "I am joyful because it is a cause which is very dear to me."
Civil weddings are recognized in Lebanon but cannot take place on national territory. Marriage, divorce and inheritance are regulated according to the conventions of Lebanon's 18 religious faiths. The campaign for parliament to approve the option of civil marriage has been running for more than 10 years.
Earlier this week, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud decided to grant Lebanese citizens the right to decline to state their confession on official identification, the first decision of its kind. Civil weddings, however, remain a remote possibility.
"It is a real shame that Lebanese people who don't believe in religious weddings should have to go abroad to get hitched," said Marc Daou, who performed the ceremony in the role of "mayor". Ougarit Dandache, who married a journalist colleague in a civil ceremony in the nearby Mediterranean island of Cyprus a year ago, proudly shows off her second "marriage certificate".
A few minutes earlier, when the "representative of the Lebanese Republic" asks her whether she is making her vows of her own free will, she replies with a pretense of gloom: "After a year of marriage? Yes I accept it, it is not the end of the world." Marc then states in a formal tone: "In the name of the responsibilities bestowed upon me by the Lebanese authorities, I declare you man and wife."
Amid a chorus of cheering, the newly wedded couples dance to traditional Lebanese music with a glass of champagne in their hands. Some guests act as if they are at a genuine ceremony, and Rayan's friends call out "Mabrouk, mabrouk" (“Congratulations”), slapping him on the shoulder.
Some couples come from different religions while others are from the same faith, but all the people here see themselves as secular.
Rayan, who dreamed up the not-quite official marriage event, is an activist in the Democratic Left, a member of Lebanon's ruling coalition. "I am working for a secular Lebanon. The option of a civil marriage is just as much a right as a religious marriage. The world has changed and laws cannot remain the same," he said. "A general election is coming and we hope candidates will listen to us."
Elias Atallah, an MP and leader of the Democratic Left, has turned out to support the young people. "The religious communities have all the rights in Lebanon. A Lebanese person, as a citizen, has nothing," he said.
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Good First Step - Religion Out - Bravo Minister Baroud,
Interior Minister Ziad Baroud issued a circular on Wednesday giving every Lebanese citizen the right to remove any reference to one's religion in Civil Registry records. The circular said that the registrar should accept all requests made by citizens to delete reference to their religion in their records.
The circular said that such a right is protected by the Lebanese constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements that Lebanon has ratified.
Article 9 of the Lebanese constitution states that freedom of belief is an absolute right and is one among other freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change one's religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest one's religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
The freedom of belief guaranteed by the Lebanese constitution includes the right to belong or not to a certain sect, the right to declare or not this belonging at the Civil Status Registry, and the right to strike it out or amend it.
While this is a major step forward towards a secularization of the Lebanese political system, major hurdles remain in eliminating religion entirely from public life. Lebanon's political system remains one of the most primitive in the world since one's national identity and political life are not governed by independent State institutions, but rather remain tightly in the hands of the churches, mosques and other organized religions that dominate the State. Lebanon's so-called democracy is a fallacy; the reality is that Lebanon is a federated theocracy where religious communities - not people - are represented in the government and State institutions.
For example, ordinary Lebanese cannot get married outside the church or the mosque, and divorces are a particular source of income for the religious clergy who abuse and exploit people in their predicaments to pilfer thousands of dollars of them before giving them an annulment or a divorce.
Another example is that in Lebanon you cannot be a Hindu, an agnsotic, a Bahai, an atheist, or a member of any other religion than the 18 that the Lebanese constitution recognizes. You have no civil status if you are not a member of those 18 communities. In effect, Minister Baroud's decree may be a smokescreen because it only removes "reference" to one's religion, but one's religion will continue to determine who votes and who runs for public office.
Yet another example is the insidious manner in which organized religions govern people's personal lives. In Lebanon, no two spouses in an inter-religious marriage are allowed to keep their own individual religions; Typically, the wife has to abandon her religion and convert to her husband's in order to be allowed to marry him. "Honor killings" are still protected by the law in Lebanon: Every other day, a Muslim woman is killed because her brother, cousin, or any male member of her extended family accused her or suspected her of an out-of-marriage relationship. Often, this is how a male relative who had forced a female member of his family into prostitution but who fears the woman might go public, silences her by killing her then declaring that she has "dishonored" the family.
These examples are only the tip of the iceberg that is the nightmare of Lebanon's theocratic system of government.
Hanibaal
The circular said that such a right is protected by the Lebanese constitution, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other international agreements that Lebanon has ratified.
Article 9 of the Lebanese constitution states that freedom of belief is an absolute right and is one among other freedoms guaranteed by the constitution. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change one's religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest one's religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.”
The freedom of belief guaranteed by the Lebanese constitution includes the right to belong or not to a certain sect, the right to declare or not this belonging at the Civil Status Registry, and the right to strike it out or amend it.
While this is a major step forward towards a secularization of the Lebanese political system, major hurdles remain in eliminating religion entirely from public life. Lebanon's political system remains one of the most primitive in the world since one's national identity and political life are not governed by independent State institutions, but rather remain tightly in the hands of the churches, mosques and other organized religions that dominate the State. Lebanon's so-called democracy is a fallacy; the reality is that Lebanon is a federated theocracy where religious communities - not people - are represented in the government and State institutions.
For example, ordinary Lebanese cannot get married outside the church or the mosque, and divorces are a particular source of income for the religious clergy who abuse and exploit people in their predicaments to pilfer thousands of dollars of them before giving them an annulment or a divorce.
Another example is that in Lebanon you cannot be a Hindu, an agnsotic, a Bahai, an atheist, or a member of any other religion than the 18 that the Lebanese constitution recognizes. You have no civil status if you are not a member of those 18 communities. In effect, Minister Baroud's decree may be a smokescreen because it only removes "reference" to one's religion, but one's religion will continue to determine who votes and who runs for public office.
Yet another example is the insidious manner in which organized religions govern people's personal lives. In Lebanon, no two spouses in an inter-religious marriage are allowed to keep their own individual religions; Typically, the wife has to abandon her religion and convert to her husband's in order to be allowed to marry him. "Honor killings" are still protected by the law in Lebanon: Every other day, a Muslim woman is killed because her brother, cousin, or any male member of her extended family accused her or suspected her of an out-of-marriage relationship. Often, this is how a male relative who had forced a female member of his family into prostitution but who fears the woman might go public, silences her by killing her then declaring that she has "dishonored" the family.
These examples are only the tip of the iceberg that is the nightmare of Lebanon's theocratic system of government.
Hanibaal
Sunday, February 8, 2009
Details of Hizbullah's Terrorist-in-Chief Imad Mughniyeh’s assassination
By Andrew Wander
Daily Star staff
Monday, February 09, 2009
Hizbullah military commander Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated by Israeli Mossad agents supplied with information gathered by American CIA officials in Iraq, according to a report published in an Israeli newspaper. The Yediot Ahronot newspaper said it had received new details about Mughniyeh's death from an anonymous Lebanese official who had been charged with investigating the killing, and from Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer.
The report claimed that important details used to plan the assassination were gathered from Ali Moussa Daqduq, a Hizbullah operative who was arrested in Iraq in January 2007, where he was allgedly training members of the Shiite Mehdi Army. He was handed to US intelligence agents, who extracted a wealth of information about Mughniyeh from their prisoner, including his telephone numbers, his physical description, his behavioral traits and the names of his acquaintances. The US then passed this information to the Israeli intelligence service, which began planning an operation to kill the Hizbullah military mastermind.
The newspaper says a single mistake by Mughniyeh led to his death. Israel received intelligence that he would be attending a reception hosted by Iran's new ambassador to Damascus to commemorate the 29th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Mughniyeh had apparently eschewed his usual security detail for the event, traveling without his bodyguards or chauffeur, and had arrived at the reception alone. He had no idea that a Mossad hit squad was lying in wait for him.
According to the newspaper, Israel had dispatched a team of agents tasked with killing Mughniyeh to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq before the reception. The team slipped across the border into Syria in three vehicles and began monitoring their target the day before he died. While Mughniyeh was attending the reception, the assassins broke into his car, a silver Mitsubishi Pajero, removing the headrest on his seat and replacing it with an identical one loaded with explosives. Rather than setting the explosives on a timer, the agents used a remote controlled charge that they could detonate at the right moment. They lay in wait for their quarry and when he was in the car, they detonated the explosives, killing him instantly.
His death sent shockwaves through Hizbullah, an organization known for being almost impenetrable to hostile intelligence agencies, and the group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah immediately pledged revenge.
Almost a year on, no response has come. But during a news conference held at the end of January, Nasrallah reiterated his promise to avenge the assassination. "The Israelis live in fear of our revenge," he said. "The decision to respond to the killing is still on. We decide the time and the place". His comments have sparked fears in Israel that a Hizbullah revenge attack is imminent. Israeli troops stationed on the border with Lebanon have been placed on high alert, and the Jewish state's counter-terrorism bureau has issued a warning to Israeli nationals that they may be targeted abroad.
Israeli politicians, currently locked in a bitter election race, have pledged a devastating response to any Hizbullah attack. On a visit to northern Israel last week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that Lebanon would be held responsible for Hizbullah's actions. "Hizbullah is not just a terrorist organization running around the hills. It also sits at the cabinet table in Beirut," Barak said. "Therefore, the Lebanese government bears overall responsibility and any attempt to attack Israel will be met with a response."
Daily Star staff
Monday, February 09, 2009
Hizbullah military commander Imad Mughniyeh was assassinated by Israeli Mossad agents supplied with information gathered by American CIA officials in Iraq, according to a report published in an Israeli newspaper. The Yediot Ahronot newspaper said it had received new details about Mughniyeh's death from an anonymous Lebanese official who had been charged with investigating the killing, and from Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer.
The report claimed that important details used to plan the assassination were gathered from Ali Moussa Daqduq, a Hizbullah operative who was arrested in Iraq in January 2007, where he was allgedly training members of the Shiite Mehdi Army. He was handed to US intelligence agents, who extracted a wealth of information about Mughniyeh from their prisoner, including his telephone numbers, his physical description, his behavioral traits and the names of his acquaintances. The US then passed this information to the Israeli intelligence service, which began planning an operation to kill the Hizbullah military mastermind.
The newspaper says a single mistake by Mughniyeh led to his death. Israel received intelligence that he would be attending a reception hosted by Iran's new ambassador to Damascus to commemorate the 29th anniversary of the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Mughniyeh had apparently eschewed his usual security detail for the event, traveling without his bodyguards or chauffeur, and had arrived at the reception alone. He had no idea that a Mossad hit squad was lying in wait for him.
According to the newspaper, Israel had dispatched a team of agents tasked with killing Mughniyeh to Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq before the reception. The team slipped across the border into Syria in three vehicles and began monitoring their target the day before he died. While Mughniyeh was attending the reception, the assassins broke into his car, a silver Mitsubishi Pajero, removing the headrest on his seat and replacing it with an identical one loaded with explosives. Rather than setting the explosives on a timer, the agents used a remote controlled charge that they could detonate at the right moment. They lay in wait for their quarry and when he was in the car, they detonated the explosives, killing him instantly.
His death sent shockwaves through Hizbullah, an organization known for being almost impenetrable to hostile intelligence agencies, and the group's leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah immediately pledged revenge.
Almost a year on, no response has come. But during a news conference held at the end of January, Nasrallah reiterated his promise to avenge the assassination. "The Israelis live in fear of our revenge," he said. "The decision to respond to the killing is still on. We decide the time and the place". His comments have sparked fears in Israel that a Hizbullah revenge attack is imminent. Israeli troops stationed on the border with Lebanon have been placed on high alert, and the Jewish state's counter-terrorism bureau has issued a warning to Israeli nationals that they may be targeted abroad.
Israeli politicians, currently locked in a bitter election race, have pledged a devastating response to any Hizbullah attack. On a visit to northern Israel last week, Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that Lebanon would be held responsible for Hizbullah's actions. "Hizbullah is not just a terrorist organization running around the hills. It also sits at the cabinet table in Beirut," Barak said. "Therefore, the Lebanese government bears overall responsibility and any attempt to attack Israel will be met with a response."
Suicidal No-War No-Peace Status Quo in Beirut
Joseph Hitti
American Chronicle
12/21/2008
Abstract: Time for Lebanon's politicians to get off the fence and make peace with Israel. The Lebanese people deserve no less that a normalization of their lives after 50 years of mayhem on the pretense of "resistance." The "pro-America" government of Fuad Siniora is betraying its American patron by subscribing to Hezbollah's and Syria's pressures not to negotiate with Israel and end Lebanon's agony.
The Siniora-Sleiman regime in Beirut yesterday (Dec. 19, 2008) notified State Department envoy Christopher Hill that Lebanon not only refuses to engage Israel in indirect negotiations, before or after Obama is vested in the White House, but that Lebanon will NEVER negotiate with Israel unless these negotiations are part of a "comprehensive settlement". For those like me who grew up in the Middle East, the term "comprehensive settlement" in essence means NEVER. For the past 70 or so years, the only advances made in the Arab-Israeli conflict were those which were NOT part of a comprehensive settlement, but rather those that resulted from bilateral negotiations, such as the Camp David Accords, the Oslo and Madrid Agreements, the Jordanian-Israeli peace and normalization treaty, and even the 1974 ceasefire agreement between Syria and Israel.
In other words, the Lebanese government has officially declared – and apparently has decided – that it wants Lebanon to remain in the no-war, no-peace limbo of the past 40 years, and to side with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah in rejecting the idea of a bilaterally-reached peace between Lebanon and Israel. The Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora is effectively slapping its patrons - the US and Europe – in the face, even as it continuously begs the West for money, assistance, weapons and whatever else to keep alive this otherwise failed state called Lebanon.
The implications of this dumb rejection of negotiations are very serious, and indeed they bring to the surface the contradictions and weaknesses of the so-called "pro-American" camp in Lebanon, particularly as Lebanon contemplates parliamentary elections this coming June whose outcome could very well decisively capsize Lebanon into the Iranian-Hezbollah camp in a best-case scenario or total chaos in a worst-case scenario.
There is a logic to being "pro-American" or "anti-Syrian" or "anti-Hezbollah" that the professed adherents to this "March 14" camp seem to be unaware of, and which the Americans have not pushed hard on its Lebanese clients since the present divide in Lebanese politics came to being in 2005 after the Hariri assassination. That logic is that if you are anti-Syrian, anti-Iran, anti-Hezbollah, then you must be pro-peace, pro-negotiations, pro-settlement, and at some level pro-the idea of the ultimate acceptance of Israel as a fait accompli and its recognition as a negotiating partner. As the past 40 years have shown again and again in Lebanon, the pretense of being at the same time neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Syrian – or neither pro-war nor pro-peace, or however way one chooses to label the two camps - is untenable. The Palestinian example is a living one. The schizophrenia in Palestinian politics about how to deal with Israel has led to the present stalemate and split in the Palestinian body politic. The reason why the decision by Egypt and Jordan to make peace with Israel did not degenerate into the chaos of Palestine or Lebanon is that, on the whole, Egypt and Jordan decided to be in the pro-peace camp and not simply sit on the fence. Syria, on the other hand, has decided to be in the pro-war camp and it too has been fairly stable. But Lebanon is a fence-sitter par excellence. Lebanon's motto may well be "be nothing" in the belief that being nothing can make you something.
But Lebanon must decide. It cannot keep trying to placate the inevitable peace negotiations and at the same time pretend to be pro-peace. It stands to lose big time, more so than it thinks it has already lost. Lebanon has some very serious structural problems, many of which are not related to the Israeli-Arab conflict, but which that conflict has put on the back burner or sometimes exacerbated. Lebanon continues to be a failed state where corruption is rampant, basic services are inadequate, the national debt is 10 times the GDP, the borders are open to weapons and terrorism smuggling, periods of relative calm are punctuated by brief but devastating conflicts, the so-called Lebanese democracy is antiquated, dysfunctional, and really only skin-deep as Lebanese identity is a thin layer overlaying deep strata of religious, tribal, and political identities. In sum, Lebanon could explode, split or disappear at any moment if long term solutions do not begin to be addressed and take shape.
Here is a sampling of the contradictions and implications in Lebanon´s continued decision to reject negotiations with Israel:
- Lebanon will remain unstable, because in 70 years no one has ever managed to compel the parties to negotiate a "comprehensive" settlement. Indications from the present international conditions are that we are drifting farther and farther from an environment where such a settlement is possible.
- The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, numbering some 500,000, have more time to continue integrating into Lebanese society (under pressure from the West and Arab countries, on humanitarian grounds but also for more insidious political reasons) and ultimately their descendants will never want to return to Palestine. The "Right of Return" is being squandered as time goes by. As Lebanon´s Christians and secular constituents continue to emigrate in droves, Lebanon´s demographic balance will continue to erode towards further Arabization and Islamization, and the Swiss model of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, Lebanon will continue to fade until such time as an overwhelmingly Islamized Lebanon will have no reason to exist as an independent distinct entity and will ultimately be merged into Syria or some other Islamic entity in the neighborhood.
- In Lebanon, all the parties disagree literally on everything all the time. The political process is, by definition, a stalemate, punctuated by occasional breakthroughs when the West or wealthy Arabs pump in some money to buy this or that party´s acquiescence to a lull, such as happened in Doha last May. The only thing they all agree on is, obviously the easiest and most comfortable position, to be anti-Israel and blame Israel for everything that happens in Lebanon. For example, the Israeli enemy is behind the rationing of electricity because Hezbollah and Jumblatt have to pilfer the Treasury while "resisting" Israel. On top of the paranoia, there is also an element of ignorance: yesterday, a visiting American teenager who parked his camera-equipped bicycle (from which he innocently beamed his trip to his blog) on the street as he visited his girlfriend, was arrested. The incident sent the entire Lebanese state into a commotion on the presumption that an "Israeli spy" was caught. Therefore, the starting premise to any political position is that Israel is the enemy and the enemy wants you ill.
But the constitutive rejection by Lebanon´s political establishment of negotiations with Israel is in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy: Israel is a belligerent enemy that does not want peace, so Lebanon´s smart politicians tell their people, and therefore we don´t make peace with an enemy that does not want peace, and so on and so forth. In other words, Lebanon´s politicians are accomplices of the very enemy they constantly bash. They may not be smart enough to imagine challenging their enemy in peace or defeating their enemy in negotiations. But the real reason is that they are afraid of breaking the taboo, even if their brothers the Syrians, the Palestinians, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, and increasingly the Tunisians, the Moroccans, the Qataris and the Emirates have all overcome that complex. Again, as I called it in a previous opinion, the Lebanese insist on being the village idiots of the Arab world when it comes to Israel.
By rejecting peace with Israel, Lebanon´s politicians are giving Israel exactly what it wants: Time. Time has been Israel´s best friend: The longer it took the Palestinians to recognize Israel, the more time Israel had to build settlements and encroach on Palestinian land. As long as there are no negotiated resolutions, Israel can keep violating Lebanese airspace or controlling useless strips of border real estate with Lebanon, or building settlements, de-palestinizing the Gaza strip and the West bank, and creating more and more "facts on the ground" in Palestine that keep pushing an ultimate solution further and further away.
- Lebanon will remain the scapegoat and the hostage of the conflict where otherwise impotent coward Arabs will seek to compensate for their inadequacy in world diplomacy by leaving Lebanon in a maelstrom of despair and resistance and empty promises.
- More immediately, the Lebanese government is in fact saying that it agrees with Syria, Hezbollah and Iran, even as this consensus government includes the March 14 musketeers of "Sovereignty, Independence and Freedom" who claim to be anti-Syrian, anti-Hezbollah and anti-Iran.
- Finally, and more dangerously, the US and the West have sponsored all attempts at a solution in the past, and had hoped that by helping Lebanon come out from under the Syrian Gulag, Lebanon will become an example of peacemaking, as much as it is supposedly an example of democracy. The West had hoped that Lebanon may be the next Arab country to normalize with Israel and show the way to peace. But the idiotic stubbornness of Sleiman and Siniora, along with their Hezbollah and March 14 pile of dung allies, is jeopardizing that support and putting Lebanon on a very dangerous course. The risk is that the US and the West will change their minds. They may come to the same conclusion that many Lebanese themselves already have: Lebanon is a failed state that cannot save itself, so why invest in trying to setting it on a straight path. Rescuing Lebanon is indeed like rescuing a drowning man: The more you try, the more he sinks and takes you with him. The current support to Lebanon is not going to last.
Particularly to the simpletons of the so-called Cedars Revolution, who are supportive of the Siniora-Sleiman regime and its pro-Hezbollah stances vis-à-vis Syria and Hezbollah´s rejection of negotiations with Israel, the US will have to change its course on Lebanon. If, after helping Lebanon get rid of the Syrian occupation, the "pro-American" Siniora, Hariri, Gemayel, Sleiman, Geagea, Jumblatt horde does not take a strong stance in favor of negotiations with Israel and end the state of war between Lebanon and its southern neighbor, even at the risk of conflict with Hezbollah, then the Americans will feel betrayed and in a dead-end. As it did in the 1970s, the US – particularly under an Obama presidency and a Clinton at State Department – will then turn to its enemies to try for a breakthrough. As it did in the 1970s, the US may well accept a long term modus vivendi with Syria and Hezbollah, because the US may feel that it is only through appeasement that they can placate the anti-peace camp. For Lebanon, this necessarily will mean a return of Syrian hegemony under American sponsorship, no matter what Christopher Hill and other State Department and US foreign policymakers keep telling the slow-witted Lebanese. Clinton and Obama are very very likely to reverse the Bush stance with Syria and re-recruit Syria to take a stab at "stabilizing" Lebanon and muzzling Hezbollah. For the US, this may, yet again, be its only path to a solution. For the Lebanese, this may be, yet again, their way of committing mass suicide.
Then again, why worry about it? Right now, it is 7:00 PM in Beirut. The "government" electricity just went out (there is still rationing after 20 years of the official end of hostilities), and the local crony of the local politician to whom we pay a second electric bill, turned his generator on. Meanwhile, the Lebanese Defense Minister just got 10 Mig 90 jet fighter planes from Russia. A state that can´t even provide running water and electricity to its people, that keeps begging the world for everything, has no business building arsenals. What enemy that hasn´t invaded, occupied and destroyed Lebanon a million times over is Lebanon going to stand up to with 10 jet fighter planes? Lebanon should go back to the formula that secured its success and prosperity in the 19502 and 1960s: It should make peace, declare its neutrality and, for real this time, become the Switzerland of the Middle East.
American Chronicle
12/21/2008
Abstract: Time for Lebanon's politicians to get off the fence and make peace with Israel. The Lebanese people deserve no less that a normalization of their lives after 50 years of mayhem on the pretense of "resistance." The "pro-America" government of Fuad Siniora is betraying its American patron by subscribing to Hezbollah's and Syria's pressures not to negotiate with Israel and end Lebanon's agony.
The Siniora-Sleiman regime in Beirut yesterday (Dec. 19, 2008) notified State Department envoy Christopher Hill that Lebanon not only refuses to engage Israel in indirect negotiations, before or after Obama is vested in the White House, but that Lebanon will NEVER negotiate with Israel unless these negotiations are part of a "comprehensive settlement". For those like me who grew up in the Middle East, the term "comprehensive settlement" in essence means NEVER. For the past 70 or so years, the only advances made in the Arab-Israeli conflict were those which were NOT part of a comprehensive settlement, but rather those that resulted from bilateral negotiations, such as the Camp David Accords, the Oslo and Madrid Agreements, the Jordanian-Israeli peace and normalization treaty, and even the 1974 ceasefire agreement between Syria and Israel.
In other words, the Lebanese government has officially declared – and apparently has decided – that it wants Lebanon to remain in the no-war, no-peace limbo of the past 40 years, and to side with Syria, Iran and Hezbollah in rejecting the idea of a bilaterally-reached peace between Lebanon and Israel. The Lebanese government of Fuad Siniora is effectively slapping its patrons - the US and Europe – in the face, even as it continuously begs the West for money, assistance, weapons and whatever else to keep alive this otherwise failed state called Lebanon.
The implications of this dumb rejection of negotiations are very serious, and indeed they bring to the surface the contradictions and weaknesses of the so-called "pro-American" camp in Lebanon, particularly as Lebanon contemplates parliamentary elections this coming June whose outcome could very well decisively capsize Lebanon into the Iranian-Hezbollah camp in a best-case scenario or total chaos in a worst-case scenario.
There is a logic to being "pro-American" or "anti-Syrian" or "anti-Hezbollah" that the professed adherents to this "March 14" camp seem to be unaware of, and which the Americans have not pushed hard on its Lebanese clients since the present divide in Lebanese politics came to being in 2005 after the Hariri assassination. That logic is that if you are anti-Syrian, anti-Iran, anti-Hezbollah, then you must be pro-peace, pro-negotiations, pro-settlement, and at some level pro-the idea of the ultimate acceptance of Israel as a fait accompli and its recognition as a negotiating partner. As the past 40 years have shown again and again in Lebanon, the pretense of being at the same time neither pro-Israeli nor pro-Syrian – or neither pro-war nor pro-peace, or however way one chooses to label the two camps - is untenable. The Palestinian example is a living one. The schizophrenia in Palestinian politics about how to deal with Israel has led to the present stalemate and split in the Palestinian body politic. The reason why the decision by Egypt and Jordan to make peace with Israel did not degenerate into the chaos of Palestine or Lebanon is that, on the whole, Egypt and Jordan decided to be in the pro-peace camp and not simply sit on the fence. Syria, on the other hand, has decided to be in the pro-war camp and it too has been fairly stable. But Lebanon is a fence-sitter par excellence. Lebanon's motto may well be "be nothing" in the belief that being nothing can make you something.
But Lebanon must decide. It cannot keep trying to placate the inevitable peace negotiations and at the same time pretend to be pro-peace. It stands to lose big time, more so than it thinks it has already lost. Lebanon has some very serious structural problems, many of which are not related to the Israeli-Arab conflict, but which that conflict has put on the back burner or sometimes exacerbated. Lebanon continues to be a failed state where corruption is rampant, basic services are inadequate, the national debt is 10 times the GDP, the borders are open to weapons and terrorism smuggling, periods of relative calm are punctuated by brief but devastating conflicts, the so-called Lebanese democracy is antiquated, dysfunctional, and really only skin-deep as Lebanese identity is a thin layer overlaying deep strata of religious, tribal, and political identities. In sum, Lebanon could explode, split or disappear at any moment if long term solutions do not begin to be addressed and take shape.
Here is a sampling of the contradictions and implications in Lebanon´s continued decision to reject negotiations with Israel:
- Lebanon will remain unstable, because in 70 years no one has ever managed to compel the parties to negotiate a "comprehensive" settlement. Indications from the present international conditions are that we are drifting farther and farther from an environment where such a settlement is possible.
- The Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, numbering some 500,000, have more time to continue integrating into Lebanese society (under pressure from the West and Arab countries, on humanitarian grounds but also for more insidious political reasons) and ultimately their descendants will never want to return to Palestine. The "Right of Return" is being squandered as time goes by. As Lebanon´s Christians and secular constituents continue to emigrate in droves, Lebanon´s demographic balance will continue to erode towards further Arabization and Islamization, and the Swiss model of a multi-ethnic, multi-religious, Lebanon will continue to fade until such time as an overwhelmingly Islamized Lebanon will have no reason to exist as an independent distinct entity and will ultimately be merged into Syria or some other Islamic entity in the neighborhood.
- In Lebanon, all the parties disagree literally on everything all the time. The political process is, by definition, a stalemate, punctuated by occasional breakthroughs when the West or wealthy Arabs pump in some money to buy this or that party´s acquiescence to a lull, such as happened in Doha last May. The only thing they all agree on is, obviously the easiest and most comfortable position, to be anti-Israel and blame Israel for everything that happens in Lebanon. For example, the Israeli enemy is behind the rationing of electricity because Hezbollah and Jumblatt have to pilfer the Treasury while "resisting" Israel. On top of the paranoia, there is also an element of ignorance: yesterday, a visiting American teenager who parked his camera-equipped bicycle (from which he innocently beamed his trip to his blog) on the street as he visited his girlfriend, was arrested. The incident sent the entire Lebanese state into a commotion on the presumption that an "Israeli spy" was caught. Therefore, the starting premise to any political position is that Israel is the enemy and the enemy wants you ill.
But the constitutive rejection by Lebanon´s political establishment of negotiations with Israel is in fact a self-fulfilling prophecy: Israel is a belligerent enemy that does not want peace, so Lebanon´s smart politicians tell their people, and therefore we don´t make peace with an enemy that does not want peace, and so on and so forth. In other words, Lebanon´s politicians are accomplices of the very enemy they constantly bash. They may not be smart enough to imagine challenging their enemy in peace or defeating their enemy in negotiations. But the real reason is that they are afraid of breaking the taboo, even if their brothers the Syrians, the Palestinians, the Jordanians, the Egyptians, and increasingly the Tunisians, the Moroccans, the Qataris and the Emirates have all overcome that complex. Again, as I called it in a previous opinion, the Lebanese insist on being the village idiots of the Arab world when it comes to Israel.
By rejecting peace with Israel, Lebanon´s politicians are giving Israel exactly what it wants: Time. Time has been Israel´s best friend: The longer it took the Palestinians to recognize Israel, the more time Israel had to build settlements and encroach on Palestinian land. As long as there are no negotiated resolutions, Israel can keep violating Lebanese airspace or controlling useless strips of border real estate with Lebanon, or building settlements, de-palestinizing the Gaza strip and the West bank, and creating more and more "facts on the ground" in Palestine that keep pushing an ultimate solution further and further away.
- Lebanon will remain the scapegoat and the hostage of the conflict where otherwise impotent coward Arabs will seek to compensate for their inadequacy in world diplomacy by leaving Lebanon in a maelstrom of despair and resistance and empty promises.
- More immediately, the Lebanese government is in fact saying that it agrees with Syria, Hezbollah and Iran, even as this consensus government includes the March 14 musketeers of "Sovereignty, Independence and Freedom" who claim to be anti-Syrian, anti-Hezbollah and anti-Iran.
- Finally, and more dangerously, the US and the West have sponsored all attempts at a solution in the past, and had hoped that by helping Lebanon come out from under the Syrian Gulag, Lebanon will become an example of peacemaking, as much as it is supposedly an example of democracy. The West had hoped that Lebanon may be the next Arab country to normalize with Israel and show the way to peace. But the idiotic stubbornness of Sleiman and Siniora, along with their Hezbollah and March 14 pile of dung allies, is jeopardizing that support and putting Lebanon on a very dangerous course. The risk is that the US and the West will change their minds. They may come to the same conclusion that many Lebanese themselves already have: Lebanon is a failed state that cannot save itself, so why invest in trying to setting it on a straight path. Rescuing Lebanon is indeed like rescuing a drowning man: The more you try, the more he sinks and takes you with him. The current support to Lebanon is not going to last.
Particularly to the simpletons of the so-called Cedars Revolution, who are supportive of the Siniora-Sleiman regime and its pro-Hezbollah stances vis-à-vis Syria and Hezbollah´s rejection of negotiations with Israel, the US will have to change its course on Lebanon. If, after helping Lebanon get rid of the Syrian occupation, the "pro-American" Siniora, Hariri, Gemayel, Sleiman, Geagea, Jumblatt horde does not take a strong stance in favor of negotiations with Israel and end the state of war between Lebanon and its southern neighbor, even at the risk of conflict with Hezbollah, then the Americans will feel betrayed and in a dead-end. As it did in the 1970s, the US – particularly under an Obama presidency and a Clinton at State Department – will then turn to its enemies to try for a breakthrough. As it did in the 1970s, the US may well accept a long term modus vivendi with Syria and Hezbollah, because the US may feel that it is only through appeasement that they can placate the anti-peace camp. For Lebanon, this necessarily will mean a return of Syrian hegemony under American sponsorship, no matter what Christopher Hill and other State Department and US foreign policymakers keep telling the slow-witted Lebanese. Clinton and Obama are very very likely to reverse the Bush stance with Syria and re-recruit Syria to take a stab at "stabilizing" Lebanon and muzzling Hezbollah. For the US, this may, yet again, be its only path to a solution. For the Lebanese, this may be, yet again, their way of committing mass suicide.
Then again, why worry about it? Right now, it is 7:00 PM in Beirut. The "government" electricity just went out (there is still rationing after 20 years of the official end of hostilities), and the local crony of the local politician to whom we pay a second electric bill, turned his generator on. Meanwhile, the Lebanese Defense Minister just got 10 Mig 90 jet fighter planes from Russia. A state that can´t even provide running water and electricity to its people, that keeps begging the world for everything, has no business building arsenals. What enemy that hasn´t invaded, occupied and destroyed Lebanon a million times over is Lebanon going to stand up to with 10 jet fighter planes? Lebanon should go back to the formula that secured its success and prosperity in the 19502 and 1960s: It should make peace, declare its neutrality and, for real this time, become the Switzerland of the Middle East.
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Lebanon: A Beggar Country in the Flea Market of Cheap Resistance and Warmongering
President Suleiman, Prime Minister Siniora and Defense Minister Murr: Idiot beggars at the flea market of weapons, working on a "Defense Strategy" against Israel.
Welcome to Lebanon, the mouse that can't even roar because of the incompetence and corruption of its leaders.
A well-informed source Saturday advised the Lebanese government to "wait" before accepting the Russian-donated MIG-29 jet fighters that are possibly "unsafe", Lebanese daily "An-Nahar" report.
A report in the Russian business daily "Kommersant" quoted military sources as saying that "one third of the MIG-29 should be written off as obsolete because they are too rusty to take off without crashing."
A pilot was killed during a MIG-29 fighter crash in southern Siberia on Dec. 5 and another MIG-29 crashed in October last year, the report added.
Russia has promised to deliver ten MIG-29 jet fighters to Lebanon during a visit by Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr to Moscow in December as a gift to show new "military relationship" between the two countries.
The report in Al-Nahar also said that the Lebanese delegation headed by air force commander Brig. Gen. Michel Mnassa did not leave for Moscow last month as scheduled.
Lebanese political leaders are openly begging for arms because they want to devise a "Defense Strategy" against Israel. The "enlightened" Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said Friday that Lebanon welcomes any arms donations on condition that no political concessions are given, in a jab at the United States that will only help Lebanon with weapons on condition that Lebanon negotiates peace with Israel.
But Lebanon, led by a horde of degenerate and castrated politicians, insists on fighting Israel and on being the last Arab country to sign peace with Israel. Out of the 21 Arab nations in the Arab League, about 12 do currently have some relations with Israel ranging from full diplomatic recognition (Jordan, Egypt, Mauritania) to trade missions (Qatar, Tunisia, Morocco) and to indirect peace negotiations (Syria). Lebanon alone, the smallest of all the Arab countries, insists on a suicidal warmongering platform it calls "resistance" that has caused Lebanon devastation and ruin for about four decades, thanks largely to the Muslim-dominated Sunni and Shiite political leadership of the country.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese people, blinded by sectarian hatreds, archaic religious beliefs, and foreign political divisions remain largely ignorant of their self-interest, and persist in electing the same failed leaders that have brought destruction to the country.
It remains to be seen if the Lebanese people will wake up this coming June 7, 2009, when the country holds parliamentary elections, and elect new, responsible and truly enlightened leaders.
Hanibaal
Welcome to Lebanon, the mouse that can't even roar because of the incompetence and corruption of its leaders.
A well-informed source Saturday advised the Lebanese government to "wait" before accepting the Russian-donated MIG-29 jet fighters that are possibly "unsafe", Lebanese daily "An-Nahar" report.
A report in the Russian business daily "Kommersant" quoted military sources as saying that "one third of the MIG-29 should be written off as obsolete because they are too rusty to take off without crashing."
A pilot was killed during a MIG-29 fighter crash in southern Siberia on Dec. 5 and another MIG-29 crashed in October last year, the report added.
Russia has promised to deliver ten MIG-29 jet fighters to Lebanon during a visit by Lebanese Defense Minister Elias Murr to Moscow in December as a gift to show new "military relationship" between the two countries.
The report in Al-Nahar also said that the Lebanese delegation headed by air force commander Brig. Gen. Michel Mnassa did not leave for Moscow last month as scheduled.
Lebanese political leaders are openly begging for arms because they want to devise a "Defense Strategy" against Israel. The "enlightened" Lebanese President Michel Suleiman said Friday that Lebanon welcomes any arms donations on condition that no political concessions are given, in a jab at the United States that will only help Lebanon with weapons on condition that Lebanon negotiates peace with Israel.
But Lebanon, led by a horde of degenerate and castrated politicians, insists on fighting Israel and on being the last Arab country to sign peace with Israel. Out of the 21 Arab nations in the Arab League, about 12 do currently have some relations with Israel ranging from full diplomatic recognition (Jordan, Egypt, Mauritania) to trade missions (Qatar, Tunisia, Morocco) and to indirect peace negotiations (Syria). Lebanon alone, the smallest of all the Arab countries, insists on a suicidal warmongering platform it calls "resistance" that has caused Lebanon devastation and ruin for about four decades, thanks largely to the Muslim-dominated Sunni and Shiite political leadership of the country.
Meanwhile, the Lebanese people, blinded by sectarian hatreds, archaic religious beliefs, and foreign political divisions remain largely ignorant of their self-interest, and persist in electing the same failed leaders that have brought destruction to the country.
It remains to be seen if the Lebanese people will wake up this coming June 7, 2009, when the country holds parliamentary elections, and elect new, responsible and truly enlightened leaders.
Hanibaal
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Another "Gonadal" Transfer of Power in Beirut: The Tueni Dynasty
To confirm to themselves and to the world that all other Lebanese are no more than dung heaps not worth the flies that hover around their political corpses, here is another Lebanese dynasty - a progressive one, mind you, like the Jumblatts - that just announced it is transferring power from one generation to another using the most primitive criterion for public office: the meeting of one sperm with one egg.
Nayla Tueni, the daughter of late MP Gebran Tueni who was assassinated a couple of years ago by Syrian proxies in Beirut, has announced her candidacy for Beirut’s first district's Greek Orthodox Christian seat which was held by her father. The district includes Beirut’s neighborhoods of Achrafieh, Saifi and Rmeil.
Of course, to confirm the collusion of Lebanon's political establishment with the religious Mafias that rule the country, Nayla and her grandfather MP Ghassan Tueni (who inherited the parliamentary seat after his son's assassination) paid a visit to the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elias Audi on Thursday to receive his blessing.
And to give the gonadal charade a semblance of normality, Nayla said that she would announce the details of her electoral program in a press conference to be held later, and stressed that she supported the Cedars Revolution and March 14 alliance (itself consisting of people who inherited the political mantle from their fathers, sons, uncles, aunts, cousins and other genetic relatives: Gemayel, Jumblatt, Hariri, Chamoun, and others.)
The message to ordinary Lebanese: You are a bunch of idiots and we, the political feudal, religious establishment, don't trust that you can handle political power like we do. Just stay in your corner and we will continue to steer this wrecked ship called Lebanon that has been aimlessly roaming the seas for 4 decades with no safe harbor in sight.
When will all the educated Lebanese people declare their rejection of this nepotistic and corrupt practice of transferring political power like primitive people do?
Will the Lebanese people finally rise up to the challenge and reject their butchers who have misled them many times to their own demise?
Will the Lebanese people use the coming elections in June 2009 to discard the Tuenis, Jumblatts, Chamouns, Gemayels, Aouns, Frangiehs, Salams, Hariris, Arslans, Eddes and others in the trash bin of history, and instead elect their own educated, professionals, technocrats, engineers, doctors, professors, lawyers etc. who at least have proven themselves on their own merits?
VOTE FOR YOURSELF - DON'T VOTE FOR THE POLITICAL DYNASTIES that have been killing you for 4 decades.
Hanibaal
Nayla Tueni, the daughter of late MP Gebran Tueni who was assassinated a couple of years ago by Syrian proxies in Beirut, has announced her candidacy for Beirut’s first district's Greek Orthodox Christian seat which was held by her father. The district includes Beirut’s neighborhoods of Achrafieh, Saifi and Rmeil.
Of course, to confirm the collusion of Lebanon's political establishment with the religious Mafias that rule the country, Nayla and her grandfather MP Ghassan Tueni (who inherited the parliamentary seat after his son's assassination) paid a visit to the Greek Orthodox Archbishop Elias Audi on Thursday to receive his blessing.
And to give the gonadal charade a semblance of normality, Nayla said that she would announce the details of her electoral program in a press conference to be held later, and stressed that she supported the Cedars Revolution and March 14 alliance (itself consisting of people who inherited the political mantle from their fathers, sons, uncles, aunts, cousins and other genetic relatives: Gemayel, Jumblatt, Hariri, Chamoun, and others.)
The message to ordinary Lebanese: You are a bunch of idiots and we, the political feudal, religious establishment, don't trust that you can handle political power like we do. Just stay in your corner and we will continue to steer this wrecked ship called Lebanon that has been aimlessly roaming the seas for 4 decades with no safe harbor in sight.
When will all the educated Lebanese people declare their rejection of this nepotistic and corrupt practice of transferring political power like primitive people do?
Will the Lebanese people finally rise up to the challenge and reject their butchers who have misled them many times to their own demise?
Will the Lebanese people use the coming elections in June 2009 to discard the Tuenis, Jumblatts, Chamouns, Gemayels, Aouns, Frangiehs, Salams, Hariris, Arslans, Eddes and others in the trash bin of history, and instead elect their own educated, professionals, technocrats, engineers, doctors, professors, lawyers etc. who at least have proven themselves on their own merits?
VOTE FOR YOURSELF - DON'T VOTE FOR THE POLITICAL DYNASTIES that have been killing you for 4 decades.
Hanibaal
LETTER TO WALID MAALOUF
From: Nina Maaluf
To: Walid Maalouf
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 1:33 PM
Subject: Walid Maalouf Political Platform
Hi Walid,
Mabrook for your disclosure about running for a parliament seat in Lebanon. You will bring some respect to the name "Na'eb" and hopefully bring to the Lebanese a new dialogue of participation in building their own country. I know you have your feet on the ground so you know the challenge you are up for, and I also know that your dream for a better Lebanon is so big in your heart that you take a chance on it, not caring for the odds. Your success will breathe hope and awaken responsibility in people .. not to mention how every business community is going to uphold your vision.
In business, the Lebanese take the severest risks and challenge the biggest odds .. In politics, they shy away and I think it is because that field is left for under the table deals of corruption and good people usually stay away from it because of that. You will bring new dialogue by bringing the good people to participate. Your clean record will wake some people up and hopefully inspire more independent thinkers to do the same.
Build a campaign by attracting money from the public. Lebanon should never be but in the hands of its people... People need to take a stand to achieve such a status. Big Kahunas and money distributors like Iran and Saudi need to take a back seat when people with a clean record take a stand like you are doing. The current divide in Lebanon is the most fake of all divides .. they all ask for the same thing except
they cater their politics to outsiders. Even General Aoun has fallen in that pit. Lebanon should have one MARCH and that is the one for Lebanon running its own affairs. The March that people did back in 05 that resulted in the Syrian pullout has been diminished in its strength and now people do not even credit themselves for the effect they created.
Anyway, your presence will refocus the talk about the issues for Lebanon. About a parliament that will pass good new laws that will lift Lebanon to a first world country. Your record from the UN and from dealing with so many Lebanese organizations in the US will throw the dice in that direction. It is high time we have a Lebanon for the Lebanese. It is high time we have officials who speak the language of the public; who bear responsibility rather than throw it on to others. Officials who can tackle bureaucracy and refurbish it for our time, and not leave it in the 1800's-vintage machinery and thinking. Officials who speak values, morals and are not tainted by old wars and grudges. Officials who run on their ticket and not the ticket of the "leesta" of so and so. Officials who are self-made, self-sufficient and true to their word and their track record.
Sometimes I wonder how the Lebanese can take all the BLA that is thrown on them .. You will surely bring fresh air to the run .. You will mark their differences by your vision .. You will entice them to look for others like you, and stay away from any "leesta" mentality. Feudalism is hard to beat .. but injecting people with your vision in the mix does not hurt at all, except maybe it will bring the independent
Lebanese forward into politics.
Yalla! You bring new blood, new hope and you are a shilih7 (شلح) from the
ARZ of Lebanon; your presence could not possibly bring but good to
this run of elections. Congratulations and best of luck in collecting money for your campaign.
Nina Maaluf
North Hollywood, CA
To: Walid Maalouf
Sent: Wednesday, February 04, 2009 1:33 PM
Subject: Walid Maalouf Political Platform
Hi Walid,
Mabrook for your disclosure about running for a parliament seat in Lebanon. You will bring some respect to the name "Na'eb" and hopefully bring to the Lebanese a new dialogue of participation in building their own country. I know you have your feet on the ground so you know the challenge you are up for, and I also know that your dream for a better Lebanon is so big in your heart that you take a chance on it, not caring for the odds. Your success will breathe hope and awaken responsibility in people .. not to mention how every business community is going to uphold your vision.
In business, the Lebanese take the severest risks and challenge the biggest odds .. In politics, they shy away and I think it is because that field is left for under the table deals of corruption and good people usually stay away from it because of that. You will bring new dialogue by bringing the good people to participate. Your clean record will wake some people up and hopefully inspire more independent thinkers to do the same.
Build a campaign by attracting money from the public. Lebanon should never be but in the hands of its people... People need to take a stand to achieve such a status. Big Kahunas and money distributors like Iran and Saudi need to take a back seat when people with a clean record take a stand like you are doing. The current divide in Lebanon is the most fake of all divides .. they all ask for the same thing except
they cater their politics to outsiders. Even General Aoun has fallen in that pit. Lebanon should have one MARCH and that is the one for Lebanon running its own affairs. The March that people did back in 05 that resulted in the Syrian pullout has been diminished in its strength and now people do not even credit themselves for the effect they created.
Anyway, your presence will refocus the talk about the issues for Lebanon. About a parliament that will pass good new laws that will lift Lebanon to a first world country. Your record from the UN and from dealing with so many Lebanese organizations in the US will throw the dice in that direction. It is high time we have a Lebanon for the Lebanese. It is high time we have officials who speak the language of the public; who bear responsibility rather than throw it on to others. Officials who can tackle bureaucracy and refurbish it for our time, and not leave it in the 1800's-vintage machinery and thinking. Officials who speak values, morals and are not tainted by old wars and grudges. Officials who run on their ticket and not the ticket of the "leesta" of so and so. Officials who are self-made, self-sufficient and true to their word and their track record.
Sometimes I wonder how the Lebanese can take all the BLA that is thrown on them .. You will surely bring fresh air to the run .. You will mark their differences by your vision .. You will entice them to look for others like you, and stay away from any "leesta" mentality. Feudalism is hard to beat .. but injecting people with your vision in the mix does not hurt at all, except maybe it will bring the independent
Lebanese forward into politics.
Yalla! You bring new blood, new hope and you are a shilih7 (شلح) from the
ARZ of Lebanon; your presence could not possibly bring but good to
this run of elections. Congratulations and best of luck in collecting money for your campaign.
Nina Maaluf
North Hollywood, CA
Sunday, February 1, 2009
Lebanon Iznogood Supports Walid Maalouf's Candidacy
Lebanon Iznogood endorses Walid Maalouf's candidacy for the Greek-Catholic (Melkite) parliamentary seat in the Shouf District of Mount Lebanon in the upcoming June 7, 2009 parliamentary elections in Lebanon.
We will have more to say later about Mr. Maalouf, but we begin by posting an open letter Mr. Maalouf addressed to the Lebanese people in July 2008. Mr. Maalouf's story as a Lebanese who came to the US as a student is typical of the stories of all Lebanese-American emigrants. While embracing their new American identity and learning from it, they also stood up for their Lebanese identity and defended their homeland against all its enemies. Mr. Maalouf's story, however, is unique in that he succeeded in taking his Lebanese Cause to the highest of forums when, in 2003, he was appointed by the US administration as a member of the US delegation to the UN. In the Security Council, Mr. Maalouf was the first US delegate ever to deliver the US address in Arabic. In that address he blasted the Syrian occupation while the world watched, including the Syrian representative who was visibly irritated and seething with anger. For many of us Lebanese and Lebanese-Americans who had seen Syria rape Lebanon for decades, this was the sweetest of revenge.
For now, Mr. Maalouf has decided to invest his political capital in running for Lebanese Parliament. We can only welcome the injection of young, fresh, entrepreneurial and modern politics in the traditionalist and feudal Lebanese politics. CHANGE is not only Barack Obama's mantra; it is also Walid Maalouf's political platform. All Lebanese emigrants and residents should support him.
Hanibaal
_______________________________________________________________
Mr. Maalouf's Open letter (July 2008):
This letter is about the Lebanese Diaspora and its potential effect on a new Lebanon. I am appealing to you to test your readiness for real change and am suggesting several ideas for true reform within Lebanon’s institutions, which include provisions for an existence based security, stability and a strong sense of personal economic well-being.
The return of the Lebanese Diaspora
The Lebanese Diaspora has the potential to be a tremendous force in the rebirth of the country we all love. The Diaspora today has two effective wings, the old emigration between 1840 and 1950 and the new emigration that started in 1974 until today.
The old emigration produced several generations of Lebanese heritage who are natives of their respective countries around the world. They are detached from Lebanon physically, financially and do not have any next of kin family ties. But they always have strong cultural and political links to Lebanon. They know their heritage well and know that their ancestors had left Lebanon because of political instability, discrimination and economic need; therefore, they are perfect advocates for a free, sovereign and independent Lebanon. Many of them are willing to help from influential positions in their respective countries to make Lebanon stable and secure.
The new migration started leaving in late 1974 and the numbers grew as the regional wars in Lebanon spread once again bringing political instability, religious discrimination and economic hardship. These new waves of emigrants are educated and financially well established. Thirty years later, this portion of immigrants is still deeply attached to Lebanon physically; they have big stakes in its financial interests and still have large families in Lebanon and they are financially powerful.
They run strong businesses abroad and are opening new business in Lebanon and creating jobs. Their wealth allows them to reach out and participate in many humanitarian projects. They are very effective in helping Lebanon regain its sovereignty, independence and stability and are willing to participate in its political process to reform it and create the new 21st century Lebanon.
I have witnessed this potential first hand. I believe that there are 800,000 Lebanese worldwide who will return to Lebanon as soon as its government is stable and security prevails. This number will inject more than $50 billion into the Lebanese economy. It will not come at once but it will increase steadily when people start trusting the political performance of the Lebanese government and its institutions.
YOU the citizens of Lebanon, have a crucial role if the nation is to lift itself out from the circle of death it has been put in. You cannot get out of it alone and you need a partner with the means, the determination and the faithfulness to be on your side and help you once and for all. This is where the Diaspora can play a huge role. Lebanese emigrants are no clients for any regional or international power, they have not participated in any deal over your sovereignty and integrity and they have been on your side all along.
Make no mistake about it; this return of the Lebanese Diaspora will affect Lebanon positively. It will force the reform of the Lebanese political system and bring Lebanon to a new dawn. Beirut will become once again a shining city on the hill.
The Change must come from YOU
In order to improve the current situation you must look at past mistakes and fix them. In the last 30 years you have been electing representatives to the parliament, and many have proven to be a total failure. Look back at past generations what you see is conflict, war, displacement, interference from neighbors, militias, migration - I can go on and on. You have today before you two choices: one, to reelect the same kind of representatives to parliament or two, make a one hundred eighty degree change. Just take a moment and think about that.
The change must come from YOU first. Here are some comparisons between the past and the future. First and foremost you should be Lebanese and think Lebanese so you produce Lebanese results and Lebanese results only.
The first test is in the up-coming parliamentary elections. You need to bring parliament representatives that do not answer to any regional or international power, but to YOUR will and only your will. The past was others’ will – Palestinians, Israelis, Syrians and Iranians. The future must be yours.
When in Parliament, your representatives should initiate long-term legislation that benefit you, your children and your future – good retirement, better security, a strong economy. Stop them from offering you the mediocre help known as “khadamate”. The past was – asphalting a road, calling a bourgeois friend to provide your son or daughter with a job, filling the ministries with their men. Please think about that.
YOU become important when you have your representative work for you and provide you the appropriate legislation to protect you with good laws, strong armed forces, respected police and the protection of your human rights. You are not important if your representatives attend your funerals, weddings and special events – this is from the past.
Stop them from rigging local governments such as municipalities to cater to their own needs and their own men. This is also from the past. You need to empower local governments by electing the best in your town, village or city. Then you will see prosperity – sports centers, health clinics, firehouses and positive youth clubs.
Stop them from using key positions in Lebanon’s government like slices of cheese. You deserve honest judges, military officers and police officers in every station that serve the nation not their political patrons. They will be working for YOU. Working for Them is from the past. You must think about that.
Stop them from splintering the Lebanese Diaspora with their divisive ideas, creating problems for those who come back to serve in the public arena. So many stories have been told of good-hearted emigrants who lived through nightmares when they showed their strong commitment and re-entered Lebanon’s political life. This is old behavior from the past – your future prosperity lies with these emigrants: open your hearts and minds to them and embrace their programs and ideas.
YOU are the protectors of the Lebanese democracy. You need to stop installing national leaders who use the weakest link in our society – religion to divide the Lebanese people. Leaders who put foreign agendas above yours and who demand special rights for religious affiliations are handicapping the democratic process – they are fooling you. They are from the past.
Reject this political godfather mentality; the fixing of electoral lists based on feudal lords and strong men in your districts; reject leaders whose power is based on going over your head to neighboring countries; reject the mentality of guns and force. This is the past.
How many leaders have you elected for the past 30 years who have provided scholarships to educate your kids, opened a clinic, and improved the public schools or medical assistance and Medicare for elderly? Think. They have not done anything for YOU. They are from the past.
You must make the choice for change now, so you can start building a new Lebanon with equality for all, without discrimination, interference and fear. We are waiting, the world is waiting, and Lebanon is waiting for this incoming change.
Reform within Lebanon’s institutions, Security and Stability
Lebanon as a republic cannot go on with: corruption, domination by militias from within, instability, regional interferences in its internal affairs, Palestinian camps, smuggling of weapons, the undermining of its democratic process and yielding its law and order based on influence and favoritism.
You are the major players to put Lebanon on the right track. In order to protect your parliamentary system YOU must push to implement the reforms that can be done with good will and in a heartbeat. In the rules of democracy where there is a majority and minority there is no such thing as “consensus democracy” and the “eliminating third“ or veto power for the minority in the Council of Ministers that would eventually bring the whole government down. Based on the national pact that was established upon independence, Lebanon practiced the majority minority rule from 1943 to 1992. This pact should continue to be respected until the time comes for separation of Church and State.
Reform from top to bottom:
First and foremost, the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary powers should be established in the constitution. Those institutions should be totally separate so that they neither double-cross, nor by-pass each other in the implementation of legislation. The human resources in these institutions should be separated so that no one individual can hold two positions at the same time.
In the Parliament: Devote in the Constitution the principle of an Electoral Law based on individual electoral circle (128 deputies so 128 circles) respecting the religious distribution that exists presently in the Lebanese constitution. Thus you create a “shadow Parliament” for the runner-ups, substitutes in their 128 circles, to observe and hold the Deputies accountable to their engagements and the programs they promised to their voters. This will ensure the election of better representatives in the next parliamentary elections. It will also pave the way for the formation of a regular political life based on two blocks or political trans-regional and trans-confessional parties (Kaissy / Yemeni, Doustouri / Watani, Nahj / Helfe).
Allow the Lebanese emigrants carrying Lebanese nationality to contribute to the elections through the Lebanese Embassies around the world. As for the proposed idea to create a number of seats for the emigrants in Lebanon, it only leads to reinforce the political godfathers, and it is not acceptable. This reform will break the existing political monopoly.
In the Presidency and the Council of Ministers: The old presidential protocol and other constitutional powers of the President should be reinstated in order to get rid of the troika and its divisiveness. Lebanon should have only one Head of State. In the Council of Ministers all ministers should be named from outside Parliament including the Prime Minister. Eliminate the positions of State Ministers and have only Ministers with portfolios. You must accept less religious distribution and partisan politics in the executive branch.
In the Judiciary: create in the Constitution, “One Higher Council” at the helm of the Judiciary, elected periodically by the Judges, and then “One Supreme Court” that deal with all issues including major political ones, instead of having several bodies and several orientations paving the way for favoritism and confusion. Devote the “Constitutionality of Laws” thus courts abstain from applying the unconstitutional laws. Devote “the Immovability of Judges” thus no displacements or recourse. Introduce “the Jury System” to assist the courts and to accelerate the lawsuits. All citizens must be equal and judgments should be made without discrimination and favoritism. Political Affiliation in appointing Judges should stop, and the Judge should maintain open records of his judgments. This will encourage transparency and accountability.
In the security of the country:
Seal the boarders between Lebanon and Syria and between Lebanon and Israel: The flow of weapons and illegal commerce into Lebanon, as well as the flow of individuals sneaking into the country must stop immediately. The idea of Arab nationals or Islamic fanatics fighting Israel using the southern borders of Lebanon must stop immediately. Creating militias for one reason or another must end. Channel your efforts in strengthening and empowering the Lebanese army and internal security forces.
Remove the Palestinian Camps from Lebanon: Lebanese and Palestinian officials and the international community must tackle as quickly as possible the issue of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. This population is living under terrible conditions. Palestinians are not allowed to work legally in Lebanon because the delicately balanced society cannot afford the luxury of assimilating them. Since 1948, generation after generation of Palestinians has grown up in the camps hating the situation they live in, trapped without any way out, therefore hating the Lebanese. Moreover, several regional political powers use these camps for terrorist actions and for regional political bargaining.
The only solution for this 60 year problem is a United Nations Security Council resolution that moves the Palestinians out of Lebanon in an orderly and humanitarian way to potentially receptive countries around the world, governments who have immigration policies such as Chile, Argentina, Canada, Australia, Paraguay, USA and Venezuela, where they can have a productive life with the possibility of real assimilation or to the Palestinian Territories when the Palestinian-Israeli issue is resolved.
In the stability for the country:
Today the Lebanese government presides over a "confederation" of confessional communities, which traditionally tend to establish their own irregular foreign alliances. This has been fatal during the last 33 years, as it attracted foreign intervention particularly from Syria, Israel and Iran. Lebanon must cut off these irregular alliances that continue to entangle it in the conflicts of the broader Middle Eastern conflicts, particularly since Syria and Iran are not willing to loosen their grip over Lebanon.
In order to create a buffer zone of trust, between the last 33 years of instability and a new system of governance where religious affiliation is used no more and where the Lebanese can have a true dialogue about their future without any regional interferences, I recommend United Nations Security Council given Lebanon neutrality status, so no country is allowed to use the Lebanese territory for wars against another country and nun but the legal Lebanese authorities can bear arms.
Lebanese patriotism will allow the changes to take place, but will Lebanese nationalism, Arab nationalism and/or Islamic extremism allow such progress? Over the last 33 years foreign militias and domestic militias as well as various foreign armies tried to take over Lebanon through arms, they failed, and today the Hezbollah militias are trying to take over Lebanon with arms, they too will fail but at what a terrible price to the country.
As history showed us, the international community always saved the pluralistic existence of Lebanon. It is time we took care of our own affairs. The destiny of Lebanon is in unity, where the East meets the West and Christianity meets Islam. YOU must uphold it and protect it and force Syria and Israel to stay out of it.
Improving your economic well-being
You must make the changes and bring Lebanon to a new day to ensure economic prosperity that is the key for you and your children. The one economic force that was, is and will stay on your side is the Lebanese Diaspora. In these most recent Eid-El-Adha, Christmas and New Year festivities they traveled in large numbers to spend the holidays in the country they love. Their number reached almost a million according to the Ministry of Tourism. They challenged the instability the lack of security, the political assassinations and boosted the Lebanese economy for the season.
In order to minimize the national debt, which is nearing US$40 billion, and put the Lebanese economy back on track, the Lebanese government must tighten its belt immediately by implementing the following economic reforms in all government institutions: stop the flow of contracts and the hiring of people based on political interests and favoritism, rather than qualifications and needs; limit the number of ministers to the existing ministries; stop lifetime salaries for deputies elected for more than one term. Streamline the work of all ministries, and stop as well other perks and high overhead expenses. If these ideas are implemented, the Lebanese government can save several billion dollars each year. For example, the Lebanese treasury can save one billion a year if the electricity system were to be run efficiently.
Organize the export of goods to directly benefit the farmers, industries and commerce. Open a cheap air bridge between Lebanon and Europe to export quality produce so farming land can be used 100 percent. Create a new tourism agenda to bring new foreign visitors to Lebanon each year and establish free trade agreements with European countries, the United States, Canada and Australia.
Create new programs for the emigrants on three levels: political, social and economic and have an open door policy at all the Lebanese Embassies and Consulates to facilitate their needs, simplifying processes such as ownership of properties in Lebanon, opening small businesses and offering contract opportunities for government projects.
Political: Identify all emigrants of Lebanese descent holding public or elected office throughout the world and establish direct contact with their counterparts in Lebanon to create programs and projects that would benefit your cities, villages or towns. Through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs create an international parliament for all those elected officials and have a yearly meeting in Lebanon, to plan how best to lift up the Lebanese people and government.
Social: Identify all Lebanese non-governmental organizations such as clubs, cultural centers, health organizations, human rights organizations around the world and match them with their Lebanese counterparts to establish social and cultural program in every village in Lebanon. These efforts should be directed only to small towns and villages.
Economic: Identify all CEOs and Presidents of 500 fortune companies and mid-size companies who are of Lebanese descent around the world and establish a link between them and the business and commerce communities in Lebanon. Work with the different ministries to create jobs for university graduates so we keep our most important resource – our people - in Lebanon for the benefit of the Lebanese people.
From Phoenicia to Mount Lebanon’s Fakreddine and Chehab dynasties to modern Lebanon there has been a fascinating relationship between the Diaspora and Lebanon. Throughout history, those who left never abandoned Lebanon and never allowed the international community to throw it to the wolves. Lebanon was the first global country in the world. Indeed, we can say that globalization started with YOU. We the Lebanese Diaspora will never kneel to any regional power; we will never yield or tire or surrender until Lebanon assumes its full-fledged democracy and regains its true independence. With your help we will win Lebanon back, and LEBANON will remain LEBANESE …
We will have more to say later about Mr. Maalouf, but we begin by posting an open letter Mr. Maalouf addressed to the Lebanese people in July 2008. Mr. Maalouf's story as a Lebanese who came to the US as a student is typical of the stories of all Lebanese-American emigrants. While embracing their new American identity and learning from it, they also stood up for their Lebanese identity and defended their homeland against all its enemies. Mr. Maalouf's story, however, is unique in that he succeeded in taking his Lebanese Cause to the highest of forums when, in 2003, he was appointed by the US administration as a member of the US delegation to the UN. In the Security Council, Mr. Maalouf was the first US delegate ever to deliver the US address in Arabic. In that address he blasted the Syrian occupation while the world watched, including the Syrian representative who was visibly irritated and seething with anger. For many of us Lebanese and Lebanese-Americans who had seen Syria rape Lebanon for decades, this was the sweetest of revenge.
For now, Mr. Maalouf has decided to invest his political capital in running for Lebanese Parliament. We can only welcome the injection of young, fresh, entrepreneurial and modern politics in the traditionalist and feudal Lebanese politics. CHANGE is not only Barack Obama's mantra; it is also Walid Maalouf's political platform. All Lebanese emigrants and residents should support him.
Hanibaal
_______________________________________________________________
Mr. Maalouf's Open letter (July 2008):
This letter is about the Lebanese Diaspora and its potential effect on a new Lebanon. I am appealing to you to test your readiness for real change and am suggesting several ideas for true reform within Lebanon’s institutions, which include provisions for an existence based security, stability and a strong sense of personal economic well-being.
The return of the Lebanese Diaspora
The Lebanese Diaspora has the potential to be a tremendous force in the rebirth of the country we all love. The Diaspora today has two effective wings, the old emigration between 1840 and 1950 and the new emigration that started in 1974 until today.
The old emigration produced several generations of Lebanese heritage who are natives of their respective countries around the world. They are detached from Lebanon physically, financially and do not have any next of kin family ties. But they always have strong cultural and political links to Lebanon. They know their heritage well and know that their ancestors had left Lebanon because of political instability, discrimination and economic need; therefore, they are perfect advocates for a free, sovereign and independent Lebanon. Many of them are willing to help from influential positions in their respective countries to make Lebanon stable and secure.
The new migration started leaving in late 1974 and the numbers grew as the regional wars in Lebanon spread once again bringing political instability, religious discrimination and economic hardship. These new waves of emigrants are educated and financially well established. Thirty years later, this portion of immigrants is still deeply attached to Lebanon physically; they have big stakes in its financial interests and still have large families in Lebanon and they are financially powerful.
They run strong businesses abroad and are opening new business in Lebanon and creating jobs. Their wealth allows them to reach out and participate in many humanitarian projects. They are very effective in helping Lebanon regain its sovereignty, independence and stability and are willing to participate in its political process to reform it and create the new 21st century Lebanon.
I have witnessed this potential first hand. I believe that there are 800,000 Lebanese worldwide who will return to Lebanon as soon as its government is stable and security prevails. This number will inject more than $50 billion into the Lebanese economy. It will not come at once but it will increase steadily when people start trusting the political performance of the Lebanese government and its institutions.
YOU the citizens of Lebanon, have a crucial role if the nation is to lift itself out from the circle of death it has been put in. You cannot get out of it alone and you need a partner with the means, the determination and the faithfulness to be on your side and help you once and for all. This is where the Diaspora can play a huge role. Lebanese emigrants are no clients for any regional or international power, they have not participated in any deal over your sovereignty and integrity and they have been on your side all along.
Make no mistake about it; this return of the Lebanese Diaspora will affect Lebanon positively. It will force the reform of the Lebanese political system and bring Lebanon to a new dawn. Beirut will become once again a shining city on the hill.
The Change must come from YOU
In order to improve the current situation you must look at past mistakes and fix them. In the last 30 years you have been electing representatives to the parliament, and many have proven to be a total failure. Look back at past generations what you see is conflict, war, displacement, interference from neighbors, militias, migration - I can go on and on. You have today before you two choices: one, to reelect the same kind of representatives to parliament or two, make a one hundred eighty degree change. Just take a moment and think about that.
The change must come from YOU first. Here are some comparisons between the past and the future. First and foremost you should be Lebanese and think Lebanese so you produce Lebanese results and Lebanese results only.
The first test is in the up-coming parliamentary elections. You need to bring parliament representatives that do not answer to any regional or international power, but to YOUR will and only your will. The past was others’ will – Palestinians, Israelis, Syrians and Iranians. The future must be yours.
When in Parliament, your representatives should initiate long-term legislation that benefit you, your children and your future – good retirement, better security, a strong economy. Stop them from offering you the mediocre help known as “khadamate”. The past was – asphalting a road, calling a bourgeois friend to provide your son or daughter with a job, filling the ministries with their men. Please think about that.
YOU become important when you have your representative work for you and provide you the appropriate legislation to protect you with good laws, strong armed forces, respected police and the protection of your human rights. You are not important if your representatives attend your funerals, weddings and special events – this is from the past.
Stop them from rigging local governments such as municipalities to cater to their own needs and their own men. This is also from the past. You need to empower local governments by electing the best in your town, village or city. Then you will see prosperity – sports centers, health clinics, firehouses and positive youth clubs.
Stop them from using key positions in Lebanon’s government like slices of cheese. You deserve honest judges, military officers and police officers in every station that serve the nation not their political patrons. They will be working for YOU. Working for Them is from the past. You must think about that.
Stop them from splintering the Lebanese Diaspora with their divisive ideas, creating problems for those who come back to serve in the public arena. So many stories have been told of good-hearted emigrants who lived through nightmares when they showed their strong commitment and re-entered Lebanon’s political life. This is old behavior from the past – your future prosperity lies with these emigrants: open your hearts and minds to them and embrace their programs and ideas.
YOU are the protectors of the Lebanese democracy. You need to stop installing national leaders who use the weakest link in our society – religion to divide the Lebanese people. Leaders who put foreign agendas above yours and who demand special rights for religious affiliations are handicapping the democratic process – they are fooling you. They are from the past.
Reject this political godfather mentality; the fixing of electoral lists based on feudal lords and strong men in your districts; reject leaders whose power is based on going over your head to neighboring countries; reject the mentality of guns and force. This is the past.
How many leaders have you elected for the past 30 years who have provided scholarships to educate your kids, opened a clinic, and improved the public schools or medical assistance and Medicare for elderly? Think. They have not done anything for YOU. They are from the past.
You must make the choice for change now, so you can start building a new Lebanon with equality for all, without discrimination, interference and fear. We are waiting, the world is waiting, and Lebanon is waiting for this incoming change.
Reform within Lebanon’s institutions, Security and Stability
Lebanon as a republic cannot go on with: corruption, domination by militias from within, instability, regional interferences in its internal affairs, Palestinian camps, smuggling of weapons, the undermining of its democratic process and yielding its law and order based on influence and favoritism.
You are the major players to put Lebanon on the right track. In order to protect your parliamentary system YOU must push to implement the reforms that can be done with good will and in a heartbeat. In the rules of democracy where there is a majority and minority there is no such thing as “consensus democracy” and the “eliminating third“ or veto power for the minority in the Council of Ministers that would eventually bring the whole government down. Based on the national pact that was established upon independence, Lebanon practiced the majority minority rule from 1943 to 1992. This pact should continue to be respected until the time comes for separation of Church and State.
Reform from top to bottom:
First and foremost, the Legislative, Executive and Judiciary powers should be established in the constitution. Those institutions should be totally separate so that they neither double-cross, nor by-pass each other in the implementation of legislation. The human resources in these institutions should be separated so that no one individual can hold two positions at the same time.
In the Parliament: Devote in the Constitution the principle of an Electoral Law based on individual electoral circle (128 deputies so 128 circles) respecting the religious distribution that exists presently in the Lebanese constitution. Thus you create a “shadow Parliament” for the runner-ups, substitutes in their 128 circles, to observe and hold the Deputies accountable to their engagements and the programs they promised to their voters. This will ensure the election of better representatives in the next parliamentary elections. It will also pave the way for the formation of a regular political life based on two blocks or political trans-regional and trans-confessional parties (Kaissy / Yemeni, Doustouri / Watani, Nahj / Helfe).
Allow the Lebanese emigrants carrying Lebanese nationality to contribute to the elections through the Lebanese Embassies around the world. As for the proposed idea to create a number of seats for the emigrants in Lebanon, it only leads to reinforce the political godfathers, and it is not acceptable. This reform will break the existing political monopoly.
In the Presidency and the Council of Ministers: The old presidential protocol and other constitutional powers of the President should be reinstated in order to get rid of the troika and its divisiveness. Lebanon should have only one Head of State. In the Council of Ministers all ministers should be named from outside Parliament including the Prime Minister. Eliminate the positions of State Ministers and have only Ministers with portfolios. You must accept less religious distribution and partisan politics in the executive branch.
In the Judiciary: create in the Constitution, “One Higher Council” at the helm of the Judiciary, elected periodically by the Judges, and then “One Supreme Court” that deal with all issues including major political ones, instead of having several bodies and several orientations paving the way for favoritism and confusion. Devote the “Constitutionality of Laws” thus courts abstain from applying the unconstitutional laws. Devote “the Immovability of Judges” thus no displacements or recourse. Introduce “the Jury System” to assist the courts and to accelerate the lawsuits. All citizens must be equal and judgments should be made without discrimination and favoritism. Political Affiliation in appointing Judges should stop, and the Judge should maintain open records of his judgments. This will encourage transparency and accountability.
In the security of the country:
Seal the boarders between Lebanon and Syria and between Lebanon and Israel: The flow of weapons and illegal commerce into Lebanon, as well as the flow of individuals sneaking into the country must stop immediately. The idea of Arab nationals or Islamic fanatics fighting Israel using the southern borders of Lebanon must stop immediately. Creating militias for one reason or another must end. Channel your efforts in strengthening and empowering the Lebanese army and internal security forces.
Remove the Palestinian Camps from Lebanon: Lebanese and Palestinian officials and the international community must tackle as quickly as possible the issue of the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. This population is living under terrible conditions. Palestinians are not allowed to work legally in Lebanon because the delicately balanced society cannot afford the luxury of assimilating them. Since 1948, generation after generation of Palestinians has grown up in the camps hating the situation they live in, trapped without any way out, therefore hating the Lebanese. Moreover, several regional political powers use these camps for terrorist actions and for regional political bargaining.
The only solution for this 60 year problem is a United Nations Security Council resolution that moves the Palestinians out of Lebanon in an orderly and humanitarian way to potentially receptive countries around the world, governments who have immigration policies such as Chile, Argentina, Canada, Australia, Paraguay, USA and Venezuela, where they can have a productive life with the possibility of real assimilation or to the Palestinian Territories when the Palestinian-Israeli issue is resolved.
In the stability for the country:
Today the Lebanese government presides over a "confederation" of confessional communities, which traditionally tend to establish their own irregular foreign alliances. This has been fatal during the last 33 years, as it attracted foreign intervention particularly from Syria, Israel and Iran. Lebanon must cut off these irregular alliances that continue to entangle it in the conflicts of the broader Middle Eastern conflicts, particularly since Syria and Iran are not willing to loosen their grip over Lebanon.
In order to create a buffer zone of trust, between the last 33 years of instability and a new system of governance where religious affiliation is used no more and where the Lebanese can have a true dialogue about their future without any regional interferences, I recommend United Nations Security Council given Lebanon neutrality status, so no country is allowed to use the Lebanese territory for wars against another country and nun but the legal Lebanese authorities can bear arms.
Lebanese patriotism will allow the changes to take place, but will Lebanese nationalism, Arab nationalism and/or Islamic extremism allow such progress? Over the last 33 years foreign militias and domestic militias as well as various foreign armies tried to take over Lebanon through arms, they failed, and today the Hezbollah militias are trying to take over Lebanon with arms, they too will fail but at what a terrible price to the country.
As history showed us, the international community always saved the pluralistic existence of Lebanon. It is time we took care of our own affairs. The destiny of Lebanon is in unity, where the East meets the West and Christianity meets Islam. YOU must uphold it and protect it and force Syria and Israel to stay out of it.
Improving your economic well-being
You must make the changes and bring Lebanon to a new day to ensure economic prosperity that is the key for you and your children. The one economic force that was, is and will stay on your side is the Lebanese Diaspora. In these most recent Eid-El-Adha, Christmas and New Year festivities they traveled in large numbers to spend the holidays in the country they love. Their number reached almost a million according to the Ministry of Tourism. They challenged the instability the lack of security, the political assassinations and boosted the Lebanese economy for the season.
In order to minimize the national debt, which is nearing US$40 billion, and put the Lebanese economy back on track, the Lebanese government must tighten its belt immediately by implementing the following economic reforms in all government institutions: stop the flow of contracts and the hiring of people based on political interests and favoritism, rather than qualifications and needs; limit the number of ministers to the existing ministries; stop lifetime salaries for deputies elected for more than one term. Streamline the work of all ministries, and stop as well other perks and high overhead expenses. If these ideas are implemented, the Lebanese government can save several billion dollars each year. For example, the Lebanese treasury can save one billion a year if the electricity system were to be run efficiently.
Organize the export of goods to directly benefit the farmers, industries and commerce. Open a cheap air bridge between Lebanon and Europe to export quality produce so farming land can be used 100 percent. Create a new tourism agenda to bring new foreign visitors to Lebanon each year and establish free trade agreements with European countries, the United States, Canada and Australia.
Create new programs for the emigrants on three levels: political, social and economic and have an open door policy at all the Lebanese Embassies and Consulates to facilitate their needs, simplifying processes such as ownership of properties in Lebanon, opening small businesses and offering contract opportunities for government projects.
Political: Identify all emigrants of Lebanese descent holding public or elected office throughout the world and establish direct contact with their counterparts in Lebanon to create programs and projects that would benefit your cities, villages or towns. Through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs create an international parliament for all those elected officials and have a yearly meeting in Lebanon, to plan how best to lift up the Lebanese people and government.
Social: Identify all Lebanese non-governmental organizations such as clubs, cultural centers, health organizations, human rights organizations around the world and match them with their Lebanese counterparts to establish social and cultural program in every village in Lebanon. These efforts should be directed only to small towns and villages.
Economic: Identify all CEOs and Presidents of 500 fortune companies and mid-size companies who are of Lebanese descent around the world and establish a link between them and the business and commerce communities in Lebanon. Work with the different ministries to create jobs for university graduates so we keep our most important resource – our people - in Lebanon for the benefit of the Lebanese people.
From Phoenicia to Mount Lebanon’s Fakreddine and Chehab dynasties to modern Lebanon there has been a fascinating relationship between the Diaspora and Lebanon. Throughout history, those who left never abandoned Lebanon and never allowed the international community to throw it to the wolves. Lebanon was the first global country in the world. Indeed, we can say that globalization started with YOU. We the Lebanese Diaspora will never kneel to any regional power; we will never yield or tire or surrender until Lebanon assumes its full-fledged democracy and regains its true independence. With your help we will win Lebanon back, and LEBANON will remain LEBANESE …
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