I hate all religions, even the one I was raised in.
Imagine that, in our day and age, there are still men who, in their fear of women, their fear of their own sexuality, or for whatever other reasons there may be out there, join the priesthood (which is one of the most idiotic professions that anyone can choose) under the guise of a "vocation", or a "call", only to spend their frustrated sexual lives molesting, touching, abusing, fucking, sodomizing, fingering, sucking, kissing, and all manner of sexual practices with CHILDREN, while at the same time shaming and confusing and browbeating the rest of the human species into not masturbating, not having anal sex, not having sex outside marriage, not having sex with more than one partner, not using condoms (because sperm is considered "human life" that should not be wasted into a Kleenex or a hand or on someone else's belly button or....!)
And to top it off, these otherwise pitiful men (I really pity them) who realize the mistake of their careers when it is "too late" or are too comfortable in their lazy boring lives (consisting of telling stories to credulous faithful numskulls and pretending to care for them.... I don't know what else a priest does... the performance of the rituals must become a really boring pretense within a year or two in a priest's life), get the protection of their bishops and archbishops and popes when they are caught.
Can you imagine what we don't know? What lies beneath the surface of the lives of religious men and women? Yes, women! You think nuns are immune? Think again. I had a friend, growing up here in Lebanon, who lived right across an alleyway from a nun's convent and school. He has had sexual encounters with a few nuns over the years, regularly and frequently, I might add. He took me once to his room and showed me the rooms of the nuns facing his own room...Quite likely scenario for the skeptics.
This scandal is the tip of the iceberg...And in all fairness, what priests do to children behind the altars and in their dark dungeons, others do it as well. But these people get caught and get punished, and they do what they do because human nature (I'll call it biology) has an intersection, a border, with human laws. For some reason, humans have decided that sex with children under the age of 16 is bad. So, it does not matter whether those who break the law are priests or not. What matters, in my opinion, is the fact that priests supposedly have it as their job to make people rise above human laws (which they don't believe in) to attain divine laws (whatever that means, though it is implied that divine laws are higher and loftier than human laws).
That is what matters to me: The fact that these men of religion - in this case the Christian religion in its Catholic edition - were lying to the children by telling them fucked upstories about God and Jesus, about the immaculate conception (here is a sexual fantasy worthy of God himself: to deposit His sperm into a virgin without her knowing it!), the miracles, the resurrection, and all the idiotic primitive stories made up by people who, 2,000 or 5,000 years ago, knew better than I do today. The entire construct of religion is one big lie, and using that lie, those priests in Ireland, Germany, Australia, Canada, the US etc. sexually molested and abused and fucked children.
Notice that the countries where those scandals have erupted of late are all "advanced anglo-saxon" countries, first-world countries.... We hear of no similar scandals in "Latin first world" countries ( France, Italy, Spain, Greece, etc.) or third world countries (Russia, Lebanon, Moldavia, Rwanda, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, etc...) where Christianity is present.... Is it because sex in those countries is less of a taboo than the prudish puritan anglo-saxon countries? Maybe, yes. But the main point is that the iceberg under the lie of religion is huge.... There are probably as we speak thousands, if not millions, of children being sexually abused by priests (married or not does not make a difference) and religious men and women who have control over schools, orphanages, boarding houses, handicapped children....
In Arab and Muslim countries, it is even worse. There, you cannot speak out without risking death. Mohammed the "Prophet" himself married a 9-year old and had many wives and concubines... and he even decided that four women are as much as a man can have simultaneously in legal marriage. Why four? I have no idea. Why not six or ten? or why not have 4 in legal marriage and a dozen in "mutaa" marriage, i.e. legal mistresses?
The point is religion, whether Christian or Muslim or Jewish - basically the monotheistic cults of the Middle East - (since I know very little of other religions to be able to judge their own lies and fabrications) is a cataclysmic, gargantuan, huge, enormous fallacy produced by the human cerebral cortex to explain to humans why they can think! Humans are so stupid that they need a made-up story to explain to them why they, unlike cats and dogs and trees and fish and bacteria and viruses and crustaceans and sponges and porifers and rotifers and molluscan and vertebrate and formicans and apians and avians etc... think. Otherwise, all these animals and other living beings would also have their own religions. The fact is that they don't, and the highlight of their lives is sex and reproduction: everything they do is geared toward their reproductive success, and whey they succeed, they don;t thank God or Jesus or Mohammad or Moses or Jerry Falwell or the Pope or.... They just die!
Hanibaal
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Sunday, March 28, 2010
اربط الكلب كي لا ينبح
Hassan on a recent visit to Tehran
حسن في زيارته الاخيرة لطهران
حسن نصرالله بدّو يلقي خطاب الآهي حول موضوع ضلوع الحزب الخرى تبعو (زبّالله او زبالة الله) بجريمة إغتيال الكلب الاول رفيق الحريري. بعد في حداً بلبنان حمار مثل ميشال عون تيصدق الإسهال الكلامي المجوي للي بيطلع من تم هالكلب البدائي اللي خرجو يعيش بكهوف بتغرين؟؟؟
Hassan with the former Syrian collaborator he killed, Rafik Hariri.
Hariri was killed by Imad Mughniyeh, Hassan's terrorist-in-chief, under orders from Syrian Intelligence. Mughniyeh's career included bombing of the US Marines compound near Beirut airport in October 1983, the western hostages of the 1980's, the hijacking of TWA flight 847, the killing of US Navy sailor Dean Stethem, the killing of AUB (American University of Beirut) President Malcolm Kerr, the killing of French journalist Michel Seurat, the kidnapping of Anglican Church peace envoy to Beirut Terry Waite, the truck bombing of the French paratrooper compound in Beirut in October 1983, William Higgins, and many others.... All these acts were destined by Syria and Iran to remove any western presence from Lebanon, to isolate Lebanon from the West, and to mount the final assault by Syria against Lebanese sovereignty, leading to the final Syrian takeover on 1990.
Hassan today has made a hero of Imad Mughniyeh, even though Mughnieyh was killed a year ago in the heart of Damascus by a Syrian regime who found him too radioactive with the Special Tribunal for Lebanon on the verge of announcing the suspects in the killing of the fat pig former Syrian collaborator Rafik Hariri.
It's funny how anyone who collaborates with Syria almost inevitably ends up being killed by Syria when circumstances change: Rafik Hariri, Elie Hobeika, Imad Mughniyeh,are only a few examples....
Let us hope that the Special Tribunal is truly HONEST, because it seems that a deal has been made with Syria, in which the Syrians produce a few low-grade suspects to avoid "staining" Bashar al-Asad and Hassan Nasrallah themselves - hence they got rid of Mughniyeh and the former Syrian Intelligence czar Ghazi Kanaan, who "committed suicide" (a la Soviet Union tradition) - in exchange of God knows what (peace agreement with Israel? A chunk of Lebanon? the Golan back?.
Can't wait for the fireworks when Bellemare announces the indictments.
Hanibaal
Friday, March 26, 2010
Hezbollah's Late Hero Imad Mughniyeh Killed Hariri
The cat is out of the box, and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon is leaking information confirming what we all suspected: Imad Mughniyeh, Hezbollah's chief of terror operations killed Rafik Hariri in downtown Beirut in February 2005, acting at the behest of Syria's Bashar Asad.
So Hezbollah did it... which means Syria's terror regime of Bashar al-Asad did it.
Which means that Imad Mughnieyh follows in the tracks of Ghazi Kanaan (Syria's former Military Intelligence Chief) who "committed suicide" in the aftermath of the Hariri assassination. Syria assassinated Imad Mughniyeh last year in the heart of Damascus so it did not have to produce him (i.e. to cooperate with the STL), and he probably knew too much. Like Elie Hobeika, who too was used like a rag by the Syrians until they no longer needed him, so they killed him.
I'd like to hear Hassan Nasrallah, Syria's and Iran's bitch in Lebanon, continue to defend Syria, and continue to brand Mughnieyh as a hero....
I'd like to see Saad Hariri go again and again to Damascus kiss the hand of the tyrant who killed his father.
Nothing is more disgusting than the spectacle of Lebanese politicians whoring around Syria - with it one day, then against it the next day, and then back again with it....- even as Syria kills them, kills their fathers and their sons...
This is all going to be very interesting when the STL announces its indictments. What will Hezbollah do? Will it start a new war in the south to get off the hook? Will it turn Lebanon into a bloodbath to escape a conviction?
What will the Asad regime do? It probably already has paid off the STL and the West (with promises of peace with Israel) and probably has its deniability story ready to go, now that it got rid of Kanaan and Mughnieyh: "Oh, Bashar Asad did not know. The Hariri assassination was done behind his back by Mughnieyh and Kanaan...Bashar Asad would never do such a horrible thing...."
There is so much blood on the hands of Syria in Lebanon, that I wonder how can the idiot Lebanese continue to see Syria as the "sister" and Israel as the enemy? Since the late 1960s, the Syrians have killed hundred of thousands of Lebanese in assassinations, pogroms, massacres and engineered civil wars between the Lebanese and the Palestinians, and amongst the Lebanese themselves. In the same period of time, Israel's killings in Lebanon pale in comparison.
With a sister like Syria, how can the Lebanese need an enemy like Israel?
Hanibaal
So Hezbollah did it... which means Syria's terror regime of Bashar al-Asad did it.
Which means that Imad Mughnieyh follows in the tracks of Ghazi Kanaan (Syria's former Military Intelligence Chief) who "committed suicide" in the aftermath of the Hariri assassination. Syria assassinated Imad Mughniyeh last year in the heart of Damascus so it did not have to produce him (i.e. to cooperate with the STL), and he probably knew too much. Like Elie Hobeika, who too was used like a rag by the Syrians until they no longer needed him, so they killed him.
I'd like to hear Hassan Nasrallah, Syria's and Iran's bitch in Lebanon, continue to defend Syria, and continue to brand Mughnieyh as a hero....
I'd like to see Saad Hariri go again and again to Damascus kiss the hand of the tyrant who killed his father.
Nothing is more disgusting than the spectacle of Lebanese politicians whoring around Syria - with it one day, then against it the next day, and then back again with it....- even as Syria kills them, kills their fathers and their sons...
This is all going to be very interesting when the STL announces its indictments. What will Hezbollah do? Will it start a new war in the south to get off the hook? Will it turn Lebanon into a bloodbath to escape a conviction?
What will the Asad regime do? It probably already has paid off the STL and the West (with promises of peace with Israel) and probably has its deniability story ready to go, now that it got rid of Kanaan and Mughnieyh: "Oh, Bashar Asad did not know. The Hariri assassination was done behind his back by Mughnieyh and Kanaan...Bashar Asad would never do such a horrible thing...."
There is so much blood on the hands of Syria in Lebanon, that I wonder how can the idiot Lebanese continue to see Syria as the "sister" and Israel as the enemy? Since the late 1960s, the Syrians have killed hundred of thousands of Lebanese in assassinations, pogroms, massacres and engineered civil wars between the Lebanese and the Palestinians, and amongst the Lebanese themselves. In the same period of time, Israel's killings in Lebanon pale in comparison.
With a sister like Syria, how can the Lebanese need an enemy like Israel?
Hanibaal
Sunday, March 21, 2010
The Desertification of Lebanon
Busy as they are with "liberating Palestine" on behalf of the Palestinians, the idiot Lebanese are wasting their country away by neglecting its natural resources. In 40 years of warmongering, the Lebanese managed to empty the country of its human resource, its intelligentsia, most of whom live abroad nowadays, leaving behind the riff raff to sink even further into poverty and neglect. Now is the turn of the natural resources: Enormous hotels are built on state-owned beachfront properties, water resources are in total neglect (see below) such that people have to buy water (and electricity and all other public services) from middlemen cronies of the political establishment, the forests are cut down for stone quarries owned by the politicians themselves, ocean and air pollution is one of the highest in the world. The latest example of the ongoing environmental rape in Lebanon is the road built by the criminal pro-Syrian collaborator former President Emile Lahoud from the coastal highway up to his village of Baabdat. Instead of building an environmentally-friendly bridge that would span above the lush and pristine forest of the area between Nahr El-Mot and the Matn highlands on the northers side of that mountain, Emile Lahoud dynamited his way through gigantic forests (that had been intact so far) and huge limestone cliffs to build a meandering road that does not deserve to be called a highway because of all the bends and turns. This highway is a public hazard because of the potential massive collapses and rock falls of the cliffs.
Lebanon is well on its way to becoming something like Afghanistan: High and bald desert mountains....
Read here on the impending water calamity in Lebanon. While all the Arabs are busy building their infrastructures and protecting their environments, the warmongering idiot Lebanese insist on continuing the ruin of their own country to liberate Palestine for the PAlestinians, and the Golan for the Syrians.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37941
Maybe one day the Lebanese will receive a Nobel Prize for War, but they will have nowhere to hang it in their desertified Lebanon.
Hanibaal
Lebanon is well on its way to becoming something like Afghanistan: High and bald desert mountains....
Read here on the impending water calamity in Lebanon. While all the Arabs are busy building their infrastructures and protecting their environments, the warmongering idiot Lebanese insist on continuing the ruin of their own country to liberate Palestine for the PAlestinians, and the Golan for the Syrians.
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37941
Maybe one day the Lebanese will receive a Nobel Prize for War, but they will have nowhere to hang it in their desertified Lebanon.
Hanibaal
Saturday, March 20, 2010
Saudi Filth and Islamic Justice at their Best. But Where is Saad Hariri?
- Where is Saad Hariri, the half-Saudi, half-Lebanese Prime Minister?
- Where are the Arab and Lebanese Human Rights organizations to protest this miscarriage of justice in the name of fucking Islam?
- Where are all the Arabs who protest when Israel kills a Hamas terrorist, but are nowhere to be found when an innocent Lebanese man whose psychic show in Beirut has now put him on death row in fucking shitty Islamic Saudi Arabia on the charge of "Sorcery"?
- Where are all those filthy rich AUB students who hide behind their wealth and their political papas, and have the luxury to protest against a Palestinian professor for co-authoring a book with Israeli academics, but are nowhere to be found in defense of an innocent Lebanese man about to be killed by the primitive Saudi monarchy?
- Where is the supposedly "free" Lebanese press to speak up and boycott Saudi Arabia? The Lebanese press was busy yesterday being told by Saad Hariri to tone down any criticism of Syria's dictatorship (who killed his father) because his Saudi bosses told him to make up with Syria and be nice? So now he tells the Lebanese press to do the same...Freedom, my ass!
It is in cases like this that the truth about Arabs and Muslims really shines, where the vulgarity of their claims to justice and tolerance comes to light, where the blatant double standard and hypocrisy comes to the surface, and where the abject backwardness of anything with the label Arab and Muslim is revealed.
Hanibaal
_____________________________________________________
TV presenter gets death sentence for 'sorcery'
By Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN
* Ali Hussain Sibat faces death sentence for predicting future on TV show
* Sibat arrested, tried and sentenced during pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia
* Reports say case is due to return to appeals court
(CNN) -- Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for "sorcery."
In a statement released Thursday, the international rights group condemned the verdict and demanded the immediate release of Ali Hussain Sibat, former host of a popular call-in show that aired on Sheherazade, a Beirut based satellite TV channel.
According to his lawyer, Sibat, who is 48 and has five children, would predict the future on his show and give out advice to his audience. His attorney, May El Khansa, who is in Lebanon, tells CNN her client was arrested by Saudi Arabia's religious police (known as the Mutawa'een) and charged with sorcery while visiting the country in May 2008. Sibat was in Saudi Arabia to perform the Islamic religious pilgrimage known as Umra.
Sibat was then put on trial. In November 2009, a court in the Saudi city of Medina found Sibat guilty and sentenced him to death. According to El Khansa, Sibat appealed the verdict. The case was taken up by the Court of Appeal in the Saudi city of Mecca on the grounds that the initial verdict was "premature." The Mecca appeals court then sent the case back to the original court for reconsideration, stipulating that all charges made against Sibat needed to be verified and that he should be given a chance to repent.
On March 10, judges in Medina upheld their initial verdict, meaning Sibat is once again sentenced to be executed. "The Medina court refused the sentence of the appeals court," said El Khansa, adding her client will appeal the verdict once more.
Sibat's wife, Samira Rahmoon told CNN she has not seen her husband and has no idea of his health. "I haven't seen my husband in two years. I don't know if he's eating. I don't know if he's healthy. I don't know how he looks. This has been very difficult. I don't even have enough money to be able to travel to Saudi Arabia to see him," she said. "I don't have anything against the Saudi government. I just want to see my husband again."
According to Arab News, an English language Saudi daily newspaper, after the most recent verdict was issued, the judges in Medina issued a statement expressing that Sibat deserved to be executed for having continually practiced black magic on his show, adding that this sentence would deter others from practicing sorcery.
- Where are the Arab and Lebanese Human Rights organizations to protest this miscarriage of justice in the name of fucking Islam?
- Where are all the Arabs who protest when Israel kills a Hamas terrorist, but are nowhere to be found when an innocent Lebanese man whose psychic show in Beirut has now put him on death row in fucking shitty Islamic Saudi Arabia on the charge of "Sorcery"?
- Where are all those filthy rich AUB students who hide behind their wealth and their political papas, and have the luxury to protest against a Palestinian professor for co-authoring a book with Israeli academics, but are nowhere to be found in defense of an innocent Lebanese man about to be killed by the primitive Saudi monarchy?
- Where is the supposedly "free" Lebanese press to speak up and boycott Saudi Arabia? The Lebanese press was busy yesterday being told by Saad Hariri to tone down any criticism of Syria's dictatorship (who killed his father) because his Saudi bosses told him to make up with Syria and be nice? So now he tells the Lebanese press to do the same...Freedom, my ass!
It is in cases like this that the truth about Arabs and Muslims really shines, where the vulgarity of their claims to justice and tolerance comes to light, where the blatant double standard and hypocrisy comes to the surface, and where the abject backwardness of anything with the label Arab and Muslim is revealed.
Hanibaal
_____________________________________________________
TV presenter gets death sentence for 'sorcery'
By Mohammed Jamjoom, CNN
* Ali Hussain Sibat faces death sentence for predicting future on TV show
* Sibat arrested, tried and sentenced during pilgrimage to Saudi Arabia
* Reports say case is due to return to appeals court
(CNN) -- Amnesty International is calling on Saudi Arabia's King Abdullah to stop the execution of a Lebanese man sentenced to death for "sorcery."
In a statement released Thursday, the international rights group condemned the verdict and demanded the immediate release of Ali Hussain Sibat, former host of a popular call-in show that aired on Sheherazade, a Beirut based satellite TV channel.
According to his lawyer, Sibat, who is 48 and has five children, would predict the future on his show and give out advice to his audience. His attorney, May El Khansa, who is in Lebanon, tells CNN her client was arrested by Saudi Arabia's religious police (known as the Mutawa'een) and charged with sorcery while visiting the country in May 2008. Sibat was in Saudi Arabia to perform the Islamic religious pilgrimage known as Umra.
Sibat was then put on trial. In November 2009, a court in the Saudi city of Medina found Sibat guilty and sentenced him to death. According to El Khansa, Sibat appealed the verdict. The case was taken up by the Court of Appeal in the Saudi city of Mecca on the grounds that the initial verdict was "premature." The Mecca appeals court then sent the case back to the original court for reconsideration, stipulating that all charges made against Sibat needed to be verified and that he should be given a chance to repent.
On March 10, judges in Medina upheld their initial verdict, meaning Sibat is once again sentenced to be executed. "The Medina court refused the sentence of the appeals court," said El Khansa, adding her client will appeal the verdict once more.
Sibat's wife, Samira Rahmoon told CNN she has not seen her husband and has no idea of his health. "I haven't seen my husband in two years. I don't know if he's eating. I don't know if he's healthy. I don't know how he looks. This has been very difficult. I don't even have enough money to be able to travel to Saudi Arabia to see him," she said. "I don't have anything against the Saudi government. I just want to see my husband again."
According to Arab News, an English language Saudi daily newspaper, after the most recent verdict was issued, the judges in Medina issued a statement expressing that Sibat deserved to be executed for having continually practiced black magic on his show, adding that this sentence would deter others from practicing sorcery.
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
The Perfect Storm: War in Lebanon Now Inevitable
Why war has become even more inevitable in Lebanon, now that Israel is openly pilfering land in East Jerusalem that does not belong to it, and causing a serious chasm with the Obama administration?
You have on one side of the equation:
- Iran under intense pressure, internationally over its nuclear program, and domestically as it s\continues to struggle with the democracy uprising.
- Hezbollah restless in Lebanon: Its buildup of missiles and the deterrence it claims to produce need to be demonstrated to a highly skeptical Lebanese population. Now that it is a political force (since it now sits in the Lebanese government), it needs to remind the Lebanese that it is a military force as well. Since 2006, Hezbollah's only means to demonstrate its relevance has been by scaring the Lebanese population shitless (as in the 2007-2008 confrontations in the streets) and by recently raising its verbal threats against anyone in Lebanon who tries to challenge the "resistance". Even Michel Aoun (the poodle of Hezbollah) yesterday said: "I don't want to hear any questions about the resistance anymore", as if to seal once and for all the tyrannical sway that Hezbollah now has in Lebanon thanks to its missiles and Iranian dollars, and run a Police State inside the Lebanese State with spy conspiracies, witch hunts, anti-foreign rhetoric, and such other paraphernalia of despotic regimes.
On the other side of the equation:
- Israel is still reeling from the perception of its "defeat" by Hezbollah in 2006. It has managed to kill Mughniyeh (Hezbollah) in Damascus and Mabhouh (Hamas) in Dubai, but can't seem to get a handle on Hassan Nasrallah. It needs any victory to demonstrate that it is still in control. With Olmert out of the way, Barak and Netanyahu need to score a "big" victory somewhere, and the choices are really two: Either a direct strike at Iran (which will reverberate in Lebanon immediately into a Hezbollah-Iran war on Lebanese soil), or an indirect strike at Iran by triggering a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
- The stealing of Palestinian land by Israel in the open and while US Vice-president was visiting is essentially an admission by Israel that it is not really interested in a settlement with the Palestinians, especially not with a much weakened Palestinian Authority split and fractured between the West Bank and Gaza, and that Israel's ultimate objective is to buy time until it can eventually - by argument of demography - annex Jerusalem and the entire West Bank. At the very least, by stealing Palestinian land, Israel is raising the stakes and positioning itself for a much improved negotiating position, even at the cost of alienating Washington on the short term.
Thus, both sides have a need to deflect attention away from their troubles with the international community (Israel for stealing Palestinian territories, Iran for its nuclear buildup, and Hezbollah to re-demonstrate its military relevance), and with their internal constituencies (Iran to quell the domestic uprising against the Islamic Republic, Israel to show its increasingly desperate population that it can still deter the enemy).
As has been the case for more than 40 years, Lebanon remains the arena for all these people to vent: An "incident" in Lebanon at this very moment would unleash these bent-up pressures, and Syria - which had been playing "nice" for a while with a stupid and credulous Western audience - would reap all the benefits by triggering the "incident" along the Israeli-Lebanese border, staying out of the fighting as always, and then claiming to play a constructive role by appeasing the fury of its client Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Unfortunately for the Lebanese population, the politicians they keep electing to represent them are all beholden to outside powers from Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United States. Lebanese politicians will run headfirst into the confrontation because they are paid to do so, and without any second thought as to the impact - again - on the Lebanese people.
In fact, this time will be much worse than 2006 because back then Siniora and Hariri were "theoretically" against Hezbollah and anti-Syrian, yet were also anti-Israeli. In other words, they were impartial victims of their own stupidity. This time, they all have fallen back under the Syrian fold and are viciously pro-Hezbollah and pro-Syrian (Suleiman, Hariri, Jumblatt...). The only idiots left behind are the Christian poodles of Hariri who live off crumbs from the Hariri table and fake American promises of protection to the Christian "minority". This makes Israel declare over and over that next time it will target Lebanese state institutions (ministries, the army, etc) since now all the Lebanese state is beholden to Hezbollah.
The only real victims will again be the Lebanese people since they will die by the thousands and watch their country torn apart...simply because Israel wants to steal more land from the Palestinians, Iran wants to build nuclear weapons and institute the rule of God on earth, Syria wants to recover the Golan, the Palestinians and Hezbollah want to liberate Palestine... All non-Lebanese causes for which the Lebanese - alone among the Arabs - have been dying for decades. When will they ever learn?
Hanibaal
You have on one side of the equation:
- Iran under intense pressure, internationally over its nuclear program, and domestically as it s\continues to struggle with the democracy uprising.
- Hezbollah restless in Lebanon: Its buildup of missiles and the deterrence it claims to produce need to be demonstrated to a highly skeptical Lebanese population. Now that it is a political force (since it now sits in the Lebanese government), it needs to remind the Lebanese that it is a military force as well. Since 2006, Hezbollah's only means to demonstrate its relevance has been by scaring the Lebanese population shitless (as in the 2007-2008 confrontations in the streets) and by recently raising its verbal threats against anyone in Lebanon who tries to challenge the "resistance". Even Michel Aoun (the poodle of Hezbollah) yesterday said: "I don't want to hear any questions about the resistance anymore", as if to seal once and for all the tyrannical sway that Hezbollah now has in Lebanon thanks to its missiles and Iranian dollars, and run a Police State inside the Lebanese State with spy conspiracies, witch hunts, anti-foreign rhetoric, and such other paraphernalia of despotic regimes.
On the other side of the equation:
- Israel is still reeling from the perception of its "defeat" by Hezbollah in 2006. It has managed to kill Mughniyeh (Hezbollah) in Damascus and Mabhouh (Hamas) in Dubai, but can't seem to get a handle on Hassan Nasrallah. It needs any victory to demonstrate that it is still in control. With Olmert out of the way, Barak and Netanyahu need to score a "big" victory somewhere, and the choices are really two: Either a direct strike at Iran (which will reverberate in Lebanon immediately into a Hezbollah-Iran war on Lebanese soil), or an indirect strike at Iran by triggering a war with Hezbollah in Lebanon.
- The stealing of Palestinian land by Israel in the open and while US Vice-president was visiting is essentially an admission by Israel that it is not really interested in a settlement with the Palestinians, especially not with a much weakened Palestinian Authority split and fractured between the West Bank and Gaza, and that Israel's ultimate objective is to buy time until it can eventually - by argument of demography - annex Jerusalem and the entire West Bank. At the very least, by stealing Palestinian land, Israel is raising the stakes and positioning itself for a much improved negotiating position, even at the cost of alienating Washington on the short term.
Thus, both sides have a need to deflect attention away from their troubles with the international community (Israel for stealing Palestinian territories, Iran for its nuclear buildup, and Hezbollah to re-demonstrate its military relevance), and with their internal constituencies (Iran to quell the domestic uprising against the Islamic Republic, Israel to show its increasingly desperate population that it can still deter the enemy).
As has been the case for more than 40 years, Lebanon remains the arena for all these people to vent: An "incident" in Lebanon at this very moment would unleash these bent-up pressures, and Syria - which had been playing "nice" for a while with a stupid and credulous Western audience - would reap all the benefits by triggering the "incident" along the Israeli-Lebanese border, staying out of the fighting as always, and then claiming to play a constructive role by appeasing the fury of its client Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Unfortunately for the Lebanese population, the politicians they keep electing to represent them are all beholden to outside powers from Syria, Saudi Arabia, the United States. Lebanese politicians will run headfirst into the confrontation because they are paid to do so, and without any second thought as to the impact - again - on the Lebanese people.
In fact, this time will be much worse than 2006 because back then Siniora and Hariri were "theoretically" against Hezbollah and anti-Syrian, yet were also anti-Israeli. In other words, they were impartial victims of their own stupidity. This time, they all have fallen back under the Syrian fold and are viciously pro-Hezbollah and pro-Syrian (Suleiman, Hariri, Jumblatt...). The only idiots left behind are the Christian poodles of Hariri who live off crumbs from the Hariri table and fake American promises of protection to the Christian "minority". This makes Israel declare over and over that next time it will target Lebanese state institutions (ministries, the army, etc) since now all the Lebanese state is beholden to Hezbollah.
The only real victims will again be the Lebanese people since they will die by the thousands and watch their country torn apart...simply because Israel wants to steal more land from the Palestinians, Iran wants to build nuclear weapons and institute the rule of God on earth, Syria wants to recover the Golan, the Palestinians and Hezbollah want to liberate Palestine... All non-Lebanese causes for which the Lebanese - alone among the Arabs - have been dying for decades. When will they ever learn?
Hanibaal
Friday, March 12, 2010
Honor Killings: A Proud Lebanese Religious Tradition
Please note (in the report below) the Lebanese official's statement, "This kind of crime is not common in Lebanon but we have a few every year", as if the "mere few" number of honor killings does not warrant the country's reputation as a backward primitive country. It's like saying, "we have a few terrorist organizations running around with heavy weapons and missiles, but God bless them, they are harmless."
Also note that the Lebanese authorities have yet to eliminate the so-called "extenuating circumstances" that would land this criminal brute a mere 6 months in jail, only to return in his glory to the village, having saved the family's honor.
What we never know are the stories behind the "Honor crimes". Oftentimes, the sister or the female in the family is killed not as a rescue operation of the family's "honor" but because of some other reason: She had information about the brother's illegal activities, or the brother was pimping his sister and when she wanted out, he kills her...etc.
In Lebanon, religion dominates and life is ruled by bearded men from the Middle Ages. Christian or Muslim, Lebanese men (especially from the mountainous hinterland) are neanderthal brutes. This combination makes for a patriarchal society protected by religious orders and organized religion. When marriage and divorce (for example) are permitted under the law only by the religion authorities, imagine how every other aspect of people's lives become subservient to the religious system of thinking, believing in fantasies, and engaging in otherwise violent and criminal actions under the protection of the law.
In my mind, the same psychosocial drivers that are behind "Honor killing" in Lebanon are also at work behind Hassan Nasrallah's "Divine Victories" and "God-mandated resistance", and the recent decision by the Lebanese government to seal Christian-Muslim unity by declaring March 18 (the Day of the Annunciation to Mary) a national holiday, as if to further reinforce the oppressive and mind-numbing sway that religion has on the Lebanese people's minds and lives.
Hanibaal
--------------------------------------------------------------
Man Arrested in North Lebanon for Sister's 'Honor Killing'
A Lebanese man has been arrested in northern Lebanon for killing his sister earlier this week in what authorities described as an honor killing, a security official said on Friday.
"The 24-year-old victim was single and apparently had a boyfriend," the security official told AFP. "(Her brother) admitted shooting her twice in the head to cleanse the family honor."
The woman was only identified by her initials, as was her 28-year-old brother. Her body was discovered on Tuesday on the main road of the village of Hakr al-Daheri, in the northern Akkar region.
"This kind of crime is not common in Lebanon but we have a few every year," the official said.
Lebanese law stipulates extenuating circumstances for so-called honor killings, in which male relatives kill female kin they suspect of illicit behavior with men.
From Naharnet
Beirut, 12 Mar 10
Also note that the Lebanese authorities have yet to eliminate the so-called "extenuating circumstances" that would land this criminal brute a mere 6 months in jail, only to return in his glory to the village, having saved the family's honor.
What we never know are the stories behind the "Honor crimes". Oftentimes, the sister or the female in the family is killed not as a rescue operation of the family's "honor" but because of some other reason: She had information about the brother's illegal activities, or the brother was pimping his sister and when she wanted out, he kills her...etc.
In Lebanon, religion dominates and life is ruled by bearded men from the Middle Ages. Christian or Muslim, Lebanese men (especially from the mountainous hinterland) are neanderthal brutes. This combination makes for a patriarchal society protected by religious orders and organized religion. When marriage and divorce (for example) are permitted under the law only by the religion authorities, imagine how every other aspect of people's lives become subservient to the religious system of thinking, believing in fantasies, and engaging in otherwise violent and criminal actions under the protection of the law.
In my mind, the same psychosocial drivers that are behind "Honor killing" in Lebanon are also at work behind Hassan Nasrallah's "Divine Victories" and "God-mandated resistance", and the recent decision by the Lebanese government to seal Christian-Muslim unity by declaring March 18 (the Day of the Annunciation to Mary) a national holiday, as if to further reinforce the oppressive and mind-numbing sway that religion has on the Lebanese people's minds and lives.
Hanibaal
--------------------------------------------------------------
Man Arrested in North Lebanon for Sister's 'Honor Killing'
A Lebanese man has been arrested in northern Lebanon for killing his sister earlier this week in what authorities described as an honor killing, a security official said on Friday.
"The 24-year-old victim was single and apparently had a boyfriend," the security official told AFP. "(Her brother) admitted shooting her twice in the head to cleanse the family honor."
The woman was only identified by her initials, as was her 28-year-old brother. Her body was discovered on Tuesday on the main road of the village of Hakr al-Daheri, in the northern Akkar region.
"This kind of crime is not common in Lebanon but we have a few every year," the official said.
Lebanese law stipulates extenuating circumstances for so-called honor killings, in which male relatives kill female kin they suspect of illicit behavior with men.
From Naharnet
Beirut, 12 Mar 10
Wednesday, March 10, 2010
How Lebanon Treats Human Rights Activists
In the so-called "Switzerland of the Middle East", human rights activists are treated exactly as in Syria: Harassment, obstruction, passport seizure, etc. (See the report below).
I know of one particular case firsthand. When the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) opened its offices in Dora, just north of Beirut, and applied for a permit from the Gestapo of Lebanon (a.k.a. the Hezbollah-dominated General Security), the permit application was ignored for several years. When the CLDH persisted in inquiring about the status of their application, their offices were "visited" overnight, furniture smashed, and computers stolen.
Thanks to Hezbollah, Lebanon should more aptly be called the "North Korea of the Middle East" on account of the thousands of missiles (including potentially nuclear heads from Iran) Hezbollah has throughout the country, as well as the Police State that this scum of a country has become.
All the claims of Lebanon as a country of "democracy" and "freedom" are false and fake imitations at best. Women are treated like cattle, foreign workers are bonded slaves, the religious orders (churches, mosques...) run the country like God-mandated Mafias, terrorist groups run unchecked (Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and dozens of Palestinian radical groups...all armed and protected by Syria's pressures on the Lebanese State), feudal families hold all the power, and any semblance of genuine protections of freedoms under the law is a big lie.
There is no free press in Lebanon in the real sense of the term: There are several large media channels (newspapers and television channels), but each is owned and operated by one of the large family-religious conglomerates: Al-Mustaqbal (newspaper, television, Internet) is owned by the Prime Minister Saad Hariri (an idiot who inherited political power because he was once a sperm in his father's right testicle), Al-Manar (owned by Hezbollah), Orange TV (owned by the senile former general Michel Aoun), the Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri has his own media empire....etc. There are enormous hurdles to start an independent newspaper or a media channel in Lebanon, the first of which is that the members of the Press Syndicate (those above who already own newspapers and media channels) have to sign off on your application, and they overwhelmingly deny it. The press in Lebanon is a monopoly of the political establishment. So "Freedom of the Press" in Lebanon does not mean the free unfettered exchange of ideas; it means the ability of criminal warlord politicians to hurl insults at one another using paid mercenaries parading themselves as "reporters" and "journalists".
Add to this that Hezbollah (which also runs the Beirut Airport) now wants to treat every foreigner traveling to Lebanon on a foreign passport as an Israeli spy, and you really get Pyongyang on the Mediterranean rather than Paris as the new motto for Lebanon and Beirut.
Hanibaal
--------------------------------------------------------------------
General Security Held Nizar Saghieh's British Passport Until Minister Intervened
March 8, 2010
(Beirut) - The Lebanese government should investigate the seizure of a human rights lawyer's passport by General Security, a group of 16 Lebanese and international human rights organizations said today.
General Security withheld the British passport for the lawyer, Nizar Saghieh, a dual British and Lebanese citizen, on March 2, 2010, without providing any justification. The passport was returned on March 4, following the direct intervention of Interior Minister Ziad Baroud. Saghieh had recently represented four Iraqi refugees in their lawsuits against the Lebanese state for illegal detention by General Security, resulting in court orders for their immediate release.
"We are concerned that General Security singled out Nizar Saghieh for harassment because of his role in defending Iraqi refugees," the organizations said. "The government should investigate the reasons for General Security's behavior and ensure that no human rights activist is harassed for his or her activities."
The passport was withheld after a travel agency sent General Security 13 passports of government representatives and civil society activists, including Saghieh's, for approval to send them to Amman, Jordan, to seek visas for travel to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The passports had to be sent to Jordan because there is no Bosnian embassy in Lebanon. The trip's purpose was to study Bosnia's experience in dealing with enforced disappearances and mass graves.
When the travel agency went to retrieve the passports, General Security returned the others but said, without providing any reason that they intended to summon Saghieh to come in person to retrieve his. The trip for the entire group has been postponed as a result. General Security is the security institution in charge of immigration and passport formalities in Lebanon.
While the organizations said they were relieved that the passport was returned following the minister's intervention, they expressed concern that General Security had withheld the passport to intimidate Saghieh.
The organizations also called on Lebanon to respect human rights lawyers and to abide by the principles enunciated in the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, particularly Article 12. That article calls on governments to "take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise" of their rights as a human rights defender.
The organizations also urged the bar associations of Beirut and Northern Lebanon to ensure that their members are not harassed for their work as lawyers.
Background
Saghieh has worked on a number of human rights issues, including arbitrary detention of refugees, access to information for the families of persons forcibly disappeared during Lebanon's civil war, and censorship. Most recently, he successfully represented the four Iraqi refugees in separate lawsuits against the state, seeking their immediate release from detention at the General Security jail after they had finished serving sentences. General Security has released only one of the four despite the court decisions calling for their immediate release.
Saghieh's activism has caused him trouble with General Security in the past. In 2003, General Security issued an order prohibiting him from entering General Security buildings or conducting any "formality" in it. The order remains in place even though there is no basis under Lebanese law for such an order. The order was issued after Saghieh had acted as legal counsel for Frontiers Center, a non-governmental organization acting mainly on behalf of refugees, in the context of the harassment of the center's director, Samira Trad.
Lebanon is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which states in article 12 that "Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own." The Covenant prohibits states from imposing restrictions on this right "except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in the present Covenant."
The organizations are:
1. The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
2. Human Rights Watch (HRW)
3. Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN)
4. Alkarama
5. Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l'Homme
6. Action des Chrétiens pour l'Abolition de la Torture (ACAT-France)
7. Restart Center for rehabilitation of victims of violence and torture (Restart)
8. The Committee for the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon (CFKDL)
9. Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture
10. Centre Libanais pour les Droits de l'Homme (CLDH)
11. Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE)
12. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organization Against Torture)
13. UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R)
14. Frontiers Ruwad Association
15. Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PINACLE)
16. ALEF - Act for Human Rights
I know of one particular case firsthand. When the Lebanese Center for Human Rights (CLDH) opened its offices in Dora, just north of Beirut, and applied for a permit from the Gestapo of Lebanon (a.k.a. the Hezbollah-dominated General Security), the permit application was ignored for several years. When the CLDH persisted in inquiring about the status of their application, their offices were "visited" overnight, furniture smashed, and computers stolen.
Thanks to Hezbollah, Lebanon should more aptly be called the "North Korea of the Middle East" on account of the thousands of missiles (including potentially nuclear heads from Iran) Hezbollah has throughout the country, as well as the Police State that this scum of a country has become.
All the claims of Lebanon as a country of "democracy" and "freedom" are false and fake imitations at best. Women are treated like cattle, foreign workers are bonded slaves, the religious orders (churches, mosques...) run the country like God-mandated Mafias, terrorist groups run unchecked (Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and dozens of Palestinian radical groups...all armed and protected by Syria's pressures on the Lebanese State), feudal families hold all the power, and any semblance of genuine protections of freedoms under the law is a big lie.
There is no free press in Lebanon in the real sense of the term: There are several large media channels (newspapers and television channels), but each is owned and operated by one of the large family-religious conglomerates: Al-Mustaqbal (newspaper, television, Internet) is owned by the Prime Minister Saad Hariri (an idiot who inherited political power because he was once a sperm in his father's right testicle), Al-Manar (owned by Hezbollah), Orange TV (owned by the senile former general Michel Aoun), the Speaker of Parliament Nabih Berri has his own media empire....etc. There are enormous hurdles to start an independent newspaper or a media channel in Lebanon, the first of which is that the members of the Press Syndicate (those above who already own newspapers and media channels) have to sign off on your application, and they overwhelmingly deny it. The press in Lebanon is a monopoly of the political establishment. So "Freedom of the Press" in Lebanon does not mean the free unfettered exchange of ideas; it means the ability of criminal warlord politicians to hurl insults at one another using paid mercenaries parading themselves as "reporters" and "journalists".
Add to this that Hezbollah (which also runs the Beirut Airport) now wants to treat every foreigner traveling to Lebanon on a foreign passport as an Israeli spy, and you really get Pyongyang on the Mediterranean rather than Paris as the new motto for Lebanon and Beirut.
Hanibaal
--------------------------------------------------------------------
General Security Held Nizar Saghieh's British Passport Until Minister Intervened
March 8, 2010
(Beirut) - The Lebanese government should investigate the seizure of a human rights lawyer's passport by General Security, a group of 16 Lebanese and international human rights organizations said today.
General Security withheld the British passport for the lawyer, Nizar Saghieh, a dual British and Lebanese citizen, on March 2, 2010, without providing any justification. The passport was returned on March 4, following the direct intervention of Interior Minister Ziad Baroud. Saghieh had recently represented four Iraqi refugees in their lawsuits against the Lebanese state for illegal detention by General Security, resulting in court orders for their immediate release.
"We are concerned that General Security singled out Nizar Saghieh for harassment because of his role in defending Iraqi refugees," the organizations said. "The government should investigate the reasons for General Security's behavior and ensure that no human rights activist is harassed for his or her activities."
The passport was withheld after a travel agency sent General Security 13 passports of government representatives and civil society activists, including Saghieh's, for approval to send them to Amman, Jordan, to seek visas for travel to Bosnia-Herzegovina. The passports had to be sent to Jordan because there is no Bosnian embassy in Lebanon. The trip's purpose was to study Bosnia's experience in dealing with enforced disappearances and mass graves.
When the travel agency went to retrieve the passports, General Security returned the others but said, without providing any reason that they intended to summon Saghieh to come in person to retrieve his. The trip for the entire group has been postponed as a result. General Security is the security institution in charge of immigration and passport formalities in Lebanon.
While the organizations said they were relieved that the passport was returned following the minister's intervention, they expressed concern that General Security had withheld the passport to intimidate Saghieh.
The organizations also called on Lebanon to respect human rights lawyers and to abide by the principles enunciated in the UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations on December 9, 1998, particularly Article 12. That article calls on governments to "take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action as a consequence of his or her legitimate exercise" of their rights as a human rights defender.
The organizations also urged the bar associations of Beirut and Northern Lebanon to ensure that their members are not harassed for their work as lawyers.
Background
Saghieh has worked on a number of human rights issues, including arbitrary detention of refugees, access to information for the families of persons forcibly disappeared during Lebanon's civil war, and censorship. Most recently, he successfully represented the four Iraqi refugees in separate lawsuits against the state, seeking their immediate release from detention at the General Security jail after they had finished serving sentences. General Security has released only one of the four despite the court decisions calling for their immediate release.
Saghieh's activism has caused him trouble with General Security in the past. In 2003, General Security issued an order prohibiting him from entering General Security buildings or conducting any "formality" in it. The order remains in place even though there is no basis under Lebanese law for such an order. The order was issued after Saghieh had acted as legal counsel for Frontiers Center, a non-governmental organization acting mainly on behalf of refugees, in the context of the harassment of the center's director, Samira Trad.
Lebanon is a state party to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which states in article 12 that "Everyone shall be free to leave any country, including his own." The Covenant prohibits states from imposing restrictions on this right "except those which are provided by law, are necessary to protect national security, public order (ordre public), public health or morals or the rights and freedoms of others, and are consistent with the other rights recognized in the present Covenant."
The organizations are:
1. The International Center for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)
2. Human Rights Watch (HRW)
3. Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN)
4. Alkarama
5. Agir Ensemble pour les Droits de l'Homme
6. Action des Chrétiens pour l'Abolition de la Torture (ACAT-France)
7. Restart Center for rehabilitation of victims of violence and torture (Restart)
8. The Committee for the Families of the Kidnapped and Disappeared in Lebanon (CFKDL)
9. Khiam Rehabilitation Center for Victims of Torture
10. Centre Libanais pour les Droits de l'Homme (CLDH)
11. Support of Lebanese in Detention and Exile (SOLIDE)
12. The Observatory for the Protection of Human Rights Defenders (a joint programme of the International Federation for Human Rights and the World Organization Against Torture)
13. UMAM Documentation and Research (UMAM D&R)
14. Frontiers Ruwad Association
15. Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PINACLE)
16. ALEF - Act for Human Rights
Monday, March 8, 2010
Lebanese Women's Movement: Potential for Change
http://www.nowlebanon.com/NewsArticleDetails.aspx?ID=151769
Excellent opinion by Hanin Ghaddar in NOW Lebanon - a must read - as it reflects many of the ideas espoused by this blogger. The women of Lebanon can truly become the agents of serious and permanent change in the disgusting status quo of Lebanon where religion, feudal families, and big money continue to collude to keep Lebanon backwards and in a state of war. Women of Lebanon: Please save us all!
Hanibaal
Excellent opinion by Hanin Ghaddar in NOW Lebanon - a must read - as it reflects many of the ideas espoused by this blogger. The women of Lebanon can truly become the agents of serious and permanent change in the disgusting status quo of Lebanon where religion, feudal families, and big money continue to collude to keep Lebanon backwards and in a state of war. Women of Lebanon: Please save us all!
Hanibaal
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Discrimination Against Women: Another "Pearl" of Lebanese "Democracy"
A cousin of mine married a man from West Africa and has a son from that marriage. After her divorce, she returned to Lebanon with her son. He grew up as a Lebanese, went to Lebanese schools, passed the Baccalaureat with flying colors, and is a fine educated young man. Today, he is rotting in Beirut. He can't work and can't travel (the Lebanese government denies him a Lebanese passport), let alone the extreme discrimination he suffers from because of his African looks by an ignorant and racist Lebanese population, even though he is by far a superior human being than all the "normal" Lebanese scum around him.
An example of that discrimination is how his father's country treats him through its Honorary Consul in Beirut. Because his father's country is in civil war and has no embassy in Beirut, the young man went to the Honorary Consul (who is a Lebanese citizen whom the country grants this distinctive title) to try and see how he can get a passport from that country. The Consul is supposed to facilitate the business of that country's citizens. Instead, the Consul looks at him, kicks him out and threatens to call the police if he ever came back. He just does not want to be bothered with this instance of a simple human tragedy.
His mother (my cousin) has been pilfered of all her savings by unscrupulous attorneys who claimed they can get the courts to grant him Lebanese citizenship. This has been going on for decades. The young man is officially a Stateless Person, now in his late twenties, wasting his life and talents in a dingy apartment in Beirut.
Perhaps those who continue to brag about what a lovely country Lebanon is, can add this "pearl" to the achievements of Lebanese "Democracy" and "Human Rights".
Please note (per the report below) that the Christians of Lebanon - who claim to be champions of human rights and tolerance - are the ones who oppose changing the laws to allow people in the situation above to have normal lives. In other words, under the pretext of protecting themselves as a "minority", Lebanese Christians deny thousands of people their basic rights. This is the clash between the stupid and narrow concept of "minority rights" on one hand, and human rights in general on the other. The fact is the better way of defending "minority rights" is to defend "ALL" human rights. Instead of remaining trapped by 19th century complexes of Dhimmis and religious minorities, the Lebanese (the Christians in particular) should grow up, become modern, and move into the 21st century by abandoning the notion that their first identity is a religious one. They should adopt the only identity we all have, which is simply our identity as humans.
Hanibaal
-------------------------------------------------
Lebanese Women Wed to Foreigners Fight for Rights
Samira Soueidan thought she had won a major battle last year when a judge ruled she could pass on her Lebanese citizenship to her children, a first for women wed to foreigners in the country. Her victory was short-lived, however, as the decision was quickly appealed, highlighting the struggle facing thousands of Lebanese women married to foreigners but prevented by law from passing on their nationality to their spouse or children.
"When my attorney called to say that the judge had ruled in my favor after a nine-year legal fight, I was shaking," recalled the frail 48-year-old widow, who was married to an Egyptian and has four children. "Our laws are unfair and completely disregard women," said Soueidan, sitting in her modest living room in a working class neighborhood of Beirut and drawing nervously on a cigarette.
Under legislation adopted in 1925, only Lebanese men can grant citizenship to their spouses and offspring. The measure often leads to surreal situations in which children born and raised in Lebanon to a foreign father face costly legal and social difficulties and in many instances end up rejected by the only country they know.
"Every year I have to get residency permits for my children, I have to come up with the fee and I have to undergo the same questioning" by the Lebanese authorities, lamented Soueidan, who began working as a cleaning lady after her husband died in 1994. "One year, I couldn't come up with the fee and the authorities threatened to deport the kids to Egypt, where they had never set foot," she added. "I ended up going to a loan shark to borrow the money."
But efforts by rights groups and women's organizations to change the law have gained momentum in the past year, with draft legislation currently pending in parliament. Similar campaigns in three other Arab countries -- Algeria, Egypt and Morocco -- have been successful in recent years.
Those opposed to an amendment in Lebanon are mainly from the minority Christian camp who argue that granting women the right to pass on their citizenship would upset the country's delicate demographic balance. Lebanon's Muslims account for about 64 percent of the population against the Christian community's 35 percent. There are also fears that changing the law would hand citizenship to many Palestinian refugees who are married to Lebanese women.
Judge John Qazzi, who ruled in Soueidan's favor, said the debate on the issue was politically motivated and illustrated Lebanon's paternalistic approach to women's issues. "This battle is not about citizenship, it's about women's rights," he said. "Politicians in Lebanon look at women as immature citizens."
Hripsimeh Arkanian, 59, who is married to a Palestinian and has two children, entirely agrees. "I stopped voting a long time ago," she told AFP at her home in a suburb on the outskirts of Beirut. "If my vote counts, then why isn't it heard? "And if my vote is equal to a man's vote, then this should also apply in the case of citizenship."
Sociologist Fahmiyeh Sharaffedin, who published a study on the citizenship issue in 2008, said she was baffled by the discrimination women face in Lebanon given both sexes are officially equal under the constitution. "Other countries impose restrictions on citizenship but they apply to both men and women," she said. "I don't understand why concern over the country's confessional balance only applies to women and not men.
"Why can a Lebanese man marry, have children and boost the size of one community, be it Christian or Muslim?" she asked. "Why doesn't this apply to women? "We are fighting for equality and we won't accept anything less."(AFP)
An example of that discrimination is how his father's country treats him through its Honorary Consul in Beirut. Because his father's country is in civil war and has no embassy in Beirut, the young man went to the Honorary Consul (who is a Lebanese citizen whom the country grants this distinctive title) to try and see how he can get a passport from that country. The Consul is supposed to facilitate the business of that country's citizens. Instead, the Consul looks at him, kicks him out and threatens to call the police if he ever came back. He just does not want to be bothered with this instance of a simple human tragedy.
His mother (my cousin) has been pilfered of all her savings by unscrupulous attorneys who claimed they can get the courts to grant him Lebanese citizenship. This has been going on for decades. The young man is officially a Stateless Person, now in his late twenties, wasting his life and talents in a dingy apartment in Beirut.
Perhaps those who continue to brag about what a lovely country Lebanon is, can add this "pearl" to the achievements of Lebanese "Democracy" and "Human Rights".
Please note (per the report below) that the Christians of Lebanon - who claim to be champions of human rights and tolerance - are the ones who oppose changing the laws to allow people in the situation above to have normal lives. In other words, under the pretext of protecting themselves as a "minority", Lebanese Christians deny thousands of people their basic rights. This is the clash between the stupid and narrow concept of "minority rights" on one hand, and human rights in general on the other. The fact is the better way of defending "minority rights" is to defend "ALL" human rights. Instead of remaining trapped by 19th century complexes of Dhimmis and religious minorities, the Lebanese (the Christians in particular) should grow up, become modern, and move into the 21st century by abandoning the notion that their first identity is a religious one. They should adopt the only identity we all have, which is simply our identity as humans.
Hanibaal
-------------------------------------------------
Lebanese Women Wed to Foreigners Fight for Rights
Samira Soueidan thought she had won a major battle last year when a judge ruled she could pass on her Lebanese citizenship to her children, a first for women wed to foreigners in the country. Her victory was short-lived, however, as the decision was quickly appealed, highlighting the struggle facing thousands of Lebanese women married to foreigners but prevented by law from passing on their nationality to their spouse or children.
"When my attorney called to say that the judge had ruled in my favor after a nine-year legal fight, I was shaking," recalled the frail 48-year-old widow, who was married to an Egyptian and has four children. "Our laws are unfair and completely disregard women," said Soueidan, sitting in her modest living room in a working class neighborhood of Beirut and drawing nervously on a cigarette.
Under legislation adopted in 1925, only Lebanese men can grant citizenship to their spouses and offspring. The measure often leads to surreal situations in which children born and raised in Lebanon to a foreign father face costly legal and social difficulties and in many instances end up rejected by the only country they know.
"Every year I have to get residency permits for my children, I have to come up with the fee and I have to undergo the same questioning" by the Lebanese authorities, lamented Soueidan, who began working as a cleaning lady after her husband died in 1994. "One year, I couldn't come up with the fee and the authorities threatened to deport the kids to Egypt, where they had never set foot," she added. "I ended up going to a loan shark to borrow the money."
But efforts by rights groups and women's organizations to change the law have gained momentum in the past year, with draft legislation currently pending in parliament. Similar campaigns in three other Arab countries -- Algeria, Egypt and Morocco -- have been successful in recent years.
Those opposed to an amendment in Lebanon are mainly from the minority Christian camp who argue that granting women the right to pass on their citizenship would upset the country's delicate demographic balance. Lebanon's Muslims account for about 64 percent of the population against the Christian community's 35 percent. There are also fears that changing the law would hand citizenship to many Palestinian refugees who are married to Lebanese women.
Judge John Qazzi, who ruled in Soueidan's favor, said the debate on the issue was politically motivated and illustrated Lebanon's paternalistic approach to women's issues. "This battle is not about citizenship, it's about women's rights," he said. "Politicians in Lebanon look at women as immature citizens."
Hripsimeh Arkanian, 59, who is married to a Palestinian and has two children, entirely agrees. "I stopped voting a long time ago," she told AFP at her home in a suburb on the outskirts of Beirut. "If my vote counts, then why isn't it heard? "And if my vote is equal to a man's vote, then this should also apply in the case of citizenship."
Sociologist Fahmiyeh Sharaffedin, who published a study on the citizenship issue in 2008, said she was baffled by the discrimination women face in Lebanon given both sexes are officially equal under the constitution. "Other countries impose restrictions on citizenship but they apply to both men and women," she said. "I don't understand why concern over the country's confessional balance only applies to women and not men.
"Why can a Lebanese man marry, have children and boost the size of one community, be it Christian or Muslim?" she asked. "Why doesn't this apply to women? "We are fighting for equality and we won't accept anything less."(AFP)
Friday, March 5, 2010
Israel's Longstanding Mysterious Love Affair with Syria
The following are two simultaneous headlines that sum up the Israeli hypocritical love affair with Syria that has gone on for 40 nearly years: Israel knows that the derailment of the peace process and the only remaining obstacle to ending the Arab-Israeli problem lies in Damascus. Yet Israel does all it can to avoid any direct confrontation with Syria. Somehow the perpetuation of the cauldron of conflict seems to suit Israel better than taking a truly decisive action.
Syria has armed and supported every possible entity (PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, PFLP-GC, etc...) against Israel and the peace process. It has caused major havoc in Lebanon and maintained a state a tension along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Even after the Syrian regime lost the backing of the Soviet Union, and lost major Arab support with Jordan and Egypt signing peace treaties with Israel, thus becoming a last and weak holdout in the "rejectionist" camp. Syria is Iran's only ally in the latter country's determined pursuit of confrontation and threat of nuclear power over the Jewish State. Syria is directly and indirectly responsible for all perceived Israeli failures (the 2006 War with Hezbollah; the Hamas-Fatah split, etc.)
Yet, Israel has never fired a bullet against Syria (except for two fake attacks over the past 2 years on deserted camps in remote Syrian locations). Even when Israeli and Syrian forces came close to one another during Israel's costly invasions and adventures in Lebanon (1978, 1982, 1996, 2000, 2006...), they were both very careful to avoid each other, underlying the hypocrisy of both Israel and the Syrian regime.
One cannot but draw the conclusion of a collusion - tacit, implicit, implied, direct or indirect, you can name it by any name - between Israel and Syria to keep their own highly contentious borders pacified (across the Golan), while inflaming other much less contentious borders on the Lebanese-Israeli borders. Syria by arming terror groups hostile to Israel (Hezbollah) and giving them pretexts to fight Israel (the Shebaa Farms), and Israel by agreeing to play the cat and mouse game for decades, despite the enormous risk and cost to both Israel and Lebanon, and never undertaking an easy surgical strike against Damascus.
The precedent that one can invoke to substantiate the ease with which the weak Syrian regime can buckle under the first serious threat to its existence is the Abdullah Ocalan case. After decades of Syria sheltering the PKK leader and his group, training them in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, and supporting him in attacking Turkish targets across the Turkish-Syrian border, Syria overnight caved in, surrendered the Kurdish PKK leader (now in jail in Turkey), shut down his training camps and evicted the PKK. Why? Turkey massed troops along its border with Syria and delivered an ultimatum. It was that easy.
But Israel refrains from any such action. Israel appears to want to preserve the Syrian regime intact, even as the existential threats against the State of Israel keep growing and mounting, always through a Syrian connection (Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah...).
Hanibaal
------------------------------
Headline 1 (Naharnet, March 5):
- U.S. and Israeli concerns mounted after Syria reportedly supplied Hizbullah with rockets capable of brining down F-16 warplanes. Western sources in New York, said the U.S. State Department pointed out that "the Syrian arms supplies to Hizbullah have reached a point where Damascus now is providing the group with weapons from its own national military stockpile."
Headline 2 (Naharnet, March 5):
Israel Avoiding Scenario of 'War with Syria,' Limiting it to Hizbullah, Hamas
Israel has taken steps in recent weeks to lower tensions with Syria and prevent a misunderstanding that could spark an escalation along the northern border, Haaretz reported. It said a General Staff exercise code-named Firestones-12 last week did not include the scenario of a war with Syria -- only a clash with Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Although originally considered, the report said, the Israeli army opted not to include an element in the exercise that required the rushing of large numbers of conscript soldiers to the north, so that the Syrians would not mistake this as an offensive. Haaretz said Israel also relayed messages to Syria, assuring them that no nasty action was being considered. It quoted military sources as saying that the desire to avoid escalating tensions was one of the considerations that led to the cancellation of part of the exercise.
Syria has armed and supported every possible entity (PLO, Hamas, Hezbollah, PFLP-GC, etc...) against Israel and the peace process. It has caused major havoc in Lebanon and maintained a state a tension along the Israeli-Lebanese border. Even after the Syrian regime lost the backing of the Soviet Union, and lost major Arab support with Jordan and Egypt signing peace treaties with Israel, thus becoming a last and weak holdout in the "rejectionist" camp. Syria is Iran's only ally in the latter country's determined pursuit of confrontation and threat of nuclear power over the Jewish State. Syria is directly and indirectly responsible for all perceived Israeli failures (the 2006 War with Hezbollah; the Hamas-Fatah split, etc.)
Yet, Israel has never fired a bullet against Syria (except for two fake attacks over the past 2 years on deserted camps in remote Syrian locations). Even when Israeli and Syrian forces came close to one another during Israel's costly invasions and adventures in Lebanon (1978, 1982, 1996, 2000, 2006...), they were both very careful to avoid each other, underlying the hypocrisy of both Israel and the Syrian regime.
One cannot but draw the conclusion of a collusion - tacit, implicit, implied, direct or indirect, you can name it by any name - between Israel and Syria to keep their own highly contentious borders pacified (across the Golan), while inflaming other much less contentious borders on the Lebanese-Israeli borders. Syria by arming terror groups hostile to Israel (Hezbollah) and giving them pretexts to fight Israel (the Shebaa Farms), and Israel by agreeing to play the cat and mouse game for decades, despite the enormous risk and cost to both Israel and Lebanon, and never undertaking an easy surgical strike against Damascus.
The precedent that one can invoke to substantiate the ease with which the weak Syrian regime can buckle under the first serious threat to its existence is the Abdullah Ocalan case. After decades of Syria sheltering the PKK leader and his group, training them in the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, and supporting him in attacking Turkish targets across the Turkish-Syrian border, Syria overnight caved in, surrendered the Kurdish PKK leader (now in jail in Turkey), shut down his training camps and evicted the PKK. Why? Turkey massed troops along its border with Syria and delivered an ultimatum. It was that easy.
But Israel refrains from any such action. Israel appears to want to preserve the Syrian regime intact, even as the existential threats against the State of Israel keep growing and mounting, always through a Syrian connection (Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah...).
Hanibaal
------------------------------
Headline 1 (Naharnet, March 5):
- U.S. and Israeli concerns mounted after Syria reportedly supplied Hizbullah with rockets capable of brining down F-16 warplanes. Western sources in New York, said the U.S. State Department pointed out that "the Syrian arms supplies to Hizbullah have reached a point where Damascus now is providing the group with weapons from its own national military stockpile."
Headline 2 (Naharnet, March 5):
Israel Avoiding Scenario of 'War with Syria,' Limiting it to Hizbullah, Hamas
Israel has taken steps in recent weeks to lower tensions with Syria and prevent a misunderstanding that could spark an escalation along the northern border, Haaretz reported. It said a General Staff exercise code-named Firestones-12 last week did not include the scenario of a war with Syria -- only a clash with Hizbullah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Although originally considered, the report said, the Israeli army opted not to include an element in the exercise that required the rushing of large numbers of conscript soldiers to the north, so that the Syrians would not mistake this as an offensive. Haaretz said Israel also relayed messages to Syria, assuring them that no nasty action was being considered. It quoted military sources as saying that the desire to avoid escalating tensions was one of the considerations that led to the cancellation of part of the exercise.
TRAVEL ADVISORY WARNING TO LEBANON - part II
"Foreign Conspiracies" are running wild in Lebanon, thanks to Hezbollah, following the Dubai assassination of a Hamas terrorist by Israeli agents.
Hezbollah cannot be more happy than to get all foreigners (i.e. Westerners and Sunni Gulf Arabs) out of Lebanon. First, it gives them a freer hand in running their terrorist operations away from scrutiny and from having to worry about foreign governments getting concerned about their subjects in a Lebanon that is on a powder keg right now as Hezbollah (and its patron Iran) are preparing for war in the Lebanese South.
After all, Hezbollah did the same thing in the 1980s when it used car bombs, truck bombs, assassinations, kidnappings of foreigners, hijacking of planes, etc... to remove every foreign soldier, teacher, clergyman, diplomat, UN employee etc. out of the country. So nothing new here, except perhaps that Hezbollah knows that Israeli agents would be more than happy (and we too!) to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, the most senior Iranian terror chief in Lebanon.
This past week, one of Hezbollah chief terrorists, the so-called "Loyalty to the Resistance" MP Nawwaf Moussawi, declared that the LEBANESE STATE SHOULD TREAT ALL FOREIGNERS ENTERING LEBANON AS SPIES.
This means that this summer, all people entering Lebanon through Beirut Airport on foreign passports (especially American and European passport holders) will be treated as spies - i.e. guilty of espionage before proved innocent. Now if you know as I do that Beirut Airport is basically a disguised Hezbollah intelligence base, where all employees are Hezbollah operatives, then you can expect all kinds of mistreatments: Searches, temporary quarantines, interrogations, and the like.... to make sure you are not an Israeli agent. So, if you are determined to ruin your summer, then come enjoy your summer visit to Lebanon as a tourist, if you truly want to be humiliated, imprisoned, and perhaps tortured.... That would be the ultimate "Mideast Reality Tourism" tour that any gutsy Western tourist would want to experience.
Meanwhile, just to refresh your memory about the myriad of other reasons why I do not advise you to come here this summer, I am re-posting my TRAVEL ADVISORY to LEBANON (posted on this blog last month).
Hanibaal
-------------------------------------------------
WARNING to all potential tourists who read press reports about what a great place Beirut and Lebanon are to visit this coming summer, you should not listen to greedy and corrupt journalists and others who would sell their mothers if they could to make a buck.
Lebanon is a very dangerous place, especially this summer:
- Crime is rampant, especially attacks on foreign tourists.
- Pollution in Lebanon is one of the highest around the Mediterranean: all large vehicles (trucks, busses, vans, etc...) run on very low grade diesel. The air you breathe in Lebanon is one of the most dangerous to your health, not to mention that everyone smokes right in your face in every public and private place, including at the airport right under the "No Smoking" signs.
- Lebanese drivers are some of the worst in the world: They drive at vertiginous speeds down dangerous mountain roads, will pass you at hairpin loop turns, then push you aside into the ditch if they encounter oncoming traffic. Traffic accidents are nothing short of horrific because of the speeds involved. There is no traffic code in Lebanon, people drive anywhere, park anywhere, and traffic jams in the summer sweltering heat are pretty close to Dante's seventh circle of hell.
- Human Rights are not respected in Lebanon. Last year the French UN Ambassador's son had a minor road accident with a Lebanese Army truck. The soldiers proceeded to kidnap him, put a bag on his head, take him to the Army Intelligence HQ in Yarzeh, and beat him so badly that they broke his back and permanently disabled the young man. There are 300,000 foreign maids working for 3 million Lebanese (imagine what that ratio means in terms of social perceptions and social disparities); every week, there are reports that these maids supposedly "commit suicide" by hurtling themselves from high rise buildings. No one knows the real story, but sexual abuse and labor abuses are believed to be behind all those killings/suicides. If you want to see Middle Ages practices in a 21st century setting, then go to Lebanon. But if you have any respect for human rights, then you should not go to Lebanon to help fund the abuses.
- Oh, and by the way, Beirut and Lebanon are VERY EXPENSIVE, especially for the poor bang you get for your buck. It's not even worth it. Even the ruins they take you to see for exorbitant fees are mismanaged and in total disrepair. The Lebanese respect nothing - they are basically a highly unethical people - believe me, I am one of them.
- Simple access to beaches on the Mediterranean is impossible: They are are either owned by proprietors in collusion with politicians, and so are made to be "exclusive" with high entry fees and where you find snotty snobs with their maids (who are denied swimming, of course, with the natives), or they are dirty "public" beaches that are 1 hour away from Beirut where you will lounge on rocks and pebbles (instead of sand), amidst piles of plastic garbage, and swim with tchador-clad women. There is nothing in between. It's either filthy rich, or it's simply filthy.
- Last but not least, A second war between Hezbollah and Israel is looming very large. There are daily threats on both sides, and the stupid Lebanese government of Saad Hariri and Michel Suleiman are backing the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and so is the cowards in the Baath regime in Syria.
- This war is likely to be so much more devastating than the 2006 war because Hezbollah is no longer an organization, it now sits in the Lebanese government. While in 2006, Israel limited its devastation to logistics targets serving only Hezbollah, this time Israel is saying clearly that - since Hezbollah is in the Lebanese government - everything is fair game: Lebanese ministries, army positions, etc... Also, because of the perception that Israel "lost" in 2006 by not being able to curtail Hezbollah's ability to shell Israeli territory, it is likely that Israel this time will be unrelenting, which means that the war is likely to be much more devastating and last a longer time, something resembling the 1982 Israeli invasion to dislodge the PLO from Beirut.
- You, as a foreigner, don't want to be stranded in a basically lawless country where the infrastructure sucks, and have to be evacuated in miserable conditions, like what happened in 2006.
Lebanon is my country. I know it. I love it. But I no longer respect it because it has become synonymous with the worst in humans. I do not advise you to go spend your money and be mistreated. One day in the future, perhaps, when there is no more garbage in the streets, when people no longer smoke in your face, when the forests and the beaches of Lebanon become clean and protected from greedy corrupt developers, and when the Lebanese finally learn to treat their fellow human beings with dignity and respect, perhaps then I will invite you to my own home. Inshallah.
Hanibaal
Hezbollah cannot be more happy than to get all foreigners (i.e. Westerners and Sunni Gulf Arabs) out of Lebanon. First, it gives them a freer hand in running their terrorist operations away from scrutiny and from having to worry about foreign governments getting concerned about their subjects in a Lebanon that is on a powder keg right now as Hezbollah (and its patron Iran) are preparing for war in the Lebanese South.
After all, Hezbollah did the same thing in the 1980s when it used car bombs, truck bombs, assassinations, kidnappings of foreigners, hijacking of planes, etc... to remove every foreign soldier, teacher, clergyman, diplomat, UN employee etc. out of the country. So nothing new here, except perhaps that Hezbollah knows that Israeli agents would be more than happy (and we too!) to assassinate Hassan Nasrallah, the most senior Iranian terror chief in Lebanon.
This past week, one of Hezbollah chief terrorists, the so-called "Loyalty to the Resistance" MP Nawwaf Moussawi, declared that the LEBANESE STATE SHOULD TREAT ALL FOREIGNERS ENTERING LEBANON AS SPIES.
This means that this summer, all people entering Lebanon through Beirut Airport on foreign passports (especially American and European passport holders) will be treated as spies - i.e. guilty of espionage before proved innocent. Now if you know as I do that Beirut Airport is basically a disguised Hezbollah intelligence base, where all employees are Hezbollah operatives, then you can expect all kinds of mistreatments: Searches, temporary quarantines, interrogations, and the like.... to make sure you are not an Israeli agent. So, if you are determined to ruin your summer, then come enjoy your summer visit to Lebanon as a tourist, if you truly want to be humiliated, imprisoned, and perhaps tortured.... That would be the ultimate "Mideast Reality Tourism" tour that any gutsy Western tourist would want to experience.
Meanwhile, just to refresh your memory about the myriad of other reasons why I do not advise you to come here this summer, I am re-posting my TRAVEL ADVISORY to LEBANON (posted on this blog last month).
Hanibaal
-------------------------------------------------
WARNING to all potential tourists who read press reports about what a great place Beirut and Lebanon are to visit this coming summer, you should not listen to greedy and corrupt journalists and others who would sell their mothers if they could to make a buck.
Lebanon is a very dangerous place, especially this summer:
- Crime is rampant, especially attacks on foreign tourists.
- Pollution in Lebanon is one of the highest around the Mediterranean: all large vehicles (trucks, busses, vans, etc...) run on very low grade diesel. The air you breathe in Lebanon is one of the most dangerous to your health, not to mention that everyone smokes right in your face in every public and private place, including at the airport right under the "No Smoking" signs.
- Lebanese drivers are some of the worst in the world: They drive at vertiginous speeds down dangerous mountain roads, will pass you at hairpin loop turns, then push you aside into the ditch if they encounter oncoming traffic. Traffic accidents are nothing short of horrific because of the speeds involved. There is no traffic code in Lebanon, people drive anywhere, park anywhere, and traffic jams in the summer sweltering heat are pretty close to Dante's seventh circle of hell.
- Human Rights are not respected in Lebanon. Last year the French UN Ambassador's son had a minor road accident with a Lebanese Army truck. The soldiers proceeded to kidnap him, put a bag on his head, take him to the Army Intelligence HQ in Yarzeh, and beat him so badly that they broke his back and permanently disabled the young man. There are 300,000 foreign maids working for 3 million Lebanese (imagine what that ratio means in terms of social perceptions and social disparities); every week, there are reports that these maids supposedly "commit suicide" by hurtling themselves from high rise buildings. No one knows the real story, but sexual abuse and labor abuses are believed to be behind all those killings/suicides. If you want to see Middle Ages practices in a 21st century setting, then go to Lebanon. But if you have any respect for human rights, then you should not go to Lebanon to help fund the abuses.
- Oh, and by the way, Beirut and Lebanon are VERY EXPENSIVE, especially for the poor bang you get for your buck. It's not even worth it. Even the ruins they take you to see for exorbitant fees are mismanaged and in total disrepair. The Lebanese respect nothing - they are basically a highly unethical people - believe me, I am one of them.
- Simple access to beaches on the Mediterranean is impossible: They are are either owned by proprietors in collusion with politicians, and so are made to be "exclusive" with high entry fees and where you find snotty snobs with their maids (who are denied swimming, of course, with the natives), or they are dirty "public" beaches that are 1 hour away from Beirut where you will lounge on rocks and pebbles (instead of sand), amidst piles of plastic garbage, and swim with tchador-clad women. There is nothing in between. It's either filthy rich, or it's simply filthy.
- Last but not least, A second war between Hezbollah and Israel is looming very large. There are daily threats on both sides, and the stupid Lebanese government of Saad Hariri and Michel Suleiman are backing the terrorist organization Hezbollah, and so is the cowards in the Baath regime in Syria.
- This war is likely to be so much more devastating than the 2006 war because Hezbollah is no longer an organization, it now sits in the Lebanese government. While in 2006, Israel limited its devastation to logistics targets serving only Hezbollah, this time Israel is saying clearly that - since Hezbollah is in the Lebanese government - everything is fair game: Lebanese ministries, army positions, etc... Also, because of the perception that Israel "lost" in 2006 by not being able to curtail Hezbollah's ability to shell Israeli territory, it is likely that Israel this time will be unrelenting, which means that the war is likely to be much more devastating and last a longer time, something resembling the 1982 Israeli invasion to dislodge the PLO from Beirut.
- You, as a foreigner, don't want to be stranded in a basically lawless country where the infrastructure sucks, and have to be evacuated in miserable conditions, like what happened in 2006.
Lebanon is my country. I know it. I love it. But I no longer respect it because it has become synonymous with the worst in humans. I do not advise you to go spend your money and be mistreated. One day in the future, perhaps, when there is no more garbage in the streets, when people no longer smoke in your face, when the forests and the beaches of Lebanon become clean and protected from greedy corrupt developers, and when the Lebanese finally learn to treat their fellow human beings with dignity and respect, perhaps then I will invite you to my own home. Inshallah.
Hanibaal
Thursday, March 4, 2010
Where is the "Nationalist" Maronite Church?
Where is the Maronite Church? Where is the Lebanese government? Part of our heritage is disappearing before our eyes and no one in Lebanon seems to care. The Egyptians are allowed to be proud of their Pharaonic heritage and to preserve it and even exploit it commercially. But in Lebanon, we are made to feel ashamed of our Phoenician heritage, our ancient languages that pre-date Arabic, and as recently as 2008, the Lebanese government forbade the National Museum to display an exhibit about the "Phoenician Gene" project that geneticist Pierre Zalloua had been running with the National Geographic. The longstanding study showed that the Lebanese carry the Phoenician gene and spread it across the Mediterranean during the Phoenician (commercial, not military) conquest of the Mediterranean.
The Lebanese have an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the Arabs and Muslims. No one in the totalitarian cultural Gulag that Lebanon has become because of the ascendancy of Muslims and Arabs can today promote Lebanon's Phoenician heritage without being accused of treason to the Arab Cause (whatever the fuck that means) and of rejecting one's "Arab" identity (whatever the fuck this means).
But where are the so-called "nationalists" of Lebanon - those who say they believe in Lebanon's distinct identity - where are they when a real genuine need exists for preserving that identity? Where is the fucked up MAronite Church and those idiotic bishops and patriarchs sitting on their fat asses in their filthy rich monasteries?...Where are they to promote and help their fellow Maronites in Cyprus preserve the only living link that the Lebanese and the MAronites have with their pre-Arab, pre-Muslim past? Nowhere... they are more busy preserving their dwindling political power which they are surrendering every day to Hassan Nasrallah and to Saad HAriri, allowing themselves and their people to be turned into a Dhimmi minority....
Fuck the MAronite Church because it has allowed Lebanon to be stripped of its true pre-Islamic, pre-Christian identity.... and because it tries to sit on the fence of the Arab-ISlamic / Western-Christian divide. The MAronites have become a schizophrenic community afraid to assert its identity... All you have to do is look at Michel Aoun and his followers: They are the perfect example of the Dhmmmification of the Christians of Lebanon:Instead of saying what they really think, they cave in, they surrender their language and beliefs to HAssan Nasrallah, they wait for the Islamic storm to blow by...not knowing that as the MAronite Church was waiting for centuries for the Mameluks and the Ottoman storms to pass by, we lost our Aramaic language and became arabized... And now as we emigrate by the hundreds of thousands, one day the Muslims of Lebanon, like the Egyptian Muslims who first decimated their Pharaonic heritage and domesticated their Christian COptic communities, use the Maronite community and its Phoenician heritage as a commercial relic to be sold as souvenirs to tourists.
In fact, the Syrian Arab NAtionalists who hate everything Phoenician about Lebanon have recently begun doing exactly that: Today the Syrian government is promoting the island of Arwad as part of the Pheonician heritage of "the Syrian Arab" republic.... كس اخت هلإيام الوسخة إللي وصلنالها.... لما العربي المسلم صار بيفتخر اكتر من اللبناني بتاريخ لبنان الفينيقي ....
Hanibaal
----------------------------------------------------
Maronite language on its last legs
Elias Zonias is fighting to preserve the ancestral language of Cyprus's dwindling Maronite community, which has become uprooted as a result of the island's division.
By Simon Martelli, in Nicosia for AFP
Published: 10:53AM GMT 04 Mar 2010
It is described by experts as a "treasure" but threatened with extinction by rapid demographic change. Every year the number of children at the island's only Maronite school has been shrinking, he says, highlighting the difficulty of keeping alive his native tongue, a unique form of Arabic that is strongly influenced by the Aramaic spoken by Jesus and his followers.
"I feel that I'm lucky because I'm part of a small group of people who speaks this language well," says Zonias, 41, a cheerful father of three with a passion for photography. "But we see the problem here in this school. Every year the number of children goes down," he notes, adding that he now has only 20 pupils learning Cyprus Maronite Arabic, or CMA, a language with a non-written, oral tradition.
The Maronite Christian community, which has been in Cyprus since the 12th century, has been battling to preserve its historic identity since Turkey's military invasion in 1974 partitioned the island into the Greek-speaking south and the Turkish-occupied north. Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the Greek south, leaving behind their agricultural heartland.
Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years. When Zonias and others like him arrived in their new schools in the south they had trouble being understood by the other Greek-speaking pupils, few of whom had even heard of their language. Today, there are 5,000 Cyprus Maronites scattered throughout the island and only about a thousand native speakers of CMA.
Most Maronites tend to marry outside the clan now and very few speak the language to their children, eroding the most distinctive aspect of the community's identity.
Zonias is currently working on a CMA dictionary - a crucial step in rehabilitating the oral tongue - which he hopes will be ready by Easter.
In November 2008, under strong pressure from the Council of Europe, the Cyprus government agreed to officially recognise CMA as a minority language, a move that boosted the hopes of Zonias and others like him. "The recognition of the language is a very important step, because it now gives Maronites the right to be taught in their language, to demand things for the Maronite school," says Costas Constantinou, international relations professor at the University of Nicosia. "This language is a treasure that is worth saving," he says.
The Cypriot Maronites' vernacular tongue is closely linked to their religion, and like their far more numerous counterparts in Syria and Lebanon Maronite churches in Cyprus use in their liturgy the ancient Christian language Syriac, a branch of a group of Semitic tongues known as Aramaic.
George Skordis, another CMA activist from Kormakitis, said that saving the language required urgency. "The situation is urgent because people are dying every day, and some of the words are only known to a few of them," says Skordis, who runs an NGO called "Hki Fi Sanna," meaning "Speak our language" in CMA.
In August last year, his NGO organised its second week-long CMA camp in Kormakitis, which was attended by 190 students aged 6 to 18, almost twice as many as the last workshop in 2008. "The summer camps are excellent," says Zonias, at his office in St Maron's primary school, where framed photos of wild flowers in Kormakitis adorn the walls.
"But we need more help, and since the elementary school (in Kormakitis) has closed down we don't have a place," he adds, complaining that summer temperatures on the island rise to around 40 degrees celsius (104 Fahrenheit), and the classes don't have air conditioning. The CMA activists have also been learning from the experience of other communities like their own. In February, Skordis and Constantinou held a workshop with a group of Samis, an indigenous Norwegian minority group that succeeded in rescuing its own endangered language.
"There are languages that were in a worse state and survived," says Constantinou. "The Samis faced very similar dilemmas 30 years ago, when they were being assimilated by the dominant Norwegian group." "There's always been a process of evolution in language, but we've seen a rapid change in the rate of loss in recent years," says Brian Bielenberg, who teaches educational linguistics at the European University of Cyprus.
He reckons that a language dies approximately every 14 days, but that sometimes languages once considered dead - like Hebrew - are able to make a revival.
For all their efforts, those trying to revive CMA know it may be too little, too late. "We're not 100 per cent sure that this will succeed," admits Skordis. "But we believe that it is possible. If the Cypriot Maronites want to lose their language, then that's their decision. It's up to them. But we think we should not lose it without fighting for it."
The Lebanese have an inferiority complex vis-a-vis the Arabs and Muslims. No one in the totalitarian cultural Gulag that Lebanon has become because of the ascendancy of Muslims and Arabs can today promote Lebanon's Phoenician heritage without being accused of treason to the Arab Cause (whatever the fuck that means) and of rejecting one's "Arab" identity (whatever the fuck this means).
But where are the so-called "nationalists" of Lebanon - those who say they believe in Lebanon's distinct identity - where are they when a real genuine need exists for preserving that identity? Where is the fucked up MAronite Church and those idiotic bishops and patriarchs sitting on their fat asses in their filthy rich monasteries?...Where are they to promote and help their fellow Maronites in Cyprus preserve the only living link that the Lebanese and the MAronites have with their pre-Arab, pre-Muslim past? Nowhere... they are more busy preserving their dwindling political power which they are surrendering every day to Hassan Nasrallah and to Saad HAriri, allowing themselves and their people to be turned into a Dhimmi minority....
Fuck the MAronite Church because it has allowed Lebanon to be stripped of its true pre-Islamic, pre-Christian identity.... and because it tries to sit on the fence of the Arab-ISlamic / Western-Christian divide. The MAronites have become a schizophrenic community afraid to assert its identity... All you have to do is look at Michel Aoun and his followers: They are the perfect example of the Dhmmmification of the Christians of Lebanon:Instead of saying what they really think, they cave in, they surrender their language and beliefs to HAssan Nasrallah, they wait for the Islamic storm to blow by...not knowing that as the MAronite Church was waiting for centuries for the Mameluks and the Ottoman storms to pass by, we lost our Aramaic language and became arabized... And now as we emigrate by the hundreds of thousands, one day the Muslims of Lebanon, like the Egyptian Muslims who first decimated their Pharaonic heritage and domesticated their Christian COptic communities, use the Maronite community and its Phoenician heritage as a commercial relic to be sold as souvenirs to tourists.
In fact, the Syrian Arab NAtionalists who hate everything Phoenician about Lebanon have recently begun doing exactly that: Today the Syrian government is promoting the island of Arwad as part of the Pheonician heritage of "the Syrian Arab" republic.... كس اخت هلإيام الوسخة إللي وصلنالها.... لما العربي المسلم صار بيفتخر اكتر من اللبناني بتاريخ لبنان الفينيقي ....
Hanibaal
----------------------------------------------------
Maronite language on its last legs
Elias Zonias is fighting to preserve the ancestral language of Cyprus's dwindling Maronite community, which has become uprooted as a result of the island's division.
By Simon Martelli, in Nicosia for AFP
Published: 10:53AM GMT 04 Mar 2010
It is described by experts as a "treasure" but threatened with extinction by rapid demographic change. Every year the number of children at the island's only Maronite school has been shrinking, he says, highlighting the difficulty of keeping alive his native tongue, a unique form of Arabic that is strongly influenced by the Aramaic spoken by Jesus and his followers.
"I feel that I'm lucky because I'm part of a small group of people who speaks this language well," says Zonias, 41, a cheerful father of three with a passion for photography. "But we see the problem here in this school. Every year the number of children goes down," he notes, adding that he now has only 20 pupils learning Cyprus Maronite Arabic, or CMA, a language with a non-written, oral tradition.
The Maronite Christian community, which has been in Cyprus since the 12th century, has been battling to preserve its historic identity since Turkey's military invasion in 1974 partitioned the island into the Greek-speaking south and the Turkish-occupied north. Forced to take sides, the Maronites opted for the Greek south, leaving behind their agricultural heartland.
Kormakitis, the largest of four Maronite villages in the north, is the home of CMA and now a dying community, with fewer than 150 elderly inhabitants and its only school closed for more than 10 years. When Zonias and others like him arrived in their new schools in the south they had trouble being understood by the other Greek-speaking pupils, few of whom had even heard of their language. Today, there are 5,000 Cyprus Maronites scattered throughout the island and only about a thousand native speakers of CMA.
Most Maronites tend to marry outside the clan now and very few speak the language to their children, eroding the most distinctive aspect of the community's identity.
Zonias is currently working on a CMA dictionary - a crucial step in rehabilitating the oral tongue - which he hopes will be ready by Easter.
In November 2008, under strong pressure from the Council of Europe, the Cyprus government agreed to officially recognise CMA as a minority language, a move that boosted the hopes of Zonias and others like him. "The recognition of the language is a very important step, because it now gives Maronites the right to be taught in their language, to demand things for the Maronite school," says Costas Constantinou, international relations professor at the University of Nicosia. "This language is a treasure that is worth saving," he says.
The Cypriot Maronites' vernacular tongue is closely linked to their religion, and like their far more numerous counterparts in Syria and Lebanon Maronite churches in Cyprus use in their liturgy the ancient Christian language Syriac, a branch of a group of Semitic tongues known as Aramaic.
George Skordis, another CMA activist from Kormakitis, said that saving the language required urgency. "The situation is urgent because people are dying every day, and some of the words are only known to a few of them," says Skordis, who runs an NGO called "Hki Fi Sanna," meaning "Speak our language" in CMA.
In August last year, his NGO organised its second week-long CMA camp in Kormakitis, which was attended by 190 students aged 6 to 18, almost twice as many as the last workshop in 2008. "The summer camps are excellent," says Zonias, at his office in St Maron's primary school, where framed photos of wild flowers in Kormakitis adorn the walls.
"But we need more help, and since the elementary school (in Kormakitis) has closed down we don't have a place," he adds, complaining that summer temperatures on the island rise to around 40 degrees celsius (104 Fahrenheit), and the classes don't have air conditioning. The CMA activists have also been learning from the experience of other communities like their own. In February, Skordis and Constantinou held a workshop with a group of Samis, an indigenous Norwegian minority group that succeeded in rescuing its own endangered language.
"There are languages that were in a worse state and survived," says Constantinou. "The Samis faced very similar dilemmas 30 years ago, when they were being assimilated by the dominant Norwegian group." "There's always been a process of evolution in language, but we've seen a rapid change in the rate of loss in recent years," says Brian Bielenberg, who teaches educational linguistics at the European University of Cyprus.
He reckons that a language dies approximately every 14 days, but that sometimes languages once considered dead - like Hebrew - are able to make a revival.
For all their efforts, those trying to revive CMA know it may be too little, too late. "We're not 100 per cent sure that this will succeed," admits Skordis. "But we believe that it is possible. If the Cypriot Maronites want to lose their language, then that's their decision. It's up to them. But we think we should not lose it without fighting for it."
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
ARAB TREASON: Syrian Pig Wants Peace with Israel
The Syrian pig Walid Al-Muallem
The big fat Syrian pig Walid Al-Muallem is willing and ready to make peace with Israel, exchange embassies, drop Iran and Hezbollah like a bag of dirt....for nothing more than getting back half the Golan from his "archenemy" Israel.
That's all. No Arab dignity bullshit, no resistance crap, no Umma Arabiyah Sharmouta, no resistance and steadfastness, or Sumud wa tassadi, no anti-Zionist rhetoric... In fact, the pig Muallem and his boss the dog BAshar Assad, along with the bitch Buthayna Shaaban, would all be happy to sleep with their longstanding enemy the next day they get a sliver of the Golan back.
That is how lowly these Syrian beggars are. The burning of Lebanon for 40 years to "liberate Palestine", and the betrayal of the Palestinian people by the Syrian regime, are all minor considerations as long as the beggar lowlifes in Damascus get a piece of the Golan back. That's it...All the grandstanding, the bombings, the massacres, the shellings of Beirut, the killings, the assassinations.... were mere tactics to get the Golan back. Mind you: The Syrian dogs never fired a bullet at Israel from the Golan or on the Golan since 1974... They just inflamed Lebanon and the idiot Lebanese into fighting their wars for them, like the criminal Hassan Nasrallah and his poodle Michel Aoun (who has yet to match his actions with his words and demand that his FPMers join the ranks of Hezbollah to fight the Israeli enemy and liberate Palestine with them the next time Lebanon is burned to the ground.
I wonder what Hezbollah's Narallah is thinking right now... Gone are all his "liberation schemes" and bombing Tel Aviv and Ben Gurion Airport and liberating Palestine and driving the Zionists into the sea.... Gone, the moment the Syrians open an embassy in Tel Aviv and Israel reciprocates.... Forget the Palestinian refugees and the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe. The Zionist entity now becomes the State of ISrael with a peace treaty with Syria, the pulsating dick of the Arab World....
كس أم العرب ملا شعب كلاب وبلا مبادئ.... حرقو لبنان وطعنو فلسطين بظهرا
كس اخت العروبة ملا كذبة وكس ام كل أهبل لبناني ركض يلحس طيز الطاغية بالشام...
كس أمك يا عون يا آخر كلب من كلاب السياسة اللبنانية...
ا
Hanibaal
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Report: Syria Ready for Peace, 3-Phase Normalization Plan with Israel
Syria is willing to consider peace and a 3-phase gradual normalization plan with Israel, according to Gabrielle Rifkind of the Oxford Research Group, who met with Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem in December.
In remarks published by the Israeli daily Haaretz, the conflict resolution specialist said that following an Israeli withdrawal from half the territory it holds on the Golan Heights, the two states would declare an end to the state of enmity between them as a first step.
"There could be stages of withdrawal," Muallem reportedly told Rifkind.
"Half of the Golan could lead to an end to enmity; three quarters of the Golan, to a special interest section in the U.S. embassy in Damascus: a full withdrawal would allow a Syrian embassy in Israel," the Syrian FM reportedly stated.
"Syria does not see direct talks taking place through Turkey, but Ankara could play a part," Muallem reportedly added.
However, the British specialist added that Muallem stressed the need for U.S. involvement in talks "to address the security concerns."
"The key issue here is U.S. flights over the Golan in order to provide security," Muallem reportedly said.
Answering a question about Damascus' relation with Iran and Hizbullah in light of such progress in talks with Israel, Muallem reportedly told Rifkind that Syria is a sovereign state and that it would reconsider that relation "only after Israeli withdrawal from Golan."
Monday, March 1, 2010
Phalangists: Resign from the Hezbollah Government
Amin Gemayel:
The Phalangist Supreme Ass
The Phalangists in Beirut are quite the hypocrites.
After Pierre Gemayel's heroic stances in the 1960s and early 1970s, the Phalangusts turned into assassins, criminals and murderers during the 1970s and 1980s under the the chief criminal Bashir Gemayel.
After losing all their battles and assassinating every other Christian leader, the Phalangists sided with the Syrian occupiers against Michel Aoun (because the Americans told them to). For 15 years they were the lap dogs of Hariri, collaborating with him and the Syrian occupation, supposedly because that was the thing to do (again the Americans told them to).
When Hariri was assassinated by the Syrians, and all the other Syrian collaborators who followed him, including Pierre Junior, the Phalangists were "surprised", pretending not to know what happens to collaborators when their master turns against them.
And now, they claim to be against Hezbollah, but they sit in the same government as Hezbollah and have signed off on the hijacking of the State by Hezbollah. When Hassan Nasrallah violates the sanctity of the State by meeting with terrorists like Asad and Ahmadinejad, the Phalangists are again "upset". Let us not forget that Amine Gemayel was - like Hariri and Jumblatt - wanting to go to Damascus to make up with the Syrian dictator because "it was his idea to begin with"...In fact, the Americans told him to.
Such is the hypocrisy of this Fascist, Christian fundamentalist party that is based on feudalism, big families and religion, but which has no idea what else to do with itself.
The honorable thing for Amin Gemayel to do - instead of listening to the Americans promising him the presidency - would be to refuse to join a government of terrorists, a government led by the traitor HAriri, the idiot Suleiman, and with the membership of the terrorists of Hezbollah and the nouveau Leftists of Michel Aoun.
But Amin gemayel, like all the other Whorelords of Lebanese politics has no honor. All he cares about is how many asses he can kiss to keep him in power, even if that cost him the life of his son Pierre.
The only honorable politician and statesman that Lebanon has today is in exile. His name is Etienne Sacre, or Abu Arz. This is a man who held on to his principles and remained faithful to the causes he fought for. He did not bend for small political gains, and he is still today a man of principles. And that is why he is the only Lebanese politician who is banned from ever returning to Lebanon because all the traitors and dishonorable Lebanese politicians and whorelords are in power.
Lebanon is indeed a country without honor, without principles, a country of traitors and merchants. Everyone of the politicians today in power in Lebanon has been a Syrian and Israeli and American and Saudi and ... collaborator.
Hanibaal
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Phalange Party: Nasrallah-Assad-Ahmadinejad Meeting Annuls Ministerial Statement Article VI
Phalange Party on Monday said that the Damascus meeting that gathered Syrian President Bashar Assad, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, and Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah "took the direction of a tripartite summit during which Lebanon was represented by the head of a party as Lebanese legitimacy was totally alienated, the step that represents blatant sequestration of the Lebanese State."
"As if this meeting-summit has terminated article six of the ministerial Policy Statement that Phalange Party rejected back then. Instead of denoting the responsibility to defend the country to the people, the army, and the resistance, that article was reduced and limited to the resistance alone represented by Hizbullah's secretary-general and no-one else," a statement issued after Phalange's politburo weekly meeting said.
"The dangerous thing about this summit is that it forces Lebanon to stand at the forefront of the military Arab-Israeli conflict in absence of any official Lebanese decision in this regard; and the absence of any Arab official stance to lead this confrontation, the thing that contradicts with the Arab League Charter, the Arab joint defense treaty, Arab summits' resolutions, and international resolutions related to Lebanon," the statement added.
"Lebanon seems to be the only Arab battleground while Syria is trying, with all means possible, to shift its conflict (with Israel) from the arena of war to the arena of diplomatic negotiations."
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