While Israel and the Arab Gulf states are building and developing, all the brains and the education in Lebanon are going down the toilet because the Lebanese are still determined to "resist" - thanks to Hezbollah - against the "conspiracy" that is constantly being plotted against them. In fact, the genius Lebanese believe that all these enemies around them and around the globe (from Israel to Syria, and Turkey and the United States....) are constantly plotting against them to prevent them from becoming the next Silicon Valley or the Einsteins of their times.
You see, the Lebanese are so smart that the world is terrified of them and of the competition they would pose in the world's economy. Therefore, it goes without saying that the failure of Lebanon and of the Lebanese people to have a functional country with electricity, running water, reliable phone and Internet, paved roads, laws that are enforced, decent public transportation, etc... (i.e. all the normal things that normal civilized countries have), is not due to the stupidity of the Lebanese. No, far from it. It is due to Israel and Syria and the US and Europe and Saudi Arabia and Egypt and all the enemies of Lebanon around the world who fear the genius of the Lebanese so much that they all plot and conspire to keep the Lebanese from achieving their true potential....
And so, the Lebanese, thank God and thank Iran, have a genius named Hassan Zoballah who runs an organization called Fuckallah, and he and his organization now run the government, thankfully, to "resist" the conspiracy and finally bring Lebanon to its true potential, which is to basically run the world and control the destiny of history. At long last, the Lebanese can now, with Tizallah at the helm, justifiably brag to the world what a great country they have. It really is not about electricity, roads, crime, running water, corruption, garbage, pollution, rape of the environment, discrimination against women, rule of backward religion.... No, none of these things really matters. What matters is that the Lebanese and Lebanon are smart and great and wonderful.... And it is all these other enemies that is keeping us from demonstrating our genius, our wonder and our smartness....
With Zeballlah's 50,000 missiles (and who is counting anymore? Syria is currently transferring its entire arsenal to Lebanon because the Syrian regime, another fantastic proof of Arab genius, is about to collapse), I am no longer afraid. I now know that the world will soon recognize me as the genius that I am, under my five decaying cedar trees, with garbage up to my ears, without water and electricity, and without the Internet, along my polluted coastline, and with all the asses I have to kiss and all the bribes I have to pay every time I need a paper from the government. This is indeed the best environment for business.... and all we need to do is "confront" the enemies and all will be grand.
Oh, and by the way, while we still haggle over who killed Hariri and whether Gebran Ras-Ayri Bassil will be minister of toilets or minister of sewers.... Israel and Cyprus have finished siphoning off all the natural gas we share with them in the Mediterranean. Well, it's not our fault. We have all these enemies plotting against us, but they (Israel and Cyprus) have no such enemies plotting and conspiring against them, and that is why they have no Hezbollah resistance to manage. And we do. But soon, with Hezbollah and Miqati and Michel Sleiman in Power, all our problems are solved, and we should soon prove to the world our genius and what smart asses we are...
Hanibaal
_________________________________________________________________
With a concentration of start-ups just behind that of Silicon Valley and an impressive pool of engineers, Israel is becoming the new standard for high-tech, with a unique business model.
Internet-related activities contributed 9 billion euros (12.6 billion dollars) to the Israeli economy in 2009, representing 6.5 percent of GDP, according to a report from management consultancy McKinsey.
The sector is worth more than the construction industry (5.4 percent of GDP) and almost as much as health (6.8 percent).
The web economy has also created a total of 120,000 jobs, accounting for 4 percent of the country's workforce, McKinsey says.
From Microsoft to Intel through Google, IBM and Philips, almost all the giants of the Internet and technology have set up important research and development centres in Israel, spawning products and systems used worldwide.
"Israel is the country with the most engineers in its population, and it ranks second behind the United States in the number of companies listed on Nasdaq," said David Kadouch, product manager at Google Israel, which opened its R&D operation in 2007 and currently has 200 employees.
Wednesday, June 29, 2011
Friday, June 24, 2011
RELIGION IS THE CRIMINAL IN LEBANON AND ALL OTHER BACKWARD COUNTRIES
A couple of decades ago, when the Lebanese were slaughtering one another like animals in the name of their fucking religions and sects, someone asked why can;t there be civil marriage in Lebanon? All of a sudden, all the criminal Muftis, Patriarchs, Bishops, Sayyids and such religious bastards - who otherwise were encouraging the religious and sectarian bloodshed - rallied together to oppose the introduction of civil marriage into Lebanese law (currently, Lebanese law bans civil marriage and allows only the churches and the mosques to perform marriages). They made the claim that allowing civil marriage would lead to the elimination of fucking God from the holy bond of marriage and lead to the disintegration of the family.
Fast forward to June 2011, and again, the introduction of a Domestic Abuse Law into Lebanese social and civilian life is rejected by the religious institutions because, again, they say it would lead to the breakdown of the family. Supposedly, the rape or beating of a wife by her husband keeps the family intact and raises "good" children. Never mind the lies and the fucked up loveless families that traditional religious mores and customs lead to... Never mind the generations of frustrated, repressed, unloved children that are produced by Arab societies these days, all of whom become violent, all of whom never become productive members of their societies and turn instead to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda to defuse their bent-up frustrations and repression. Never mind that Arab societies, in the opinion of Arab scientists and scholars themselves, are the least productive, the most developmentally backward societies on the surface of the planet today.... All the ills of Arab societies in our time are the product of religious edicts and the religious tyranny that opposes any change and any evolution from neanderthal-vintage traditions into the modern world...
Never mind that in Lebanese societies, and likely in all Arab societies, domestic abuse goes beyond spousal abuse by the husband against his wife, but includes incest and the abuse and rape of maids imported from poorer countries around the world and literally imprisoned by their employers. Dozens of these maids from such countries as Nepal, the Philippines, Ethiopia and others, kill themselves each year by throwing themselves from balconies, simply because they are locked in the apartments of the Lebanese families where they work. They kill themselves out of despair, because of the daily rapes and beatings.... and Lebanese police and judiciary merely ship the body back to the home country, and never investigate any criminal activity that led to the suicide.
The arguments by the Lebanese clergy - both Christian and Muslim - that Lebanese women who are demanding legal protection against domestic abuse are "cloning western ideas" is not unlike the southerners of the United States who opposed the emancipation of slaves because God meant the slaves to be slaves due to their inferiority as "blacks". These clergymen who run the organized religions of Lebanon are against any change, any improvement in the miserable lives of the Lebanese people who have been killed and massacred for generations because of religion. They want the status quo, they can't imagine losing the power they hold over people's lives.
Everything in the personal status lives of the Lebanese is ruled by unelected barbaric ignorant men with beards and strange hats who, having read a couple of texts from 2,000 years ago, claim to know the absolute truth and the "word of fucking God". So they cannot be challenged by anyone.
But the young generation of Lebanese and other Arabs know deep down that this status quo is holding them back, is keeping them chained to the past and to archaic and antiquated ideas. The revolutions in the Arab world today are a first spark in this gigantic Intifada that has now begun, and there is no return. let the churches and the mosques and all the fucking bastards of God beware the coming change, because if they do not embrace it and continue to oppose it, they and the religious institutions they hide behind will be the target of the anger and wrath of an enlightened and educated younger generation who have seen and know the truth, the real truth.
Hanibaal
Lebanon's highest Sunni Muslim authority on Friday rejected a bill aimed at protecting women against domestic violence and marital rape, saying it would lead to the demise "of the family as in the West."
"Islam is very aware of and concerned with ... resolving problems of poor treatment ... but this should not happen by cloning Western laws that encourage the breakdown of the family and do not suit our society," Dar al-Fatwa said in a statement on its website.
Dar al-Fatwa also slammed as "heresy" a clause in the bill that criminalizes marital rape, accusing those behind the draft law of "inventing new types of crimes."
"This will have a negative impact on Muslim children ... who will see their mother threatening their father with prison, in defiance of patriarchal authority, which will in turn undermine the moral authority" of fathers, it said.
"We must continue to follow sharia (Islamic law) as concerns the Muslim family," it added.
The bill, drafted by feminist organizations, lawyers and forensic experts, was approved by Lebanon's cabinet in 2010 and is currently under study in parliament.
Should it be passed, the law would come under the penal code -- under which cases are referred to a criminal court -- rather than personal status laws, which are ruled on by religious authorities in multi-confessional Lebanon.
The bill criminalizes marital rape and calls for police intervention should a woman notify authorities of abuse by her husband or another family member.
If found guilty, defendants would have to undergo rehabilitation or face prison should they fail to do so.
Domestic abuse and harassment continue to be taboo in Lebanon, considered the most liberal country in the largely conservative Arab world, with very few women filing complaints as police generally turn a blind eye and send the victims home.
Fast forward to June 2011, and again, the introduction of a Domestic Abuse Law into Lebanese social and civilian life is rejected by the religious institutions because, again, they say it would lead to the breakdown of the family. Supposedly, the rape or beating of a wife by her husband keeps the family intact and raises "good" children. Never mind the lies and the fucked up loveless families that traditional religious mores and customs lead to... Never mind the generations of frustrated, repressed, unloved children that are produced by Arab societies these days, all of whom become violent, all of whom never become productive members of their societies and turn instead to terrorist organizations like Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda to defuse their bent-up frustrations and repression. Never mind that Arab societies, in the opinion of Arab scientists and scholars themselves, are the least productive, the most developmentally backward societies on the surface of the planet today.... All the ills of Arab societies in our time are the product of religious edicts and the religious tyranny that opposes any change and any evolution from neanderthal-vintage traditions into the modern world...
Never mind that in Lebanese societies, and likely in all Arab societies, domestic abuse goes beyond spousal abuse by the husband against his wife, but includes incest and the abuse and rape of maids imported from poorer countries around the world and literally imprisoned by their employers. Dozens of these maids from such countries as Nepal, the Philippines, Ethiopia and others, kill themselves each year by throwing themselves from balconies, simply because they are locked in the apartments of the Lebanese families where they work. They kill themselves out of despair, because of the daily rapes and beatings.... and Lebanese police and judiciary merely ship the body back to the home country, and never investigate any criminal activity that led to the suicide.
The arguments by the Lebanese clergy - both Christian and Muslim - that Lebanese women who are demanding legal protection against domestic abuse are "cloning western ideas" is not unlike the southerners of the United States who opposed the emancipation of slaves because God meant the slaves to be slaves due to their inferiority as "blacks". These clergymen who run the organized religions of Lebanon are against any change, any improvement in the miserable lives of the Lebanese people who have been killed and massacred for generations because of religion. They want the status quo, they can't imagine losing the power they hold over people's lives.
Everything in the personal status lives of the Lebanese is ruled by unelected barbaric ignorant men with beards and strange hats who, having read a couple of texts from 2,000 years ago, claim to know the absolute truth and the "word of fucking God". So they cannot be challenged by anyone.
But the young generation of Lebanese and other Arabs know deep down that this status quo is holding them back, is keeping them chained to the past and to archaic and antiquated ideas. The revolutions in the Arab world today are a first spark in this gigantic Intifada that has now begun, and there is no return. let the churches and the mosques and all the fucking bastards of God beware the coming change, because if they do not embrace it and continue to oppose it, they and the religious institutions they hide behind will be the target of the anger and wrath of an enlightened and educated younger generation who have seen and know the truth, the real truth.
Hanibaal
Dar al-Fatwa Rejects Domestic Abuse Law
"Islam is very aware of and concerned with ... resolving problems of poor treatment ... but this should not happen by cloning Western laws that encourage the breakdown of the family and do not suit our society," Dar al-Fatwa said in a statement on its website.
Dar al-Fatwa also slammed as "heresy" a clause in the bill that criminalizes marital rape, accusing those behind the draft law of "inventing new types of crimes."
"This will have a negative impact on Muslim children ... who will see their mother threatening their father with prison, in defiance of patriarchal authority, which will in turn undermine the moral authority" of fathers, it said.
"We must continue to follow sharia (Islamic law) as concerns the Muslim family," it added.
The bill, drafted by feminist organizations, lawyers and forensic experts, was approved by Lebanon's cabinet in 2010 and is currently under study in parliament.
Should it be passed, the law would come under the penal code -- under which cases are referred to a criminal court -- rather than personal status laws, which are ruled on by religious authorities in multi-confessional Lebanon.
The bill criminalizes marital rape and calls for police intervention should a woman notify authorities of abuse by her husband or another family member.
If found guilty, defendants would have to undergo rehabilitation or face prison should they fail to do so.
Domestic abuse and harassment continue to be taboo in Lebanon, considered the most liberal country in the largely conservative Arab world, with very few women filing complaints as police generally turn a blind eye and send the victims home.
Thursday, June 23, 2011
To Iran's Ambassador in Lebanon: Fuck you and the 1982 diplomats
The Iranian Shitallah Republic continues to raise the issue of the 4 Iranian diplomats who were seized by the Lebanese National Resistance in the Lebanese mountains in 1982 and slaughtered like the fucking pigs that they are up.
The Iranian ambassador in Beirut Markoub Bitizo-Nabadi said yesterday that these four diplomats were alive in Israeli jails. Let us see, if these motherfuckers of the Pasdaran (who had come to Beirut to create the monster Hezbollah terror organization, to begin kidnapping foreign hostages, to bomb the US MArines and French Paratroopers compounds in Beirut, to hijack TWA flight 847, to bomb the US embassy twice, and to bring back the Syrian army into Beirut))...so if these motherfucker Muslim Shits from Iran were 35 of age at the time, they would be 65 years old today. Since they are near retirement from their illustrious careers as fucking Muslim bombers and trainers of bombers, then it makes sense to keep them in jail.
In fact, who cares about 4 motherfucking Iranians who were killed by the Lebanese National Resistance in 1982, when one considers what Iran and Syria have done to Lebanon from the 1970s till today: 200,000 Lebanese dead, half a million maimed and injured, the entire country burned to the ground, one million emigrated and refugees, constant useless provocation of Israel to retaliate and bomb Lebanon, etc.... When one considers the scale of destruction that the fucking Lebanese Muslims have caused to their own country in subservience to their "islamic" brothers - the Sunni Lebanese in their support of the Palestinians and the PLO against the Lebanese Christians, and the Shiite Lebanese in their support of Syria and Iran against their own people and country - then who cares about 4 Iranian pigs who died in 1982?
What about the 17,000 missing Lebanese, many of whom are believed to be still alive in Syrian prisons? Isn't the Iranian ambassador Markoub Bitizo-Nabadi going to ask Syria about them, since he cares so much for the welfare of the Lebanese people?
In any case, I can assure Mr. Markoub Bitizo that soon his Syrian buddies will soon be hanging by their balls in downtown Damascus (and Bouthaina Shaaban will be hanging from her breasts, unless someone discovers that she is really a man with balls because she is so ugly), and then he wouldn't have to worry about his 4 Pasdaran motherfuckers anymore because he will follow them to jail (if they are alive as he claims) or to the hanging galley like his Syrian buddies.
Lebanon will again be clean of the scum of the fucking Islamic revolutions. Of this, I can assure the Iranian ambassador Markoub-Bitizo.
Hanibaal
Iran’s ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi said on Thursday that four Iranian diplomats, seized in 1982 by a Christian militia in Lebanon, are still alive and being held in Israel.
“We believe that they are alive in Israeli jails. That’s why we have asked the Lebanese government to seriously follow-up the issue,” Roknabadi said following talks with Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.
Israel at the time was carrying out a major military operation in Lebanon when the three diplomats -- Mohsen Mousavi, Ahmad Motevaselian and Taghi Rastegar Moghadam -- disappeared, along with Kazem Akhaven, a photographer with Iran's official IRNA news agency.
On Wednesday, Roknabadi called on U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to respond to Tehran's demand for a U.N. probe into the fate of the four diplomats.
The issue was raised during a meeting with the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams in Beirut on the occasion of the anniversary of the abduction of the four men.
The Iranian ambassador in Beirut Markoub Bitizo-Nabadi said yesterday that these four diplomats were alive in Israeli jails. Let us see, if these motherfuckers of the Pasdaran (who had come to Beirut to create the monster Hezbollah terror organization, to begin kidnapping foreign hostages, to bomb the US MArines and French Paratroopers compounds in Beirut, to hijack TWA flight 847, to bomb the US embassy twice, and to bring back the Syrian army into Beirut))...so if these motherfucker Muslim Shits from Iran were 35 of age at the time, they would be 65 years old today. Since they are near retirement from their illustrious careers as fucking Muslim bombers and trainers of bombers, then it makes sense to keep them in jail.
In fact, who cares about 4 motherfucking Iranians who were killed by the Lebanese National Resistance in 1982, when one considers what Iran and Syria have done to Lebanon from the 1970s till today: 200,000 Lebanese dead, half a million maimed and injured, the entire country burned to the ground, one million emigrated and refugees, constant useless provocation of Israel to retaliate and bomb Lebanon, etc.... When one considers the scale of destruction that the fucking Lebanese Muslims have caused to their own country in subservience to their "islamic" brothers - the Sunni Lebanese in their support of the Palestinians and the PLO against the Lebanese Christians, and the Shiite Lebanese in their support of Syria and Iran against their own people and country - then who cares about 4 Iranian pigs who died in 1982?
What about the 17,000 missing Lebanese, many of whom are believed to be still alive in Syrian prisons? Isn't the Iranian ambassador Markoub Bitizo-Nabadi going to ask Syria about them, since he cares so much for the welfare of the Lebanese people?
In any case, I can assure Mr. Markoub Bitizo that soon his Syrian buddies will soon be hanging by their balls in downtown Damascus (and Bouthaina Shaaban will be hanging from her breasts, unless someone discovers that she is really a man with balls because she is so ugly), and then he wouldn't have to worry about his 4 Pasdaran motherfuckers anymore because he will follow them to jail (if they are alive as he claims) or to the hanging galley like his Syrian buddies.
Lebanon will again be clean of the scum of the fucking Islamic revolutions. Of this, I can assure the Iranian ambassador Markoub-Bitizo.
Hanibaal
Roknabadi: 4 Kidnapped Iranian Diplomats Alive in Israeli Jails
“We believe that they are alive in Israeli jails. That’s why we have asked the Lebanese government to seriously follow-up the issue,” Roknabadi said following talks with Foreign Minister Adnan Mansour.
Israel at the time was carrying out a major military operation in Lebanon when the three diplomats -- Mohsen Mousavi, Ahmad Motevaselian and Taghi Rastegar Moghadam -- disappeared, along with Kazem Akhaven, a photographer with Iran's official IRNA news agency.
On Wednesday, Roknabadi called on U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon to respond to Tehran's demand for a U.N. probe into the fate of the four diplomats.
The issue was raised during a meeting with the U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams in Beirut on the occasion of the anniversary of the abduction of the four men.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
Kidnapping of Foreigners by Syrian Operatives Rising in Lebanon
To all foreigners contemplating tourism this summer in Lebanon: DO NOT COME HERE.
- The terrorist organization Hezbollah now runs the government.
- This increases significantly the likelihood of war between Hezbollah and ISrael
- Israel now will hold ALL of LEBANON responsible and will retaliate against any Hezbollah attack with massively destructive force.
- The kidnapping of Westerners is on the rise: The 7 Estonians remain missing. After their kidnapping in Lebanon's lawless Bekaa Valley, they were then taken across the border into Syria where it is believed that the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad holds them to use them later in any deal with the West.
- Similarly, last week, a Dutch diplomat was snatched in the same Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, and again transferred to Syria. The fact that all these Westerners are abducted in Lebanon, then reappear in Syria, is not surprising. The lawlessness that is endemic to the Bekaa Valley and to all Lebanese regions bordering on Syria is deliberately created by Syria and its proxy terrorist Muslim organizations like Hezbollah or the Palestinian PFLP and others in order to maintain anarchy and instability in the country. Syria uses these kidnappings and the instability as a leverage with which it barters favors with the stupid Europeans and Americans.
NO SANE WESTERNER OR SUNNI ARAB FROM THE GULF SHOULD COME TO LEBANON THIS SUMMER ON TOURISM. Do not listen to the propaganda of the Lebanese Tourism Minister... It is all lies destined to get you into the country and spend your dollars on garbage and pollution.
Hanibaal
___________________________________________________________________________
A Dutch diplomat was kidnapped in Lebanon some ten days ago in a development that has raised European fears of the return of the abduction of foreigners in Lebanon that was prevalent during the civil war years.
A European diplomatic source told the Central News Agency on Wednesday that the Dutch diplomat was abducted by tribes from the Baalbek region as he was passing through the area. He was placed in an SUV with tinted windows and no license plates and taken to Syria through an illegal border crossing. Upon arrival in Syria, he was handed over to the Syrian security forces who have been committing all sorts of atrocities and mass murder against their own people.
The Netherlands has informed other European governments of the incident, who intensified contacts with Lebanese security officials to put an end to the abduction of foreigners. However, the Lebanese government, now in the hands of Hezbollah, will have even less incentive to prevent the kidnappings because it is Hezbolah itself and its Syrian allies who are carrying out the kidnappings to begin with.
Meanwhile, European diplomatic sources voiced their fears of the return of such kidnappings in Lebanon in light of March’s abduction of seven Estonian cyclists, the recent bomb attack against a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon patrol in the South, and this latest kidnapping.
- The terrorist organization Hezbollah now runs the government.
- This increases significantly the likelihood of war between Hezbollah and ISrael
- Israel now will hold ALL of LEBANON responsible and will retaliate against any Hezbollah attack with massively destructive force.
- The kidnapping of Westerners is on the rise: The 7 Estonians remain missing. After their kidnapping in Lebanon's lawless Bekaa Valley, they were then taken across the border into Syria where it is believed that the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad holds them to use them later in any deal with the West.
- Similarly, last week, a Dutch diplomat was snatched in the same Bekaa Valley in Lebanon, and again transferred to Syria. The fact that all these Westerners are abducted in Lebanon, then reappear in Syria, is not surprising. The lawlessness that is endemic to the Bekaa Valley and to all Lebanese regions bordering on Syria is deliberately created by Syria and its proxy terrorist Muslim organizations like Hezbollah or the Palestinian PFLP and others in order to maintain anarchy and instability in the country. Syria uses these kidnappings and the instability as a leverage with which it barters favors with the stupid Europeans and Americans.
NO SANE WESTERNER OR SUNNI ARAB FROM THE GULF SHOULD COME TO LEBANON THIS SUMMER ON TOURISM. Do not listen to the propaganda of the Lebanese Tourism Minister... It is all lies destined to get you into the country and spend your dollars on garbage and pollution.
Hanibaal
___________________________________________________________________________
Dutch Diplomat Abducted in Baalbek, Transferred to Syria
(Naharnet)A European diplomatic source told the Central News Agency on Wednesday that the Dutch diplomat was abducted by tribes from the Baalbek region as he was passing through the area. He was placed in an SUV with tinted windows and no license plates and taken to Syria through an illegal border crossing. Upon arrival in Syria, he was handed over to the Syrian security forces who have been committing all sorts of atrocities and mass murder against their own people.
The Netherlands has informed other European governments of the incident, who intensified contacts with Lebanese security officials to put an end to the abduction of foreigners. However, the Lebanese government, now in the hands of Hezbollah, will have even less incentive to prevent the kidnappings because it is Hezbolah itself and its Syrian allies who are carrying out the kidnappings to begin with.
Meanwhile, European diplomatic sources voiced their fears of the return of such kidnappings in Lebanon in light of March’s abduction of seven Estonian cyclists, the recent bomb attack against a United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon patrol in the South, and this latest kidnapping.
Monday, June 13, 2011
Miqati announces new government... and apologizes to the international community
What a fucking Sunni loser... He's got Hezbollah, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and America (not to mention the Syrian-Iranian dildo Michel Aoun) up his ass. No wonder his first word at the birth of his stillborn government to the international community: "I am sorry, but I had to include Hezbollah in it."
With Syria on the verge of collapse any moment now, with Iran's confrontation with the international community heating up for a flare-up soon, Hezbollah and their mental dildo Aoun will soon be in the trash bin, and then Miqati will probably stop sweating like a pig. You see, he has businesses in the US and around the world... The Americans will pinch him hard if he bends his ass too high to Hezbollah.
Not to mention the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, soon to indict Hezbollah and Syria for the Hariri assassination. It will be fun to watch how the Sunni Miqati will navigate these murky waters without losing his balls and his mind, if not his life to a Syrian bomb.
Welcome to the never-ending saga of the dysfunctional, worthless, pathetic little asshole of a country called Lebanon. It is the mopping rag of the Middle East - MamsaHa as we call it here - Is there any jackass piece of shit around the world that did not have a say in forming this government?
Hanibaal
With Syria on the verge of collapse any moment now, with Iran's confrontation with the international community heating up for a flare-up soon, Hezbollah and their mental dildo Aoun will soon be in the trash bin, and then Miqati will probably stop sweating like a pig. You see, he has businesses in the US and around the world... The Americans will pinch him hard if he bends his ass too high to Hezbollah.
Not to mention the Special Tribunal for Lebanon, soon to indict Hezbollah and Syria for the Hariri assassination. It will be fun to watch how the Sunni Miqati will navigate these murky waters without losing his balls and his mind, if not his life to a Syrian bomb.
Welcome to the never-ending saga of the dysfunctional, worthless, pathetic little asshole of a country called Lebanon. It is the mopping rag of the Middle East - MamsaHa as we call it here - Is there any jackass piece of shit around the world that did not have a say in forming this government?
Hanibaal
Saturday, June 11, 2011
AUB "Leftism" has Become Stale and Archaic
Back in the 1970s, it was fashionable for the wealthy and elitist students of the American University of Beirut (AUB) to protest because it was the chic thing to do. These sons and daughters of the rich, famous, feudal, and wealthy had nothing better to do with their lives than protest anything and everything that came out of the University Administration, with an abject ignorance of the facts and the realities that surrounded them.
For those outsiders who marvel at the fact that an American University does even exist in the Hezbollahland that Lebanon has become, a historical perspective would be helpful. AUB was founded by American Presbyterian missionaries, and to this date continues a tradition (from its founding in 1866) of catering to the elites of the pre-independent Lebanon, in the pitiful hope, perhaps, of converting a few haggard Muslim or Christian souls from those elites to Protestantism, and thus hope through them to peddle political and economic influence along the traditions of colonial settlers in a newly discovered land where the natives still lived in caves or the trees. While the religious endeavor did fail - as Lebanon's already religiously fragmented society could not sustain even more divinely-inspired stupid religious cults, education became the mantra under which Americans tried to compete with the French or the Arabs for influence in the Lebanese bazaar. From the Syrian Protestant College, the institution changed its name to American University of Beirut right after WWI, as soon as Lebanon declared its new independence and constitution in 1921. Note that while "Syrian" was deleted from the name, since the country of Lebanon was being born, the university chose "Beirut" - and not Lebanon - in its name to emphasize the displeasure of the Americans at the independence of the country of Lebanon.
When WWI ended and the modern states of the Middle East emerged from under the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, AUB leaders mourned the drawing of borders inside the former large swaths of amorphic Ottoman territories between Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel and Jordan, for the simple facts that - as Americans - they believed in large political entities where a single elite (like the Anglo-Saxon White Protestants of the United States) could rule all the others (like the Hispanics, Blacks, Native Indians, and so on), and because it would be a lot easier to buy influence from a single ruler over a large swath of territory than to have to cavort and kiss ass to many little dictators; it would be too difficult for the dumb Americans to try and comprehend the complexities of history. Also, those latter-day orientalists liked the fact that they could herd their porters, butlers, chauffeurs, maids, and such from among the local indigenous riff raff and, say, drive from Beirut to Aqaba for a long weekend. With borders, they now had to get visas and suffer the inconveniences of scrutiny at ports of entry.
It was from that generation of "Arabists" (many of whom were born in Beirut to their parent teachers and spies who taught at AUB and learned Arabic there) that the long-standing hatred by US State Department for the independence-minded Lebanese emerged. To this date, the US State Department is largely staffed by the children and grandchildren of all those "Arabists" who rejected an independent Lebanon and who favored instead one huge Arabia Felix ruled by some king with whom it would have been easier to barter influence-peddling. And, given this colonialist, elitist foundation, many of AUB's native students today - as they always were - are the sons and daughters of the Lebanese and Arab elites, the children of the same corrupt Lebanese politicians who can't even form a government today, who were criminal warlords during the war, and who continue to collaborate with Syria and every other foreign country against their own people, and the children of the Arab despots and tyrants against whom, finally, the real Arab peoples are rising in revolution. You see, admission at AUB always had less to do with merit and academic qualifications, and more to do with genetics, power; pulling strings, bribes and connections. In other words, to be admitted to AUB, you need "WASTA" (the Lebanese term واسطة for who you know doing you an illegal favor even though you may not deserve it) or you need a genetic pedigree that traces your genes to some dictator or king or other despot in the Arab world.
So when AUB students - and the Faculty is not that much better than the numskulls they teach - go on strike or protest something, it is more along the lines of "protest chic". You see, after the mommy and the daddy have bought you the bright red BMW or the newest SUV and paid your exorbitant tuition at AUB, and after the maids have cooked and cleaned after you, and after you have secured your future by being born from the gonads of powerful feudal parents, after skiing in the fancy resorts up the hills or frolicking on the beach at the exclusive resort along the Mediterranean, and when you just have nothing of substance to do with your life, like say make a living, the only cool thing left for you to do is to PROTEST. That is basically how AUB students protest. It's simply cool, something you do between two loungings at AUB beach, and regardless of the merits of whatever the cause you might be protesting for or against, because most of the time, you don't even bother to read about the facts or perhaps comprehend the reality of the multitudes around you, a reality from which you are constitutively detached.
Why, for example, haven't AUB students and faculty mounted demonstrations or protests in support of the regular Arabs rising in revolution against barbaric regimes and dictatorships? The answer is simple: These revolutions target the status quo from which AUB students and faculty draw their power. AUB students and faculty, and the entire institution for that matter, are the targets of that revolution. When all is said and done, it will be those elites, and their children, and their teachers, and their press colluders, and their maids and butlers, who will be on trial for corruption, war crimes, and the like.
In 1974, for example, AUB students went on strike to protest a modest tuition hike of 4%, even though they - I should say, their Papas and Mamas - could afford it. Mind you, they did not protest the fact that Syria was carrying out massacres in the Lebanese villages in the north near the Syrian border; they did not protest the fact that the PLO had established a State within the State and was acting with impunity by kidnapping and killing Lebanese civilians and police, or by provoking Israel with pathetic rockets fired illegally from south Lebanon, leading to retaliations and the suffering of the Southern Lebanese. No, they went on strike because they did not want to pay a few extra Lebanese Pounds from their parents' pockets while splurging on every other piece of trash that America was sending them to consume (cars, cigarettes, etc.). The strike went on for one year, including the disruption of classes and the cancellation of entire semesters (for which they had to pay again to take the courses again...) and the occupation of the campus for 4 months, followed by a Lebanese Army intervention to dislodge the fornicating, hashish-smoking, rich fils-a-Papa protesters from the university buildings.
In 1984, when Hezbollah burst on AUB campus and assassinated AUB President Malcolm Kerr at the time - who was himself an Arab-ass-kissing Arabist to boot - the students did not protest against Hezbollah. To date, AUB students, including the protesters against the Commencement Speaker (because he is Jewish), are Hezbollah and Syria and Iran lovers... This is the AUB that educates its own enemies - all the Palestinian terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s, those who went on to hijack planes and bomb innocent civilians, were AUB graduates. AUB is a stinking institution because of this incestuous hypocritical mission it claims to promote: It claims to want to convert the elites who are by definition inconvertible because they would do anything - including get educated at the enemy's institutions - to stay in power. Instead, AUB should educate the very poor in Lebanon and deliberately kick out the sons and daughters of Lebanese and Arab politicians who have the money and power to send their children to AUB so that they can, in turn, preserve the status quo and prevent any meaningful change in Arab societies at large.
And so today, as the stale chic Leftism of AUB students and faculty reaches a new pinnacle of knee-jerk stupid rejectionism to anything that might remotely be Jewish -such as the Commencement Speaker James Wolfensohn - I commend AUB President Peter Dorman for speaking up against this culture which, unfortunately, his own institution has long nourished and catered for. Perhaps, he should instead invite President Bashar Assad to be the Commencement Speaker and give him an honorary degree in cruelty, barbarity, and crimes against humanity. I am certain that AUB Students and faculty - who have yet to go to the street and protest in support of the Syrian people fighting their own Syrian dictatorship - would be very happy to see the Syrian tyrant be their Commencement Speaker. After all, AUB students are the children of Arab feudal and establishment leaders who stand to lose in the ongoing Arab Revolution, and AUB faculty are the long-standing intellectual collaborators (along with the press) with an Arab status quo of tyranny, dictatorship, and religious backwardness.
AUB has become so irrelevant in Lebanon and the Middle East today because of the fantastic educational institutions that have sprung up elsewhere in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East. My personal recommendation is that - like they did with Aramco in the 1970s - the Americans should sell AUB to the locals and just move out of the country. All these "American universities" in Beirut, Cairo, and the Gulf States are embarrassing symbols of a colonial past that are no longer in tune with the times. As a vestige of a defunct orientalist tradition that remains at odds with the realities on the ground, AUB's mission is archaic, passé, obsolete, and out of touch with the modern Middle East. No one really needs a faux American education anymore. Because it is located in the Middle East doesn't really make AUB dispense a genuine American education: Anyone these days can hop on a plane to America and get an American education - a real one.
Let the Presbyterians go home finally to their native Appalachia to continue the inbreeding, much as I would like to see all the native stupid religious cults also disappear from Lebanon and the surface of the earth: Shiites, Maronites, Orthodox, Sunnis, Druze, Jews, Catholics, and every other religious agent of barbarity and backwardness.
Hanibaal
________________________________________________________________________________
American University of Beirut President Peter Dorman condemned on Saturday the petition against AUB honoring former World Bank chief James Wolfensohn, which also forced him to cancel his scheduled keynote address at the university’s Commencement ceremonies on June 25.
He also slammed the media coverage of the event, describing it as portraying the formed World Bank chief in a negative light.
Dorman said in a statement:
“Wolfensohn’s decision not to attend the June 25 Commencement ceremonies was taken in the aftermath of a petition that was organized by several faculty members at AUB, then circulated to the faculty and student community, as well as to our alumni, who were specifically encouraged not just to sign the petition but to write letters of protest.
In the wake of predictable coverage by the media, the press in Lebanon have given wide notoriety to the issue as well, apparently based primarily on the wording of the petition, which is highly selective in the information it provides.
The coverage has been mostly, and unfairly, critical of James Wolfensohn.
Neither the petition nor the media will inform you of Wolfensohn’s long and devoted record of work on behalf of the Arab world. I believe a more accurate picture, based on facts rather than insinuations is required.
The petition does not mention that:
On taking office as president of the World Bank, Wolfensohn initiated semi-annual meetings with the finance ministers of Arab countries, creating a dialogue that built greater understanding of the region’s problems. He traveled dozens of times to the region and was received at both official and community activist levels; many of these contacts remain his close personal friends, including Palestinian and Lebanese leaders.
As Special Envoy for the Middle East for the Quartet (the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and the United States), Wolfensohn was given the delicate task of coordinating Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and leading reconstruction efforts in the area. After one year in office, Wolfensohn resigned from his position, protesting the Quartet’s decision to boycott and freeze aid to the Palestinian Authority following the Hamas victory in the January 2006 elections.
In an article published in 2007 reflecting his support for strengthening Palestinian sovereignty, Palestinian institutions, and a sustainable Palestinian economy, he explains his reasons for opposing the Bush Administration’s policies towards Palestinians after Hamas won the elections in 2006: “The reality is that you have 1.4 million Palestinians living in Gaza and you can’t wish them away, you can’t leave Gaza as a place where the rich and the intellectuals and the powerful can get out, and leave just people who can’t make a living – or can make a living if they could but have no leadership. And military use of subjugation doesn’t solve the problem, it seems to me.”
In recognition of his efforts to rebuild Gaza, Wolfensohn received, in 2007, the Palestine Prize for Excellence and Creativity by the Palestinian Authority.
Following his retirement as Special Envoy, Wolfensohn devoted significant attention towards issues related to the youth in the Arab world. He personally contributed a donation of more than $1 million towards those efforts, the main part of which was located at the Dubai School of Government as a joint venture with the Wolfensohn Foundation. Over 30 monographs and books have now been published on the topic of Arab youth, and the Foundation is looking for institutions that could house this research effort more centrally in the Arab world. Ironically, before this week, AUB might have been regarded as a natural collaborator.
Wolfensohn was part of the founding Board of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, headed by Maestro Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said, an orchestra that promotes intercultural dialogue, trains Arab musicians and creates opportunities for them to perform around the world.
Wolfensohn has, on record, criticized Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territories and, in support of the Palestinian people, has often voiced strong criticism in Israel and the United States against their policies. In an article published in 2004, he was quoted as saying, “Israel’s military operations pertaining to the demolitions of thousands of homes in Rafah are reckless, and leave tens of thousands of people without a roof over their heads… As a Jew, I am ashamed of this kind of treatment of people.”
As a university we recognize and respect the diversity of opinions that must be expressed on campus, and it is the right of faculty and students to disagree with decisions made by the administration. The policies of the World Bank are controversial in many countries and are rightfully a topic of discussion and debate in academic circles.
As an institution devoted to critical thinking and the judicious weighing of evidence, however, AUB is not well served by petitions that are deliberately slanted to serve narrow interests regardless of facts. Co-opting the opinions of fellow faculty, students, and alumni by a pretext of authority, such campaigns are fundamentally dishonest and diverge from our university’s commitment to the pursuit of knowledge as grounded in intellectual integrity.
Let us acknowledge that ours is a complex region that is undergoing unprecedented change, and that it needs people, like James Wolfensohn, who have the ability to reach out across cultural and political boundaries to improve the human condition. We are saddened by the fact that AUB will not be able to honor him this June, when we had hoped we might bring his many positive contributions on behalf of the Arab world to the attention of a wider audience, especially here in Lebanon.”
Wolfensohn on Friday canceled a scheduled keynote address at AUB, amid accusations by the faculty that he supported Israel.
The decision came after more than 90 faculty members signed a petition, entitled "Not in our name: AUB faculty, staff and students object to honoring James Wolfensohn."
This pressured the university to revoke its decision to grant an honorary doctorate to Wolfensohn.
The petition argued that "honoring Mr Wolfensohn ... symbolically undermines AUB’s legacy in the struggle for social justice and its historical connection to Beirut, to Palestine and beyond."
It also detailed Wolfensohn’s alleged links to Israeli companies and accused him of being "an investor in an Israeli company developing transport infrastructure for illegal Jewish-only settlements built in the occupied West Bank" and a "standing member of the international advisory of the Israeli Democracy Institute."
Wolfensohn, an Australian-born naturalized U.S. citizen, could not be reached for comment.
The international investment banker and financial adviser served as president of the World Bank from 1995 to 2005 and is currently chairman of his own firm, Wolfensohn and Company.
In past years, several artists and writers have had to cancel scheduled performances in Lebanon amid controversy over their alleged ties to Israel, which ended a 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Lebanon remains technically at war with Israel and has vowed to be the last Arab country to sign a peace agreement with the Jewish state.
For those outsiders who marvel at the fact that an American University does even exist in the Hezbollahland that Lebanon has become, a historical perspective would be helpful. AUB was founded by American Presbyterian missionaries, and to this date continues a tradition (from its founding in 1866) of catering to the elites of the pre-independent Lebanon, in the pitiful hope, perhaps, of converting a few haggard Muslim or Christian souls from those elites to Protestantism, and thus hope through them to peddle political and economic influence along the traditions of colonial settlers in a newly discovered land where the natives still lived in caves or the trees. While the religious endeavor did fail - as Lebanon's already religiously fragmented society could not sustain even more divinely-inspired stupid religious cults, education became the mantra under which Americans tried to compete with the French or the Arabs for influence in the Lebanese bazaar. From the Syrian Protestant College, the institution changed its name to American University of Beirut right after WWI, as soon as Lebanon declared its new independence and constitution in 1921. Note that while "Syrian" was deleted from the name, since the country of Lebanon was being born, the university chose "Beirut" - and not Lebanon - in its name to emphasize the displeasure of the Americans at the independence of the country of Lebanon.
When WWI ended and the modern states of the Middle East emerged from under the ashes of the Ottoman Empire, AUB leaders mourned the drawing of borders inside the former large swaths of amorphic Ottoman territories between Lebanon, Syria, Palestine, Israel and Jordan, for the simple facts that - as Americans - they believed in large political entities where a single elite (like the Anglo-Saxon White Protestants of the United States) could rule all the others (like the Hispanics, Blacks, Native Indians, and so on), and because it would be a lot easier to buy influence from a single ruler over a large swath of territory than to have to cavort and kiss ass to many little dictators; it would be too difficult for the dumb Americans to try and comprehend the complexities of history. Also, those latter-day orientalists liked the fact that they could herd their porters, butlers, chauffeurs, maids, and such from among the local indigenous riff raff and, say, drive from Beirut to Aqaba for a long weekend. With borders, they now had to get visas and suffer the inconveniences of scrutiny at ports of entry.
It was from that generation of "Arabists" (many of whom were born in Beirut to their parent teachers and spies who taught at AUB and learned Arabic there) that the long-standing hatred by US State Department for the independence-minded Lebanese emerged. To this date, the US State Department is largely staffed by the children and grandchildren of all those "Arabists" who rejected an independent Lebanon and who favored instead one huge Arabia Felix ruled by some king with whom it would have been easier to barter influence-peddling. And, given this colonialist, elitist foundation, many of AUB's native students today - as they always were - are the sons and daughters of the Lebanese and Arab elites, the children of the same corrupt Lebanese politicians who can't even form a government today, who were criminal warlords during the war, and who continue to collaborate with Syria and every other foreign country against their own people, and the children of the Arab despots and tyrants against whom, finally, the real Arab peoples are rising in revolution. You see, admission at AUB always had less to do with merit and academic qualifications, and more to do with genetics, power; pulling strings, bribes and connections. In other words, to be admitted to AUB, you need "WASTA" (the Lebanese term واسطة for who you know doing you an illegal favor even though you may not deserve it) or you need a genetic pedigree that traces your genes to some dictator or king or other despot in the Arab world.
So when AUB students - and the Faculty is not that much better than the numskulls they teach - go on strike or protest something, it is more along the lines of "protest chic". You see, after the mommy and the daddy have bought you the bright red BMW or the newest SUV and paid your exorbitant tuition at AUB, and after the maids have cooked and cleaned after you, and after you have secured your future by being born from the gonads of powerful feudal parents, after skiing in the fancy resorts up the hills or frolicking on the beach at the exclusive resort along the Mediterranean, and when you just have nothing of substance to do with your life, like say make a living, the only cool thing left for you to do is to PROTEST. That is basically how AUB students protest. It's simply cool, something you do between two loungings at AUB beach, and regardless of the merits of whatever the cause you might be protesting for or against, because most of the time, you don't even bother to read about the facts or perhaps comprehend the reality of the multitudes around you, a reality from which you are constitutively detached.
Why, for example, haven't AUB students and faculty mounted demonstrations or protests in support of the regular Arabs rising in revolution against barbaric regimes and dictatorships? The answer is simple: These revolutions target the status quo from which AUB students and faculty draw their power. AUB students and faculty, and the entire institution for that matter, are the targets of that revolution. When all is said and done, it will be those elites, and their children, and their teachers, and their press colluders, and their maids and butlers, who will be on trial for corruption, war crimes, and the like.
In 1974, for example, AUB students went on strike to protest a modest tuition hike of 4%, even though they - I should say, their Papas and Mamas - could afford it. Mind you, they did not protest the fact that Syria was carrying out massacres in the Lebanese villages in the north near the Syrian border; they did not protest the fact that the PLO had established a State within the State and was acting with impunity by kidnapping and killing Lebanese civilians and police, or by provoking Israel with pathetic rockets fired illegally from south Lebanon, leading to retaliations and the suffering of the Southern Lebanese. No, they went on strike because they did not want to pay a few extra Lebanese Pounds from their parents' pockets while splurging on every other piece of trash that America was sending them to consume (cars, cigarettes, etc.). The strike went on for one year, including the disruption of classes and the cancellation of entire semesters (for which they had to pay again to take the courses again...) and the occupation of the campus for 4 months, followed by a Lebanese Army intervention to dislodge the fornicating, hashish-smoking, rich fils-a-Papa protesters from the university buildings.
In 1984, when Hezbollah burst on AUB campus and assassinated AUB President Malcolm Kerr at the time - who was himself an Arab-ass-kissing Arabist to boot - the students did not protest against Hezbollah. To date, AUB students, including the protesters against the Commencement Speaker (because he is Jewish), are Hezbollah and Syria and Iran lovers... This is the AUB that educates its own enemies - all the Palestinian terrorists of the 1960s and 1970s, those who went on to hijack planes and bomb innocent civilians, were AUB graduates. AUB is a stinking institution because of this incestuous hypocritical mission it claims to promote: It claims to want to convert the elites who are by definition inconvertible because they would do anything - including get educated at the enemy's institutions - to stay in power. Instead, AUB should educate the very poor in Lebanon and deliberately kick out the sons and daughters of Lebanese and Arab politicians who have the money and power to send their children to AUB so that they can, in turn, preserve the status quo and prevent any meaningful change in Arab societies at large.
And so today, as the stale chic Leftism of AUB students and faculty reaches a new pinnacle of knee-jerk stupid rejectionism to anything that might remotely be Jewish -such as the Commencement Speaker James Wolfensohn - I commend AUB President Peter Dorman for speaking up against this culture which, unfortunately, his own institution has long nourished and catered for. Perhaps, he should instead invite President Bashar Assad to be the Commencement Speaker and give him an honorary degree in cruelty, barbarity, and crimes against humanity. I am certain that AUB Students and faculty - who have yet to go to the street and protest in support of the Syrian people fighting their own Syrian dictatorship - would be very happy to see the Syrian tyrant be their Commencement Speaker. After all, AUB students are the children of Arab feudal and establishment leaders who stand to lose in the ongoing Arab Revolution, and AUB faculty are the long-standing intellectual collaborators (along with the press) with an Arab status quo of tyranny, dictatorship, and religious backwardness.
AUB has become so irrelevant in Lebanon and the Middle East today because of the fantastic educational institutions that have sprung up elsewhere in Lebanon and throughout the Middle East. My personal recommendation is that - like they did with Aramco in the 1970s - the Americans should sell AUB to the locals and just move out of the country. All these "American universities" in Beirut, Cairo, and the Gulf States are embarrassing symbols of a colonial past that are no longer in tune with the times. As a vestige of a defunct orientalist tradition that remains at odds with the realities on the ground, AUB's mission is archaic, passé, obsolete, and out of touch with the modern Middle East. No one really needs a faux American education anymore. Because it is located in the Middle East doesn't really make AUB dispense a genuine American education: Anyone these days can hop on a plane to America and get an American education - a real one.
Let the Presbyterians go home finally to their native Appalachia to continue the inbreeding, much as I would like to see all the native stupid religious cults also disappear from Lebanon and the surface of the earth: Shiites, Maronites, Orthodox, Sunnis, Druze, Jews, Catholics, and every other religious agent of barbarity and backwardness.
Hanibaal
________________________________________________________________________________
AUB President Dorman Slams Petition, Media Coverage against Wolfensohn
He also slammed the media coverage of the event, describing it as portraying the formed World Bank chief in a negative light.
Dorman said in a statement:
“Wolfensohn’s decision not to attend the June 25 Commencement ceremonies was taken in the aftermath of a petition that was organized by several faculty members at AUB, then circulated to the faculty and student community, as well as to our alumni, who were specifically encouraged not just to sign the petition but to write letters of protest.
In the wake of predictable coverage by the media, the press in Lebanon have given wide notoriety to the issue as well, apparently based primarily on the wording of the petition, which is highly selective in the information it provides.
The coverage has been mostly, and unfairly, critical of James Wolfensohn.
Neither the petition nor the media will inform you of Wolfensohn’s long and devoted record of work on behalf of the Arab world. I believe a more accurate picture, based on facts rather than insinuations is required.
The petition does not mention that:
On taking office as president of the World Bank, Wolfensohn initiated semi-annual meetings with the finance ministers of Arab countries, creating a dialogue that built greater understanding of the region’s problems. He traveled dozens of times to the region and was received at both official and community activist levels; many of these contacts remain his close personal friends, including Palestinian and Lebanese leaders.
As Special Envoy for the Middle East for the Quartet (the United Nations, the European Union, Russia, and the United States), Wolfensohn was given the delicate task of coordinating Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and leading reconstruction efforts in the area. After one year in office, Wolfensohn resigned from his position, protesting the Quartet’s decision to boycott and freeze aid to the Palestinian Authority following the Hamas victory in the January 2006 elections.
In an article published in 2007 reflecting his support for strengthening Palestinian sovereignty, Palestinian institutions, and a sustainable Palestinian economy, he explains his reasons for opposing the Bush Administration’s policies towards Palestinians after Hamas won the elections in 2006: “The reality is that you have 1.4 million Palestinians living in Gaza and you can’t wish them away, you can’t leave Gaza as a place where the rich and the intellectuals and the powerful can get out, and leave just people who can’t make a living – or can make a living if they could but have no leadership. And military use of subjugation doesn’t solve the problem, it seems to me.”
In recognition of his efforts to rebuild Gaza, Wolfensohn received, in 2007, the Palestine Prize for Excellence and Creativity by the Palestinian Authority.
Following his retirement as Special Envoy, Wolfensohn devoted significant attention towards issues related to the youth in the Arab world. He personally contributed a donation of more than $1 million towards those efforts, the main part of which was located at the Dubai School of Government as a joint venture with the Wolfensohn Foundation. Over 30 monographs and books have now been published on the topic of Arab youth, and the Foundation is looking for institutions that could house this research effort more centrally in the Arab world. Ironically, before this week, AUB might have been regarded as a natural collaborator.
Wolfensohn was part of the founding Board of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, headed by Maestro Daniel Barenboim and the late Edward Said, an orchestra that promotes intercultural dialogue, trains Arab musicians and creates opportunities for them to perform around the world.
Wolfensohn has, on record, criticized Israeli military operations in the Palestinian territories and, in support of the Palestinian people, has often voiced strong criticism in Israel and the United States against their policies. In an article published in 2004, he was quoted as saying, “Israel’s military operations pertaining to the demolitions of thousands of homes in Rafah are reckless, and leave tens of thousands of people without a roof over their heads… As a Jew, I am ashamed of this kind of treatment of people.”
As a university we recognize and respect the diversity of opinions that must be expressed on campus, and it is the right of faculty and students to disagree with decisions made by the administration. The policies of the World Bank are controversial in many countries and are rightfully a topic of discussion and debate in academic circles.
As an institution devoted to critical thinking and the judicious weighing of evidence, however, AUB is not well served by petitions that are deliberately slanted to serve narrow interests regardless of facts. Co-opting the opinions of fellow faculty, students, and alumni by a pretext of authority, such campaigns are fundamentally dishonest and diverge from our university’s commitment to the pursuit of knowledge as grounded in intellectual integrity.
Let us acknowledge that ours is a complex region that is undergoing unprecedented change, and that it needs people, like James Wolfensohn, who have the ability to reach out across cultural and political boundaries to improve the human condition. We are saddened by the fact that AUB will not be able to honor him this June, when we had hoped we might bring his many positive contributions on behalf of the Arab world to the attention of a wider audience, especially here in Lebanon.”
Wolfensohn on Friday canceled a scheduled keynote address at AUB, amid accusations by the faculty that he supported Israel.
The decision came after more than 90 faculty members signed a petition, entitled "Not in our name: AUB faculty, staff and students object to honoring James Wolfensohn."
This pressured the university to revoke its decision to grant an honorary doctorate to Wolfensohn.
The petition argued that "honoring Mr Wolfensohn ... symbolically undermines AUB’s legacy in the struggle for social justice and its historical connection to Beirut, to Palestine and beyond."
It also detailed Wolfensohn’s alleged links to Israeli companies and accused him of being "an investor in an Israeli company developing transport infrastructure for illegal Jewish-only settlements built in the occupied West Bank" and a "standing member of the international advisory of the Israeli Democracy Institute."
Wolfensohn, an Australian-born naturalized U.S. citizen, could not be reached for comment.
The international investment banker and financial adviser served as president of the World Bank from 1995 to 2005 and is currently chairman of his own firm, Wolfensohn and Company.
In past years, several artists and writers have had to cancel scheduled performances in Lebanon amid controversy over their alleged ties to Israel, which ended a 22-year occupation of southern Lebanon in 2000.
Lebanon remains technically at war with Israel and has vowed to be the last Arab country to sign a peace agreement with the Jewish state.
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