What does it mean for Lebanon when a militant group claiming links to al Qaeda says it was behind the firing of rockets into Northern Israel last week? The statement claiming responsibility for the attack was signed by the Ziad al Jarrah division of the Abdullah Azzam Brigades; Ziad al Jarrah was one of the terrorists who carried out the 9/11 attacks in the United States.
It simply means that Lebanon is not immune to the proliferation of Sunni radical groups. Worse still, this means that such groups are well-established and enjoy freedom of movement. But this is no news. As a matter of fact, some security reports that were issued over the last four years have actually warned of the presence of radical extremist groups in Lebanon, mainly proliferating in the Palestinian camps. But the Lebanese authorities have over and again failed to read the signs even when they were bloody enough to shake a whole regime.
In fact, in a respectable country where politicians are actually held accountable for their deeds, the events of Nahr el Bared that occurred nearly two years ago would have triggered an outrage and a political scandal, let alone an anti-terrorism campaign that would have all the political support it needs.
Not only did the Lebanese government fail to read the signs, but it also failed to take the necessary pre-emptive measures to face such groups. In fact, the day the Lebanese army troops woke to attacks from terrorists coming from the Nahr el Bared camp should have changed the government’s approach to the issue of the Palestinian camps altogether, mainly the issue of their disarmament, a priority that only General Aoun called for in the first address he made in parliament after the June 2005 elections. Back then, he was met with dismay and indignation for “attacking the Palestinian people”.
And while the government was too busy attempting to implement foreign agendas whose main item is the eradication of Hizbullah and their weapons, extremist cells were gaining ground. But the Nahr el Bared events raised many questions that the relevant Lebanese authorities have left unanswered: what was the link between Fath el Islam radical group and Bank Med (the Hariri-owned bank), how did this terrorist group smuggle its weapons in the camp, how was its financing funneled, why weren’t Lebanese army troops posted just outside the camp notified that the Internal Security Forces were planning on implementing an operation of some kind against a radical group? How did the group leader Shaker el Absi escape from the camp? Where is he now? And why is he still at large?
Nevertheless, beyond Nahr el Bared lies another global concern. Following the Nahr el Bared events, various media reports, although arguable and lacking substantial evidence, suggested that Fath el Islam terrorist group was nurtured by international, regional and local authorities to counterbalance Hizbullah and thus directly or indirectly Iran, and to cripple militarily the Shiite organization should the need arise; all this being part of a global strategy adopted by the United States and its allies of strengthening Sunnis extremist groups to weaken the Shiites in the struggle against Iran.
In this context, Vali Nasr, author of “The Shiia Revival”, wrote in early 2008, in Foreign Affairs the following: “The last time the United States rallied the Arab world to contain Iran, in the 1980s, Americans ended up with a radicalized Sunni political culture that eventually yielded al Qaeda. The results may be as bad this time around: a containment policy will only help erect Sunni extremism as an ideological barrier to Shiite Iran, much as Saudi Arabia's rivalry with Iran in the 1980s played out in South Asia and much as radical Salafis mobilized to offset Hezbollah's soaring popularity after the Israeli-Lebanese war in 2006. During the Cold War, confronting communism meant promoting capitalism and democracy. Containing Iran today would mean promoting Sunni extremism -- a self-defeating proposition for Washington.”
As such, the emergence of the Ziad al Jarrah group a few days ago should not come as a surprise, but it should certainly ring the alarm, especially with the presence of radical groups such are Jind el Cham- to whom MP Bahia allegedly offers “social” assistance - in the South. But a responsible Lebanese government has to curb the activities of such groups, take pre-emptive measures against any attempt to undermine the security of Lebanon, and stop their financing whatever the source is.
Finally, if Vali Nasr is right about the international community trying to counterbalance the power of Hizbullah through these radical groups, it won’t be long before these groups get out of hand and these countries’ own creations will turn to be their monsters. As such, they won’t only become a nightmare for Lebanon itself but for the whole region and especially the neighboring countries.
In the meantime, it is up to the Lebanese government and the Lebanese people to take matters into their own hands and do what it takes to protect their country and their people, and thus avert paying yet again a costly price for their own political shortsightedness and irresponsibility, and for the world’s erroneous and irrational policies. And the first step would be to address the issue of the Palestinian refugee camps because they are Lebanon’s time bomb.
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
Sunday, September 13, 2009
An Apology to Bashir and Lebanon’s Martyrs
There are things that happen only in Lebanon. Our beloved country is known for being a place where contradictions meet. It is a place where you no longer ask questions, where you waive your right of knowing why. It is a place where no argumentation is convincing enough, and no rationale reasonable enough. It is a place where running out of logic to explain issues and situations is a perfectly Cartesian outcome.
Our beloved country is a place where rating is top notch. We rate everything that moves, including each other: adjectives, comparatives, and superlatives. We spare none. But we also rate death. We rate martyrdom. Our country is the only place where death has become a selective event according to which the deceased are rated as less important, important, more important than, and the most important of all.
We are the only country in the world in which people do not die equally, let alone live equally. As such, the late president-elect Bashir Gemayel, was one of the “unfortunate” martyrs of Lebanon, one who was never entitled to a decent treatment, one to whom the country’s successive governments never devoted a day of national mourning, or a decent national remembrance event.
To the eyes of Lebanon’s officials, the then 33-year old president is just one of the thousands martyrs who died during the war. Only the late prime minister Rafik Hariri stands out in the martyrdom arena. It is certain that the horrific assassination of the late premier with what he stood up for and his regional and international magnitude shook Lebanon just as much as Bashir Gemayel’s. In fact, February 14, the day of his horrendous assassination, has been institutionalized as an official day of mourning. There is nothing wrong with that. But what is wrong is the “preferential” treatment that the deceased have been receiving in our country. If Bashir Gemayel, Rachid Karameh and the numerous other officials who left their homes in suits and ties and came back in death bags were not “important enough” to deserve a mourning day, why should Hariri be? If Gemayel and Karameh were considered part of the 200,000 or so Lebanese war martyrs, why should Hariri be treated any differently?
Lebanon’s history did not start on February 14, 2005. It started 35 years earlier. It started 100 years, 200 years earlier. But today we commemorate the assassination of Bashir. Regardless of bloody acts that were perpetrated by the late president’s militia after the two-year war of 1975-1976, he was still Lebanon’s president-elect.
It is our duty to remember our martyrs, all of them, including Gebran, Samir, Pierre and all those who died in “peaceful” times. But it is abnormal to rate them. They all died for Lebanon, whatever their background, whatever their political belongings, whatever their religious beliefs. But it is also our duty to move forward, to quit living in the graveyard, while still keeping their memory alive. It is our duty to know that we are all equal in the eyes of death and it is about time we treated each other as such.
A final apology to Bashir, to all other politicians, journalists, ambassadors, school children, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who were blown up to pieces during and after the war: no martyr is more important to Lebanon than you are, and nobody’s blood is more sacred than yours. But our successive governments have distorted visions of both life and death; after all didn’t our previous cabinet cancel Great Friday? I guess the martyr of the Christians, the son of God, is not entitled to a proper mourning either…
Our beloved country is a place where rating is top notch. We rate everything that moves, including each other: adjectives, comparatives, and superlatives. We spare none. But we also rate death. We rate martyrdom. Our country is the only place where death has become a selective event according to which the deceased are rated as less important, important, more important than, and the most important of all.
We are the only country in the world in which people do not die equally, let alone live equally. As such, the late president-elect Bashir Gemayel, was one of the “unfortunate” martyrs of Lebanon, one who was never entitled to a decent treatment, one to whom the country’s successive governments never devoted a day of national mourning, or a decent national remembrance event.
To the eyes of Lebanon’s officials, the then 33-year old president is just one of the thousands martyrs who died during the war. Only the late prime minister Rafik Hariri stands out in the martyrdom arena. It is certain that the horrific assassination of the late premier with what he stood up for and his regional and international magnitude shook Lebanon just as much as Bashir Gemayel’s. In fact, February 14, the day of his horrendous assassination, has been institutionalized as an official day of mourning. There is nothing wrong with that. But what is wrong is the “preferential” treatment that the deceased have been receiving in our country. If Bashir Gemayel, Rachid Karameh and the numerous other officials who left their homes in suits and ties and came back in death bags were not “important enough” to deserve a mourning day, why should Hariri be? If Gemayel and Karameh were considered part of the 200,000 or so Lebanese war martyrs, why should Hariri be treated any differently?
Lebanon’s history did not start on February 14, 2005. It started 35 years earlier. It started 100 years, 200 years earlier. But today we commemorate the assassination of Bashir. Regardless of bloody acts that were perpetrated by the late president’s militia after the two-year war of 1975-1976, he was still Lebanon’s president-elect.
It is our duty to remember our martyrs, all of them, including Gebran, Samir, Pierre and all those who died in “peaceful” times. But it is abnormal to rate them. They all died for Lebanon, whatever their background, whatever their political belongings, whatever their religious beliefs. But it is also our duty to move forward, to quit living in the graveyard, while still keeping their memory alive. It is our duty to know that we are all equal in the eyes of death and it is about time we treated each other as such.
A final apology to Bashir, to all other politicians, journalists, ambassadors, school children, moms, dads, brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, and grandparents who were blown up to pieces during and after the war: no martyr is more important to Lebanon than you are, and nobody’s blood is more sacred than yours. But our successive governments have distorted visions of both life and death; after all didn’t our previous cabinet cancel Great Friday? I guess the martyr of the Christians, the son of God, is not entitled to a proper mourning either…
Wednesday, September 9, 2009
Lessons Saad Hariri Should Have Learnt By Now
It is no more a secret to anyone who or what is blocking the formation of the Lebanese government thanks to the “move” that Premier-designate Saad Hariri made a couple of days ago when he nominated the country’s new cabinet, with enough arrogance to name the Free Patriotic Movement’s “ministers”.
The choice of the names that Hariri picked from FPM and the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc were not naïve. They were, in fact, carefully studied, as the whole formula was designed to put FPM in front of the fait accompli while betting that alleged internal FPM issues would be its passport to success. Of course, his maneuver backlashed.
But of course, the Premier-designate is new to political life, just the same as he is new to the concept of a country called Lebanon that he only knew after the death of his father, the late prime minister Rafik Hariri. So apparently Hariri the son, oftentimes if not always ill-counseled by his numerous advisers, is totally ignorant of democratic party dynamics where political competition is key, but where the interests of the country prevail. What he also ignores is that however attractive and appealing public office is, FPM politicians and partisans never succumbed to its temptations in the past, nor will they in the future.
As such, the choice of Alain Aoun was meant to infuriate Gebran Bassil, knowing that the two figures are highly ranked at FPM; the choice of Farid Khazen was meant to offer the Kesrwan MP a temptation that was supposed to work double the impact, since is not a registered party member; the choice of General Edgard Maalouf was meant to enrage General Issam Abou Jamra after his defeat in the parliamentary elections. Of course, the plot failed and solidarity was reassured and confirmed by all those involved and by the Change and Reform bloc.
But who was candid enough to believe that the Cabinet would be formed soon after the elections and that the request made by the opposition to have proportional representation to parliament will be met? Why would it be met? Why would Hariri please General Michel Aoun? After all, didn’t he, with his allies, ranging from the United States to Saudi Arabia, make all efforts, used and abused the system, employed every kind of corrupt maneuver during the elections to try to wipe General Aoun out of the political map?
It has become clear that systematic Saudi-brokered attempts to undermine the Christians of Lebanon, through their main representative, are ongoing and the same objectives are still being fought, only in different times and different scenarios. These attempts can be summarized as follows:
First, at the root of the Lebanese war was the Palestinian issue: The Palestinians were given the green light to have a substitution state in Lebanon and they tried expanding through the Christian region, which led the Christian Lebanese Resistance to fight them while the whole world watched. The West, of which Lebanon’s Christians were always “accused” by their fellow countrymen of being “affiliated” with, just left the Christians to battle their own demons throughout 15 years of war.
Second, in 1990, the Saudi-brokered Taef agreement that stripped Lebanon’s Christians from their basic rights and transferred powers to the Sunni prime minister: With the approval of the Maronite Patriarch and while the whole world watched (again!), the Syrian troops raided the Christian area committing all kinds of massacres, and General Aoun was forced into exile. You know the story. They thought this was the end of Lebanon’s Christians and they were wrong. The international community was still watching… but “sympathetically” (it is important!).
Third, 15 years of exile and marginalization of Christians from political life: Lebanon was under occupation, and as Hariri’s successful cabinets were busy embezzling and squandering public funds, young university students were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. The international community was still watching! No sorry, not watching… turning a blind eye.
Fourth, after the “awakening” of the ill-fated so-called Cedar revolution: The international community insisted on having “democratic and free” elections held under a law enacted under the occupation, just to make sure the Christians are still submitted to the same fate as they had been for 15 years. No journalist, no analyst wondered or asked the following question: how would the French people have felt had General De Gaulle held elections in France after WW2 according to a Nazi law? But of course, the international community has other standards for Lebanon. And while they watched, we won a sweeping victory…
Fifth (and I am only recounting key events), came the 2009 elections: this time, all resources had to be used and abused: money, intimidation, Diaspora, and then again, money and money and money, in elections that will go down in history as the most corrupt ever. These elections were meant to put an end to FPM and the Christians of Lebanon. Unfortunately, the huge amounts of money did not wipe FPM and General Aoun out of the political map. Oh I almost forgot, the international community was watching- to say the least. But this time it was acclaiming the “peaceful, free, and democratic” elections!
So after all this, who still believes that Hariri had the intention of forming a real national unity government?
But if I were him, I would learn one lesson, at least: I would stop wasting time and hurting the country with useless attempts that fall in the same category of the above-mentioned events. If I were him, I would understand once and for all, that the rules of the game have changed. If I were him I would acknowledge that there is an unbeatable, incorruptible party in this country that he will never get rid of. And I would understand that for those people who faced the tanks of the occupier and the whole world unarmed using their own bodies as shields (while he was in some country enjoying his time), for those people who relentlessly stood up for all they believe in, for those people, standing up to Saad Hariri is a piece of cake!
The choice of the names that Hariri picked from FPM and the Change and Reform parliamentary bloc were not naïve. They were, in fact, carefully studied, as the whole formula was designed to put FPM in front of the fait accompli while betting that alleged internal FPM issues would be its passport to success. Of course, his maneuver backlashed.
But of course, the Premier-designate is new to political life, just the same as he is new to the concept of a country called Lebanon that he only knew after the death of his father, the late prime minister Rafik Hariri. So apparently Hariri the son, oftentimes if not always ill-counseled by his numerous advisers, is totally ignorant of democratic party dynamics where political competition is key, but where the interests of the country prevail. What he also ignores is that however attractive and appealing public office is, FPM politicians and partisans never succumbed to its temptations in the past, nor will they in the future.
As such, the choice of Alain Aoun was meant to infuriate Gebran Bassil, knowing that the two figures are highly ranked at FPM; the choice of Farid Khazen was meant to offer the Kesrwan MP a temptation that was supposed to work double the impact, since is not a registered party member; the choice of General Edgard Maalouf was meant to enrage General Issam Abou Jamra after his defeat in the parliamentary elections. Of course, the plot failed and solidarity was reassured and confirmed by all those involved and by the Change and Reform bloc.
But who was candid enough to believe that the Cabinet would be formed soon after the elections and that the request made by the opposition to have proportional representation to parliament will be met? Why would it be met? Why would Hariri please General Michel Aoun? After all, didn’t he, with his allies, ranging from the United States to Saudi Arabia, make all efforts, used and abused the system, employed every kind of corrupt maneuver during the elections to try to wipe General Aoun out of the political map?
It has become clear that systematic Saudi-brokered attempts to undermine the Christians of Lebanon, through their main representative, are ongoing and the same objectives are still being fought, only in different times and different scenarios. These attempts can be summarized as follows:
First, at the root of the Lebanese war was the Palestinian issue: The Palestinians were given the green light to have a substitution state in Lebanon and they tried expanding through the Christian region, which led the Christian Lebanese Resistance to fight them while the whole world watched. The West, of which Lebanon’s Christians were always “accused” by their fellow countrymen of being “affiliated” with, just left the Christians to battle their own demons throughout 15 years of war.
Second, in 1990, the Saudi-brokered Taef agreement that stripped Lebanon’s Christians from their basic rights and transferred powers to the Sunni prime minister: With the approval of the Maronite Patriarch and while the whole world watched (again!), the Syrian troops raided the Christian area committing all kinds of massacres, and General Aoun was forced into exile. You know the story. They thought this was the end of Lebanon’s Christians and they were wrong. The international community was still watching… but “sympathetically” (it is important!).
Third, 15 years of exile and marginalization of Christians from political life: Lebanon was under occupation, and as Hariri’s successful cabinets were busy embezzling and squandering public funds, young university students were arrested, tortured, and imprisoned. The international community was still watching! No sorry, not watching… turning a blind eye.
Fourth, after the “awakening” of the ill-fated so-called Cedar revolution: The international community insisted on having “democratic and free” elections held under a law enacted under the occupation, just to make sure the Christians are still submitted to the same fate as they had been for 15 years. No journalist, no analyst wondered or asked the following question: how would the French people have felt had General De Gaulle held elections in France after WW2 according to a Nazi law? But of course, the international community has other standards for Lebanon. And while they watched, we won a sweeping victory…
Fifth (and I am only recounting key events), came the 2009 elections: this time, all resources had to be used and abused: money, intimidation, Diaspora, and then again, money and money and money, in elections that will go down in history as the most corrupt ever. These elections were meant to put an end to FPM and the Christians of Lebanon. Unfortunately, the huge amounts of money did not wipe FPM and General Aoun out of the political map. Oh I almost forgot, the international community was watching- to say the least. But this time it was acclaiming the “peaceful, free, and democratic” elections!
So after all this, who still believes that Hariri had the intention of forming a real national unity government?
But if I were him, I would learn one lesson, at least: I would stop wasting time and hurting the country with useless attempts that fall in the same category of the above-mentioned events. If I were him, I would understand once and for all, that the rules of the game have changed. If I were him I would acknowledge that there is an unbeatable, incorruptible party in this country that he will never get rid of. And I would understand that for those people who faced the tanks of the occupier and the whole world unarmed using their own bodies as shields (while he was in some country enjoying his time), for those people who relentlessly stood up for all they believe in, for those people, standing up to Saad Hariri is a piece of cake!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
