Hezbollah-a Lebanese resistance defending the Lebanese???

On Wednesday a demonstration against the high prices and low incomes in the country started in Lebanon by the 8 March and Hezbollah followers and the airport was supposed to close for only 4 hours due to strikes.
But what started as demonstration has today evolved into clashing of violence among mainly Sunnis and Shias in the Beirut area. The way to the airport is blocked by burning tires and the airport is still closed. Yesterday I woke up hoping the violence would have stopped and that the airport would have re-opened but instead I was reading headlines on face book and msn displays from friends who live in Lebanon that the war is near and reading their different expressions of fear and hatred to what is going on.

I thought to myself that this is what we have been thinking for the past two years now…we have been expecting a war to break out due to political tensions in the country but no way would a war break out today, right? I mean we probably will get some kind of warning first...and the Lebanese have made it clear they do not want to fight each other; they want peaceful dialogues, right?

Wrong!!!!
In July 2006 no one expected a war to break out and yet it did, just like that... in just one week Lebanon's infrastructure was completely destroyed and all the Lebanese with a foreign passport and all the foreigners were evacuated due to the kidnappings of two Israeli's by Hezbollah.
Today almost two years after that Hezbollah is pushing Lebanon into another war only this time they are not fighting their so called enemy, the Israelis, they are instead ready to fight the Lebanese people which they have no intention of doing according to them except to defend themselves and this was re-assured yesterday in a press conference speech made by their great and honorable leader.

This so called leader of a so called God's Party, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah's leader who too many people is supposedly known as a charismatic leader and a man of honor made the most controversial speech in a press conference yesterday noon and actually had the guts to call other politicians liars and killers when he himself can be accused of the same things. Hearing him say that there's nothing going on in the Lebanese airport and that everything was functioning as normal is just so frustrating when we are watching and hearing the opposite on the news and form people who have been stuck at the airport and so on. His followers have burned tires along the road to the airport hindering people to reach it and hindering people to get back home.
When I heard him say that the airport was open and so on I thought to myself I'm not down there so I cannot know for sure what is going and so I continued to listen to what he had to say.
Then he started saying that the government has made a big deal of a bagatelle mentioning a camera in the garbage trail or something. I just read now while writing this that Hezbollah has been monitoring the airport, building up their own telecommunication network system and spying on people through cameras and so on. This has resulted in the government firing the person in charge of head of security in the airport which by the way is one of Hezbollah officials and thus upsetting the party and its followers. But does this justify their actions?

Quoting Nasrallah: "I want to remind them that when we entered the government, we released a statement saying the network was part of the resistance"Excuse me? Reminding who? the government? Releasing a statement? Well yes, let's do that, let's have all the parties ask their represented Mp's and Ministers to issue statements just like that which would justify any actions that would take to preserve in their opinions any threat to national security.Hezbollah officials have supposedly "resigned" from the government and so I wonder how their statement is still valid? Did they even bother to stick around in a government they today are claiming is illegitimate? A government they were chosen into could have more influence in just like in any other democratic countries if they would only participate.

I admit the Lebanese government and especially the latest one now have been basically pretty messed up due to different circumstances and I will dedicate an article on that subject but all I can say now is that I’m not really taking the Saniora and his governments side in all of this because they are the ones who accepted Hezbollah in the first place and they announced them as a Lebanese resistance and backed them up in the 2006 July war. Now suddenly they have decided to not accept them as a resistance or part of the government anymore?
This off course needs further examination but let's continue focusing on Mr Nasrallah and the most controversial quote I have ever heard him say.

”We are not a state within a state; we are the consciousness and logical mind behind the state".
After that I was so angry that I turned off the TV and went out of the house to take some fresh air and forget all about what he said. But how can I? How can I forget the whole situation in Lebanon? My relatives are down there and my sister is there. All I think about is I really don't want a war to break out. Nobody wants a war to break out…We've all had enough!!! People are starving and instead off all Lebanese joining hands and going down the streets to protest we have to worry about another civil war breaking out again!

Not a state within a state? Hello!!!!

Hezbollah have their own communication network, weapons and they are trained and have enough money to feed an army so I'm sorry for freaking out a bit here…what makes me even more mad is the fact that they can themselves the party of God…does God want us to use arms? They became a resistance as a result of the 1982 invasion in Lebanon by Israel in Lebanon. Inspired by the Iranian ideology and trained by the Iranian revolution guard, today they claim that they are protecting Lebanese interests? How can a party that once and probably still today in silence want to enforce Islamist rule in a country that should be a free, democratic and plural country call itself as Lebanese resistance? Do we have Israelis on our soil? No we don't. Not anymore. So I have to ask myself who do we really need protection from? The Israelis who left or from another neighboring country that are is still seeking to take over the influence of our country in every way it can, possibly through Hezbollah?

All of us Lebanese in the Diaspora were looking forward to visit our beautiful country this summer and now all of us are sitting watching the news and praying that our relatives won't get hurt and that we will be able to make that trip to visit them soon. Praying that Lebanon will survive what I would like to call its internal clash of civilizations which is going on today and hopefully someday really soon turn into one civilization, a Lebanese one accepted by the many.

We don't want a state within a state but a peaceful and pluralistic one!

The Propagandistic Joke That Is Xinhua

There have been a number of criticisms of the Chinese daily, Xinhua. For starters it is the Communist Party's organ of "news" dispersal throughout the People's Republic of China. One can always find Xinhua dispersing the party message. Under normal circumstances one could really just ignore or even cynically laugh off the old Communist party organs, however, China's news agency is read quite a bit by up to 330,000 people a month. I even had one professor (oddly enough one on the history of terrorism) who recommended we use Xinhua because of their extensive world coverage.

I noticed today that Xinhua really upped themselves when covering the latest shooting in Zahle. Just to recap on the situation, the Kataeb party (also referred to as the Phalangests in the Western press), a party aligned with the pro-government March 14th coalition and has a primarily Christian (Maronite, Greek Catholic and some Greek Orthodox) membership just opened a new office in the Bekka Valley town of Zahle. At the opening party officials were there including former president Amine Gemayel's son Samy Gemayel. After Samy Gemayel left the opening events two gunmen opened fire, killing 2 and wounding another 3. Through the grapevine I heard the shooters were both Ba'athists (the Ba'ath Party is the totalitarian party that runs Syria, and used to run Iraq) and supporters of Elias Skaff (a pro-Syrian MP).

Now, as for my earlier criticism, you would figure that even though Xinhua has a staff of 10,000 (note: Reuters has only about 1300) that they could possibly even get the hard facts correct, unfortunately they couldn't. Here is the article:

Phalange party official vows to execute killers in E Lebanon
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/21/content_8022094.htm

BEIRUT, April 21 (Xinhua) -- Lebanese Phalange party official Elie Marouni on Monday vowed to turn over the killers of two Phalange party members, and execute them immediately without trail, local Future TV reported.

Eli Marouni, head of Phalange party office in Zahle, eastern Lebanon, is also the brother of one of two Phalange party members who were gunned down Sunday afternoon.

Salim Assi and Nasri Marouni were killed shortly after Salim Gemayel, son of former President Amin Gemayel, left the headquarters of the Christian party in Zahle, which is part of theruling coalition, a party statement was quoted as saying.

Security forces launched a massive operation looking for the killers. The city of Zahle was sealed by security forces at the request of Bishops in the city, while the Lebanese army set up checkpoints and carried out house search in the area.

Local media Monday said security forces raided several houses overnight in search of two suspects Joseph Zouki and his brother Toumi who were seen by witnesses shooting at the crowd.

Gemayel's oldest son, Pierre, who was a government minister and a member of parliament, was killed in a car bomb explosion on Nov.21, 2006.

Now, let's look at the facts for starters Amine Gemayel's son is named SAMY, not "Salim" (please see bold statement above). Pierre Gemayel, Samy's older brother was killed not via car bomb but in a shooting. For further note, when analyzing the actual article one can plainly see the poorly hidden bias. The title of the article is telling: "Phalange party official vows to execute killers", yes, let's make it (meaning Kataeb party members, and in turn the pro-Western March 14th bloc) look extra-judicial! Needless to say the People's Republic of China carries out the largest numbers of executions globally, but I would assume no one at Xinhua covers that. The story says little about the suspected killers, obviously it is only a "look" at someone, who is now hurt and angry to lose a family/fellow party member. Little is said about how pro-Syrian groups have carried out numerous assassinations (including that of Pierre Amine Gemayel), or about the internal dynamics of Zahle (a town occupied post 1984 by Syria, and which has been used as a breeding ground for Syria to get Christians to defect from their usual anti-Syrian positions).

Xinhua, couldn't get the facts straight, and then uses minor/misunderstood facts to distort the news...Goebbels...Oh wait, he was a Nazi, Stalin couldn't have done it better himself! That's Socialist Realism for you!

BOOK REVIEW: The Emergence of the South Lebanon Security Belt: Major Saad Haddad and the Ties with Israel, 1975-1978

Book Reviews:
For every book I will write a short review and give a rating with stars (5 being the highest and 1 being the lowest)

The Emergence of the South Lebanon Security Belt: Major Saad Haddad and the Ties with Israel, 1975-1978
by Beate Hamizrachi

Rating: ***** (5 Stars)

Essentially the title of Beate Hamizrachi's book says it all. The 186 page book covers Christian militia connections with Israel not just in the south of Lebanon but interestingly touches on early connections made by 'northern' groups (mostly located in the Kesrowan/Mt. Lebanon area). Hamizrachi doesn't take a particularly sympathetic look at Saad Haddad or his leadership in the south. Instead she tries to give a very unbiased play by play look at his service in the Lebanese Army, the plight southern villages were under due to the PLO/Leftist forces and eventually why Haddad decided to side with the State of Israel. Hamizrachi gives incredibly detailed accounts of battles that occurred in the south, going so far as to describe the weapons used, the number of troops deployed, and the socio-political realities surrounding it--She really doesn't mince words. Especially riveting was her use of personal interviews with Haddad. In Israel Haddad was a sort of celebrity so many Israeli interviews exist with him, however, from her writing you can tell Hamizrachi devoted much time and effort to the interviews and received great first hand accounts. Obviously if you are going to study the SLA, "Free Lebanon", or the Israeli Security Zone this book is a must have, additionally the book adds to the knowledge base on north-south (Christian) relations during the war and on the contributions by the Shia to the zone.

Originally posted on www.ArzelJabal.blogspot.com
© All Rights Reserved; www.ArzelJabal.blogspot.com

Ahlan Wa Sahlan (Välkomna)

Välkommna allihopa till våran blogg, Perceptions of Lebanon, (PoL).
Den här bloggen kommer att handla om Libanons historia, politik, filosofi, kultur, mat och människor och om libanesiska nyheter och evenemang. Vi hoppas även på att kunna uppmuntra och väcka intresse till regelbundna debatter.
För tillfället är vi två stycken medlemmar, Phillip är amerikansk medborgare och kommer att skriva ur ett amerikanskt perspectiv och jag själv som libanes med svenskt medborgarskap kommer att skriva ur ett libanesiskt/europeiskt perspektiv. Jag kommer även att skriva och översätta till svenska.
En av våra mest viktiga mål har främst att göra med utbildning och att utbilda andra om Libanon. Därför kommer vi att lägga upp bokrecensioner, intervjuer med olika politiker/journalister, reseinfomation/berättelser och rapporter om viktiga libanesiska händelser .
I framtiden kommer vi förhoppningsvis även att ha en medlem som bor i Libanon och kan bidra ur ett libanesiskt perspektiv på det libanesiska och franska språket.