Whatever will happen in the future, we shall not repeat the mistakes we made in leaving Gaza.

– Shimon Peres to members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations 2/18/09

You take my water. Burn my Olive Trees. Destroy my house. Take my job. Steal my Land. Imprison my Mother. Bomb my country. Starve us all. Humiliate us all. But I am to blame: I shot a rocket back.

– Sign carried near Hyde Park Corner during a demonstration in London on 2/15/09 by a Member of the British Parliament

Ain el Helwe Palestinian Refugee Camp, Sidon, Lebanon — Israeli President Shimon Peres has participated in shaping the policies of Israel for most of its existence. His Washington Post op-ed last week billed as “a peacepartners prod” to the Obama administration, evidences a major disconnect within the government of Israel concerning what is urgently required for that country’s increasingly unlikely long-term survival.

According to a CIA Study currently being shown to selected staff members on the US Senate Intelligence Committee and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Israel’s survival in its present form beyond the next 20 years is doubtful.

The Report predicts “an inexorable movement away from a two-state to a one-state solution, as the most viable model based on democratic principles of full equality that sheds the looming specter of colonial Apartheid while allowing for the return of the 1947/1948 and 1967 refugees. The latter being the precondition for sustainable peace in the region.”

To President Peres’ chagrin, the Executive Summary states that “during the next fifteen years more than two million Israelis, including some 500,000 Israeli citizens who currently hold US green cards or passports, will move to the United States. Most Israelis not in possession of these documents will receive ‘expedited waivers.’ The Report claims that, “Alongside a decline in Jewish births and a rise in Palestinian fertility, approximately 1.6 million Israelis are likely to return to their forefather’s lands in Russia and Eastern and Western Europe with scores of thousands electing to stay, depending on the nature of the transition.”

In his Washington Post piece President Peres desperately attempts to salvage a two-state solution from a one, a three- or even a four-state arrangement. He appears to realize that a two-state solution is seriously jeopardized unless Israel dramatically and quickly changes course. With the tacking to the right in Israel and the likely make up of the next government once Peres selects Livni or Netanyahu in the next few days, and given the swelling mood among the occupied in favor of another Intifada, Peres plaintively asserts to the Obama administration that “two states is the only realistic solution.”

Peres instructed the American people and their government three times in his op-ed brief for a two-state solution, and that Israel is “the land of my forefathers.” He laments that the CIA-predicted one-state solution would, “Undermine Israel’s legitimacy and the internationally recognized right to exist as a sovereign Jewish state in the land of my forefathers.”

Peres knows that his forefathers had no connection whatsoever to Palestine, as is the case with more than 95% of the Zionists who swept into the area over the past century and demolished close to 600 villages while expelling a majority of the native population. Historians have established that most arriving Jews were in fact Slavic converts to Judaism without any historical or genealogical nexus to Palestine or Hebrew tribes in the area.

Against the historical backdrop of the past century of nearly global rejection of colonialism, his claim of settled international acceptance of “Israel’s legitimacy” is a major stretch. “Legitimacy” is what the conflict continues to be about — whether a 19th Century colonial enterprise can violently uproot and massacre an indigenous population taking over a land declaring God promised it to them, as they terrorize and expel the local inhabitants. Contrary to Peres’ claim of Israel as a “legitimate State,” there is no internationally recognized right for Israel to exist on stolen land without the consent of the dispossessed. Peres assures his American benefactors that Israel’s legitimacy is based “in international law or morality.” In point of fact, both International law and morality require the right of return of those whose lands were taken and lifting the brutal occupation. Surely Peres is aware, as the CIA Report asserts, that a majority of the 192 countries which make up the membership of the United Nations would vote this evening to establish one State of Palestine if given the chance.

The Report concludes that what went wrong will be debated for many years. In essence the problem was the premise that a “chosen people” with no link or rights to a land could impose a state by force. Many Middle East observers believe that the two-state solution is essentially over, but for the packing, finger-pointing and assuredly more violence.

Increasingly repelled by Israeli crimes, the international community is moving toward the majority position of Palestinians, and is coming to believe that the realistic solution to the Middle East conflict is one state — secular, multicultural, democratic, and based on one person one vote.

Peres is loath to accept one state and claims, in promoting a two-state solution, that he has “personally witnessed the remarkable progress we have made with the Palestinian Authority in recent years.”

Does he have in mind the increasing bantustanization (what Noam Chomsky calls “unviable fragments”), the ever-snaking apartheid wall and other barriers, the illegal outposts which increased yet again last year? The blockade of and depraved slaughter in Gaza?

Or does President Peres have in mind this week’s announcement by outgoing Prime Minister Olmert that Israel has the right to keep building in large West Bank settlement blocs, including Efrat, by adding 423 acres so that 21,000 more residents can join the current 9,000, according to Efrat mayor Oded Revivi? Olmert claims its part of the annexation that will be considered in a future final peace deal with the Palestinians.

President Peres has passed nearly a lifetime devoted to undermining prospects for a viable Palestinian state and offering a wink and nod to the building of more than 430 colonies while offering lip service to the “peace process.” His “Message to the American People” fails to communicate what the Israeli and Palestinian public knows well about the real nature of the two-state option he has in mind and which he considers to be “the best resolution to this age-old conflict.” Both populations know that the two-state option that long time politician Peres has consistently run on, is the Yigal Allon Plan.

The Allon scheme to expel the Arab population from Palestine has been Peres’ electoral platform during his campaigns in 1974, 1977, 1981, 1984, and 1987 and it shaped Israel’s settlement policies from 1967-1977. Peres worked to make the Allon Plan part of the 1978 Camp David agreement and 1993 Oslo Accords.

As the American public begins to stir from its long slumber on the Question of Palestine and hopefully dramatically changes American Middle East policy, it should consider that the Peres favored “moderate” Allon Plan continues to be Israeli policy. As formulated by its author and adhered to by successive Israel governments, it contains the following “moderate” elements:

* Seeking “maximum land with minimum Arabs”

* Annexes approximately 40% of the West Bank and Gaza, taking the choicest parts

* Dispossess Palestinians from land Israel wants for Jews

After Israel’s attack in 1967, Yigal Allon presented to the cabinet a solution to the Arab problem. The Allon Plan called for annexing the following areas: “a strip of land ten to fifteen kilometers wide along the Jordan River; most of the Judean desert along the Dead Sea; and a substantial area around Greater Jerusalem, including the Latrun salient.” The plan was crafted to include as few Arabs as possible in the area claimed for Israel and included building permanent colonies and army bases in these areas.

The two-state solution that Peres is trying to sell the American public and administration is a Palestinian “state” in 76.6% of the West Bank, carved up into sealed enclaves, with the largest of the 430 plus settlements/colonies remaining in place under Israeli sovereignty. Israel would take another 13.3% outright and continue to occupy the remaining 10.1% for a period of up to thirty years. During this period Israel would continue building new and expanding current settlement/colonies. The above percentages do not include the subtracted East Jerusalem and the territorial waters of the Dead Sea. In point of fact the 76% offer is based not on 100% of the occupied territories, but merely those parts that Israel was willing to discuss. Consequently, the “just and moral solution” President Peres favors would amount to slightly less than 16% of historic Palestine being given to those driven from their homes and land.

Peres claims Israel has worked tirelessly for peace. Yet the record is clear that Israel has only worked tirelessly for expansion at the expense of the indigenous Arab population while obstructing more than two-dozen “peace initiatives” over six decades, while targeting the Palestinian people, culture, and economy.

Peres claims in his op-ed that Libyan leader Muammar Qadaffi agrees that Israel deserves Palestine and that “this is salient in his fundamental and central premise that the Jewish people want and deserve their homeland.” Peres takes Qadaffi’s words out of context and misrepresents his thesis, which in fact calls for one state shared by both peoples. Qadaffi insists that the Middle East welcomes Judaism but not racist Zionism. It is the latter which underpins the founding of Israel and which has led to history’s condemnation.

As the President of Israel seeks yet more indulgence and largesse from the American taxpayers and the Obama administration, there is something he can do to shore up waning trust and waxing disillusionment with the two-state option. He can announce immediately that he fully accepts UN Security Council Resolution 242 and advocates the removal of all settlements and the total withdrawal of the Israeli military from the West Bank and Gaza.

Israel’s President urges the American people and government to, “commit our most concerted effort to allow two states to flourish.” Unless he and his fellow leaders of Israel are prepared, without further delay, to commit to a complete withdrawal to the June 4, 1967 armistice line, in a serious effort at peace, Israel will continue to lose American and international support and one state is the likely future for Palestine.

Israeli President Peres can avert his eyes from reality, but the Obama administration and the American people cannot afford this fatal delusion.

The Resistance is one project and the resistance movement is one movement and has one course, one destiny, one goal, despite its different parties, factions, believes, sects and intellectual and political trends…Resistance movements in this region, especially in Lebanon and Palestine, complement one another and (Hezbollah and Hamas) are contiguous groups.

– Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah 7/18/08

In Lebanon, we, the Islamic Resistance, are ready and prepared to confront any Israeli stupidity. We are prepared to face any foolishness. We have the wisdom to act calmly and we will not be dragged to any act of which we are not convinced. But we will not accept becoming a target for anyone. Hezbollah’s level of readiness is greater than the enemy’s imagination.

– Mohammad Raad, leader of the Hezbollah’s block in the Lebanese Parliament 1/09/09

Beirut, Lebanon — “Where is my friend Hussein?,” this observer asked some of the guys yesterday at my favorite motorcycle repair shop in Dahiyeh, the Hezbollah area in Beirut, as I helped, with my bandaged arm, off load my motorbike. “Silver”, sad to report, was not at all in good shape. In fact Silver needed a front end alignment, a new headlight, two turn signals, a new tail light and a new front wheel guard and at least the cracked windshield taped, before we could head off again and add the more than 11,000 miles we have logged crisscrossing Lebanon together.

The problem was Beirut’s flash hailstorm on Sunday. Immediately upon entering Verdun street near the Dunes hotel, Silver, not being used to a surface road mixture of oil and ice, and having a van cut him off from the right, tried to maneuver and skidded on his side and this observer went tumbling (again!). This time against a hotel protective barrier as some army guys jumped out of the way then courteously helped me up with a friendly “Welcome in Lebanon.”

“Isn’t this about your third ‘divine accident’ this year?,” one of Hussein’s mechanics, Ali grinned, as payback for me telling him a Sunni joke the other day about Hezbollah’s string of “divine victories.”

Again, I asked why my friend Hussein was absent. No response.

If one wants his motorcycle fixed cheap, well and quickly, even the pro government-anti Hezbollah Sunni repair shops in the central Beirut area of Hamra neighborhoods will tell you it’s best to take it to Ghouberi. “Ghouberi” is code language for the Hezbollah area of Dahiyeh/Haret Hareik, where most macho Hamra guys fear to tread as they continue to smart over “the events of May,” when Shia Hezbollah and some of their allies in Shia Amal and the Christian National Syria Socialist Party stormed parts of Sunni West Beirut and locked it down tight for around 72 hours before handing it over to the Lebanese Army. It was all about sending a message to the US-Israeli backed government not to mess with Hezbollah’s communication system or with their guys at the Beirut airport.

Once again the Hezbollah shop that took care of Silver did a great job. The mechanics, mainly Hezbollah reservists with ‘day jobs,’ apply the same work ethic of thoroughness and skill to their bike work as they do defending Lebanon against Israeli attacks. Space only allows for one example. As I inquired about the prospects that Hezbollah would open a second front, I noticed that a mechanic and his Palestinian dropout helper (quitting school is the growing pattern these days in Lebanon’s Refugee camps due to economic and political pressure), one with a screwdriver and the other with a wrench, literally checked and tightened every nut or screw on the bike. Never in 20+ years of riding and crashing motorcycles in more than a dozen countries had I seen mechanics do that.

Pastries or Pistachios as Clues

“So where was Hussein?” I asked for the third time. “He not in Beirut,” one of the mechanics said.

I immediately understood.

There is quite a lot of code language used in Lebanon these days, and “He’s not in Beirut” in Hezbollah parlance means, “He’s been called up,” he’s off somewhere for a few weeks doing ‘training’ or he’s been posted with his 5-6 man unit.

While Hussein is “not in Beirut.” it’s likely no one among his family or friends will hear from him. He may spend days or weeks in a tree along the Blue Line electronically eavesdropping on Israeli soldiers or recording their movements and habits or any one of hundreds of preparatory tasks. Hussein will return as if he just completed his day off but will answer no questions that begin with where, what, why, who, when, are, can, do, etc. Quite likely he will look leaner, stronger, more serious than when he left and will parry inquires with a smile and a question about “what’s new with you,” etc.

One might gain some inkling where he has been from what he brings back as gifts for his pals. For example, if Hussein brings special pastries acquired only from a certain village, which he did last time for this observer, obviously he had been posted in the Bekaa Valley. If he returns with a bag of oranges perhaps he was down south. Iranian candies or Iran’s famous Pistachios? For sure he was, well, the dear reader gets the idea.

Today, the Lebanese Resistance led by Hezbollah remains on full alert, in the 1/10/09 words of Lebanon’s Oppositions leader in Parliament, Mohammad Raad, “in case Israel does something stupid, we are ready.”

Some Hezbollah officials took note of what might be an Israeli record of some sort. They pointed out that whereas in the July 2006 War, Israel killed approximately 1,100 Lebanese civilians in 33 days of carpet, frenzied and indiscriminate bombing, in Gaza they have achieved the killing of approximately the same number of Palestinians, is about have the number of days. No doubt some kind of a lesson the Israeli military learned from their failure in the earlier conflict.

Many questions are being asked throughout Lebanon about whether the Hezbollah leadership will yield to growing pressure from all parts of Lebanon and within its ranks to force Israel to lift its destruction of Gaza? If so, are there ways it could be done without a igniting a sixth war in Lebanon?

Contemporary Wisdom in Lebanon

Every day brings more questions from Resistance observers inside and outside of Lebanon: when is Hezbollah going to deliver on all those speeches by Party leaders expressing Hezbollah’s ‘sacred commitment’ to the bloodstream issue for all Arabs and Muslims: the liberation of Palestine?

These days the Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah is on Full Red Alert and there is a palpable sense of foreboding in many Hezbollah supporting neighborhoods.

In the bike shop, with its “town meeting” atmosphere, some Hezbollah members are more explicit.

“We can hit Dimona with hundreds of rockets on the first day, if we get the order,” the veteran Abass explains. “The Zionists are very lucky I do not have the authority or we would have joined the battle when the first bomb fell on Gaza. It is just a matter of when, not if, we join the Gazan Resisters.”

The largest of dozens of demonstrations in support of the Gaza Resistance Hamas have been organized by Hezbollah. Thousands of those in attendance at every demonstration bristle with anger along with hundreds of millions all over the World. In Lebanon, many, not only in the Palestinian camps and Hezbollah areas, but north and south ache to do something to help the trapped and dying Gazans.

Regarding the likelihood that Hezbollah will come to the military aid of Gaza, the local conventional wisdom, much of it likely wrong, includes:

* Hezbollah is still regrouping its base from the July 2006 Israeli aggression and rebuilding thousands of homes and businesses and doesn’t want them destroyed again.

* Hezbollah may not yet be prepared militarily.

* Hezbollah has not completed its redeployment to the Bekaa Valley and to the strategic mountain tops where the next war with Israel will be largely based. This includes towns such as Sajad near Al-Rihan Mountain, north of the Litani River with its clear view of all of South Lebanon and the upper Galilee of occupied Palestine, as well as part of the Golan and the Mediterranean coastline. The geographic location of Sajad between the Al-Zahrani and Litani Rivers give it strategic importance and links the South and the Bekaa. They need more time.

* The certain massive destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure of roads, bridges, schools, would turn the populace against it and undermine its great political progress since 2006.

* That Hezbollah, having recently consolidated its base and formed a political coalition with Christian and some Druze leaders wants time to see its alliances grow stronger and free of potential military and political “unintended results.”

* Hezbollah wants to win the currently scheduled June 9, 2009 elections, and being seen as sparking another massive destruction of Lebanon would give its rival parties plenty to beat it over the head with at the polls. Every time Israel issues a new threat against Lebanon and announces in advance that it intends to commit war crimes by destroying Lebanon, this helps Hezbollah’s rivals in the polls as they take to the airwaves and argue that Hezbollah wants another war and does not care about destroying Lebanon like last time. Or, as scholar Amal Saad-Ghorayeb observed last week, intense domestic pressures to disarm, and possible, more externally manufactured, locally-executed conspiracies hatched against it that could drag it into the kind of civil warfare that the movement found itself in during May 2008.

* Hezbollah does not want to risk losing the June 9 election and wants to keep its lead in the polls.

* Hezbollah is currently behind in the polls and needs peace in Lebanon in order to convince swing voters that it will be behave responsibly if the voters will allow it to govern.

* Hamas is assured of winning the war Gaza, given that Israel must win with its 1000 to 1 military advantage or it will be humiliated and, as Anthony Cordesman has pointed out, would likely in any case lose its deterrence position, likely for good.

* That the Israeli government and its supporters claim that Israel learned from their poor performance in July 2006 is wishful thinking and their performance to date strongly suggests Israel has learned nothing and will deliver to Hamas a silver platter with huge organizational and political gifts.

The “Varsity Squad” of Hezbollah has so trained the “Junior Varsity Squad” that there is no need to intervene unless Hamas is on the verge of total elimination which given its strong showing during the past 17 days appears very unlikely. As one Hezbollah reservist noted, “If Hamas survives to fire even one rocket into Israel after Israeli forces eventually withdraw from Gaza, the World will declare Hamas the winner.” Israel discovered Hezbollah expertise last weekend when it learned that the capabilities of Hamas are much more than they anticipated including its ability to strike Beer Sheba.

Based on conversations with several Hezbollah functionaries, Shia Hezbollah appears to have increasingly deep respect for Sunni Hamas. They share an ideology and a set of strategic goals that transcend their religious difference. Both were created as an alternative to failed Arab nationalist organizations in order to effectively confront the Zionist occupation. Hezbollah has been the primary role model, trainer, and “coach” of a “new” Hamas with apparent dramatic results.

Strategically, the fact that Sunni Hamas and Shia Hezbollah cooperate well, despite differing interpretations of some of the Koran, and the Hadith (sayings of the Prophet Mohammad), leads some observers to believe that this display of Muslim unity dampens the effects of the fiery rhetoric of Egypt’s Mubarak and Jordan’s Abdullah, among others, who regularly raise the chicken-little alarm of an Iranian constructed “Shia crescent.”

Hezbollah’s “Parental Pride” in Hamas

When Hezbollah commander Imad Mughniyeh, was assassinated last February, one of the major projects he had been working on for nearly two years was to teach Hamas the lessons Hezbollah learned during the 22-year Israeli occupation of much of Lebanon as well as the 2006 Israeli aggression against Lebanon. The current conflict in Gaza may indicate how well Hamas learned from “Hajj Radwan,” Moghinyeh’s nom de guerre.

It was Israel that killed Imad. One reason was that he was deeply involved in training Hamas with the Hezbollah model of Resistance. He is known to have been very proud of the Palestinians and stated shortly before his death to Party colleagues: “They (Hamas) are becoming a very good resistance force.” Some in Lebanon refer to Hamas as the JV (Junior Varsity) or “red shirts” as opposed to the Hezbollah “Varsity” or “blue shirts,” and “Hajj Radwan” is the coach of both. In another Report to the Party, he expressed his admiration for their ability reporting that, “they are proving day after day that they are powerful people capable of facing all challenges.”

During Mughinyeh’s scores of tutorials, Israel was tipped off by certain Palestinians who had met with Imad and who knew or suspected his real identity from “the old days” when Imad spent years with the PLO and was close to Arafat and his inner circle. Most people, even those who worked closely with him, did not know his true identity and he tried to keep it that way even avoiding his home village where half the residents are Mughinyehs. Yet, some who met with him remembered him and ultimately betrayed him.

Some, including this observer, theorize this is why Mughinyeh was killed, almost certainly with the help of Syrians in Israel’s employ since every individual allowed in the Damascus “special security zone” where the killing occurred was closely vetted, examined and then carefully watched. A “full report” on the assassination was claimed to have been made by the Syrian government, which promised to release it within a few days. In two weeks the report will be exactly one year past the promised release date and no one claims to have seen it.

Yet Hajj Radwan is said to have helped revamp Hamas’ military command and replaced certain elements. One subject Mughinyeh is said to have stressed to Hamas during such meetings was the importance of “the communications network as a strategic weapon,” which included Hamas keeping in direct battlefield contact with other Resistance groups fighting Israel, and advising Hamas on ways of fighting Israel using a number of different tactics and bases in locations in Syria, Lebanon and Iran, according to the authoritative Beirut daily Al Akbar.

One of his communications to superiors in Hezbollah is said to have reported: “The way the bottom of the earth was transformed in (areas) around the Strip and inside cities indicates that if determination and leadership was provided to them (the Palestinians), they would achieve what hasn’t been achieved before.”

Other lessons Mughinyeh offered Hamas, based on the lessons from 2006, included that each Hamas small unit of approximately five fighters should be fully equipped and must have a clear plan to fight Israeli soldiers and to wage a long war of attrition until Israel withdraws. Another included instruction on ways to stockpile weapons that would allow Hamas to have quick access to them even if Israel occupied many areas in the Gaza Strip. It is some of these pre-positioned weapons that special Israeli search units try to find in order to exhibit them for propaganda purposes.

How well Hamas has learned from Hezbollah’s experience remains to be seen. Meanwhile plenty of suspicions and speculation remain concerning exactly who killed Hezbollah’s much loved Imad Mughinyeh and why.

As Hezbollah has leveraged its 2006 victory, Hamas will likely do the same, with the losers again being the American–Israel axis, the current PA leadership, Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. The winners, in addition to Hamas, are once more Hezbollah, Syria and Iran. Never in American history has one US administration delivered such a long and consistent string of political victories to its declared adversaries while assuring the eventual collapse of its most favored nation, and managing to turn most of the World, and its own country, against itself.

There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances. The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.

– Professor Richard Falk, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories

Beirut, Lebanon — In the minds of some of his colleagues, and a law student reporter at the Harvard Law Recors, Professor Alan Dershowitz’s unique views of Israel’s obligations under International Law are reflected in the “Private Legal Memoranda” that he pens for time to time in his moonlighting job as “Counsel to the Government of Israel.” In this role, as one of his former students explained, Harvard’s Professor advises Israel “how to appear to be acting legally to the eyes of the American public.”

One recent bit of international legal advice that Alan is said to be particularly proud of is his recent Memorandum regarding the current ‘Legal Standard’ identifying those who the Israeli Defense Force (IDF) can ‘legally’ target in Gaza. These days one can witness his opus mini being read word for word off a cue card by IDF spokesman, Benjamin Rutland.

Mr. Rutland, speaking on 3 January 2009 to FOX TV by video-link, read to the mesmerized interviewer,

“Our [read: Alan's sui generis] definition of who we can legally target is that it can be anyone, I repeat, anyone, who is involved in any way, as the Government of Israel shall determine, with terrorism or who supports Hamas, in any qualitative way. That person obviously becomes a lawful target. This ranges from the strictly military institutions and includes the political institutions that provide the logistical funding [read: 'we can kill money changers'] and human resources for the terrorist arm of Hamas.”

The extremely broad scope of the IDF’s new Dershowitz-crafted ‘legal standard’ would appear to mean that Israel can now legally kill anyone in Gaza, including the 48 civilians seeking shelter in UNWRA’s Fakhura girls elementary school, or the three members of the Al-Sultan family 15 hours earlier, as they emerged from the toilets in the courtyard of Asma school, in the Shati refugee camp north of Gaza City.

Reflecting on Professors Dershowitz’s remarkable contribution to the development of the International Law of Armed conflict, Philippe Sands, Professor of International Law at University College London noted, “Once you extend the definition of combatants in the way that IDF is doing and associate individuals who are only indirectly or peripherally involved, it becomes an open-ended definition, which undermines the very object and purpose of the rules that are intended to be applied.”

As chance would have it, Mr. Rutland turned out to be the same IDF spokesman who asserted on the evening of 6 January 2009 that, “beyond any doubt militants fired mortars from inside the UN school compound thereby completely justifying the IDF returning fire on the school.”

It was also Mr. Rutland who seemed to remember the IDF’s lawyers’ earlier advice, which he related to a friend at Haaretz, to “always show the media ‘demonstrative evidence’ like terrorist weapons we have captured or video to support our case.” At that particular meeting, Professor Dershowitz reportedly advised his clients, “Americans don’t know shit but they do love to watch movies.” Eagerly, according to media reports on 7 January 2009, the IDF quickly produced video on which it claimed was proof positive that militants were indeed present on the UNRWA school property.

Professor Dershowitz must have been thrilled yesterday by his students’ performance, much as this observer was, while coaching our International Law Moot Court team in Portland, Oregon years ago as they excelled at the Evergreen State College-sponsored competition in Olympia, Washington.

But Mr. Rutland and the IDF cooked their ‘court filing’ by offering phony footage. Huge mistake. Given that the international media is barred from Gaza, with the exception that on 7 January 2009 the IDF did allow three chosen ‘embedded journalists’ to join them, the IDF apparently thought they could foist off some old file footage from nearly two years ago, which Mr. Rutland claimed showed militants in the school compound and carrying what may have been military equipment.

Immediately the UN cried ‘Hoax!” and Chris Gunness, a spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), expressed outrage as he disclosed that the Dershowitz inspired ‘demonstrative evidence’ “was from 2007 video and bears no connection to Tuesday’s military strike on the school.”

On the morning of 7th January 2009, after a UN investigation, UNRWA announced that “we’re 99.9% sure that no militants were at the Fakhura girl’s elementary school.” The agency questioned survivors, including UNRWA staff that run the school under U.N. auspices and “who knew virtually all of the civilians who were seeking shelter form Israeli bombs and shelling.”

Mr. Gunness, at a press conference on the afternoon 7 January 2009 broadcast by Press TV requested that the IDF or anyone [read: Alan Dershowitz] with relevant information, to please submit the evidence so that it might help the UN with a resolution of the “point one percent remaining doubt”.

Gunness also stated that UNRWA gave the IDF the coordinates of all of the 23 schools that are serving as refuges for the 14,000 people nearby forced to flee their homes. While Mr. Gunness is far too polite to say so, each of the schools hit on Tuesday housed about 400 people seeking shelter from American-gifted planes, bombs, artillery shells, missiles and perhaps yet to be proven, internationally banned White Phosphorus, in the service of Israel.

In his January 2, 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled “Israel’s Policy Is Perfectly Proportionate,” Professor Alan Dershowitz defends Israel’s operation “Molten Lead” in Gaza and while doing so consistently misstates and misapplies the Principles, Standards and Rules of International Law as well as their moral underpinnings.

Law Checks

Alan Dershowitz: “Israel’s actions in Gaza are justified under international law, and Israel should be commended for its self-defense against terrorism. Article 51 of the United Nations Charter reserves to every nation the right to engage in self-defense against armed attacks. The only limitation international law places on a democracy are that its actions must satisfy the principle of proportionality.”

Law Check: Leaving aside Dershowitz’s misapplication of the term ‘terrorism’, the fact is that Article 51 of the UN Charter was drafted with Nazi Germany in mind and to support those who have the full right, duty, and backing of International law to resist illegal occupation. Article 51 is to be employed precisely to encourage resistance to the kind of aggression and invasions Israel has launched for more than 40 years. Article 51, and the international customary law on which it is based, gives Israel’s neighbors, both UN members and non-members, the right of self-defense against unlawful Israeli aggressions outlawed by UN Charter Article (2) (4).

Additionally, the legal obligation of Proportionality applies to all States, not just those Dershowitz erroneously asserts, i.e. “places on a Democracy” and especially, one could argue, on Apartheid states like Israel and the former regime in South Africa.

Professor Dershowitz refers to the Principle of Proportionality as if this black letter law is some sort of idealistic philosophical abstraction that is best discussed over drinks in a Boston Beacon Hill Salon. The Proportionality Standard, or Rule or Law is key to the enforcement of post-World War II international norms of civilized conduct and violation of it creates eligibility for criminal indictment and arrest warrants from the Office of the Prosecutor of International Criminal Court in the Hague.

Alan Dershowitz: “The claim that Israel has violated the principle of proportionality by killing more Hamas terrorists than the number of Israeli civilians killed by Hamas rockets — is absurd. First, there is no legal equivalence between the deliberate killing of innocent civilians and the deliberate killings of Hamas combatants”.

Law Check: Few, if anyone at all, have ever made the silly legal claim Professor Dershowitz floats. Here he simply employs a legal fiction ‘red herring’ and erects a ’straw man’ to offer a spurious argument on Israel’s behalf.

Proportionality does not require numerical equivalence but, contrary to what Alan implies, it clearly does not allow countless killings of civilians to avenge the death or capture of an Israeli soldier. Every Israeli act whether it is ethnic cleansing, occupation, massacre or wanton destruction is consistently portrayed by Professor Dershowitz as perfectly legal, morally just and as a pure act of self-defense reluctantly perpetrated by Israel in its war against the worst kind of human beings imaginable.

Alan Dershowitz: “Under the laws of war, any number of combatants can be killed to prevent the killing of even one innocent civilian.”

Law Check: This statement is nonsense on its face and totally ignores the key International Law requirements of Proportionality and Distinguishing combatants from non-combatants. With respect to Gaza, clearly rocket attacks against civilian targets in Israel are unlawful. But that does not give rise to any Israeli right, either as Occupying Power or State, to violate international humanitarian law and commit war crimes or crimes against humanity in a frenzied response as it clearly did in Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2006 and is currently engaged in with Gaza.

Admittedly, International Humanitarian Law and the Rome Statute permit belligerents to carry out proportionate attacks against military objectives, even when it is known that some civilian deaths or injuries will occur. The crime occurs when there is an intentional attack directed against civilians (principle of distinction) (Article 8(2)(b)(i)) or an attack is launched on a military objective in the reasonable knowledge that the incidental civilian injuries would be excessive in relation to the anticipated military advantage (principle of proportionality) (Article 8(2)(b)(iv). Article 8(2)(b)(iv) criminalizes:

Intentionally launching an attack in the knowledge that such attack will cause incidental loss of life or injury to civilians or damage to civilian objects or widespread, long-term and severe damage to the natural environment which would be clearly excessive in relation to the concrete and direct overall military advantage anticipated;

Article 8(2)(b)(iv) draws on the principles in Article 51(5)(b) of the 1977 Additional Protocol I to the 1949 Geneva Conventions, but restricts the criminal prohibition to cases that are “clearly” excessive. The application of Article 8(2) (b) (iv) requires, inter alia, an assessment of:

(a) the anticipated civilian damage or injury;
(b) the anticipated military advantage;
(c) and whether (a) was “clearly excessive” in relation to (b).

It’s beginning to look a lot like Genocide!

Professor Dershowitz in seeking to exempt Israel from the requirements of International Law has consistently argued that since Israel has not signed the Rome Statute and has not submitted to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice in The Hague, Israel is not bound by the Rome Statute’s International Law as noted below. He errs in his interpretation of the Rules of International Law and is quite mistaken that the provisions of the Rome Statute do not apply to Israel.

International Customary Law, i.e. legal norms accepted by the vast majority of States plus the United Nations, are binding on all States, including Israel. The Rome Statute does not make new law like, for example, some contract that Israel would have to sign in order to be bound by it. All states are bound by the law restated in Treaty form in the Rome Statute. Its binding provisions include Article 7 and Article 8 very applicable to the current carnage raging in Gaza.

Given that the Rome Statute imbued the International Criminal Court with ‘Universal Jurisdiction’ over all people and given further that the Rome Statute rejects Impunity for any person, which Israel has consistently used, for example in US Courts such as the recent Qana Case brought by the New York based Center for Constitutional Rights, Israeli leaders are now bound and can be tried jointly, severally and personally in the Hague. So can George W. Bush and Mohammad Hosni Mubarak, even though neither country has yet become a signatory of the Rome Statute.

Article 7 of the Rome Statute outlaws “a widespread or systematic attack directed against any civilian population,” which involves “persecution against any identifiable group or collectivity on political, racial, national, ethnic, cultural, religious, gender” grounds.” Such projects, to which Palestinians have been subjected for more than 60 years, constitute a crime against humanity.

What Israel has been doing in Gaza and Palestine comes very close to genocide according to the provisions of the Genocide Convention (1948), reiterated in the Rome Charter of the International Criminal Court (2002), which includes: ‘(c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part’ (6). Some of Professor Dershowitz’s colleagues consider that the launching of rockets into Israel by Hamas, like the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943, constitute a legitimate response to impending extermination and are a desperate bid for survival.

Alan Dershowitz: “Under international law, Israel is not required to allow Hamas to play Russian roulette with Jewish children’s lives.”

This sentence, apparently borrowed by Professor Dershowitz without attribution (plagiarism again?) from Dory Gold, who has been using it profusely the past couple of months, has nothing to do with International Law; it just makes a good sound bite apparently.

Law Check: One of Alan Dershowitz’s nemeses, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories, Professor Richard Falk, accuses Israel of the following indictable crimes in Gaza which are not Russian roulette:

* Collective punishment — the entire 1.5 million people who live in the crowded Gaza Strip are being punished for the actions of a few militants in direct violation of the absolute prohibition of Article 33 of the Geneva Convention.

* Targeting civilians — the airstrikes are aimed at civilian areas in one of the most crowded stretches of land in the world…”

* Disproportionate military response — the airstrikes have not only destroyed every police and security office of Gaza’s elected government, but have killed and injured hundreds of civilians.

Other indictable crimes Israel is committing daily in Gaza include intentionally directing attacks against civilian objects, that is, objects which are not military objectives.

Additionally, Professor Dershowitz ignores other violations of International Law by Israel in Gaza that fail to spare the civilian population, including, but not limited to, the following failures to act in accordance with the International Law of Armed Conflict while his “Perfectly Proportionate” judgment, yet again, exonerates Israel:

* Ignoring the prohibition against attacks that target or indiscriminately harm civilians and the requirement to distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants.

* Failure to adhere to the prohibition against disproportionate attacks by not launching any attack that may be expected to cause harm to civilians or damage to civilian objects that would be excessive in relation to the concrete and direct military advantage anticipated.

* Failure to ensure the unhindered movement of medical personnel and ambulances to carry out their duties and of wounded persons to access medical care. Any restrictions on movement for genuine security grounds must be temporary, subject to regular review, and imposed only to the extent absolutely necessary.

* Failure to refrain from using “human shields” and by compelling Palestinian civilians to remain inside homes or other structures taken over by the IDF for military operations.

* Failing to take all necessary steps to ensure that the civilian population has access to sufficient food, medical care, and other essential humanitarian goods and services.

* Failure to allow journalists and humanitarian agencies access to Gaza and ensure that any restrictions on access and movement for genuine security grounds be temporary, subject to regular review, and only imposed to the extent absolutely necessary.

Alan Dershowitz concludes: “Until the world recognizes that Hamas is committing three war crimes — targeting Israeli civilians, using Palestinian civilians as human shields, and seeking the destruction of a member state of the United Nations — and that Israel is acting in self-defense and out of military necessity, the conflict will continue”.

Professor Dershowitz’s conclusion makes plain his 40-year thesis that Israel is above and immune from International Law, as well as his profound personal lack of respect for post-World War II international legal norms.

As an uncompromising ultra-Zionist, what he insists is akin to “the law is what I tell you it is! And why can’t the world understand that!” Professor Dershowitz insists in his final paragraph above that unless the International Community agrees with his misapplication of the requirements of International Law, including legitimate self-defense, military necessity, distinguishing between combatants and non-combatants, the UN Charter, proportionality, collective punishment, Israel will continue its serial violations of International Law and “the conflict [read: unlawful slaughter] will continue.

While cherry picking, mischaracterizing and misapplying International Law, Professor Dershowitz ignores what every Law School and University teaches on the subject.

Should he spend more time in the Harvard Law School library and less in TV studios, he would surely learn that an objective application of international legal norms to the conduct of Israel is Gaza would result its leaders being indicted and brought before the International Criminal Court in The Hague.

UPDATE:

“Better be careful Franklin, you don’t want Dersh dishing dirt on you, in other words you risk joining his growing shit list”, e-mailed a faculty friend from Harvard Law School yesterday among the 150-plus e-mails I received (only three being hate mail) from the piece on Alan’s WSJ article.

Sure enough, this observer made Alan’s ’small fish’ list yesterday when following a program moderated by Mr. Charles Adler on the Corus Radio Network (wherever that is), the esteemed Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law reportedly called me ‘white trash’, Robert Fisk a neo-Nazi and trashed Jimmy Carter again for defending the Palestinians.

According to one listener (Mr. OS from California) the Professor: “made the comment about Fisk being a “neo-Nazi” at about 2:20 Mountain Standard Time (MST) five minutes into the interview, which began about 2:15 pm. Adler stepped aside and allowed Alan Dershowitz to rant on and on all he liked. It’s as if Rumpelstiltskin had been bested by the Queen who secretly learned his true name, such was AD’s ugly ogreish passion in his attacks on Fisk, Jimmy Carter and others”.

About the Professor considering me’ white trash’? Well, I guess it hurts my feelings, but yes I suppose I am. But how ever did the Professor learn that I come from an old tiny Indian village on the banks of the Willamette River in Oregon, and my family home is close to Tanya Harding’s? And that I love Ice Skaters, macaroni and cheese, mashed potatoes, gravy, creamed corn, green beans and meat loaf just like Ronald Reagan did! Could Alan use a sabbatical? In Gaza?

Israel is leveling Gaza to strike at Hamas, just as they pulverized south Lebanon to strike at Hezbollah. Yet in both cases civilian populations were attacked, countless innocents killed or injured, infrastructure targeted and destroyed, and civil law enforcement negated. All this was, and is, disproportionate, indiscriminate mass violence in violation of international law. Israel is not exempt from international law and must be held accountable. It is time for the UN to not just call for a cease-fire, but for an inquiry as to Israel’s illegal actions.

– US Congressman Dennis Kucinich, 12/29/08

Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut — Typically, within the first ten days or so of enrolling in an American law school, Boston University School of Law in this observer’s case, a student will begin to receive from Professors or seasoned upper classmates plenty of gratuitous but well intentioned advice. One bit that still rattles around in my ever-shrinking and increasingly over-crowded pea brain came from our Law School Librarian, Mr. Taylor.

More than once during my three year stint, I heard the sometimes crotchety Mr. Taylor, a brilliant former Boston trial lawyer, intone, with sometimes lavish flair (truth be told, he occasionally nipped White Horse scotch behind the Federal Supp. 2nd Stacks — but we never ratted him out to Dean Suskind) law students in the Pappas Library trying to concentrate on writing their Briefs for the Homer Albers Moots Court Competition:

“Future lawyers! Remember well! If, God forbid, some miserable wretch on this green earth should have the misfortune or exceedingly poor judgment to hire you to represent them in Court, heeds this!

“If you find yourself arguing a case before a skeptical judge or jury and the law is clearly against you, for Christ’s sake jump up and down and argue all the facts you can think of in your clients favor!”

Then Mr. Taylor would invariably add, “On the other hand my dears, if the facts of the case are clearly against you, for Christ’s sake jump up and down, but this time ignore or deny every single material fact and argue only the law. Look the judge or jury straight in the eye, with tears in yours, lower your voice and softly rant about the technicalities of the law and how the very survival of Western Civilization, which came to us, after all, with our mothers milk, depends on strictly applying it in your clients favor.”

Harvard Law Professor Alan Dershowitz, in his latest Arab-phobic, ultra-Zionist screed, in last week’s Wall Street Journal, in defense of Israel’s ongoing slaughter in Gaza, having neither the law nor the facts in his favor, figuratively at least, just jumps up and down and rants.

Harvard Law School sources, including the student newspaper, the Harvard Law Record, indicate that Alan is just acting out again and being ‘lawyerly’ as he cozies up to various right wing power centers in Israel with his eyes peeled wide on being President of Israel when he retires.

Some faculty colleagues and law students are encouraging him to retire sooner rather than later, as Harvard wearies of his witch hunts and hysterics and the disrepute he has brought on that institution with his myriad smear campaigns. Among his long list of victims have been against the likes of President Carter, Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Norman Finkelstein, Nelson Mandela, Kofi Annan, the Dali Lama, Bishop Tutu, and all manner of supporters of the Palestinians right and obligation to resist the Israeli occupation and struggle to reacquire their stolen land. Not to mention his ex-girlfriend.

In his January 3, 2009 article in the Wall Street Journal entitled, “Israel’s Policy Is Perfectly Proportionate,” Professor Dershowitz, defends Israel’s operation “Molton Lead” and while doing so consistently misstates the Facts and the Law.

Dershowitz Misstates the Facts

Alan Dershowitz (AD): “Hamas knew that Israel would never fire at a home with civilians in it.”

Fact Check: On the contrary Hamas and every person over 7 years old of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza and everyone in Lebanon and Palestine know that Israel will for sure “fire at a home with civilians in it.” And also ambulances, convoys fleeing a war zone with prior UN and IDF approval and waving white flags, homes with only five children and their mother inside as they did in Nabysheet, Lebanon on July 19, 2006, destroying the family of my friend Abu Mohammad Chokr. History has shown that is what Israel does regularly and why it is increasingly a Pariah State.

Virtually every human rights organization including Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and relevant UN Agencies, the European Union, objective Israeli and international investigative journalists digging beneath the main stream Zionist media headlines has documented hundreds of cases of Israel targeting “a home with civilians in it.” No fewer than 234 cases of firing on civilians in South Lebanon alone during 2006, and hundreds of others in Palestine. In the past week in Gaza (12/29/08-1/6/09) Israel fired on more than 54 homes with civilians in them.

AD: “Terrorists firing at Sderot are so proud of their actions that they sign their weapons.”

Fact Check: Goodness Professor, since the days of cave men, the armies of the Greece, Rome, Genghus Khan, to cowboys in the American west notching or ‘signing’ their six-guns and rifles, one imagines virtually every army in history has been done this. We do know the ‘most moral,’ ‘elite’ and ‘purity of arms guys and gals in the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) do it as well. Yet it is a bit less sinister for lonely scared fighters to sign their weapons as a ’security blanket’ than for the Public Information unit in the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs to herd Israeli youngsters onto buses, as was done in 2006 in Lebanon, to visit IDF artillery bases and be given felt pens and told to sign the 155 mm cluster bomb rounds containing US supplied M-24, M-77 bomblets, before they are fired into South Lebanon in to kill and maim fellow school children.

And indeed, sorry to be indelicate, but it is also a bit more civilized to sign ones weapon than the traditional practice of the Israeli forces entering civilian houses in numerous villages in South Lebanon in 2006 (they did the same this in during their wars against Lebanon in 1978, 1982, 1993, and 1996 — and rubbing their feces over walls, inside water tanks, in pillows, beds etc poisoning wells and booby trapping children’s toys (apparently it’s an Occupation thing that warrants psychological study).

AD: “Since Israel ended its occupation of Gaza, Hamas has fired thousands of rockets.”

Fact Check: Israel never ended its occupation of Gaza. Following the 9/11/05 dismantlement of its illegal colony/settlements, Israel maintained nearly total control of Gaza’s borders, airspace, territorial waters (preventing most fishing), electricity, life-lines and economy, turning it into a sealed prison resembling the Warsaw Ghetto, according to UN Special Rapporteur, Richard Falk.

Palestinians living in Gaza not only have the right, but the obligation to resist Israel’s continuing illegal occupation. Indeed, the very existence of Gaza is a historical reminder of those hundreds of thousands of Palestinians who lost their homes to Israel. Gaza is a Palestinian refugee camp — all of it. More than 80% of its inhabitants were victims of Zionist terrorism that pushed them off their land — many from Askelon, their heritage from that now Jewish town nearly erased, as Robert Fisk reminds us.

AD: “Barack Obama visited Sderot this summer and saw the remnants of these rockets, he reacted by saying that if his two daughters were exposed to rocket attacks in their home, he would do everything in his power to stop such attacks. He understands how the terrorists exploit the morality of democracies.”

Fact Check: President-elect Obama feels the very same that every parent does including the parents of the 800,000 Palestinian children in Gaza including the parents of more than 147 children killed during the past seven days.

AD’s claim of Israel as a ‘moral Democracy’ is not backed by the facts. The 20% of its population that are Arabs are not included in this myth. Countless studies by Israeli and international human rights organizations, researchers and on the scene journalists have painstakingly documented the Apartheid nature of Israel. When it comes to education, housing, employments, medical services, government loans, travel, marriage, Israel’s Arab population does not share in the ‘moral Democracy’ of Israel only in its immoral, racist Apartheid system.

AD: “Hamas knows from experience that even a small number of innocent Palestinian civilians killed inadvertently will result in bitter condemnation of Israel by many in the international community.”

Fact Check: And well should such killings, even if inadvertent, be condemned. But Professor Dershowitz’s ’small number’ is not a small number for the rest of the World. During the July 2006 War (not the “Second Lebanon War” as Israeli apologists like to refer to it while overlooking the Israeli Wars against Lebanon in 1978, 1993, and 1996) an estimated 82% of those killed in Lebanon were civilians, more than one-third children under age of 15. A ’small number’ only in Alan’s World. In Gaza the same pattern may or may not hold. Either way, the World, and not just Hamas, is getting tired of Israel inadvertently killing ’small numbers’ of those it occupies or attacks.

AD: “Israel goes to enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties — even to the point of foregoing legitimate targets that are too close to civilians.”

Fact Check: Nonsense Professor. If the targets are “too close to civilians” such as their homes, schools, cars, places of worship, hospitals etc. they are by definition not legitimate. But there is no evidence that “enormous lengths to reduce the number of civilian casualties” have ever been taken by Israel when attacking its neighbors. The absence of Zionist concern for civilians has been the case going back more than 70 years, since the Zionist gangs in pre-Nakba Palestine, between December 12, 1947 at Haifa and Ramla to November 2, 1948 at Arab al-Mawasi, not quite one year, committed 27 massacres of civilians in Palestine. This practice continues until today in Gaza with the week-ends killing of three rescuers in an Israeli attack in Tal el-Hawa, killing two medics in an ambulance in Hay al Zaytoun, and five children from one family near al-Shifa Hospital.

Next: Part II: Professor Dershowitz misstates the Law.

Beirut, 01 Jan. 0344

“United States Advises its Citizens in Lebanon to Avoid Demonstrations in Support of Gaza”

“The American embassy in Beirut, sent an email to its citizens informing them that several protests had occurred “with little or no warning in Lebanon” and that they should “exercise extreme caution.”

“Americans are advised that even the most peaceful assembly can quickly turn violent against them. Americans should avoid areas where protests and demonstrations are occurring,” the warden’s message said.

Demonstrations have been ongoing on a daily basis since last Saturdays events at various Lebanese regions protesting the Israeli military operation on Gaza. A demonstration also was held outside the Egyptian embassy last Sunday that developed into an ugly confrontation between protesters and security forces that resulted in some minor injuries, the Embassy announcement stated. The government of the United States of America will continue its tireless efforts to achieve a sustainable, respected ceasefire and urges Hamas to cease terrorist rocket attacks against Israel”

Does AIPAC write the Beirut Embassy US Citizen ‘Warder Warnings”?

Dutifully, the Beirut Embassy distributes the latest musings of White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe, who rung in the New Year by reporting that Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Mr. Olmert had “assured President Bush that Israel is taking every appropriate step (!) to avoid civilian casualties” in Gaza. In addition, Mr. Johndroe was pleased to report that, the Israeli leader told Mr. Bush that Israel was “targeting only Hamas operatives and those affiliated with Hamas. They discussed prospects for a cease-fire — what steps could lead to a cessation of violence”, Mr. Johndroe said — “but could not get into specific timetables… The onus is on Hamas.”

The Embassy joined Johndroe in praising the diplomatic efforts of Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, but denounced Iran and Syria, saying they had supplied weapons to terrorist groups. “Neither Iran nor Syria is playing a helpful role. They’re not playing a constructive role in this current crisis, which is pretty typical for their actions with regard to Hamas and Hezbollah.”

Could someone please inform Habitee Ms. US Ambassador that many Americans here in Beirut are honored to attend demonstrations in support of Gaza and Palestine? And given that the US weapons the Embassy helps funnel to Israel are used against civilians, feel it’s their duty to help organize them?

No personal offense intended but given that the Pirates of the Mediterranean have returned with the Israeli ramming the Gaza relief boat, Dignity, Monday morning, will our Ambassador here in Lebanon join the next freegaza.org mercy boat to Gaza?

I’m not calling for a coup d’etat, but go talk to your leaders and tell them you do not accept what is happening in Gaza.

– Hezbollah Sec-Gen Hasan Nasrallah calling for Egyptians “in millions” to demonstrate their support for opening the Rafah crossing from Gaza to Egypt, 28 December 2008

[I]t is essential if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law.

– Preamble, Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948

Beirut, Lebanon — Giggling like smitten teenagers, exchanging Channakah and Eid greetings (neither acknowledges the more Shi’a associated Ashoura) Hosni Mubarak and Tzipi Livni ‘hooked up’ this past week in Cairo to discuss Gaza.

Both spoke of their desire to see Corporal Shalit returned safely. Both knew Israel’s former Mossad operative, current Foreign Minister, and Prime Minister wannabee had a permission slip from the Bush Administration for all-out war against the Palestinians in the 25 by 6 mile territorial snippet along the Eastern Mediterranean. When the correct photo-op was selected for public distribution, it showed a concerned and dour Egyptian President brooding with arching brow.

The duo focused on ‘diplomatic logistics and cover’ and the urgency to crush Hamas. They appeared oblivious to all who happened to be in the vicinity of American rockets and bombs or institutions leveled by waves of F-16 fighter jets and missiles kept in ready use from the $ 200 million worth of spare parts supplied by US taxpayers from 2001-2006, as well as 186 million gallons of JP-8 aviation jet fuel , and thousands of TOW, Hellfire and “bunker buster” bombs and missiles, freed up for delivery to Israel last year when the Bush administration signed a $ 1.3 billion contract with Raytheon.

What was not on the agenda was what both knew but ignored. The fate of 1.5 million people, one of the highest population densities in the world with nearly 60% of its population 16 years or younger and nearly 75% of whom are malnourished, and according to one recent estimate by the World Health Organization, 46% of whom are afflicted with acute anemia, with 30% suffering from stunted growth as a result of chronic malnutrition and who would need an escape via Rafah.

One wonders if the dynamic duo discussed the fact that 10% of these children have permanent brain damage or that eighty-two percent are afflicted with post-traumatic stress disorder; the great majority of them having witnessed death first-hand or that more than eighty percent of the population as a whole is dependent on food aid? Were Mubrak and Livni aware of reports that the sonic booms associated with Israeli overflights have caused widespread deafness, especially among children?

The UN and eyewitnesses such as members of the Free Gaza Project report that unemployment is rampant — upwards of 60% with most Gazans subsisting on less than $2 a day.

Shooting Fish in a Barrel

Even a cursory examination of the events which began on December 27, 2008 require that Mohammad Hosni Mubarak be added as an accomplice to the pending International Criminal Court (ICC) case concerning international crimes being committed by Israel with American weapons.

HOKOK, the Beirut- and Washington DC-based International Coalition against Impunity, which filed a case against Israeli political leaders regarding Israeli crimes committed in Gaza with the International Criminal Court at The Hague on December 10, 2008, will send international lawyers back to the ICC on January 15, 2009, to amend its complaint under the Rome Statute and indict Egypt’s Mubarak among the Defendants.

To his great credit, Professor Richard Falk, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University, has joined HOKOK’s call for the International Criminal Court to investigate Israeli violations and determine whether the Israeli leaders responsible for the Gaza siege should be indicted and prosecuted for violations of international criminal law.

The Case against Mohammad Hosni Mubarak

Mubarak knew that Gazans would need a safety valve, an escape route from the coming carnage, which according to the Washington-based Council for the National Interest (CNI), appears to be another Sharpeville Massacre. CNI points out, “Nearly fifty years ago, the South African regime attacked a crowd protesting the conditions in the Bantustan of Sharpeville and in a matter of minutes killed some 69 black South Africans. Eventually, after world reaction to this “incident,” sanctions were imposed and they led to the end of apartheid in South Africa. Using American weapons, Israel has just indiscriminately killed more than four times that number in Gaza. In 1960, there were 20 million black South Africans and today there are only one and a half million Palestinians in Gaza. So the first two days of the American-supported Israeli attempt to wipe out Hamas is sixty times as criminal as the Sharpeville massacre.

Mubarak’s actions make him complicit in International Crimes outlawed by Article 2 of the Convention on Genocide by assisting in the killing members of a specific ethnic group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

By sealing its border with Gaza and forcing back many Palestinians at gunpoint who were trying to escape the slaughter, Mubarak violates basic Islamic, Christian and Judaic morality that requires that he open the cork of the bottle and let these men, women and children live. So does international law. Otherwise he is actively responsible and complicit in Israel’s project of creating a situation where Palestinians, in Rafael Eitan’s infamous phrase, “will only be able to scurry around like drugged roaches in a bottle.”

By denying the possibility of a broad range of necessities – food, cooking or heating oil, water, electricity, shelter, medicines, for a population unable to be self-sufficient at the end of decades of occupation, and locking them inside Gaza in a blazing holocaust, amidst millions of gallons of untreated sewage is criminal conduct: Mubarak is complicit.

Oh mightiest Pharaoh, Let My People Go!

By forcing Palestinians from Gaza back into killing fields and subjecting them to massive collective punishment, Mubarak is in flagrant violation of international humanitarian law as laid down in Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

On Monday morning, Israeli planes bombed a mosque. The house next to the mosque collapsed and inside, five sisters aged 2 to 10 years old were killed. Mubarak is helping Israel turn Gaza into a modern version of the Warsaw ghetto.

By slamming and sealing the life saving escape route Mubrak signs on to the effects of the scorn of international revulsion, the genocide, the political objective, the empirical objectives of Western dominance of the Middle East for a Greater Israel alongside an Egyptian Kingdom, the religious fanaticism, the psychopathology and the indiscriminate brutality and ruthlessness.

Mubarak’s actions make him complicit in International Crimes outlawed by Article 2 of the Convention on Genocide by assisting in the killing members of a specific ethnic group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Some believe Egypt’s President went further. London-based newspaper al-Quds al-Arabi quote sources who say Egyptian intelligence minister deliberately misled the Palestinian organization about IDF intentions. Hamas sources say this is why movement’s compounds were not evacuated: “Egypt collaborated with Israel in its Gaza attack and lulled Hamas into thinking the Israel Defense Forces would not attack Gaza”, Al Quds al-Arabi claimed in the report, based on Arab diplomatic sources, that Egyptian Intelligence Minister Omar Suleiman told a number of Arab leaders that Israel was intending to attack the Gaza Strip in a limited manner in order to pressure the Palestinian organization into agreeing to a renewed ceasefire.

Hamas sources close to former Palestinian Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar also reported that Egypt told Hamas on Friday evening that Israel had agreed to begin negotiations about a potential ceasefire and would not attack Gaza before Cairo had attempted to settle the issue.

These sources noted that, in general, Hamas’ internal ministry orders the evacuation of its security compounds following any Israeli threat of operative action. They had not done so this time based on Egypt’s assurance that Israel wouldn’t attack and based on the assumption that an IDF attack would not be launched on Saturday.

Colluding with Israel, the Bush administration and the Palestinian Authority in this aggression toward the Palestinians of Gaza, Mubarak reminds one of the Jews who served the Nazis as capos inside the ghettos of German controlled Europe during World War II, their baksheeh being that that they will be the last to be destroyed.

Hasan Nasrallah has reminded the Egyptian people of their duty, and once it becomes widely known that Mubarak cooperated with Israel as an adjunct of its colonial army in the assault against Gaza he may be deposed as un-redeemable. Rejecting the Resistance to Zionism, Mubarak invites Revolution.

UPDATE: Lebanon reacts to the Gaza Massacre

Lebanon has witnessed no fewer than 30 demonstrations and day and night student vigils against the Gaza slaughter during the past 72 hours. Tens of thousands of people massed in the southern suburbs of Beirut and packed the surrounding streets for a Hezbollah-led protest rally yesterday, calling for support for Gaza as it underwent its third day of Israeli attacks. Three more demonstrations are planned for this evening.

Sunday saw a joint Fatah-Hamas demonstration that included Osama Hamdan and Fatah’s Abass Zaki outside the UN HQ known as ESCWA (Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia). Hezbollah plans daily demonstrations until Gaza is free according to its Media Office.

All alongside countless smaller manifestations composed of smaller groups, boy and girl scouts from various confessions, individuals, shopkeepers, and increased attendance in Mosques and Churches, some of the latter ringing bells, throughout Lebanon.

The sewage and rain flooded alleys of Beirut’s Palestinian Refugee Camps, Shatila, Burj Burajneh and the smaller Mar Elias Camp, are filled with equally steadfast refugees in support of their countrymen to the south.

* Franklin Lamb, an international lawyer and researcher, currently based in Beirut, drafted, for HOKOK, the International Coalition against Impunity, its Complaint/Submission filed, on December 10, 2008, the 60th Anniversary of the signing of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights with the Internationally Criminal Court in The Hague. The Case charges Israel with continuing Rome Statue International crimes in Gaza and throughout Occupied Palestine. In January 2009 HOKOK will petition the ICC to include Mohammad Hosni Mubarak as an additional defendant in the Case.

We in Hezbollah want to demonstrate to our adversaries and doubters what we can achieve for our fellow Lebanese and our Palestinian brothers and sisters and to show them that our Party is 10% about military matters and 90% about ending corruption and improving the quality of lives of all who live in Lebanon. We will offer the voters a clear choice and they will decide. If we win, our friends and foes alike can observe and evaluate our achievements and then work with us on a basis of mutual respect, dialogue, and cooperation if they so choose or, if we fail, vote our deputies out of Parliament. We must respect their decision.

– Zeinab, a Hezbollah supporter studying at the American University of Beirut 12 September 2008

Lebanon’s 2009 election campaign is underway!

As this note is written, Hezbollah election strategists are meeting nearby studying, analyzing, debating and formularizing plans for Lebanon’s make or break 2009 elections. That poll, if it happens, may determine the foreseeable future of Lebanon and is arguably this fractured country’s most important referendum since the French more on less left in 1943.

The Hezbollah-led opposition may become the solid majority in Parliament following next May’s election, taking as many as 70 of the 128 up-for-grab Deputy Seats.

Some in the March 14 current majority will join Hezbollah out of self interest. Others will try to use the election to eliminate rivals and gather the confetti and posters from the 2005 “cedar revolution.” Others may, following the election, retire from politics. And some of Lebanon’s old soldiers and chieftains like Michel Aoun and Amin Gemayel will likely never officially retire but will slowly fade away with their boots on and waiting for the call to serve yet again.

The Hunt for Votes

As recently as this week, given the publicity over the 26th Anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre, Samir Geagea apologized at a campaign rally for “mistakes” committed by members of his party :

“I fully apologize for all the past mistakes that we committed when we were carrying out our national duties,” he said, with a straight face, avoiding direct comment on the Sabra-Shatila Massacre and gliding over the slaughter and presumable “mistakes” of raping and cutting open pregnant women and bashing in the heads of babies. Geagea did not explain to those whose votes he is seeking which part of “our national duties” such acts “carried out”.

Running on an undisguised anti-Hezbollah plank, and seeking to push his rival Amin Gemayel aside in order to motivate and unify the younger Phalange and Kateib elements, Samir declared: “I ask God to forgive us and so I ask the people whom we hurt [evidently the victims of the Sabra-Shatila slaughter and their surviving relatives who received no compensation from the state or from any other source] in the past to forget.”

He added, “I want to tell those who are exploiting our past mistakes [read: such acts as commemorating the 26th Anniversary of the Massacre on September 16, 2008 at Martyr's Square, Shatila Camp and distribution of student laptops to deprived Palestinian children] to stop doing so because only God can judge us,” he concluded.

Yes we can!

With its power at its apex—inside and outside of Lebanon—many Hezbollah members are excited at the prospect of finally being able to demonstrate what the Party is all about.

Some pro-Hezbollah voters are happy to learn the results of the just-released Chicago Council on Global Affairs poll. The poll found that by a majority of 51 to 43 percent American citizens now believe their country’s leaders should talk with the leaders of Hezbollah. Eighty-three percent of Americans—including 81 percent of Republicans and 88 percent of Democrats—think that improving their nation’s standing internationally should be a “very important” foreign policy goal.

It’s the Economy, Stupid!

It is common to hear in the Halifee Sandwich shop in Haret Hreik, or at various 2006 July War commemoration events, comments like “some of our former adversaries are in for a surprise—and we want to make it a pleasant surprise!”

The reference is to the “human face of Hezbollah” which some are urging be presented. One Hezbollah member studying at the American University of Beirut explained: “Of course we are good at beating up the Zionist thieves of Palestine but there is much more to our social movement that we can do for our Country. Like stop the decades of corruption by Lebanese officials, help the Palestinians, fix the electric, water, telephone systems, get some traffic laws enforced and address the need for a social security system that serves all of Lebanon and improve the education system. And how about a real health care system?”

“There are an awfully lot of New Dealers among Hezbollah advisors”, according to one member of the Party’s politburo.

Hezbollah Burnishes Its image: Contrition with a Plea for Patience and Understanding

Some political observers of Lebanon believe that if there is relative peace in the country, Hezbollah will do very well in the coming polling and that this will be good for the Palestinians. Others, including many in Hezbollah, think maintaining the current calm may not be easy given intensified efforts by those working to cause turmoil.

Space only allows for a brief mention of the fact that in the run-up to the coming election, Hezbollah has been trying to reduce doubts about last May’s image-damaging bloody events. Hezbollah is reaching out to undecided voters and has participated in the following initiatives:

• A flow of Hezbollah offers for dialogue addressed all the factions in Lebanon and giving high priority to last week’s presidential-sponsored dialogue, the next session of which is scheduled to be held on November 5, the day after the US Presidential election.
• Hezbollah’s Politburo member Mahmoud Qmati and other Party leaders have been calling for the launching of “a new era” based on “forgetting the past, despite all its pain and wounds.”
• Hezbollah has refrained from boasting about its victory in achieving the new Lebanese policy statement which allows (for the time being– pending the 2009 election) Hezbollah to keep its weapons, and underlines the “right of Lebanon’s people, army, and resistance (referring to Hezbollah’s military wing) to liberate Israeli-occupied areas and “defend the country using all legal and possible means.”
• Working on maintaining the fragile peace that it helped broker between the majority and opposition on May 21 in Doha, Qatar, leading to the creation of a unity Cabinet, in which the opposition achieved veto power over Government decisions.
• Hezbollah is also working on setting up a substantive meeting(s) with the leader of the March 14th alliance leader Saad Hariri through the efforts of Hizbullah’s coordination liaison and coordination committee head Wafik Safa. On September 7, Hasan Nasrallah announced that Hezbollah “recognizes the popular representation of the Future Movement within the Sunni community and we are ready to cooperate with them provided there were no preconditions.” Executive Council chief Hashem Safieddine or deputy leader Sheikh Naim Qassem will likely head the Hezbollah delegation. Meetings during 2004 and 2005 between Saad’s father Rafiq and Hasan Nasarallah are thought to have been positive for the Country.
• Hezbollah’s Wafik Safa has been working on achieving a entente with Walid Jumblatt, leader of the Druze Progressive Socialist Party.
• In an important public relations move, aimed at improving relations with the Sunni community, Hezbollah has made the decision to create a new department of Arab relations. The purpose of the new unit is to “monitor the party’s relations in the Arab homeland with the different forces, parties, popular groups, and elites, as well as with the governments with which Hezbollah has relations or with which it is going to establish relations.” These developments come in the context of structural modifications that Hezbollah has decided to implement in light of developments that have occurred since the July-August 2006 War. Hassan Azzadine, a member of the Hizbullah politburo, will likely preside over the department.
• On 8/18/08 the head of Hezbollah’s political council, Sayyed Ibrahim Amin al-Sayyed signed a Memorandum of Understanding with 14 Tripoli based Lebanese Sunni Salifist groups (Tripoli is Pro-Saad Hariri-but becoming restive and his support is softening. Hezbollah wants to prevent civil strife in the area following the May incidents which some writers, including Al Akbar’s Al-Amine, have written witnessed the collapse of the infrastructure of the Future Movement). The Sunni and Shia signatories pledged that both sides would work together to stop Sunni-Shia incitement and bloodletting and would continue Muslim dialogue. This bold initiative was too much for the Welch Club which moved quickly to force a ‘temporary freeze’ by encouraging the pro-US March 14 “ruling team.” Cash and threats were allegedly quickly exchanged and suddenly one of the key signatories from the Sunni Salifist side “got religion” following his uncle’s “displeasure” and claimed perhaps further study of the issue was prudent. Others have claimed that massive pressures were exerted by security bodies on the Salafist forces who signed the agreement and contacts were made by regional sides to create a front to undermine this understanding.

The Bush Administration does not feel its interests are well served by Shia-Sunni peace whether in Iraq or Lebanon. Still, the fact that the MOU was negotiated and signed demonstrates to Lebanon’s electorate that Hezbollah is reaching out to all fellow Muslims in the coming election, even their takferi “kafer labeling” nemeses who view Shia—and basically all but themselves—as heretics.

• Apologized for the shooting and killing of the Lebanese Army helicopter pilot Captain Samer Hanna and sent a delegation to meet with his family. Hezbollah Sec-Gen Nasrallah expressed condolences to the family, saying: “I address the father of the martyr Samer Hanna, and send you my deepest condolences.”
• In a bid to prevent armed incidents in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s number two Sheikh Naim Qassem recently asked Lebanese immigrants who support Hezbollah in its struggle against Israel “to respect the laws and policies of their host countries and know that the fight against Israel should take place in Lebanon and not anywhere else.” Qassem told a delegation of Lebanese immigrants in Dahiyeh that “Our brother emigrants should be aware that they are not supposed to be fighting Israel in their host countries, especially that these countries are not occupied by Israel.”
• Separate reconciliation talks were already held last Monday between Hezbollah and Mr Jumblatt, following the assassination in a car bombing of a senior member of a rival Druze party allied with Hezbollah.

Despite conciliatory initiatives such as the above, it’s been a tough, intense and pressured spring and summer for the Hezbollah led Lebanese Resistance.

Indeed, these past 24 months since the end of the July 2006 “hot war” Hezbollah has again had to play defense to Bush Administration-Israeli attacks, this time in the form of a sustained “cold war” of dozens of projects aimed at weakening Hezbollah’s resolve, discrediting its message, attempting to scare its supporters and with dire threats of bombing “of all of Lebanon” if Hezbollah wins, all the while facilitating and excusing Israeli violations of UNSCR 1701.

In addition to countless threats from Washington and Tel Avi , on average of twice a week over the past 104, local friends of the Welch Club continue to dutifully, and sometimes on cue by monitored instructions from abroad, disparage the Party.

A Page from a 1960s US Presidential Campaign Playbook

Hezbollah has done its best to counter what it considers mis/disinformation attacks with what some local observers have come to refer to as Hezbollah’s “Defense Department.” This moniker, coined by an American researcher in Dahiyeh, refers to Hezbollah’s “boiler room” operation similar to what was first seen in American politics during the 1968 Robert Kennedy Presidential Campaign and which is now standard fare for every major US political campaign.

Hezbollah’s Defense Department works in Lebanon as follows. When attacks on the Lebanese Resistance are unleashed in the media Hezbollah’s Defense Department morphs into rapid response mode. Its Media Relations Office, well known to the international media for its work during the 33 days of Israeli bombing of Lebanon, may quickly issue a rebuttal, or one of Hezbollah’s 7 members of Parliament or one or more of its political allies will respond quickly with detailed information contradicting, clarifying, or exposing what Hezbollah considers erroneous or scurrilous attacks. A recent example was the other day when Hezbollah quickly denied false reports about deployment of members of its armed units and missiles in Sannine mountain, terming them lies. A statement released by Hezbollah’s media office said the March 14 “forces have adopted a policy of lie, lie and lie until people believe you.”

Some seasoned Lebanese-based journalists claim Hezbollah’s Defense Department is the most efficient media relations unit of its kind in the Middle East, second only to the international Zionist narrative juggernaut.

Long discredited claims are still heard from time to time when its adversaries need to score political points at its expense, such as that if Hezbollah wins next spring’s election it will impose an Iran style Islamic Republic, discriminate against non Shia, or repress women. Yet anyone living in Hezbollah’s society quickly learns that women not only control decision making and events in the three key rooms in their homes, the kitchen, children’s room and bedroom, but that they are the key pillars in the Party administration social programs.

In the face of these efforts to discredit it, Hezbollah is preparing with gusto for next year’s crucial Parliamentary elections from which it and its allies, including a majority of Lebanon’s Christians and significant Sunni and Druze supporters, hope to win and end what many Hezbollah members consider the US-Israel control of Lebanon’s government. It would also re-codify the right of the Lebanese Resistance to retain its military prowess pending the new government’s decision on exactly how the Islamic Resistance and Lebanon’s fledgling army will work together to defend Lebanon from foreign projects.

On the Hustings

On any given day, several key Hezbollah members are on the campaign trail. A recent and typical Sunday saw Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassim in Hermel in the Bekaa telling supporters that the Party wants to reach out to all the confessions with dialogue and partnership to build a prosperous Lebanon that can defend itself against Israeli aggression. Shortly Nawaf Musawi, one of Hezbollah most effective and popular speakers, and a favorite with visiting American and Western delegations, was in Eita Shaab and Nabiteyeh rallying Hezbollah voters and discussing Hezbollah’s position on various issues.

On September 21, 2008, Mohammad Fneish, Hezbollah leader, Member of Parliament and Lebanon’s Labor Minister, who led Hezbollah successful support for raising Lebanon’s minimum wage which was announced this week, told voters that dialogue meetings should discuss means of protecting Lebanon and complement the process of liberating the currently occupied territories. During an Iftar banquet in the Southern port city of Tyre, Fneish said Hizbullah’s weapons should not be considered a problem because the resistance “gave a meaning and a value to the state.” Fneish said that international concern about Lebanon was intended to restore Israel’s dignity after the achievements of the resistance during the summer 2006 war. He said Hizbullah would “seriously discuss all issues “because Hezbollah’s agenda does not contradict that of the state.”

Other Party members were preparing for the coming election by checking voting lists, vetting candidates, honing the Party’s message to skeptical and undecided voters and urging the Party faithful to fulfill their national duty and show up at the voting booths on election day.

A pastry chef at the Patisserie across from Shatila Camp explained that Hezbollah is eager to have the voters decide such issues as “whether Lebanon remains a resistance state or yields to current US administration-Israel projects.”

If Hezbollah and its allies become the majority in the next Parliament and thus the government, it will be, according to the young Shia woman, Nala, who works in the Western Union office next to the Palestine Red Crescent Akka Hosptial “for the new US administration to decide to either recognize the poll results in Lebanon and honor its countless pledges to support the will of Lebanon’s voters or once again dump a democratically elected government in the Middle East in favor of supporting the collapsing colonial enterprise still occupying Palestine.” Ali, her fiancé and co-worker added, “Internationally, there is not much left but ridicule for the US Zionist-Neocon “New Middle East Democracy” project, but it is not quite dead yet, fueled as it is with hundreds of millions of dollars for its foot soldiers and supportive mercenaries.”

After the election will we get normal electricity, water, Internet, road repairs?

This observer has detected among Hezbollah friends a genuine excitement about the Party’s opportunity, as one Party member related to a meeting with visiting Americans: “We in Hezbollah want to demonstrate to our adversaries and doubters what we can achieve for our fellow Lebanese and to show them that our Party is 10% about military matters and 90% about ending corruption and improving the quality of lives of all who live in Lebanon. We will offer the voters a clear choice and they will decide. If we win, our friends and foes alike can observe and evaluate our achievements and then work with us on a basis of mutual respect, dialogue, and cooperation, or vote our deputies out of Parliament. We must respect their decision. We aim to restore true democracy, transparency and accountability for all Lebanese and as I think you know Hezbollah does not love the dysfunctional confessional system but we prefer one person one vote. The same that will eventually be achieved for Palestine. Personally I believe that as we prepare for a new government and hopefully real change, a new census would be good. It has been about 76 years since the last one.”

Speculation is increasing regarding Hezbollah’s economic program for Lebanon but the Party is keeping the wraps on until it is finetuned in the coming weeks. Hasan Nasrallah has made plain that the Hezollah platform will focus on social and economic issues, including education.

Before getting up from an outdoor cafe table, next to a group of Madhi Boy Scouts returning from a clean up a beach outing and from a long discussion about next year’s election, one Hezbollah organizer leaned over and whispered, in an apparent reference to a particular US Presidential candidate, “Yes we can!”. He winked and gave a thumbs up as he vanished into the unlit southern Beirut night.

So what’s in it for Hezbollah if they help the Palestinians?

Much will no doubt be written about Hezbollah’s electoral prospects and program during the coming months, but one issue which Hezbollah is being lobbied on is improving the conditions of Lebanon’s approximately 405,000 Palestinians (more than 10% of Lebanon’s population), half of whom live as pariahs in 12 currently baking Palestinian Refugee Camps which will become fetid and swampy with fall rains.

Some Lebanese electoral strategists are advising Hezbollah “not to touch this sure loser constituency” for many reasons, not least of which is the fact that there is not one Palestinian vote to be had for Hezbollah in the coming election since Palestinians can’t vote. Others counsel that Hezbollah needs to broaden its base among Lebanon’s feuding 17 confessions, some of whom continue to blame the Palestinians for many of their woes. Still others have warned Hezbollah and to play down its vocal opposition to the US-Israel project of naturalizing the Palestinians in countries where they have been forced to settle.

Additionally, it is not forgotten that the PLO for years ran roughshod over many Shia in South Lebanon during its “state within a state” Rambo days. Some bitter Palestinian feelings also remain toward the Shia (Amal-on behalf of anti-Arafat Syria) attacks and widespread destruction and killing of more than 3,000 Palestinians during the 1986-89 ‘Camp Wars.’ While Hezbollah refused to join the brutal assault on the camp Palestinians and worked to end it, other anti-Palestinian sentiments persist among some Shia from personal loses deemed to have been caused by PLO ‘hoodlums’ between the late 1970’s and 1982.

Both groups appear willing to let bygones be bygones and Hezbollah is serious about its Islamic duty to help the Palestinians. Some in Hezbollah even argue that the Sunni PLO remains the step-mother of Shia Hezbollah. Did not the PLO train Iranian Islamist dissidents years before the successful 1979 Khomeini Revolution? Weren’t Khomeini and Arafat close? Was it not the PLO’s Abu Jihad (assassinated on the orders of Ariel Sharon exactly 6 years to the day, April 16, 1988 of the 1982 Massacre) who helped Islamist groups with weapons as the PLO prepared to sail from Beirut’s ports in late August of 1982? Some of Hezbollah’s key members had previously fought with the PLO. Some still feel a sense of nostalgia for “the good old days” of their adolescence.

As Hezbollah Secretary General Hasan Nassarallah has often stated, the Party has a moral, religious, and political duty to help return Lebanon’s Palestinian Refugees to their stolen lands.

The response to the massacre at Sabra-Shatila was for the resistance to become active in Lebanon. If the Lebanese people had given up on the resistance, they too would have been complicit in the massacres of Qana and Sabra and Shatila.

– Hasan Nassallah June 4, 2002

We renew our pledge to Jerusalem, to the Palestinians, and to the cause and Imam of Jerusalem; their city will forever remain in our souls, and will continue to be our cause, our battle, and our ultimate objective.

– Hasan Nassallah October 28, 2005

The fundamental consequences of the 1982 Massacre at Sabra-Shatila and the founding of Hezbollah are two seismic events from the same time and place which some argue are locked in a swirling expanding embrace that will return Palestine to the Palestinians.

In fewer than 45 minutes following the explosion in Islamabad at the 315-room Marriott Hotel during the Ramadan Iftar mealtime, Saturday, Hezbollah security units nearly invisibly secured the area of the 162-room Beirut Marriott Hotel. One of the embassies they secured was that of Palestine, which opened last year.

The security precautions were less out of love for the Bush administration, which the movement and increasing numbers internationals consider a rogue terrorist regime, or love for the Zionist-owned hotel chain, than the fact that the Marriott is within one of Hezbollah’s densely populated base areas. Dahiyeh, which includes several southern Beirut neighborhoods, often erroneously referred to as “suburbs,” is less than a mile from the Palestinian refugee area known as Sabra-Shatila.

Hezbollah works regularly to intercept elements openly boasting of or secretly planning on attacking its neighborhoods. Some being watched and infiltrated are Al Qaida inspired Sunni Salafist cells, who consider Shia Hezbollah more their enemy than they do the US or Israeli governments. Contrary to brother Robert Fisk’s recent reports, these groups are indeed growing in Lebanon and inside the Palestinian Camps, particularly Ain el Helwe, Bedawi. They are trying to launch in the so far peaceful camps near Tyre. This observer would agree with Fisk that it will not be easy for Al Qaida to find enough supporters and adherents of the Salafi-Jihadi ideology to challenge the strength of Hezbollah’s well-organized partisans. Yet, no fewer than 11 Al Qaida-inspired groups, eager to destabilize Lebanon, and sometimes related to US-Israel projects, have been organizing according to Palestinian Popular Committee Representatives inside the Camps. Some of their goals are being telegraphed by the rising campaign of threats coming from their sometime-sponsors in Tel Aviv and Washington.

The Angry Bear Returns to the Levant: From Russia with Love

When the rest of the story is able to be told concerning what really was happening during the late April and early May events in West Beirut, the facts will support a very different conclusion than the narrative offered by the Welch Club. Researchers expect to elucidate contents of ten and one half hours of taped conversations between Washington and its Lebanese surrogates. Conversations are referred to during a meeting between Hezbollah’s number two, Sheifk Naim Qassim, and a former US Ambassador with his American delegation during a July 2008 dialogue in Dahiyeh. A full report of the May events will also document details of what is known by many here, that every incoming and outgoing communication at the US Embassy is carefully monitored, analyzed and contemplated. The same with Israeli Sunday Cabinet meetings.

This week the Israeli Army’s Information Security Chief, Colonel Ram Dor, complained in the Israeli newspaper, Yediot Ahronot (Latest News) that Russia is relaying intelligence information to Hezbollah. Dor said Russian Navy spy ships and Russian personnel serving at monitoring stations on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights carry out intercept and hacking missions and relay Israeli secrets to Hezbollah.

“My evaluation is that such facilities can cover most of Israel’s territory,” Dor said.

The US intelligence unit in the American Embassy in Beirut also blames the hacking and sharing of its ‘most secured communications’ on the Russians while others claim its tit-for-tat for what the Mossad and CIA did early last year in Georgia.

US Embassy Internet security experts are unclear to what extent the Russian military is directly responsible for “communication compromises,” but they claim that the traffic patterns and servers used in the operation are definitely coming out of Russia and result from increased Russian activity in the Middle East.

Some in Beirut speculate that this explains why the meticulously planned US-Israeli “May Surprise” turned out to be a “May Surprise” for its sponsors and their local teammates, who were dropped like a bad habit when the project imploded.

To counter this problem, the US Defense Intelligence Agency’s newly created Defense Counterintelligence and Human Intelligence Center is authorized for the first time to carry out “strategic offensive counterintelligence operations” in Lebanon and against any group anywhere which the Bush administration considers “terrorist,” according to Mike Pick of the DEA, who will direct the program.

Covert offensive operations will be carried out in Lebanon and abroad against people known or suspected to be connected to foreign intelligence or international terrorist activities, according to Toby Sullivan, Director of Counterintelligence for James R. Clapper, Jr., the Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

According to Walter Pincus, who covers counterintelligence for the Washington Post, these sensitive, clandestine operations are “tightly controlled departmental activities run by a small group of specially selected people” within the Defense Department. The new unit is designed to thwart what groups like Hezbollah might be trying to do to us and to learn more about what they’re trying to get from us,” Sullivan said. In the case of “terrorists,” the object would be to identify people who might be “trying to do harm, collect information about us, and keep them from doing that. So far we don’t know if Hezbollah is trying to do anything to us but we will watch them,” he stated.

“You stop, we stop,” is the Putin offer to the next US administration, according to Congressional staff sources on the US Senate Intelligence Committee. Many in power in Moscow also consider the Bush administration a “terrorist cabal” and are awaiting the November election results, hoping Obama wins.

The Student Laptops and the KKK Kid

Hours before the Marriott was attacked in Pakistan, Fairouz Husseini sat with her girlfriends in the courtyard outside Haifa Middle School across the road from Shatila Refugee Camp, which is administered by UNWRA in Bir Hassan. Fairouz and her friends were giddy two days after receiving laptops at the 26th Anniversary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre Memorial.

“I love it! I can’t believe it’s mine to keep!” Fairouz exclaimed as she protectively dusted off the pale green cover of her new XO laptop, and recorded an interview with the screen sized video and built-in camera. The XO laptop is part of an advanced teaching tool developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology that some believe can revolutionize education in developing countries.

“That American man told us that if we used it properly it would open the doors to the Great Library of Alexandria for us and we can learn as much as any student at the best schools anywhere in the World!” she added.

Amal, a very loquacious 13-year-old friend of Fairouz chimed in, “We are making a laptop club at our school. We call it: Learn for our Return! Is that a good name? What do you think? Our friend Ahmad says it’s a silly idea. Anyway, Ahmad does not behave properly and is sort of wild. He is what we call a KKK kid — Kalashnikov, Kassem and Katyusha. Anyhow, most students in the camps are peaceful and we want to rebuild our country when we go back and we need lots of knowledge to do it!”

Fairouz and her Ramadan-fasting pals were already out of school for the day even though it was not yet noon. Lebanon’s camp Palestinians are severely challenged by a shortened school day due to overcrowding. On average around there are 35, but sometimes there are as many as 50 students per class, and because UNWRA must run two shifts daily. Student and teacher absenteeism is high, standards are low, text books insufficient, infrastructure poor, and dropout rates increasing.

Of the 59 Palestinian camps in the Levant (Syria, Jordan, Palestine and Lebanon) only the camp schools in Gaza are as bad, indeed worse, as those in Lebanon.

Gaza Director of the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) John Ging reports that up to 60 percent of Gazan children at UNRWA schools had failed their math exams last year, while 40 percent failed their Arabic exams at the beginning of the year.

UNRWA provides schooling for Palestinian refugee children from grade 1 through 9, but offers limited secondary education and, as in Lebanon, these schools are forced to operate double shifts due to overcrowding. “Many children come to school hungry and unable to concentrate,” according to Ging.

Haifa Fahmi al-Agha, the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) Education Ministry’s Director General in the Gaza Strip, has documented that failure rates at schools in Gaza were deliberately lowered the past few years to cope with overcrowded classrooms, too few schools and limited educational funds. The same “lowering of the bar” trend is creeping into Palestinian schools in Lebanon.

Shatila Camp, as well as its sister, Burj al Baraneh, is located in Ghouberi Municipality, whose Council is now controlled by Hezbollah, whose party members won all 21 Council seats in both the 1998 and 2004 elections. Hezbollah security protects the whole area around Shatila Camp, and Haifa and other Palestinian Schools with their Shia, Sunni and Christian students. The Sabra-Shatila area is an increasingly close-knit area bringing together the Sunni Palestinians and the Shia Hezbollah.

More than 90% of Lebanon’s Palestinian students interviewed recently, in an admittedly unscientific poll, appear to believe that Hezbollah holds out their best hope to return to Palestine, and insist their parents would vote for Hezbollah in next year’s critical election if Palestinians were allowed to vote in Lebanon.

Before leaving for home, Fairouz introduced this observer to her lovely mother, Nour. Nour is a community organizer who had come to collect her daughter. She elaborated on why the Sunni and partially secular Palestinian community of Bir Hasan (where the first killers assembled 26 years ago before being sent into the Camp) have come to support the Shia Party of God despite a sometimes troubled past relationship.

The Non-ID Issue and Palestinian Gratitude

Besides shared values regarding education, Hezbollah supports the project that is now finally happening to give Palestinians identification cards for the first time.

“This is so important to our people in Lebanon. Actually Hezbollah worked quietly with Prime Minister Siniora’s people to achieve this much needed progress,” the community organizer explained. “They do a lot for us but they don’t announce it to the public so much.”

Many Palestinians credit pressure and dialogue from Hezbollah with the announcement last month that the government of Lebanon will finally issue temporary identification cards to perhaps as many as 5000 Palestinian families (around 20,000 individuals) who have no documents and who habitually hide from the authorities or risk imprisonment. PM Fouad Siniora, in bed with the Bush Administration, wins kudos for his work on this issue. Siniora appears to reject the Bush-Cheney and Israeli intense antipathy toward Resistance-supporting Palestinians.

The Lebanese authorities have thus agreed after 40 years to give temporary ID cards to “non-ID” Palestinian refugees. Palestinians without any ID documents are subject to more capricious treatment by authorities than those holding UNWRA ID or Ration Cards or NR (”Non Registered”) cards.

Most non-ID Palestinians are either former “Fedayeen” or descendants of the Palestinian fighters who came to Lebanon in the 1970s after being driven from Jordan during the “Black September” conflict with the Jordanian monarchy.

To qualify for the new IDs these individuals need to get a residence notice from a Mukhtar and submit it to the Lebanese General Security. The Non-ID card will help settle the legal status of thousands of Palestinians living in Lebanon and is about the only good news for the Palestinians here since their PLO protectors left Beirut in 1982, when the camp’s steep descent into misery accelerated. Lebanon’s new PLO “Embassy,” which was allowed to open in May of 2006, has already received 2,600 names of applicants.

Like all Palestinians, the new ID-holders will still not be allowed to work in professional vocations or to own property, but at least their marriages will be legally registered and, theoretically, they can no longer be rounded up by the authorities at whim.

Sidon Mukhtar Mohammad Baasiri explained that dozens of Palestinians were flocking into his office on a daily basis seeking IDs. “I have hundreds of applications from Palestinians who want to get a residence notice as a starting point toward getting an ID,” Mukhtar Bassiri noted.

Over the past two years, more than 350 non-ID refugees had been arrested in Sidon alone and more than 200 students were denied the right to access its schools and universities. To its everlasting credit, UNRWA often allows non-ID children to “sneak” into its schools — but they cannot pass their examinations at age 18 and gain qualifications because that requires legal papers. As reported by Daily Star’s Fayez Najjar, an unregistered Palestinian father of 14 children from Ein el Helwe Camp explained that his sons had been arrested for lack of ID several times as they stepped outside the autonomous security system of Palestinian-controlled camps. Hezbollah is credited with helping advance this project.

Fatima Khalife’s Quadruplets and Hasan Nasrallah

This is another example of Hezbollah “good neighborliness” mentioned by Hajjah Nour, which this observer had actually learned about earlier while conducting research in Mar Elias Camp in Beirut.

Many foreigners may not be familiar with the 6000-resident Mar Elias Palestinian Refugee Camp located just to the Northwest of Sabra and Shatila. It is small, one of the original camps set up in 1948. It is heavily made up by Christians from Nazarath and surrounded by Gulf-funded high rise construction projects. Salivating investors eye its boundaries and prime location near the sandy beach of Ramlet al Baida and Hamra.

Last month, this observer, en route to an appointment inside the Camp, was negotiating the sharp turns of alleys so narrow and dark that they have likely never been warmed by direct sunlight, barely enough space to advance along on a motorcycle.

Suddenly I noticed a gaggle of squealing pre-teens lining up for motorcycle rides and practicing their English with “hello!,” ‘how are you?,” “welcome!” The kids apparently recognized me and the trusty steed “Silver” from an earlier visit. But this time it was necessary to apologize and explain in very weak Arabic what “next time” meant because I was rushing to an appointment with a camp social worker, who told me yet another “Hezbollah story” which affords insight into the Party’s relationship with Palestinians in Lebanon:

On August 9, 2005, a Palestinian mother named Fatima Khalife gave birth to Quadruplets in Shatila Camp. One of the four babies, Omar, was very ill and not expected to live. He needed life-saving surgery and his family inquired at the nearby Safah Hospital. Being Palestinian, Lebanese law forbids any assistance from the National Social Security Fund, meager as it is. UNRWA contributed around $2000 and some local NGOs another $1,500. Still about $37,000 shy, the family was very happy when an article about the boy’s plight was published in the local daily, As Safir. Two wealthy humanitarian Lebanese women came forward and offered to help the infant by paying for his surgery.

The Palestinian community was ecstatic and prayed for success with the delicate operation. Shortly before the scheduled surgery, a call was received at the hospital business office that caused its cancellation. When it was learned that Omar is a Palestinian, the well-to-do Lebanese ladies, perhaps with memories of the civil war and lost loved ones, withdrew their offer of medical assistance.

Word of what happened circulated in the crestfallen community. A local TV station, New TV, ran a story about the Khalife family’s desperate plight as Omar’s brain infection took a virulent turn. Within minutes of the program being aired, the office of Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah called Omar’s father. Hezbollah said it would like to pay for the boy’s surgery and all subsequent expenses until the boy was well. And it did. Nasrallah had watched the program and was deeply moved. Today, Omar is healthy, sweet, rambunctious, beautiful, three years old who just learned how to press the ignition button and start a foreigner’s motorcycle.

Hezbollah cannot solve all the Palestinian’s problems in Lebanon pending their return to Palestine, but with no one to rely on but themselves, Palestinians appreciate enormously such gestures as saving Omar.

At the risk of over-simplification, one concludes that these kinds of “Robin Hood” stories have created a broad admiration for the Hezbollah-led Resistance in Lebanon’s Palestinian community — as do Hezbollah’s straight-dealing with the Shatila and Burj al Burajneh Camps in the Ghoberi Municipality, where it helps with infrastructural, sewer and water projects (probably against “the law” and wishes of many in Lebanon).

This is not to say that there are no lingering personal grudges within Lebanon’s Shia-Palestinian community from individuals who suffered at the hands of the other over the past four decades during the civil war and Zionist occupation. Yet, one Palestinian friend, Samer, a Mar Elias Camp social worker, reported that both communities want to let bygones be bygones. He points out that marriages between Shia and Sunni and Christian Palestinians are increasing (his wife is Shia). He also pointed out and that he personally has more Hezbollah friends than Palestinian, as he introduced me to his best friend, Ali, a Shia and Hezbollah party member.

Our Resistance continues, the Sacred Cause of all people of good will endures, and the Dream of our full Return shall never die!

– 14-year-old Fairouz Husseini, Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp

Martyr’s Square, Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp, Beirut, Lebanon — On September 16, 2008, at precisely 10:30 am, Fairouz Husseini and a gathering of survivors, relatives and friends of the Sabra-Shatila massacre victims, some foreign delegations, students, NGO representatives, a few government officials, dignitaries, and members of the Camp community will gather outside the Kuwaiti Embassy roundabout, on the edge of Shatila Palestinian Refugee Camp in Beirut, Lebanon.

Their assembly point will be less than 100 yards from where on September 16, 1982, Ariel Sharon, Gen. Raphael Eitan, Gen. Amos Yalon and their henchmen, Lebanese Phalange Intelligence operatives Elie Hobeika and Fadi Frem, had encouraged, organized, monitored, supplied, assisted directed and finally, when the World learned of the carnage, after 43 hours of carnage, initially denied knowing anything about it.

Hobeika, who former US Ambassador Robert Dillon, at his 8th floor desk at the Beirut Embassy when it was bombed on April 18, 1983, refers to as “a pathological killer” was providing a running commentary to his friends at his East Beirut Phalange Headquarters from atop the Kuwaiti Embassy. His Israeli sponsors were also present during one of the most barbaric massacres in history, gawking down into the Camp with binoculars and also perched atop the seven-storied former Kuwaiti Embassy, as they all monitored the killing, between sunset on Thursday 16 through midday on Saturday the 18th.

“I was in Austria at the time. I first heard about it as you did from the news bulletins”, Hobeika claimed for years during Media interviews, until he contemplated turning ‘States evidence’ against Sharon in the Belgium case filed on June 18, 200l. Belgium scrapped the case after US Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, told Belgium:

“It’s your goddamned Sharon Trial or NATO Headquarters, you choose!”

Once the word was out in Beirut bout that Hobeika was considering turning on Sharon, he was assassinated en route to his lawyers office on January 24, 2002, by a method very similar to that used against Hezbollah military commander Hajj Radwan (Imad Mughienh) last February (Interestingly, Forensic evidence of the Mughneih assassination, including his shoes, signature green cap, clothes and personal affects found in his pockets when he was killed, and now on display by Hezbollah in Nabetiyeh, near Sidon, Lebanon, establish that the bomb used to kill him was filled with unique BB sized pellets that sprayed throughout his body. The same with Hobeika.)

As the mid September 1982 chopping of camp residents with axes, disemboweling with knives, shootings with Israeli supplied silencers, hangings, burnings, live burials, and rapes entered its second day, the Beirut media started to hear ‘rumors’. Among the first heard from frantic women was that the Israeli forces were sealing the camps. It was learned three days later that this action was coordinated with the Phalange militia and the Israeli created army in South Lebanon named the “South Lebanon Army” (SLA), under the Command of Saad Haddad, and kept hundreds of women and children from fleeing for their lives. By the second morning (Saturday September 18), following several media and diplomatic inquiries, panic seized the Israeli command post and the organizers tried to cover up their project and flee the area.

The World was horrified at the spreading images and even US Envoy Richard Draper, who like many American officials in the current period of history grovel to the Israel lobby, until after leaving office when he became more ‘nuanced’, blamed Israel. “You sons of bitches! You were in control and you gave us your word” Draper roared to Sharon on Sunday September 19, 1982 according to Israeli military affairs writers, Ze’ef Schiff and Ehud Ya’ari.

It was journalist David Lamb who first wrote about the ‘walls of death’:

Entire families were slain. Groups consisting of 10-20 people were lined up against wall and sprayed with bullets. Mothers died while clutching their babies. All men appeared to be shot in the back. Five youths of fighting age were tied to a pickup truck and dragged through the street before being shot (LA Times, Sept. 20, 1982).

“False accusations like these” Israeli PM Menachem Begin, lectured reporters called into his office, “constitute a blood libel against every Jew, everywhere”, as he tried to dampen the international ground swell of accusations. Begin then added, “Goyim kill Goyim and they want to hang the Jews. We are the real victims”.

Fairouz, who did not know what either ‘blood libel’ or ‘Goyim’ meant, until this observer explained, will join the others assembled, on the short Memorial Walk to Martyr’s Square off Rue Sabra inside the 1982 killing field to pay her respects to the perished and receive a student laptop in a US citizen initiated project to raise the level of education in Palestinian classrooms.

According to one of the American organizers of the Sabra-Shatila Laptop Initiative that plans to distribute more than 200,000 laptops in Lebanon’s Palestinian Camps, to be used in a special Internet based teaching paradigm developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

“While it is true that this time the American Embassy rejected our request to sponsor even one laptop, citing budget shortfalls, hundreds will be distributed during the launching event at Sabra-Shatila on September 16th. Perhaps American taxpayers will encourage their government to assist later. Imagine the enormous educational benefit to disadvantaged Lebanese and Palestinian children here if the US government provided just one student laptop to Lebanon in 2008 for every cluster bomb dropped 2006″.

Fairouz, a completely sweet and charming child, whose grandparents were forced from their homes and into Refugee Camps in Lebanon in April of 1948, will join international delegates including nearly 50 from Italy alone, and American nurses who were witnesses to the barbarity and who worked in Camp hospitals at the time, and help release more than 1000 helium filled balloons, each meant to represent one person who was murdered or who disappeared during the carnage.

“I really hope the wind blows all the balloons into Palestine so maybe their souls can rest in Peace in their real homeland”, Fairouz says, while explaining how just three months ago, when new 30 inch diameter concrete sewage lines were laid six feet deep along Rue Sabra, the ‘main street’ ( or swamp, depending on the weather) of Shatila Camp, the workers uncovered yet more decomposed bodies and skeletons that no one but the killers, who nearly 20 years ago were given amnesty, knew were there.

“We think there are very likely still bodies all over this section of the camp”, Ahmad, the sewer project crew chief explains, as he gestures toward the entrance to the camp diagonal from AKKA hospital. “The killers were directed first into this area from across Kuwaiti Embassy road, the Bir Hasan neighborhood, and most of the first hours of killing took place in this area and then they fanned out from the main road here and from alleys along the Horst Tabet area, toward the East, West and North in the direction of Gaza Hospital and Shatila Mosque”.

Since being forced from their homes in Palestine starting in 1947-48, more than 120,000 Palestinians arrived in Lebanon and as of 1951, 106,800 had registered with the newly created International Institution, the UN Relief and Words Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA). Many Palestinians did not register with UNWRA because they supposed their emigration to be temporary or, being a proud people; they were too embarrassed to be seen accepting welfare.

Palestinians Forced into Lebanon: 1948-1969

Following initial post-Nakba humanitarian aid and solidarity extended by the Lebanese people, the Refugees soon became thought of as a burden, and at 94% Sunni, a threat to Lebanon’s delicately balanced National Pact. Starting in 1951, severe security restrictions were imposed to keep the Palestinians inside the camps including not being able to build housing, work or settle into new areas.

A pointed finger and the taunting words, “Those are refugees!” were images burned into the memories of the new arrivals and they remain, among many, to this day. Lebanese hatred toward the Palestinians increased and had it not been for the Gulf states during the 1950’s and 1960’s absorbing into their economies and workforce thousands of Palestinians who remitted cash to the Camps, many of the Palestinian families in Lebanon may not have survived.

Due to increased Israeli shelling and internal pressure four of the original 16 camps were destroyed including Nabatiyeh, Jisr al-basha, and Tel al Za’tar, with Dbayyeh Camp being partially destroyed. Today, some Palestinians inside Shatila explain that their families moved from Nabatiyeh to Tal al Za’tar to Shatila or Damour and finally from Damour to Shatila.

Pressure on the Refugees increased monthly with detentions without trial, and preventing movements between camps, even for family weddings or funerals, was becoming the norm in this period. Torture, collective punishments, random beatings on spurious grounds by the notorious Deuxieme Bureau, increased.

From Welcoming to Wanting Them Out

The Palestinian Refugee File was transferred from humanitarian agencies to the Ministry of the Interior on March 30, 1959 and in conjunction with Presidential decree, No. 927, on the same date, the Lebanese government targeted Palestinians with military cadres who brutally enforced the sprit and the letter of the scheme which was aimed at surveillance, control of refugees’ movements, political association, and complete neglect of the Refugees socio-economic needs.

One Shatila Massacre survivor summarized for this observer the period of the 1950’s and 1960’s:

The Deuxieme Bureau came more than once and arrested my father, beat him in front of our eyes and took him away. To say the truth, we Palestinian Refugees suffered a lot…until the Revolution came.

1970-1982 Lebanon: ‘A garden without a fence for Palestinian refugees’

The second period, from 1970-1982 saw the rise of Palestinian resistance organizations and the Cairo Agreement which gave the Palestinians some dignity until the latter Treaty was abrogated by the Lebanese Parliament in 1989.

The growth of the Palestine Liberation Organization following Black September in 1970 provided a relative economic boon and increased security for the Refugees in Lebanon. Given the power of the PLO, the social, health, education, housing (for the first time Refugees could ‘legally’ build more than one level to their homes), and the employment situation increased dramatically.
Camp Boom Towns

A general prosperity began in Shatila and the other camps, which included asphalting of Rue Sabra, sewer lines added in 1975 and a doubling the number of schools. Norway and Denmark, as well as other countries and Palestinian popular committees such as women’s and labor unions, encouraged the growth of cottage industries and ’solidarity’ projects.

Also alleviating pressure were some wealthy ‘Gulf Palestinians’ who invested in the Camps and Palestinians working abroad who remitted cash to their families. With the PLO covering their backs, Palestinians were able to realize many more civil rights. 1970-1982 was arguably the ‘best’ period for many Refugees during their 60 years in Lebanon.

1982-2008

Still controversial 26 years later, the fateful PLO decision to depart Lebanon in late August 1982

Israel’s occupation of nearly half of Lebanon, some 801 villages, the siege of Beirut, the departure of the PLO fighters and the collapse of PLO funded institutions left the Palestinians completely unprotected and marked the beginning of their most precipitous decline since their arrival in Lebanon.

This observer witnessed on August 8, 1982 one intense exchange on the subject of whether the PLO should leave, between the late Janet Lee Stevens, an American journalist, researcher, and Burj al Barjneh Camp volunteer, and Yassir Arafat (Abu Ammar). The confrontation took place in one of Arafat’s bunkers in the Fakahani District near Arab University. It was around 8:30 am, on what later became known as Black Thursday, that Janet insisted on going to see ‘the old man’ about something that had been bothering her for days.

As Makmoud Labidi, in 1982 the Press Relations Director for the PLO,( Makmoud, later broke with Arafat partly over the departure which he strongly opposed and 15 years later he and Arafat finally reconciled) ushered us down three rubble strewn floors below street level, no one knew that the unusually heavy shelling that morning would turn into 14 hours of Israeli frenzy bombing and shelling becoming known as ‘Black Thursday’ and killing 250 and quite nearly Janet herself. Following the meeting, Janet walked thru the bombing south to ‘her people’ in ‘the Burj’ while her companion, sought shelter. “You will just slow me down, Janet said, ‘Meet me at AUB at 3 o’clock!,’ she ordered.”
Janet had slept little the night before, was not happy and got directly to the point with the PLO leader. She demanded to know the truth about the rumors that the PLO was going to ‘abandon the camp residents to the Israelis and cut and run’.

Before Arafat recovered from his shock of Janet’s strong language, and wrapped Janet in his arms, she intoned the reasons leaving Beirut would be a huge mistake. “You must launch a ‘Stalingrad defense’; the international public will support it, Sharon is just using psychological warfare with Israeli threats to burn Beirut, yes the people have suffered in West Beirut, but we can take more, and the Soviets will not allow this to continue and will intervene, and you cannot believe the Reagan Administration Abu Ammar! Women and children are terrified of what might happen if their husbands and brothers leave them alone!! And you know the fayadeen don’t want to leave. You know that! They are not afraid of the Israelis and they want to fight them and drive them away from Beirut!”

Tears flowed down Janet’s face and welled up in Arafat’s eyes as well as Labadi’s, this observer’s and those of Arafat’s bodyguards including, quite possibly, Imad Mughneyeh. Imad was one of Arafat’s most trusted and skilled members of Force 17, who had joined Fateh eight years earlier at age 16 and was to leave Fatah the following year switching to Lebanon’s nascent Islamic Resistance.

Some have argued that had the PLO not left Beirut, some of their best people would not have left the PLO. Would Hezbollah have even been organized had it not been for the vacuum created by Arafat’s decision to depart?

As the very distraught Janet Stevens beat Arafat’s shoulder with her clinched fist, in front of his wide-eyed Kalashnikov toting security and cried, Abu Ammar patted her long brown hair and tried to console her: “Miss Janet, please Miss Janet” the fatherly military commander softly whispered. “Our Lebanese hosts have sacrificed enough for us. We are no longer welcomed here and we must leave.”

Regrets?

Arafat knew better, he later admitted to this observer, than to tell Janet Stevens that the Camp residents would be protected by American guarantees, a written copy of which he carried in his shirt pocket and an argument he used on others to reassure the Popular Committees in the Camps and well as some of his colleagues. “Janet would have beaten me more”, Arafat later admitted, as he smiled, “but perhaps she was right”.

Another doubter of the wisdom of the catastrophic evacuation that left Shatila and the other Camps unprotected, was the PLO’s number two, Khalil al- Wazir, (Abu Jihad), Arafat’s most trusted Deputy.

The model of discretion, Abu Jihad remained tight lipped before the International media during the period under review but he spoke frankly and with sadness with fighters who came to ask, within hours of sailing, what he thought they should do, for many were undecided. Janet, like many, urged them to stay. Abu Jihad told them:

“I can’t tell anyone to stay or leave…Our people are here, our children, in Shatila, in our camps, our hospitals and our schools; but I say to the one who stays that the Lebanese state isn’t about to come and build him a house and offer him a salary. The state may imprison him, just like all the Arab regimes, we have to face that fact.”

Then Abu Jihad became angry, an emotion he did not often exhibit, “For myself, I don’t want to leave you alone, I’d like to stay with you, but this is what’s happened, and those are our circumstances” (Sabra Shatila 1982, Bayan Al Hout, Pluto Press 2004).

The Camp residents’ protection gone, the Massacre followed within days and the steep slope into abject poverty and despair for today’s Palestinians resulted.

* The SabraShatila website is www.sabrashatila.org. Franklin Lamb is finishing a book on Hezbollah.

It is likely Ms. Rice’s last visit to Lebanon, but not her finale to the region which has averaged roughly one appearance every 9 weeks since assuming her current post. Rice, as with the Bush administration generally, remains hugely unpopular here in Lebanon based partly on her callous remarks during the 33 day July 2006 War: “It [the wanton Israeli killing and bombing] are the birth pangs of the new Middle East”; “it’s too early for a sustainable ceasefire”; “Israel is just exercising its right to self-defense and the United States supports that right”; and her work to delay a ceasefire during the fighting which directly contributed to more than 1,400 Lebanese killed, 4,500 wounded and massive destruction of Lebanon’s infrastructure as well as its economy and environment.

As she left for Ireland, Secretary Rice presumably had been briefed that to its great credit, Ireland’s judicial system last week acquitted the Raytheon 9 of all terrorism charges in a much anticipated and perhaps bellwether trial. The Bush Administration supported the Raytheon 9 indictments stemming from actions by peace activists in Derry who decommissioned Raytheon computers in Derry, Northern Ireland, following the July 30, 2006 Second Qana Massacre which killed 27 mainly women and children and wounded more than 40 others who had hidden, frozen in terror for 16 days in the dark basement of a house without food, water, ventilation or sanitation (the first Qana Massacre being the April 18, 1996 Israeli bombing of the UN Post in Qana, that killed 105 civilians and wounded more than 200).

Both locations are a few hundred meters from where Jesus of Nazareth is believed to have performed his first miracle at the suggestion of his mother Mary, to turn water into wine to supply the larger than expected number of wedding guests who liked to visit Jesus when he came north to the Tyre and Saida area for a warm welcome and respite from the Serahedren authorities in Jerusalem. Given South Lebanon’s great natural beauty, Jesus’s frequent visits are understandable. The topography, atmosphere and geography are, experts assure us, are essentially unchanged from his day — a sharp contrast to the Saviors’ well trod paths in Palestine.

A US Embassy press aid was asked a question during the stopover about the fact that Rice urged President Bush to quickly resupply Israel with Raytheon Joint Direct Attack Munitions (JDAM) bomb guidance systems during the July 2006 War, and whether Rice was aware that the Belfast court had found last Wednesday that the Raytheon 9 “were reasonable in believing that Israel was committing war crimes and that Raytheon was aiding and abetting them”. The Embassy was not sure about the correct answer to this question but would check on it and advise.

A second question was whether or not Secretary Rice was aware and/or concerned that the US had given Israel Raytheon weapons that had been used at Qana, as well as at an estimated 137 other sites in Lebanon during the 33 day attack (including the JDAM guided MK-83 1000 lb. bomb dropped on the early morning of July 19, 2006, on the Nabysheet, Bekaa home of the Hussein Chokr family killing, Mrs. Khajeda Chokr and all but one of her children including Mohammad, Bilal, Talal and Yassin). Concerning whether Secretary Rice was aware and concerned about US supplied Raytheon products being used for this purpose the Embassy press office answer was identical to the one given in the Belfast Courtroom last week by a Raytheon Board member.

The answer was a dismissive and curt ‘No’. A film of the aftermath of the Qana bombing had been admitted into evidence as a Defense Exhibit and shown to the jury at the Raytheon 9 Trial in Belfast.

Meanwhile, the Raytheon issue continues with a campaign underway to have Raytheon itself investigated as a criminal enterprise as it regularly aids and abets Israeli war crimes, much as is the case with the US Caterpillar Corporation and its bulldozers in Palestine which killed the American human rights activist Rachael Corrie in March of 2003 and whose equipment continues to be sold to Israel and to destroy the homes, crops and property of Geneva Convention (IV) enshrined ‘protected persons’.

While her visit was brief, Secretary Rice covered a lot of subjects. One purpose was to meet and greet the new President Michel Suleiman who some in the Welch Club feel is too friendly with the Hezbollah-led Opposition (read: Hezbollah, Syria, Iran and a majority of Lebanon’s Christians).

“He’s a very fine man”, she called out to the Press, as she dashed to meet with a quartet of gentlemen who is not at all happy with her these days.

Ms. Rice could be excused for dreading this necessary meeting which included the Bush “A” team here in Lebanon. Before racing over to meet with Parliament Speaker and Hezbollah ally, Nabih Berri, Rice met with Hezbollah Leaders in Lebanon.

According to Israeli journalist Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, writing in a report published at 7pm Jerusalem time on June 17, 2008 on Arutz Sheva, the IsraelNationalNews.com, Rice also met with Hezbollah officials in trying to work out a governmental accommodation. This observer’s Hezbollah sources are not prepared to confirm this report just now.

Rice held talks at Qoratem Palace with the March 14 majority alliance represented by Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri, Democratic Gathering leader Walid Jumblatt, Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel and Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea. Rice reportedly got an ear full which included, depending on the source, an alphabet soup of problems and complaints which included:

* “Where the hell were you (the Bush administration) when we needed you to enforce your bright ideas regarding attacking Hezbollah’s phone system and sacking the pro-opposition Airport security Chief!” (On Tuesday June 10, 2008 Hezbollah’s Deputy Secretary-General, and former long time chemistry Professor, Naim Qassim, told this observer and former US Ambassador Richard Viets, and the visiting Washington DC based Council for the National Interest delegation that Hezbollah made a move to emphasize its opposition to the US-ordered initiative only following nearly 10 hours (of monitored?) phone calls between Washington and Prime Minister Siniora office “and other countries.” Hezbollah, Qassim explained, with a smile and twinkle in his eye, believes Lebanon’s government is occupied and that all important decisions are now being made in Washington.)

* “Hezbollah will likely sweep the next election so what are you going to do about it?” This is a tough one to answer for the Bush administration given all its solemn words about the Democracy project, loving Lebanon, “being here to support the freely elected government of Lebanon,” what is “good for Lebanon is good for the United States” etc.

Some in the Media wanted to know if the US would repeat those words after the next election, perhaps remembering the US quick switch regarding “respecting the will of the voters” that occurred in other places including Palestine with the Hamas victory, Iraq and Egypt. Hezbollah Deputy Naim Qassim stated during the above noted meeting that Hezbollah intends to compete in the coming election for seats throughout Lebanon and hopes to win half, or 64, of the 128 seats with its Christian, Sunni and Druze allies. Other observers think Hezbollah will win more than 70 of the Parliament’s seats. Either way, Hezbollah becomes the next government of Lebanon.

Does it get declared ‘a terrorist regime’ or does it get taken off the US terrorist list? The inquiring minds meeting with Rice wanted to know. Put another way, Ms. Rice says the US wants to work with “the very fine Michel Suleiman”; will it also want to work with “the very fine Hezbollah government”?

Rice, talking to reporters at Ain al-Tineh following a cordial meeting with Speaker Berri said the Shia speaker and close confidante of Hezbollah realizes that he enjoys the backing of the United States. She dodged a question as to whether Washington would recognize the next Lebanese government if it is a majority Hezbollah government. Some thought her warmth toward Berri was meant to signal Hezbollah that the US realized its awkward position if it keeps touting democracy and free elections and continues to reject the results of those democratic elections.

* The Shebaa Farms issue was also raised and complaints were aired to Rice by her team that the US has not pressured Israel to return them thus bolstering Hezbollah’s resistance role. While this issue has been raised since, since Israel took the Farms in 1967, it has become acute since 2000. Rice repeated the Bush administration mantra that the matter must be studied and the UN must be more vigorous in making a decision.

“The Secretary-General should intensify his efforts,” she told the gathering and also advised them that Presidents Sarkozy and Bush discussed the matter and want the UN of occupy them.

The fact of the matter is that the UN cartography completed the study nearly one year ago and the parties agree that the Farms belongs to Lebanon and that Israel must withdraw. Israel is demanding a unknown price before it departs and as in the case of the recently announced 1,300 new housing units in Palestine (40,000 more over the next 10 years) believes the Bush administration is finished and in unable to pressure Israel due to the US election season.

Rice is angry over being stiffed by Olmert and Livni during the weekend on the settlement expansions as well as this week’s further land grab of prime agricultural land inside Gaza along the Gaza-Israel border, but feels the US can do nothing, though she will mention it to the Israelis. She has altered her language just a little bit on the Shebaa Farms and now adds that the relevant UN resolution must be enforced. She of course has in mind UNSCR 1701, not the 60 year old UNSCR 242 or the 40 year old 425 which respectively demand complete Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian and Lebanese land.

Rice heard plenty about Hezbollah and how the coming prisoner exchange promised by Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah — likely to happen within days — will enhance the party even more. Rice is aware that US impotence in getting Israel to hand over the cluster bomb maps has caused continuing loss of life and use of agricultural acreage in the South. She was advised that all of Lebanon is outraged about this and why hasn’t the Bush administration done something about it? She was advised that human rights organizations and some NGOs are encouraging Hezbollah to delay any prisoner swap with Israel until the German mediators can get Israel to include the landmine and cluster bomb maps in the deal.

Hezbollah just may take their advice. The party is very aware of last month’s 111 Nation initialed Treaty banning cluster bombs and moreover, Hezbollah’s core Shia constituency in the South of Lebanon is the group most affected, every hour, every day, by the unexploded ordnance. One Hezbollah Commander asked this observer, “if the cluster bombs were in occupied Palestine and we had the maps, and withheld them, how do you suppose the situation with respect to US pressure would differ?”

Rice assured her interlocutors, as she has repeatedly done since the August 2006 cessation of attack that, as with the serial Israeli violations of the 1976 US Arms Export Act as amended, “we are looking into that — it’s being considered” (read: ‘forget about it fellas — it ain’t gonna happen’).

So if the “A Team” feels let down as Condi jets off into the horizon, perhaps it is a case of unrequited love. But her guys’ political disappointment with the Bush administration is palpable.

The ‘ruling team’ in fracturing according to the Beirut political analysts. Some are plotting against those they usually kiss upon greeting, and turning on others while blaming “the Americans.” All, no doubt, calculating their next moves and their confessions’ odds in the rapidly approaching elections.

One of the currently most disgruntled appears to be Walid Jumblatt who is said by political analysts in Beirut to have several reasons to dismantle the March 14 alliance. Because the base which supports the Welch Club projects is made up of Jumblatt, Al-Hariri, and the Christian team, Jumblatt is in a position to cause a lot of changes in the period preceding the parliamentary elections. Jumblatt felt months ago that the United States was not about to do anything concrete to help his team but he kept wagering on Hezbollah abstaining from moving on the ground and “going after him in the mountain”.

After he became aware that there is no US effort to change the Syrian government, and that Hezbollah’s strength is growing and that nothing can be done to stop it, he was told by the Saudis to handle the Sunni situation until Al-Hariri matures enough. According to Beirut’s Al Akbar Daily, this Welch Club directive caused Jumblatt to temporize and tread water. But then the disturbances took place last month and pushed Jumblatt into a comprehensive re-evaluation of his actions and policies and even of his leadership position.

People who have met with Walid Jumblatt recently, including the delegation of Harvard grad students and the American CNI group mentioned above, report that he is in particularly bad shape.

The brilliant long term Progressive Socialist leader is contemplating retirement to enjoy his vast (’socialist’) land holdings and vineyards above Khalde and Damour. Last week he told his key advisors that he was prepared to resign and turn the PSP over to his son (that’s how it works in feudal Lebanon tradition – Primogeniture today! Primogeniture tomorrow! Primogeniture forever to paraphrase the late Gov. George C. Wallace of Alabama).

When one aid asked Walid if his depression and wish to resign was the result of the May events (Hezbollah roared up into parts of his Chouf to rattle his cage, one observer noted, with unnecessary loss of life on both sides), apparently it did shake him up. Only yesterday did the Lebanese Army finally vacate his Sweifeit Headquarters and turn it back over to the PSP). Jumblatt was candid as reported in Beirut newspapers. “They won. We lost”, he was quoted as saying, referring to the 20-month struggle between the US-backed majority and the Hezbollah-led opposition.

Walid has been Condoleezza’s favorite for more than a year. She once said he is “so lovable” and reminded her of a cross between the Nutty Professor and that fellow in Back to the Future.

This observer withdraws, with apologies, the tentative conclusion he drew during the fighting that many of Jumblatt’s (Druze) people broke from him in favor of his Druze rival, ex-minister Talal Arsalan in the May conflict. Some did, but talking with many Druze since then I have come to believe that when last month’s shooting started, like other confessions, the Druze circled their wagons and most still love Walid. I overstated the Druze defection and thus I erred.

One could hope that the “A Team” recovers from any heartache and bruised feelings as Condi flits back to Stanford after the Bush administration ends its reign of terror in this region.

The agreement was not ideal for either party and I hope that it will serve as a launch pad for decent relations between the majority and the opposition. We will tackle the other issues in Beirut and there is no need to fear anything.

— MP Michel Aoun, Hezbollah ally and leader of the Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) following this morning’s Doha agreement

Tent City, Beirut — Lebanon will have General Michel Suleiman as its new President, possibly within hours. But no later than Sunday May 25, in order to allow time for the international community to send representatives.

Suleiman had appeared to be closer to the government coalition when he was first nominated but he was recently criticized as being too close to the opposition when his troops did not intervene when gun battles broke out between the warring sides this month.

Some say events make the man. Others the obverse. Suleiman could be a much needed, honest, strong, independent leader that will endear him to Lebanon and the Arab cause and Nation. This ‘unity president’ was finally confirmed after rival Lebanese political factions agreed, after talks in Doha, Qatar, in a deal to resolve the 18-month crisis that has kept the country without a president since November.

Under the country’s sectarian democracy, the position of President is filled by a Christian Maronite. Suleiman will be Lebanon’s 12th president since the country’s independence in 1943 and the third after the Saudi-brokered Taif Accord that ended Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war. General Suleiman, 59, has held his post as Army commander since 1998.

As of this afternoon, hundreds of people and shop-owners of downtown Beirut took to the streets of the city in jubilation over the agreement. Foreigners living in Lebanon cannot help but share their joy and being filled with a sense of “These gifted and long-suffering people deserve some peace” — enshallah it will last.

Some of the residents of Beirut’s Tent City are posing for photos this morning; others are packing up their belongings and taking down their tents following the Doha Agreement that was reached in the early hours of May 21. It buys some time for Lebanon to sort out its politics. One young Swiss couple is haggling with a fellow from Lebanon’s Communist Party (what’s left of it) trying to buy a tent for their trek around Lebanon.

Hezbollah has informed the head of Beirut’s municipality and its Mayor that it will help rehabilitate downtown Beirut and will pay for any damage incurred to stores that happened during the nearly 18 months stay of the Tent City.

The Accord has been well received internationally so far, with Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iran and France expressing satisfaction, even though each side gave a qualified endorsement of the Doha results depending on their party’s stance. The Bush administration is reported to believe that what was agreed upon at Doha was probably the best they could get at the last minute when delegates were packing to leave Doha without any agreement. Time will tell.

The dismantling of the Hezbollah-erected ‘tent city’ in posh Rafiq Hariri-built downtown Beirut cannot happen fast enough for those whose businesses have suffered, been forced to move, or have been lost due to the 18-month pro-opposition civil disobedience occupation. There is hope that some of the millions of dollars lost during the 18 month occupation can be recouped if the coming tourist season brings in around one million visitors.

Relief is in the air.

The mental and physical fatigue of many Lebanese from the constant tension, political bickering and occasional deadly violence in their country has been summed up by demonstrations held along the road leading to Beirut’s international airport by non-governmental organizations. “Agree, or shame on you,” read another message to Lebanon’s representatives, while another said, “We want to raise our children in Lebanon!”

Across Lebanon a collective sigh of relief is palpable and almost audible as the civic organization Khalass! (Enough!) removes their signs from the airport road. Yesterday, several dozen citizens whom were injured and left handicapped from the 1975-90 Civil War held up signs telling their leaders to end the political paralysis in Lebanon or not to return. “If you don’t reach agreement, don’t come back!”, some of the signs read.

During the last hours of May 20 there was gloom at the Doha Conference Center where Lebanon’s political parties were gathered and the usual political bickering continued. Opposition Member Michel Aoun accused pro-Siniora government March14 leader Saad Hariri of seeking to establish Beirut as a ‘Hariri’ city, not a capital for all Lebanon. “This is the main point we disagree on,” he said.

“The agreement was not ideal for either party and I hope that it will serve as a launch pad for decent relations between the majority and the opposition. We will tackle the other issues in Beirut and there is no need to fear anything”, Aoun has said today.

Meanwhile Lebanese Forces head Samir Geagea repeated his recent favorite phase that “They [Hezbollah] will not get at Doha what they did not get with their weapons”, and that the Doha talks were “staggering” due to Hezbollah demands. Geagea renewed his call yesterday for “an Arab Deterrent Force” to bring stability to Lebanon. When a journalist asked Geagea did he mean like the last Arab Deterrent Force that came in 1976 and stayed for 29 years (i.e. Syria) Geagea just glared at the impertinent young lady from Greece while others smiled and giggled.

So it is thus that after five days, at close to 3 a.m. on May 21, Lebanon’s political factions have in fact agreed to an arrangement which will allow for General Michel Suleiman to be elected Lebanon’s President, and a unity government to be formed.

The recent stumbling block was the new election law. The Hezbollah-led Opposition still wants as close to a one person-one vote system as they can get. They would also like the voting age lowered to 18 years which would benefit them among the younger, politically active Lebanese. They did not get either in Doha but with an expanded government to be set up within days discussions can begin anew.

With regard to the critical ‘deal breaker’ issue of Hezbollah’s weapons, this was kept off the table and finessed in Doha and the new government will debate and decide how Lebanon will view and deal with it. Hezbollah feels protected for now since it effectively achieved at Doha the veto over government Cabinet decisions. It had sought this since the end of the July 2006 war.

Pending the 2009 Parliamentary elections, the ‘unity government’ is to be as follows:

The US-, Israel-, Saudi-backed majority gets 16 of the 30 Cabinet seats. The Iran- and Syria-favored Opposition led by Hezbollah and which includes the largest Christian party, the Michel Aoun-led FPM gets 13 Cabinet posts and the remaining 3 will be chosen by President Suleiman.

Some observers, including this one, thinks that next year’s election with likely double Hezbollah’s current number of Parliamentary seats of 14, which could go as high at forty or more. Michel Aoun’s FPM also stands to double the number of its Deputies. If this happens there would be ample votes for the Opposition (which could become the new Majority following the 2009 balloting) to protect the weapons of the Resistance, still a key point of contention between the US-Israel-Saudi backed Majority Government and the Iranian-Syrian favored Opposition. For now the Government will address the issue of not using weapons to achieve political gains and focus on the commitment to the decisions reached during the 2006 dialogue. This should work for the time being.

Also agreed upon at Doha is the adoption of the Qada (Lebanese administrative District)-based 1960 electoral law with Beirut divided into three constituencies:

* The first electoral district comprises Ashrafiye, Rmeil and Saifi with five seats: Two Armenians, one Maronite, one Orthodox and one Catholic;

* The second electoral district comprising Bashoura, Medawwar and Marfa’ with four seats: One Sunni, one Shiite and two Armenians;

* The third electoral district comprising Mazraa, Msaytbe, Ras Beirut, Mina el Hosn, Zaqa el Blat and Dar el Mrayseh with ten seats: Five Sunnis, one Shiite, one Druze, one Orthodox, one Evangelical and one for the minorities.

This arrangement is actually pretty fair to both sides for now given the current circumstances and the fact that there has been no census since 1932. Saad Hariri got most of what the Future Movement wanted in order to preserve his electoral base in West Beirut.

Soon all eyes will be on the coming election which may be the most important since Lebanon achieved its independent from France in 1943.

Washington, Tel Aviv, Tehran, Damascus and Riyadh will have their favorite candidates and will, no doubt, be watching closely.

Yadlin was putting it mildly.

But what Intelligence Chief Yadlin did not reveal to the Israeli public was just how “significant” but also “immediate” the Hezbollah threat was on May 11. Nor was he willing to divulge the fact that he received information via US and French channels that if the planned attack on Lebanon’s capitol went forward, that in the view of the US intelligence community Tel Aviv would be subject to “approximately 600 Hezbollah rockets in the first 24 hours in retaliation and at least that number on the following day”.

The Israeli Intel Chief also declined to reveal that despite Israel’s recent psyche-war camping about various claimed missile shields “the State of Israel is perfecting”, that this claim is being ridiculed at the Pentagon. “Israel will not achieve an effective shield against the current generation of rockets, even assuming no technological improvements in the current rockets aimed at it, for another 20 years. And that assumes the US will continue to fund their research and development for the hoped for shields”, according to Pentagon, US Senate Intelligence Committee, and very well informed Lebanese sources.

The planned attack on Beirut

According to US Senate Intelligence Committee sources, the Bush administration initially green-lighted the intended May 11 Israel ‘demonstration of solidarity’ with the pro-Bush administration militias, some with which Israel has maintained ties since the days of Bashir Gemayal and Ariel Sharon.

In the end, “the Bush administration got cold feet”, a Congressional source revealed. So did Israel.

Israel was not willing to proceed with the original Bush Administration idea which was to have Bush attend the May 15 Israel anniversary celebrations following the Israeli attack meant to hit Hezbollah hard, and give Bush the credit for coming to the dangerous region. The message was to be that Bush comes to the rescue on horseback and leads the US Calvary charge straight out of a B western movie where the bugle would sound and flag would be unfurled and the white hat good guys would show their stuff before riding into the sunset and back to Texas, leaving the results to the likely Obama administration to sort out.

The plan involved Israeli air strikes on South and West Beirut in support of forces it was assured would be able to surprise and resist Hezbollah and sustain a powerful offensive for 48 hours.

Also presumably disturbing to Israel was the report it received that Hezbollah had once again in all probability hacked its “secure” military intelligence communications and the fear that the information would be shared with others.

The Hezbollah rout of the militias in West Beirut plus the fear of retaliation on Tel Aviv, ruining 60th anniversary celebrations, forced cancellation of the supportive attack.

Israel limited its actions to sending two F-15’s and two F-16’s into as far North as Tyre, one of more of literally hundreds of violations of Lebanese airspace, sovereignty and UNSCR 170l.

Clearly frustrated, Cabinet Minister Meir Sheetrit said Israel should not yet take any action now, but warned “those things could change if Hezbollah takes over Lebanon”. (A few minutes earlier he had declared that Hezbollah had done just that and had treated the Lebanese army as a doormat).

Later in the Sunday cabinet meeting, Minister Ami Ayalon called for an emergency meeting of the political-security cabinet to discuss “the ongoing crisis in Lebanon and why Israel was not assisting friendly forces.”

Minister Yitzhak Cohen (Shas) said that “Israel must immediately ask the [United Nations] Security Council to hold renewed discussions over Resolution 1701″. The minister was referring to the resolution that stopped the Israeli actions against Lebanon during the 34-day between in 2006, maintaining a fragile cease-fire.

Finally Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert informed Israeli supporters in Lebanon, through the media, and presumably other means that “Israel was following the violence in Lebanon closely, but would refrain from intervening”. Deputy Defense Minister Matan Vilnai told Army Radio Sunday that Israel was prepared for the possibility that the situation in Lebanon will deteriorate into another civil war (meaning future opportunities for Israeli influence and intervention in Lebanon) and that the current fighting could end with a Hezbollah takeover of the government. “We need to keep our eyes peeled and be especially sensitive regarding all that is happening there”, Vilnai told Army Radio.

The Bush administration, also disappointed, switched tactics and is opting for domination of the narrative of the fairly complicated events of the past week and using their media and confessional allies to launch a media blitz (minus Future TV for a few days) to flood the airways with:

1. ‘Hezbollah staged a coup d’état’. Even Israel, if not the Bush administration, concedes Hezbollah has no interest in taking over the Government. One observer, paraphrasing Winston Churchill’s comment, deadpanned, “Some Hezbollah Coup! Some Hezbollah Etat!”;
2. Hezbollah brought its forces from the South and occupied West Beirut; Hezbollah did not bring their forces from the South to Beirut, they remained on alert for an Israel attack down South;
3. ‘Hezbollah broke its pledge not to use Resistance arms against Lebanese militias and shot up West Beirut’: The facts are very different when viewed close up on the streets here.

When the Lebanese Resistance took the decision during the early hours of Friday morning to engage in civil disobedience, it delayed its actions so as not to preempt the Labor movement strike for higher wages which it supported. When the marching strikers were prevented from moving into West Beirut the Opposition extended its civil disobedience manifestation.

Various militias, including the smartly outfitted Hariri “Secure Plus” with its distinctive maroon tee-shirts and beige trousers (now know locally by some as “Secure Minus” and a hoped for future Blackwater operation in Lebanon, disintegrated surprisingly quickly because many of its green recruits brought down from Tripoli felt misled and betrayed regarding their job description as they were handed weapons an instructed to fight Hezbollah. Snipers from anti-Opposition factions killed civilians from rooftops in Beirut trying to ignite a civil war.

Hezbollah, acting in self defense according to and acknowledged by various officials including John Dockem at the office of Defense Intelligence-Middle East at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), quickly clamped down on the trouble makers, took control of the streets, within hours handed them over to the army, and virtually evacuated West Beirut, retaining one position near Bay Rocks manned by unarmed representatives.

Meanwhile, the Hariri influence has been greatly weakened in Akkar near the Palestinian Refugee camp of Nahr al Bared and in the Tripoli area. According to some political analysts, including Fida’a Ittani, a regular columnist for the independent pro-opposition newspaper Al-Akhbar writing on May 14, the Future Movement, defeated in Beirut, no longer has any serious influence in the North.

Several Salafi al Qaeda-admiring movements are present in Lebanon and like Fatah al Islam’s declaration this week that they will fight for the Sunnis, they vary in their attitudes from silent opposition to Future leader Saad Al-Hariri to fully supporting him as the leader of the Sunnis. These groups are valued by certain ‘leaders’ in Lebanon because are the only ones with coherent structures at the ideological, political, technical, and field levels.

Judging from Saad Hariri’s confused statements at his subsequent news conference and statements by other parties, the bitterness of promised but not forthcoming assistance was evident.

For two days following the debacle of his forces imploding the head of the Future Movement said nothing. Finally on the 14th he broke his silence.

The Halba massacre, committed by Hariri’s Mustaqbal militiamen which brutally and barbarically murdered 11 people from the opposition, did not seem worthy of discussion as he spoke. In a press conference on Tuesday, Hariri simply ignored what all the Lebanese had seen on TV from weapons, ammunition and alcohol found in Future movement offices, and instead listed a series of delusions.

“We awaited an open war on Israel, and yet here is an open war on Beirut and its people”, he stated. Some interpreted this rather odd statement either as a subconscious slip of the tongue on Hariri’s part expressing his frustration that the Israeli help did not arrive or that his reported earlier incoherent state persisted.

Hariri’s original speech was reportedly so confused that the Saudi channel al-Arabiyya decided to cease broadcasting it and subsequently only read excerpts from what he said. It was only when US criticism resumed, and Hezbollah fighters drew back from the streets surrounding his house that Hariri was urged to stand up and speak again with a stronger tone: “This has been decided by the Iranian and Syrian regimes that wanted to play a political game in Lebanon’s streets. For us nothing has changed. We will not negotiate with someone having a pistol pointed to our heads.”

Anger at the Bush administration and Israel by certain warlords in Lebanon must feel much like the frustration of Secure Minus personnel who rushed from Tripoli and felt misled, abandoned and cheated.

Street Notes 12 May 2008

In the lower Chouf village of Choufeit with its panoramic view of Beirut’s closed airport (which will likely stay closed for 4 or 5 more days as a Hezbollah pressure point on the Bush administration to achieve a settlement that it views as fair and just), Dahiyeh, Sabra, Shatila and Burj Barajneh Palestinian Refugee Camps; Pentecost Sunday started in a somber mood for the few remaining Christians and dominant Druze population of this picturesque, rugged, hilly and ancient village.

The reason was that virtually the whole village was in attendance at a 9 a.m. memorial service for two supporters of the Druze Lebanese Democratic Party, 18 year old ____ and 22 year old _____ (names withheld at the request of family pending notification of family members living outside Lebanon) who were probably shot as they drove too fast through a newly setup check-point on May 10th. (The exact circumstances and who exactly was responsible are not clear given the myriad explanations one receives depending on who one talks to in this tight-knit village.

Perhaps only in American black communities has this observer witnessed such a large turnout by the local population at funerals for a neighborhood member who was felled by violence. Parked cars snaked for nearly one mile in all directions alongside the winding roads. Hundreds of Druze women dressed in black with white scarves around their necks and some men in traditional black baggy Druze garb with knitted white caps mournfully gathered along their former enemies, the Christian population.

Once more, a Mt. Lebanon village united in mourning at dawn would be killing the neighbors sitting next to them at a memorial service hours later in the afternoon. Choufeit has never been more split than it is this morning. “If Jumblatt ever comes to Choufeit we will kill him,” said a town butcher from the Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) who fought hard for five hours yesterday against Jumblatt’s Progressive Socialist Party (PSP).

The killing of these two Druze young men did not directly cause yesterday’s intense violence in Choufeit but it definitely affected the tenseness and ferocity of their revenge seeking friends, family and community.

Chief among those blamed is Walid Jumblatt, known as “the weather vane”, given his history of changing his political stance depending on the current power alignment, and who is expected to seek a deal with Hezbollah in a bid to keep some position in the coming new government. It was just 36 months ago that Jumblatt was praising Hezbollah as the legitimate Lebanese Resistance and he may return to that position as he appears ready to give up his role in the Welch Club and try to save his leadership role in the deeply fractured Druze community. Hezbollah will now dry up Jumblatt’s power and shut him up. The Party will very likely force him to reconcile with the — as of this morning — much stronger Druze leader Talal Arslan, Hezbollah’s ally, who is getting credit for arranging last night’s ceasefire and presumably saving many Druze lives.

Hezbollah support in the Druze community is growing rapidly this morning. Its current major task now being worked on is to improve its relations with many seething in the Sunni community. As St. Joseph’s University gifted Professor Eugene Sensenig-Dabbous recently commented, (I paraphrase) when trouble starts in Lebanon the religious confessions look to their own, no matter what they were pontificating just hours before about “one Lebanon — one people de-confessionalized.”

As of 6 a.m. this morning, Choufeit is deeply wounded and the main street is littered with hundreds of 5 inch 50mm heavy machine gun casings as well Kalashnikov and M-16 shells, RPG casings, 107mm mortar rounds, broken glass, many patches and trails of of blood, a few burned out cars, and a few damaged shelled apartment houses. The house of Jumblatt’s deputy was shelled and burned around 5 p.m. yesterday — it was still burning this morning as no one has bothered to put it out. The power lines to Choufeit have been cut and main cables are on some roads. It is unknown how long the village will be without power.

“We killed 56 terrorists and they killed four of us”, town lawyer Khalil Juridi who practices law with his brother and sister as Jurdi, Jurdi, and Jurdi in the Jurdi Bldg in Choufeit. (The casualty numbers are not verified yet. This morning as I passed by Choufeit’s Kamal Jumblatt hospital, a nurse told me she thought about 10 were killed.)

I was surprised to see Khalil heavily armed as I returned from Hamra around 12:30 yesterday. As he kept warning me and others to stay inside, dozens of towns people, virtually all of whom had been at the young men’s funeral hours before they gathered with their weapons on the streets. This was a motley group to be sure but steeled and ready to die if need be to defend their village. Some left to help friends fight in Toumat Niha, Mresti and Jabal el-Barouk. Fighting also raged in of Kayfoun, Qamatiyeh, Bchamoun, Aytat, Shweifat, Baysour, Ras el-Jabal. The difference in Choufeit is that it was largely a Muslim intra-Druze fight.

This observer at first discounted what Khalil was saying yesterday early afternoon about the pro-Hezbollah Talal Arslan Druze group, many of whom lived in our neighborhood and who Khalil had grown up with, advancing up the hill on Choufeit because I was distracted thinking about my morning is Hamra. Plus, one gets inured here sometimes by so many rumors difficult to pin down.

In Hamra, on Pentacost Sunday morning things were much clearer. Contrary to the BBC report, Hezbollah has not completely withdrawn from West Beirut. They are manning the cut and block of the main Corniche road just diagonal from the Bay Bank in front of Bay Rocks. They advised that they will stay there pending a fair settlement with the ‘ruling team’.

The reality in West Beirut today is that even if every Hezbollah member but one withdrew, Hezbollah would still be in control of Lebanon’s capitol. He does not even need to have a weapon. All that is necessary is for it to be known that he is present. The Lebanese Army is increasingly deployed but its role is determined by the Bay Rocks barricade.

One faculty member of the American University of Beirut (AUB) explained that if someone from Hezbollah handed the US Embassy gatekeeper a polite note asking the Embassy to close up shop, it would be done within hours this Monday. This observer agrees with an increasing number here that in critical ways, Hezbollah is now Lebanon and the American era is teetering. Whether the damage done by the Israeli lobby controlled Bush administration Middle East policy is reversible, anything soon is unclear. Comments such as the one by US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe on Saturday blamed Hezbollah for the fighting saying: “They continue to be a destabilizing force there with the backing of their supporters, Iran and Syria.” The immediate future is not encouraging until the current US administration indicates a willingness to engage with Hezbollah on the basis of mutual respect, free and open dialogue, and commitment to solving the regions problems, including a just solution to the Question of Palestine.

Two blocks up to the right of the continuing Hezbollah position are 10 or more Christian National Syrian Socialist Party (NSSP) groups of heavily armed fighters. Unlike the Hezbollah guys they would not agree to photos but did proudly take this observer’s photo of their handiwork outside the burned out Hariri Future TV complex first started in 1993 and which developed recently into not just the mouthpiece of the pro-Bush Administration March 14 group but as the broadcaster of reputedly excellent programs popular around the Middle East.

The NSSP and the army are both posted in close proximity of Queitem, the Hariri mansion where Saad is in some ways under house arrest this Monday afternoon. Yesterday, Amin Gemayel rushed back from Paris, against the advice of some, to try to prevent Samir Geagea from staging a putsch and replace Amin as head of the Phalange Party.

“Amin’s tough problem is that Geagea learned more from Amin’s brother Bashir than Amin did concerning how to deal with rivals for power. Ask the Frangieh and Chamoun families”, a former deputy to George Hrawi of Lebanon’s Communist Party recently commented. Jumblatt not Geagea (this time) is a prime suspect in Hrawi’s 2005 assassination.

Geagea is meeting with Siniora this afternoon and earlier reported rumors are resurfacing that Geagea may be cannoned the Welch Club future Christian leader of Lebanon.

The Arab League delegation arriving in Beirut is expected to achieve more than a vague general ‘feel good’ declaration before it departs. The reality is that the League also is deeply split with dramatic increase of support for the Lebanese Resistance.

Returning to Choufeit where I was staying, I had become used to descending the three floors underground in pitch blackness, sometimes using my mobile phone for a little light.

Returning around 2pm yesterday I was very surprised to find around 35 people outside my flat door in the stairwell. I did not see or hear them until I stepped on one. As I opened the door we could see each other and one mother explained that they were all afraid to stay in the upper floors because they have lots of windows and they are afraid of snipers. As she spoke the children (who they later told me they held their breaths as I came down the stairs in the dark because they thought I must be the ‘enemy’) resumed their crying and wailing. The flat is large with two baths but little furniture and they all moved in. As I left this morning around 6am some were still asleep on the floors.

Getting solid information here is sometimes tough unless you do the digging yourself.

Some of the best I got recently was last night from 12 Aya, a precocious Lebanese charm of a young lady. Three times Aya came to where I was sleeping and woke me up “to see if you were ok”.

Later she admitted that she “needed to talk”. After explaining that her family felt abandoned by their father who was still in Dubai and was supposed to arrive last week, Aya offered valuable insights in response to some questions I posed.

As only a parent of a 12 year old young lady can possibly understand, Aya speaks clearly and to the point. Part of the conversation went something like this:

“How are you now Aya, are you ok?”

“I am scared.”

“Well, everything is fine now, the fighting is over”. Five seconds later there was a huge blast nearby. Aya just stared at me.

“Honey, doesn’t be worried. Things will be fine.”

“Yeah right.”

What are you afraid of?”

“Of dying, they want to kill us.”

“Who?”

“Our enemies.”

“Who are your enemies?”

“I don’t know. We have so many.”

I tried to change the subject and I mentioned my 12 year old daughter in the States. I told Aya how much I missed her and wished she could come to Lebanon and the girls could be friends. “And you could teach her more Arabic and show her around your beautiful country and you could do fun stuff.”

“I have a better idea,” Aya said. “Why don’t I just go to America and stay with her for awhile?”

Is a solution at hand?

Based on a US Congressional source, the Siniora government is reportedly able, with US approval, to offer the following face-saving proposal to Hezbollah to end the current crisis:

1. Hezbollah can keep its landline optic telecommunication cables for use in its Resistance struggle against Israel. But they should be put under “State Control”. Translation: Hezbollah controls them exclusively same as now and no one else will touch them. But ‘officially’ they will be under ‘State’ control, i.e. not State control.

2. Concerning the other major issue regarding the head of Beirut Airport Security, General Wafiq Shouqair gets reassigned but Hezbollah gets to name his replacement. Translation: Wafiq stays in office, keeps his authority and puts his deputy’s name card slipped over his on the office nameplate.

The public version of the proposal above reads a bit differently as offered this afternoon by Siniora. It does not mention to the public “due to sectarian sensitivities” points one and two above. It also includes the formation of a national unity government in which the minority cannot block decisions and the majority cannot impose them.

Siniora has also proposed a five-point introduction to a settlement, including placing the two government decisions in the hands of the army but will withdraw these quietly.

Hezbollah has issued no comment on this report as of press time.

The current situation in Hamra

Many Hezbollah fighters left the streets of Hamra and turned them over to the Lebanese Army which had been largely absent on Friday.

Some of Hezbollah’s withdrawing ‘regulars’ were replaced by ‘reserves’. “Its good for their training”, one fellow who was obviously in charge outside of Starbucks on Hamra Street, explained through an interpreter. Some Hezbollah and Amal forces seemed quite willing to speak with the media about their mission.

Some pro-opposition commentators wandered around Hamra trying to assure returning residents.

“This was not a coup! Think of it as a protest and message to Bush and Olmert. If we wanted a coup we could surround the Serail. Mr. Siniora would perhaps hand us the keys. We don’t want them. Let’s all prepare for elections and let the people decide who sits in Parliament and makes up Cabinet.”

Hezbollah reportedly has excellent relations with the Lebanese Army and wants to maintain them. Evidence of this is apparent today as Hezbollah’s forces made a point of politely and almost paternally yielding some of their street corner locations to the Army with handshakes and sometimes kisses.

Outside Costa Coffee down from the Bristol Hotel, one seasoned Hezbollah fighter spoke to some obviously younger and ‘greener’ Party members and instructed them on their duties as they relieved him and he headed south for rest. He explained that things went fairly smoothly yesterday and that they would likely see residents start returning to Hamra. “Be helpful to those who need help. Assure them their neighborhood is secure and safe. We will start no violence and if someone else wants to we can assure those in who live in Hamra that we will quickly deal with troublemakers”.

A few isolated acts of vandalism were reported yesterday and an internal joint Hezbollah-Amal investigation is underway to find out about what happened and insure that there is no recurrence. “No bad behavior by our fighters or any of our allies will be tolerated and bad behavior (from our side) will be severely punished and if vandalism occurred, Hezbollah will pay for it! Lebanon knows our standards. Remember during the July 2006 War. When our fighters had to use food and water that belonged to absent owners we left IOUs on the table. Everyone was later paid.”

Some Amal guys were looking for an open sandwich shop but doubted that “people here in Hamra make sandwiches as great as we have in Ouzai. Our area has the best kebabs in all of Lebanon!!” (this observer did not have the heart to ask the young man if this was his first time outside of his “area”).

“We will be magnanimous toward our adversaries in the small victory we achieved the past couple of days”, explained ‘Ali’ an acquaintance of this observer who also lives in Haret Hreik.

“If the ‘ruling team’ wants to claim victory that is fine with us. They can attack us verbally all they want. We are used to this. This situation was forced on us and we defended ourselves. Now we should seek a just and quick solution and heal any wounds”, one young woman, obviously a Hezbollah supporter, explained as she chatted with some fighters and journalists. She added, “We want dialogue and a fair peaceful solution. We are a Resistance movement and will not participate in a civil war”.

As of this afternoon the losers and winners appear as follows:

The main losers obviously are the Bush administration, Israel and their Welch Club allies. Personal losers are Amin Gemayel, barely still the “leader” of the Phalange Party, as he talks tough and tries to rally his ‘forces’… from Paris. Samir Geagea has pretty much nudged him aside and is reportedly casting his dark gaze toward Saad Hariri who may be planning to retire from politics and help with the very big family business. After the parties meet with President Bush next week, a ’shaking out’ process may begin.

Walid Jumblatt is another loser since his provocations, taunts, and Welch Club cheerleader role to take on Hezbollah left him at its mercy both in the Mountains and in his Beirut home. Whatever credibility he had has evaporated. Among the Druze there is discord and inter-party fisticuffs as there was last night in Choufeit when Jumblatt asked the army to occupy and secure his Progressive Socialist Party (PSP) HQ but some of the younger members threatened violence, as the villagers watched beneath a huge a poster of party founder Kamal Jumblatt and the army and Jumblatt jr. backed off. PSP problems will require Walid’s sustained attention for some while party members explained last evening to this observer.

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora loses more of his waning influence and status. One of his main problems is that he is increasingly seen as a Bush administration puppet. Not least of his worries this morning, as he prepares to avoid being dumped by Bush next week, is the ringing endorsement he received yesterday from Secretary of State Rice, without bringing herself to mention Siniora by name:

“Our support for the legitimate Lebanese government, its democratic institutions, and its security services is unwavering. This support is a reflection of our unshakable commitment to the Lebanese people and their hope for democratic change, economic prosperity, and confessional harmony. We will stand by the Lebanese government and peaceful citizens of Lebanon through this crisis and provide the support they need to weather this storm.”

She would not even mention his name as she employed the standard State Department verbiage just before a US puppet is dumped. It was dusted off from Vietnam days when JFK (Diem) and LBJ (Thieu) used almost identical language before switching horses.

The rest of Rice’s analysis seemed to many in Lebanon, whose population is among the most politically sophisticated in many ways, as simply obtuse: “No one has a right to deprive Lebanese citizens of their political and economic freedom, their right to move freely within their country, or their sense of safety and security”.

State Department officials said this morning that the international coalition supporting the Lebanese state against Hezbollah has never been stronger. Washington believes Hezbollah has “bitten off a bit too much” and now risks alienating the rest of Lebanon’s population, including Hezbollah’s important Christian allies, an official said.

The Bush administration reminded the World that it has spent $1.3 billion over the past two years to prop up Siniora’s government, with about $400 million dedicated to boosting Lebanon’s security forces. This statement constitutes a hoax according to some informed observers in Lebanon:

“The money the Bush administration has spent has been to create a Sunni ‘Internal Security Force’ not for the Lebanese but for the ‘ruling team’ (the name the oppositions and its allies call the current government of Lebanon) which is no more than a militia run by pro-American officers. Hezbollah could defeat and disband this Bush militia in three hours of less”, according to one long time UNIFIL program administrator.

One frustrated US Senate Intelligence Committee staffer emailed this morning with a tinge of irony and cynicism:

Referring to President Bush: “Now this loser has really done it. Having effectively delivered Iraq and Afghanistan to Iran, he has now handed them Lebanon. Mark my words, Saudi Arabia is next and the Saudis know it and will make a deal with Iran.”

The major winners are obvious: Lebanon’s Christian population allied with General Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement (FPM), Hezbollah, Amal and their Sunni, Druze and international supporters.

Hassan Nasrallah’s position is probably the strongest it has ever been, not just in Lebanon but throughout the region. If he wanted to be a dictator of all of Lebanon, which he eschews, he could have the position today.

Rami Khoury, writing in Beirut’s Daily Star this morning got it right in this observer’s view when he wrote:

Nasrallah’s task now is to create an inclusive environment conducive to the answering of these and other challenges. He and his party cannot be expected to come up with all of the solutions, and nor should they want to: If they cannot draw other players – and not just their closest allies – into the process, Nasrallah runs the risk of being cast as a dictator by default.

Hizbullah and its partners have frequently argued that their counterparts in the March 14 Forces coalition were not interested in true partnership, only in dictating terms. Now Nasrallah has to prove that his side is ready, willing and able to live up to its own expectations, and speed is of the essence: After 15 years of civil war, 15 of diluted sovereignty, and three of limbo, the Lebanese deserve at last to have a level of politics commensurate with their talents and energies. If Nasrallah is the man who makes this happen, history will judge his actions to have been a revolution, not a coup, and a long-overdue one at that.

Late news is that the airport may open by Monday but this is not certain.

The question is no longer why, for the answer has become clear. However, what is the secret behind the timing of this? What is being prepared for the future stage and which coincides with US President George Bush’s tour of the region? Has internal dialogue gone without return, and if it takes place, then what is its agenda? What will Hezbollah and the opposition do to face the new challenges?

– Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassim during a just completed May 8, 2008 interview

Outside Beirut’s Closed Airport –

Hezbollah sources concede that they were taken by surprise and some were shocked by the intense, incendiary bombardment of the last few days by pro-government operatives. As Hezbollah studies ‘the situation’ and how to respond this beautiful spring Beirut morning, there is a real danger things may rapidly spiral out of control.

Yesterday started off peacefully enough, with a strike called by the General Federation of Labor Unions (GFLU) in Lebanon represented by the General Labor Union. The strike was supported by Hezbollah to protest the Governments failure to adopt what the Union considers a living wage of $600. Currently the minimum wage in Lebanon is approximately $200 per month. The Strike continues for the second day but tensions are escalating and Beirut’s airport remains closed by anti-Government demonstrators. Beirut’s main roads are intermittently blocked, the streets virtually empty and the town largely locked down as sporadic violence and stone-throwing continue.

The region awaits this evening’s news conference, his first since July 12th 2006, the first day of the last war, during which Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah is expected to give an indication of Lebanon’s immediate future.

“Stay inside today, Dr. Lamb! Do not go outside!” this observer’s friend, Hussein Chokr from Nabysheet in the Western Bekaa Valley ordered by telephone at crack of dawn this morning. “Abu Mohammad”, as he prefers to be called (of out respect for his eldest son) was in Montreal, Canada when he lost his wife Khadija, 43, (a full time mother for five children, and loving wife, while he arranged for them to immigrate to Canada. Khadija single handedly raised the children as mother and father in his absence.

Their beautiful sons Mohammad, 22 (who had just become a lawyer graduating first in his class); Bilal, 19 (a first year university accounting student, known in his community for his computer skills); Talal, 17 (a gifted artist who was planning for the first public exhibition of his art in Canada (some of which can be seen at www.majzarat-al-nabysheet.org) and Yassin, 15 (who had just received a full tuition scholarship), were all murdered at 7:10 am on July 19, 2006.

This happened when the Israeli air force “erred” and launched a US MK-83 1000 lb. bomb, guided by a Raytheon JDAM (joint direct attack munition) system and blew up their home. The boys’ sister Bushra miraculously survived as she slept with her mother in the third floor bedroom and was later dug out from the rubble with serious injuries for which she continues to receive intensive care.

No one in the Chokr family, building or immediate neighborhood, according to villagers, had any connection to any element of the Lebanese Resistance. Abu Mohammad’s family, like himself, and many in Lebanon, were non-political.

The Israeli act was quite simply one more war crime.

How Hezbollah Was Ambushed

The continuing and intense anti-Hezbollah barrage started last week in rat-a-tat fashion. It continues to intensify this morning with a significant number of Lebanon’s politicians, religious leaders and other partisans raising a cacophony with new charges. Conspiracy theories, taunts, threats and provocations continue, the stone throwing on some streets, as commentators offer myriad analyses of “the implementation of suspicious schemes” as Beirut’s An Nahar noted.

The hot war prospects not looking so great recently, it is widely believed in Lebanon that the decision was taken following David Welch’s recent visit here for an intense cold war assault against Hezbollah and we are now witnessing its implementation. Some locals are calling it a “hot air cold war” as a barrage of accusations is fired across Dahiyeh from several directions.

Druze Leader Walid Jumblatt, led off against Hezbollah last weekend, followed rapidly by the Lebanese Forces leader Samir Geagea.

Items:

* Hezbollah is spying on the airport! Jumblatt announces. “They are monitoring runway 1-7 with cameras on top of Jihad al Bina packing crates in order to assassinate or kidnap their opponents along airport road which runs through Shia neighborhoods”.

Swoi habibee! (Easy, sweetheart) Walid. “The containers to hide the cameras,” said Jihad al Bina Director Qassim Allaq, “are owned by the organization (Jihad al Bina construction company) and have been in place for the past 20 years, so why hasn’t anyone asked about them in the past?”

“These containers,” Allaq continued, “are our property and have been in place for more than 20 years. There are cameras everywhere around the place for security. The land on which the containers are placed is the property of the organization (Jihad al Bina)…why hasn’t the media spoken about the containers before? Why haven’t anyone of the officials asked us about them in the past?”

* “The Iranians are spying on my house!”, Geagea announced within hours. Actually three teenage students may indeed have watched Geagea’s mistress leave his house just minutes before Samir’s wife returned. The students said they were following the popular tourist route called “the Jesus Trail” and got off the right road. A definite violation of the redline because Mrs. Geagea, who represents the Phalangist Lebanese Forces in Parliament has a fiery temper! One wag joked that maybe Iran put Geagea, who still may be obliged to answer for the disappearance of the four Iranian diplomats in l983 who it is claimed were kidnapped by his forces, “in the doghouse again!”

* Within minutes, Israel Defense Minister Barak called in reporters to go on the record and repeated David Welch’s comment that the Lebanese will have a ‘hot summer’ and that the local economy will tank again as tourists stay away and that Hezbollah can destroy Israel’s nuclear faculty at Dimona.

* The next day it was announced that the Saudi Government pledges “to spend their whole treasury if that is what it takes to ’save Lebanon’ (and their business interests i.e. solideire, hotels, banks and real estate) as they reportedly increase dramatically aid to all Lebanese Christians who will oppose General Aoun and his entente cordial with Hezbollah.

* A Pro Government Muslim group verbally attacked Hezbollah, without offering any evidence to support its claim saying “What Hezbollah is doing as part of its expansion policy is setting up armed barracks inside residential apartment buildings along the coast of Iqlim (Kharroub) and its entrances for dubious goals – one of which could be to control the international highway that links Beirut with Sidon and the rest of the south,” said a statement issued after a meeting between the two groups at the house of MP Mohammed Hajjar.

* On May 6 pro Siniora MP Atef Majdalani accused Hezbollah of shifting to civil strife with the objective of declaring a breakaway state.

* A couple of hours later, Geagea again: “Hezbollah is another Mahdi Army militia planning on fighting the government in the Beirut alleys.”

* Last night the Phalangist Voice of Lebanon radio said Hezbollah members were dressed up in police uniforms and penetrating districts of Beirut controlled by their rivals of the Mustaqbal movement.

* Within minutes a government source also said Hezbollah was massing gunmen in downtown Beirut, sparking fears of a possible attack against Prime Minister’s Siniora’s private office.

* A statement was issued from Saad Hariri’s office on behalf of the March 14 group which accused Iranian ambassador to Lebanon Mohammad Reza Shibani of becoming a “high commissioner” entrusted with overseeing the creation of the Hizbullah state.

* Geagea again: “Hezbollah is buying up Mt. Lebanon and West Beirut real estate to disperse their security assets and build ‘a state within a state!”

* Jumblatt again: Hezbollah has set up a separate optic cable telephone communication system near Saida to link the Shia communities.

This “telephone system” item did get some significant public attention in Lebanon but not for the reason Jumblatt had hoped. Not many Lebanese are against Hezbollah creating another “resistance tool” against Israel. During the July 2006 war Israel messed with Lebanon’s phone system sending scare messages and jamming the phones in the south, but could not penetrate Hezbollah communications. What fascinated the general public here is the fact that at nearly 49 cents per minute Lebanon’s phones rates may be about the most expensive in the world with terrible reception—plus bugged by Israel and others, tens of thousands across Lebanon mistakenly believing they could sign up with “Hezmobile, Inc” phone service with cheap rates and better reception were at first delighted and then disappointed when they learned the system was only for military communications and in no way will compete with the regular miserable phone system.

“We were hoping we could stop paying off the warlords each time we make or receive a call”, one couple said wistfully.

And so it has been going these past several days.

It has been a “Hezbollah this, Hezbollah that, Hezbollah can do no right” campaign thought by many observers here to have been planned and launched in Washington. “The best defense is an aggressive offense” Feltman and Welch tutored the March 14th Deputy Nayla Moaward according to her report of her recent consultation in Washington as they prepare to receive the Maronite Patriarch Sfeir the 6th of the recent stable to strut into Washington to receive their “briefings”.

Things came to a head on May 5th when the Cabinet decided to move to shut down the Hezbollah communication system and fire Shafiq Shuqeir the Security head at Beirut’s Airport who is believed to be a Hezbollah supporter.

Of all the provocations this past couple of weeks, one of the most bizarre involved a guest of Walid Jumblatt, the arch Zionist French Deputy Karim Pakzad invited to a Conference here by the Druze leader. The Deputy’s claimed “kidnapping” and interrogation caught the attention of journalists and researchers in Lebanon who are familiar with Hezbollah’s highly efficient Media Relations Office and Hezbollah’s security concerns.

It wasn’t just that the Deputy set out to take photos in secure areas without permission, or how he appeared to exaggerate what had actually occurred, as he repeatedly explained, more dramatically with each telling, that he was “kidnapped, blindfolded, held for four hours and interrogated by Hezbollah in a secret location.” Or even the well prepared news conference with no fewer that 22 microphones which Jumblatt laid on to announce “this international crime” to the world which every Zionist and US neocon media and Internet outlet dutifully hyped as the story which grew direr at each retelling.

What was stranger was that everyone Karim was hosted by, just like every researcher and journalist in Lebanon knows the rules and they are simple and reasonable. Because of decades of pervasive Israeli spys metastasizing in Lebanon and especially areas where many in the Lebanese Resistance live and work, visitors are ask to drop by Hezbollah’s Media Relations Office and obtain a permit so the neighborhood watch people will not inquire of them who they are and why they are photographing in security areas.

The same precautions are taken in most sensitive areas these days. Jumblatt’s and Geagea’s area also take security precautions. Try photographing in Hamra near Saad Hariri’s Quiritum offices or around Muerab or near Jumblatt’s Mukhtara area and learn how quickly security personnel will approach.

When the French Deputy is in Washington he might want to test US sensitivity to security and try to walk around the Pentagon, CIA headquarters, inside the M Street Naval Annex, enter the ground on Observatory Road of the Vice Presidents acreage, or dozens of other locations and start snapping photos without permission.

The evidence strongly suggests this and many of the ‘incidents’ recently were staged to provoke Hezbollah into a reaction that has so far failed through various violent incident designed to achieve the same end. That effort continues today in Beirut as event unfold.

Americans who live in and frequent Dahiyeh comment on how peaceful and safe it is. One can walk or jog around these neighborhoods at 3 am without any fear of being accosted. One visiting journalist from Washington explained:

“I live almost exactly half way between the White House and the US Capitol (less than one mile between the two) there are no fewer than 9 police forces, ranging from the Capitol Police to the DC Police to the Executive Protective Brand and others assigned to secure our neighborhood. No chance I would wander around at 3 am on my street out of fear of being mugged or held up by someone high on drugs or looking for cash. There is no comparison between the security in DC where all you see are cops and here when you hardly notice any security”.

Last July, former American Ambassador to Lebanon Robert Dillon, leading a Washington based Council for the National Interest (CNI) delegation met with Hezbollah and later decided to have lunch in their neighborhood of Haret Hreik at the popular Halefee Restaurant, in fact, near where Karim was taking photos.

After dining on Falafel and Shawarma the American Ambassador and a few of his group decided to take a walk and observe some of the hundreds of buildings bombed during the July 2006 war.

As the group meandered toward the Bir Abed area and approached what is known locally as “Security Square”, a young lady in the American group starting taking pictures. The group had not visited the Hezbollah Media Office for a permit or arranged for a guide because their visit was spur of the moment and it was a Sunday afternoon. After a few photos were taken the group made a quick collective decision not to take more photos out of respect for the community and its security concerns. The CNI delegation young lady put away her camera. Within probably 45 seconds of her putting her camera in her purse, as the delegation continued its trek through the devastation, a young man with a walkie talkie appeared on a small “jog” motor scooter from one direction and seconds later another arrived from the opposite direction. It took five minutes of polite conversation to assure all that henceforth the rules would be followed. Sometimes Neighborhood Watch Hezbollah security guys will ask to quickly review recent photos taken. One imagines that if there were suspicious photos of “sensitive buildings” further inquiries would be made. In the present case no request to see the photos were made perhaps because the group were very obviously benign tourists. As the CNI group continued their walk the young lady said “they sure were polite and so apologetic for having to ask us not to take photos without permission. They were sweet. It’s their neighborhood. I am glad that they try to protect it.”

The French Deputy’s ‘kidnapping’ hoax was clearly meant to create an international incident out of something that was commonplace and could have been avoided if the Deputy had kept his cool and not become antagonistic when first approached by Neighborhood Watch.

This observer is not aware what was in the French Deputy’s camera that led to a little more attention from Neighborhood Watch than usual. Perhaps he will share them with us on YouTube.

Franklin Lamb can be reached at: fplamb@gmail.com
Mr. Chokr can be reached at: bekaa_garden@yahoo.com

Nobody can impose terms on us, or commit us to anything we do not believe in. Let me be clear: Israel won’t get through politics what it didn’t get through war, even if the UN resolu­tion gave this to Israel. What they couldn’t do through war, they want to do by peaceful means? It doesn’t work like that.

— Hezbollah deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem, Al-Manar television, 15 August 2006

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr (”just call me Joe–anything but Sue” as he does his Johnny Cash imitation) Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and twice Presidential Candidate, is a friendly, loquacious, decent and knowledgeable fellow. Having served on that Committee for nearly a quarter century and traveled widely, Biden thinks of himself as someone who can be confronted with ‘deal breakers’ at the negotiation table and work out mutually acceptable solutions. “I’m the real deal bridge builder!”, he sometimes kids with his devoted staff, as he shadow boxes and mimics his favorite boxer, Evander “the real deal” Holyfield.

But the Bush administration is no favorite of Biden’s and he and others on Capitol Hill have run out of patience with its Middle East policy. Once Barack Obama, a junior member of his Foreign Relations Committee who has become his friend and who Biden has taken under his wing and tutored ‘on the ways of the World out there’ becomes President next January (as Biden and his staff believe he will—”unless the same dark forces, which have become stronger in the past few years, who killed Medgar Evers, Dr. Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, John and Robert Kennedy and several others have their way)”, we are, he thinks, “going to see some serious changes in US Foreign Policy starting with the Middle East.”

Some members of his bright Committee staff generally favor engagement with Hezbollah (privately) if the Party would agree. “The Party of God, not the Zionist controlled Democratic Party”, one staffer hastens to add.

When asked what they conclude the US would be willing to extend Hezbollah based on earlier feelers and offers and what they learned from Committee Staff discussions with White House Congressional liaison personnel, State Department contacts, and their own tuition, the following emerge:

Rebuilding Lebanon and Keeping Israel At Bay

“The US will consider funding a ‘Marshall Plan’ type operation for rebuilding South Lebanon and guarantee [that word again!] that Israel stays out. The US would be prepared to transfer directly to Hezbollah designated bank accounts “enormous sums of money to spend on the territories Israel destroyed, and equivalent sums to improve other deprived areas of the country”.

A Congressional media operative noted this off the record by email:

“Just ask Egypt and Jordan how we can sweeten a deal! Hezbollah should not worry about losing Iranian funding. We’ve got a lot more than they do!”

International Legitimacy

The Bush administration would anoint Hezbollah with the US imprimatur of ‘international legitimacy’, repeal the relevant targeting Executive orders and remove Hezbollah’s Information Unit (Al Manar TV, Radio Noor etc), its Construction Company (Jihad al Bina), its social service agencies and its financial institutions from the US Treasury and State department Terrorism lists.

Cluster Bomb Maps

The US will force Israel to turn over maps of planted land mines, cluster bomb maps and firing logs which the international community has been demanding for the past 18 months following the end of the 2006 July War. Hezbollah is greatly concerned about the unexploded ordnance terrorizing its popular base in the South. The Tyre based UN Mine Action Coordination Committee has so far uncovered 966 civilian locations where Israel dropped US cluster bombs covering an area of 39 million square meters. UNMACC Program Manager in Tyre Chris Clark estimates that de-miners have been able to locate and disarm 143,000 US supplied cluster bombs, but another million or more may remain. Since the end of the fighting in mid August 2006, the total number of people injured or killed is 296 according to Dalia Farren, Director of Media Relations at UNMACC.

To date the Bush administration has not demanded the maps from Israel, despite Lebanese continuing to die, because the State Department Office of General Counsel produced a Legal Memorandum which warns that if Israel releases the demanded information it will effectively constitute a self-indictment for War Crimes.

UNIFIL knows this but has chosen to keep quiet while routinely renewing its public demands knowing that Israel will not comply unless the US forces it. The Pentagon has no problem with “cutting the bastards (Israel) loose on this one and forcing them to ‘fess up”, according to a Congressional source.
A clarifying comment from one of the aforementioned Memorandum’s authors:

“The Winograd Commission claims that Israel used cluster bombs in accordance with international and US law has no support from the July 2006 record. Israel committed serial war crimes as well as wholesale violations of American law that no other country would be allowed to do.

In 1982 President Reagan cut off cluster bombs to Israel for 6 years. This time President Bush won’t touch the issue and Congress has buried the US Arms Export Act violations, hoping the public won’t demand its application. Some US officials complain that they have a hard time looking their Lebanese-American constituents in the eye. We are not proud of what’s become of their little country because of our weapons.”

Releasing Lebanese Prisoners in Israeli Jails and Territorial Sovereignty

· The US would obtain the release of all Hezbollah detainees and prisoners from Israeli jails;
· The US will force the return of Shebaa Farms, Ghajar, end Israeli over flights of Lebanese territory and violations of Lebanese sovereignty.

From Opposition to Government

· The US would secure a bigger role for Hezbollah in the Lebanese Government while establishing normal relations with the party, lifting all US travel constraints imposed on its members and supporters while cooperating with Hezbollah in forming a new government based on the results of the 2009 elections while encouraging a new census, the first once since 1933.

As a Library of Congress, Congressional Research Service, Lebanese specialist recently emailed:

Do you really think Lebanon’s hereditary tribal government is going to change? More than one-third of Lebanon’s Parliament constitutes family hand-me-down seats. If you agree that the Lebanese people are fed up with the ‘warlords’ how do you think we feel? There ought to be a one person, one vote system to elect their leaders. For me personally, dealing with a group that keeps its word would be a welcomed relief in my office. Hezbollah is quintessentially nationalist and can handle Iran and Syria. You get my meaning.

One staffer on the House subcommittee on the Middle East explained as background:

Personally, and I certainly don’t speak for the White House, I see the whole of Lebanon on the table. The right deal and Hezbollah can have it as far as I am concerned. What is the right deal? Our Committee Staff mainly believes Hamas will offer essentially a perpetual cease fire to Israel in exchange for all, repeat, all of the Palestine taken in 1967 and a return to the June 4, 1967 border with Jerusalem at its Capitol. That includes a full right of return for the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees. That means no checkpoints, no settlements, no outposts, no Israeli presence and no excuses!

If Hamas can accept this, then Hezbollah’s past statements regarding acceptance of a solution to the Question of Palestine arrived at by the Palestinians might mean peace.

Hezbollah’s Response

Hezbollah accepts dialogue as a matter of principle and axiom. Historically, the Shia culture generally and Hezbollah in particular is comfortable with discussions and exchanging ideas with friends and foes ranging from issues of war and peace to societal problems to religion and ways to improve peoples lives. It is prepared for dialogue over the question of Palestine, the bloodstream issue and central cause of Arabs and Muslims and increasingly people around the World.

However, Hezbollah has consistently rejected most US feelers because, as Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah has stated, “our acquiescence to America’s demands would simply have meant abandoning our faith, our people and our history.”

As far back as November 16, 2001, Hassan Nasrallah explained Hezbollah’s past objections to US offers to the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Al-Aam:

As for their demand that we sever our connection to the Arab-Israeli conflict, that would mean the total elimination of Hezbollah’s head and heart, a complete disregard for the martyrs’ blood and a betrayal of their families’ tears, of our people and of their sacrifice. It would also mean giving up our religious and legal duty to come to the assistance of Palestine.

According to Hezbollah, the US has tried several times “to place us in a state of confrontation with what they called “Sunni fundamentalism”. They tried to provoke us along these lines, on the grounds that, in the future, Sunni fundamentalism will pose the gravest threat to Shiism”. The Bush administration, according to Hezbollah, also tried to get Iran to attack the Taliban and provoke a Shia-Sunni confrontation. But Iran did not fall into the trap.

With respect to the bargaining chip of pulling back from the Palestinian cause, Hezbollah considers that it has, in the words of Nasrallah, “a moral, humanitarian, religious, patriotic, and national duty towards the Palestinians”.

Hezbollah believes that peace will come to Palestine and the region not through a phony ‘peace process’ trying to buy off the Palestinian or Lebanese Resistance but when the occupation ends. It really is that simple. And until the Bush administration or its successor in Washington really understand this, negotiations will remain just talk.

One Hezbollah acquaintance stated: “We need to ensure at the beginning of negotiations that the occupation ends. Then peace can be made between states. An occupied people cannot make peace with its occupiers”.

With respect to the current ’situation’ in Lebanon, Hezbullah’s international relations officer, Nawaf Moussawi stated recently that the “most dangerous thing in US policies currently [has been] their engagement in the blatant disruption of attempts at dialogue and consensus among Lebanese political forces.” Moussawi added that the US was engaged in “deepening political and sectarian divides within each confession in order to ignite mobile civil wars.” He stressed that the freedom of Lebanon could only come through its “self-defense capabilities, including those of the resistance” and that independence could only be attained through consensus and unity.

What the Hezbollah leadership discusses in its Shura Council becomes public knowledge only when Hezbollah wants it to. But until today Hezbollah views US proposals with deep suspicion and as calculated to advance Israel’s agenda in the region.

Hezbollah is no stranger to the Bush Administration carrot and stick pattern of wooing and then harshly threatening if overtures are spurned. Hezbollah respects the American people but views most of the recent American governments proposals “as nothing but a political bomb meant to destroy Hezbollah, since they cannot of course destroy us by dropping a nuclear bomb on us,” as Hezbollah’s Secretary General Nasrallah has said.

Regarding the future, Nasrallah told the Kuwaiti Daily Al-Rai Al-Aam,

We are not at all worried. We are holding fast to the options that our legitimate, religious, national, humane, and moral commitments impose on us, and do not think that the US will carry out military operations in this region. At any rate, they do not have valid pretexts for doing so, and we stand firms in our positions, our path, and our convictions.

Many in Washington would favor dialogue with Hezbollah. It remains to be seen if ‘bridge builders’ can make that happen and if we are going to see some serious changes in US Foreign Policy starting with the Middle East.

This week it appears that Walid’s support is dropping faster than Hilary’s and Suleiman may end up like Fred Thompson (”failed to live up to expectations and not enough fire in the belly for the job”) and Geagea is skyrocketing faster than Barack did in February.

How so?

Despite months of heaping praises on Head of the Lebanese Army General Michel Suleiman, the Bush Administration has pretty much decided to dump the General, for reasons noted below by US Congressional sources.

Following successful visits by Druze leader Walid Jumblatt over the winter, the Bush administration is currently hosting and vetting long-shot candidate Dr. Samir Farid Geagea. He is the leader of the Lebanese Forces (the successor to Bashir Gemayel’s Kateib Phalange Militia founded by warlord Pierre Gemayel following his Berlin ‘fascist epiphany’ and declaration that “Lebanon needs some order like in Germany.” Robert Fisk instructs us that Pierre was never really the same when he returned to Beirut following Hitler’s near perfect showcase 1936 Berlin Olympics. Near perfect because Hitler did not plan on African-American James Cleveland Owens “Jesse” winning four gold medals in the 100m, 200m, long jump and the 4X 100m relay, a feat never equaled until Carl Lewis won gold medals in the same events at the 1984 Summer Olympics.

Despite Geagea’s public image problem, he is looking more promising these days (there is a photo showing Geagea–black, piercing eyes and moustache–with Sharon’s man during the Sabra-Shatila massacre, Elie Hobeika—a very evil looking duo if ever there was one. These are more realistic, one imagines, than even DreamWorks studio could create–so scary, in fact, that during Halloween in Lebanon, one can find this particularly haunting photo on certain Palestinian Camp utility poles to scare young children).

Why Geagea’s rise and the Jumblatt and Suleiman slippage?

The Current Handicap:

I. General and Head of the Lebanese Armed Forces, Michel Suleiman.

David Welch, who met with Geagea and other administration officials on March 12, has reportedly given up on Lebanese Army Chief Michel Suleiman, not due so much to the now 16th postponement of his Presidential election but because Suleiman is becoming ’shop worn’ plus an increasing ‘buyers’ remorse’.

The Welch Club (a number of US neocons, Cheney, Saudi Arabia, Jordan) has lost confidence in him, according to Hill sources, and they no longer trust the General to do their bidding. Suleiman has remained dignified and has tried to walk a tight rope above ‘the situation’ in Lebanon as best he could, including above a pool of very hungry political crocodiles. The General has respectfully met plebeians and patriarchs and sultans and salafists and has, for months, listened attentively and politely to the concerns of each while pledging “to put Lebanon first”. That oft-heard statement is susceptible to various unsettling interpretations in Lebanon and has given pause to more than one faction. “He’s too comfortable with Hezbollah and Syria”, is what Congressional Staff Members on no fewer than 11 Congressional committees and subcommittees dealing with foreign policy, the Middle East, Appropriations, Armed services and Intelligence are being told as part of the ‘talking points’ flowing in and out of Congressional offices. Many in Congress think there will be no President of Lebanon until next year at the earliest—ten months away. Suleiman, some think, may decide to remain with his army where life is more stable.

II. Walid Jumblatt (Progressive Socialist Party—actually its neither progressive nor socialist and more a fraternity/tribe than a political party).

“Walid is over-qualified for the job”, some in Washington say as they prepare to renege on earlier pledges to him. Think Georgia Congressman John Lewis’ “I am 1000% for Hilary”—before he dumped her for Obama a couple of weeks ago).

Walid could maybe overcome the problem that his IQ is said to be ‘off the charts’, which itself makes Washington nervous, but he has other more serious problems.

One significant legal barrier for Jumblatt is the fact that the President of Lebanon currently must be a Maronite Christian—but given the right circumstances, the ‘National Pact’ could theoretically be changed as the Lebanese Constitution Article 45 must be in order to allow General Suleiman to be chosen President since it requires a the two-year period out of the Army for the General before he could be President. But that feat would not be easy.

Walid’s fatal step for serious consideration to lead Lebanon was his comment last week that the Jerusalem attack on the Jewish Religious Institution, which killed 8 students, was a predictable reaction to the Israeli terrorism in Gaza. In Washington, that is roughly the equivalent of “Client #9″ doing Miss Kristen. That verbal act by Jumblatt sunk him and the previously admiring Israel lobby dropped him like a bad habit.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) is now aiding the Geagea effort while Walid, long a favorite at the Bush White House, especially with Cheney, has been losing ground faster than ‘front runner’ Rudy Giuliani imploded.

As if all this were not enough, as one Congressional Staffer reported to the Hill Rag last month “we have an ‘M Problem with both Geagea and Jumblatt in our efforts to get Lebanon a suitable President. With Geagea it’s M for Murder, as in four murder convictions (!) but with Jumblatt its M for Mental. Who would you choose?”

The buzz in Washington is that with Jumblatt, according to the same Hill Staffer, “you never know where he is coming from or when the Druze leader may show up wide-eyed from smoking something and talking crazy Voodoo or Zen shit, or whatever”.

A staffer on the House Judiciary Committee explained that Jumblatt “flip flops more than Romney did and next week he may do another deal with Syria and decide Nasrallah is his channeled long lost brother from a previous life and send his militia to train with Hezbollah for Christ’s sake! I am not joking. During his last visit to Washington, one of his aides actually asked if Jumblatt could meet Shirley MacLaine!”

III. Dr. Samir Farid Geagea

By any stretch of the imagination, 30 months ago Samir Geagea was not anyone’s (except perhaps his own) candidate for the Presidency of Lebanon.

For 11 years until his July 26, 2005 release, he had been in a 6′ X 8′ dank cell, serving multiple death sentences converted to life with hard labor. It was a hard time. Unlike Nelson Mandela during his 27 years in prison, Geagea was not permitted to send or receive mail, to read books or periodicals containing political information about Lebanon, watch television or listen to the radio. He was handcuffed and blindfolded whenever taken out of his cell for exercise or brief visits with relatives and lawyers under the watchful eye of monitors. His guards were forbidden to converse with him beyond simple commands.

Geagea’s imprisonment was because he was convicted of murdering 6 people–only a small portion of his long list of war crimes according to his enemies.

His convictions included:

* the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister, Mr. Rachid Karami
* assassination of a former leading figure in the Lebanese Forces militia, Elias Zayek
* assassination of Christian leader Dany Chamoun with his wife and two young children (ages 5 and 7)
* assassination attempt against Deputy Prime Minister/Minister of the Interior Michel Murr

Geagea was released as a result of Amnesty legislation that also freed some Al Qaeda types.

Some in Lebanon feel he should never have been freed, but his many supporters, including 170,000 who signed a Petition for his release, disagree.

They argue that all the legal files and proceedings brought against him and the Lebanese Forces are without foundation. They proclaimed during his incarceration on the Lebanese Forces website: “Samir Geagea is today, the only political prisoner in Lebanon. His crime is that of exercising his democratic rights. Samir Geagea, current leader of the Lebanese Forces. The only person in the history of our country who was given a choice to either leave Lebanon and never come back or to go to prison. … They [the Syrian-controlled Lebanese government including the Courts and most of the Judges at the time of Geagea's convictions] thought they could accuse him and everyone would believe their lies. They thought wrong and here is the world condemning them, the Australian courts condemned them for fabricating evidence; the United Nations Human Rights Committees condemned them; and all those people who value the rule of law condemned them. Samir Geagea is an example of a man who is unselfishly devoted to a significant cause. He is a true model for all who believe in a just and reconciled Lebanon”.

Many consider Geagea a true Lebanese Patriot and many of his quotes are distributed around Christian areas:

* “I would prefer to remain in prison for another 20 years than bargain my beliefs for freedom.”
– November 2004, speaking to a delegation from the Human Rights Committee of the Lebanese Parliament
* “I have spent 11 horrific years in solitary confinement in a 6-square-meter dungeon three floors underground without sunlight or fresh air. But I endured my hardships because I was merely living my convictions.”
– 26 July 2005, on his release.

This week, Geagea had successful meetings with US National Security Advisor Steven Hadley who told Geagea that America was strongly committed to helping the Lebanese build an independent state, as the An-Nahar daily quoted a White House source as saying on Tuesday.

“The US is still strongly committed to help the Lebanese people fulfill their dream of building a free, independent and prosperous state,” Hadley told Geagea during their discussion of the kind of military aid Lebanon needs. Geagea also met with Assistant to Vice President Cheney for National Security Affairs John Hannah and US Secretary of State Rice and one of her undersecretaries David Welch.

According to An-Nahar’s correspondent in Washington, the unusually high level Geagea meetings “reflect US appraisal of him as a major March 14 movement leader”. And they wanted to discuss with him ways to help the Lebanese government achieve such goals and US worries of “continuous efforts” by Syria and Hezbollah to “undermine” Premier Fouad Siniora’s Cabinet.

Geagea has the ‘correct’ position on key issues and shares Bush administration views on practically every question. Regarding Shebaa Farms (a phony issue his delegation is claiming), disarming the Resistance (the sooner the better), the Hariri Tribunal (full steam ahead) the Damascus Arab League Conference (not until Lebanon has a President), shipping Lebanon’s Palestinians out of Lebanon (ASAP-ABI–As Soon As Possible-Anywhere But Israel!) and not to be naturalized in Lebanon. Finally, but not least, Geagea, just like the former leader of his militia, the murdered Bashir Gemayel, is thought to be Israel’s choice to lead Lebanon.

Geagea’s people are still testing the water in Washington as they hope to meet President Bush in the coming days. Publicly Geagea’s delegation still praises General Suleiman but without enthusiasm: “Our choice cannot be other than the primary choice, which is the Lebanese state and its institutions. As for the means to build this state and run it, the March 14 Forces will declare any decision we make at the appropriate time,” Geagea’s group told the Washington Press Corp on March 11.

Geagea is stressing in Washington that the Lebanese crisis “remains in the hands of the Lebanese, despite the fact that some factions are linked to other (foreign) powers… we are not looking for a western settlement to our cause. We have the settlement. We are looking for backing from all states of the world. We will ask for support even from China.”

Geagea’s dramatic rehabilitation in Bush administration eyes raised some eyebrows of its own in the House Judiciary Committee (subcommittee on Criminal Justice) when staff members and fans of Amy Winehouse, the British singer complained that she was denied a US Visa after Geagea got his (following years of being denied one). They demanded to know how an otherwise wholesome, drug troubled entertainer in rehab could fairly be denied a visa to come and receive a near record 5 Grammys, when Geagea got a visa in spite of clear and ‘iron clad’ US regulations forbidding it. But things quieted down and in the end Amy was also OK because Hollywood pressure squeezed the State Department and low and behold the US Embassy in London called her with the good news. But Amy declined it with a polite ‘thanks but no thanks’ having already made arrangements to appear at the Award’s ceremony via satellite.

Geagea’s Washington admirers point out that unlike other warlords in Lebanon, Geagea is said to have “an almost puritanical disdain for material concern”, as noted by historian Theodor Hanf in his voluminous study of the Lebanese war.

Washington Post correspondent Jonathan C. Randal, who is scathingly critical of Maronite militia leaders in his book on the war, described Geagea as “well-read, thoughtful, and possessed of a revolutionary soul.”

When asked to summarize the reason for the apparent Bush administration switch, a legislative aid on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Subcommittee on the Middle East opined with sarcasm:

There are two politicians in Lebanon who generally speak the truth and can be counted on to keep their word and not sell out. Hassan Nasrallah and Samir Geagea. As you know Nasrallah is not currently the Bush administration candidate.

Another added during the same conference call: “Cheney’s people like Geagea because he’s been tested. Nobody had the balls to defy Syria in the 1980s and early 90s. Even his pal Hobeika sold out. Geagea survived a brutal incarceration and before being jailed earned the respect of his people. Again, like Nasrallah, he is first of all a Lebanese Patriot. Geagea can’t be bought. He is not afraid of Syria, Iran or anyone else. He will play ball with Israel. Lebanon could do a lot worse with what is likely heading its way”.

These Islamist groups secretly organize and operate in this and other camps, for the same reason Bill Clinton messed with Ms. Monica Lewinsky, “Because I could” as Bill finally owned up when his denials fueled comedy on late night TV.

So it is with Al Qaeda in Lebanon. The Palestinian leadership strongly opposes Islamist groups, but, like Lebanon’s ‘government,’ it is powerless to prevent them from inhabiting their relatively safe havens.

Over the past few days, these groups have become activated by the deployment of the guided missile destroyer USS Cole, which reportedly left Malta on February 26 on route to a position over the horizon from Beirut. Its imminent arrival is seen in Lebanon as a warning to Syria, Iran, and the Lebanese Resistance, led by Hezbollah. Its meaning is that while the Bush administration has arguably ‘lost’ Iraq, Afghanistan — and perhaps soon Pakistan and parts of the Gulf — it is ready to join the fight with Israel in order not to ‘lose’ Lebanon.

Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters in Washington just yesterday that the deployment should not be viewed as threatening or in response to events in any single country in the volatile region. (!)

“This is an area that is important to us, the eastern Med,” he said when asked about news reports of the ship movements. “It’s a group of ships that will operate in the vicinity there for a while,” adding that “it isn’t meant to send any stronger signals than that. But it does signal that we’re engaged, we’re going to be in the vicinity, and that’s a very, very important part of the world.”

Mullen was asked whether the deployment of the ships was linked to the timing of the Lebanese election.

“To say it’s absolutely directly tied would be incorrect, but we are certainly aware that elections out there are both important, and they are due at some point in time,” he replied.

And when asked whether Syria is the reason for the deployment, he said: “It’s not specifically sent to any one country, as much as it is to the region itself.”

The US National Security Council spokesman Gordon Johndroe added that the deployment of the Cole was because President George Bush is concerned about the situation in Lebanon.

“Bush may have to destroy Lebanon in order to save Lebanon like he did with Iraq” a teenager grinned as he offered yet more sweet tea as we moved from meeting to meeting around Ein el-Helwe on a project related to Educational needs of Palestinian students.

Lebanon has not been responsive to the Bush Administration. Its have had to endure serial failures during a three year series of failed projects in Lebanon. Among these were the 2006 July War, the tempting ‘forward reaching’ NATO airbase at Kleiat, importing Salafists to fight Hezbollah, trying to organize a Northern Sunni army around Tripoli and Akkar to fight the Shia in the South, offering to fund a third Shia political party to confront Hezbollah and Amal, working to ignite a civil war, and recently, unproven allegations of a ‘green light’ for political assassinations in an attempt to finger and isolate Syria. The Club is nearly at its wits end and is becoming aggressive, according to one Staff Member at the US Senate Intelligence Committee.

The irony of sending the USS Cole, as “a show of support for regional stability” which was the identical mission it was on when it was attacked in the port of Aden, Yemen, in October 2000 (by water-borne al-Qaeda suicide bombers killing seventeen US sailors and wounding more than 50, while badly damaging the craft) is not lost on Al Qaeda inspired militants from the ‘blueline n the South to Ain el Helwe and up North to Tripoli and Hermel.

According to ‘Ahmad’, a boyish faced middle aged veteran fighter who arrived from Iraq some months ago, and who would fit the caricature of “an Al Qaeda inspired salafist mujahedeen” if ever the reader would bump into one, “The US warships will not leave Lebanon’s water until they are attacked and destroyed. They are coming to wage war against Lebanon on behalf of the Zionists,” he explained.

A stunning blond woman, “Rena” who seemed more European than Arab and appeared to be some sort of military expert explained as though she was a Pentagon spokesperson:

“The US Nassau Expeditionary Strike Group based in Naples, Italy arrived in the 6th Fleet’s operational area three days ago. They may join the Cole and we are expecting eventually six ships. The Cole was re-commissioned in April 2002 and had its first post-attack deployment in November 2003.”

As this observer’s eyes widened, ‘Rena” continued:

“We are watching their movements carefully. Besides the Nassau, the group includes a guided missile cruiser, two guided missile destroyers and two additional amphibious ships. The amphibious ships can carry thousands of Marines and can land on Lebanon’s shores at almost any point along 120 kilometers.”

“How do you know all this stuff?” this observer blathered.

Her associate patiently explained, while serving yet more sweet tea:

“Our mujahedeen have learned much since we attacked the Cole in Aden in October of 2000. The Bush administration has learned nothing from history. Does Bush read? Does he know what happened when the US sent the marines and USS New Jersey in 1983? Does he think Lebanon forgets that it turned South Beirut and Mount Lebanon into rubble with 2,700 pound shells? We are waiting for these sardine cans packed with crusaders to be incinerated like the Merkavas in the July War. Let them come—they will leave—just like when Reagan sent them last time!”

Ahmad’s friend added, “Sooner of later the US warship will bomb Lebanon. They are not coming to gaze at our scenery. When they do the US Embassy will disappear within hours along with other indentified targets. Probably they are coming in order to wage war against Syria and Iran as well as Lebanon. It will be a big war, and it may start very soon.”

An unnamed senior US official (David Welch according to an informed source) told the Reuters news agency that the new mission was “a show of support for regional stability”. “We are very concerned about the situation in Lebanon. It has dragged on very long.”

Welch stressed that once in position, the ships would not be within visible range of Lebanon but “well over the horizon for now”. Ironically however, eager Al Qaeda affiliated groups are to confront the US vessels “head on” so to speak; it is Hezbollah that is likely to ‘cover the 6th Fleet back’ and provide protection, as they currently do with UNIFIL in the South.

The last thing Hezbollah wants is a civil war in Lebanon and that is the first thing Israel wants. Most Lebanese agree that Hezbollah is all about Resistance to Israeli aggression and occupation and implementing UNSCR 1701 and Israeli withdrawal from Lebanon’s Shebaa Farms and the village of Ghajar. Its supporters claim Hezbollah will disarm when Israel ceases to be a threat to Lebanon.

Hizbullah MP Hasan Fadlallah, quoted in Beirut’s As Safir this morning stated that “the U.S. move “proves that the “real confrontation is with effective decision makers in Washington… America’s show of strength is evidence of failure and indication that it had consumed all political pressure to impose the American tutelage.”

The next moves will be determined by what the flotilla does when it arrives offshore here in Lebanon.

Meanwhile, al Qaeda and others are watching and waiting.

The difference, my dear Christian friends, between Israel and the Arab world is quite simply the difference between civilization and barbarism. It’s the difference between good and evil and this is what we’re witnessing in the Arabic and Islamic world. I am angry. They have no SOUL! They are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call “Allah,” which is very different from the God we believe in, because our God is the God of love.

– Brigitte Gabriel, speaking at John Hagee’s Christians United for Israel Convention, July 27, 2007

A strong person is not the person who throws his adversaries to the ground. A strong person is the person who contains himself when he is angry.

– Prophet Muhammad (PBUH)

Marjayoun, Lebanon — One imagines that all Americans, and people from every part of the globe and of sundry faiths, are touched emotionally upon encountering the natural beauty of the northern Biblical Holy Land that is South Lebanon. With its rugged vegetation-covered hills and valleys and more than 500 picturesque villages, many quite ancient and populated by warm, devout, and peaceful people, the area is hypnotic.

So it is for this observer, visiting Marjayoun (”meadow of springs” in Arabic), one of Lebanon’s most stunning towns and the home of the historic Cathedral of Saint Peter as well as beautiful historic mosques. A lovely, modest, bucolic town of roughly 2,300 residents in winter and 3,500 in summer, Marjayoun sits majestically on a hill facing Mount Hermon to the east, Beaufort Castle, the 1,000-year old Crusader Castle above the Litani River and overlooking Mount Amel (jabal amel) to the west. Marjayoun’s fertile plains, some of the richest in the Middle East, extend southward into the Galilee and Syria’s Golan Heights.

Shia and Sunni Muslims, Greek Orthodox and Maronite Christians, and Greek Catholics had lived in Marjayoun, mainly in peace, for more than ten centuries until the invading Israeli forces in 1978 installed near the town center its proxy militia, the so-called South Lebanon Army (SLA).

The SLA and the Israeli army quickly constructed the notorious regional detention center just down the road at Khiam, where systematic torture has been documented by many human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, until its May 25, 2000, storming and liberation by townspeople.

Israel and its proxy army stayed in Marjayoun for nearly a quarter-century and as various local resistance forces rose to confront the occupation and the Israeli-funded (via US taxpayers) Saad Haddad/Antoine Lahad militia, Marjayoun, like scores of other villages, suffered from the fighting.

Marjayoun’s most recent tragedy occurred on August 11, 2006, when Israeli forces took control of the town, following the announcement by the UN of an agreement to cease hostilities. Israel gave the UN and the Red Cross permission to evacuate a convoy of 3,000 people huddled in the town, providing a map of exactly which roads they were to use and repeatedly pledging safe passage to the terrified evacuees. Despite this, the Red Cross/UN convoy was targeted after dark by an Israeli air-strike at Joub Jannine, killing eight and wounding 37 refugees, most of whom were Christian.

The convoy attack was the 12th such strike during the 33 days conflict for which Israel exonerated itself, stating that its air force “erred” owing to erroneous targeting data and expressing regret in the wake of too-short-lived international outrage.

Despite its frequent problem with ‘targeting errors,’ Israel’s air force earned the highest praise and commendation from last month’s Winograd Commission Report for “its outstanding success, service and bravery” during the July 2006 war. This “finding” was based on the fact that Israel’s Air Force suffered practically no casualties in its bombing, which was conducted with American aircraft firing from an altitude of around 15, 20, and sometimes 25,000 feet and at a distance of as much as 10 miles from most of its 1,100 plus civilian victims, nearly one-third of whom were children.

The commission credited the coldness of what Col. Dan Smith instructs us is “a rational, cost effective, calculated, uninvolved, ’sanitized’ unemotional killing of other humans from a far distance over the rather more unstable frenzy that requires facing an enemy close up which is considerably more dangerous for Israel’s military.”

Amnesty International has criticized the Winograd Commission Report because it fails to address the issue of war crimes against the civilian population in Lebanon, and “the indiscriminate killings of many Lebanese civilians not involved in the hostilities and the deliberate and wanton destruction of civilian properties and infrastructure on a massive scale.”

In whitewashing Israel’s killing of more than 1,000 innocent civilians, Winograd missed “another opportunity to address the policies and decisions behind the grave violations of international humanitarian law — including war crimes — committed by Israeli forces,” said Amnesty’s Middle East and North Africa program director, Malcolm Smart.

Yoav Peled, a professor of political science at Tel Aviv University, shares Amnesty’s criticism of the report. “The commission performed its expected role: to whitewash the disaster and get the politicians off the hook,” he said in a statement following the release of the Winograd report.

Maid Brigitte of Marjayoun

Marjayoun has become notorious recently, in some circles, not just for decades of Israeli crimes, but also as the base from whence Ms. Brigitte Gabriel, a local woman, appeared and launched her virulent strain of Islamophobia. Joining with the US-Israel Lobby, she has been organizing perhaps the most vicious hate campaign against Islam, Arabs, and Muslims ever witnessed in America.

There is no shortage of people in Marjayoun with varying views of “what happened to Miss Brigitte” and how she became so hateful toward her countrymen and became an Israeli collaborator. “She always loved the Israeli occupation of Marjayoun and over time just came to dislike Arabs of all types, even though as a Lebanese she is totally Arab,” one of her former neighbors explained.

Another disagreed, “Brigitte never really thought of herself as an Arab at all, rather she fantasized that she was ‘Phoenician’ and pointed out to her Arabs neighbors that ‘Phoenicians were in Lebanon long before the Arabs invaded and it belongs to us!’” According to a former classmate, when she was in middle school, Brigitte preferred French and would announce to classmates in Arabic class, “I don’t speak Arabic, I speak Lebanese!”

Before moving to Israel and eventually to the United States, Brigitte worked for Middle East TV, a Marjayoun-based station run by the South Lebanon Army (SLA) and funded by Israel. It moved to Cyprus for a period and was later purchased by Pat Robertson, who is now building a Christian Zionism Center in Israel. After obtaining a green card by marrying an American, Brigitte set up a business selling her new country “insider information not available elsewhere” about the existential dangers posed by Islam and Arabs, based, she announced, “on my unique perspective having been nearly killed by them and rescued by Israel.”

Regarding recent Lebanese affairs, according to her former neighbors in South Lebanon, Brigitte has been a close supporter of the Phalange militia and SLA since her teenage years. According to her ACT office in Virginia Beach, Brigitte hopes to host the current Lebanese Forces warlord, Samir Geagea—fives times convicted of murdering various Christian opponents and their children—during his upcoming March visit to the US.

Denied a US visa since his murder convictions, Geagea has been forgiven by the US embassy in Beirut, and he will spend much of March with the Welch Club discussing military aid to Lebanon and subjects of mutual interest to the Bush administration, Israel, and the Lebanese Forces.

Brigitte As Student of American History

One can just forget about Israel’s brutal military occupation of Palestine, the Bush Administration invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and its threatening much of the world, Brigitte sees a jihadist campaign against her adopted country going back to the very day America was founded. While Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and Washington and Madison considered the Barbary pirates, who had operated for centuries along the coasts of Morocco, Algeria, and Tunisia, “nothing but petty tyrants” and “nests of banditti,” Brigitte knows better.

In her view, the founding fathers were simply duped because the Muslim pirates were in fact serious Jihadists using a promise in the Koran of Paradise and virgins if they warred against infidels, so they became pirates.

Nor is Brigitte, who lives not far from Monticello, Jefferson’s birthplace, impressed by Jefferson’s liberal views about religion. It may be recalled that the author of the Declaration of Independence and Virginia’s Act for Religious Freedom was most proud of his role as a resistance leader against British occupation:

“Where the preamble [to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom —Ed.] declares that coercion is a departure from the plan of the holy author of our religion, an amendment that was proposed for the insertion of the words ‘Jesus Christ’ into the preamble was specifically rejected by the great majority, in proof that they meant to comprehend, within the mantle of its protection, the Jew and the Gentile, the Christian and Mohammedan, the Hindu, and Infidel of every denomination.” (Thomas Jefferson, Autobiography, in reference to the Virginia Act for Religious Freedom)

Jefferson might have had people like Brigitte in mind when he wrote:

“But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg.” (Notes on Virginia, 1782)

While religious tolerance and the existence of other religions did not pick Jefferson’s pocket, they are filling Brigitte’s as she panders to the uninformed, the bigoted, and the xenophobic.

Brigitte attracted attention from this observer, who previously had not heard of her, when she posted her July 2006 ‘Thank You Israel!’ letter expressing “heartfelt gratitude” for Israel’s attack on Lebanon. According to a former colleague of hers, this was drafted at Virginia Beach while working on her suntan in a period during which much of her birth country was being destroyed. Having arrived in Lebanon during the war, this observer was curious whether this Lebanese-born woman was somehow unaware of the carnage caused by more than 16,000 Israeli attacks on more than 7,400 targets, whose toll looks like this:

* More than 500 villages destroyed or damaged

* 30,000 private homes totally destroyed

* 32,000 homes with major damage

* 70,000 homes with minor damage

* 137 bridges and overpasses bombed

* 26 fuel stations and 3 main fuel-storage tanks destroyed

* 950 large businesses and 2,800 smaller ones obliterated

* 23 large factories—milk and candy producers among them— destroyed

* 330 main and secondary water distribution networks bombed

* 186 purification, chlorination, storage and pumping stations bombed

* 150 electrical transformers bombed

* 50 health-care facilities destroyed or severely damaged

* 150 km of coastline contaminated with oil

* 350 schools damaged or destroyed

* 950,000 of her countrymen displaced

* Almost 1,450 killed and 4,500 wounded

* And, according to Amnesty International, as many as 40 people, including 27 civilians and 13 de-mining personnel, have been killed by Israeli fired cluster munitions since the end of the war, and more than 240 people have been injured.

Perhaps a good way to help inform ourselves about Brigitte’s current views and concerns is to consider excerpts from her stump speeches and Act for America website culled over the past several months (excerpted below).

* “Thank you Israel!’ Brigitte proclaimed in an open letter. “We urge you to hit Lebanon hard and destroy Hezbollah’s infrastructure… On behalf of thousands of Lebanese, we also ask you to open the doors of Tel Aviv’s Ben Gurion Airport to thousands of volunteers in the [Lebanese] diaspora willing to bear arms and liberate their homeland from [Islamic] fundamentalism.”

* “As I watch what is happening in Lebanon, it is absolutely necessary to support Israel to kill the cancer that has spread and is killing the Lebanese body. Israel is not targeting civilians. Israel is targeting terrorists. Israel has launched 3000 air strikes on Lebanon since the beginning of the Operation and inflicted only 122 casualties. If Israel’s intention was to kill civilians you would have seen many more civilian deaths than only 122. That is nothing. They are being extremely careful, even dropping flyers and urging civilians to leave before they bomb. No country meets Israel’s high standards and Purity of Arms. These “civilian casualties” are terrorists and terrorist families and terrorist sympathizers. Terrorists, terrorists, terrorists!”

* “I am speaking with the Lebanese Christians in Lebanon and they are all fine. Israel is not bombing them or their towns. Israel is bombing the Shiite radical strong-holds. This is what the news is not telling you. The airport was used to bring support to Hezbollah and that’s why Israel bombed the infrastructure. It is also in Lebanon and Hezbollah where these terrorists are developing the roadside bombs used on our marines and soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those same terrorists have cells in America and ready to unleash suicide bombing here in America within the hour if ordered to do so.” (CNN, 7/18/06)

* “Most Americans in Lebanon [who were trying to flee US bombs dropped by Israel during the July 2006 war —Ed.] support Hezbollah and US taxpayer money should not be used to help them return home.” [In other words, let Israel kill them —Ed.]

* In nearly every speech, Marjayoun’s Maid routinely mentions the essential reminder that Israel, with its estimated 250-plus nuclear weapons and superpower military, needs more US money and servicemen to die in order to protect the apartheid regime from the fantastic threats from the Lebanese resistance and its supporters, which include a majority of her fellow Lebanese Christians.

Brigitte instructs us: Why Hezbollah has better sex. It’s the Jihad, Stupid!

Not your run of the mill democrat, Brigitte regularly complains to her audiences that:

“Hezbollah’s Shiite extremists began multiplying like rabbits and are outproducing moderate Sunnis and Christians. Twenty-five years later they have produced enough people to vote themselves into 24 seats in the Lebanese parliament and now are a majority in Lebanon. Hamas is doing the same thing with the Palestinians as part of their ‘Resistance to Occupation.’ Yes, sex for them is simply a form of Jihad. It all boils down to a war of Islamic Jihad ideology [genitalia! —Ed.] vs. Judeo-Christian Westernism wherein our men are too stressed to do it much anymore. Muslims, who are now the majority of Lebanon’s population, support Hezbollah because they are part of the Islamic Ummah-the nation. Sex as Jihad is the taboo subject everyone is trying to avoid but it needs to be exposed for what it really is.

This is the same Hezbollah that Iran is threatening to unleash in America with suicide bomb attacks if America tries to stop Iran from developing a nuclear weapon to bomb Israel. They have cells in over 100 cities in the United States. Hamas has the largest terrorist infrastructure on American soil. This is what happens when you turn a blind eye to evil for decades, hoping it will go away.”

When asked for a source for her claims, Gabriel’s Virginia Beach office replied: “Its common sense! Why can’t you grasp that?”

Gabriel spoke as part of a lecture series organized by Duke University’s Jewish community to provide ‘counter-programming’ after the fourth Palestinian Solidarity Movement student conference was held there in October 2004. She angered many members of the crowd when she referred to Arabs as “barbarians” and Duke’s Freeman Center for Jewish Life later apologized for her comments.

Recently Brigitte has been telling her audiences about a Des Moines, Iowa imam who not long ago offered the prayer to open the Iowa legislature. In this prayer the Muslim gentleman made a plea for “victory over those who disbelieve,” i.e., those who are atheists. That John Hagee and his ilk and countless rabbis say the same thing every day does not appear to have dawned on Brigitte.

While reassuring her audiences “that Islamic terrorism is, of course, a serious, global threat that we must — repeat, must — defeat,” Brigitte has recently been seeing another dark penumbra on the horizon: “But there is another threat to our safety, security and liberty that we must also defeat and that is the increasing threat of Cultural, Social and Civilization Jihad aided by the forces of American political correctness”:

“I am very troubled that in the name of tolerance and educating American children about the Muslim empire in history liberal American teachers get away with giving beginning Islamic teaching which may cause many to perhaps one day become Muslims. We have reports that in some classes teachers are allowing students to use calligraphy to copy parts of the Quran in Arabic as an enrichment activity. This has got to stop!

I am very concerned with books like History Alive! The Medieval World and Beyond volume published by the pro Muslim Teachers’ Curriculum Institute in California. The upsetting part is not only do they go into the real history which is ok, but they teach Islam. … Moreover, the books one page referencing Jews is only to convey that they were tortured by Crusaders to get them to convert to Christianity. It fails to mention that the biggest persecutors of Jews throughout history and still today are Arab and Muslims. It gives four only one-liner references to the Jews being wrongly blamed for the plagues and problems in the land. How can the writers of this text get away with this?”

(Bert Bower, founder of TCI, said not only did his company have experts review the book, but the state of California and many experts in California also reviewed it, and have approved it for use in public schools).

More samples:

“Political Islam has annihilated every culture it has invaded or immigrated to. The total time for annihilation takes centuries, but once Islam is ascendant it never fails. The host culture disappears and becomes extinct.” (”Well what are we waiting for let’s bomb Iran before they get us!!” someone in her audience often bursts out at this point in Brigitte’s talk.)

“We, as patriotic Americans must be willing to give up more liberties in this time of war against Islam — non-Muslims are not frustrated by time-consuming, privacy-invading airport screenings, phone monitoring, surveillance, and other measures — only Muslims are affected by it, because they are the ones doing all the terrorism!”

Westerners must mount a united front against Islamic law!

“I believe that the way Sharia will insinuate itself into our law would be through arbitration and mediation of domestic and financial disputes through an extra-judicial arbitration system condoned by our courts. That would entail setting up separate a Sharia law section of the American Arbitration Association overseen by Islamic law panels. Many agree with me and this should be a warning to all about how Sharia will spread through the proverbial legal back door.”

Brigitte urges Americans not to allow mosques to be built and suggests that if citizens observe one being constructed, it should be immediately reported to the FBI. Brigitte has joined Daniel Pipes and the thought-policing and silencing actions of AIPAC and its Zionist affiliates and instructs students that “if a college professor or public figure criticizes U.S. policies you have a patriotic duty to report this un-American activity to the Dean, or alert the media and authorities.”

During her talk at a Hillel House–arranged event, and without giving a source, Brigitte claims that up to 25 percent of the world’s 1.5 billion Muslims are “radicals who have their eyes against the West, and are willing to become suicide bombers like Muhammad Ata.” One sarcastic young lady in the audience interrupted: “Holy cow Brigitte, that’s roughly, ah let me see…ah,…. 440 million Muslims suicide bombers coming after us! Could you help us just a little bit with a source for your claim when you get a chance?” Brigitte glared and refused to continue her talk until the audience hilarity subsided.

And this:

“We used to think, ‘Al-Qaeda [is] the only problem; Al-Qaeda is the only terrorist organization that is causing problems for the rest of us.’ Well I am telling you that way of thinking needs to be changed because Al-Qaeda is an umbrella organization where many different organizations come underneath it, such as Hamas, such as Hezbollah, such as Fatah . . . many different people that share the same ideology and that is Islamofascism [sic], and they have their eyes on the West.”

Practically every schoolchild in Lebanon knows that Shia Hezbollah and Sunni Salafist Al-Qaeda are mortal enemies, with Hezbollah protecting UNIFIL’s back from Al Qaeda–inspired groups in the south Lebanon.

For her Valentine’s Day message this month Brigitte warns that “We must start doing more than exposing or resisting the advances of Islamofascism — we must go on the offensive to roll it back and fight for the bedrock values that made America the beacon of hope to the world. … The only real question is: Do we have the will to do what is necessary to stop Islamofascism, in whatever form it takes? Because, simply put, if we do, we will. If we don’t, we won’t. That’s it. Bottom line.”

Brigitte has exhibited little hesitancy in boldly lying to her audiences when pressed with inconvenient questions. For example, she is prominently displayed as a member of an arm of the Israeli propaganda ministry known as the Hasbara Fellowship Speakers Bureau, from whom she gets lucrative speaking engagements. Her photo appears just above the pictures of Dori Gold and Caroline Glick, well know Arab-phobes. However, during the Q&A section of a recent talk at the Joint Forces Staff College in Norfolk, Virginia, she was apparently not prepared to be so easily and thoroughly exposed as a Zionist shill whose main loyalty is to Israel:

Brigitte Gabriel: You can not trust having a Muslim in office when he has to make a decision to either be loyal to the United States or be loyal to Islam.

Audience member: Ma’am, thank you. I’d like to point out that I’m an American soldier and practicing Muslim, served the U.S. Army for the past 19 years very proudly [a rebuttal to your previous point]. … Two questions. Are you a member of Hasbara Fellowship?

BG: What’s Hasbara Fellowship?

AM: A fellowship in Israel. [An] organization—

BG: No. No.

Brigitte’s writing and speeches are full of historical errors, including her recent statement that “The world protected the Palestinians after the PLO left from Lebanon in 1983″ (she probably meant 1982 when the PLO evacuated Beirut only after repeated pledges by the US and Israel that the Palestinians refugee camps would be protected.) She denies that the pledges were not kept and that Israel organized the September 16-18, 1982, massacre at the Sabra-Shatila camp. She claims it has never been proved who caused “that greatly exaggerated incident, and we may never know. Muslims are always killing each other. Like what’s new, that is all they know.”

Brigitte’s book, Because They Hate: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America claims she spent 10 years in a bomb shelter until rescued by the Israeli army. Recently, she mentioned it was actually 7 years. In a February 2008 update on her website, she writes:

“As many of you know, I have a unique perspective on the threat we face. I lived for seven years in a bomb shelter in my home in Lebanon. I am a victim of Islamic terror. Most of my friends were killed by Islamic militants. I watched helplessly as we lost our beautiful country to radical Islam — I am determined that nothing even approaching that tragedy happens to my adopted country.”

Brigitte used to tell her audiences that Hezbollah was the group that terrorized her family for seven years, between 1975 and 1982, until people started to object pointing out that Hezbollah was organized after she left Lebanon with Israeli escorts following their 1982 invasion. Hezbollah was created as a resistance movement as a direct result of and to confront the Israeli occupation until it drove Israel from most of Lebanon by May of 2000 — by then Brigitte was long gone and had never crossed paths with Hezbollah.

Her former neighbors in Marjayoun say she may have spent a few nights in her homes shelter at times, or more likely in her basement, as did many in Marjayoun, but to their knowledge Brigitte lived fairly normally in her family home, given ‘the situation’ of the Israeli occupation.

There can be little doubt that Brigitte Gabriel is on a rich roll with the Israeli lobby and various Zionist organizations as she spews anti-Arab and anti-Muslim venom, the likes of which America has never witnessed.

The Act for America and American Congress for Truth (ACT) sites packages its hate and scare tactics much like Ann Coulter and the right wing anti-Islam Human Events website. According to Campus Watch, Brigitte is modeling her career after Ann Coulter’s, but she wants to specialize not in simply harassing ‘liberals’ but to go after “real terrorists.”

Claiming chapters for her ACT advocacy group in all 50 states and Israel as well as affiliates in many countries, Gabriel is in the process of ‘going international.’ As part of her move to Europe, last week she reached out to endorse Susanne Winter, the extreme right-wing Austrian politician with the FPÖ party running for a city council seat in the city of Graz. Winter had blasted Muslims two weeks ago saying that “in today’s system” the Prophet Mohammad would be considered a dirty “child molester,” and that “child abuse is very common among Muslim men.”

“In 20 or 30 years,” she warned in an interview with the daily Osterreich a couple of weeks ago, “half of Austria’s population would be Muslim.” Winter claims it is time that Islam was “thrown back out of Europe behind the Mediterranean,” and alleges Mohammad wrote the Koran during “epileptic fits.”

While Austrian prosecutors are looking into the possibility of filing charges against Winters for incitement, Gabriel heaps praise on her across the Atlantic.

On February 12, 2008, Brigitte emailed her subscribers what she told them “may be the most important message I have ever emailed to you, our members.” She has decided to up the ante in order to maintain her position as the Jeanne d’Arc of the forces to liberate America from what God told her are the Islamofascists.

Lori Loves Brigitte

In addition to divine motivation, Brigitte has earthly concerns. Some of her friends are telling her that her ‘message’ is getting stale from overuse and shrillness and many of her ‘facts’ are increasingly being refuted (e.g. Hezbollah bombed her house, when in fact the modest damage occurred before Hezbollah was formed in the area and those who shelled her house were likely either Israeli artillery positions or their proxy Christian militia).

To use a term the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) leader in Philadelphia applied recently to Brigitte saying she is ‘hot,’ it may be that she has cooled a bit.

But, dear reader, don’t think for one moment that Lori Lowenthal Marcus, who runs ZOA-Pa., doesn’t still love Brigitte. She adores her! Far be it from this observer to ignite intra-Zionist movement tension between the Dark Maid from Marjayoun and the Light ZIO-ZOA Princess from the City of Brotherly (and presumably Sisterly) Love!

What is troubling and at the same time motivating Brigitte’s ‘makeover’ is the appearance of new young-guns on the street corner who she claims are encroaching hustlers and phonies, yet they are definitely cutting into her market share with her creators and benefactors in the Israel Lobby.

The subjects of her wrath, who publicly she praises as “colleagues and kindred spirits,” are Walid Shoebat, Kamal Saleem, and Zachariah Anani, to whom journalist Chris Hedges, author of War is a Force that Gives Us Meaning, refers to as Curly, Larry and Mo — the three stooges.

Brigitte is livid! “Not only are these creeps Arabs, but two of them are Palestinians!” she explained to ACT staff during her appearance at the Christians United for Israel Conference in Washington, DC. And they are trespassing far too often into her private space, which primarily includes right-wing Christian audiences, Zionist gatherings, and American audiences with little knowledge of Islam, the Middle East, or the Question of Palestine.

Proving Brigitte’s claim that you can never trust an Arab (”Never! Never! Never!” she often adds for emphasis), these sneaky fellows have been ratcheting up their rants to get speaking engagements, some of which may have gone to Brigitte, and one of them is now telling audiences, according to Hedges, “that the only way to deal with one-fifth of the world’s population is by converting or eradicating all Muslims.”

Shoebat, the author of Why We Want to Kill You, recently chortled, “Let the spoiled brat from South Lebanon top that!” following an appearance on Tovia Singer’s radio broadcast.

For his part, Shoebat, notes Hedges, also promises to explain in 2008 the many similarities between radical Muslims and the Nazis, and how “Muslim terrorists” invaded America 30 years ago and how “perseverance, recruitment and hate have fueled attacks by Muslims.”

The way Brigitte sees it, according to a former colleague at ACT, she has got to “refresh” her own niche in this market because too many others are homing in and crowding the Islamic terrorism/Islamofascism racket. Brigitte has been running out of fresh material for her website and speeches. She has recently complained to friends that only a few months ago no fewer than 11 of the candidates for US president were trying to scare up votes using her Islamofascism material. Remember Giuliani, Richardson, Thompson, and the still running McCain (”the greatest threat facing the world is Islamic terrorism”), Clinton and Huckabee (”Islamofascism is the greatest threat this country has ever faced”)?

A gifted businesswoman, Brigitte knows a crowded market when she sees one and has recently increased her market share by moving into the Daniel Pipes Campus Watch lucrative territory and is mining the juicy resources of colleges, religious institutions, state legislatures, and government agencies—all the time endearing herself to the Israel lobby by tracking down would be Islamofascists.

Brigitte Plans Ahead

In a recent post on actforamerica.org, Brigitte poses a question to would-be donors:

“Do you want to see terrorists detonate weapons of mass destruction in America, killing tens of thousands of our people, destabilizing our government and plunging our economy into a deep recession? … We are preparing to launch a series of projects that, combined together, will put us on the offensive against the infiltration of militant Islam in America in a way that no other organization has ventured to even try. … I’m asking you to make a choice, take action, make a contribution, and help us do what needs to be done. We are prepared to launch this offensive—but we can’t do it without your financial help.”

The following wish list is truncated:

Legislative Action

* Commission a nationwide public opinion poll to assess voter opinion regarding these proposals, as well as other issues relating to the advance of militant Islam. Cost: $40,000

* Prepare a legislative agenda that we will take to our allies in the Congress. Travel expenses and related costs: $5,000

Grassroots Action

* We have identified a powerful way to disrupt the communication, training and recruitment of terrorists. We want to announce this on a nationwide telephone town hall by March 15th, with a goal of at least 2,500 of you participating. Cost for the telephone townhall: $3,000

* Educate and mobilize one million Americans … we can reach these Americans through a database of email addresses that will cost us a miniscule fraction compared to what mail and telephone canvassing costs. Cost of this nationwide education and mobilization program: $100,000

* To lobby Congress for our legislative agenda and achieve victory in the project described above, we have just printed 40,000 full-color glossy informational brochures to ship to our chapter leaders for them to distribute. … By April 15th, we would like to print 150,000 more of these brochures. Cost: $17,500

Congressional Voting Record Research

* We are poised to commission an extensive research study of the voting records of Members of the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate on issues relating to national security, terrorism, and the advance of Islamofascism. … The total cost for these programs is $195,500. I know that sounds like a lot of money – But if you think about it, it’s a small price to pay for us to start rolling back the tide of Islamofascism. …

As Brigitte tallies her donations, she is facing a much more serious problem than three unconvincing Christian convert upstarts trying to crowd her in the Souk (marketplace) of hate speech. She is facing the application of US libel laws with the distinct prospect of spending a lot of time in courtrooms in the coming years explaining to American juries why her patently malicious and false writings and rantings should be protected speech under American law.

The problem legal specialists see is that Brigitte has opened herself up to countless libel suits by her outrageously false and malicious statements and actions aimed at inciting hostility against Arabs and Muslims as well as their supporters in America. While Islamophobes like Eric Cantor and Tom Tancredo are said to adore her, some in Congress are pulling back and counseling Brigitte to “cool it a bit.”

According to one source at ACT, who insists on not being named because the Maid “can be a little vindictive,” Brigitte has been distressed about this problem for more than a year, especially since her new book is being delayed by the same New York publisher St. Martin’s Press who issued her first book, and she is counting on the fire in this book to restore her ranking to #1 in the war against ‘American Islamofascism.’

Her editor has told her that the publisher is very nervous about the possibility of a raft of law suits for defamation and that it’s potentially a big problem.

A natural at “Legislative Solutions,” Brigitte contemplates a Congressional race in 2010

“Not to worry,” Brigitte cheerily explained following a huddle with some of her advisors, “the solution was right in front of our noses all the time. “Duh. We must change the law!”

ACT’s office manager replied, “no problem.”

If the dear reader will glance at Brigitte’s website, www.actforamerica.org, her “urgent messages” over the past three months make sense. Supporters of Israel have done Brigitte and her publisher a huge favor when they had Assemblyman Lancman and Senator Skelos introduce into the New York State Legislature just what the doctor ordered. It is called the Libel Terrorism Protection Act.

According to Brigitte’s website, the Libel Terrorism Protection Act legislation is as important as it is simple — “protect New York authors like me and publishers from lawsuits filed in foreign court jurisdictions that are intended to intimidate and silence exposure of terrorism and enablers of terrorism.” On her February 8, 2008, posting, Brigitte claims that “Our cherished rights of free speech and press are under assault by libel terrorism.”

Brigitte has begun circulating a petition to pressure Albany lawmakers to approve the measure. As of February 15, she claims 6,500 signatures but writes “that it would be so great to get 10,000 by March 5.”

The Legislation is designed protect Brigitte and she bets that her New York supporters would welcome her to the neighborhood if the legislation is found not to cover her in Virginia. Her friends assume that AIPAC can find her an available and safe district to run for Congress in 2010.

If “Brigitte’s Law” passes in New York, it is a done deal that the likes of Rep. Rita Lowery and Anthony Weiner will introduce it in Congress to try to make the protection national.

Quo Vadis Brigitte?

Preaching her repellent idea of patriotism and American values, while condemning nearly 20 percent of humanity as subhuman, Brigitte Gabriel appears oblivious to the fact that she is among the last people who should be lecturing America on subjects as patriotism and loyalty to one’s country given her intense collaboration with Israel during and since its occupation of Lebanon.

If anyone is a terrorist sympathizer — if anyone is disloyal to her country for religious or ideological reasons — surely it is Brigitte Gabriel, the Dark Maid from Marjayoun.

Her former neighbors could be forgiven for thinking that perhaps she suffers from a virulent form of Stockholm Syndrome, wherein she identifies with and supports decades of Israeli terrorism against her country, her people, and her religion.

Her message of hate, ridicule, and incitement to action against Islam is akin to shouting Fire! in a crowded theatre, and constitutes egregious and condemnable hate speech. Her rantings are fundamentally un-American, un-Lebanese, and un-Christian. Her campaign should be vigorously rejected by all people of good-will, including those seeking simplistic explanations and solutions for the consequences of a catastrophic Bush Administration Middle East policy, which has caused so much death, destruction and desperation across the region.

Qarantina was the site of yesterday’s message to the Bush administration where a 33 lb bomb killed three and wounded 21. The explosion destroyed the bomb resistant titanium reinforced US four wheel drive SUV which Embassy security agents liked to use to give their girlfriends rides and make fast food pickups for Embassy staff. This day it was being used for an Embassy errand, a drop off at Beirut’s airport. Qarantina, forever etched in the black annals of Palestinian history is the area of east Beirut near the Port where on April 13, 1976 Phalange forces killed 26 Palestinian bus riders. A grisly crime, followed by another massacre of Palestinians months later in nearby Tal al-Zattar Refugee Camp which began on August 12, 1976 and according to scholar Helena Cobban killed 1,500 Palestinians in one day, and eventually as many as 3,000 according to other reports. Qarantina and Talal-Zattar. Some historians argue that these events ignited Lebanon’s 15 year and Civil War which killed and injured 152,000 and from which Lebanon has never recovered.

Some Lebanese geographical place names, like Qurantina and Tel al-Zatter return to the world’s attention from time to time. Another is Qana, site of the April 18, 1993 Israeli massacre of more than 106 Lebanese and wounding of nearly 400, and Qana again, July 25, 2006 site of the massacre and maiming of dozens more.

Yet another is Khiam, the Israel created and closely monitored detention Center, near the blueline, and so often in the news due to its torture and murder chambers and infamous utility poles where prisoners were routinely handcuffed naked in freezing temperatures and left for days and mockingly given electric wire shocks to keep them, sometimes unsuccessfully, from freezing. During the July 2006 War, Israel carpet bombed Khiam, futilely trying, like the killer in Edgar Allen Poe’s Tell Tale Heart, to erase its two decade old crime scene, which following Israel’s May 24, 2000 expulsion from Lebanon was turned into a grim ‘museum’ by its liberators.

Ironically, for all the tons of US bombs Israel used against the former prison at Khiam, the metal torture box where a recalcitrant prisoner would be squeezed inside an oven or freezer, depending on the season, and a deranged sadist would then beat on the metal walls with a hammer inducing hearing loss and psychological disorientation and well as dislocated joints. Ironically, the Khiam torture box and the torture pole, no doubt both Israeli July 2006 bombing targets, remained undamaged during the intensive assault-erect today amidst the rubble, a monument and testament to Lebanese defiance and resistance.

Quaratina’s blast late yesterday afternoon was heard by this observer as he was weaving in and out of Beirut traffic on his motorcycle pleased that he had a good way to get home without sitting in traffic half the evening. These days in Lebanon when one hears of bomb blast the first word that comes to mind is who. Who was the target? Who were the perpetrators?

The organizers of the bombing of the Embassy car on its way back to the American Embassy at suburban Aukar, north of Beirut, are unlikely to be identified anytime soon, just as none of the past 21 bombings over the past 30 months in Beirut have been solved.

But this bombing seems different somehow.

It is doubtful that it was a failed attempt to assassinate Ambassador Feltman. Had they targeted him it is likely the Ambassador would be dead.

Murderous as it turned out to be for those killed and wounded, and while all terrorist acts are fundamentally designed as means of communication, the Qarantina blast, using 33 lbs. of high explosive is meant to tell the Bush administration something. Specifically that the Bush Administration is widely viewed in Lebanon and the Middle East, and increasingly in America itself, as a criminal and terrorist regime, and that it must depart Lebanon post haste.

The Qarantina blast is advising Bush and Rice to expedite US Ambassador Feltman’s long delayed and overdue departure and send a helicopter if necessary to get him to Cyprus for a plane back to Washington. Don’t even use Lebanon’s airport.

The message is also that if Bush and/or Israel act on their plans to attack Iran or Lebanon or Syria, the Embassy should be closed sooner rather than destroyed later. Few in Lebanon doubt that if Israel or the Bush administration bomb Iran that the American University of Beirut, bombed in 1991, and other US Rumsfeldian ‘ legitimate targets of opportunity’ will be attacked.

Security guards at AUB’s four main entrances, Main Gate, Dorm Gate, Medical Gate and Sea Gate are on heightened alert this morning, List of targets found in suspected Salafist offices routinely list the Embassy, AUB and American businesses.

Despite Ms. Rice’s tough talk from a Saudi Palace that: “The United States will, of course, not be deterred in its efforts to help the Lebanese people, to help the democratic forces in Lebanon resist interference in their affairs,” the Embassy closure may be imminent with a possible reopening with the new US administration.

For many in Lebanon, the American Embassy under the Bush administration has become an Israel Embassy in the way that John Bolton became a second Israeli UN Ambassador. Once an Embassy joins one side in an internal conflict as it did in 1982 it loses its diplomatic status and under international law can be targeted as if a participant in hostilities against the Country.

What little credibility the Bush administration had, was lost when it intensified the US record of facilitating Israel’s destruction of Lebanon, a string of five wars armed and funded, largely unknowingly, by American taxpayers and without their consent during 1978, 1982, 1993, 1996 and 2006. The Bush performance this week in occupied Palestine erases any doubt about it objectivity.

Few in Lebanon, Palestine, or the wider Middle East take Bush for anything more than a dangerous zealot in the service of Israel, not America. Bush’s midlife crisis exhibited by his dancing around with a sword in Saudia returns him full circle to his alcohol fuelled toga fraternity parties.

The Arabs, indeed the world, including the Zionist handlers realize that Bush and Rice are on a futile fantasy tour and will achieve nothing to resolve the question of Palestine, the central cause of the conflict in the Middle East. Which of course is the whole idea.

Any rationale that the American Embassy is dong legitimate work for American citizens here and should remain in Lebanon was severely weakened during the July 2006 war, when Embassy staff stiffed US citizens and left them stranded and in mortal danger in Tyre. This occurred when the Embassy cancelled a rescue Ship because of Israeli attacks near the Port of Tyre, and ordered Embassy staff not to take the US citizen telephone calls because it might “tie up our lines”. “Just drive to Beirut for Christ’s sake” ‘asc # 1′ (American Service Center employee number on”US Embassy consular staff can’t use real name anymore for their own security) advised some American citizens who did manage to get through by phone, apparently oblivious to the fact that Israel was bombing any vehicle that moved south of the Litani River with weapons paid for by the same frantic and desperate US citizens. Anger is still intense in Lebanon and the States over these callous breaches of diplomatic responsibility and national duty.

Added to this is the practice of Consular staff illegally confiscating and refusing to return passports of US citizens who have been critical of US Middle East policy. While the Embassy entreats US citizens to leave Lebanon these days it prevents some from doing so and places them in possible danger. A US Federal Court lawsuit is soon to be filed in Washington DC regarding one such case.

The Bush administration’s intense and continuing interference in Lebanon’s internal affairs rendered it guiltier of doing what it claims others are doing. Many of Lebanon’s political leaders have asked it to stop. It ignores these calls and sends instead a parade of Welch Club adherents on almost weekly visits with more orders, commands, and threats.

Bush would do well to close up shop here thereby protecting American interests and let the new administration offer an Ambassador to Lebanon. And next time hopefully based on the standards laid down at the 1815 Congress of Vienna when diplomatic immunity was offered for plenipotentiaries from nations who presented letters of credence and pledged to refrain from using their posts to undermine the sovereignty of the country which accredited and received them. This action would serve American citizens as well as the people of the Middle East.

The next administration can open a new phase of honest relations with Lebanon by a whole series of friendly and needed acts, including but not limited to these:

1.

Order the delivery to UNIFIL of the Israeli firing logs to limit the continuing loss of life from the US ordnance fired into Lebanon under penalty of freezing US aid;

2.

Permanently ban all shipments of cluster munitions to Israel;

3.

Offer Lebanon a Marshall Plan for reconstruction projects necessitated by 30 years of Israeli bombardment with American weapons;

4.

Demand and enforce, if necessary, Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanese territory including Shebaa Farms and the village of Ghajar.

5.

End American interference and support for certain factions and extend respect and dialogue with Lebanon’s opposition which in fact represents a significant majority of its Lebanon’s citizens

6.

Help more than 12% of Lebanon’s population, i.e. the Palestinian refugees. return to their land and homes in Palestine by forcing, if necessary, the full implementation of UNSC Resolution 242;

7.

Remove the Lebanese Resistance from the silly US ‘terrorism list” which makes a mockery of American ideals of the right to resist occupation and American commitments for respecting the choices of voters in elections from other countries as we ask them to respect ours.

These acts by the next US administration will go a long way in restoring the loss of respect our country has suffered from the current Cheney-Bush-Israel lobby cabal. And it may well prevent American expulsion from the region.