LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
December 11/06Bible Reading For the Day
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 3,1-6. In the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John the son of Zechariah in the desert. He went throughout (the) whole region of the Jordan, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins, as it is written in the book of the words of the prophet Isaiah: "A voice of one crying out in the desert: 'Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths. Every valley shall be filled and every mountain and hill shall be made low. The winding roads shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth, and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.Free Opinions
Lebanon continues to provide good theater, but mediocre leadership -Daily Star 11.12.06
Sedition: From Uthman’s House to Siniora’s ‘Headquarters. By: Mshari Al-Zaydi- Asharq Alawsat 11.12.06Latest News from the Daily Star for Decembe 11/06
Tueni's call for unity still echoes a year after his assassination
Opening speech
'Press Under Siege:' PM says journalists have 'helped shape our democracy'
Sudanese envoy says Nasrallah has accepted a deal
Sfeir says insulting tone of speeches points to trouble ahead
Baabda bridles at proposal for by-election to fill Gemayel seat
Lahoud refuses to endorse Hariri tribunal, calls government illegal
Colors of opposition mix with national flags as various groups answer call to protest
Siniora calls Nasrallah allegation of wartime collaboration 'foolish'
'Most sluggish performance' in 10 years is economic legacy of war - Banque Audi
Trip to Lebanon's film vault reveals gangsters and expatriates everywhere, even in the 60s
Latest News from miscellaneous sources for Decembe 11/06
Israel sees al Qaeda hitting Lebanon peacekeepers-Asharq Alawsat
Merkel, Mubarak talk on stabilizing Lebanon, Iraq-Jerusalem Post
Hezbollah supporters protest Lebanese prime minister-AP
Syria moves missiles closer to Israel-Jerusalem Post
Senior Israeli military intelligence officer says Syria preparing ...International Herald Tribune
Pope calls for calm in Lebanon, asks world to help-Reuters
First Anniversary of Tueni's Murder: Honors and Praise-Naharnet
Intelligence official warns: Syria gearing up for confrontation-Ynetnews
Lebanon's Shiites Grapple With New Feeling of Power-Washington Post
ANALYSIS-Iraq sectarian violence casts shadow over Lebanon-Reuters
Hizbullah Chants Replace Christmas Carols on Beirut's Dismayed Sunday -Naharne
Harb: Sfeir Asked Lahoud Bluntly to Resign -Naharne
Germany's Merkel Says Mideast Needs Stable Lebanon -Naharne
U.S. Official Warns Lebanon Situation Could Get Worse -Naharne
Aoun to Saniora: Stop Being Stubborn -Naharne
Saudi King: Dark Clouds Threatening Civil Strife in Lebanon -Naharne
Lahoud Declines Draft Treaty over Hariri's Murder -Naharne
Rhetoric intensifies in Lebanon-Los Angeles Times - CA,USA
US: Rice Skeptical Of Call To Engage With Iran, Syria-RadioFreeEurope/RadioLiberty
Peres: Syria not ready to pay price for peace-Ynetnews - Israel
Bush administration negotiates with terrorists-WorldNetDaily - Grants Pass,OR,USA
Rally will crank up pressure on Lebanon government-Reuters
Lebanon's crisis could continue next year: parliament speaker-People's Daily Online
Lebanon's Sunni leader considers toppling gov't as "red line"-People's Daily Online
Iran warns Lebanon's Siniora that his government faces defeat-Iran Focus - Iran
Lebanon: Hizbullah intensifying protest-Ynetnews
Aley protests in Support of Lebanon government-Ya Libnan
AHN Exclusive Interview: Lebanon's Phalange Party Says Rally Can't
Lebanese leader blocks UN court-BBC News - UK
US concern over Lebanon crisis-Gulf Daily News
An Unlikely Offensive-Washington Post - United States
Political Project for a Democratic Change in Syria-KurdishMedia
Olmert: Bush won't change stance on Syria, Iran-Ynetnews
Next battleground will be a familiar one, Israelis say-San Francisco ChroniclePope calls for calm in Lebanon, asks world to help
VATICAN CITY, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Pope Benedict on Sunday called on Lebanon to back away from a political crisis and asked the international community to help find urgent, peaceful solutions at this "grave moment". "I ask the Lebanese and their political leaders to have at heart exclusively the good of the country," the Pope said, calling for "patient and persevering efforts" and dialogue.Thousands of people descended on central Beirut on Sunday ahead of a mass rally called by the Hezbollah-led opposition to escalate their drive to oust Lebanon's Western-backed government.The Pontiff, speaking to thousands of pilgrims and tourists gathered in St. Peter's Square, also spoke broadly about the situation in the Middle East, where he said tensions had raised "fears of new violence". He said Lebanon's troubles were a source of particularly "deep concern". "I also hope that the international community helps to identify the urgent, peaceful solutions and balance necessary for Lebanon and the entire Middle East, while I invite everyone to prayer at this grave moment," the Pontiff said.
First Anniversary of Tueni's Murder: Honors and Praise
The editor-in-chief of the Yemen Times Nadia Al-Saqqaf was on Sunday awarded the 2006 Gebran Tueni prize on the occasion of the first anniversary of An Nahar General Manger's assassination. Al-Saqqaf, who is the first woman ever to be appointed an editor in Yemen, received the award Sunday during the opening ceremony of the "Press Under Siege" conference at the Beirut International Exhibition and Leisure Center (BIEL).
The new prize from the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) aims at honoring an editor or publisher from the Arab region.
More than 1,000 people, including journalists, Tueni's family members and friends, and politicians attended the ceremony, a small distance away from the scene of an ongoing sit-in by anti-government protestors. Sunday's ceremony went ahead despite heavy security in downtown Beirut ahead of a mass Hizbullah-led demonstration aimed at toppling Premier Fouad Saniora.
The prize honors the memory of Gebran Tueni, An Nahar's General Manager, legislator and WAN Board Member who was killed in a car bombing in the Beirut suburb of Mkalles on December 12, 2005. WAN said that Saqqaf received the prize because she demonstrated the values incarnated in Tueni: attachment to freedom of the press, courage, leadership, ambition, and high managerial and professional standards.
The award carries a 10,000 Euro scholarship to enable Saqqaf to undertake advanced newspaper leadership training by An Nahar's training institute.
The ceremony included a documentary film about Tueni and speeches by world renowned journalists and artists who praised the late An Nahar general manager. Tueni's daughter Nayla, who is also Lebanon's leading newspaper's assistant general manager, made a speech urging for the continuation of the Cedar Revolution and rejecting the toppling of Saniora's government. She called on President Emile Lahoud to resign his post. The dean of the Lebanese press Ghassan Tueni during his speech urged for a pact of honor that prevents media instigation. Saniora also made a speech from the Grand Serail that was broadcast live to the conference at BIEL. The prime minister vowed his government would overcome the challenge posed by opposition protesters.
"Lebanon is a strong country. We will overcome this crisis," Saniora said. He also played down the country's deepening divisions, saying there "is no divorce between the Lebanese" and reiterating his call for talks between the bickering parties. Beirut, 10 Dec 06, 16:2Hizbullah Chants Replace Christmas Carols on Beirut's Dismayed Sunday
Beirut looked more like an army barracks on Sunday with military vehicles manning crossroads, hours before a Hizbullah-led mass rally to escalate the 10-day protest aimed at toppling the majority government. The ringing of church bells echoed across the deserted Hamra commercial thoroughfare in Beirut's western sector, in contrast with the lively and busy Christmas atmosphere that usually prevails over the multi-sect neighborhood in December.
In Beirut's plush city center, Christmas carols - usually played by the plush stores and restaurants- were absent. Instead, giant loudspeakers blare endless chants declaring support for Hizbullah and leaders of the March eight-Free Patriotic Movement alliance that has been trying, in vein, to topple Prime Minister Fouad Saniora's majority government since it staged a sit-in on Dec. 1. In predominantly Shiite sectors of south and east Lebanon, traditional Hizbullah strongholds, thousands of anti-government protestors gathered at village squares, waiting for busses and vans that would drive them to downtown Beirut to take part in the mass rally scheduled to start at 3 pm local time.
In north Lebanon's predominantly Sunni town of Tripoli a counter rally was also scheduled for 3 pm to declare support for the Saniora government that enjoys the backing of most Arab and western states, with the exception of Syria and Iran that back Hizbullah and its allies. By police count, one person has been killed and 22 people were wounded in violence related to the ongoing crisis that is threatening to rekindle civil strife in Lebanon. The escalation of protests by anti-government factions is apparently aimed at beefing up the sit in that has failed to force Saniora to resign.
Local newspapers predicted that anti-government factions might try to expand the scope of their protest by blocking main highways linking Beirut with the rest of Lebanon, or staging further sit-ins at the capital's air and sea ports, which would be a major test to the army's ability to prevent the escalation of tension and spread of violence. Meanwhile, the leading newspaper An Nahar reported that Hizbullah bought thousands of army and police uniforms from a local company trading with such items in south Lebanon. The respected newspaper did not elaborate on its short report, which sparked concern in security circles that Hizbullah's trained and tested fighters might use the uniforms as a disguise to attack the heavily-guarded government offices, which Saniora and his ministers have been using as residence, across the street from the angry protestors taking part in the city center sit-in. A ranking security official told Naharnet that a shipment of uniforms similar to what is used by the Lebanese army and police force has been "imported by a local merchant from India and was recently sold to a local faction." This, the official explained, is "a very, very serious matter. It reminds us of the mysterious kidnapping in the 1980s of four professors from the U.S.-affiliated Beirut University College (BUC) which was carried out by armed elements wearing police uniforms and driving police vehicles."
A pro-Iranian faction had claimed responsibility for kidnapping the BUC professors.
The security official warned that if the army and police uniforms were used by "irregular factions, this would further escalate the ongoing confrontation and would lead us to facing a real threat of terrorism." The development came one day after a U. S. official said the situation could worsen significantly if Hizbullah tried to impose its will on the other parties. "If any one group, particularly with support from the outside and with the threat of violence, attempts to force its will on others, we think the situation will get significantly worse," James Jeffrey, principal deputy assistant secretary of state, told reporters in Kuwait, referring to Hizbullah.
"We think that will be a tragedy not only for Lebanese, but for the (Middle East) region," he added. Saniora has pledged that the Tehran and Damascus-backed attempted "coup" by Hizbullah will fail, and leaders of the anti-Syrian parliamentary majority have repeatedly urged a return to talks.
Hizbullah and its allies say the Saniora government does not represent the Lebanese people after six pro-Damascus ministers submitted their resignations last month.
The protesters want to replace the current cabinet, which was formed in 2005 after anti-Syrian MPs won a majority in parliament, with a new "National Unity" administration that would enable them to veto decisions.
"At the mass protest on Sunday we will show that those who are betting on our surrender are having an illusion," said Hizbullah leader sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in a televised address Thursday. Saniora, said this week a solution must be found by "sitting together, away from tension and confessional incitement."
The March 14 coalition, which backs the government, has accused its opponents of seeking to block a cabinet decision ratifying an international tribunal to try suspects in the 2005 murder of former premier Rafik Hariri, widely blamed on Syria. FPM leader Michel Aoun has warned that his camp would escalate its street protests and "paralyze the government" if the Saniora government failed to accept demands for a national unity cabinet. (Nararnet-AFP) (AP photo shows protestors smoking narguileh (waterpipe) under a poster of Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah) Beirut, 10 Dec 06, 09:17
Harb: Sfeir Asked Lahoud Bluntly to Resign
Legislator Boutros Harb has said that Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir asked controversial President Emile Lahoud three weeks ago to resign his post.
Harb said Saturday that Sfeir sent Lahoud a note with a bishop asking him to quit.
"But President Lahoud rejected the note and informed the envoy that he will remain in his post until the last minute."
The ruling parliamentary majority has been calling for Lahoud's resignation whose term was extended in a controversial Syrian inspired constitutional amendment on September 2004.The pro-Syrian president's term expires in fall 2007.On Wednesday, the council of Maronite Bishops in a declaration of the church's principles called for early presidential elections to help settle the serious crisis which is threatening to split the country. Harb said he knew about Sfeir's call on Lahoud to resign but had refrained from disclosing it "out of respect for the Maronite Patriarchate." He said he decided to reveal the issue after the release of the church's principles. Beirut, 10 Dec 06, 12:28
U.S. Official Warns Lebanon Situation Could Get Worse
A U.S. official said on Saturday that the situation in Lebanon could get "significantly worse" if Hizbullah tried to impose its will on other parties.
"If any one group, particularly with support from the outside and with the threat of violence, attempts to force its will on others, we think the situation will get significantly worse," James Jeffrey, principal deputy assistant secretary of state, told reporters in Kuwait, referring to Hizbullah.
"We think that will be a tragedy not only for Lebanese, but for the (Middle East) region," Jeffrey said after talks with Kuwaiti officials.
Hizbullah and its allies have been holding an open-ended sit-in in downtown Beirut since December 1 against Prime Minister Fouad Saniora's government, demanding a national unity cabinet. Anti-government protesters prepared Saturday to increase pressure on Saniora's cabinet with another mass rally outside the Grand Serail the next day. Jeffrey said "nobody has the right to use violence and mass demonstrations to try to overturn a government."
He also accused Hizbullah and its backers Iran and Syria of "seeking to destabilize" the Lebanese government. Jeffrey, who heads the Iran Policy Team, is on a regional tour to discuss security issues and said his talks with Kuwaiti officials covered Iran's nuclear program, the situation in Iraq and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 09 Dec 06, 21:32
Germany's Merkel Says Mideast Needs Stable Lebanon
German Chancellor Angela Merkel has said that the Middle East needs "a stable and autonomous Lebanon" adding that her country is ready to make "an active contribution" to tackling the region's problems. Lebanon's stability "calls for contributions from all parties, especially Syria, which in my opinion has not fulfilled its obligations," Merkel said Saturday. She advocated a "comprehensive diplomatic initiative" over Iraq that would involve the country's neighbors and contribute to stabilizing the Middle East. Merkel said Germany is ready to make "an active contribution" to tackling the region's problems during its presidency of the European Union, starting Jan. 1, and beyond. Her comments came ahead of meetings over the coming days with the leaders of Egypt and Israel.
Merkel said a report on Iraq by a bipartisan U.S. panel under Republican James A. Baker III and Democrat Lee Hamilton was "of particular significance."
"I support particularly a comprehensive diplomatic initiative in which Iraq would also include its neighboring states and through which a contribution could be made to stabilizing the Middle East as a whole," Merkel said. However, she did not refer specifically to the panel's call for the United States to engage adversaries Iran and Syria -- a course the Bush administration has thus far rejected. In separate comments published Saturday, Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier said Germany "could make ourselves politically and diplomatically useful, to the extent that it is possible and desired" regarding Iraq. In the wider Middle East, Germany has been one of the nations leading efforts to defuse concerns over Iran's nuclear ambitions.
It also leads U.N. naval patrols off Lebanon's coast meant to prevent arms shipments from reaching Hizbullah fighters following the July-August war with Israel.
On Monday, Steinmeier visited Syria and pressed Damascus to use its influence to moderate the demands of Hizbullah which is calling for Premier Fouad Saniora's government to resign. Berlin is hoping the Quartet of international players trying to promote Middle East peace -- the United Nations, the United States, the European Union and Russia -- can lead efforts to restart the stalled process.(AP-Naharnet) Beirut, 10 Dec 06, 10:28
Top Iran Cleric Hopes Hizbullah Will Win 'Political Conflict'
A top Iranian cleric on Friday said he hoped that Hizbullah would emerge "victorious" from its protests aimed at toppling Premier Fouad Saniora's government.
"What Hizbullah says is quite rational: that the acting government does not represent all Lebanese people," hardline cleric Ahmed Khatami said in his Friday prayer sermon, carried live on state radio. "Every group, Shiite, Sunni and Christian, should have a share in the cabinet according to their size," he said, expressing hope that Hizbullah "will come out of this political conflict victorious and proud."The March 8 forces and Gen. Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) have been camping outside the Grand Serail in downtown Beirut since December 1 and have pledged to escalate actions with a massive demonstration on Sunday.
Khatami said the unrest was the continuation of the 34-day Israel-Hizbullah war in July-August, and that "America, Israel and Britain are seeking to obtain what they could not get in the war by supporting the Lebanese government."Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah on Thursday accused "some members" of the ruling majority of asking the U.S. to urge Israel to launch war against Hizbullah last summer.But pro-government politicians were quick to retort to Nasrallah's allegation, urging him to present evidence to support his accusations against leaders from the ruling majority. Nasrallah also accused Saniora of continuing the war launched by Israel against Hizbullah. The Lebanese government and the ruling parliamentary majority have urged a return to the dialogue table but have been so far ignored by the March 8 forces and the FPM which want to bring down the government and form a national unity cabinet.(AFP-Naharnet) Beirut, 08 Dec 06, 14:28
Sedition: From Uthman’s ‘House’ to Siniora’s ‘Headquarters’
09/12/2006 -Asharq Al-Awsat’
By: Mshari Al-Zaydi /A Saudi journalist and expert on Islamic movements and Islamic fundamentalism as well as Saudi affairs. Mshari is Asharq Al-Awsat’s opinion page Editor, where he also contributes a weekly column. Has worked for the local Saudi press occupying several posts at Al -Madina newspaper amongst others. He has been a guest on numerous news and current affairs programs as an expert on Islamic extremism.
With sectarian rifts deepening in the Arab world, it seems possible to compare the events currently taking place in Lebanon, from the tragic yet suspenseful scene of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora’s siege by the Hezbollah ‘revolutionaries’, the urbanites from ‘Frangieh’s Zgharta’ and the supporters from the Maronite rural areas of General Aoun, to a scene from the depths of Islamic history – when mutineers from Iraq, Egypt and Medina lay a siege on the third Caliph, Uthman Ibn Affan’s house
Before comparing the two events it must be stressed that this similitude does not mean that the situations or facts are identical. That would be referring to the ‘identity’ of the matter when what is intended is a comparison in terms of certain aspects. Moreover, the comparison of the third caliph’s siege to that of Lebanon’s current prime minister does not imply diminishing Uthman’s status in religion and history, from a Sunni perspective of course, neither does it mean elevating Siniora’s status to that of the Sahaba (Prophet’s companions). It is, rather, an insistent image that requires further exploration, and one in which perhaps some readers would agree with.
Today, what is taking place in Lebanon is a Shia ‘revolution’. One would refer to it as such because this is exactly what’s happening without any diplomatic glossing over, but also by virtue of the ‘divine’ party’s monopolistic representation of the sect against PM Siniora, demanding that he step down because he dismissed the Hezbollah and Amal groups, in addition to some of the ‘urban’ Christian supporters of Aoun and Frangieh, who are comprised of some of the most ‘illustrious’ remnants of the joint Baath and Syrian Social National party, among others.
Siniora and his March 14 coalition are regarded as illegitimate by those besieging the government headquarters who are demanding that they yield, admit and do justice to the revolutionaries and ‘urban people’ – heedless of the constitutional regulations. Thus, the chief demand here is the resignation of Siniora’s government and the formation of a ‘national unity’ government, that is, a government in which Hezbollah and its allies can guarantee the party’s interests – particularly its weapons – and ensure that the international tribunal will not harm Syria, among other demands for other parties.
Yet Siniora rejects these demands, despite the tightening of the siege’s circle and the close proximity of the rallying youth to the extent that if he throws a punch in the air it could very well land on one of the protesters camped outside. And yet we don’t really know who the youth staging the sit-in are, pitching their tents close by. Seemingly civilian youth participating in a democratic sit-in, perhaps they could be highly trained Hezbollah members planted there, should the need arise, a stone’s throw away from the headquarters – especially since we know Hezbollah’s actions are never improvised and are quite far from chance, a fact Hezbollah’s leaders and officials take pride in. In an exclusive interview with Asharq Al Awsat earlier this week, the media official of Hezbollah’s organization committee, Ghassan Darwish boasted about the radical party’s regulatory troops who, according to him, stand at ‘20,000-strong in charge of discipline’.
However, despite the possibility of storming the headquarters and the fact that events could take a turn that would result in ‘grave consquences’, Siniora still holds his ground and refuses to budge, relinquish his position or undermine the incumbent government. He says he derives his support from the constitution. Warning against an advance into the headquarters a mere few days ago, he literally said, “I will not leave. I will sit here so long as I have the House of Representatives’ confidence. I am here based on the Lebanese people’s confidence and in accordance with the constitutional institutions.”
Compare these words with those uttered by the Caliph Uthman Ibn Affan in a conversation referenced in historical sources, which took place between him and one of the leaders of those laying the siege on his house in 35 AH. According to these sources, after the people had besieged Uthman in the house of the caliphate, Uthman asked al Ashtar [one of the leaders of the mutiny]: “What do people want from me, Ashtar? Ashtar answered: “three unavoidable things.” Uthman asked: “What are they?” to which came the reply, “they give you the choice between stepping down and letting them select who they want, or to submit yourself to their judgment as they see necessary, and if you refuse to do either, they will kill you. Uthman asked, “Are both options inevitable?” to which the answer was affirmative. Uthman said: “Regarding stepping down, by God, I would rather be beheaded than step down and turn Mohammad’s nation on one another. As for submitting myself to the people’s judgment, others have punished before me [a reference to the situation in which there were people seeking vengeance for a man the caliph had ordered to be whipped. Uthman defends himself by saying that the caliphs who preceded him had repeatedly issued punishments and retribution]. As to killing me, by God, if you do kill me, you will never love one another, you will never be united in prayer, and you will never fight an enemy together.” It is worth noting that this last ominous statement of the quote attributed to Uthman is exactly what happened after his tragic assassination in his house as an old man.
His assassins, amongst whom were the sons of the Sahaba and the residents of cities outside of Medina, climbed the walls of Uthman’s house and murdered him as he was reading from the Quran. The people were shocked, especially as Uthman was killed while he was fasting after a siege that lasted a few weeks. The events that followed began to unfold in succession; people split into parties and Uthman’s blood continued to fuel numerous major conflicts, wars broke out between all parties – and thus began the age of al fitna al kubra (great sedition).
Back to the present; what would happen if Hezbollah and its allies were successful, given this sectarian charge and agitation (there are reports indicating mounting tension in the Sunni areas), and Siniora remained firm in refusing to quit the position he assumed in accordance with the constitution, and the headquarters were indeed stormed? Would this indicate the rise of a ‘great sedition’ in Lebanon, one that will be part of a greater regional sedition between the Sunnis and the Shia in Iraq and some parts of the Gulf?
The assassination of Uthman in his house after the siege resulted in a tremendous and enduring fracture. He was assassinated by a group of people who had mixed, and often vague, demands. Some of them wanted the caliph to be firm and dismiss his Umayyad relatives from their posts, others deemed him unfit to rule. There were various demands and motives, some of which were purely subjective. Regarding the details of his assassination, the historian al Tabari recounts that Sawdan, one of Uthman’s murderers, “struck Uthman’s shoulder with a sword and split it, then stabbed him nine times with a dagger saying ‘three are for God and six are for what we have bore upon our chests.”
Undoubtedly Uthman’s murder and the revolt against him is a complicated matter that resulted in the convergence of an oppositional front where each side had its own demands. Presently, in the revolt against Siniora and his party, there exist those who want the ‘disruptive third’ [Hezbollah’s aspires to one-third representation in the government so as to acquire veto power] to protect their weapons and ‘influencing power’, and the concealed guardianship that controls Lebanon and its decisions, while continuing to serve the supporting Syria and Iran. There are those who have aspirations for the presidency, such as the ‘understanding’ General Aoun; and then there are those who want nothing save what Syria wants from them!
An important point must be stated before we can conclude this comparison; a fact that historical accounts have cited with much praise is the Caliph Uthman’s refusal to resort to arms or fight against those besieging him. When Abdullah Bin al Zubayr asked him to fight against the mutineers, Uthman said ‘No, and by God I will never fight them.’ He did that for the sake of preserving the unity of ‘Mohammad’s nation’.
Siniora would do best to follow Uthman’s lead and urge the community against Hezbollah to not to feed on Sunni fanaticism because sectarian fanaticism is grotesque and abominable in its entirety. Hopefully, Siniora will ask his supporters to calm down, act morally and hold steadfast, too. This is where the moral power should be so as to ensure that the ghouls of civil wars stay hidden in their caves.
As for Hezbollah and the “understanding” General Aoun, the truth is that the question doesn’t lie in the sanctity of Siniora’s government, or in its immunity from dismissal and quitting since this government is all others that preceded it: It is not a question about the right of the ‘divine’ party to the government or to direct it in accordance with the rules of the game. It’s not a display of power and the brandishing of a knife’s edge or even the general’s desire for the presidency chair that is already hanging on its hinges, no. Rather, the question revolves around this spirit of ‘defilement’ of Lebanese traditions, which is the very same spirit that characterizes Hezbollah now – the spirit upon which the country was established since the national pact between Riad al Solh and Bishara al Khouri through an agreement to distribute sovereign posts among the main sects wherein the Maronites would assume the presidency, the Sunnis the premiership, and the Shia the parliamentary speaker’s post. The pact also stated that internal policy would be based on ‘maintaining the balance between sects.” However, some Lebanese social historians believe that “this maintenance of sectarian balance was only a façade to maintain a social balance between the old and new classes,” according to Dr Fouad Chahine in his book “Sectarianism in Lebanon”, p. 184. He affirms that this political sectarian spirit regrettably infiltrated the nation’s superstructure and constitution in over one article, which means that Lebanon is a country of sectarian accord rather than a democratic one in the basic sense of the word.
Anyhow, sectarianism in Lebanon has not always been the result of external instigation or of the ‘the wars of others on Lebanese soil’, according to the famous Lebanese analysis. For instance, history shows that during Ibrahim Pacha’s campaign against the Levant in 1833, in an attempt to fill the Ottoman vacuum when he tries to quell the Druze feudalism in Mount Lebanon, but the feudal lords allied themselves against him under the pretext that he backed Lebanon’s Christians. In other words, that there was an external attempt that had no understanding or inclinations of sectarianism against an internal sectarian-oriented Lebanese resistance. Thus, sectarianism is an old Lebanese technique that is activated in time of need by internal drivers.
This is the reality of the Lebanese situation with all its pros and its cons, a tradition that was ‘tamed’ after the Sulh-Khori pact. Hezbollah has now violated all these traditions and it wasn’t so as to achieve a more elevated cause and a reality that can transcend sectarianism which has a unifying ‘Bismarckian’ spirit. The paradox lies in that after Hezbollah violated this political Lebanese tradition, it dealt the state of sectarian accord with a blow to transform it into a state of political sectarianism where everyone is subjugated.
Now, the fate of Siniora and his government and the actions of the protestors that surround the government’s headquarters may be a prelude to a great sedition that will strike deep into the sentiment, imagination and the conception of nationalism. In the worst-case scenario, or if Siniora was able to survive Sawdan’s ‘sword’ which tore Uthman’s fragile body, it would be a ‘modified’ replay of the disaster that took place to Uthman and his house.
In both cases, the picture is bleak in the whole region, and Lebanon is only a representative model of this picture. He who lives longer sees the most…
Lebanon's Shiites Grapple With New Feeling of Power
Despite Gains, Sense of Vulnerability Persists
By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, December 10, 2006; Page A01
BEIRUT, Dec. 9 -- As morning clouds hovered overhead Saturday, Fadil Ayyash wiped eyes that were bleary from just two hours of sleep over two days in the city-within-a-city that Hezbollah's protests in downtown Beirut have become.
The mood in his tent, set alongside a site for luxury apartments, was playful. The first order of business was stoking a water pipe. Under two yellow Hezbollah flags, with a hint of mischief, he and his friends unveiled their makeshift fireplace, charred cinderblocks stacked on a sidewalk still warm from a campfire the night before. But they spoke bluntly -- of frustration and protest, of politics and power -- the vocabulary of a moment the young Shiite Muslim men feel they are defining.
"How is this democracy?" Ayyash asked, pointing to the colonnaded government headquarters known as the Serail, standing like a citadel atop a hill. "The majority is here," he said, waving his hand across rows of protesters' tents.
His friends nodded, sprawled in brown plastic chairs.
"These days," he said, "we have to seize our opportunity."
Once the country's most downtrodden, entrenched in feudal misery, Lebanon's Shiites stand today on the verge of their greatest political power in the history of a diverse country defined by its fractious religious communities: Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Druze and Christians. But their ascent is a story of contradictions: Now at the peak of that power, confident of victory, the community is still shaped by its own sense of vulnerability and weakness.
Its leaders rely on age-old notions of backroom, under-the-table Lebanese politics replete with patronage, a cult of leadership and the influence money buys. But they may be reshaped by leaving a legacy of turning to the street with populist demands. And in pursuit of power, through the protests that began Dec. 1, the Shiites, the country's single-largest community, may end up breaking a system that appears to be buckling under the stress of Lebanon's most acute crisis since the 15-year civil war ended in 1990.
The drama unfolding here draws on a long history of persecution, both real and perceived, but is propelled by the most recent events in Lebanon, as Shiites try to shape the country following the Syrian withdrawal last year and, as important, the war with Israel this summer.
"The battle has already begun," said Mona Fayad, a Shiite professor of psychology whose criticism of Hezbollah in an article published this summer in the Lebanese newspaper al-Nahar made her a cause celebre here. "They've opened the gates of hell. This is how I've felt the past few days."
"It's like a snowball, and it's now so hard to stop," she said. Her voice was slow and weary. "Even if they stop it now before anything else happens, we're still going to have a lot of trouble. And if they don't?"
She left the question unanswered.
In the southern village of Khiam, along hills green from winter rains, Zeinab al-Sheikh Ali sat in a house within sight of the Israeli border. Two pictures of Hasan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, were posted at the entrance. "Victory from God," one read in Arabic, Hezbollah's slogan for this summer's 33-day war with Israel. "Divine Victory," another said in French. But, shaking her head, Ali, the 70-year-old matriarch, remembered a more distant time.
"The days of our grandfathers," she called it.
There is a joke heard in Khiam and elsewhere in Lebanon, itself a bitter critique of the days when the community was rural, marginalized and illiterate, dominated by a traditional elite of reactionary clergy and landowners with feudal Ottoman-era titles. Shiite peasants went to the home of a prominent Shiite clan leader and asked him to build a school. He looked at them, confused and a little surprised. His reply: Wasn't it enough that his own son was going to school and getting an education?
Beirut Divided
Clashes erupted over the weekend between Shiites and Sunnis as protests continue in Beirut. Thousands of opposition demonstrators took to the streets last week to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
The community's fortunes began to change in the 1960s after the arrival of Musa al-Sadr, a cleric born in Qom, Iran, as a religious leader. In time, he bridged gaps between Shiites in the south and the Bekaa Valley, undermined the influence of clans and inculcated the Shiite community's sense of itself. His charisma was so great that young Lebanese clerics began imitating his Iranian-accented Arabic. But in 1978, he disappeared while on an official visit to Libya, never to be heard from again. The Iranian revolution followed a year later, and after the 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Iran helped found Hezbollah.
Lebanon's civil war forced the Shiite community, like others, to defend itself as a group amid growing anarchy. By the end of the war, it was newly emboldened, its power was bolstered in the government and the community entered the civil service in force. The government sent billions of dollars to the south, tangled in staggering corruption, and money poured back into Lebanon from Shiite expatriates in Africa.
Within the community, Hezbollah grew stronger, as it fought the Israeli occupation that ended in 2000. In the guerrilla war, the group honed its military arm, with elaborate recruitment and the building of an arsenal supplied by Iran and conveyed through Syria. It weathered Israeli offensives in 1993 and 1996.
Today, in power and influence, Hezbollah has eclipsed its rival, the Amal movement of Parliament speaker Nabih Berri. Its social infrastructure of schools, hospitals and orphanages sprawls across the south; it prides itself on incorruptibility. And with its ascent are a culture and language steeped in the resistance to Israel it celebrates, along with an arsenal that, while many Shiites are reluctant to state it publicly, delivers the community confidence.
"Without the weapons, we'd get slapped across the shoulder," said Imad Abu Mehdi, a shop owner in Khiam.
To its followers, Hezbollah's appeal is reflected most powerfully in the personality of Nasrallah, sometimes simply called the sayyid, perhaps the most compelling figure the community has had since Sadr's disappearance nearly 30 years ago.
"Tell them that we are stronger than tiredness, stronger than hunger, stronger than cold, stronger than weariness, stronger than bombardment and, of course, stronger than attacking us with words," Nasrallah said in a fiery speech broadcast to the protest Thursday.
"He was talking golden, the words were precious," said Ali, the matriarch in Khiam.
Ali sat with her sister-in-law, Zeinab Ismail, whose son, Ahmed, was killed in this summer's war with Israel. Ismail fled the conflict for the relative safety of the Bekaa Valley in the north. When she returned, the doors of her home were blown out, its windows shattered. The homes of two sons were destroyed. Ahmed had spent nearly two years in the Israeli-run jail in Khiam in the late 1990s. Red worry beads he fashioned while there are now draped over his portrait, his stern visage glaring down from its perch above the door.
"No one has sacrificed more than the Shiites," Ismail said.
Ismail and Ali talked about past and present, the two often intersecting seamlessly in a narrative replete with suffering and martyrdom that stretches to the 7th century. Their conversation was punctuated, as it often is in southern Lebanon, with the rhetoric of class and disenfranchisement and the symbolism of martial sacrifice: the language of Nasrallah. For every ill, they blamed a government they said was rife with corruption and bent on preserving its power, neglecting the people in the south.
Without Hezbollah, Ali said, sipping a glass of lemon-flavored tea, "we'd only have God."
Questioning Hezbollah
Clashes erupted over the weekend between Shiites and Sunnis as protests continue in Beirut. Thousands of opposition demonstrators took to the streets last week to call for the resignation of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.
The words of Fayad's article, published before this summer's war ended, were blunt, even polemical. In language that was straightforward and at times simplistic, the psychologist questioned the very tenets of Hezbollah's ideology: notions of sacrifice, resistance and honor.
"What does it mean to be a Shiite?" she asked.
"To be a Shiite means that you do not question the meaning of victory," she wrote. "To be a Shiite means that you do not question the meaning of resistance and pride." She went on: "To be a Shiite is to accept that your country be destroyed before your very eyes -- unsurprised eyes, that is -- and that it comes tumbling down on your head, and that your family be displaced and dispersed and become refugees and that you accept standing up to the enemy without a word of complaint."
"You see," she wrote, "we are a nation of heroes that knows nothing but sacrifice."
By her estimate, the article prompted 30 more in response. She received hundreds of calls and 300 e-mails. She said many were supportive; others were indignant that someone would write in such a way while the country was under Israeli attack; "pathetic," one person scolded her.
Dressed in a sports jacket and wearing wire-rimmed glasses, Fayad, 55, sat at her home on an overcast day. She was bleak: She already sees the shadows of a civil war, as Hezbollah mobilizes its Shiite constituency and the government stages almost daily shows of solidarity among Sunni Muslims and others. She feels her life is in danger. And she wants to leave Lebanon.
"It is unacceptable I pass my life from war to war, for the sake of others," she said. "What kind of craziness is this?"
No one knows with certainty what percentage of the Shiite community Hezbollah represents. Critics such as Fayad and others suggest it is about a third. But she and other intellectuals who bristle at its dominance over Shiite politics illustrate, in a way, the group's power: Hezbollah and, to a far lesser extent, Amal represent the only organized Shiite voices in a system defined by communal politics. As a result, their ambitions become the community's ambitions, their tactics become its tactics.
"They can't speak in the name of the Shia," said Mohammad Mattar, a lawyer with a fondness for Cuban cigars. "It's very simple. They cannot." Mattar talks in the precise, logical language of a legal brief. At times, he opens the window to air his sleek downtown office of smoke.
"Lebanon will cease to exist if one party monopolizes power or becomes all too strong," he said, his voice matter-of-fact. "A lot of people like me are very worried that the delicate Lebanese policy might disintegrate if this goes on."
Lebanon's Shiites Grapple With New Feeling of Power
The Shiites "were poor, and they were left to fend for themselves for 40 years of Lebanon's independence," Mattar said, staring from underneath his thick, black-rimmed glasses. "But this is not an excuse to do what you are doing."
The critique of Mattar and Fayad and others runs from the question of representation (unaccountable, in Mattar's view) to Hezbollah's ties to Iran and Syria (an instrument of their foreign policy, he said) to the very culture of resistance to Israel.
At a deeper level, their critique illustrates the contradictions of Lebanese politics: In the grammar of sectarianism, where Sunni, Shiite and Druze communities have coalesced around leaders, each claiming an effective right of veto, national identity has become second. As the Shiite community reaches for its greatest power ever, there is little debate within the community -- beyond articles, statements by dissident clerics and vestigial influence of clans -- over how to use that power.
"We are stranded. We can neither go here nor there," Mattar said. "People like me are left on our own."
'They Became Something'
In some ways, Hossam Yassine represents the changing fortunes of Lebanon's Shiites. Yassine is college-educated, back from a job in the Persian Gulf. And every day this week, he has gone to the festival-like protests, in part for the party, in part because Hezbollah wants him to and in part because he believes.
"Hezbollah came and made something for the Shia, that we are here," the 22-year-old said.
He pulled his black leather jacked around his shoulders. His cheerful face was lined with the trace of a goatee.
"They were nothing, and they became something."
He walked past rickety stands selling date-filled cookies, bread with melted cheese and popcorn. A banner-size cartoon of two men hung to the side: "Are you a Christian or Muslim?" one asked. "I'm hungry," the other replied. Flags, shirts and caps were for sale -- yellow for Hezbollah, orange for its Christian ally, former general Michel Aoun. A little ways down, another placard asked, "What's more beautiful than living with dignity?"
"In two weeks," Yassine said, smiling, "they're going to have to pay the people to get them to leave."
He walked through the sleek downtown, its upscale offices and pricey condominiums at the heart of the vision of a new Beirut downtown promoted by former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, a Sunni Muslim billionaire killed last year in a car-bomb assassination.
"There are a lot of places in Beirut where people are building homes no better than tents. They flood in the winter. Why don't they take care of these people?" Yassine asked. "Why only here, in this small spot of land?"
He shook his head, more resigned than angry. "This wasn't built for us."
Yassine walked past campsites. "No to the pourers of tea," slogans read on the sides of tents, a reference to Lebanese police who served tea to Israeli soldiers this summer as they occupied the southern town of Marjayoun.
He read them, then furrowed his brow. For the first time, his voice took on an edge.
"If I'm a man, 60 years old, I've fought 25 years, 30 years, until now for one aim, to expel the Israelis and to keep the Americans away. I've lost a lot of things -- my father, my brother, my good life, and I sit at my home watching the Israelis get in peace what they couldn't get in war? Watching, just watching. Put yourself in the same situation. You would feel angry."
In a way, the protests today are a microcosm of the currents swirling through the Shiite community, promoted by Hezbollah with its intuitive feel for the sentiments of its rank and file. They are the equivalent of a new kind of politics in Lebanon, drawing on the street, roiled by populist demands: a protest over government corruption, a denunciation of the United States and Israel, a celebration of the war this summer, tinted with a sense of betrayal at the hands of other Lebanese, and a call for change, however ill-defined it might be.
To Yassine, it is a world view that rarely, if ever, intersects with that offered by the government's supporters; it pits righteousness against wrong, and victory, however long it might take, is inevitable. He said he couldn't envision an alternative.
"From the beginning we weren't treated well. Not just now. From the previous government and the government before that," Yassine said. "The people aren't going here because what Sayyid Hasan said. Sure, they'll do what he says. They love him. But they're going here because they're unhappy. I'll go not one night, two nights or three nights. I'll go for a year or two years."
As the protests wound down, he got into his car, driving back to the Dahiya and its densely populated warrens, where electricity is cut for hours every day. Armored personnel carriers were parked every so often, and knots of soldiers hung around intersections along streets that divided Sunni and Shiite neighborhoods. "It's like a border," he said. Along one road, six armored personnel carriers drove by, followed by three jeeps. A little ways down, he was stopped briefly at a checkpoint.
"Where are you coming from?" the soldier asked. "Downtown," he said, and drove on.
His mood turned a little bleak, a little less optimistic than at the protests.
"They can't let any fight get big," Yassine said. "If a small fight gets big, Lebanon is gone."
ANALYSIS-Iraq sectarian violence casts shadow over Lebanon
10 Dec 2006 10:53:58 GMT
Source: Reuters
More By Crispian Balmer
BEIRUT, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Unrelenting violence in Iraq has raised sectarian tensions across the Middle East and is polarising communities in Lebanon, a volatile country peppered with political and religious divisions.
The Lebanese opposition, spearheaded by the Shi'ite Islamist group Hezbollah, has besieged government headquarters in the heart of Beirut since Dec. 1 as part of a campaign to unseat Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, who is a Sunni Muslim.
Some analysts say the power struggle, complicated by conflicting foreign loyalties, could trigger Lebanon's third civil war since it won independence in 1943.
But whereas the last civil war started out in 1975 primarily as a fight between Christian and Muslim militia, the main faultline now lies between the Sunnis and Shi'ites, with the chaos in Iraq exacerbating tensions on the streets of Beirut.
"Lebanon is obviously not in a similar position to Iraq, but people are watching the pictures from Baghdad and it is creating tension and fear," said Paul Salem, head of the Carnegie Middle East Centre in Beirut.
"It makes people more wary about dealing with each other."
Iraq has been shredded by sectarian violence since the bombing of a revered Shi'ite shrine in February touched off a wave of tit-for-tat reprisals that have cost thousands of lives.
Echoes of the Iraqi troubles have begun to flicker on the radar screen of tiny Lebanon.
The opposition protests have provoked several sectarian clashes in Beirut this month, with one Shi'ite demonstrator shot dead in a largely Sunni neighbourhood.
"The blood of the Shi'ites is boiling," some youths chanted at the funeral of the slain man.
PLAYING WITH FIRE
Aware that his anti-government drive risks fuelling inter-faith violence, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah urged restraint in a video address to protesters on Thursday.
"Today there isn't talk about Muslims and Christians in Lebanon, all the talk is about Sunnis and Shi'ites in Lebanon," he said. "Sectarian incitement is playing with fire ... and we won't be dragged into a civil war."
But analysts say that the sort of incitement Nasrallah is talking about is being broadcast on Hezbollah's own al-Manar television station as well as the pro-government Future Television, owned by the family of late prime minister Rafik al-Hariri, whose assassination in 2005 touched off a political crisis in Lebanon between pro-Syrian forces led by Hezbollah and the present government coalition.
"When I watch the channels controlled by the Sunnis and Shi'ites I think the war has already begun. The mobilisation for people's minds has already begun," said Antoine Basbous, head of the Paris-based Observatory of Arab Countries.
The opposition bloc is dominated by Shi'ites while the pro-government bloc is led by Sunnis. Both include allies from the badly-split Christian community and other significant sects like the Druze, allied with the prime minister.
There are no official figures for the religious make up of Lebanon, but a private survey released last month said 35 percent of Lebanon's 4.9 million people were Christian, with the Sunni's and Shi'ites level pegging on 29 percent. The Shi'ites contest the data and believe they are much more numerous.
However, Lebanon's byzantine power sharing scheme gives equal power to Christians and Muslims and blocks Shi'ites from the two top jobs -- the presidency and prime minister's office.
WAR
The Shi'ites have traditionally been Lebanon's poorest group and have flocked to the Iranian-funded Hezbollah, which has set up a network of hospitals, schools and other charities.
Lebanese Shi'ites feel particularly aggrieved because their community bore the brunt of the recent, 34-day war against Israel, with Israeli jets targeting Hezbollah strongholds after their guerrilla force captured two Israeli soldiers.
Nasrallah has accused the Beirut government of conniving with Washington to destroy his group, a charge Siniora denies but one which is widely believed by many Shi'ites.
"The government did nothing for us during the war. Worse, it sided with Israel," said Ali Faqeeh, from the southern town of Nabatieh, who has joined the round-the-clock Beirut protests.
"We had to get our help from Iran and Syria," he added.
As before, Lebanon risks becoming a pawn in a bigger game.
On the one side Iran wants to be a major regional power and its Arab foes accuse it of trying to establish a "Shi'ite crescent" stretching from the Caspian Sea through Iraq onto the Mediterranean Sea.
On the other sides Sunni states which support Siniora, like Saudi Arabia, are battling to maintain the status quo and are determined to prevent Hezbollah from gaining the upper hand.
"Iraq has dramatically heightened the levels of Shi'ite and Sunni identities across the region and great forces are now at play," said Carnegie's Salem. "It is much harder to negotiate over sectarian issues rather than political ones."