The tragic horrible death of the Ethiopian airlines led to a shock, and a week of mourning. In what was a stand-off between the different reactionary parties in regards to several reforms, the plane crash bought some time.
There are several shocking events that generated prior and after the terrible crash which left several people of different nationalities mourning.
The first event were the reforms to be discussed in the Parliament.
The first focused on reducing the voting age to 18. The advocator to such change came as a surprise, at least in terms of parliamentary blocs, Nabih Berri and his hooligan AMAL. This of course, provides a trauma for me, since AMAL are notorious to enter fist-to-fist fights with almost anyone (a tend that has been operational since the days of the Lebanese Civil War). Nabih Berri, for the past three months or so has advocated all types of change, supporting Ziad Baroud's proposals, and seems to be trying to bring back the legacy of Imam Moussa Sadre's goals for reform back in the 1970s. Berri was involved in sparking the "Cancelation of Sectarianism" act, protecting the Ta'ef Accords (ironically), the Age Act reform, and giving strength to the Parliament (which was shut down for over two years by Berri himself).
The clash of reforms began with the head of the Reform and Change bloc, with lunatic General Aoun, and the other two Christian parties: Lebanese Forces and Phalange. The fear from the voting age reform scared the Christians that they will be overwhelmed by 'Muslim Votes'. The Christian parties eventually proposed that the Immigrants would have the right to vote under the basis that one reform cannot go without the other. This of course hinders all possibilities to implement the age 18 voting law. Since, the new age of the new parliament began under the banner of "Age of Love and Flirtations" among the elites, it was natural that the two camps in Lebanon bickered each other along the same alliances.
Just like the 14th of March and Opposition collisions, historical insights are highlighted and others forgotten, specially when Berri attacked Aoun that the latter was not present to forge the Ta'ef Accords.
The showdown between these two reached its climax when the infamous Monday parliamentary meeting was supposed to take place. Hezbollah attempted to sooth the situation, and it was anticipated that most of the blocs (pro Harriri or not) were going to avoid the making of such a meeting by making sure that the Parliament's quorum was not met. The different news media reported that meetings between AMAL and the Free Patriotic Movement remained taking place till 4:00 in the morning. The same day, the tragic death of the Ethiopian Airlines took place. This saved the politicians of the embarrassment of shooting down the parliament's meeting to take place.
Naomi Klein dubbed the Haiti disaster as Shock Capitalism, with highlights to Israel's 'humanitarian' activities to cover away its past sins in Gaza which turned world opinion against it. This is exactly what took place in Lebanon. A national mourning day took place, the parliamentary session was postponed.
The Lebanese-Ethiopian tragedy
As the plane collapsed, and all efforts took place in a very remarkable manner to salvage survivors, Lebanese pride rose up. Everyone on facebook, msn, and whatever placed a Lebanese flag with a black strip on their profiles. This is indeed a human tragedy.
All politicians diverted their attention into supporting the Red Cross and the Lebanese Army to save the survivors.
Nevertheless, Lebanese fascism sprang. Several Ethiopian blue collar proletariat in Lebanon were denied entrance to the hospitals in order to identify the bodies of their beloved. That is a typical country of contradiction: Co-existence and racism, tolerance and intolerance, and finally democracy and tyranny.
The incident itself was preceded by a controversial acts of beating activists in front of the Egyptian embassy because the activists there found it unusual to attack the apartheid wall of Israel, while Egypt's Moubarak is building another Iron Wall on the Rafah route, to force "coexistence between Hamas and Fatah".
Back to the plane incident, as much as Lebanon's president attempted to show Lebanon's humanitarian face to the world, the Human Rights Watch group slammed Lebanon for its mistreatment of foreign labor and Palestinians. Ironically that was celebrated by Fascist Israel who never bothered to read the entire report, as well to read the reports on their own country.
The acts of racism towards the foreign proletariat proved yet again, amidst this disaster, that foreign labor needs to be protected. The proletariat across the world, like the Lebanese, need to be protected and treated as humans. Every week we hear a story about a foreign laborer being maltreated, specially those who are abused to work almost for free as maids in households. It comes as a surprise for some Lebanese (those whom I spit on their faces) that labor from Sri Lanka, Syria, Jordan, Palestinians, India, Egypt, Ethiopia, Philippines, others are their own equal: simply humans. If Lebanese culture means superiority, for me, that equates to trash (Zionism is even more terrible by the way). It reminds me of France hailing itself as democratic while it was too busy demolishing Algerian proletariat back in the late 1950s and early 1960s, or Israeli "democracy" which rotates around only Judaism while trashing the rest of non-Jewish (and giving Jews of the world a bad name).
For those racist Lebanese, thing of it that Lebanese, Ethiopians, and others died equally as humans on that plane, equals also to the wife of the French Ambassador in Lebanon. May those who mourn find peace again in their hearts.
Again, we see that the whole world is governed by Class War under the banner of different logos: racism, reform, and political points
MFL
PS: The fact Berri is proposing all those reforms is still hard for me to digest
Showing posts with label Arab Leaders. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Arab Leaders. Show all posts
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Saturday, January 17, 2009
War Crimes and Puppies...
Beirut of the July War 2006 seems heavenly compared to Gaza of January 2009...
Israeli atrocities never ended...
In the words of UN officials go as follows:
"A spokesman for Unrwa in Gaza, Chris Gunness, said: "There has to be an investigation to determine whether a war crime has been committed."
This is not the first time the UN has talked about war crimes in Gaza.
Earlier this month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said some Israeli actions reported in Gaza might warrant prosecutions for war crimes. "
On Thursday, Israel bombed three hospitals at the same time. This falls down as self defense.
Just like the seize fire of Lebanon in 2006, where the Arab Ministers assembled 'bravely', before leaving to New York, after a month of bombardment, they are taking the credit of stopping the war. The same is done by Mr. Puppy Ban as well. Israeli leadership is supposed to meet today to vote on a unilateral decision. Like always, they didn't do anything but massacres in the end result. Some argue that they want to maximize damage on the Palestinians of Gaza prior to Obama taking the Presidential seat, such as bombing 50 targets over the night.
As a matter of fact, Israel shelled again a UN school, but this time from an IDF tank. Death tolls in less than a month has totalled according to the UN 1203, and among them 400 children. UNRWA spokes man said:
"The Israeli army knew exactly our GPS co-ordinates and they would have known that hundreds of people had taken shelter there," he said.
"When you have a direct hit into the third floor of a UN school, there has to be an investigation to see if a war crime has been committed."
Picture from here
The UN at the top level been in a state of chaos, while Mr. Ban indirectly appeared helpless in front the Lebanese Parliament, elsewhere:
The president of the United Nations General Assembly has accused Israel of violating international law with its war on Gaza in which almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, nearly half of them civilians.
"Gaza is ablaze. It has been turned into a burning hell," Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann told an emergency session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
He said Israel's offensive was "a war against a helpless, defenceless and imprisoned people" and accused Israel of carrying out attacks on civilian targets.
"The violations of international law inherent in the Gaza assault have been well documented: collective punishment, disproportionate military force [and] attacks on civilian targets, including homes, mosques, universities, schools," he said.
He also rebuked UN member-states for their lack of action over the crisis, saying: "The [UN Security Council] may have found itself unable or unwilling to take the necessary steps to impose an immediate ceasefire, but outsourcing that effort to one or two governments, or through the quartet, does not relieve the council of its own responsibilities under the UN charter.
"The council cannot disavow its collective responsibility. It cannot continue to fiddle while Gaza burns."
(link)
Nobody dares not to compare Karadzic to Olmert.
On a side note, yesterday's summit in Qatar witnessed Mauritanya and Qatar 'suspend' ties with Israel on the economic and political level. Suspend doesn't mean end actually, but it was enough to put Egypt's leadership in a more shameful position.
Israel also continues to reveal its true form of hypocracy even from the inside. Other than barring out the media from covering Gaza, they also barred out two of the three parties that run to their parliament from the Arab side.
"This racist government want us out of the Knesset during the war on Gaza," Mr Tibi told the BBC's Fouad Abu-ghosh.
"They are accusing us of supporting the terror while they are killing children in Gaza," he added.
President Moubarak (el Sharmout)
Moubarak speaks that he helped Gaza, what a hypocrite. He claims he allowed 1000 tons of aid through Egyptian borders and pressured Israel, and even had the nerve to say that Egypt hospitalized a 100 Palestinian. Funny he allowed Israel to bomb the hell out of Gaza, arrest pro-Gaza supporters, and shattered the Arab leaders from taking serious decisions against the genocide. Funny, Egypt can simply cut ties with Israel. Just when the seize fire is about to take place, Moubarak is taking credit for it "I demand Israel to stop its activities now", which also coincides with Israel voting on the unilateral decision. He also blames the Palestinian militants by 'listening to reason' and be quiet in order to lift the blockade. He kept the Rafah Corridor closed all the time and the Egyptian army shot at Palestinian refugees... what a bullshiter. He is a simply-sold out. Now he wants to organize a big summit to rebuild Gaza, again trying to shove Egypt as the central player in Arab affairs, at the expense of Palestinians facing starvation. One day, either him or his son will have a bad ass revolution. He is hilarious on how he ordered Israel to practice 'self-restraint'. Traitor! Even Turkey at least demanded the barring out of Israel outside the UN.
Isn't it funny he is repeating the same demands of the Doha summit where he refused to participate in?
The following demands will be taken to Sunday's Kuwait summit for pan-Arab approval:
- Strong condemnation of Israel
- Israel withdraws from Gaza
- Legal liability for Gaza "crimes"
- Re-opening of crossings
- "Sea-bridge" to supply Gaza
- Assist Palestinian reconciliation
- Establish Gaza rebuilding fund
Moubarak this is your self-restraint
(Pic taken from al-Jazeera main page)
no comment on Condi and Levni signing an agreement on blocking arms to Gaza which means Israel can have the perfect US coverage for bombing Gaza anytime they want?
Unilateral Seize Fire?
Israel are supposed tonight to be holding a meeting for their miniature government to vote on a unilateral seize fire. This seize fire is meaningless if they do not withdraw of Gaza. I remember perfectly clear what seize fire means to the Israeli in 1982, whereby they vote on a seize fire, but can continue moving wherever they want. If shot at, the IDF will reply with all brutality. This was one of the first slaps of the US diplomats in Lebanon then realizing how dirty the Israelis are when they agreed to a seize fire but proceeded moving towards the Syrian army which shot at them. Seize fire has to be a seize fire in motion and location. That is another plan to show how Israel wanted peace by stopping their inferno arsenal on the Palestinians, then be shot at (if they don't withdraw from Gaza and open the blockades).
Finally
Anyone feels to play darts on Mahmoud Abbas's picture?
Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabre el Thani (Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Qatar) exposed why Mahmoud Abbas failed to come in a dialogue manner on phone calls that took place five times from Doha to Abbas:
"Why are you not attending the Doha Summit, you are the president of the people, you are responsible for your people, and your presence is important"
Abbas: "I called Omre Moussa, he said there is no summit"
el Thani: Why didn't you call us?
Abbas: I need an authorization to leave, I cannot leave
El-Thani: We can fix you an authorization to leave
Abbas: I cannot leave, there are a lot of pressure on me, if I leave, I would seal myself to a sacrifice...
Afterwards Qatar sent one of its planes to bring Hamas. This exposes to what extent Moubarak, Abbas, and Isreali leadership are intertwined...
Time to dismantle the Arab League as a whole or move its HQ elsewhere...
MFL
Israeli atrocities never ended...
In the words of UN officials go as follows:
"A spokesman for Unrwa in Gaza, Chris Gunness, said: "There has to be an investigation to determine whether a war crime has been committed."
This is not the first time the UN has talked about war crimes in Gaza.
Earlier this month, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said some Israeli actions reported in Gaza might warrant prosecutions for war crimes. "
On Thursday, Israel bombed three hospitals at the same time. This falls down as self defense.
Just like the seize fire of Lebanon in 2006, where the Arab Ministers assembled 'bravely', before leaving to New York, after a month of bombardment, they are taking the credit of stopping the war. The same is done by Mr. Puppy Ban as well. Israeli leadership is supposed to meet today to vote on a unilateral decision. Like always, they didn't do anything but massacres in the end result. Some argue that they want to maximize damage on the Palestinians of Gaza prior to Obama taking the Presidential seat, such as bombing 50 targets over the night.
As a matter of fact, Israel shelled again a UN school, but this time from an IDF tank. Death tolls in less than a month has totalled according to the UN 1203, and among them 400 children. UNRWA spokes man said:
"The Israeli army knew exactly our GPS co-ordinates and they would have known that hundreds of people had taken shelter there," he said.
"When you have a direct hit into the third floor of a UN school, there has to be an investigation to see if a war crime has been committed."
Picture from here
The UN at the top level been in a state of chaos, while Mr. Ban indirectly appeared helpless in front the Lebanese Parliament, elsewhere:
The president of the United Nations General Assembly has accused Israel of violating international law with its war on Gaza in which almost 1,100 Palestinians have been killed, nearly half of them civilians.
"Gaza is ablaze. It has been turned into a burning hell," Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann told an emergency session of the UN General Assembly in New York on Thursday.
He said Israel's offensive was "a war against a helpless, defenceless and imprisoned people" and accused Israel of carrying out attacks on civilian targets.
"The violations of international law inherent in the Gaza assault have been well documented: collective punishment, disproportionate military force [and] attacks on civilian targets, including homes, mosques, universities, schools," he said.
He also rebuked UN member-states for their lack of action over the crisis, saying: "The [UN Security Council] may have found itself unable or unwilling to take the necessary steps to impose an immediate ceasefire, but outsourcing that effort to one or two governments, or through the quartet, does not relieve the council of its own responsibilities under the UN charter.
"The council cannot disavow its collective responsibility. It cannot continue to fiddle while Gaza burns."
(link)
Nobody dares not to compare Karadzic to Olmert.
On a side note, yesterday's summit in Qatar witnessed Mauritanya and Qatar 'suspend' ties with Israel on the economic and political level. Suspend doesn't mean end actually, but it was enough to put Egypt's leadership in a more shameful position.
Israel also continues to reveal its true form of hypocracy even from the inside. Other than barring out the media from covering Gaza, they also barred out two of the three parties that run to their parliament from the Arab side.
"This racist government want us out of the Knesset during the war on Gaza," Mr Tibi told the BBC's Fouad Abu-ghosh.
"They are accusing us of supporting the terror while they are killing children in Gaza," he added.
President Moubarak (el Sharmout)
Moubarak speaks that he helped Gaza, what a hypocrite. He claims he allowed 1000 tons of aid through Egyptian borders and pressured Israel, and even had the nerve to say that Egypt hospitalized a 100 Palestinian. Funny he allowed Israel to bomb the hell out of Gaza, arrest pro-Gaza supporters, and shattered the Arab leaders from taking serious decisions against the genocide. Funny, Egypt can simply cut ties with Israel. Just when the seize fire is about to take place, Moubarak is taking credit for it "I demand Israel to stop its activities now", which also coincides with Israel voting on the unilateral decision. He also blames the Palestinian militants by 'listening to reason' and be quiet in order to lift the blockade. He kept the Rafah Corridor closed all the time and the Egyptian army shot at Palestinian refugees... what a bullshiter. He is a simply-sold out. Now he wants to organize a big summit to rebuild Gaza, again trying to shove Egypt as the central player in Arab affairs, at the expense of Palestinians facing starvation. One day, either him or his son will have a bad ass revolution. He is hilarious on how he ordered Israel to practice 'self-restraint'. Traitor! Even Turkey at least demanded the barring out of Israel outside the UN.
Isn't it funny he is repeating the same demands of the Doha summit where he refused to participate in?
The following demands will be taken to Sunday's Kuwait summit for pan-Arab approval:
- Strong condemnation of Israel
- Israel withdraws from Gaza
- Legal liability for Gaza "crimes"
- Re-opening of crossings
- "Sea-bridge" to supply Gaza
- Assist Palestinian reconciliation
- Establish Gaza rebuilding fund
Moubarak this is your self-restraint
(Pic taken from al-Jazeera main page)
no comment on Condi and Levni signing an agreement on blocking arms to Gaza which means Israel can have the perfect US coverage for bombing Gaza anytime they want?
Unilateral Seize Fire?
Israel are supposed tonight to be holding a meeting for their miniature government to vote on a unilateral seize fire. This seize fire is meaningless if they do not withdraw of Gaza. I remember perfectly clear what seize fire means to the Israeli in 1982, whereby they vote on a seize fire, but can continue moving wherever they want. If shot at, the IDF will reply with all brutality. This was one of the first slaps of the US diplomats in Lebanon then realizing how dirty the Israelis are when they agreed to a seize fire but proceeded moving towards the Syrian army which shot at them. Seize fire has to be a seize fire in motion and location. That is another plan to show how Israel wanted peace by stopping their inferno arsenal on the Palestinians, then be shot at (if they don't withdraw from Gaza and open the blockades).
Finally
Anyone feels to play darts on Mahmoud Abbas's picture?
Hamad bin Jassem bin Jabre el Thani (Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs in Qatar) exposed why Mahmoud Abbas failed to come in a dialogue manner on phone calls that took place five times from Doha to Abbas:
"Why are you not attending the Doha Summit, you are the president of the people, you are responsible for your people, and your presence is important"
Abbas: "I called Omre Moussa, he said there is no summit"
el Thani: Why didn't you call us?
Abbas: I need an authorization to leave, I cannot leave
El-Thani: We can fix you an authorization to leave
Abbas: I cannot leave, there are a lot of pressure on me, if I leave, I would seal myself to a sacrifice...
Afterwards Qatar sent one of its planes to bring Hamas. This exposes to what extent Moubarak, Abbas, and Isreali leadership are intertwined...
Time to dismantle the Arab League as a whole or move its HQ elsewhere...
MFL
Friday, January 16, 2009
The Doha Conference, A Great Divide, and A Whirlpool of Ironies
The Doha Conference:
'They come in fancy planes while the people are dying...'
As the number of Palestinian casualties jumps to 1133, those rotten Arab countries so far offered nothing to Palestine. Just as Israel got away in dissecting the West Bank, the massacres of Gaza are exceeding all forms of butcheries. More than 20 Palestinians had been located under the ruins of a building, which means some of them died out of suffocation. Of course, this is dubbed self – defense by Israel.
Conferences and more conferences
The split of the Arab League peaked officially today. Saudi Arabia and Egypt clearly displayed their muscles by blocking the Qataris from having a quorum to meet under the patronage of the Arab League, and take decisions in that regard. This however doesn't mean Qatar is a weakling compared to the former two. Qatar managed to gather 13 voters within the Arab league despite Egypt and Saudi Arabia's obstructions, even though that was not enough to hold a quorum. The Saudi Regime and their allies the Egyptian Regime never forgave how Prince Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani took the lead in spearheading a Lebanese Dialogue that brought a temporary peace to Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Abbas still argues that the peace treaty is under threat, and still unaware that there never was anything called Peace. The Israeli war-machinery never stopped to do peace. Elsewhere the Doha conference kicked off in order to discuss different means of halting the war. Again, no results, but interesting headlines popped out.
Hamas's Mishaal was present, which is natural. Where there is no Fatah, there is Hamas. Hamas repeated their insistence on halting the butchery of the innocent civilians. He argued that Israeli Forces should withdraw from Gaza, cut their war, end the blockade, open the routes of Gaza, and hold Israel accountable for their war crimes. He insisted on how the Palestinians are practically unarmed. He insisted on the time factor, where as they speak, more citizens are dying. Hamas had secured its representation of the Palestinian resistance and the sufferings of the people of Gaza. He also stressed on how Israel is trying to invent new realities, something that Rice supported. In her own words, the seize fire will not take place or else a temporary peace will take place and a new war. Nevertheless, she failed to mention who is the real aggressor on the issue. Mishaal also described the harsh conditions the people of Gaza are living through, and equated his resistance to that of Hezbollah where he argued that it was the same resistance that expelled Israel from the Southern Lebanese region and Gaza. He also highlighted that the resistance of the Palestinians is capable to achieve victory, mainly because they can remain alive after Israel bombed everything. Nevertheless, as I mentioned earlier, Israel's main purpose is not to dismantle Hamas, rather the Zionist country needs Hamas to gain more funds, arms, and settle internal scores in the elections. For example Ehud Barak jumped 17% in the Israeli opinion when the offensive started, which made him the primary competitor to Levni for the Prime Minister position. Nevertheless, Mishaal's pleas to save the Palestinians was fully felt, but the method he gave his pleas, with a steadfast position, allowed him to divulge the charisma he has. Unlike Abbas who is begging the international community to send an international force, similar to UNIFIL, but to bring Hamas under control so that he can live in peace Israel; hence disregarding all the demonstrations that took place in the West Bank in solidarity with Gaza, to which he barely expressed anything.
I have to admit, what nerves of steel Meshaal displayed, specially in less than 24 hours the Israelis killed his colleague, Hamas's minister of interior Said Siam, along with his brother and son.
The Syrian President
The Syrian President spoke next, as always, he took the leadership of opposing the Israelis and fighting for the Arab cause. He gave credit to the Lebanese resistance for defeating the Israelis in 2000 and 2006, and how both the Lebanese and Palestinians are exporting the spirit of resistance to elsewhere in the Arab world. Indirectly, he separated the Arab world to those who surrender, and those who are resisting. He also argued how those who achieve peace by resisting an occupier, and those who accept peace in seeking their own interests. He also, to give himself credit for the July war, also stressed on the importance of standing next to a country. Although as far as I remember, Syria made money on Lebanon's expense due to the July war, he refused to open a front on his side, denied any Israeli missiles falling on Syrian grounds, and probably the credit he takes is using his land to smuggle weaponry to Hezbollah and their allies.
Nevertheless, the Syrian president, in my personal opinion scored highly in the face of other Arab leaders. While it is true that the majority of the Arab citizens are frustrated by their helplessness, he used the 1970s language of the 'Arab revolutionary' where he summarized that time is not on the Israeli side, but he got philosophical on how each generation becomes more wrathful to Israeli brutality. Throughout his speech, he also hinted to Egypt and Saudi Arabia on their unwillingness to do anything about the on-going massacres. He also expressed the distrust of the Arab world in the International Court to hold Israel accountable.
Finally, his contribution to the summit is by suspending the indirect negotatiations with Israel, spoke in an apocalyptic manner in regards to Gaza and the Golan Heights witnessing a new victory, and the importance of funding the Palestinians with all means possible, ranging from materialistic aid to moral boast.
Lebanese President
The Lebanese President, Michel Suleiman, was next to speak. Unlike the days of Emil Lahoud, for once the Lebanese President's speech was different than what the Syrians wanted him to deliver. The other side of the story, Michel Suleiman's travel to Qatar was dubbed as Hezbollah and Amal imposing their demands on the Lebanese President to travel. Nevertheless, the speech he read in Doha was quiet different. Again, the Suleiman succeeded in copy pasting demands of what was known as the 'Opposition' and 14th of March demands. The Prince of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, back in the July war was regarded a 14th of March supporter, now he is regarded as an 8th of March follower.
President Suleiman's speech began with how Lebanon 'victoriously' extracted UN resolution 1701, and insisted on how Israel continued to breach it. He gave credit to the Lebanese citizens, the Lebanese resistance, and the Lebanese army for crushing the Israeli offensive of 2006. Nevertheless, Suleiman's speech rotated around on keeping Lebanon out of war with Israel, and stressed on how Lebanon's role is non-alignment, whereby its role is to tackle those rifts in the Arab World. Of course, he didn't give any hints on Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or any other country, rather projecting on how the Arabs should be united and gave a long-run period for that, which till then probably half of the people of Gaza would be killed.
Nevertheless, being a president of country that defeated Israel on three different eras, he had the aura to escalate, but didn't escalate beyond providing sympathy to the people of Gaza. Prince Hamad bin Khalifa hailed the President as being part of the resistance when he was the head of the Lebanese Army.
It has to be noted, that the Qatari Prince, and the Lebanese & Syrian Presidents, appeared while reading their speeches as if they are in the middle of an Arabic reading test. Other than Meshaal's eloquent Arabic, the others repeated several times Arabic words, and corrected grammar rules as they read.
The Moon Islands , Mauritania, and Iraq
The Moon islands are a couple of small islands that were glued into a republic. While repeating the atrocities of the Israelis, and like the earlier presidents, blamed the Arab leaderships for taking so much time in taking any actions, proposed to form a committee from the attendees, and tour around the major players in the International Community to raise awareness against the Israelis, and properly to unify media efforts in exposing the Israeli brutality, mainly to the Western audience.
Mauritania was probably the most hilarious country of them all. Just recovering from a military coup and preserving a peace treaty with Israel, all eyes went on the speaker. Nobody understood anything what he said, as his Arabic was rather very weak, and he didn't discuss anything about cutting ties with Israel. He did condemn the Israeli brutality, based on what was understood, but that was it. Everyone issued relief sighs of 'Thank Heaven the torture is over' when he finished.
The Iraqi Vice President was next, as much as he condemned the Israeli aggression, he reiterated Iraq's historical role in standing next to Palestine. Nevertheless, he didn't express anything about the US intervention in Iraq, nor whether Iraq as a nation state still exists theoretically with all the cantons present there. But I also realized that their minister of education was targeted in a bomb there, and I wondered for how long this man will stay alive.
Iran's Ahmadinejad
As probably participating as a guest, he expressed his ideas as well. We all know what Iran's role in arming Hezbollah, and giving them the right technology in beating Israel's ass out of Lebanon, then watching how their infantry were sitting ducks to Hezbollah's warriors. Who would thought that those Merkava tanks are destructible? Not complaining on seeing a popped out tank of that caliber. Yet, the Iranian president repeated the same words where Israel's attrocities in Lebanon and Palestine had been repeating themselves for so long, and demanded that the leadership of Israel should be held in a court.
In Parallel...
The Arab League's official meeting of foreign ministers FINALLY agreed for calling the opening of the borders of Gaza. In a nutshell, that is the biggest crap I ever heard for a while. After three weeks of butchery, the Arab League till this day simply issued out such a decision? After what, 1133 (so far), had been killed, and over 5000 wounded? Isn’t it ironical that such decisions come out when Israel is so close to accept a seize fire agreement? That doesn't stop the butchery of the Palestinians...
Collisions also took place in the West Bank between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. In a large demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza, a small group raised the flags of Hamas, where the PA security beat and arrested them. Hence, Abbas reinforces the division between Fatah and Hamas. BBC's article, under the title of Gaza and West Bank: Growing Divide explains it in a nice way.
Bush's final speech:
Bush hailed himself as giving democracy for different countries; some of those he named were Lebanon, Kosovo, and Iraq.
I accuse Bush of being the biggest liar the world has ever seen, and makes Saddam Hussein look like an angel next to him. For starters, Bush didn't do anything to Lebanon, he sold out on his allies (yet again) the 14th of March, leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere. The expulsion of the Syrian army didn't come from Bush, rather a strong reaction of the Lebanese on the assassination of Harriri and the fact they were fed up from their crap. As a matter of fact, it was his 'Green Card' to the Israelis that allowed all those Lebanese and Palestinian citizens to flourish.
Kosovo was totally irrelevant to Bush's policy, It was Bill Clinton's policy to the Balkans that gave Kosovo its independence, amidst never-ending chaos in the Balkans that secured Kosovo its independence.
Finally, Iraq, Bush gave them no democracy at all. He shattered a country into a three way ethnic divisions, and gave the al-Qaeda the space to crawl into Iraq. His war on terror cost the Iraqis over 650,000 citizens, and that was prior to the execution of the tyrant Saddam. He waged a war on Iraq under the banner of saving the Americans from weapons of mass destruction which were never found, then turned out Jesus inspired him. He also ruined the US economy, which in turn ruined the global economy by spending over 800 billion dollars a year on upgrading weapons, and producing unneeded weapons that no way a group of Qaeda or even the Iraqi regime was able to counter.
Democracy in Bush meant also to support the Moubarak regime, the Saudi regime, and the Jordanian regime. This led the Muslim Brotherhood in specific to grow even stronger in Egypt, while Saudi Arabia's instability is growing even more.
I will tackle his farewell speeches in details. But I would like to add one note: Afghanistan:
His 'War on Drugs' prior to his 'War on Terror' made him a buffoon in protecting his own citizens, when he was warned. Earlier US Administrations funded the Taliban who were actually needed to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Actually in a period of four months prior to 9/11, he disregarded the issue of Bin Laden wanting to strike the US, and gave the Taliban government almost 45 million dollars in fighting drugs and opium. Ironic, isn't it?
Bush is responsible for almost every civilian's death that took place, for promoting dictatorships, and even funding terrorists like al-Qaeda. So the hell with you Bush, and I sure wish there is a hell, to see you rotting in it.
'They come in fancy planes while the people are dying...'
As the number of Palestinian casualties jumps to 1133, those rotten Arab countries so far offered nothing to Palestine. Just as Israel got away in dissecting the West Bank, the massacres of Gaza are exceeding all forms of butcheries. More than 20 Palestinians had been located under the ruins of a building, which means some of them died out of suffocation. Of course, this is dubbed self – defense by Israel.
Conferences and more conferences
The split of the Arab League peaked officially today. Saudi Arabia and Egypt clearly displayed their muscles by blocking the Qataris from having a quorum to meet under the patronage of the Arab League, and take decisions in that regard. This however doesn't mean Qatar is a weakling compared to the former two. Qatar managed to gather 13 voters within the Arab league despite Egypt and Saudi Arabia's obstructions, even though that was not enough to hold a quorum. The Saudi Regime and their allies the Egyptian Regime never forgave how Prince Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani took the lead in spearheading a Lebanese Dialogue that brought a temporary peace to Lebanon.
Meanwhile, Abbas still argues that the peace treaty is under threat, and still unaware that there never was anything called Peace. The Israeli war-machinery never stopped to do peace. Elsewhere the Doha conference kicked off in order to discuss different means of halting the war. Again, no results, but interesting headlines popped out.
Hamas's Mishaal was present, which is natural. Where there is no Fatah, there is Hamas. Hamas repeated their insistence on halting the butchery of the innocent civilians. He argued that Israeli Forces should withdraw from Gaza, cut their war, end the blockade, open the routes of Gaza, and hold Israel accountable for their war crimes. He insisted on how the Palestinians are practically unarmed. He insisted on the time factor, where as they speak, more citizens are dying. Hamas had secured its representation of the Palestinian resistance and the sufferings of the people of Gaza. He also stressed on how Israel is trying to invent new realities, something that Rice supported. In her own words, the seize fire will not take place or else a temporary peace will take place and a new war. Nevertheless, she failed to mention who is the real aggressor on the issue. Mishaal also described the harsh conditions the people of Gaza are living through, and equated his resistance to that of Hezbollah where he argued that it was the same resistance that expelled Israel from the Southern Lebanese region and Gaza. He also highlighted that the resistance of the Palestinians is capable to achieve victory, mainly because they can remain alive after Israel bombed everything. Nevertheless, as I mentioned earlier, Israel's main purpose is not to dismantle Hamas, rather the Zionist country needs Hamas to gain more funds, arms, and settle internal scores in the elections. For example Ehud Barak jumped 17% in the Israeli opinion when the offensive started, which made him the primary competitor to Levni for the Prime Minister position. Nevertheless, Mishaal's pleas to save the Palestinians was fully felt, but the method he gave his pleas, with a steadfast position, allowed him to divulge the charisma he has. Unlike Abbas who is begging the international community to send an international force, similar to UNIFIL, but to bring Hamas under control so that he can live in peace Israel; hence disregarding all the demonstrations that took place in the West Bank in solidarity with Gaza, to which he barely expressed anything.
I have to admit, what nerves of steel Meshaal displayed, specially in less than 24 hours the Israelis killed his colleague, Hamas's minister of interior Said Siam, along with his brother and son.
The Syrian President
The Syrian President spoke next, as always, he took the leadership of opposing the Israelis and fighting for the Arab cause. He gave credit to the Lebanese resistance for defeating the Israelis in 2000 and 2006, and how both the Lebanese and Palestinians are exporting the spirit of resistance to elsewhere in the Arab world. Indirectly, he separated the Arab world to those who surrender, and those who are resisting. He also argued how those who achieve peace by resisting an occupier, and those who accept peace in seeking their own interests. He also, to give himself credit for the July war, also stressed on the importance of standing next to a country. Although as far as I remember, Syria made money on Lebanon's expense due to the July war, he refused to open a front on his side, denied any Israeli missiles falling on Syrian grounds, and probably the credit he takes is using his land to smuggle weaponry to Hezbollah and their allies.
Nevertheless, the Syrian president, in my personal opinion scored highly in the face of other Arab leaders. While it is true that the majority of the Arab citizens are frustrated by their helplessness, he used the 1970s language of the 'Arab revolutionary' where he summarized that time is not on the Israeli side, but he got philosophical on how each generation becomes more wrathful to Israeli brutality. Throughout his speech, he also hinted to Egypt and Saudi Arabia on their unwillingness to do anything about the on-going massacres. He also expressed the distrust of the Arab world in the International Court to hold Israel accountable.
Finally, his contribution to the summit is by suspending the indirect negotatiations with Israel, spoke in an apocalyptic manner in regards to Gaza and the Golan Heights witnessing a new victory, and the importance of funding the Palestinians with all means possible, ranging from materialistic aid to moral boast.
Lebanese President
The Lebanese President, Michel Suleiman, was next to speak. Unlike the days of Emil Lahoud, for once the Lebanese President's speech was different than what the Syrians wanted him to deliver. The other side of the story, Michel Suleiman's travel to Qatar was dubbed as Hezbollah and Amal imposing their demands on the Lebanese President to travel. Nevertheless, the speech he read in Doha was quiet different. Again, the Suleiman succeeded in copy pasting demands of what was known as the 'Opposition' and 14th of March demands. The Prince of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa, back in the July war was regarded a 14th of March supporter, now he is regarded as an 8th of March follower.
President Suleiman's speech began with how Lebanon 'victoriously' extracted UN resolution 1701, and insisted on how Israel continued to breach it. He gave credit to the Lebanese citizens, the Lebanese resistance, and the Lebanese army for crushing the Israeli offensive of 2006. Nevertheless, Suleiman's speech rotated around on keeping Lebanon out of war with Israel, and stressed on how Lebanon's role is non-alignment, whereby its role is to tackle those rifts in the Arab World. Of course, he didn't give any hints on Egypt, Saudi Arabia, or any other country, rather projecting on how the Arabs should be united and gave a long-run period for that, which till then probably half of the people of Gaza would be killed.
Nevertheless, being a president of country that defeated Israel on three different eras, he had the aura to escalate, but didn't escalate beyond providing sympathy to the people of Gaza. Prince Hamad bin Khalifa hailed the President as being part of the resistance when he was the head of the Lebanese Army.
It has to be noted, that the Qatari Prince, and the Lebanese & Syrian Presidents, appeared while reading their speeches as if they are in the middle of an Arabic reading test. Other than Meshaal's eloquent Arabic, the others repeated several times Arabic words, and corrected grammar rules as they read.
The Moon Islands , Mauritania, and Iraq
The Moon islands are a couple of small islands that were glued into a republic. While repeating the atrocities of the Israelis, and like the earlier presidents, blamed the Arab leaderships for taking so much time in taking any actions, proposed to form a committee from the attendees, and tour around the major players in the International Community to raise awareness against the Israelis, and properly to unify media efforts in exposing the Israeli brutality, mainly to the Western audience.
Mauritania was probably the most hilarious country of them all. Just recovering from a military coup and preserving a peace treaty with Israel, all eyes went on the speaker. Nobody understood anything what he said, as his Arabic was rather very weak, and he didn't discuss anything about cutting ties with Israel. He did condemn the Israeli brutality, based on what was understood, but that was it. Everyone issued relief sighs of 'Thank Heaven the torture is over' when he finished.
The Iraqi Vice President was next, as much as he condemned the Israeli aggression, he reiterated Iraq's historical role in standing next to Palestine. Nevertheless, he didn't express anything about the US intervention in Iraq, nor whether Iraq as a nation state still exists theoretically with all the cantons present there. But I also realized that their minister of education was targeted in a bomb there, and I wondered for how long this man will stay alive.
Iran's Ahmadinejad
As probably participating as a guest, he expressed his ideas as well. We all know what Iran's role in arming Hezbollah, and giving them the right technology in beating Israel's ass out of Lebanon, then watching how their infantry were sitting ducks to Hezbollah's warriors. Who would thought that those Merkava tanks are destructible? Not complaining on seeing a popped out tank of that caliber. Yet, the Iranian president repeated the same words where Israel's attrocities in Lebanon and Palestine had been repeating themselves for so long, and demanded that the leadership of Israel should be held in a court.
In Parallel...
The Arab League's official meeting of foreign ministers FINALLY agreed for calling the opening of the borders of Gaza. In a nutshell, that is the biggest crap I ever heard for a while. After three weeks of butchery, the Arab League till this day simply issued out such a decision? After what, 1133 (so far), had been killed, and over 5000 wounded? Isn’t it ironical that such decisions come out when Israel is so close to accept a seize fire agreement? That doesn't stop the butchery of the Palestinians...
Collisions also took place in the West Bank between the Palestinian Authority and Hamas. In a large demonstration in solidarity with the people of Gaza, a small group raised the flags of Hamas, where the PA security beat and arrested them. Hence, Abbas reinforces the division between Fatah and Hamas. BBC's article, under the title of Gaza and West Bank: Growing Divide explains it in a nice way.
Bush's final speech:
Bush hailed himself as giving democracy for different countries; some of those he named were Lebanon, Kosovo, and Iraq.
I accuse Bush of being the biggest liar the world has ever seen, and makes Saddam Hussein look like an angel next to him. For starters, Bush didn't do anything to Lebanon, he sold out on his allies (yet again) the 14th of March, leaving them stranded in the middle of nowhere. The expulsion of the Syrian army didn't come from Bush, rather a strong reaction of the Lebanese on the assassination of Harriri and the fact they were fed up from their crap. As a matter of fact, it was his 'Green Card' to the Israelis that allowed all those Lebanese and Palestinian citizens to flourish.
Kosovo was totally irrelevant to Bush's policy, It was Bill Clinton's policy to the Balkans that gave Kosovo its independence, amidst never-ending chaos in the Balkans that secured Kosovo its independence.
Finally, Iraq, Bush gave them no democracy at all. He shattered a country into a three way ethnic divisions, and gave the al-Qaeda the space to crawl into Iraq. His war on terror cost the Iraqis over 650,000 citizens, and that was prior to the execution of the tyrant Saddam. He waged a war on Iraq under the banner of saving the Americans from weapons of mass destruction which were never found, then turned out Jesus inspired him. He also ruined the US economy, which in turn ruined the global economy by spending over 800 billion dollars a year on upgrading weapons, and producing unneeded weapons that no way a group of Qaeda or even the Iraqi regime was able to counter.
Democracy in Bush meant also to support the Moubarak regime, the Saudi regime, and the Jordanian regime. This led the Muslim Brotherhood in specific to grow even stronger in Egypt, while Saudi Arabia's instability is growing even more.
I will tackle his farewell speeches in details. But I would like to add one note: Afghanistan:
His 'War on Drugs' prior to his 'War on Terror' made him a buffoon in protecting his own citizens, when he was warned. Earlier US Administrations funded the Taliban who were actually needed to counter the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. Actually in a period of four months prior to 9/11, he disregarded the issue of Bin Laden wanting to strike the US, and gave the Taliban government almost 45 million dollars in fighting drugs and opium. Ironic, isn't it?
Bush is responsible for almost every civilian's death that took place, for promoting dictatorships, and even funding terrorists like al-Qaeda. So the hell with you Bush, and I sure wish there is a hell, to see you rotting in it.
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend? Part II
While tackling the issue on certain situations, I would like to apply the concept Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend on the Lebanese level.
Lebanon by now has two dictated lines of “friends.” The first is embodied with 14th of March considering the following scenario: The Trio alliance of Future – Lebanese Forces/Phalange – the Progressive Socialist Party (feudal to my new readers). In any occasion the latter two parties were major antagonistic factors in opposing each other during the war, and spearheaded the Lebanese Front and the Lebanese National Movement during the civil war. Of course the coalition also has several minor actors as well which makes it even stronger. Hence three rivals shook hands together in an attempt to repel the returning ‘Syrian-Iranian’ axis. Afterwards, the PSP shook hands with a new friend, which is the United States, which previously also was an arch-enemy for the PSP during most of the years of the civil war. We should not forget the powerful non-party figures with 14th of March, such as Neyla Mou’awad and Ghassan Tuieni.
Hence the current final equation of the 14th of March would be: their own coalition, in addition Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, other gulf countries, United States, France, and others. This also include on the Palestinian level the support for Fatah, which enjoys currently US support and Israeli sympathy (proved again this week by releasing over 160 Fatah prisoners, and to be released, in an attempt to balance against Hamas).
Now we have the Opposition. The Opposition is composed mainly of 8th of March and the Free Patriotic Movement. The 8th of March is made of Hezbollah, powerful political figures (such as Michel el Murr, Sulieman Frangieh, yes I know he has a party but primarily it is a one man show figure, and Elias Skaiff), the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, AMAL, Tashnag, and others. The addition of the Free Patriotic Movement broke the trademark of 8th of March being tagged “Shiite” by the government, specially at the FPM’s earlier stages it dominated the majority of the Christian Street. The FPM has a lot of figureheads, but sadly everyone simply remains quoting Aoun. Aoun also dubbed Hezbollah as “terrorists” when he was in exile only to find himself in alliance with him for political interests. Hezbollah and AMAL intervened a lot on the SSNP and Lebanese Communist Party only to end up as allies. Several members of the SSNP used to accuse Aoun on public TV as a “traitor”, now they call him “the Perfect Presidential Candidate”.
With the Opposition come their alliances: Iran and Syria. With those alliances of course comes the support for George Galloway and Hugo Chavez, as opponents to US Imperialism. Third, they support Hamas, as a Hezbollah replica for resistance and political survivors. Fourth, support to (and vice versa) from anti-US imperialism. This increased in dimension when the July war broke out and Hezbollah were tagged as “National Liberation Army”, “New Zapatistas” (although that surprises me drastically as they differ in their platforms), “anti-US Imperialism”, and last “Anecdote to Zionist Aggression.” Fifth, they enjoy support (again via Hassan Nasrallah) the support of a lot of masses subject under Arab dictatorships such as Egypt. The Palestinian Jordanians in specific had a controversy among each other after Saddam was “executed”, they wept because Saddam always expressed solidarity to the Palestinians, but Hezbollah were celebrating in Dahhieh when Saddam died. Solidarity to Hezbollah dispersed. In most cases, the driving force is Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement.
So, as we notice, a lot of enemies are friends. Jaajaa and Junblatt shaking hands, SSNP becoming the breaking factor of hording votes to let Aoun’s candidate win against Gemayel, and so on. All of these are considered as short term alliances. They love each other for short run goals. A member of the Democratic Left would tell you: “Do you think I love Jaajaa, but hey I don’t want to be living in an Islamist Princedom.” Or a Aouni fan would say: “What do you think? You think we forgot how AMAL used to deliver us to Syrian Second Bureau? But we are fed up of Harriri stealing our food and money.” A trillion example can be found, but yes, as one fellow Palestinian activist in Lebanon told me: “I personally don’t care if Galloway is screwing up currently Marxism, but we have no choice in the matter, we have to think on how to oppose the United States, then after we win, we face them.” This is the same, another Democratic Leftist told me: “Once we are victorious against the Iranian Hezbollah, then puppet Syrian AMAL, then we will go and question Seniora’s policy, for now he is doing perfectly great.”
In any case, the last two cited quotes are excessively repeated on every situation. A member of the Lebanese Communist Party will find any chance to go and celebrate victory with Hezbollah because their rigid dogma would tell them: “Resistance to Israel comes first and above everything else.” Hence the Lebanese Communist Party argues he is with no one, but rushes down at every chance to support Hezbollah “in the name of resistance.” During the July war, actually I saw it one step further: Hezbollah assisting Helem in the relief work (via Samidoun) with maximum support. For those who do not know what Helem is, it is a movement composed of gay, lesbian, bisexuals, and even straights to defend homosexual rights in Lebanon (personally that movement is on my respect list). May be the July war was a survival critical moment, but that shows how the political arena is a survival moment.
The politicians impose historical amnesia on their supporters. Not one supporter encouraged the writing of a single unified history of Lebanon, because all of them have their hands dirty. And “Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend” is justified for survival moments. We have seen it in the past as well. In the 1950s, the Phalange and the SSNP were comrades in arms to defend the reign of Chamoun in the face of Nasser’s growing influence while the LCP was on the other side. Just a word not related to the entire topic, it never seizes to amaze me how politicians constantly downsize the historical role played by the LCP and the SSNP. Then we saw in 2005 George Hawwi (before getting assassinated) happy to see his step-son Rafi Madayan getting votes from the Phalange and doing vice versa. Actually the only illogical alliance, to top Aoun-Nasrallah lullaby would be Nasrallah ordering his supporters to support the Lebanese Forces in 2005 elections. More than once Nasrallah and Walid Junblatt supported each other as well. The greatest shock would be all key players agreeing on Suleiman Franjieh Sr. as President to get rid of the “Third Force”. This means Kamal Junblatt and Pierre Gemayel agreed with each other briefly. Even more ironic is the present, indirectly Samir Jaajaa and Amin Gemayel currently support via 14th of March their arch-enemies during the Lebanese Civil War, Fatah.
Once you support any of the two lines, you are stuck with the two earlier formulas or equations I said earlier. None of them would really care about real issues. 14th of March would say: “Oppose Syria/Iran”; the Opposition would say “Oppose Israel/United States” (except for the Aouni fans, they get lost sometimes between support for Aoun and that issue). Each neglects his own foreign sponsors and attacks the other’s.
In relation to Marxism and the situation, there can never be a “An Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend”. Marxism knows no such details, nothing at all except the emancipation of the Proletariat. Henceforth, we may support middle run goals which I would define gradual progress (such as better welfare system, civil marriage, transparency) but the bulk would remain: “Revolution of the Proletariat”. Someone told me that because we think that way the Lebanese Communist Party became that rigid, while Order for Communist Action disbanded. I say it is quiet the opposite. What made us go down is the quite the opposite. It is thinking of Short Run goals that got us to the situation. To bandwagon with the right-wing, declining on our goals, worse, drifting gradually away from the essence of our ideas that got us here because we lost the way to mingle with the masses, and lost them to Sectarian parties. While the Communists of the 1920s were doing a great job in building trade unions, now the trade unions became institutions under capitalist dictatorships that oppress their own syndicate members rather protect them from Capitalism. The most famous example in this regard would be the Syndicate of Engineers. No fresh engineer can find work in Lebanon unless he pays heavy material expenses to the Union and acquire membership. The Lebanese Communist Party still lacks the incentive to investigate whether Stalin is a real Marxist or not. It is irrelevant for them after all. It is also irrelevant for them to see the resurrection waves of Islamist and Patriarchal oppression to women. For once I would like to see the LCP proving me wrong about something, and it is easy to do so: let a female comrade for once lead the Lebanese Communist Party!
No War but Class War!
MFL
Lebanon by now has two dictated lines of “friends.” The first is embodied with 14th of March considering the following scenario: The Trio alliance of Future – Lebanese Forces/Phalange – the Progressive Socialist Party (feudal to my new readers). In any occasion the latter two parties were major antagonistic factors in opposing each other during the war, and spearheaded the Lebanese Front and the Lebanese National Movement during the civil war. Of course the coalition also has several minor actors as well which makes it even stronger. Hence three rivals shook hands together in an attempt to repel the returning ‘Syrian-Iranian’ axis. Afterwards, the PSP shook hands with a new friend, which is the United States, which previously also was an arch-enemy for the PSP during most of the years of the civil war. We should not forget the powerful non-party figures with 14th of March, such as Neyla Mou’awad and Ghassan Tuieni.
Hence the current final equation of the 14th of March would be: their own coalition, in addition Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Qatar, Jordan, Egypt, other gulf countries, United States, France, and others. This also include on the Palestinian level the support for Fatah, which enjoys currently US support and Israeli sympathy (proved again this week by releasing over 160 Fatah prisoners, and to be released, in an attempt to balance against Hamas).
Now we have the Opposition. The Opposition is composed mainly of 8th of March and the Free Patriotic Movement. The 8th of March is made of Hezbollah, powerful political figures (such as Michel el Murr, Sulieman Frangieh, yes I know he has a party but primarily it is a one man show figure, and Elias Skaiff), the Syrian Social Nationalist Party, AMAL, Tashnag, and others. The addition of the Free Patriotic Movement broke the trademark of 8th of March being tagged “Shiite” by the government, specially at the FPM’s earlier stages it dominated the majority of the Christian Street. The FPM has a lot of figureheads, but sadly everyone simply remains quoting Aoun. Aoun also dubbed Hezbollah as “terrorists” when he was in exile only to find himself in alliance with him for political interests. Hezbollah and AMAL intervened a lot on the SSNP and Lebanese Communist Party only to end up as allies. Several members of the SSNP used to accuse Aoun on public TV as a “traitor”, now they call him “the Perfect Presidential Candidate”.
With the Opposition come their alliances: Iran and Syria. With those alliances of course comes the support for George Galloway and Hugo Chavez, as opponents to US Imperialism. Third, they support Hamas, as a Hezbollah replica for resistance and political survivors. Fourth, support to (and vice versa) from anti-US imperialism. This increased in dimension when the July war broke out and Hezbollah were tagged as “National Liberation Army”, “New Zapatistas” (although that surprises me drastically as they differ in their platforms), “anti-US Imperialism”, and last “Anecdote to Zionist Aggression.” Fifth, they enjoy support (again via Hassan Nasrallah) the support of a lot of masses subject under Arab dictatorships such as Egypt. The Palestinian Jordanians in specific had a controversy among each other after Saddam was “executed”, they wept because Saddam always expressed solidarity to the Palestinians, but Hezbollah were celebrating in Dahhieh when Saddam died. Solidarity to Hezbollah dispersed. In most cases, the driving force is Hezbollah and the Free Patriotic Movement.
So, as we notice, a lot of enemies are friends. Jaajaa and Junblatt shaking hands, SSNP becoming the breaking factor of hording votes to let Aoun’s candidate win against Gemayel, and so on. All of these are considered as short term alliances. They love each other for short run goals. A member of the Democratic Left would tell you: “Do you think I love Jaajaa, but hey I don’t want to be living in an Islamist Princedom.” Or a Aouni fan would say: “What do you think? You think we forgot how AMAL used to deliver us to Syrian Second Bureau? But we are fed up of Harriri stealing our food and money.” A trillion example can be found, but yes, as one fellow Palestinian activist in Lebanon told me: “I personally don’t care if Galloway is screwing up currently Marxism, but we have no choice in the matter, we have to think on how to oppose the United States, then after we win, we face them.” This is the same, another Democratic Leftist told me: “Once we are victorious against the Iranian Hezbollah, then puppet Syrian AMAL, then we will go and question Seniora’s policy, for now he is doing perfectly great.”
In any case, the last two cited quotes are excessively repeated on every situation. A member of the Lebanese Communist Party will find any chance to go and celebrate victory with Hezbollah because their rigid dogma would tell them: “Resistance to Israel comes first and above everything else.” Hence the Lebanese Communist Party argues he is with no one, but rushes down at every chance to support Hezbollah “in the name of resistance.” During the July war, actually I saw it one step further: Hezbollah assisting Helem in the relief work (via Samidoun) with maximum support. For those who do not know what Helem is, it is a movement composed of gay, lesbian, bisexuals, and even straights to defend homosexual rights in Lebanon (personally that movement is on my respect list). May be the July war was a survival critical moment, but that shows how the political arena is a survival moment.
The politicians impose historical amnesia on their supporters. Not one supporter encouraged the writing of a single unified history of Lebanon, because all of them have their hands dirty. And “Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend” is justified for survival moments. We have seen it in the past as well. In the 1950s, the Phalange and the SSNP were comrades in arms to defend the reign of Chamoun in the face of Nasser’s growing influence while the LCP was on the other side. Just a word not related to the entire topic, it never seizes to amaze me how politicians constantly downsize the historical role played by the LCP and the SSNP. Then we saw in 2005 George Hawwi (before getting assassinated) happy to see his step-son Rafi Madayan getting votes from the Phalange and doing vice versa. Actually the only illogical alliance, to top Aoun-Nasrallah lullaby would be Nasrallah ordering his supporters to support the Lebanese Forces in 2005 elections. More than once Nasrallah and Walid Junblatt supported each other as well. The greatest shock would be all key players agreeing on Suleiman Franjieh Sr. as President to get rid of the “Third Force”. This means Kamal Junblatt and Pierre Gemayel agreed with each other briefly. Even more ironic is the present, indirectly Samir Jaajaa and Amin Gemayel currently support via 14th of March their arch-enemies during the Lebanese Civil War, Fatah.
Once you support any of the two lines, you are stuck with the two earlier formulas or equations I said earlier. None of them would really care about real issues. 14th of March would say: “Oppose Syria/Iran”; the Opposition would say “Oppose Israel/United States” (except for the Aouni fans, they get lost sometimes between support for Aoun and that issue). Each neglects his own foreign sponsors and attacks the other’s.
In relation to Marxism and the situation, there can never be a “An Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend”. Marxism knows no such details, nothing at all except the emancipation of the Proletariat. Henceforth, we may support middle run goals which I would define gradual progress (such as better welfare system, civil marriage, transparency) but the bulk would remain: “Revolution of the Proletariat”. Someone told me that because we think that way the Lebanese Communist Party became that rigid, while Order for Communist Action disbanded. I say it is quiet the opposite. What made us go down is the quite the opposite. It is thinking of Short Run goals that got us to the situation. To bandwagon with the right-wing, declining on our goals, worse, drifting gradually away from the essence of our ideas that got us here because we lost the way to mingle with the masses, and lost them to Sectarian parties. While the Communists of the 1920s were doing a great job in building trade unions, now the trade unions became institutions under capitalist dictatorships that oppress their own syndicate members rather protect them from Capitalism. The most famous example in this regard would be the Syndicate of Engineers. No fresh engineer can find work in Lebanon unless he pays heavy material expenses to the Union and acquire membership. The Lebanese Communist Party still lacks the incentive to investigate whether Stalin is a real Marxist or not. It is irrelevant for them after all. It is also irrelevant for them to see the resurrection waves of Islamist and Patriarchal oppression to women. For once I would like to see the LCP proving me wrong about something, and it is easy to do so: let a female comrade for once lead the Lebanese Communist Party!
No War but Class War!
MFL
Sunday, September 23, 2007
Enemy of my Enemy is My Friend?
Lately in the left-wing and activist circles, a discussion has been heated up regarding alliances, and its justifications. Mainly the theme rotates around: “My Enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Such concepts appear in terms of 14th of March supporting US involvement in Lebanon (as long as it supports their goals), opposing Iran and Syrian intervention, or witnessing 14th of Marchers supporting Fatah while the opposition supporting Hamas, Chavez, and Galloway. Another logic would be the secular Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) and the Lebanese Communist Party (LCP) supporting Hezbullah and their coalitions in the name of resistance. Same applies when a member of the Democratic Left would tell me “Comrade Seniora” (which is contradictory if you ask me since the latter supports 100% free market as well as burying Lebanon in the WTO.)
Europe of the past would fit our investigation. Probably we witnessed such alliances being forged when one powerful figure became too powerful and forced the others to bandwagon against that ruler. One example would be Napoleon, whereby his blunt theme was “Unified Europe” under his self-proclaimed empire. The 19th Century itself was an era of kingdoms and alliance fluctuations. Different Monarchs/republics fluctuated their alliances according to interest, in order to establish a balance of power. This might fit the Realist School in international affairs, whereby nations switch alliances to maintain a balance of power. No Republic/Monarchy would enter an alliance to make one nation stronger than the others to the extent being unstopped. World War I witnessed the explosion of these alliances whereby few nations (Axis) saw they had the chance to balance against if not completely annihilate their opponents.
The first time we can witness the alliance falsely assumed is the Brest-Litovsk conference, which resulted at first the invasion of the Soviet Union by Monarchy Germany. Indeed, Lenin and Trotsky from the beginning found they had no choice from the beginning but gain time to organize their army. Karl Radeck also found the same logic and tried to spread the ideas of Marx and Engels by distributing Pamphlets of Communism to the German soldiers. At a one point, Monarchy Germany declared they are defending themselves, Western Europe, and the whole world from Bolshevik toxic ideas.
The first time we can regard the concept Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend was witnessed to its full scale was the unholy alliance between Stalinist Moscow and Capitalist Washington DC during World War II. The allies tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution of 1917, but Trotsky’s defenses were capable to block them and repel outside Soviet borders 11 major invading armies, not to forget the civil war ignited by the West against the Red Army. The first time I say the unholy alliance was formed between tyrant Stalin and greedy Franklin Roosevelt. There was no choice in the mater, lunatic Hitler swept through Europe, and made to the borders of Leningrad and Stalingrad, while the whole West except for Britain (the fact it was an island played a role). Stalin started his unholy alliance with Hitler to seize 50% of Poland, but then his plan backfired on him when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. After a relapse of six months, Stalin recovered and played his plan B card. It wasn’t planned actually, the United States needed Russia to remain standing, Russia (and here I say Russia instead of Soviet Union because Stalin was desperate to survive the offensive and introduced Russian Nationalism with the Logo: ‘Fight For Mother Russia’; not bad for a Georgian fake Communist). Eventually Nikita Khrushchev spilled the bottle in his memoirs (Khrushchev Remembers; interviewed by Roshenko) that 81% of the Soviet heavy equipment were merged between US and Russian technology. Hitler failed to take over Russia and its rich resources, but eventually his army collapsed at two powerful fronts.
I went to the details of World War II because this is par excellence the number 1 unholy alliance to occur in the history of the world (unless we consider the alliance which included Lebanese Forces and Hezbollah voting for each other more awkward. Now, I will move to two unholy alliances that go parallel to each other, and till now they seem to be holding: RESPECT in the UK and Kifaya in Egypt. Both also included two unholy alliances that are really parallel to each other. George Galloway’s coalition includes the Muslim Brotherhood and The Socialist Workers’ Party. The coalition emerged with good performance on the syndicate level. Galloway took the opportunity to bandwagon with the Muslim Brotherhood over there, while the Muslim Brotherhood accepted a coalition made of heresy committers or atheists (in the case of the SWP). The SWP stepped down on its revolutionary goals or shorter run goals, which is opposing US imperialism by all means available, and hence weakening the Marxist movement in England. George Galloway is the spearhead of the RESPECT coalition and the second in command is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The SWP blindly supports Hezbollah for example because Hezbollah for them defeated Israel. Moreover, the spearhead of the RESPECT coalition, Mr. Galloway disregards who opposes US imperialism and supports blindly anyone who stands up to their faces. Galloway eventually became a hero in the Lebanese arena when he broke the media silence on Lebanon as it was being bombarded by the Israelis with his famous interview with Sky News. Yet, Galloway for me as a revolutionary Marxist, his influences are more negative rather positive. The goal is not parliamentary gains, or political points, rather establishing a workers’ movement that would achieve the Proletariat’s demands. This takes a lot of effort, and hopefully our esteemed comrades of the SWP would realize to use their immense knowledge of Marxism and experience for that goal.
The Kifaya movement in Egypt is a similar scenario. The Comrades never learnt by supporting Jamal Abdul Nasser to become the President of Egypt, they signed their doom with a two-fold seal. The short run for our comrades in Egypt was to get rid of British colonialism, and hence they went blindly after Abdul Nasser, and he repaid them with placing a blind eye on the Muslim Brotherhood as they devoured Marxists from one side, and then he butchered with them (well, not only Egypt, but Syria and Lebanon as well except those blindly following Russia, such as Khaled Bikdash). Later, Nasser foolishly thought he can use the Socialists and the Muslim Brotherhood to balance against each other. Only difference, the Brotherhood in prisons increased in numbers, specially after the humiliating defeat of Nasser in a time-interval less than a week, which was the Six Day war of 1967, where Nasser as an undisputed leader collapsed, and secular Arab Nationalism was replaced with Islam as the only salvation for the Arabs. As economy worsened, the Brotherhood and its look-a-like expanded through its Islamist Social Welfare system while Sadat (as well as Moubarak) abused their position as Presidents to maximize profits and powers while the people were starving.
Kifaya emerged as a reaction to the never ending rule of Moubarak. Kifaya is sort of motivated by the Zapatista logo, Ya Basta!, because Kifaya’s translation to English means Enough! Unlike RESPECT which is forged out of three primary partners, Kifaya embodied anyone who despised Moubarak’s regime. This includes the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies (most powerful driving force), the Communists, the Arab Nationalists, Socialists, intellectual movements, Feminists, Syndicate, lawyers, and of course alter-globalization movements such as AJIJ. Yet, the comrades over there never learnt their lesson, that short run goals (ousting Moubarak out of office) will bring them more trouble if they are not well prepared. If you ask any socialist over there, they will reply “first get rid of Moubarak, then when the time we and the Brotherhood encounter each other comes, we will handle it.” Problem is that Egypt has the Islamist networks and welfare systems have been spreading around to the extent it makes the return of a real organized Marxist movement semi-impossible at this rate. The Marxists should focus on building themselves as a first priority, rather rush blindly after Kifaya. Now, I may sound I am undermining the efforts of our comrades in Egypt, but on the contrary, I salute every single one of them who raises his finger at Moubarak’s regime, which at least he is regarded as a US satellite installed over Cairo and Egypt. Yet, the Marxists’ primary goal is to build themselves from scratch (same as our situation in Lebanon), and I know it is difficult, but I can foresee that a coalition with the strongest party (Brotherhod) if they win, it will be disastrous to the progressive reforms and welfare system of the Marxists. The Islamist networks offered the majority of the Egyptians and non-Muslim foreigners their services equally, but the long-run is still not showing ok. After a religious movement s a right-wing and we shouldn’t commit the same errors of Galloway cheering el-Assad. So, in such cases, is my enemy’s enemy my friend? I think not specially if there is no progressive core essence on their side.
Lenin and Trotsky knew that perfectly well back in 1917. Lenin wouldn’t reconcile his Marxist goals for nothing. He was offered different positions when the February revolution took over. The Right-Wingers offered him and Trotsky several cabinet positions, Trotsky, like Lenin, saw that only a workers’ revolution would bring the salvation to the Proletariat. The Bolsheviks remained low profile and indirectly a small hunted down sect while attempting to preserve their core as revolutionary, progressive, scientific, and Marxist. Sadly, few glitches escaped, and Stalin emerged out of these glitches. The theme is “no enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The only time Lenin and Trotsky agreed that the Bolsheviks to ally with other factions when they split them (Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks) into a reactionary right-wingers, and the revolutionary left-wings, with them at what Lenin would call years later “Commanding Heights”. The road to victory is always long and harsh, and mind you, there is no such thing as a back-route and easy victory, the only victory is through the emancipation of the society into Marxism and its full mobility into class struggle rather trust blindly a group whose agenda is the gradual annhilation of non-believers.
MFL
Europe of the past would fit our investigation. Probably we witnessed such alliances being forged when one powerful figure became too powerful and forced the others to bandwagon against that ruler. One example would be Napoleon, whereby his blunt theme was “Unified Europe” under his self-proclaimed empire. The 19th Century itself was an era of kingdoms and alliance fluctuations. Different Monarchs/republics fluctuated their alliances according to interest, in order to establish a balance of power. This might fit the Realist School in international affairs, whereby nations switch alliances to maintain a balance of power. No Republic/Monarchy would enter an alliance to make one nation stronger than the others to the extent being unstopped. World War I witnessed the explosion of these alliances whereby few nations (Axis) saw they had the chance to balance against if not completely annihilate their opponents.
The first time we can witness the alliance falsely assumed is the Brest-Litovsk conference, which resulted at first the invasion of the Soviet Union by Monarchy Germany. Indeed, Lenin and Trotsky from the beginning found they had no choice from the beginning but gain time to organize their army. Karl Radeck also found the same logic and tried to spread the ideas of Marx and Engels by distributing Pamphlets of Communism to the German soldiers. At a one point, Monarchy Germany declared they are defending themselves, Western Europe, and the whole world from Bolshevik toxic ideas.
The first time we can regard the concept Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend was witnessed to its full scale was the unholy alliance between Stalinist Moscow and Capitalist Washington DC during World War II. The allies tried to overthrow the Bolsheviks after the October Revolution of 1917, but Trotsky’s defenses were capable to block them and repel outside Soviet borders 11 major invading armies, not to forget the civil war ignited by the West against the Red Army. The first time I say the unholy alliance was formed between tyrant Stalin and greedy Franklin Roosevelt. There was no choice in the mater, lunatic Hitler swept through Europe, and made to the borders of Leningrad and Stalingrad, while the whole West except for Britain (the fact it was an island played a role). Stalin started his unholy alliance with Hitler to seize 50% of Poland, but then his plan backfired on him when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. After a relapse of six months, Stalin recovered and played his plan B card. It wasn’t planned actually, the United States needed Russia to remain standing, Russia (and here I say Russia instead of Soviet Union because Stalin was desperate to survive the offensive and introduced Russian Nationalism with the Logo: ‘Fight For Mother Russia’; not bad for a Georgian fake Communist). Eventually Nikita Khrushchev spilled the bottle in his memoirs (Khrushchev Remembers; interviewed by Roshenko) that 81% of the Soviet heavy equipment were merged between US and Russian technology. Hitler failed to take over Russia and its rich resources, but eventually his army collapsed at two powerful fronts.
I went to the details of World War II because this is par excellence the number 1 unholy alliance to occur in the history of the world (unless we consider the alliance which included Lebanese Forces and Hezbollah voting for each other more awkward. Now, I will move to two unholy alliances that go parallel to each other, and till now they seem to be holding: RESPECT in the UK and Kifaya in Egypt. Both also included two unholy alliances that are really parallel to each other. George Galloway’s coalition includes the Muslim Brotherhood and The Socialist Workers’ Party. The coalition emerged with good performance on the syndicate level. Galloway took the opportunity to bandwagon with the Muslim Brotherhood over there, while the Muslim Brotherhood accepted a coalition made of heresy committers or atheists (in the case of the SWP). The SWP stepped down on its revolutionary goals or shorter run goals, which is opposing US imperialism by all means available, and hence weakening the Marxist movement in England. George Galloway is the spearhead of the RESPECT coalition and the second in command is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. The SWP blindly supports Hezbollah for example because Hezbollah for them defeated Israel. Moreover, the spearhead of the RESPECT coalition, Mr. Galloway disregards who opposes US imperialism and supports blindly anyone who stands up to their faces. Galloway eventually became a hero in the Lebanese arena when he broke the media silence on Lebanon as it was being bombarded by the Israelis with his famous interview with Sky News. Yet, Galloway for me as a revolutionary Marxist, his influences are more negative rather positive. The goal is not parliamentary gains, or political points, rather establishing a workers’ movement that would achieve the Proletariat’s demands. This takes a lot of effort, and hopefully our esteemed comrades of the SWP would realize to use their immense knowledge of Marxism and experience for that goal.
The Kifaya movement in Egypt is a similar scenario. The Comrades never learnt by supporting Jamal Abdul Nasser to become the President of Egypt, they signed their doom with a two-fold seal. The short run for our comrades in Egypt was to get rid of British colonialism, and hence they went blindly after Abdul Nasser, and he repaid them with placing a blind eye on the Muslim Brotherhood as they devoured Marxists from one side, and then he butchered with them (well, not only Egypt, but Syria and Lebanon as well except those blindly following Russia, such as Khaled Bikdash). Later, Nasser foolishly thought he can use the Socialists and the Muslim Brotherhood to balance against each other. Only difference, the Brotherhood in prisons increased in numbers, specially after the humiliating defeat of Nasser in a time-interval less than a week, which was the Six Day war of 1967, where Nasser as an undisputed leader collapsed, and secular Arab Nationalism was replaced with Islam as the only salvation for the Arabs. As economy worsened, the Brotherhood and its look-a-like expanded through its Islamist Social Welfare system while Sadat (as well as Moubarak) abused their position as Presidents to maximize profits and powers while the people were starving.
Kifaya emerged as a reaction to the never ending rule of Moubarak. Kifaya is sort of motivated by the Zapatista logo, Ya Basta!, because Kifaya’s translation to English means Enough! Unlike RESPECT which is forged out of three primary partners, Kifaya embodied anyone who despised Moubarak’s regime. This includes the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies (most powerful driving force), the Communists, the Arab Nationalists, Socialists, intellectual movements, Feminists, Syndicate, lawyers, and of course alter-globalization movements such as AJIJ. Yet, the comrades over there never learnt their lesson, that short run goals (ousting Moubarak out of office) will bring them more trouble if they are not well prepared. If you ask any socialist over there, they will reply “first get rid of Moubarak, then when the time we and the Brotherhood encounter each other comes, we will handle it.” Problem is that Egypt has the Islamist networks and welfare systems have been spreading around to the extent it makes the return of a real organized Marxist movement semi-impossible at this rate. The Marxists should focus on building themselves as a first priority, rather rush blindly after Kifaya. Now, I may sound I am undermining the efforts of our comrades in Egypt, but on the contrary, I salute every single one of them who raises his finger at Moubarak’s regime, which at least he is regarded as a US satellite installed over Cairo and Egypt. Yet, the Marxists’ primary goal is to build themselves from scratch (same as our situation in Lebanon), and I know it is difficult, but I can foresee that a coalition with the strongest party (Brotherhod) if they win, it will be disastrous to the progressive reforms and welfare system of the Marxists. The Islamist networks offered the majority of the Egyptians and non-Muslim foreigners their services equally, but the long-run is still not showing ok. After a religious movement s a right-wing and we shouldn’t commit the same errors of Galloway cheering el-Assad. So, in such cases, is my enemy’s enemy my friend? I think not specially if there is no progressive core essence on their side.
Lenin and Trotsky knew that perfectly well back in 1917. Lenin wouldn’t reconcile his Marxist goals for nothing. He was offered different positions when the February revolution took over. The Right-Wingers offered him and Trotsky several cabinet positions, Trotsky, like Lenin, saw that only a workers’ revolution would bring the salvation to the Proletariat. The Bolsheviks remained low profile and indirectly a small hunted down sect while attempting to preserve their core as revolutionary, progressive, scientific, and Marxist. Sadly, few glitches escaped, and Stalin emerged out of these glitches. The theme is “no enemy of my enemy is my friend.” The only time Lenin and Trotsky agreed that the Bolsheviks to ally with other factions when they split them (Social Revolutionaries, Mensheviks) into a reactionary right-wingers, and the revolutionary left-wings, with them at what Lenin would call years later “Commanding Heights”. The road to victory is always long and harsh, and mind you, there is no such thing as a back-route and easy victory, the only victory is through the emancipation of the society into Marxism and its full mobility into class struggle rather trust blindly a group whose agenda is the gradual annhilation of non-believers.
MFL
Thursday, April 19, 2007
The Arab League: Waste of Time
Well, what to expect from the nations that historically sold out not only on the Middle East to secure their own interests, but also on their own people such as Egypt and Saudi Arabia?
Basically, the Arab leaders got nothing to hope for except safeguard themselves from Iran’s political invasion. Saudi Arabia and Egypt claim they historically sacrificed a lot, but history remembers them as ruining the 1936-1939 demonstration – rebellion for the Palestinians (along other factors of course).
Moreover, Saudi Arabia meddled for a long time and used Lebanon as its front against others. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Saudi Arabia was involved on fighting Nasserite (reactionary Arab Nationalism) by supporting Christian Militias. In the 1970s, like almost all Arab nations, they contradicted themselves. They were the primary financers to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) till the Arab Nations overall indorsed the PLO after the 1967 Arab defeat. More often, the Saudis were always a pawn for the US administration to broker a deal that goes for their interests, such as Riyadh’s, which isolated Kamal Junblatt. Philip Habib also relied on the Saudis to muscle the Syrians into accepting short run goals. More recently, on LBC with Marcel Ghanem, Bolton said that several Arab leaders played a role in encouraging Israel to bomb Hezbollah (which of course Israel bombed almost everything but Hezbollah). If we follow the process of elimination, Arab leaders directly involved with the Lebanese Affair are not that many: Jordan – Egypt – Saudi Arabia (in terms of having welfare of seeing Hezbollah crushed). Jordan is no longer a political player, so we limit everything to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The latest to be witnessed by the Saudi interference in Lebanese Affairs (in parallel to the Iranian) is when the Lebanese opposition announced their civil disobedience which involved closing down routes. It is ironic that Qassem and Hajj Hassan argued that such form of escalations will last days and weeks till the Seniora government is given the boot, suddenly in the evening, we see the Grand Mufti of the Sunnis, Qabbani, announcing the end of the demonstration, after al-Bandar visited Iran towards the evening.
Now of course, we can thank the Saudis, along with ALL the Arab leaders for sending their foreign ministers during the July War to meet with Lebanon’s Prime Minister in Down Town (under US protection), while most of Lebanon was burning in hell. The funniest part is on a debate featuring Fawaz Traboulsi against a Saudi spokesman, who was yelling that he condemns adventures and undemocratic decisions (referring to Hezbollah’s solo operation) but he was speechless when Traboulsi bombarded him with questions such as “What does the Saudis know about Democracy?” or “When last time the people were represented”…etc. It has to be noted that Saudi failure to manage their own affairs brought extremists like Bin Laden, not to forget how oppressive the regime is towards their women.
The Egyptians are no better case. The term “US satellite” shines loud and clear from Moubarak’s regime. The man didn’t take any decisions towards the Israeli aggression on the Lebanese, and worse, he suppressed all forms of demonstrations that were going towards Lebanon. Historically, Egypt played a role in triggering the 1958 confrontations, took temporarily a piece of Palestine (following King Abdullah’s footsteps in 1948), and of course, and triggered the worst agreement which will lead Lebanon to a civil war in 1975 (the Cairo Agreement of 1969). I will not discuss how Egypt is still abusing the Arab League for its own affairs, only to have its hegemony broken by Saudi Arabia and recently Qatar. They opened the 1973 war, like the Syrians, in order to attain bargaining hands (mainly to restore the Sinaa Zone). Moreover, they negotiated with the Israelis while promising the PLO leaders to bring forth their demands, which of course ended up neglected and Sadat as disappointed to see the PLO and the Syrians joining hands in a rejectionist front. There is no need how to mention how Egypt’s dictatorship system brought forth the brotherhood, and still pushes people to endorse the Brotherhood’s logos as an alternative to Moubarak’s.
Both nations do nothing lately but oppress their own people and serve the US foreign policy. It should be interesting how the Saudis deny any contacts with the Israelis while Olmert said there is a Quadro – Committee with the Saudis in it, establishing contacts with it. The funnier part Levni going to Qatar even though Qatar does not recognize Israel, while Egypt long ago (ever since Sadat’s disengagement plan started officially in 1974) recognized Israel.
The Peace Initiative of course will never be implemented by Israel unless if all Arab States agree to turn their eyes towards the other end, ie away from the Palestinians. The Saudi dynasty and the Moubarak regime (soon to become a dynasty when Moubarak’s son takes over as a “democratic” president) wouldn’t have lasted that long without US support. The whole Peace Initiative is a dead end, specially when the Saudis try to refer to “No Peace and Normalization with Israel till every invaded Arab land is returned to its owners” (of course starting probably after 1948), but to show their people “they are working for Lebanon. Not till this very day we have seen anything tangible coming out of the Arab League. Just a forum place to meet up and the leaders would say: “We hope” and “We wish for this to happen…”, not to forget “in solidarity we really pray….”
I still wonder how people are optimistic, especially in Lebanon, between Saudi Arabia/USA and Syria/Iran, wow we are so lucky and loved. Not to forget any day we may see Israeli Planes hovering our heads again and bombing the heck out of Lebanon (a tiny sample of what the Palestinians are living through on daily basis). We sure are the center of attention everywhere in the world, aren’t we lucky?!
Basically, the Arab leaders got nothing to hope for except safeguard themselves from Iran’s political invasion. Saudi Arabia and Egypt claim they historically sacrificed a lot, but history remembers them as ruining the 1936-1939 demonstration – rebellion for the Palestinians (along other factors of course).
Moreover, Saudi Arabia meddled for a long time and used Lebanon as its front against others. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Saudi Arabia was involved on fighting Nasserite (reactionary Arab Nationalism) by supporting Christian Militias. In the 1970s, like almost all Arab nations, they contradicted themselves. They were the primary financers to the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO) till the Arab Nations overall indorsed the PLO after the 1967 Arab defeat. More often, the Saudis were always a pawn for the US administration to broker a deal that goes for their interests, such as Riyadh’s, which isolated Kamal Junblatt. Philip Habib also relied on the Saudis to muscle the Syrians into accepting short run goals. More recently, on LBC with Marcel Ghanem, Bolton said that several Arab leaders played a role in encouraging Israel to bomb Hezbollah (which of course Israel bombed almost everything but Hezbollah). If we follow the process of elimination, Arab leaders directly involved with the Lebanese Affair are not that many: Jordan – Egypt – Saudi Arabia (in terms of having welfare of seeing Hezbollah crushed). Jordan is no longer a political player, so we limit everything to Egypt and Saudi Arabia. The latest to be witnessed by the Saudi interference in Lebanese Affairs (in parallel to the Iranian) is when the Lebanese opposition announced their civil disobedience which involved closing down routes. It is ironic that Qassem and Hajj Hassan argued that such form of escalations will last days and weeks till the Seniora government is given the boot, suddenly in the evening, we see the Grand Mufti of the Sunnis, Qabbani, announcing the end of the demonstration, after al-Bandar visited Iran towards the evening.
Now of course, we can thank the Saudis, along with ALL the Arab leaders for sending their foreign ministers during the July War to meet with Lebanon’s Prime Minister in Down Town (under US protection), while most of Lebanon was burning in hell. The funniest part is on a debate featuring Fawaz Traboulsi against a Saudi spokesman, who was yelling that he condemns adventures and undemocratic decisions (referring to Hezbollah’s solo operation) but he was speechless when Traboulsi bombarded him with questions such as “What does the Saudis know about Democracy?” or “When last time the people were represented”…etc. It has to be noted that Saudi failure to manage their own affairs brought extremists like Bin Laden, not to forget how oppressive the regime is towards their women.
The Egyptians are no better case. The term “US satellite” shines loud and clear from Moubarak’s regime. The man didn’t take any decisions towards the Israeli aggression on the Lebanese, and worse, he suppressed all forms of demonstrations that were going towards Lebanon. Historically, Egypt played a role in triggering the 1958 confrontations, took temporarily a piece of Palestine (following King Abdullah’s footsteps in 1948), and of course, and triggered the worst agreement which will lead Lebanon to a civil war in 1975 (the Cairo Agreement of 1969). I will not discuss how Egypt is still abusing the Arab League for its own affairs, only to have its hegemony broken by Saudi Arabia and recently Qatar. They opened the 1973 war, like the Syrians, in order to attain bargaining hands (mainly to restore the Sinaa Zone). Moreover, they negotiated with the Israelis while promising the PLO leaders to bring forth their demands, which of course ended up neglected and Sadat as disappointed to see the PLO and the Syrians joining hands in a rejectionist front. There is no need how to mention how Egypt’s dictatorship system brought forth the brotherhood, and still pushes people to endorse the Brotherhood’s logos as an alternative to Moubarak’s.
Both nations do nothing lately but oppress their own people and serve the US foreign policy. It should be interesting how the Saudis deny any contacts with the Israelis while Olmert said there is a Quadro – Committee with the Saudis in it, establishing contacts with it. The funnier part Levni going to Qatar even though Qatar does not recognize Israel, while Egypt long ago (ever since Sadat’s disengagement plan started officially in 1974) recognized Israel.
The Peace Initiative of course will never be implemented by Israel unless if all Arab States agree to turn their eyes towards the other end, ie away from the Palestinians. The Saudi dynasty and the Moubarak regime (soon to become a dynasty when Moubarak’s son takes over as a “democratic” president) wouldn’t have lasted that long without US support. The whole Peace Initiative is a dead end, specially when the Saudis try to refer to “No Peace and Normalization with Israel till every invaded Arab land is returned to its owners” (of course starting probably after 1948), but to show their people “they are working for Lebanon. Not till this very day we have seen anything tangible coming out of the Arab League. Just a forum place to meet up and the leaders would say: “We hope” and “We wish for this to happen…”, not to forget “in solidarity we really pray….”
I still wonder how people are optimistic, especially in Lebanon, between Saudi Arabia/USA and Syria/Iran, wow we are so lucky and loved. Not to forget any day we may see Israeli Planes hovering our heads again and bombing the heck out of Lebanon (a tiny sample of what the Palestinians are living through on daily basis). We sure are the center of attention everywhere in the world, aren’t we lucky?!
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