This article is nothing but a personal recount about one of the ironies (and for a change it is not a historical irony in terms of Lebanese power-struggle politics) that I encountered. I went to Virgin Megastore to buy some books. In 99% of the cases, I boycott those multi-national institutions, and to go one step further, I promote their dangers as an example of class struggle, with one perspective at least required for this post (there are several dimensions to that story, I recommend corpwatch to read), whereby the big corporations oust the smaller businesses with their gigantic budget, international links, and gain monopoly on the access of information. In a sense, to be seen in Virgin Megastore, I find that rather embarrassing, or rather subdue to the system. Most of my ideological readings have been on the Marxist Internet Archives; however, not everything is available to the public for free.
The story goes that I go with a fellow comrade to buy a book for Isaac Deutcher. As I enter the store, I bump to a fellow Comrade of mine, who probably in my own honest opinion, is the most powerful academic (and a Marxist with a little bit of Arab nationalist affiliations). That man was Fawwaz Traboulsi. The story took place four years ago. I meet up with him and as always, ask him a zillion questions on life, work, activism, academics, what to read, ...etc. I told him that my purpose to this place was to buy a book written by Isaac Deutcher. Other than the fact he knew his wife, the man never seized to surprise me. I always hear him on TV, and read his articles, and his book "A History of Modern Lebanon" has become almost a bible to be read on daily basis.
I told him: "I came here to buy a book by Deutcher"
Traboulsi: "It is interesting that they import a lot of books on the Soviet Union, and Soviet characters."
Me : "Indeed, that is true"
Traboulsi: "But I find it strange to see books on Lenin, Trotsky, Marx, and others but not a single book written by those authors."
Well, it is true. After a brief moment of debate, we went our separate ways.
Now, here we were, couple of Comrades, at Virgin Megastore, whereas some of them were going to buy books on Communism. Now of course, to answer Traboulsi's complaint, those who can access the Marxist Internet Archives, they can access them, or try to print them out for future photocopies. Almost 95% of what all of the previous mentioned Communist intellects have their writings present in those earlier Marxist archives (even minutes of meetings).
Moving around the story of Mr. Deutcher. The book cost me a bundle, and unlike several "Communists", cash flow is a problem for me. Amen for internationalism within the Marxist doctrines, whereby comrades are not bounded by borders. So I contacted two comrades in the US who were on their way to Beirut, and I got the final required original copy for Isaac Deutcher. When I wanted to pay for it, my comrade replies: "No need comrade, I got almost for free." In a stunned manner, I look at him and answer back: "But the book is an original and new", and my comrade replied: "I got it at a second shop."
Now you have to understand, when several comrades meet, and they originate from different borders, a zillion question pops up. Luckily for us, we entered the debate on "Access of Information" while having a quick 8 shots of Vodka (four of them were on the house). He asked:
Comrade: "Where did you get the book?"
Me : "Don't laugh, from Virgin Megastore"
Comrade: "For real, they actually sell our stuff at Virgin Megastore?"
Me : "Don't Laugh, I couldn't find the Isaac Deutcher series except in Virgin Megastore"
Comrade: "Interesting, over here they never sell anything Communist or Anarchist"
Well, from that perspective, it was interesting. Whereas I felt being a slave forced to buy a book that I needed for different reasons, but I couldn't attain it anywhere but Virgin Megastore. Damned Capitalists!
MFL
Showing posts with label Fawwaz Traboulsi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fawwaz Traboulsi. Show all posts
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Whose Freedom they are defending? Not the People's!
The current situation is that the two coalitions of Lebanon, government and opposition, has its basis with cowards who have been involved in safe-guarding themselves through riots rather through seeking the interests of the people as a whole.
For quiet a while, the tides switched and the opposition has been bombarding the government again with all forms of accusations, while only one barking insane politician was speaking in a God-like manner. His name is We’am Wahhab. While the opposition accused the government of being US made, We’am Wahhab has been issuing threats such as “ we will throw them out in the sea if they proceed with the 50 + 1 % vote” or “if they wont listen to us, through arms we will send them to the USA” or others. Of course, he attacked severely the trio leaders of the 14th of March, Jaajaa, Hariri, and Junblatt. While other Opposition leaders been aggressive, such as Hezbollah’s Raad and Qassem, We’am Wahhab got the special attention because he is regarded as Syria’s greatest puppy.
The government, to cover its own blunders, retaliated on all the figures through attacking Syria and Iran’s interventions on the Opposition. However, the government was viewed passive because they simply repeated the same accusations, while the opposition bluntly shoved Archbishop Sfair 100% into the Governments’ hands. He has been pro-14th of March, but now he is officially a 14th of Marcher Cadre, like Mufti Qabbani. Ever since the Opposition resorted to block the streets on January, the opposition remained threatening to escalate, primarily, Aoun hinted to different meetings aimed to coordinate such plans unless we take Wahhab’s threats for real.
Ever since this January, “electricity riots” through out different areas of Beirut and Baabda – Alley districts, the government remained with its traditional line of accusations. As 14th of February approached, the government had to step up its tone in order to guarantee maximum participation on the day Rafiq Hariri was assassinated. For starters, Hariri’s Sunni warriors now shoot in the open air at Tareeq el Jadeedi whenever Hariri speaks, hence mimicking Hezbollah’s supporters whenever Nasrallah speaks. Party collisions been breaking on sensitive areas at night; however, the media been playing a role in not reporting the details of those fights. For example, few people knew that last week Future Station received a sound grenade, or a shoot-out occurred in Tariq – el Jadeedi two Saturdays ago, or last Saturday fist to fist fights took place on Basta between pro-parties supporters in Basta. This at least is a positive step.
Yet, 14th of February is approaching. The government has to escalate its tone of threatening. Hariri was blunt to say that he will counter any offensive if that takes place. Junblatt went as far as saying that his “party members will burn everything” if a war comes out. Actually, the step-up scared a lot of people, but that is what the 14th of March supporters need to listen to be mobilized. Hariri toured Northern Lebanon and announced he will place 53 Million dollars to be placed on constructing facilities that will assist the people of the North, mainly where there are 14th of March supporters. After all, Ahmad Fatfat made it in Dunnieh.
The media, specially Future TV, been behaving as if it is in a war zone. The war is against terrorist Syria. Anyone who does not go to the 14th of February is a Syrian Agent. Anyone who doesn’t go to 14th of February is abandoning the “martyrs”. Actually, anyone who doesn’t go down is not defending Lebanon and Syria for sure will return. This attempt to attain maximum mobilizations is taking place with the attempt of replicating the situation of 14th of March 3 years ago. People feel they are in a war zone. We’am Wahhab of course was thrilled because he can finally “send a missile on Junblatt’s sleeping room if the war breaks out.”
When Omre Moussa failed again to reach a national reconciliation, one reporter asked him: “Why are you trying to seek reconciliation on the local level if the outside nations are in disagreement? Try to get them to agree instead the local leaders.”
Meanwhile, Aoun and Nasrallah wanted to assure their audiences that the historical “Christian and Muslim” alliance stands and they both appeared together in an interview at Aoun’s newly born TV Channel “O-TV”. This move actually boasted O-TV’s ratings because this historic interview was the first of its kind in Lebanon’s history whereby having the most powerful two leaders of the opposition sit together in the same room answering questions. However, this interview will be historical because history will remember Aoun as the weaker link between the two. Everyone noticed, except for few Aounis, how Aoun looked at Nasrallah and gave him the look: “Did I say that right?”
The Aounis to counter the government’s accusations decided to follow 14th of March’s logic during Matn elections of 2007: give flowers during 14th of February. The tactic is not that smart because it was clear they wanted to play the martyr’s role and end up beaten during the massive event.
While escalations reveal the greediness of both coalitions, people say now: “let them vote a president and let us get on with our lives.” Is that the case? The whole situation started with the break-down of the 2005 national government due to question of Hezbollah’s arms and the political assassinations. Afterwards, the issue of the corruption and national reconciliation government arrived, and eventually, the case of the presidential case. Of course, with the course of events, accusations of treason were accompanied on both sides.
Now, the question for 14th of Marchers, their logo say: our “martyrs”. Does this mean that the 1300 martyrs from Israeli racial brutality during two Julies ago are not included? What does that make the regular citizens who died in that war? Or they don’t count because they are not part of the suspected Syrian assassinations?
Yesterday night, a Hezbollah general was assassinated in Damascus and Israel is accused. Imad Moghnieh was associated with the killing of the US Marines 25 years ago. Hezbollah announced today on their Manar TV that tomorrow is his burial ceremony and honoring which again coincides with 14th of February. Samir Franjieh, whether unaware or not, said that they should and tomorrow should be national mourning day for everyone.
Nevertheless, I would like to be honest, in this entire fiasco of cowards’ symphonies, We’am Wahhab should be the first to be locked up, and taken away from media. Even though he is such a comical character, but I sure wouldn’t mind slap him if I see him.
This is no longer a war against Israel, this is no longer a war for Independence, this is a war of cancellation. Tomorrow, probably a million will go down to the streets of Martyrs’ Square, despite the fact great riots are feared to erupt if a “mysterious sniper” shoots at the crowd. More to the point, Hariri coronated the Lebanese Army and the Lebanese Interior Security Forces as the primary defenders of the real Lebanese (according to his perspective) against possible Syrian forces.
Let us hope no more civilians would die for their politicians’ greed….
I would like to end quotations from articles written by Fawwaz Traboulsi in 2006:
In December 2006: Fawwaz Traboulsi, in his article On Naming Issues with its Names, wrote the following: “
The summary of the issue, which calls for deep worries, is that this sectarian system returned to confirm again that it is a system of “lacking space”. This system will remain lacking space till infinity. Its sects and streams can’t fit in it, and each group seeks to trick the Ta’ef Accord and the Constitution as each claims its commitment to this or that while arrogantly saying that nothing needs reconsidering.
This is the same system confirming that it can’t fit people. It forces people to shove its demands and interests (if admitted to it rights) from the needle of Sects’ rights and its shares?
Then how can the distribution of interests, services, and shares occur in the first place in a situation where there is nothing to distribute but the debts (MFL notes: national debt). Specially that the leaders of the Sects’ expertise are to distribute (and a huge section of the economists are not involved except to raise moral to the extent of prosperity). So who cares about wealth production and distributing it in a fairer manner among the entire Lebanese?
This is no longer a joke. The moment of truth has come (the other does not cancel the need to know truth which is on your mind) (MFL notes: Dr. Traboulsi refers to the demanded Truth by 14th of March in a satire manner). Till now, the Lebanese system solved its crises by changing people’s mentality via killing and displacement or the marginalized groups impose itself through force and foreign relations show-off. Will this occur again?”
Fawaz Traboulsi on November 25 2006, in his article “The Two Independeces: Lessons and History”, wrote:
We have to admit also that the Lebanese have sought for the request of aid, or weaponry, and occasionally both together in order to impose themselves on the political (and economic as well as social) system which is isolated and alienating. This system refutes to distinguish the essence of belonging, rights, and what ought to be. We can even say that the Political and Social promotion of the larger sections of the Lebanese groups is accomplished when this promotion imposes itself through violence and the quest of help from the outside on the monopolists of power and money. Hence, we can look at the bloody crisis of 1958 as it was means whereby the Sunni (and Durzi to some extent) elites expressed themselves in terms of participation in political life. This perspective can be used also on the latest civil war (1975-1990) which was the means which the Shiite elites arrived into participating and accomplished change of balance between the Muslims and Christians in positions of political authority.
Till now, we lost twice the battle for independence, or to be exact, we lost two battles for independence in the same year (and still going). The leaders of the 2005 independence against “Syrian Presence” have forgotten there is an Israeli enemy and didn’t notice that it reflects the strength of the United States empire after 9/11. As for the leaders of the May 2000 independence and July 2006 from resisting the Israeli aggression and liberation, did not succeed in convincing the rest of the Lebanese about their independence from Syria in their context of “friendship”. The invitation towards a national unity government has been deactivated by both teams because there are dictations of the by the external sponsor towards the other team. It is as if confirming that the external dictations are a destined fate on Lebanese politics while the Lebanese politicians “have their bodies made of diamonds” can’t accept the dictations of this team or that.””
For quiet a while, the tides switched and the opposition has been bombarding the government again with all forms of accusations, while only one barking insane politician was speaking in a God-like manner. His name is We’am Wahhab. While the opposition accused the government of being US made, We’am Wahhab has been issuing threats such as “ we will throw them out in the sea if they proceed with the 50 + 1 % vote” or “if they wont listen to us, through arms we will send them to the USA” or others. Of course, he attacked severely the trio leaders of the 14th of March, Jaajaa, Hariri, and Junblatt. While other Opposition leaders been aggressive, such as Hezbollah’s Raad and Qassem, We’am Wahhab got the special attention because he is regarded as Syria’s greatest puppy.
The government, to cover its own blunders, retaliated on all the figures through attacking Syria and Iran’s interventions on the Opposition. However, the government was viewed passive because they simply repeated the same accusations, while the opposition bluntly shoved Archbishop Sfair 100% into the Governments’ hands. He has been pro-14th of March, but now he is officially a 14th of Marcher Cadre, like Mufti Qabbani. Ever since the Opposition resorted to block the streets on January, the opposition remained threatening to escalate, primarily, Aoun hinted to different meetings aimed to coordinate such plans unless we take Wahhab’s threats for real.
Ever since this January, “electricity riots” through out different areas of Beirut and Baabda – Alley districts, the government remained with its traditional line of accusations. As 14th of February approached, the government had to step up its tone in order to guarantee maximum participation on the day Rafiq Hariri was assassinated. For starters, Hariri’s Sunni warriors now shoot in the open air at Tareeq el Jadeedi whenever Hariri speaks, hence mimicking Hezbollah’s supporters whenever Nasrallah speaks. Party collisions been breaking on sensitive areas at night; however, the media been playing a role in not reporting the details of those fights. For example, few people knew that last week Future Station received a sound grenade, or a shoot-out occurred in Tariq – el Jadeedi two Saturdays ago, or last Saturday fist to fist fights took place on Basta between pro-parties supporters in Basta. This at least is a positive step.
Yet, 14th of February is approaching. The government has to escalate its tone of threatening. Hariri was blunt to say that he will counter any offensive if that takes place. Junblatt went as far as saying that his “party members will burn everything” if a war comes out. Actually, the step-up scared a lot of people, but that is what the 14th of March supporters need to listen to be mobilized. Hariri toured Northern Lebanon and announced he will place 53 Million dollars to be placed on constructing facilities that will assist the people of the North, mainly where there are 14th of March supporters. After all, Ahmad Fatfat made it in Dunnieh.
The media, specially Future TV, been behaving as if it is in a war zone. The war is against terrorist Syria. Anyone who does not go to the 14th of February is a Syrian Agent. Anyone who doesn’t go to 14th of February is abandoning the “martyrs”. Actually, anyone who doesn’t go down is not defending Lebanon and Syria for sure will return. This attempt to attain maximum mobilizations is taking place with the attempt of replicating the situation of 14th of March 3 years ago. People feel they are in a war zone. We’am Wahhab of course was thrilled because he can finally “send a missile on Junblatt’s sleeping room if the war breaks out.”
When Omre Moussa failed again to reach a national reconciliation, one reporter asked him: “Why are you trying to seek reconciliation on the local level if the outside nations are in disagreement? Try to get them to agree instead the local leaders.”
Meanwhile, Aoun and Nasrallah wanted to assure their audiences that the historical “Christian and Muslim” alliance stands and they both appeared together in an interview at Aoun’s newly born TV Channel “O-TV”. This move actually boasted O-TV’s ratings because this historic interview was the first of its kind in Lebanon’s history whereby having the most powerful two leaders of the opposition sit together in the same room answering questions. However, this interview will be historical because history will remember Aoun as the weaker link between the two. Everyone noticed, except for few Aounis, how Aoun looked at Nasrallah and gave him the look: “Did I say that right?”
The Aounis to counter the government’s accusations decided to follow 14th of March’s logic during Matn elections of 2007: give flowers during 14th of February. The tactic is not that smart because it was clear they wanted to play the martyr’s role and end up beaten during the massive event.
While escalations reveal the greediness of both coalitions, people say now: “let them vote a president and let us get on with our lives.” Is that the case? The whole situation started with the break-down of the 2005 national government due to question of Hezbollah’s arms and the political assassinations. Afterwards, the issue of the corruption and national reconciliation government arrived, and eventually, the case of the presidential case. Of course, with the course of events, accusations of treason were accompanied on both sides.
Now, the question for 14th of Marchers, their logo say: our “martyrs”. Does this mean that the 1300 martyrs from Israeli racial brutality during two Julies ago are not included? What does that make the regular citizens who died in that war? Or they don’t count because they are not part of the suspected Syrian assassinations?
Yesterday night, a Hezbollah general was assassinated in Damascus and Israel is accused. Imad Moghnieh was associated with the killing of the US Marines 25 years ago. Hezbollah announced today on their Manar TV that tomorrow is his burial ceremony and honoring which again coincides with 14th of February. Samir Franjieh, whether unaware or not, said that they should and tomorrow should be national mourning day for everyone.
Nevertheless, I would like to be honest, in this entire fiasco of cowards’ symphonies, We’am Wahhab should be the first to be locked up, and taken away from media. Even though he is such a comical character, but I sure wouldn’t mind slap him if I see him.
This is no longer a war against Israel, this is no longer a war for Independence, this is a war of cancellation. Tomorrow, probably a million will go down to the streets of Martyrs’ Square, despite the fact great riots are feared to erupt if a “mysterious sniper” shoots at the crowd. More to the point, Hariri coronated the Lebanese Army and the Lebanese Interior Security Forces as the primary defenders of the real Lebanese (according to his perspective) against possible Syrian forces.
Let us hope no more civilians would die for their politicians’ greed….
I would like to end quotations from articles written by Fawwaz Traboulsi in 2006:
In December 2006: Fawwaz Traboulsi, in his article On Naming Issues with its Names, wrote the following: “
The summary of the issue, which calls for deep worries, is that this sectarian system returned to confirm again that it is a system of “lacking space”. This system will remain lacking space till infinity. Its sects and streams can’t fit in it, and each group seeks to trick the Ta’ef Accord and the Constitution as each claims its commitment to this or that while arrogantly saying that nothing needs reconsidering.
This is the same system confirming that it can’t fit people. It forces people to shove its demands and interests (if admitted to it rights) from the needle of Sects’ rights and its shares?
Then how can the distribution of interests, services, and shares occur in the first place in a situation where there is nothing to distribute but the debts (MFL notes: national debt). Specially that the leaders of the Sects’ expertise are to distribute (and a huge section of the economists are not involved except to raise moral to the extent of prosperity). So who cares about wealth production and distributing it in a fairer manner among the entire Lebanese?
This is no longer a joke. The moment of truth has come (the other does not cancel the need to know truth which is on your mind) (MFL notes: Dr. Traboulsi refers to the demanded Truth by 14th of March in a satire manner). Till now, the Lebanese system solved its crises by changing people’s mentality via killing and displacement or the marginalized groups impose itself through force and foreign relations show-off. Will this occur again?”
Fawaz Traboulsi on November 25 2006, in his article “The Two Independeces: Lessons and History”, wrote:
We have to admit also that the Lebanese have sought for the request of aid, or weaponry, and occasionally both together in order to impose themselves on the political (and economic as well as social) system which is isolated and alienating. This system refutes to distinguish the essence of belonging, rights, and what ought to be. We can even say that the Political and Social promotion of the larger sections of the Lebanese groups is accomplished when this promotion imposes itself through violence and the quest of help from the outside on the monopolists of power and money. Hence, we can look at the bloody crisis of 1958 as it was means whereby the Sunni (and Durzi to some extent) elites expressed themselves in terms of participation in political life. This perspective can be used also on the latest civil war (1975-1990) which was the means which the Shiite elites arrived into participating and accomplished change of balance between the Muslims and Christians in positions of political authority.
Till now, we lost twice the battle for independence, or to be exact, we lost two battles for independence in the same year (and still going). The leaders of the 2005 independence against “Syrian Presence” have forgotten there is an Israeli enemy and didn’t notice that it reflects the strength of the United States empire after 9/11. As for the leaders of the May 2000 independence and July 2006 from resisting the Israeli aggression and liberation, did not succeed in convincing the rest of the Lebanese about their independence from Syria in their context of “friendship”. The invitation towards a national unity government has been deactivated by both teams because there are dictations of the by the external sponsor towards the other team. It is as if confirming that the external dictations are a destined fate on Lebanese politics while the Lebanese politicians “have their bodies made of diamonds” can’t accept the dictations of this team or that.””
Sunday, December 30, 2007
Fawwaz Traboulsi: Breaking with the 'National Consensus: Towards Lebanese-Palestinian Reconciliation
[MFL: As always Fawwaz Traboulsi shocks me with his vision and how accurate he always is]
Published on ZMag on October 15, 2007
[Translator's Introduction: The article below by Fawwaz Traboulsi first appeared in Arabic in the Beirut daily as-Safir of September 13, 2007.
For several decades, there was an official dogma regarding Palestinian refugees in Arab countries. According to this dogma, proclaimed by both Palestinian and non-Palestinian leaders, all that the Palestinian refugees wanted was to return to their homeland. True, that yearning was real enough, but understated or willfully ignored was the elementary fact that, before returning to Palestine or to whatever part of it that would be restored, Palestinians wanted their human and civil rights to be acknowledged and respected. Invoking this dogma thus became a way to prevent the implantation of Palestinian refugees and to justify various forms of discrimination they endured in their host countries. Officially, Palestinians were welcomed as fellow Arabs and their rights recognized by the governments of Arab countries where they sought refuge; notwithstanding official recognition, however, Palestinian rights were routinely trampled in practice. In the name of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, invoking this dogma was thus used to serve the interests of local elites totally unrelated to Palestinian welfare.
This official dogma regarding Palestinian refugees continues to this day, though with diminished force, overshadowed by the many conflicts other than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have engulfed the Middle East in recent years. But the discrimination against Palestinians remains, now justified and enforced by other class and state interests.
In the case of Lebanon in particular, this official dogma has been combined with an elaborate fiction since the 1975-1990 civil war, and sometimes the fiction has become more important than the dogma and eclipsed it altogether. This Lebanese fiction has been to make the Palestinians into an alien presence that is supposedly threatening the very well-being of Lebanon and its citizens -- a fiction cooked up for fraudulent reasons, as Traboulsi carefully explains. What's more, in so doing, Traboulsi places himself squarely at odds with both of the two main camps in the current Lebanese standoff. Both government and opposition politicians routinely talk about the Palestinian presence as a burden Lebanon cannot shoulder or shoulder alone. If there is something on which the two camps agree, it is a refusal to a permanent settling of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Thus, in an otherwise inane speech to the UN General Assembly on September 28 and without fear of antagonizing either of the two camps back in Beirut, President Lahoud of Lebanon could declare with total confidence that a permanent settling of Palestinian refugees "will dangerously alter the delicate balance of Lebanon's existence as a nation based on diversity and coexistence among a large number of its sects" -- a statement thoroughly debunked by Traboulsi's article.
In years past, Palestinian refugees were ostracized in the name of that dogma that said all they want is to return to Palestine; today, they are further victimized under the pretense that they endanger "Lebanon's existence as a nation."
In the article below, Traboulsi is addressing Lebanese and Arab audiences familiar with events of recent decades, often evoked in passing without further elaboration. A few points to identify these events and place them in their historical context:
(1) Traboulsi refers to the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990 not as a single war, but as a period of "many wars," which in fact it was. It involved Lebanese parties, armed organizations of the PLO, the Syrian army, and the Israeli army, with frequent infusions of weapons and money from parties further afield. Erstwhile allies often turned on each other during that period, and with increased frequency after the Israeli invasion of 1982.
(2) Traboulsi mentions several individuals and groups that were involved in the 1975-1990 wars; these or their successors all continue to play prominent roles in one of the two contending camps of the current Lebanese standoff. The Lebanese Front is a precursor of the Lebanese Forces, a right-wing organization now headed by Samir Geagea; Geagea is one of the three main leaders of the current pro-government coalition, along with Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt. Traboulsi mentions another chieftain of the Lebanese Forces, Elias Hobeika, who led the Lebanese militias involved in the 1982 massacre of Sabra-Shatila, before dissociating himself from the Israeli army and then throwing his lot with the Syrian regime; Hobeika was assassinated in 2002, a few days before testifying in a Brussels court against his former ally Ariel Sharon in a lawsuit brought against the latter by survivors of the massacre. Traboulsi also mentions the "war of the mountain," the "war of liberation," and the "war to unite all guns," commonly referring to different episodes of the 1975-1990 period.
(3) The Taif Accord was an agreement between Lebanese factions of the 1975-1990 wars, convened in the city of Taif, Saudi Arabia, under the auspices of the League of Arab States. The agreement was negotiated in October-November 1989, based on which a cease-fire was enforced by Syrian troops and gradually took effect in the course of 1990. Once the cease-fire was in place, Syrian troops were to withdraw after a cooling-off period, but they did not do so, in violation of the agreement. That Syria was given a free hand in Lebanon throughout most of the 1990's, despite Israel's objections, was in exchange for Syrian participation in Desert Storm, the 1991 US-led campaign to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
(4) The "battle of Nahr al-Barid" is the devastating three-month battle of this past summer, which pitted the Lebanese army against the jihadi group Fateh al-Islam which had ensconced itself in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Barid in northern Lebanon. It resulted in the total destruction of the camp and the forced displacement of its 30,000 to 40,000 refugee inhabitants.
-- Assaf Kfoury]
After the battle of Nahr al-Barid, much has been said and repeated about a Lebanese "national consensus" regarding the Palestinians in Lebanon, a presumed rejection by all Lebanese of a final settling of Palestinians on Lebanese soil. Many commentators continue to voice their alarm about the "conspiracy" to permanently settle the Palestinians.
The writer of this article, a Lebanese citizen, wishes to openly declare that he will have no part of such a consensus -- and more, that it is time to expose it for the fraud that it is.
This presumed danger of a final settling of Palestinians is another tale in the politics of lies and self-deception that has prevailed since the Taif Accord. In a complex and diverse country such as Lebanon, this accord sought to develop a consensus based on a deception. It sought to achieve national unity by inventing a presumed enemy of all Lebanese, short of finding a real common enemy, or by fabricating a phony scare that would frighten everyone.
There is a history to this tale and the purpose it has served. At the time of the Taif conference, a party had to be found to bear the blame for the disastrous consequences of the many wars fought during the 1975-1990 period. These wars came to an end of sorts, but without an honest reckoning and accounting of the responsibilities that had led to them. And worse, they came to an end by elevating to the seats of power the very warlords that had fought each other mercilessly. The only party left out of this equation were the Palestinians. The other parties at the Taif conference had thus found the perfect scapegoat that would unite them all -- the Palestinian side -- which they thus turned into all of the following: the cause and object of that murky "conspiracy" that had to be feared, the reason that there had been internal wars, and the constant danger to fend off against, then and in the future.
The parties of the Lebanese Front have used the specter of a final settling of Palestinians to justify their blood-soaked history during the 1975-1990 period. They have never tired of declaring that they were fighting "against foreigners". In their account of that period, their history was one of resistance against the "conspiracy" of permanently settling Palestinians on Lebanese soil, conveniently ignoring who instigated the internal wars and who profited from them. Thus, not only have these parties concealed their responsibility for putting the country to the torch, they have also managed to confound the beginnings and ends of the 1975-1990 wars and everything that happened in between.
Twenty-five years ago, in September 1982, was the massacre of Sabra-Shatila. On this occasion, let us not forget that the massacre was planned with the intent to eliminate the "superfluous people" for which there is no room in a settlement of the Middle East crisis. That slaughter of Palestinian civilians took place in a drive to frighten them to leave Lebanon, after the eviction of the PLO and its armed factions in the summer months of 1982. The refusal of a final settling of Palestinians was a euphemism, pure and simple, for their forced migration out of Lebanon under the threat of death.
On the pretense that the many mini-wars in the years 1975-1990 were against the "conspiracy" aiming at a final settling of Palestinians, the conspiracy mongers have wanted us to forget that most of these wars, even after the withdrawal of the PLO and its organizations in 1982, were between Lebanese parties. What was the relationship between this "conspiracy" and what was then called the "war of the mountain" in 1983, which resulted in driving out most of the Christian inhabitants in the Shuf region? Further back, what was the relationship between the refusal of a final settling and the forcible migration of the Muslims out of the Nabaa district in 1976? And what was the connection between this "conspiracy" and General Aoun's decision to ignite the so-called "war of liberation" and the "war to unite all guns"? And what was its connection with the internecine war between the Geagea and Hobeika factions of the Lebanese Forces, or between the Amal movement and Hizbullah?
During the years of Syrian hegemony, from the early 1990's and until 2005, the bogey of a permanent implantation of Palestinians played an important role in rallying a number of politicians, particularly Christians among them, to the side of the Syrian regime. The declared reason was that only the latter would be able to keep the Palestinians in check and disarm their organizations. Thus, incitement against the implantation of Palestinians became another means to justify the presence of Syrian troops on Lebanese territory, although it was in clear violation of the Taif Accord.
What's more, all this talk about the refusal of a permanent settling of Palestinians is a perfect example of the kind of vile repudiation which Palestinians have had to endure, in this case the crass refusal to acknowledge their many and varied contributions to Lebanese life -- from the construction worker to the successful banker, and the many others in all professions from teaching to contracting. If this is what the refusal of a permanent settling means, it is a dark stain on Lebanon's much-trumpeted hospitality, which allows rich Saudi citizens to buy plots of land of one million square meters at the heart of the Lebanese mountains while denying a Palestinian refugee the right to own a dwelling not exceeding a few dozens of square meters!
Let's not overlook that the refusal of a permanent settling also presumes that Palestinians have to be taught lessons in patriotism and how to remain loyal to the idea of an eventual return to Palestine, which in turn presumes that Lebanese can be more concerned than Palestinians in defending the latter's right to return. On this phony presumption, it has been necessary for example to prevent construction material from entering Palestinian refugee camps, so as not to let camp dwellers be seduced by the idea of a permanent stay and aspire to remain in Lebanon! Everyone knows that foreign visitors, who have countries to return to, all aspire and are allowed to remain in Lebanon, so why shouldn't we allow those without a country to aspire to the same? Under repeated policies of encirclement and neglect over the years, the Palestinian camps have become infested with shadowy armed groups, which Lebanese and Syrian security agencies have, by turns, promoted and used to do their dirty work, and then incited to fight each other. And here is Lebanon belatedly awakening to the reality that these groups have the military means to take hostage an entire camp (Nahr al Barid) on the very watch of the proponents of the refusal of a final settling.
Last but not least, the tale of the refusal of a final settling of Palestinians comes in the wake of another issue that is rarely discussed honestly. The proponents of this tale maintain that Lebanon, because of its confessional makeup, cannot sustain the integration of Palestinian refugees who are Muslim in their majority. Because of Lebanon's confessional makeup, they claim, this will create an imbalance between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon. The first flaw in this kind of logic is to equate the right of legal residency in Lebanon with the granting of Lebanese citizenship. Palestinians can be legal residents, with the same rights and duties of all non-citizen residents in Lebanon, without precluding their right to return to whatever part of their homeland that will come under the control of a Palestinian authority according to UN resolutions. But let's pursue this idea to the end: In a country where the confessional power-sharing formula is not based on percentages of the different religious sects in the first place, even if we were to equate the permanent settling of the refugees with the granting of Lebanese citizenship -- which is certainly not maintained by anyone -- what will be the effect of adding another 250,000 Palestinians to the number of Muslims in a country of 4 million where Christians represent no more than one-third of its inhabitants?
Treated with fraudulent remedies, the wounds in Lebanese-Palestinian relations have never ceased to fester and bleed. And here is another new wound caused by the events of Nahr al-Barid, once again treated with fraudulent remedies, as government officials have rushed to promise the rebuilding of the destroyed camp without drawing the necessary lessons for rebuilding relations between the two peoples.
Towards rebuilding harmony between the two peoples, we need to understand that Lebanon can no longer be a base for Palestinian armed organizations. Armed resistance from Lebanon is no longer an option for Palestinians, nor can the country provide the means to sustain such a resistance and serve its purpose. We also need to realize that the issue of Palestinian weapons in Lebanon is the result of fear -- fear caused by a history of massacres, further compounded by the growing racism peddled by politicians -- not to discount the fact that parties and governments have also used it, and continue to use this issue to serve external agendas unrelated to Palestinian interests.
If we want to avoid a repeat of the Nahr al Barid episode, with another terrorist organization abducting an entire Palestinian camp, we need an agreement that will stipulate the removal of all military weapons from Palestinian camps in exchange for the recognition and safeguarding of the Palestinians' civil and political rights. No need to spell out the details of such an agreement here, but the time has come to undertake the necessary steps towards its realization. And the first step on the long road to Lebanese-Palestinian reconciliation is to free ourselves of the fraud called the "conspiracy" to permanently settle the Palestinian refugees!
Fawwaz Traboulsi has taught at the Lebanese American University, Beirut-Lebanon. He has written on history, Arab politics, social movements and popular culture and translated works by Karl Marx, John Reed, Antonio Gramsci, Isaac Deutscher, John Berger, Etel Adnan, Sa`di Yusuf and Edward Said. His most recent book in English is A History of Modern Lebanon (Pluto Press, 2007). The translator, Assaf Kfoury, is Professor of Computer Science at Boston University.
Published on ZMag on October 15, 2007
[Translator's Introduction: The article below by Fawwaz Traboulsi first appeared in Arabic in the Beirut daily as-Safir of September 13, 2007.
For several decades, there was an official dogma regarding Palestinian refugees in Arab countries. According to this dogma, proclaimed by both Palestinian and non-Palestinian leaders, all that the Palestinian refugees wanted was to return to their homeland. True, that yearning was real enough, but understated or willfully ignored was the elementary fact that, before returning to Palestine or to whatever part of it that would be restored, Palestinians wanted their human and civil rights to be acknowledged and respected. Invoking this dogma thus became a way to prevent the implantation of Palestinian refugees and to justify various forms of discrimination they endured in their host countries. Officially, Palestinians were welcomed as fellow Arabs and their rights recognized by the governments of Arab countries where they sought refuge; notwithstanding official recognition, however, Palestinian rights were routinely trampled in practice. In the name of solidarity with the Palestinian cause, invoking this dogma was thus used to serve the interests of local elites totally unrelated to Palestinian welfare.
This official dogma regarding Palestinian refugees continues to this day, though with diminished force, overshadowed by the many conflicts other than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have engulfed the Middle East in recent years. But the discrimination against Palestinians remains, now justified and enforced by other class and state interests.
In the case of Lebanon in particular, this official dogma has been combined with an elaborate fiction since the 1975-1990 civil war, and sometimes the fiction has become more important than the dogma and eclipsed it altogether. This Lebanese fiction has been to make the Palestinians into an alien presence that is supposedly threatening the very well-being of Lebanon and its citizens -- a fiction cooked up for fraudulent reasons, as Traboulsi carefully explains. What's more, in so doing, Traboulsi places himself squarely at odds with both of the two main camps in the current Lebanese standoff. Both government and opposition politicians routinely talk about the Palestinian presence as a burden Lebanon cannot shoulder or shoulder alone. If there is something on which the two camps agree, it is a refusal to a permanent settling of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. Thus, in an otherwise inane speech to the UN General Assembly on September 28 and without fear of antagonizing either of the two camps back in Beirut, President Lahoud of Lebanon could declare with total confidence that a permanent settling of Palestinian refugees "will dangerously alter the delicate balance of Lebanon's existence as a nation based on diversity and coexistence among a large number of its sects" -- a statement thoroughly debunked by Traboulsi's article.
In years past, Palestinian refugees were ostracized in the name of that dogma that said all they want is to return to Palestine; today, they are further victimized under the pretense that they endanger "Lebanon's existence as a nation."
In the article below, Traboulsi is addressing Lebanese and Arab audiences familiar with events of recent decades, often evoked in passing without further elaboration. A few points to identify these events and place them in their historical context:
(1) Traboulsi refers to the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1990 not as a single war, but as a period of "many wars," which in fact it was. It involved Lebanese parties, armed organizations of the PLO, the Syrian army, and the Israeli army, with frequent infusions of weapons and money from parties further afield. Erstwhile allies often turned on each other during that period, and with increased frequency after the Israeli invasion of 1982.
(2) Traboulsi mentions several individuals and groups that were involved in the 1975-1990 wars; these or their successors all continue to play prominent roles in one of the two contending camps of the current Lebanese standoff. The Lebanese Front is a precursor of the Lebanese Forces, a right-wing organization now headed by Samir Geagea; Geagea is one of the three main leaders of the current pro-government coalition, along with Saad Hariri and Walid Jumblatt. Traboulsi mentions another chieftain of the Lebanese Forces, Elias Hobeika, who led the Lebanese militias involved in the 1982 massacre of Sabra-Shatila, before dissociating himself from the Israeli army and then throwing his lot with the Syrian regime; Hobeika was assassinated in 2002, a few days before testifying in a Brussels court against his former ally Ariel Sharon in a lawsuit brought against the latter by survivors of the massacre. Traboulsi also mentions the "war of the mountain," the "war of liberation," and the "war to unite all guns," commonly referring to different episodes of the 1975-1990 period.
(3) The Taif Accord was an agreement between Lebanese factions of the 1975-1990 wars, convened in the city of Taif, Saudi Arabia, under the auspices of the League of Arab States. The agreement was negotiated in October-November 1989, based on which a cease-fire was enforced by Syrian troops and gradually took effect in the course of 1990. Once the cease-fire was in place, Syrian troops were to withdraw after a cooling-off period, but they did not do so, in violation of the agreement. That Syria was given a free hand in Lebanon throughout most of the 1990's, despite Israel's objections, was in exchange for Syrian participation in Desert Storm, the 1991 US-led campaign to oust Iraqi troops from Kuwait.
(4) The "battle of Nahr al-Barid" is the devastating three-month battle of this past summer, which pitted the Lebanese army against the jihadi group Fateh al-Islam which had ensconced itself in the Palestinian refugee camp of Nahr al-Barid in northern Lebanon. It resulted in the total destruction of the camp and the forced displacement of its 30,000 to 40,000 refugee inhabitants.
-- Assaf Kfoury]
After the battle of Nahr al-Barid, much has been said and repeated about a Lebanese "national consensus" regarding the Palestinians in Lebanon, a presumed rejection by all Lebanese of a final settling of Palestinians on Lebanese soil. Many commentators continue to voice their alarm about the "conspiracy" to permanently settle the Palestinians.
The writer of this article, a Lebanese citizen, wishes to openly declare that he will have no part of such a consensus -- and more, that it is time to expose it for the fraud that it is.
This presumed danger of a final settling of Palestinians is another tale in the politics of lies and self-deception that has prevailed since the Taif Accord. In a complex and diverse country such as Lebanon, this accord sought to develop a consensus based on a deception. It sought to achieve national unity by inventing a presumed enemy of all Lebanese, short of finding a real common enemy, or by fabricating a phony scare that would frighten everyone.
There is a history to this tale and the purpose it has served. At the time of the Taif conference, a party had to be found to bear the blame for the disastrous consequences of the many wars fought during the 1975-1990 period. These wars came to an end of sorts, but without an honest reckoning and accounting of the responsibilities that had led to them. And worse, they came to an end by elevating to the seats of power the very warlords that had fought each other mercilessly. The only party left out of this equation were the Palestinians. The other parties at the Taif conference had thus found the perfect scapegoat that would unite them all -- the Palestinian side -- which they thus turned into all of the following: the cause and object of that murky "conspiracy" that had to be feared, the reason that there had been internal wars, and the constant danger to fend off against, then and in the future.
The parties of the Lebanese Front have used the specter of a final settling of Palestinians to justify their blood-soaked history during the 1975-1990 period. They have never tired of declaring that they were fighting "against foreigners". In their account of that period, their history was one of resistance against the "conspiracy" of permanently settling Palestinians on Lebanese soil, conveniently ignoring who instigated the internal wars and who profited from them. Thus, not only have these parties concealed their responsibility for putting the country to the torch, they have also managed to confound the beginnings and ends of the 1975-1990 wars and everything that happened in between.
Twenty-five years ago, in September 1982, was the massacre of Sabra-Shatila. On this occasion, let us not forget that the massacre was planned with the intent to eliminate the "superfluous people" for which there is no room in a settlement of the Middle East crisis. That slaughter of Palestinian civilians took place in a drive to frighten them to leave Lebanon, after the eviction of the PLO and its armed factions in the summer months of 1982. The refusal of a final settling of Palestinians was a euphemism, pure and simple, for their forced migration out of Lebanon under the threat of death.
On the pretense that the many mini-wars in the years 1975-1990 were against the "conspiracy" aiming at a final settling of Palestinians, the conspiracy mongers have wanted us to forget that most of these wars, even after the withdrawal of the PLO and its organizations in 1982, were between Lebanese parties. What was the relationship between this "conspiracy" and what was then called the "war of the mountain" in 1983, which resulted in driving out most of the Christian inhabitants in the Shuf region? Further back, what was the relationship between the refusal of a final settling and the forcible migration of the Muslims out of the Nabaa district in 1976? And what was the connection between this "conspiracy" and General Aoun's decision to ignite the so-called "war of liberation" and the "war to unite all guns"? And what was its connection with the internecine war between the Geagea and Hobeika factions of the Lebanese Forces, or between the Amal movement and Hizbullah?
During the years of Syrian hegemony, from the early 1990's and until 2005, the bogey of a permanent implantation of Palestinians played an important role in rallying a number of politicians, particularly Christians among them, to the side of the Syrian regime. The declared reason was that only the latter would be able to keep the Palestinians in check and disarm their organizations. Thus, incitement against the implantation of Palestinians became another means to justify the presence of Syrian troops on Lebanese territory, although it was in clear violation of the Taif Accord.
What's more, all this talk about the refusal of a permanent settling of Palestinians is a perfect example of the kind of vile repudiation which Palestinians have had to endure, in this case the crass refusal to acknowledge their many and varied contributions to Lebanese life -- from the construction worker to the successful banker, and the many others in all professions from teaching to contracting. If this is what the refusal of a permanent settling means, it is a dark stain on Lebanon's much-trumpeted hospitality, which allows rich Saudi citizens to buy plots of land of one million square meters at the heart of the Lebanese mountains while denying a Palestinian refugee the right to own a dwelling not exceeding a few dozens of square meters!
Let's not overlook that the refusal of a permanent settling also presumes that Palestinians have to be taught lessons in patriotism and how to remain loyal to the idea of an eventual return to Palestine, which in turn presumes that Lebanese can be more concerned than Palestinians in defending the latter's right to return. On this phony presumption, it has been necessary for example to prevent construction material from entering Palestinian refugee camps, so as not to let camp dwellers be seduced by the idea of a permanent stay and aspire to remain in Lebanon! Everyone knows that foreign visitors, who have countries to return to, all aspire and are allowed to remain in Lebanon, so why shouldn't we allow those without a country to aspire to the same? Under repeated policies of encirclement and neglect over the years, the Palestinian camps have become infested with shadowy armed groups, which Lebanese and Syrian security agencies have, by turns, promoted and used to do their dirty work, and then incited to fight each other. And here is Lebanon belatedly awakening to the reality that these groups have the military means to take hostage an entire camp (Nahr al Barid) on the very watch of the proponents of the refusal of a final settling.
Last but not least, the tale of the refusal of a final settling of Palestinians comes in the wake of another issue that is rarely discussed honestly. The proponents of this tale maintain that Lebanon, because of its confessional makeup, cannot sustain the integration of Palestinian refugees who are Muslim in their majority. Because of Lebanon's confessional makeup, they claim, this will create an imbalance between Christians and Muslims in Lebanon. The first flaw in this kind of logic is to equate the right of legal residency in Lebanon with the granting of Lebanese citizenship. Palestinians can be legal residents, with the same rights and duties of all non-citizen residents in Lebanon, without precluding their right to return to whatever part of their homeland that will come under the control of a Palestinian authority according to UN resolutions. But let's pursue this idea to the end: In a country where the confessional power-sharing formula is not based on percentages of the different religious sects in the first place, even if we were to equate the permanent settling of the refugees with the granting of Lebanese citizenship -- which is certainly not maintained by anyone -- what will be the effect of adding another 250,000 Palestinians to the number of Muslims in a country of 4 million where Christians represent no more than one-third of its inhabitants?
Treated with fraudulent remedies, the wounds in Lebanese-Palestinian relations have never ceased to fester and bleed. And here is another new wound caused by the events of Nahr al-Barid, once again treated with fraudulent remedies, as government officials have rushed to promise the rebuilding of the destroyed camp without drawing the necessary lessons for rebuilding relations between the two peoples.
Towards rebuilding harmony between the two peoples, we need to understand that Lebanon can no longer be a base for Palestinian armed organizations. Armed resistance from Lebanon is no longer an option for Palestinians, nor can the country provide the means to sustain such a resistance and serve its purpose. We also need to realize that the issue of Palestinian weapons in Lebanon is the result of fear -- fear caused by a history of massacres, further compounded by the growing racism peddled by politicians -- not to discount the fact that parties and governments have also used it, and continue to use this issue to serve external agendas unrelated to Palestinian interests.
If we want to avoid a repeat of the Nahr al Barid episode, with another terrorist organization abducting an entire Palestinian camp, we need an agreement that will stipulate the removal of all military weapons from Palestinian camps in exchange for the recognition and safeguarding of the Palestinians' civil and political rights. No need to spell out the details of such an agreement here, but the time has come to undertake the necessary steps towards its realization. And the first step on the long road to Lebanese-Palestinian reconciliation is to free ourselves of the fraud called the "conspiracy" to permanently settle the Palestinian refugees!
Fawwaz Traboulsi has taught at the Lebanese American University, Beirut-Lebanon. He has written on history, Arab politics, social movements and popular culture and translated works by Karl Marx, John Reed, Antonio Gramsci, Isaac Deutscher, John Berger, Etel Adnan, Sa`di Yusuf and Edward Said. His most recent book in English is A History of Modern Lebanon (Pluto Press, 2007). The translator, Assaf Kfoury, is Professor of Computer Science at Boston University.
Tuesday, December 25, 2007
Fawwaz Traboulsi: For an Arab-Kurdish Federation in Iraq
taken from here
[Translator's Introduction: The article below by Fawwaz Traboulsi first appeared in Arabic in the Beirut weekly Mulhaq al-Nahar al-Thaqafi (the Literary Supplement of the daily al-Nahar) of November 6, 2005. The article has not previously been translated into English, and it is offered here for its continuing relevance to Iraqi political developments.
The article was originally written as, part of a series of pieces by different commentators on "the consequences of Iraqi federalism on the Arab world," just a few weeks after the October 15 referendum approving a new Iraqi constitution -- or, more precisely, an incomplete version of it.
The struggle for Iraq's constitution is still very much ongoing, as I explain in a separate article , and Traboulsi's article is no less germane today than it was at the time of the October 2005 referendum. If anything, positions of the different Iraqi parties have become more polarized and entrenched over the last two years. Two of the most contentious issues yet to be decided in the constitutional document are the nature of Iraq's federalism and the disposition of the country's natural resources. Traboulsi addresses both issues.
One of Traboulsi's warning calls to Iraqis is about the sectarian character of the draft constitution. Traboulsi's criticism draws additional force as he writes from the vantage point of a historian of the modern Middle East, who has also been a direct witness to the ravages repeatedly brought about by a sectarian-based system of government (so-called confessionalism) for nearly a century in nearby Lebanon.
-- Assaf Kfoury]
Before we discuss the potential effects of establishing an Iraqi federation on the rest of the Arab world, we ought to give an examination of federalism in Iraq, in and of itself, its due. We ought to do this even though a detailed assessment of the proposed draft for an Iraqi constitution cannot be guaranteed as final yet, especially since the draft remains a working document that has been repeatedly adjusted and modified. If we are to examine the idea of federalism in Iraq and potential problems in putting it into practice, a good place to start from is the draft itself where a specific form of an Iraqi federation is proposed to the Iraqi people.
Any discussion of federalism in Iraq must take note of two important characteristics of the current situation. The first characteristic is that the American occupation accomplished more than just regime change. Not only did the occupation put an end to the Baath regime led by Saddam Hussein, it completely demolished the Iraqi state, eliminating the former state infrastructure and somehow aiming to rebuild it entirely from scratch: the legislative and judicial institutions, the army, the ministries, the civil service and all public administrations. And not only did it demolish the former state and its institutions which it directly targeted, it inevitably had a profound dislocating effect on the whole of Iraqi society. What concerns us here most are the changes and reversals which Iraq's three main communities have experienced in their mutual relations as a result. At the moment, Iraqis are facing a crucial turning point in their collective history: On the one hand, a majority of Iraqis reject a return to a centralized authoritarian government, whose remnants are no longer in a position to unite Iraqi society in any case, coercively or not. On the other hand, we are now witnessing an intense movement among the constituent parts of Iraqi society, whose outcome is yet to be determined -- in the form of new elements of domination or control or balance or leadership. The most salient features of this ongoing movement are:
· The two communities that suffered most from discrimination and deprivation under the Baath regime, namely the Shiites and the Kurds, are now exercising a new assertiveness, but in different ways that are often at cross-purposes. As most often reflected in pronouncements by Shiite leaders, the Shiite community is striving to impose the principle of majority rule on a political system still-in-the-making. By contrast, as indicated by its leaders' stated positions, the Kurdish community is trying to maximize the benefits of its self-autonomy and simultaneously preserve its position in the central government, against the background of a Kurdish public opinion strongly favoring secession -- an issue I shall return to shortly.
· The Sunni community is struggling to find a new place in the emerging order. It is doing so after long years during which Saddam Hussein monopolized power in its name and at the expense of its own majority. This search for a new place manifests itself in different ways. Some Sunni groups that espouse various nationalist ideologies are engaged in an armed insurgency with the declared aim of re-establishing a centralized Iraqi state, of one form or another, in which they will regain their privileges. Other Sunni groups, which have shunned the violence of the armed insurgency but also used it as a bargaining chip, are vying for a better position within the emerging political system. And lest we forget -- and how can we forget!! -- this armed insurgency has intermittently tolerated or abetted the kind of violence embraced by al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia that indiscriminately targets civilians and openly proclaims that Shiites are apostates deserving death.
· Last but not least, the various social movements and forces, including the labor movement and the women's movement, are all struggling to find a position and a role to play in the political system still-in-the-making. They are doing so in the face of a political system that is increasingly giving precedence to communal rights over individual rights, and increasingly sacrificing socio-economic interests to appease religious-regional demands.
In making the preceding points, we cannot stress enough the importance of the current juncture in Iraq's history -- this is a time when Iraq's state institutions are being rebuilt, its entire society remodeled, and the very basis of its existence as a single entity reconsidered.
So, how is it that we hope for Iraq to change from a centralized state to a federation? There is no point in saying that states in their historical development tend to go from loose federations or confederations to centralized states. In the case of Iraq, it may well be that the reverse will take place, and that this reverse may turn out to be the best way to re-unite its society by rebuilding its state and public institutions differently. Re-uniting Iraqi society is not the same thing as re-establishing a unitary centralized state; rather, if Iraqi society is to re-unite voluntarily, it will likely be the product of a form of government that devolves authority, permits all components of society to exercise their rights for self-rule, and distributes equitably national resources and public services.
The second important characteristic of the current situation in Iraq, insofar as the issue of federalism is concerned, is the growing current among Kurds for an outright secession, something I already alluded to before. An overwhelming majority of the Kurds once more expressed this sentiment in a poll conducted on the margin of the most recent parliamentary elections. Did the secessionist sentiment among Kurds predate the American invasion? And were the Kurds able to express this sentiment openly only after this invasion? Or was this secessionist sentiment the product of specific events and history? A number of factors have in fact contributed to this Kurdish shift, over many years, from a demand for self-rule in Kurdistan within a democratic Iraq to a call for outright secession.
Most of the available evidence indicates that the Kurdish population's shift towards secession started during the latter period of the Baath regime, and most significantly, since the so-called Anfal campaign of 1988-89. During that campaign, the Kurdish regions were subjected to wholesale massacres, ethnic cleansing, destruction of hundreds of villages, forced Arabization, and forced migration of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of their inhabitants. In other words, the movement favoring Kurdish secession grew in reaction to the extreme national-chauvinist and tyrannical policies pursued by the central government in dealing with the Kurdish question.
It is worth adding that the Kurdish movement towards secession was further nurtured during the years of self-rule in the 1990's and later, when the Kurdish regions in northern Iraq were outside Baghdad's control and largely isolated from the southern Arab-majority regions that remained under Baath rule.
Of course, the existence of a dominant separatist current among Kurds today does not mean, a priori, that it may not recede as a result of future circumstances, nor does it mean that Kurdish secession is bound to happen regardless of circumstances. Several internal and external factors militate against an outright secession. In particular, most of the Kurdish leaders and parties continue to search for a solution within the boundaries of a single Iraqi entity, while outright secession under current conditions would undermine the Kurdish regions' economic interests and external relations.
As I am talking about secession, I should point out that I fully support the Kurdish people's right to national self-determination, including its right to secede completely and form a separate state. But my support of this right is not neutral, and I find no contradiction in being partial to another alternative: As an Arab citizen, I am also in favor of Iraq's Kurds ultimately choosing to remain within the Arab world, as an affirmation that this Arab world can be open to ethnic, regional and religious communities -- in all their diversities and multiplicities -- in a context of coexistence and cooperation that are enriching to all.
Based on the preceding, I understand the proposal for a federal Iraq to be for a system of government that will grant the Kurdish minority all its legitimate rights: to exercise self-rule, use its own language, preserve and develop its cultural heritage, and receive its fair share of the national wealth and budget -- in the context of a united Iraq, as an alternative to the option of an outright secession.
That said, this vision of an Arab-Kurdish federation in Iraq is problematic and fraught with difficulties. While it provides an answer to part of the problem, it raises other problems. Any federal system, whether in Iraq or anywhere else, is erected on the presumed existence of two or more autonomous or semi-autonomous regions. In Iraq's present situation, there exists only one autonomous region in the Kurdish north, consisting of three provinces, where self-rule is already exercised through the creation of a regional government, a regional parliament, a regional administration and regional armed forces. In the face of this one autonomous region are: (1) a central government reflecting a twisted power-sharing formula* between a (Kurdish) ethnic community and (Arab) religious communities, and (2) a collection of 15 provinces in the rest of the country with an overwhelming Arab majority.
The question is: This proposed Iraqi federation is to be realized between whom and whom? An answer of sorts is in the draft constitution, which stipulates that any province (or group of provinces) can move to become a separate federal region, i.e. one of the units of the projected federation, provided the move to separate is approved by a majority of that region's eligible voters in a plebiscite. In the envisioned federal system according to the draft constitution, power and representation will be divided between four different levels: (1) the capital Baghdad and surrounding metropolitan area, with its own special executive and administrative organization; (2) the regions, each consisting of one or more provinces that elect to form a self-ruling federal unit; (3) the provinces, jointly administered by the federal and provincial authorities; and (4) what the draft calls "the local administrations," responsible for the affairs of religious minorities (Christians, Yazedis, Mandi Sabeans) and small ethnic minorities (Turkmen, Armenians). It does not take much imagination to foresee a situation of confusion and conflict when this projected system will be put to the test of practice, notably because the population of Baghdad and the surrounding area, representing more than one-fifth of Iraq's total, is a mix of all ethnic and religious communities.
The only plausible explanation for the adoption of this problematic system is that the commission responsible for the draft constitution refused to consider a single defining criterion for a federation, namely, an ethnic division between Arabs and Kurds. This is unfortunate, because the only meaningful and effective federation, one capable of embracing all the religious and sectarian diversities of Iraqi society, is an Arab-Kurdish federation consisting of two autonomous regions: one including all the provinces with a Kurdish majority, and one including all the provinces with an Arab majority. In this way, power and representation would be divided between two rather than four levels -- with the first of these two levels already mentioned in the draft constitution: (1) a national assembly of all the delegates elected by the entire Iraqi population, with one delegate for every 100,000 voters, and this assembly in turn elects a head of state and a council of ministers; (2) the regional institutions in each of the two autonomous regions. (To my knowledge, during the discussions on the draft constitution, there was a similar proposal that was not followed up, of a federation between two regions, one called Kurdistan and one called Mesopotamia.)
Such a federal solution leads us directly to the question of Iraq's identity. Is it an Arab country? Is it part of the Arab world?
There is no question that the American view of Iraq has been to divide Iraqi society into one ethnic community (the Kurds) and two Islamic sects (Sunnis and Shiites). The effect has been to diminish the role of Iraq's Arab population as its single ethnic majority. This has been the view underlying US policy since the 1990-91 Gulf War: the determination of the no-fly zones after 1991, the parceling out and distribution of food supplies during the UN food-for-oil program, the representation of the Iraqi regime as a Sunni regime, etc. This has been the view from our opponent's side -- the side of the imperial power and the interests it serves.
But from our side -- the side of those who support Iraq's liberation -- the crucial question is: What do we want? Do we adopt our opponent's view or do we confront it with an alternative view? An alternative view that expresses the Iraqi people's free will?
My sense is that much of the debate about Iraq's Arab identity is taking place in a context of symbols and images that ignore the facts. Some have criticized one of the clauses in the draft constitution that states that Iraq's "Arab citizens are a part of the Arab nation;" without any mention that Iraq is an Arab country or part of the Arab world, they read the draft as stripping Iraq the country of its Arab identity. There is some validity in this criticism, but there is a far more important omission in the draft constitution: It does not deal with Iraq's Arab inhabitants as one ethnicity and only identifies them according to their sectarian identities. Indeed, what is the gain in trying to amend the draft constitution to include some sort of clause proclaiming that Iraq is part of the Arab world -- just to please the Secretary General of the Arab League -- if the draft does not also recognize Iraq's Arabs as a single ethnic community and strips them of any constitutional role as such in the Iraqi political system?
One final remark is in order regarding the distribution of revenues from the oil and gas sector. This is a particularly sensitive issue in an Iraqi federal system, which must be considered against the current and past record inasmuch as it has all too often been an element of discord and division. First, we should give the draft constitution its due for explicitly stating that oil and gas resources are a common property of the entire Iraqi people, and that their revenues will be distributed proportionally to population size in every region. The draft constitution also allocates a special share to parts of the country that were deprived of the revenues under the former Baath regime. So far, this is in relation to ownership and distribution of revenues only. As for the administration of oil and gas production, the draft calls for it to be joint between federal and regional authorities, but limited to currently exploited fields. The draft leaves unspecified the administration of fields that are discovered in the future, allowing the possibility that these will be placed under sole control of the regional authorities. This is an unfortunate ambiguity, a portent of potentially divisive conflicts, especially since Iraq's oil reserves are estimated to far exceed its current production level.
An example of these potentially divisive problems is the current struggle over the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. The Kurdish claim to Kirkuk, the conflict regarding its ethnic makeup, and the debate on whether or not it should be part of the Kurdish autonomous region, become all the more critical precisely because of the city's importance in the oil industry. Unilateral insistence by any side on controlling Kirkuk undermines Iraqi federalism and, moreover, will embolden those who want to establish a separate region in southern Iraq to demand similar ownership rights on the southern oil fields. Regardless of the final status and geographical location of Kirkuk, inside or outside the autonomous Kurdish region, it is important that its oil wealth remains under federal control and administration, representing its joint ownership by the entire Iraqi people.
Note
* Translator's note: The power-sharing formula is "skewed" in that it is not a partnership between only ethnic communities, or between only religious communities, but between one ethnic community and two religious communities, with the latter two limited to Arabs. Kurds are religiously diverse, just like the Arabs. There are significant numbers of both Sunnis and Shiites (and other religious denominations) not only among Arabs, but also among Kurds and other smaller ethnic communities of Iraq (notably, Turkmen).
Fawwaz Traboulsi has taught at the Lebanese American University, Beirut-Lebanon. He has written on history, Arab politics, social movements and popular culture and translated works by Karl Marx, John Reed, Antonio Gramsci, Isaac Deutscher, John Berger, Etel Adnan, Sa`di Yusuf and Edward Said. His most recent book in English is A History of Modern Lebanon (Pluto Press, 2007). The translator, Assaf Kfoury, is Professor of Computer Science at Boston University.
[Translator's Introduction: The article below by Fawwaz Traboulsi first appeared in Arabic in the Beirut weekly Mulhaq al-Nahar al-Thaqafi (the Literary Supplement of the daily al-Nahar) of November 6, 2005. The article has not previously been translated into English, and it is offered here for its continuing relevance to Iraqi political developments.
The article was originally written as, part of a series of pieces by different commentators on "the consequences of Iraqi federalism on the Arab world," just a few weeks after the October 15 referendum approving a new Iraqi constitution -- or, more precisely, an incomplete version of it.
The struggle for Iraq's constitution is still very much ongoing, as I explain in a separate article , and Traboulsi's article is no less germane today than it was at the time of the October 2005 referendum. If anything, positions of the different Iraqi parties have become more polarized and entrenched over the last two years. Two of the most contentious issues yet to be decided in the constitutional document are the nature of Iraq's federalism and the disposition of the country's natural resources. Traboulsi addresses both issues.
One of Traboulsi's warning calls to Iraqis is about the sectarian character of the draft constitution. Traboulsi's criticism draws additional force as he writes from the vantage point of a historian of the modern Middle East, who has also been a direct witness to the ravages repeatedly brought about by a sectarian-based system of government (so-called confessionalism) for nearly a century in nearby Lebanon.
-- Assaf Kfoury]
Before we discuss the potential effects of establishing an Iraqi federation on the rest of the Arab world, we ought to give an examination of federalism in Iraq, in and of itself, its due. We ought to do this even though a detailed assessment of the proposed draft for an Iraqi constitution cannot be guaranteed as final yet, especially since the draft remains a working document that has been repeatedly adjusted and modified. If we are to examine the idea of federalism in Iraq and potential problems in putting it into practice, a good place to start from is the draft itself where a specific form of an Iraqi federation is proposed to the Iraqi people.
Any discussion of federalism in Iraq must take note of two important characteristics of the current situation. The first characteristic is that the American occupation accomplished more than just regime change. Not only did the occupation put an end to the Baath regime led by Saddam Hussein, it completely demolished the Iraqi state, eliminating the former state infrastructure and somehow aiming to rebuild it entirely from scratch: the legislative and judicial institutions, the army, the ministries, the civil service and all public administrations. And not only did it demolish the former state and its institutions which it directly targeted, it inevitably had a profound dislocating effect on the whole of Iraqi society. What concerns us here most are the changes and reversals which Iraq's three main communities have experienced in their mutual relations as a result. At the moment, Iraqis are facing a crucial turning point in their collective history: On the one hand, a majority of Iraqis reject a return to a centralized authoritarian government, whose remnants are no longer in a position to unite Iraqi society in any case, coercively or not. On the other hand, we are now witnessing an intense movement among the constituent parts of Iraqi society, whose outcome is yet to be determined -- in the form of new elements of domination or control or balance or leadership. The most salient features of this ongoing movement are:
· The two communities that suffered most from discrimination and deprivation under the Baath regime, namely the Shiites and the Kurds, are now exercising a new assertiveness, but in different ways that are often at cross-purposes. As most often reflected in pronouncements by Shiite leaders, the Shiite community is striving to impose the principle of majority rule on a political system still-in-the-making. By contrast, as indicated by its leaders' stated positions, the Kurdish community is trying to maximize the benefits of its self-autonomy and simultaneously preserve its position in the central government, against the background of a Kurdish public opinion strongly favoring secession -- an issue I shall return to shortly.
· The Sunni community is struggling to find a new place in the emerging order. It is doing so after long years during which Saddam Hussein monopolized power in its name and at the expense of its own majority. This search for a new place manifests itself in different ways. Some Sunni groups that espouse various nationalist ideologies are engaged in an armed insurgency with the declared aim of re-establishing a centralized Iraqi state, of one form or another, in which they will regain their privileges. Other Sunni groups, which have shunned the violence of the armed insurgency but also used it as a bargaining chip, are vying for a better position within the emerging political system. And lest we forget -- and how can we forget!! -- this armed insurgency has intermittently tolerated or abetted the kind of violence embraced by al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia that indiscriminately targets civilians and openly proclaims that Shiites are apostates deserving death.
· Last but not least, the various social movements and forces, including the labor movement and the women's movement, are all struggling to find a position and a role to play in the political system still-in-the-making. They are doing so in the face of a political system that is increasingly giving precedence to communal rights over individual rights, and increasingly sacrificing socio-economic interests to appease religious-regional demands.
In making the preceding points, we cannot stress enough the importance of the current juncture in Iraq's history -- this is a time when Iraq's state institutions are being rebuilt, its entire society remodeled, and the very basis of its existence as a single entity reconsidered.
So, how is it that we hope for Iraq to change from a centralized state to a federation? There is no point in saying that states in their historical development tend to go from loose federations or confederations to centralized states. In the case of Iraq, it may well be that the reverse will take place, and that this reverse may turn out to be the best way to re-unite its society by rebuilding its state and public institutions differently. Re-uniting Iraqi society is not the same thing as re-establishing a unitary centralized state; rather, if Iraqi society is to re-unite voluntarily, it will likely be the product of a form of government that devolves authority, permits all components of society to exercise their rights for self-rule, and distributes equitably national resources and public services.
The second important characteristic of the current situation in Iraq, insofar as the issue of federalism is concerned, is the growing current among Kurds for an outright secession, something I already alluded to before. An overwhelming majority of the Kurds once more expressed this sentiment in a poll conducted on the margin of the most recent parliamentary elections. Did the secessionist sentiment among Kurds predate the American invasion? And were the Kurds able to express this sentiment openly only after this invasion? Or was this secessionist sentiment the product of specific events and history? A number of factors have in fact contributed to this Kurdish shift, over many years, from a demand for self-rule in Kurdistan within a democratic Iraq to a call for outright secession.
Most of the available evidence indicates that the Kurdish population's shift towards secession started during the latter period of the Baath regime, and most significantly, since the so-called Anfal campaign of 1988-89. During that campaign, the Kurdish regions were subjected to wholesale massacres, ethnic cleansing, destruction of hundreds of villages, forced Arabization, and forced migration of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of their inhabitants. In other words, the movement favoring Kurdish secession grew in reaction to the extreme national-chauvinist and tyrannical policies pursued by the central government in dealing with the Kurdish question.
It is worth adding that the Kurdish movement towards secession was further nurtured during the years of self-rule in the 1990's and later, when the Kurdish regions in northern Iraq were outside Baghdad's control and largely isolated from the southern Arab-majority regions that remained under Baath rule.
Of course, the existence of a dominant separatist current among Kurds today does not mean, a priori, that it may not recede as a result of future circumstances, nor does it mean that Kurdish secession is bound to happen regardless of circumstances. Several internal and external factors militate against an outright secession. In particular, most of the Kurdish leaders and parties continue to search for a solution within the boundaries of a single Iraqi entity, while outright secession under current conditions would undermine the Kurdish regions' economic interests and external relations.
As I am talking about secession, I should point out that I fully support the Kurdish people's right to national self-determination, including its right to secede completely and form a separate state. But my support of this right is not neutral, and I find no contradiction in being partial to another alternative: As an Arab citizen, I am also in favor of Iraq's Kurds ultimately choosing to remain within the Arab world, as an affirmation that this Arab world can be open to ethnic, regional and religious communities -- in all their diversities and multiplicities -- in a context of coexistence and cooperation that are enriching to all.
Based on the preceding, I understand the proposal for a federal Iraq to be for a system of government that will grant the Kurdish minority all its legitimate rights: to exercise self-rule, use its own language, preserve and develop its cultural heritage, and receive its fair share of the national wealth and budget -- in the context of a united Iraq, as an alternative to the option of an outright secession.
That said, this vision of an Arab-Kurdish federation in Iraq is problematic and fraught with difficulties. While it provides an answer to part of the problem, it raises other problems. Any federal system, whether in Iraq or anywhere else, is erected on the presumed existence of two or more autonomous or semi-autonomous regions. In Iraq's present situation, there exists only one autonomous region in the Kurdish north, consisting of three provinces, where self-rule is already exercised through the creation of a regional government, a regional parliament, a regional administration and regional armed forces. In the face of this one autonomous region are: (1) a central government reflecting a twisted power-sharing formula* between a (Kurdish) ethnic community and (Arab) religious communities, and (2) a collection of 15 provinces in the rest of the country with an overwhelming Arab majority.
The question is: This proposed Iraqi federation is to be realized between whom and whom? An answer of sorts is in the draft constitution, which stipulates that any province (or group of provinces) can move to become a separate federal region, i.e. one of the units of the projected federation, provided the move to separate is approved by a majority of that region's eligible voters in a plebiscite. In the envisioned federal system according to the draft constitution, power and representation will be divided between four different levels: (1) the capital Baghdad and surrounding metropolitan area, with its own special executive and administrative organization; (2) the regions, each consisting of one or more provinces that elect to form a self-ruling federal unit; (3) the provinces, jointly administered by the federal and provincial authorities; and (4) what the draft calls "the local administrations," responsible for the affairs of religious minorities (Christians, Yazedis, Mandi Sabeans) and small ethnic minorities (Turkmen, Armenians). It does not take much imagination to foresee a situation of confusion and conflict when this projected system will be put to the test of practice, notably because the population of Baghdad and the surrounding area, representing more than one-fifth of Iraq's total, is a mix of all ethnic and religious communities.
The only plausible explanation for the adoption of this problematic system is that the commission responsible for the draft constitution refused to consider a single defining criterion for a federation, namely, an ethnic division between Arabs and Kurds. This is unfortunate, because the only meaningful and effective federation, one capable of embracing all the religious and sectarian diversities of Iraqi society, is an Arab-Kurdish federation consisting of two autonomous regions: one including all the provinces with a Kurdish majority, and one including all the provinces with an Arab majority. In this way, power and representation would be divided between two rather than four levels -- with the first of these two levels already mentioned in the draft constitution: (1) a national assembly of all the delegates elected by the entire Iraqi population, with one delegate for every 100,000 voters, and this assembly in turn elects a head of state and a council of ministers; (2) the regional institutions in each of the two autonomous regions. (To my knowledge, during the discussions on the draft constitution, there was a similar proposal that was not followed up, of a federation between two regions, one called Kurdistan and one called Mesopotamia.)
Such a federal solution leads us directly to the question of Iraq's identity. Is it an Arab country? Is it part of the Arab world?
There is no question that the American view of Iraq has been to divide Iraqi society into one ethnic community (the Kurds) and two Islamic sects (Sunnis and Shiites). The effect has been to diminish the role of Iraq's Arab population as its single ethnic majority. This has been the view underlying US policy since the 1990-91 Gulf War: the determination of the no-fly zones after 1991, the parceling out and distribution of food supplies during the UN food-for-oil program, the representation of the Iraqi regime as a Sunni regime, etc. This has been the view from our opponent's side -- the side of the imperial power and the interests it serves.
But from our side -- the side of those who support Iraq's liberation -- the crucial question is: What do we want? Do we adopt our opponent's view or do we confront it with an alternative view? An alternative view that expresses the Iraqi people's free will?
My sense is that much of the debate about Iraq's Arab identity is taking place in a context of symbols and images that ignore the facts. Some have criticized one of the clauses in the draft constitution that states that Iraq's "Arab citizens are a part of the Arab nation;" without any mention that Iraq is an Arab country or part of the Arab world, they read the draft as stripping Iraq the country of its Arab identity. There is some validity in this criticism, but there is a far more important omission in the draft constitution: It does not deal with Iraq's Arab inhabitants as one ethnicity and only identifies them according to their sectarian identities. Indeed, what is the gain in trying to amend the draft constitution to include some sort of clause proclaiming that Iraq is part of the Arab world -- just to please the Secretary General of the Arab League -- if the draft does not also recognize Iraq's Arabs as a single ethnic community and strips them of any constitutional role as such in the Iraqi political system?
One final remark is in order regarding the distribution of revenues from the oil and gas sector. This is a particularly sensitive issue in an Iraqi federal system, which must be considered against the current and past record inasmuch as it has all too often been an element of discord and division. First, we should give the draft constitution its due for explicitly stating that oil and gas resources are a common property of the entire Iraqi people, and that their revenues will be distributed proportionally to population size in every region. The draft constitution also allocates a special share to parts of the country that were deprived of the revenues under the former Baath regime. So far, this is in relation to ownership and distribution of revenues only. As for the administration of oil and gas production, the draft calls for it to be joint between federal and regional authorities, but limited to currently exploited fields. The draft leaves unspecified the administration of fields that are discovered in the future, allowing the possibility that these will be placed under sole control of the regional authorities. This is an unfortunate ambiguity, a portent of potentially divisive conflicts, especially since Iraq's oil reserves are estimated to far exceed its current production level.
An example of these potentially divisive problems is the current struggle over the city of Kirkuk in northern Iraq. The Kurdish claim to Kirkuk, the conflict regarding its ethnic makeup, and the debate on whether or not it should be part of the Kurdish autonomous region, become all the more critical precisely because of the city's importance in the oil industry. Unilateral insistence by any side on controlling Kirkuk undermines Iraqi federalism and, moreover, will embolden those who want to establish a separate region in southern Iraq to demand similar ownership rights on the southern oil fields. Regardless of the final status and geographical location of Kirkuk, inside or outside the autonomous Kurdish region, it is important that its oil wealth remains under federal control and administration, representing its joint ownership by the entire Iraqi people.
Note
* Translator's note: The power-sharing formula is "skewed" in that it is not a partnership between only ethnic communities, or between only religious communities, but between one ethnic community and two religious communities, with the latter two limited to Arabs. Kurds are religiously diverse, just like the Arabs. There are significant numbers of both Sunnis and Shiites (and other religious denominations) not only among Arabs, but also among Kurds and other smaller ethnic communities of Iraq (notably, Turkmen).
Fawwaz Traboulsi has taught at the Lebanese American University, Beirut-Lebanon. He has written on history, Arab politics, social movements and popular culture and translated works by Karl Marx, John Reed, Antonio Gramsci, Isaac Deutscher, John Berger, Etel Adnan, Sa`di Yusuf and Edward Said. His most recent book in English is A History of Modern Lebanon (Pluto Press, 2007). The translator, Assaf Kfoury, is Professor of Computer Science at Boston University.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
25th Memory of the Sabra - Shatila Massacres/Story (September 1982)
Introduction:
The Sabra and Shatila massacres will always be remembered as the greatest butchery of civilian life in the history of Lebanon, and the second would probably be Tel el Zaatar. Unlike Tel el Zaatar though, Sabra & Shatila camps lacked any militants, and the camps were similar to what the US diplomat Morris Draper compared the entrance of Elie Hobeika’s elite squad (faction of the Lebanese Forces) to the camp as bunch of Ku Klux Klan militants, with most advanced weapons, unleashed on African – Americans surrounded by troops forbidding them to escape the camps. I recommend in order to understand better the overall story to read these two articles (Regarding Bashir Gemayel's Elections - The Other Story, Investigating Bashir Gemayel (Part I): Bashir and the Israelis
The Background:
Ever since Cairo 1969, the Palestinian Refugee Camps were transformed in general as military base-points for the PLO, under the hand of Yasser Arafat. With the war breaking out, Palestinian Camps outside the West Beirut became pocket enclaves for the PLO against their opponents and their allies the Lebanese National Movement.
With the brutal Israeli siege of West Beirut butcherong the Lebanese civilians, Phil. Habib succeeded to broker a deal, against all odds and Sharon’s obstacles, between the United States and the PLO: which was to evacuate them outside Lebanon, and the militants to be distributed in Jordan, Syria, and Tunisia (all three countries accepted with severe hesitance because no country in the right mind would welcome the heavily armed PLO). The only country that fully volunteered to accept the whole PLO faction was Iraq, but the PLO were quick to decline Saddam’s offer because they didn’t want to be in the Iraqi fronts fighting Iran. In return, Bashir Gemayel gave his word of honor that the families of the PLO and the civilians shall not be touched. Sharon also was not supposed to enter West Beirut because it will backfire on the US Foreign Policy and the US administration’s ties with the Arab nations, specially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan.
The Multi-Nationals who oversaw the evacuation of the PLO militants were supposed to remain for a month after the PLO were evacuated from West Beirut. The purpose of the evacuation was to block the Israelis any alibi to remain in Lebanon, which primarily was the eradication of the PLO through their own forces and the Lebanese Forces. The Multi-Nationals, composed from the US (taking the primary role of the evacuation) Marines, the French (being second politically), and the Italians. Other than the fact several encounters between the US marines and Israeli Defense Forces took place during the evacuation, the PLO were evacuated up to suspected capacity of 95%. Philip Habib returned to his retirement, after Sarkis presented him with the highest medal of honor existent in the Lebanese Government (whatever was functional of it then), and everything went from bad to worse.
Bashir Gemayel was expected to last six years and bring order to Lebanon, according to US calculations; however, what the US didn’t calculate that the “other Lebanon” would do the impossible to assassinate him, since in their eyes he invited the Israelis over for his private usage. When Bashir Gemayel was assassinated, all hell broke loose. The Multi-Nationals already withdrew hastily (first by the decision of the new Secretary of State Schultz, and hence triggered a domino effect with the Italians and French to withdraw hastily). By the end of the month after the massacre, Reagan announced the return of the Multi-National Forces back to Lebanon. Morris Draper became the head of the US Presidential Diplomatic Convoy to Lebanon.
With Bashir Gemayel dead, the Israelis entered West Beirut under the allegation of protecting the Muslims of West Beirut (strangely they fired at the residents of West Beirut Smart Bombs and prohibited weaponry, not to forget the 16 hour marathon of bombing) whereby only Lebanese civilians were slaughtered.
You will notice, my fellow readers, that again I will quote my favorite two books, Boykin’s “Cursed is the Peacemaker”, and Traboulsi’s “A History of Modern Lebanon”, for one reason only, these two bothered heavily to reconstruct history as it happened with references that are rarely mentioned elsewhere.
Draper was informed by Begin that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will move to checkpoints on West Beirut “with the object of keeping things quiet and insuring that there were no incidents to mar the peace.”
On the US Versus Israeli Level
And I start my quoting:
“Three hours later, Draper arrived in Beirut for Bashir’s funeral and saw that ‘the city was in flames.’ Despite Begin’s assurances that the IDF was taking ‘strictly limited precautionary measures,’ Draper saw the IDF going at it hot and heavy with tank and artillery fire. The funeral could wait. He ordered his car turned around and headed off to the IDF headquarters outside Beirut “where I essentially could get only incomplete information and pap to the effect that ‘everything was fine’. Draper felt he’ been had. “Begin told me as a representative of the United States government that the Isrealis were not going to move into the heart of Beirut..” He told a straight out, 100 percent, baldfaced lie to the United States government, his great friend. I mean, a solemn undertaking by the prime minister of a friendly state? Unheard of!.”
“In a nasty meeting the next day, Thursday, September 16, raper and Sam Lewis confronted Sharon about his violation of the Habib agreement and the damage it had done to Habib’s, America’s, and Israel’s credibility. Sharon’s icey reply: “Circumstances changed, sir.’”
“It was all the PLO’s fault, Sharon argued. They had violated the agreement. They had left behind vast stores of weapons and 2,500 terrorists to use them. Those terrorists, Sharon said, were hiding in the Palestinian refugee camps of West Beirut, including Sabra and Shatila. Sharon now had the camps surrounded.” (Cursed is the Peace Maker, Roy Boykin, Applegate Press – 2002 – P. 267 – 268).
The US diplomats knew that Sharon was exaggerating the numbers left behind.
Hence, “Draper kept asking the Israelis for the source of their belief in thousands of stay-behind terrorists, but he never got a good answer. ‘At most there were a handful of guerrillas; left behind, he says. “There were a few armed men in the camps… BUT THEY WERE ALL MEN OF SIXTY OR SEVENTY YEARS OLD. THEY MAY HAVE HAD OLD SHOTGUNS, BUT THEY WERE OT A THREAT. Essentially, THE CAMPS WERE DISARMED.” (Ibid, P. 269)
With Bashir Gemayel dead, the US diplomats lost a major actor on the Lebanese arena, and there was no one to control that powerful militant party Phalange/Lebanese Forces. The US would say the following: “
The nearest American equivalent to sending the Phalange into the camps would be sending heavily armed Ku Klux Kansmen into an African-American neighborhood with a license to kill. Chosen to lead the operation was the head of Phalange Intelligence, Elie Hobeika. Dillion knew him from his services as Bashir’s personal bodyguard and describes him as a “Pathological killer….”
Most of his squad belonged to an intelligence unit that the Israelis considered specially trained in “discovering terrorists.” HIS SQUAD APPARENTLY HAD LITTLE TRAINING IN DISCOVERING ANYONE OTHER THAN TERRORISTS, GIVEN THEIR VIEW THAT ‘PREGNANT WOMEN WILL GIVE BIRTH TO TERRORISTS; THE CHILDREN WHEN THEY GROW UP WILL BE TERRORISTS,” and both were thus fair game. THE PHALANGISTS’ REPUTATION PROMPTED THE IDF TO REPEATEDLY INSTRUCT THEM TO KILL ONLY TERRORISTS, NOT CIVILIANS. SINCE BOTH CONSIDERED TERRORIST AND PALESTINIAN ORE OR LESS SYNONYMOUS, THIS WAS SORT OF LIKE GIVING THE KLAN A LICENSE TO KILL ONLY AFRICAN – AMERICANS THEY CONSIDERED TROUBLEMAKERS.” (Ibid, P. 269)
Begin insisted to the US diplomats that he was entering West Beirut afterwards to protect the Muslims of West Beirut from Phalange aggression, which the US diplomats compared his justification of a coyote entering in to protect the chicken. IDF General Eitan told Morris Draper: “The Phalange… are obsessed with the idea of revenge…. I’m telling you that some of their commanders visited me, and I could see in their eyes that it’s going to be a relentless slaughter.” (Ibid, P.270) That was on September 16, and as Eitan was speaking, the massacres began in Sabra – Shatila. The IDF knew the Phalange will out of revenge for the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel will seek revenge blindly, but they had to make sure they are directed towards the Palestinian civilians rather the Muslims.
The Sabra-Shatila massacres lasted days. The Israeli intelligence informed Sharon that there were no terrorists four hours after this massacre of 3000 civilians began.
“But what Sharon apparently did not anticipate was that his intelligence reports were wrong: The Phalangists found rather few people in the camps who fit any but the most all-inclusive definition of terrorist. INDEED, THE IDF INTELLIGENCE OFFICER ON THE SPOT MONITORING EVENTS REPORTED WITHIN HOURS OF THE PHALANGISTS’ ENTRY, “THERE ARE EVIDENTLY NO TERRORISTS IN THE CAMP.” So the Phalangists slaughtered pretty much whoever they did find: defenseless women, children, old men, even cats, dogs, and horses. Whereas actual PLO fighters had fought rabidly earlier in the invasion, the Phalangists encountered hardly any resistance in the camps.
From the Earliest Hours, the IDF ha clear indications that the Phalangists were killing civilians, lots of civilians. To stanch that hemorrhaging, they again approached the Lebanese Army Forces (not to be mistake with Lebanese Forces) go into the camps,” Sharon said to Draper on Friday, apparently neglecting to mention that the Phalange was already in the camps. ‘They can kill the terrorists. But if they don’t, we will.” The LAF again refused, saying they could not cross the IDF ring around the camps to do anything without looking like a tool of the IDF.
By Friday evening, Genral Drori, the Israeli commander in Lebanon, had heard enough and halted the operation – sort of. HE ORDERED THE PHALANGISTS OUT, BUT GAVE THEM ABOUT 12 HOURS TO GET AROUND TO LEAVING. NO ONE KNOWS HOW MANY PALESTINIANS HAD BEEN SLAUGHTERED BY THE TIME THE LAST PHALANGISTS STRAGGLED OUT AFTER 38 HOURS IN THE CAMPS.” (Ibid, P.270)
From the very words of the US ambassador Dillon: “The Israelis, who had promised to stay out of Beirut, immediately invaded to ‘restore order’. That was just a pretext; there was no disorder.” He adds that restoring order doesn’t mean killing civilians. Morris Draper’s exact words to Sharon on Saturday morning: “You must stop the acts of slaughter. They are horrifying. I have a representative in the camp counting the bodies. You should be ahamed. The situation is absolutely appalling. They’re killing children! You have the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that area.” (Ibid, 271)
The Israelis openly sponsored Elie Hobeika’s elite squad. “The IDF quite openly sponsored their business, keeping the camps surrounded and the Palestinians trapped inside, allowing in Phalange reinforcements, hosting Hobeika in their forward command post near the camps while he stayed in radio contact with his men inside, and providing maps and aerial photos of the camps, a bulldozer, and illumination flares through the night.” (Ibid, P.270)
Phases/Summary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre:
Fawaz Traboulsi, using latest references, divides the massacre into three phases.
“The next morning, Israeli troops entered West Beirut, which had resisted them for over three months, ostensibly ‘in order to prevent a bloodbath’; in fact, they initiated one. On Wednesday the 15th and for a whole of Thursday the 16th and early Friday the 17th, hundreds of special security units of the Lebanese Forces, seconded by regular troops stationed at the airport, were mainly responsible for committing the massacre of more than a thousand Palestinians (and no less than a hundred Lebanese) in the twin camps of Sabra and Shatila, not to speak of hundreds who disappeared. They were let in by the Israeli troops who were encircling the camps and helped by the hundreds of flares launched by these same troops. Ariel Sharon had visited Bikfaya the day beore and informed the mourning Jumayils that Bashir ha been killed by Palestinians. George Schultz , then US Scretary of State, later recalled that on Friday 17 September 1982, Ariel Sharon informed Maurice Draper that he had asked the Lebanese army to enter the camp and ‘clean them out’. He added: ‘They can kill the terrorists. But if they don’t we will.’ The Lebanese army failed to do so. [MFL notes: Phase 1]: On Wednesday 15th, units of the elite Israeli army ‘reconnaissance’ force, the Sayeret Mat’kal, which had already carried out the assassination of the three PLO leaders in Beirut (the one Ehud Barak led in Verdun in the early 1970s), entered the camps with a mission to liquidate a selecte number of Palestinian cadres. [MFL notes: Phase 2 & 3] The next day, two units of killers were introduced into the camps, troops from Sa’d Haddad’s Army of South Lebanon, attached to the Israeli forces in Beirut, and the LF security units of Elie Hobeika known as the Apaches, led by Marun Mash’alani, Michel Zuwayn, and Georges Melko.” [Fawaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pluto Press – 2007, P. 218]
He adds: “Ariel Sharon was found ‘indirectly responsible’ for the massacre by the Israeli Kahan commission of inquiry and had to resign his post as minister of defense. The US administration’s responsibility was considerable. The American peace-keeping force that oversaw the evacuation of the PLO was also assigned the task of guaranteeing the safety of ‘law-abiding Palestinian non-combatants in Beirut, including the families of those who have departed’. However, the US administration withdrew the Marines detachment two weeks before the end of its 30 days mandate, forcing the French and the Italian forces to follow suit. George Schultz later confessed to the fact that the Marines of the MNF had been ‘hurriedly withdrawn.
On 20 September, President Reagan recalled the MNF back to Beirut. [Ibid, P.219]
Couple of years ago, Elie Hobeika was assassinated in a bomb explosion, one week before he was traveling to Belgium to testify against Ariel Sharon in the International Court Tribunal. His assassins are unknown,it can be the Israelis, it can be one of his previous allies, Palestinians, or anybody as a matter of fact.
May the innocent killed find peace, and the living find peace with themselves…May the innocent killed find peace, and the living find peace with themselves…
The Sabra and Shatila massacres will always be remembered as the greatest butchery of civilian life in the history of Lebanon, and the second would probably be Tel el Zaatar. Unlike Tel el Zaatar though, Sabra & Shatila camps lacked any militants, and the camps were similar to what the US diplomat Morris Draper compared the entrance of Elie Hobeika’s elite squad (faction of the Lebanese Forces) to the camp as bunch of Ku Klux Klan militants, with most advanced weapons, unleashed on African – Americans surrounded by troops forbidding them to escape the camps. I recommend in order to understand better the overall story to read these two articles (Regarding Bashir Gemayel's Elections - The Other Story, Investigating Bashir Gemayel (Part I): Bashir and the Israelis
The Background:
Ever since Cairo 1969, the Palestinian Refugee Camps were transformed in general as military base-points for the PLO, under the hand of Yasser Arafat. With the war breaking out, Palestinian Camps outside the West Beirut became pocket enclaves for the PLO against their opponents and their allies the Lebanese National Movement.
With the brutal Israeli siege of West Beirut butcherong the Lebanese civilians, Phil. Habib succeeded to broker a deal, against all odds and Sharon’s obstacles, between the United States and the PLO: which was to evacuate them outside Lebanon, and the militants to be distributed in Jordan, Syria, and Tunisia (all three countries accepted with severe hesitance because no country in the right mind would welcome the heavily armed PLO). The only country that fully volunteered to accept the whole PLO faction was Iraq, but the PLO were quick to decline Saddam’s offer because they didn’t want to be in the Iraqi fronts fighting Iran. In return, Bashir Gemayel gave his word of honor that the families of the PLO and the civilians shall not be touched. Sharon also was not supposed to enter West Beirut because it will backfire on the US Foreign Policy and the US administration’s ties with the Arab nations, specially Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan.
The Multi-Nationals who oversaw the evacuation of the PLO militants were supposed to remain for a month after the PLO were evacuated from West Beirut. The purpose of the evacuation was to block the Israelis any alibi to remain in Lebanon, which primarily was the eradication of the PLO through their own forces and the Lebanese Forces. The Multi-Nationals, composed from the US (taking the primary role of the evacuation) Marines, the French (being second politically), and the Italians. Other than the fact several encounters between the US marines and Israeli Defense Forces took place during the evacuation, the PLO were evacuated up to suspected capacity of 95%. Philip Habib returned to his retirement, after Sarkis presented him with the highest medal of honor existent in the Lebanese Government (whatever was functional of it then), and everything went from bad to worse.
Bashir Gemayel was expected to last six years and bring order to Lebanon, according to US calculations; however, what the US didn’t calculate that the “other Lebanon” would do the impossible to assassinate him, since in their eyes he invited the Israelis over for his private usage. When Bashir Gemayel was assassinated, all hell broke loose. The Multi-Nationals already withdrew hastily (first by the decision of the new Secretary of State Schultz, and hence triggered a domino effect with the Italians and French to withdraw hastily). By the end of the month after the massacre, Reagan announced the return of the Multi-National Forces back to Lebanon. Morris Draper became the head of the US Presidential Diplomatic Convoy to Lebanon.
With Bashir Gemayel dead, the Israelis entered West Beirut under the allegation of protecting the Muslims of West Beirut (strangely they fired at the residents of West Beirut Smart Bombs and prohibited weaponry, not to forget the 16 hour marathon of bombing) whereby only Lebanese civilians were slaughtered.
You will notice, my fellow readers, that again I will quote my favorite two books, Boykin’s “Cursed is the Peacemaker”, and Traboulsi’s “A History of Modern Lebanon”, for one reason only, these two bothered heavily to reconstruct history as it happened with references that are rarely mentioned elsewhere.
Draper was informed by Begin that the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) will move to checkpoints on West Beirut “with the object of keeping things quiet and insuring that there were no incidents to mar the peace.”
On the US Versus Israeli Level
And I start my quoting:
“Three hours later, Draper arrived in Beirut for Bashir’s funeral and saw that ‘the city was in flames.’ Despite Begin’s assurances that the IDF was taking ‘strictly limited precautionary measures,’ Draper saw the IDF going at it hot and heavy with tank and artillery fire. The funeral could wait. He ordered his car turned around and headed off to the IDF headquarters outside Beirut “where I essentially could get only incomplete information and pap to the effect that ‘everything was fine’. Draper felt he’ been had. “Begin told me as a representative of the United States government that the Isrealis were not going to move into the heart of Beirut..” He told a straight out, 100 percent, baldfaced lie to the United States government, his great friend. I mean, a solemn undertaking by the prime minister of a friendly state? Unheard of!.”
“In a nasty meeting the next day, Thursday, September 16, raper and Sam Lewis confronted Sharon about his violation of the Habib agreement and the damage it had done to Habib’s, America’s, and Israel’s credibility. Sharon’s icey reply: “Circumstances changed, sir.’”
“It was all the PLO’s fault, Sharon argued. They had violated the agreement. They had left behind vast stores of weapons and 2,500 terrorists to use them. Those terrorists, Sharon said, were hiding in the Palestinian refugee camps of West Beirut, including Sabra and Shatila. Sharon now had the camps surrounded.” (Cursed is the Peace Maker, Roy Boykin, Applegate Press – 2002 – P. 267 – 268).
The US diplomats knew that Sharon was exaggerating the numbers left behind.
Hence, “Draper kept asking the Israelis for the source of their belief in thousands of stay-behind terrorists, but he never got a good answer. ‘At most there were a handful of guerrillas; left behind, he says. “There were a few armed men in the camps… BUT THEY WERE ALL MEN OF SIXTY OR SEVENTY YEARS OLD. THEY MAY HAVE HAD OLD SHOTGUNS, BUT THEY WERE OT A THREAT. Essentially, THE CAMPS WERE DISARMED.” (Ibid, P. 269)
With Bashir Gemayel dead, the US diplomats lost a major actor on the Lebanese arena, and there was no one to control that powerful militant party Phalange/Lebanese Forces. The US would say the following: “
The nearest American equivalent to sending the Phalange into the camps would be sending heavily armed Ku Klux Kansmen into an African-American neighborhood with a license to kill. Chosen to lead the operation was the head of Phalange Intelligence, Elie Hobeika. Dillion knew him from his services as Bashir’s personal bodyguard and describes him as a “Pathological killer….”
Most of his squad belonged to an intelligence unit that the Israelis considered specially trained in “discovering terrorists.” HIS SQUAD APPARENTLY HAD LITTLE TRAINING IN DISCOVERING ANYONE OTHER THAN TERRORISTS, GIVEN THEIR VIEW THAT ‘PREGNANT WOMEN WILL GIVE BIRTH TO TERRORISTS; THE CHILDREN WHEN THEY GROW UP WILL BE TERRORISTS,” and both were thus fair game. THE PHALANGISTS’ REPUTATION PROMPTED THE IDF TO REPEATEDLY INSTRUCT THEM TO KILL ONLY TERRORISTS, NOT CIVILIANS. SINCE BOTH CONSIDERED TERRORIST AND PALESTINIAN ORE OR LESS SYNONYMOUS, THIS WAS SORT OF LIKE GIVING THE KLAN A LICENSE TO KILL ONLY AFRICAN – AMERICANS THEY CONSIDERED TROUBLEMAKERS.” (Ibid, P. 269)
Begin insisted to the US diplomats that he was entering West Beirut afterwards to protect the Muslims of West Beirut from Phalange aggression, which the US diplomats compared his justification of a coyote entering in to protect the chicken. IDF General Eitan told Morris Draper: “The Phalange… are obsessed with the idea of revenge…. I’m telling you that some of their commanders visited me, and I could see in their eyes that it’s going to be a relentless slaughter.” (Ibid, P.270) That was on September 16, and as Eitan was speaking, the massacres began in Sabra – Shatila. The IDF knew the Phalange will out of revenge for the assassination of their leader Bashir Gemayel will seek revenge blindly, but they had to make sure they are directed towards the Palestinian civilians rather the Muslims.
The Sabra-Shatila massacres lasted days. The Israeli intelligence informed Sharon that there were no terrorists four hours after this massacre of 3000 civilians began.
“But what Sharon apparently did not anticipate was that his intelligence reports were wrong: The Phalangists found rather few people in the camps who fit any but the most all-inclusive definition of terrorist. INDEED, THE IDF INTELLIGENCE OFFICER ON THE SPOT MONITORING EVENTS REPORTED WITHIN HOURS OF THE PHALANGISTS’ ENTRY, “THERE ARE EVIDENTLY NO TERRORISTS IN THE CAMP.” So the Phalangists slaughtered pretty much whoever they did find: defenseless women, children, old men, even cats, dogs, and horses. Whereas actual PLO fighters had fought rabidly earlier in the invasion, the Phalangists encountered hardly any resistance in the camps.
From the Earliest Hours, the IDF ha clear indications that the Phalangists were killing civilians, lots of civilians. To stanch that hemorrhaging, they again approached the Lebanese Army Forces (not to be mistake with Lebanese Forces) go into the camps,” Sharon said to Draper on Friday, apparently neglecting to mention that the Phalange was already in the camps. ‘They can kill the terrorists. But if they don’t, we will.” The LAF again refused, saying they could not cross the IDF ring around the camps to do anything without looking like a tool of the IDF.
By Friday evening, Genral Drori, the Israeli commander in Lebanon, had heard enough and halted the operation – sort of. HE ORDERED THE PHALANGISTS OUT, BUT GAVE THEM ABOUT 12 HOURS TO GET AROUND TO LEAVING. NO ONE KNOWS HOW MANY PALESTINIANS HAD BEEN SLAUGHTERED BY THE TIME THE LAST PHALANGISTS STRAGGLED OUT AFTER 38 HOURS IN THE CAMPS.” (Ibid, P.270)
From the very words of the US ambassador Dillon: “The Israelis, who had promised to stay out of Beirut, immediately invaded to ‘restore order’. That was just a pretext; there was no disorder.” He adds that restoring order doesn’t mean killing civilians. Morris Draper’s exact words to Sharon on Saturday morning: “You must stop the acts of slaughter. They are horrifying. I have a representative in the camp counting the bodies. You should be ahamed. The situation is absolutely appalling. They’re killing children! You have the field completely under your control and are therefore responsible for that area.” (Ibid, 271)
The Israelis openly sponsored Elie Hobeika’s elite squad. “The IDF quite openly sponsored their business, keeping the camps surrounded and the Palestinians trapped inside, allowing in Phalange reinforcements, hosting Hobeika in their forward command post near the camps while he stayed in radio contact with his men inside, and providing maps and aerial photos of the camps, a bulldozer, and illumination flares through the night.” (Ibid, P.270)
Phases/Summary of the Sabra-Shatila Massacre:
Fawaz Traboulsi, using latest references, divides the massacre into three phases.
“The next morning, Israeli troops entered West Beirut, which had resisted them for over three months, ostensibly ‘in order to prevent a bloodbath’; in fact, they initiated one. On Wednesday the 15th and for a whole of Thursday the 16th and early Friday the 17th, hundreds of special security units of the Lebanese Forces, seconded by regular troops stationed at the airport, were mainly responsible for committing the massacre of more than a thousand Palestinians (and no less than a hundred Lebanese) in the twin camps of Sabra and Shatila, not to speak of hundreds who disappeared. They were let in by the Israeli troops who were encircling the camps and helped by the hundreds of flares launched by these same troops. Ariel Sharon had visited Bikfaya the day beore and informed the mourning Jumayils that Bashir ha been killed by Palestinians. George Schultz , then US Scretary of State, later recalled that on Friday 17 September 1982, Ariel Sharon informed Maurice Draper that he had asked the Lebanese army to enter the camp and ‘clean them out’. He added: ‘They can kill the terrorists. But if they don’t we will.’ The Lebanese army failed to do so. [MFL notes: Phase 1]: On Wednesday 15th, units of the elite Israeli army ‘reconnaissance’ force, the Sayeret Mat’kal, which had already carried out the assassination of the three PLO leaders in Beirut (the one Ehud Barak led in Verdun in the early 1970s), entered the camps with a mission to liquidate a selecte number of Palestinian cadres. [MFL notes: Phase 2 & 3] The next day, two units of killers were introduced into the camps, troops from Sa’d Haddad’s Army of South Lebanon, attached to the Israeli forces in Beirut, and the LF security units of Elie Hobeika known as the Apaches, led by Marun Mash’alani, Michel Zuwayn, and Georges Melko.” [Fawaz Traboulsi, A History of Modern Lebanon, Pluto Press – 2007, P. 218]
He adds: “Ariel Sharon was found ‘indirectly responsible’ for the massacre by the Israeli Kahan commission of inquiry and had to resign his post as minister of defense. The US administration’s responsibility was considerable. The American peace-keeping force that oversaw the evacuation of the PLO was also assigned the task of guaranteeing the safety of ‘law-abiding Palestinian non-combatants in Beirut, including the families of those who have departed’. However, the US administration withdrew the Marines detachment two weeks before the end of its 30 days mandate, forcing the French and the Italian forces to follow suit. George Schultz later confessed to the fact that the Marines of the MNF had been ‘hurriedly withdrawn.
On 20 September, President Reagan recalled the MNF back to Beirut. [Ibid, P.219]
Couple of years ago, Elie Hobeika was assassinated in a bomb explosion, one week before he was traveling to Belgium to testify against Ariel Sharon in the International Court Tribunal. His assassins are unknown,it can be the Israelis, it can be one of his previous allies, Palestinians, or anybody as a matter of fact.
May the innocent killed find peace, and the living find peace with themselves…May the innocent killed find peace, and the living find peace with themselves…
Monday, March 26, 2007
Dr. Fawwaz Traboulsi's New Book: A History of Modern Lebanon
I have been reading the book for the past two weeks, and the more I read, the more I have been surprised. I was lucky two months ago to attain a chapter of it by chance, and to say the truth, the book reflects everything needed to know. I do believe that this book reflects the history of Lebanon, not ala Christian perspective, nor Muslim perspective, nor Syrian perspective, but events as they took place. Despite the fact that Dr. Fawwaz Traboulsi is a Marxist, he is also an academic, and when it comes to Academia, he displays 100% of objectivity, and sheds light on all people involved in the war. (There are three amazing chapters on the Civil War, and one chapter how everything started to build up). For those "real Lebanese", whoever you are, I highly recommend you read this book, to know your REAL HISTORY (with its scandals).
Fantastic Book, check what Noam Chomsky wrote about it here.
Enjoy it, because I sure will! When I read it 7 times
MFL
PS: for those living in New York, you can meet him there, he is teaching at University of Columbia
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