Two clashing polls try to probe that elusive “Christian public opinion” in Metn.

First came the poll conducted by IPSOSTAT, a respectable polling organization, which concluded after calling a sample of 1000 metnis, that 60% of the voters would like to fill the position vacated by the death of MP Pierre Gemayel by another Kataeb member like his father Amine for instance, with only 32% giving their votes to Aoun’s FPM.

The results didn’t offend the Aounists. After all, many FPM supporters were courteous enough to give the seat back to the Gemayels after having their heir viciously murdered. Ghassan Tweini had started a precedent by consensually “inheriting” his murdered son’s seat.

The problems only started later when March14 media started using the findings to insinuate that the FPM is losing popular support among Christians. Witness how, for instance, an LF blogger jumped at the IPSOSTAT findings.

This is where the FPM decided to reclaim its crown as the most popular party with the Christians by commissioning its own Poll. The poll, conducted by Feghali Polling, had a different wording than that of IPSOSTAT: “Which party is closest to you and represents you best politically today?”

The results are proudly posted on the Tayyar’s main page: The Aounists and their allies got 67.9%, while the Kataeb and their allies got 25.7%

An obituary making the walls in the Northern port city of Tripoli mourns the death of a “martyr”

Mourners should head to the House of Mr. Majeed Al Rafii, a respectable elderly Northern figure who allied himself with Saddam in the old days.

What’s noteworthy is that Mr. Rafii ran in the last parliamentary elections in the pro-syrian electoral list(it included Sleimen Franjiyeh and Omar Karami). He is believed to be the reason why many Sunnis voted for that list (which eventually lost).

An anti-government demonstrator has won a $2,000,000 lottery prize.

As cheerful as he gets

Saeed Youssef Al Harbieh woke up one morning in one of the many freezing opposition tents in central Beirut. While he’s sipping hot coffee, he read in the newspaper that the winning lottery combination matches his own ticket.

The ecstatic winner partied with his tent-mates and then headed straight back to his native Zgharta to celebrate with friends and family.

Mr. Al Harbieh told Assafir that his family of six can hardly make ends meet, so the prize came as a much needed windfall.

He promised that he will go back to the protest camp. I think he won’t.
Any bets?

Walid Jumblat accused Hezbollah for the first time of being part of the assassinations. Was this a tactical move or an emotional outburst?

Did you hear the one where Hezbollah killed Hariri?

What was obvious from Mr. Jumblat’s body language is that he was nervous and angry. The statement was made in an atmosphere of renewed tension between his PSP party and Hezbollah, where Minister Marwan Hmedeh who is very close to Jumblat, accused the Almanar TV station of and sued it for inciting his assassination (Mr. Hmedeh has already been subject of a failed assassination attempt)

What’s notable is that Hariri’s Almustaqbal newspaper, which usually cheerleads Jumblat’s hardline stances, has completely ignored Hezbollah’s part of Jumblat’s speech and chose instead to focus its headlines on the part where Jumblat accuses president Assad of Syria of being a liar. Could Hariri, who quietly slipped to Saudi Arabia this morning, be distancing himself from Jumblat’s statements?

Hezbollah denied Jumblat’s accusations and said he doesn’t have any evidence to support them. Al-Akhbar, a newspaper close to Hezbollah, wrote that Jumblat’s hardline position was designed to sabotage a new initiative by speaker Nabih Berri, an initiative the newspaper claims to be coordinated with Saudi Arabia and other Arab countries, where a government of 3 March14 Ministers, 3 opposition Ministers and 4 neutral ones would oversee new elections and arrange for the Paris 3 donors’ conference.

Jumblat, who has a history of sabotaging Arab initiatives designed to co-opt Syria, might be playing America’s role in Lebanon by refusing fudge solutions that put brotherhood and cooperation ahead of justice and accountability.

* If I had a Lira for every time Al-Akhbar Newspaper headlines that the opposition has a “surprise” up its sleeves, I’d be able to buy me a man2oushé. Still, can’t blame the pro-Hezbollah newspaper for trying.

* Sanioura exposes another hard edge of March 14: If they close the airport’s road, “what guarantees that our supporters won’t close the ne3mé road to the South?”. Ne3mé is a main artery to the Hezbollah South. (from Assafir)

* Nabih Berri shows an ankle of his alleged initiative (Albalad):
- The Hariri Tribunal is not sacred. The draft should be modified by the Lebanese government and signed by the President before it is sent to the UN.
-the opposition picks the kingpin minister in the 19-10-1 formation, but March 14 has to agree on him/her
-Go back to the 7iwar table to talk and talk and talk…

The magic words that could help dry the opposition of large popular support.

They’re not all bad people

As a supporter of the March 14 independence movement, I am convinced that Hezbollah’s leadership is taking orders from Tehran, that Nabih Berri is threatened and that Sleimen Franjiyeh, Talal arselan and the SNPP would all do anything to get back to power.

But I am also convinced that many of the people who gathered on December 1st have genuine misgivings about the government’s performance. The government shouldn’t treat those people the same way it treats Iran’s fifth column. It should instead try to deal with their problems

According to William Ury, a negotiation guru, one of the most important parts of a negotiation is to listen to your opponent and to acknowledge his point, without necessarily agreeing with it: (source)

Listening to someone may be the cheapest concession you can make [..] Every human being, no matter how impossible, has a deep need for recognition. [...] by letting him tell his side of the story and acknowledging it, you create a psychological room for him to know that there’s another side of the story.

Throwing the labels “Iranian and Syrian” unfairly at some of the protesters will simply make them more defiant and rebellious.

Why can’t Ahmad Fatfat apologize for smiling with Condi Rice while Lebanese children were being bombed, all the while insisting that this doesn’t mean that Syria should get off the hook regarding its crimes in Lebanon?

Why can’t Samir Geagea and Walid Jumblat say: “we have done terrible crimes in the past and we have been corrupt. We really regret those days, but for now it’s time to look to the future because the very nature of Lebanon as a free society is endangered?”

Those words, if made in good faith, can placate a good chunk of the “legitimate” protesters and might start a genuine conversation. I tried this myself, and as you could see, the result was fascinating.

Of course, many of the opposition are more interested in power than in talking. What we’ll do to those is simply deprive them of companionship.

For a good understanding of the crisis in Lebanon (Extensive background+proposed solutions), read this comprehensive report (pdf) from the International Crisis Group (Executive Summary here), released on December 21st. (Thanks Rich.)

If you have commentary on something you read in it, just paste the paragraph in the comments section and tell us what you think of it.

On another personal note. Sorry for the scarce posting, never knew wedding preparations were so time consuming..

If you find Michel Aoun, the Lebanese Christian leader who’s allied with Hezbollah, hard to understand, if he drives you crazy or if you have the urge to understand why his followers are following him, read this rather balanced piece about his ideas and alliances in the Los Angeles Times

Online data indicates that Lebanese public opinion might have started moving away from partisanship and back to the center.

The graphs below plot the online readerships of four selected Lebanese newspapers. They are in order:
Almustaqbal, a newspaper with a partisan March 14 perspective
Albalad, a newspaper with a rather balanced perspective
Al Akhbar, a newspaper with a partisan pro-Hezbollah perspective,
Annahar, a partisan March 14 newspaper with balanced reporting.

The second graph is a closeup to the last few days of the first graph. Also indicated are important events that might have spiked/reduced readerships.

Several conclusions can be made from the above graphs, but here are a few important ones I noticed:

1- A look at Al-akhbar’s and Almustaqbal’s graphs reveals that mobilization has peaked on December 1st and has since been losing steam.

2- A look at the graphs of Albalad and Annahar shows that after the assassination of Pierre Gemayel, people started abandoning “balanced” media for more extreme and partisan outlets.

3- And finally, the above trend might have started to change. In the second graph, the last few days witnessed a spike in the readership of “balanced” media and a drop in that of the “extreme” media. This could be attributed to fatigue or to the Arab League mediation between Lebanese parties.

(Graphs powered by Alexa)

Those ubiquitous “I Love Life” billboards turned out to be a political teasing campaign on an unprecedented scale. But don’t worry, the good stuff should be known by December 23rd.

Anyone who’s been to Lebanon lately has seen them. They’re literally everywhere; “I love Life”, “J’aime la vie”, “Ouhibbou l7ayat”. A statement in three languages that would seem natural if it weren’t for the huge display real estate money being poured on them.

The billboards have raised speculations among the Lebanese; they must have something to do with the March 14 independence movement. The colors and typography are a trademark of the Cedar revolution, and nowadays, “we want to live” and “we champion a culture of life” (as opposed to Hezbollah’s supposed culture of death and martyrdom) are staples of the political discourse of March 14 politicians and literati.

But the precise objective of the campaign remains to be seen. I can say with a fair amount of certainty that the objective is not to convert suicide bombers into hedonists, so what is this all about?

One way to know for sure (and apparently to become an activist and spread the word), is to keep your eye on the I Love Life website.

But meanwhile, I wouldn’t mind we engage in a little game of speculation. Any ideas on what this could be?

My personal guess is that this has something to do with the Anniversary of Rafik Hariri’s assassination on Valentines day the upcoming February 14 (yes, the heart tipped me off). But I could be wrong. Any guesses?