Having It Both Ways.. Literally

What’s the difference between a wish and an assertion? In the world of Mr. Walid Jumblat, it’s simply a clarification.

The art of oops

Today, in Abey in a celebration for the returned prisoners, Mr. Jumblat made a speech that was groveling par-excellence to Hezbollah. One of the more memorable passages was this one:

“There is no contradiction between the resistance, on the one hand, and freedom, independence, sovereignty, justice and history, on the other,” Jumblatt stressed. “There is no contradiction between the tribunal and the resistance,” he added.

Like many other Lebanese I wondered: How can Mr. Jumblat possibly reconcile his previous positions with this one? How can you have independence, and sovereignty and Hezbollah-style resistance, which gets its guns and rockets from other countries?

The answer came later, when Mr. Jumblat’s office issued this clarification:

ورد في الكلمة الموزعة لرئيس الحزب التقدمي الاشتراكي النائب وليد جنبلاط في حفل استقبال الاسير المحرر سمير القنطار في عبيه ما يلي ارحب واقول ان لا تناقض بين الحرية والمقاومة وان لا تناقض بين الاستقلال والمقاومة والمقاومة والسيادة والمقاومة بينما الصحيح والمقصود هو اتمنى الا يكون تناقض بين الحرية والمقاومة، ولا تناقض بين الاستقلال والمقاومة، ولا تناقض بين السيادة والمقاومة، لذا اقتضى التوضيح”.

Ooohh, so what he really meant was: “I hope there would be no contradiction between the resistance, on the one hand, and freedom, independence, sovereignty, justice and history, on the other”

But wait, this gets sillier: Naharnet re-wrote its online story, without any editorial notice, to accommodate Mr. Jumblat’s modification and cover up his “error”. They had to re-write history to spare him the ire of the western readers already livid at his flip-flopping.

To illustrate, compare the paragraph below (Naharnet’s revised version), to the paragraph above, taken from Yalibnan (the original Naharnet version):

“I Hope there would be no contradiction between the resistance, on the one hand, and freedom, independence, sovereignty, justice and history, on the other,” Jumblat stressed.”I hope there would be no contradiction between the tribunal and the resistance,” he added.

Insulting our intelligence has become these people’s favorite sport nowadays..

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Tags: Hezbollah, Lebanese Politics, Naharnet, Political Maneuvering, Resistance, Walid Jumblat -->