It must be the sugar. Or maybe the caffeine. Or perhaps the slow news. But for some reason these days, I am not finding the energy to pounce on lebanese news items and toy around with them in this blog as frequently as you’re used to. 

Instead, for now, I will use this space to wish you all a fruitful - and with any luck energetic- Ramadan.

We should all get off our ivory towers of certainty. The reality of the matter is that all of the finger pointing regarding yesterday’s bombing is based on nothing more than speculation. Those who claim with certainty that Islamist fundamentalists are behind the attacks are as mindless as those who blindly and immediately accuse Syria.

This leaves the door open for making one’s case on who benefits the most from the confrontation between the Lebanese Army and the Islamists. One line of thought, shared by most Tripolitans who support the Future Movement, is advanced by many editorialists, columnists in English and in Arabic, bloggers and commentators on this blog.

The central idea is that Tripoli is being punished for for wholeheartedly supporting the anti-Syrian independence movement, and that is done by playing off artificially inflated Islamists against the army in the hope that the Sunnis will eventually lose faith in the army, and by extension, in an independent state. Michael Young sums up this point of view nicely:

Like the attack against a military intelligence office in Abdeh several weeks ago, the aim of those placing the bombs was to convince you and I that Sunni extremist groups are alive and well in the North, that they have an axe to grind with the army because of Nahr al-Bared
…
The reality, I believe, is different. Recently, colleagues who closely follow events in Tripoli have started hearing of Syrian warnings to the Lebanese that there would be no peace in the city until the Salafists were routed. Who would conduct such an operation but the army, explaining why soldiers have been the victims of recent attacks. Syria’s implication in the bombings is highly probable, its objective being to push the army and the Salafists into a confrontation. This would create a serious rift within the Sunni community, weaken the disoriented pro-Hariri forces in Tripoli, and allow Damascus’ allies to regain the initiative in the city.

The reality is that Salafists in Tripoli are not strong. In the recent fighting between the Sunni quarters of Bab al-Tebbaneh and Qobbeh and the Alawite quarter of Jabal Mohsen, the Salafists, who belong to a variety of small groups, proved to be much less numerous than anyone had imagined. As a neighborhood leader in Bab al-Tebbaneh described it, the confrontations exposed the Salafists’ weaknesses, not their strengths. The brunt of the fighting was borne by the men of Bab al-Tebbaneh, though followers of a leading opposition politician used the hostilities to burnish his legitimacy as a “defender of the Sunnis.” The Alawite official Rifaat Eid admitted that the fighting erupted after a rocket propelled grenade was fired at his men by partisans of this opposition politician.
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It was no coincidence, either, that the bombing occurred on the day of Michel Sleiman’s visit to Damascus. There were several messages to the president: that Lebanese security will continue to remain vulnerable if he opposes Syrian priorities (and that includes, among other things, Syrian choices for the post of army commander and military intelligence chief); that Sleiman’s priorities, in turn, such as addressing diplomatic relations between Beirut and Damascus and the fate of Lebanese prisoners in Syria, are secondary to the Syrians; that intimidation remains Syria’s modus operandi when it comes to its relationship with Lebanon; and that Sleiman would make a mistake to rely too much on the parliamentary majority, which is buttressed by a Sunni community that can be readily split.
…
The bus bombing yesterday ultimately targeted not the army but the Sunnis. Syria wants them irredeemably divided. Hariri must ensure that such a plan fails.

Thoughts?

While my wife still has five more months to add a member to my own family, my blog -after a few weeks of fussy tinkering- has now added two.

The reason is simple. Not everyone here likes to hear about Mika or see pictures of the Lebanese President’s daughter’s wedding. Yet at the same time, not everyone likes it when I write about the government’s economic policy or the Lebanese banking sector. In other words, this is when the invisible mouth of Adam smith told me to specialize.

The Beirut Spring Tabloid is just that: A look into the stuff you usually see in the back of a newspaper. Trivial, outrageous, scandalous and sometimes raunchy material that many of us secretly love. The Beirut Spring Business on the other hand takes the other end of the seriousness spectrum; in it we get a chance to discuss important matters without being distracted by politics. The original blog will keep doing what it does best: Politics.

The new blogs are young, and God knows I could use a lot of help with new material. So should any of you channel his or her inner economist or sleazeball, please don’t hesitate to send your contributions or ideas for posts to mustapha [at} beirutspring {dot] com.

Meanwhile, I’d love to hear your feedback. Is there anything you don’t like? Is there anything I can do better? Any ideas for even more sections (like for example: the environment)? Also please email me for more suggestions…

Anyway, the best way to stay updated with the next post is to subscribe to my RSS feed (how this works), and in the mean time, here’s to hoping this mental break doesn’t last too long…

1- The printing feature is now fixed. To print a post, just click on the printing icon below it for a printer-friendly format. Sorry for taking so long.

2- I’m very excited that the number of subscribers to the RSS feed of Beirut Spring has reached 400 today. That’s still a small chunk of the daily readership, so if you’re still not subscribed, find out why you should and why everyone else is using RSS.

3- Remember, If there’s a post that you wish to share on Facebook (like for example the 1960s elections graphic), all you need to do is click on the little facebook icon under the post, and if you’re signed in in facebook, it will be automatically posted

4- If you have questions or contributions, remember that you can always send them to my email address: mustapha [at] beirutspring [dot] com

Ibrahim is DOWN TOWN
Imad is happy and going to Beirut
Bashar: SO 2DAY @ LAST BEIRUT IT SMILES”SHUKRAN QATAR”IT’LL B DONE…..
Yasmine is :)
Rana: Mabrouk Lebanon!
Samer is mabrouk Libneen & waiting for tonights match, GO MAN UNITED…
Hani: alf mabrouk for our beloved country……………
Karim is distributing free bananas to the monkeys who finally agreed on something…. ooh-ooh!!
Jamal: رح يعتزل الإنقاذ بِهَل يومين، باسوا بعضن عالخدّين.
Nour: يلا حَبّوا بعضهم وباسوا بعضهم
Rabih: Nchallah ma yetkhana2ou henneh we raj3ine.!!!:)

Why don’t you share with us some of the more creative stuff your own friends have put up?

For non Arabic readers, sorry, most of these would be lost in Translation.

Calling it a “very serious situation,” presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain said here Friday that the seizure of parts of west Beirut by Iranian and Syrian-backed Hezbollah fighters demands immediate action.

McCain made it plain he was talking about diplomatic, not military initiatives.

The Arizona senator said the fighting that has humiliated and weakened the government of Lebanon threatens to further destabilize the Middle East and embolden Iran while raising the prospect of new attacks on Israel.

McCain said President Bush should seek heavier involvement by the United Nations which has a small peacekeeping force in south Lebanon to pressure Syria and work with other nations with interests in Lebanon.

We’d rather stay here than work in Beirut… (photo source)

Sure they’re starving and living in miserable conditions, but that doesn’t mean that they have to put up with the ultimate abusive environment: The Lebanese household.

On the occasion of Labor Day, Ethiopia has officially banned its citizens from traveling to Beirut in search of jobs, the African country’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs has disclosed. Ethiopia passed the bill after it probed the human right violations and domestic violence Ethiopian migrants face behind closed doors in Beirut while employed as maids.

“Suspending work travel to Beirut was the only solution to minimizing the human rights abuses and dangers facing our citizens,” said Zenebu Tadesse, deputy minister of state for labor and social affairs.

During the past few years, a number of Ethiopians have died in Lebanon in questionable circumstances.

Advertising Vs Advertising

In his article “Selling Terror“, subtitled “Madison Avenue meets the Bekaa Valley”, Mr. Schanzer writes a compendium of the media companies that are helping Hezbollah “sell terror”. He then concludes that the US needs to keep a closer eye on these operations (and their financing):

…the U.S. Treasury Department should consider a new round of designations to include Media-Publi, Ressalat, as well as the four Media-Publi employees listed on the site. Similarly, other banking systems and companies around the world should be encouraged to cease doing business with them. Hezbollah’s Lebanese advertising operations must not be allowed to continue.

But what Mr. Schanzer doesn’t say is that in Lebanon, Hezbollah is actually at a disadvantage when it comes to media and advertising savvy. The Cedar revolutionaries are the ones with the real Madison Avenue advantage, so much so that many articles have been written about the advertising prowess of the pro-Americans, who are striving — to use Mr. Schanzer’s words — to “sell” freedom.

(Disclosure: The Weekly Standard article in question links to this blog)

This picture is being circulated in blogs with an anti-American leaning. It shows U.S. Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Michele J.Sison standing side-by-side with the ISF’s chief Ashraf Rifi.

Of course, the blogs find no need of mentioning anything else (except for some mutterings about protocol), waiting for the Lebanese to make their own conclusions, like for example, how subservient to the Americans Mr. Rifi (and by extension his March 14 backers) have become.

What they conveniently skip though, is the fact that Ms. Sison was attending the graduation ceremony of 166 ISF members, who just got trained by a US funded program, described by the American embassy’s website as follows:

The ten week state-of-the-art training program module is taught by U.S. instructors and curriculum developers with the assistance of Lebanese police and legal professionals. The police recruits are instructed in the latest policing and law enforcement skills and how to apply these to real life situations. Modern police practices, administration, democratic policing, human rights, criminal investigations and other essential law enforcement skills are all part of the program.

But then again, why get into the details when you get a chance to take a free shot at the Americans?