Here’s a question: Wasn’t the entire purpose of “demarcating the Lebanese-Syrian border” –an important item on the agenda of the President’s visit to Damascus– to determine the ownership of the contentious Shebaa farms?

What good does it do us to demarcate our borders if we skip over the controversial part, the only part that really matters? Besides, what does it take for the process of demarcation anyway? All it takes is a technical team from each country to work together on a map, sign it and hand it over to the United nations. It’s not like you have to send topographers on the ground to measure occupied territories.

By refusing to demarcate the Shebaa Farms, Syria is proving that it is more interested in keeping this powder keg, a cause célèbre for Hezbollah, than in getting the farms back.

Those who thought the singer who entertained thousands last week in Martyrs Square was Lebanese are mistaken.

Indeed, Mika was born in Beirut to an American father and Lebanese mother: Lebanese law does not allow Lebanese women to pass down nationality to their children.

So the brilliant artist who should be (and would like to be) representing our country abroad, cannot.

Another more tragic consequence of our unfair nationality laws is this account (taken from l’Orient le Jour)-my translation-:

I am 31 years old, I was born and I live in Lebanon. My mother is Lebanese and my father who died, was an achouri Christian from Iraq, moved to Lebanon in the middle of the last century having obtained from the Lebanese authorities provisional papers in the form of a pass which I inherited. I know by heart every corner of Achrafieh, Dekouané, Nabba, Sin el Fil, Dora, Hamra, Jounieh, Zahle, Saida… I found work several times but as soon as my employers were unable to provide me a work permit, I was fired. Since then, my mother decided to borrow money to open a supermarket where I could finally make a living. I began to feel adult, independent, happy. I met a girl whom I fell in love and we decided to marry. Everything was going well until the day when her brothers realized that having a father with a card “taht qayd al dars”, our children may find themselves without a nationality, cursed by birth, because a Lebanese woman cannot give her nationality to her children, whatever the circumstances. My fiancee decided to break her commitment to marriage. I am back to my scourged fate. My life is a series of misfortunes. Some say, “your maternal grandfather should have adopted you.” Thank you, I would answer, it’s too late, my grandfather has died now and nobody had thought of this before. I tried to leave for Europe where an old aunt of mine lives, but it was impossible to obtain a visa with my provisional papers. I advised by some to hide in the hold of a ship and declare myself a “refugee” on a more lenient land. I did not dare, I was afraid that this illegal act would only lead me to jail for God knows how many months or years. My mother feels terrible to be powerless. She recently knocked on all doors, even very senior officials, to try to find a “wasta”. She is ready to do everything she is asked in order to obtain a Lebanese passport for me. She often gets the response: this law has been applied to prevent Palestinian men from marrying Lebanese women and becoming ex officio Lebanese themselves and their children born to this mixed marriage. Is this a convincing argument? I doubt it. Knowing that when a Palestinian woman marries a Lebanese man, their children have the right to Lebanese nationality!

Whatever the reason, the Women’s blood right has been removed! Lebanese wake up, claim your rights to protect you and protect your children. You are 50% of votes in the country. In a few months you will head to the ballot box. Vote for those who publicly promise to defend women’s rights.

Youssef Taht-qayd-Eldar

The time for change is long overdue.

(this article can also be found at the TY’s blog)

Fine, we should begrudgingly try to open a new page with Syria. We should focus on our interests and not on our resentments..etc, but am I the only one who finds today’s Daily Star editorial troubling?

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Moallem’s visit to Beirut today will represent an opportunity for Lebanese politicians to cultivate a friendship with a man who could prove to be an indispensable ally to their country. Moallem comes to Lebanon with a proven track record of overcoming monumental challenges: As foreign minister he has most recently overseen Damascus’ return from isolation at a time when it seemed as though Syria would never be able to regain its place in the international fold. Just as Syria has benefited from Moallem’s efforts, Lebanon can be reap the rewards of Moallem’s diplomatic prowess if Lebanese politicians use Monday’s visit to begin building an alliance with the Syrian minister.

What’s with all the groveling? We’re talking about a man who only last week threatened us with more violence if we don’t form a new government.

Really, what do you think our best attitude toward Mouallem should be?

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..

Bank of Beirut, one of the targeted banks..

How stupid do the Israelis living in the USA and Canada think Hezbollah is? Judging by the coordinated lawsuits launched in Canada and the USA by Israeli individuals against Lebanese banks, I would say very stupid.

To the Israeli plaintiffs, Hezbollah –who knows it’s listed on the American list of terrorist groups– will simply have money sent to it via conventional channels, paper trail et all, to support its “terrorist activities”. Mr. Nassrallah will simply ignore all the news of American scrutiny of Middle Eastern banks and call his pals in the U.S. to SWIFT hundreds of thousands of “clean” dollars to his personal account in Fransabank.

Idiocy aside, it is clear that the Israelis in questions are more interested in the publicity than in actual results, and it is also clear that the official Lebanese response of ignoring the matter altogether, preferring to express trust in the American judicial system, is wholly inadequate.

Lebanese banks and businessmen should do more to expose the smear campaign against our banks for what it really is. Simply stating to the local media that our banks are abiding by international regulations is a nonstarter.

Lebanese activists in the US and Canada should also contribute. After all, two can play this game. Every Lebanese-American with a destroyed house from Israeli missiles, every shopkeeper with lost revenue from the war, every mother whose child was killed should also wage lawsuits against Israeli banks in US and Canada, for funding such destruction and loss of life.

Like the Israeli lawsuits, they won’t reach anywhere, but at least the publicity will neutralize their claim to the moral high grounds.

Back in the heydays when the Opposition was blocking the vote for a new President in order to secure a national unity government, March 14 was itching for what they saw as their constitutional right to vote with a simple majority. There was one major obstacle, however: The highest Christian authority in the land refused to sanction anything other than a two-third corum for that vote.

March 14 was divided at the time as an epic debate broke out in their midst. The Arab-backed concensualists dueled with the western-backed confrontationalists until the formers to which Mr. Sfeir belonged triumphed. The utlimate result of that battle was what we have today: A consensus-heavy national unity government and a veto-wielding Opposition.

Yet today, in a puzzling reversal, we find Mr. Sfeir lamenting the “tradition of unity government” which “paralyzes the nation”:

“In other states, the majority rules and the minority practices opposition, but in Lebanon the two parties want to rule,” Sfeir told believers in Sydney. The government, according to Sfeir, has become like a “carriage with two horses pulling it from the front and two horses pulling it from the rear.” “So how can it move?” he asked

One can only wonder with amazement at why Mr. Sfeir is disowning his own role in this paralysis.

In a previous post, many readers expressed a form or another of disappointment — in comments and in emails– that I’m becoming less fair and less balanced.

I want to make it clear that I never suggested before that I was somehow dissociated from what is happening in Lebanon, and I never suggested that I was a “neutral” observer. Perhaps I should have made this clearer before, but I do wear a lot of hats in Beirut Spring, and those are not just the writing, the design and the programming.

Here’s a rule of thumb for the extra sensitive readers: In posts with the category “Plain Talking”, I write with a layman’s voice, without trying to be measured, fair or balanced. I just write whatever comes through my sometimes-angry, sometimes silly and sometimes rude head.

It is in posts with the category “News Analysis” where you should expect the more equanimous, analytical and “balanced” tone that lead some of you to think that this blog was “neutral” . I confess, those are much harder to write (and re-write), and I wish I could write more of them.

(Photo credit: AP)

The Arab delegation has landed in Beirut, but expectations remain bottom low for many reasons.

From the reception committee made by not-quite-resigned Minister of Exterior Fawzi Salloukh, standing proudly next to Brig. Gen. Wafik Shoucair — the man whose sacking supposedly sparked the entire hoopla in Lebanon — , to the composition of Arab dignitaries who obviously went through a rigorous Hezbollah selection process, to the proposal of a roundtable in Qatar –of all places!– for yet another Lebanese 7iwar, things are just not feeling right.

Remember, Qatar’s prince was sitting next to Syria’s president Bashar Al Assad as they both dissed Hezbollah’s coup as a “Lebanese Internal Matter”. Qatar and Syria both declined to take part of the emergency meeting called by Saudi Arabia to look into the Lebanese situation, claiming that the meeting won’t produce any results, effectively ignoring the blood baths that were taking place in Lebanon. How can the host of Aljazeera suddenly become a neutral ground where the Lebanese can kiss and make up?

How can one expect this delegation to be a fair arbiter if they had to go through the Hezbollah gate-keepers? How can one expect anything from them if they can’t enforce their own “initiative”, which everyone, including the French and the Americans, seem to be in denial that it was born dead?

If you have anything else to do, do it. Pouring over the news sites to see what comes out of the Arab delegation is a pure waste of time and bandwidth.

In 1982 Sharon’s army invaded Beirut …
In 2008, Nasrallah’s army invaded Beirut !

In 1982 the Israeli army oppressed the media…
In 2008, the Persian army oppressed the media!

In 2006 Nasrallah said that had he known that the kidnapping of 2 Israeli soldiers would prompt this reaction he would not have done it…
In 2008, Nasrallah didn’t forgive 2 decisions taken by the government!

In 2006 Israel used brutal force to counter an act of military resistance,
In 2008, Hizbullah used brutal force to counter an act of political resistance!

In 2006 Israel vetoed the condemnation of Israel ’s use of military force,
In 2008 Syria vetoed the condemnation of Hizbullah’s use of military force!

…and the analogy goes on!

We knew it all along: Hezbollah is turning into Israel. One more step and the analogy will be complete: A divine victory against Hezbollah.

The word that scared me most when I was a kid was “ردع” (deterrence force).

Every time I got out to play soccer in a court next door, I had to pass by one of their outposts. They looked scary with their big guns, dusty outfits and smelly rooms, and I never quite understood why they had such a big picture of Hafez el Assad in black shades (always in black shades) on a big wall.

These were the Syrian forces that got out of Lebanon in 2005. We were told they were part of a larger Arab force that was meant to come over temporarily to implement the Taef agreement and stand as a buffer between the Lebanese warring sides. We all know the rest of the story. The “deterrence” became an occupation that took pleasure in extortion, torture and harassment.

It has to be clear to the Arabs that any such force will be immediately looked at with suspicion and dread. We shouldn’t accept this.

A little something I designed for those who want to spread the word (details below)

Hidden under the coverage of explosions, smoke and gunmen roaming Beirut is the real story: Hezbollah and its backers in Syria and Iran can’t stand any voice that freely express a different point of view.

The guns were dispatched to silence the voice. All over Lebanon, in Beirut, In Tripoli, in Saida, and in Bekaa, Iranian and Syrian allies are targeting the media organizations that are critical of their regimes. This is an orchestrated, pre-planned campaign that includes dismantling hardware, destroying archives and intimidating Journalists.

Regardless of where we stand politically, we have to make it clear to the world that we will not accept tampering with the free exchange of ideas, the main foundation of any democracy.

Please do everything you can to spread the word and be part of this:

Bloggers and Website owners: Please include one of the banners below, depending on your size preference, by right-clicking the banner you want and copying its location. If you don’t know how to do this, send me an email to mustapha at beirutspring dot com and I’ll gladly help

Regular folks and activists:

1- The above vertical banner will make a great facebook profile picture (please also link to this post)

2- You can send an email with the text below to politicians, newspapers and anyone you know who might have access to international media.
Hidden under the coverage of explosions, smoke and gunmen roaming Beirut is the real story: Hezbollah and its backers in Syria and Iran can’t stand any voice that freely express a different point of view. The guns were dispatched to silence the voice. All over Lebanon, in Beirut, In Tripoli, in Saida, and in Bekaa, Iranian and Syrian allies are targeting the media organizations that are critical of their regimes. This is an orchestrated, pre-planned campaign that includes dismantling hardware, destroying archives and intimidating Journalists. We shall not accept tampering with the free exchange of ideas, the main foundation of any democracy.

Video:
Future TV Anchor Sahar Al Khateeb on the situation:

Future TV Manager Nadim Munla explains the situation:

Photo:
Future TV in Ras Beirut:

Blocking the road to the airport. (Photo credit: Reuters)

Today, Hezbollah needed a big fig leaf to cover its naked security assault on the government, on March 14 and on the average Lebanese citizen. Unfortunately for them, the cover the labor protests offered didn’t last much. It fell off as soon as Hezbollah’s own roadblocks prevented their hungry comrades from protesting. The party of god went on and raised the stakes, deciding to block off the roads to the airport “until the government withdraws its latest decisions”, namely those to unseat Hezbollah’s security officer in the Airport and dismantle their private communications network.

Is this a war Hezbollah can win?

Two signs indicate that it’s not. The first is the meagre turnout in Christian areas in today’s supposedly national demonstrations. Except in hardcore holdouts like in Mr. Sleiman Frangieh’s Zgharta, life looked normal in Jbeil, Kessrouan and Metn. It was, as one blogger puts it, a “grey Wednesday”, unlike last year’s “black Tuesday”. It is becoming increasingly obvious that Hezbollah’s Christian allies no longer have the stomach for Hezbollah’s bloody brand of resistance against Mr. Seniora’s government. Hezbollah’s support, in other words, is being reduced to its core Shiaa constituency.

The second sign is Hezbollah’s decision to block the airport’s road, which is seen as a huge gamble. Unlike the Beirut central district where they managed to camp for 500 days, every single Lebanese uses the Beirut RHI Airport, and blocking its roads will prove unsustainable. The summer season beckons and Lebanese diaspora from all sects will want to visit home. Shiaas especially send large amounts of cash to Hezbollah by stuffing their luggages with well hidden dollars from Africa and South America. Pressures on Hezbollah will mount from within and from without to clear up the Airport road. Expect Mr. Nassrallah tomorrow to announce a “magnanimous” order to clear the roads.

This has become a high-stakes game of chicken between the suddenly-bold government and the waning Hezbollah. The party that blinks first will lose big, and the bad news for Hezbollah is that time is not on their side.

In case you don’t know, here’s what a peaceful demonstration looks like:

Now compare to our opposition’s so-called peaceful demo:

(Photo Credit: Lebanese-forces.com)

Photo credit: LA Times

Is it a mark of desperation, hope or naivety that the LA Times features the “Good Morning Syria” show and reads way too much into it?

I think it’s great that the Syrian young generation will get to enjoy what we had in Lebanon for the last 25 years. But who said that this has anything to do with improving Syrian attitudes towards America?

What’s worse is that the Times is implying that this was somehow the achievement of the Syrian President (” All sprang up over the last few years with the approval of President Bashar Assad”), the same man who stays in power by boasting that he’s the most anti-American president of all Arabs and who’s popular in Syria precisely because of that.

But who cares? Cue the LA Times:

The rhythms and textures of daily life here are increasingly meshing with those of Western nations. On the streets of Damascus, people breezily draw in American sounds, sights and icons, making them part of their own cultural DNA. [..]

In a land viewed by the Bush administration as an associate member of the so-called axis of evil, 50 Cent floods the airwaves.

Apparently, all it takes to swindle west-coast journalists of venerable newspapers is for a 30-year-old Syrian to say: “We love Rihanna. It’s very cool. Syria is very cool.”

I don’t have a problem with blogs like the LA Times’s Babylon And Beyond saying that March 14 are making tactical errors. Heck March 14 can be so foolish sometimes you’d wonder how they’re still in power. But that’s no excuse to sneak stuff like this in:

Some are wondering whether the U.S. is playing the smartest game by refusing to bend to the opposition’s demands, without at least offering compromises. Ending the power vacuum by giving in to the opposition may be a short-term loss, but some say it will serve the long-term interests of America and its allies in the March 14 movement.

Perhaps the people over at Babylon And Beyond don’t remember that the latest attempt for compromise (the Arab Initiative) was scorned because it does not provide for the “Basket of Solutions” that the opposition keeps demanding, a slippery slope so steep March 14 might as well pack up and leave the country.