Bring In The Trabelsieh

Could the North be embracing for yet another counter-showdown?

Round 2 soon? 

There is a common joke in Beirut that it is dangerous to drop a coin in the presence of a Trabelsi, (someone from Tripoli in the North). The idea of the joke is that once you bend to get your coin back, the Trabelsi will immediately ‘attack’ from behind. (A not-so-subtle reference to the supposed homosexuality of Tripoli men)
 
The joke can be a nice metaphor for the political workings taking place today. As soon as Hezbollah mentioned money, the Trabelsieh MPs immediately pounced.
 
The MPs from the North came to share their misgivings with Prime Minister Seniora. Their position can be summed up by MP Mosbah Ahdab’s statement after the meeting:(my translation)

We came to discuss the needs of the City of Tripoli. We are hearing a lot of rightful criticism today concerning the payment of the July war reparations. But we wish to remind everyone that Tripoli was destroyed in 1986 (under Syrian shelling), and we were promised back then that we would receive 5 million LL for every residential unit destroyed. Today, we hear people on TV demanding 80 million LL for their residential units, while the government hasn’t paid the 5 millions it owes the people of Tripoli since 1986.

The visit by the Tripoli MPs, and Seniora’s promise to look into their demands, might not be completely innocent politically. Tripoli, a pro-government Sunni bastion, was at the forefront of the large counter-demonstrations that helped shore up P.M Seniora’s government in the face of the opposition’s mass uprising.
 
A similar gambit might be in the works today:
By equally claiming rights to reparations, the Tripoli MPS are not only pleasing their constituents. They are effectively establishing a counter-weight to the street movements expected from the opposition, and in the process creating a moral equivalence that will rid the southerners of their monopoly on ‘unfairness’ and deflate their movement of its political significance.

Did I mention that they are also reminding people that the Syrians shelled a populous and important Lebanese city back in 1986?