Sursock

How western powers blackmailed the Libyan revolution

2011-03-29T00:06:00.000+01:00

The western military assault on Muammar Gaddafi has been welcomed by millions of people horrified by the cruelty he is unleashing on the Libyan people. This war is being sold as a “humanitarian intervention” with strict guarantees that there will be no ground invasion.

The case for this intervention is very powerful, and has the tacit support from organisations such as Hezbollah in Lebanon, that have been, and remain targets for western imperialism. There can been no question that Gaddafi is deeply hated among Arab peoples, and that he is a cruel despot.

His attacks on civilians, the arial bombardment of demonstrations, the mass round-up and executions, has left the people in despair. The uprising that began on 17 February took place under the most difficult conditions, and the bravery and sacrifice of the revolution remains an inspiration to all.

The US and its allies, we are told, have been dragged into this war against their will. But the west is not innocent, nor is it impartial. Its interests are not those of the Libyan revolution, but aimed at guaranteeing a series of deals made by Gaddafi to the west.

It is ironic that among the heavy weapons destroyed by western warplanes outside Benghazi were artillery pieces supplied to the regime by the US, or that Gaddafi's airforce was recently refitted by France, or that UK supplied his security forces with some £40 billion in arms, including crowd control equipment.

Western powers have from the beginning made it difficult for the revolution to succeed on its own terms. Libya's Transitional National Council (TNC), the body that grew out of the revolution, made a series on simple demands in the first days of the uprising. Western governments refused to accept these until certain “guarantees” were in place.

The rebels asked for the recognition of the Transitional National Council; they demanded access to the billions in sequestrated regime funds in order to buy weapons and other crucial supplies; and they demanded an immediate halt to the “mercenary flights” that provided the regime with its foot soldiers.

The answer they received was an unequivocal No. The west declared that they did not recognise “governments”, only countries. They refused to block the mercenary flights as these “security contractors” play an important role in other conflicts — such as Iraq and Afghanistan. They objected to any weapons sales as they feared that these could fall into the hands of “Islamists terrorists”, and they refused to release the funds on “legal grounds”.

Instead western powers put a number of conditions on a revolution. They demanded that any future Libyan government would abide by all contracts signed by the Gaddafi regime. These contracts, including “generous” oil concession, had to be honoured without question. Western powers demanded that the strict repression of “Islamists movements” would remain, and that Libya would maintain its role as a guardian against the migration of Africans into southern Europe.

The UN made it a condition that a "genuine ceasefire" by the regime would bring the war to a halt. This would in effect pave the way for the partition of the country — the west of Libyan under control of the old regime and the east beholden to foreign powers.

In effect, the west has blackmailed the revolution. The TNC was forced to mortgage its future in order to guarantee its survival. One cannot but wonder why one month into this uprising the rebels still have few weapons, or body armour, or effective anti-tank weapons. That despite controlling key ports the rebels are still begging for ammunition and other other crucial supplies.

There is a second important principle. That “humanitarian intervention” is a dangerous precedent that has led to other disastrous wars. The case for humanitarian intervention made during the Balkan Wars in the 1990s became a cover for the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. These disasters exposed this credo as a lie. Now it is being repackaged and resold.

The hypocrisy and double standards of the imperialism do not need spelling out. In the days leading to the UN resolution and the launching of cruise missiles, Yemen's ruler (an important ally of the west) was gunning down democracy protesters, Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states were invading Bahrain to violently suppress the democracy movement there, and Israel launched its warplanes, once again, on Gaza.

The west and its allies in the Middle East have been thrown into turmoil by the huge movements for change sweeping the region. Now it is using its intervention in Libya as a way of regaining its foothold, and rebuilding its credibility. This intervention is without any doubt popular. But the interests of those making these revolutions are not those of the imperialism or the Arab regimes.

The Libyan revolution is not lost, but it has been forced to make deep compromises. The demands for freedom, for an end to poverty, oppression and humiliation still burn strongly. The movements sweeping the region are facing bloody repression, and are winning important victories. The real hope for Libya lay in the progress of these revolutions, especially those in Egypt and Tunisia.

When British troops entered southern Iraq in 2003 they were welcomed by long oppressed Iraqi Shias. But they also had a message for the foreign troops: "Don't forget to leave."

Police Attack Protestors at the Egyptian Embassy in Beirut

2010-01-23T21:58:00.014Z

The Demonstration was called by the Consultative Leftists Gathering (liqaa’ Yasari Tashawouri), Haraket Chaab, PFLP (Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine) and the Nasserite Popular Gathering (Tajamou’ El Chaabi El Nasseri).

The Liqaa’ Yasari Tashawouir included the following forces: The Lebanese Communist Party, Revolutionary Communist Gathering (4th International) and the Leftist Assembly for Change (Revolutionary Socialists).

In a meeting for the Liqaa’ Tashawouri on Thursday the 21st of January 2010, it seemed obvious from the meeting that the CP has not been preparing for the demo.

The Leftist Assembly for Change with other university groups and independent activists with the Revolutionary Communist Gathering, have had been organizing public meetings for the past 2 weeks preparing for the demo, flyers and invites had been distributed in different areas of Beirut, university groups and clubs had managed to get a good momentum between university students.

On Friday 22nd of January, one the eve of the demo, we had organized a Film screening in T-Marbouta, more than 80 people showed up, it seemed that everyone was prepared for the demonstration taking place tomorrow.

Thursday 23rd of January 2010, We arrived to the demo at around 10.30 AM, there was no one there except the Police, who obviously came prepared, the first thing I remembered when i saw them out of the window of the car we were in, was that of the Egyptian policemen standing ready to repress.

It seems quite likely that both police forces have had the same Anti-Riot training!

We parked, took out copies of Al-Manshour and the placards, got out of the car, everything seemed in order. We could see other protesters coming from the other end of the street.

The weather was promising, it seemed that it would not rain before 2 or 3 hours. At 10.45 the demo was taking shape, as groups of people slowly joined the demo, it felt like an assembly, as delegations came one after the other. The protest had a fresh spirit and was somehow different than the other recent protests that were organized before in solidarity with Gaza.

This time the majority of protesters were independent, they were not "Party Standing Soldiers", but people who were mobilized politically and looked at the demo as their own creation, their own common strength.

Just before 11:00 AM, a group of around 30 people were marching from the Cola roundabout, holding a big Palestinian flag, the Protest had assembled, chants were more heard from the crowd, the party flags were a minority within the protest, taken over by ordinary people, our paper were being sold by the minute, later on that night, we counted the sales to be about 120 copies, around half of the demonstrators had bought a copy.

By 11:00 AM, the protest had assembled, between 200 to 250 protesters gathered in front of the Egyptian embassy in Beirut, standing between the passing cars and the anti-riot police.

Chants called Husni Moubarak (The Egyptian President) as a US and Israeli dog, followed by other chants calling to keep fight on, the mood was definitely building up.

About 11:30 AM a quarrel started between the CP Disciplinarians (Indibat) and protesters (including CP Members) about blocking the highway. One of these Indibat gave a punch to some of the protesters and started screaming at those who were attempting to block the highway.

On the other side of the protest the CP Leadership as well as the Haraket Chaab and Nasserite leaderships were giving speeches, while their party members were chanting: "We don't need speeches, we need Actions";

At the point it was obvious that the general mood had changed, we started calling people to take over the street, while some of us continued quarreling with the Indibat. The street was blocked, and one of the Indibat guys was still screaming in my face, another joined him, and said: "is it the role of the left to block streets and annoy passing cars?” For him, it seemed that the role of the left is to stand by the sidewalks and wave to passing cars!

Just a few minutes later, a Mercedes passed through the protest, nudging one of the protesters, a group of people followed the car and broke its glass, and surrounded the car. (I knew later that it was the car of one of the CP Indibat members/officers who was angrily storming out of the demo with his new and polished black Mercedes)

In a matter of seconds, I saw the angry dogs of the anti-riots police crashing on the protesters, they grabbed some of the protesters and started beating them and dragging them, instantly protesters gathered around the policemen and pulled their comrades away from the hands and fists of the mad policemen and army soldiers.

This continued for a few minutes, then the protesters re-assembled taking over the street again, pushing the policemen and the army soldiers back; chants said: "Askar 3ala Meen, Ya Askar" (Soldiers soldiering on whom? Oh Soldiers)

One policeman, started kicking people around with his boots, his ranking officer, tried to pull him away, he attempts a last kick at one of the cameras in hand of a protester and misses it.

The street was reclaimed, and protesters re-organized, the CP leadership was still keen on ending the demo, as well as the Haraket Chaab, but it was obvious that they lost control over the crowd, and a rebellion had apparently took place and the "Insurgents" had won.

The insurgents included everyone except the leadership of the CP, their Indibat guys, and The Haraket Chaab Leadership; everyone else was with the insurgents’ block.

Chants continued, now some chants said, "The Leadership is standing between us and Palestine". The CP and Haraket Chaab leadership retreated, protest songs continued.

At 12:20 PM, we were steadfast and the policemen had opened their cages (metal barriers) and the water canon was aimed, it was obvious that they were waiting to hit.

At 12:30 PM, it seemed that we should start Marching, it was clear that this protest must not be simply dispersed, a battle had been won, so we decided to march through the streets neighboring the embassy, made a long turn and then ending it in cola, as all protesters left together, promising the embassy and police an another visit soon.

Score: Protesters (1) | Police (0) | Mubarak (-1)

It was clear for everyone who attended the Demo, that the police and the defeatist attitude of the CP leadership had lost, and the will to keep the momentum of protest against the regimes had won.

On Monday, a meeting will take place to re-organize and to continue Mobilization for later demos, we had promised the Egyptian Regime and the Anti-Riot Police another Visit, and we keep our promises.

The Elders of Hizbollah

2009-07-20T15:35:00.004+01:00

IDF troops handed Hezbollah-Vatican conspiracy theory, reports Haaretz:

The Pope and the cardinals of the Vatican help organize tours of Auschwitz for Hezbollah members to teach them how to wipe out Jews, according to a booklet being distributed to Israel Defense Forces soldiers.

Officials encouraging the booklet's distribution include senior officers, such as Lt. Col. Tamir Shalom, the commander of the Nahshon Battalion of the Kfir Brigade.

The booklet was published by the Union of Orthodox Jewish Congregations of America, in cooperation with the chief rabbi of Safed, Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, and has been distributed for the past few months.

The booklet, titled "On Either Side of the Border," purports to be the testimony of "a Hezbollah officer who spied for Israel."

"The book is distributed regularly and everyone reads it and believes it," said one soldier.

"It's filled with made-up details but is presented as a true story. A whole company of soldiers, adults, told me: 'Read this and
you'll understand who the Arabs are.'"

The copy obtained by Haaretz included a Pesach greeting from Shalom, "in the name of the Nahshon Brigade."

The story is narrated by a man named Avi, who says he changed his name from Ibrahim after he left Hezbollah and converted to Judaism. Avi says he was once close to Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and describes Hezbollah's purported close relationships with the Vatican and European leaders.

The IDF Spokesman's Office said in a statement: "The book was received as a donation and distributed in good faith to the soldiers. After we were alerted to the sensitivity of its content, distribution was immediately halted."

According to the book, Nasrallah was invited to join a delegation to tour France, Poland and Italy, including the Vatican. Nasrallah could not refuse an invitation from the Vatican, Avi explained: "We knew [the Pope] identified with Hezbollah's struggle."

The book describes the alleged visit of Hezbollah officials to Auschwitz, led by the Vatican: "We came to the camps. We saw the trains, the platforms, the piles of eyeglasses and clothes ... We came to learn ... Our escort spoke as he was taught. We quickly explained to him: Every real Arab, deep inside, is kind of a fan of the Nazis."

The booklet also describes how European politicians and journalists ostensibly work against Israel.

"Our escort introduced us to important figures who identify with our causes. Rich people, people with authority ... They allocate big budgets to all sorts of Israeli organizations that erode the standing of the IDF ... We have a special budget for encouraging politicians and journalists who serve our purposes. Every opinion piece that conforms to our position is rewarded
generously."

Rabbi Shmuel Eliahu, the son of former Sephardi chief rabbi Mordechai Eliahu, is known for his extremist views, and was once charged with incitement to racism after calling for the expulsion of all Arab students from Safed College after a terror attack in the area.

The younger Eliahu was also behind an online video in which he described the "miracle of our matriarch Rachel," whom he claims appeared before Israeli soldiers in Gaza to warn them of booby-trapped buildings during Operation Cast Lead.

"In some of the places we went in Gaza there was a woman who warned them ... 'Did they tell you who I am,' she said, 'I am the matriarch Rachel," Eliahu says in the video.

He claims his father confirmed the veracity of the story, and told him that he had prayed to Rachel: "I told her: Rachel, there's a war... Go to God, Blessed Be He, pray over the soldiers who sacrifice themselves for the People of Israel, so that they will strike and not be struck."

David Menahemov, an aide to Eliahu, claims the book is not fiction. "Avi is a real person and everything in the book is absolutely true," insists Menahemov.

"It's a totally true story, I know the guy personaly. He's an Arab, who even though he converted still acts like an Arab. We helped him to write and to translate it. We changed a few details to protect him and his family."

Israeli-Egyptian axis

2009-07-15T11:01:00.001+01:00

Associated Press reports:

Israeli and Egyptian officials say two Israeli warships have sailed through the Suez Canal toward the Red Sea in a move seen as a possible signal to Iran that the Persian Gulf nation is within Israel’s reach.

Israel says its navy uses the canal regularly. But the recent moves are significant given Israel’s refusal to rule out military action if Iran persists with a nuclear program Israel believes is aimed at building weapons. Iran denies that charge.

Israeli defense officials say two missile boats crossed the canal Tuesday. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the move was not officially publicized. A Suez Canal official confirmed the report.

An Israeli submarine had sailed through the canal to the Red Sea earlier this month.

Iran—movement

2009-06-29T19:01:00.001+01:00

The diversity of the movement in Iran reflects the different forces that have been drawn into the streets.

For the supporters of Mir Hussein Mousavi it about opening the country to the West. For the circles around his ally Hashemi Rafsanjani it is part of power struggle at the top. For the masses on the streets it is about poverty, alienation and the precarious living.

For the millions of women it is about social freedom and their status as second class citizens. For the students its about intellectual freedom. For the Iran’s diverse ethnic groups it is about their rights.

For the majority of ordinary people it has become a battle to reclaim the spirit of the 1979 revolution.

Put together the movement represents all the pent up frustration with a regime that wants to crush any hopes of change. For many the slogan “our vote was stolen” has come to symbolise a stolen revolution.

Most of all the events have shown that millions of people in Iran are no longer prepared to carry on in the old way, while the country’s rulers seem incapable of ruling on the old way. The country has reached a watershed.

Yet for this movement to continue, and have any chance of success, it has to be transformed further.

The one power that has yet to make itself heard is that of the collective strength of the working class.

Workers in Iran have been in revolt. A wave of strikes that began in 2004 has revived the grassroots committees that became the basis of workers’ control during the 1979 revolution. This was a decisive moment in the overthrow of the western backed Shah.

Events in Iran today have not reached this stage.

But many of the workers’ leaders are in jail. Its militants harassed and intimidated.

For the moment the regime hopes it can batter people off the streets. But it has lost its legitimacy, and from now on it can only enforce its will with the baton and the bullet.

How long Iran’s rulers hang on for power is unknown. Also unknown is the momentum of the movement.

But the one certainty is that the movement for change that has emerged over past 10 days represents a watershed. It speaks not only of Iran but for the deep sense of frustration across the whole of the region.

Iran—events

2009-06-29T19:00:00.000+01:00

Iran is in the grip of a popluar rebellion unseen since the 1979 revolution.

The rebellion began as a protest against alleged vote rigging, but has now become a movement that lays bare the deep contradiction inside Iranian society.

Over the next week these demonstrations became more than the contested elections.

This uprising revolved around four crucial days.

On the Saturday 13 June, the day after the presidential elections, tens of thousands of people spilled into the streets to protest at what they considered to be widespread election fraud.

These protests spread rapidly to other cites, including Tabriz in the north and
Esfahan, a city of 1.5 million south of the capital.

The Basaji militia loyal to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who won the elections, moved to crush the protests. The Basaji raided Tehran University which is the centre of the reform movement. Five students are believed to have been killed. There were similar raids, and many more deaths, in other universities across the country.

But far from taming the movement it grew in scope. On Monday 15 June millions of people turned out in the biggest demonstration since the 1979 revolution. Similar mobilisations across the country transformed the protest into a national movement.

Over the next two days supporters of Ahmadinejad and the opposition The two became involved in a battle of mobilisations. It would be a real test of popularity and support on the ground.

Rumours began to circulate that elements within the Revolutionary Guards mutinied, saying that they were there to defend the people. Unconfirmed reports say that the head of the Revolutionary Guards in Tehran, a decorated veteran of the war with Iraq, was arrested after he refused an order to attack the demonstrations.

The battles on Wednesday 17 June became decisive. Dispirited, Ahmadinejad's supporters melted away. The struggle became between the crowds and hated Basaji militia backed by riot police.

In Esfahan the rioting, that at times verged on an uprising, gave way to fear. The Basaji militia took the offensive in night time raids on popular neighbourhoods. The city, an important centre for the textile industry, had been at the centre of a mass strike by teachers several years before.

Meanwhile rumours began to circulate that workers at the giant car plant north of Tehran planned to hold two one hour protest strikes. While a statement from the heavily repressed bus workers union declared its support for the demonstrations.

One 26 year old worker in Iran contacted by Socialist Worker on Thursday of last week said that many people felt like it “was like 1979”. He spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The protests are very uplifting and most people do not see it as a challenge to Islamic rule,” he said. “But people are very angry, they have lost their fear of the state.”

“Many of the protesters do not have much affinity for Mir Hussein Mousavi and they are frustrated by the lack of alternative to both Mousavi and Ahmadinejad.”

“The movement is very determined and feel they can now express their deep frustrations about the country and its rulers.”

He spoke of the extreme tension ahead of Ali Khamenei’s key speech following Friday prayers and said many people were convinced that Iran’s supreme leader would give some concessions.

They would be deeply disappointed. Khamenei seems to have calculated that his threats would be enough to quell the protests.

The reformers and their allies inside the establishment called on the demonstrations to continue. This open defiance of Khameini illustrates the depth of the divisions within the Iranian state. Mousavi called for a general strike if he was arrested.

Hashemi Rafsanjani, Mousavi’s conservative ally, fled to the holy city of Qoms. He won the support of half the Guardian Council, the body that elects the supreme leader, in attempt to stage a palace revolution. But it was not enough to displace Khameini.

That night Tehran, and other cities, resounded to the wail of rooftop protests. By Saturday 20 June, Khamenei’s gamble seemed to have paid off.

The repression began to take its toll on the size of the demonstrations.

Security forces acted with extreme brutality on those who defied the ban on protest. The planned demonstration through Tehran was stopped before it could form. Police and militia charged into crowds that had gathered.

During the day snipers fired at protesters.

Some 30 people are said to have been killed, including the Neda Soltani, her last moments captured on a mobile phone camera. Her death has come to symbolise the cruel repression fo the regime. Mosques were ordered not to hold services to mark her death, while her family had to bury her in secret.

The battles on the Saturday became more frantic and desperate.

One eyewitness described how construction workers in Tehran come to the aid of demonstrators.

“We watched from our apartment window a clash between the police and the construction site workers at the Towhid Tunnel (in Tehran).

“The police tried to take a shortcut to ambush the protesters. The workers used shovels, bricks and construction equipment to stop the police. At this point the demonstrators joined in to help the construction workers.”

The involvement of workers, and the poorer neighbourhoods, is an indication of how this movement is reaching deep into Iranian society.

As Socialist Worker went to press reports were emerging of protest strikes involving millions of Iranian workers.

Many of the reports that have emerged from Iran are difficult to verify.

But the eyewitness statements and film footage of mass demonstrations and street battles, as well as disturbing science of brutal violence meted out by state security forces, point to a transformation of a movement from a protest over the elections into a deep convulsion from below.

Iran—statement

2009-06-23T12:28:00.003+01:00

Received this today. I cannot verify who this group is, but felt it should be published:

Statement # 1 by Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers’ Organizations about Presidential Election and recent unrest

Iranian people have witnessed the presidential elections in Iran. During the debates between candidates there was never any mention of destitute conditions of the working class, non-payment of wages, temporary-work contracts, medieval sentences of floggings, killings and incarceration of workers and labor activists, suppression of May 1st events….

The reality is that these candidates themselves are collaborators in creation of such impoverished conditions facing working class and majority of the population in Iran . That is exactly why amongst hundreds of candidates only these four were hand-picked.

In the election process all resources of capitalists, familiar and unfamiliar liberals, media networks of world capitalism: BBC, VOA, was utilized to convince people of elections as an arena for change. In various styles they attempted to convince people that their votes held some power and value. After the election it became obvious that all their propaganda were naught.

Voters discovered that their votes were misused. And now they are protesting in hundreds of thousands. People should have defended their rights by a boycott of the election, but in any instance the votes tossed into ballot boxes are being utilized by the regimes officials.

People have a right to protest such mistreatments. While condemning all the attacks on protesters we remind all that such protests should not be led by likes of Mousavi, Khatami, Kahroubi, or any other executives or elements of the capitalist order. These protests shall become a part of justice seeking by workers and toiling masses against the capitalist order.

Iranian working class has been struggling for its basic rights for years and in the process has been vigorously attacked by the protectors of Capital. In the 80’s simultaneous with execution and incarceration of hundreds and thousands of activists of social movements, especially labour movement, they executed Jamal Cheragh Vaisi, the speaker for May 1st event in Sanandaj.

In the era of so called “political reforms,” labor activists in Saghez were arrested and incarcerated for participating in May 1st events, egalitarian and freethinking writers were portrayed as hired pens, and some of them were killed in a process of chain murders.

In the past few years we have also witnessed Khaton Abad workers getting riddled with bullets, Mansour Osanloo, president of the executive board of Vahed Syndicate getting his tongue cut and incarcerated, Mahmud Salehi being jailed and denied medical attention while in confinement, flogging of labor activists on charges of participating in May 1st ceremonies, and arrests and incarceration of tens of labor activists in this year’s May1st event….

Student protesters were viciously attacked and their dormitories ransacked. Women’s movement and their activists asking for their basic rights were also beastly attacked, and incarcerated. The just rights of teachers and nurses were also violated, by firing from jobs and confinement in prisons.

Now the protectors of Capital are facing a dire crisis and reproaching each other. Working class and noble liberated people of Iran should expose such demagoguery. Bourgeoisie in whichever shape from or color cannot and will not guarantee the just rights and demands of Iranian workers and toilers.

At best the desperate attempts of capitalist class and their representatives are to turn workers into a reserve force that could be used to maintain their dominance. Working class and liberated people of Iran shall not trust them.

Workers, liberated and noble people of Iran!

Major tribulations for workers and all exploited masses are: exploitation, extensive unemployment and lack of any rights, inflation and unbearable high costs of living, lack of basics rights to from workers organizations, the right to strike, freedom of expression, and other civil liberties. Such obstacles could be overcome only by relying on the power of the working class as the main and most powerful societal force.

Workers and brave, justice seeking people of Iran and throughout the world, in their extensive, and freedom seeking protests could and should demand: the identification, arrest and prosecution of all those who ordered and implemented the recent suppressions and killings of people, and demand freedom of all those imprisoned during the recent workers’ and people’s protests.

We also demand the annulment of all sentences against workers and labour activists as well as activists of women’s movement and students’ movement.

Capitalist order is an order of barbarism, suppression and exploitation, an order of corruption, poverty, prostitution, and deprivation. Let’s unite and call for the eradication of the capitalist system.

Coordinating Committee to Help Form Workers' Organizations

June 18, 2009

www.komitteyehamahangi.com

www.komitteyehamahangi.blogfa.com

komite.hamahangi@gmail.com

Iran—bus drivers

2009-06-21T17:43:00.002+01:00

Statement from Tehran bus drivers:

In recent days we have witnessed the passionate presence of millions of women and men, the old and the young, and ethnic and religious minorities in Iran, people who want their government to recognize their most basic right, the right to freely, independently, and transparently elect, a right that in most societies around the world is not only recognized officially but for whose protection no effort is neglected.

In the current situation, we witness threats, arrests, killings, and naked persecution, which threaten to grow in dimension and lead to the shedding of innocent people's blood thus bringing a rise in popular protests and not in their decline. 

Iranian society is facing a deep political and economic crisis. Million-strong protests, which have manifested themselves with a silence that is replete with meaning, have become a pattern that is growing in area and dimension, a growth that demands a response from any responsible person and organization. 

The Autobus Workers Union in an announcement issued before the elections declared, "in the absence of the freedom for political parties, our organization is naturally deprived of a social institution that can protect it."

"Workers of the Autobus Workers Union consider their social involvement and political activity to be the certain right of each member of society and furthermore believe that workers across Iran as long as they submit the platforms of presidential candidates and a practical guarantee about campaign slogans can choose to participate or not participate in elections."

The fact that the demands of the vast majority of Iranian society go far beyond those of unions is obvious to all, and in the previous years we have emphasized that until the principle of the freedom to organize and to elect is not materialized, any talk of social freedom and labor union rights will be a farce.

Given these facts, the Autobus Workers Union places itself alongside all those who are offering themselves in the struggle to build a free and independent civic society. The union condemns any kind of suppression and threats.

To recognize labor-union and social rights in Iran, the international labor organizations have declared the Fifth of Tir (June 26) the international day of support for imprisoned Iranian workers as well as for the institution of unions in Iran.

We want that this day be viewed as more than a day for the demands of labor unions to make it a day for human rights in Iran and to ask all our fellow workers to struggle for the trampled rights of the majority of the people of Iran.

With hope for the spread of justice and freedom,
Autobus Workers Union

....

I will publish the story of the bus drivers attempt to form an independent union on Tuesday. And will try and confirm (double source) these stories.

Iran Khodro—strike declaration

2009-06-21T10:41:00.003+01:00

Protest strike declared in IranKhodro, the biggest car plant in Iran:

We declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran.

Autoworker, Fellow Laborers (Laborer Friends): What we witness today, is an insult to the intelligence of the people, and disregard for their votes, the trampling of the principles of the Constitution by the government. It is our duty to join this people's movement.

We the workers of Iran Khodro, Thursday 28/3/88 [Iranian calendar] in each working shift will stop working for half an hour to protest the suppression of students, workers, women, and the Constitution and declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran.

The morning and afternoon shifts from 10 to 10:30. The night shift from 3 to 3:30.

Labourers of IranKhodro

Marxism 2009—Beirut

2009-06-19T16:46:00.001+01:00

Iran—corruption

2009-06-16T17:47:00.004+01:00

Iran is a country ravaged by corrution. Ordinary people have to be pay bribes for services, to policemen and state officials. Students have to bribe examiners to get exam questions, and small businesses and traders—who were once the bedrock of the republic—have to pay heafty “bonuses” to officials for contracts.

This corruption led to many in the establishment to voice growing concerns over what was seen as the endemic mismanagement of the country.

In 2002 Ayatollah Jalaleddin Taheri, a leading figure in the southern city of Isfahan which is now one of the centres of protests outside Tehran, publicly denounced the “broken promises of the revolution”.

In his resignation speech delivered at Friday prayers Taheri said, “When I hear that some of the privileged progeny (clerics' sons) and special people, some of whom even don cloaks and turbans, are competing amongst themselves to amass the most wealth and to achieve their own ends.

“The ones who are pillaging the nation's wealth—yes, on behalf of the ones who think that Muslims' public wealth belongs to them and consider the country to be their private, hereditary property, I am drenched in the sweat of shame.”

Taheri gave voice to widespread perception that ”now the Shah and America are not in control of this country for us to be able to blame them for the shortcomings and problems.”

His biggest criticism was aimed at the pro-government militias. He denounced them as "henchmen of tyranny and the mercenary, unrefined, mad club wielders, with their false ideas and cruel behaviour.”

This widespread unease forced the parliament to appoint Abbas Palizdar, a onetime ally of Ahmadinijad, to investigate senior officials.

Palizdar’s enquiry exposed a network of kickbacks reaching into the heart of the establishment—including members of the powerful Council of Guardians, the head of special investigations, the Islamic Revolutionary Guards, the intelligence minister and even former president Ayatollah Hashemi Rafsanjani.

The biggest scandal involved some $100 million that when missing during the privatisation of Almakaseb, a large state-run trading company under the control of the son of a leading cleric. Other scandals involved the state-owned car company and public construction projects.

Palizdar found the most corrupt institution to be the powerful Revolutionary Courts that deal with dissent, drug smuggling and blasphemy. He found that those with money or influence had little to fear from the courts, even if the evidence against them was overwhelming. Those who could not pay were shown little mercy.

When Palizdar report was repressed he broke ranks and toured universities were he exposed the corrupt officials and their private projects. He was arrested in June 2008 and has not been heard of since.

The full report is available here.

Iran—a split in the ruling class

2009-06-16T17:45:00.004+01:00

The elections in Iran have revealed the deep divisions at the heart of Iran’s ruling class.

The country is internationally isolated, faces a growing economic crisis and is ruled by a faction associated with the “hardliners” that want to be the main beneficiaries of privatisation of state-owned companies.

This faction has coalesced around the incumbent president Mahmud Ahmadinijad. They see his populist appeal as an important bulwark against the deep discontent that is sweeping the country.

A second section fears that the widespread corruption at the heart of the system is undermining popular support for the republic. They want the economy opened up and strip from power those they see as lining their pockets.

This faction, that includes many senior figures in the religious establishment, has put its hopes in Mir-Hossein Mousavi.

Mousavi is an establishment figure. He was prime minister during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and played key role in the rise of the Islamic movement following the 1979 revolution.

He is respected for keeping the economy afloat during the war, and is considered a safe pair of hands.

Mousavi lost power in 1989 when the post of prime minister was abolished. Throughout the 1990s he became associated with the rising reform movement that wanted to limit the power of Iran’s new elite. His goal was always to steer Iran towards neoliberal “opening up” of the economy.

Mousavi was widely tipped to run for the president in the landmark elections in 1997. He gave way to Mohammad Khatami, then a little known cleric.

Despite winning 80 percent of the vote, and re-election in 2001, Khatami was unable to deliver reform, leaving the movement that brought him to power disappointed and demoralised.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad won the subsequent elections on a promise to root out corruption and ease the growing poverty among the mass of Iranian people.

Once in power Ahmadinejad presided over huge windfall from the spike in oil price. He used this money to widen his base among the urban and rural poor—even distributing free potatoes during the election campaign.

But sections of the establishment accused him of squandering the oil wealth and failing to plan for the subsequent collapse in prices.

Meanwhile many of his supporters were disappointed when reneged on his promise to tackle corruption.

Ahmadinejad was certain of victory in the elections. All the early polls showed him polling double the number of votes than his nearest rival. But the trends also showed the gap narrowing as Mousavi campaign grew in strength.

Like Khatami, Mousavi promised widespread reform, but also to limit their scope. His key promise was to make public the finances of the government—a threat to sections of the elite who have been creaming off Iran’s resources.

His advocates sweeping neoliberal economic policies as part of making the state-owned sector more “efficient”. But these policies have little popular appeal. So Mousavi also promised sweeping social reforms.

Mousavi pledged to declaw the much feared morality police that enforce strict rules on dress and behaviour. He promised to open the top posts in government to women and “review” the laws that limit their rights.

He said who would bring the police under presidential control. At present the security forces are answerable only to unelected supreme leader Ali Khamenei.

Mousavi and other reformers want to harness the growing disquiet in the country to oust one faction of the ruling class from power. They want Ahmadinejad and the hardliners removed, but also limit the scope of popular anger.

The danger is that this movement could quickly run out of their control.

Obama's speech

2009-06-12T12:57:00.002+01:00

There is lots to say about Obama’s speech, the most significant is that a black man is touring the region apologising for what white men have done. A point lost on many, but the symbolism is clear.

That Obama can deliver this speech in Cairo university is itself astounding.

If Bush had attempted to speak at the campus it would have been burnt to the ground. Obama instead is greeted with standing ovations from an audience that has not been shy in booing Egyptian ministers.

Fickle Arabs easily swayed by smooth words? That’s what many commentators would do doubt be thinking. But Obama’s tone is important.

Some, such as Noam Chomsky, have have dismissed it.

In his analysis Chomsky warns that “Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral US rejectionism.”

Others, such as William Pfaff, see it as a heralding a new era.

It is neither. But it does mark a shift in US strategy.

This speech needs to be seen in two parts. First what has not changed.

Echoing Bush’s 2002 “axis of evil” speech, Obama is committed to the “war on terror” . “When violent extremists operate in one stretch of mountains people are endangered across an ocean,” he announced.

Obama also warns Iran over its nuclear ambition and sets out to continue the war in Afghanistan.

Here is what’s different.

Gone is the rhetoric of “clash of civilisation” and “crusades” that characterised Bush and his supporters (especially from the pro-war left).

It is replaced with an acceptance of Islam, and the contribution of Muslims in creating civilisation. Easy words maybe, but a noteworthy departure from Islamobobia.

Obama said that, “Unlike Afghanistan, Iraq was a war of choice that provoked strong differences in my country and around the world... I also believe that events in Iraq have reminded America of the need to use diplomacy and build international consensus to resolve our problems whenever possible.”

And although Bush referred to Iran as part of the “axis of evil”, Obama acknowledges that the US bears responsibility for the tensions.

He said: “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government.”

He follows this with an appeal for negotiations.

This is not a continuation of Bush policies, but a departure. Bush wanted to invade Iran, Obama wants negotiations.

This softening of attitudes towards Iran is a recognition, if any is needed, that the US desperately need Iran to help out in Afghanistan and Iraq.

It is with Israel that real change of tone.

The president’s standard commitment towards Israel is laced with criticism.

He said, “It is also undeniable that the Palestinian people, Muslims and Christians, have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. For more than 60 years, they've endured the pain of dislocation.

“Many wait in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza and neighbouring lands for a life of peace and security that they have never been able to lead. They endure the daily humiliations, large and small, that come with occupation.

“So let there be no doubt, the situation for the Palestinian people is intolerable. And America will not turn our backs on the legitimate Palestinian aspiration for dignity, opportunity and a state of their own.”

In a remarkable passage he states:

“For centuries, black people in America suffered the lash of the whip as slaves and the humiliation of segregation. But it was not violence that won full and equal rights. It was a peaceful and determined insistence upon the ideals at the centre of America's founding.”

There are two messages here. The first is that Palestinians must lay down their weapons. But in a radical departure from previous US leaders, Obama is saying Palestinians are suffering as black slaves did.

Note the language: “lash of the whip”, “segregation”, “daily humiliations”, “the pain of dislocation”.

These words have caused deep concern inside Israel.

Israeli ministers have been running around Washington waving bits of paper signed by Bush that allow them to continue settlements in the West Bank. Obama has instead told them they had to stop.

So here is Haaretz on the reaction inside the Israeli government: “Netanyahu now understands what he already knew before the speech: The moment of political reckoning that he so feared is now rapidly approaching.

“The thunder he hears in the distance is the sound of the Likud legions and the West Bank settler hordes rolling down the mountains. The light on the horizon is not that of a new day, but of a train coming right at him—a night train from Cairo.

“Netanyahu will have to decide over the coming weeks whom he would rather pick a fight with: the powerful US administration, whose president sees himself in an almost messianic role, or his own coalition and members of his party.”

In these circumstances it is easy to dismiss Obama's words as rhetoric, and we know that he faces deep problems reconciling the tensions between US imperialism with its Arab allies. But tension there are—caused partly by popular anger over Palestine, but more directly by the deep hatred of the Arab regimes.

And although the Israelis care little of what happens in Afghanistan, or which government rules in the Arab world. Alfter all they have the comfort of a powerful army and some 50 nuclear warheads.

But it matters deeply to the US and the rest of the West. And if they needed any reminding then last Sunday’s victory by Hizbollah in the Lebanese elections is very sobering. The resistance won largely because of Israel’s 2006 war on the country.

Would another Israeli assault on Gaza mean the US loses Cairo? For the US the stakes are now too high abd the Israelis must be reigned in.

Obama's speech is a recognition of the deep problems faced by US imperialism in the region. He no doubt hopes he can charm his way out of this sticky situation.

The ultimate test is what happens in practice, on this point Chomsky is right. But what is significant is that it will be the Israelis who ensure that Obama will fail.

Elections: What the US bosses think

2009-06-12T12:49:00.003+01:00

The Wall Street Journal is over the moon over what it calls the "rebound of Saudi power." I won't mention the hypocrisy of the newspaper which a bastion of neo-conservative, pro-war, pro-Israel, and anti-Muslim, views... but not anti-Salafi (the conservative Saudi ideology).

Never mind. Here's it's take on the elections:

Saudi officials are savoring the weekend election victory in Lebanon of the so-called March 14 alliance.

The Western-leaning bloc held on to its parliamentary majority, despite some polls predicting gains by an opposition coalition headed by Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

"The vacuum of power among the Arabs has finally been filled. We can see that the balance is tipping in our favor," said one Saudi diplomat.

Saudi Arabia was a key player in ending the civil war in Lebanon in 1989, but its influence there waned after the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, a billionaire who made his fortune as a contractor for the Saudi royal family.

Since then, the Saudis have openly intervened on behalf of the government dominated by Mr. Hariri's party. It has pledged $1.5 billion to prop up the country's currency and to help rebuilding efforts after the 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel.

Opposition politicians in Lebanon accused Saudi Arabia of funneling money into the campaigns of politicians running alongside Mr. Hariri's son, Saad, who is now in the running to become Lebanon's next prime minister. Saudi officials have denied interference.

Influential Saudi-owned regional media outlets, however, waged their own public-relations campaign, warning in Lebanon of a looming crisis should Hezbollah and its allies win.

After the elections, Saudi's King Abdullah sent congratulations to the Lebanese people for their "successful" elections.

Tariq Alhomayed, editor of Asharq al-Awsat newspaper, owned by a brother of the king, went further, declaring in an editorial that the results showed "the fall of the Iranian project" in Lebanon.

Elections: What the UK bosses think

2009-06-11T16:52:00.004+01:00

The Economist magazine catches the mood of relief in the west over the elections:

The coalition that has struggled to govern Lebanon since 2005 surprised even many of its followers as it emerged from a fiercely contested general election with an undented parliamentary majority.

Its win cheered the Western powers that support the March 14 alliance led by Saad Harir...

Yet March 14’s capture of 71 out of 128 parliamentary seats also underlined the flaws in Lebanon’s cumbersome democracy ... Taking advantage of the imbalance between the size of the constituencies and the number of their MPs, the alliance gained a critical advantage from the massive turnout by Sunni voters in Christian districts, reflecting both demographic shifts and the financial clout of the Sunni political machine.

The opposition’s losses were mostly suffered by independent politicians allied to them. Hizbullah, which in the past has shied away from a deep exposure to what it calls “dirty” electoral politics, ran only 11 candidates, all of whom won handily.

The March 14 victory is unlikely to inspire any early settlement of the feuds that have bedevilled its politics. But for the time being compromise is in the air.

This is helped by the warmer winds blowing from Barack Obama’s America, and the rise in Iran, engaged in an election of its own, of powerful currents arguing for accommodation with the West.

Change we can believe in?

2009-06-05T08:28:00.005+01:00

It is easy to dismiss Obama's speech, and rightly. Noam Chomsky points to the substantive trap the US president finds himself in:

A CNN headline, reporting Obama's plans for his June 4 Cairo address, reads 'Obama looks to reach the soul of the Muslim world.' Perhaps that captures his intent, but more significant is the content hidden in the rhetorical stance, or more accurately, omitted.

Keeping just to Israel-Palestine — there was nothing substantive about anything else — Obama called on Arabs and Israelis not to 'point fingers' at each other or to 'see this conflict only from one side or the other.'

There is, however, a third side, that of the United States, which has played a decisive role in sustaining the current conflict. Obama gave no indication that its role should change or even be considered.

Those familiar with the history will rationally conclude, then, that Obama will continue in the path of unilateral US rejectionism.

....

But there is an edge, especially his criticism of Israel. Haaretz points to the problems Obama has with the new Israeli government:

During long, personal conversations with his inner circle over the past week, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu admitted that he had no idea what US President Barack Obama would say in his speech in Cairo. "We have no information," he said. He does now.

Netanyahu now understands what he already knew before the speech: The moment of political reckoning that he so feared is now rapidly approaching.

The thunder he hears in the distance is the sound of the Likud legions and the West Bank settler hordes rolling down the mountains. The light on the horizon is not that of a new day, but of a train coming right at him — a night train from Cairo.

Netanyahu will have to decide over the coming weeks whom he would rather pick a fight with: the powerful US administration, whose president sees himself in an almost messianic role, or his own coalition and members of his party.

...

In these circumstances it is easy to dismiss Obama's words as rhetoric, and we know that he faces deep problems reconciling the tensions inside US imperialism with its Arab allies. But tension there is, caused by popular anger over Palestine and hatred of the Arab regimes.

But Obama is not Bush Lite... it is deeper than that. The US hoped that its invasion of Iraq would project its power, instead it has laid bare its weakness.

If you turn the prism you can see the light refracted in a different way. Here is a black man trotting the globe apologising for what the white men did. This is significant, because it will be the Israelis who will ensure that he fails.

...

For the record here is Omaba's speech.

Note the reference to the struggle against slavery... he is saying that the Palestinians are like the slaves in the US. Anyone familiar with this history will understand that those who helped the slaves are heroes.

Here is the Bush "axis" speech.

Is all OK, right?

2009-06-04T13:31:00.003+01:00

Yes the economy is fine, says Forbes magazine:

Lebanon has been one of the unlikely success stories of the global financial crisis. The vital tourism and construction industries are booming, and capital is flowing into the country.

As optimistic Lebanese leaders, bankers and businessmen have emphasized, the success is primarily due to conservative bank-lending and bank-investment regulations, limiting exposure to mortgage-backed instruments and other products that have hurt the balance sheets of other international banks, including many Gulf countries.

A result of the country's long experience with perpetual instability in the national and regional political environment, conservative lending policies, backed up by a solid flow of remittances from millions of Lebanese abroad, have immunized the Lebanese economy from political turmoil.

Apart from the months immediately following the 2006 war with Israel, the Lebanese economy has experienced uninterrupted growth since 2001.

Healthy bank sector. A few years back, Lebanon's state regulations were subjected to heavy criticism from domestic and international bankers. Now the financial crisis has turned Lebanese banks into a safe haven in the region, and the economy has thrived:

--Bank deposits have grown steadily, rising 15% in the first three months of the year from the year-earlier period.

--Foreign currency reserves were estimated at 17.6 billion dollars in January 2009, up from 9.8 billion at the end of 2007.

--Foreign liquid assets stood at 22.3 billion at the end of March 2009, a record high.

Impact of the financial crisis. The banking sector's success is remarkable but does not detract from the fact that Lebanon's economy is well integrated into the global economy and will therefore inevitably feel some effects of its downturn in 2009. Private investors have incurred great losses in national and international investments, and the Beirut stock market alone has lost more than $5 billion since mid-2008.

The lack of capital investment will be felt in the crucial construction, telecommunication and service sectors in the medium term, particularly if the crisis continues throughout 2009.

...

But this optimism hides a slow burning crisis, writes Bassem Chit in Socialist Review:

Rafiq Hariri’s policies since the 1990s have mainly focused on borrowing money and then selling the US$40 billion accumulated debt to local banks with sky-high interest rates. As a result the state is going bankrupt.

...

Election battle

2009-06-04T13:22:00.003+01:00

Kaveh Afrasiabi writes in Asia Times on what is at stake in the Lebanese elections:

Where Iran has Hezbollah, Israel has Jundallah, given Israel's apparent efforts to destabilize Iran by playing an "ethnic card" against it. This, by some reports, it is doing by nurturing the Sunni Islamist group Jundallah to parallel Tehran's support for Lebanon's formidable Shi'ite group, Hezbollah, that is favored to win parliamentary elections on June 7.

Should the Hezbollah-led coalition win as anticipated, the result will be even closer military-to-military relations between Iran and Lebanon, reflected in Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrollah's recent statement that he would look to Tehran to modernize Lebanon's army.
.....

Afrasiabi develops this theme in a second piece :

Israel, it appears, is not wasting any time in cultivating the seeds of a future conflict with Lebanon, where a military defeat for a Hezbollah-controlled government would be devastating to Hezbollah's political fortunes.

It has recently been revealed by former Israeli chief of staff General Dan Halutz that Israel failed to assassinate Hezbollah's political leader, Hassan Nasrallah, during the 2006 Lebanon war.

This, together with the Lebanese government's arrest of nine Lebanese who were spying for Israel's Mossad, reflects the basic tenor of Israel's one-dimensional security approach toward the evolving political developments in Lebanon.

Conspicuously absent in the US and Israeli calculations about the political and geostrategic implications of a Hezbollah victory is any appreciation of how this may actually deepen Hezbollah's moderation.

Pay the ticket... take the ride

2009-05-06T09:20:00.004+01:00

Olivia Sterns of the Huffington Post took the trip across the Lebanon mountain ranges:

I recently found myself packed like a sardine with 7 strange Syrian men in a maroon-colored Denali hurdling across the border from Syria to Lebanon. Well, almost hurdling.

To be sure, the driver was speeding and swerving every chance he got, burning similarly overstuffed sedan-size "service taxis" in the dust, but every couple of kilometers we found ourselves stopped at a new checkpoint. Read more...

June elections—runners and riders

2009-04-24T07:58:00.002+01:00

The AFP reports:

Some 587 candidates have thrown their hats into the ring for the June parliamentary election.

Three Armenians have already been selected unopposed in seats in Beirut and the Christian stronghold of Metn east of the capital after rival candidates withdrew, Interior Minister Ziad Baroud said at a press conference.

This gives two seats to the opposition, led by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and one seat for the current Sunni-led ruling majority, ahead of the June elections.

Candidates can still withdraw before June 7 but their registration fee will not be reimbursed.

* * *

Meanwhile the New York Times is pushing the idea that the elections are nor legitimate as most votes will be bought. I get the feeling that despite being accurate, this story is overblown as the pro-Israeli newspaper is worried about the outcome, and so wants to begin muddying the waters.

Here's the report:

Votes are being bought with cash or in-kind services. Candidates pay their competitors huge sums to withdraw. The price of favorable TV news coverage is rising, and thousands of expatriate Lebanese are being flown home, free, to vote in contested districts.

The payments, according to voters, election monitors and various past and current candidates interviewed for this article, nurture a deep popular cynicism about politics in Lebanon, which is nominally perhaps the most democratic Arab state but in practice is largely governed through patronage and sectarian and clan loyalty.

Despite the vast amounts being spent, many Lebanese see the race — which pits Hezbollah and its allies against a fractious coalition of more West-friendly political groups — as almost irrelevant.

Lebanon’s sectarian political structure virtually guarantees a continuation of the current “national unity” government, in which the winning coalition in the 128-seat Parliament grants the loser veto powers to preserve civil peace.

Still, even a narrow win by Hezbollah and its allies, now in the parliamentary opposition, would be seen as a victory for Iran — which has financed Hezbollah for decades — and a blow to American allies in the region, especially Saudi Arabia and Egypt. So the money flows.

“We are putting a lot into this,” said one adviser to the Saudi government, who added that the Saudi contribution was likely to reach hundreds of millions of dollars in a country of only four million people. “We’re supporting candidates running against Hezbollah, and we’re going to make Iran feel the pressure.”

Mobile free-for-all

2009-04-22T22:05:00.008+01:00

This from Wireless News:

Alfa, the mobile operator, announced that it is keeping on strengthening its network in all Lebanon by installing 16 new transmissions Stations. Including two transmission stations in Tripoli, and a transmitter each for Batroun, Achrafieh, Tal Zaatar, New Rawda, Soujoud (Jezzine Caza), Tamich and Shyah (Karout Mall).

Alfa is the brand name of one of the two state mobile networks. Alfa is managed by Orascom Telecom Holding (OTH) starting February 1, 2009. Orascom is an international telecommunications company operating GSM networks in the Middle East, Africa and South Asia, having a total population under license of approximately 453 million with an average mobile telephony penetration of approximately 46 percent.

Orascom Telecom operates GSM networks in Algeria (”OTA”), Pakistan (”Mobilink”), Egypt (”Mobinil”), Tunisia (”Tunisiana”), Bangladesh (”banglalink”), Zimbabwe (”Telecel Zimbabwe”), and North Korea (”Koryolink”).

Through its subsidiary Telecel Globe, OTH also operates in Burundi, the Central African Republic and Namibia. Orascom Telecom had over 79 million subscribers as of September 30th, 2008.

Orascom Telecom is traded on the Cairo & Alexandria Stock Exchange under the symbol (ORTE.CA, ORAT EY), and on the London Stock Exchange its GDR is traded under the symbol (ORTEq.L, OTLD LI).

* * *

But according to India's Economic Times:

Telecom companies Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, BSNL and MTNL are looking to bid for licences and buy telecom companies in Syria and Lebanon.

Last week, the Syrian government announced that it would soon put up the country’s third mobile licence for auction. Besides, it also wants to privatise state-owned Syria Tel Mobile Telecom.

Similarly, Lebanon has two state-owned mobile companies and its government has announced that it wants to privatise both the companies.

* * *

While Reuters reports that:

Emirates Telecommunications Corp ETEL.AD (Etisalat) posted on Monday a 4 percent rise in first-quarter net profit and said it was interested in bidding for telephone licences in Syria and Lebanon.

Etisalat said in a statement it was on the lookout for investment opportunities and seeking to grow in the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

"Etisalat is working through a conservative policy to search for investment opportunities that might emerge as a result of the global crisis," said Chairman Mohammed Omran.

"We will continue to observe and study various markets in the Middle East, Asia and Africa since they are high density."

"Etisalat has a great interest in competing for the licences available in Syria and Lebanon once they are officially put to bid."

Code Pink on Iran

2009-04-22T10:14:00.004+01:00

This from Haaretz... be warned:

Israel is stepping up its public relations effort to discredit Iran within the international community, and part of its new campaign focuses on Tehran's abuse of human rights and sponsorship of terrorism.

"We have to lay the foundation in the world, and particularly in Europe, in order to be able to take harsher steps against Iran, especially in the economic sector," said one senior political source in Jerusalem.

The new campaign, to be overseen by the Foreign Ministry, aims to appeal to people who are less concerned with Iran's nuclear aspirations and more fearful of its human rights abuses and mistreatment of minorities, including the gay and lesbian community.

The campaign plans to recruit the international gay community, which Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad dismissed in 2007 when he said there were no homosexuals living in his country.

The campaign will also reach out to Jewish groups who want to bring more attention to Ahmadinejad's Holocaust denial and some members of the Iranian regime's anti-Semitic and anti-Zionist views.

About NIS 8 million have already been budgeted for the new campaign, which also includes increased briefings for foreign journalists on the Iranian nuclear program and greater use of the Internet and sites such as YouTube.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman want to broaden the PR campaign on the subject of Iran in the wake of increasing international willingness to negotiate with Tehran over its nuclear program.

One political source said there appear to be greater expectations in the U.S. and in Europe that diplomacy will solve the nuclear dispute.

However, the assumption in Israel is that dialogue will not lead to fundamental change in Tehran's stance and that the regime will not relinquish its nuclear aspirations, even in exchange for an incentives package from the international community.

The senior political source in Jerusalem said it is necessary to lay the groundwork now for the possible diplomatic failure.

Despite talk of a military strike on Iran's nuclear facilities, the current campaign focuses more on harsh economic sanctions against Tehran.

Meeting

2009-04-17T12:14:00.000+01:00

يدعوكم التجمع اليساري من اجل التغيير الى

عرض فيلم: نوبة صحيان، المدة: 10 دقائق

يتبعه ندوة تحت عنوان:

الحركة العمالية المصرية: بين قمع اجهزة الدولة ومعركة الاستقلال النقابي

يتكلم فيها: عمر سعيد، عضو في مركز الدراسات الاشتراكية في مصر

وذلك مساء الثلثاء 21 نيسان 2009، الساعة السادسة والنصف

المكان: بيت زيكو، اول شارع سبيرز، الصنائع، بيروت

Israel's spy

2009-04-16T11:50:00.002+01:00

This from LA Times:

A former Lebanese security officer and his wife have been arrested on suspicion of spying for Israel.

The intelligence branch of Lebanon's Internal Security Forces (ISF) have locked up a retired brigadier general identified only as "Adib A." and his wife on suspicion of belonging to an Israeli spy network.

[Note the Tayyar website identify him as Retired General Adib Alaalam]

The general was described as a “valuable catch” in the left-leaning daily Al Akhbar by an unnamed high-ranking security official. Though retired, he continued to maintain an office at the general directorate of the ISF, which he allegedly turned into a communications center for passing information to the Israelis.

News of the arrests comes just one month after military prosecutor Rashid Muzhir said he would seek the death penalty for two brothers arrested and charged with espionage last year.

According to another security source quoted by Al Akhbar, the retired general has confessed to working with Israeli intelligence services for the last 10 years, but insists his role was limited to gathering information and that he never carried out assassinations or bombings.

Suspicion fell on his wife as an accomplice based on information she gave during questioning.

Both hail from Lebanon's Bint Jbeil area along the border with Israel and could potentially have access to information about Lebanese security forces and militant groups there.

The official said ISF intelligence has been monitoring a group operating throughout Lebanon and especially south of the Litani river for several months now, indicating that more arrests are probable.

The network was reportedly uncovered after a young man was detained for possession of a large weapons cache. The youth was later linked to Israeli intelligence agents in Europe, but the charges could not be proven and the case was left to European spy agencies.

The paper went on to note that the investigation is expected to reveal even more sensitive information, “especially since the directorate [of General Security] has started coordinating with more than one party relevant to intelligence operations in Lebanon,” referring, most probably, to Hezbollah, the Shiite militant group.

Twice in the last seven months, Hezbollah has handed over suspected spies to the Lebanese army after conducting its own investigations.

In November, the group arrested brothers Youssef and Ali Jarrah for their alleged link to the assassination of Hezbollah official Imad Mughniyeh, and in February, Marwan Faqih was detained and accused of supplying bugged cars to the militia. All three were handed over to the Lebanese army.

Israel above the law

2009-04-16T11:44:00.002+01:00

This from the AP newsagency:

Israel is unlikely to cooperate with a Gaza war crimes probe because it distrusts the UN agency sponsoring the investigation, an Israeli government official said.

Gaza’s Hamas rulers said they would work with investigators from the UN Human Rights Council which ordered the investigation in January, shortly after Israel’s three-week military offensive in Gaza.

The Israeli government official said Israel sent its response concerning cooperation to the UN agency a week ago.

He said Israel is “very unlikely” to cooperate. He spoke on condition of anonymity and said he could not elaborate because it’s not clear whether the head of the investigation, Richard Goldstone has been briefed.

Israel’s likely refusal to work with Goldstone raises questions about whether he will be able to carry out his mission.

Investigators have not yet said when they will visit the region, but without Israeli cooperation they would be denied access to crucial information from the military.

Goldstone, 70, is Jewish, has close ties to Israel and is known for his impartiality.

But Israeli diplomats said their opposition has nothing to do with who heads the investigation.

Yousef Rizka, an adviser to Gaza Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh of Hamas, said that the investigators “will find full cooperation of the Palestinian government and Palestinian people because the crimes of the occupation are clear and no one can underestimate them.”

Armenian vote

2009-04-16T10:05:00.003+01:00

The BBC has an interesting piece on the Armenian-Lebanese:

In the upcoming parliamentary election in June, the main Armenian political party, Tashnak, looks set to play kingmaker.

The vote of the 150,000-strong Armenian community may sway the outcome of the bitter and close race between the pro-Western government and the opposition led by Hezbollah, a Shia group backed by Syria and Iran.

In the run-up to the election, politicians from both blocs have been fighting for the Armenian votes.

But of the three Armenian parties, Tashnak enjoys most support and it has already made its choice, joining the Hezbollah-led alliance.

"What makes us strong is our unity. That's how we survive as a community, that's how we preserve our identity - and that's why I'll vote with everyone else," Mr Havatian says.

But voting for the opposition is also highly unusual for the Armenian community, which has traditionally gone with the government, not against it.

In Lebanon's confessional political system, Armenians - like other major religious and ethnic communities, have an assigned number of seats in parliament.

For years, these seven seats were always won by the Tashnak Party.

But in 2000, a new law backed by Prime Minister Rafik Hariri redrew the electoral map of Beirut, dividing the Armenian neighbourhoods among districts with Sunni Muslim majorities.

As a result the Tashnak party lost seats to lesser-known Armenians who supported the Sunni Muslim prime minister.

"We were forced to go to the opposition," says Tashnak MP Hagop Pakradounian. "We simply cannot trust the government anymore."

For the Tashnak party and its supporters, the June election is a chance to re-establish its parliamentary foothold.

More toys for the army

2009-04-14T14:25:00.008+01:00

According to the PA:

The US Embassy says the US will provide Lebanon will 12 unmanned military aircraft in the coming months.

Since 2006, the US has provided Lebanon with more than a billion dollars in assistance, including $410 million to support security.

The US hopes a strengthened Lebanese military would spread state authority across a country buffeted by political and sectarian divisions. An Embassy statement Tuesday said Lebanese air force members are training on the Raven.

Picture above: How to launch a Raven using the delicate steps of a ballerina. As part of the new cultural sensitivity approach favoured in the US, the Lebanese army will be taught to launch the drone while dancing the dabke.

So farewell, dear brother

2009-04-10T23:36:00.006+01:00

A personal note. I want to say farewell to my dear brother Carlos who died last week. He fought for reason in a world that is cruel and brutal and shallow. He finally made that gesture of ultimate protest when he took his life. We lay him to rest on Saturday.

I have few words to describe the grief I feel, not just for Carlos, but for all those who have been taken before their time.

This from the revolutionary poet Percy Bysshe Shelley:

'And these words shall then become
Like Oppression's thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again - again - again -

'Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number -
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you -
Ye are many - they are few.'

US obsessed by July war

2009-04-10T23:28:00.003+01:00

The US and Israel keep reminding us that they beat Hizbollah in the July 2006 war. Still all the news emerging from the Pentagon confirms what even the most simple minded Israeli politician knows—they lost, and lost bad.

So take a look at the row raging inside the US military, reported here in the Washington Post:

Soon after the fighting ended, some military officers began to warn that the short, bloody and relatively conventional battle foreshadowed how future enemies of the United States might fight.

Since then, the Defense Department has dispatched as many as a dozen teams to interview Israeli officers who fought against Hezbollah. The Army and Marine Corps have sponsored a series of multimillion-dollar war games to test how U.S. forces might fare against a similar foe.

U.S. military experts were stunned by the destruction that Hezbollah forces, using sophisticated antitank guided missiles, were able to wreak on Israeli armor columns.

Unlike the guerrilla forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, who employed mostly hit-and-run tactics, the Hezbollah fighters held their ground against Israeli forces in battles that stretched as long as 12 hours.

They were able to eavesdrop on Israeli communications and even struck an Israeli ship with a cruise missile.

Remove sectarianism

2009-04-09T17:51:00.002+01:00

We don't teach history

2009-04-09T17:41:00.004+01:00

The BBC notes that Lebanese schools don't teach modern history. But the radical left do (see below for meeting with Fuad Traboulsi, author of A History of Modern Lebanon)

The BBC story:

Modern history is not part of the curriculum in Lebanon and, just like thousands of other children, Kristina and Ali - who are both 14 - turn to their families for answers their history teacher cannot provide.

"When I want to know something, I ask my dad," Ali says.

Kristina, who comes from a different religious background, says she does the same.

Their history teacher does not like the arrangement but, in a country split along sectarian lines, she prefers to stick to it.

"Sometimes students ask about more recent events," she says, "but it's difficult to explain things to them without getting into sectarian divisions."

In Lebanon, children are not taught modern history because adults cannot agree on it.

Even the country's ancient history is a thorny issue.

Lessons of war

2009-04-09T17:35:00.002+01:00

Musica 3

2009-04-08T13:04:00.001+01:00

Palestine archipelago

2009-04-03T13:19:00.007+01:00

This extraordinary re-imagining of the occupied West Bank as an archipelago shows how Palestinian areas have become cut-off from each other by Israeli settlements, roads and checkpoints.

Helem in New York

2009-04-03T10:45:00.005+01:00

Georges Azzi of Helem, the Lebanon's LGBT rights group, addressed a gathering in New York.

Azzi made clear that the struggle for equality is part of the wider resistance in the Arab world:

Helem opened its center to people displaced by the Second Lebanon War in 2006. The majority of those who sought refuge were Shiite Muslim, and Hezbullah representatives visited the center and other shelters to ensure they were receiving care.

"If it’s possible in Lebanon, its possible anywhere." Helem members also participated in marches and other protests against Israel’s incursion into the Gaza Strip earlier this year.

A front page article in Helem’s annual newsletter accused Arab leaders and the United Nations of "enjoying a massacre done with bestiality-something they don’t see every day." The article further opined the scenes from Gaza caused people around the world to demonstrate and even riot in the streets.

A handful of people walked out of a panel discussion at the LGBT Center in lower Manhattan on Tuesday on which Azzi was a panelist after a journalist asked him about the article.

Azzi was quick to point out it attacked the Israeli government-and not Israelis themselves. He added, however, he feels Helem has a responsibility to show what he described as solidarity with Gazans and those who spoke out against the Israeli incursion.

Stupid Arab rich lose $2.5 trillion

2009-04-03T10:28:00.005+01:00

The AP reports that Arab world has lost some $2.5 trillion in the global slump created by toxic deals that the global rich seemed to think would grease their wheels for years to come. The total is probably bigger.

Forbes runs the story. Wonder what even a portion of this money could have done for the regions poor.

Read and weep:

Arab financial officials said Thursday that the global economic crisis had cost the region's investors about $2.5 trillion, offering a sobering look at the challenges confronting the region's leaders despite their repeatedly rosy assessments of their nations' ability to weather the financial downturn.

The comments at the start of a two-day Arab Economic Forum focused the spotlight on the damage done in a region that has enjoyed steady growth for the past few years.

Adnan al-Kassar, a leading Lebanese banker and former economy minister, said that among the effects of the crisis in the Arab world was a 20 to 60 percent drop in the region's top stock markets, the decrease in worker remittance revenues and the cancellation of mega projects.

But al-Kassar didn't specify whether the $2.5 trillion in losses also included sovereign wealth funds held by some of the countries. Those funds are secretive and the exact amount of their losses has not been revealed.

In tandem with the equity markets slump, the governments of many of the Arab world's top oil producers are seeing revenue fall as oil prices fell from mid-July highs of $147 per barrel to roughly $50 per barrel at present.

Crude revenues are a mainstay for many of these countries, and the slide is forcing Saudi Arabia, for example, to project a deficit for the first time in 2002.

On a near daily basis, Arab newspapers report layoffs, with some of the most troubling headlines coming from Dubai, the one-time Gulf boomtown now mired in debt.

The job creation issue is paramount for many of the Arab nations. With a surging youth population, Arab governments face daily challenges of providing opportunities to a population that is often courted by Islamists. The ensuing tug-of-war carries broad domestic and international security ramifications.

As a result, Arab nations - particularly in the oil rich Gulf - have been careful to ensure that layoffs stemming from the downturn hit the countries' expatriate workforce, not the much smaller national labor force.

Bahrain police riot

2009-04-03T09:58:00.003+01:00

The BBC have posted footage of a police riot in Bahrain.

It the reports:

On 13 March at about 1530, unemployed dustman Muhammad says he stepped out into the street to join a peaceful demonstration to protest against brutality by the police forces.

Five minutes, later along with about 50 others, he says he was fired upon by members of the Bahraini security forces. He was hit in the legs with a shotgun blast.

Asked if he or the others had done anything to provoke or threaten the security police Muhammad (not his real name) replied "Absolutely not!"

"There was no violence," he insisted. "It was a peaceful demonstration. The police opened fire without provocation."

Video footage of the incident - supplied to the BBC by a Bahraini human rights organisation - would appear to corroborate Muhammad's account.

It shows a line of police standing near from a group of protesters carrying Bahraini flags. Suddenly and without any apparent cause, the police open fire.

Members of this island nation's Shia community say they had joined the protest against alleged police brutality.
Divisions in society

The tiny island kingdom of Bahrain is unique in the Arabian Peninsula in that it has a Shia majority, thought to be about 65% of the population.

But like the other Arab Gulf states the ruling elite is Sunni. And with the Shia Muslim-led Iran just across the Gulf and tensions growing between Islam's two largest sects, Shia here find themselves under suspicion.

Members of the ruling family and its Sunni supporters in parliament have long accused Iran of fomenting unrest in Bahrain. Bahraini Shia organisations say Iran has nothing to do with it. They say Shia have long been victims of discrimination.

They accuse members of the royal family of seizing Shia land, and point to poor housing, high unemployment and employment discrimination as the root causes of what is now becoming almost nightly rioting in their villages.

Tear gas, rubber bullets and stun bombs are used to quell disturbances, but the alleged use of live ammunition signals a trend that is disturbing many people in Bahrain.

Khalil al-Marzok MP, a member of a Shia political party and a leading activist, says excessive use of force is making a volatile situation ever more dangerous, particularly for young Shia men.

"There is an increasing level of force being used and all that is doing is creating anger and more violence."
Government response

In a statement, a spokesperson from the Interior Minister's office told the BBC that the use of shotguns against ordinary citizens is not permitted as a general policy.

"Their use is allowed only in rare cases under the law, such as when people's lives are in danger or when the use of force becomes the only means for the security forces to perform their duty," the statement says.

It says all security personnel are aware of this policy and obey it.

But evidence of the use of live fire has continued to emerge. On 27 March, three children aged of 11 to 14 were reportedly hit by shotgun pellets, including one who was badly injured.

"We want a dialogue and we are trying to persuade the authorities that the opportunity to talk is still there," says another Shia MP, Jasim Husain.

But he says the political will to make that happen is not coming from either the ruling family or the government.
"Without dialogue," he says "I'm not sure where this country is going."

Equality now

2009-03-23T10:07:00.004Z

The Lebanese elections are coming up! Will the politicians listen to the real voices of their people? Article 534 of the Lebanese Penal Code criminalizes "sexual acts against nature" and is used to target homosexuals and promote a general public hatred towards LGBTs in Lebanon.

It is high time we strongly demand that the government remove this article and ensure equality for all its population without discrimination.

We are asking Lebanese people only (in Lebanon and abroad) to sign this petition so that we reach 10,000 citizens whose voices cannot be ignored in our country any longer. Gay or straight—it doesn't matter.

Our cause is about human dignity and the right to protection. It is time we all stood together and recognized that none of us are free until all of us are free.

Once this petition hits 10,000 people, we will send it to all 128 members of the Lebanese parliament (hopefully right after the elections in June), as well as to the parliamentary human rights committee, the Ministry of Justice, Ministry of Interior, and Ministry of Social Affairs.

You can sign the petition online here.

Under 18's now admitted

2009-03-22T22:46:00.006Z

The The BBC reports that the Lebanese parliament has finally lowered the voting age to 18... after many, many years. All that is needed is a constitutional amendment, apparently.

This could shift the electoral terrain, but not yet. According the the report:

It is expected to take several months and under-21s will not be able to vote parliamentary elections in June.

The measure is likely to benefit the Shia Muslim political groups Hezbollah and Amal who were pushing for a change.

The elections are expected to be hotly contested between Shia-led opposition allies and a Sunni-led pro-West bloc.

However, analysts believe the numbers of the Shia Muslim community are rising fastest, and gaining demographic strength at the expense of the once-dominant Christian community.

Some clauses of the electoral law were amended last year, but MPs initially opposed proposals for lowering the voting age and introducing a quota for women in parliament.

Cluster bombs... 2 years on

2009-03-21T08:10:00.002Z

The BBC runs a report on the lasting legacy of Israel's cluster bombs.

Rasha is her mother's biggest helper.

Seated on the floor of their tiny house in Marake, a village in southern Lebanon, the girl slouches over a bag of thyme placed in front of her.

Her thin, well-trained fingers move fast as she sorts the herbs, separating leaves from the stems.

For Rasha's family, thyme is the main source of income. Her father, Mohammad, harvests the wild herbs, while women sort, dry and sell them.

But Rasha hates the chore, and the memories it brings back.

She was 15 when, two years ago, she picked out a round shiny object from a bag of thyme her father had brought home. It exploded right in the room.

"I'd heard of cluster bombs, I had seen posters of them in school - but how could I imagine that something like that was possible?" she asks.

Her mother, Alia, looks away as Rasha pulls up her jeans and shows me the result of the explosion - her left leg is missing.

"I can't look at it," the woman sighs. "I cry every time I give her a bath. I am worried how it will affect her future."

Resistance

2009-03-17T19:29:00.000Z

Public lesson

2009-03-13T07:50:00.007Z

Farah reports on the national protest by teachers in Beirut over cuts in health provisions.

Picture: A teacher uses a copy of al-Manchour to shield himself from the sun.

No tanks

2009-03-06T08:14:00.002Z

Remember those M60 tanks the US promised the Lebanese army... well they don't work. And as for the Cobra helicopters... Isreal said "no".

Here's Haaretz:

According to American planning, Lebanon was supposed to receive M-60 tanks and 10 Cobra helicopters.

The tanks and the helicopters are parked for the moment in Jordan - part of old equipment that the Jordanian kingdom wants to replace.

Lebanese army experts who came to examine the equipment received the impression that the tanks are in need of comprehensive mechanical work and a large number of spare parts; in short, a substantial financial outlay.

They didn't even get to the Cobras, because Israel informed the Pentagon that it is vehemently opposed to letting the Lebanese army have such helicopters.

Israel's viewpoint when it comes to arming the Lebanese army is a decisive factor in the decisions of the U.S. administration.

"We don't have a conversation on these matters without considering the concerns of Israel and Israel's qualitative military edge. That's a U.S. commitment that we take very seriously," explained Chris Straub, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Near East and South Asia.

The Scream (2009)

2009-03-02T19:45:00.000Z

Rise of Hamas

2009-02-26T15:06:00.004Z

Time magazine notes the rise of Hamas in Lebanon's refugee camps:

Even Mahmoud Abbas' more popular predecessor as Fatah leader, Yassir Arafat, struggled to sell the Oslo peace process to his supporters in Lebanon, where members of Fatah remained committed to armed struggle to "liberate Palestine" and still run guerrilla training academies.

These days, however, even that more hard-line Fatah stance is no longer enough for most Palestinians here. Even high-ranking officials of Abbas' own party fear that he will trade away their "Right of Return" to what is now Israel.

"Yassir Arafat went into negotiations with the olive branch in one hand and a weapon in the other hand," says one Beirut Fatah commander. "But all Mohammad Abbas does is negotiate. He gets nothing, but he keeps negotiating. Palestinians believe in military operations because they want to go back to Palestine. They don't want to negotiate."

Hamas, meanwhile, is continuing to grow. The movement uses its financial backing from Iran and other countries to build clinics, kindergartens, and social services centers in every camp.

And the refugees hear stories about leaders in the West Bank growing rich from embezzled international aid, while refugees see almost nothing in social services from the Palestinian Authority, which is controlled by Fatah.

"Fatah isn't helping people," says the Beirut Fatah commander. "Hamas is taking advantage of this. They are entering deep, deep into the population."

"We already lost Jordan and Syria," says another Fatah commander in Lebanon. "All of them sympathize with Hamas. If we lose Lebanon, then Fatah and all of what it represents will be over."

Stepping out

2009-02-24T08:00:00.002Z

Lebanon Now report on the LGBT protest in Saseen Square against anti gay violence:

Hundreds of people armed with rainbow flags and signs denouncing violence and discrimination against homosexuals and other minority groups in Lebanon gathered at Beirut’s Sodeco square amid pouring rain on Sunday afternoon for a demonstration.

The event, the first of its kind in the Arab world according to the organizers, was staged by the Beirut-based Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Intersex, Queer (LGBTIQ) support organization Helem, and also featured representatives from Lebanese rights groups Kafa, KAFA, TYMAT and SIDC.

MEA strikes over missing worker

2009-02-18T15:39:00.001Z

From the AP:

Workers at Lebanon’s national carrier have briefly stopped work at Beirut’s airport, protesting an employee’s mysterious disappearance.

Wednesday’s one-hour-long strike by Middle East Airlines didn’t affect flights.

Computer engineer Joseph Sader went missing while on his way to work at Middle East Airlines two weeks ago. His family claims he was kidnapped by gunmen near the airport — located in a Shiite Muslim stronghold — but motives are unclear.

The government says it’s investigating.

Meanwhile, police say MEA pilot Ghassan Mekdad was found shot dead Wednesday in his car on a Beirut street. Authorities don’t believe the shooting is related to the carrier.

The two incidents come as tensions rise ahead of parliamentary elections in June.

What's wrong with the Israeli left?

2009-02-18T09:45:00.003Z

Natalie Adler and Ron Oppenheim have written an excellent piece in Socialist Worker:

The Israeli left accepts the “necessity and legitimacy” of Israel’s existence.

The same people who will campaign for peace, want a halt to aggression towards the Palestinian civilians, and advocate returning the occupied territories also accept the lie that Hamas, the Palestinian resistance movement, is “backward and must be dealt with”.

So if Palestinian civilians are killed during a military operation it is because Hamas uses them as “human shields”, or because they “operate in densely populated” areas. This is why many left wing intellectuals in Israel supported the war on Gaza, as they did the 2006 war on Lebanon.

Many on the left would genuinely like to see Palestinians having freedom and a livelihood – but the moment that Israel’s existence comes into question, they are swept up by nationalism... more

60 percent of Saudis cannot afford to buy home

2009-02-14T11:02:00.002Z

The Arabian Business website reports:

Up to 60 percent of Saudis are unable to own their own homes and heads of nearly 35,000 Saudi families earn less than SR2,000 ($533) a month, it has been claimed.

Mufleh Al-Qahtani, president of the National Society of Human Rights (NHSR), made the comments after signing a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi Establishment for Education and Training (SEET), aimed at providing education and training to members of needy families.

He said NSHR had received complaints from many people about businesses denying them jobs despite having the necessary qualifications.

“When we investigated the reasons behind this, we found that the standard of training they received was poor while their educational qualifications were insufficient,” he said in comments published by Arab News on Friday.

The government has allocated SR10 billion to build low-cost housing in different parts of the country to meet the needs of the poor but Qahtani said the kingdom lacked regulations encouraging social service initiatives by individuals and organisations.

He said it was more important to provide education and training to change the situation of the poor rather than direct financial assistance.

Prince Abdullah bin Faisal bin Turki, chairman of SEET, said his organisation has been supporting nearly 12,000 young men and women, by providing them with scholarships in association with educational and training institutions in the country.

“We are trying to alleviate the suffering of certain needy families and individuals in terms of human rights and administrative procedures,” he said.

White phosphorous attack on Gaza school

2009-02-09T10:13:00.003Z

Unrwa school, Beit Lahia, Gaza.

Palestinians battle flames

2009-02-09T10:10:00.000Z

... and its impact

2009-02-09T10:06:00.002Z

Time for revolution

2009-02-08T10:07:00.001Z

In April 2008 Egypt’s interior ministry was faced with a dilemma. Should it send state security forces to Mahalla al-Kubra, the restive industrial town in the Nile Delta, or to Egypt’s border with Gaza, where it feared hungry Palestinians would attempt another breakout... read more

Gaza meeting

2009-02-04T15:32:00.000Z

The Palestinian and Lebanese Leftist Youth Groups

Invite you to a public meeting with Comrade Marwan Abdel Al, a leadership member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) On the current political situation in Gaza, the resistance and the negotiations, and the PFLP position.

Thursday February 5th, 2009, In the Martyr Abu Ali Mustapha hall, Mar Elias camp, Beirut @ 5,30 pm

My speech for Gaza at the London rally

2009-02-03T18:07:00.003Z

My speech for Gaza at the London rally can be found at solomonsmindfield's blog

French cops

2009-02-01T10:17:00.002Z

Had to run this story from the AFP...

For French policemen trying to help their Lebanese counterparts bring Beirut's notoriously undisciplined drivers under control, the gestures of the local officers are a source of wry amusement.

"The traffic policemen in Beirut have their own specific gestures: they make small motions with their hands while saying, "yalla! yalla!" (go ahead! go ahead! in Arabic)," says Dominique Szymczak, a police brigadier from Paris's 13th arrondissement.

He takes his Lebanese colleague into the middle of a busy intersection to demonstrate how traffic control is carried out Paris-style.

"It is better to make bold gestures and to stand with feet together and hand raised," says Szymczak, dressed in smart uniform, peaked cap and immaculate white gloves.

Szymczak is one of six officers who have been in Beirut for the past two weeks as part of a cooperation project between the French and Lebanese interior ministries to help improve the flow of traffic through Beirut's heavily congested streets.

He is so absorbed in his mission that he forgets his French. "Come on, come on," he yells at the drivers, waving his arms vigorously.

Now it is he who has become the source of amusement -- especially for the drivers who find his antics hilarious.

Despite Lebanon being a small country of only four million people, its accident rate is among the highest in the world, with around 500 motorists killed and more than 6,000 injured each year, according to police figures.

One police officer orders a motorist to move his vehicle out of the way because it is causing an obstruction.
"You must obey the rules from now on," he tells the driver, smiling broadly.

"Ok, ok," responds the driver, flailing his arms in protest but eventually complying with the order.

"Here we drive as if we are crazy. Everyone does what he wants. Hopefully in time the Lebanese will become more disciplined," says another driver, even as the hooting of cars stacked up behind him reaches a new crescendo.

Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide

2009-01-30T17:53:00.003Z

Antiwar protesters chased away Israeli colonel Geva Rapp when he tried to address a pro-Israeli rally in central London. Unfortunately his timing was off as 50 metres down the road was a pro-Palestinian rally.... so much for the much vaunted Mosad security services. They need to check Facebook more often.

So farewell then... the Daily Star

2009-01-25T12:51:00.002Z

Lebanon's English language newspaper, The Daily Star, has folded.

It does not come as a surprise, and I feel deep sadness for the journalists and production staff who turned up to work last week to find the doors locked.

The newspaper reached its peak in the years before the 2003 invasion of Iraq, where it combined good local reporting—especially on the rise of worker's disputes—with some very fine arts writing from Jim Quilty.

Its managing editor Marc Sirois is a gutsy hard working journo who combined a healthy contempt for politicians with a deep respect for ordinary people (who he felt were getting a rough deal).

And although Sirois was a proud and unreconstructed "conservative", he was able to engage in a real way with ideas he did not agree with—even avowedly Marxists ones.

The Star lost its voice when it hired a cabal of neo-cons whose only interest was to peddle the US line on Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine. This turn drove away its readership—who were far too well read to buy the gush pushed by bought-and-paid-for hacks like Micheal Young.

These pro-war liberals have destroyed everything they touched. The world eventually grew tired of their false moralism and sickening justification for blatant imperial conquest. They lost all credibility and destroyed the Star in the process.

In the end the paper became a mouthpiece for the US embassy in Beirut. It killed off any hope for a future when it abstained from reporting the 2006 war (it ran pictures instead).

When the whole world was desperately looking for answers and some independent reporting, the paper was muzzled. This was the worse form of journalistic suicide.

The best reports (in English) on that war came from the former journalists in the form of a blog.

I wish all the best to its staff, and thank them for all the great times we had.

***

Here's the IHT report:
The publisher of Lebanon's only English-language daily says a court order forced the newspaper to shut down over financial troubles.

Jamil Mroue says judicial authorities shut and sealed the Beirut offices of The Daily Star on January 14, less than two hours after the order.

The paper has since been out of print and its Web site hasn't been updated.

Mroue says he is appealing the decision and looking for new investors. The Star is a rare English-language daily in the Arab world independent of government control.

The paper, founded by Mroue's late father in 1952, has suffered from financial troubles for years. Mroue says the newspaper owed a Lebanese bank around $700,000.

Occupied for Gaza!

2009-01-23T08:10:00.001Z

British universities lightening occupations in support of Gaza... read the blogs here!

Essex
www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=45143838671

Kings
kcloccupation.blogspot.com

LSE
lseoccupation.blogspot.com

Oxford
occupiedoxford.wordpress.com

Soas
soassolidarity4gaza.blogspot.com

Sussex
sussexoccupation.blogspot.com

Warwick
warwicksolidaritysitin.wordpress.com

Armed forces

2009-01-21T12:39:00.001Z

By The Associated Press
Lebanon’s military is a volunteer force of about 60,000 members, and for decades has acted largely as an internal security force to keep the peace in a nation buffeted by conflict and instability. Here’s a look at its strength:

— Infantry: The army has 11 combat brigades, 1 Presidential Guard brigade, and five special regiments. Troops are mainly armed with US-made M-16 and Russian-made AK-47 assault rifles.

— Armor: 160 T-55 Russian-made tanks, 60 M-48 US-made battle tanks, about 1,000 M-113 tracked US-made armored personnel carriers and a number of wheeled armored carriers. The US pledges to deliver M-60 tanks in spring 2009.

— Artillery: 80 US-and French-made 155mm, 30 Russian-made 130mm, 200 Russian-made 122mm, 40 Russian-made multiple rocket launchers.

— Air Force: Four 1950s-era, British-made Hawker Hunters fighter jets, 24 UH-1H US-made helicopters and nine french-made Gazelle helicopters that are unarmed. Russia pledged in December to give Lebanon 10 MiG-29 fighter jets.

— Navy: About 30 patrol boats and landing crafts.

Meeting

2009-01-14T16:19:00.001Z

The Palestinian and Lebanese Leftist Youth Groups

Invite you to a public meeting on

"Civil Rights for the Palestinian Refugees in Lebanon"

With the member of the central committee of the Leftist Assembly for Change

Ghassan Makarem

Thursday January 15th, 2009

@ 7:00 PM

Jebran Khalil Jebran park, ESCWA, Beirut (Open Sit-in)

تدعوكم المنظمات الشبابية اليسارية اللبنانية والفلسطينية الى المشاركة في الاعتصام المفتوح لدعم اهالي غزة امام الاسكوا إلى لقاء حواري حول

"حقوق الإنسان المدنية للاجئين الفلسطينيين في لبنان"

مع عضو اللجنة المركزية في التجمع اليساري من اجل التغيير

غسّان مكارم

وذلك في تمام الساعة السابعة من مساء الخميس الموافق فيه 15/1/2009

حديقة جبران خليل جبران - الإسكوا، بيروت

Gathering/Sit-In, Saturday Jan 10 @ Sassine Square

2009-01-09T16:00:00.005Z

Stop the war on Gaza

Both, The Leftist Assembly for Change and
Attac Lubnan (Lebanese Association for Alternative Globalization)
Invites you to a Sit-In and candlelight vigil
on Sassine Square, Saturday January 10th, 2009 @ 5:00 PM

“Shame on Egypt”

2009-01-09T14:17:00.004Z

This just in from the Associated Press:

An estimated 50,000 people protested in the coastal city of Alexandria after Friday prayers, joining thousands of people across the Middle East rallying against the Israeli offensive in Gaza.

The protesters, who thronged the streets in Alexandria, also berated Egypt for not lifting its border with the beleaguered Gaza Strip, chanting “Shame on Egypt,” and "Gaza excuse us.”

A police official in Cairo, who did not want to be identified because he was not allowed to speak to the media, said an estimated 50,000 people took part in the protest.

In the coastal city of El-Arish, the closest city to the border, protesters clashed with police during another protest. At least 10 people were slightly injured, said a police official.

***

And Earth Times:

Demonstrators in their thousands took to streets in the Arab world following Friday prayers to show their support for the people of the Gaza Strip and denounce the nearly two- week Israeli military offensive there.

Demonstrators in Doha, Baghdad and Amman carried Palestinian flags and chanted slogans in support of Gaza. Others decried the Egyptian government, accusing it of indirectly supporting Israel by keeping its border to the salient closed.

The largest demonstrations took place in Sana'a, the capital of Yemen, where eyewitness accounts say about 200,000 demonstrators took to the streets, calling for "Death to America and Israel" and saying that "Islam would win."

In the southern port city of Aden, police had to fire warning shots and tear gas to disperse tens of thousands of protesters after they tried to access the diplomatic quarter.

In Amman, tens of thousands of demonstrators carried photos of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who expelled his country's Israeli ambassador.

Demonstrators gathered near the Israeli embassy, but were prevented by security forces from reaching the building. They demanded that the Israeli ambassador be kicked out of Amman.

The Friday demonstrations were called by prominent Egyptian-born, but Qatar-based, Islamic scholar Youssef al-Qaradawi.
He called for Friday to be a "day of support for Gaza" and has urged imams around the Muslim world to deliver their Friday sermons on the Gaza situation.

Qaradawi delivered the Friday prayer sermon in one of Doha's mosques in which he attacked US "double standards" and Washington's "involvement in the Zionist scheme."

Demonstrators then came out of the mosque onto the streets carrying Qatari and Palestinian flags and wearing the traditional Palestinian keffiyeh, or scarf.

In Baghdad, thousands of demonstrators marched in Baghdad and chanted slogans like "Where are the Arab leaders?" and carried placards reading "Gaza martyrs, you are going to heaven" and "The attack on Gaza is an attack on humanity."

The demonstrators then gathered at the Muslim Youth Association, where speeches were delivered and songs sung in support of Gaza.

Police tried to stop protests by 100,000 people in the Egyptian city of Alexandria, but eventually decided to let the protest continue. Proteters decried Egyptian policy.

In clashes in the Sinai peninsula city of El-Arish, eight demonstrators and multiple policemen were injured in clashes. More than a dozen demonstrators were arrested.

Also, about 3,000 people protested in Ramallah in the West Bank at the urging of Hamas. Protesters chanted "Hamas, Hamas," but, unlike previous demonstrations, did not wave Hamas flags. The protest was dispersed by authorities after about half an hour.

Demonstrations also took place in Bahrain and support marches were expected in the United Arab Emirates.

Friday action

2009-01-09T07:36:00.000Z

Activities of the open sit-in in support of Gaza organized by Lebanese and Palestinian Leftist Youth Groups- Friday 9/1/2009

- Action in front of Egyptian Embassy, in support of the position of Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez who kciked out the Israeli Ambassador- 11 am

- Discussion on the boycott of the supporters of Israel, with the participation of Dr. Samah Idris, 5 pm, at the open sit-in across from ESCWA building, Riad El-Solh square

Street Meeting

2009-01-07T01:08:00.000Z

The Plaestinian-Lebanese Leftist Youth organizations invite you to a meeting with:

Fawaz Traboulsi on "The War on Gaza: Resistance and Arab Regimes"

Wednesday January 7th 2009 at 6:00 PM,
Open Sit in, Downtown Beirut, Opposite ESCWA

Protest

2009-01-06T11:37:00.002Z

In Response to the shameful and racist position of the European Union and in response to the "Surrender" initiative of Frensh president Nicholas Sarkozy

The Palestinian and Lebanese Leftist Youth organizations invites you to:

Popular Demonstration on the Office of the European Commission (Charles El Helou) Wednseday January 7th 2009

Gathering point at 2:30 in the location of the Sit-In (ESCWA GARDEN) then to head towards the European Commission office and demonstrating there at 3:00 PM

We say no for surrender, Stop the agression Now, and Full Support to the resistance

Anger in Lebanon

2009-01-06T07:57:00.004Z

Since the start of the aggression on Gaza, on Saturday 27th 2008, actions, demonstrations and sit-ins are being organized on a daily basis.

During the first few hours of the aggression, groups of students and young workers from different leftist and socialist organizations (The Union of Democratic Youth, Leftist Assembly for Change, Students sector of the Lebanese Communist Party, People’s Movement), Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, Democratic Front for Liberation of Palestine, Socialist Forum) organized an open Sit-In in front of the UN house in Beirut and released a statement calling for action in support of the resistance in Gaza and to resist against the Arab regimes and the Israeli aggression.

A demonstration was called at the Egyptian Embassy in Beirut.

On Sunday the demo started from center Beirut to the Egyptian embassy, starting with 300 protestors and by the time it reached the Embassy it had grown to 500 demonstrators, the Embassy was encircled by barbwires with heavy military and anti-riot police reinforcements.

The demonstrators chanted against Mubarak and calling for the opening of the borders with Gaza, soon enough the demo drew in more and more people from the surrounding areas and clashes started between protestors and the police and army, where water canons were open and tear-gas bombs were thrown at demonstrators, many have fainted and been slightly injured.

At the same day, small demonstrations and sit-ins were called in Saida and Tripoli and inside the Palestinian camps around the country. The Sit-In in front of ESCWA grew by the hours, as it drew more people and became slowly as a coordination and mobilisation camp for actions and demos.

Sunday evening, Hizbollah called for a big gathering in the Southern Suburbs of Beirut on Monday and cancelled all Ashoura activities, joining them all together in one place. The gathering drew in thousands of people.

Tuesday witnessed more small actions and demos around the country, the Sit-In organized mobile demos and leafleting around Beirut calling for a demonstration on Wednesday at the Arab League Office in Beirut, about 400 to 500 people showed up the next day to the demo and it marched towards the office of the Arab League where it managed to push the riot police a few hundred meters to the back.

During the same day more than 10 demonstrations and gatherings were organized around the country, at night (New Year’s Eve) a big gathering was organized in center Beirut, drawing about 300 people, where chants calling in support of the resistance and against the Arab regimes were heard till the early hours of the morning.

On Thursday a direct action was organized in front of the Egyptian embassy where banners and Palestinian flags were put all over the barbwires which were set in a 1 km2 perimeter around the embassy.

On Friday another direct action was organized at the Egyptian embassy after the police have removed the flags and banners, where a call was released from the Sit-In to throw shoes at the Egyptian embassy, in the early afternoon, a march was organized from Hamra to the Egyptian embassy drawing in around 500 demonstrators, after the march has finished, the police closed the road leading to the Egyptian embassy.

On Saturday a big demo was organized by different political groups in Tripoli, North Lebanon, Saturday night, the Israeli troops started the land attack on Gaza, and in a few hours the Sit-In called for a demonstration on Sunday against the US embassy in Awkar Beirut, the next day, people started gathering from 8:30 in the morning reaching 500 people by 10.30 where people gathered in buses and head towards the US embassy.

Many people joined the demo later, the army and police were quite aggressive and water canons started and tear gas bombs were thrown at the protestors, the clashes kept on, protestors managed to cross over the first three blockades, then the army started shooting the tear-gas bombs directly at the demonstrators, six people where injured and taken to hospitals, and 15 have fainted.

Protestors went down directly from the US embassy to the Egyptian embassy where a demonstration was held at 5:00 in the afternoon.

On Monday different opposition political parties (Hezbollah, Amal, Al Tawhid, Haraket Shaáb, etc…) called for a demo at the Egyptian embassy, having around 250 protestors.

The Next Demonstration for the Sit-In is on Wednesday January 7th 2009, at the office of the European Commission in Beirut at 3:00 PM against the European position and more specifically the Sarkosy so called “peace initiative”.

Actions and gatherings are still being called, The Left Alliance (Communist Party, Leftist Assembly for Change, Socialist Forum, Democratic Youth Union, etc…) are currently for a big demonstration in the coming few days.

The political position on the Attacks on Gaza are split in four trends, one which is the official position (March 14th) which is calling against the aggression but sticks with the Mahmoud Abbas Government, actions are mainly done for gathering money and giving it to the Palestinian Authority (Fateh)

Hezbollah, Free Patriotic Movement and the rest of the March 8th coalition (Opposition) are calling against the Israeli aggression on gaza and calling for resistance within Gaza and popular resistance in Egypt against the Regime of Husni Mubarak, put at the same time they are retaining from participating in any actions or demonstrations in Lebanon.

Islamic Groups which support Hamas are organizing some gatherings and public meetings the official position is support to the resistance and call for opening of the borders at Rafah.

The Left has called towards an adherent popular resistance against the Arab regimes and in Support of the resistance calling that the Israel would not have been able to shoot a bullet if it did not have the indirect or direct support of the Arab Regimes and what is called to be the International Community.

Currently the most active body on the streets is the left calling for actions on a daily basis, trying to brake through the general environment of silence in the streets put out by the March 14th and Opposition coalitions, with especially the opposition is still keeping their supporters out of the streets and trying to push back any popular anger against the regimes.

The battle now is to break through that silence, to push and convince as many people to the streets in support of the resistance and against the aggression on Gaza and against the collaboration of Arab states. Regime change is the word that everyone speaks about when asked on how we can support the resistance in Gaza.

These regimes are politically weak and they have failed their people on all questions, and it is not allowed anymore to let them steer us to another defeat.

Resistance against the aggression on Gaza, resistance against the Arab Regimes, only the masses can create that change.

Bassem Chit

Street meeting

2009-01-05T13:01:00.000Z

The Palestinian-Lebanese Leftist Youth Groups
Invites you to a Public Meeting on

"Resistance in Gaza"

Speaker: Comrade Samir Al-Loubani (Abou Jaber),
From the political relations office of the Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP)

Today, Monday 5 January 2009
6:00 PM Open Sit-in, Escwa, Riad el-Sulh, Beirut

Full Support to the resistance in Gaza

2009-01-02T12:38:00.005Z

On December 27th, different socialist and leftist organizations gathered in an open Sit-In facing the ESCWA office in Beirut, the Sit-In grew by the hours, on Sunday a demonstration was organized against the Egyptian embassy in Beirut, gathering around 800 demonstrators, calling on the Egyptian regime to open the borders with Gaza and the end of all relations with the Israeli state. The demonstration quickly drew in the people from around the Egyptian embassy and fights started off with the police, protestors chanted for the fall of Husni Moubarak and the Arab regimes and calling for full support with the resistance in Gaza.

The same day witnessed small demonstrations and Sit-Ins around the country, in Saida, Tripoli and around Beirut, on Monday and Tuesday the Sit-In organized mobile demos and gatherings and leafleting around Beirut, Hizbollah called a gathering in the Southern Suburb of Beirut, which drew tens of thousands of people.

On Wednesday, the Sit-in Organized, a demonstration at the office of the Arab league in Beirut, where we have forced the anti-riot police to withdraw some hundred meters to the back, The Police official said to the press: “This is the first time we march backwards”, hopefully first of many; and More than 10 Protests and Sit-Ins were held all over the country during the day, and at night, a big gathering was organized on new year's eve in central Beirut, where chants against the Arab regimes and against the Israeli aggression were loudly heard till the early hours of the morning.

On Thursday, A direct action was organized against the Egyptian embassy which has now around a 1km2 of barbwires encircling it with heavy presence of military forces, armed vehicles and anti-riot police.

On Friday, a second direct action was organized against the Egyptian embassy at 11:00 Am, followed by a big march and demonstration from Hamra towards the Egyptian embassy.

The general mood is building up, and more protests and demonstrations are being organized in the coming days, the Open Sit-In is building up and holding a stand and building incentive for the streets to start moving in support of the resistance in Gaza and building against the collaborating regimes.

The Lebanese regime is not free from this assault as it is still holding a firm security and economic siege on the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, the Sit-In has called for the lift of all security and economic bans and to give full civil rights for the Palestinian refugees in Lebanon and calling for resistance and struggle against the Arab regimes and for the resistance in Gaza.

The demonstrations that kicked off in Egypt facing harsh attacks from the regime are giving spirit and resilience to the protests in Lebanon, the anti-war movement is building up in the world, we are stepping the first few steady steps towards rebuilding that movement.

Today, the initiative is being done by workers and students, from the Open Sit-In in Beirut which was called by students and young unorganized workers in different leftist and socialist groups, to the different actions and demonstrations called by Trade Unions around the country, Doctors and Nurses, and the Demonstration which has been called by several Trade Unions including municipality workers, and industrial workers of north Lebanon, the Demonstration will take place tomorrow in Tripoli. And the Same thing is happening in Egypt, where the last aid caravan to Gaza was organised by the Mahalla strike leaders.

The movement is growing and now is the time to build it and at the same time to push further that the struggle for resistance and against the occupation can only be built through resistance against the oppressive ruling regimes.

The Liberation of Palestine can only happen through the resistance of ordinary people and workers, throughout the Arab world, against the oppressive regimes and against the massive exploitation of the Arab masses, Capitalism is in Crisis, as well as the Arab Regimes and the world regimes, either on the question of the economy or on the question of war and occupation.

The Lebanese government as well as all Arab governments are on the test, the voices that were calling for peace with the state of Israel are now swimming in Mud, and any other step towards any peace treaty with the Israeli State, will only build more anger and more resilience and resistance from the masses against the ruling classes of the Arab world.

Our fight for the support of resistance in Gaza, is our fight against the oppressive regimes, against the police states of Morocco, Tunisia, Algeria and Libya, the monstrous and harsh rule of the Egyptian regime, the dictatorships of the Golf Kingdoms, against the oil Kings and Princes, against the security regime of Syria and the National Unity Regime in Lebanon. All are partners in the aggression on Gaza, with different degrees; all are participating in the destruction, the killing and the siege on the resistance in Gaza.

We choose resistance, the streets, the resistance of ordinary people and workers against occupation and the regimes that directly or indirectly support the occupation, we choose resistance hand in hand with our brothers and sisters in Gaza our comrades in struggle. The Streets are ours to claim back, what we build today on the streets of Beirut and Cairo and all the other cities of the world is our firm and confident step towards reaching a larger movement, we need to start to be a real threat to these regimes, because the Israeli state would not be able to throw a bullet if it feels threatened by the surrounding countries and masses, the one that is blocking us from actively supporting the Palestinian resistance is the numbers of special bodies of armed men that are thrown by these ruling classes against the angry masses, it is the rutting political regimes, the bats and sticks and Gas bombs of the anti-riot police, the bosses who threaten their workers to lay them off if they participate in demos and protests.

We choose resistance.
Bassem Chit

Phoenicians, so they say

2008-12-21T07:25:00.005Z

A goodwill message for Lebanon? Well we share the Phoenician DNA, apparently.

I am very suspicious of genetic determinism so not sure what the results tell us, but the heirtage question is an important plank of of the so called "Libanism"— a specific Lebanese nationalism that seeks to distinguish the coast from the rest of the Arab world.

Libanism emerged with the creation of the country in the 1920s as a specific nationalist project that sought to separate Lebanon from "socialist" Syria, and justify free market capitalism.

There have been similar studies to show that one in six Lebanese Christians are descended from Crusaders, so worthy of western support "against the eastern hoards".

Of course the obvious research would be to see how many are actually Arab... err quite a lot I suspect. These arguments have taken different forms in different historical periods. For centuries the main question was whether families were "Yemeni or Qaisi"... but that's for another time.

Anyway, here's the BBC spin on the Phoenician story:

In Lebanon history has always been a source of contention - even when it came to something as ancient as the country's Phoenician heritage.

In the first millennium BC, Phoenicians, enterprising seafarers from the territory of the modern day Lebanon, established their trading empire.

From their base, they spread across the Mediterranean founding colonies and trading posts along its shores.

Described by historians as the "worlds first capitalists" the Phoenicians controlled the Mediterranean for nearly 1,000 years, until they were finally conquered by the Romans.

Today they are among the most enigmatic of ancient civilizations, history knows very little about them and most of their legacy has long been lost.

But during the civil war in Lebanon, Christians and Muslims often disputed their Phoenician roots, each claiming they were the true descendants.

Now science has put this argument to rest.

The genetics lab at the Lebanese American University is part of the multimillion dollar Genographic Project that uses genetics to map out human migration.

In Lebanon, geneticists led by Dr Pierre Zalloua have managed to identify the Phoenician gene.

"The Phoenicians were here three thousand years ago and we were not at all sure whether we would be able to find out any genetic remains of their civilization. I think the fact that we did is amazing," says Dr Zalloua.
'Identical'

Dr Zalloua and his team studied DNA data from more than 6,000 men across the Mediterranean, and used a new analytical technique to detect the genetic imprint of historical migrations.

"Whether you take a Christian village in the north of Lebanon or a Muslim village in the south, the DNA make-up of its residents is likely to be identical," says Dr Zalloua.

Lessons of victory

2008-12-19T22:19:00.002Z

Haaretz reports that Israel had to learn the lessons of the Lebanon war... that's the one they claimed they won, right?. Well not according to the US Army War College:

A new report warns that the American military must learn the lessons of the Second Lebanon War, in which Hezbollah operated more like a conventional army than a guerrilla organization.

The report, "The 2006 Lebanon Campaign and the Future of Warfare: Implications for Army and Defense Policy," warns against placing too heavy an emphasis on classic guerrilla warfare, and raises the possibility of further non-state actors following the Lebanese militant group's example.

"Hezbollah's 2006 campaign in southern Lebanon has been receiving increasing attention as a prominent recent example of a non-state actor fighting a Westernized state. In particular, critics of irregular-warfare transformation often cite the 2006 case as evidence that non-state actors can nevertheless wage conventional warfare in state-like ways."

The authors give a high grade to Hezbollah's performance in the 2006 war, describing it as more effective than that of any Arab army that confronted Israel in the Jewish state's history, and that Hezbollah militants wounded more Israelis per fighter than any previous Arab effort.

Unlike a traditional guerrilla force, however, Hezbollah emphasized holding territory and digging in to bunkers, instead of the usual tactic of hiding among civilian populations. Likewise, the militant organization's discipline and coordination highly resembled those of conventional armies.

Israel seizes 2 men

2008-12-19T22:16:00.001Z

The AFP newsagency reports:

Israeli soldiers captured two Lebanese civilians on a raid across the border into southern Lebanon on Friday, a Lebanese security official said.

Tarraf Tarraf and his brother Hassan Tarraf, both aged about 50, were taken on Lebanese territory near the border village of Blida, the official said.

Negotiations are under way between the Israeli soldiers and Unifil (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) to free the men, he said.

An Israeli army spokesman said the two men were arrested on Friday morning when they "crossed the border."

Israeli forces have informed Unifil that "they have in custody two Lebanese civilians that appear to be from the area of Blida," Unifil spokeswoman Yasmina Bouziane told AFP.

"Unifil is in contact with all parties urging them to exercise restraint while the circumstances of the incident are assertained," she said, without commenting on where the Lebanese official said the capture took place.

In July, a Lebanese shepherd was captured by Israeli soldiers before being handed over to Unifil after a few hours.

Armoured cars and guns... part 3

2008-12-18T07:48:00.004Z

Now the Russians are jumping into the Lebanese arms fest. According the LA Times:

Russia will give Lebanon 10 Mikoyan MiG-29 fighter jets as a donation and commit to supply the teetering Arab democracy abutting Israel's northern border with more war machines, an official told reporters today, according to Russia's Interfax news agency.

"As a trend toward stabilization of the situation has become visible, Lebanon has decided to intensify military-technological cooperation" with Russia, said Mikhail Dmitriyev, the director of Russia's Federal Service for Military Technological Cooperation.

Dmitriyev also said Russia could soon provide "ground equipment," such as tanks and artillery, to Lebanon.

"We consider the Lebanese army as a key element of political stability within this country and are ready to provide it with arms," he said.

Armoured cars and guns... part 2

2008-11-29T07:51:00.003Z

No sooner had the US offered to send more arms... that Iran will do the same, but with a 5 year security pact thrown in for good measure.

The irony was not lost on the Jerusalem Post: "By supplying the Lebanese army with weapons, Iran will thus be responsible for arming Lebanon's two major armed forces: the national army, and Hizbullah".

Non-toxic assets

2008-11-27T13:10:00.003Z

The AFP news agency reports:

Lebanon's banking sector is weathering the global financial crisis and profits are expected to increase by 10 percent this year, the Central Bank governor said, in a reflection of the country's ability to rebound from a legacy of adversity.

Riad Salameh attributed the growth in the banking sector, which comes at a time when a liquidity crisis has gutted some of the world's top banking giants, to strict regulations imposed by the Central Bank, including a cash reserve requirement of 15 percent.

The strength of the country's banks is largely a reflection of the country's resilience as it has repeatedly looked to rebuild after years of conflict and instability turned broad swaths of Beirut into a gutted battleground with different areas controlled by competing militias and armies.

"There are no toxic assets in our banking sector and that has created a comfort to the markets and to depositors," he said.

Salameh said private banks' assets currently top $100 billion, or nearly four times the country's gross domestic product. Foreign currency and other assets held by the Central Bank have risen steadily to nearly $20 billion.

Most of the country's banks have reported an increase in deposits and profits in the first nine months the year, he said.
Bank Audi, Lebanon's largest in assets and deposits, announced last month that its net profits for the first nine months of 2008 increased by 28.7 percent, to $180.6 million, compared to the same period a year ago.

****

Picture: Hussein Malla/Associated Press. An employee at the Central Bank of Lebanon stacks bricks of Lira... there is lots of cash going through the system, but how much of it stops in the country?

Armoured cars and tanks and guns...

2008-11-27T10:51:00.004Z

"The United States is planning to boost its military support to Lebanon’s army with high-tech tanks," writes Raed Rafei in the LA Times:

The Lebanese daily An-Nahar reported last Friday that the United States was going to provide Lebanon with dozens of M60 battle tanks to be shipped in batches starting early 2009.

The assault tanks in question are all-purpose vehicles with advanced firepower and mobility at night and under conditions of limited visibility.

[The deal] coincides with the visit of Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence James Robert Clapper.

He is responsible for overseeing and providing policy and budgetary guidance to defense intelligence agencies.

In past years, the US has significantly boosted its military aid to Lebanon, providing the army with ammunition, communication devices and Humvees. But Lebanese military experts say that this kind of military assistance is not enough to lift the capacity of an army with ailing equipment.

Israeli military officials reportedly frowned upon the alleged offer.

"There is a possibility these tanks will fall into Hezbollah's hands," one official told the Jerusalem Post. "At the moment, Hezbollah does not yet have heavy armor in its arsenal."

But some military officials toned down the impact of these weapons.

"Hezbollah's strength is that it is a guerrilla force that does not operate in a conventional manner," another official told the Israeli daily. "Tanks are easy targets from the air and from the ground."

Meanwhile Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak warned that Hizbollah had greatly improved its capabilities since the 2006 war.

"Hezbollah has three times the ability it had before the Second Lebanon War and now has 42,000 missiles in its possession, as opposed to the 14,000 it had before the war," Barak said.

He warned that in view of Hezbollah’s integration into the Lebanese government, Israel would bomb Lebanon’s infrastructure in case of a military confrontation between the two countries.

Hezbollah ruled out this possibility anytime soon.

****

Picture: The M60 battle tank. Designed 1960. Even though it has some new bits added on, it is primarily a siege gun.

End of the death penalty?

2008-11-26T15:24:00.003Z

Mona Alami reports on plans for Lebanon to abolish the death penalty.

The Lebanese government will use television to gain maximum attention for its plan to abolish the death penalty, giving one station the first right to question Justice Minister Ibrahim Najjar about the details of an abolition bill which will be eventually presented to parliament.

News of plans to abolish the death penalty was first made public on Oct. 10, the World Day against the Death Penalty.

On the same day, Najjar informed the cabinet of the details. A brief official press statement said then that the proposal was to replace the death penalty with life imprisonment with hard labour.

Abolishing the death penalty was in line with Lebanon's religious and humanitarian values, as well as its legal culture, Najjar said at the time.

"Preventive measures are more effective than the death penalty in reducing crime," he said.

The abolition bill comes after years of campaigning by anti-death penalty activists.

"I am confident that it is only a matter of time before the law is passed," Walid Sleybi, head of the Lebanese Association for Civil Rights, told IPS.

"Society should not be allowed to sit back and look at the killing of people, even if they are found guilty of a crime. A crime should never be punished by another crime.

"Recent studies have shown that capital punishment does not contribute to curbing crime levels. On the contrary, people tend to resort to violence when they see the state itself committing the ultimate crime."

Sleybi has long struggled to implement civil rights initiatives in Lebanon, promoting non-violent movements and battling against sectarianism with fellow-activist Ugarit Younan. In 1997, Sleybi published the book The Death Penalty Kills, a critique of capital punishment.

In 2004, the movement against capital punishment, which includes seven MPs such as long-time activist Ghassan Mokhaiber, also proposed a bill to abolish the death penalty.

However, the adverse political situation after the 2005 assassination of prime minister Rafik Hariri and the ensuing paralysis of parliament until recently prevented it ever being put to a vote.

"We have new hope now that parliament is reconvening on a regular basis," Sleybi said.

He added that executions in Lebanon had often been tied to politics.

"Presidents have often used the death penalty as an instrument to reaffirm power and control over the state, especially after the civil war, which lasted from 1975 to 1990. This was best illustrated during the term of President Elias Hrawi (1989 to 1998), which witnessed the highest number of executions," Sleybi said.

Global goes local

2008-11-21T08:34:00.004Z

Meanwhile the global credit crisis is washing ashore in Beirut. According to Reuters news agency:

Lebanese real estate developer Solidere said on Thursday that a fall in its share price was temporary, and maintained its 2008 profit outlook, which should remain at the 2007 level of about $130 million.

"The value of the assets of the company is definitely not reflected in this price," Mounir Douaidy, Solidere's general manager and Chief Financial Officer, told Reuters on the sidelines of a business conference in Beirut.

"I don't see the drops in the price really lasting for a long period."

Douaidy said profits for this year should, as forecast, remain near 2007 levels of $130 million.

Shares in Lebanon's largest developer hit a year-low on Thursday.

The A share fell 7.12 percent to $16.95 on the Beirut bourse and its B share shed 8.44 percent to end at $16.80. The share price hit $40 in July.

Picture: Samer Mohdad, Solidaire , Beirut City Center, Lebanon, 1997/2008, Silver print on original mount.

Be regional, demand the impossible

2008-11-21T08:23:00.002Z

Sami Moubayed notes the warming of relations between Syria and the west led by France and Britain:

The fact that Syria was willing to enter into indirect talks with Israel - under the auspices of a world-recognized honest broker like Turkey - was proof that the Syrians were not as bad as the world had thought since 2003.

The turning point came when French President Nicolas Sarkozy began engaging both Damascus and Hezbollah, to find constructive solutions to the presidential crisis in Lebanon, in 2007.

When the Doha agreement - which had Syria's fingerprints all over it - was hammered out in May, Sarkozy invited Assad to Paris in July. In September, he went to Damascus - signaling a clear break from the policies of his predecessor Jacques Chirac - and met with Assad to discuss the indirect talks between Syria and Israel, via Turkish mediation.

Based on the above, Miliband arrived in Damascus on November 17 for talks with his Syrian counterpart Walid al-Moualem and Assad. His visit, the first for a senior British official since 2001, signals a new start in Syrian-British relations.

Speaking on his arrival in Damascus on Monday, shortly before visiting the historical Umayyad Mosque in the heart of the Old City, Miliband said that Syria had an "essential role" to play in securing Middle East peace.

***

This regional approach is part of the US rethinking its strategy in Iraq and Afghanistan. I wrote in Socialist Worker:

The US needs Iran's compliance, if not its direct cooperation, to wage its wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Iran shares a long and relatively quiet border with Afghanistan, and it enjoys some influence among sections of the Afghan insurgency.

The regional approach for the US would draw Iran into helping to pull the "moderate Taliban" away from the "hardliners" and into a compromise with the Afghan government.

Much of the chatter in the US media is that Iran and the US share a great deal in common. They both mistrust the Wahhabi Islamist ideology that underpins the Taliban and Al Qaida.

This is neat spin, but it hides another, more important problem. The Wahhabi Islamists have spread fear and death among Shia Muslims, but they cannot overrun Iran or annihilate its economy – only the US can do this. For Iran, the US remains a dangerous enemy camped on its borders.

Iran has emerged out of the US debacles in Afghanistan and Iraq greatly strengthened. So now the new US administration will have to balance its need for Iran's cooperation with unease over its drive to master nuclear technology.

Killers are homesick

2008-11-13T16:04:00.005Z

Apparently Lebanese who collaborated with Israel are sick of living in the "only democracy in the Middle East":

Bshara Rizk awoke at dawn and headed home, making his way through mine-infested fields and climbing over a barbed wire fence that stood between him and his native Lebanon.

Bloodied but euphoric, he arrived in his hometown of Qlayaa, located just across the border from Israel, where he exclaimed to the local priest: "I'm back."

Rizk, 24, had been living in a northern Israeli town since 2000, when his father's mainly Christian militia, the South Lebanon Army (SLA), followed its Israeli allies as they withdrew back across the border, after a long and brutal occupation of south Lebanon.

For eight years, Rizk worked at a factory in Israel, but most SLA members never felt welcomed in Israel.

"I never felt complete there and I always wanted to go back to Lebanon," the burly Rizk said following his return home on a Thursday back in June.

His family was amongst hundreds who fled because of their links to the SLA which was trained, financed and armed by Israel during its decades-long occupation of southern Lebanon.

They were seen as traitors.

Islamists in the mist

2008-11-13T15:59:00.002Z

The Financial Times is attempting to get a grip on the murky world of Islamists, Syria and Lebanon:

Syrian television last week broadcast what it said were the confessions of members of the Lebanon-based Fatah al-Islam faction, admitting responsibility for a bomb attack in Damascus in September that killed 17. The Lebanese authorities yesterday said they had arrested five of the militants on suspicion of involvement "in terrorist acts".

The controversy arises from televised claims by the militants that they had been financed by Lebanon's anti-Syrian Future movement. The movement, led by Saad Hariri, son of murdered former prime minister Rafiq Hariri, is Lebanon's main Sunni political party.

The Future movement has denied the allegation. Ahmad Fatfat, a former cabinet minister, called it "a fabrication by the Syrian security services that can only prove their own involvement with Fatah al-Islam".

Damascus has repeatedly accused Salafi groups of involvement in violence in Syria. President Bashar al-Assad has sent about 10,000 troops to the border in what Syria says is an attempt to contain them.

Apart from their apparently limited number, much of what is known about the Salafists is a matter of dispute. The movement is splintered and divides into openly anti- and pro-Syrian factions. Members vary in their ideological affiliation with al-Qaeda and have different financial backers with wildly diverging agendas.

The sharpest division seems to run between groups for whom anti-US and general anti-western motives trump local politics, and those for whom antiSyrian, anti-Shia, antiHizbollah and anti-Iranian sentiments dominate - to the extent that they co-operate with the US-backed mainstream Sunni Future movement.

Phoenicians

2008-11-13T15:55:00.001Z

According to the AP news agency: Archaeologists say they have unearthed pottery up to 3,000 years old in southern Lebanon that ancient Phoenicians used to bury the remains of the dead after cremation.

Archaeologist Ali Badawi tells The Associated Press that a team of Lebanese and Spanish experts discovered more than 100 earthen jars at an excavation site in the southern port city of Tyre.

The pottery dates to between 700 and 900 B.C., when Phoenician traders flourished on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean. Badawi said Wednesday that such discoveries offer a rare window into Phoenician history and culture.

Originating from what is now Lebanon, the Phoenicians were early seafarers who spread their culture to other countries around the region.

Spies

2008-11-02T14:55:00.003Z

Breaking news:

Lebanon's Daily Star has a scoop: It seems that the "two men arrested for running an Israeli spy ring in the Bekaa Valley are relatives of a suicide hijacker who piloted a plane in the September 11, 2001, attacks, a security source told The Daily Star on Sunday.

"The army said that the men had been arrested on Friday, but the source said that they were actually captured two weeks ago and the discovery of the arrests by the media prompted the army to announce their capture"

*** ***

Media Line reports:

Lebanese authorities announced over the weekend it had apprehended two Lebanese civilians, who were spying on behalf of Israel's foreign intelligence body, the Mossad.

The two were recently captured in Lebanon's Beqaa Valley and have reportedly confessed they were employed by the Mossad, the Lebanese daily Al-Safir reported.

The ringleader, A.G., was recruited in the 1980s, during his activities with a Palestinian organization in the Beqaa.

A.G. then recruited several other men, including his relative, Y.G., who was the second person captured last week.

The cell gathered information on Lebanese military bases, Syrian intelligence centers in Lebanon and Palestinian institutions in the Beqaa and Hizbullah headquarters, informed sources revealed to A-Safir.

During their investigation it was further revealed that the group also gathered information in security centers in Damascus and in Kafr Sousa, where Hizbullah's operations chief 'Imad Mughniyya was assassinated last February.

In 2006 the LAF's Intelligence Directorate revealed it had captured an Israeli network that had been operating in Lebanon for many years. Its leader, Mahmoud Rafi, admitted that the network was behind the assassination of Hizbullah and Palestinian officials. Rafi further admitted the group planted explosive charges in several locations in Lebanon.

According to Ynet :

The man arrested on suspicion of employing network of agents working with Israeli intelligence to map out sensitive locations in Lebanon, Syria—including Damascus neighborhood in which Hizbullah leader Mugniyah was killed:

Sources said the network has been operating for over 20 years, and was responsible for mapping out the Beqaa Valley, including Syrian military bases and Palestinian sites. Recently, a-Safir reported, the spies have been pursuing Hizbullah operatives and outposts.

The ring was said to have operated in Syria as well, where it is suspected to have mapped out areas in Damascus such as Kfar Sousa, the secure neighborhood in which Hizbullah leader Imad Mugniyah was killed in February by a car bomb.

Investigators are currently attempting to link the espionage ring to Mugniyah's murder, as well as to divine its function in the transfer of information to Israel, the report said.

Anger in Syria

2008-10-30T11:53:00.002Z

The BBC reports:

Thousands of people have held a peaceful demonstration in Damascus against an alleged US raid on a village that Syria says killed eight people.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Damascus, waving flags and carrying banners reading "No to American terrorism" and "America the sponsor of destruction and wars".

The protesters, including many civil servants and students, also waved pictures of the Syrian president, as they converged on the central Youssef al-Azmi square.

Syria said a US school would close temporarily and warned US citizens to avoid the area.

Five of those killed in the raid on Sunday were from the same family, and the BBC's Paul Wood spoke to the woman who lost her husband and four sons at the scene of the raid.

She was being treated in a Syrian hospital for injuries she said she received during the attack.

"I went outside to get my son and the Americans shot me," she said. "I was screaming in terror."

She said all the men were working on the house that was in the compound where the Americans landed, and denied any link between them and al-Qaeda.

Stability, apparently

2008-10-30T09:03:00.006Z

A curious piece in The New York Times commends Lebanon's financial sector. Curious because of the great secrecy at a the heart of our banks means we don't actually know what they have in vaults. Of course it could just be that they are awash with billions of dollars looted from Iraq.

For those with time have a look at A Political Economy of Lebanon.

Here's the NYT piece:

This small country, chronically battered by war, turns out to have a banking sector that has so far been a beacon of stability and growth, The New York Times’s Robert F. Worth writes. Its banks are posting record profits, aided by conservative central bank policies, skillful management and money from Lebanese expatriates.

Lebanon’s very instability — its 15-year civil war and frequent political crises — appears to have bred the banking sector’s fiscal prudence, analysts say.

Three years ago the central bank here barred investments in derivatives and other structured financial products, giving banks virtual immunity to the widening financial contagion. The banks here have done little borrowing on international markets. Deposits account for about 83 percent of their assets, making them among the most liquid in the world.

“The banks here are used to turmoil,” Nassib Ghobril, the head of economic research and analysis for Byblos Bank, the country’s third largest, told The Times. “Since the end of the civil war in 1990, there has been no loss of deposits, and there’s great confidence in the sector.”

As of August, the money flowing into deposits grew 16 percent over 2007 — itself a record year. Lebanon had no working government for most of that period, and at times seemed to be on the verge of civil war.

Those inflows appear to be rising further. The central bank released statistics showing that it increased its foreign assets by $572 million in the first two weeks of October, possibly a sign that foreign deposits are growing.

Lebanon has also attracted the hedge fund industry, which has until now focused more on Persian Gulf markets. “We consider the well-capitalized Lebanese banks as safe as the safer banks in the gulf,” Florence Eid, the regional managing director for Passport Capital, a hedge fund based in San Francisco, told The Times.

An added asset is Lebanon’s often wealthy expatriates. About 4 million Lebanese live in the country, but an estimated 12 million live abroad, and many send money home and invest in real estate. The total of such remittances is expected to top last year’s, $5.5 billion, one of the world’s highest per capita rates.

Partly for that reason, banks here have grown so large that they dwarf the national economy. Lebanese bank assets are about $100 billion, in a country with a $25 billion gross domestic product, said Marwan Barakat, in charge of research at Bank Audi, the country’s largest lender.

This growth has allowed the banks to expand internationally. Bank Audi, for example, now has branches in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Qatar and Sudan.

The continued growth here is probably also related to some modest good news in politics. In May, after 18 months of deadlock, Lebanon’s warring factions agreed to a compromise. So far, the deal seems to be holding. But the banks are also doing their part, holding much of Lebanon’s $45.4 billion public debt.

“In this crisis, governments in the US, Europe and elsewhere have been stepping in to rescue their banking sectors,” Mr. Ghobril told The Times. “Whereas in Lebanon the sector is so large it has been supporting the state for years.”

Why attack Syria?

2008-10-29T07:35:00.003Z

The US military attack on the Syrian border town of Abu Kamal I believe exposes growing divisions among the “coalition of the willing” behind the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

The timing and target of the raid raise many questions.

The Syrian regime, which is dominated by the Alawite branch of Islam, has been reeling recently after a series of bomb attacks widely blamed on Al Qaida and other Sunni Islamist groups.

If Abu Ghadiyah, the main US target, was an Al Qaida leader, as the US claims, then the Syrian regime would have had no scruples in arresting him. The US intelligence services acknowledge that for several years Syria has cracked down on the so called “foreign fighters” passing through its territory into Iraq.

Some commentators say that Syria’s recent moves to ease tensions in the region are the main motivation for the US attack. The Syrian regime has been involved in peace talks with Israel and has formally recognised Lebanese independence.

The US is also worried that a resurgent Russia is preparing to rebuild its ties with Syria. Last month Russia reopened a Syrian port used as a Mediterranean base for warships. The port was closed down following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Embarassingly for the British government, the US raid came as foreign secretary David Miliband was due to hold a joint press conference with his Syrian counterpart. Miliband “withdrew” from the conference as news of the attack came through.

The fact that the US did not warn its ally of the raid has left the British foreign secretary deeply compromised.

The result, writes Sami Moubayed is that:

"One theory says that the entire ordeal was part of the internal US politics in the final lap of the presidential campaign, aimed at boosting the chances of Republican Senator John McCain by giving him more reason to pursue Bush's "war on terror" - this time with Syria.

"Had the Americans struck at a terrorist stronghold, the Bush team would have been the first to brag about it on all available media. The fact that the traditional US chorus remained silent seems proof that the Americans were not too proud of what they did, and that perhaps human error had come into play."

Another possibility is that this raid could be part of a recognition that, as the US withdraws from the western part of Iraq, the resistance will once again take over.

Whatever the truth, by attacking a Syrian border town the US is sending a message that it is prepared to spread the “war on terror” over borders.

This is a dangerous turn of events.

Saudi Games

2008-10-23T08:44:00.003+01:00

The Saudi regime is using its cash in attempt to build a rival to Hizbollah, writes Sami Moubayed in Asia Times:

The Saudis are reportedly funding a rival wing of Hezbollah itself, modeled around Sheikh Subhi Tufayli, one of the party's original founders who has been sitting in the dark since the 1990s.

Tufayli started out as a firm supporter of Grand Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, having studied Islam in Najaf (Iraq) during Khomeini's long exile in the holy Iraqi city, before the Islamic revolution of 1979. He returned to Lebanon and helped co-found Hezbollah - with Iranian support - during the Israeli invasion of 1982.

Under Tufayli's leadership, Hezbollah managed to drive Amal from Beirut during the height of the Lebanese civil war in the late 1980s. Under his command rose the young Nasrallah in 1989, leading a commando force against Amal in Iqlim al-Tuffah, and becoming a member of the central command of Hezbollah at the young age of 29.

A hardliner, Tufayli once said that his supporters did not dream of eradicating Israel in the near future, but plans to lead a battle that will last "for centuries". More recently, he has distanced himself from Iran for its firm support for Nasrallah, a man whom he respects but envies tremendously. He can't challenge him, beat him, or replace him as head of Hezbollah or the Lebanese Shi'ite community.

In 2000, when Nasrallah liberated south Lebanon against Israel, Tufayli was believed to be politically finished, since Hezbollah was at the apex of its career and no Shi'ite with a right mind could challenge the charisma or popularity of Nasrallah.

But on several occasions he came out and spoke against Nasrallah, objecting to the latter's alliance with Iran and claiming that he broke with Hezbollah because of the overt Iranian agenda of its secretary general. Earlier, in his final act of defiance, Tufayli clashed with the Lebanese state when his followers tried to take over a party-run religious school in Baalbak.

The Lebanese government of Siniora has tried in vain to get rid of Hezbollah, but was unable to do so due to the party's power base and the repeated victories it scored against Israel since 2000. The UN could not disarm Hezbollah, nor could the United States, or Israel in its failed 2006 war on Lebanon.

Now, all parties are trying to break Nasrallah's kingdom from within, through splinter Shi'ite groups loyal to people like Tufayli and through the money of dissident Syrians. Any person who has seen how popular Nasrallah was in Lebanon in 2000 or 2006 realizes how foolish it would be to try and challenge him by resurrecting figures like Subhi Tufayli.

Two nations, one people

2008-10-15T11:29:00.003+01:00

The carve up of Bilad al-Sham is now formalised in the "mutual recognition" of Lebanon and Syria.

According to the BBC, "A signing ceremony has been held in Damascus establishing diplomatic relations for the first time between Syria and Lebanon. A joint statement said Syria and Lebanon would respect each other's sovereignty and independence."

This division was put in place by the French Mandate in the early 1920s and rejected by the overwhelming majority of people both sides of the border.

But after democracy was so brutaly crushed in Syria the idea of beng ruled by the cabal of Baathists in Damascus killed any chance of unity.

The death knell, I guess, was the invasion by Syrian troops in 1976 which crush the secular democratic revolution in Lebanon. It was downhill from there.

On a personal note: my grandma, who has just turned 100, still keeps her education certificate from the "Syrian Girls College" hidden in her suitcase. It always jarred when members of my family put down "Syrians", and they usually got angry when I pointed out that technically both grandfather and grandmother were born in Syrian (before 1922). There's even a boat ticket to New York (from the 1910s) were our address is given as Berbara, Syria.

Hopefully the two countries will become one again... but only under a democratic socialist system.

I will wait patiently.

Interview with Tony Cliff—1996

2008-10-09T16:47:00.000+01:00

Saudi backed terror?

2008-10-09T15:53:00.003+01:00

Sami Moubayed writes in Asia Times:

While Saudi Arabia's official policy remained critical of Syria, a certain branch in the Saudi royal family still harbored ambitions to topple the Syrian government altogether and replace it with pro-Saudi opposition figures like former vice president Abdul Halim Khaddam.

Tension was further elevated when terror struck in the heart of Damascus on September 27. A suicide bomber loaded with 200 kilograms of explosives killed 17 Syrians and injured between 15 to 40 civilians. Saudi Arabia was the only country in the Arab world that refused to condemn the attack, although it was harshly criticized by France, Russia and even the US.

Although it became clear to everybody - France being first on the list - that the Saudis were not getting the upper hand in Beirut politics, Lebanon remained closely allied to Riyadh, due to the personal and financial bond between Saad Hariri, the parliamentary majority leader, and the House of Saud.

One of the first to realize that the Syrians are overpowering the Saudis in Lebanon was Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, a strongman of the March 14 Coalition. He realized that the US-imposed isolation of Syria has crumbled, after Bashar Al Assad's visit to Paris in July 2008.

More recently, what worried both the Saudis and Jumblatt was the semi-rapprochement that started developing between Syria and the US. Last month, Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Mouallem met with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at her request, and discussed a variety of issues related to the Middle East.

The Syrians believe, although they have not said it bluntly, that the Saudis are furious at Syria's repeated diplomatic successes. Eager for vengeance, they are now financing Islamic fundamentalism in Lebanon to strike at both Hezbollah and Syria and have not yet digested the outcomes of May 2008.

Assad said that the sectarian violence taking place in northern Lebanon was dangerous to Syria. Many believe that the suicide bomber who detonated a bomb in Damascus was a product of a fanatical group trained and created in Lebanon. That might explain why the Syrians amassed thousands of troops on their border with Lebanon, to prevent the influx of jihadi fighters to Syria.

If Saudi Arabia was not guilty of the September 27 attack, it certainly looked and acted guilty by refusing to say anything about it.

Meanwhile, the Saudis, frantic to save their positions in Lebanon, had already started pumping money to build a Sunni armed movement to confront Hezbollah if matters escalated once again.

"Old election law"

2008-09-30T15:42:00.002+01:00

The BBC reports:

The Lebanese parliament has approved a new election law as part of a reconciliation process begun in May.

The new law, which alters the boundaries of voting districts, will be used as the basis for parliamentary elections next year.

It is an amended version of a 1960 law under which voting is held in smaller districts known as cazas.

The new law also calls for Lebanese elections to be held on one day, rather than over several days.

Several proposed reforms were rejected, including a lowering of the voting age to 18 from 21, quotas for women in parliament, and allowing Lebanese citizens living abroad to vote.

Forest fires

2008-09-25T15:06:00.003+01:00

The UN news agency warns:

Devastating fires caused by climate change are threatening forests in Lebanon, in turn accelerating the pace of global warming.

"We are witnessing a rise in temperature which leads to the dryness of forest soil and pushes it towards desertification," Sawsan Bou Fakhreddine, director-general of the Association for Forests, Development and Conservation (AFDC), a local NGO, told IRIN from Beirut

The country is witnessing forest fires earlier than usual. "We noticed that fires are starting in April, three months earlier than the usual season, which commences in June or July.

With the ongoing increase in temperature, the land is losing much of its humidity and trees are becoming drier. This causes severe fires that are difficult to suppress," she added.

Fakhreddine said on average, about 1,500 hectares of woodland were affected by fires annually, but in 2007 more than 4,000 hectares of forests were ravaged in the worst fires to hit Lebanon for decades. "In one day we lost three times what we planted in 17 years."

According to AFDC, forests covered 35 percent of the country in 1965 - against 13 percent in 2007. "If we witness fires like the ones that erupted last year, Lebanon will lose its forests completely in 15 to 20 years," Fakhreddine warned.

Public meeting

2008-09-25T13:11:00.001+01:00

Resistance vs resistance

2008-09-18T07:26:00.007+01:00

According to Naharnet:

Lebanese Army units contained a quarrel between partisans of the Lebanese Communist Party and AMAL movement in the southern village of Kfar Rumman overnight.

The quarrel started after AMAL partisans tried to knock down a monument erected by the LCP to commemorate "martyrs" of the Lebanese National Resistance Front (LNRF), the leftist alliance that fought invading Israeli troops in the 1980s.

Kfar Rumman was a main base for LNRF resistance fighters before Hizbullah established control over south Lebanon in the early 1990s.

Several LNRF fighters were killed in combat against Israeli troops and several others were liquidated in serial assassinations that targeted leftist activists in Beirut and south Lebanon in the late 1980s.

The bodies of at least nine LNRF fighters remain in Israel and have not been included in the recent swap between Hizbullah and the Jewish state.

Beirut synagogue

2008-09-18T07:26:00.006+01:00

Bloomberg posts an interesting account of attempts to rebuild the synagogue in Beirut:

In 1983, Isaac Arazi and his wife were caught in sectarian fighting during Lebanon's 15-year civil war. A Shiite Muslim militiaman helped the couple escape.

Arazi, a leader of Lebanon's tiny Jewish community, sees the incident as a lesson in the Arab country's tradition of tolerance. Now he is trying to make use of that tradition, along with the global diaspora of Lebanese Jews, in a drive to rebuild Beirut's only synagogue, damaged during the war.

"Those who don't have a past don't have a future,'' Arazi said to explain his push to rebuild the synagogue.

Beirut's Maghen Abraham Synagogue opened in 1926 in Wadi Abou Jmil, the city's Jewish quarter, located on the edge of west Beirut near the Grand Serai palace, where the government meets, and within walking distance of parliament.

Lebanon then was something of a haven for Jews, some of whom were the descendants of those who had fled the Spanish inquisition; it later served a similar role for refugees from Nazi Germany.

With "no history of anti-Jewish tensions,'' it was the only Arab country whose Jewish population rose after Israel's creation in 1948, according to Kirsten Schulze, a lecturer at the London School of Economics and author of The Jews of Lebanon.

By the mid-1960s, there were as many as 22,000 Lebanese Jews, said Arazi, 65. In addition to heading the Jewish Community Council he owns a food-machinery business with 1,000 customers.

"Christians, Muslims and Jews were all living together when I was growing up,'' said Liza Srour, 57. "Whenever there was a war with Israel, or tension, the government used to provide protection for us.''

That changed with the nation's 1975-1990 civil war, as Jews fled the violence triggered by rivalries among the nation's Christian, Muslim and Druze factions and emigrated to Europe, North and South America.

Now, Arazi said, only 100 Jews live permanently in the country, while another 1,900 go back and forth or have intermarried into other religions. Srour is the only Jew still residing in Wadi Abou Jmil.

In 1982, according to an Associated Press report at the time, Israeli shells tore through roof of Maghen Abraham as the Jewish state invaded southern Lebanon in an effort to crush Palestinian guerrillas. The synagogue has been closed ever since, its brittle entrance gate chained and padlocked. Plaster and rubble are scattered on the floor.

Walking among the weeds overgrowing the cemetery's tombstones, Arazi said: "I remember my father when I come here.''

Image is an artist impression of what the restored building will look like.

Palestinian vs Palestinian

2008-09-17T12:13:00.000+01:00

Reuters reports:

Three Palestinians were killed in fighting between rival factions at a refugee camp in south Lebanon on Monday, security sources said.

The fighting began when gunmen shot dead a member of the Islamist Jund al-Sham militant group in Ain al-Hilweh camp, 40 km (25 miles) south of the capital Beirut.

The killing triggered fierce exchanges of gunfire and grenades between the militants and Fatah gunmen in which a second Jund al-Sham member was killed.

Few hours after the fighting stopped, the father of a senior Fatah official was shot dead by unknown attackers.

Shia vs Sunni

2008-09-17T12:11:00.003+01:00

China's Xinhua news agency reports:

Fierce clashes erupted in the town of Taalabaya in Lebanon's Bekaa valley on Tuesday when gunmen opened fire from overlooking hills on a funeral procession for a Sunni victim who was shot dead earlier, local As-Safir daily reported Wednesday.

The victim Abdallah al-Adawi was a member of Future movement headed by MP Saad Hariri.

The Tuesday clashes blocked traffic along the highway connecting the pre-dominantly Shiite village of Taalabaya and Sunni village of Saadnayel, said the report, giving no more details about the clashes.

In June, more than three people died in clashes between Shiite supporter of Hezbollah and Sunni supporters of Future Movement in Taalabya and the neighboring village of Saadnayel.

Christian vs Christian

2008-09-17T11:57:00.003+01:00

The BBC reports on an armed tiff between the clan militia loyal to the Franjiehs and the Lebenese Forces. This blood fued dates from the early days of the civil war.

A gunfight between rival Christian political groups in northern Lebanon has left two people dead and three wounded, security officials say.

The clash between the anti-Syrian Lebanese Forces group and the pro-Syrian Marada group was triggered by a disagreement over hanging banners.

On Tuesday, leaders of 14 of Lebanon's rival factions started talks aimed at solving deep divisions in the country.
The army has now set up checkpoints around Bsarma where the clash occurred.

One supporter from each of the Lebanese Forces (LF) group and Marada were killed, reports say, while the injured were a policeman and two LF members.

Marada, led by the pro-Syrian leader Suleiman Franjieh, is allied to the Shia-led Hezbollah. LF is led by former rightwing warlord Samir Geagea, who belongs to the Western-backed alliance led by Sunni politician Saad Hariri.

Jaw jaw on war war

2008-09-16T15:38:00.004+01:00

The Financial Times notes:

The assassination of a pro-Syrian politician has heightened tension in Lebanon, less than a week before talks begin aimed at reconciling deep divisions between the country's factions.

Saleh Aridi, a senior member of the Lebanese Democratic party, which is allied to the militant Shia group Hizbollah, was killed on Wednesday night by a bomb as he started his car at his house in the mountains east of Beirut, the capital.

Aridi was a close adviser of Talal Arsalan, a Druze leader who is a minister in the new unity government and who recently helped bridge differences among the Muslim sect that comprises about 10 per cent of Lebanon's population.

The attack has significant implications for Lebanon's political stability, coming only a day after [the president] Michel Suleiman announced the resumption on September 16 of a "national dialogue" aimed at forming a defence strategy and defining the roles of the army and militias such as Hizbollah.

But the government has been playing down expectations of immediate progress.

Northern deal

2008-09-10T12:08:00.001+01:00

Agence France-Presse reports that:

Sunni and Shia rivals in northern Lebanon are heading towards reconciliation, in a move to curb sectarian fighting, sources close to both sides said on Monday.

High-ranking leaders of both factions who met on Sunday are scheduled to sign later on Monday a memorandum titled "The Tripoli Document", which offers, in addition to safeguarding civil peace, to hand over the city's security to the Lebanese army.

The document also calls for removing all armed presence in north Lebanon, allowing displaced people to return to their homes according to a set timetable and paying compensation for residents whose houses have been damaged during the fighting.

Tripoli has been the scene of a series of deadly clashes since May between Sunnis and rivals from the Alawite community who support Lebanon's Shia movement Hezbollah, in which 23 people were killed.

The initiative, launched by Sunni ruling-majority leader Saad Hariri, also the head of the Future Current movement, could pave the way for further reconciliations in light of Hezbollah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah's announcement that he was open for dialogue with Hariri.

"We are open to dialogue with the Future Current movement and all Sunnis, and if a meeting with MP Saad Hariri is not possible for security reasons, nothing prevents us holding meetings between the parties' officials," Nasrallah said during a Ramadan dinner on Sunday.