Two nations, one people

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

Saudi backed terror?

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"

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

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

Resistance vs resistance

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

Pay up

A United Nations report reiterated a call for Israel to compensate Lebanon for damage from the 2006 war.

A report published last week by the office of United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, called "Oil Slick on Lebanese Shores," commended Lebanon for its cleanup efforts along the Mediterranean coastline and urged Israel to help pay for them.

"The secretary-general wishes to urge the government of Israel to take the necessary actions towards assuming responsibility for prompt and adequate compensation to the government of Lebanon,” the report says, according to U.N. spokesman Farhan Haq.

The report cites World Bank data that estimated the environmental toll from the 2006 war at a minimum of $526.9 million and a maximum of $931.1 million.

This is not the first time the secretariat has called on Israel to help pay for the war’s environmental costs.

The latest report will be made available to the UN General Assembly when it convenes in New York later this month.

Picture by Guy Smallman is of oil polution at Ramlat al-Bayda, Beirut.

Public meeting

Overflights

The AFP news agency reports:

Six Israeli jets flew over south Lebanon and broke the sound barrier twice over the port city of Tyre on Wednesday, a security official said.

"Six Israeli warplanes flew all over southern Lebanon and the city of Tyre at low altitude for more than an hour and broke the sound barrier twice over Tyre," the official told AFP.

The overflight prompted scared shoppers to flee Tyre's main market, an AFP correspondent said.

Economic bounce?

Mona Alami writes a strangely optimistic piece on the economy in Asia Times:

Lebanon, whose status as "Switzerland of the Middle East' for its advanced banking sector has long been lost amid civil and cross-border war, may be going some way to regaining its standing.

Since 2005, Lebanon's economy has struggled to keep going under the threat of further civil strife, renewing fears of a return to the 15-year civil war that started in 1975.

"The budget deficit is hovering between US$3 billion to $4 billion, the public debt at about $45 billion, with a 2009 forecast of $49 billion. That is approximately twice our GDP [gross domestic product], making it the highest debt-to-GDP rate in the world," says Louis Hobeika, professor of economics at the American University of Beirut.

This year, levels show moderate growth. "The government is forecasting a 5% GDP growth, although in my opinion, only half can be realistically expected," says Hobeika. Ghobril estimates growth at a minimum of 4% - provided the political situation remains stable.

Challenges facing the new government, formed in the wake of the election of President Michel Suleiman three months ago, include reducing public debt through reforms such as the privatization of the telecom sector, electric plants, the Casino du Liban and the national carrier Middle East Airlines, as well as cutting expenditures.

"Privatizing these industries would generate as much as $10 billion in revenues for the government, and bring down debt levels from $45 billion to $35 billion," says Hobeika. The AUB economist also emphasizes that since Lebanon has been without a budget for the past four years, this year it should be submitted within the legal timeline.

Roumieh

Dr. Omar Nashabe, author of If Roumieh Prison Speaks Out, is leading an open dialogue on Behind Bars: What's going on in Roumieh?

On the agenda are social and humanitarian situation of the Roumieh prison; what is the prison; who are the prisoners; how they are treated; and what is the impact of this prison on its inmates.

Club 43, Gemmayzé (facing Doculand)
Monday 1 September at 8:30pm

For more information:
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