Rise of Hamas

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

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

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?

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

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

Unrwa school, Beit Lahia, Gaza.

Palestinians battle flames

... and its impact

Time for revolution

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

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

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

French cops

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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