Clairvoyant?

I am currently residing in Sanaa, Yemen, in one of these beautiful old houses in the Ottoman Quarter, in an apartment provided to me by CEFAS, a French research center. Soon I will be in Saudi Arabia, where I will spend the rest of the year interviewing reformers for my master’s thesis, on a research grant provided by CEFAS. Flying to Sanaa from Beirut feels like traveling in a time machine: Sanaa, gorgeous as it is, seems a very uneventful place, where even the cars look like they date from the early Ottoman empire. Imagine my surprise then, when it turns out that superfast ADSL is the norm in internet here, the tap water is potable and there are no electricity cuts whatsoever. What is it with Lebanon, such an advanced and modern country on all other levels, that keeps it from providing the most basic services to its citizens, which even a virtual third world country like Yemen can do (at least in the capital)?

Anyway, I am now reduced to following the news from Lebanon over the internet only, and looking at what the Daily Star offers its readers today, not much seems to be happening – I reprint the article in full here, as it is a stunning thing to put in a newspaper:

‘Clairvoyant’ sees new Lebanese president, more assassinations, Hizbullah ’surprise’

The Daily Star staff, Beirut, 30 0ctober 2007: Reputed clairvoyant Michel Hayek predicted late on Sunday that “Lebanon will witness the election of a new president despite current problems.” He also ruled out the “imminent” threat of civil war. In an interview with George Salibi on New TV, Hayek foresaw “a few skirmishes and problems” in the country.

“There is no impending end to the string of assassinations,” he said, referring to the political murders that have plagued Lebanon since 2005.

Nicknamed “the Nostradamus of the Middle East,” Hayek is known for his yearly predictions for Lebanon, the Middle East and the world.

“I see tripartite skirmishes between Lebanon, Syria and Israel,” Hayek said without further elaboration.

He predicted that Shaker al-Abssi, leader of the Fatah al-Islam militant group “will reappear in a different situation.”

In September, the Lebanese Army took over the Nahr al-Bared Palestinian refugee camp near Tripoli after three months of fighting with Fatah al-Islam.
“The achievements of Lebanese Army Commander General Michel Suleiman will be distorted,” said Hayek. “I see attempts to attack the army as well as changes in its personnel and leaders.” He also said the army would face some “internal problems.”

Hayek’s forecasting also implicated political leaders.

“Free Patriotic Movement leader MP Michel Aoun and Premier Fouad Siniora are part of a plan and I see a new stand, position and equation,” he predicted, adding that Hizbullah would make a decision “that will surprise many people.”

On the international scene, Hayek said that French President Nicholas Sarkozy “will face a complicated crisis.”

In addition, he predicted the death of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert – who promptly announced on Monday that he has prostate cancer.

Among past predictions, Hayek has foreseen the deaths of Princess Diana and former Premier Rafik Hariri, as well as MP Gebran Tueni.

What happened in Nahr al-Bared?

Since the end of the battle at Nahr al-Bared, the Lebanese press has been suspiciously quiet about the destroyed camp. Journalists, by the way, are still not allowed to enter and the Palestinians who are slowly-slowly being allowed to return, are prevented from taking any pictures, although a few images of total destruction have come out and been published. An article on Information Clearing House by Michael Birmingham, an Irish peace activist who has been mostly based in Lebanon since July 2006, talks about the reasons for this, and for the following:

Amnesty International, the largest human rights organisation in the world, was concluding a report on the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon during the past week. Its delegation left Lebanon without seeing Nahr Al Bared – before it left holding a Beirut press conference which was abruptly ended at the first mention of Nahr Al Bared.

Something terrible has been done to the residents of Nahr al Bared, and the Lebanese people are being spared the details. Over the past two weeks, since the camp was partly reopened to a few of its residents, many of us who have been there have been stunned by a powerful reality. Beyond the massive destruction of the homes from three months of bombing, room after room, house after house have been burned. Burned from the inside. Amongst the ashes on the ground, are the insides of what appear to have been car tyres. The walls have soot dripping down from what seems clearly to have been something flammable sprayed on them. Rooms, houses, shops, garages – all blackened ruins, yet having had no damage from bombing or battle. They were burned deliberately by people entering and torching them.

What happened in Nahr al Bared? Why does the world not seem to care?

“Between imperialism and islamism”

I discovered this interesting analysis by Pakistani nuclear scientist Pervez Hoodhboy through a link on Harald Doornbos’s blog. It is an absolute must-read. An excerpt:

“Islamic radicalism is bad news for Muslims. It pits Muslims against Muslims, as well as against the world at large. At the same time, it is only peripherally directed against the excesses of corrupt ruling establishments, or inspired by issues of justice and equity. The primary targets of Islamist violence today are other Muslims living in Muslim countries. Some fanatics terrorise and kill other Muslims who belong to the wrong sect. Others accuse “modernised Muslims” of being vectors of hellish sinfulness – what is known as jahiliya – deserving the full wrath of God. The greatest ire among the orthodox is aroused by the simplest of things, such as women being allowed to walk around bare-faced, or the very notion that they could be considered the equals of men.

Contrary to its claims, Islamic radicalism is indifferent to the suffering of Muslims. We have not seen a large-scale street demonstration in any Muslim country protesting the ongoing genocide of Muslims in Darfur. The slaughter of Bosnian and Chechnyan Muslims caused only a hiccup in the Muslim world. And, for all the rhetoric against the West, the American aggression on Iraq did not result in mass demonstrations by Islamic parties in any Muslim country.”

More of the man’s articles can be accessed here.

Noisy neighbours 2

Yesterday morning, the LAF (Lebanese Armed Forces) finally reacted to the ongoing provocation of daily overflights by Israeli warplanes and fired two missiles and 150 rounds of machine gun fire at them. Of course, the LAF’s air defence systems being what they are (i.e. antiquated and hugely inadequate – the US makes sure its support for the Lebanese army doesn’t include any material that would actually allow the LAF to stand a chance against either Israel or Syria) they caused no actual damage, but the message is clear. As a “senior army source” told the Daily Star: “Our firing is not for show but for effect: if we had missiles we’d shoot them down one by one for violating Lebanon’s sovereignty.” There has been deafening silence only on the Israeli side over the incident. The UN, as well as the Lebanese government, are constantly complaining about these violations of resolution 1701, which have been increasing in the last few days. However, as argued in the Daily Star editorial of today, titled “With friends like America, Lebanon doesn’t need any more enemies”, the only power which has any real influence over Israel, the US, have not done anything about it other than occasionally muttering something under their breath about “restraint”. Savour the sharp contrast with their constant and loud-mouthed pressure on Lebanon and Syria over that other clause in 1701, i.e. the disarming of Hezbollah, “despite the difficulty and dubious benefit of doing so, the danger of upsetting delicate internal balances, and the patent inability of the Lebanese army to replace the resistance as a deterrent.” That is pretty strong language coming from a usually fairly non-committal and definitely neither pro-Syrian nor pro-Hezbollah newspaper. The editorial continues by asking what the credibility of the US is in asking that a new Lebanese president would “abide by international resolutions” when they themselves treat these resolutions “as a buffet from which they can pick and choose. (…) To understand the seriousness of the situation, one need only ask what might have happened if, by some freak occurrence, the Lebanese Army’s crude anti-aircraft weapons had managed to down one of the Israeli Air Force’s US-supplied multi-million-dollar toys. Would the Israeli’s have punished Lebanon’s legitimate act of defending its airspace by slaughtering a few hundred of its virtually defenseless soldiers? Or might they have decided to exact revenge by murdering some civilians instead? Does anyone imagine that Hezbollah would stand by idly in the face of such an outrage?”

Noisy neighbours

Lebanon only has two neighbours. Neither of them has an embassy in Beirut. Neither of them has normal diplomatic relations with Lebanon. Both of them have occupied, or are continuing to occupy (parts of) Lebanon. Neither of them is interested in a truly sovereign, effectively independent, united Lebanon. Both of them have an inherent vested interest in destabilizing Lebanon and preventing it to grow or flourish in any domain. Both of them are accused of being behind the current assassination campaign: M14 accuses Syria, M8 accuses Israel. Yesterday, the family of the assassinated ex-leader of the Lebanese Communist Party, Georges Hawi (June 21, 2005) announced that it has filed a lawsuit against Israel’s Mossad whom they accuse of having plotted Hawi’s assassination. They accuse the Lebanese authorities of ‘overlooking the issue of political assassinations and focusing on the murder of former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri solely’. They could have added that even in that one case, the Lebanese authorities (as well as the UN investigating commission) have only and consistently followed one track – the Syrian one. I don’t know who is behind the assassinations any more than anyone else, and I suspect we will never really find out anyway, but the way the investigations have been and are being conducted, means their final pronouncement is not going to convince anyone apart from those who already are convinced of its predictable verdict anyway. This is just going to be another farcical Lockerbie story, basically.

In ‘incredibly exciting news’ which makes every front page’s headline today, it is announced that Michel Aoun and Saad Hariri will meet and have a discussion.

Sparks of a different nature

Spark 1: For the second time in a month, a host of forest fires is raging in both the south, the Chouf and the north of the country. Just like last time, they were started at over a hundred different locations simultaneously, and yes they obviously were started intentionally: just like a few weeks ago, there is no obvious natural reason (like temperature – the summer heat’s long gone). This time though there have been witness reports from the residents of Ain al-Sammak, a small town in Dhour al-Soueir, who ’said they saw a group of armed individuals set fire to the mountainous region. They said the group later opened fire at the townspeople who tried to put out the fire.’ (Daily Star) Motives could be land clearance for construction projects by ruthless real estate developers (which is often the cause of Greek forest fires, for example) or, as was reported last time, rather unconvincingly I think, the creation of charcoal as a heating fuel for the winter by the poor who can’t afford regular fuel. But this being Lebanon, it could of course have some tactical military purpose, such as the creation of clear lines of fire. Whatever the reason, the fires have caused some serious environmental damage to a country already deforestating at a dramatic rate.

Another environmental disaster in this country is the enormous mountain of toxic waste on the seaside at Saida/Sidon.

More sparks and some water…

Hezbollah issued a statement today saying that the idea of US military bases in Lebanon is unacceptable, and would be considered “a hostile act. American soldiers on Lebanese soil will be considered an occupation force and will be treated as such.” Added Hezbollah official Nawaf Mussawi :”Let the Americans take this message as they wish.”

Meanwhile Walid Jumblatt, freshly returned from a trip to Washington and New York, where he’s been trying to convince Moon and, more to the point, Bush, to support the idea of a March 14 candidate as opposed to a compromise candidate (which gives you a good idea of the kind of “sovereignty” and “independence” the M14 people have in mind for Lebanon), felt compelled to in return describe Hezbollah as “a Syrian-Iranian occupation force” and flatly accused the resistance of being behind the assassination campaign.

On a possibly more positive note, there has been a suspicious frequency of get-togethers between figures of the government and the opposition, the most recent being Gemayyel meeting with Berry. This followed Aoun and Gemayyel meeting at patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir’s place. The maronite patriarch is desperate to reunite the Lebanese christians, or at least the maronites, around one leader. For some reason, people within one sectarian group having different opinions and supporting different parties is not seen as the normal process of democracy here in Lebanon, but as dangerous “division” and “strife” or even “treason”. Everybody is supposed to stick together, have the same opinion (or rather, no informed opinion whatsoever) and follow one strong leader. As a Syrian friend of mine remarked recently, in Syria there is one big dictatorship, in Lebanon there are a dozen or so local small ones – all of them theocracies of one kind or another. “Neo-feudal” is the best description I’ve heard yet of the Lebanese “democracy”. Anyway, the scheduled parliamentary meeting to elect a president on 23 october (i.e. tomorrow) has been postponed “to allow the two sides to work out a compromise”, amid signs that the 14 March forces finally seem to have entered the process of giving up their opposition to a compromise candidate. Well, except Jumblatt, of course.

The mother of all sparks 3

And here we have the Hizbollah reaction (which at the time of this writing, weirdly enough, is only reported on the Haaretz and USAToday websites – in an English-language search, that is):

“In a statement Friday, Hezbollah said the “American efforts were part of a comprehensive plan to link Lebanon with the American project for the region … under deceitful banners such as strategic partnership,” it said.

Hezbollah, which Washington accuses of being a terrorist organization, accused the United States of interference in Lebanese affairs, saying the American plans and the dangers it encompass could turn the country into another Iraq. It did not elaborate. Some in Lebanon have expressed fears that a foreign military presence could attract al-Qaida and other militants, as has happened in Iraq.

Syria, meanwhile, accused the United States of threatening Lebanon’s stability with its backing of the government in the country’s political turmoil. In a letter sent to the United Nations on Thursday, it said U.S. interference has so far deepened divisions by clearly and openly siding with one Lebanese side after the other.“

The mother of all sparks 2

Joshua Landis at Syriacomment has this on the military bases plan:

The US plans to build an air base in northern Lebanon, in an area which borders Syria and is hardly 140 km from Damascus, sources say.

The American air base will also be located 22 air miles (40 km) from Tartous, Syria’s main naval base and the Russian Mediterranean fleet’s command center.

“According to US plan six military bases will be set up, three in Iraq, one in Jordan, one in Saudi Arabia and one in Lebanon. It is believed that the Lebanese government is approving the establishment of the base and the name of the base will be the US-Lebanese Center for Rehabilitation of the Army in order to cover the real activity of the base,” Amin Hotait, a retired army colonel told Press TV.

According to reports the Bush Administration gave the go-ahead for the plan following the talks with Chief of the US Central Command Admiral William Fallon and Lebanese officials on July 29.

The air base will bring the American military back to Lebanon after a 25-year absence. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan pulled US troops out of the country.

The US Air Force engineers and technicians have begun work on the new air base.

The mother of all sparks

I interviewed a Lebanese sociologist today for an article I’m writing for a Dutch newspaper. The man is convinced Lebanon is on the brink of civil war as we speak, and all it would take to set it off is a small spark here or there. He is also convinced the spark will occur, and that it is going to be lit by some foreign power. Next thing I know, I open a newspaper and what does it say: Fatfat, Aridi (government ministers), Suleiman (LAF commander) and Feltman (US ambassador) all deny the US is seeking to establish bases in Lebanon. In fact they strenuously deny the US wants to establish naval, land and air bases in Bcharre, Tripoli, Qoleiat, Damour, Baalbek and Hermon. They also adamantly deny the US wants to set up radar stations in Qornet Sawda, Barouk and Dahr al-Baidar. All this was reported in as-Safir, a leftist pro-opposition newspaper, as being part of an agreement (currently still a draft to be negotiated) between the US and Lebanese governments. The agreement, proposed by Eric Edelman, visiting ‘US Undersecretary for Defense Policy’ or some such non-descript title, would also require the Lebanese Armed Forces to change its doctrine, which currently states that Syria is a friendly neighbour, Israel is an enemy and Hizbollah a legitimate resistance movement. On the basis of this single, albeit very detailed article in one single newspaper (rather unconvincingly derided as a conspiracy theory here on the very biased pro-14 March, pro-US website Ya Libnan), half the Lebanese government, the top commander of the LAF and the US ambassador felt compelled to issue denials. In fact, they’re denying it so strenuously, so adamantly, and in such perfect harmony, that they’re actually convincing everyone that it must be true. And in any case, Edelman has no such qualms and actually appeared on Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation TV yesterday night announcing that the US would like “a strategic partnership with Lebanon’s army to strengthen the country’s forces so that Hezbollah would have no excuse to bear arms”. According to AP, the interview was recorded at least two days ago, when Edelman was still in Lebanon, but aired yesterday night, only hours after the others’ denials. Edelman also managed to blurt out this pearl of widom: “I don’t see any reason why Israel and Lebanon have to be enemies. Israel has peace treaties with two of its neighbors. I think in time there is no reason why there shouldn’t be one between Lebanon and Israel as well.” Eh, dude, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Israel has attacked, invaded, bombed, mined, embargoed, occupied and generally terrorized Lebanon for the past 60 years, it has only last summer bombed the shit out of the country for an entire month, killing over 1300 people and covering it in millions of unexploded cluster bombs and landmines, which are killing and maiming people to this day and for which Israel is still refusing to provide the maps. Israel is occupying two pieces of Lebanon as we speak, its warplanes and drones are violating Lebanon’s airspace on a daily basis and it is just biding its time until it can start the real work again. Dude, how many reasons do you need?