Rumours floating

Rumours are surfacing of plans for another ‘massive Israeli attack’ on Lebanon – leaked first a few days ago by a French military source after a meeting in France between top Israeli, French and US military brass. Hizbullah has been busy lately reinforcing its positions, and talked about spring 2010 as the projected date (owing to the soil being too soft in winter for the Merkava tanks to drive on). Now the rumour has been restated by Nahar’s Washington correspondent: ‘Khalil Flaihan said international military authorities have warned Lebanon that Israel plans to launch a massive attack targeting Hizbullah positions. It said Israel is also likely to “widen its aggression to include large areas of Lebanon” under the pretext that Hizbullah continues to receive “heavy and sophisticated weapons” via Syria. Diplomatic sources in Beirut did not rule out the possibility that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could raise the issue of the seized ship alledgedly carrying weapons for Hizbullah and the explosions that took place in Khirbit Selim and Teir Felsay as well as the Katyusha firing from the southern town of Houla. The sources pointed out that Natanyahu would exploit these incidents to accuse Hizbullah of breaching Resolution 1701 “posing a real threat to Israel’s security and that its armed forces are ready for any emergency.”‘ But hey, not to worry: ‘They said the U.S. and French presidents, however, are unlikely to approve any new Israeli offensive against Lebanon.’ Meanwhile Lebanese civilians continue to get injured and killed by the cluster bombs left behind after the last Israeli massacre.

Meanwhile, the unexpected has happened – a tentative Lebanese government has been formed – although already there is a possibility that some ministers, unhappy with the less than prestigious and/or lucrative portfolio assigned to them, will not show up for the official first picture opportunity…

QED

“You are leading the forces in the field,” the army chief told cadets. “The IDF permanently stands in one of two situations: war or preparation for war. We must continue to prepare for war; otherwise there is no justification for the existence of the IDF.”

Foreign interference? What foreign interference?

Al-Akhbar today reports: ‘During the past two days, US Ambassador Michele Sison visited several pro-government leaders and directly voiced the displeasure of the Obama administration with what she referred to as “submission to the other party’s will.” Sison said that “she genuinely fails to understand what kind of agreement is sought by Hariri with Hezbollah and General Aoun” and that she “is not in favor of such agreements if it means meeting Hezbollah’s and Aoun’s demands, nor does she even support a settlement that would ultimately be at the expense of the US administration’s Christian allies.”

As-Safir today reports: ‘US Ambassador Michele Sison conveyed to some Lebanese officials the US opposition to King Abdullah’s visit to Damascus, saying that the visit “is useless” and that Syria “has offered us nothing (in Iraq) so that we reward it for free.” Sison also said that Washington, which is against the 15-10-5 formula both during the first and second attempt to form the government, advises the prime minister-designate and the March 14 forces not to accept this [power-distribution] equation. Some of the March 14 Christian leaders were responsive to Sison’s advice. However, MP Walid Jumblatt rejected the instigation against King Abdullah’s visit to Damascus and stressed the importance of abiding by the 15-10-5 formula. Jumblat warned that any other [power-sharing] equation would be “tantamount to suicide,” saying: “I will not take part in any government that is not formed according to the 15-10-5 formula.”’

These interventions clearly prove that nothing has changed in US policy in the Middle East with Obama’s presidency, not even the heavy-handed dictating of that policy to local actors – whose obedience will of course not get them any protection against the US’s really important ally’s next attack – as at least Walid Junblatt has leaned by now.

Btw, these translated summaries are taken from the daily press round-up of the otherwise fairly useless Nowhariri website, which can hardly be accused of anti-American leanings…

Mother of sparks is back…

The Lebanese Arabic-language daily As-Safir has again – as two years ago, read my blog post about it here – published a frontpage article (unsigned) about US plans to set up military bases (in this case an airbase) in Lebanon. Practically, the plan is to revive the never-finished civil war-era Pierre Gemayyel airport in Hamat, a village in the Batroun district between Byblos and Tripoli. I have been there to see it, and today it is a severely deteriorated strip of concrete with some concrete sheds evidently used by junkies as well as housing a few bored Lebanese army conscripts and used primarily as a racing track by local youths. The idea is to have an airport which is not situated in areas ‘under the influence of the Shia sect’. As-Safir claims the issue is currently being discussed at the highest echelons of the Lebanese Armed Forces and pushed aggressively by various high-placed civilian and miltary US players, including general David Petraeus. Unfortunately, the article quotes only anonymous sources and ‘followers of the file’, in addition to ‘eye witensses in Hamat’ (and one Junblatt quote dating from early 2005). Unsubstantiated as the story might appear to be, it does keep cropping up at regular intervals (only last year, during the May clashes, there was talk about reviving it when Beirut’s airport was temporarily closed by Hizbullah) and holds an obvious importance if only for the reactions it would elicit among the US’s many opponents in the country. After all, it would imply using Lebanon as a base for operations in the entire region, which is the one disaster the country’s feuding warlords have managed to avoid so far. So here is a (rather shoddy and basic) translation I made of the entire article, which was published last Monday, September 28th, 2009.

‘A Lebanese or US airbase in Hamat? Washington insists and its military team is scouting the area…while the army leadership is taking (it) into (serious) consideration’

Unsigned front page article, cont. on p. 16

‘The Americans once again prove that Lebanon will not be contracted out to anyone (but them), nor will it be left to the Lebanese, and the Americans themselves will decide on its business. Once again, the Americans give tangible proof that they bet on Lebanon being, one way or the other, (their playing) field not just for their politics and its complicated calculations, but even for their military and strategic projects for the whole of the Middle East. Why this conclusion, which to some might seem rash, or an exaggeration which the case doesn’t merit?

Oh right, the government…

… totally forgot about that. For those among you (and me) who gave up trying to follow the endless bickering and cowtowing between the nation’s politicians since the June elections, the invaluable Elias Muhanna (aka Qifa Nabki) provides a handy concise update in the National. Not forgetting to include his usual lucid analysis: ‘In Lebanon, where political power is distributed between different religious groups, the ideal of consensual government is seen by many as an essential ingredient to maintaining a modicum of inter-communal harmony. Indeed, as the oft-repeated formula goes, conflicts should have “no victor, no vanquished” – so as to prevent the domination of one sect over the others. However, to conflate communal coexistence with consensual politics (and, by extension, with unity governments) entails three dubious assumptions: first, that sectarian communities are discrete entities whose interests are fully represented by political parties; second, that the practice of politics is nothing more than a zero-sum competition between these sectarian communities over the resources of the state; and third, that the best way to ensure that one sect is not allotted more than its fair share of spoils is to give every sect the ability to throw a spanner into the works. It is to assume, in other words, that political affiliations and sectarian identities are one and the same thing, which has the inevitable effect of further legitimising sectarianism as a dominant feature of Lebanese political life. To put it another way, interpreting coexistence to mean “consensual decision-making in government” mandates that national politics should be nothing more than a meeting of tribal elders, who gather periodically to brainstorm about how to divide the harvest and keep the peace. Sharing power with your political rivals may be a nice idea in theory, but it is almost impossible to achieve in practice without regular breakdowns and severe inefficiencies. The claim that such a scheme prevents sectarian strife and violence by giving all political players a place at the table is simplistic and naive. As we have witnessed over the past four years in Lebanon, power-sharing governments, based as they are on an unrealistic ideal of consensual decision-making, are highly vulnerable to paralysis. This is the case because they provide no pathways for forward progress under the likely scenario that disagreements between political players arise. The only option is to agree; otherwise, the system collapses. The dynamics of such an arrangement virtually demand that the main business of government is the prevention of state failure. Rather than attending to real problems facing the country – like the crippling national debt and the sagging infrastructure – the cabinet inevitably becomes the arena for petty infighting masquerading as consensual co-existence. And while it is commonplace for Lebanese politicians to argue that unity governments help to immunise Lebanon against foreign interference in its domestic affairs, in fact, it is the very fluidity of the Lebanese system that makes it so susceptible to manipulation.’

The coming invasion… of Israel

I have been arguing for a while now (although not on the blog) that the next logical step for Hizbullah, in case of a new Israeli attack, would be to invade the north of Israel. This would mean the end of the Anglo-American colonial project in Palestine. The psychological effect on the Israelis of  actually losing land,  for the first time since 1948, would be devastating enough to induce an already demoralised settler population to flee in droves on the first plane, boat or bicycle available. All the Hizb would need to do is take a strip of 10 kilometers or so in the north and resettle the (armed) Palestinian refugees of Lebanon there, in addition to the Palestinians still living there. Now it seems the Israeli military are for the first time publicly recognising this option too – and decrying their utter lack of preparedness for this scenario. Al-Akhbar reports: ‘وبناءً على ذلك يشدّد الضابط على أن «الحرب المقبلة ستكون على شاكلة هجوم متشابك على الحدود، في داخل إسرائيل ومن الجو».

ودرس الضابط التهديدات الصادرة عن الأمين العام لحزب الله، حسن نصر الله، وتوصّل إلى أن «العدو سيجتاح في الحرب المقبلة شمال إسرائيل، وتحديداً منطقة الجليل، بواسطة الآلاف من المجموعات التي تتكوّن كلّ منها من أربعة إلى خمسة مقاتلين، مدرّبين جيداً ويحملون أسلحة رشّاشة متوسطة، وصواريخ مضادة للدروع، إضافةً إلى قنّاصات وأسلحة خفيفة»، مشيراً إلى أنه «فور دخول هذه المجموعات إلى إسرائيل، سيحظون بمساعدة من البنية التحتية التي سيوفّرها السكان العرب»، في إشارة إلى فلسطينيي أراضي عام 1948.’
ويؤكد الضابط الإسرائيلي أنه «ليس لدى الجيش الإسرائيلي ردّ على سيناريو مشابه، حتى الآن، وليس قادراً على منع هذه المجموعات من دخول إسرائيل.. بل إن تفوق سلاح الجو لم يعد قاطعاً، وعدد المطارات قليل، وتقع جميعها اليوم في مدى الصواريخ»، مشدّداً على أن «سلاح الجو الجبار محبوس في جسد قزم».’

Let me translate that for you: ‘Elaborating on this subject, the [Israeli] officer stresses that: “the coming war will take the form of an interwoven attack on the border, on the interior of Israel and from the air”. The officer has studied the threats made by Hizbullah’s secretary general Hasan Nasrallah and concludes that “in the coming war, the enemy will sweep the north of Israel, threatening the Galilee using thousands of groups consisting each of four to five well-trained fighters carrying medium-size assault rifles, anti-tank missiles, sniper rifles and light weapons”. He points out that inside Israel these groups will benefit from the support of the [existing Israeli] infrastructure handed over to them by the Arab population, ass he refers to the Palestinians in the land of 1948. The Israeli officer affirms that the IDF has at present no response to such a scenario and would be unable to prevent these groups from entering Israel… Moreover, the superiority of the IAF will not be decisive, as the number of airports is limited and all of them have now come within the range of [Hizbullah's] missiles”. He refers to the IAF as “a giant trapped in the body of a dwarf”.’

Perceptions and realities

‘How ironic that many Lebanese gay men, including myself, actually feel more comfortable in places like Damascus or Amman and go there often in order to escape the Beiruti agitation. There might be no Kylie Minogue nights there, but on the other hand there is a lot less snobbery and less fuss about homosexuality. My friend Ali recently went to Jordan to be wedded to his boyfriend by a Muslim cleric and then spent his honeymoon in Damascus. The advantage of such trips also comes in finding an anonymity one is denied at home.But even Amman seems to have its “globalised” gay crowd. Watching Ugly Betty and wearing D&G is what gay culture is about, these people seem to say, along with the NYT article and many gay men across the global village. I can still remember how discovering Steven, the gay character in Dynasty, during my childhood in the 1980s, opened a whole new perspective for me. It is another matter altogether to equate this mass consumption with gay culture, or even with gay rights advocacy. Just as Beirut’s old neighbourhoods are being gentrified, its “superb architecture” (sic) being torn down to make way for soulless, surveillance-camera-equipped skyscrapers, its local gay culture is facing the challenge of McDonaldisation. How long before writers start describing Beirut as a new Bangkok – rather than a Provincetown? Will sex tourism advance its population’s gay rights or social wellbeing? In the meantime, Beirut is certainly turning back into the playground of multinational companies, regional interests and greedy entrepreneurs.’

This, by the way, is only the second reference I ever heard to Sunni sheikhs performing gay marriages – the other case reportedly occurred some years ago in Kuwait, where a sheikh married two women – but only because one of them was actually born as a man and had undergone a sex change: as his birth certificate asserted he was a man, however, the sheikh saw no legal problem there.

As-Safir, a Lebanese nespaper, publishes an opinion poll (links to article in Arabic) by al-Sharika ad-Duwaliyya li-l-Mu3allamat which dismisses the usual dominant view that pictures Lebanon as a country divided between an anti-Syrian/Iranian (and thus pro-US/Israeli) ‘majority’ and a pro-Syrian/Iranian (and ergo anti-US/Israeli) ‘opposition’. In fact, the results show that a solid 93.9% of the Lebanese continue to see Israel as enemy nr. 1 (ranging from 89% of the Maronite christians to 98% of the Druze), followed by the US at 64.8%. Asked about friendly and protective countries, Syria (72.3%) and Iran (68.6%) were only surpassed by Qatar (86.8%) – a marked change from the same company’s poll of june 2008, in which Syria and Iran only scored 46.5% and 40% respectively. The US, on the other hand, slid in popularity from 37.3% to 26.5%, and Saudi Arabia (despite virtually single-handedly holding up the Lebanese sex tourism industry) from 60.6% to 53%. As for the biggest current threat to Lebanon’s security, Hizbullah’s weapons were considered so by a smashing 5.5%, while Israel is seen thus by 48.2% of the Lebanese. Which leaves us with the burning question: if 6.1% of the Lebanese do not see Israel as a threat to their country, but only 5.5% (presumably covering the same respondents) see Hizbullah as a threat to Lebanon, than what on earth is going on in the minds of the 0.6% that is left? And who are they? The cannabis exporters? The Israeli spy network? The error margin? So many questions…

Back home…

After a few busy weeks work-honeymoon-reunion-holiday in Belgium, I made it back to this country, which has managed to not have a government yet in the time Belgium got five of them together. Meanwhile, Irael is upping the threats of another war, which is being taken seriously by nobody but the most paranod (on the grounds that barking dogs don’t bite, and on the grounds that it will mean the virtual end of ‘Israel’).

Some titbits that did happen and characterise this of this wonderful country full of contradictions in a superb way: ‘On a nice Sunday afternoon, one Mercedes ML350, a big black SUV, is heading towards Faqra. On board are two couples planning to have lunch in a restaurant in the area. The car has black dimmed glass all over– remember that this type of glass has been ruled illegal on civilian vehicles. Passenger #1: “Cool ride dude.” Sami (a Typical Lebanese): “Thanks man. It’s my dad’s you know, but all of the extras are the handy work of yours truly.” Passenger #1: “What extras?”And on it roared.For no more than $100, Sami had managed to buy himself the most outrageous, and illegal, of gadgets. He had in his car a police siren device complete with a public address system and a sound amplifier. Is there a need to mention that such a device should belong exclusively to Internal Security police cars? Sami pushed the siren button which instantly started to wail in the most atrocious of ways. He held the microphone to his lips and mimicked the line usually repeated by internal security forces (ISF) when “someone important” is blessing the commoners with his presence among them on the streets. “Silver Toyota move to the right!” And the poor woman driving the Toyota actually moved to the right side of the street. The incident had a surrealist quality: Typical Lebanese– Sami had actually perfected the aggressive tone of ISF officers who always sound like caffeine addicts deprived of their daily dose of the drug. He was maniacally speeding down the sloping hills of Rayfoun, pushing the siren on and on again (the image of a laughing Joker from Batman movies comes to mind), and cars around were obediently moving away from this important-looking death machine.’

Ben Gilbert, in Executive Magazine, writes a comprehensive article on the state of prostitution, which strangely enough turns out to be legal in this country, albeit in typical Lebanese fashion: ‘Siranossian calls the super nightclubs
a “fantastic” solution to the problem of prostitution, because it allows the government to regulate and oversee the industry, somewhat akin to the way escort services operate in the US or Europe. Charbel verifies this, noting that
police usually stop in three or four times a week. “They’re checking to see if the woman is in the club, and hasn’t
gone out with a customer,” he said. Even then, it appears that circumventing the law is relatively easy. Policecorruption in Lebanon is nothing new, and several people acquainted with the industry said that in the past, law enforcement has often looked the other way if enough money is offered. “The law was permitting us,” he said. “When the police come, we’d pay a lot of money, and they’d forget everything for one week, two weeks,” he said.’ (pdf of the article via Qifa Nabki, here).

Why Israel is bad for jews pt.3

This must be the most imaginative conspiracy theory since the ‘North Korea supplies Syria with nuclear technology’-hype: ‘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.”‘ Sounds like a real-life conversation to you? ‘Our escort spoke as he was taught’? Excuse me? And there’s us thinking the Protocols of the Elders of Zion was the most ridiculously ‘how to make up a conspiracy in 12 easy lessons’-thing you could possibly come up with… Take a lesson from the masters of paranoia: ‘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 [in the IDF] 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.’” Bets on the survival of a colonising power that places its trust in this kind of crap, anyone? No one? Yeah well…

Cabinet negotiations and arms cache explosions

The eminently relevant and deliciously ironic Elias Mutannah (known in the blogosphere as Qifa Nabki) has a comprehensive overview of the complications involved in the formation of Lebanon’s new government: ‘Consider the various matrices that Hariri is operating with. In most parliamentary democracies, the goal of the ruling party is typically to form a government with the smallest possible coalition that can gain the confidence of the legislative chamber. In Lebanon’s case, the goal is to form a government with the largest possible coalition without completely crippling the executive branch through perpetual veto-enforced gridlock. It’s not pretty, but this is the solution that everyone is committed to this time around. Add to this opening principle a variety of other distributional conventions and you have  a recipe for a very complicated process indeed. For example, the cabinet is typically supposed to be split equally between Christians and Muslims. Furthermore, Maronites, Sunnis, and Shiites are usually given the same share each. In a thirty-member cabinet, this would mean that there would have to be 15 Christians (e.g., 6 Maronites and 9 non-Maronites) and 15 Muslims (e.g., 6 Sunnis, 6 Shiites, and 3 Druzes). Before you can go about parceling out seats, however, you need to know how many each coalition is going to get. Here we run into the old veto issue. Hariri is negotiating different opposition demands, ranging from Aoun and Frangieh’s request for full proportional representation (which would amount to 45% of the cabinet or 13 ministers), to a simple veto share (11 seats), to Hizbullah and Amal’s constructive ambiguity (which is presumably open to a 10 seat share along with certain “guarantees” in the cabinet declaration.) Finally, there is the issue of foreign interests. Syria would like its allies to have a veto share and would like it even better if Hariri came to Damascus before announcing the cabinet (highly unlikely indeed). The Saudis would like to reserve as much power for M14, but there have been rumblings about a possible opening to Damascus as a means of drawing it back into the Arab fold. Given the number of square pegs awaiting insertion into round holes, where does a novice PM-designate even begin?  The formula most talked about is the so-called 15-10-5 split (for M14, M8, and the President, respectively), which has a certain elegance about it. For legislation on ordinary issues, M14 would not be able to push through its agenda without help from the President’s ministers, a fact that would seem to strengthen the President’s role as a true consensual figure, and not just a symbolic one. At the same time, the opposition would not be able to block legislation on the “issues of national importance” that require a cabinet supermajority, without the help of the president as well. His ministers would represent the crucial swing vote.’

In other news, the Israeli government gives us yet another proof of its astonishing hypocrisy – if not sheer mental confusion – in claiming that the purported explosion yesterday of ‘a ‘Hizbullah weapons cache’ in Khirbet Silim is proof that ‘iran and Syria’ are not abiding by UNSC resolution 1701. Uhm, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t UNSC resolution 1701 (or at least the part of it that Israel selectively likes to focus on) call for the disarming of Hizbullah? And what is the explosion of a weapons cache if not the destruction of arms, i.e. a step on the road to disarmament? So shouldn’t the zionist occupation government be applauding this new tendency? Really, there’s just no pleasing these shlomos…