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Babylon & Beyond

Observations from Iraq, Iran,
Israel, the Arab world and beyond

Category: Lebanon

LEBANON: Journalists bear brunt of Hariri's 'day of rage'

January 26, 2011 |  7:41 am

Lebanon-jazeera

Press advocacy groups have joined politicians and others in condemning Wednesday's attacks on journalists after a national "day of rage" organized by former prime minister and Washington ally Saad Hariri spiraled out of control.

The largest riots took place in the northern city of Tripoli, where an angry mob set fire to a satellite truck belonging to the pan-Arab satellite channel Al Jazeera. The news crew, which was reporting from the roof of a nearby office, took refuge in the building along with reporters from the local Lebanese station New TV until they were evacuated by the Lebanese army, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists and others.

By all accounts, Hariri's supporters made life a nightmare for journalists trying to cover one of the biggest international news stories so far this year. 

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LEBANON: Showdown between Hezbollah and Hariri expected over naming of premier

January 23, 2011 |  1:28 pm

Byebyelebgov
Following a week of twists and turns in Lebanon's unfolding political crisis over a United Nations-backed tribunal, feuding Lebanese parties are heading for a showdown as scheduled talks to pick a new prime minister threaten to stall once again.

On Sunday night, Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah took to the airwaves to say that his group and its political allies would decide "in the coming hours" whether talks could take place on Monday as scheduled.

According to Lebanon's confessional political system, the prime minister must be a Sunni Muslim, but Hezbollah and its main Christian ally have flat-out rejected the reelection of current caretaker Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

Hariri is a Washington favorite and leader of the movement championing the tribunal, which is currently reviewing indictments thought to implicate Hezbollah members in the assassination of Saad Hariri's father, former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.

“Our initial response was to topple the government, which was unable to protect Lebanon and face the repercussions of the [tribunal]," said Nasrallah, referring to the mass walkout of opposition lawmakers last week that led to the collapse of the government.

"If [Hariri and his allies] want to use this stage to pressure us, my response is that after the release of the indictment, we will not yield to anything that has been imposed on us," he said without elaborating.

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LEBANON: Another descent into a long crisis

January 17, 2011 | 11:42 am

Following last week’s decision by Hezbollah to bring down the government of Saad Hariri, Lebanon has likely entered a period of extended crisis with a caretaker government. It will be marked by fitful attempts to form a new government; negotiations, scheduled to begin this week, have already been postponed.

This is the latest escalation in the long crisis over the U.N. special tribunal investigating the assassination of Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

For the time being, the security situation remains calm, although tense. The crisis remains at the political level, and Hezbollah’s overwhelming military force makes it unlikely that its opponents will try to challenge it on the street.

Cargenie On Monday, the tribunal announced that the prosecutor had submitted his sealed indictment to the pre-trial judge. The judge, Daniel Franson, is expected to take between six and 10 weeks to weigh the evidence. Franson can confirm or reject the indictment in whole or in part, or ask for more evidence.

Parliament remains divided between the March 8 coalition, backed by Hezbollah, and the March 14 coalition of Saad Hariri. Although the March 14 coalition has made clear that it will nominate Hariri for another term and the bulk of the opposition has said it will nominate an alternative -- probably former Prime Minister Omar Karami -- the outcome is uncertain. Druze leader Walid Junblatt and parliament speaker Nabih Berri have been urging both sides to return to negotiations. But tensions are riding high and no consensus is emerging.

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ISRAEL: Officials keep a keen eye on Tunisia, also Lebanon

January 16, 2011 |  8:11 pm

Like the rest of the region, Israel is keeping a keen eye on developments in Tunisia even as it  waits to see what tomorrow (or the next day) brings in Lebanon. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to convene an intelligence assessment meeting to study the situation, Israel Radio reported, but has already drawn one conclusion.

"The region in which we live is unstable ... we see this at several points throughout the Middle East," Netanyahu said at Sunday's weekly Cabinet meeting. And the one clear lesson arising from the surrounding situation is that "we need to lay the foundations of security in any agreement we make," he said. Peace can unravel, regime and other changes can occur; therefore, the government's policy is to "bind peace and security together," Netanyahu said.

The peace and security chicken-and-egg conundrum presents a stumbling block that is more than just a procedural dispute of what gets discussed first. Security is the key to keeping the peace, Netanyahu said last week in his annual meeting with the foreign media.

"This may not be obvious to some of you, because you hear all the time a contrary statement that says 'well, what will keep the peace is the peace,'" said Netanyahu. The formal conclusion of peace doesn't guarantee the continuation of peace, but the security arrangements will "buttress" it and "protect us in case peace unravels ... or Iran tries to walk in," the prime minister said. 

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LEBANON: Hezbollah leader speaks for first time following government collapse

January 16, 2011 |  1:26 pm

IMG_0974 Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah gave an address on TV on Sunday night to lay out Hezbollah's rationale for orchestrating the collapse of the government last week.

On Wednesday, Hezbollah and its allies withdrew from the cabinet, dissolving the government and throwing Lebanon into a new phase of tense uncertainty.

Nasrallah explained in the clearest terms yet Hezbollah's demands of the Lebanese state regarding the U.N.-backed tribunal that is expected soon to indict members of Hezbollah accused of involvement in the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005.

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MIDDLE EAST: Activists, Arab leaders on edge as Tunisia hangs in the balance

January 16, 2011 |  8:25 am

Tunisia jan16_2F

Emboldened Arab citizens are taking on their own leaderships as the region watches with anticipation to see whether Tunisia's recent uprising will successfully replace the oppressive regime of Zine Abidine Ben Ali that ruled for 23 years.

Most regional leaders have stayed silent on Ben Ali's flight into exile amid national riots, a reticence that many observers have interpreted as fear. But even staunch supporters of the Tunisian protest movement are cautious to call "revolution" too early.

"Right now the Arab regimes are annoyed, but they aren't afraid," said Munsif Ben Ali, a Tunisian expatriate in Beirut and the head of the local solidarity movement in Lebanon (he shares a last name but no relation to the ousted president).

Ben Ali spoke to Babylon & Beyond on the sidelines of a demonstration on Sunday as several hundred activists gathered in front of the United Nations headquarters in downtown Beirut to express support for the Tunisian protesters.

"Many of the symbols of Ben Ali's regime are still in place," he said. "When real change is completed, then [the Arab leaders] will be terrified."

While the official reactions have been muted, reactions to any perceived support for Ben Ali and his government have been swift and angry, and not just from secular reformists like the ones who made up most of the rally in Beirut.

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ISRAEL: Poor diplomacy strikes foreign relations

January 10, 2011 | 10:42 pm

Israel's foreign relations are suffering these days from an outbreak of poor diplomacy. Not necessarily bad; just poor.

Ladies_tailors_strikers Foreign Ministry employees say they are just that, poor. Their basic salaries have been devalued by about 40% since last being updated in the early 1990s, and many of them rely on help from welfare services, say activists from the ministry workers' union.

The diplomats have years of experience, a stack of academic degrees and high motivation to serve. They also have families to feed and pensions to fund, and say neither is doable on their paychecks, which some revealed on a popular news site. Only an idealist or a fool would join the foreign service under these conditions, they said. Finance Ministry officials said the paychecks didn't reflect considerable extras.

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LEBANON: Game over for Beirut's famous Gemmayzeh Cafe

January 7, 2011 |  1:52 pm

Lebanon-glass1

It could be a smoky space at times, with seemingly every man and woman holding a cigarette or a water pipe mouthpiece to their lips.

The live music, the cacophony of conversation and the clatter of men tossing dice onto backgammon boards could create an awful racket.  

But it was gorgeous, the floors covered with art deco tiles, the ceilings crafted ornately, the huge windows letting in crisscrossing beams of light that gave the place an otherworldly feel, like something out of an old movie. 

On Monday, a veritable Beirut institution -- the Gemmayzeh Cafe, often called the glass cafe, is to close its doors after some 80 years, having survived as a recreational refuge even during the country's 1975-1990 civil war.

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MIDDLE EAST: Can the region's Christians survive the 21st Century?

January 6, 2011 |  9:08 am

Lebanon-christians

As the 21st Century enters its second decade, two millennia of Christian presence in the Middle East might be eclipsed by the end of the century.

Carnegie logoThe new decade began in the Middle East with a car bomb that went off minutes after midnight outside an Egyptian church and left more than 20 people dead. This bombing came just a few weeks after radical Islamic gunmen killed dozens of people in a church in Iraq. The rise of Al Qaeda and the spread of radical Islamic movements have made the difficult situation of the Middle East’s Christian minorities far worse.

Comprising 20% of the region’s population at the beginning of the 20th Century, the remaining 10 to 12 million people make up only 5% of the population today. Though Christians played prominent roles in the cultural, nationalist, leftist and anti-colonial movements of earlier decades, they are excluded from the Islamist politics of recent years.

Since 2001, they have also borne some of the brunt of the confrontation between radical Islam and the (Christian) West.

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LEBANON: Proposed ban on sale of land between Muslims and Christians sparks controversy

January 4, 2011 |  9:54 am

ChurchMosque Labor Minister Butros Harb on Tuesday vigorously defended his controversial draft law that would ban the sale of land between Christians and Muslims for the next 15 years on the pretext of protecting Lebanon's Christian community.

Outraged critics have pointed out that the law is not only discriminatory and unconstitutional, but also fails to address the economic and political pressures pushing Lebanese of all sects to leave the country.

"There are suspicious sales of Christian lands as if there is a tendency to uproot Christians from their areas," he was quoted telling a local television news station by the news website Naharnet.

Harb's proposal does not appear to affect the sale of land by Christians to wealthy Muslims from Saudi Arabia and other Arabian Peninsula countries who have invested heavily in the Lebanese real estate sector. Civil-society activists, politicians and ordinary people have reacted with disgust to the proposal, which some have called fear-mongering.

The draft law "is actually a direct violation of the constitution and the coexistence that is part of the constitution," said Kamel Wazne, head of the Center of American Strategic Studies. 

"Today they are calling for not selling land to someone from another sect, tomorrow they will want to outlaw intermarriage," he said. "The premise for the law is very racist, and if this is allowed to pass in Lebanon, it will set a very bad precedent for the country."

Harb did not respond to several requests for comment.

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LEBANON: Psychic Michel Hayek sees 'war for peace' in 2011

January 3, 2011 |  7:17 am

Picture 11 Good news for a tense region, if you believe in psychic predictions, that is.

Michel Hayek, the Arab world's most celebrated clairvoyant, foresees a Middle Eastern "war for peace" in 2011, assuring the audience that tuned in for his annual televised New Year's Eve predictions that calm will prevail despite threats of war.

"The region is moving slowly toward peace, despite indications of threats and war," the Lebanese soothsayer predicted (Arabic link). "Lebanon, specifically, will be negotiating" on its own behalf, he said, "rather than being negotiated over."

Although Hayek did not speak at length about the United States or U.S. policy in the region as he has in the past, he did predict that Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would suffer an on-camera breakdown.

One of his more tragic predictions already seems to have come true.

On Jan. 1, just hours after Hayek predicted a "darkness" would fall over some leaders of the Coptic church in Egypt, at least 21 Coptic worshippers were killed and dozens more injured in a bomb attack on a church in the Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria.

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ISRAEL: Neighbors watchful as Israel demarcates maritime borders with Cyprus

December 26, 2010 |  9:46 pm

Levant basin Huge gas fields discovered recently under the Mediterranean seabed have raised high hopes in Israel, a small, high-consumption country seeking alternative energy resources and a greater degree of
  independence from imports.

In a different geopolitical reality, the discovery could benefit the whole region — if it was on speaking terms. Everyone wants to tap natural resources — but this one taps into standing regional squabbles.

Israel and Lebanon, for example. The deposits extend into areas controlled by Lebanon, and it has accused Israel of moving in on its natural resources. Not so, says  Israel, which maintains that the fields lie between its territory and Cyprus.  Israel's minister of national infrastructures, Uzi Landau, even said Israel would "not hesitate to use force" to protect the fields and uphold international maritime law.

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