Foreign Interference

While the Lebanese are planning their next elections, due to take place in less than two weeks, the rest of the world seems to be doing their best to make sure the elections go according to their interests. With the elections so close, this might not be such a difficult task. Most observers seem to be predicting an advantage for the Hezbollah - FPM alliance at the expense of the March 14 alliance (and by "most observers" I mean CNN and BBC). So it's not surprising to see US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton making a surprise visit to Beirut to declare the US's commitment to a democratic and free Lebanon and to insist on the importance of preventing foreign interference in the Lebanese elections followed ironically by Joe Biden's vist to Beirut (the first ever by a sitting US Vice-President) in which he said, “We will evaluate the shape of our assistance programs based on the shape of the new government." At the same time Israeli officials keep reminding the Lebanese that Lebanon will pay severely for voting in a Hezbollah-led government, with Ehud Barak recently saying, "If Hizbullah wins the elections with a large margin, Lebanon will expose itself to the might of the Israeli army more than any time in the past." I don't know about you but I think there's little else that foreign nations can do to influence elections than using threats of military force along with promise of economic aid.

And in the face of the American-Israeli "carrot and stick," the Iranians and Syrians need to do very little in order to influence the result of the elections in their favour. In fact, they actually need to do as little as possible (publicly of course). By keeping a low profile, they give their Hezbollah allies the ability to show the (admittedly naive) Lebanese that their side is getting little foreign support in the face of the blatant intervention by Israel and the US in favor of the March 14 alliance. So they probably stick to the common practice of (secretly) funneling cash into the campaigns of their allies all the while pointing out the importance of Lebanese elections free from outside influence.

An Uncommon Retraction

It is not very common for Hassan Nasrallah to retract something he said. He's a bit like the pope in that matter, infallible and generally unapologetic. So I was pleasantly surprised yesterday when, during a speech marking the 9th anniversary of the liberation of the once Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon, Nasrallah reiterated what he sees as the positive outcomes of May 7, but added, "that is why I called it a glorious day, while I accept that it was a painful day and a sad day."

So it's not a complete retraction, nor is it an apology, but it is far more conciliatory than what he had said a few days ago, and it's as much of a retraction as we can expect from Nasrallah at a time like this.

This leads me to two questions. The first is: What was he thinking when he said it the first time and why did he not foresee the obvious negative reactions (even from those who normally support him) to his speech ten days ago?

The second question is: Is Nasrallah reading my blog?

UPDATE: Just to clarify things, after a brief discussion with Ameen: when I said "negative reactions" I was not qualifying the reactions as being negative or unjustified in and of themselves, but rather that they were (understandably) negative towards Nasrallah's original statements, which themselves, as I said in my previous post, were pretty unjustified in my opinion. Hope that clears things up, and thanks to Ameen for pointing out my subtle yet significant linguistic error.

The March 14 Prophecy

There's a funny story we used to tell about March 14 supporters who, in the days leading to March 14, seemed to have forgotten that they weren't alone in the country. So much so, that on March 8, one soon-to-be March 14er told a reporter, "I don't know why they did that, we were all united before they showed up."

This "March 14 equals Lebanon" formula was not just a passing theme. It had become a fundamental part of internal and regional Lebanese politics over the next four years, referring to the year-long opposition sit-in in downtown Beirut as an "occupation," continually using the mantra "state within a state," and culminating in July 2006 when Fouad Sanioura accepted then US Secretary of State Condalezza Rice's full support for Lebanon at the same time that her administration and congress was handing Israel extra fuel and munitions to bomb the non-March-14-friendly South of Lebanon. Today, this 'foreignization' of the opposition can be seen in March 14's electoral campaign: "Vote for Lebanon." It's leaders' political speech includes such brilliant statements as "If March 8 wins, then Lebanon will be ruled from Damascus's countryside."

This mentality, which had become so prevalent in March 14 speech that I have come to believe it runs far deeper than mere tactical political smearing, is my primary issue with March 14. The fundamentally hypocritical monopolization of Lebanese identity by a group of parties that represent half of Lebanon and whose founding principles were those of unity and coexistence stood in stark contrast with everything I believe in as a Lebanese. This pushed me so far away from this political group that I felt a sense of belonging among the citizens of "Non-Lebanese" Lebanon.

Enter Hassan Nasrallah.

Since May 7, 2008, I had been rationalizing how the events of that day were a tragic yet inevitable result of an extreme political climate coupled with an irresponsible government decision. I had convinced myself that Hezbollah was cornered and had little other choice. Of course though some details of the events are unforgivable (such as the burning down of Future TV headquarters), the event itself seemed like a heavy price paid by Lebanon for an overdue wake-up call. I believed, and still do, that Lebanon needed to simply pick up the pieces and move forward.

And that it did. The coming months saw the best political climate Lebanon has seen since before February 14th 2005. The Doha accords, the election of a president, the new government and the new electoral law all gave me a little hope. Yet I never went as far as saying that all this was a direct result of May 7, not because I didn't believe so, but probably because I refused to attribute these positive developments to such a negative event.

Yesterday, during a graduation ceremony in Beirut's southern suburb, Nasrallah said, "I tell the Lebanese, in particular Sunnis and Shiites, that the May 7 events put an end to war in Beirut. The May 7 events safeguarded Lebanon's institutions and forced all Lebanese parties to go back to the dialogue, which led to the election of President Michel Sleiman."

So, unlike me, Nasrallah does not seem to have that problem in admitting that these events are directly responsible for the seemingly positive events that followed. And though I had often hoped Nasrallah would apologize to those he had wronged on that day in order to heal the wound upon which recent stability was built, I half-heartedly understood his inability to do so (I say inability because I also managed to convince myself that he actually wanted to apologize but couldn't). So imagine how I felt when he went and declared yesterday, "that May 7 was a glorious day in the history of the resistance."

A glorious day? Really??

May 25 is a glorious day for Lebanon. I also accepted, despite the death and destruction, that August 14 was as a glorious day... May 7, 2008 was certainly NOT a glorious day for Lebanon and if Mr. Nasrallah thinks that doesn't disqualify it from being a glorious day for the resistance... It makes me wonder...

Has The Resistance become so removed from Lebanon that its glorious days now include a day that saw death, destruction and widespread fear in Lebanon's capital, inflicted directly by the Resistance itself? How can The Resistance, whose promise of never using its arms against its own citizens still forms the basis for its legitimacy, remember as "glorious" a day in which it did just that? Or were the sunni citizens of Beirut and supporter's of Mustaqbal, no longer citizens of Lebanon, the country Hezbollah vowed to protect?

Maybe Nasrallah just joined the ranks of dividers and foreignizers, those who see the "other Lebanon" as another country altogether. Or maybe it was always the case but I was was unable to see it, and it that case, wouldn't that mean that maybe, just maybe, March 14 had actually gotten something right after all?...

Quote of the Day

"The president should remain Christian because we believe that Lebanon's characteristic and strength is in not differentiating between its Christians and Muslims." -- Saad Hariri.

Good one Mr. Hariri!

(from Naharnet)

Not all Women Are Equal?

A while ago, I mentioned a popular campaign for granting Lebanese women who are married to foreigners equal rights in terms of citizenship for their children. Current citizenship law states that any person born of a Lebanese father is entitled to citizenship.

A parliamentary committee has been set up to propose a change to the law. Now you might think, "why on earth do they need a committee to add two words to a law?" After all, all we need to fix this is add the words "or mother" to that law and all will be well.

Turns out, someone in the committee proposed adding an exception: Lebanese women married to Palestinian men. Their rationale is that allowing these women to give Lebanese citizenship to their children is essentially a form of "Tawteen" (Arabic for "nationalization" which has become a Lebanese political taboo word meaning granting citizenship to Palestinian refugees).

The weird thing is that opponents of this essentially racist exception aren't so much concerned with arguing that this exception is inherently wrong and unjust, but rather they are arguing that it isn't really necessary "protect" the Lebanese from Tawteen. So the committee, and this is the funny part, decided to conduct a survey to see how many Palestinian children might benefit from this law. You know... to see if there is a real risk of Tawteen.

It seems the committee has totally forgotten the reason they're doing what they're doing. The whole point of the amendment was to bring about equality in rights between Lebanese men and women. And although injustice against the Palestinians themselves in terms of their civil rights is far from uncommon in Lebanon, extending the inequality to include Lebanese nationals married to Palestinians is new. And quite scary. We're not even talking about equality between men and women anymore... We're talking about equality between Lebanese women, based on who they're married to.

It seems that for some people, avoiding Tawteen is more important than justice and equality. The fact that this is even a legitimate debate is shameful.

Info and photo from: Al-Akhbar (arabic).

Murder By Numbers

Israelis, Jews, and many others often find it extremely offensive to compare any contemporary event to the Holocaust. They often say it is an insult to the victims and survivors of the Nazi atrocities that left 6,000,000 dead. Those who don't find it offensive, would at least generally agree that it's far too much of a stretch to make such a comparison. Yet I often found myself arguing with seemingly sane people that killing 300 people, though horrible in and of itself, should not be compared to the Holocaust.

Today, however, Israeli rationalization of its current actions in Gaza has arguably reached (and exceeded) that level of exaggerated comparison. It has even brought the Holocaust within the scope of legitimate comparison.

More than two weeks into the conflict, with over 900 Palestinians killed, Israeli politicians, generals and even blog commenters maintain the same rationalization: That this war is a war of self-defense aimed at halting rocket fire from Hamas into Southern Israel. They describe world media as biased against Israel because they don't show the suffering of Israelis who have to live under the threat of Hamas rocket fire. But let's look at the numbers. So far, the "Gaza Op" has killed 900 Palestinians in 18 days, that's 50 per day. Hamas rocket fire since Israeli disengagement from Gaza 4 years ago (including the past two weeks) has killed 30 people, or 0.02 per day. That is to say, in terms of number of people killed per day, The Gaza operation is currently outperforming its cassus belli, namely Hamas's rocket launching campaign, by 2500 to 1. If that's not an outrageous comparison, I don't know what is.

To put it a way that makes these numbers mean something: Imagine if today Hamas suddenly unveils a massive war machine that it's been keeping hidden, waiting for the right moment, then launches a retaliatory attack on Israel in "self-defense." If it responds by killing 100000 Israeli's a day, it will be well within its right to defend itself, according how Israelis see that right. To make the point clearer, if Israel's logic holds, Hamas has the right to defend itself (if it could) by killing about 20 times more people per day than Hitler killed during the Holocaust.

So, mathematically speaking, comparing the Gaza op to Hamas's rocket fire is far more of a stretch than comparing the Holocaust to what is happening in Gaza today. What is even sicker is that, although no sane man would ever say the current Gaza op would justify another Holocaust, Israelis seem to have no trouble making that jump when it comes to their own self-defense.

"I Hate Syria" Is Not a Political Platform

It's election season in Lebanon, and what normal democracies expect from their politicians at a time like this is statements about their political platforms. We should expect to hear what they will do to make our lives better.

But in Lebanon these elusive platforms are all but missing from the political debate. And with our multi-party cabinet taking almost all its decisions unanimously, it is hard to see why we should vote for one party over another. Yesterday was the first time we saw a real disagreement in the cabinet over appointing the head of the election campaign supervisory committee. Al-Nahar reported that the opposition used its veto for the first time. (By the way this is simply not true. The question at hand was not one that opposition were allowed to veto: their veto only applies to decisions on "basic national matters," and the real reason the opposition's opposition influenced the final decision was that President Suleiman did not call for a vote until the opposition was satisfied (way to be neutral Mr. President)).

In any case, currently the choice of head for the election campaign supervisory committee is all we really have to go by when choosing who to vote for this year... Well, that and how much they like Syria. In fact, the Syria factor seems to be the core of the election campaign on both sides. With Jumblatt essentially telling us to vote for him or Ghazi Kanaan will come and eat our children at night, and Aoun going around telling us to vote for him so he can make love to Bashar Al-Asad more effectively, I wonder how the average non-affiliated Lebanese will be able to make a decision (if such a person exists at all).

But it's not completely hopeless, every once in a while we do hear some concrete ideas. Michel Aoun recently proposed a national defense strategy whereby resistance elements will be placed in villages and towns all over Lebanon creating something of a national militia, similar to Hezbollah's method, but nation-wide. I frankly think this is a terrible idea simply because I don't trust the Lebanese with weapon caches in their villages.

And just yesterday Aoun's arch-nemesis Geagea also teased us with a vague reference to his own national defense strategy that he intends to present at the next dialogue meeting. He makes an obscure reference to some strategy based on historic precedent namely, the case of Switzerland during World War II and how it managed to avoid attack. Great! Now as soon as Geagea clears his strategy up we will have two solutions to the same problem and we can vote based on whichever of these makes more sense to us...

Right?... Not exactly. From what I understand, the Swiss defense strategy is one of a nation-wide militia with every male citizen between the ages of 19 and 31 keeping a military rifle in their homes, ready to mobilize at a moment's notice. So is this what Geagea is gonna propose? (It's either that or that Lebanon should keep making economic concessions to our enemies and allow our banks to store Nazi gold, which is the only other reason why Switzerland wasn't attacked during the war.) But if this IS what he will propose, to me it sounds painfully similar to Aoun's proposal of a nation-wide Hezbollah-style defense militia.

So even on the most divisive issue, these two arch-enemies seem unable to present significantly different proposals to allow for decent electoral decision making. The only thing more depressing than that is that even with such similar initial proposals, the two sides will probably never agree.

So where does that leave us? Well it leaves us with an easy approach to decide who to vote for: grab the nearest picture of Bashar Al-Assad you can find, stare at it for a moment, if you suddenly feel afraid, angry, nauseous or generally uneasy, then you're better off voting for March 14, otherwise you might find it more suitable to vote for the Tayyar-Hezbollah group.