All Men Are Equal

The Nationality Campaign is a popular campaign for granting Lebanese women the same legal rights as Lebanese men especially in terms of their right to give their children and husband the Lebanese nationality.
I feel ridiculous saying I support this demand, but since there are people out there still making it, then it's likely that not enough people are supporting it.

Photo by OTV taken from tayyar.org.

Will We Have Elections Next Year?

So March 14, after a long meeting yesterday, declared a set of principles that will likely govern their policy in the coming days. Among them were many significant statements about the importance of civil peace and coexistence, and about the need to eliminate the different paranoia each community suffers from. But it wouldn't be fun to focus on the stuff I agree with, instead I'd rather focus on those principles I have a problem with, namely:

• "Any solution to the current crisis should lead to eliminating Hezbollah's arms from the internal equation."
• "Resorting to parliamentary elections in order to decide controversial issues is difficult given the possession of weapons by one team and not the other, and in light of the experience of previous elections in which the losing team refused to acknowledge the results by virtue of its arms. "
  (Source (in Arabic): Naharnet)

These principles scare me. Not because they're faulty, but because they're dangerous. I do believe, like any March 14 supporter, that Hezbollah needs to let go of its weapons. I also believe, like any Hezbollah supporter, that now is not the time. I agree with March 14 that we need a strong corruption-free state that has a monopoly on executive, legislative, judiciary and military powers. But I also believe that a strong state is a prerequisite (or at least a co-requisite) of the disarmament of Hezbollah and not the other way around.

The main reason why these principles scare me is that we seem to be headed to a new crisis, one in which parliamentary elections are delayed until an agreement is reached on the status of Hezbollah's weapons. And if our politicians can't agree on the supposedly simple matter of writing the government platform and barring any sudden changes in the regional and international arena, how exactly are they going to settle the matter of Hezbollah's weapons?

There is also a logical flaw in the March 14 principles: Given their assumptions and their stated objectives, their principles lead to a contradiction. In particular:

• Their assumption that Hezbollah could use its weapons in order to prevent election results that are favorable to its opponents.
• Their objective of building a strong independent peaceful and economically viable state.
• Their principle that Hezbollah needs to be disarmed before parliamentary elections.

Here's why these don't fit: according to the assumption, Hezbollah will indeed use its arms to prevent losing in parliamentary elections. But surely that means they will also use their arms to prevent their disarmament (an assumption Nasrallah himself admits - Video 7:46 (in arabic))? And in that case, if March 14's assumption is true and they stick to their principles, then they are leading us straight into one of two options: a devastating civil and regional war aimed at disarming Hezbollah by force or an indefinite halt to our most basic constitutional institution, the parliament. Both of these outcomes seem to contradict March 14's stated objective. QED.

The Case for Lebanese Morality

Israeli media these days is filled with stories about the prisoner swap and in almost every one of these stories there is someone calling the Lebanese people disgusting or pathetic or monstrous because they are celebrating the return of a brutal child-killer who bashed the head of a 4-year-old with the butt of his rifle. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert himself said, “I pity the people who are celebrating at this time the release of an animal who crushed the skull of a little girl of four.” And I agree… Anyone who celebrates such a brutal man would likely be disgusting, pathetic or monstrous.
For this argument to work, however, two conditions need to be met: (1) the Lebanese people should be aware of the details of the 1979 Naharia attack and (2) they should believe it. And here’s the catch: they don’t.
I don’t have any kind of statistics on the matter, so I might not be able to convince you, but believe me when I say that a lot (if not most) Lebanese have never heard the four-year-old child head-bashing story. I know this because, among the people I know (who are educated middle-class people with multiple university degrees, who live outside Lebanon), many were surprised to hear the story. I myself had not heard that story until after the July 2006 war when my sister (who was living in the US at that time) mentioned it to me to argue against the capture of the two Israeli soldiers.
For those who have heard that version of the story, many of them do not believe it. And why should they? It is important to note that Kuntar himself maintains a different story. His version, as told by his brother, claims that he was on a mission to capture Dan Harran, a nuclear scientist, and other hostages if possible, in order to exchange them in a prisoner swap. The operation went wrong and the policeman was killed in the ensuing gun battle and Harran and his daughter were killed in the crossfire. After his release he also described in more detail the events of that story, claiming he wouldn't have even kidnapped Haran's daughter if the latter hadn't insisted she stays with him. But regardless of which version of the story is true, it is easy to assume that on the Lebanese side, most people are going to believe Kuntar’s story.
The bottom line is that when passing moral judgment, we must look at how people behave given their own beliefs, not someone else’s. The Lebanese people aren’t a bunch of disgusting pathetic monsters. They believe they are celebrating the return of one of them who has spent 29 years in jail after being captured while on a mission to serve his cause. What the Israelis think of that person and what they believe he did is irrelevant.

Photo by Getty Images/AFP

Worst Telemarketing Ever

Here’s a fun story. Several Lebanese people, among them some of my friends, received phone calls this morning from the State of Israel. She told them that Hezbollah are bad people and that they’re trying to build a state-within-a-state. She also threatened devastating retaliation if Hezbollah were to attack them. My question is this: when is the State of Israel going to realize that Lebanon doesn’t really like her? When will she realize that every time she does anything in Lebanon, the almost unanimous response is “Go away!”?
So here’s a tip to Israel. You want Hezbollah disarmed? Then leave us the hell alone!

Google Poll - Samir Kuntar: Hero or Terrorist

So who is Samir Kuntar? Some think he’s a terrorist, others think he’s a hero… But there’s a very easy way to find out: let Google decide! Here’s how it works. You wanna find out if Kuntar is a hero or a terrorist. So you Google “Kuntar terrorist” and then you Google “Kuntar hero” and see which gets you more hits… It’s quite simple really and it seems to work:
On English speaking pages, 88% of pages that mention Kuntar also use the word “terrorist” whereas only 17% say Kuntar and “hero.” Of course this isn’t very reliable since a lot of pages include statements like “Kuntar is not a terrorist” or “Kuntar, the mass murderer, will receive a hero’s welcome.” But these might cancel out and the end result is still a good indicator.
One the other hand, of the 109,000 Arabic speaking web pages mentioning Kuntar, only 8% also use the Arabic word for “terrorist” and 45% use the word Batal meaning “hero.”
Conclusion: Kuntar is seen as a hero by Arabic-speaking people and as a terrorist by English-speaking people. Shocking!

The Two Coffins

I can’t tell you how disappointed I was this morning when I found out the two Israeli soldiers are dead. Actually, I can… I was really really disappointed. And although every possible rationalization led to the conclusion that they are dead, I was still hoping (not nearly as much as their families) that they are alive. I am also somewhat ashamed that on the Lebanese side, we have people who have actually killed two soldiers, stole their bodies, and kept their families in the dark. Whichever way you look at it, this kind of action is not nearly as admirable as the cause for which its perpetrators claim they support.
Finally, I am angry… at the thought that the July 2006 war was fought over the bodies of two dead soldiers. That Israel waged a 34-day catastrophic war in which around 1400 people died, in an attempt to rescue two dead soldiers. It makes you wonder if this whole thing could have been avoided had the Israelis known that the soldiers were already dead. I know it’s simplistic, but it still does make you wonder…
Photo from Getty Images.

Nasrallah Clone

Yesterday I watched a part of an interview with the chairman of Hezbollah's executive committee, Hashem Safieddine. It took me about 10 seconds to convince myself that this isn't Nasrallah himself, and even then I still thought that there's no way this guy actually looks like this and that he's certainly trying to mimic (rather successfully) the Nasrallah look.

The similarities disappear though as soon as you hear him speak. Some say Nasrallah's speeches are arrogant and self-righteous. Well, they obviously haven't seen or heard this guy. He answered almost every question with something like, "Yes, of course we knew this was going to happen. We know everything. We did everything right." His answers were so redundant and void of any kind of meaningful content that if it weren't for the fact that he looked amusingly similar to Nasrallah, the whole thing would have been a total waste of time.

Photo from wa3ad.org.

National Unity

So I go on holidays for 3 days and suddenly we have a new government… But I’m not complaining.
The new government is something we’ve all wanted for some time. Some have waited 6 weeks for it (since the resignation of the previous cabinet), some have waited 20 months (since the opposition demanded the resignation of the previous cabinet), and some have basically been waiting since July 2005 when the previous cabinet took office). But the point is we’re all happy about the fact that the new government is here, so that’s something we agree on.
What we don’t agree on is how much we’re happy and for what reasons. My guess is that most Lebanese, myself included, are just glad there is a new government in place that they hope will be able to look after their needs. But some Lebanese, myself included, have some particular opinions about what they like and what they don’t like about the new cabinet. And in the spirit of this blog, I will make explicit some of my opinions to see if they will come back to bite me in the ass in 2 years time:
What I like:

1. All major (and some minor) parties are represented in the new cabinet. Say what you will about democracy and how in other countries the majority rules. I still think it’s a good thing.
2. Majority still rules: with 16 out of 30 ministers, the March 14 camp still has the final say on day-to-day decisions that affect people’s lives, but with major decisions that affect the identity of our nation require consensus.
3. Hezbollah has only one minister. This undermines the claim that they are trying to control everything in the country.
4. The redistribution of certain portfolios (like Telecommunications), undermines the claim by the opposition that the March 14 politicians cling to power like a dog to a bone.
5. The Interior and Defense portfolios were named by the President who is still seen as a neutral well-respected and patriotic figure.
6. Lot of new names and fresh faces.

What I don’t like:

1. Some portfolios were retained by people who did not do a particularly fine job with them in the past: Defense by Murr and Foreign by Salloukh.
2. The way the seats are distributed on sectarian lines is somewhat disturbing. I know this is expected, but it doesn’t make it any less ugly.
3. Ali Kanso. Partly because I don't particularly like him, but mainly because so many hate him.
4. The fact that the cabinet still needs to propose a platform and gain parliamentary confidence before it assumes its powers… and God only knows how long this would take.

Photo licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Musical Cabinet Chairs

The only thing worse than when one party acts as judge, jury and executioner is when ALL parties act as judge, jury and executioner, and this seems to be what's going on in Lebanon. Prime Minister designate Fouad Sanioura is trying to come up with a cabinet that satisfies everybody, and no one's making it any easier for him. Both sides just keep making up rules as they go along based on nothing but their own agenda.

- Michel Aoun, for some reason, claims he has the right to a "sovereign" portfolio, and spent five weeks arguing about that until he was offered the Vice-Premiership.
- Geagea, whose parliamentary block about four times smaller than that of Aoun, seems to think he has as much rights as Aoun to the point of actually saying, "If Aoun gets a sovereign portfolio, I want one too!"
- Sleiman Franjieh seems to think that the PM designate has no right to reject any of the names suggested by the opposition, including Ali Kanso who is hated by pretty much all of Sanioura's constituancy.
- Then there's Sanioura himself who doesn't seem to care much about his current constitutional role as (a) a resigned Prime Minister with no executive powers "except in the narrow sense of managing affairs", and (b) a Prime Minister designate with no executive powers until his new cabinet gets a parliamentary confidence. So he goes around making Prime Ministerly decisions and statements in between his talks with rival politicians.
- Finally there's Emile Lahoud who, in his capacity as Former President, seems to think, along with many others, that he has the right to set deadlines for the new cabinet formation.

The way I see it, the rules are quite simple. The constitution states that the PM, along with the President, forms the cabinet, and the Parliament gives it confidence. The Doha accord added the constraint that opposition gets 11 seats in the cabinet. So as far as I'm concerned, if you put these two together, the opposition should just play nice and agree to any 11 seats. But of course, the problem now isn't that the opposition doesn’t accept the portfolios given to them, but that they seem to have taken so many, that the March 14 majority can't figure out how to share the rest. Seems that no matter how you flip it, there's always one seat missing... Kind of like a really messed up game of Musical Chairs.

But finally, what I really don't get is: Why is this such a big deal? The elections are in ten to eleven months anyway and if the President gets the Interior Ministry (which oversees the elections), does anyone really care who gets telecommunications or infrastructure? Do all Lebanese politicians think they're so important that the country would collapse if the Economy, Finance or the Labor portfolios were run by someone else for a year?

In-justice

Naharnet reports:

Mustaqbal Movement leader Saad Hariri has reportedly worked out a settlement to distribute seats among forces of the March 14 majority giving the justice portfolio to the Lebanese Forces and the public works ministry to the Progressive Socialist Party.

Yep. You read correctly. The Justice portfolio could be given to the Lebanese Forces, a party that was illegal two years ago (made illegal by the same Mustaqbal Movement that is now giving them the portfolio) and whose chief was just recently released from prison, not because he was exonerated, but because he was pardoned with an amnesty law.

Soon, it's actually possible that the guy in the picture (or one of his minions) will be our new Justice minister... If that happens we will all find out a new meaning to the phrase "blind justice."

Photo licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.

Memory Leak

From the Jerusalem Post:

"Hizbullah must be disarmed," she said. "We now have an opportunity to disarm Hizbullah, and we must not lose it...if we do not do it now, it will be much more difficult later on."

It's official. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni's brain has a maximum learning memory capacity of 23 months-worth of history. Anything that was learned further in the past is discarded.

Moral Superiority

Amnon Meranda from YNet reports:

Just a short while after the bulldozer attack shocked Jerusalem, the Knesset approved in a preliminary reading two bills revoking the rights to citizenship from the families of terrorists.

Not much to say here except kudos once again to Israel for shining bright as "the only true democracy in the Middle East." Of course we would need to accommodate this by redefining the word "democracy" to include "mob-like forms of government that substitute vengeance for justice and disregard, when the need arises, basic human rights such as protection from arbitrary or collective punishment." But that shouldn't be too much of a problem.

See, the clever argument here is that, even though it's illegal and downright immoral, it's worth it if it might help save people's lives by preventing future terrorists from commiting acts of terror. Hmmm... Makes sense...

...

Hey, remember last time you tried something like this and went around demolishing homes of suicide bombers in an attempt to prevent future attacks? That totally worked, didn't it...

Consensual Democracy Vs. God

It’s always fun to hear our beloved patriarch speak on political issues. Now, he’s advocating a democratic system of government where majority rules and minority opposes (as opposed to the one we’re currently constructing where both majority and opposition share power in the government). Sure, this sounds like a reasonable suggestion, but the arguments he gives to support it are just ridiculous:

1. In 1993, he went to Australia and he saw that the majority rules and opposition sits and parliament and just discusses things. Ergo Lebanon must be that way.
2. Lebanon HAS been ruled that way since 1920 up until 2 years ago. So why change now?
3. The government is becoming like a "carriage with two horses pulling it from the front and two horses pulling it from the rear. How can it move?”

Source: Naharnet
Are you convinced? I sure am not. And here’s why:

1. In 2005, I went to Switzerland (and I’m still there) and I saw that after every parliamentary elections, the MPs meet and elect a cabinet that represents the political parties in the same proportions with which they are represented in parliament. Reminds you of something? I’m not saying we should be like Switzerland, but why the hell should we be like Australia?
   Also, when you went to Australia, did you see a priest telling the politicians how to run the country every Sunday?
2. Right. Things were going JUST fine… Except for the 16 year civil war that destroyed our country, followed by another 16 years of being run by the government of another country (which as far as we know, doesn’t even represent the majority there let alone here).
3. Yeah metaphors are nice. Here’s another one (from Pat Paulsen): A country is like an airplane, if either the left-wing or the right-wing takes control, it will end up flying around in circles.

I have to admit though, this post is entirely useless and should be replaced by one sentence:
Mr. Sfeir, please stay out of politics!

Blood Money

Ok, this is my first post on the blog and I'm already speechless...

Roni Lifshitz from YNet reports:
Israelis who have lost their dear ones or were injured during the Second Lebanon War have filed a lawsuit in the US against Lebanese banks who they claim had aided Hizbullah during the conflict. The amount of the claim is estimated at $100 million.

Wow... Why didn't Hezbollah think of that before? Imagine how much money they could have made by suing Israeli Banks along with Israeli taxpayers and the US Congress for knowingly providing financial support to the IDF in their killing of over 1000 Lebanese civilians and their intentional destruction of Lebanon's civilian infrastructure during the exact same time period.

I guess when people look at a world larger than their own through their extremely narrow perspective they end up behaving like idiots.

The scary thing though is that US courts aren’t famous for their sane decisions when it comes to these things. Not too long ago a US court “ordered Iran to pay 2.6 Billion Dollars in damages” to families of the 241 US marines killed in Beirut in 1983 in an attack commonly attributed to Hezbollah (AFP).

Ok, turns out I wasn't as speechless as I thought I was.

Update: According to Naharnet the a spokesperson from one of Lebanese banks involved denied being sued and said his bank hadn't received any notification of legal action... Hmmm... If that's true, it makes my first rant kind of pointless...

A Personal Zeitgeist

Every time I read a news article anywhere, I usually end up forming an opinion. I judge the people in the news and based on the positions they take. But it's often very difficult for me to decide whether I'm judging the entity based on the action it takes or whether I judge the action based on the entity that took it. Am I equally critical of everyone's actions or am I more judgmental of some groups and more forgiving of others?

I'm creating this blog as an experiment. To see, as time goes by and as different actors I support and others I reject take different actions, how will my opinions differ over time? Would I find myself in a situation where I have to deny my previous opinions or are there certain fundamental unchanging principles that guide my judgment? I won't have an answer for that for the time being, but I hope I will eventually.

And in the likely event that this experiment fails to provide me with any insight on the matter, it's still a nice way to vent about issues about which no one in my close vicinity is willing to suffer a discussion with me...