Franklin Lamb
Beirut

This week Israel’s Military Intelligence Chief Major General Amos Yadlin complained to the Israeli daily Haaretz that “Hezbollah proved that it was the strongest power in Lebanon… stronger than the Lebanese and if it had wanted to take the government it could have done it.” He said Hezbollah continued to pose a “significant” threat to Israel as its rockets could reach a large part of Israeli territory.

Yadlin was putting it mildly.

But what Intelligence Chief Yadlin did not reveal to the Israeli public was just how “significant” but also “immediate” the Hezbollah threat was on May 11. Nor was he willing to divulge the fact that he received information via US and French channels that if the planned attack on Lebanon’s capital went forward, that in the view of the US intelligence community Tel Aviv would be subject to “approximately 600 Hezbollah rockets in the first 24 hours in retaliation and at least that number on the following day”. Read the rest of this entry »

As the Siniora government today officially rescinds the two incriminating decisions about Hezbollah’s telecommunications network and the head of security of Beirut’s airport that sparked this month’s clashes, this Briefing on Beirut seminar at the New America Foundation takes stock of recent events.

Audio

See also video of the event below/ over the fold

Rami Khouri (pictured) is always worth listening to; he asks whether Beirut will follow Baghdad or Belfast and is optimistic that the Lebanese will move past the internal strife at this “historical moment of reckoning” to form a pluralistic society that can integrate Western and Arab ideals. Hisham Melhem represents the March 14-Hariri Inc view on Hezbollah’s intentions and is less optimistic, overstating Iran’s influence on Hezbollah. Nir Rosen (over)draws comparisons to Iraq on the Sunni-Shi’a conflict. Read the rest of this entry »

Street Notes 12 May 2008

Franklin Lamb
Choufeit, Lebanon

In the lower Chouf village of Choufeit with its panoramic view of Beirut’s closed airport (which will likely stay closed for 4 or 5 more days as a Hezbollah pressure point on the Bush administration to achieve a settlement that it views as fair and just), Dahiyeh, Sabra, Shatila and Burj Burajneh Palestinian Refugee Camps; Pentecost Sunday started in a somber mood for the few remaining Christians and dominant Druze population of this picturesque, rugged, hilly and ancient village.

The reason was that virtually the whole village was in attendance at a 9 a.m. memorial service for two supporters of the Druze Lebanese Democratic Party, 18 year old ____ and 22 year old _____ (names withheld at the request of family pending notification of family members living outside Lebanon) who were probably shot as they drove too fast through a newly setup check-point on May 10th. (The exact circumstances and who exactly was responsible are not clear given the myriad explanations one receives depending on who one talks to in this tight-knit village. Read the rest of this entry »

A fair summation of the crisis and interviews with Nicholas Noe, Anwar Wazen and Mohsen Saleh from Al Jazeera’s Inside Story. Saleh is pro-Opposition, Brussels-based Wazen is obviously anti-Hezbollah. This is followed by Nasrallah’s address; a three minute highlights clip with English subtitles followed by a clip of the full speech which has a voice-over translation in English.

Inside Story - Lebanon strike - 07 May 08 - Part 1 (12.52)

Read the rest of this entry »

Les Jeux Sont Fait

Day Three - The Chess Match: Nasrallah opens with a Knight
Next move: Bush

Street Notes and Findings from Beirut’s Hamra District: May 9, 2008

Franklin Lamb
Beirut

“Where did they come from?”, the desk clerk at the Royal Plaza Hotel in Rauche by the sea near Hamra wondered out loud. “I have been on duty all night and saw nothing. Suddenly they are everywhere!”

Of course this observer wondered the same thing. The time was around 8:30 am, having ducked into the Hotel to escape a flash shower before the sunny morning returned.

This observer left Haret Hreik neighborhood in Dahiyeh by motorcycle around 6:45 am this morning and headed toward the airport road near the Jnah/Ouzai round-about. Dahiyeh is quiet. Essentially normal. (Around 1 pm returning from Hamra I did notice that none of the Haret Hreik guys were playing football at the local athletic fields—it dawned on me where they were). Read the rest of this entry »

Lebanon on the Brink

Blindsided Hezbollah mulls its response

Franklin Lamb,
Outside Beirut’s closed Airport

“The question is no longer why, for the answer has become clear. However, what is the secret behind the timing of this? What is being prepared for the future stage and which coincides with US President George Bush’s tour of the region? Has internal dialogue gone without return, and if it takes place, then what is its agenda? What will Hezbollah and the opposition do to face the new challenges?”

– Hezbollah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassim during a just completed May 8, 2008 interview

Hezbollah sources concede that they were taken by surprise and some were shocked by the intense, incendiary bombardment of the last few days by pro-government operatives. As Hezbollah studies ‘the situation’ and how to respond this beautiful spring Beirut morning, there is a real danger things may rapidly spiral out of control. Read the rest of this entry »

Hundreds of military checkpoints, and no goods — or people — allowed in or out if you live in the Gaza Ghetto, under brutal siege. Need medical attention and care? Pregnant? Want to visit family? Need to go to work? Get fuel? Too bad. All this operates with Israeli regime impunity, who have been choking Gaza — the world’s largest open-air concentration camp — as well as “exporting” its apartheid model: see, in particular, Naomi Klein.

The graphic above was made by a wise fourteen-year-old (Adam) after hearing stories of the difficulties of life in Abu Dis in Palestine. H/T thanks to DesertPeace, originally sourced from WorldPressNetwork. Read the rest of this entry »

Graphic: Carlos Latuff.

That, of course, is the idea, the result of a deliberate strategy and as a direct consequence of Israel’s prevailing self-definition and worldview. As surely as our cosmology informs our sociology, the abhorrent siege of the Gaza Ghetto continues, the result of the internal logic of Israel’s continued existence as an apartheid expansionist state, producing policies of continued ‘low-intensity’ ethnic cleansing, divide and rule and genocide as Ilan Pappe and others have described. Zaid Khan’s words are worth quoting again:

Nearly 70 years ago, in a small eastern European city, an oppressed and occupied people were under siege, living under atrocious and brutal conditions, lacking food, medicine, electricity, water, and slowly being strangled in the hope they would just disappear.

Warsaw Ghetto 1941 - Gaza 2008. Israel, you are a disgrace.

Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?

Part V: Hezbollah’s part of the bargain

Franklin Lamb,
Dahiyeh

“Nobody can impose terms on us, or commit us to anything we do not believe in. Let me be clear: Israel won’t get through politics what it didn’t get through war, even if the UN resolu­tion gave this to Israel. What they couldn’t do through war, they want to do by peaceful means? It doesn’t work like that.”

—Hezbollah deputy secretary-general Naim Qassem, Al-Manar television, 15 August 2006

Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr (”just call me Joe–anything but Sue” as he does his Johnny Cash imitation) Chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and twice Presidential Candidate, is a friendly, loquacious, decent and knowledgeable fellow. Having served on that Committee for nearly a quarter century and traveled widely, Biden thinks of himself as someone who can be confronted with ‘deal breakers’ at the negotiation table and work out mutually acceptable solutions. “I’m the real deal bridge builder!”, he sometimes kids with his devoted staff, as he shadow boxes and mimics his favorite boxer, Evander “the real deal” Holyfield. Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part IV: Bait, Hook and Switch: the US offer and the quid pro quo

Franklin Lamb
Dahiyeh

“Absolutely not! Without a credible deterrent force, there is no real Lebanese sovereignty. Israel came very close to getting nearly all it wanted with the 1983 May 17th agreement. Had Hezbollah not prevented this, Lebanon today would be colonized with near confederation status with Israel. The Bush administrations democracy and ’save the Christians’ crusade back-fired when each election resulted in Islamist victories while his war in Iraq and support for Israel is making refugees of a high percentage of Christians. It is now Hezbollah and its allies who are protecting the Christians and want free elections in the Middle East, not the Bush administration”.

– American student interviewed as part of a survey of 27 Lebanese institutions of higher education on whether Hezbollah should immediately disarm

Disarming Hezbollah: the Bush administration will not insist

As noted previously, the US government is not obsessed by Hezbollah’s deterrent capability. It appears prepared to back off from this issue and signal to Hezbollah that it can keep its weapons if they use them only in legitimate self defense against a foreign attack. Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part III: the CIA and the Pentagon weigh in

Franklin Lamb,

Dahiyeh

“Those bastards [the Israeli military] know the rules and what the US Arms Export Control Act requires! The CBU 58’s are decades out of date! We [the US] have not even had them in our weapons inventory since we last used them in 1991 during Desert Storm. They are now complete junk and I am amazed that any of them after 35 years even detonated. By using them this time in Lebanon, Israel was illegally dropping landmines.”

–Pentagon official commenting on Israel’s use of American weapons against civilians in Lebanon during the July 2006 war (chap. II, The Price We Pay)

Ridicule of Israel’s 2006 performance by US Intelligence and Military agencies creates pressure for the White House to engage with Hezbollah

It has been a fact that, since at least 1982, perhaps the harshest and most frustrated American critics of Israel are those who work in Langley, Virginia, at CIA Headquarters and especially those across the 14th Street Bridge from the White House, on the banks of the Potomac River, who work at the Pentagon. Read the rest of this entry »

Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah Cannot Refuse?

Part II: Why the Bush administration wants to negotiate now with Hezbollah

Franklin Lamb,
Dahiyeh

“These fools do not learn from their past mistakes. When they withdrew from Lebanon, they continued to occupy the Shebaa Farms and kept our brothers in custody. Had they released them when they left Lebanon, there would not now be a ‘prisoner issue’ between Lebanon and the enemy. They opened the door for us.”
– Hassan Nasrallah, January 2004, during a welcome home ceremony for Lebanese and Arab detainees as a result of a Hezbollah-Israel swap.

Creating the proper atmosphere to do ‘business’

As discussed below, and contrary to conventional wisdom, the Bush administration is prepared to concede that Hezbollah keep its weapons. Even though it encourages its marionettes to foment this issue, and does so itself publicly, the Bush Administration knows that Hezbollah is not going to disarm until the Question of Palestine is settled to the satisfaction of the Palestinians. Yet it feels that focusing on Hezbollah’s militia is still a good pre-negotiation bargaining chip. Read the rest of this entry »

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Bush to Nasrallah:

An Offer Hezbollah cannot refuse?

Part I: Historical context and current posturing

Franklin Lamb,

Dahiyeh

“The Bush administration parking a flotilla from its US 6th fleet off the coast of Lebanon was made necessary, it claims, to demonstrate Washington’s ‘commitment to stability in the region’. This provocation, aimed at Hezbollah and also Syria, is the equivalent of a Sicilian fish wrapped in newspaper with a white rose—left on a doorstep: “This is business. It is not personal. Here is an offer you cannot refuse“.

– Italian officer seconded to UNIFIL outside his Tebnine HQ, South Lebanon

Background to the Offer: the writing on the wall

Recent US back channel feelers to Dahiyeh, where Hezbollah’s decision makers are sometimes present, reflect US calculations that given current trends in the Middle East, Hezbollah will play a major regional role.

According to US Senate Intelligence Committee sources, the efforts to date have run tepid and less ‘qualitative’ than informal Iran-USA contacts. US diplomat Thomas Pickering has revealed that he has been a participant in secret Iran-US ‘back channel’ discussions for the past five years. The subjects discussed include Iran’s nuclear program, the broader relationship between the two and US relations with Hezbollah. Other participants include former US diplomat William Luers and MIT nuclear expert Jim Walsh. While “unofficial”, the discussions, organized by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the UN Association of the USA, are thought to be useful.

Dismissive of Republican Presidential candidate John McCain’s pledge to “drive Hezbollah out of Lebanon”, serious US officials want to engage the Lebanese Resistance partly because they are concerned with Israel remaining a Jewish state in the region. Read the rest of this entry »

Having a good sense of humour is not a prerequisite for being Lebanese or living and visiting this simultaneously magical and troubled country, but it sure helps. (Fortunately, ordinary Lebanese, if not always their elected representatives, seem to be blessed with an abundance of good humour.) Marc J. Sirois demonstrates this nicely by mapping out a few keywords for a tongue-in-cheek introduction to Lebanese politics. Sirois is managing editor of The Daily Star, from whence this is excerpted (25 Feb).

Bekaa Valley: Fertile region nestled between Lebanon and Anti-Lebanon mountain ranges. Known for amazing Roman ruins and all manner of high-quality produce, some of which make the ruins even more amazing.

“Birth pangs of the new Middle East:” How US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described the summer 2006 war in which the Israeli military killed 1,200 Lebanese, most of them civilians. Clear indicator that Dr. Rice is confused about the order in which the reproductive cycle takes place.

Beirut: Centre of the universe.

Civil disobedience: What do-gooding Westerners have been telling Arabs and Muslims to adopt for a generation or two.

Coup d’etat: What Western governments have called it when Lebanon’s opposition uses civil disobedience.

Left: 1) A political movement defined by claims to represent the interests of the common man. Virtually extinct in Lebanon since being subsumed by big money; 2) What Lebanese have historically done - and are doing now - to escape the consequences of their politicians’ serial shenanigans. Read the rest of this entry »