The Economist’s website has posted an account of yesterday’s incident along the border between Israel and Lebanon.
Archive for the ‘Lebanon’ Category
Lethal Exchange on Israeli-Lebanese Border
Wednesday, August 4th, 2010Fears of Renewed Political Conflict Rising in Lebanon
Sunday, July 25th, 2010Many in Lebanon fear that the international tribunal investigating the assassination of Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in 2005 will issue indictments of members of the Lebanese Shia movement Hizbullah (also spelled Hezbollah). If that happens, Hizbullah has warned it will not accept the indictments. The outcome could be a new new war picking up, as it were, where the summer 2006 war left off. The following article contains a good summary of Lebanon’s recent political woes (click here for more).
Robert F. Worth, “Hezbollah Looks for Shield From Indictments’ Sting,” New York Times, July 25, 2010
UPDATE – July 30, 2010
President Bashar Assad of Syria and King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia are both in Beirut attempting to head off another political crisis and perhaps even another sectarian war.
Change is in the Air for the Arab World
Monday, July 19th, 2010The Economist is featuring a series of reports on its website (dated July 15, 2010) profiling the political futures of three key Arab countries: Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. The author of the piece on Egypt is NMH alumnus Max Rodenbeck.
The July 17, 2010 issue of The Economist features a “Special Report On Egypt” containing much more. This report is accessible via ProQuest on the NMH Virtual Desktop to members of the NMH community.
Lebanese Leader Fadlallah is Dead Amid Warnings of a New War
Sunday, July 4th, 2010Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, a leading Shiite cleric in Lebanon revered as a religous guide by the militant group Hizbullah, is dead at the age of 74.
The death of Fadlallah comes in the wake of warnings by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki -moon that Lebanon and Israel may be on the brink of another war. See: Edith M. Lederer, “UN Chief Warns That Increased Tensions Could Spark New Lebanon-Israel Conflict, Canada East, July 2, 2010.
Hummus wars!
Thursday, May 13th, 2010Previously Israel held the title for world’s largest hummus dish. Recently, however, Lebanon sniped that title. A team of Lebanese chefs prepared a serving of hummus that weighed 59,992 pounds. Interestingly, hummus has served as a uniting force in the Middle East– “‘It’s preferable that the war will be over hummus than on the battlefield, no?’ jokes Maor Barazi, as he wiped up a plate of the chickpea dip with pita bread at Meshawshe, a Tel Aviv hummus restaurant.” Indeed some Arabs have complained that Israel has stolen their national cuisine. While hummus and falafel are Israel’s national dishes, Israel also acknowledges that Israelis did not invent hummus and some of the best hummus can be found in Arab cities and neighborhoods. Israel is definitely planning a comeback, though, and is claiming that what matters more than the amount of hummus prepared is its taste. Many dismiss the ‘hummus wars’ as a national rivalry and attribute them to a somewhat silly attraction of public relations for hummus exporters. Still, do the ‘hummus wars’ representative of a deeper cultural significance? How far can hummus’ potential to bring Israelis and Arabs to the table be extended?
Chefs pour hummus into a gigantic dish in Ain Saadeh, northeast of Beirut, Saturday, during an attempt to enter the Guinness Book of World Records for producing the biggest plate of hummus in the world.
Egypt Convicts 26 Citizens Accused of Conspiring with “Hizbullah Cell”
Thursday, April 29th, 2010On Wednesday morning in Cairo, The State Security Court of Egypt ruled to convict 26 men of working in concert with the Lebanese Islamist Organization Hizbullah. The suspects were convicted of aiding Hizbullah by “collecting intelligence from villages along the Egypt-Gaza border, tourist sites and the Suez Canal.” All rulings issued by the State Security Judiciary are final, and no appeals will be granted.
In addition to collecting information for the Lebanese militant group, the Egyptian natives were “tasked with spreading Shia ideology accross the Egyptian State,” a predominantly Sunni country. Egyptian officials have linked these “assignments” with the planning of terrorist attacks in the cities of Alexandria, Cairo, Giza and Subra al-Haymah.
Leaders of Hizbullah in Lebanon, meanwhile, have railed against the arrests and convictions, calling them “politically motivated and in direct response to [Hizbullah]’s stance” on Egyptian relations to Gaza and the Palestinians.
Egypt has, for the past five years, been supportive of the Israeli policy towards Gaza, and continues to keep its border with Gaza closed in concert with an Israeli Blockade. Hizbullah, in its support of Hamas, current occupiers of Gaza, have worked to derail the Egyptian border closing, creating numerous tunnels and underground trade routes to subvert and circumvent Egyptian law. Officials for Hizbullah iterated their feelings that these arrests and convictions were simply retribution for Hizbullah’s ongoing defiance of Egyptian practice.
In retort to Hizbullan accusations, officials in Egypt continue to point to evidence for planned terror attacks to justify the arrests and convictions.
Most sentences, which the convicts are unable to appeal, run from six months to 25 years in Egyptian prison. Some sentences came attached with hard labor mandates. Only one man, Sami Shihab, a confirmed Hizbullah member, was given a life sentence. Only 22 men were officially convicted on Wednesday; another four, still technically on the run, were convicted “in absentia.” One man reported being tortured while in the custody of Egyptian police forces.
This latest round of arrests highlights the seriousness of the quarell Egypt appears to be engaged in with many of its neighbors. The conflict seems to primarily concern Egyptian-Israeli relations. It also highlights the common global practice of arresting and convicting political dissidents as a form of international collateral. Egypt’s most recent actions highlight a very disfunctional foreign policy attitiude; yet Egypt is far from alone in this corrupted practice.
If the Hizbullah cell is culpable for all of the crimes it has been painted as committing, justice must be implemented. Yet a guilty verdict appears to, in this context, have been a foregone conclusion. How can the international justice community create a global legal system which allows for the processing of political “criminals” more effectively? With the high emotionalism attached to many acts of political dissidence and subversion, is this hope little more than fantasy?
U.S. Claims Hizbullah is Heavily Armed
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates says the Lebanese Shiite militia Hizbullah (also spelled Hezbullah) now has a bigger arsenal of missiles than most governments. Gates accused Iran and Syria of supplying the weapons to their proxy in Lebanon. The U.S. claims that among the weapons are long-range Scud missiles.
Lebanese Movement for Secular Government
Sunday, April 25th, 2010A movement that includes many of Lebanon’s younger population is calling for a secularist constitution in Lebanon to replace the sectarian one that has been in place since 1943 when, under the supervision of the French who would continue to rule Lebanon under mandate powers until 1946, an unwritten “National Pact” was conceived. Under the terms of the pact, the President was to be a Maronite Christian, the Prime Minister a Sunni Muslim, and the Speaker of the Parliament, a Shiite Muslim. Many feel that this system, which does not reflect changes in census or other demographic data, is responsible for the appalling civil war that tore Lebanon apart from 1975-1989 and for the political instability that still reigns and that makes it easier for militant religious groups like Hizbullah to threaten the peace. Excerpts from a BBC report:
“Eighteen groups make up Lebanon’s multi-denominational system, and the civic rights of the members of these groups are determined by their religious leaders rather than the government.
Only religious authorities can register marriages, births or death or rule on matters of inheritance – so all Lebanese end up having different rights.
Muslims, for example, cannot adopt children; Maronite Christians cannot get divorced, and it is impossible for members of different sects to marry each other, while civil marriage is not an option here.
The government, too, is divided. Since independence in 1943, Lebanon’s president has always been a Maronite Christian, its prime minister a Sunni Muslim and speaker of parliament a Shia.
Supporters of this unique system say it gives all the religious communities a voice.
But more and more young people, many of whom will take part in this march, point to its failures – chronic instability, weak central government and sectarian tension which has resulted in civil wars in the past. “
Natalia Antelava, “Lebanese to Stage March for Secularism,” BBC online, April 24, 2010
See also the BBC report on the march for secularism, which occurred in Beirut today.
Lebanon commemorates civil war outbreak through soccer
Wednesday, April 14th, 2010“Rival Lebanese politicians took their disputes to the playing fields with a friendly soccer match to mark the 35th anniversary of the outbreak of the country’s 1975-90 civil war,” according to Associated Press. The civil war began in 1975, instigated by “an ambush of Christian gunmen of a busload of Palestinians” and continued until 1990, resulting in 150,000 deaths and $25 billion in damage. 30 years later the nation “enjoys a precarious peace” but, as we know, Lebanon has many different religious sects, causing political rifts. To commemorate the war’s anniversary on Tuesday, government ministers and legislators played a match of soccer in the presence of the Lebanese president. Since, unfortunately, the Lebanese can’t be united by politics, “the message is that sports can unite the Lebanese.” Ali Ammar, one of two Hezbollah lawmakers taking part said, “I hope that this good sportsmanship will reflect itself on politics as well.” A 38-year-old Lebanese woman, however, commended the sentiment but was incredulous of any significant or long-term effects of unification through sport. Although this concept will most probably not be implemented in the US, a chuckle can still be garnered in imagining Obama, Bush, Clinton, and Palin playing soccer together…
Acknowledging that sports and politics are quite different concepts, how does this speak to, if at all, a Lebanese desire to alleviate sectarianism?
Beirut is Rebuilding its Synagogue
Wednesday, February 3rd, 2010The city of Beirut is rebuilding a synagogue that had lain in ruins for years.
