Deja Vu

"With Sunni rage rising and Mr. Hariri discredited in the eyes of many, some now worry that al-Qaeda-style radical Islamists could fill the void and give deadly direction to the anti-Shia sentiment, as in Iraq."

Is Hizballah 'resisting' Israel or it's own sunni "brethern"?? Thanks to the Islamic Repbulic, the poor Lebanese have to wage this proxy war to the last Sunni, Druze, Christian, Catholic Lebanese. Skirmishes will go on, blood unfortunately will continue to flow, sectarian hatred may become even more inflamed, brutal mob confrontations will take place...very similar to what happened in Iran during the revolution that eventually was hijacked by the illiterate, bigoted and criminal shia hordes of Khomeini jihadist who are now ruling Iran.

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Welcome to the Shi'ite Republic of Lebanon

An RPG in the Middle of the Street in Western Beirut, Picture courtsey of Dutch Woman in Beirut

Syria and Iran are involved up to their necks in the seizure of Western Beirut by the thuggish Hizballah hordes.

Related Video from Yahoo.com

Gunman seize parts of Beirut Reuters

Clashes in Beirut raise concern in West Reuters

Dutch woman in Beirut has more pictures and up-to-date report.

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Bam Vs. South Lebanon

Photos via Kamangir. Bam 4 Years after the earthquake. To see more pictures please take a look at the photoblog.

On December 26, 2003 at 5:27 a.m., a 6.6-Richter earthquake destroyed the historic city of Bam. The death toll was more than 30,000 and more than 75,000 people became homeless with 90% physical destruction of the city. After 4 years only a few houses are built and the government is bogged down with allocating land according to complex Islamic inheritance law instead of rebuilding schools, roads, hospitals, and homes. Most of the landowners died in the earthquake, and in the Islamic Sharia, women don't inhert land if their husbands die. (see the report here from King's College London)

Baztab published a set of pictures (one, two) which show the dismal state of affairs and outright seditious nature of the Islamists (NOT IRANIAN) who are in charge. Thousands of families with young kids are still homeless, and the more the Ayatollahs squander the oil revenues in their doomed "reunication of Islamic Ummah project", the more the Iranian society sinks into inequality and social injustice, the more fiery the pseudo revolutionary rhetoric of its theocratic ruling elite, and the more dogmatic and intolerant their version of Islam.

The tragedy of it all is that while the country is immensely wealthy, a small caste of cultish Islamist/jihadist Ayatollahs and their cronies (IRGC) spend millions of dollars in reconstruction efforts in Lebanon to buy "protection and Ummah allegiance " from foreign mercenaries (read Hizballah):

Along the roadways of southern Lebanon, thousands of banners festoon street lights and utility poles. They feature a distinctive symbol, a red inscription from the center of Iran's flag, protectively swathing Lebanon's iconic green cedar.


The emblem belongs to the Iranian reconstruction organization. Its presence delivers a message that is not lost on critics of Iran's role here, nor supporters who have watched cratered roads filled in, damaged school walls resurrected and life return to some semblance of normalcy over the last year...Whenever the Lebanese government, nonprofit organizations or other donor nations have faltered, Iran and its ally Hezbollah, which dominates most of the municipal governments of the south, have quickly swooped in, residents and officials say. For example, when Qatar slowed reconstruction efforts several months ago because of corruption worries, Iran quickly upped its contribution. "The Qataris were saying a lot of the money was being wasted," said Ibrahim Said, a business owner in Bint Jbeil, a border town that was crushed by Israeli airstrikes during the closing days of the war. "Four months ago, there was a sudden halt in reconstruction, and the Iranians said, 'If you don't want to do it, we'll step in.' " The head of Iran's reconstruction effort says his country has set no spending limit for Lebanon. "Contrary to other countries, we did not decide on a fixed budget for the reconstruction of Lebanon," Hussam Khoshnevis said. "The Islamic Republic decided to pay as much as is needed on the ground." Much of Iran's financial support is invisible. It is channeled through Hezbollah's charity organizations. Immediately following the war, the Shiite militant group paid as much as $12,000 for each destroyed home or apartment.

A large portion of this money was believed to have originated in Iran. In heavily damaged Hrat Hreik, an enclave in a southern suburb of Beirut called Dahiyeh, contractors have removed rubble, repaved roads, rebuilt sidewalks and restored electricity and running water. "We've done this in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program and other donor groups, especially Iran represented through the municipality of Tehran," said Samir Dakkash, head of the local government in Hrat Hreik. "Money was directly paid to contractors, so we don't know how much Iranians spent." Work to rebuild apartment buildings damaged by Israeli airstrikes has also started. Often, even when pro-American donor countries and the Siniora government provide the money, Hezbollah shares the credit.

Its reconstruction arm recently persuaded 70% of those who got grants from the government to funnel their cash into a project that will restore or rebuild 198 buildings under the Hezbollah banner. Elaborate plans include green spaces, parking lots and trees imported from Africa. According to its own accounting, Iran has spent $155 million in Lebanon, about $25 million more than the U.S. government has sent through the U.S. Agency for International Development for reconstruction. Iran says it has rebuilt at least 149 schools, 48 mosques and churches, 10 health clinics, 64 electricity projects and 19 bridges. It continues work on nearly 100 other building and infrastructure projects. It has completed work on 504 roadways, and has 76 underway.

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Caliphate Purse! (Kisayeh Khalifeh)

It reads the: "The future or the coming World war . Some of the Guards: Ahmadinejad, the leader of Mahdi Army which is going to liberate Jerusalem. Don't give up on nuclear, it's connected to The Appearance of Imam Mahdi." ( I think it's a cover of book by Shadi Faghih)

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Southern Lebanon right before the Israeli-Lebanese war
Photos: Courtesy of Amir who took these pictures while vacationing in Lebanon. (Note: Check out his blog's archive under trip to Lebanon. He has a very interesting travelogue of his trip to Lebanon right before the war.


The Supreme Leader continues to approve and dictate his errand boy's, Ahmadinejad, policies. His orders include destabilizing the region politically, turning neighbors and foes against one another, meddling and undermining sovereignty and independence of many states in the Islamic world, and mounting a high-profile anti-U.S. publicity campaign in South and Latin America.

Meanwhile, Iran's economy on the verge of disastrous collapse and the government places inflation rates at 12-13 percent but according to Iran's Parliament Research Center the figure is actually closer to 20 percent.Unemployment is at its all time high and many workers are out of jobs. More than 11 million live in extreme poverty and close to 40% live below poverty line (est. 2002) and the GDP of less than $8000 and Income Per ca pita of less than $3000 justifies 'assissting muslim brethern' in the name ummah at the expense of Iran and Iranians.

Endangering the future of generations of Iranians for decades to come and against Iranian nation's interest, the Islamic Republic in its attempt to hold on to power at any cost, keeps pushing for global Jihad to fulfill Khomeini's manifest destiny of 'one world under Islam'; it continues to use old time tactics of buying loyalties of mercenaries and foreign legions with the oil revenues that belongs to the Iranian people.

The Islamic Republic spends [(squanders oil revenues on perceived (NOT REAL loyalty)] money lavishly, handing out cash and building hospitals, roads, bridges, and schools for southern Lebanese Hizballah. So far,IRI has rebuilt 200 schools, 150 places of worship (mosques), 30 clinics and 25 bridges. The official budget for this year is about $120 million) and the key priority is repairing the national road network. This is one year after war with Israel, provoked by Hezbollah’s kidnapping of Israeli's soldiers. Iranians are outraged:

Many Iranians are disgruntled over their government's decision to hand over 25 million dollars in aid to a Hezbollah-linked relief group in Lebanon, an Iranian newspaper has reported.The daily Aftab Yazd, known for its criticism of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's hardline government, in an editorial cited a reader's letter in which the amounts of money being sent to Lebanon were described as "inappropriate".

Aftab Yazd noted how "many areas destroyed during the eight year war with Iraq which ended in 1988 were still awaiting funds for reconstruction" with thousands of people still displaced because their homes have yet to be rebuilt. (Not to mention those who became homeless during the Bam Earthquake)

Last week an Iranian envoy in Beirut, Hossein Khoshnevis, handed over a 25 million dollar cheque to Nabil Al Jaser, who heads the Council for the Reconstruction of Lebanon, a body set up by Hezbollah in the aftermath of last year's six-week long war with Israel.Khoshnevis also announced that 43 of the 63 villages Iran has pledged to help rebuild have been completed.

The envoy also said that some 149 schools, 150 mosques, and 25 medical aid centers damaged in the fighting have been refurbished.Also over the last year Iranian funds helped remove explosive mines from some parts of southern Lebanon, Khoshnevis added as well as repair work to some roads and the reconstruction of 12 bridges bombed by Israeli war planes.Hezbollah was created by Iran in 1982. Iran has been training and funding Hezbollah ever since.

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Blue helmet blues

Is UNIFIL’s mission being compromised by efforts to protect its troops?

UN TROOPS in Lebanon, 'Buying Protection from Hezbollah?

A troubling consequence of this heightened threat to UNIFIL by radical jihadi groups is that some of the troop-contributing countries have begun turning to Hezbollah, hoping to enlist the cooperation of the Shia group in protecting their soldiers. UNIFIL contingents are not supposed to have any direct contact with Hezbollah – or any other Lebanese political groups – as their official channel of communication is through the Lebanese army."It's highly forbidden," said Major General Claudio Graziano, UNIFIL's commander. "I have a relationship with the [Lebanese] government through the Lebanese army. I have no relations with Hezbollah in terms of security."Still, three months ago, intelligence agents from France, Italy and Spain met with Hezbollah representatives in Saida. As a result of that meeting, some Spanish UNIFIL patrols are now "escorted" by Hezbollah militants in cars. Following last month's bombing, Spanish UNIFIL officers met with local Hezbollah officials, according to a South Lebanon-based party official.

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ISRAEL AND HEZBOLLAH, ROUND 2?

WASHINGTON, July 9 (UPI) -- Whether Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he wants to wipe Israel off the map is still contested, even by anti-mullah Iranian Americans. But that he wants to wipe out the Jewish state, there can be no doubt. As he completes his visits to every Iranian town, the collection of his pronunciamentos is edifying reading.

Culled from a wide variety of sources, ranging from the London Daily Telegraph, to the Suddeutsche Zeitung Online, to France's Le Monde and Liberation, Ahmadinejad spells out the target and the strategy:

-- This regime (Israel) will one day disappear.
-- The Zionist regime is a rotten tree that will be blown away by one storm.
-- The countdown for the destruction of Israel has begun.
-- Zionists are the personification of Satan.
-- In the case of any unwise move by the fake regime of Israel, Iran's response will be so destructive and quick that the regime will regret its move forever.
-- The West invented the myth of the massacre of the Jews (in World War II) and placed it above Allah, religions and prophets.

Ahmadinejad's strategic recipe:

-- We don't shy away from declaring that Islam is ready to rule the world.
-- The wave of the Islamist revolution will soon reach the entire world.
-- Our revolution's main mission is to pave the way for the reappearance pf the 12th Imam, the Mahdi (a 5-year-old boy who vanished 1,100 years ago and who will lead the world into an era of peace and prosperity, but not before the planet is convulsed by death and destruction).
-- Soon Islam will become the dominating force in the world, occupying first place in the number of followers among all other religions.
-- Is there a craft more beautiful, more sublime, more divine, than the craft of giving yourself to martyrdom and becoming holy? Do not doubt Allah will prevail, and Islam will conquer mountaintops of the entire world.
-- Iran can recruit hundreds of suicide bombers a day. Suicide is an invincible weapon. Suicide bombers in this land showed us the way, and they enlighten our future.
-- The will to commit suicide is one of the best ways of life.
-- By the grace of Allah we will be a nuclear power and Iran does not give a damn about (IAEA) demands (to freeze enrichment of nuclear fuel).
-- Iran does not give a damn about resolutions.
-- The Islamic Republic of Iran has the capacity to quickly become a world superpower.
-- Iran's enemies know your courage, faith and commitment to Islam and ... Iran has created a powerful army that can powerfully defend the political borders and the integrity of the Iranian nation and cut off the hand of any aggressor and place the sign of disgrace on their forehead.
-- In parallel to the official political war there is a hidden war going on and the Islamic states should benefit from their economic potential to cut off the hands of the enemies.

Addressing a conference devoted to "The World Without Zionism," Ahmadinejad said, "To those who doubt, to those who ask is it possible, or those who do not believe, I say accomplishment of a world without America and Israel is both possible and feasible."

Hyperbole, gigantism, overkill, huckstering, hocus-pocus, all of the above. But intelligence mounts daily of Iranian efforts to undermine U.S. efforts to stabilize Iraq and Afghanistan and U.N. efforts to stem the violence in Lebanon (six U.N. peacekeepers were killed by a roadside IED).

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's report said, "It is widely believed in Lebanon, including by the government, that the strengthening of Palestinian outposts could not have taken place without the tacit knowledge and support of the Syrian government."

Ban also noted Israel's claim that "the transfer of sophisticated weapons by Syria and Iran across the Lebanese-Syrian border, including long-range rockets (with a range of 250 miles) ... (and) anti-tank and anti-aircraft systems, occurs on a weekly basis."

Israel also says Hezbollah "armed elements are constructing new facilities in the Bekaa valley, including command and control centers, rocket launching capabilities and conducting military training exercises."

There is little doubt Israel and Hezbollah are suiting up for a resumption of last summer's 34-day war in which the Israel Defense Force came off second best due to poor political and military leadership. Hezbollah is also shorthand for Syria and Iran. Tehran supplies the equipment and the funding. Syria acts as the transmission belt and is generously compensated.

Damascus has evidently concluded that an Israeli offensive across the Golan Heights is in the offing. For the first time in 40 years, Syria dismantled military checkpoints on the road to Kuneitra on its side of the Golan. Foreign journalists were barred from covering Israeli maneuvers on the Heights. Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said the IDF was conducting military maneuvers -- and nothing more.

One of the more plausible scenarios has Israel preparing for a drive into Syria across the Golan Heights, and then fighting a "decisive" battle with the Syrian army on the road to Damascus, followed by a left "hook" into Lebanon to execute an outflanking attack on Hezbollah.

That could also be a strategically propitious moment for U.S. action against Iran. It remains to be seen whether the key players in President George W. Bush's National Security Council would agree an opportunity is at hand to dust off an Air Force and Navy contingency plan to take out Iran's 23 nuclear facilities.

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Solana Suggests Iran Behind Gaza, Lebanon Attacks

REUTERS: BRUSSELS -- The European Union foreign policy chief suggested on Monday that Iran could be linked to the Hamas military takeover of Gaza, recent attacks on the Lebanese army, and on European peacekeepers in Lebanon.

Javier Solana, who has led efforts to bring Iran back to the negotiating table over its nuclear programme, stopped short of blaming Tehran outright, but said the incidents could not be treated separately.

"What happened in Gaza cannot be seen separately from what happened in Lebanon," he told a conference on the Middle East hosted by the Socialist group of the European Parliament.

"There are new groups in the Palestinian camps," Solana said. "And the fact that UNIFIL has been attacked for the first time cannot be taken separately."

Solana said that while the car bomb attack that killed six Spanish members of the U.N. Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) on June 24 was carried out by "forces we don't know", he added: "It would be naive not to see this as part of a global approach."

"Somebody I know well -- Ali Larijani -- has said 'we are supporting Hamas'," he said, referring to the chief Iranian nuclear negotiator, who made the statement in an interview with Newsweek published last month.

"All this is connected," Solana said. "It didn't happen by accident or miracle, it was probably planned."

"It would be difficult to understand without seeing other important regional players behind it," he added, referring to "other forces" in Iran and Syria.

Solana also said a postponed meeting of Western and Arab Middle East mediators with Israeli and Palestinian leaders would probably now happen in Cairo in mid-July.

He said it was important to provide a new political impetus to the peace process, not just financial and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian government.

Solana also said that in the long run it would be necessary to have an international peacekeeping presence in the West Bank and Gaza, but this was not an immediate priority.

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‘Things were better when Israel ruled Gaza’

Y Netnews:Gaza resident speaks out against factional fighting, says situation in Gaza was better when Israel was in charge

Aviram Zino Published: 06.16.07, 00:06 / Israel News
“I’m afraid to say this out loud, they may execute me for it, but there are a lot of people, including myself, who think it would be better if Israel came back here. Things would be much better than they are now,” said Samara (alias), a graduate of the Islamic University living in the Gaza Strip.

According to Samara, who lives nearby one of the Fatah strongholds taken over by Hamas in recent days, fear reigns in Gaza’s streets, and apart from gunmen and military officials, no one leaves their homes.

“The children are afraid all the time,” Samara says. “My nephews ask, ‘Why are the Israelis shooting at us?’, and we tell them it’s Palestinians. Then they ask, ‘Why are Palestinians shooting at us?’, and I have no answer for them.


We have no food at home. We’ve been living on soups and canned food for days. There is no electricity or continuous water supply, let alone medicine or essential hygiene products,” she explained.

The gun battles taking place in the streets keep all of Gaza’s residents in a state of constant fear.

“I hide in the house all day long, but even that might not be enough. Our neighbor was shot while he was inside. Men with black masks, weapons, and bags are walking around on the streets and I’m afraid to leave. They could shoot me – even if I’m not what they are looking for,” Samara said.

She blames both sides for the escalating violence. According to her, both Hamas and Fatah need to understand that they are one people. “They promised us a better life, and the situation is only getting worse. I’m afraid that by next week we’ll become a Taliban state.

“The minute Hamas takes over, it will become an Islamic state. It must be understood – they were elected out of a sense of desperation. The people here are poor and desperate, and when they chose Hamas they had nothing to lose, but now it turns out they had a lot to lose.”


This is whilst Palestinian refugees for over 40 years in Lebanon(not still given Lebanese citizenship after 40 years) are being tortured and abused by their arab brehtern in Lebanon and not a blather from unscrupulous Islamic repubic apologists who become more catholic than Pope when it comes to Palestinians.

The Hamas and their Basij traitors are intoxicated by the opiate of Islamism and establishing their glorious Islamic empire primed and whipped into a frenzy by the false promises of impending triumphs and the horror stories of satanic foes a la Hoder and his paymaster, Khamenie. Neither Hamas nor Basij and their dear Leader (Supreme Leader of vampires) are remotely interested in the actual liberation and economic and social security and justice for the Palestinian or the silent majority of Iranians. They are merely fighting for the freedom to impose their own ideology and forcing others to obey their satanic beliefs. Handcuffed men are thrown off the roofs of buildings,"freedom fighters" that kill their own people, the throats of men who have surrendered are slit, shots are fired at a group of peaceful protesters, women are stoned, eyes are gouged, legs are amputated, women are castrated and sold as sex slaves, under aged kids are hanged, thugs and murderers execute people in and outside hospitals and in their own homes...and what do we get here? Blame everyone but the people and the sick culture of revenge and death responsible for this barbarism. And then the scum have the nerve to claim they are bringing Islamic peace and justice to the world...The creation of the Islamic Republic and any of it's rendition has brought and will bring nothing but misery to most of its inhabitants (and it served all other nations except Iran): its leaders are for the most part low life thieves, thugs and criminals, its intelligentsia (what a misnomer) are for hire for the highest petrodollar bidder and its Nationalism (fear of Kharaji =Foreigners) was and remains the last refuge of a scoundrel Islamist/Jihadist mob like Hoder et al who are far from being true Iranian. They are destroying Iran and the Iranian's national interests in the name of Islam. They are Islam's whores who care nothing about Iran except their Islamic ummah. They are traitors and prostitutes who are selling out Iran to create their Islamic empire at the expense of destroying Iranian culture and heritage.

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Lebanese Hezballah tries to distance itself from the Islamic Republic!!

Hezbollah: Please don’t confuse us with Islamic Republic!
Jun 12th, 2007 by City boy

Hamed Beheshti, an Iranian blogger in Beirut claims that when he was at a dinner with Dr. Hossein Rahal, the spokesman for Hezbullah, the Iranian guests there told Rahal about the popularity Hezbollah has gained since the last summer’s war with Israel, mainly between some Iranian youth who apparently wear t-shirts with pictures of Hassan Nasrullah (the secretary general of Hezbollah).

Apparently when Rahal heard this, he quickly cried out:

Please do something so the [Iranian] people don’t confuse the Lebanese Hezbollah with the fringe groups active in Iran with similar names! [Ansar-e Hezbollah] In Iran these groups force religion on to people but religion should flow itself in to the society to have it’s real effect; Making religion compulsory does not make sense!

Ansar-e Hezbollah are an unofficial force by the Islamic Republic made up of Basiji militants who follow “the path of the Imam” and crush the “morally corrupt” in the society. They are well known for brutally attacking and literally crushing the Tehran student uprising in July 1999.

So there it goes, Islamic Republic is considered fundamentalist even to the likes of Hezbollah!

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Israel to ready public for 'all-out war'

Israelis would rather be alive, and hated by other nations, than loved, but dead. Excerpts from JP:

With Iran racing toward nuclear power and IDF preparations for the possibility of a conflict with Syria and Hizbullah in high gear, the Home Front Command plans to launch a publicity campaign to prepare the public for war.
Within a few weeks it intends to inform the public about what people need to do in the event of attack.
The campaign was not connected to a specific event or threat but was meant to brace the public for war in general, senior IDF officers said.
"Our job is to prepare for an all-out war," Col. Hilik Sofer, head of the Home Front Command Population Division, told The Jerusalem Post Wednesday. "We prepare for a wide range of possibilities since it doesn't make a difference where the threat comes from."
Several weeks ago, the Home Front Command distributed pamphlets in Netivot and Ashkelon explaining how to behave during a Kassam attack. Both cities are within 15 kilometers of the Gaza Strip

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Lebanon:Interview with Shaker el-Absi (head of Fatah Islam)

DucthwomaninBeirut: You’ve got to read this, very interesting; it is an interview with this Shaker el-Absi guy (head of Fatah Islam) in March of this year.

Don’t tell me the Lebanese did not see this one coming! I have no idea who this Pierre Tristam is (this link comes from his blog), but it seems everybody in Lebanon’s intellgigence knew Shaker el-Absi was in the camp. They know the camps are fertile grounds for breeding religious intolerance, and they knew he was in touch with al-Qaida.Now what more do you need to know in order to understand you had it coming your way?

Hat tip to Jeha’s Nail for the image and the link.

This Pierre Tristam had another interesting link, a New York Times newspaper article from 1973 about fighting between Palestinian factions and the Lebanese Army. It seems the circle is round.

The main problem I think is that whether they knew about this or not,the Lebanese Army and Security forces have not been allowed into the camps for 40 years (Part of a treaty drawn up between the Lebanese government and the PLO which gave these camps their autonomy). In this strange country, the Lebanese aren't allowed control over parts of their own land.

Every time someone commits an atrocity they run into the camp and are out of reach e.g. the militants who killed four judges in Saida and escaped into the camps. For some reason very few are handed over by the Palestinian security forces running the camps. It's a big mess, stemming from ever bigger messes with no clear way out. Lebanon has 2 states within a state. One is Hizballah and the other the Palestinians refugee camps. Is it any wonder that Lebanon has been destroyed and rebuilt several times over?

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Lebanon: Turmoil and Tranquility

A balloon salesman at the Beirut Garden Show demonstrates how to
'walk the dog' against the backdrop of the Beirut Race Track.

Dutch woman in Lebanon: In retrospect, visiting the Beirut Garden Show may have been a better choice than say for instance the Verdun Shopping District after last night’s bomb. That’s the second one in 2 days. Another blogger called it new meaning for the expression: “shop till you drop.” The Syrians seem to be widely blamed for this one. Who knows? You guess is as good as mine. It could be a dissatisfied customer with some left-over civil war era explosives over in the attic.
Brace yourself, this promises to be a rough ride.


While the Lebanese armed forces are still engaged in full-scale battles with a number (some say no more than 200) of broom-bearded radicals in the north of Lebanon, and the eastern part of Beirut gets shaken (but not stirred) last night by a 15 kilogram car bomb near a major shopping center (remember the shoe story?), I went to the Beirut Garden Show. Garden show? Well yes, because life goes on.

A soldier, waiting on top of his tank, while eating 'bizr' (pumkin seeds).

Because even when this place is in turmoil, there’s always a place where you can find tranquility. There are a great number of Lebanese who – over the years – have developed a sort of ‘ostrich syndrome’. Instead of getting all upset and nervous, they steadfastly ignore the entire situation and pretend as if nothing unusual is happening.Last summer, while the southern suburbs of Beirut got bombed to smithereens, many Lebanese took cover in Feraya, an up-scale ski-resort some 45 miles above Beirut, and partied as if the country was not at war. “Well, you could hear the Israeli planes going over,” explained one lady I interviewed, “very annoying.”

It is gardenia season in Lebanon. They grow like weed, and people string 'em on a rope and sell them to wating commuters at traffic intersections. Usually at 1,000 for 1, but today they were selling them for 'tlate be alf' (3 voor 1,000 pounds)


When you watch the news, you get the impression that the entire country is at war. This is quite inaccurate, as all those that have been in a war zone will know. A bomb may explode, but 3 blocks down the road, you probably won’t even notice it.

An old man in Beirut, waiting, watching the traffic pas by.

There isn’t much else to do anyway. While the fighting continues, and bombs may (or may not) explode in your part of town, there isn’t much you can do. You cannot really plan ahead, as you need to have an idea what the future is going to bring in order to do some planning. All you can do it wait. And wait is what we do best here in Beirut. We've become experts at it.And so it is best to just ignore it, in order to make life bearable. After all, no sane person can live in similar circumstances for over 2 years if they were going to get all worked up over each and every fight.

This may explain the overall insanity of Lebanese.And so the garden show, which is held annually on the grounds of the Beirut Race Track went ahead as planned. It was a bit of a bland affaire; people right now are obviously not in the mood to buy new balcony furniture or replant their garden (who’s got gardens in this town?).


And while you are pondering over the mysteries of Lebanese life, go figure this one out; which one came first; the lamppost or the awning?

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Lebanon: Tehran Turning up the heat in Lebanon!

Tehran's turbaned terrorists also turned up the heat in Lebanon. Amid reports that Iranian proxy Hezbollah was preparing for a summer war with Israel, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah made a fiery speech suggesting a determination to take power in Lebanon even if it leads to a new civil war. (Nasrallah is now a looming influence in Syria. The secular Baathist dictatorship, as part of an attempt to appease an Islamist revival sweeping the country, has promoted his visage in banners, posters, and tee-shirts.)

Cartoon from Shirin from Lebanon

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The Israeli-Hezbollah War of 2006: The Media As A Weapon in Asymmetrical Conflict

Cartoon by Shirin from Lebanon


Marvin Kalb, a former correspondent for CBS News, and Carol Saivetz of Harvard have produced a paper (pdf) examining the role of the media (willingly or otherwise) as a weapon in that war.

Anyone who works as a journalist or who closely followed the coverage of the war ought to read the whole thing. But here are a few segments worth underscoring:


If we are to collect lessons from this war, one of them would have to be that a closed society can control the image and the message that it wishes to convey to the rest of the world far more effectively than can an open society, especially one engaged in an existential struggle for survival. An open society becomes the victim of its own openness. During the war, no Hezbollah secrets were disclosed, but in Israel secrets were leaked, rumors spread like wildfire, leaders felt obliged to issue hortatory appeals often based on incomplete knowledge, and journalists were driven by the fire of competition to publish and broadcast unsubstantiated information. A closed society conveys the impression of order and discipline; an open society, buffeted by the crosswinds of reality and rumor, criticism and revelation, conveys the impression of disorder, chaos and uncertainty, but this impression can be misleading.

It was hardly an accident that Hezbollah, in this circumstance, projected a very special narrative for the world beyond its ken—a narrative that depicted a selfless movement touched by God and blessed by a religious fervor and determination to resist the enemy, the infidel, and ultimately achieve a “divine victory,” no matter the cost in life and treasure. The narrative contained no mention of Hezbollah’s dependence upon Iran and Syria for a steady flow of arms and financial resources.
.....
Hezbollah, whenever possible, pointed reporters to civilian deaths among Lebanese, a helpful gesture with heavy propaganda implications. Early in the war, reporters routinely noted that Hezbollah had started the war, and its casualties were a logical consequence of war. But after the first week such references were either dropped or downplayed, leaving the widespread impression that Israel was a loose cannon shooting at anything that moved. “Disproportionality” became the war’s mantra; even if Israel did not start the war, so the argument went, it responded to Hezbollah’s opening raid with a disproportionate display of military strength, wrecking Lebanon’s economy, destroying its infrastructure, inflaming political passions and killing civilians with reckless abandon. “And for what?” Lebanese asked. “For eight soldiers?” Rarely in the coverage was there “proportionate” mention of Israeli civilian deaths suffered during Hezbollah’s sustained rocket attacks.

...Once, Hezbollah conducted a media tour of a southern suburb of Beirut inhabited by Shiite supporters whose homes and apartments had been badly damaged during Israeli air strikes. The point was to again use the media as a weapon in the propaganda war for public approval, and the media did not mind being used, though they were forced to pay a price. Foreign correspondents were warned, on entry to the tour, that they could not wander off on their own or ask questions of any of the residents. They could only take pictures of sites approved by their Hezbollah minders. Violations, they were told, would be treated harshly. Cameras would be confiscated, film or tape destroyed, and offending reporters would never again be allowed access to Hezbollah officials or Hezbollah-controlled areas.

...The cameramen didn’t need Hezbollah’s permission to film the devastation, but if in the wreckage they saw young men with guns, they were warned not to take pictures of these Hezbollah fighters, else their cameras would be confiscated and they might run into trouble returning to Beirut—an indirect warning, which most reporters took seriously... Throughout the conflict, the rarest picture of all was that of a Hezbollah guerrilla. It was as if the war on the Hezbollah side was being fought by ghosts.
...
Not so, on the Israeli side of the war, where officials made a clumsy effort to control and contain the coverage but essentially failed. Hour after hour, day after day, newspapermen and anchormen found many ways to avoid Israeli censorship or obstruction—and cover the war, which was their job... Jonathan Finer, a reporter for The Washington Post, had no trouble interviewing, by his count, two dozen Israeli soldiers “at army bases, hotels, artillery batteries and staging points for their entry into Lebanon since the heaviest ground fighting began last week.”... As waves of Israeli armor moved into southern Lebanon, people everywhere, presumably including Hezbollah, could see on their screens what was happening. This was after all a war being carried live to every TV set and computer in the world.

...Walid Omary, Jerusalem bureau chief for Al-Jazeera, described how Israeli police followed his television crews and accused them of “giving information to the enemy,” and yet he deployed three television crews to Al-Jazeera’s daily coverage of the Israeli side of the war—“one in Haifa and one on the border and a third in Jerusalem.”
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Rarely did the media use photographs to show that Hezbollah fired its weapons from residential neighborhoods in clear violation of international law. This was rare, because Hezbollah did not allow reporters to film such military activity. Yet, on July 30, the Sunday Herald Sun in Australia did just that. 60 It published photos that, in its own words, “damn Hezbollah” for conducting military operations in populated suburbs. In one photo of a “high density residential area,” Hezbollah was shown preparing launch pads for “rockets and heavy-caliber weapons.” In another men were firing an anti-aircraft gun “meters from an apartment block” where laundry was drying on a balcony. The newspaper said that the photos were “exclusive,” shot by a “visiting journalist and smuggled out by a friend.” The photos had to be smuggled out of Beirut, because Hezbollah would never have allowed them to be shot—they proved that Hezbollah was in fact conducting military operations from heavily populated Beirut suburbs, which was considered a war crime. ...

Also, the line a "closed society can control the image and the message that it wishes to convey to the rest of the world far more effectively than can an open society" should be burned into the brains of all those who have been minimizing Iran's 'propaganda coup'.

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