Village Journals
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
Resonate your identity with Naseeb journals. Express your opinions, share your thoughts, post your writings and connect with like minded people through the power of expression.
?Inaccurate? Calculations
english.wa3ad.org
Corporate media uses fuzzy math to minimize size of Lebanese demonstrations.
As usual, here in America, the corporate media has a problem counting. "A siege on Lebanon?s American-backed government continued Saturday with tens of thousands of demonstrators sympathetic to the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia and its allies packing downtown Beirut and calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and his cabinet," reports the Mercury News.
Meanwhile, closer to the "siege," actually a widespread call for the neolib sponsored government of free trader (or free plundering by international financiers) Siniora to step aside, the counting is a bit more realistic.
"Hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters crammed into the heart of Beirut Friday and besieged the headquarters of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora?s government in a peaceful show of force to bring down the ruling Cabinet," reports the Daily Star, a Lebanese newspaper. Some observers put the number well over 800,000.
It is interesting, as well, the corporate media prefers to use the word "siege" to characterize the demonstrations.
My dictionary defines "siege" as "the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible," and "a series of illnesses, troubles, or annoyances besetting a person or group," in other words, there is nothing positive to say about the massive demonstration, obviously representative of a large segment of Lebanese society.
It is an illness, an attack, an attempt to capture the government of Lebanon, all at the behest of Syria and Iran. Hezbollah, naturally, is a sucker for Syria. "Early last month, a White House spokesman said there was evidence that Syria and Iran were planning to overthrow Saniora?s government."
As usual, it?s all about Iran and Syria, two targets figuring prominently on the target list of the Israelis and their neocon fellow travelers. It has nothing to do with the Lebanese people sick and tired of corruption, neoliberal gangsterism, and the fact Siniora cannot protect the Lebanese from the predatory and psychopathic Israelis to the south, able to dispense a million cluster bombs and landmines with ease.
For all the predictable reasons, the corporate media has not bothered to mention that a majority of the population supports Hezbollah. According to a poll conducted on July 26 by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, "support for Hezbollah soared to 87 percent and crossed all religious lines" after Israel attack last summer. Even Christians believed Hassan Nasrallah was more of a leader than the pathetic neoliberal Fouad Siniora, who openly sobbed during his address to Arab League diplomats in Beirut as the murderous Israelis killed civilians with uranium-based weapons and phosphorous bombs, latter proudly admitted, much the same way a serial killer brags about his perverse exploits.
In the terrible wake of Israel?s illegal and immoral invasion, the Siniora government was nowhere to be found when it came to rebuilding efforts, while Hezbollah immediately launched a "Construction Jihad," which included participation from the Christian Free Patriotic Movement Party, also known as the "Aounist Current." As to be expected, any American who offers assistance in the Hezbollah effort to rebuild Lebanon will be prosecuted as a supporter of terrorism.
Such cooperation horrified the neocons, prompting Elias Bejjani, a Maronite Catholic and head of the Lebanese-Canadian Coordinating Council, who supported Israel?s targeting of Shia civilians as "a legitimate form of self-defense," to declare cooperation between the Christian Free Patriotic Movement as a "bizarre and groundless marriage of opportunism," never mind the effort the shelter the homeless who paid a heavy price, as usual, for Israel?s "self-defense."
Facing nearly a million demonstrators yesterday, Michel Aoun declared "Siniora must resign and be replaced by a Sunni prime minister who better understands the Lebanese social fabric. We do not criticize him because of his ethnic origin, but due to his deficient performance. He must go, and his ministers must go, in order for a unity government to be established," according to Yedioth Internet, an Israeli news source.
Of course, the Israelis and the Americans, or at least neocon Americans, no shortage of them Israel Firsters, don?t give a whit about the Lebanese social fabric.
In 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, "Israel?s Likud government coalesced around three objectives: the destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure in Lebanon, the redrawing of the political map in Lebanon, and the reduction of Syria to manageable proportions," explains Nasser H. Aruri in the foreword to Livia Rokach?s Israel?s Sacred Terrorism. "The 1982 'operation,? as well as its predecessor, the 'Litani Operation? of 1978, were part of the long-standing Zionist strategy for Lebanon and Palestine?. formulated and applied during the 1950s envisaged at least four decades earlier."
Siniora and the Arab version of "free traders" are unable to protect the Lebanese people from such vicious provocations, as they are more interested in selling the country wholesale to their bankster associates.
As Sami E. Baroudi writes, the "neoliberal ideology (or orthodox neoliberalism)" has a "great hold ? over the minds and actions of the Lebanese political and economic elite," part of a growing process throughout "the Arab world" where "one sees growing evidence of the rise to dominance of neoliberalism in inter alia: the yearning for open markets ? the reduction in governmental social spending and the broadening of the tax base, the welcoming of advice and intervention from the World Bank, and the breaking of old alliances between regimes and labor in favor of new alliances with local and foreign entrepreneurs."
In essence, this is what 800,000 people encamped outside the office-turned-residence of PM Fouad Siniora is all about, not the facile nonsense pedaled in American newspapers about nefarious Syrians and Iranians pulling the strings of Hezbollah.
Siniora will not be saved by his military or commiserating "German and British foreign ministers and calls of support from a host of Arab leaders and Western officials," as Reuters puts it. "Although the dispute is political, many Lebanese fear the situation could spark sectarian violence. Tension between Sunnis and Shi?ites is high, in addition to bad feeling between Christians who support leaders allied to the rival camps."
Obviously, this would be a preferable situation for the Israelis and neocons, who have managed to reduce Iraq to a bloody quagmire of sectarian violence and insanity, but such is not a foregone conclusion in Lebanon.
Hopefully, the Lebanese will get rid of their neoliberal beholden government and send a message to both Israel and the United States.
Corporate media uses fuzzy math to minimize size of Lebanese demonstrations.
As usual, here in America, the corporate media has a problem counting. "A siege on Lebanon?s American-backed government continued Saturday with tens of thousands of demonstrators sympathetic to the Shiite Muslim Hezbollah militia and its allies packing downtown Beirut and calling for the resignation of Prime Minister Fuad Saniora and his cabinet," reports the Mercury News.
Meanwhile, closer to the "siege," actually a widespread call for the neolib sponsored government of free trader (or free plundering by international financiers) Siniora to step aside, the counting is a bit more realistic.
"Hundreds of thousands of opposition protesters crammed into the heart of Beirut Friday and besieged the headquarters of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora?s government in a peaceful show of force to bring down the ruling Cabinet," reports the Daily Star, a Lebanese newspaper. Some observers put the number well over 800,000.
It is interesting, as well, the corporate media prefers to use the word "siege" to characterize the demonstrations.
My dictionary defines "siege" as "the act or process of surrounding and attacking a fortified place in such a way as to isolate it from help and supplies, for the purpose of lessening the resistance of the defenders and thereby making capture possible," and "a series of illnesses, troubles, or annoyances besetting a person or group," in other words, there is nothing positive to say about the massive demonstration, obviously representative of a large segment of Lebanese society.
It is an illness, an attack, an attempt to capture the government of Lebanon, all at the behest of Syria and Iran. Hezbollah, naturally, is a sucker for Syria. "Early last month, a White House spokesman said there was evidence that Syria and Iran were planning to overthrow Saniora?s government."
As usual, it?s all about Iran and Syria, two targets figuring prominently on the target list of the Israelis and their neocon fellow travelers. It has nothing to do with the Lebanese people sick and tired of corruption, neoliberal gangsterism, and the fact Siniora cannot protect the Lebanese from the predatory and psychopathic Israelis to the south, able to dispense a million cluster bombs and landmines with ease.
For all the predictable reasons, the corporate media has not bothered to mention that a majority of the population supports Hezbollah. According to a poll conducted on July 26 by the Beirut Center for Research and Information, "support for Hezbollah soared to 87 percent and crossed all religious lines" after Israel attack last summer. Even Christians believed Hassan Nasrallah was more of a leader than the pathetic neoliberal Fouad Siniora, who openly sobbed during his address to Arab League diplomats in Beirut as the murderous Israelis killed civilians with uranium-based weapons and phosphorous bombs, latter proudly admitted, much the same way a serial killer brags about his perverse exploits.
In the terrible wake of Israel?s illegal and immoral invasion, the Siniora government was nowhere to be found when it came to rebuilding efforts, while Hezbollah immediately launched a "Construction Jihad," which included participation from the Christian Free Patriotic Movement Party, also known as the "Aounist Current." As to be expected, any American who offers assistance in the Hezbollah effort to rebuild Lebanon will be prosecuted as a supporter of terrorism.
Such cooperation horrified the neocons, prompting Elias Bejjani, a Maronite Catholic and head of the Lebanese-Canadian Coordinating Council, who supported Israel?s targeting of Shia civilians as "a legitimate form of self-defense," to declare cooperation between the Christian Free Patriotic Movement as a "bizarre and groundless marriage of opportunism," never mind the effort the shelter the homeless who paid a heavy price, as usual, for Israel?s "self-defense."
Facing nearly a million demonstrators yesterday, Michel Aoun declared "Siniora must resign and be replaced by a Sunni prime minister who better understands the Lebanese social fabric. We do not criticize him because of his ethnic origin, but due to his deficient performance. He must go, and his ministers must go, in order for a unity government to be established," according to Yedioth Internet, an Israeli news source.
Of course, the Israelis and the Americans, or at least neocon Americans, no shortage of them Israel Firsters, don?t give a whit about the Lebanese social fabric.
In 1982, when Israel invaded Lebanon, "Israel?s Likud government coalesced around three objectives: the destruction of the Palestinian infrastructure in Lebanon, the redrawing of the political map in Lebanon, and the reduction of Syria to manageable proportions," explains Nasser H. Aruri in the foreword to Livia Rokach?s Israel?s Sacred Terrorism. "The 1982 'operation,? as well as its predecessor, the 'Litani Operation? of 1978, were part of the long-standing Zionist strategy for Lebanon and Palestine?. formulated and applied during the 1950s envisaged at least four decades earlier."
Siniora and the Arab version of "free traders" are unable to protect the Lebanese people from such vicious provocations, as they are more interested in selling the country wholesale to their bankster associates.
As Sami E. Baroudi writes, the "neoliberal ideology (or orthodox neoliberalism)" has a "great hold ? over the minds and actions of the Lebanese political and economic elite," part of a growing process throughout "the Arab world" where "one sees growing evidence of the rise to dominance of neoliberalism in inter alia: the yearning for open markets ? the reduction in governmental social spending and the broadening of the tax base, the welcoming of advice and intervention from the World Bank, and the breaking of old alliances between regimes and labor in favor of new alliances with local and foreign entrepreneurs."
In essence, this is what 800,000 people encamped outside the office-turned-residence of PM Fouad Siniora is all about, not the facile nonsense pedaled in American newspapers about nefarious Syrians and Iranians pulling the strings of Hezbollah.
Siniora will not be saved by his military or commiserating "German and British foreign ministers and calls of support from a host of Arab leaders and Western officials," as Reuters puts it. "Although the dispute is political, many Lebanese fear the situation could spark sectarian violence. Tension between Sunnis and Shi?ites is high, in addition to bad feeling between Christians who support leaders allied to the rival camps."
Obviously, this would be a preferable situation for the Israelis and neocons, who have managed to reduce Iraq to a bloody quagmire of sectarian violence and insanity, but such is not a foregone conclusion in Lebanon.
Hopefully, the Lebanese will get rid of their neoliberal beholden government and send a message to both Israel and the United States.
Comments on this journal
I, and no doubt most others here, appreciate your posts as the vast majority of the articles and quotes are those I have not come across. Without these, friends of the Zionists would have a less of an obstacle in their drives to to sway our opinion.
A word of caution. We must not let ourselves be disheartened by lack of feedback. Reading and commenting are two different things but lack of the latter does not make our exercise any less worthless - usually more people read than comment.
By Sophie McNeill
12/05/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- BEIRUT: A truck laden with yellow Hezbollah flags drives past the Christian neighbourhood of Gemayzeh early Sunday morning in downtown Beirut. There's a picture of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah on the windscreen, but it's not his name that the young men on board are chanting. "General, General!" yell these young Shiite boys.
Their chant is for the leader of Hezbollah's largest Christian ally, the former General Michel Aoun. And this van captures an important dynamic that many of the international and Lebanese press have omitted from their coverage of the last few days -- that almost a quarter of the crowd at the huge anti-government protests have been Lebanese Christians.
The size and commitment of the Christian participation became clear Sunday, as thousands of Christians from Aoun's 'Free Patriotic Movement' marched in from East Beirut to join their Shia allies in calling for the Prime Minister to resign.
"We are all Christians and we are against the government," 45-year-old Joseph from East Beirut tells me as he walks past with his son, "We want our own Lebanese government with no Syrian influence, no American influence and not any influence from other Arab countries. "
Umm* but haven't we been told that Hezbollah are just Syrian agents? Why would nationalist anti-Syrian Christians want to be in a coalition with them?
"No! I'm not worried about Hezbollah working for the Syrians," Joseph exclaims. "Maybe Hezbollah likes Syria's words against Israel and in that they supports Syria*but in Lebanon they are Lebanese!"
For Joseph, the fact that his Shia allies have never been involved in his country's many civil wars is proof enough of the party's commitment to Lebanese nationalism. "Hezbollah has never used its weapons inside Lebanon against the Lebanese," he explains, "Not like the other side; they all killed each other and ran militias."
As the marchers walk on, they pass a TV crew they think is from 'Lebanese Forces' Television, a network that belongs to a pro-government Christian party firmly aligned against Hezbollah and Syria.
"The Christian people in Lebanon are different to what you are showing on TV!" yells one young man at the camera crew as others join in with, "Stop your lies!"
"We are yelling at them because they do not tell the truth," explains 30-year-old Mona to me after party officials make the crowd march on. "They are saying that it is only Muslims who are here protesting. They say all Christians belong to the Lebanese Forces. But look, we are here demonstrating and we are not Shiite!" she says exacerbated.
Twenty-eight-year-old Sharden believes the media have been ignoring them on purpose. "We know all the media in the world, especially the Americans, are trying to make the picture that it is just the Shiites. They don't want it to look like the Lebanese are united against the government," he tells me.
It's hard to tell exactly how many of Lebanon's Christians belong to parties aligned with either Hezbollah or the government. Both will tell you that their numbers make up 70% of all Christians in Lebanon *and it's a continuously argued figure that no one is this country seems to know the answer too.
"They're not the majority of Christians," scorns 26-year-old Hammad as he watches the crowds march past. "They might have used to be with Aoun, but not now he's with Hezbollah." A pro-government supporter, Hammad describes the coalition between Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement and Hezbollah as just 'a marriage of convenience.'
"Aoun just wants to be the President and Hezbollah has promised him this, so now he will do anything to reach that," he accuses. "He would work with the devil just to be president!" interrupts Hammad's friend Ziad.
To these government supporters, 'the devil' is Syria. And it's a strange twist of Lebanese politics that Michel Aoun spent many of his years in exile in France lobbying against the Syrians and calling for their withdrawal from Lebanon -- to now be in coalition with the Syrian backed Hezbollah; leaving many Lebanese to view this new coalition as disingenuous. "I believe he's turned pro-Syrian," charges Hammad. "I believe he's even working for them now, the Syrians."
Hezbollah's keenness to highlight their Christian allies was obvious at Friday's huge opposition rally, with Aoun given the role of key speaker rather than the crowd favourite Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah; and many pro-government supporters view these kind of tactical moves very cynically. "To make Aoun speak is to try and show people that the opposition is united. Hezbollah doesn't really care about Aoun. They just want him now -- to use him to say 'the Christians are with us'," alleges Hassan.
Whatever is behind this strange coalition between the hardline Shiite group and their Christian allies, it's certainly producing some unique cultural mixes. As the march reaches downtown Beirut's St Georges cathedral, Hezbollah TV vans are out the front transmitting Sunday mass live. "No we don't usually have Sunday mass broadcast on Al-Manar," one of the Fathers tells me inside, "but it's still just normal mass, nothing political is said here."
As I push my way out of the packed church, I pass a funny looking kid on the steps. He has an orange T-shirt and wristband in the colour of Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement, but a yellow Hezbollah cap and a picture of Hassan Nasrallah hanging around his neck.
"Oh yes, I'm a Christian, I went to mass," explains nineteen year old Josef... and um, why do you have a picture of the man the West sees as a terrorist leader hanging off you? "Because I love him," says Josef simply, "He's a good man, and he's not bad like all the others."
Later that afternoon, representatives from all Hezbollah's allies are given the stage, but the crowd is told that the speeches won't start until everyone puts down their party flags. After fifteen minutes of delay, a respectable amount of Lebanese flags dominates and Hezbollah TV is allowed to begin their broadcast.
Once again, the universal demand is for Siniora's immediate resignation, but listening to the speeches from these opposition speakers, there is certainly unifying themes here that bring this seemingly mismatched coalition together.
Hezbollah's Christian and Druz allies stand proudly with the party's Shiite army, and they join in Hezbollah's accusations that the government failed to adequately support them during the July war with Israel.
"During the Israeli invasion, the government stood on the sides if not against the resistance!' cried the Druz opposition party leader Talal Erslan. "Maybe the execution of the resistance to Israel was executed by the Shiites, but I Talal Erslan, I am one of you!"
It had been a long day and it was growing cold, but the crowd responded enthusiastically to his calls. "We are ready to give our blood to this resistance, " he declared to a cheering crowd. " And we're proud not to be called the allies of Israel*this government just follows the American and Zionist rule!"
The speeches end and the crowds slowly disperse, while those who are sleeping here dig in for another night. "Hezbollah are the best thing that happened to Lebanon," 24-year-old Maurice, a Christian, tells me. "They are real Lebanese. Israel is our enemy too and we are with Hezbollah against Israel."
Sophie McNeill is a reporter with SBS Television Australia, her blog from Lebanon can be found at
www9.sbs.com.au region=6
Insha'Allah.