Category Archives: Lebanon

Hezbollah.. The Ugliest Picture

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Lebanon, Shi'a

By Tariq Alhomayed, Asharq alawsat, 11/05/2008

Exposing falsehoods and uncovering deception; it is indeed true that a picture is worth a thousand words.

In his speech after the coup on Lebanon and its infrastructure, Hassan Nasrallah claimed that millions of dollars were spent in an effort to defame him and distort the image of the “divine party.” However it was the actions of his party that exposed the armed resistance lie and the falsehood of Hassan Nasrallah’s enthusiasm for Lebanon and the unity of its composition.

How horrible were the images carried by international news agencies, which showed Hezbollah’s gunmen and Amal forces stomping and burning pictures of the late Rafik Hariri, and then replacing them with a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

No less hideous were the images of handcuffed and blindfolded pro-government Lebanese citizens paraded in front of “Al Manar” cameras, the television channel that propagates Iran and Hezbollah venom. Moreover the images came across as if these were Israeli captives fallen in the hands of Hassan Nasrallah and not fellow Lebanese brought together by one homeland, of which the most important guarantee is that everyone has the right to live. Continue reading Hezbollah.. The Ugliest Picture →

A Rose for the Last Days

Lebanon, Poetry

by Rana al-Tonsi [Translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon]

On one foot
like a humiliated beggar I limp
past all the swinging doors
and the flags that are taken down from their masts . . .
The sidewalk was never my friend
but it embraced me those times
when the crying was tough and bitter

In my country
soldiers go to a war
where they never fight
In every coffeehouse or square
under the feet of the sick, the sad and insane
you can glimpse the trace of a rose
thrown into the arms of nurses
in lonely rooms inhabited by wailing,
a rose drawn in blood. Continue reading A Rose for the Last Days →

Raw Footage

Ethics, Islamophobia, Lebanon, Terrorism Issue


Blast site in Beirut, left; Wissam Eid, right

Another city, another bomb, more deaths. It could be anywhere in the Middle East these days, but I am referring to a bomb that went off in a Christian neighborhood of Beirut yesterday. If you lived in Beirut you would see the devastation without media cleansing. An Arabic report is viewable at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=70b_1201323034 and needs no translation, but the BBC also has a video report at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fc6_1201258935. For the raw footage of the aftermath another video is also on the net at http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=010_1201257690.

According to the latest reports at least five people died, including Wissam Eid, a senior intelligence officer, as well as more than 40 wounded. It was shocking enough in a country that has witnessed so many bombings and bloodshed, most recently the loss of Major General Francois al-Hajj, who was killed on Wednesday by a car bomb. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has declared today, Saturday, a national day of mourning in Lebanon.

Look at the picture of Wissam Eid, posted above. Look beyond this one face to the mutilated bodies of thousands that die each year from bombs and guns, not just in the Middle East. Are there any tears in your eyes today or is this just somebody else’s problem because it is somebody else’s face? Continue reading Raw Footage →

Veiled Voices

Egypt, Film and Video, Gender and Sexuality, Islamic Rituals, Lebanon, Syria, YouTube Watch


Brigid Maher, Director of “Veiled Voices”

Veiled Voices is a one-hour documentary that investigates the grassroots movement of Muslim women in the Middle East who act as religious leaders. It introduces the viewer to a world rarely seen by outsiders: the world of devout Arab Muslim women leading other women in prayers and lessons. Veiled Voices concentrates primarily on Ghina Hammoud, a divorced mother separated from her children, who has a television program and a charitable foundation in Lebanon, and Huda al-Habash, who has a loving and supportive husband and children, and runs lessons and programs in a mosque in Syria. Veiled Voices also travels to Egypt, where women struggle for public recognition in roles of authority over men; this is contrasted with Syria, where some male religious authorities, such as the Grand Mufti, are encouraging of women in leadership roles. The film shows women empowered, while exploring the struggles they face on both a personal and a public level. Continue reading Veiled Voices →

Darkness Falls on the Middle East

Iraq War, Lebanon, Terrorism Issue

by Robert Fisk
The Independent, 24 November 2007

In Beirut, people are moving out of their homes, just as they have in Baghdad.

So where do we go from here? I am talking into blackness because there is no electricity in Beirut. And everyone, of course, is frightened. A president was supposed to be elected today. He was not elected. The corniche outside my home is empty. No one wants to walk beside the sea.

When I went to get my usual breakfast cheese manouche there were no other guests in the café. We are all afraid. My driver, Abed, who has loyally travelled with me across all the war zones of Lebanon, is frightened to drive by night. I was supposed to go to Rome yesterday. I spared him the journey to the airport.

It’s difficult to describe what it’s like to be in a country that sits on plate glass. It is impossible to be certain if the glass will break. When a constitution breaks – as it is beginning to break in Lebanon – you never know when the glass will give way. Continue reading Darkness Falls on the Middle East →

Imagine a world without football

Journalism and Media, Lebanon, YouTube Watch

Having just endured another weekend in which my son flicked from one college game to another on Saturday and channel hopped the pro games on Sunday, I sometimes wonder what would happen if football suddenly disappeared. I don’t think we would have baseball year round and basketball is too indoor a sport for the macho and nacho masses with apparently nothing to do on fall weekends. Of course, American football will not disappear as long as high school and college men have a forum to beat each other within limits (on pain of 15 yard penalties) and bear the manly marks of pain and showboat half way across the field for daring acrobatics. But our Rugby-derived version of the world’s most popular sport is no match for the millions worldwide who follow what we think is soccer and they think is real football (i.e. a foot hitting a ball instead of one body with pads bashing into another body with pads).

Imagine if this culturally transmitted and universally acclaimed sport suddenly lost all its spectators. What if the team showed up with their Nike endorsements and flourescent Gatorade bottles to empty stadiums? Well, you do not have to. Welcome to Lebanon, Continue reading Imagine a world without football →

What the Heck, I mean Hayek…

Arab-Israeli Conflict, Lebanon, Terrorism Issue, YouTube Watch

[Webshaykh’s note: With so much discredited foreign policy decision-making, perhaps we should go back to the Nancy Reagan doctrine and look at the ouija board. Give political anti-realism a chance…what the heck, Mr. Hayek… See it for yourself on Youtube.]

‘Clairvoyant’ sees new Lebanese president, more assassinations, Hizbullah ‘surprise’

Daily Star staff
Tuesday, October 30, 2007

BEIRUT: Reputed clairvoyant Michel Hayek predicted late on Sunday that “Lebanon will witness the election of a new president despite current problems.” He also ruled out the “imminent” threat of civil war. In an interview with George Salibi on New TV, Hayek foresaw “a few skirmishes and problems” in the country.

“There is no impending end to the string of assassinations,” he said, referring to the political murders that have plagued Lebanon since 2005.

Nicknamed “the Nostradamus of the Middle East,” Hayek is known for his yearly predictions for Lebanon, the Middle East and the world. Continue reading What the Heck, I mean Hayek… →