Fouad Siniora in Iraq: Progress Between Iraq and Lebanon?

August 27, 2008 – 9:58 am

Prime Minister Fouad Siniora traveled to Baghdad last week, becoming the first Lebanese leader to visit Iraq since the fall of Saddam Hussein. This was a further step toward Iraqi reconciliation with its Arab neighbours and a step toward the restoration of commercial relations between two former trading partners.

The announcement came a day after Iraqi government spokesman Ali Al-Dabbagh announced that seven Arab countries are set to reopen their embassies in Baghdad this year. These countries include Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain, Algeria and Morocco.

Jordan also recently announced that it would reopen its embassy to Iraq after the historic visit of King Abdullah, who became the first Arab head of state to do so since the 2003 invasion that toppled the former regime.

Lebanon is only one of five Arab states to currently have an embassy in Iraq, alongside Syria, Palestine, Yemen, Lebanon and Tunisia, which it opened in 2006. Official relations had been strained for six years between 1994 and 2000 when Lebanon broke its relations with Iraq in 1994 following the murder of an Iraqi dissident in Lebanon.

Sinioria travelled to Baghdad to discuss trade and energy, his spokesman quoted by the AFP as saying: “The discussions with Iraqi leaders will be on bilateral relations and particularly trade and oil.”

Renewed relations with Lebanon would be a positive sign for Maliki’s government, and both countries share a similar recent history. Read More »

By Oliver Pearce | Posted in business world, iraq, lebanon | Comments (0)

Motorcycle Diaries Part XVII

August 3, 2008 – 4:08 pm

I was seeking sanctuary from the scorching heat of an Aqaba July afternoon in my hotel room when I tuned in to the live footage of the arrival in south Lebanon of the freed prisoners from Israeli jails. Unshackled from their jailors by force, Hizbullah delivered what it promised to do two years ago and coerced Israel to release those whom its top politicians and generals declared will never be set free.

The other story in the news on the very same day was the gun attack at the Roman Amphitheatre in Amman, where a deranged Islamist opened fire at the audience of a musical concert. How the two stories are closely connected, I shall reveal after I share with you the totally new kind of emotion that enveloped me as I followed the parade of the liberated men on TV (alongside the coffins of the fallen fighters, inside one of which lay Dalal Mughrabi, whose corpse Ehud Barak personally mutilated in 1978 and invited the cameras to record his primeval act).

As I watched this historic event, I didn’t know how to define the overwhelming jolt of elation that swept my own sun-mutilated corpse. Why did it seem so unusual to belong to a nation that gave birth to a dedicated group of fighters who refused to abandon their captured comrades, I asked myself? Why was I so surprised to feel that way? Indeed, the extraordinary nobility of those who persevered and offered their lives to twist the arms of the captors of their brothers-in-arms was a manifestation of military valor and gallantry in combat that I have not witnessed in recent memory from my own nation folk. Then I realized what this sensation was like

The only people in this region who have always lit a candle of solidarity for their missing sons and daughters were not the Arab countries. Finally, I could feel as privileged as Jews do. For the first time in my life, and although I never wished for it, I felt like an Israeli. Indeed, one of the reasons the Israelis have always conquered their Arab adversaries was because their soldiers go into battle knowing that their leaders and their people shall never rest until they return them to their families, whether living or dead.

And now, this most honorable trait with its noblest values of gratitude to your fighting brethren combined with the solemn vow to leave no man or woman behind, is no longer monopolized by our enemies. The sweltering Aqaba sun became cooler all of a sudden as the refreshing breeze of redeemed dignity penetrated my soul. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in current affairs, entertainment, islam, lebanon, religion | Comments (0)

In Lebanon and Beyond: Could the Arab League be on the Verge of Resurgence?

June 4, 2008 – 3:35 pm

Arab League-bashing is a favorite past time of the Arab masses. There is, at best, a sense of resignation that the Arab League is an institution that has failed miserably in resolving the conflicts engulfing our region.

The last annual summit of Arab Heads of states in Damascus, in March this year, was met with a chorus of apathy on the streets of Amman, Cairo, Casablanca, Gaza and every other corner of the Arab world. The only thing that seems to get people to turn on their TV sets is the perennial (and always entertaining) Gaddafi speech, with the average Arab viewer wondering just how far the Colonel will go in his latest oration.

It is difficult to blame the Arabs for deriding their league. The seeming impotence of the Arab League in the face of adversity is quite legendary. As the situation in Palestine, especially Gaza, deteriorates, as the cruel civil war wages in Iraq (not to mention the illegal invasion that sparked it), as the Darfur situation worsens, the Arab league stands totally powerless. And this is just a snapshot of the current crop of crises in Arabia. The history of the last six decades since the founding of the League in 1945 is deluged with examples of the Arab League’s inefficiency and incapacity to resolve any of the major issues facing the region.

But then, in the midst of all this inaction, we woke up one morning last week to the sight of a truly extraordinary and improbable achievement: a real Arab League success. The Arab League’s success in brokering an agreement between the endlessly feuding Lebanese factions is a major triumph of unprecedented caliber. Of course, particular credit is due to the Qatari Government and the few Arab Foreign Ministers who devoted their time and energy towards the attainment of this goal in the period leading up to the agreement. But it was the institution of the Arab League that made this entire effort possible and, despite all our instincts to disbelieve, we should all recognize that.

The success is particularly laudable in light of the initial inability of the Arab League to put a meeting together quickly enough to respond to the surge of violence in Lebanon that started earlier this month. When the decisions of the Lebanese government to dismantle the telecommunications network of Hezbollah and to remove the security chief of Beirut airport unleashed an unprecedented reaction by Hezbollah on the streets of Beirut, it took the Arab League almost a week to get the Foreign Ministers of its members to meet.

When the Foreign Ministers finally managed to congregate, most Arabs didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Read More »

By Nasser Ali Khasawneh | Posted in current affairs, lebanon, politics | Comments (1)

The Phone Call from Kayfoun

March 8, 2008 – 6:01 pm

It was three o’clock in the morning when the phone rang. Sirena sat up in her bed when she heard the second trill break the quiet evening air, and an anxious feeling filled her stomach. There was only one place she hoped that call wouldn’t be coming from: Lebanon, the place her father called “back home.”

There was a war over there.

Her father had once stood with her and spun their globe. His finger covered the entire country. He pointed it out with the white crescent at the top of one nail. Sirena had squinted at the small blot, its name printed in a nearby sea. She imagined that the whole country was probably the size of her elementary school and pictured the blue and red hallways packed with tall men and women who looked just like her dad.

Sirena couldn’t remember when the war had begun. Her father said it started a long time ago. Her sister Aisha was ten now, two years older than Sirena. Aisha couldn’t remember when the war started either, but she said she was six when the first phone call came, and she could remember how things were before it happened. Aisha said Baba smiled a lot more and he used to read stories and sing songs before bedtime. Now he just tucked the covers around you and said, “I love you, baby. Sleep well,” before flipping down the light switch and pulling the door almost shut.

“The war,” Aisha had said, and she said it with authority, “changed everything.” In the last four years, there had been five phone calls, each reporting the death of yet another cousin, aunt or uncle that the girls would never meet. Of the calls, Sirena could only remember two. She was afraid this might be the third phone call she would come to remember. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in arts and literature, lebanon | Comments (0)

An Open Letter to Hezbollah and Hamas

January 17, 2007 – 11:32 am

Dear Muslim Brothers and Sisters,
God forbid if any one of our near one and dear one is killed then the killer is evil, a beast and what not and should get penalty… But if one among us kills anybody then he is not evil and we start lying, denying or even justifying the killing…. double standards? Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in current affairs, islam, lebanon, palestine, religion | Comments (0)

Lessons Learned from the 6th War

September 3, 2006 – 11:33 am

1. The legend of Israel’s military might is shattered for good. A few brave knights together with God’s angels defeated the 5th strongest army in the world.

2. Israel as a strategic ally is a fallacy and U.S. tax payer’s money is wasted. Israel was not able to help out in the first or the second Gulf War and was not able to help itself in Lebanon. Israel is strongest against the weak, but Hezbollah ate their lunch with chutzpah.

3. The assertion of Israel from the river to the sea is a pipe dream. To expand you need to occupy and subjugate. This is no longer in the realm of reason. Read More »

By Feature Writer | Posted in current affairs, lebanon | Comments (0)

A Tale of the Confused Arab Left

September 5, 2004 – 11:39 am

Not that there is any tangible left or right these days in the pathetic political arenas of the despotic Arab regimes, but I will try to steer through the muddy waters. A discernible phenomenon is the unprincipled alliance forged by some of the desperate Arab leftist trends with Islamist movements in the Arab world.

What a shame, for the comrades.

Here is an example of the unfortunate consequences when such an unnatural marriage takes place.

A venerable Lebanese writer and political activist who often appears on Arab satellite stations is as secular as they come. However, she also chose to become a columnist for “Assabeel.” Her choice of newspaper is symbolic of this unholy alliance. Read More »

By Zaid Nabulsi | Posted in current affairs, jordan, lebanon, russia, terrorism | Comments (0)