Iran Amidst the Wolves

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OLIVER BOYD-BARRETT
Empire, Communication and NATO Wars


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Elected President of Iran Masud Pezeshkian, July 5, 2024

Al Jazeera reporting of Masoud Pezeshkian’s win, with 53.7% of the vote, in the Iranian elections against “hardliner” Saeed Jalili, records that the new president has promised to serve all Iranians and that his victory will “usher in a new chapter” for the country. Pezeshkian secured nearly 16.4 million of the more than 30 million votes cast, ahead of Jalili who received some 13.5 million, according to the official count.

In saying that “we are ahead of a big trial, a trial of hardships and challenges, simply to provide a prosperous life to our people,” Pezeshkian has quite reasonably prioritized the welfare of Iranian citizens, a universal, non-divisive stance. Contrary to Western mainstream media insistence that an anemic economy helps account for relatively lower voter turnout, the Iranian economy has rebounded over the past few years from a previous period of economic stagnation, in conditions, it should never be forgotten, of continuing merciless Western economic sanctions warfare against Iran.

Here is a 2022 World Bank assessment:

Iran’s economy is characterized by its hydrocarbon, agricultural, and service sectors, as well as a noticeable state presence in the manufacturing and financial services. Iran ranks second in the world for natural gas reserves and fourth for proven crude oil reserves. While relatively diversified for an oil exporting country, economic activity and government revenues still rely on oil revenues and have, therefore, been volatile. A new five-year development plan is under preparation. The previous plan for 2016/17 to 2021/22 comprised three pillars: the development of a resilient economy, progress in science and technology, and the promotion of cultural excellence. Among its priorities were the reform of state-owned enterprises and the financial and banking sectors, and the allocation and management of oil revenues. The plan envisioned annual economic growth of 8%.

External shocks, including sanctions and commodity price volatility, caused a decade-long stagnation that ended in 2019/20. The large contraction in oil exports placed significant pressure on government finances and drove inflation to over 40 %for four consecutive years. Sustained high inflation led to a substantial reduction in households’ purchasing power. At the same time, job creation was insufficient to absorb the large pool of young and educated entrants to the labor market.

Over the last two years, Iran’s economy has started to rebound, supported by a recovery in services post-pandemic, increased oil sector activity, and accommodating policy action. Economic activity has also adjusted to sanctions, including through exchange rate depreciation which helped domestically produced tradable goods to become price competitive internationally. The decline in oil exports has prompted additional processing of crude oil and hydrocarbons that have then been exported as petrochemicals. Under sanctions, trade has pivoted further towards neighboring countries and China, and bilateral currency exchange, barter, and other indirect payment channels are increasingly used to settle international transactions as most assets abroad have become inaccessible due to sanctions. The government expanded cash transfers and subsidies to mitigate the impact of high inflation on welfare, but this also added to fiscal pressures as most interventions were not sufficiently targeted.

Iran faces intensified climate change challenges, including from severe droughts, which are restricting agricultural production at a time when global food prices and food insecurity are on the rise. While higher oil prices, due to a recovery in global demand and the war in Ukraine, have raised oil export revenues, higher prices of other commodities, including food items, have significantly increased the import bill. This increase poses additional strain on government finances as direct food price subsidies stood at 5 %of GDP even before the recent price surge.

Risks to Iran’s economic outlook remain significant. Intensified climate change challenges such as more frequent floods, droughts, and dust storms, as well as energy shortages could significantly impact the economic outlook. These challenges coupled with the recent inflationary pressures could add to pressures on the most vulnerable and pose a potential risk of social tensions, particularly since modest growth is expected to generate limited job opportunities. Other downside risks relate to renewed COVID-19 outbreaks, further deceleration in global demand, and increasing geopolitical tensions if the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Vienna talks were to fail. On the upside, the projected growth outlook could be significantly stronger if economic sanctions were to be removed. Higher oil prices could also improve fiscal and external balances further.

Pezeshkian has demonstrated loyalty to the supreme leader Khamenei, seeming to underscore, according to Al jazeera, that the president-elect is seeking to avoid a rift with Iran’s political establishment. He has said he will defer to the supreme leader on matters of foreign policy (and, of course, defense). Yet some analysts consider that Pezeshkian’s win may see the promotion of a “pragmatic” foreign policy, ease tensions over the “now-stalled” negotiations with major world powers to revive a 2015 nuclear deal (read: deliberately wrecked by idiot Trump) and improve prospects for social liberalisation in Iran (well, yes, the women’s issue is indeed hugely important but the West should shut up about other people’s human rights violations and think much, much, more about their own).

Mostafa Khoshcheshm, a Tehran-based analyst and professor at Fars Media Faculty, said he was not expecting strategic changes to Iran’s foreign policy.

The foreign policy file, he explained, “is decided by the entire establishment, mostly at the Supreme National Security Council, where [there are] representatives of the government as well as the armed forces, the Iranian supreme leader and the Parliament.

If Donald Trump comes into office, I don’t really expect any kind of change, any talks between the two sides, or any change in the present course of actions,” Khoshcheshm told Al Jazeera.

Al Jazeera concludes that in the end, Pezeshkian will be in charge of applying state policy outlined by Khamenei, who wields ultimate authority in the country.

Al Jazeera describes Pezeshkian as a “centrist” while Western mainstream media describe him as a “reformist” and make much of his record as one who has advocated for improved relations with the USA. I am not inclined to make much of this and, in any case, am amazed that any Iranian who cares about the history, core values, dignity and independence of Iran can talk in good conscience about improving relations with a country that was culpable of overthrowing, in favor of Anglo-Amerian oil interests in the exploitation of Iran’s oil wealth, Iran’s democracy in 1953 in favor of a cruel autocracy, that has been implacably opposed to the Islamic revolution of 1971, has conspired with Israel in the fabrication of foolish narratives of Iran as a “nuclear threat” when, even now, it has no nuclear weapons and its major regional opponent (now that Iran has established good relations with Saudi Arabia) secretely maintains an arsenal of hundreds of nuclear warheads - yes, we are talking of course about the genocidal regime of Israel, - that has reneged on an international agreement to lift economic sanctions in return for Iranian concessions on the accumulation of enriched uranium for its peaceful nuclear energy program, has assassinated key Iranian army commanders, has an ally, Israel, that has murdered at least half a dozen Iranian scientists and that is now engaged in a genocide of fellow Islamiats (predominantly Sunni, in contrast to Iran’s prevailing Shia religious commitment) among many other indications of extreme Western hostility to a proud nation that has refused to succumb to Washington imperial power and its global financial and neocon authoritarianism.

My expectation is that Pezeshkian will not confront the leadership of Khamenei, and that, for the benefit of Iran as a whole, he will continue to do his best to pursue Iranian’s trajectory in the SCO and the BRICS. I anticipate that he will do nothing to upset the good relations between Iran and Russia, and that the two countries will, after all, conclude a mutual security arrangement.

I note that Western mainstream media are quiet about the indications of a robust electoral process in Iran, or express surprise that someone they label as a “reformist,” should have won the election. Rather, they prefer to emphasize the authority of the Supreme Leader and the fact that the roll of candidates for the presidency must be approved by a body of senior clerics. All this might seem to dampen Iranian claims to “democracy,” but, surely, no more than the way in which access to the candidate list in the USA requries the financial backing of billionaire sponsors and very great wealth, or the multiple ways in which the US congressional-military-industrial establishment (MICIMATT if you prefer the full version) contains the spectrum of permissible speech to an extremely narrow waveband that is dominated by distracting identity politics.

The British election has brought to power a piece of wood in the form of Keith Starmer who, ignoring completely the message of anti-Ukraine war Nigel Farage’s stunning rise to influence, decides to talk first (or almost first) among foreign leaders to none other than M16-stooge Zelenskiy and promise him a hundred years of solidarity. And what use is that going to be to anybody after a nuclear armageddon that the British foreign policy establishment is doing its best to provoke, while ignoring the social, cultural and economic decline of the UK?


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The Real Legacy of Ariel Sharon

HELP ENLIGHTEN YOUR FELLOWS. BE SURE TO PASS THIS ON. SURVIVAL DEPENDS ON IT.



IMPERIALISM IS ONLY DEGENERATE, MONOPOLY PHASE CAPITALISM



OpEds
Former Israeli Prime Minister and war criminal Ariel Sharon died on Jan 11th, 2014, after having spent the last eight years in a coma. He was 85 years old. Sharon was directly involved in war crimes and massacres throughout his career and was one of the most dominant political and military figures in the history of Israel. He was buried in a state funeral is Israel with full honors, being praised as a hero and a peacemaker. He never stood trial or faced justice for his crimes.

The appalling deeds of Sharon have been ceaselessly whitewashed by the bourgeois press, portraying him as a good patriot and a seeker of peace in the region, rather than the aggressive warmonger and genocidaire he was. Sharon was nothing less than a career war criminal, a proponent of state terrorism and apartheid against the Palestinians. He was also one of the United States’ oldest and most trusted allies.

Early Military Career

In 1942, the 14-year-old Ariel Sharon joined the Gadna, an Israeli paramilitary organization for youth, and eventually joined the Haganah, an underground paramilitary force and the precursor to the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). The Haganah was a Zionist organization that was active in the British Mandate of Palestine before the establishment of the state of Israel. It eventually resorted to terrorism and armed struggle against the British after World War II when they refused to allow unlimited Jewish immigration to Palestine. From 1947 onward it clashed with the British and Palestinians, cooperating with other Zionist paramilitaries like the Irgun and the Stern Gang. When Israel became a state in 1948, the Haganah became the core of the new IDF.

Sharon in his younger, dashing days. The beginning of a mythical figure.

 

Following the Israeli declaration of independence, Sharon gained attention for his military leadership in the subsequent 1948 Arab-Israeli War. Thus, Sharon started his military career in the very heart of the foundation of the Zionist state. Sharon was directly involved in all the major wars of Israel’s history, and was an active participant in war crimes even as far back as 1947.

During the war, 400,000 Palestinians were expelled from the the territory. Sharon’s unit of the Haganah, the Alexandroni Brigade, was involved in a massacre in the Palestinian village of Tantura and atrocities against Arabs around the village of Kfar Malal. In late 1948, after recovering from injuries from the war, Sharon met major Zionist leader and first Prime Minister of Israel David Ben-Gurion, who gave him the name Sharon.

After returning to his unit, Sharon was promoted to the rank of company commander and in 1950 became an intelligence officer for the IDF. He took leave for two years to study history and Middle Eastern culture at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, but returned to active service as a Major under the direct order of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion. He became the leader of the newly-formed Special Forces Unit 101.

Operation Shoshana and the Qibya Massacre

The main purpose of Unit 101 was to act as a “retribution squad” to organize bloody reprisals for attacks by the Palestinian Fedayeen. In October 1953, Israeli troops from Unit 101 under the command of Ariel Sharon linked with a paratrooper brigade and set in motion “Operation Shoshana.” The elite commando force launched an attack on the West Bank village of Qibya. At least 69 Palestinian villagers, two-thirds of them women and children, were killed. Forty-five houses, a school and a mosque were destroyed.


S I D E B A R
How to Admit Without Admitting: the Lifetime War Criminal was a "Complex Man"
By Shaun Rodgers

This is how the bourgeois press handled its homage to Sharon (excerpts from the NYTimes).  Buried toward the bottom of an inevitable eulogy upon his passing, Jodi Rudoren, the designated writer for the NYT's obit Israel Bids Farewell to Sharon, a ‘Complex Man’ (Jan 13, 2014), said the following:

 

The son of Russian immigrants, Mr. Sharon grew up on a semicollective farm, and as a teenager joined the Haganah, the pre-state Zionist fighting brigade. He created Israel’s first elite special forces unit, 101, in 1953; commanded paratroops in the 1956 Sinai campaign; and led soldiers across the Suez Canal in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

Some of the usual suspects attend Sharon's funeral: Blair, Netanyahu and Joe Biden.


The son of Russian immigrants, Mr. Sharon grew up on a semicollective farm, and as a teenager joined the Haganah, the pre-state Zionist fighting brigade. He created Israel’s first elite special forces unit, 101, in 1953; commanded paratroops in the 1956 Sinai campaign; and led soldiers across the Suez Canal in the 1973 Arab-Israeli war.

“In every place that we have marched in, you have always been there before us,” said Lt. Gen. Benny Gantz, chief of Israel’s military. “Every target that we have attacked, you have known from previous battles.”

Mr. Sharon faced condemnation abroad for episodes like a 1953 reprisal attack against the West Bank village of Qibya, then under Jordanian rule, in which 69 Palestinians were killed. He was ousted as defense minister after the 1982 Lebanon War, and is still denounced as a war criminal by some human rights groups for the massacres of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps in Beirut.


The U.N. Security Council passed a Resolution strongly condemning the attack. Ariel Sharon, who led the operation, later wrote in his diary: “The orders were utterly clear: Qibya was to be an example for everyone,” and that his orders were to inflict “maximal killing and damage to property.” No sanctions or pressure were put on Israel.

Sharon led the 890 Paratroopers Brigade in raids into Arab territory, soon establishing himself as a brilliant military strategist and a ruthless, insubordinate soldier. Survivors of his commando raids universally reported brutality and war crimes.

Suez War and the Khan Yunis Massacre

Israel joined hands with the United Kingdom and France to invade Egypt during the Suez Crisis. The Anglo-French-Israeli aggression against Egypt came in 1956 when Egypt nationalized the company that operated the strategically vital Suez Canal. Britain and France aimed to assert their dominance in the Middle East and seize the canal by force, and Israel’s aims were to weaken its Arab neighbors and gain territory from Egypt. The Western powers thus showed their support for Israel’s expansionist policies and Israel showed its willingness to join with imperialism.

Israeli troops began the war by invading Egyptian territory and occupying the Sinai Peninsula while Anglo-French forces began a bombardment of Egypt and occupied the Port Said area. This invasion was bravely resisted by the Egyptians, and the progressive organizations and nations of the world condemned the invasion. England and France used their veto power to paralyze the U.N. Security Council.

During the Suez War, Sharon led several decisive attacks in the Egyptian Sinai. However, it was during this period his militia terrorism made the transition to an organized military doctrine of IDF terrorism, including coordinated attacks on civilians and terror bombing.

It was during Israel’s attack on the Egyptian-held Gaza Strip that the IDF perpetrated a massacre against the Palestinian village of Khan Yunis and a refugee camp of the same name. Hundreds of Palestinians were shot in two massacres during the Israeli occupation. Although Israel tried to claim that the massacre was actually street-fighting between themselves and Egyptian-Palestinian forces and a subsequent resistance-free occupation, eyewitness accounts universally tell a story of Israeli soldiers systematically lining up and executing Arab men and suspected Fedayeen and searching homes to confiscate firearms. The mass killings also occurred after hostilities between the two belligerants had ended. The medieval caravanserai in the center of the village was used as a wall to execute Palestinian men; it remains riddled with bullets to this day.



In the nearby refugee camp, eyewitness accounts attested to the same activity: men were taken from their home by the IDF and summarily executed. 275 people were killed in the massacre, including 140 refugees from the camp. A strict curfew was imposed which prevented the gathering of the dead. Upon Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip in 1957 under international pressure, mass graves of Arab men who had been bound and shot in the back of the head were found.

In one battle, Sharon led his troops through the Sinai’s Mitla Pass against the orders of his superiors. Allegations were made in later years that Sharon had intentionally provoked and engaged Egyptian positions without authorization so that a battle would ensue. Sharon’s actions in Mitla and the resulting heavy Israeli casualties stalled his military career for several years.

Six-Day War

In 1967, an armed attack by Israel against Egypt, Syria and Jordan led to the seizure of the Sinai Peninsula and the Gaza Strip from Egypt, the West Bank and East Jerusalem from Jordan and the Golan Heights from Syria, tripling the size of the Israeli state. Israel claimed it was a “preemptive” strike against a planned invasion by Egypt, a position it later had to abandon. An estimated 300,000 Palestinians left the West Bank and Gaza. Israel declared it would not give up conquered territories. A war of attrition would be fought for several years between Egypt and Israel along the Suez Canal.

In the lead-up to the Six-Day War, Sharon rose rapidly in the ranks of the army, eventually becoming a Major General. During the war he was assigned to command the most powerful armored division on the Sinai front. Again Sharon followed his own strategy against the orders of his superiors, and enacted his own complex battle plan. This culminated in the Battle of Abu-Ageila, where Sharon’s victory against the Egyptians played a vital role in Israeli seizure of the Sinai. Sharon was promoted to the head of the IDF’s Southern Command, which he held until he was relieved of duty in 1974.

Yom Kippur War

Israel’s refusal to settle the results of the Six-Day War and give back its conquered territory led to a new outbreak of hostilities in 1973, on the Jewish holy day Yom Kippur. In what is often called the “Yom Kippur War,” Egypt and Syria, supported by Iraq, Jordan, Libya and other Arab states, attacked Israel. Egyptian forces struck across the Suez, while the Syrians advanced from the north. The war caught Israel off-guard, and the increased military capacity of the Arab states made a big impression. An oil embargo imposed by the Arab side also proved effective in proving the new balance of forces, and two U.S.-Soviet sponsored ceasefires were drawn up in 1974. Israeli territorial gains from the Six-Day War were largely given up, but the war ended inconclusively.

Sharon was recalled to active duty to fight in the war, commanding a reserve armored division. In a tactical move that yet again went against the command of his superiors, Israeli forces under his command crossed and encircled the Suez, undermining the Egyptian Second Army and encircling and capturing the Third Army. This decisive move was regarded by many as a turning point in the Sinai ground offensive.

Sharon was brought before a military tribunal for these actions, but was released on the grounds of his military effectiveness. Due to Sharon’s controversial actions and politics, he was relieved of military duty in 1974. During this conflict, Sharon was hailed as a war hero and earned the nickname “The Lion of God.” Shortly after his retirement, Sharon entered politics when he joined the right-wing Likud party.

Entering Politics

Sharon became a special aid to Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin from 1975 to 1976, and before the 1977 elections tried to replace Menachem Begin as the head of Likud, but was rejected. Sharon resorted to forming his own party, Shlomtzion, which won two seats in the Israeli parliament, after which it immediately merged with the Likud. Sharon showed as much cunning in politics as he did in warfare. This shrewd move earned him a post as Minister of Agriculture in the Begin administration, a post that would allow him greater connection to the rural population and farmers of Israel, becoming a “strong-armed protector” of settlers and “patron saint of the settlements.”

Sharon began using his position to encourage Jewish settlement of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights, winning the support of the Jewish settlers and expansionist elements within the military. During his term the number of Israeli settlements in these areas doubled. Due to the support he garnered Sharon was instrumental in Likud’s win in the 1981 elections. He was rewarded with an appointment to Minister of Defense. It was during his time as Defense Minister that Sharon would transition from “slow motion genocide” of Palestinians through settlements to armed genocide through the IDF, and commit perhaps his most infamous and genocidal crimes.

The Butcher of Beirut

In 1982, Palestinian gunmen attempted to assassinate Shlomo Argov, the Israeli ambassador in London. It soon becomes known that the assailants are part of a small organization led by Abu Nidal, which formed after a split with Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction within the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO). Since the split the Abu Nidal Organization (ANO) had been the mortal enemy of Arafat’s PLO. Furthermore, the ANO was also based in Syria and not Lebanon. Some say the ANO attack was ordered by an agent of the Iraqi Intelligence Service to embroil Israel in a war with Lebanon and Syria, while others suspect that Abu Nidal’s group was manipulated into the attack by Mossad. Whatever the case, it soon became known that the assassination attempt was a plot by Nidal’s splinter group to provoke Israel into an open assault upon Nidal’s enemies in the PLO. The assassins included Nidal’s cousin, and their next target was to be the PLO representative in London.

Even though the attack on the ambassador was not ordered by the PLO, the incident was used as a pretext by Prime Minister Begin and Defense Minister Sharon to launch a long-planned full-scale invasion of Lebanon to destroy the headquarters of the PLO in the Lebanese capital of Beirut and install a Zionist-friendly Lebanese government. Defense Minister Ariel Sharon launched the invasion, called “Operation Peace for Galilee.”

The government of Lebanon had expressed solidarity with the Arab victims of Israeli aggression, taking part in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. A large number of Palestinian refugees fled to Lebanon, and Palestinian resistance organizations had been operating from Lebanese territory for decades. Lebanon also expressed support of the Arab states in the 1967 war and the relevant U.N. Security Council Resolutions calling for a settlement to the crisis. The country had had a series of chronically unstable governments, some independent and some pro-imperialist in orientation, fostering uncertain relations between the government and the Palestinian refugees and resistance organizations such as the PLO. Nevertheless, because of the support it had shown to the Palestinian cause, Lebanon had been regularly subjected to Israeli acts of aggression since 1968.

As the result of internal contradictions between pro-Western, pan-Arab, right-wing nationalist and progressive forces, with the addition of the machinations of Israel and the imperialist countries, a civil war broke out in Lebanon in 1975 which caused great damage to the country. Israel occupied the south of the country in 1978 in response to PLO actions but was forced to withdraw in favor of a U.N. force sent to control militia activity. In 1981, Beirut was subjected to Israeli air strikes against PLO targets. But now, the time for a full-scale attack by Israel had come.

On June 6th, 1982, Israeli forces launched a massive invasion of the south of Lebanon at Ariel Sharon’s command. Sharon presented it to the Israeli parliament and the international community as a limited incursion 40 kilometers into Lebanon, but the IDF quickly swept throughout the country towards Beirut. Four armored columns cross into Lebanon, coupled with an amphibious assault of tanks and paratroopers north of Sidon. The cities of Tyre and Sidon in South Lebanon were heavily damaged, but even these would pale next to the Siege of Beirut.

Seven days after the start of the invasion, the IDF closed a ring around Beirut and began a savage artillery bombardment of the city, in which the PLO was isolated. For ten weeks, Israel attacked the city by land, sea and air, indiscriminately bombing the city with aircraft, cutting off food, water and electricity, capturing the Beirut Airport and southern suburbs in heavy house-to-house fighting. By the end of the first week over five hundred buildings had been destroyed and civilians had died by the thousands. By the end of the brutal siege, much of Beirut lay in ruins.

During this time, Ariel Sharon presented a plan for a large-scale conquest of West Beirut to destroy the PLO with the approval of Prime Minister Begin. The plan was rejected by the Israeli cabinet due to the amount of deaths it would cause. Some parties even threatened to leave the ruling coalition if the plan was adopted.

Israel’s invasion of Lebanon approved by Sharon, since it was a pre-planned invasion under faulty pretenses with the intention to retain occupied Lebanese territory, violated the United Nations Charter. The Security Council endorsed a draft Resolution to condemn the Israeli invasion and demand immediate withdrawal by a vote of 14 out of 15, but the draft was vetoed by the United States. Israel also attacked Syrian positions in Bekaa Valley, shooting down Syrian aircraft and destroying anti-air defense installations. Israeli armored units drove the Syrian army back. The Israeli assault on Syrian forces when the two countries were not in a state of war and Syria had made no offensive gesture towards Israel again violated international law.

On August 10th, with the U.S. pressuring Israel through its special envoy Philip Habib to come to an agreement for peace that involved the safe passage of the PLO out of Lebanon, Defense Minister Sharon raised the stakes and ordered a saturation bombing of Beirut, during which six hundred civilians were killed and thousands more were injured. In response to these actions and the fact that Sharon had lied to his own government about his motivations for the war, the cabinet stripped Sharon of his ability to command the air force, armored brigades and artillery without the consent of other branches of the government, effectively stripping Sharon of most of his powers.

A peace agreement was finally reached on August 18th, Syria having agreed to the deal since the 7th. All the demands of Israel and Sharon were met. Over a period of several weeks following August 21, Yasser Arafat and thousands of PLO fighters were forced to leave Lebanon by sea and land under the supervision of a multinational force of troops. The bulk of PLO fighters were transferred to Tunisia while others were dispersed to Syria, Yemen and Iraq, further away than ever from their ancestral homeland.

The Israeli invasion of Lebanon resulted in more than thirty thousand deaths and half a million homeless. Israel withdrew in the main by 1985 but occupied part of South Lebanon amounting to 10% of Lebanon’s territory, which the Israelis called a “Security Zone,” for nearly twenty years until 2000. Despite these atrocities, the 1982 war is primarily remembered for what would be Sharon’s most infamous crime: the Sabra and Shatila Massacre.

The Sabra and Shatila Massacre

From the very first day of the invasion of Lebanon, Ariel Sharon entered into secret negotiations with Bachir Gemayel, the Maronite Christian leader of the far-right Phalangist paramilitary organization for joint operations in Beirut between the IDF and the Phalange militia. A possible war with Syria was also considered. Gemayel had been a supporter of the Israeli intervention from the beginning, praising it as a “surgical operation.” Gemayel had the largest private army in Lebanon – 25,000 fighters at the time of the Israeli invasion. Israel agreed to help Gemayel become President of Lebanon, and Gemayel in return would pursue a policy favorable towards Israel and their occupation of southern Lebanon, and would expel the PLO headquarters from Beirut.

On August 23, after the conclusion of the tentative peace agreement, the Lebanese parliament elected Gemayel as President under Israeli guns. Israel sought to destroy the PLO command and install a far-right, Christian pro-Zionist government under Gemayel. Israel attempted to get the new President to sign a peace accord, but Gemayel was assassinated three weeks later on September 14th by a car bomb, temporarily ruining Sharon’s plans. In the wake of his death, Sharon broke the ceasefire and ordered the security forces in Lebanon to occupy West Beirut, near where the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps were located.

By noon on September 15th, the Sabra and Shatila camps were completely surrounded by the IDF forces under Sharon’s command, sealing off the camps and preventing helpless civilians from escaping what was to come. The security forces set up checkpoints and entrances, and occupied multi-story buildings with unobstructed panoramic views of Sabra and Shatila. Ariel Sharon and IDF Chief of Staff Rafael Eitan met with the Phalangist militia leaders, telling them the PLO was responsible for Gemayel’s assassination (a Lebanese Christian member of the Syrian Socialist National Party confessed and no Palestinians were involved) and inviting them to enter Sabra and the adjacent Shatila.

1,500 militiamen assembled in the Israeli-controlled airport and were transported to the area by IDF jeeps. Israel also provided the militia with careful instructions on how to enter. Beginning from 6:00 p.m. on September 16, over 3,000 Palestinian refugees were massacred by the militia under the command of Eli Hobeika over a period of three days while Sharon’s Israeli security forces stood by and watched.

There were no combatants in Sabra or Shatila; only Palestinian civilians and a small number of Lebanese Shiites. During the first night, the Israeli forces fired flares to light the militia’s way at the Phalangists’ request. According to one witness the camp was so brightly lit it was like “a sports stadium during a football game.” Israel’s allies slaughtered men and boys, women, children, infants and the elderly. Many bodies were found to have been severely mutilated: boys were castrated, others were scalped or had the Christian cross carved into their bodies. Rape was extremely prevalent. Children and infants were killed for sport. Israeli bulldozers buried the corpses of the victims in mass graves.

Blame was shifted from Sharon and Israel to the Lebanese Phalange that carried out the massacre at Sabra and Shatila, but Sharon organized the massacre by being closely allied with the militia, giving them the “green light” to attack the camps, and ordering his soldiers to do nothing, or even aid the attackers logistically while the mass murder happened. Without Sharon and the Israelis, the massacre in the Israeli-controlled camps would not have been possible.

The massacres were publicized to an international outcry. The United Nations General Assembly condemned the massacre at Sabra and Shatila and determined it to be an act of genocide. The Kahan Commission was convened by the the Israeli parliament to investigate the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. It was chaired by the President of the Supreme Court. In 1983, the commission found Defense Minister Ariel Sharon to hold “personal responsibility” for the massacre and the actions of the IDF which controlled the camps. Sharon resigned from his position as Defense Minister after initially refusing to do so, but was not prosecuted for the mass murder. Prime Minister Begin immediately appointed him as a “minister without portfolio” and Sharon was allowed to remain in the parliament and held a variety of offices in successive governments.

In 2001, relatives of victims of the massacre filed a lawsuit against the newly-elected Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to bring him to trial for war crimes. The Belgian Supreme Court dismissed the case in 2003.

Campaign for Prime Minister and Temple Mount Visit

After his resignation, Sharon remained a minister without portfolio until only 1984, when he received a portfolio and became Minister for Trade and Industry until 1990. Sharon slowly re-ascended Israel’s political ladder, becoming Minister of Housing Construction, effectively being placed in charge of Jewish settlement in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. He also became a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, and oversaw Jewish immigration from the Soviet Union. Sharon soon became the main rival of Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, trying in several bids to replace him but failing each time. Sharon was Minister of National Infrastructure in the administration of Benjamin Netanyahu and then Foreign Minister from 1998 to 1999. After the electoral victory of Ehud Barak’s Labor Party, Sharon became the head of Likud in 1999.

During his campaign for Prime Minister on September 28, 2000, Sharon, guarded by a thousand Israeli security forces and police, embarked on a controversial visit to the Al Aqsa mosque in the Temple Mount complex in Jerusalem. Sharon declared that the complex would remain under Israeli control. This highly provocative action was clearly designed to assert the Israeli right to set foot in the Muslim holy place. This action by the “Butcher of Beirut” would lead to large Palestinian protests by September 29th, the Muslim Day of Prayer. Prime Minister Barak dispatched an enormous police and military presence to the mosque. By the following day the protests had grown larger, and Israeli police used live ammunition to suppress the demonstrators, killing five and injuring over 200, including 12-year-old Muhammad al-Durra. These events would lead to both Sharon’s election as Israeli Prime Minister and the Second Intifada Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation, also known as the Al-Aqsa Intifada, which would be marked by severe IDF repression of Palestinians.

Sharon as Prime Minister

In May 2001, Ariel Sharon replaced Ehud Barak as the Israeli Prime Minister. Sharon’s election was hailed by the United States, who called him one of “America’s oldest and strongest allies.” No mention was made of his war criminal past. During the Second Intifada he oversaw increasingly savage Israeli repression against Palestinians, in turn causing an escalation of Palestinian reprisals as well as suicide bombings by organizations such as Hamas and the PLO split called the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Months later, Sharon ordered a full-scale IDF invasion of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, razing entire communities to the ground. The repression was so severe that even U.S. President George W. Bush called for an Israeli withdrawal, which Sharon ignored. This was to be the first of a series of IDF incursions into what remained of Palestine, all of which were marked with war crimes.

Sharon endorsed Jewish settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank while at the same time authoring a unilateral disengagement plan, putting the idea of an independent Palestinian state, in the words of Sharon’s own spokesman Dov Weissglass, into “formaldehyde.” This startling revelation by Sharon’s right-hand man openly admitted that the goal of the disengagement plan was to “freeze the peace process” and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state, as well as “prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem.”

Colonization and the “Unilateral Disengagement Plan”

Many politicians, particularly from the United States, have portrayed Sharon as a “peacemaker” who gave concessions on Jewish settlements in Palestinian territory to pursue peace with the Palestinians. President Barack Obama issued a statement on Sharon’s death where he stressed the United States’ “unshakable commitment to Israel’s security” and at the same time said the U.S. would “strive for lasting peace.”

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said Sharon “surprised many in his pursuit of peace,” and even praised Sharon’s “lifelong convictions” for a peace process. United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon praised Sharon’s “political courage and determination” in his “painful and historic decision to withdraw Israeli settlers and troops from the Gaza Strip.” Tony Blair claimed Sharon “didn’t think of peace as a dreamer, but did dream of peace” and “sought peace with…iron determination.”

These shibboleths cannot disguise the truth. Since the 1970s, Sharon was one of the chief architects of the Israeli settlement of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights region. He was given the moniker “father of the settlements.”

In 2003, U.S. President George W. Bush put forward a plan known as the “roadmap for peace in the Middle East,” which offered a land-for-peace deal in which Israel would be called upon to partially abide by previous United Nations Security Council Resolutions, and a Palestinian state would be established by 2005. The Palestinian National Council immediately agreed to the proposal, while the Sharon government initially refused the proposition. Eventually, under heavy pressure from the United States, Sharon’s Israel reversed their position under the condition that Yasser Arafat stepped down and the PNC halted all military actions. No mention was made of Israeli military actions.

Arafat agreed to the proposal and stepped down in favor of Mahmoud Abbas. Sharon continued to order IDF actions against Hamas and other Palestinian organizations under the excuse of continued Hamas and Islamic Jihad actions. Finally, the two organizations agreed to suspend their actions, leaving Sharon no choice but to withdraw his troops from the West Bank. It should be further noted that these political moves took place in the context of the number of Jewish settlers in the West Bank increasing from 388,000 to 461,000. Sharon’s alleged “concessions” for peace were a slight and short-lived rollback. He resorted to troop withdrawal and peace talks as a matter of having no alternative.

Thus, Sharon once again showed himself to be a pioneer in new ways to steal land from Palestinians: he engineered a withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and West Bank while at the same time keeping control of them from without. All of Sharon’s “concessions” have also not prevented Israel from laying bloody sieges to the West Bank and Gaza Strip on a regular basis, nor have any of them involved an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied Golan Heights (which even the United States recognizes as Syrian territory), and have not prevented Israeli control of Palestinian coastline and airspace. Sharon also ordered the construction of apartheid walls, including a 430-mile-long barrier around the West Bank, a fence caging in the entire Gaza Strip, and a steel barrier separating Gaza from Egypt.

The End of Sharon’s Career

In November 2005, facing a split over the issue of the “disengagement” plan, Sharon resigned as head of government, stepped down from the leadership of the Likud party, dissolved parliament and called for new elections. He founded the new Kadima party, made mostly of politicians from Likud and Labor who had defected. Sharon’s rival Benjamin Netanyahu was chosen as the new leader of Likud, but polls showed that Kadima were likely to win the 2006 legislative elections and Sharon to win the prime ministership. On December 18, Sharon was hospitalized for a minor stroke. Against doctor’s orders, Sharon returned to work immediately and suffered a major stroke on January 4, 2006. He underwent a complicated major surgery lasting more than seven hours. Doctors stopped the bleeding in his brain, but Sharon slipped into a coma from which he would never awaken.

The following month, the cabinet declared Sharon permanently incapacitated. Sharon was replaced by Ehud Olmert, who would later be responsible for genocidal massacres in the Gaza Strip in 2008-2009 and a second invasion of Lebanon in 2006, as Interim Prime Minister. Kadima under Ehud Olmert would win the most seats in the parliamentary elections, followed by Labor, resulting in a major loss of seats for Likud. Olmert formed a new government with himself as Prime Minister in May. Sharon would remain in a permanent vegetative state in a long-term care facility until his death.

Conclusion

The death of war criminal Ariel Sharon is a grim reminder of the crimes of the apartheid state of Israel against the Palestinian people, and the involvement of the United States and world imperialism in those crimes. Sharon’s virulently anti-Palestinian policies, aggressive wars and political tyranny, as well as his avoidance of any trial or prosecution are undeniable, as is the political, financial and military support he received from the U.S.

Sharon in his long coma. (This is a heavily photoshopped image. The reality was less charming.)

Israeli rule over Palestinians is fascist in nature. The Zionist state and the imperialist system that support it are bigger than one man, but Sharon was a symbol of the harsh Israeli discrimination against Palestinians, and the refusal of both the United States and Israel to accept Palestinian resistance as a legitimate and inevitable response to the forcible establishment of the Zionist state, the settlement of Jews on Palestinian land and the continued killing and expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Palestinians. Sharon was one of the first politicians to use the word “terrorism” to delegitimize this resistance.

Ariel Sharon had one goal in his life: to ethnically cleanse the Jewish “ancestral homeland” of Palestinians and carve out a Greater Israel, as large and as powerful as possible. Ariel Sharon was a genocidal monster who wanted to erase the Palestinian people from the map, not a “hero” or a “peacemaker.” Reflecting on his death, we should also reflect on the destruction Sharon brought to the lives of thousands.

Real peace for Palestine can only be achieved if Israeli forces are driven from all occupied territories, if equal rights for Arabs are upheld, if the revolutionary forces liberate Palestine from apartheid rule, and if the right of Palestinians for self-determination and the creation of their own state is realized.  [That will require profound changes in Israel itself.—Ed]

The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.

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Battleground Beirut: Western colony or back to the East?

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Pepe Escobar


Look East, old man. "Position yourself on the right side of History".  


Crossposted with The Saker

As much as Covid-19 has been instrumentalized by the 0.001% to social engineer a Great Reset, the Beirut tragedy is already being instrumentalized by the usual suspects to keep Lebanon enslaved.

Facing oh so timely color revolution-style “protests”, the current Lebanese government led by Prime Minister Diab has already resigned. Even before the port tragedy, Beirut had requested a $10 billion line of credit from the IMF – denied as long as trademark, neoliberal Washington consensus “reforms” were not implemented: radical slashing of public expenses, mass layoffs, across the board privatization.

Macron meddling in Lebanon, but warning Iran "not to interfere".


Post-tragedy, President Emmanuel Macron – who’s not even capable of establishing a dialogue with the Gilets Jaunes/Yellow Vests in France – has opportunistically jumped in full neocolonial mode to pose as “savior” of Lebanon, as long as the same “reforms”, of course, are implemented.

On Sunday, France and the UN organized a videoconference to coordinate donor response – in conjunction with the European Commission (EC), the IMF and the World Bank. The result was not exactly brilliant: a paltry 252 million euros were pledged – once again conditioned by “institutional reforms”. (This reminds us of the insultingly paltry sums offered by the EU for the healing of the Amazon, as it was being consumed by fires triggered by Brazil's savagely capitalistic government.)

France came up with 30 million euros, Kuwait with 40 million, Qatar with 50 million and the EC with 68 million. Crucially, neither Russia nor Iran were among the donors. The US – which is harshly sanctioning Lebanon – and GCC allies Saudi Arabia and UAE pledged nothing. China had just a pro forma presence.

In parallel, Maronite Christians in Brazil – a very powerful community – are sending funds for the color revolution protests. Former President Michel Temer and industrialist tycoon Paulo Skaf even flew to Beirut. Former Lebanese President Amin Gemayel (1982-1988) maintained a lot of businesses in Brazil with funds he skimmed when in power.

All of the above points to neoliberalism taking no prisoners when it comes to keeping its deadly grip on Lebanon.

The Hariri model

Lebanese by birth and holding also a Saudi passport due to services to the Saudi establishment, Hariri was a business tycoon and the fourth richest politician in the world, with cronies in almost every major world capital, especially Paris, Washington, and London. He was assassinated by a huge suicide truck bomb in Feb. 2005.

Lebanon’s profound economic crisis, now aggravated by the Beirut port blast, has nothing to do with Covid-19 or the US proxy war on Syria – which brought a million refugees to the nation. It’s all about proverbial neoliberal shock and awe, conducted non-stop by the Hariri clan: former Prime Ministers Rafiq, assassinated in 2011, and Saad, chased out of power last January.

The Hariri model was focused on real estate speculation and financialization. The Solidere group, controlled by Arab investors and a few Lebanese, Hariri included, destroyed Beirut’s historical downtown and rebuilt it with luxury real estate. That’s the classical rentier neoliberalism model that always profits a tiny elite.

In parallel, the Bank of Lebanon was attracting funds from the tony Lebanese diaspora and assorted Arab investors by practicing very generous interest rates. Lebanon suddenly had an artificially strong currency.

A small middle class sort of flourished throughout the 2000s, comprising import-export traders, the tourism sector and financial market operators. Yet, overall, inequality was the name of the game. According to the World Inequality Database, half of Lebanon’s population now holds less wealth that the top 0.1%.

The bubble finally burst in September last year, when I happened to be in Beirut. With no US dollars in circulation, the Lebanese pound started to collapse in the black market. The Bank of Lebanon went berserk. When the Hariri racket imposed a “Whatsapp tax” over calls, that led to massive protests in October. Capital embarked on free flight and the currency collapsed for good.

There’s absolutely no evidence the IMF, the World Bank and assorted Western/Arab “donors” will extricate a now devastated Lebanon from the neoliberal logic that plunged it into a systemic crisis in the first place.

The way out would be to focus in productive investments, away from finance and geared towards the practical necessities of an austerity-battered and completely impoverished population.

Yet Macron, the IMF and their “partners” are only interested in keeping monetary “stability”; seduce speculative foreign capital; make sure that the rapacious, Western-connected Lebanese oligarchy will get away with murder; and on top of it buy scores of Lebanese assets for peanuts.

BRI or bust

In stark contrast with the exploitative perpetuation of the Western neoliberal model, China is offering Lebanon the chance to Go East, and be part of the New Silk Roads.

In 2017, Lebanon signed to join the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

In 2018, Lebanon became the 87th member of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB).

Over the past few years, Lebanon was already taking part in the internationalization of the yuan, offering bank accounts in yuan and increasing bilateral trade in yuan.

Beijing was already engaged in discussions revolving around the upgrading of Lebanese infrastructure – including the expansion of Beirut harbor.

This means that now Beijing may be in the position of offering a renewed, joint rebuilding/security deal for Beirut port – just as it was about to clinch a smaller agreement with Diab’s government, focused only on expansion and renovation.

The bottom line is that China has an actual Plan A to extricate Lebanon from its current financial dead end.

And that’s exactly what was, and remains, total anathema to US, NATO and Israel’s interests.

The Trump administration recently went no holds barred to prevent Israel from having China develop the port of Haifa.

The same “offer you can’t refuse” tactics will be applied with full force on whoever leads the new Lebanese government.

Beirut is an absolutely key node in BRI’s geopolitical/geoeconomic connectivity of the Eastern Mediterranean. With Haifa temporarily out of the picture, Beirut grows in importance as a gateway to the EU, complementing the role of Pireus and Italian ports in the Adriatic.

It’s crucial to note that the port itself was not destroyed. The enormous crater on site replaces only a section quayside – and the rest is on water. The buildings destroyed can be rebuilt in record time. Reconstruction of the port is estimated at $15 billion – pocket money for an experienced company such as China Harbor.

Meanwhile, naval traffic is being redirected to Tripoli port, 80 km north of Beirut and only 30 km away from the Lebanon-Syria border. Its director, Ahmed Tamer, confirms “the port has witnessed during the past years the expansion work by Chinese companies, and it has received the largest ships from China, carrying a big number of containers”.

Add to it the fact that Tripoli port will also be essential in the process of Syria reconstruction – to which China is totally committed.

BRI’s Southwest Asia connectivity network is a maze including Iran, Iraq, Syria and Lebanon.

China is already planning to invest in highway and railroads, further to be developed into high-speed rail. That will connect BRI’s central China-Iran corridor – fresh from the $400 billion, 25-year strategic partnership deal soon to be signed – with the Eastern Mediterranean.

Add to it the role of the port of Tartus in Syria – bearing a strong Russian naval presence. Beijing will inevitably invest in the expansion of Tartus – which is crucially linked by highway to Lebanon. The Russia-China strategic partnership will be involved in the protection of Tartus with S-300 and S-400 missile systems.

Historically, in a larger axis that went from Samarkand to Cordoba, with strong nodes such as Baghdad and Damascus, what slowly evolved in this part of Eurasia was a syncretic civilization superimposed over an ancestral regional, rural and nomad background. The internal cohesion of the Muslim world was forged from the 7th century to the 11th century: that was the key factor that shaped the lineaments of a coherent Eurasia.

Apart from Islam, Arabic – the language of religion, administration, trade and culture – was an essential unifying factor. This evolving Muslim world was configured as a vast economic and cultural domain whose roots connected to Greek, Semitic, Persian, Indian and Arab thought. It was a marvelous synthesis that formed a unique civilization out of elements of different origin – Persian, Mesopotamian, Byzantine.

The Middle East and the Eastern Mediterranean were of course part of it, totally open towards the Indian Ocean, the Caspian routes, Central Asia and China.

Now, centuries later, Lebanon should have everything to gain by ditching the “Paris of the Orient” mythology and looking East – again, thus positioning itself on the right side of History.  


ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Pepe Escobar-nova-menor

Distinguished Collaborator Pepe Escobar is an independent geopolitical analyst. He writes for RT, Sputnik and TomDispatch, and is a frequent contributor to websites and radio and TV shows ranging from the US to East Asia. He is the former roving correspondent for Asia Times Online. Born in Brazil, he’s been a foreign correspondent since 1985, and has lived in London, Paris, Milan, Los Angeles, Washington, Bangkok and Hong Kong. Even before 9/11 he specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central and East Asia, with an emphasis on Big Power geopolitics and energy wars. He is the author of “Globalistan” (2007), “Red Zone Blues” (2007), “Obama does Globalistan” (2009) and “Empire of Chaos” (2014), all published by Nimble Books. His latest book is “2030”, also by Nimble Books, out in December 2015. 


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Lebanon’s future: Lebanon’s Mutasarrifate Take II:

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This article is part of a series on disgusting US-led imperialism

 by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog
OPEDS

A crossroads of civilizations, Lebanon has been often involved in wars, invasions, and sectarian warfare. Image depicts Lebanese soldiers in 1861, right after a big clash between Maronite Christians and Druze muslims.

West.

This all happened prior to WWI, before Sykes Picot, and before any single Western nation could make a claim on Lebanon. The decision had then to be reached by consensus. This is why it was jointly reached by France, Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia. The Ottomans had no choice but to accept and dilute their influence in the region by giving the West a post within the Ottoman Empire.

The French proposed that the ruler should be given the title of Plenipotentriary, and the word was translated to a Turkish word of Arabic origin, Mutasarrif, but that person was appointed by the West; not by Turkey, and the political entity itself was called the Mutasarrifate of Mount Lebanon.

For readers interested in my take and analysis on Lebanon’s recent history in a more detailed but concise narrative, they can go to this reference. In brief, Grand Liban (Greater Lebanon) was created by the French under the demand of the then Maronite Patriarch Howayyek in 1920. It was meant to give Lebanese Christians a sense of security, and to be a neutral country in the Middle East; with a Western outlook.

This article will not discuss the geopolitical changes that have happened since. They are in the link above. That said, with the many changes over the last century, the situation in Lebanon has become untenable.

In summary, and among other things, Lebanon has to find a way to deal with Israel, with Syria which is the heart of the axis of resistance and support of Hezbollah, its Arab neighbours who are predominantly against Syria and Hezbollah, devise a united policy as to the status and level of the presence of Hezbollah, find a way out of the current financial collapse and redefine the country’s position as either a neutral country or a spearhead of resistance.


Palestinian militia march in 1982. Every major ethnic group, including refugees, has its own military arm, adding to the flammability of the national mix.

But this is easier said than done not only because of the political divisions, but also because of the endemic corruption of its Mafia lords; Lebanon’s ruling elite and their cronies.

These are the family lines of the same lords that led Lebanon into the civil war. They all have little armies, real armies; some with tanks and artillery. The Lebanese Army is incapable of crushing them, and even if it attempts to, it will have to attack them all at once; not one at a time without risking being accused of impartiality and giving favours.

Those leaders are accused of having thieved $800 Bn from Lebanon and siphoned it overseas. And in as much as they loathe each other, they equally need each other because the existence of each of them is contingent upon that of the others.

Much has been blamed in the past on the disunity of the Lebanese themselves, but when literally millions took to the streets in October 2019, they were united, they carried the slogan of ‘kellon yani kellon’ (all of them means all of them). But before too long, meddlers and thugs were set up inside their camps wreaking havoc and disunity. The protestors were hoping that the Lebanese Army would make a move and start arresting the leaders and the cronies implanted amongst them, but the army itself is bogged down in the same game of dirty politics and loyalties.

In simple terms, the Lebanese people can become united if they have the will and they have done so in the past. They have learned this lesson the hard way, but they simply do not have the means and the power to dislodge the ruling families who control everything; all the way from daily bread to election results.

The country has been struggling for years with mountains of rubbish that the government has not been able to process, electricity shortages, water shortages, soaring unemployment just to name a few problems. It is little wonder why the economy collapsed and the Lira lost nearly 80% of its value in the last few months. Add to this COVID-19, the Caesar Act, and now the Beirut Sea-Port explosions.

Of interest to note is that the latest events in Lebanon have been capitalized on to raise the level of dissent against Hezbollah. According to some, Hezbollah was blamed for everything; even including the sea-port disaster.

Sometimes however, disasters offer silver linings. The cries of Lebanese citizens in the streets of major cities did not generate any global compassion, but after the massive blast, there seems a change in this respect.

Martyrs' Square, one of the many magnificent places destroyed during the long civil war.

Many nations have come forward and offered to assist the Lebanese people, and their governments are not shying away from stating that they will not entrust this aid to the Lebanese Government for distribution to those in need. This is because the whole world, not only the Lebanese people, no longer trust Lebanese officials.

Thus far, among a list of nations, aid and offers of aid came from Russia, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, the USA, and ironically, even from Israel .

But no aid offer has thus far come close to that of France. French President Marcon did not only make a promise, but he also visited Lebanon and walked on Ground Zero (thereby shooting the concept of nuclear attack in the guts) and made a very intriguing yet audacious promise. He promised Lebanon a ‘new political pact’.

What does a ‘new political pact’ exactly mean?

This promise harks back to the days of colonization when France did not only actually draw the map of the new state of Lebanon and gave it a constitution that was shaped on France’s own, but it also goes back to the days when the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate was created, does it not?

Macron went further and promised to return to Lebanon on the 1st of September 2020, a very ominous date indeed, a date that marks the centenary of the declaration of Grand Liban.

But Lebanon is no longer under French mandate, and France is unable to receive such a mandate without international support. That said, as unbelievable as it may sound, more than fifty thousand Lebanese have signed a petition asking France to take control of Lebanon for the next ten years. And speaking of former colonizers, if such a poll was taken for the return of Turkish rule, perhaps more would sign it as the popularity of Erdogan is growing within the Sunni street.

This is not to say that Lebanese people want to be ruled by a foreign entity. It is simply because they are feeling beaten, robbed, hungry, terrorised, so helpless and have lost total faith in their own leaders and political process and are desperately screaming out for help from outside.

If the events of 1860-1861 have generated enough Western ‘sympathy’ to ‘help’ the people of Lebanon, then the events of 2020 are much more prominent and offer a much bigger opportunity and lure for a new-style intervention.

But once again, France cannot get away with doing this alone. With Russia already on the ground in Syria and America looking for a new role in Lebanon, France would have to get them on board somehow. It is plausible that a new international conference that of course includes Russia but also Turkey, but not Iran, may soon be convened to discuss the political future of Lebanon.

This time, the West will have a significantly larger incentive than the one it had back in 1861, because this time around, it will have one small eye on Lebanon, and the bigger eye on the security of Israel, as well as seeing in this an opportunity they have not been able to achieve by other means in order to reach a deal that stamps out Iranian influence and presence just at the door step of Israel’s borders.

If the international community were serious about helping the Lebanese people and the Lebanese Army, it is quite capable of freezing the assets of the corrupt leaders and repatriating those funds to jump-start the economy again. Lebanon has a huge wealth of highly qualified professionals, many of whom currently are unemployed, and are desperately needing work in a country that desperately needs rebuilding. But would they be trusted, given their miserable track record, and who would they be answerable to if they breached the agreed mandate?

But such a plan, devised by an international conference would not bear fruit unless it puts teeth into the decision, sending troops to disarm the relatively small militia of the corrupt politicians, forcefully if needed. Theoretically, and with good intentions, this is conceivable. However, since when has such an operation ever been genuinely executed and free of abuse and various stakeholder’s pursuing their nefarious agendas. How could we forget Libya? That said, the intervention in Libya was NATO-based, the presence of Russia and possibly China in any international agreement over Lebanon will add more balance.

But no one will be able to disarm the formidable army of the true resistance, Hezbollah, any more than Hezbollah will agree to lay down its weapons.

According to my analysis and predictions, it appears likely that some type of intervention will occur to cleanse the country of the political elite and their private interest militias. The pact will draw a line somewhere in South Lebanon, keep an area under Hezbollah’s control, and have Hezbollah to agree to leave Lebanese politics. This would be the biggest concession that Hezbollah will agree to, if it does. This will not give Israel all of what it wants, because such an outcome will not safeguard it from Hezbollah’s rockets, however Israel cannot expect more than that, if it does.

Russia may use this ‘opportunity’ to reach a way out of the deadlock and find a political settlement with the USA over their differences in Syria. But for this to happen, Syria will also need to agree to remove Iranian influence and presence from Syrian soil, as this fact has caused so much growing divisiveness in the region and provided an excuse for further Israeli aggression and US presence in Syria.

Most ironically in this particular context, even Chairman Nasrallah referred to silver linings in his latest speech on the 8th of August 2020, following the sea-port disaster. He said “from the womb of the tragedy, opportunities are born, and that international discussions emerging from this incident are an opportunity that must be capitalized upon by the Lebanese” I do not profess to know what Chairman Nasrallah meant, but he did add that all of those who are hedging their bets on the failure of the resistance will eventually fail.

Lebanon has probably gone the full circle, and the age of Mutasarrifate Take II is possibly only around the corner.

If Marcon is true to his word, for better or for worse he needs to act fast because he knows that the condition of the Lebanese people is dire. But no doubt, given his country’s history great skepticism prevails.

Tragically, such an outcome will catapult Lebanon right back into the age of Western custodianship. Depending on its fine details, and unless it stipulates the lifting of sanctions on Syria, its outcome may have serious further economic repercussions on Syria. Furthermore, it will take away many of the achievements of the Axis of Resistance, realistically however, such an outcome is not far-fetched.

The murderous, greedy, filthy and corrupt Lebanese political leaders would not have only destroyed Lebanon’s economy, but also returned it to the doldrums of the age of colonization.


LEBANON’S DILEMMA; A Revolving Identity Crisis. By Ghassan Kadi (Parts I to V) Jan-Feb 2020

LEBANON’S DILEMMA; A Revolving Identity Crisis. 

By Ghassan Kadi. January - February 2020

Abstract for Section 1: 

There is a deeper side to the current street uprisings in Lebanon than just corruption. It is a matter of defining Lebanese identity, the outcome of which is a Syrian matter. Historically, Lebanon did not start to have a state-like political entity of its own till the 17th Century. Since then, Lebanon had strong ties with the West and emerged as an independent Arab state with Western orientation; unlike other Arab states. But this has all changed and very unexpectedly. It is important to understand this history in order to be able to understand the present and its possible effects on the future as shall be discussed in subsequent articles.

A Revolving Identity Crisis

There is a deeper side to the current street uprisings in Lebanon than just corruption. Whilst corruption of Lebanese politicians have left the country virtually bankrupt, the identity of Lebanon is once again under the microscope and the countless number of Lebanese flags that have been flown across Lebanon and by the diaspora Lebanese is a testimony to this.

The outcome of defining the identity of Lebanon however is not far from Syria; both strategically and geopolitically. For this reason, any whichever way the uprising pans out, its repercussions will spill over and one way or another, and will have an effect on the future of the Axis of Resistance.


Fakhreddine's capital, Deir Al Kamar

Historically, Lebanon did not begin to have a state-like political entity of its own perhaps until Prince Fakhreddine established a state within the Ottoman state. He built a very powerful one 

Fakhreddine

hundred thousand strong army, fought and won against the Ottomans and declared autonomy in the early 17th Century. He had substantial connections with the West; especially the kingdom of Tuscany. His reign spread over all of today’s Lebanon and extended outside its current coastal borders, as far as Palmyra (Tadmor) east in today’s Syria. His castle in Palmyra still stands overlooking the ancient city as a testimony of his might.

Non-Arabs are excused when they make statements that allude to lack of knowledge of Lebanon’s national identity, and this is because the Lebanese themselves are yet to agree what their national identity is. As a matter of fact, most of Lebanon’s problems, most of its past and present strife, are all related to this identify confusion and this is the argument that those articles will try to expand on and defend.

To understand the position of Lebanon vis-à-vis Syria we need to go back to the early beginnings. During the Phoenician era in the second and first millennia BC, there was no such thing as a united Lebanon, but instead, there were a few independent coastal city kingdoms. And those city kingdoms were spread all along the eastern coast of the Mediterranean in what is Lebanon today, Syria and of course as far south as Palestine.

The Roman era witnessed strong ties between the Levant (Lebanon included) and Rome. It was once said that the Orontes (a Lebanese/Syrian river) flows into the Tiber. As a matter of fact, four Roman Emperors were of Levantine descent.

During the Byzantine era, the cities flourished, especially Beirut, but it was decimated by a powerful earthquake in 551 AD. By the time of the Muslim conquest, most people were Orthodox Christians, and many converted to Islam. And even though Christians were not persecuted as such, many took refuge in the rugged mountains in order to be left alone and avoid paying tax to the Muslim governments of Damascus and later on Baghdad.

Saint Maroun

Later on Saint Maroun, the Patriarch of the Maronite Church, moved his parish from the Homs district in Syria, where he was born and bred, to Mount Lebanon, again seeking refuge and isolation.

By-and-large, the Muslim population became more concentrated in the coastal cities of Beirut, Tripoli and Saida, whilst Christians occupied the hills. But the hills also were home for the Druze who were persecuted around the 10th Century. This narrative is not about who came first, because both the Maronites and the Druze have been in Lebanon long enough to claim ownership of their homes and identity. The bottom line here is that the central areas of Mount Lebanon of Zawyeh, Kisrwan, Maten, and Shouf which are in today’s Lebanon were home primarily to Maronites and Druze. The northern regions of Danniya and Akkar became eventually predominantly Sunni Muslim, whilst the southern district (Jabal Amel) and the Bekaa areas became Shiite.

Even though Lebanon continued to have a special status within the Ottoman Empire, its internal sectarian strife was to colour and steer its destiny. By 1843, the divisions between the Maronites and the Druze seemed irreconcilable leading to bloody conflict and massive killing to the point that the Ottomans decided to split Mount Lebanon into separate Maronite and Druze enclaves. But this did not stop the mayhem, and by 1861, after years of killing and pillaging, Western powers were successful in coercing the Ottomans to give Lebanon a political system that reunited the divided people under the auspices and protection of the West. A state was established that was restricted to Mount Lebanon’s Maronite and Druze areas. This version of Lebanon (Small Lebanon) did not include the predominantly Sunni major cities of Beirut, Tripoli and Saida, nor did it include the northern (Sunni) and southern districts (Shiite) of the mountain range.

Of pertinence here is the issue of the emergence of Western influence on and within Lebanon. Beginning with Fakhreddin’s ties with Tuscany in the early 17th Century, European missions began to appear in Lebanon. They established badly needed schools because Ottoman Turkey left the Levantines illiterate, other than what was taught in local religious based schools. 


American University

Before too long, in the mid-19th Century, institutions of higher education were established, the two most prominent of which were the French St. Joseph Jesuit University and the American Syrian Evangelical College. The latter was  renamed the American University of Beirut.

There were many reasons therefore behind Lebanon’s special status if compared to other post WWII newly-created independent Arab states. The higher percentage of Christians in Lebanon was a huge catalyst for its openness to the West. This is not only because those Christians wanted to look away from Turkey and towards the West, but also because the West itself was interested in establishing a foothold on Ottoman-controlled territory.

Whether the interest in Lebanon on the part of the West was of a religious nature or not, whether the West saw in Lebanon a part of the Holy Land lost to Ottoman Turkey, and whether the West wanted to “use” Lebanese Christians to hit back at Turkey is not the point I am trying to debate here. What is important is the fact that before the current borders of Lebanon were drawn in 1920, and long before the French Mandate was established after the end of WWI, Lebanon already had strong ties with the West; the kind of ties that no other Arab region or state-to-be had.

In stark contrast, the young independent states of Egypt and Syria in particular, had a strong aversion towards the West.


Egypt's Gamal Abdel Nasser personalized the socialist-leaning, anti-imperialist, secular type of leader in the Middle East before the US and its accomplices remade the region to their liking.


Lebanon was then seen as a Western vassal state; even some Lebanese shared those views. But after the creation of Israel in 1948, the stature of Lebanon in the eyes of the Arab World changed from that of dislike, to that of putting it at the centre of serious accusations of treason. Former Egyptian President Nasser and his media outlets did not spare a single occasion without making statements to the effect of saying that Lebanon and its government, politicians and institutions is akin to the second worse thing to having another Israel within the Arab World.

The transformation that Lebanon had and which put it at the epicenter of the Axis of Resistance in only a few decades was totally unforeseeable back in the 1950’s and 60’s. In the coming chapters, we shall see how this metamorphosis happened and how it can affect the region in the near future.

Abstract for Section 2:

Lebanon has seen many recent changes in the last few decades. Formerly a neutral Western-oriented country, Lebanon capitalized on its system of free economy and western style freedom to become the economic and touristic hub of the Levant. The sectarian undertone however was never far away, and that division had people divided over their definition of their identity and loyalties. Some Lebanese consider themselves independently Lebanese, others as Syrians, others as Arabs and some as international. But the current street uprisings seem to be taking traditional rivals into a different direction; one that is endorsing the independent Lebanese identity.

Lebanon played a very insignificant role in all the initial Arab/Israeli wars all the way up to and including the Tishrin/October/Yom Kippour 1973 war, but its destiny was set to change. As a small country that was once neutral enough to earn the title of the Switzerland of the East, it ironically soon morphed to become the centre of resistance and opposition to the NATO-sponsored Israeli roadmap.

Back in the mid to late 1950’s, Nasser’s Egypt was the central Arab state confronting Israel, and after Nasser’s triumph in the 1956 Suez war, it was unthinkable that only a quarter of a century later, Egypt would sign a peace agreement with Israel and that the neutral, small, Westerly-oriented Lebanon would turn into the spearhead keeping Israel at bay.

With this new pivotal role, the current civil uprising in Lebanon is therefore potentially a regional turning point; and not one affecting Lebanon only.

So why did Lebanon rise and fall so dramatically and so quickly?

And apart from the prevalent corruption that is behind today’s uprising, what is the underlying cause of unrest? This is what I shall try to explain very succinctly.

Back in the 1940’s and 1950’s, Lebanon was the only Arab state that had free economy and openness to the West. As the oil money started to pour into Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states, the Arabian Peninsula was very underdeveloped and Lebanon became the obvious route for transit of goods back and forth from the West to the developing Gulf. Even if a Saudi Sheikh wanted to import Italian furniture to fill his palace with, it was shipped to Beirut and then carried on Lebanese trucks to Saudi Arabia. But this is not all, a fair chunk of Iraqi oil used to be piped to the Lebanese coastal city of Tripoli (not to be confused to Libya’s Tripoli) and carried by tankers from there onwards to Europe and other destinations.

That same period also witnessed a huge exodus of tertiary-educated Lebanese technocrats and professionals who went to Saudi Arabia and the Gulf as doctors, engineers, technicians and business people, sending back into Lebanon millions of dollars annually. Last but not least, with its open free economy, open banking system, gorgeous climate, bars, cabarets, brothels and a spectacularly located casino, Lebanon became the favourite tourism hub for rich Arab tourists who lived under strict Islamic rule that banned all of the above.

1960s postcard of Beirut

During this period, Lebanon was abuzz with action; all the way from musical carnivals to opera performances, rock concerts, you name it. During the filming of the movie Lawrence of Arabia in Jordan back in 1961, actor Peter O’Toole used to fly to Beirut every weekend, and when asked why do it so often knowing that he could only stop there for a short while, he said “because it’s worth it”.


In how many countries in the world could one do water skiing and snow skiing in the same day at venues that are only an hour drive away from each other? The gorgeous and versatile nature of Lebanon plus its rich history did not only attract Arab tourists, but Western tourists as well. And whilst one had to run and hide in fear of getting arrested in other Arab states if he stumbled on an American Dollar, exchange shops filled the streets of Lebanon’s cities and touristic venues. One could almost buy a falafel roll with Travellers Cheques.

To add to all of the above, Beirut in particular had a huge number of hotels all the way down from six stars resorts to ones that suit every budget. Restaurants and food shops were plentiful offering same range of pricing as hotels did. One could buy Scotch Whiskey and American cigarettes at a much cheaper cost than in Scotland and America. And though gambling was only legal at the Casino, the police turned a blind eye to illegal gambling venues that were scattered everywhere.

And as if the above was not enough, Lebanon was a tax haven and investors found in it a good business base to invest and “hide” money. Syrian businessmen in particular moved huge sums of money and gold into Lebanon after Syria became socialist. This was how Lebanon earned the name of Switzerland of the East, but over and above what land-locked Switzerland has to offer, despite its snow peaked mountains, Lebanon’s winter is never too cold and it has a 200 Km coastline. Its mild summer did not only attract Arab playboys, but also Arab families. Hilltop towns were constantly inundated by Arab holiday makers who were escaping the scorching desert summer heat back in their homelands.

Moreover, Lebanon was the only Arab state that allowed free journalism, freedom of speech and political freedom. It eventually became the refuge of most Arab political activists who were persecuted in their own countries.

As the capital of both beauty and vice, during this golden era, the exchange rate of the Lebanese Lira to the USD was two to one, respectively. At this juncture, and just to step forward in time for a moment, the current rate exceeds two thousand to one and slipping.

Lebanon was simply and briefly the envy of the Arab World as well as Israel. After all, Israel could have played a similar role and competed with Lebanon, but the boycotts left it in its box of exclusion and seclusion, and the once very busy port of Haifa lost its transit business to the port of Beirut.

So how did this amazing story of success turn into such a huge failure?

On the surface, we can blame the whole story of failure on sectarianism. Lebanon was never able to bypass this problem that divided its people and destroyed its economy. What we see today on the streets however marks a whole new change and rejection of this status quo, and a deeper look reveals that loyalty could well be taking a new form, and this is because underneath the façade of sectarianism, there is the deeper issue of identity.

Many nations have identity problems, and sometimes there is a sectarian undertone to it as in the Balkans for example. But Spanish people and Catalans are both predominantly Catholics yet identity issues remain unresolved.

But unlike say Croatia where the identity confusion was between two options Croatian or Yugoslav, identity in Lebanon provides three options: Lebanese, Syrian and Arab. This is not to forget the all-inclusive Marxist international one. Indeed, Lebanese youth grew up witnessing a community the members of which identify themselves either as Lebanese, Syrian, Arab or international.

The advocates of Lebanese identity and nationalism were originally predominantly the Lebanese Christians, or Maronites to be specific.

The advocates of Syrian identity are the followers of Antoun Saadeh (a Lebanese) who established the Social Syrian National Party (SSNP) and which advocates the Syrian identity where Syria is the historic Greater Syria and which includes all of today’s Syria plus Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Palestine. Members of this political party are quite secular and belong to all religions and sects.

The advocates of Arab nationalism are predominantly Muslims (with a Christian minority) and they were and are followers of the former Egyptian President Nasser and/or the Baath Party (the founder of which is Christian by the way).

The advocates of international identity are the Communists who at one stage were very numerous and quite strong.

With all of the above said, with or without socio-political ideas like Communism, pan-Arabism and/or Greater-Syria-nism, Lebanon is definitely not a stand-alone nation like say France. Lebanon is historically and geographically the mountainous region of Syria. Its current borders have been drawn by the French General Gouraud in 1920. But since 1920, even the borders of France itself have changed, and so did the borders of many other nations, and this alone does not mean much.

When Lebanese-American historian Phillip Khuri Hitti wrote his book about the history of Lebanon, he did not name it “History of Lebanon”. He named it “Lebanon in History”. After all, with its metamorphosis from ancient Phoenician city kingdoms to being part of empires, revolving borders and restructuring, Lebanon did not have a history that was independent from the history of its region. This in itself brings us back to the present and emphasizes that whichever way the current uprising ends, it will have its repercussion waves spreading all over the region.

Before I end this I must emphasize that personal freedom in Lebanon came with a societal cost. Not only one could walk into an exchange shop and buy US dollars, but a few doors up or down one could buy any amount of world-renowned locally-grown Hashish. The pharmacy next door would sell antibiotics and morphine without a doctor’s script. Another shop would sell Kalashnikovs (AK47), M-16 assault rifles, you name it. The kind of freedom Lebanon “enjoyed” was closer to lawlessness and even anarchy than responsible right of self-determination. When the Lebanese Army barracks of Tripoli were ransacked in 1976, the loot was sold by street vendors and it included items like mortar shells. Who in his right mind would buy a mortar shell and what for? In Lebanon they do and they display it in their living rooms like trophies.

Actually, the black market price of a Kalashnikov is seen as an economic indicator. It is also seen as a security indicator except that it goes up on two opposite trigger factors; demand preceding strife and the occasional government crackdown.

My wife, a Westerner, was flabbergasted as she was in a sewing machine shop when suddenly a man wielding a Kalashnikov walked in. She thought it was a hold up, but apparently the man knew the shop owner and he was asking for a bit of oil to lubricate some parts on his Kalashnikov.

Such is Lebanon.

Artist: Walid Zbib, 1987—1990 Postcards from the civil war

As Lebanon lost its Switzerland of the East title during the civil war and as it made a U-turn from almost total neutrality to becoming the centre of the Axis of Resistance, the twists and turns did not come by easily, and the Lebanese people remain divided as to how to define themselves, what identity to accept and uphold, and what position in the world they belong to. For better or for worse, the “Lebanese” Lebanese identity is currently becoming more demographically acceptable by Lebanese Sunni Muslims who by-and-large repudiated it not long ago. Their values and aspirations are finding congruencies with those of their traditional rivals, ie the Christian Maronites who are also finding commonalities with a much older rival and foe; the Druze.

The cycles of violence and destruction seem to have taken the traditional Lebanese Maronites, Sunnis and Druze to a common denominator, an intriguing fact, given that it was the rivalry and differences between those same groups that destroyed Lebanon back in the civil war and dethroned it from Switzerland of the East title. But the cycle of intrigue is not over yet. It is as if Hezbollah alone was not the only unexpected wildcard, the uprising is adding more unknowns and speculations and another cook to meddle with the brew that already has many more cooks than it can handle.

The Birth of “Grand Liban”

Abstract for Section 3:

“Grand Liban” as the French called it, is Lebanon in its current borders as compared to the much smaller version that was comprised of the Maronite and Druze areas only. The new state was announced in September 1920 and the Maronite Church under Patriarch Howayyek played a big role in the decision making. The move was opposed by the “Syrian National Congress” and the battle of Maysaloun followed and France entered Damascus forcefully after the glorious defeat of the Syrian Army and the martyrdom of its leader Yusuf Al-Azma. Residents of the Lebanese Coastal cities of Beirut, Tripoli and Saida (predominantly Sunnis) refused the new entity and regarded it as a Western vassal.   

The brazen role of the Turkish Army in the current situation in Idlib serves as a good reason to remember that ever since the battle of Marj Dabiq in August 1516 and which eventuated in the fall of all of Syria to Ottoman troops, Turkish military presence did not completely leave Syrian soil and historically Syrian cities such as Adana and Antioch are technically still under Turkish occupation.

The battle for Syrian sovereignty has therefore been going on for centuries, and it certainly did not end. It is much more ancient than the loss of Golan and even the creation of Israel. Syrian territory has been chipped away and taken violently by invaders at times when Syria was weak and unable to defend herself.

But whilst the Israeli occupation of the Golan, and to a lesser extent the Turkish occupation of the Iskenderun and Cilicia provinces, are easy to identify as being foreign, the chipping away of Lebanon is more subtle, because Lebanon is meant to be an independent Arab state that enjoys good relationships with Syria. In reality however, Lebanon has historically been a part of Syria, and when the French drew its current map, the move was opposed by the Syrian Government as well as by a majority of civilians on both sides of the borders.

On the 1st of September 1920, French General Gouraud announced the birth of Grand Liban (Grand/Great Lebanon) in its current borders. Back then, it was questionable as to whether or not this new state was to see its first centenary. As we approach this landmark, the question remains viable even though we are only less than a year away.

When Gouraud drew the map, one of his objectives possibly was to establish a state in which there was no overwhelming majority. He might have thought that instead of having a state that is comprised of Maronites and Druze only, by adding Sunni and Shiite elements to the demographics, the population would be so diverse that no single party would be strong enough to cause strife.

It can also be argued that a bigger and a stronger Lebanon would be stable and a better French ally in the future.

Others will argue that his objective was to divide and conquer Syria and that the exact location of the Lebanese borders did not mean anything to him. There is no doubt that this theory holds a lot of ground, especially that the creation of the independent state of Lebanon was in itself an attempt to fragment and weaken Syria. The issue at hand here however is the placement of the border line he chose. It is about trying to answer the question of why did he include the Sunni and Shiite regions? Why did he not leave them both or at least one of them with Syria? What made him choose those particular borders for Grand Liban?

Whilst it is true that the Sykes/Picot accord divided the Levant (Greater Syria) between British and French-controlled territories, it would be right to say that it was by French, not British, action that Lebanon was split away from Syria and given independence. 

With all of the above said, the Maronite Church played a huge part in the creation of Lebanon, if not the biggest part, and the French only needed to be convinced, and as they did they complied and delivered.

To put it bluntly, as the Ottoman Empire collapsed, the Maronite Church wanted to secure that Lebanese Christians would not ever fall under Muslim rule again. The head of the Church back then was Patriarch Elias Butros Al-Howayyik. He was a strong and outspoken opponent of Turkey and was in fact persecuted by the Ottomans and put under home arrest. He was only released after the Vatican and France intervened.

A clear distinction however must be drawn between patriotic Levantine Christians and the position of the Maronie Church at that time. Certainly, Christians in general and Maronites in particular did not unanimously agree with the vision of Howayyek and it would be unfair to even try to speculate what percentage did. As a matter of fact, many leaders of the political Lebanese and Syrian Left have been Christians. Patriotic Lebanese, Syrian, Palestinian and other Arab Christians remain till today as an integral part of the heart and soul of the Axis of Resistance.  And back a century ago, during the period known as the cultural awakening, most Syrian and Lebanese patriotic writers, poets and journalists of influence were Christians.

Small Liban

Leading up to WWI and after long sectarian strife, the state of Small Lebanon (Mount Lebanon without the coastal cities) was created and put under Western protection as we have seen in previous articles. As the war broke out and Turkey and the West were on opposite sides of the fence, Turkey abolished the special status under which Mount Lebanon was, put the area under siege and prevented any food supplies from entering. Purportedly, one third of the civilians died from starvation. It was an act of Ottoman revenge because the Ottomans did not like the Western intervention into the affairs of its territories and putting Mount Lebanon under special privileges.

If anything, the harsh treatment and starvation made the Maronite Church more determined to seek total independence from anything that was reminiscent to the past; and this included Syria because Syria has an overwhelming Muslim majority. In brief, they wanted Lebanon to become a Christian-controlled state with a Western outlook and very little to do with its own region.

So why was it exactly that Patriarch Al-Howayyik insisted that the big coastal cities of Beirut, Tripoli and Saida be added to the new state knowing that they have a Sunni majority? No one really knows other than speculating that in forming a new state that has a powerful Maronite Church and political entity, one that guaranteed that the head of state (ie President) and Army Chief are both Maronites, will be able to survive and bring protection and security to the Christian population. Perhaps he also thought that a larger Lebanon with major cities and ports will be more economically viable.

In the 1920's Syrians display cultural and religious diversity and harmony


As the Patriarch was doing his bid trying to convince the French that Lebanon needs to be independent and modeled on his own vision, quite at the opposite dipole the “Syrian National Congress” was convened in Damascus Syria in May 1919. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_National_Congress. In its final report, the Congress concluded that "there be no separation of the southern part of Syria, known as Palestine, nor of the littoral western zone, which includes Lebanon, from the Syrian country." The Congress declared independence and appointed King Faisal as head of state. Reading in between the lines it is clear to see that an independent Lebanon was perceived to be almost as unacceptable as the creation of Israel.

Gen. Yusuf Al-Azma. Al-Azma hailed from a wealthy Damascene landowning family. He became an officer in the Ottoman Army and fought on multiple fronts in World War I.

The French response was brutally swift, and it was meant to crush what they saw as a rebellion. A modern French army of 12,000 men equipped with tanks and supported by warplanes was sent to enter Damascus and forcefully if needed. But the former capital of the Omayyad Empire was not going to greet the invaders with roses. Army Chief/Minister of Defence Yusuf Al-Azma was sent with very ill-equipped few hundred soldiers and few volunteers to make a mark in history. They knew they had no chance of winning, but they wanted to die standing. The heroic defeat in which Al-Azma himself was killed remains as one of Syria’s greatest stories of glory.

Syrians will never forget Maysaloun.

It was only a few months later, in December that French General Gouraud announced the birth of “Grand Liban”. In his speech, he referred to Maysaloun as a battle that the French have fought to save Lebanon, and perhaps in retrospect it was; but not from foreign invaders as he put it.

With the declaration of “Grand Liban” as a separate entity, two opposite passions developed across the borders between Lebanon and Syria, and those passions deepened over the decades. In Syria, a growing concern that Syrian territory has been chipped away bit by bit. First of all, Turkey kept the district of Cilicia, then Lebanon was created, then the French gave away the district of Iskenderun to Turkey as a sweetener, and last but not least, Palestine was chipped away and Israel was established. It is little wonder why patriotic Syrians galvanized behind President Assad to thwart the greatest of all attacks back in March 2011, but this is another story.

Lebanon was seen in Syria as a Western vassal, a love-child of the West and a byproduct of sectarianism; and in more ways than one, it was.

On the other side of the coin, when Lebanon eventually became independent, to the Maronite Church and political establishment, independence was mostly seen and celebrated as independence from Syria; though Syria historically was neither a culprit nor foreign. Patriarch Al-Howayyik finally got what he wanted and Lebanon became a stand-alone state in its current borders.

The declaration of “Grand Liban” had a mixed response. Those who wanted an independent Lebanon, who were mostly Christian Maronites were celebrating. However, city dwellers who were mostly Sunnis were revolting.

Not only did the people of Beirut, Tripoli and Saida, in all of their religions and sects, refuse to be sliced away from Syria, but they also did not want to belong to a state that will forever be a Western puppet; or at least this was how Lebanon was seen in their eyes. They took to the streets demanding Syrian unity, secularism, and upholding the resolutions reached by the Syrian National Congress, but to no avail. The decision was already made and the battle of Maysaloun was already lost.

Many if not most of the Sunni Lebanese partaking in the current street uprisings brandishing Lebanese flags have no idea at all that a hundred years ago their great grandparents took to the streets denouncing the precursor of this same flag. This part of history is not taught in schools in Lebanon, but in Syria, every man woman and child knows that Lebanon was taken away from Syria by the treachery of the West and complicit action of certain Lebanese groups.

Back in the 1920’s, the Syrian identity of Lebanon was not questionable and if anything, it was the Lebanese identity and nationhood that was repudiated and even ridiculed by most. Among other legacies that still live on, it is very obvious in the writings of Gibran Kahlil Gibran, a Maronite who considered Lebanon as a part of Syria.

Much has changed over the last century, and the Lebanese did not stop to wonder and ponder what their real identity is.

Does the current uprising reveal any change? This is what we shall try to examine in the upcoming articles.

The Emergence of the Role of Lebanese Shia

Abstract for Section 4:

The 1943 Lebanese constitution was reached by consensus mainly between the political Maronite and Sunni leaders; all in accordance with the initial plans of Patriarch Howayyek. The constitution stipulated that the main positions of power were given to the Maronites, these are namely the position of the President and Army Chief. The Sunnis got the position of the Prime Minister, the Druze had the army’s Chief of Staff and the Shia got the token position of the Leader of the House. Furthermore, Christians were given bigger representation in the Lebanese Parliament at the ratio of 11 Christian members versus 9 Muslim members. Those figures were subdivided to include sects, with the Maronites receiving the lion’s share.

The political Maronite establishment was eventually represented by a number of political parties; the most prominent of which is the Kata’eb Party (aka the Phalangists). This party trained and armed militia groups and played a major part in the Lebanese Civil War that devastated Lebanon in the 1970’s and 80’s.

The Syrian Social Nationalist Party (SSNP) which has been mentioned in previous articles, remains thus far the only political party in the Levant that calls for the unity of Greater Syria. Soon after its establishment in 1932, it gained much popularity both within Lebanon and Syria. But this popularity started to dwindle after the highly charismatic Egyptian President Nasser rose to prominence advocating pan-Arab nationalism.

In 1952, Camille Chamoun was elected as president of Lebanon. He was a staunch supporter of an independent Lebanese identity. He became very unpopular amongst Muslim Nasserites and the Left. And after the declaration of union between Egypt and Syria in 1958 under the name of the United Arab Republic, Lebanese Nasser sympathisers saw an opportunity for Lebanon to join the union. In lieu of following the footsteps of their fathers by taking to the streets asking for Syrian unity, they demanded Arab unity instead.In another twist of fate, looking at what is happening in the streets of Lebanon now, the grandchildren of the Lebanese Arab nationalists are now at the forefront, brandishing Lebanese flags, advocating Lebanese identity and demanding Lebanese sovereignty.

Back to the Chamoun era; civil unrest followed in 1958 and, finally President Chamoun asked the West to act on its promise to protect the integrity of Lebanon. The US Sixth Fleet was sent, Chamoun finished his term, and Army Chief Chehab was elected as president.

The tenure of Chamoun’s presidency however, marked the beginning of what is commonly termed as Lebanon’s “golden age”, the center of beauty and vice which was discussed in a previous chapter. The Chehab period provided Lebanon with much needed stability to build on Chamoun’s era and Lebanon’s economy prospered.

When war broke out between Syria, Egypt and Jordan against Israel in June 1967, which later on became known as the Six-Day War, Lebanon was basically a spectator. All participating Arab states lost territory to Israel but Lebanon did not because it did not partake in the conflict. In the eyes of many Arabs, Lebanon was a Western implant, a pariah state, second worst only to Israel.

This was all to change, and so unpredictably. Lebanon was suddenly unable to remain isolated from its surroundings and the Arab/Israeli conflict reached its doorstep.

It all began when the PLO started to have a presence in Lebanon in the late 1960’s. As a result, in the closing days of 1968, Israel launched a brazen attack on Beirut airport and destroyed 13 airliner jets that belonged to the national carrier, Middle East Airlines, setting them alight. The international response was that of outrage. Lebanon was not meant to be part of the conflict and, French President De Gaulle, put a ban on French arms sales to Israel. This was the first military Israeli attack on Lebanon, but it was not going to be the last.

Only a year later, and after being pushed out of Jordan, the PLO moved into south Lebanon. This resulted in a number of skirmishes with the Lebanese Army but, later on in November 1969, Egyptian President Nasser brokered a deal between the PLO and the Lebanese Government which allowed the PLO to move its major base for its operations against Israel to Lebanon. Rachid Karami, the then Lebanese Prime Minister, refused to be the Lebanese official to sign the document. He did not want his endorsement to be seen as that of a Sunni leader compromising the sovereignty of Lebanon. Instead, the Army Chief, Emille Boustany, (a Maronite) was asked to go to Egypt to ratify the agreement.

The agreement became known as the “Cairo Agreement” and it was successful in easing the tension between the Lebanese Army and the PLO, but it opened a Pandora’s Box to other tension and conflict.

Proponents of Lebanese identity, i.e., the Maronite political establishment, accused the PLO of creating a state within a state and blamed it for dragging Lebanon into confrontation with Israel; a matter that did not concern it. The Lebanese Left disagreed and argued that Lebanon could not bury its head in the sand and pretend that the Arab/Israeli conflict did not include Lebanon and, that with or without the presence of the PLO, Lebanon would eventually be dragged into taking its rightful place in history.

By the mid 1970’s, the division in Lebanon over the issue was so intense that it was ripe for a civil war, and that was exactly what happened.

Four and a half decades later, Lebanon is still reeling from the outcome of that Civil War and all the identity issues that have been tugging it in different directions; one advocating for it to be in the bosom of the West, and the other to be at the forefront of resistance. Hezbollah proved to be a formidable force capable not only of engaging in guerrilla warfare with Israel, but also actual battle. For that reason, it gained unprecedented support and respect, not only within Lebanon, but also within the entire Arab World and beyond.

When the war on Syria took form, Hezbollah proved to have the power of a regional player, and not only that of a domestic one. Its involvement in Syria was instrumental in turning the tide in favour of the Syrian Government. All the while, as Syria and Hezbollah were scoring military victories within Syria, the Saudi/American influence in Lebanon was fading. The so-called 14th of March coalition was already fragmenting and losing momentum.

The once Western vassal has made a 180 degree turn and Lebanon catapulted itself right out of the Western sphere of influence. Not only it was no longer the Switzerland of the East, but it became the heart and centre of the anti-Israel Axis of Resistance.

As the Civil War in Lebanon was winding down in 1989, the warring parties met in Taif, Saudi Arabia, to reach an agreement. The agreement (known as the Taif Agreement) did not declare clear winners and losers, but stipulated that Muslims have equal number of members of Parliament to replace the former 11-9 ratio of the 1943 constitution. Later, the Lebanese Forces were disarmed, and their leader Samir Geagea was imprisoned.

Clearly, the traditional political Maronite establishment was seen as the undeclared loser of the war.

Almost in parallel to the rise of Hezbollah to prominence, former Lebanese Army Chief Michel Aoun attempted to gain popularity amongst Lebanese Christians by blaming his political rivals, i.e. the Phalangists and their off-shoot, “The Lebanese Forces”, for the dilution of the Christian power in Lebanon and the loss of the Civil War to the Left. According to his argument, the traditional Maronite political establishment has failed its obligation in protecting the position of the Lebanese Maronites, as stipulated by Patriarch Howayyek. He offered himself and his movement to replace the failed traditional Maronite political powers and to be the proper protector of the Maronites. This move split the Maronites and allowed him to challenge the traditional leaders and their political parties.

As a former enemy of Syria living in exile in France for 15 years, Aoun approached Hezbollah as a potential political ally and, Hezbollah in return, negotiated peace for him with the Syrian Government. All of this happened whilst Hezbollah was also entering the Lebanese political game and having elected members of parliament and eventually ministers.

The Lebanese political system is not a two-party system. The closest resemblance it has to a two-party system is that it is based on two coalitions of many minor parties. But those minor parties change sides quite often. It was therefore essential for both Aoun and Hezbollah to forge a strong alliance because, each of them alone, has control of no more than 15% of the seats. They however, managed to rally up a majority, and eventually Aoun was elected as President in 2016.

Forward to the present moment, traditional Sunni, Maronite and Druze leaders are now all united in their anti-Hezbollah stance. In more ways than one, they seem as if they wish they could wind back the clock to the pre-Civil War days when their power-sharing excluded the Shia. The current street uprising however is presenting a new phase; as we shall see in the next chapter of this series.

  1. A Century-Long “Mark Time”.

“Mark Time” is a military march term that means marching in place without moving forward, and this is what Lebanon seems to be doing despite the many steps it took in lifting its position in the past and its mark in history recently.

The victories of both Hezbollah and Aoun came at an economic cost to Lebanon even though Lebanon was not placed under Western sanctions as such. The newly appointed Lebanese cabinet is not even able to approach friendly neighbours for financial assistance because it is tainted with corruption. Corruption however has been used as an excuse to sideline the Lebanese Government, but this is because of its close links with Hezbollah, and not because of corruption alone.

As the spearhead of the Axis of Resistance, Lebanon was not only trying to lick its wounds after a decade and a half of devastating civil war, but it was no longer a tourist and banking hub for visitors and investors alike. Furthermore, many Lebanese from different religions and sects did not want Lebanon to morph into such a status and preferred to see Lebanon returning to its former “glory” even if this meant kowtowing to the American/Israeli roadmap.

The power imbalance between the Israeli war machine and the Syrian army might have changed in favour of Syria as the war on Syria has managed to create a much more advanced Syrian Army. Prior to this development however, Syria did not have the advanced military hardware to engage in a conventional war with Israel directly, and Lebanon became the recipient of Syrian and Iranian military aid given to Hezbollah to resist Israel at an asymmetric, non-conventional level. This angered the anti-Syrian/Iranian sector of the Lebanese community even further.

By 2016, the American/Israeli/Saudi camp had lost its ground in Lebanon and Lebanon was, in theory, on the verge of capitalizing on a hard-earned victory that was achieved against all odds. The battle not yet won however, was the one against corruption, and this is shaping up to be the biggest challenge thus far.

The economy is in ruins and Gibran Bassil (Aoun’s son-in-law), has purportedly amassed $11 Bn in stolen monies from the Lebanese public and public purse, but he is not alone. Virtually all traditional Lebanese political leaders are now accused of major theft and it is believed that there is a total of $800 Bn in looted monies. The state debt is in excess of $15 Bn, the coffers of the central bank are almost empty, and the Government is unable to meet its debt repayment commitments. Adding insult to injury is the fact that there is a huge untapped gas deposit recently discovered off the coast and within national waters, but the government is too inept to capitalize on it to inject the economy with badly needed funds.

As the Lebanese anger spilt into the streets demanding all politicians to be held accountable, one would find it very surprising if the West did not see in the phenomenon a window of opportunity to jump onto the band wagon and find another foothold in Lebanon; one that is on the surface endorsed by the legitimate will of the people in their battle against very corrupt government officials and establishment. 

Consumed by anger, a sense of being deceived and robbed clean, the Lebanese people felt more united than ever, and they have been able to express their unity under the banner of the Lebanese flag; the same flag that was repudiated and ridiculed two generations ago.

But does this mean that the majority of Lebanese people have had an “awakening” and finally realized that they are all Lebanese and that there is no further need to squabble over their identity?  Does this mean that the majority of Lebanese have by now endorsed Patriarch Howayyek’s vision and that they fully uphold the Lebanese identity and political integrity and total independence from anything Syrian or Arab? On the surface, the easy answer that comes to mind is yes, but at a deeper level, this is not the case; and this is neither unrealistic nor pessimistic to say.

What is uniting the protestors at a political level is, in reality, their aversion to Syria, Hezbollah and Iran. Because Hezbollah is a political ally of Aoun and has senior ministers in the cabinet, the mainstream media rhetoric is hijacking the anger, making Hezbollah, Syria and Iran appear as if they are the cause of all mayhem and corruption. 

One must be honest here and state that the corruption has taken place under the watchful eyes of Hezbollah and, it either should have stopped it if it was able to, or stepped aside; but it did neither. That said, the culprits behind public theft are the traditional Sunni, Maronite and Druze leaders; and this includes virtually all of the so-called 14th of March Coalition politicians; ie the Hariri camp. Shiite Amal leader, Nabih Berri, has also been named as a huge benefactor of corruption. Furthermore, not a single Hezbollah official has been named or caught with his hand in the cookie jar, but the street anger is focused against Hezbollah and its leadership. There are also accusations that Hezbollah has been sending thugs to hit and intimidate protestors and videos were produced to prove it, but in reality, none of these accusations can be adequately corroborated.

Is Hezbollah at fault in all of this? As I have indicated in some Saker articles such as http://thesaker.is/the-heading-of-the-rolling-heads-of-lebanon/, I believe that Hezbollah’s biggest mistake was to enter Lebanese politics. Lebanese politics is a piece of dirt, and dealing with it soils one’s hands, irrespective how careful one is. But even if the resistance wing of Hezbollah decides to quit politics now, and leave the people’s representation in the hands of allied politicians, it cannot wind back the clock.

It must be emphasized repeatedly that the Lebanese uprising is legitimate in as far as its demands for reform and holding politicians accountable for their theft. Apart from the agitators and implants sent to wreak havoc, those who took to the streets plus those who stayed at home and supported them in their hearts and minds are all united. But they are united by this common interest only.

At a deeper philosophical level however, the divisions within the Lebanese people are still there; only the players and their aspirations have changed. If we go back to 1920, the main proponent of Lebanese identity and independence was only the section of the Maronites who were supportive of Howayyek’s model. The Lebanese Left did not exist back then, but patriotic Lebanese from Maronites, other Christians, as well as Muslims were all against it. They wanted to be reunited with Syria. Nearly half a century later in 1975, on the eve of the Civil War, the identity rift was between the Right wing Maronite militia on one hand, and the PLO and the Lebanese Left on the other hand. The former regarded Lebanon as a part of the West and the latter regarded Lebanon as a part of the Arab World and that it had an obligation towards Palestinians.

Apart from standing up against corruption and the utter failure of the state and its political custodians, today’s uprising continues to be about the definition of Lebanon and its regional place. The divisions today are between the Axis of Resistance and the proponents of the West. The players have changed slightly, but they are still playing the same game that divided their parents, grandparents and great-grandparents before them.

Those now flying Lebanese flags continue to have the traditional Right wing Maronite establishment at their core, but this time they include some who have almost overnight become vehemently Lebanese. They are mainly the section of the Sunnis who are anti-Hezbollah and anti-Syria sympathizers. But the Christian voice itself has now been split between that of the traditional Maronite establishment and the supporters of Frangieh and Aoun. Frangieh, a Maronite leader, the grandson of Lebanon’s President Suleiman Frangieh at the time the Civil War commenced, is vehemently pro-Syria, pro-Hezbollah and against the Right wing “Lebanese Forces”. And though he is a political rival of President Aoun, the two are united on the same political platforms.

And if one dissects the passion of Sunnis who are anti-Syrian, anti-Hezbollah and anti-Iran, one can clearly see the sectarian undertone of aversion towards anything that is perceived as Shiite.

On the other side of the divide, the Axis of Resistance has Hezbollah at its centre (which is Shiite), supported as per above by two Christian leaders; Aoun and Frangieh, and by what is left of the Lebanese Left which includes Lebanese of all religions and sects.

It would be therefore inconclusive to say that a century after its inception, the people of Greater Lebanon have come of age and are united in endorsing the identity that Patriarch Howayyek and French General Gouraud had stipulated for them. If anything, the divisions now run deeper.

How will the uprising in Lebanon pan out is anyone’s guess, what is obvious however is that as Lebanon is poised to enter its second century, and as it turned from a pro-Western puppet state into the centre of the Axis of Resistance, the West is making another bid to pull it back under its belt by supporting the uprising allegedly in the name of human rights and giving the people what they want. If Lebanon goes the full circle, it will be to the detriment of the Axis of Resistance, but on the other hand for the hand of the West to be kept at bay, Lebanon will not be able to survive unless major reform is implemented and the economy is back on track.

Sadly, few among those squabbling are truly addressing the real identity question of Lebanon. They are looking everywhere in search of their identity and raison d’etre but ignoring the truth. 

These articles are not intended to vouch for the SSNP and its argument that promotes the unification of Greater Syria, but with or without the SSNP, Lebanon is part of Syria and this is a historical and demographic fact. 

In my personal view, the problems of Lebanon will not be resolved until Lebanese people come to the realization that they are not superior to Syrians as many of them think, but that they are the same people. The presence of the Syrian Army in Lebanon between 1976 and 2005 provided an excellent opportunity to bring the hearts and minds of Lebanese and Syrians back together. In hindsight, it was a wasted opportunity that ended up deepening the fissure instead of healing it.   

Either way, Lebanon had had its run as an independent nation state and it failed. Until someone comes with a magic potion, its infrastructure has been relegated, it remains heavily in debt and polluted, and its people remain divided in their loyalties.

THE END

Ghassan Kadi is a Syrian-born geopolitical analyst. He has been published on Zero Hedge, Mint Press News, Russia Insider, The Saker, and The Greanville Post.

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The Beirut sea-port explosion

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SOCIAL CHAOS IN OUR TIME


by Ghassan Kadi for The Saker Blog


Despite its many war and political wounds, Beirut was and continues to be one of the most beautiful and fascinating cities in the world.


I have mourned Beirut time and time again, but with all the cities I have lived in, Beirut will always be my favourite. After all, how can I ever forget its hustle and bustle before the infamous fifteen year long civil war that started on Sunday the 13th of April 1975? I was a student back then, with very limited financial resources, but back then, you didn’t have to be rich to enjoy the rich lifestyle of Beirut.

One didn’t have to go to the fancy and exclusive Casino Du Liban to see a show. With many movie theatres showing the best and latest of Hollywood, Bollywood and the Arab World; not to mention French and Italian movies among others, the cost of watching the big screen started from a Lebanese Lira, fifty US Cents to be exact, with three daily sessions playing seven days a week. One didn’t have to be able to afford five-star hotels and restaurants when one could walk out and get a falafel roll at 2 am. This is not to mention the ease of transport from the coast and its beaches to the snow-capped hills, within a day, using public and cheap shared private transport, affordable by all.

Then as the civil war started, Beirut began to shed some of its glory bit by bit. Its sea port, The Port of Beirut, was one of the first victims. The Arab World that relied on the transit trade because it didn’t have its own infrastructure and ports, imported all its good via that port, the Port of Beirut.

But incrementally, as Lebanon lost its ‘Switzerland of the East’ stature, it began to shed the features of its former glory one at a time. It was no longer the centre of commerce or entertainment, but the Lebanese people always felt that there were some foundational icons that the country would not lose.

One of the them was the Lebanese Lira and the Lebanese Banking system. Those financial entities were so robust that they managed to remain solid and functional after literally decades of strife; despite a major devaluation of the Lira in the 1980’s.

As the repercussions of the civil war and what followed it continued to chip away at the backbone of Lebanon, not only financially but also as an entity, the events of last year have incrementally accelerated the collapse of not only the Lira, but also the entire Lebanese banking system.

As the pieces of the domino continued to tumble and fall, one corner stone was put at high risk, and still faces the spectre of collapse, and this is the American University of Beirut (AUB), my alma mater. Formerly known as the Syrian Protestant College, the university was founded in 1866 and has been an elite centre of higher education for the whole region for one and a half centuries.

When I heard the news about the demise of the AUB I was shattered. What more could Lebanon lose I wondered. The last thing that came to my mind was the Port of Beirut. After all, how can a city lose a port? With a major mega explosion, it can.

Much speculation abounds as to who is behind the explosion. I am not a military and explosive expert, but the evidence I have seen points at one thing and one thing only; utter negligence.

The port did not have one explosion, but two. Literally thousands of people heard the first explosion, started to take videos of it with their smart phones, unbeknown to them that another huge one was to follow. The massive second explosion was caught on countless videos from many different angles, clearly showing it was the one that caused most of the devastation; not the first one.

This begs the question. If this was all premeditated, why would the ‘perpetrator’ deliberately create a chain reaction instead of hitting the main target directly? And, if the ‘perpetrator’ planned it this way, what was its guarantee that the first explosion would eventually lead to triggering the major one? Why execute this in such a convoluted manner and then conceal the identity of the actor? Israel would surely have boasted such a feat in harming Hezbollah’s influence and standing in Lebanon, despite what some local political enemies of Hezbollah might claim.

Before & After views of damaged area. The port sector has been virtually destroyed.

Some are reporting having heard Israeli jets in Lebanese airspace just prior to the attack, but such an occurrence is quite common in Lebanon. Some videos even allege finding shrapnel of Israeli missiles at the scene, but there is no evidence to corroborate those videos with the explosion.

If Israel was the culprit, why did their jets not attack that main target? Israel, unabashedly, has inflicted much devastation upon Lebanon. In the most self-righteous and open manner, it has made countless threats to Lebanon over the decades for allowing the PLO to operate from its territory, all the way to allowing Hezbollah to exist and be armed. I would be the last to defend it, but I cannot see how Israel could be behind this calamity.

Even President Trump called it an ‘attack’.

With all the divisions in Lebanon, past and present, it doesn’t take much for the blame game to get a jump-start. There are already many voices blaming Hezbollah directly or indirectly.

There are reports about a ship named ‘mv RHOSUS’ which was loaded with ammonium nitrate bound from Georgia and its cargo held in Beirut Port in 2014. Allegedly, it is the 2750 tons of the highly explosive fertilizer from that ship that exploded in Beirut. If there is indeed a culprit, did he use this volatile cargo to execute his act now or was the cargo sent to Lebanon as a time bomb six years ago? Both possibilities do not make much strategic sense for any calculating enemy of Lebanon.

Other numerous theories abound as to what material actually exploded? The reports that name the fuel as ammonium nitrate seems plausible. After all, there are records of such a stash in the port as mentioned above, the material is explosive, and this would not be a world’s first. Such disasters occurred earlier in history in many parts of the globe.

The losses of Beirut seem to have come full circle. Its sea port was one of the first to lose its stature when the gradual demise of Lebanon commenced, and now it is here no more.

In my analysis, and as my friend Abu Omar puts it, this tragic calamity is the result of ‘cumulative neglect and carelessness’.

The loss of Beirut Sea Port will have devastating consequences on the people of Lebanon. Even in a country that is fully functional, the rebuilding will require a significant amount of time and enormous funds. But for a country that is ankle-tapped and brought down to its knees by corruption and economic collapse, such rebuilding will not happen; not in the near future.

To make the situation even more dire, Lebanon is an import-reliant country. It even relies on imported foods. With its port-based wheat silos now totally destroyed, many would be imports destroyed at the docks, and already soaring food prices, famine is not an unrealistic outcome.

The cities of Tripoli and Sidon have sea ports, but they are not capable of dealing with the volumes required and cannot replace the capacity of Beirut’s port.

In the face of this all, I look at Lebanon and ponder what is left to lose that already has not been lost.

Perhaps the only assets Lebanon has not lost are its coastline and mountains. They continue to be taken for granted, but who knows what is down the track?

Ghassan Kadi is a geopolitical analyst of Syrian origin. 


 

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