New Year Wishes & the wickedness of Vengeance
By: Elias Bejjani*
December 31/2008
With the new year, let us all pray to be genuinely positive, hopeful, joyful, and relaxed.Let all put our burdens of pain, sickness, deprivation, persecution, separation, broken hearts,
disappointments, frustrations, bereavements, injustice, abandonment, and anger in the hands of Almighty God and follow the teachings of His Gospel.
God, with his gracious wisdom and abundant generosity, shall definitely see in every way possible that we safely overcome all our hardships and difficulties.
Let us all trust in God and recognize that we are all His beloved children that He has created us in his image. Romans 8:16-19: "The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs--heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed in us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God."
We should not question or doubt God's deep love for each and every one of us. How could He not, as He sent his only son, Jesus Christ to defeat death, give us the eternal life, suffer and be crucified so we, His children, can become purified from the original sin and be helped to walk safely the path of salvation. John 3:2 : "Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when He appears we shall be like Him, because we shall see Him as He is".
Let us ask Almighty God to help us live in peace and harmony with ourselves and others.
Let us ask Almighty God to lead our steps into the righteous paths and grant us the strength of endurance and hold us back from the sin of hurting or hating others.
Let us ask Almighty God to grant us the graces of love, meekness, humbleness, transparency, honesty and forgiveness.
Let us ask Almighty God to maintain our hearts and minds pure, and free from hatred, grudges and selfishness.
With the new year let us remember that vengeance is evil and forgiveness is a Godly grace. Let us make a resolution that we shall not allow vengeance to take control of our lives.
Being faithful to God's holy teachings, is being loving and forgiving. For when we trust God and believe in His justice, we ought to leave Him punish those who are evil. Matthew 13:43: "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him hear".
God's teachings in regards to vengeance is very clear . Romans 12:19-21: "Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, “Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord. To the contrary, if your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink; for by so doing you will heap burning coals on his head.” 21 Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good."
This verse frees us from the burden of taking justice into our own hands. It tells us "Never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord.’ God will repay those who are righteous"..
Since God is going to take up our cause and see to it that justice is done, we should lay it down, work hard not to succumb to our human destructive instincts of hatred and grudges.
We don’t have to carry anger and bitterness and resentment and revenge no matter what is our burden. Indeed we dare not because Jesus warned that an unforgiving heart will destroy you in the end (Matthew 6:15; 18:35).
Saint Paul says leave it to the wrath of God. ”Then the wrath of God is defined further as God’s vengeance, “Vengeance is mine.” So wrath is connected with God’s response to something that deserves vengeance. And then it says, “I will repay.”
So God’s wrath is treated as a repayment to man for something man has done. This simply means that the wrath of God is God’s settled anger toward sin expressed in the repayment of suitable vengeance on the guilty sinner.
God will and shall see that justice is done on the Day of Judgment. So let us be forgiving and avoid any sort of vengeance. Daniel 12:2-3: "And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, some to everlasting life, and some to shame and everlasting contempt. And those who are wise shall shine like the brightness of the sky above; and those who turn many to righteousness, like the stars forever and ever".
With this new year, let us pray from the depth of our hearts for all those who hate and hold grudges against us. Let us ask almighty God to cure them from these evil ailments and grant us the grace of forgiveness and the strength with faith to keep loving them.
No one should forget that our live on this earth is too short, and that we must be righteous to deserve the eternal one in Heaven where there will be no pain or fights, but happiness and peace
Corinthians 2:2-10: "But, as it is written, "What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him"--these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the spirit searches everything, even the depths of God".
Happy New Year
*Elias BejjaniCanadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist, journalist and political commentator Email phoenicia@hotmail.com
Web sites http://www.10452lccc.com & http://www.clhrf.com
Mailing phoenicia group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phoenicia/
Face Book LCCC group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17974722934
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
The Lebanese People: Faith, Hope & Perseverance
By Elias Bejjani
General Michel Aoun, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, in his strongly Syrian influenced conduct, has become another Lebanese Judas Iscariot. Judas betrayed his master, Jesus Christ and handed him over to his enemies for thirty pieces of silver and Aoun too follows suit in his Dhimmitude to Syria and his cheap price extracted by the Syrians for himself and his political party.
Aoun has become a paid slave to Syria, Iran and Hezbollah's anti-Lebanese schemes and he has become a loud and reliable mouthpiece for their heretical, anti-democratic, anti-human rights, and anti-west propaganda.
This week, the Syrian Baathist regime is arranging an official four to five day visit for Aoun as a reward for his subservience. The Iranian Mullahs made Aoun’s recent official visit to Iran a big deal and tried unsuccessfully through him, to sell themselves as a champion state in protecting religious minorities, to the contrary of the reality of their dismal record of religious and ethnic oppression, even going as far as murdering those who may sway the majority and oppose the current regime. The whole world needs to know that Aoun is an exception in Lebanese history and not the rule. Politicians like Aoun have historically ended their careers and lives in shame, humiliation and disgrace.
Aoun had established his political life and popularity back in 1988 as a fierce Lebanese advocate against the Syrian occupation of his country Lebanon and against terrorists, among which include Palestinian and Iranian militias. He portrayed himself as a hero in this domain for 18 years, but since his return from exile in Paris since 2005, he has changed his skin and drastically shifting his stances. The man, for mere personal gains and a delusional lust for power and authority, has sold himself to the Axis of Evil countries and terrorist organizations!
There should be no doubt that those minority Lebanese, who still believe in Aoun and support his pro Syrian-Iranian platforms, are committing a crime against both their country and their countrymen. They have consciously become blind followers of this man, ignoring the disastrous consequences of his policies. They have forgotten the Lebanese cause of freedom, sovereignty and independence and instead preferred to be an ignorant flock to a man who is driven only by his lust for power and securing his legacy.
Let us remind those Lebanese who have lost their better discretion and have chosen the dark path that history has taught us that few of the world's greatest nations have ever been defeated by their external rivals. All of them were first weakened and destroyed from within even before their enemies were able to bring them to their knees. Science teaches us that when the body loses immunity it becomes vulnerable to disease. This can be seen in the fall of the Ottoman and Roman empires and in this regard, those Lebanese who blindly provide a cover for Aoun's anti-Lebanese policies and alliances are knowingly or otherwise destroying the Lebanese model of coexistence, tolerance and democracy. These mislead Lebanese are destroying the Lebanese communities from within, through their shameless collaboration and subservience to the evil schemes of certain political parties, social and religious groups and individuals who are advocating against the essence and core of what actually is Lebanon and Lebanese.
"Everyone who sins is a slave of sin" (John 8-34), and every Lebanese who betrays his people to advocate the Syrian occupation is also a sinner too.
Leaders like Aoun are mercenaries and Pharisees. They are void of dignity or national honour. They steal, cheat, embezzle, betray, and change their skin for personal gain, all at the expense of the people and the country. They ignore Lebanon's deeply rooted history, unique identity and they have no respect for the sacrifices of the many thousands of Lebanese who offered themselves on the nation's altar to enable us to be proud, prosperous and independent.
These antagonists are thirsty for power and blood. They sold their souls and honour for thirty pieces of silver and they have no respect for Lebanon's 7000 years of civilization, culture and glorious history. They are masters in defeatism, ignorance and cowardice and faithlessness. Their deceptive camouflage, sweet words and cloaked lies are well known to all those who are witnesses to the truth. They have missed the fact that Lebanon's people have never knelt nor hung their heads before any tyrant, invader, occupier or conqueror.
Aoun, Hezbollah and all those revolving in the Iranian-Syrian orbit should, foretell their fate of ultimate failure. They will not be any better off than those, who like them, delude themselves and falsely believe they can destroy Lebanon and subdue its people. They have all left while Lebanon and its free and peace loving people still stand as proud and patriotic as they were 7000 years ago!
We remind the Lebanese Pharisees and Trojans, in particular General Michel Aoun that the people of Sidon in the year 350 BC, chose to burn themselves and their city rather than face defeat after their prolonged heroic resistance failed to safeguard their city against the Persian invader Artechtahta. They preferred to die with dignity rather than live with humiliation!
The people of Tyre also choose this martyrdom in 332 BC, when they resisted Alexander the Great's mighty army for seven months, refusing to surrender or kneel. Alexander, after capturing the city, crucified many of the brave Tyrians, while enslaving others in a bid to revenge his huge loss and demeaning humiliation.
The Maronite Patriarch Gabriel Hgola choose to be burned (1367 AD) in Tripoli in front of the Omari mosque in a bid to save his people from the Mamlouk's humiliation and torture. The same sacrifice was taken by Patriarch Daniel Al-Amshiti in the same place (1282 AD), for almost the same reasons and for the same cause.
We remind those who refuse to takes clear and noble stances in life, change their skin to suit their opportunistic interests and lack the courage to bear witness to the truth, that by doing so, they are committing the worst mortal crime. Imam Ali said in this regard, "He who accepts acts of others is considered their partner. He who is involved in evil acts commits two sins, that of performing the act and that of its acceptance."
My dear misled countrymen, strengthen your faith, repent for your cowardice, and witness the truth! Do not fall into the trap of opportunism and do not be deceived by the golden garments and illustrious schemes of those who have been assigned to divide our nation and communities, while spreading hatred and conflict among its members. To these shepherds of evil, I refer you to great words of our God, "God has blinded their eyes and closed their minds, so that their eyes would not see, and their minds would not understand, and they would not turn to me, says God, for me to help them". (John 12-39).
The coward is a blind man in both sight and discretion whose conscience has turned numb. Shame on our people who live in democratic countries like Canada, where freedom of expression is sacred, yet they are still afraid to be witness for the truth and do not support their Lebanese sacred cause.
Shame on every Lebanese who keeps a blind eye towards their people imprisoned arbitrarily in the Syrian jails.
Shame on every Lebanese who does not support human rights, does not advocate for Lebanon's liberation, and shame on every Lebanese who does not carry with Lebanon's brave youth the flag of sovereignty, freedom and independence!
Shame on all those Lebanese politicians and clergymen who are scared to call for a dignified and honourable return of our refugees living in Israel since May 2000. There is no doubt that these politicians and clergymen have chosen the track of sin rather than that of righteousness. These Pharisees are destroying the country which is our holy temple.
"It was almost time for the Passover festival, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. There in the temple he found men selling cattle, sheep and pigeons, and also the money changers sitting at their tables. So He made a whip from the cords and drove all the animals out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle; he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins; and he ordered the men who sold the pigeons: Take them out of here, stop making my Fathers House a marketplace.” (John 3-13)
We call on those who have accepted slavery and to those who are afraid to be witnesses for the truth and feel defeated inside themselves.
We call on those who have deviated from the righteous track, camouflaging, cheating and betraying Lebanon.
We call on them to wake up and start thoroughly reviewing their dangerous acts!
Forgiveness is always there and Lebanon's open loving arms will embrace them once they repent. If you obey my teaching, you are really my disciples, you know the truth, and the truth will set you free". (John 8-13)
*Elias BejjaniCanadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist, journalist and political commentator Email phoenicia@hotmail.comWeb sites http://www.10452lccc.com & http://www.clhrf.comMailing phoenicia group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phoenicia/Face Book LCCC group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17974722934
General Michel Aoun, the leader of the Free Patriotic Movement, in his strongly Syrian influenced conduct, has become another Lebanese Judas Iscariot. Judas betrayed his master, Jesus Christ and handed him over to his enemies for thirty pieces of silver and Aoun too follows suit in his Dhimmitude to Syria and his cheap price extracted by the Syrians for himself and his political party.
Aoun has become a paid slave to Syria, Iran and Hezbollah's anti-Lebanese schemes and he has become a loud and reliable mouthpiece for their heretical, anti-democratic, anti-human rights, and anti-west propaganda.
This week, the Syrian Baathist regime is arranging an official four to five day visit for Aoun as a reward for his subservience. The Iranian Mullahs made Aoun’s recent official visit to Iran a big deal and tried unsuccessfully through him, to sell themselves as a champion state in protecting religious minorities, to the contrary of the reality of their dismal record of religious and ethnic oppression, even going as far as murdering those who may sway the majority and oppose the current regime. The whole world needs to know that Aoun is an exception in Lebanese history and not the rule. Politicians like Aoun have historically ended their careers and lives in shame, humiliation and disgrace.
Aoun had established his political life and popularity back in 1988 as a fierce Lebanese advocate against the Syrian occupation of his country Lebanon and against terrorists, among which include Palestinian and Iranian militias. He portrayed himself as a hero in this domain for 18 years, but since his return from exile in Paris since 2005, he has changed his skin and drastically shifting his stances. The man, for mere personal gains and a delusional lust for power and authority, has sold himself to the Axis of Evil countries and terrorist organizations!
There should be no doubt that those minority Lebanese, who still believe in Aoun and support his pro Syrian-Iranian platforms, are committing a crime against both their country and their countrymen. They have consciously become blind followers of this man, ignoring the disastrous consequences of his policies. They have forgotten the Lebanese cause of freedom, sovereignty and independence and instead preferred to be an ignorant flock to a man who is driven only by his lust for power and securing his legacy.
Let us remind those Lebanese who have lost their better discretion and have chosen the dark path that history has taught us that few of the world's greatest nations have ever been defeated by their external rivals. All of them were first weakened and destroyed from within even before their enemies were able to bring them to their knees. Science teaches us that when the body loses immunity it becomes vulnerable to disease. This can be seen in the fall of the Ottoman and Roman empires and in this regard, those Lebanese who blindly provide a cover for Aoun's anti-Lebanese policies and alliances are knowingly or otherwise destroying the Lebanese model of coexistence, tolerance and democracy. These mislead Lebanese are destroying the Lebanese communities from within, through their shameless collaboration and subservience to the evil schemes of certain political parties, social and religious groups and individuals who are advocating against the essence and core of what actually is Lebanon and Lebanese.
"Everyone who sins is a slave of sin" (John 8-34), and every Lebanese who betrays his people to advocate the Syrian occupation is also a sinner too.
Leaders like Aoun are mercenaries and Pharisees. They are void of dignity or national honour. They steal, cheat, embezzle, betray, and change their skin for personal gain, all at the expense of the people and the country. They ignore Lebanon's deeply rooted history, unique identity and they have no respect for the sacrifices of the many thousands of Lebanese who offered themselves on the nation's altar to enable us to be proud, prosperous and independent.
These antagonists are thirsty for power and blood. They sold their souls and honour for thirty pieces of silver and they have no respect for Lebanon's 7000 years of civilization, culture and glorious history. They are masters in defeatism, ignorance and cowardice and faithlessness. Their deceptive camouflage, sweet words and cloaked lies are well known to all those who are witnesses to the truth. They have missed the fact that Lebanon's people have never knelt nor hung their heads before any tyrant, invader, occupier or conqueror.
Aoun, Hezbollah and all those revolving in the Iranian-Syrian orbit should, foretell their fate of ultimate failure. They will not be any better off than those, who like them, delude themselves and falsely believe they can destroy Lebanon and subdue its people. They have all left while Lebanon and its free and peace loving people still stand as proud and patriotic as they were 7000 years ago!
We remind the Lebanese Pharisees and Trojans, in particular General Michel Aoun that the people of Sidon in the year 350 BC, chose to burn themselves and their city rather than face defeat after their prolonged heroic resistance failed to safeguard their city against the Persian invader Artechtahta. They preferred to die with dignity rather than live with humiliation!
The people of Tyre also choose this martyrdom in 332 BC, when they resisted Alexander the Great's mighty army for seven months, refusing to surrender or kneel. Alexander, after capturing the city, crucified many of the brave Tyrians, while enslaving others in a bid to revenge his huge loss and demeaning humiliation.
The Maronite Patriarch Gabriel Hgola choose to be burned (1367 AD) in Tripoli in front of the Omari mosque in a bid to save his people from the Mamlouk's humiliation and torture. The same sacrifice was taken by Patriarch Daniel Al-Amshiti in the same place (1282 AD), for almost the same reasons and for the same cause.
We remind those who refuse to takes clear and noble stances in life, change their skin to suit their opportunistic interests and lack the courage to bear witness to the truth, that by doing so, they are committing the worst mortal crime. Imam Ali said in this regard, "He who accepts acts of others is considered their partner. He who is involved in evil acts commits two sins, that of performing the act and that of its acceptance."
My dear misled countrymen, strengthen your faith, repent for your cowardice, and witness the truth! Do not fall into the trap of opportunism and do not be deceived by the golden garments and illustrious schemes of those who have been assigned to divide our nation and communities, while spreading hatred and conflict among its members. To these shepherds of evil, I refer you to great words of our God, "God has blinded their eyes and closed their minds, so that their eyes would not see, and their minds would not understand, and they would not turn to me, says God, for me to help them". (John 12-39).
The coward is a blind man in both sight and discretion whose conscience has turned numb. Shame on our people who live in democratic countries like Canada, where freedom of expression is sacred, yet they are still afraid to be witness for the truth and do not support their Lebanese sacred cause.
Shame on every Lebanese who keeps a blind eye towards their people imprisoned arbitrarily in the Syrian jails.
Shame on every Lebanese who does not support human rights, does not advocate for Lebanon's liberation, and shame on every Lebanese who does not carry with Lebanon's brave youth the flag of sovereignty, freedom and independence!
Shame on all those Lebanese politicians and clergymen who are scared to call for a dignified and honourable return of our refugees living in Israel since May 2000. There is no doubt that these politicians and clergymen have chosen the track of sin rather than that of righteousness. These Pharisees are destroying the country which is our holy temple.
"It was almost time for the Passover festival, so Jesus went to Jerusalem. There in the temple he found men selling cattle, sheep and pigeons, and also the money changers sitting at their tables. So He made a whip from the cords and drove all the animals out of the temple, both the sheep and the cattle; he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and scattered their coins; and he ordered the men who sold the pigeons: Take them out of here, stop making my Fathers House a marketplace.” (John 3-13)
We call on those who have accepted slavery and to those who are afraid to be witnesses for the truth and feel defeated inside themselves.
We call on those who have deviated from the righteous track, camouflaging, cheating and betraying Lebanon.
We call on them to wake up and start thoroughly reviewing their dangerous acts!
Forgiveness is always there and Lebanon's open loving arms will embrace them once they repent. If you obey my teaching, you are really my disciples, you know the truth, and the truth will set you free". (John 8-13)
*Elias BejjaniCanadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist, journalist and political commentator Email phoenicia@hotmail.comWeb sites http://www.10452lccc.com & http://www.clhrf.comMailing phoenicia group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phoenicia/Face Book LCCC group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17974722934
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
Rogue States & Terrorists Respond Only To Force & Deterrence!!
By: Elias Bejjani*
There have been numerous reports and analysis as well as vague and conflicting official statements issued by Damascus, Washington and Baghdad that have appeared in the regional and international media outlets, in regards to the U.S. helicopter-borne Special Forces raid that recently targeted the Syrian village of Sukkariya in the Abu Kemal region seven kilometers inside Syria on October 26th.A US counterterrorism official stated that the American Special Forces that executed the raid had killed the head of a Syrian terrorist network that funneled fighters, weapons and cash into Iraq. He declared that the raid targeted the home of Abu Ghadiyah, leader of a key cell of foreign Jihadi fighters in Iraq.
Syrian villagers, where the raid took place, told reporters that US forces grabbed two men and took them away by helicopter back to Iraq.It is worth mentioning that this successful raid is the first in its accuracy and nature that US troops executed inside Syria since year 2003, although these troops have carried out several military operations in Iraqi territories just a few miles adjacent to the neighboring Syrian borders in pursuit of terrorist militant groups.
Several official US statements have said that the raid's main target was the home of Abu Ghadiyah, leader of a key cell of foreign fighters in Iraq and that he was killed in the armed confrontation.
According to these US officials, Abu Ghadiyah was centrally involved in smuggling militant terrorist fighters and weapons from Syria to Iraq.
Informed reports have stated that Syria has purposely declined to patrol its boarders with Iraq thus facilitating the infiltration of militants and weapons via its borders to Iraq. In Washington, an unnamed military official told the Associated Press that the raid targeted elements of a "foreign fighter logistics network". It was because of Syrian inaction, the official said, that the US was "taking matters into our own hands".
It is the first known US attack on Syrian soil.Damascus, on its part, alleged that the U.S. helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction and opened fire on the workers inside it causing the death of eight civilians and wounding one. Syrian television was not able to provide any convincing actual footage of these alleged civilian casualties.
It only showed a few scenes of a wounded child which according to many a/v experts were altered and even fabricated. The Syrian newspaper Tishrin called it a US war crime, while Syria summoned the US Charge D'Affaires in Damascus to explain the attack. Also in response, Syria called on the Iraqi government to prevent its airspace from being used in such a way. Sami al-Khiyami, the Syrian ambassador to London, told Reuters, "This is an outrageous raid which is against international law.
It is a terrible crime. We are expecting clarifications from the Americans". Ironically, Syria's outspoken and arrogant foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, was in London conferring with high ranking US and English officials when the raid occurred and continued his talks afterwards, while uttering on the sidelines empty threats of retaliation.Despite the hostile official statements and angry Syrian media coverage and statements of protest, the Syrian President Bashar Assad and his rogue regime surprisingly did not file any official complaint with the UN and nor did call for an emergency Arab league meeting at any level.
This US raid adds to at least five unexplained serious security incidents and breaches that have occurred in Syria over the last year. This begs to ask the question of ‘why’ has Syria remained relatively silent and ‘why’ have these incidents been hushed and swept under the so-called ‘diplomatic rug’? All these events have shaken the stability of the internal Syrian domestic scene and it has also lifted the air of invincibility and control that the Baathist Stalinist regime struggles to portray and exert.
The Syrian authorities have yet to announce the findings of the police investigations of any of these incidents, which are chronologically listed below:
1. The Israeli bombardment of a secret Syrian military base in Deir Al-Zour on September 6th of 2007, under the pretext that it was a Korean-style nuclear reactor.
2. The assassination of Hezbollah's number two man, the notorious terrorist Imad Mughniyeh on February 13th of 2008, by a car explosion in the middle of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
3. The assassination of Syrian Brigadier General Mohammed Suleiman, security adviser for Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, on August 1st of 2008. Brigadier Suleiman, 49, was shot dead at his chalet in the Rimal al-Zahabieh luxury resort nine miles north of the port city of Tartous on the Mediterranean.
4. The recent killing of a high rank Syrian officer who was extensively involved in Lebanon's late PM, Rafiq Al-Hariri's assassination. The officer was one of 17 other people who were killed and 24 injured by a devastating explosion that took place on the Damascus Airport highway this past September.
5. Bloody clashes in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus between Syrian security officers and what Syrian authorities described as a group of gunmen. Three of the gunmen and one security officer were killed, while another was injured as stated by the Syrian government.Observers questioned the timing of the US raid, speculated on its actual objectives and wondered why now and not before? Answers to this question varied according to their sources.
Many US and European media outlets interpreted the raid to be a fiery personal warning to President Assad saying that Syria's alliance with rogue Iran is no longer acceptable and that its harboring of fundamentalists and terrorists, notably al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, will not continue without a painful price and dire consequences.
Other western observers considered the raid to be a one-time operation that has no political motivation and came in the context of hundreds of similar military operations carried out by U.S. troops on the Syrian-Iraqi border since 2003.
The same observers were also puzzled by the disproportionate and unjustified Syrian media reaction and negative coverage.Some analysts even speculated that the Bush administration and the Pentagon aimed to give leverage to John McCain in his presidential campaign and warn the coming US president that certain restrictions and red lines should not be broken or overlooked if and when US negotiations with Syria and Iran take place.
Syrian and Iranian media as well their mercenary mouthpieces, the terrorists organizations in Lebanon and Gaza, notably Hezbollah and Hamas, alleged that the raid was a kind of psychological support for the US allies in the region. They interpreted it as a sign of weakness and a failure of the US Middle East democracy project!
Some anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians envisioned the entire US operation as a military pre-emptive deterrent for a Syrian plot to invade North Lebanon. This plot in the making was to attack anti-Syrian Lebanese masses and politicians under the guise of fighting Sunni terrorists that Syria alleges have taken refugee in North Lebanon.
In neighboring Israel, the Yediot Aharonot newspaper quoted an unnamed American source as saying: "The American raid was fully coordinated between the Syrian intelligence services and the United States in the realm of Syrian-US coordination in the ongoing war against al-Qaeda and its subsidiaries. The same argument was also adopted during the last few days by many other well known American and British media facilities.
(Sunday, November 02, 2008/News Agencies: BAGHDAD — Despite reports that Syria denounced a violent U.S. Special Operations raid that took place near the Iraq border last week, intelligence officials in Damascus may have approved the attack, the London Times reports. The operation, which was intended to be fast and bloodless, was meant to target Al Qaeda commander Badran Turki Hashim al-Mazidih — also known as Abu Ghadiya — an Iraqi-born terrorist in his late twenties, according to the paper. Syrian officials — who feared Ghadiya as a threat to the secular regime in Damascus — plotted to have U.S. forces kidnap him and take him to Iraq for questioning.
But the U.S.-led raid did not go as planned. A fierce gun battle broke out following the launch of a rocket-propelled grenade from a local American compound, blowing the cover on the covert operation. Eight people were reportedly killed in the raid, which Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem called an act of "criminal and terrorist aggression." Officials could not confirm whether Abu Ghadiya was among the dead.)"Many experts on terrorism in the region applauded the much delayed American military response against the rogue Syria and openly encouraged the US to execute more of such raids.
Personally, we fully agree with this argument and consider that the raid came five years too late and that it was not strong enough. Accordingly, no matter what the raid's military and political motives and objectives, it was a very clear message to the Syrian Baathist regime officials, cautioning them to come to their senses and stop harboring terrorists and fundamentalists or otherwise face the consequences.
We strongly believe that it is time for all the free world governments, Sunni Arab regimes, Israel and the USA in particular, to begin speaking to the Axis of Evil countries and organizations, namely Syria, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda, with the only language that they comprehend and understand; that being the language of force.
It is time to make the Syrian regime, the Mullahs of Iran, and all their proxy terrorist and fundamentalist organizations, understand very well and without any doubt that there will be dire prices and severe consequences for any criminal acts they commit, among of which is the change of the Syrian and Iranian regimes by force as was the situation with Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein.
Had the free world and the Arab Sunni countries adopted and implemented the courageous, straightforward and firm stances in their dealings with Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda, including the use of strategic military force, the whole world would have been in a much better position of peace, thousands of lives would have been spared and trillions of dollars saved.
In the context of the global war against terrorism, it is worth shedding light on the Middle Eastern press trend of soft condemnation statement releases. These statements appear every time a rogue country, a terrorist group, or a terrorist individual or a leader is hit or captured.
These condemnations are trivial and are merely empty words and accordingly should not by any means be taken seriously by any country that is taking part in the waging of anti-terrorism war. Hundreds of such double standard releases were issued in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, Russia and other countries in the aftermath of the US raid on the terrorist camp inside Syria.
They all ignored the fact that Syria is a breeding centre for all kinds of terrorist, Jihadists and fundamentalists among of which are Hezbollah, Hamas, Jund Al-Sham, Fateh Al-Islam, Al-Qaeda and many, many others.
The righteous and ethical condemnation should in fact be targeting the USA administration because of its failure to destroy Iran's nuclear reactors, overthrow the Syrian Baathist regime nor did it eradicate fundamentalist organizations, especially Hezbollah, that has erected a mini Iranian state inside Lebanon, crippling by force all Lebanese efforts to rebuild the country and reclaim its independence, freedom and sovereignty.
The USA, Europe, Israel and all other free world countries, as well as the Sunni Arab countries should once and for all forget their hesitation, fear, procrastination and double standards in regards to Iran, Syrian and all the terrorist organization that revolve in their orbit.
All these countries, specially the new US Obama administration should speak to the Axis of Evil countries and terrorists organizations the only language that they comprehend; the language of power and deterrence. All other means are futile and time-buying especially for the Syrian Baathist regime.
*Elias Bejjani
Canadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist, journalist and political commentator
Email phoenicia@hotmail.com
Web sites http://www.10452lccc.com & http://www.clhrf.com
Mailing phoenicia group http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Phoenicia/
Face Book LCCC group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17974722934
There have been numerous reports and analysis as well as vague and conflicting official statements issued by Damascus, Washington and Baghdad that have appeared in the regional and international media outlets, in regards to the U.S. helicopter-borne Special Forces raid that recently targeted the Syrian village of Sukkariya in the Abu Kemal region seven kilometers inside Syria on October 26th.A US counterterrorism official stated that the American Special Forces that executed the raid had killed the head of a Syrian terrorist network that funneled fighters, weapons and cash into Iraq. He declared that the raid targeted the home of Abu Ghadiyah, leader of a key cell of foreign Jihadi fighters in Iraq.
Syrian villagers, where the raid took place, told reporters that US forces grabbed two men and took them away by helicopter back to Iraq.It is worth mentioning that this successful raid is the first in its accuracy and nature that US troops executed inside Syria since year 2003, although these troops have carried out several military operations in Iraqi territories just a few miles adjacent to the neighboring Syrian borders in pursuit of terrorist militant groups.
Several official US statements have said that the raid's main target was the home of Abu Ghadiyah, leader of a key cell of foreign fighters in Iraq and that he was killed in the armed confrontation.
According to these US officials, Abu Ghadiyah was centrally involved in smuggling militant terrorist fighters and weapons from Syria to Iraq.
Informed reports have stated that Syria has purposely declined to patrol its boarders with Iraq thus facilitating the infiltration of militants and weapons via its borders to Iraq. In Washington, an unnamed military official told the Associated Press that the raid targeted elements of a "foreign fighter logistics network". It was because of Syrian inaction, the official said, that the US was "taking matters into our own hands".
It is the first known US attack on Syrian soil.Damascus, on its part, alleged that the U.S. helicopters attacked a civilian building under construction and opened fire on the workers inside it causing the death of eight civilians and wounding one. Syrian television was not able to provide any convincing actual footage of these alleged civilian casualties.
It only showed a few scenes of a wounded child which according to many a/v experts were altered and even fabricated. The Syrian newspaper Tishrin called it a US war crime, while Syria summoned the US Charge D'Affaires in Damascus to explain the attack. Also in response, Syria called on the Iraqi government to prevent its airspace from being used in such a way. Sami al-Khiyami, the Syrian ambassador to London, told Reuters, "This is an outrageous raid which is against international law.
It is a terrible crime. We are expecting clarifications from the Americans". Ironically, Syria's outspoken and arrogant foreign minister, Walid al-Moallem, was in London conferring with high ranking US and English officials when the raid occurred and continued his talks afterwards, while uttering on the sidelines empty threats of retaliation.Despite the hostile official statements and angry Syrian media coverage and statements of protest, the Syrian President Bashar Assad and his rogue regime surprisingly did not file any official complaint with the UN and nor did call for an emergency Arab league meeting at any level.
This US raid adds to at least five unexplained serious security incidents and breaches that have occurred in Syria over the last year. This begs to ask the question of ‘why’ has Syria remained relatively silent and ‘why’ have these incidents been hushed and swept under the so-called ‘diplomatic rug’? All these events have shaken the stability of the internal Syrian domestic scene and it has also lifted the air of invincibility and control that the Baathist Stalinist regime struggles to portray and exert.
The Syrian authorities have yet to announce the findings of the police investigations of any of these incidents, which are chronologically listed below:
1. The Israeli bombardment of a secret Syrian military base in Deir Al-Zour on September 6th of 2007, under the pretext that it was a Korean-style nuclear reactor.
2. The assassination of Hezbollah's number two man, the notorious terrorist Imad Mughniyeh on February 13th of 2008, by a car explosion in the middle of the Syrian capital, Damascus.
3. The assassination of Syrian Brigadier General Mohammed Suleiman, security adviser for Syria's President Bashar al-Assad, on August 1st of 2008. Brigadier Suleiman, 49, was shot dead at his chalet in the Rimal al-Zahabieh luxury resort nine miles north of the port city of Tartous on the Mediterranean.
4. The recent killing of a high rank Syrian officer who was extensively involved in Lebanon's late PM, Rafiq Al-Hariri's assassination. The officer was one of 17 other people who were killed and 24 injured by a devastating explosion that took place on the Damascus Airport highway this past September.
5. Bloody clashes in the Yarmouk Palestinian refugee camp near Damascus between Syrian security officers and what Syrian authorities described as a group of gunmen. Three of the gunmen and one security officer were killed, while another was injured as stated by the Syrian government.Observers questioned the timing of the US raid, speculated on its actual objectives and wondered why now and not before? Answers to this question varied according to their sources.
Many US and European media outlets interpreted the raid to be a fiery personal warning to President Assad saying that Syria's alliance with rogue Iran is no longer acceptable and that its harboring of fundamentalists and terrorists, notably al-Qaeda and Hezbollah, will not continue without a painful price and dire consequences.
Other western observers considered the raid to be a one-time operation that has no political motivation and came in the context of hundreds of similar military operations carried out by U.S. troops on the Syrian-Iraqi border since 2003.
The same observers were also puzzled by the disproportionate and unjustified Syrian media reaction and negative coverage.Some analysts even speculated that the Bush administration and the Pentagon aimed to give leverage to John McCain in his presidential campaign and warn the coming US president that certain restrictions and red lines should not be broken or overlooked if and when US negotiations with Syria and Iran take place.
Syrian and Iranian media as well their mercenary mouthpieces, the terrorists organizations in Lebanon and Gaza, notably Hezbollah and Hamas, alleged that the raid was a kind of psychological support for the US allies in the region. They interpreted it as a sign of weakness and a failure of the US Middle East democracy project!
Some anti-Syrian Lebanese politicians envisioned the entire US operation as a military pre-emptive deterrent for a Syrian plot to invade North Lebanon. This plot in the making was to attack anti-Syrian Lebanese masses and politicians under the guise of fighting Sunni terrorists that Syria alleges have taken refugee in North Lebanon.
In neighboring Israel, the Yediot Aharonot newspaper quoted an unnamed American source as saying: "The American raid was fully coordinated between the Syrian intelligence services and the United States in the realm of Syrian-US coordination in the ongoing war against al-Qaeda and its subsidiaries. The same argument was also adopted during the last few days by many other well known American and British media facilities.
(Sunday, November 02, 2008/News Agencies: BAGHDAD — Despite reports that Syria denounced a violent U.S. Special Operations raid that took place near the Iraq border last week, intelligence officials in Damascus may have approved the attack, the London Times reports. The operation, which was intended to be fast and bloodless, was meant to target Al Qaeda commander Badran Turki Hashim al-Mazidih — also known as Abu Ghadiya — an Iraqi-born terrorist in his late twenties, according to the paper. Syrian officials — who feared Ghadiya as a threat to the secular regime in Damascus — plotted to have U.S. forces kidnap him and take him to Iraq for questioning.
But the U.S.-led raid did not go as planned. A fierce gun battle broke out following the launch of a rocket-propelled grenade from a local American compound, blowing the cover on the covert operation. Eight people were reportedly killed in the raid, which Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Muallem called an act of "criminal and terrorist aggression." Officials could not confirm whether Abu Ghadiya was among the dead.)"Many experts on terrorism in the region applauded the much delayed American military response against the rogue Syria and openly encouraged the US to execute more of such raids.
Personally, we fully agree with this argument and consider that the raid came five years too late and that it was not strong enough. Accordingly, no matter what the raid's military and political motives and objectives, it was a very clear message to the Syrian Baathist regime officials, cautioning them to come to their senses and stop harboring terrorists and fundamentalists or otherwise face the consequences.
We strongly believe that it is time for all the free world governments, Sunni Arab regimes, Israel and the USA in particular, to begin speaking to the Axis of Evil countries and organizations, namely Syria, Iran, Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda, with the only language that they comprehend and understand; that being the language of force.
It is time to make the Syrian regime, the Mullahs of Iran, and all their proxy terrorist and fundamentalist organizations, understand very well and without any doubt that there will be dire prices and severe consequences for any criminal acts they commit, among of which is the change of the Syrian and Iranian regimes by force as was the situation with Iraq's dictator, Saddam Hussein.
Had the free world and the Arab Sunni countries adopted and implemented the courageous, straightforward and firm stances in their dealings with Iran, Syria, Hamas, Hezbollah and Al-Qaeda, including the use of strategic military force, the whole world would have been in a much better position of peace, thousands of lives would have been spared and trillions of dollars saved.
In the context of the global war against terrorism, it is worth shedding light on the Middle Eastern press trend of soft condemnation statement releases. These statements appear every time a rogue country, a terrorist group, or a terrorist individual or a leader is hit or captured.
These condemnations are trivial and are merely empty words and accordingly should not by any means be taken seriously by any country that is taking part in the waging of anti-terrorism war. Hundreds of such double standard releases were issued in Syria, Lebanon, Iran, Gaza, Russia and other countries in the aftermath of the US raid on the terrorist camp inside Syria.
They all ignored the fact that Syria is a breeding centre for all kinds of terrorist, Jihadists and fundamentalists among of which are Hezbollah, Hamas, Jund Al-Sham, Fateh Al-Islam, Al-Qaeda and many, many others.
The righteous and ethical condemnation should in fact be targeting the USA administration because of its failure to destroy Iran's nuclear reactors, overthrow the Syrian Baathist regime nor did it eradicate fundamentalist organizations, especially Hezbollah, that has erected a mini Iranian state inside Lebanon, crippling by force all Lebanese efforts to rebuild the country and reclaim its independence, freedom and sovereignty.
The USA, Europe, Israel and all other free world countries, as well as the Sunni Arab countries should once and for all forget their hesitation, fear, procrastination and double standards in regards to Iran, Syrian and all the terrorist organization that revolve in their orbit.
All these countries, specially the new US Obama administration should speak to the Axis of Evil countries and terrorists organizations the only language that they comprehend; the language of power and deterrence. All other means are futile and time-buying especially for the Syrian Baathist regime.
*Elias Bejjani
Canadian-Lebanese Human Rights activist, journalist and political commentator
Email phoenicia@hotmail.com
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Tuesday, October 21, 2008
Lebanon's refugees in Israel & the Lebanese Leaders' Questionable Credibility
By: Elias Bejjani*
October 22/08
We call on the Lebanese government and parliament to grant unconditional amnesty to the ex-members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) who sought refuge in neighboring Israel with their families after the unilateral withdrawal of the Israeli troops from South Lebanon in May 2000 in accordance with the UN Resolution 425.
A grant of amnesty is justified especially in light of the fact that (after Syrian troops were forced to withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with the UN Resolution 1559) the Lebanese parliament passed in 2005 an amnesty law that pardoned numerous leaders and individuals in a bid to pave the way for a comprehensive national milieu of reconciliation among the country's mosaic, multicultural communities that compose Lebanese society?In reality, the other Lebanese people throughout Lebanon have not endured the horrible injustice suffered by those Southern Lebanese citizens (Especially those living in the Southern security zone and Jezzine city).
For the last thirty years Lebanon's Southern citizens were and still are victims of alienation, assaults, persecution, expulsion and impoverishment, not only at the hands of terrorists and fundamentalist foreign and local militias, including the Iranian Army of Hezbollah, but most importantly as a result of complete abandonment by all successive Lebanese governments since 1975.
Lebanon's Southern citizens have been left to face all kinds of oppression alone since 1975. One wonders why the successive Lebanese governments and parliamentarians (since 2005) have declined to assume their national responsibilities regarding our refugees in Israel?
The Israeli government disarmed and forced the SLA militia to dismantle in 2000, just a few days before the withdrawal of its army from South Lebanon. Those SLA members who risked their lives and stayed in Lebanon were subjected to vigilantism and unfair trials, which resulted in harsh sentences and death penalties against more than 70 individuals. Others, who left Lebanon were sentenced in absentia and once they return to Lebanon will be arrested. Many of SLA's militia men are still deprived of their civil rights, while suffering persecution and poverty.With the Israeli pullout in May 2000, nearly 6,500 Lebanese men, along with members of their families, left the South and escaped to Israel and other countries (USA, Australia, Canada, Germany, etc.), forced to leave their homes, villages, and all their properties in fear for their lives.
Before the Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah waged a merciless and savage media campaign against them. The campaign was aired publicly on all local and international TV and radio stations. The most frightening threats were uttered by Hezbollah's General Secretary Sheik Nasrallah who savagely said, "We will enter their bedrooms, pierce their stomachs, slaughter them and slice their throats."
Since then about 4,000 of them have returned to Lebanon in successive waves during the last eight years. The Lebanese Army arrested the men who returned but let the women and children go. The men were interrogated, humiliated and the majority of them were sentenced to terms of imprisonment on charges of treason, collaboration, contacting an enemy and living in an enemy country. Their trials were a farce, biased and hasty. Many of those sentenced were stripped of their civil rights and forced to abandon their villages and cities. At the present time more than 2,500 remain in Israel, 500 of them have been granted Israeli citizenship and now run the risk of being imprisoned and charged with treason on returning home to Lebanon.
Numerous Lebanese MPs oppose amnesty. They allege, based on their sickening, selfish, psychotic and bizarre criteria--that the ex-SLA members have blood on their hands and should not be involved in any reconciliation process because they have been living in Israel for more than 8 years. They argue that such individuals could be tempted to spy for Israel. Those MPs who are patriotically alienated, hypocrites and Pharisees are sadly members in both, the pro-Lebanon and pro Syria-Iran political blocks (The 8th and the 14th March blocks).
Should former SLA members be pardoned like the rest of the numerous Lebanese militia leaders and members?
Yes, for sure. Not only that, but they should be decorated with medals of honor and welcomed back in their country as heroes. They did not betray Lebanon; they did not abandon their beloved land; they did not succumb to terrorists and terrorism and, in fact, they were the only organized Lebanese Militia that fought terrorists and terrorism since 1975, against the PLO, all the leftists, and Arabists in the early years and afterwards Hezbollah. Their fight was for peace, dignity, human rights and national identity.
The biased and inhumane stance of those against amnesty does not take in consideration that these people, our people of the South, have been forced to flee from their villages in 2000, out of fear that they might be subjected to reprisals on the part of those who accused them of having played the enemy's game.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and others deny the fact that SLA was composed of Lebanese citizens from all walks of life, religions and denominations. The Lebanese army helped in its formation in the mid seventies in a bid to defend the southern villages, cities and towns against terrorists and fundamentalists: the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), leftists and Arabists in the seventies and eighties, and Hezbollah since 1982.
The aim of all these organizations was--and continues to be--the destruction of Lebanon's freedoms, democracy and independence and the waging of a terrorist guerrilla war against Israel.These criminal threats against Lebanon's own were real, clear, unequivocal and are well documented.
Those who are now justifying the threats as legitimate war tactics should not dismiss the fact that during the last thirty years the Lebanese people suffered on the hands of Syria, PLO, Hezbollah and Arabists ugly massacres in many villages and cities, e.g. Ayshiya in the South, Kaa in Bekaa, in the capital Beirut, in Kehali, Ebadiea, Araya, Bmariem, in the Mount, and Damour in AlChouf etc.Addressing the Issue of our refugees in Israel was a taboo imposed by the Syrian occupier, and the fundamentalists before 2005. But now that Syria does not occupy Lebanon any more, this taboo must and should be washed out and the case re-opened.We appeal to the Lebanese parliament and to all the Lebanese leadership, without exception, especially to the Christian parties to assume their national and moral responsibilities in regard to our refugees in Israel. We call for the formation of a judicial-parliamentary commission to study this bleeding issue and shed light on all its aspects.
We wonder about the standards of patriotism, collaboration and treason by which our Southern refugees are judged. We ask to be informed accurately on the destiny of those leaders, clergy men, politicians, officials, individuals and groups, especially Hezbollah, if we are to apply these same standards to them after we dissect their actions and their regional relationships and objectives along with all the atrocities their hands have committed, and they are plenty.Most of those who tag SLA members as traitors are in fact criminals, kidnappers, terrorists and have committed notorious terrorist, anti-human acts of killing, persecution, kidnapping, thievery, bribery, collaboration with foreign powers, beheading and hanging of our fellow citizens. Because a human must take a stand, the national and human duty requires that all Lebanese leaders and groups publicly declare their clear positions on the issues of our refugees in Israel and the Diaspora. Hidden ruses, internalizations, and clever wordings will not fool the Lebanese anymore; as it was stated in the Bible about halfhearted, Laodicean followers of God in the last days of earth's history:
"I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16)Because the tenants of justice presume that one is innocent until proven guilty, we advise those who have appointed themselves as judges, juries and hangmen, and who have started issuing judgments and verdicts according to their standards and beliefs to fear God and repent, because God is patient but not negligent, and with the Nazarene we tell them loudly; "Who amongst you has no sin, throw the first stone".
Lord, save our homeland, Lebanon, from evil and calamities.
Lord, return all our people to the land of the Cedars, proud and welcomed.
Lord, keep away the diseases of blindness and arrogance from our people.'
*Elias BejjaniHuman Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
Writer's LCCC Web Site: http://www.10452lccc.com
Writers Face Book LCCC group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17974722934
October 22/08
We call on the Lebanese government and parliament to grant unconditional amnesty to the ex-members of the South Lebanon Army (SLA) who sought refuge in neighboring Israel with their families after the unilateral withdrawal of the Israeli troops from South Lebanon in May 2000 in accordance with the UN Resolution 425.
A grant of amnesty is justified especially in light of the fact that (after Syrian troops were forced to withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with the UN Resolution 1559) the Lebanese parliament passed in 2005 an amnesty law that pardoned numerous leaders and individuals in a bid to pave the way for a comprehensive national milieu of reconciliation among the country's mosaic, multicultural communities that compose Lebanese society?In reality, the other Lebanese people throughout Lebanon have not endured the horrible injustice suffered by those Southern Lebanese citizens (Especially those living in the Southern security zone and Jezzine city).
For the last thirty years Lebanon's Southern citizens were and still are victims of alienation, assaults, persecution, expulsion and impoverishment, not only at the hands of terrorists and fundamentalist foreign and local militias, including the Iranian Army of Hezbollah, but most importantly as a result of complete abandonment by all successive Lebanese governments since 1975.
Lebanon's Southern citizens have been left to face all kinds of oppression alone since 1975. One wonders why the successive Lebanese governments and parliamentarians (since 2005) have declined to assume their national responsibilities regarding our refugees in Israel?
The Israeli government disarmed and forced the SLA militia to dismantle in 2000, just a few days before the withdrawal of its army from South Lebanon. Those SLA members who risked their lives and stayed in Lebanon were subjected to vigilantism and unfair trials, which resulted in harsh sentences and death penalties against more than 70 individuals. Others, who left Lebanon were sentenced in absentia and once they return to Lebanon will be arrested. Many of SLA's militia men are still deprived of their civil rights, while suffering persecution and poverty.With the Israeli pullout in May 2000, nearly 6,500 Lebanese men, along with members of their families, left the South and escaped to Israel and other countries (USA, Australia, Canada, Germany, etc.), forced to leave their homes, villages, and all their properties in fear for their lives.
Before the Israeli withdrawal, Hezbollah waged a merciless and savage media campaign against them. The campaign was aired publicly on all local and international TV and radio stations. The most frightening threats were uttered by Hezbollah's General Secretary Sheik Nasrallah who savagely said, "We will enter their bedrooms, pierce their stomachs, slaughter them and slice their throats."
Since then about 4,000 of them have returned to Lebanon in successive waves during the last eight years. The Lebanese Army arrested the men who returned but let the women and children go. The men were interrogated, humiliated and the majority of them were sentenced to terms of imprisonment on charges of treason, collaboration, contacting an enemy and living in an enemy country. Their trials were a farce, biased and hasty. Many of those sentenced were stripped of their civil rights and forced to abandon their villages and cities. At the present time more than 2,500 remain in Israel, 500 of them have been granted Israeli citizenship and now run the risk of being imprisoned and charged with treason on returning home to Lebanon.
Numerous Lebanese MPs oppose amnesty. They allege, based on their sickening, selfish, psychotic and bizarre criteria--that the ex-SLA members have blood on their hands and should not be involved in any reconciliation process because they have been living in Israel for more than 8 years. They argue that such individuals could be tempted to spy for Israel. Those MPs who are patriotically alienated, hypocrites and Pharisees are sadly members in both, the pro-Lebanon and pro Syria-Iran political blocks (The 8th and the 14th March blocks).
Should former SLA members be pardoned like the rest of the numerous Lebanese militia leaders and members?
Yes, for sure. Not only that, but they should be decorated with medals of honor and welcomed back in their country as heroes. They did not betray Lebanon; they did not abandon their beloved land; they did not succumb to terrorists and terrorism and, in fact, they were the only organized Lebanese Militia that fought terrorists and terrorism since 1975, against the PLO, all the leftists, and Arabists in the early years and afterwards Hezbollah. Their fight was for peace, dignity, human rights and national identity.
The biased and inhumane stance of those against amnesty does not take in consideration that these people, our people of the South, have been forced to flee from their villages in 2000, out of fear that they might be subjected to reprisals on the part of those who accused them of having played the enemy's game.
Sheik Hassan Nasrallah and others deny the fact that SLA was composed of Lebanese citizens from all walks of life, religions and denominations. The Lebanese army helped in its formation in the mid seventies in a bid to defend the southern villages, cities and towns against terrorists and fundamentalists: the PLO (Palestinian Liberation Organization), leftists and Arabists in the seventies and eighties, and Hezbollah since 1982.
The aim of all these organizations was--and continues to be--the destruction of Lebanon's freedoms, democracy and independence and the waging of a terrorist guerrilla war against Israel.These criminal threats against Lebanon's own were real, clear, unequivocal and are well documented.
Those who are now justifying the threats as legitimate war tactics should not dismiss the fact that during the last thirty years the Lebanese people suffered on the hands of Syria, PLO, Hezbollah and Arabists ugly massacres in many villages and cities, e.g. Ayshiya in the South, Kaa in Bekaa, in the capital Beirut, in Kehali, Ebadiea, Araya, Bmariem, in the Mount, and Damour in AlChouf etc.Addressing the Issue of our refugees in Israel was a taboo imposed by the Syrian occupier, and the fundamentalists before 2005. But now that Syria does not occupy Lebanon any more, this taboo must and should be washed out and the case re-opened.We appeal to the Lebanese parliament and to all the Lebanese leadership, without exception, especially to the Christian parties to assume their national and moral responsibilities in regard to our refugees in Israel. We call for the formation of a judicial-parliamentary commission to study this bleeding issue and shed light on all its aspects.
We wonder about the standards of patriotism, collaboration and treason by which our Southern refugees are judged. We ask to be informed accurately on the destiny of those leaders, clergy men, politicians, officials, individuals and groups, especially Hezbollah, if we are to apply these same standards to them after we dissect their actions and their regional relationships and objectives along with all the atrocities their hands have committed, and they are plenty.Most of those who tag SLA members as traitors are in fact criminals, kidnappers, terrorists and have committed notorious terrorist, anti-human acts of killing, persecution, kidnapping, thievery, bribery, collaboration with foreign powers, beheading and hanging of our fellow citizens. Because a human must take a stand, the national and human duty requires that all Lebanese leaders and groups publicly declare their clear positions on the issues of our refugees in Israel and the Diaspora. Hidden ruses, internalizations, and clever wordings will not fool the Lebanese anymore; as it was stated in the Bible about halfhearted, Laodicean followers of God in the last days of earth's history:
"I know your works: you are neither cold nor hot. Would that you were either cold or hot! So, because you are lukewarm, and neither hot nor cold, I will spit you out of my mouth." (Revelation 3:15-16)Because the tenants of justice presume that one is innocent until proven guilty, we advise those who have appointed themselves as judges, juries and hangmen, and who have started issuing judgments and verdicts according to their standards and beliefs to fear God and repent, because God is patient but not negligent, and with the Nazarene we tell them loudly; "Who amongst you has no sin, throw the first stone".
Lord, save our homeland, Lebanon, from evil and calamities.
Lord, return all our people to the land of the Cedars, proud and welcomed.
Lord, keep away the diseases of blindness and arrogance from our people.'
*Elias BejjaniHuman Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
Writer's LCCC Web Site: http://www.10452lccc.com
Writers Face Book LCCC group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17974722934
Saturday, October 11, 2008
October 13, & Lebanon's Heroes
By: Elias Bejjani
On October 13, 1990 the Syrian Army savagely invaded the last remaining free regions of Lebanon, killed and mutilated hundreds of Lebanese soldiers and innocent citizens in cold blooded murder, kidnapped tens of soldiers, officers, clergymen, politicians and citizens, and erected a subservient and puppet regime fully controlled by its security intelligence headquarters in Damascus. Since then, we commemorate the painful event each year on October 13.
In year 2005 the Syrian Army was forced to withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with the UNSC Resolution 1559, but its proxy Lebanese and Palestinian armed militias still run and fully control numerous mini states inside the state of Lebanon. They are hindering the Lebanese people from completely reclaiming their independence, freedom and sovereignty. The Terrorist Hezbollah Militia is the Syrian-Iranian spearhead in this axis of evil notorious scheme against Lebanon and the Lebanese.
Eighteen years since the desecration of the People’s Palace (presidential Palace) by the horde of Syrian Baathist gangs, Mafiosi, militias, and other corrupt mercenaries of Tamerlane invaders vintage. The soldiers of our valiant army were tortured and butchered in the cities of Bsous, Aley, Kahhale, and other bastions of resistance. Our most precious of possessions, our freedom, was raped in broad daylight, while the free world and all the Arab countries at that time watched in silence.
With this remembrance, a journey back to the true identity of Lebanon has begun through UNSC Resolution 1559, which has crowned a long and difficult struggle by an elite of free patriots from the Land of the Cedars. In a violent Middle East, they raised the struggle for a free Lebanon to the standards of a civilized, peaceful, and non-violent resistance in spite of the obstacles and difficulties along the way. And here they are today, their hopes and aspirations saluted and raised by the free world through the Security Council and its pro-free Lebanon Resolutions (1559 & 1701), in a genuine bid to lift the yoke of enslavement, and with it the shroud of misinformation, off of a free nation and a sovereign people.
This remembrance won’t pass without wiping the tears of sorrow and pain for those loved ones who left this world and others who emigrated to its far-flung corners. For a lifetime of hard work wiped out overnight, for the destroyed villages and towns that dot our hills, for the closed factories, for the fields that lay fallow and dry, for our children who lost their innocence, and for all that we had but which was lost. Yet we are a tough and hopeful people, and no matter the sacrifices and the pain, we are today even more determined with our strong faith to redeem our freedom, and bring to justice all those who accepted to be the dirty tools of the conspiracy that has been destroying, humiliating, and tormenting our country since 1976.
Meanwhile the lessons of October 13 are many and they are all glorious. The free of our people, civilians and military, ordinary citizens and leaders, all stood tall and strong in turning back the aggression of the barbarians at the gate. They resisted valiantly and courageously, writing with their own blood long epics that will not be soon forgotten by their children and grandchildren and other students of history. They refused to sign on an agreement of surrender and oppression, and spoke up against the shame of capitulation.
On October 13, on the eighteenth commemoration of the Syrian invasion to Lebanon's free regions, we shall pray for the souls of all those Lebanese comrades whofell in the battles of confrontation, for all our citizens who are arbitrarily detained in Syria's notorious jails, for the safe and dignified return of our refugees from Israel, for the return of peace to the homeland, and for the repentance of Lebanon's leaders and politicians who for personal gains have turned against their own people, negated their declared convictions, downtrodden their freedom and liberation slogans, sided with the Axis of evil (Syria, Iran) and forged an alliance with Hezbollah whose ultimate aim is to replicate the Iranian Mullahs' regime in Lebanon.'
But in spite of the Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon in year 2005, old and new Syrian-made Lebanese puppets continue to trade demagogy and spread incitement, profiting from people’s economic needs and the absence of the state's law and order. Thanks to the Iranian petro dollars, their consciences are numbed, and their bank accounts and pockets inflated. Sadly, among those is General Michele Aoun who after his return from exile to Lebanon in 2005 has bizarrely transformed from an staunched patriotic Lebanese leader and advocate for freedom and peace, into a Syrian-Iranian allay and a loud mouthpiece for their axis of evil schemes and conspiracies.General Aoun like the rest of the pro-Syrian-Iranian Lebanese politicians and leaders care only for his position, personal interests, and greed.
In the eyes of the patriotic Lebanese, Aoun and the rest of those conscienceless creatures are nothing but robots and dirty instruments bent on Lebanon's destabilization, blocking the return of peace and order to its people, aborting the mission of the international forces and the UN security council (UNSC) resolutions, in particular resolutions 1559 and 1701.
They are hired by the axis of evil nations and organizations to keep our homeland, the land of the Holy Cedars, an arena and a backyard for “The Wars of the Others”, a base for chaos and a breeding culture for hatred, terrorism, hostility and fundamentalism.In this year's commemoration we proudly hail and remember the passing and disappearance of hundreds of our people, civilian, military, and religious personnel who gladly sacrified themselves on Lebanon’s altar in defense of freedom, dignity and identity, we raise our prayers for the rest of their souls and for the safe return of all our prisoners held arbitrarily in the dungeons of the Syrian Baath.
We ask for consolation to all their families, hoping that their grand sacrifices were not in vain, now that prominent leaders and politicians of that era changed sides and joined the killers after the liberation of the country. Those Pharisees were in positions of responsibility to safeguard the nation and its dignity, and were entrusted to defend the identity, the homeland and the beliefs.Our martyrs, the living and dead alike, must be rolling in anger in their graves and in the Syrian Baath dungeons as they witness these leaders today, especially General Michele Aoun, upon whom they laid their hope, fall into the gutter of cheap politics.
General Aoun reversed all his theses and slogans and joined the same powers that invaded the free Lebanon region on October 13, 1990. He selectively had forgotten who he is and who his people are, and negated everything he advocated and lobbied for.What truly saddens us is the continuing suffering of our refugees in Israel since 2000 despite all the recent developments. This is due to the stark servitude of those Lebanese Leaders and politicians on whom we held our hopes for a courageous resolution to this humane problem. '
Instead, they shed their responsibilities and voided the cause from its humane content, and furthermore, in order to satisfy their alliances with fundamentalists and radicals, they betrayed their own people and the cause of Lebanon by agreeing to label our heroic southern refugees as criminals.
Our refugees in Israel are the ultimate Lebanese patriots who did no wrong, but who simply suffered for 30 years trying to defend their land, their homes, their children and their dignity against Syria and the hordes of Islamic fundamentalists, outlaw Palestinian militias, and even renegade battalions of the Lebanese Army itself that seceded from the government to fight alongside the outlaw organizations and militias against Lebanon, the Lebanese State and the Lebanese people.
For our fallen heroes who gave themselves in sacrifice at the altar of Lebanon on October 13, we pray and make the pledge of living with our heads high, so that Lebanon remains the homeland of dignity and pride, the message of truth, the cradle of civility and giving, and the crucible of culture and civilizations. He who has God by his side, whose weapon is the truth, and whose faith is like the rock, shall never be vanquished.
*Elias BejjaniHuman Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
Writer's LCCC Web Site: http://www.10452lccc.com
Writers Face Book LCCC group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17974722934
On October 13, 1990 the Syrian Army savagely invaded the last remaining free regions of Lebanon, killed and mutilated hundreds of Lebanese soldiers and innocent citizens in cold blooded murder, kidnapped tens of soldiers, officers, clergymen, politicians and citizens, and erected a subservient and puppet regime fully controlled by its security intelligence headquarters in Damascus. Since then, we commemorate the painful event each year on October 13.
In year 2005 the Syrian Army was forced to withdraw from Lebanon in accordance with the UNSC Resolution 1559, but its proxy Lebanese and Palestinian armed militias still run and fully control numerous mini states inside the state of Lebanon. They are hindering the Lebanese people from completely reclaiming their independence, freedom and sovereignty. The Terrorist Hezbollah Militia is the Syrian-Iranian spearhead in this axis of evil notorious scheme against Lebanon and the Lebanese.
Eighteen years since the desecration of the People’s Palace (presidential Palace) by the horde of Syrian Baathist gangs, Mafiosi, militias, and other corrupt mercenaries of Tamerlane invaders vintage. The soldiers of our valiant army were tortured and butchered in the cities of Bsous, Aley, Kahhale, and other bastions of resistance. Our most precious of possessions, our freedom, was raped in broad daylight, while the free world and all the Arab countries at that time watched in silence.
With this remembrance, a journey back to the true identity of Lebanon has begun through UNSC Resolution 1559, which has crowned a long and difficult struggle by an elite of free patriots from the Land of the Cedars. In a violent Middle East, they raised the struggle for a free Lebanon to the standards of a civilized, peaceful, and non-violent resistance in spite of the obstacles and difficulties along the way. And here they are today, their hopes and aspirations saluted and raised by the free world through the Security Council and its pro-free Lebanon Resolutions (1559 & 1701), in a genuine bid to lift the yoke of enslavement, and with it the shroud of misinformation, off of a free nation and a sovereign people.
This remembrance won’t pass without wiping the tears of sorrow and pain for those loved ones who left this world and others who emigrated to its far-flung corners. For a lifetime of hard work wiped out overnight, for the destroyed villages and towns that dot our hills, for the closed factories, for the fields that lay fallow and dry, for our children who lost their innocence, and for all that we had but which was lost. Yet we are a tough and hopeful people, and no matter the sacrifices and the pain, we are today even more determined with our strong faith to redeem our freedom, and bring to justice all those who accepted to be the dirty tools of the conspiracy that has been destroying, humiliating, and tormenting our country since 1976.
Meanwhile the lessons of October 13 are many and they are all glorious. The free of our people, civilians and military, ordinary citizens and leaders, all stood tall and strong in turning back the aggression of the barbarians at the gate. They resisted valiantly and courageously, writing with their own blood long epics that will not be soon forgotten by their children and grandchildren and other students of history. They refused to sign on an agreement of surrender and oppression, and spoke up against the shame of capitulation.
On October 13, on the eighteenth commemoration of the Syrian invasion to Lebanon's free regions, we shall pray for the souls of all those Lebanese comrades whofell in the battles of confrontation, for all our citizens who are arbitrarily detained in Syria's notorious jails, for the safe and dignified return of our refugees from Israel, for the return of peace to the homeland, and for the repentance of Lebanon's leaders and politicians who for personal gains have turned against their own people, negated their declared convictions, downtrodden their freedom and liberation slogans, sided with the Axis of evil (Syria, Iran) and forged an alliance with Hezbollah whose ultimate aim is to replicate the Iranian Mullahs' regime in Lebanon.'
But in spite of the Syrian military withdrawal from Lebanon in year 2005, old and new Syrian-made Lebanese puppets continue to trade demagogy and spread incitement, profiting from people’s economic needs and the absence of the state's law and order. Thanks to the Iranian petro dollars, their consciences are numbed, and their bank accounts and pockets inflated. Sadly, among those is General Michele Aoun who after his return from exile to Lebanon in 2005 has bizarrely transformed from an staunched patriotic Lebanese leader and advocate for freedom and peace, into a Syrian-Iranian allay and a loud mouthpiece for their axis of evil schemes and conspiracies.General Aoun like the rest of the pro-Syrian-Iranian Lebanese politicians and leaders care only for his position, personal interests, and greed.
In the eyes of the patriotic Lebanese, Aoun and the rest of those conscienceless creatures are nothing but robots and dirty instruments bent on Lebanon's destabilization, blocking the return of peace and order to its people, aborting the mission of the international forces and the UN security council (UNSC) resolutions, in particular resolutions 1559 and 1701.
They are hired by the axis of evil nations and organizations to keep our homeland, the land of the Holy Cedars, an arena and a backyard for “The Wars of the Others”, a base for chaos and a breeding culture for hatred, terrorism, hostility and fundamentalism.In this year's commemoration we proudly hail and remember the passing and disappearance of hundreds of our people, civilian, military, and religious personnel who gladly sacrified themselves on Lebanon’s altar in defense of freedom, dignity and identity, we raise our prayers for the rest of their souls and for the safe return of all our prisoners held arbitrarily in the dungeons of the Syrian Baath.
We ask for consolation to all their families, hoping that their grand sacrifices were not in vain, now that prominent leaders and politicians of that era changed sides and joined the killers after the liberation of the country. Those Pharisees were in positions of responsibility to safeguard the nation and its dignity, and were entrusted to defend the identity, the homeland and the beliefs.Our martyrs, the living and dead alike, must be rolling in anger in their graves and in the Syrian Baath dungeons as they witness these leaders today, especially General Michele Aoun, upon whom they laid their hope, fall into the gutter of cheap politics.
General Aoun reversed all his theses and slogans and joined the same powers that invaded the free Lebanon region on October 13, 1990. He selectively had forgotten who he is and who his people are, and negated everything he advocated and lobbied for.What truly saddens us is the continuing suffering of our refugees in Israel since 2000 despite all the recent developments. This is due to the stark servitude of those Lebanese Leaders and politicians on whom we held our hopes for a courageous resolution to this humane problem. '
Instead, they shed their responsibilities and voided the cause from its humane content, and furthermore, in order to satisfy their alliances with fundamentalists and radicals, they betrayed their own people and the cause of Lebanon by agreeing to label our heroic southern refugees as criminals.
Our refugees in Israel are the ultimate Lebanese patriots who did no wrong, but who simply suffered for 30 years trying to defend their land, their homes, their children and their dignity against Syria and the hordes of Islamic fundamentalists, outlaw Palestinian militias, and even renegade battalions of the Lebanese Army itself that seceded from the government to fight alongside the outlaw organizations and militias against Lebanon, the Lebanese State and the Lebanese people.
For our fallen heroes who gave themselves in sacrifice at the altar of Lebanon on October 13, we pray and make the pledge of living with our heads high, so that Lebanon remains the homeland of dignity and pride, the message of truth, the cradle of civility and giving, and the crucible of culture and civilizations. He who has God by his side, whose weapon is the truth, and whose faith is like the rock, shall never be vanquished.
*Elias BejjaniHuman Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
Writer's LCCC Web Site: http://www.10452lccc.com
Writers Face Book LCCC group http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17974722934
Saturday, September 20, 2008
The Need to Contain Iran & Hezbollah before it is too lateBy: Elias Bejjani*
By: Elias Bejjani
Hezbollah, the Iranian terrorist militant and fundamentalist organization, is now actually occupying Lebanon, controlling its government and terrorizing its peace loving people. This Iranian mercenary Army by all means and according to all standards is like a wild and cannibal beast gradually devouring Lebanon, the independent, free and multicultural state.
It is viciously annihilating Lebanon's distinguishable identity, forging its deeply rooted rich history, tarnishing its unique co-existence entity, disintegrating the basis of its civil society, infiltrating and destabilizing sneakily its governmental and private institutions in an evilly orchestrated and systematized Syrian-Iran Scheme.
While this crime is being overtly and bluntly committed against Lebanon and the Lebanese people, the so called moderate Arabic countries, the European Union, the state of Israel, the US, The UN, and the rest of the Free World nations are all indifferently watching this horrible crime and keeping a blind eye on the whole mockery.
They shamefully had limited the horizons of their stances to mere rhetoric and context-empty press releases and statements of condemnation.
They are all mainly acting selfishly, naively while deluding and deceiving themselves. They are falling easy preys to a wrong, self-centered, irresponsible and misleading political concept that hypothetically says: "As long as this beast remains far away from our backyards, let him devour whoever it can capture or hunt"!! What a juvenile, derailed, alienated, sickening and reality-history detached thinking and rationale!!
What is currently and sadly unfolding in Lebanon and Iran is a replicate of the Hitler-Nazi phenomenon. Most European nations, as well as many other influential countries had falsely deceived themselves into believing that Hitler's aggressiveness and greed could be cajoled and appeased by some kind of subjection here and there.
They did not take his territorial expansionist schemes seriously, and failed to contain his madness when they were still capable of doing so. They initially did not unite to encounter his many invasions to neighboring countries, and when they decided to do so and move from the defensive to the offensive strategy, it was too late.
Their appeasement forced the whole free world to sacrifice dozens of millions of lives, in addition to massive destruction, huge financial losses, and laborious years of horrible wars, agony, and suffering, before Hitler was defeated. Luckily he could not acquire the atomic bomb before the USA, otherwise, he would have destroyed the whole globe.
The question that every sensible man and woman is asking with fear and frustration, is when would the Free World countries, specially the USA and Europe will deal with Iran, and its proxy army in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and either tam or eradicate their teeth so they can no longer be a threat to civilization, humanity and world-wide prosperity, stability and peace?
Are they going to repeat the same wait and see cowardice scenario they applied with the Hitler-Nazi phenomenon?
Are they going to wait for the emergence of another Winston Churchill to cement their scattered efforts, pinpoint the main threat, and lead them in an costly offensive war after Iran's acquisition of nuclear capabilities? Hopefully not, because extraordinary, farsighted, and Godly gifted leaders are not born every day.
While Iran is fooling and ridiculing the UN and all the whole free world, it adamantly continues its stringent evil strive to acquire its atomic bomb, and its proxy army in Lebanon, Hezbollah, is tightening more and more its military grip on Lebanon, the government and the people. One would not be exaggerating to state that Hezbollah is actually occupying Lebanon.
The most dangerous facets of this occupation can be plainly witnessed all over Lebanon in the cultural and educational domains. Hezbollah via religious decrees (Fatawa), money, intimidation and weapons, is forcing the Iranian Mullah's life style on the whole country. Its militant ongoing endeavors to impose this stone age life style is on the rise all over the country, especially in side the canton that it rules and fully controls.
Hezbollah's education, life style and culture are totally derived from the Iranian Mullah's “Wilayat al-Faqih” religious-sectarian doctrine. The main pillars of this doctrine are zero tolerance for all others who are different in any sphere and do not fully fall under its control, mere rejection of the civil, democratic and free societies, a systematized tireless strive to export the ”Wilayat al-Faqih" and impose it on the whole world through "Jihad" (holy war), deeply rooted hatred for the western democracies and cultures, staunched enmity and hostility towards the USA and Israel and suicide mentality. One of its prime aims is to destroy Israel and "Liberate" the Holy city of Jerusalem.
Hezbollah, by force and terrorism is hindering Lebanon from regaining its independence, peace and stability on all levels and in all domains. It refuses to disarm or allow the central government take control over the cantons that it has erected and keeps ruling with an iron fist.
In the same realm of the on going series of orchestrated assaults against the country, the people and its institutions, on the 28th of last month Hezbollah's militants fired on a Lebanese army helicopter in the Southern region killing with cold blood one of its two pilots under the pretext that it had crossed the red lines drawn by its leadership.
Meanwhile many independent Lebanese observers strongly believe that Hezbollah is behind most of the assassinations and assassination attempts that took place in the country since 2005 and targeted members in the parliament, journalists, cabinet ministers, politicians, and army - internal security officers.
Defiant Hezbollah's General Secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, declared in a televised speech earlier this month that his militant militia will keep its arms even if Shebaa farms were liberated, "Shebaa farms are not the reason to keep our weapons; if the farms were liberated, the weapons will stay," Nasrallah said.
Hezbollah leaders had repeatedly said in the past that the party's arms are aimed at liberating Lebanese occupied lands, mainly the remaining Shebaa farms in south Lebanon. Nasrallah, however, said Hezbollah will not give up its weapons "as long as Israeli threat persists," threatening that his group will destroy Israel if it launches an attack on Lebanon. "The five brigades (which Israel said it will use) will be destroyed," he added. This comes at the heel of another statement when he promised the world "a victory that will change the face of the Middle East". '
Hezbollah has imposed on Lebanon Its own criteria for heroism, martyrdom, treason and patriotism. Recently, it glorified publicly the notorious killer, Samir Kuntar who was surprisingly released by Israel. It gave him a hero's welcome, dragging behind its leadership the country's president, house speaker, Prime Minister and the majority of the MP's and politicians.
In the realm of derailing Heroism and criminal standards, Hezbollah is portraying, Imad Mugniyah, one of its high ranging militants, that was killed in Syria earlier this year, as a great militant leader and Jihadi Martyr.
it has erected an exhibition to advocate for this educational derailment and worked hard to give it an extensive media coverage. In a letter to the New York Times published on September 06/08 Abraham H. Foxman commenting on Hezbollah's war exhibition opened in the Lebanese Southern City of Nabatiye said: "Hezbollah’s shrine to the slain terrorist mastermind Imad Mugniyah demonstrates how terrorist groups use and indoctrinate children into their blood-soaked culture of hatred, martyrdom and violence. It also offers a real glimpse at the stark realities facing Lebanon, Israel and the international community.
It is frightening that a group that perpetrates and venerates deadly terrorism is set to take on a leading role in Lebanon’s transitional government, with cabinet seats and veto power. And if there was any doubt that Hezbollah is rebuilding its arsenal in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon war, the high-tech rockets and other munitions on display in Nabatiye should serve as a wake-up call to world leaders about the continuing threat that this Iranian-backed group poses to Israel, Lebanon and the entire region".
We, again and again, call on the free world and the so called "moderate Arabic Countries" to wake up from their coma of hesitation and procrastination, and take note that the Lebanese people and their government are unable under any given circumstances to contain or disarm Hezbollah militarily on their own. If Lebanon is not rescued, Hezbollah will soon turn it into a replicate of the Iranian's Mullaha's republic.
Meanwhile Iran's serious Hitler-Nazi like phenomenon threats to the world needs to be addressed as soon as possible with all available means, especially the military ones before it is too late. The battle with Iran and its Hezbollah proxy is inevitable, Accordingly the sooner the better, and lesser losses will be incurred.
*Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
Hezbollah, the Iranian terrorist militant and fundamentalist organization, is now actually occupying Lebanon, controlling its government and terrorizing its peace loving people. This Iranian mercenary Army by all means and according to all standards is like a wild and cannibal beast gradually devouring Lebanon, the independent, free and multicultural state.
It is viciously annihilating Lebanon's distinguishable identity, forging its deeply rooted rich history, tarnishing its unique co-existence entity, disintegrating the basis of its civil society, infiltrating and destabilizing sneakily its governmental and private institutions in an evilly orchestrated and systematized Syrian-Iran Scheme.
While this crime is being overtly and bluntly committed against Lebanon and the Lebanese people, the so called moderate Arabic countries, the European Union, the state of Israel, the US, The UN, and the rest of the Free World nations are all indifferently watching this horrible crime and keeping a blind eye on the whole mockery.
They shamefully had limited the horizons of their stances to mere rhetoric and context-empty press releases and statements of condemnation.
They are all mainly acting selfishly, naively while deluding and deceiving themselves. They are falling easy preys to a wrong, self-centered, irresponsible and misleading political concept that hypothetically says: "As long as this beast remains far away from our backyards, let him devour whoever it can capture or hunt"!! What a juvenile, derailed, alienated, sickening and reality-history detached thinking and rationale!!
What is currently and sadly unfolding in Lebanon and Iran is a replicate of the Hitler-Nazi phenomenon. Most European nations, as well as many other influential countries had falsely deceived themselves into believing that Hitler's aggressiveness and greed could be cajoled and appeased by some kind of subjection here and there.
They did not take his territorial expansionist schemes seriously, and failed to contain his madness when they were still capable of doing so. They initially did not unite to encounter his many invasions to neighboring countries, and when they decided to do so and move from the defensive to the offensive strategy, it was too late.
Their appeasement forced the whole free world to sacrifice dozens of millions of lives, in addition to massive destruction, huge financial losses, and laborious years of horrible wars, agony, and suffering, before Hitler was defeated. Luckily he could not acquire the atomic bomb before the USA, otherwise, he would have destroyed the whole globe.
The question that every sensible man and woman is asking with fear and frustration, is when would the Free World countries, specially the USA and Europe will deal with Iran, and its proxy army in Lebanon, Hezbollah, and either tam or eradicate their teeth so they can no longer be a threat to civilization, humanity and world-wide prosperity, stability and peace?
Are they going to repeat the same wait and see cowardice scenario they applied with the Hitler-Nazi phenomenon?
Are they going to wait for the emergence of another Winston Churchill to cement their scattered efforts, pinpoint the main threat, and lead them in an costly offensive war after Iran's acquisition of nuclear capabilities? Hopefully not, because extraordinary, farsighted, and Godly gifted leaders are not born every day.
While Iran is fooling and ridiculing the UN and all the whole free world, it adamantly continues its stringent evil strive to acquire its atomic bomb, and its proxy army in Lebanon, Hezbollah, is tightening more and more its military grip on Lebanon, the government and the people. One would not be exaggerating to state that Hezbollah is actually occupying Lebanon.
The most dangerous facets of this occupation can be plainly witnessed all over Lebanon in the cultural and educational domains. Hezbollah via religious decrees (Fatawa), money, intimidation and weapons, is forcing the Iranian Mullah's life style on the whole country. Its militant ongoing endeavors to impose this stone age life style is on the rise all over the country, especially in side the canton that it rules and fully controls.
Hezbollah's education, life style and culture are totally derived from the Iranian Mullah's “Wilayat al-Faqih” religious-sectarian doctrine. The main pillars of this doctrine are zero tolerance for all others who are different in any sphere and do not fully fall under its control, mere rejection of the civil, democratic and free societies, a systematized tireless strive to export the ”Wilayat al-Faqih" and impose it on the whole world through "Jihad" (holy war), deeply rooted hatred for the western democracies and cultures, staunched enmity and hostility towards the USA and Israel and suicide mentality. One of its prime aims is to destroy Israel and "Liberate" the Holy city of Jerusalem.
Hezbollah, by force and terrorism is hindering Lebanon from regaining its independence, peace and stability on all levels and in all domains. It refuses to disarm or allow the central government take control over the cantons that it has erected and keeps ruling with an iron fist.
In the same realm of the on going series of orchestrated assaults against the country, the people and its institutions, on the 28th of last month Hezbollah's militants fired on a Lebanese army helicopter in the Southern region killing with cold blood one of its two pilots under the pretext that it had crossed the red lines drawn by its leadership.
Meanwhile many independent Lebanese observers strongly believe that Hezbollah is behind most of the assassinations and assassination attempts that took place in the country since 2005 and targeted members in the parliament, journalists, cabinet ministers, politicians, and army - internal security officers.
Defiant Hezbollah's General Secretary, Hassan Nasrallah, declared in a televised speech earlier this month that his militant militia will keep its arms even if Shebaa farms were liberated, "Shebaa farms are not the reason to keep our weapons; if the farms were liberated, the weapons will stay," Nasrallah said.
Hezbollah leaders had repeatedly said in the past that the party's arms are aimed at liberating Lebanese occupied lands, mainly the remaining Shebaa farms in south Lebanon. Nasrallah, however, said Hezbollah will not give up its weapons "as long as Israeli threat persists," threatening that his group will destroy Israel if it launches an attack on Lebanon. "The five brigades (which Israel said it will use) will be destroyed," he added. This comes at the heel of another statement when he promised the world "a victory that will change the face of the Middle East". '
Hezbollah has imposed on Lebanon Its own criteria for heroism, martyrdom, treason and patriotism. Recently, it glorified publicly the notorious killer, Samir Kuntar who was surprisingly released by Israel. It gave him a hero's welcome, dragging behind its leadership the country's president, house speaker, Prime Minister and the majority of the MP's and politicians.
In the realm of derailing Heroism and criminal standards, Hezbollah is portraying, Imad Mugniyah, one of its high ranging militants, that was killed in Syria earlier this year, as a great militant leader and Jihadi Martyr.
it has erected an exhibition to advocate for this educational derailment and worked hard to give it an extensive media coverage. In a letter to the New York Times published on September 06/08 Abraham H. Foxman commenting on Hezbollah's war exhibition opened in the Lebanese Southern City of Nabatiye said: "Hezbollah’s shrine to the slain terrorist mastermind Imad Mugniyah demonstrates how terrorist groups use and indoctrinate children into their blood-soaked culture of hatred, martyrdom and violence. It also offers a real glimpse at the stark realities facing Lebanon, Israel and the international community.
It is frightening that a group that perpetrates and venerates deadly terrorism is set to take on a leading role in Lebanon’s transitional government, with cabinet seats and veto power. And if there was any doubt that Hezbollah is rebuilding its arsenal in the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon war, the high-tech rockets and other munitions on display in Nabatiye should serve as a wake-up call to world leaders about the continuing threat that this Iranian-backed group poses to Israel, Lebanon and the entire region".
We, again and again, call on the free world and the so called "moderate Arabic Countries" to wake up from their coma of hesitation and procrastination, and take note that the Lebanese people and their government are unable under any given circumstances to contain or disarm Hezbollah militarily on their own. If Lebanon is not rescued, Hezbollah will soon turn it into a replicate of the Iranian's Mullaha's republic.
Meanwhile Iran's serious Hitler-Nazi like phenomenon threats to the world needs to be addressed as soon as possible with all available means, especially the military ones before it is too late. The battle with Iran and its Hezbollah proxy is inevitable, Accordingly the sooner the better, and lesser losses will be incurred.
*Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Lebanon Remembers Its assassinated President, Bachir Jmayel
By: Elias Bejjani
September 11/08Lebanon's rulers, officials and politicians with their numerous feudal, social, denominational, secular and fundamentalist affiliations - as well as the so-calledresistance have disastrously failed in managing the challenges of the new independence era in the aftermath of Syria's humiliating and forced withdrawalin year 2005 in accordance with the UN Resolution 1559.
This mosaic leadership has aborted to a great extent the historic liberation achievements reached by the Cedar's Revolution that was bravely spearheaded by Lebanon's young men and women. The Lebanese political class has proved to be totally incompetent in the areas of faith, perseverance, devotion, education, intelligence, organization, national convictions, approaches, strategies and honesty. Its crippling performance was evident before, during and after the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel devastating war.
Bogus masks fell down while negligence as well as treachery were behind the war that inflicted immense losses in people, money and infrastructure. Hezbollah's militant terrorist organization planned and instigated it while all leadership were appeasing and cajoling its leadership and not witnessing for the truth.
All these leaders and politicians kept on feeding the beast (Hezbollah), until it turned its weapons on them and is now endeavoring to devour all of them. Why have all these tragedies unfolded? Why is all this political corruption happening? How can the political establishment's negligence, poor insight, cowardice and questionable stances pass without any kind of legal and moral accountability?
The answer simply lies in the feudal, tribal and individualistic mentality that controls people's minds and dictates their behavior and acts.
But most importantly because of the people's subservience, ignorance, and blind loyalty to leaders and politicians who bring ruin to their interests and mortgage their country without the people speaking up or protesting.Meanwhile the conscientious and informed Lebanese citizens and the intellectuals who honor national, ethical and moral convictions refrain from supportingany leader blindly or joining any party without agreeing with its platform.
Good Lebanese citizens are those who have the moral stamina to differentiate between the fake and the authentic, the honest and the evil, the transparent and the treacherous.
They are those who do not cast their vote or give their trust and support to a politician or political party that knows neither freedom nor democracy, and that does not honor the right of expression and the right to difference.Those of us who believe in the righteousness of Lebanon's national cause and respect the rights of their fellow citizens are not fascinated merely by thecharisma and outside charms of leaders. They reject the logic of passivity and feudal subservience in adopting loyalty or opposition. They possess a clearcriterion for what is right and what is wrong and will never, ever accept the role of ignorant, misled and blind followers.
Those of us who keep themselves informed and well updated on unfolding events in the domains of politics, social affairs, human rights, democracy,corruption, lust for power, and the media's misleading bickering, are currently definitely feeling frustrated, angry and unhappy about the way things arebeing handled in Lebanon.
In Lebanon at the present time, based on stances and achievements, there are no differences between the opposition or the loyalists. All are cut from the same cloth: Opportunists, greedy, heartless, and serving their own individual agendas and ambitions. They manipulate the people, camouflage their stances, color their attitudes and tailor their affiliations to fit their hunger for authority, money and gains.
All what we hear from both loyalists and opposition is a below-the-belt rhetoric, an ongoing game of humiliating media accusations, insults, threats andfabricated games and shows aiming to deflect people's attention and focus away from the disastrous social, living, health environmental, security, justice andeconomic circumstances.
Meanwhile, the country's borders with Syria are not patrolled by the Lebanese Army. They are left unattended and open for smuggling of weapons,merchandise and people. The armed militias, of which is the terrorist Hezbollah, run freely their mini-states and cantons while spreading the education of Jihadism, rejections of others, fundamentalism, oppressing freedoms and manipulating people's fate and destiny.
In the same context, all public services are deteriorating with a scary escalation in unemployment rates, out of control public debt and deficit, deeprooted corruption, explicit bribery and covert nepotism. More than a quarter of a million Lebanese citizens have left Lebanon over the past two years.
The latest traumatic events have uncovered and publicly exposed the actual shocking reality of the Lebanese leadership that has failed in fulfilling itsduties, obligations and responsibilities. They all lost both the trust and the respect of the citizens, while the majority of the public is frustrated,disappointed, angry and sees no light at the end of the tunnel. A feeling that has led to a massive exodus, especially among Christians whose leadersunfortunately have forgotten who they are, who are their people, what cause they ought to defend and which interests to safeguard.
The people who fought peacefully and intellectually since 1988 back home and in Diaspora for a free, independent and sovereign Lebanon were not surprised or disappointed by the camouflaged and fishy tactics and strategies used by politicians, parties who were shameless servants and puppets for the Syrian Baathist occupation for years. No hopes were invested in any of them due to the plain fact that neither their present nor their future shall be any different from their dirty and blemished past.
What has really been sad, and in fact intolerable, unacceptable, and disappointing by all means and standards is the sudden, unexplainable and bewilderingdrifting and derailing of elite Christian politician and leader General Michel Aoun.
The man has changed completely his struggle track, turned against his own stances, negated his own principles, trashed each and every slogan he had advocated for, broke every promise he made, turned his back on all those honest, transparent and devoted partners, supporters and colleagues, and with cold emotions dishonored the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands who trusted him and paid accordingly dear in exile, oppression, detainment, poverty, persecution, prosecution, deprivation etc. Aoun is now and by all means a mere Syrian-Iranian mouthpiece that is used to cover Hezbollah's crimes and scheme to take over Lebanon.
The question is, does General Aoun and those who still blindly support him comprehend history and learn from its books?There is no doubt that Sheikh Bachir Gemayel, his father Sheikh Pierre, President Camille Chamoun, Charles Malek, Fouad Afram Al Bustani, and other Christian Lebanese leaders, with thousands and thousands of Lebanese men, women and children who gave their lives for Lebanon's freedom, rights and democracy are turning angrily in their graves while watching elite Christian leaders turning into political dwarfs who sold their country and the Christian cause with thirty pieces of silver.What these derailed leaders and politicians should never forget under any given circumstances is that public mandates, votes as well as support can bewithdrawn once the people find out they have been betrayed and their trust was misused and abused. People might take some time to comprehend all factsand realities, but ultimately they will act.
What is reassuring in the midst of this frustration is that the Lebanese people have endured with courage, faith and hope thirty years of a horrific SyrianBaathist occupation till their country was liberated, but still they know very well that there will be no lasting peace before the disarming and dismantling ofall Lebanese and non Lebanese militias and the spread of the authority of the central Lebanese government over all the territory of Lebanon through its ownlegitimate military forces. Accordingly, all leaders are judged on these national requirements
Sheikh Bachir Jmayel, Lebanon's historic Leader and after 26 years on his tragic assassination, he is still alive in the conscience of the majority of the Lebanese people. In the annual commemoration for his martyrdom that falls on September 14th, We all pray that his soul rests in peace, and the Lebanon that he dreamed of shall become a reality.
Meanwhile Sheikh Bachir Jmayel's dream of a free, independent, sovereign and peaceful Lebanon remains alive, and the liberation flame that he courageously carried is still glowing and shall remain so.
By the end all those Lebanese leaders, officials and politicians who betray the hopes and aspirations of the Lebanese people shall be thrown in the dustbin of history.
*Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF) E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.comCLHRF
Website http://www.clhrf.com
September 11/08Lebanon's rulers, officials and politicians with their numerous feudal, social, denominational, secular and fundamentalist affiliations - as well as the so-calledresistance have disastrously failed in managing the challenges of the new independence era in the aftermath of Syria's humiliating and forced withdrawalin year 2005 in accordance with the UN Resolution 1559.
This mosaic leadership has aborted to a great extent the historic liberation achievements reached by the Cedar's Revolution that was bravely spearheaded by Lebanon's young men and women. The Lebanese political class has proved to be totally incompetent in the areas of faith, perseverance, devotion, education, intelligence, organization, national convictions, approaches, strategies and honesty. Its crippling performance was evident before, during and after the 2006 Hezbollah-Israel devastating war.
Bogus masks fell down while negligence as well as treachery were behind the war that inflicted immense losses in people, money and infrastructure. Hezbollah's militant terrorist organization planned and instigated it while all leadership were appeasing and cajoling its leadership and not witnessing for the truth.
All these leaders and politicians kept on feeding the beast (Hezbollah), until it turned its weapons on them and is now endeavoring to devour all of them. Why have all these tragedies unfolded? Why is all this political corruption happening? How can the political establishment's negligence, poor insight, cowardice and questionable stances pass without any kind of legal and moral accountability?
The answer simply lies in the feudal, tribal and individualistic mentality that controls people's minds and dictates their behavior and acts.
But most importantly because of the people's subservience, ignorance, and blind loyalty to leaders and politicians who bring ruin to their interests and mortgage their country without the people speaking up or protesting.Meanwhile the conscientious and informed Lebanese citizens and the intellectuals who honor national, ethical and moral convictions refrain from supportingany leader blindly or joining any party without agreeing with its platform.
Good Lebanese citizens are those who have the moral stamina to differentiate between the fake and the authentic, the honest and the evil, the transparent and the treacherous.
They are those who do not cast their vote or give their trust and support to a politician or political party that knows neither freedom nor democracy, and that does not honor the right of expression and the right to difference.Those of us who believe in the righteousness of Lebanon's national cause and respect the rights of their fellow citizens are not fascinated merely by thecharisma and outside charms of leaders. They reject the logic of passivity and feudal subservience in adopting loyalty or opposition. They possess a clearcriterion for what is right and what is wrong and will never, ever accept the role of ignorant, misled and blind followers.
Those of us who keep themselves informed and well updated on unfolding events in the domains of politics, social affairs, human rights, democracy,corruption, lust for power, and the media's misleading bickering, are currently definitely feeling frustrated, angry and unhappy about the way things arebeing handled in Lebanon.
In Lebanon at the present time, based on stances and achievements, there are no differences between the opposition or the loyalists. All are cut from the same cloth: Opportunists, greedy, heartless, and serving their own individual agendas and ambitions. They manipulate the people, camouflage their stances, color their attitudes and tailor their affiliations to fit their hunger for authority, money and gains.
All what we hear from both loyalists and opposition is a below-the-belt rhetoric, an ongoing game of humiliating media accusations, insults, threats andfabricated games and shows aiming to deflect people's attention and focus away from the disastrous social, living, health environmental, security, justice andeconomic circumstances.
Meanwhile, the country's borders with Syria are not patrolled by the Lebanese Army. They are left unattended and open for smuggling of weapons,merchandise and people. The armed militias, of which is the terrorist Hezbollah, run freely their mini-states and cantons while spreading the education of Jihadism, rejections of others, fundamentalism, oppressing freedoms and manipulating people's fate and destiny.
In the same context, all public services are deteriorating with a scary escalation in unemployment rates, out of control public debt and deficit, deeprooted corruption, explicit bribery and covert nepotism. More than a quarter of a million Lebanese citizens have left Lebanon over the past two years.
The latest traumatic events have uncovered and publicly exposed the actual shocking reality of the Lebanese leadership that has failed in fulfilling itsduties, obligations and responsibilities. They all lost both the trust and the respect of the citizens, while the majority of the public is frustrated,disappointed, angry and sees no light at the end of the tunnel. A feeling that has led to a massive exodus, especially among Christians whose leadersunfortunately have forgotten who they are, who are their people, what cause they ought to defend and which interests to safeguard.
The people who fought peacefully and intellectually since 1988 back home and in Diaspora for a free, independent and sovereign Lebanon were not surprised or disappointed by the camouflaged and fishy tactics and strategies used by politicians, parties who were shameless servants and puppets for the Syrian Baathist occupation for years. No hopes were invested in any of them due to the plain fact that neither their present nor their future shall be any different from their dirty and blemished past.
What has really been sad, and in fact intolerable, unacceptable, and disappointing by all means and standards is the sudden, unexplainable and bewilderingdrifting and derailing of elite Christian politician and leader General Michel Aoun.
The man has changed completely his struggle track, turned against his own stances, negated his own principles, trashed each and every slogan he had advocated for, broke every promise he made, turned his back on all those honest, transparent and devoted partners, supporters and colleagues, and with cold emotions dishonored the sacrifices of hundreds of thousands who trusted him and paid accordingly dear in exile, oppression, detainment, poverty, persecution, prosecution, deprivation etc. Aoun is now and by all means a mere Syrian-Iranian mouthpiece that is used to cover Hezbollah's crimes and scheme to take over Lebanon.
The question is, does General Aoun and those who still blindly support him comprehend history and learn from its books?There is no doubt that Sheikh Bachir Gemayel, his father Sheikh Pierre, President Camille Chamoun, Charles Malek, Fouad Afram Al Bustani, and other Christian Lebanese leaders, with thousands and thousands of Lebanese men, women and children who gave their lives for Lebanon's freedom, rights and democracy are turning angrily in their graves while watching elite Christian leaders turning into political dwarfs who sold their country and the Christian cause with thirty pieces of silver.What these derailed leaders and politicians should never forget under any given circumstances is that public mandates, votes as well as support can bewithdrawn once the people find out they have been betrayed and their trust was misused and abused. People might take some time to comprehend all factsand realities, but ultimately they will act.
What is reassuring in the midst of this frustration is that the Lebanese people have endured with courage, faith and hope thirty years of a horrific SyrianBaathist occupation till their country was liberated, but still they know very well that there will be no lasting peace before the disarming and dismantling ofall Lebanese and non Lebanese militias and the spread of the authority of the central Lebanese government over all the territory of Lebanon through its ownlegitimate military forces. Accordingly, all leaders are judged on these national requirements
Sheikh Bachir Jmayel, Lebanon's historic Leader and after 26 years on his tragic assassination, he is still alive in the conscience of the majority of the Lebanese people. In the annual commemoration for his martyrdom that falls on September 14th, We all pray that his soul rests in peace, and the Lebanon that he dreamed of shall become a reality.
Meanwhile Sheikh Bachir Jmayel's dream of a free, independent, sovereign and peaceful Lebanon remains alive, and the liberation flame that he courageously carried is still glowing and shall remain so.
By the end all those Lebanese leaders, officials and politicians who betray the hopes and aspirations of the Lebanese people shall be thrown in the dustbin of history.
*Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF) E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.comCLHRF
Website http://www.clhrf.com
Thursday, August 28, 2008
Russia is Selling Hezbollah surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles
Hezbollah's Leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah warned that his terrorist armed militia is now much, much, stronger than before the devastating war that took place in 2006 between his militia and Israel. He rhetorically and pompously alleged that his militia would destroy Israel if its army wages any attacks against Lebanon.
Nasrallah issued this threat last Saturday at a Boy Scout ceremony in Beirut, as a response to Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remark last week that "if Lebanon becomes a Hezbollah state, then we won't have any restrictions" in striking the country. Olmert claimed that during the last war, Israel did not use all of its firepower because the enemy was Hezbollah and not its host country Lebanon.
Nasrallah would not have been in this threatening position if the free world countries, Arab nations and the UN General Council have been seriously addressing the numerous violations against the UNSCR Resolutions 1559 and 1701 Hezbollah, Syria and Iran committed.
Israel and the rest of the Middle East countries, as well as the USA and its European allies, are all fully aware that Hezbollah has been stockpiling all kinds of lethal weapons in its huge arsenal, and preparing for another war against Israel once the Iran masters instruct its leadership to instigate it.
Nasrallah, other prominent Hezbollah Military and religious dignitaries, as well as the Iranian Mullahs, are not keeping their hostile and aggressive schemes a secret.
On the contrary they all have made them public and in crystal clear straightforward warnings and threatening messages. They have been saying loudly that in case Iran's nuclear facilities are attacked by Israel or the USA, Israel will be an actual target for Hezbollah's missiles.
One wonders why, for heaven's sake, all the free world countries and the UN are cajoling and appeasing this terrorist militia, and accordingly succumbing more and more to its threats and blackmails.
They all with deadly silence have witnessed time after time Hezbollah's blatant infringements on all the UN Resolutions regarding Lebanon, especially UNSCR 1559 and UNSCR 1701 that stipulates the disarmament of this militia, and for the implementation of the Armistice Accord between Lebanon and Israel.
Not even one free world country lifted a finger when Hezbollah recently conquered West Beirut, and attempted to take over Mount Lebanon. And now they are again so indifferent while Hezbollah is adding to its arsenal Russian advanced surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles.
The Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera" reported last week that Hezbollah's terrorist organization representatives visited Russia in early July, and signed a deal to purchase surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles.
The newspaper stated that three high-ranking Hezbollah officials showed great interest to buy Russian weapons which have been effective in the recent 2006 war with Israel. Noting that the three men entered Russia with Iranian passports, and visited the Sixth International Russian Weapon Exhibition under the status of distinguished guests.
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper "Maariv", the Italian reporter who broke this piece of news stated that Hezbollah's representatives kept a very low profile during the visit, and did in fact sign a number of private contracts to buy air defense systems and anti-tank missiles after the exhibition was closed.Very briefly, and without any personal opinion or analysis, this important report states openly that Hezbollah, the terrorist organization is violating clause eight of the UNSCR 1701 which stated: “No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government."
UNSCR 1701 clause eight :" 8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:
*Full respect for the Blue Line by both parties; *security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed
*personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area;
*Full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed
*groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state;
*No foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government;
*No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government;
*Provision to the United Nations of all remaining maps of land mines in Lebanon in Israel's possession; Click here to read the text of the UNSCR 1701 in both Arabic and English http://www.clhrf.com/unresagreements/un%201701.a.e.new.htmWhy are the UN and the Lebanese authorities turning a blind eye to this dangerous matter, which is a clear breach of UNSCR 1701 and Lebanese laws? We call on the UN Security Council and the Lebanese government to open an immediate judicial inquiry into what was published in regards to the Hezbollah-Russian missile deal
Meanwhile Hezbollah that recently was given veto power in the newly appointed Lebanese government keeps openly and on daily basis carrying on its illegal activities at all levels and in all domains. Hezbollah, the Iranian Army in Lebanon, is devouring Lebanon's institutions bit by bit through force, money, terrorism and intimidation, and enforcing day after day the Iranian Mullah's “Wilayat al-Faqih” religious-sectarian education, doctrine and culture.
In the same context of Hezbollah's on going flagrant violations to all Lebanese and international laws, it has for the last two years been publishing media reports and announcements about the death of its fighters "under the Martyrdom operations" tag.
Not even one of these mysterious reports and announcements indicated how, when and where these fighters "martyrs" were killed. The Lebanese Government, the Lebanese politicians, and the country's judiciary have all been keeping silent about this "Martyrdom" phenomenon. Meanwhile some reports stated lately that these so called "fighters" are dying either during training they are undergoing in Iran, or through guerrilla operations in Iraq against the US army.
The last of these mysterious reports was published by the Lebanese National Agency on August 23/08 under the title:" The Islamic Resistance carried a burial procession for a Martyr In Arab Saliem". The Arabic report stated that the "Islamic Resistance" and the Arab Saliem southern town residents participated in the burial procession that was carried out for "Martyr Jihadist", Ali Hassan Abu Zayied, who was killed while performing his Jihadist operation".
The report did not say where, how or when this "Hezbollah Jihadist" was killed. In this same context, but in the regional realm, Jim Kouri, in a report he published in the "Renew America web site", wrote on August 23/08:
"Coalition forces picked up two suspected associates of the Kataib Hezbollah criminal network during operations this morning in Baghdad's New Baghdad district, military officials reported during a teleconference with bloggers and Internet journalists. Acting on intelligence tips, coalition forces raided the home of a suspected Kataib Hezbollah propaganda expert who is believed to have uploaded more than 30 attack videos to the criminal ring's now-defunct Web site.
Coalition forces entered the house, where they detained two of the wanted man's brothers, who are believed to be involved in his criminal enterprises. Coalition forces have detained more than 15 suspected members of Kataib Hezbollah in the last two months, officials said. Kataib Hezbollah is reported to receive funding, logistics, and weapons such as improvised rocket-assisted mortars from Iran. The group also is believed to receive guidance or direction from the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps".
To read Jim Kouri's report Click here http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kouri/080823 The crucial question here, does Lebanon really has a functional and free Government and a Judiciary? If so, both and with no hesitation must prove their authority in practice by pursuing these critical reports with impartially, courage, seriousness, national conscience, and in full accordance with the country's law.
The same applies to the UN General Council who should immediately look into the matter and address the UNSCR 1701 violations committed by Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
Meanwhile, we would like to bring to the attention of the Russian government that it is a signatory to all the key international resolutions on Lebanon, most important of them are resolutions 1559 and 1701.
We also would like to remind the Russian Authorities that Russia is one of the most threatened nations in the world by terrorist organizations, and therefore should reconsider it positions, reassess its political middle east calculations, and fully refrain from arming those organizations and in particular Hezbollah..
Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.comLCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.comCLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
Nasrallah issued this threat last Saturday at a Boy Scout ceremony in Beirut, as a response to Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remark last week that "if Lebanon becomes a Hezbollah state, then we won't have any restrictions" in striking the country. Olmert claimed that during the last war, Israel did not use all of its firepower because the enemy was Hezbollah and not its host country Lebanon.
Nasrallah would not have been in this threatening position if the free world countries, Arab nations and the UN General Council have been seriously addressing the numerous violations against the UNSCR Resolutions 1559 and 1701 Hezbollah, Syria and Iran committed.
Israel and the rest of the Middle East countries, as well as the USA and its European allies, are all fully aware that Hezbollah has been stockpiling all kinds of lethal weapons in its huge arsenal, and preparing for another war against Israel once the Iran masters instruct its leadership to instigate it.
Nasrallah, other prominent Hezbollah Military and religious dignitaries, as well as the Iranian Mullahs, are not keeping their hostile and aggressive schemes a secret.
On the contrary they all have made them public and in crystal clear straightforward warnings and threatening messages. They have been saying loudly that in case Iran's nuclear facilities are attacked by Israel or the USA, Israel will be an actual target for Hezbollah's missiles.
One wonders why, for heaven's sake, all the free world countries and the UN are cajoling and appeasing this terrorist militia, and accordingly succumbing more and more to its threats and blackmails.
They all with deadly silence have witnessed time after time Hezbollah's blatant infringements on all the UN Resolutions regarding Lebanon, especially UNSCR 1559 and UNSCR 1701 that stipulates the disarmament of this militia, and for the implementation of the Armistice Accord between Lebanon and Israel.
Not even one free world country lifted a finger when Hezbollah recently conquered West Beirut, and attempted to take over Mount Lebanon. And now they are again so indifferent while Hezbollah is adding to its arsenal Russian advanced surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles.
The Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera" reported last week that Hezbollah's terrorist organization representatives visited Russia in early July, and signed a deal to purchase surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles.
The newspaper stated that three high-ranking Hezbollah officials showed great interest to buy Russian weapons which have been effective in the recent 2006 war with Israel. Noting that the three men entered Russia with Iranian passports, and visited the Sixth International Russian Weapon Exhibition under the status of distinguished guests.
In an interview with the Israeli newspaper "Maariv", the Italian reporter who broke this piece of news stated that Hezbollah's representatives kept a very low profile during the visit, and did in fact sign a number of private contracts to buy air defense systems and anti-tank missiles after the exhibition was closed.Very briefly, and without any personal opinion or analysis, this important report states openly that Hezbollah, the terrorist organization is violating clause eight of the UNSCR 1701 which stated: “No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government."
UNSCR 1701 clause eight :" 8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:
*Full respect for the Blue Line by both parties; *security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed
*personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area;
*Full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed
*groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state;
*No foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government;
*No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government;
*Provision to the United Nations of all remaining maps of land mines in Lebanon in Israel's possession; Click here to read the text of the UNSCR 1701 in both Arabic and English http://www.clhrf.com/unresagreements/un%201701.a.e.new.htmWhy are the UN and the Lebanese authorities turning a blind eye to this dangerous matter, which is a clear breach of UNSCR 1701 and Lebanese laws? We call on the UN Security Council and the Lebanese government to open an immediate judicial inquiry into what was published in regards to the Hezbollah-Russian missile deal
Meanwhile Hezbollah that recently was given veto power in the newly appointed Lebanese government keeps openly and on daily basis carrying on its illegal activities at all levels and in all domains. Hezbollah, the Iranian Army in Lebanon, is devouring Lebanon's institutions bit by bit through force, money, terrorism and intimidation, and enforcing day after day the Iranian Mullah's “Wilayat al-Faqih” religious-sectarian education, doctrine and culture.
In the same context of Hezbollah's on going flagrant violations to all Lebanese and international laws, it has for the last two years been publishing media reports and announcements about the death of its fighters "under the Martyrdom operations" tag.
Not even one of these mysterious reports and announcements indicated how, when and where these fighters "martyrs" were killed. The Lebanese Government, the Lebanese politicians, and the country's judiciary have all been keeping silent about this "Martyrdom" phenomenon. Meanwhile some reports stated lately that these so called "fighters" are dying either during training they are undergoing in Iran, or through guerrilla operations in Iraq against the US army.
The last of these mysterious reports was published by the Lebanese National Agency on August 23/08 under the title:" The Islamic Resistance carried a burial procession for a Martyr In Arab Saliem". The Arabic report stated that the "Islamic Resistance" and the Arab Saliem southern town residents participated in the burial procession that was carried out for "Martyr Jihadist", Ali Hassan Abu Zayied, who was killed while performing his Jihadist operation".
The report did not say where, how or when this "Hezbollah Jihadist" was killed. In this same context, but in the regional realm, Jim Kouri, in a report he published in the "Renew America web site", wrote on August 23/08:
"Coalition forces picked up two suspected associates of the Kataib Hezbollah criminal network during operations this morning in Baghdad's New Baghdad district, military officials reported during a teleconference with bloggers and Internet journalists. Acting on intelligence tips, coalition forces raided the home of a suspected Kataib Hezbollah propaganda expert who is believed to have uploaded more than 30 attack videos to the criminal ring's now-defunct Web site.
Coalition forces entered the house, where they detained two of the wanted man's brothers, who are believed to be involved in his criminal enterprises. Coalition forces have detained more than 15 suspected members of Kataib Hezbollah in the last two months, officials said. Kataib Hezbollah is reported to receive funding, logistics, and weapons such as improvised rocket-assisted mortars from Iran. The group also is believed to receive guidance or direction from the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps".
To read Jim Kouri's report Click here http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kouri/080823 The crucial question here, does Lebanon really has a functional and free Government and a Judiciary? If so, both and with no hesitation must prove their authority in practice by pursuing these critical reports with impartially, courage, seriousness, national conscience, and in full accordance with the country's law.
The same applies to the UN General Council who should immediately look into the matter and address the UNSCR 1701 violations committed by Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.
Meanwhile, we would like to bring to the attention of the Russian government that it is a signatory to all the key international resolutions on Lebanon, most important of them are resolutions 1559 and 1701.
We also would like to remind the Russian Authorities that Russia is one of the most threatened nations in the world by terrorist organizations, and therefore should reconsider it positions, reassess its political middle east calculations, and fully refrain from arming those organizations and in particular Hezbollah..
Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.comLCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.comCLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Dilemma of the Lebanese detainees in Syrian jails.By: Elias Bejjani
By: Elias Bejjani
Like parrots, the Syrian Baathist regime's officials keep rhetorically insisting that there are no arbitrarily Lebanese detainees incarcerated in their notorious and Nazi like jails.
Logically and legally these false allegations and big lies cannot be acceptable unless a United Nations team is formed to investigate the whole matter without any kind of involvement or pressure from both the Lebanese and Syrian authorities.
For thirty long painful years families of the detainees and Human rights organizations have been calling for the release of all the Lebanese detainees (700 -1000) arbitrarily held in Syria's jails and for the end of this human tragedy.
Unfortunately their calls have fallen on deaf ears, complete disregard for laws, disrespect for human dignity, and stony-like consciousness.
The Free people of Lebanon are extremely concerned and frustrated because of the way that their officials have been handling this humanitarian calamity. The Syrian and Lebanese officials' conduct is mostly characterized by complete disregard for human rights, and an apparent shameful contempt for the dignity of the Lebanese citizens.
Concerned Lebanese citizens are wondering for how long these officials are going to keep pretending that this predicament does not exist? Do they really think it will disappear and die without clear knowledge of the fate and whereabouts of each and every detainee?
The newly elected Lebanese president Michel Suleiman has paid last week an important visit to Syria and met Syria's ruler Bashar Al Assad. The detainees' file topped his agenda as was officially announced.
Unfortunately Suleiman returned home empty handed. Knowing the Syrian regime's vicious mentality of camouflaging and elusiveness, that was not a surprise. The joint Syrian- Lebanese statement that was released after the visit stated that the detainees' file will be dealt with by joint committees.
It is worth mentioning that committees in Lebanon's and Syria's political dictionaries denotes to graves where taboo files are usually buried.
For the last 30 years this on-going human tragedy has been advocated for locally, regionally and world wide through the highest level of diplomacy. These efforts forced Damascus in year 2000 to comply partially with the issue and release 54 detainees. Sine then very few releases took place.
Human rights' atrocities inflicted by the Syrian regime on the Lebanese peaceful citizens are not new; they have been unfolding on almost a daily basis during the years of the horrible Syrian occupation (1976-2005) of Lebanon.
The Syrian invading army had fought vigorously with many Lebanese and Palestinian factions, groups and parties. Its Intelligence Services had abducted many citizens from all across Lebanon. Some were abducted for being members of parties opposing the Syrian hegemony, while others for taking up an armed struggle against them. In addition, hundreds of Lebanese soldiers and citizens are still currently held arbitrarily in Syrian Nazi-like jails for years without any knowledge of their whereabouts.
The procedures used by the Syrian army and intelligence to abduct Lebanese citizens are as follows:1-Directly kidnapped by the Syrian forces in Lebanon and transferred to Syria.2-Indirectly kidnapped by militias and armed individuals collaborating with Syria.3-Held by Lebanese internal security and then handed over to the Syrians illegally.
According to a pile of testimonies delivered by Lebanese citizens released from Syrian jails and documented by Human Rights' Organizations, the abducted went through the same routine criminal interrogative procedures. After being arrested and questioned for hours or days at times under torture and abuse, they are either let go, or transferred to Syria for more questioning, lasting at times for months or years. They could be held indefinitely unless someone with some political clout intervene on their behalf and set up their release.
However, a great number of the detainees remain held for questioning for years. Once the questioning is over the detainees are transferred to one of the many notorious Syrian jails without any kind of trial nor the presence of a lawyer. They then undergo a series of torture and abuse that differs in intensity according to their charges.
They are stripped of their names and instead given numbers. Those who dare to utter their names are harshly punished. Their detention is kept secret, and no information whatsoever is given to the detainees' families, to the Red Cross or to the Human Rights International organizations.
For the last 30 years Syria has continuously refused to allow the Read Cross or any of the international Human Rights' organizations to visit its jails. The Syrian authorities has also been adamantly refusing to issue a list with the names of the detainees held in its jails.
The detention conditions in all the Syrian jails is far from humane. The rooms are dark with no sunlight. No proper sanitation facilities; detainees have to relieve themselves inside the room. Very poor hygienic conditions, food is the left over crumbs and very few lucky detainees escape malnutrition, asthma, heart problems, cancer, tuberculoses and many other health threatening diseases.
Charges inflicted on the detainees were always the same; collaboration with Israelis against Syria, or spying for an opposition party such as the Lebanese forces, Free Patriotic Movement and other Lebanese opposition groups. Such atrocities have never been reported that bad anywhere in the whole world according to statements issued by lawyers and scholars worldwide.
The security agreement signed between Lebanon and Syria under the so-called brotherhood collaboration does give in any of its articles the Syrian army any right to abduct or jail any Lebanese for questioning inside or outside Lebanon. According to an earlier Lebanese-Syrian agreement drafted in 1951, Lebanon reserves the right to reject the extradition of any individual to the Syrian authorities even if he was a Syrian citizen.
The individual will have to undergo his trial in Lebanon in compliance with its laws. All agreements signed between Syria and Lebanon do not allow such Syrian atrocities. All the practices that the Syrian army and its intelligence services had conducted in Lebanon are illegal and were practiced against all local and international laws.
The Syrian regime will not put an end to this 30 year ongoing dilemma unless the whole file is referred to the United Nations. This regime knows no mercy and pressure is the only language that its officials comprehend. Accordingly, we call on the Lebanese officials, politicians and human rights NGOs to work seriously on handing over this file to the United Nations. All free world countries should come to the rescue of our living Lebanese victims in those notorious jails and spare no effort in pressuring the Syrian regime to put an end to this human dilemma.
Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
Like parrots, the Syrian Baathist regime's officials keep rhetorically insisting that there are no arbitrarily Lebanese detainees incarcerated in their notorious and Nazi like jails.
Logically and legally these false allegations and big lies cannot be acceptable unless a United Nations team is formed to investigate the whole matter without any kind of involvement or pressure from both the Lebanese and Syrian authorities.
For thirty long painful years families of the detainees and Human rights organizations have been calling for the release of all the Lebanese detainees (700 -1000) arbitrarily held in Syria's jails and for the end of this human tragedy.
Unfortunately their calls have fallen on deaf ears, complete disregard for laws, disrespect for human dignity, and stony-like consciousness.
The Free people of Lebanon are extremely concerned and frustrated because of the way that their officials have been handling this humanitarian calamity. The Syrian and Lebanese officials' conduct is mostly characterized by complete disregard for human rights, and an apparent shameful contempt for the dignity of the Lebanese citizens.
Concerned Lebanese citizens are wondering for how long these officials are going to keep pretending that this predicament does not exist? Do they really think it will disappear and die without clear knowledge of the fate and whereabouts of each and every detainee?
The newly elected Lebanese president Michel Suleiman has paid last week an important visit to Syria and met Syria's ruler Bashar Al Assad. The detainees' file topped his agenda as was officially announced.
Unfortunately Suleiman returned home empty handed. Knowing the Syrian regime's vicious mentality of camouflaging and elusiveness, that was not a surprise. The joint Syrian- Lebanese statement that was released after the visit stated that the detainees' file will be dealt with by joint committees.
It is worth mentioning that committees in Lebanon's and Syria's political dictionaries denotes to graves where taboo files are usually buried.
For the last 30 years this on-going human tragedy has been advocated for locally, regionally and world wide through the highest level of diplomacy. These efforts forced Damascus in year 2000 to comply partially with the issue and release 54 detainees. Sine then very few releases took place.
Human rights' atrocities inflicted by the Syrian regime on the Lebanese peaceful citizens are not new; they have been unfolding on almost a daily basis during the years of the horrible Syrian occupation (1976-2005) of Lebanon.
The Syrian invading army had fought vigorously with many Lebanese and Palestinian factions, groups and parties. Its Intelligence Services had abducted many citizens from all across Lebanon. Some were abducted for being members of parties opposing the Syrian hegemony, while others for taking up an armed struggle against them. In addition, hundreds of Lebanese soldiers and citizens are still currently held arbitrarily in Syrian Nazi-like jails for years without any knowledge of their whereabouts.
The procedures used by the Syrian army and intelligence to abduct Lebanese citizens are as follows:1-Directly kidnapped by the Syrian forces in Lebanon and transferred to Syria.2-Indirectly kidnapped by militias and armed individuals collaborating with Syria.3-Held by Lebanese internal security and then handed over to the Syrians illegally.
According to a pile of testimonies delivered by Lebanese citizens released from Syrian jails and documented by Human Rights' Organizations, the abducted went through the same routine criminal interrogative procedures. After being arrested and questioned for hours or days at times under torture and abuse, they are either let go, or transferred to Syria for more questioning, lasting at times for months or years. They could be held indefinitely unless someone with some political clout intervene on their behalf and set up their release.
However, a great number of the detainees remain held for questioning for years. Once the questioning is over the detainees are transferred to one of the many notorious Syrian jails without any kind of trial nor the presence of a lawyer. They then undergo a series of torture and abuse that differs in intensity according to their charges.
They are stripped of their names and instead given numbers. Those who dare to utter their names are harshly punished. Their detention is kept secret, and no information whatsoever is given to the detainees' families, to the Red Cross or to the Human Rights International organizations.
For the last 30 years Syria has continuously refused to allow the Read Cross or any of the international Human Rights' organizations to visit its jails. The Syrian authorities has also been adamantly refusing to issue a list with the names of the detainees held in its jails.
The detention conditions in all the Syrian jails is far from humane. The rooms are dark with no sunlight. No proper sanitation facilities; detainees have to relieve themselves inside the room. Very poor hygienic conditions, food is the left over crumbs and very few lucky detainees escape malnutrition, asthma, heart problems, cancer, tuberculoses and many other health threatening diseases.
Charges inflicted on the detainees were always the same; collaboration with Israelis against Syria, or spying for an opposition party such as the Lebanese forces, Free Patriotic Movement and other Lebanese opposition groups. Such atrocities have never been reported that bad anywhere in the whole world according to statements issued by lawyers and scholars worldwide.
The security agreement signed between Lebanon and Syria under the so-called brotherhood collaboration does give in any of its articles the Syrian army any right to abduct or jail any Lebanese for questioning inside or outside Lebanon. According to an earlier Lebanese-Syrian agreement drafted in 1951, Lebanon reserves the right to reject the extradition of any individual to the Syrian authorities even if he was a Syrian citizen.
The individual will have to undergo his trial in Lebanon in compliance with its laws. All agreements signed between Syria and Lebanon do not allow such Syrian atrocities. All the practices that the Syrian army and its intelligence services had conducted in Lebanon are illegal and were practiced against all local and international laws.
The Syrian regime will not put an end to this 30 year ongoing dilemma unless the whole file is referred to the United Nations. This regime knows no mercy and pressure is the only language that its officials comprehend. Accordingly, we call on the Lebanese officials, politicians and human rights NGOs to work seriously on handing over this file to the United Nations. All free world countries should come to the rescue of our living Lebanese victims in those notorious jails and spare no effort in pressuring the Syrian regime to put an end to this human dilemma.
Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
Monday, July 21, 2008
Samir Kuntar is a Convicted Killer and Not a Hero
By: Elias Bejjani
It is really sad, shocking and shameful when a convicted murderer is decorated as a hero. Shame on Lebanon's leaders, parties, dignitaries, politicians and officials who boldly and evilly distanced themselves from the hopes, aspirations, education, and culture of their own people and welcomed Samir Kuntar as a hero. By doing so they have alienated themselves from the majority of the Lebanese people and negated the deeply Lebanese rooted standards and criteria for what is wrong and what is right, and for what is good and what is evil.
They are stupidly blemishing the actual peaceful image of Lebanon and the historically known role of the Lebanese people as lovers and advocates for peace, democracy, coexistence and multicultural principles. In the eyes of the majority of the Lebanese people Samir Kuntar is a mere convicted murderer and not a hero.
The Ottoman Turks occupied Lebanon for almost 400 years (1516-1918) with an iron fist, yet despite their bloody repression, persecution, injustice, and blatant bloody oppression means, they failed to impose “Ottomanization” on the Lebanese people. Nor did they succeed in imposing the Turkish language as a replacement for the Lebanese language.
The Ottomans’ condescending and suppressive repression was confronted by the Lebanese stubborn attachment to their culture, their identity, their history. And most of all, their faith, hopes, values and morals, their humanistic standards for Good and Evil. The Lebanese triumphed and the Ottomans were defeated.
After the Ottomans, the French mandate shined its civilized and peaceful administration, with respect to human rights, and seeking the public good in harmony with Lebanese culture and beliefs. The French mandate ushered a spring of Lebanon lasting 30 years of consenting cooperation. It produced with the Lebanese people a Franco-Lebanese common, solid Franco-Lebanese culture that continued to thrive even after France’s exit. This culture is still very rooted in the spirit, conscience, and practices of the Lebanese.
On the other hand, 30 years of a Syrian barbaric and savage occupation backed by collaborators, imported terrorists and ideologies, and dishonest theatrics, also failed to uproot any of the Lebanese cultural constants for they are deep rooted in their being, and merged with the holy earth of Lebanon, so, just like the Ottomans, the Syrians were also defeated and were forced to leave Lebanon trailing their disappointment and humiliation.
For 7000 years, holding to their culture, values, faith and stubbornness, the Lebanese people struggled and defeated the greed, plans, and oppression of hundreds of invaders, occupiers, and conquerors whose traces are carved on few stones in Lebanon’s famous “Nahr Kalb” river.
Based on all the above, it is a moral duty to judge all those celebrators who chanted like parrots the mantra of Samir Kuntar’s heroism, and accepted in obedience and subservience to celebrate Kuntar’s crime as heroism, in contradiction to standards of the Lebanese culture, civilization, and values, and in violation of all religious and legal charters.
We believe strongly that it is a patriotic duty and ethical obligation to hold accountable all the Lebanese leaderships, whether officials or religious parties and intellectuals. We, as Lebanese people in both Lebanon and Diaspora must hold accountable all those who participated in the “ festival of lies and falsehood” while at the same time claiming their adherence to the framework and foundations of Lebanon’s message of civilization, to its constitution, its laws of the land, to the principles of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention regarding civilians in times of war, and to the teachings of their religions, values, principles, and morals inherited from our forefathers.
They have shamelessly “sinned” reneging the Lebanese culture and its values, and all its moral and legal humanistic constituents. They threw to the wind the sacrifices of thousands of venerable Lebanese sacrificed at the altar, so that Lebanon remains Free, Sovereign, and Independent. A civilized country. A model of openness, tolerance, and coexistence.
Through their “Dhimmitude” action, they walked the path of Hezbollah’s fundamentalist and Iran's mullah-isolationist culture. The culture of the “"Wilayat al-Faqih." ” which totally negates the Lebanese Culture. It is the opposite of civil societies, human charters, freedoms, democracy and civilization.
(Wilayat al-Faqih is a religious theology that is divisive amongst the Muslims themselves. It is a bizarre, autocratic concept created and tailored by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in the early seventies. The basis of this system provides all the ruling powers and authorities with unlimited vetoes on every aspect of life and governance into the hands of one man, the Highest Shiite Imam, whose headquarters is located in the Iranian city of Qom).
A prisoner’s family, regardless of his crime, has the right to celebrate their family member’s release. But the politicians and parties who brandished the banner of the Cedars Revolution, who struggled for freedom and for the “Lebanese culture” in face of “Wilayat al-Faqih” Iranian education and doctrine, who opposed Hezbollah’s fundamentalist agenda, do not have the right to run breathlessly behind Hezbollah’s travesties. No right to accept the “standards and criteria of heroism” as defined in Hezbollah’s religious-sectarian philosophy and education. These leaders cannot overturn the universal set standards and criteria of true heroism, and subjugate themselves to Hezbollah’s logic and its heretical doctrine.
They have no right promoting the “Dhimmitude” education and logic to their practices and public statements. Their acceptance to be subservient in Hezbollah’s musical band desecrates the Lebanese people numerous heroic stands since 2005, when one and a half million Lebanese descended the streets in civilized peaceful demonstrations, and gave these politicians the mission of standing guardians to protect us from Hezbollah’s culture, education, schemes and Iranian terrorist agenda.
Yet it is the right of the sovereign Lebanese to request public accountability from all the Cedars Revolution leaders, cabinet ministers, MPs, and party leaders, as well as all the state officials who celebrated Hezbollah’s Kuntar’s heroism which is totally alien to the Lebanese culture. We have the right that they offer either their apology and repentance for their ugly action, or resign from their positions and join Hezbollah.
Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
It is really sad, shocking and shameful when a convicted murderer is decorated as a hero. Shame on Lebanon's leaders, parties, dignitaries, politicians and officials who boldly and evilly distanced themselves from the hopes, aspirations, education, and culture of their own people and welcomed Samir Kuntar as a hero. By doing so they have alienated themselves from the majority of the Lebanese people and negated the deeply Lebanese rooted standards and criteria for what is wrong and what is right, and for what is good and what is evil.
They are stupidly blemishing the actual peaceful image of Lebanon and the historically known role of the Lebanese people as lovers and advocates for peace, democracy, coexistence and multicultural principles. In the eyes of the majority of the Lebanese people Samir Kuntar is a mere convicted murderer and not a hero.
The Ottoman Turks occupied Lebanon for almost 400 years (1516-1918) with an iron fist, yet despite their bloody repression, persecution, injustice, and blatant bloody oppression means, they failed to impose “Ottomanization” on the Lebanese people. Nor did they succeed in imposing the Turkish language as a replacement for the Lebanese language.
The Ottomans’ condescending and suppressive repression was confronted by the Lebanese stubborn attachment to their culture, their identity, their history. And most of all, their faith, hopes, values and morals, their humanistic standards for Good and Evil. The Lebanese triumphed and the Ottomans were defeated.
After the Ottomans, the French mandate shined its civilized and peaceful administration, with respect to human rights, and seeking the public good in harmony with Lebanese culture and beliefs. The French mandate ushered a spring of Lebanon lasting 30 years of consenting cooperation. It produced with the Lebanese people a Franco-Lebanese common, solid Franco-Lebanese culture that continued to thrive even after France’s exit. This culture is still very rooted in the spirit, conscience, and practices of the Lebanese.
On the other hand, 30 years of a Syrian barbaric and savage occupation backed by collaborators, imported terrorists and ideologies, and dishonest theatrics, also failed to uproot any of the Lebanese cultural constants for they are deep rooted in their being, and merged with the holy earth of Lebanon, so, just like the Ottomans, the Syrians were also defeated and were forced to leave Lebanon trailing their disappointment and humiliation.
For 7000 years, holding to their culture, values, faith and stubbornness, the Lebanese people struggled and defeated the greed, plans, and oppression of hundreds of invaders, occupiers, and conquerors whose traces are carved on few stones in Lebanon’s famous “Nahr Kalb” river.
Based on all the above, it is a moral duty to judge all those celebrators who chanted like parrots the mantra of Samir Kuntar’s heroism, and accepted in obedience and subservience to celebrate Kuntar’s crime as heroism, in contradiction to standards of the Lebanese culture, civilization, and values, and in violation of all religious and legal charters.
We believe strongly that it is a patriotic duty and ethical obligation to hold accountable all the Lebanese leaderships, whether officials or religious parties and intellectuals. We, as Lebanese people in both Lebanon and Diaspora must hold accountable all those who participated in the “ festival of lies and falsehood” while at the same time claiming their adherence to the framework and foundations of Lebanon’s message of civilization, to its constitution, its laws of the land, to the principles of Human Rights, the Geneva Convention regarding civilians in times of war, and to the teachings of their religions, values, principles, and morals inherited from our forefathers.
They have shamelessly “sinned” reneging the Lebanese culture and its values, and all its moral and legal humanistic constituents. They threw to the wind the sacrifices of thousands of venerable Lebanese sacrificed at the altar, so that Lebanon remains Free, Sovereign, and Independent. A civilized country. A model of openness, tolerance, and coexistence.
Through their “Dhimmitude” action, they walked the path of Hezbollah’s fundamentalist and Iran's mullah-isolationist culture. The culture of the “"Wilayat al-Faqih." ” which totally negates the Lebanese Culture. It is the opposite of civil societies, human charters, freedoms, democracy and civilization.
(Wilayat al-Faqih is a religious theology that is divisive amongst the Muslims themselves. It is a bizarre, autocratic concept created and tailored by the late Ayatollah Khomeini in the early seventies. The basis of this system provides all the ruling powers and authorities with unlimited vetoes on every aspect of life and governance into the hands of one man, the Highest Shiite Imam, whose headquarters is located in the Iranian city of Qom).
A prisoner’s family, regardless of his crime, has the right to celebrate their family member’s release. But the politicians and parties who brandished the banner of the Cedars Revolution, who struggled for freedom and for the “Lebanese culture” in face of “Wilayat al-Faqih” Iranian education and doctrine, who opposed Hezbollah’s fundamentalist agenda, do not have the right to run breathlessly behind Hezbollah’s travesties. No right to accept the “standards and criteria of heroism” as defined in Hezbollah’s religious-sectarian philosophy and education. These leaders cannot overturn the universal set standards and criteria of true heroism, and subjugate themselves to Hezbollah’s logic and its heretical doctrine.
They have no right promoting the “Dhimmitude” education and logic to their practices and public statements. Their acceptance to be subservient in Hezbollah’s musical band desecrates the Lebanese people numerous heroic stands since 2005, when one and a half million Lebanese descended the streets in civilized peaceful demonstrations, and gave these politicians the mission of standing guardians to protect us from Hezbollah’s culture, education, schemes and Iranian terrorist agenda.
Yet it is the right of the sovereign Lebanese to request public accountability from all the Cedars Revolution leaders, cabinet ministers, MPs, and party leaders, as well as all the state officials who celebrated Hezbollah’s Kuntar’s heroism which is totally alien to the Lebanese culture. We have the right that they offer either their apology and repentance for their ugly action, or resign from their positions and join Hezbollah.
Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
Monday, July 14, 2008
Lebanon Needs A Peace Treaty With Israel By: Elias Bejjani
July/14/08
On Wednesday July 9th of this year, national news agencies reported that the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora had refused without any declared justifications, an Italian peace initiative presented to him by Italy’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Mr. Gabriel Kekya. News reports stated that the Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who was on an official visit to Israel, had asked his country’s ambassador in Beirut to inform Mr. Saniora that he is willing to seriously mediate peace talks between Lebanon and Israel.Mr. Saniora, bizarrely and for unexplained reasons, had also rejected on the tenth of last June, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s call for bilateral peace negotiations with Lebanon. Saniora rationalized his refusal by alleging that the outstanding issues between Lebanon and Israel are all governed by UN Resolutions including that of the Sheba Farms and in such, there is nothing to talk about.
Olmert’s call came a month after unveiling the ongoing indirect negotiations between Syria and Israel under Turkish auspices. Lebanon’s emotional and ignorant stance of stubbornly refusing peace talks with Israel is no longer acceptable, nor logical or justifiable.
One wonders why or what prevents Lebanon from doing what every other major Arabic country has done in initiating contact for purposes of peace with Israel. What could be especially said of Baathist Syria’?Lebanon needs to remove its hesitation and relieve itself from the yoke of the ‘Jamal Abdel Nasser Complex’ and bury once and for all the stigmatizing Arab anti-Israeli phobia. Like it or not, Israel is a reality like the rest of the Middle East countries, and will remain so for many years to come.
While Lebanon's leadership is obviously afraid from Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and other Fundamentalist Arab regimes and Islamic armed militias, and accordingly keeps on avoiding any kind of peace talks with the Israelis, we find that those same countries and organizations are actively talking with the Israelis on many levels and on numerous issues!
The foremost runner in this context is Syria who adopts two completely contradicting stances. Overtly, and of course rhetorically, Syria tells its people and the Arabs that Israel is the enemy and should be dealt with accordingly, while covertly it is begging the Israelis for a peace treaty. During the past thirty years and without any sort of fear or embarrassment, Syria has never retreated from negotiating with the Jewish state either directly or through mediators. The latest series of talks are still ongoing via Turkey.
Many Syrian officials are even bragging about the extensive progress they have made in their negotiations with the Israelis and are calling on the US, the ‘Great Satan’ (as they and their allies the Iranians like to call it), and France to sponsor the whole process and assume full partnership in it.
Yesterday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who side by side with the Israelis attended the 43-nation Union for the Mediterranean summit in Paris, told Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera that Damascus would establish "normal" relations with the Jewish state, including the opening of embassies.
It is worth mentioning that last year in April, Syrian-American negotiator Ibrahim Suleiman, who is a very close friend to the Syrian ruling Al Assad Family visited Israel and gave a speech publicly in its Knesset. He called on the Israelis to engage with the Baathist Syrians into a negotiating process in a bid to sign a peace treaty between the two countries.
Reports that came from Israel during his visit stated that he offered the Israelis Syrian promises and guarantees that once the peace treaty is reached Syria will disarm and dismantle all the terrorist and fundamentalist Islamic organizations including Hezbollah and Hamas. In return, Syria was asking for Israeli, and American guarantees that the Assad ruling Family and its Baath Party will be helped and supported to remain in power.
We can not fail to point out that the assassination of the notorious Hezbollah terrorist, Imad Mughniyeh on February 13th of 2008 in the centre of the Syrian capital had been considered by many respected international observers as a Syrian blood message to both USA and Israel that said: Secure our control and ruling powers over Syria and in return we shall eliminate all the organizations and elements that bothers you.
The Lebanese people have the right to know why their government is refusing to talk peace with the Israelis while keeping a blind eye on Hezbollah’s on going negotiations with the Jewish State under the German and UN auspices. Hezbollah’s Secretary General admitted in one his fiery speeches last month that his group is negotiating with the Israelis through the UN who assigned a German mediator for this task. It is also worth mentioning that a deal for exchanging body remains and prisoners between Hezbollah and Israel was sealed a few days ago and will be implemented later this week.
The Lebanese government did not have any role in this deal and all its negotiating authorities were bluntly confiscated by Hezbollah.The Lebanese people have the right to know why their government is refusing to talk with the Israelis, while the Palestinians themselves became full partners with the Israelis after the “Oslo Accord” and had accepted the right of Israeli’s existence and renounced their armed struggle against it.
The Lebanese people have the right to know whether the rulers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, the Arab Gulf states and other members of the Arab League are all traitors because they have either forged peace accords with Israel or have established diplomatic, trade and intelligence relations with its government. The Lebanese people have the right to know why Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinians, all the Arab and Muslim countries, the Iranians and every other country and individual on this earth are allowed to talk with the Israelis while the legitimate Lebanese authorities are singled out and forbidden from doing so.The painful and shocking reality is that Lebanon is to remain the final battle ground and an attractive arena for all Arab armed extremists, terrorists and fundamentalist groups as is the situation now with Hezbollah, the armed Iranian militia that has erected a state inside the Lebanese state and is on its way to topple the whole Lebanese regime and erect an Iranian one in its place.
It has been devouring Lebanese institutions day after day while the whole world is watching and doing nothing.No, this official Lebanese position is not more acceptable under any pretext, and there must be an immediate end put to it!Lebanon’s officials and its sovereign religious and political leaders have a legal and national obligation towards their fellow Lebanese citizens. They ought to put on the table all the reasons and elements that force them to keep Lebanon alienated from the Middle East process.
In case they are all helpless and threatened by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah they have to publicly admit these intimidating obstacles and officially call on the UN, the Arab League and free world countries to take over and face militarily the axis of evil powers as was the situation in Afghanistan, East Timor, Iraq and other African countries.
We call on the Lebanese officials and religious and political leadership in general especially President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Fouad Saniora in particular, to stop squawking like parrots their "Dhimmitude" rhetorical and humiliating slogan that says: Lebanon will be the last Arab country to negotiate with Israel and sign a peace treaty with it, because in fact Lebanon is the only country in the entire Middle East that is still holding itself hostage in this bizarre and unrealistic anti-Israel futile position.
Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
July/14/08
On Wednesday July 9th of this year, national news agencies reported that the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Saniora had refused without any declared justifications, an Italian peace initiative presented to him by Italy’s Ambassador to Lebanon, Mr. Gabriel Kekya. News reports stated that the Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, who was on an official visit to Israel, had asked his country’s ambassador in Beirut to inform Mr. Saniora that he is willing to seriously mediate peace talks between Lebanon and Israel.Mr. Saniora, bizarrely and for unexplained reasons, had also rejected on the tenth of last June, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s call for bilateral peace negotiations with Lebanon. Saniora rationalized his refusal by alleging that the outstanding issues between Lebanon and Israel are all governed by UN Resolutions including that of the Sheba Farms and in such, there is nothing to talk about.
Olmert’s call came a month after unveiling the ongoing indirect negotiations between Syria and Israel under Turkish auspices. Lebanon’s emotional and ignorant stance of stubbornly refusing peace talks with Israel is no longer acceptable, nor logical or justifiable.
One wonders why or what prevents Lebanon from doing what every other major Arabic country has done in initiating contact for purposes of peace with Israel. What could be especially said of Baathist Syria’?Lebanon needs to remove its hesitation and relieve itself from the yoke of the ‘Jamal Abdel Nasser Complex’ and bury once and for all the stigmatizing Arab anti-Israeli phobia. Like it or not, Israel is a reality like the rest of the Middle East countries, and will remain so for many years to come.
While Lebanon's leadership is obviously afraid from Syria, Iran, Hezbollah and other Fundamentalist Arab regimes and Islamic armed militias, and accordingly keeps on avoiding any kind of peace talks with the Israelis, we find that those same countries and organizations are actively talking with the Israelis on many levels and on numerous issues!
The foremost runner in this context is Syria who adopts two completely contradicting stances. Overtly, and of course rhetorically, Syria tells its people and the Arabs that Israel is the enemy and should be dealt with accordingly, while covertly it is begging the Israelis for a peace treaty. During the past thirty years and without any sort of fear or embarrassment, Syria has never retreated from negotiating with the Jewish state either directly or through mediators. The latest series of talks are still ongoing via Turkey.
Many Syrian officials are even bragging about the extensive progress they have made in their negotiations with the Israelis and are calling on the US, the ‘Great Satan’ (as they and their allies the Iranians like to call it), and France to sponsor the whole process and assume full partnership in it.
Yesterday Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who side by side with the Israelis attended the 43-nation Union for the Mediterranean summit in Paris, told Arab broadcaster Al-Jazeera that Damascus would establish "normal" relations with the Jewish state, including the opening of embassies.
It is worth mentioning that last year in April, Syrian-American negotiator Ibrahim Suleiman, who is a very close friend to the Syrian ruling Al Assad Family visited Israel and gave a speech publicly in its Knesset. He called on the Israelis to engage with the Baathist Syrians into a negotiating process in a bid to sign a peace treaty between the two countries.
Reports that came from Israel during his visit stated that he offered the Israelis Syrian promises and guarantees that once the peace treaty is reached Syria will disarm and dismantle all the terrorist and fundamentalist Islamic organizations including Hezbollah and Hamas. In return, Syria was asking for Israeli, and American guarantees that the Assad ruling Family and its Baath Party will be helped and supported to remain in power.
We can not fail to point out that the assassination of the notorious Hezbollah terrorist, Imad Mughniyeh on February 13th of 2008 in the centre of the Syrian capital had been considered by many respected international observers as a Syrian blood message to both USA and Israel that said: Secure our control and ruling powers over Syria and in return we shall eliminate all the organizations and elements that bothers you.
The Lebanese people have the right to know why their government is refusing to talk peace with the Israelis while keeping a blind eye on Hezbollah’s on going negotiations with the Jewish State under the German and UN auspices. Hezbollah’s Secretary General admitted in one his fiery speeches last month that his group is negotiating with the Israelis through the UN who assigned a German mediator for this task. It is also worth mentioning that a deal for exchanging body remains and prisoners between Hezbollah and Israel was sealed a few days ago and will be implemented later this week.
The Lebanese government did not have any role in this deal and all its negotiating authorities were bluntly confiscated by Hezbollah.The Lebanese people have the right to know why their government is refusing to talk with the Israelis, while the Palestinians themselves became full partners with the Israelis after the “Oslo Accord” and had accepted the right of Israeli’s existence and renounced their armed struggle against it.
The Lebanese people have the right to know whether the rulers of Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Tunisia, Libya, Algeria, Morocco, the Arab Gulf states and other members of the Arab League are all traitors because they have either forged peace accords with Israel or have established diplomatic, trade and intelligence relations with its government. The Lebanese people have the right to know why Hezbollah, Hamas and the Palestinians, all the Arab and Muslim countries, the Iranians and every other country and individual on this earth are allowed to talk with the Israelis while the legitimate Lebanese authorities are singled out and forbidden from doing so.The painful and shocking reality is that Lebanon is to remain the final battle ground and an attractive arena for all Arab armed extremists, terrorists and fundamentalist groups as is the situation now with Hezbollah, the armed Iranian militia that has erected a state inside the Lebanese state and is on its way to topple the whole Lebanese regime and erect an Iranian one in its place.
It has been devouring Lebanese institutions day after day while the whole world is watching and doing nothing.No, this official Lebanese position is not more acceptable under any pretext, and there must be an immediate end put to it!Lebanon’s officials and its sovereign religious and political leaders have a legal and national obligation towards their fellow Lebanese citizens. They ought to put on the table all the reasons and elements that force them to keep Lebanon alienated from the Middle East process.
In case they are all helpless and threatened by Iran, Syria and Hezbollah they have to publicly admit these intimidating obstacles and officially call on the UN, the Arab League and free world countries to take over and face militarily the axis of evil powers as was the situation in Afghanistan, East Timor, Iraq and other African countries.
We call on the Lebanese officials and religious and political leadership in general especially President Michel Suleiman and Prime Minister Fouad Saniora in particular, to stop squawking like parrots their "Dhimmitude" rhetorical and humiliating slogan that says: Lebanon will be the last Arab country to negotiate with Israel and sign a peace treaty with it, because in fact Lebanon is the only country in the entire Middle East that is still holding itself hostage in this bizarre and unrealistic anti-Israel futile position.
Elias Bejjani
Chairman for the Canadian Lebanese Coordinating Council (LCCC)
Human Rights activist, journalist & political commentator.
Spokesman for the Canadian Lebanese Human Rights Federation (CLHRF)
E.Mail phoenicia@hotmail.com
LCCC Web Site http://www.10452lccc.com
CLHRF Website http://www.clhrf.com
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