EU Referendum

Showing posts with label Lebanon. Show all posts

Lebanon+celebration[i-Lebanon+celebration]Oh come on, this has to be Israel’s fault. Or President Bush’s. I mean, it cannot be that another Middle Eastern country is going through yet another internal crisis and it is not America’s fault. That is just plain wrong.

Back in January this blog said (yes, I do get tired of repeating that):

This blog was one of the few outlets to predict that the country to suffer most from Hezbollah’s perceived victory this summer (and I stress the word perceived) will not be Israel but Lebanon.

Yes, there has been an anguished heart-searching in Israel and one hopes that it will lead to a clearer understanding of how important the media war is in the modern (and not so modern) world. Yes, the chief of staff has resigned and the President has gone on indefinite leave though that has to do with other, more personal matters. But the country stands and these matters will be sorted out in due course. If ever people want an argument for a democracy as against tyrannies of all hues and colours, look to the Middle East.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Hezbollah is demanding a change in the government in the same petulant way as the peace marchers demanded a change in this country’s foreign policy here. I don’t like this government; I don’t care that it was elected and has the support of a majority; it is not doing what I wanted it to do; I want it to change; boo-hoo.

We followed the ongoing fighting between the Lebanese army and Fatah Al-Islam and the continuing “involvement” by Syria in Lebanese affairs, not least through the obvious method of assassinating anyone who spoke up against it. Here is the long list of our postings.

So we are not altogether surprised that things have gone belly-up in that country. After a good deal of trouble and postponement of presidential elections the elastic snapped.

The parliamentary vote for a president was postponed again and the incumbent’s time has come to an end. As of midnight Lebanon has no president, a fact that people in Beirut find a matter for celebration. Or so the New York Times tells us in words and picture. The latter, in particular, have been erroneous before so we must reserve judgement.

Then again, it may be that they are particularly pleased to see the back of this president, as he was known to be pro-Syrian and reluctant to come to any agreement with the other side.

The departing president, Émile Lahoud asked the army to take charge of security and a caretaker government is taking care of day-to-day operations. According to “experts on Lebanese law” M Lahoud’s request changes nothing as the army has been in charge of security for some time. (Or not, as the case may be.)

The problem is that the Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, is seen as being pro-Western or, at least, anti-Syrian, which means that he thinks that Lebanon should be run by Lebanese and not by Syrians. Somewhere deep down he probably thinks that Hezbollah, the only unofficial militia around that refused to disarm when the others did, is not a good thing for Lebanon either.

His opponents – given their behaviour, the New York Times stretches the point somewhat by calling them the opposition – is refusing to come to any agreement on who should be the next president.

Opposition members of Parliament said they hoped it would be easier to reach a deal on a new president after the Middle East peace conference scheduled to take place next week in Annapolis, Md.

Samir Franjieh, a lawmaker with the governing coalition, said that Syria was waiting to see if it would be asked to play a central role in the peace talks. If Damascus reached an understanding with Washington, he said, Syria might use its considerable influence in Lebanon to push for a settlement.

“The Syrians are taking their time,” Mr. Franjieh said.

Members of the governing coalition said that with the crisis coming to a climax, momentum at the negotiating table could shift in favor of the pro-Western bloc.

Meanwhile, where is the EU? Well, nowhere at the moment, though I have no doubt, Solana will start wringing his hands any minute. France, in view of her “special links” with the region has tried to intervene, as we find from Al-Jazeera’s report, which is considerably more somber than that of the New York Times and points out that the stand-off has been more or less permanent since “the Shia group” a. k. a. Hezbollah had pulled its five members out of the cabinet a year ago.

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, whose country has been leading efforts to resolve the crisis, left Beirut on Thursday after the latest in a series of failed mediation efforts.

As our readers might recall, Spain and Italy tried to intervene as well.

The foreign ministers of Italy and Spain had earlier voiced pessimism after a last-ditch attempt to get the rival sides to agree failed.

Another day, another failure for the soft power.

Emile+Lahoud[i-Emile+Lahoud]First the country that has postponed a vote yet again although it needs one rather badly. Rick Moran reports in American Thinker that

Unable to achieve a consensus on which Christian politician should serve as president, both pro and anti-government forces agreed to delay the vote in Parliament to choose a successor to current pro-Syrian President Emile Lahoud.

The story is based on a Reuters report, which adds a European dimension:

French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, and his Spanish and Italian counterparts Miguel Moratinos and Massimo D'Alema, urged rival factions to reach a swift deal during a visit to Lebanon last week.

"The ministers reiterated the urgency of an inter-Lebanese accord in terms of this crucial election, and our availability to continue working towards that end," deputy French Foreign Ministry spokesman Frederic Desagneaux said on Monday.

That ought to do it, I expect. Hezbollah will, undoubtedly, see the light and negotiate with the Maronites.

On to the elections that did happen. First off, Switzerland, to whose electoral campaign we have referred to before.

Spp-poster[i-Spp-poster]The Swiss People’s Party, described by such wonderfully democratic institutions as the UN Human Rights Commission as being extremist and right-wing but, in actual fact, the party that held the largest number of seats even before the election, has won handsomely, getting 29 per cent of the vote and 62 seats out of 200 in the Lower House, the National Council.

Although many saw the campaign as tainted by racism or xenophobia, the Swiss elected their first black parliament member Sunday — Ricardo Lumengo of the Social Democrats, an Angolan who arrived in Switzerland as an asylum seeker the 1980s and subsequently became a legal expert.

Well, go figure, as they say on the other side of the Pond.

Of course, this election is important in symbolism more than in reality. Because of the complicated electoral system, the Swiss government will go on being a coalition of four parties and the cantons will carry on being far more important than said government.

For all of that the Swiss have shown their mettle. They want to be ruled in the way they decide and they do not want to have their very special culture destroyed. In my opinion they made a serious mistake when they decided to join the UN in 2002 after keeping out of that corrupt tranzi organization for decades, but they are making up for that.

We can be reasonably certain that there will be little talk of Switzerland joining the EU or, even, the EEA for some time to come.

Donald+Tusk[i-Donald+Tusk]On to the next election that took place this Sunday. Yes, folks its Polish politics time again. It seems that Prime Minister Kaczynsky managed to annoy the Polish electorate to such an extent that they actually turned out to vote in larger numbers than before to trounce him and his party. Well, by larger than before numbers we mean 54 per cent.

The Polish pro-business party, Civic Platform, today took a strong position as a result of the parliamentary elections Sunday, winning 41.4 percent of the total vote with 99 percent of returns counted.

Donald Tusk will now start negotiations to form the new coalition government, in the first place with the Polish Peasants’ Party, in the somewhat uncomfortable knowledge that the good twin, Lech Kaczynski will still be President and in position to veto legislation.

As ever, it is impossible to predict what will happen on the international front. At the moment the EU leaders are pleased because Donald Tusk is known as a supporter of the EU and its rather elusive “values” while Kaczynski was known as a troublemaker.

On the other hand, as we have pointed out on numerous occasions on this blog, Jaroslaw Kaczynski may have yapped loudly but found himself in agreement with whatever was being proposed as soon as some kind of a bribe, however indefinable, materialized. One suspects, Donald Tusk will have quite similar policies.

Another issue will be the American alliance. The Kaczynskis have tended to be staunchly pro-American and anti-Russian …. rather like all their predecessors in post-Communist Polish governments.

The New York Times, who had not been happy at so much European support for the United States in Iraq, preferring to think of Bush as someone who isolated the country, is clutching at what might be described as straws:

Mr. Tusk said during the campaign that he would have driven a harder bargain over support of plans to place missile interceptors on Polish soil and that, if elected, he would try to bring home the 900 Polish troops in Iraq.

Not much in that, really. I can’t help feeling that Poland will continue to proved us with some entertainment on the political scene.

COMMENT THREAD

I shall, of course, leave it to my colleague to discuss General Petraeus's statement to Congress and the somewhat puerile shenaningans the Democrats went in for. It would appear that the General, the world's leading expert on counter-insurgency, managed to present a very good case unlike Wee Willie Hague who seems to have annoyed with his response the editors Toryboy blog.

However, I feel I need to update our readers on the Lebanon story that was part of my posting yesterday. According to Reuters, Shakir al-Abssi, leader of Fatah al-Islam may not have been killed in the final surge of the Lebanese army in Nahr al-Bared. His supposed body was identified by another terrorist and his wife but the DNA tests "showed the body's sample did not match those from Abssi's children and brother".

I suppose there can be all sorts of explanations: the DNA samples were mixed up, Shakir al-Abssi's wife no longer remembers what he looks like, whatever. The Lebanese government cannot be happy. Neither can anybody else in that part of the world.

link[i-link]The last time we didn't have a civil war in the Middle East was just a few weeks ago in Gaza. Now we don't have a civil war in Lebanon.

Al-Jazeera reports that fighting between the Lebanese army and the terrorists of Fatah al-Islam has spread to the northern town of Qalamoun where six "armed fighters" (is this translated from Russian, I ask myself) have been killed.

So far they have identified two of the men as Lebanese and three as Saudi with nationality of the sixth one remaining unknown.

Others, like the Middle East Times, give a different line-up:

A military source, on condition of anonymity, said that three Saudis, two Syrians, and an Iraqi were killed, while the Riyadh daily Okaz reported that four Saudi suspects had been arrested and another four killed before the latest clash.

Since May 20 when the fighting started, first in Tripoli, then in the refugee camp, 194 people have been killed, not counting the latest casualties. Well, that is the official figure but it is hard to work out how many civilians and terrorists are killed in the sort of fighting that has been going on.

Officially the figures are: 84 soldiers, 70 "fighters" i.e. terrorists and 40 civilians. The truth might be very different. One thing is certain: this is NOT a civil war. Got that?

COMMENT THREAD

Terrorists_Lebanon[i-Terrorists_Lebanon]While the fighting in northern Lebanon between the army and the terrorist organization Fatah al-Islam continues and, indeed, seems to be spreading, the latter or, possibly someone else, has turned its attention to the south.

A bomb has killed three Spanish and three Colombian soldiers in UNIFIL. Two other soldiers have been wounded. The Spanish Defence Minister, Jose Antonio Alonso said:

We are working on the theory of a terrorist attack. In the last few weeks there have been many incidents which have destabilised Lebanon. We were on high alert and we had stepped up security.

It is, of course, possible that the Spanish government will think of pulling the troops out though that is unlikely to be popular with the troops themselves.

Meanwhile everybody or almost everybody in Lebanon has condemned the attack and UNIFIL has pointed out again that it is not involved in the fight in northern Lebanon so would Fatah al-Islam, please, leave them alone.

Hezbollah said:

The attack hurts the people of the south and of Lebanon.

It certainly does, though probably it hurt the soldiers in question a bit more.

refugee-camp-lebanon[i-refugee-camp-lebanon]While we wallow in discussions about whether Blair or Brown will be signing the next treaty when and if it appears, important events are taking place in Lebanon as well as one or two other countries in that region.

Last Wednesday there was another assassination in Lebanon. This time it was the anti-Syrian politician Walid Eido, a close ally of the assassinated former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. The bomb also killed his son, two bodyguards and six bystanders. For some reason, many in Lebanon are blaming Syria while Baby Assad is denying all connection. Well, he would, wouldn’t he.

Prime Minister Fouad Saniora has asked the UN Security Council to authorize the investigators of the previous political assassinations in Lebanon (all of anti-Syrian politicians and commentators) to extend their work to include Walid Eido’s killing. The authorization will probably be granted but it might be a good idea to speed up the work before they lose everyone who has ever spoken up against Syria and its control of large stretches of Lebanese territory and political life.

Meanwhile, YaLibnan reports that the Lebanese army is close to crushing Fatah al-Islam but only, it seems on the outskirts of the Paelstinian refugee camp, Nahr al-Bared. As the agreement is that the army does not enter the camps, it will not do so. Though, it could be argued that there will not be much of the camp left by the time this is all over. I am still waiting for the outraged demonstrations and the human shields of the International Solidarity Movement to become active.

One comment in the report has intrigued me:

The army is currently focusing its bombardment on the UNRWA building which has 7 underground floors, in which many of the terrorists of Fatah al Islam are hiding.

Not alleged to be hiding, you understand, but actually are hiding. I wonder how that came about. Come to think of it why does UNRWA need no fewer than 7 underground floors?
Meanwhile, those famous militants have been busy in southern Lebanon as well, firing two rockets into northern Israel, which is full of civilian targets. Both the Lebanese army and the UN peacekeepers have proclaimed themselves to be on the alert.

One cannot help wondering how is it that UNIFIL managed to miss the fact that Katyusha rockets can be launched into northern Israel.

Two of the three rockets that were fired at Israel late Sunday landed in an area where several thousand rockets launched by Hezbollah fell on the Jewish state during last summer's 34-day war, which resulted in the deaths of more than 1,000 people. A third rocket went down in Lebanon, while a fourth, which had a timer device, was found by Lebanese troops before it could be launched.

Hezbollah quickly denied having fired the barrage. Israel suggested the attacks were the work of Sunni Palestinian refugees in Lebanon who support Hamas, rather than an attack by Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah, which has close links with Syria and Iran.

That would explain the inaction of the UNIFIL forces. I think.

The United States has issued various strong condemnations of the assassination and continuing Syrian intervention in Lebanese affairs as well as of the militants’ activities, but it is not of President Bush of Secretary of State Rice that I want to write. How has the EU reacted to all these events? Here is a perfect opportunity for that value-based common foreign policy to come into play.

Well, Finland is withdrawing its peace-keeping troops, reckoning that it was unwise to get ossified in these endeavours. The real reason remains somewhat opaque:

Mr Vanhanen [Prime Minister Matti Vanhannen] believes the soldiers, equipment and money tied up in Lebanon may be used elsewhere, adding that communications kit and vehicles are needed by the Finnish troops that form part of the EU's Nordic battlegroup, which goes on standby at the beginning of next year.

Mr Vanhanen did not confirm Nelonen's report that Finland was sending more troops to Afghanistan.

France is shouldering its duties as a former imperial power in the region. There will be a meeting for all the interested parties in Paris at the end of the month to come to some sort of an understanding on Lebanon’s future. Of course, at this stage, one cannot predict how many interested parties there will be. In any case, there might be a problem with some of them like Hezbollah, against whose presence Jewish groups are already protesting.

President Sarkozy denounced the murder of Walid Eido as “an atrocious assassination”. Javier Solana the Lord High Executioner of the CFP seems to have made no statements but is quoted by the Lebanese government as saying that the EU was backing Lebanon, a fairly typical and meaningless statement.

Meanwhile, Italy seems to have gone out on a limb, so to speak. If the Israeli media is to be believed:

Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema offered Syrian officials a deal on his visit to Damascus earlier this month, according to Israeli sources.

D'Alema told Syrian president, Basher al-Assad and Foreign Minister Walid Moallem that Italy would push for an end to Syria's international isolation in return for a guarantee that Hezbollah and other groups would not harm Italian troops in Lebanon.

Italy has headed the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon since February, and has some 11,000 soldiers stationed in the south, covering the Litani River region.

Perhaps, the EU should adopt the Italian policy as its own.

COMMENT THREAD

Lebanon+camps[i-Lebanon+camps]The two reports (of many more) from Al-Jazeera and the BBC World Service show clearly that it is not easy to know exactly what is going on in Lebanon. (I would recommend the Al-Jazeera one as being more complete and objective.)

So far as one can make out, the Lebanese army is moving in for the final push in Nahr al-Bared with Fatah Al-Islam acknowledging that one of their leaders, Abu Riyadh, has been killed by an army sniper. The army has reported that at least three other "militants" have been killed in the last day's fighting.

Most of the camp's population has managed to get out but those who are too old or too infirm to go, are still there, with the terrorists (what the heck, call them by their right name) probably intending to use them as shields. Or so the Lebanese government and army believe.

As the siege continued, Abu Salim Taha, a spokesman for Fatah al-Islam, claimed that troops from Unifil, a multi-national peacekeeping force whose remit is largely concerned with monitoring southern Lebanon, had taken part in the shelling of Nahr al-Bared camp.

A deputy spokesperson for Unifil denied the allegations.

Yapmina Bouzaine said: "These claims are utterly unfounded. Unifil's maritime task force have no part whatsoever in the developments in and around Nahr al-Bared camp."

She said the maritime task force was acting within its original mandate, assisting the Lebanese authorities in preventing the illegal flow of arms via the sea.

I do not suppose Unifil is involved in the fighting but it is hard to imagine it doing anything useful in a situation that is rapidly escalating.

Another militant group, Jund Al-Sham, has fired at an army checkpoint (calm down Beeboids, it was not an Israeli checkpoint but a Lebanese one) at the Ain al-Hilweh camp in south Lebanon. The army returned the fire and brought in reinforcements, deploying armoured vehicles mounted with heavy machine guns.

Though the situation remains chaotic, one or two points need to be made.

The first obvious one that if Israel had gone after "militants" in refugee camps, there would, by now be angry demonstrations (though not very large ones) and emergency meetings in the UN Security Council. It is a point that has been made repeatedly and needs to be made over and over again.

However, the really interesting aspect is that the Lebanese government and military seem to be determined to rid the country of various, multimonikered militant groups, and if that means waging war in Palestinian refugee camps, so be it. They will do it, hoping, presumably, that the Palestinians will be too scared to harbour any more terrorists. I doubt if that hope will be justified.

One wonders rather whether Israel's war against Hezbollah last summer may not have left the Lebanese government more determined to reclaim the country for the Lebanese people. How that will play out with all those Palestinian camps remains to be seen.

And while we are on the subject, where is Hezbollah. Apart from a few statements by Nasrallah, they have been very quiet. Indeed, they have retreated in the last few months very quickly after making various threats, as soon as there was a strong response from the government and the people.

Could it be that Hezbollah has, as some of us suspected, suffered a far greater defeat last summer than it was acknowledged by the so-called independent observers? Might there be some difficulty in recruiting replacement fighters and getting more arms from Iran, Syria or, even, some units of the Lebanese army?

Just a few questions to which one would like to know the answers.

COMMENT THREAD

Lebanese+army.01[i-Lebanese+army.01]The BBC, as we know, has its own way of gauging what is important news. Thus in the section on the Middle East they lead on renewed Israeli strikes on Hamas:

About 40 people have now died in 10 days of Israeli bombings in Gaza, which Israel says is aimed at stopping rocket attacks on its territory by militants.

Militants? Oh well, let it pass. But I cannot imagine why the Israelis should say that.

To be fair, some way down the article there is a mention of the rocket attacks (somehow the word ‘relentless’ so much loved by our journalists when it is Israel doing the attacking gets forgotten) on Sderot and other places. It is mentioned that the Palestinian attacks were all on civilians and the Israelis are targeting those famous militants.

Only then do we get to the Lebanese story, which is of some importance, with the curious title of “New US military aid for Lebanon”. Then again, the Guardian does not even begin to hide its feelings on the subject, entitling the article “Lebanon defends military aid from US”. I wish I could understand how these people’s minds work. Is it that they hate America so much that anyone who is helped by the Americans becomes a bad guy, unless the help can be hidden from the readers, or is it that they feel so much for the Palestinian militants that they cannot stand the thought of anyone hurting them? If the latter then the Guardianistas and Beeboids must live in a terribly painful world.

There is, indeed, military aid going in from the United States but, according to Mehrnews, this was promised some time ago and rushed in faster to aid the Lebanese army against those pesky militants.

According to the same source, the Lebanese army is not only digging in around Nahr al-Bared but is conducting door to door searches in Tripoli to ensure that any militant that had managed to slip out of the refugee camp (a somewhat solid establishment, as one of our readers has pointed out), does not hide in that city. As I pointed out before the Palestinians are unlikely to be welcome in Tripoli for long.

Meanwhile Hezbollah leader, Hassan Sayyed Nasrallah, has been warning everyone. He warned the Americans not to intervene in Lebanon because that will turn the country into a US – Al Qaeda battlefield (as opposed to what we have now, a Lebanese – Al Qaeda battlefield).

He warned the Lebanese army not to storm the camp because that will make everybody unhappy.

“Do you want to turn Lebanon into a scene of clashes between the U.S. and Al-Qaeda?” asked the Hezbollah leader in an address to the Siniora government, which is dominated by members of the March 14 group.

Nasrallah said the Fatah al-Islam group has acknowledged its ideological proximity with the Al-Qaeda network.

“Do we want to engage in clashes with Al-Qaeda in Lebanon so that members of this network enter our country from across the world to fight the U.S.?”

He said resorting to military force for settling the Fatah al-Islam crisis can jeopardize the destiny of the Lebanese army.

Warning that storming the Nahr al-Bared camp would be very dangerous and would harm Lebanon, he said, “I declare that Nahr al-Bared camp and civilians and Palestinian groups are all red lines.”

He criticized those who are in favor of ordering the army to enter the camp.

“This act would lead to the victimization of the army, and the Palestinian and Lebanese people,” said the cleric in a message broadcast on Al-Menar TV.

Fatah+al-Islam[i-Fatah+al-Islam]But, he emphasized, he was not supporting Fatah al-Islam. He just didn’t anyone to pick on them, one assumes. According to the BBC report, Prime Minister Fouad Siniora saw it differently and accused Sheikh Nasrallah of effectively supporting the militant grouping (perhaps we can call them insurrectionists quite soon).

Mr Siniora described the alternatives:

Either they surrender themselves to Lebanese justice... or else the Lebanese authorities will be forced to take the decision to let the army deal with this matter.

Not much opportunity for Nasrallah’s political solution there. Mind you one wonders whether Mr Siniora meant this comment:

In short, it's almost... as if that amounts to justifying the [Islamic militant] Fatah al-Islam movement. Islam itself is innocent of that. And the Palestinian cause is also innocent of that.

Hmmm. Mr Siniora, undoubtedly knows that the Palestinian cause is littered with movements like Fatah al-Islam and saturated with a great deal of bloodshed, often in clashes with brother Arabs.

The UN and its agency UNICEF are calling for protection of civilians trapped in the camp:

"An estimated 10,000 civilians remain in the embattled camp with only sporadic humanitarian support during very brief ceasefire periods," said Unicef, the UN children's agency.

"Children living in Nahr al-Bared have been through unspeakable trauma," it added.

"Already living in a refugee situation, they have witnessed their homes being destroyed, loved ones being killed or injured, and were trapped in their homes hearing the terrifying sounds of gunfire around them."

This is undoubtedly true but one does wonder why the UN and its other agency UNRWA has been so active keeping those refugee camps going, preventing generations of Palestinians from establishing themselves outside them and why did they not raise the alarm when heavily armed “militants” entered the camp.

As I was writing this, the not entirely unexpected news came through that fighting has again broken out in Nahr al-Bared. Another cease-fire bites the dust.

COMMENT THREAD

Lebanese+army.01[i-Lebanese+army.01]As the situation in the Nahr al-Bared camp deteriorates, humanitarian organizations continue to flap around on the edges, hoping that at some point the cease-fire will last long enough for them to get in there and distribute supplies to the remaining inmates (there can be no other word) who have no running water or electricity.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has lambasted the Islamist extremists and expressed her support for the Lebanese government.

I certainly hope that the Lebanese government will be able to deal with these extremists. It's just another example of extremists in the Middle East who are trying to destabilize democratic governments.

The Lebanese government is, I think, very much trying to do the right thing here, to protect its population against the extremists who would sow discord and instability there. And I think the world is speaking out in favour of the Lebanese government.

Then again, there are not all that many democratic governments in the Middle East to destabilize and the one undisputed democracy – Israel – never seems to have the world or, even, Secretary Rice speaking out in its favour.

Inevitably, there are the voices that think the Lebanese army responding to Islamist extremism in those everlasting refugee camps in the north of Lebanon and the consequent inevitably problems are all, but all, Israel’s fault.

This outbreak of violence, the worst in Lebanon since the 1975-1990 civil war, is yet another consequence of the world's - and specifically America's -- failure to settle the Arab-Israeli conflict and resolve its tragic corollary, the Palestine refugee problem.

In Lebanon alone, 12 anarchic camps are home to some 400,000 refugees, most scratching a living well below the poverty line. They are a permanent source of instability. Misery and despair are the crucial ingredients of violence and terrorism.

Two or three hundred well-armed fighters of Fatah al-Islam are still holed up in the Nahr al-Bared camp near Tripoli. The Lebanese Army cannot go in to flush them out because of the virtual extra-territorial status Palestinian camps in Lebanon have enjoyed since the late 1960s.

One wonders if these people ever read what they have written. How exactly would the situation as described in that paragraph be settled by the world and, specifically, America? What would the Palestinians who, uniquely, have been living in refugee camps for generations without the slightest possibility of getting out of them and leading normal lives (unlike all other refugees in the world) achieve through any settlement engineered by other people?

We all know the answer to the second question. What they will achieve is a prolongation of their victim status.

To be fair to Dar Al-Hayat, the rest of the article is an analysis of what is going on in Lebanon and of the choices that the Lebanese government and army face. Since it persists of talking about the “Sunni street”, questions are being begged.

There seems to be some agreement that Fatah al-Islam, the group that is ensconced in Nahr al-Bared and, possibly, in other refugee camps is not Palestinian in origin. Possibly it is linked with Al-Qaeda, possibly it is another terrorist group that started up in Saudi Arabia or some other estimable Middle Eastern state.

If one thinks logically about this then one realizes that refugee camps of the Nahr al-Bared kind are obvious targets – full of people who are eternal victims, think the world owes them a living and will follow anyone who tells them that this is so and they can achieve something or other through killing people. They are also geographically easy. You can get a lot of possible supporters or, at least, victims who cannot complain too much (are these not brother Arabs, after all?) in one place.

So, one must ask who is it that has kept the Palestinians in their camps, making them easy targets? One of the most obvious organizations is the U.N. Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), a most peculiar organization in that it exists in order to deal with only one group – the Palestinians in the Middle East. Furthermore, its way of dealing with them is to keep them in refugee camps, thus providing the world with endless pictures of victims (and themselves with jobs, one assumes).

According to an article in the Washington Times, UNRWA has been aware for some months that heavily armed “foreigners” were moving into Nahr al-Bared. The officials, all, one assumes, on comfortable salaries and even more comfortable expenses, could do nothing about this, as the camps are self-policed. That, as we know, is part of the problem. The Lebanese authorities cannot move into the camps to sort matters out until it gets to the situation we have at the moment.

On the other hand, UNRWA could have raised the alarm. Its officials are not exactly backward about coming forward normally. Why were there no statements, complaints or interviews about “a large band of foreigners carrying what has been described as mortars, rockets, explosive belts and other heavy weapons” entering the camp that they were supposed to be overseeing?

There are other questions, some of them being asked helplessly by Karen Koning AbuZayd, commissioner-general of UNRWA. For instance, why did the Palestinians, who are policing the camp, not stop this invasion? Come to think of it why did they not leave before the violence started? Mind you, the answer to that might be that what with the Lebanese army outside and Fatah al-Islam inside they were not allowed to leave. After all, UNRWA is not usually enthusiastic about Palestinians abandoning their refugee camps unless it is to go to another one, which is what many of them are doing in northern Lebanon at the moment.

Some of the refugees are going to Tripoli but it is questionable how long they would be allowed to stay there and some are crowding into the Badawi refugee camp, also, presumably overseen by UNRWA and its rather helpless commissioner-general. How long before the same sequence of events repeats itself in Badawi and any other Palestinian refugee camp one cares to name?

Let us not forget ever that UNRWA like all tranzis exists only because taxpayers’ money, all from the despised western world, is poured into it.

COMMENT THREAD

Lebanon+army[i-Lebanon+army]It has been the view held by this blog for some time and certainly since last summer that the presence of Hezbollah as an armed militia, supported, financed and equipped by Syria and Iran would, in the not so long run, be more of a problem for the Lebanese than the Israeli government.

The same can be said for the extensive Palestinian "refugee" camps in which generations have grown up in the certain knowledge that there was no way out of those places for them in Lebanon (or any other Arab state) and have nurtured an assumption that somewhere in Israel there is land that is somehow "rightfully" theirs.

These camps have been nurturing various Islamist, terrorist and extremist groups, many of which are linked to Al-Qaeda and all of them supported, financed and equipped by Syria and/or Iran.

The news today and yesterday has been that the Lebanese government and army have had enough and tanks have moved in on the Nahr al-Bahred refugee camp. There has been at least one explosion in the Christian part of Beirut (one assumes that was not the Lebanese army) and the situation is rapidly worsening.

Fausta has what looks to me like the most up-to-date round-up of news and analysis, though more might have happened while I have been writing this.

A couple of her links are worth looking at. One is the BBC World Service, which is headed Lebanon clashes 'kill civilians'. Why the quotation marks? Were they not killed or were they not civilians? Or are we to assume that if the Lebanese army moves in to clear out some of the Palestinian refugee camps then they are fighting militants (never terrorists) and if it is Israel then everybody is miraculously turned into "innocent civilians"?

As the great and sorely missed Bernard Levin used to say, "I ask only because I want to know".

Another of Fausta's links is to an excellent summary in the International Herald Tribune. It is not a pretty picture and it is clear that the problem has largely been created by Lebanon itself in the refusal to let the Palestinians off the reservations. Curiously enough, the fears that have motivated their actions are similar to those expressed by the Israelis and demonstrated by the Jordanian army in 1970 - 71.

Is there not a UN peace-keeping mission in Lebanon?

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Regev,+Halutz[i-Regev,+Halutz]The picture is that of General Dan Haretz, former Chief of Israeli General Staff, and Miri Regev, the lady he had appointed to deal with the IDF's relationship with the media.

Of the two, she was probably more disastrous but that may be simply because I understand the media and propaganda better than toys and whether armies are victorious.

Here is a discussion of the propaganda war and how it was lost by Israel. Oh yes, and why it matters to us.

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Propaganda+Photo[i-Propaganda+Photo]Thanks to Pajamas Media, we get this interesting story of a Lebanese blog exposing fauxtography to do with the recent Lebanese riots or disturbances, depending on how you wish to describe them.

Michael Totten covers the story in his Middle East Journal, though we take exception to his last comment:

Busting propagandists for fauxtography isn’t just for Americans any more.

Ahem, Green Helmet Guy? Did you miss that one, Mr Totten?

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Beirut02[i-Beirut02]Well, of course, it is all, but all, Israel's fault. Or Bush's. It has to be. Stands to reason.

The situation in Beirut is getting ever more tense. According to this report, the general strike ended with three dead and 176 injured. Those appear to be the accepted figures for the time being.

Four more people were killed in sectarian clashes the day after the strike and around 200 injured during fights between Shias and Sunnis or, if you prefer, Hezbollah and government supporters at Beirut university. Those are the official figures but it seems that people in the street have been attacked and beaten up on the basis of their religious affiliation.

Last night was the first time a curfew was imposed on Beirut since the civil war of the seventies but it was lifted this morning and there is general weeping and wailing. AllahPundit has an interesting tape from MEMRI with Lebanese women (and one man) cursing Nasrallah. One lady expresses the widely applauded opinion that Olmert is more honourable than the Hezbollah leader. She also mentions that this is yet another holy month in Islam and, thus, the fighting is doubly wrong.

Nasrallah has called his people off the streets. We shall see whether they will go on obeying him when he pulls them back.

Hamas[i-Hamas]As Bloomberg points out, the rioting broke out just hours after the donors in Paris had pledged "$7.6 billion in new funds to help rebuild Lebanon and lend support to Prime Minister Fouad Siniora's government".

Meanwhile, Al-Jazeera reports that the celebration of the first anniversary of Hamas’s election has been "marred" by factional fighting that resulted in five dead and 11 abducted. Fatah has again called off talks about a unity government.

It just has to be Bush's fault.

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Lebanese+riots[i-Lebanese+riots]This blog was one of the few outlets to predict that the country to suffer most from Hezbollah’s perceived victory this summer (and I stress the word perceived) will not be Israel but Lebanon.

Yes, there has been an anguished heart-searching in Israel and one hopes that it will lead to a clearer understanding of how important the media war is in the modern (and not so modern) world. Yes, the chief of staff has resigned and the President has gone on indefinite leave though that has to do with other, more personal matters. But the country stands and these matters will be sorted out in due course. If ever people want an argument for a democracy as against tyrannies of all hues and colours, look to the Middle East.

Meanwhile, in Lebanon, Hezbollah is demanding a change in the government in the same petulant way as the peace marchers demanded a change in this country’s foreign policy here. I don’t like this government; I don’t care that it was elected and has the support of a majority; it is not doing what I wanted it to do; I want it to change; boo-hoo.

One can joke about our own demonstrators and armchair revolutionaries. In Lebanon matters are more serious. Hezbollah has withdrawn from the government and called a general strike yesterday.

Lebanese+riots02[i-Lebanese+riots02]The strike developed into a running battle between different factions and The Ouwet Front, which bills itself as “Personal Views and Opinions of Lebanese Forces Members” has some interesting pictures.

Meanwhile, the BBC World Service website, calling its story “Warning of new Lebanon Protests”, talks of Hezbollah-led opposition (at least they don’t call it “loyal”) and describes Fouad Sinioara’s government as “Western-backed”. At least, they have stopped calling it “American-backed”.

The opposition is demanding a big enough share in government to give them veto power over any decisions they do not like - a step the Western-backed government has not been willing to take.

Right, let’s get several things straight. The Siniora government was elected by the people of Lebanon, many of whom are sick of Hezbollah, sick of Iranian interference and sick of Syria’s control of parts of their country and society.

Hezbollah is not the opposition. It is the one militia that refused to disarm despite that famed UN Resolution 1559. It wants to run Lebanon’s government and that is why it is demanding the power of veto. No government, let alone an elected one would agree to that.

Having got that out of the way, let us look at the figures. The BBC, as all western media outlets say that three people were killed in the clashes and 100 wounded.

Over on Al-Jazeera, the story is slightly different. For one thing they talk of rivals clashing in northern Lebanon and, it turns out, that there was an exchange of fire the northern Lebanese city of Tripoli.

Security forces were trying to break up the clash in the northern city of Tripoli, which started after the funeral of a Sunni Muslim government supporter killed in clashes with opposition protesters on Tuesday.

Thousands had packed the streets of the northern city of Tripoli, Lebanon’s second largest city, for the funeral of Bilal Hayek. "Sunni blood is boiling," chanted the mourners, some of them armed.

There are, as yet, no news of casualties from Tripoli but Al-Jazeera’s report talks of six people killed and 176 wounded during the strike yesterday. Whom is one to believe? And another thing: where are those Western and Muslim protests? Are those innocent Lebanese civilians no longer of any interest?

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