What are we celebrating exactly?
“Tislam ya Asskar Lebnan” TV spot
However, soon after, national support turned into blatant racism, general indifference to the plight of the Palestinians (nothing new), and shameless displays of hatred. A benign example of that was the Facebook groups that started to mushroom in order to discuss a deep disgust with Palestinians who “allowed” this to happen and how they should ALL be slaughtered (in fact, a majority of the militants caught are not Palestinian but rather Saudi, Syrian, Pakistani, Algerian, Iraqi, Tunisian and yes, Lebanese).
It never ceases to surprise me how the all-mighty human rights are sacred when it comes to the Lebanese, but how the concept becomes unheard off when it comes to others. Why did it not matter when the Palestinian refugees were collectively punished? How come there has been very little concern for the civilians killed during the combat? How come it didn’t seem to matter that over 30,000 innocent (yes, innocent!) Palestinian refugees were about to become refugees again and again? When the same was happening to Lebanese civilians last summer, we (well, not all of us of course) were outraged, but as the wave of this “war on terrorism” takes a hold of a country, critical thinking seems to be the first victim.
Sadly, democracy and all that it entails such as freedom of the press, that was held on a silver plate during the war with Israel, didn’t mean squat to the Lebanese government or people in this scenario. Journalists were not even allowed to film from any area near the fighting. And when peaceful demonstrators held a sit-in at the southern checkpoint of the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, soldiers harassed them, took away their banners and criticized the Lebanese citizens involved by brandishing them as unpatriotic (anyone see a pattern here on how to effectively shut people up?)
May those Red Cross volunteers, soldiers and civilians who lost their lives in vain rest in peaceDuring the fighting, the US placed Fatah al-Islam on its terrorist list and Georges Khoury, the head of the army’s intelligence service, recently reiterated the claim that the Islamists confessed that they have links to Al-Qaida (and Syria of course). Not surprising since every single terrorist group these days, anywhere in the world, is linked to Al-Qaida. And as usual, the opposition had to take part in the blame game and claimed that Fatah al-Islam was funded by the Sunnis, and Harriri nonetheless, in order to deter and oppose the Shias’ rising power. [Another supporter of this theory, linking the US and the Sunnis in this conspiracy].
But why did the government send 163 young soldiers to their death in that camp? Why is no one asking what the real motives were in this battle against Fatah al-Islam? Isn’t the flag-waving part over yet?
And why did it take 3 months of fighting to gain control of the refugee camp that is legally part of the Lebanese territory? Isn’t time to let the army “control” ALL of Lebanon and completely get rid of the 1969 Cairo Agreement?
Naher el-Bared
Seems to me that integrating Palestinian refugees into Lebanese society and dismantling these states within-a-state the most sensible solution to this problem. Of course, this is only possible in a secular state, but, hey, we can all dream, can’t we?
- The Naher el-Bared relief campaign if you would like to help.
- Lebanon support for activities, alerts and human right reports.
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Seems to me that integrating Palestinian refugees into Lebanese society and dismantling these states within a state the most sensible solution to this problem.
Ton billet m’a énerver.
je suis deçue par tes propos et par ta dernière idée surtout.
Ta solution final est une exécution collectif pr le liban et ne sert que les intérêts israéliens.
j’aimerai que tu m’explique comment démographiquement tu peux intégrer tout ces palestiniens sans aucune répercussion sur le liban ?
comment peut tu intégrer un peuple dans un peuple qui à differentes valeurs.
comment tu pe me résoudre cette équation. 3000.000 de libanais et 400.000 palestiniens ?
le liban ne manque pas d’étranger il manque de libanais! donc non ta solution ca peut marcher dans un pays ou la population globale est 10 fois a 20 fois plus importante car dans ce cas l’intégration de ces gens ne pèsera pas sur le pays.
Je suis entrain de bouillir,
je les emmerdes les réfugiés palestiniens, pourquoi ils ont gardé le silence sur tout ce qui se passe dans le camps?
et non les terroriste sont majoritairement palestiniens avec d’autres nationalités arabes.revois un peu tes sources.
je reviens sur la facilité qu’ils ont eu ces terroristes a rester dans le camp! A creuser des tunnels et de bunkers, a s’armer et a recruter, et encore la population ne réagi pas, tu veux que j’ai de la compassion pour ces gens, C’est de l’utopisme ton discours.
Liberté de la presse… ?
ces terroristes avaient des sniper, l’armée avait un mal fou a ne pas tomber sous leurs balles, et encore moins a protéger les gens civils.
ajoutont a cela tout faux journaliste ou tout espion qui s’improvise journaliste et donne les positions des soldats.
alors oui inutile d’avoir ces journalistes qui vont rien faire autre que compté les morts.
bref inutile de dire plus, les journalistes pouvaient rester de loin et voir ce qui se passe.
et en plus tu veux koi ? tu veux ke des journalistes prennent en photo les soldats tués ? quelle information tu veux que les journalistes te rapportes dans un tel conflit ?cette guerre n’entait point une guerre médiatique comme celle de l’ete 2006.
nous sommes tt les deux assez bien place pour savoir que notre critique n’est point pertinente alors qu’on est même pas sur le terrain.
Y a aucune raison pour “bouillir”. L’idée principale de mon texte est non pas d’attaquer l’armée ou le Liban mais plutôt suggérer que cette guerre était inutile.
Si les Palestiniens sont intégrer dans la société, et s’ils sont traiter comme des êtres humains, y aura aucune raison d’avoir ces camps ou ils vivent dans un désespoir absolu, chose qui permet le “recrutement”.
Dire que ma “solution final est une exécution collectif pour le Liban et ne sert que les intérêts israéliens”, c’est répéter bêtement ce qu’on nous a appris a dire afin de condamner une population entière et leur nier leur droit de vivre.
comment tu pe me résoudre cette équation. 3000.000 de libanais et 400.000 palestiniens?
C’est simple, parce qu’il y a aucune différence entre nous, et j’ai bien dis que cette solution n’est possible que dans un pays laïque.
non , je ne suis pas d’accord, ce n’est point question de religion, c’est question de taille et de poids.
400.000 réfugiés c’est identique a la population d’un pays comme la malte.
et même si c’est question de religion, regarde les immigrés arabes en Europe, ils ont tout leurs droits et leurs libertés et ils veulent toujours rentré chez eux.
ces gens la ils ont leurs pays et ils ne veulent rester au liban.C’est bien d’aimer tout le monde et de traiter tout le monde a égale. mais il faut commencer par critique celui qui as tout causer, avant de lyncher les autres.
ce n’est point question de religion, c’est question de taille et de poids.
Je ne pense pas ke tu aurais eu la même opinion s’il s’agissait de Chrétiens ou Maronites.
ces gens la ils ont leurs pays et ils ne veulent rester au liban.
De kel pays tu parles? Non mais tu rêves!
Tu ne peu pas savoir ce que je pense.
ces gens la ils ont leurs pays et ils ne veulent pas rester au liban.
ou leur Ex-pays,si tu prefere, bref je menfiche completement, mais ta poussée d’humanisme et de bonté est aveugle.
en soit c’est un tres beau geste ce que tu veux faire, c’est le summum de la bonté d’accueillir tt ces perosonnes.
mais pas au liban, k’ils rentrent en israel.
Je crois que la solution doit etre moderee, tous les 2 vous etes en train de suggerer des idees trop “extremistes”… anon tu veux qu’ils rentrent chez eux bien qu’on sait tres bien que c’est quasi-impossible qu’ils puissent retourner et theL tu veux que le liban les integre ..chose trop idealiste meme naive vu le system sectarian du Liban… qu’on ait un sect majoritaire au Liban sera chatastrophique (pour le moment au moins).
Mais la moindre des choses est de traiter ces refugies comme des etre humains
- non je crois pas qu
Pourquoi l’anonymat? Vous n’avez pas de prénoms?
I disagree with a lot of what you wrote. Some of my comments are about facts and some others about opinion, so i’ll just go through your text point by point and analyze it as i go.
- The Fatah al-Islam was not unheard of to most of us prior to the confrontation. In fact, if one really reads the political history of lebanon, and especially in the last couple of years, he would mst certainly know about all the palestinian pro-syrian factions in the refugee camps, and how the 14 of march forces was determined to disarm those factions (see results of national dialog). Besides, the government did not decide “out of nowhere” to attack them and they were not “accused” of the attack on the check point. In fact what they did was more than that, they attacked the check point and even killed unarmed soldiers not on duty (one of them was in a taxi coming back home for his vacation). I will say nothing about the war profiteering, i agree on that, but we just have to live with it, the Lebanese people are just like that, and more i can say all humans are like that
- About the nationalism wave in Lebanon, I think our country needed that and has been needing it since 1920. It’s the first time Lebanese people are united behind their own army and believe in it. Remember when the same thing happened in 1975, it turned to a civil war.
- About racism and Facebook groups. i think talking about slaughtering palestinians is just child talk, i m not with them, not with slaughters. On the other hand, I think armed palestinian presence in Lebanon is the main reason that allowed this to happen. Everybody in Lebanon knows (i hope) that palestinian refugee camps are fortresses inside our country, and the lebanese government is not allowed to go in, consequently it could have never stopped Fatah al-islam from groing to become what it did. So armed palestinian presence is some how responsible for all this. In addition, palestinians hate Lebanese people more than all the arabs (who have commited crimes and even massacres with palestinians like in jordan or syria), to know about that see how they reacted to the battle, they were supporting fatah al-islam for God’s sake!!!
- About the civilians killed and the human rights. I think in the history of the entire human civilization, this is the battle that caused the least civilian casualties. We all know (i hope again) that the battle took all this time only because the army had a priority which was to evacuate the civilians, and even when doing that, some women and other civilians were actually armed and killed a bunch of lebanese soldiers. So I think talking about human rights is not in place in this battle, without this battle you could never achieve total sovereignty of the lebanese government and later in your text you contradict yourself by wanting this sovereignty; if you want it you have to accept the price… About the palestians being refugees again and again, well I think it’s their fault and not ours. If they would allow the Lebanese government to have military and security control over all their refugee camps (that is also our land), nothing would have happened. They are guests in Lebanon, and guests should not encourage terrorist gangs (which they did as i already stated), so i think the lebanese government is not to blame here, its the refugees themselves, if they wanna be guests in our land, they should respect our rules.
- About the journalists, its pretty normal that they did not film near the areas of the fighting, i think the fighting was more like street fighting and filming the army would uncover a lot of the plans, besides what could they have tried to hide (the army i mean)?
- I most certainly agree on the army controling ALL of Lebanon part, and i believe this battle was the beginning… We will never be able to do it without battles, i think many will follow. But integrating the palestinian refugees into Lebanese society would be a suicide to Lebanon. I can agree with you on the dreaming part, in a perfect world or even in the case where all the lebanese and all the palestinians have the same religious and social background. Doing it right now would just kill all of the lebanese sociological structure, and we will never have the chance to rebuild it again.
Anyway, i think you’re idealist but as you said “we can all dream…” i prefer to live on earth and try to bring feasible solutions to every problem, i leave my dreams in bed…
A propos de la question de religion ou pas, j’ai mon propre avis la-dessus. C’est une question de religion, mais quand je dit religion, je ne dit pas si le mec il prie a l’eglise ou il prie a la mosquee. La question de religion au liban n’est pas en liaison avec les croyances, c’est plutot une apparrtenance sociale, les chretiens etles musulmans sont tout simplement deux peuples differents avec quelques points communs. Integrer les palestiniens (qui ont encore une culture tres differente meme de celle des sunnites libanais) dans la societe libanaise veut dire detruire la structure sociale du Liban, a ce moment on ne pourra jamais la reconstruire.
C’est bien d’etre utopique Lara, mais en meme temps ce n’est pas a nous les libanais de payer le prix des crime israeliens ou autres.
I’ll attempt to do the same:
The Fatah al-Islam was not unheard of to most of us prior to the confrontation…he would mst certainly know about all the palestinian pro-syrian factions in the refugee camps, and how the 14 of march forces was determined to disarm those factions.
- Fatah al-Islam emerged in November 2006, so it’s relatively recent. Granted, the group is led by a Palestinian (Shakir al-Abssi), but that alone does not make it a Palestinian group or a pro-Syrian faction. The blame Syria game is really getting old, ever since the Syrians withdrew, every single problem in Lebanon is immediately blamed on Syria. [Please remember that Syria has a secular Ba'athist regime that despises Salafis more than anyone because it is a direct threat to its mere existence].
- As far as the government’s bid to disarm those factions, isn’t the Salafi movement primarily financed by Saudi Arabia? (“Follow the money trail !!”)
Fatfat was coordinating with such groups, specially in Al Diniyeh after the political split between the Sunnis and the Shias. That’s one of the reasons the group was being allowed to grow, so it can be used as a bargain chip against Hezballah. Otherwise, its almost 500-strong “army” and large amounts of stacked weapons wouldn’t have gone unnoticed all this time by the government. That’s why I said “why now” and “why all of a sudden”. In addition to that, who allowed the demonstrations against the Danish cartoons, given that Jaysh Muhammad and Jund al-Islam were participants? And who gave Hizb al-Tahrir a political party license? … I can gave you so many more examples of how the “March 14″ party is directly responsible for the Sunni radicalization in Lebanon. So saying that they were trying to combat it is an oxymoron.
- Seymour Hersh had already warned us about the dangers in an article in the New Yorker:
“Alastair Crooke, who spent nearly thirty years in MI6, the British intelligence service, and now works for Conflicts Forum, a think tank in Beirut, told me, “The Lebanese government is opening space for these people to come in. It could be very dangerous.” Crooke said that one Sunni extremist group, Fatah al-Islam, had splintered from its pro-Syrian parent group, Fatah al-Intifada, in the Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, in northern Lebanon. Its membership at the time was less than two hundred. “I was told that within twenty-four hours they were being offered weapons and money by people presenting themselves as representatives of the Lebanese government’s interests—presumably to take on Hezbollah,” Crooke said.”
- About the bank robbery/attack:
Seems to some people that when Fatfat and al-Abssi disagreed during their last meeting, the latter’s paychecks came to a full stop causing the group to rob the bank where they had their account. (a bank with ties to the Hariris).
In fact what they did was more than that, they attacked the check point and even killed unarmed soldiers not on duty (one of them was in a taxi coming back home for his vacation).
My sympathies and deep condolences to the families involved. However, that’s not gonna hinder my ability to criticize the government’s actions. On the contrary, I will be critical so they don’t think they can get away with it again, instead of blindly waving a flag.
About the nationalism wave in Lebanon, I think our country needed that and has been needing it since 1920.
The country could’ve “needed” it during the Israeli aggression, rather than during the Lebanese government’s aggression. But nationalism comes mostly from propaganda and manipulation of the populace, so it’s hardly, if ever, “needed”.
On the other hand, I think armed palestinian presence in Lebanon is the main reason that allowed this to happen…So armed palestinian presence is some how responsible for all this.
Palestinian presence in Lebanon is permanent and indefinite. Will they ever go back to Palestine/Israel? No, even if lawfully they have the right of return. So they’re in Lebanon, and we have 2 choices; either we open the doors and integrate them and they become active participants in society, or we keep them impoverished and take away all their opportunities of living a normal life. We have to realize that it’s poverty that leads to radicalism, they’re not born that way!
In addition, palestinians hate Lebanese people more than all the arabs…reacted to the battle, they were supporting fatah al-islam for God’s sake!!!
- I guess there’s no way to check who they hate more or how much the Lebanese hate them… But, why are we keeping them away from over 70 professions? Why aren’t we allowing them to buy land? Simply because we like to cater to the rich, Saudis can buy what they please in Lebanon but the Palestinians are second-class citizens with limited rights.
- As far as supporting Fateh el-Islam, they had the most to lose in this battle, they’re homeless for god’s sake!
So I think talking about human rights is not in place in this battle, without this battle you could never achieve total sovereignty of the lebanese government and later in your text you contradict yourself by wanting this sovereignty; if you want it you have to accept the price…
Human rights are always relevant, regardless of the circumstances, there’s no arguing about that point.
And no, I don’t want it if this is the price, what I said was that once these camps are dismantled, then we can all roam around as we please, no need for isolation, separation and unnecessary borders.
About the palestians being refugees again and again…i think the lebanese government is not to blame here, its the refugees themselves, if they wanna be guests in our land, they should respect our rules.
The average Palestinian is not a militant seeking to destroy Israel from Lebanon, the average refugee is looking to live a decent life. He/she has very little control over the decisions taken in his/her name.
About the journalists, its pretty normal that they did not film near the areas of the fighting…
Is the “march 14″ pro-democracy or against democracy? They have to make up their minds!
in the case where all the lebanese and all the palestinians have the same religious and social background.
We don’t need to have the same religious/social background. Isn’t Lebanon the beacon of religious and cultural tolerance?
I’m not an idealist, this is the only solution to the problem.
1:44 PM lara said…
Pourquoi l’anonymat? Vous n’avez pas de prénoms?
HAHAHAH regarde qui parle!
anonymous, c plus simple cat tu n’est pas obligé de te logger, tu as juste le word verification.
tu n’es pas oblige de te logger, tu n’as qu’a mettre “Other” et puis un nickname …c’est aussi simple que ca, ne te complique pas trop la vie
combien de fois tu as laisser un commentaire anonyme sur mes pages !
j’avoue que récemment nada, mais avant ?
je te taquine neo, ne t’enerve pas