Bush

We did not need the victory of the Democratic Party in both Houses to establish the fact that George W. Bush is probably the worst President that the United States has been blessed with. His whole tenure of office has been a cynical tissue of lies and a record of failure from Afghanistan to Lebanon, and primarily because his foreign policy for the Middle East has been centred on one issue, the security of Israel. He plunged the United States into a catastrophic war in Iraq on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction, which never existed, and in the knowledge that his Zionist cronies as far back as 1998 had planned that war to eliminate a potential threat to Israel, and hence he should have been elected as President of Israel and not of the United States, which explains his cryptic expression of sorrow over the latest Israeli massacre in Beit Hanoun, north of Gaza, which took the lives of eighteen members of the same family, which included eight babies and five women. From Deir Yassin in Palestine in 1947, to Qana in Lebanon, to Beit Hanoun in Gaza, not to mention a dozen others, Israel came into being on the basis of massacres, aided and abetted by none other than George W, Bush, who spared no effort to ensure victory for Israel in its war on Lebanon. But he failed, and he will fail again because in the last analysis might is not right.
 
        What is baffling is that the American public has not risen to storm the White House and force Bush out of it. A Congressional victory is not sufficient to chastise a man who should stand trial for crimes against humanity, preferably by an Iraqi Tribunal for the destruction of that country and the loss of thousands upon thousands of Iraqi lives, not to mention Lebanese and Palestinian lives at the hands of his Israeli allies.
 
        A voice in the wilderness, perhaps, but we cannot accept, let alone condone the so-called new vision of President Bush for the Middle East. A nightmare is a more adequate word. And God only knows what further destruction he will heap upon the world before his tenure of office is over.
 

Pax Americana

The proverb goes, "When you have friends like the United States, who needs enemies?" particularly in so far as Lebanon's Prime  Minister, Fouad Siniora, is concerned. The repeated declarations emanating from the White House and echoed by the American Ambassador Feltman in support of Siniora and his government can only lend credence to the scurrilous accusations levelled at Siniora that he is an agent of the United States and by association Israel. Such in effect was the burden of Nasrallah's televised address the other night. We may be permitted to ask whether those declarations in support are in fact intended to destroy Siniora and his Government. Too much is too much. One quick look across the Middle East from Afghanistan through Iraq to Palestine and Lebanon shows glaringly that where the United States, directly so or through its proxy Israel, has put its finger in the pie, ruin and destruction have followed. In the good old days of Saddam Hussein's dictatorship, Iraq was perhaps the most advanced of the Arab States in terms of science, technology and education. Today it is in the midst of deadly civil war that will sever it into three separate mini states, Shiaa Moslem, Sunni Moslem and Kurdish, all because of America's invasion of that country upon the orders of President Bush and his Zionist cronies, as part of the new vision for the Middle East decreed by an idiot named George W. Bush. From America with love  has been the most pernicious of poisons to be injected into the Middle East.
 
The same holds true of the Jews as a race and of Israel as a nation. The Jews are and have been a blood thirsty race, notwithstanding the holocaust, which continues to be thrust down our throats by the Jewish media. The Torah is gory with blood. Israel's war on Lebanon has been as savage as Hitler's blitzkrieg of London. Israel is doing very much the same thing in the Gaza strip. Practically every hospital, school and electrical installations have been destroyed (Bush calls it self defense). The toll of dead and wounded rises dramatically from day to day. The village of Beir Hanina, for example has virtually ceased to exist. Bush applauds and sends more tons of the latest and most lethal bombs that America produces; the same bombs that Israel used to destroy south Lebanon, including the oil reservoirs and installation. The oil spill has polluted the entire Lebanese coast, such that no marine life can survive. Thousands of unexploded Israeli cluster bombs litter south Lebanon, and for years, they will remain as a permanent danger to the civilian population.
 
To sum it all up, Is there anything to distinguish Bush and Olmert from Hitler?

Mass rallies II

Mass rallies, or demonstrations, if you prefer the term, have become the latest fashion in Lebanon. We had two over the last ten days. We were treated to a third last night convened by General Aoun and his party referred to as the "Courant Aouniste". We are promised a fourth rally next week convened by Hezbollah and its charismatic leader.

The General who returned from France last year where he had exiled himself over the past eleven or twelve years, has been making a great deal of noise of late. According to him, the current Government of Fouad Siniora is ineffective and that a Government of national union is required to save and govern Lebanon. He has presented himself as the future President and saviour of Lebanon, and to this end, he has entered into a pact with Hezbollah, in the hope that the Shia'a Moslems of Lebanon, who represent a third of the total population would propel him to the Presidency. False hopes, we regret to say and just as well. Aoun as President would be more catastrophic that the current incumbent.

And so the merry go round continues, while Lebanon sinks further into poverty and destitution. And against that dark back drop, Prime Minister Siniora hosted yesterday at the Grand Serail (the seat of Government), an Iftar (a Ramadan dinner) which assembled all the have been who were still capable of handling a fork and knife. Even General Aoun, as former Head of State, was there. Siniora, as Prime Minister and host, delivered the speech of the evening in which he repeated the same ringing phrases regarding democratic rule and the legitimacy of Government. Brave words from a brave man, but they still need to be translated into a coherent and continuous plan of positive action.

Elsewhere, Condoleezza Rice will meet with a number of Arab Foreign Ministers in the hope of bringing enough pressure on Hamas, the Palestinian radical party which had emerged with an overwhelming majority in the last Palestinian elections, to enter into negotiations with Israel, Hamas does not recognise Israel and will not enter into negotiations with it, in the knowledge that Israel is not prepared to concede anything worthwhile. Hamas may not be far wrong in reaching that conclusion, judging from the results of past negotiations, including the much touted Wye Plantation agreement, the end result of which was no more than a road map, which has still to see effective application.

But then, despite the logic of the position of Hamas, what other alternative is there for Hamas or the Palestinians in general? War and violence will not lead to a solution. The one and only possible solution which could lead to positive negotiations is that of "civil disobedience". The back lash to the Israeli economy, which relies heavily on Palestinian labour, would be intolerable for Israel. Such a form of civil disobedience, on the Ghandi pattern, would only be possible if the Arab world is prepared to feed the Palestinians, through the creation of a multi billion dollar fund to the purpose. The Arab world is rich enough to assume that burden, instead of wasting billions of dollars on arms that will never be used.

It is the opinion of the Wizard that the Arab world will do nothing, except to wallow in its futile rhetoric.

Mass rallies

Lebanon has been the scene of two gigantic mass rallies, the first on 22nd September 2006, organised by Hezbollah and its charismatic leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, and attended by some half a million people, mostly Shia'a Moslems, and the second, organised by the leader of the "Forces Libanaises", a Christian formation attended by the same number of people, mainly Christians. Sadly, the Sunni Moslems of Lebanon have been marginalised, for lack of dynamic leadership.

The speech of Sheikh Hassan addressed itself to several issues; the first is that Hezbollah is here to stay as a strong political force without which Lebanon cannot be governed; the second is that the weapons arsenal of Hezbollah, which includes, according to Sheikh Hassan. some twenty thousand long range missiles, will not be surrendered and that Hezbollah cannot be disarmed or disbanded by force, and the third that the Lebanese army is not strong enough nor sufficiently well equipped to defend Lebanon; hence Hezbollah.

On the other side, the Christian rally which represented a reply to the Shia'a Moslem challenge, is intended to emphasize that the Christians of Lebanon are the "raison d'être" of that country and that without them, Lebanon would not have existed but would have been absorbed by Syria and that Hezbollah is no more than an instrument of Iranian-cum- Syrian politics in the Middle East.

It would seem quite evident that there is a deep rift in the Lebanese politic body, which sooner or later will turn into confrontation and probably civil war which, should it ever come to pass, will destroy Lebanon as a country within its present frontiers.

The Lebanese Government, on the other hand, finds itself between the devil and the blue sea. The Prime Minister, totally supported by the leader of the Parliamentary majority, Saad Hariri, is doing his best to govern the country and to proceed with the reconstruction of the total havoc created by Israel in South Lebanon and the southern outskirts of Beirut in its savage war on that country with United States encouragement and military assistance.

All this leads the Wizard to conclude that Lebanon, in its present frontiers, is doomed, and that its only hope is to reactivate the plan, presented in 1920 by the first High Commissioner over Lebanon, the General Gouraud, to create Lebanon on the basis of the historic "entente" between Druze and Maronites, namely the area between the Litani river in the south and the Nahr el Bared in the north. The Shia'a Moslems of the south and the Sunni Moslems of the north would return to Syria, with love from Lebanon.

Water under the bridge, you might say, but then all history is so much water under the bridge.

Israel and the Palestinians

Israel removed the Gaza thorn from its side, but the Palestinian problem has not changed in character. The United States refuses to recognise the democratically elected Palestinian Government because Hamas, the dominating factor in this new Government refuses to recognise Israel. We believe that this policy is dictated by the fact that Israel refuses to recognise the Palestinians as a nation. The United States, or rather, President Bush and his sex symbol Condoleezza Rice have never condemned Israel, in word or deed, for its crimes against humanity or for its policy of confiscation and theft of Palestinian territory for the benefit of Polish, Russian or Ethiopian settlers herded as immigrants to Israel, a good many of them, such as the Russians, are not even Jewish. The object of this policy is to pre-empt any improbable future claim by the Palestinians to reclaim their lands and homes. Improbable because neither the Palestinians or for that matter, the Arab world, are likely within the forgeable future to become strong enough to defeat Israel militarily, and even if they were to become strong enough, the United States will rush to the rescue of Israel as it did in 1973, when Sadat's army dislodged the Israeli forces from the Suez Canal area and pushed them back towards Israel. The United States emptied its entire arsenal in Europe of tanks, heavy armour and equipment and air lifted this massive supply of weapons to Israeli forces in Sinai which enable Israel to mount a counter attack and to circumvent the Egyptian forces, ultimately leading to peace between Egypt and Israel.

All this is water under the bridges. In the words of Arthur Koestler to the Wizard over dinner one evening: "let us stop arguing about the rights and wrongs of the case. They are coming and there is nothing you can do to stop them." Koestler was right in his prophetic words.

Right or wrong, the Palestinian problem remains as a festering sore in the body politic of the Near East, and unless a just and equitable solution is found or imposed, the festering sore will continue to poison peace and stability in that part of the world.

Modus Vivendi

A "modus vivendi" appears to have come into being between Lebanon's Hezbollah and the rest of the country, such that the government of Fouad Siniora can devote its full attention to reconstruction, a prodigious feat by any standards.

Elsewhere in Palestine agreement has been reached between Hamas and the PLO for the formation of government of national union, which changes little as far as the rest of the world is concerned for the simple reason that Hamas does not recognise Israel. We may be permitted to ask, why should Hamas recognise a State guilty of crimes against humanity, not to mention the fact that that State has violated every rule of international law and every U.N.Resolution affecting that region of the world, a State which consistently pursues a policy which aims at the annihilation of the Palestinians, both as a people and as a nation.

It is much too late in the day to state that the Palestinians and the Arab world should have recognised Israel as a fact of life as of the date of the U.N Resolution of 1947 to partition Palestine into two states, Jewish and Palestinian, with Jerusalem as an International City. We recall having expressed the view at that time that the United Nations should be transferred from New York to the Holy City. Apart from the moral and religious authority of that City, such a move would have stabilised the whole region and prevented the successive wars hat have taken place. A voice in the wilderness, you might say.

The Arabs, it would seem, never learn. Abdul Nasser in 1967 demanded that the United Nations withdraw its forces stationed in Sinai between Israel and Egypt. No sooner done that the Israeli air force in a preemptive attack, destroyed the entire Egyptian air force on the ground in a matter of four hours. The so called six day war of 1967 should have been labelled that four hours war.

In the same way, Lebanon's national hero Shaeikh Hassan Nasrallah kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, and in so doing exposed Lebanon to the most destructive air attacks in history. That Hezbollah did not, and in fairness could not have anticipated such a response does not change the fact that matters of life and death should be left to the constitutional Government.

The latest in what he described as "the comedy of errors" is the statement emanating from the German government that "the function of its troops" forming part of UNIFIL is to protect the security of Israel and its right to exist, a statement all the more ludicrous, when Israel can take, as it did in the past, all the Arab armies and beat the hell out of them. It could be that that statement was intended to atone for the atrocities of the Hitler Regime, atrocities which contributed significantly to the creation of the State of Israel, if we compare the trickle of Jewish immigrants to Palestine during the twenties with the massive waves of immigrants during the thirties.

Summing up

Now that the Israeli blockade of Lebanon has ended, the country starts to breathe again. Nothing was more eloquent of this new breath than a photograph published in the local press of a fisherman along the tyre Sidon coast with his net full of jumping fish, a rare sight during the war on Lebanon. In addition fifteen thousand elements of the Lebanese Army have completed their deployment of south Lebanon, up to the Israeli frontier in conformity with the terms of U.N.Resolution 1701. Once again we hear the sound of civilian aircraft flying over Beirut to land at the airport; on the face of it, a semblance of normality, we might say.

And yet no. The Lebanese government faces the same issues which led to the war: the Sheba'a farms, the exchange of prisoners and above all Hezbollah. Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah has made it very clear that Hezbollah has no intention of surrendering their arms, and hence a state within a state. This morning's papers carried a threat by Sheikh Hassan that if pushed further he will reveal scandalous reports regarding the Parliamentary majority led by Saad Hariri, the son of the assassinated former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri.

The problem lies further in the fact that Iran and Syria, strong supporters of Hezbollah have no intention of abandoning that strong political card in their confrontation against the United Stated. So back to square one.

Last but nor least is the visit expected today of Toni Blair, Britain’s discomfited Prime Minister. As a tourist, he would be welcome, but as Prime Minister, his visit is not welcome, and he should have refrained from adding insult to injury.

Bush and Islam

The latest to come out of the demented mind of President Bush is that Sunni as well as Shia'a moslems constitute a grave danger to the of the United States. In the same breath he accuses Iran of being the hot bed of terrorism.

Bush cannot understand, and if he were to understand, he will not admit that his cherished child,Israel, is the source of all the ills that beset the Middle East, and that he, Bush has sponsored, armed, abetted and encouraged the Israeli crimes against humanity in its war on Lebanon, and that Bush, not Al Qaeda, will go down in history as the biggest terrorist of them all. Afghanistan and Iraq, with a million dead, maimed and wounded, are an example of the terrorist policies of President Bush.

What does that ape of a man hope to achieve in his media attacks on Iran and now Islam? What victory is he trying to snatch out of defeat and the bankruptcy of his foreign policy. Israel's Olmert failed to provide him with that victory, and now he calls on Israel to maintain its blockade of Lebanon and at the same time, he blocks a meeting of the Security Council for fear that the Council will condemn the Israeli blockade as an act of war, in violation of U.N.Resolution 1701.

Once again :"What fools these mortals be"

General Aoun and Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, bosom buddies it would seem, have repeatedly demanded a government of national unity, a term which we fail to understand, because as a republic we should be governed by the majority and not by a consortium representing every dick, Tom or Harry. Aoun's demand can be explained by the fact that he cannot bear not to have a finger in the pie, and that his so called "courant" has not turned into a stream. This, however, is not the case with regard to Hassan Nasrallah, whose Hezbollah (Party of God) is represented by three Ministers.

We cannot understand why God should be saddled with the political affairs of Lebanon. Who authorized Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah to designate his party as the party of God, in the same way that the Jews regard themselves as The Chosen People of God ? We doubt that God was ever consulted in the matter. That being the case, is there any good reason why the Wizard of Beirut should not describe himself as the mouthpiece of God, and that his words are inspired from high above?

Amin Gemayel must curse the day when he appointed Genreal Aoun (officier mediocre in the archives of the French Military), as Head of Government three minutes before the end of his Presidential term of office. Amin Gemayel had been hoping till the last minute that Syria would agree to his second term as President. Syria did not, and General Aoun was born. As Head of Government, he found nothing better to do than to alienate Syria and to wage war on the Forces Libanaises, causing more destruction than fifteen years of civil war. We shudder to think what he might do if some day he becomes President, to which he aspires. He might decide to invade Israel.

In the meantime Kofi Annan left Syria, affirming that the Syrian Government would abide by the terms of U.N.Resolution 1701, and in particular paragraph one which stipulates that elements of the multinational military force would be deployed along the Lebanese Syrian frontier, presumably the southern end of it which abuts on Israel. The object of the exercise would be to prevent the flow of arms to Hezbollah, described recently by Sarkozy , a French Presidential candidate, as a terrorist organisation, on the ground that Hezbollah fired missiles on Israel. Sarkozy is either an idiot (so God help France should he ever become President) or an agent of Israel. Sarkozy seems to ignore that Israel spared no one in its air attack on Lebanon, destroying the entire infrastructure of the country, and that a French military contingent is in the process of building temporary bridges to allow the inhabitants to move from one area to the other. To use his own criteria, Israel is nothing but a terrorist state. To quote Shakespeare once again :"What fools these mortals be."

Rulers and ghosts

Was it Shakespeare who wrote, "The world is but a stage, and we are all actors"? It certainly was not the Wizard who coined this phrase The Wizard is anything but a plagiarist. Having made this pithy remark, let us examine the characters who determine our lives on the stage of the Middle East. Lebanon concerns us most.

We have Emile Lahoud, the President of the Lebanese Republic, as consumate an actor as they come, especially when he starts delivering homilies on nationalism, resistance, solidarity and loyalty. Other than loyalty to Syria which had out hum on the Presidential chair, we doubt whether he understands the true meaning of the terms he uses. Where would he have learnt them; not as Admiral of the one patrol boat which Lebanon owns. To his credit, he seems to have a good tailor.

We have Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, a battling cock and an expert helmsman, judging from the way he has navigated Lebanon through the worst crisis of its existence. One question comes up, again and again : why is it that over the past sixty years of independence, no one has seen fit to train and equip the Lebanese army with modern arms and equipment ?

On the Lebanese stage, we should not forget Nabih Berri, the Speaker of the House, who has been able with machiavilian dexterity, to manouver himsel into a fourth term in office, a remarkable feat in the annals of democratic Government. He is referred to as "al Istaz" with emphasis on the first two letter letters "Is" of his name. This term means lawyer or teacher. One or the other, he has shown himself to be a master of the game. Before we get to the recent leading actor, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, we must stop at Mukhtara, the 19th century residence of Walid Jumblatt. With his beak of a nose, his white dome of a head, framed between two thatches of matty hair, he resembles a species of the avian world. As leader of the esoteric Druze community, he rules over a large area of Mount Lebanon, where his word is law. He has made no secret of his opposition and contempt for the Syrian Regime of Bashar el Assad and his Alawite cronies, all members of a hermitical sect of Islam who seized and have remained in power in Syria for the past thirty years. He has branded the Regime as assassins, and for cause, having assassinated his father Kamal Bey, not to mention other assassinations attributed to their agents.

And last, but not least, we come to Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shia formation, "Hizbullah" [Hezbollah] (Party of God), a formation with deep roots in south Lebanon. Its military wing, referred to as "Al Muqawama' surprised Israel and the world with its dogged and successful resistance to the Israeli war on Lebanon, such that apart from a few points along the frontier, Israel has made no headway into Lebanon, despite its awesome air power, which destroyed south Lebanon and the southern outskirts of Beirut, reducing both to rubble and perpetrating several massacres of women, babies and children; such that Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah declared that had he suspected Israel's response to the kidnapping of two soldiers, he would not have had them kidnapped; a bit late in the day perhaps to make such a statement. There is little point in crying over spilt milk, in this case, thousands of dead and wounded and the destruction of the entire infrastructure of a whole country. Equally his words prompted Israel' Olmert to claim victory on his recent tour of south Israel.

The Lebanese drama, of which the above mentioned persons have been the principal actors, is unfortunately repetitive, in that is has been played six or seven times over the last fory years. We have grown weary of it the time has come to move to a second stage, Syria, for example.

The principal actor who occupies the center stage is Bashar el Assad, who has mastered his role of vilification and venomous hatred to perfection. He strangely resembles an Okapi, with his tall neck and small head, in every sense of the term. He would get a better hearing if he were to vary his role from time to time, and instead of making war by proxy, if he were to take some measures to liberate his Golan, occupied and colonised by Israel sine 1967, other than fighting till the last Palestinian and the last Lebanese. What is highly entertaining is Bashar's Foreign Minister, Al Muallem (also means teacher), who resembles a midget Oliver Hardy and acts like one. To tell the truth the actors on the Syrian stage are highly boring and a change of cast and scene are in order.

Moving across the Jordanian frontier, we meet the young King Abdallah II, a Hashemite descendent of the Prophet Mohammed, with a touch of English blood in his veins, more than a touch, since his mother was English, which might explain his calm and youthful dignity, two qualities generally lacking in the bombastic Arab world. He seems unpurturbed that his throne sits on he moving sand of a Palestinian majority.

Across the frontier into Israel, we have the Olmerts, the Netanyahus, the Baraks and the Perez, moving on the stage with dazed steps and debating whether to nominate or not to nominate a committee of inquiry to determine what went wrong in the war on Lebanon, and why in Milton's words, "Lucifer fell in all his glory."

A long way from Israel lies Iraq, embroiled in civil war, an example of the Bush American new vision for the Middle East. We pray God hat we are spared the vision of that demented character, George W. Bush.

Egypt, on the other hand is a different kettle of fish. A jovial Husni Mubarak has ruled over a docile population for more time than we can remember and he is currently busy preparing his son to take over when his time has come; a monarchy in different clothes, but more absolute than King Farouk ever was. A pariah in the Arab world, since his assassinated predecessor Sadat paid his famous visit to Israel, Mubarak's Egypt plays a leading role in the politics of the Middle East.

Equally important is of course the royal family of Saudi Arabia. Descendents of zealot warriors who threw the Hashemites out of Mecca and Medina, King Ibn Saud, the founder of the dynasty cemented the country through hundreds of marriages followed by divorces and remarriages for his ex-wives. What a sexual athlete he must have been.

The Sheikhs of the United Arab Emirates, the Emir ot Qatar, and the King of Bahrein have succeeded in transforming their desert realms, thanks to oil and services, into havens of peace and prosperity. Dubai is a prime example of what an enterprising Sheikh Mohammed can achieve to transform the city of Dubai into a world center, with impeccable town planning and architecture

Here we come to the end of our scenario. It is time to draw the curtain.