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.

A journey into history

It is a little known fact that the Jewish community as a whole was pro-German during World War I, in the hope that a German victory would liberate the pale settlements (ghettos) in Poland and Russia. On the battlefields, the Allied forces were faring badly and The United States had not entered the war.

At that crucial moment, Dr. Chaim Weizmann, a noted British scientist who had rendered valuable services to Britain in the chemical field was able to prevail upon Lord Balfour, then Foreign Secretary, that a Declaration promising a Jewish national home in Palestine would serve to sway the sympathies of the Jewish community in the United States in favour of the Allies and hasten the entry of the United States into the war. Lord Balfour accepted the validity of that argument and in November, 1917, he made his famous Declaration, on the basis of which the world Zionist Organisation was able to create the State of Israel. Soon after the Declaration was made, United States troops were fighting on the battlefields of Europe which eventually led to the victory of the Allies over Germany.

Prior to the Declaration which also served to introduce venomous poison into the political body of the Near East, British and French Ambassadors Sykes and Picot, were huddled together at Masabni Hotel at Chtaura in Lebanon's Beka'a valley, negotiating the distribution of the Turkish spoils in the Arab World. Ambassador Picot related the following amusing anecdote, that following heated arguments over the chunks of territory to be taken over by Britain and France, the two ambassadors decided to take a break, which they spent shooting in the Beka'a valley. They returned to their task, mush refreshed, and both agreed that all disputed items would be settled by a toss of the coin, and in that way, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan came into being, on a toss of the coin.

The Sykes Picot Agreement of 1916 and the Balfour Declaration of 1917, virtually annulled all the promises of independence which Britain's Representative in Cairo, The Count of Mac-Mahon, had made to Shariff Hussein of Saudi Arabia to revolt against the Turks and to join forces with Britain.

Under the Sykes Picot Agreement, Syria and Lebanon. were to go to France, while Iraq, Palestine and Transjordan were to go to Britain, under Mandates from the League of Nations. Needless to say, the wishes of the local populations were not to be taken into consideration.

The first British High Commissioner over Palestine was Sir Herbert Samuel, a British Zionist Jew whose principal priority was to facilitate Jewish immigration to Palestine. For the record, the total Jewish population in Palestine at that time did not exceed eighty thousand, spread in small communities in Acre, Safad, Tiberius and Jerusalem, and in two British financed settlements. As was to be expected, the Palestinian population rose, again and again, against an immigration and settlement policy which threatened their future, culminating finally in the 1926-1939 revolt, in the course of which ten thousand Palestinians were killed by the British army. As a result of this revolt, Britain convened the Arab countries to a Conference in London, and in due course Britain issued the White Paper of 1939, which put a ceiling on Jewish immigration and prohibited land sales in rural areas.

Britain thus became the enemy, and no sooner had World War II ended that the Jewish terrorist organisations, namely the Stern Gang and the Irgun Zvai Leumi, aided and abetted by the Haganah launched their campaign of terror against the British administration in Palestine, to force Britain to withdraw from that country, in the knowledge that the Palestinians could be dealt with at a later stage. They were successful in their campaign of terror, and in due course Britain, exhausted and penniless following World War II decided to end its Mandate and to refer the whole problem back to the United Nations. Following the Anglo-American commission and the United Nations Special commission on Palestine, the United Nations adopted a Resolution to partition Palestine into a Jewish and a Palestinian State with Jerusalem and environs and a corridor down to Jaffa, as an international zone to be administered by the United Nations.

Following this Resolution, Britain announced that it would abandon Palestine to its destiny on May 15th, 1948. Needless to say, the Palestinians and the so called Arab World, an anachronism still living in the 15th Century, rejected that U.N. Partition Resolution, and prepared to invade Palestine. In the meantime, and by April of 1948, Jewish forces had occupied the whole of Galilee, up to the Syrian frontiers, whose forces had been thrown back to Syria, with hardly any resistance. The so called Army of Liberation, a collection of riffraff and army deserters under the command of a swash buckling adventurer, Fawzi Kauwkji, spent more time pillaging than resisting the enemy. Egypt, against the will of its Prime Minister Nokrashi Pasha, but in deference to the wishes of King Farouk, sent a regiment into Palestine. It followed the coastal road, which was still in Arab hands, and made no attempt to occupy any of the settlements in the Beersheba desert. Those settlements were, at a later stage, to play a crucial role in cutting Egyptian lines and in permitting an Israeli victory which sent the Egyptian army reeling back to Egypt. The Syrian army was back in Syria licking its wounds. Husni Zaim, an army officer, engineered the first of successive coups d'état ending with Hafez el Assad, and the Alawite dictatorial rule of Syria, to this very day. The Syrian Coup d'état set the scene for other changes of Regimes. In Egypt, King Farouk was eased out to be replaced by Jamal Abdul Nasser. The Hashemite monarchy of Iraq was in due course to be overthrown. Abdul Nasser, the hero of the Arab World came from a modest background, and his education must have been minimal. What else can explain the fact that he tried to invade and conquer Yemen when the Ottoman Empire had failed to do so. Abdul Nasser imagined that by invading Yemen, he would control the Sraits of Ormuz, and the flow of oil to the western world. In his ignorance, he imagined that the western world would tolerate to have its essential blood line of oil controlled by Abdul Nasser. Worse still, he allowed himself to be pushed by Syria and other Arab nationalists into the 1967 war with Israel, the end result of which were catastrophic for the Arab world. And this is where we are today.

So what next? U.N. Resolution 1701 has provided breathing space for the belligerents. The problems which gave rise a very destructive and inhumane war have remained. The exchange of prisoners has not taken place. Sheba'a farms is the object of disputes between Israel, Lebanon and Syria, and Hizbullah, following its heroic resistance to the Israeli invasion, has emerged stronger than ever, a state within a state.

The Lebanese army, ill equipped and ill trained as it is, has been deployed in south Lebanon, but has been refused access to the frontier by the Israeli army, until such time as the multinational forces have been deployed along the frontier between Lebanon and Israel. In the meantime Israel continues to violate the terms of U.N. Resolution 1701, by imposing a total air, land and sea blockade of Lebanon, such that it is difficult to conceive of reconstruction, when five ships, for example, loaded with fuel are refused access to the Lebanese coast by Israel. Bush, of course has not uttered a word of condemnation. In the simian eyes of Bush, Israel can do no wrong.

And so, where do we go from here?

Walid Jumblatt and Hassan Nasrallah

In his televised address on Thursday 17th August, Walid Jumblat put his finger on the core of the problem facing Lebanon and its people, namely, that any decision affecting the destiny of the nation, be it war or peace, should be and remain the exclusive prerogative of the State, represented by its democratically elected institutions, i.e. the Council of Ministers and the House of Deputies, and that no such decision should be taken by any one group, specifically Hizbullah. He stressed the fact that Lebanon should not be a pawn in the geopolitical interests of Iran and Syria, in their confrontation with the United States. Both Jumblatt and Saad Hariri, the leader of the Parliamentary majority, also in a televised address, strongly criticised Syia and its President Bashar el Assad, whose speech a few days ago was designed, primarily, to sow the seeds of discord in Lebanon and to foment confessional differences, leading possibly to civil war.

Nothing would please Syria more than to see civil war in Lebanon. The hate and venom that the leader of that heretical sect, the Alawites, bears towards Lebanon and its leaders because Syria was kicked out of Lebanon, is unique in the annals of history.

Be that as it may, the fact remains, as stressed by Walid Jumblatt, that the democratically elected Government of Lebanon and its constitutional institutions should have and exercise exclusive responsibility and authority over the destinies of that battered country.

We may ask ourselves whether Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah and his Party whose victory over Israel have enhanced their prestige, will agree to fuse his Party within the institutions of the State. If so, Lebanon will be rebuilt and prosper. If not, we fear the worst.

U.N. Resolution 1701 : false hopes

At a press conference on 15th August 2006, President Bush congratulated himself on U.N. Resolution 1701 and proceeded to deliver his usual litany of lies:

1.That Israel's war on Lebanon was part of the global American war on terrorism. To President Bush, pregnant women, babies and children are terrorists.

2. That Israel emerged victorious, notwithstanding the fact that Israel failed to occupy more than a few meters of Lebanon, despite the hundreds of tons of the most lethal bombs of American manufacture which had been dropped, destroying the whole of south Lebanon, the southern outskirts of Beirut and other areas in he Beka'a and north Lebanon. There is no need to labour the repeated massacres of innocent civilians. They have been reported in the press, even though Bush acts as if they never happened. Bush who had urged, abetted and gambled on an Israeli walkover in Lebanon, must feel ridiculous and stupid that his privileged Israeli allies failed to score any significant victory.

It may have escaped the citizens of the United States that their President is ignorant, stupid beyond belief and a liar. He went to Iraq on the pretext of weapons of mass destruction, which never existed. In the meantime, he has succeeded in destroying Iraq as a country. He never told his citizens that his reason for going to Iraq was to pre-empt any possible union between Iraq and Syria which might have posed a threat to the security of Israel, nor did he tell them that his Zionist cronies at the White House, including his Vice President Cheyney had made plans as early as 1998 for the invasion of Iraq.

He never told his citizens that his war on Lebanon was intended to destroy Hezbollah, an ally of Iran, as part of his undeclared war on that country. He has claimed victory when Hezbollah has emerged from the war, stronger than ever, and in no way disposed to lay down its arms. In a televised address on Tuesday 13th August, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah insisted that the Lebanese Government and its army were not, as yet, strong enough to defend Lebanon against its enemies; specifically for the moment Israel, which brings us to U.N. Resolution 1701, which stipulated the cessation of military operations, which as of 8 a.m. on Monday 14th August, has been respected by both sides. The principle positive aspect of that Resolution is that it has enabled one million displaced persons to take the road back to their shattered homes and villages. It has been most extraordinary how quickly the inhabitants of south Lebanon started to return as of 8 a.m. on Monday 14th August, despite the fact that all bridges and main roads have been destroyed, and that temporary bridges had to be improvised to allow the inhabitants to reach their shattered villages. They showed great courage throughout a whole month of the most destructive war that the world has seen since World War II.

While the exchange of bombs and missiles has for the moment stopped, the main issues remain unresolved. These issues include the exchange of prisoners and the problem of the Sheba'a farms. The principal snag is the behaviour of Syria, which has declared verbally that the Sheba'a farms belong to Lebanon, at the same time refusing to sign any document or map to that effect. On the contrary Syria does not miss any opportunity to insult Lebanon and its Government. In a televised speech yesterday, Bashar El Assad, Sryia's President, went beyond the pale in heaping insult upon Lebanon, treating its Government as being subservient to Israel. The audacity of that man is mind boggling. He makes all those declarations, when Syria has not fired a shot to liberate the Golan, which for nearly fourty years has been occupied and colonised by Israel. He never opened his mouth when Israeli phantoms buzzed his residence at Lattakieh. In point of fact, we are entitled to ask ourselves whether he has not been a silent ally of Israel in destroying Lebanon over the heads of its inhabitants, as he had vowed when his army was kicked out a year ago.

A Palestinian commentator, in a televised broadcast on Thursday 13th August stated that the Syrian Regime will fight to the last Palestinian and the last Lebanese to liberate the Golan. What more can we say?