SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Lebanon Descends Into Chaos as Rival Leaders Order General Strike
May 08, 2008
Burning tyres on the airport road, flights suspended, demands from the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt that Hizbollah moves secret cameras from runway 1-7 and end the militia's equally secret underground communications equipment. Across Corniche Mazraa, crowds of shrieking Sunni and Shia Muslims hurl abuse and stones at each other. A soldier comes up to my car at the crossroads. "Turn round," he shouts. "They're shooting."
Lebanon seems to feed on crisis, need crisis, breathe crisis, like a wounded man needs blood. The man who should be the president is head of the army and the man who believes he leads the resistance -- Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of the Hizbollah -- accuses Mr Jumblatt of doing Israel's work while Mr Jumblatt claims the head of Beirut airport security, Colonel Wafic Chucair, works for the Hizbollah and should be fired.
Yesterday, in case you hadn't guessed, was a "general strike" by opponents of the Lebanese government with all the usual chaos. Mr Nasrallah is to hold a press conference today and then we'll all find out if this latest crisis is the greatest crisis since the last great crisis. Yes, a good cup of cynicism is necessary to wash down the rhetoric and threats of the past few days. At its most serious is the incendiary language in which Lebanon's politicians now address each other, the kind of menacing words that could easily touch an assassin's heart.
Indeed, the start of this latest drama might be traced to the murder of two Phalangist officials in the Bekaa town of Zahle a few weeks ago. The murderer has been named, is linked to the pro-Syrian opposition and is still at large.
You could hear gunfire crackling across Beirut all morning. To top it all, soaring price increases -- even of basic food -- is creating a little revolution in the hearts of many Lebanese. Yesterday's strike was supposed to be organised by the General Labour Confederation, which is objecting to the government's new minimum wage offer of PS171 a month.
The darker side of all this, of course, involves Beirut airport. Mr Jumblatt's claim that Hizbollah has installed cameras beside one of the runways appears to be correct. Lebanese army officers have apparently noticed the cameras which can monitor executive jets taking off and landing. However, the apparatus may well have been installed because the Hizbollah believes that runway 1-7 -- which starts a few metres above the Mediterranean -- could be used for a small seaborne landing by Israeli troops. There is a persistent rumour in Beirut that the Israelis were about to stage such an operation against the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on 28 April but that it was cancelled for equally mysterious reasons. Was this the origin of the cameras and of Hizbollah's unpleasant suggestion that Mr Jumblatt is doing Israel's work?
As usual, it was the sectarian content of the street violence which alarmed the army -- a good many stones were chucked from high-rise buildings near the Cola bridge in west Beirut, the exact location of Sunni-Shia fighting in January last year. Even in the very centre of Beirut, piles of tyres were set alight, giving the city a sombre curtain of black smoke that drifted out to sea. So the capital of a country without a president -- and for most of the time without a sitting parliament -- is set to lose yet more international confidence.
What is it about Lebanon that creates these crises? Maybe at heart, it is the same old problem: to be a modern state, Lebanon must abandon confessionalism -- the system which provides a Maronite for the presidency, a Sunni for the prime minister's seat, a Shia for the speaker of parliament, and so on. But if Lebanon abandoned confessionalism, it would no longer be Lebanon, because sectarianism is its identity; a fate which its children do not deserve but whose country was created by French masters on the ruins of the Ottoman empire. Ironically, the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora now rules -- or tries to rule -- his nation from a building which was once the Beirut cavalry stables of the Ottoman army.
--Robert Fisk
(c)independent.co.uk
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
© 2023 The Independent
Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk (1946-2020) was a writer and journalist who held British and Irish citizenship and was Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He was the author of many books on the region, including "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East" (2007) and "Robert Fisk on Afghanistan: Osama Bin Laden: 9/11 to Death in Pakistan" (2016).
Burning tyres on the airport road, flights suspended, demands from the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt that Hizbollah moves secret cameras from runway 1-7 and end the militia's equally secret underground communications equipment. Across Corniche Mazraa, crowds of shrieking Sunni and Shia Muslims hurl abuse and stones at each other. A soldier comes up to my car at the crossroads. "Turn round," he shouts. "They're shooting."
Lebanon seems to feed on crisis, need crisis, breathe crisis, like a wounded man needs blood. The man who should be the president is head of the army and the man who believes he leads the resistance -- Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of the Hizbollah -- accuses Mr Jumblatt of doing Israel's work while Mr Jumblatt claims the head of Beirut airport security, Colonel Wafic Chucair, works for the Hizbollah and should be fired.
Yesterday, in case you hadn't guessed, was a "general strike" by opponents of the Lebanese government with all the usual chaos. Mr Nasrallah is to hold a press conference today and then we'll all find out if this latest crisis is the greatest crisis since the last great crisis. Yes, a good cup of cynicism is necessary to wash down the rhetoric and threats of the past few days. At its most serious is the incendiary language in which Lebanon's politicians now address each other, the kind of menacing words that could easily touch an assassin's heart.
Indeed, the start of this latest drama might be traced to the murder of two Phalangist officials in the Bekaa town of Zahle a few weeks ago. The murderer has been named, is linked to the pro-Syrian opposition and is still at large.
You could hear gunfire crackling across Beirut all morning. To top it all, soaring price increases -- even of basic food -- is creating a little revolution in the hearts of many Lebanese. Yesterday's strike was supposed to be organised by the General Labour Confederation, which is objecting to the government's new minimum wage offer of PS171 a month.
The darker side of all this, of course, involves Beirut airport. Mr Jumblatt's claim that Hizbollah has installed cameras beside one of the runways appears to be correct. Lebanese army officers have apparently noticed the cameras which can monitor executive jets taking off and landing. However, the apparatus may well have been installed because the Hizbollah believes that runway 1-7 -- which starts a few metres above the Mediterranean -- could be used for a small seaborne landing by Israeli troops. There is a persistent rumour in Beirut that the Israelis were about to stage such an operation against the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on 28 April but that it was cancelled for equally mysterious reasons. Was this the origin of the cameras and of Hizbollah's unpleasant suggestion that Mr Jumblatt is doing Israel's work?
As usual, it was the sectarian content of the street violence which alarmed the army -- a good many stones were chucked from high-rise buildings near the Cola bridge in west Beirut, the exact location of Sunni-Shia fighting in January last year. Even in the very centre of Beirut, piles of tyres were set alight, giving the city a sombre curtain of black smoke that drifted out to sea. So the capital of a country without a president -- and for most of the time without a sitting parliament -- is set to lose yet more international confidence.
What is it about Lebanon that creates these crises? Maybe at heart, it is the same old problem: to be a modern state, Lebanon must abandon confessionalism -- the system which provides a Maronite for the presidency, a Sunni for the prime minister's seat, a Shia for the speaker of parliament, and so on. But if Lebanon abandoned confessionalism, it would no longer be Lebanon, because sectarianism is its identity; a fate which its children do not deserve but whose country was created by French masters on the ruins of the Ottoman empire. Ironically, the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora now rules -- or tries to rule -- his nation from a building which was once the Beirut cavalry stables of the Ottoman army.
--Robert Fisk
(c)independent.co.uk
Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk (1946-2020) was a writer and journalist who held British and Irish citizenship and was Middle East correspondent for The Independent newspaper. He was the author of many books on the region, including "The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East" (2007) and "Robert Fisk on Afghanistan: Osama Bin Laden: 9/11 to Death in Pakistan" (2016).
Burning tyres on the airport road, flights suspended, demands from the Druze leader Walid Jumblatt that Hizbollah moves secret cameras from runway 1-7 and end the militia's equally secret underground communications equipment. Across Corniche Mazraa, crowds of shrieking Sunni and Shia Muslims hurl abuse and stones at each other. A soldier comes up to my car at the crossroads. "Turn round," he shouts. "They're shooting."
Lebanon seems to feed on crisis, need crisis, breathe crisis, like a wounded man needs blood. The man who should be the president is head of the army and the man who believes he leads the resistance -- Sayed Hassan Nasrallah of the Hizbollah -- accuses Mr Jumblatt of doing Israel's work while Mr Jumblatt claims the head of Beirut airport security, Colonel Wafic Chucair, works for the Hizbollah and should be fired.
Yesterday, in case you hadn't guessed, was a "general strike" by opponents of the Lebanese government with all the usual chaos. Mr Nasrallah is to hold a press conference today and then we'll all find out if this latest crisis is the greatest crisis since the last great crisis. Yes, a good cup of cynicism is necessary to wash down the rhetoric and threats of the past few days. At its most serious is the incendiary language in which Lebanon's politicians now address each other, the kind of menacing words that could easily touch an assassin's heart.
Indeed, the start of this latest drama might be traced to the murder of two Phalangist officials in the Bekaa town of Zahle a few weeks ago. The murderer has been named, is linked to the pro-Syrian opposition and is still at large.
You could hear gunfire crackling across Beirut all morning. To top it all, soaring price increases -- even of basic food -- is creating a little revolution in the hearts of many Lebanese. Yesterday's strike was supposed to be organised by the General Labour Confederation, which is objecting to the government's new minimum wage offer of PS171 a month.
The darker side of all this, of course, involves Beirut airport. Mr Jumblatt's claim that Hizbollah has installed cameras beside one of the runways appears to be correct. Lebanese army officers have apparently noticed the cameras which can monitor executive jets taking off and landing. However, the apparatus may well have been installed because the Hizbollah believes that runway 1-7 -- which starts a few metres above the Mediterranean -- could be used for a small seaborne landing by Israeli troops. There is a persistent rumour in Beirut that the Israelis were about to stage such an operation against the Hizbollah-controlled southern suburbs of Beirut on 28 April but that it was cancelled for equally mysterious reasons. Was this the origin of the cameras and of Hizbollah's unpleasant suggestion that Mr Jumblatt is doing Israel's work?
As usual, it was the sectarian content of the street violence which alarmed the army -- a good many stones were chucked from high-rise buildings near the Cola bridge in west Beirut, the exact location of Sunni-Shia fighting in January last year. Even in the very centre of Beirut, piles of tyres were set alight, giving the city a sombre curtain of black smoke that drifted out to sea. So the capital of a country without a president -- and for most of the time without a sitting parliament -- is set to lose yet more international confidence.
What is it about Lebanon that creates these crises? Maybe at heart, it is the same old problem: to be a modern state, Lebanon must abandon confessionalism -- the system which provides a Maronite for the presidency, a Sunni for the prime minister's seat, a Shia for the speaker of parliament, and so on. But if Lebanon abandoned confessionalism, it would no longer be Lebanon, because sectarianism is its identity; a fate which its children do not deserve but whose country was created by French masters on the ruins of the Ottoman empire. Ironically, the Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora now rules -- or tries to rule -- his nation from a building which was once the Beirut cavalry stables of the Ottoman army.
--Robert Fisk
(c)independent.co.uk
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.
To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good.
News & Opinion
Trending
Common Dreams, Inc. Founded 1997. Registered 501(c3) Non-Profit
Privacy Policy