Sunday, July 30, 2006

There was a coup d'etat in Lebanon yesterday. Beirut has changed, and not to US/Israeli liking. In two days, a seismic change in Lebanese political attitudes can be noticed. And I am not only talking about public opinion. I am talking about the opinion of members of the Hariri coalition. In the last two days alone, all those Sunni Hariri deputies have clearly distanced themselves from remarks made by Walid Jumblat (although they have not named him): Muhammad Qabbani, Bahiyyah Al-Hariri, `Ammar Huri, Ahmad Fatfat, Samir Al-Jisr, among others). Bahiyya Hariri yesterday criticized the US "green light" on AlJazeera TV. Many of these politicians called AlJazeera live to express their condemnation of Israel and US. Many of them sounded as if they were pleading for their lives. The demonstrators yesterday, who stormed in the UN building in downtown Beirut where my sister works, chanted angry slogans not only against Arab regimes, Israel, and US, but also against Hariri. One chant went like this: "Beirut shall always be free, free; Hariri get the hell out." The demonstrators were planning to head to the US embassy, but Hizbullah and Amal members of parliament present prevented them. They clearly were afraid of things getting out of hand. They almost did. The second time around it could be ugly. I could see that; it is worrisome. The car of the Ping Pong Minister (Hariri acting Minister of Interior Ahmad Fatfat) was attacked. One demonstrator according to the right-wing sectarian Christian daily, AnNahar, asked the press to note that she was Sunni. An-Nahar among other newspapers noted that the Sunni Al-Jama`ah Al-Islamiyyah was heavily present in the demonstration. Yesterday, marks the end of the Hariri coalition in Lebanon. You can read its future on the face of Walid Jumblat--when he shows his face to the press as he has confined his interviews as of late to phone interviews. And the "decision" by Fu'ad Sanyurah yesterday was not his decision. There was a coup d'etat in Lebanon yesterday. Nabih Birri visited the prime minister and requested that decision. Sanyurah, the Abu Mazen of Lebanon, had no choice. The "street" was boiling, and his master, Sa`d Hariri, was nowhere to be seen. He was asking for a cease-fire from....Tunisia. The longer the Israeli aggression continues, the more the scale will weigh heavily to the side of Hizbullah. And then you think of those smiling faces around Bush in the White House's National Security Council who only a week ago thought, so foolishly and callously thought, that they were in the midst of a great Middle East politics game. They so eagerly were waiting for the results of Israeli aggression in Lebanon. They thought that they were doing some classical British Empire's manipulation of regional developments. Americans don't know yet. They don't know how more unsafe Bush has left them/us. They don't know what a mess Bush has made in the Middle East and beyond, well beyond. The catastrophic results of Bush's foreign policy will be seen, nay suffered, for years and decades to come. And his Secretary of State is the living proof that a PhD does not make you smarter. And there will come a time, I hope, when Americans will also realize that Israeli terrorism is exactly the same as that of Al-Qa`idah.