23 Tuesday Apr 2013
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon, Politics, Syria
As if Lebanese politicians have no issues to deal with in their own country…
As if they have a country in the first place…
As if they have not been exploited and led enough…
01 Monday Apr 2013
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, LB Politics, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, TV
Tags
arab spring, Bashar Al-Assad, Beirut, Hezbollah, Kamal Jumblatt, Lebanese Civil War, Lebanese Communist Party, Lebanese Left, lebanon, Nabih Berri, syria, Syrian Army, Syrian moukhabarat, Terrorism, YouTube, Ziad Rahbani
I am from a generation who loved Ziad Rahbani, growing up with his music, songs, shows, plays and ‘revolutionary’ appearances and quotes like most of the youth of my time.
I can nearly recite all his plays, which I think they were masterpieces and will be engraved in our cultural heritage. I can never forget Joseph Sakr’s great songs in Sahriyyeh, the revolution of Abbas and Fahed in Nazl el sourour (which suits our current mood by the way), the social struggles of both Thurayya and Zakariya in Bennesbe La Boukra Shou, the Western conspiracy and our sectarian disease in Film Ameriki Taweel, the broken Lebanese society in Shi Fashel and the stubborn Lebanese people in his last series of Bikhsous el Karameh wel Shaab el Aaneed and Lawla Fos’hat el Amal. I adore his music and songs whether were part of his plays or not. He composed the greatest music and anthems, not exhaustively, but I mention Mays el Reem, Prelude 83, Abou Ali, People’s Winds and The Revolution Anthem.
20 Saturday Oct 2012
Posted in Arab World, LB Politics, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Other Arab issues, Press
Tags
Assassination, Bashar Al-Assad, Information Branch, Internal Security Forces, Lebanese Assassinations, lebanon, March 14, syria, Terrorism, Wissam Al-Hassan, Wissam AlHassan, Wissam-El-Hassan
Here we go again. Another Lebanese national figure and innocent people are wasted. Together with reportedly eight others, the head of the Information Branch in the Internal Security Forces (police) in Lebanon Wissam Al-Hassan have been assassinated yesterday in a street bomb in Achrafieh in Beirut.
Early on, I warned and speculated that Saad Hariri could pay a high price for his leading involvement in Syria, and it may now be the payback time. And I feel we are just at the start of something bigger.
Sadly we got used to this terrorist method of political elimination since 2004. This is the 26th political explosion since then, with most ending as assassinations. Ten of these 26 explosions targeted anti-Syrian regime figures, two targeted Information Branch figures (anti-Syrian regime), other ten targeted areas largely known to be Christian, three targeted the Lebanese Army including a military chief, and one explosion targeted a non-leading but senior official in a pro-Syrian party.
06 Saturday Oct 2012
Posted in Arab World, Foreign Policy, Other Arab issues, Politics, Syria, USA, World
Tags
1973 October War, anwar al sadat, Anwar Sadat, Egypt, Golan Heights, Hafez Al-Assad, Henry Kissinger, Israel, Ramadan War, syria, Yom Kippur War
The Syrian regime and its media always make sure they supply us with the most bizarre scenes, and they are surely doing it today on 6th October.
Today is the 39th anniversary of the ‘Tishreen liberation war’ or the 1973 October war between Syria and Egypt on one side, and Israel on the other. Syrian state today is celebrating the victory of this liberation war.
18 Saturday Aug 2012
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon, Politics
Tags
Al-Mokdad, Al-Moqdad, Al-Moukdad Clan, Al-Mouqdad, Free Syrian Army, Hezbollah, lebanon, Lebanon Kidnapping, syria
The crazy kidnapping spree that took place this week and still ongoing is scary on all levels. It’s what a country like Lebanon needs to take back its glories. And I tell you that I never felt like that in recent history. It’s easy to blame the government, which I did, but let’s be realistic here. Two parties are responsible, Hezbollah which legislated this state of lawlessness, and Free Syrian Army which has given Al-Mokdad family the unnecessary spark.
14 Tuesday Aug 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Politics, Syria
Tags
Al-Akhdar Al-Ibrahimi, Alakhdar Alibrahimi, Bashar Al-Assad, Kofi Annan, syria, Syrian Civil War, UN Envoy to Syria, UN Special Envoy
Photo: source
As the Syrian revolution turned violent, comparisons of the situation there have been made to every possible recent regional conflict. The Syrian conflict has gained some sectarian momentum which guaranteed its resemblance – according to many analysts (to different degrees) – to the Iraqi, Lebanese or former Yugoslavian conflicts.
Now, for us the Lebanese, we can very much relate to the sequence of events in Syria. It’s déjà vu for us. We can tell what comes after bombings for example; kidnappings, revenge killings, sectarian mobilisation, rise of local warlords are always on the menu. Continue reading »
23 Monday Jul 2012
Tags
syria, Qatar, Addounia TV, Conspiracy, Tarik Al-Jadideh, Muammar Gaddafi, Qaddafi, Shaker Berjawi
The state of denial of the Syrian regime’s orchestra has reached unprecedented levels. Denial of everything was what characterized the regime’s response to the uprising from its start in March 2011. The regime denied ‘anything’ happening at first, then denied the peacefulness of the protests, then theydenied the of existence of army defectors (but not so of armed gangs).
They even denied the fall of Tripoli and Qaddafi in summer 2011 saying everything was pre-recorded in Qatari studios and Aljazeera fooled us by airing the film which led later to the actual fall of Qaddafi.
19 Tuesday Jun 2012
Posted in Syria
Tags
Bashar Al-Assad, Humanity, Reuters, sectarianism, Shabeeha, Shabiha, syria, Syrian Civil War, Syrian Regime
Reuters is running a strange but believable story about looting markets in Syria, where regime thugs (known as shabiha) sell in the open street market items they looted from raided houses.
14 Thursday Jun 2012
Posted in Politics, Syria, Arab World, Arab Spring, LB Politics, Media Monitoring, Press
You might not take me seriously if I told you that the below cuttings are taken from an Al-Akhbar article (here is the Arabic version), written by its editor-in-chief Ibrahim Al-Amine.
Al-Akhbar has close links with Hezbollah, with Al-Amine considered the unofficial spokesman of the Party of God. I am not talking about the portrait of Imad Mughniyeh behind his desk, but rather his editorials.
He is a staunch supporter of Bashar Assad’s regime, but he goes out of his way sometimes, mostly in the wrong way, but I can’t fault him this time. This is what he gave us this time:
19 Thursday Apr 2012
Posted in Caricature of the day, MB Politics, MicroBlogs
Tags
Al-Hayat, Arab League, Benjamin Netanyahu, Democracy in the Middle East, Israel, Middle East, syria
It’s been a while that I have not posted selected caricatures from the press, so I decided to post two today!
The first is from the London-based daily Al-Hayat, commenting on Netanyahu’s statement of Israel being “the only democracy in the Middle East”.
04 Wednesday Apr 2012
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon
Tags
Citation, Hassan Nasrallah, Hezbollah, Huffington Post, Iran, lebanon, Middle East, syria, The Rise and Fall of Hezbollah
A cut version of this piece was published in The Huffington Post on 3rd April 2012. This is an extended version, which I chose to publish here. I hope they convey the same message!
Once considered to be one of the strongest non-state military factions in the entire Middle East, we are now witnessing the decline of Hezbollah. Though it may seem to be at the peak of its career of might, in reality the popularity of Hezbollah in the Arab world — the bedrock of its legitimacy outside its Shiite core — is at an all-time low.
22 Thursday Mar 2012
Posted in Arab World, Other Arab issues, Politics, Syria
Tags
There was a lot of talk recently on Hamas’ position on Syria. The position is almost available in the public domain now which is summed up as Hamas sympathizes with the internal legitimate demands of the Syrian people, and doesn’t tar the whole Syrian crisis with the ‘foreign conspiracy’ denial line as Hezbollah does.
Qassem Qassem in Al-Akhbar summed up both parties’ positions well, and he confirmed that: Continue reading »
15 Thursday Mar 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Syria
Today the Syrian revolution is one year old, and the day is featuring a frenzy in the main and social media over the leaked emails of Bashar Al-Assad and his wife Asma Al-Akhrass, published yesterday by The Guardian. The emails were obtained by The Guardian via some activists who were monitoring the Assads email accounts since last year. The emails are full of luxurious shopping lists, iTune downloads, games, music, Harry Potter and other silly YouTube video links exchanged between the couple themselves and with others.
07 Wednesday Mar 2012
Posted in LB Politics, Lebanon, Media Monitoring, Politics, Press, Syria
Tags
Al-Binaa, Baba Amr, Homs, lebanon, Propaganda, SANA, syria, Syrian Arab News Agency, Syrian Social Nationalist Party
Speaking of Syrian propaganda (or here, here and here), one can’t ignore the Lebanese propaganda that supports the Syrian one, which tends to be worse in employing zero logic while repeating the official Syrian line without any questioning.
05 Monday Mar 2012
Tags
Alon Liel, Bashar Al-Assad, Bruce Riedel, Foreign Policy, Golan Heights, Haaretz, Israel, Peace Talks, syria
When I read How Israel Could Remove Assad Diplomatically and Bring Peace to Syria, I thought it’s kind of science fiction. I thought Bruce Riedel, [another] veteran former CIA officer and senior fellow in the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, to be going the extra non-reasonable and non-needed mile. He was basically proposing to offer the Golan Heights back to Bashar Al-Assad as the carrot, in return for Assad moving on, and allowing a democratic post-Assad Syria to start and flourish, away from the influence of Iran and Hezbollah.
03 Saturday Mar 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Media Monitoring, Politics, Syria, TV
Tags
Al-Alam Channel, Conspiracy, Propaganda, syria, Syrian TV, Tv
The theory goes like that: if you suspect a foreign conspiracy against your country, then the conspirators would be funding their locals agents with the foreign country’s currency. Well, this is at least what the Syrian TV and Iranian Al-Alam Channel think, who are in the same league with Addounia TV.
01 Thursday Mar 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Media Monitoring, Politics, Press, Syria
Tags
Every time I discuss the Syrian tragedy with an anti-revolution or pro-Assad person, I would be faced with these questions: how do you know the numbers of killed people are right? Can you verify them? Why not count the killed soldiers too? Obviously, these people try to muddle the core problem and cover (unintentionally sometimes) for the Syrian regime atrocities. This is exactly what blogger Sharmine Narwani did in a long article in Al-Akhbar English. From a previous conversation with her on twitter, Sharmine might not be a pro-Assad person, but she is doing her best to doubt the genuine outcome and intentions of the peaceful uprising (yes peaceful, that’s how it started, ok).
In her mentioned piece, she asks:
Perception is 100 percent of politics […] How then does one count 20, 40, or 200 casualties in a few hours while conflict continues to rage around them?
26 Sunday Feb 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Media Monitoring, Politics, Social Media, Syria
Tags
Addounia TV, arab spring, Ba'ath Party, Baba Amr, Bashar Al-Assad, Homs, Satire, syria, Syrian TV, YouTube
Despite the rumours that there are anti-regime protests in the country for the past 11 months, and rumours that they are being fired at, and persecuted, and that parts of the country are not the under the government rule anymore, and that some of these parts are under siege and heavy bombardment, Syrians are heavily turning up today to the ballot boxes to say YES to the new draft of the constitution.
23 Thursday Feb 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Politics, Syria
Tags
arab spring, Homs, Libya, Marie Colvin, Photo, syria, World Press Photo
Follow @TheZako
Again today, on Marie Colvin’s death yesterday in Homs; I did speculate that her death could have been a result of a direct intentional hit by the Syrian army. My confidence in this speculation has shot up now; this is an interesting but strange piece of intelligence by The Daily Mail: Continue reading »
22 Wednesday Feb 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Politics, Syria
Just in the last week, several main witnesses of the atrocities being committed in Syria has died or been killed. The famous New York Times journalist Anthony Shadid died due to an asthma crisis when he was being smuggled into the country – due to restrictions on journalists. Citizen journalist Rami Al-Sayyid was killed by the bombardment of Homs. Rami was responsible for uploading the YouTube videos and securing the live feed from Homs. He replaced his cousin Basel who was doing the same role, and got killed too by the Syrian regime. This morning, journalist Marie Colvin and photographer Remi Ochlik have died in Homs due to the indiscriminate shelling by the Syrian army, if not an intentional due to reportedly the fact they were present in a known ‘Press Centre’, which was directly hit. The regime knows how to silence journalists who oppose it.
22 Wednesday Feb 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Syria
Follow @TheZako
Jeffrey White, the former American veteran senior intelligence officer and the current defense fellow at The Washington Institute, wrote yesterday about the importance of the indirect intervention in Syria in his point of view. He wrote a couple of month ago as well on the subject, assessing the different options available for intervention available, concluding that something must be done.
13 Monday Feb 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Caricature of the day, Media Monitoring, Social Media, Syria
Tags
This caricature from Aamouda in Syria is one of the smartest, if not the smartest caricature I have ever seen from and/or about the Syrian revolution: A drilling rig trying to reach the sea of the freedom at the bottom, drills through the different layers above it.
Continue reading »
13 Monday Feb 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Syria
Tags
Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, syria, United Nations, United Nations General Assembly
I never do copycat on Lebanon Spring, but there is a first for everything; posting the speech this afternoon (GMT), which could be marked as ‘historical’ in future, by the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay on Syria.
Pillay previously encouraged the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. The full text was obtained by UN reporter for the Washington Post and Turtle Bay blogger at Foreign Policy Magazine Colum Lynch. I post it here with his permission, because it’s a MUST-READ.
12 Sunday Feb 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Syria
Tags
As Bashar Al-Assad clings onto power, not only sectarianism within the Syrian society will increase but also the political divisions within the revolutions (you can argue this is could delay them). The radicalisation of the revolution is a work-in-progress outcome as well. This is what a TIME report on Free Syrian Army (FSA) published yesterday has showed. The article was a record of a meeting between some of its members in Turkey. It also shows how wary FSA is of the Syrian National Council and Muslim Brotherhood, and other politicians. They want to reap the reward of success of the revolution (which is not unexpected!).
04 Saturday Feb 2012
Posted in Arab Spring, Arab World, Caricature of the day, LB Politics, Syria
Bashar Assad considers any efforts to stop the current killing in Syria as a “conspiracy” and “foreign intervention”, despite the fact that Syria intervened in Lebanon for donkey’s years, participated with the United States in the first Gulf war in 1991 against Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, and sent fighters to Iraq in the post-2003 era.
Now Russia is undergoing just the same self-denial position, and adopting the same double standards for their assessment to the situation in Syria. Russia does not only oppose any military threat to Assad, but also any proposal that lead to a peaceful transition of powers. Apparently their current position, including their arms sales and their only military base abroad in Tartous are not classified foreign intervention.
Hence, why I liked this week’s cartoon from The Economist.
