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Fundamental and pragmatic discussions Before, during and after the Hafez Assad regime

Posted by: on: April 15, 2021

Syria: Fundamentals of this Land. Part 1

Posted on September 30, 2012

The first part focuses on the fundamental social and geopolitical conditions of Syria and the Syrian people.

The next article will approach pragmatically how the problems in Syria could be resolved, during and after the Assad regime…

1. Syria is Not determined by mountain chains and desert borders.  Syria is its rivers: The Euphrates, Tigre, Al Assay, Litany, and the Jordan rivers.  It is on the shores of these rivers and the Mediterranean Sea that the earliest known urban City-States (dozens of them) conglomerated and traded with one another and the outside world.

2. Syria is also “Arabic”, aside from the half dozen of other “ethnics”. Hundreds of tribes from the Arabian Peninsula settled Syria, many centuries before Islam was disseminated by prophet Muhammad.  These tribes were mostly Christians, the kind of sects labelled “heretics” by the Orthodox Church of Byzantium.  

Many of these tribes were persecuted and they fled to high mountain chains, or retreated temporarily to the desert borders, and fled to the Persian empire (beyond the eastern shores of the Euphrates) in order to sustain their customs and traditions.

3. Those “Arabic/Syrian” tribes converted to Islam, an almost identical religion as theirs, and were the backbone of the “Arabic/Muslim” armies that vanquished Byzantium and swiftly expanded eastward to crush the Iranian Empire and then toward Egypt and northern Africa…

4. The two Islamic Empires of the Umayyad dynasty in Damascus and the western Morocco/Islamic empire located in Andalusia (Spain) confirmed the Arabic nature of Syria and spread the knowledge of sciences, medicine, cosmology and philosophy for over one thousand years, as the dominant civilization in the Mediterranean Sea basin and in Central Asia…

5. Arabic is not just the latest add-on to the Syrian civilization and identity: Arabic is what gave Syria its lasting and defining identity and sovereignty, and the Arabic language was “modernized”, made legible, and acquired its universal appeal thanks to the educated Syrian people. The current Arabic language is fundamentally Syrian, and its ancestor language is the Aramaic and later called Syriac…

6. Syria, including Lebanon and Palestine, is the hotbed of interactions among the three “monolithic” religions (Judaism, Christian and Islam). Without the presence of these 3 religions in Syria, Syria will be lost as a special entity in the Middle-East, an entity of the convergence of their very similar customs and traditions for thousands of years…

7. Most of the ancient myths, mentioned in the Bibles and archaeological documents, originated from Syria, in this rich land of the earliest urban civilization…

8. Syria is the land where most of the persecuted religious sects, fleeing the oppression of the dominant religions of the periods, settled on the mountain chains and eked out a harsh living, raising goats and occasionally looting nearby urban centers…

These minorities were ever ready to side with revolts against the pseudo central powers in Damascus, Baghdad, and occasionally Aleppo…Time to deal with minorities as essential in the fabric of the Syrian community

9. Almost all “Warrior Empires” originating in Central Asia, northern Iran, and northern Turkey…loosely occupied Syria, appointing military governors in the conquered provinces, just to collect the tax…

The majority of the urban dwellers accommodated with the invaders, traded economically and culturally, and eventually transferred their culture to the warrior empires.  

It is the Syrian people, craftsmen, architects, artisans, and skilled workers who built the temples, palaces, schools, the infrastructure…in the lands of the invaders.  

The archaeological findings in the warrior empires are the jobs of the Syrian people…

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Fake/misinformed claims of Sami Kleib levelled on Hezbollah

Posted by: on: April 11, 2021

افتراءات سامي كليب على حزب الله

صفية سعادة الأربعاء 20 كانون الثاني 2021

(Safiya Saadi). January 20, 2021

في مقالته المنشورة على موقع «خمس نجوم» بعنوان «لبنان: تدمير ممنهج ووهم انتظار بايدن»، عمد الصحافي اللبناني سامي كليب إلى ربط أحداث عالمية بالتطورات على الساحة الداخليّة، بطريقة انتقائية واعتباطية، محملاً حزب الله مسؤولية ما حصل ويحصل في لبنان.

يقول الكاتب:

«قاتل حزب الله عشر سنوات على أرضٍ غير أرضه في سوريا، ورفع مستوى تدريبه القتالي، وحصل على أسلحة استراتيجية، صار المُهدّد الفعلي لإسرائيل، وصار أيضاً رأس حربة إيران في المنطقة، يعادي من تعاديه ويصادق من تصادقه، فتوسّعت رقعة شقاقه مع دول عربية عديدة.

من سيقبل بهذا الواقع؟»
يُظهر هذا المقطع سرداً لتسلسل الأحداث يجافي «الواقع» على عدد من الأصعدة:
أولاً، قلْب الأسباب إلى نتائج. فحزب الله ليس «المهدّد الفعلي لإسرائيل»، بل العكس تماماً، إسرائيل هي

المهدّد ليس فقط لحزب الله، بل لجميع دول «سوراقيا»، وذلك منذ قرار وعد بلفور بإنشائها عام 1917. لم تخفِ الحركة الصهيونية، آنذاك، مشاريعها بالاستيلاء على منطقة الهلال الخصيب بأجمعها، في ما أسمته «إسرائيل الكبرى»، وهذا واضح في رسائل حاييم وايزمان إلى رؤساء الدول الغربية لمن قرأ الثلاثة وعشرين مجلّداً التي تحتوي على آرائه وأعماله.
لا تمانع إسرائيل بإقامة علاقات طبيعية مع دول الخليج أو شمال أفريقيا، لأنّ لا مطامع لإسرائيل في هذه الدول، لكنّ الوضع مغاير تماماً في ما يختصّ بنا. هي تريد الأرض، والماء والبحر، ولا تخفي ذلك، وما الصراع الأخير حول النفط إلّا عيّنة من مسار طويل من الحروب، والقتل وهدر طاقات لبنان ودول «سوراقيا».

لذلك، حزب الله هو النتيجة وليس السبب. هو المدافع عن هذه الأرض وليس المهاجم.

ثانياً، إدراج مقولة إنّ «حزب الله قاتل على أرض غير أرضه» هي مقولة فيها الكثير من المجافاة لواقع تقسيمات «سايكس – بيكو» الملائمة لإسرائيل وللغرب، لأنّ عنوانها الكبير هو «فرّق تسُد»، والكاتب في موقفه هذا يوافق على التقسيمات التي فرضها الغرب بالقوة العسكرية على المنطقة مع نهاية الحرب العالمية الأولى،

ويعتبر أن لا علاقة بين سوريا ولبنان بأكثر ممّا هي علاقتهما بإسرائيل!

إنّ كلّاً من لبنان وسوريا مهدّدان يومياً من قبل إسرائيل، لأنّ هذه الأخيرة تريد أرضهما، فهي استولت على الجولان ولا تريد إعادته، وقبعت في جنوب لبنان عشرين عاماً ولم تخرج إلّا نتيجة المقاومة المسلّحة التي آزرتها سوريا، لأنّ أيّ دخول لإسرائيل إلى لبنان يعني بالضرورة تهديداً لسوريا، فإذا سقط لبنان، سقطت سوريا، والعكس صحيح أيضاً.

لقد اخترع سايكس – بيكو لبنان كمنطقة مسيحية عازلة لحماية إسرائيل


ثالثاً، يعي الغرب تماماً ترابط دول الهلال الخصيب تاريخياً، واقتصادياً واجتماعياً. لذلك، يعمد إلى فصل بعضها عن البعض الآخر، وإذكاء نار الحقد والخصومة بينها، كالقول إنّ لبنان يدفع ثمن التدخّل السوري، بينما الحقيقة هي أنّ هاتين الدولتين تقومان بالدفاع عن نفسيهما أمام الهجمة الإسرائيلية الآن، وأكثر من أيّ وقت مضى، لأنّ الولايات المتحدة الأميركية تريد تخصيص إمكاناتها لمواجهة الصين.
تدرك الولايات المتحدة الأميركية أنّ هذه المنطقة تمثّل وحدة جغرافية استراتيجية شاءت أم أبت، والبرهان على

ذلك أنّها حين احتلّت العراق عام 2003، كانت تعرف تماماً أنّ ذلك يعني سقوط سوريا ولبنان. لذلك، سارع كولين باول، وزير خارجيّتها آنذاك، إلى زيارة الرئيس السوري وتهديده بتدمير سوريا إذا لم تهادن إسرائيل. فالتوازن بين القوى الذي استطاع الرئيس حافظ الأسد المحافظة عليه، لم يعد ممكناً بعد انهيار الاتحاد السوفياتي، واتُّخذ القرار في الولايات المتحدة الأميركية باجتياح دول سوراقيا، منذ عام 1996 (راجع The Clean The Clean Break). لم تكن أحداث الحادي عشر من أيلول / سبتمبر إلّا الحجّة المناسبة للقيام بذلك، بالرغم من أن لا علاقة للعراق بهذه الأحداث،

لكن الإعلام الأميركي قوي لدرجة أنّه استطاع أن يحوّر الوقائع، وينشر الأكاذيب فيصدّقها القارئ؛ فادّعى كولن باول في اجتماع للأمم المتحدة بأنّ العراق يحتوي على أسلحة دمار شامل، وأرفق طوني بلير هذه الكذبة بأنّ الصواريخ المدمّرة ستطاول بريطانيا خلال أقل من ساعة.
رابعاً، احتلال القوات الأميركية للعراق يمثّل تهديداً وجودياً لإيران. ووجود محور المقاومة ليس بأكثر من تعاضد دول المنطقة وحراكها الشعبي ضد الاحتلال الصهيوني والأميركي معاً، فحتّى حرب صدّام حسين ضد إيران كانت لمصلحة الولايات المتحدة الأميركية، وحين انتهى دور الرئيس العراقي بادرت أميركا ليس فقط إلى تصفيته بل إلى تدمير العراق. لذلك، القول بأنّ حزب الله صار «رأس حربة إيران» هو قول يجافي الحقيقة، فهذا محور متكامل يدافع عن أرضه ووجوده، وكما يقول المثل: «في الاتحاد قوة».
خامساً وأخيراً، إنّ تدمير لبنان ليس بسبب وجود حزب الله كما يقول سامي كليب، وليس بسبب إيران، بل لأنّ علّة وجوده قد انتفت! ولقد كتبت حول هذا الموضوع في مقالة ستنشرها جريدة «الأخبار» عنوانها: «دولة لبنان الكبير: بدايته ونهايته».
لقد اخترع سايكس وبيكو لبنان كمنطقة مسيحية عازلة بين «دولة يهودية» ودول عربية «إسلامية»، وذلك حماية لإسرائيل. لكن، ومع فتح العلاقات الطبيعية والعلنية بين بعض دول الخليج «الإسلامية» وإسرائيل، انتفى دور لبنان المنطقة العازلة، لا بل أصبح عائقاً بفضل مقاومته. هدف تدمير لبنان إلحاقه بإسرائيل، فهل هذا ما يريده الكاتب؟
* أستاذة جامعية

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Beirut/Beryte during Roman Empire: Mother of Laws and justice system

Posted by: on: April 8, 2021

Wet-Nurse city of laws: Beirut of Lebanon. Part 2

Posted on August 4, 2010

Between 150 and 551 AC, the city of Beirut (Beryte) was the official Roman State law center and this recognition extended to the Byzantium Empire.

Beirut had the preferred law school for law students and professors flocking from the four corners of the Empire.  Beirut was called “Mother of laws” and “The most magnificent city” during the Roman Empire.

Emperor Justinian I (527-566) attributed to Beirut the title of “wet-nurse of laws”.

In the 5th century, Beirut law school started teaching law in both Latin and Greek languages. Paradoxically, the main language of the common people was the written Syriac language/Aramaic,  the language spoken by Jesus.

Another demonstration that written languages are the domain of the elite classes used as coded language for administrations and government of people.  Common people had to suffer the consequences of not knowing the language of their dominating Masters; in this case either Latin or Greek.

In the second and third century, Beirut produced the 5 most famous and illustrious classical Jurists who had written the “Digeste”, “Institutes”, Rules, Sentences, and Constitutions.

They are:  

Gaius (110-180),

Papinian (142-212) and assassinated for his stands, 

Paulus,

Ulpian (170-228) and assassinated for his positions, and 

Herennius Modestinus. 

They were called the “Oracles of Roman laws” because judges had to decide cases based on the opinions of these  five justices.  If there is equality in opposing opinions then it was the opinion of Papinian to be the definitive resolution.

The third century generated the State professors Gregorius, Hermogenius, Marcian, Scaevola, and Tryphoninus.

The fourth century produced the professors Domninus, Scylacius, and Sebastianus.

The fifth century, called the most brilliant for the law school of Beirut, generated the state professors Euxon, Sabinus, Cyril the elder, Patricius, Demostenes, Domninus, Eudoxius, Amblichus, and Leontius. 

Most of the illustrious law professors were born in Lebanon and Syria and reached the highest positions in the Roman and Byzantine Empires.

In the sixth century, Beirut school of law had the professors Dorotheus, Anatolius, Julien, Thalelee, Isidore, Stephane, and Thereupon.

Rome fell in 476 and Western Europe had to wait until the Crusader’s campaigns (1096-1291) for the Justinian civil code of laws the “Digeste” to be found and rediscovered and then applied in Europe starting in the 12th century.

In 551, an earthquake demolished the city of Beirut.  The law school was temporarily moved to Sidon.

In 560, as the professors returned to Beirut then a huge fire burned the city again.  Beirut was still in ruin by 600.

As Islam Arab conquered the Near East region in 635, Beirut recaptured its previous status as a law center, but without the brilliance of previous periods.

Beirut was compiling Islamic laws according to “Charia”.  

During the last 7 Omayyad caliphs and the first two Abbasid caliphs (690 to 770) the Lebanese theologians (ulema) and judges (fakihs and cadis) were the cornerstones for the nascent Islamic jurisprudence.

Imam El Uzahi (707-774) from Baalbek and who studied in Beirut and lived was the most brilliant and most sought after fakih in his life.  His doctrine was applied in Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria for 200 years.

Then, the doctrines of Hanafi (Syria), the Chafii (Egypt), the Maliki (Andalusia and Northern Africa)  took the ascendancy.

In 1877 was founded the first modern law school in Beirut bu Bishop Youssef el Debs. 

The law school of the Wisdom (La Sagesse) had the professors Nicolas Naccache and Boulos Effendi Zein who compiled the Ottoman civil law (Medjellet) in 16 books of 1851 law articles grouped in six subjects.  

Current Beirut has the law schools of the french Jesuits founded in 1913 by Paul Huvelin.

The State Lebanese school was established in 1959; the Arab University under the patronage of the University of Alexandria and instituted in 1960; the Byblos law school linked to the Maronite Order of Kaslik Holy Spirit University; and the Islamic Chiaa faculty instituted in 1994 by Imam Chamseddine.

Beirut and Lebanon were ruined by mankind during the civil war that started in 1975 and lasted 15 years.  Beirut is being rebuilt with modern high rises that lack its original spirit

Note 1:  The American University of Beirut has not yet opened a law faculty.  If we know that most of the members in the Lebanese Parliament are lawyers and barely anyone of them master the English language then, whatever deal the US government had with France for the monopoly of jurisprudence philosophy and procedure must be outdated.

Note 2:  Topic taken from the book “Beryte School of law” by Joy Tabet (67 pages)

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Moderate Muslims? Why! Most people live as Silent Majority: They make no waves

Posted by: on: March 1, 2021

“Are there moderate Muslims?”

Posted on September 25, 2008 (and written in Oct. 26, 2207)

Note: This lengthy article was meant to be exhaustive. If you want me to split it in two articles, I will be ready to do it.

It coincided that I was reading chapters of two books concomitantly “Quand l’Amerique refait le Monde” by Ghassan Salameh (Salami) and “L’Apocalypse” by Oriana Fallaci  when I realized that the topic of current Islamic fundamentalism is wreaking havoc on the disposition of many western people.

Mostly, the western people tended to be liberal in many issues but could no longer reconcile a liberal attitude toward Islam: Mainly the reality of the virulent traditional Islamic behaviors toward strict adoption of the Koranic laws that regulate the daily life for the Muslims and trying to circumvent the civil laws in Europe.

Ghassan Salameh has investigated the genesis of the new trend in the US ruling government toward Islam after the Twin Towers September 11 attack and which was based on the studies of a few “prestigious” American academics on Islam. 

Salame stated that the neo-conservative elements in the Bush administration have adopted Bernard Lewis as their guru in matters related to Islam and the anti-Muslim movements. 

Professor Lewis was fascinated and excited in the 1950s with everything related to Islam and then turned sour, negative and dissatisfied with the Islamic World: he repeatedly claimed in his studies that the Muslims have a rage and a strong tendency to hate the Western Nations as a product of their sense of inferiority complex toward the West and propagated the concept of an invasion to saw the grains of democracy in the Near East.

After the September 11 attack on the Twin Tower, the neo-conservatives like Perle, Wolfowitz, Abrams, and Gaffneys directed the debate toward the confirmation of pre-emptive offensive against the infantile specie of the political regimes in the Muslim World.

The spreading notion of an ineluctable conflict of Islam with the USA.  Pipes went as far as eliminating any cause for using cultural instruments in the arsenal of the war.

It is obvious that Oriana Fallaci has made up her mind that there are no moderate Muslims, unless they are Muslims by birth but No longer practicing  believers: simply because the Koran is the Koran and there is no way to interpret the Sourates to coincide with civil laws in the western nations. 

Actually, the late Oriana Fallaci was a staunch liberal but could not swallow the latest slaughtering of foreign prisoners by extremist Muslims and how Muslim immigrants are flaunting the civil laws in Europe.

Fallaci insists that the word “terrorism” is not good enough; the mass media should remain consistent and say “Islamic terrorism”; a term that would satisfy the terrorist Zionists immensely. 

Fallacy relied on St. John’s apocalyptic vision where a Monster with seven heads and ten horns would emerge from the sea and then the Beast on land would execute all the Monster’s orders. Thus, the Monster is Islam and the Beast is represented by the European liberals and leaders who are trying to appease Muslims and exhorting them to moderation by dangling carrots instead of raising the heavy sticks.

I was surprised by the coincidence to read that Oriana Fallaci also adopted the views of Bernard Lewis on Islam and considered him as the ultimate authority for truth on Islamic matters.

Apparently, the then 80-years old Lewis and growing more senile by the by, gave an interview to a German daily where he lambasted the West for not believing that radical Islam is the main enemy, instead of the new fascists. Lewis is hammering the notion that all of Europe is going to be Islamist by the year 2100. (If mankind survive till then)

Thus, there is a disposition to fit theories that antagonize the Muslim World by accepting as evidence the many terrorist acts perpetrated by extremist Muslims.

The vehement attitude of Fallaci toward Islam stems from two premises:

First, all of the terrorist attacks in the World are perpetrated by Muslims, (obviously wrong and faked wishes) and

Second, the practices of Muslims’ behavior in the Western World are based on the teaching of the Koran which cannot be reconciled with the rational civil laws in the western countries they live in. (How these laws are biased to the privileged elite classes are Not broached)

The first premise may be true if we rely solely on the media accounts that, almost exclusively and consistently, show that the current terrorist attacks in the Western World, such as USA, Spain, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, and Holland where “terrorism had struck”, were done by Muslims.  She focused on the terrible acts of slaughtering hostages by Muslim radicals in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Russia.

Fallaci forgot to mention that terrorism has also been striking in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Philippine, Sri Lanka, Turkey, Palestine, and Lebanon, Africa, to name but a few, in order to destabilize these States, where terrorism was carried by Hindu, Christians, and various Muslim sects against each other castes.

The hidden facts that terrorism is done by the western extremists are not widely publicized and mostly toned down and not taken up relentlessly by the media.

For example, the Oklahoma City bombing was first attributed to Muslim extremists and then the US had to admit that it was a purely US extremist act; not to mention the dozen of mass killings in the US schools and universities. 

Moreover, most of the western terrorist acts are ordered by the states or committed by organizations supported by the states and consequently not divulged and buried as national security secrets.

Actually, all the terrorist acts of the Israeli settlers and the government on Palestinians and other adjacent States are coined as “individual actions by crazy people”

Fallaci should have recalled the many terrorist acts that ravaged Italy and Germany in the 60s and 70s and committed by the extremist left movements and done by non-Muslims; she also decided to forget the recent decade long terrorism and genocides that plagued former Yugoslavia and which was started by Christians among themselves in self cleansing mechanisms and then cleansing themselves with the blood of the Muslims in Kosovo and Serbia. (And current far-right parties terrorist activities)

Fallaci should have taken up also these terrorist occurrences of destabilizing many third world countries, and going on even today, by the US and Israel. She has indeed experienced these Western terrorist acts during her long career as a journalist, but she decided to focus her venom on Islam, thus satisfying the present Western propaganda strategy of misinformation and distortion.

As for the second premise, Fallaci poured her venom on those Muslims who claim to be moderate, simply because they didn’t join a radical group or didn’t commit a terrorist act but engage practically in “awful behaviors”. 

For example, how can a Muslim claim to be moderate if he prevents his wives or daughters to be integrated in their new societies, ordering them to swim in their long robe “dishdasha/jalabiya”, even if this practice is tantamount to drowning, or having three wives and treating them as slaves, or beating his wives because it is permitted by “Al Shari3a”, killing his daughters because they refused to marry the men that he selected for them, lambasting school directors because they allowed their sons and daughters to be offered sweets containing hints of alcohol, and so on.  (But many of these customs are practiced by many non-Muslims religious sects, and the Koran does Not encourage many of those imposed patriarchal privilege systems)

Fallaci claims that nine out of ten of the Islamic divine inspired laws are opposite to the Italian civil laws, and consequently, there is no possibility of coming to acceptable terms with Muslim believers. (Let Italy just carry out the civil laws on non-abiding Muslim citizens to encourage “moderate Muslims” to follow suit)

If we recapitulate the history of the world we can demonstrate that almost every religion encouraged terrorist acts throughout history when the goal was to establish a theocratic state, governed by the clerics, or to maintain the power of the religious hierarchy caste over the citizens and the other minority castes. 

European history is packed with genocidal periods where the majority of a Christian sect tried to exterminate other secondary Christian sects in France, Spain, Byzantium, Russia, and Germany, to name a few, and labelled them “heretics” and their shed blood a duty.

The one main factor that permitted the western Christian societies to edge toward rational civil laws and weakens the Christian Orders was that the New Testament dealt only with spiritual doctrines: Christ died before his religion was firmly established and didn’t have to enact laws organizing society when the Roman civil laws were the law of the land.

The major problem with the Muslim religion and its inability to establish rational civil laws for the land is that the Prophet Muhammad vanquished his arch enemy the Koreish tribes in Mecca, while still alive and had to re-organize the tribal society with laws emanating from the “unique God” and the mainstream customs among the tribes.

For maybe esthetic reasons, the Sourats of the Koran were organized according to length and not chronologically as logic would dictate; otherwise, the Muslims would have realized that the sourats in the first 13 years of Islam were purely spiritual and not deviating far from Jesus’ teaching. 

Actually, whatever variations there are in Islam and Christianity, are identical to the views of the different schisms in Christianity in the early centuries (mostly based on Jewish customs sect) and which provoked mass extermination of the smaller Christian sects by the dominant Christian sects.

For example, the status of the Virgin Mary, the duality of Jesus, the Holy Ghost and a multitude of other differences that Byzantium was famous with splitting hair were points of contention among the Christian sects and still are.

If the Koran was divided into two volumes, the spiritual volume related to the first 13 years of its formation and the second volume related to the earthly laws governing the City-State of Medina and then society in the Arab peninsula among the tribes, then communication among the two cultures would have been possible and the Muslims would not have reverted to rigid dogma forced upon them by 10 centuries of domination of Central Asian tribes (Mongol Empires) and culminating by their close associated tribe the Ottomans.

As is common among all religions, the religious orders emphasize the earthly concepts that can be impressed upon the believers by attaching heavy burdens on their daily life for total subjugation. 

Ironically, Christianity created daily burdens of religious obligations that were Not included in the “Bible”, just to impose its hegemony over the soul of its believers.

Jesus strongly denounced the Jewish Order for the daily heavy burdens they encumbered the Jews with and lambasted the order as a hypocritical order. 

Nevertheless, Christianity, whether Roman or Lutheran or Protestant, feverishly created religious obligations that were not in the New Testament but dug up from the Jewish religious books or from the proclamations of the saints and religious leaders to subjugate their members into a tight closed caste.

In general, Christianity is an open religion and the Western Nations in their zest to proselytize their respective dominant religion endeavored to invade the “barbarous” people for the proclaimed purpose of indoctrinating these people into the Christian values; most of these people were subjugated into changing religions nominally but kept their “pagan” traditions.

However, the Christian Maronite sect in Lebanon has reverted to a closed religion and adopted the caste system since the independence of Lebanon in 1943. 

The Maronite sect has agreed on a tacit pact with the non-Christian castes not to allow non-Christian members from the other castes in Lebanon to be baptized Maronites; I can testify that even Lebanese living overseas were not permitted to change religion: the Maronite Order made it clear that the process of changing religion is not feasible. 

This Maronite Christian sect has sold out its soul to preserve its supremacy as a caste in Lebanon local politics and ended up losing its supremacy in 1989 at the Taef Conference in Saudi Arabia.

Consequently, the divergence between the western societies and the Muslim societies are the result of types of revealed Books; the main Christian Book that basically does not contain earthly laws but were created later by the dominant Christian orders, and the Muslim Book that does specifically include earthly laws for governing societies.

The western societies have succeeded in establishing rational, though debatable, civil laws created by men (women had not yet fully participated in most of these laws); and they don’t have to bend their laws to accommodate Muslim immigrants who are stuck with divine laws to run their daily lives. 

This is not to say that the Western World has to adopt pre-emptive strategies of conquering Muslim and Arab countries on the flimsy crusading abstract notion of spreading democracy and the international civil laws, when the geo-political reality is clear and is meant to control energy resources and stopping the expansion of China in world politics.

As for the Moslem World, if the purpose of all these upheavals is catching up with the technology of the western societies then the burden resides mainly on accepting the premise that the spiritual doctrines should be separated from the rational civil laws. 

Otherwise, if the Muslim World wants to survive under its own set of divine obligations and be ruled my mullah, and sheikhs, and muftis then let it be proclaimed openly and unite under this purpose and let the world live as separate entities; societies that instituted civil laws and those insisting on man-made “inspired divine laws”.

In either case, there is no basic need for forced hegemony of one civilization over another if the human mind cannot device a method for human communication and entente: forced hegemony has never worked or lasted in history, and all the evidences are leading to the fact that the current western forced hegemony is failing, unless partitioning the Arab World into cantons is viewed as a definite success of the new pre-emptive “war” strategy, which has nothing to do with cultural differences.

Islam is carrying an insurmountable burden of awkward traditions, not just because of the 5 centuries of Ottoman domination, but 11 centuries of Muslim Sunni of Central Asian tribes that dominated most of the Muslim World, from Mongolia, to Kazakhstan, Kirghizia, Azerbaijan, the Caucasus, Iran, Afghanistan, India, and Turkey.  These hordes have established empires and the local vassals adopted the rigid dogmas and tribal customs of their caste systems.

Any recent reforms undertaken in the Middle East were thwarted by the Western powers to divide these nations and establish theocratic States and dictators most amenable to their creators.  Our inability to change and communicate, even internally among ourselves, is related fundamentally to our autonomous caste structure.

Fallaci was sensing right, but she was fighting cancer. Anyway, rational behavior is not the rule in this somber period within the Bush Administration, even if many of its leaders seem physically fit, aside of Dick Cheney.

Note 1:  The proposition that the Sourates of the first thirteen years were spiritual in nature was investigated by Antoun Saadi in the 1940s and published in a book “Al Islam fi ressalataih al Massihiyat wa al Mohammadiyah” translated liberally as “Islam (Message of Peace) by its two messengers Christ and Mohammed”

Note 2: Antoun Saadi is the founder of the Lebanese-bases Syria National Social party in 1936. A secular party , wanting to separate the religious sects dominance in the political and social structure and the government civil laws and regulation. This party was attacked by the sectarian parties encouraged by the mandated colonial powers of France and England on the Near-East region. This party claimed that we are one people in Syria, Palestine, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq and was the preadhead of confronting the Zionist plans that were backed by the colonial powers and the USA and Russia.

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And Natural borders? How difficult to secure?

Posted by: on: January 2, 2021

Natural borders: what for? (November 21, 2008)

This short essay is sort of a detailed argument of the previous essay titled “A Nation, a State, or a redundant community?“

Most thinkers and sociologists would like to consider natural borders as one of the essential main factors for the establishment of a Nation or a national identity.  I used to take this argument as a given until very recently.

My position is that the topology of the interior of a country is far more important to providing stability from military incursions for the duration, and consequently to forming a “homogeneous” society than mere “natural borders” can offer.

Obviously, natural borders are excellent arguments in litigations in the UN or international borders disputes, but not that essential on their own merit to constituting a Nation without topography that discourages invasions and long term settlement of invading troops.

Before I substantiate my hypothesis it might be necessary to emphasize two more ingredients for the formation of a nation.

First, a nation should manage to enforce a central official language to the majority of its citizens, regardless of the various slang and other different languages spoken or written in various regions in the nation. 

For example, at the beginning of the 20th century, France was still unable to enforce the official Parisian language in all its territory and had to resort to intensive investment and incentives in education, appropriate laws and concentrated efforts to achieve the universal application, if Not acceptance, of the official French language.

Second, a nation should manage to incite the majority of its citizens to acknowledge a civil religion, for example official recognition in the civil registers, regardless of their personal faith or other affiliations.  Saying that there is separation between the State and religion in functions and responsibilities is a State matter, but does not relate to the constitution of a nation in the long run.

I will consider a few Nations in the “Greater Middle East” and Northern Africa regions dating back from Antiquity and then from the European Medieval Age.

Of all the multitude of Empires that dominated the Old World at certain periods , only Iran (Persia) can be classified without ambiguity as a Nation.  Since the European Medieval Age we experienced the emergence of two other nations, Turkey and Morocco (it ruled Spain for over 5 centuries).

Before I resume my argumentation let me state that I consider Egypt as a recent nation that satisfies most of the criteria, but did Not in history. 

The fundamental question is: why the Empires of Babylon, Assyria, Akkad, Egypt, Greece, and Rome were unable to maintain the structure and cohesiveness of a nation, even after many centuries of dominion?

I will refrain of analyzing the cases of Greece and Rome because that would divert the focus of this short essay.

Why the Empires that originated in present Iraq, Syria and Egypt failed to survive as a nation to our modern time? 

These Empires dominated the Old World for many centuries and had centralized power structures and centralized official languages and managed to impose their brand of religion or close variations to their entire Empires. 

What was lacking then?

The topology in the interior of Iraq, Syria and Egypt could not offer any substantial hardship to huge invading troops.

Once the invading troops crossed a natural barrier the entire county was opened for easy progress. 

For example, “Greater Syria” (composed theoretically and according to natural borders of the current States of Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan) had definite natural borders of high mountain chains north and north-east, desert in the south and south-east, and east, and the Mediterranean Sea in the west. 

If we extended “Greater Syria” to include Iraq, then the Arab/Persian Gulf would be the border in the east.  It seems that natural borders are not of major consequences if the interior is an open country.

The invading war-like Empires just needed to satisfy their curiosity of what is beyond the natural barriers to come in. The Persians, Egyptians, Turks, Greeks, Romans, and Arab/Muslim troops entered and conquered the land from all sides with no major resistance.

It seemed that “Greater Syria” was unable to unite and constitute a national army or a central government, even though the population was mostly cohesive in language, religion, culture and customs… and that thanks to its open interior for easy trade and exchange.

What this region managed to form were hundreds of City-States, structurally centralized and well organized, but unable to come to a unified “need” for a Nation. 

It seems that through history, these people recognized that they would never be able to stop the advance of war-like empires; it was much cheaper to open the City-States gates and then assimilate the commercial demands and wants of the invading Empires.

This policy permitted the civilization of “Greater Syria” to transform and change the cultures of the invading Empires in all domains. (Review my essay “Lions and Lionesses in the Fertile crescent“). 

What is striking is, although Syria could never institute a political nation for any substantive duration, the populations in these States are more homogeneous culturally and linguistically than any currently established nation.

What is true to Syria is compatible to Egypt. Egypt had natural borders of deserts and seas but we cannot claim that it constituted a nation until recently due to demographic explosion, vast land, a majority of a religious sect, and common slang “Arabic” language.

The difference historically between Egypt and Syria is that the invading Empires were not interested in all of Egypt; suffice to secure transit commerce between the Red Sea and the Mediterranean Sea and the crops of the Nile River, mainly wheat. 

Syria was all interesting because of its rich City-States, skilled artisans, education, schools, commerce, and fertile lands;.

Syria was for the keep because of its hard working value-adding population!

That is why it was impossible for Syria to form a political entity because the war-like Empires wanted Syria at any cost.

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Where was Jesus born? Where did he preach his message?

Posted by: on: December 25, 2020

Christ Is From My Country (Lebanon/Syria). What are the messages of Jesus?  

Mohammad Yousef Hammoud 

Mind you this article was published on December 1948 and translated from Arabic

The hearts, tongues, pens, and ears became accustomed to believing, saying, writing, and hearing that the immortal verses of the prophets, along with their miracles and victories were merely inspirations inspired, wills dictated, and victories achieved by God. 

This belief became fixed in the hearts and minds of the people as a deep, reassuring faith, which strips the “messenger” of his personal genius, individual will, and heroic deeds. 

Thus for every messenger an idea was imprinted in the minds of the people that he is an ordinary person sent by divine providence, repeating its instructions and implementing its orders. 

And that without these instructions and orders he would not have been the great heroic genius that he was! 

The likelihood is that the heavenly inspiration was nothing more than a cosmic revelation and that the guiding, superior prophets were nothing more than world greats and leaders of humankind. 

And if credit should be given to God for inspiring the prophets, these prophets should be given credit for proving His existence to humans and persuading them to have faith in the unknown. 

Thus, the prophet is not merely the inspired executor, but also the superior human, the reforming leader, and the brave commander.

In light of this reality of the human messenger we say: “if we imagine all world scholars without exception as prominent summits in the mountain chain of history, we will see two high peaks in the atmospheres of the spirit and of glory, in the heaven of religion and horizons of the earth, unequalled by any peak and unsurpassed by any height, as they are the two shining beacons: The Christ Jesus and Mohammad the Chosen! 

The peak at whose foot the world stands today looking upon it in remembrance of its birth, its genesis, its eminence, and its immortality, is Christianity as a man, a religion, and an extent.   

And if any human from this world has the right to stand, look, and remember, it is the human from our country that not only has this right before others, but also has the right to ascend from the foot to the peak, and to sit at its throne, on the zenith of the heavens and on top of the universe, proud and self-confident, knowing that this peak rose from our land and was heightened in our skies, and that this beacon shined from our Levant, with the light of our sun, the glow of our shores, the marvel of our hilltops, and the majesty of our plains. 

If any region has a duty to remember the day of Christ’s birth, the day of faith, awareness, liberation, departure, and life, it is primarily our Levantine region that has this duty. 

It is the obligation of Jerusalem, Amman, Beirut, Damascus, and Baghdad, before Rome, Paris, London, Washington, and Moscow to sanctify this day and to immortalize it as a Levantine promising national day! 

Is there a better claimant to our pride and haughtiness for this birth that is our birth and this messenger who is our messenger? 

And is there a glory that supersedes our Levant’s glory in that it is the creator, emitter, feeder, native land, inspirer, and proponent of Christ? 

Or does our country not have the right to raise its head in exaltation and boastfulness over the rest of the entire world, when half the world today, every morning and evening, follow with their hearts and their sights in obedience, humbleness, and submission to the message of the son of our country, which is one of the messages of the Canaanites, the Arameans, and the Hittites who taught humankind with a letter, unified the world with a boat, and built the earth with innovation?! 

Or is it not our national right, we the people of the Levant, to vie in glory with the east, the west, the north, and the south, in a manger in the small town of Bethlehem, before which kneel the capitals of the empires, kingdoms, republics, states, and princedoms of the world? 

Just as the worlds in the past knelt before a cave in Arwad, Jbeil, and Tyre, or a stone in Damascus, Babylon, Nineveh, and others of the beacons of science, work, and unity. 

It is not a heresy if humans worship God in a man from amongst us, as in olden times they worshipped God in a stone from our country! 

O Faithful Levantines! Christ, from whom we learned the principles of utmost forgiving, pardoning, mercy, gentleness, and giving, which we memorized and knew about alone in our homes, also wanted us to be proud and haughty as well as fighting heroes, drawing strength as a weapon and fighting falsehood in combat. 

Do not say that I am straying or committing a heresy, for our Christ was the messenger of reforming principles, the teacher of social studies, the leader of Levantine renaissance, and the commander of the heroic campaign against corruption, chaos, evil, and sins, the epidemics of the corrupt, evil, sinful children of Israel, which were spreading across the Levant and afflicting all Levantines. 

Thus, this hero was victorious over these epidemics as divinity is victorious in the heavens and humanity is victorious on earth, after becoming furious with the “children of Israel” and dispersing them and cursing them. 

Hence they were displaced as steered slaves falling in their arrogance.Yes O Faithful Levantines! Our Christ was a hero in his faith, a hero in his words, and a hero in his deeds. 

He persevered before the enemies and the arrogant, sometimes with violence and other times with tenderness, in order to create the most beautiful society and the most ideal human in our country!

Thus O Christ! In our hearts from you is the gentleness of the lamb, and in our hands from you is the strength of the hero. 

And you are in our eyes and our minds a humanistic Levantine paradigmatic messenger and a fighting societal hero. 

Your entire course is in our consciences, from the time you uttered your first words and brought down the thorns with patience, until the time you spoke your last words, carrying the crown triumphantly. 

And the “people of Israel” whose epidemics you combated and eradicated its spread with cursing, dispersal, slavery, and arrogance, have returned today to your country in order to ravage it with corruption. 

What’s more is that they were returned by those who declare their faith in your Christianity and pray to your image! 

Return to us O Christ, in order to eradicate the corrupt, chaotic, evil sinners, and to expel the scribes and Pharisees from your house which you wanted to be a house of worship, and which the Christians of the West turned into a grotto for Thieves. ________________________________________________________________________

* This article was first published in “kul shay’” (Every thing) Newspaper on the above-mentioned date and was republished in the book “That Long Night,” March 1, 1953, P. 141.

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Third open letter to French President Macron: Reading in the dictionary of colonialism is Not applicable to Lebanon

Posted by: on: December 20, 2020

Troisième lettre ouverte au Président Macron : Prière de cesser vos lectures dans le dictionnaire du colonialisme

Monsieur le Président,

Une fois de plus, je vous remercie et vous assure de ma gratitude car il est indubitable que votre future troisième visite [*] à Beyrouth en l’espace de quatre mois témoigne de votre intérêt exceptionnel pour le Liban. (The third visit in December is delayed since Macron tested positive to Covid-19)

D’autant plus que, ces derniers jours, les tensions sociale et politique en France ont atteint des niveaux élevés rarement rencontrés, les défis actuels se posant avec une telle acuité qu’ils laissent présager des expériences plus dures encore que celles vécues en 1968. Ou bien avant, à l’époque charnière de l’indépendance algérienne et de la défaite française devant celle-ci et en (Indochine).

En effet, aujourd’hui la lutte sociopolitique visant à sauver les acquis sociaux de l’époque gaulliste qui ont fait de la France le phare et l’exemple à suivre en matière de démocratie et de protection sociale, se heurte à la loi relative à la « sécurité globale ».

Une loi vue par une majorité de Français comme une destruction globale des fondements des libertés publiques et des droits individuels consacrés par les constitutions françaises successives depuis le tremblement de terre de 1789 (La Revolution).

L’argument des opposants à cette loi est qu’elle démolit, ne serait-ce qu’en théorie, l’un des piliers de la démocratie française, à savoir la « transparence » qui donne de la légitimité aussi bien aux mesures restrictives prises par les pouvoirs publics en matière de sécurité collective, qu’aux décisions des autorités relevant du Pouvoir judiciaire garant des principes de liberté et d’égalité inclus dans la triade de l’architecture républicaine.

Partant de ce constat, vous serez probablement surpris que je vous dise, bien que vous le sachiez déjà, une vérité qui fait que, nous au Liban et vous en France, nous sommes confrontés à des horreurs qui s’accumulent chez nous à cause de notre échec à construire une cohésion sociale ; lesquelles horreurs, toutes proportions gardées, risquent de s’accumuler chez vous pour cette même raison.

Si nous en sommes là c’est à cause de notre répartition dans des pénitenciers confessionnels et doctrinaires, l’appartenance à ces pénitenciers ayant désormais dépassé l’appartenance à la société nationale une et unifiée, d’où son effondrement et notre dégringolade dans le labyrinthe de l’échec menant à notre destruction globale.

Des pénitenciers confessionnels qui ont fini par dominer le système politique, puis transformer l’État en ce que vous savez, Monsieur le Président, vous qui êtes devenu par la toute puissance du maître de la Maison Blanche le superviseur de la destinée prescrite pour le Liban.

En France, vous ne souffrez pas de cette maladie incurable dont nous souffrons, j’entends par là les maux des pénitenciers confessionnels, mais vous souffrez d’autres maux qui peuvent vous mener à égarer votre boussole, ne serait-ce que le système du néolibéralisme auquel vous avez adhéré et qui pourrait vous mener à dépouiller votre société de ce qui a fait sa force et son unit: l’agonie ou la disparition de partis séculaires, l’affaiblissement de la résistance de la plupart des syndicats et la fragilisation de l’institution familiale qui est la composante fondamentale de toute société.

Quant à nous, c’est la France qui a grandement participé à l’élaboration de notre système politique, depuis que le comte Robert de Caix de Saint-Aymour a usé de son scalpel pour tailler dans la géographie levantine cette très belle carte de l’entité libanaise républicaine.

Pour plus de clarté, permettez que je vous rappelle une vérité de l’époque en citant, mot pour mot, un extrait du rapport intitulé « L’IMBROGLIO SYRIEN » et rédigé par le diplomate et écrivain français Paul Bonardi, assistant de M. Robert de Caix, émissaire français au levant dans l’entre-deux-guerres, délégué à la Commission permanente des Mandats de la SDN et secrétaire général du général Henri Gouraud, le Haut-Commissaire de la France au Levant de 1919 à 1923 :

« Robert de Caix, esprit subtil et délié mais trop enclin à faire des expériences sur les corps sociaux, conçut une organisation qui parut d’abord, et paraît encore à certains Français et aux Maronites, (secte Chrétienne) assez adroite.

Il bâtit le long de la Méditerranée un rempart inébranlable, ou prétendu tel, aux assauts du Panarabisme.
Mais il donna au Liban des terres qui appartenaient à l’État de Damas.

Dans l’État Libanais chrétien, il enferma des musulmans, des ennemis, et il en enferma tant que leur chiffre faillit passer en importance celui des Maronites.

Il suscita ainsi un irrédentisme propice à toutes les effervescences.
Après la lune de miel apparaissait au ciel des épousailles la lune rousse…

Les Libanais du moins étaient satisfaits. Ils offrirent à M. Robert de Caix de donner son nom à une rue de Beyrouth.

 Mon nom à une rue, dit M. Robert de Caix. Donnez-le plutôt à une impasse ! »

Un rapport de 155 pages qui n’aurait été tiré qu’en 42 exemplaires, d’autant plus important qu’il a été publié en 1927, c’est-à-dire un an après l’élaboration de la Constitution libanaise sous la supervision du Haut-Commissaire Henry de Jouvenel, lequel l’a délibérément minée par l‘article 95 connu sous le nom de « l’article confessionnel », poursuivant en cela le travail de découpes de M. Robert de Caix sur des Levantins vus tels des cobayes dans ses « expériences sur les corps sociaux » ! (Henry de Jouvenel, was a Zionist)

Monsieur le Président,

Vu la mission qui vous a été confiée pour le Liban, je ne vous imagine pas ignorer ces faits historiques, même si votre principale spécialité porte sur le secteur bancaire et les salles de bourse où le tumulte et les clameurs servent à faire passer des décisions prises ailleurs, comme nous l’explique le défunt expert, Eustace Mullins dans son célèbre ouvrage intitulé « Les secrets de la Réserve fédérale ».

Un ouvrage des plus remarquables, interdit d’édition et de parution par les puissances occultes pendant un quart de siècle environ.

Puissiez-vous, Monsieur le président, ne pas voir en l’auteur de ces lignes un obsédé par ladite théorie du complot. Citer cet ouvrage de M. Mullins m’amène juste à vous poser la question de savoir s’il ne serait pas opportun que vous prêtiez attention au fait que la Banque de New York, qui détient à elle seule la moitié des billets verts émis par la Réserve fédérale, s’est subrepticement infiltrée dans le système bancaire libanais et en est devenue le plus gros contributeur en plein effondrement financier et économique au Liban.

Une question éventuellement dérangeante, vu que j’ignore si ce sujet vous a été exposé par la junte politico-financière qualifiée de corrompue d’emblée et à juste titre par votre Excellence.

Quoi qu’il en soit, votre intérêt manifeste pour ce qui se dit dans les cercles civils libanais fait que j’en profite pour vous dire que la « société civile » c’est nous !

Nous qui avons été dépouillés par les banques avec la complicité du gouverneur de la Banque du Liban, lequel a remporté les plus grands prix internationaux décernés par les cercles financiers occidentaux.

Quant au cercle des banquiers criminels qui se prosternent avec révérence et déférence devant vous, pourquoi n’avoir rien fait pour qu’ils soient au moins traités comme la justice française traite aujourd’hui votre prédécesseur, le Président Nicolas Sarkozy, jugé pour corruption et contre lequel le parquet national financier a requis quatre ans de prison dont deux avec sursis ?

Il ne suffit pas de parler de corruption et de corrompus pour s’abstenir d’une quelconque forme de condamnation des seigneurs des banques, notamment ceux qui ont volé nos dépôts bancaires avant de les transférer illégalement vers les banques des États-Unis, de Grande-Bretagne, de France et de Suisse.

Parler des « corrompus libanais » signifie que vous possédez suffisamment d’informations sur le sujet.

C’est pourquoi nous nous sommes attendus à ce que vous procédiez au gel de leurs avoirs dans les banques françaises.

Je veux parler des avoirs de ceux qui ont détruit et appauvri les familles libanaises, d’un seul coup, par l’une des plus horribles arnaques que le monde ait connue.

Une arnaque financière complémentaire du crime ayant réussi à faire exploser le port de Beyrouth et une partie de notre capitale par une sorte d’arme de destruction massive ; le champignon de fumées observé ayant révélé tous les non-dits sur cette affaire. (An electromagnetic pulse bomb that only superpowers have)

Une fois de plus, Monsieur le Président, puissiez-vous ne pas me prêter les intentions d’un complotiste, mais une question s’impose d’elle-même, vu que nous attendons toujours les images satellites du théâtre de l’explosion du port de Beyrouth et nous espérons qu’au final vous ne nous décevrez pas.

À ce propos, un reportage d’un collègue journaliste connu pour son sérieux, M. Paul Khalifé, nous a appris qu’une source française bien informée a déclaré que le satellite était verrouillé lors de l’explosion.

C’est quand même bizarre ces satellites qui font la sieste et dorment d’un profond sommeil à chaque fois qu’Israël procède à une explosion.

Ainsi, le 7 juin 1981 et tandis que l’Irak de Saddam Hussein menait sa « guerre sacrée » contre l’Iran, avec le ferme soutien de la France, des États-Unis, de la Grande-Bretagne et de l’écrasante majorité des Pays arabes, les avions de combat israéliens sont allés bombarder le réacteur nucléaire « Tamouz » jusqu’à le détruire complètement.

Un réacteur construit par la France suite au fameux accord entre Saddam Hussein et son ami « personnel » Jacques Chirac, Premier ministre de la France sous la présidence de Valéry Giscard d’Estaing.

Ce jour-là, ni les AWACS américains qui survolaient les eaux du Golfe dans le cadre d’un accord entre les États-Unis et l’Arabie saoudite, ni les Saoudiens, ni les alliés occidentaux n’ont songé à informer les Irakiens sur les préparatifs de l’aviation militaire israélienne. Tous leurs radars et satellites faisaient la sieste.

De même, aucun des pays de l’OTAN n’a présenté d’images satellites du bombardement ayant frappé dans la matinée du 14 février 2005 le cortège du Premier ministre libanais, Rafic Hariri, lui aussi un ami « personnel » de Jacques Chirac devenu Président de la République française, lequel n’a rien pu faire en dépit de son amitié et de sa profonde tristesse. Cette fois, tous les satellites faisaient la grasse matinée.

Et il paraît que le 4 août 2020, tous les satellites de la France, des États-Unis et de Grande-Bretagne avaient été frappés par un coup de soleil, d’où leur sieste prolongée au-delà de 18h.

De prétendues siestes pour couvrir le crime de l’explosion provoquée du port de Beyrouth, comme le Président Donald Trump avait commencé par le reconnaître.

Ce qui fait qu’il n’y a toujours pas d’images satellites pour ne pas révéler le rôle de l’enfant gâté : Israël.

Monsieur le Président,

Si vous vous abstenez d’aider les Libanais et en particulier les civils ayant été victimes du vol caractérisé des banques, et si vous vous abstenez d’aider le Liban en révélant la vérité sur ce qui s’est passé lors de l’explosion du port de Beyrouth, comment comptez-vous nous aider ?

Une question très simple, posée par une personne simple s’étant retrouvée du jour au lendemain dans le cortège des « nouveaux pauvres ».

Tout ce qu’elle veut savoir c’est la vérité, pour qu’à sa lumière elle sache comment récupérer ses maigres économies au même titre que ses frères et sœurs en citoyenneté.

Il n’est pas question que l’auteur de ces lignes soit moins courageux que l’enfant du sud libanais, Hussein al-Chartouni, lequel s’est moqué des pluies de balles israéliennes lorsqu’il est allé récupérer sa poule qui s’était échappée vers la bande frontalière entre le Liban et Israël. Donc, nous ne nous tairons pas.

Monsieur le Président,

Vous auriez dû prendre en considération ces questions lorsque vous avez co-présidé au début de ce mois de décembre la « Conférence internationale en soutien à la population libanaise ».

Abstraction faite de la suspicion qu’un tel intitulé nous inspire en tant que citoyens libanais originaires et propriétaires de notre pays, certains points de votre approche de la crise libanaise méritent attention.

En effet, par une ironie du sort, vous faites campagne contre la corruption avec l’assentiment de tous les corrompus et, en même temps, vous évitez d’évoquer la responsabilité du système libanais en tant que système ségrégationniste tel qu’il a été conçu par MM. Robert de Caix et Henry de Jouvenel.

Or, le système de l’apartheid est maudit en Occident depuis que le géant africain, Nelson Mandela, a réussi à le renverser.

Pourquoi restez-vous silencieux sur l’apartheid au Liban ? Pourquoi vous contentez-vous de nous parler de votre souci pour ce que vous estimez représenter notre société civile alors que nombre de ses organisations sont ouvertement financées par l’étranger, comme l’a publiquement déclaré David Hale, le secrétaire d’État adjoint américain pour les Affaires politiques ?

Un deuxième point qui mérite attention concerne votre étonnante méfiance des Libanais de souche turkmène et votre inquiétude quant à leur éventuelle adoption de la nationalité turque, ce qui pourrait mener à la création d’une nouvelle minorité susceptible d’être manipulée par celui qui jouerait à faire mine de la protéger.

Or, il ne faudrait pas oublier que la notion de minorités et le refrain des interventions pour la protection des minorités ont été introduits par les colonialistes français et britanniques.

Dommage qu’un membre de votre administration suffisamment versé dans ces questions ne vous ait pas informé sur cette politique qui a justifié vos ingérences au nom de la protection des minorités pour ensuite les abandonner, car les exemples sont pléthores.

Parmi ces exemples, permettez que je vous informe d’un entretien accordé par le Président syrien Choukri al-Kouwatli et rapporté par feu l’écrivain français, Benoist Méchin, dans son ouvrage intitulé « UN PRINTEMPS ARABE ».

Un entretien ayant coïncidé avec le jour de l’annonce de la création de la République arabe unie entre l’Égypte et la Syrie. À la question de savoir si le projet de l’union des pays arabes était logique, il avait répondu : « Nos frontières ne sont pas des limites, ce sont des blessures ». Des blessures profondes causées par le scalpel colonial.

Or, le Président Choukri al-Kouwatli est un citoyen syrien de souche turkmène, laquelle a compté quatre présidents syriens.

Et puis il est le seul à avoir reçu le titre de « Premier citoyen arabe ». Tout un chacun peut donc constater l’énorme différence entre le Printemps d’hier et le prétendu printemps d’aujourd’hui.

Je vous prie Monsieur le Président de cesser vos lectures dans le dictionnaire du colonialisme.

S’il pousse à la soumission ceux que vous avez-vous-même qualifiés de corrompus, sachez qu’il y a dans nos pays des hommes et des femmes libres et laïcs qui n’ont aucune considération pour la ségrégation raciale et qui ne pardonnent pas au colonialisme son alliance avec la corruption et les corrompus.

Veuillez recevoir, Monsieur le Président, mes meilleures salutations

Note 1: Many commented that Macron needed Not test himself before meeting the Lebanese maligned sectarian leaders: A few deaths among them would have cleared the path for a significant political change.

Note 2: Macron hurried to visit Lebanon after the devastation of the port of Beirut because he knew the conflagration was done by US/Israel and he wanted to “cool” the climate for a total uprising and the kicking out of the colonial powers embassies

Hassan Hamadé: Écrivain et chercheur libanais
– Membre du Conseil national de l’audiovisuel (CNA)
16/12/2020

Source : Al-Intichar (quotidien libanais)
https://alintichar.com/137725

Traduction de l’arabe par Mouna Alno-Nakhal

[*] Visite finalement annulée, le Président Macron ayant été testé positif pour la Covid-19, le 17 décembre, au lendemain de la parution de cette lettre ouverte.

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Any good news? Anything changed since 2008?

Posted by: on: November 26, 2020

Any good news in and out?

After Iraq invasion. (December 7, 2008)

Let me offer new facts and then older facts that were not disseminated; then I will ask the question “Why the Bush Administration needed a major war?”

Then the follow up question “Why Iraq specifically?”

Then the resolution question “What where the results of this pre-emptive war, what after Iraq, what of the millions of Iraqis who suffered this harrowing invasion?”.

Since the Wall Street crash, the USA has lost over 550,000 jobs and as many in the developed States and there is no end to that trend.  

In 1989, the world experienced a nasty financial crash that destabilized the Asian markets and then Latin America and its ripple effect hit the US as Bush was being inaugurated.  

Thus, before the Twin Tower disaster the US was financially unstable and the joblessness rate was very high and increasing.  

After the 9/11 attack the stock market in the US hit its lowest and the rate of decrease was about 36%, almost as bad as today.  

The major difference was that the financial disaster then was not publicized and the whole affair turned to the necessity of preventing further terrorist activities and defending the “Nation”.

The US needed badly a major war.

First, to absorb the unemployed, especially the Latinos, and

Second, to divert attention from acute economical and financial problems that the Republicans were not equipped to handle under their free, non controlled capitalist policies.

Why Iraq then?  

Afghanistan was a non entity and very poor to launch a major war and invest so much on it. 

 Iraq had no Qaida elements within its territory, simply because Dictator Saddam Hussein was a Sunni leader and would not permit other Sunni organizations to eat from his own dish.  

Iraq had no nuclear weapons; the Nuclear Control Agency said so; the European leaders said so; the UN said so and refused to support this foolish pre-emptive war.  

The Bush Administration went solo against the World community. Why?

Iraq was a State with the highest reserve in oil and second to Saudi Arabia in potentials for production.

Iraq was strategically located amidst the oil producing countries in the Middle East.  Saudi Arabia is a staunch ally to the US.  Iran is too big to swallow.  

Iraq was about right since it had been seriously weakened after 10 years of economic embargo by the Bush Father and Clinton. (Over 2 million babies died in Iraq in that period of embargo for lack of powder milk and basic medicines).  

The neighboring Arab States were easy prey for frequent US financial blackmail to invest in Treasury bonds and other financial gifts such as purchasing redundant military hardware at the highest prices.

For the long term, the US planned to blackmail powerful China, avid of oil, by controlling directly the distribution and production of oil.

When the US forces entered Baghdad, Bush Junior declared “Victory”.  

Two years later Bush Junior revised his declaration “Victory was way premature”.  Recently, Bush Junior was begging the Iraqis to accept the “Security Agreement” to save face for the retreat of his troops.  

What would you expect from an Iraqi government, appointed by the US forces, but to obey its Masters?

What were the results of this long pre-emptive war?

First, over one thousand Iraqi scientists in all fields have been systematically assassinated by the CIA and the Israeli Mossad.  

The names and professions of these scientists and professors are published on the internet. Israel was greatly relieved: The huge brain potential of the Iraqi people was a nightmare for tiny Israel; and backed by huge oil reserves and fertile lands and prosperous industries.  

It is said that the Egyptians write books, the Lebanese publish and the Iraqi read the books.  For over ten years now the “Arabs” have not been reading their published books!

Second, a catastrophic ecological situation has befallen Iraq: the oil that could not be processed or distributed was re-directed to be dumped in valleys; vast areas are lost for ever and ever to any reclamation.

Third, over one million Iraqi civilians died and three fold that number crippled.

Fourth, oil production never reached the level of ten years ago.

Fifth, the US has stolen, highway robbery, the oil produced in Iraq with nothing to show for it but destruction, miseries, and sectarian warfare.  

Security in Iraq is the last thing in the mind of the Bush Junior Administration; the Iraqis can go to hell and why? Why?

Sixth, China re-directed its investment for oil fields toward Africa and the US is totally impotent.

Seventh, China has struck deals with Russia and India and the oil pipelines are almost finished and freed from maritime transport and US blackmailing tactics.

Eight, the hatred and animosities against the US policies in the Arab and Muslim people has reached the zenith and no public image gimmicks would do.

Nine, Russia has checked the US-NATO expansion toward its borders.

Tenth, the US is totally bankrupt and humiliated economically, financially, and militarily.  Shall I go on?

The cycle is back from where we started.  

The financial conditions are worse than in 2001 and unemployment rate even worst.  What then?  

Which country is now ripe for another pre-emptive war in order to suck in the jobless population and to blackmail the Arab State for financial secure?   

Saudi Kingdom is ideal: nobody like this savage, ignorant, narrow minded Wahhabi sect of this theocratic monarchy family.  

The world can do without this hotbed of terrorism, salafist, wahabi sect which is the source of the Al Qaeda and its numerous branches; except the USA obviously.

Don’t you hate this hypocrite of a monster claiming that he was against war but the CIA lied to him?

The case is to be handled by the International Tribunal of war crimes and perpetrators of genocides on a wide scale.  

If the International community fails its duty towards this massacre of the decade and persists in acting biased toward the developed colonial nations then the underground organizations will take over in the name of justice and for a long, long time.

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Free-Trade Zones? How this works? Can they work in the Middle East?

Posted by: on: October 6, 2020

Free-Trade Zones? How this works? Can they work in the Middle East?

Note: Re-edit of “Free-Trade Zones of December 2, 2008“

Are Free-Trade Zones in the Middle East being worked out? (December 1, 2008)

I have no idea how a Free-Trade Zone works, and what are its advantages, but it sound good, since it is Free? Free trade to whom and how the common people of the States can benefit from these deals?

I doubt anything labelled “free” can be of any value, except free public education to all, free preventive health care, and free institutions to open opportunities for the people to find jobs and field of studies.

Most probably, these zones are meant to enrich the richer countries and degrade the economic production of the weaker nations.

The advantage in the long-term is that it prevent military confrontations, facilitate the travel and trade between the State, inhance exchanges among the people, enlarge the market for added value entreprises, and break-up mythical ideas.

I like to envision the creations of 11 free-trade zones in the Middle East, among the States of Turkey, Iran, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, and Cyprus.

Though this idea is Not feasible as long as the superpowers and colonial powers are dead serious of keeping the Middle-East divided, destabilized and wracked with mythical/religious enmities.

The colonial powers, mainly USA, England and France implanted their Israel colony in Palestine in order to disturb daily routine trade and communication, Not only in the Near-East (Nation of Syria), but the Middle East altogether.

Israel is strategically our existential enemy.

With Israel still supported by the colonial power, our region will constantly be destabilized and divided to conduct and resume any sustainable trade and create an economic cycle for self-reliance and autonomy.

Why free-trade zones?

Most of the recognized States by the United Nations in the Middle East were Not naturally and normally constituted, and the borders are artificially delimited: The States  were divided up by the mandatory European nations of Britain, France and the active participation of the USA, after the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire lost the war in the WWI by siding with Germany.

Consequently, there are many ethnic, emotional, economic, linguistic, and historical intermingling and rivalries among these States.

Since “victory” military confrontations are out of the question, and since daily trade and social relations are binding certain bordering zones then, creative alternatives should be studied to form viable trade zones that otherwise would be left unmanaged and precariously volatile.

First, between the States of Turkey and Syria there are many legitimate claims that should be resolved on their borders.  There is the possibility of several free-trade zones such as (Cilicia, Iskandaron, and Lazkieh (Latakieh)) and the Kurdish common zone of Hassakeh and Diar Baker and Van.

Second, between Turkey and Iraq there is an ideal free-trade zone in their common Kurdish region around Mosul.

Third, between Iraq and Iran: two zones can be contemplated (the common Kurdish region, and the region around the Persian/Arabian Gulf.

Fourth, between Iraq, Iran, and Kuwait the Basra region could alleviate recurring conflicts.

Fifth, between Iraq, Syria, and Jordan, where their frontiers intersect artificially, a free-trade zone would encourage commerce in that desolate area.

Sixth, between Syria, Jordan, and Lebanon there are shared bordered around the Golan Heights.

Seventh, between Syria and Lebanon there are potential two zones (the northern Lebanese frontiers of Akkar, and the south-eastern Bekaa Valley with Shebaa Farms).

Eight, between Turkey, Syria, Lebanon, and Cyprus a free-trade zone in Cyprus would iron out differences and encourage maritime commerce.

What are the processes for initiating these free-trade zones?

After a period of three years of ironing out details and instituting regulations with special passports or identity cards for the inhabitants of the zones, then all the zones between the states can be merged.

It is only normal that contiguous zones common to three States could eventually be merged and a belt of uninterrupted contiguous zones would form the natural borders of the Middle East.

As was done in Europe, let commerce and industry form the basis for these zones, which should generate rational cooperative decisions for our future.

The concept of a free-zone is to create a magnate cities, self-autonomous city, with laws and regulations agreed upon among the States.

Ultimately, an economic union could emerge, based on a set of procedures and processes that works, which form a firm ground to negotiating common interests, and disseminating common laws and regulations valid in the various lands.

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Ur Salam (City of Peace): Jerusalem

Posted by: on: September 3, 2020

Ur Salam (City of Peace): Jerusalem

Recent archeological works by Kathleen Kenyon (2009) discovered a wall surrounding the city of Jerusalem dating from the 18th century BC; water was diverted through underground canals from the fresh source of Guihon to Siloe cisterns inside the walls.

The sea people called Philistines had devastated the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea, destroyed the nascent Greek fleet and settled in Gaza and the southern coastline of Palestine around the 12th century.

The entire eastern coastline from north Syria to Sinai was dominated by the Canaanites.

In southern Palestine, the Canaanites had to flee northward and retreat inside toward Jerusalem, one of their 25 City-States. Jerusalem was then inhabited by over 10,000 urban dwellers, a huge number for the period.

Around 11th century BC, Moses (a myth) arrived with his nomadic tribes to the borders with Canaan.  His successors endeavored to settle in part of Palestine and battled with the Philistines.  The Canaanites aristocracy aided David to enter Jerusalem and this class was his administrative supporters. (Just faked stories from the Jewish book written in 200 BC in Alexandria)

David thus had two high priests (Evyatar and Sadoq), two military leaders (Joab and Benayahu), and two heirs apparent (Adoniyyahou and Salomon).

David had also two formal sanctuaries for the Jews and the Canaanites.  David adopted the God of the Land El and the demi-Gods of the Sun (Shahar) and the Moon (Shalem) were worshipped.

The Jewish Yahweh (God of thunders) was relegated to the background and played a support function in times of urgent need.

The Jews had no such concept of “throne” and the Canaanite aristocracy provided a throne to David and his solar God was Justice personified and a divinity of the order “Sadeq”:  Milki Sadeq was the King of Jerusalem when Abraham came to Canaan and paid the tenth (one tenth) to Melki Sadeq.

Salomon supporters of the Canaanites assassinated Adoniyyahou and Joab and Ebyatar was pursuit.

Salomon relied on the King of Tyr to build his Temple for the Sun God facing east.

The dedication read: “The divinity of the Sun has announced: Yahweh has decided to live in the shadow. A house has been renovated for his dwelling”.  The God Sun sent two messengers of Right and Justice to destroy Sodom.

In this event as in others, Yahweh shares the responsibility as a subordinate to the Sun God.  Slowly but surely, Yahweh acquired a convincing divinity by the period that preceded the exile to Babylon.

In 587 BC, the Babylonian King Nabuchodonosor destroys part of the Temple.

The Persian King Cyrus repatriates the Jews in 538 and restores the temple.

Alexander enters Jerusalem in 332 and Judea falls under the Ptolemy dynasty.

The Seleucid dynasty dominates Jerusalem from 200 to 142.

Judas Maccabeus revolted in 164 and enters Jerusalem which falls to the Hasmonide dynasty until the Roman Pompey takes Jerusalem in 63 BC.

The zealot Jews take over Jerusalem for two years in 66 AC. The Roman General Titus enters Jerusalem in the year 70 and burns the Temple.

Jerusalem is then named Aelia Capitolina.

Bar Kokheba recaptures Jerusalem in 131.  Emperor Hadrian enters Jerusalem and the Jews are definitely dispersed and forbidden to enter Jerusalem.

Emperor Constantine consecrates the Anastasis (The Saint Sepulcher).

The Persian King Chosroes destroys Jerusalem in 614.

Emperor Heracles retakes the city in 628.

The Caliph of Islam Omar enters Jerusalem in 638. The Dome of the Rock is built in 691.  The mosque Al Aqsa is built in 705.

The crusaders enter the city in 1099.  The Sultan Salah el Din enters the city in 1187 and chased out the crusaders.  The Turkish Sultan Selim 2 enters the city in 1244 and gives Jerusalem a religious function and dots it with many religious schools (madrassa).

The Ottoman Empire captured the city in 1516.

Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent rebuilds the walls and enlarges the city with newer walls.

In 1967 the Zionist State of Israel enters Jerusalem.  Begin declares that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel in 1980.

The State of Israel is flaunting all UN resolutions to stop destroying Palestinian houses in East Jerusalem that is proposed to be the Capital of the Palestinian State.

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