Faith in people of Lebanon

February 14, 2007

Faith in people to do the right thing

THE EXPLOSIONS on Tuesday in Bikfaya, a mainly Christian town in the hills north of Beirut, come at a time of acute political tension in Lebanon, and a day before the second anniversary of the assassination of former prime minister Rafiq Hariri. Even before the blasts, fears were running high that violent clashes could erupt between supporters of the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora and opposition activists led by Hizbollah who have been staging a sit-in in the heart of Beirut since Dec.1
Organisers of a mass rally planned in downtown Beirut on Wednesday to mark the Hariri assassination are going ahead with the event. Pro-government activists are accusing Syria for the blasts saying Damascus wants a destabilised Lebanon so that it could exploit the situation for political purposes. However, one fails to see how Syria would want to stir up trouble in Lebanon when it knows well that the slightest slip-up on its part could be disasterous for itself. The US is waiting on the wings for the right opportunity to advance its effort for "regime change" in Damascus, and the government of Syrian President Bashar Al Asad could ill-afford any development that could lead to accusing fingers against Damascus as a force of destabilisation of the region.
The Bikfaya bombings have all halmarks of a deliberate operation designed and timed to trigger sectarian violence, possibly leading to a new civil war in the country, which is yet to recover from the blows it received during the 1975-1992 civil strife pitting sectarian militia forces.
Bikfaya is a Christian town and therefore the immediate assumption is that it could be none other than a Muslim group — Hizbollah is the ideal candidate — which carried out the bombing.
However, it should be noted that Hizbollah has emerged as a strong political force and it has become part and parcel of the political life in Lebanon. It has gained additional strength from last year's 34-day war waged by Israel and this is what emboldened the movement to launch the campaign in December to topple the Siniora government and form a new government where the group and its allies could somehow secure enough clout to call the shots in the country. A civil war in Lebanon would be disastrous for Hizbollah as any other group in the country because it would bring in external forces to play havoc with the situation. With Hizbollah remaining as strong as ever — notwithstanding the setbacks it received as a result of its welcome of the hanging of Saddam Hussein by Iraqi Shiites — and the group would receive the brunt of the political and military impact of the situation sliding into civil war.
Therefore, the perpetrators of Tuesday's boming have to be some quarters which would gain from chaos in Lebanon at the expense of Hizbollah, and the finger would automatically point southwards across the border.
It is the lesson that the Lebanese should learn from the bombings and should refrain themselves from being driven by emotions rather than calculated thinking.
A Lebanese woman cried out after Tuesday's bombing: "I am of neither political party in Lebanon, because I don't really care what is going to happen with seats and titles anymore, like most of the Lebanese population. All we want is to have peace of mind - to be able to go to work, earn a living and live our lives. I only have faith in my fellow Lebanese to stop this, and no one else."
Indeed, the responsibility not to let the situation generate into a revived civil war rests with the people of Lebanon. It is the world's fervent hope that they would live true to the faith — as highlighted by the woman from Bikfaya — that their compatriots have placed in them.

United against external pressure

February 14, 2007

United against external pressure


It was unfortunate that last-minute hitches delayed the announcement of a formation of Palestinian national unity government on Thursday.
It might not be accurate to describe the snags as simple power politics. Differences over who should occupy key cabinet are only a feature of coalition politics anywhere in the world, but not so simple in Palestine. A case in point is the post of interior minister in the proposed Palestinian cabinet. Hamas has named two candidates and insists Fatah leader and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas commit himself to one of them. Abbas wants to review more candidates.
Obviously, whoever exerts control over the interior ministry also controls the security forces, and the Fatah-Hamas wrangle reveals that the two groups still retain deep suspicion about each other.
There are of course other differences that Abbas and Hamas leader and Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh need to resolve before they could announce a cabinet agreement.
Forming a new national unity goverment is the first step on a long away. Israel has to accept that the government's actions, including recognition of the Jewish state, represent the Palestinians. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has sensed that he is facing a critical moment in history. That is what he appears to have meant when he told a meeting with top ministers and intelligence chiefs:
"The agreement on the establishment of a unity government in the Palestinian Authority places the region at a juncture of a strategic decision of enormous significance, no less dramatic than what happened after Hamas' victory in the PA elections a year ago."
Signs so far after Hamas and Fatah worked out the Makkah agreement under Saudi auspices this month had been that Israel would not budge from the demands that Hamas should explicitly state that it recognises the Jewish state, renounces armed resistance and accepts the agreements signed between Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO). It is not enough for Olmert that Hamas has moved towards this demands by agreeing to form a unity cabinet with Fatah and accept that the unity government could negotiate peace with Israel.
Obviously, Olmert believes that he could pressure Abbas into forcing Hamas to be very explicit in its position. That might not be the case at all.
As far as Hamas leaders are concerned, by coming so far with Fatah the Islamist movement has already compromised a lot and any further move should be reciprocated by Israel. It is not an area where Abbas could do much. He is caught in the middle of historic tug-of-war which would determine the future of Palestine and everyone involved knows it only too well.
What the Palestinians need today is absolute unity without reservations. Their failure to do so would be Israel's advantage.
Abbas and Haniyeh should be able to see through the situation and come up with a more unified position that would deny Israel the opportunity to exploit their differences.