Road Trip, A Photo Essay...

“The drive is worse than torture!” “It’s not even worth the effort!”

These are some of the words of wisdom I received when I announced my intention to take my fiancé to Beirut for dinner. After exhausting all restaurants in Tripoli, Batroun and Jbeil, we decided it’s time we tackled faraway Beirut.

The Israeli bombings have made the trip from Tripoli to Beirut notoriously difficult for commuters. But honestly, I miss Beirut, so I decided to go for it. I also wanted to see with my own eyes (and camera), if life is coming back to normal in the Beirut Central District.

On the road, we found many ads on billboards for banks. The basic message is the same: We are going to survive this. We are strong. We are resilient.
Confidence or wishful thinking?


We hit the first diversion at the Madfoon Bridge (destroyed by you know who)


Which was the gateway into two major traffic congestions:
Amshit…


… And Halat


Two hours later, we arrive at Jounieh. We stop at Mc-Donald’s and grab a Mc-Flurry (Just in case you’re curious, we had Oreo and Kit-Kat. They ran out of Smarties)


It then took only 20 mins to reach Beirut. The sun was beginning to set.


We arrive at the BCD, it seemed (relatively) empty


We park the car and walk around.
Lina’s Sandwiches had a few munchers:


..But most other shops were empty



Spot the Irony:


Our initial choices for having dinner were both closed: Tamaris and Il Parlamento.


We searched for another place, and we found Scoozi.
Scoozi is one of Beirut’s Better restaurants. It prides itself with a picture on its entrance of the Ex-PM Rafic Hariri having Dinner with Jacques Chiraques, The French President, in Scoozi

The problem was: it was dead empty. Not a single person was having food inside.

Fortunately, it turned out that we were simply early for dinner. Later, more people started streaming in. (there was 7 busy tables by the time we left, including an actual Saudi family)


We get out, and to our relief, we find the district becoming alive again. It’s still way off its peak before the war, but it’s a start.


Starbucks seems to be doing well


Less lucky is Second Cup, a relative newcomer to Lebanon.


We drive to ABC, a mall in Ashrafieh. We parked where I always do, on the last floor (there’s a great view of Beirut from up there). The mall was very busy:


After some shopping (I’m glad they’re finally getting international magazines and newspapers), we drove back to Tripoli.

At 23:00 O’clock, the ride was very smooth. It only took 50 minutes.

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Eh il halawa di

Two Egyptian bloggers have a newfound respect for Lebanon’s “resources”

When two prominent Egyptian bloggers, The Big Pharaoh and The Egyptian Sandmonkey, simultaneously write today about Lebanon with titles like: “Only in Lebanon” and “God Bless Lebanon”, you’d think they uncovered some sort of Holy grail.

It seems our tourism season will not be as damaged as I originally feared.

PS: If you’re looking for an aggregator for Arab blogs in English, I seriously recommend Itoot. It’s stylish and comprehensive, and the featured posts are handpicked daily for quality.

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A Puzzling Disarmament

The way Hezbollah is disarming is odd. But it is very Lebanese.


If you’re a Lebanese soldier and you “found” Hezbollah weapons, light or heavy, you are allowed to confiscate them. But let’s suppose you get a tip-off that Mr. XX has a Katyusha launcher under his mattress, are you allowed to break into his house and seize it by force? Nope.

What seems like a bizarre hide-and-seek game between Hezbollah and the Government is simply another one of those political compromises the Lebanese have become famous for. Here's a couple of historical examples:

-When the Lebanese were fighting in the late 80s about whether or not Lebanon is an Arab country, a masterpiece compromise was reached: Lebanon is a “country with an Arab face”.

-A few months ago, when the Lebanese were arguing about “demarcating (tarseem)” the border with Syria, the pro-Syrians managed to engineer a less offending proposition: We will work on “determining (tahdeed)” the border with Syria.

Fast forward to Today. Nothing has changed: The odd disarmament process is yet another useful compromise: It shows that the Lebanese government is doing something about Hezbollah’s weapons. It also shows that Hezbollah are cooperating, without depriving them of their wiggle room.

Everyone is happy. There are no victors and no vanquished. Welcome to Lebanon.

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Sorry?

Hassan Nassrallah does'nt deserve the benefit of the doubt. Besides, he wasn't talking to you.

So I screwed up. What's the big deal?

Many commentators are making a big deal out of Hezbollah's leader's comment that he wouldn't have captured the Israeli soldiers had he known that Israel would retaliate this ferociously. Hmm, what's the euphemism for "bullshit"?

Nassrallah's comments were not in earnest for five reasons:

1. He saw what the Israelis did in Gaza just to release one captured Israeli Soldier
2. He understood Olmert's insecurity and overcompensation due to his lack of military background
3. He declared that whether the Lebanese like it or not, he's going to fight this war (which negates the argument that he's backtracking because the Lebanese are angry)
4. He received enough Israeli warnings and signals on the scale of the war before the operations begun
5. He always argued that he knew all along that the Israelis were preparing to wage a large-scale war on Lebanon
   

So, if Nassrallah is not saying sorry to the Lebanese, whom is he saying sorry to? Here's a hint:

Nasrallah [..] has accounts to settle with Iran. The regime in Tehran has not only seen its main reason for supporting Hezbollah go up in smoke in a largely futile endeavor, but must now dole out large sums of compensation money to Lebanese Shiites so the party can hold on to its base of support, even as Iran's poor complain their regime has left them by the wayside. Iran will probably pay out the money (though I've heard unconfirmed reports of delays), but of what value is this if Hezbollah cannot fire on Israel in the event of an attack against Iran's nuclear facilities? Or, to the contrary, of what value is the compensation if, by firing on Israel at Tehran's behest, Hezbollah only brings new destruction down on the heads of Shiites, who might then turn against Nasrallah?

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Never Say Die

There’s a reason why most advertising agencies in the Gulf are staffed by creative talents from Lebanon. The Lebanese are known for their openness, creativity, and most of all, their resilience.
This is how the creative class has responded to the Israeli bombings:

(Giant whiskey billboard on a major Beirut Highway)

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Tell Me Something..

Who are you people??


Alright, I know it’s none of my business but you guys have been around for a while, some of you reading The Beirut Spring for some time, some of you are new.
Sorry for being such a curious guy, but my stats show me where you're browsing from (see graphic), but I have no clue what your background is.
Could you please give me a hand by voting on the side bar? -->
(PS: you can only vote once)

Tripoli

Is Tripoli, the hometown of a suspect in a failed train bombing plot in Germany, a breeding ground for terrorists?

The two faces of Tripoli

A few days ago, a man by the name of Jihad Hamad surrendered to the Lebanese authorities here in Tripoli. The 19-year-old is a suspect in last month's failed bombing of two German trains. The fact has been all over the German media and Readers from Germany are sending me emails asking me about my native city.

Last month, Tripoli was the subject of a damning article in the Washington Post. The article painted a bleak picture of a city that “is one of the most visible manifestations of the war, a rough-and-tumble city being transformed by growing radicalism and religious fervor”. But is the situation in Tripoli really that dire?

Tripoli, like many Arab mainly Sunni cities (Amman, Cairo, Aleppo, Abu Dhabi) is characterized by a dichotomy of character; a duality built on two main pillars: The tolerant, rich bourgeois traders, and the poor working class and unemployed Islamists.

While the Islamists can be loud and violent sometimes, it is the moderates that are really holding power in the city. When our last free and fair parliamentary election was held, not a single Islamist from Tripoli came close to parliament. The moderates are also in control of security and the Armed forces, and, like Mr. Hamad's story shows, the extreme elements are kept in check.

That said, the Islamists wield considerable leverage on the “cultural” image of the city. You can’t hold a “wild” party in Tripoli, or open a shop that sells alcohol, without getting threatening phone calls. Both ends of the city are emblazoned with statues of the five pillars of Islam, "boyfriend" is a dirty word and people with headscarves are the majority. Tripolitans, like many arabs, are advised to be hush-hush in their pursuits of pleasure or romance. The result is a city with 400,000 people, half of which are under 25, with zero nightlife.
Still, people with enough means can simply drive to more “exciting” places (usually with a Christian majority), like Batroon, Jbeil or even right next door, in El mina.

Hypocrisy? maybe, but this is how a lot of Muslim cities work, so don't be threatened by us.

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Fallout In Canada

Israel's war on Lebanon has created some spirited debates in Canada.


A bunch of Canadian politicians come to Lebanon in a fact finding mission. They are amazed by the amount of destruction they see and describe Israeli Actions as "state terror".
They go back to Canada, one of them dares ask the conservative government to remove Hezbollah from the Canadian list of Terrorist groups, and then suggests, in what a Canadian editorialist termed "musings", to hold talks with them.

What happens next? An uproar between those who are shamed by what they see as an "uncanadian" foreign policy of their new conservative government, and those who are now in power and support an internationally more assertive Canada

To be sure, two thirds of Canadians don't support talks with Hezbollah, but I must give to you, the other third is pretty noisy.

Heathen Aid?

Why are they helping us?

A lebanese newspaper, Albalad, reported this morning that the Hezbollah leadership is genuinely surprised by the amount of humanitarian aid their strongholds are receiving from western countries and NGOs.
Why am I sensing an opportunity?

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Border Prostitution

The Syrian President is yet again threatening to close Syria's Lebanon borders. It is time we start thinking of long-term alternatives.


Remember just over a year ago when the Syrians were so pissed off they banned Lebanese trucks (most of them were land bound for the gulf countries) from crossing our common borders? Bashar seemed to have enjoyed the economic suffering so much that he is threatening a redux. Bashar likes being partners with Israel: They impose a blockade on air and sea, and he imposes one on land.

Assad’s excuse was that spreading UNIFIL soldiers alongside Lebanon’s borders with Syria would be an “act of aggression”. Does this look like the behavior of someone with nothing to hide? Our P.M did the right thing by responding forcefully that Lebanon will only look after its interests, and that it’s not in Syria’s interests to upset the international community.

Assad’s wickedness aside, the Lebanese should start thinking about long-term structural adjustments for their economy to rely less on the Syrian borders. Economists will say that the other available trade routes are prohibitively expensive. The answer is that as long as the Syrian regime is in power, we have no reliable way of getting our apples to Kuwait and the Syrians can abuse us whenever they feel like it.

What we can do now is try to convince Turkey, Iraq, and Jordan to threaten to shut their borders with Syria if it shuts its borders with Lebanon. With a little American help, all three countries can be convinced. But longer term solutions should be found.

When I wrote the incidence last year, a reader suggested that we start thinking of our country as an island, like Cyprus. What a shame.

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Change Of Looks

The Beirut Spring has just had a facelift.

The new logo is inspired by the diversity of the Lebanese people. The Lebanese social fabric is often referred to as a mosaic. Morover, the Lebanese political arena was all about color coding last year (Orange for Aoun, Blue for Future, Green for Amal, Yellow for Hezbollah).

The over-all look is cleaner and I added the picture of Gebran Tueni next to that of Rafic Hariri.

The facelift also solves an important technical issue: People who live in the UAE and Saudi Arabia can now see the design, since the images are no longer hosted on Flickr.

It might take some getting used to but I'm sure the new look is more in line with the spirit of my blog.

I hope you enjoy my new face, both that of the blog and that of my profile :)

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Lebanon Tidbits

Various small stories from inside Lebanon.

After the announcement that all flights bound for Beirut will pass through Amman (a not-so-comfortable trip according to hilal), Stavro, a Lebanese Caricaturist, decided that it’s time for a MEA (Middle East Airlines, Lebanon’s flag carrier) rebranding. Inspired by Bush, The new name would be: New Middle East Airlines.



Speaking of the MEA, Ex P.M Salim El Hoss declared: we’d rather keep our airport closed than having our planes checked by the Israelis. It seems Mr. Hoss doesn't have loved ones abroad.

=====

The billboards below are seen all over Tripoli. Shabab el Azm are Najib Mikati’s answer to Hariri’s Shabab al Mustaqbal.

Tripoli is in the enviable position of having three billionaires (in order of wealth: Saad Hariri, Najib Mikati, Mohammed al Safadi) competing for our hearts and minds (and pockets I would add). The three of them are now busy fixing the Northern bridges, two of them from their own pockets.

I admit I’m a sucker for Mikati but I think “Amalouna La Shifa’a minhou” is a great line. (Translation: There’s no cure for our hope.)


===

Albalad reported that Future TV no longer refers to the Syrian President as “Bashar Al Assad”. They now speak of “Bashar Assad” (spot the difference). I will watch tonight’s bulletin to double check. I can’t understand why they’re doing this. Perhaps a way to further disrespect him?


===

Another very small piece of news. A Lebanese newspaper has written an article about me. Only check it if you're a die-had fan of The Beirut Spring ;)

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The Magic Word

We haven’t heard this word for some time. But it’s now making a strange comeback. Could it be?


I was surprised to hear our President’s statement before entering today’s council of Ministers. He said: “we all want peace. Peace is what everybody has been waiting for, because we’re all tired of war, but it has to be an honorable peace”.

Lahhoud’s statement was (naturally) an echo of the Syrian President’s “fair peace deal” statement made a few days ago. The Prince of Qatar, who is visiting Damascus and Beirut also said “Peace is what we have all wanted since the Beirut Arab Summit,” more crucially, he said (my translation): “Now is the best time to be talking peace because the Israelis have discovered that military might is not the answer”

On the other side, the Israeli Foreign Minister is said to be putting together a team to negotiate with Syria. But there are mixed messages: the Israeli Prime Minister announced that no peace talks would be held with Syria as long as it harbors Terrorist groups.

The P word again.

It’s too soon to tell, but it seems the Qatari crown prince is up to something.
The tiny gulf state has always managed to combine populist rhetoric (by sponsoring Aljazeera) with a pragmatic pro-American alliance (Qatar hosts the largest American military bases in the region). Syria might reconsider its alliance with Iran if it gets the Golan and a peace deal with Israel, and it seems Qatar is working as a link between the two (yes Qatar does speak with Israel despite what you might think from watching Aljazeera). Noises are starting to be heard in Damascus about a “Qatar sponsored conspiracy” for a Syria-Israel Peace deal.

What’s more important is that Iran doesn’t seem to be playing ball. On the eve of the deadline for Iran to respond to a western proposal to stop its nuclear program, Iran's supreme leader Ali Kaminei is as defiant as ever. He declared Iran’s intention to “forcefully” proceed with its nuclear program. By extension, here in Lebanon, none of the Hezbollah figures have so far uttered the magic word: Peace

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Wrong Move From Bush

How The Lebanese will react to Bush’s money pledge.

President George W. Bush has just pledged $230m to Lebanon. To be sure, we are a people with a good sense of decorum, so I can’t but start by saying “thank you.” But that doesn’t mean that the step was a right one.

What Mr. Bush did was understandable. “Experts” and pundits were screaming for the last two days in his ear: “Iran is pouring money into south Lebanon. If we don’t do the same, quickly, they’ll beat us to the hearts and minds of the Lebanese.” It is perhaps the rush that prevented Mr. Bush from taking the wise course.

You see Mr. Bush, I don’t know how it works in the US, but here in the Middle East, you can’t drop bombs and aid at the same time. We all know that you were shipping high-precision bombs to the Israelis, bombs that could have been used to kill Lebanese children. We all know that America was behind postponing the ceasefire until the “objectives” of the Israelis are met. Honestly Mr. President, no matter how much money you throw at us, you can’t undo the bad press that gave you.

Still, you are correct. We do need to counter the Iranian money flow. But couldn’t you have shelved the ego just for now and passed your money via common allies? Why embarrass our politicians who have a favorable view of the US by forcing them to make their position public on whether or not they want your money?

I can see it now: Anti US forces campaigning noisily for the government to reject your haram (the opposite of hallal) money. I can already imagine Hezbollah figures shaming our leaders for taking your “tainted” money.

I am not surprised Mr. Bush. Finesse was never your thing.

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Revolving Door?

The Government should quit playing games with the international community.

Now we can die together

Lebanese pundits are talking about a dangerous vagueness in the Lebanese official position. Take M.P. Samir Geagea and Commentator Charles Ayyoub for instance. One is a proud anti-Syrian, the other is a Syrian megaphone. Yet they both agree that placing the Lebanese army in the middle between Hezbollah and the Israelis is tantamount to suicide.

I argued before that the current Lebanese position is the best possible outcome. But that doesn’t mean that the best possible outcome is good enough.

According to UNR 1701, The Lebanese Army’s job is to disarm Hezbollah. What we got instead was an army that was sent to stand "alongside your resistance and your people who astonished the world with its steadfastness and destroyed the prestige of the so-called invincible army after it was defeated"” according to an internal army statement circulating among forces. Doesn't sound like disarming to me.

We shouldn’t be surprised that the international community, notably France, significantly downgraded their promised military backup for the New UNIFIL (the 200 strong symbolic force they decided to send is not the same as the originaly promised 10,000). They feel backstabbed by the government and they don’t want their troops to be endangered by an unclear mandate.

We all know that Israel agreed to resolution 1701 because they believed it would disarm Hezbollah. If the Israelis and the international community start sensing deception from our side, the Israelis might decide to take things back into their own destructive hands.

The signs are beginning to show.

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The Economist On Who Won The War

The Verdict:


Excerpts from the Article (emphasis mine):

HASSAN NASRALLAH and Ehud Olmert both say they won. But in asymmetrical warfare, the test of victory is asymmetrical too. Israel's prime minister set himself an absurd aim—the complete demolition of Hizbullah's power in Lebanon—and failed to achieve it. The shrewder Mr Nasrallah said victory would consist merely of surviving, and Hizbullah, however battered, did survive. On the last day it was not just standing, it also fired a record 246 rockets into Israel.

Hizbullah being what it is, Mr Nasrallah lost no time claiming that this was “a strategic, historic victory”; crowds in Tehran chorused that Israel had been “destroyed”. Did Hizbullah not kill 159 Israelis, including 116 Zionist soldiers? Israel being what it is, Mr Olmert's political foes lost no time denouncing the prime minister's failings as Israelis sank into a collective despond about the disappointing showing of their army and the blunting of their country's long-term deterrent power.
[..]
Within days of the ceasefire, Mr Nasrallah said it was “too early” to discuss disarming. Syria's president, Bashar Assad, said so too. And the likelihood of the Lebanese army or a UN force trying to disarm Hizbullah against its will is zero. Two years ago, the UN passed a splendid resolution, 1559, demanding the disarmament of all militias in Lebanon. If Hizbullah did not comply then, why should it do so now, flushed with self-declared victory and with Israel's army still inside Lebanon?

In my opinion, this is the most important paragraph:

The plain fact is that if Hizbullah is ever to give up its weapons and become just another political party, it will be through the pressure of the other Lebanese, not as a direct result of Israel's war.The diplomacy should therefore not be built on the pretence that Israel won a war it didn't. The more that Israel and America claim otherwise, the less able the caught-in-the-middle Lebanese government of Fouad Siniora will be to extract favours from Mr Nasrallah. A better idea would be to deprive Hizbullah of the pretexts it has invented for keeping up its war. It would be useful, for example, if Israel gave up the Shebaa Farms, the bit of Syrian territory Hizbullah says is Lebanon's, and accepted a prisoner swap.

On Israel looking weak:

However, Israel needs to save face too. Mr Olmert has no interest in concessions that reinforce the idea that he led his warrior nation to defeat. Israelis feel they dare not let their country look weak. And now come ominous signs that it does. Mr Assad has started talking again about liberating the Golan Heights. Having previously denied arming Hizbullah, Iran this week started to boast about the weapons it sent. If Israel is to give up Shebaa at such a time it must have something big in return, such as the actual removal of Hizbullah's arms—not just their concealment—in the south at least. Since America is not seen as an honest broker, closing such a deal may well require some new mediator. France? Turkey? Germany? Without an agreement, the war could resume at any moment.

On what Israel can learn:

If a deal is done, what lesson will Israel take from this war? Probably something along the lines of: more infantry, fewer tanks. Those who preach sagaciously from afar that Israel should learn something bigger—the necessity of making peace instead of relying on force—have not been paying attention.

The hubris that blinded Israel after its great victory of 1967 cleared decades ago. Since the 1980s at least two prime ministers, Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Barak, gave their all in the search for peace. The first paid with his life and the second with his job.

The trouble for Israel is that in peacemaking, as well as in war, the enemy gets a vote. What the well-meaning protesters who have been marching in Europe in praise of Hizbullah refuse to acknowledge is that today, as in the 1940s, Israel still has some neighbours who continue to deny its very right to exist as a Jewish state.

This is not to say that Israel is blameless. It has made mistakes aplenty down the years. This war was probably just that: a mistake after a provocation and not a plot cooked up either by Israel and America against Iran, or by Iran against Israel and America, as the rival conspiracy theories go. It followed a bigger blunder: Israel's failure after Yasser Arafat's death to work seriously with his moderate successor, Mahmoud Abbas.

But peace does not depend only on Israel. Six years ago Israel withdrew from Lebanon to a border painstakingly demarcated by the UN. Hizbullah fought on anyway. Like Iran, it says its aim is Israel's destruction. Though an authentic political movement with a domestic agenda in Lebanon, it is also blatantly anti-Semitic. Mr Nasrallah once reflected that collecting the Jews in Palestine made them easier to wipe out. Its al-Manar TV station is a beacon of hate: one series purported to show Jews murdering Christian children to use their blood for Passover bread. Whether Hizbullah and Iran seriously propose to destroy Israel is hard to tell, but it is what they keep saying—and they have imitators. The Palestinians' ruling Hamas movement has not yet dared to say out loud that it accepts even the principle of sharing Palestine with a Jewish state.

Following Mr Sharon's withdrawal from Gaza, Mr Olmert hoped to follow his example by uprooting Israeli settlements from much of the West Bank. Hizbullah has now killed stone dead the idea of Israel giving up territory again without cast-iron security assurances. So there will be no leaving any of the West Bank until there is a deal. Israel must find some way to re-engage with the Palestinians. But right now it is not even talking to Hamas—and Hamas, after the Lebanon war, is in danger of subscribing anew to the old illusion that Palestine can be liberated by force.

And finally the scary conclusion:

Black days ahead for the Middle East.

Trust Us

One man’s vagueness is another man’s finesse.


Our army is finally deploying in the south after half a century of absence. Many Lebanese are cheering the significant event, but to others this is simply another extension of an amorphous blob of vagueness.

The skeptics don’t know how the Lebanese army will deal with Hezbollah’s weapons. Even Lebanese Ministers like Pierre Jmayyel and Joe Sarkis (representatives of Christian parties) thought the process was too “vague.”

The Lebanese government's position is that the Army will deploy in the south and that it will be the sole barer of weapons. The Government nevertheless assures us that no confrontation will happen between the army and their “brothers and families in the resistance.”

To a lot of people there’s a big “You’ll have to trust us” vibe coming out of the Government. People and international bodies don’t like that. They want clarity, guarantees, checks and balances. Why would they otherwise trust the south with their soldiers? Why would the Lebanese invest again in the south if there’s no assurance that the skirmishes won’t happen again? A lot of people are threatened by Hezbollah’s “hidden weapons” position.

For those familiar with the Lebanese intractable politics however, the picture is much clearer. This is the best possible outcome for anyone wishing for the Lebanese government to spread its authority southwards. The Lebanese political landscape is so filled with nuances and landmines that the government is run like a family business: Any important decision has to be taken with absolute unanimity, or else we’re in trouble.

But that doesn’t mean that underneath the broad smiles and vows of brotherhood, there isn’t a huge power struggle. The Machiavellian dynamic can be summarized as follows: Hezbollah is trying to catch its breath by pretending to collaborate with the government, while cementing its popular base with construction efforts. The Lebanese government on the other hand is trying to create facts on the grounds by establishing the army in the south. Once it secures its presence, it will work on slowly building up its clout.

The Lebanese Army is not as benign as it is always portrayed to be. When the Israelis started their campaign on July 13, a zealous Tripoli Islamist positioned antiquated artillery on the roof of a building in Tripoli and declared he wants to “resist”. It only took 2 hours for the army to confiscate his “equipment” and punish him severely.

Perhaps this is the ultimate goal of deploying the army down south.

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Hot Air From Bashar

Bashar’s speech today was full of smokescreens. The real purpose of it was to talk peace with Israel.

Stiff face, stiff speech

What was Bashar thinking? In one breath, he attacked Arab Leaders, the Americans and The Israelis and called the Lebanese March 14 forces Israeli agents. The speech was so hard-line that the German foreign Minister cancelled his trip to Syria in protest.
You can’t shoot at everyone when you’re as weak as the Syrians. Where’s the catch?

A shallow reading of Bashar’s speech makes you conclude that he made up his mind regarding his country’s strategic direction: He would forever break from the “Arab fold” and join the Iranian hardliners in a holly matrimony that would eventually wipe Israel off the map. But is that really the case?

In his carefully choreographed speech (random children popping up from an elderly crowd interrupting him with poetry and praise) he seemed convinced that the “culture of resistance” is the next big thing in the Arab world and he wanted to associate himself and his regime with Hezbollah’s “victory”. He wants to send the message that he's siding with an Arab moral high ground (unlike “defeatist” regimes who “call themselves realists”)

The speech, as usual, was very insulting to the Lebanese people, but this blogger won't care less about what comes out of that man’s mouth and will focus on its significance.

Bashar is simply listening to his friend Ahmadinejad’s advice: “listen buddy. With the Americans and Israelis, the stronger you are, the noisier you are, the more attention you will get.” Mr. Assad uttered the word “peace” at least 10 times in his speech. One political analyst said that Assad was emboldened by the many voices in the American commentariat who are calling for Bush to talk with the Syrians.

The Israelis got the message. Emir Peretz, the Israeli Defense Minister suggested today that one of the outcomes of this war could be diplomatic talks with Syria.

Sorry, I will make this one short. The Israelis are not paying as well as they used to.

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