Hezbollah mourners clash with Syrians in east Beirut suburb

[Originally posted at NOW]

Passing on the way to work this morning through Burj Hammoud, the largely Armenian neighborhood on Beirut’s eastern outskirts, I saw an unusual new poster on the walls, departing from the more customary themes of “Never Forget April 24” and “Fuck Turkey”: a notice informing residents of the recent “martyrdom” of a Hezbollah commander, Hassan Nayif Dandash, aka Abu Ahmad, in Syria.

I say unusual because, while these things are everywhere now in Beirut’s southern suburbs, the Beqaa Valley, and the south, I’d never until today seen one in Burj Hammoud itself. Hezbollah does, however, have a visible presence in the adjacent quarter of Nabaa, and so aside from making a mental note of the poster, I thought nothing of it thereafter.

There turns out, however, to be more to it than I knew. Unreported by all but a few Arabic-language news sites, there had in fact been a clash between Abu Ahmad’s mourners and Syrian residents in Nabaa during the funeral procession on Saturday. Accounts vary on the details: one site says mourners smashed shops owned by Syrians; another says “a problem occurred” between “two Shiite youths” and “Syrian refugees;” while a third says the mourners forcibly closed shops owned by Syrians. Claims that the army and internal security forces had to intervene to restore order appear to be corroborated by photos.

Does this portend a wider communal rift, leading inevitably to an outbreak of more serious violence? Probably not. Instead, in its banality – so commonplace it didn’t even warrant coverage by mainstream Lebanese media – it opens a window on the small acts of bigotry visited every day upon a Syrian community as despised as it is downtrodden.

UK Islamists heading to Beirut to rally for Bakri

[Originally posted at NOW]

NOW speaks to Anjem Choudary, British protégé of Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad, who plans to protest the “satans” of the Lebanese army this Friday.

Within the coming 36 hours, a group of European Islamists, including two Britons formerly jailed for solicitation to murder, plan to arrive in Beirut to hold a protest Friday afternoon against the Lebanese authorities’ attempt Tuesday to arrest Tripoli-based cleric, Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad.

The group, comprising at least six Britons and one Swedish national, is headed by Anjem Choudary, a former leader of several now-banned British Islamist organizations. Choudary was a protégé of Bakri’s during the latter’s residence in the UK in the 1990s and early 2000s, when he led Hizb ut-Tahrir, among other parties. The other members of the delegation are also followers of Bakri – two, indeed, are his sons, Muhammad Fustuq and Abd al-Rahman Fustuq.

Their plan, according to statements posted by Choudary on his Twitter account, is to rally this Friday at 2pm, either outside the Lebanese Armed Forces headquarters at Yarzeh, or outside the Beirut office of the United Nations in Riad al-Solh Square (the details have yet to be finalized). When NOW spoke to Choudary via telephone Wednesday morning, he said the aims of the “peaceful” protest were four-fold.

“Our main message is, hands off the Muslims in north Lebanon,” Choudary told NOW. “Number two, hands off Sheikh Omar Bakri Muhammad and his family.”

“Thirdly, we will be condemning the conspiracy of the Bashar al-Assad regime and the Lebanese regime, who have a long history of cooperation,” said Choudary, adding, “I think there’s a man called [Maj. Gen. Abbas] Ibrahim, I forget his name now […] the one in charge of security, this one, I think he’s the one now just arresting people and sending them [to Syria].”

Finally, Choudary told NOW, “Our message will be to call for the sharia [Islamic law] and the khilafa [caliphate]. The only solution for this region, the only time we ever had peace, was when we had the khilafa system. As soon as the British and the French started to support their respective parties, the Druze and the Maronites, a couple of hundred years ago, we never had anything but sectarian strife. So I think it’s about time we went back to the law of God, and implemented it, and I think that is the solution for the whole region, not just Lebanon, but obviously Iraq, and Syria, and other countries in the Middle East.”

It’s unclear how warm a reception the group will get from Lebanese officials upon their arrival either Thursday or Friday morning, particularly at a time when authorities are cracking down on hardline Sunni Islamist movements across the country. While Lebanese law requires the interior ministry’s permission for all public demonstrations, Choudary told NOW his delegation had not obtained such permission and did not plan to seek it.

“We don’t need permission. We don’t recognize the Lebanese government […] so why should we ask permission from people who we don’t believe are legitimate in the first place?” he said.

NOW was unable to get an official reaction from the ministry to the planned demonstration, though an advisor to Interior Minister Nuhad al-Mashnouq, who spoke on condition of anonymity, reiterated that any protest carried out without ministerial approval would be in violation of the law.

Also uncertain is how significant the turnout will be on Friday, assuming the protest does go ahead. Several prominent clerics in Tripoli, including Sheikh Dai al-Islam al-Shahhal and Sheikh Nabil Rahim, told NOW they had not even heard of it. Sheikh Bilal Duqmaq, head of the Read Association, told NOW he doubted the protest would go ahead at all, saying it was merely a media stunt intended to exaggerate Bakri’s limited influence on the ground.

In any case, by Choudary’s own admission, the demonstration is not being coordinated with any established Lebanese parties or movements, being instead initiated “by the extended family of Sheikh [Bakri] and others who we are in contact with,” whom he declined to “put in jeopardy” by naming. When NOW called a Lebanese number provided in one of Choudary’s press releases, a man confirmed there would be no official parties taking part in what was “an independent call by [Bakri’s] supporters.” As soon as NOW asked the man his name, he hung up and subsequently switched off his phone.

Thus, we may not know until Friday afternoon itself what exactly will transpire. Choudary, however, continues to make preparations in the meantime. On Wednesday afternoon, he posted a link on Twitter to readymade placard templates that prospective attendees can print at home. It’s safe to say the slogans, if used, may raise a few eyebrows: “Khilafah For Bilad Ash-Sham [“The Levant”]! Lebanese Army Shiateen [“Satans”]! Shia Raafidah [Rejecters] You Will Pay! Ahlus Sunnah [The Sunnis] On Their Way!”

Nadine Elali contributed reporting.

Yazan Halwani, Beirut graffiti virtuoso, detained by gunmen

[Originally posted at NOW]

It hasn’t been an easy few weeks for Yazan Halwani, the artist who has, at the astonishing age of just 20, distinguished himself as arguably Beirut’s foremost graffiti talent. His striking renditions of Lebanese and Arab cultural icons from Fayrouz to Samir Kassir to Mahmoud Darwish to Ali Abdallah (a well-known homeless man who perished on Bliss St. last winter), often accompanied by intricate geometric and calligraphic embellishments, have in a short space of time been consecrated as landmarks on the city’s already-vibrant walls.

But that didn’t stop a group of philistine hooligans from inexplicably defacing two of his works in Hamra last month, erasing the faces of Darwish and Abdallah. Halwani has vowed to repaint and then cover them with acrylic glass (and, incidentally, says he would be happy to accept donations in this regard via his Facebook page).

And the thuggery continued Sunday, when a combination of hostile militiamen and armed Internal Security Forces personnel detained him, along with a television crew, for two and a half hours as they perused the journalists’ film and generally intimidated everyone, “shouting insults” and proudly “referring to themselves as ‘ze3ran’” (gangsters), according to a statement Halwani posted online.

It’s the sort of run-in with petty fascism that’s unfortunately become quite common for Beirut’s graffiti artists. (In 2012, at least three were arrested, with one, Semaan Khawam, even being charged for “disrupting public order.”) At a time when cars are exploding on a weekly basis, al-Qaeda has officially opened its first-ever local franchise, and the country’s second-largest city is in a state of near-permanent warfare, one might have thought the authorities would have more pressing concerns.

Landfill conflict resumes as deadline passes

[Originally posted at NOW]

Activists cut entrance to Naameh landfill once again after failure to resolve dispute.

NAAMEH, Lebanon – Climbing the quiet, winding road up the first slopes of the Aley mountains from the town of Naameh, 20km south of Beirut, the air is distinctly less fresh than one would expect from a sparsely populated, densely forested expanse. “The smell isn’t too bad at the moment, the wind’s coming from the sea,” says Tariq Gharz Eddine, mukhtar (representative) of the nearby village of Baawerta. “But wait half an hour, and you’ll end up with a pounding headache anyway.”

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before an unpleasant combination of headache, sore eyes, and a foul taste in the mouth set in. The cause was the large landfill, some 4km further up the road from where NOW spoke to Gharz Eddine Monday afternoon, at the site of a sit-in held by local residents and environmental activists since Friday.

In protest against what they allege is unlawful and hazardous abuse of the landfill by Sukleen, a private waste management firm, the demonstrators blocked the road leading to the site’s entrance, in response to which Sukleen ceased collecting trash in Beirut, causing large piles of waste to accumulate and spill onto streets all over the capital. After discussions with Prime Minister-designate Tammam Salam, the protestors agreed Sunday evening to reopen the road for 48 hours, after which they would close it again if a “solution” was not reached. Sukleen subsequently resumed operations in Beirut, and the excess trash has now been collected.

However, this temporary truce came to an abrupt end Tuesday evening, according to Gharz Eddine, who told NOW Tuesday afternoon that a meeting between activists and Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel had failed to resolve the dispute, and so the sit-in would indeed cut off the road once again as of 6 p.m. “You will not see any more of these passing through here,” said Gharz Eddine with a grin, gesturing toward a Sukleen truck on its way to the landfill Monday, when NOW asked what would happen if no solution was reached in 48 hours.

How exactly Sukleen will react this time to the residents’ blocking the road once more is unclear. Pascale Nassar, Sukleen’s communications manager, told NOW Tuesday afternoon she had received “no news” regarding the discussions with Charbel, and could not say what the company would do in the event that access to the landfill was again denied. “It depends on the final decision. We will plan accordingly,” said Nassar.

The dispute dates back to the late 1990s when, activists say, Sukleen signed a contract with then-Environment Minister Akram Chehayeb to operate a landfill in the area for 10 years, with a maximum quantity of 2 million tons of waste to be deposited therein. Today, more than 15 years later, the landfill is still in use, and houses some 20 million tons of trash, according to Gharz Eddin. (NOW was unable to visit the landfill itself, and Sukleen’s Nassar told NOW she could not provide or verify any details concerning the original contract signed with the government or the quantity of trash currently in the landfill by the time of publication.)

Adding to local residents’ anger, reports say it was agreed in 2008 to provide them compensation of $6 for every ton of trash deposited in the landfill – which, based on Gharz Eddin’s figures, would amount to some $120m – none of which has been paid to date.

Yet perhaps the most serious concerns raised by residents and activists pertain to the environmental and health hazards posed by the landfill, which have allegedly caused increases in several serious illnesses, including cancer.

“First, there is contamination of the earth, because the garbage produces a heavy, acidic liquid called leachate. This is spreading over a growing area – now around 300,000 sqm – and it’s generating a lot of toxic gas,” said environmental activist Mark Daou.

“In addition, there’s a lot of random dumping; of hospital waste, medicines, batteries, electronics, a lot of bad stuff. That generates damage immediately, and then in the medium and long term the toxic residues will remain in the soil,” added Daou.

As for health-related effects, Daou told NOW that in addition to respiratory illnesses, the landfill has caused a “very noticeable” increase in the number of cancer sufferers in the local area, including “many” who have no history of the disease in their families. Though no formal studies have been undertaken to substantiate a link between the landfill’s emissions and cancer, Daou believes the anecdotal evidence is persuasive.

It was with all this in mind that activists began to oppose Sukleen’s management of the landfill in the first place. Their proposed solution – which was rejected during Tuesday’s meetings – is twofold: first and foremost, the eventual closing of the landfill; but second, the sorting and selling of certain kinds of trash before it reaches Naameh in order to lessen the quantities added in the meantime.

“The sorting of trash into different categories – nylon, plastic, etc. – and then selling it is not something we cannot implement,” said Gharz Eddin. “It’s something that’s been implemented all over the world, and it can be implemented easily in Lebanon.”

“The government could actually make money doing this. If they don’t want to be responsible as a government, we can implement it. It could be a business.”

Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

Suicide slaughter at Iranian embassy

[Originally posted at NOW]

NOW reports from scene of blasts, which analysts say are likely linked to Syria developments.

There was still a bloodied body squirming on the ground when NOW arrived at Jerusalem Street Tuesday morning, surrounded by rescue workers frantically trying to lift the semi-conscious man onto a stretcher. The Lebanese army, in tandem with plain-clothed security forces including some wearing yellow armbands bearing the Hezbollah logo, had sealed off an adjacent fifty-meter stretch of the street outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut’s predominantly Shiite Jnah suburb, where earlier two suicide bombers had detonated over 50kg of explosives, killing 23 and wounding over 150.

In the minutes following the explosions, television stations aired disturbing footage of charred corpses sprawled before blazing rows of cars, the air thick with clouds of black smoke. By the time NOW arrived, the fires had been doused, but pools of blood still dotted the street, dyeing the countless shards of glass blown out of hundreds of windows from the surrounding apartment blocks. At least a dozen cars lay mangled and squashed. The residences nearest the blast had entire chunks of their balconies ripped off even five stories above the ground.

As the crowd of aid workers, journalists, and onlookers gradually thinned, residents headed indoors to begin the task of repairing their homes, and the sound of glass fragments being swept up could be heard for several blocks. “I heard both explosions very well, they were very powerful,” said one young man with a broom, who declined to give his name. Asked who he thought carried out the attack, he replied, “The terrorists, of course,” a generic reference to the various Sunni jihadi outfits opposed to Hezbollah in Lebanon as well as its ally, the Bashar al-Assad regime in Syria.

Indeed, the attacks were later claimed by exactly such a group, the Abdullah Azzam Brigades, an al-Qaeda affiliate whose spokesman said on Twitter that such “operations in Lebanon will continue” until the “withdrawal of [Hezbollah] from Syria” and the release of the Brigades’ members from Lebanese jails. The group has previously taken credit for a roadside bomb targeting a Hezbollah convoy in the Beqaa Valley in July and a series of rocket launches at Israel in August.

Accordingly, some analysts told NOW the Jnah bombings were likely linked to recent developments in Syria, particularly the ongoing battles in the strategic Qalamoun region, one town of which was captured by Syrian regime forces Tuesday after three days of intense fighting.

“Recent Syrian government gains around Damascus, Aleppo, and in the northern Qalamoun have resulted in a further escalation in sectarian sentiment among Syria’s insurgent opposition,” said Charles Lister, analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Counterinsurgency Centre. “The apparent involvement of one or both of Hezbollah and Iranian military personnel in recent military gains makes the targeting of those actors’ assets abroad much more likely. As such, attacks like this one are likely to continue on a sporadic basis.”

Others, however, saw in the attacks a message intended more for Iran than Syria.

“My opinion is that it’s not related to Qalamoun. This is bigger than the Syria issue,” said Qassem Qassir, a Lebanese analyst specializing in militant Islamist movements. “These explosions targeted the Iranian embassy on the eve of the negotiations with Iran on the nuclear file. It’s clear that this is a message to Iran and to the role of Iran in the region as a whole. If the negotiations reach an agreement, we are going to witness a lot of changes in terms of the relationship between Iran and world powers,” which the attacks aimed to forestall, Qassir told NOW.

Qassir also treated the Abdullah Azzam Brigades’ claim of responsibility with caution. “I don’t know, I don’t have any information on this. They took responsibility, but any Islamist group could be part of this plan.”

Assuming the Brigades’ claim is accurate, however, Lister told NOW it could bolster the relatively little-known group’s profile, further fuelling the level of violence in Lebanon.

“A ‘spectacular’ attack like this will be highly likely to encourage further recruitment into the group’s cause. This attack is a significant escalation – after months and months of speculation, an al-Qaeda-linked group has now underlined its involvement in the Syria-related Lebanese theatre. Short-term stability in Palestinian refugee camps” – from which the Brigades primarily recruit – “could feasibly suffer, as could the situation in already unstable towns such as Arsal on the Syrian border.”

Indeed, signs of greater pressure on Arsal – the key remaining crossing point for anti-regime militants between Lebanon and Syria – have already manifested in the hours following Tuesday’s bombings. In the late afternoon, regime warplanes launched air-to-surface missiles at the nearby village of Akabat al-Moubayda. Casualty figures were unavailable at the time of publishing.

Maya Gebeily contributed reporting.

At Beirut's war cemetery, remember the "gifts"

[Originally posted at NOW]

“Gathered like pearls in their alien graves
Silent they sleep by the Persian waves,
Scattered like shells on Egyptian sands,
They lie with pale brows and brave, broken hands”
- Sarojini Naidu, ‘The Gift of India’

Beirut's war cemetery (NOW/Alex Rowell)

It would be idle to pretend the history of the two World Wars was not contentious in Lebanon, as indeed it is everywhere. On the one hand, the wars marked the defeats of the Ottoman and then Vichy French occupiers, and thus led more or less directly to the creation and independence of the Republic as we know it. On the other, this partition (as many saw it) of Syria was one of several enacted by the British and French victors, who themselves took up occupation of the region, and whose bright new ideas also included the creation of a “national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, later known as Israel. The arguments and conflicting allegiances sparked by these events contributed in no small part to Lebanon’s subsequent wars, and are by no means reconciled today.

Wherever one stands on the question, what is not disputed is that many people died in the “Great War” and its sequel, including thousands here on Lebanese soil. Few public spaces in Beirut are as striking as the British war cemetery, where a ceremony was held today by the British embassy in remembrance of these victims. Nestled between the Shatila refugee camp to the south, the pro-Future/Islamist Tariq Jadideh neighborhood to the north, and the pro-Hezbollah Shiyah to the east, it’s perhaps not the first place one would expect to find vast, immaculately-groomed gardens, hemmed in by rows of tall, verdant trees. Yet, while Allied war cemeteries have elsewhere been vandalized by both Palestinians and Israelis in recent years, Beirut’s bears no more at present than a spot of Islamist graffiti on the outer wall.

Islamist graffiti on the outer wall of Beirut's war cemetery (NOW/Alex Rowell)

More arresting than the scenery, however, are the engravings on the headstones themselves. For while it’s called the “British” cemetery, this conceals the immensely diverse nationalities of its inhabitants. Pace up and down the rows of the 1,000+ graves and you’ll find hundreds of Christians, Muslims and Jews of Arab, Indian, African, Australasian and east European origins, all of them induced and perhaps coerced (though not actually conscripted) to fight under the British command.

(NOW/Alex Rowell)

(NOW/Alex Rowell)

(NOW/Alex Rowell)

On Remembrance Day, therefore, by all means remember the Brits who died, if you’re so inclined. But do not forget the numberless others for whom the outcome, whether ultimately worthwhile or wasteful, was paid for in quantities of blood of which there can be no debate at all.

The Persian conversion?

[Originally posted at NOW]

With Lebanese schools increasingly teaching the Persian language, NOW investigates the cultural and political implications.

The Imam al-Khomeini school, in the southeastern Beirut suburb of Hadath, is in several respects an atypical one. Two young men carrying walkie-talkies, with yellow bands bearing the Hezbollah logo strapped around their upper left arms, guard the gates, politely asking to search visitors’ bags before allowing entry. Once inside, ornately framed portraits of the school’s namesake, the late founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran, adorn the walls, as does a message board smothered with photos of young “martyrs.” A chador-clad woman approaches with a length of black cloth to inform NOW that all women are required to be similarly veiled inside the premises.

NOW had come because, as of last month, the school – which is run by al-Imdad Islamic Charitable Association – is the latest of a number of private schools in Lebanon to start teaching the Persian language, al-Imdad having signed an agreement with the Cultural Chancellery of the Islamic Republic of Iran to jointly manage the program across the Association's four schools. In so doing, al-Imdad followed a path already taken by the thirteen Hezbollah-administrated al-Mahdi Schools, which have been teaching Persian throughout Lebanon since 2008.

While defenders of these initiatives point to the cultural and vocational benefits of studying a rich language of both historical and contemporary significance to the Middle East, critics argue the move is a political endeavor to expand the Islamic Republic's influence in Lebanon, particularly within the Shiite community.

In this regard, on Friday NOW met the principal of the Khomeini School, Abbas al-Dhayne, to clarify the exact nature of the new Persian program. A good-humored man with a short, greying beard, he chuckled as he gestured to the many photos of the Iranian ayatollah as well as Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah hanging on his office walls. “You might think I really like Sayyid Khomeini. The truth is I just have more pictures than I know what to do with.”

The new Persian classes, he explained, are taught twice a week to the approximately 720 students from the sixth to the ninth grades (nationwide, al-Imdad has over 3,000 students in four schools spanning Beirut, Keserwan and Batroun). Though he said the classes are optional, he added that “we encourage [students] to take them.” Asked whether any students are not taking them, he replied that “no one so far has asked not to.”

As for why the school decided to introduce Persian, al-Dhayne cited the educational and professional advantages afforded the students. “Our graduates are increasingly going to Iran to pursue higher studies and find employment, so of course Persian is essential for that. In the past, they would go to Europe or America, but now Iran can compete with the West in science, in engineering, in technical fields. It is replacing the West for our students,” he told NOW.

Though this does not, said al-Dhayne, constitute a political agenda, he said he wouldn't necessarily object if there were one.

“For us, it's not political, it's just to prepare our students for higher studies. Maybe Iran has a political objective, we don't know. But honestly, when we hear about the 'Iranian agenda' in the Western press, we laugh. If the Iranians are expanding, I don't mind. They're giving me a hand, while not taking anything from me in return.”

Nor does al-Dhayne deny al-Imdad's affiliation with Hezbollah.

“We feel we are tied to Hezbollah. We, as a charity, are tied to Iran. And Hezbollah has relations with Iran too. So you can say we and Hezbollah are in parallel.”

To further understand Hezbollah's role in Persian language instruction, NOW contacted the public relations officer of the party-run al-Mahdi Schools. Though he confirmed Persian was taught at the schools, the officer declined to divulge further details without formal permission from the Hezbollah Media Relations Office. On 26 September, NOW visited the office in Beirut's southern Bir al-Abed suburb and submitted a written application to this end, which was turned down the following week. The request had been deemed “invasive,” explained a party official via telephone.

NOW was, therefore, unable to establish much about al-Mahdi's Persian program, beyond what has been published in the Arabic press. At a ceremony in May 2013 at the group's Hadath school attended by dignitaries including the Iranian ambassador, al-Mahdi's supervisor for Persian studies, Amal Nasr al-Din, said over 3,700 students were being taught Persian across the group's thirteen schools. Significantly, while several speeches at the ceremony emphasized the cultural and literary merits of Persian, the ambassador's speech also touched on politics, saying the study of the language would “form a bridge” between Iran's “Islamic revolution” and Lebanon's “resistance.” Elsewhere, a 2008 news article declared the initiation of al-Mahdi's Persian program in coordination with the Iranian Cultural Chancellery – the same organization that is now assisting al-Imdad's schools in Persian instruction.

At the Cultural Chancellery's office in the south Beirut suburb of Bir Hassan, NOW met with Hajj Abu Qassem, director of Persian instruction at the Chancellery, which itself offers Persian language courses to the general public. Like al-Dhayne, Abu Qassem kept a number of framed photos of Nasrallah and Khomeini on his walls, including a large one of the latter forming the centerpiece of the wall behind his chair – a reminder that the Chancellery is, after all, an arm of the Iranian state.

“We offer classes here just as any other embassy, such as the Russian one, does,” explained Abu Qassem in effortless classical Arabic (though he later said he was Lebanese, one wouldn't know it from his accent – nor from the ease with which he answered several phone calls in Persian). Every two months, he continued, students take a 300-hour course, by the end of which they should be able to speak well, if they know Arabic. “Arabic and Persian are 60% the same. The Persian script is basically the Arabic one, plus four new letters.”

The classes attract a wide range of students, he said, from journalists to doctors, engineers, and film-makers. The Chancellery also teaches Persian teachers, who go on to give courses at several Lebanese universities including Université Saint-Joseph, Lebanese University (LU), and the Holy Spirit University of Kaslik.

Like al-Dhayne, Abu Qassem highlighted the desire of some Lebanese to study and work in Iran as the key reason for teaching Persian. “Mostly, it's the strong reputation of Iranian universities, especially in medicine and engineering, that makes Lebanese students want to continue their studies in Iran. It's also closer and less expensive than the West.”

Unlike al-Dhayne, however, Abu Qassem rejects any suggestion of the involvement of political interests.

“There have been ties between Lebanese and Iranians since the days of the Phoenicians,” he told NOW. “And in the wider Arab world, you hear many words, for example in Egyptian films, that are of Persian origin. This isn't political, it's civic.”

That is a claim disputed by critics of the way Persian instruction is being carried out in Lebanon.

“This is political, for sure,” said Dr. Mona Fayyad, professor of psychology at LU and vice-president of the Democratic Renewal (Tajaddod) Movement. “In principle, there is nothing wrong with learning foreign languages, it's a very good thing. But it should be an optional choice for mature students, not forced on little children. There is no urgent reason to learn Persian. This is a kind of ideological steering. It's not innocent.”

Similarly, for Dr. Imad Salamey, professor of political science at the Lebanese American University, the move represents a further consolidation of Iran's grip on the Lebanese Shiite community, taking after previous historical examples of dominant foreign powers exploiting Lebanon's sectarian fragmentation to secure and advance their interests.

“Our different sects were always tied to colonial powers who had political, economic, and social influence over the country. Why do we learn French at schools? Because at one time France was the colonial power, and the Maronites were strongly linked to them and their schools were teaching French. Now the Shiites are establishing strong economic, political, and strategic relations with Iran, so it's natural that social and cultural aspects should follow.”

Indeed, said Salamey, the bond of language is an especially potent one to cultivate between hegemon and subordinate.

“Language is the ultimate kind of cultural association. This is when you start to 'Algerize' the sect; to do what the French did in Algeria. It worked with the Maronites; why shouldn't it also work for Iran and the Shiites? I think a part of the Shiite sect is going there.”

Maya Gebeily and Luna Safwan contributed reporting.

Hezbollah shooting stokes Palestinian ire

[Originally posted at NOW]

Relations between Hezbollah and Palestinians set to fray further after checkpoint shootout leaves refugee dead.

Mourners carry Muhammad Samrawi's coffin through the narrow alleys of Burj al-Barajneh camp on Monday (NOW/Alex Rowell)

BURJ AL-BARAJNEH, Lebanon – As hundreds of mourners crammed the narrow, airless street outside the Furqan mosque to attend Muhammad Samrawi’s funeral Monday evening, a mood of anxiety hung palpably in the air. A distressed middle-aged woman, wearing a black abaya and black headscarf, broke the heavy silence, wailing of her hope that the mother of Samrawi’s killer one day feels the grief she is now feeling.

Within seconds, a pair of men pounced on the woman, hissing at her to be quiet. “We don’t want fitna [sectarian strife]!” shouted one to the crowd. Evidently fearing a repeat of the previous night’s demonstrations against Hezbollah – whose gunmen were responsible for Samrawi’s death – the man frantically repeated, “No chants!” When he went on to declare, “We are all with you, Sayyid Hassan,” a young man behind NOW cursed in disgust.

A coffin emerged from the mosque, draped in a Palestinian flag, and the procession began through the winding alleyways of Beirut’s most densely-populated refugee camp, the deafening claps of AK-47 fire reverberating off the graffiti-colored walls. At the cemetery fifteen minutes later, as the men buried the body, the same black-clad woman was still refusing to be hushed by bystanders. “I’m not going to be quiet. Tell me! Are we takfiris too, now?”

Such open expression of resentment against Hezbollah is a rare spectacle from Palestinian refugees, who generally support the party’s muscular anti-Israel stance and, in the case of Burj al-Barajneh residents, live in the heart of the southern suburbs, where the party’s control is at its tightest.

Yet Hezbollah’s killing of 40-year-old Samrawi at a party checkpoint at the camp’s entrance Sunday night has aggravated Palestinians’ feelings of being targeted by Hezbollah’s new security measures, which came into effect after the 15 August car bomb that killed 30 in the nearby Al-Roueiss neighborhood.

“There’s a feeling that the camp is being singled out,” said Ali, a camp resident in his mid-twenties who witnessed the clash. “They stopped the car of the wedding couple, which was at the front of the wedding convoy. There was an exchange of words, a provocation, and then eventually gunfire. If this was the only time this happened, it would be okay, but it’s happened before and it will keep happening. People are angry,” he told NOW.

Ali complained of routine petty harassment of Palestinians at Hezbollah’s new checkpoints. “As soon as you say you’re Palestinian, they pull you over, they search you, just like they do to Syrians. I’ve been pulled over myself at least four times. People as young as fifteen are made to hand over their phones. I thought we were done with racism.”

NOW also met with Hosni Abu Taqa, head of the camp’s Popular Committee, who has been working nonstop since Sunday to limit the fallout from the shooting and mediate an agreement to cool residents’ tempers.

“We understand why there are checkpoints – after all, this is Dahiyeh. And after people started blaming that Palestinian man for the rocket attacks, we obviously couldn’t refuse the security measures,” Abu Taqa told NOW, referring to Ahmad Taha, the Palestinian suspected of attacking Dahiyeh in May with rockets purchased, according to some reports, from Burj al-Barajneh itself.

As such, said Abu Taqa, a deal was struck with Hezbollah on Monday to move the checkpoint further away from the camp’s Haret Hreik entrance. Moreover, the checkpoint at the camp’s airport road entrance is now manned by the Internal Security Forces, not Hezbollah.

However, the Dahiyeh rocket attack is not the only recent source of friction between Hezbollah and Palestinian refugees. In May, residents of the Ain al-Hilweh camp in Sidon burned aid packages received from the party in anger at their intervention in Syria, reportedly saying, “We don’t want assistance soaked in the blood of the Syrian people.” Indeed, Ain al-Hilweh has for years been a hotbed of anti-Hezbollah sentiment, with some of the camp’s Islamist militants believed to have fought against both Hezbollah in Sidon and the regime in Syria. Elsewhere, residents of the Shatila camp in Beirut have been recruited into anti-Hezbollah militias in adjacent Sunni neighborhoods. And, as NOW has previously reported, Hezbollah’s relations with Hamas have reached unprecedented lows, with the latter accused of assisting Syrian rebels in the battle for Qusayr as well as harboring a key suspect in the Dahiyeh rocket attack.

Underlying this rift is a general proliferation of sectarian Islamist ideology among Palestinians in Lebanon, which Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria has accelerated, according to Yezid Sayigh, senior associate at the Carnegie Middle East Center and a former adviser to the Palestinian delegation to peace talks in the 1990s.

“Sectarian feelings have been building up in the Palestinian camps for a while, originally over the Iraq war and now the Syrian one, and this has been fomented by Arab governments like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Mubarak’s Egypt. As in Egypt and elsewhere in the Arab world, socioeconomically and politically marginalized communities like Palestinian refugees have moved toward Salafism. This in turn has alienated them from Hezbollah, which was otherwise a party they were close to on several levels. The bonds between them have eroded immensely over a number of years and the Syrian crisis has crystallized that,” Sayigh told NOW.

Moreover, the Syrian conflict has increasingly placed Palestinians in direct opposition to the Assad regime.

“Obviously, lots of Palestinians have joined the fight against the regime in Syria. Just yesterday, families from Damascus’ Yarmouk refugee camp which had taken shelter in Ain al-Hilweh were mourning five dead. So Palestinians here increasingly have close bonds that tie them to the opposition in Syria against the regime, which most Palestinians distrust anyway and have done for a long time.”

Maya Gebeily contributed reporting.

Post-Dahiyeh denial

[Originally posted at NOW]

The attack was the first of its kind (Reuters/Mohamed Azakir)

“At my favorite Mar Mikhael resto. Owner says place kept full since last explosion as Lebanese decided NOTHING will stop them loving life. :)”

So read a tweet on my Twitter timeline Saturday night. Though clearly intended as a much-needed boost to the spirits after an appalling and horrifying tragedy, it only compounded the unease I’ve felt for Lebanon since Thursday’s attack.

The significance of what happened in Dahiyeh doesn’t seem to have sunk in. Have the Lebanese grown so accustomed to the sight of black smoke rising above their neighborhoods that they no longer differentiate between one blast and another – no longer try to discern what the latest disfiguration of the skyline might mean, or portend?

Certainly it seemed so when, in the hours following the blast, politicians across the board rushed to confidently declare it the handiwork of Israel. They must have felt almost as ridiculous as they sounded when none other than Hassan Nasrallah – not normally the kind of guy to give the Zionists the benefit of the doubt – later accused what everyone knew were the more likely culprits.

It’s precisely this that makes the Ruwais attack – the deadliest car bomb since the civil war – a first of its kind. To put it frankly (and to shy from sectarian terminology here would only be another indulgence of self-delusion): this is the first time in Lebanon’s history that a bombing has been carried out by religious extremists purely for the purpose of murdering civilians from a rival sect. For all its infamous faith-based frictions, the country has never before witnessed anything comparable to the outright jihadist slaughter that has so devastated Iraq, and is now in the process of devastating Syria. (Indeed, as Michael Young noted not long ago, Sunni-Shia violence in Lebanon is in fact a very recent phenomenon, having no real precedent prior to 2008.) And yet, if the claim of the ‘Aisha, Mother of the Believers Brigade’ to have carried out Thursday’s attack is true, then this most terrifying brand of violence has indeed now arrived.

What’s worse, there is every reason to believe it’s here to stay for the foreseeable future. When Nasrallah addressed the nation the following evening, he had a unique opportunity to conciliate his antagonists. Instead, he took the option of maximum provocation; declaring an open-ended fight to the death, arrogantly pledging to double the number of his fighters in Syria and boasting that he himself would kill opponents of the Assad regime if it came to that. Rather than admit the slightest contrition for his complicity in a war in which – it must be conceded – all sides have committed atrocities, he portrayed his cause as one of unblemished virtue, in which not an inch of compromise or restraint was acceptable.

The manner in which these sentiments will have been received by al-Qaeda and its many imitators is only too easy to imagine, and the discoveries of things like cars packed with a quarter of a ton of explosives are evidently going to become increasingly frequent. The US State Department now believes Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the Iraqi al-Qaeda franchise that is still killing hundreds of Shia every month, has relocated his operational headquarters to Syria. How difficult will it be for his mujahideen to cross Syria’s almost non-existent western border and set up shop in the Levant’s weakest state?

It’s probably still possible for Lebanon to halt its national descent into sectarian carnage, but it will require a radical change of course from everyone. First, the country’s feuding security agencies should agree that, whatever their differences on other matters, they will cooperate fully with one another as far as these kinds of attacks are concerned. Second, Sunni powers must use all the leverage at their disposal to contain the extremists among their ranks, including ceasing whatever financial and political patronage they provide to armed groups. Finally, at the risk of stating the utterly obvious, Hezbollah should immediately and completely withdraw from Syria.

Syrian refugee businessmen lament coming crackdown

[Originally posted at NOW]

This article is the first in a multi-part series focusing on a string of recent policies cracking down on Syrian refugees in Lebanon.

MASNAA, Lebanon – At the final stretch of the Lebanese portion of the Beirut-Damascus highway, between the villages of Bar Elias and Masnaa in the eastern fringes of the rural Beqaa Valley, almost every other shop has the word “Sham” (which can mean both “Damascus” and “Syria”) in its name. And, aptly enough, nearly every person here these days is Syrian, most of them refugees from the brutal war raging just a few kilometers away on the other side of the snow-capped Anti-Lebanon mountains.

Cut off from their livelihoods at home, many of them have opened small businesses – mostly restaurants, grocery stores, and cheap goods outlets – almost invariably without obtaining legal licenses. Having operated for months without disturbance from the Lebanese authorities, these small enterprises will now face closure from next week, according to a government announcement Tuesday, in a move that coincides with a wider crackdown on Syrian refugees, including stricter measures at border crossings. Speaking to AFP Thursday, Caretaker Economy Minister Nicolas Nahhas said the 377 identified refugee-owned businesses in Lebanon were creating “unfair competition,” and that Syrians in Lebanon did not have the right to work in “business and commerce.”

Though most Syrian business owners NOW met in the area on Thursday insisted they had licenses – claims of which their neighbors were quietly skeptical – they were nevertheless unhappy with the government’s decision.

“What’s the reason for this? Give me a reason!” said a cell phone accessories store owner, who preferred not to be named. His tone was not so much angry as genuinely confused: “Are we really harming the economy? Does it really hurt the Lebanese for us to be here as Syrians, selling to other Syrians, keeping to ourselves?”

Others, too, dismissed the idea that their presence was undermining the Lebanese economy.

“They say we’re stealing Lebanese jobs, but we’re doing manual labor work that the Lebanese don’t want to do anyway, and we’re only here in the first place because of the war back at home,” said a restaurant employee.

Everyone NOW spoke to agreed the financial burden was the key factor discouraging the refugees from obtaining licenses.

“It can cost $1,000 a month or more to get a license, and most of these places don’t make more than $200 a month,” said a grocer.

“Even without paying for licenses, most of our businesses only stay open for a month or two before going broke and closing down,” said a baker. “Many have already returned to Syria – better to be killed there than die of hunger here.”

Some, however, merely shrugged off the news, saying they doubted the government would carry out its pledge.

“It’s well-known that all restaurants in Bar Elias are Syrian-owned, operating without licenses,” said a restaurateur from Homs, who admitted to not having a license himself. “The previous owner of this one told me that State Security came to him once and told him to get a license, but they never came back again to check if he did.” If the government really did close him down this time, he said, he would simply move and start another business elsewhere.

Analysts NOW spoke to shared the refugees’ scorn for the notion that the coming crackdown is driven by economic concerns, saying instead the government is responding to political pressures pertaining to Lebanon’s notoriously delicate power-sharing arrangements between sectarian communities.

“I don’t buy the claim that the refugees are cutting into Lebanese business,” said Dr. Hilal Khashan, professor of political science at the American University of Beirut. “The reason is political […] remember these are Sunni Muslims for the most part, and Lebanese are very sensitive to demographic numbers. Lebanon proved to be inhospitable to Palestinian refugees, mainly because they are Sunni, and here you have an even larger influx of Sunnis.” From the perspective of sectarian opponents, therefore, “this threatens to tip the demography in favor of the Sunnis.”

Nor does Khashan expect such tensions will alleviate any time soon.

“Initial expectations were that the Syrian conflict would not last long and these refugees would soon be returning to Syria. As it happened, the influx has increased steadily, and it seems that this conflict does not have an end in sight.”

Maya Gebeily contributed reporting.

Dahiyeh residents mostly unfazed by blast

[Originally posted at NOW]

Damaged cars across the street from the blast site (NOW/Alex Rowell)

The flames that had engulfed over a dozen cars in an outdoor parking lot as a result of Tuesday morning’s explosion in the Bir al-Abid neighborhood of Haret Hreik, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, had been doused by the time NOW arrived at the scene, but the damage wrought by the reported 35kg bomb planted under a car was extensive.

For at least a hundred meters down the adjacent residential and commercial street, the sidewalks were smothered in glass shards blown out of the now-bare window frames of shops, parked cars, and multi-story apartments. The awnings of a bakery and an accessories shop across the street from the blast site sat mangled like collapsed construction girders, while the wall of the car park itself had been punched in with a meter-wide crater.

As hundreds of local residents flooded the streets, snapping camera-phone photos and straining to get a view of the charred car park, a team of private security officials carrying walkie-talkies and wearing red baseball caps – presumably members of Hezbollah, the preeminent party in the southern suburbs – deployed on the scene, urging the crowd over megaphones to disperse. Meanwhile, the team of security officials prevented non-Hezbollah-affiliated journalists from entering or even photographing the blast site. “Only take pictures in that direction,” said one to NOW, pointing away from the car park. “Stay here,” said another, motioning in vain for a colleague to come over, before getting distracted elsewhere and forgetting.

According to eyewitnesses NOW spoke to at an electronics store near the blast, a man driving a red Nissan 4x4 had parked in the lot that morning. When asked by the concierge how long he planned to park, adding that more money would be required for a lengthy stay, the man apparently paid the extra without specifying a time. Minutes later, said the eyewitnesses, the same Nissan car exploded.

Others nearby were more preoccupied with personal trauma. A middle-aged woman sitting in an adjacent shop breathed heavily as she recalled her fears for her niece, who had suffered minor injuries from the blast. “Thank God she’s all right,” she repeated as NOW moved onward.

However, despite injuring over 50 people, the bomb did not appear to have dampened local spirits in general. “Wait a second,” said one resident as NOW was preparing to take a photo of a smashed store façade. “Let the Sayyid [Hassan Nasrallah] be there first,” he said with a grin as he placed a photo of the Hezbollah Secretary-General on a shelf. In adjacent Dahiyeh neighborhoods, residents appeared entirely unfazed by the bomb, with men, women, and children walking around as though nothing unusual had happened.

Indeed, the only tangible ill-will from the crowd at the blast site was directed at Caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel, who arrived at around 1pm to heckles from Hezbollah supporters, from whom he took refuge in a nearby building for around twenty minutes. Video footage later emerged showing him being escorted to safety by police under cover fire from Hezbollah gunmen. The reason for this hostile reception is unclear.

Nor, as of Tuesday evening, have the perpetrators of the attack been established. The Free Syrian Army (FSA), which has previously claimed responsibility for rocket attacks on pro-Hezbollah towns in the Beqaa Valley, denied responsibility for Tuesday’s car bomb, saying the blame fell “directly or indirectly” on Hezbollah and the Syrian regime. Though rebel brigades have threatened in the past to attack Dahiyeh, the FSA also denied involvement in a dual rocket attack on the area in May.

Meanwhile, politicians on both sides of the Lebanese divide accused Israel of involvement, with Hezbollah MP Ali Ammar saying the attack “bears the fingerprint of the Israeli enemy and its tools,” and Future Movement leader Saad Hariri describing it as an “[attempt] by the Israeli enemy to push [Lebanon] to strife by organizing terrorist attacks.”

Yara Chehayed and Vivianne El Khawly contributed reporting.

In Dahiyeh, fear breeds loathing

[Originally posted at NOW]

Driving through the gridlocked traffic of Beirut’s southern suburbs Tuesday afternoon, two days after a pair of 107mm Grad rockets struck the neighborhood wounding four Syrian workers, not much looked different except perhaps an increase in the number of “martyr” posters. Despite reports of local Hezbollah militants deploying on street corners and setting up checkpoints following the attacks, NOW saw no evidence during a comprehensive tour of the so-called Dahiyeh (“suburb”) – the sole gunman in sight was a plain-clothed security guard outside the Bahman Hospital in Haret Hreik.

However, there was one novel phenomenon detectable in the minds of Dahiyeh residents – suspicion of, and even bigotry against Syrians.

At a red traffic light in Ghobeiry, a young boy around the age of 10 approached the driver’s window trying to sell some goods. “Where are you from?” asked NOW’s guide, Hussein, a forty-something former Amal militant now employed at the Council for the South. “Syria,” replied the boy. “F*** your sister!” grunted Hussein, turning away in disgust.

“They’re dirty people,” he explained as we drove off. “If I could, I would run them all over with my car.”

Dislike for Syrians – which has been on the rise in Dahiyeh ever since the armed conflict began next door – appears to have reached new levels after Sunday’s rockets, widely believed to have been launched by Syrian rebel brigades. According to civil society activist and Dahiyeh resident Lokman Slim, Syrians were subject to various forms of harassment in the hours following the attacks.

“Youngsters took to the streets with their walkie-talkies and accosted those suspected to be Syrian. They checked their phones, checked their IDs, and asked them where they were living,” Slim told NOW.

Hussein said much the same, adding that Hezbollah was keeping a very close watch on Dahiyeh’s Syrian residents, even asking them if they were for or against the Assad regime.

In part, these measures are being undertaken out of fear. Syrian rebel brigades have already launched multiple rocket strikes on pro-Hezbollah areas in the northeastern Beqaa Valley, one of which killed a teenage girl on Monday. The rebels have also repeatedly threatened to extend these strikes to Dahiyeh.

“People support these security measures, because if we’re targeted again, we might die,” said Hussein. “Syrians here are going in and out of Syria all the time. You never know who could be with the opposition.”

Hussein insisted that locals were not spooked by Sunday’s attacks, though he admitted there were quiet worries of something more major to come.

“Two rockets is not a big deal for us, we survived much worse from the Israelis. The feeling in the area is no different today than it was before the rockets. But, of course, if something bigger happens, like car bombs or gunmen in the streets, that’s another matter.”

Security concerns aside, the mounting ill-will against Syrians has evidently taken on a sectarian dimension as well.

“Alawite Syrians are obviously fine. It’s only the Sunnis we have a problem with,” said Abbas, a young resident whose house was just one block from where one of the rockets fell.

This sectarianism, in turn, appears to be fuelled by recent battles in the Syrian town of Qusayr, where Hezbollah has been in open conflict with Syrian rebels, the latter of whom are largely seen in Dahiyeh as Sunni extremists. Indeed, the Qusayr fighting seems to be at the forefront of the community’s attention, dominating café chatter and online discourse. As we drove through Dahiyeh, passing the countless “martyr” photos plastered on lampposts and balconies, Hussein would note each one that was killed in Qusayr.

“There’s no such thing as the Syrian ‘revolutionaries,’ they’re terrorists,” he told NOW. “They have problems in their brains. It’s not Islam, what they think. They behead people with no political agenda, killing and terrorism are their only goals. The fighter who eats the heart of a dead person is not a revolutionary, in Islam we cannot touch the body of a dead person. It’s haram [forbidden].”

The conversation turned distinctly theological when Hussein defended Hezbollah’s fighting in Qusayr.

“A big majority of Shiites think what Hezbollah is doing is a religious duty. It prepares the return of the Mahdi and the signs of his return, and this is the core of Hezbollah’s ideology. So the jihad in Qusayr is a duty.”

Such rhetoric is perhaps illustrative of what Slim described as Hezbollah’s steering of Syria-related events to its own political advantage.

“[The Sunday attacks] led people in Dahiyeh to swing between fear, questioning, and seeking a protector. And, of course, the protector can’t be any other entity but Hezbollah. But [hostility toward Syrians] is not only caused by the shelling of Dahiyeh, it’s caused by [Hezbollah’s] propaganda machine which is focusing on the wrong deeds of some FSA elements.”

In the longer run, when the Syrian war is over, Slim believes, the Shiite community may come to resent the relatively high death toll incurred as a result of the Qusayr fighting. “People are mourning the boys,” he said.

Hussein, indeed, lamented the “mistakes” he said were made by the Party on the military front.

“The fighters being sent to Qusayr are too young, they’re too ill-prepared. The Syrians have dug trenches and are using them well, sniping the Hezbollah fighters first in the legs and then in the head.”

“Hezbollah sent them to war as if it was just a football game.”

Some of the above names have been changed at the interviewees’ requests.

Racha El-Amin and Yara Chehayed contributed reporting.

Speaking on BBC World Service: 'Can supplying weapons [in Syria] lead to peace?'

I spoke on the BBC World Service's 'World Have Your Say' programme last night, on the topic: 'Can supplying weapons [in Syria] lead to peace?' You can listen here (I come on at around 40:40). 

Fresh anti-Hezbollah protests in Martyrs Square

[Originally posted at NOW]

Lebanese and Syrian demonstrators gather under the symbolic Martyrs Statue to protest Hezbollah's military involvement in Syria (NOW/Alex Rowell)

Downtown Beirut’s symbolic Martyrs Square was once again the scene of Syria-related protest Tuesday evening, as around 50 Lebanese and Syrian demonstrators gathered to condemn Hezbollah’s military intervention in the Syrian conflict.

Carrying ‘Free Syria’ flags and placards expressing solidarity with Qusayr, the rebel-held Syrian town (currently facing a major assault from Hezbollah units in conjunction with regime forces), the demonstrators chanted “curse your soul, Hafez [al-Assad]” and “come on, step down Bashar/Hezbollah.” Fliers also played on the Party of God’s insignia, changing the word “Hezbollah” to “hurriyah,” or “freedom.”

Unlike similar demonstrations that broke out at Martyrs Square in the earlier stages of the Syrian uprising, there was no counter-protest from supporters of Assad and Hezbollah. “They’re probably busy fighting in Syria,” quipped Abdallah Haddad, a financial consultant who told NOW he had showed up to protest what he saw as Hezbollah’s dragging Lebanon into the conflict next door.

“We’ve come here to condemn Hezbollah’s intervention in Syria and in Damascus, but especially in Qusayr,” said Taher, a Lebanese demonstrator who preferred not to disclose his surname. “We would like our prime minister and president to take a clear stance against this intervention,” he told NOW.

While Haddad, Taher, and many other attendees were Lebanese, it was in fact Syrians who made up the majority of protestors – a pleasant surprise, said organizers, given the fears Syrians often have of the Lebanese authorities.

“I’m Syrian,” said protestor Muayyad al-Bunni. “We felt we should do something because we heard that Hezbollah is now killing our brothers in Syria. We are in Lebanon, Hezbollah’s country, so we decided to make our voices heard.”

Like everyone else, al-Bunni told NOW it was the Qusayr clashes in particular that sparked the outrage that fuelled the protest.

“Hezbollah has been helping the regime since the beginning of the revolution but now it’s doing so with its soldiers, and that’s something really shocking.”

The event was organized on Facebook by a mix of students and professionals of diverse political and religious backgrounds, according to Karim, an organizer who preferred not to disclose his surname due to fears of repercussions from his predominantly pro-Amal neighbors. Karim added that attendance would likely have been much higher had the event’s Facebook page not been hacked earlier in the day, leading hundreds of pledged attendees to believe it had been cancelled. Who did he think hacked the page, NOW asked? “Shabbiha,” he replied, half-jokingly using the catch-all term for Assad supporters.

“You cannot be with a dictator against his people,” Karim replied when asked why he decided to organize the protest. “We wanted to denounce Hezbollah’s one-sided military intervention in Syria and say, as Lebanese, that we do not accept what they are doing and this does not represent us. This bypasses not only our constitution but our sense of liberty, and everything that Lebanon is supposed to stand for.”

NOW asked why organizers had chosen this particular moment to protest, when Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria had been an open secret for some time. “I admit it is late, it should have been done earlier,” said Karim. “But it turned out to be the peak now because they were almost reaching Qusayr and we thought if we didn’t speak out now – I mean, on a personal level, if I did not speak out today, I would have felt guilty about it if the Syrian revolution failed. So it’s a stand we should take first of all from an ethical perspective and second as a political position.”

Karim further argued that it was in Lebanon’s self-interest to support the Syrian revolution, given the historic influence wielded by Damascus in Lebanese affairs.

“The Lebanese and Syrian people are in this together. Their freedom is our freedom.”