LCCC ENGLISH DAILY NEWS BULLETIN
ِJuly 13/2010

Bible Of the Day
Psalm 56:8
Today's Inspiring Thought: Keeping Track of Your Tears
Do you ever feel like God has forgotten you? Does it seem that he is far off and does not care about what you are going through? Not only does he know the number of hairs on your head, God has counted those times you've tossed and turned all night. He is intimately aware of your suffering and your tears. In verse 9, just before these words, David declares, "God is for me." God has not forgotten you. He can account for your every move. He's even keeping track of your tears. God is for you!

The Good News According to Luke 11/1-13
It happened, that when he finished praying in a certain place, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John also taught his disciples.” He said to them, “When you pray, say, ‘Our Father in heaven, may your name be kept holy. May your Kingdom come. May your will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us day by day our daily bread. Forgive us our sins, for we ourselves also forgive everyone who is indebted to us. Bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one.’” He said to them, “Which of you, if you go to a friend at midnight, and tell him, ‘Friend, lend me three loaves of bread, 11:6 for a friend of mine has come to me from a journey, and I have nothing to set before him,’  and he from within will answer and say, ‘Don’t bother me. The door is now shut, and my children are with me in bed. I can’t get up and give it to you’? 11:8 I tell you, although he will not rise and give it to him because he is his friend, yet because of his persistence, he will get up and give him as many as he needs. “I tell you, keep asking, and it will be given you. Keep seeking, and you will find. Keep knocking, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. To him who knocks it will be opened. “Which of you fathers, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, he won’t give him a snake instead of a fish, will he? Or if he asks for an egg, he won’t give him a scorpion, will he? If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”


Free Opinions, Releases, letters, Interviews & Special Reports
Delusions and Truths in South Lebanon/
By: Elias Harfoush/July 12/10
Bad for business 101/Now Lebanon/July 12, 2010

Latest News Reports From Miscellaneous Sources for July 12/10
Sfeir for Consolidation of Ties Between Residents and Expats/Naharnet
Man who Creeped onto Saudi Plane Identified/Naharnet
U.S. Vetoes Giving Airport Security Post to Pro-Hizbullah Officer, Report/Naharnet
Israeli Military Sources: Netanyahu Could Go on 'Military Adventure' against Hamas or Hizbullah/Naharnet
Hezbollah warns: We have list of IDF targets inside Israel/Ha'aretz
Ahmadinejad to Head 70-Member Delegation to Lebanon/Naharnet
Chamoun rejects March 14’s proposal on Palestinians’ rights/Now Lebanon

Consensus nears over Palestinian social, work rights/Daily Star
Op-Ed: The long arm of Iran endangers Israel and the West/Jewish Telegraphic Agency
British envoy apologizes for praising Hezbollah cleric/Jewish Telegraphic Agency
Khalife: Lebanon is united in support of UNIFIL/Ya Libnan
Israel vows to prevent Libya aid boat from landing in Gaza/AFP

World Bank: Red tape still hurts businesses in Lebanon/Daily Star
Four years on, Israel war far from over: Lebanon press/AFP
Objectivity and Reporting on the Mideast/CBS News
Hawker Hunters to Exercise in Lebanese Airspace/Naharnet
MP Elie Aoun: Palestinians to Get Most of their Rights Except Owning Property/Naharnet
Jumblat 'Okay' So Long As Palestinian Rights Document is Similar to his Proposals/Naharnet
All but Kataeb Agree on New Palestinian Rights Law/Naharnet
Qazzi: Phalange Demands Modifications in Law on Palestinian Rights/Naharnet

Lebanese Joint Parliamentary Committees Approve Several Oil Draft Law Clauses/Naharnet
Angry Druze Residents Trap Israeli Police in Golan Heights Building/Naharnet

Gemayel-Aoun Hold Secret Talks
Naharnet/Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel held secret talks with Free Patriotic Movement chief Gen. Michel Aoun, pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat reported Monday.
It said the "away from the spotlight" meeting apparently came after recent reports said Gemayel has launched a drive for political reconciliation with Aoun. Al-Hayat said Gemayel aims at finding common ground with Aoun in order to create a favorable climate for cooperation, at least in the 2013 parliamentary elections. Beirut, 12 Jul 10, 07:32

Lebanon identifies body found in Saudi jet wheel bay

BEIRUT, Jul 12, 2010 (AFP) - Family members have identified a man who died at the weekend after he tried to hitch a ride from Beirut to Riyadh by hiding in the wheel bay of a passenger jet, Lebanon's justice minister said Monday.
"The man's family was able to identify him through a photograph of him provided by Saudi Arabian authorities," Ibrahim Najjar told AFP.
"There are also reports that he was mentally unstable, but we have yet to confirm them," the minister added.
The man's name was Firas Haidar, a Lebanese national from the area of Burj al-Barajneh near Beirut airport, a source close to a probe into the accident told AFP, requesting anonymity as he was not authorised to talk to the media. The body was found by a maintenance worker who inspected the right rear landing gear of the Saudi-owned Nas AirNas AirNas Air
Airbus 320 after it touched down at Riyadh's King Khaled International AirportKing Khaled International Airport early Saturday morning, the Saudi General Authority of Civil Aviation said.
"When approaching the aircraft he discovered the body of a person who had tried to hide in the wheel bay while the plane took off from Beirut International Airport," the Jeddah-based authority said in a statement. A Lebanon airport official said on Saturday that the man had somehow managed to grab hold of a (wheel) of the jet in Beirut without the control tower noticing before the jet took off. Flight XY 720 reported seeing a man in a cap with a backpack make a dash for the plane as it prepared to taxi, according to the Lebanese media. He stumbled once and then continued towards the aircraft. The state-run National News Agency has reported passengers and flight attendants informed the pilot, who did not take any action and continued to take off without informing the control tower.© Copyright AFP 2010.

Man who Creeped onto Saudi Plane Identified

Naharnet/The body of a man discovered on the tires of a flight from Beirut to Riyadh was identified as a 20-year-old Lebanese, An-Nahar newspaper said Monday.
It said the man, who apparently was mentally unbalanced, is a resident of south Beirut's Borj al-Barajneh, a neighborhood very close to Beirut airport, which made it easy for him to infiltrate the runway. Future News channel on Monday identified the dead man as Firas Hussein Haidar.Airport workers in Riyadh on Saturday found the man who apparently tried to hitch a ride on the Saudi-owned Nas Air jet, aviation authorities said. An airport source in Beirut said a Saudi passenger and a fellow Lebanese traveler on Nas Air flight had reported seeing a man with a backpack running towards the jet shortly before it took off from Beirut. According to the eyewitness account, the dead man wore a cap and a black T-shirt.
The passengers/witnesses asked a flight attendant to report to the pilot what they saw, only to come back with assurances from the pilot that any activity can be seen on camera.
"The pilot took no action and continued takeoff," state-run National News Agency quoted one witness as saying. Saudi and Lebanese officials were trying to establish the identity of the dead person. Saudi authorities sent a photograph of the dead man to Lebanese security authorities. The photo indicated the man was in his 20s. Beirut, 12 Jul 10, 06:41

Four years on, Israel war far from over: Lebanon press

(AFP) – BEIRUT — Lebanon's conflict with Israel is still far from over, Beirut-based dailies warned on Monday, four years to the day since the first bombs fell in the last war between Hezbollah and the Jewish state."The July War is not over," declared the front-page headline in the Arabic-language Al-Akhbar newspaper.
"Four years after the end of the war... both parties look ready to leap back into action and are prepared both in terms of capacities and incentives," read the article in Al-Akhbar, which is close to the Shiite militant party. The month-long war was triggered by the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by the Shiite militant group Hezbollah in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006.
The fighting that ensued destroyed much of Lebanon's major infrastructure and killed about 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers.
Security Council Resolution 1701 ended the conflict and beefed up the UNIFIL peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon since 1978.
But tensions between the two foes has risen again after Israel accused Syria of smuggling Scud missiles to its ally Hezbollah, a charge Damascus denies.
Israel's military says the Shiite group has a stock of some 40,000 rockets and this month published aerial photographs showing what it says is evidence of Hezbollah stockpiling weapons in towns and villages near the border. "Israel... argues that Hezbollah took the state hostage, revamped and reinforced its arsenal and now is attacking UN peacekeepers via the people of southern Lebanon, who are at their beck and call," read the editorial in the French-language daily L'Orient Le Jour.
After decades of smooth ties with southern Lebanese, UNIFIL this month became the target of villagers who took to the streets to protest a maximum deployment exercise by the blue-helmeted troops. In the most notable confrontation, residents of the southern town of Tulin disarmed a French patrol and attacked them with sticks, rocks and eggs before the Lebanese army intervened. One prominent daily on Monday tied the war anniversary to Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31, in which nine Turks were killed.
"It is July 12 yet again and here we are, entering the fifth year of Israel's open war on Lebanon, but rather on all Arabs and on Muslims in Turkey," read a column by Talal Salman, owner of the daily As-Safir which is also close to Hezbollah. "There is one lesson to be learned: steadfastness is the shortest route to victory, along with... unity and awareness of the nature of the enemy," Salman wrote.

Chamoun rejects March 14’s proposal on Palestinians’ rights

July 12, 2010
In an interview with LBCI television on Monday, National Liberal Party leader MP Dori Chamoun said he rejects the March 14 alliance’s proposal for improving the humanitarian conditions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. “There are also duties [that the Palestinians must fulfill] in exchange for [those] rights,” he said. Chamoun’s remarks come as Lebanese Forces bloc MP Antoine Zahra told As-Safir newspaper on Monday that the bill prepared by the LF, the Future Movement and the March 14 Secretariat General emphasizes their refugee status in Lebanon, promises them a decent life and supports their right of return. The draft law, however, rejects granting civil rights to the Palestinians, but deals positively with their humanitarian and social rights. Chamoun expressed surprise over the timing of Progressive Socialist Party leader MP Walid Jumblatt’s proposal to grant Palestinian refugees civil rights. “This does not mean that he [Jumblatt] is right,” he said. The parliament was split last month over Jumblatt’s bill to grant Palestinian refugees civil rights. MPs from the Loyalty to the Resistance bloc and the Development and Liberation bloc supported Jumblatt’s bill, while the Kataeb, Lebanese Forces and Change and Reform bloc MPs opposed it. -NOW Lebanon

Ammar Moussawi

July 12, 2010
The National News Agency (NNA) reported on July 11 that during a political meeting organized by the party in the town of Machghara, Hezbollah International Relations Officer Ammar Moussawi advised against raising the topic of the civil rights of Palestinians in Lebanon in the context of any kind of political arm-wrestling. He stressed the necessity to handle the issue seriously and responsibly, indicating that it was in the best interest of Palestinians and Lebanese to see these rights ratified in the context of Lebanese and national concord. Regarding the clashes which recently took place in some Southern villages, he stated, “Some wanted to blow them out of proportion and to dispatch a flow of letters over the heads of the people and Southerners, either by linking what happened to international sanctions on Iran or by linking them to other issues with a regional character.
There is a team of Lebanese who only know the method of instigation and misleading because that is the only guarantee of continuity for them in the face of the Resistance and the arms of the Resistance. The Lebanese are divided over the arms of the resistance and the latter exploited these small skirmishes to stir a storm and give the Lebanese the impression that the situation will deteriorate. Whoever hears the statements of the March 14 team would think that the country was heading toward total chaos and destruction. This has raised concerns in the ranks of the Lebanese themselves as well as foreigners who may have been planning on spending their vacation in the country.
The side responsible for this is the one which exercised instigation and misleading and talked about the worst possible events. In fact, what happened was a reaction by the population against acts which may have been considered by the people as being provocative and frustrating. We believe that the problem resided in the lack of coordination between UNIFIL troops and the Lebanese army, knowing that Resolution 1701 clearly called for full coordination between the two sides. Eventually, when these clashes occurred everybody went back to the army to resolve the problem. This page was turned and I hope that this situation has ended once and for all, i.e. that such clashes will not occur again. What is required is full coordination with the army and the respect of the area and its people.”
Moussawi responded to those who described the army as an Abu Melhem [a folkloric Lebanese TV character which acted as a mediator between other characters] by saying, “Some wanted to embarrass the army by saying it was not doing its job. We say that it fulfilled its duties in the context of its doctrine and policy and it is present in the South to protect Lebanon, Lebanese soil and Lebanons sovereignty and dignity. If some want the army to be present in the South to protect Israel’s border, the army will not assume such a mission. There are also some who, under the pretext that the army is unable to perform its tasks in full, are trying to change the rules of engagement and give wider prerogatives to UNIFIL.
We are in the presence of UNIFIL forces operating under the banner of the United Nations and in accordance with Chapter VI, not in the presence of NATO troops or forces operating in accordance with Chapter VII. Therefore, to those who believe it was unfortunate that Resolution 1701 was not issued under Chapter VII, we say, ‘You must excuse us but neither you nor any other can impose by threats what Israel failed to impose by the use of arms.’ This country is protected by its Resistance, army and people and not by international resolutions. Based on our calculations, Israel will not launch war, not because it respects the international community and is committed to international resolutions, but because it feels unable to engage in any battle in the future and win it.”

UNIFIL, Lebanese army and residents hold reconciliation meeting
July 12, 2010 /A reconciliation meeting was held between Lebanese Armed Forces (LAF) and UNIFIL officers and residents in the southern village of Toulin Sunday night to defuse tension following last month’s protests against the UN peacekeeping force, NOW Lebanon’s correspondent reported on Monday. Sunday’s meeting comes after a series of anti-UNIFIL protests began on June 29 in Toulin, where villagers blocked roads and threw stones at French peacekeepers before disarming them. During the sit-down, UNIFIL officers spoke of the “good relationship” between them and the local population and called for boosting it under the Lebanese army’s sponsorship. Head of the Toulin municipality Hussein Awali said the meeting was not meant for reconciliation, “because there is no enmity between us, but was aimed at strengthening trust that has existed since 1978 when the UN forces [were deployed in] the South.”-NOW Lebanon

Bad for business 101
July 12, 2010
Now Lebanon
It’s been a busy weekend. After the UN Security Council reaffirmed support on Friday for its peacekeeping mission in Lebanon and called on all parties in the country to allow UNIFIL forces to move freely, without hindrance, there was a so-called reconciliation meeting between the Lebanese army, UNIFIL and the residents in the southern village of Tulin on Sunday night.
Elsewhere, and in keeping with the current climate of fear and suspicion, there were once again calls for the death penalty to be handed down to Israeli spies, this time from Development and Liberation bloc MP Qassem Hashem. Then came reports on Sunday that Tourism Minister Fadi Abboud had hinted that the UNIFIL incidents had led to worrying hotel and flight cancellations ahead of what had promised to be a record-breaking tourist season coming off the back of an equally-lucrative month of World Cup hysteria.
Yes, Lebanon is not just a hotbed of espionage and intrigue. It also has an economy. Then again, those who would use Lebanon as a pawn in a bigger regional game, one that doesn’t give one jot about economic growth or the building of strong state institutions, tend to ignore such trivial matters.
Abboud denied he said anything about cancellations. But he didn’t have to say it. We all know that tension, instability and uncertainty keep holidaymakers away. Lebanon’s hoteliers, restaurateurs, bar owners, retailers and car-rental firms, while keeping one eye on the cash register, are also nervously following the local news. Business suffers when politics loses its head, as anyone who lived through the 2006 war or had a business in downtown Beirut between 2007 and mid-2008 will tell you.
The whispers would not be hard to believe, especially if these cancellations were made by the European tourists that Abboud’s ministry has been trying so hard to woo in its bid to give Lebanon wider appeal. Why risk Lebanon when the Dalmatian Coast is safer, cheaper and more beautiful?
The rumors are certainly more plausible than all the other conspiracy theories that we are being offered up: that the United Nations, the Lebanese government, the US, the Israelis, Alfa telecom and probably even the World Cup-winning Spanish football team (well, Spain is in UNIFIL, isn’t it?) are part of an evil network, hell-bent on undermining the state and seeking to destroy the dignity of the Resistance. There are those who will dismiss the data as merely a knee-jerk reaction from wimpy Europeans. But to do this is to ignore the fundamentally-flawed nature of the Lebanese state, which seems to take pride in operating by its own conceited logic. In this case the conventional wisdom says Arab tourists, who make up the bulk of visitors, are inured to Lebanon’s volatility, so we don’t need to worry. But worry we should. It has been a tense year so far. Tourist-industry nerves have already jangled once when, in spring, reports from the US stated that Syria had been supplying Hezbollah with Scud missiles. That crisis appeared to go away, but today, with Hezbollah seemingly tarring any institution it deems a threat with the brush of doubt, the predictable martial posturing by the Israelis and talk of indictments being handed down by the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in the autumn, the alert level has risen once again. And once again, the private sector is alone. It has no means of redress. It cannot plead its case to Hezbollah, and it cannot seek the “protection” of the state. How can it, when one-third of the government is either preparing for war or trying to discredit the other two-thirds? Let’s pray for a peaceful summer at least. It’s all we can do.

Williams: No Crisis of Confidence with Hizbullah, No Link between South Incidents and International Tribunal
Naharnet/U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said there is no crisis of confidence with Hizbullah, stressing that there is also no link between recent UNIFIL-villagers skirmishes in south Lebanon and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. U.N. Special Coordinator for Lebanon Michael Williams said there is no crisis of confidence with Hizbullah, stressing that there is also no link between recent UNIFIL-villagers skirmishes in south Lebanon and the Special Tribunal for Lebanon. "There is no crisis of confidence with Hizbullah, which has played a positive role in recent days to reduce the tension," Williams said in remarks published Monday by Al-Akhbar newspaper. He expressed satisfaction at the reconciliation reached between UNIFIL and residents of southern Lebanon. Williams said it was important to emphasize that the south incidents in which U.N. peacekeepers were attacked by villagers "cannot be placed in the scope of crisis." "We have not reached a stage that makes us describe what happened as a crisis," Williams thought. Beirut, 12 Jul 10, 06:30

Joint Parliamentary Committees Approve Several Oil Draft Law Clauses

Naharnet/The joint parliamentary committees approved on Monday the first seven clauses of the oil exploration draft law except for the third clause, head of the Public Works and Transport Committee Mohammed Qabbani said. Speaker Nabih Berri adjourned the session to July 26, Qabbani said. Beirut, 12 Jul 10,

Angry Druze Residents Trap Israeli Police in Golan Heights Building

Naharnet/Hundreds of angry Druze residents of the Golan Heights surrounded a building in the main town of Majdel Shams, trapping inside policemen for several hours, police said.
The 10 policemen were searching for "criminals" inside the building, police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld said, adding that reinforcements were called in who negotiated with the crowd and community elders to end the standoff. Rosenfeld said the operation was not political, adding there were no reports of injuries. Israel captured the strategic Golan Heights plateau from Syria in the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. Damascus has repeatedly demanded its return as a non-negotiable condition for peace. More than 18,000 Syrians, mostly Druze, are left from the Golan's original population of 150,000. The vast majority of the Druze in the Golan have refused to take Israeli citizenship. Followers of a breakaway sect of Islam concentrated in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon, the Druze are not considered Muslims by most of the Islamic world.(AFP) Beirut, 11 Jul 10,

Objectivity and Reporting on the Mideast

Lee Smith: The Octavia Nasr Episode Speaks Volumes About Elastic Definitions of Objectivity
CNN Fires Octavia Nasr Over Tweet
(Weekly Standard) Lee Smith is the author of The Strong Horse: Power, Politics, and the Clash of Arab Civilizations.
Even after Octavia Nasr apologized for her ill-advised “tweet” over the July 4 holiday expressing her “respect” for the recently deceased Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah, CNN fired its senior editor for Middle East affairs. And now bloggers and journalists are up in arms.
Some are blaming the job action on “neoconservatives,” which presumably includes THE WEEKLY STANDARD’s Daniel Halper who commented on Nasr’s “tweet” here. Israel Lobby author Stephen Walt writes that CNN’s “spineless response” is “one more reason why mainstream journalism is increasingly seen as morally bankrupt.”
Walt and some of the others have half a point--why is Nasr being singled out for openly expressing the U.S. media’s default position on Hezbollah, Fadlallah’s one-time colleagues? For instance, does anyone doubt that the New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh “respects” the late cleric’s even more vicious rival, Hezbollah General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah, whom he interviewed in the pages of the New Yorker
The Western press delights in rattling the bourgeois sensibilities of its audience by showing the multifaceted aspects of Hezbollah--it’s not just a militia with an appetite for slaughtering Jews, it’s also a social welfare outfit that provides educational opportunities!--and even collaborates with the Party of God by publishing doctored photographs of Israeli “war crimes.” The op-ed pages of America’s dailies are replete with articles promoting Hezbollah’s “pragmatism” and “moderation” (which also happens to be the position of the president’s counter-terrorism czar John Brennan, and a recent CENTCOM analytical exercise), while reported pieces from Lebanon pass along Party of God press releases as objective analysis. If every U.S. journalist who quoted Hezbollah mouthpiece Amal Saad Ghorayeb as a respected “scholar” was fired, the bars of East Beirut would lose 25 percent of their business.
In Beirut, it’s well understood that the U.S. press corps is at least deftly managed by Hezbollah and its pro-Syrian lapdogs, if not actively in the party’s corner. First stop for most is Michel Samaha, Lebanon’s former minister of Information, an apparatchik of the Damascus regime, who arranges interviews with Hezbollah higher-ups and other friends of the Islamic resistance. The only people who don’t understand how the game is played in Lebanon are American media consumers, because the foreign desk editors back in the U.S. surely know what’s up.
After all, if these editors were truly interested in objective reporting, heads would have rolled after last June’s Lebanese parliamentary elections, which the U.S. press almost unanimously predicted were going to be won by the Hezbollah-led March 8 coalition. Curious editors from coast to coast might well have asked their Middle East correspondents and Beirut bureau chiefs how they were unable to discern what would become a victory for the opposing March 14 forces. Why did they all get it so wrong, or why weren’t they at least getting polling numbers from the other side of the ballot in what turned out to be a relative drubbing for team Hezbollah’s allies?
This is why a group of Lebanese colleagues and I decided to bring over delegations of American journalists during the last two years, so that there was at least someone listening to the other side. This infatuation with Hezbollah has been going on for years, and it’s not just because the party established a formidable style of press criticism by kidnapping journalists back in the ’80s. The U.S. media actually likes Hezbollah--it is an impressive thing, after all, to be able to kill your enemies--whether they are Jews or fellow Lebanese--whereas liberalism, non-violent resistance, rule of law, and opposition to political murder lacks sex appeal. Let’s not forget that since the February 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri the U.S. media had tended to dismiss the Cedar Revolution as insufficiently authentic. The multi-sectarian coalition was not, in the eyes of most American journalists, made up of “real” Arabs, like Hezbollah; rather, it was a “Gucci” revolution.
This is the political milieu in which Nasr worked--and there’s no upside to being a Lebanese Christian, as she is. Where Hezbollah is treated with equanimity, if not adulation, the Christian community is typically dismissed as politically retrograde and racist toward Muslims. In her blog post elaborating on why a Christian woman “respected” Fadlallah, Nasr explained how she had interviewed the cleric when she worked at the Lebanese Broadcasting Company (LBC), owned then by the Lebanese Forces, at the time the main Christian party. Today in the American press it is hard to find a reference to the LF without it being preceded by the modifier “right-wing”--the word the fashion-conscious U.S. media uses to ostracize its opponents.
Who knows if Nasr was overcompensating for the way her American colleagues perceive her confessional sect, or even what she meant by "respecting" Fadlallah. In the Middle East the bar is famously low--a religious figure who thinks it’s wrong to mutilate women’s genitalia is hailed as a progressive--and in Lebanon it’s further skewed. Hassan Nasrallah is “respected” as a man of vision and probity, even as he hides in a bunker four years after dragging his country to war on behalf of Iran and Syria. On the other hand, Samir Geagea, the Christian leader of the Lebanese Forces, is despised even after he spent more than a decade in solitary confinement as the only militia leader to pay for his crimes during the Lebanese civil war rather than make his amends with the regime in Damascus. Who knows what Octavia Nasr really thinks about Fadlallah, but it’s hard to escape the conclusion that she fell prey to minority politics, twice over. As a Christian journalist working in a Muslim majority region, she imagined her profession of respect for a theorist of terror would win her bona fides as an “objective” reporter. And as an Arab she’s taking the fall for a conviction held by virtually all of her Western professional peers.
The opinions expressed in this commentary are solely those of the author.

Hezbollah warns: We have list of IDF targets inside Israel
12.07.10/Haaretz
Militant commander Nabil Kaouk responds to IDF's release of photographs allegedly showing Hezbollah weapons depots in south Lebanon. By The Associated Press A senior Hezbollah official warned yesterday that the organization has a list of military targets inside Israel they could attack in any future war. Hezbollah commander in south Lebanon, Sheikh Nabil Kaouk, made his comments in response to the Israeli army's release this week of maps and previously classified aerial photographs of what it described as a network of Hezbollah weapons depots and command centers in south Lebanon. Young Hezbollah supporters holding mock ups of Katyusha rockets in front of a portrait of group leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah.
In a press briefing last week, Israel Defense Forces Col. Ronen Marley presented the detailed maps and 3-D simulations showing what he said was a unit of 90 militants from the Shi'ite Muslim organization operating in the village of Khiam, where they were storing weapons close to hospitals and schools. Kaouk told the state news agency yesterday that the Israeli leaders were trying to restore confidence by presenting a list of targets in southern Lebanon after the Israeli public lost faith in the army. He noted that the Israeli announcement was made on the four-year anniversary of the Second Lebanon War, in which Hezbollah battled Israel to a stalemate. Some 1,200 Lebanese and 160 Israelis were killed during that conflict, which began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border attack. Hezbollah declared Saturday that Israel was preparing "something" in Lebanon and that the organization has been on high alert since Israel released the images.

U.S. Vetoes Giving Airport Security Post to Pro-Hizbullah Officer, Report

Naharnet/Washington reportedly vetoes giving the post of head of the security at Beirut airport to a Lebanese army officer with close links to Hizbullah, Ad-Diyar newspaper said Monday.
It cited sources as saying that the United States objects to the appointment of a successor to incumbent security head of Beirut airport Wafiq Shoqair whowill retire from the post soon.
Ad-Diyar said the U.S. embassy in Beirut has informed the concerned sides that they would participate in the selection of the name that will be appointed to this sensitive post, which is seen as the nerve center of the battle against terrorism.It said the embassy will allow itself to "veto" any name that does not enjoy the support of the American Embassy. Beirut, 12 Jul 10, 08:09

Hawker Hunters to Exercise in Lebanese Airspace

Naharnet/Hawker Hunter warplanes will carry out drills over Beirut, the Bekaa Valley, Mount Lebanon and North Lebanon between 8:00 am and 5:00 pm Monday, a military communiqué said. Beirut, 12 Jul 10,

Ahmadinejad to Head 70-Member Delegation to Lebanon
Naharnet/Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will visit Lebanon soon at the head of a 70-member delegation, Iran's Fars news agency reported. It said the visit was unveiled during a meeting in Beirut between Speaker Nabih Berri and head of Iran's National Security Committee Alaa Boroujerdi. It quoted a member of Parliament's National Security and Foreign Policy Commission Seyed Ahmad Avaei as saying that "all introductory steps and arrangements have been made for Ahmadinejad's upcoming visit to Lebanon." Beirut, 12 Jul 10,

MP Elie Aoun: Palestinians to Get Most of their Rights Except Owning Property

Naharnet/Member of the Democratic Gathering MP Elie Aoun declared on Monday that his parliamentary bloc agrees to give Palestinians living in Lebanon most of their rights, except the right to own property. Aoun told the Lebanese Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) that his coalition is open-minded towards any discussion about this issue, provided that the Palestinians get "at least their basic human rights."He added that as long as these rights are granted, "we will discuss in depth the right to own property.""The drafted law needs some adjustments," he explained. "This issue is not over yet," adding that there will be a follow-up meeting before the law is presented to parliament. Beirut, 12 Jul 10,

Qazzi: Phalange Demands Modifications in Law on Palestinian Rights

Naharnet/Phalange Party politburo member Sejaan Qazzi said the group objects a proposal suggesting giving Palestinian refugees the right to work. In remarks published Monday by As-Safir newspaper, Qazzi said Kataeb demands modifications in the law on Palestinians civil rights. Beirut, 12 Jul 10,

French Source: Paris Never Intends to Withdraw Troops from UNIFIL

Naharnet/France has no intention to withdraw its troops from the U.N. peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, Kuwaiti Ad-Dar newspaper said on Monday.
It quoted a French diplomatic source as saying that France "will not allow multiple messages to be delivered using its soldiers in the south."
While the source ruled out any Israeli war against Lebanon, he stressed that recent incidents in southern Lebanon between UNIFIL and villagers "should not happen again."
"It is not in the Lebanese best interest to lose international support," the source continued. "If this happens, Lebanon would have exposed itself to everyone; and then nothing can deter its enemies from attacking it in one way or another."This came after a series of skirmishes last week between villagers and the multinational forces, most notably the clashes that took place in the town of Touline in which residents attacked the French patrol with sticks, rocks and eggs. Beirut, 12 Jul 10,

Israeli Military Sources: Netanyahu Could Go on 'Military Adventure' against Hamas or Hizbullah

Naharnet/Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could go on a "military adventure" against Hamas in Gaza or Hizbullah in Lebanon amid pressure over captive Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit or alleged rearmament of the Lebanese Shiite group. Israeli military sources told Israel army radio that Netanyahu's choices to get rid of pressures have become limited, pushing him towards carrying out an operation in Gaza or striking Hizbullah. The sources added that the Jewish state already began preparing the Israeli public opinion about its options regarding Hizbullah. Beirut, 12 Jul 10,

Consensus nears over Palestinian social, work rights
nationality and vote remain off limits

By The Daily Star
Monday, July 12, 2010
BEIRUT: The March 14 Alliance is likely to submit Monday a proposal to Parliament to grant Palestinian refugees social and work rights as a compromise solution to improve their living conditions, but continue to deny them the right to property ownership.
Talks over the proposal, which is being coordinated with the country’s major political parties, reached near consensus on Sunday, a Lebanese Forces (LF) official told The Daily Star.
Earlier this month, Progressive Socialist Party leader Walid Jumblatt’s bloc submitted a draft law to Parliament proposing to grant refugees civil rights equal to Lebanese but denying them the right to nationality and vote.
However, the strong opposition from Christian parties to Jumblatt’s proposal led to a series of talks among March 14 parties that resulted in the formulation of a joint proposal which Future Movement MP Nouhad Mashnouq was delegated to coordinate with opposition parties and Jumblatt.
“The proposal will not be submitted unless it is the result national consensus,” LF and Batroun MP Antoine Zahra said.
Asked whether the proposal would be submitted to parliamentary committees for discussion on Monday, Zahra said “it was a nearly certain date,” as he stressed that talks with FPM leader MP Michel Aoun and the remaining parties were positive.
Following a meeting between the Future Movement, the LF and the March 14 Forces General Secretariat, Mashnouq was delegated by Future Movement bloc leader Fouad Siniora to reach an understanding with Speaker Nabih Berri, FPM leader Michel Aoun and Jumblatt over the proposal.
“Ongoing contacts made a big progress that led to a new proposal that takes into consideration all stances as well as that of the Labor ministry with regard to granting refugees a work permit but exempt them from fees,” Labor Minister, MP Butros Harb said Sunday.
In remarks published by the daily An-Nahar on Sunday, Mashnouq said Jumblatt expressed his understanding to postpone discussions on granting Palestinian refugees the right of property ownership and restrict talks to work and social security rights.
According to Mashnouq, the proposal would protect the Palestinian refugees’ identity by granting them work permits, as the international community would continue to provide the Palestinians health and educational services.
Meanwhile, the LF was relating to Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir the latest developments with regards to the ongoing talks over the issue.
Asked why the Phalange Party did not attend the meeting that joined the LF to the Future Movement and the March 14 Secretariat General, Zahra said Phalange Party leader Amin Gemayel’s travel schedule as well as that of his son, Sami, the party’s central committee coordinator, was behind the party’s absence.
However, the LF lawmaker added that the Phalange Party had been informed of the proposal’s details.
“We assured the patriarch that the party works on guaranteeing the best living conditions for our Palestinian brothers but the responsibility remains that of the international community through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency,” Social Affairs Minister Selim Sayegh said following a meeting with Sfeir.
The Phalange Party official added that the Lebanese state could not afford the financial burdens of improving the Palestinian refugees’ living conditions as the state’s social security fund suffered a budget deficit and could not meet the Lebanese people’s needs.
Similarly, Harb said Lebanon could not substitute for the international community when it comes to providing medical and health services to Palestinian refugees.
For his part, Sayegh stressed that his party rejected the social integration of the Palestinian refugees into Lebanon since it would deal a blow to the refugees’ right of return. – The Daily Star

Israel vows to prevent Libya aid boat from landing in Gaza

By Agence France Presse (AFP)
Monday, July 12, 2010
Hazel Ward
Agence France Presse
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: Israel on Sunday vowed to prevent a Libyan aid ship from running the Gaza blockade after it appeared to be heading for the besieged enclave despite a flurry of diplomatic efforts to divert it to Egypt.
“Israel will not let the boat reach Gaza,” minister without portfolio Yossi Peled told Israel’s public radio a day after the 92-meter freighter Amalthea set sail from the Greek port of Lavrio.
Allowing vessels to reach the Hamas-run Gaza Strip without being checked would have “very serious consequences” for Israel’s security, he said.
There was confusion over the ship’s destination on Sunday – with organizers saying it was staying the course for Gaza, despite diplomatic reassurances from Greece that it was headed for the Egyptian port of El-Arish.
“We are heading for Gaza. We will not change direction,” Mashallah Zwei, a representative of the Gadhafi Foundation, a Libyan charity, told AFP by satellite phone from on board the Amalthea.
He insisted the foundation was not seeking “a confrontation or a provocation,” when asked about the risks of a repeat of an Israeli naval raid on an aid flotilla on May 31 that killed nine Turks.
Zwei said the ship was currently “close to Crete” and would likely reach Gaza in about two days.
Israel’s Defense Minister Ehud Barak said the attempt to reach the Gaza Strip, which has been subjected to an Israeli naval blockade for the past four years, was an “unnecessary provocation.”
“We will not allow the entry of arms, weapons or anything which will support fighting into Gaza. We recommend that the organizers either let the ship be escorted by navy vessels to Ashdod port [in southern Israel] or that is sails directly to the port of El-Arish” in Egypt.
Meanwhile, Jordanian activists and trade unionists said Sunday they would seek to break the Gaza blockade by land next week.
“More than 150 people and 30 vehicles with aid, medicines and clothes will leave Amman for Gaza on Tuesday morning,” Wael Saqqa, head of the Jordan Engineers Association, told AFP on Sunday, adding that his group planned to head to Gaza through the Egyptian border town of El-Arish.

World Bank: Red tape still hurts businesses in Lebanon
Firms need lengthy 75 days just to get electricity connection

By The Daily Star
Monday, July 12, 2010
BEIRUT: The World Bank said Lebanon is still plagued with red tape and long bureaucratic procedures in government circles that negatively affect the business climate in the country.
The World Bank made these remarks a report on the of indicators for 140 economies that track all procedures, the time, and the cost required for a business to obtain an electricity connection for a newly constructed building, including an extension or expansion of the existing infrastructure. The report was carried by Byblos Bank Lebanon This Week publication.
It said the Getting Electricity Indicators reflect the efficiency and cost of the services provided to commercial customers by distribution utilities, the complexity of procedures, and the resources expanded by businesses to obtain a connection. It added that the new indicators provide insights into the regulatory aspects surrounding electricity connections and might serve as a proxy for some aspects of the quality of the electricity system.
The indicators show that a company in Lebanon requires five procedures to be connected to electricity, higher than the MENA region’s average of 4.8 procedures and the Arab average of 4.6 procedures, but lower than the upper middle income countries (UMICs) average of 5.6 procedures. Lebanon ranked in 49th place globally and in 7th place among 14 countries in the Arab world on the number of procedures required to provide an electricity connection to a company.
It also ranked in 6th place among 28 UMICs included in the survey. On a global basis, Lebanon tied with 47 other states, ranked ahead of 44 economies and came behind 48 countries. It also tied with 10 UMICs, ranked ahead of 12 economies and behind 5 nations.
Regionally, Lebanon tied with Oman, Morocco, Jordan, Bahrain and Syria, came ahead of Palestine and Egypt, and ranked behind Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, UAE, Yemen and Djibouti in this category.
Further, the World Bank figures show that it takes 75 days for a company in Lebanon to obtain a new electricity connection, higher than the Arab average of 71.9 days, but lower than the MENA region’s average of 78.9 days and the UMICs average of 110.7 days.
Lebanon ranked in 63rd place worldwide on the average time to obtain an electricity connection, while it came in 12th place in the Arab world and 11th among UMICs. Globally, Lebanon tied with Ethiopia, ranked ahead of Singapore and behind Argentina and El Salvador. It also came ahead of Serbia and behind Argentina among UMICs, and ranked ahead of Qatar and behind Bahrain in the Arab world.
Further, the World Bank indicators show that the cost required for a business to obtain an electricity connection in Lebanon is equivalent to 29.9 percent of income per capita in the country, lower than the MENA average of 1,355 percent of income per capita, as well as the UMICs average of 534.3 percent of income per capita and the Arab average of 1,473 percent of income per capita. Lebanon ranked in 17th place globally on the cost of obtaining an electricity connection, while it came in third place in the Arab world and in third place among UMICs.
On a global basis, Lebanon ranked ahead of Singapore and behind France. It also came ahead of Malaysia and behind Argentina among UMJICs, and ranked ahead of Bahrain and behind the UAE in the Arab world. The World Bank noted that the cost of both the electricity connection and the electricity supply is very important for businesses because electricity-related expenditures absorb a significant share of their revenues. It estimated that companies spend on average the equivalent of 4 percent of their annual sales on electricity alone, compared to 6.4 percent of their yearly sales on all other infrastructure services such as fuel, telecommunications services and water. – The Daily Star

Op-Ed: The long arm of Iran endangers Israel and the West
By Daniel S. Mariaschin · July 11, 2010
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Iran targeted Argentina’s Jews in a horrific car bomb attack 16 years ago. Now, as Tehran infiltrates Latin America, its aim is broader -- the Western Hemisphere.
Iran, the world’s largest and most successful state sponsor of terror, has gotten away with one of its most brazen and deadly acts for too long. On July 18, 1994, a bomb blew apart the AMIA (Argentina-Israelite Mutual Association) building in Buenos Aires. The blast killed 85 and wounded 300.
Symbolically, the damage was far greater as the building was home to the heart of the largest Jewish community in Latin America.
It is commonly accepted knowledge that Tehran was behind the attack. And in recent years, an Argentine prosecutor released a report detailing Iranian involvement and issued international arrest warrants for various Iranian leaders and a top Hezbollah official.
According to the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism, the prosecutor’s report concluded the primary reason that Argentina was the chosen target was the “government’s unilateral decision to terminate the nuclear materials and technology supply agreements that had been concluded some years previously between Argentina and Iran.” Iran’s quest for nuclear weapons and its capacity for vendettas goes back many years.
It is easy to dismiss this act of barbarism. After all, in the intervening years, the world has seen far more dramatic acts of terror. But we forget, and stand idle, at our peril.
Let us remember that prior to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, the Iranian terrorist arm, Hezbollah, had killed more Americans than any other terrorist group in the world.
Iran is lurking at our doorstep. And without some serious attention to the perils posed by Tehran, pretty soon it will come crashing through our door.
By forging new and successful alliances in Latin America, most notably with Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, Tehran has gained an advantage it has never before enjoyed -- proximity to the United States.
Iran exports a brand of hate that does not only target America or Jews. Iran has declared war on women, homosexuals, political opponents, even fellow Muslims who do not follow its extremist agenda and convoluted worldview. Its unrelenting quest to develop nuclear weapons, its blatant and wanton disregard of U.N. sanctions, and its constant threats against Israel make Iran potentially the most destabilizing force in the world today.
So far, Tehran has only managed to charm the most unstable of nations; those seeking to burnish their international bona fides by speaking out against the United States. But in many ways, that is what makes these alliances even more dangerous. Tehran can easily exploit regional grudges to import non-regional conflicts to the hemisphere. Using its petro-dollars, Iran lavishes contracts across Latin America to foster good will and generate revenue in nations badly in need of a positive economic infusion.
At a U.S. Senate Armed Services hearing last year, the commander of U.S. forces in Latin America, Adm. James Stavridis testified that "We have seen in
Colombia a direct connection between Hezbollah activity and the narco-trafficking activity." Not only is Hezbollah active in the hemisphere, but it has learned the drug trade and can now exploit those dangerous channels and connections at will.
Iran opened six embassies across Latin America in a five-year period. It is successfully infiltrating the hemisphere. Stavridis described Tehran’s efforts in the region as "proselytizing and working with Islamic activities throughout the region."
The greater the role Iran plays in Latin America, the more it undermines any positive influence of such regional groups as the Organization of American States and international groups such as the United Nations.
Law enforcement experts have determined that Hezbollah also was responsible for the 1992 truck bomb attack on Israel’s embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 and wounded 242. As Iran has demonstrated since these two deadly attacks in Argentina, it has a deep understanding of the complexities of Latin America and can exploit regional differences to destabilize ties and build new and dangerous alliances. It has done that in Venezuela, Ecuador, Nicaragua and Bolivia. This axis presents an unmistakable danger to democracies in the hemisphere.
The poorest and most disenfranchised people in many Latin American nations are ripe for Hezbollah recruiting. It is not difficult to envision a Hezbollah network made up of locals in many parts of the hemisphere. These recruits, with their language and familiarity of local customs, could easily fly below the radar of security watch dogs in plots against nearby democratic nations.
Argentina was Iran’s first target in the hemisphere. We cannot assume it will be the last. Let us finally learn the dire lesson from the Hezbollah attacks on Buenos Aires, gather like-minded democratic nations together, and demonstrate the value of positive alliances on political, social and economic grounds.
(Daniel S. Mariaschin is the executive vice president of B’nai B’rith International.)

UK envoy says sorry after causing outrage by praising Hezbollah cleric who backed suicide bombers
By Daily Mail Reporter
Last updated at 10:17 PM on 10th July 2010
Comments (23) Add to My Stories A British envoy yesterday said sorry for lauding an Ayatollah the White House had branded a terrorist.
Ambassador to Lebanon Frances Guy had called Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, who died last week, a 'true man of religion' and said the world needed more like him.
But Fadlallah, Lebanon's leading Shia Muslim cleric, was linked to Hezbollah militants and some in the US blamed him for the 1983 bombing of the US embassy in Beirut.
Apology: British ambassador in Lebanon Frances Guy, pictured meeting with late Lebanese Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, praised the late Shiite cleric
Israel said he inspired 'suicide bombings, assassinations and all kinds of wanton violence'.
The Foreign Office said yesterday that Ms Guy's internet posting praising Fadlallah had been removed 'after mature consideration'.
In a new posting, Ms Guy, our ambassador for nearly four years, said: 'I recognise that some of my words have upset people. This was certainly not my intention.'
She added that she had only meant to acknowledge Fadlallah's 'spiritual significance to many'

Hezbollah has regained control over southern Lebanon
09.07.10/Haaretz
Four years after the Second Lebanon War, the Shi'ite group has managed to rebuild its military capabilities across from Israel's northern frontier. Still, most sources say it's not interested in another round of fighting.
By Avi Issacharoff Four years after the Second Lebanon War, Hezbollah can credit itself with yet another achievement in its campaign against Israel: southern Lebanon is once again in its hands. According to various assessments, the Shi'ite organization has rebuilt its military capabilities north of the Litani River, where it has established a network of missile launchers any army in the world would be proud to possess. Furthermore, it has repaired the infrastructure of the Shi'ite villages south of the Litani that were severely hit in the war.
Lebanese Shi’ite women marching in Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah's
The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon, which was deployed to southern Lebanon in 2006 in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution 1701 - passed at the end of the war - was supposed to prevent such activity. In recent months, however, UNIFIL has been harassed by Shi'ite villagers in the southern part of the country who are apparently acting on Hezbollah's orders. The international peacekeeping force, particularly its French battalion, has been repeatedly humiliated by the local population. Villagers have hurled stones and eggs at them, and have even seized soldiers' weapons. UNIFIL's commander, Maj. Gen. Alberto Asarta Cuevas, this week asked the Lebanese government to protect his troops.
The confrontation Hezbollah initiated with the French contingent has renewed the internal debate in Lebanon - between the Shi'ite organization and the Al-Mustaqbal camp headed by Lebanese Prime Minister Said Hariri (and thought to be under French patronage ). While Hezbollah hinted that UNIFIL's French battalion is serving "foreign" (namely, Israeli ) interests, Hariri flew to Paris to conciliate President Nicolas Sarkozy and clarify that Lebanon is interested in keeping French troops on its soil.
'Not a knockout blow'
Thus, one of Israel's chief accomplishments in the Second Lebanon War - distancing Hezbollah from its northern frontier - is slowly vanishing. The Shi'ite organization, which was dealt a severe blow in the summer of 2006, has recovered at an impressive rate in the military, civilian and political spheres.
"It was not a knockout blow, but it was sufficiently painful to force Hezbollah to grow up," says Prof. Eyal Zisser, an expert on Syria and Lebanon, the director of Tel Aviv University's Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, and the university's dean of humanities.
"Since the war, the organization has been presenting a more controlled, a more restrained, stance," he says. "It's the kind of experience that makes you or breaks you. On the other hand, its scars from the war will lead it to think many times over before it tries to face off with Israel again."
In the last Lebanese parliamentary elections, in 2009, Hezbollah's political standing changed very little. Initially its leaders admitted defeat, but the organization actually lost only one seat when compared to the previous elections, while its Christian partner in the anti-West camp, former army chief Michel Aoun, increased his political strength and clarified that Lebanon's Maronites support Hezbollah.
Nevertheless, the group is limited by Lebanon's electoral system as the Shi'ites in that country are allocated a maximum of 27 parliamentary seats. Perhaps this explains why Hezbollah is steadily tightening its military foothold in Lebanon. The Lebanese army, which receives American assistance, avoids clashing with Hezbollah, which is also interested in maintaining "industrial peace" with the army.
For the moment, at least - despite the unprecedented rate at which it is arming itself - Hezbollah apparently is not looking for another round of fighting with Israel, preferring instead to focus on a gradual takeover of Lebanon. Still, it should be recalled that in early July 2006, a few days before the war broke out, the assessment in Lebanon was that Hezbollah was not interested in a confrontation with Israel.
The death of Grand Ayatollah Fadlallah
Last Sunday, Grand Ayatollah Sayyed Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died in Beirut at the age of 75. One of the most important Shi'ite religious figures in the Muslim world, Fadlallah was regarded as one of Hezbollah's founders and as its spiritual leader in the 1980s. He was also one of the most fascinating Shi'ite religious leaders in the modern world. Although his religious rulings were a model for emulation for hundreds of thousands of followers, they also led to clashes with the Shi'ite religious institutions in Iran.
Born in 1935 in Najaf, Iraq, his father was a native of Lebanon. Fadlallah wrote poetry until the age of 12, when he began attending one of the city's Shi'ite madrassas (religious schools ). In 1966 he moved to Lebanon, where he engaged in religious studies as well as social welfare work among the Shi'ite community.
Displaying a marked interest in the status of women in Muslim society, Fadlallah argued that lack of equality between husband and wife ran counter to the Koran. In addition, he held relatively progressive views on abortions, maintaining that the procedure could be performed at any stage in the pregnancy if the fetus was endangering the mother's health.
On the topic of men doing household chores, Fadlallah wrote that the "social culture of ignorance, not Islam, is the source of the argument that a man humiliates himself if he does household chores." He even explained that Ali, regarded by Shi'ite Muslims as the first imam, used to help his wife Fatima (the prophet Mohammed's daughter ) with housework and that, when the prophet asked her to bake bread, Ali himself would clean the house and gather firewood.
Fadlallah also encouraged women to study Islamic religious law, to provide commentary on religious texts and to discuss such matters even with men.
While Fadlallah expressed total support for the Islamic revolution in Iran in 1979, he challenged the authority of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini and his entourage, and repeatedly warned the members of the Islamic movement to beware of charismatic leaders (specifically mentioning Khomeini in that context ) whose personalities overshadow the message they are supposed to be conveying to their public. In 1982, he began setting up a network of social service agencies in Lebanon, as an emissary of his spiritual mentor and role model, Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Abul-Qassim al-Khoei, whom he regarded as the Marja al-Taqlid (a religious authority to be followed and emulated ) - despite the fact that Hezbollah and Iran considered Khomeini to be the Marja al-Taqlid.
Face-off with Iran and Hezbollah
Following Khomeini's death in 1989, the question of who would inherit the mantle of the Marja al-Taqlid in the Shi'ite world took on ever-increasing urgency. Fadlallah regarded Grand Ayatollah al-Khoei as his Marja al-Taqlid, as did many other people in the Shi'ite world. With al-Khoei's death in 1993, Grand Ayatollah Golpayegani of Iran became Fadlallah's Marja al-Taqlid. It was after Golpayegani died that the crisis between Fadlallah, Hezbollah and Iran really began to play out more openly.
Tehran proclaimed Ayatollah Sheikh Mohsen Araki, who was over 100 years old at the time, as the Shi'ite Marja al-Taqlid - a move intended to pave the way for the ascension of Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (following Araki's death ). Fadlallah, however, announced his own support for Ayatollah Sistani, who at the time resided in Najaf.
At that point, Hezbollah declared its backing for Tehran's position and announced that its members must support Araki and must not regard anyone else as the Marja al-Taqlid. Araki died in December 1994; three months later, Iran declared Khamenei's appointment to that senior post. Fadlallah argued that Iran was simply trying to bolster its own political-religious position among the Muslim Shi'ites; he continued to support Sistani, and as a result was severely criticized by other Shi'ite religious leaders. His mosque was banned and, on one occasion, shots were fired at his car. Although he later reconciled with Hezbollah leaders, Fadlallah still kept his distance from them. Refusing to recognize Iran's leadership in the Shi'ite world, he maintained his religious autonomy and chose his own unique political path.

Lebanon Press: Israel war far from over
Beitur-based al-Akhbar newspaper says both parties 'look ready to leap back into action and are prepared both in terms of capacities and incentives'
AFP Published: 07.12.10, 14:49 / Israel News
Lebanon's conflict with Israel is still far from over, Beirut-based dailies warned on Monday, four years to the day since the first bombs fell in the last war between Hezbollah and the Jewish state. "The July War is not over," declared the front-page headline in the Arabic-language al-Akhbar newspaper. "Four years after the end of the war... both parties look ready to leap back into action and are prepared both in terms of capacities and incentives," read the article in al-Akhbar, which is close to the Shiite militant party.

Hezbollah says has list of targets in Israel

AP and Ali Waked
Sheikh Nabil Kaouk responds to IDF's release of maps and aerial photographs of weapons depots and command centers in southern Lebanon, says Shiite group has bank of military targets inside Israel to hit in any future war The month-long war was triggered by the kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah in a cross-border raid on July 12, 2006. The fighting that ensued destroyed much of Lebanon's major infrastructure and killed about 1,200 Lebanese, mainly civilians, and 160 Israelis, most of them soldiers. Security Council Resolution 1701 ended the conflict and beefed up the UNIFIL peacekeeping force deployed in southern Lebanon since 1978. But tensions between the two foes have risen again after Israel accused Syria of smuggling Scud missiles to its ally Hezbollah, a charge Damascus denies. Israel's military says the Shiite group has a stock of some 40,000 rockets and this month published aerial photographs showing what it says is evidence of Hezbollah stockpiling weapons in towns and villages near the border. "Israel... argues that Hezbollah took the state hostage, revamped and reinforced its arsenal and now is attacking UN peacekeepers via the people of southern Lebanon, who are at their beck and call," read the editorial in the French-language daily L'Orient Le Jour. 'War on Muslims in Turkey' After decades of smooth ties with southern Lebanese, UNIFIL this month became the target of villagers who took to the streets to protest a maximum deployment exercise by the blue-helmeted troops. In the most notable confrontation, residents of the southern town of Tulin disarmed a French patrol and attacked them with sticks, rocks and eggs before the Lebanese army intervened. One prominent daily on Monday tied the war anniversary to Israel's raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla on May 31, in which nine Turks were killed. "It is July 12 yet again and here we are, entering the fifth year of Israel's open war on Lebanon, but rather on all Arabs and on Muslims in Turkey," read a column by Talal Salman, owner of the daily as-Safir which is also close to Hezbollah. "There is one lesson to be learned: steadfastness is the shortest route to victory, along with... unity and awareness of the nature of the enemy," Salman wrote.

Delusions and Truths in South Lebanon

Sun, 11 July 2010
Elias Harfoush
http://www.daralhayat.com/portalarticlendah/161874
Delusions often take place as a result of false inferences, and lead to conclusions that have nothing to do with reality. Among these delusions are those endorsed by some Lebanese (including officials, unfortunately), regarding the function of the UNIFIL peacekeeping troops in the south, as stipulated by United Nations Security Council Resolution 1701. After the recent clashes and the dispute between the UNIFIL and the “people” in the south, it appeared there were misconceptions regarding the work of these troops: That UNIFIL is obliged to coordinate with the Lebanese Army in its work and movements on the ground. However, after the attacks on UNIFIL, the Lebanese government was obliged to issue a declaration affirming its concern for the safety of international troops, and stressing the importance of their role, based on UNSC resolution 1701. The government quickly sent a document detailing this stance to Ambassador Nawaf Salam, Beirut’s representative at the Security Council, which discussed the situation in the south and issued a statement that was endorsed by all of its members (including Lebanon), calling on all parties to “ensure that the freedom of movement of UNIFIL remains respected in conformity with its mandate and its rules of engagement” in the south. For whoever opted not to thoroughly read the text of UNSC resolution 1701, or opted to understand it in his or her own way, the French ambassador to the UN, Gérard Araud, said the margin of maneuver for UN troops in the south should be absolute, and that while coordination with the Lebanese Army is something that is welcomed, it is not mandatory.
Among the delusions that have also prevailed in Lebanon in the wake of the Israeli offensive of the summer of 2006 is that Lebanon had emerged “victorious” as a result of this war. It is a delusion with no corroboration for it on the ground, and is a delusion also given the human and material losses suffered by the country, or at the level of the security arrangements south of the Litani River, which is what we are talking about here. At the time, the government tried, with all of its diplomatic capabilities, to halt the Israeli offensive by boosting the number of UN troops to 13000, in addition to an increase in Lebanese Army units and their deployment in this region, after decades of absence. The government also agreed on the need to keep the areas where the army and the UNIFIL operate free of any other armed presence, whether in terms of personnel or ammunition. At the time, this enjoyed the endorsement of all groups, including Hezbollah, which allowed the Security Council to increase the number of troops and deploy them to the border area. In other words, the practical implementation on the ground of the delusion of “victory” that has prevailed in Lebanon in the last four years, involved removing forces that used to fight Israel away from its borders, while Israeli forces remained in their positions on the border, in addition to the establishment of a no-man’s land north of the Israeli border, extending 40 kilometers into Lebanon. This is the region that the Israelis feel constitutes a threat to their settlements, and which the Lebanese Army and UNIFIL are tasked with ensuring is free of weapons, based on the provisions of resolution 1701. This is what has happened, but the “people” were later told that the UNIFIL troops came to the south to prevent an Israeli offensive. This is true, but it is only half of the mission. The other half involves preventing the use of the area of UNIFIL operations to ignite a new war.
If it were not for these mistaken readings, and the media’s rush to play the “patriotic” card, the political and military authorities in Lebanon (the government and the Army command) would not have been obliged to fully backtrack, over seven days. This does not enhance the credibility of a country that is currently a member of the Security Council, and does not enhance its dignity among the world’s nations.
A high-ranking state official said, immediately after the events in the south, that even if the army itself did what UNIFIL troops did, the “people” would confront it with protests! This official was talking about the army of his own country! Meanwhile, the Army Commander General Jean Qahwaji was quoted by An-Nahar newspaper as accusing UNIFIL troops of having Israeli lists with the names of homeowners in the south, to search for hidden weapons, ignoring the fact that statements like these do not help bolster the required trust in the UN troops. He also ignored the fact that the mission of the troops requires that they prevent any non-state weapons from being present in this region, and that they can receive any similar complaints from the Lebanese about Israeli violations of 1701, and it is their duty to investigate them. However, the Army commander himself later said, after the issue reached the Security Council, that “igniting incidents in the south was a mistake,” and acknowledged the negative consequences for Lebanon.