LCCC ENGLISH NEWS BULLETIN
September 28/06
Biblical Reading For Today
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Luke 9,1-6.
He summoned the Twelve and gave them power and authority over all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them to proclaim the kingdom of God and to heal (the sick). He said to them, "Take nothing for the journey, neither walking stick, nor sack, nor food, nor money, and let no one take a second tunic. Whatever house you enter, stay there and leave from there. And as for those who do not welcome you, when you leave that town, shake the dust from your feet in testimony against them." Then they set out and went from village to village proclaiming the good news and curing diseases everywhere.
New Opinions
Mr. Saniora Give peace a Chance. By: Elias Bejjani-GlobalComment.com.UK28.09.06
An Opportunity for Peace. By: Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé . Al_Hayat 28/09/06
The Battle of Destroying the State.By: Daoud Shirian. Al-Hayat 28/09/06
Will Oil Price Remain in the Range of $60 Per Barrel? By: Randa Takieddin 28.09.06
The Free Patriotic Movement-Hizbullah alignment: a shaky future-Al-Bawaba 28.9.06Latest New from the Daily Star for September 28/06
Security fences are no answer to political problems
Non-combatants in South move to engage international forces
Siniora: End occupation or cease-fire may be in peril
Jewish state presses bid to dictate UNIFIL's rules of engagement
Moallem touts Syrian cooperation with Hariri probe
Mitri heads for Francophone summit
Hizbullah number two lashes out at Siniora's 'failed' government
Disturbed man causes stir in Qoreitem
Israeli cluster bomb kills 1 child, wounds 3 near Marjayoun
Judicial Council settles on 500 appointments
Berri mocks Rice for suggesting split between his party and Hizbullah
Beirut International Film Festival returnsIsrael names new general for Lebanon, Syria fronts-Reuters
Fadlallah Charges Every Sect in Lebanon Except his Own Wants to-Naharnet
Offer reform for Hizbullah's weapons -By Michael Young
Latest New from Miscellaneous sources for September 28/06Despite UN calls, no side moving to disarm Hezbollah-International Herald Tribune
Rice: Lebanon Situation 'Very Fragile'-AINA,
US And Israel Get Tough On Syria-All Headline News
Hizbullah Returning To Israel-Lebanon Border-Jewish Press
Belgian troops arrive in Lebanon to join UN force-Reuters
Israelis on Lebanon border worriedly await next war-Reuters
Canada's PM, Mr.Harper off to francophone summit in Romania-Globe and Mail
Lebanese helicopters patrol Lebanese-Syria borders-Kuwait News Agency
US And Israel Get Tough On Syria-All Headline News
Report: Bulgaria to contribute navy ship to Lebanon peacekeeping-International Herald Tribune
Holy Land short on appeal for German tourists-Independent Online
Hariri rejects Hezbollah call for cabinet change-Peninsula On-line
Israel Says Its Troops to Leave Lebanon by Sunday-New York Times
Poll: Most Palestinians favor following Hezbollah tactics -International Herald Tribune
Israel extends Hamas, Hezbollah remands-United Press International
An Israeli expert on Hezbollah is slated to address the US -Jewish Telegraphic Agency
US, Syria spar and Rice calls for sanctions-Reuters
Military Draft Needed For War With Iran And Syria?CounterCurrents.org
Iraq has 'shaped terrorist leaders'-Independent
Israel forced to release Deputy Palestinian Prime Minister-Unison.ie, Ireland
Musharraf: Pakistan will eventually recognize IsraelYnetnews
'Israel won't allow Iran to have nuke'-Kuwait Times
Rice: Lebanon Situation 'Very Fragile'
Posted GMT 9-27-2006
Beirut -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has said the situation in Lebanon was still "very fragile" following the Israeli offensive on Lebanon, and warned of possible assassination attempts of figures associated with the March 14 group and the moderate consensus. Rice also said that "what really is going on in the Middle East, the kind of sharpening between extremist forces and moderate forces," adding that "what will be interesting and important is how that plays out over the next, now, probably several years."
"But on the one side, clearly, the moderate Arab states, Saudi, Egypt, Jordan, the weak but democratizing moderates in Iraq, Lebanon,-- and by that, I mean Maliki, Saniora, Abu Mazen in the Palestinian Territories; and then on the other side, Hizbullah, Hamas, and really supported by Iranian influence and sort of Syrian transit," she said. Rice's remarks came in three separate interviews with the N.Y. Times, The N.Y. Post and the Washington Post released Monday and Tuesday. Rice said she hoped that this would mean that "you're going to see much stronger support for some of these moderate, young, relatively still weak democratic forces."
"I thought that the meeting that we had on the Iraqi Compact was a sort of sign of that, the fact that the Saudis put up a billion-and-a-half dollars in no time for the Lebanese Government, I think, to counter Iranian influence," Rice told the N.Y. Times.
In her comments to the Wall Street Journal Rice said she believed the Syrians "look as if they've made their choice and their choice is to associate with extremist forces in Iran, not with their traditional -- calling it allies is not quite right -- the traditional partners like the Arab states."The U.S. Secretary of State said she believed "that will cost Syria, and I'm not certain how ultimately stable that configuration is to Syria."Responding to a question whether Lebanon was moving backwards after the Israeli-Hizbullah war, Rice told the N.Y. Times: "Lebanon had come to a standstill politically well before the Hizbullah attack … (but) things had begun to move, some of them sideways, some of them forward, but they have begun to move. I'm not sure that anything has begun to move backwards."
Rice added that she believed Hizbullah was "a little bit off balance as to what the new political configuration is going to do." She said: "It is very fragile and one thing that we really have to keep an eye on is intimidation and possibly even attempts at assassination of figures associated with March 14th and the moderate consensus."That's "why I think you see Nasrallah out in the streets first saying, Well, if I had known, I wouldn't have done what I did and if I had known there were going to be one percent, I wouldn't have" -- and then saying, "No, no, I would have done it," and then trying to get people into the streets," she said. About the Israeli onslaught on Lebanon, Rice told the N.Y. Post that the United States "did have a discussion with the Israelis about not going to war against Lebanon, going to war against Hizbullah."She added: "But it's difficult when a country -- or when a terrorist group uses human shields, which they did, embeds itself in the population, uses the infrastructure to its own adv advantage. It's hard to make the separation." The United States is hoping to convince its allies to back new sanctions against Syria in response to its purported role in destabilizing Lebanon and Iraq and supporting the radical Palestinian movement Hamas, she said.
"We're going to have to look at tougher measures if Syria continues to be on the path that it's on," Rice told The Wall Street Journal.
"The Syrians look as if they've made their choice and their choice is to associate with extremist forces in Iran, not with their ... traditional partners like the Arab states," she told the Journal. Asked why Washington has only used relatively mild sanctions against Syria, Rice suggested the U.S. had been held back by the reticence of European and Arab allies. "What we'd really like to do is we'd like to get some others to join us in other kinds of sanctions," she said. "And I think as Syria continues to show its stripes and isolate itself from its Arab friends, that may be somewhat easier to do," she said. www.naharnet.com
© 2006, Assyrian International News Agency. All Rights Reserved. Terms of Use.
The Free Patriotic Movement-Hizbullah alignment: a shaky future
© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
Posted: 27-09-2006
Despite the fact that the political alliance between the Free Patriotic Movement led by MP Michel Aoun and Hizbullah was further solidified during the July-August war between the latter and Israel, there remain significant disputes over several key issues between these two Lebanese movements.
The resistance on Aoun’s part to fully "integrate" into Hizbullah's policies, along with his preference to distance himself in recent times from pro-Syrian figures, shows that there may be lurk additional interests beyond joint and declared interests.
Another important point in this regard, is the Christian politician's opposition to accept the Taif Accord. Aoun indicated clear resistance to the accord in a recent interview published September 16. Some observers maintain that this objection may not necessarily be in accord with Hizbullah's view on the 1989 agreement. Generally speaking, the Taif Accord transferred power away from the Lebanese presidency, traditionally given to Christian Maronites, and directed it instead to a cabinet divided equally between Muslims and Christians. In recent days, senior members in the Free Patriotic Movement have begun to direct criticism towards their leader regarding his conduct with Hizbullah. An example of such criticism is clearly demonstrated in recent comments by Aoun, while meeting his movement's senior staff: "It is illogical to accuse the movement of trying to stage a coup…" Or, alternately, regarding the arms issue: "The demand for disarmament failed to create an atmosphere of complete trust." Such remarks by Aoun expose substantial internal pressure upon him, further explaining his closing words at the recent movement meeting calling on others to "Ignore the dirty rumors on the street."Aoun's attempts to restore his shaky status in the Christian community are indicative of his declining popularity among the supporters of the Free Patriotic Movement. Many in the Christian camp explain this trend by citing the feeling that Aoun deserted them, and instead gave his support to Hizbullah and Syria. A review of talkbacks in internet forums related to the Free Patriotic Movement over the past few weeks reveals that the internal criticism of many readers centers on the strong ties between Hizbullah and Iran, a fact that has undoubtedly led many of the Movement’s supporters to look negatively on Aoun's contacts with Hizbullah. Thus, this issue and others connected to Hizbullah's stances, along with the numerous "grey" areas of lack of understanding between the Free Patriotic Movement and Hizbullah, lead many to assume that despite the apparent fortitude of such a political tie-up in Lebanon presently, the partnership is unlikely to survive on the political horizon for much longer.
© 2006 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
The Battle of Destroying the State
Daoud Shirian Al-Hayat - 27/09/06//
Some on the political scene in Lebanon were really looking forward to the speech made by the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, during the 'Divine Victory' celebration, thinking he would deliver the speech of a victor. Instead he lectured the audience with the bitterness of the defeated, transferring competition from a difference of opinion into sharp divisions of positions. In the process, he provided his political rivals with a tremendous opportunity to express their true feelings and positions that they were forced to conceal because of the defeat and destruction wrote on by the first days following the ceasefire. By doing this, Sayyed Hassan Nassrallah has ushered in the post-war stage, declaring from southern Beirut the mission of destroying the State: the objective that the war failed to achieve.
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah began by telling the amassed crowds that his appearance in public was a danger both to him and them, lest Israel target him while he was delivering his speech. But he consulted his brethren and took a firm decision, as his feelings and sense of self would not allow the Sayyed to talk to his beloved audience via a screen. Nasrallah's fears were shared by the people, or spread among the people, and he successfully exploited this issue at the opening of the speech to spark the morale of the listeners that made pilgrimage to the Sayyed from the southernmost region.
However, what he did not declare was that his consultations with the party officials were on 'how' to talk. Should he rephrase his apologies and declare once again that he had miscalculated, and that his refusal to hand over the two Israeli soldiers destroyed the country, and that he caused the prisoners to remain in Israel's prisons and did not liberate the country? He neglected to mention how he drew all the armies of the world to protect Israel and constricted any military action against Israel. I ask you, could this speech be acceptable to those who vacated their homes and left their children to directly watch and listen to Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah? Moreover, what effect will the direction this speech has taken have on the status of the party and the popularity of its leader?
The problem is not the audience. They flocked to southern Beirut from the early morning in the vain hope of hearing something reassuring, that all the devastation that befell their country will not be repeated and that the villages will be rebuilt and schools re-established. They wanted to hear a speech that would promise them calm and peace. The people wanted guarantees from the Sayyed that their lives would not be held hostage for an ounce of politics and interests and alliances. Unfortunately, they heard nothing of the kind when Nassrallah took the situation back to square one. Instead of talking about the magnitude of the reconstruction fees and the money needed to return the migrants, he talked about how many missiles he had at his disposal and his insistence on armed struggle. He, in effect, told the people: be prepared, since we may have to destroy your homes once again.
Only the optimists were the ones that expected the Sayyed to go beyond the character of the military leader and the language of threats, and lean toward diplomacy and dash the hopes of his rivals inside and outside Lebanon. Hezbollah could have, if it had wanted to, achieved all this without this destructive war. The opportunity was laid before it on the table of dialogue, and those discoursing with Hezbollah at the time were willing to give it more than it expected if it had agreed to embroil itself in the project of the State. But the party thought otherwise, because the weapon of the Resistance, in its understanding, is a strategic choice, and that giving it up is a matter it has already settled.
Therefore, everything the Sayyed said in his last delivery over disarming is just time-wasting talk. Hezbollah's arms will remain until Hezbollah itself becomes the State, and before this price is paid, Hezbollah will not give up its arms. On this basis, we can surmise the form of the coming battle. It will be a battle of destroying the Lebanese State as Hezbollah sees that this State does not deserve to protect Lebanon. Other concerned parties see that Hezbollah, in this form, is an obstacle on the way to building the State.
In what manner will the coming fierce battle be expressed? Will the country enter a new civil war, or is this not a viable option because of Israel's security and the presence of foreign troops? Will the war consist only of assassinations and sabotage? It is hard to guess what will take place next, but what cannot be disputed is that division exists in Lebanon now, and this portends great dangers ahead. The country needs many years to become stable once again, as the situation in Lebanon has reached the point of breaking bones.
Before any bones are broken, the country will be decimated economically and politically and go back to a stage worse than that experienced during the days of the civil war. Nonetheless, there is the hope that a constructive reconciliation project will rise on the foundation of reorganizing the sectarian prorata that offers the Shiites some political value in exchange for their weapons that will be disarmed one way or another.
An Opportunity for Peace
Miguel Ángel Moratinos CuyaubéAl_Hayat - 27/09/06//
Few days before the fifteenth anniversary of the Madrid Conference, it should be clear by now that we are carrying forward a problem from the last century into the new millennium. It must not be allowed to drag on any longer. The latest violent clashes between Israel and Lebanon have not resolved any of the pending issues between them. Once again, the resort to violent conflict in order to reach a global or partial solution to the Middle East conflict has proven useless. Far from contributing to any solution, the fifty-year long outbreaks of war in the region have only served to widespread suffering and to exacerbate the political, economic and social divisions among the people in the region.
The recent crisis has once again showed that policies stemming from a unilateral definition of the future status quo of the region are simply not feasible. On the other hand, peace agreements with Egypt and Jordan have allowed Israel to feel safe with those neighbours and are clearly more useful to consolidate Israel´s relations with its neighbours. However, this argument works both ways: denying Israel its right to exist behind secure frontiers and upholding the use of violence and terrorism to wipe out the State of Israel are another side of the sterile unilateralism that should be condemned and eradicated for the sake of a fair, definitive peace.
The experience of recent months has further emphasised the key importance of the Palestine-Israeli conflict. Healing this wound has become more urgent than ever as an essential condition for solving the remaining regional problems. The idea of a new Palestine government of national unity and the emerging consensus between the Palestine political forces regarding cessation of hostilities and negotiation with Israel on the basis of agreements adopted between the PLO and Israel, are definitely a sign of progress. I trust that we can make some headway on both tracks in the near future. In this context, the international community should overcome its hesitancy and fully accept the role of the President of the Palestine National Authority, a strategic partner with whom Israel must discuss the application of already-defined measures to create trust and enter into negotiations on substantive political questions.
Another lesson from the recent Lebanese crisis is that the conflicts devastating the Middle East cannot be tackled separately. On the contrary, the problems and their solutions are increasingly interdependent. Thus, it would not be realistic to exclude any regional stakeholder from the diplomatic efforts in order to find a global solution.
In this context, the number of those demanding a new virtuous cycle of political mobilisation is on the rise. The Arab countries, jointly through the Arab League, have signalled their intent to advance down the promising path opened at the 2002 Beirut Summit, which advocated a peace based on the two-State formula. Everyone agrees that the parties need substantive foreign support to foster the diplomatic efforts and guarantee their success. Without questioning the importance of the United States, the European Union and its Member States have emerged as indispensable players in the Middle East. On top of their decisive contribution to attenuating the latest crisis and their traditional donor role, the EU States' involvement in providing and guaranteeing security in southern Lebanon and on the Rafah border shows how that the new and firm commitment of Europe to the peace process is essential. In this context, Spain has become an especially qualified actor, with an important contribution to make in the political field as well as regarding security and cooperation.
In my opinion, the role of the European Union and the United States should lead to a revival of the Madrid Quartet, which could incorporate the added value of some key countries from the region, thus multiplying the Quartet´s capacity to bring a new chance to the peace process. It may be timely for all the stakeholders to meet again, as they did in 1991, to re-affirm their commitment to seeking a global solution.
I remain deeply convinced that we must avoid inventing new solutions, but rather this is the time to show courage, generosity and political will to implement options aiming to equitable solutions that have already been examined in previous rounds of negotiations.
All in all, we must distance ourselves from those who manipulate the frustration of the populations living in the Middle East and falsely proclaim the West to be incompatible with the Islamic world. To avoid further deterioration of the current situation, we must grab the opportunity before us and get down to constructing a fair, global peace in the region without further delay. The painfully dramatic events of the last few months in the Middle East and the humanitarian catastrophe they have triggered should have the paradoxical effect of providing some lessons and setting in motion a process of political action spearheaded by the Governments in the region, with the assistance of the most important international stakeholders. In this sense, and beyond the immediate and clearly vital objective of ensuring its effective and rigorous implementation, United Nations' Security Council Resolution 1701(2006) should foster a new regional and international political dynamic.
Miguel Ángel Moratinos Cuyaubé
MINISTRO DE ASUNTOS EXTERIORES Y DE COOPERACIÓN
* Original English
The Pope, the Emperor and the Persian Preacher
22/09/2006
By: Amir Taheri
was born in Iran and educated in Tehran, London and Paris. Between 1980 and 1984 he was Middle East editor for the London Sunday Times. Taheri has been a contributor to the International Herald Tribune since 1980. He has also written for The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. Taheri has published nine books some of which have been translated into 20 languages, and In 1988 Publishers'' Weekly in New York chose his study of Islamist terrorism, "Holy Terror", as one of The Best Books of The Year. He has been a columnist Asharq Alawsat since 1987
Previous Articles Let us get one thing out of the way first. The Pope, like anyone else, has the right to express his opinions, even if, he offends some people. Those who disagree with him also have the right to respond by exercising freedom of speech. However, they are not allowed to kill priests and burn churches- acts expressly forbidden in Islam. Now let us turn to what Pope Benedict XVI had to say in his lecture at the University of Regenburg in Germany last week. Contrary to first impressions, the lecture was not aimed primarily as an attack on Islam as a faith that, divorced from reason, is violent. The Pope's principal target was Protestant Christianity in all its versions.
The Pope's thesis is simple: from early days, thanks to Saint Paul, Christianity discovered Hellenic philosophy. This "distillation" was a rapprochement between Biblical faith and Greek enquiry. According to Benedict: " Despite the bitter conflict with those Hellenistic rulers who sought to accommodate it forcibly to the customs and idolatrous cult of the Greeks, biblical faith, in the Hellenistic period, encountered the best of Greek thought at deep level, resulting in a mutual enrichment evident especially in the later wisdom literature." In other words, what emerged was no longer Christianity as its founders intended, but a new synthesis of "genuine enlightenment and religion." Throughout the lecture, Benedict juxtaposes faith and reason, creating a dialectic he uses for an attack on Protestantism that, he claims, started the process of "de-hellenisation" of Christianity with the Reformation in the 16th century. The process continued with "the liberal theology of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries" inspired by Pascal's distinction between the God of philosophers and the God of Abraham. In that second stage, the message of "liberal theologians was to" return simply to the man Jesus and his simple message, underneath the accretions of theology and, indeed, of hellenisation. "There are several problems with Benedict's analysis.
First, he assumes that religions need the imprimatur of Reason that, despite giving it a capital R, he does not define. Later, he attacks what he calls "a modern concept of reason" which he defines as "a synthesis between Platonism (Cartesianism) and empiricism-a synthesis confirmed by the success of technology."One is left wondering whether there is an ultimate Reason against which religions could be measured.
The fact, however, is that all that a religious system needs is to be reasonable in its own terms, that is to say have its inner logic and consistency.
Seen from the point of view of scientific reason, all religions would appear unreasonable. At the same time, even the most successful religions would appear unreasonable, when, judged in terms of other faiths. (For example, a Buddhist might find Christianity unreasonable and vice-versa).
Benedict's core message is an argument in favour of organised religion and a rejection of secular ethics that he sees as a fruit of the scientific revolution.
He says: "The subject decides, on the basis of his experiences, what he considers tenable in matters of religion, and the subjective 'conscience' becomes the sole arbiter of what is ethical. In this way, though, ethics and religion lose their power to create a community and becomes a completely personal matter."According to Benedict we now have "a third stage of de-hellenisation" symbolised by multiculturalism, especially in Europe.
Benedict presents Christianity as a co-production, a synthesis of Abrahamic faith and Greek philosophy, and tries to reformulate it as an ideology for the West, more specifically Europe. Benedict says: " The West has long been endangered by {} aversion to questions which underlie its rationality, and can only suffer great harm by them."Since a majority of Christians are not Europeans, Benedict's Eurocentric position is intended not as a religious message but as a political appeal to Europeans to re-discover their identities as "Hellenised Christians" in the face of mass immigration by peoples of other faiths, especially Islam. In this way Christianity becomes an aspect of European culture and an expression of identity even of atheists in the West.
It is against that background that the Pope's reference to Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologos should be analysed.
Sometime in 1391 of the Christian era, the Emperor received a Persian preacher (da'ee) in a barracks near Ankara, now Turkey's capital. The two engaged in dialogues lasting several days, dealing with the structures of faith in the Bible and the Koran.
This was not unusual as the tradition of sending da'ees to invite non-Muslims, especially foreign rulers, to Islam had been shaped over centuries. In his notes about the dialogue, Paleologos says that he told the visiting Persian scholar that Muhammad had commanded that his faith be spread by the sword.
There are several problems with this.
To start with, Paleologos could not have known what Muhammad had said.
At the time, there were no Greek or Latin translations of the Koran. (The first translations appeared decades after that encounter in Ankara.) Lacking enough information, Paleologos was, therefore, engaging in propaganda rather than a theological dispute.
The presence of the Persian da'ee, presumed to be Rashidedeen of Baylaqan, showed that Muslims wished to spread their faith through propagation rather than the sword. While always seeking to extend its territory, Islam seldom used the sword to force conversions. For example, Indonesia, the world's most populous Muslim country, was never part of any Islamic empire.
There is another problem with Benedict's account of the encounter. He has only one side of the story. Had he studied the Persian scholar's side, he would have found out two important facts.
The first is that, at the time, Muslims were better versed in Greek philosophy than Christians were. After it was adopted as the official religion of the Roman Empire by Constantine the Great, Christianity organised a campaign of de-hellenisation that wiped the achievements of Greek philosophy from European collective memory for centuries. Without exaggerating the importance of Islam's role in rediscovering the Greek heritage, and providing Syriac, Arabic and Persian translations of some key texts of Hellenism, it is certain that Muslims played a crucial part in preserving and, later, transmitting, that important part of the European cultural heritage. At the time that Farabi, Avicenna, Nasser Khosrow and other Muslim philosophers were studying Aristotle, known to Muslims as "The First Teacher", few in Christendom were allowed access to his forbidden material. Saint Thomas Aquinas tried to create a synthesis of Christianity and Hellenism, by "baptising" Aristotle, centuries after Muslim philosophers had adopted the Greek sage. For over a thousand years, Christianity, especially in its Raman version, fought to efface all memory of Hellenism. Even the Greek Orthodox Church, of which Paleologos was a member, behaved as if history had began with the birth of Jesus. It is no accident that Benedict, in his defence of Hellenism, quotes Paleologos. The reason is that, with the exception of Julian the Apostate, the Pope would not find a single ruler on the Roman side who, could be presented as heir to the Hellenic heritage.
That Paleologos had not read the Koran is no surprise. However, that Benedict also appears not to have read it is surprising. This is borne out by the fact that Benedict describes the Second Surah of the Koran, "The Heiffer" (Al-Baqarah) as one of "the early period when Muhammad was powerless and under threat." In that Surah the Koran makes it clear that "there should be no " compulsion in faith" ( la ikrah fi al-din).
The Pope says : " According to the experts this is one of the surahs of the early period when Muhammad was still powerless and under threat." But naturally the emperor also knew the instructions, developed later and recorded in the Koran, concerning holy war." The implication is that Muhammad would say one thing when powerless and another when powerful. The Surah, was, in fact, written in 624 or 625, or the middle period, when Muhammad was a powerful head of a state in Yathrib ( Medina), and commander of a Muslim army.
Benedict, quoting the Lebanese Christian theologian Theodore Khoury, says : The emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy" it was self-evident that " not to act in accordance with Reason was contrary to God's nature."
This means that Paleologos was "reasonable" not because he was a Christian but because he was a Byzantine "shaped by Greek philosophy".
The Pope, still quoting Khoury, recalls that Ibn Hazn (sic),insisted that God is beyond Reason and that He is not bound " even by His own word, and that nothing obliges Him to reveal the truth to us." The fact is that Muslim scholars, familiar though they were with Aristotelian categories, never tried to fit God into any of them. Theirs was a transcendent deity that could not be understood by mere human reason, let alone judged by it.
In Islamic monotheism, the One is not bound by the attributes of the Many. This is because for the One to be stable in its one-ness it is imperative for the Many to be confirmed in its many-ness. Thus the One could be itself and its opposite.
As the poet, Sana'i, put it: "The Exulted One is both this and that Free of all worldly limits."
All that, however, does not mean that Muslims should go around acting unreasonably, including imposing their faith on others by the sword. It is God who is not bound by human reason, not human beings. To assume that God can and must act solely within human reason would cast doubt on the fundamentals of all monotheistic religions. It was in similar terms that Leibniz, among others, developed his arguments against Spinoza, and other philosophers of the Enlightenment, who tried to fit God into a system understood through human reason alone. The Pope makes a passing reference to Jihad that, falling for the common perceptions in the West, he translates into "Holy War". Jihad, however, should not be confused with " ghazva", nor a mujahed with a gahzi. There is not enough space to treat that subject in a single article. It would be a good idea for the Vatican or any other authority of other major organised religions to host a seminar on Islam and Christianity and the ethics of war to provide both sides, and others who might be interested, with a better understanding of the subject. Benedict is right: all faiths would benefit from dialogue. However, for dialogue to be fruitful, it is necessary for the dialogists to study each other's beliefs more seriously.
A Nasserist Tone and a Leninist Nuance
Hazem Saghieh Al-Hayat - 26/09/06//
Observers did not miss that Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah's last speech gave the Arab issue the lion's share. Hezbollah's Secretary General borrowed the Nasserist language of the 1960s in agitating against regimes and rulers, although he also showed a Leninist nuance.
When Lenin led the Bolsheviks to power in 1917, he was aware that an 'agricultural, Asian and backward Russia' was not the right country for a socialist experiment that would last. However, what would make the impossible possible would be the outbreak of socialist revolutions in advanced industrialized countries, especially Germany . Only at that point, according to this scenario, did the European working class begin helping revolutionary conditions in Russia .
Nevertheless, the German revolution was defeated, and its charismatic leader, Rosa Luxembourg, was killed. Moreover, no revolution broke out in the rest of advanced Europe, because its working classes had been lured to 'become bourgeoisie.' Therefore, there was nothing left for the Russian experiment but to 'rot' in the East, shedding its internationalism for 'socialism in one country', symbolized by Stalin and his reign of terror.
In this sense, it would be possible to define the Leninist nuance in Nasrallah's Nasserist tone as follows: either the Arabs begin to move to topple their regimes in support of the 'godly victory' in Lebanon, and in an attempt to imitate it; or this victory will be exposed to decay.
However, such a gamble will not lead to results. This assessment is not only due to the fact that the elements of the nation states in the Arab World can now compete with those of chaos (though they may not necessarily win). Likewise, this assessment is not only attributable to the fact that the current Arab anger is such that can be at once blown away and made use of by 'al-Jazeera'. In addition, there are others that radical forces in the Arab Mashreq do not want to see. Lebanon, small, weak and lacking consensus over its fundamental choices, is not like Egypt , which is big, strong and immeasurably apt to reach a larger consensus. Furthermore, what applies to Lebanon also applies to Syria, which, in turn, does not have the same characteristics as Egypt. As for Iran, many sensitivities would be aroused by its role in an environment that is supposed to be united in the face of a supposedly common enemy. With all these considerations in mind, we need not mention the fact that Nasserism was deeply connected with the Soviet influence during the Cold War, and that the Soviet Union, as well as the Cold war itself, has simply become history.
These assessments are not meant to imply that the current 'official' Arab situation is exemplary. Obviously, what is, and what will always be needed is that the Arab governments become more powerful in dealing with the US and, also, Iran, so that they can exert pressure for a just solution to the Middle East crisis. However, in order for the Arab governments to become so, it is necessary that stability and trust become stronger within the Arab world itself. Only then, a good deal of initiative-taking and positive dynamism can replace the current negative 'moderation' that can hardly keep up with developments of which the Arabs are not the author. On the other hand, the current radical attitude, embodied by Hezbollah and its allies, simply obstructs this path, makes it more complicated, and makes dormant fears greater than self-confidence.
Between these polarities, there is more and more degeneration. Countries and societies, starting with Lebanon, are menaced by what is taking place which is the caricature of the Nasserist tone and the Leninist nuance.
Will Oil Price Remain in the Range of $60 Per Barrel?
Randa Takieddin Al-Hayat - 27/09/06//
The West is wondering whether oil price has begun to retreat to levels lower than $60, $50 or even $40 per barrel, and whether the countdown for this has already begun.
The oil producing countries are cautious about the price retreating to around $60 per barrel. These countries have been satisfied with the high price of oil, although they did not want it too high. Since it soared to $80 per barrel and more, it was considered a danger to the global economy, especially as this urged industrialized States to speed up the development of alternative energy sources.
Now, as winter approaches, oil price fell to around $60 per barrel at the beginning of this week. The reasons for this decline are many. First, some market influential factors have changed. US merchandized stock rose. The excess capacity in oil-producing countries, including Angola, the UAE and Saudi Arabia also began to rise slightly. However, political factors, which pushed the price to higher levels, have calmed down.
The Israeli-Lebanese war came to an end. Tension between Iran, on the one hand, and the US and the West, on the other, started to cool down and negotiations began, with European-Iranian talks trying to reach a solution.
But the American-Iranian dispute is still intense. All Western countries, including those negotiating with Iran, fear that time may be in the interest of Iran; that is to say, negotiations may be prolonged and the Islamic Republic of Iran may be able to develop nuclear technology through its enrichment program, which it has not suspended, thereby acquiring an atomic bomb by 2008.
The reasons for the slightly cooled-down tension that led to a reduction in the price of a barrel of oil still exist. The US administration and Europe are determined to prevent Iran from acquiring an atomic bomb while they are holding talks with it.
The Iranian-West disagreement, the coming winter, and the OPEC ability to reduce production quickly are factors that prevent the collapse of prices.
Saudi Arabia, the largest oil producer in the organization, reduced production in August compared with March, because it was intent on not selling oil at low prices. Since the demand for heavy oil decreased, Saudi Arabia reduced production, in line with the market conditions, by 400,000 barrels a day, bringing production in August to 9.2 million barrels a day.
The OPEC can reduce production quickly and before its next emergency meeting in Nigeria on December 17. The OPEC member States can also consult by phone and make the decision to reduce production if prices continue to decline.
Oil-consuming countries have adapted to high oil prices, while these prices enable the oil-producing countries to speed up development on all levels, although some of them have failed to do so.
The oil price remaining at reasonable levels, about $60 per barrel, will allow the rich countries to help the poor ones, especially nations devastated by Israel, such as Lebanon and the Palestinian territories; and protect them from extremism and terrorism.
Beirut International Film Festival returns
After a history of one crisis after another, popular event makes comeback in aftermath of war
By Kaelen Wilson-Goldie
Daily Star staff
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
BEIRUT: After a three-year hiatus due to political unrest and financial uncertainty - and after a war that nearly threw the whole thing off track all over again - the Beirut International Film Festival is back. The event opens on Wednesday, October 4, with Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's critically acclaimed "Volver" and closes on Wednesday, October 11, with Egyptian director Marwan Hamed's wildly popular (and wildly controversial) "The Yacoubian Building."
In between, the festival is offering up 18 other films, including Bader bin Hirsi's "A New Day in Old Sanaa," deemed the first proper feature filmed in Yemen; Jaafar Panahi's "Offside," about six young women who disguise themselves as six young men to watch a World Cup qualifier between Iran and Bahrain at Tehran's Azadi Stadium; and Brian Cook's "Color Me Kubrick," starring John Malkovich as Alan Conway, a real-life conman who romped around London impersonating the reclusive, inveterate director Stanley Kubrick.
The Beirut International Film Festival was established in 1997. Although the field has grown more competitive since then - with Beirut DC's Ayam Beirut al-Cinemayiaa (which just finished a successful fourth edition over the weekend), Ne a Beyrouth's Festival of Lebanese Film (which was slated to open this summer on August 18 and was understandably cancelled), Docu Days, and more - it remains the most international festival in town while retaining a regional core.
This year's line-up of 20 films is smaller than that of past editions, but it feels tight, compact and well-selected. Besides having two heavily anticipated smash hits as bookends, there are gems nestled throughout the schedule.
Bent Hammer's "Factotum," starring Matt Dillon, Lily Taylor and Marisa Tomei, is based on the Charles Bukowski novel of the same name. Laila Marrakchi's "Marock," about an updated pair of star-crossed young lovers in Casablanca, is finally getting a Beirut screening after much buzz. Georgian director Gela Babluani's "13 Tzameti" is meant to be a hot ticket.
Katia Jarjoura is also presenting two films: "Terminator," which is set against the backdrop of the demonstrations on Martyrs' Square in Beirut on March 14, 2005, and "Beirut Never Dies," a seven-minute short that follows the hip-hop outfit Kita Beirut through the reduced-to-rubble landscape of the southern suburbs. If the Beirut International Film Festival needed timeliness, a somber tone and hipster credibility all at once, this is it.
That is not to say the festival's history hasn't been plagued with one massive crisis after another - and this year's edition is no different. But director Colette Naufal, a pint-sized dynamo with an angular Anna Wintour bob and a fashionably utilitarian khaki dress, has weathered the event's ups and downs well.
In its first two years, the festival ran over budget by $300,000 and $250,000 respectively. When organizers threatened to scrap a screenwriting prize at the last minute in 1998, several filmmakers - including local luminaries Elie Khalife, Ghassan Salhab, Mohamed Soueid and Akram Zaatari - withdrew their films in protest.
In 2000, the whole initiative was shelved for the year. Apparently, one of the main financial backers decided he wasn't interested anymore. In 2003, the event was re-minted the Mid East Film Festival, following the establishment of the Beirut Film Foundation.
But after what seemed like an auspicious restart in 2003, the festival was canned again in 2004, this time because it was scheduled to open three days after the United Nations planned a meeting on a certain Security Council Resolution named 1559 that festival organizers suspected might have dicey repercussions in Beirut. In 2005, there were enough political assassinations and random bombings to shake anyone's resolve.
So here we are in 2006. Nearly a decade after the festival was born it will be celebrating its seventh birthday. It has come together in the aftermath of a war that was brutal and by most accounts unexpected.
Last month, the Venice Film Festival gave Naufal's project a substantial boost by holding a press conference in its honor and out of solidarity. The director of the Venice festival, Marco Muller, was well positioned to make such a plug. Ten years ago, he helped create the Sarejevo Film Festival while the city was in state of siege. He was awarded the first ever "Heart of Sarajevo" award at Venice last year.
Also pitching in to make the Beirut International Film Festival happen are Alice Edde of Edde Sands and Iara Lee of the Gund & Lee Foundation, who are financing this year's edition. At the Venice press conference, Lee also launched the "Make Films Not War" campaign, an initiative which insists that there are no military solutions to political, economic and social problems, and argues that films are a part of a necessary cultural resistance against war.
At a press conference to announce the line-up of the Beirut International Film Festival on Tuesday, Alice Edde remarked that the current situation in Lebanon is "economically a disaster, so it's time to push culture, culture, culture."
Lee agreed: "Cultural resistance is as important as any resistance," she said. Of her foundation's support, she added: "We decided to come forward when we saw all these rich Lebanese supporting the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art [in New York] and thought, why not the Beirut International Film Festival? Rather than point fingers we decided to help out." Maybe the gesture will be contagious. "It's not just about funding. Film can be a great catalyst."
The opening and closing festival screenings are taking place at the UNESCO Palace and are free and open to the public. All other screenings are taking place at Sofil and Concorde. For more information, please see www.beirutfilmfoundation.org
Offer reform for Hizbullah's weapons
By Michael Young -Daily Star staff
Thursday, September 28, 2006
Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah often says that Hizbullah will never use its weapons against other Lebanese. Yet, we know the party did so in the past, and in his speech last Friday, Nasrallah made it plain that Hizbullah's disarmament was conditional on an overhaul of the Lebanese state. Assuredly, then, his arms are not there just to keep Israel at bay, but also to be used as leverage in a domestic struggle for power.
This, somehow, was never in doubt. Nor does it require transcendent familiarity with Lebanon to know that because of the way the society is structured, one party's remaining armed to the exception of all the others can only increase the insecurities of those others. And now Nasrallah has made formal his warning. As Telecommunications Minister Marwan Hamadeh bitingly observed last weekend, this is what Hizbullah effectively offered: Our weapons in exchange for transforming Lebanon into a virtual garrison state, where we wouldn't need our weapons anyway, since by then the state would be largely in our hands.
There were two jarring moments in Nasrallah's speech. His statement, directed against Prime Minister Fouad al-Siniora, that "tears don't liberate," was especially disingenuous. Siniora's tears began a process of ridding the South of Israeli soldiers whom Hizbullah's actions on July 12 had brought back into Lebanon. More disturbing, Nasrallah's twice-repeated support for the Syrian leadership could, he knew, only be interpreted in one way by followers of Rafik Hariri: as an endorsement of the late prime minister's assassins. How paradoxical was this behavior in light of Nasrallah's rebuke of Siniora and the government majority for their "heartlessness" in recently receiving British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
It was Samir Geagea's moment last Sunday, when the Lebanese Forces held a rally in Harissa. Maronite nationalism can be as difficult to stomach as Shiite nationalism, and Geagea could have been more appeasing in his wartime recollections, given that his old enemies are today his staunch allies. The Lebanese Forces leader played a dual game of unity and polarization - unity with other forces in the Christian camp from which he had been alienated, such as Amin Gemayel's Kataeb Party and smaller shreds of the Lebanese Forces; and polarization, in an effort to use tougher rhetoric as a means of picking up ambivalent Christians increasingly displeased with Michel Aoun's ties with Hizbullah.
Yet for all his parochial calculations, Geagea laudably placed his response to Nasrallah in the context of the one document that retains legitimacy as a guide out of Lebanon's impasse: the Taif agreement. Few could argue with his logic in responding to Nasrallah's demand for a strong state: How could a strong state come about, Geagea asked, when one side undermined this through its creation of an armed state within a state?
Shoring up Taif was also the aim of Saad Hariri's response to Nasrallah on Tuesday, in the third of a triptych of responses from the March 14 coalition. Where Geagea, Hariri, and March 14 in general have shown considerably less imagination, however, is in their definition of Taif. As viewed today by the parliamentary majority, the agreement is mainly a device to disarm Hizbullah. Fair enough. But there is another aspect of Taif that must also be put on the table by the majority: political reform.
Nothing prevents March 14 from making the following proposal, as a backhand to Nasrallah's weapons bid: The Lebanese communities must open a new phase of national dialogue on the basis of Taif, involving Hizbullah's disarmament and political reform - reform that would aim to give the Shiite community, and whoever else deserves it, a greater share of political representation. The condition for initiating this grand bargain would be Hizbullah's first surrendering its weapons. Why? Because after what Nasrallah said last Friday, many non-Shiites have little confidence he will not use his weapons to impose Hizbullah's agenda on them.
There are complications involved. Taif outlines the creation of a deconfessionalized Parliament, which would alarm Christians. However, sooner or later the issue will resurface anyway, and just as Geagea insists that Shiites must accept the implacable logic of Taif, others will readily turn this around and remind Christians what Taif means for them. That's why it's preferable to start the ball rolling now, building on the goodwill inside the majority, through a parallel process of discussion among the March 14 forces, to reassure Christians. This reform process must include, as compensation to the community, promises of a new, confessional Senate, as Taif outlines, where Christians and Muslims are represented in a 50-50 ratio, and administrative decentralization. Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir would be an essential participant in the effort.
Where would the Aounists fit into this? Nasrallah, Geagea and Hariri had their moment, now it's Michel Aoun's turn. October 13 fast approaches, and the general, in a spirit of conciliation, might use the anniversary of his removal from Baabda in 1990 to finally embrace Taif. What better way to do so than to invite his new comrades, those who had lustily applauded his ouster in Taif's name, to a ceremony attended by Emile Lahoud, who, in the name of Taif, too, led the Lebanese force against Aoun that day?
Taif has fallen victim to multiple coups, to borrow from former minister Albert Mansour. Nasrallah has no interest in an agreement that will disarm him, even if it means delaying expanding Shiite representation in the state. Better to increase Shiite power by leveraging his weapons, he thinks, than through a compromise that would damage the Iranian priorities defended by Hizbullah. Aoun cannot bear Taif because it reminds him of his past defeats. Nor will he accept a text that gives presidents less than the ample power Aoun would seek were he to return to Baabda.
That's why March 14 alone is in a position to breathe new life into Taif. Political reform in exchange for Hizbullah's guns. That's the deal. It would remind Shiites that they can only gain from the party's disarming, but also lose if it refuses to do so. The Shiite community and Hizbullah are two different things. Taif can prove just how much.
***Michael Young is opinion editor of THE DAILY STAR.