Breaking News: Lebanese Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri has Honor
By: Joseph Hitti
New England Americans for Lebanon

The tribal Shiite Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament, Nabih Berri, issued a statement criticizing the British and American UN ambassadors for blaming him for the failure of the Lebanese Parliament to ratify the International Tribunal. In his statement, he talked about the “honor” he has of not violating the Lebanese constitution and leaving the “counter-honor” of doing so to the US and British ambassadors. He also said: “You chose the internationalization [of the Lebanese problem] instead of the Lebanese State.”

Let’s see…Mr. Nabih Berri. Who might he be? He has in fact refused for months to convene the Lebanese Parliament, as the constitution requires him to do, and so prevented the Parliament from voting on whether or not to ratify the UN Tribunal. He in fact has been violating the constitution by not convening Parliament. Why? Because he is a traitor agent, working for a foreign country called Syria. Now Syria killed Hariri, and the Tribunal’s mandate is to basically officially say what all investigations have so far shown: That Syria killed Hariri. By refusing to call Parliament to session, Berri was protecting Syria. He prevented Parliament from ratifying the Tribunal, thus forcing a frustrated international community to pass Resolution 1757 instituting the Tribunal and giving Berri a deadline in June to call Parliament and concur with the Security Council. He’s like a bad boy who continues to misbehave and now the UN has him in the corner. That’s why his “honor” is hurt. In fact, the following are the milestones of Berri’s career:

- Nabih Berri lived in the US for several years, actually earning the much coveted Green Card (no one knows whether legally or illegally) and living off the America he hates so much. He later left to return to Lebanon and embark on destabilizing Lebanon on the dole of his Syrian masters. A Speaker of Parliament like this should be charged with treason.

- When September 11 happened, this writer (then a member of a Lebanese American club called CLAO, which is now ironically a proxy ally of Mr. Berri through its affiliation with Michel Aoun’s Free Patriotic Movement), published an advertisement in major US newspapers denouncing the 9/11 attacks and supporting President Bush in his war on the “purveyors of terrorism, wherever they may be” (in an obvious allusion to Syria). Incidentally, our ad made it to the press 2 days before a stale ad published by the Syrian-puppet Lebanese Embassy here in the US, which caused Mr. Berri an ulcer and a delirium tremens attack during which he wanted us arrested and tried for treason because, according to him, we were “inciting the US to attack Syria and Lebanon”. The US ambassador to Beirut had to explain to Mr. Berri a basic concept his backwards tribal mindset can’t seem to understand: As US citizens, we are free to say what we want!

- Mr. Berri heads a Shiite militia called Amal (False “Hope” in Arabic) which is still armed in violation of the Lebanese constitution, the 1989 Taef Agreement and several UN resolutions. If Mr. Berri’s honor was hurt by the American and British UN ambassadors, then he must have bought some honor somewhere because for all that he has done throughout these years, no one noticed he had any honor to speak of, prostituting himself to the Syrians and killing right and left to make it, with the best tribal methods there is, to the helm of his Shiite community where he has squatted ever since.

- For example, Mr. Berri’s Amal militia slaughtered thousands of Palestinian refugees in the mid-1980s in the so-called “War of the Camps”. By some estimates, the Amal militia (in partnership with the other honorable Shiite militia Hezbollah) has in fact killed more Palestinians in 2 years (1985-1987) than the Israelis have in decades. After they supported the Palestinians’ PLO in their usurpation of Lebanese sovereignty, Berri (Amal) and Nasrallah (Hezbollah) massacred thousands of Palestinians and hijacked that sovereignty for their own turf and power and never really surrendered it back to the Lebanese State. To this day, they claim they are armed because they want to liberate Palestine for those Palestinian refugees they could not slaughter. To this day, they rule over swaths of Lebanese territory and security enclaves where the Lebanese armed forces and security forces are not allowed to enter. Imagine a country where the Speaker of Parliament (The No. 2 position in the hierarchy of the State) has his own militia and he denies his country’s legitimate armed forces and police their sovereign right to enter territory controlled by his militia. And Berri has the gall to talk about constitution and honor!

- Some perhaps will remember the summer of 1985 when Berri’s Amal militia colluded (again) with the Iranian Hezbollah to hijack TWA flight 847 and then play the good guy (Berri) - bad guy (Hezbollah) game and “negotiate” the release of the hostages in exchange for Israel’s releasing some prisoners it held. US Navy diver Dean Stethem was on that plane and the militiamen beat him to death before dumping his body on the Beirut Airport tarmac.

- The game of TWA 847 worked so well on a credulous and terrified West, that Hezbollah then embarked on a long string of kidnappings of western hostages in Beirut, holding them in subhuman conditions for years, killing some and eventually releasing the others, again in exchange for favors that a spineless West gave Hezbollah’s and Amal’s masters in Syria and Iran.

Mr. Berri, call the Lebanese Parliament to session and have it vote, either for or against, the Tribunal. That’s the only way for you to salvage some honor. Stop prostrating yourself and prostituting yourself for the Syrians. Your country is Lebanon, not Syria. Yes, we know, Syria was in Lebanon for 30 years, and you made a lot of money and got a lot of power being the top collaborator with the occupation. But those days are gone and will not come back. Re-invent yourself. How about earning some honor by being simply Lebanese?

June 1/07