General Aoun in Boston -English report from NEAL
Boston, November 22, 2005 – The New England Americans for Lebanon (NEAL) proudly expresses its congratulations to the people of Lebanon for Independence Day 2005. We at NEAL had the honor and privilege of hosting General Michel Aoun in our own town of Boston this past Sunday. The former Commander-in-Chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces, former Prime Minister and presently a Member of the Lebanese Parliament and head of the Free Patriotic Movement Party is on a 2-week visit to the United States, which he is spending in Washington DC for meetings with officials of the Administration and members of Congress.
Taking a break from his hectic schedule in Washington DC, General Aoun flew into Boston on Sunday morning on board a private jet accompanied by Tony Haddad, Gaby Issa and FPM official Gebrane Bassil, as well as his security detail. The NEAL leadership, consisting of Joseph Hitti, Nabil Khoury, Bechara Sfeir, Marwan Malhame, Ali Jabak, and Ziad Khoury met him at the airport and a motorcade immediately left for Our Lady of the Cedars Church in Jamaica Plain, where a crowd estimated at 1,200 people had packed the church and filled the grounds of the church outside the chapel.
After attending mass celebrated by Monsignor Lahoud and Father Simon Assaf (who had traveled from Montreal for the occasion accompanied by NEAL friend and well-known activist Elias Bejjani from Toronto), General Aoun proceeded to the private quarters of Monsignor Lahoud where he met a small number of delegations, including the World Lebanese Cultural Union represented by its local leaders David Abichaker and John Hajjar, as well as its world president Anis Garabet and visiting Lebanese Member of Parliament Abdallah Hanna. General Aoun then moved into the church hall where he was met with the cheers of the crowd, now estimated at 1,500. As lunch was served, Father Simon Assaf delivered a poetry oration with his customary powerful style and his mastery of the Arabic language. Then, NEAL President Dr. Joseph Hitti, introduced his guest to the cheering crowd (See Dr. Hitti’s address), and General Aoun took to the podium where he spoke about all issues of concern to the Lebanese American community. He urged the Lebanese in the Diaspora to remain in touch with their country of origin. He pledged that their right to vote will be upheld. He asked them to help in the process of emancipating (Taharror) the Lebanese individual from the shackles of political and financial feudalism, now that the liberation (Tahreer) from the occupation has been completed.
Before concluding his visit, General Aoun answered several questions from the audience and met privately with the NEAL membership as well as with the delegation from Canada led by Gilbert Soudir and Robert Hanna. General Aoun also took time to sign autographs and personally greet every attending person as they filed to leave the church.
NEAL wishes to thank all its supporters and friends who attended the event and urges them to maintain their ties to the organization and, through it, to the FPM in Lebanon where the challenges ahead remain worthy of our efforts and dedication. We furthermore call on all FPM supporter groups in the United States and Canada to unite, pool their resources and join forces in order to build an institution in North America dedicated to the support and promotion of Lebanese affairs within our respective societies, and vis-à-vis our respective media and governments. If the lessons of the past 30 years were to be learned, then the task of keeping Lebanon alive in the hearts and minds of our host countries should be our immediate priority. This is the only avenue we have to ready ourselves and the next generations for the challenges to come.

Dr, Joseph Hitti's Address
Ladies & Gentlemen,
Thank you all for coming here today.
I’d like to start by thanking Msgr Lahoud for his always generous hospitality – this church is our home - and Father Assaf for his powerful words that I obviously cannot match.
I also would like to thank all those on the New England Americans for Lebanon team who worked very hard to organize this event under the very tight constraints we had. In particular, my friend and NEAL co-founder, Nabil Khoury for leading the team that included Marwan Malhame, Bechara Sfeir, Ali Jabak, Karin and Wassim Njeim, Ziad Khoury and many others who are with us here today.
I also welcome our friends and supporters from across this country, from the New England area as well as those who have traveled from California, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and New York, and from Montreal, Toronto, and Ottawa in Canada.
NEAL was founded in 2000, one of many Lebanese American organizations that sprung up across the nation, dedicated to working locally towards the goal of the liberation of Lebanon. We continue to grow, and since last Spring, when the last Syrian soldier walked across the border, we are trying to re-direct our energies to new goals and objectives. We remain committed to putting the enormous potential of the Lebanese American Diaspora in the service of a free, sovereign and independent Lebanon.
I am at a loss for words to introduce the man who has gathered us here today. For he is truly a giant of Lebanon’s modern history. Just his titles tell his story: Commander in Chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces, Prime Minister, and recently Member of Parliament. This is the man who personified the struggle of an entire country to re-establish the dignity of Lebanon – as a nation and as a respected State - over that of all the other entities – both domestic and foreign - who successively tried to hijack the country for their own interests.
I came to know him beginning in the late 1980s listening to his message as the Prime Minister of Lebanon and watching the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese people who flocked around him when the entire world stood against him. In the 1990s when the Lebanese American community reorganized itself around his leadership, I personally became involved in translating his An-Nashra Al-Lubnaniyah week after week during the many long years of his exile…and ours. I thus came to know his thoughts on a personal level.
During those years of exile and occupation, his message was simple and accessible, but it was against the prevailing winds. Yet, he persisted, alone, telling whoever was willing to listen the most basic of principles: The only road to Peace is through Justice. Artificial stability under the boots of invading armies and dictatorial regimes is not peace. Stability that is bartered from dictators and oppressive governments against the true freedom of the people cannot last. And, as events have shown, it did not.
Today the US Government has effected a 180 degree turn in that policy that kept us enslaved for 30 years. And when we were given the opportunity, we rose like giants. Today we are independent and free. And he is back home, after 15 years in exile.
Ladies And Gentlemen, let me quote another giant from another era. Charles de Gaulle once said,
Les Raisonables Auront dure, mais les Passionnes Auront vecu.
Which means:
The reasonable ones merely survive, but the passionate ones truly live.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
From this city that gave birth to the American Revolution, I ask you to please welcome the leader of the next revolution in Lebanon, the former Commander in Chief of the Lebanese Armed Forces, the former Prime Minister and current Member of Parliament, and … let me add one more title to his pedigree… the future president of the Republic of Lebanon, General Michel Aoun.