The ‘Israeli’ media system was very keen to comment on Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah’s speech on the tenth of Muharram.
As the ‘Israeli’ occupation entity has been alarmed and on alert since a month ago, Sayyed Nasrallah masters the skills of the psychological warfare that is damaging the Zionists more than any other military action.
To begin with, Mandy Orzel of the ‘Israeli’ Radio of the South said: Nasrallah is an intelligent person. He saw the massive destruction caused by the Beirut port explosion and heard “Israel’s” threats to destroy the infrastructure in Lebanon, but he wasn’t afraid. He said a little while back: “We will kill one of your soldiers.” This proves that he believes that “Israel” will not respond violently and will not cross the line for the sake of one soldier – this is very sad.
For its part, ‘Israeli’ Channel 13 stressed that the Zionist entity takes Nasrallah’s words very seriously. Hezbollah from now on will work to turn the northern border into an active front line, it added.
Or Heller, the channel’s military correspondent also said that Nasrallah’s statements match the assessment of General Amir Baram, the head of the Northern Command, which notes that Hezbollah will not give up on a retaliatory attack and is looking to kill an “Israeli” soldier on the border fence.
Relatively, “Israel Hayom” newspaper cited “Israeli” Reserve Brigadier general, Shimon Shapira, the former military secretary of “Israeli” PM Benjamin Netanyahu as saying: “I estimate that Nasrallah is determined to maintain the “balance equation” against “Israel” despite the absence of response till now.”
Hezbollah is determined to continue trying to attack “Israeli” military targets near the border, Shapira added.
In the same context, “Israel’s” Kan channel’s Roi Sharon wrote regarding Sayyed Nasrallah’s threat: “The “Israeli” army will remain on high alert for a long period of time.”
Nasrallah insisted on his equation “one for one” and would not accept anything less, and this is contrary to what they believed in “Israel” from the beginning, Sharon added.
“Nasrallah is not looking for a ladder to get off the tree, he wants to kill a soldier, so tension will remain high in the north in the near future as well.”
Meanwhile, Roi Kais, Kan’s commentator on Arab affairs underscored that Hezbollah is drawing a new equation today on the borders in light of the “Israeli” fear of a new operation.
As for ‘Israeli’ Channel 12, the “Israeli” army will remain ready in the north whenever the situation requires so, because there is no intention that Hezbollah is to retreat.
The channel’s military commentator, Ronnie Daniel said Nasrallah wants revenge and a point on the line.
I am not a big fan of the dummies and robots that are placed on the borders. This seems to me childish and inappropriate, he said mocking the latest embarrassing ‘Israeli’ practices along the Lebanese-Palestinian border.
I left Russia at the tender age of 24, left not because I wanted to leave my country, just simply happened to marry a foreigner who was there at the time and for several years now been living and working in three very different countries, including Scotland and England. Now I am living in yet another English-speaking country that is equally unique and different. I like to think that my experience of these four different cultures, outlooks, attitudes, not to mention systems, had most definitely expanded my horizons. I also want to think that such experience had allowed me to make certain assessments and analysis which hopefully could be translated into informed opinions.
I have been coming to this site for over two years now since it is rather “pro Russian” and therefore my interest was obvious. I have been reading Saker’s and his contributors posts with great interest, although reading some comments was at times bewildering. There are of course some very intelligent analytical comments and commentators on Saker’s blog, after all that is one of the reasons why we want to come here – for the knowledge we might not yet have, for the insight, for an intelligent analyses by someone who took the trouble and for someone’s else point of view that perhaps can make us think – that’s how I see this blog, and I am sure so does Saker. What compelled me to write this piece, a belief that most people coming to this blog are also looking for that same thing, otherwise why bother. On the other hand some of their expressed comments are not opinions but attitudes. Let me explain the difference. Opinion is something that is based on knowledge and at least some research, an attitude is something that expresses a person’s individual take on some particular issue, which has been shaped by picking up some information possibly from MSM, or from social media or wherever without really ANALYZING it but accepting it because it fits with that person’s mentality. See the difference?
I also see in some comments an understandable ignorance of things Russian and I cannot blame them for that, at least they are interested enough to be on this site, which is commendable. Except some obvious troll like creatures, who try to have some facade but most people here I think are a fairly intelligent lot and can see thru that.
In this my small contribution I would like to try and help with a bit more understanding of Russian side of things, which I suppose is rather difficult for people in the West to really understand, as we have lots of pervasive Western media that does not give one a true picture of Russia. Also, I would endeavor to provide some analysis or at least some explanation on the seemingly ingrained animosity of the West towards Russia and it’s possible origins.
So, let’s start.
“Things Russian”. Here I can try to give you some information that you will not get in your Western MSM, for sure. Having Russian as your first language is a great advantage when you can watch, read and listen to what is happening in Russia at present, what is the general mood that comes across, what worries and concerns them, what they think. One can get a pretty clear picture of all of that through their news channels, daily talk shows, expert’s opinions, people’s comments, etc on practically a daily basis. My knowledge on the subject, I can assure you, is up to date.
First, here are some myths that I want to blow apart for some people – Russia and Russians are NOT that greatly enamored with the West that they are so desperately wanting to be “accepted” and “approved” by this West. FAR FROM IT!
Lots of them, having seen the West’s insane, reckless and criminal behavior such as what it has done to Ukraine, hysterics regarding Crimea going back to Mother Russia, MH17 hideous crime, made-up Scripal garbage, expulsion of Russian Diplomats, criminal seizing of Russian diplomatic property, endless sanctions and relentless demonization of Russia and it’s President – feel it’s enough to start a war! No, whatever warm feelings they might have had in the past towards the West after break- up of USSR and hopes of being friendly at last – all these feelings have been killed and long gone. Now, just as it was back in history, they want to keep the distance. Some of the Western poison seeps thru occasionally but that does not get much traction. The so called “opposition” in Russia mostly survives on Soros’s grants and in Russia they even have a name for them -“sorosyata”, which roughly translates as a Soros’s little piglets. These who join them in their various protests are usually mindless youth looking for a bit of excitement. Too much of that excitement can land them with a heavy fine or expulsion from whatever learning establishment they attend. That cools a lot of hot heads. So, whatever one reads in western media regarding strong Russian “opposition” to Putin’s “dictatorship”, bear in mind he has as much fear of this opposition as an elephant of a flea on it’s back. Besides, if he was such a dictator this lot would not be allowed even to exist as an “opposition”, but they even have their own media channels – I reckon the government sees that as the best way to keep an eye on them.
No, there are no censorship, dictatorship or any other “ship” in Russia that does not allow people, however deluded, to express themselves, but in a civilized fashion. Cities are spotlessly clean, excellent infrastructure, every restaurant you could wish for, great bars and nightclubs, same make of cars on the roads as in any European city, friendly people and no homeless on the streets. Those football fans that arrived in Russia from all over the world for the World Cup couple of years ago, had to “pick their jaws off the pavement”. They could not believe what they were seeing as it was so totally different to what they were expecting from the images shaped for them by western media.
This is modern Russia.
In the last 25 years lots of Russians have traveled around Europe, UK, States, etc – something they could not do so easily before – they had a look, and what most of them discovered is that the grass definitely wasn’t greener on the other side. They were interested to have a look and quite content to get back home.
There were some who fled Russia during the terrible 90s when what was going on in Russia at the time was hell on wheels, as it was being robbed and pillaged by the West, whose wet dream at last came true, unfortunately for them only for a brief moment. Quite a number of Russians who left Russia at the time are now returning back home. The West now has got it’s own version of hell on wheels, so let’s call it KARMA.
What Russians also find distasteful are bad manners on the part of the West, showing up in rather unpleasant and uncalled for displays of arrogant lecturing and attempts to show some inexplicable “superiority” with regard to Russia. I have experienced this myself when in England, but NEVER in Scotland, I will hasten to add. Scotland and Scots for me were always “home from home”.
I was buying a train ticket at the Waterloo station in London and the ticket seller, an Englishman in his 40s, seeing my name, muttered under his breath “bloody Russian”. I was looking at him and wondering what made him say that. Here was someone who probably hardly finished secondary school, selling a ticket to someone who is a highly qualified professional, with two degrees, one of which is Masters, attained from one of the best Scottish Universities (writing a dissertation in second language is not easy, believe me!) and yet, he felt somehow “superior” to this Russian and that compelled him to mutter these words. And I suddenly realized that it was CONDITIONED in him, he didn’t even pause to think, it came out because he couldn’t help it. Attitude!
This negative conditioning in the West towards things Russian obviously had roots at some stage and later, reflecting on it I could see how it might have come about. We will leave religion aside for the moment, although it does play some part. The main culprit in my opinion, is the colonial mindset, combined with actual ignorance. To people in the West, meaning Western Europe and Britain, throughout centuries Russia has always been something dark and unknown and therefore to be feared and distanced from. There were few very sparse contacts but on the whole Russia and the West kept themselves to themselves. And until Peter the Great came along, that arrangement absolutely suited Russians as well. They regarded the West as heinous and un-Godly and much preferred to keep that distance. Tsar Peter has changed all of that in his drive to “open a window into Europe” as he put it.
What is not widely known about “superior” Europe of these days and that includes Britain, is that people there never bathed, fearing that it would kill them. When Tsar Peter arrived there with his entourage for their big Euro tour, they were absolutely shocked at the smell and stink of unwashed bodies, even in the palaces. Russians, before baths and showers were ever invented, for centuries had a wonderful tradition of having a “banya” once a week. Sort of like a nice steamy sauna but with an addition of hot water to actually wash yourself. Now, tell me, what nation is more civilized here?
The Russian Tsar, on the other hand was viewed in the West as some strange and fascinating curiosity. When the average person height in those days was shorter than it is now, Tsar Peter, being a young man, virile, handsome, did not wear wig, full of energy AND at 6’8” tall, of course, towered above everyone. At least now the West had a real chance to see a real Russian.
The tour was a great success. Tsar Peter brought back with him some craftsmen, some interesting new inventions, like the sextant and some experienced boat builders. His burning ambition was for Russia to have a Navy, although at that time it was totally landlocked from both Baltic and Black seas.
At some stage Peter also had to fight and defeat the Swedish King who at the time was trying to expand his kingdom into the rest of Europe. Peter had to get him off the land where he wanted to build his new capital, St Petersburg (he never liked Moskva) and that, of course, gave him an access to the Baltic Sea. In the process he also liberated these parts of Europe that the war-addicted Swedish King had managed to grab. Sweden still cannot forgive Russia for that. Afterwards the energetic Russian Tsar set out to build his new capital, laid foundations for his Navy and among many other things made his Boyars in court shave their beards and wear European attire, complete with powdered wigs. Those who refused to obey and shave Tsar himself did it for them and then fined them heavily. One does not trifle with Imperial orders! Eventually he got himself named an “anti-Christ” by the Russian Church, that passionately believed that Russia should not be “westernized”, that it had it’s own destiny and it’s own path. I tend to agree with them there. Meanwhile Europeans had discovered that they had nothing to fear from Russia and that bathing did not kill them after all and everything went rather swimmingly for a while between Russia and the West.
Until the start of the Industrial revolution.
The West suddenly realized that for such one needs lots of resources, which the West did not have but others did. Everyone went busily sailing around the world looking whom they can easily colonize and loot. Britain, one has to say, outdid every other European rival in those pursuits. Then, when the supply of countries to loot started to dwindle, the collective West turned it’s gaze upon… Russia. And this, in my opinion, was the moment when that animosity had taken root. Here was a country, with hardly any population to speak of, occupying huge territory and not just that, full of everything one can only dream about, every great resource imaginable, including gold and diamonds…
There was only one problem. Those “bloody Russians” in the way!
So, that was the start of it – fueled by greed, envy, resentment and hatred. The rest we all know. The “relentless marches” on Russia, mostly in gangs. Both Napoleon and Hitler had lots of willing European accomplices, all wanting a share of the spoils. Well, they all got what they deserved and here we are now, in 21st century and they are STILL at it! Lessons not learned. Only this time they got themselves a big bully that they can all hide behind but unfortunately for them this bully cannot fight. At least not a serious opponent. Some little helpless nations around the world, no problem, drop few bombs, show up with one of your “carrier groups” and it’s all honky dory. Here, it is facing RUSSIA, a nation that NEVER lost a war.
And now we have this NATO – another gang, controlled by this bully. The problem for them is that NONE of them can really fight, even as a gang and so, what we now have is a circus show, called exercises, each one with more ferocious name than the last. Russia is watching these clowns prancing on her borders and has left them in no doubt whatsoever that just one step over that border and there will be nothing left of them, INSTANTLY. They can also install their missile bases in Romania and Poland, or in any other little euro vassal, sorry, NATO ally, that wants to make itself a prime target – anything fired from those will be immediately shot down and the place from where it was fired will be just one large smouldering crater, several kilometers in diameter. No, Russia does not consider NATO a big threat. Just a nuisance. The game that is being played here is as follows: “we”, NATO allies have to scream very loud and very often about “Russian aggression” and “Russian treat”- failing that this NATO becomes irrelevant and the big MIC will not be able to suck up trillions of taxpayers money to line some very, very deep pockets. And while we are at it, we will force our “allies” to buy our military junk at exorbitant prices. So, here you have it.
I think people in the West hearing this Russophobic propaganda garbage 24/7 start believing it and start imagining that perhaps all of this is true, but remember what Goebbels, Hitler’s chief of propaganda advocated – keep repeating a lie often enough and they will eventually believe you.
Russia is not your enemy. All it wants from the West is to be left alone and also to be shown some respect. This arrogant, talking down to, insulting approach has no place in dealings with an old civilized and cultured nation like Russia, which is also extremely well-armed. That attitude actually reflects very badly on the West and on state of mental midgetry of their politicians, who do not seem to have any grasp that such approach will lead them nowhere. Most of course are puppets, just doing what Uncle Sam is telling them but here is a word of warning – following Uncle Sam might lead one to the cliff edge…
Another bit of info that you will not find in western MSM – RF (Russian Federation) Immigration Services are inundated with applications from people in the West, including USA, (and I am not talking about expats), who want to move to Russia. These people see it as some kind of Noah’s Ark, compared to what is coming to their countries. Living in Russia they feel they can be free to be a normal family with normal family values, not parent1 and parent2, but Mum and Dad and where their children can grow up in a normal environment, without being subjected to creepy gender selections.
In conclusion I will say this – in my experience most people are not that different from each other, after all we are ALL human and we all want the same in life – love, appreciation, family and a future for our children. It’s not that hard to get along if you want to. But what we also have in common is a common enemy that hates humanity and wants us culled (their expression) and what’s left, subjugated. So, rather than facing each other with hands in a fist, how about we direct our attention and all our energies to fighting THAT evil, the one that wants to destroy us all.
في مقالة نادرة له يبذل الدكتور رضوان السيد جهداً واضحاً لاستعادة اللغة التي كان يكتب بها قبل عقدين وأكثر، متفادياً ذكر السعودية وملوكها كرموز لمشروع قومي عربي جديد، ومحاذراً تسمية إيران بهدف شيطنتها، ومبتعداً عن تناول المقاومة في لبنان وفلسطين وتسمية حركاتها وأحزابها، إلا بصفتها ميليشيات، وذلك ليمنح مقالته عن اندثار الدولة الوطنية العربية، صفة المقالة النظريّة، التي تحاول مجرد التفسير الموضوعي لظاهرة تاريخية، يستخلص بنتيجتها أن الاستبداد والفساد هما السوسة التي نخرت مشروع الدولة الوطنية العربية، ليبرر سقوط الدولة، وأحادية الشأن المعيشي، وسقوط القضايا الكبرى وزمانها، وفي الطليعة منها قضية فلسطين طبعاً، والدكتور السيد يتناسى أن ما يتحدث عنه من سقوط هو بلا شك أحد وجوه سقوط السلطة وليس الدولة، ليس في البلاد العربية فقط بل في كل بلد من بلاد العالم، والمثال الحي على ذلك هو الفارق بين دول عربية تتجه نحو التفكك ليست بينها سورية التي يزجها الدكتور السيد مثالاً لنظريته، ولا بينها مصر حيث كان النموذج الأهم لمرحلة صعود الدولة الوطنية العربية، رغم ما يعانيه المجتمع، وضعف مشروع الدولة في الاستجابة للتحديات الوطنية والقومية.
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يغيب عن الدكتور رضوان السيد التمييز بين سقوط الدولة وسقوط السلطة، التي تشكل سيطرة نخبة سياسية أو عسكرية على مقاليد الحكم عنوانها، وهو دائماً عرضة للاستبدال بالتغيير السلمي أو الثورات المسلحة، من دون أن يشكل سقوطها سقوطاً للدولة، لأن سقوط الدولة شأن آخر، فهو يعني التفكك الوطني والاجتماعي، وغياب المشروع الجامع وقواه الحاملة، وأهدافه التي تحظى بشبه إجماع تلتف حولها شرائح المجتمع، كما كان الحال في مطلع القرن مع تفكك الإمبراطورية العثمانية، حيث نهض مشروع الدولة الوطنية على قاعدة بناء مقومات الاستقلال. وفي الخمسينيّات من القرن الماضي حيث تولّت النخب العسكرية قيادة مشروع الدولة الوطنية تحت عنواني فلسطين والوحدة، وما يجري في العالم العربي اليوم هو مخاض الدولة الوطنية العربية التي فشلت في حل المسألتين الوطنية والقومية، أي قضيتي فلسطين والوحدة، ربما كما كان يقول الدكتور السيد، في ما مضى.
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فجأة يحضر عند الدكتور السيد المشهد في ليبيا، حيث تخرج التظاهرات في طرابلس وتقع الاشتباكات بين الميليشيات، مع معادلته الهادفة للقول إن السياسة هي التي تسقط وإن الشأن المعيشي هو المحرك الوحيد المتبقي، متجاهلاً طبيعة الصراع الدائر في ليبيا بين مشروعين ملتبسين مستندين على عمق شعبي قبلي متنافر، مشروع سقفه التخلف والاستبداد والتبعية التي تمثلها دول الخليج، ومشروع سقفه مشروع الأخوان المسلمين الذي تقوده تركيا، كعضو في الأطلسي وداعم للإرهاب كما تقول تجربة سورية، ومثلما تلتقي المرجعيتان الخليجية والتركية على التبعية لواشنطن تلتقيان على دعم الإرهاب بعناوين مختلفة، وتلتقيان على التطبيع مع “إسرائيل”، الذي ربما يكون تبسيط الترويج لتعميمه يستدعي الحديث عن سقوط السياسة والقضايا، من بوابة سقوط الدولة الوطنية، حيث سقوط الدولة الوطنية بمعناه العميق، أي تفكك الكيان السياسي والوحدة الاجتماعية، احتمال قائم لكن لاعتبارات أخرى تتصل بشروط العقد الاجتماعي المشوّه الذي بقي عاجزاً عن تشكيل إطار جامع قابل للحياة لمكوّنات الكيان الحديث الولادة، وهذا هو الحال في ليبيا وفي لبنان أيضاً.
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ببساطة يتماهى المشهد الليبي عند الدكتور السيد مع المشهد السوري، حيث الدولة الوطنية شكلت بصمودها مفاجأة القرن الحادي والعشرين بنجاحها في مواجهة حشدت فيها الدول مخابراتها وجيوشها وأموالها وفتاويها وإعلامها، واستعادت الدولة زمام المبادرة، وحيث لا يمكن تجاهل أن التفاوت بين ما أظهرته الدولة في سورية من قدرة صمود ونهوض مقارنة بتفكك سواها، عائد لنجاحها في تمثيل مرجعية ذات مصداقية في القضيتين الوطنية والقومية، ولذلك لا يمكن أن تتشابه في سورية تظاهرات الحسكة بوجه الاحتلالين التركي والأميركي، ولو خالطها الشأن المعيشي، مع تظاهرات درعا، المموّلة من دول الخليج، ولو تداخل في بعض جوانب عناوينها شأن معيشي، وكل متبصّر يستطيع إدراك أن مشروع الدولة الوطنية العربية، قد نجا بنسخته السورية من مشاريع الفوضى الخلاقة المدمرة التي أطلقتها السياسات الأميركية علناً تحت شعار شرق أوسط كبير بشرت به غونداليسا رايس من منبر رئيس حكومة لبنان الأسبق، صديق الدكتور السيد، الرئيس فؤاد السنيورة، أثناء حرب تموز 2006، التي هزمت خلالها القوة الإسرائيلية، وفشل خلالها المشروع الأميركي، ليس لأن ميليشيا وقفت قبالته، بل لأن المشروع الأميركي الإسرائيلي واجه مقاومة وطنية مخلصة وذات مصداقية ورثت مهام الدولة الوطنية، التي عجزت منذ ولادتها عن التصدي لمسؤولياتها في حماية الحدود.
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في لبنان الذي يحتفل بمئوية ولادته الحديثة، مأزق تاريخي نسي الدكتور السيد ما كتب عنه قبل قرابة نصف قرن، ومشروع الدولة الوطنية ولد مأزوماً لأسباب لا تتصل بالفساد ولا بالاستبداد اللذين يردان كنتائج لهذه الأزمة البنيوية لمشروع الدولة الوطنية، وفقاً لما كتبه مفكرون لبنانيون متعددو الاتجاهات، كان أبرزهم المفكر جورج نقاش الذي وصف اللاءين اللذين قامت عليهما صيغة 1943 برفض الوحدة مع سورية مقابل رفض الوصاية الفرنسية بالنفيين اللذين لا يبنيان وطناً، وحيث أزمة لبنان هي في سقوط كذبة الحياد، القديمة المتجددة، باعتبارها تحمي لبنان، تحت شعار قوة لبنان في ضعفه، عندما زجّ الأميركيون لبنان في حلف بغداد أيام الرئيس كميل شمعون في الخمسينيّات من القرن الماضي واستعملوا لبنان في معركتهم مع مشروع الدولة الوطنية العربية الأولى الذي مثلته مصر بقيادة الرئيس جمال عبد الناصر، ما استدعى من البطريرك الماروني بولس المعوشي التصدّي لجموح الرئاسة يومها، وتأييد موقف الزعيم العربي جمال عبد الناصر وتغطية انضواء الرئيس فؤاد شهاب تحت رايته، وتكرّس السقوط لفكرة دولة الحياد مجدداً مع هزيمة المشروع الناصري كرمز للدولة الوطنية العربية في حرب 1967، وصولاً إلى عجز دولة الحياد عن حماية لبنان وبيروت من الاجتياح الإسرائيلي عام 1982 ثم فشلها في استرداده من براثن الاحتلال، حيث نجحت المقاومة، والمقاومة وحدها، كعنوان لإعادة تأسيس مفهوم للدولة الوطنية، التي تتشكّل أصلاً على قاعدة تحقيق السيادة، ولا يزال المخاض اللبناني مستمراً، لأن لبنان المؤسس قبل مئة عام على نظريتي التوافق والتقاسم الطائفيين والحياد عن المواجهة مع “إسرائيل”، قد فقد قدميه مرتين، وباتت الولادة أشد عسراً من دون موازين جديدة وصياغات جديدة لمفهوم الدولة.
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يخلط الدكتور السيد، عباس بدباس، لأنه لا يريد أن ينظر للدور السعودي في ضرب التجربة القيادية لمشروع الدولة الوطنية العربية التي كان يرمز إليها مشروع جمال عبد الناصر، ويريد إنكار حقيقة أنه منذ ذلك اليوم الذي نجحت فيه السعودية في ضرب المشروع الناصري، وصولاً لحرب عام 67، بقيت في المنطقة محاولات حفاظ على الحد الأدنى من مقومات الدولة الوطنية المخلصة لمسؤولياتها، كانت تتقدمها سورية، ومقابلها ظواهر التحاق فوق الطاولة وتحت الطاولة بالمال السعودي، مقابل التخلي عن مسؤوليات الدولة الوطنية، ومثلما تفككت مشاريع الدولة الوطنية حيث كان الالتحاق بالسعودية تحت الطاولة أو فوقها، وتفككت الثورات الملونة التي قامت على الركيزة ذاتها، ثبتت الدولة الوطنية وصمدت، حيث حافظت على الحد الأدنى من مقومات دورها القائم أصلاً على مفهوم الاستقلال الوطني، ولذلك خيضت عليها الحروب لاجتثاث آخر بقايا مفهوم الدولة، وانتصارها برمزها الذي تمثله سورية، هو بشارة خير لنهضة وقيامة هذا المشروع للدولة الوطنية، بوجه مشاريع التطبيع مع “إسرائيل”، في زمن يعرف الدكتور السيد، أنه زمن أفول الأحادية الأميركية، والتفوق الإسرائيلي، بمثل ما هو زمن حضور المقاومة وقوتها الرادعة، وفي هذه الحرب الخشنة، اليد العليا للمقاومة، وفي الحروب الناعمة يراد للشيطنة أن تبشر باليأس، كنسخة منقحة مستسلمة لدولة مسخ تسمّى زورا بالوطنية، تحت شعار كل شيء سقط إلا التطبيع فقط، لتقول طبعوا والله ولي التوفيق، ولا تنسوا الدعاء بطول العمر لولي الأمر، وستصلكم تباعاً شحنات حليب الأطفال والحفاضات، وربما الأمونيوم لضرورات لوجستية تحاربون به عدو الله وعدوكم، كما حال الميليشيات الإرهابية التي دمرت سورية برعاية ولاة الأمر، وعندما تنتهي المهمة يمكن لاستخدام تفجيره ان يمنح فرصة تحقيق ما فشل تحقيقه بتفجير سابق والتحقيق ممكن بواسطة “التحقيق” الدولي مرتين، وصولاً لرأس يوحنا المعمدان نقدمه على طبق من ذهب الحياد لسالومي، علها تقدم رقصة فاتنة على طاولة الأمير في زمن “الانفتاح” والتطبيع.
Beirut – Hezbollah Secretary General His Eminence Sayyed Nasrallah delivered on Sunday a televised speech on the 10th of Muharram.
Condoling the Muslim world commemorating the martyrdom of Imam Hussein (AS), Sayyed Nasrallah lamented the scene today as “sad and different as the Lebanese streets and yards are empty due to Covid-19 pandemic.”
On Imam Hussein’s day, His Eminence recalled that “when being obliged to choose between humiliation and war, we say: Far from us is disgrace.”
“We, in Hezbollah, and on the 10th of Muharram affirm that we would never accept the existence of the false “Israeli” entity even if the whole world recognized it,” he stated, reiterating Hezbollah’s support to anyone who fights it.
His Eminence further highlighted that “There is a clear and unambiguous right of the Palestinian people’s right in all of Palestine from the sea to the river.”
“We stress the right of the Syrian people in the occupied Golan, and the right of the Lebanese people to liberate their occupied lands,” the Resistance Leader underlined, noting that “We will remain to support everyone who faces the “Israeli” entity’s occupation to the Palestinian, Syrian and Lebanese territories.”
According to His Eminence, “The peoples in our region want to enjoy living in dignity and freedom, away from the US administration that works to practice hegemony and impose governments on peoples.”
“In the imposed war on Yemen, the Saudis and Emiratis are the tools in the hands of the Americans as they implement the US’ wishes and decisions,” he emphasized, pointing out that “Today’s clear and explicit falsehood is represented by the US, which plunders people’s wealth and money.”
Sayyed Nasrallah also mentioned that “One of the greatest manifestations of the US aggression, greed and intervention in our region is represented by the continuous aggression against Iran through imposed wars, sanctions, sieges and schemes.”
Condemning all attempts to recognize “Israel” from any side, the Resistance Leader slammed any form of normalization with this entity.
“We reiterate our condemnation to the position of some UAE’s officials, whom Netanyahu did not respect, and any agreement of this kind is a treason,” he viewed, assuring that “As we have triumphed during all the past years in Lebanon, Palestine, Yemen, Syria Iraq and Iran, the future of this conflict is the victory that is inevitably coming. It is a matter of time.”
On “Israeli” PM Benjamin Netanyahu’s stance rejecting the sale of F-35s to the UAE, Sayyed Nasrallah said: ““Israel” does not trust the UAE or any other nation in the region.”
“What the UAE did is a free service for [US President Donald] Trump and Netanyahu in their worst political days,” His Eminence underscored.
Moving to the internal arena, Sayyed Nasrallah hoped that in the coming hours a PM is named and a government is formed to achieve reforms
In addition, His Eminence announced “Hezbollah’s support for reforms in Lebanon to the maximum level,” warning of vacuum.
“Claims that Hezbollah is impeding reforms are mere lies,” he mentioned, noting that “We will cooperate to pull our country out of any governmental vacuum.”
On the calls for political change on the internal political arena, Sayyed Nasrallah viewed that “The International calls for meeting the demands of the Lebanese people are excellent.”
However, he asked “Who sets the criterion? Are popular protests and street presence the criterion for reflecting popular demands? Shall we organize a referendum?”
In response, His Eminence went on to say: “No one in Lebanon not a religious authority nor any political leader can say this is the will of the Lebanese people.”
“We can say that we are the biggest political party in Lebanon with the biggest number of supporters, but we do not claim that we represent the entire Lebanese people,” he stressed, pointing out that “We in Hezbollah express the will of the people we represent.”
Moreover, Sayyed Nasrallah raised the questions, “Who says that the Lebanese people want a neutral, independent, technocrat or political government? The French president called for a new political contract in Lebanon during his recent visit. What if the Iranian President offered the same call? Had the presidents of Iran or Syria called for a new political contract in Lebanon, would have happened?”
“There is a problem in the Lebanese political culture,” His Eminence affirmed, unveiling that “Hezbollah is open to any calm discussions in the regard, of a new political contract, but we have a condition that the discussions should enjoy the consensus of all components.”
He also recalled that “Years ago, I mentioned a constituent assembly to improve the Taif Accord and we remember the internal sides’ reactions that occurred.”
Regarding Beirut Port blast, Sayyed Nasrallah called on the “Lebanese Army to announce the results of the technical investigation into the Beirut Port incident, because announcing the results will end the campaign of lies and slander.”
“We stress that the judiciary should firmly follow up on the port blast,” he said, asserting that “The blood of martyrs should not go in vain.”
Meanwhile, Sayyed Nasrallah warned that “There is a new attempt to reproduce Daesh [Arabic acronym for ‘ISIS/ISIL] in Iraq, Syria and east of the Euphrates.”
In addition, he highlighted “the depth of the relation between Hezbollah and the Amal Movement.”
“The memory of the kidnapping of Imam al-Sadr and his two companions is a comprehensive national memory, Imam al-Sadr is the imam of the resistance.”
On “Israel’s” raid that martyred the Resistance man- Ali Mohsen-in Syria, His Eminence reiterated Hezbollah’s equation: “Our objective is not revenge, but punishment and to establish a balance of deterrence.”
““Israel”, on its own, just after Hezbollah’s statement mobilized its forces and upped its measures on the Lebanese and Syrian borders. “Israel” is now sending remote control vehicles carrying dummies to give the Resistance targets to hit,” the Resistance Leader declared.
To the “Israelis”, Sayyed Nasrallah sent a sounding message: “I’ll be very clear, the “Israelis” must understand that whenever they kill one of our mujahideen, we will kill one of their soldiers. For us, the decision to respond to the “Israeli” is a categorical and decisive one. Frankly, we are not in a hurry.”
“The issue of “Israel’s” targeting a house in the village of Al-Habaria is a subject to response, and all the threats from Netanyahu, Gantz and Kochavi will not deter us,” he confirmed, telling the “Israeli: “Your soldiers will eventually appear on the roads.”
وسائل إعلام إسرائيلية تحذر من أن الحزب من الآن وصاعداً سيعل على تحويل الحدود الشمالية إلى خط مواجهة فاعل، وتشدد على أن السيد حسن يرسم معادلة جديدة في الحدود الشمالية “واحد مقابل واحد”.
قالت “القناة 13” الإسرائيلية إن “إسرائيل” تتعامل مع كلام الأمين العام لحزب الله السيد حسن نصر الله بمنتهى الجدية، “فهي ليست تهديدات فارغة”.
وأشارت إلى أن حزب الله من الآن وصاعداً “سيعمل على تحويل الحدود الشمالية إلى خط مواجهة فاعل”، موضحة أنه بعد الانفجار في بيروت، كان هناك شعور في “إسرائيل”، وربما “أمل” أن “توجه النار نحو حزب الله ويفرض عليه هذا الانفجار الفظيع “.
وأضافت القناة الإسرائيلية، “لكن ما حدث هو العكس، بعد تبدد دخان الانفجار تبين أن حزب الله هو القوة العسكرية والسياسية الأهم في لبنان”، مشددة على أن السيد نصر الله “وفياً للمعادلات”، وينوي العمل ضد جنود الجيش الإسرائيلي، و”جباية الثمن الذي هو ملتزم به”.
وكشفت أنه لذلك فإن الجيش الإسرائيلي يدرك أن “الجهوزية على طول الحدود الشمالية ستستمر وسترافقنا فترة طويلة”، منوهة إلى أن “الحدود الشمالية ستتغير، وحزب الله يريد أن يعيدها أن تكون خط مواجهة فاعل وهذا ما سيرافقنا من الآن وصاعداً”.
وتطرقت “القناة 13” الإسرائيلية إلى أن السيد نصر الله يواصل إبقاء “إسرائيل” بحالة استنفار، وقالت إن “مَن اعتقد أن الانفجار في لبنان والوضع الصعب فيه سيؤثر على قرارات نصر الله”، فقد جاء هذا “الخطاب الهجومي” بمناسبة يوم عاشوراء، وفيه “تعهد واضح” بالانتقام من” إسرائيل على قتل عنصر من حزب الله في الشهر الماضي بسوريا”.
وأوضحت أن “الجهوزية والحذر الذي ينتهجه الجيش في الشمال ستستمر في الأسابيع القادمة، لأن الإدراك في إسرائيل هو أن حزب الله ما زال معني باستهداف جنود، رغم الوضع الاقتصادي الصعب في لبنان ورغم الكورونا”.
من جهتها، قالت قناة “كان” إن السيد نصر الله، يزيل من جدول الأعمال اليومي إمكانية تراجع حزب الله عن نيته “الانتقام”، مشيرة إلى أن “السيد ملتزم بالمعادلة التي تقول قتل جندي إسرائيلي مقابل عنصر حزب الله الذي استشهد في سوريا”.
وأشارت إلى أن السيد نصر الله مصر على معادلة “واحد مقابل واحد”، ولن يقبل بأقل من ذلك، منوهة إلى أن هذا خلافاً لما اعتقدوا في “إسرائيل” ببداية الطريق، وهو “لا يبحث عن سلم للنزول عن الشجرة، هو يريد قتل جندي”.
وأوضحت القناة الإسرائيلية، أنه لذلك، فإن “التوتر سيبقى عالياً في الشمال في المستقبل القريب أيضاً”، لافتة إلى أنه “من ناحية المؤسسة الأمنية، يوجد 3 أهداف في الاستراتيجية الخاصة بالساحة الشمالية: منع التمركز الإيراني في سوريا ومنع تمركز حزب الله في الجولان، ومنع حزب الله من التسلح بصواريخ دقيقة”.
وأضافت “لكن بشأن التمركز الإيراني في سوريا منذ شهر ونصف، لا يوجد تقارير أن إسرائيل تهاجم في سوريا، غير مؤكد أن هذا يدلل على شيء، لكن هذه حقيقة يجب الانتباه إليها”.
بدورها، “القناة 12 الإسرائيلية” أكدت أن الجيش الإسرائيلي “سيبقى على جهوزية في الشمال كلما تطلب الأمر ذلك لأنه لا يوجد نية لدى حزب الله للتراجع”.
وفي وقت سابق اليوم، قال السيد نصر الله إنه “على الصهيوني أن يفهم أنه عندما يقتل أحد مجاهدينا سنقتل أحد جنوده”، مؤكداً أنّ الهدف من الرد على الاحتلال هو “تثبيت معادلة بأن الرد على قتل أحد مجاهدينا بقتل جندي إسرائيلي في المقابل”.
وعرضت الميادين يوم أمس مشاهد للإعلام الحربي تظهر تعمد جيش الاحتلال الإسرائيلي تقديم هدف آلي عند الحدود مع لبنان لاستدراج المقاومة إلى فخ وهمي، في خطوة أتت فيما يتواصل التأهب الإسرائيلي منذ أكثر من شهر تحسباً لرد المقاومة على اغتيال الشهيد علي كامل محسن في الغارة الإسرائيلية على سوريا.
President of the Republic, General Michel Aoun, addressed the Lebanese this evening in a televised speech on the occasion of the Centenary of Greater Lebanon.
President Aoun maintained that the shift of Lebanon from the prevailing confessional system to the modern secular State, the State of the citizen and citizenry, shall rescue it from the heinous legacies and repercussions of confessionalism, and save it from the protectorates, the red lines and the spoil-sharing that curtail any constructive will and curbs any move towards reform.
President Aoun said that the confessional system which is based on the rights of confessions and on quotas between them was valid for a while, but today it has become an obstacle before any progress or recovery in the country, a hindrance for any reform and fight against corruption, and a generator of strife, incitement and division for all those who wanted to undermine the country.”
“Today, Lebanon is facing an unprecedented crisis whereas the decades-old accumulations in politics, economy, finance and livelihood have exploded. So has the time come to discuss a new formula or a new agreement?”
President Aoun stressed that political considerations halted Lebanon’s oil excavation, highlighting continuous commitment to hope in face of all challenges
As Israel continues its bombing of Gaza for the 15th night in a row, while its sole power plant is forced to shut due to Israel’s decision to ban fuel from entering the Strip, and amid the spread of Coronavirus outside quarantine facilities, a new video clip has been produced.
It comes as part of a creative project produced in besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine, where a group of activists and artists came together in order to highlight:
The Palestine that every refugee is dreaming to return to;
Resistance to Israeli occupation and apartheid; and
The links with progressive Arab forces .
It is an established fact that two million Gazans are trapped in the world’s largest prison. 13 years of Israel’s brutal siege by land, sea and air has devastated every aspect of life in the Strip. 97% of aquifer water is undrinkable, 52% of essential drugs are at zero stock, and over 50% of the population is unemployed. Gazans suffer chronic water, medicine, fuel and food shortages.
Add to this the latest Coronavirus cases that have been reported with only 66 ventilators for the 2 million residents of the strip. Unlike the pandemic all over the world, in Gaza it is allowed to spread simply because apartheid Israel has decided to tighten the medieval siege.
The UN already predicted that by 2020 Gaza would be uninhabitable. And we are already there!
Despite our situation, we, in Gaza have never stopped fighting for freedom and justice. Hence, the video clip. As activists and artists, we cannot stand by while Gaza’s entire population is slowly dying the hands of one of the most sadistic colonial powers.
This is why we wanted to highlight not only the suffering of our people, but their resilience and resistance. Students, children, elderly, shopkeepers, women, girls, worshippers, stone throwers, GFM protesters, fishermen, mothers, fathers…
In addition to being a celebration of Palestinian life and resistance, the clip is a tribute to the late Egyptian singer, Abdulhalim Hafez who was the first to sing these songs during the progressive decades of the 1950’s and 1960’s.
– Haidar Eid is an Associate Professor in the Department of English Literature at the Al-Aqsa University, in the Gaza Strip. He contributed this article to The Palestine Chronicle.
Senior Lebanese political analyst Nasser Qandil explores what has changed between Hezbollah and Israel over the last 14 years since the ‘July War’ or ‘The Second Lebanon War’ in 2006.
After tracing the major changes and transformations in the military balance of power between the two sides over the last 14 years, Qandil then explores the current challenges facing Hezbollah inside Lebanon, particularly regarding the deepening economic and political crises in the country.
Note: we have added our own sub-headings in the below transcript to make for easier reading
Actually, regarding (Hezbollah’s) achievement of liberation (in the year 2000) free from any conditions or negotiations, any analyst can figure out that after the year 2000, the region was involved in a race between the Resistance and (Israeli) Army of occupation in which both (sides) tried to reinforce the reality that they wanted to reflect on May 24, 2000 (i.e. just before the liberation).
Israel wanted to say that it has positioned itself on the borders with the purpose of protecting the interior (of Israel); that the era of (the war of) attrition has ended; and that it is moving into a stage where it is able to direct (its) deterrent capacity at will. In contrast, the Resistance wanted to say that Israel has humiliatingly and forcefully withdrawn (from Lebanon); and that this withdrawal is not only the beginning of a countdown of the (Israeli) entity’s capacity to hold onto (occupied) land, but also (its capacity) to go to any (new) war again as well.
Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza in 2005 and the Al Aqsa Uprising (“Al Aqsa Intifada”) certified what the Resistance was saying. (Israel’s) 2006 war on Lebanon was the contest that had to settle the previous contests and the (side) who wins this round, cements what it has said. Israel has worked on a plan, theory, mechanisms and appraisals, that is, it didn’t go haphazardly to war (in 2006). In short, Israel counted on “air warfare” theory and put it into practice the (2006) war. However, the Resistance was aware of that, so it opted to strengthen its power on land, in order to cancel out the theory of air warfare, and to bring the enemy to the land to fight, engage in (battles) of attrition, and (ultimately) defeat it.
The Resistance was the victor. This was the outcome (of the war), because when we talk about ‘victory’ we are not referring to the historic and final defeat. Rather, we are just discussing this war (in 2006) in which the Resistance achieved victory and Israel was defeated again. As in the Lebanon war of the year 2000, or (more accurately) as reflected by the liberation in the (year) 2000, Israel lost its first pillar, that is, its ability to occupy (Lebanon) and remain in it. It also lost its second pillar in the 2006 war, which is its ability to wage war and achieve the goals (that it sets) as it wills.
After the 2006 war, the issue (between both sides) persisted. They entered a totally new and different race. The entity of the (Israeli) occupation is fighting to restore its honor and rehabilitate its image, whereas the Resistance is fighting the battle of becoming a regional power able to make the deterrence weapon (itself as) the policymaker. Since the year 2006, America put its weight behind (Israel’s goals) since Israel is not able to survive any longer without American protection and support. America went to Iraq after realizing that Israel superiority is (gradually) being eroded, and that it is important to rehabilitate its power and control through the American military presence to compensate for the deficiency in Israel’s ability that came about after Lebanon’s liberation in the year 2000 and the Al Aqsa intifada.
Host:
We all remember Condoleezza Rice and the ‘New Middle East Project’.
Nasser Qandil:
Exactly, and this was at the heart of the 2006 war. However, before this (war), America went to Iraq in order to redress the imbalance occurred after Lebanon’s liberation in 2000 and the Al Aqsa intifada, but they failed. The “July War” (2006) came as a second rehabilitation supported by American pressure, calculations and backing. It was a new failure that was added to the accumulated record of failures.
The only available alternative (choice) then was going to a great war, i.e. to topple Syria. This was like Armageddon. Nevertheless, other different battles, the Yemen war and the battle over the future of Iraq, occurred alongside the war (in Syria). They were no less important than the (war in Syria). Today, 14 years after the July War (in 2006), we can talk about facts and not about general trends only. The resistance (movements) transformed from being a resistance force into an Axis of Resistance. This becomes a fact; it is not just words. Today, when his eminence Sayyed (Hassan Nasrallah) speaks and says “I will kill you” – we’ll discuss this later – this (statement) reflects the (powerful reality) of the Axis of Resistance, from Beirut, to Palestine, to Iraq, to Yemen, to Iran and to Syria. This is the first major transformation that occurred between the years 2006 to 2020 during the heat of the several wars that raged over the map of the region.
The second (major transformation during these years): the ‘missile belt’ is now able to strike – from any point (within the Axis of Resistance) – any target in occupied Palestine (i.e. Israel). This means that as the resistance in Palestine is able to target all (areas of Israel) north of Gaza, the resistance in south Lebanon can target the entire (area of Israel) south (of Lebanon); the resistance from Iraq is even able to reach the (Mediterranean) sea; the resistance in Yemen can cover the whole territory of Palestine; and that’s besides (the missiles capabilities of) Syria and Iran.
The Host:
The entire Israeli intelligence efforts have lately been centered on the missile capabilities of the resistance.
Nasser Qandil:
This ‘(missile) belt’ has been completed; it is not a subject of discussion anymore.
The third (major) development is the entrance of the drones (UAVs). The use of this weapon is not restricted to the Lebanese front line. Israel has evidence that confirms that. How many times were drones sent by the resistance from Lebanon? How many times were the Israelis lost because they failed to track the drones sent from Gaza? (Further evidence lies in) the drones in Yemen, and the achievement of the Aramco attack (in Saudi Arabia) that the godfather of the Dimona (Israeli nuclear program) and Thomas Friedman wrote about it an important article in the New York Times. The article states that what happened in Aramco (can be) repeated on all American military bases in the Middle East, and can be repeated (in a strike) on Dimona. Moreover, one of the Israeli generals quoted by Thomas Friedman during a telephone conversation says that it seems that we must now relinquish the status of being the number one technicians in the Middle East, (and cede that status) to Hezbollah and its allies, and (we ought to) call upon our people to carry hand rifles in any coming wars in which drones are used. Henceforth, the third factor is the drones.
The fourth (major) new factor is the precision-guided missiles which formed the center of the struggle during the last two or three years of the Syrian war. The Israeli (air) raids which initially aimed at stopping the supply of weapons to the resistance (from Syria to Lebanon) turned into a specific goal (during these years) which became ‘preventing the resistance from the possibility of transforming their missiles into precision-guided ones’. Today, the Israelis speak about precision-guided missile factories and this signifies that they have surrendered to this fact.
The last issue we are ignorant of was revealed by the video published (recently) by (Hezbollah’s) military media which says “Mission accomplished”. Certainly, it is not referring to the precision-guided missiles because his eminence Sayyed (Hassan Nasrallah) has already announced clearly and publicly that ‘yes, we have enough precision-guided missiles to hit any vital Israeli military installation in occupied Palestine’. But we still don’t know what is meant by “Mission accomplished”. This will stay one of the resistance’s surprises in the coming wars.
Israel 14 years on from the July War
Nasser Qandil:
What have Israel and America achieved in return? Their situation now is similar to that in the July War (2006); they go to war today on one foot only. It was the air force in (the) July (War) that they relied upon, and it is the financial sanctions (that they rely upon) today. Did the Resistance succeed in breaking this foot? I say “Yes, and we will expand on this discussion later.
Host:
We will continue discussing why the resistance succeeded…
Nasser Qandil:
In the first section we talked about the progress achieved by the resistance (Hezbollah) from 2006 to 2020. Israel also worked (on building its power) during these 14 years. Let u see what it did.
Host: …and of course (Israel) was given a green light by the US.
Nasser Qandil:
First of all, Israel focused on the home front. Its main aim was not to draw up a plan to seize the initiative, but to face the fallout of the July War. The resistance (Hezbollah) has risen higher and higher in its level of readiness, its networking capabilities (i.e. greater integration of the Resistance Axis across the region), and its ability to wage war. Meanwhile, what did the (Israeli) entity do?
(First), the Iron Dome that (Israel) was preparing (in order to intercept) Katyusha missiles is now threatened by precision-guided missiles and drones. (The Israelis) went back to saying that they will shoot down missiles with hunting rifles!
(Second), the (Israeli) home front has further collapsed, and now in the time of Corona, it is even worse.
Third, political fragmentation, which is one of the repercussions of the July War. Since the July War, the (Israeli) entity has been mired in its inability to reestablish a historical (political) bloc capable of leading the entity politically. This fragmentation reached its peak with three (consecutive) repeats of the election.
The last point that (Israel) has discovered (over the last 14 years) is that there is no solution to is broken spirit, because we are not only talking about equipment, armies, weapons and logistical plans, we are talking about human beings, about their mental condition. The resistance (Hezbollah) is now becoming more and more confident that it can bring down the (Israeli) entity. When his eminence Sayyed (Nasrallah) comes out and says in one of his recent appearances that there is a real possibility that the (Israeli) entity will collapse without war, and that this generation is going to witness the liberation of Jerusalem…On the other hand, we find the (Israeli) entity in a state of frustration. No matter how many (Israeli) generals say “We will win. Victory is ours in the coming war. We are waiting for the right opportunity to wage war”…what are you (Israelis) waiting for? You and the Americans said: “Time is not in our favor. Yesterday’s war is better than a war today, and a war today is better than a war tomorrow.”
Host:
Who is going to achieve Israel’s goals today? Who is the principal agent? The US? Because, as you said in one of your articles, Sayyed Nasrallah’s recent speech on 7/7/2020, presents the most vivid example of the (resistance’s) ability to defeat the Israeli occupation and American hegemony. But how is he (Nasrallah) able today to combine this (military) resistance with economic resistance?
The third pillar of the Resistance: economic reconstruction
Nasser Qandil:
What I want to get to is that in one of his appearances, his eminence Sayyed Nasrallah cut to the chase and said: “The resistance (Hezbollah) has already overtaken Israel. Israel is still standing thanks to US protection.” In 1996, the Resistance discovered – and this was the secret behind the liberation in the year 2000 – that the Israelis remained (in Lebanon) because they were under the illusion that the border buffer zone (that Israel established within Lebanese territory) protects the (Israeli) entity from the missiles of the resistance. So if (Israel) realizes that the border (buffer zone) is pointless and that the entity will be targeted no matter what, it will withdraw. And this is what happened (in the year 2000).
Today, his eminence Sayyed (Nasrallah) tells us that the resistance is certain that the (Israeli) entity continues to survive only because of the American presence (in the region), and that the decisive battle with the entity is a battle to expel the Americans from the region.
Whoever analyses the (American) sanctions and the logic behind them will discover that they are not aimed at escalating the situation such that it provokes a full-scale confrontation. This is nothing but propaganda. In fact, these sanctions have direct political goals. I mean, (Lebanese) parties affiliated to the US (in Lebanon) are proposing (very high demands such as) the disarmament (of Hezbollah) and the implementation of Resolution 1559 because this is the American approach. Just as they (Americans) did in 1983 with (Lebanese) President Amine Gemayel when they told him that they were (about to attack) Syria at the same time in which they were engaged in negotiations with (Syria). Two months later, McFarlane) the special US envoy to the Middle East) was asked: “why did you back out (of the attack)? You would have put (Gemayel) in big trouble.” McFarlane answered: “if we told (Gemayel) that we were (negotiating) with Damascus, he would have beat us to it. We trick our allies to make them think that we are escalating for the sake of imposing stronger terms in the negotiations.”
What do Americans want from the Caesar Act? Why are the Americans putting pressure on Lebanon, blocking access to US dollars in the (Lebanese) market, preventing the transfer of dollars to the country, and closing lines of credit – via the Central Bank of Lebanon’s accounts -for the purchase of fuel? What do they want? The Americans are not hiding (their intentions). They told us what they want. James Jeffrey (US Special Representative for Syria Engagement) told us. Why the Caesar Act? He said in the live appearance he made in which he spoke about the Act. He said ‘we wish to go back to (the balance of power) that existed before 2011. What does he mean by “before 2011”? He means the time when “we (Americans) will acknowledge the victory of President Assad. We were not present (in Syria before 2011), but Hezbollah and Iran were not there either. We leave (Syria), but (Hezbollah and Iran must) leave too.”
So he (Jeffrey) wants to ensure the security of the (Israeli) occupying entity in southern Syria by hinting at sanctions against Russia as the main target of the Caesar Act. Syria will be hit by sanctions anyway and Iran is drowning in a sea of sanctions. Therefore, these sanctions are actually against Russia. The Caesar Act was introduced originally at the beginning of 2016 in order to reach a compromise with Russia in relation to the battle in Aleppo. However, (the Caesar Act) now aims at reaching an agreement with Russia over the terms of the withdrawal of US forces from Syria and is not aimed at (prolonging) their stay.
Second, regarding Lebanon, David Schenker (US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs) publicly appeared on TV and said that Hezbollah is involved in ‘corruption, smuggling, money laundering, causing devastation, and that it is the cause of the crisis (in Lebanon)’ etc. Give it to me directly (Schenker), what do you want? He (Schenker) told us directly that “you are suffering greatly (due to the economic crisis). You have promising gas reserves in the (Mediterranean) sea, but they are in a region that is the subject of a dispute with Israel. We (the US) presented you with a plan, so accept it! So the US wants an exit strategy that provides the (Israeli) occupying entity with a security belt on the Syrian and the Lebanese fronts, and (the US seeks to achieve this) by exerting “maximum pressure on the resistance”.
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Nasser Qandil:
This is the third pillar of the power of the Resistance. The first pillar is military capability. The second pillar is the political front, meaning the Axis of Resistance. The third pillar is economic reconstruction. Without a resistance economy, the resistance cannot speak of an ability to maintain a level of cohesion within its support base and environment. What I want to say here is that the measures and steps taken by the resistance are not new. It is not true that the resistance, being under pressure at the moment, is now discovering or searching (for solutions). This was in fact its original program. Its original program was and is ‘Openness to the East’, that (Lebanon) have multiple sources (for economic, financial, and political relations). Its original program is aimed at breaking the borders (created by) Sykes-Picot between the countries of the region to form a single (economic) market. Its original program is aimed at relying on industry, agriculture and the national currency for exchange with neighboring countries and where possible. This is the original plan of the resistance. But this plan is now being put into action. It is not a negotiating weapon to lure Americans into easing conditions. If the Americans want to cooperate they are welcome, but if they don’t we will proceed (with this plan). Either way, this plan is not subject to review. Industry and agriculture are objective needs (of Lebanon).
In terms of industry and agriculture, Lebanon … Lebanon, by the way – in the year 1960, the Iraqi market was running 60% of the Port of Beirut and 30% of Lebanese industrial production. Today, Lebanon, which used to export milk, cheese, juice, clothing and shoes to the Gulf, imports 200 million dollars worth of milk and cheese only! Thus, the revival of the agricultural and manufacturing sectors, which were destroyed by the rentier economy, was and is the original plan. We are not talking about a knee-jerk reaction.
Host:
Has the goal (behind the sanctions) become counter-productive? Because the Lebanese internal consensus over the economic resistance that Sayyed Nasrallah called for was remarkable. I want you to comment briefly because we exceeded the time allocated for this file. The Patriarch (Bechara Boutros) al-Rahi said today: “The Lebanese people today do not want any majority (group in Lebanon) to tamper with the constitution and to keep them away from (Lebanon’s) brothers and friends.” This is noteworthy as well Mr. Nasser, is it not?
Nasser Qandil:
The truth is, the speech of his Beatitude (al- Rahi), at certain points, was vague and unclear. It seemed like he was targeting the resistance by talking about neutrality and keeping Lebanon out of conflicts. However, today there may be another direction. I think the Lebanese people know that when we talk about buying oil products in Lebanese pounds… if you don’t want to buy them from Iran, then buy them from Saudi Arabia. Aren’t you friends with Saudi Arabia and the UAE? Let these countries sell us oil products in Lebanese pounds. Half of the demand for dollars in the Lebanese market is because of oil imports. We are depleting the reserves of the Central Bank of Lebanon. They will last us for five years instead of ten if we keep using them for oil imports.
His eminence Sayyed Nasrallah announced that Iran is ready to help, and since oil imports are consuming half of the budget, the resistance is proposing to remove half of the pressure on the US dollar, meaning (that the exchange rate) would return to 3000 or 4000 (Lebanese pounds per dollar) if we buy these oil products in Lebanese pounds. We are not bound to (importing) from Iran exclusively. Bring any offer from any other country.
Host:
True…for the Americans, the (economic) war was aimed at Hezbollah. However, the entirety of Lebanon is suffering the consequences of this war.
Nasser Qandil:
Here, I want to say something so we can put things in the right perspective. When the uprising began in October (2019), Pompeo and his team went beyond warnings. (Jeffery) Feltman (Former Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs) said before the American Congress: “Do not overestimate the influence of this uprising. Let’s not allow Lebanon to become prey for China and Russia.” He said frankly that China wants Lebanon to be a base for its 5G (technology) in the Middle East.
The Americans are backtracking from this (maximum economic pressure) approach not only because of economic (considerations). Do not be mistaken. This is because a highly powerful security message was delivered to the Americans about what the resistance might do if the situation (in Lebanon) deteriorated further.
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Nasser Qandil:
When someone with the great prominence, status, and figure of Sayyed Nasrallah comes out and says: “I will kill you, I will kill you, I will kill you” … These words were written down (on paper). He did not say them out of anger during his speech. He was establishing a (new) equation. He said: “You are making me choose me between hunger or death. My answer is: I will kill you, I will kill you, I will kill you.” Mediators received questions asking them “what is going on? (what does Nasrallah mean here by ‘I will kill you’)” Then they got the answer. The answer might be – I do not know the answer, only the resistance knows it – but it might be in the form of strong military strike that the US and Israel would never expect. Is it the announcement of the zero hour for the expulsion of US forces from Iraq and Syria? Maybe. Is it a precision guided missile attack on the Dimona (nuclear reactor in Israel), for example? Maybe. Is it a (codeword) for opening up the (military) front in the south of Lebanon, and the Golan Heights front (from Syria) under the title of liberating the Shebaa Farms and the Golan Heights in one go? Maybe. This is the level and size (of the warning that Nasrallah directed).
The resistance will not stand idly by while its people suffer (from the deteriorating economic crisis). It will fight hunger by establishing the foundations of economic reconstruction because this is its project. This (economic reconstruction) has nothing to do with merely fighting (US) sanctions. (The resistance) found an opportunity to launch this project. Other (Lebanese parties) did not accept these proposals (before). Now it is the chance (to put them forward).
Do we want to change Lebanon’s identity by (economically) cooperating with China and giving rise eastern totalitarianism and who knows what, as some (in Lebanon) claimed? No. But does it make sense that the NATO (member) Turkey dares to go to Russia and buy S400 (missile systems), while we (Lebanese) don’t dare to buy Kalashnikov bullets that former Prime Minister Saad Hariri pledged to buy but did not dare to allocate funds for? We have 10 billion dollars’ worth of offers from China to build power plants, factories and tunnels under BOT (Build–operate–transfer) contracts, but we don’t have the courage to accept these offers because we are afraid that the US might be upset with us!
Host: Saudi Arabia itself is now negotiating with China over avenues of cooperation…
Nasser Qandil:
Everyone is turning to China. (Check) the Boston Harbor now, all the equipment for loading, operating, and unloading are Chinese!
Host: This all goes back to the American-Israeli concerns, Mr. Nasser.
Nasser Qandil:
This is the economic vision of the resistance. The (military) dimension (of this whole picture) is something else. The (military) dimension is the following: when they raise the bar of the financial threat, we raise the bar of the military-security threat.
The UN on Friday renewed its peace mission in Lebanon for a year but reduced its troop capacity and requested that Beirut grant access to tunnels under the border with Israel.
The France-drafted resolution to renew the UNIFIL peacekeeping force was adopted unanimously by the Security Council’s 15 members, according to diplomats.
The council will reduce the troop limit from 15,000 to 13,000, the resolution said, recognizing that the mission has “successfully implemented its mandate since 2006 and has allowed for maintaining peace and security.”
In practice, the decision does not change much because UNIFIL’s current strength is around 10,500 peacekeepers, a diplomat told AFP on condition of anonymity. During negotiations, Washington had asked for a limit of 11,000 peacekeepers.
The resolution urges Lebanon to give UNIFIL investigators access to areas north of the so-called Blue Line – the UN-demarcated border between occupied Palestine and Lebanon.
Backing the “Israeli” entity, which has accused UNIFIL of bias and ineffectiveness, the US has called since early summer for a troop reduction.
In the midst of an economic and political crisis, the Lebanese authorities demanded that the UN mission be extended without any change.
The resolution calls on UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres coordinate with Lebanon and troop-contributing countries within 60 days on a plan for implementing recommendations he made to improve UNIFIL’s performance.
In June, Guterres said the peacekeeping force needed to be “more agile and mobile,” and called for an improved surveillance capacity of the force, including thermal-imaging cameras, hi-tech binoculars and drones.
Set up in 1978, UNIFIL was beefed up after the 2006 war.
The force, in coordination with the Lebanese army, is tasked guaranteeing a ceasefire and “Israeli” withdrawal from a demilitarized zone on the border.
It is amusing that one of the first people I spoke with in Kenosha, Wisconsin – as I filmed a car dealership whose entire inventory had been torched – was a French journalist, considering that I have been posted in France for over a decade. It really is a small and interconnected world….
The situation in Kenosha is a microcosm of the United States in 2020 – tragedy on top of tragedy on top of tragedy:
A Black man wantonly paralysed by cops, his three sons forced to watch, ethnic-based violence deteriorating a community already gutted by anti-patriotic neoliberal economics, shops frantically boarding up their windows after having been shuttered during a pandemic lockdown, a 17-year old shooting and killing two protesters – there is just a complete lack of security everywhere over here.
The failure to provide physical security for their citizens is the ultimate failure of any government, no? Providing physical security is the primary reason anyone ever elevated a king, president, tribal elders, communist party, whatever. In the US, however, insecurity is as rampant in real life as it is absent from their seemingly innumerable, slick television shows.
There is no security for Black men here. There is also no security for the home of the cop who shot Jacob Blake so savagely – locals told me they expect his house to be burned down shortly, and that his street is now full of strange cars at night. There’s not going to be any security for that 17-year old shooter when he gets to prison – I can’t see how he’ll survive in a US prison where ethnic-based gangs are seemingly encouraged to proliferate.
Security for Black men, security for prisoners, security for protesters, security via basic health care, security from total economic ruin – these are all things which governments could provide but which are cruelly withheld from the American people. This perpetual insecurity perpetually creates tragedy on top of tragedy on top of tragedy in a country which is most definitely not poor.
Reporting on the United States for this election season/Civil War II is going to require the constant presentation of contradictions, most of them impossible to reconcile (thus “Civil War II”). One guiding idea should prevail, however: the leaders on both sides are so inherently reactionary, power-hungry and arrogant that there is no side which can be chosen with a full heart.
That’s not me calling for (so-called) “objective reporting”, but simply reporting how Americans already feel: Polls reveal that 60% of Joe Biden voters support him only in order to stop Donald Trump, with just 30% voting because they actually support Biden (for his performance or temperament).
This is nearly exactly the same as in France, where in 2017 precisely 24% of the electorate voted for Emmanuel Macron’s proposals or personality – nearly half of his voters only wanted to block neo-fascist Marine Le Pen. In both Western countries voters somehow get stuck with trying to block a far-right candidate, which is to say they are manipulated into voting for a right-wing, aristocratic privilege-protecting candidate who only works to ensure the security of his 1%-er backers.
The problem is not the Western people themselves – the problem is baked into the Western liberal democratic system, which obviously creates and protects a self-perpetuating aristocracy which leans drastically to the political and economic right-wing. Western liberal democracy is seemingly guaranteed to produce political cynicism, distrust and disunity.
This has culminated in a widespread perception in the US that an American maintains his or her security only as long as the government remains uninvolved – this anarchic view is not some sort of universal value but a somewhat logical response to the insecurities perpetuated by the West’s essentially aristocratic (bourgeois), pre-1917-inspired systems.
However, in a time of major crisis a degraded, neglected and neglectful government is unable or unwilling to respond, and that explains why the dog-eat-dog, decentralised US system has had such a terrible pandemic response; that explains why even their small towns are up in flames.
The governor of Wisconsin required four days to finally visit Kenosha – I guess other parts of Wisconsin were making international news/burning down? Or perhaps he put his own safety and interests first. Local law enforcement has been appallingly tight-lipped regarding information on the shooting – above all they want to protect their own little cop aristocracy, even though this lack of democratic transparency drastically inflamed tensions and almost certainly led to the tragic shooting of protesters.
In America there is a constant and often hysterical desire for self-protection – to protect your job, your often meagre “benefits”, your property, your body, etc. – no matter what the cost to anyone else or to society. This is a direct result of the American’s system guaranteed inability to fulfil the primary directive of any type of government: to provide security.
This is not some sort of sad inevitability, as neoliberals and libertarians insist. And although they insist otherwise, there are indeed alternate choices to the American/Western system of societal construction. However, when it comes to nations with alternative views and inspirations – Iran, China, Cuba, etc. – prominent Western politicians lie about these nations just as easily as Trump lies about Biden, or as much as Democratic leaders obfuscate in general.
Craziness in Portland, Minneapolis and Chicago – perhaps to be expected in America, but in Kenosha? Shocking… but not when you think it over.
Will the selection of Trump or Biden end the average American’s crazy, endemic instability amid so much wealth and resources? Not likely.
Americans know that all too well, and it helps explain why there is so much rebellion going on.
Ramin Mazaheri is the chief correspondent in Paris for PressTV and has lived in France since 2009. He has been a daily newspaper reporter in the US, and has reported from Iran, Cuba, Egypt, Tunisia, South Korea and elsewhere. He is the author of ‘Socialism’s Ignored Success: Iranian Islamic Socialism’as well as ‘I’ll Ruin Everything You Are: Ending Western Propaganda on Red China’, which is also available in simplified and traditional Chinese.
Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah delivered a speech on the 10th of Muharram in which he tackled local and regional developments as he expressed that “this year the 10th day of Muharram comes with greater sadness because of the absence of crowds expressing their love and loyalty in fields due to the virus”.
After offering his condolences to the prophet household and all the believers in the world, his eminence remembered two stances that we learn from Imam Hussein (as). The first is that “when rightness gets portrayed as wrong, people must take the initiative to reveal the rightness even if it was through martyrdom”. The second is that ” when oppressors and tyrants put you in front of two choices either war or humiliation, the answer is definitely “Humiliation… how remote!”.”“In the conflict today, the region is divided into two camps, right and wrong. Occupation, confiscating rights and terrorism are in one camp, and the rights of the Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese people are in the other camp…
Today, on the 10th of Muharram, we as Hezbollah reassure that we will never acknowledge this occupying entity even if the whole world did. Right is what these people and the regimes that represent them portray and wrong is what the US regime bluntly portrays from stealth to domination and oppression,” Sayyed Nasrallah stated.“The US policies in Palestine, the war on Yemen which is US led, while Saudi and Emirates are only tools and funders, the siege on Syria and occupying some of its lands, backing oppressive regimes, dominating Iraq and stealing its wealth, as well as the ongoing aggression against Iran since the victory of the Islamic revolution,” he added, assuring that “we have triumphed in the last years in Lebanon and Palestine and we will triumph in Yemen. We triumphed against ISIL in Syria and Iraq, and Iran triumphed in the war with its firmness and steadfastness.”“The future of this conflict in Palestine and the region is victory, just as this axis faced a global war and triumphed in the past,”
Sayyed Nasrallah stressed.On the Emirati peace with Israel, Hezbollah SG condemned the Emirati stance, referring to the Israeli superior attitude even in such a situation.“When the Emirates claimed that their peace plan with Israel will result in halting the joining of Palestinian lands to Israel, Netanyahu instantly held a conference and assured that joining lands is still in his agenda, and when the Emirates claimed that they will be receiving F35 from Israel after the peace plan, Netanyahu held a conference and tweeted denying that and assuring the Israeli military superiority in the region and its lack of trust in anyone in the region.”
“This is how they deal with anyone who crawls to them. Peace in return for humiliation. What the Emirates did was a free favor for Trump and Netanyahu in their worst political states.
On the local level, Sayyed Nasrallah hoped that the parliamentary factions will successfully choose a candidate for leading the government Monday in order to rebuild the economic situation and implement reformations.He further wondered about all those international and regional calls for responding to people’s demands saying: “We’ve always hoped for a government that expresses people’s needs. But how will these needs be known? Through public referendum? Public surveys? We are ready for discussing that with each other in order to cut the road on anyone who tries to impose his demands and claim that they are public demands.”
“We don’t claim that we represent all the Lebanese people, but we represent a percentage… as for Macron’s call for a new political era and his criticism for the sectarian system in Lebanon… we are open to any dialogue as long as all the Lebanon factions accept that,” Sayyed Nasrallah added.
On the port explosion, Sayyed Nasrallah called for a righteous investigation in the port explosion and called for announcing about the Army’s initial investigation results to put an end to all the lies and rumors. He further called for punishing the TV stations that took advantage of people’s emotional situation after the explosion and started lashing and stating lies, saying these must be held accountable by the official and judicial parts as well as people.
Sayyed Nasrallah reassured the resistance’s firm alignment with Amal Movement and its leadership and its support to the Supreme Islamic Shiite council and Imam Moussa Al-Sadr’s family in their responsibility to follow up his case.“Some unfortunate incidents that take place between young men in some towns are denounced and must be confronted with awareness, but with the strong relation between the two leaderships, we are able to pass these events successfully,” his eminence said.
Concerning the developments on the southern Lebanese borders, his eminence pointed out that “after Hezbollah member was martyred in the Israeli attack on Syria, Israel instantly knew that there will be retaliation based on the equations we drew with our power, not our speeches. This is how respect is attained.”Sayyed Nasrallah stated that the Israelis have evacuated all their locations on the Lebanese borders and have been in state of alert for the last period waiting for Hezbollah to wage any retaliatory attack and get over with it.“But today, I tell the Israeli that if you kill one of our fighters, we will kill one of your soldiers. We don’t care to retaliate by hitting machines or locations or causing material damage. All this financial damage can be replaced due to the large amounts of money you have,” Sayyed Nasrallah stated.
In conclusion, his eminence called for further awareness, responsibility, and commitment to the measures taking in order to limit the spread of Corona Virus and be able to commemorate Ashura next year hopefully.
مع تصريح وزير الداخلية محمد فهمي بأن التحقيقات الجارية حول الجريمة التي أدّت لسقوط ثلاثة شهداء في بلدة كفتون في الكورة، قد حسمت لصالح اعتبارها جريمة إرهابيّة، وكشفت خلفيّات مرتكبيها وأهدافهم، صارت الحقيقة الثابتة بعيداً عن كل الفرضيات الأخرى، هي أن المجرمين الإرهابيين ليسوا مجرد أفراد بخلفيات إرهابية وسجل إجرامي إرهابي، بل هم كانوا في مهمة لصالح تشكيل إرهابي، ضمن إطار مخطط إرهابي كبير.
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هذه الخلاصة تنصف الشهداء أولاً، لكنها ترتب مسؤوليات على الدولة بحجم الحقيقة الخطيرة ثانياً، فوجود مخطط إرهابي جاء العدوان على أمن الكورة في سياقه، أمر بحجم يستدعي استنفاراً على مستوى أجهزة الدولة الأمنية والقضائية، لكشف كل خيوط الشبكات الإرهابية وخلاياها النائمة من جهة، ومتابعة كل المتورطين في جريمة كفتون وسوقهم للعدالة من جهة مقابلة.
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المطالبة بإحالة الجريمة أمام المجلس العدلي ليست طلباً تكريمياً للشهداء، وهم يستحقون أكثر من ذلك وقد كرموا لبنان بدمائهم التي بذلوها لحماية لبنان من خطر داهم، فالإحالة أمام المجلس العدلي هي تعبير عن الجدية في تقدير حجم الخطر ونوعية الجريمة، ورسالة للجدية في مواجهة هذا النوع من الجرائم، لأنه ببساطة من غير الطبيعي ألا تعتبر هذه الجريمة الإرهابية الموصوفة من نوع جرائم الاعتداء على أمن الدولة، التي وجد المجلس العدلي للنظر فيها.
“وُلدت في 5 حزيران 1967، اسم أبي مش مهم. أمي اسمها نكبة، وأختي اسمها فاطمة، نمرة رجلي ما بعرف لأني دايماً حافي، أنا مش فلسطيني ولا أردني، مش كويتي ولا لبناني ولا مصري، أنا عربي”، هذا ما يقوله حنظلة فتى الفنان الفلسطيني ناجي العلي، الذي ساهم بموهبته صنع هوية الفلسطيني المستاء من بقائه لاجئاً، والعازم على إخفاء وجهه ما دامت فلسطين محتجبة عن عينيه.
هو ناجي سليم حسين العلي، الفلسطيني الذي توقف به العمر في سن العاشرة حين بلغها عام 1947، ووجد نفسه مضطراً لأن يترك أرضه ويصير لاجئاً في مخيم عين الحلوة، جنوب بيروت. ثم أخذ يكبر فيما فتاه المبتكر حنظلة المولود في يوم “النكسة”، ظلّ على عمره -أي في العاشرة- ففي “تلك السن غادرتُ الوطن، وحين يعود حنظلة سيكون بعد في العاشرة، ثم سيأخذ في الكبر بعد ذلك، قوانين الطبيعة المعروفة لا تنطبق عليه” يقول ناجي العلي معرّفاً بحنظلة.
بأكثر من 40 ألف رسم كاريكاتيري، و30 عاماً من العمل، رسم الفنان الصاعد من أزقة المخيم، الطريق إلى “كامل التراب الفلسطيني” كما تقول إحدى لوحاته، وذلك بلاءات ثلاث “لا صلح، لا مفاوضات، لا اعتراف” لا تقود إلا إلى هدف واحد آمن به طوال حياته وهو “الكفاح المسلح”.
لاءات ثلاث آمن بها ناجي علي كما باقي أبناء المخيمات
كرّس العلي رسوماته لمحاربة دعاية الاستسلام والاعتراف بـ”إسرائيل”، ووجه سهام نقده اللاذع للأنظمة والمثقفين الذين رضوا أن يفاوضوا على القضية الفلسطينية أو يهادنوا عليها. وسخرت رسومه من الزعماء العرب وشرّحت السياسات الإسرائيلية، التي عرف عام 1973 أن هدفها سيكون الاستدراج للمصافحة.
كان العام 1973 الذي انتهت مفاعيل الحرب العربية-الإسرائيلية فيه عام 1978 بتوقع الرئيس المصري أنور السادات ورئيس الوزراء الإسرائيلي مناحيم بيغن اتفاق “كامب ديفيد”، عاماً لنكسة جديدة ورفض جديد في تاريخ حنظلة ناجي العلي: “بعد حرب تشرين الأول 1973 كتفتُ حنظلة باكراً، لأن المنطقة ستشهد عملية تطويع وتطبيع مبكرة قبل رحلة السادات…. من هنا كان التعبير العفوي لتكتيف الطفل هو رفضه وعدم استعداده للمشاركة في هذه الحلول”، يقول العلي.
لم يجزّء رئيس رابطة الكاريكاتير العربي القضايا، فقد آمن بالنقد وسلية لردع رجال السياسة العرب عن احتكار الحكم، ومهمة لتحفيز الجمهور ودفعه للتمسك بقاضاياه المحقة، وبالعدالة الاجتماعية كهدف لا ينبغي فصله عن معركة التحرر.
ورغم إيمانه بالعروبة، لم يهادن العلي العرب الذين مدوا أياديهم لـ”إسرائيل”، وحولوا نفطهم الأسواد لمادة استرضاء أميركا. كل سلام مع “إسرائيل” ما كان ليمر إلا في صدور الفلسطينيين كما يرى العلي.. هو طعنة من خلف. هو حرب على فلسطين وإن كان تحت مسمى السلام.
السلام مع “إسرائيل” يمر عبر صدور الفلسطينيين
اشتغل ناجي العلي على صناعة وعي جديد، أساسه أن التطبيع والاعتراف لن يفيد العرب بشيء (فهو يصوّر السلام مع “إسرائيل” في إحدى رسوماته، بالعظمة التي لا يتمكن المطبّع من أن يطالها)، وأن المقاومة هي السبيل الوحيد أمام العرب لاستعادة ما خسروه، هذا في وقت كانت القوات الإسرائيلة لا تزال محتلة لغزة وجنوب لبنان وباقي الأراضي الفلسطينية.
اليوم، وفيما القوات الإسرائيلية تهدد بأنها سترد على أي هجمة يشنها حزب الله، فيما جنودها يختبئون في آلياتهم ويزرعون رجلاً آلياً كطعم لعناصر المقاومة كي يجنبهم قتل بعض جنوده، تسارع الإمارات العربية للإعداد لـ”اتفاق السلام” مع “إسرائيل” في البيت الأبيض، في دليل واضح على صدق ما آمن به العلي قبل عقود، أن الهزيمة والانتصار ليسا متوقفين على قدرة العدو، وإنما على الإيمان بالنصر وبالاخلاص للمبادئ الوطنية.
33 عاماً مرّ على استشهاد العلي في أحد شوارع لندن، بفعل مسدس وكاتم صوت مجهول. كثير من الأمور تغيرت منذ ذالك الحين، لكن حنظلة لا يزال رمزاً راهناً يشفُّ عن روح العلي المتمردة، هذه نبؤة أخرى صادقة للفنان المقتول غيلة: “لن ينتهي حنظلة من بعدي، وربما لا أبالغ إذا قلت أني قد أستمر به بعد موتي”.
At a time of health crisis one would expect to see an open global scholarly, multi disciplinary debate among scientists, scholars from different fields, politicians and finance experts. Not only does such a discourse not exist, what we have seen instead is a crude attempt to eradicate any such exchange. It isn’t our governments that interfere with this crucial discourse: it isn’t Trump or the FBI that deleted seven million FB posts that didn’t agree with the World Health Organisation’s narrative. It wasn’t the Tories or Boris Johnson who erased thousands of salient videos from Youtube. It has been the work of the giant technology companies operating in concert to silence dissenting views.
By now we are used to the idea that telling the truth about Israel and its lobby provokes severe authoritarian reactions, and it took us just a few days into the current Covid-19 pandemic to grasp that dissent from the official Corona virus narrative elicits similar drastic responses. One may want to question what Covid-19 and Israel have in common.
The outcome has been devastating. Six months into the ‘crisis,’ we still know very little about the virus we are told threatens us all.
Not only may many people have died ‘with Covid-19,’ science itself has been murdered by a deadly virus. What we have seen in the last six months is a complete eradication of the Western scientific and cultural ethos. 3000 years of Western tradition have been replaced by money driven culture that fakes images of scientific thought.
Instead of asking what is it that endangers some segments of the population, our health institutions and corporations are concerned with one simple question:
How do we translate Covid-19 into a cash machine?
Instead of scientists debating the most crucial issues to do with a well-advertised global health hazard, start-ups are competing amongst themselves in a desperate vaccine contest, we see Wall Street rising by hundreds of billions exploiting the confusion. We witness Amazon extending its global monopoly while smaller retailers are falling like flies, and during this time, technology companies have shown us their true nature and purpose. The truth can’t be denied, Google is not a search engine, it is an Orwellian indoctrination apparatus, big brother 2020. FB, and Twitter are not social networks, they are actually anti-social filters. They gate-keep that which you are not allowed to say or think, but surely start to grasp.
Bizarrely enough, none of this is new. The warnings about this authoritarian shift were predicted by many including yours truly. Orwell saw it coming as early as 1948 or perhaps in 1936 while fighting in Catalonia. But the context of this draconian twist was probably defined best decades ago by the great philosophers, Otto Weininger and Martin Heidegger.
In the early twentieth century, the Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger realised that medical science was about to lose its holistic understanding of the human body as an organism and had begun to see a collection of organs instead. Weininger saw that medical science was destined to morph into “a matter of drugs, a mere administration of chemicals.” Weininger, Jewish by origin, was one of the most critical voices of Jewish culture and ideology. In his book, ‘Sex and Character,’ he unleashed an unprecedented attack on Jewish culture and its impact on medical science and scientific thought in general. I do not have any doubt that his words may offend some people however, it is clear that the non-organic, anti-holistic approach to medicine extends way beyond the limited realm of ‘Jewish doctors.’
Weininger wrote the following in 1903:
“The present turn of medical science is largely due to the influence of the Jews, who in such numbers have embraced the medical profession. From the earliest times, until the dominance of the Jews, medicine was closely allied with religion. But now they would make it a matter of drugs, a mere administration of chemicals. But it can never be that the organic will be explained by the inorganic. Fechner and Preyer were right when they said that death came from life, not life from death… We should return from this Judaistic science to the nobler conceptions of Copernicus and Galileo, Kepler and Euler, Newton and Linnceus, Lamarck and Faraday, Sprengel and Cuvier. The freethinkers of to-day, soulless and not believing in the soul, are incapable of filling the places of these great men and of reverently realising the presence of intrinsic secrets in nature.” (Sex and Character, Otto Weininger pg 315)
Weininger didn’t pull his punches in his criticism of his fellow Jews. He wanted science to be emancipated from an emerging materialist paradigm that was hostile to his understanding of the meaning of being in the world. Otto Weininger, who was one of the most influential thinkers during the first half of the 20th century, is unknown to most contemporary thinkers. His genius, however controversial, has been largely eradicated by those who control our public discourse.
Heidegger’s lecture, ‘The Question Concerning Technology’ (1954) was published five decades after Otto Weininger’s ‘Sex and Character’ saw daylight. In between the two literary events, the world experienced two world wars, a communist revolution, mass genocide campaigns that were technologically and industrially inspired and driven, the car was born as was aviation and the computer, the atomic bomb and a cold war.
Heidegger saw technology primarily as a mode of revelation. Through technology, things unveil themselves to us to the extent that we learn about the world around us, but also about our role, meaning, limitations and destiny in the world. Technology, as such, has made the world in which we live and provides a window into the meaning of Being.
But modern technology, according to Heidegger, introduced a change in the duality between man and the universe. Rather than revealing and unveiling the world to us, technology has mutated into a mode of exploitation that sustains the world in being somehow inaccessible to us.
Heidegger observed that because of technology, “all distances in time and space are shrinking…yet the hasty setting aside of all distances brings no nearness; for nearness does not consist in a small amount of distance.”
Despite rapid advances in technology, we do not experience this ‘nearness,’ let alone understand it. Instead of a gradual understanding as items manifest themselves to us as technological, we see them and treat them as what Heidegger calls a ‘standing reserve:’ supplies and exhibits in a showroom or a warehouse. The world is becoming a collection of technological items, gadgets, pieces of inventory to be ordered, conscripted, consumed, digested, uploaded, streamed, assembled and disassembled. Everything approaches us merely as a source of energy or as something we must organize or purchase. We treat even human capabilities and illnesses as though they were only the means for technological procedures and instruments for production.
This is what Covid-19 is and this is exactly where we are with the ostensible health threat. Even before we could realise what covid-19 is, it was reduced into a technological asset, an Heideggerian ‘standing reserve’. Whether it is the mask debate, future vaccinations or ventilators, Covid 19 morphed into a ‘cash machine’ as much as a health risk.
If Covid-19 and the technology involved is a mode of revelation, it reveals little about the health crisis, but tells a lot about us and what we are not willing to admit about ourselves. We are now, in fact, removed from the Western Athenian ethos that subscribes to pluralism, openness and, most important, a relentless and OPEN search for truth in wisdom. We seem pretty happily occupied by the so-called Jerusalem way of thinking. We are delighted to be fearful and accept being terrorised by repeated apocalyptic scenarios. We seem to follow anyone who strips us of our elementary rights. We accept suppression of free thinking, until further notice, we prefer to follow laws, regulations and ‘mitzvoth.’* In such a world, Heidegger and Weininger are public enemies. Orwell and his prophecy are not going to be part of our Western education curriculum for much longer.
Covid19 has revealed to us that we are not as free as we may have believed, and the only question left open is whether we, the people, can rise again, and when?
—-
*By ‘mitzvoth’ (plural) I refer to orders, rules, commandments that do not necessarily follow any scientific or rational reasoning. In Judaism mitzvah (singular) refers to a commandment ordered by God to be performed as a religious duty. As such, the purpose of any given Mitzvah cannot be challenged as it is grounded on a decree made by a higher order.
Globalized fearmongering. It fits an agenda, a huge sinister agenda
Driven by WHO, the Geneva UN Medical Directors (UNMD) group has just issued a CONSENSUS STATEMENT for UN staff in Geneva that is essentially warning UN staff of stricter measures to be taken, such as mask wearing in the office when 2-meter distances could not be respected, as well as increased working from home again, when as recently as in June these conditions were relaxed. Working from home means separating colleagues from each other, connecting them by Zoom, but NO HUMAN CONTACT. That’s the name of the game.
The UNMD refers to the Canton of Geneva’s new regulations, based on Switzerland’s claim of a steady increase in Covid-19 “infections”. Since the beginning of July new “cases” have surpassed 100 a day and reached even way beyond 200 at the end of July and above 250 in mid-August. The testing positive has allegedly steadily increased and often by close to 10% per day. Now, surprisingly – they say – 40% of the “cases” concern people between 20 and 40 years of age. But who checks? – Is it a mandate by WHO to diversify the statistics, so as to better justify universal vaccination and another total lockdown?
We know by now that nothing of this, masks, “cases / infections”, quarantine, lockdown, vaccination, or any other repressive measure have anything to do with covid. They are means and instruments for the New World Order (NWO) to “train” the population for total obedience and control by the invisible super power, or deep dark state. WHO plays a key role in this nefarious plans, as it still is regarded by most people and governments as an authority, as far as world health is concerned which sadly, it has ceased to be decades ago.
The Canton of Geneva, where, incidentally, WHO and the UN are located, is the “worst” Canton of Switzerland, counting for about a third of all “infections”. So, say the Swiss authorities. A spokesperson of the Swiss Ministry of Health remarked, “if Geneva were a separate country, anybody coming from Geneva to the rest of Switzerland would have to go into quarantine.”
How scary!
That’s the level of fearmongering going on – justifying obliging face masks in public places and shops and closed areas. Never mind that there is a strong protest of small shop keepers and retail corporations, since they are losing rapidly customers. People do not want to shop with masks. They also find it useless. So, they migrate to online shopping, much of it abroad. Retail losses are estimated at least at 30%. There is already talk of forcing a masquerade also in the streets. Likewise, new emphasis is put on ‘social distancing’. People are to be trained and reminded at every corner to stay away from each other. A masquerade with people walking – in lockstep – or standing two meters apart.
If a Martian would see the human race, no backbone, no self-esteem, just following orders for what most serious scientists consider human history’s worst hoax – he or she, the Martian, would think “the human race has gone mad, let them lockstepping themselves into oblivion. Let’s the hell get out of this lovely blue but crazy planet.”
And the population zombies along because the authorities order them to do so, under threat of fines – against all common sense. But zombies have been deprived of any common sense to resist in masses. Such restrictions and more are now in place until at least 1 October 2020. That’s about the beginning of the 2020 / 2021 flu season which will be conveniently mixed up with covid-19 – and justifies another lockdown – not to forget – with mass vaccination, for covid and flu. Quarantine, livelihood destruction – an economic skyfall into more poverty, more misery, more deprivation, more famine – more death. Not covid- death, but socioeconomic death. That’s exactly what the eugenics fanatics are dreaming of. A decimation of the world population.
WHO is part and parcel of the party, recommending these steps, if and when they are told to do so. By the invisible monsters, of course. The UN is going along. Or, is it the UN who has forced these increasing covid figures in Geneva, so they may prepare first their staff, then the population in general – worldwide – for a new lockdown in October-November? – All is possible.
We are in for the long haul; the UN paper suggests. And so do authorities (sic-sic), not only in Switzerland, but all around the world. Look at the tyrannical oppressive measures of Melbourne, the Department of Victoria in Australia; similar in New Zealand; South Africa; Thailand has hermetically closed all her borders – Germany is preparing for a new lockdown, though they say the contrary (not withstanding a strong popular resistance), so is France – and the US, State by sorry State, as they are battling racial unrest, Woke protests, Black Lives Matter (BLM) movements, and anti-police riots. All organized and paid for by the Soroses, Rockefellers, Fords, Gates and more oligarchic “philanthropic” humanitarian foundations. The mainstream cannot even keep up anymore with covering the US city chaos.
All this talk, predictions, projections, threats, contradictions, anarchy in the cities – is fabricated on purpose not only to confuse, but also to repress and depress people. Hopelessness is an effective weapon. It’s a weaponized narrative.
The “Consensus Statement of the Geneva UN Medical Directors network” starts by saying – “The recent surge in new cases” – without ever describing what NEW CASES entail.
New infections? Newly tested positive, but no symptoms? Sick people? Hospitalized people? People who died? – In fact, the death rate has not gone up whatsoever. Nobody has died from these “new cases” or “new infections”. But nobody reports on this important fact.
It sounds dramatic: a case, an infection — but nobody dares ask the so-called pathetic and corrupted authorities such crucial questions. Nobody asks for an explanation what these “increased figures” really mean? – Are they increased as a function of increased testing? How is testing performed? Does anybody ever ask how the infamous and controversial polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests are performed and analyzed, and the results reported into the annals of statistics, so as to produce ever more “virus-cases”?
The website “Virology Down Under” reports a comment of Professor Martin Haditsch, writing in ProMed-mail:
As to my knowledge “infection” is defined as the proof of an infectious agent AND the proof of multiplication of this agent inside the body (OR associated inflammatory response that can be linked to this agent). Therefore, my question is: where was the specimen taken from the “asymptomatic” nurses? PCR, as we all know, just detects nucleic acids. So, if multiplication cannot be proven and no local or systemic inflammatory response is given, how was “contamination” (no matter whether due to inactivated parts of MERS-CoV or even complete virus particles) ruled out? This is not a semantic question only but should impact the reported number of “cases”.
Does the surge in “new cases” coincide with a surge of new tests?
Who makes the tests?
Is there an independent entity that controls the tests, monitors the tests, as to who is tested and when and with what frequency tests are carried out – and the results reported? For example, are people who are tested several times, also reported several times?
The UNMD CONSENSUS STATEMENT is nothing but a support to the globalized fearmongering. It fits an agenda, a huge sinister agenda. The compulsory mask wearing is the most detested measure imposed by the deep dark state – the invisible masters that are pressuring us into a NWO scheme. They know it. They love it. They are psychopaths. And mask-wearing is dangerous, dangerous for one’s health and well-being.
In most places in Europe, the new school year just began. Students in many places are forced to wear masks, where “social distancing” in class rooms cannot be respected. Many students have been interviewed throughout Europe – and probably on other Continents too. Their response is almost unanimous – masks are uncomfortable, concentration is faltering after about two hours, we are exhausted in the evening and often have headaches. No wonder, breathing your own CO2 instead of oxygen cannot be very healthy.
The forced mask-wearing is an important agenda in the Great Transformation or the Great Reset, predicted by both the IMF and the WEF (World Economic Forum), to be officially “rolled out” in Davos, Switzerland in January 2021. It is an agenda of re-education by rituals. The mask wearing is a ritual on behavioral acceptance. It’s a ritual of initiation towards obedience. The faster and easier you accept the mask, the faster you are accepted – accepted in society. Most people want to be accepted. It makes them comfortable, no matter how much this acceptance is uncomfortable and based on lies.
Then there are the few who will resist, who don’t care about acceptance. They fiercely resist. The system of tyranny makes sure they are socially discriminated and excluded from “society” they are social no-goes. They are looked at as if they were monsters, spreaders of disease, discriminated against, excluded. It is the old “divide to conquer”. Your friend for years has suddenly become your enemy. Families, groups, clubs, entire societies are divided and made to despise each other – division along the ‘ritual line’.
Amazing how it works for masks. Wait until you see how it works for vaccination – another ritual being prepared, as we are oblivious to what’s awaiting us in the next 5 to 10 years. Think Agenda ID2020 and Agenda 2030 – under the UN disguise of Sustainable Development Goals.
We are not doomed yet. But we have to act fast and decisively and in unison – in solidarity. Let’s reinvent solidarity.
Filed under: Corona virus, UN | Tagged: COVID-19 pandemic, NWO, UN, WHO | Comments Off on Is the UN Preparing for the “Second Covid Lockdown”? Oppressive Measures Worldwide, Obedience and Acceptance…
Hezbollah Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah assured on the eve of Ashura that our tools of confrontation in the battle we are facing today are our honesty, religious, political and moral commitment and wise presence in media.
His eminence assured that the battle we are facing today is unprecedented since the last 50 years.
“Due to the big role that media plays today, they follow a strategy in which they wage huge attacks through different media outlets all at once. This is because the administration of this wide campaign in one, so you see the same news on different media outlets and newspapers. The battle today is one of the most critical ones after they have failed on the security, military and political levels.”
“For example if an accident occurs in some place like Lebanon, Iran, or Iraq, statements are released, then they suddenly spread more and more, and if you trace the source of these statements you will find the 80% of them are from Saudi Arabia or Emirates or other countries. So these sentences are not from the people of the country in which the accident took place, this is rather an electronic army that is trying to impose a public opinion on the people of this country. Today journalists themselves assure that they are being offered money or monthly payments in return for writing articles against Hezbollah.
“It is our duty to confront by developing our media capacities and presence, and as Imam Khameni said, each of us should be an officer or a soldier in this soft war. We must hold on to our honesty, clean hands, virtuousness, our moral, religious, and political commitment, and our loyalty, etc… This frustrates all the attacks. When our environment reveals itself as a firmly coherent and strong one, this frustrates them.”
“Many social media and media outlets were cut from funds for a period of time because they failed to achieve the goal of prompting our environment against us. Now because there is a new battle, funds are being distributed once again. So the coherence of this environment is our weapon. For example when they try to take advantage of our martyrs’ families, just one stance like “I have only seen beauty” is capable of frustrating the goal that hundreds of millions of dollars were paid for media to achieve.”
“After all lying has an end, just like the events after the port explosion. Some claimed it was a missile storehouse related to Hezbollah, but eventually the truth was revealed after investigations by the Army, FBI and international intelligence.”
“I call for boycotting such media outlets, checking the credibility of all the news and avoiding the spread of rumors whether they are true or false. There is also no need to show any interest in any report that does not help. This is just a waste of time. It is better if you help yourself by following programs of benefit for you like documentaries…”
In conclusion his eminence assured that “neither killing nor threatening us will let us surrender… Moreover, we were offered huge amounts of money in order to abandon our cause but we haven’t and wouldn’t accept. We are not position or money seekers. We are the ones who offer money just as we offered blood.”
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Trump adviser Jared Kushner are hitting the road in an attempt to strong-arm more Arab states into normalizing relations with Israel, turning their backs on Palestine and isolating Iran.
U.S. Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo and unelected advisor to President Donald Trump, Jared Kushner, are embarking on a tour of the Middle East beginning with a stop in Israel to discuss “regional security issues related to Iran’s malicious influence” with Prime Minister Netanyahu, followed by visits to Sudan, Bahrain and now official U.S. partner, the United Arab Emirates.
Spun as an effort to speed up a U.S.-brokered “normalization” between Arab countries and Israel, the trip comes just four days after the White House sent the Secretary of State to the U.N. Security Council with the message that all UN sanctions against Iran were to be restored; invoking a clause in the Iran nuclear deal “that allows participants to reimpose UN sanctions on Iran.”
Critics of the move have deemed it illegal, not only because the Trump administration itself withdrew from the deal it is now attempting to enforce, but also because the UN Security Council had previously voted to allow the arms embargo to expire in the fall.
As Pompeo and company land in Jerusalem, tensions are high in the region. Sudan, one of the countries on the itinerary, is in political disarray nearly two years after the ouster of longtime President Omar al-Bashir in 2018. In July, Sudanese Prime Minister, Abdalla Hamdok, replaced seven senior cabinet officials, including the ministers of finance, foreign, energy, and health. Five days ago, he sacked his official spokesperson for disclosing ongoing talks with Israel during a press conference in which spokesman Haider Badawi said he was “looking forward to concluding a peace agreement” with the apartheid state.
The Sudanese government immediately disavowed Badawi’s comments, asserting that “no one tasked [the spokesman] with making statements on this matter.” Meanwhile, Israeli Intelligence Minister Eli Cohen has reportedly confirmed talks with Sudan, adding that “Israel hopes to reach a peace agreement that includes the return of Sudanese refugees to their country,” according to the Al-Ittihad newspaper. Israeli officials have also claimed that Netanyahu himself met with the head of Sudan’s transitional government in Uganda last February for a top-secret meeting to discuss normalizing relations.
The long-time ally
Bahrain, a long-time Atlanticist client state, is also on Pompeo’s diplomatic schedule. The tiny Gulf state of fewer than two million people has played host to the U.S. Navy since 1947 and was the headquarters for the British protectorate of the lower Persian Gulf after World War II. The crown prince of Bahrain, Salman bin Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa descends from a long line of Al-Khalifas to rule the nation under Britain’s neo-colonial eye and, later, as a sovereign country since 1971. Considered a “strong security partner” by the U.S. and host of the only operating American naval base in the region with 7,800 U.S. troops, the Trump administration recently lifted arms sales restrictions imposed by Obama. Another member of the Al-Kahlifa clan, Foreign Minister Shaikh Khalid Al-Khalifa, sat down for an interview with The Times of Israel last summer in which he said he “hoped to visit Israel, when it’s all open, peaceful,” signaling Bahrain’s openness to facilitate normalization between Israel and Arab states.
A report updated in June by the U.S. Congressional Research Service (CSR) titled “Bahrain: Unrest, Security, and U.S. Policy,” outlined the country’s human rights record and history of political repression, which should nevertheless be overlooked because the country “has long presented a policy dilemma for the United States because Bahrain is a longtime ally that is pivotal to maintaining Persian Gulf security.”
An easy dilemma
The policy dilemma is limited to whether or not Bahrain, Sudan or any other oil-rich countries wish to abide by Atlanticist dictates for their particular region, which has now shifted to a policy of exclusion of the Palestinian people living under the apartheid regime in Israel and an intensification of the campaign of isolation against Iran.
This is being called normalization and some, like Sudan’s former government spokesman, see nothing wrong with it. In what may be the most disingenuous statement ever made, Haider Badawi told Sky News Arabia that Sudan “shall be able to build an exemplary peace deal to all our neighboring countries in the region, so that they are able to follow our footsteps and do the same with Israel. I would like to note here that even Palestinians have had a long history of diplomatic ties with Israel. So, why should it be right for them and considered wrong for us.”
Pompeo will finalize his trip in the UAE, where he will meet with Foreign Minister Abdullah bin Zayed Al-Nahyan to discuss the deal signed with Israel a few weeks ago. Jared Kushner’s itinerary, however, has not been made public. He will be accompanied on an ostensibly separate excursion by National Security adviser, Robert O’Brien and special envoy for Iran, Brian Hook in what is only being described as “talks with leaders in the region to encourage more Arab countries to follow in the UAE’s footsteps and move forward with full normalization of relations with Israel.”
لم يُسحب فتيل التفجير في خلدة. مشهد عشرات المسلحين أمس يُطلقون النار في الهواء وعلى مبانٍ، خلال تشييع أحد ضحايا اشتباك أول من أمس، يشي بجولة جديدة. لكن الاتصالات السياسية والامنية توحي بالتوجه نحو التهدئة. رواية أن الفتنة انطلقت من تعليق صورة لسليم عياش، دحضها بيان الجيش، وفيديو يُظهر قيام مجموعة بتمزيق لافتة عاشورائية. فماذا يقول الشيخ عمر غصن، أحد جرحى الاشتباك وأحد المتهمين بالتسبب بما جرى؟لم تهدأ خلدة بعد. الجمر كامنٌ تحت الرماد، بانتظار اشتعاله مجدداً. دُفِن أمس الفتى الذي سقط جرّاء الاشتباك المسلّح الذي شهدته شوارع خلدة في الليلة السابقة، إلا أنّ النية بإعادة إشعال ما انطفأ لا تزال تعبّر عن نفسها. نحو 100 مسلّح «سيطروا» على عدد من الشوارع ليل أول من أمس، وخلال التشييع امس، ما ينذر بتجدد الاشتباكات. لكن الاتصالات السياسية والامنية، سعت إلى التهدئة. ورغم ارتفاع الأصوات المتأثرة بالسفارتين السعودية والإماراتية، وبشخصيات معارضة لتيار المستقبل، محاولة توجيه اصابع الاتهام إلى حزب الله، كان تيار المستقبل والحزب التقدمي الاشتراكي، إضافة إلى الامن العام والجيش، يعملون على نزع فتائل التفجير. بيان الجيش حسم بأن أصل الخلاف هو نزع راية تحمل شعارات عاشورائية، ما يعني نفي «كذبة» رفع صورة لسليم عياش، القيادي في حزب الله الذي أدانته المحكمة الدولية باغتيال الرئيس رفيق الحريري. أما «المستقبل» و«الاشتراكي» والمتأثرون بهما، فقد حصروا اتهاماتهم بأفراد.
عمر غُصن الذي يرقد في المستشفى إثر إصابته برصاصتين، يشير بإصبع الاتهام إلى علي شبلي الذي استُهدف منزله يقذيفة «أر بي جي» وأُحرِق المبنى الذي يملكه على يد مسلحين من سكان المنطقة، سواء من أبناء العشائر ومن «حلفائهم» السوريين، إثر تجدد الخلاف على تعليق لافتة. الشيخ غُصن الذي يفاخر بانتمائه للحزب الاشتراكي «على راس السطح»، يستعيد ما حصل، من وجهة نظره.
يقول غصن إنه كان في فصيلة قوى الأمن في عرمون حيث خضع للاستجواب على خلفية الشكوى التي تقدم بها شبلي ضده وضد ابن عمه علي موسى موسى بجرم التهجم عليه وإزالة لافتة دينية ما اعتبره تهديداً للسلم الأهلي. يقول غصن إنّ النقيب بلال حمدان عرض المصالحة على شبلي، لكنه رفض مشيراً إلى أنّ عدم توقيفه استفزّ شبلي الذي كمن له. يقول غصن إنه غادر الفصيلة إلى منزله حيث قصد الصيدلية قبل التوجه إلى منزل جده القريب من «تعاونية الرمال». ويروي أنّه شاهد موكباً لسيارات سوداء مزوّدة بزجاج حاجب للرؤية أمام مبنى شبلي، كاشفاً أنه اتصل بالعقيد (في الجيش) بلال حوحو لإبلاغه بوجود توتر. يقول غصن: «اتصلت بالعقيد بتمام الساعة ٥:٢١ لتحضر دورياته خلال دقائق». ويضيف: «عند وصول الجيش توجهت السيارات إلى دوحة عرمون باتجاه الحسينية، وبينما كنت اتحدث مع مسؤول الحزب الاشتراكي مروان ابو فرج، انطلقت ثلاث رصاصات، فأُصبت برصاصتين وأصابت الثالثة كمال عبد الصمد الذي يملك مقهى في الحي، فاشتعلت المنطقة وفلت الملقّ».
يقول غصن: «قُتل ابن اختي حسن زاهر غصن وتوفي شاب سوري يدعى محمود». ورداً على سؤال إن كان قد رأى شبلي مسلّحاً او يطلق النار، قال: «أنا رأيت علي شبلي مع مجموعة شبان على السطح، لكني شخصياً لم أشاهده يحمل سلاحاً». ورداً على سؤال عن اتهامه بتقاضي أموال من المحامي نبيل الحلبي، أحد العاملين مع بهاء الحريري، قال: «لا علاقة لي ببهاء الحريري. انا زلمي اشتراكي وعلاقتي بتيار المستقبل علاقة ممتازة».
وكشف غصن عن تلقيه اتصالاً من الشيخ سعد الحريري، قائلاً: «هاتفني وحادثني لربع ساعة واطمأن عليّ وقال إن ما يمسّك يمسّني».
يُسأل غصن عن سبب الخلاف فيقول إنّ شبلي علّق صورة للمتهم باغتيال الرئيس رفيق الحريري سليم عياش ولافتة كُتب عليها: «لن تُسبى زينب مرتين». ولدى سؤاله إن كان رأى صورة عياش و«اليافطة»، أجاب بالنفي مشيراً إلى أن «الشبان» أخبروه بذلك، ومؤكداً بأنه لا يقبل بإزالة راية تخص الإمام الحسين والطائفة الشيعية.
عمر غصن: أنا اشتراكي، وسعد الحريري اتصل بي وقال لي «ما يمسّك يمسّني»
غير أن تسجيل فيديو جرى تداوله رداً على ما وُصف بـ«كذبة تعليق صورة سليم عياش»، يكشف ان اللافتة موضع النزاع كانت تحمل شعارات عاشورائية، ولا صلة لها بعياش. وأكد «تجمع شباب خلدة» في بيان أن «أصحاب سنتر شبلي علقوا لافتة عاشورائية على مؤسستهم وفي ملكهم وقام عمر غصن بإزالتها وتكسير احدى واجهات السنتر». وأضاف البيان: «على إثرها قام أصحاب سنتر شبلي برفع دعوى لدى المخفر، وما اشيع عن تعليق صورة لسليم عياش هو كذب محض وهذا موثق بالصور، ونتحدى أيا كان إثبات كذبة تعليق صورة عياش، وأن تبني هذا الكذب من قبل كبار العشيرة من دون تحقق هو أمر مستغرب ولا يدل على نوايا حسنة لأنّ هدفه التجييش والشحن الذي لن يوصل إلى نتيجة».
حاولت «الأخبار» التواصل مع علي شبلي، لكن هاتفه كان مقفلاً وسط حديث عن مغادرته المنزل وتواريه خشية استهدافه.
وفي هذا السياق تحضر رواية مقابلة لرواية غصن، نافية كل ما يتردد عن تعليق صورة لعياش. وتتحدث هذه الرواية التي تقدّمها مصادر امنية رسمية، عن اتخاذ قرار بطرد شبلي من المنطقة، وعن نية مبيتة لافتعال الخلاف معه، لان عمر غصن يتصرّف كما لو ان شبلي هو راس حربة حزب الله في المنطقة، علماً بأن الأخير لا ينتمي إلى الحزب.
وتنفي المصادر أن يكون حزب الله قد شارك في أي اشتباك، لافتة إلى أن ما جرى هو أن مسلحين أطلقوا الناس عصر أول من أمس (بعد عودة عمر غصن من المخفر) على سنتر شبلي، فرد عليهم مسلحون من داخله بإطلاق النار، ما أدى إلى مقتل الفتى غصن، وجرح عمر غصن.
بعد ذلك، سيطر نحو 100 مسلح (لبنانيون وسوريون)، على الشوارع. وجرى اشتباك بينهم وبين الجيش سقط نتيجته مسلّح سوري الجنسية يدعى محمود هدوم. وتشير المصادر إلى أنّ شبلي لم يكن موجوداً في المبنى لحظة إطلاق النار، متحدثة عن تأخر وصول تعزيزات الجيش، ما أعطى فرصة لعشرات المسلحين اللبنانيين والسوريين في خلدة لاستباحة الشوارع، إلا أن المصادر الأمنية تشير إلى أنّ تأخر الجيش في الحسم سببه تدخله بادئ الأمر بقوة قليلة العدد لم تتمكن من ضبط المسلحين إلا بعد وصول التعزيزات وسرايا من فوج المغاوير.
It’s been roughly seven months since the first cases of the coronavirus were reported in Bahrain. Although various states have wisely dealt with the pandemic, thereby transcending all debates, Manama; however, has unethically leaned towards a radical political and sectarian policy to approach the issue with its majority Shiite population.
Since the very beginning, it accused Tehran of a “biological aggression” by covering up the spread of the coronavirus dubbing anyone diagnosed with coronavirus as Iranian traitors.
Besides, while many governments have come under pressure from human rights groups over prisons’ conditions including overcrowding, poor sanitation, medical care negligence and lack of basic necessities, Manama have denied calls to free its opposition leaders and 4000+ prisoners of conscience, in particular ageing detainees or those with medical conditions, including opposition leader Hassan Mushaima and rights activist Abdulhadi Al Khawaja housed in Bahrain’s notorious Jaw Prison.
Meanwhile, the grip has been tightened with the arrival of Ashura season, which constitute a part and parcel of Bahrain’s cultural and historical identity.
Due to the pandemic, right from the beginning, Bahrain’s Shiite scholars and the largest opposition bloc al-Wefaq National Islamic Society have both stressed on the mourners’ strict adherence to social distancing and guidelines designed to prevent the spread.
The authorities’ security forces, who follow orders from high officials, have however waged a ferocious war against the Shiites’ religious freedoms. They reportedly handed out summonses to people who displayed black banners to forcibly remove them and shut down the Al-Zahraa mosque.
Bahrain’s highest Shiite religious authority, exiled now, Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim said the shut down of the mosque would “only stirs up sedition and disturbs the atmosphere of the Ashura season”.
Unfortunately, state media campaigners have also manipulated the pandemic to incite hate speech and target the Ashura rituals, which are supposedly guaranteed by the Bahraini Constitution that stipulates “Freedom of conscience is absolute. The State shall guarantee the inviolability of places of worship and the freedom to perform religious rites and to hold religious processions and meetings in accordance with the customs observed in the country.”
Manama who claims to be concerned about health condition is going to host the F1 Grand Prix between November 29 and December 6, and none of its mouthpiece have expressed any concern. Perhaps the pandemic is only transmitted by “Shiite”!
Further, rights campaigners have reported that 5 prisoners of conscience are subjected to prolonged isolation and deprivation of communication with their families after being accused of inciting other prisoners to go on hunger strike over the lack of religious freedoms and inadequate healthcare.
Manama has long jailed, deported and interrogated Shiite, in what activists describe as the systematic targeting of the country’s Shiite majority. In the recent years, numerous prisoners of conscience have complained of slander against their beliefs during investigation, torture and imprisonment.
Bahrain laboriously works on modifying the demographic by carrying out mass political naturalization of foreign mercenaries whilst the indigenous Shiite population is subjected to arbitrarily citizenship revocation and deportation.
There is no official statistics regarding the population, which makes political naturalization easier to implement and allows elections to be misrepresented.
Political naturalization has been described as a strategic project by Salah Al Bandar, former adviser in Bahrain’s Cabinet Affairs Ministry. The Al Bandar Report was leaked between July and August 2006 and exclusively mentions the plan to encircle Shiite scholars and institutions.
The report contains plans to exclude and marginalize Bahrain’s Shiite in all executive branches, cleanse their existence from national institutions, and prevent them from educational opportunities and some benefits, through discriminative policies, adoption by some governmental bodies, substitution of civil societies with Shiite administrations for government operated bogus NGOs [GONGOs] and creation of internet forums fomenting sectarian tension.
Huge funds were set aside for this political scheme, which was orchestrated and financed by Bahrain’s members of the National Assembly and senior officials.
On their podiums, Shiite scholars preach about peacefulness articulating their condemnation of sectarian strife in all its forms.
This has been evidenced in the 2011 uprising to this day, where they chanted “Brothers Sunni and Shiite; this nation will not be sold,” despite the clear attempts to instigate turmoil and push the opposition to violence.
In 2011, tens of thousands of Bahrainis, from different ideologies and affiliations, kicked off to the street calling for freedom, justice, rights and an elected government with complete authoritative and constitutional powers.
During the imposition of emergency law [March-May 2011], commonly referred to as period of national safety, Bahrain’s security forces with the assistance of Gulf Cooperation Council’s forces, brutally clampdown on the Shiite by demolishing more than 38 mosques.
The grave-site of Companion Saasaa bin Suhaan was also subject to repeated vandalism. Since then, permits are discriminately not given for building mosques and hussainiyat [congregational halls].
Top Shiite scholarly figures like Ayatollah Sheikh Isa Qassim and Ayatollah Najati are currently stateless. Religious orators, lecturers and chanters are targeted persistently, and attacks are carried out on mourners carrying out religious processions and commemorations.
Further, Congregation prayers are banned in the Central Imam Sadiq Mosque and many other mosques.
The rights of Shiite charitable groups have been confiscated and banned from assisting the orphans and the poor.
The most hazardous side is the systematic hate speech that is being orchestrated to slander Shiite ideology.
Official news agencies broadcasts hate speech in a structured and continuous fashion including accusing Shiite of disloyalty and referred to in derogatory, slanderous, racist and derogatory terms [loyalists to Iran, Safavis, Rafidah, Kafer, etc.]. They purposely omit the existence of Shiite religious culture and events.
While thousands currently commemorate Ashura, State’s media is void of any Ashura-related news, with no coverage of any of its activities representing the Shiite identity.
Obviously, the state’s curriculum incorporates sectarian teachings that are hostile and in contravention of the beliefs of Shiite. This had pushed the Islamic Ulama Council and Al Tawaeya [two religious educational institutions] for teaching Shiite ideology, but the regime shut them down as well as ceased their funds.
Not only this, but Shiite are marginalized in labor especially in the army, national security apparatus and the state’s hospitals.
Since 2011, Shiite students have frequently been denied both national and international scholarships and other educational opportunities regardless of their qualifications. The authorities also have orchestrated mass dismissals against thousands of Shia employees from their jobs merely because they partook in the pro-democracy demonstrations.
Here are some statistics, Shiite only represent:
15% of the executive branch
12% of the judiciary
1% of the National Guard, King’s Court and the army
12% of the ministerial and judicial senior positions
10% of the major companies and organizations
Since the Al Khalifa family assumed power, Bahrain’s Shiite majority, aka Baharna [colloquial term for Bahraini Shia] have been enduring continuous and systematic sectarian persecution.Bahrain is a tiny island composed of 33 archipelagos situated near the western shores of the Persian Gulf, with a 765.3 km2 area.
Many international reports have alluded to the persecution of the Shia by the ruling family. For instance, J.G Lorimer, an Officiating British Resident present in the Gulf during the early 1900s, says, “Even though the Baharna are superior in terms of numbers, they are not relevant in the political landscape. In reality, their situation is slightly better than the slaves.”
The indigenous people of Bahrain stems from the Shiite tribes of Abdulqais, Tamim and Rabia, and they steeped with amiable character, peacefulness, hospitality and humbleness.
The ‘Israeli’ military owes whoever came up with this ‘genius’ thought a prize!
Hezbollah’s military media spotted the latest worth-mocking achievement the ‘Israeli’ occupation military has scored along the occupied Palestinian border with Lebanon.
It seems that the nightmare stalking the ‘Israeli’ establishment’s existence started looping into a continuous show. The anticipated Hezbollah retaliation to the ‘Israeli’ assassination of one of its fighters in Syria is more of which turning into a Hezbollahmania.
Added to its one year-old using of mannequins inside an ‘Israeli’ military vehicle to pretend that its soldiers are watching along the South Lebanon border, the enemy fixed a soldier-like robot in an exposed attempt to allure the resistance to a military action, that perhaps it wanted to try if it serves as the much awaited anytime possible offensive.
Poor Zionists! Maybe their fear has turned into a sickness. Sometime they imagine ghosts and start a war with their own personnel, and they think that the resistance is shallow enough to mistake a goal to another.
The satirical performance the ‘Israeli’ military presented -entre nous- will make the viewer laugh out loud. It is recommended to replay it time and again.
‘Israel’s’ sickness, pretending that it is undefeatable, had pushed it so far to commit embarrassing and unfixable actions. It, however, has been viewed in all levels as an icon of defeat and failure. It actually doesn’t even master performing in a sketch it already authored, or at the best case, wanted.
The question now is what would come next? Would the Zionists’ talent improve or they will -most probably- lose the final show?
UPROOTED PALESTINIANS: SALAM ALQUDS ALAYKUM 