Star of "Shiites of the Embassy": Americans Abandoned Me to Satisfy Hezbollah

Wednesday 17 June 2015

Star of "Shiites of the Embassy": Americans Abandoned Me to Satisfy Hezbollah

Sabah Ayyoub - Al-Akhbar

Lebanon: Lokman Slim, the star of

Lokman Slim, the star of "Shiites of the Embassy", does not want to believe that he has failed in the exam of US State Department. Finally, Washington stopped one of the most important projects entrusted to the "civil rights activist", which was "to hit Hezbollah as a resistance movement from within the Shiite environment" because of "Slim's failure to complete the task".

But will Netanyahu's «independent Shiite» adviser survive this time?

On April 10, 2015, Slim, director of Hayya Bina (Let’s Go) association, received a disturbing message from Washington informing him that the US administration had decided to stop funding a program assigned to him and which he was getting support for implementing it since 2013. The message was very harsh for "the civil community activist".

The project that should be immediately frozen was not any project, but was the one upon which Slim had built the laurels of the past years and contributed to its foundation and beginnings.

The mentioned scheme was a US plan to "create a group hostile to Hezbollah as a resistance movement within the Shiite environment." The message that was sent to Slim two months ago clearly provided that "the State Department requests an immediate halt for all activities that aim at creating a moderate and independent Shiite voice," ...and that "Hayya Bina has to cancel all dedicated funding for those activities."

The reason of the halt as stated in the letter was "the change in priorities of US State Department towards Lebanon", and some officials at the department pointed out that the decision came after "the scheme failed to achieve its goals," explaining that an assessment study of the performance of Hayya Bina conducted at the end of 2014 showed that the association "is not doing enough to spread the Shiite moderation."

Slim is now stunned, living a state of denial, and does not want to believe that he has failed in the "dear" task entrusted to him by Washington. He is linking the decision to stop his project to "the openness policy led by President Barack Obama towards Iran."

"We clearly see that American policy in Lebanon is based on not to disturb Hezbollah. This is clear. It wouldn't do anything that would disturb Hezbollah!" Slim told some local and foreign media outlets in the past few days.

Slim's heartburn is understood. Reading US Embassy reports of the preparatory meetings for the project reveals that "the anti-Hezbollah Shiite activist and a resident of the southern suburbs" (as described by ambassadors) played a pivotal role in the scheme. He even, once, "surprised" the Americans by his notable enthusiasm when he expressed "readiness to cooperate with the Israelis in the near future after he discussed the matter with an advisor of the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington" (telegram No. 08BEIRUT750 dated 22 May 2008).

Slim shouldered the file of "Shiites of the Embassy" since 2008, moving from and to Awkar, between Beirut, the south and the Bekaa, and then to Washington. The semi-permanent visitor to the embassy used to accompany his "independent Shiites" colleagues to the dinner tables of ambassadors, and to open Awkar's door for the beginners.

640 thousand US dollars was the amount allocated for Hayya Bina to create that "moderate Shiite anti-Hezbollah voice." The project budget was set to cover the period from June 2013 until December 2015. However, the latest decision to freeze funding starting from April 2015 cancelled the remaining $200 thousand budget. This increased Slim's resentment and anger.

In Washington, two US congressmen of the "Foreign Relations Committee", Ed Royce and Eliot Engel (known for his pro-Zionist stances) sent a letter to US Secretary of State John Kerry several days ago, in which they expressed "concern about changing the priorities of the funding allocated to projects in Lebanon."

For their part, some foreign officials responded by saying that "Washington has not given up support for the pro-democracy and moderate groups in Lebanon," and that the State Department "maintained its fund for a project to teach Shia women English, which is also run by the association."

"Halting Hezbollah's military and terrorist capabilities remains a top priority for the US government," US State Department spokesman, Edgar Vasquez, said.

Worthy to remind that the "Shiites of the Embassy" (Shiite al-Safara in Arabic) is a group of Lebanese figures (clerics, activists, journalists, businessmen, politicians ...) selected by the US Department of State on doctrinal-regional basis, to implement the plan approved in 2006 with a declared and documented objective: "to discredit Hezbollah among the young Lebanese and to create alternatives for it." One of the main goals was to "hit Hezbollah from within the Shiite environment."

Wikileaks documents revealed how some Lebanese figures (mostly from the Shiite community) were involved in the scheme, and how they are fully aware of its identity, stages, and objectives.

Translated by E. al-Rihani