Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.
TEHRAN – A Lebanese journalist believes that U.S. interference in the Arab countries is first and foremost intended to provide security for Israel.
After U.S. Ambassador to Lebanon Dorothy Shea’s comments against Hezbollah in an interview with Saudi state-owned broadcaster al-Hadath, her words were rebuffed as open interference in the domestic affairs of Lebanon and a violation of diplomatic norms.
Shea had accused Hezbollah of obstructing economic reforms in Lebanon.
“Frankly, this resembles an act of war against a certain group of Lebanese society,” Abir Bassam tells the Tehran Times
Bassam says, “It is not the ambassadors’ job in general to discuss the country’s internal affairs.”
Following is the text of the interview:
Q: What is your comment on the statements of the U.S. ambassador to Lebanon?
A: In the best-case scenario, we can say that the ambassador was critical of Hezbollah in Lebanon. However, it did not stop at this stage. The ambassador accused Hezbollah of taking the Lebanese government hostage and holding back its economic growth.
Firstly, this kind of speech addresses the Lebanese people and their officials and is considered interference in domestic affairs.
“This kind of remarks (by the U.S. ambassador) is provocative to those who have always been aligned with the resistance movement, and even causes frustration to those who are against Hezbollah.”Secondly, this kind of remarks are provocative to those who have always been aligned with the resistance movement, and even causes frustration to those who are against Hezbollah.
Thirdly, it is not the ambassadors’ job in general to discuss the countries’ internal affairs. Besides, this shows Americans’ intentions towards Hezbollah and Lebanon’s stability, which is becoming more and more fragile since the 17th of November 2019.
The ambassador’s accusations present an aggressive political attitude towards a certain group of people who are part of the Lebanese population and are officially represented with Hezbollah parliamentarians in the Lebanese parliament. Frankly, this resembles an act of war against a certain group of Lebanese society.
Q: Do you think these statements signal new developments in Lebanon?
A: It might be. Or perhaps the Americans are preparing for such a thing. In the end, the Americans’ interferences in the Arab countries have been aimed at one end goal, which is the security of Israel.
However, the Resistance in Palestine, Lebanon, Syria, is their biggest challenge to protect Israel. And it is still true. Hence, one element of protection for Israel can be provided by recalling for civil war in Lebanon again.
Q: Why Lebanon’s economy is in crisis? Is Hezbollah really jeopardizing the economy in Lebanon?
A: The Lebanese fundamental economic crisis has started with the economic procedures adopted by the governments of Lebanon since 1991. The economic policy was based on services, turning Lebanon into a service provider state in the region. These services depend mainly on monetary services and different kinds of tourism: from sightseeing to medical tourism. To a large extent, this marginalized agriculture and industry and made Lebanon dependent solely on imports and very little export. However, Lebanon had to compete with other main countries that have been remotely providing these services and doing an excellent job, such as India, Australia, and Belgium. Lebanon, especially after the 15-year civil war (1975-1990), cannot be such a competitor to these states.
This policy was deeply related to the atmosphere that prevailed in 1990, with many Arab countries signing peace treaties with Israel. Syria was leading such peace talks as well, after the first war in the (Persian) Gulf in 1990. However, the foundation of such economic policy proved to be based on cartoon boards. Syria withdrew from the peace talks, Rabin was killed, and Lebanon backed by Syria continued its resistance against the Israeli occupation in South Lebanon. In this period of history, Hezbollah demonstrated formidable Resistance and Islamic Resistance that led to significant accomplishments against Israel until the liberation of the South in May 2000.
Regarding the second part of the question, it can be simply stated in the following manure: the U.S. will not give any financial aid to Lebanon as long as Hezbollah is in the government. The U.S. doesn’t have any problem with Hezbollah as a political party; it has a problem with its Axis of Resistance; in other words, it has a problem with Hezbollah’s advanced missiles arsenal, which brings us back to the basics that are the Israeli’s security!
Therefore, the World Bank will not be giving any more loans based on its conditions. Hezbollah insists that the conditions should not contradict Lebanon’s sovereignty and its autonomous decisions. It argues that the World Bank is not allowed to interfere in the Lebanese internal and external decisions.
Q: Do you expect the Lebanese government to contain the economic crisis?
A: Diab’s government has been doing fine with all the crises accumulated during the past 20 years. However, this government is not getting the support it needs even from the parties that have brought it into existence. Too many conflicting interests are governing these parties and, in particular, the coming (U.S.) presidential elections.
A sharp fall in the value of the Lebanese currency is the worst thing that was tasked with this government to deal with. Working with a central bank governor who has allowed the smuggling of the dollars outside the country and guarding the U.S. interests are among the major obstacles, as politicians and fiscal specialists have repeatedly accused him of. The dollar price defines the prices in Lebanon, including gasoline, bread, rice, vegetable, meat, medicine, etc.
The government’s main problem is that it has not been able to present an emergency policy for passing the current stage or a long-term plan to face the following phases.
The government’s measures are trying to take into account the development of the agricultural and industrial sectors. Still, Lebanon’s borders to the East are closed, even with its sister country, Syria. It is under American restrictions; it seems that Lebanon is unable to face these challenges.
In the end, all should take responsibility for this condition, including the current government and the majority in the parliament. They need to take bold steps towards Syria, Iran, China, and Russia…etc. It should get close to the whole countries mentioned above, or at least Syria. This is a must.
Q: Concurrent with increasing pressure on Hezbollah, the world is witnessing the Israeli move to excavate gas on Lebanon’s marine border. What’s your evaluation of this?
A: In my opinion, it is irrelevant. Israel must have received the U.S.’s approval to take such a step, which meets Trump’s need to establish something he can please his AIPAC voters with.
It will have an added value for both the Israeli and the Americans if the Lebanese government and Hezbollah do not take bold steps in the face of the Israeli move. It will be a retreat for Lebanon and the Resistance.
Still, if they (Lebanon) make a move, the consequences must be measured carefully. At the end of the day, Israel does not want to open war on its “northern borders”. However, if the Americans decided to do so, the Israelis could not refuse, as it happened in 2006. The war was an American decision.
I believe that both the Israelis and the Americans want Iran’s head on a spike first. Thus, Hezbollah will be out of Syria; this is their aim. I came across that in many of my readings. They pushed for war against Iran; it turned out to be very costly for the Americans, especially after what the U.S. had experienced in Ein al-Assad in Iraq. Indeed, this is the scale by which I would measure the Israeli step. Nevertheless, until today, Israel has not come even a meter close to the Lebanese territorial waters. So, let us wait and see!
Lawrence Davidson is professor of history emeritus at West Chester University in Pennsylvania.
He has been publishing his analyses of topics in U.S. domestic and foreign policy, international and humanitarian law and Israel/Zionist practices and policies since 2010.
1 July 2020
Part I—Episodes of Madness
If I told you that Covid-19 was sparking recently reported episodes of madness here in the U.S., what do you imagine would be the reason? Maybe it would be the consequences of isolation. If you are alone and have few resources, lockdown might send you over the edge. Maybe it would be the pandemic’s impact on those with chronic hypochondria. This is obviously not an easy time to be stuck with an irrational fear of disease. Or maybe it is coming from the fundamentalist crowd (both Christian and Jewish) who believe that Covid-19 is the wrath of God yet can’t figure out why it is being visited upon their congregations. If you guessed any of these possible etiologies, you would missing the main cause.
So what is mainly causing the present outbursts of madness? It turns out to be a perverted concept of freedom. It is an insistence that, in the midst of a pandemic, temporarily closing down businesses, mandating the wearing of masks, and maintaining social distancing is an intolerable infringement on individual rights. If you would like a visual snapshot of the emotion behind this belief, just take a look at the gun-toting, maskless protesters at the Michigan state legislative building in early May. They are shouting irately about state tyranny, into the faces of masked guards. Other anti-mask protesters around the country revealed a similar off-the-wall attitude, with signs and banners ranging from the nonsensical to the scary: “Give me Liberty or Give me Covid-19,” and in contradiction, “Covid-19 is a Lie,” “Sacrifice the Weak—Reopen,” and “Jesus is My Vaccine.” There is one other rightwing anti-Covid protest sign that must be noted. This one showed up both at the Michigan rally and one in Chicago: ‘Arbeit Macht Frei,” or “Work will make you free.” It is the slogan that stood at the entrance to the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz.
Part II—A Perverse Notion of Freedom
This perverse notion of freedom is wholly individualistic. That is, it makes no reference to community rights or needs. This point of view is not restricted to armed anarchists or disgruntled religious fundamentalists. Some quite prominent and successful proponents of this view go so far as to deny the reality of society, per se. Such a denial makes government, particularly in the form of the welfare state, a freedom-denying effort at social control. Also, if society is an illusion, then an institution that taxes the individual for its upkeep is little more than a con artist.
The British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was an advocate of this outlook. Here is how she put it: “I think we have gone through a period when too many people … understand that if they have a problem, it is the government’s job to cope with it!… ‘If I am homeless, the government must house me!’ and so they are casting their problems on society and who is society? There is no such thing! There are individual men and women and there are families and no government can do anything except through people and people look to themselves first. …There is no such thing as society.” This is faulty logic. Some problems, like poverty and homelessness, can only be understood and dealt with within a societal context. Thatcher would have none of that. Since society does not really exist, problems with societal roots can’t be real either. If Thatcher were alive today, she would probably admit that the Covid-19 pandemic was very real, but otherwise would be reluctant to deal with it in any collective manner—just as are our perverse defenders of “freedom.”
Part III—Beyond Sloganeering
The madness of these rightwing provocateurs is largely ideological in the Thatcher sense. It is also underlaid with a strong selfishness that really has nothing to do with economic hardships of lockdown. What they are saying is that “I don’t care about other people. I don’t want to wear a mask and social distance, and you can’t make me.” It is the ideology of selfish children and this attitude can drive people to act out in the same way it drives five-year-olds to have temper tantrums. Unfortunately, these protesters are not just children and their acting out goes beyond sloganeering.
Since April 2020, numerous public health workers, particularly those with policy-making input, have faced threats and intimidation. Sometimes this is through e-mail or Facebook or over the phone. Sometimes it is having to face an armed mob at your front door. Here are a few recent examples:
—Lauri Jones, director of public health in a county in western Washington state, followed up on someone breaking a Covid-19 quarantine. Immediately she faced a barrage of threatening calls and e-mails from not just her home area but from around the country. Her address was posted on Facebook. She called the police and had to set up surveillance cameras at her home.
—Amy Acton, Ohio’s public health director “endured months of anger against the state’s preventive measures, including armed protests at her home.” One Republican legislator called her a Nazi (Acton is Jewish) and another labeled her a dictator. She has since quit her job and now consults for the state’s health department.
—Georgia’s public health director has been assigned an armed guard.
—Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, who is transgender, has been publicly harassed for her role in fighting the pandemic. One Republican county official said that he was “tired of listening to a guy dressed up as a woman.”
—Then there is the emotion expressed following a recent Palm Beach county commissioners meeting. The commissioners had voted unanimously to make masks mandatory in the county. Those in the audience denounced the commissioners and threatened them with “citizen’s arrest.” They made the following accusations: “masks are killing people,” masks “toss God’s wonderful breathing system out the window,” and to mandate masks is to follow the “devil’s laws.”
Perhaps the best summing up of this “demoralizing” nationwide situation comes from Theresa Anselmo, executive director of the Colorado Association of Local Public Health Officials—eighty percent of whose members have been threatened with dismissal or were outright fired from their jobs. “We’ve seen from the top down that the federal government is pitting public health against freedom, and to set up that false dichotomy is really a disservice to the men and women who have dedicated their lives . . . to helping people.”
Part IV—Lethal Consequences
Ideally, we are supposed to teach our kids that freedom comes with responsibility. Take away a sense of responsibility to others and what you are left with the perverted freedom to be selfish. And, often that selfishness is blind to its own lethal consequences.
There is a precedent for this sort of selfishness tied to a perverse claim of freedom—it is the American insistence that gun ownership is a right and a primary symbol of freedom. Here in the U.S., an average of 109 people a day are killed with guns, sometimes in quite spectacular fashion, as in the case of mass shootings. We endure it, or perhaps more accurately we choose to ignore it, because an influential, militant and bullying minority has stymied the political will to reign it in. This is a situation that is suggestive of willful madness. The same appears to be happening in the case of Covid-19.
In the last six months over 2 million Americans have fallen ill with Covid-19 and the death toll stands at around 130,000. The present infection and fatality rates are climbing. It seems that after several months of lockdown, which had hurt the economy and increased unemployment while simultaneously bringing the pandemic under control, the will to continue restrictions has largely broken down. Both politicians and the populace appeared to have given up and, as one of those sloganeering signs put it, silently agreed to “sacrifice the weak and reopen.” And almost everywhere they did reopen, the Covid-19 virus returned with a vengeance. It was when a moderate state counter-response, mandating masks and social distancing in public and business environments, was attempted that the militant bullying by Republican politicians, armed “patriots,” and disgruntled religious fundamentalists picked up steam. What now is likely to follow?
Future prospects are described by Dr. Megan Ranney, an emergency physician and Brown University professor who promotes gun violence prevention. She explains that the “dynamics of the lockdown protesters” are similar to those of the gun rights advocates. Both groups of militants “moved the … debate” from a conversation about, first an epidemic of gun injuries, and now the wisdom of health and science in the face of a pandemic, to “a conversation about liberty.” Thus we are no longer talking about “weighing risks and benefits” and are instead involved in “a politicized narrative” about alleged individual rights. This is also a zero-sum narrative because this claim of prioritized rights is, for its advocates, not negotiable.
So there we have it. It is a fight between a perverse notion of freedom and a collective sense of social responsibility. The interests of society—which are real despite the rhetoric of the late Margret Thatcher—already lost out once in the struggle with “gun rights” advocates. Will it lose out again to mad opponents of masking and social distancing? The chances are good that it will. Sickness and death may well be our fate until science, in the form of an adequate vaccine, saves us from ourselves.
For more than 70 years, Kashmiris have lived with the dread of the Indian government changing the demography and special status of Indian-administered Kashmir, which was till recently Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) state. Deemed preposterous and exaggerated at one time, these anxieties have now become completely justified and have even deepened.
On August 5, 2019, Article 370 of the Indian constitution, which gave the state its special status and excluded it from the application of various constitutional provisions, was abrogated, while Article 35A, which limited certain residency rights to the local population and granted them certain protections, was altogether scrapped.
These two articles had guaranteed that the right to buy and own land or apply for government jobs was the sole prerogative of those who had inherited permanent residency by descent. They also meant a bar on business investments by outsiders or attempts by big monopolistic companies to take control of J&K’s lands and economy. This protected Kashmiris’ rights and afforded them a certain level of political and economic autonomy.
In October 2019, J&K was dissolved as a state, which meant it no longer had a state assembly empowered to pass legislation, and was divided into two union territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh – allowing New Delhi to bring them under its direct control. Until then, J&K was the only Muslim-majority state in India.
With the abrogation of Article 370 and the removal of its status as a state, the region was fully integrated and its population stripped of the special privileges and entitlements it had been enjoying in view of the peculiar nature of the state’s history and its accession to India.
The actual disempowerment, which will soon begin to be felt on the ground, is more than the loss of the special local identity. Brought by stealth and deceit, without fulfilling the constitutional requirement of participation of the state legislature, the abrogation of Article 370 and demotion of the erstwhile state has become fait accompli, as the hearings on a bunch of petitions challenging the move in the Supreme Court of India have been postponed multiple times.
If Article 370 was aimed to lay down the foundation of the Indian government’s agenda in J&K, the actions that have followed are the building blocks to serve that design calculatedly.
Thus, in a late-night move on March 31, when the Indian government officially announced a new domicile rule for Jammu and Kashmir, more clarity was shed on what the future entails. The devil was in the detail.
According to the notification called “Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation (Adaptation of State Laws) Order, 2020”, anyone who has resided in J&K for 15 years or has studied in the territory for seven years, and appeared in either Class 10 or Class 12 examination, will get residency rights. They will then be eligible for various government jobs.
The notification’s timing, one week after India announced a countrywide lockdown to contain the COVID-19 outbreak, was odd. While a lockdown in the rest of the country became a safety measure in the fight against a virus, in Kashmir it assumed a different meaning. It was a lockdown within a lockdown that had been partially in place since August 5, 2019.
A stringent clampdown on J&K under military boots including an absolute communication blockade allowed the Indian government to surreptitiously scrap its special status and split it into more pliable units last year. The longest-ever lockdown in Kashmir served the purpose of scuttling any public outrage and also ensured that information slipped into a black hole, making an entire population invisible and their grievances inaudible.
The 2019 lockdown was unconstitutional, undemocratic and morally erroneous. But this has now become the foundational principle of India’s strategy in Kashmir with no punctuations of pretence. If the first lockdown was successful in preventing public outcry over the loss of special status and protections, the other provided a stepping stone for laying the blueprint of what the Indian government intends to do as part of its larger agenda.
The new domicile rule, and its timing, stirred up anxieties, particularly among the J&K youth, irrespective of their ethnic and communal identities or their political ideologies, as it meant they would be losing government jobs, they earlier had a monopoly over, to outsiders. The government is one of the biggest employers of fresh graduates in the region and in the spring a number of recruitment processes were stalled, prompting suspicions that this was done intentionally to allow outsiders who qualified for domicile under the new rule to apply as well.
On February 27, the authorities scrapped the recruitment process of J&K Bank for more than 1,450 posts, which had been going on since 2018, jeopardising the career prospects of thousands of aspirants who had been waiting after clearing their preliminary exams. On June 2, the bank advertised for 1,850 posts inviting applications for domiciles.
In the midst of the pandemic, as hospitals battled with a shortage of infrastructure and staff, the government showed the door to hundreds of healthcare employees on temporary contracts in Srinagar and Kathua district in Hindu-majority Jammu region. This, despite shortages of medical staff and the established practice of offering temporary workers permanent contracts.
The recruitment, appointment and promotion processes for various civil service positions in the administration, education and healthcare sectors have also been put on hold after the J&K Public Service Commission, which is responsible for civil service recruitment, was made defunct and the constitution of a new commission under the new status of the region as a union territory was delayed. A new chairman was finally appointed in May.
The threat of losing jobs to outsiders is coupled with the anxieties of the existing government employees with respect to service-related litigations related to pay, promotions, etc, of which there are currently more than 30,000 cases.
On April 29 this year, on grounds that J&K had lost its statehood, the Administrative Tribunal Act, 1985 was made applicable to J&K and Ladakh. In June, the creation of Jammu Bench of the Central Administrative Tribunal was announced which will cover the union territories of J&K and Ladakh. But a single bench at the south end of the region will be insufficient, given the large size of the population and the difficult mountainous topography which renders the journey to Jammu too long.
These changes come as over the last couple of decades, locals in the administrative bureaucracy have been sidelined or sent out on deputations. This process has further picked up steam recently. After the abrogation of Article 370, the majority of top bureaucratic positions in the administration of Jammu and Kashmir are held by outsiders.
The immediate beneficiaries of the new domicile rule could go beyond the thousands of Hindu and Sikh refugees, who have fled Pakistan since partition and have settled in the suburbs of Jammu city. The rules for getting a domicile certificate are now pretty relaxed, so there is no way to assess the exact number of people who are likely to benefit.
Thousands of bureaucrats from outside and those working in the private sector have spent more than the required 15 years in J&K in the last 70 years. A sizeable part of the Indian armed forces is concentrated in J&K and many have served several postings in the erstwhile state, easily making many eligible under the new criteria.
The numbers are likely to add up by each year and given the easily corruptible system and lack of accountability, there is no telling how the laws will be tweaked to further allow an influx of beneficiaries from outside.
And this is not just about jobs. There is also the question of land ownership and business investment over which the new domicile rule is silent, which means that unlike the past, any Indian may buy land, settle and start a business venture in J&K.
Under the Jammu and Kashmir Reorganisation Act, which came into effect in October, the legal provisions restricting ownership of private property to permanent residents were struck down. In the past, local land reform legislation empowered peasants including the socially oppressed classes, giving them a sense of dignity and making J&K one of the few states in the country where nobody died of starvation.
The amended land-related laws induce fears in the local population of not just losing their exclusive privileges but also of suffering under possible monopolistic economic hegemonies.
The state also had in place its reservation act that provided for quotas in educational institutions and jobs for people of disadvantaged backgrounds, including Dalits, members of various tribes, etc. Women enjoyed a 50 percent reservation in professional colleges. Since the 1950s, education at school and college level was free in government institutions. All of that now stands to be reversed.
For now, using the pandemic as an excuse, the government has also halted the 150-year-old annual practice of shifting the capital from Jammu to Srinagar in the summer. Though the practice of two capitals – in Hindu-majority Jammu and Muslim-majority Kashmir – was ideally inclusive, it was Srinagar that became the hub of political power after Kashmir’s accession in 1947.
The government decision to begin the delimitation (redrawing of boundaries) of electoral constituencies, which is likely to give Hindu-majority Jammu more seats, will reshape the local political dynamics. Two ideas have been mooted by several Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leaders to that end – enumeration on the basis of area and not population, as is the countrywide norm, as well as adding the kitty of 24 seats of Pakistan-Administered Kashmir (PAK) and Chinese-controlled Aksai Chin that lay vacant for the last 70 years to Jammu region by fielding Hindu and Sikh refugees from PAK.
The Delimitation Commission was announced on March 6 and immediately the process of data collection was set in motion. It has been going on without any punctuation throughout the COVID-19 lockdown.
Structures of power are being dismantled bit by bit, particularly emaciating the political significance of Srinagar and turning Jammu into a symbolic site of victory while keeping its people disempowered.
Already, the political space in J&K has been completely decimated. While many top leaders continue to be in detention, including former Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti, others have been let off or placed under house arrest on conditions of maintaining silence.
A lobby of renegades from various parties recently floated a new political organisation called Apni Party. It is believed to enjoy the patronage of New Delhi and has failed to cut much ice.
Under the new arrangement, while the far-flung union territory of Ladakh would be robbed of a legislative assembly, J&K will get one with limited powers, turning the two entities virtually into two remote-controlled municipalities.
This puts a question mark over the practicability of managing the erstwhile state, with its huge area, its complexity, its socio-political diversity and its fragility, under this arrangement of one centralised authority. While a sense of political empowerment is diminished, the terms of engagement in local political narrative are decimated to municipal and administrative matters.
A sense of loss appears to be a strange leveller and may have somewhat bridged the traditionally divisive narratives in Muslim-dominated Kashmir and Hindu-dominated Jammu, the latter having seen a phenomenal rise in Hindu right-wing politics in recent decades.
But while in Jammu public discontent is linked to loss of jobs, land, monopoly over trade and higher education, in Kashmir, in addition to all these, the dilution of Article 370 and domicile law assumes a whole new meaning – the fear of a demographic change.
Shaped by Hindu right-wing groups openly calling for changing demography of Kashmir and integrationist politics, anxieties of demographic change have existed in Kashmir for decades. Today, a pathway is being paved for replicating the Israeli model of occupation and colonisation of the West Bank in Kashmir towards disempowerment and dispossession of the locals, particularly Kashmiri Muslims, to exercise hegemonic control through new settlers.
Sometime in late November last year, a serving Indian diplomat in the United States, while addressing a gathering of Kashmiri Hindus, averred that “Kashmiri culture is Indian culture; it is Hindu culture” and espoused the Israeli model of West Bank settlements as the way forward. Though the Indian government did not officially support this policy of apartheid, it also conveniently did not distance itself from the remarks made by its serving envoy in his official capacity.
If there were any doubts about the seriousness of these remarks, they can now be discarded. The recent moves indicate a more systemic pattern of making this model the centrepiece of India’s Kashmir policy. The present lockdown has been used to plot the points on the map while avoiding any public outcry. This arsenal of administrative changes in a fragile setting is like dumping fuel that could well trigger an inferno of unimaginable proportions.
The government is underestimating the patience and silence of the public and the international ramifications of riding roughshod over the aspirations of the people of Kashmir and pushing them to the margins as secondary citizens with an uptick in massive human rights abuse.
While this amounts to trampling of Indian democracy, it also makes peace in South Asia extremely vulnerable. In all probability, the transition to demographic change will not be as smooth. A desperate struggle for self-preservation within Kashmir and the heightened level of tensions between India and Pakistan – two nuclear powers – will throw up an explosive situation. The present standoff between India and China also has the potential to escalate and add fuel to the fire.
وزير الداخلية اللبناني يكشف أن السلطات اللبنانية أوقفت 4 أشخاص على متن طائرة تركية كانوا ينقلون 4 ملايين دولار، ويتساءل ما إذا كانت للتلاعب بسعر الدولار أم لتغذية تحركات عنفية في الشارع اللبناني.
كشف وزير الداخلية اللبناني محمد فهمي، اليوم السبت، عن “تدخل خارجي تركي لتوتير الوضع في لبنان”، مشيراً إلى أن “تعليمات تصل من تركيا عبر وسائل التواصل الاجتماعي لبعض أطراف الحراك الشعبي”.
وقال فهمي في حديث لصحيفة “اللواء” اللبنانية إن “السلطات الأمنية اللبنانية أوقفت 4 أشخاص كانوا على متن طائرة خاصة تركية، وكانوا ينقلون أربعة ملايين دولار”.
وتساءل وزير الداخلية اللبناني عن سبب إحضار تلك الأموال، وما إذا كانت للتلاعب بسعر الدولار، أم لتغذية تحركات عنفية معينة في الشارع.
وكان مرجع أمني لبناني أفاد الميادين في 27 حزيران/يونيو الماضي بأن “تركيا هي أحد مموّلي أعمال التخريب في بيروت التي شارك فيها عرب”، وأشار إلى أنه “تمّ توقيف أكثر من 40 شخصاً من جنسيات لبنانية وعربية كانت تعد للتخريب والشغب في العاصمة بيروت”.
كذلك كان مصدر أمني قد كشف للميادين في 8 حزيران/يونيو الماضي أن الأجهزة الأمنية فككت 4 مجموعات كانت تعد لأعمال شغب، وأوقفت عدداً من عناصر مجموعات تخريبية، في حين أكد مراسل الميادين أن “لا ارتباط بين المخربين وتنظيمات إرهابية، وهي تنفذ سياسة دخلت حديثاً إلى الساحة اللبنانية”.
وتشهد العاصمة بيروت وعدد من المناطق اللبنانية منذ أشهر احتجاجات واسعة على وقع تدهور العملة الوطنية وصعود الدولار ، وتردّي الوضع المعيشي.
وكانت مجموعات قد وقعت في قبضة القوى الأمنية في 12 حزيران/يونيو بعد “قيامهم بأعمال شغب” بحسب القوى الأمنية.
الرئيس اللبناني ميشال عون كان قد أعلن في 25 حزيران/يونيو الماضي أن السلم الأهلي خط أحمر والمفترض أن يلتقي الكل لتحصينه لأنه مسؤولية الجميع، مؤكداً أن هناك من يستغل مطالب الناس لتوليد العنف والفوضى لتحقيق أجندات خارجية مشبوهة.
هذا ويشهد لبنان يشهد أسوأ انهيار اقتصادي منذ عقود، يتزامن مع شحّ الدولار وتوقف المصارف عن تزويد المودعين بأموالهم بالدولار. وتسبّبت الأزمة بارتفاع معدل التضخم، وجعلت قرابة نصف السكان تحت خط الفقر.
وينعكس الانخفاض في قيمة العملة المحلية على أسعار السلع والمواد الغذائية وكل ما يتم استيراده من الخارج.
The Zionist media outlets have indirectly claimed the enemy’s responsibility for the explosion which occurred in Natanz nuclear facility in Iran, describing the strike as a battle between two wars.
The Israeli officials have not publicly commented on the incident, yet security sources in the entity pointed out that it comes in the context of coping with the Iranian nuclear program and revealing an IED was planted inside the facility to carry out the attack.
The Zionist analysts expressed fear of a possible Iranian response, highlighting the open confrontation between the two sides in several military and cyber domains.
The Israeli political commentators claimed that Iran anticipates an electoral defeat for the Republicans in the USA to conclude an agreement with the Democrats and get rid of the US pressures, adding that the Isralei strikes will fail to hamper the Iranian nuclear program.
In the most recent act of normalization with the “Israeli” entity, a state-linked technology company in the United Arab Emirates [UAE] has signed a partnership with two major “Israeli” defense firms to research ways of combating the coronavirus pandemic.
The agreement, announced late Thursday, comes just weeks after the UAE warned the “Israeli” entity that proceeding with its planned annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank would upend its efforts to improve ties with Arab states.
G42, an Abu Dhabi-based company specializing in artificial intelligence and cloud computing, signed a memorandum of understanding with Rafael and “Israel” Aerospace Industries, the UAE’s state-run WAM news agency reported. It said executives held a signing ceremony by video link between the two countries, which do not have diplomatic relations.
Rafael and IAI’s Elta subsidiary confirmed the agreement. Elta, which specializes in sensors, radars, electronic warfare and communication systems, said they would cooperate on research and technology focused on artificial intelligence, sensors and lasers.
They said the collaboration would not only benefit the two countries, but the entire world as it grapples with the pandemic.
The “Israeli” entity’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who has vowed to annex all of the occupied West Bank settlements as well as the strategic Jordan Valley, had announced an agreement with the UAE a week ago, without providing specifics.
“Israel” and Gulf countries have quietly improved ties in recent years, in part because of their shared concerns about Iran.
In recent weeks, senior UAE officials have warned that annexation would jeopardize those improved ties, but have also suggested that the two countries could set aside their political disputes to collaborate on humanitarian and other projects.
US President Donald Trump’s Middle East plan, which overwhelmingly favors “Israel” and was rejected by the Palestinians, would allow the entity to annex up to 30% of the West Bank, which it occupied in the 1967 war along with east al-Quds [Jerusalem] and the Gaza Strip.
The UN, European and Arab countries have warned “Israel” against annexation, which is widely seen as a violation of international law.
Group 42, also known as G42, is led by CEO Peng Xiao. He previously ran Pegasus, a subsidiary of DarkMatter, a cyber-security firm based in the UAE that has recruited Western intelligence agents.
Since late 2016, Dubai police have partnered with Pegasus to use its “big data” application to pool hours of surveillance video to track anyone in the emirate. DarkMatter’s hiring of former CIA and National Security Agency analysts has raised concerns, especially as the UAE has imprisoned human rights activists.
لم يعد جائزاً ولا مقبولاً التمادي في الصمت على ارتكابات الفساد والتحاصص، وعلى إفقار الشعب وتجويعه وإذلاله وتركه وحيداً تتقاذفه ألسنة الطبقة السياسية وألاعيبها وفبركاتها ومكائدها التي لا تنتهي، والتي أفرغت الدولة من مؤسّساتها، والشعب من حقوقه، والخزينة من أموالها، ونتفت ريش البلد برمّته وعرّته من كلّ مقوماته الوجودية كوطن ودولة وشعب ومؤسسات، وحوّلته إلى متسكّع على أبواب السفارات والدول ومنظمات المجتمع الدولي وصندوق النقد الدولي ومؤتمرات الدعم والمساعدة والاستدانة من دون طائل لأن لا ثقة لكلّ هؤلاء بحكامه وطبقته السياسية، وهم الذين أفسدوا ونهبوا وطنهم ودولتهم وشعبهم وكدّسوا في خزائنهم وفي المصارف الخارجية أموالاً وثروات لم يحلموا فيها وبأرقامها العصية حتى على العدّ، ومن دون رحمة أو شفقة أو مسؤولية وطنية وأخلاقية حوّلوا الوطن إلى هيكل عظمي والشعب إما إلى فقير أو جائع أو مريض أو تائه أو مهاجر أو باحث عن بقايا طعام في أكوام النفايات أو متشرّد في الشوارع أو يطرق الأبواب مادّاً يده ومطأطئاً رأسه خجلاً وذلاً عله يحظى برغيف خبز او بعض القروش التي قد تسدّ بعضاً من رمق عائلته المتضورة جوعاً.
هذه الطبقة التي لم تعتبر أو تتعظ مما ارتكبته بحق الشعب الجائع والموجوع تواصل نهجها الإغراقي له وكأنها تنتقم منه على خطأ ارتكبها وشكل وصمة عار له لأنه ساهم بإعادة إنتاجها وجدّد ثقته فيها وهي التي امتهنت إضعافه وسرقته وإذلاله وأدمنت على قهره وتعذيبه من دون ان يرفّ لها جفن أو تندم على ما فعلته فيه من شرّ ومارست بحقه من ظلم واستبداد، بل على العكس تماماً فإنها تتفنّن في ابتداع إلهائه والإيقاع به كلما حاول الوقوف على رجليه باحثاً عن حقوقه المهدورة والمصادَرة، وآخر إبداعاتها إشغال اللبنانيين بالحكومة… هل تستقيل تحت ضغط الشارع الموجّه أو تحت الضغط السياسي والقصف المركّز من أكثر من جهة، أو من خلال توجيه النصيحة لرئيسها لينفذ بريشه قبل أن يُحمّل وحده المسؤولية عن كلّ النكبات التي حلت بالبلاد والعباد ومن أقرب المقربين ممن يعتقد أنهم حلفاء له، ومن دون ان يقدّم أحد بديلاً أو حلاً أو مخرجاً ربما يفتح كوة أمل أو بصيص ضوء بأنّ الآتي من الزمن قد يكون أفضل.
إنّ رئيس الحكومة حسان دياب يتحمّل جزءاً من المسؤولية لأنه اعتمد الصمت على ارتكابات الفساد والتحاصص ولم يجرؤ على إقرار القوانين التي سيكون لها مفعول السحر في تقويض أسس الفساد والفاسدين وقد تفرّغ لتشكيل اللجان وإطلاق الوعود وتكرار مواجهة التحدّيات والإصرار على عدم الاستقالة واستجاب من دون أن يدري الى ألاعيب من يستهدفه ويصوّب عليه بدخوله حلبة إطلاق المواقف والسجالات الإعلامية والسياسية التي لا طائل ولا جدوى منها ولا تنتج سوى الكلام وتعطل الفعل الذي ينتظره الناس. انّ استمرار سياسة الصمت والبلد ينهار والشعب يجوع والفوضى تعمّ من دون ضوابط عوامل سلبية جداً تنبئ بالخطر المستطير في ظلّ الترويج المقصود لأحداث أمنية قد تعيد الحرب الأهلية، ولم يعد الشعب يصدّق مقولة «ما خلوني اشتغل» التي استخدمها قبلاً الرئيس سعد الحريري والنائب جبران باسيل. ومن حقنا أن نسأل من هم الذين يعرقلون عملكم ويعطلون مشاريعكم ويمنعونكم من العمل؟ هل هم من الأنس أو الجنّ أم هم من الأشباح؟ ولماذا لا يعلن عن المعرقلين والفاسدين وعن المشاريع التي عرقلوا تنفيذها…؟
لم تعد هذه المقولة تخدم مطلقها في أيّ موقع كان وأصبحت مزحة سمجة غير مقبولة وغير مهضومة ولا تبرير لها سوى الهروب إلى الأمام ومن المسؤولية.
إنّ الفرصة متاحة أمام رئيس الحكومة ليسمّي الأشياء بأسمائها بصراحة ووضوح في وقت تشتدّ الحملة عليه لإسقاطه، والجميع بيوتهم من زجاج وعليه أن يتغداهم قبل أن يتعشوه، وليس لديه ما يخسره لأنه سيخسر كثيراً إذا ما نجحوا في إسقاطه بأيّ وسيلة، وإذا كان غير قادر على قول الكلمة الفصل وكشف ما في حوزته من حقائق ومعلومات، فليصارح الشعب اللبناني الذي وصل إلى الحضيض بحقيقة ما يعانيه ويتعرّض له ويقدم على اتخاذ القرار الشجاع بالاستقالة وترك جنّة الحكومة لمن يريدها ولمن كان شريكاً في إغراق البلد وإفلاسه وانهياره واذا ما كان يملك الإرادة والإصرار على المواجهة فليعلنها معركة استباقية مدعومة بسلاح الجرأة والشجاعة والقرارات الإنقاذية ومن دونها فالمعركة خاسرة ولو بعد حين.
ويحضرني كلام للأديب والكاتب الروسي فيودور دستويفسكي: لا حياة لمن يظلّ واقفاً على الضفاف، خائفاً من الأمواج والأعاصير. الحياة لمن يتحرك، يقدم، يقبل، يخوض، يتعثر، ينهض، يصبر، يكافح حتى يظفر أخيراً. أو نبقى حيث نحن. وقد سأل يوماً «أين نحن؟ في القاع! جيد… على الأقلّ لن نسقط مرة ثانية». والكرة في مرمى العهد والحكومة والفريق الموالي. المطلوب تحديد الخيار والمسار قبل سقوط الهيكل على الجميع.
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