<http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/05/ap/world/mainD8JUEEGO0.shtml> Lebanon to Protest Israel's Blockade
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sep. 5, 2006(AP) The Lebanese government decided Monday to protest to the U.N. Security Council over Israel's blockade of the country and call on it to force Israel to lift the siege.
The move came two days after Lebanese legislators began an open-ended sit-in at the Parliament building to protest the Israeli blockade of Beirut's airport and the country's seaports, which began two days after fighting erupted on July 12 between Israeli troops and Hezbollah guerrillas.
Israel says it is not required under the cease-fire resolution to lift its blockade until Lebanese borders and points of entry are secured to prevent weapons shipments to Hezbollah. It wants a U.N. peacekeeping force deploying in the south to also take positions on the Lebanese-Syrian border to stop shipments _ but the force is not mandated to deploy there.
"The Cabinet has decided to file a complaint with the Security Council against Israel for its continued blockade of Lebanon, its violation of international resolutions ... and its insistence to challenge the international will," Information Minister Ghazi Aridi told reporters after a special Cabinet meeting.
The Cabinet also urged Security Council member states to condemn Israel and force it to implement Resolution 1701, Aridi said, referring to the U.N. resolution that ended 34 days of fighting between Israel and Hezbollah on Aug. 14.
Despite the air blockade, a Qatar Airways plane landed at Beirut airport on Monday carrying 142 passengers, the first commercial flight from the Gulf country to Lebanon since the war. Though company officials said the plane flew without Israeli permission, Israel said it had agreed to the flight and that more were expected.
Resolution 1701 calls, among other things, on Israel to lift its sea and air blockade of Lebanon. Israel says the restrictions are necessary to prevent Hezbollah from rearming, while Lebanon says they hamper the delivery of food and medical supplies and put a damper on attempts to revive its badly battered economy.
President Emile Lahoud urged the United Nations on Monday to act quickly to end the Israeli blockade.
"The Security Council must meet as soon as possible to take a decision in order for Israel to end its blockade," Lahoud told reporters before entering the Cabinet meeting.
<http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/03/world/middleeast/03lebanon.html> September 3, 2006 Lebanese Politicians, Scarce in War, Renew Bickering By JOHN KIFNER
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Sept. 2 — The man widely viewed as the heir to the Lebanese democratic movement, Saad Hariri, stayed out of the country during the entire war between Hezbollah and Israel. His No. 2, Walid Jumblatt, holed up in his ancestral mountain palace. Gen. Michel Aoun, the maverick Maronite Catholic who sees himself as a future president of Lebanon, remained in his villa in the mountainous Christian heartland, and said little.
Meanwhile, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah of Hezbollah, despite being a target of the Israeli military, gave frequent speeches from deep inside a bunker.
But now, two weeks into a shaky cease-fire between Hezbollah guerrillas and Israel, some of the big names of Lebanese politics are moving back onto the political stage. The result has been an open round of bitter political infighting and backbiting. Figures from various factions have attacked one another in newspapers and on talk shows.
The most vociferous has been General Aoun, who called this week for the resignation of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and his cabinet.
The government is dominated by figures from the American-backed groups that banded together in what is known as the March 14 alliance, for the date of their huge protest rally after the 2005 assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, which helped force Syria to end 15 years of domination in Lebanese politics.
General Aoun, who has established a working relationship not only with Hezbollah but also with his former nemesis, Syria, also called for a "government of national unity."
That idea, charged Marwan Hamadeh, the minister of telecommunications and a prominent Druse member of the March 14 group, "is in fact a Syrian attempt to topple the government."
Mr. Siniora refused to resign, saying: "Let these politicians rest. The government is staying, staying, staying." In almost the same breath, he claimed Arab nationalist credentials by vowing, "Lebanon will be the last Arab country to sign a peace treaty with Israel."
General Aoun struck back, telling the daily As Safir that "Siniora will pay the price of his stubbornness" and accusing the prime minister of working with "foreign countries" against Lebanon's interests.
"This will happen very soon; he will not have time to pack his things because he will be forced to leave quickly," General Aoun said, adding that he had warned of "dangerous repercussions" if the government did not resign.
"Now we will choose the appropriate time to achieve the desired change in our own way," he asserted, setting off another round of recriminations between the March 14 group and his supporters.
Mr. Hariri, the son of the assassinated former prime minister, has been slower to try to reclaim his standing. He returned from Saudi Arabia and elsewhere as the cease-fire was being declared, and has made a few speeches. His deputy, Mr. Jumblatt, still in the mountains, held a news conference in which he was critical of Hezbollah and asked "to whom will it offer its victory."
Anyone who wants to wrest the spotlight from Hezbollah and its leader, Sheik Nasrallah, faces an uphill battle, given the respect both won throughout the Islamic world for standing up to Israel's military might.
"We are all in awe of Hezbollah," said Jamil Mroue, the publisher of the English-language Daily Star and a secular Shiite.
But like many Western-oriented Lebanese, he is troubled by Hezbollah's militant Islamicism, its ties to Iran and its willingness to maintain a virtual separate state, adding: "At this stage I cannot look at the situation and say there is a glimmer of light."
On Saturday, one of Syria's most important allies here, Nabih Berri, the wily speaker of Parliament, moved to smooth the waters by calling for something everyone could agree on: protesting the continued Israeli air and sea blockade.
Mr. Berri, a Shiite whose Amal movement is aligned with Hezbollah in Parliament, announced a round-the-clock sit-in in Parliament until the embargo was halted.
Politicians from all factions dutifully reported to the Parliament building on a plaza in the beautifully restored downtown, its clock tower now decorated with gory pictures of children wounded in Israeli air raids. Many arrived in identical charcoal-gray Mercedes with smoked windows.
Even Nayla Moawad, a Maronite Catholic and an outspoken March 14 figure in Parliament, had praise for Mr. Berri as she left the meeting, saying: "He is behaving in a very responsible manner." . . .
-- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>