Foreword by Youssef S. Hitti
Twenty years ago, one of many Israel-Hezbollah wars was taking place, similar in every way to the ongoing destruction of the country. Nothing has changed. Who is responsible? How can a tragedy like this keep repeating itself? How can a small insignificant country like Lebanon, that offers no “interests” to any of the regional and international brutes who claim “interests” in assassinating a founder of the United Nations and a co-author of its Human Rights Charter, be allowed to continue to be tormented for decades (since the late 1960s)?
From the archives, this article in the An-Nahar daily is dated July 18, 2006. Reading it now in 2026, you’d think it was written today, twenty years later. Yes, the Lebanese are to blame because they are divided along sectarian lines, each sect beholden to one of the brutes warmongering amongst one another, some from the region, others from far away. Yes, the Lebanese are to blame for allowing cancers in its midst to fester for decades.
If the Lebanese are unable to get past their chronic incompetence and disunity, then this country does not deserve to be a country because it is NOT A NATION. Lebanon is a hodge-podge of religious barbarians who think they can fart higher than their assholes by distorting democracy into a “consensual variant” of it that proudly hybridizes Western feudal social organization from the Dark Ages with Bronze Age Semitic religious tribalism. That is the only innovation the modern Lebanese have to offer the world, as they relish without any merit bragging about their Phoenician ancestors’ glories, also from the Bronze Age.
Some in Lebanon are praising the Moron-in-Chief in Washington DC for stirring trouble because it just might – I repeat “might” – resolve the 50-year-old Hezbollah-Israel cancer. When George W Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, many also thought that poking the hornets’ nest of Arab dictatorships and decadent monarchies might bring relief to those who aspire for better. But the US has time and again failed to improve the lot of the region because that is not what it seeks. In fact, the US, just like Israel, prefer the region to be in a state of constant instability because this provides them with the justifications for colonial and imperialist interventions to protect their “interests” in the region.
Now, the Moron-in-Chief of the American brute is about to sign a “deal” with one of the regional brutes, namely Iran. Just like his predecessors, he will strike yet another deal in which Lebanon, the cheapest and most disposable card, will again be sold on the altar of the brutes’ mutual interests.
The following are both the English translation and the original Arabic of the An-Nahar opinion authored by Ali Hamadeh in July 2006.
English translation of the An-Nahar opinion authored by Ali Hamadeh in July 2006.
Ali Hamadeh
An-Nahar, July 18, 2006
Yes to Solidarity, But the Truth Must be Told
The open war in Lebanon between Hezbollah and Israel will ultimately lead, if it is not quickly stopped, to the destruction of Lebanon on the heads of the Lebanese who have become hostages of a cycle of violence between two regional wills that are dueling, both in time and geography, without end in sight.
To this day, there is no place for diplomacy in this war that has taken the future of Lebanon hostage on the altar of a regional conflict whose outcome will not serve the interests of national unity or civil peace. When visions and choices differ to the point that one party allows itself the freedom to take an entire country into a destructive and imbalanced war for no convincing reason – the liberation of three prisoners from Israeli jails does not justify the destruction of Lebanon – the future of the country becomes fully in doubt.
These words do not aim at opening an internal political debate and competition at a time when the people of Lebanon are being slaughtered from its south to its north. The intent is to assert, first and foremost, that if this period is one for solidarity – which it is – and a period for unity in facing the Israeli aggression that has transcended the issue of the two soldiers to become an exercise in excessive insanity in the use of force, we still have to tell the truth. The truth is in candidly telling Hezbollah, like Prime Minister Fouad Siniora indirectly did in his address to the Lebanese people, that the State should be the final reference for all the Lebanese, and that it alone must own the decision of war and peace. The State must spread its authority over every inch of the national soil without any partner, be it Lebanese or foreign.
And if, as we said, this is a period of solidarity, this should not exonerate Hezbollah from a coming accountability to which it must be held after the guns fall silent for what happened and for the consequences of its monopolizing the decision that implicated and implicates the fate of our country, all of us together, the future of our children and the safety of the nation. Neither the situational joy of rockets falling on Haifa and beyond Haifa and far far beyond Haifa will protect the country from the systematic destruction carried out by the Israelis over the past 6 days, nor the supportive utterances of Arab demagogical one-upmanship, such as the Syrian regime and others, or of Iran watching Lebanon burn from a distance, will suffice to draw our attention or convince us that the decision of war, into which the country has been dragged by an organization with a domestic façade but a regional agenda, will ultimately achieve the delivery of justice.
The fact is that today we are alone in this open war. For the Arabs, through the Europeans and on to the Big Eight gathered until yesterday in St. Petersburg, they all constitute a big circle that supports the Israeli war and gives it a sufficient political and time window to try and impose new facts on the ground.
In conclusion, we have to say that nothing will be the same after July 12. One era is over, and a new era has begun. In any case, no single Lebanese party will be able from this day forward to impose its private – untouchable by the State – agenda over its other partners in the nation because the result, as we see it today, is destruction, and destruction, then some more destruction.
It is not important that rockets fly over the Israeli settlements and for the masses to cheer and celebrate with fireworks. What is important is that we spare our country wars that take us nowhere in the end but to the destruction of our country over everyone’s head, and there is no difference here between the masses of Hezbollah and the rest of the Lebanese masses. The time has come to recognize the preeminence of the State over everyone, even over the rifle, be it sacred or not.
Original Arabic of the An-Nahar opinion authored by Ali Hamadeh in July 2006.
الثلثاء 18 تموز 2006 – السنة 73 – العدد 22716
علي حماده
نعم للتضامن ولكن لا بد من قول الحقيقة
الحرب المفتوحة في لبنان بين “حزب الله” واسرائيل مؤداها في المحصلة النهائية، إذا لم تتوقف سريعاً، الى تدمير لبنان على رؤوس اللبنانيين الذين صاروا رهائن دورة عنف بين ارادتين اقليميتين تتصارعان بأفق مفتوح في الزمن والجغرافيا
حتى اليوم لا مكان للديبلوماسية في هذه الحرب المسترهنة لبنان ومستقبله على مذبح صراع اقليمي لن تكون نتائجه لمصلحة وحدة البلاد او تركيبتها او سلمها الاهلي. فمتى تباينت الرؤى والخيارات الى حد ان فريقا يبيح لنفسه حرية اخذ وطن بكامله الى حرب مدمرة وغير متكافئة من دون اي سبب مقنع (تحرير الاسرى الثلاثة في السجون الاسرائيلية لا يبرر تدمير لبنان) يصبح مستقبل لبنان كله مطروحا على بساط البحث
لا يرمي هذا الكلام الى فتح الجدل والسجال السياسي الداخلي في وقت يذبح فيه شعب لبنان من اقصى الجنوب الى اقصى الشمال، انما الهدف هو التأكيد اولا وقبل كل شيء انه اذا كانت هذه المرحلة هي مرحلة تضامن، وهي كذلك، ومرحلة وحدة في مواجهة العدوان الاسرائيلي الذي تجاوز قضية الجنديين الى الافراط الجنوني في استخدام القوة، فإنه لا بد لنا من قول الحقيقة، ومصارحة “حزب الله”، كما فعل الرئيس فؤاد السنيورة في شكل غير مباشر في الكلمة التي وجهها الى اللبنانيين بأن الدولة يجب ان تكون مرجعية اللبنانيين جميعا، وأنها وحدها يجب ان تمتلك قرار الحرب والسلم. وأنها يجب ان تبسط سلطتها على كامل التراب الوطني من دون شريك لها لبنانيا كان ام اجنبياً
وإذا صح كما قلنا ان المرحلة هي للتضامن فهذا لا يجوز ان يعفي “حزب الله” من مساءلة مقبلة تأتي بعد ان تسكت المدافع حيال ما حصل والنتائج التي ترتبت على تفرده بقرار مسّ ويمس بمصير بلدنا جميعا، ومستقبل اولادنا وسلامة الوطن. فلا الفرحة الموضعية بسقوط الصواريخ على حيفا وما بعد حيفا وما بعد بعد حيفا تحمي الوطن من التدمير المنهجي الذي يقوم به الاسرائيليون منذ ستة ايام، ولا المواقف اللفظية الداعمة من بعض عرب المزايدات القومجية مثل النظام السوري وغيره او من إيران المتفرجة من بعيد على حريق لبنان، تكفي لإشعارنا في لبنان او لإقناعنا بأن قرار الحرب الذي جُرّ اليه تنظيم واجهته محلية واجندته اقليمية سوف ينتهي الى احقاق الحق
والحال اننا اليوم وحدنا في هذه الحرب المفتوحة. فمن العرب، الى الاوروبيين، الى الثمانية الكبار المجتمعين حتى البارحة في بطرسبرج حلقة واسعة تغطي الحرب الاسرائيلية، وتمنحها نافذة سياسية وزمنية كافية لمحاولة فرض حقائق جديدة على الأرض
في الخلاصة لا بد لنا من القول ان لا شيء بعد الثاني عشر من تموز سيشبه ما قبله. لقد انتهت مرحلة وبدأت مرحلة. وفي مطلق الاحوال لن يكون في مقدور اي طرف لبناني بعد اليوم ان يفرض اجندته الخاصة الما-فوق الدولة على بقية الشركاء في الوطن لان النتيجة كما نلمسها اليوم هي الخراب والخراب والخراب. ليس المهم ان تطير الصواريخ فوق المستوطنات الاسرائيلية فتهلل الجماهير وتطلق الاسهم النارية احتفاء، بل المهم ان نجنّب بلدنا حروبا لا تؤدي في نهاية المطاف إلا الى تدميره فوق رؤوس الجميع. ولا فرق هنا بين جمهور “حزب الله” وبقية الجماهير اللبنانية. حان الوقت للاعتراف بأسبقية الدولة على الجميع حتى على البندقية، أمقدسة كانت ام لا
