Mohamad Bazzi – The Nation

Ever since Hezbollah and its allies began an open-ended protest against the US-backed government on December 1, Beirut’s gilded downtown–built for wealthy Lebanese and foreign tourists–has become more authentically Lebanese. Where Persian Gulf sheiks once ate sushi, families now sit in abandoned parking lots, having impromptu picnics, the smell of kebabs cooked over coals wafting through the air. Young men lounge on plastic chairs, smoking apple-scented water pipes, and occasionally break out into debke, the Lebanese national dance.

 

A car on display outside a Cartier boutique in “Solidaire”, the downtown area that has recently regained a more popular character with the opposition sit-in …

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Tadamon! is concerned with the way in which Canadian media are portraying current events in Lebanon [see press conference]. The representation reflects only one side of the complex debate in Lebanon, a debate which has tremendous implications for the entire region.

We encourage all who share our concerns to respond to inaccuracies and distortions in coverage of the crisis by writing letters to the editor.

Here are some tools for writing letters to the editor [see below]:

• Media Analysis: Distortions/Reality
• Contact Details for Major Print Media Outlets in Canada

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Tents of communist party supporters at the Beirut sit-in.

by Maria Abi-Habib, Montreal Gazette, December 10th, 2006.

Ibtisam Jamaleddine stood in the room of her dead son, Maxim. Maxim was 18 years old when he was mistaken for a fighter and killed by an Israeli missile during this summer’s war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Pictures of Che Guevara and soccer players as well as a plaque dedicated to Shiite Islam’s most revered imam, Ali, adorn the walls of his room. They tell a story unknown in the West, of the complex nature of forces that fought Israel last summer.

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Montreal Mirror: by Stefan Christoff

Almost four months have passed since Montrealer Hassan El Akhras lost 11 family members to an Israeli air strike in the south Lebanese village of Aitaroun. Currently, legal representatives of the family are pressing the Conservative government for action on the case.

Despite existing legal efforts, Hassan El Akhras holds little faith in the current government. “The government has done nothing,” says El Akhras. “Our family wants the Canadian government to launch an international investigation on the war crime committed against my family, but we have gotten no phone call, nothing.”
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I’m somebody with nobody’ campaign grew out of wartime humanitarian movement
By Iman Azzi – Daily Star

BEIRUT: As anti-government protesters concluded their second week of camping out in the city center on Thursday, another – albeit smaller and shorter – protest arrived in Beirut. Not only was it a demonstration against the demonstration, but it was also a demonstration against the government, and the 20 people who participated took their anti-status quo sentiment to the streets – or one street.

The “I’m somebody with nobody” campaign kicked off Thursday evening on Hamra Street with hopes of uniting Lebanese citizens who feel isolated by the polarized politics plaguing the country. (more…)

Montrealers Lend Support to Popular Mobilization in Beirut.

WEDNESDAY, December 13th, 2006,11am
Simone de Beauvoir Institute of Concordia University
2170 Bishop Street

MEDIA COVERAGE OF THE PRESS CONFERENCE HERE.

Several Montreal organizations are speaking out in defense of popular protests which have overtaken Lebanon’s capital for over a week.

Hundreds of thousands in Beirut are participating in a peaceful sit-in, initiated by Hezbollah & over 10 other opposition political parties. Participants are demanding a more representative government in the aftermath of the recent Israeli attack and are challenging U.S. policy in the region.   (more…)

By Robert Fisk -“The Independent”

With Fouad Siniora’s cabinet hiding in the Grand Serail behind acres of razor wire and thousands of troops – a veritable “green zone” in the heart of Beirut – the largely Shia Muslim opposition, assisted by their Christian allies, brought up to two million supporters into the centre of the city yesterday to declare the forthcoming creation of a second Lebanese administration. A “transitional” government is what ex-general Michel Aoun called it, while Naeem Qassem, Hizbollah’s deputy chairman, spoke ominously of the mass demonstrations as “the separatist day”.

So, is the Hizbollah militia, which withstood Israel’s disastrous bombardment of Lebanon last summer, really planning a coup on behalf of its Iranian and Syrian backers, as Mr Siniora suspects? Or are Mr Siniora and his cabinet colleagues – Sunni Muslim, Christian and Druze – working on behalf of the Americans and Israelis, as Hizbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, proclaims? (more…)

An anti-government rally brought up to two million people into the capital’s downtown on December 10, 2006, impeding a quick exit from the political crisis that has gripped Lebanon since Dec. 1.(Pictures from the demonstration)

By Bill Cecil

George Bush doesn’t like what’s happening in this small Arab country. “Hezbollah extremists are trying to destabilize Lebanon,” he says. He claims that Syria and Iran are behind it all. Bush is no more honest about Lebanon than he was about Iraq. What’s happening here is a movement of the people on a scale rarely seen in history. It is like the Palestinian Intifada or the fight against apartheid in South Africa.

Yesterday more than half of Lebanon’s four and a half million people filled the streets around Parliament to protest the U.S.-backed regime of Fuad Siniora. From morning on, this city’s avenues to the south were a sea of people as hundreds of thousands walked in from the Dahye—Beirut’s working-class southern suburbs. (more…)