Hasan Sabra and his Ash-Shira` magazine. When the book Peace for Lebanon?: From War to Reconstruction (ed. by Deirdre Collings and contains a variety of contributions from academics) was published in 1994, the Syrian and Lebanese censors in Lebanon banned the book, due to my chapter on Determinants and Orientations of Syrian Policy Toward Lebanon (I think that this is the title). The Public Security department in Lebanon (headed by Jamil As-Sayyid--was he in charge then? I am not sure) decreed that my words were "offensive to the personality of Hafidh Al-Asad". But what really made things worse for me, and endangered my life, was the sensational box that Hasan Sabra wrote about it in Ash-Shira` in which he made sure to mention my father's name, so that nobody would miss my identity, and expressed outrage at the "insult" to the Syrian president. For that, I could not go to Lebanon for years. Some of you know the story already, but I am only mentioning it now because this same Sabra (who switched his allegiances over the years, although he started as a loyal servant of the Libyan regime when he headed the "information" department at the militia known as the Arab Socialist Union during the civil war) is now posing as a critic and opponent of the Syrian regime. You really have to be very skeptical and very cynical if you want to follow and understand Lebanese politics.