The Lebanese: Sponge People. I have great respect for Lebanese scholar George Corm. He was a brave critic of Hariri from early on, and he did serve honorably as a Minister of Finance between 1998 nad 2000 although I do not agree with all the decisions of the government in which he served (they did not oppose privatization in principle and they accepted the US-issued Lebanese law for copyright protection) or with its formation (corrupt and corrupting Syrian tool Michel Murr was deputy prime minister in the government but prime minister Salim Huss told me that the Syrian government insisted on his inclusion). In his book Le Liban Contemporain: Histoire et Societe, Corm refers to the Lebanese people as "sponge people". He used the expression to refer to the Lebanese propensity to absorb ideas of others and then mix them with their own agendas and ambitions. He was referring to their entanglement with foreign powers' agendas.