Wednesday, July 12, 2006
Live on LBC-TV: LBC-TV was covering live the events in South Lebanon: the murderous Israeli raids on villages, towns, and cities, and the destruction of bridges and roads, including the incineration of cars carrying civilians on the bridge of Qasmiyyah north of Tyre. Israel always resorts to attack on civilians; this has been the favorite Israeli method of murder in its entire history of bombings in South Lebanon. (This is why we should start resorting to labeling Israeli actions as "terrorist" in the same way that we refer to Al-Qa`idah's actions as terrorist--both entities are actually and verifiably terrorists). LBC-TV could not ignore the events, so it had to trolly up its favorite experts: Amin Gemayyel, Butrus Harb, and other right-wing, sectarian Christian figures. They did not even have their favorite right-wing, sectarian Muslim figures. So Amin Gemayyel, Amin Gemayyel for potato's sake, was offering his opinions on how best to face off against Israel. His usual vulgar cliches were all invoked. But LBC-TV was embarrassed about one important particular elements of the story: that people in South Lebanon cheered the arrest of the Israeli occupation soldiers, and fire works were seen around South Lebanon and in Beirut were people were seen driving around in celebration. The anchorperson kept asking the LBC-TV correspondents--they always rely not on the local correspondent who resides in South Lebanon because he does not seem sympathetic to the LBC-TV's Lebanese Forces owners, but on a correspondent that they send to South Lebanon to cover the developments--on the news of cheering by Lebanese people in South Lebanon. That news seemed quite disturbing for the anchorperson, and kept coming back to it. The correspondents, uniformly including Muna Saliba who was sent from East Beirut to cover the story, noted, and in the case of Saliba (who is so ignorant of South Lebanon that she pronounced the village of Hula as "hawla") with a measure of regret--that indeed people in South Lebanon cheered the capture of the two Israeli occupation soldiers, and that they did not seem nervous about Israeli terrorist threats. And the guests of LBC-TV kept bringing up the most important argument that is promoted by the Hariri Inc and their cronies: that Lebanon should not care about Palestine, and should not care about is dignity and national territory, because of the "tourism season"--that is the official name given for the influx of rich Arabs to the brothels and casinos of Lebanon--and that is an important element of Hariri's economic plans for Lebanon, the brothels' economy. But the LBC-TV's coverage was so based on building up resentment against resistance to Israeli occupation, and it tried to ignore the celebration by Southern Lebanese people of the news, regardless of the massive violence used by Israel on the people of South Lebanon. What Amin Gemayyel and others fail to note is this: they claim that Lebanon should not get involved in any fight against Israel because "we are fed up" and it is not "fair to the people." But the people of South Lebanon argue otherwise, and they are the people living opposite Israeli gunfire. They can determine their own best interests. So Muna Saliba was reporting live, when people with clear Southern Lebanese accents were yelling behind the camera that "LBC should stop its lies" that LBC is "distorting the pictures". LBC ended the transmission immediately. That would have embarrassed former Israeli surrogate warlord in Lebanon: Samir Ja`ja`, who now wants to run LBC-TV's political coverage.