The Lies of MEMRI. You and I know that members of congress (including the new Muslim member of Congress who promised to memorize MEMRI's reports, and recite them in prayers) and the US media rely religiously on the reports of MEMRI and cite them at every corner. I would never link to MEMRI or to any Israeli intelligence source (former or current) but today it issued a report under this headline: "Hizbullah Threatens Violent Escalation to Begin Monday." I thought that maybe there is some new information that I don't know about although I read all Lebanese newspapers last night, and receive all Lebanese TV stations. It turned out that MEMRI just made up that headline and that it was a typical MEMRI fabrication. They attributed the the report to an article by Ibrahim Al-Amin (identified as editor) although he is not the editor of the paper; Joseph Samahah is the editor-in-chief and Al-Amin is chairperson of the board of the company that owns Al-Akhbar. I read the article in question by Al-Amin last night, and said no such things. Al-Amin is not Hizbullah: he is a former Communist fighter who participated in key battles during the Lebanese civil war on the side of the Lebanese Communist Party. The article in question spoke about tas`id (escalation) but in the rhetoric of the opposition in Lebanon, it has been made repeatedly clear that all the steps of escalation will adhere to non-violent struggle and protests. (For MEMRI, you need to read the important expose on it by Brian Whitakker.)