On Hasan Nasrallah's Address. I watched the live address by Hasan Nasrallah carried live on New TV. (I noticed that AlArabiya--too scared of the US government--does not carry his speeches live, but reports to the viewers second hand what he said although they carry live speeches by US Secretary of Agriculture sometimes. Did I not tell you that AlArabiya is more loyal to US government agenda than Al-Hurra TV which carried until recently speeches by friends and foes of the US?) The speech was long. The first part was quite significant. It included a detailed exposition on the methods of resistance. It was to my knowledge the most detailed critique of suicide bombings and of killings of civilians: he refuted theologically the notion of tatarrus that is used by takfiri groups to justify their murder of civilians (Muslim and non-Muslim alike). He did not come out and reject suicide attacks altogether: but he talked about the value of the fighters and implied that some may rush to send fighters into such operations (that certainly applies to Hamas and Islamic Jihad, in my opinion). So why he did not rule them out categorically, he implied that they should not be the favorite methods of resistance. He also gave the example of how an assassination against Israeli chief torturer in South Lebanon, `Aql Hashim, was postponed to spare his family. He also talked about how even collaborators were spared. In my opinion that was a mistake. No country ever forgave collaborators of foreign occupation: do you know what France did with Nazi collaborators? Do you know that after the liberation of France from the Nazis they used to march women (with shaved heads) and mock them, harass them, stone them, and sometimes hit them because they may have fraternized with the enemy? In some cases it was because they were seen sipping beer with Nazi soldiers. Of course, there is something sexist about the spectacle if you have seen the pictures, and I don't urge that Lebanon does that. But the collaborators of occupation (everywhere, in France, Algeria, Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, etc) cause murder and injury to the native population. Collaborators are often torturers of occupation: (have you noticed how many Iraqi victims of torture (after the "liberation" of Iraq) talk about Lebanese accents among the torturers? In Lebanon, the collaborators were protected by the Maronite Patriarch (who has a vast religious hat collection) although collaborators were drawn from all sects of Lebanon. The collaborationist army, South Lebanon Army, had members form the Sunni, Shi`ite, Druze, and Christian population of South Lebanon. I also hate how all groups in Lebanon internalize the discourse of "civilization" and "enlightenment" and "democracy." It is so stretched in Lebanon that sympathy with collaborators becomes yet another point of view. An-Nahar newspaper (the right-wing, sectarian Christian, anti-Syrian (people), anti-Palestinian (people) newspaper carried the other day a sympathetic report on the suffering of those collaborators and their families. Those are the people who fled to Israel when Israel was forced to humiliatingly withdraw from South Lebanon back in 2000. There should have been fair and full trials for those people: these were people who transported car bombs into villages on behalf of Israeli occupation. They committed crimes against the civilian population of South Lebanon, aside from the larger national questions. These were the people who tortured on behalf of Israeli occupation. Nasrallah then spoke in the second part about the decision taken by Hizbulalh to participate in the Lebanese government. He made a good point: he said prior to the decision to join the government, critics used to complain that Hizbullah is not shouldering its responsibilities by joing the government. And when Hizbullah joined the government, those same critics started complaining that a resistance movement should not dirty its hands with government affairs. He did not add much new here. He repeated the same demands of the oppostion--demands that did not capture the imagination of the Lebanese people. In the third part, he talked about the fighting in North Lebanon. He paid the customary, fashionable (and highly undeserved) tributes to the Lebanese Army. He said that attacks on the Lebanese Army was "a red line." He said that the Army is the only unitary symbol of Lebanon (you know that I suggested cauliflowers, but no takers as of yet). He also effectively mocked the Lebanese government by using the same rhetoric that it had used against Hizbullah, against it: he asked whether the Lebanese government consulted with anybody in Lebanon before starting this clash. He also talked about ruining the tourist season in Lebanon--a charge used regularly by March 14th Movement against Hizbullah because Lebanon is a homeland--or a fiction of a homeland--that values its reputation for sex tourism than it values its territory and its national dignity. He also added that the Palestinian civilian population is also "a red line." But the headlines of articles in the Western and Arabic press about this address that said that he "warned the government" against invading the camps is not accurate. He was not that categorical as he should have been, in my opinion. In fact, he said that the government should bear the responsibility of the decision if it invaded the camps, thereby leaving the government with the impression that he would stay at least non-supportive, but not a fierce opponent. He reminded them that more Lebanese (soldiers) are being killed than Palestinians--he must have said that to those racist Lebanonese who don't care about Palestinian lives (yes, there are Lebanonese Zionists). The section on the camp war was the srongest words of caution thus far from any members of the opposition (including by Hizbullah officials who have been praising the army in the least few days). He talked about other means to deal with Fath-Al-Islam, and inquired about the agenda of the US in all this. He quoted from frequent refrain in Bush's speeches: how he wants to mass Al-Qa`idah in Iraq to fight it there, to avoid fighting it over here (in the US). He wondered whether Mr. Bush is doing the same in Lebanon. He raised the issue of the sudden US military aid and assistance to the Lebanese Army. He also made oblique references to the agenda of some and their past (in reference to those who fought the Palestinians in the past--and that can apply to Ja`ja` (Ga`ga` in Egyptian accent) or to the Amal Movement. So in conclusion, it was good that he publicized and highlighted the dangers of invading the refugee camps (and he said the life of Palestinians in the camp is "a red line"), but he did not press the stance strongly to urge the government against invading the camp. Al-Arabiya TV invited Ahmad Fatfat (of Fatfatism fame) because as Minister of Sports and Youth, he is the qualified expert on such matters. The interview with Fatfat was classic Al-Arabiya. At one point, the anchor asked him: "Mr. Fatfat, was that point by Nasrallah duplicitous? Fatfat: More than duplicitous." I am not making this up. I watched that exchange and left learning about the professional Saudi Wahhabi media what I knew not before.