So it is only fitting that the case of accused Israeli spy, cleric Hasan Mushaymish, is featured in the Weekly Standard. When a Zionist publication takes up the issue of an accused Israeli spy, his guilt (in my eyes) is almost proven although one has to wait for a court proceeding. The story in this article is laughable: just as any other story by Smith (an expert on "Arab culture" who does not know Arabic). He interviewed two people in this article: the son of the cleric and a right-wing Shi`ite Lebanese. That was it. I was contacted a few months ago by this guy (the son of the accused cleric when he was still in Syria) on Facebook. He asked for my help. I told him I don't deal with intelligence matters but I can see what I can find out. The cleric was no big name and he had no political role that one can speak of. Unlike what the article suggested, the man (how to put it) was no rival to Hasan Nasrallah--the imagination of Mushaymish's son notwithstanding. I contacted the security reporter for Al-Akhbar, Hasan `Illiq, who broke the story. He knew many details about the story and he told me that the information about his espionage for Israel is solid. I relayed what I found to the son and that was it. The cleric was then released in Syria but was apprehended in Lebanon by Jihaz Al-Ma`lumat (the Intelligence Apparatus, the Hariri-run and controlled intelligence branch of the government). If there were doubts about his guilt, or of there were suspicions about a political motive behind his apprehension, this particular branch of government--not known for its sympathy for Hizbullah--would not have intervened. Furthermore, the notion that he was a political threat to the groups that garnered some 95% of the Shi`ite vote in the last election is just laughable. More importantly, there is a better known pro-Saudi (Hariri-funded) Shi`ite cleric, `Ali Al-Amin, who is most outspoken against Hizbullah and he was not arrested and was not accused of spying for Israel. But you know that the family is not telling the truth when you read this: "“I wrote about Hezbollah’s silence in this affair. When Nasrallah’s deputy Nabil Qaouk came to show us the CD of my father’s confession, he said to me, ‘If you want to write about Hezbollah, go ahead, there are 100 articles about Hezbollah everyday, let there be 101. But if you want your father back, you have to stop writing.’ ”" Where and when did Rida write about the case? I never read anything by him. No one knows who this guy is. No one has ever heard of him but there is now a PR campaign on his behalf and the Lebanese right-wing, racist, and sectarian station, MTV, featured the family the other day, just as it features all agent of Israel within the former South Lebanon Army. If Rida Mushaymish thinks that Hizbullah is threatened by his "writings"--whatever they are since i have not read a word by him or heard about his writings--he may need to hire someone else to defend his father and do the PR work on his behalf, but I am not in a position to offer advice to an accused Israeli spy. (thanks Basil)
PS Of course, I won't argue with Smith's characterization of Al-Akhbar: the author is too ignorant and he knows no Arabic so he would not know that "the pro-Syria" Al-Akkhbar is banned in Syria, or that Al-Akhbar was publicly criticized by Hasan Nasrallah. But then again, what do I expect from an author of a racist book about Arabs?
PS Of course, I won't argue with Smith's characterization of Al-Akhbar: the author is too ignorant and he knows no Arabic so he would not know that "the pro-Syria" Al-Akkhbar is banned in Syria, or that Al-Akhbar was publicly criticized by Hasan Nasrallah. But then again, what do I expect from an author of a racist book about Arabs?
