These are the native correspondents of the New York Times in Beirut: never trust what you read in the Times about the Middle East

"The organizer of the protest was Ahmad al-As’ad, a former Parliament speaker".  The man was not even ever a member of parliament and as I indicated in my post yesterday he obtained a whopping 1% of the Shi`ite vote in the last election.  His father and grandfather were speakers of parliament and I have more chances of being crowned King of California that he has in serving as speaker of the Lebanese parliament.  But what is interesting is that the account ignores the account of the Lebanese Army and it does not mention the presence of Amal thugs there.  It is possible that Hizbullah thugs actually did the beating and the shooting but no one knows.  I think that Nasrallah's hold over his base may slip further: sectarian antagonism is at its worst and the sectarian agitation against Shi`ites by March 14 and by the Syrian "revolution" and its Arab GCC sponsors have succeeded in pushing the Shi`ites to the brink.  Finally, notice that on the rare occasion when the Times publishes something damaging to the image of the Syrian "revolution" (like the story of the execution of the boy by Islamists in Syria because he was accused of blaspheming Muhammad), the story is mentioned in passing and always under a headline that has nothing to do with the story and which is damaging to the image of the enemies of the "revolution".