Looking around, it was difficult for me to see any cause for concern. The stony hill-country of Jebel-Amil in South Lebanon seems an idyllic place; most of the flat-roofed houses have olives, figs and almonds, or at least grapes, growing on trellises over their yards.
The welcome that Israel’s new prime minister received in Arab capitals following his election victory was not unprecedented. The praise for the Zionist state’s most decorated general as a ‘trustworthy man of peace’ has its parallel in the late Egyptian president Anwar Sadat’s sudden visit to Jerusalem in November 1977.
Mercenaries, especially operating on behalf of a foreign occupation-force, deserve no mercy. This is the message the Hizbullah have delivered with deadly accuracy in South Lebanon. This has got across clearly to the Zionist occupiers as well as to their surrogates, the South Lebanese Army (SLA).
Aware that if she were to return to her native Pakistan, she would end up in prison on corruption charges, Benazir Bhutto, the Pakistani opposition leader, has decided to ‘languish’ in Britain.
There was undoubtedly a certain satisfaction in watching the Israelis tearing into each other for a change, instead of tearing into Palestinians, Muslims and just about anybody else they don’t like. The election campaign which ended in Benyamin Netanyahu being conclusive defeated by Ehud Barak was vicious to say the least...
Yasir Arafat is perhaps the only person in the world who still clings to the fiction that there is a ‘peace process’ in the Middle East. The Oslo accords which he signed in September 1993 and September 1995 have been an unmitigated disaster for the Palestinian people.
Hizbullah mujahideen killed the Israeli general commanding Israeli and South Lebanese Army (SLA) forces in Israeli-occupied southern Lebanon on February 28, in a carefully planned and impeccably executed ambush. Three other Israelis were killed with him.
Sixty three years ago, in the orchards of Ya’bud, north of the Palestinian town of Jenin, Sheikh Izz al-Din al-Qassam received the bullet that was intended to take him away from his people forever.
Thanks to western propaganda, the Hizbullah are often projected as masked men bradishing submachine guns, not unlike those in the movie, Man in Black. Few people are aware of the Hizbullah’s broad range of activities including social and cultural.
Yasir Arafat, head of the Palestine National Authority (PNA), needed a grand camouflage for his final surrender to the Zionists to publicly eschew any thoughts of ever liberating Palestine. This was provided on December 14 by the presence in Ghazzah of US president Bill Clinton...
I was invited as a speaker to Al-Quds Day meeting on January 31, 1997, which was part of the Ramadan activities held by Sincan municipality, a district of Ankara. Before the program, I sent the organizers a video cassette exposing the crimes of Zionism and highlighting the Palestinian cause.
Debate about Palestine is often shrouded in the fog of individuals’ preferences. There is always a prior commitment to one side or the other and every piece of evidence is used merely to reinforce one’s own argument or debunk the other’s.
When Turkish prime minister Mesut Yilmaz hobnobbed with Israeli leaders on September 7, there were hardly any quizzical eyebrows raised. This is furthur affirmation of the close ties with Tel Aviv which have long been assiduously cultivated by the Turkish secularist political elites and their shoulder-boarded godfathers in the military.
Notwithstanding American allegations against Muslims, there are strong suspicions pointing towards Israeli involvement in the US embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salam.
Lebanon, it is commonly joked in Beirut, has three presidents: Elias Hrawi, Rafic Hariri and Nabih Berri. ‘What about Hafez al-Asad?’ asked a recent visitor to Beirut.
Lebanon’s political, religious and cultural diversity was reflected in a two-day seminar held in Beirut on April 14 and 15.
Nestled among picturesque, tranquil hills overlooking the Mediterranean, the southern Lebanese village of Qana once had its moments of joy, sweet memories, and rosy dreams.
Hopes for resuscitating the stalemated Oslo ‘peace process’ were dashed last month after US Middle East envoy Dennis Ross failed during a four-day regional tour to make headway in brokering a resumption of Israeli-Palestinian talks.
In western mythology, Lebanon is generally identified with mayhem, warfare, hostage-takers and hijackers. Similarly, the name Hizbullah conjures up images of gun-toting Muslim zealots out to get ‘peaceful’ westerners.
Twenty years after Israel first invaded Lebanon, and sixteen years after their troops smashed their way to the gates of Beirut before being pushed back to a ‘buffer zone’ in the south of the country, they appear to have had enough and want out.
