Lebanon Quotes
The Syrians hate the Lebanese and vica versa, After the Lebanese Civil War, Syria took advantage of the weakened nation to send troops to occupy and control Lebanon politically which it did for over a decade.
Lebanon is a country divided into religious sects which have a long history of animosity, distrust, violence among them. Few leaders were as candid as Jumblatt.
He is a Greek Orthodox Christian, and he correctly observes that the Islamic world was considerably more tolerant than the Christian until the 18th century when Islam had become less tolerant in the Middle East while the Christians were modernizing and going through a cultural and intellectual enlightenment and societal modernization while the Muslims, became less tolerant than they were in earlier years leading to the modern situation.
This quotation illustrates the dissentions that exist between the various Islamic terrorist organizations. The Secretary General of Hezbollah herein castigates the rival and more religiously fundamentalist Al Qaeda for killing innocent Muslims. Not only do neither mind killing innocent people who are not Muslims, but Hezbollah indiscriminately fires rockets into Israeli populated areas and has killed innocent Muslims, Christians and Jews. Further, Hezbollah will force Muslim citizens of Lebanon to store arms and allow rocked firing from their properties and institutions like schools, mosques, and hospitals, knowing perfectly well that they minute they do this, under the Geneva conventions, those homes or institutions become a legal target for retaliatory attacks, artillery, air strikes or ground forces and that innocent Muslim civilians would be killed. The levels of terrorist subtlety is difficult for Westerners to comprehend.
The Ayatollah was the Spiritual Leader of Hezbollah, one of the largest terrorist organization in the world at the time. He was even a strong supporter of suicide bombers killing civilians. Unlike many other terrorists, he also supported government economic action.
This quotation illustrates the derogatory and disrespectful attitude that many high level American officials then had towards Arab leaders. No one objected to or reprimanded Symmes for his use of the word “mongrels”. And he was the State Departments leading expert on the Middle East and Arab Cultures. In the photo, Symmes is the gentlemen on the right.
What is ironic about this fact is that 1000 years ago, the Muslim Middle East was scientifically and mathematically far in advance of Europe. However, after about 1100 AD, the Muslim religion began to lose its intellectual tolerance and cultural appreciation for science and innovation to the point where innovation of any kind was regarded as heresy, and the logic and empiricism that was present in early Islam disappeared, and there has been little scientific innovation and progress in traditional Arab Islamic nations ever since.
Syria and its Terrorist Lebanon Proxy Hezbollah were trying to control Lebanon. Syrian troops had been stationed in Lebanon at the request of Hezbollah , which had a narrow plurality in the parliament but did not control the Lebanese Army. Most Lebanese who were not Hezbollah supporters opposed their Islamic fundamentalist approach and their denial of any rights to Christians, Jews, Druse or other minority communities which and been a part of Lebanon long before Hezbollah even existed. They also resented Syrian troops occupying Lebanese soil and intimidating the politicians. This letter started a groundswell to end the Syrian occupation. Gebran Tueni became the de facto leader opposing Syrian occupation. Syria then instructed Hezbollah to assassinate Tueni which they did in 2005. It took another 5 years for the United Nations investigation found that it was Hezbollah operatives that were the assassins.
The Ministry of Health had conducted inspections of Lebanese Restaurants, rarely done in the past, and found many with traces of human and animal feces in the food. Typically bribes would be paid to the inspectors but a new reform minister made honest inspections a high priority. Then when he made the results public and newspapers like this carried the message, most of the other government ministers were very upset as it held the country up to ridicule and greatly threatened the international reputation of the country for the finest food in the Middle East, and might further harm the Tourist business which their self-inflicted civil war had already damaged in the latter part of the 20th century and by the militarized standoff that had evolved since. See {642413} for the Health Minister’s statement triggering this headline.
