From Beirut to the Beltway: March 2010

As a follow up to my last post, it seems Hizbullah is succeeding in turning Lebanon into a police state. The following is outrageous, and incredibly damaging to Lebanon and its tourism sector. Hizbullah, which effectively controls Lebanon's border, has decreed that Lebanese authorities spy on foreigners with names that sound Jewish, and even turn some of them away.

During an interview with Al Manar TV, the head of the GDGS, General Wafiq Jezzini, who has close ties to Hezbollah, described his new plan to keep Israeli infiltrators out of Lebanon. According to Jezzini, lists of Jewish family names have been distributed at the borders. “When someone arrives in Lebanon with a foreign passport and his family name suggests that he is of Jewish origin, the border center sends his information to the central information office at the General Security Directorate, which specifically takes responsibility for following this individual,” Jezzini said.

Several foreigners NOW Lebanon spoke to have already been denied entry into the country at the airport. Most of them were in Lebanon to study or were employed by Lebanese companies. Some of them ended up stranded in other Middle Eastern countries while all their belongings stayed here. In the meantime, their friends are trying to convince the General Security that they made a mistake. [Now Lebanon]

What a travesty! Hizbullah's and Syria's minions are now waging a smear campaign against the Internal Security forces, the president, and the US embassy. They are purging the country of anything and anyone opposed to their agenda. It's terrorism in broad daylight, yet very few see it.

Nothing promotes tourism and encourages foreigners to visit Lebanon like a statement from a Hizbullah MP declaring every holder of a foreign passport a "potential spy".

Following the assassination of a Hamas's Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, allegedly carried out by individuals holding European passports, Hizbullah is afraid that Mossad agents could infiltrate Lebanese territories disguised as foreign tourists.

"We must tighten foreign passport control at the airport and elsewhere in the country," Moussawi said, adding "Every Lebanese and Arab must deal with holders of foreign passports as potential spies." (Now Lebanon)

Many Lebanese hold foreign passports. Those passports helped them escape the horrors of the July 2006 war, and help them pump remittances into the country, which are credited with keeping the economy afloat during difficult times.

Hizbullah already controls "the airport and elsewhere in the country". The last time someone tried to challenge that control by firing the General Security officer who reports to Nabih Berri's Amal, they retaliated by invading Beirut and the Chouf mountains. They continue to eavesdrop and spy on everyone, Lebanese or foreign, and they are in effective control of the country's port of entries and defenses.

It's ironic, if not repulsive, for a Hizbullah official to talk of spying, when his organization is fully funded by a foreign country, maintains illegal weapons on Lebanese territory, and has carved a network of tunnels and even entire cities inside mountains. This last bit is common knowledge among many southerners, who hear and see Hizbullah building a support infrastructure for its fighters underground and inside mountains. Many of those southerners live in fear of death, given that Hizbullah's actions against Sunnis and Druze have made them persona non grata in many parts of the country.

Just recently, Hassan Nasrallah traveled to Damascus to hold a mini war summit with the Iranian and Syrian presidents. It is rumored that he traveled by tunnels—tunnels similar to those Hamas built to smuggle weapons from Egypt. Acting like the de-facto president of Lebanon, Nasrallah had no shame earlier to vow destruction of a foreign country, disregarding official Lebanese institutions like the Lebanese army, which was entrusted by Lebanese citizens to defend and protect the country.

Hizbullah, which claims to want to be part of the country's political system (and is indeed in the government and parliament), has never stopped trying to hijack the whole thing and undermine it every opportunity possible. They are now fighting to postpone the municipal elections, having failed to pass a law reducing the voting age to 18. Many Christian and Sunni MPs saw through Nabih Berri's attempt to pass that law without also granting Lebanese residing abroad the right to vote. It went unspoken in the Lebanese media that Hizbullah believes it has the majority of young voters, having farmed so many of them over the years. Without giving voters abroad the right to vote, the municipal election would at the very least repeat the electoral success of anti-Hizbullah forces in the country, reducing Hizbullah's control over municipalities in strategic areas where they want to continue to build/expand their military state.

Lebanon nowadays is made up of two opposite forces. Walking around downtown Beirut—once occupied by Hizbullah—you see an incredible amount of advancement and rebuilding, and most importantly, foreign investment—the kind that Hizbullah is trying to scare away by declaring all foreigners to be potential spies. There is the force or push for life evidenced everywhere Hizbullah is not visibly present, and there is the push for more death and destruction, represented by flags and posters of martyrs, and continued bragging about weapons and missiles.

Unfortunately, Hizbullah has made itself part and parcel of the country, and hitting it militarily will bring destruction to all, and arguably less to the organization itself, which seems to regenerate given the international push for engaging regional actors known to be unrepentant conduits for terrorism. During his summit with Ahmadinejad, Bashar Assad poked fun at Hillary Clinton's statement about separating Syria and Iran.

Iranian citizens can now freely enter Syria—no visas required. Not that they had issues in the past. But if this isn't a slap in the face of those believing Assad can reform and become a different kind of satellite, I don't know what is. Just look at what ignoring their role as Iranian influence facilitators in Lebanon since the May 2008 events has done to the country. And if Lebanon is a not a convincing example, look at Iraq.

I waited until I was on US soil before posting this. Need I say more?