What Was Hezbollah Thinking?

Did you hear? According to a top notch Bulgarian investigative panel, we are now resisting Israel -all the way in Bulgaria.
It doesn’t make sense to you? No worries, it’s not supposed to. It’s only supposed to make sense to Hezbollah and apparently it does.

Long gone are the days when we await Israeli confrontation in order for our men to bravely fight for our land and lose their lives in the process. Long gone are the days when resisting Israel happens from our own land, the South, which pays heavily every single time we resist.

Today, the only question I can ask is: what the hell was Hezbollah thinking?

Whenever my country enters into a war with Israel, I will stand by my people and my land no matter what. Whether they are right or wrong, whether they started it or not – for the entire duration of the war, I will stand by them. When the war is over though, another story unfolds.

I cannot, however, as a Lebanese support the blowing up of the Bulgaria bus incident no matter what possible explanation is provided for the operation .

Where does Hezbollah want to take the country with this action?
Do they really think the country can handle have one of the main parties in the government to be labeled as a terrorist organization by the European Union?
What repercussions will that have on our fragile political balance, on our economy? How does it reflect on the government that Hezbollah did the operation while in power without anyone else in the government knowing about it, similarly to the 2006 war?

7 years have not taught us anything.

Why did Hezbollah want to kill a bunch of Israeli tourists? Is us resisting the Israeli occupation of Palestine now contingent upon us killing as many civilians as possible? What’s the fault of a tourist for being the citizen of a country we don’t approve of? How does us killing civilians differ us from all those terrorist groups whose goal in life is to cause as many innocent casualties as possible?

I don’t think Hezbollah is a terrorist organization. I do not agree with many of their practices but when it matters the most, I cannot but be grateful for defending my country.
But our support as Lebanese for reckless practices should not be unconditional especially when the repercussions of such actions do not reflect on Hezbollah alone but on the entire country as well.

Imagine the following scenario: Lebanese friends from different sects and regions decide to hop on a plane to Paris. While touring the city in a bus, the bus blows up and they all die. The Mossad is to blame.
Far-fetched, perhaps. But do we really want to take the war with Israel to people whose only fault is being a national of one side of the conflict?

What the hell was Hezbollah thinking? I, for one, can’t come up with convincing answers because I really can’t think how this is any good for them in any way. And if they can actually reach other countries and act this powerfully, which I can’t really wrap my head around, why don’t they do things that are more “useful?”

What I hope for though is for the party to come up with proof that the entire investigation was a politicized fabrication especially with the very fast condemnations from Israelis and Americans. Unlikely and foolish, perhaps, but I’m hopeful that one of my country’s main parties is not that short-sighted to land themselves as a terrorist group all around the world.

The Achrafieh Explosion – Go Donate Blood Now!

One of Beirut’s main neighborhoods, Achrafieh, was just blown away by a huge explosion at its heart, in the midst of Sassine Square. The details are still vastly unclear but it looks to be a non-political blast – the aim could be to cause as much casualties and damage as possible seeing as it went off at rush hour.

According to the Lebanese civil defense, 8 people were killed so far with 78 others injured. You can follow the details over at LBC and MTV.

The explosion seems to have taken place in a building immediately next to the telecom center, Ogero.

Now, the casualties from the blast are pouring down to the three nearby hospitals: Rizk, Hotel Dieu and St. George (Roum) Hospital. What I ask of any reader that stumbles on this and who happens to be close is to go down to the hospital and donate blood – no matter what your blood type is.

Meanwhile, some Lebanese are beginning to worry about their weekend. My friends in Achrafieh, stay safe – your (and my) region has been through much worse than this and it has always gone through: الأشرفية قوية.

The Church Explosion Derivation

On Sunday morning, an explosion rocked the Syriac church of Saydit Al Najat (Our Lady of Salvation) in Zahle. Every Lebanese official denounced the explosion, naturally, as a barbaric act, against the “example” of coexistence that is Lebanon, bla bla bla.

Now let us start our derivation of who is responsible for this attack.

Naturally, it can’t be a non-Lebanese because most Lebanese barely know of the existence of the targeted sect, let alone those who are foreigners and don’t know Lebanon has Maronites or any other major Christian sect to begin with.

Now that the non-Lebanese people have been taken out of the equation, this leaves us with those who hold the beloved and cherished citizenship. Of those, say 50% are Muslims and 50% are Christians. Now since we’d like to be optimistic, let us assume that our fellow Muslims would not do such a thing because it would break this example of coexistence.

Of the remaining 50% of Christians, no one would act except upon an act issued by their correspondent political leader. You have a bunch of irrelevant leaders who can’t get their followers to hurt a fly and then you have the big quartet.

Michel Aoun was probably still sleeping, long dreaming about him being Lebanon’s president, a dream that doesn’t seem to let him go. Add to that the fact that his supporters don’t know what a bomb is and you rule him out of the equation as well.

Sleiman Frangieh’s followers know very well what a bomb is. But Zahle is just too far away from his radar that you can’t make him a serious contender for the top prize. Add to it him being clueless most of the time and you definitely take his name off the list.

Amin Gemayel was still probably mourning his son. Or in the midst of the conversation that started on Friday evening. Either way, I don’t see him as someone who would issue the bombing as well.

Samir Geagea, however, *evil smile*, this man can definitely blow up a church. I mean, out of the whole bunch of politicians today, he is the only criminal, right? And he has blown up a church before. Granted, he was exonerated, but he did blow it up, no? His party is also made up of a bunch of high school dropouts who don’t know how to write their names, so naturally, they know how to handle bombs. Also, as a wise person from Bsharri would say: If Geagea thinks a church needs to be blown up, then the church needs to be blown up.

Meanwhile, the seven Estonians are still missing. Telecom minister Charbel Nahas is still in his cat-fight with Ogero CEO, Abdel Menhem, and the country is more prosperous than ever. Some Lebanese stupidheads took the headlines with their pro-Syria protests… why would anyone care about a silly Church getting blown up?

PS: In case you didn’t notice, let me hashtag it for you: #sarcasm.