Hezbollah

Source: latimesblogs.latimes.com --- 9 hours ago
Gad Elmaleh, dubbed the "the funniest man in France," was scheduled to stage a number of performances at Lebanon’s Beiteddine Festival on July 13, 14 and 15.But Elmaleh, who is of Jewish-Moroccan origin, recently announced that he has canceled all his performances in Lebanon this summer because of security concerns. He said he decided to do so "out of concern for his personal security and that of the [Beiteddine] festival" after a campaign against him by Hezbollah, the Shiite Muslim militia and political organization.The dust-up began last week when the TV station affiliated with Hezbollah, Al Manar, aired a photo of Elmaleh accompanied by an image of an Israeli soldier dressed in military fatigues that bore a resemblance to Elmaleh. Al Manar and other pro-Hezbollah media organizations said Elmaleh was pro-Israel and had served in the Israeli army. An article on Al Manar's website alleged that he served in the army for about four years and partook in several wars launched by Israel against Lebanon or in the Gaza Strip. The report said that "Elmaleh has long expressed willingness to defend his country Israel whenever needed” and that the comedian had "proudly said that Zionism is the perfect political system to safeguard the Jews.” Organizers of the festival disputed the allegations. "Pictures depicting Gad Elmaleh wearing an Israeli military outfit are doctored," they said in a statement published by Lebanon’s state-run National Ne ...

Source: www.nowlebanon.com --- 1 day ago
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Source: jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com --- 31 days ago
Now comes The Wall Street Journal with an opinion article that is one of the most inane and illogical quite possibly ever published. In this piece, I am accused of being a "soft-bitten" journalist, for sharing, in a sort of limited way, some of my financial woes and worries in this Atlantic cover story . The writer of the article, a person named Sam Schulman, has a theory, that journalists were once "worldly-wise, tough-minded and cynical." He writes:   "Having seen it all, they knew the phonies and the angles they played. They could turn on the idealism for a family audience until deadline -- and then turn it off when they put on their fedoras or fixed their faces and went off for a few quick ones that would restore their sangfroid for another day. That was then. Today's reporters are unreluctant confessors of how they've been conned." Schulman begins by attacking Edmund Andrews, the New York Times reporter who wrote recently about his own personal debt crisis. Then Schulman writes: "An even more curious case is that of Jeffrey Goldberg, a far more distinguished journalist and writer ( why, thank you very much )  who wrote a long story about his stock-market losses in last month's Atlantic. In "Why I Fired My Broker," Mr. Goldberg happily admits that he believed his portfolio would show double-digit growth forever." Schulman writes that my "delusions" were very deep: "Mr. Goldberg seems to have trusted a random financial adviser a ...

Source: news.bbc.co.uk --- 32 days ago
The BBC has gained rare access to a fighter who belongs to what is believed be the most powerful militia in the Middle East - Hezbollah. ...

Source: www.nowlebanon.com --- 3 days ago
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Source: www.worldpress.org --- 12 days ago
Asharq Al-Awsat, Pan-Arab daily, London, England ...

Source: www.javno.com --- 8 days ago
Berri stood uncontested for the post, reserved for a Shi`ite Muslim according to a sectarian power-sharing system. ...

Source: blogs.manchestereveningnews.co.uk --- 11 days ago
"We believe that occasional and carefully considered contacts with Hezbollah's politicians, including its MPs, will on occasions advance this objective..." ...

Source: www.bignewsnetwork.com --- 30 days ago
N asrallah Sfeir is worried. The 85-year-old Patriarch of Lebanon's once-dominant Maronite Christian community says his “people are divided.” They are torn between supporting Christian pa... ...

Source: www.myantiwar.org --- 31 days ago
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Source: yalibnan.com --- 1 day ago
Beirut- Hezbollah's Shura Council held a meeting recently and decided not to participate in the new government according to informed sources of Lebanese news Agency al Markaziyah. ...

Source: www.analyst-network.com.com --- 5 days ago
Compromises with Hezbollah are Lethal by Elias Youssef Bejjani ...

Source: www.atimes.com --- 7 days ago
Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and one of his fiercest critics, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, have met for the first time in three years. It was not the conciliatory gesture many expected after a coalition of which Hezbollah is a part failed to gain power in this month's elections. Nasrallah, though, has his eye firmly on his objectives - protecting Hezbollah's weapons and upholding Shi'ite rights. - Sami Moubayed (Jun 26,'09) ...

Source: www.nowlebanon.com --- 30 days ago
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Source: www.nowlebanon.com --- 32 days ago
Everything the Resistance has been involved in since 2006, from the resignation of the Shia ministers from the cabinet, the 16-month sit-in that paralyzed downtown Beirut, extending the presidential vacuum, and the May 7 events were all efforts in defense of Hezbollah’s arms, and the elections are no different. ...

Source: www.nowlebanon.com --- 4 days ago
In the space of little more than a week Hezbollah was forced to grapple with two unexpected setbacks. As the Islamic Republic faces its gravest internal crisis since the Iranian Revolution, NOW looks at what the turmoil means for the republic’s most successful export, Hezbollah. ...

Source: www.nowlebanon.com --- 1 day ago
What do the recent protests in Iran have in common with the decision of the French actor and comedian Gad Elmaleh not to attend the Beiteddine Festival next week? Simply that both events exposed once again the extent to which illiberal tendencies are an inherent part of Hezbollah’s identity. ...

Source: tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com --- 2 days ago
The other day Ashraf Khalil wrote about how hard it was for him to publish an account of the mistreatment of Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer in the LA Times last year. Khalil's story reminded a reader of the story that Ken Silverstein wrote in Harper's two years ago , describing his ordeal in trying to publish a story explaining Hezbollah's political appeal in Lebanon: After submitting my story, though, I ran up against insurmountable editorial obstacles. It was clear that I was deemed to have written a story that was too favorable to Hezbollah, even though any article seeking to examine its popularity would, by necessity, require some focus on the group's more attractive aspects. After the story was near completion, a new editor was called in to review it because, I was told, Hezbollah had a history of inviting reporters to Lebanon and controlling their agenda. The obvious implication was that this had happened in my case--despite the fact that, outside of my interviews with Hezbollah officials, I had had no contact with the party. I had hired my own driver (who turned out to be sympathetic to Hezbollah, like most Shiites, but not connected to the movement) and translators (all Christians), with no restrictions placed on where I went or who I met with; and in fact I had spent significant time with the group's critics. The primary problem, it soon became clear, was fear of offending supporters of Israel. At one point I was tol ...

Source: www.moreover.com --- 5 days ago
The Raw Story Jun 28 2009 2:17AM GMT ...