“What is with all of these wild fires?” I asked Abbas as we drove back to Beirut from Saida.
“This is a mafia at work,” he said confidently.
“Really?”
“Yes, isn’t it obvious?”
“Ummm…”
“The fires are always in the Chouf. Always roughly in the same area.”
“Not really.”
“More or less. They are mostly in the Chouf. Somebody is starting these fires and then profiting from it somehow.”
“Huh.”
“Trust me.”
“So, who owns this land?”
“Some of it is owned privately; some by Jumblatt; and some by Hizbullah.”
“Why is Hizbullah buying land in the Chouf?”
“It’s not just the Chouf, it’s also in the western Bekaa and the South. We’re buying land to frustrate the Zionist project to re-settle Druze in the Shi`a areas.”
“Come again?”
Abbas looked at me like I was completely ignorant.
“The whole point of the July War, besides to try to eliminate the Resistance, was to remove all the Shi`a from South Lebanon and replace them with Druze, with the goal of creating a Druze state carved out of Lebanon and Syria.”
“Oh.”
“The Druze are very clever. Jumblatt is a political mastermind. But we are clever too.” Abbas grinned at me.
“So, the Hizb is buying land…”
“…To prevent Jumblatt from creating a Druze mini-state in South Lebanon. We know what he’s trying to do. Don’t worry. We know.”
October 20, 2008 at 6:28 pm
The question to ask is how come you are hanging out so often with a Hizbullah guy? And who is a supporter, a militant, a party cadre?
October 21, 2008 at 4:11 am
Bech,
Abbas is not a militant. He works as a driver for a consulting firm in Ras Beirut. He has three children and lives in Dahiyeh. He is an honest, hard-working, sincere and intelligent Lebanese person who supports Hizbullah’s political platform in Lebanon.
I hang out with him because I enjoy discussing politics and social issues. To be honest, I often find his analyses — even when I don’t agree with his conclusions — to be far more reasonable and intellectually honest than other more “educated” people I know. Then again, he is a good source for conspiracy theories.
October 21, 2008 at 9:43 am
Nizar can tell you much more about it, but it is true that “the Shi’a” are buying more land in the Chouf. I don’t know if these purchases are politically motivated or if there just happen to be Shi’a families buying property there, but there are some strategically located buys in the mountain.
October 22, 2008 at 9:11 am
I never put into question the honesty and ‘legitimacy’ of Abbas. I’m just asking myself how come you are hanging out with him, given the social structure of modes of production in the Lebanon. Basically what’s your job?
October 22, 2008 at 9:46 am
Bech,
We work in the same office. That’s the context of our hanging out.
January 30, 2010 at 12:03 pm
[...] (For more conspiracy theories involving real estate, Jumblatt, and Hizbullah, see here.) [...]
October 13, 2010 at 4:54 pm
[...] had recently been elected President of Iran. This friend (known to readers of this blog as “Abbas“) is a Lebanese Shiite living in Beirut, and a devoted partisan of Hizbullah. The [...]