(He also has the best “La vache qui fume” I’ve ever seen. Maybe one day we’ll know everything about the header on this blog…
But if his popularity keeps growing at the pace it is now,a cow won’t do it. We’ll have to send him an EYE and a big FISH to protect his star, or may somebody start saying nasty things about QN, now, please.

http://besidebeirut.wordpress.com/, Ms Tee’s watchtower.

On the other hand, the ideas I expressed in my conversation with you come more from a matter of principle than anything else. As I told you, I am in no position of pontificating about Lebanese politics. But I would LOVE to have a clear take on this popularity metrics brouhaha from our recently appointed candidate to be Minister of Youth and various other fields to which I will add Hard Work, Intellectual Honesty and Beautiful Left Hand.

But you said that two Hizballah members were killed, that a Shiekh was handing over his gun to the army, and that there were ’200 people under the knife’. That doesn’t sound like unarmed civilians to me. One point I am trying to make is that it was a battle between rival gunmen, not a rampage among defenceless neighbourhoods.

Of course there was a build up before May 7. Both sides were getting armed. It was the talk of the town and in all the news papers. But this is something the Pro-M14 narrative refuses to admit. You insist on seeing it as an attack by a militia against civilians, but still boast of holding 200 of these armed and dangerous gunmen under the knife.

As for the factual items: I do remember the attack on the funeral procession, instigated by a store owner as the procession walked by his store. He ran off but was soon apprehended and turned over to the army. It was not planned or condoned by any side.

M8 gunmen were holding lots of people, disarming them, and handing them over to the army. Its how they disarmed the other side. That is not horrific. Halba was a horrific act.

I’m also aware it was not about the Angles of Light vs. the Demons of Darkness. I’m sure there were cases of harassment, abuse, and revenge killing by M8 gunmen. But those were not the battle orders. If they were, the death toll would have been much higher.

You write “I remind you once more that the actual election law was considered a gift given by Hezbollah to Tayyar.”

Interesting. Why did Hezbollah agree to such a crummy arrangement? Were these districts the best they could get? There is no reason the mandated sectarian distribution requires that heavily Muslim areas have more voters per representative.

Oh, and Syndeysider, while I have no love for people who use the “Phoenician” appellation to distinguish themselves from and act superior toward Arabs, as an archaeologist’s son I am thrilled that there are people in the world who identify with a lost and ancient civilization. Especially one renowned for trade as opposed to war (Hannibal excepted). If only we still had some Etruscans, or Hittites.

It is evident the danger of Hezbollah on the Republic of Lebanon far exceeds that of a “Maronite ideology which still sees itself as culturally and biologically linked to the 4000 year old ancient civilisation of the Phoenicians”.

Whether we like it or not those “Phoenician Maronites” are the reason Lebanon is so special and unique in a neighborhood of let’s say unforgiving ideologies.

And secondly, if you bothered to read my post correctly, you would see that I did not defend Hizbullah, and am well aware of their sectarian limits. But I am also aware of their reconstructed sense of self, and how they see a need to fit into the larger mosiac that is Lebanon. What have the LF and Phalangists done, internally, to rethink their own racist values.

I live in Australia but if I lived in Lebanon or Pakistan or India or KSA I would no less value democracy. Hizbullah does not represent a deconstruction of or attack on ‘democracy’ than any other party that is involved in Lebanon’s complicated political system. Your linking of these two ideas is a complete furfy.

Evidently you know nothing about Hizbullah’s ideologies which, many would describe, as being engaged in a modern discourse and modern challenges, rather than medieval ones. But your own prejudices would never allow you to access that party without seeing it as an offensive and dated entity.

Perhaps you could also address why it is the two main Maronite parties in M14 that continue to present themselves and their community as ‘special’ and above the Arabs and Muslims that surround them. If Hizbullah is medieval, as you claim, in its outlook, then what can you say about a sub-discourse in Maronite ideology which still sees itself as culturally and biologically linked to the 4000 year old ancient civilisation of the Phoenicians? One does not need to accept the Shia party in order to engage in a critical disposition regarding the LF and the Phalange. Please don’t represent me as doing so because I am not.

I also think that the academic elite a la Paul Salem forget that Hizbullah recognises, perhaps more so than any other party, Lebanon’s highly pluralist and multiconfessional nature. I find it very interesting that the party that is represented as the most stanchly sectarian is also the one party that is most engaged in a political rhetoric that embraces Lebanon’s pluralism and the need for national consensus.

M14′s victory is also the victory of the LF and Phalangists. Why is it that the elite of Lebanon are so offended and distressed by Hizbullah, and the very undiplomatic Aoun, (perhaps a result of their constituents lower socioeconomic status and their not so western-dressed followers) but have nothing to say about the racism that is an inherent feature of the LF and Phalangists agenda? The philosophy that underpins these right wing, quasi-fascist parties has hardly been reconstructed since the 1980s and yet not a word of caution from our elitist political commentators.

Please see comment 3 here

The commenter has debunked in this comment the whole basis upon which this so-called study is based. His argument clearly shows that whoever conducted this study (obviously from Hezb camp) had the intended purpose of skewing the results in order to none other than rallying troops after a loss as I have been saying all along.