Hezbollah secretary-general Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah announced today that his party had adopted a new program, the first time this has happened since Hezbollah’s inaugural “Open Letter” was published in 1985 (an English translation can be found here). One should be advised that there is very little in it that is going to surprise you. In … Continue reading
Update: See the bottom of this post for Joshua Landis’s response to Nick Noe’s article. The much-promised post on the subject of Palestinian naturalization is coming soon, but in the meantime I thought I’d put up Nicholas Noe’s latest article for Bitter Lemons, to see what the QN readership makes of it. ** Hizballah in … Continue reading
Free Patriotic Movement leader General Michel Aoun went on Kalam al-Nas (the most widely-watched political talk show in Lebanon) last Thursday, and had a long conversation with Marcel Ghanem, the show’s famous host. The entire interview is available on YouTube in ten-minute installments. You can catch the first one here, and then navigate to the … Continue reading
For a period of a couple months, the cabinet formation was help up by a dispute about the appointment of Gebran Bassil — Michel Aoun’s son-in-law — as Telecommunications Minister. Aoun wanted him re-appointed; Saad Hariri did not. Eventually, a compromise was reached: the FPM was allowed to keep the Telecommunications Ministry as long as … Continue reading
I wasn’t really planning to write a post on this subject, but since people like winners and losers, maybe it’s worth saying something. One commenter writes: I’d be interested to read your analysis on who you think “won” from this cabinet haggling/negotiation. Do you think by holding out so long and getting more or less … Continue reading
And the people say…