Qifa Nabki
Sectarianism
Lebanon: Federal or Unitary Republic?
One of my readers, EJ, made a great intervention in the comment section of the last post, in response to a remark I made about Lebanon being a unitary republic, not a federal one. As the semester is looming over my head along with several writing deadlines, I thought I’d crowd-source today’s post to the … Continue reading
Sectarianism in the Eye of the Beholder: Shehadi Responds to Landis
And the hits keep coming. Nadim Shehadi articulates much better than I do the fundamental point of contention with Josh Landis regarding the question of Lebanese and Syrian sectarianism. I’m hoping MESA can be persuaded to host an installment of this very interesting exchange in Denver later this year. See below. * This is another attempt … Continue reading
More on Levantine Sectarianism
Joshua Landis sent me a response to my post from a few days ago, which I publish below. I think we’re talking past each other in certain ways, but I’ll let the readership sort that out. * Dear Elias, Please allow me to respond to your earlier post, entitled “Who is Right on Syria?. You … Continue reading
Divided Societies
A journalist called me yesterday afternoon for a comment on the recent news that Mitt Romney had appointed Walid Phares to his foreign policy team. As is well known, Phares was a member of the Lebanese Forces’ Executive Committee during the Lebanese Civil War, and the news of his appointment provoked a few expressions of … Continue reading
The End of Political Confessionalism in Lebanon?
Many thanks to everyone for all of their kind words and well wishes about the new baby: both mother and daughter are doing very well. As noted yesterday, I will not be at the Safadi/POMED event in Washington tomorrow, but you should still plan on going to hear Mona Yacoubian and Jared Cohen speak about … Continue reading
Qifa Nabki 
And the people say…