The Annual Fairuz Christmas Carols in Arabic Post

Christmas is coming, at least the Western date of Christmas. The great Lebanese singer Fairuz, who turned 81 last month, singing Western carols in Arabic, is an annual tradition here. So here goes:

Jingle Bells:



Silent Night:



Go Tell it on the Mountain:




Angels we Have Heard on High:



Her version of "Joy to the World" is about Beirut;



God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen:

Photos I Never Thought I'd See, But Then It's Lebanon

Hizbullah and Lebanese Forces flags flying together. Ecumenism? Opportunism? Cynicism? Or, hey, it's Lebanon?

Trick or Treat? After Two and a Half Years, Lebanon Elects a President — on Halloween

As expected, its Michel ‘Aoun.

Afterthought for British readers: or an early Guy Fawkes Day.

Think the US Presidential Election is Strange? Consider Lebanon After the ‘Aoun-Hariri Deal

Imagine if you will a world in which Donald Trump chose Elizabeth Warren as his running mate, or Hillary Clinton chose, say, David Duke, and these were considered breakthroughs. You have stepped through a gate into another dimension, a dimension known as (theme music) the Lebanon Zone.

Hariri (left) and ‘Aoun

Anyone who has followed the roller-coaster ride of Lebanese politics since the end of the civil war  and somehow retained their sanity will be familiar with the fact that over the decades the factional leaders (zu‘ama) rarely change, except when one dies, and even then the last name stays the same. But the factions shift alliances every few years. In 1990-91 General Michel ‘Aoun was the sworn enemy of Syria; when he returned after years in exile he was Syria's friend, and is now Hizbullah's favorite Maronite. While his chameleon-like shifts are nowhere near as volatile and frequent as Walid Jumblatt's, he has frequently realigned himself.

The recent announcement by Sa‘d Hariri, the former Prime Minister whose late father's assassination has been blamed on Hizbullah, announced that he was endorsing ‘Aoun for the Lebanese Presidency, which has been vacant since 2014, during which time public services such as trash collection have collapsed.  Soon after, Hizbullah Secretary-General Hasan Nasrallah endorsed the strange bedfellows alliance. ‘Aoun, a Maronite, would become President, and Hariri, a Sunni, would be Prime Minister, since those jobs are reserved for those confessional groups.

Joyce Karam in an op/ed sees it as a Hariri concession.  It may well break the deadlock and see a President elected in coming days (Parliament chooses the President), but all the faces will be old familiar ones.

AUB's Art Exhibition on "The Arab Nude: The Artist as Awakener"

Beirut has always been a city that has seemed more cosmopolitan than much of the Arab World, and the American University of Beirut (AUB) has often been in the forefront. As part of AUB's 150th anniversary celebrations, AUB has been hosting an art exhibition called The Arab Nude: The Artist as Awakener. It closes this week, so I'm a bit late in writing about it. There was a conference held on the subject as well. At a time when puritanical censorship is growing in many Arab countries, the willingness to address artistic nudity, both male and female (though from the photos mostly the latter) is what still makes Beirut distinct.

From the reviews (a few: here and here and here and here) it's clear this is not about the Orientalist fantasy nudes, erotic harem girls who existed only in European sexual imaginings of the exotic East, so prominent in 19th century art (a subject for another post), but nudes in the work of Arab artists, and an attempt to situate their appreciation of the nude in the context of the broader Arabic cultural awakening, the nahda. The reviews emphasize that the exhibit did not minimize the obvious masculine viewpoint of the artists. A summary from the exhibition's Facebook page:

The Arab Nude: The Artist as Awakener examines the way in which artists and intellectuals of the Mandate era engaging in a double struggle against imperialism, Ottoman and European, resorted to an ideal form or pictorial device to concretize their visions of Arab modernity. For them, to be “Arab” was as much a matter of ambiguity and ambition as was the quest to be an artist. In fact, both labels required leaps of imagination over local conditions and imperial plans. What claims for identity, community, and political society were invested in the divesting of Arab bodies of their clothes? Our exhibition documents the debates that met the genre of the Nude in exhibition halls and newspapers. It situates artistic practices in relation to ongoing, urgent discussions about the meaning of citizenship, urbanity, and internationalism carried out amid movements for women’s rights, pan-Arabism, and various nationalisms, as well as educational reform, militarization, the scouting movement and nudist colonies. Without espousing the role of awakener for artists, our subtitle foregrounds the social, political or cultural motivations for these artists to embrace and adopt the genre of the Nude in their artistic careers.

Or as the last of the reviews linked above says:

More importantly, perhaps, it addresses the idea that these artists used their work to express liberation from Ottoman and European colonisation. As the title suggests, the exhibition, curated by Octavian Esanu and Kirsten Scheid, seeks to establish to what extent these artists used their artistic explorations of the nude as a means of promoting social change in line with the spirit of the nahda – a period of modernisation known in Arabic as the “awakening.” In the context of discussions about the meaning of identity, community, citizenship and internationalism, and of what it meant to be “an Arab,” what was the significance of the Arab form laid bare?

Latin Leaders of Arab Origin

Now that the new interim President of Brazil is of Lebanese origin, The Washington Post surveys the success of Latin American politicians pf Arab origin.

Which reminds me of a brilliant remark I saw somewhere on social media, though I must apologize to the author for forgetting who said it:  Brazil now has a Lebanese President, while Lebanon still doesn't.

The Lebanese Presidency has been vacant since 2014.


Update: a commenter credits Karl Sharro and it certainly sounds like him, though I can't locate the original.

Update II: Apparently a lot of people had the same thought.

Clovis Maksoud, 1926-2016

Source: American University

Clovis Maksoud, diplomat, writer, intellectual, professor, and a familiar figure in Washington since the 1970s, has passed away at the age of 90.

He served for many years as a Representative of the Arab League, and was sent as a Special Representative of the League to the US during the oil crisis of 1974. From 1979-1990 he was the Arab League's Ambassador to the US and the UN. Maksoud, a proponent of Arab unity, resigned that post over the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. He was also a frequent spokesman for Palestinian issues.

At earlier periods in his career he had served as a writer and editor, and continued to write newspaper columns and articles for many years, as well as books. In recent years he served as Director of the Center for the Global South at The American University in Washington.

Ambassador Maksoud and his late wife Hala were prominent figures around the Washington diplomatic, Arab, and Lebanese communities for decades. He was always friendly, accessible, and outspoken, a highly visible voice for Lebanon, for Palestine, and for the Arab World as a whole.

Beirut in the "Golden Age" Before the Civil War

A little Friday night nostalgia: I first saw Beirut in 1972, three years before the civil war began. For those who never saw the Lebanese capital in its glory days, or for those who want to recall it as it once was, here is a collection of photos from the 1960s.

April 13, 1975: The Lebanese Civil War Begins, 41 Years Ago Today

The Bus

Forty-one years ago today, a series of violent incidents in the mostly Christian and Druze Beirut suburb of ‘Ayn al-Rummaneh (عين الرمانة) between Phalangists and Palestinians would come to be seen as the opening shots of Lebanon's 1975-1990 civil war.

Of course, this was no more the first sectarian violence in Lebanon, any more than 1990 was the last. But it is conventionally seen as he outbreak of the war.

Like so much else in the war, the narratives of the incidents as preserved among the mostly Maronite Phalangists (Kata'ib) and the Palestinians and their allies. An initial clash in the morning between Phalangist militiamen of the Kata'ib Regulatory Forces (later known as the Lebanese Forces Militia) and Palestinians led to a second clash an hour or two later, both outside a church; in the second several were killed in a Palestinian reprisal. Later the same day, a bus full of Palestinians passing through en route to the Sabra refugee camp was attacked by Phalangists under Bashir Gemayel, son of the Phalangist leader Pierre Gemayel.

The Bus as Memorial

About 30 were killed, and over several ensuing days the Phalangists and their Chamounist Christian allies traded reprisals with Palestinians and their Lebanese allies. In later narrative, Phalangists saw it as an attack on Pierre Gemayel himself; Palestinians as a Phalangist attack on themselves. Still in the future were Syrian intervention, Israeli and Western intervention, and countless shifts in allegiance, but the die was cast and Lebanon had crossed its Rubicon.

The Struggling Lebanese Press: Al-Safir Ceasing Publication as Al-Nahar Considers Going Online Only

Al-Safir, one of Lebanon's two biggest newspapers, announced just a week ago that it was considering major cutbacks; yesterday it announced that it is ceasing publication altogether, print and online, on April 1.

Lebanon's other big paper, Al-Nahar, has previously said it might consider going to an online-only version and dropping the print version. The two have been rivals: Christian-owned Al-Nahar, founded by the Tueni family in 1933, was a liberal-centrist paper staunchly opposed to Syrian influence in Lebanon, while Al-Safir, with a leftist orientation, long supported Syria.

The Lebanese media are suffering from Lebanon's economic woes and political paralysis (symbolized by the failure to elect a President or even collect garbage in Beirut), as well as the decline of print journalism worldwide.

Lebanon: Geagea Endorses ‘Aoun

The US media is preoccupied with today's announcement that Sarah Palin has endorsed Donald Trump, but a far stranger matchup occurred in recent days when Samir Geagea suddenly endorsed his arch-rival Michel ‘Aoun for the Lebanese Presidency.

You may recall that President Michel Suleiman's term ended in May 2014 and Lebanon has failed to elect a President since. (In the absence of a President, which has been a frequent issue in recent years, the Prime Minister acts as President.) In 2014, Parliament (which elects the President by a two-thirds vote) failed to elect a President due to differences between the March 8 and March 14 movement.

Lately efforts to resolve the situation have revived, though the constitutionality of the present Parliament is itself debatable since it extended its own term. The Maronite Patriarch has sought to encourage a common candidate (the President must be a Maronite).


As far back as 2014 I was noting that the main candidates had the same familiar names as the warlords of the civil war era, being either the same men or the sons or grandsons of he old zu‘ama. That is still the case, but the move by Geagea, a March 14 figure, endorsing ‘Aoun, a March 8 member backed by Hizbullah, is a genuine surprise that reshuffles the deck.

Lately there had been some talk of naming March 8 supporter Suleiman Frangieh (grandson and namesake of the President in the early 1970s), an old rival of Geagea's, though what persuaded Geagea to endorse another old enemy, ‘Aoun.

It is still unclear whether Geagea's move will throw sufficient support behind ‘Aoun to actually elect him but once again it is a reminder that in Lebanon, bitter enemies can become allies overnight. (Walid Jumblatt can change sides even faster.)

The Burj al-Barajineh Bombings

Today's bombings in Beirut's Burj al-Burajineh neighborhood,which killed at least 41 and wounded 200 or more, is the worst bombing attack in terms of its human toll since the Lebanese Civil War.And the Islamic State is reportedly claiming credit. This appears to be the worst blowback yet in Beirut from Syria's civil war and an ill omen for Lebanon.

Several headlines I've seen in Western media refer to the attacks as being in a "Hizbullah stronghold." I think that's an unfortunate choice of words, as it suggests Hizbullah was the target. One bomb went off near a a Shi‘ite mosque and the other at a bakery: civilians were the target, in one of the most densely populated areas of the city. The civilians may have been targeted because they are Shi‘ites, but referring to it as a "Hizbullah stronghold" distracts from the reality that the victims are civilians, not Hizbullah fighters.

Egypt and Arabia, Last Night, from the ISS

Egypt and the Red Sea area from the International Space Station last night, posted by Astronaut Scott Kelly on Facebook.  No doubt that Egypt is still the Gift of the Nile as it has been since Herodotus, but look at how bright Mecca and Jidda are on the first full night if hajj.

And how dark Syria is, compared with Israel and Lebanon.

Beirut's Summer of Discontent

More than four years after the "Arab Spring" we have Lebanon's "You Stink" Summer. Of events I didn't comment on during my recent vacation, this may have been the least predictable. A crisis surrounding Beirut's undelivered garbage quickly transformed into a widespread protest movement challenging the political paralysis that has gripped Lebanon for several years now. (The Presidency is vacant, the Cabinet impotent, and new Parliamentary elections on hold.

The clever hashtag #YouStink (Arabic طلعت_ريحتكم#)  quickly gave the movement its name, referring to the garbage or the state institutions interchangeably. Lebanon is in many ways a more open country than most in the Arab world, but its institutions have been weakened by sectarian rivalry and other factors to the point where only the coercive instruments of the state still seem to function.

The Lebanese are some of the most eloquent analysts of their own tribulations, so here are some of the more thoughtful analyses, with excerpts, but do read all three in full:

• Elias Muhanna (Qifa Nabki): "Dissolving Parliament is the Key to Lebanon's Trash Crisis (and Everything Else)." He admits that new elections would not break the stalemate:

Parliamentary elections will not bring an end to corruption or inefficiency; they likely won’t even solve the trash crisis in the short term. But no progress can be made on any front — waste management, the electricity supply, telecoms reform, infrastructure development — without a government that possesses basic legitimacy.

• Rami G. Khouri, Agence Global, "The Many Reasons Why the Lebanese are in the Street" :

This links to the third issue at hand, which is the widespread citizen perception that a core problem in all these matters is corruption in the public and private sectors, which allegedly operates at two levels: Initially, public officials delay issuing contracts for basic services like rubbish disposal because they cannot agree on how to share the spoils of contracts and commissions, and subsequently political and communal leaders rake in millions of dollars from their links with the licensed or pirate private firms that sell citizens those services that they are not getting from the state. Hundreds of millions of dollars are at play in both areas, and the citizen is the one who suffers the most from this corruption.

The fourth issue the protesters are starting to challenge — and this is really historic for Lebanon — is the underlying confessional and sectarian nature of the political power-sharing system in Lebanon, which basically has ground to a halt in the last two years because of irreconcilable differences among key players.  The Lebanese model of governance formally divides executive, bureaucratic, legislative, and security sector power among the country’s leading religious groups (assorted Christian sects like Protestant, Maronite, Orthodox and Armenian, Sunni and Shiite Muslims, Druze, and others).

• Hisham Melhem, Al Arabiya, "Lebanon's Long Winter":

Lebanon was reeking rottenness long before its garbage was decomposing. During and after the war, Lebanon began to lose its unique role in the region. Lebanese universities are no longer the magnet for Arab students; Beirut is no longer the place for regional conferences, and its once lively and freewheeling media has lost its regional dominance and non-Lebanese satellite news and entertainment channels have been dominating the Arab market for years. Many Lebanese have yet to come to grips with the fact that their country is diminishing domestically and regionally. Lebanon’s free space has been shrinking steadily because of the deepening political dysfunction and the growing military power of Hezbollah and its debilitating political aggressiveness

And of course, one may keep current at the #YouStink News website.

Video of Beirut in the 1920s

Via the blog Hummus for Thought, here's a video (silent, with French title cards), showing Beirut in the 1920, during the French Mandate:

Syria's Embattled Druze Between al-Nusra and Asad

It isn't just the Druze of Israel and the Golan who are alarmed by the attacks by Jabhat al-Nusra on the Druze of Syria, but so far the Syrian Druze seem more intent on defending their threatened territory rather than seeking support from the Asad regime or Israel. Usually irrepressible Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt initially responded to the massacre of Druze villagers in northern Syria. Jabhat al-Nusra reportedly executed at least 20 Druze civilians in the northern governorate of Idlib, an area without a large Druze population. But the killings raised alarm in the more heavily Druze southern governorates of Sweida and Dar‘a. Sweida is heavily Druze and Dar‘a, where fighting has been heavy since the outbreak of the war, has a substantial Druze population as well. Sweida governorate is the region of the Jabal Hawran, also known as the Jabal Druze. Both Sweida and Dar‘a governorates adjoin the Jordanian border.

Irrepressible Lebanese Druze leader Walid Jumblatt initially called he massacre an isolated incident, and told a press conference, "We don’t need Assad or Israel. Both of them take a sectarian stance with the aim of perpetuating sectarianism and dividing the country.” But he also flew to Jordan to meet the King and intercede for the safety of Druze refugees in Jordan. Both Sweida and Dar‘a adjoin the Jordanian border.


Syrian Druze, like Syrian Christians and ‘Alawites, have traditionally supported he regime as a protection of minorities against Sunni jihadis. While some Druze leaders have continued to urge Druze to enlist in the regime army, others have said Druze fighters are absolved of responsibility to the regime and should defend their own home villages.

Jebel Druze State under French Mandate

Increasingly, as with the Kurdish region in the north that now calls itself Rojava, the Druze of Syria are looking to their own self-defense. During the French Mandate period, which deliberately partitioned Syria and Lebanon on sectarian lines, the Jabal Druze enjoyed a brief autonomy with its own flag, until France had to put down a Druze revolt.  The flag of the Jabal Druze 'state' in the Mandate period is the basis for variations used today as a Druze flag,

Modern Druze Flag

Whether we are returning to those days, with separate Kurdish, ‘Alawite, and Druze enclaves, or simply towards  collapse into anarchy, remains an open question.

Does Not Compute: Hizbullah Swimsuit?

At first I thought this must be some kind of kinky hipster chic (it even looks like the mannikin has nipples), but it has been pointed out to me that Lebanon has some all-female beaches and one is even known as the "Hizbullah beach," Who knew?

If Only Mosul Had Been So Lucky: How Maurice Chehab Saved the Beirut Museum During the Civil War

Note: I'll be in an MEI staff retreat all day today. This will be my only post unless I have something this evening. 

Yesterday's shocking videos of ISIS destroying antiquities in the Mosul Museum again underscored the threat war and instability pose to irreplaceable historical and archaeological heritage. Not since the Nazis looted Europe of art treasures during World War II (many of which have never been seen again, despite the efforts of Allied forces as depicted in the film The Monuments Men), have so many historical and archaeological treasures been threatened. The civil wars in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, and the 2011 Revolution in Egypt, all saw cases of looting of museums and archaeological sites, as well as collateral damage from artillery of ancient and medieval monuments. But ISIS is embarked on a campaign to destroy antiquities not as a casualty of war but as a matter of direct policy. Shi‘ite, Christian, and Yazidi religious sites and libraries were first, but now the ancient heritage of ancient Mesopotamia is being targeted: the walls and gate of Nineveh and the Mosul Museum.

Source: phoenicia.org

It's a good time to remember the work of the late Maurice Chehab, Director of the Lebanese Antiquities Department and Curator of the Museum during the Lebanese Civil War, and a man who saved much of the collections even though the Muesum was quite literally on the front lines: the division between Christian East Beirut and Muslim West Beirut (the Green Line) was the street in front of the museum, and a key but dangerous checkpoint between the two sides was called the Museum Crossing. Lebanese know this story and have honored him; I suspect it's less well known outside.

Emir (Prince) Maurice Chehab was a scion of the Chehab or Shihab dynasty which once ruled Mount Lebanon; originally Druze, the family today has both Maronite and Sunni branches; the former produced Maurice, as well as former Lebanese President Fouad Chehab.

The National Museum, Beirut

Born in 1904, Chehab attended the Jesuit St. Joseph University in Beirut and then did graduate work in France at the Louvre. He became an accomplished archaeologist and specialist on Ancient Phoenicia, and dug at Tyre most famously but also elsewhere; from 1928 onward he held various official posts under the French Mandate and after independence, heading what evolved into the Directorate-General of Antiquities.He taught at the Lebanese University and was designated as the first Curator when Lebanon's National Museum was being organized in the years after 1928; it opened in 1942.

Wartime Museum Damage

He was a distinguished scholar and already past 70 when the Civil War broke out in 1975, when the grim twist of fate brought the war quite literally to the Museum's doorstep. Eventually, the Museum would not only be the target of artillery but would become a frontline bunker for militiamen and a death trap for anyone else. The card catalog, photographic archive and much else were lost.

But not the prize collections. Early in the war, using a rear entrance as the story goes, Chehab and his wife Olga (with a few other senior people) gathered the smaller objects on display and moved them to basement storage to avoid looting. The area was sealed off with steel-reinforced concrete. The larger objects, including the best-known objects, the stone sarcophagus of Ahiram and the other Phoenician sarcophagi, were also encased in wooden or concrete coverings.

Maurice Chehab retired in 1982 and died in 1994. In 2013 the Museum rededicated one of the key galleries as the Maurice Chehab Hall.

You can find other retellings of this story here, and at the museum's Wikipedia page, and even fuller accounts at several tribute pages: here and here and here..

Mosul could have used a Maurice Chehab.

Hizbullah Raid on Israeli Column was a Response to Israel's Quneitra Raid

Today's clash between Hizbullah and Israeli troops in the disputed Sheba‘a Farms area where the Lebanese, Israeli, and Golan Heights borders meet, and which killed two Israeli soldiers and a Spanish UNIFIL peacekeeper, is being portrayed by Israel as a provocation, with retaliation promised. But Hizbullah statements make it clear that the raid is directly linked to last week's attack by Israel on a Hizbullah column in the Quneitra region of the Golan.

Most of the US newspaper accounts I've seen either fail to mention this linkage or bury it deep in the article.

Israel Reportedly Did Not Know Iranian General was in Hizbullah Convoy

It's now being reported that Israel did not deliberately target an Iranian Guards Corps general killed in a weekend strike in the Golan Heights. The Sunday attack on a Hizbullah convoy by a (presumably Israeli) helicopter has prompted threats of a "devastating storm" (note: link is to a Hizbullah website if you prefer not to go there) of retaliation by the Iranian Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) in the wake of the death of IRGC General Muhammad ‘Ali Allah-Dadi.

Also killed in the convoy, according to Hizbullah, was Jihad ‘Imad Mughniyeh, (Hizbullah website again), son of the late ‘Imad Mughniyeh, the Hizbullah planning mastermind killed in a car bombing in Damascus in 2008, an attack widely blamed on Israel.

Hizbullah and Asad regime forces are fighting in the Quneitra area of the Golan Heights against Jabhat al-Nusra forces. Though Israel is hardly likely to be supporting Jabhat al-Nusra, sees Hizbullah as a traditional enemy. It has not, however, ever deliberately targeted senior IRGC officers who serve with Hizbullah, so the claims that it was unaware Allah-Dadi was in the convoy are probably true. But the killing could lead to Iranian support for an escalated Hizbullah-Israeli conflict, further spreading and further internationalizing the Syrian war.

With Israel in the midst of an election campaign, the strike could also ignite a political debate.