Something on Lebanon and the Cartoon incident - The attacks on the embassies.

In Lebanon I heard everybody blaming the foreigners: the Syrians and Palestianians. It seems a lot of Syrians were arrested despite having nothing to do with the violent protests in Beirut. I also criticise considering the Lebanese Palestinians as foreigners...However, the positive thing about all this 'blaming the others' is that it seems the Lebanese are not willing to go to war right now, they prefer to blame somebody external than the other Lebanese sects. The following is an article that shows the 'fraternity' feeling across groups that some people are trying to express.

Columnist: "We are really angry, very angry" at the rioters

Regular columnist in An Nahar Ali Hamade, wrote in an opinion piece on February 7 that: “The barbarism that was programmed by ‘remote control’ and that exploded among people’s homes in Ashrafieh and its surrounding areas, is like a warning siren to the Lebanese, that the attempts to push Lebanon over the edge have not yet ceased. It is tangible evidence for the Lebanese government and the parliamentary majority, that the Syrian regime and its aids in Lebanon will not stop spreading terror among the Lebanese people, whether through booby-trapped car assassinations, explosions at the entrances of military [positions], the enhancement of men and weapons infiltration across the border and through the deployment of panic among people, by assailing their possessions and their places of worship behind the facade of an innocent legitimate demonstration.

“It is the warning siren for the parliamentary majority that fought against tutorship and dominance and succeeded in chasing it out of Lebanon in April 2005, with the power of unity of the Lebanese people. The Syrian regime hasn’t and will not stop trying to shake the country’s stability, and will not hesitate to do all that is possible to create dissidence among the Lebanese people. It will not hold back from its followers, like those who infiltrated the demonstration last Sunday, any support it can provide across the long border with Lebanon in order to sabotage the country’s civil peace. It is a regime that denies Lebanon’s independence and the right of its people to live freely in their own country. It can’t conceive dealing with Lebanon as an independent and sovereign country.

“The barbaric scenes we witnessed last Sunday were so shameful that the Muslims, and I am one of them, felt this attack hurt them more than it did their Christian fellows, the inhabitants of our dear Ashrafieh. The yelling of poet Talal Haydar from Baalbek on TV, was somehow a way for us to repent a crime we did not commit, a crime that was perpetrated by a bunch of scoundrels and every Muslim, whether Sunni or Shiite or Druze, is ashamed they did this abomination under the holy green flag. Talal Haydar spoke on behalf of us all. They have attacked us as Muslims and stepped on our dignity more than they did to the people of Ashrafieh by terrorizing them. They insulted our places of worship more than they tried to assail the Saint Maron church and the Beirut Orthodox diocese.

“We say that because we are really angry, very angry. If only our families in Ashrafieh, and our families from the Saint Maron church parish and Saint Nicholas cathedral knew how much anger we have inside. Were they able to know, they would’ve felt sorry for us today. We are not saying this to undermine the importance of what happened, nor to bypass the shortcomings that were seen, but because, and here is the paradox, we felt on Sunday how much we care for and are attached to our partner in the nation […]. We wouldn’t be exaggerating if we said that had it happened in the so-called Muslim areas, we wouldn’t have been so angry and disgusted […].

“All the Lebanese are invited to see who their real enemy is. Their leaders, no exceptions made, must work according to one motto: ‘Lebanon above all’, or else, all that will be left from the unfinished Lebanese independence, are memories and stories told to future generations, born with the yoke of slavery and under the sword of terrorism.” - An Nahar, Lebanon