Hezbollah Intransigence

"[The government's decision to remove] the defensive weapons of the resistance, its people and Lebanon during an aggression [facilitates the killing of] resistance fighters and their families and evict them from their land and homes."

"[The government should have instead] spread its authority and evicted Israel from Lebanon."

"The government is serving the Israeli project."

"The resistance will not hand over its weapons as the aggression continues and occupation remains." 

"The party will fight a [historic)]battle if necessary in the face of this Israeli-US project, whatever the cost."

"There will be no life in Lebanon if the government tries to confront the party."

"[The government in Beirut] bears full responsibility for any internal explosion and any destruction of Lebanon." 

Naim Kassem, leader, Hezbollah 

Hezbollah troops pledging fealty   Photo: AP

 

Lebanon's hostile factions continue to rent the country asunder, a country once peaceful and the centerpiece of the Middle East's manifold tribal, clan and sectarian heritage communities living tolerably amongst one another in their mostly separate geographic internal Lebanon locations, with a degree of respect for one another. That tolerance was not only social and cultural but political as well, with the government comprised at its elite levels of representatives of the majority groups; Christian, Sunni Muslim and Shia Muslim.

 

Within society itself, the Maronite Christians, Druze and Sunni Muslims dominated, the Shia Muslims relegated to a lower social tier mostly living in poverty and accorded less respect than its sectarian peers. In the 1980s Iran's al Quds division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as well as the Syrian Alawite government of Bashar al Assad were tweaking Lebanon's social and political system. The IRGC persuaded Lebanese Shiites that the revolutionary Islam they promoted would help them prosper.

 

Under the tutelage of the IRGC, Lebanon's Shiites received instructions as a non-state military group with an emphasis on jihad. Trained and supplied with weaponry they became a formidable guerrilla group for whom suicide bombing and threats against the presence of French and U.S. peacekeeping troops in Lebanon became a rehearsal for their budding role in the Middle East as a force to be reckoned with, squaring off against Israel during its invasion of Lebanon to oust the Palestine Liberation Organization from its cross-border raids into Israel.

 

Lebanon was transformed into a dysfunctional, violence-addicted state, with its multifarious tribal/sectarian groups at threateningly hostile odds against one another. As the civil war disrupted civic life and Lebanese factions bombed and strafed each other and Western attempts at intervention were attempted, kidnapping and hostage-taking for ransom purposes became world news. As Lebanon eventually attempted to restore itself to a vestige of its peaceful past, efforts at disarming Hezbollah failed and it remained an armed adversary even as it became part of the government in taking political office.

 

Its goal has primarily been the destruction of Israel, as a client of the Islamic Republic. With Hezbollah in Israel's north and Hamas in the south, Iran the ultimate threat to Israel's existence, manipulating its terrorist proxies saw all three engaged in the past several years in an ultimately failed effort to attack and destroy Israel. Hezbollah's decision to support the Hamas 7 October 2023 invasion of southern Israel when thousands of terrorists streamed from Gaza into Israel to slaughter Israeli civilians, and Israel responded by invading Gaza to rout and destroy Hamas, Hezbollah began sending rockets from Lebanon into Israel.

 

Supporters of Lebanon’s Hezbollah terror group block the streets with burning tires as they rally in cars and motorbikes to protest the government’s endorsement of a plan to disarm it, in Beirut’s southern suburbs, August 8, 2025. (Ibrahim AMRO/AFP)

 

Lebanon has been in crisis mode for decades; coping with the sinister manipulation of Syria and Iran, along with Hezbollah. It has been facing, along with social disruptions, a dire economic situation; it has been limping along, a bare skeleton of survival of its former nationhood as a tolerant society. Latterly the national government has made a decision that Hezbollah must agree to their demand to surrender their weapons and rockets stockpiles, in favour of a tentative agreement with Israel, with the potential of a peace agreement brought into effect by the two nations.

 

The internal crisis is threatening once again to become an internal conflict, another destructive civil war. Hezbollah, aligned with the Shia Amal movement, one of the main armed groups in the 1975-1990 civil war, represented by Parliament Speaker Nabih Berri, threaten together to contest the government's decision. Protesters, warned Kassem, "will be all over Lebanon and head to the U.S. embassy". The groups within Lebanon that want a return to good government and peace between factions, are opposed to Hezbollah retaining its weapons, insisting only the state should carry arms.

 

Last week the Lebanon government voted for a U.S.-backed plan to disarm Hezbollah by year's end, and a ceasefire with Israel be implemented. International pressure applied on Lebanon to force Hezbollah to surrender its arms following the 14-month conflict with Israel until a U.S.[brokered ceasefire in November is behind the government's move and Hezbollah's resistance. 

 

Hezbollah insists it would only be prepared to discuss a national defence strategy relating to its weapons possession on the condition that Israel withdraw from Lebanon and halts its airstrikes that have killed Hezbollah members since the  end of the conflict. Hezbollah's political leadership and much of its military, along with many of its weapons caches were destroyed in its war with Israel. Just as it has been defanged, so too has its sponsor, Tehran, been weakened militarily. 

 

People raise their fists as Hezbollah leader Naim Qassem delivers a televised speech in Dahiyeh, a southern suburb of Beirut, Lebanon, July 30, 2025. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

 

 

 

Canada's Liberal Government, True to Form

 

"[It was] irresponsible and unacceptable [that Heritage Canada] conducted no research or background checks before they distributed this money]."

"If the government cannot conduct a simple background check on the institutions they distribute money to, they need to reconsider their use of grants and contributions."

"According to Heritage Canada’s own Departmental Reports, in 2020-21 they employed 194 full-time employees and spent $134,607,209 to promote diversity and inclusion. How is it possible with those resources that they did not see fit to evaluate an organization before deciding to grant it $133,000?"

Shadow Minister for Canadian Heritage, MP John Nater

 

"Regardless of the hate and propaganda he promotes, for years [Marouf] was able to sell himself to the government as a legitimate enterprise, regardless of how absolutely offensive his communications were. This is problematic."

"It is profoundly troubling that this individual was supported and enabled in his hate speech, and the government needs to overhaul whatever problem is in these programs."

Jaime Kirzner-Roberts, director of policy, Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies 

Laith Marouf   Photo by Peter McCabe/The Gazette

The man at the centre of this controversy in 2022, Laith Marouf, is a flaming antisemite and all-'round racist. He was the top consultant for the Community Media Advocacy Center (CMAC); in fact its founder and only 'employee'. He was given to referring to Jews as 'bags of human feces' deserving of a 'bullet to the head'. He posted regularly on social media sites such as X, and the quality and quantity of those posts were readily available for viewing in a strictly cursory, casual search. Yet, even though a Liberal MP had flagged the content of these posts to then-Minister of Canadian Heritage Ahmed Hussen, they were dismissed. 

The Community Media Advocacy Center in the six years prior to and including the 2022 revelations, received contracts from the federal government valued at $500 million representing cost support, research and advocacy (for equity and diversity programs) from the Canadian federal broadcasting agency. When the scandal of the absurdity and outrage of the federal government having hired a racist consultant to operate training sessions in anti-racism for government employees led to the contract's withdrawal and attempts to recover the funding given the CMAC, little was heard of this man and his agency again.

Now it has been revealed that he was recently arrested, then released by Lebanon's Military Intelligence Directorate, in an area adjacent to the border with Israel. The restricted area that this took place in was a border town in Lebanon, called Mais al-Jabal. Marouf had evidently failed to present the required media credentials. Held incommunicado under "extensive interrogation" at Lebanon's Defense Ministry's headquarters just outside Beirut, he was released on Tuesday, evidently without charges or conditions. 

 

This man, who was known to refer to Quebecers as 'frogs', Black people as slaves, and characterizing Israelis as 'loud-mouthed bags of human feces, aka the Jewish White Supremacists' who would one day be forced to 'go back to where they came from' had been suspended from X for hateful commentary and advocating violence. He had regularly appeared as a pundit for Iran's Press TV and the Kremlin's Sputnik propaganda platform as a supporter of the Assad regime in Syria. He began his career, in violent 'anti-Zionist' protests at Concordia University decades earlier as the son of a Syrian diplomat in Montreal. 

 

After Justin Trudeau became prime minister in 2015, Marouf's Community Media Advocacy Centre collected some $517,480 in Broadcast Participation Fund grants. Once the uproar over his having been hired as an expert anti-racist, prepared to school federal civil servants in equity and diversity had subsided from the public eye and ear, Heritage Canada which had hired him, saw their officials undergoing workshops on identifying antisemitism, with instructions on identifying racists and antisemites among grant applicants.

 

Marouf had busied himself with pro-Hezbollah 'Free Palestine Television' in Beirut, insisting his FPTV is "unaffiliated with any political party or groups", while relying heavily on interviews with fellow 'anti-Zionists', leading to sympathetic coverage of the problems facing Hezbollah after it decided to join Hamas in its conflict with the Israel Defense Forces in Gaza, post-7 October 2023. Combat videos featuring Hamas, the Mujahideen Brigades and the Al-Qassam (IRGC) Brigades figured large in Marouf's FPTV series.

 

Mais al-Jabal, the border town where Marouf was picked up on Sunday, was a Hezbollah stronghold. The IDF last October destroyed lookout posts and weapons caches and tunnels in the town, mere metres from the Israeli border. On Marouf's arrival in Mais al-Jabal, he was detained at a checkpoint, and informed he lacked authorization to be in the area. Taken to a detention centre, his driver, Hadi Hoteit, a FPTV producer and correspondent for Tehran's Press TV, was released. 

 

View overlooking the Hula Valley and the town of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel.  Alexey Protasov/stock.adobe.com

 

About 20 kilometres from Israel's northernmost city Kiryat Shmona, Mais al-Jabal is in a strategic location, one that Hezbollah used to rain rockets down over the Golan Heights to Jewish communities below. About 22,000 Israelis lived in Kiryat Shmonia before Hezbollah joined Hamas's war on Israel in October 2023. At least fifty percent of the city's buildings had been destroyed by Hezbollah rockets, its population evacuated to temporary safety in central Israel. 

 

Israeli reserve soldiers take part in a military drill in the Golan Heights, northern Israel, May 8, 2024

(photo credit: AYAL MARGOLIN/FLASH90)

 

"[FPTV launched] with the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Flood — the name Hamas and other Palestinian groups have given to the Oct. 7 massacre. The online station is based out of Lebanon, staffed primarily by students, professors and community members."

"FPTV’s goal is to support the resistance from a media standpoint and to incite free peoples to move and fight Zionism and imperialism wherever they exist."

"Knowing that there is a huge gap left in news programming in English that is supportive of resistance and the right to liberation … we decided to bring together our communities here to start a project, a community television station."

FPTV Website 

 

"The Middle East Forum, an American conservative think tank, published a report that FPTV had links to the Lebanon-based group Al-Tajammu. According to Michael Barak, a researcher at the Institute for Counter-Terrorism at Israel’s Reichmann University, Al-Tajammu is “an international pro-Iranian platform to leverage the resistance axis against the U.S., Israel and their allies”."

"Marouf described the attacks on Al-Tajammu as “frivolous” and accused the Middle East Forum of being a “racist organization”."

National Post 

 

 

Preserving Children's Mental Health in a War Situation

"Mental health is a cornerstone of everything we do, and our programs are designed not only to teach tennis skills but also to nurture resilience, confidence and hope."

"Together, we are building a brighter future for these children."

Ilan Allal, Israel Tennis and Educational Center (ITEC), Beersheba branch

"Now, the situation in the north has worsened, and the tennis centres there [in Haifa] are closed. I told the ITEC management that we would be happy to have those kids over and do something special for them."

"Sure they still get air-raid alarms on their phones. You can't run from it. But when they are active, whether it's playing tennis or watching a movie, it clears their heads a bit."

"This is what we try to do -- give them a feeling of safety for three days."

Yaniv Sakira, manager, Beersheba tennis centre

 

"It's very challenging to keep them focused and in a relaxed mood for an extended period. Our sessions are about 45 minutes long. It's difficult for them to sit and concentrate throughout the course."

"The kids keep a lot of their feelings inside. You have to be very patient and compassionate. We can sometimes see a switch in their emotions within a split second."

"They can go from being calm to very upset."

"It's all about building confidence and believing in themselves. they are under a lot of stress and they don't show it."

"I think in a few years all the stress will start popping out and I don't know that we are ready for it."

Asaf Barel, mental health coach

Children at Israel Tennis and Education Center's "Home Away From Home" camp. Photo by ITEC/Facebook

Fifty children arrived at the Israel Tennis and Education Centre (ITEC) branch located in Beersheba to enjoy a three-day tennis camp. These were children from communities in northern Israel, vacated with their families from their homes as a result of Hezbollah bombing from Lebanon into Israel. Their dislocation has been of a long duration, almost a year. The Hezbollah terrorist group that has Lebanon in its talons began lobbing bombs into northern Israel in solidarity with Hamas whose invasion of southern Israel on October 7, 2023 resulted in a wholesale bloodbath of Israelis of all ages, mass rape of girls and women, and the abduction of 250 Israeli infants, the elderly, entire families, woman and soldiers.

 

While the Israel Defense Forces have been fully engaged in Gaza, rooting out Hamas terrorists to entirely negate their ability to continue murdering Israelis, their search for the terror operatives who conceal themselves in the vast tunnel network under Gaza, and among the civilian population, in tunnel shafts under hospitals and schools and UNRWA administrative buildings, it has been forced to deal with the attacks from Lebanon hitting its northern flank. Some 60,000 Israelis have been evacuated from the north, living in temporary quarters in more secure areas of Israel.

 

The children bused to Beersheba for a three-day holiday to distract them from the trauma of constant sirens, the sound of bombs, the uncertainty and the fear, the total disruption of anything approximating their normal lives, the routine of attending school, taking part in games activities are all in abeyance while the Israeli military responds to the Hezbollah assaults which UNIFIL the UN body tasked with ensuring that Hezbollah not rearm itself or send missiles into Israel after a previous conflict decades earlier, has entirely failed to do; intimidated by the terror group they were dispatched to control.

 

Their attendance as a group saw children from Acre, Nahariya and the Druze town of Sajur; Jewish, Druze, Muslim and Christian children, interact with one another, participate in the opportunities to engage in sports, take lessons, communicate between them, and be exposed to sessions meant to alleviate, however temporarily, the tensions they are under ordinarily during this fraught time for Israelis. They are being taught methods by which they can better understand their emotions and how to deal with them.

 

Travelling by bus with selected coaches, the children were put up at a Beersheba Hotel. There, along with tennis sessions, activities such as attending a movie theatre, taking part in bowling and video games, the children were totally immersed in a child-centric atmosphere, altogether unlike what has become of their normal lives. One of the games they were introduced to functioned both as a game and a learning session. The children were instructed to pop balloons for a prize. Within each balloon were questions questioning their state of mind and feelings.

"They were eager to pop the balloons and answer questions to get the prize. They were very cooperative and shared their thoughts", explained mental health coach Barel. "Sometimes I ask them how many times they think they can jump on one leg. Most of the time, they underestimate themselves and we show them that the ceiling, if there is one, is  higher than they think. It's all about building confidence and believing in themselves."

The Druze manager, Alam Ibrahim, referenced the Druze town of Majdal Shams on the Golan Heights that was hit by a Hezbollah missile when 12 children were killed in July when the missile struck a soccer field popular with the town's children. "Some of the children that were murdered played tennis with us. Twelve worlds ended because terrorists decided to shoot a missile. We re all in the same boat. We are in rough seas, we either gather together and bring the ship to safer waters or we lose hope", he said.

 

Israeli police officers and firefighters work at the site of a rocket attack in Majdal Shams, in the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights, Saturday, July 27, 2024. (AP Photo/Gil Eliyahu)

"We wanted to take these kids away from the alarms, the shelling and the atmosphere of war, enhance their resilience and share with them on the tennis field."

"While the cultures are different, we know how to unite the kids through sport, especially on the tennis field."

"Our vision does not differentiate between skin or hair colour. We are all together. It warms the heart to see a religious Jewish kid play with an Arab girl, there is hope in that."

Alam Ibrahim, Druze manager of ITEC's Sajur branch

Neutral UN Agencies in the Middle East

"We regret the harm to UNIFIL soldiers, and we are doing our utmost to prevent such harm."

"But the simplest and most obvious way to ensure this, is simply to withdraw them from the danger zone." 

"It is time for you [UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres], to withdraw UNIFIL from Hezbollah strongholds and from the areas of combat."

"The IDF has repeatedly asked for this, and has been met with repeated refusals, all aimed at providing a human shield to Hezbollah terrorists."

"Your refusal to evacuate the UNIFIL soldiers makes them hostages of Hezbollah. This endangers both them and the lives of our soldiers."

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

Vehicles of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) patrol in Marjayoun in southern Lebanon amid the ongoing war between terror group Hezbollah and Israel, October 11, 2024. (AFP)

 

UN Security Council Resolutions 1559 and 1701 tasked the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) in 1978 to the critical role of maintaining peace between Israel and Lebanon with UNIFIL set by mandate to monitor and prevent hostilities from breaking out into active conflict. Hezbollah, the Shi'ite militia recognized as a terrorist group, had established itself in southern Lebanon as a challenge to the legitimate, albeit weak and fractured Lebanese government. Its self-appointed role was to obey its masters in Iran as a proxy militia of the terrorist mold in helping the Islamic Republic in its mission to destroy Israel.

Hezbollah was ordered by the United Nations under UNIFIL peacekeepers to surrender its weapons, leaving only the Lebanese military to carry and use weapons. Hezbollah never did surrender its weapons; the Lebanese military was too weak to do anything about it and UNIFIL was too uncertain to react. Since then, Hezbollah has been provided with vast stockpiles of weapons by Iran slipping them by the deliberately unobservant UNIFIL troops, aware of the armaments being provided by Hezbollah, for one purpose, to eventually seek to destroy Israel.

UNIFIL was obviously in no position given its clear abandonment of its orders to disarm Hezbollah and ensure there was no armed presence south of the Litani river. From its guard towers it was easily able to observe illicit, threatening activities, including tunnel infrastructure and weapons depots being methodically built over time, when its mandate schooled them to put a stop to any such actions. Hezbollah's constant bombardment with rockets of northern Israel from Hezbollah's perches in southern Lebanon continually breached Israel's  sovereign territory and led to the forced evacuation of some 60,000 Israelis.

 

When the IDF was finally ordered to seriously respond to the daily multiple shelling, and engage in some limited ground invasions they discovered the  reality of what had been assumed for decades; Hezbollah had assumed control of a vast shipment of military infrastructure over the years. The IDF discovered hundreds of weapons caches, tunnel shafts and underground command centres mere metres from the border with Israel. Also uncovered was an 800-square metre underground base used as a command centre.

 

Spanish peacekeepers of the United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) coordinate their patrol with the Lebanese Military Police, in Marjayoun in south Lebanon on October 8, 2024. (AFP)

 

It would not have been remotely possible for the UNIFIL personnel to overlook extensive tunnel networks, military bases and caches of weaponry, leaving the impression that an extensive network of tunnels, military bases and weapons caches were built under the watchful eye of a peacekeeping force meant to prevent such actions; an impression that reflects a reality. While tasked with ensuring security, the international peacekeeping force has been privy to outlawed activities taking place directly in their eyesight and with total impunity. Like its sister agency UNRWA which also sees no evil under its mandate, it demonstrate the sham that these UN agencies represent.

A Hamas central headquarters was located in the basement of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, its schools used as weapons depots, its rocket launchers placed within crowded civilian areas in Gaza. It was the discovery that UNRWA staff included hundreds who were also members of terrorist groups, some of whom had taken part in the October 7 massacre in southern Israel.That the UN system, its agencies and international courts were selectively weaponized against Israel became abundantly clear. 

 

Hezbollah has been permitted by UNIFIL to make use of its outposts. More recently, an Israeli tank, coming under direct fire from Hezbollah, attempted to seek cover to protect its crew and other Israeli soldiers when, backing up in tight circumstances, inadvertently backed into a UNIFIL post and he UN body promptly charged Israel with deliberately firing on its personnel. When charged by Israel for neglecting its duty in preventing Hezbollah from firing across the border into Israel, UNIFIL responded by saying that the terror group's building of tunnels and weapons depots took place on 'private property', taking the issue out of their hands.

 

The United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL) has long struggled to enforce United Nations Security Council (UNSC) Resolution 1701, adopted in 2006, which aimed to prevent Hezbollah’s military buildup in southern Lebanon   Alma

Boredom in Kuwait Equals Dog Abandonment -- Mission Wings of Love Kuwait

"I had a flight attendant friend who rescues cats, and her and I were in a jump seat and got to talking. I said, 'Oh, I know, I see so many dogs', and she said, 'If you're not doing anything on your layover, come with me and meet some of these women'."

"The kennels are horrible. [Often owners] literally take these dogs out in the middle of the street, tie them to a tree, and walk away."

Patricia Riska, flight attendant, Baltimore

Wings of Love Kuwait

"It's not uncommon to see these exotic designer dogs that are just tossed out. There's a whole culture of [seeing] dogs as being dispensable, a thing."

"He [Chance, found with over 100 BB pellets lodged in his body, and missing a paw] was probably chained to something and we think he chewed off his paw to get away."

"They ['desert dogs'] have that long, lean look, and the curly tail. They're tough dogs, and they tend to be very bright."

"They're viewed as being just stray dogs in Kuwait, and here they look exotic."

Jennifer Yoon, co-founder, vice-president, Wings of Love

Wings of Love Kuwait

Wings of Love Kuwait is a charity founded by two women who saw an opportunity to rescue discarded dogs of all breeds by a society that obviously views these intelligent and affectionately loyal creatures as mere playthings, to be owned for a while, then discarded. Baltimore flight attendant Patricia Riska, during her regular layovers in Kuwait City had noted the presence of a multitude of dogs in the city's streets. Hungry, lost and frightened -- passers-by, obviously inured to their presence and disinterested in their welfare -- would simply walk by ignoring them, sometimes kicking them out of the way.

By chance a conversation she had with another flight attendant led her to a group of women in Kuwait who were doing what they could to help stray dogs and cats. Though pet cafes and pet shops have proliferated in the last decade in Kuwait as numbers of pet dogs rose, there was also a "sudden explosion of dogs on the streets -- visible in the mornings and late evenings scavenging for food", as described in an article that appeared in the English-language daily Kuwait Times.

The situation is redolent of a culture of wealth where people have surplus discretionary funds in spades, and are attracted to prestigious new social acquisitions, and in Kuwait that would be the acquisition and ownership of costly purebred dogs of all descriptions, ordered from breeders abroad. Once the animals arrive from Europe they're brought into a Kuwaiti home, maintained for a year and then set loose to fend for themselves as best they can. 

Wings of Love Kuwait

There doesn't appear to be an outcry from within the community damning this brutal abandonment of dependent animals. Many of whom are incapable of fending for themselves and starve to death, or are injured as a result of mistreatment from people or attacks by other dogs, or exhaustion from the summer heat that can ratchet up to 54C. The dogs can be seen around markets, nothing but skin and bones and the resolve to somehow go on living.

Urged by her conscience, Patricia Riska began bringing one or two dogs at a time back with her on the 14-hour trip to the U.S. and her home state of Maryland. A friend in Houston adopted the first dog she returned with, which encouraged her to return with another  and then another. Finally, she and Jennifer Yoon formed their rescue operation, a non-profit, and from that time forward, kept bringing dogs into the U.S. from Kuwait. In the years since the founding of their rescue in 2015, they brought 535 dogs of various breeds for adoption in the U.S.

Wings of Love Kuwait

They worked with a woman in Kuwait committed to rescuing dogs from the streets and sheltering them on her farm. Most of the rescues have found homes in Baltimore and area; some in Washington, D.C., and in Virginia. Baltimore has been accustomed to seeing rescued pit bulls looking for homes. The purebred Yorkies and Maltese, Labrador or German shepherd mixes and the Saluki-type dogs have become popular adoptees in Baltimore. After Dubai and Kuwait, Maryland is the third location with the largest population of "Arabian village dogs", according to DNA tests on Embark, a genetic profiling company for dogs.

The adoption fee is $500 meant to cover expenses, and those interested in adopting are vetted, then matched with dogs that appear a good fit. Adopters must be prepared to spend a week or two with the dog of their choice before formal adoption is completed, to ensure they are a good match. The all-volunteer organization offsets costs through fund-raising and operates on a yearly budge of $100,000. The group now brings in rescue dogs from Lebanon as well as Kuwait.

Saleh at the dog shelter in Lebanon. (Courtesy Photo / Youssef Saleh)

"Liberating" Palestine, Boycotting a Film Tainted by Israel

"I am sending my love and prayers to my fellow Israeli citizens."
"Especially to all the boys and girls who are risking their lives protecting my country against the horrific acts conducted by Hamas, who are hiding like cowards behind women and children."
Israeli actress Gal Gadot

Israeli actress Gal Gadot arrives at the premiere of Warner Bros. Pictures' 'Wonder Woman' at the Pantages Theatre on May 25, 2017 in Hollywood, California. (Frazer Harrison/Getty Images/AFP)

"In typical Lebanese fashion and because we definitely have our priorities in order, Lebanon’s government decided to rise up from its slumber and resist, even though the movie has been announced for over three years now."

"The fact of the matter is that if you have a problem with the content of a movie, the actor or actress leading it or anything pertaining to it… Simply don’t go watch it."

"Call for a boycott, but you sure as hell have no right in making sure no one else gets to watch it too."

Blogger Elie Fares --  “A Separate State of Mind” blog

It is a cardinal sin to be an Israeli. All the more so, an Israeli who served in the Israel Defence Force. And since everyone in Israel, male or female, is expected to serve through general conscription for a two-year period in defence of their nation, those who wish to see Israel destroyed feel justified in considering all Israeli Jews as criminal persecutors of Palestinians. The simple fact that Israel must maintain a standing army in preparedness for any contingency owes to the other fact; that its neighbours wish to destroy it.

Palestinians cannot have it both ways; waging both physical war with Israel and expecting Arab Palestinians to recognize their obligation to attack Jews in an effort to 'recapture' the land it sits upon as its ancient heritage, but which Palestinian Arabs contest as their very own, and engaging in slanderous propaganda popular wherever anti-Semitism thrives, eager to join the Boycott-Divestment movement. But eager and prepared to present itself as a partner for peace with Israel.

The film Wonder Woman, which sets out to portray women as physically powerful, courageous and as determined as any man, in a campaign to save the world, has garnered lots of praise and worldwide attention. Advance premieres have resulted in critics giving it excellent reviews, and people are eager to see the film, considered a first of its kind because it features a woman in a super-hero role, usually reserved for super-men.

"She's incredibly strong, but she also stands for something which is the opposite of being violent -- which is love, truth, compassion."

"As a woman, it was interesting sometimes that I would say, 'I think [females] might fight a little differently than [males] might fight."

"The challenge is to see both the good and bad of mankind..."

"We all want to bring, not only a hero to the world, but a message of helping anybody find their voice."

Patty Jenkins, director, Wonder Woman

Perhaps the director's words hit the issue square, though of a certainty they weren't intended to be political. But what she says and how she describes the film and what it explores in human relations appears to lead directly to Israel-as-metaphor.

Wonder Woman is opening during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and theatres in the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Kuwait are scheduled to run the film. Oman and Bahrain are also going to feature this blockbuster that has aroused interest in theatre-goers worldwide. But film enthusiasts in Lebanon are just plain out of luck, because its ministry of economy has banned the film. Not because the theory  of a woman daring to do what men have always done is offensive to a religion where women are neither seen nor heard in public.

But because its star, a woman, is an Israeli Jew; a combination that makes for detestation and anger. Beirut had prepared to schedule the film at one of its cinemas but though posters and billboards went into play no one in the capital of Lebanon or elsewhere in the country will now see it because it has become symbolic of the state of war between Lebanon and Israel. Lebanon's Iran-led Hezbollah paramilitary group and the Islamic Republic of Iran, both committed to Israel's destruction, have, needless to say, great influence in this matter.

An Islamist Republic whose focus is on supporting terrorism world-wide and its creature, a terrorist group, both of which are helping Syria's mass-murdering president in his sectarian war against his own people would like the world to believe that it is Israel and its presence in the Middle East that is responsible for the violence, bloodshed and barbarism that floods the nations of Arab and Aryan Islam. The freedoms that Lebanese once enjoyed in a country once admired for its openness and social advancement has disappeared, with Druze, Christians, Sunni and Shiite Islam at one another's throats.

And it all began when the Palestinian Liberation Organization under the late Yasser Arafat made Lebanon its conflict outpost after Jordan's then-King Hussein refused to allow his country to continue to be overrun by Palestinian militias, attacking Israel over the border and destabilizing both Israel and Jordan. What the PLO failed to accomplish in Jordan (though a slow-simmering effort continues) it accomplished handily in Lebanon before it was forced from there, too.

But the chain of events leading from Lebanon's dystopian malfunctions which bred Hezbollah when the Iranian Republican Guard Corps infused Shiites with the sacred vision of jihad and martyrdom has entirely disrupted the country and its administration, the larger waves of which stimulated Sunni states like Saudi Arabia to encourage their own brand of death-dealing-and-loving jihad beginning with al-Qaeda and ending with Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.

Should anything untoward happen to ISIL, the Muslim Brotherhood hovers in the background, infesting the Islamic nations of the Middle East and North Africa, and installing themselves throughout the Western world, infiltrating Europe, North America and Oceania.

The Islamic State Is Coming

"We all know that if they come, they will slit our throats for no reason."
Qaa, Lebanon, Christian villager

This Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2014 photo, shows a general view of Lebanon's Ras Baalbek, a Christian town in the northern Bekaa region near the border with Syria. (AP Photo/Bilal Hussein)

Well, the poor man is wrong; there is a reason. The Sunni extremist Islamic State views Christians as wasted on life; as non-Muslims they have no right to life and ISIS jihadis are eager to obligingly remove them from the lifestream of existence. The small Lebanese Christian village on the border of Syria is on tenterhooks; all the men carry with them automatic rifles to take up positions and lay in ambush just in case ...

Lebanese Christians have watched with dread and foreboding as other Christians are forced to flee the Islamic jihadis in Syria and neighbouring Iraq, knowing their turn is not long into the future. A border town was overrun by Islamic State mujahadeen a month ago to clash with security forces in a conflict that took place over a period of days where the IS jihadis killed and kidnapped Lebanese soldiers and police.

These Christian villagers are not strangers to sectarian violence. But since the end of the Lebanese civil war in 1990 they must have felt they had reason to hope that their ancestral homeland where their heritage of Christianity represents some of the most ancient such settlements in the world, would remain a safe haven for them and theirs. Now they are being forced to re-arm and set up self-defence units for protection.

Christian communities across the breadth of the Middle East as ancient as the religion itself, now know how at-risk their communities and their lives are, under threat of the Islamic State in its deadly rampages across Iraq and Syria. Tens of thousands of Christians, faced with the choice of converting to Islam or facing death, chose to flee their ancient homeland.

Now, Iraq's Ninevah region and the provincial capital of Mosul are empty of Christians. The Islamic State jihadis spray-painted their homes with the letter "N" representing the archaic word "Nasrani", referring to Christians, thus marking the houses as property of the Islamic State. Who is there who will argue with them for possession? During its three-year conflict Syria has seen thousands of its Christians displaced as they have come under jihadist attack.

Lebanon's Christian village of Ras Baalbek: Villagers are arming themselves for the first time since 1990 because they fear Isis will continue their rampage and cross the border from Syria to launch sectarian attacks   Bilal Hussein/The Associated Press

The rampages have destroyed churches and icons in one town after another In the militant stronghold of Raqqa, Christians were forced to pay an Islamic tax for protection, another quaint custom of Islam which dictates that the correct manner in which to dispose of non-Muslim unbelievers was to kill them, tax them, or banish them. Now, Christians originally from Iraq and Syria are finding shelter n Lebanon, a historically pluralistic country with the largest number of Christians left in the Middle East.

Fear is rampant, despite that Lebanon is the sole Arab country with a Christian head of state. A video, however, was posted online of boys burning an Islamic State flag in a Christian neighbourhood of Beirut, after which vandals spray-painted the walls of several churches with the menacing words: "The Islamic State is coming."

The sale of weapons has climbed exponentially on the black market. Shiite militia groups like Hezbollah approve of this rearming by the Christians; they view the Christian communities as the first line of defence for Shiite towns and villages in the Bekaa Valley region certain at some point to come under attack by the Sunni Islamic State jihadists.

Small Christian units have been fighting with the People's Protection Unit in Syria, a Kurdish militia. With the knowledge, however, that the numbers of Christians are limited enough to have little impact since they haven't the numbers, arms, or combat training to render them effective in countering the battle-hardened Islamist jihadis.

Iraq was once home to a million Christians before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, removing the authority of Saddam Hussein, who had traditionally given protection to Christians. Since that time, Christians have been targeted by both the Shiite and Sunni extremists who view them as aliens to a country where their religion's presence far predated that of the Muslims. Even while the Shia and Sunni population violated each other's human rights, they preyed on the Christian Iraqis as well.

Since that time, their churches have been bombed, their clergymen killed, and Christians have been steadily harassed and made to fear for their lives. Church officials now place the community number at less than one-half of their former presence. And as events continue to play out in the Middle East, their numbers will continue to decrease, until they become as scarce in presence as that of Jews, who also once proliferated throughout the Middle East.

Syrian refugees in Lebanon hit by winter storm

BBC News online -- 11 December 2013

Syrian refugees are living in makeshift homes in harsh winter conditions

The UN says it is "extremely concerned" for Syrian refugees in Lebanon as a fierce winter storm bears down.

There has been snow, rain, high winds and freezing temperatures in the north of the country and the Bekaa Valley, home to more than 200 informal camps.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said it was "working harder than ever" to protect the more than 800,000 Syrians sheltering in Lebanon.

The Lebanese army is helping distribute emergency kits, including blankets.

Where Syrian refugees are

• 838,000 in Lebanon
• 567,000 in Jordan
• 540,000 in Turkey
• 207,000 in Iraq
• 129,000 in Egypt
• 6.5 million others displaced inside Syria

(Source: UNHCR)

"We are worried, because it is really cold in the Bekaa region, and we're extremely worried about the refugees living in makeshift shelters, because many are really substandard," UNHCR spokeswomen Lisa Abou Khaled told the AFP news agency.

At least 80,000 refugees will have to spend the winter in tents. Many others are living in unfinished or unheated buildings with only slightly more protection.

Ms Abou Khaled said the UNHCR had stockpiles of items to help refugees whose shelters might be damaged or destroyed, including plastic sheeting, floor mats, blankets and mattresses. Supplies have also been given to local councils.

"The Syrian refugees here are shivering with cold, especially the ones in tents," said Wafiq Khalaf, a councillor in Arsal, a town in the northern Bekaa Valley that has seen 20,000 people arrive in the past few months.

"Water has come into the tents from the roofs, and from the ground where there is flooding," he told AFP. "At the moment there is more than 10cm (3.9in) of snow on the ground, but more is expected."

Almost 2.3 million Syrians have fled into neighbouring countries

 

The BBC's Jim Muir in the Bekaa Valley met one family who were feeding their fire with old shoes because they could not afford firewood, despite their children being barefoot.

There are similar scenes across the region as hundreds of thousands of refugees improvise desperately to stay alive, our correspondent adds.

Forecasters are predicting between 7.6cm and 13cm of snow in total.

The latest warning comes after the UNHCR announced on Tuesday that it would be airlifting food and other aid items into northern Syria from Iraq for the first time.

Twelve planeloads of supplies will be flown in over the next few days, ahead of what the UN fears will be the region's harshest winter in a century.

The decision was made after land convoys were shot at, harassed, and detained at check points, officials said.

Almost 2.3 million Syrians have fled into neighbouring countries since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began in March 2011, according to the UN. There are also an estimated 6.5 million internally displaced people (IDPs) inside Syria, and many more in need of aid.

Eva's Story Highlights Plight Of Women in Lebanon

Eva Ghazal, a 13-year-old middle-school student from Beirut's southern suburbs, became the wife of a man she didn't know, sparking outrage across Lebanon. (photo by YouTube/LBCI News)

By: Jean Aziz for Al-Monitor Lebanon Pulse Posted on November 1.

إقرأ باللغة العربية

Amid security, economic and governmental crises, Lebanon has been preoccupied during the past two weeks with a tragic humanitarian issue involving a girl named Eva.

About This Article

Summary : The story of a 13-year-old Lebanese girl who was kidnapped and forced into marriage highlights the overall plight of Lebanese women today. Original Title: Eva and the Monster: a Three Dimensional Story Author: Jean Aziz Posted on: November 1 2013 Translated by: Steffi Chakti Categories : Originals Lebanon

Eva hails from a Shiite family that lives in Beirut’s southern suburbs, an area that was known as the “misery belt” a quarter century ago. This area is densely occupied by Shiites, most of whom moved decades ago from south Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley. Eva, a 13-year-old middle-school student, liked to have fun and play, and hung drawings of cartoon characters on her bedroom door. Suddenly, Eva became the wife of a man she did not know. She probably still doesn’t know how or why it happened.

The story began when a man asked Eva’s father to return some money he had borrowed. When he fell behind in his payments, the man abducted the girl by force and took her captive to pressure her father into paying. Then, the kidnapper decided to marry the girl off to his son, who is 10 years older than Eva. Since both families are Shiites, and Lebanon lacks a civil personal status law, a Shiite cleric oversaw their marriage contract.

This, however, was not the end. Organizations concerned with women’s rights were informed of the incident and the news was made public on Oct. 23, 2013, creating a fuss throughout the country. The father filed a lawsuit against the kidnapper, with the latter responding through similar means. The lawyer appeared on media outlets claiming that the marriage was performed with the full consent of the girl, who was dragged into the media war, appearing on television mindlessly repeating what she had obviously been taught: “I loved him and we got married.”

Officials and parties concerned with the case were not convinced with the story maintained by the kidnapper and the kidnapped girl. Security forces raided the place where the young bride was detained and freed her on Oct. 29. Afterward, the Shiite Jaafari Mufti of Lebanon annulled the marriage contract, which had ben executed by a cleric of the same sect. Subsequently, the kidnappers disappeared, and as of the writing of this article, not a single person involved in the case has been arrested.

Eva returned to her home, yet her tragic story, which exemplifies the tragedy of perilous position of women in Lebanon, has not ended. On a deeper level, it is a three-dimensional tragedy in which religion, a tribal society, a weak state and backwardness of laws and rules intertwine.

On the religious level, sects govern personal status laws in Lebanon. Clerics have the sole right to settle cases related to families and their lives. In this context, women are often victims of violence. In the Lebanese setting, a woman cannot object to domestic abuse. She cannot resort to the judiciary in the event that she is raped by her husband. She does not enjoy equality or a large number of freedoms covered in international humanitarian law.

Many people evalutated Eva's case based on Sharia. A religious cleric commented on the tragedy with, “If she was well-behaved and had the freedom of choice, her marriage should be considered legal, especially since the age of puberty according to Sharia is nine years old.”

It was clear that both families involved hail from a tribal society. In other words, they come from a community that has its own laws, customs and behavioral norms. This community does not acknowledge status laws, nor does it accept the concepts and values of modern civil society. During the televised interview with the kidnapper and the kidnapped girl, the man repeated his call for a “settlement,” a tribal concept founded on "settling" any criminal or penal case according to the provisions of the tribe and the decision of the tribe’s own judiciary system. Civil laws and the concept of the modern state are meaningless to many of those concerned with the tragedy of Eva. In these tribal communities, the rule of law and its values are disregarded, and the absence of a concept of women’s freedom, equality and rights is striking.

Eva's case has revealed the weakness and deterioration of the state, in addition to the decay of the concept of the state as a source of justice and power. In this particular context, Lebanese women are discriminated against on many levels, despite the fact that Lebanon joined 187 out of 193 UN member and non-member states and signed the 1979 Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. The provisions of this convention are, however, unapplied and unobserved in Lebanon, as is the case in all Islamic and Arab countries.

These countries still have reservations on some articles of this convention, notably Articles 2, 9, 15 and 16, which directly touch on the lives of women. Lebanon was no exception to this discrimination, as authorities there had reservations on Article 16, which reads, “States parties shall take all appropriate measures to eliminate discrimination against women in all matters relating to marriage and family relations and in particular shall ensure, on a basis of equality of men and women; the same rights and responsibilities during marriage and at its dissolution; the same rights and responsibilities as parents, irrespective of their marital status, in matters relating to their children; in all cases, the interests of the children shall be paramount.” The justification given for this humiliating reservation was that religious laws and tribal traditions should be observed.

In this sense, the tragedy of Eva seems a good example of the plight of Lebanese women, who are subject to murder on charges of adultery without the perpetrators being held accountable. Lebanese women are deprived of the right of passing on Lebanese citizenship to their children in the event that the father is not Lebanese. Furthermore, there are 21 legal articles discriminating between men and women, including laws related to social security; labor; special provisions for private-sector workers, their pensions and allocations; transportation allowances and commerce and bankruptcy.

The case of Eva ended with a temporarily free victim and a forever free perpetrator. The most dangerous aspect of this matter, however, is what social workers who have helped victims of similar cases and environments fear: that freeing Eva was a temporary maneuver. Afterward, the religious, tribal mindset may prevail again over the behavior of those in charge of the girl, especially if they find that she had a sexual relationship with her kidnapper. According to their customs, when the media fuss and feminist movements die down, Eva might be returned to her monster to preserve the honor of the family and pay their debts.

Remember Eva's name and follow up on the case. She is the flag bearer of human rights and women’s dignity in Lebanon.

Jean Aziz is a contributing writer for Al-Monitor’s Lebanon Pulse. He is a columnist at the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar and the host of a weekly political talk show on OTV, a Lebanese TV station. He also teaches communications at the American University of Technology and the Université Saint-Esprit De Kaslik in Lebanon.

Burned by Assad's bombs and trapped in a refugee camp running with raw sewage, desperate plight of Syria's starving children

By Dr Sanjay Gupta
PUBLISHED: 19:56 GMT, 9 September 2013 -- Mail online

Dr Sanjay Gupta witnessed the appalling conditions firsthand

As politicians continue to debate how to deal with President Assad, hundreds of thousands of Syrians are facing a daily battle for survival in makeshift refugee camps dotted along the border with Lebanon.
CNN medical reporter Dr Sanjay Gupta visited a number of camps where he witnessed the appalling conditions families are being forced to live in after fleeing the conflict in Syria.
Some are being charged $100 a month to live in a tent on by a 10-by-10 foot plot.
In this moving firsthand account, he writes that children are starving to death, with some toiling for  just $2 a day. Others have to beg for food and some are even forced to earn money as prostitutes.

After I became a father, I found covering the stories of refugees more heart-wrenching than ever before.

Of course, it is the children that immediately draw your attention. It is their wide-eyed fascination with everything you do. 

They want to touch my producer Danielle's hair and play with the gadgets of my cameraman, Clayton. They exchange high fives, give the peace sign, and gamely practice their English on me.

Dr Sanjay Gupta said Syrian refugees at the Bekaa Valley camp in Lebanon face drastic food shortages

Over the past two years, 720,000 registered refugees have crossed from Syria into Lebanon

I try not to let my mind wander to the place that imagines what the lives of these sweet children will be like weeks or months from now. They are images nobody should ever see. People starve to death here.

For the past several days, I had been in refugee camps along the border between Syria and Lebanon.

Over the past 12 years, I have covered wars, natural disasters and other tragedies as a medical reporter, which meant the very worst stories filtered down to me.
I remember a child who lost both her legs after stepping on a land mine in Iraq.
I remember a family standing in a decimated home in Sri Lanka, having lost all it owned.

In Port-au-Prince, Haiti, I saw young children searching for their parents in large garbage dumpsters, hoping to catch a final glimpse of them.
Pakistan was full of stories of families swept away by the floods that soaked one-fifth of the nation. Some of the very worst stories are happening again.
None of this is easy to write.

Families are being charged up to $100 a month for a 10-by-10 foot tent in the camps

I am here because I believe the few minutes you spend reading this firsthand dispatch will give you a clearer idea of what is unfolding here.

While you may not be able to locate the Bekaa Valley on a map, or even Damascus for that matter, stories about health are universal and serve as a common denominator all over the planet.
Over the past two years, 720,000 registered refugees have made the dangerous crossing from Syria into Lebanon.

According to aid organizations on the ground, at least that many more have also come across illegally. In a country of 4million people, roughly one in four is now a refugee. 

Lebanon is buckling under the weight of these refugees, leading to abysmal conditions.
In the largest camp in Bekaa Valley, there is no fixed water supply or sanitation. There are streams of putrid waste snaking their way through the camps. And there is not enough food.

As a dad, you get pretty good at judging the age of children, based on their size. Here, nothing makes sense. 

Some children in Bekaa Valley work for $2 a day while others are forced to beg or even prostitute themselves 

There are 8-month-olds who look closer in age to newborns, and 10-year-olds who look 5. And often, it is the young child forced to care for an even younger child.
In a place like this, you can quickly distinguish the children who are being breast-fed from those who are not. 

While the breast-fed children are getting carbohydrates, fats and proteins, they are not getting enough calories overall.

It is tough, after all, when the mother has not had anything to eat for days herself.
The child's hair looks dull, the skin looks thin and the body looks emaciated. It is called marasmus, and it shouldn't typically happen to a breast-fed baby.
Again, nothing here is typical.

The older children who are able to obtain any sort of calories are not getting enough proteins in their diet. They eat primarily just grains. 

Dr Gupta said the plight of these children should be the world's responsibility

Their small bodies look bloated and they often have swelling in their tiny feet. It also has a name: kwashiorkor. I learned much of this in medical school, and even then I prayed to never see it firsthand.

Sadly, I now know the look of eyes that have not seen food for too long.
They can look at nothing else. It is not a hopeful look, but a sad resignation that despite their deep hunger, these morsels of basic food are not meant for them.

If you are a parent or have any compassion whatsoever, seeing those eyes will bring you to your knees.

To simply live in a makeshift tent on a 10-by-10-foot plot of dirt, some of the landowners in Bekaa Valley are charging $100 a month. 

It would almost be laughable except as so often happens -- the children bear the brunt of this hardship. They work in the fields for $2 a day, beg under bridges and turn to prostitution.

Truth is, I feel guilty the moment I arrive, knowing I will leave and wave wildly at the tiny little friends running alongside our car -- as if that will somehow make things any better for them.

These children will fill your daytime thoughts and your dreams at night. Their minds are brimming with dreams unrealized and their hearts are so full of hope.

I often think of my own children and how disappointed they would be that their daddy couldn't do more to help kids like them.
It would be missing the point to say that I see the eyes of my own children, when I look into the children's eyes of Bekaa Valley.
Truth is, these are my children. They are the children of the world.

Many of them will persevere, and may even make it home to a hopefully more stable way of life. But, for the time being -- this is the price they pay as refugees in Lebanon, September 2013.