Might as well wish you all a happy new year because it took me ages to come up with a new post. Anyway, will soon publish extracts from an interview with the Indian Dustin Hofman, none other than Naseeruddin Shah, whom I shall be talking to next week when he's in Holland.

Dearest all, Happy Eid 2007

Our Father in Syriac Aramaic

Switch off the imeem music first before viewing this very short YouTube video:

Fasten your seatbelts. This is Lebanon we are talking about

Yes, back to my hobby horse Lebanon. Probably due to the fact that I just returned from what is probably one of the most fabulous countries in the world. What a pity the country is again being torn apart by some warlords from the past. In the old days the divide supposedly set on religious lines, Christians versus Muslims. Now, it is Pro-Syrian versus Anti Syrian. Or Sunni versus Shia. Perhaps a more appropriate label would be the haves and the have-nots. The hour of truth is approaching fast as the presidential elections are now postponed until 23 October. So sit tight and fasten them seatbelts.

Big Sister Gabriel is watching you

What do the following persons have in common:

1. Salma Hayek
2. Shakira
3. Mika
4. Tony Shalhoub
5. Brigitte Gabriel

There all have Lebanese blood, although there seems to be some doubt about the last name who said things like:

'The difference, my friends, between Israel and the Arab world is the difference between civilization and barbarism. It's the difference between good and evil [applause].... this is what we're witnessing in the Arabic world, They have no SOUL !, they are dead set on killing and destruction. And in the name of something they call 'Allah' which is very different from the God we believe....[applause] because our God is the God of love.'

Meet Brigitte Gabriel! No relation to Condoleeza Rice unless the latter decends from the Phoenicians, which is what Gabriel, being a good Maronite, claims about herself. Gabriel made the above statement at a conference of Christians United For Israel this year.

So who is she? She was born in 1965 in Lebanon in a Maronite Christian family. In interviews I read she conveniently omits the fact that her traumatised childhood in Lebanon must be seen within the context of civil war in which all sides committed unspeakable atrocities, from Muslims (Damour) to Maronites (Sabra and Shatila). But hey, that wy resort to such trivial details.

From Wikipedia:

Gabriel has said that during the Lebanese Civil WarMuslim militants launched an assault on a Lebanese military base near Gabriel's house and bombed her home, collapsing it. Just ten years old at the time, Brigitte was severely injured and spent 2 1/2 months in a hospital recovering.

Gabriel says that she and her parents were forced to live in a 8x10 bomb shelter underground for several years with no heat, running water and little food. To get water she had to crawl underground to a spring in a ditch. Before they left they said prayers, because they did not know if they would come back alive.

Later, in 1978, a man warned Brigitte’s family of an impending attack on Christians by Islamic militias. She claims her life was saved that night when Israelis invaded Lebanon in Operation Litani. Later, her mother became ill and was taken to an Israeli hospital where Brigitte noted the humanity of the Israelis in contrast to the propaganda she had viewed as a child.

Brigitte Gabriel was a news anchor for "World News," an evening news program on the South Lebanon Army-affliated Middle East Television.

For those of you not in the know, the South Lebanon Army was the army consisting of Lebanese doing Israel's bidding during the time Israel occupied the South of Lebanon. After the Israelis had left, there was no room for these Lebanese who were seen as traitors because they had collaborated with the enemy (Israel).

Gabriel immigrated to the United States in 1985. Gabriel founded the ACT, "American Congress For Truth," in late 2001. She has appeared on news and information TV shows, talk radio and made numerous public speaking engagements. She speaks four languages: Arabic, French, English and Hebrew.

At SourceWatch Mrs Gabriel is described as a ´crass propagandist: her specialty is denigrating and smearing Muslims and Islam. In this capacity her talks are sponsored by zionist groups in the United States. She is a featured speaker of the Hasbara Fellowship Speakers Bureau, which happens to be a hardline zionist propaganda organization.´

Be that as it may, it is remarks like the ones below that are quite worrisome at best. The following is a transcript of a statement she made at the CUFI conference:

'Another thing you can do is monitor universities. Monitor what the professor is saying about the Middle East policy and our foreign policy. The students cannot challenge their professors because they get bad grades. But you can. It's your job and your civic duty to do so. Another thing you can do — another thing you can do-- if you know there is a suspicious mosque in your community or suspicious Islamic organization, find out who owns the deed to that mosque. Is it some Saudi sheiks or Islamic sheiks outside of America? Write their names down. Come home. Call your local FBI office. Turn the names to them. This is how they can start monitoring them. Israel's enemies are our enemies.'