Pierre Gemayel was shot dead today in Lebanon. I am not shedding a lot of tears for the loss of Pierre who was also the Industry Minister of Lebanon because Gemayels have not been the victims all the time. Most of the times, they have been the ones delivering atrocities on the people in Lebanon. My concern is about what it would mean to the common man on the street in Beirut...all of us saw what Lebanese people had to go through after Hezbollah abducted Israeli soldiers. Most think it has been done by Hezbollah at the behest of Iran and Syria. Young democracy in Lebanon faces yet another challenge. Till now, it was a fight between Shia Hezbollah with Sunni parties led by Saad Hariri within Lebanon and Jews outside Lebanon. Now, Maronite Catholics also have a reason to become part of a very very messy situation.
Lets look at Gemayels first. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and got Bashir Gemayel to become the president of Lebanon. He was going to be the person who would deliver Lebanon to Israel and solve the PLO problem. PLO after being expelled from Amman was now in West Beirut, primarily the refugee camps of Sabra & Shatila. Bashir was killed by a pro Syrian operative and that resulted in the massive massacre at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. Close to 1000 Palestinians were massacred in one day. Ariel Sharon is widely credited for those massacres but they were actually carried out by the Phalangists militia controlled by the Gemayels. Ariel Sharon just made sure that no one escaped the retribution at the hand of the Gemayels for the killing of Bashir!!! Amin Gemayel succeeded Bashir and continued the divisive Lebanese politics during the civil war. Whoever has killed Pierre has made the resumption of civil war a real possibility....and that is bad news.
The worst part about this whole deal is that Syria and Iran are now doing live experiments to check how far they can go. Their first experiment was getting Hezbollah to go into Israel and kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers. This one is the next experiment. I am sure that neither the US nor any other western power can do anything about this situation and this would mean that everyone would look up to the Syrians & the Iranians....something very similar to the Iraq situation. Isn't it awesome that Mr. Bush in one fine stroke delivered Iraq, Lebanon into the lap of Iran???
Lets look at Gemayels first. In 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon and got Bashir Gemayel to become the president of Lebanon. He was going to be the person who would deliver Lebanon to Israel and solve the PLO problem. PLO after being expelled from Amman was now in West Beirut, primarily the refugee camps of Sabra & Shatila. Bashir was killed by a pro Syrian operative and that resulted in the massive massacre at the Sabra and Shatila Palestinian refugee camps. Close to 1000 Palestinians were massacred in one day. Ariel Sharon is widely credited for those massacres but they were actually carried out by the Phalangists militia controlled by the Gemayels. Ariel Sharon just made sure that no one escaped the retribution at the hand of the Gemayels for the killing of Bashir!!! Amin Gemayel succeeded Bashir and continued the divisive Lebanese politics during the civil war. Whoever has killed Pierre has made the resumption of civil war a real possibility....and that is bad news.
The worst part about this whole deal is that Syria and Iran are now doing live experiments to check how far they can go. Their first experiment was getting Hezbollah to go into Israel and kill and kidnap Israeli soldiers. This one is the next experiment. I am sure that neither the US nor any other western power can do anything about this situation and this would mean that everyone would look up to the Syrians & the Iranians....something very similar to the Iraq situation. Isn't it awesome that Mr. Bush in one fine stroke delivered Iraq, Lebanon into the lap of Iran???
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