Blair's Flair on Middle East Affairs

Tony Blair faced down opposition from the Cabinet and his own advisers in refusing to weaken his position on the Israeli bombing of Lebanon in the summer last year.

His stance, which aides admitted looked callous as he declined to call for an immediate ceasefire, was the last straw for many Labour MPs and left him open to the attempted coup against him only weeks later, according to Blair Unbound. That in turn finally led him to announce that he would leave office this year.

The book reveals an extraordinary conversation between Mr Blair and Margaret Beckett after he made her Foreign Secretary in his final reshuffle last year. He told her that her predecessors, Robin Cook and Jack Straw, had quickly lost the confidence of the Israelis and had never won it back. “If we are to have any real influence it is fundamental that you acquire their confidence and retain it,” he told her.

That's your Quartet Representative! He is supposed to "bring continuity and intensity of focus to the work of the Quartet in support of the Palestinians, within the broader framework of the Quartet's efforts to promote an end to the conflict in conformity with the roadmap."

So Blair's staunch pro-Israeli stance during the Lebanon war led to his departure from office... And his promotion by the Quartet for his pro-Palestinian credentials.

March 8 and March 14

The dates of "March 8" and "March 14" have for many people on the Left in Lebanon become synonymous with one or the other of the dominant political alliances in the country: "March 14" since the 2005 demonstration which was then the largest in Lebanon's history. "March 8" since the 2005 demonstration of the week before, which had broken the record then.

Many may not be aware that the Ba`th party came to power in Syria on March 8, 1963; that gave Hasan Nasrallah's call of support to "Asad's Syria" on March 8, 2005 a special significance.

Others may have forgotten that March 8 was set as International Women's Day in 1913, following Clara Zetkin's proposal at the 1910 Second International Conference of Working Women.

And that it was on this same day in 1917 that the February revolution started in Russia.

What about March 14? Karl Marx died on March 14, 1883. On March 14, 1879, Albert Einstein was born.

This should give some ideas for progressives in Lebanon to remember these dates and commemorate them a bit differently than others in the country.

Truth and justice

The petition is our main instrument

This petition is part of a big campaign launched in Lebanon on the 14th of April, 2007, called “The people’s tribunal.”

The people’s tribunal has three main goals:

* We want to expose the truth and find those responsible for war crimes committed during the Lebanese civil war.
* We want the government to pay reparations for the victims and to declare the destiny of the missing so that their families can inherit property.
* We believe that only through finding the truth can we find true reconciliation so that sectarian war is not repeated.

The people’s tribunal came as a natural response to what we considered as ignorance on the part of the judiciary in dealing with lawsuits against war criminals.

Am amnesty for all crimes committed during the war was agreed as part of the Taif Agreement that put an end to hostilities in 1990. It has been criticized by most human rights organizations as it covers up war crimes and crimes against humanity - such as the massacres and killings based on identity cards - perpetrated by the Lebanese warlords who are currently part of the government, and some in the opposition.

The people’s tribunal is the result of many years of struggles against the Lebanese ruling class who want to undermine our collective memory and to dissimulate the truth about the crimes they committed during the civil war.

It is a new experience for Lebanese civil society. We are learning from similar experiences applied in different regions of the world such as Argentina and South Africa.

We started collecting experiences and testimonies of witnesses and victims. These testimonies will be reviewed by legal specialists to determine the juridical responsibilities of the cases.

Our goal is to push the authorities to cancel the general and the private amnesty laws in order to make the accountability process possible, to determine responsibilities, to declare publicly the destiny of the kidnapped, and to give reparations to the victims or their families.

We are saying that from now on, our security and our lives are not to be toyed with. We are here to know what really happened and it is our right to know.

For several years the response of the government to the demands of the families’ committee was to say that “all the disappeared were killed so there’s no need to search for them.” The families were accused of “exhuming the memory of the war that the Lebanese want to forget” and of awakening the “sensibilities of the war.”

We the undersigned call for rescinding all general amnesty laws that have passed in Lebanon since the Taef agreement, for the accountability and trial of war criminals, and uncovering all the truths and facts surrounding our present in order to preserve our collective memory.

No reconciliation without accountability, Fairness for the victims of war.