Breaking with the “National Consensus” – Towards Lebanese-Palestinian Reconciliation

As-Safir

Translation: "I will have no part of the settlement consensus"—it is a fraud manufactured after Taif for scapegoating. Even granting citizenship to all Palestinians would barely change the confessional balance.

Saudi expansion: The Lebanese Connection (1924-1952)

Hussein 'Uwayni—the first "Saudi national" to govern Lebanon, four decades before Hariri—and through him the Kingdom penetrated Lebanese politics: wealth buys honor, and the regional broker makes prime ministers.

نستطيع الانتظار!

We Can Wait!

As-Safir

March 14 bet on Wolfowitz and he fell; March 8 tried the street and found sectarian barricades—now everyone waits for a regional war to settle the "presidential obligation."

خروج على »الاجماع الوطني«!

Breaking with the "National Consensus"!

As-Safir

A Saudi proxy buys a million square meters of mountain land; a Palestinian cannot own a single apartment—"rejecting resettlement" is expulsion by another name.

نحو تسوية تاريخية لبنانية-سورية: من يجروء؟

Toward a Historic Lebanese-Syrian Settlement: Who Dares?

As-Safir

After the failure of the Arab League initiative and the deterioration of relations, the text calls for a bold Lebanese-Syrian historical settlement addressing the unresolved structural issues, from border control to the arms of the resistance.

The Political Economy of Militia Control – Brown University

Wars have no sense but functions—Lebanese militias achieved the "supreme capitalist phantasm": profit without capital investment, through ten illegal ports and a mafia predation economy.

الم نتعلّم؟

Have We Not Learned?

As-Safir

Lebanon's cycle of political violence, from student clashes to civil wars, repeats as elites deny their responsibility and attribute it to foreign conspiracies, making learning from history impossible.

The Woes of Confessionalism

As-Safir

Translation of two columns from as-Safir: Yousif Bey Karam said it in 1867—sectarian division invites external domination. The question: "Do we change the system or the people?"

الاستقلالان: اسئلة التاريخ ودروسه

The Two Independences: Questions of History and Its Lessons

As-Safir

Independence cannot be separated from the sectarian system, which is the primary generator of foreign dependency, rendering true sovereignty in Lebanon a mere illusion.

… و لماذا لا نبدأ بالاقتصاد؟

... And Why Don't We Start with the Economy?

As-Safir

Banks healthy, people hungry — if people's interests don't deserve the street but the "blocking third" does, that is a worse paralysis than any third.

شارع الذين لا شارع لهم!

The Street of Those Who Have No Street!

As-Safir

Between March 8 and 14's streets — is there room for the street of those who have no street? Enough fighting — and enough prelude to fighting.

العراق: حرب أعْلام أم حربٌ أهلية؟

Iraq: A War of Flags or a Civil War?

As-Safir

Iraq's war of flags is merely a symptom of a complex civil war, demanding a political Iraqi solution that ends violence and establishes a federalism transcending sectarianism.

المسكوت عنه في قانون الإنتخاب

The Unspoken in the Electoral Law

As-Safir

Three-quarters of Lebanese live in cities but vote in villages — what housing and work unite, the electoral system divides. Grandparents control grandchildren.

الازمة بين السياسة والاقتصاد

The Crisis Between Politics and Economics

As-Safir

Banks grow at 8%, the economy at zero — $516 million in profits including two months of war. If pre-war Lebanon was golden, why did the war erupt?

Lebanon on the Brink

As-Safir

Translation from as-Safir after Gemayel's assassination: sectarian division invites external domination since 1867—and when the Lebanese unite, they do so despite the confessional system and against it.

Senile Orientalism

Allah will know his own: Lewis attributed a Catholic Crusader phrase to Islam—and his real argument is that Iran has no right to what Israel already possesses in nuclear warheads.

Calling Things by Their Name

The Hezbollah-FPM alliance is rooted in shared marginalization, and the confessional system is a "regime of obstruction" forcing people to squeeze rights through pinholes—"Do we change the system or the people?"

كي يتحول الكيان الى وطن

For the Entity to Become a Homeland

The entity created in 1920 has never become a homeland — the individual never became a citizen. Every solution carries the seeds of a new crisis, and every disagreement invites foreign intervention.

Lebanese Wars: Memory and Forgetfulness

Forgetting is "the life force of memory"—and what Lebanon practiced is programmed amnesia. What is needed is remembering causes—and we need daydreams (hope) as much as memory.

Trauma and Memory

Three processes: amnesia, memory, forgetting. Lebanon practiced programmed amnesia—what is needed is remembering causes, not violence. "We can only forget what we remember."

The New Iraqi Flag: an exercise in identity manipulation

The new Iraqi flag (2004) was identity manipulation under occupation: erasing Arabism and Islam—and successive Iraqi flags record the country's gradual drift from secularism toward religion.

Les guerres libanaises : sur la nécessité de se souvenir et le besoin d’oubli

Lebanese Wars: On the Necessity of Remembering and the Need to Forget

Forgetting is "the living force of memory"—but what Lebanon practiced is programmed amnesia that erases responsibilities and blames the Palestinians. What is needed is remembering the causes, not the horrors.

How to prevent civil war: Remember the last one

The Daily Star

An interview: the simple reason to remember the war is to avoid another—and "constructed amnesia" protects warlords-turned-rulers. The young generation carries a "big black hole."

The Lebanese System Revisited

The Lebanese system was "globalized before globalization"—it was not coexistence that produced prosperity but economic expansion, and when it was unevenly distributed, war followed. The alternative: "Security by providing bread for everybody."