Political developments in Lebanon are as rugged and disparate as its landscape, Serene Assir writes Asked by an Egyptian with little travel experience what Lebanon was like, a Beiruti university student of business and finance replied: "It's unique. It's the only country in the world where you can ski in the morning and swim in the afternoon." Now, we've all heard that before about this little idyllic Mediterranean paradise perched between power centres Syria and Israel, but as veteran journalist Robert Fisk pointed out, few, if any, Lebanese have actually ever done that before. Stretching the point a little further, it would be by no means unfair to say that, to many Lebanese, Paris, Riyadh or New York are closer to home than the Palestinian refugee camps still scattered across the country. "If my husband knew where I was going, he would kill me," one Sunni mother of three in her late 40s joked as we drove towards Ain Helweh camp in the outskirts of the southern port city of Sidon. True, Lebanon is home to 16 officially recognised religious sects. You would come across a Lebanese who spends his or her morning in the majority-Shia southern suburbs of Beirut, to then go shop in the traditionally Maronite Ashrafiye district and then end up visiting friends in the long time Sunni quarter of Tariq Al-Jdide. Skiing and swimming on the same day seems like a ball in comparison, and we haven't even ventured out of Beirut on our little inter-sectarian escapade. All parties are guilty of purposely ignoring certain truths -- note that "the truth" continues to be the Lebanese catchphrase of the moment, 11 months after the assassination of former prime minister Rafik Al-Hariri. Some months ago, Nawwaf Al-Moussawi, Hizbullah's international relations coordinator, told Al-Ahram Weekly that, as far as he knew, Syria is no longer holding 2,000 Lebanese detainees, while affirming that the Shia militia will continue to push for the release of 2,000 Lebanese prisoners in Israel. And, on the other side of this perpetually seismic political spectrum, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt said just a fortnight ago that Israel no longer represents either a threat or a true enmity as much as Syria does. This week, attention was again turned to the question of the border demarcation at the Israeli- occupied Shebaa Farms, a tiny piece of land which Syria and Hizbullah claim is Lebanese, while the United Nations and Israel claim it is Syrian. The importance of Shebaa is that it constitutes the single would-be Lebanese meeting point between Syria and Israel. Some say that, for Damascus, it therefore encompasses all of the ideal buffer, casus belli with Israel, continued presence in Lebanon and as a mere excuse to keep Hizbullah armed and linked to the struggle to liberate the Golan Heights. Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad, who earlier in the month said he was willing to accept a permanent demarcation of the Syrian-Lebanese border at Shebaa, claims that the only state that an immediate demarcation of the border along UN lines would serve is Israel that intends to weaken Hizbullah. Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Al-Siniora refuted this claim following a meeting in Amman with King Abdullah II. He told reporters that "every piece of Arab land that is liberated from Israeli occupation is an Arab victory and Lebanese victory," and emphasised that the issue constituted a "national operation" -- hinting therefore that Syria simply has nothing to do with it. In another, parallel development, the pressure against Hizbullah is growing, even after the party decided to withdraw its cabinet members until the government chooses to carry out votes on a consensual, rather than a majority basis. More alienated than ever, the party that was once hailed by Lebanese of most backgrounds as being responsible for the liberation of the south from Israel is now being openly described by US special envoy David Welch as a "terrorist" organisation that should not participate in mainstream political life. According to the Lebanese daily An-Nahar, he added that "the days of intervening in Lebanese affairs are gone." Meddling it may not be, but come Friday's announced meeting between US President George W Bush and Saad Al-Hariri -- son of the slain prime minister and head of the largest parliamentary bloc -- may be, for some, too close an interaction for comfort. Internationalising the debate a little further and placing it deeper in the context of the world order as we now know it, Israeli Minister of Defence Shaul Mofaz said on Saturday that Hizbullah receives $100 million in aid from Iran each year -- a very convenient statement, considering the international community's recent escalation of anti-Iran pressure. For Hizbullah Chief Hassan Nasrallah -- who echoed an earlier statement by Al-Assad to the Lawyers Syndicate in Damascus -- the international plot against Lebanon is still alive and well. He warned the anti-Syrian opposition bloc during a graduation speech at a Hizbullah-run educational centre in southern Beirut not to fall prey to international attempts at destabilising and weakening Lebanon. Forty days after the assassination of journalist and MP Gibran Tueni, a conglomerate of anti-Syrian movements known as the March 14 Coalition called for Hizbullah to accept being labelled as a militia rather than as a resistance movement, a call which the Shia group rejected outright. In commemoration of the slain journalist, a demonstration was staged in Beirut on Sunday, preceded by a church service and ending with a sit-in at the Martyrs' Square. The absence of Michel Aoun's Free Patriotic Movement was much felt by supporters of Tueni's politics, particularly after the Maronite leader stated that he was not certain that the Syrians were behind his killing. Aoun fought a "war of liberation" against the Syrians towards the end of Lebanon's civil war, at the end of which he went into exile in France. Notoriously, he was a major player in the US Congress' issuing of its initial condemnation of Syria's presence in Lebanon. Now that he's back in Lebanon, however, and reportedly eyeing the presidency, he seems to have started to take a different, more cynical stance. Because in Lebanon it seems that "the truth" doesn't matter at all -- at least not to the politicos. What matters at a given point in time is the convenience of a particular alliance, of an ephemerally apt position and ideological direction, and the ability to sell it with a rhetoric strong enough to an essentially life-loving population hungry for stability. The illusions multiply, and the political shifts -- forever reflected by Jumblatt's flip-flopping-- grow more and more meaningless. British and French authorities in the post- World War I world must have had an epiphany of madness when mapping out the shape of the Middle East to come -- particularly in terms of the idea of Lebanon. But it's all we have. Fight for it and for each other, before we make the same mistakes our parents made, and prove to the world's cynics that co-existence is but a breath away. New face, old questions: Serge Brammertz SERGE Brammertz's arrival in Beirut last week to take over United Nations probe into the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Al-Hariri was met with much expectation. He takes over from German prosecutor Detlev Mehlis, whose mandate ended a fortnight ago. Mehlis had published an initial report in October 2005 which said that the assassination of Al-Hariri and 22 others on 14 February could not have taken place without the knowledge of the Syrian authorities. He also told pan-Arab newspaper Asharq Al-Awsat shortly before his mandate was due to end that he was certain that the Syrian authorities were responsible for the killing, without specifying how. Under Mehlis, the UN team requested to interview Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad. The request is still pending under the mandate of the new prosecutor. The team is also looking to interview Asef Shawkat, Al-Assad's brother-in-law. Upon arrival, Brammertz told reporters that his main role would be to continue to provide the Lebanese authorities with assistance into their investigations. According to Al-Jazeera, he said he is "aware of the expectations" of the Lebanese and of the international community. Aged 43, he has previously acted as federal prosecutor for his native country Belgium and as deputy prosecutor for the International Criminal Court. He has published widely on global terrorism and organised crime. He also assisted the Council of Europe in setting up mechanisms to fight organised crime according to international guidelines and standards.
