In a short note of June 10, Angry Arab response to a note by Thomas Friedman in The New York Times. As is typically the kind of approximate analysis also found in French newspapers, I think a translation of this short note will be of interest.
Is there anything more annoying than a Western correspondent parachuted into a foreign country that offer - just hours after his arrival - wise advice and analysis on this country? And who can compete with Thomas Friedman superficiality in this area? Really.
He said: "Firstly, a solid majority of Lebanese Christians voted against List of Michel Aoun, who wanted to bring their community on the Shiite party Hezbollah, Iran and tacitly, because it was considered best able to protect the interests of Christians - not the West . "Of course, he is mistaken in its reference to Christian voters. In fact, Aoun is not only the person with the largest Christian bloc in parliament (in fact, its power has grown since 2005), but overall, he received some 50% of the vote against 49% of votes if one measures only the Christian vote nationally. And the main areas where Aoun has lost (as Zahle), this was due to Sunni votes. (That said, I am opposed to the small electoral division and I think that Lebanon should be a single electoral unit and proportional representation should be adopted: it would strengthen the secular forces at the national level, who are now disadvantaged marginalized).
He then said: "Secondly, a large majority of all Lebanese - Muslims, Christians and Druze - have voted for the March 14 coalition led by Saad Hariri, son of assassinated Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri . 'Eh Well, sorry to disappoint you, but if you measure popular vote in the election he was in favor of the opposition: "losers" have collected 54.8% of the total votes (839,371 votes ) and the "winners" are 45.2% of the vote (692,285 votes) . "
He then added:" The ballots were the only weapons the coalition was March 14 against alliance Iran-Syria-Hezbollah ... "Well, yes: the ballots and: 1) the money from Saudi Arabia and the West, 2) mobilization and sectarian unrest that acute Zarqawi would have been proud; 3) Hariri's money, 4) the intervention of the President of Lebanon against Aoun, and 5) the intervention of the Maronite Church for March 14, among other factors. Oh, yes.
He then said: "I looked Levot in a school in the mountain village of Brummana. People came by car, wheelchair, walking - young, old and sick. "Do not get me wrong: Thomas Friedman can not write that recycled cliches, but is it possible to find a more well-worn cliche on the election than this one? I mean, you can search for this phrase on Google and you will find descriptions of all elections around the world, and I doubt that he really saw what he said he saw when he was breaking everything for two minutes.
He then said: "It struck me how the leader of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, are proved conciliatory concession speech." I bet he does not judge from the Listening direct speech (in Arabic), but just by looking, because MEMRI has not yet provided an extract of the speech with subtitles.
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