Ihsan Alkhatib

Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard is serving a lifetime sentence in jail for spying for Israel. Israel has tried to secure his release to no avail. Israel tried to tie the peace process to his release but Clinton refused due to the admant opposition of the intelligence community. This opposition was communicated forcefully to Clinton by ex- CIA Director George Tenet as told by Tenet's book in In The Eye of the Storm. Pollard calls himself a lone soldier. He is not. Debbie Schlussle is a soldier in his army. Any chance she gets she raises his issue. Poor Pollard, he "rots in jail" because he spied for "an ally." A spy is a spy is a spy- he betrayed the US and then called himself a lone soldier in enemy territory. It is common to have certain women fall in love with convicted killers. Schlussel is a spy apologist/lover who is obsessed with this convicted spy and any opportunity to defend him from rotting in jail. There is a website for the defenders of Pollard. http:...

Dr. Nawal Saadawi is a controversial figure. Long time before Oprah spoke about her sexual abuse- Dr Saadawi broke all kinds of taboos when she wrote about being sexually abused by a relative- I think it was her grandfather if I recall right. In the 1980s, during one of Lebanon’s civil war episodes of insanity, we had to seek refuge in Sidon. Our neighbor was a fan of Dr. Saadawi. She spoke highly of her and her writings. She lent me her copy of the book, Woman and Sex. I was fascinated by Dr. Saadawi’s writing on this taboo subject. Today her writings, given what most people around the globe see on TV and on the web, seem very tame. Alquds Al Arabi of London writes that someone sued Dr. Saadawi for insulting God and asking to have her denaturalized and denied the right to travel. It’s amazing that a lawyer would do that to this doctor. http://www.alquds.co.uk/index.asp?fname=today\13z34.htm&storytitle=ffمحكمة%20ترفض%20اسقاط%20%20الجنسية%20المصرية%20عن%20نوال%20السعداويfff&sto...

Ex Prime Minister Salim El Hoss is a gentleman. I met him one time along with a schoolteacher friend who was appealing to him her tenure case. He was Minister of Education at the time. What I recall about him is that he is a good listener, and a polite man. He listened to her patiently and promised to see what he can do about it. However, as a politician representing the Sunnis in the government, many see him as a disappointment. In the last election he was unable to win a seat for himself or for any other member of his electoral list. The reasons are many. One of them is his gentle demeanor, perceived in the jungle of Lebanese politics as passivity. When the Amal Movement militia in the 1980s was attacking the Beirutis, a group of Beirutis went to meet him to complain and ask for guidance. His response was the Shia and Sunnis are brothers. Let us be the brother that is being killed and not the brother doing the killing. This story was relayed to me by a number of people including the ...

While the flags hoisted on the attacked, looted and closed Future TV are the flags of the quasi- fascist Syrian Social National Party, those who shut down Future TV are the Hizbullah as the quote below from a Lebanese reporter shows: “On Friday morning, Future TV , a pro-government private channel owned by family of Sunni leader Saad Hariri family, was prevented from broadcasting by Hezbollah, the Shiite militia. After warning the employees to evacuate in a well-calculated operation, men entered the station and cut key cables to prevent the channel from broadcasting.” The pro- Hizbullah editor of Al Safeer, Talal Salman, wrote against this closure: "We must raise our voices to protest and condemn the unjustified and unacceptable attacks on some of the media and cultural institutions in Beirut and specifically our colleague the Future newspaper and Future television," the editor in chief of Assafir newspaper, Talal Salman, wrote in a fiery editorial. http://latimesblogs.latim...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlnNND5sGHg

Today the French agency AFP had a story on Einstein. “Belief in God 'childish,' Jews not chosen people: Einstein letter” http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=080513122249.m3ds3b6j&show_article=1 The story reads: “Albert Einstein described belief in God as "childish superstition" and said Jews were not the chosen people, in a letter to be sold in London this week.” “In it, the renowned scientist, who declined an invitation to become Israel's second president, rejected the idea that the Jews are God's chosen people.” "For me the Jewish religion like all others is an incarnation of the most childish superstitions," he said. "And the Jewish people to whom I gladly belong and with whose mentality I have a deep affinity have no different quality for me than all other people." And he added: "As far as my experience goes, they are no better than other human groups, although they are protected from the worst cancers by a lack of power. O...

Mount Lebanon in historically the home of the Druze and the Maronites of Lebanon. The Druze, while few in numbers, have been able to leave their marks on the histroy of Lebanon. Though armed only with personal weapons they valiantly defended their homes, honor and dignity from the invading militias. Today the Druze of the Mountain are awaking from the shock of Lebanese heavy weaponry used on them by fellow Lebanese- as the Lebanese al Akhbar reported. Shaykh Naim Hassan, the spiritual leader of the Druze community of Lebanon said a few words words that capture the feelings of all the Lebanese that were attacked by the Hizbullah militia and its lesser allies. "We are a people of peace not surrender, our sect does not bow except for God." شيخ عقل الطائفة الدرزية: نحن دعاة سلم لا استسلام ولم تتعود طائفتنا على الخشوع إلا لله تعالى