Political interactions vs. bombs in Lebanon

I think there was another bomb in (predominantly Christian) East Beirut today, though thank G-d it didn’t kill anyone. I’m sure it must be very disquieting to live there these days. Exactly 30 years ago, I was a young journo working in Beirut, and I remember Lebanon going through an eerily similar period of great unrest… In February, 1975, the eminent Sidon-based Sunni Muslim politician Maarouf Saad had been assassinated while leading a march in his hometown… There were isolated clashes, unexplained happenings, rumors of war…
Then on April 13, 1975, occurred the ambush (of a Palestinian bus, by followers of the Maronitist pol Camille Chamoun) that killed 27 people and ignited the entire, extremely lethal, 14-year civil war that followed.
This time round, most Lebanese seem keenly aware of the danger of going down that escalatory path again. There is one larger and one smaller piece of good news from Beirut today.
The smaller one is that Bahia Hariri, the parliamentarian and sister of the late, lamented Rafiq, announced that the Beirut Marathon Association will be holding hold a 5-kilometer “Unity Run” to mark the occasion of the start of the civil war.
I think it is excellent that that anniversary should be remembered and publicly marked, and marked in that “forward-looking” way, as well as other ways.
The larger piece of good news is that the Lebanese Druze (and political “opposition”) leader Walid Jumblatt late on Sunday night went to call on Hizbullah sec-general Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, in the latter’s heavily guarded HQ in the south-Beirut suburbs.
This is the first time the two have met since Hariri’s assassination. The Daily Star’s Leila Hatoum wrote:

Lebanese opposition leader Walid Jumblatt insisted any UN-led international probe into the assassination of former Premier Rafik Hariri should not involve the deployment of foreign troops in Lebanon. Speaking after an unexpected late-night meeting with Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, Jumblatt also insisted any international probe would be restricted to Hariri’s death and would not involve the issue of the resistance group’s arms.
He said: “We will not accept that any international investigation will be allowed to expand outside the framework of Hariri’s assassination.”
… Jumblatt also reiterated that he would not call for the resistance group [i.e. Hizbullah] to be disarmed.
He said: “The arms issue is not proposed. It is not open to discussion at this stage,” adding: “When our ambitions are met, in agreement with the resistance, over Shebaa Farms, then we will talk about arms.”

In other words, he’s backing Hizbullah on the rationale it gives for keeping its militia in operation.
Hatoum noted, too, that Jumblatt’s comments on the proposed international investigation,

follow those of Lebanese President Emile Lahoud, who insisted he would welcome an international probe into Hariri’s assassination.
In a statement from the Presidential Palace in Baabda, Lahoud stressed his commitment “to do whatever it takes to reveal the circumstances surrounding Hariri’s murder, in cooperation with the United Nations by whatever method it adopts.”
… Lahoud pledged full cooperation with the UN after meeting with Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butros Sfeir.

Sfeir, by the way is another Middle Eastern religious leader who, along with Iraq’s Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, should certainly be considered for the Nobel Peace Prize, for his tireless and thus far successful efforts at keeping his co-religionists and the rest of his countrymen back from the brink of civil war.
Anyway, back to the Sayed Nasrallah-Jumblatt meeting. Hatoum has this intriguing additional little tidbit of information:

The surprise meeting took place in the Hizbullah stronghold of southern Beirut. Jumblatt said: “Nasrallah has offered to visit me in my house in Clemenceau in Beirut, but I refused. At this time of security chaos, the safety of the Sayyed is the safety of the nation. We don’t want to suffer a second loss after Hariri’s death.”

There’s some wonderfully delicate diplomacy at play there. In Lebanon, as in most cultures around the world, it is often an issue of significance “who has to go out of his way to visit whom.” (Leaders from around the world flock to Crawford, Texas to pay their homage…) Someone like Walid Jumblatt, who is the paramount chieftain of the entire world Druze community and a political successor to the Druze lords who ruled over Lebanon’s inter-sectarian system for three centuries, 1516-1832, would normally perhaps not have to go to pay a visit to the “home” of a poor village boy from an insignificant village in South Lebanon, which is what Nasrallah’s family lineage is.
But in terms of that decidedly modern phenomenon, political parties, Nasrallah’s wins hands down over Jumblatt’s rather sad “Progressive Socialist Party”. In fact, Hizbullah is described by many Lebanese analysts as the only– as well as by far the largest– truly “political” and clearly ideological (rather than quasi-feudal) party on the scene in Lebanon today.
(The Falangists once laid claim to that honor. But first, the party came close to becoming a familial fiefdom for the Gemayyel family; and then, under Karim Pakradouni, it sold its soul to the Syrians. Sic tempora, sic mores.)
So with Walid going to visit Sayed Hassan today, a number of things were happening. He certainly was paying a great deal of respect, if not exactly “homage”, to his host. (Though we can’t rule out the claimed “security” rationale, either. After all, Sayed Hassan has been on the Israelis’ hit list ever since he became party head in 1992; and Jumblatt’s place in Clemenceau is certainly far less secure for him than the Hizbullah-secured areas of the Dahiyeh.) But Jumblatt also noted that Sayed Hassan had “expressed his readiness” to make the trek up to Clemenceau instead. So everyone’s face got saved, and everyone ended up looking extremely gracious.
Those kinds of diplomatic skills– as shown by these two Lebanese patriots as well as by the “other Nasrallah”, i.e. the Maronite Patriarch– are exactly what Lebanon needs if it is to be steered safely through the shoals that currently beset it…
Meanwhile, a few final thoughts from me on the April 13 “Unity Run”:
(1) Yes, I’d love to go and run in it!
(2) I think the Daily Star’s reporter and editors might be wiser not to call it a “fun” run? Somehow, while the idea of the run is good, I don’t think “fun” strikes quite the right note for the war-remembrance occasion…
(3) Wouldn’t it be interesting if Hizbullah turn their people out in huge numbers to run it? (And that could be their women, as well as their men… Beirut’s observant-Muslim runners have already started displaying a very suitable and modest line of “Islamic women’s running gear”, as I blogged about when I was there last fall.)