Monday, August 01, 2005

SYRIAN PRESS VILIFIES LEBANON'S LEADERS

The famously free Syrian press is continuing its campaign of slander against Lebanon and its leaders. Here is the latest as published by the Syrian weekly Al Iktissadiya:

-A baby Saad Hariri crying because his father was killed by the Syrians
-A Jumblat with many masks hanging out of his pockets telling a baby Sa'ad Hariri "the Syrians killed your father."
-A Sharon embracing Jumblat telling him "Syria killed Hariri"



This one depicts Lebanese Prime Minister Sanioura receiving commands by phone from the United States and Saudi Arabia. His assistant is also telling him of commands from the late Rafic Hariri's wife and sister.

13 comments:

Raja said...

Really nice post, Firas. Thanks for the nuanced translation/explanation.

Anonymous said...

I think its pure jealousy. Here is Lebanon, the smallest country, with the weakest army that has the most freedom and democracy in the Arab world and is moving toward a fully independent future.

If I was Syrian I would be furious with jealousy and blame it all on the West favoring Lebanon over Syria. When really we Lebanese are always scolded for our mistakes but are never credited with our successes!

Anonymous said...

da first is kinda funny!

Anonymous said...

Guys to be fair.. these cartoons were piblished before the visit of PM Sanyrao..
RIP Martyr Hariri and may god be with you Shaikh Saad

Anonymous said...

I think all this shows that Syria has major internal problems and are trying hard to deflect the focus and show they are still in control.
Time will tell.

JoseyWales said...

The humor is lame if you can call it that.

This stupidity is yet another manifestation of what is well know:

1) Syria thinks it is entitled to Lebanon and to running it.

2) Syria can't utter a serious, or "funny", or even irrelevant statement without it involving Israel. It's pathetic, like the time "one-semester-western-educated" Bashar thought he would endear himself to the Pope by saying the jews had "betrayed " Christ.

These people are totally out of touch, and infantile, but carry tremendous and murderous power. Very scary.

Anonymous said...

anon 7:42 wrote: da first is kinda funny!

da!!! no Blinglish please ! :)

Anonymous said...

Lebanon is Syria's nightmare.
Lebanon has to live with a neighbour
gone amok.We the Lebanese have to
understand we cannot cuddle a pitbull.

Anonymous said...

Haha, oh so true! RIP Martyr Shahid Sayid Doctor God Rafic Al-Hariri, we love you man. You were a man of the people, living like one of us, you felt our pain, and now we feel yours. p.s. you owe us $35 billion.

Yaman said...

This is absolutely disgusting.

But, ah, the irony! Boohoo, the foreigners are meddling in Lebanese affairs! Wait--wasn't that us a few months ago?

Who's the crybaby, really?

Anonymous said...

Just for the record.. the whole consttruction process inclusive the following:
building new:
Schools
hosiptals
Airport
highways
Public buidlings
roads
Stadiums.
etc. etc..

costed less than 5 Billion... so please do not say that the reconstruction costed lebanon this much..
Just some points for you all to ponder about..

Army costs 2 B per year.
Electricyt Loss of 0.75 B per year.

if you just add thes above figure and multiply for the past ten years you will know how much they have affected tge public debt.

Anonymous said...

Yes but was Hariri and Siniora responsible? True he was prime minister but most of the policies were not decided by him.

Was it Hariri who put Hobeika at the ministry of energy? Was it Hariri behind the al-madina scandal? Do you think that Amal, PSP and Lahoud were not part of the governement?

Hariri is partially responsible for the debt but blaming the whole thing on him is unfair.

Hassan said...

Thanx for the pictures Firas, but I think you got an inverted sequence of dialogue baloons in the first.