Nadim Shehadi With Ronnie Chatah in a Recent Episode of The Beirut Banyan Podcast Note: This post was supposed to be a tweet. It’s not meant as an academic critique, just a quick opinion casually stated in writing. Nadim Shehadi brings a very important perspective to the conversation about change in Lebanon. His opinion is particularly valuable because his “defense” of sectarianism, despite being a widely held opinion, puts him in a uniquely unpopular Devil’s Advocate position in western and intellectual circles. That’s why I always enjoy reading him and listening to him when I can ..read more

Hezbollah deserved to get an earful, but the wrong chant was chosen. Yesterday I got into a Twitter back and forth about the Hezbollah is a Terrorist chant that took place at the victims’ family protest next to Adlieh. Joseph’s point was straightforward: “This does not help the course of justice or judge Bitar,” and it got me thinking about whether it was fair to single out Hezbollah in the families’ chants, and whether this will backfire on the perception of impartiality of the process by the many Lebanese who support Hezbollah.. Judge Bitar’s isolation had many cooks, and it was i ..read more

There is only one correct way to vote, and it’s to vote against the entire ruling class It seems the diaspora will be able to vote in the upcoming election, and I’m looking forward to casting my vote. I wish to quickly share with you here my rationale for how I’m planning to vote and I hope you are persuaded to do the same. I don’t know who will be standing for elections in my district. What I do know is that I’m planning to vote for whoever is standing against the politicians who ruined the country all these years. Let me be as clear as possible: Even if the opposing candidate ..read more

Fishy Pyramids Despite our well documented bias for believing that everything great in the world was invented by the Lebanese, you gotta admit that this whole Pyramid discovery business in Lebanon is at least a little fishy. Forget for a moment that is is just one article behind a paywall of a British newspaper. (Where are the archeological journal reports? where are the Egyptologists hyper-ventilating on Twitter over the discovery? Where is the Lebanese Minister of Tourism salivating over the prospect of gaggles of visitors who want to stare adoringly at the supposed inspiration for the ..read more