Lebanon PM: New Government To Liberate Land Under Occupation Of 'Israeli Enemy'

[megimoo]

Lebanon's Prime Minister Najib Mikati announced on Monday a long-delayed new government dominated by allies of Iranian-backed Hezbollah, which is likely to cause alarm among Western powers.

Mikati was appointed to form a government after Hezbollah and its allies toppled Western-backed former premier Saad al-Hariri's coalition in January over a dispute involving the United Nations backed tribunal investigating the assassination of statesman Rafik al-Hariri, Saad's father.

"Let us go to work immediately according to the principles and basis that we have affirmed our commitment to several times, namely ... defending Lebanon's sovereignty and its independence and liberating land that remains under the occupation of the Israeli enemy," Mikati said at the Baabda Presidential Palace.

Political wrangling had held up the formation of the cabinet, including disagreements over sensitive posts.

Mohammed Safadi, the former economy minister, was named finance minister and will try to improve Lebanon's growth outlook which stands at about 2.5 percent this year, driven down by the political stalemate.

Fayez Ghusn was named defense minister and Marwan Charbel as the interior minister. Nicolas Sehnawi was given the telecommunications portfolio, a post ridden with controversy due to disagreements over privatizing the sector.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/internat...enemy-1.367453

[Odysseus]

"Let us go to work immediately according to the principles and basis that we have affirmed our commitment to several times, namely ... defending Lebanon's sovereignty and its independence and liberating land that remains under the occupation of the Israeli enemy," Mikati said at the Baabda Presidential Palace.
http://www.haaretz.com/news/internat...enemy-1.367453

And exactly how much of Lebanon qualifies as "occupied" by the "Israeli enemy" (as opposed to the Syrian enemy?)? A tiny parcel, but is it actually part of Lebanon? Or part of Syria? From Wikipedia:

Shebaa farms


Map of the Shebaa Farms.

Shebaa Farms (Arabic: مزارع شبعا‎, Mazāri‘ Šib‘ā; Hebrew: חוות שבעא‎, Havot Sheba‘a or הר דוב, Har Dov) refers to a small piece of land with disputed sovereignty on the border between Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied portion of the Golan Heights. Currently, both Syria and Lebanon agree that the Shebaa Farms are within Lebanese territory; however, Israel maintains that the area was within Syria's borders and continues to occupy the territory.[1][2] The United Nations agreed with Israel that the area is not covered by United Nations Security Council Resolution 425, which governed the withdrawal from Lebanon, inasmuch as the Farms are not Lebanese territory, and the UN certified Israel's pullout.[3]

Documents from the 1920s and 1930s indicate that some local inhabitants regarded themselves as part of Lebanon, yet after the French Mandate of Lebanon ended in 1946, the land was administered by Syria, and represented as such in all maps of the time.[4] The maps of the 1949 Armistice Agreements between Syria and Israel also designated the area as Syrian, and Maps of both the Syrian and Lebanese armies continued to demarcate the region within Syrian territory.

Syria, since its eviction from Lebanon in 2005 and ending its 30-year long occupation of its small neighbor, has continuously refused to provide the United Nations with the legal documentation officially ceding sovereignty to Lebanon over the Shebaa Farms,[5] despite public statements by Syrian officials. In fact, in 1956, Syrian forces killed two Lebanese gendarmes manning the Shebaa Farms post, an act of war to which Lebanon, under threats and pressure, never objected[6] and the Shebaa Farms became effectively Syrian until Israel seized the territory along with the Golan Heights during the 1967 Six-Day War, and has held it ever since. The UN has proposed that Israel withdraw from the area and that it be considered international territory to be controlled by UNIFIL.[7] In 2007 a UN cartographer came to the conclusion that the Sheeba farms is Lebanese territory.

So, why is Shebaa Farms now considered Lebanese, when every official document for the last half century has had it marked as Syrian? Why, to justify Lebanese participation in anti-Israeli attacks. But, like the Tomb of Rachel, which has been retroactively declared a mosque since her death, about 2,000 years before the birth of Mohammed, this bit of sleight of hand has apparently been approved by the UN, or at least one cartographer, but that's good enough for propaganda purposes.