While the media reports on the festive atmostphere in downtown Beirut—Chris Allbritton said yesterday on CNN that it was “like Woodstock without the sex and drugs” and the New York Times report on Saturday was almost giddy—proving once again that the American media are complete suckers for Nasrallah’s PRopaganda (TM) stunts (for which he has media strategists, as I noted here)—Lebanese bloggers and knowledgeable analysts are reporting the massive demonstrations in Beirut as a clear coup attempt by Hezbollah. Nasrallah and his merry band of thugs masquerading as social workers are trying to overthrow the democraticallly elected government of Lebanon.

In a clever ruse, Hezbollah banned its own signature yellow flags from the demonstration, in favor of the Lebanese flag. One commenter at From Beirut to the Beltway is impressed (not):

How impressive the rally looked, I can’t forget those unforgettable scenes of cedar white red and green flags waving cheerfully. What a show !!
I have some improvement ideas for the organizers for it to look even better on TV screens; for example … if you chose this typical Christian icon, the cedar ( Christmas .. ), why not highlight the topic and dress all of the participants in Santa Clause red and white costumes; What an impact it would have; how amazing it would look on TV screens… You can add even a fake snow flakes machine to make it even more breath taking.
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Posted by: Amir from Tel Aviv | Sunday, December 03, 2006 at 06:31 PM

But by far the best play-by-play color commentary was posted by “Fubar” at the same blog:

With the Nasrallah/Berri/Aoun (NBA) protest/demonstration/sedition in Day Three the score is still 0 - 0. That’s right, folks, even though NBA started on offense and has managed to maintain the ball so far, NBA has surprisingly still scored no points. After taking to the field in a brand new game uniform which looks strikingly like the home team’s uniform, NBA has proven that a new look alone is not enough. NBA’s failure to score is partially due to the fact that NBA has committed a number of unforced errors like effectively gridlocking the downtown business district, turning Beirut into a cesspool for thugs, and failure to stress the important psychological necessity of the new team colors to all team members. It seems that NBA’s last minute change in color scheme, while brilliant in theory, has not proven as overwhelmingly effective in execution as hoped.

Meanwhile, the opposing side, Siniora/Jumblatt/Hariri/Geagea (SJHG), seemingly forever playing defense, has shown the ability to check NBA’s offense by running a new and improved version of the Saudi defense play. In a new twist on an old play, SJHG has taken advantage of the new Saudi aggressiveness when dealing with Syrian/Iranian offensive plays. Clearly, the Saudi’s have given up all hope of luring former team member Syria back on to the team, finally seeing through Syria’s false claim of free agency and coming to grips with the fact that Syria has in fact signed a not so secret, non-negotiable, binding till death do we part deal with arch-rival Iran. As we all know, defense is much harder to play than offense, so we can only hope that SJHG can get control of the ball sometime soon so as to have the opportunity to score some points in this ultimate showdown. However, while waiting for a turnover, a good defense is SJHG’s only option.

The biggest disappointment so far in the game has been the refs. There has been a consistent failure to call fouls, including an egregious number of off-sides and too many players on the field by NBA. Word from the refs is that they are having trouble determining fouls due to the similarity of the uniforms of the two teams and talks are underway in an attempt to get NBA to return to their traditional colors for the remainder of the game. Meanwhile, the failure of NBA to score points while on offense, coupled with the fact that NBA has clearly seen that the refs are not calling obvious fouls, has only worked to embolden NBA in this no holds barred smackdown. So we can all assume the change in uniform talks will go nowhere as it is working to NBA’s advantage.

So, we end Day Three with NBA still on offense and SJHG still on defense, waiting to see what new play NBA will pull out of it’s Persian turban next and wondering whether the refs will ever get their heads out of the sand and start imposing some order in this game.

Posted by: fubar | Sunday, December 03, 2006 at 03:37 PM

Unfortunately, since he posted, one demonstrator has been killed. The situation remains extremely tense. Don’t expect to hear about it on the news.

Read the blogs.

Matthew Yglesias notes that The Times (London) is reporting on Ehud Olmert’s nibbling at the Saudi Middle East peace proposals of a few years ago, and he thinks it’s a good idea. but he’s got a question:

Why isn’t this in the American press?

Good question.

Well, maybe because the television side of the press was too busy last week helping Jimmy Carter promote his notion that Israel is an apartheid state. As noted approvingly by the Arab American News,

his criticism of Israel on mainstream media outlets is unprecedented.

Jimmy Carter was on “Good Morning America” to talk about his new book, “Palestine Peace Not Apartheid.” (Simon & Schuster )

He was also on Meet the Press, on Larry King and Wolf Blitzer’s shows on CNN, on CSPAN, on the Early Show, and on PBS’s NewsHour, among others.

So the press was busy with its Israel “Story of the Week,” and the actual news from the Middle East got short shrift, because it didn’t fit the narrative they were peddling. While they were giving Carter—and, by association, the Palestinians— their respect, they missed the news that might eventually alleviate the suffering of the Palestinians: the cease-fire between Israel and Hamas; Olmert’s sturdiness in face of Hamas’s numerous violations of the cease-fire; and Olmert’s speech offering an olive branch. Of course they also missed Hamas’s most recent avowal never to make peace with Israel.

On the other hand, maybe it’s because they were so busy painting Bush’s Jordan summit with Maliki as an abject failure, as gloated over by the panel on George Stephanopoulos’s show this morning,

Sunday’s Roundtable

[no transcript available, unfortunately]

that they ignored the the other important item on the agenda in Amman—which had been introduced on Stephanopoulos’s show just the week before: the initiative undertaken by King Abdullah of Jordan, supported by the State Department, to try to move the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the front burner—an initiative Ehud Olmert got on board for even before Bush landed in Jordan.

Yglesias continues:

Seems like an important development.

Indeed.

If Olmert’s really “considering” this, the US government should encourage him to move forward.

In fact, Condi Rice did encourage him.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice praised Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for his speech earlier this week, saying that his call for a renewal of Palestinian-Israeli negotiations was an important step that was likely to both contribute towards calm and advance the peace processes in the region. …

After her meeting with Olmert, Rice met with Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Before the meeting, Livni said Olmert’s speech was intended as a message to Palestinian moderates that “there is a political horizon,” implying the possibility of a resumption of talks.

Too bad the American media is still, five years after 9/11, still only interested in America.