Word: beirutization
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...militant group Hizballah, the government has seen its authority undermined, renewed meddling from the country's neighbors and the growing assertiveness of Hizballah. Organized by Hizballah and its allies, about 800,000 protesters--a rather grand figure in a country of just 3.8 million--gathered in the center of Beirut last Friday to demand the resignation of Siniora. At the time, Lebanon's leader was in his barracks, surrounded by machine guns and barbed wire...
...Hizballah security teams - identifiable by their combat boots, black fatigues and beards - that gathered Friday morning in the suburbs of Beirut didn't need much of a pep talk to pump themselves up for their massive demonstration in Lebanon's capital. "If the leadership says march, we march; if they say die, we die," said one, who called himself Bakkir. Still, if they needed any reminder of why they were hitting the streets to bring down Lebanon's government, Bakkir and his buddies could look around at the bomb craters and crushed concrete from this summer's war with Israel...
...battle for control of Lebanon that began in earnest with Friday's rally by hundreds of thousands of protesters in downtown Beirut is an aftershock of that war. Again and again, the packed crowd, the speakers on the podium in Riadh Al Solh Square, and the martial anthems played on a gigantic stereo system sounded the same theme, accusing the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora of collaborating with Israel and the United States in their plans to redraw the map of the Middle East and bomb Hizballah into submission. Put simply by a Shi'ite schoolgirl from Baalbek: "This...
...bore Hizballah's signature organizational flair: its security personnel, as many as 10,000 of them, lined up at every major intersection to prevent supporters from becoming too enthusiastic, or infiltrators from stirring up trouble. Marchers came from all over the country, many of them determined to stay in Beirut until the government collapses. Hizballah politicians promised an open-ended and escalating series of civil actions, from strikes at key national institutions to a moratorium on paying sales taxes and electricity bills. "We withstood 34 days war with Israeli," said former Hizballah MP Mohmmed Berjawi. "We can stay here...
...Equally ominous for Siniora would have been the sight of so many Lebanese Christians joining forces with Hizballah's Shi'ite base. Followers of Maronite Christian leader General Michel Aoun formed a colorful stream that flowed into the out of Christian East Beirut and into the crowd at the rally, dressed in their trademark orange. Aoun, who has presidential ambitions, formed an alliance with Hizballah that has split Lebanon's large Christian population, which has historically had strong ties to the U.S. and the West...