On August 6, 2009 the official Lebanese national news agency published on its website the following slanderous and desecrating report:

"The International Red Cross received today from within the occupied Palestinian territories and via the Naqoura

The official Lebanese news agency has resorted to Hizbullah's jihadist lexicon.

gate [a checkpost on the Lebanese-Israeli border] the body of the agent [ameel] Elias Joseph Agiel, 52 years old, who died in one of the hospitals in the occupied Palestinian territories. The deceased entered occupied Palestine [Israel] in the aftermath of the Israeli army defeat in the year 2000. The International Red Cross Committee handed over Agiel's body to his family in the town of Niha, Chouf district."



It is worth mentioning that the Arabic term ameel means a "traitor and conspirator". 

For the record, the deceased was neither a traitor nor a conspirator, but merely a victim. In the aftermath of the Israeli army's withdrawal from south Lebanon in May 2000, he was among more than 6,500 southern Lebanese men, along with members of their families, who had no option but to leave their towns, villages and abandon all their properties, and hastily run for their lives.

While Israel was logistically preparing for the withdrawal, Hizbullah waged a merciless and savage media campaign against the southern Lebanese citizens. The campaign was aired publicly on all local and international TV channels and radio stations. The most frightening threats were uttered personally by Hizbullah's General Secretary Hassan Nasrallah, who savagely said, "We will enter their bedrooms, pierce their stomachs, slaughter them and slice their throats."  

It is sad, sickening and shameful that the official Lebanese news agency has resorted to Hizbullah's jihadist lexicon and abided by its Iranian criteria of fundamentalism and terrorism for defining who is a traitor and who is a patriot.



The hostile, defaming, inhuman and defiling report did not respect the fact that the deceased is a Lebanese citizen and a human being, and definitely not a foreign agent. By tagging him when he is dead as a traitor, the news agency has openly and savagely annulled all the deeply rooted Lebanese cultural traditions that honor the sacredness of death. Meanwhile, it also violated all judicial laws that consider the accused innocent until found guilty by a court of law.



The question is: Who runs this news agency that supposedly is an official department of the Lebanese Ministry of Information? Is it the Lebanese government or Hizbullah? There is no doubt that the journalist who worded the report and his superiors who approved it are all without any normal human feelings. For otherwise, how could they viciously dare to violate the sanctity of death? The wording of the report incites a great deal of moral, ethical and religious vilification. It not only dishonors the dead, but also presents a flagrant violation on the deceased's rights and dignity, as well as provoking blatant contempt, defamation, belittlement and threats against the deceased's family, relatives and residents of his hometown.



It would have been understandable if Hizbullah, al-Qaeda or any of their jihadist proxy media facilities had worded and disseminated such a degrading and provocative report. None of them recognize the United Nations Human Rights Charter, or have any respect for the dignity of the living or the dead. They are not states or members of the UN, and they openly promote their doctrines through terrorism. A great many questions need to be raised when the official Lebanese news agency adopts their lexicon and approach.



While for the past nine years the Lebanese government on all levels has been abandoning its own citizens who took refuge in Israel, and unjustly insists on tagging them "agents" and "traitors", we find that Israel, the so-called enemy, is embracing them and doing its best to help them. In this context, the Israeli cabinet appointed Minister Yossi Peled on August 2, 2009 to be responsible for the care of former South Lebanese Army members in Israel. Peled was assigned to head an inter-ministerial team that will address housing, employment, education and citizenship needs of former SLA members living in Israel since 2000, when the IDF withdrew from Lebanon.


Peled said, "The State of Israel has a moral obligation to the people of SLA, its allies, who fought alongside it shoulder to shoulder."



The Lebanese news agency notorious report is, by all standards, a very alarming sign. It shows clearly the depth and extent of Hizbullah's infiltration and penetration into all the Lebanese state's institutions, not only through its well trained manpower, but most dangerously through its jihadist doctrine, the Iranian mullahs' lexicon, and the escalating manipulation of the government's decision-making process, including the last word on war and peace.

What about the deterrent judicial role the Ministry of Justice is supposed to play, in accordance with the country's constitution, and what measures is it going to take? Will Hizbullah allow the Justice Ministry to play its role? Definitely not. The Lebanese state institutions, including this ministry, are practically fully dominated and controlled by Hizbullah.



One wonders also why the main Lebanese Christian parties in both the March 14 and March 8 coalitions are burying their heads in the sand, even though the

We find that Israel, the so-called enemy, is embracing them and doing its best to help them.

majority of the South Lebanese Army soldiers were from among their members. Could it be that they have been hit by the contagious
dhimmitude ailment and are doing what the well known proverb says: 'I don't see, I don't hear, I don't talk'? It is time for these parties to get out of their self-imposed coma and start to do their job.



The ongoing humanitarian suffering and dilemma of the Lebanese refugees in Israel makes every official, clergyman, politician and intellectual in Lebanon accountable. Accordingly, they all have an obligation to speak out  loudly and fairly for the preservation of the refugees' rights and dignity.



We in the Lebanese-Canadian Coordinating Council strongly condemn the disgraceful and irresponsible conduct of the Lebanese government, the politicians and clergy with regard to the legitimate rights of our people in Israel. Justice is needed, as well courage and conscience. We loudly call on Lebanon's president, Mr. Michel Suleiman, to fulfill hisinauguration speech promise to bring our refugees back from Israel.



His excellency the president needs to take into consideration that these victims were forced by Hizbullah's terrorism to take refuge in neighboring Israel. Therefore, their return needs to be a priority, and it must be done with honor, dignity, respect and definitely without any kind of farcical trials. These people are heroes and not traitors. Every Lebanese of faith and conscience is fully aware of the reality of this unshaken, tangible fact.