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Breaking News Lebanese Government

Juan Cole 02/28/2005

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Breaking News: Lebanese Government Resigns in Face of VideoClip Revolution

Futur television satellite news is reporting that the Lebanese government has resigned. For the last few days, I was watching the crowds assembled at Martyrs’ Square in Beirut (a place significant in the anticolonial struggle against the French), and noted the ineffectual attempt of [now former] Interior Minister Suleiman Frangieh to forbid the protests.

I just saw a speaker at the protests shout that the people are more powerful than the government, with everyone joyous at the fall of the government.

Futur was showing the protests with an overlay of Lebanese music, so that the effect was to mimic the wildly popular Video Clips (a belated Arab version of “I want my MTV”).

Futur was partially owned by slain Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri, whose assassination kicked off the crisis.

Update: Al-Jazeerah is reporting that the Lebanese Opposition is now calling for the big demonstrations at Martyrs’ Square to continue until all Syrian troops leave Lebanese soil.

You wonder what would happen if the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza tried the same thing re: Ariel Sharon’s military occupation that they face. They’d be crushed by the jackboot (with convenient allegations that they were a front for terrorism).

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About the Author

Juan Cole is the founder and chief editor of Informed Comment. He is Richard P. Mitchell Professor of History at the University of Michigan He is author of, among many other books, Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires and The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Follow him on Twitter at @jricole or the Informed Comment Facebook Page

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