IUSY Festival D-4: The war in Middle-East and its consequences

Camarades francophones, une partie en français à la fin de cet email :-)

As you may have seen, after the kidnapping of two israeli soldiers by Hezbollah, Israel decided to attack Lebanon, considering the Lebanese government was responsible of these attacks (despite the fact that Lebanese government condamned it and considered they were not responsible for what happened to Israeli soldiers). In one day, Tsahal destroyed the airport, the roads all around Beirut and forbid any boats to go out of Lebanon. The blocus is total. The bombing killed 61 civilians in less than one day. The consequences are strong. The huge reaction of Israel is really understandable, it is like they didn't follow the evolutions of Lebanese political evolutions. After the "Revolution du Cedre" and the elections, the Syrian influance was marginalized and the influence of Hezbollah decreased. A lot of political forces consider now Hezbollah has to disarm after the withdrawal of Israel from South-Lebanon. A political dialogue was put in place in order to find a consensus on the best way to achieve this goal. Of course, the process is slow, it is true. But it is the only condition to avoid a civil war. The international community must understand it, for the safe of regional stability. What will be the result of the Israeli attacks? For sure, the Hezbollah will be reinforced. The Lebanese people may see them as the "protector against israeli attacks". It will be impossible in a middle-term perspective to counvince the Hezbollah to disarm. And the process of national dialogue to solve all these problems will be freezed. From all sides, the Peace camp is marginalized. And we don't see exactely how Israel will go out of this situatio, as they are now involved in two front: in Gaza and in Lebanon. We hope the slogan: "if the force is not effective, then use more forces" will not be the one of the Israeli government. Concerning the Israeli government, we really want to hear the position of the minister of defence, Amir Peretz, leader of the Labour Party. He is very silent at the moment which is very strange according to his position in the governement. We also want to hear the position of the Labour Party, member of SI...

The IUSY festival will be a unique opportunity to have an answer to these questions. Israelis will be there (Labour Party and MERETZ-YAHAD). Palestinian also (but only from West Bank, all palestinian in Gaza are blocked). Concerning Lebanese, it will be more than difficult. It was the very bad news of yesterday here. Because of the blocus, all the PSP delegation cannot leave the country, neither by plane, by bus or by boat. They have to stay home waiting for the end of the blocus and the bombing. MJS France were ready to welcome them in Paris and travel with them from Paris to Alicante, we had to cancel everything yesterday. We hope they will manage to come, at least some of them, during the week. The good news is that Wallid Jumblatt was abroad when Israel attacked Lebanon, for an executive committe of SI. He might be able to come here. It is not confirmed yet. But we are really looking forward to see this debate..

Je continue en français pour les camarades francophones.. Comme je l'explique plus haut en anglais, la mauvaise nouvelle d'hier fut le lancement des attaques israéliennes contre le Liban et le blocus total (air, mer, terre) imposé. La conséquence directe est l'impossibilité pour les camarades du PSP de sortir de Beyrouth et donc d'assister au festival. Nous avons été en contact constant avec nos amis libanais hier, mais il n'y a malheureusement aucune solution. Comme je l'ai déjà dit, le blocus est total..
Sinon, nous finalisons ici le programme. Le programme de la série de séminaires du MJS sur "Théories et valeurs socialistes" est bouclée et disponible en ligne sur le site de la IUSY:

Programme for MJS France Workshop
Nous avons invité le MJS Belge, SJO Autriche, JUSOS Allemagne, AUF Norvege et Falken Allemagne de faire avec nous ces séminaires.
Sur le site de la IUSY est maintenant aussi disponible le programme définitif du séminaire d'ECOSY avec notamment la venue de Rassmussen.
IUSY Festival - ECOSY Programme

Pour ma part, je continue à découvrir le campus universitaire. C'est vraiment grand, tellement grand que mon (piteux) sens de l'orientation est mis à l'épreuve. Allez, je vous le dis. Il m'a fallu 1/2 hier pour retrouver le site où nous dormons (contre 5 minutes quand on connait son chemin). C'était vers minuit, je commençais par me demander si j'allais pas dormir sur une pelouse. Le site est magnifique mais tout se ressemble, des palmiers partout, des jolis petits édifices partout, des fontaines partout. C'est sympa mais il faut se créer ses repères. ;-)
Je continue ma visite en vous montrant "la jungle du campus". Si, si. Il faut la trouver, mais j'ai eu le temps de bien l'observer hier soir quand j'étais complétement perdu ici...

"La jungle du campus"