Calm down, people! Countries spy on each other, especially if there is a state of enmity between them, as is presently the case between Lebanon and Israel. This is why I find it strange for there to be among our officials those who consider that Israel recruiting agents for itself in Lebanon is a “dangerous hostile act”! Is this not what our enemy Israel is supposed to do? And are we not supposed for our part to seek if we can to recruit agents for ourselves within enemy ranks as well? A few days ago, Israel exposed a network of 1948 Palestinians, among them an army officer, who were spying for Hezbollah, according to Israeli accusations. It is said that this network provided Hezbollah with important security information concerning the size and number of Israeli troops at the border with Lebanon, seeing as the Druze officer in question worked in the leadership of the Northern front. What happened in Israel? The officer was court-martialed on charges of treason and “contact with a foreign agent”, and the civilian members of the network were prosecuted in a civilian court in Acre. No voice was heard in Israel denouncing the fact that Hezbollah recruited agents for itself inside Israel, and considering this to be a hostile act, because people in Israel know that Hezbollah is an enemy organization, and that it is only natural for it to spy on them whenever it can. This is between enemies. But espionage is an activity practiced by countries in any case by virtue of their natural responsibilities in protecting their security, even if relations between them are more than normal. There are official external intelligence agencies that have their own budgets, which they spend on such activities. Israeli agents spy on the United States, their protector and sponsor. Ten agents of Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service (SVG), which succeeded the KGB, were arrested this week in the United States on charges of attempts to seek to obtain information about US nuclear weapons, about Washington's policy towards Iran and about the modus operandi of US intelligence. This is between two countries which today have good relations of cooperation in a number of fields, after having both closed the chapter of the Cold War. The Americans have prosecuted these spies as “illegal agents of a foreign government”, but they did not consider the matter to be exceptional or surprising. Their own intelligence agency most probably does the same thing in Moscow, even if none of its agents have been arrested yet. In Lebanon, the issue of the arrest of Charbel Kazzi, an employee at the Alfa telecommunications company, has turned into political ruckus and an opportunity for flexing patriotic muscles in newspapers and on satellite television, as well as in the words of experts who suddenly appeared on television screens to reveal to us and to the unfortunate viewers what they know about the dangers of spying on cellular telephone networks for national security and Lebanon's exposure to the enemy as a result of it. Gentlemen, have mercy on our intelligence. This country has been exposed since the day of its birth, its political and military secrets revealed in social gatherings and on the front pages of newspapers. Those in this country who are recruited to spy for money are considered “clever”, because most of us do it for free. The reason for this is that the feelings of national loyalty which usually deter citizens from committing treason need in our country concentrated doses of stimulants to be revitalized. We say this not in defense of any agent or one accused of spying, but to say that the whole scene is exposed, and that the search should be for a thousand “alfas” in many places and with many sides. Indeed, the definition of spying is to convey any information regarding national security and the country's secrets to anyone outside of the country's borders. If we were to apply this definition to what many in our country do, what would be, I wonder, the percentage of ordinary citizens who would remain outside the scope of being prosecuted on charges of “espionage”? Are you trying to tell us that the only secrets revealed in our country and leaked past the border are those picked up by the telephones of the Alfa company?
