The restoration works in the United Nations building in New York ruined the delegates' hall, which I preferred to the General Assembly Hall, as I said yesterday. However, bad luck followed me from one hall to another, as I heard the man whom I would never want to hear, and missed those I wanted to listen to and discuss with. Last Tuesday, the morning session was supposed to start with Malta, followed by Israel, Cambodia, the Bahamas, Myanmar and Singapore, before the turn of Arab speakers would come, starting with Yemen, Syria and then the United Arab Emirates. As such, I was deliberately late so as to avoid seeing the extremist Moldovan Avigdor Lieberman, and to start my day with my friend Abu Bakr al-Arabi. But to my horror, I found Lieberman there talking and lying whenever he was breathing, and discovered that the Yemeni Foreign Minister was the second speaker on that morning, and that he had left the building, which meant that I had to go look for him in the hotels of New York. Lieberman is too despicable to deserve an article about him, so I will only make some comments. He spoke about a stable Israeli government the day the press was talking about the strained relationship between him and Benjamin Netanyahu over the issue of the settlements. He mentioned Israeli prime ministers whom he claimed sought peace, including Netanyahu, although the latter knows nothing but hypocrisy, and although he ruined the peace process in his first term between 1996 and 1999, along with none other than Ariel Sharon, the war criminal. Of course, he denied that Israel is the cause of terrorism and wars, which otherwise proves that it indeed is, because Lieberman can only lie. He also spoke of what he described as “the so-called” occupation. But his extremism calls for a clear response, and so I would like to say that all of Israel is an illegal settlement outpost, and that Palestine is the land from the sea to the river. It is his likes that must leave and return to Moldova and the countries of the former Soviet Union, and not the Palestinians that have to be relocated within their country, as he wants. Enough talk about the face of doom and gloom. [After that], I left to get some air and forget the sight of Lieberman, and then returned to find that Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed was absent from the morning session. I asked the brothers from the UAE about this, and they said that he will be the first speaker in the afternoon session which was to begin at three o'clock, and so decided to stay to listen to his speech since my plane departed at seven in the evening. However, he was not the first, second or even the third speaker. I then left the United Nations building to the airport, and by the time I arrived, I had almost missed the plane. Nonetheless, I had some compensation. After the Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moallem delivered his speech, he left to the hallway, which is a tradition, to greet some of the attendees. I noticed that the Syrian delegation around him had the highest number of women in the entire United Nations. I drew Walid's attention to this and he said it is a sign of progress, and I told him that I respect the progressiveness of Syria. Another story that ended differently than when it started: I had returned to my hotel room last Monday, and searched for Arab news channels on the television until I found Future TV and al-Arabiya. It was seven and a half in the evening New York time, and I saw Zahi Wehbeh interviewing Joseph Azar. However, I was not in the mood for music despite my appreciation for Caracalla and everyone who dances or sings with this band. So, I switched to al-Arabiya, and the news ticker at the bottom of the screen which moves from left to right said: Egypt's Foreign Minister dies…which made me jump from the edge of the bed, but I read: former minister Ahmed Maher (a dear friend God rest his soul). On the trip from London to New York, I was accompanied by the Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit. We perhaps talked for half of the flight's seven hour duration, and his information will no doubt find its way to this column in the upcoming few days. That's why it was a great shock for me to read the news about the death of the Egyptian Foreign Minister, who was revealed to be the former minister in the words that followed next in the news ticker. The session was not entirely full of confusion in the speeches of the participants. By sheer coincidence, I stayed at the same hotel that hosted the Lebanese delegation headed by President Michel Suleiman, giving me the opportunity to see old friends such as the Public Works Minister Ghazi Aridi, and other officials and ministers whom I only knew by name. Some coincidences are better than scheduled appointment. I had entered the hotel at noon with some colleagues, and found President Suleiman having lunch with his son Charbel and a friend of his, who are both doctors. The president invited us to his table. There were two empty seats so I sat next to the president and Farah Atassi, a partner in the conferences and a known “professional patriot”, as I always call her, sat between the two young doctors. The Lebanese President was satisfied with the private and public talks he held in New York. I asked him whether there were problems with Arab countries or other countries, which he denied, and said in response to another question I asked that the situation in Lebanon is complicated, but that he does not expect an "explosion" as some assert. President Suleiman is patient and cautious, as much as he is intelligent and has good relations with all people. However, relations among people in Lebanon are not good, and may God have mercy on us. [email protected]
