الشرارة الأولى؟

flashback ...

The Lebanese government accused Hezbollah of violating the country's sovereignty by operating its own communications network and installing spy cameras at Beirut airport.
A cabinet statement described Hezbollah's communications network as "an attack on the sovereignty of the state" and said it would take legal action against anyone involved in it. The cabinet also removed the head of Beirut airport security in another challenge to Hezbollah.
Hezbollah said the communications network was part of its military and security apparatus and played a key role in its war with Israel in 2006.
"The cabinet cannot, and no one can stop us from defending ourselves and defending the country," Hezbollah's deputy leader Sheikh Naim Kassem told the group's al-Manar television. "He who aims his arrows at (Hezbollah's) communications, aims his arrows at (its) weapons," Kassem said.

At a meeting which lasted into the early hours of Tuesday, the cabinet stated that Hezbollah had erected cameras to monitor a runway at Beirut airport. The cabinet decided to remove Brigadier General Wafiq Shkeir from his post as airport security chief and described the cameras as another violation of sovereignty.
Hezbollah's Kassem said the issue was ridiculous. He said cameras were not needed to monitor the airport, which is located in southern suburbs controlled by his group. Hezbollah's construction arm, Jihad Binaa, had erected cameras near the airport to monitor goods it stores there, he said.
But governing coalition leaders allege that Hezbollah is spying on the airport to monitor their movements.

Ahmad Moussalli, a political science professor at the American University of Beirut, told Al Jazeera that the government action against Hezbollah's communication system hinted at the deepening of an already tense conflict.
"It is a beginning of a war that has started with the communications issue. Hezbollah's communications system was instrumental in its defeat of the Israeli invasion [in July 2006]," he said.
"The government has made an indirect declaration of war. The decision to ... dismantle the system legally, and by force, does seem to be the beginning of a military confrontation."
Moussalli said that previous Lebanese governments had agreed with Hezbollah's resistance role, and the systems necessary to sustain it.
"Therefore we are seeing a change of attitude [towards Hezbollah] - not only rhetorically, but by the cabinet's decision to pursue Hezbollah's telecoms network," he said.

meanwhile ...

Lebanon's Christian opposition leader Michel Aoun on Monday called on all Lebanese workers to participate in demonstrations scheduled for May 7 to topple Prime Minister Fouad Seniora's government.
The current government is "the reason behind the Lebanese crisis," Aoun told a press conference here after the weekly meeting of his parliamentary block, blaming the government for the deteriorating economic situation.
Aoun said the "crisis that Lebanon faces is ... where the government is based," adding that "we will not leave the nation as it was in the past three years," referring to the rule of the majority.
He also stressed that "rioting is banned. Security forces are responsible for banning riots, not preventing demonstrations."
The General Labor Confederation (GLC) had already called for a general strike and demonstrations on May 7 to protest the bad living conditions and economic deterioration, calling for pay rises.
The demonstration will begin at 10 a.m. from Beirut's Barbir Square, progress across the Corniche Mazra'a and end up at the Central Bank headquarters in Hamra street.
The demonstration's march line, as announced by GLC leader Ghassan Ghoson, raises fears of possible confrontation with supporters of the March 14 majority alliance because it penetrates their traditional strongholds, especially areas controlled by supporters of Saad Hariri's Mustaqbal Movement and Walid Jumblat's Progressive Socialist Party.
A similar opposition-sponsored strike on Jan. 23, 2007, led to serious confrontations between the Hizbullah-led opposition and the March 14 majority that almost sparked civil unrest.
Ghoson, addressing a press conference, also pledged that the demonstration would only be "the beginning of serial protests, including general strikes, demonstrations and sit-ins aimed at putting at end to controlling our present and future."