Johnny Abdo News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

As part of the reports published by Asharq Al-Awsat on the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the summer of 1982, Hani Al-Hassan, a member of the Central Committee of the Fatah movement, narrates that the Palestinians had gathered information a year before about Israel’s preparation for a wide-scale aggression against the country, with the aim of eliminating the military resistance. Al-Hassan said that the PLO leadership contacted Saudi Arabia, which responded quickly, by launching an initiative sponsored by then Saudi Crown Prince Fahd bin Abdulaziz.

On this day in 1982, Beirut was besieged by the Israeli army and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat boarded a ship that took him to his new exile in Tunisia. The Palestinian Liberation Organization’s loss of its last front with Israel would leave its mark on the Palestinians and Lebanon. As Israel tightened its siege of Beirut, Arafat took a secret decision to carry on fighting for six months until regional and international stances emerged. He was forced to leave Lebanon after 88 days, marking an end of what he described as the “longest Arab-Israeli war.”

Conspiracy theories, by their very nature, are not easily debunked. It is hard to prove definitively that something did not happen. Conspiracies involving

Reflecting on his perilous days as a US military attache in Beirut, Amb. Frederic C. Hof argues there is more to successful diplomacy than conferences

A A Jean Obeid was a journalist before turning into a professional politician. The journalist remained even as the official took on the role of lawmaker, foreign minister and mender of bridges. I recalled Obeid, may God rest his soul, as I read through the letters that were exchanged between President Saddam Hussein and the Iranian leadership before and after the invasion of Kuwait. The letters were included in Abdul Halim Khaddam’s memoirs, intriguing excerpts of which are being published by Asharq Al-Awsat. One day, Obeid said that knowing decision-makers is not enough to draw a...