If the fighting stops in Lebanon, can its beleaguered army keep the peace?

If the fighting stops in Lebanon, can its beleaguered army keep the peace?

As Lebanon endures more rounds of Israeli air and ground attacks, those peering into the distance at a gloomy horizon continue to point to the Lebanese army as one of the few state institutions capable of providing a stabilizing influence if there is a ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. 

“We have to preserve our army because our army is the solution when peace will come,” retired Lebanese army general Khalil Helou told CBC News at his home in Beirut.

“Hezbollah initiated the war. Our army will be the solution for peace.” 

The Lebanese Armed Forces, outgunned not just by Israel but also by Hezbollah, have remained firmly on the sidelines of the current conflict, which Israel maintains is a war against the Iran-backed Shia militia and not Lebanon itself.

Hezbollah, from its installations in the south, began firing rockets into northern Israel in support of Hamas a day after its Oct. 7 attack on Israel last year. Cross-border attacks in both directions have since displaced tens of thousands of residents in Lebanon and Israel. 

Lebanese soldiers are deployed in the country’s south in non-combat roles as are more than 10,000 peacekeepers with the UN’s Interim Force in Lebanon (UNIFIL). Both have come under Israeli fire since Israel began what it described as limited ground incursions into Lebanon earlier this month. 

In an interview with the AFP news agency last week, Lebanon’s caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati said in the event of any ceasefire, he would boost the number of soldiers in southern Lebanon from 4,500 to “between 7,000 and 11,000” to keep the peace. 

That follows an earlier pledge that Lebanon is ready to “fully implement” a UN Security Council resolution adopted to bring about the end of the last Israeli-Hezbollah war 18 years ago but never enforced.

Resolution 1701 was meant to create a demilitarized zone south of the Litani river in Lebanon, about 30 kilometres from the Israel-Lebanon demarcation line.

A fragile peace 

Lebanon’s population is a mosaic of more than a dozen religious sects, a number of which, through various militias, took part in a brutal civil war from 1975 to 1990. 

That conflict ended with the disarmament of all save Hezbollah, which kept its weapons to resist Israel’s ongoing occupation of the south. Israel withdrew in 2000, but Hezbollah retained its arms. 

The Lebanese army is often credited with doing much to maintain the country’s fragile peace. But in the decades since, Hezbollah, with financial and military support from Iran, has entrenched itself ever more firmly in the south while the 80,000-strong army has suffered from an aging arsenal and neglect in the wake of successive economic downturns.

A soldier’s salary is around $200 US per month, with widespread reports that soldiers often take second jobs to supplement their income.

While the army has remained popular, the irony is that its ability to navigate a country defined by deep sectarian divisions is partly down to its relatively toothless nature compared to the military might of Hezbollah’s armed wing. 

In other words, it’s not a threat to the status quo in a country where key government positions and patronage appointments are divided up along communal lines. (The constitution, for example, mandates the president be a Christian Maronite, the prime minister a Sunni Muslim and the Speaker a Shia Muslim.)

Helou bristles at any criticism of the army for doing little to counter Hezbollah’s growing strength over the years, blaming “schizophrenic” governments that have paid lip service to Resolution 1701 while allowing Hezbollah to remain armed in its self-proclaimed role as “the resistance” to Israel at the same time. 

“The army is keeping the national unity,” the retired general said. “You have an option between civil war or keeping stability. What would you choose?” 

Army ‘still has respect of the people’: UN official

UNIFIL spokesperson Andrea Tenenti says it is clear the Lebanese army is not currently strong enough to implement Resolution 1701 and that it would need international support. 

Building the army up “will take a while, but the commitment is there,” he said. 

“The Lebanese army is a committed army … that still has the respect of the people of Lebanon,” Tenenti said. “We need to bring state authority to the south. Not only of the army, but the full state authority to the south of Lebanon.”

But that would require a robust state, or at the very least a belief in one. And many Lebanese will tell you they’ve lost faith in a country that was plagued by corruption, nepotism and political paralysis long before the current crisis.

“Our government is not intact at the moment,” said Christy Mady, a Canadian Lebanese lecturer in communications at the Notre Dame University-Louaize in Zouk Mosbeh, just north of Beirut. 

“So, if anything happens to you, as a Lebanese, you’re not going to be cared for.”

‘Kidnapped by Iran’

Lebanon has been without a president for two years. The Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed by Israel last month, was blamed by many for blocking compromise candidates.

“Lebanon recently has been through also a bad economic crisis,” said Mady. “After that, there was the Beirut port explosion in 2020, you know, the collapse of the banking sector and now this. So, within the span of four to five years, a lot has happened.” 

Mady witnessed Lebanon’s civil war as a child and says she wants to see the country finally break free from the constraints of its past. 

“I grew up in war, and seeing that happen again and seeing Lebanon have to pick up the pieces again, that really hurts,” she said. 

Some Lebanese say that Israel’s evisceration of the upper echelons of the Hezbollah leadership might offer Lebanon a way of breaking the group’s hold on the south, in particular, and challenge sectarianism.

“We are kidnapped today, kidnapped by Iran,” said Alain Hakim, a former economy and trade minister for Lebanon and a member of the political bureau of the Christian Kataeb Party. 

Kataeb evolved from the Phalange Party, whose paramilitary wing was associated with Israel during Lebanon’s civil war. 

Earlier this month, the party denounced Israel’s “violation of human life and property” in Lebanon while also calling on interim Prime Minister Mikati to declare an immediate ceasefire, implement Resolution 1701 and deploy the Lebanese army along the border.

Hakim says that doesn’t mean Hezbollah has to be eradicated, but it must reintegrate into Lebanese politics and “forget about its arms and forget about the Iranian orientation that they followed during years of battle.”

Hezbollah exploited sectarian system, says historian

Nasrallah had linked any ceasefire in Lebanon to a ceasefire in Gaza. 

It’s not clear whether his successors will hold to that line, especially in the wake of Israel’s recent killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza. 

In an earlier interview with CBC News, Lebanon’s Hezbollah-backed minister for transportation and public works, Ali Hamie, said Lebanon must resist Israeli aggression “until death” while also calling on the Lebanese government to keep talking with the international community “for a ceasefire.”

Historian Makram Rabah, a lecturer at the American University of Beirut, says peace will not come to Lebanon until it deals with a sectarian system he says has thrived at the expense of the state.

“I believe that Hezbollah’s real potent weapon was not only its weapons but rather the fact that it was using the sectarian system,” he said. “I’m someone who believes that we need to reassess the whole sectarian system, which allows for monsters such as Hezbollah or other factions to emerge.” 

The Lebanese army itself splintered along sectarian lines during the civil war. Today, its forces are drawn from all communities, and its role has often been, quite literally, to act as a buffer between neighbourhoods that can sometimes still be defined by sectarian affiliation. 

That’s been especially important now with so many displaced from Hezbollah’s heartland in the south having arrived looking for shelter in Beirut and other cities in large numbers.

There is much talk of churches and mosques opening their doors to those in need, but on the streets, there is also tension, suspicion and distrust. It is a mix that combines many people grieving Nasrallah and those who blame Hezbollah for dragging Lebanon into a war not of their making. 

“We have to understand that these people will be permanently displaced until we come to a place where we say we need to reclaim Lebanon and its sovereignty by saying ‘immediate ceasefire’ and not actually just blaming the Israelis,” said Rabah, the historian. 

“We have to be very clear that we don’t want to be part of any [Iran] axis whatsoever.”

Helou, the retired general, says for now, the Lebanese army is performing the most important role that it can for the country by working to calm internal divisions “in order to avoid slipping into a civil war.”

“You don’t know the value of stability unless you lose it,” he said.

Published at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 16:00:00 +0000

Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Mike Jeffries faces federal sex trafficking charges

WARNING: This story may affect those who have experienced​ ​​​sexual violence or know someone affected by it.

Former Abercrombie & Fitch CEO Michael Jeffries, his romantic partner and a third man were arrested Tuesday on sex trafficking and interstate prostitution charges, a spokesperson for U.S. federal prosecutors said.

Jeffries, partner Matthew Smith and their employee James Jacobson “operated an international sex trafficking and prostitution business” from 2008 to 2015, using Jeffries’s status, wealth and a web of household staffers to fulfil the couple’s sexual desires and keep it all secret, according to an indictment unsealed in federal court in Brooklyn.

In a news conference held with FBI and police officials on Tuesday, Brooklyn-based U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said that the defendants “used force, fraud and coercion to traffick those men for their own sexual gratification.”

The charges follow sexual misconduct allegations, made in civil lawsuits and the media, from young people who said Jeffries lured them with promises of modelling work and then pressed them into sex acts.

Jeffries’s attorney, Brian Bieber, said by email he would “respond in detail to the allegations after the indictment is unsealed, and when appropriate, but plan to do so in the courthouse — not the media.”

Messages seeking comment were sent to attorneys for Smith and Jacobson.

Jeffries and his partner, Matthew Smith, were arrested in Florida and were due to make an initial court appearance Tuesday afternoon in West Palm Beach. Jacobson was arrested in Wisconsin and due in court in St. Paul, Minnesota.

Jeffries, Smith and Jacobson are charged with sex trafficking and interstate prostitution.

Dozens of men coerced into sex acts, indictment alleges

According to the indictment, they paid for dozens of men to travel within the U.S. and internationally to engage in commercial sex with them and other men in New York and at hotels in England, France, Italy, Morocco and St. Barts. The indictment describes sexual bacchanals in which the recruited men were given drugs, lubricant, condoms, costumes, sex toys and, sometimes, erection-inducing penile injections that caused painful, hours-long reactions.

The defendants led the men to believe that attending the events would help their careers, including their chances of getting Abercrombie modelling gigs — or that not complying could harm their prospects, the indictment says.

Jeffries and Smith employed Jacobson to recruit and hire the men, who typically had to undergo “tryouts” by having sex with Jacobson first, according to the indictment. It says other, unnamed household staffers also helped facilitate the events, including by acting as security and providing alcohol, muscle relaxants, Viagra and other items.

Jeffries became CEO of Abercrombie & Fitch in 1992 and left in 2014. The New Albany, Ohio-based company declined to comment on his arrest.

Peace said in Tuesday’s press conference that 15 victims had been identified, but that “there may be other victims out there.” 

Previous media reports, lawsuit, described similar allegations

Abercrombie last year said it had hired an outside law firm to conduct an independent investigation after a report on similar allegations was aired by the BBC.

The BBC investigation included a dozen men who described being at events involving sex acts they said were staged by Jeffries and his partner, Matthew Smith, often at his home in New York and hotels in London, Paris and elsewhere. The BBC report also described Jacobson as a middleman who recruited men for the events. He told the news outlet at the time that he hadn’t engaged in and didn’t know of “any coercive, deceptive or forceful behaviour.”

A lawsuit filed in New York last year accused Abercrombie of allowing Jeffries to run a sex-trafficking organization during his 22-year tenure. It said that Jeffries had modelling scouts scouring the internet for victims, and that some prospective models became sex-trafficking victims. At the time, Bieber declined to comment on the allegations.

Jeffries sparked controversy during run as Abercrombie CEO

Abercrombie & Fitch traces its roots to a hunting and outdoors goods store that was founded in 1892. By the time Jeffries arrived a century later, the brand was a retail also-ran.

He was credited with transforming it into a darling of turn-of-the-millennium teen mall culture, known for its nouveau-preppy aesthetic — and for some controversy surrounding it. Jeffries alienated some customers by talking about how the company went after attractive kids who could fit into its clothes.

After the 2008 financial crisis and subsequent recession, A&F’s popularity started to fade again. By the time Jeffries left, a hedge fund had pushed the company’s board to replace him because of the company’s lagging performance.

But the company has rebounded in recent years.

Published at Tue, 22 Oct 2024 14:11:20 +0000