Customer Reviews

The Conscience of Lebanon: A Political Biography of Etienne Sakr (Abu-Arz) (Israeli History, Politics and Society)

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It is high time for Lebanon's true story to be told, not the same old jaded and dubious Arabist apologetics.
I just finished reading Mordechai Nisan's Political Biography of Abu-Arz, and thankfully, the author does just that; he shatters the duplicity and falsehoods that Arabism and Islam have been feeding us for the past 100 years to conceal their vicious plundering of Lebanon (and their intrinsic loathing and rejection to the unmolested presence of non-Muslim minorities in their midst in Middle East.)
Professor Nisan's book is an amazing journey, and a hypnotic page-turner. And as usual with his work on Middle Eastern minorities, his narrative is elegant, his prose pellucid, and his scholarship penetrating and compelling... to say nothing of the verve, commitment and unyielding and unequivocal fondness he has for Lebanon and her people.
We should blush that it wasn't a Lebanese who wrote this book; but we should also be proud and flattered that it was Professor Nisan's undertaking. Nobody could have told this story more compellingly and with such erudition.
As a Muslim Lebanese, I am heartened to see that someone has finally summoned up enough integrity and courage to tell the true story of Lebanon and its struggle against the predatory Arabism of Syria and the thugery of Palestinian refugees and Hezbollahy quislings (to say nothing of the Syrian installed 'Lebanese' puppet regime in Beirut) who never tire from pillaging Lebanon and subverting its sovereignty and Lebanonness.
Every true Lebanese should acquire a copy of this splendid addition to the literature on Lebanonism... and anyone interested in the TRUE story of Lebanon should check out this superb work of historical sociology.

If you want to understand the Lebanese War from a candid perspective that is not tilted and stirred then this is the book to read. I don't get the people that talk about not interviewing Abu Arz's enemy. They should realize that this is his biography narrated by himself. It is not a study on who Abu Arz is, but he also makes it perfectly clear what his enemies thought of him, and the funny thing is that he also talks about his enemies being from the same front that he fought on.

You'll learn a lot about the unpublished facts of the Lebanese War from this book. A lot that hasn't been mentioned because of political ramification is in this book. Highly recommended.

This book serves as a handbook to the Middle East. Everyone who is confused about the Middle East and the struggles between extremism and moderates must read this. Lebanon and Israel are the only true democracies in the entire Middle East and North Africa. There are many who like to see both these institutions fail in order to deflect attention from their own oppresive regimes.

This book is the exact opposite of what one would expect. It tells the story of a fighter in the Lebanese civil war (1975-1990). I expected to read some regret, reassessment of the war experience and perhaps some apologies. Instead, the book was apologetic of the war and praising the deeds of the warrior and his heroism.
Etienne Saqr, better known in Lebanon for his nom de guerre Abou Arz, is presented in this biography by Israeli writer Mordechai Nisan. Before I talk about the content of the book, I have some comment about its writing methodology. When writing a biography, it is essential to collect all the material available about the person subject to profiling. This, however, was certainly impossible in the case of this book written by an Israeli author since Israelis are not allowed into Lebanon. This drawback made itself noticeable since the only primary source for this biography was Saqr himself, his family and his supporters. (Saqr lives in Israel and his daughters and their families live in Lebanon and the family often hold its reunions in nearby Cyprus)
The rest of the sources were all secondary sources and lacked any on-the-record interviews of say Saqr's wartime adversaries.
This said I have also to say that the content came as a surprise too. A book published in 2003 about a Lebanese militia fighter who quit his group by the early 1990s is expected to have some self-critique and repentance. Yet a reader of this book who is familiar with Lebanon's domestic affairs would get the impression that this book was written in the mid-1970s, when Saqr first embarked on his militia career.
The book also tries to justify all of Saqr's war activity often reaching contradictions. For instance, the book depicts Saqr as the "conscience of Lebanon" who sought to rid Lebanon of foreign fighters (Palestinians). As you read more you discover that Saqr was not only against foreign fighters, he was also opposed to "alien ideologies" ...talk about freedom of expression and belief.
Then while the book always depict Saqr as defending Lebanon against the presence of Palestinian fighters in Lebanon, it cites some of the atrocities that these fighters committed, at the time, against Lebanese civilians. Yet it remains silent and totally ignores how Lebanese militias reciprocated to such atrocities as they committed similar massacres against Palestinian civilians in the refugee camps of Lebanon. As a matter of fact, the picture of the cover page shows Saqr in military uniform at Tal Al-Zaatar in 1976 when some Lebanese radical groups massacred a number of Palestinians civilians including non-combatant women and children.
In sum, this book lacks proper methodology, is extremely one-sided, and belongs to the past when the Lebanese were still locked in a bloody civil war. It's a waste of money.