An excerpt from, "Towards a new war in Lebanon" By Thierry Meyssan, Voltaire Network, March 15, 2016:
The second crisis began with the cancellation of the 3 billion dollar gift from Saudi Arabia to the Lebanese Army. In reality, this «gift» was the payment to the Lebanese Army for having destroyed the testimony of Majed el-Majed upon his arrest during his ambulance transfer on the 26th December 2013. The famous terrorist was Prince Bandar Ben Sultan’s representative for the Levant. He was suspected of knowing personally all of the politicians who secretly supported the jihadists. His testimony would have plunged the Saudi kingdom into serious difficulties. However, the prisoner opted for the advantageous initiative of dying after a few days of detention, without his detailed testimony ever having been recorded.
To justify the cancellation of his «gift», Riyadh evoked the reaction in Lebanon to the execution of Sheikh Nimr Baqr al-Nimr, a major figure of the Saudi opposition, who was decapitated on the 2nd January 2016 by the petro-dictatorship. It so happens that this personality was a Shia clergyman, and his death created a wave of indignation amongst all the Shia populations of the world, including in Lebanon.
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Above all, Riyadh decided to sink the Lebanese economy by forbidding its subjects to travel to Lebanon, and by broadcasting this injunction to the Bahreïnis and the Emiratis. Deprived of its Gulf tourists, the businesses and banks immediately went into recession.
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The machinery is now complete – the Lebanese economy is ruined and the principle of Resistance to the Israëli occupation is assimilated with terrorism. The TV channel Al-Manar will no longer be accessible by NileSat and ArabSat, which will severely limit its audience.
