Confused last ditch efforts to “elect” a president by local, regional, and international consensus has thrown Lebanon into new uncertainty with only a few days left before the current president’s term expires. International brokers and kingpins are busy making the rounds domestically and regionally to resolve the deadlock. Following futile attempts to reach a deal amongst the different political leaders, an uneasy consensus relegated the duty of choosing a list of candidates to the Maronite Christian Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir. Read more about Meet the Lebanese Press: Eleventh hour politics and social malaise 

As the constitutional deadline of 24 November to elect a president looms large over Lebanon, the presidential race and the marathon rounds of meetings of political actors remained the overarching concern and topic of discussion in the Lebanese press (despite disturbing revelations about Nahr al-Bared camp mentioned in an article by Khaled Saghiyyeh). Marathon rounds of discussion may be a good omen in participatory or even representative democracies. But in a country governed by the necessity of consensus and the reality of sectarianism, seemingly endless talk can mean too little to agree on and a diplomatic denial of an impasse. Read more about Meet the Lebanese Press: Consensus or chaos? 

Something terrible has been done to the residents of Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, and the Lebanese people are being spared the details. Over the past two weeks, since the camp was partly reopened to a few of its residents, many of us who have been there have been stunned by a powerful reality. Beyond the massive destruction of the homes from three months of bombing, room after room, house after house have been burned. Burned from the inside. Activist Michael Birmingham, who lived in nearby Baddawi camp with thousands of Nahr al-Bared’s displaced during the Lebanese army’s siege there, comments. Read more about Nahr al-Bared was destroyed, but who noticed? 

Electronic Lebanon is pleased to introduce Meet the Lebanese Press, a twice-monthly review of what is making the rounds in the Lebanese press and the pundits’ take on it. This week, the roller coaster of speculations in the Lebanese press about the outcome of shuttle diplomacy among Lebanese politicians and world leaders over the presidential file reached a significant low last week only to climb back into a new high over the weekend. Read more about Meet the Lebanese Press: Guess games and plotters 

Israel’s air strike on northern Syria should be understood in the context of events unfolding since its assault last summer on Lebanon. Although little more than rumors have been offered about what took place, one strategic forecasting group, Stratfor, still concluded: “Something important happened.” From the leaks so far, it seems that more than half a dozen Israeli warplanes violated Syrian airspace to drop munitions on a site close to the border with Turkey. We also know from the US media that the “something” occurred in close coordination with the White House. But, EI contributor Jonathan Cook asks, what was the purpose and significance of the attack? Read more about Why did Israel attack Syria? 

This week marks a year since the end of hostilities now officially called the Second Lebanon War by Israelis. A month of fighting — mostly Israeli aerial bombardment of Lebanon, and rocket attacks from the Shia militia Hizballah on northern Israel in response — ended with more than 1,000 Lebanese civilians and a small but unknown number of Hizballah fighters dead, as well as 119 Israeli soldiers and 43 civilians. EI contributor Jonathan Cook finds that many significant developments since the war have gone unnoticed, including several that seriously put in question Israel’s account of what happened last summer. Read more about Revisiting the summer war 

This is the state of Lebanon today: deep sectarian anger that could boil over at any moment. In mixed Beirut neighborhoods, tensions rise between Sunnis and Shiites after each bombing. Tempers flare, small fights get out of hand, people start calling their friends and relatives to come in from other areas to help them and eventually the police have to step in. (A Shiite friend who lives in a mainly Sunni neighborhood told me that for several days after Eido’s killing, he found a broken egg each morning on his car.) And there’s no shortage of bombings to stoke tensions. Read more about Lebanon's bloody summer