my reinvolvement in Lebanese political life

If you read my last posting, it makes you wonder what had happened that I become having a role and invited to such ceremony.... well, almost five years ago, I was living a peaceful detached life from my homeland and in particular in the first week of February 2005, I was in Tokyo giving a lecture savoring and enjoying my passion of teaching and traveling. Upon my return to the US and a week later, a heinous assassination of prime minister Harriri of Lebanon took place... All of sudden a popular uprising too lace in Lebanon, Christians and Muslims united against the Syrian occupier. I was so taken by these events and my patriotic feeling was revived overnight...One day I received an e-mail requesting that all Lebanese to gather in front of the UN, at the corner of 49Th street. I took my daughter and my wife and we headed to the place of gathering dressed with red and white colors... to my surprise, the gathering was amazingly successful... over 500 people were standing in the cold and shouting: " Syria out"... I knew deep inside our liberation revolution is finally seeing the light.... I have been waiting for this moment since I was 10 years old...

The community here have established a committee that was called Lebanon Society and we started our activism... manifestations, mass e-mails, flags etc... and we started meeting with the Lebanese leaders of the Cedar revolution.... we started to call them March 14 alliance. I was an independent activist with no political affiliation and during our activism I met JG that was the head of the Christian party the Lebanese Forces (LF)in North America with an American lobby arm called the LIC (Lebanese Information Center) based in DC. I was very taken by his endless energy, his deep believe in the Lebanese cause, his history of being a fighter since he was 16 years old. He was exiled to the US early 1993, where he started to practice family medicine as a medical doctor. He was the reason behind reestablishing the Lebanese Forces in exile after the Syrian occupation in early 90's. I can write about him paragraphs and paragraphs and i will never give him enough credits t what he really does for Lebanon as a whole not from the sectarian angle of being a Christian. I realized that working in a party is a more structured work and more efficient.... Slowly, i saw myself getting more and more in helping JG, in participation in multiple conferences in DC and especially during the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 2006, he had put up meetings in the Congress under the sponsorship of congressman Issa and Boustany.

I became at a cross road of either I become a full member or I stay as a sympathizer... Deep inside I wanted to make a difference and I saw that through this party I can achieve it... There was a lot of reservation from my side and of a lot of Lebanese Chrisitian on the past of the party and its leader Samir Geagea.That's why I need to describe what I have discovered about this party and why nobody can eliminate it. It's only becoming bigger and bigger... I decided to become the LIC director of the UN liaison office and I have re-organized the LF chapter in New York and put it back in the lime light of the Lebanese-American elitist society...