The Lebanese bloggers wrote about a wide variety of topics this week making it difficult to cover them all in just one summary. This week’s weblog covers topics like the upcoming Lebanese presidential election, the Winograd Report regarding the Israeli July 2006 war on Lebanon, Lebanese agricultural products, Syrian workers, freedom of speech and freedom to blog in the Arab world, resistance to colonialism and the implications of being a leftist in Lebanon. Although this summary attempts to cover as many interesting blog posts as possible, others are still left out because of lack of space and time. So always check back as more blogs and topics are surveyed each week. On the Presidential Election: Riemer Brouwer reviewed some of the contradictory articles in the local newspapers and tried to make sense out of them: Three interesting newspaper stories came out during the last few days regarding the next Lebanese president. As usual, they all contradict each other, so it’s up to the blogosphere to make sense out of them. Blacksmith Jade set up a draft list of general questions which can be tailored to each presidential candidate and called on fellow bloggers to help finalize them with the purpose of directing them at prospective candidates to get their positions on topics like constitutional and institutional reform and outlook, a new electoral law, foreign and defense policies, economic and development policy etc. R at Voices on the Wind contends that the current president is one of the factors causing the current political paralysis in the country: While it may be true that there we will see some level of perpetuation of the political paralysis in Lebanon even after Lahoud's term is over, it is also true that Lahoud himself has been an exceptional obstruction. Moreover, it is true that with the coming end of his term, Lebanon has to potentially deal with a new crisis stemming from the very divisive issue of electing a new president. On the Winograd Report: The committee set up by Israel to investigate the war waged against Lebanon published its report or what was called the Winograd Report. Although parts of the report were not made public, this did not stop the Lebanese from analyzing and discussing its implications. Among them was MFL who wrote a lengthy analysis on the report and on the issues that lie behind the violent conditions in the Middle East as a whole: But this situation is different, it took a Zionist commission to convince the Israelis they were wrong to attack Lebanon, not for “virtuous reasons” rather to avoid more military disasters. Israel, that claims Hezbollah caused the destruction of Lebanon, was in fact their troops shooting and bombing almost the whole of Lebanon. Israel could have resorted to diplomacy, and political pressures. Instead, they slaughtered 1300 Lebanese, and more are getting killed by the remaining horrific cluster bombs. Worse, the Red Cross confirmed that Israel was using banned weaponry, also to be denounced by Anan himself, but the US argued that Israel has the right to defend itself. Angry Anarchist wrote that the issue of the ex-member of Knesset, Azmi Bishara is related to the Winograd report too: The Azmi Bishara plot thickens… I have come to increasingly view the whole affair as one that is not unrelated to the Winograd commission and attempts to quell domestic dissatisfaction by busying the public with a case of treason, against an Arab citizen to make things marketable of course. This enables the authorities to play on the feelings of the Jewish citizens especially that the July war brought to the forefront fresh divides between the Arab and Jewish communities, along with accusations of mass-treason against Arab citizens, levelled by their Jewish counterparts. Azmi Bishara seems to be the scapegoat, and his framing not only serves a public opinion purpose, but also could be related to new policies to be adopted vis-a-vis the Arab community in light of the increasing strain it places on the authorities in the domain of demographic challenge (or perceptions thereof). On Lentils and Olive Oil: Diamond explains the relationship between the name of lentils (the ones we eat) lenses (the optical thing used to see): Lenses are so named because they resemble lentils – not the other way round. English, French, and Spanish (lente/lenteja) all derive their lens/lentil words from the Latin. What surprises me more is that Arabic, which has no Latin roots, also describes lenses as lentil-like. In Arabic, the word for lentil/s is 3adas, عدس. The word for lens is 3adasa, عدسة. Olive trees are planted and cultivated in most parts of Lebanon. Olive oil enters into almost all of the recipes of the Lebanese cuisine.