My journalism mentors before the Internet

The letter from AP's Beirut Bureau Chief Tom Masterson

(The following is the second of three posts Fawaz Najia had ready but did not have time to publish before he lost his battle with cancer on April 20)

The Arabic word for hero is “batal.”

The saga of my journalism and publishing journey began at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

It started long before the revolutions in communication, i.e. with no photocomposition or “cold” type to replace cumbersome and expensive Linotype systems, no digital photocopying, no fax, no mobile phone, no computer, no TV news, no Internet or Google, no email, no electronic publishing technology, no print-on-demand, no social media…

A visiting U.S. Lecturer in Journalism whose forefathers came from Zahlé, Lebanon's "city of wine and poetry" sitting in the Bekaa Valley, launched me into the profession there.

He was James Batal, an Amherst College graduate and a Neiman Fellow in Journalism from Harvard University.

I took all three elective courses in journalism Batal was offering over two academic years. He also served as advisor to Outlook, the student weekly newspaper of which my classmates elected me editor-in-chief.

Batal made it compulsory for me to go with him every week to the printing press. There, he taught me all about the Linotype machine used in printing at the time and the art of picking headline fonts and sizes manually.

He also explained the need to cut stories to fit into layout spaces, the importance of correcting galley proofs and the responsibility of giving an "OK to print."

His focus in the classroom was on such classics as “dog bites man versus man bites dog,” the Five Ws in newsgathering and the difference between objective news and personal opinion.

Editing, investigative journalism and news and human-interest features… were at the core of another of his courses.

His preferred description of a news reporter: the sole watcher of a play whose task is to relay events unfolding on stage to an audience waiting outside the theater.

A student asked Batal in class one day, “Why do Arabs get such a bad press in the U.S.?” Chiefly because most Arab officials are ignorant of the workings of the mass media and the role they play in shaping public opinion, he replied.

For example, he said, when an Arab delegate addresses the United Nations General Assembly, he usually delivers an unending speech in literary Arabic. Reporters in the press gallery are baffled by his tough talk. In contrast, an Israel diplomat’s speech is precise, concise and in English. An aide makes a summary of his address available to reporters in the press gallery immediately. As public opinion shapers, the reporters and the media they represent have their jobs cut out for them. “Arab diplomats should realize this.”

Batal knew I was struggling financially and on the lookout for a scholarship to cover the tuition fees of my junior and senior years at university.

He not only guided me through the search for one, but also encouraged me to apply for a part-time job vacancy with The Associated Press (AP) that could earn me decent pocket money.

I did as told and was called in within days for an interview with AP’s Beirut Bureau Chief Tom Masterson. A taxi fare to AP offices in Kantari was obviously beyond my means, so I made my way there on foot, but armed with a reference letter from Batal.

The interview with Masterson was tough but professional. He quizzed me hard on my reliability and willingness to work six days a week against the clock and at odd hours.

On the six workdays, he explained, the job is to produce in-house by 6:30 in the morning some 80 copies of a 12-page “AP News Bulletin.”

The copies are then sent to Beirut airport, where they are air couriered at 8:00 a.m. by Middle East Airlines (MEA) to ARAMCO (Arabian American Oil Company) headquarters in Dhahran.

My duty is to report to work at 4:00 a.m., pick up the overnight news roll from the ticker, quickly do the “copy tasting” and editing, and ready the news items for sequential typing.

A skilled typist comes in before 5:00 a.m. and keys in the copy on 12 consecutive stencil-typing sheets. I proofread these then turn them over, one sheet at a time, to the office assistant. He uses the stencil duplicator to produce 80 copies of each before stapling, packaging and taking the lot to the airport.

Masterson explained that Bulletin content was aimed at American executives.

The audience, he said, was the top brass of ARAMCO who had little, if any, access to fresh home news.

So when “copy-tasting,” he instructed me, concentrate on U.S. national news (both hard and light), Elvis Presley, American football, basketball and baseball, the Wall Street roundup and closing stock prices.

Oh, and my job title and salary?

Masterson said the monthly salary for “Editor of the AP News Bulletin” is 160 Lebanese pounds, or about $80. I accepted the job offer and the proposed starting date right away.

I was ecstatic at the prospect of serving as editor with The Associated Press for serious pocket money while still an undergraduate.

I swiftly worked out a schedule for getting to work on time, meeting the deadline for producing the bulletin, and then arriving at AUB before the start of my first course.

Our home being in Ras el-Nabeh, I could only walk to work in Kantari. There was no tramway or servees (shared taxi) at 3:00-3:30 in the morning. Making the journey by private taxi six mornings a week was too expensive.

Hence my definitive timetable:

-- Wake up at 3:00 a.m.

-- Set out on foot to Kantari at 3:15

-- Be at my desk around 3:50

-- Finish the day’s job and leave AP’s premises shortly after 6:30

-- Walk to the bakery opposite the AUB Main Gate to pick up a mankoushe (Lebanese pizza topped with thyme, sesame and olive oil) for breakfast at 7:10

-- Enter the classroom at 7:30

I happily kept up this schedule for 14 consecutive months, after which I resigned carrying an admirable reference from Masterson to take up a fulltime journalistic challenge elsewhere.

Brawn or Brains?

My bodybuilding and weightlifting career at a glance

(The following is the first of three posts Fawaz Najia had ready but did not have time to publish before he lost his battle with cancer on April 20)

Building a chiseled, steely and toned physique and clinching the “Mr. Lebanon” title at 17 took me just under five years of training.

All I did meanwhile was to study at the Collège du Sacré-Coeur, train at the Cercle de la Jeunesse Catholique, eat healthy and sleep. Weekend leisure was rationed. It was a movie outing to Martyrs’ Square in winter or a swimming spell in summer at the Bain Militaire or the Saint Simon. They were Beirut’s answer above all others to Muscle Beach in Santa Monica.

I embarked on my bodybuilding journey at Elie David’s gym at the CJC at age 13. Cycling was the only sport I engaged in earlier. In the years when my parents rented a summerhouse from the Chidiacs in Bikfaya, I used to cycle daily to Dhour el Shouair either direct or through Bhannes.

David provided me with professional expertise, support and motivation. He customized my three weekly workout programs to suit my age. He determined what equipment I used, how many sets I did and the number of repetitions.  He changed these as I grew up, working my way from the beginner phase to the intermediate and the advanced. In each phase, the focus was all-inclusive – neck, shoulders, biceps, triceps, forearms, shoulders, chest, back, waist, abdominals, quadriceps and calves.

"Mr. Lebanon" 1953

David’s coaching and recommendation of specialized magazines on muscle building, healthy eating and dangers of overtraining helped drastically improve my physique.

There were no steroids, vitamin supplements or fat blasting pills to gulp and no muscle T-shirts or special workout shorts to parade. There were no sophisticated gym and fitness equipment to use either.

Healthy eating meant full fat milk, eggs (boiled or poached), fish, pulses and plenty of fruits and vegetables. Personally, I had a great weakness for fresh sugarcane juice, which was more refreshing than nutritious. Three times a week, I would cap my workouts by walking to a juice bar opposite Roxy Cinema at the mouth of Beirut’s commercial center. The 20-25 square meters bar offered the glass of fresh apple, orange, strawberry, grape or sugarcane juice at a standard price of LL 0.25. The biggest piece of equipment at the counter was a sugarcane juicer machine made in Egypt. It worked manually but broke down more often than not.

Gym wear was a swim brief. You carried it back and forth together with a shower towel. Both were rolled into a tubular wet swimming bag. If you carried one it meant you were almost surely a gym member.

Gym equipment was also plain: high and parallel bars, rings, a climbing rope, training benches, dumbbells and barbells, weights and mats (chiefly for abdominals training routines).

I secured the “Mr. Lebanon” title in my height category at a national competition held in April 1953 at the Rivoli Cinema on Martyrs’ Square. (Title winners in the two other categories were Malih Alewan and Mohammed Mortada). Some months later, I joined a bodybuilding exhibition at the Dunia cinema, also on Martyrs’ Square. There I received an honorary medal for sports from Mrs. Salma Bissar, wife of Kamel Mroue, founder of two Beirut dailies, al-Hayat and The Daily Star.

From bodybuilding to weightlifting...

... and breaking records

That’s when I starting wondering where to go from there. Before long, I opted to transition to a new sport, new training grounds and a new coach.

The new sport was obviously weightlifting, the closest you could get to bodybuilding.

The new gym was at the Youth Sports Club co-founded and managed by Mahmoud Kayssi. The club had been newly relocated to near my home in Ras el-Nabeh and was renowned for churning out topflight boxers, wrestlers and weightlifters. Among them, for instance, were Zakariya Shehab, Khalil Taha and Mustafa Lahham. The three starred at the 1952 Olympics in Helsinki. Shehab and Taha won silver and bronze in Greco-Roman wrestling while weightlifter Lahham ranked fifth in his lightweight category.

The new coach was none other than Mohammed Ameen Makkouk, an extraordinary old hand at weightlifting.

Training – always one-on-one under Makkouk -- turned out to be more stressful and challenging, at times even frustrating. But the progress, the achievements and the public support and acclamation that came with it were exhilarating. I was not even 19 when I won Lebanon’s 1954 weightlifting championship and set four new national records in Press, Snatch, Clean and Jerk and Total in my weight category. Khodr Traboulsi and Najm el-Ra’i shared the previous all-time highs between them.

My new records galvanized local sports editors. I was their new “rookie of the year.” Oddly, that was when I started pondering my exit from competitive sports altogether. As a new student at the American University (AUB), I felt the pressures of competition from thereon would weigh down my studies. I told myself, “You won the topmost titles in two sports disciplines, set national records in one and learned the graces, skills and virtues associated with good sportsmanship. Time you concentrated on getting a university degree then build a career and earn a living.”

My decision to bring down the curtain on weightlifting preceded or followed:

-- Exhibitions at the Farouk Theater (on Martyrs’ Square), in the Bekaa town of Zahle and at the Youth Sports Club’s grounds in Ras el-Nabeh.

I am center, sailing with the Lebanon delegation to Genoa in 1954

Representing Lebanon

Receiving the medal and kudos from Costy Zurayk and Emile Bustani

-- A memorable 1954 trip behind the Iron Curtain with Lebanon’s delegation to the 12^th World University Summer Games in Budapest. We boarded ship in Beirut, sailed to Genoa via Port Said and Athens before traveling by train to the Hungarian capital through Austria. The punishing journey did not impede our sharing in the games’ opening ceremony at the 100,000-seat Népstadion. Setting a new AUB record during a Field Day on campus, which earned me a celebratory medal and kudos from AUB’s Acting President Constantine (“Costy”) Zurayk and Member of Parliament Emile Bustani, member of the AUB Board of Trustees and president of the Alumni Association.

-- My Lebanon captaincy in a friendly matchup with visiting Soviet weightlifters led by Arkady Vorobyov as they trained for the Melbourne 1956 Olympics. Henri Pharaon later entertained both teams at his most remarkable two-story stone palace in Beirut where he amassed art and antiquities.  He was the uncontested patron of Lebanese sports with a passion for horses who helped found independent Lebanon and designed the Lebanese flag.

Farewell Ma’alem, à toute...

Fawaz C. Najia: 1935-2014

Middle East Publisher, Editor and ArabSaga blogger Fawaz C. Najia lost his battle against cancer and passed away peacefully in London early on Sunday morning (April 20).

As one of the greats in the Arab English-language media, he was known to all of us who worked with him and were close as the Ma’alem – the teacher, the master.

Indeed, the Ma’alem was an encyclopedia in the region’s politics since the 1950s. He either participated in or covered the Middle East, especially Palestine, through his various publications -- Monday Morning weekly and Ike daily in Beirut, Lebanon, then Mideast Mirror newsletter in London.

But he was also a Ma’alem in life. Apart from journalism, in the 40 years I was with him he taught me generosity, humility and kindness. He was an avantgardist always ahead of his time, a feminist, an advocate for human rights and the rights of the Palestinian people and a firm supporter and believer in the Syrian people’s current battle.

Although creating a blog was on his mind for some time, he started guest-posting on my blog Mich Café at the start of the Arab Spring, as events began to unfold in Tunisia and then Egypt. Encouraged by the high number of readers, and with the help of Mohammed Kharroubi who set up the blog for him, ArabSaga was launched in January 2012. It was his way of communicating the saga of the Arab world to an English-reading public.

The war in Syria deeply affected the Ma’alem. He could not believe the silence and inaction of the international community. After working on a Syria post, he was left drained. Two weeks ago, when I visited him in hospital in London, I was often not able to understand what he was saying. But one morning, he whispered something about Latakia. Even then, the plight of the Syrian people was on his mind.

ArabSaga kept him going during his eight-month battle with cancer. It is only at the beginning of February, when his eyesight let him down and he was unable to read, that he stopped writing.

The Ma’alem had three personal posts he had not yet published – “Brawn or Brains?” “My journalism mentors before the Internet,” and “Life lessons from Costi Zurayk and Rafic Hariri.” Whenever he was about to post one of them, a more important current event would take precedence.

I will publish these three posts to add to the 625 he produced over two years, the majority of which are still relevant and will most probably be well into the future. They are a record of the events of the past two years, he Lebanon civil war and the Arab saga.

Among his most painful he wrote was the six-part series about “The cost of gagging Beirut.” Those who were “gagged” were personal friends he always remembered. 

There is so much to say, but for now farewell Ma’almi, à toute and May you now rest in peace.

Mich

Hollande, Abdullah set to meet in Rawdat Khoraym

Rawdat Khoraym, a wild life park and oasis 100 kms northeast of Riyadh

French President Francois Hollande flies into Riyadh this afternoon on his second official visit to Saudi Arabia before flying by helicopter to Rawdat Khoraym for talks with King Abdullah.

Rawdat Khoraym, or Khoraym Gardens, is a wild life park and oasis that blooms in the middle of the desert, chiefly in springtime.

Situated some 100 kilometers northeast of Riyadh, Rawdat Khoraym is the King’s favorite retreat.

Hollande told Lebanese journalist Ms Randa Takieddine in an exclusive interview for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat he will focus in his talks with the monarch on the Iran file and the political solution in Syria.

“Bilateral cooperation between our two countries is consolidating in all fields. France and the Kingdom are partners in working for peace, security and stability in the Middle East.”

Hollande and Abdullah in Riyadh last Novemeber

The French president said he would take up with King Abdullah the world powers’ talks with Iran on its nuclear ambitions and ways of reaching a political solution to the Syria crisis, the need to uphold Lebanon’s stability as well as France’s partnership with the Kingdom in the defense domain.

He reiterated there could be no political solution to the Syria crisis with Bashar al-Assad remaining in power, saying: “Assad is not fighting Muslim extremists. He simply uses them to put pressure on the moderate opposition.”

France, Hollande stressed, continues to coordinate steps with moderate Syrian opposition forces to find a political outcome in Syria.

He hoped the international community would come together at the Geneva-2 Syria peace conference to kickoff a process for a genuine transfer of power in Syria that would preclude the escalation of violence there and in the region.

The French leader strongly condemned Saturday’s car-bomb assassination in Beirut of Lebanon’s former finance minister Mohamad Chatah, an economist who held a senior position at the IMF. Chatah “was a man of dialogue and peace,” he said

Hollande called for the cessation of violence that is threatening Lebanon, saying: “It is vital to respect the country’s constitutional deadlines, particularly the date set for presidential elections” in May.

President Michel Sleiman's mandate runs out on May 25 and there are fears a successor will be hard to find because of huge disagreements between Lebanon's pro- and anti-Syria blocs.

Who killed the “Arab Spring”?

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat, penned this think piece in Arabic

Where are the young men and women who nearly three years ago crammed the plazas and public squares calling for the downfall of who they called the tyrant or the dictator or the despot?

Do they remember the victory signs they raised when they heard news of his escape or his standing down or his killing?

Do they recall the dreams they dared reflect upon in those days and their talk of democracy, state institutions, transparency, the transfer of power and the respect of human rights?

Was their behavior actually motivated by their fervor, their innocence or their naïveté?

Were they alien to their communities and ignorant of the degree of injustice permeating their depths and the wells of hatred waiting for an opportunity to explode?

Did it escape them that the problem is basically cultural rather than political and that it is not enough to open the ballot boxes to turn over the page of the past?

Did it escape them as well that centuries of darkness contributed to the incarceration of the Arab intellect and its disablement, rendering the Arab individual incapable of handling the keys to the future?

I have been obsessed for weeks by an irritating question: “Who killed the ‘Arab Spring’?”

That’s why I seize the opportunity of coming across anyone of the major players in the said “Spring” to ask for his assessment – especially now that some of the said ‘Spring’s’ theaters shut out the advocates of democracy and of modern state-building.

I will not name my respondents because our discussions were not to be published.

The man played an important role in his country’s “Arab Spring” when he dealt a painful blow to the despot under whose portrait he served for several years.

I asked him the question, “Who killed the ‘Arab Spring’?”

“I don’t know,” he replied.

“What you call the ‘Spring’ may have come early, before our societies became ready to embrace a transformation of this magnitude.

“It turned out we still live in the depths of history.

“With the tyrants’ fall, our societies began spewing all the blood, pus, hatreds, coercions and reprisals that accumulated in their guts.

“I think the transitional phase will be daunting and extended. In any case the French Revolution took eight decades before settling down.”

He added:

“We are in a terrible state of underdevelopment. Watch the screens. A university professor talks as if he has yet to enter the era of reading and writing.

“Look at nation-states, like for example Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Bahrain that are now paying the price of what took place between Ali and Muawiyah.

“We discuss globalization and technology and then go to sleep in the caves of history.

“Our capitals are closer to abattoirs overflowing with suicide bombers and assassins.

“Our countries fail to provide regular power supplies to their citizens.

“Our societies participated in killing the ‘Arab Spring’ by letting the prisoners of history take the lead.”

Another player put forward a different reading.

He said the most prominent killers of the “Arab Spring” are those who rushed to mold it, casting an image of their own interests.

He said the West acted as a crook, especially Obama’s America. Washington wanted the phenomenon to serve the policy she adopted years earlier – in essence the policy of promoting to power what she calls moderate Islam, thinking that the latter could contain terror.

He added: The Muslim Brothers, who were the better organized and widespread movement in the community, took this as an historic opportunity to devour it all.

He also said Turkey played a role in killing the “Arab Spring” when she considered a “Brotherhood Spring” victory gives her a trump card in her strategic wrestling with Iran.

He said Qatar used her financial might and international relations to prop up the “Brotherhood Spring” alongside Turkey.

Russia, he remarked was focusing on stifling the “Muslim Spring” lest it turned into a card in the hands of the West or spread to her vicinity.

He said Russia found in Syria’s events a chance to kill the “Arab Spring.” Iran was of the same opinion but for different purposes.

The two men’s words helped me understand what is now going on in more than one Arab country.

I got convinced the “Arab Spring” killers were more than one.

Most probably a stormy season is just about to kick off – a long and painful transition season.

The first condition for moving into the future is to exit the caves of history and bury the illusions of ready-made solutions.

Oman as Iran’s Trojan Horse in the GCC

Prince Turki al-Faisal addressing the Manama Dialogue

Oman is emerging as Iran’s Trojan Horse trying to destroy the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) from within.

Sultan Qaboos bin Said, the monarch of Oman since 1970, reportedly played a key role in facilitating the secret U.S.-Iran talks leading up to the November 24 “historic” nuclear deal, according to The Associated Press.

Oman is isolated from much of the rest of the Arabian Peninsula by a formidable mountain range, while Iran is just across the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway for global oil shipments that has at times raised tensions between the U.S. and Iran.

As early as 2009, according to Wikileaks, the sultanate offered to arrange talks between the U.S. and Iran – which hadn’t had diplomatic relations for 30 years – on condition that they were kept quiet. But it was reportedly the hostage crisis of three American “hikers” that brought him into a mediating role between the two sides and helped win the release of the three Americans, who were arrested and accused of spying while hiking along the Iran-Iraq border.

With that success in his pocket, Sultan Qaboos offered to facilitate a U.S.-Iran rapprochement, the AP reports. In March, U.S. and Iranian officials met in Oman, Secretary of State John Kerry followed up in May, and the talks took on a momentum of their own after Hassan Rouhani replaced Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran’s June elections.

Sultan Qaboos wasn’t in front of the cameras in Geneva, but a news report in the Saudi daily al-Hayat this morning speaks of “fears within the GCC of Iranian-Omani efforts to break up” the six-member club grouping Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Oman.

Oman and Saudi Arabia bickered publicly over the GCC’s future last week at the three-day Manama Dialogue in Bahrain, a forum on Middle East security.

A much-anticipated Gulf union is inevitable and will happen because people in the region are keen on it, Prince Turki al-Faisal, Saudi Arabia’s former Intelligence Chief who also served as ambassador in both the United States and United Kingdom, told the conference.

He was commenting on remarks made Saturday by Yusuf bin Alawi bin Abdullah, the Omani foreign minister, who said his country rejected the Gulf union and would pull out of the club if the union were approved.

“Everyone has the right to express their opinions,” Prince Turki retorted. “However, this will not prevent the union from happening. Oman can join it then or later, or not at all,” he said.

On the nuclear talks in Geneva last month between the 5+1 world powers and Iran, Prince Turki said they lacked a “very important factor” – namely, the participation of Iran’s Gulf neighbors.

“I don’t know the reasons for that… because eventually we are the ones that will be affected by anything -- a military event or a nuclear leak or any earthquake that may hit the [nuclear] sites in Iran,” he remarked.

“No doubt we are now facing a big smile from the Iranian leadership in the way they are dealing with the Gulf.”

Prince Turki added: “Iran must take concrete measures before we can judge whether it is going forward with a smile, or simply showing its teeth.”

Prince Turki said television and radio stations in Iran are targeting the Gulf Arabs with inflammatory broadcasts tackling “sensitive issues in our Arab world.”

Addressing Iran, he said: “Why don’t you close them down and show us your good intentions? Show us you are serious about this real, wide smile you are showing us.”

The six GCC partners hold their annual year-end summit in Kuwait, tomorrow, Tuesday.

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of al-Hayat, has this word today to tell tomorrow’s summiteers:

The region is unlike the one that existed three years ago.

Governments are confused. Armies are anxious. Borders are violated or about to be…

Iraq’s disintegration is an undeniable fact. The dismemberment of Yemen is flagrant. What looked like a Syrian intifada turned out to be a sectarian war feeding tension into the neighbors’ arteries.

Lebanon’s institutions are in a coma and its doors are open to refugees and fire. Libya, which spent four decades under one leader, today terrorizes its people, neighbors and the world. From Yemen to Tunisia, al-Qaeda and its ilk are omnipresent…

Today’s world is much more dangerous than the world that witnessed the birth of the GCC in 1981.

Bar Israel, four key regional states will play a dominant role in this difficult phase depending on their respective internal stability, resources and alliances.

They are Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Turkey.

GCC leaders who meet in Kuwait tomorrow are aware of the magnitude of the threats to stability and roles. They know the importance of adapting to change.

Oman’s attitude clearly unveiled that the Gulf union’s journey won’t be trouble-free.

But sensitivities should not forestall attempts to reconcile views of the various GCC member states on how to handle this phase of containing risks and assigning roles.  

Key Hezbollah commander assassinated in Beirut

Top, Lakkees' funeral in Baalbek. Center, Lakkees and son Ali Reda, who was killed in 2006

A senior commander of Iran’s cat’s-paw in Lebanon, the militant Shiite movement Hezbollah, has been killed at close range in Beirut.

Hassan Lakkees was killed near his home in Hadath, seven kilometers southeast of the Lebanese capital Beirut. He was buried in the town of Baalbek.

Hezbollah blamed Israel for the killing -- a charge Israel strongly denied

Little is known publicly about Lakkees, but he was reputedly close to Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah and an expert in weapons manufacturing, particularly drones.

Thousands of people turned out for Lakkees' funeral in Baalbek, a Hezbollah stronghold in eastern Lebanon.

Lakkees' coffin, draped in the Hezbollah flag, was carried through the streets of Baalbek.

The news comes a day after Hassan Nasrallah said Saudi Arabia was behind last month's bombings outside the Iranian embassy in Beirut.

Iran is a major backer of Hezbollah, which has sent fighters to Syria to back the regime of Bashar al-Assad.

A report on Hezbollah’s al-Manar TV channel Wednesday said Lakkees was killed as he returned home from work around midnight. It said Israel had tried to kill him several times previously.

Two neighbors at the quiet residential complex where Lakkees lived said he arrived home alone shortly before midnight and just got out of his car – a 4x4 Jeep Grand Cherokee -- in the parking space beneath his apartment block when he was shot four times in the head and neck at close range by two or three attackers apparently lying in wait.

They said two men were seen running away across some waste ground leading to boulevard Camille Chamoun nearby. The neighbors had no idea he worked for Hezbollah.

Some sources say Lakkees was shot with a 9mm silenced gun.

Israel denied any involvement in the death.

"These automatic accusations are an innate reflex with Hezbollah," Israeli foreign ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor said. "They don't need evidence, they don't need facts. They just blame anything on Israel."

Shiite Hezbollah emerged with financial backing from Iran in the early 1980s and began a struggle to drive Israeli troops from Lebanon.

Hezbollah fought a destructive 34-day war with Israel in Lebanon in 2006. One of Lakkees's sons – named Ali Reda -- was killed in that war.

Dr Ronen Bergman, a writer on military intelligence affairs for the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronot, told the BBC Lakkees "became known in Hezbollah as the guy in charge of manufacturing sophisticated weaponry, explosives, booby traps, he was a technical guy.”

He added: "Hassan was the leading figure who received Iranian guidance, he studied in Iran the issues of micro warfare, terrorism, counter-terrorism, and he brought this knowledge with him to Hezbollah, so he was one of these channels through which the Iranians gave Hezbollah their assistance."

After Iran’s triumphal moment in Geneva

Scenes from the Vietnam War

Ghassan Charbel, editor-in-chief of pan-Arab al-Hayat, today penned this think piece in Arabic

People of the Middle East are generally emotional and gung-ho.

They love victories, not compromises. They prefer winning by knockout rather than on points.

But regional and international conditions are very tricky. They leave little room for sweeping victories and for building on them swiftly. So proceed with caution in drawing conclusions. We’re still at the beginning of the road.

We were young when America’s adventure in Vietnam ended in America’s overwhelming defeat. The United States lowered its Stars and Stripes and pulled out.

Much was said at the time of the humiliating rout and of the empire that turned inwards to lick its wounds in isolation.

Today, it’s been years since we started reading about the rising level of bilateral trade between the two countries; about Vietnam’s eagerness to attract U.S. investments and tourists; and Vietnam’s delight at welcoming visiting U.S. naval units to remind China she needs to curb her appetite to rule the roost in her neighborhood.

Iran did not achieve Vietnam’s landslide in Geneva.

She targeted Americans in Beirut. She also targeted them in Iraq and probably elsewhere. But Iran did not enter into a face-to-face confrontation with the U.S. military machine, which unintentionally gifted her Iraq and Afghanistan on a silver platter.

Iran was able to collect other cards in the region. She always reminded others of her ability to influence the region’s two political hot potatoes: oil security and the security of Israel.

She brought in Hassan Rouhani from the cold to take advantage of the opportunity presented by Barack Obama’s new priorities.

The Geneva deal followed and it was called a “victory.”

Even if what took place in Geneva were described as a triumph, it is premature to liken the agreement results to the upshot of Richard Nixon’s visit to Mao Zedong.

We are today in a different world than Mao’s – dissimilar in its checks and balances and power criteria.

Assuming Iran’s nuclear deal with the 5+1 powers was a triumph, we have to take into account the agreement is provisional. The November 24 deal has a six-month clock and future negotiations will be more difficult and call for taking more painful decisions.

The Obama Administration’s reluctance to fight new wars in the region and her leaning to prioritize another part of the world does not mean turning over the headship of the Middle East, or the task of drawing its features, to Iran.

We also have to take into account the Russian and European players and such regional heavyweights as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkey.

It is essential as well to be aware of the objective hurdles that preclude Iran from leading the Islamic world, particularly that -- unlike most Arabs – she does not belong to its [Sunni] majority.

Moreover, assuming a role of such magnitude requires means that go beyond the current Iranian economy, which have been drained by Western sanctions and “Soviet” commitments from Afghanistan to Lebanon.

Iran cannot be the region’s star player unless she changed.

Star roles depend on a propensity to promote and uphold stability. They hinge on creating compromises instead of establishing beachheads.

Bringing stability to Iraq necessitates the involvement of her Sunni component in the decision-making process. However, co-opting this component in earnest undermines Iran’s aptitude to manage Iraq.

Any viable compromise in Syria calls for drawing in her Sunni majority. That would ipso facto mean a Syria that is less glued to Tehran.

The same can be said of Lebanon, where the systematic undermining of the position of the [Sunni] prime minister has already galvanized militants in the Sunni community.

These are post-victory matters.

Generations were raised to the slogan, “Death to America.” What will Iran now do with the slogan?

How can relations with “Great Satan” be normalized if talk of beachheads and strikes continues?  

And what of “exporting the [Islamic Republic] revolution,” which perturbed the region before it was agitated by fear of Iran’s nuclear ambitions?

Iran realizes fully well the slogan of “eradicating the cancerous tumor” [i.e. Israel] does not only raise America’s hackles but those of Russia’s Putin as well.

In addition, opening the door to investors assumes a transformed political and legal environment that would encourage young Iranians to aspire to a normal and prosperous state earmarking her resources for development and education rather than for perpetual dogfighting with her neighbors and the world powers.

Iran is a major country in the region.

To be acceptable and durable, her role must break up from the ambers of the revolution.

It is premature to compare Hassan Rouhani to Mikhail Gorbachev. Perhaps Iran needs someone who takes after China’s Deng Xiaoping.

She probably has to remember Vietnam defeated the United States, but referred her triumph to the history books.

And Vietnam is busy today inviting investors and tourists to improve the living conditions of the people behind the epic victory and their descendants.