The ME Revolution: The Battle Is Raging

Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone.

Protesters in Beirut put pressure on Syria
CTV.ca News Staff

Jubilant protesters crowded downtown Beirut Tuesday, waving flags, honking horns and singing in celebration of the ouster of Lebanon's pro-Syrian government.

Meanwhile, opposition leaders called on Lebanese to continue their "independence uprising" with nightly peaceful protests at Martyr's Square, while they begin their search to replace Prime Minister Omar Karami.

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won't come again

Abbas promises to hunt Tel Aviv bomb perpetrators

LONDON Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas told an international conference Tuesday that he would reform the Palestinian Authority’s unwieldy and competing security services — a key demand of Israel and world donors — and promised to track down and punish the perpetrators of last week’s suicide bombing in Tel Aviv.

Don't stand in the doorway
Don't block up the hall
For he that gets hurt
Will be he who has stalled
There's a battle outside
And it is ragin'.
It'll soon shake your windows
And rattle your walls
For the times they are a-changin'.

The Cedar Rebellion

For the Middle East, this is the latest bloom of liberty that began in 2003 with Iraqis cheering the downing of the Hussein statue in Baghdad's Firdaus Square. For Syria, its reaction to this setback in Lebanon remains in sharp contrast to the way it's handled rebellions in the past. In 1982, for instance, it wiped out the entire Syrian city of Hama - nearly 10,000 people - after an uprising there. Now it appears to be in retreat.

The world has changed in 23 years.

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'.
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
--Bob Dylan