-Analysis-
LEBANON — Nice to see that Nabih Berri, the Speaker of the Lebanese Parliament and leader of the Shiite-led Amal Movement, hasn’t lost his “sense of humor” amidst Lebanon’s brutal war.
With continuous air raids, Israeli ground advances, the destruction of border villages — and thousands of Lebanese casualties— Berri found time to comment on the U.S. presidential election results and Donald Trump’s return to the White House. The incoming president, quipped Berri on Thursday, had signed an agreement to halt the violence in Lebanon with the influential Lebanese-American café owner Hassan Abbas in Dearborn, Michigan, during a recent campaign visit to try to court the Arab-American electorate.
With his characteristically sarcastic style, Berri remarked that Trump’s promises about ending the war was nothing more than casual talk in an Arab café — informal, with no real obligations attached. With undeniable shrewdness, Berri noted that ending the war wouldn’t be done by striking a deal with a café owner in Michigan, but would require negotiating with him directly as the “older brother” entrusted by Hezbollah with the task.
Meanwhile, Hezbollah’s new Secretary-General, Naim Qassem, announced that the war could only end on the battlefield, not in a café in Dearborn. So wait: where’s the punchline?
American kids
To understand Berri’s “joke,” one must revisit his history with the city known as the “Capital of Arabs.” During the 1960s and 1970s, Berri lived on and off in Dearborn, holding an American green card of permanent residency, which he maintained through regular visits while married to his first wife, Leila Berri, who worked as a translator for the city’s police department. Together, they had six children, all U.S. citizens, whom he visited regularly.
Although Berri and his first wife divorced in 1984, he continued his trips to the U.S., which he had been making since the mid-1960s, according to a profile published by an American newspaper in 1985.
He learned English by reading the Detroit Free Press at the Dearborn Public Library.
The detailed report on Berri, whose prominence was rising following the February 6, 1984 uprising in West Beirut, says that he had also participated in the iconic Civil Rights march in Washington, D.C., in 1963. Later that year he graduated from university and moved to study at the Sorbonne in Paris. The revelation came from a relative named Imad Fadlallah who was interviewed for the article.
Berri spent intermittent periods in the U.S. in the 1970s and learned English by reading the Detroit Free Press at the Dearborn Public Library.
Berri did not hide his admiration for American culture; he “liked stylish Western clothing, preferred French cigarettes, and embraced the American way of life,” as noted by celebrated British war correspondent Robert Fisk.
Cowboy’s virtual return
Furthermore, his second wife, Randa Assi, mentioned in a 1980s interview with a Lebanese magazine that Nabih’s favorite pastime was watching cowboy films, especially those starring John Wayne, on his home video player.
So now Berri returns to Dearborn after more than 40 years, this time with an “unbearable lightness” through the door of Hassan Abbas’s Café, without actually traveling to the U.S. The Amal leader’s statement lands like a cowboy’s pistol shot, a blend of sarcasm and pity for its speaker.
Yet this is no time for jokes, nor is Berri’s age suited to such “light” gestures. The “cowboy” trend is long past, and if any smoke rises from a cowboy’s pistol today, it would come from the barrel of Benjamin Netanyahu’s gun after he fires a fatal shot at the future of peace in the region.
