Nohad el-Machnouk

Nohad el-Machnouk, according to his biography on WINEP's website, "served as a senior advisor for political affairs to the late Lebanese prime minister Rafiq Hariri throughout the 1990s and has played a leading role in the anti-Syrian "March 14 coalition." He is currently a columnist for al-Safir".

The Lebanese scholar As'ad AbuKhalil provides further insights into his background:

Well, he started his career as an Iraqi Ba`thist writer (he wrote for Ad-Dustur magazine which was a magazine for Saddam's intelligence apparatus in Beirut). He then worked for Abu Iyad's counter-intelligence service in Beirut. He was very close to Abu Iyad during the PLO years. When Hariri came to Lebanon, he was one of the leftists and Arab nationalists who rallied behind him. He became Hariri's media and propaganda adviser. Around 1996 (if I am not mistaken with the year), the Syrian government accused him of links with Israeli intelligence...Rafiq Hariri immediately...severed all ties with him, and kicked him out of the country. He relocated to Paris. He returned later during Emile Lahhud's administration. He was in conflict with Ghazi Kan'an, but was very close to Rustum Ghazalah and Emile Lahhud--he claimed that he was a friend of both. He has not been close to [Saad] Hariri who never trusted him. He wrote critical pieces of [Saad] Hariri, and often heaped praise on Hizbullah and Nasrallah, and their role during the Israeli war on Lebanon. He wrote emotional tributes to Nasrallah in the summer. He claims to remain an Arab nationalist. At the Washington Institute, he could not say more than this on Israel: "Israel has not been behaving constructively in this matter either." [1]

Related Articles

• Featuring David Schenker and Nohad el-Machnouk, Lebanon in Political Crisis: Three Months After the War, WINEP, December 4, 2006