At the end of each year we Americans look around and\u00a0count our blessings.\u00a0Not least among them is to live freely with mutual respect in a\u00a0nation full\u00a0of opportunity. A nation where each of us has the chance to\u00a0his or her dream and make it a reality. How Many Times… I Told You<\/i><\/b> – Reflections, Memories and Hope for Lebanon <\/i><\/b>was a dream\u00a0that became a reality because of so many people: family, friends and foes.<\/p>\n
In this holy 2007 season I want to thank all my friends who made it possible by helping, participating, engaging others and organizing my book signing tour. First, I want to say thank you to the World Lebanese Cultural Union for being such a great advocate of my work, organizing several of my book signing tours and posting my book banner on their international website. \u00a0I also want to say thank you to the Lebanese Lobby.org, Arab Media House of Virginia, Al-Hadath of\u00a0Montreal, Al-Akbar of Montreal,\u00a0Profile News of Boston, Cedar News of New York, Cedars Network USA,\u00a0At-Turath of Los Angeles, the Persian Heritage Monthly, the American Lebanese Coordination Council and the American Lebanese Coalition for either posting my book banner on their website or posting an ad of my book in their newspapers.<\/p>\n
Organizing a book signing event takes\u00a0persistence, time and effort. It takes strong arms to carry the boxes\u00a0from one place to another. It takes cooperation between generous friends and people to make it an appealing event. Therefore; I am indebted to the following individuals who were so dedicated to make my tour successful. Starting in Montreal, Canada on April 29, 2007 I thank Father Talal Al-Hachem, Alain Ayache and\u00a0Raouf\u00a0Najm\u00a0–\u00a0<\/b>in Paris, France\u00a0George Abi Raad\u00a0and Roge Hani –\u00a0in\u00a0 Miami, Florida Joseph Hage\u00a0and Danny Ghanem –\u00a0in Tampa, Florida Pierre Maroun and\u00a0Richard Azar –\u00a0in Orlando, Florida\u00a0Amine Harb and\u00a0Saba Shalhoub –\u00a0in Washington DC Ambassador\u00a0Clovis Maksoud\u00a0and Wissam Assaker of Virginia and in Washington too at\u00a0the annual dinner of the Rene Moawad Foundation, thanks to Nadia Abourizk and Nina Idris\u00a0–\u00a0in Boston, Massachusetts Monsignor Joseph Lahoud and Abe Tannous – in\u00a0Detroit, Michigan Milad Zohrob, Walid Nassif and Ibrahim Marji –\u00a0in Richmond, Virginia\u00a0Monsignor George Sebali – in Ottawa, Canada Danny Michelani\u00a0and Elias Kassab of Toronto\u00a0–\u00a0in Los Angeles, California Joe Karaki, Dr.\u00a0Hanna Chammas,\u00a0Dr.\u00a0Ghassan Boutros, Fares Wehbe, Edward Nahas, Anis Garabet and Karim Jaoudeh – in San Diego, California Eddy Slim\u00a0and Father Nabil Mouaness and on December 13, 2007 in\u00a0New York city\u00a0Haleem Zihenni\u00a0and the Consul General of Lebanon the Honorable\u00a0Antoine Azzam for hosting my book signing at the Consulate General of Lebanon’s residence which was the most touching gesture I received from my ancestral country of birth.<\/p>\n
I must not forget\u00a0to thank\u00a0Pierre Attalah of Annahar in Beirut, Sonia Nammour of Prestige Magazine in Beirut, Mohamad Jaber of Assabeel magazine in Michigan for the write-up and I appreciated very much your thoughtful\u00a0writing about this project. Many Thanks to Milad Bessada, ART television,\u00a0for hosting me on the “What’s Happening” show and Elie Semaan for creating the brilliant banner which became the trade mark\u00a0of\u00a0my book promotion.<\/p>\n
Also thank you to all the panelists at some of the book signing events\u00a0from Paris to Washington: former Minister Salim Al-Jahel, former Ambassador Samira El-Daher, US Minister Counselor James Bullock, Mary Jane Deeb, Chief of the African and Middle East Division at the Library of Congress,\u00a0former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Scott Carpenter and Dr. Alfred Saad of Boston.\u00a0A special\u00a0thank you to Dr. Wadih Haddad, former advisor to the President of Lebanon, Dr. Marius Deeb of\u00a0John Hopkins University\u00a0and Poet\u00a0May Rihani for believing in me.<\/p>\n
Last, but not least, to every one\u00a0in Lebanon, France, Canada, Brazil, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Australia and the United States of America who acquired a copy of\u00a0my book and visited my website.<\/p>\n
You all have demonstrated the real story in my book with your labors in these efforts\u00a0which are\u00a0unity, freedom, self determination,\u00a0and working together to lift Lebanon up. You did not only do this for me but for Lebanon as well. Your work isn’t finished yet, Lebanon still needs you and\u00a0we shall not tire, we shall not\u00a0yield and we shall not compromise until we see Lebanon totally free with real vibrant democracy and true independence.<\/p>\n
I cannot close this letter without thanking my employer, the leadership at the Office of the General Council\u00a0and the Bureau of Legislative and Public Affairs\u00a0at the U.S. Agency for International Development for clearing this project for me including the website and the wonderful letters about my book I received from President George W. Bush and former President George H. W.\u00a0Bush.<\/p>\n
Thank you all and may God protect you and your families in this holy season, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.<\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
Walid Maalouf <\/i><\/b><\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
For more Information about Mr Maalouf\u2019s book :<\/p>\n
Go to \u00a0<\/b>www.walidmaalouf.com\/Book\/<\/a><\/p>\n Readers’ reactions updates from: Dr. Ehab El-Khouly, Journalist Mazen Abboud, Poet Youssef Abdelsamad<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n In the Latest News page: <\/b>www.walidmaalouf.com\/Latest\/<\/a><\/p>\n The New York book signing at the Lebanese Consulate general<\/p>\n In the following community media coverage of the New York book signing event<\/p>\n Al-Hadath, in Montreal on page 5\u00a0http:\/\/www.starpolo.ca\/Pages\/numero60.pdf\u00a0\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\n Profile News, in Boston on page 33 http:\/\/www.profilenews.com\/index.php?id=7<\/a><\/p>\n In the Interview page: http:\/\/www.walidmaalouf.com\/Q%20A\/index.htm<\/a><\/p>\n Latest interview with the Cedar News in New York about the Lebanese presidential elections, UNSC 1559 and others<\/p>\n Get away from your daily routine, take a break and read about\u00a0Freedom, democracy, integrity for the Lebanese people Unity, true independence, in a beautiful secure And strong\u00a0Lebanon, Great book, one volume English \/ Arabic, <\/i><\/strong>\u00a0An excellent read for your\u00a0children, spouse,\u00a0cousins or friends, You can order it on line <\/strong><\/i>www.walidmaalouf.com\/Book\/<\/a>\u00a0 Or at the Virgin book stores in Beirut<\/i><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" At the end of each year we Americans look around and\u00a0count our blessings.\u00a0Not least among them is to live freely with mutual respect in a\u00a0nation full\u00a0of opportunity. A nation where each of us has the chance to\u00a0his or her dream and make it a reality. How Many Times… I Told You – Reflections, Memories and …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[39],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-wlcu"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2362\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wlcu.world\/ng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}