October 27, 2009
He said it fully: ‘My hobby is to serve my country and its citizens wherever they are, in Lebanon or overseas, and from any place or position’. This is how Issam Fares described his hobby while other people’s hobbies might be politics, or trade, or gambling, or making adventures.
He is one of the very few politicians in Lebanon who like to offer public services without any return and without personal purposes. He had always given without taking anything. Some believed that His Excellency Mr. Issam Fares might impair his relations with Lebanon and the Lebanese people, shut down his offices, and halt the services of his Foundation when he decided to move away from the local politics for personal reasons. However, to their great surprise, his Foundation as well as its affiliated developmental offices has multiplied its activities, intensifying the humanitarian and social services provided to the villages, students, the sick and needy.
On the international level, His Excellency Mr. Fares has multiplied his diplomatic activity in order to contribute in the realization of peace, democracy, and transparency in his nation Lebanon. After Moscow in Russia where he was honored, he is honored today in the United States from the highest international forum in New York, along with two former US Presidents Georges Bush and Bill Clinton.
The honoring ceremony comes in appreciation of Fares services and donations, mainly Issam Fares Center for Mediterranean Studies at Tufts in Boston which hosted high-level speakers in International Law who had come to deliver a conference on international issues, among which Lebanon figures. Among those speakers we cite Senior President George Bush, President Clinton and his wife Hillary, the current US Secretary of State, former French President Valery Giscard D’Estaing, former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former US Secretary of State James Baker, and Senator George Mitchell, the special envoy of US President Barack Obama to the Middle East.
Not to mention also the official visits Fares paid by superpowers, such as Russia, England, France, Mexico, and Brazil… during which he served as Lebanon’s Ambassador.
Congratulations for the Lebanese for the honoring ceremony of Issam Fares in the United States, awaiting his honoring in Lebanon in the foreseeable future.