This is Beirut

Regional powers fight over Lebanon

2007-04-27T22:17:00.001+02:00

Regional powers fight over Lebanon

By Kim Ghattas
BBC News, Beirut

In the southern suburbs of Beirut, pictures of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of Iran's Islamic revolution, are not an uncommon sight.

This is a stronghold of Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed Shia guerrilla movement and political party which looks to Iran and its supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei for spiritual guidance and more.

In the aftermath of the summer 2006 war between Hezbollah and Israel, the group distributed around $300m dollars in aid, in crisp dollars bills. The money was thought to originate from Tehran.

We should respect all countries that offer help except those that have a political agenda, and try to take away people's dignity
Iranian engineer Hussam Khoshnevis

In one apartment in the area, the television is playing a song in Farsi and in a corner there's a big Iranian flag.

These are the offices of Iranian engineer Hussam Khoshnevis, sent to Beirut by the Iranian President Mahmound Ahmadinejad, to help rebuild south Lebanon after the war.

With his team, he is repairing some 50 bridges, 60 schools and 150 kilometres of highway and 30 places of worship, including churches - all destroyed by Israeli shelling.

Political stand-off

In total Mr Khoshnevis expects at least $250m to be spent on the reconstruction.

Some other governments are not quite so transparent and some of them don't even give their aid to legal entities but instead choose to use their assistance in ways to coerce or push people for political ends
Juliette Wurr
US embassy in Beirut

Many see this is as the Shia revolutionary state's attempt to increase its hold over Lebanon and boost the power of the Shia guerrilla movement and political party Hezbollah in its stand-off against the government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora.

The five-month long political crisis, in part over differing visions of Lebanon's future, is one of the worst that the country has faced in decades. The engineer says Iran has no ulterior motives.

"We help all people in need, we don't expect anything in return," he said.

"We helped Pakistan, Indonesia and our help fits in with the ideology of the Lebanese."

But is help from other countries welcome, such as the US, which unequivocally backs Mr Siniora.

"We should respect all countries that offer help to Lebanon, it's to the benefit of the people, except those countries that have a political agenda, and try to take away people's dignity."

Mr Khoshnevis did not have to spell out what country he was referring to. It seemed obvious he meant the US.

Transparent intentions

"The United States has pledged one billion US dollars in aid," Juliette Wurr told me at the US embassy half an hour north of Beirut.

Around $30m dollars is going to rebuild a massive bridge in the eastern Bekaa valley, one of the tallest bridges in the Middle East.

We are concerned that Lebanon would become a theatre for the actual conflict between Iran and the US
Mohammed Shatah
Advisor to the PM

Part of the aid has also been in the form of training and equipment, including Humvees, for the Lebanese army and the police force.

Critics say the US has an agenda when it gives aid and it is trying to influence the government and keep it firmly in the pro-Western camp.

"We've been very transparent with what we do, when we give money we talk about it, when we give military equipment we hold a ceremony, none of this is under-the-hand cash transfer," said Ms Wurr.

"Some other governments are not quite so transparent and some of them don't even give their aid to legal entities but instead choose to use their assistance in ways to coerce or push people for political ends.

"Neither Syria nor Iran have played a very positive role recently in Lebanon."

Strategic battle

The US and Iran are both vying for influence here, trying to win the hearts and minds of the Lebanese and backing different parties - while the US supports the government, Iran and its ally Syria, support Hezbollah.

"Iran is in a defensive state at the current time, it is positioned in a strategic axis, with Syria and Hamas, to confront US plans in the region," said Amal Saad Ghorayeb of the Carnegie Middle East think tank.

"I think it's a battle between two strategic visions, and you have two domestic camps within Lebanon which adhere to one or the other and that's the real problem."

In a country that often sums up all the complexities of the Middle East, it can get even more complicated.

Regional power-house Saudi Arabia has also been pumping aid and money into Lebanon.

The Sunni Muslim kingdom deposited $1bn in the central bank during the summer war to boost the Lebanese pound and paid fees for all pupils in state schools to a total of $30m, among other initiatives.

The Saudis are keen to keep Lebanon stable and prevent it from falling completely into the Syrian-Iranian orbit, at a time of Shia-Sunni tensions in the region.

No strings attached?

In a way, the Saudis are on the same side as the US in the stand off, but they also try to play a moderating role.

Many Lebanese are critical of the Saudi petro-dollars pouring into the country. But others, including the government say they welcome Saudi involvement and American aid because they believe it does not come with any strings attached.

"Iran has a certain affiliation with a community in Lebanon. We have a problem when that affinity between Iran and Hezbollah translates into a flow of weapons or an attempt to dictate a certain policy over Lebanon which is not agreed upon by other communities," said Mohammed Shatah, an advisor to the prime minister.

"We are concerned that Lebanon would become a theatre for the actual conflict between Iran and the US.

"In the past, Lebanon served as a theatre for other conflicts and this has cost the country dearly."

So once more, Lebanon finds itself at the centre of a regional power struggle and while the different outside players are helping to rebuild the small nation, their competing agendas may still bring it all down.

Beirut is Burning

2007-01-23T17:15:00.000+01:00

I get so frustrated sometimes I don't know what to write anymore. Fresh from a meeting with Dr. Reinoud Leenders, assistant professor of political science at the University of Amsterdam and former analyst with the International Crisis Group based in Beirut, where we talked about identity, politics, and corruption in Lebanon, I go to CNN and find out protesters have shut down Beirut and a number of Lebanese cities by burning tires and cars, throwing rocks, and blocking traffic to and from the airport. Obviously, people are not satisfied with the current state of affairs but this is not helpful!!

Now, I am all for political protest and the peaceful protests of previous weeks seemed to indicate that it was possible to make a statement without harming each other or the city of Beirut or the country that so many Lebanese people profess to love. I feel like all this destructiveness is throwing the country into a time warp. If we condemn the actions of Israel for the destruction of Lebanon, we must also condemn Lebanese who destroy their own land and hurt their own people. How will Lebanon ever move forward otherwise. The violence has to stop.

My hope is that people in the west don't take this as proof that Lebanon is a lost cause or that these are "birth pangs" for a burgeoning democracy. I believe that when you are surrounded by violence and have had violence inflicted upon you for decades, it because a part of who you are and how you think. The conflict in Iraq is spilling over into other states and essentially, all these conflicts in the Middle East, Palestine and Israel, the war in Iraq, Syria and Lebanon transcend intra-state conflicts as they impact the entire region continuously. I want to write more on this but at the moment, I am just sad to see the effects.

America's Double Standard on Democracy in the Middle East

2006-12-27T22:32:00.000+01:00

Time Magazine joins the ranks of those questioning the true motives behind the U.S. policy in the Middle East. Some interesting insights in this article
By NICHOLAS BLANFORD/BEIRUT

The Post War Diaries

2006-12-08T18:48:00.000+01:00

Dear World

I entered the Monoprix Concorde yesterday and a glittering sparkling
Christmas tree was standing at the door. Inside, life was going on in
an attempt to create a peaceful and happy Christmas mood maintained by
Christmas carols playing on the shop's speakerphones, Christmas
brochures handed at the door and small chocolate Santa clauses wrapped
in colored aluminum sheets. Fruits and vegetables were fresh and
colored, branded products were yelling to be bought, people were
shopping in a fake calmness and patience. These days, everything
around feels like a lie.

I wrote a month of war diaries upon the Israeli assault on Lebanon in
a shout of despair and helplessness, as an attempt to get a reaction
against violence and wasted lives. The war ended and all is as numb
and dumb, including myself.

Today, Lebanon could be on a threshold of a civil war. Is it? Isn't
it? I have no clue. People are talking here and there, wondering,
questioning or giving very certain answers from very reliable
sources. (I would like to note here that all reliable sources in
Lebanon can also be referred to as gossip.)

Whoever has been following up the news in Lebanon would know that
right now, the country is divided. Needless to say between who and who
because it is meaningless. Mainly between two sides both heavily
anchored to their ideals and not willing to make any compromises.
Stubborn and stuck. Manipulating and manipulated. Half of the people
are currently residing in tents and sleeping on the floor in the area
that, not long ago, was witnessing an immense waste of money by Saudi
tourists and Lebanese Bourgeoisie and Nouveaux Riches over abundant
food, ugly (but supposedly trendy) clothes and other useless things
that contribute in making you feel complete when you truly are a
complete fool. An area that was once the ground of expensive glossy
cars and huge Hummers bought or rented at a rate that, if spent in a
little more awareness, would solve the poverty problem on the face of
our planet. Downtown Beirut.

I don't know what to think. I don't know who to believe, whose side to
be at. Some people claim this conflict is that of the poor against the
rich. Others that it is the poor headed against the smart. Others
that it is Iran and Syria against the US, and others that it was all
planned by Israel, as usual. I have been living weeks of talks and
arguments, assumptions and uncertain certainties, intolerant
expressions and stupid remarks, irresponsible leaders and numb ones.
And I am fed up.

Somewhere, I feel everyone is right but on another hand, this whole
scenario is still hard for me to comprehend and accept. A waste of
time, money and human energy to fulfill the huge inflatable egos of
the political leaders. Leaders whose photographs carry so much more
weight than the people themselves. All of them. Greed and arrogance,
delicately coated in flaming speeches, rich in style but devoid of any
sane human content. Does it take really that much for people to live
together?

I walk on the street and I don't recognize the people anymore. Some
political, religious, intellectual or social identification has taken
over their brains and they refuse to see that there is no real problem
in Lebanon, but only trouble-makers. I look at the infinite posters
hanging here and there, on the poles, on the billboards, over
balconies, on the walls, on the doors, on the windows, on the people,
on the cars, etc. Posters of leaders, dead leaders, surviving leaders.
Colored sheets of paper with some slogan that, repeated over and over
again, is emptied of its meaning and reduced to the status of some
cheap expression we throw to shut somebody up.

Do you want the truth? Of course you do.
What truth is it?
How valid is some truth when there's nothing true within us?

We have become mirrors of somebody's ideology and we are proud of it.
We go on the streets and shout it loud and clear as if it is a truth
for us. Is it?

And it kills me because, in the middle of all this mess, it is
becoming harder and harder for me to find myself. And I love it
because it is making me look. I love it because I am more confused
than ever, but I would rather be confused than sure from a "truth"
that could be nothing but utter nonsense.

Dear Leaders
Get off your stands and go home. Take a deep look at what you are
saying, doing and not doing and ask yourselves: what do you want? what
do you want to make out of this country? Because as long as you are in
a position where thousands of people are willing to execute your
orders, you better be clear and unselfish since anyways, someday you
will die and any profit you could have had out of this will go with
you to the grave. I am not being arrogant, I apologize if I sound so,
but if I were you, I would, as the French say, "rotate my tongue 7
times before speaking" and have a long and deep thinking about the
repercussions of my actions.

But hey, then again, aren't the international forces deciding everything for us?
Hell! I really know nothing!

Peace 'n' love
An air-headed Lebanese Citizen.

A plea for reason

2006-12-07T14:13:00.000+01:00

"If my leader is to show disrespect to any Lebanese party or sect I will not follow him. If my leader calls for a protest which divides our Lebanese ranks, no matter the cause, I will not follow him. If my leader is to show hatred, even if rightful, I will not follow him. If my leader hasn't learned the lesson I have from 30 years of war, Lebanon comes first, may our leaders fight their wars alone!"

Please don't rise to or be source of provocation. Let's not be victims of international stimuli again. Our leaders may sell their souls to the devil, but Lebanon was never theirs to sell. It belongs to those of us who STILL believe in one united people. Dear Lebanese, I would like this message to be a wake-up call to all Lebanese everywhere; whatever our political beliefs, religion or sect! Please hear this plea:Lebanon is going through a very difficult period on many different levels but most importantly on a street level. I URGE everyone to try your best to calm the people around you. Now is not the time to 'talk' or to inflame friends and neighbours. Please practice restraint! If we allow them, the political crisis our politicians are putting us through will soon spill onto our streets! If WE, as sovereign and independent Lebanese citizens, do nothing to stop it, we will have a civil war on our hands again! We have to use our rational and our common sense and not be manipulated into hatred of one another and street expressions! None of us want to see our children fighting and killing each other on the streets again! None of us want to witness a new wave of death, hate, destruction and humiliation again! None of us want to be manipulated and treated like sheep without any will or conscious again! None of us want to live in fear of sending our children to their universities and schools where students are being bullied and bitten for expressing an opinion again! Please talk to your children and friends and convince them:

Not to rise to provocation
Not to allow anyone to push their buttons
Not to be source of provocation
Not to inflame other's political and/or religious loyalties
Not to get into a war of words with others over politics or religion
Not to get into fist-fights or feuds with others over politics or religion
Not to destroy or assist in the destruction of another's properties/cars over politics or religion
Not to be influenced into expressing their opinions in our streets!

If you love our Lebanon, please forward this message to as many Lebanese as you possibly can ......so that we can help calm and defuse a highly explosive situation and maybe avert a crisis! Our country's survival and the lives of our children depend on our collective efforts!
Peace be upon us all!

A Patriotic Lebanese

On behalf of all Lebanese

Funeral for a young Shiite

2006-12-06T15:53:00.000+01:00

Mourners carry the coffin of Ahmad Mahmud during his funeral in Beirut. A sea of angry mourners converged on southern Beirut for the funeral of the young Shiite murdered amid mass rallies aimed at toppling the government, which have sparked fears of new sectarian violence.(AFP/Ramzi Haider)

Protest Day 3

2006-12-03T22:34:00.001+01:00

Hezbollah supporters wave their flags in front of Al Amin mosque in Beirut December 3,2006. Lebanon's political crisis showed no sign of easing on Sunday, as thousands of pro-Syrian protesters pressed on with a sit-in aimed at ousting a Western-backed government intent on holding on to power. (Eric Gaillard/Reuters)

Day Two of the Protest

2006-12-02T21:35:00.000+01:00

Lebanese army block Hezbollah protesters near the government head quarters in central Beirut on the second day of protests by the opposition demanding the resignation of the U.S.-backed government, December 2, 2006. (Sharif Karim/Reuters)

Protest in Beirut

2006-12-02T00:03:00.000+01:00

Lebanese people carrying national flags chant slogans in a rally held by pro-Syrian groups December 1, 2006. Tens of thousands of flags-waving Lebanese poured into central Beirut on Friday for a Hezbollah-led protest aimed at bringing down the Western-backed government,which has vowed it will not yield to the pressure. REUTERS/Eric Gaillard (LEBANON)

Mass Protest planned for today

2006-12-01T10:07:00.000+01:00

"Fellow Lebanese we have ahead of us decisive days for Lebanon and its future...," Siniora said in a live broadcast on Thursday. "We will not allow the coup against the democratic system, its rules and institutions.

"Tomorrow is a day when we will show our resolve," Saad Hariri told The Associated Press Thursday. Still, he vowed to be "strong with the government. ... We will not accept to be part of an axis of Syria and Iran."

Whoever pulled the trigger, Syria's allies are the losers

2006-11-24T17:53:00.000+01:00

The latest assassination in Lebanon has bolstered the US-backed government and weakened Hizbullah and the opposition

Charles Harb
Thursday November 23, 2006
The Guardian

The assassination of Pierre Gemayel, a Lebanese cabinet minister and scion of a ruling Christian Maronite family, in Beirut on Tuesday has sent shockwaves through the country's establishment and is shaping the political feud raging throughout the country.

Given the timing, location and method of the killing - a sophisticated shooting in the heart of Christian east Beirut at the height of a political crisis - there is already rampant speculation as to the identity and sponsors of the assassins. That will doubtless remain the case even after the criminal investigation is complete. The consequences of this for Lebanon and the wider Middle East are already starting to become clear.

In the past 18 months, Lebanon has undergone a series of political convulsions. A major split in the political establishment and the population followed the assassination of the former prime minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. On the one hand, a coalition of political parties coalesced in what is called the March 14 alliance (in reference to the mass protest against Syria's role in the country on March 14 2005); this is dominated by Druze and Sunni Muslim leaders (Jumblatt, Geagea and the Hariri family), as well as sections of the Christian Maronite community.

On the other hand, the opposition has grouped round the Hizbullah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and the former Maronite general Michel Aoun, who represents large sections of the Shia Muslims and Christian Maronites and a smaller Sunni Muslim section. This fissure reflects important regional links, with the March 14 group closer to the US-Saudi Arabian sphere of influence, and the other closer, with varying degrees, to the Syrian and Iranian spheres.

This summer's US-backed Israeli war on Lebanon and Hizbullah's victory weakened the March 14 alliance and put its main players on the defensive. The opposition groups grew in strength and demanded a greater share of political power through a unity government in which they would hold a full third of the seats, and thus have the power of veto over major government decisions.

The March 14 alliance refused - and opposition groups stated their intention to use all legal and democratic means to achieve either a unity government or early national elections. Opposition figures resigned from positions of power and planned a civil disobedience campaign. The opposition was widely seen to be gaining ground, while support for the ruling March 14 alliance faltered amid confusion about its direction, and perceived ideological bankruptcy. The question was not whether the government would collapse, but when.

Meanwhile, the March 14 alliance's main foreign backer was rethinking its regional strategy. The US administration's potential shift of direction following the Republican congressional election defeat is based on dialogue with Syria and Iran. The thawing of relations between the US-EU and Syria, as well as Syria's resumption of diplomatic ties with Iraq two days ago, are steps in that direction. Rumours of a deal between Syria and the US were starting to spread.

The assassination of Pierre Gemayel could not therefore have come at a more opportune moment for the March 14 alliance. Just two days before the planned start of mass public protests, the assassination halted the opposition's momentum.

Figures associated with the March 14 alliance have filled the airwaves, reviving the slogans that originally united them 18 months ago, and reminding the public and themselves why they came into being and why they are still needed - the threat of political assassination, the drive for national independence, and protection from Syria's security apparatus and proxies.

Earlier fears about their inability to gather crowds to compete with the opposition's numbers have vanished. Blood and grief are powerful mobilising agents. Mass demonstrations scheduled for today's funeral will be their best chance of a demonstration of strength.

Furthermore, the assassination of a member of a prominent Maronite family, coupled with media attacks on Syria and opposition groups, is expected to weaken the Aoun-Hizbullah alliance, potentially swaying Christian Maronites from the opposition. In the post-assassination climate, the March 14 alliance has already extended the life and boosted the confidence of the government.

The opposition forces realise that their plans are now on hold, and they could end up accepting a negotiated solution that would have been unthinkable a few days ago. Alternatively, they may decide to sit back and ride the backwash of the assassination, waiting to regain the initiative when emotions have cooled down.

No matter who was behind the assassination of Gemayel, it is the Lebanese opposition and Syria's allies that have been hardest hit politically by this gruesome act.

· Professor Charles Harb teaches social psychology at the American University of Beirut

charles.harb@aub.edu.lb

Back to Iraq

2006-11-24T12:33:00.000+01:00

I was speaking about the assasination of Pierre Germayel with a friend of mine and he posed the question, what are the objectives of Hizbollah, I mean, why do they turn against their own people? I didn't have a good answer but I think Chris Allbritton's Blog Back to Iraq may shed some much needed light on recent events.
Chris points out:
"The cabinet is normally made up of 24 ministers, with 16 needed for a quorum. Last weekend, five Shi’ite ministers and a pro-Syrian Christian minister resigned, threatening the stability of the government. Then Pierre Gemayel was killed, bringing the number of absent ministers to seven. If two more ministerial seats became vacant, Siniora’s government would be automatically dissolved. "

Destabilize and control is the short version of Hizbollah's objectives. But to what end? A return to Syrian control and a greater say in the direction of the country by proxy? It seems the waring factions in Lebanon, or perhaps better said, those pulling Lebanon apart, are extreme polarities. The division cuts across religious lines. Prime Minister Fuad Siniora is a Muslim and President Émile Lahoud is a Christian, disputing the myth that only Muslims are in support of Syrian control and that Christians are aligned with the west. This is not a war of Christianity vs. Islam. Of course, there are elements of that on the most basic level; fighting in the streets will invoke religious identities as Christian and Shi'ites prepare themselves to take up arms.
The saddest bit of this is that history repeats itself so often in Lebanon

Lebanese Christian Politician Killed

2006-11-21T16:30:00.000+01:00

Prominent anti-Syrian Christian politician Pierre Gemayel was assassinated in a suburb of Beirut on Tuesday, his Phalange Party Voice of Lebanon radio station reported.
His fatal shooting will certainly heighten the political tension in Lebanon, where the leading Muslim Shiite party Hezbollah has threatened to topple the government if he does not get a bigger say in Cabinet decision making.

Update from a Lebanese Citizen

2006-10-27T12:26:00.000+02:00

Dear World

I thought I would pop and drop a quick hello to each and everyone of
you. It has been a long time since we had a chat and honestly, I
missed you. Well, I missed pouring my mental chaos in a bundle of
meaningless sentences and send them to you so you can have a hint of
fun in your mornings.

Well, I did survive this war and apparently so did you. It is not so
bad after all, but why do I have the feeling that I am wasting my
time?

Yesterday, my mother was saying that the situation is really really
really bad and I looked at her with a numb expression over my face
because the only reason I have been following the news after the war
ended is to see whether it will be sunny on sundays so I can go
trekking. So, as updated as I was during the war, I happen to be a
total ignorant of the current political situation in the country. Well
I know a few things, for example that the "awniyyeh" are so happy
making little orange gadgets such as orange umbrellas and scarves and
water bottles with orange caps and orange shirts and drinking Crush
and Miranda so that they can have orange pee at the end of the day.
Well, I beat them all. I AM orange. Not that I am affiliated to any
political party, but all the carotene from the massive war-time carrot
eating has not left my body yet. I guess my body alone can buy me a
pass to be the party's president but who would want that?

Anyways, I feel that people around here are becoming less and less
sane. Driving alone is an overwhelming experience as cars jump left
and right and so do people, so I have been spending the last week
avoiding crushing people who, strangely enough, seem very suicidal to
me. As for walking on the street, same madness. I am about to be run
over by a car every second, except when the driver checks me out from
top to bottom and realizes that letting me pass could be an enjoyable
3-seconds visual experience for him.

As for work, I am currently there and I am trying really hard to find
a reason why I am sitting in the office and seriously thinking about
starting to work. I enjoy the warmth of the office as, in half an
hour, my design manager will arrive and find it incredibly hot in
here, and she will open all the possible doors and windows until I
freeze, get the flu and have a "day off" inhaling honey-lemon-ginger
infusions (I am a fan of natural cures, what can I say?) and becoming
best-friends with my Kleenex box.

This is pretty much it, I hope I didn't bore you too much. It just
feels too weird in here. Lebanon looks like wonderland, or la-la land
(as the Aishti ad says). We are having plenty of exhibits displaying,
with a mixture of pride, originality and weirdness, the "war-time"
artistic works, trying to prove to the world that we are creative
survivors... maybe not. Are we? Or are we simply nuts? I guess we
simply are whatever we are:

Terrible drivers.
Slow walkers, especially when a car halts to let us cross the road.
Bored employees.
Looking for wives or husbands.
Looking to get rid of our wives or husbands.
In love.
Depressed and proud of it.
Ecstatic with no reason.
Anguished.
Waiting for lunch break.
Craving for chocolate.
Endlessly waiting for that special someone to come back from abroad.
Making sure we don't gain weight.
Always checking if our best friend gained weight.
Surfing the internet during our working hours.
Wanting to leave.
Wanting to stay.

Looking for something we never manage to find, or do we?

Little habits left and right. Is this what life is all about?
Personally, I am fed up with it.

Until we meet again, I wish you the most un-boring life one can have.

Love,
A Lebanese Citizen

Hillary Clinton's Response to my plea

2006-10-13T13:49:00.000+02:00

During the conflict, I decided to write to my senators and representatives back home in the U.S. and ask for their support for a cease fire on humanitarian grounds. This is the response I received from Hillary Rodham Clinton. I think voters in New York should be aware of Senator Clinton's position. She certainly will not be getting my vote in this coming election.

Towards a lasting peace?

2006-09-15T18:48:00.001+02:00

I had a heated discussion with a friend of mine right after the war in Lebanon began. We immediately had opposing views on the subject and thusly, both searching for the information that supported our respective views, couldn’t have a very sophisticated argument without it turning into a shouting match. And I believe the breakdown in our conversation speaks more directly to the fundamental differences in our beliefs about the world, rather than receiving different information from differing sources.

My objection to this war is based more on humanitarian principles. I don’t believe in using violence as a means of resolving conflict. I see poverty as the root cause of conflict and I believe there is a precedent to suggest that poverty begets violence and violence is never a viable solution to resolving conflict.

Secondly, I have always endorsed Israel’s right to exist and to that end, protect its civilians from potential harm. I would stand with those who condemn attacks on Israeli soil. However, I feel that Israel’s policy of occupation and preemptive warfare in lieu of diplomacy is creating instability and discouraging peace in the region.

Israel and its defenders have stated that the actions in Gaza and Lebanon are to insure the safety and security of its own people. They have chosen to respond to violence with more violence, often reaching the ten-fold proportion. If Israel is attacked, the government hits back ten times as hard. Even though these tactics have yet to yield the desired result, they continue, in the name of defense, to try and achieve these goals through occupation and military force. This has the effect of strengthening support for the opposition and swaying public opinion in the surrounding lands against Israel. In this way, the stated aims of security and safety become unobtainable, as these goals will never be realized through the use of brutal force and illegal occupation.

I am not trying to blame Israel exclusively for the current state of affairs. There are tenets of international law that have been dismissed and disregarded by all players in this scenario. But in the case of the most recent attack on Lebanon, I think it is important to distinguish between state actors (i.e. Israel, Lebanon) and those of fringe organizations working within a state (i.e. Hizbollah.)

Lebanon did not attack Israel. Hizbollah, a fringe organization operating within Lebanon’s borders, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and this is an important distinction because, while it was certainly an act of aggression towards Israel, it did not have the impact of a state actor declaring war which necessitates an immediate defensive counter attack.

As Stephen Shalom explains eloquently in the following paragraph:

“…even when a country's own prior acts aren't contributory causes of an attack, international law places various limitations on the right of self-defense to that attack. One limitation is that the right of self-defense is meant to give nations the right to take measures to repel an armed attack until the UN Security Council can act to stop the aggression. If an enemy's tanks are hurtling toward your capital city, any delay in responding would mean further losses and further harm. In the case of the Hezbollah raid across the Israeli border on July 12, 2006, the act of aggression took place and was over; it was not an ongoing aggression to which any delay in responding would have meant additional harm to Israel.”

Before the air strike against Lebanon began, a deal was on the table to negotiate the release of the two soldiers in exchange for some of the thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails. And abruptly, Israel walked away from the table and began its offensive. Later, it was revealed that months before the kidnapping, the Israeli government had strategically planned an offensive attack on Lebanon and was waiting for an opportunity to launch their offensive. Hizbollah provided them with such an opportunity. If the true objective of the offensive was to prevent Hizbollah from further attacks, a retaliatory strike against Hizbollah’s military bases or training camps would have made much more sense.

It is worth acknowledging the disproportion of Israel’s response. Israel has killed approximately 1,000 Lebanese civilians, the vast majority women and children. To argue that Israel has a legitimate right to defend itself, and thus, by any means necessary is allowed to indiscriminately take human life, is to minimize the value of the lives of innocent civilians in Lebanon. Do these deaths of innocent Lebanese not constitute a larger crime than that of the provocation by Hizbollah?

I don’t believe that Hizbollah knew in advance the degree to which Israel would retaliate. In a sense, it doesn’t matter whether they knew or not. They couldn’t have planned it any better because the extent to which Israel chose to retaliate deflected blame away from Hizbollah as the instigator of the conflict and drew the Lebanese people’s attention toward the military behemoth that is Israel. One Lebanese friend of mine summed it up nicely. Imagine your kid brother does something really stupid, like starts a fire under the neighbor’s house. You want to punish him but before you can, the neighbor retaliates by killing several members of your family. Now, your anger turns toward the neighbor. Suddenly all you are thinking about is protecting your family.

To defend itself against accusations of unjust aggression, Israel and the U.S have painted a portrait of Hizbollah as a controlling force in Lebanon, suggesting there was a mandate from within Lebanon for Hizbollah’s actions. I want to dispel the myth that Hizbollah is supported en masse in Lebanon. My experience in Lebanon and with Lebanese people has taught me that most Lebanese are fed up with extremism and fundamentalism, having lived with the consequences of it for years.

Hizbollah was created to expel the Israeli army during the first military occupation of Lebanon by Israel, but ultimately took on charitable functions normally provided by the state; building hospitals, schools, giving alms to the poor and in the process recruiting and militarizing the youth. They were democratically elected to fourteen seats within the parliament, which indicates a certain measure of popular support. But that is largely due to the poorer Shiite population in the South. The people that support Hizbollah are economically oppressed, without education, living in a condition where they have nothing to lose, nothing to do but embrace their oppressor. Hizbollah is playing on the fears and desperation of these people and furthering the instability in the region when necessary to advance their own agenda. The Sunnis, the Druze and the Christians of Lebanon remain against Hizbollah.

Secondly, every country has within its borders fringe organizations that commit acts that the majority of the population would not approve of. They even occasionally are democratically elected to positions of power within the government. Should we then assume that their views and actions are acceptable by all the people living in the country? Should all Americans be held responsible for the actions of the fundamentalist Christians, right-wing militias or the KKK? I am not suggesting the Hizbollah is analogous to these organizations, (although you could draw some interesting parallels between Hizbollah and fundamentalist Christians in America, particularly in regards to women’s rights.) I am saying that the U.S. government is not capable of controlling radical factions within its borders, why should the Lebanese government be anymore capable?

The war* in Lebanon (1975-1991) seriously damaged Lebanon's economic infrastructure. Economic output was reduced by half and Beirut, once a popular destination for tourists of all nationalities, was no longer viewed as the jewel of the Middle East. In subsequent years, Lebanon has tried to rebuild as much of its physical and financial infrastructure as possible, mainly by borrowing money from domestic banks. The national debt has grown exponentially during this time and the government has tried to combat this by limiting government expenditures and privatizing state enterprises. In 2002, the government reached out to international donors to seek help in restructuring the massive amount of debt which constitutes 170% of the GDP.

The Lebanese GDP per capita is $5,900, less than half that of Saudi Arabia and about one quarter of Kuwait and UAE. About 30% of the Lebanese population lives below the poverty line. There is a tremendous need for development outside the city centers. The infrastructure is not conducive to economic development. Roads, for example, are in a terrible state of disrepair. Job prospects are scarce, forcing the young population to leave the country in search of better opportunities abroad.

And the current state of affairs will do nothing to reverse this trend. Tourism will turn downward again. Not to mention the cost of dealing with the worst environmental disaster to date, a spill of 15,000 tons of oil as a result of Israeli raids on a Lebanese power plant. The new Prime Minister has pledged to push ahead with economic reform, including privatization and more efficient government. But at the same time, help must come from outside sources.

Currently, the amount of damage caused by the 34-day war is estimated at 4 billion dollars. I’ve also seen estimates as high as 8 billion. The amount pledged thus far by outside sources is shy of 1 billion. That leaves a sizable enough gap to be thoroughly debilitating to the country’s future. Furthermore, guess who is stepping up to compensate Lebanese citizens in the south who have lost their homes? Hizbollah. The probable outcome of this war is that more than ever people are sympathizing with Hizbollah and see them as a necessary and integral part of Lebanese society. Theoretically, this is exactly what Israel was fighting against.

I am sure this will sound idealistic but what if, instead of spending billions of dollars on defense and weaponry and building a wall to protect its citizens, Israel choose to reach out to the disenfranchised populations in the south of Lebanon (as Hizbollah has done) and help the Lebanese government foster economic growth in underdeveloped regions of the country by contributing to the infrastructure, sharing technology and wealth. Wouldn’t this initiative undermine Hizbollah entirely and at the same time, help create the conditions that would insure a lasting peace in the region? A major contribution to the development in these regions would be a public relations coup; would show the world that Israel was ready to extend an olive branch to its neighbors and provide the basis for peaceful coexistence.

While some people may argue that Israel’s intervention would threaten Lebanese sovereignty, there is a larger question of agency that precedes the most recent bombing and speaks to the economic disparity between the two parties. For enumerable reasons, the Lebanese government is incapable at this moment of providing the infrastructure needed for economic development. The money has to come from somewhere. The question is, who is going to fill the void? Israel’s constant intervention, i.e. the occupation of Southern Lebanon from 1982-2000, undermines the authority and legitimacy of the Lebanese government. That is an intervention of abuse. I am talking about an intervention of prosperity.

The Machiavellian axiom of its better to be feared than loved has never proven effective. And for the most, international relations theory is based on the idea that in a global age, war is damaging to all societies because it inhibits free trade and exchange and creates instability. For the sake of its own security, what does Israel really stand to lose from this initiative? We have seen the result of years of aggression and defensive strikes. We know that Hizbollah has capitalized on the poverty and instability of the region. Isn’t time we started thinking out of the box towards a solution that may result in a lasting peace.

*I have been asked by a Lebanese friend not to refer to it as the Civil war because what has become clear in the aftermath is that there were many forces outside of the country profiting and propelling the conflict. Because I am writing for an international audience, I am afraid that if I just say, the war, people outside of Lebanon will not know what I am writing about.

Angry Beirut protests greet Blair

2006-09-11T16:41:00.000+02:00

UK Prime Minister Tony Blair visits Lebanon and sparks angry protests against his visit. Click through for full story, including video footage of the protest. Aggrieved at what they see as the UK's pro-Israel bias, several protesters disrupted a news conference, shouting, "Shame on you" A British woman registered her disapproval at Mr Blair's foreign policy, sporting a T-shirt with the slogan "ashamed to be British" during a press conference. Seriously, break out the rotton tomatoes.

Hizbollah's reconstruction of Lebanon is winning the loyalty of disaffected Shia

2006-09-06T01:12:00.001+02:00

By Robert Fisk

First printed in the Independent, August 24th, 2006

Hizbollah has trumped both the UN army and the Lebanese government by pouring hundreds of millions of dollars - most of it almost certainly from Iran - into the wreckage of southern Lebanon and Beirut's destroyed southern suburbs. Its massive new reconstruction effort - free of charge to all those Lebanese whose homes were destroyed or damaged in Israel's ferocious five-week assault on the country - has won the loyalty of even the most disaffected members of the Shia community in Lebanon.

Hizbollah has made it clear that it has no intention of disarming under the UN Security Council's 1701 ceasefire resolution and yesterday afternoon, Major-General Alain Pellegrini, the commander of the UN Interim Force in southern Lebanon - which the Americans and British are relying upon to seize the guerrilla army's weapons - personally confirmed to me at his headquarters in Naqoura that "the Israelis can't ask us to disarm Hizbollah". Describing the ceasefire as "very fragile" and "very dangerous", he stated that disarming Hizbollah "is not written in the mandate".

But for now - and in the total absence of the 8,000-strong foreign military force that is intended to join Unifil with a supposedly "robust" mandate - Hizbollah has already won the war for "hearts and minds". Most householders in the south have received - or are receiving - a minimum initial compensation payment of $12,000 (£6,300), either for new furniture or to cover their family's rent while Hizbollah construction gangs rebuild their homes. The money is being paid in cash - almost all in crisp new $100 bills - to up to 15,000 families across Lebanon whose property was blitzed by the Israelis, a bill of $180m which is going to rise far higher when reconstruction and other compensation is paid.

In the 20sqkm of Beirut's southern suburbs which have been destroyed or badly damaged in 35 days of Israeli bombing, 500,000 residents - most of them Shia - lost their homes. But money is being poured in. For example, one Shia owning four floors of an apartment block, Hussein Selim, has already received $42,000 in cash for his possessions and lost furniture. And Hizbollah has pledged to rebuild the entire municipal area from its own - or perhaps Iran's - funds.

A frightening side to this long-term promise for believers in the UN ceasefire is that Hizbollah has encouraged its Shia population to rent homes in Khalde, south of Beirut, since it intends to delay its entire city construction project for a year - because of its conviction that the ceasefire will break down and that another Israeli-Hizbollah war will only wreck newly built homes.

Across the devastation of southern Lebanon, Hizbollah has now visited hundreds of thousands of Shia families for details of their losses. In some cases, Lebanese government officials - largely distrusted by the local population - have also made notes of compensation costs but all the authorities have done so far is to start the repair of water pipes and power lines. I found bulldozers working for Hizbollah's "Jihad al-Bena" company, clearing rubble from streets and tearing down half-destroyed houses. "We are doing this for nothing at the moment, but we know we will get paid because we trust Sheikh Hassan," a construction team leader told me. Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Hizbollah leader, has promised to indemnify all survivors.

Driving more than 100 miles across the south of the country yesterday, the sheer enormity of Hizbollah's task - and of the Lebanese government's failure - becomes evident. Looking across thegreen countryside of southern Lebanon, the villages appear undamaged as they bask in thesun. But the closer you get, the more you notice vast grey fields of rubble that were once homes. Some villages - Bint Jbeil, for example, and Zibqin - have been half-destroyed.

In Zibqin itself, I found one especially poignant ruin: the bombed remains of a mosque well over 1,000 years old which the Lebanese believe contains the body of Zein Ali Yaqin, son of the Prophet Yacoub - Jacob in the Jewish faith - and grandson of the Prophet Ibrahim, or Abraham. Two of Abraham's sons - Yacoub and Ismail (Ishmael) - define the split between Islam and Judaism, the former believing God told Abraham to sacrifice Ismail and the latter contending it was Yacoub/Jacob who was to be sacrificed. Zein Ali Yaqin is thus of precious Jewish lineage - yet the casket containing his mortal remains actually moved on the floor of the shrine as Israeli bombs fell outside.

The explosives have blasted down an old façade and tumbled hundreds of rocks from the original outside wall of the green-domed mosque on the slope below, cracking open the interior walls and cascading wreckage on to the floor beside the cloth-covered tomb. "The Israelis did all this to their own man," Hussein Barakat said as he hobbled down the road below. "Everyone here knows the origin of our little shrine, but look at it now." Mr Barakat is 69 and was the only villager to remain in Zibqin when the rest of the villagers fled the Israeli bombardment. He has a wound on one finger and has been left half deaf from the sound of explosions.

Bodies of civilians and Hizbollah fighters were still being unearthed from the wreckage of southern Lebanon this week; four brothers, all members of Hizbollah it turned out, died together under Israeli fire in the eastern town of Khiam. Some civilian families searched in vain through the rubble for relatives. In Siddiqin, just east of Qana, I found one shopkeeper who had spent hours trying to discover the ruins of his two shops which had been turned to dust by aerial bombs. But he, too, believed that "Sheikh Hassan" would rebuild his home. A few miles away, I found a 65-year-old woman clambering like a cat over the pancaked roof of her home, looking for her family gold in clefts between the packed concrete.

It is Hizbollah's army of workers which has been told to rebuild these villages. The guerrilla army's political and economic organisation will hire the tens of thousands of men to reconstruct a virtual city within Beirut and turn south Lebanon's wasteland back into the farming and tobacco-growing villages that existed two months ago.

The cost of war

2006-09-01T12:06:00.000+02:00

Video from Reuters on the economic cost of rebuilding the Lebanese infrastructure, now estimated at 4 billion USD. Lebanon's prime minister says 15 years of progress was wiped away in 5 weeks. This is, of course, aside from the emotional toll the 34 day war has taken on the Lebanese population.

Kofi Annan calls for Israel to lifts it's blockade

2006-08-31T23:23:00.000+02:00

Israel should stop humilating Lebanon Warning of a “race against time” to rebuild Lebanon after the recent devastating month of conflict, the United Nations Deputy Secretary-General today urged donors to provide funds for the task, as he repeated calls for Israel to lift its air and sea blockade, saying it severely hinders relief efforts.
“Aid when there is a blockade is like putting someone on life support when there is a foot on their wind pipe. We need an immediate end to the blockade and a political solution to the underlying causes of the conflict.”

An Activist's Journey: From Palestine to Jerusalem

2006-08-31T23:12:00.000+02:00

Listen to this interview with a Palestinian woman who lives in Jerusalem and participated in a Peace conference in Lebanon in July. Ironically, the conference which include participants from many different nations was dismissed once the bombing began.

Lebanese women grieve the loss of their loved ones

2006-08-25T10:29:00.001+02:00

Lebanese women grieve over the coffins of family members removed from a mass grave and draped with the Lebanese national flag in the southern port city of Tyre, Lebanon, Thursday, Aug. 24, 2006. The bodies were to be buried in their home village of Marwaheen where they died July 15 following Israeli air strikes.
(AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Sign2Help petition

2006-08-24T14:10:00.000+02:00

Dear all:
Please Visit http://www.sign2help.com and sign the petition. By signing the petition you will be donating 10 cents for free to the Lebanese children.

Every day Lebanese children are exposed to fear, violence, hunger, lack of water... Approximately 750.000 people have lost their houses and have sought refuge in overcrowded shelters with very limited electricity or access to water, or gathered in public areas.

By signing this petition you will help the Lebanese children and their parents to get clothes, food, medicine, protection and support. For every signature we get, you donate 10 cents to the Lebanese people in need. Our aim is to reach 10 million signatures that will translate into $1 million in funds.

Please help us spread the word in any way you can and invite your friends and family to do the same.

Thank you for your help,
Gilbert Hage
http://www.sign2help.com

Removal of men from flight condemned

2006-08-23T13:45:00.000+02:00

Passengers feared 'Asian' pair were terrorists· MP describes incident as hugely irrational.
by Alex Kumi Monday August 21, 2006 - The Guardian

Post War Diaries - Day 4

2006-08-23T13:38:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 17, 4th day of peace.

Peace is it? I wouldn't know.
They announced the ceasefire on Monday at 8:00 a.m. local time. And since then, I feel empty.

I don't know whether this is a dream or reality.
I don't know whether this month of war was a short nightmare, or, as a friend told me, that all these days of peace were just a long dream.

I am just wondering where I was the last month. Somewhere ugly, somewhere beautiful, I wouldn't know because most of the time I could not even feel myself. All I could feel was something constantly crumbling within me and a permanent heaviness I could barely drag behind me.

The war is over now, there's nothing to fear. And I don't want to believe it because I believed it once, I believed it for fifteen years and got betrayed again. I stopped trusting peace and gathered a permanent readiness for war situations, a permanent readiness for destruction and death. And it is okay, it can never go wrong.

Now, we don't see the Israelis bombing on television. They stopped bombing and we will not miss them. The refugees on my building's first floor have left. They all left from the moment fire ceased, ignoring the israelis' threats and the warnings from unexploded objects and potential bombs left behind in scary quantities and went back home.

Home sweet home. How sweet it is to find the four walls of your house gathered in mass of rubble that covers potential bodies buried underneath? This is the case of hundreds of families who, despite all that, bowed down the moment they reached their villages and kissed the soil. A soil more precious then ever.

Slowly, things are going back to normal. Slowly, televisions are re-integrating non-war shows such as translated Mexican movies that emerged as a great trend after the civil war. It is funny to see Mexican-moving lips, with an Arabic voice over along with my dear Flash News Grey Band (Yes, it's still alive) numbering the dead they found under the rubble today, the total number of war victims, along with what Junblat said, what Hariri said, what Lahoud said, what Olmert said, what Bush said, what Rays said, what Sanioura said, what Nasrallah said, what Asad said. So many people with so many things to say, it mesmerizes me because there is only one thing that needs to be said: that the world has officially gone crazy.

I am out of things to say, really. I am simply writing whatever is crossing my head. I simply hope that the violence is truly over. There was too much death and too much suffering, much more than anyone could have handled. Yet we have handled it and we are getting up on our feet, and it won't take long before we get along with our lives. Because, simply, life is the only thing we want and we won't give it up for anything.

I hope this is the last thing I write about the war. Whatever I have written before is useless now. Maybe at the time it was useful, but right now it is totally pointless. There is no point in looking back and regretting that we didn't do anything earlier. So better discard them or read them as a story, a fiction. This is all they are now, a fiction.

This is all this war is now, a fiction.
1300 dead so far, but families are still lying under the rubble, bodies waiting to be uncovered and buried.
Slowly, the world will forget. We will just be another set of numbers, a grey memory everyone avoids to remember, a set of dates and events in some history book that a child memorizes late at night because he has to, not because he wants to.

But we will not forget. This war has been imprinted in the deepest level of our senses and even if someday our mind decides to discard it, fireworks will still traumatize us, and television Flash News will still carry the mesmerizing threat they have been carrying for the past month.

Outside, the generator is still on. And even if someday electricity is granted all day and night, my dear generator will still be waiting outside, just in case the city goes dark again. And I will hear its roaring once again, this soft roaring that has now become my silence.

I hope nobody ever experiences what we have experienced this past month.
But somewhere, I hope you do, if you have the nerves for it. There's nothing more interesting that seeing the world madness eating you up, and then slowly receding… or not. How would I know?

All that I know, is that I know nothing.

With Love,
Hopefully my last post

A Lebanese Citizen

Israel-Hezbollah War Endangers Archaeological Sites, Ecosystems

2006-08-17T00:38:00.000+02:00

August 15, 2006 (Bloomberg) The Roman temple complex in the Lebanese town of
Baalbek has somehow endured the region's centuries of bloody-minded
conflict. But it may not survive the latest bombing raids of Israeli fighter
planes, which destroyed two buildings in the town square and damaged the
Temple of Bacchus.

The well-preserved structure, which has withstood wars and earthquakes since
its construction in 150 A.D., was cracked in the raids. The nearby Temple of
Jupiter, the largest religious structure of the Roman Empire, is so far
unscathed. Both buildings are among the great examples of Roman architecture
still standing.

Baalbek is just one of many archaeological treasure troves in the Beqaa
Valley to fall victim to shelling. In addition, the ancient city of Tyre,
with its important archaelogical sites and architecture, also has come under
fire. There is no information yet on possible damage to the city's Roman and
Phoenician ruins, according to Gaetano Palumbo, director of archaeological
conservation for the World Monuments Fund.

Beirut and Sidon, about 27 miles to the south, both have important historic
buildings going back to the 10th to 13th centuries, Palumbo says. Among
those structures is Chehabi Citadel in Hasbaya, which is on the fund's 2006
most-endangered list. A fortress for the armies of the First Crusade in the
11th century, the Citadel was taken over in the 12th by the Chehabi emirs,
whose descendants occupy it to this day.

Damage in Arqa

Israeli bombing raids destroyed the modern bridge at Arqa, about 62 miles
north of Beirut. Just 70 feet from that bridge, according to the Biblical
Archaeology Society, is an excavation site believed to have been damaged in
the pounding -- including Hellene and Iron Age pottery pieces and the
structures that house them.

Israel is also getting hammered. Archaeologist Ryan Byrne, speaking by
telephone from Memphis, Tennessee, says he was forced to leave Tel Dan, one
of the more important sites in the Golan Heights near the Israel-Lebanon
border, after two of Hezbollah's rockets hit a megalithic cemetery nearby.

The site, which chronicles some 9,000 years of human history, is better
known for the world's oldest intact arched gateway, a 4,000-year-old,
mud-brick structure now protected under a modern shelter but still quite
vulnerable to the errant missile.

Jeroboam's Altar

No real damage was done here, but Byrne and his team have packed it in and
postponed further work until next summer. Also on site is an altar set up by
King Jeroboam. ``Standing on top of it, you have a good view of the war,''
Byrne says.

Megiddo, or ``Armageddon'' as the Greeks like to call it, has been home to
37 different cities over thousands of years and is a trove of archaeological
treasure. Excavators can see -- and feel -- incoming missiles, but this
Unesco World Heritage Site has not been directly hit, yet.

Some Christians believe the Apocalypse is to take place here, with Megiddo a
staging area for the final battle between good and evil, according to the
Book of Revelation. Good is expected to prevail, a victory that will presage
the Rapture, in which the saved are rewarded with eternal paradise, while
the rest suffer the travails of a violent earthly existence.

Archaeology sites and ancient temples aren't the only cultural attractions
under fire. The Baalbeck International Festival shut down on July 12,
canceling the Eifman Ballet Theatre of St. Petersburg, the Budapest Symphony
Orchestra/Nice Opera joint production of ``Lucia di Lammermoor'' and a rock
concert by Deep Purple.

Environmental Toll

Another war casualty has been the environment. It will be a while before we
know the full extent of the ecological nightmare unleashed by the Israeli
strike on the power station in Jiyyeh, but we do know that at least 13,000
tons of oil have spread over 93 miles of the Mediterranean into Syrian
waters, a spill that could grow to three times that amount, at which point
it will reach Exxon Valdez proportions.

That oil slick, like the incontinent bombing from both sides, has no regard
for the sanctity of archaeology. Byblos, an ancient harbor 25 miles north of
Beirut renowned for its Canaanite ruins, is now tarred with oil. A few miles
to the north, a tremendous rock wall carved by the Phoenicians 2,800 years
ago to protect their ships docked off Batroun is likewise on the verge of
getting a horrific lube job. But a full assessment of the spillage -- let
alone cleanup efforts -- cannot even begin until the shelling stops
completely and Israel lifts its naval blockade.

Torching Forests

Israel, meanwhile, has its own eco-troubles. Forest fires -- hundreds of
them -- started by Hezbollah's wayward Katyushas have torched forests all
over Galilee and environs. Thousands of acres of grasslands in the Hula
Valley are toast, as are at least a half-million pine trees in the northern
Galilee hills.

Just hours before the U.N. cease-fire resolution was to go into effect,
Israeli defense forces continued to pound eastern Lebanon, while Hezbollah
lobbed hundreds of missiles into northern Israel. Israeli bombers also
dropped a more benign payload over Beirut, leaflets asking the Lebanese
people, ``Will you be able to pay this price again?''

The answer, I think, is obvious. Destruction of history is a price you pay
only once.

(Mike Di Paola writes about preservation and the environment for Bloomberg
News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer responsible for this story:
Mike Di Paola at mdipaola@nyc. rr.com.

Minutes before cease-fire goes into effect, Israel pounds Beirut

2006-08-14T12:23:00.000+02:00

The US media has consistently referred to the war between Hizbollah and Israel and now the cease fire between Lebanon and Israel. The discourse suggests there were two armies of equal strength battling but Lebanon has never actually been at war with Israel. Now cease fire, so we can all breath a little bit easier, but who will be held responsible for the devastation of Lebanon. And minutes before the cease fire goes into effect, Israel continues their offensive. What does this say about the possibility of a lasting peace? Even those who supported the Israeli position must recognize the nature of these last minute attacks as working against the interests of a substainable peace.
(AP Photo/Sergey Ponomarev)

Put an end to the aggression

2006-08-13T20:41:00.000+02:00

Fouad Siniora, Electronic Lebanon, 12 August 2006

Lebanese rescue workers search through the rubble for survivors after an Israeli air strike in the Shiyah district in south Beirut killed 31 persons, 8 August 2006. (MaanImages/Raoul Kramer)

Britain and Europe must take a lead in halting Israel's wanton destruction of my country

For a month now, as the international community has vacillated, Israel has besieged and ravaged Lebanon, creating a humanitarian and environmental disaster and shattering our infrastructure and economy. In the name of the Lebanese people, I again demand an immediate ceasefire and withdrawal of Israeli troops. The international community has an obligation, under the UN charter, to defend Lebanon's sovereignty and protect our people under humanitarian law. Given the historic ties with our region, Lebanese look to Europe and Britain to take a lead through the UN in putting an end to this aggression.

Israel says this war is against Hizbullah, not Lebanon. But the Israeli terror is inflicted on all Lebanese. The indiscriminate murder of more than 1,100 Lebanese civilians (a third of them children), the massacres and "cleansing" of villages and the wanton destruction of our infrastructure are nothing short of criminal. One quarter of our population has been displaced. On behalf of all Lebanese, I demand an international inquiry into Israel's actions in Lebanon, and insist on reparations.

I have proposed a comprehensive seven-point peace plan, rooted in international law, which takes into account the interests of all parties to this conflict. It was adopted by the Lebanese council of ministers, which of course includes Hizbullah, and is supported by a broad national consensus.

There is, and should be, no military solution. The plan therefore calls for an immediate, unconditional and comprehensive ceasefire and the release of Lebanese and Israeli detainees; the withdrawal of the Israeli army behind the established "blue line" between the two states; a UN commitment to put the Shebaa Farms area and the Kfarshouba Hills under its jurisdiction until Lebanese sovereignty over them is settled; the extension of Lebanese government authority over its territory through its legitimate armed forces; an expansion of the UN international force in south Lebanon, with a wider mandate and scope of operation, to undertake humanitarian work and guarantee security; UN action to enforce the 1949 armistice agreement between Lebanon and Israel; and a commitment by the international community to support Lebanon's relief, reconstruction and development needs.

As part of the plan, the Lebanese government has decided to deploy 15,000 Lebanese troops in southern Lebanon as the sole military force in the area, alongside UN forces, the moment Israel pulls back to the international border.
The draft UN security council resolution proposed by the US and France failed to address the key points of our plan, and was rejected by all Lebanese. The idea of an international force being sent to Lebanon directly challenges our sovereignty, and we can never accept that. If the UN resolution is to have any chance of succeeding, it must not only take into account the wishes of the Lebanese people, but must address the root causes of this war: Israel's occupation of Lebanese territories and its perennial threat to Lebanon's security.

If Israel would realise that the peoples of the Middle East cannot be cowed into submission, that their will to resist grows ever stronger with each village destroyed and each massacre committed, it could also be a stepping stone to a final solution of the wider Arab-Israeli conflict. A political solution cannot, however, be implemented as long as Israel continues to occupy Arab land in Lebanon, Gaza, the West Bank and in the Syrian Golan Heights, and wages war on innocent people in Lebanon and Palestine.

Fouad Siniora is the prime minister of Lebanon. This article was originally published by The Guardian.

Collective punishment against Lebanese civilians

2006-08-12T21:37:00.000+02:00

36 collective massacres occurred against the Lebanese civilians since the onset of the Israeli assault (from July 12-August 11). Israel violated all conventions related to the prohibition of collective punishment whereas it perpetrated voluntarily crimes against civilians and their properties, namely Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention prohibiting collective punishment and Article 48 forbidding military actions against civilian populations and infrastructure. These collective massacres are as follows:

13 July : Dweir massacre killed a family of 12 members,

15 July : Marwaheen (Israel asked the inhabitants of this village to evacuate this village and while they were leaving the air strikes killed 22 of them),

16 July : 5 massacres in Tyre (an air raid struck a building killing 12 and injuring 50), Borj Shamali (5 persons amongst them 2 babies), Aytaroun (an air raid killed 11 persons, 10 of them are from the same family possessing the Canadian nationality), Abba (10 were killed most of them belong to the same family) and on the entrance of Abbassiyeh (9 were killed under the rubble)

17 July : Rmayleh (Chemical bombs were thrown on displaced convoy killing 12 and injuring many)

18 July : Aytaroun: an air strike hit a house where many were hiding killing 13, 6 of them were babies

19 July : 4 collective massacres: Nabi Sheet in North of Bekaa (two families of 8 members were killed under the rubble of a house), Maaraboun (three pickup trucks with agricultural workers were hit by an air strike killing 7), Tyre (air raids targeted residential areas killing 20 at least), Srifa (air strikes targeted 10 houses killing 27 and wounding 30 others, the victims remained several dauys under the rubble).

25 July: higher Nabatiyeh (an air strike targeted a residential house killing 7)

28 July : Haddatha (an air strike targeted a three-storey residential building killing 6 from the same family)

29 July: 2 massacres in Noumayriyeh (an air strike killed a family of 7 and their neighbor under the rubble) an Ayn Arab (an air raid killed 6 civilians and injured 3, many of them remained under the rubble for several days)

30 July : 2 massacres in Qana (an air strike targeted a three-storey residential building where more than fifteen persons were hiding from Hashem and Shalhoub families destroying it and killing them under the rubble) and Yaroun (6 members of the same family were killed: 3 women and 3 children from Khanafer family)

31 July : 3 massacres were revealed by the Israeli truce, in Hareess (16 corpses of two families were under the rubble of two residential houses), Halloussiyeh (more than 10 corpses for Mwanness family were still under the rubble), 12 corpses were found on the roads and inside vehicles between Qoleyleh and Al-Jebbeyn (one of them was a corpse of an eight-year old child)

2 August : The commandos operation on a hospital in Baalbeck killed 13 civilians, including women, children and Syrian workers

4 August : One of the bloodiest day after Qana: 3 massacres in Qaa (28 Syrian agriculture workers were killed while they were packaging peaches), Taybeh (a two-storey residential building was targeted by Israeli air raid killing 7 who were elderly and unable to leave their homes, Ayta Shaab (an air strike targeted a house making 10 victims)

6 August : 2 massacres in Ansar (an air strike targeted the house of Ibrahim Assi killing him, his wife and their two daughters as well as their neighbors, while the rescue workers were removing the corpses an other air strike hit the house and the rubble), Al-Jubbeyn (this village was heavily targeted by air strikes that killed Kassem Akeel, his wife, his daughter and another victim)

7 August : BLACK MONDAY: Air strikes hit heavily many areas while the Arab foreign ministers were holding their meeting: Houla (6 air strikes targeted the Husseini club in the village where many people from the village sought a safe haven after the destruction of their houses. The premises was destroyed on them, 5 were killed while 60 were rescued safe miraculously), Ghassaniyeh in Zahrani area (an air strike hit at dawn at Abdallah Khalil Tohmeh two-storey building killing him, his wife and his two sons as two brothers and two others making the death toll 8), Ghaziyeh (air strikes hit residential neighborhoods killing 15), Shiyyah (an air strike hit a residential building in the crowded Al-Hajjaj area killing 56, especially that there were in the building displaced from Beer Al-Abed, Hayy Maawad and Haret Hreyk), Breetal (air strikes targeted residential houses killing 13)

8 August : Air strikes resumed on Ghaziyeh during funeral procession of the previous day's 15 victims killing 14 and injuring 24

9 August : Mashgharah (an air strike targeted a four-storey building killing 8 persons from the same family

11 August : Akkar in North Lebanon (an air strike targeted at dawn Al-Hayssa bridge killing 11 and injuring 15)

Mrabba Electroni[c]que: Global Lebanon Web Jam. Stop the war!

2006-08-12T16:20:00.000+02:00

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
>>>Mrabba Electroni[c]que: Global Lebanon Web Jam. Stop the war!>>>
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

!!!!please note time change!!!!!!!

Saturday, August 12 2006, 15:00 - 19:00 PM CEST [--> 16:00 - 20:00 EEST]

http://beirut.streamtime.org
http://streamtime.org

Live audio/video streaming transmission from Waag Society in Amsterdam,
in direct connection with Beirut and surrounding localities. The event
was initiated by Streamtime, a web support campaign for Iraqi bloggers.

After one month of violence and carnage, this Global Web Jam brings
together live interviews and conversations, video clips, cartoons and
blog blurbs, soundscapes, DJs and VJs, a lively mix of information,
art, protest, party and reflection. We feature the voices, images
stories, reports and initiatives from Lebanon and beyond, with
participation of activists, artists, bloggers, journalists, musicians
and many others.

This is a call for an immediate end to the violence and destruction, in
defiance of war, and in search for solidarity.

With contributions and participation of: Wahid el-Solh, Mounira
el-Solh, Sonya Knox, Naeem Mohaiemen, Kanj Hamadi, Jim Quilty, Randa
Mirza, Mazen Kerbaj, Raed Yassin, Charbel Haber, Nathalie Fallaha,
Henri Gemayel, Fadi Tufayli, Tariq Shadid, Peter Speetjens, Chalaan
Charif, Martin Siepermann, Arjan El Fassed, Ruud Huurman, Kadir van
Lohuizen, Thomas Burkhalter and Anna Trechsel, Beirut DC, Tarek Atoui
and many others.

This Global Web Jam is an initiative of Jo van der Spek, Geert Lovink
and Cecile Landman (from Streamtime), Nat Muller, Paul Keller and Denis
Jaromil Rojo in Amsterdam; and Tarek Atoui and Rawya el-Chab in Beirut.

info: http://beirut.streamtime.org | mail: beirut@dischosting.nl

This project is supported by Waag Society, Novib (Dutch Oxfam) and X-Y
Solidarity Fund

War diaries, days 30 & 31

2006-08-12T15:53:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 10 and 11.

It has been a month since the first Israeli assault happened. Since then, time has stopped, our lives have halted and we have been living in a constant expectation of our own death.

In celebration of the one-month war anniversary, I would like to update you on the numbers, although I don't think that the quantity of victims is relevant. The blindness with which our dear neighbors are bombing us is as revolting whether it hits one or one million persons.

1100 deaths

Over 3200 wounded

1 million displaced.

And the world is still watching, of course. More passively than ever.

Yesterday, around noon, as I was working on designing calendars in my office (it is as fulfilling as designing Ramadan Cards, as a matter of fact), we heard a huge bombing sound, closer than any that we had heard so far. I would like to report to you some of the conversations that happened after that little event. Bitter sweet talks. However, if you don't feel like reading them, please scroll down until the line of stars that marks their end.

CONVERSATION 1

Medium: cell phone

Me: "Hello? Mum?"

Mum: "Yes dear"

Me: "Where are you?"

Mum: "Home"

Me: "No, you are lying. I called home and there's no one there"

Mum: "I am in the parking"

Me: "You are in the Military Beach Club!"

Mum: Hahahaha, yes.

Me: "Mum!! I told you that the sea is polluted and you shouldn't be anywhere near it! Didn't you hear the bombing?"

Mum: "Yes, dear. It's the suburbs again."

Me: "No mum, they are saying it's the old lighthouse. It's meters away from you!"

Mum: "Really? Funny… Maya, I am okay. Stop panicking!"

Me: "Mum, please watch out"

Mum: "Okay dear. Bye"

Me: "Bye"

Mum (thinking I hanged up, talking to her friend) "She always panics whenever she hears an explosion!"

CONVERSATION 2

Medium: MSN Messenger

Anonymous says: (11:58:20 AM)

maya

heard the sound?

? says: (11:58:27 AM)

yes

but no clue where

Anonymous says: (11:58:46 AM)

dawi infijar kawi 3ala shate2 el rawsheh (was heard a strong explosion in Raoucheh)

arabia just wrote it

? says: (11:59:39 AM)

shit

raoucheh?

Anonymous says: (12:00:44 PM)

hek katabo (This is what they said)

nobody knows still

? says: (12:01:07 PM)

mum bel hemmeim el 3asskareh, 2al ma fi chi (Mum is in the Military Beach Club. She says there's nothing)

Anonymous says: (12:01:31 PM)

keef hal 7akeh!

kteer aweh el sot (Huh? The sound was too strong)

? says: (12:01:41 PM)

ma ba3rif (Dunno…)

Anything else on the news?

Anonymous says: (12:05:08 PM)

nothing

browsing

? says: (12:06:01 PM)

ouch

Anonymous says: (12:10:36 PM)

darabo el manara el 2adeemeh lol (They hit the old lighthouse lol)

manara

? says: (12:10:48 PM)

ana sme3et el manar (I heard it was the Manar TV Station)

oooooh mbala

? says: (12:16:05 PM)

non mich manara chaklo (It seems it's not Manara)

my friend's aunt lives there. nothing

Anonymous says: (12:16:23 PM)

el manara el 2adeemeh (The old Lighthouse)

it's on tb

Anonymous says: (12:16:26 PM)

? says: (12:16:34 PM)

oooh

3am bisawwwrouwa? (Are they filming it?)

Anonymous says: (12:16:47 PM)

non

bass all tvs wrote it

isn't it right next to hamem el 3askareh (The Military Beach Club)?

? says: (12:17:01 PM)

Mbala (Yes)

Anonymous says: (12:17:10 PM)

weird

all wrote it

? says: (12:17:16 PM)

ana my mum is getting a tan

Anonymous says: (12:17:25 PM)

its 200m away max from where i am

? says: (12:17:33 PM)

ouahahaha

? says: (12:17:37 PM)

funny

Anonymous says: (12:18:09 PM)

yeah

Anonymous says: (12:18:12 PM)

na2azzouneh (They scared me)

? says: (12:19:17 PM)

looool

? says: (12:19:22 PM)

al mod7ik al moubki (The "funny-sad")

Anonymous says: (12:20:12 PM)

they are correcting

Anonymous says: (12:20:17 PM)

some people are saying 2 trucks

? says: (12:20:25 PM)

where?

? says: (12:20:33 PM)

kamen manara? (Also near Manara?)

Anonymous says: (12:20:46 PM)

3al rawsheh yeah

w kassafo 3amsheet (They also hit Amsheet)

haydeh ba3ed Jbeil (After Jbeil)

w dad is going now to the north!

am scared

? says: (12:21:01 PM)

ouch

? says: (12:21:04 PM)

check on him

Anonymous says: (12:22:13 PM)

future sawwar el manara el 2adeemeh (Future TV is filming the old lighthouse)

? says: (12:22:32 PM)

so, manara it is?

Anonymous says: (12:25:23 PM)

yes

Anonymous says: (12:25:28 PM)

Future 3am bitssawwir (Future TV is filming)

Anonymous says: (12:25:31 PM)

put future

? says: (12:25:33 PM)

ktir damage?

Anonymous says: (12:25:33 PM)

lol

sorry

? says: (12:25:38 PM)

victims?

Anonymous says: (12:25:39 PM)

enno 2 missiles

Anonymous says: (12:25:43 PM)

nothing yet

Anonymous says: (12:26:23 PM)

Borj el 2ize3a el libneniyeh el 2adeem.. (The old Lebanese Radio tower)

Anonymous Moz says: (12:26:28 PM)

between college and LAU

? says: (12:26:42 PM)

CONVERSATION 3

Medium: mouth

Location: Office

Person 1:"So, you thought it was Dahieh?"

Person 2: "Yes... but the sound was different."

Person 1: "How different?"

Person 2: "When they bomb Dahieh, it's usually Bwouhouuuuf. Now, it was Bwihiiiiiiiijjjjjj."

Yes, We are becoming experts in bomb sounds. And we are proud of it!

I didn't sleep tonight. They bombed the southern suburbs around a million times, and I am sure they were using a new type of bombs because it felt like the bomb was exploding few centimeters away from us. No electricity to check the news, mum puts on her walkman and hears what the exact location is.

After a light morning sleep, I wake up with a pumping heart and spend my day jumping off my chair every time a door closes or a pencil falls on the floor. I have crossed the limits of alertness and entered the realm of hysteria, where a person sneezing can make me think that a bomb exploded nearby. I wish I was deaf, truly.

Today, at around ten in the morning, the Israeli threw some flyers over the Sanayeh Garden, that said: (I am actually holding one in my hand)

"Nasrallah is bluffing you and hiding from you the huge losses in the rows of Hezbollah. Here is a list of some of the deceased's names that Nasrallah left out and of which he denied the death." Followed by a list of 90 to 92 names in alphabetical order. You will find a snapshot of the flyer attached to this mail.

When I was in Kindergarten, once landed on my desk a small note from one of my classmates that said: "Lana is in love with Maher, but she is hiding it from everyone. This is what she wrote on the bathroom door: 'Maher I want to marry you'"

Flyers are really very strategic and intelligent means of communications, especially when the message they carry is truly mature and well thought of. I really see that our lovely neighboring state is nothing but baby-brains with plenty of weapons. What can we expect from such people except destruction and more destruction? It's just like giving a gun to a child and letting him mess with it.

The Marjeyioun hospital closed its doors today because of a total lack of resources.

And the world is still watching.

I am considering sending flyers to the rest of the world that say:

"God is bluffing you and hiding from you the huge losses in human beings' brain cells despite the impressive-nonetheless useless- technological improvement. The truth is that we are in the Age of Stupidity and Mediocrity, and that we are far behind the Stone Age in terms of Human Intelligence. Here is a list of the 'Historical Events' that you chose to forget, ignore, deny or regret." Followed by a list of all the wars and massacres since 1950, in alphabetical order of course.

After all, what is more important than the ABC of life?

Happy One Month

A Lebanese Citizen

The Pressure is Working...

2006-08-11T06:49:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,

As the awful civilian death toll rises above 1000 in Lebanon and Israel, people around the world are seeking a place to voice their frustration and concern. Over the last 4 days, 200,000 people from 148 countries have signed the ceasefire petition. At this rate, we could soon be the largest global online petition in history.

The pressure is working. The global outcry over this crisis has pushed the Ambassadors to the UN Security Council to work around the clock to achieve an immediate ceasefire.

The latest word is that the Council may be close to a final vote today or tomorrow, but we've been this close before and negotiations have fallen apart. We need more pressure now to close the deal.

Please forward this email on, spread the word to your friends, family and colleagues, post a link on your blog, bring up the campaign in discussions, and urgently encourage people around you to join this global wave of protest by signing up at the link below:

http://www.ceasefirecampaign.org/mo/en.html

The pressure is working. Let's ratchet it up.

With hope,

Ricken Patel, Ceasefire Campaign

UK US airlines terror plot disrupted,

2006-08-11T03:09:00.000+02:00

Of course in the first place we should be happy that in the end
nothing has happened.
If the apparently planned attacks would have succeeded a huge loss of
lives would have occurred, and enormous consequences perhaps.

Yet there SHOULD be enormous consequences.
And I mean not in the sense of more terror alert, that will happen
anyway.
I mean this should be another indication for world governments to
think once more.

The supposed terror plot was aiming at airliners between the UK and
the US.
Two countries highly responsible for the turmoil in the Middle-East,
for the invasion of Iraq on false grounds, and for the delay on
effective stances regarding Palestine and Lebanon versus Israel, if
not in secret partnering with Israel on a delay of UN action to
enable Israel to protrude deeply into Lebanon and Gaza.

So in the eyes of many the UK and the US are highly responsible for
evil in the world, and if the UK and the US boast to be so democratic
this means their civilian populations are highly responsible.

As collective punishment is apparently the rule in the approach of
the West (in Iraq, in Palestine, in Lebanon - ven if one names it
‘collateral damage’, which is mainly an euphemism), a desire for
collective punishment the other way around should not completely
unimaginable.
One just cannot blame the people who see their world attacked this
way for thinking so.

And even if you would disagree you will have to live with the fact
that apparently the impression is given and people who see their
world under threat think so.
It does not help to want them to think otherwise, unless you can
convince them, and nobody is doing that.
We will have to live with this reality and think and act accordingly
and make our chosen politicians act accordingly.

Even the fact that two days ago a relatively new wind seemed to start
to blow in Connecticut, ousting the vile Liebermann in the Democrat
party (see the video on the biasedness of the US, in which Liebermann
figured often, on the wrong side), is not that positive, as the issue
was the US soldier victims in Iraq rather than the Iraqi victims,
about whom no leading politician cares.

Let us be happy that today only the terror effect prevails and that
in the planes there were no losses of lives, while in Iraq, Lebanon
and Iraq the loss of lives however just continues steadily.
What can be feared most now is that the Western rulers and their
puppets at the media will, irresponsible as they have proven to be
until now, see this as an excuse even to dig deeper into the
‘shit’ (to paraphrase Bush) théy create in the Middle-East.

Neil

War diaries, day 29

2006-08-10T02:35:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 9, Day 29

I am sitting in my living room couch.

I could not write yesterday. I successfully reached the 'blank head' stage for a few minutes, but quickly got caught up by the presenter's voice on television.

There, they are talking about the risk of diseases spreading because of hygiene problems and lack of water in the refugees' centers. Some Lebanese political figures are vaccinating children and people are applauding. I don't understand why. They are even wearing black suits and sunglasses. At the bottom of the screen, the Flash News Gray Bands keeps on hypnotizing me, and announces that the number of victims of the Shiyyah massacre has risen up to 42. They have been gathering bodies from underneath the rubble for two days now. People buried under their own roofs. I hope none of you ever tries this. It is not a very nice way of going.

Outside, the generator is on. Starting next week, electricity will only be available half of the time. I don't hear the generator's roaring anymore, it has merged with my experience of silence. Bomb sounds still haven't, but they will someday. Baby steps.

I saw some photographs of South Dahieh today. I never saw so much rubble anywhere. The colorful 'vernacular' neighborhoods have taken a grey shade of dust and death. From time to time, a couch stands on the miraculously-standing balcony of a quarter of –what I think was- a house. Remains of street signs, shop signs, books, clothes, toys and other remains of household lives are scattered here and there and add specks of color to the de-saturated landscape.

Today, my neighbor told me that we have to get used to the war, that it might take months, so we better live with it.

We are, but it is not always easy. It is not easy to watch people die on television, familiar faces, familiar places simply crumbling before your eyes. It is not easy to entrap all your thoughts in a bubble where 'war', 'bomb', 'dead', are the only available words. It is not easy to wake up in the middle of the night to a deafening bomb sound, then force yourself to sleep again because we haven't slept in a month; to wake up every morning hoping that no carnage has taken place during your sleep, thanking life because you are still breathing. It is not easy to sit and watch a war when all you want to do is shake those politicians so that they wake up and look, and hopefully see.

It is not easy to choose not to dream.

Yet we did it and we are doing it everyday. Because somewhere, we know that this war can be a great growth for us. Everyday, it is bringing us closer to life, closer to death also. Anyways our life is not guaranteed. It is just that these days, the war made it more obvious. The risk of dying has grown a little bigger, so what? This will not keep us from living, as wonderfully as we can. We will just look at this war as an intensive training in living skills.

I guess one of men's biggest gifts is their ability to adapt.

I also guess that one of the Lebanese's people greatest gifts is their ability to adapt to non-adaptation because anyways, life is never 100% certain. And that's the wonder of it.

Alive and well living,

A Lebanese Citizen

Video of Amy Goodman's interview with Richard Debs

2006-08-09T17:35:00.000+02:00

Democracy Now's Amy Goodman interviews Dr. Richard Debs, Former Chair of Morgan Stanley, Chairman Emeritus at the American University of Beirut

"It's Now Considered the American War Against the Arabs..."
Calling Israel's war in Lebanon a "catastrophe," the former president of Morgan Stanley International talks about the democrats' "huge mistake" in backing the Bush administration's Israel policy. Richard Debs talks about the role that Syria, Iran, and the US media play in the crisis, and his view that "democracy has become a code word--and not a good codeword--in the Middle East."

Peace Berlin!

2006-08-09T14:50:00.000+02:00

no barbaric screaming and shouting,, hardly understanding a word that comes out of the none sense chanting..

the city people are forced to maneuver round quiet bodies therefore
inducing an experience in the daily human,, this provokes an emotion

:: thus effective, a silent ambient effect that would be heared
a message being experienced not just conveyed,,

Peace Berlin!

Lebanese Oil Spill Could Rival Exxon Valdez Disaster

2006-08-09T02:13:00.000+02:00

Click here to view full article

An oil spill caused by Israeli raids on a Lebanese power plant could rival the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster that despoiled the Alaskan coast if not urgently addressed, the United Nations has said.
The Nairobi-based UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said Tuesday the spill that poses severe ecological and human threats is already comparable to a 1999 oil tanker accident off the coast of France and had the potential to get far worse.
"In the worst-case scenario and if all the oil contained in the bombed power plant at Jiyyeh leaked into the Mediterranean Sea, the Lebanese oil spill could well rival the Exxon Valdez disaster of 1989," it said in a statement.

Jordan's King Abdullah fears for Mid-East

2006-08-09T02:02:00.000+02:00

Story from BBC NEWS

I think he raises some really interesting points in this interview. Here's a snippet, follow the link for video of the interview.

"Each time we have a crisis it gets far more unstable. The international community has no overall agenda. It's a piecemeal way of dealing with situations, whether it's the Israel-Palestinian one, whether it's Lebanon, whether it's Iraq or the issue of Iran, there's no overall strategy."

Press Release-Lebanon: An Open Country for Civil Resistance

2006-08-09T01:46:00.000+02:00

Please distribute as widely as you can. Thank you.

Beirut August 7, 2006

Press Contacts:
Rasha Salti, +961 3 970855
Huwaida Arraf, +961 70 974452
Samah Idriss, +961 3 381349
Wadih Al Asmar, +961 70 950780

On August 12, at 7 am, Lebanese from throughout the country and international supporters who have come to Lebanon to express solidarity will gather in Martyr’s Square in Beirut to form a civilian convoy to the south of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese and international civilians will express their solidarity with the inhabitants of the heavily destroyed south who have been bravely withstanding the assault of the Israeli military. This campaign is endorsed by more than 200 Lebanese and international organizations. This growing coalition of national and international non-governmental organizations hereby launches a campaign of civil resistance for the purpose of challenging the cruel and ruthless use of massive military force by Israel, the regional superpower, upon the people of Lebanon.

August 12 marks the start of this Campaign of Resistance, declaring Lebanon an Open Country for Civil Resistance. August 12 also marks both the international day of protest against the Israeli aggression.

"In the face of Israel’s systematic killing of our people, the indiscriminate bombing of our towns, the scorching of our villages, and the attempted destruction of our civil infrastructure, we say No! In the face of the forced expulsion of a quarter of our population from their homes throughout Lebanon, and the complicity of governments and international bodies, we re-affirm the acts of civil resistance that began from the first day of the Israeli assault, and we stress and add the urgent need to act!," said Rasha Salti, one of the organizers of this national event.

After August 12, the campaign will continue with a series of civil actions, leading to an August 19 civilian march to reclaim the South. "Working together, in solidarity, we will overcome the complacency, inaction, and complicity of the international community and we will deny Israel its goal of removing Lebanese from their land and destroying the fabric of our country," explained Samah Idriss, writer and co-organizer of this campaign.

"An international civilian presence in Lebanon is not only an act of solidarity with the Lebanese people in the face of unparalleled Israeli aggression, it is an act of moral courage to defy the will of those who would seek to alienate the West from the rest and create a new Middle East out of the rubble and blood of the region," said Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement and campaign co-organizer. "After having witnessed the wholesale destruction of villages by Israel's air force and navy and having visited the victims (so-called displaced) of Israel's policy of cleansing Lebanese civilians from their homes," continued Arraf, "it is imperative to go south and reach those who have stayed behind to resist by steadfastly remaining on their land."

If you are in Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, contact either:
Rasha Salti. Email: convois.citoyens.sud.liban@gmail.com . Tel: +961 3 970 855
Rania Masri. Email: rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb. Tel: +961 3 135 279 or +961 6 930 250 xt. 5683 or xt. 3933
If you are outside Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, you should know:
1) You need to obtain a visa for Lebanon and for Syria if your plan is to enter Lebanon from Syria.
2) We don't have the funds to cover for the cost of your travel, however we can help with finding accomodations.
For questions and help for all internationals please contact Adam Shapiro at: adamsop@hotmail.com

You can also sign up on our website: www.lebanonsolidarity.org

This campaign is thus far endorsed by more than 200 organizations, including: The Arab NGOs Network for Development (ANND), International Solidarity Movement (ISM), Cultural Center for Southern Lebanon, Norwegian People’s Aid, Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections, Frontiers, Kafa, Nahwa al-Muwatiniya, Spring Hints, Hayya Bina, Lebanese Transparency Association, Amam05, Lebanese Center for Civic Education, Let’s Build Trust, CRTD-A, Solida, National Association for Vocational Training and Social Services, Lebanese Development Pioneers, Nadi Li Koul Alnas, and Lecorvaw

War diaries, day 27

2006-08-08T05:04:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 7, Day 27

I don't know what to write. I am becoming a big fan of silence and writing is starting to exhaust me. Yet, I do it, because there are still thoughts jumping in my head and I need to store them somewhere. I am sorry to throw my mental trash all over you.

I want to apologize to everyone I am encountering these days. I apologize for looking at them, dumbfounded most of the time, nodding my head with a silly smile or expressionless numb face when they talk to me, forgetting to answer their questions, agreeing with whatever they say or throwing comments that fit wherever you place them such as "what can we do?", "what can we say?", "we shall wait and see", "aha" etc. It is just that I am in a 'head break'. Talking is exhausting me and listening is draining me. I think that what I need the most after this whole thing ends is a long silence break. No boom boom, no hello, no television news, no conversations. Nothing. Most probably, I will be walking around the city with a paper bag over my head saying "Rôdage".

I went to Sporting today, and I saw the disaster. The sea water is now a stagnant oily mass. I cannot say anything about it. I didn't want to remember, it would be mental suicide. Okay. I remembered a little bit. I remembered how it felt to swim in the sea, especially when the waves are a little wild. The cold water pushing and pulling me, wrinkled hands and salty lips.

Oil. Lots of it. I simply sat and looked, then decided to focus my sight on the horizon, which looked cleaner. The Chinese say that staring at the horizon is good for shortsightedness, so I decided to take advantage of the situation. The horizon is also good for mental haziness. I highly recommend it.

This is all I can get from the sea now. Just a look at the horizon.

Today, Sanioura cried.

Some 'tough' people commented, criticized.

Others said it is not 'manly'.

I looked at him cry and realized his tears were not a weakness. Any human being would have cried, obviously, but the problem is that there are not many of these left. I was so happy to see a politician-human being on television. So happy I started crying myself. Then of course my brother entered the room, nodded his head and told me I should definitely stop watching the news.

What can I do? The Flash News Grey Band had hypnotized me.

But hey, the Israeli explosions are still there to 'wake me up'! I hope that someday, their absence will wake me up from this long nightmare.

Tomorrow is a full moon night. Just what I needed.

With Love,

A Lebanese City Zen

'to the coming generations' Bertolt Brecht

2006-08-07T05:59:00.000+02:00

The original German follows the English translation

I

Truly, I live in dark times!
The innocuous word is fatuous. A smooth brow
Denotes insensitivity. If someone is laughing
It only means, that he hasn’t yet
Heard the dreadful news.

What sort of times are these, when
To talk about trees is almost a crime,
Because it is simultaneously silence about so many atrocities!
Someone placidly crossing the street
Is certainly not available for his friend
Who is in need?

It is true: I do earn my living.
But believe me: that is the merest accident. Nothing
That I do gives me the right, to be stuffing myself full.
I have been spared by accident. (If my luck runs out, I'm finished.)

They say to me: eat and drink! Be happy that you have!
But how can I eat and drink, when
Every bite that I eat is ripped from the mouth of a starving man, and
My glass of water is being denied to one dying of thirst?
And yet I eat, and I drink.

I would love to be wise as well.
You can find what is wise in the old books:
To hold yourself aloof from the strife of the world, and to spend
Your brief time without fear;
Also, to get by without violence,
To repay evil with good,
To relinquish desires, rather than fulfilling them,
These are all considered wise.
Of all this I am incapable:
Truly, I live in dark times!

II

I came to the cities in the Age of Disorder
When hunger was rampant.
I came among mankind in the Age of Turmoil
And I railed against it.
That is how my days were spent
That were given to me on earth.

I ate my food between battles
I lied down to sleep among the murderers
I attended diffidently to love
And looked upon nature with impatience.
That is how my days were spent
That were given to me on earth.

In my day, the streets led to the swamp.
My language betrayed me to the butcher.
There was little I could do. But the powerful
Sat more comfortably without me, so I hoped.
That is how my days were spent
That were given to me on earth.

The forces were weak. The goal
Was distant, remote.
It was plainly visible, even if I
Could never reach it.
That is how my days were spent
That were given to me on earth.

III

You, who will spring up from the flood
In which we have drowned
Think,
When you speak of our shortcomings,
Also of the dark times
That you have been spared.

We, who had to change countries more often
Than our shoes, walked in despair amid the class struggle,
When we saw only injustice, but no indignation.

And yet we do know:
Even hatred of baseness
Contorts the features.
Even wrath against injustice
Makes the voice hoarse. Ah, we
Who wanted to prepare the ground for friendship
Were ourselves unable to be friendly.

But you, if the world has come so far
That each person is now a helper to his fellows
Think of us
With forbearance.
-----------------------------------------------------
An die Nachgeborenen

I
Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten!
Das arglose Wort ist töricht. Eine glatte Stirn
Deutet auf Unempfindlichkeit hin. Der Lachende
Hat die furchtbare Nachricht
Nur noch nicht empfangen.

Was sind das für Zeiten, wo
Ein Gespräch über Bäume fast ein Verbrechen ist
Weil es ein Schweigen über so viele Untaten einschließt!
Der dort ruhig über die Straße geht
Ist wohl nicht mehr erreichbar für seine Freunde
Die in Not sind?

Es ist wahr: Ich verdiene nur noch meinen Unterhalt
Aber glaubt mir: das ist nur ein Zufall. Nichts
Von dem, was ich tue, berechtigt mich dazu, mich sattzuessen.
Zufällig bin ich verschont. (Wenn mein Glück aussetzt, bin ich verloren.)

Man sagt mir: Iss und trink du! Sei froh, dass du hast!
Aber wie kann ich essen und trinken, wenn
Ich dem Hungernden entreiße, was ich esse, und
Mein Glas Wasser einem Verdursteten fehlt?
Und doch esse und trinke ich.

Ich wäre gerne auch weise.
In den alten Büchern steht, was weise ist:
Sich aus dem Streit der Welt halten und die kurze Zeit
Ohne Furcht verbringen
Auch ohne Gewalt auskommen
Böses mit Gutem vergelten
Seine Wünsche nicht erfüllen, sondern vergessen
Gilt für weise.
Alles das kann ich nicht:
Wirklich, ich lebe in finsteren Zeiten!

II

In die Städte kam ich zur Zeit der Unordnung
Als da Hunger herrschte.
Unter die Menschen kam ich zu der Zeit des Aufruhrs
Und ich empörte mich mit ihnen.
So verging meine Zeit
Die auf Erden mir gegeben war.

Mein Essen aß ich zwischen den Schlachten
Schlafen legte ich mich unter die Mörder
Der Liebe pflegte ich achtlos
Und die Natur sah ich ohne Geduld.
So verging meine Zeit
Die auf Erden mir gegeben war.

Die Straßen führten in den Sumpf zu meiner Zeit.
Die Sprache verriet mich dem Schlächter.
Ich vermochte nur wenig. Aber die Herrschenden
Saßen ohne mich sicherer, das hoffte ich.
So verging meine Zeit
Die auf Erden mir gegeben war.

Die Kräfte waren gering. Das Ziel
Lag in großer Ferne
Es war deutlich sichtbar, wenn auch für mich
Kaum zu erreichen.
So verging meine Zeit
Die auf Erden mir gegeben war.

III

Ihr, die ihr auftauchen werdet aus der Flut
In der wir untergegangen sind
Gedenkt
Wenn ihr von unseren Schwächen sprecht
Auch der finsteren Zeit
Der ihr entronnen seid.

Gingen wir doch, öfter als die Schuhe die Länder wechselnd
Durch die Kriege der Klassen, verzweifelt
Wenn da nur Unrecht war und keine Empörung.

Dabei wissen wir doch:
Auch der Hass gegen die Niedrigkeit
Verzerrt die Züge.
Auch der Zorn über das Unrecht
Macht die Stimme heiser. Ach, wir
Die wir den Boden bereiten wollten für Freundlichkeit
Konnten selber nicht freundlich sein.

Ihr aber, wenn es soweit sein wird
Dass der Mensch dem Menschen ein Helfer ist
Gedenkt unsrer
Mit Nachsicht.

the will to live, for beirut...

2006-08-07T05:27:00.000+02:00

I am sitting at home, looking out at the dark sky with only the big circle of the moon suspended in mid air and bouncing back and forth off the windows of the high-rises. Beautiful night, blues filled night. Very appropriate since I am in the city of blues. But my mind and heart are so far away from here. I have just seen the entries of a fellow blogger called Mazen Kerbaj (http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/), and some of the responses to his entries, namely by his mother Laure Ghorayeb. It tore at my heart. The same guy who just yesterday said ‘ Beirut won’t cry’ with a poignant drawing of Beirut as I know it, peeping at you through the chaos of it’s building, with the sunset where it is supposed to be, in the sea. I could just imagine how the horizon would turn fiery and slowly allow the sun to creep into it’s resting place for the night, allowing Beirut to live the second part of it’s day. That same guy just posted an entry saying ‘today I wish to die’, his mother answering ‘it is not as simple as that, it is not the time to deflate’. Have they been able to kill our spirit, and thus kill Beirut? Or are we just deflating in order to be able to fight again?

Beirut has never died. Through every toil it has gone through it has lived. It just knows the way towards life. Like the sunflowers that instinctively turn towards the sun, Beirut turns towards life. Yet if it’s people start wanting to die, will it still have the strength to live?

War diaries Day 26

2006-08-06T23:08:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 6, Day 26

Hiroshima's anniversary.
My mother's too, strangely.

We entered the phase of apathy. We started getting used to this. And it is dangerous, nobody should get used to a war.
But we don't have another choice. We can either accumulate tension, day by day, or develop immunity against the sounds and images.

Yesterday, I went to a CD shop to purchase a gift for my mum, and I couldn't help commenting on the displayed DVD "Lebanon War; so that History doesn't repeat itself ", an archiving of the 1975-1991 Civil War. Strangely enough, the guy in charge of the sales told me it was one of the most asked for DVDs during the past month. It sounded absolutely surreal to me, yet I understand, somewhere. We already have a 24 hours war on television, and we choose to watch more and more madness going on. So that History doesn't repeat itself.

Then, I couldn't help going into a war conversation with him. How we are getting used to it… And he told me that it is not fair for us to constantly live in wars with 'peace breaks' in between. Funny. He's right. Some Lebanese people have lived more war than peace.

I remember my parents' old photographs. Those shot during the civil war. Yellow-shaded photographs with rounded corners. Mainly shot in Raouche, Modca Café or Wimpy in Hamra, Rawda Coffee Shop or Arouss el Bahr… Places that became forever reminiscent of the war, carrying in them the bitter sweet nostalgia of extremely intense, yet painful days.

Coffee shop History is repeating itself. Modca disappeared few years back, it is true. But Hamra restaurants and cafés are slowly gathering their 'deep intellectual' clientele, and people are once again drawn to political discussions on the light of Beirut's sunset. To this repetition is added the great comeback of the 80s fashion. If it wasn't for the cell phones in all shapes and colors, and laptops hiding consternated eyes, I would believe I am back in time. On the television, the screen is once again split in four, four people discussing, gathered from the four corners of the planet. Discussing the problem. Discussing the solution. Discussing how the problem is a solution, how the solution is a problem, how the problem hides an ever deeper problem and how the solution hides a much, much deeper problem. In one word, a chain of problems crowned by the problem of idiots in power. At the bottom left, an Egyptian general yells and shouts. The three others look at him, expressionless. I look at the four of them, and I really don't know what to think.

I remember my parents' old photographs. Those shot during the civil war. Yellow-shaded photographs with rounded corners. Mainly shot in Raouche, Modca Café or Wimpy in Hamra, Rawda Coffee Shop or Arouss el Bahr… Places that became forever reminiscent of the war, carrying in them the bitter sweet nostalgia of extremely intense, yet painful days.

Coffee shop History is repeating itself. Modca disappeared few years back, it is true. But Hamra restaurants and cafés are slowly gathering their 'deep intellectual' clientele, and people are once again drawn to political discussions on the light of Beirut's sunset. To this repetition is added the great comeback of the 80s.fashion. If it wasn't for the cell phones in all shapes and colors, and laptops hiding consternated eyes, I would believe I am back in time.

On the television, the screen is once again split in four, four people discussing, gathered from the four corners of the planet. Discussing the problem. Discussing the solution. Discussing how the problem is a solution, how the solution is a problem, how the problem hides an ever deeper problem and how the solution hides a much, much deeper problem. In one word, a chain of problems crowned by the problem of idiots in power.

At the bottom left, an Egyptian general yells and shouts. The three others look at him, expressionless. I look at the four of them, and I really don't know what to think.

I hope that by the end of the war, and with the help of all the absurd scenes that I see passing on television along with the mesmerizing Flash News Grey band, I will reach a state where my mind actually stops. I am looking forward to it. Thinking minds are not doing much these days.

Stunned,
A Lebanese Citizen

Article by Robert Fisk

2006-08-06T16:51:00.000+02:00

A terrible thought occurs to me - that there will be another 9/11

08/05/06 "The Independent" -- -- The room shook. Not since the 1983 earthquake has my apartment rocked from side to side. That was the force of the Israeli explosions in the southern suburbs of Beirut - three miles from my home - and the air pressure changed in the house yesterday morning and outside in the street the palm trees moved. Is it to be like this every day? How many civilians can you make homeless before you start a revolution? And what is next? Are the Israelis to bomb the centre of Beirut? The Corniche? Is this why all the foreign warships came and took their citizens away, to make Beirut safe to destroy?Yesterday, needless to say, was another day of massacres, great and small. The largest appeared to be 40 farm workers in northern Lebanon, some of them Kurds - a people who do not even have a country. An Israeli missile was reported to have exploded among them as they loaded vegetables on to a refrigerated truck near Al-Qaa, a small village east of Hermel in the far north. The wounded were taken to hospital in Syria because the roads of Lebanon have now all been cratered by Israeli bomb-bursts. Later we learnt that an air strike on a house in the village of Taibeh in the south had killed seven civilians and wounded 10 seeking shelter from attack.In Israel two civilians were killed by Hizbollah missiles but, as usual, Lebanon bore the brunt of the day's attacks which centred - incredibly - on the Christian heartland that has traditionally shown great sympathy towards Israel. It was the Christian Maronite community whose Phalangist militiamen were Israel's closest allies in its 1982 invasion of Lebanon yet Israel's air force yesterday attacked three highway bridges north of Beirut and - again as usual - it was the little people who died.One of them was Joseph Bassil, 65, a Christian man who had gone out on his daily jogging exercise with four friends north of Jounieh. "His friends packed up after four rounds of the bridge because it was hot," a member of his family told us later. "Joseph decided to do one more jog on the bridge. That was what killed him." The Israelis gave no reason for the attacks - no Hizbollah fighters would ever enter this Christian Maronite stronghold and the only hindrance was caused to humanitarian convoys - and there were growing fears in Lebanon that the latest air raids were a sign of Israel's frustration rather any serious military planning.
Indeed, as the Lebanon war continues to destroy innocent lives - most of them Lebanese - the conflict seems to be increasingly aimless. The Israeli air force has succeeded in killing perhaps 50 Hizbollah members and 600 civilians and has destroyed bridges, milk factories, gas stations, fuel storage depots, airport runways and thousands of homes. But to what purpose?Does the United States any longer believe Israel's claims that it will destroy Hizbollah when its army clearly cannot do anything of the kind? Does Washington not realise that when Israel grows tired of this war, it will plead for a ceasefire - which only Washington can deliver by doing what it most loathes to do: by taking the road to Damascus and asking for help from President Bashar al-Assad of Syria?What in the meanwhile is happening to Lebanon? Bridges and buildings can be reconstructed - with European Union loans, no doubt - but many Lebanese are now questioning the institutions of the democracy for which the US was itself so full of praise last year. What is the point of a democratically elected Lebanese government which cannot protect its people? What is the point of a 75,000-member Lebanese army which cannot protect its nation, which cannot be sent to the border, which does not fire on Lebanon's enemies and which cannot disarm Hizbollah? Indeed, for many Lebanese Shias, Hizbollah is now the Lebanese army.So fierce has been Hizbollah's resistance - and so determined its attacks on Israeli ground troops in Lebanon - that many people here no longer recall that it was Hizbollah which provoked this latest war by crossing the border on 12 July, killing three Israeli soldiers and capturing two others. Israel's threats of enlarging the conflict even further are now met with amusement rather than horror by a Lebanese population which has been listening to Israel's warnings for 30 years with ever greater weariness. And yet they fear for their lives. If Tel Aviv is hit, will Beirut be spared. Or if central Beirut is hit, will Tel Aviv be spared? Hizbollah now uses Israel's language of an eye for an eye. Every Israeli taunt is met by a Hizbollah taunt.And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, that a rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeli army and air force whose targets - if intended - prove them to be war criminals and if unintended suggest that they are a rif-raff little better than the Arab armies they have been fighting, on and off, for more than half a century? Extraordinary precedents are being set in this Lebanon war.In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these past three decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to be afraid. Their leaders - our "moderate" pro-Western Arab leaders such as King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt - may be afraid. But their peoples are not. And once a people have lost their terror, they cannot be re-injected with fear. Thus Israel's consistent policy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works. It is a policy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq.And all across the Muslim world, "we" - the West, America, Israel - are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching the martyrdom of Lebanon this week - its slaughtered children in Qana packed into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses had to be wrapped in carpets - a terrible and daunting thought occurs to me, day by day. That there will be another 9/11.
© 2006 Independent News and Media Limited

Photos from rally in Pakistan

2006-08-06T16:39:00.000+02:00

It is when power is wedded to chronic fear that it becomes formidable- Eric Hoffer

You see what power is - holding someone else's fear in your hand and showing it to them!- Amy Tan

What a stupendous, what an incomprehensible machine is man! Who can endure toil, famine, stripes, imprisonment & death itself in vindication of his own liberty, and the next moment ... inflict on his fellow men a bondage, one hour of which is fraught with more misery than ages of that which he rose in rebellion to oppose- Thomas Jefferson
American strategists have calculated the proportion of civilians killed in this century's major wars. In the First World War 5 per cent of those killed were civilians, in the Second World War 48 per cent, while in a Third World War 90-95 per cent would be civilians- Colin Ward, Anarchy in Action

Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose -- and you allow him to make war at pleasure. If today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, "Be silent; I see it, if you don't." – Abraham Lincoln

We have to face the fact that either all of us are going to die together or we are going to learn to live together and if we are to live together we have to talk.- Eleanor Roosevelt

Statement by leading intellectuals

2006-08-06T01:02:00.000+02:00

The US-backed Israeli assault on Lebanon has left the country numb,
smoldering and angry. The massacre in Qana and the loss of life is
not simply "disproportionate." It is, according to existing
international laws, a war crime.
The deliberate and systematic destruction of Lebanon's social
infrastructure by the Israeli air force was also a war crime,
designed to reduce that country to the status of an Israeli-US
protectorate.
The attempt has backfired, as people all over the world watch aghast.
In Lebanon itself, 87 percent of the population now support
Hezbollah's resistance, including 80 percent of Christian and Druze
and 89 percent of Sunni Muslims, while 8 percent believe the US
supports Lebanon.
But these actions will not be tried by any court set up by the
"international community" since the United States and its allies that
commit or are complicit in these appalling crimes will not permit it.
It has now become clear that the assault on Lebanon to wipe out
Hezbollah had been prepared long before. Israel's crimes had been
given a green light by the United States and its ever-loyal British
ally, despite the overwhelming opposition to Blair in his own country.
The short peace that Lebanon enjoyed has come to an end, and a
paralyzed country is forced to remember a past it had hoped to
forget. The state terror inflicted on Lebanon is being repeated in
the Gaza ghetto, while the "international community" stands by and
watches in silence. Meanwhile the rest of Palestine is annexed and
dismantled with the direct participation of the United States and the
tacit approval of its allies.
We offer our solidarity and support to the victims of this brutality
and to those who mount a resistance against it. For our part, we will
use all the means at our disposal to expose the complicity of our
governments in these crimes. There will be no peace in the Middle
East while the occupations of Palestine and Iraq and the temporarily
"paused" bombings of Lebanon continue.

Tariq Ali
Noam Chomsky
Eduardo Galeano
Howard Zinn
Ken Loach
John Berger
Arundhati Roy

Important Links and great interview with Amartya Sen

2006-08-06T00:54:00.000+02:00

Over 160 Palestinians have been killed since June 25

Eight Palestinians killed in Gaza raid

Israel rejects Hamas call for truce

Brilliant BBC Amartya Sen interview about identity, culture, democracy, Islam, Hinduism, Christianity, India, Ancient Greece, Occidentalism, Clash of Civilisations, etc

War diaries, day 25

2006-08-05T22:22:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 5^th, Day 25

In Arabic, the word 'garden' literally means 'little heaven'. Heaven, maybe because it is a source of life. Whatever is planted there, it is simply wonderful to see it grow and take form, and no one can deny the beauty of seeing a flower blossom or a fruit ripen, all by themselves, without a direct intervention of men's hands.

Lately, one of my mother's war-time hobbies is gardening. The latest planted item was a baby tomato mini-tree, of which I get detailed updates everyday. Today, the flowers blossomed, and my mum was happy. No matter how messy things get out there, it is always, it is nice to have a little heaven in a 10cm diameter pot on your balcony.

Yesterday, a slightly bigger heaven witnessed a massacre. 30 farmers killed. Simple people. People who, according to a friend, 'simply pluck the fruits from the trees and store them is boxes and baskets'. They are not great thinkers or great businessmen. We might think they are not doing much, but they are the people whose hands bring fruits to our table everyday.

A man, a tree, a fruit… Simple life taking form. Then a bomb drops somewhere and transforms it into a display of flesh, blood, death. They really work on the romance of their massacres.

Fruits will never taste the same again.

I dropped my anger, and I am glad I did. It is with great consternation that I watch this masquerade go on, wrapped up with idiotic ideologies and surreal statements.

With Love,

A Lebanese Citizen.

For Israel, innocent civilians are fair game

2006-08-05T22:19:00.000+02:00

Peter Bouckaert International Herald Tribune

Published: August 3, 2006

TYRE, Lebanon Mideast I

The voice of Mohammed Shalhoub, 61, a farmer from Qana, still quivers with shock and exhaustion. He was in a basement shelter with more than 60 relatives when two Israeli bombs hit, killing at least 28, including 16 children. As I interview him in hospital, relatives arrive with more news of the victims. A woman starts screaming as she looks at the pictures of the dead and Mohammed's eyes well up with tears.

But his voice turns cold with impotent fury when I ask if there were Hezbollah fighters near the home when the bombs fell. "If the Israelis really saw the rocket launcher, where did it go?" he asks. "We showed Israel our dead; why don't the Israelis show us the rocket launchers?"

The world doesn't seem to put much credence in the testimonies of Lebanese civilians, preferring to buy generic Israeli statements about Hezbollah using civilians as human shields, "precision strikes" at terrorist targets, and a "proportionate" bombing campaign. But after days of contradictory statements about Qana, the Israeli military was reported as saying it had no indication of rocket fire or Hezbollah presence in Qana on the day of the strike, and had bombed the area in retaliation for rockets launched days earlier.

Israel's claims about pin-point strikes and proportionate responses are pure fantasy. As a researcher for Human Rights Watch, I've documented civilian deaths from bombing campaigns in Kosovo and Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq. But these usually occur when there is some indication of military targeting: high-ranking members of Saddam Hussein's regime present in a house just before it is hit, for example, or an attack against militants that causes the collateral deaths of many civilians.

In Lebanon, it's a different scene. Time after time, Israel has hit civilian homes and cars in the southern border zone, killing dozens of people with no evidence of any military objective.

My notebook overflows with reports of civilian deaths. On July 15, Israeli fire killed 21 people fleeing from Marhawin, including 13 children; no weapons, no Hezbollah nearby. On July 16, an Israeli bomb killed 11 civilians in Aitaroun, including seven members of a Canadian-Lebanese family on vacation; again, no Hezbollah, no weapons. On July 19, at least 26 civilians were killed in Srifa when Israeli bombs flattened an entire neighborhood; no evidence of military targets. On July 23, at least seven civilians were killed when Israeli warplanes bombed dozens of cars trying to flee the south after receiving Israeli instructions to evacuate immediately; no indication of weapons convoys in the vicinity. The list goes on, with about 500 civilians killed so far.

Israel says the fault for the massive civilian death toll lies with Hezbollah, claiming its fighters are hiding weapons inside civilian homes and firing them from civilian areas. But even if the Israeli forces could show evidence of Hezbollah activity in some civilian areas, it could not justify the extensive use of indiscriminate force that has cost so many lives.

Not only has Israel failed to distinguish between military and civilian targets; its own officials suggest that they have decided any civilian still in the south is fair game. Last week, Justice Minister Haim Ramon reportedly said, "All those now in south Lebanon are terrorists who are related in some way to Hezbollah."

So if you are too frightened to flee southern Lebanon, or are sick, injured or too poor to pay the more than $1,000 it now costs to get out, you are a "terrorist" and eligible for attack. As for those who heeded the Israeli warnings to flee, the roads are littered with bombed civilian cars, many with white flags still attached to their windows. After all, the Israelis tell us, they could have been transporting arms. Israel is prefabricating excuses to justify killing civilians.

Tragedies happen in the fog of war, but Israel's strikes on civilians can't all be excused as accidents or mistakes. The unacceptably high death toll is the natural result of Israel's failure to distinguish between civilian and military targets, and Israel is responsible for the deaths.

Israel must target its fight on Hezbollah, not Lebanese civilians. To do otherwise is not only wrong, but may very well be criminal, and Israel's leaders, and its friends elsewhere in the world, must face up to this harsh reality.

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, is co-author of the report "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon," released Thursday.

War diaries, day 24

2006-08-05T22:14:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 4^th, Day 24

I didn't sleep tonight. And even if I did for a few minutes, I woke up five or six times to my beloved boom boom sound.

Today, they bombed 4 bridges in the Northern of Beirut. Some friends of mine were spending their night in Jbeil or other Northern areas, and they cannot come back home. It reminds me of one of my history classes in high school, as the teacher was saying that the Berlin wall rose in one night; some people were simply paying a visit to others, and found themselves stuck in eastern or western Germany. Except that the German separation was based on the construction of a wall, and the Israeli tactics are simply about the destruction of links.

There are two ways one can actually 'create' himself. Either through a personal retrospective, work and effort to create a better self, or through the degradation of others. Except that the latter technique is absolutely pointless. It keeps you in the deepest shit and you are not even aware of it. You don't move forward, but simply drag everyone backwards with you.

Lebanon doesn't have a military force. I am not sure of the reasons, and personally I do not care. I simply see it, somewhere, as a sign of peacefulness. The Lebanese people don't want to fight anyways, they simply want to live. 17 years of war were enough for them, it was a deep nightmare not to be repeated.

24 days have passed. Our country is shredded into pieces, we are expecting 60% of unemployment rate, I will not number all the losses because they are way too many. And still, as I walk on the streets, I see shiny eyes and a deep desire for life. And still, we find time and space to make jokes. I just received one of them as an sms on my phone, and I cannot but share it:

"The Israeli Government is asking for Feiruz's phone number because they don't know the location of Jeser Al Lawziyyeh." ("The almond tree bridge") Okay. It is a Lebanese inside joke. For the foreigners, the Lawziyyeh bridge is a fictional bridge mentioned in one of Feiruz's songs.

Life is all we want. And this, even the most evolved bombs cannot take away from us.

Yet they still want to destroy. I don't blame them for this. The very core of their existence as a State is based on destruction; it is running in their blood now and they cannot get rid of it. It doesn't matter what they are destroying. People, buildings, bridges, lives, anything on their way. What they destroy is not the point. It is just that the action itself is their source of life. And I wonder what will happen to them when there is nothing left to destroy. Please don't get me wrong. I am not describing destruction as a negative thing. Sometimes things need to be destroyed. I am simply seeing that, with the Israeli leaders, it has become a compulsion. For 24 days, they have been destroying. They haven't moved one inch, an idiot could see that more destruction will not lead them anywhere except in deeper despair, and still they cannot help it.

We have seen people suffering from compulsions. Now we are witnessing the disease expanding. Can we really ensure 'world peace' (just like all Miss Teen USA say it on television with their pearly smiles) when world leaders cannot even control their own compulsions?

As Lebanese, we are not totally innocent. We have our little compulsions too. Celebration, laughter, jokes, life. No matter how deep the hole is, we still find a way to create our own little heaven in it. And I love this country for that. Because somewhere, we are able to celebrate everything, even wars.

12:04 am, listening to Feiruz, I am fine. And we will all be.

With Love,

A Lebanese Citizen

War Diaries Day 23

2006-08-04T15:08:00.000+02:00

Dear World
August 03, Day 23
I will not talk about the war details today.
Everyday, opening my mails and seeing these series of bad news in my mailbox is draining me, so I decided to take a break from the news and simply go through the day.
I decided to spare you from the war news. Just for one day…
The work routine is starting to re-establish itself. And as I go to work everyday, I realize the absurdity of the whole situation. Let me make it clearer.
I graduated as a graphic designer, and work in a design house in the center of Beirut.
And here's my confession: today, my task was to design Ramadan Cards (not for Lebanon, but for another Arab country). Don't be surprised. It is actually a very fulfilling task, makes you feel like Marie Antoinette telling the French people about the hungry population: "Let's feed them cookies!"
Ramadan cards in golden and silver colors, on glossy or matte paper. Embossed or de-bossed? Big dilemma. Ramadan cards that say "Happy Ramadan" and "Seasons Greetings" in fancy calligraphies or elegant geometric styles, organic or geometric shapes, the choice is yours.
I spent two hours creating a Kufi Arabesque that said "Ramadan Kareem" and I cannot describe to you my satisfaction when I succeeded in fitting it into a perfect square (Hurray!) Ramadan cards here, Ramadan Cards there, Ramadan Cards everywhere from 9:30 in the morning till 3:30 in the afternoon. Intersected every once in a while by some bad news about the war, or some threat by the Israeli state, or some phone call by a friend living abroad who, strangely enough, I end up comforting that the war will soon be over and that everything will be okay (isn't it supposed to be the opposite?) Or the office manager who silently climbs up the stairs to check if we are working properly because one wasted minute of work means one wasted cent.
Less than 20 meters away from the office stands the Sanayeh Garden. One of the living witnesses of all the nightmares we have been going through since the late seventies. Our only source of greenery during the civil war. Our Sunday picnic spot, our very own Champ de Mars and Parc de la Villette, in smaller, much smaller scale of course. The very place where, at the age of 7, I bought my first pet, a rabbit called Lulu who ended up, after 2 years under our supervision, eating ham sandwiches and chewing gum. Now inhabited by hundreds of refugees waiting to be housed in an indoor space. Sleeping under the moonlight on bed sheets lined on the grass. Sitting under the trees or by the bushes and waiting. And waiting. I am glad the Sate of Israel is assisting us in being in touch with Mother Nature, but is it really the time for this?
No. It's the time for Ramadan Cards, of course.
Happy Holidays,
A Lebanese Citizen.

Video of Israelis shooting 14 year old boy disappears and BBC's Jon Snow takes on Israel's UK Ambassador

2006-08-03T15:38:00.000+02:00

Jon Snow confronts Dp Israeli Ambassador on Israeli "terror". Interesting interview and good to see someone posing the hard questions to an Israeli ambassador...

And a 14 year old boy shot for pleasure by Israelis. Quote from the interviewed makers (AP had full footage of the incident, that could also have helped raising a case against the Israeli military):

"Usually AP and Reuters don't leave the camp before they have footage of someone being shot the Israelis." However AP erased all the materials.Videorecordings from 2004 edited by an American and and English youngwoman.

Also for basic facts over the Palestinian/Israeli conflict, go to www.ifAmericansknew.org

War diaries, day 22

2006-08-03T14:26:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 2^nd, Day 22

I am going to work daily now. Sitting and working actually helps me overcome the anguish resulting from sticking my nose on the television and constantly watching that grey band that keeps repeating the same news over and over again. But still, even at work, I can't help checking the news websites for updates.

"Israel is considering bombing the depths of the Lebanese lands, including Beirut."

That was it. Enough to ruin my whole day. I couldn't help it. Somewhere I wanted to see that this was just a psychological torture, but my heart started pumping and cold fever started running through my body. Bombing Beirut. Where would everyone go? There's no place left to go anyways. Then rumors started running, rumors that they sent flyers over Beirut for people to evacuate. Rumors are the worst. Nobody knows anything and yet people talk. This is when your neighbor becomes your worst enemy, and you become your mothers'.

It is at this stage that I started thinking. Why am I doing all of this? Why am I opposing this war? Is it really a concern for humanity or simply an instinctive self preservation?

I was talking to my sister when the war exploded, and I was asking her how it was possible for people to see a war on television and yet not move a finger. And she said "Well, we didn't move a finger during Kosovo or the Iraq war."

Self preservation. Maybe not exactly. It is just that it is only when disaster strikes you that you see the scale of it. I watched for years massacres on television and never felt concerned. I saw the most terrible photographs of the wars in Rwanda, Palestine, Iraq and didn't feel the revolt. And I am trying to see why. Maybe because these people did not resemble me. Their skin color was different, I could not understand their language, their dress code was foreign to me, so I excluded the priority of doing something for them.

I am not drawing any conclusions here, I am only thinking out loud. Why I it so hard to get an immediate cease fire? Why is it so hard for the forces in question to see the human calamity that is happening? Is it because these children dying are not Playstation and Bratz kids? Is it because the women dying don't look much like the international stereotype? Is it because they are not ashamed of screaming in anger and displaying their deepest emotions in whichever way they can? Is it because they dress different?

I have no clue. I have no clue what makes us look at another human being and yet be able to exclude him. All I know is that, once you know what pain is, you don't want anyone to go through it. And that is the problem. Israel, the US, everyone supporting this have not known enough pain yet. And they should because somewhere it's a gift. Simply looking at another human being and knowing what they are going through.

The electricity just cut. I lit the neon and, except for the laptop's light, the house is bathing in darkness. And I am unable to sleep, once again, because I don't want to wake up at another explosion's sound.

Day by day, this is how we are living now. Everything around us has stopped and we are moving in a slow motion. Slowness is not a problem, it is a space to look, hopefully see something. I am just wondering, when all this is over, if it is over, whether we will be able to go on.

What a question. Of course we will. There's no other choice anyways, better deal with it.

Day to day, hour to hour, moment to moment.

My deepest apologies if I am not making any sense today. 22 days of war can be really exhausting for one's brain cells. Anyways we are bathing in a totally mad situation, it is okay if we gather a little bit of madness within us at some point. It keeps us safe from the routine…

"When people run in circles it's a very, very mad world".

Love,

A Lebanese Citizen

Southern Suburb of Beirut: Dahieh: BEFORE & AFTER

2006-08-02T14:50:00.000+02:00

War diaries, day 21

2006-08-02T14:06:00.000+02:00

Dear World

August 1^st, 21^st day of war.

It has been three weeks already. The first day the war exploded, I could not believe I was going through it once again. And here I am, day after day, getting used to the repetition of images, sounds, news, words, actions, politicians' visits, routines. A few days ago, I asked my mother how she and my father were able to survive 17 years of war, and she said: "day after day".

Fuel is running out. Everyday, as I pass near gas stations, long queues of cars are waiting. I decided to stop driving. I left my car in the parking and realized, for the first time since I started driving, that I had feet. A tremendous creation, feet! They can take you anywhere you want. It might take a while, but walking through the city is the best thing I did these two days. For the past three weeks, I did not realize how much tension I had been accumulating and yesterday, 1 hour of walking from Gemmayzeh to Msaytbeh took it all.

The city was empty. For the first time since the assassination of Rafic Hariri, Beirut was empty. Once in a while, a car passed by but otherwise, all I could feel was the breeze (impregnated with remains of bombs chemicals that provided me with a constant feeling of dizziness) against my face and arms.

Silent Beirut. Some people are calling it "city of ghosts". I didn't see any ghosts. I saw nothing but few buildings, trees, sidewalks, closed shops, some men playing backgammon, a man listening to the news on the radio, a man talking on the phone and saying "No! The war is in the South!" and remains of concerts and plays posters, all cancelled or postponed, suspended. Beirut is not a city of ghosts, it is simply a city without people. And it is okay. Emptiness never hurt anyone.

The Israeli government gave us two days of break from bombing. A big joke, as usual. They pursued bombing the south, not as massively but still. These two days gave the Red Cross and Civil Defense members the time to find even more people buried for days in the bombed rural areas, to reach areas that were unreachable for 20 days and dig up more and more dead bodies. Two days of digging, before they come back and bury us again. The number climbed up to over 830 victims. 3200 wounded.

Qana's children were not 37, but 42, so far.

I heard rumors that today they will be using the 'smart bombs'. What is a smart bomb?

A smart bomb is a bomb invented by an idiot. Why? Because, if he was smart enough, his need for a bomb to 'defend himself' would not even be there. But still, they call it smart because it can cause big damage in little time, or some technical war-language nonsense like that. Well, in case they use them on the southern suburbs tonight, I guess the ceiling will be falling over our heads. But hey, let us not panic. I am sure they will apologize afterwards.

Politicians are still negotiating, Blair and Bush are still refusing the cease-fire. I cordially invite them to come and stay in one of the suburbs' remaining buildings, I am sure they will immediately ask for this to stop. Nobody who is truly experiencing this would want it to last. People are still dying. Dead people are still being found. Refugees are still living by groups of hundreds in schools. Life is going on, we are adapting to it.

Outside, our generator is still on. My father purchased it in 1989, during the civil war, and we kept it, just in case. And there we are using it again, and we are lucky because the generators' prices climbed from 250$ to 1400$ in the market.

Outside, our generator is still roaring. And this roaring brings me back to 1989, to the sounds of gunshots and broken glass, the smell of cologne water and the taste of Zwan luncheon meat and Bacon Cheese, the sight of darkness. I learned to love the roaring, because it brings some light to my late nights and allows me to write and get out of my system all the mumbles happening in my head. I bless the roaring because, above all its benefits, it covers up the sounds of Israeli planes roaming above our city, suffocating us with their threatening sounds.

I am off to bed. I will try to find some symphony in the soft sounds coming to us from the heavenly sky. Who knows? I might even record them and use them as lullabies for my children to come. War-time drill never hurt anyone.

Good Night!

A Lebanese Citizen

War Diaries- Day 20

2006-08-01T14:05:00.000+02:00

July 31st, Day 20

National Grieving Day

Silence,
A Lebanese Citizen

A Message from Syria

2006-07-31T23:18:00.000+02:00

Dear friends,

Salaam alaykum - peace be upon you. The greeting used by Arabs and Muslims all over the world - and for the people of Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq, a poignant reminder that peace is a precious thing. Seeing the images of massacre at Qana today I don't know where to begin - or how to stop crying. I feel I can only convey fragments - perhaps because my heart is breaking. I'm trying hard not to seem melodramatic, because I know how it is there - you read this in the midst of a long, exhausting, busy day and too manyof these and it's too much to bear, it feels so far away. Even here in Damascus it seems removed - but the emotions are here - the frustration, anger, pain - the unspeakable helplessness, watching more children die. "The children", you hear, over and over, from taxi drivers to waiters to family and friends - "How can they do this to children?". I know people everywhere love their children. It is a love that is truly universal. In Arab culture many people, particularly in more traditional settings, are called simply Um Laith, Abu Leila - mother of, father of....a term of respect, homage to the souls they have brought to the world. To watch those souls taken from it is something there are no words for. But our government has words. Resounding words, authoritative words, presumptuous words - like "New Middle East". Amazing - Amazing the arrogance of a nation illegally and brutally implanted inthe Middle East (Israel) and one that isn't even IN the Middle East (America) declaring that they are going to create a "New" region in the most ancient partof the world. And will do so whether the people of that region like it or not -with hands steeped in the blood of their children. But I'm trying not to focus on anger now, not to dwell on the politics - I want you to be able to listen - I know it gets harder and harder to hear. So here is a more hopeful vision - a window to a different Middle East that Iwitnessed and wanted to share:Last night we were invited to a concert at the huge arts complex built by Hafezal Assad, burned in an electrical fire, then rebuilt by his son. It was aconcert in solidarity with the people of Palestine and Lebanon, played by theArab Youth Symphony Orchestra. We thought it would be sweet, if painful, as most youth concerts tend to be. Instead it was amazing. I'll use the present tense now - I want you to feel like you are there: Hundreds and hundreds of audience members pack the beautiful, new Damascus OperaHouse. The building is quite simply breath taking, part of a complex housing atheater, exhibition rooms, and Academy for the Arts plus a lot of other buildings I would LOVE to rehearse in. It is designed by a British company and built by the Syrians, all in white with gorgeous wooden lattice archways basedon the ancient Islamic style. The marble floors are cool, the red carpets rich,the ceilings high, the chandeliers enormous, the effect, impressive.The audience is quite young for the opera as we in the West are used to it -many under 25, in jeans and t-shirts, some girls in Hijab, some without, allchattering with the excitement of those who have come to see loved ones perform. Those who are older are parents and friends, and some, like us, are simply moved by the idea - raising money for the victims of a brutal attack on their neighbors, families and friends. All other festivals and events along with manyprivate weddings and other parties here have been cancelled because of thedevastation next door - who can celebrate amidst so much destruction? So this night is special - a chance to see music for the first time in weeks and stillshow respect and solidarity with their neighbors. That universal "to your seats" bell sounds and we file in - Mingled perfumes ofso many Arab women, on stage and off...Reminders in Arabic, then English, to please please silence your cell phones. The cacophony of rings from Western Popsongs to tinny Arab ones, all turning to silence and anticipation, interrupted by the occasional whispered giggle. The concert begins and I am told that the young people playing come from all over the Arab world - mainly from Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon, Palestine, and more. They are playing mostly Western instruments (although many are derived from Arab ones), and I am once again reminded that here they are exposed to"our" world so much more than we are to theirs. Imagine fifty American children knowing the NAMES of the oud, the nay, the dirbeke, let alone mastering them. Maysoun, the Syrian Professor of Drama who invited us to the concert, asks if Iknow the Arab composer, but I cannot remember his name. She then asks if I like Dvorzak, and I have to admit I don't know him either. She says they are playing Symphony number 8, which is nice but not her favorite. She prefers #9 - The New World. The one he wrote when Columbus discovered America. I tell her I don'tlike it already and she smiles, chides me: "There are many good things about America Leila! It is a democracy, this is very important." (Here I have to bite my tongue, trying to remember that yes, in many ways we still are). "And you have many great playwrights - Sam Shepard, Tennessee Williams, ArthurMiller, Joseph Chaikin, A.R. Gurney"...now she is mentioning names that evensome American actors would not recognize...She rattles off plays she has read and again I must admit I do not know them as well as she. Finally, she says,"America is multicultural and this is such a beautiful thing, so many different people, so important...." Here I have to agree with her and for the first time in weeks I feel a moment of pride in my country.I think of this pride as I watch the youth on stage, coming together from so many nations to make such beautiful music. I especially love watching the two girls, one in hijab, one in a tank top with long hair. They are the ones on theBIG drums, and I wish the whole world were watching. One young man with glasses, tall and lean in that way that only teenagers canbe, sits center stage with the lone oud, that most central and lyrical of Arab instruments. At moments the orchestra pauses, listens respectfully as he plays the discordant, mournful melodies of Marcel Khalife, Palestinian, genius, soulof a besieged nation.....And back to the symphony, also by Khalife - violins,cellos, trumpets and flutes. There is a different kind of melody in Arabic music - one all its own -sometimes discordant to a Western ear, but always, ultimately, beautiful. And I realize why I am so moved by this symphony. While Dvorzak's was written exclusively for the instruments of his culture, Khalife's incorporates both andmore - the old and the new - the grand suites for ten violins, and the singular soul of the lone oud - there are melodies, rhythms, pauses, discords...The juxtaposition is the heart of the symphony - there is passion in it, and beauty- and from that, the harmony is born. All we have to do, is listen.

Leila Buck
7/30/06
Damascus, Syria

AIPAC's Dangerous Grip on Washington

2006-07-31T23:04:00.000+02:00

A Dutch friend asked me recently if the pro-Israeli lobby is actually that strong in America. With his question in mind, I did a little poking and found the following article "AIPAC's Dangerous Grip on Washington" By Ari Berman, TheNation.com. In the article he begins to describe to power structure that is the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee. A must read for those who are in the dark about the influence Israel holds over the American government.

War Diaries- Day 19

2006-07-31T04:48:00.000+02:00

Dear World

July 30, Day 19

Qana

Do I need to number the deceased? Do I need to number the children?

I woke up this morning to the sounds of screaming, crying and despair emanating from the television. No, sorry. Not from the television, from people; I am starting to confuse both already.

Then I saw.

I saw rubble, plenty of rubble.

I saw few families running away, screaming "There are children! Women! Elderly!"

I saw women crying. Men crying.

I saw traumatized faces of children wanting to understand.

Those were the living ones.

Then I saw the dead.

People drowned in a sea of broken concrete.

Children lying on their backs, dead.

Children lying on their tummies, dead.

Tiny dead children's fingers and toes emanating from the ruins.

Grey bodies and torn clothes.

Men holding little girls' bodies and saying to the camera, in an outburst of sadness and anger "did you film this?"

Did you watch this?

I hope you didn't, at least you will get to sleep tonight.

I hope you did, because it happened. Ruthlessely.

To the children of Qana, I am sorry.

I am sorry you didn't wake up this morning.

I am sorry your last moments of life were lived in fear, anger and despair.

I am sorry you weren't given the chance to grow.

I am sorry your mothers didn't watch you grow.

I am sorry you lived and died in a world ruled by ruthless idiots.

I am sorry you lived and died in a world where bombs are more valued than human life.

I am sorry your tiny hands had no pulse in them.

I am sorry your tiny bodies ended up being wrapped in nylon and labeled just like another supermarket product.

I am sorry you will see the world no more.

I am sorry my calls are not efficient enough.

Condoleeza Rays is also sorry, by the way. Israel is sorry too because their high-tech observation devices did not allow them to 'know' you were hiding there. The bomb that fell over your heads is also sorry.

Send more bombs, destroy more homes, kill more people.

Then, apologize. That will work.

To the 37 children of Qana, I am sorry.

To all the children of Lebanon, I am sorry you had to know anger at such a young age.

Over 700 victims already. Olmert asked Rays for 10 to 15 more days, enough to murder, proportionally (although there's nothing proportional here, but we still have hopes), 350 more people.

Dear Bush, Rays, Blair, Olmert and associates. Take your time. Drink your coffee in the morning with a clear conscience. There's no need to rush, really.

We will be waiting for you to make up your mind. You don't even have to worry about apologizing afterwards, we heard enough "sorry"s so far.

Who can blame unconsciousness anyways?

Love,

A grieving Lebanese Citizen

Analysis: A second Qana Massacre?

2006-07-30T17:19:00.000+02:00

By Martin Asser
BBC News, Beirut

The southern Lebanese town of Qana is known for two events in
history, and there could soon be a third as news comes in of rising
civilian casualties from an Israeli air strike there.
In realms of biblical narrative, some believe it to be the scene of
Jesus Christ's first miracle, turning water into wine during the
wedding at Cana of Galilee.

In modern times, it was the scene of one of the bloodiest events of
the modern Arab-Israeli conflict, the Israeli shelling of a UN base
sheltering Lebanese civilians 10 years ago.

International shock at those deaths - more than 100, and another 100
injured - led to huge pressure for a ceasefire deal bringing an end
to Israel's last sustained military operation against Hezbollah
militants, codenamed Operation Grapes of Wrath.

The Qana Massacre, as it is known in Lebanon, remains a powerful
symbol for Lebanese people of what they say is Israel's
indiscriminate and disproportionate response to Hezbollah's rocket
attacks.

'No accident'

Israel still insists the 1996 shelling was an accident and that its
forces had a legitimate militant target - a Hezbollah military unit
that had fired mortars and rockets from near the Qana base.

Then, as now, Israel accused Hezbollah of using the civilian
population as human shields when they launched their attacks.

However, a UN investigation reported in May 1996 that the deaths at
the Qana base were unlikely to have been the result of an accident as
claimed by the Israelis.

The UN report cited the repeated use of airburst shells over the
small UN compound, which sent down a deadly torrent of shrapnel that
caused terrible injuries among the unprotected civilians.

The UN also noted the presence of Israeli helicopters and a drone in
the skies over Qana which must have witnessed the bloodbath.

NOW, history repeats....

"TYRE, Lebanon (CNN) -- Israel said it mistakenly destroyed a four-
story building near a Hezbollah rocket-launching site in Qana,
Lebanon, on Sunday where the Red Cross and Lebanese internal security
sources at the scene said 54 people died, including 19 children."

It was the deadliest attack in 19 days of fighting between Hezbollah militia and Israeli forces, which began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid.

A Red Cross official said the Qana airstrikes hit a residential building that housed refugees, which Israel said was near Hezbollah rocket launching sites. Officials said they believed at least another 11 children were still under the rubble.

More than 60 bodies have been pulled from the rubble, Lebanese representative to the United Nations Nohad Mahmoud said.

"I saw several bodies of children, women and old men," reported CNN's Ben Wedeman. "Residents were digging with the their bare hands, taking more and more bodies out. Parts of the town were completely bombarded, as if hit by a giant mallet in many places. I was told by one Lebanese army officer that they counted more than 80 individual strikes on the town."

Updated map, 12-25 July; Zeina

2006-07-30T16:00:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,

I have attached a new map that we have just finished. It locates the infrastructure, mainly transport and vital sites, that have been bombed over the past days...

We have done this map as it can clearly reveal the siege that different cities/inhabitants have undergone and still suffer from, it also shows how Israel’s fierce assault on Lebanon completely violates the Geneva conventions & international law relative to respect for human rights in armed conflicts, through it’s massive destruction of vital civilian utility sites and infrastructure.

The other map of locations bombed is being updated daily on www.lebanonupdates.blogspot.com

Please feel free to circulate and publish anywhere you see fit.

Warmly,

zeina

War Diaries- Day 18

2006-07-30T05:23:00.000+02:00

Dear World

July 29^th, Day 18

Over 600 deceased.

Over 3220 injured.

Over 800 000 displaced.

I don't like to give numbers. I don't know how significant they are. I believe that, from the moment one person is murdered, from the moment one person is suffering, finding a solution is a must because people's right to a lead a decent life should not even be asked for. I should simply be there.

Today, a friend of mine told us a funny event that happened to her, and I have been hearing the same story from people around me. She received an international call on her cellular phone, at 3:30 in the morning. Being too tired to wake up and answer, she ignored the sound and went back to sleep. As the phone rang back at 4:30 in the morning, she answered and heard: "The State of Israel speaking." In a state of panic, she hanged up, refusing to hear what they had to say next. But all the stories I have heard give some insights about the content of the phone call being: "Beware of Hezbollah."

I cannot but express, once again, all my respects to the integrity and pride of the Israeli Government. Killing civilians is not enough. Nor is bombing bridges, roads, homes, hospitals, trucks, cars and motorcycles (which makes you want to live in a tent and move on the back of a donkey). Now, they start their psychological bombing, similar to the one expressed in American movies where the murderer traumatizes his victim with a series of threatening phone calls. My friend actually woke up in the morning, thinking she had been hallucinating, then checked her sanity by browsing the "received calls" section of her cellular phone. Brilliant strategy. I hope they are aware of how desperate their approach is. Personal phone calls? There's really nothing I can say about this.

On television, Marcel Ghanem is hosting the war photographers, who have been exposing some of their unpublished photographs and video shoots. Unpublished because, if people see them in the morning on their daily newspaper, their very desire to go through the day will be compromised. And I am seeing things I have never seen before. Hands, detached. Masses of flesh, what once was a human being living his life. A man killed in his own living room. An elderly holding a box with what's left of his belongings, trying to circulate in the core of his pulverized neighborhood. And that is only a selection. The photographers are talking about their experiences, how many times death skipped them by pure chance. They talk, and show photographs, and it sounds like a story, a nightmare, our current reality. I am thinking how beautiful it would be to organize a live exhibit of these photographs, not through the net, but printed, framed, exhibited in a glossy museum. So that people can look and see, so that nobody says that the media is distorting the facts and numbers.

An exhibit now, so that people can watch and actually react. If we do it in ten years, it will be just another human disaster that we regret and cry. It is just a thought… Because it seems to me that, if there's one thing that can (barely) still shake humans around the world, it is frozen moment of suffering printed on Kodak paper.

As a closure, I would like to propose to the Israeli Government other means of puzzling our heads via the phone, probably less costly:

Missed calls, our favorite Lebanese code system. One missed call: "beware". Two missed calls: "evacuate". Three missed calls: "too late, you're dead".
If missed calls seem too fuzzy, they can still resort to SMS. "Feeling safe? Don't! We are constantly watching" or "Please purchase candles ASAP, we will be bombing electricity plants soon."

So much care brings tears to my eyes, really.

"Allo? Hayeteh!"

A Lebanese Citizen

Rally - Voices for Lebanon and Palestine

2006-07-29T12:14:00.000+02:00

End Israel's attacks on Lebanon and Palestine

Demand a ceasefire now!

Sunday 30 July 1-3pm Trafalgar Square

The latest news is that comedian Alexei Sayle and actor Simon Callow have confirmed they will be speaking at Sunday's rally!

They will be joining actors including Maxine Peake, John Austin MP, veteran peace campaigner Bruce Kent, Tony Benn, 13-year old Zeinab Daher who has just returned from Lebanon, and many others (full details of speakers confirmed to date are on the attached leaflet)

The rally is organised by the PSC and supported by CND, Stop the War, British Muslim Initiative and many others.

Despite increasing international pressure for a ceasefire, our government has refused to put pressure on Israel to end its assault on the Lebanese and Palestinian people. We need to send a strong and clear signal to the government that we are calling for an end to Israel's attacks and for an immediate ceasefire. Please join us on Sunday and get everyone you know to come too.

http://www.palestinecampaign.org/events.asp?d=y&id=1916

www.palestinecampaign.org

There is always hope

2006-07-29T02:38:00.000+02:00

War Diaries- Day 17

2006-07-29T02:37:00.000+02:00

Dear World

July 28^th, 17^th day of war

Yesterday, the UK sent to Israel, as a token of appreciation for their initiatives towards peace in Lebanon illustrated by buried families and shredded children, a brand new bomb technology capable of digging 30 meters in the ground and exploding from the very core of it. This brilliant invention, carefully conceived by some brilliant scientist financed by an even more brilliant government, causes massive destruction in very little time. I bow down to all these brilliant people for their priceless efforts in making human massacres a swifter and quicker process.

I urge Blair and Bush not to include the word 'peace' in their vocabulary. It is really an offence to any human being's intelligence to even utter the word 'peace' when all you have in the back of your head is a mass of bombs and deadly weapons.

Everyday, as I encounter people, I hear new stories. Stories told by people who have left their houses and came running for their safety, bringing with them the most painful news from lands they were forced to abandon. One of these news is that, in one of the surrounded villages, and due to the lack of milk, parents were feeding their children collected rain water mixed with sugar.

The UNIFIL were able to reach one of these villages, where the inhabitants have been living with almost no food, water nor medication for 16 days. With utmost care and involvement, they managed to rescue all the foreigners, and totally ignored the 'local' dying elderly and starving children.

Since when is your right to live predetermined by the kind of passport you hold?

Since when are human beings left to die under the bricks of their own houses, while the rest of the world watches them on television with a bag of chips in their hands, and refuses to do something about it?

This war is not a disaster. Not yet. The disaster will arrive when this war is over, when the tension of the moment dissipates. The disaster of people digging in the rubble and finding the corpses of their beloved. The Health Ministry announced it today: 100 people are assumed to be still buried under the rubble. Another problem appears with all the refugees' psychological state, especially the children. Children who have been so harshly taken away from their homes, their cocoons, their safety. There's a lot to be done after this is over.

Today, two of my friends, who were abroad when the war exploded, came back after a long and stressful trip all the way from the Syrian borders, on the rhythm of bombs exploding every once in a while. One of them told me that on his way back, there was something about Lebanon's breeze and mountains taking life within him, circulating in his blood. This, they will never be able to bomb.

Bank Audi's advertisement on television says that the sun will shine back on Lebanon. I see it is already shining, everyday. We just have to catch a ray of it everyday and hold on to it.

Our sun, that's something they will never be able to bomb. As long as I know this, everything is okay for me. Almost.

Sunshines,

A Lebanese Citizen

Israel nixes major U.N. role in Lebanon

2006-07-28T23:02:00.000+02:00

Israel's U.N. ambassador, Dan Gillerman, on Thursday announced Israel will not allow major U.N. involvement in Lebanon and will not allow the U.N. to join in an investigation of an Israeli airstrike that demolished a post belonging to the current U.N. peacekeeping mission in Lebanon where four U.N. observers were killed.

Gillerman said, "Israel has never agreed to a joint investigation, and I don't think that if anything happened in this country, or in Britain or in Italy or in France, the government of that country would agree to a joint investigation."

Tell the President

2006-07-28T21:19:00.000+02:00

42 leading figures in British politics, diplomacy, academia and the media in a declaration urging Mr. Blair to tell the President that Britain "can no longer support the American position on the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe in the Middle-East".

Note also that after meeting Bush Blair will meet Rupert Murdoch, the staunchly pro-Zionist and pro-Bush owner of 1/3 of the media in the
world, including Fox TV.

PM urged: Stand up to Bush and call for ceasefire
By Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
Published: 28 July 2006

Tony Blair will face fresh pressure over the Middle East crisis today
when he arrives in Washington to meet President George Bush. Senior
Downing Street aides said the two leaders intended to show the world
they were seeking an urgent end to the hostilities in Lebanon,
despite the failure of the much vaunted Rome summit on Wednesday to
deliver a unified call for a truce.

Israel's Justice Minister, Haim Ramon, added to the pressure
yesterday, when he interpreted that indecision as a green light to
continue the bloody assault on Lebanon.

"We received yesterday at the Rome conference permission from the
world... to continue the operation," he told reporters.

The Prime Minister's visit takes place as 42 leading figures in
politics, diplomacy, academia and the media put their names to a
declaration urging Mr Blair to tell the President that Britain "can
no longer support the American position on the unfolding humanitarian
catastrophe in the Middle-East". Their declaration, printed on the
front page of today's Independent, calls on the Prime Minister to
"make urgent representations to Israel to end its disproportionate
and counter-productive response to Hizbollah's aggression".

After his stop-over in Washington, Mr Blair will fly on to California
tonight to attend a conference with the media magnate Rupert Murdoch.
An ally of Mr Murdoch, Irwin Stelzer, insisted Mr Blair was not Mr
Bush's "poodle", but his "guide dog", particularly over the Middle East.

Downing Street officials said Mr Blair intended to respond to world
criticism by showing urgency in seeking an end to the hostilities
between Israel and Hizbollah. The Prime Minister and the President
are planning to commit their governments to a lasting ceasefire by
restoring the authority of the elected government against the
unilateral action by Hizbollah.

Their joint appearance at the White House is likely to be met with
scepticism. The Bush administration said this week it was seeking a
"new Middle East", raising fears that the crisis in Lebanon was a
proxy war between the US and Iran, Hizbollah's backers.

Senior officials in Downing Street said the Prime Minister supported
the US strategy on the Middle East, which was agreed at the Sea
Island G8 summit in 2004. Mr Blair is credited with persuading the
President to pursue a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine
problem. Mr Blair and Mr Bush will emphasise they are working behind
the scenes to push for an urgent end to the violence on both sides in
the Lebanon.

"Don't in any way underestimate the intensive nature of the
diplomacy," said one senior aide to the Prime Minister. "There is a
lot going on behind the scenes. We want to show that we are stepping
up the search for a process that allows both sides to end the
hostilities and there is urgency about that."

Mr Blair's influence on the US President, as part of the "special
relationship" with America, was ridiculed after Mr Bush was heard
saying "Yo, Blair" to him at the G8 summit in St Petersburg. In the
recorded conversation, Mr Bush refused to allow Mr Blair to mount a
diplomatic mission to the Middle East, preferring instead to send his
Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice.

Both leaders know that their time in office is running out, and
officials said they saw eye to eye on four out of five of the key
items on the agenda at today's meeting - the "war against terror",
the need to spread democracy in the Middle East, restoring stability
to Iraq, and the need to curb the nuclear ambitions of Iran. They are
far apart on the collapse of the world trade talks, which is also on
the agenda, but other tricky issues such as the controversy over the
use of British airports for US arms shipments to Israel will be put
to one side. "That is matter for Mrs Beckett [the Foreign
Secretary]," said one No 10 source.

Downing Street has insisted that Mr Blair has privately used
influence on the Bush administration over the war in Lebanon, rather
than calling publicly for a ceasefire that could not be enforced. The
Prime Minister's official spokesman said Mr Blair decided to "roll
his sleeves up" and work behind the scenes, rather than act as a
commentator on the sidelines.

Sir Stephen Wall, one of the Prime Minister's most trusted former
advisers, said Mr Blair's approach was wrong. "There have been times
on trade issues when the PM should have told Bush to get his tanks
off our lawn," Sir Stephen wrote in the New Statesman. "There are
still times when, as well as working quietly with Congress on climate
change, we should speak up about the irresponsibility of the White
House.

"There are times, such as the past two weeks, when a British prime
minister should have been thinking less about private influence and
more about public advocacy."

Day 16

* 600 may have died in Lebanon, says its Health Minister. Israeli
planes attack trucks carrying medical and food supplies.

* Israel calls up 30,000 reservists, but cabinet decides not to
expand its incursion into Lebanon.

* Hizbollah fires 48 rockets into northern Israel, wounding four people.

* Hamas rejects comment from Palestinian President that release of
Israeli hostage is "imminent".

* Iran's President says Israel has pushed a self-destruct button.

* Security Council expresses shock and distress at Israel's bombing
of a UN post but no condemnation.

* Al-Qa'ida's deputy leader Ayman al-Zawahiri calls on Muslims to
repel attacks on their countries.

US 'outrage' over Israeli claim

2006-07-28T21:10:00.000+02:00

The US state department has dismissed as "outrageous" a suggestion by
Israel that it has been authorised by the world to continue bombing
Lebanon.

"The US is sparing no efforts to bring a durable and lasting end to
this conflict," said spokesman Adam Ereli.

Israeli Justice Minister Haim Ramon made the suggestion after powers
meeting in Rome refrained from demanding an immediate ceasefire.
UK Prime Minister Tony Blair is heading to Washington for talks on
the crisis.

His meeting with US President George W Bush comes amid growing
pressure for the UK and US to join calls for an immediate ceasefire
between Israel and Hezbollah.

Israel has carried out dozens of fresh strikes on Lebanon, leaving at
least five people dead.

LEBANON TWO WEEKS ON
Three airports bombed
62 bridges destroyed
Three dams and ports hit
5,000 homes damaged

At talks in Rome on Wednesday, the US, UK and regional powers urged
peace be sought with the "utmost urgency", but stopped short of
calling for an immediate truce.

That prompted Mr Ramon to declare Israel had received "permission
from the world... to continue the operation".

But questioned by reporters on the sidelines of a summit in Kuala
Lumpur, Mr Ereli said: "Any such statement is outrageous."

The US has said a ceasefire is only worth it if it can be made to
last. President Bush reiterated the US's rejection of a "false peace"
on Thursday evening.

But the BBC's world affairs correspondent, Nick Childs, points out
that Mr Bush also emphasised how troubled he was by the mounting
casualties, a suggestion - perhaps - that he is increasingly
conscious of the price Washington is paying for its closeness to Israel.

He says this public disavowal of the Israeli stance shows how much of
an embarrassment it was for Washington as it struggles with
conflicting diplomatic pressures and the frustrations of many of its
allies.

Air strikes

Some 425 Lebanese, the vast majority civilians, are confirmed killed
in the 17 days of the conflict - but a Lebanese minister has
suggested scores more bodies lie unrecovered under the rubble.

Fifty-one Israelis, including at least 18 civilians, have been
killed, mostly by rockets fired over the border by the Lebanese
guerrilla group Hezbollah.

The Israeli assault began after Hezbollah captured two Israeli
soldiers in a cross-border raid on 12 July.

In the latest violence, a Jordanian man was killed and at least three
other people wounded in one of several strikes in Kfar Joz, close to
the southern Lebanese market town of Natabiyeh

A Lebanese couple there died when their bomb shelter collapsed on top
of them, and at least three children were wounded.

There were multiple strikes on the Bekaa Valley to the east, on
villages around the coastal city of Tyre, and roads in the south-east.

Sporadic clashes were also reported in Bint Jbeil, where Israel
suffered its worst single losses on Wednesday, with nine soldiers
killed.

Shifting aims

In Israel, there is growing concern that Hezbollah is still firing
large numbers of missiles into northern Israel.

Few in Israel still speak of being able to neutralise Hezbollah, our
correspondent in Jerusalem Katya Adler says.

Instead Israel speaks of trying to establish a "secure zone" empty of
Hezbollah fighters north of the border with Israel.

The Israeli government's announcement that it is calling up three
divisions of reservists - said to number between 15,000 to 40,000 -
suggests it is preparing for the possibility of a protracted war, our
correspondent says.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/5223940.stm

2006-07-28T20:56:00.000+02:00

July, 2006

Haifa

To all our friends and colleagues,

Thank to all of you who have contacted ASWAT to ask about our safety as we are based in Haifa . It is much appreciated that you are thinking of us in these days. We want to thank you again for your support and the ongoing friendship.

We in ASWAT, our friends and families are safe and we will keep you posted if anything changes. Our reason to write you is to let you know that in these days our hearts and thoughts are in Lebanon , not forgetting Gaza and the West Bank in Palestine and Iraq .

We have a lot of pain and sadness, watching all the pictures as a result of the hits, seeing people killed, and hearing about all the refugees; it makes us stop and raise our voices in ASWAT and say out loud STOP THIS WAR on our sisters and brothers in Lebanon and start negotiating!!!

We have received some news from activists and friends from Helem, an LGBT center in Beirut . After the influx of refugees from the southern suburbs of Beirut as well as from the south of Lebanon , Helem center, together with other NGOs, has begun providing shelter, food, and supplies for the refugees.

More information can be found at http://www.helem.net/

Helem also pointed out a few blogs so as to allow people to get first hand information from the civil society in Lebanon:
http://sanayehreliefcenter.blogspot.com/
http://lebanonupdates.blogspot.com/

Other important links:

http://arab-americans.blogspot.com/

In solidarity,

ASWAT-Palestinian Gay Women

E-mail: aswat@aswatgroup.org

War Diaries- Day 16

2006-07-28T03:31:00.000+02:00

Dear World

July 27, 16^th day of war.

When I was a child, the 8 o'clock news were the most annoying thing for me. It was the moment where I couldn't communicate with my parents anymore, the moment where I had to stop watching my Felix the Cat cartoons videos. Silence prevailed around the house, leaving space to the speaker's voice, announcing the deceases and destructions of the war.

I remember one specific event, on some war night, where General Michel Aoun went on television and announced that the "Liberation War" was going to end, for the sake of Lebanon's children. I remember my mother jumping with joy, and I will never forget the relief I felt within, although I was too young to grasp what was happening. Of course, the next morning, we woke up to our lovely boom-boom alarm. And it took another interminable set of boom-boom mornings before the war ended.

Whatever I say, I will never be able to express how intense my thirst is to this sentence: "the war is over".

But everyday, we face the reality that it will not end soon. The most painful thing about it is that we don't know anything. We don't know where they are going to bomb, when they are going to bomb, what they are going to bomb. We don't know if we can plan for tomorrow. So far, all that we know is that fuel will run out on Friday. Fill up your Mazola plastic bottles so you can operate your generator for a few days before darkness prevails. Store up candles and matchboxes. Prepare a radio and spare batteries.

The eighties all over again. My father's silhouette is highlighted by the corridor's night candle. He carries me out of my bed and takes me to our vestiaire, the only safe area in the house, far from windows and balconies where gunshots are likely to land. Except that now, there are no gunshots, but bombs. No area in the house is safe. My father is not here anymore, and anyways I am too heavy to be carried out of my bed.

Today, while they were digging somewhere in the south to check if another UN officer was buried under the rubble, they found the bodies of a mother holding her two children. Once again, me deepest respects to the Israelis, who are so keen on freezing our intimate moments under masses of powdered concrete. Mummification Revisited.

The Ministry of Health announced today that the number of deceased reached over 600. What is the peak number before they ask for a cease fire? A thousand? A million? One American? 600 without counting the people in the South Villages surrounded without food, water, milk for 16 days now. 200 out of the 600 are still buried underneath the powdered households.

Today, as I was going back home from a friend's house, I took a glimpse at the sea, of which I could see a chunk, framed between two buildings. I miss the sea. Since they bombed the lighthouse and set the Beirut Port on fire, I have been avoiding going to that area. But it is only from a far distance that I can enjoy it now, since they have been pouring oil and petroleum, which set it in a disastrous state of pollution and killed most of the marine life

It is funny what God's Chosen People are doing to his creation. Having within something as intense as life, going on doing something as destructive as what we have been witnessing and enduring for the past two weeks.

Today, I realized that we might be totally out of electricity in the coming weeks. So I started calculating. No electricity, no fridge. Being myself a big fan of fruits, that cannot survive without refrigeration, I decided to start making fruit preserves.

These Israelis never stop surprising me with their avant-gardist visions. Training the next generation of Lebanese Grandmas, who would have thought about that!

With Love,

A Lebanese Citizen, and promising grandmother-to-be.

Natural disaster

2006-07-28T03:14:00.000+02:00

Referring to the attached pictures,
During the Israeli attacks on The Power Station of Jiyeh (i.e. In South of Lebanon), 15 tons of fuel were spilled in the Mediterranean Sea. While chances of additional mass of fuel are in a risk of leaking into the sea. Black nap is covering the Lebanese coast reaching all the way to Chekka (i.e. North of Lebanon)…
Plz circulate this email, we need to broadcast to the whole world this natural disaster that might carry on for years.

War Diaries- Day 15

2006-07-27T04:00:00.000+02:00

Dear World

July 26^th, Day 15

Today was my first day at work after two weeks of absence. Although everything was just the way we left it on Thursday July 10, nothing was the same. We weren't the same. For the first time, sitting and working in front of a computer screen became hell, although sitting home and following up the news on television was not less of a torture. My desk was s a mess, I didn't even have the desire to clean it up.

I was sitting at a friend's house when we heard about the attack on a 6-floors residential building in Tyre. People were running all over, covering their noses with their dusted shirts. God knows what chemicals the bomb had in it. The attack provoked a big mushroom smoke, and people were rushing out the scene with grayed faces, bursting in an explosion of sadness, anger, despair. The Red Cross members were rushing to help, transporting dismantled body parts on their carriers. Black and grey smoke, orange and red flames people running left and right in utmost panic.

And then I realized that I haven't grasped the reality yet, that war is once again happening to us. I watched it all on television like another American action movie. They are so good at making things look real that we now confuse our reality for one of their movies. Image after image, sound after sound, it builds within me a cumulus of anguish, sadness and chock, but doesn't get me an inch closer to reality. I watch, I burst into tears sometimes, but then again I am only watching myself as another actress in some drama. You always think something like this will never happen to you and then find yourself in the middle of the action, watching it, screaming words that eventually have the impact of a whisper.

There are three things currently playing on our national televisions: news, politicians talking or arguing, and national songs coming in between them. Basically, I skip the politicians, gather sadness during the news and burst into tears hearing the national songs. I can't help it. Today, an orchestra of young men and ladies was singing one of Zaki Nassif's songs, and there was something about this wonderful life energy within them that shook me from head to toe. It is that same life that animates Red Cross volunteers, and all the young people who are channeling everything within them to reduce, as much as possible, the amount of suffering happening around them. I might sound idealistic, but I feel this is what Lebanon is all about. The people. We have witnessed our buildings fall so many times, but the people here have always found a space to get up and keep on going. It is one of the things that pours hope in all of us. And they don't deserve this because they are wonderful. They had bombs as lullabies and shelters as parks in their childhood, and yet they refuse to bend and simply keep on going forward.

On the television, Marcel Ghanem has gathered a few young men and women debating about the country's situation. At this stage, I don't know how supportive talking is. I am in no situation to judge, I am kind of slow concerning politics. They are yelling at one another, repeating the same words I have been hearing for the past fifteen days. The War Vocabulary. Nation, Peace, Resistance, Nasrallah, Sanioura, Protection, Shelthers, Publicity Break and we continue. 'Fadi didn't fail. When Auxilia helped him, Fadi didn't forget. He grew up and became an architect, and now he is helping another Fadi through Auxilia.' Solution. Rays. Saudi Arabia. Christian. Muslim. Unity of the Lebanese people. Israel. Enemy. Displaced. Communities.

Sukleen is recruiting. I am seriously considering joining the night shift; Beirut's streets are very sad to look at. Never been dirtier. I could also use some pocket money. I do encourage everyone to do so. Mechanic work can be a great therapy for the madness that is starting to install itself in my head. Plus I really love the tweezers they use to pick up the trash!

Keep your country clean!

Peace, Peace Please!

A Lebanese Citizen

Video report

2006-07-27T03:48:00.000+02:00

Lebanese Doctor Says Israel Using 'Phosphorus Weapons'

Video Report

The doctor treating the family says that there is phosphorus in the weapons that cause extremely painful burns on it's victims.:

- WARNING - Graphic images .

Click here to view
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article14181.htm

Israel troops 'ignored' UN plea (BBC News)

2006-07-26T15:08:00.000+02:00

United Nations peacekeepers in south Lebanon contacted Israeli troops 10 times before an Israeli bomb killed four of them, an initial UN report says.

The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling nearby, diplomats familiar with the initial probe into the deaths say.

The news came as crisis talks seeking to end the fighting between Hezbollah and Israel ended in Rome.

They agreed immediate action "to reach with the utmost urgency a ceasefire".

The four unarmed UN observers from Austria, Canada, China and Finland, died after their UN post was hit by an Israeli air strike on Tuesday.

The UN report says each time the UN contacted Israeli forces, they were assured the firing would stop.

Israel is conducting an investigation into the deaths, and has rejected accusations made by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan that the targeting of the UN position was "apparently deliberate".

In southern Lebanon, fierce clashes have continued between Israeli forces and Hezbollah fighters around the town of Bint Jbail.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5217176.stm

Updated map, 12-25 July; Zeina

2006-07-26T15:01:00.000+02:00

Our Tears are the Spring of Lebanon

2006-07-26T13:18:00.000+02:00

Lebanese refugees draw on a graffiti wall at one of the institutions provided by the Syrian government for the Lebanese people fleeing the Israeli attacks, in Damascus on Wednesday, July 6, 2006. Some of the graffiti reads 'Our tears are the spring of Lebanon' and 'We are steadfast'. (AP Photo Bassem Tellawi)

Deadly Israel raid on UN post clouds Lebanon crisis meet

2006-07-26T12:44:00.000+02:00

BEIRUT (AFP) - Fighting on the Lebanon-Israeli border has intensified after an Israeli air raid killed up to four UN observers and at least nine Israeli soldiers were hit in a border town, as an international crisis meeting opened in Rome.
A chorus of intenational criticism followed the deaths of the peacekeepers in the border town of Khiam, which ironically came as the world leaders began to discuss proposals for a beefed-up international force for Lebanon.
India said one of its peacekeepers had been wounded in the attack and it was considering withdrawing its 600 troops in the existing UN force, indicating the problems that forming a new force might face.
"I am shocked and deeply distressed by the apparently deliberate targeting by Israeli Defence Forces of a UN observer post in southern Lebanon that has killed two UN military observers, with two more feared dead." -Kofi Annan

Click here for full text

Congress and the Israeli Attack on Lebanon: A Critical Reading

2006-07-26T08:24:00.000+02:00

Here is a must read article from Foreign Policy in Focus:

Congress and the Israeli Attack on Lebanon: A Critical Reading by Stephen Zunes, University of San Francisco

"In short, both Democrats and Republicans are now on record that, in the name of “fighting terrorism,” U.S. allies—and, by extension, the United States as well—can essentially ignore international law and inflict unlimited damage on the civilian infrastructure of a small and largely defenseless country, even a pro-Western democracy like Lebanon."

Lebanese Organisations around the USA and their actions

2006-07-26T04:01:00.000+02:00

http://www.justiceforlebanon.com/
Boston, July 22, 2006 – In response to the recent atrocities committed in Lebanon, concerned Lebanese-Americans of Greater Boston will lead a peaceful demonstration and candlelight vigil at Copley Square on Friday, July 28, starting at 5pm^*. This grassroots event is one of many being organized across the U.S. and worldwide.

http://www.relieflebanon.org/

http://nyc.lebaneseclub.org/

Take Action
Sign the Save the Lebanese Civilians Petition and forward this invitation to your friends. Also, if you know of any action items one can take, or of any demonstrations, or whatever, please send us an email (click on the Contact US on the left side of this page), so we can disseminate this information to our members and site visiotrs.

Write to President Bush, your Senators, and Congressmen.

War Diaries- Day 14

2006-07-26T02:23:00.000+02:00

Dear World

July 25^th, 14^th day of war.

It is weird how war gets imprinted in every one of your senses.

I started developing taste for what I call war-food. Things I never ate before. Things I will never eat after because they will be carrying the bitterness of the moment in them. Among these foods are baked chips, roasted chickpeas, Ghandour 555 biscuits, bottled juice.

Today, a friend was mentioning how we got used to the constant buzzing of the Israeli planes in our ears. Besides this sound, hearing ambulances sirens every 10 minutes has become yet another routine. The sky lost its color, weather forecast lost its meaning because anyways, we stopped seeing the sun. A constant smell of smoke and burning prevails in our noses.

Bint Jbeil fell in the hands of the Israelis today. It is sad to watch your country burn on television.

The sound is becoming louder and louder whenever they bomb the southern suburbs. It seems they are trying a new brand of explosives. Neomania? Desastromania?

Politicians are still talking on television. On the bottom of the screen, the red cross announces its inability to reach Rmeich, one of the surrounded villages that need urgent help. And the world keeps watching.

Two weeks now, war has shifted from being a big boom in our lives to becoming a daily routine. A daily sitcom we follow up in disbelief on television. Big booms stopped dragging us towards the television. After jumping from our chairs, we immediately guess the source of the boom depending on its provenance and intensity. "Suburbs, again". Or: "No! it's not a bomb! Just a truck passing on a bumper!"

I promised myself I will not look back. It is pointless and painful. I promised myself I will not become numb. It is against the principle of life itself. My senses might be getting used to all this, my being will never be.

I just hope that this war is an opportunity for everyone to see what a mess we have made out of this world. How nothing makes sense. Maybe politically it does, but in terms of human life, it is absolute madness.

I started to develop war syndrome. I jump over my seat every time I hear a door slam. My deep respects to Israelis who care so much about over-developing our reflexes, it will sure be a great benefit for the future!

Love,

A Jumpy Lebanese Citizen

HOW TO HELP

2006-07-25T14:36:00.000+02:00

To coordinate peacefull demonstrations for cease fire:
http://www.saveleb.org
http://www.moghtarebeen.com

Dear compatriots and Friends of Lebanon, additionnal calls for
donation have just been set out :

Samir Kassir Foundation - LIBAN:
--------------------------------
Byblos Bank - Tabaris Branch -Swift: BYBALBBX
Account USD : 380.3652902.001 - Account LB: 380.3652902.002

Society Saint Vincent de Paul - LIBAN:
--------------------------------------
Banque | Audi - Beirut
Account USD: 088587/461/002/009/39 - Account LB : 088587/461/001/009/25

Ministère des Finances - LIBAN:
-------------------------------
Compte de solidarité aux sinistrés Libanais
Banque du Liban
Account USD: 02 700 362 123 - Account LB: 01 700 362 123

Ambassade du Liban - France:
----------------------------
Solidarité LIBAN - 42 rue Copernic 75116 PARIS
Banque AUDI SARADAR France - Swift : AUDIFRPP
Account Euros: 00208240004 Cle RIB 22

Croix Rouge Libanaise:
----------------------
AUDI BANK -BAB IDRISS - SWIFT:AUDBLBBX - Account N°: 841500
http://www.dm.net.lb/redcross/

Caritas Liban:
--------------
BNPI - SWIFT Code: BNPILBBX - Account N°: 136,932,001,24
Donation on line : http://www.caritas.org.lb/soutenir/soutenir.asp

Social Movement:
----------------
BNPI - SWIFT Code: BNPILBBX - Account : 0936510554296095

Amel Association:
-----------------
Fransabank - Swift Code: FFABLBBX - Account : 31769440 & n°31769503
E-Mail: amel@cyberia.net.lb

Beirut Association for Social Development:
------------------------------------------
Bank Med - Account n°:420-16517000

The Maarouf Saad Social & Cultural Foundation:
----------------------------------------------
Byblos Bank - Account : 315-3014119-001

Farah Social Association:
-------------------------
Societe Generale de Banque au Liban (SGBL) -Account : 063004367502641010

ICNDR:
-----
HSBC Bank - Middle East - SWIFT Code: BBMELBBX - Account : 003-074473-100
ICNDR@cyberia.net.lb

Comite d'assistance Populaire:
------------------------------
Audi Bank - SWIFT Code: AUDBLBBX - Account n° 746772

Lebanese Popular Rescue:
------------------------
Societe Generale de Banque au Liban (SGBL) - Account n| : 360181781024

Hariri Foundation Lebanon Relief Fund:
----------------------------- ---------
http://.www.haririfoundationusa.org

L'Association Libanaise pour la Démocratie des élections:
---------------------------------------------------------
Société Générale de Banque au Liban - Swift: SGLILSBX
Account n°: 013-004-360-016454-02-5

Croix rouge Française:
----------------------
Crise humanitaire proche-orient 75678 Paris Cedex 14
http://www.croix-rouge.fr

The International Committee of Red Cross (ICRC):
------------------------------------------------
http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/html/lebanon-news-190706?opendocument

On the behalf of www.lebanese-abroad.com

Nada ABOUZEID

Why I'm not evacuating Beirut

2006-07-25T14:10:00.000+02:00

Staying On

Why I'm not evacuating Beirut.

By Faerlie Wilson

BEIRUT, Lebanon: From my balcony this afternoon, I watched as French, British, and American evacuees boarded chartered cruise ships in Beirut's port about a half-mile west of my apartment.

And over the last few days, while bombs and artillery pummeled the southern part of the city, I made the decision not to leave Lebanon. Explosions rock my building even as I write this, but I'm staying put.

I'm not crazy, and I harbor no death wish. This is simply the rational decision of someone who has built a life in Lebanon, who believes in this place and its ability to bounce back. I choose to bet on Beirut.

After five visits to Lebanon over as many years, I moved to Beirut from California this February. I'm a 24-year-old American with friends but no family here. But Lebanese hospitality makes it easy to feel at home; it's a warm society that exudes and embodies a sense of interpersonal responsibility. Live here for two weeks and then go out of town, and you'll get a dozen offers to pick you up at the airport upon your return.

So although I'm not Lebanese by blood, I have become Beiruti. There are plenty of us who fit that description, foreigners who fell in love with the place and its people. One friend, an American college student interning for the summer with a member of the Lebanese parliament, called in tears en route to the northern border to tell me her parents had forced her to leave.

"I'm going to stay in Syria as long as I can," she vowed. "In case things settle down and I can come back."

Until the war broke out last week, this was to be Lebanon's golden summer as last year's tourist season having been dampened by the brutal car bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005.

This summer started off strong, with concerts by major Western artists that allowed the Lebanese to hope their country was returning to the prewar days when everyone who was anyone’s icons like Ella Fitzgerald, Marlon Brando, and Brigitte Bardot made regular stops in the country. Ricky Martin and 50 Cent performed in May and June, respectively, Sean Paul was on deck for July, and negotiations were under way to bring Snoop Dogg later in the summer. But the most anticipated concert was set for late July: the three-night return of legendary Lebanese diva Fairouz to the Baalbeck festival, where she first earned her fame in the 1950s and '60s.

The after-party for 50 Cent was typical over-the-top Beiruti, held at city's most decadent nightclub, Crystal. Lamborghinis and Ferraris crowded the parking lot; plasticated Lebanese girls in short skirts and spike heels danced on tables as waiters navigated the dance floor balancing trays laden with sparklers and magnums of champagne for high-rolling Saudi tourists, while Fiddy free-styled and openly smoked a joint.

Tourists from the Arab world, Europe, and North America flooded the streets of cities and villages throughout the country. Gulf Arabs in particular have been drawn to Lebanon, especially in a post-9/11 era when they felt unwelcome in the West (and often had trouble obtaining visas). Lebanon offered many of the same attractions as Europe, but in an Arab setting: temperate climate, good shopping, plenty of tourist activities, and most important, heady nightlife and a liberal social atmosphere.

Tourists partied till dawn, stormed the sales at Beirut's designer boutiques, and visited sites like Lebanon's ancient cedar groves and the Roman temples at Baalbeck. Now those magnificent ruins are surrounded by newer ones: The city of Baalbeck, long a Shiite stronghold, has received a heavy share of the Israeli bombardment.

Falling bombs erase entire villages, fire and smoke cover the horizon, and visions of that promised summer have, in just over a week, evaporated. On the beaches of Damour and Jiyeh, the foreign visitors aren't European sun junkies but Israeli missiles. And the cruise ships docked in the port aren't bringing tourists to Lebanon, they're taking them away.

The contrast between Beirut today and Beirut two weeks ago is so stark, it would be unbearable if it weren't so surreal. This isn't my Beirut. This isn't anyone's Beirut. The frantic, vibrant city has shrunk into a sleepy town, with empty streets and only a handful of restaurants, bars, and shops open for business.

It's amazing how quickly you can get used to living under siege. We've taped our windows, stocked up on supplies, and settled into a perversion of normal life. Electric generators succeed where embattled power stations fail. I've learned what times the electricity, water, and Internet connection usually cut out, and I plan my days accordingly, an old Lebanese ritual from the days of the civil wars.

Candles we bought as decoration are scattered throughout the apartment, half-burned down from long nights without electricity. An Israeli propaganda flier dropped on a university soccer field sticks out of my roommate's copy of the now-obsolete July issue of Time Out Beirut, marking a page listing exhibitions at art galleries that have since boarded up their doors. The magazine only launched this spring, and it was easy to see it as yet another symbol that Beirut was finally being recognized as one of the world's great cities. Travel and Leisure magazine listed Beirut as the ninth-best city in the world for 2006. In this part of the world, fortunes shift very quickly.

Smaller explosions and the rushing of Israeli fighter jets overhead don't startle or frighten me anymore. We are exhausted and have to save our emotional energy for the moments where panic is needed. Still, when larger blasts rattle my windowpanes and make the apartment shudder, I rush to the balcony to figure out which part of my city is being hit. Sometimes, it's an easy game: Three days ago, my roommate and I watched as Israeli warships struck Beirut's port.

I know I'm reasonably safe in my corner of Beirut, and I have a place to go in the mountains if that ceases to be true. Unlike people in many other industries, I still have a job: The magazine where I work decided to publish an August issue -although it will lose money- as a sign of resistance and resilience.

There is painfully little we, the ordinary people of Lebanon, can do to help the situation. So, instead, we do what we can to help each other by donating food and supplies, opening our doors to friends and strangers, and trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. We aren't giving up.

After the foreigners are gone, local wisdom predicts that the fighting will only get worse. At the very least, there will be less protective padding - a fear of foreign casualties that may have restrained Israel to some degree. Evacuating Beirut would feel a lot like abandoning it. I know that my staying won't keep the Israelis from intensifying their attacks, but at least I won't be complicit, seeing events unfold on a TV screen from the comfort of Cyprus.

So, I'll watch those ships pull away without regret. Lebanon has given me more than I ever could've asked: a home, a sense of belonging, an almost indecent number of happy memories. But aside from any debt to Lebanon, I won't leave because I know how miserable I would be watching the war ravage my country from the outside. As long as my feet are firmly planted on Lebanese soil, I somehow know the country will survive.

People ask me if I'm scared, and I am - but for Lebanon more than for myself. This place and its people deserve far better than what they're getting.

There's a sad, unstated "what will become of us?" question floating around the Lebanese who are left behind. I need to stay here, if only to learn the answer.

On the road to safety

2006-07-25T10:13:00.000+02:00

According to Ziad, this image has been circulating in the Lebanese community in Paris and on Friday, it was the cover of the Independent.
This map intimates at the layers beneath the onslaught against Lebanon.

Check out yesterday's article by Robert Fisk over the murder of a fleeing Lebanese family and whether it constitutes a war crime. The original story of the family ran in the Guardian. Here's a bit of the Guardian article.

"The Sha'itas had thought they were on the road to safety when they set out yesterday, leaving behind a village which because of an accident of geography - it is five miles from the Israeli border - had seemed to make their home a killing ground. They had been ordered to evacuate by the Israelis.
But they were a little too slow and became separated from the other vehicles fleeing the Israeli air offensive in south Lebanon. Minutes before the Guardian's car arrived, trailing a Red Cross ambulance on its way to other civilian wounded in another town, an Israeli missile pierced the roof of the Sha'itas' white van. Three passengers sitting in the third row were killed instantly, including Ali's grandmother. Sixteen other passengers were wounded. In recent days, families like the Sha'itas are bearing the brunt of Israel's air campaign and its efforts to rid the area of civilians before ground operations. A day after Israel's deadline for people to leave their homes and flee north of the Litani river, roads which in ordinary times wind lazily through tobacco fields and banana groves have been turned into highways of death."

Ali Sha'ita, 12, is distraught as he tries to comfort his mother, who was wounded when an Israeli missile hit their vehicle, killing three and injuring 16. Photograph: Sean Smith

“Truckophobia”

2006-07-25T02:40:00.000+02:00

An entry written by Nadine, a friend of Maya's and a Beirut resident.

“Truckophobia”

A new psychological disorder hitting all the Lebanese people living in Lebanon.
Its manifestations started on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 when the Israeli aggressors started bombing every truck in sight thinking that they were carrying ammunitions for the resistance in the south!
It turned out that they actually bombed trucks carrying humanitarian aid relief like ambulances, medications, food, and fruits and vegetables that were all generously donated and sent from neighboring countries.

The signs of the “Truckophobia” psychological disorder appear when the Lebanese citizen finds him or herself near a truck.
The signs are:

-Screaming “Ya mama camion”

-Addressing the truck driver with a go go go go sign with the right hand

-Fast heart palpitations

-Sweat drops starting on the forehead spreading to the palms of the hands

-Running in the opposite direction if walking in the streets

-Driving very fast if in a car

-Commenting on what the truck could be carrying:
-Chou what do you think?
-No it seems like cloth rolls to me!
-Yiy! Maybe the Israelis from their airplanes will think that the rolls are rockets and they will bomb us! Come on let’s go, yallah!
-No walaw they are not that stupid!
-Ya haram not that stupid!!!!! They mistook watermelons for bombs and they won’t mistake cloth rolls for rockets?????

-Once the truck is far enough and the Lebanese citizen is safe from danger, they say
“El hamdellah, Zamatna, we made it”

-Then if on any anti stress or anti depressant or any kind of relaxing medication, they pop a pill in their mouth and swallow it dry.

Psychiatrists and psychotherapists in Lebanon are looking for a cure for the “Truckophobia” disorder and welcome any suggestions from the esteemed international psychiatric boards unless the latter are as quiet and as numb as their political leaders.

Updated map, 12-23 July; Zeina

2006-07-25T02:34:00.000+02:00

War Diaries- Day 13

2006-07-25T02:32:00.000+02:00

Another entry from our dear friend Maya

Dear World

July 24^th, 13^th (or should I say 12^th bis, to avoid bad luck?) day of war.

The number of deceased civilians reached 381 this morning.

Over 4000 air strikes

I just went out and looked at the sky. For the first time in 12 bis days, it was starting to clear. But this time, I couldn't really know whether the clouds were clouds, or simply some explosion's smoke coming from one extremity of the city, whether the stars were stars, or simply the careful lights of Israeli high-tech war planes.

On the television, Marcel Ghanem is interviewing a politician, and regularly receiving questions from observers via telephone, each one giving his private and precious opinion about the whole situation. If we were given a cent for every word spoken, all of the humanitarian problems in Lebanon would be solved by now. Too many opinions… Enough to drive you mad in a space of a month. On the bottom of the screen, the announcements band says "Israeli aircrafts bomb once again the southern suburbs." Now I am 100% sure that these planes are not driven by human beings. No matter how stupid he is, any human being would have known by now that there's nothing left to bomb in the southern suburbs. Who knows? Maybe miniature missiles are hidden somewhere in the powdered neighborhoods…

Today, Condoleeza-The Great paid us a small visit. Shiny teeth, sleek hair, impeccable suit. Some hands shaking, few polite smiles, lots of talking (of which we hear none. We only see moving mouths on television), plenty of cameras flashing. I really don't know how photographing Ryce one million times can help us solve the chaos we are in. I am assuming that plenty of these photos are targeted to go in a "World's Most Elegant Female Figures". Thank God we are in the digital technology era, film waste is the last thing we can afford right now.

Today, Israeli aircrafts bombed a motorcycle and killed its driver. It is such an admirable strategy, using airplanes to bomb motorcycles. Especially that the latter constitute very dangerous and solid bases for launching Hezbollah's missiles into the Israeli lands. Trucks, cars, motorcycles, they bomb it all. I just hope they are not targeting all sorts of wheels. Bombing a poor kid bicycling or roller-blading would be a really bad publicity for them. But who cares? International media wouldn't mention it anyways.

We are starting to develop war-habits. Daily routines that keep us going on. Mine: a glass of sparkling water and ice along with chopped carrots and cucumbers. My hands are starting to turn orange due to carotene excess. I do appreciate the color in the core of the grey city that surrounds us… No political insinuations! It simply happens that carrots are orange…

Love,

A Carrot-Flavored Lebanese Citizen

An appeal from the American University of Beirut to its alumni, friends,

2006-07-24T13:50:00.000+02:00

July 23, 2006

Facing the Challenge

The American University of Beirut is once again at the forefront of efforts to
care for those who are suffering in Lebanon. Along with other NGOs, the men and
women affiliated with AUB and its hospital are providing critical services to
those in need. We will do everything we can to take care of those who need our
help. We have done it before. Our commitment to do so is just as strong today.

We expect, however, that the demand for AUB’s services will continue to grow as
more and more families seek refuge in and around Beirut. Today, more than
500,000 men, women, and children have been displaced as a result of the
conflict.

Dr. Ghassan Hamadeh, director of AUB’s University Health Services, is currently
leading a team of AUB faculty members, students and staff to secure supplies of
medication and to organize volunteers. We are seeking your support for the
following AUB Medical Emergency Fund so that we can continue - and expand -
relief efforts in the following two areas.

1- Medical Supplies

We are hopeful that a humanitarian passageway for much needed supplies will
open soon. We are developing a list of the supplies that we will need. We
expect that these will fall into the following categories: medical narcotics,
antibiotics, chemotherapeutics, anesthesia agents and filters for machines. We
know that some of you have connections with drug companies and other medical
suppliers. We are investigating ways in which AUB might be able to act as a
centralized clearinghouse to facilitate the transport of medications and
medical supplies to Lebanon. If you are able to help with these efforts, please
contact AUB’s New York Office.

2-Volunteer Relief

Donations to this fund will enable volunteers (residents and faculty) to work
with other NGOs to provide onsite healthcare at refugee centers. Volunteers
will also prepare packages of medications or relief material for our mobile
clinics to deliver to refugees; participate in free evening clinics that supply
medications and outpatient care; and participate in health education campaigns.

If you would like to contribute to the AUB Medical Emergency Fund, you can
make a secure on-line gift at www.aub.edu.lb/challenge/help.html or mail your
check to our New York Office, at the address below, payable to: American
University of Beirut / Medical Emergency Fund. If you would like information
on making a wire transfer, you may email me at jeffrey@aub.edu . You can also
help by forwarding this message to others who might be interested in
contributing to relief efforts.

The University is reassessing its needs on a daily basis. Updates are on the
AUB website.

Please help us help Lebanon. Thank you.

W. Stephen Jeffrey

Vice President for Development and External Relations

American University of Beirut - 3 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza, 8th Floor - New York,
NY 10017 – U.S.A.

Tel: 212- 583-7600 - Fax: 212-583- 7650

War Diaries Day 12

2006-07-24T08:36:00.000+02:00

Dear World

July 23^rd 2006, 12^th day of war.

I am slowly running out of things to say. Slowly, my eyes are getting accustomed to the smoky and bloody scenes on television, my ears are getting used to the bombing sounds.

Last night, 1:00 a.m., the Israeli war planes bombed the southern suburbs for the millionth time, I could hear the sound very clearly, but still I managed not to jump out of bed and run to the television screen like I have been doing for the past days.

I remember the first night of the war, when I woke up to a loud bombing sound (the first I heard), I ran to the living room and saw my mother and brother watching the airport burn on television, in an expression of deep sadness and disbelief. Today, watching things burn has become a daily routine, I am even starting to wonder whether I will miss or not it once all of this is over.

Today, a journalist died, Layal Najib.

Slowly, Lebanon is becoming a tabula raza. Beirut's southern suburb is slowly getting reduced into powder and the emptiness overwhelming the place, although carrying a morbid smell of death and desolation, has a mesmerizing feel to it. They bombed a building there today, among other things of course. We spent hours watching it burn on television.

Right now, four men are negotiating on television, joined, from the four corners of earth, on a screen split in four. Riadh, Washington, Lebanon and Iran. To me, it seems like an absurd play. On the bottom of the screen, people are still sending announcements, looking for their beloved.

Today, I was faced with the painful fact that this war will last for months. And I decided that the world has gone mad. There will be no cease fire, they are even negotiating other parties joining the party, what a blast! More fireworks and dead bodies flying out of the windows of their own houses. Houses that once witnessed intimate moments. Mothers cooking, children playing, young adolescent girls combing their hair or toddlers learning for the first time how to tie their shoes. These houses have fallen apart now, and slowly neighborhoods are becoming deserts. Slowly, we are heading towards nothingness, the same nothingness that fills the brains of our dear international politicians. If we look at the only positive thing about this, we could say that nothingness is a wonderful place to start from. A clean, fresh Lebanon. A blank page where you can start from scratch. I am just wondering if I will still be there by then. I am starting to have doubts.

I am starting to get tired, yet I still feel writing can do something… Usually people start shouting the first one or two weeks of the event. Then, they start talking about it, then whispering. And a few weeks later, silence prevails. I hope we can keep on shouting, whether it accomplishes something or not is not important. This shouting is for us, an immunity to the numbness that might take over our minds and emotions, too much exposed to images, sounds, screams, and opinions.

A month ago, my friend and I were talking about designing a touristic map of Lebanon, and we were worried about how complex the whole research and design process would be. Flash news! We can draw it in just a few days now. Except that there are no more tourists. No need to worry. Our country has become stranger to us; we have become tourists in our own land…

with love,

a Lebanese Citizen

Call to action

2006-07-24T07:43:00.000+02:00

For the first time in my life I am on the other side. I usually would have been in the midst of it, trying to survive and make it till tomorrow. Usually I would be one of those trying to brave the situation, and trying to beat the hand that has been dealt against me, against us.

This time it is different. I am safe. Away from harm’s way. I am not in want, and I will not be here. I am not trying to find a shelter. I am not thinking about the electricity shortage, or the water dearth. Yet somehow it is just as bad as before. Those whom I love are. My family and my friends are there, braving the nights and the horrors of the days. Mentally it is just as bad, because I see myself in a flashback with the radio glued to my ear scrounging every news flash that is being issued by every news sender from around the world. I have become a news junky, a flash addict. Paralyzed, hypnotized, at the limits wishing I was there. I spent the first week of it all in a mental stupor, like all the Lebanese abroad, I imagine, feeling helpless and useless. How can this happen and nobody is doing anything to stop it? How can this humanitarian disaster be allowed to go on any longer? We also feel guilty for living our daily lives. It just all feels so pointless. In comparison to the death our loved ones are facing, how can we continue living?

I also was angry. So angry at the world, that it should allow this to happen again, and again and again…. So many times that it has become countless. How can we call ourselves a humanity when we are not even humane? What is that measured response that I keep hearing about? Why is everyone just talking about ‘restraint’? This is a blatant ‘non assistance of a person in danger, which in French legislation and International convention this is punishable by law and would lead to imprisonment. Then who should be punished here? Is it going to be the whole international community who is just watching idly? Or is it me who is sitting here feeling miserable and helpless?

Our country and our families need us. They need to get their voices out. They need us to show the horrors of what is happening to them. They need us to help provide them with the basic daily necessities that so many are in dire need of. They need us to supply them with medication for both the chronic illnesses and the trauma that is being inflicted upon them., as well as food, clothing, blankets, baby supplies and every other necessity of life. They need us to rebuild after the horrors are over.

Above all they need us to be human.

I am not going to ask for monetary donations since these requests are being thrown at you from every direction. I call upon you to help me set up networks that would volunteer on supplying all of the above to our country. Put a bit of your time into this, give this war a face and help that face regain its life and dignity. Contact who you know that can provide us with these supplies, contact the food industry, pharmaceuticals, hospitals… maybe even organizations that are working on the ground so that they would help us get those things to the people who need them.

Contact me at shechaime@hotmail.com and help set this network in motion
You could also send me your posts to help keep our voice alive.

Message from Seattle

2006-07-24T07:11:00.000+02:00

Lebanon's ordeal transcends its borders and lives with each one of us. We need to keep the voice of Lebanon as clear and as loud as possible. In this effort this is a posting I have received from Ghassan.

Friends,

I just want to share with you what I have been spending my time in the last few days, a small contribution to our cause, now that I am not on
the bomb-receiving end, and effectively part of the diaspora.

Yesterday Saturday, we organized a peace rally and candlelight vigil
in Seattle, where we had different speakers from the community come
and tell their stories in public.

One speaker had just come back from Lebanon with his family and spoke
of the ordeal.
Another's family is still stuck there and is talking about the
horrible evacuation experience.

More interesting - because we're not used to such discourse - was a
speech by a woman representing a jewish-israeli organization
advocating peace. She and her parents are holocaust survivors, and
through her organization she's actively working in Israel to denounce
violence, showing how 60 years of violence in the middle-east did not
resolve the problem.

There was also representation from other minority groups, notably the
Japanese-American Community, who feels for the Lebanese and the Arabs,
and took a pledge after WWII not to stay silent when there's racial
discrimnation and segregation supported or allowed by the US. Local
press was present to cover the event.

Photos of that event are posted on
flicker by a photographer that attended the event.

On the other hand, I took part this morning of a 9-people
Microsoft-delegation to the "World Affairs Council', a
non-governmental non-profit organization, whose charter includes
facilitating "discussions of critical world issues"
[http://www.world-affairs.org/]. They arranged for us to meet with a
democratic Washington-state senator, Maria Cantwell.

It was a good, and rare, opportunity for us to voice our opinions to
the senator and an opportunity for us to vent our frustration about
the american foreign policy in the middle-east, and about its support
for more violence. We talked about the bloodshed, the humanitarian
crisis, the lost hope of a country that had just started blossoming,
and the tragedy of a new generation of Lebanese experiencing war. Some
were emotional and broke down in tears when they talked about their
families still stuck in south Lebanon. Two local TV stations were
present and recording our statements; we will be on 10 o'clock news
tonight. I will forward you the video if we manage to put it online.

My impression about the senator was that she was unfortunately mainly
interested in scoring points with her local voters, meaning that she
did not comment or wish to talk about the US policy, and tried to keep
her speech focused on how her office can help with the evacuation of
US passport-holders from Lebanon. I found out later that she had voted
earlier this week for the congressional resolution to support israel's
right for self-defense that you must have heard about in the news.

Nonetheless, I'm sure that it's better to talk to such lawmakers, than
not to; and I know that we definitely touched some hearts in the World
Affairs Council. I hope that if we keep repeating the same message
about non-violence and cease fire, then this senator, and other
influential US lawmakers, will start shying away at best, hesitate at
worst, when asked to sign on such blatantly pro-israel resolutions.
But what makes our message weaker is that the senators of Lebanese descent themselves (e.g. Darrel Issa) voted in favor of the resolution.

By the way the http://www.relieflebanon.org donation website has had 25,000
visitors so far; a good sign that the message is spreading.

Ghassan

Hezbollah's Apocalypse Now

2006-07-23T22:27:00.000+02:00

Article on the motivations of Hizbu'llah by Amal Saad-Ghorayeb who teaches at the Lebanese American University in Beirut and is the author of "Hizbu'llah: Politics and Religion"

Updated map of Israeli assault on Lebanon July 12-22

2006-07-23T20:13:00.000+02:00

Dear Friends,

A friend from Lebanon has sent the following message-

I have attached a developed and updated map (pdf format) of the Israeli assault on Lebanon (from July 12 to the 21).
The map is updated daily on the blog below. For those who would still like to receive a daily update of the pdf version by mail please let me know.
Please forward and circulate the map to your friends everywhere

Warmly,
Zeina
zm05@aub.edu.lb

http://lebanonupdates.blogspot.com/

http://sanayehreliefcenter.blogspot.com/

Photos from the rally in Amsterdam on July 22nd

2006-07-23T11:44:00.000+02:00

July 22nd, 2006 - Thousands marched from the Beursplein to the Museumplein, carrying Lebanese and Palestinian flags and chanting "Stop the War" and "George Bush, Terrorist." Some were carrying flags from Hizbollah. I was amazed at the diversity of the crowd. It seemed like every nationality and age group was represented, even saw two pride flags. I recorded some audio from the rally, including the first speech from a representative of a Jewish organization in Amsterdam (didn't catch the name of the organization or the speaker, maybe someone can help?) His message was simple. Not all Jews support the actions of Israel.

"If you want to live in peace, let peace pour in"

I will try to get this audio posted. Also, I am posting more pictures from the protest at flicker.

Here is a translation of an article about the demonstration printed in de Volkskrant

Demonstration in Amsterdam against policy in Israel and the US

DUTCH PRESS AGENCY
AMSTERDAM - Thousands of people have taken part in a demonstration on Saturday in Amsterdam against the policy of Israel and the United States in the Middle East.
The direct reason was the Israeli attacks on Lebanon. Behind a large banner with the text 'Stop the War' they marched to the museum square. A spokesman of the organization estimated the number of participants at five thousand, but observers estimated 2,000-2,500 protesters.
Initially the demonstrators planned to meet on the Beursplein square and not march through the city. The police force however gave authorization at the last moment to the organizers for a march to the Museumplein. The protesters carried slogans such as: Intifada-Lebanon, Free Palestine and George Bush terrorist.
A woman had come all the way from Belgium to the capital of the Netherlands, just to participate in the demonstration.

"This is something that I can do, in Belgium there is no such demonstration planned," she said. A little girl from the African country Eritrea accused Israel of not being prepared to accept peace. She walked along to bring attention to injustices in Palestine and Lebanon.
Also ex-minister Hedy d'Ancona was present. She pleaded for a diplomatic solution.

“Each time that Israel throws a bomb, it makes ten thousand enemies,” said the former PvdA-politician. During the demonstration, money was collected for the purchase of medicine for Palestinians living in the Gaza strip.
On the museum square, members of parliament, Harry van Bommel (SP) and Farah Karimi (Green-left party) and PvdA-European parliamentarian Edith Mastenbroek addressed the protesters. Last Thursday during a pro-Israël-manifestation Mastenbroek was booed, pleading for an armistice and negotiations between Israel and Hezbollah. Now the mob listened to her without shouts of dissent. Van Bommel pleaded for sanctions against Israel and announced that he, as well as Karimi, are in support of a cease-fire between Israel and Hezbollah.
At the end of demonstration, a storm broke out and it started to rain violently. The message from the organizers to go home quietly did not need to be repeated.

US citizens- Here's what YOU can do

2006-07-23T11:27:00.000+02:00

Please copy the following text and send it to your local representative.

For a list of US House of Representatives

List of US senators

Dear [insert name of the deputy, congress man or government official who represents you],

I am writing to you in relation to the events in Lebanon. Today, and luckily for humanity, the world is increasingly connected and forming a global village. So, despite biased media reports for the benefit of Israel, we, as citizens of the world, have a clear idea of what is happening in that part of the world and [insert name of the country you come from].

Israel is destroying Lebanon and any economic viability that it has been struggling to build over the past 16 years. Before that, it was unleashing its terror and destruction on the people of Gaza. They are killing children, women and innocent civilians. Israel has been displacing families from their homes in villages ever since its establishment in 1948. In six days since July 12, 2006, it displaced over 70,000 people in Lebanon alone. It also pounded to the ground Lebanese people’s homes and infrastructure: roads, bridges, airports, ports, highways, energy plants and communication networks. These are all structures that we may have paid for with our tax money through international aid projects as we know that Lebanon’s post-war reconstruction was partly possible because of foreign aid to the then war-torn country. Israel has torn it away again, an entire country. It has no right to do so.

Israel is carrying out the same, if not worse, collective punishment that some of its people suffered during the first half of the 20^th century.

We are constantly being told that we should appreciate the fact that we live in democracies, in the free world, where freedom of speech and expression are not an issue. We are also being told that our governments are waging a war against terror to protect us. But today we wonder whether such violent actions carried out by states, which use unrestrained and disproportionate force, clearly breaching international law and justice, are not but exasperating the problem by creating more angry people who are willing to bomb themselves in train stations and skyscrapers in an attempt to turn attention to the injustice they are enduring.

Based on our concern for our own security and based on the fact that we live in democracies where an individual’s freedom of expression holds the power to change and improve, we write to you today requesting the following:

Mobilize all diplomatic efforts to:

Stop the Israeli attacks on Lebanon and Gaza
Pressure the United Nations Security Council to meet immediately and issue a Chapter 7 Resolution condemning the Israeli attacks and imposing sanctions on the Jewish state in an attempt to prevent it from repeating these attacks in the future. The international community’s failure to treat Israel like any other belligerent state has led to its recurrent resorting to violence. Ten years ago, it committed the Qana Massacre in South Lebanon at a UN base. As it remained unpunished for its unlawful acts in Qana, Jenin, Sabra and Shatila etc. Israel allowed itself to commit the mass genocide in Gaza and Lebanon in 2006 using the same argument and justification “self-defense,” “fighting against terror” etc. But killing children and innocent is far from self-defense and fighting against terror unless it is the intention. Israel should face the same treatment as Saddam did when he invaded Kuwait and if it does not, we as citizens of [insert name of the country you come from] need to understand clearly why. Our country pays membership fees to be part of the UN, I presume it is our tax money. We expect and we have the right to request that this money is used effectively. No nation should enjoy the privilege over others to kill and the UN should be able to implement its charter the first article of which is “to Maintain Peace and Security.”
Pressure Israel through the UN or any other effective means to pay compensation for all the destruction it has caused at least since July 12, 2006.

I, as a citizen of [insert name of the country you come from], and the free world, the policies of which supposedly rest on the sum of individual votes of choice, count on you to take my request into consideration and forward to action. Together officials and citizens can make this a better world for all races to enjoy.

Thank you in advance.

Best Regards,

[Insert your name]

Blogs from Beirut

2006-07-23T11:08:00.000+02:00

A personal look at the tragedy from the perspective of a Lebanese woman living in Beirut
http://beirutupdate.blogspot.com/

A smart and provactive look at the situation from two Beiruti journalists
http://www.beirutlive.blogspot.com/