War on Lebanon: Take II

Ethnic Cleansing

2006-08-08T20:23:00.000-02:00

"The stated goal of the Israeli Defense Forces is the physical removal of the entire population of the south, whether Shiite, Sunni or Christian, as well as the Shiite population of Beirut—all told, about 50 percent of the Lebanese people. If any other government but that of Israel (and the United States) were making this demand, the American media would call it what it is: ethnic cleansing on a monstrous scale".

Addendum: Two days ago the IAF hit a 7 story residential building in Chiyah. 32 people were killed. There is no Hizbullah in Chiyah. It is a Shi'ite area, but it is Amal Party territory.

The Suicide Mission

2006-08-08T20:11:00.000-02:00

The civilian convoy being planned by activists and civil society organizations to head for the south in solidarity and to bring people aid is in serious trouble. No matter how well this is publicized in the media, I doubt the Israelis will care. Apparently, the plan is to drive down to Sour, and then split up to distribute aid to different villages. Sour is north of the Litani River, but I'm not sure whether they plan to get to villages south of it (where Israel threw flyers threatening any moving object with immediate liquidation).

So far, the organizers have managed to get 50 cars. By Saturday, the date of the event, they hope to have 100 more. CNN might be travelling with them, which might offer just a little security, but even that is not certain. We are, after all, talking about a military that has used Red Cross vans as target practice. I'm not sure if I'll go yet. Will wait and see what the situation is like till then.

The Cussing out of Dan Gillerman

2006-08-08T19:49:00.000-02:00

How the fuck can you get up in front of the world and fucking LIE like that? And lies of such stupendous magnitude! Well done, no really. You have truly outdone yourself, Mr. Gillerman. And you quote a Lebanese BLOGGER (a blogger!) as evidence that you are in the right.

Mr. Gillerman. Hizbullah do not hide their weapons next to sleeping children. You only claim that they do because for some reason, you feel the need to justify the murder of over 400 Lebanese children. Don't you dare try to compare the level of suffering Israel is experiencing to ours. Israel wasn't declared to be in a state of humanitarian crisis. Israel doesn't have a shortage of fuel, electricity, baby formula, food, and bread. Israel is still a functional country. In Lebanon, all life has come to a stand still, everything has been destroyed, and still we wait for more your bombs to rain down on us. 1000 innocent people weren't killed in Israel, Mr. Gillerman, they were killed in Lebanon. 1,00,000 people aren't sleeping in the schools and parks and streets of Israel, they are sleeping in the schools and parks and streets of Lebanon. How the fuck is this self-defence? Did 400 children threaten the existence of the State of Israel? Or the milk factory perhaps?

And who the fuck are you kidding with your statement that Israel is allowing the passage of humanitarian aid and the evacuation of civilians? The UN and the EU and the Red Cross and Mercy Corps and UNFPA and countless local relief organizations have been BEGGING Israel to let them through for the past TWO weeks. You said no under threat of bombardment, remember? There's two fuel tanks waiting for permission to enter Lebanon, but you denied them entry. Remember? Your government just stated that any vehicle spotted driving anywhere south of the Litani river will be blown to shit. Oh, that was after it imposed a curfew on the Lebanese population.

And what is this "comprehensive cease-fire" bullshit? Do they want to solve the entire Arab-Israeli conflict while Lebanon gets pummeled to the ground? Just fucking order a cease-fire and then work it out. I don't understand. What will it take to get Israel and the US to STOP?

The Geometry of the Middle East

2006-08-08T19:30:00.000-02:00

At today's infuriating Security Council Meeting (I'm still not sure whether it should drive me to tears to to laughter), a new geometrical figure of terror appeared on our maps, courtesy of the Israeli Ambassador to the UN. First, the mother of all bad metaphors, came the Axis of Evil. Ok, so that strayed a bit out of the region with North Korea, but that was soon fixed (possibly due to the fact that N.Korea actually did have weapons of mass destruction, unlike the country the US ended up attacking). Later on, we saw the emergence of the much more localized Sunni Traingle in Iraq and the Shi'ite Crescent umm....everywhere apparently. In Lebanon, Hizbullah's headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut are known as the Security Square. Now we also have the "Quartet of Terror". Oh yeh. Syria on percussion, Iran on trombone, Hamas on bass guitar, and the entire Hizbullah commando force as backing vocals, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Cunnilingus Rice's "New Middle East" is looking more and more like a Picasso on acid.

Lebanon: An Open Country for Civil Resistance

2006-08-08T12:57:00.000-02:00

Civilian Resistance: Call For Action & Solidarity For Lebanon

We, the people of Lebanon, call upon the local and international community to join a campaign of civil resistance to Israel’s war against our country and our people. We declare Lebanon an open country for civil resistance.

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!

We urge you to join us in defying Israel’s aggression against our country and in defending the rights of the inhabitants throughout Lebanon, and particularly in the South, to live on their land. When the United Nations, created to preserve peace and security in the world, is paralyzed; when governments become complicit in war crimes, then people must show their strength and rise up. When justice and human rights are scorned, those who care must unite in their defense.

Building on our belief in our country, the efforts of the civil resistance, and on the arrival of the internationals coming to Lebanon for solidarity, we declare that Lebanon is an open country for civil resistance, starting from August 12.

On August 12 at 7 am, we will gather in Martyrs’ Square to form a civilian convoy to the south of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese and international civilians will carry relief as an expression of solidarity for the inhabitants of the heavily destroyed south who have been bravely withstanding the assault of the Israeli military.

After August 12th, the campaign will continue with a series of civil actions for which your presence and participation is needed. 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.

To sign up to join the convoy, send us an email through our contact page or contact one of the following:

Rasha Salti
email: rasalti@aol.com
phone: 03 970855

Rania Masri
email: rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb
phone: 03 135279
phone: 06 930250 x 5683 or x 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 you for the cost of your travel, however, we can help you with finding accommodation.

For questions and help for all internationals please contact Adam Shapiro at : adamsop@hotmail.com

The Chronicles of 'Souna, part II: 'Souna and the Kings

2006-08-07T10:40:00.000-02:00

So yes, Arab governments are now shitting themselves in fear. Abdallah, the King of Jordan, is worried that "moderates" like himself are going to be put in jeopardy because the Arab masses are coming out unequivocally in support of Hizbullah. The same king who, when the war started, laid the blame squarely on Hizbullah and then had to shift his tune to say something bad about Israel because people started getting pissed off. And worried he should be. In his last speech, 'Souna spoke to him. He asked him and other Arab despots with a grin-grimace to stop worrying about their thrones for just one second, those thrones that will soon be meaningless, and stand up and SAY SOMETHING for once in their silly little pampered dictatorial lives.

Yes, Abdallah (both Abdallahs) you should be afraid. No matter what the outcome of this war, one thing is for certain. The Arab people have lost their fear. They have lost their fear of their oppressive governments and they have lost their fear of USrael. How they will channel this new empowerment we will soon see. But it won't be good for the kings, and it won't be good for the Emperor.

The Chronicles of 'Souna, part I: 'Souna and his Penis

2006-08-05T12:10:00.000-02:00

A few days ago, Hasan Nasrallah made another televised appearance, and as usual, he was brilliant. This speech was not addressed to the Lebanese people, but rather directly to the Israelis and to Arabs leaders in turn.

Nasrallah (Or 'Souna, as he will henceforth be known) did a great job of countering Israeli propaganda about how the war has been progressing thus far, and pointed out, correctly, that the Israeli media is so tightly controlled by the government now so that no one in Israel really knows what's going on.

A reporter in Nazareth recently informed a friend of mine that the Israeli government is inviting foreign journalists to cover the events and basically spoon feed them what to say. They take them only to certain places, tell them what they are allowed to photograph and what is off limits, and set up interviews for them with people they have prepped beforehand. In sum, the Israelis are not disclosing, to their own population and to the world, what is really going on. Not only that, but in Tel Aviv, flyers are being handed out detailing Israeli "victories". What victories? There are none, unless you consider the killing of civilians and destruction of a country's entire infrastructure and mass displacement a "victory". All the military goals Israel had set out for itself it has failed to reach, and they change every 2 days. From disarming Hizbullah to weakening Hizbullah to creating a buffer zone, so far, all have failed. According to a columnist in the Haaretz, all evidence points to the destruction of only 10 of Hizbullah's rocket launchers.

'Souna, of course, couldn't resist. He trashed the Israeli military and the two tenets on which it is based: its invincibility, and the so-called "purity of arms". Clearly, it is not invincible. As for the "purity of arms" oxymoron, 'Souna had this to day (and I paraphrase): Despite the losses that the Israeli army has thus far sustained, I must give credit where credit is due, and I would like to commend the mightly Zionist army for its two major military accomplishments to date. The first major accomplishment is of course the massacring of 50 innocent women and children at Qana. For that, they have my congratulations for their bravery. The second courageous accomplishment of the great, moral, invincible Israeli military is its commandos operation in a HOSPITAL in the outskirts of Baalback. Yes, indeed, it takes battalions and infantries and air cover to raid such a protected and important building. Well done. Oh, by the way, the Hasan Nasrallah you kidnapped? That's not me.

It's interesting how the televised bitching out between 'Souna and Olmert have turned into penis competitions. Everything else aside, I really think they should just take out their dicks and slam them on the table and see whose is bigger, and then decide who wins.

"They do not control the war. The war controls them"

2006-08-03T11:02:00.000-02:00

"Even now, the army commanders assert that new rockets are flowing all the time from Syria to Hizbullah. True, the roads have been bombed, the bridges destroyed, but the arms somehow continue to arrive. The Israeli government demands that an international force be stationed not only along the Israeli-Lebanese border, but on the Lebanese-Syrian border, too. The queue of volunteers will not be long. Then the generals will demand the bombing of roads and bridges inside Syria. For that, the Syrian Air Force will have to be neutralized. In short, a real war, with implications for the whole Middle East.

By the way: One day before the outbreak of this war, our Minister of National Infrastructures, Binyamin Ben-Eliezer, took part in the inauguration ceremony of the big pipeline that will conduct oil from the huge Caspian Sea reserves to the Turkish port of Ceyhan, just next to the Syrian border. The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline avoids Russia and passes through Azerbaijan and Georgia, two countries closely aligned with Israel, like Turkey itself. There is a plan to bring a part of the oil from there along the Syrian and Lebanese coast to Ashkelon, where an existing pipeline will conduct it to Eilat, to be exported to the Far East. Israel and Turkey are to secure the area for the United States".

You complete and utter MORONS!

2006-08-03T09:41:00.000-02:00

I just have one thing to say about the Israeli army's "successful" (who are you kidding??) raid on a Baalbeck HOSPITAL yesterday: you dumbasses.

Apparently, their "intelligence" sources told them that the Secretary General of Hizbullah, Hasan Nasrallah, was hiding out in the hospital. A Hasan Nasrallah was indeed there, except this one was a bricklayer. They kidnapped him and a bunch of other civilians as well, including a 14 year old shepard (the IDF confirmed that his sheep had been firing Katyushas into Israel from their asses).

The Israelis still claim that the operation was a success. Well, they did manage to kill tens of civilians in the process, so by their standards, I guess it was.

And this is justified how?

2006-08-03T09:31:00.000-02:00

The UN World Food Program accused Israel of impeding the distribution of aid to villagers trapped in the South. The IDF is not allowing any trucks clearly known as belonging to the UN to get to the most needy in Southern villages, cutting off access and not allowing them to pass through.

Is the UN now hiding Hizbullah's weapons in loaves of bread?

Basically, after those annoying countries that are not America kept nagging about the humanitarian crisis in Lebanon, the very generous Israelis deigned to allow aid to arrive to the country from the outside. The catch is that they're not allowing the trucks to actually move anywhere once they're inside Lebanon. So people just end up hearing that the Israelis "opened humanitarian passages into Lebanon" and nod their heads approvingly.

The numbers speak for themselves

2006-08-03T08:27:00.000-02:00

Lebanon's deathtoll:

29 Lebanese soldiers
80 Hizbullah geurillas
825 Lebanese civilians (one third under 12)

Israel's deathtoll:

36 Israeli Soldiers
19 Israeli civilians

The majority of Lebanese deaths are civilians. The majority of Israeli deaths are soldiers.

The myth of "hiding amongst civilians"

2006-08-03T08:11:00.000-02:00

"Hezbollah fighters -- as opposed to the much more numerous Hezbollah political members, and the vastly more numerous Hezbollah sympathizers -- avoid civilians like the plague. Much smarter and better trained than the PLO and Hamas fighters, they know that if they mingle with civilians, they will sooner or later be betrayed by collaborators -- as so many Palestinian militants have been".

Hizbullah is not an organized state army. It is a guerilla army, and an excellent one at that. Hizbullah don't have "bases" for the Israeli Army to attack, so it is doubtless that they fire rockets from within civilian areas. Ten minutes after the rockets are fired, Hizbullah disappear from the vicinity, and the people who end up being killed by the Israelis are civilians. The IDF knows this, but it is using the "Scorched Land" tactics used by the US army in Vietnam. They're firing rockets from behind buildings? Level the buildings and everyone. They know they're not hitting any Hizbullah fighters, but that doesn't matter. Collective punishment is the Israeli Army's signature move.

Just in case you were still wondering

2006-08-03T08:06:00.000-02:00

Human Rights Watch Report: Some Israeli Attacks Amount to War Crimes

(Beirut, August 3, 2006) - Israeli forces have systematically failed to distinguish between combatants and civilians in their military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. The pattern of attacks in more than 20 cases investigated by Human Rights Watch researchers in Lebanon indicates that the failures cannot be dismissed as mere accidents and cannot be blamed on wrongful Hezbollah practices. In some cases, these attacks constitute war crimes.

The 50-page report, "Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon," analyzes almost two dozen cases of Israeli air and artillery attacks on civilian homes and vehicles. Of the 153 dead civilians named in the report, 63 are children. More than 500 people have been killed in Lebanon by Israeli fire since fighting began on July 12, most of them civilians.

"The pattern of attacks shows the Israeli military's disturbing disregard for the lives of Lebanese civilians," said Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch. "Our research shows that Israel's claim that Hezbollah fighters are hiding among civilians does not explain, let alone justify, Israel's indiscriminate warfare."

The report is based on extensive interviews with victims and witnesses of attacks, visits to some blast sites, and information obtained from hospitals, humanitarian groups, security forces and government agencies. Human Rights Watch also conducted research in Israel, assessing the weapons used by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF).

Human Rights Watch researchers found numerous cases in which the IDF launched artillery and air attacks with limited or dubious military objectives but excessive civilian cost. In many cases, Israeli forces struck an area with no apparent military target. In some instances, Israeli forces appear to have deliberately targeted civilians.

In one case, an Israeli air strike on July 13 destroyed the home of a cleric known to have sympathy for Hezbollah but who was not known to have taken any active part in the hostilities. Even if the IDF considered him a legitimate target (and Human Rights Watch has no evidence that he was), the strike killed him, his wife, their 10 children and the family's Sri Lankan maid.

On July 16, an Israeli aircraft fired on a civilian home in the village of Aitaroun, killing 11 members of the al-Akhrass family, among them seven Canadian-Lebanese dual nationals who were vacationing in the village when the war began. Human Rights Watch independently interviewed three villagers who vigorously denied that the family had any connection to Hezbollah. Among the victims were children aged one, three, five and seven.

The Israeli government has blamed Hezbollah for the high civilian casualty toll in Lebanon, insisting that Hezbollah fighters have hidden themselves and their weapons among the civilian population. However, in none of the cases of civilian deaths documented in the report is there evidence to suggest that Hezbollah was operating in or around the area during or prior to the attack.

"Hezbollah fighters must not hide behind civilians - that's an absolute - but the image that Israel has promoted of such shielding as the cause of so high a civilian death toll is wrong," Roth said. "In the many cases of civilian deaths examined by Human Rights Watch, the location of Hezbollah troops and arms had nothing to do with the deaths because there was no Hezbollah around."

Statements from Israeli government officials and military leaders suggest that, at the very least, the IDF has blurred the distinction between civilians and combatants, arguing that only people associated with Hezbollah remain in southern Lebanon, so all are legitimate targets f attack. Under international law, however, only civilians directly participating in hostilities lose their immunity from attack. Many civilians have been unable to flee because they are sick, wounded, do not have the means to leave or are providing essential civil services.

Many civilians are afraid to leave the south because the roads are under Israeli attack. Hundreds of thousands of Lebanese have fled their homes, but Israeli forces have fired with warplanes and artillery on dozens of civilian vehicles, many flying white flags. Israel has justified its attacks on roads by citing the need to target Hezbollah fighters moving arms and block their transport routes.

However, none of the evidence gathered by Human Rights Watch or reported to date by independent media sources indicate that any of the attacks on vehicles documented in the report resulted in Hezbollah casualties or the destruction of weapons. Rather, the attacks have killed and wounded civilians who were fleeing their homes after the IDF issued instructions to evacuate.

"Israeli warnings of imminent attacks do not turn civilians into military targets," said Roth. "Otherwise, Palestinian militant groups might 'warn' Israeli settlers to leave their settlements and then feel justified in attacking those who remained."

Human Rights Watch urges Israel to immediately end indiscriminate attacks and distinguish at all times between civilians and combatants. Human Rights Watch also calls on the United States to immediately suspend transfers of arms, ammunition, and other materiel credibly alleged to have been used in violation of international humanitarian law in Lebanon, until these violations cease. Human Rights Watch further asks the Secretary-General of the United Nations to establish an International Commission of Inquiry to investigate reports of such violations, including possible war crimes, and to formulate recommendations with a view to holding accountable those who violated the law. That commission should examine both Israeli attacks in Lebanon and Hezbollah attacks in Israel.

Maps

2006-08-02T15:32:00.000-02:00

Ahmad loves maps. He's been working endlessly mapping out the towns, cities, bridges, roads, and general infrastructure the Israelis have bombed. He now knows the name and location of every village in the South.

The most dangerous weapons in a war are maps. The Israelis have been using unmanned drones to drop bombs, activated through the push of a button from miles away in some fortressed IDF control room. They identify their targets through digitized maps taken from satellite images. The boys playing with their joysticks don't see lives, people, children, towns. All they see is a lifeless target, a completely dehumanized landscape.

The human conscience is fallible and untrustworthy. In this era of technological warfare, all vestiges of humanity must be eliminated. How else could Qana have happened?

Going, going, gone

2006-08-02T13:59:00.000-02:00

There's something almost obscene about sitting at home and watching a war on tv that is actually unfolding a 15 minute drive away in the same, tiny city. Sometimes I hear the explosions on tv first, then outside my window. Sometimes there's no sound at all, just buildings crumbling. Vaccuum bombs, I think they're called. They suck in all the oxygen until the walls just disintigrate. That way, we can sleep while Dahyeh is destroyed.

I want to go to the South, but I'm not sure what I would do there. It's certainly not the voyeurism that destruction and bloodshed seem to bring out in some people; mediated images have already sent me over the tipping point. I have no village to go back to, I'm from Beirut. To write about? There's more than enough conflict addicted tourist-journalists to do that. And besides, I think I have lost the humanity to write about what I might see. Since the Qana massacre, I have not been able to feel anything. I wasn't even shocked at the beginning: it was just another Israeli war crime. In Qana. Again. The symbolism of the event has already subdued everything else that has happened, the hundreds that have died before. Qana as spectacle. How can I be shocked at anything anymore? All I feel is a heavy, dragging feeling in the pit of my stomach, as if gravity were exacting revenge on some unknown hurt that my body had caused it. I am slow to react to everything.

Even as the people drop like flies under Israeli shelling in Lebanon, the TV news ticker underneath the images of dead bodies reads that 25 people have been killed in Iraq from some roadside bomb or another. There's at least one of those every day. In Iraq, they know the world is not watching. In Gaza, Palestinians continue to die. I lost track of Afghanistan a while ago. President Bush is playing connect the dots.

I want to go to the South but I am frightened. It's not so much the danger of the bombs that scares me, although there is no guarantee on anyone's life. What I really dread is the endless drive there and what I will find on the way. What used to be a straight coastal drive southwards has turned into a jigsaw puzzle of bombed roads, dead ends, broken bridges, mountain detours, massive craters in the middle of the highways filled with busted up cars with people's belongings hanging out of them like entrails. What used to be an hour long drive has now become a 9 hour nightmare. There is not a single road that remains intact.

I don't want to go to the South anymore.

I doubt anything will be recognizable to me. The Israelis aren't just destroying people's homes. They are erasing an entire geography, one that is intimately connected to people's sense of struggle, of memory, of steadfastness, of history. They want Lebanon's history to be re-written, as it has so many times before, but this time it is a particular history that they need erased, a specific consciousness, a memory of struggle and displacement that has been coded Shi'ite. To erase Hizbullah requires nothing less than ethnic cleansing, and just to make sure that those of them left will be crippled, they are levelling their entire landscape.

What happens to memory when there is nothing tangible left to pin it onto?

Where are the progressive Israelis??

2006-08-01T06:42:00.000-02:00

"Haim Ramon "doesn't understand" why there is still electricity in Baalbek; Eli Yishai proposes turning south Lebanon into a "sandbox"; Yoav Limor, a Channel 1 military correspondent, proposes an exhibition of Hezbollah corpses and the next day to conduct a parade of prisoners in their underwear, "to strengthen the home front's morale."

Oh, by the way....

2006-07-31T20:07:00.000-02:00

Remember that 48 hour "halt" in air raids on the south the Israelis promised? They lied. They're still at it.

More on resistance

2006-07-31T19:52:00.000-02:00

Yes, this has been on my mind quite a lot. Sifting through things, trying to figure out where I stand, and what my role in this mess is. I'm probably going to be writing about this a lot and figuring stuff out as I go along.

Let's start again:

I think Hizbullah should have been disarmed after 2000 and placed as a national guard in the south (Shebaa, which is Lebanese, is largely a political issue, used by Syria to keep Hizbullah as their trump card, and therefore with the dissolution of Hizbullah could be solved diplomatically). But that would never have happened, not because Hizbullah is stubborn, or because Hizbullah has "masters" in Syria or Iran (a characterization which is SO unbelievably simplistic and un-nuanced), but because the sectarian make-up of Lebanon will never allow that to happen. It is because of the Lebanese state-system that Hizbullah was able to create a state within a state and monopolize the resistance (that and the fall of the Lebanese left), and why Iran found its key ally, and so dealing with this entire issue as a "Hizbullah" issue is silly and counterproductive. It is not Hizbullah's arms that are the "root" cause. It is the system that allowed a Hizbullah, a Future Movement, a Lebanese Forces, etc. all drawn across sectarian lines to exist in the first place that is the problem.

Re: Iran, Syria, and the conflict. What's happening in the region is a conflict between the last two regional powers over an obvious issue: US-Israeli hegemony or resistance to that hegemony, fuelled by the ethos of Iran's Islamic Revolution. Hizbullah and Iran do share a common vision up to an extent, and they definitely have a strategic relationship. Syria is currently bankrupt, and will sell Hizbullah out in a second if offered a good deal by the Americans.

However. This puts a lot of us in a bind. I support the resistance up to a point (and have a little crush on Nasrallah, he's such a fantastic orator and generally but not always agree with his positions), because it is the only resistance to the US left in the Arab world. I do not agree with its ends or its ideologies. I do not think diplomacy can work against the US, and whether one sees this as a war of others on Lebanese land or a war for everyone on Lebanese land (again, up to a point, see above. Which begs the question of how long can Lebanon sustain this war on its own, but then again, obviously can't expect much from the Arab regimes), which is a very crucial difference, rests largely on which side of the debate you're on (diplomacy with the US and acceptance of its imperialism vs. resistance to US hegemony). It certainly is a scary thought that Hizbullah will emerge from this stronger than ever, and that non-state Islamist movements across the region will be bolstered by that. What's going on right now raises many, many difficult questions that we all have to engage with. So far, I have seen no solutions that are to my liking in the larger picture, only mindless parroting of rhetoric that I am really sick of, whether it's the blind and uncompromising 'Hizbullah or bust' or the US-Lebanese right-wing line of it's Iran and Syria, leave us poor Lebanese alone, we want to live on a island and shop ourselves to death and love America, we were doing so well, blah de blah. (actually, we weren’t).

This is a turning point for the entire Middle East and we should all be a part of it. The Arabs need to rise up against their bankrupt, pro-US regimes, and there is no doubt in my mind that if they are going to change, the only way is going to be violent, and the way things are going, they are going to be Islamist as well. Where do the progressives fit into this? Before the civil war, the Lebanese left was a force to contend with. It was a model for many others. It fell apart and disintegrated in the 80s, and now we are left with nothing more than a left that dabbles in spectacle (Thanks S.), whilst Islamist movements have been cultivating their bases on the grassroots level, backing up their rhetoric with action that serves the people. Where is the left now, when we need it most? Now more than ever, the progressives need to start speaking up.

Enough with this diplomacy bullshit, enough with the screwed up fundamentalist alternatives. Enough with the US and its violent plundering of the Middle East. If the progressives in the US (who are the only ones who can change it) and the progressives in the Middle East (who are the only ones who can possibly, maybe stop this entire region becoming a hell-hole of Islamic fundamentalism) don't start doing something serious and big, we are all going to suffer much, much, much more.

On Hizbullah

2006-07-31T19:48:00.000-02:00

Two excellent articles on the relationship of Hizbullah to Lebanon, Arabism, and Iran that counter the right-wing claims that Hizbullah is merely an agent of Iran with no domestic agendas of its own:

Hizbullah: A Primer
Iran: The Vatican of Shi'ism?

Things that make you go hmmm

2006-07-31T12:06:00.000-02:00

"Is there a relationship between the bombing of Lebanon and the inauguration of the World's largest strategic pipeline, which will channel more than a million barrels of oil a day to Western markets? Virtually unnoticed, the inauguration of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) oil pipeline, which links the Caspian sea to the Eastern Mediterranean, took place on the 13th of July, at the very outset of the Israeli sponsored bombings of Lebanon"

Comments Policy

2006-07-31T10:25:00.000-02:00

So far, I haven't gotten many nasty or hateful comments on my blog. Anything that invites debate is welcome, pond scum who post idiotic rantings about the righteousness of Israel's war will be promptly deleted. As another blogger friend of mine wisely said: "It's MY blog you bastards, and I am king".

Thank you.

A slap in Bush's face (and all his sell-out Emperor-King Arab leaders)

2006-07-31T09:46:00.000-02:00

"Hezbollah, emerging as the new champion of the Palestinians, has managed, for the most part, to close sectarian ranks and win the support of Sunni majorities in most Arab countries.... Al-Qaeda, whose anti-Shiite views have often been blamed for the sectarian violence in Iraq, came out in support of the group in a taped statement aired on the Arabic-language television network al-Jazeera...... But many Arabs were not buying it. Al-Qaeda has steadily been losing support because of its perceived support of sectarian violence in Iraq".

Israel halts air raids on southern Lebanon for 48 hours

2006-07-30T19:19:00.000-02:00

Apparently, to investigate the Qana massacre. In two days, the headline will read: "After lengthy investigations, the IDF have found that they actually meant to kill all those children in Qana". After that's all cleared up, the world can go back to sleep.

Note that the air raids will only stop in south Lebanon. Presumably, tonight's menu at the IAF will be serving a few bombed roads as an appetizer, followed by a main course of a few buildings levelled in south Beirut, possibly Keserouan for dessert. All against a lovely backdrop of fireworks in Dahyeh. Yum.

Bush: "A million Israelis......are afraid!"

2006-07-30T16:22:00.000-02:00

No!! The horror! The Israelis "are afraid"! A million of them!

We are dying in batches of 50 every day here. The southern suburbs of Beirut reek of the smell of rotting corpses, because no one can get them out from under the rubble. Not in the history of Lebanon, not in the 15 years of hellish civil war has any part of the country ever been decimated like dahyeh has. Humanitarian aid is not reaching the besieged people of the South, who will be bombed if they don't leave, and bombed on the way out if they do.

But.... the Israelis.... they're afraid!

How I wish you the most painful, horrific death that has ever befallen a human being, President Bush and Prime Minister Olmert. How you both deserve to suffer. How I wish you to be locked in a room for all eternity with all the Lebanese, Palestinian, Iraqi, and Afghani corpses, burnt, charred, dismembered, stinky, bloody, and toxic that have been murdered with your weapons, according to your designs. How I wish your faces be smeared in the entrails hanging out of the little broken bodies of our children. You have so much blood on your hands both, I do not know how you can sleep at night. You fucks.

The death of the Arab state system

2006-07-30T14:27:00.000-02:00

"The longer Hizbullah holds out, the more blows it deals the awesome Israeli military machine, the more Hassan Nasrallah will stir the Arab public, be they Sunni or Shia, against their paralytic kings and presidents".

Those stirrings will inevitably produce grassroots Islamist movements accross the region. The scary part is that they are Islamists. The interesting part is that on a popular level, this could possibly unite Sunni & Shia movements (witness Hamas and Hizbullah's partnership), despite the fact that on a state-level, the Sunni-Shia rift is actively being cultivated.

I'm not sure where Al-Qaeda fit into this. Somehow, I have a feeling that they will crop up whenever the US needs a monster to go after. I need to think about this some more.

A pint of Guinness, anyone?

2006-07-30T13:59:00.000-02:00

Ireland refuses to allow US planes carrying bombs to Israel to land in its airports.

Why can't all states grow some balls and follow Ireland's lead?

How disgusting are we??

2006-07-30T13:36:00.000-02:00

R. has been doing an amazing job fundraising and buying supplies for refugees in schools. She’s been buying stuff from around Jounieh (Christian areas north of Beirut) because the stores there are still stocked, unlike Beirut, where all supplies are dwindling. Yesterday, she had to stop at every pharmacy on the way from Adonis in Beirut to buy baby formula. When the pharmacists saw her buying the formula in large quantities and realized they were for the refugees, they refused to sell her more than two boxes. She was paying full price, mind. After refusing to sell her any, one woman flat out said it’s their fault anyway, let them suffer, why should I help them? How’s that for collective punishment? Infants in need of baby formula are made to pay the price. Fuckers. I hope you rot in hell.

On the Resistence

2006-07-30T11:48:00.000-02:00

54 civilians killed. 37 of them children. Most were disabled and couldn't flee (again, how? all the roads are destroyed, and the Lebanese have already learned that even if you do what you're told and evacuate, the Israelis will use their cars as target practice). They sought refuge in a residential 3 storey building. Hizbullah was nowhere to be found.

This war is not about destroying Hizbullah militarily. It is impossible, Hizbullah ARE the people of the South. The Israelis are making no distinction between Hizbullah's armed wing and the civilian political wing, the latter of which provide social services, operate hospitals, schools, and social welfare programs. Hizbullah's military wing operates almost autonomously from the political wing. These are civilians. The Israelis know very well that they cannot defeat Hizbullah militarily, and in their fucked up, skewed, morally bankrupt, disgusting rationale, they want to make the price so high, so fucking high for supporting Hizbullah that people would think twice about it. But even that is bound to fail.

Hizbullah IS the south. You cannot disentangle them. The only way to do that is to ethnically cleanse the Shia from the entire area. Hizbullah has made sure of that: the Hizb is a state within a state that has ensured a monopoly on the Shia voice.

The anger sweeping the streets is uncontainable. Unadultered, distilled rage. Something has to happen, this has to stop. Sanioura has to threaten to resign unless there is an immediate cease-fire. That is our only hope. The Americans cannot let that happen: if the Lebanese government falls, the entire American project in Lebanon falls and complete chaos will ensue. They have to comply.

I don't know how long this fragile government can be sustained. I think it will pull through the war, but what happens afterwards is anyone's guess. I dread to see what will happen after this is over. How will Nasrallah play it? He OWES the Lebanese people and he knows it. There will undoubtably be a domestic sectarian crisis on our hands, but I doubt that it will culminate in civil war. The March 14 and March 8 division was split on one major issue, from which all else follow: the diplomacy route, which entailed an acceptance of American hegemony, and the armed resistence route, which presented itself as an alternative to the neo-colonialist American project. And that, like all things Lebanese, was drawn along sectarian lines, with fragile coalitions thrown together. Aoun read the political situation the smartest (as horrifying as it is to actually commend Aoun) by forming an alliance with Hizbullah, thus absorbing Christian anger (the vast majority of Chrstians follow Aoun). This alliance was able to curb sectarian clashes after the Danish cartoon riots and the ridiculous riots that followed that racist douchebag Charbel Khalil's poking fun at Nasrallah and especially now. It could've been a lot worse.... but even that statement is meaningless now.

Whatever happens, Lebanon loses. I used to think that maybe, possibly, a Hizbullah victory can be used productively, that it will empower Arabs who have been tranquilized by their governments to do something, that Hizbullah's military wing will lose its raison d'etre if Shebaa is liberated and the prisoners exchanged. But that will not happen. The more voices of dissent come out in Egypt, the more the government stamps them out violently, and the more Bush proclaims that "Democracy is on the rise in Egypt". Now more than ever, Bush must make sure that the masses remain tranquilized, he must make sure that the fire of Hizbullah's resistence not spread. Authoritarian governments will be entrenched even more firmly with the American administration's backing. What will it take? Somebody please tell me.

What does Hizbullah winning even mean? Anything that happens now will be spun as a Hizbullah victory. An unconditional cease-fire is a victory for them, as is keeping their arms, and not giving up the prisoners. The burden of victory lies with Israel. The stronger party always has more to lose. Even if we assume that Hizbullah are granted all their demands (Shebaa, the prisoners), they will emerge stronger than ever on the local political scene, and I don't know how good that will be. They will never lay down their arms now, as they have proof that Lebanon needs to be protected against Israeli barbarism.

I support Hizbullah as a resistence movement against US imperialism, and I think they do it well. I admire Nasrallah as a politician. But that does not by any measure mean that I can support Hizbullah as a political party and as an ideology, just like I can never support Hamas in Palestine (not that the other option was much better). And this is a crucial distinction to make. The resistence is not pristine by any means, but it is there and at least with the case of Hizbullah, it is effective. But: how long can Lebanon alone sustain a resistence movement on behalf of the rest of the region without others rising up as well?

I agree much more with Hizbullah (generally) than I do with Hamas, but again, that begs the question: How can we resist in ways that are democratic, feminist, anti-capitlist, and anti-imperialist (or at least in ways that are conducive to these things) in light of what's happening? How do we build our resistence, what form can it take?

If Hizbullah does not disarm, it is disaster for Lebanon. If it does, then one of the last two grassroots movements stuck like a splinter in the US's big toe will disappear. On this, I don't know where I stand. There are too many issues to take into consideration, and I have to see how things unfold in the next couple of weeks before I make up my mind. Or alternatively, probably, I will remain perpetually confused.

Map of Israeli assault on Lebanon

2006-07-26T09:28:00.000-02:00

(Email me if you want a more detailed PDF version for circulation).

"The US has a choice to make. For the Lebanese, there is no choice but to resist"

2006-07-26T09:12:00.000-02:00

There are more scenarios for the end of this war than what Karim Makdissi states, but I largely agree with his analysis.

The new Lebanese exceptionalism

2006-07-26T06:46:00.000-02:00

It's not all that surprising that the current war in Lebanon would grab all the media headlines. For one thing, this is a war that contains the possibility of altering the geo-political landscape, creating more than a little dent in US plans for the Middle East. A miscarriage, rather than the "birth pangs" Condi Rice described. Over and above that, Lebanon occupies an elevated place for Western audiences, "Arab-Lite", as a friend of mine so eloquently described it. She made an interesting observation: It is in Lebanon that Western stereotypes about Arabs and Muslims mistakenly find their justifications, since, according to their logic, the Muslim "barbarism" found in the rest of the Arab world is tamed in Lebanon because of the presence of the "civilized" Christians. Therefore, apparently, Lebanon has a fighting chance to officially join the ranks of "the civilized". Hizbullah, of course, isn't even considered a part of Lebanon in this paradigm: it is a malignant and foreign growth that needs to be excised to keep the true body intact. Even Robert Fisk (dee3anak) is buying it:

"They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis - in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside - tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we compare their appalling casualties - 240 in all of Lebanon by last night - with Israel's 24 dead, as if the figures are the same".

Is he implying that if the Lebanese didn't look like him, all this would be ok? With approximately 30-40% of Lebanese living under the poverty line, which Lebanese is he referring to exactly with his travel-the-world multilingual bullshit? Oh dear, oh dear. I am very disappointed in Fisk, but then again he has effectively lost it since Hariri was assasinated.

The Lebanese obviously love Fisk, because we love this myth that's he's trying to sell and that we have ourselves traded with a long time ago. That has mutated today into a much more insidious form, which R. was quick to point out: A quick scan of the Lebanese war blogs that have mushroomed since the start of the Israeli agression (some of which are nauseatingly self-indulgent and self-absorbed - sorry, had to say it) and of Lebanese TV commentary reveals one overarching message: "How can this happen to Lebanon?!? Haram for this to happen to Lebanon! The poor Lebanese!!", or, as one blogger cried out, "i am so angry. i am so let down.
WORLD, where are you??? how can something like this be allowed to happen!"

Well. Of course the poor Lebanese, of course what is happening is shameful and heartbreaking and unjustifiable. But haram for this to happen to anyone, anywhere. Haram forgotten Palestine. Haram forgotten Iraq. This has been happening for years right next door. Why this myth of immunity, this feeling of superiority and shock that THIS is happening to LEBANON? What makes Lebanon so special? Have we really believed the lie that we can exist in a void in the midst of all this violence, that we exist somehow beyond it, that if we ignore it it will go away and leave us alone? Are we too "white" for this?

If, and when we snap out of this self-indulgent view of our own specialness, maybe then we can really start to understand why this is happening to ALL of us and start figuring out what to do about it.

It wouldn't have made a difference

2006-07-22T19:35:00.000-02:00

"Israel's military response by air, land and sea to what it considered a provocation last week by Hezbollah militants is unfolding according to a plan finalized more than a year ago".

The kidnapping of two soldiers was the pretext to launch it: it could have been anything else. Hizbullah didn't need to give Israel an excuse, as many Lebanese who are angry with the Party for 'starting this' believe; Israel already intended to do this, kidnapping notwithstanding.

So where does this fit in? After the start of the Iraq war, US pressures started mounting against Syria and Iran. They were able to almost neutralize Syria with the help of the so-called 'Cedar Reolution' in Lebanon and US-France backed UN resolution 1559. Iran, however, remained and threat, and Syria was not quite beaten down completely. Lebanon, with half its population succumbing to US-interests, was the perfect launching pad from which to exert this pressure. The key? Neutralize Hizbullah, and you will weaken its regional allies. A proxy war for Iran and Syria? Nay, this is a proxy war for the US, a continuation of its sick plans for the restructuring of the entire region.

But the US government doesn't seem to learn from history. It doesn't know the cesspool of violence Lebanon can become, in whose footsteps Iraq is now following, it doesn't know that the new Lebanese 'democracy' they hold so dear is and was from the moment it was alledgedly born, holding on by a thread. It doesn't know that Lebanon will never follow anyone's plan. It creates its own, a monster borne from burning flesh, rotting blood, betrayal, power struggles, and greed. History will again repeat itself and we will all suffer.

"Help ME Help YOU"

2006-07-22T16:29:00.000-02:00

Israel now thinks it's Jerry Maguire. On Friday, Israeli jets rained down these flyers on Nabatiyeh and other areas, promising financial compensation to those true Lebanese patriots who wish to see Lebanon regain its "independence, freedom, and prosperity" by providing the IDF with information about Hizbullah.

Yesterday on LBC (whose transmission antennaes were destroyed today, killing one of the station's employees), a woman called in saying how despite the fact that she's Lebanese, despite the fact that she's a proud Arab, Hizbullah has forced her into a position where her discourse and that of the Israelis have become one and the same. Perhaps she would like to help Israel help her.

Just a thought...

2006-07-21T21:50:00.000-02:00

If Israel is allowed to forcefully and militarily implement UN Resolution 1559 in Lebanon on behalf of the Lebanese government, doesn't that mean that Hizbullah or Hamas or whoever is suffering at the hands of Israel (as Israel claims to be at the hands of Hizbullah) are also allowed to implement the 40+ UN resolutions that are as of yet unmet on behalf of the Israeli government?

Are they that stupid, or do they just think we are?

2006-07-20T19:56:00.000-02:00

"The United Nation's Security Council rejected a proposal to call for an immediate ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon.....The proposal was rejected due to the objection of the United States, which is a permanent member of the Security Council and has a veto right".

Meanwhile...

"We did not veto a ceasefire between Israel and Lebanon at the UN". - Tony Snow, White House Press Secretary.

Midnight Cravings

2006-07-20T19:24:00.000-02:00

My friend and I went out at around midnight to scour the land for emergency rations of chocolate and rolling paper (desperate times, desperate measures), swerving through sidestreets and taking care to avoid bridges and tunnels. It was hard enough finding stores that were open (and Beirut is the Mecca of 24 hour corner stores), but we had to go to four different stores asking for 2 bars of kit kat, 2 lion bars, and 2 packs of papers. Through the course of our quest, we learned that people were drowning their sorrows in kit kat and that stocks were depleting, and that we also had a rolling paper crisis in the country, which means that people were dealing with their grief through other, more potent means of escapism. The fourth store, owned by the trusty but slightly out of it Abou Rova, had smartly and not surprisingly (given Mr. Abou Rova's proclivities) stocked up well on papers. "How come there's no kit kat anywhere?", inquired my friend, to which Abou Rova replied, "Just be thankful you're not after mars or tweex. They bombed the warehouse today". So there you have it. Israeli intelligence sources have now identified chocolate as enemy number one. Teghoghist tweex.

The road to civil war

2006-07-20T15:45:00.000-02:00

Apologies for posting so erratically and for thoughts that seem a bit incoherent. I've been buried under mountains of endless work and hardly had any time to gather my head together. I left the Relief Center early today. Day by day, it's starting to unravel, although the work continues. Political tensions within the group are starting to show, pushed to the surface by the expanding ball of stress in everyone's insides. With over 100 people now volunteering at the Center, it is hardly immune to the tensions bubbling up on the streets. I think it will be a miracle if Lebanon manages to survive this without a descent into civil war, a possibility that is becoming less improbable every day.

I don't really want to get into a chessboard political analysis right now. I think it would suffice to offer snippets and scenes from around Beirut.

Scene 1: Sanayeh Relief Center
G. calls me up as I'm sitting in the dark, cramped base of operations of the Center (the artist formerly known as Helem) helping out with report-writing at around 11 pm. I'm exhausted and my nerves are wracked. He sounds agitated: "I'm really uncomfortable with some of the pro-Hizbullah, rah-rah Nasrallah talk that's going around in the Center, and I don't think I want to work there anymore". Calmly, I explain to him that differing political opinions exist, but that the Center has been careful to not be supportive or critical of Hizbullah, focusing instead on condemning the Israeli aggression, the green light of the international community, and affirming the right to resist any military offensive. G. suddenly shows up at the center, and we get into a political argument. Frustrated, tired, and edgy, I basically end up accusing G. of being a Maronite, a dirty accusation in our circles. A no-go area, fraught with sectarian undertones which many would like to forget. After G. leaves, I sit in my chair, stunned and ashamed at myself. I promptly call him back and apologize profusely. Back to work. No more than 10 minutes later, we hear loud cursing coming from inside the building. Mashkal! We run to where the "kiss immaks" are coming from to find 2 men who are trying to get past 2 others holding them apart to pummel each other. One man is a pro-Hizbullah Jordanian, the other is 1559er. The curses get louder and dirtier. "How much are the syrians paying you, you cunt!!!?", "Go back to where you can vote, you son of a bitch", "not as much as the Americans are paying you, you bastard", "Fuck Hizbullah", "No, fuck you!", and on and on. It is becoming frighteningly easy to stumble accross scenes like this every day. Just take a walk down the street and listen.

Scene 2: Sassine Square, Ashrafieh (a Christian neighborhood)
The shabeebeh of the neighborhood are all gathered in The Chase coffee shop around dusk, sipping beers, while bombs fly overhead from the IDF's battleships and crash into Dahyeh. Every time an explosion is heard, the Sassine boys start clapping and cheering the destruction of Shia homes and lives. Their discussions reflect their glee in the most disgusting ways. Overhearing their conversations, M. turns to the waiter serving him in shock, "do they want to destroy the country??", he asks. The Christian waiter looks back at him, smiles and says, "don't worry. Soon we'll be armed". And he doesn't mean to use those arms against the Israelis.

Scene 3: The Collaborator Relief Center
I arrived at the Relief Center in the afternoon to find the place swarming with soldiers and internal security forces not letting anyone get in. Outside there was a car skidding left and right trying to get away from hordes of people apparently trying to attack it. Different versions of the same story were being passed around all over: 2 journalists with cameras had entered the Sanayeh Garden next door to film and talk to the refugees there. Somehow, for some reason, word got out that the journalists were "collaborators" (one story pegged it as an inappropriate question asked by one of the journalists, another as a deliberate provocation by the thuggish Amal Movement, who by this time had taken responsibility of the refugees in the Garden). After presumably being attacked and/or threatened, one of the "collaborators" ran out and headed towards the Center followed by hordes of people ready to beat him to a pulp. Of course, because he ran straight to the Center, they automatically deduced that we were housing or collaborating with the collaborators. Now it was Mission: Destroy Sanayeh-RC. The army and the ISF arrived to try to calm the situation. I was told that the "collaborators" had been taken by the Amal boys. Of course, neither the army nor the ISF would have dared take the journalists away from them. Such is Lebanon. After the (alleged) capture of 26 people in the southern suburbs accused of collaborating with Israel and tipping them off on the whereabouts of Hizbullah seniors, rumors started spreading like wildfire about "collaborators". They were everywhere, and this sort of thing is probably going keep growing. It doesn't take much to stoke the fires of suspicion in these situations, and those upon whom accusations are going to fall by and large are going to be of one particular stripe (guess which).

Scene 4: R.A. Residence, Ashrafieh
Late after midnight. R. and A. were sleepless. Suddenly, a car with a loudpseaker stuns the neighborhood awake with warnings that the IDF had ordered residents of Ashrafieh to evacuate. Ashrafieh was to suffer the fate of Dahyeh. Unable to turn on their TVs for any information because the electricity was out, people ran to their balconies in utter disbelief, shaky voices bouncing around in a cacophony of fear and confusion. Why in the world would Israel start bombing the heart of Christian Beirut?? Panicked, one of the residents called the Internal Security Forces and asked them what was going on. Apparently, some whacko was driving around with a loudspeaker in Christian areas and annoucning these complete falsities and they were trying to catch him. Somebody, please get this nutjob off the streets before he causes serious damage.

The IDF had already bombed Ashrafieh in any case. Two parked construction vehicles were hit around Monot Street earlier because the Israelis had mistaken them for rocket launchers. Am I really supposed to believe that the IDF, with all their military technology, really couldn't tell rocket launchers from small trucks with noses that dig into the ground?? Is this the same "mistake" they made in Qana, when they "didn't know" that the building they bombed to the ground in 1996, killing hundreds of women and children, a UN base? Did they really assume that Hizbullah would be stupid enough to hide their weapons in Ashrafieh, or even that the people of Ashrafieh would let them?? What exactly are they trying to do?

This is nothing less than a deliberate and blatant engineering of suspicion and hatred aimed to enrage popular Christian opinion against Hizbullah and against the Shia in general. A fairly easy task. A simple prod or two will do. This is exactly what makes Lebanon such an easy target. This is why it was so easy to dismantle in 1975. The war never really stopped, it was just on a break.

I really hope I'm just being really pessimistic. But even if this doesn't end with an actual civil war, something irrevocable has happened to the internal political landscape and it will play itself out in disturbing ways.

For those who need to contact loved ones in Lebanon

2006-07-20T15:41:00.000-02:00

You can email my sister on fmoumneh@gmail.com, give her the phone number you are trying to reach and any message you need delivered (or if you just need to make sure your folks are safe) and she will try her best to link you up.

Miscellany

2006-07-20T12:50:00.000-02:00

Section from a report I was helping out with in the Relief Center:

"Since the beginning of the Israeli bombing of homes and villages in south of Lebanon, refugees began pouring into Beirut and gathering in open spaces around Kaskas and the Sanayeh Garden. Since many of these people had been displaced before in 1996 as a result of Israel's attacks on the south in 'Operation Grapes of Wrath', the instinctively began heading to schools in specific areas such as Ras el Nabe' and Mseitbeh to seek refuge within their walls. This movement coincided with the Minister of Education's belated order to open public schools to recieve these refugees, as well as the opening of NGO and missionary schools that have had previous experience in housing refugees from 1982 Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the Israeli attacks of 1996....

"On this day, the Relief Center covered a total of 9 schools were covered, a small amount considering the large number of refugees. This was due to the lack of human resources available to the Center and the chaos that emerged from trying to situate itself within the work of governmental institutions, specifically the Ministry of Social Affairs, which had previously announced its complete readiness to receive refugees based on comprehensive data they had gathered. However, it soon became apparent from the calls that the Relief Center was receiving from the Ministry of Social Affairs that it was unaware of what was happening on the ground. In actuality, the Ministry kept calling the Relief Center to obtain the data that the Center had gathered and to request that the Center provide for cases that the Ministry was responsible for".

Many refugees who had fled to Beirut are already moving elsewhere. Beirut is no longer safe. Shia villages in the north are being flooded with refugees, most of whom are staying in people's homes. Many are reluctant to stay in the schools that are opening because they are in Maronite areas, but it's only a matter of time before they are relocated.

The internal sectarian strife that is being cultivated is becoming really dangerous. In Hariri-controlled Sunni areas in Beirut, residents started pelting refugees with firecrackers until a school had to be shut down and the people relocated yet again. Funnily enough, this isn't happening in other non-Hariri sunni areas. Le Petit Prince Saad is doing a fantastic job stoking the fires of sectarianism. But must give credit where credit is due. He opened his home to Saudi refugees. Yes, that's right. Screw the Lebanese ones, they're mostly Shia anyway. After Saudi Arabia made their infamous statement calling Hizbullah's actions "needlessly adventurous", the twittering buffoon repeated the word "adventure" no less than 23 times in a single statement. How I hate March 14 with their noses firmly lodged up Saudi and American asses.

"Cannot be verified"

2006-07-20T12:22:00.000-02:00

Not knowing exactly what's going on is frightening. Rumors are flying left, right, and center. The difficulty of getting to many areas in the south is making verification of information and documentation extremely difficult. The Israelis, on the other hand, not only document every Hizbullah rocket slamming into Israel, but usher the media into people's homes and point cameras at old women crying out their innocence and teghoghism, teghoghism. These are the images shown on the international media. The appallingly biased statements of Human Rights Watch, written under the guise of "objectivity" and "neutrality" (unsurprising, really, given their "objective" and "neutral" stances on Israel/Palestine), were justified to us as being based on "the only information they could verify", ie. information from Israel. No mention was made of the phosphorous bombs raining down on Lebanon, the massacres, the wiping out of entire villages, the bombing of a container filled with medication, the blocking of humanitarian aid, the targetting of trucks so supplies cannot be transported efficiently. Apparently, the could not "verify it". How about dragging your sorry asses down to the south?? How about listening to the local radio stations, where every 5 minutes a call comes in from some beseiged family crying out to be evacuated? Either HRW carries out its responsibilities and properly report what's going on, or it should just shuthefuckup. In Sour, a family of 8 has been trapped under the rubble of a building for 3 days, and no one can get them out. So far, they're still alive, but no aid is able to get there.

Because of "neutrality", HRW refuses to condemn the Israeli aggression on Lebanon. Because of "neutrality", it dutifully reports what the IDF tell them and what happens in Lebanon goes unmentioned. So the world hears over and over about the 8 killed in Haifa. The 300+ casualties in Lebanon? Sorry, "cannot be verified".

Scenes from the Relief Center

2006-07-20T12:18:00.000-02:00

Nadz: Walid, can you get me a couple of volunteers to cut out stickers for the media cent....

Walid: WAIT! OK! HOW MANY PEOPLE DO YOU NEED? DO THEY NEED CARS? OK! WAIT! GIVE ME TWO MINUTES TO PROCESS THE DATA AND I GET YOU 10 PEOPLE AND 5 CARS!

Nadz: umm... that's great, but I just need 2 people to cut out the stickers for the media center.....

Walid: OK! WAIT! OPERATION STICKERS UNDERWAY!

Shax: Samidoun.

Teghoghist Milk

2006-07-17T21:16:00.000-02:00

Today, the IDF destoyed the terrorist Liban Lait milk factory and the enemy of peace grain silos in the Bekaa.

Beirut is dangerously low on vegetables, because they come from... you guessed it, the Bekaa, which like every other area in the country is completely isolated and cut off.

It's hard not to be cynical at times like these. Another massacre in Aytroun. 13 dead, 9 of them children. More endless snuff replays of little charred and dismembered bodies on TV, stiff from the fire, guts hanging out. There's at least one of these episodes every day now.

The last bomb in Beirut was 15 minutes ago. What are they still hitting? There's nothing left in Dahyeh anymore.

I'm going to try to get some sleep now.

Good morning, Beirut

2006-07-17T20:38:00.000-02:00

The sum of all fears

2006-07-17T19:03:00.000-02:00

A woman called Future TV's Seereh W Infatahit talk show tonight, angry. She's losing sleep in her home in Keserouan because of all the noise from the explosions, needlessly, she says, because one leader from one sect decided to start a world war on behalf of other countries and the rest of the population has to suffer as a result. In response, a woman from Burj el Brajneh called in, saying shame, shame. For her, this is about dignity, a war fought for all the Lebanese people, and the Israeli attack is one all the Lebanese people, not just the Shiites.

That pretty much sums it up I suppose. Half of the population thinks it's all Hizbullah's fault for poking and teasing the vicious dog south of the border, and the other half praises the Party for trying to get rid of the dog once and for all (or at least send it home whining). One one side, the anger at Hizbullah is growing, and on the other, his support is increasing. The usual suspects in each category.

At the Relief Center today, we got word that a major political organization was accepting refugees by ID cards (according to sect). Another was accepting people from all sects, but was markedly differential in its treatment. I will refrain from naming them until this information is verified. Most schools in West Beirut are filled with refugees, mostly from the southern suburbs. The Tayyar Watani Horr people started work yesterday, taking on schools in Ashrafieh and the eastern parts of the city that the Relief Center had opened but were unable to handle due to overload. We headed down to the Sanayeh garden across the street where refugees keep pouring in to direct them there, but many refused to leave. They were scared to go to Christian areas. "What if they beat us up?" asked one man.

The refugees are overwhelmingly women and children. Many of the men, particularly those from Dahyeh, Haret Hreik, etc. (members of Hizbullah) sent off their families and returned to fight with the Party.

The international community's line is also bent on fomenting these tensions, laying the blame squarely on Hizbullah. The Lebanese government is careful not to do this, painfully aware of the tensions waiting for a chance to erupt again. In 1975, it was "The Palestinians". In 2006, will it be "The Shiites"?

If/when this is all over, the most lasting damage that will remain, over and above the infrastructure, the airports, the roads and bridges, will be the complete fragmentation of the country all over again. Or perhaps, more accurately, a more balantant manifestation of that which never left.

Diary Entries From Beirut

2006-07-17T18:13:00.000-02:00

A Letter from Beirut.
July 14, 2006.

PS. That's another Rasha.

The Massacre of Marwaheen

2006-07-17T17:40:00.000-02:00

"It will be called the Massacre of Marwaheen. All the civilians killed by the Israelis had been ordered to abandon their homes in the border village by the Israelis themselves a few hours earlier. Leave, they were told by loudspeaker; and leave they did, 20 of them in a convoy of civilian cars. That's when the Israeli jets arrived to bomb them, killing 20 Lebanese, at least 9 of them children. The local fire brigade could not put out the fires as they all burned alive in the inferno. Another 'terrorist' target has been eliminated".

Robert Fisk. The Independent, July 16, 2006.

Time and again..

2006-07-17T17:08:00.000-02:00

Time Magazine. 1982.

Operation Stand By and Do Nothing

2006-07-17T16:49:00.000-02:00

There are an estimated 60,000 people seeking refuge in Beirut alone.

The government is doing nothing. The ministries are referring people who call them for assistence to over-stretched and under-resourced activist and NGO relief centers that have spontaneously organized themselves around the country. Pathetic. This is not a government, it's a joke and an outrage. This farce of a Lebanese government (and the ones before it) has never provided anything for its citizens, preferring instead to privatize basic services, a right every citizen should have (read: not our problem). It's no wonder then that now it finds itself impotent.

The Lebanese government has just recieved around $50 million from Saudi Arabia, with more from Kuwait and the Emirates. I wonder if anyone will actually see any of it.

Besiege them like they are besieging us!

2006-07-17T16:14:00.000-02:00

Announcement from the Ministry of Finance

2006-07-17T15:24:00.000-02:00

The ministry of finance published an account number in bank of Lebanon for money donation 0/700362123 for Lebanese Pounds and 02700362123 for US dollars.

Diary Entry: Protest in London

2006-07-17T09:56:00.000-02:00

Lina Mounzer. London, July 17, 2006.

Didn’t sleep much last night. Spent the night glued to the internet, reading and rereading, learning nothing new, only fuelling my fury. Lebanon is being devastated as I sit in my quiet bedroom in London, which overlooks a garden indolently lush and summer green.

**
Woke up this morning with a sense of purpose for the first time since the war began. I can demonstrate today, I thought, leave my bedroom, stop the drifting to Lebanese friends’ houses to seek refuge and solace, then leave again, my skin crawling, because none of us can give each other any refuge or any solace.
Samar came over in the morning with a giant piece of cardboard and we tried to write out our banner. It was admittedly quite wordy, and after realizing that lettering it by hand would be an imprecise and time-consuming process, we headed over to the university to print it out and assemble the A3s with good old masking tape.
Then we took the train and the tube to get to Westminster.
The crowd on the tube was mostly tourists and some lazy-Sunday Londoners. No one was carrying anything that could be taken for a banner. The war was nowhere to be seen, the war we’ve been carrying around since it began – and yet it was everywhere. “10,000 Britons Caught in War,” proclaimed the Evening Standard headlines, staples of all the tube stations. No mention of the Lebanese perishing under an incessant pounding of bombs. It was in the increased security warnings at both the tube and train stations.
“They’re afraid of reprisals,” said Samar. “They know how bad things are getting.”
We drifted upwards on the endless escalators, refraining from talking about our helplessness and anger, as it has been the only topic of conversation since Thursday. Her sister is alone in Mansourieh, having just quit her job abroad and moved back to Beirut on Samar’s advice; my grandmother’s building in Dahye has been hit, we don’t know how badly yet. (She left the house on Thursday morning to stay at my uncle’s.)
Instead we talked about the disjointed experience of floating through this no-man’s-land we find ourselves in. Our bodies are here, going through the motions, but our heads and hearts are caught in a siege. We both moved to London in September to pursue one-year Masters degrees – we had no idea we would be returning to a different country, if we are able to return at all. We jokingly talk of applying for refugee status, terrified that we may have to do just that. We’re both finding it impossible to relate to our friends here – and yet, when we speak to friends and family in Beirut, they are utterly disconnected from us as well. Listless voices tell us to take care of ourselves and not to worry too much. The same listless voices we use to refuse invitations here from well-meaning friends.
We feel guilty for feeling safe, wishing desperately to be back. But we also feel guilty about not being grateful for that safety, the safety denied those whom we love.

**
Approaching Parliament Square we could hear chanting. We grinned in relief, worried that there would be no one there. When we rounded the corner, we saw about a hundred people, waving Lebanese and some Palestinian flags. We quickly got to work, gluing our paper onto a stronger backing of cardboard. And then we stood under the sun. And stood.
Tourists ogled us from tour buses and on foot. Some took picutres. Some waved. A couple gave us the finger. More people arrived. We stood on the quieter side of the square, having been told that chanting is frowned upon and not part of a “peaceful” demonstration. There were chants of “Down, down Israel” which made me groan inwardly, interspersed with chants of “Peace for Lebanon.”
At one point Samar turned to me, puzzled. “Why the hell are people chanting Downtown Israel?”
A man on rollerblades wove up and down the pavement, handing out bottles of water and cheering us on. Friends arrived to offer their support and wave their own banners – Brits, Scots, Serbians, Italians, and of course, Lebanese and Palestinians. The crowd swelled to about two hundred, three hundred. We finally felt like we were sharing some of our rage and powerlessness, and in so doing, dissipating it somewhat. A girl I was standing next to, who looked incredibly familiar, turned out to have lived one street down from me in Ras Beirut. Another man I recognized from a Gemmayze bar. We joked about how small Lebanon is, the whole two degrees of separation thing. It almost felt normal for a minute.
And yet the gathering was punctuated by phone calls and rumors. A friend’s mother called from Saida to tell him the whole south had been warned to evacuate.
“They hit Tel Aviv,” said someone else, and our hearts sank in fear. Only later was this proven an unfounded rumor.
We stood in one of the busiest parts of London, feeling the urgency with which things were unfolding at home, stuck in between, again.
After three o’clock, people started to drift away. We were told our permit only extended to three hours. The crowd broke up slowly and melted away, until we were one of the few groups left sitting on the grass. Suddenly I felt exhausted. My arms were leaden from holding up the sign, my face and arms were burned by the sun, and I felt even more helpless. We’d been gawked at and photographed and kindly tolerated by the police and then told to go home. I kept thinking about how 2 million people had demonstrated against the war in Iraq and how it had come to nothing. The Iraqis are still eating shit, the Palestinians have been eating shit forever and now the Lebanese are getting their own generous helping of flaming turd. And the unifying factor, besides the political quagmire of the region and the interests of America and Israel, is the media manipulation. Those insidious, disgusting words: “terror” and “terrorism” and the American and Israeli governments’ monopoly over the words. They have been used to justify everything, and serve to obscure the terrorist nature of what the Israelis have been doing for years and years.
Later, in the tube station, I saw a sign that said, “We can all help combat terrorism,” and I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.
So it was a useless protest, a brief letting-off of steam only to return to biased news reports on the TV at home. The headline story was about the casualties in Haifa – little about Beirut and a brief mention of the massacre in Tyre, not that it was called anything of the sort.
And here’s the situation. We’re up against the second-most powerful military in Lebanon, and up against a powerful media-machine in the rest of the world that sees any Middle East conflict in terms of Arab agression first. Thereby the Orwellian terminology of poor Israel “defending” itself by murdering civilians and bombing Lebanon back in time to 1982.
What we need to do is reclaim the word terrorism. We should not exercise restraint in its usage, we should not be cowed by the status quo that refuses us its usage. We should make our voices heard, write to newspapers, to policymakers, to television stations. We should object, politely, firmly, steadfastly. Even if it seems futile and ridiculous. I will go to the candlelight vigil on Tuesday night at Parliament Square, and again to the protest next Saturday, if only to “vote with my feet”, as someone said to me today. We should not shout “Down with Israel”, because it makes us look like a bunch of fanatics, and because it undermines those Israelis who stand against the barbaric occupation of their government. Above all, we should retain our compassion as human beings. It’s all we have left.

URGENT APPEAL FOR SOLIDARITY WITH LEBANESE CIVIL SOCIETY

2006-07-16T14:22:00.000-02:00

The Israeli offensive against Lebanon is an act of aggression against the whole Lebanese people. The IDF claims to be attacking an “infrastructure of terror”, but the attacks on bridges, roads, airports and ships are cutting the country into pieces, threatening to create a disastrous situation by impeding the transportation of food and medicines, and terrorizing everyone. Besides the hundreds killed and injured, thousands of people are fleeing the country, and thousands of people are fleeing from the areas where the bombing is heaviest into central Beirut. Even here in the “safe” parts of the city we can hear the bombs throughout the day and night, and electrical and water supplies are tenuous.

Political and civil society organizations here are organizing to help people deal with the effects of the invasion, but there is only so much we can do on our own. We are calling on our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world to do two things to help us.

First we call on you to protest at Israeli embassies and consulates, as we hear some groups are already doing. The Israeli government must be held accountable for its criminal and terroristic actions here and in Palestine. We also ask you to send us information about any such protests you carry out.

Secondly we are asking you to help us with our work with displaced people here in Beirut. The group we are part of, the Relief Center - Spears, is working in 23 schools in the central areas of Beirut, which were housing more than 5,000 people as of the night of July 15th (we don’t know how many thousands more are in other areas). People there are sleeping 10 or 15 to a room without enough mattresses, and they are only receiving food and water irregularly from the government. Many are children or elderly, and except for trauma centers the only medical care is being provided by volunteers organized by the Relief Center. These volunteers are lacking the medicines and other supplies they need to care for people. Media activists here will shortly be distributing videos documenting the situation in these schools, which will only get worse if nothing is done.

Besides the humanitarian aspect of the situation, helping displaced people is crucial to the reconstruction of Lebanon after this crisis ends. One aspect of the Israeli offensive is an attempt to foment tensions between different cultural groups in Lebanon. This is the only way they can hope to achieve their goals without an all-out war, but in the end it would do more damage to Lebanese society than any amount of physical destruction. A broad relief effort is an essential part of avoiding such a disaster.

We urgently need money to buy the supplies we need to help the internally displaced population here. We ask everyone who can to send donations, however small, the Relief Committee – Spears in the care of the following two people by bank transfer. Please contact your bank to find out how to do this.

c/o Georges Azzi:
- Bank Name: Credit Libanais SAL Beirut – Agence Sassine
- Swift Code: CLIBLBX
- Client Name: M. Al Azzi Georges Chaker
- Account Number: 0430012080006817356

c/o Bassem Chit:
- Bank Name: Société Générale de Banque au Liban – Hamra Branch
- Swift Code: SGLILBBX
- Client Name: Bassem Chit
- Account Number: 007004362092875014 or 007004367092875014

These are difficult days for everyone in Lebanon, but we are confident that with your support we can overcome this situation as we have others before.

Contact Info:
Ghassan Makarem: +961 3 647 605
Bassem Chit: +961 3 670 783
Rafael Greenblatt: NBSocialist@gmail.com

Deathtoll

2006-07-16T12:58:00.000-02:00

So far: 116 killed, over 90% civilian; 316 wounded.

1982/2006

2006-07-16T12:42:00.000-02:00

No comment.

Ya Janoub

2006-07-16T12:21:00.000-02:00

I can't believe what's happening in the south. It's horrifying, unspeakable. The IDF destroyed all the roads and then gave people two hours to evacuate. Reports came in that they are using chemical weapons in the south (phosphorus?). Bombs are raining down on hospitals, schools, houses. The country is being decimated, starting with the South. The South that has never known peace, even after the IDF left Lebanon.

Cries of help from the South, our South, but no one can get in or out. They have no food, no water, no electricity, no medicine. They were told to stay in their houses. Stay put, any moving vehicle will be bombed. Stay put, and wait for death.

I saw a friend of mine today who lives in Dahyeh. His family had already evacuated, they're now staying in Hamra. He went back today. To see. His building was miraculously still intact, but everything else around it was dust and piles of rubble.

Get your act together!!

2006-07-16T11:19:00.000-02:00

Yesterday, a group of Lebanese civil society organizations met to produce a statement calling for 'non-violence'. 'Despite their differences', it said, they have all come together to see how to work towards ending the carnage and helping those who have had their homes and lives destroyed. Let me first just state for the record that nothing in Lebanon happens 'despite (political) differences'. The statement, or rather non-statement, is laughably below standard. Note that nowhere in the text is the word Israel mentioned. Nowhere is there an acknowledgement that what is happening is Israeli aggression against the Lebanese state, its people, and its infrastructure.

Crucial point. What this effectively means is that there isn't even any consensus over who the aggressor is, a perfect reflection of the current political climate in the country. Today, I attended the second of their meetings where Bila Houdoud, the Leftist Collective for Change, and the Collective for Research and Training on Development (where I work, and who signed the statement of July 13) expressed their frustration at the statement's implicit politicization in a direction that they found unacceptable.

Before I get ahead of myself, let's dissect what was actually said:

Calling on the UN to assume its responsibilities: The UN, which has fallen prey to US veto condemning Israeli agression in Gaza, is impotent. Calling on the UN, which has already previously stated its condemnatory position vis-a-vis Hizbullah, is staking out a particular political position. People now invoke the UN almost by default. The NGOs who put together this statement insist that they do not want to politicize the situation, that what they are dealing with is a humanitarian crisis, and that because of political differences, they had to find the lowest common denominator from which they can base further action on. This would be laughable if it were not so delusional.
Stop all military actions, especially those targeting civilians: Hmm. Why not call a spade a spade? Why not say 'end Israeli agression'? Taken within the context of the rest of the text, I understand this as a call for Hizbullah to surrender, which would presumably lead the Israelis to halt their military operations. Implying that Hizbullah is to be held responsible almost excuses what Israel is doing, especially if their actions are not outwardly condemned.

And what of what was not said? What of the responsibility of the government towards its citizens? Since this whole mess started, the ministries have done pathetically little to help the displaced or to provide basic necessities. The burden of this has fallen almost entirely on young people who have organized themselves into a Relief Committee in Beirut (I will write about this later). Today, all the ministries were closed. Food, medication, water, matresses, temporary housing, most of this we had to gather and organize ourselves from individual donations. Yesterday the minister of education issued an order to open all public schools for people to take shelter in, but that was only after we called a tv station and bitched him out live on air. Still, many schools haven't opened, and we had to go around to many schools individually and force them open. The ministry of health told us to stop sending refugees to schools until they hold their coordination meeting on Monday. Are they serious?? And what do all the families on the streets do until then?? Where is the government?? Where are the ministries? Where's the UN? Where is the international aid??

The UN is not going to do anything, the pathetic Arab league isn't going to do anything, the government isn't going to do anything, and these NGOs insist that they don't want to politicize this lest they tread on sensitivities?? Any kind of mobilization necessitates a strong political position. We need to condemn Israel for their monstrous attacks, we need to condemn the Arab league, the UN, and all states who do not take a stand against Israel. We need to hold the UN accountable. We need to condemn the Lebanese government for doing nothing while its citizens suffer and die. We need to kick out the American ambassador. We need to open all the useless UN buildings to house the people who have lost their homes. Add the Saudi, Jordanian, and Egyptian embassies to that list too. And Solidere (can you imagine? After they kicked out refugees to construct that plastic monstrosity, they're back with a vengeance. How prophetic). We need to demonstrate in front of the UN andthe embassies of countries standing idly by. We need to demonstrate in front of Lebanese ministries to get them to move their asses and DO something. This is not a time for complacency, it is a time for firm, resolute, and collective action.

World-wide protest rallies for Lebanon

2006-07-16T07:45:00.000-02:00

http://www.lebanonexpats.org/

Evacuate? Where to??

2006-07-16T07:22:00.001-02:00

IDF rumors surfaced this morning that Hasan Nasrallah was hit, but Hizbullah was quick to deny it. Of course he’s not still in Dahyeh. But does that mean they’re going to hunt for him, house by house, over every square meter of the country?

The IDF just warned people in the south to evacuate after Hizbullah hit Haifa and Akka. Note that they didn’t say evacuate in this or that village or town, they said the South, as in the entire region. They didn’t see necessary to specify where exactly.

Nine people died in Haifa, 20 injured. I think that’s the highest Israeli deathtoll yet from a single attack. Numbers in Lebanon vary from between 70 – 100 dead, and over 200 injuries.

So the residents of the south now have to evacuate. Where are these people going to go, that is if there still are roads leading out of the south? Or will the IDF ask them to leave and then bomb their cars anyway as they try to navigate any remaining routes, like they did with the busload of children and families yesterday?

Nowhere is safe. Where will they go? The Bekaa is being pummeled. All main roads leading northwards have been destroyed. The policy of ‘burnt land’, they’re calling it. Destroying everything southwards going up so that there’s no escape.

The buildings of Manar TV were reduced to rubble some 15 minutes ago. The station went off the air for a spell, but then resumed broadcasting on their local channel (I think only their satellite channel is out). And what broadcasting, let me tell you. It always seemed to me that Manar was there for the Israelis to watch more than the Lebanese. A collage of the bombings in Nahariyah, Safad, Haifa, Akka with an impromptu male voice singing ‘Look at Safad, this is Safad, look at Haifa, this is Haifa’. On the bottom of the screen, the ticker reads ‘Dahyeh continues to suffer heavy shelling’. I don’t even flinch anymore when all the glass in my house shakes from the impact of the bombs there. It’s all so absurd.

Are they really crazy enough to hit Tel Aviv? My biggest fear is that the Israelis will get pissed off enough to start bombing indiscriminately. So far, their targets have been mostly (kinda) studied. They know exactly what they’re after, but how long this Israeli ‘restraint’? What will happen after American citizens are all evacuated?

Beirut - War and Rebirth

2006-07-16T07:17:00.000-02:00

A heartbreaking photoessay from time.com

Demo in London to protest Israeli aggression

2006-07-16T07:14:00.000-02:00

Today, Sunday July 16, a demonstration is being organized in London to protest the ongoing Israeli agression in Lebanon.

Assemble at noon in St. Margaret St, Parliament Sqaure.

Solidarity from London

2006-07-15T21:16:00.001-02:00

A bunch of Kinder chocolate egg obsessed friends of mine in London found a miniature pirate ship in one of their eggs.

In a fit of theatrical genius, they adorned the sails with the words "Isra'eel Sharrun Moutlaq" and promptly set it alight.

They're so cute.

(We all do our part)

Dahyeh to dust

2006-07-15T20:47:00.000-02:00

The bombs won't stop tonight. They're spaced out at an average of 10 minutes. Dahyeh is being levelled to the ground. They are targeting residential building. one. by. one. Msharafieyh aslo got hit, as did the road that leads from Hazmiyeh to the airport bridge.

After tonight, there will be nothing left in the southern suburbs of Beirut except rubble and corpses.

Torn

2006-07-15T19:23:00.000-02:00

Last night, fear decided to camp out in my stomach. I couldn't eat or sleep. My red bull high didn't really help in those departments. Worst of all was the feeling of utter impotence. No, actually worse than that is the waiting... waiting...waiting for that bomb to drop, for the explosion to shake my house, until finally in a fit of masochistic frustration I begin to pray for it. Just do it, fuckit, and get it over with. I didn't live through the civil war in Lebanon; the Qana massacre was my only direct (almost) encounter with the horrors of military attack.

It's strange how moments of absolute clarity hit you in times of crisis. I'm still not exactly sure how I feel about all that's going on politically. I've never been a staunch supporter of Hizbullah. In fact, I have never been a supporter of any of the current political-sectarian parties we have, and have not been taken in by the farce of national unity Lebanon has tried to sell to itself and to the world post-Hariri assasination. In the midst of all the empty rhetoric, ass-kissing, and selling-out of all the Arab leaders, Nasrallah remains the only leader who says what he means, and does what he says. He is the only leader, in the entire region, who has popular support on every Arab streets. He is Si Sayyed, and he will see this through to its end (and probably take all of Lebanon down with him in the process).

This may sound trite, silly, naive, even heartless in a certain way, but so engulfed is the world in the destructive and greedy pursuit of self-interest that (just heard explosion - close - Dahyeh probably) Nasrallah's actions, crazy and irresponsible as they are, are borne out of a deep conviction that borders are meaningless in the Arab-Israeli struggle, a deep desire to see Palestine liberated, and an understanding that we are all prisoners of American-Israeli hegemony in the region, making them almost... what's the word... uplifting. Depending on where you stand politically, what he did is either completely selfish or completely selfless. Hizbullah's actions have little to do with Lebanon. The larger plan, parallel (in coordination?) with that of Iran, is about combatting the imperialist headlock that the entire region is stuck in, some parts willingly, others despite their best efforts. Calling Hizbullah a proxy is simplistic, but calling it Lebanese is also naive.

People keep asking whether Nasrallah had a right to make the decision to go to war. A right according to whom? International law? The deliberate selective application of international law, always to our disadvantage, makes it effectively null and void. Can an armed militia make a decision on behalf of the government? The government hasn't been able to do anything about anything anyway. I don't for a second swallow that 'we've been making progress' line. The government's been in a complete deadlock since it was formed. They can't have their cake and eat it too. They can't insist on maintaining the current sectarian-political system, creating a weak central government, insist on unburdening its responsibilities towards its citizens onto the private sector, destroying any confidence in the state system, insist on carrying on with the cruel capitalism that has left over 40% of the population living under the poverty line, insist on pandering to the interests of the US, and then expect people to regard it as the sole authority in the land. The country was ravaged by 15 years of civil war because of the dissolution of the state, and it is plain as day that the war never really ended. All we had was a prolonged cease-fire and a mutually agreed-upon strategy of denial and self-deciept. I have never seen such blatant sectarian tension as that which emerged after the assasination of Hariri , finally awoken from a fitful sleep. What we are witnessing today is the only logical conclusion, the embodiment of all of Lebanon's deep-seated fears.

Having said that, let's not forget the other main players in the game. There are two hands that call the shots in the region, and neither of them are Arab. They are the US and Iran. The only other role is Saudi Arabia's, relegated to marking out political positions that toe the line for other pro-US nations to follow (like Egypt and Jordan). So Hizbullah is allied to Iran. Isn't the Hariri bloc allied to the US? Why is the first proposition so outrageous while the second reasonable?

Or, alternatively, I could be completely off mark, and all this could just be an Iranian-Syrian game played out on Lebanon's soil to gain leverage over the US. Maybe it's only about safeguarding Iran, the last standing local power that has its own ambitions and agenda. Or maybe it's both. They aren't mutually exclusive, after all. I say all this as I feel/hear two other explosions nearby, a chorus of car alarms following in their wake. I don't want to believe that this carnage is all for nothing.

Lebanese civil society organizations mobilize

2006-07-15T19:13:00.000-02:00

A statement from Lebanese Civic Society Associations

A number of Lebanese, Arab and international
organizations held a meeting on 07/15//06 to
discuss the current situation in Lebanon.

Out of a common interest in helping their fellow
citizens, and out of a sense of duty, and despite
their differences, these organizations are inviting
everyone to contribute to efforts to help those
citizens displaced due to Israeli attacks on Lebanon.

As a result of this meeting, these organizations
came out with this declaration:

1. Call for an immediate ceasefire and call upon the
UN to assume its responsibilities for protecting peace
and stability.

2. Stop all military actions, particularly those which
are affecting civilians.

3. Immediately cease and desist the policy of collective
punishment including the siege of Lebanon, the bombardment
of transportation links, and the resulting displacement of
citizens which resulted to a grave humanitarian crisis in
Lebanon.

4. Immediately stop and refute the policy of attacks against
civilian infrastructures.

5. Invite all private, civic and public organizations as
well as concerned individuals to assist people displaced
from the south of Lebanon and/or other Lebanese regions.

Finally, the organizations that met invite all interested
NGOs, to a general meeting on Monday, June 17 at 5 pm in
Zicco House in Sanayeh. The meeting will be a forum to discuss
how to organize and best assist displaced people
of Lebanon and to discuss potential civic Actions.

01- Collective for Research and Training for Development(CRTDA)
02- Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections
03- Permanent Peace Movement
04- Nahwa al-Muwatinya
05- Amam05
06- Haya Bina
07- A Step Away
08- Helem
09- Spring Hints
10- Lebanese center for Civic Education
11- Lebanese Association for Active Learning
12- Organization of Arab Parliamentarians Against Corruption
13- Lebanese Transparency Association
14- Arab NGOs Network for Development
15- Lebanese Forum for Development
16- Lebanese Center for Policy Studies
17- Green Line
18- Kafa
19- Maharat
20- Sawa Group
21- Development for People and Nature Association (DPNA)
22- Youth Association for the Blind

Update: Road from Beirut threatened

2006-07-15T18:54:00.000-02:00

The IDF just announced they are going to bomb the Beirut-Chekka road. After they bombed the Dahr el Baidar Beirut-Damascus road (through the Bekaa towards the east), the Chekka road remained the only way out of the city into Syria. Those who haven't left already are now stuck.

This is perhaps one of the scariest aspects of the IDF offensive. Since they started, their first targets were bridges and roads, making sure people don't get in or out (more importantly, to halt the movement of Hizbullah weapons, since we're not just talking about a couple of rifles on a donkey's back). Airport is down, no way out by air, land or sea. We are all sitting ducks.

Bring it on?!?

2006-07-15T18:52:00.000-02:00

I still can’t get Nasrallah’s speech out of my mind. If you haven’t heard it yet, you can download it here: http://vancouver.indymedia.org/?q=fr/audio/by/artist/hezbullah_sayyid_hassan_nasrallah. I can’t decide whether to kill him or hug him. There’s something about him that’s so incredibly mesmerizing and eloquent, albeit completely and utterly crazy. No wonder people follow him into certain death. “Watch that Israeli ship off the coast of Beirut. Look at it closely.” Two minutes later a rocket slams into it and SOS signals were sent out. Well done. Hizbullah: 2, Israel: 100.

After Nasrallah’s ‘bring it on’ speech last night, we were expecting the worst, but it was quiet. A bit too quiet. I think the Israelis were stunned. Regroup, ships redeployed. We saw the response today.

A quick roundup of events:

More shelling in the south and the southern suburbs of Beirut. Heavy casualties.
A busload of people were bombed in the south as they tried to flee, including 9 children. NBN TV kept replaying nauseating footage of their charred bodies
Ports in Beirut, Jounieh, and Tripoli were hit. Manara destroyed.
North and northeastern Lebanon were hit for the first time
Baalbeck and Hermel were targeted again today

July 14

2006-07-15T17:19:00.000-02:00

An email sent out a by woman living in Beirut, on Friday July 14:

From: zena 
To: Apple Mac 
Subject: Update from beirut
Date: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 05:43:43 +0300

For the last half hour or so, I have been watching the skyline
outside my balcony. It is on fire. It's 4:14am.

At 3:28am this morning, I woke up to the sound of Israeli jets
flying low over our skies in Beirut. I was just beginning to finally
fall asleep, had racing thoughts in my mind all night, cramps in
my stomach, fear... Just as I thought I was going to fall asleep,
I heard the sound of jets, followed by one explosion after another.

It has calmed down now. I hear morning prayers in the distance.

I am at home with some friends who have taken refugee with us.
A lot of them foreigners. We are trying to explain... Who, what, why..
But, we're also trying to be normal. Because being normal is what
got Lebanese through 20 some years of war. We are joking about
how the airport is on fire because of all the alcohol in the duty free.
We are trying to be normal.

Up until now,

Israel

has done the following:

-blown up our international airport, run ways, gas reserves for
planes (no one can leave or enter the country.)
-blown up small military domestic airports (both in the north and south)
-blown up all bridges and roads linking beirut to the south
-blown up areas/villages of the south, everything from the deep south to saida
-blown up ... As I type this now, another jet is flying by, it is so loud -...
Continue... Blown up the suburbs (Dahiye).. Three missiles
-blown up the beirut-damascus road at several points –we are
surrounded at sea as well, there are military ships launching attacks ...
Not watching tv anymore, but I know there is so much more going on.

Thousands evacuated their homes from the south today. They had
to walk for miles because their cars could not cross the highway.

Another jet and another explosion. This is all going into Dahiyeh. I can
see the red anti aircraft "bullets" being shot in retaliation. Pointless. The
weapons Hizbullah have are so old and out dated (World War II left overs
from

Russia

).. No match for Israeli technology.

Newest update, it's 4:26am, Israelis are attacking the city, "Saida" from sea.
They are targeting the bridge that connects to Saida.

Another really loud bomb. My heart is racing. I can only pretend to be brave.

Everything that is happening now is because

Israel

is trying to wipe out any
trace of Hizuballah in

Lebanon

. In the process of doing all this, they have
wiped out our infrastructures. Our roads, bridges, etc. civilian homes, innocent lives.

It's 4:32am and I have a knot in my stomach. I am praying they don't hit the electricity.
I want my internet. I think it's the only thing that will help me stay normal.

Latest update; 9 missile raids into Dahiyeh in the last hour. There are now several
parts of Beirut without electricity. The sky is glowing red.

I am praying for the people in Dahiyeh .. Another really really loud bomb.
I guess that makes it 10 now.

I am angry now. The things that cross your mind... I just set up a new
installation last week, now, no one will get to see it. I was just about
ready to launch an international residency program here.. Not going
to happen now. was just planning to start a family, who wants to get
pregnant now?

Ladies and gentlemen, I did not want to burden you with the troubles
of war, but I think it is really important that the world knows what is
going on. We are under attack by

Israel

. It is unjust and unfair. I wonder
what the media coverage is like out there. All this must end.

Israel

must
be stopped. This is so unjust and unfair. Everything we've worked on for
the past 10 years is gone now. so, so so, unjust and unfair. We had so
many cultural events planned for the summer... Exhibits... Concerts...
Plays.. Etc. all gone.

Israel

can not keep going into where ever they choose to go to and blow it up!

Lebanon

can not be occupied again by

Israel

.

Dear friends, pray for us. For this madness to end. Pray for the Lebanese
people to stick through this together and not lose their cool.

With love,
Zena el-Khalil 5:02am

Believe it or not, the sun is beginning to rise and I actually hear birds chirping.

Today, I begin

2006-07-15T17:01:00.000-02:00

I've toyed with the idea of starting a blog for quite some time now, but I didn't want to become just another meaningless dot on the blogosphere, ranting about the mundanity of life and my obsession with showers and hairdryers.

Now, after the horrific and brutal Israeli offensive in Lebanon, it has become crucial to tell as many people as possible of the crisis that is unfolding before us.

This is shax, reporting from Beirut.