Siege of Lebanon

Having recently seen a programme on CNN on the doctoring of photos by Lebanese bloggers and other Arab media, one wonders why the Lebanese side is the only one to be scrutinized on that score. While it is probably true that some photos were doctored to exaggerate the damage done by Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, is it not possible that the same was done on the Israeli side, which, by the admission of all sides concerned, suffered but a fraction of the death and destruction sustained on the Lebanese side? The issue of doctoring treated on your programme made no mention of possible Israeli manipulation of the media, to which much evidence bears witness, both during the latest conflict and indeed since before the inception of the State of Israel in 1948. For example, it was revealed that the Israeli government was actually paying Israeli web surfers to monitor Lebanese blogs and write responses favorable to Israel. That strikes one as reminiscent of the Soviet Union's system of having CPSU commissars to spread party propaganda, or of banana republic dictatorships (including Arab ones) that bribe or blackmail writers and reporters to tow the government line, as we are constantly reminded by such Western news stations as CNN. This is not, of course to condone in anyway the corrupt and ossified regimes that plague the peoples of the Arab World. There have been countless cases in which Israel manipulated the media to its advantage. For example, in 1996 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Palestinian Policemen's firing at Israeli soldiers was "a central breach of the Oslo Accord". He conveniently omitted to mention the fact that it was Israel that had first breached the Oslo Accord by re-occupying territories that it had previously handed over to the PA under the terms of the Oslo Accord signed by the previous Labor government in 1993. Further back in time, in 1967 the Israelis hit an American surveillance ship (the USS Liberty) off the coast of Sinai, claiming they had believed it to be an Egyptian vessel, although they had undertaken several reconnaissance flights and could hardly have been misled. The repertoire of Israeli stratagems in the domain of media manipulation is too vast to be fully documented here, as it might well fill volumes. The upshot of all this is that while media manipulation should not be condoned on either side, the most that can be said about the Arabs is that they have caught on, becoming more astute and media conscious, a fact pointed out by Beirut Bureau Chief Brent Sadler. It has always been one of the Israelis' greatest fears that the Arabs should become equally educated and savvy, an apprehension well illustrated in statements by a number of former Israeli Prime Ministers, including Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, and Golda Meir. If a self-respecting station like CNN wishes to report on Arab Media manipulation it must also report on Israeli media manipulation, for if it does otherwise it jeopardizes its reputation for journalistic objectivity and integrity. The ossified media of the west must know that the joke has worn thin.
Amer R. Saidi
Beirut
Lebanon

Siege of Lebanon

Having recently seen a programme on CNN on the doctoring of photos by Lebanese bloggers and other Arab media, one wonders why the Lebanese side is the only one to be scrutinized on that score. While it is probably true that some photos were doctored to exaggerate the damage done by Israeli bombardment of Lebanon, is it not possible that the same was done on the Israeli side, which, by the admission of all sides concerned, suffered but a fraction of the death and destruction sustained on the Lebanese side? The issue of doctoring treated on your programme made no mention of possible Israeli manipulation of the media, to which much evidence bears witness, both during the latest conflict and indeed since before the inception of the State of Israel in 1948. For example, it was revealed that the Israeli government was actually paying Israeli web surfers to monitor Lebanese blogs and write responses favorable to Israel. That strikes one as reminiscent of the Soviet Union's system of having CPSU commissars to spread party propaganda, or of banana republic dictatorships (including Arab ones) that bribe or blackmail writers and reporters to tow the government line, as we are constantly reminded by such Western news stations as CNN. This is not, of course to condone in anyway the corrupt and ossified regimes that plague the peoples of the Arab World. There have been countless cases in which Israel manipulated the media to its advantage. For example, in 1996 Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu said that Palestinian Policemen's firing at Israeli soldiers was "a central breach of the Oslo Accord". He conveniently omitted to mention the fact that it was Israel that had first breached the Oslo Accord by re-occupying territories that it had previously handed over to the PA under the terms of the Oslo Accord signed by the previous Labor government in 1993. Further back in time, in 1967 the Israelis hit an American surveillance ship (the USS Liberty) off the coast of Sinai, claiming they had believed it to be an Egyptian vessel, although they had undertaken several reconnaissance flights and could hardly have been misled. The repertoire of Israeli stratagems in the domain of media manipulation is too vast to be fully documented here, as it might well fill volumes. The upshot of all this is that while media manipulation should not be condoned on either side, the most that can be said about the Arabs is that they have caught on, becoming more astute and media conscious, a fact pointed out by Beirut Bureau Chief Brent Sadler. It has always been one of the Israelis' greatest fears that the Arabs should become equally educated and savvy, an apprehension well illustrated in statements by a number of former Israeli Prime Ministers, including Netanyahu, Shimon Peres, and Golda Meir. If a self-respecting station like CNN wishes to report on Arab Media manipulation it must also report on Israeli media manipulation, for if it does otherwise it jeopardizes its reputation for journalistic objectivity and integrity. The ossified media of the west must know that the joke has worn thin.
Amer R. Saidi
Beirut
Lebanon

a debate between an israeli and a lebanese - as moderated by BBC

FYI, here are the links to a debate/discussion organized by the BBC between an Israeli blogger (Lisa Goldman) and a Lebanese blogger (myself)

The BBC began the discussion by posing the question: who won the war? Lisa and I were then left to answer that question, and from there began the discussion. (Just for the record: I did not pose that question.)

in English: http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/worldhaveyoursay/2006/08/everyones_a_winner.html

in Arabic: http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/arabic/talking_point/newsid_5265000/5265130.stm

-Rania Masri
El Koura, Lebanon

What I knew of Dahieh

What I know, or rather knew, of Beirut’s southern suburbs – the Dahieh – I learned through K.

His family has lived there for 12 years, since the civil war ended and they returned home from France. They didn’t particularly like it there – life in an over-crowded, under-served, traffic-ridden slum leaves much to be desired – but they had family living there, the rent was cheap, it was where all the other poor and lower middle class Shia lived, and after a while it became home.

The first time I went there, with K, I tried to act cool. I had been in the country long enough to know what I was supposed to see: signs commemorating Hizbullah martyrs, life size cut-outs of the various ayatollahs suspended mid-air, lots of wires crossing between apartment buildings, and women fully veiled in black. I wasn’t expecting all the children playing in the streets, stunning young women in skin-tight clothes, so many stores selling so much stuff. I wasn’t expecting the power cuts, which happen daily in Dahieh, and have been for years. I wasn’t expecting the convenience factor, with almost everything you could ever need within walking distance. And of course, I wasn’t expecting the overwhelmingly kind acceptance into K’s family that has kept me coming back for over five years.

After a while, I learned how to navigate Dahieh by myself, the basic location names and landmarks. Hay Madi, Masharrafieh, Mouawad, Haret Hreik, Bier al Abed, Jisr el Mattar, Ghobeireh, Hay el Sellum, Chiah. I learned to look for the clock on Moawad, and the dry water fountain. I learned to look for the Hi-Bye clothing store, for the Domex cloth and lingerie store, for the Club Sport adorned with Rambo paintings, for store next to their house that alternatively sells fruit and vegetables, or pajamas and scarves.

Not all of that is gone now, but much of it is. And what’s left, will never be the same. It was never pretty, or quaint, or charming. But it is home, to thousands of people. And while the political forces propagandize and politicize, Dahieh’s residents have been coming home, sweeping out the glass, washing away the dust, emptying the refrigerators and living.

None of the pictures below will shock you, they’re not new or dramatic, they’re just places that I knew. And all of the pictures were taken after the bulldozers carved roads and paths through the rubble. I should have written this weeks ago. I’ve been trying to.

1) The clock on Moawad Street.

For years this was my main reference point. Every time I got lost, I would ask for the clock, and find my way home from there. The clock has never, ever, told the correct time. The building K’s family first lived in is directly behind the main building in the photo, now surrounded on either side by the rubble of destroyed buildings.

2) The Hi-Bye store

The Hi-Bye clothing store is near the clock, and was another easy reference point. It was bombed, and then caught on fire, so you can’t see the truly scandalous clothing it used to sell.

3) Bier al Abed

Somewhere behind the rubble was a series of long, low buildings. Years ago a good friend left to go back to America, leaving behind a large carpet to be shipped. After looking for an hour, it was in one of these low buildings that K and I found a store which sold nothing but cardboard boxes, cartoneh, of all sizes. That’s all gone now.

4) The DVD and everything else store

Although Lebanon’s pirated CDs and DVDs can’t compare to Syria, it is still possible to find the latest film on sale for $4. On the ground floor of this building was a store that sold DVDs, and electronic trinkets, and pens, and notebooks, and cassettes and CDs, and probably a million other things. K’s sisters had just bought Munich from there a few days before the war began.

5) The Iraqi tailor

I never learned why he was in Beirut, when he arrived or how, but he was known throughout the neighborhood. He could hem pants in minutes, and finish more complication alterations in days. K’s sisters took me there, all of us getting turned around more than once. But everyone knew where the Iraqi tailor was. I don’t know where he is now.

6) Haret Hreik

I walked this street for the first time two months ago, with K’s sisters, looking for curtain rods. We didn’t find what I wanted, although there were a few stores I was planning on going back to. We then walked through Jisr el Mattar and Beir al Abed – two other neighborhoods. When Israel started bombing, they hit this street, Jisr el Mattar and Beir al Abed on the same day. It felt a little surreal. Meanwhile, my curtains still aren’t hung.

7) The spice place

Matahin Bin Jamal, affectionately known as the spice place, was probably my favorite thing in Dahieh – following K’s family. It didn’t belong on the side street from crowded Mouawad, full of traffic and motorcycles all day long. It didn’t really belong in the 21^st century. So narrow two people could barely pass, it was filled ceiling to floor with ancient wooden bureaus, each tiny drawer for a different spice. Three types of sumac, five types of zaatar, various peppers, sage, cumin ground and in seeds. I used to go just to breath in the air, and play with the drawers. Open one, and you see bright green zaatar (dried, crushed thyme) from Jezzine. Next to it, the deep earthy brown of crushed nutmeg. Cardamom, he only sold as seeds, because they lose their flavor so quickly once crushed. And everything was seasonal – you couldn’t buy zaatar or sumac in the spring, because it was already old and losing its flavor.

K and I celebrated finally getting our own apartment by going to the spice place and buying 150 grams of everything we could think of. Each spice you bought was placed in its own small paper bag, carefully weighed on a tiny scale, and stapled shut.

I’ve since run out of sumac and zaatar, but I can’t make myself buy from anywhere else. If I had known they were going to bomb the building next to my spice place, I would have bought a quarter-kilo of everything in every drawer. Then again, if you had told me they were going to bomb so heavily, so recklessly, I would never have believed you.

Sonya Knox

West Beirut

prison. museum. ruin.

you expect to witness destruction in Khiam. it is there in abundance. nowhere is it more poignant, though, than at the prison.

before 2000 – when the israeli army fled its 18-year-old south lebanon “security zone” – the “Khiam” of popular consciousness was less the town than its notorious detention centre.

run by the south lebanon army, then the israelis’ human sandbags in the zone, Khiam held lebanese suspected of co-operating with the resistance. sometimes that meant resisting the sla policy that gave southerners a choice of paying them extortionate fees or giving up their sons to militia service.

conditions in the prison were squalid, reports of kidnaps and torture commonplace.

in may 2000, then, Khiam was perhaps the most-hated symbol of occupation. one of the emotional highlights of the israeli-sla collapse was the “citizens’ liberation” of the prison on 23 may.

while representatives from the international committee of the red cross were searching for the sla leadership to negotiate the 144 detainees’ release, 500-odd villagers – evidently organised by hizbullah – stormed the facility and freed them. the sla had already abandoned the place.

it’s 19 august, 2006, about a week into the present ceasefire, on the road from Nabatiyyeh to Khiam. traffic is surprisingly sparse, perhaps because of the israeli commando raid near Ba‘lbak the night before.

the sheer volume of destruction visited upon south lebanon in this war is mind-numbing. it’s accentuated by the fact that so much ruin is concentrated in such dense pockets: those villages israel singled out for punishment, and the flashpoints of resistance, are embedded within some of lebanon’s most beautiful and unspoilt country.

several motifs mark the passage. charred petrol stations, burnt fields – presumably the scuffmarks of launched katyushas – improvised roads carved through farmland – so merkavas could avoid roadside bombs – the mangled concrete of apartment blocks and ruined houses, schools and social welfare agencies.

numbness is punctuated by the unexpected appearance of unexploded israeli ordinance – their flanks often projecting from roads they were meant to cut – and dead farm animals, their owners unable to dispose of the corpses.

there is no sign of the israeli equipment hizbullah destroyed. one side or the other has removed it from the field.

Khiam itself is a mess. clumps of collapsed concrete and twisted rebar greet you around every corner. some rubble is adorned with the reminder “made in the usa” – not the brand-style banners draped over former buildings in dahiyyeh, but graffiti quickly dashed off with spray paint.

preliminary clean-up has begun. a bulldozer edges its way through a downed block of flats. shabab with push brooms and surgical masks clean the streets.

in front of one wrecked house, bags of portland cement are stacked hopefully – though they may antedate this war. a grim-faced ogero employee materialises in a sparkling white truck to inspect the public phones.

your party walks up the last kilometre or so to the prison.

over the six years following israel’s withdrawal, hizbullah transformed the facility into a museum, devoted to the cruelty of occupation and the resiliency of the detained.

plaques were erected to describe the routine function of each ward. here were the men’s cells, there the women’s. here was the exercise square. there inmates were “interrogated”. former detainees volunteered to describe their horrid experiences to visitors.

the site was gradually commodified. the prison courtyard was remade as an open-air museum of abandoned sla materiel – troop carriers, jeep, ancient howitzer. a canteen with pool tables sold soft drinks. a shop sold hizbullah memorabilia – tee shirts and flags, key chains and cassette tapes.

historians and museum curators might deride hizbullah’s hitching the Khiam facility, and human suffering it embodied, to the wagon of political rhetoric and public relations. it might be argued, though, that the israel’s leadership have contributed a volume or two to the book of bending history to a politics.

approaching the museum this day, it appears it has been miraculously spared annihilation.

though all the windows are smashed and the roof’s red tiles are scattered like playing cards, it’s still possible, you nod, to recognise the pool tables as “pool tables”. though the door to the drinks cooler swings ajar, there are still some drinks inside.

you glance, then, through the prison entrance and see the sky.

the men’s and women’s barracks immediately behind the canteen are merely shredded by shrapnel. the matériel still squat like iguanas in the sun.

the rest of the complex is powdered concrete. one colleague, who among you has returned to the museum most recently, reckons as much as 80 percent of the complex has been flattened. fragments of walls, concrete held erect by stubborn rebar, point mute to the sky.

you return to the car vaguely aware that you should be formulating some thoughts about how identity is an expression and improvisation upon memory, that the erasure of history, of memory is –

but you're empty of thought. just then, the man whose home is being bulldozed smiles a greeting.

“khalas! it doesn’t matter.” he laughs, gesturing nervously to the smashed concrete. “in another 20 years i’ll be dead anyway.”

Jim Quilty
Beirut

Exchanging Roles?

There are some challenging questions out of this latest war between Lebanon and Israel. Who won? At what cost? Who was to blame? Is it over or will there be yet another conflict on Lebanese soil? What will happen next? Will Lebanon survive this Israeli aggression economically?


Hizbullah has proven, as a local political party with a military wing, supported financially and militarily by its’ ideological strategic ally, Iran, that it could withstand one of the world’s mightiest and modern military machines through sheer internal organization, by coming from and fighting for the land they are on, by the knowledge of the enemy’s capacities and capabilities, the acquisition of appropriate military hardware (albeit missing the ground to air missiles) to resist, and a faith in God and in fighting on the cause of justice.


In this aspect Hizbullah has come out more or less victorious. The victory is one that is both national in nature and yet more importantly regional. Regional in a sense that it has sent shockwaves across the Arab world whose leaders have all, more or less, been infected by an inferiority complex when it comes to Israel from one angle, and been taken forever captive by economic and commercial interests with the U.S, denying them the ability to maneuver politically to even expel the Israel ambassador. Hizbullah has proven that the Israel army is not an invincible machine, and with strenuous preparation, organization, proper armaments, and faith, it could be put to a stop, although perhaps not defeated.


Hizbullah has stood up to a nation that has flouted almost every UN Council Resolution, undertaken a series of atrocities, and has considered itself above international law and more frighteningly, above all the peace negotiations with the Arabs. The Arabs meanwhile are left to moan about rights, international law, council resolutions and justice. And Israel does whatever it sees fit to ensure that the Arabs, including the Palestinians, stay weak and divided, within the so-called ‘New Middle East’ perhaps – all under the pretext of combating ‘terrorism’ and under their flawed terminology of ‘self defense’.


But the victory of Hizbullah is a victory for the Arabs only to the extent of emotion and semi-retrieved pride, yet is a potential defeat in that its accomplishments, especially of late, stem not from an Arab nation and its institutions as a whole, yet from an almost independently run political party with semi-autonomy from the central government (albeit it represents almost a third of the Lebanese population).


I say potential defeat because though the dichotomy between Hizbullah and the Lebanese central government served well in the past to limit Israel’s disproportionate firepower to Hizbullah and not the whole Lebanese state, it cannot proceed as it is, and as Hizbullah wishes it should, for two primary reasons.


The first reason is that this military achievement and self-confidence boost to the Arab peoples should be invested in the Lebanese government. Strength of nations surrounding Israel should no longer be viewed as a taboo or an impossibility. What harm would it bring if Hizbullah gave its military arsenal to the Lebanese army and trained the army about its historic methods in combating Israel? Why not include a strong regiment (of Hizbullah soldiers) in the army that applies ‘guerrilla’ warfare tactics, especially when a ‘classical’ army is absolutely useless in front of Israel? Why not arm the Lebanese army the same way that it has been armed, and teach it the same perseverance and decentralized command system of the Hizbullah soldiers? Some may say that that would produce an Israeli aggression on all of Lebanon, but that has already happened in this July-August war. If Hizbullah does not give its victory and its assets to the Lebanese army, with an agreed upon time-frame, then it is a failure, nothing more and nothing less. A failure that entails that Hizbullah’s achievements are beyond the scope and ability of any Arab government. This duplicity of resistance and government should be replicated throughout the Arab world in order to defeat Israeli aggressions.


The second reason is economic. Herein perhaps my opinion is a little bias towards the type of class I belong to (a middle class citizen) and the profession category which makes for my living (the Small and Medium Sized Enterprises - SMEs). Yet no business activity in Lebanon has been spared this time around, and the numbers (including myself) who are now lined at embassies for immigration purposes are greater than they were before, and they were abundant before. Who will compensate? Inevitably every house built in the South, South of Beirut, Bekaa… would be given money for reconstruction, yet what about all those SMEs? Can they for example show their past yearly and monthly balance sheets and be compensated for the direct damage caused and compensated for opportunities forgone? These SMEs are after all, the economic backbone of any prospering nation.


On this note as well, it is totally unacceptable that Hizbullah or any other party be allowed to compensate for the damages of this war (through its regional allies) unless Hizbullah accepts to become the government and the government a political party. All aid to the Lebanese people affected by this war must be done through governmental channels or at least through coordination with the central government, of which Hizbullah is a part. No longer should Hizbullah hold a semi-governmental character, and all its assets, both financial and military, should be transferred through the government. Or else why is there a government?


Finally, a further important issue to rise would be seeing Israeli politicians and generals fighting it out in Israel, blaming and criticizing each other for all their failures in this foolish war they initiated, and the expectation that their prime minister will fall. To some in Lebanon, this is seen as a victory, a victory that should ensure that such events do not occur, at least in public, between the Lebanese.

However, I see this as democracy. Israel is practicing democracy were actions are held accountable and though who have not done their jobs correctly, would be penalized by the system in place. In this sense, if the prime minister falls out in Israel, it is not a victory for us as much as a victory for their system of checks and balances.

In Lebanon, no voice should be silenced this way, silenced by blaming him or her of serving the Zionist state. This would be a crime in itself, a stopping of a nation that holds itself high in terms of discourse and harmony between sects and political parties. A crime against free expression of speech and progress.


I can only hope now that Hizbullah, and on whose southern lands they come from would rise to this golden opportunity to reveal its national character, which I always believed in, and play a vital role in strengthening the central government. Otherwise and again, Hizbullah should become the government and the government a political party.


Now the war should be next fought on lands which are still invaded, particularly Syria (as it is continuously in Palestine), and it is a message that Hizbullah takes to those lands that should be listened too and applied, not met by empty speeches praising Hizbullah and Lebanese blood as a model, and even getting political leverage from it, and yet go on in doing nothing for their own dignity, land and people except ensuring the survival of a Machiavellian elite.

Hassan Harajli, Beirut, Lebanon

a ballad of Rana and Ghada

let’s say you have two women friends. let’s say, for no good reason at all, that their names are Rana and Ghada.

you’re sitting between the two of them in the back row of a beirut cinema, watching the sam peckinpah classic “cross of iron” (1977). it’s about the final weeks in the life of a german soldier [james coburn] during the red army’s second world war rout of the wehrmacht.

it might seem an odd choice for this evening’s entertainment. it’s the evening of the first day of the ceasefire between hizbullah and the israeli army, a night of irritable calm after a month of scourging air strikes and inconclusive ground action – still continuing in a minor key – in south Lebanon.

it might seem an odd choice, but it’s not.

you met Ghada one evening a few years ago and immediately dismissed her as an easily-excitable backpacker – an impression reinforced by her odd tendency to jump up and down in her Birkenstock sandals when enthused. she later took a job at the same rag as you and revealed herself a fine linguist, an intelligent and dedicated political activist, and a preternatural organiser.

Rana is a dancer by preference, a film-lover by passion, and a fundraiser by vocation. as you follow politics and divert yourself writing about cinema, you met her professionally – quite natural as she’s a member of a politically minded film collective. being suspicious by nature, it took some time to resign yourself to the fact that she regarded you as a friend, and not just a useful promotional asset.

Ghada’s not a beirut native but she’s become wedded to the place in a manner you’ve witnessed before. she fell in with a good crowd of like-minded, fun-loving leftists and so quickly sunk a more varied root structure here than the average american expat, say, those who basically work and pal around with other foreigners then go back home when their time’s up.

it’s hardly unusual that in the process of sinking her roots into beirut, Ghada met a guy – let’s call him Ramzi. Somewhat more eccentric – at least amongst your circle of friends – was their decision to get married and so forth. that hasn’t happened just yet for reasons of life.

Ghada left beirut to continue her studies for a year or so. then after a spell of pennilessness, during which time Ramzi was doing his obligatory military service, she landed a job as an administrator at one of the several UN agencies that squatted here before the warplanes came back. seemingly settled into a good gig, the nuptials were further delayed because Ramzi got a scholarship to do some graduate work in europe.

Rana is inexplicably single. the occupants of an alien spacecraft – monitoring her movements from orbit – might assume that she simply has no time for anything but the dozen projects she’s simultaneously scheming at. the week before the Israelis launched their 2006 attack, Rana’s most-recent project had come to fruition.

she opened a cinema that runs non-commercial movies, something that lebanese filmmakers and film-lovers have been talking about – but doing little to accomplish – since before you washed up here.

it’s one of the eccentricities of beirut, and the middle east generally, that you can watch all manner of american schlock but seeing film from anyplace else in the world, including the middle east, is ghettoised within the confines of dvd rental and the odd film festival.

this nicely reflects the general state of the lebanese cultural condition, which involves people getting dolled up to go out to events – festivals, gallery openings, concerts and such. beirutis aren’t accustomed to reliable institutions like a good art-house cinema. beirutis aren’t accustomed to reliable institutions, period.

Rana’s unpretentious about the whole thing. she said she was tired of being able to go to any city in europe and see any film she could imagine – but unable to enjoy the same normalcy in her home town. she said she just wanted to provide a bit of choice.

“what’s on tonight, Rana?” you’d been itching for the comfort of a darkened cinema for a couple of weeks now but been too busy to do anything about it.

“Luis Buñuel,” she’d replied. “‘l’âge d’or’ (1930).”

spanish surrealism. just what the doctor ordered.

“it’s Buñuel tonight at Rana’s” you’d sms-ed Ghada. “?”

a few hours later the phone rang. “it’s not Buñuel tonight,” Rana said apologetically, “i was supposed to screen ‘cross of iron’ last night but we cancelled because it was unsafe. so i’m gonna screen it tonight instead. is that alright?”

“Peckinpah?” your head immediately filled with memories of a skit from monty python’s flying circus. called “Salad Days”, it’s their imagining a Peckinpah treatment of a light-hearted georgian picnic. the panama hats and stripped jackets, accessorised by glasses of champagne and lemonade, are gathered around a piano, singing.

the gaiety is reduced to chaos in short order. the piano player loses his hands when the keyboard lid crashes down on them. the other revellers are reduced to screaming paroxysms of agony by various means – impaled on one unlikely implement or another, gouts of blood shooting forth, geyser-like. for reasons now obscure to you, you always found the skit immensely funny.

“cool,” you’d said. “i haven’t seen Peckinpah in years.”

you didn’t bother informing Ghada about the change. though unlikely to be a Pekinpah fan, you reasoned she probably wouldn’t mind the programme change – just because seeing a film, any film, would be far closer to her pre-war routine than her normal life these days.

banned from doing proper work since the conflict began, Ghada’s been busying herself with refugee relief for the last month. she went about it with the matter-of-fact enthusiasm you’ve come to associate with the inveterate left – which, in its various factions, leapt into the vacuum left by an irresponsible state when displaced people began camping in beirut’s public gardens.

though Ghada’s social life hasn’t exactly withered on the vine, you get the impression she does some things with certain people less – if only because your circle of friends is deeply infiltrated by hacks who’ve spent little of the last month doing anything not connected to working or getting pissed.

Ghada bounces into the cinema two seconds before the film starts.

“hi!” she laughs, assessing the empty cinema.

“it’s not Buñuel,” you gesture to the screen. “it’s Peckinpah.”

“Peckinpah?” the enthusiasm on her face collapses into distaste.

“Sam Peckinpah.”

“having trouble finding a seat? the back row,” Rana gestures graciously, “is most comfortable.”

thanks to late-night television, “cross of iron” must have been visited upon all north americans at some time or another but you don’t recall ever seeing it. it’s immediately obvious why it’s been programmed, though.

the opening credits’ newsreel footage of smiling patriotic german faces c.1944, played out against a soundtrack of children singing nursery rhymes, is all too evocative of the propaganda footage spawned by this present conflict.

repeated images of fictional shelling, themes of patriotism and party loyalty, humanity and inhumanity, are all redolent of contemporary realities.

the bad acting is highly evocative of the rogues’ gallery of politicians and so-called statesmen who have perpetrated this evil month and allowed it to continue for so long.

you have occasion to glance over at Rana and Ghada at various points of the evening. Ghada’s face is a shifting landscape of amusement and bemusement. Rana’s is knotted in a grimace for most of the proceedings – she didn’t programme this particular film.

Coburn erupts into his incongruous – evidently improvised – laugh. the film ends.

Ghada leaps to her feet and makes for the surface. it seems Ramzi’s been trying to reach her for some time. you wait for Rana to collect the dvd from the projection room – it’s hard to lay hands on proper films when you’re in the midst of an ongoing, month-long siege.

“i don’t know how much longer i can do this,” Rana says. “i can’t get any movies. i’m running out of mazout [diesel, for the generator that keeps the electricity going through spells of rationing]. running out of money –”

when her cinema’s opening event – a week of films from cannes – was disrupted by the war, Rana shut for a couple of days. within a few days the madina theatre, the space that houses her cinema, had transformed itself into a refugee-relief centre where ngos and artists have been running programmes for displaced kids and their parents.

Rana reopened the cinema to screen her original programme, augmented now by morning and afternoon programmes for kids and teenagers. she’s been continuing with these and working with some local filmmakers to screen thematically relevant dvds – thus “cross of iron”.

for those aliens observing Rana’s travails from orbit, she’s already demonstrated remarkable resilience over the last month. Rana herself is more sceptical.

“i don’t know if what i’m doing has any value or not,” she said a couple of weeks into the war. “i’m screening films but no one’s coming except a few of the displaced people staying in the theatre. the people who’d usually come are either glued to their televisions or getting drunk someplace.

“a group of muhajiba [veiled, and therefore devout muslim] girls staying here wanted to come to one of the european films we were screening the other night.

“i explained to them that they'd probably see some things they were uncomfortable with – sexual intimacy and so forth. they insisted they wanted to come in. i don’t blame them. i’m sure they’re bored senseless.

“so the movie starts. they sit through it for the first half hour. then one girl’s father comes in, sees what’s on the screen and yells at her to come with him. so all the girls get up and leave.”

you’re standing outside the cinema now. Ghada is nowhere to be seen.

“can i drop you?” Rana invites. “come on. look, the needle is still above the ‘E’!”

when you reach the old airport road, the main artery connecting dahiyyeh to northern beirut, you encounter an ad hoc celebration. cars and mopeds are driving up and down the autostrada, horns blowing, all bearing flags of hizbullah and amal – the country’s two shi‘a political groups. it’s like the evening of a brazilian world cup victory, but with different flags.

“i can’t believe they’re celebrating,” Rana grips the steering wheel more tightly and curses under her breath. “what have we won? the country is in ruins. over 1000 people have been killed. the israelis are still in our country. i wish someone would tell me what we won. i want to celebrate too.”

standing on the terrace of the Qasqas flat with a beer and a fag, you survey the dark spaces of the ruined dahiyyeh.

you’re mapping out the chapter of the book you will never write about this conflict. the chapter struggles with how such a tiny country can generate such a breadth of experience – ranging from utter deprivation to hyper-privilege – and the disparate opinions that this range of experience generates.

born into a family of leftist intellectuals, Rana is hardly to be counted amongst lebanon’s privileged classes. she’s simply a middle class beiruti who wants to make her country more like other places she’s lived.

aside from the million people displaced by israel’s bombing campaign, it’s people like Rana and Ghada who are most torn by this conflict. hizbullah doesn’t speak to them in any way, but the issues of social justice that the party has taken as its own – at the centre of which is the injustice of Palestine – do. the very rich who are indifferent to issues of social justice feel no such ambivalence.

the phone rings.

“hi,” says Ghada. “sorry about the disappearing act. Ramzi’s a bit freaked out because they announced that the new recruits are being deployed in south lebanon.”

the deployment of Lebanese troops in the south alongside a strong european force, is one of the preconditions of the israeli withdrawal from lebanese soil. “i thought they were deploying veterans.”

“nobody knows anything for sure. the defence ministry announced the new recruits are going down. that means Ramzi’s going down. now some cabinet ministers are kicking up a stink. so they made the call before they know for sure.”

“that blows.”

“blows? if Ramzi can’t finish graduate school because of this it’ll be a disaster for him.”

––

Jim Quilty
Beirut

What remains

The families, those that can, are leaving for their homes.

It should be joyful. The sun should shine and the traffic flow in happy caravans and the families, all united, all healthy, all carrying extra supplies, ought to set off for Beirut’s suburbs, the South and the Bekaa Valley like rosy-faced pioneers reclaiming what is their’s, yet again.

But the sun can’t really shine, because the sky is full of the dust from collapsed buildings. The traffic can’t flow (it never does, anyways), and Israel has refused to lift its air and sea blockade. So there’s increasingly very little gasoline in the market, making transport home difficult and expensive.

Most families still aren’t united – the ICRC did another tour yesterday through Beirut’s schools looking for families from the Bekaa. They’re not healthy – although epidemics have not broken out in the schools – as 33 days of living with 200 other people, with very little fresh fruit or vegetables or meat, wears down the immune system. There are no extra supplies, because aid is delivered daily, and, again, Israel’s blockade has prevented most aid from being delivered at all.

And they’re certainly not rosy-faced. Not when Israel, despite accepting the UN Resolution, has issued warnings against civilians returning to their homes below the Litani River. Not when yet another civilian car was bombed last night, killing a family of five. Not when Israel bombed Beirut’s southern suburbs 30 minutes before the ceasefire took place. Not with over 1,000 Lebanese civilians dead, and entire villages in the South flattened. Not when most families don’t know if they have a house to return to. Not when their only guarantee of safety is a poorly worded, loop-hole infested UN resolution that seems to have been designed to fail.

But they’re going home, to what remains of home, defiantly.

Meanwhile, like some historian in a Marquez novel, I spent the day entering two-week old data from doctors’ visits to the refugee families in the schools.

Fatimeh, 26. Panic attacks.
Samir, 78. Arthritis and diabetes.
Ali, 14. Asthma.
Mariam, 5. Conjunctivitis.
Sawsan, 21. Respiratory difficulties.
Yasser, 33. Panic attacks.
Maya, 4 months. Skin rash
Ahmed, 45. Upper back pain and tension headaches.
Mahmoud, 9. Screaming nightmares.
Khadija, 47. Diabetes, hypertension and foot pain.
Hayat, 16. Panic attacks.
Rami, 13. Skin rash.
Souad, 69. Lower back pain and panic attacks.

The families are going home, to what remains. The other remnants, they will carry with them.

Sonya Knox
West Beirut

So why did Israel launch this war against Lebanon, again?

"Prime Minister Ehud Olmert on Sunday met with the parents of
abducted Israel Defense Forces soldiers Eldad Regev and Udi
Goldwasser and told them that Israel will negotiate with
Hezbollah over their release. Defense Minister Amir
Peretz also attended the meeting."

Source: Ha'aretz

-Rania Masri

another reason why this is a US/Israeli war on Lebanon

The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel's retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah's heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel's security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran's nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.

[...]

According to a Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah - and shared it with Bush Administration officials - well before the July 12th kidnappings. "It's not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into," he said, "but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it."


From
Seymour Hersh's article Watching Lebanon in the New Yorker


-Rania Masri

New Yorker's Seymour Hersh's article

URGENT REQUEST FOR HELP

Dear Friends
We have received an urgent request from the BirdLife Partner in Lebanon,
SPNL (Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon), asking for
support to help them deal with the humanitarian crisis which is
devastating their country and having a direct impact on both people and
environment alike. Most of you may remember that BirdLife, as part of our "emergency
response procedure", has in the past promoted and co-ordinated similar
relief initiatives from the Partnership. It has been the case for the
Tsunami in South East Asia and the Pakistan earthquake, where social
disruption was also directly impacting the environment, IBAs in
particular. Our slogan is"Together for Birds and People" and there
cannot be clearer situations than these where helping people also means
helping biodiversity. This is definitely also the case for the current
Lebanese crisis. Most notably, some of the IBAs that the Lebanese
Partner has been most actively involved with (Ebel es-Saqi, located near
Marjayoun and Hima Kfar Zabad in the Bekaa) are directly affected by the
displacement of families who are trying to escape from the centres of
the conflict.

The number of displaced families has exceeded 750,000 so far. Kfar
Zabad village alone has received around 120 families so far and the
human situation for all the displaced families is devastating. They
urgently need:

* Blankets.
* Children food (especially milk & water).
* Sanitary detergents.
* Medications.
* Kitchen utensils.
* Electrical Generator.
* Tents.

In response to SPNL's request, we would like to invite you to consider
supporting our Lebanese Partner in helping the communities displaced in
the IBAs, as well as the resident community and local SPNL groups that
have to deal with this crisis while minimizing the environmental impact
on the IBAs. Please send any donation as quickly as possible directly to the Lebanese
Partner, whose details are below. This will make the relief operations
quicker and more effective.

SPNL bank account for cash donations:

Al-Mawarid Bank, s.a.l.

Address: Hamra Branch, Abdel Aziz Street, Beirut, Lebanon

Tel: 961-01-734040 961-03-330821

SWIFT code: MABALBBE

Account number: 215375 001

Society for the Protection of Nature in Lebanon-SPNL

Messages, mixed and otherwise

Israeli jets announced Israel’s official acceptance of UN Security Council
Resolution 1701 – calling for a cessation of hostilities – by bombing Beirut’s
southern suburbs 20 times within two minutes.

The Israeli Cabinet’s decision had just appeared as breaking news on the TV
broadcasts when the bombing started. Over the next few minutes – as the
bombs continued to explode, and as the kids ran inside yelling, and as I flipped
through all the channels trying to figure out where they were hitting – the
breaking news continued with the specifications of who had voted how in the Israeli Cabinet.

“The Israeli (BOMB) Cabinet has announced its accep(BOMB)tance of
Resolution (BOMB) 1701. The ceasefire (BA-BOMB) will take effect (BOMB) as
of 0800 tomorr(BOMB-BOMB)ow morning local time (BOMB). The Israeli
Minis(BOMB)ter of Defense abstained (BOMB BA-BOMB) from voting (BOMB).”

------

The other night, R. tried to talk to an Israeli.

“I figured, the Israeli military is always calling our phone lines with recorded
messages, writing comments on our blogs, dropping flyers onto our streets,
saying they don’t have partners for peace and all that crap… So I decided to
see what they’re like, you know, to talk to them personally.

“So I went onto some of the IRC internet chat rooms and tried to find an
Israeli. But I couldn’t find any Israeli who would agree to chat with me, so
then I entered a chat room called ‘Israel’.

“But I guess the program recognized my internet connection address as coming
from Lebanon, because I didn’t even get a chance to write anything. They
kicked me out, directly.”

“How did they kick you out? The program closed on you?”

“No, they kicked me out, and a box appeared on the screen saying ‘Shit-listed!’”

----

There’s a new joke going around Beirut.

- What does it mean when Hizbullah leader Nasrallah makes the victory sign on TV?
- That there are still two buildings standing in southern Beirut.

----

The other day the Israeli army dropped propaganda fliers over Beirut,
again. The message, like always, was about Hizbullah. But it didn’t really
matter.

The fliers, white pieces of paper, came drifting down slowly. It was one of the
rare sunny days – most days the skies are full of the smoke from collapsed and
burning buildings – and the papers sparkled in the sun as they fell.
Thousands? Hundred of thousands? Without the context of daily bombings,
atrocities and starving families, it was almost beautiful, like a surreal moment
in an Asian art film.

The sky filled, and still they fell. And then the streets filled with children.
Refugees staying in West Beirut, they ran around, skipping and laughing,
grabbing at the falling papers and spinning around.

----

So the big international aid agencies have all arrived by now, their fancy
international crisis staff in tow. A friend, a doctor who’s helping coordinate
medicine distribution between the government and the aid agencies, shows up
to dinner in a foul mood.

“These stupid foreigners. They think we’re completely backwards. Don’t they
know that we’re a developed country?

“They don’t know that you can just ask any Lebanese mother which
medications her son needs, and she’ll know. They don’t know that you don’t
need to go around offering immunizations because everyone’s already had their
shots. They don’t know that they don’t need to bring truck drivers to deliver
their medicines because we know how to drive here!

“Would someone please send them a message before they come next time
telling them that Lebanon is not Djibouti?!”

Sonya Knox
West Beirut