Lebanon, 2006

Lebanese Youth Call on US to Respect Democracy

2006-09-08T09:22:00.000+01:00

By Rima Merhi

Friday, September 08, 2006
First person by Rima Merhi

In an ugly world where we can no longer distinguish between terror and the so-called war on terror, Lebanese youth take courage and energy from the real values of democracy, freedom, justice and human rights as taught at our universities, particularly the leading American universities in Beirut.
There is a real pressing danger that despite our commitment and passion for American ideals, Lebanese youth are becoming more and more isolated from the US in light of its foreign policy in the Middle East. "Israel's right to defend itself" has left us with a country in ruins amid a humanitarian crisis and environmental catastrophe that has taken our country back at least 20 years.

The whole world witnessed Israel's right to defend itself at the heartbreaking repeat massacre in Qana at the end of July. The apology of the Israeli government will not bring back the dead. It will not erase from our memories the sight of children and women agonizingly being pulled out of the rubble.
We acknowledge with equal sadness and regret the loss of innocent civilians in Israel. Lebanese youth watch in horror as the leading superpower and role model in the world sets a very dangerous precedent for allowing skirmishes across borders to escalate into full-blown disproportionate wars and crimes against humanity. Generation after generation are fed more hatred, poison and anger.

The universal principle of "human rights" in the Arab world have come to symbolize American double standards, if not blatant racism against Arabs, lack of respect for our culture and traditions, and ignorance of the socio-political realities that form our political systems. Lebanese youth urge the US government not to push us to the point of despair by giving us and our governments a fair hearing. The Bush administration must not doubt that the marginalization of one-and-a-half million Shiites, constituting more than one-third of the Lebanese population in a highly volatile region, will only lead to civil war in Lebanon and more terrorism in the world.

For years we witnessed first-hand the pain that angry, marginalized groups inflicted on each other. That pain and anger runs deep and has sadly inflicted a new generation.

Last year in democratic elections, Hizbullah was awarded seats in the Lebanese government. The Lebanese government sought to build a more representative form of government that fosters national identity through allegiance to the state.

Lebanese youth urge the US government to respect our democracy and help our government empower the Lebanese Army to take control over every inch of Lebanese soil. Despite the cease-fire, Israeli planes continue to hover over Lebanon, making it impossible for the Lebanese government to call for the disarmament of Hizbullah.

We would like to remind the Bush administration that Lebanon is not Afghanistan or Iraq. Lebanon is not governed by a dictator, nor is our society made up of tribes or clans. We have a nascent democracy that is representative of 18 sects in one of the smallest geographic countries in the world. Lebanese youth are one of the most educated in the Arab world. Two months before the July war, our government approved a bill in Parliament calling for the establishment of a youth shadow government - the first of its kind in the Arab world - to give youth a real voice in the country.
We are the same youth that led the Cedar Revolution, bringing an end to the Syrian occupation of Lebanon in March 2006. The dream of an independent, sovereign and democratic Lebanon was turning into a reality. We felt empowered to make our mark on history. With pride we watched the Arab masses turn to Lebanon as a potential beacon of true democracy in the Middle East. Bush applauded the partial fulfilment of Resolution 1559 and promised the Lebanese that "Freedom shall prevail in Lebanon. The American people are on your side!" Four months later, Bush gives Israel the green light not to destroy Hizbullah, but the whole of Lebanon.

We can not help but feel truly disappointed by the Bush administration. We are no different from American or Israeli youth. We share with all youth a desire for peace, democracy and sustainable development. Last July Lebanese youth expressed faith in the US government when I testified in the US Congress on our aspirations for national reform. The July war is a devastating blow to our morale. The big powers gamble with our futures once again by using Lebanese soil to fight non-Lebanese wars.

Lebanese youth refuse to live in the past. We refuse to survive in fear. We refuse to be robbed of our future. The "New Middle East" has to be a place where we work together to learn from the lessons of history. First and foremost, we must address the roots of Islamic fundamentalism in the region. No one will deny that Israel is no more secure today than it was 40 days or 40 years ago! By fighting the war on terror with more terror and imposing conditions that lead to the further marginalization of minority groups, the US is neither bringing security nor democracy to the region.

It is setting the scene for future disaster by turning moderate law-abiding peace-loving Muslims who are neglected and abused by the system into harsh vengeful radicals that cause a threat to the world at large. No amount of propaganda to the contrary will be effective so long as the facts on the ground speak for themselves. The "New Middle East" has to be a place where we respect our borders with one another and break the vicious cycle of hatred and revenge with tolerance and forgiveness. It has to be a place where we embrace our common humanity.

Rima Merhi is a Lebanese youth activist. She wrote this article for The Daily Star.

CALL FOR PHOTOGRAPHS

2006-08-22T12:54:00.000+01:00

James Moore, of the John Moore Foundation, a highly prestigious organization that has a long history of supporting the arts in the UK (the prestigious John Moore Prize for painters amongst other art projects that are funded in Liverpool) approached Mai Ghoussoub of Saqi books to express his sorrow and anger at the Israeli aggression on Lebanon and asked her if she would be interested in curating/organizing an exhibition about Lebanon to take place during the Liverpool Biennale which is due to start on 15 September.

James Moore has put a 5 storey building at the disposal of local artists to exhibit during the Biennale, and he is offering 2 floors for a show on Lebanon.

The idea is to ask Lebanese people, those who have been affected by the war and those who have lived through its traumatic period, to express through taking one or 2 photographs how they felt, and feel now, about the war and how it has affected and altered their lives.

The hope is not to receive photographs of physical damages such as destruction of buildings and roads etc., of which there is abundance in the media.

UMAM -Documentation and Research-is taking in charge the organization from the Lebanese side and will be curating this exhibition in Beirut as soon as possible.

Photos from film camera, digital camera and mobile phone camera are welcome.

There is no age limit

Deadline September 05 2006 at 6 pm

Size for photos that will be sent by email: 1000 pixels (the largest side of the photo) in RGB mode saved in Jpeg 6

Make sure that the file is saved under your name

Please send your digital photos at hagegilbert@gmail.com

For prints please call 03760581 or 03235753

Lens on Lebanon: Grassroots media activism

2006-08-22T10:26:00.000+01:00

Lens on Lebanon is a grassroots documentary initiative formed during the devastating Israeli bombardment of 2006.
This initiative has been structured as a collaborative endeavor in which Lebanese in the south and the southern suburbs of Beirut, along with Palestinian refugees and other vulnerable communities, will team up with networks of activists, artists and filmmakers, both locally and abroad, to create a community media website for both political and historical documentary purposes.

Donated equipment is currently being distributed by a network of experienced volunteers. We have assistants in Sidon, Beirut, and Tyre, and extensive contacts in the south and in the southern suburbs of Beirut. Lens on Lebanon is also working in close coordination with existing activist groups, including the International Solidarity Movement (now operating in Lebanon) and other relief organizations such as the United Nations Relief and Works Agency.

How you can help

While our volunteer network on the ground is ready and operational, and we have received significant donations of equipment, our financial resources are very limited. We are seeking monetary donations to cover the costs of additional editing equipment, transportation expenses, and overall maintenance expenses for the website.

While further donations of equipment are welcome, at the present moment operating costs are our most pressing concern.

Online donations can be made through Paypal on our donations page.

For those who would like to make a donation, but require a 501c(3) tax deduction form, please contact us directly at: info@lensonlebanon.org.

Tell your friends and colleagues about this project!

http://www.lensonlebanon.org

THE ARMY IS BACK, BUT DON'T EXPECT IT TO DISARM HIZBOLLAH

2006-08-18T10:39:00.000+01:00

Robert Fisk
Inependent Online
Published: 18 August 2006

Now you see them, now you don't. Hizbollah weapons? None to be seen. And none to be collected by the Lebanese army. For when this august body of men crossed the Litani river yesterday, their officers made it perfectly clear that it would not be the army's job to disarm the Hizbollah. Nor was anyone in Lebanon surprised. After all, most of the Lebanese troops here are Shias - like the Hizbollah - and in many cases, the soldiers who crossed the Litani are not only from the same southern villages but are related to the guerrillas whom they are supposed to disarm. In other words, a typical Lebanese compromise. So whither UN Security Council Resolution 1701?

True, the French are on their way - or are supposed to be. It is the French - whose own General Alain Pellegrini already commands the small UN force here - who will run the new international army in Lebanon. But are they supposed to disarm Hizbollah? Or fight them? Or just sit in southern Lebanon as a buffer force to protect Israel? The French are still demanding - very wisely - a clear mandate for their role here. But Lebanon does not provide clear mandates for anyone, least of all the French.

The Lebanese gave their soldiers the traditional welcome of rice and rose water when they drove over their newly built military bridges on the Litani. But then, some of the same villagers once gave the same traditional welcome to the Israelis in 1982 - and to Hizbollah after that. But the Lebanese army represented peace in our time - at least for a while - to those who are still digging the corpses of their dead families out of the hill villages of southern Lebanon.

It looked good on television, all those clapped-out Warsaw Pact T-54 tanks and elderly Panhard personnel carriers on flatbed trucks, supposedly returning to the far south for the first time in 30 years. Of course, it wasn't true. Though not deployed on the border, thousands of Lebanese soldiers have been stationed in southern towns since the civil war, dutifully turning a blind eye to Hizbollah's activities, providing none of their fighters were rude enough to drive a truck-load of missiles through their checkpoints.

Among those Lebanese soldiers most familiar with the south were members of the 1,000-strong garrison at the southern Christian town of Marjayoun, who fled after Israel's small ground incursion a week ago. And herein, as they say, lies a tale. For their commander, the Interior Ministry Brigadier General Adnan Daoud, has just been arrested for treason after Israeli television showed him taking tea with an Israeli officer in the Marjayoun barracks. Even worse, Hizbollah's television station Al-Manar - which stayed resolutely on air throughout this latest war despite Israel's best attempts to bomb it out of existence - picked up the Israeli tape and rebroadcast it across Lebanon.

Prior to his arrest, General Daoud was even rash enough to unburden his thoughts to Lauren Frayer, an enterprising reporter for the Associated Press who arrived in Marjayoun in time to record the general's last words before his arrest. The Israelis, he said, "came peacefully up to our gate, asking to speak with me by name". An Israeli officer who introduced himself as Col Ashaya chatted to Daoud about future Israeli-Lebanese military relations.

"For four hours, I took him on a tour of our base." the general said of "Ashaya". "He was probably on an intelligence mission and wanted to see if we had any Hizballah in here." But an hour after the supposedly friendly Israeli left, Israeli tanks blasted their way with shells through the gates of the Lebanese garrison. The Lebanese soldiers did not fire back. Instead, they fled Marjayoun - only to find that their long convoy, which included dozens of civilian cars, was attacked by Israeli pilots who killed seven civilians, including the wife of the mayor, who was decapitated by a missile.

In Beirut, all this was forgotten as the Prime Minister, Fouad Siniora, repeated that there would be no more "states within a state" and that the Hizbollah would leave the area south of the Litani. This statement came under the category of "a likely story". Not only do most of the Hizbollah live in villages south of the Litani but several of their officers made it clear that they had told the Lebanese army not to search for weapons. So much for the disarmament of the Hizbollah south of the Litani river. And so much for President Bush's "war on terror" which the Israelis claim to be fighting on America's behalf.

2006-08-17T12:23:00.000+01:00

The bombs stopped...
and now what?

Should we stand there and blame the guilty
where is the unity everyone was talking about a few weeks ago
now we're back to a national "dialogue"
or a variety of "monologues"
we're back to the essential issue
the internal issue
the political isue
While Hezballah fought Israel and resisted its army
will they accept to live as a nation
a peaceful nation
without confronting and provoking Israel again..and again

Will Lebanon become Shiia? become a religious country...an Islamic country?
Is that the goal of the Hezb.?
Should this be a goal at all?
I wonder...will religion win...
or civility and diplomacy
I wonder...will Lebanese brothers fight one more time
or unite and stay tight

My opinion doesn't count
the opinion of the strongest will
right now the winner seems to be the resistance
but do I want them to apply their rules to our country?
do I want them to decide for me and my family who is the ennemy and how we, as a nation, should fight it?

The bombs stopped...
and now what?

A Ray of Hope through the Dark Clouds of Sadness

2006-08-16T15:28:00.000+01:00

A ray of hope has penetrated our hearts these couple of days, lifting the heaviness of the sadness in our hearts just a bit. The cease-fire card is finally beginning to be played. Of course it should have been placed on the table with authority from day one of this nightmare, but better now than later, better now than never.
People around the world, ordinary people like you and I, have been speaking up, whether by going to peaceful demonstrations or vigils, by leaving their visions and thoughts for a better humanity and a better world on media websites, by adding their names with conviction to cease-fire or peace petitions, by writing letters urging their mps to take urgent action, by working with humanitarian organizations abroad to donate or collect clothing, medicine, food or money or whether by actually going into the field and helping those in need themselves. These actions, these positive, peaceful, humanitarian actions do make a difference put all together. If every single person in the world were to cry out from the depths of their soul and from the depth of their hearts ‘ CEASE-FIRE NOW’, ‘PEACE NOW’, ‘NO MORE VIOLENCE NOW’, whether with Lebanese, French or Chinese accents, their voices united together would create a force of goodness. A force so strong and so convincing that it could bring a ray of hope back to this country that was only a month ago beginning to take flight again. A force so strong, it could bring faith to the people in this area- faith that trees, homes and laughter will once again rise up from beneath the ashes and wipe their tears of despair away.
Of course it will take time. Nobody is expecting a miracle here that would be hoping for too much. Even the once innocent hearts of children have been touched by the cold cruelty of realism. Their hearts may beat passionately and happily once again but in their beating, will pulsate murmurs from this present darkness. Dreams will continue to be haunted for a while. To convince those thinking of leaving not to leave, will take time. To convince those who have left to come back, will take even longer. To resurrect entire villages and towns from their knees and from the rubble they have been reduced to, will take time. To rebuild over a hundred bridges and roads and return them to their once bustling state, will take time. To rescue our once glistening seas from the oil they are now choking in, will take time, experts say over a year. Many are the fish and other sea creatures that have suffered. Much time will pass before we will be able to promise a visiting turtle a safe summer home. Much time will pass before our children can once again bath in the gentleness of Mother Nature’s comfort. It will take time. It will take time. But though it will take time, the strength to rebuild, the strength to re-dream, the strength to recall is there.
Yes… we recall our dream of a peaceful, strong, united Lebanon. We recall the fact the first alphabet was created here in Lebanon and that our nation was once known as the Pearl or Paris of the Middle East. We recall the fact that though Lebanon was destroyed many times before, it was rebuilt, again and again and again, perhaps over seven times.
Like our ancestors did before us, we will not give in to the dark smoke of despair or to hatred. We will stand up again and rebuild. We will reconstruct our dreams and our hopes. Christian, Moslem, Druze or other, we will hope again. This time united as Lebanese, Lebanese with a dream to have a peaceful, strong, united, independent nation.
Not able to sit home any longer between the four walls of my room, I , like many others, got up these last couple of days and joined in the force of civil unity. Encouraged by a friend of mine, I went to a school today, housing many of the refugees who had to flea their homes in the South or in Southern Beirut. Armed with papers, colour pens and a thirst to hope, I spent two hours colouring in with children who more than welcomed me. It did not matter that they were mainly Moslem and that I was Christian for we are part of the same humanity, both Lebanese, both hoping for a better present and a better future. It did not matter that I was a returnee and spoke terrible Arabic. Our language was the same, one of love, one of solidarity. Happy to have something to do, they drew houses and trees and hearts. Many drew a Lebanese flag. My friend and I, Moslem and Christian, side by side, put up their pictures up on a wall in the school. Their dreams to have a safe home, their dreams to have a happy childhood, their dreams to grow up in a peaceful environment should not be taken away from them. They have the right to a happy life. They have the right to live in peace. They have the right to hope like any another child.
A couple of days before, again encouraged by the same wonderful friend, I went to help another group of citizens, pack food for refugees. A group of volunteers stood in a line and we went from one to another with our bags wide open, watching them put in bread, then rice, then lentils, then tomato paste etc. I later went up to another group of people and was welcomed with open arms. Together we sat on some steps and put in milk, sugar and tea in rationed portions in some bags. Raja, a refugee from the South opened the heavy bags for us. We took orders from a nine year old red-hair with lots of freckles. Amani… her face will probably come back to me throughout my life. These moments are certainly leaving their imprint in the albums of my soul.
Many refugees, having to flea their homes and having lost them, have no choice but to sleep in parks, parks with little water, and little hygiene. Many children run around dirty, one was covered in flies. Another group of refugees tried to find refuge in one of these parks yesterday as another wave of attacks was heard. The parks being too saturated, they had to trudge back to the buses and accept to be taken to parks in the North. Food, medicine and emergency kits have been sent from many countries abroad, but not all aid is managing to come in due to the blockade. Even if aid manages to come into Lebanon, it cannot always be taken to the South, where it is needed the most as many of the roads have been cut off. Lebanon… like a kinder toy being dismantled has been cut up into different sections, isolating areas from one another.
I pray, from the depth of my heart, that this call for a cease-fire, that has FINALLY come, will be respected. I pray that this call will last. I pray that this ray of hope will be strong enough to allow the colors of these children’s dreams to come true.

May green trees rise up from the black ashes of the rubble
May red roofs of villages rise up again to house their people
May the white light of peace prevail and take away the dark thick smoke of despair
From the bombs and hatred that have fallen.

May this ray of hope shine on us all, for we all deserve to live a life of peace and of serenity.

Nathalie Malhame
12th of August, 2006

RESTEZ AU LIBAN

2006-08-11T09:15:00.000+01:00

Pour les premières amandes vertes que l'on croque, trempées de sel, et qui sonnent le glas de l'hiver,

Pour l'arbuste du balcon que l'on croyait mort et qui refleurit inexplicablement en décembre,

Pour le grincement familier de la balançoire sur laquelle on s'assoupit, enivrés de soleil, dans le chant des cigales,

Pour les klaxons « sauvages » d'un mariage d'été qui nous précipite pourtant tous au balcon pour voir si la mariée est belle,

Pour ces tribus de parents qui attendent à l'aéroport le retour au pays de l'enfant prodigue, et qui arrivent toujours beaucoup trop tôt,

Pour cette vieille mémé qu'on a refusé de mettre à l'asile malgré l'appartement de Beyrouth trop étroit, et que son fils continue d'embrasser chaque soir,

Pour cette femme voilée qui fait, au mois de mai, le pèlerinage de Harissa,

Pour le jeune policier du carrefour qui fait semblant de rêver quand on traverse un feu orange,

Pour le « Ya hala » claironnant du steward qui nous accueille sur l'avion de Beyrouth,

Pour cet automobiliste souriant en trois pièces cravate qui, un soir de Nouvel An très pluvieux, vous change votre pneu, sans vous rien demander

Pour ce soleil lumineux de janvier qui nous fait douter que la tempête terrifiante de tout à l'heure ait vraiment eu lieu,

Pour la voix si triste de Feyrouz qui réveille en nous une âme enfouie de villageoise d'opérette,

Pour l'odeur de la « mankouché » du matin qui est bien plus qu'une galette au thym, comme la traduit bêtement le dictionnaire,

Pour ces cerises de juin si noires qu'elles colorent de violet les langues des enfants,

Pour la maison d'en haut qu'on fait plus belle que l'autre, parce que c'est là qu'au soir de notre mort, on accueillera les gens du village,

Pour les soirs de juin sur la terrasse, pour la vigne de septembre qui finit par nous offrir une grappe, pour les gardénias de mai,

Pour l'odeur mouillée de la terre après la première pluie,

Pour ne pas avoir froid, pour ne pas avoir peur, pour ne pas vivre seul, pour...

Pour tout cela ..... Restez au Liban!

2006-08-09T11:31:00.000+01:00

CIVILIAN CONVOY TO THE SOUTH

2006-08-08T12:05:00.000+01:00

Press Release-Lebanon: An Open Country for Civil ResistanceBeirut August 7, 2006
Press Contacts:

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

On August 12, at 7 am, Lebanese from throughout the country and international supporters who have come to Lebanon to expresssolidarity will gather in Martyr's Square in Beirut to form a civilian convoy to the south of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese and international civilians will express their solidarity with theinhabitants of the heavily destroyed south who have been bravelywithstanding the assault of the Israeli military.

This campaign isendorsed by more than 200 Lebanese and international organizations.This growing coalition of national and international non-governmentalorganizations hereby launches a campaign of civil resistance for thepurpose of challenging the cruel and ruthless use of massive militaryforce by Israel, the regional superpower, upon the people of Lebanon.August 12 marks the start of this Campaign of Resistance, declaringLebanon an Open Country for Civil Resistance.

August 12 also marksboth the international day of protest against the Israeli aggression."In the face of Israel's systematic killing of our people, theindiscriminate 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 populationfrom their homes throughout Lebanon, and the complicity of governmentsand international bodies, we re-affirm the acts of civil resistancethat began from the first day of the Israeli assault, and we stressand add the urgent need to act!," said Rasha Salti, one of theorganizers of this national event.

After August 12, the campaign will continue with a series of civilactions, leading to an August 19 civilian march to reclaim the South."Working together, in solidarity, we will overcome the complacency,inaction, and complicity of the international community and we willdeny Israel its goal of removing Lebanese from their land anddestroying the fabric of our country," explained Samah Idriss, writerand co-organizer of this campaign."An international civilian presence in Lebanon is not only an act ofsolidarity with the Lebanese people in the face of unparalleledIsraeli aggression, it is an act of moral courage to defy the will ofthose who would seek to alienate the West from the rest and create anew Middle East out of the rubble and blood of the region," saidHuwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement andcampaign co-organizer. "After having witnessed the wholesaledestruction of villages by Israel's air force and navy and havingvisited the victims (so-called displaced) of Israel's policy ofcleansing Lebanese civilians from their homes," continued Arraf, "itis imperative to go south and reach those who have stayed behind toresist by steadfastly remaining on their land."

If you are in Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, contact either:

Rasha Salti. Email: convois.citoyens.sud.liban@gmail.com . Tel: +9613 970 855
Rania Masri. Email: rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb. Tel: +961 3 135 279or +961 6 930 250 xt. 5683 or xt. 3933

If you are outside Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy,you should know:

1) You need to obtain a visa for Lebanon and for Syria if your plan isto enter Lebanon from Syria.
2) We don't have the funds to cover for the cost of your travel,however we can help with finding accomodations.For questions and help for all internationals please contact AdamShapiro at: adamsop@hotmail.com

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

This campaign is thus far endorsed by more than 200 organizations,including: The Arab NGOs Network for Development (ANND), InternationalSolidarity Movement (ISM), Cultural Center for Southern Lebanon,Norwegian People's Aid, Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, LebaneseAssociation for Democratic Elections, Frontiers, Kafa, Nahwaal-Muwatiniya, Spring Hints, Hayya Bina, Lebanese TransparencyAssociation, Amam05, Lebanese Center for Civic Education, Let's BuildTrust, CRTD-A, Solida, National Association for Vocational Trainingand Social Services, Lebanese Development Pioneers, Nadi Li KoulAlnas, and Lecorvaw.

Sign2Help

2006-08-08T12:02:00.000+01:00

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

Every day Lebanese children are exposed to fear, violence, hunger, lack of water... Approximately 750.000 people have lost their houses and have sought refuge in overcrowded shelters with very limited electricity or access to water, or gathered in public areas.
By signing this petition you will help the Lebanese children and their parents to get clothes, food, medicine, protection and support. For every signature we get, you donate 10 cents to the Lebanese people in need. Our aim is to reach 10 million signatures that will translate into $1 million in funds.

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

Thank you for your help.

Gilbert Hage

http://www.sign2help.com/

2006-08-08T11:59:00.000+01:00

Le Liban

par Amin Maalouf
Le Liban est un rosier sauvage. Si vous vous approchez des fleurs, gardez-vous des épines. Et si vos mains s'en trouvent lacérées jusqu'au sang, prenez quand même le temps de caresser les fleurs. Je parle de rosiers, ayant à l'esprit cette pratique, répandue en Bourgogne et dans le Bordelais, qui consiste à laisser pousser des rosiers, justement, en tête des rangées de vigne. On a constaté, en effet, que cette fleur souffrait avant toute autre des maladies qui s'attaquent aux plantes, et qu'elle pouvait donc servir de sentinelle pour alerter les vignerons et leur donner le temps de réagir. Mais les hommes ne comprennent pas toujours le message. Certains, par paresse, par ignorance, par aveuglement, lorsqu'ils voient apparaître des taches sur les feuilles, se disent que le rosier est, de toute manière, une plante fragile, délicate, frivole, et que leur vigne ne risque rien. Il y a trente ans, le Liban est entré dans l'une des phases les plus éprouvantes de son histoire. Une société qui voyait dans la diversité sa raison d'être, et dans la liberté d'expression le fondement de la paix civile, venait de sombrer dans la crispation identitaire, les massacres, la peur de l'autre et la destruction de soi. Pendant quelque temps, le pays est apparu comme une exception, affligeante pour ses fils comme pour ses fidèles amis, mais ne suscitant, chez bien des gens, que des jugements détachés et condescendants. Que voulez-vous ? Le rosier est une plante si fragile ! Puis les affrontements ethniques et communautaires se sont multipliés à travers le monde. Non seulement au Proche-Orient, en Afrique, ou dans le sud de l'Asie, mais également dans l'ancienne Yougoslavie, aux premiers contreforts de l'Europe. Et au-delà. Ce qui semblait naguère, le triste apanage de quelques banlieues de Beyrouth, a aujourd'hui pour théâtre la planète entière, de Manhattan à la Tchétchénie, en passant par Londres, Madrid, et jusqu'à Bali. Crispation, massacres, peur de l'autre et destruction de soi. Il est vrai qu'avec la chute du Mur de Berlin, nous sommes passés d'un monde où les clivages étaient surtout idéologiques à un monde où les clivages sont identitaires.
Je n'ai aucune nostalgie pour l'époque de la Guerre froide, qui a causé, au XXe siècle, les drames que l'on sait. Mais elle avait pour caractéristique d'éveiller, en permanence, le débat. Quand les clivages sont identitaires, il n'y a ni débat ni dialogue. Chacun proclame ses appartenances à la face de l'autre, chacun lance ses imprécations ; puis retentissent rafales et explosions. Le rosier est une plante délicate, me dit-on. Le Liban est une mosaïque de communautés qu'on ne s'y trompe pas, il ne s'agit plus seulement du Liban, la Terre entière est une mosaïque de communautés. Ethnies opprimées, religions chatouilleuses, nations inassouvies, elles sont chaque jour un peu plus apeurées, et tentées par le recours à la violence ; pour se protéger, pour s'affirmer, ou pour se venger. Si l'humanité d'aujourd'hui se révélait incapable de faire vivre ensemble, dans l'harmonie et dans la dignité, sur le minuscule territoire du Liban, des communautés qui, depuis des siècles, pratiquent la coexistence ou, à tout le moins, le côtoiement, comment diable pourrait-elle gérer l'incommensurable diversité planétaire ? A cette interrogation angoissée, ce début de siècle nous apporte un début de réponse, qui n'a rien de rassurant. Ni pour les pays où cohabitent depuis longtemps des populations mêlées, ni pour ceux qui viennent tout juste de découvrir les contraintes de la diversité. Il suffit de promener son regard sur cette planète déboussolée pour constater que la violence ne recule pas, et que le fossé entre les plus grosses communautés humaines ne fait que s'élargir. Pas un événement majeur qui ne soit vécu, des deux côtés de la faille, et notamment sur les deux rives de la Méditerranée, avec des sentiments opposés. Amis du Liban, ne perdez pas des yeux le rosier sauvage qui a poussé précisément au bord de cette faille ! Si vous voyez s'épanouir, puis triompher, le vaste élan de liberté et de coexistence dont Samir, Gebran, May et leurs compagnons ont été les courageux porte-drapeaux, c'est que la vigne des hommes donnera demain des grappes saines. Mais si vous voyez les fleurs trembler, chanceler, puis s'abattre, si vous voyez la pourriture se former à la naissance des feuilles, c'est que la vigne entière est menacée, et que le vin de l'avenir sera aigre.

"I DON'T WANT TO BE PART OF YOUR CONFLICT (BUT I AM)"

2006-08-07T07:44:00.000+01:00

Call for Interventions
Global Webcast, Saturday, August 12 2006, 9-11 PM(CET)URL: http://beirut.dischosting.nl http://streamtime.org

Outraged at Israel's ongoing aggression on Lebanon -which since July 12 2006 has killed over 900 people (mostly civilians),displaced nearly one million people (1/4 of Lebanon's entirepopulation), and wrecked Lebanon's infrastructure and economy - we say:khalas!enough!

We call for an immediate end to the violence and destruction.We call on the international community to open itseyes - and on you to make your voice heard.With our fellow activists, artists and other bloggersin Lebanon - and input from Iraq - we will produce a collaborativeglobal webcast on Saturday August 12, from 9 to 11 p.m. Central EuropeanTime/10-12 p.m.

Lebanon timeThis unique free style web jam around 'frequentlyraised despair' will be produced at Waag Society in Amsterdam byStreamtime's Cecile Landman, Jo van der Spek, Geert Lovink and Jaromil incollaboration with Tarek Atoui, Nat Muller, Paul Keller and manyothers.The Global Webjam will consist of an audio and videostream, and feature live interviews and conversations, videoclips, cartoons and blog blurbs, soundscapes, DJs and VJs, a lively mix of
Wahid el-Solh, a Lebanese DJ based in the Netherlands,will provide us with the unrivalled nightlife ambiance of Beirut.We see this as a precedent for future collaborations -to create a platform fitting the spirit of Beirut, in defiance ofwar, and in search for solidarity.We shout out for our friends in Lebanon and elsewhereto contact us if they want to join, share, participate in andcontribute with their recent experiences and productions.Contact the team in Amsterdam with all your questions,suggestions, contributions at: beirut@dischosting.nl

If you are in Lebanon and you want to contribute youcan also contact Tarek in Beirut: atouitarek@yahoo.fr
mobile:+961-3-190985

If you have material to contribute please upload it to our
ftp server:ftp://dischosting.nl (username: upload password:streamtime)
Web-site: beirut.dischosting.nl
Skype: streamtime-khalas cileland jo-streamtime
Chat: freenode #nida
Telephone: +31206279661 (Solidarity Fund X-Y)
This event is funded and facilitated by SolidarityFund X-Y
http://www.xminy.nl/
and initiated by Streamtime http://streamtime.org/

Founded in 2004, Streamtime is an international support campaign for Iraqi bloggers and engages with tactical media initiatives of artists and activists throughout the Middle East.

2006-08-07T07:39:00.000+01:00

A terrible thought occurs to me - that there will be another 9/11
Robert Fisk
Published: 05 August 2006
The Independent

The room shook. Not since the 1983 earthquake has my apartment rockedfrom side to side. That was the force of the Israeli explosions in thesouthern suburbs of Beirut - three miles from my home - and the airpressure changed in the house yesterday morning and outside in thestreet the palm trees moved.Is it to be like this every day? How many civilians can you makehomeless before you start a revolution? And what is next? Are theIsraelis to bomb the centre of Beirut? The Corniche? Is this why allthe foreign warships came and took their citizens away, to make Beirutsafe to destroy?Yesterday, needless to say, was another day of massacres, great andsmall. The largest appeared to be 40 farm workers in northern Lebanon,some of them Kurds - a people who do not even have a country. AnIsraeli missile was reported to have exploded among them as theyloaded vegetables on to a refrigerated truck near Al-Qaa, a smallvillage east of Hermel in the far north. The wounded were taken tohospital in Syria because the roads of Lebanon have now all beencratered by Israeli bomb-bursts. Later we learnt that an air strike ona house in the village of Taibeh in the south had killed sevencivilians and wounded 10 seeking shelter from attack.In Israel two civilians were killed by Hizbollah missiles but, asusual, Lebanon bore the brunt of the day's attacks which centred -incredibly - on the Christian heartland that has traditionally showngreat sympathy towards Israel. It was the Christian Maronite communitywhose Phalangist militiamen were Israel's closest allies in its 1982invasion of Lebanon yet Israel's air force yesterday attacked threehighway bridges north of Beirut and - again as usual - it was thelittle people who died.One of them was Joseph Bassil, 65, a Christian man who had gone out onhis daily jogging exercise with four friends north of Jounieh. "Hisfriends packed up after four rounds of the bridge because it was hot,"a member of his family told us later. "Joseph decided to do one morejog on the bridge. That was what killed him." The Israelis gave noreason for the attacks - no Hizbollah fighters would ever enter thisChristian Maronite stronghold and the only hindrance was caused tohumanitarian convoys - and there were growing fears in Lebanon thatthe latest air raids were a sign of Israel's frustration rather anyserious military planning.Indeed, as the Lebanon war continues to destroy innocent lives - mostof them Lebanese - the conflict seems to be increasingly aimless. TheIsraeli air force has succeeded in killing perhaps 50 Hizbollahmembers and 600 civilians and has destroyed bridges, milk factories,gas stations, fuel storage depots, airport runways and thousands ofhomes. But to what purpose?Does the United States any longer believe Israel's claims that it willdestroy Hizbollah when its army clearly cannot do anything of thekind? Does Washington not realise that when Israel grows tired of thiswar, it will plead for a ceasefire - which only Washington can deliverby doing what it most loathes to do: by taking the road to Damascusand asking for help from President Bashar al-Assad of Syria?What in the meanwhile is happening to Lebanon? Bridges and buildingscan be reconstructed - with European Union loans, no doubt - but manyLebanese are now questioning the institutions of the democracy forwhich the US was itself so full of praise last year. What is the pointof a democratically elected Lebanese government which cannot protectits people? What is the point of a 75,000-member Lebanese army whichcannot protect its nation, which cannot be sent to the border, whichdoes not fire on Lebanon's enemies and which cannot disarm Hizbollah?Indeed, for many Lebanese Shias, Hizbollah is now the Lebanese army.So fierce has been Hizbollah's resistance - and so determined itsattacks on Israeli ground troops in Lebanon - that many people here nolonger recall that it was Hizbollah which provoked this latest war bycrossing the border on 12 July, killing three Israeli soldiers andcapturing two others. Israel's threats of enlarging the conflict evenfurther are now met with amusement rather than horror by a Lebanesepopulation which has been listening to Israel's warnings for 30 yearswith ever greater weariness. And yet they fear for their lives. If TelAviv is hit, will Beirut be spared. Or if central Beirut is hit, willTel Aviv be spared? Hizbollah now uses Israel's language of an eye foran eye. Every Israeli taunt is met by a Hizbollah taunt.And do the Israelis realise that they are legitimising Hizbollah, thata rag-tag army of guerrillas is winning its spurs against an Israeliarmy and air force whose targets - if intended - prove them to be warcriminals and if unintended suggest that they are a rif-raff littlebetter than the Arab armies they have been fighting, on and off, formore than half a century? Extraordinary precedents are being set inthis Lebanon war.In fact, one of the most profound changes in the region these pastthree decades has been the growing unwillingness of Arabs to beafraid. Their leaders - our "moderate" pro-Western Arab leaders suchas King Abdullah of Jordan and President Mubarak of Egypt - may beafraid. But their peoples are not. And once a people have lost theirterror, they cannot be re-injected with fear. Thus Israel's consistentpolicy of smashing Arabs into submission no longer works. It is apolicy whose bankruptcy the Americans are now discovering in Iraq.And all across the Muslim world, "we" - the West, America, Israel -are fighting not nationalists but Islamists. And watching themartyrdom of Lebanon this week - its slaughtered children in Qanapacked into plastic bags until the bags ran out and their corpses hadto be wrapped in carpets - a terrible and daunting thought occurs tome, day by day. That there will be another 9/11.

Faut-il raser le Liban ?

2006-08-04T10:00:00.000+01:00

Par Mohamed KACIMI
QUOTIDIEN LIBERATION - FRANCE : Mardi 1er août 2006
Par Mohamed Kacimi écrivain.

Certes, Israël a «le droit de se défendre», mais au nom de quelle loi
a-t-il la liberté de saccager la vie et l'avenir de tout un pays ?
Aujourd'hui, il faut être d'une naïveté américaine pour croire que la
nouvelle guerre contre le Liban a été déclenchée à cause de
l'enlèvement de deux soldats israéliens (au demeurant druzes).
Connaissant le rôle que concède l'armée israélienne aux soldats issus
de cette communauté, il est étonnant de voir Israël lever une armée
de 100 000 hommes pour voler au secours de deux de ses supplétifs.

Dans les colonnes de Libération, l'un des stratèges israéliens
reconnaissait, aux premiers jours de la guerre, que l'invasion du
Liban était programmée de longue date. Dans cet Orient, imprévisible,
instable et parfois incompréhensible, il y a très peu de place pour
l'improvisation et surtout quand il s'agit d'orchestrer avec autant
de minutie la mise en coupe réglée de tout un pays. A voir l'ampleur
des dégâts et la puissance démentielle de feu utilisée par Israël, on
se demande si la véritable cible est bien le Hezbollah et non le
Liban. Depuis près de trois semaines, les missiles et les bombes ont
rasé les usines, les écoles, les aéroports, les écoles, des cinémas,
des champs d'oliviers et jeté sur les routes plus de 600 000
personnes. Le Liban coule, mais les roquettes du Hezbollah tombent
toujours sur la Galilée et rien, bien sûr, ne peut justifier ces
actes criminels qui visent des civils.

Depuis la fin de la guerre civile, le Liban, Sisyphe d'Orient, s'est
reconstruit d'une façon miraculeuse. Une nouvelle ville est née à
Beyrouth, peu importent les moyens déployés pour sa renaissance. Une
nouvelle génération née durant la guerre est venue au monde qui
voulait fermer définitivement la page des guerres et des conflits.
Durant un an, toute la société civile s'est mobilisée pour chasser
l'armée d'occupation, si ce n'est de colonisation syrienne, et se
battait pour chasser de la tête de l'Etat un président inféodé à
Damas. Israël intervient pour réduire en poussière tout ce chemin
parcouru. Car la principale victime, c'est bien le Liban dont les
infrastructures mais surtout la confiance en soi sont aujourd'hui
réduites à néant. Quant au Hezbollah, quelle que soit l'issue de ce
conflit, il sortira vainqueur de cette épreuve. L'adversité a
toujours été une bénédiction pour les mouvements religieux.
>
Au moment où l'Amérique de Bush rêve d'inculquer ou d'inoculer la
démocratie aux pays d'Orient, il serait bon de rappeler que le Liban
est aujourd'hui l'unique et seul pays du monde arabe où il existe une
presse libre, des télévisions libres, des élections libres. Un pays
où l'on peut prier en arabe, en syriaque ou en grec dans des églises
orthodoxes ou catholiques sans être lynché comme à Alexandrie où
décapité comme à Alger. Un pays où les femmes libres, comme nulle
part ailleurs, peuvent s'afficher en plein ramadan avec leur verre de
vin ou leur cigarette sans être vitriolées. Un pays où il existe,
malgré l'indigence des pouvoirs publics, un cinéma, une presse digne
de ce nom et une tradition théâtrale unique en son genre qui fait
qu'il y a un mois une troupe de jeunes filles jouait à Beyrouth les
Monologues du vagin en arabe. Un pays où tout un peuple peut
descendre dans la rue pour réclamer la vérité à son gouvernement,
sans être fauché par les balles des mitrailleuses, comme à Damas ou
finir dans les geôles, comme dans le Goulag de la Tunisie. Ce n'est
pas le Hezbollah qu'on casse, c'est l'ultime et unique espace de
liberté, de création et de subversion arabe qu'on détruit.
En fait, Israël réalise pour la deuxième fois le rêve secret de tous
les Etats arabes de la région, détruire cette cité paillarde,
frondeuse et insensée. Beyrouth, c'est Sodome pour les wahhabites
d'Arabie, Beyrouth, c'est Carthage pour les Alaouites de Syrie.
Damas, Aman, Riyad, Bagdad, La Mecque, l'ont rêvé, Tsahal l'a fait.
La preuve : les premiers à applaudir cette «intervention» furent les
Saoudiens, non par peur des Chiites, comme on veut le faire croire,
mais par haine de cette terre singulière du Liban où, malgré quinze
siècles de guerres et de persécutions, la voix des muezzins n'a pas
fait taire les cloches des églises. Ce n'est pas un fruit du hasard
si les missiles américains au laser qui se déversent sur le Liban
passent par les bases des Emirats arabes.

J'ai toujours pensé que toute concession faite aux islamistes est un
renoncement à la liberté, mais le Hezbollah n'est ni la nébuleuse
terroriste d'Al-Qaeda ni l'inculte et barbare GIA algérien. Au-delà
de sa milice mais que pèse-t-elle face à l'armée israélienne ?
c'est un parti qui siège au gouvernement et qui joue pleinement le
jeu démocratique. Il encadre, scolarise, et soigne la communauté la
plus importante du pays. Vouloir l'extirper du Liban comme l'OLP est
une grave erreur. Le Hezbollah n'est pas un corps étranger : il est
l'émanation, la respiration et la pensée de toute une communauté
pauvre et démunie. Depuis Kaboul, on sait que le désarroi des gens
n'est pas soluble dans le napalm. Quand j'entends «Condi» Rice parler
de cette guerre comme de la naissance d'un autre bébé-Orient, je
tremble pour le Liban. On sait les beaux bébés de démocratie faits
par les Américains en Somalie, en Afghanistan et en Irak. C'est
devenu un théorème physique : toute société plongée dans un plan
américain reçoit une poussée de haut en bas égale au nombre de
marines et de GI déplacés. Je parie même que si, un jour, les troupes
américaines occupaient le Vatican, on verrait au bout d'une semaine
le pape crier depuis le balcon de la place Saint-Pierre : Allah
Akbar !

Il reste une idée, si ce n'est un fantasme, à laquelle il faudrait un
jour ou l'autre tordre le coup, c'est «la menace arabe sur
Israël», «Ils veulent raser Israël». Ce fantasme est parfois à la
limite du risible. Chacun sait pourtant la nature totalitaire des
régimes de la région et du monde arabe, un chapelet de dictatures qui
s'égrène de Rabat à Bagdad, leur corruption, leur arriération, leur
sous-développement en tout, le sous-équipement de leurs armées. Je ne
sais quel dirigeant aurait demain le projet de s'attaquer à Israël, à
commencer par la Syrie qui, malgré l'occupation du Golan, n'a jamais
toléré le moindre jet de pierre depuis son territoire sur le sol
israélien. Non, les régimes arabes ne rêvent de raser qu'une seule
chose : leurs peuples. Comme le dit si bien ce proverbe
palestinien : «Le dirigeant juif a le cul sur le trône et les yeux
sur son peuple alors que le dirigeant arabe a les yeux sur le trône
et le cul sur le peuple.»

Israël n'a pas d'autre ennemi que lui-même, cette folie de
destruction de l'autre, que ce soit à Gaza ou à Beyrouth, ne lui
épargnera jamais la nécessité de voir la réalité en face, d'accepter
l'indépendance des Palestiniens, de reconnaître la souveraineté du
Liban. Les faits sont têtus, il faudra qu'un jour ou l'autre Israël
accepte le fait de ne pas être implanté en Floride et ce ne sont
surtout pas les bombes à fragmentation qui transformeront en un
siècle ou en mille les habitants de Damas, de Naplouse ou de Tyr en
Séfarades inconditionnels du Likoud.

Cette guerre fait d'autres dégâts qu'on ne soupçonne guère, car si du
côté français on veille, tous médias confondus, à la reléguer bien
loin derrière Zidane et la canicule et à n'en donner que les images
les plus soft, du côté des chaînes arabes, c'est une boucherie que
des millions de foyers vivent en direct avec les envoyés spéciaux
d'Al-Jezira et d'Al-Arabiya. Rien n'est épargné aux spectateurs, ni
les ambulances pulvérisées ni les corps fumants des enfants qui se
déversent par centaines dans les morgues du pays. Voilà les images,
les seules que les enfants du monde arabe ont d'Israël. Si Israël
réclame à chaque fois, et à juste titre, une condamnation de
l'antisémitisme qui se propage dans les communautés maghrébines et
arabes, il faudra qu'il donne une autre image que celle des drones et
des F16.

Nous sommes de plus en plus rares à défendre l'idée insensée mais
inéluctable d'une reconnaissance mutuelle entre Palestiniens et
Israéliens, rares à croire, envers et contre tous, en un avenir
possible et partagé pour les deux peuples, seule condition pour une
paix au Moyen-Orient. La paix d'Israël ne passera que par la liberté
du Liban. Et si cette vision paraît idéaliste, il est temps de se
souvenir de l'un des préceptes de mon cher Rabbi Nahman de
Braslav : «Si la paix se sauve, cours vite la rattraper.»

Dernier ouvrage paru : « Terre Sainte » , éd. l'Avant-scène -

2006-08-03T10:59:00.000+01:00

What a more Lebanese way to go on with our daily lives under fire.

The famous Beirut theater, Masrah Al Madina, is producing a show "Laughter under the Bombs" (literal translation).

This is a comedy based on improvisation and audience participation.

If you're in Beirut please try to be there; it's taking place on Thursday and Friday 6th and 7th of this month at 7.30 pm.

Free Entrance.

Ex-Press Middle East

2006-08-03T10:11:00.000+01:00

Call for Artistic protests

2006-08-02T16:57:00.000+01:00

This is not a call for burning flags or demonizing the guilty ones and blindfoldly fighting on the side of the righteous ones. Of course the "conflict in the Middle East" has a long history and there are many perspectives on its causes and responsibilities. Although a genuine debate on these issues is an urgent and necessary need the first and foremost step should now be the immediate halt of innocent loss of life. Our main aim is to respond to the disproportionate use of force by Israel and to the irresponsible exposure of innocent civilians to violence and death.
This is a general appeal, calling on everyone to contribute short statements in the form of texts (500 words), short video clips or other materializations of protest. A compilation of statements will be presented to major newspapers, the clips will be shown during the Biennale des Cinémas Arabes in Paris next week and other media. This appeal is initiated by Joana Hadjithomas, Adila Laidi, Alia Rayyan, and Fouad Asfour.

There is no deadline for contributions, we will try our best to screen/publish each of the submitted statements. We will notify you beforehand about the place and time of publication/screening of your text/video clip.

photo courtesy: "We do not leave Hamra" -Walid Sadek 2000 (Ashkal Alwan project)

Joana Hadjithomas, Adila Laidi, Alia Rayyan, and Fouad Asfour

Email to:
1001prod@cyberia.net.lb
texte@gmx.net

Mail to:
Hoda Kerbage C/O Mahmoud Harb 12 rue de quatre fages 75005 Paris
Roy Arida 56-58 rue de Bercy 75012 Paris

Preserving Lebanese culture

2006-08-02T16:38:00.000+01:00

[Taken from www.Babelmed.net website,The Mediterranean Cultures Site]

The critical circumstances that currently prevail in Lebanon, a country that has been for many years an ideal arena for liberal cultural practices based on tolerance and the acceptance of creative cultural diversity, poses an ethical responsibility on the world’s intellectuals and artists.

This responsibility can not be limited to attempting to put an end to the catastrophe that befalls the Lebanese people. It must extend to include new initiatives to refute the excuses and allegations used to justify the Israeli attack on Lebanon, and to turning a blind eye to it. It is an aggression that is threatening the lives of thousands of civilians, and forcing hundreds of thousands into compulsory displacement. In addition to the deliberate destruction of the civilian infrastructure, the Israeli onslaught is threatening tens of historical and archeological monuments in Baalbek and Tyre.

Monuments that stood for ages to ascertain the cultural characteristics of this ancient country. Similar attacks by the Israeli Army had previously destroyed important archeological sites in Nablus in Palestine.

Culture Resource calls upon the world’s cultural associations, artists and intellectuals to carry their moral responsibility in supporting and adopting all initiatives calling for:

- First and foremost, an immediate cease fire, and the provision of all forms of urgent humanitarian support to the civilian victims of the bombardment.

- Call upon cultural associations in the world to urge the parties to the conflict to abide by the UNESCO agreements for the protection of international cultural heritage during armed conflicts. Also to put an end to the Israeli aggression jeopardizing historical sites listed on the International Heritage List.

- Rebuild the infrastructure that was destroyed by Israeli bombardment, and reconstruct Lebanon, in order that it may regain its role as one of the active arenas of cultural expression and communication.

Culture Resource calls upon all the world’s cultural associations, artists and intellectuals to write, to that effect, to the offices of the UNESCO, and the UN and EU delegations in their countries.

Also to clearly voice their support to this statement, and their adoption of the ideas it promotes, through various mass media.

Culture Resource

Main Office: 34 Rue Berkmans, 1060 Brussels, Belgium
Regional Office: 43 El Mequyass St., Rodha, Cairo, Egypt,
Postal Code 11451, P.O. Box 175, Mohandessin
Fax: (202) 3626748 – Tel:(202) 3625057.

www.mawred.org

2006-08-02T16:22:00.000+01:00

For the Lebanese to return to war is to return to one's senses
Firas Zbib
Beirut, 21/07/06
(Translated from Arabic by Robin Moger)

When a woman is waiting to give birth she packs a bag full of clothes ready for the moment when she'll have to make a dash for the hospital and deliver her baby. In the same way, my mother packed for flight. Methodically arranging her possessions she was neither calm nor afraid, taking her time and carefully considering everything we'd need if we had to leave our house and flee. Not that danger was imminent or she knew for sure we'd have to go: it was just if we were forced to move, it would happen too fast for us to gather our things.
It wasn't fear that made her rummage around for the small torch which she'd mislaid through lack of use. Neither was it fear that made our neighbor the widow fill every bottle she could find with water before opening every window in her flat and going to bed.

The Lebanese have come to understand war more than they fear it. Unlike the foreign tourists who left when this latest war began, they have nowhere to go. They remain behind and become a war people: a nation returning to the instincts, mentality and reactions of conflict.
It's not fear that makes us adapt so quickly to wartime routines but rather an inner instinct, something we carry with us and are powerless to resist. It wells up inside us and changes the way we speak and think, as if the habits of the old civil war had never left us.
War and its customs come back to the Lebanese like a man who hasn't set foot in the sea for years, but the instant he plunges in, he discovers he still knows how to swim.
Some of us returned to wartime habits before the war had even begun. Beirutis flooded the petrol stations and drained them of fuel. One young pump attendant was astonished: "What's up with people?" he asked, "They can't bring themselves to believe that there's no shortage of fuel."

In a few short hours people's attention had swung from the finer things in life to its absolute necessities: candles, water and food. When the power went down for the first day, kids throughout the city sat down to play cards. These were the same kids who had done nothing but watch television all their lives, right up until the moment when the lights went out.
The doorman of Beirut's residential buildings went down to the bomb shelters to do a spot of spring cleaning and sprucing in anticipation of the residents' imminent arrival. They swept out the clutter of peacetime, killing the rats and crushing the cockroaches. They were cleaning the shelters for ordinary citizens, but the shelters continued to stand empty.

The war hadn't reached it yet, but the Beirut has become a city at war: the shops are closed, the streets are empty, the hospitals are gearing up and people everywhere are waiting.
It is almost as if the Lebanese are carrying on the old war, not starting a new one. The war has returned as if reassuming its rightful place; the onlooker feels that he has returned to his senses. If you want a break from the endless images of war and destruction it's no longer enough to turn off your television; the scenes play on around you.
The Lebanese are scrambling to buy electricity generators, radios and torches. The man who has left his brothers and sisters behind him in the South begins to think of them again and makes endless calls to check that they're alright.
War draws people together: it makes perfect strangers greet each other in the street and ask about the future. In wartime future is a personal thing: to each his future. Only in peacetime, when life is as it should be, is future one dream, shared by all.

In place of Haifa Wahbi and Nancy Ajram's pop hits, the TV stations have started to air patriotic anthems during program breaks. The voices of Julia Boutros, Marcel Khalifa and Fairuz have returned, singing of love for one's country to the patter of hand drums. Old songs from an old war and older revolution. The Lebanese have arrived at this, their latest war, on the ruins and memories of the previous conflict. Just as these bygone anthems are deeply familiar to the Lebanese today, so is this latest war welcomed like an old friend.

The young man, who was a happy heedless child during the last war, is listening to the news broadcasts. He's asking himself how he'll feel when the war and its thunder reach Beirut. Will he be afraid, or will it remind him of lost childhood? Will he long for it?

What next for the Children of the War

2006-08-02T12:10:00.000+01:00

'You go a bit crazy when you see little body after little body coming up out of the ground' Huge numbers of children are being killed, injured or displaced in south Lebanon. Why are so many suffering in this conflict?
Ghaith Abdul-Ahad reports Wednesday August 2, 2006
The Guardian

A man screams for help as he carries the body of a young girl after Israeli air strikes on the southern Lebanese village of Qana.
Photograph: Nicolas Asfouri/AFP/Getty Images

Three days ago, next to the gutted and destroyed house in Qana, seven bodies lay covered with bedsheets, a blanket and a prayer mat. One small arm stretched out from under the sheets; thin, the arm of a little girl, a piece of cloth like a bracelet wrapped around the wrist. As bodies were loaded on the stretcher, I saw another dead girl; she was dressed in a black shirt with a coloured scarf wrapped loosely around her head. Her face was swollen.

In some ways I was relieved. The rumour we had heard in the hotel in Tyre was that at least 40 people, half of them children, had been in the house in Qana when it was bombed by Israeli planes, and here I was an hour later, with Red Cross workers and others running up and down, and all I could see was the bodies of two girls and five adults.
It's weird, the things that make you feel better in the south of Lebanon, but seven dead instead of 40 gave me a sense of relief.

But even as I stood there registering that emotion, hellish scenes were unfolding. Four medics carried a little boy by on an orange stretcher: he was perhaps 12 years old, dressed in black shorts and a white T-shirt with a coloured motorcycle on it. His arms were stretched behind his head, but apart from the bruises on his face and the swollen lips, he looked OK. For half a second I told myself, as I tell myself every time I see death, that he was just sleeping, and that he would be fine. But he was dead.

Then came two more boys in the arms of the rescuers. One of them, the younger, around eight years old, had his arms close to his chest, his nose and mouth covered with blood. The elder, around 10, had dirt and debris in his mouth. Their slight bodies were put on a blanket, the head of the younger boy left resting on the shoulder of the elder, then four men carried the blanket off, stopping twice to rest as they took them away. The bodies of the boys were piled with other corpses in the back of an ambulance.

Two more small dead boys followed them. The medics were running out of stretchers, so they piled the corpses of the boys on one orange stretcher. One of the kids was slightly chubby; he was wearing a red T-shirt and shorts. His head rested on the lap of the younger, who was about six years old; both had the same exploding lips, covered with blood and dirt. It was obvious to everyone that these boys were not sleeping.

Then another child was pulled from under the rubble, and another followed, and then another. You go a little crazy when you see little body after little body coming up out of the ground. I looked around me and all I could see in the house was the detritus of their short lives - big plastic bags filled with clothes, milk cans, plastic toys and a baby carriage.

By three in the afternoon, when the corpse of a one-year-old boy was pulled from the rubble, he looked more like a mud statue than a child. The medics held him high above their heads, clear of the rubble. The faces of the rescue workers said everything that needed to be said.
What is obvious to everyone covering this conflict is that children are bearing the brunt of it. The few official figures collated so far seem to support this. Unicef says that 37 of the 60 dead in Qana on Sunday were children, and everywhere you go, it seems that it is the children who are being killed, injured and displaced. Yesterday the Lebanese government said that of the 828 of its civilians killed in the conflict so far, around 35% have been children - that's around 290. Unicef also estimates that about a third of the dead have been children, although it bases that figure on the fact that an estimated 30% of Lebanon's population are children, rather than any actual count of the dead. There are no official figures yet for the number of wounded children, but they will certainly exceed the number killed; as for those displaced, Unicef says that 45% of the estimated 900,000 Lebanese to have fled their homes are children.

Aid agencies believe that the reason children are suffering so much in this conflict is because of the big families that are traditional in south Lebanon. "You are not talking about nuclear families, you are talking about families huddling together with four, five or six children. Inevitably, a high percentage of children are killed," says Anis Salem, a Unicef spokesman. "We estimate that before Qana, 30% of the deaths were children, but it is a very fluid situation and that figure can quickly become redundant."

It is not just a matter of many children huddled together, of course: with numbers come all sorts of problems. If an air raid is coming, and you are running, how many children can you pick up and carry with you? How many do you have to leave behind?
Children often suffer most in wars like this - wars in which civilians suffer heavy casualties. They are weaker, they may be too small to run or walk, they may suffer more on long journeys by foot. And as Amelia Bookstein, head of humanitarian policy at Save the Children, points out: "Children who are wounded, separated from their families, or traumatised, may be too frightened or unable to flee their homes."

There are the official statistics, and then there are the children, who seem to be everywhere in the heart of this conflict, all with their own, painful, awful stories. A week ago I met Abbas Sha'ito, a chubby 12-year-old boy in a bright orange T-shirt who was sitting on the side of a road south of Tyre, blood covering his face, his T-shirt torn by the bomb that had hit the minivan he had been in. He and 17 others had been inside; his mother, brother and aunt were all injured, moaning and in agony a few feet away. Inside the minivan remained the headless corpse of his uncle, and the bodies of his grandmother and another man who had been fleeing with them.
Abbas was weeping, and had an arm round his mother, who seemed to be fading fast: she was injured in the chest and head, and one of her arms was almost severed at the bicep.

"Don't leave me, mother," the boy wept. "Don't go, don't go."
It was clear that his mother believed herself to be close to death. "Take care of your brothers and sisters," she said to Abbas.
"Don't leave me," Abbas kept saying.
"My purse is under me. There is money, take care of it," his mother said; as she did, her head began drooping, and Abbas screamed, and a medic rushed in: "Don't cry, don't cry, she will be OK. Just keep talking to her," the medic said.
As it is, Abbas's mother is still alive, although still in intensive care, but Abbas was not to know this then. He buried his face in his hands and wept, while his brother Ali stood nearby, one hand bandaged and his eyes on the horizon.

Last Wednesday, in a hospital in Tyre, I met Samah Shihab, a seven-year-old girl with beautiful long eyelashes from the hamlet of Mlooka near Tyre. She was in the yard of her house with her two brothers, aged four and nine, and her 14-year-old sister, when a shell fell. "I was playing with my sister and brothers when the rocket came," said Samah. "They started screaming and crying. There was pressure in my ears and my hands and legs were all in blood. I was scared. My brother was screaming and I was scared." According to her doctors, Samah, who was badly burned and needs skin grafts on her legs, is unlikely to walk again.

On Monday I met Ali (he didn't give me a second name), who is nine and had been hiding in the basement of his house, along with his aunts, his grandmother and an uncle with learning difficulties, for 20 days in the village of Bint Jbeil. While the family hid below, war raged above: the village has suffered the heaviest shelling of anywhere in the south of Lebanon, as well as intense street battles between Israeli soldiers and Hizbullah fighters. When Ali emerged from the basement on Monday, during a brief halt to the aerial bombardment, he was visibly frightened and shocked, and seemed unable to recognise his surroundings.
As he made his first steps on the big chunks of rubble and concrete strewn everywhere, clutching a bottle of water in one arm and a blue bag in the other, he began shaking and crying. His grandfather, who was leading him through the rubble, collapsed in the shade of a doorway, and Ali and other family members continued their walk to the Red Cross vehicles - parked a kilometre away, at the edge of the village, beyond the edge of the vast and almost impassable rubble field - without him. I walked with them.

As we walked, jumping from one boulder to the other, Ali said: "My father and mother went with my other brothers and sisters to another town. They said they will come and get me when the bombs stop."
In the scorching sunshine above, Israeli jets were flying, their sound mixed with that of the drones. Suddenly a thud came from the hills and Ali froze. "They are going to bomb again!" He started to cry. "Why are the Israelis hitting us? Do they hate us? My cousin Mahmoud called me on the phone and he told me that the nuclear bombs are really big. Are they as big as these rockets?" It's hard to convey quite how shocked, perhaps quite literally shell-shocked - this little boy was. He was almost delusional.

We reached the town square. There was a large, deep crater on one side of it, and a half-destroyed petrol station on the other. Burnt-out cars lay flipped over on to their sides. A few hundred metres later we had to stop for a rest. Ali opened his blue bag and got out a small green bottle of mineral water. It had only a few centimetres left, but he sipped some and passed it to me. I was about to throw the bottle away when he said, "No, no, this is my charm - it's green, the colour of Imam Hussein." (Imam Hussein was the grandson of the prophet Muhammad; he is central to the Shia faith, and a great symbol of martyrdom.)

A few hundred metres further on we reached the Red Cross ambulances. Ali squeezed in with his aunts and other women and children; they were to be taken to the displacement centres in Sidon and Beirut. Ali, it turned out, was fortunate. As I left town, I saw, all along the road, children and their families who had been forced to walk to safety. One father was pushing a wheelbarrow with four young children inside.

In another hospital in Tyre, which has seen 120 injured and 35 dead so far, I meet the young son of the head of the hospital. Muhammad Najem, 11, spends his days inside where it's safe, because a week ago a car was hit by a missile on the road directly outside the hospital. Muhammad draws on a computer: his latest drawing is of Hizbullah fighter. Next to the fighter is a star of David stabbed with a dagger - blood drips down into a vat full of blood marked "Hell".
His elder brother Ali Najem, a fourth-year medical student in his 20s, is rueful. "The Israelis are planting very bad hatred in the children against Israel," he says. Ali has spent the past three weeks documenting the stories of the children who have passed injured or with their injured families through his father's hospital. He particularly remembers one boy, aged about seven, who was caught in a convoy that was hit in the first days of the bombing. This boy described to him, quite calmly, "as if it were a cartoon", how a baby from the car in front of them was ejected out of the window when the vehicle was hit. The boy's father had been killed at the scene.

Ali also talks about the impact on women delivering babies in the midst of conflict. In the first week of the war one of them named her new son Intisar, which means victory. In the past week, two new names have been given to newborns at this hospital: "Wahid, which means 'the lonely', and Dayaa, which means 'the lost'." The woman who gave birth to Dayaa did so alone, having been separated from her husband somewhere in the Bekaa Valley. Ali says that she became disturbed, and called out to her husband: "If you don't come and take me out of this place, I will put myself under these bombs and kill myself and the baby."

For newborns, as well as for the older children, the scars of this war are going to take a long time to fade.

ACTION PAR SMS

2006-08-01T13:13:00.000+01:00

A tous ceux qui habitent en France, la Croix-Rouge
francaise lance l'Opération « un SMS pour le Proche-Orient » :

Site web de l'opération:
http://www.croix-rouge.fr/goto/actualites/liban/liban-cp6.asp

Comuniqué de presse:

Pour récolter les fonds nécessaires au financement de ses actions
humanitaires engagées au Proche-Orient, et en relais de l'appel à don
de 6,4 millions d'euros du CICR, la Croix-Rouge française lance
l'opération « un SMS pour le Proche-Orient ».

Le principe est simple. Il suffit d'envoyer le mot « Liban » au 83 002.
75 centimes d'euros seront reversés directement à la Croix-Rouge
française pour financer ses actions sur le terrain (coût total du sms
surtaxé, 1,5 euros, hors prix du sms).

Cette opération est lancée en partenariat et avec le
soutien de M6, Radio Orient et JETMULTIMEDIA.

2006-08-01T13:03:00.000+01:00

48 heures.

Ecrit par Nagy Sourati

Beyrouth,

le 31/07/06

48 heures d'accalmie.
48 heures pour se préparer psychologiquement audéluge.
48 heures pour permettre à certains d'aller vérifier s'il reste quelque chose à sauver dans ce qui fût un jour leurmaison, leurquartier, leur village...
Ainsi ceux-là perdront à jamais le sens del'orientation et la notiond'espace...
ils ne retrouverons ni leurs maisons, ni leur quartier, ni les ruelles,et parfois même pas le village...
48 heures pour noyer ce qui reste de la notion dutemps...
ici, on ne sait plus quel jour de la semaine on est,
on ne se retrouve plus avec les dates: aujourd'hui c'est le jour 20.
Aujourd'hui quand on m'a appelé pour me dire qu'on avait besoin de lait pour un enfant qui n'a que 25 jours, je me suis dit: il avait 5 jours quand ça a commencé.

48 heures pour faire de sorte à ce que le monde oublice qui s'estpassé hier à Cana.
48heures pour que ceux qui avaient décidé de rester mourir dans leur jardin au Sud, prennent la route vers le Nord...
le jardin n'est plus là pour qu'ils y meurent.
Ils ont marché dans la poussière, dans les décombres,laissant derrière eux leur vie...
et des cadavres...
Ils ont marché, terrorisés d'être bombardés comme beaucoup d'autres avant eux...
certains avaient des enfants dans les bras...
j'ai bien regardé pour m'assurer qu'ils étaient vivants cesenfants...
parcequ'ils ne bougeaient pas...
Ils ont beaucoup marché, mais ce soir ils étaient assis sur le bord de la route ne sachant où aller...
plus de place dansles écoles etles lieux publics...

48 heures qui ont aussi permis à la croix rouge d'arriver à certains villages du trés Sud Liban... non, pas tous les villages, certains comme Blila où on sait que 300 personnes sont bloquées sans vivresrestent inaccessibles...
Mais Bint Jbeil, ils ont pu y arriver... à pieds certes...
Le paysage n'est pas seulement apocalyptique,
il est surréel!
La déstruction est indéscriptible.
Pour trouver les survivants, il fallait crier etattendre pourlocaliser les sons, les voix, puis procéder audéterrement...
La plupart de ceux qui étaient resté sont vieux, trés vieux.
certains ne se souviennent plus de leurs âges,certains ne se souviennent plus de leurs noms!
Ils ne savent plus non plus depuis quand ils se sontcachés dans les abris où ils étaient désormais prisonniers.
Ainata, la Croix Rouge y a accédé aussi...
à Ainata, les chiens mangeaient les cadavres...
les secouristes ont ramassé des morceaux decadavres...
des pieds...
A Srifa, la Croix Rouge a pu retirer les 26 cadavres des victimes dubombardement du 19 juillet (jour 8).

48 heures pour que dans le silence relatif l'arméeIsraélienneprocède à des enlèvements dans les villages où ses soldats arrivent à s'infiltrer comme à Maroun al Rass.
48 heures d'accalmie qui finalement n'étaient pas sicalme que ça...
les affrontements dûs aux infiltrations étaientnombreuxaujourd'hui...
Même Tyr à été bombardée aujourd'hui:un poste del'armée Libanaise.

Tout ça, je ne sais pas si les médias internationnaux en ont parlé...
Je ne regarde plus les infos sur les chaînes internationales...

2006-08-01T12:49:00.000+01:00

DEAD ARE MY PEOPLE
by Gibran Khalil Gibran
(1883 - 1931)

Written in exile during the famine Syria [and Lebanon] in World War I

My people died on the cross....

They died while their hands
stretched toward the East and West
While the remnants of their eyes
Stared at the blackness of the
Firmament...They died silently
For humanity had closed its ears

To their cry. They died because
They died because
They placed trust in all humanity.
They died because they did not
Oppress the oppressors. They died
Because they were the crushed

Flowers, and not the crushing feet.
They died because they were peace
Makers. They perished from hunger
In a land rich with milk and honey.
They died because monsters of
Hell arose and destroyed all that
Their fields grew, and devoured the
Last provisions in their bins....
They died because the vipers and
Sons of vipers spat out poison into
The space where the Holy Cedars and
The roses and the jasmine breathe
Their fragrance.

2006-08-01T12:18:00.000+01:00

THE FACE OF IMMORTALITY
http://welcometomydream.blogspot.com/

LONDON EVENT

2006-08-01T12:10:00.000+01:00

Dear Friends,
I am writing to invite you to a special Fund Raiser for Lebanon this Thursday 3rd of August from 6pm onwards at Darbucka – "the vision of Musician Ahmad Mohammad." Our goal is to collect funds to purchase urgently needed medicines in Lebanon.

Programme:
- Donations at the door
- Factual poster exhibition by Lebanese designers Alya Karame, Zeina Maasri and Rasha Kahil
- Raffle, posters and badges on sale (all proceeds go to the medical fund)
- Darbucka will provide Lebanese Mezze dishes at £10, £5 to go to the medical fund.
- Live music
- Tribal dancers

A whole evening dedicated to the humanitarian cause.Join us and
forward this email to others.

Location:
Darbucka
http://www.multimap.com/map/browse.cgi?lient=public&search_result=&db=pc&lang=&keepicon=true&pc=EC1V4JZ&advanced=&client=public&addr2=&quicksearch=EC1V%204JZ&addr3=&addr1=
St John's Street
London EC1V 4JZ

http://www.darbucka.com

Darbucka Gallery:
http://blogon.saatchi-allery.co.uk/2006/07/natalya_critchley_at_darbucka.php

Temoignage de Maxime

2006-08-01T11:15:00.000+01:00

Salut a tous!! Je m'appelle Maxime. Peu importe mon âge ... Bon alors voila, je suis libanais a 100% et je vis au Liban depuis ma tendre enfance. C'est vrai, je n'habite pas à Beyrouth, ni dans la banlieue sud, ni dans une de ces villes du sud de notre pays qui subit sans cesse les bombardements israéliens. En fait je vis à environ 25 km au nord de Beyrouth. Tout ceci fait que l'on n'est pas visé directement par les bombardements, et je ne vais pas m'en plaindre, mais on est quand même directement concernés par tout ce qui se passe (eh oui, c'est quand même notre pays!). Les israéliens s'acharnent sans arrêt sur les ponts, sur les aéroports, sur les routes principales, sur les installations électriques et pétrolières du Liban... Ils détruisent carrément le pays, qui est retourné 10 ans en arrière. Tous nos parents et grands-parents affirment que tous ces bombardements leur rappellent la guerre du Liban, ce qui est très triste. Le Hezbollah, lui, considéré (quand même!!!) comme une organisation terroriste, a pris le Liban en otage, et a dominé la totalité du gouvernement qui n'arrive pas à prendre une décision convenable. Voila, sinon , on attend tous impatiemment la fin du conflit, pour voir comment va être reconstruit ce pays qu'on aime tous et qu'on n'est pas prêt de quitter...

[Ce temoignange a ete pris du blog de Lea http://savelebanon2006.skyblog.com/]

Appel aux plus jeunes

2006-08-01T11:14:00.000+01:00

Bonjour,

Je m'appelle Lea Labaki, j'ai quinze ans, et je viens de créer un blog pour les jeunes sur la situation actuelle au Liban. Je voudrais qu'il soit surtout alimenté par des témoignages et des articles de jeunes vivant au Liban ou qui viennent d'en revenir.Est-ce que vous pourriez demander à vos enfants ou à des jeunes que vous connaissez de m'envoyer des textes ou des photos?

L'adresse e-mail est:
save_lebanon_2006@hotmail.com.

L'adresse du blog:
http://savelebanon2006.skyblog.com

Merci d'avance.
Lea

2006-08-01T10:49:00.000+01:00

The Relief Centre – Sanayeh is a gathering of a number of groups who were in the field from the beginning of the Israeli attack on Lebanon. The centre is coordinating relief efforts in Beirut and gathering and transmitting information from the field, as well as organizing political activities on the local and international levels to challenge the complicity of the so-called “international community”.The relief work is focusing on 27 schools in the capital, Beirut.

At the last count the schools hold 8,837 internally displaced persons who have fled from Southern Lebanon and the southern suburbs of Beirut.

Among this population a large number are children who are less than five years of age according to our surveys there are:

488 children less than one year of age
721 children between 1 and 2 years
191 children between 2 and 5 years

The relief activities being carried out include provision of basic living needs:

food and water
child care needs
sanitary and hygiene products
medicines
mattresses and blankets

The supplies for this are collected through local and international support campaigns.The statistics that we had as of the 7th day of the attacks show the following needs (we anticipate that these quantities might double in the coming days):

Blankets and mattresses: about 5000

Baby formula/milk: 124 medium tins/day

Diapers: 125 medium packs/day

Women’s sanitary products: 4400 packs/month

Water: 17647Liters/day

Food portions: 1 meal/person/day

Medical care provision in 14 schools in collaboration with the American University of Beirut – Medical Centre / mobile medical units.

Activities for children – psychology/animation team.In addition we are distributing donated clothes and toys.

All of our work is carried out by volunteers. The effort was initiated by a coalition of groups which had organized an action in solidarity with the people of the Gaza strip, which provided the first 65 volunteers who make up the core of our efforts. The number of additional volunteers fluctuates from day to day but typical we have about 230 people engaged in relief work.The vehicles used for our work are those belonging to the volunteers, who are paying for gasoline used. This is not a significant burden presently but we may need to raise money for it in the future.The activities are organized by our committees/teams:

Volunteers Team:
new volunteers are registered and divided into teams to:
Provide food and other supplies to schools
Field surveys of schools to identify additional needs

Supplies team:
Track incoming supplies and supply them to distribution groups.

Medical team:
Survey specific medical needs/supplies
Provide medical assistance in association with AUB-MC and in collaboration with the Lebanese Red Cross
Distribute medical supplies to schools through a mobile clinic (capacity one visit/school every two days).

Fundraising and finance group:
Seek resources for additional funding (international and local donors)
Management of donations and funds

Coordination and communication team:
Manage operations room
Provide permanent communication channels linking the different teams and the media centre.

Media Centre:
Provide information to the international activist community
Prepare publicity and analytical material to support the “Samidoun” campaign (written, audiovisual, and web material)
Coordinate with media outlets in Lebanon and internationally

Child intervention team (a group of animators and psychologists):
Activities to entertain children
Interventions for children in need of specialized psychological care
Provide activities for youth and mothers

Information team:
Receive, exchange, and disseminate information from the our field teams (volunteers, supplies, and fundraising).
Compile a statistical data base.

Finally, the Relief Centre - Sanayeh belongs to the Samidoun Media Center, which transmits information on the relief center to the national and international media.
We have a presence in the following schools:

Madame Beayneh School
Fakhreddine School
Khaliyyeh Saudiyyeh School
Zahya Ayyoub School
Maari School
HIRIJJ Beirut School
Rass el Nabeh School 1st for girls
Koliyyat fonoon (Lebanese University Faculty of Fine Arts)
Mar Sawarios School
BBS – Beirut Baptist School
Reneh Moawad -Ramlel Zareef School
Ibin Roushod School
Al Irshad School
Amlyeh High School
Fakhreddine Nwayri School
Amlyet For girls School
Basta Fawqa School for Boys
Rasselnabeh 2nd moukhtalata School
Maari School 2 (Palace)
Raml el Zaidanieyeh School
Hassan Khaled (hawd el willayah) School
Al Mostaqbal Official/ Al Banat 1 (official) School
Madina Theatre
Sanayie Public Garden
Mazraa school
Sarolla Building
CIS

The network we have established over the 8 days since the beginning of the Israeli aggression and which has carried out all of this work is still evolving. We think that it is a noteworthy and positive example of cooperation among the people of this country, both Lebanese and Palestinian, from all sects and walks of life, belying the image portrayed by the international media of discord and tension amongst the Lebanese. In the present state of siege, only an effort of this kind can prevent critical damage to the Lebanese social fabric. We do not have the resources we need here, and at the same time we cannot wait for a purely international effort. Only by combining the hard work of volunteers in the field with the assistance of our international allies can we deal with this situation.

For more information and how you can help: http://sanayehreliefcenter.blogspot.com/

Anonymous Help

2006-07-31T17:31:00.000+01:00

[I understand many of you do not want to express their feelings about this war or simply you do not feel familiar with or close enough to any of the parties involved. This message is a call for those who want to help CIVILIANS, innocent human beings, children, women, men, people like you and I (but unfortunaley they are not comfortably sitting in their living rooms watching the events on their screens.) They are waiting in schools, in cinemas, in hospitals for the war to stop to resume their daily life...for many they'll have to start their life from scratch.
For those of you who want to help for a humanitarian reason rather than a political one. Anything is needed really: 1$ is the cost of a loaf of bread enough to feed an entire family for 2-3 days, BPD1 can buy 2 gallons of water, E1 can buy some cheese, milk or a diaper...ANYTHING IS NEEDED for the children who are suffering and their mothers who are helpless.
By the way, if you're wondering how you can help the Israeli civilians and children as well , which is fair enough since they are also victims of this conflict, you can get more information on http://www.beliefnet.com/story/196/story_19637_1.html, every child needs our attention and help.]

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS:

Mercy CorpsDept.
WPO Box 2669Portland, OR, 97208-2669
Tel: 888-256-1900
http://www.mercycorps.org

Since 1979, MercyCorps has worked on unified global programs to address disasters, conflicts and chronic poverty. It is currently distributing food packages to hundreds of displaced Lebanese families and have their staff on the ground to keep track of worsening human conditions and provide any assistance necessary to refugees.

Doctors Without Borders
333 7th Avenue, 2nd FloorNew York, NY, 10001-5004
Tel: 212-679-6800
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/donate/index.cfm

Doctors without Borders has said it will be shipping 80 tons of nonmedical aid to Lebanon, including tents, blankets, packs of hygiene products and cooking equipment.

American Near East Refugee Aid

1522 K. Street, NW, Suite 600Washington, DC 20005
Tel: 202-842-2766
http://www.anera.org/

This organization was founded in 1968 after the Arab-Israeli war of 1967 to help displaced Palestinians, and today ANERA has a number of projects to improve communities in Lebanon, Jordan, the West Bank and Gaza.

International Medical Corps
1919 Santa Monica Boulevard, Suite 300Santa Monica, CA, 90404
Tel: 800-481-4462
http://www.imcworldwide.org/index.shtml

The International Medical Corps (IMC) is a global humanitarian charity dedicated to saving lives and relieving the suffering of refugees through health care training and relief and development programs. It was established in1984 by volunteer nurses and doctors. The group is working now to create Mobile Health Teams to bring medicine and treatment to Lebanese refugees.

Islamic Relief
P.O. Box 6098Burbank, CA 91510
Tel: 888-479-4968
http://www.irw.org/mideast/

Islamic Relief, founded in 1993, strives to alleviate hunger, illiteracy and disease around the world. Among other projects, it is currently is providing emergency medical, educational and developmental relief to displaced Lebanese and Palestinians in the Middle East.

AmeriCares
88 Hamilton AvenueStamford, CT 06902
Tel: 800-486-4357
http://www.americares.org/

AmeriCares is a disaster relief and humanitarian aid organization that provides emergency medical needs and other assistance to people around the world regardless of race, religion or creed. AmeriCares is providing relief to the Lebanon and Gaza region, and is supporting refugee camps and hospitals in and around Beirut. It is also working with the American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) to provide assistance to displaced Lebanese.

[Also to donate online go to:

http://www.unicef.org.uk/emergency/emergency_detail.asp?emergency=28&nodeid=e28&section=3

http://www.savethechildren.org.uk/scuk/jsp/resources/details.jsp?id=4281&group=resources§ion=news&subsection=details&gawcam=mec&gawadgrp=mec1]

LOCAL/GRASSROOTS ORGANIZATIONS IN LEBANON

[The following organizations are collecting money to buy basic supplies for the internally displaced populations in Lebanon and provide them with food, water, and medical treatment. We ask everyone who can send donations, however small, to please do so. See below for bank account information and contact your bank to find out how to transfer funds.]

Al Huda Society, Ras Beirut.
Director: Najla Nusseir Bashour-
A/C No: 02 02 43020 047465
Allied Bank, Hamra Branch
UID: CH035040SWIFT: MEDLLBBX-

JP Morgan Chase Bank, New York
A/C No: 544729035-

Bank of New York, New York
A/C No: 8900057343

Relief Center, Sanayeh Garden, Beirut.
http://sanayehreliefcenter.blogspot.com/
c/o Georges Azzi (founding member of 05 Amam: www.05amam.org)
Bank Name: Credit Libanais SAL Beirut – Agence Sassine
Swift Code: CLIBLBBXClient
Name: M. Al Azzi Georges Chaker
Account Number: 043.001.180.0006817.35.6

Update: if unable to send money to the account listed, plz send through the Greenline Association. for more info, check here.

The Lebanese Red Cross working with the International Red Cross
Audi Bank, Bab Idriss
Account No: 841500Swift: AUDBLBBX

Mercy Corps has set up a special fund to donations to Lebanon
http://www.mercycorps.org/topics/middleeastcrisis/1356
You can donate directly on the internet:here
Donate by Phone: 1 (888) 256-1900 (toll-free)
Donate by Mail: Mercy Corps / Dept W / PO Box 2669 / Portland OR 97208

Green Line Association
Bank of Kuwait and the Arab World s.a.l.
Beirut, Lebanon
Beneficiary Name: Green Line Association
Beneficiary Account: 10USD4612006189003
Swift Code: BKAWLBBE

For USD transfers:
The correspondents in USA with their SWIFT BIC codes are:

1. Bank of New York
New York USA
SWIFT code: IRVTUS3N

2. HSBC Bank
New York USA
SWIFT code: MRMDUS33

3. American Express Bank Ltd.
New York USA
SWIFT code: AEIBUS33

For Euro transfers:
The correspondents in France and Germany with their SWIFT codes respectively are:

1. Societe GeneraleParis -
France
SWIFT code: SOGEFRPP

2. Dresdner Bank AG
Frankfurt - Germany
SWIFT code: DRESDEFF

ADVOCACY ASSISTANCE

* For US citizens, please write or call to your state senators or representatives and let them know how you feel about the atrocities in Lebanon. In a Senate vote two days ago, every senator voted in full-support of Israel. Attached are two draft letters, one calls governments to speak up about the worsening humanitarian situation, while the other calls for political action. You can find your Congressional representatives contact information on the following link:- http://www.congress.org/congressorg/directory/congdir.tt
You can find links to other representatives such as state and local officials, Senators, the Vice-President and the President at:- http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/

* Write or Call the American and Israeli Embassies in your respective countries. Let them know exactly what you think about US silence and unquestioned support of Israel’s military actions, let them know your fear that these actions may engender much larger threats to Israel, the US, and the region at large.You can find the link to your respective US embassies, their addresses and telephone numbers at the following link:
http://usembassy.state.gov/

For the Israeli embassies worldwide and their information go to:http://mfa.gov.il/mfm/web/main/default.asp?

* Sign the petitions and polls that are circulating in support of Lebanon. The following is a link to an international petition supporting Lebanon you should sign.
http://julywar.epetitions.net

And here is a link to a CNN poll about whether you think Israeli aggression on Lebanon is justified. Scroll down the article you will see the poll on the right.
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/07/13/mideast/index.html

* Raise Awareness among the people you know. You can start by forwarding this message on to your list of contacts.

Remembering Qana

2006-07-31T11:34:00.000+01:00

When I looked up Qana online to find more historic details about this village, that's the description I found:

"Qana 33°12′33″N, 35°17′57″E (in Arabic: قـانـا) is a village located southeast of Tyre in Southern Lebanon. It has been the location of two separate incidents in which the Israeli Defense Forces caused civilian deaths during military operations (Operation Grapes of Wrath and the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict):

-1996 shelling of Qana: On 18 April 1996, amid heavy fighting between the Israeli Defense Forces and Hezbollah during "Operation Grapes of Wrath", a Fijian UNIFIL compound in the village was shelled by Israeli artillery, killing 106 civilians and injuring around 116 others who had taken refuge there to escape the fighting. Four UNIFIL soldiers were also seriously injured.

-2006 Qana airstrike: On 30 July 2006, during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, after claims from Israel that more than 150 missiles had been fired from the village towards civil towns in Israel and two days of warnings had been given to the citizens of Qana to leave the village, a double airstrike on the town killed at least 60 people (including 37 children) and injured many others when an apartment building collapsed. The Lebanese Prime Minister Fouad Siniora has condemned the attack as a war crime. Some hours later, the Israel Defense Force released footage which it claims shows rockets being fired from Qana, and rocket launchers being hidden in residential areas."

Isn't it regrettable that the village of the Marriage at Cana where Jesus performed his first miracle is to be remembered for its massacres, for its bloodshed, for its future and hope shattered?

After performing his miracle Jesus turned to John and Nathanael and said "you shall see greater things than that". And we saw more wars, more massacres, more hatred, more hainous acts of vengeance...we don't want to see anymore...

Today I turn to Jesus, to God, to all these religious figures, myths, images that we as human beings believe in so strongly to the point of killing for them.
I turn to the churches, the mosques, the temples, the shrines and say "where are you now when we need you? when we need your prayers, your love, your peace?"

When it comes to violence and war God no longer exists, Jesus is watching in silence and his colleagues are hiding. We didn't need you in the first place,
we divided the world because of you,
according to your religions,
your beliefs,
your conquered territories.
Today, we want to live in peace, we want to live as free humans and not as slaves of our religion.

I don't want to kill so my neighbor can become Christian, or Muslim or a Jew.
I don't want to hate someone because he doesn't believe in the same God or prophet.
I don't want to own a land because this is where you performed your miracles.
All I want is to live in a peaceful world, I want my neighbor to live, I want his children to live and share the same schools and gardens than mine. I want the poor Jews, Muslims and Christians to share the same bread, the same shelter, the same book.

This book is not a religious book,
it's not a book about how one prophet was better than the other in conquering the human spirits,
it's not about how one land is more sacred than another...
this book is about us,
about humanity as a whole,
we all live on this planet,
we're in this together,
we deserve to give us, our neighbor and our ennemy a chance to live.

Otherwise, God has miscommunicated his message,
otherwise God has lost his case,
and we, humans on earth, will continue to kill for God.

Le malheur de Cana

2006-07-31T11:27:00.000+01:00

La mariée était en noir ce matin à Cana. Sa robe blanche tâchée de sang traînait quelque part entre les corps d’enfant et les mères suppliantes. Elles supplient, on ne sait plus qui, on ne sait plus quoi. Sur cette terre biblique rongée par le malheur des innocents, j’ai encore pensé à cette petite fille. Ce 30 Juillet 2006, elle avait 1 jour et toute la vie devant elle. Mais ce 30 juillet, un avion, un pilote, un viseur, une boule de feu apocalyptique en ont décidé autrement, il fallait qu’elle fût une fois de plus la victime de noces rouges.

Transformer la laideur en beauté, la pauvreté en richesse, l’eau en vin, le malheur en joie…voilà ce que j’ai compris du miracle des noces de Cana. Toi fils de l’homme, as-tu vu ces membres déchiquetés sur l’un des lieux sacrés que compte ce monde. Si tu es là écoute cette prière et prends les enfants de ces femmes éplorées en ton sein, que l’injustice ne soit pas totale, que la cruauté ait une fin.

Je regarde ces morts, mais ma réaction ne sera jamais à la hauteur de l’effroi de cette petite prise entre le bitume et le béton, seule devant la mort, victime de la froideur militaire, victime de la technologie assassine de leurs bombes.

Ces gens étaient pauvres, ces gens étaient démunis, ces gens ne pouvaient pas fuir, ils se sont réfugiés là où il n’auraient pas du être, faut-il les blâmer, faut-il les punir ? Pas un ferry, un peu d’essence aurait suffit à les transporter, un bus, un camion, n’importe quoi. Mais non ! Ce n’importe quoi n’existe même pas pour eux, ils sont pauvres qu’ils en crèvent, ils sont pauvres coupons leurs les ponts, ils sont pauvres bombardons tous ceux d’entre eux qui osent bouger face à l’adversité, face à l’horreur. Les pilotes ont envoyé des tracts, en arabe on remercie leur bonté, mais mauvais calcul, cette petite ne savait pas lire et pour cause ; elle avait un jour, c’est beau une enfant qui a 1 jour, mais c’est beau quand c’est vivant et ça vos bombes douées d’intelligence ne sont pas près de le comprendre.

Marc Kaloustian
Beyrouth, 30 juillet 2006

[For more "impression" in French please check Marc's blog at http://marcka-kaloustiancom.blogspot.com/]

2006-07-29T11:08:00.000+01:00

Mercy Mission into Beirut Airport
By Jon Leyne
BBC News, Beirut

From the air, the swimming pools at the luxury hotels are a rich blue. Beirut is still the high-rise capital of the Middle East; the most stylish city in the Arab world. Or perhaps it is just a mirage.

Today that was the view from an aid plane, bringing urgently needed supplies of food and medicine to this beleaguered city.

I joined a Jordanian Air Force plane in Amman, Jordan, for this mercy mission.
This was one of the first flights into Beirut since the fighting began - the only tangible outcome from many days of depressing diplomacy.

To reach the Lebanese capital, we followed a flight plan precisely coordinated with the Israeli Air force. It was a zig-zag that took us out to sea, well away from the dangerous airspace over southern Lebanon.
Beneath us, Israeli warships patrolled the Lebanese coast.

Israeli warplanes knocked out Beirut airport early in this current conflict. There is still a huge bomb crater, precisely positioned in the middle of the main runway.
Before our flight could land, Jordanian engineers patched up another runway. It is still not safe for commercial aircraft.
Less than two weeks ago this airport was teeming with life. Businesspeople and tourists enjoyed the normality of the new Lebanon. Now the airport is eerily deserted.

As our military plane moved to a standstill, airport workers descended on the cargo, rushing to offload the desperately needed supplies.

Desperately-needed aid

Across the Arab world there are telethons, fund raising drives, emotional appeals for assistance for the Lebanese people. There is no shortage of aid. The problem is getting it through to the people who need it.

Jordan seems to have been allowed into Beirut airport, because of its peace treaty with Israel.
The Jordanians are focussing on setting up a field hospital. It's a makeshift affair, housed in a school in downtown Beirut. But it has operating theatres, x-rays, even the capacity to carry out plastic surgery. It was not due to open until the day after we visited. But already there was a steady stream of patients, most of them evacuees from southern Lebanon.

Mohammed Baidoun brought his young son in for treatment for apparent food poisoning. His family fled from the town of Shahabiyeh in southern Lebanon.
His bitterness towards the Israelis was balanced by his effusive gratitude for the medical care.
"We thank every nation, whether Jordanian or Saudi or Egyptian, for their help in treating these children," he said. "Thank you."

But these are the lucky ones. Aid workers say getting help to the embattled villages in the south is close to impossible. Until there is a ceasefire, that is unlikely to change.

Remembering the South

2006-07-29T10:46:00.000+01:00

Bint El Jbeil and Habboush, near Nabatiyeh, (turn on your TV they're all over...)

World War III started with....

2006-07-29T10:31:00.000+01:00

Sept. 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center in NY

or...

1948...Birth of Israeli State in the Middle East

1982...Birth of Hezballah in Southern Lebanon

[......] Iran helping Hezballah to arm itself.... for how many years now?

July 2006...Hezballah Capture of 2 Israeli soldiers

July 2006...Israeli war on Lebanon (600 Lebanese deaths and 700,000 displaced)

July 2006...Al-Zawahiri (Al Qaeda) "We are ready to join the fight against Israel"

July 2006...Hamas Spokesman (on Al Qaeda) "Any group, be it Muslim or Arab, willing to fight the Israeli State with us will be welcomed"

No word from Nasrallah yet...

How can we stay apolitical? how can the citizens listen to this and wait, WAIT, WAIT...?

Fighting Oil Spill

2006-07-29T10:27:00.000+01:00

Associated Press

"I have nothing but the sea," Yazmanji said. "If you take the sea from a fisherman, he will die, like the fish."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060728/ap_on_re_mi_ea/mideast_fighting_oil_spill

Black Sands of Lebanon

2006-07-29T10:07:00.000+01:00

Ramlet el Baida

This environmental disaster was the result of israeli bombardment of civilian lebanese oil and fuel tanks at the Jiyyeh powerplant 20 kms south of beirut.The disaster is expected to impact all the eastern mediterranean basin, including Turkey, Syria, Cyprus, Greece, and others.

- no ships have been sunk on or around the lebanese coast.
- this is not an accident or the result of an exchange of fire in hostile territory.
- this is a deliberate and precise targeting of the oil tanks and powerplants along the lebanese coast by israeli warplanes You can find all this information and more on these two websites:

http://www.beirutlive.blogspot.com/
http://bloggingbeirut.com

The oil slick now extends along more than 60% of the Lebanese coast

Statement by the Ministry of Environment

10,000 tonnes of heavy fuel oil has spilled into the Mediterranean Sea along the coast of Lebanon with an additional 15,000 tonnes expected to follow.On 13 and 15 July 2006 Jieh power utility located 30 Km South of Beirut directly on the coastline was hit by Israeli bombs. Part of the storage tanks caught fire and are still burning 10 days on. The fuel that did not catch on fire was spilled into the Mediterranean Sea as a result of the blast.Due to winds blowing South West to North East and water current movement the oil spill was partly carried out to sea and partly dispersed along the coast of Lebanon. So far it has affected 70 – 80 km of both public and private rocky and sandy beaches along the Lebanese coast including public and private marinas/ports for boats/ships of fishermen and tourist resorts from the Damour region south of Beirut through to Tripoli in the North.

The Ministry of Environment asks the Lebanese community to assist it in its work and has prepared a Ministerial brief along these lines.

Some Impacts on the Environment

The marine ecosystem (fish species) is active in the summer and has been adversely affected, but the degree of damage cannot be estimated at this point in time. Thankfully, the bird migratory season had recently ended and therefore the numbers of birds affected is expected to be low.· A small percentage of the heavy fuel oil might have evaporated due to exposure to the elements and does not have a lasting effect.· A small percentage of the oil might be naturally decomposing because of the natural biodegradation process.· A large percentage of the spill has emulsified and solidified along the Lebanese shore, clinging to sand, rock and stone as the pictures will show.· Some of the biological impacts after an oil spill can include:o Physical and chemical alteration of natural habitats such as when oil is incorporated into sedimentso Physical smothering effect on the marine lifeo Lethal or sub-lethal toxic effects on the marine lifeo Changes in the marine ecosystem resulting from oil effects on key organisms e.g. increased abundance of intertidal algae following the death of limpets which normally eat the algae.

Impacts on Human Health

Some possible short term adverse effects might include nausea, headaches and skin (dermatological) problems in residents living close to the effected areas or in beach goers getting in touch with the oil.Plant crops and animal products from coastal farms close to the oil spill sites might have to be tested for hydrocarbon content to be declared safe for consumption.The Ministry does not advise fishing off the quays and wharfs found along the coast from Jieh to Heri-Chekka until the complete scope of pollution is assessed.

Impacts on Tourism

Northern Coast
The tourism industry has badly suffered. The acute impact of the war on this industry has been immediately felt by the nation. The chronic impact of the oil spill is disastrous on the tourism industry due to the length of time it is going to take for the clean up of the sand, the rocks, the shallow reef and the marine ecosystem as a whole.Many public and private beaches have been heavily affected including boats/ships of fishermen and yachts and boats of tourists from all over the Arab world and the Mediterranean countries as well as boats of Lebanese nationals.Beach-based tourism was a major economic activity in Lebanon and constituted a major part of the Lebanon’s gross domestic product (GDP).

Impacts on Biodiversity & the Fishing

IndustryIt is not possible at this moment to evaluate the impact on biodiversity because of the need of more detailed technical assessments carried out under safe national conditions.The siege on Lebanon by the Israeli army has prevented the Lebanese fishermen from going about their daily work. This oil spill has added to their crisis by destroying the immediate marine habitat of the fish species off the coast. However, it is well documented in the literature that the concentration of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons will be elevated above background concentrations over a substantial area. Biodiversity will surely suffer as in Lebanon it is highly concentrated on the coastline.

Other Shoreline Impacts

The Lebanese coastline is made up of mainly rocky shores.
The initial estimates show that the mortality of limpets and other herbivores is high. Further detailed studies need to be carried out to assess the true scale of the damage.

The Question of the Day

2006-07-29T09:54:00.000+01:00

Zahra between jumping off chairs and waiting for roasted chicken!

[This dispatche from Beirut was written by Zeina from http://july2006waronlebanon.blogspot.com/]

Yesterday M. (9) asked me if I had books in English he could read. He said the little thin books he has are too boring and that he needs" to read something thick in English". So while I was giving him the books, the younger kids insisted that they wanted to read too. I told them that they were too young to read. But they didn't agree, so I asked Z. (4) to show me how to read so she opened the first page of the book and read: "bismillah arruhman al rahim" (the first verse from the Quran or the only line she knows in classical Arabic). The funnier part is that the book was in English.

M. went with his mother to see the doctor yesterday. He's been stumbling and falling frequently and his mother thinks there's something wrong with his legs. She took him to see the doctor and asked for a prescription to help her kid. The doctor asked to see the child alone: apparently A. has been having panic attacks each time he hears the plane flying above the school which makes him loose the feel of his legs.

The kids wanted to stage a little play. But what they were interested in: Snow White? Little Red Riding Hood? Cinderella? The answer was consensual: "Muqawama!!" (The Resistance). They wanted to stage a normal day in the lives of Hizbullah fighters. Halfway through the rehearsal they realized that no one wanted to play the Israeli soldiers so the play was postponed until someone can fill the undesired roles.

But Z. her sister and brother were waiting for her father to come back to the school with a big roasted chicken that is not on the steamed-rice-and-cheese menu of the school. They awaited their father at the door of the school for a full hour. But the question of the day is:"if one of the cows in our farm gets killed, does she become a martyr?".

Le Liban Massacre

2006-07-29T09:39:00.000+01:00

[Extrait de La vérité hors de la bouche des canons, La planification de la prochaine guerre mondiale par Phillipe Ducros. Pour en lire plus http://www.lecabinet.com/motel/liban.html]

Philippe Ducros est artiste de théâtre, auteur metteur en scène et comédien. Au cours des deux dernières années, il a voyagé maintes fois en Israël, en Palestine, au Liban et en Syrie.

L’électricité détruite est celle qui permet la modernisation des idées, des idéaux. Sans elle, le pays retourne aux chefs de guerre, au féodalisme. Les bombardements délimitent actuellement les différents bastions. Et déjà la tension augmente. Et ça aussi, vous le savez. Vous êtes en train de semer les graines de la prochaine guerre civile.

L’eau détruite est celle qui permet de laver les plaies et les morts afin de pardonner et d’oublier. Ça aussi, vous le savez. Pourquoi voulez-vous que le Moyen-Orient cultive la rancune et la violence ?

Le blé détruit est celui du pain de demain. Sans demain, rien à perdre. Lorsqu’on n’a rien à perdre, on n’a peur de rien. Lorsque toutes les raisons sont bonnes pour mourir et que la vie sur terre est un enfer, alors on revêt l’habit du martyr, la ceinture d’explosifs, on vit notre vie dans la mort et l’on exporte la peur. Cette peur vous est-elle si utile ?

Les routes mènent aux autres. Mais les F16 les ont détruites. Sans routes, les idées tournent en rond et la dynamo de la haine, le cercle de la violence, l’échelle de la peur se créent. Vous savez où elle mène.

Les ponts sont ceux qui auraient pu être établis entre une jeunesse prête à oublier la guerre et à venir tendre la main aux voisins. Une jeunesse prête à passer à autre chose, une jeunesse qui devra danser sur une autre musique dorénavant, qui tendra le bras comme le logo du Hezbollah, avec un kalachnikov à la main. Vous le savez. Ils sont pratiques, les radicaux, ils permettent votre propre radicalisme.

Ont aussi été bombardés
tous les ports et aéroports du pays,
toute l’infrastructure du pays,
toutes les routes menant vers la Syrie,
tous les radars,
une partie de la structure des télécommunications,
des dépôts de nourriture,des usines de produits laitiers,
des fermes,
des églises,
des mosquées,
des écoles,
des orphelinats,
des quartiers résidentiels,
des autobus transportant des réfugiés,
des ambulances,
les réserves d’essence et d’eau,
des stations services,
des camions transportant des aides humanitaires.

Comment prétendre à la justesse de cette réponse ?

Pendant la deuxième guerre mondiale, dans la France occupée, ce que nous appelons maintenant la Résistance, les Nazis nommaient ça le terrorisme.

Peaceful Rallies

2006-07-26T10:29:00.000+01:00

Wednesday July 26, 2006

Brazil, Rio de Janeiro - (14:00) with concentration at Republica do Líbano Street, downtown Rio.
Canada, Vancouver - (5:30PM) 5:30pm StopWar meeting at the Maritime Labour Centre (1880 Triumph Street - Off Victoria from Hastings)
Egypt, Cairo (6 PM) Tahrir square
France, Paris - (18h à 21h) Place de Trocadéro : Rassemblement tous les jours.
France, Toulouse - (7h30 tp9:00 PM) Sit-in every day. Place du Capitole
Italy, Ferrara (8:30 PM) Center of the city
Portugal, Lisboa - (6:30 PM) In front of the Isareli embassy
Portugal, Porto - (6:30pm) Praca da Batulha
USA, Boston - (5 PM) Copley Square

Thursday July 27, 2006

Canada, Vancouver - (12:30PM) demonstration at Canadian Immigration Detention Centre / 808-300 West Georgia Street, Downtown Vancouver
France, Paris - (19h30) Devant le mur de la Paix au Champs de Mars. Le mot d'ordre : Cessez-le-feu. http://pourquelelibanvive.blogspot.com/
France, Toulouse - (7h30 tp9:00 PM) Sit-in every day. Place du Capitole
Italy, Milano - (9 PM) Piazza San Babila
Italy, Rome - (17.30) DEMONSTRATION from Piazza della Repubblica
UK, Manchester - (7:30pm) Chorlton Central Church (Edge Lane/Barlow Moor Rd): speakers, eye witness report from the Lebanon Amin Khosravi, Action IranRae Street, ex President CND Richard Searle, Stop the War Coalition
USA, NY - (6:30pm) SILENT CANDLELIGHT VIGIL at South side of Union Square Park, New York City

Friday July 28, 2006

Austria, Vienna - (17:00h) The protest-march will start from the center of vienna "Stephansplatz" and will go to the US-Embassy.
France, Paris - (18h à 21h) Place de Trocadéro : Rassemblement tous les jours.
France, Toulouse - (7h30 tp9:00 PM) Sit-in every day. Place du Capitole
USA, Boston - (5 PM) Copley Square
USA, Philadelphia - at Israeli Consulate, 15th & Locust, support weekly demonstration from noon - 1:30pm; continue protests from 1:30pm - 6:pm on consulate side of street.

Saturday July 29, 2006

France, Paris - DEMOSNTRATION, SOLIDARITÉ AVEC LE LIBAN
USA, NY - (2 PM) MARCH ACROSS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE. Meet Location: TBA
UK, Leeds - Demonstration (details to follow)

(Sources: saveleb.org, moghtarebeen.com, tayyar.org, & e-mails)

A Message of Hope

2006-07-26T10:20:00.000+01:00

[Marwan Khoueiry is 21 and just graduated from the American University of Beirut, he's writing for Electronic Lebanon on July 25th, 2006]

Lebanon's Phoenix Rising

Many singers sang songs to Beirut, starting with our beloved Fairuz to the exquisite Majida el Roumi? Every word in those songs is written in blood, the precious blood of the Lebanese people that have suffered all their lives.

I am not writing this article to condemn the atrocious Israeli war on Lebanon that started on that abyssal day of July 12, 2006, nor to debate who is mainly responsible for it. I am writing to give hope - the hope that every Lebanese citizen needs right now. Hope for every family who has lost a child, a mother or a father. Hope for every family whose house was destroyed. Hope for every Lebanese student who thinks he has no future in his country anymore. Hope for every investor who withdrew his business from this country.

In Majida el Roumi's song to Beirut, she sings, "Beirut, lady of the world, get up from under the ruins like a pine flower in April."
Have you ever seen or smelled a pine flower in April? If you are Lebanese, I think you should have. It has a pure white color, and what color is better than white to remove all this black? As for the smell, this fragrance that tells a new beginning, gives you a little chill when experienced for the first time. What better fragrance to wipe out the smell of burnt fuel, rubble and bombs?

As for the red color and its odor, blood can neither be removed nor wiped out. It will be engraved in our hearts and our minds to remind us of all those who perished honorably for us to continue. We shall never forget them.

I am a 21-year-old Lebanese who has recently graduated from the American University Beirut; I was accepted for a one-year masters program in London. As sad as I am to have to leave my country for a year, I have made a pact to myself to return to my homeland - whatever it takes - after this year. Most of my family members and friends tell me that I am lucky to leave and to have a new beginning elsewhere, but I tell them I am lucky to be born in a country such as Lebanon. I am lucky to be born in the country of Khalil Gibran. I am lucky to be born in the country of the Rahbani brothers. I am lucky to be born in the country of Fairuz. I am lucky to be born in a capital that was once referred to as Paris of the East. I could continue forever if I wanted.

I want to return to see the cedar tree grow in my garden. I want to return to see the flashy lights of downtown Beirut on a Saturday night. I want to return to my Sunday lunches with my whole family. I want to return to those snowy white mountains. I want to return to those sandy gold beaches. I want to return and raise a family in Lebanon and most importantly, I want to return to build our Lebanon, the land of my ancestors, the land of the brave and the mighty.

If you ever went to Jezzine city in the south, there is a big statue of Mary at the entrance of the city, watching over the destroyed south. This statue is crying at the moment. I want to help wipe her tears. There is a myth about the Phoenix, a bird that is capable of rising from its ashes. The phoenix will no longer be a legend, my friends, as after this war - which may last weeks, months or even years - Lebanon will rise high and aim for the moon. If it misses, it will surely land on the stars. For all those who left our Lebanon, I tell them: We'll meet again, my friends.

Photo: The Hills of Lebanon photographed May 2006 by Steve Jones.

2006-07-26T10:01:00.000+01:00

Mazen Kerbaj, "Real News From Beirut: Fourth Edition", Kerblog, July 24th, 2006

[Hanadi Salman is a journalist for As-Safir newspaper.She's writing from Beirut as published by Electronic Lebanon .]

Pity the living and the days to come

This "boom boom ha ha" technique doesn't seem to work all the time, not with me, at least.After 24 hours of "nothing" in Beirut, I was almost getting ready to bid you farewell, and thank you for your support during 14 long days.
Everything in Beirut was so calm I even went home for lunch. There were ongoing airstrikes on the south but no reports of causalities yet.Kinda wanted to come with me to the office when she saw that I was going back there.The minute we reached the street, we heard the sounds of four huge consecutive explosions. I don't remember what I did - maybe I jumped - but when I looked at Kinda she was pale. It took her two seconds to get back down to earth and say the magic words "boom boom ha ha". And she kept repeating that for five minutes, automatically. She was not smiling. She was asking, "Boom boom ha ha ?".

Four people were killed and others were seriously wounded in that air strike on the southern suburbs. Yes, the suburbs again. I sent the pictures of the rubble, of people searching for their homes in streets that were completely wiped out, already, didn't I?Well, it seems that was not enough. I wonder what they're looking for ... it must be something really important.Seven strikes hit the suburbs today, ten shells were dropped on an area that's already almost completely destroyed.They spared it for a while, so people went to check on their belongings and then ... BOOM.

It killed four people; I know one of them. He's my best friend's young cousin. He went there with his brother, without telling their family, to check on their home that they'd left five days ago under the shelling. Mohamad is Palestinian. He was staying at his cousin's house, Salim, my friend. At the moment he died, the moment Kinda and I had reached the street and heard the explosions, his mom and Salim were on Salim's balcony, trying to locate were the shelling was falling. They did not know it hit a building that fell on four people and killed them.
They did not know it was falling on Mohamad.
Now they do.

Counting the dead

Twenty people were killed today. It brings the toll up to 411 since July 12.Nine-year-old Zeinab Mounes, her 11-year-old brother Mohamad and their uncle were found under the rubble of their house in Halloussiyeh where six air raids had destroyed three apartment buildings. Nine other people were injured. No one knows how many people are still under the rubble.
One other civilian from the same village was killed in a morning raid.
Two civilians were killed in Ma'lyeh, west of Tyre.One Palestinian was killed, five others wounded - one of them a child - in Rashidiyeh refugee camp.
Eight people were found under the rubble of their house in Qana.
Seven people, all of the same family, were killed when their house was destryed by a shell in Nabatiyeh.
Six Red Cross paramedics were injured on their way to Qana, IN AN AMBULANCE.

You want more? There's plenty, but I just can't keep doing this.You were right, Linda, writing was therapeutic, but I'm just totally fed up.

Who cares? They're dead. Killed. Chidren, women, men - oh yeah, some are men; unfortunately, their pictures aren't as sensational as those of toddlers.

The UN "peace" keeping forces today evacuated a number of civilians from some villages in the south. Only those with a western nationality were evacuated.
The filthy holders of Lebanese passports were begging them to take them along.They did not. They just left them there to die.

Do they tell you about this in your newspapers? Do they tell you that the UN "humanitarian" envoy who came and toured my country was lecturing the refugees with that patronizing, arrogant, know-it-all and seen-it-all look in his eyes, while trying to look sweet and compassionate?
Do they tell you that this same guy, whose monthly wage is most probably higher then the yearly revenues of all those who died today, had concluded that my country needs 150 million dollars in humanitarian aid, and that once he reached Cyprus, he concluded all this was Hezbollah's fault?Do they tell you we're not beggars?
Do they tell you we don't need charity? Do they tell you we work for a living? That we earn whatever we have? That we sweat, we sing, we read, we learn, we breathe, we love and we hate?

That woman, Hweiyda's aunt, is not a beggar. She's all alone with her burnt niece in a Beirut hospital. Four days ago, she had a house and a family. Four days ago she had a life.Yesterday, when I gave her the hundred dollars Rola had given me for the people in need, she cried so hard it made me want to die.

Dignity.
That's what it's all about.Dignity.
No more pictures, that's it. Showing their pictures will not "open the West's eyes". Showing their pictures will not bring them back. It will merely deprive them whatever is left from their dignity.Those pictures are never published anywhere; there are rules that ban it. But apparently no rules ban killing people like this.These people are not dying so we get to see their pictures.

Let them die, tens of them each everyday. Don't pity them. I bet you they pity us. They pity us. They're somewhere where nothing worse could happen to them.
We're left here, dealing with our consciences, debating whose fault it is, what's wrong and what's right.Pity us, pity those who did not get killed.
Pity us who will be living in the "New Middle East" the US is tailoring for us. Pity the days to come.

Does Hweiyda know that there's a bunch of people who will decide her fate in a conference in Rome?

SIT IN IN PARIS

2006-07-25T19:47:00.000+01:00

14 jours déjà que l'état d'Israël bombarde le Liban sans pitié.

Déjà 372 morts, un milliers de blessés, 700 000 déplacés sans ressources, des villes, des villages, des infrastructures, des centrales électriques détruitsŠles civils libanais vivent l'enfer et subissent une guerre qui va totalement à l'encontre des conventions et des droits de l'homme.

Nous vous invitions, à partir du Samedi 22 Juillet 2006 et jusqu'à nouvel ordre, à nous rejoindre tous les soirs PLACE DE LA SORBONNE, de 16h00 à 20h00, pour un SIT IN d'ordre permanent et apolitique, rassemblant les libanais de tous âges, de toutes confessions, de tous milieux et les amis du Liban sensibilisés à notre cause, pour exprimer notre douleur profonde et notre colère, pour manifester notre refus que ce massacre continue, pour exiger un CESSEZ LE FEU immédiat. Il nous faut aussi soutenir nos compatriotes bloqués au Liban, pour leur courage, leur force et leur patience à subir une guerre incontrôlable et furieuse.

Ce SIT IN ne comportera pas de discours, il n'est affilié à aucun parti politique mais est issu de notre volonté à militer pour notre pays et pour la paix.
Nous soutenons la population civile libanaise et lui promettons de faire de notre mieux. Nous ne les lâcherons pas. Nous ne nous tairons pas. Nous ne permettrons pas que l'horreur et la terreur triomphe.Nous espérons que vous serez nombreux à nous rejoindre, au nom de la PAIX et de la JUSTICE et au nom de toutes les victimes de ce massacre.

++++

Merci

Serge Séroff

...et toujours, les pétitions en ligne pour demander l'arrêt de cette guerre,

http://epetition.net/julywar/index.php
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/Jul06Leb/

Beirut Cartoon

2006-07-25T16:40:00.000+01:00

[As sent by Sean Ng from New York]

CHANGE OF PLANS
The New Yorker
Issue of 2006-07-31
Posted 2006-07-24

In “The Chronicles of Narnia,” the four Pevensie children are evacuated from London during the Blitz and sent to stay with an elderly professor in a house in the countryside. Last Wednesday evening, in an old Ottoman villa in West Beirut, Skandar Keynes, the fourteen-year-old actor who played Edmund Pevensie in last year’s film of “Narnia,” his mother, Zelfa, and his grandfather, Cecil Hourani, were packing their things and getting ready to evacuate. Two days before the Israeli attacks on Hezbollah began, on July 12th, they had arrived from Britain for their annual summer holiday in Lebanon, and had found themselves stranded there along with thousands of other foreign tourists. They had, in fact, been about to leave Beirut for the Hourani ancestral home in the ancient town of Marjeyoun, near the frontier with Israel. Marjeyoun is very close to the current fighting, and before being taken over by Hezbollah it had been the longtime headquarters of the Christian militia. Except for 2004, when Skandar was filming “Narnia” and the family decamped with him to the set in New Zealand, he has spent every summer of his life there.

Outside the walls of the villa, closely packed modern tower blocks rose all around. It is a noisome neighborhood of narrow streets jammed with people, scooters, and men pushing carts. Quite a few women wear head scarves. On a building in the next block a large banner in support of Sheikh Nasrallah could be seen. A half an hour before they were due to leave Beirut, Zelfa packed the car with their belongings, and Cecil waited by the front door, clearly edgy about the night journey ahead. Skandar chatted in the living room, a place of high timbered ceilings and flaking plaster, adorned with bronze pots and Chinese painted-silk panels of peacocks.

Skandar, a slim, handsome boy with tousled dark hair, was wearing a “Scarface” T-shirt over baggy shorts and blue canvas Vans. He said he had been looking forward to Marjeyoun, where he planned to spend his days swimming and reading. He had brought along his guitar, and hoped to catch up on some movies. “I don’t turn fifteen until September, and back in England I can only go to under-fifteens, which is frustrating,” he said. “Here in Lebanon they don’t care about age limits, and I can see any movies I like.” The day after Beirut’s airport was bombed, he’d gone to the cinema in Beirut where the new “Pirates of the Caribbean” was supposed to première; the theatre owners had turned him away, explaining that they hadn’t been able to fly in the reel. He added that he was a big fan of Johnny Depp. “He’s the man,” he said.

Skandar’s grandfather, Cecil, is a well-known writer on the Middle East; Cecil’s late brother, Albert Hourani, was the noted Oxford scholar and author of “A History of the Arab Peoples.” (Both brothers were born in Britain to émigré parents, but never relinquished their links with their homeland.) Although he was educated in England, Cecil still regards himself as Lebanese: “Being born in England didn’t make you English, at least not in my generation,” he said. With a glance at his grandson, he added, “Perhaps that has changed now, I don’t know.” Zelfa, Cecil’s daughter, is married to the British writer Randal Keynes, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin and a great-nephew of John Maynard Keynes. Skandar, who attends the City of London School for Boys, is one of their two children.

“I’m very proud of being Lebanese, and its history and everything,” Skandar said. “And I love coming here every summer.” He doesn’t speak Arabic all that well, he confessed, despite attending weekend Arabic classes for several years.
When Skandar was out of earshot, Zelfa said that she wasn’t particularly frightened, although her face betrayed her nervousness; for several days, the noise from huge blasts had ricocheted through the city, rocking the walls of the villa; their neighborhood had been spared, but much of the city had been shut down. Speaking of Skandar, she said, “He’s just a boy, after all; there’s only so long we can stay here like this, with nothing for him to do.”

Neither Zelfa nor her father was eager to join the mass evacuation of Beirut’s foreigners by ship, which had begun a couple of days earlier. They were also worried about travelling overland, as some people were doing, to Syria and Jordan, because they had heard that the roads were being bombed, and there were said to be long queues at the Syrian border. But on Wednesday some friends had found a driver who could take them out by night. They had been told they could get to Amman in six or seven hours.

Skandar had not thought much about the parallels between the role he played in “Narnia” and his own situation in Beirut. “Maybe it’s because one was acting and this is real,” he said. When the bombing had begun, he had been scared, like everyone, but his grandfather had done a good job of reassuring him. “Now I can say I have been in a real war zone,” he said, and gave a mock swagger.

Skandar’s grandfather came over and said in a low, tight voice that some men, possibly Hezbollah followers, had just come to the door to ask who his visitors were and, incidentally, who he was. Until now, he said, the family had mostly avoided attention in the neighborhood. It was time to go.

— Jon Lee Anderson

Staying On

2006-07-25T16:36:00.000+01:00

[Dispatchers- Notes from Different Corners of te World- From www.slate.com]

Why I'm not evacuating Beirut.
By Faerlie Wilson
Friday, July 21, 2006, at 2:36 PM ET

BEIRUT, Lebanon—From my balcony this afternoon, I watched as French, British, and American evacuees boarded chartered cruise ships in Beirut's port about a half-mile west of my apartment.
And over the last few days, while bombs and artillery pummeled the southern part of the city, I made the decision not to leave Lebanon. Explosions rock my building even as I write this, but I'm staying put.
I'm not crazy, and I harbor no death wish. This is simply the rational decision of someone who has built a life in Lebanon, who believes in this place and its ability to bounce back. I choose to bet on Beirut.
placeAd(5,'slate.homepage/slate');

After five visits to Lebanon over as many years, I moved to Beirut from California this February. I'm a 24-year-old American with friends but no family here. But Lebanese hospitality makes it easy to feel at home; it's a warm society that exudes and embodies a sense of interpersonal responsibility. Live here for two weeks and then go out of town, and you'll get a dozen offers to pick you up at the airport upon your return.
So although I'm not Lebanese by blood, I have become Beiruti. There are plenty of us who fit that description, foreigners who fell in love with the place and its people. One friend, an American college student interning for the summer with a member of the Lebanese parliament, called in tears en route to the northern border to tell me her parents had forced her to leave.
"I'm going to stay in Syria as long as I can," she vowed. "In case things settle down and I can come back."

Until the war broke out last week, this was to be Lebanon's golden summer—last year's tourist season having been dampened by the brutal car bomb that killed former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005.
This summer started off strong, with concerts by major Western artists that allowed the Lebanese to hope their country was returning to the prewar days when everyone who was anyone—icons like Ella Fitzgerald, Marlon Brando, and Brigitte Bardot—made regular stops in the country. Ricky Martin and 50 Cent performed in May and June, respectively, Sean Paul was on deck for July, and negotiations were under way to bring Snoop Dogg later in the summer. But the most anticipated concert was set for late July: the three-night return of legendary Lebanese diva Fairouz to the Baalbeck festival, where she first earned her fame in the 1950s and '60s.
The after-party for 50 Cent was typical over-the-top Beiruti, held at city's most decadent nightclub, Crystal. Lamborghinis and Ferraris crowded the parking lot; plasticated Lebanese girls in short skirts and spike heels danced on tables as waiters navigated the dance floor balancing trays laden with sparklers and magnums of champagne for high-rolling Saudi tourists, while Fiddy free-styled and openly smoked a joint.

Tourists from the Arab world, Europe, and North America flooded the streets of cities and villages throughout the country. Gulf Arabs in particular have been drawn to Lebanon, especially in a post-9/11 era when they felt unwelcome in the West (and often had trouble obtaining visas). Lebanon offered many of the same attractions as Europe, but in an Arab setting: temperate climate, good shopping, plenty of tourist activities, and most important, heady nightlife and a liberal social atmosphere. Tourists partied till dawn, stormed the sales at Beirut's designer boutiques, and visited sites like Lebanon's ancient cedar groves and the Roman temples at Baalbeck.

Now those magnificent ruins are surrounded by newer ones: The city of Baalbeck, long a Shiite stronghold, has received a heavy share of the Israeli bombardment.
Falling bombs erase entire villages, fire and smoke cover the horizon, and visions of that promised summer have, in just over a week, evaporated. On the beaches of Damour and Jiyeh, the foreign visitors aren't European sun junkies but Israeli missiles. And the cruise ships docked in the port aren't bringing tourists to Lebanon, they're taking them away.
The contrast between Beirut today and Beirut two weeks ago is so stark, it would be unbearable if it weren't so surreal. This isn't my Beirut. This isn't anyone's Beirut. The frantic, vibrant city has shrunk into a sleepy town, with empty streets and only a handful of restaurants, bars, and shops open for business.

It's amazing how quickly you can get used to living under siege. We've taped our windows, stocked up on supplies, and settled into a perversion of normal life. Electric generators succeed where embattled power stations fail. I've learned what times the electricity, water, and Internet connection usually cut out, and I plan my days accordingly—an old Lebanese ritual from the days of the civil wars.
Candles we bought as decoration are scattered throughout the apartment, half-burned down from long nights without electricity. An Israeli propaganda flier dropped on a university soccer field sticks out of my roommate's copy of the now-obsolete July issue of Time Out Beirut, marking a page listing exhibitions at art galleries that have since boarded up their doors. The magazine only launched this spring, and it was easy to see it as yet another symbol that Beirut was finally being recognized as one of the world's great cities. Travel and Leisure magazine listed Beirut as the ninth-best city in the world for 2006. In this part of the world, fortunes shift very quickly.
Smaller explosions and the rushing of Israeli fighter jets overhead don't startle or frighten me anymore. We are exhausted and have to save our emotional energy for the moments where panic is needed. Still, when larger blasts rattle my windowpanes and make the apartment shudder, I rush to the balcony to figure out which part of my city is being hit. Sometimes, it's an easy game: Three days ago, my roommate and I watched as Israeli warships struck Beirut's port.

I know I'm reasonably safe in my corner of Beirut, and I have a place to go in the mountains if that ceases to be true. Unlike people in many other industries, I still have a job: The magazine where I work decided to publish an August issue—although it will lose money—as a sign of resistance and resilience.
There is painfully little we, the ordinary people of Lebanon, can do to help the situation. So, instead, we do what we can to help each other by donating food and supplies, opening our doors to friends and strangers, and trying to maintain some semblance of normalcy. We aren't giving up.
After the foreigners are gone, local wisdom predicts that the fighting will only get worse. At the very least, there will be less protective padding—a fear of foreign casualties that may have restrained Israel to some degree. Evacuating Beirut would feel a lot like abandoning it. I know that my staying won't keep the Israelis from intensifying their attacks, but at least I won't be complicit, seeing events unfold on a TV screen from the comfort of Cyprus.

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

People ask me if I'm scared, and I am—but for Lebanon more than for myself. This place and its people deserve far better than what they're getting.
There's a sad, unstated "what will become of us?" question floating around the Lebanese who are left behind. I need to stay here, if only to learn the answer.

The Lebanese United

2006-07-24T19:23:00.000+01:00

[A Christian Lebanese woman, Nadya Azar, living in Ashrafieh welcomes four Shia Muslim women and their nine children.]

To read more check BBC News at http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5211244.stm

Lebanese open up homes for refugees
By Martin Patience
BBC News, Beirut

Lebanese widow Nadya Azar was used to the quiet life.
Until two weeks ago, the 70-year-old woman spent her days sitting in her living room decorated with paintings of Swiss landscapes, or on her first-floor balcony overlooking a busy street.
Now her small four-room house in Beirut's Ashrafiyeh district is hosting four mothers and their nine children who have fled the south of the country.
Even as a young boy tears around the house with a plastic orange tennis racket in one hand and a sticky slice of watermelon in other, Mrs Azar says she would not have it any other way.
"They can stay as long as they like," says Mrs Azar.
"They are like children to me."

Au nom de la réfugiée et du soldat.

2006-07-24T16:24:00.000+01:00

Son regard à elle est hagard, vidé, comme le chargeur de sa mitraillette à lui.
Elle se demande où est Allah,
Lui, défend sa terre promise.
Ce n’est plus le même Dieu qu’ils implorent tous les deux.
Ce Dieu-là est depuis longtemps devenu fou,
Suite à tout ce qu’on dit commettre en son nom.
Ce Dieu-là est parti, a renoncé à sa créature. Frankenstein déçu, apeuré.
Le règne du billet vert et de la haine a pris place, a écrasé ce que fut l’humanité.
Le combat n’était même pas long.
Mais au final, bien plus que quelques fractures.
Ce sont des cœurs qu’on a arraché,
des yeux qu’on a crevé, et ses larmes qui coulent, qui coulent…
Son regard est hagard, rempli de cristaux qui s’égouttent sur ses joues rougies,
Sourires forcés vers ses petits, pour leur dire que tout ira bien.
Elle se demande comment tout ça finira, lui non plus n’en sait rien.
Elle court.
Il tire.
Dans le vide, tous les deux.
Elle a grandi au son résonnant des versets du Livre.
A lui on a toujours appris qu’on a souffert pour lui.
Elle, dans le culte du martyr.
Lui, dans celui de l’innocent puni pour être né sous le signe de l’Etoile.
Des marionnettes.
Comme vous et moi.
Alors tournons-nous vers ceux qui détiennent toutes les ficelles.
Vous, qui pressez le détonateur pour l’entendre exploser bien loin de vous.
Vous, pour qui le monde est un terrain de jeu,
Qui ne sentez même pas que c’est le sang des enfants qui coulent sur vos mains.
Entre un sourire et un autre, prenez le temps d’écouter
Le silence de cette réfugiée, le regard de ce soldat.
Arrêtez de les interrompre avec vos discours insensés.
Vous, les détenteurs de toutes les ficelles,
Si seulement nous pouvions vite nous défaire de vos nœuds,
Vous laisser tous seuls plonger dans le gouffre de haine que vous creusez tous les jours,
Et vous y enterrer, en gravant sur vos tombes « Rest In Peace »
Parce que nous, nous voulons vivre en paix.

Nayla SAAB
Beyrouth, Liban

Day 6 of the siege: Notes on solidarity, Hezbollah, and Israel

2006-07-24T11:39:00.000+01:00

[Freelance writer, Rasha Salti, writing from Beirut, Live From Lebanon on July 18th, 2006
For more please check Electronic Lebanon on the sidebar.]

Destruction in the Bir el-Abed area of the southern Beirut suburbs after bearing the brunt of an Israeli air strike. Photo taken 16 July 2006. (IRIN/Leila Hatoum)

"I am drafting this entry in this unusual diary at 11:30 pm; I have about half an hour before the generator shuts down. Most of Beirut is in the dark. I dare not imagine what the country is like. Today was a relatively calm day, but like most calm days that come immediately after tumultuous days, it was a sinister day of taking stock of damage, pulling bodies from under destroyed buildings, shuttling injured to hospitals that have the capacity to tend to their wounds more adequately. The relative calm allowed journalists to visit the sites of shelling and violence. The images from Tyre, and villages in the south are shocking. Images from Haret Hreyk (the neighborhood in the southern suburb that received the most "focused" shelling) are also astounding. The number of deaths is yet uncertain, it increases by the hour as bodies are pulled from the landscape of destruction. In the southern suburbs, some people may be trapped in underground shelters under the vestiges of their homes and apartment buildings. And yes, there is a problem of space in morgues in the south and the Beqaa, because none of the towns and villages are equipped to handle these numbers of deaths. The IDF has destroyed almost entirely the village of 'Aytaroun. Some of the surviving wounded are Canadian citizens. Like the eight Canadians who died in the building in Tyre (a building that housed the Red Cross and civil rescue), the Canadian government has had very little regard for them."

Israel's Warning to the Lebanese

2006-07-24T09:44:00.000+01:00

[I just received this email from a friend in Beirut.

"To the Lebanese people, Hizballah declared war on the Israeli nation. We all know, from the past days, how strong is the Israeli nation and the readiness to use its strength to crush any terrorist elements whenever she feels like it.

Dear Lebanese citizen:

The proverb says: "He who sleeps between the graves, can only have nightmares"

The Israeli nation is strong and determined to do whatever is needed to protect its citizens!!!

The Israeli Nation"

"This paper my cousin got as it fell on the street under my house in Beirut
it states a threat from Israel that if you don't want to have nightmares don't sleep in graveyards !
How Morbid !-- check out my page @ www.myspace.com/skylinkd"

Bloggingbeirut.com

2006-07-24T09:27:00.000+01:00

[Please check http://bloggingbeirut.com/ by clicking the link in the sidebar. This blog has amazing pictures of the daily life in Beirut since the start of the conflict]

Israeli Assault on Lebanon
Map of locations bombed

In the meantime, Friday 21st of July
in the greater Beirut area

El Pais journalist in Beirut

2006-07-24T09:08:00.000+01:00

AFP

Jóvenes en guerra
MARUJA TORRES- DESDE BEIRUT
EL PAÍS - Internacional - 23-07-2006

Teniendo en cuenta que aproximadamente la mitad de la población libanesa tiene menos de 25 años, y que una tercera parte de las bajas producidas por la contenida masacre colateral israelí se ha cebado en los menores, puede decirse que aún podemos esperar más. Podemos alcanzar la mitad. Ánimo, señores defensores de su pueblo: ustedes están en condiciones de lograrlo. Tienen de todo, hasta fósforo blanco, al estilo Faluya, como han atestiguado médicos del sur del Líbano. No se detengan.

Mientras tanto, entretengámonos un poco. Hablemos de cómo afrontan los jóvenes de Beirut -y del Líbano- la depresión. Aparte de aquellos que todavía buscan distracción en los cada vez más apagados reductos de placer situados de Junieh para arriba, en el país cristiano, se nos ofrecen tres formas de reaccionar.

Una. Esto no puede estar sucediendo, es un mal sueño, en cualquier momento todo volverá a ser como antes. En este apartado tenemos la modalidad, si esto sigue así, ¿qué voy a hacer con mi vida?, y otra todavía más pasiva: me quedo en casa en pijama, mordiéndome las uñas, con el ánimo por los suelos.

Dos. Chicos y chicas que han decidido actuar. Mónica Leiva, joven y muy experta en la zona enviada especialmente por la cadena SER, les llama los bulldozers. No sólo han elegido la acción, sino que están determinados a prescindir de los prejuicios sectarios y confesionales que tanto daño han hecho a este país. Trabajan con los refugiados, ayudan. En cada desdichado ven a un compatriota, no a un miembro de tal o tal otra comunidad. Por muchas razones -esta madurez a bombas que les está cambiando-, éste es el grupo en el que puede confiar el país, si queda algo en pie. El que reconstruirá el espíritu del 14 de Febrero (en alusión a las manifestaciones por la independencia), sin permitir que, esta vez y una vez más, les traicionen los políticos, tanto del Gobierno como de la oposición. Eso, poniéndonos en lo mejor.

Hay una tercera categoría, la de los trabajadores, sobre todo aquellos que, en hoteles y restaurantes, se distraen lo suficiente con jornadas de 10 o 12 horas que les dejan exhaustos, con poco tiempo para pensar en las familias de las que han sido desgarrados, los hogares que han perdido o en el mundo que se hunde a su alrededor.

En el capítulo de muchachos y muchachas que van en pijama como zombies en medio de una pesadilla, están aquellos que antes creyeron, y mucho, en el sueño libanés en su versión más light y moderna. Como N., que salió de su pueblo de la Bekaa hace años para triunfar en Beirut como actor y haciendo anuncios, pues es un chico guapísimo. Pero Beirut está llena de bellezas juveniles de todos los sexos que se pasean por los castings, que son usadas y tiradas y que, si tienen suerte, acabarán trabajando como peluqueros y maquilladores para bodas y bautizos de pueblo, aunque lo llamen estilismo. Si tienen suerte.

Están también aquellos que dan vueltas por la casa sin entender qué van a hacer con sus vidas, porque sus estudios se han visto interrumpidos. Chicas como Suyahla, que pronto acabaría sus estudios para maestra, una especialidad asumida como carrera menor, como en tantas partes; y que ahora se devana los sesos imaginando qué hacer. O como Ghassan, musculoso presentador de espacios deportivos en un canal privado que ya no tiene deportes que filmar y que ve asimismo cómo el segundo curso que tenía que realizar este verano en técnicas de comunicación ha sido suspendido. Sus amigos, además, se han ido al Chouf, a las montañas, en donde los refugiados chiíes duermen hasta en los jardines públicos. "Tengo que buscar algo que hacer", dice, vestido de riguroso chándal con camiseta de tirantes y exhibiendo una encantadora sonrisa y una musculatura que tumbaría a Schwarzenegger. Hace gimnasia para sacarse los nervios, pero delante de mí no deja en paz las articulaciones de sus dedos.

Estos jóvenes, y muchos otros que he ido conociendo: la magnitud de su tragedia es superior a la que sufren sus padres, pero por otros motivos. La generación de cuarenta y tantos años recuerda el horror de la guerra anterior, sufre y teme. Sus hijos llegaron a creer que este país se había recuperado para siempre. ¿Qué será de ellos? Pienso en Maya, repudiada por su familia de Trípoli, en el norte de Líbano, porque se vino a buscar la vida en la capital. Trabajaba repartiendo folletos y ofreciendo descuentos para atraer clientes a la puerta de un Starbucks. He perdido su pista, como ella su camino.

¿Qué daño habían hecho? Si algunos hasta admiraban la fortaleza y unidad de Israel. Todo lo que querían era una ilusión. Para ir tirando.

----------------------------------------------------

El conflicto de Oriente Próximo REPORTAJE
Aquí estamos La escritora y periodista ofrece desde la capital de Líbano su visión personal sobre la escalada de violencia
MARUJA TORRES - Beirut
ELPAIS.es - Internacional - 13-07-2006

Suelo elegir para ir de vacaciones las ciudades que más amo, y aquellas que temo no volver a ver. Mi repentina decisión de pasar unos días en Beirut se vio apoyada por este periódico con un estimulante consejo: “Haz un reportaje para agosto y cuenta cómo se pasa allí el verano”. “Así fue como llegué a Beirut la primera vez, en 1987: para informar sobre la paradoja del verano libanés en guerra”, respondí. Por entonces el verano era caliente —campos palestinos sitiados, coches bomba, secuestro de extranjeros—, y éste va a serlo de nuevo.De modo que, 20 años después, estaba yo tomando el sol en la piscina del hotel St. George, pegada al lugar donde volaron a Rafic el Hariri, un pedazo de calle hoy convenientemente reasfaltado y cercado para guardar todos los secretos; un sitio piadosamente bautizado como Rafic Hariri Place. Hay que reconocer que en Beirut te ponen una calle cuando estás vivo y que, cuando te han asesinado, te ponen varias. Pocas horas después, Hezbolá montaba lo de los soldados israelíes, y el futuro ya será historia. Como el pasado. Desde el profundo lugar en donde le mantienen en coma, Ariel Sharon ve cumplidos sus designios. Destruir la resistencia palestina, jorobar a Líbano.
Una temporada turística que se prometía feliz, que ya empezaba a dar sus frutos —el lujoso Movenpick Hotel lleno de saudíes con bungalows que cuestan lo que un piso en Madrid—, los tenderos de Hamra frotándose las manos: “Dicen que vendrán millón y medio de visitantes”. El cuento de la lechera que los beirutíes se cuentan para resistir la realidad se ha visto, una vez más, con el cántaro roto. Todavía con las emociones calientes del Mundial de Fútbol, que les había hecho sentirse ganadores, pues con astucia iban reemplazando banderas hasta hacerse con la del ganador.

Se rompió el cántaro. Mientras escribo esto, en mi hotel de toda la vida, Le Cavalier, la gente espera con las maletas hechas los autobuses que les llevarán a Damasco o a Amán —las únicas vías expeditas, al menos en estos momentos—, desde donde tomarán un avión hacia sus países respectivos, o recuperarán la paz de sus hogares en Siria y Jordania. Hoy me han entrevistado para una televisión, cazándome en la calle: mujer extranjera sola que elige quedarse. Formaba parte de lo exótico del día.

He salido a dar una vuelta por los alrededores —conviene no acercarse a los barrios chiitas del sur de Beirut, más fácilmente bombardeables: y además, con sus excitados habitantes celebrando las hazañas de Hezbolá mediante tiros al aire o petardazos—, y he visto a la gente de siempre, más triste y desesperanzada que nunca. Ha vuelto. Se refieren a algo más que los israelíes. Se refieren a la incapacidad de sus políticos, a la inoperancia de un Gobierno que se reúne para decidir que no decide o para determinar —e incumplir— que no se insultarán mutuamente en público. Sólo la extrema gravedad de esta crisis les ha hecho juntarse en consejo de ministros… para realizar una declaración que es toda una demostración de esquizofrenia. El Gobierno se desentiende de aquello que hace un partido al que pertenecen algunos de sus ministros. Israel lo tiene fácil. Hezbolá y sus patrocinadores, también.

Pero es la gente la que sufre, la que teme. Y la que agradece que le compres los periódicos, como siempre. Que te intereses por su salud, como siempre. Que te tomes un par de cafés, en donde siempre. De nuevo los nombres de las tiendas, como en las otras guerras ocurría, me ponen un nudo en la garganta: La Vie en Rose, Dernier Crie. Hay una nueva, cuyo nombre, Princess Diane, más bien parece una maldición.

En el hotel, a mi lado, un matrimonio sirio y la tía materna me cuentan que se encuentran aquí para adquirir el traje de novia de su hija y sobrina, No se pueden ir: es carísimo, nada menos que de La Belle Mariée —recuerdo los escaparates rotos, con sus fantasmagóricos maniquíes vestidos de novia, en la Beirut sin luz de las otras guerras— y se lo entregan dentro de dos días. Hasta entonces, habrá que esperar. La chica, Nada, es preciosa. Se casa en un par de semanas. Inshallah.

De momento, en esta zona no se ha ido la luz, pero los generadores están siempre a punto. Y la letanía de los vendedores de cupones de Hamra resulta más certera que nunca: El Yom, El Yom, El Yom. Hoy. Hoy y sólo hoy. La suerte para hoy. Como dice Hassan, afanado en su restaurante: “No pienses. No pienses”.

Es el mejor de los consejos. Aquí en Beirut tratamos de seguirlo todos.

2006-07-23T12:26:00.000+01:00

A Farewell to Beirut
Robert Fisk in Beirut
July 22, 2006

IN THE year AD 551, the magnificent, wealthy city of Berytus — headquarters of the Romans' East Mediterranean fleet — was struck by a massive earthquake. In its aftermath, the sea withdrew several miles and the survivors — ancestors of the present-day Lebanese — walked out on the sands to loot the long-sunken merchant ships revealed to them.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2006/07/21/1153166583302.html

Birthday Boy

2006-07-23T10:19:00.000+01:00

Thomas is 8 today
sitting aboard the "Jean Bart" French battleship leaving the Beirut port
on his way to Cyprus

He asked his dad before leaving "why?"
"why am I leaving with Jeddo and Nanny and why today, on my birthday?"
His father told him it was to go on vacation to the beach,
it was his birthday gift from his grandparents

His father doesn't know when he will see him again
perhaps in a few weeks he said, if the situation worsens
he will himself try to leave through Syria
but before then he won't leave his country, his home...

Perhaps in a month he hopes, when everything will be peaceful again
Lebanon will relive again and celebrate the begining of Fall
his son will return to Beirut, all tanned and grown up
But he will come back to a Lebanon destroyed and lost

Only for the children of our countries
do we have to learn to live in peace
do we have to drop our arms and
forget about this instinct
that we call 'animal'

2006-07-23T09:26:00.000+01:00

Dearest Nayla,

We are watching in agony the escalation of the war in Lebanon. It is so sad thatthe international community is tolerant and encouraging the massacre takingplace in this country. We are trying to feel the pain of the refugees and thosethat that are left behind to face death and destruction. It is a duty of everyone of us to spread the truth and crush the ignorance that reigns in the mindsof the vast majority of the citizens of the western world. We owe it to the victims of this horrific aggression to keep the eyes of our soul open and vigilant but also to wake up the conscience of as many people as possible. During the past few days as I have searched for solace in my beloved passages ofgreek literature I have discovered a lot of relevant quotes and poems for yourblog. From George Seferis (1900-1971) He was a Greek Nobel Laureate for literature,essayist and diplomat who held posts in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Iraq and theGreek ambassador in London (1957-62).

From his Nobel Prize speech (Stockholm 12/10/63)

"...In the tightly organized classical tragedies the man who exceeds his measureis punished by the Erinyes. And this norm of justice holds even in the realm of nature.

"Helios (the Sun) will not overstep his measure" says Heraclitus "otherwise theErinyes, the ministers of justice will find him out"....I, our gradually shrinking world, everyone is in need of all the others. We must look for man wherever we can find him. When on his way to Thebes Oedipus encountered the Sphinx, his answer to it's riddle was : " MAN" (human).That simple word destroyed the monster. We have many monsters to destroy, let us think of the answer of Oedipus.

Our mind is a virgin forest of killed friends…

Our mind is a virgin forest of killed friends.

And if I talk to you with fairytales and parables

It is because you listen to it more sweetly,

and you can’t talk of horror because it’s

alive

because it doesn’t speak and moves

it drips the day, it drips on sleep like a pain reminding of evils.

G. Seferis 1940-1945 Last Stop

"As pines keep the shape of the wind even when the wind has fled and is no longerthere, so words guard the shape of man even when man has fled and is no longerthere."

Poetry quote - G. Seferis

Nayla, keep up this wonderful work. My sister Panagiota and I are praying forthis to end.

Eleni

2006-07-22T19:24:00.000+01:00

Today is DAY 10.

3 days after Week One post on this blog. And the news didn't stop reporting horrors, deaths, destructions and evacutions.

My parents have changed their minds. They are leaving tomorrow with my nephews. In a way I am relieved but I think about those who can't leave. As a friend of mine said, stuck in the Lebanese mountains, to me today on the phone "those who are Lebanese only are treated like animals, they'll be forgotten soon when everyone else will be evacuated." It is a luxury right now to be a French, Candian, American, Australian...anything but Lebanese ONLY.

They bombed Christian neighborhoods North of Beirut today, TV and telecommunications infrastructure. I guess they're trying to isolate the different regions of the country before the end of the week. "They're damn good" my brother told me on the phone from Mansourieh, "they know their shit." Yes but why isolate the regions? so then they can blow up the whole Southern region of Beirut and take over the Beqaa valley, but I thought they already did this for the past 10 days. Why else then? Can you imagine what will be left of Lebanon in 10 more days...

Over 30 Israeli lives have been lost...over 300 Lebanese lives have been lost
But this is not a disproportionate response

Laure Ghorayeb

2006-07-22T19:05:00.000+01:00

July 17th

July 18th July 19th
All drawings originally uploeaded by Mazen Kerbaj

"Yesterday was the bombing of my neighborhood Ashrafieh..."
-Laure Ghorayeb, July 19th, 2006

[For more please check http://www.laureghorayeb.blogspot.com/]

Just a little help

2006-07-22T09:54:00.000+01:00

Hello all -

As many of you know, I am outraged at what is going on in the Middle East.

"Hundreds of civilians have been killed or wounded, and it remains difficult to organize medical evacuations and to maintain health services. All across the country, large numbers of people are fleeing the conflict zones in dangerous circumstances. There has also been widespread destruction of public infrastructure."
http://www.icrc.org/

"The United Nations has warned of a looming humanitarian crisis in Lebanon as thousands of families flee Israeli attacks. Roads from the south of Lebanon are reported to be clogged with thousands leaving their homes and heading for refuge."http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200607/s1690026.htm

I just donated to the Red Cross. From what I see on TV it seems like they are the ones that are reaching the most desperate areas. You could make a general donation or dedicate the money to a specific program. I am including the link below. Send this to as many people as you know. Please help!

Much love - Maria

http://www.icrc.org/web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList2/Help_the_ICRC?OpenDocument

Lebanon June 2006

2006-07-21T17:21:00.000+01:00

A visit to the Lebanese village of Jezzine

When it gets hot in Beirut, Lebanese who can flee to the mountains. Jezzine in the south central mountains is such a village. Our dear Lebanese friend insisted we should see this beautiful place of which she carries happy childhood memories.

[for more on this trip please check Happening Here Blog and click on June 2006, beautiful pictures]

Mounir Zok: Lebanese artist in exile

2006-07-21T14:00:00.000+01:00

PROJECT ON THE CAMP OF HATRED, THE KHIAM DETENTION CAMP IN SOUTHERN LEBANON (2004)
http://www.mounirzok.com

This damned torture courtyard: i cannot go in, i would die, once again. the hungry ferocious dogs that were launched against me did not kill me; nor did the kicks and punches of their owners; nor did their whips; nor did the electricity on my genitals; nor the boiling water that was poured onto our naked skin. maybe it would have been better. the more they tried to make me scream out my pain, the more i resisted and suffered in silence, because i knew who was back there hearing me. they would throw me back into the cell with my bones broken, my skin burnt, and my tongue bleeding, bit to avoid screaming out.khiam (lebanon), 2004

Paradise Lost

2006-07-21T12:11:00.000+01:00

[Excerpts from 'Paradise Lost: Robert Fisk's Elegy for Beirut', July 19th, 2006, The Independent]

The anger that any human soul should feel at such suffering and loss was expressed so well by Lebanon's greatest poet, the mystic Khalil Gibran, when he wrote of the half million Lebanese who died in the 1916 famine, most of them residents of Beirut:

My people died of hunger, and he who

Did not perish from starvation was

Butchered with the sword;

They perished from hunger

In a land rich with milk and honey.

They died because the vipers and

Sons of vipers spat out poison into

The space where the Holy Cedars and

The roses and the jasmine breathe

Their fragrance.

[...]

Fairouz, the most popular of Lebanese singers, was to have performed at this year's Baalbek festival, cancelled now like all Lebanon's festivals of music, dance, theatre and painting. One of her most popular songs is dedicated to her native city:

To Beirut - peace to Beirut with all my heart

And kisses - to the sea and clouds,

To the rock of a city that looks like an old sailor's face.

From the soul of her people she makes wine,

From their sweat, she makes bread and jasmine.

So how did it come to taste of smoke and fire?
***
(listen to the song)

LEBANON FUNDRAISING EVENT: LONDON

2006-07-21T11:27:00.000+01:00

[Please contact Tonia Asseily if you're interested in participating or need more information
sushi232@hotmail.com]

Dear All,

Because of the terrible situation Lebanon has found itself in, some of us are organising a fundraiser on 1st August, in Eclipse Brompton Road, from 9pm onwards. ALL the money will go to the Lebanese Red Cross; not a penny will go to any politician or political group!

Entry will be £25 at the door (cash only), and there will be Lebanese food, a people's auction (you'll be able to buy a date with Lebanon's finest!), raffles etc.

It's guest list ONLY so please email me if you would like to come; I realise I've emailed some of you in Beirut, but just in case you get out and find you're way here...

Dress code if you can, anything red, white or green...

Hope you can make it! And feel free to spread the word...

Toniaxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

2006-07-21T11:19:00.000+01:00

Here in Lebanon - A letter to Humanity
By Nathalie Malhame (Peace for Lebanon Blogger)
Beirut, Lebanon
18th of July 2006

Here in Lebanon, the atmosphere is grim and sad. The airport has been bombed several times, there is an air and sea blocade, the Syrian border has been bombed, we cannot leave the country easily- if at all. Bridges, oil stations, the airport, entire villages (Haret Hreik, Chtaura, Saida, Tyre, Dahiye, Kfarshima…) and most of our infrastructure has been targeted at and destroyed. Lebanon has indeed been taken ten years back in time. This summer was expected to be a ‘golden summer’ for Lebanon. Hotels were booked, tickets for festivals and concerts were sold out, and tourism was finally beginning to boom again in the country. Lebanon was finally beginning to show its true colors and break away from its war-torn image. All that, has been destroyed in just a matter of days- if not hours. But we can and will rebuild our infrastructure. We have done it before and we will do it again. Lebanese and their friends in all four corners of the world, from Brazil and North America to Cyprus and Nigeria can send money later and help rebuild the country. Saudi Arabia has already done so.

But what about the innocent lives that have been lost? Starting with the eight Lebanese Canadians- my fellow citizens on both sides, I being both Lebanese and Canadian? Continuing with the 12 members of family trying to leave their village? To the other 180 (and still counting) lives that were carelessly taken? To the four Brazilian lives that were taken too? Their lives cannot be rebuilt ….their lives were taken without a second thought. So far, only innocent lives have been taken. No, their lives have not been sparred. Children’s lives have not been sparred. Friends fleeing through the Syrian borders had to see dead bodies being pushed away in a trolley. These images will stay with them for life.

Hearing bombs and seeing our villages destroyed one after the other, we are afraid to sleep. We are afraid to have a quick shower, worrying that we have to rush down to the shelters at any instant-these shelters being no more than the garages of our buildings. How safe are they? You tell me. People like me, in areas that are still relatively safe, have been rushing to the supermarkets to buy food stocks. Gas is running short as gas stations are closing down. Back to electricity cuts, we are scared to take the elevator. Bread in some bakeries have started to be rationed. Food is still abundant for people who can afford it in supermarkets in these safe areas but it is no longer abundant in South Beirut or in the Southern villages that have been bombed. Hundreds of jobs have been lost. Hundreds of homes have been destroyed. With bomb threats reigning in the air, we are scared to drive anywhere or go anywhere. Even in our very own homes, we do not feel safe. I personally have stopped going to work and am hibernating at home. Are my loved ones or friends going to die today? You tell me. Is my friend stuck in Saida safe? Those supposed flyers that fall out of the Israeli planes to warn Lebanese villagers to flee their villages fall at most, 60 minutes before these villages are wiped away. How much time does that give people to run away? What about the people who cannot read or the tourists or second or third generation returnees who cannot read Arabic? And how can they run away if their roads and bridges have been destroyed? You tell me.

No…. Hizbollah should not have kidnapped those two Israeli soldiers. They did that without the Lebanese population’s or the Lebanese government’s knowledge. Indeed, those two soldiers should be sent back to Israel. But that does not give the Israeli army the right to go and destroy entire villages and take away innocent lives or the right to bombard our whole infrastructure. They did not even try to negotiate before starting to destroy our infrastructure. Yes, Hizbollah should be disarmed. An immediate cease fire must take place now and the international community must intervene to help do that so that the Lebanese government can take control again. Prime Minister Siniora is a good man, with his heart in the right place. We must give him the chance to take control. He cannot do so if there is no immediate cease-fire. This conflict has gone beyond the capture of the two soldiers. It has spilled over, way over into the danger zone. Do we really want to see the start of world war three? You tell me, is that what you want? Do we really want to ignore the value of human life? Day by day, more tears and blood are spilled….mainly in Lebanon right now but also on all sides. In Haifa, in Gaza, in Beirut…. In Palestine, Israel and Lebanon, let’s not forget in Iraq…. Is this really what you want? What for? What for? Please, just tell me what for.

No. I stand up and calmly cry out with dignity and love for humanity: NO. NO MORE VIOLENCE. NO MORE VIOLENCE. PLEASE PEOPLE OF ALL NATIONS FROM LEBANON AND ISRAEL TO CANADA AND FRANCE TO THE REST OF THE WORLD, STAND UP AND SAY NO.

Tell me you will not stand idly by, tell me that you will not close your eyes, tell me that you will not give up. Tell me that you will raise your voice of peace and help intervene now, fast and urgently before more human- HUMAN- lives are lost.

Thank you for listening,

From Lebanon with tears.

Nathalie Malhame

MAY THIS HUMILIATION LEAD TO FREEDOM ONE DAY

2006-07-20T18:28:00.000+01:00

2006-07-20T17:22:00.000+01:00

August 16th, 1982

Sunday, Jul. 16, 2006
Time Magazine

The Party's Over
As the bombs fall, the nightlife capital of the Middle East grows desperate

By ANDREW LEE BUTTERS

When the electricity finally failed in my East Beirut neighborhood, I set up shop at a rooftop hotel bar and waited for the next Israeli bombs to fall. Almost immediately, the sky erupted with what sounded like antiaircraft fire but turned out to be red and green fireworks garishly flashing over the hot, dark city. The Shi'ite residents of Beirut's southern suburbs, pummeled all day by the Israeli assault, were celebrating Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah's declaration of war with Israel.

That's what passes for a party in Beirut these days. Monot Street, Beirut's main nightclub drag, is normally throbbing with oil-rich Arab playboys and European hipsters on such a steamy summer night. But with the city under siege, the only buzz coming from Beirut's bars is the hum of power generators. There's not a bikini in sight on the city's sunny shoreline or a parked Porsche in the chic shopping district. Few Lebanese saw it coming. After this country's 15-year civil war ended in 1990, the nation transformed itself from a byword for urban violence into the nightlife capital of the Middle East. Elites who had fled during the war poured back in, pumping billions of dollars into the redevelopment of downtown Beirut. The rebranding of the city was so successful that with every condominium high-rise and every new shopping mall, the Lebanese began to believe their own advertising and forget that they live in a fragile country in a dangerous part of the world. That illusion now lies in tatters.

The foreigners were the first to panic. At the Phoenicia Hotel, the city's fanciest, the lobby was filled with fashionable women fleeing the country in high-heeled shoes. The embassies circulated fanciful evacuation plans involving small airplanes and ferries to Cyprus. The U.N. told its employees to stock up on a month's worth of prescription medication and take a long weekend.

The problem is that there's almost no place to go. Poor Beirut airport, recently rebuilt, was famously attacked in 1968, when Israeli commandos blew up 13 Lebanese civilian planes as they sat on the tarmac. This time the attack came in slow motion: first the runways, then the fuel-storage tanks, then the runways again, then the terminals.

With Israeli warships attacking ports and running blockades, the only way out of the country is by land through Syria. Fleets of taxis carried hotel guests on the three-hour trip to Damascus until an air strike knocked out a key bridge. Now cars have to take back roads through the high mountain passes or head north up the coast road toward the Syrian city of Homs. Given the conditions on the roads, staying in Beirut while the bombs fall is as good an option as trying to make a run for it. "You share your bed with a Lebanese girl?" a staff member at the Tourism Ministry asked me. "Get married, and you won't have to leave."

The Lebanese--who lived through far worse than this during the civil war--are determined to put up a steely front. Every time I go to a supermarket to collect quotes from supposedly terrified families stocking up on essentials, I end up being the one with the largest shopping-cart load of canned goods and batteries. But it's hard to escape the sense of dread that looms over the country. "Twenty years of reconstruction are being destroyed in a few days," the Tourism Minister, Joseph Sarkis, moaned to me from his nearly abandoned ministry. The owner of a subterranean nightclub called the Basement is trying to rally his patrons with a new slogan: "It's safer underground." Even in Beirut, that may not be enough to keep the party going.

MIDEAST CRISIS AID GROUPS (CNN World)

2006-07-20T16:06:00.000+01:00

The following are links to aid group Web sites who are assisting civilians in the Mideast crisis (some sites may respond slowly due to increased traffic):

• AGA Khan Development Network• AmeriCares• CARE• Direct Relief International• Episcopal Relief Development• Habitat For Humanity• ICRC -- International Committee of the Red Cross• Islamic Relief• MercyCorps• Oxfam• Refugees International• Save the Children• UJA Federation of New York• UNDP -- United Nations Development Program• UNHCR -- United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees• UNICEF• World Food Program• World Vision

Do you want to leave Lebanon tomorrow???

2006-07-20T15:47:00.000+01:00

ouff...what a decision to take...I just received a mail from my mom. The embassy called them and asked them if they wanted to leave tomorrow at noon. My nephews would go with them.

She didn't tell my dad yet, she's worried of his reaction "I am not leaving my country another time", if he leaves...all this hope lost again...he spent the first 10 years of his retirement in his home country where he never lived really for the past 30 years because of the conflict. He was so happy to be back...I was so happy to have them back with me in Lebanon...and now they might leave again...building, destroying, building again to be destroyed again...that's a Lebanese life for the past 40 years, an entire generation of Lebanese and now maybe a second generation on its way out...Until when...Khallas we've had enough of this, we have no identity anymore, no roots, no country, we're half european, half american, half canadian, half australian...half............

ENNNOUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Can you hear the music in the darkness

2006-07-20T15:20:00.000+01:00

I am sitting here in London, it is so hot outside, I have all my windows open and I am listening to the sounds on the streets...

People coming in, people coming out
Doors closing and windows opening
ambulances and police sirens
the usual major city noises

The noise is unbearable and yet I am thinking of the sounds in Southern Lebanon and South Beirut
at this very instant...

People staying in or dying out
ambulances mistaken for bombs
attacked by bombs
cigarettes lighting and innocents screaming
children whispering
trapped with rocket-throwing men, yelling and throwing...

The sound is getting closer
getting repetitive and old
the history knows it well
any of us must know it well by now
the same chorus
the same horror

And yet all those children growing up listening to the melody of hope
believing in the melody of happiness
the melody of peace
the melody of silence
the melody of childhood the way it should be anywhere in this world

When we live with "an eye for an eye,” the whole world will be blind (Ghandi)

2006-07-20T15:14:00.000+01:00

[Editor of The Daily Home's Note: Father Bob Blackwell, and his wife, Kay, have been living and working in Damascus, Syria, since May 2005. As the Middle East is rocked by another spasm of violence along Syria’s border, Blackwell sent an e-mail to The Daily Home sharing some of his observations on “Living on the Brink of War.” Most of that e-mail is reprinted below, as it was sent Tuesday morning. ]

"Living on the Brink of War"....

It is only 30 miles from our door that the bombs are being dropped on the roads, bridges, buildings and people of Lebanon. It could be only a matter of days before they begin to fall on Damascus. Our first thought was, "How and when do we leave?"

But as we began to talk with the members of our congregation here ... all English-speaking expatriates who are working here as diplomats from the U.S., Britain, Canada, oil workers, health care specialists, and other professionals from Holland, the UK, Australia, and many domestic workers from the Philippines ... those who had been through something like this before, we found out that this is part of life in the Middle East. And the best way to live "on the brink of war” is to try to keep life as normal as possible.

Our job here, now, and as always, has been to support these people in their life and work, with spiritual, emotional and sometimes physical encouragement. We talk to each other, or e-mail, almost daily. We are having people for dinner on a regular basis. We are still attending official functions at the embassies. I am still working on sermons and bulletins and Bible classes for the church. Life goes on.

But this does not lessen the fact that there is still a horrible situation going on with our neighbors, 30 miles down the road. In fact, all of Palestine, Israel and Lebanon are a part of our Diocese here in the Middle East. The cities you are seeing on CNN all have priests in churches that I have been to meetings with. They have congregations in their care who are in harm's way.
We have sent messages to Beirut and offered the use of our home for any who may be able to leave Lebanon. But I have not heard back from them. Most, I think, are being told to stay where they are, if they are in a safe area of Lebanon.

We do not think that the war will spread to Damascus, except the war of words.
We are hoping that Syria will help find a solution to the problem, rather than escalate it. That is the wish of most people here. There was a large demonstration in the streets yesterday, to show support for Hezbollah, but as with most demonstrations here ... all government workers, which is most people, are made to attend, being bused from their work place. It is hard to know the truth.

Nevertheless, these demonstrations do excite some people with an anti-American sentiment, and we usually try to stay inside the day of and away from any such events.
Yesterday, however, after most of the day inside our house ... I walked to the church, the bank and the grocery, just to not go stir crazy. I went out about 3 in the afternoon, when the temperature was over 100 and most people are inside.

We have also learned that we cannot watch the TV news all day without becoming consumed with worry and sympathy for what is happening, the poor people in the midst of it all. We watch just enough to know what is going on, and then get on with the other duties before us.
The people of Syria are just as concerned and upset with what is happening as people around the world. There are good people here, but people who look to America to help bring an end to the problems in the Middle East.

The solution is not at the end of a gun, or on the end of a rocket.
The solution is bringing people together to talk and to treat one another with dignity.

Gandhi said: When we live with "an eye for an eye,” the whole world will be blind.

We are trying to live a life of grace and forgiveness in this place, which does not come through power, but through the crucified One, the One who said from His cross: "Father forgive them."
We are where we are supposed to be, and we have to believe that our prayers and presence here are making a difference, at least in our own lives.

Bob

DON'T SHOOT FILIPINOS...

2006-07-20T14:57:00.000+01:00

Philippines appeals for help for 30,000 citizens stuck in Lebanon
20 July 2006 1639 hrs
Source: Agence France Press

MANILA : The Philippine president has appealed for Israel and Hezbollah to avoid harming some 30,000 Filipinos stranded in Lebanon, and urged the international community to help evacuate her citizens. Facing criticism for failing to do enough to help Filipinos stuck in the war zone, many of whom are female domestic workers, Gloria Arroyo insisted her government was doing everything it could. "The Philippines makes a special appeal to all combatant forces to spare Filipino nationals who have no wish other than to be taken out of harm's way," she said in a statement. "In the name of humanity, I ask the combatants not to harm them," she said, while appealing for other countries to "help us in the evacuation process." Filipino officials have conceded that they are unable to evacuate thousands of people on their own, and the government has appealed to the United States, European countries and Gulf states to find space for Filipinos on planes and ships evacuating people from Beirut. So far around 200 Filipinos are holed up in a Roman Catholic Church in the Christian part of Beirut waiting to be bused across the border into Syria, but many others are being told to sit tight. Arroyo said Filipino diplomats were trying to "negotiate at the political level and on the ground wherever possible to ensure that our nationals are given safe passage, humanitarian assistance and safe sanctuary." The government also released just under three million US dollars to help the evacuation process and said it would try to help any of the 25,000 Filipinos in Israel who wanted to be taken out of the country. The Philippines is among the world's biggest exporters of manpower. An estimated seven to eight million Filipinos are scattered around the globe. The include many domestic workers as well as hospital staff in the United States and Europe, oil workers and drivers in Saudi Arabia, and security guards in Iraq. Many of these workers earn as little as 300 dollars per month and have few rights or access to help when problems erupt abroad. Collectively remittances by foreign-based workers sustain the Philippine economy. Last year alone they sent home a record 10.3 billion dollars. Philippine foreign ministry spokesman Gilbert Asuque defended the government's actions in the latest Middle East crisis. But he said not all of the estimated 30,000 Filipinos in Lebanon have expressed a desire to leave, and that a majority wanted to stay with their employers. "Ultimately, the decision is with the (worker). We gave them a choice that there is a repatriation program and buses and airplanes that could bring them home," Asuque said. However Connie Regalado of Migrante International, a support group for overseas workers, denied most Filipinos wanted to stay and said the government's reaction was being driven by money. "It is not true that many Filipinos do not want to go home from Lebanon as the foreign office wants to portray. We have talked to many of them and they said they have not received anything from the embassy," she said. "The first thing anyone will think in a situation like that is to save his own life. There is just neglect in the slowness by which the government responded," Regalado said as she led families of workers stuck in Lebanon in a protest outside the foreign ministry in Manila. Meanwhile Manila radio and television stations have heard emotional appeals from Filipinos stuck in the conflict zone. "I am very afraid. I have not slept since the bombings began," said domestic worker Virgie Valencia, adding that she and other Filipina maids were holed up in a Beirut condominium in fear of their lives. "I will not come back anymore," she said. "I did not wait for my employers, it might take them a long time to decide to evacuate."

RELIEF LEBANON

2006-07-20T12:21:00.000+01:00

Support the Lebanese civilians through the International Committee for the Red Cross and the Red Crescent Lebanon Relief Fund.

http://www.relieflebanon.org/

Mon Pere Ce Hero

2006-07-20T11:13:00.000+01:00

[Caline from the UAE sent me this message this morning, a little bit of humour in times of crisis, I'll translate the text in English today]

Hier Mercredi 19 Juillet, 2 perceuses ont ete detruites en plein Ashrafieh, localite soit disant calme depuis le debut des evenements. la cause de cette agression: les pilotes de Tsahal ont pris ces engins pour des camions tires-missiles. 1 peu plus loin, dans une autre rue paisible d' Achrafieh, une perceuse est garee dans 1 chantier en plein milieu d'immeubles residentiels.

Comme vs pouvez l'imaginer, tous les habitants ont panique et se sont dit "le sort en est jete, les avions ne vont pas tarder a bombarder." Le voisin du 4 eme ki s'est mis a appeler la police, celui d'en face s'est charge des pompiers quand au premier, il s'est contente de prier.
Vous pouvez visualiser la scene, branle bas de combat dans1 rue chic de la capitale Libanaise avec des habitants d'1 certain age effrayes de la presence d'une perrceuse dans le quartier.

N'ayant obtenu aucun resultat, mon pere habitant de ce meme quartier se chargea de faire la chasse a la perceuse. Prenant son courage a 2 mains, il appela le proprietaire du chantier et le somma de retirer cet engin de tous les dangers. Constatant que le proprietaire protestait c' est la que mon pere decida de proferer des menaces a l'encontre de la perceuse: "Monsieur, si vous ne degagez pas votre perceuse nous allons y mettre le feu car nous ne prendrons aucun risque de se faire bombarder"... ainsi, la perceuse fut finalement retiree et mon pere ce hero avait finalement rendu le calme et la serenite aux gens du quartier qui resistent encore et toujours a l'envahisseur.

"Mais ils sont fous ces Israeliens"...

Lebanese Bloggers

2006-07-20T10:39:00.000+01:00

[Excerpt of "Lebanon Sold Out" as published on
http://lebanesebloggers.blogspot.com/]

This is what President Bush had to say yesterday: "In order to be able to deal with this crisis, the world must deal with Hezbollah, with Syria and to continue to work to isolate Iran."

Please tell me if you see the word Lebanon anywhere. It's not about Lebanon; it's about Israel, Hezbollah, Iran and Syria. But guess what country is being destroyed and who is being killed (over 300 dead now) and displaced (over half a million)? Lebanon and the Lebanese people.

I realized then that Lebanon has been sold out!

2006-07-20T10:09:00.000+01:00

We, at leb.org, have always maintained an apolitical stand, remaining neutral in face of political events.

But today it's not about politics: Lebanon is being destroyed as we speak and we need to do something to stop the tragedy. We need to stand together and react!

Please have a look at our appeal for a cease-fire and join us in our effort to pressure the international community into stopping the bloodshed and destruction.
Print it out and send it to embassies, newspapers, TV stations, UN headquarters and missions.

Wherever you are, keep safe.
leb.org team

2006-07-20T09:58:00.000+01:00

I was so excited to see that I received some comments this morning...thank you all...but I thought someone would have written something directed to the Lebanese or Lebanon or the conflict in general but not to me. To know that "the wesbite is great" or that "the colors are nice" makes me feel good but it is not really helping the purpose of the site. I hope we will get more creative comments today...

Just heard that 2,950 arrived on the American ship Orient Queen to Cyprus. So many more...I'm really afraid of those evacuations and what it might open the conflict to. I am happy for the ones that evacuated of course, especially those without relatives or a home in Lebanon. But I do hope the Lebanese who can stay (health and accomodation wise) will stand put and show the world that we're not leaving our country again...

Who am I to speak...I was never there except on vacation in 82 and 86 and then moved there after the war 'ended' in 1990. Today I wish I could go back....NOW!

Keep posting,

An American in Beirut

2006-07-20T09:42:00.000+01:00

[THIS MESSAGE WAS SENT TO ME ON JULY 19TH, YOU CAN POST YOUR WORD OF SUPPORT ON THIS BLOG]

We heard through an aunt that the americans were evacuating. There
was no news report, there was no radio broadcast, no internet announcement, no phone calls, nothing. And down here in Beirut, every one tells you something different, when we arrived at the embassy, they told us our previous registration was valid and that we should wait for a phone call. When we got to the port however, where the n ships are (along with about 500 other people, all siting on the side of the highway with their baggage) they told us we had to register there, that no previous registration was valid, that no one will call you, that the only thing you can do is sit and wait. there were no more departures today, the next boat leaves tomorrow at 8am. register and wait. their estimated time just to complete registration was at least 4 or 5 hours; it's not at an embassy, with a gate and a couple soldiers and a waiting room and a portapotty; it's at a port, like where the highway ends in the sea: in Beirut where, without the effects of smog, the temeprature hits 97 and 100 percent humidity. people are lined up, sitting on their baggage waiting to talk to one of three people behind a desk with a paper and a pencil. there's no computer, there's no back room, there's no supervisor, there's three guys with paper and pen taking down names. the latest estimates of the number of americans in beirut was close to 20,000. Twenty thousand. and there are three guys behind a desk.

Where we are up in the mountains, we're safe. and comfortable. we're about 2 hours from Beirut, we have water, fairly consistent electricity, there's no internet and almost no tv, butit's cool and fresh and we're all together. so in an hour, we're going to go back up and wait till things calm down. we can last easy 2 or 3 weeks up without coming back down,a nd who knows, maybe before then we'll have arranged a way to go to syria or jordan by car. i don't know how else to assure you all that I am ok. i mean, effects of this experience, have yet to be seen-- but i'm about halfway through The Empty Space for the second time, and i have enough theatre theory to keep one busy for a very long time indeed. keep watching the news, question what you hear. to be honest, more than anything, i am just in total shock. to think that in the 21st century, in an age of internet and video ipods and i don't know what else, this kind of breach of an entire country and people's sovreignty is totally unfathomable. and condoleeza says what? bring it on. i tell you what, my cell phone here is on credit units, like you have to recharge it every 9 days or so cause the minutes don't last, but in a moment of weakness (or was it strength?), i called my senator. in any case, his assistant got an earful. i love you all, all all, forward my information to anyone, in my rush, i've missed including some very dear people. but more than that, talk about what's going on, demand better.

Talking to any of you would be like an evacuation in itself.
yours,
Rayya

Demonstrations all Over the World

2006-07-19T16:50:00.000+01:00

Thursday July 20, 2006

LEBANON / Beirut - a demonstration is intended on Thursday 20 July 2006 starting 11:00 a.m. from UN House in Riad El Solh to the EU commission in Saifi. - Demonstration will be confirmed in the coming day.
Germany, Stade - (3PM) Street: Am Sande
France, Paris - (18h à 21h) Place de Trocadéro : Rassemblement tous les jours.
France, Toulouse - (7h30 to 9:00 PM) Sit-in every day. Place du Capitole
Spain / Madrid - (7:30 PM) from Puerta del Sol to Plaza de Ópera (Isabel II).
Spain / Barcelona - (8:00 PM) Plaça Sant Jaume
Spain / Tarragona - (7:30 PM) Rambla Nova. Estatua dels Despullats
Spain / Lleida - (8:00 PM) Plaça Paeria
Doha, Qatar - (8: 30 PM) Location: Lebanese School

Friday July 21, 2006

Japan / Tokyo - at the UN or the Israeli embassy (date is still not definite)
France, Paris - (18h à 21h) Place de Trocadéro : Rassemblement tous les jours.
France, Toulouse - (7h30 to 9:00 PM) Sit-in every day. Place du Capitole

Saturday July 22, 2006

Australia, Adelaide (12PM) at Parliment house in Adeliade, and may lead to a march thru to Victoria Square.
Hong Kong - (11:00 AM) in central station Hong Kong
UK, London (12PM) March from Parliment square to Marble Arch
France, Dijon (13h30) Place Darcy
France, Paris - (18h à 21h) Place de Trocadéro : Rassemblement tous les jours.
France, Toulouse - (7h30 to 9:00 PM) Sit-in every day. Place du Capitole
Germany, Munich - (3:30 PM) Kalsplatz
Germany, Hanover - Kröpcke Strass
Germany, Frankfurt - (2 PM) - Homburger Landstrasse/Ecke Friedberger Warte (contact: Tel.: 0172 519 84 13 , 0152 051 251 25, 0162 932 83 04 )
Netherlands, Amsterdam - At the Beursplein
Israel, Tel-Aviv at 18:30 in Rabin Square
Canada, Ottawa - (11AM) in front of the parleament in ottawa and we will march to the canadian prime minister office

Sunday July 23, 2006

Austria, Vienna (4 PM) @ Stephansplatz
France, Paris - (18h à 21h) Place de Trocadéro : Rassemblement tous les jours.
France, Toulouse - (7h30 tp9:00 PM) Sit-in every day. Place du Capitole

Sources: Moghtarebee Lubnan, tayyar.org, emails

2006-07-19T09:43:00.000+01:00

On another Lebanese blog (Kerblog) I found this message from Aaron in the US "The only connection I have with you is that my taxes are paying for the bombs Israel is droping on you. Please keep writing, drawing, and thinking. Otherwise, it's only bombs. "

OTHERWISE IT'S ONLY BOMBS...

Displaced Overnight

2006-07-19T09:34:00.000+01:00

My parents just sent me a message, they're not leaving anymore...for the moment. They want to leave as regular people not evacuees...others need it more, those without a home, separated family members, children...

Yes but MY parents...

Apparently, displaced families from the South are taking empty apartments anywhere they can find them in the city and in the mountains to live in them.

This is what Lebanon has become (re-)...overnight...July 12th, 2006.

TO ALL LEBANESE-LONDONERS

2006-07-18T18:19:00.000+01:00

"Stop the war on Lebanon" demonstration on Sunday 23rd July st. Margaret street, parliament square, 12pm, Lebanese flags only. Please come & fwd to others.

WEEK ONE

2006-07-18T17:03:00.000+01:00

Premiere semaine de bombes...

Les diplomates ont debarques...les bateaux sont arrives...

Malheureusement, evacuations = intensification du conflit

Je regarde les gens partir
les larmes aux yeux et les enfants a la main
ces etrangers Libanais qui fuient sans penser au lendemain,
vers leur pays d'acceuil, cadeau du premier conflit Beyroutin.

Je regarde ceux qui restent sur le quai,
ceux qui n'ont nullepart ou aller,
ceux qui ne veulent pas bouger,
et rentreront vers la fumee.

et moi je suis la dans le luxe de mon appartement Londonien,
je regarde les evenements de loin
les larmes aux yeux et la telecommande a la main...

Today smoke is everywhere...let the world know!

2006-07-18T11:47:00.000+01:00

Stuck in the Middle

2006-07-18T11:43:00.000+01:00

From an artist who's living the conflict from Beirut, fighting with his own means against 'Hizbosrael.'

PLEASE VISIT:
http://mazenkerblog.blogspot.com/

Nights of dancing in the city

2006-07-17T17:11:00.000+01:00

While we were all clubbing in Beirut...the storm was already preparing itself. We would have never imagined it this strong and angry.
While we were dancing, the city was merely aware of what was about to happen to her a month later, in just one night, July 12th 2006.

June 9th 2006...when we were getting married...it was a dream come true...all our loved ones together in our beloved home country.
While we were laughing and drinking, the future of Lebanon was hanging to a thinny tiny thread ontop of a valley of blades, a valley of rockets ready to be sent off over the border.
Lebanon was waiting to be kidnapped, to be raped, to be dilapidated, once again...while we were looking away and dancing...

ROMPRE LE SILENCE

2006-07-17T16:32:00.000+01:00

Dans un cri de haine
j'ecris en silence
avec l'espoir qui s'efface
le coeur qui se froisse
et les oreilles qui se fachent.

Dans un bruit crissant
je reprendrai mes armes
devant cet ecriteau blanc
pour ce pays signe de sang
et ses hommes impuissants.

Londres, 17 juillet 2006
Après 5 jours de feu et de sang au Liban…

Photo courtesy of Enno De Boer (Germany)