From the New Yorker:
WATCHING LEBANON
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Washington’s interests in Israel’s war.
Issue of 2006-08-21
Posted 2006-08-14
In the days after Hezbollah crossed from Lebanon into Israel, on July 12th, to kidnap two soldiers, triggering an Israeli air attack on Lebanon and a full-scale war, the Bush Administration seemed strangely passive. “It’s a moment of clarification,” President George W. Bush said at the G-8 summit, in St. Petersburg, on July 16th. “It’s now become clear why we don’t have peace in the Middle East.” He described the relationship between Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran and Syria as one of the “root causes of instability,” and subsequently said that it was up to those countries to end the crisis. Two days later, despite calls from several governments for the United States to take the lead in negotiations to end the fighting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire should be put off until “the conditions are conducive.”
The Bush Administration, however, was closely involved in the planning of Israel’s retaliatory attacks. President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney were convinced, current and former intelligence and diplomatic officials told me, that a successful Israeli Air Force bombing campaign against Hezbollah’s heavily fortified underground-missile and command-and-control complexes in Lebanon could ease Israel’s security concerns and also serve as a prelude to a potential American preëmptive attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear installations, some of which are also buried deep underground.
Israeli military and intelligence experts I spoke to emphasized that the country’s immediate security issues were reason enough to confront Hezbollah, regardless of what the Bush Administration wanted. Shabtai Shavit, a national-security adviser to the Knesset who headed the Mossad, Israel’s foreign-intelligence service, from 1989 to 1996, told me, “We do what we think is best for us, and if it happens to meet America’s requirements, that’s just part of a relationship between two friends. Hezbollah is armed to the teeth and trained in the most advanced technology of guerrilla warfare. It was just a matter of time. We had to address it.”
Hezbollah is seen by Israelis as a profound threat—a terrorist organization, operating on their border, with a military arsenal that, with help from Iran and Syria, has grown stronger since the Israeli occupation of southern Lebanon ended, in 2000. Hezbollah’s leader, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, has said he does not believe that Israel is a “legal state.” Israeli intelligence estimated at the outset of the air war that Hezbollah had roughly five hundred medium-range Fajr-3 and Fajr-5 rockets and a few dozen long-range Zelzal rockets; the Zelzals, with a range of about two hundred kilometres, could reach Tel Aviv. (One rocket hit Haifa the day after the kidnappings.) It also has more than twelve thousand shorter-range rockets. Since the conflict began, more than three thousand of these have been fired at Israel.
According to a Middle East expert with knowledge of the current thinking of both the Israeli and the U.S. governments, Israel had devised a plan for attacking Hezbollah—and shared it with Bush Administration officials—well before the July 12th kidnappings. “It’s not that the Israelis had a trap that Hezbollah walked into,” he said, “but there was a strong feeling in the White House that sooner or later the Israelis were going to do it.”
The Middle East expert said that the Administration had several reasons for supporting the Israeli bombing campaign. Within the State Department, it was seen as a way to strengthen the Lebanese government so that it could assert its authority over the south of the country, much of which is controlled by Hezbollah. He went on, “The White House was more focussed on stripping Hezbollah of its missiles, because, if there was to be a military option against Iran’s nuclear facilities, it had to get rid of the weapons that Hezbollah could use in a potential retaliation at Israel. Bush wanted both. Bush was going after Iran, as part of the Axis of Evil, and its nuclear sites, and he was interested in going after Hezbollah as part of his interest in democratization, with Lebanon as one of the crown jewels of Middle East democracy.”
Administration officials denied that they knew of Israel’s plan for the air war. The White House did not respond to a detailed list of questions. In response to a separate request, a National Security Council spokesman said, “Prior to Hezbollah’s attack on Israel, the Israeli government gave no official in Washington any reason to believe that Israel was planning to attack. Even after the July 12th attack, we did not know what the Israeli plans were.” A Pentagon spokesman said, “The United States government remains committed to a diplomatic solution to the problem of Iran’s clandestine nuclear weapons program,” and denied the story, as did a State Department spokesman.
The United States and Israel have shared intelligence and enjoyed close military coöperation for decades, but early this spring, according to a former senior intelligence official, high-level planners from the U.S. Air Force—under pressure from the White House to develop a war plan for a decisive strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities—began consulting with their counterparts in the Israeli Air Force.
“The big question for our Air Force was how to hit a series of hard targets in Iran successfully,” the former senior intelligence official said. “Who is the closest ally of the U.S. Air Force in its planning? It’s not Congo—it’s Israel. Everybody knows that Iranian engineers have been advising Hezbollah on tunnels and underground gun emplacements. And so the Air Force went to the Israelis with some new tactics and said to them, ‘Let’s concentrate on the bombing and share what we have on Iran and what you have on Lebanon.’ ” The discussions reached the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, he said.
“The Israelis told us it would be a cheap war with many benefits,” a U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said. “Why oppose it? We’ll be able to hunt down and bomb missiles, tunnels, and bunkers from the air. It would be a demo for Iran.”
A Pentagon consultant said that the Bush White House “has been agitating for some time to find a reason for a preëmptive blow against Hezbollah.” He added, “It was our intent to have Hezbollah diminished, and now we have someone else doing it.” (As this article went to press, the United Nations Security Council passed a ceasefire resolution, although it was unclear if it would change the situation on the ground.)
According to Richard Armitage, who served as Deputy Secretary of State in Bush’s first term—and who, in 2002, said that Hezbollah “may be the A team of terrorists”—Israel’s campaign in Lebanon, which has faced unexpected difficulties and widespread criticism, may, in the end, serve as a warning to the White House about Iran. “If the most dominant military force in the region—the Israel Defense Forces—can’t pacify a country like Lebanon, with a population of four million, you should think carefully about taking that template to Iran, with strategic depth and a population of seventy million,” Armitage said. “The only thing that the bombing has achieved so far is to unite the population against the Israelis.”
Several current and former officials involved in the Middle East told me that Israel viewed the soldiers’ kidnapping as the opportune moment to begin its planned military campaign against Hezbollah. “Hezbollah, like clockwork, was instigating something small every month or two,” the U.S. government consultant with ties to Israel said. Two weeks earlier, in late June, members of Hamas, the Palestinian group, had tunnelled under the barrier separating southern Gaza from Israel and captured an Israeli soldier. Hamas also had lobbed a series of rockets at Israeli towns near the border with Gaza. In response, Israel had initiated an extensive bombing campaign and reoccupied parts of Gaza.
The Pentagon consultant noted that there had also been cross-border incidents involving Israel and Hezbollah, in both directions, for some time. “They’ve been sniping at each other,” he said. “Either side could have pointed to some incident and said ‘We have to go to war with these guys’—because they were already at war.”
David Siegel, the spokesman at the Israeli Embassy in Washington, said that the Israeli Air Force had not been seeking a reason to attack Hezbollah. “We did not plan the campaign. That decision was forced on us.” There were ongoing alerts that Hezbollah “was pressing to go on the attack,” Siegel said. “Hezbollah attacks every two or three months,” but the kidnapping of the soldiers raised the stakes.
In interviews, several Israeli academics, journalists, and retired military and intelligence officers all made one point: they believed that the Israeli leadership, and not Washington, had decided that it would go to war with Hezbollah. Opinion polls showed that a broad spectrum of Israelis supported that choice. “The neocons in Washington may be happy, but Israel did not need to be pushed, because Israel has been wanting to get rid of Hezbollah,” Yossi Melman, a journalist for the newspaper Ha’aretz, who has written several books about the Israeli intelligence community, said. “By provoking Israel, Hezbollah provided that opportunity.”
“We were facing a dilemma,” an Israeli official said. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert “had to decide whether to go for a local response, which we always do, or for a comprehensive response—to really take on Hezbollah once and for all.” Olmert made his decision, the official said, only after a series of Israeli rescue efforts failed.
The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel told me, however, that, from Israel’s perspective, the decision to take strong action had become inevitable weeks earlier, after the Israeli Army’s signals intelligence group, known as Unit 8200, picked up bellicose intercepts in late spring and early summer, involving Hamas, Hezbollah, and Khaled Meshal, the Hamas leader now living in Damascus.
One intercept was of a meeting in late May of the Hamas political and military leadership, with Meshal participating by telephone. “Hamas believed the call from Damascus was scrambled, but Israel had broken the code,” the consultant said. For almost a year before its victory in the Palestinian elections in January, Hamas had curtailed its terrorist activities. In the late May intercepted conversation, the consultant told me, the Hamas leadership said that “they got no benefit from it, and were losing standing among the Palestinian population.” The conclusion, he said, was “ ‘Let’s go back into the terror business and then try and wrestle concessions from the Israeli government.’ ” The consultant told me that the U.S. and Israel agreed that if the Hamas leadership did so, and if Nasrallah backed them up, there should be “a full-scale response.” In the next several weeks, when Hamas began digging the tunnel into Israel, the consultant said, Unit 8200 “picked up signals intelligence involving Hamas, Syria, and Hezbollah, saying, in essence, that they wanted Hezbollah to ‘warm up’ the north.” In one intercept, the consultant said, Nasrallah referred to Olmert and Defense Minister Amir Peretz “as seeming to be weak,” in comparison with the former Prime Ministers Ariel Sharon and Ehud Barak, who had extensive military experience, and said “he thought Israel would respond in a small-scale, local way, as they had in the past.”
Earlier this summer, before the Hezbollah kidnappings, the U.S. government consultant said, several Israeli officials visited Washington, separately, “to get a green light for the bombing operation and to find out how much the United States would bear.” The consultant added, “Israel began with Cheney. It wanted to be sure that it had his support and the support of his office and the Middle East desk of the National Security Council.” After that, “persuading Bush was never a problem, and Condi Rice was on board,” the consultant said.
The initial plan, as outlined by the Israelis, called for a major bombing campaign in response to the next Hezbollah provocation, according to the Middle East expert with knowledge of U.S. and Israeli thinking. Israel believed that, by targeting Lebanon’s infrastructure, including highways, fuel depots, and even the civilian runways at the main Beirut airport, it could persuade Lebanon’s large Christian and Sunni populations to turn against Hezbollah, according to the former senior intelligence official. The airport, highways, and bridges, among other things, have been hit in the bombing campaign. The Israeli Air Force had flown almost nine thousand missions as of last week. (David Siegel, the Israeli spokesman, said that Israel had targeted only sites connected to Hezbollah; the bombing of bridges and roads was meant to prevent the transport of weapons.)
The Israeli plan, according to the former senior intelligence official, was “the mirror image of what the United States has been planning for Iran.” (The initial U.S. Air Force proposals for an air attack to destroy Iran’s nuclear capacity, which included the option of intense bombing of civilian infrastructure targets inside Iran, have been resisted by the top leadership of the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps, according to current and former officials. They argue that the Air Force plan will not work and will inevitably lead, as in the Israeli war with Hezbollah, to the insertion of troops on the ground.)
Uzi Arad, who served for more than two decades in the Mossad, told me that to the best of his knowledge the contacts between the Israeli and U.S. governments were routine, and that, “in all my meetings and conversations with government officials, never once did I hear anyone refer to prior coördination with the United States.” He was troubled by one issue—the speed with which the Olmert government went to war. “For the life of me, I’ve never seen a decision to go to war taken so speedily,” he said. “We usually go through long analyses.”
The key military planner was Lieutenant General Dan Halutz, the I.D.F. chief of staff, who, during a career in the Israeli Air Force, worked on contingency planning for an air war with Iran. Olmert, a former mayor of Jerusalem, and Peretz, a former labor leader, could not match his experience and expertise.
In the early discussions with American officials, I was told by the Middle East expert and the government consultant, the Israelis repeatedly pointed to the war in Kosovo as an example of what Israel would try to achieve. The NATO forces commanded by U.S. Army General Wesley Clark methodically bombed and strafed not only military targets but tunnels, bridges, and roads, in Kosovo and elsewhere in Serbia, for seventy-eight days before forcing Serbian forces to withdraw from Kosovo. “Israel studied the Kosovo war as its role model,” the government consultant said. “The Israelis told Condi Rice, ‘You did it in about seventy days, but we need half of that—thirty-five days.’ ”
There are, of course, vast differences between Lebanon and Kosovo. Clark, who retired from the military in 2000 and unsuccessfully ran as a Democrat for the Presidency in 2004, took issue with the analogy: “If it’s true that the Israeli campaign is based on the American approach in Kosovo, then it missed the point. Ours was to use force to obtain a diplomatic objective—it was not about killing people.” Clark noted in a 2001 book, “Waging Modern War,” that it was the threat of a possible ground invasion as well as the bombing that forced the Serbs to end the war. He told me, “In my experience, air campaigns have to be backed, ultimately, by the will and capability to finish the job on the ground.”
Kosovo has been cited publicly by Israeli officials and journalists since the war began. On August 6th, Prime Minister Olmert, responding to European condemnation of the deaths of Lebanese civilians, said, “Where do they get the right to preach to Israel? European countries attacked Kosovo and killed ten thousand civilians. Ten thousand! And none of these countries had to suffer before that from a single rocket. I’m not saying it was wrong to intervene in Kosovo. But please: don’t preach to us about the treatment of civilians.” (Human Rights Watch estimated the number of civilians killed in the NATO bombing to be five hundred; the Yugoslav government put the number between twelve hundred and five thousand.)
Cheney’s office supported the Israeli plan, as did Elliott Abrams, a deputy national-security adviser, according to several former and current officials. (A spokesman for the N.S.C. denied that Abrams had done so.) They believed that Israel should move quickly in its air war against Hezbollah. A former intelligence officer said, “We told Israel, ‘Look, if you guys have to go, we’re behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later—the longer you wait, the less time we have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office.’ ”
Cheney’s point, the former senior intelligence official said, was “What if the Israelis execute their part of this first, and it’s really successful? It’d be great. We can learn what to do in Iran by watching what the Israelis do in Lebanon.”
The Pentagon consultant told me that intelligence about Hezbollah and Iran is being mishandled by the White House the same way intelligence had been when, in 2002 and early 2003, the Administration was making the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. “The big complaint now in the intelligence community is that all of the important stuff is being sent directly to the top—at the insistence of the White House—and not being analyzed at all, or scarcely,” he said. “It’s an awful policy and violates all of the N.S.A.’s strictures, and if you complain about it you’re out,” he said. “Cheney had a strong hand in this.”
The long-term Administration goal was to help set up a Sunni Arab coalition—including countries like Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Egypt—that would join the United States and Europe to pressure the ruling Shiite mullahs in Iran. “But the thought behind that plan was that Israel would defeat Hezbollah, not lose to it,” the consultant with close ties to Israel said. Some officials in Cheney’s office and at the N.S.C. had become convinced, on the basis of private talks, that those nations would moderate their public criticism of Israel and blame Hezbollah for creating the crisis that led to war. Although they did so at first, they shifted their position in the wake of public protests in their countries about the Israeli bombing. The White House was clearly disappointed when, late last month, Prince Saud al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, came to Washington and, at a meeting with Bush, called for the President to intervene immediately to end the war. The Washington Post reported that Washington had hoped to enlist moderate Arab states “in an effort to pressure Syria and Iran to rein in Hezbollah, but the Saudi move . . . seemed to cloud that initiative.”
The surprising strength of Hezbollah’s resistance, and its continuing ability to fire rockets into northern Israel in the face of the constant Israeli bombing, the Middle East expert told me, “is a massive setback for those in the White House who want to use force in Iran. And those who argue that the bombing will create internal dissent and revolt in Iran are also set back.”
Nonetheless, some officers serving with the Joint Chiefs of Staff remain deeply concerned that the Administration will have a far more positive assessment of the air campaign than they should, the former senior intelligence official said. “There is no way that Rumsfeld and Cheney will draw the right conclusion about this,” he said. “When the smoke clears, they’ll say it was a success, and they’ll draw reinforcement for their plan to attack Iran.”
In the White House, especially in the Vice-President’s office, many officials believe that the military campaign against Hezbollah is working and should be carried forward. At the same time, the government consultant said, some policymakers in the Administration have concluded that the cost of the bombing to Lebanese society is too high. “They are telling Israel that it’s time to wind down the attacks on infrastructure.”
Similar divisions are emerging in Israel. David Siegel, the Israeli spokesman, said that his country’s leadership believed, as of early August, that the air war had been successful, and had destroyed more than seventy per cent of Hezbollah’s medium- and long-range-missile launching capacity. “The problem is short-range missiles, without launchers, that can be shot from civilian areas and homes,” Siegel told me. “The only way to resolve this is ground operations—which is why Israel would be forced to expand ground operations if the latest round of diplomacy doesn’t work.” Last week, however, there was evidence that the Israeli government was troubled by the progress of the war. In an unusual move, Major General Moshe Kaplinsky, Halutz’s deputy, was put in charge of the operation, supplanting Major General Udi Adam. The worry in Israel is that Nasrallah might escalate the crisis by firing missiles at Tel Aviv. “There is a big debate over how much damage Israel should inflict to prevent it,” the consultant said. “If Nasrallah hits Tel Aviv, what should Israel do? Its goal is to deter more attacks by telling Nasrallah that it will destroy his country if he doesn’t stop, and to remind the Arab world that Israel can set it back twenty years. We’re no longer playing by the same rules.”
A European intelligence officer told me, “The Israelis have been caught in a psychological trap. In earlier years, they had the belief that they could solve their problems with toughness. But now, with Islamic martyrdom, things have changed, and they need different answers. How do you scare people who love martyrdom?” The problem with trying to eliminate Hezbollah, the intelligence officer said, is the group’s ties to the Shiite population in southern Lebanon, the Bekaa Valley, and Beirut’s southern suburbs, where it operates schools, hospitals, a radio station, and various charities.
A high-level American military planner told me, “We have a lot of vulnerability in the region, and we’ve talked about some of the effects of an Iranian or Hezbollah attack on the Saudi regime and on the oil infrastructure.” There is special concern inside the Pentagon, he added, about the oil-producing nations north of the Strait of Hormuz. “We have to anticipate the unintended consequences,” he told me. “Will we be able to absorb a barrel of oil at one hundred dollars? There is this almost comical thinking that you can do it all from the air, even when you’re up against an irregular enemy with a dug-in capability. You’re not going to be successful unless you have a ground presence, but the political leadership never considers the worst case. These guys only want to hear the best case.”
There is evidence that the Iranians were expecting the war against Hezbollah. Vali Nasr, an expert on Shiite Muslims and Iran, who is a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and also teaches at the Naval Postgraduate School, in Monterey, California, said, “Every negative American move against Hezbollah was seen by Iran as part of a larger campaign against it. And Iran began to prepare for the showdown by supplying more sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah—anti-ship and anti-tank missiles—and training its fighters in their use. And now Hezbollah is testing Iran’s new weapons. Iran sees the Bush Administration as trying to marginalize its regional role, so it fomented trouble.”
Nasr, an Iranian-American who recently published a study of the Sunni-Shiite divide, entitled “The Shia Revival,” also said that the Iranian leadership believes that Washington’s ultimate political goal is to get some international force to act as a buffer—to physically separate Syria and Lebanon in an effort to isolate and disarm Hezbollah, whose main supply route is through Syria. “Military action cannot bring about the desired political result,” Nasr said. The popularity of Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a virulent critic of Israel, is greatest in his own country. If the U.S. were to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities, Nasr said, “you may end up turning Ahmadinejad into another Nasrallah—the rock star of the Arab street.”
Donald Rumsfeld, who is one of the Bush Administration’s most outspoken, and powerful, officials, has said very little publicly about the crisis in Lebanon. His relative quiet, compared to his aggressive visibility in the run-up to the Iraq war, has prompted a debate in Washington about where he stands on the issue.
Some current and former intelligence officials who were interviewed for this article believe that Rumsfeld disagrees with Bush and Cheney about the American role in the war between Israel and Hezbollah. The U.S. government consultant with close ties to Israel said that “there was a feeling that Rumsfeld was jaded in his approach to the Israeli war.” He added, “Air power and the use of a few Special Forces had worked in Afghanistan, and he tried to do it again in Iraq. It was the same idea, but it didn’t work. He thought that Hezbollah was too dug in and the Israeli attack plan would not work, and the last thing he wanted was another war on his shift that would put the American forces in Iraq in greater jeopardy.”
A Western diplomat said that he understood that Rumsfeld did not know all the intricacies of the war plan. “He is angry and worried about his troops” in Iraq, the diplomat said. Rumsfeld served in the White House during the last year of the war in Vietnam, from which American troops withdrew in 1975, “and he did not want to see something like this having an impact in Iraq.” Rumsfeld’s concern, the diplomat added, was that an expansion of the war into Iran could put the American troops in Iraq at greater risk of attacks by pro-Iranian Shiite militias.
At a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on August 3rd, Rumsfeld was less than enthusiastic about the war’s implications for the American troops in Iraq. Asked whether the Administration was mindful of the war’s impact on Iraq, he testified that, in his meetings with Bush and Condoleezza Rice, “there is a sensitivity to the desire to not have our country or our interests or our forces put at greater risk as a result of what’s taking place between Israel and Hezbollah. . . . There are a variety of risks that we face in that region, and it’s a difficult and delicate situation.”
The Pentagon consultant dismissed talk of a split at the top of the Administration, however, and said simply, “Rummy is on the team. He’d love to see Hezbollah degraded, but he also is a voice for less bombing and more innovative Israeli ground operations.” The former senior intelligence official similarly depicted Rumsfeld as being “delighted that Israel is our stalking horse.”
There are also questions about the status of Condoleezza Rice. Her initial support for the Israeli air war against Hezbollah has reportedly been tempered by dismay at the effects of the attacks on Lebanon. The Pentagon consultant said that in early August she began privately “agitating” inside the Administration for permission to begin direct diplomatic talks with Syria—so far, without much success. Last week, the Times reported that Rice had directed an Embassy official in Damascus to meet with the Syrian foreign minister, though the meeting apparently yielded no results. The Times also reported that Rice viewed herself as “trying to be not only a peacemaker abroad but also a mediator among contending parties” within the Administration. The article pointed to a divide between career diplomats in the State Department and “conservatives in the government,” including Cheney and Abrams, “who were pushing for strong American support for Israel.”
The Western diplomat told me his embassy believes that Abrams has emerged as a key policymaker on Iran, and on the current Hezbollah-Israeli crisis, and that Rice’s role has been relatively diminished. Rice did not want to make her most recent diplomatic trip to the Middle East, the diplomat said. “She only wanted to go if she thought there was a real chance to get a ceasefire.”
Bush’s strongest supporter in Europe continues to be British Prime Minister Tony Blair, but many in Blair’s own Foreign Office, as a former diplomat said, believe that he has “gone out on a particular limb on this”—especially by accepting Bush’s refusal to seek an immediate and total ceasefire between Israel and Hezbollah. “Blair stands alone on this,” the former diplomat said. “He knows he’s a lame duck who’s on the way out, but he buys it”—the Bush policy. “He drinks the White House Kool-Aid as much as anybody in Washington.” The crisis will really start at the end of August, the diplomat added, “when the Iranians”—under a United Nations deadline to stop uranium enrichment—“will say no.”
Even those who continue to support Israel’s war against Hezbollah agree that it is failing to achieve one of its main goals—to rally the Lebanese against Hezbollah. “Strategic bombing has been a failed military concept for ninety years, and yet air forces all over the world keep on doing it,” John Arquilla, a defense analyst at the Naval Postgraduate School, told me. Arquilla has been campaigning for more than a decade, with growing success, to change the way America fights terrorism. “The warfare of today is not mass on mass,” he said. “You have to hunt like a network to defeat a network. Israel focussed on bombing against Hezbollah, and, when that did not work, it became more aggressive on the ground. The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing and expecting a different result.”
Monday, August 14, 2006
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Philadelphia Antiwar March
March for a Cease Fire and Israeli Withdrawal from Lebanon & Gaza
Friday, August 11th from 4:30-6:30
Gathering on the west side of City Hall; March starts at 5:30
Ending at the Federal Building btwn 6th & 7th Sts on Market
The U.S. gives about $2.5 billion a year to Israel’s army. This month alone over 1000 civilians have been killed in Lebanon and Gaza; one million Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes.
If the world makes the connection between Iranian writing on Hizballah’s missiles, what are the Lebanese to make of the U.S. writing on Israel’s missiles?
We demand that the U.S. government intervene to stop Israel’s brutal bombing and blockade of Gaza and Lebanon, a form of collective punishment illegal under the Geneva Convention. We further call for an unconditional cease fire with a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army and an end to US aid to the Israeli military.
Lebanon: Nearly 1000 killed, one-third of whom are children, and one-million (a quarter of the population) forced to flee. The Lebanese infrastructure has been destroyed. Israel’s blockade of Lebanon is preventing food and medical aid from reaching the hardest hit areas which will most certainly raise the death toll. Furthermore, the oil slick from the Israeli bombing of the Lebanese power plant has polluted Lebanese coast and is now reaching Syria. The lack of an immediate coordinated response is risking an environmental catastrophe.
Gaza: 175 have been killed in the last month, a quarter of whom are children. What little infrastructure existed has been heavily damaged. There has been a sharp decline in the living conditions of 1.4 million people, more than half of whom are children, creating a humanitarian crisis. With nearly 80% of the population already living below the poverty line, the situation is dire.
We are calling for an end to this madness funded by our U.S. tax dollars.
Current list of Cosponsors: American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC Philly); Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philly); Bubbes and Zaydes for Peace in the Middle East; Jewish Voice for Peace (Philly Chapter); Network of Arab American Professionals (NAAP-Philly); Philadelphia International Action Center; Suburban Greens; SUSTAIN; Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF-Philly).
Friday, August 11th from 4:30-6:30
Gathering on the west side of City Hall; March starts at 5:30
Ending at the Federal Building btwn 6th & 7th Sts on Market
The U.S. gives about $2.5 billion a year to Israel’s army. This month alone over 1000 civilians have been killed in Lebanon and Gaza; one million Lebanese have been forced to flee their homes.
If the world makes the connection between Iranian writing on Hizballah’s missiles, what are the Lebanese to make of the U.S. writing on Israel’s missiles?
We demand that the U.S. government intervene to stop Israel’s brutal bombing and blockade of Gaza and Lebanon, a form of collective punishment illegal under the Geneva Convention. We further call for an unconditional cease fire with a complete withdrawal of the Israeli army and an end to US aid to the Israeli military.
Lebanon: Nearly 1000 killed, one-third of whom are children, and one-million (a quarter of the population) forced to flee. The Lebanese infrastructure has been destroyed. Israel’s blockade of Lebanon is preventing food and medical aid from reaching the hardest hit areas which will most certainly raise the death toll. Furthermore, the oil slick from the Israeli bombing of the Lebanese power plant has polluted Lebanese coast and is now reaching Syria. The lack of an immediate coordinated response is risking an environmental catastrophe.
Gaza: 175 have been killed in the last month, a quarter of whom are children. What little infrastructure existed has been heavily damaged. There has been a sharp decline in the living conditions of 1.4 million people, more than half of whom are children, creating a humanitarian crisis. With nearly 80% of the population already living below the poverty line, the situation is dire.
We are calling for an end to this madness funded by our U.S. tax dollars.
Current list of Cosponsors: American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC Philly); Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-Philly); Bubbes and Zaydes for Peace in the Middle East; Jewish Voice for Peace (Philly Chapter); Network of Arab American Professionals (NAAP-Philly); Philadelphia International Action Center; Suburban Greens; SUSTAIN; Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (WILPF-Philly).
Venezuela's Chavez Plans to Cut Ties to Israel to Protest War
Venezuela's Chavez Plans to Cut Ties to Israel to Protest War
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) --
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez plans to end relations with Israel to protest the bombing of Lebanon, the Communication and Information Ministry said in a statement.
Venezuela pulled the business attaché from its embassy in Israel on Aug. 4, while Israel recalled its ambassador in Venezuela on Aug. 7.
``The most likely next step is that we break diplomatic relations,'' the statement quoted Chavez as saying. ``I have no interest in maintaining diplomatic relations or offices or business or anything with a state like Israel.''
More than 800 Lebanese and at least 103 Israelis have died in the violence, according to police officials in the two countries.
Israel has occupied an area about 6 kilometers (3.6 miles) deep into Lebanon since the conflict began July 12, when Hezbollah forces fired on Israeli troops patrolling south of the Lebanese border and staged a cross-border raid in which three Israelis were killed and two kidnapped.
Aug. 9 (Bloomberg) --
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez plans to end relations with Israel to protest the bombing of Lebanon, the Communication and Information Ministry said in a statement.
Venezuela pulled the business attaché from its embassy in Israel on Aug. 4, while Israel recalled its ambassador in Venezuela on Aug. 7.
``The most likely next step is that we break diplomatic relations,'' the statement quoted Chavez as saying. ``I have no interest in maintaining diplomatic relations or offices or business or anything with a state like Israel.''
More than 800 Lebanese and at least 103 Israelis have died in the violence, according to police officials in the two countries.
Israel has occupied an area about 6 kilometers (3.6 miles) deep into Lebanon since the conflict began July 12, when Hezbollah forces fired on Israeli troops patrolling south of the Lebanese border and staged a cross-border raid in which three Israelis were killed and two kidnapped.
Brave war resisters, cowardly mainstream media, and Robert Fisk
Democracy Now! reports that some Israeli soldiers are deliberately missing their targets, out of concern that they are being asked to bomb civilians. Disobeying orders during wartime is a tremendous risk, particularly during a popular war in a country that does not allow conscientious objectors. Those soldiers brave enough to follow their consciences and refuse to kill civilians will likely be vilified in Israel, but I for one salute them. They, like American soldiers Camilo Mejia and Pablo Paredes, are setting an example for soldiers around the world.
But wasn't it just today that the NY Times reported that everyone in Israel, including the left, supports the war? This article is remarkable in that it fails to even acknowledge the existence of a radical left, however small, in Israel. They could have at least gotten a quote from Gideon Levy, who's been criticizing this war from its beginning in the editorial pages of Ha'Aretz, Israel's biggest daily.
As for Lebanon: I highly, highly recommend Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation. I'm reading it now, and it's by far the best and most balanced overview of the history of Lebanon (and all of its interwoven history with Israel/Palestine) that I've seen. I've recommended several of Fisk's articles on this blog; he's probably the foremost English-language journalist covering Lebanon and the Middle East. He's lived in Beirut since the 1970s, had his closest friend and coworker kidnapped, and was one of the first on the scene after the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. He's also one of the most thoughtful and talented writers out there, and that shows in his book, which is, believe it or not, a 650-page page-turner. Go and read it, right now. Seriously.
But wasn't it just today that the NY Times reported that everyone in Israel, including the left, supports the war? This article is remarkable in that it fails to even acknowledge the existence of a radical left, however small, in Israel. They could have at least gotten a quote from Gideon Levy, who's been criticizing this war from its beginning in the editorial pages of Ha'Aretz, Israel's biggest daily.
As for Lebanon: I highly, highly recommend Robert Fisk's Pity the Nation. I'm reading it now, and it's by far the best and most balanced overview of the history of Lebanon (and all of its interwoven history with Israel/Palestine) that I've seen. I've recommended several of Fisk's articles on this blog; he's probably the foremost English-language journalist covering Lebanon and the Middle East. He's lived in Beirut since the 1970s, had his closest friend and coworker kidnapped, and was one of the first on the scene after the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. He's also one of the most thoughtful and talented writers out there, and that shows in his book, which is, believe it or not, a 650-page page-turner. Go and read it, right now. Seriously.
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Lebanon: An Open Country for Civil Resistance
Press Release-
Lebanon: An Open Country for Civil Resistance
Beirut
August 7, 2006
Press Contacts:
Rasha Salti, +961 3 970855
Huwaida Arraf, +961 70 974452
Samah Idriss, +961 3 381349
Wadih Al Asmar, +961 70 950780
On August 12, at 7 am, Lebanese from throughout the country and international supporters who have come to Lebanon to express solidarity will gather in Martyr’s Square in Beirut to form a civilian convoy to the south of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese and international civilians will express their solidarity with the inhabitants of the heavily destroyed south who have been bravely withstanding the assault of theIsraeli military. This campaign is endorsed by more than 200 Lebanese and international organizations. This growing coalition of national and international non-governmental organizations hereby launches a campaign of civil resistance for the purpose of challenging the cruel and ruthless use of massive military force by Israel, the regional superpower, upon the people of Lebanon.
August 12 marks the start of this Campaign of Resistance, declaring Lebanon an Open Country for Civil Resistance. August 12 also marks both the international day of protest against the Israeli aggression.
"In the face of Israel’s systematic killing of our people, the indiscriminate bombing of our towns, the scorching of our villages, and the attempted destruction of our civil infrastructure, we say No! In the face of the forced expulsion of a quarter of our population from their homes throughout Lebanon, and the complicity of governments and international bodies, we re-affirm the acts of civil resistance that began from the first day of the Israeli assault, and we stress and add the urgent need to act!," said Rasha Salti, one of the organizers of this national event.
After August 12, the campaign will continue with a series of civil actions, leading to an August 19 civilian march to reclaim the South. "Working together, in solidarity, we will overcome the complacency, inaction, and complicity of the international community and we will deny Israel its goal of removing Lebanese from their land and destroying the fabric of our country," explained Samah Idriss, writer and co-organizer of this campaign.
"An international civilian presence in Lebanon is not only an act of solidarity with the Lebanese people in the face of unparalleled Israeli aggression, it is an act of moral courage to defy the will of those who would seek to alienate the West from the rest and create a new Middle East out of the rubble and blood of the region," said Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement and campaign co-organizer. "After having witnessed the wholesale destruction of villages by Israel's air force and navy and having visited the victims (so-called displaced) of Israel's policy of cleansing Lebanese civilians from their homes," continued Arraf, "it is imperative to go south and reach those who have stayed behind to resist by steadfastly remaining on their land."
If you are in Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, contact either:
Rasha Salti. Email: convois.citoyens.sud.liban@gmail.com Tel:+961 3 970 855
Rania Masri.Email rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb. Tel: +961 3 135 279 or+961 6 930 250 xt. 5683 or xt. 3933
If you are outside Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, you should know:
1) You need to obtain a visa for Lebanon and for Syria if your plan is to enter Lebanon from Syria.
2) We don't have the funds to cover for the cost of your travel, however we can help with finding accomodations.
For questions and help for all internationals please contact Adam Shapiro at: adamsop@hotmail.com
You can also sign up on our website: www.lebanonsolidarity.org.
This campaign is thus far endorsed by more than 200 organizations, including: The Arab NGOs Network for Development (ANND), InternationalSolidarity Movement (ISM), Cultural Center for Southern Lebanon, Norwegian People’s Aid, Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections, Frontiers, Kafa, Nahwaal-Muwatiniya, Spring Hints, Hayya Bina, Lebanese Transparency Association, Amam 05, Lebanese Center for Civic Education, Let’s Build Trust, CRTD-A, Solida, National Association for Vocational Training and Social Services, Lebanese Development Pioneers, Nadi Li Koul Alnas, and Lecorvaw.
Lebanon: An Open Country for Civil Resistance
Beirut
August 7, 2006
Press Contacts:
Rasha Salti, +961 3 970855
Huwaida Arraf, +961 70 974452
Samah Idriss, +961 3 381349
Wadih Al Asmar, +961 70 950780
On August 12, at 7 am, Lebanese from throughout the country and international supporters who have come to Lebanon to express solidarity will gather in Martyr’s Square in Beirut to form a civilian convoy to the south of Lebanon. Hundreds of Lebanese and international civilians will express their solidarity with the inhabitants of the heavily destroyed south who have been bravely withstanding the assault of theIsraeli military. This campaign is endorsed by more than 200 Lebanese and international organizations. This growing coalition of national and international non-governmental organizations hereby launches a campaign of civil resistance for the purpose of challenging the cruel and ruthless use of massive military force by Israel, the regional superpower, upon the people of Lebanon.
August 12 marks the start of this Campaign of Resistance, declaring Lebanon an Open Country for Civil Resistance. August 12 also marks both the international day of protest against the Israeli aggression.
"In the face of Israel’s systematic killing of our people, the indiscriminate bombing of our towns, the scorching of our villages, and the attempted destruction of our civil infrastructure, we say No! In the face of the forced expulsion of a quarter of our population from their homes throughout Lebanon, and the complicity of governments and international bodies, we re-affirm the acts of civil resistance that began from the first day of the Israeli assault, and we stress and add the urgent need to act!," said Rasha Salti, one of the organizers of this national event.
After August 12, the campaign will continue with a series of civil actions, leading to an August 19 civilian march to reclaim the South. "Working together, in solidarity, we will overcome the complacency, inaction, and complicity of the international community and we will deny Israel its goal of removing Lebanese from their land and destroying the fabric of our country," explained Samah Idriss, writer and co-organizer of this campaign.
"An international civilian presence in Lebanon is not only an act of solidarity with the Lebanese people in the face of unparalleled Israeli aggression, it is an act of moral courage to defy the will of those who would seek to alienate the West from the rest and create a new Middle East out of the rubble and blood of the region," said Huwaida Arraf, co-founder of the International Solidarity Movement and campaign co-organizer. "After having witnessed the wholesale destruction of villages by Israel's air force and navy and having visited the victims (so-called displaced) of Israel's policy of cleansing Lebanese civilians from their homes," continued Arraf, "it is imperative to go south and reach those who have stayed behind to resist by steadfastly remaining on their land."
If you are in Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, contact either:
Rasha Salti. Email: convois.citoyens.sud.liban@gmail.com Tel:+961 3 970 855
Rania Masri.Email rania.masri@balamand.edu.lb. Tel: +961 3 135 279 or+961 6 930 250 xt. 5683 or xt. 3933
If you are outside Lebanon and want to sign up and join the convoy, you should know:
1) You need to obtain a visa for Lebanon and for Syria if your plan is to enter Lebanon from Syria.
2) We don't have the funds to cover for the cost of your travel, however we can help with finding accomodations.
For questions and help for all internationals please contact Adam Shapiro at: adamsop@hotmail.com
You can also sign up on our website: www.lebanonsolidarity.org.
This campaign is thus far endorsed by more than 200 organizations, including: The Arab NGOs Network for Development (ANND), InternationalSolidarity Movement (ISM), Cultural Center for Southern Lebanon, Norwegian People’s Aid, Lebanese Center for Policy Studies, Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections, Frontiers, Kafa, Nahwaal-Muwatiniya, Spring Hints, Hayya Bina, Lebanese Transparency Association, Amam 05, Lebanese Center for Civic Education, Let’s Build Trust, CRTD-A, Solida, National Association for Vocational Training and Social Services, Lebanese Development Pioneers, Nadi Li Koul Alnas, and Lecorvaw.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Houla
Another massacre: 40 dead in Houla, Lebanon. What do they hope to accomplish by the wholesale slaughter of civilians?
"The mainstream left is no longer left."
TEL AVIV (Reuters) - Waving colorful banners and singing protest songs, a tireless band of Israeli demonstrators is trying to end the war in Lebanon.
Few are taking notice.
"We understand we don't represent the consensus. Everyone is asleep," said Uri Even-Chen, 36, a computer programmer from the town of Ranana, during a weekend street march in Tel Aviv. Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Israelis back the war against Hizbollah, sparked when the guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
The death, damage and panic caused by Hizbollah's rockets have only hardened attitudes -- more than 2,700 missiles have slammed into northern Israel, killing 48 people. Those views have been reflected in the tiny street protests.
By contrast, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated at the height of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when the army sought to cripple Palestinian militants living there.
In one of the biggest rallies to date, around 2,000 people turned out in Tel Aviv at the weekend. Many carried communist and anarchist flags and banners belonging to Arab Israeli movements -- hardly the Israeli mainstream.
"The majority who support opposition to the war are from the radical left," said protester Amit Ramon, 42, a high-tech worker. "The mainstream left is no longer left."
Anti-war groups have demanded an immediate ceasefire and negotiations with Hizbollah over prisoners.
At the weekend rally in Tel Aviv, veteran peace campaigner Yael Dayan was booed off a stage for urging the safe return of all of Israel's soldiers fighting in Lebanon, underscoring how far removed protesters remain from most Israelis.
"There is no mainstream political opposition (to the war)," Israeli analyst Mark Heller said. "This is basically seen as a legitimate response to a serious challenge from somebody else."
Anti-war activists remain frustrated that protest groups such as Peace Now have not opposed the government.
The group, at the forefront of opposition to the previous war in Lebanon, insists Israel had the right to respond to attacks on its soil. Other dovish bodies such as political party Meretz have been virtually silent in opposition to the war.
Many in the protest camp have turned on Defense Minister Amir Peretz, a former labor union leader and avowed supporter of negotiations with the Palestinians.
"Peretz wants to be a hero and we are suffering because of it," said demonstrator Yoav Bar, 51, an electrician from Haifa.
Many traditional supporters of bodies such as Peace Now find it difficult to identify with the current anti-war groups.
"I supported the anti-war rallies in the 1980s but this is different," Shmuel Adar, 71, from Tel Aviv said.
"This is a defensive war and it is clear that there is an intention to attack and destroy Israel -- just look at the amount of rockets fired."
With Israel possibly set to expand its offensive in Lebanon, opposition still looks feeble but protesters are not giving up. In the northern city of Haifa, one of Hizbollah's favorite targets, sporadic protests have been held, with very little backing from the city's embattled residents.
"We remain distant voices but what Israel is doing in Lebanon is shocking ... Opposition will build up," said Yoni Yeheskiel, 23, a student at one Haifa rally.
-Jonathan Saul, Reuters
*********
For some worthwhile comment on the Israeli radical left, check out ODA Action.
Few are taking notice.
"We understand we don't represent the consensus. Everyone is asleep," said Uri Even-Chen, 36, a computer programmer from the town of Ranana, during a weekend street march in Tel Aviv. Opinion polls show an overwhelming majority of Israelis back the war against Hizbollah, sparked when the guerrillas abducted two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.
The death, damage and panic caused by Hizbollah's rockets have only hardened attitudes -- more than 2,700 missiles have slammed into northern Israel, killing 48 people. Those views have been reflected in the tiny street protests.
By contrast, hundreds of thousands of people demonstrated at the height of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, when the army sought to cripple Palestinian militants living there.
In one of the biggest rallies to date, around 2,000 people turned out in Tel Aviv at the weekend. Many carried communist and anarchist flags and banners belonging to Arab Israeli movements -- hardly the Israeli mainstream.
"The majority who support opposition to the war are from the radical left," said protester Amit Ramon, 42, a high-tech worker. "The mainstream left is no longer left."
Anti-war groups have demanded an immediate ceasefire and negotiations with Hizbollah over prisoners.
At the weekend rally in Tel Aviv, veteran peace campaigner Yael Dayan was booed off a stage for urging the safe return of all of Israel's soldiers fighting in Lebanon, underscoring how far removed protesters remain from most Israelis.
"There is no mainstream political opposition (to the war)," Israeli analyst Mark Heller said. "This is basically seen as a legitimate response to a serious challenge from somebody else."
Anti-war activists remain frustrated that protest groups such as Peace Now have not opposed the government.
The group, at the forefront of opposition to the previous war in Lebanon, insists Israel had the right to respond to attacks on its soil. Other dovish bodies such as political party Meretz have been virtually silent in opposition to the war.
Many in the protest camp have turned on Defense Minister Amir Peretz, a former labor union leader and avowed supporter of negotiations with the Palestinians.
"Peretz wants to be a hero and we are suffering because of it," said demonstrator Yoav Bar, 51, an electrician from Haifa.
Many traditional supporters of bodies such as Peace Now find it difficult to identify with the current anti-war groups.
"I supported the anti-war rallies in the 1980s but this is different," Shmuel Adar, 71, from Tel Aviv said.
"This is a defensive war and it is clear that there is an intention to attack and destroy Israel -- just look at the amount of rockets fired."
With Israel possibly set to expand its offensive in Lebanon, opposition still looks feeble but protesters are not giving up. In the northern city of Haifa, one of Hizbollah's favorite targets, sporadic protests have been held, with very little backing from the city's embattled residents.
"We remain distant voices but what Israel is doing in Lebanon is shocking ... Opposition will build up," said Yoni Yeheskiel, 23, a student at one Haifa rally.
-Jonathan Saul, Reuters
*********
For some worthwhile comment on the Israeli radical left, check out ODA Action.
Thursday, August 03, 2006
Qana.
Hello all,
I was on vacation this week, and when I returned to the news... Qana. If you are not outraged by this massacre of innocent human beings, perhaps you are not human yourself.
Charles Krauthammer, apparently, doesn't have a problem with it:
What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?
To get a more detailed idea of what those "collateral" humans experience, read Robert Fisk:
"We were in the basement hiding when the bomb exploded at one o'clock in the morning,'' she said. "What in the name of God have we done to deserve this? So many of the dead are children, the old, women. Some of the children were still awake and playing. Why does the world do this to us?"
I was on vacation this week, and when I returned to the news... Qana. If you are not outraged by this massacre of innocent human beings, perhaps you are not human yourself.
Charles Krauthammer, apparently, doesn't have a problem with it:
What other country sustains 1,500 indiscriminate rocket attacks into its cities -- every one designed to kill, maim and terrorize civilians -- and is then vilified by the world when it tries to destroy the enemy's infrastructure and strongholds with precision-guided munitions that sometimes have the unintended but unavoidable consequence of collateral civilian death and suffering?
To get a more detailed idea of what those "collateral" humans experience, read Robert Fisk:
"We were in the basement hiding when the bomb exploded at one o'clock in the morning,'' she said. "What in the name of God have we done to deserve this? So many of the dead are children, the old, women. Some of the children were still awake and playing. Why does the world do this to us?"
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Q&A: What's going on?
I wrote the following Q&A as a brief introduction to a study group discussion at an ISO meeting. I don't go too much into the history of the region because the readings covered it, and I was trying to limit my introduction to ten minutes. Because it's just a brief introduction, it's also not footnoted or anything. However, you still may find some of this useful.
Q. The devastation in Lebanon is awful, but isn't Israel just reacting to the kidnappings of its soldiers in Gaza and Lebanon?
A. The short answer is no. It's becoming increasingly clear, even in the Israeli media, that this war isn't about the kidnapped soldiers at all.
On the Lebanese side, even Hezbollah was shocked at Israel's response, because this kidnapping wasn't a particularly unusual event. Hezbollah and Israel routinely make cross-border raids and then exchange prisoners, although Israel usually kidnaps Lebanese civilians rather than Hezbollah fighters. This is routinely the case in Gaza as well; many Palestinian teenagers, as well as a sizable chunk of Hamas's elected leadership, are in Israeli jails. Israel's outrageously disproportionate response indicates that this offensive, particularly in Lebanon, had been in the works for a while. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that this war was planned at least a year ago:
"Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel. By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board."
More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.
What this, along with Israel's behavior, indicates is that Israel has been looking for a reason to launch this offensive. Just as the US seized the 9/11 attacks as a rationale for the attack they'd long planned on Afghanistan, Israel had business in Lebanon. If they can dismantle Hezbollah and install, with the US's help, a client state in Lebanon, they can stop worrying about one of their borders, use that client state's influence in dealing with other Arab states, and generally expand their power in the region. Israel also faces domestic pressure to increase its "deterrent power," its ability to act as the neighborhood bully. If it strikes as hard and as quickly as possible against any threat at all, no matter how disproportionate the reaction, it can keep its neighbors running scared, and do as it pleases.
Q. But Hezbollah is a terrorist organization taking orders from Syria and Iran. Doesn't Israel have the right to defend itself against terrorists who just want to drive the Jews into the sea?
A. First of all, the US Congress designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization despite the fact that they had not carried out a single terrorist attack in over a decade, and when they did it was in response to Israeli occupation. Hezbollah is a major political party in Lebanon. It runs candidates for office and generally wins a respectable minority of seats. It operates schools, charities, ambulance companies and social services, often picking up the slack for Lebanon's weak government. And it operates a relatively small armed wing, which is now, thanks to Israel, undoubtedly growing. Hezbollah was born out of resistance to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and it has become a legitimate, organic resistance movement. It is an Islamist party, like many in the region. I could give a whole other talk about the roots of Islamism, but all I'll get into here is that Islamist parties do not spring from some Jew-hating gene that all Arabs are born with, which is what Israel's mythology would have us believe. The reality is that in 1948, during the war that created the state of Israel, the Arabs who had lived for centuries in Palestine were forced from their homes, massacred and "ethnically cleansed" by people who wanted the land for a Jews-only state, and they've been rightfully pissed off about it ever since. That anger has taken the form of secular left-wing resistance groups at some points, and of radical Islamism most recently.
It's also important to note that Islamism is not a monolithic ideology. There are of course major schisms between Sunni and Shia Muslims; there's also plenty of internal politicking. Iran and Syria share a basic ideology with Hezbollah, they'll sell them weapons, they're generally more likely to support Hezbollah if things get out of hand, but each group has its own aims within the region. The recent media reports that liken Iran to the Comintern of the Islamic world fail to take any of those factors into account. It's just not as simple as Hezbollah taking direct orders from Tehran.
Q. So how much support does Hezbollah have among the Lebanese people?
Certainly more than it did before the bombings began. I'm going to broadly oversimplify here for the sake of time. Most of the Lebanese ruling class supported Hariri, the Bush-backed "Cedar Revolution" leader who rebuilt much of Lebanon, revived its tourism industry and began to improve the country's image abroad before he was assassinated last year, most likely by agents of Syria. His supporters, many of whom are part of the country's conservative Maronite Christian minority, are not fans of Hezbollah, and blame it for provoking Israel. This is an attitude that Israel wants to promote, and its bombings, particularly in Beirut, have been strategically planned. Jim Quilty of Middle East Report Online writes,
Israel has blithely played upon Lebanon's sectarian divisions with the patterns of bombing and with leaflets asserting that Nasrallah [the leader of Hezbollah] is beholden to foreign masters... [Some air strikes] are aimed at accentuating domestic antagonism against Hezbollah, indeed the Shi'a generally, without explicitly targeting the constituencies of the Bush administration's Lebanese allies... Through strangulation and anxiety about what will next be targeted, Israel hopes to provoke simmering resentment against Hezbollah rather than shocked nationwide anger at an external enemy.
How well this strategy will work remains an open question. Most Lebanese, particularly among the roughly 60% of the population that is Shi'ite Muslim, have shifted toward support for Hezbollah. That pattern is likely to continue, especially given that much of the food, water, medicine and other relief coming to the more than 700,000 displaced Lebanese is coming not from the Lebanese government, but from social service agencies run by Hezbollah.
If Israel launches a full-scale ground war, and there is a lot of debate right now about whether that is going to happen, it's likely that support for Hezbollah will skyrocket. We learned from Vietnam, and we're learning again from Iraq, that if you bomb and invade a country whose citizens are dead set against you, you can kill as many resistance fighters as you want. There will always be more. They will keep fighting you and fighting you. Hezbollah will establish new headquarters. They'll get new rockets. And they will have no shortage of volunteers.
Q. So why won't Israel just agree to a prisoner exchange and put an end to this? And why is the US refusing to call for a cease-fire? Why are they so determined to wade deeper into this mess?
Here's what the left-wing Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has to say about this war:
Retaliating to such a low-key operation with a total war and destruction indicates clearly that what matters is the grand design, not the pretext...the wider Israel's military might expands, the easier it is to complete the unfinished business of the 1948 [founding of Israel]: the total de-Arabization of Palestine.
Israel wants dominance in the region. And so does the US. Israel has always demanded the right to re-draw borders, relocate civilian populations, and throw its military weight around as it sees fit-- although it couches its justifications in terms of innocent self-defense, it is the most belligerent state in the Middle East. It wants a client state in Lebanon, the death of Hezbollah, and nothing less than complete submission from the Palestinians. And the US has a larger project going on as well, the one that started in Iraq and Afghanistan. It wants control of the Middle East. It wants to install puppet regimes, quell any uprisings or demands for real democracy or self-determination, drill for oil and lay pipelines anywhere it pleases.
Syria and Lebanon don't have any oil, but they're key players in the region, and it seems somewhat likely that the current offensive is meant to lay the groundwork for an attack by the US and or Israel on Iran as well as Syria. Calling for a prisoner exchange or a cease-fire now would stop that process in its tracks. Israel and the US want to press forward with this war. And other Arab regimes around the region have their own interests at stake-- Egypt wants to strangle any potential for a resistance movement that might affect the Mubarak regime, and the Saudis benefit from the inevitable rise in oil prices.
Q. Is this World War Three?
Not yet, although it's hard to say what will happen. Syria has made it clear that it will jump into the war if Israel gets too close to the Syrian border, particularly if there is a full-scale ground invasion of Lebanon. The US is stretched to capacity in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it seems likely that it will continue to support Israel in non-military ways. However, some conservatives in the US are calling for full-scale war. Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, for example, calls for immediate massive air strikes by the US on both Syria and Iran, and writes that the West's reaction to any terrorism from now on should be
Hard and quick retaliation — but without our past concern for nation-building, or offering a democratic alternative to theocracy and autocracy, or even worrying about whether other Muslims are unfairly lumped in with Islamists who operate freely in their midst. Any new policy of retaliation — in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan , Iraq , Lebanon and the West Bank — would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile.
The US is not at a point militarily or politically where strikes on Syria and Iran are a serious option, let alone nuclear war, but another large-scale terrorist attack on American soil could change that. Israel has more to lose from a world war-- it's within easy striking distance of Iran, for starters-- and it is already starting to lose popular support at home for its increasingly bloody war on Lebanon. However, Israel's dependence on the US cannot be overstated-- without American aid, the ultramodern, militarized Israeli state would have approximately the economic power of Guatemala. The US can draw Israel into a major war if it decides that's the best way to pursue American interests in the region.
But that's speculation; so far, it's not World War Three, no matter what Newt Gingrich and Bill O'Reilly have decided. If the US had any desire to stop the conflict and the slaughter of Lebanese civilians, it could do so with a single phone call; so far it has decided that the bloodshed has been worth it, but if the costs become too high or there are unforeseen political consequences, the war could stop now. Our job, then, as socialists in the US, is to raise the political costs of this war to a point where it no longer makes sense for Bush to continue on this insane and bloody path.
Q. The devastation in Lebanon is awful, but isn't Israel just reacting to the kidnappings of its soldiers in Gaza and Lebanon?
A. The short answer is no. It's becoming increasingly clear, even in the Israeli media, that this war isn't about the kidnapped soldiers at all.
On the Lebanese side, even Hezbollah was shocked at Israel's response, because this kidnapping wasn't a particularly unusual event. Hezbollah and Israel routinely make cross-border raids and then exchange prisoners, although Israel usually kidnaps Lebanese civilians rather than Hezbollah fighters. This is routinely the case in Gaza as well; many Palestinian teenagers, as well as a sizable chunk of Hamas's elected leadership, are in Israeli jails. Israel's outrageously disproportionate response indicates that this offensive, particularly in Lebanon, had been in the works for a while. The San Francisco Chronicle reported that this war was planned at least a year ago:
"Of all of Israel's wars since 1948, this was the one for which Israel was most prepared," said Gerald Steinberg, professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University. "In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal, when it became clear the international community was not going to prevent Hezbollah from stockpiling missiles and attacking Israel. By 2004, the military campaign scheduled to last about three weeks that we're seeing now had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it's been simulated and rehearsed across the board."
More than a year ago, a senior Israeli army officer began giving PowerPoint presentations, on an off-the-record basis, to U.S. and other diplomats, journalists and think tanks, setting out the plan for the current operation in revealing detail.
What this, along with Israel's behavior, indicates is that Israel has been looking for a reason to launch this offensive. Just as the US seized the 9/11 attacks as a rationale for the attack they'd long planned on Afghanistan, Israel had business in Lebanon. If they can dismantle Hezbollah and install, with the US's help, a client state in Lebanon, they can stop worrying about one of their borders, use that client state's influence in dealing with other Arab states, and generally expand their power in the region. Israel also faces domestic pressure to increase its "deterrent power," its ability to act as the neighborhood bully. If it strikes as hard and as quickly as possible against any threat at all, no matter how disproportionate the reaction, it can keep its neighbors running scared, and do as it pleases.
Q. But Hezbollah is a terrorist organization taking orders from Syria and Iran. Doesn't Israel have the right to defend itself against terrorists who just want to drive the Jews into the sea?
A. First of all, the US Congress designated Hezbollah as a terrorist organization despite the fact that they had not carried out a single terrorist attack in over a decade, and when they did it was in response to Israeli occupation. Hezbollah is a major political party in Lebanon. It runs candidates for office and generally wins a respectable minority of seats. It operates schools, charities, ambulance companies and social services, often picking up the slack for Lebanon's weak government. And it operates a relatively small armed wing, which is now, thanks to Israel, undoubtedly growing. Hezbollah was born out of resistance to Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 1982, and it has become a legitimate, organic resistance movement. It is an Islamist party, like many in the region. I could give a whole other talk about the roots of Islamism, but all I'll get into here is that Islamist parties do not spring from some Jew-hating gene that all Arabs are born with, which is what Israel's mythology would have us believe. The reality is that in 1948, during the war that created the state of Israel, the Arabs who had lived for centuries in Palestine were forced from their homes, massacred and "ethnically cleansed" by people who wanted the land for a Jews-only state, and they've been rightfully pissed off about it ever since. That anger has taken the form of secular left-wing resistance groups at some points, and of radical Islamism most recently.
It's also important to note that Islamism is not a monolithic ideology. There are of course major schisms between Sunni and Shia Muslims; there's also plenty of internal politicking. Iran and Syria share a basic ideology with Hezbollah, they'll sell them weapons, they're generally more likely to support Hezbollah if things get out of hand, but each group has its own aims within the region. The recent media reports that liken Iran to the Comintern of the Islamic world fail to take any of those factors into account. It's just not as simple as Hezbollah taking direct orders from Tehran.
Q. So how much support does Hezbollah have among the Lebanese people?
Certainly more than it did before the bombings began. I'm going to broadly oversimplify here for the sake of time. Most of the Lebanese ruling class supported Hariri, the Bush-backed "Cedar Revolution" leader who rebuilt much of Lebanon, revived its tourism industry and began to improve the country's image abroad before he was assassinated last year, most likely by agents of Syria. His supporters, many of whom are part of the country's conservative Maronite Christian minority, are not fans of Hezbollah, and blame it for provoking Israel. This is an attitude that Israel wants to promote, and its bombings, particularly in Beirut, have been strategically planned. Jim Quilty of Middle East Report Online writes,
Israel has blithely played upon Lebanon's sectarian divisions with the patterns of bombing and with leaflets asserting that Nasrallah [the leader of Hezbollah] is beholden to foreign masters... [Some air strikes] are aimed at accentuating domestic antagonism against Hezbollah, indeed the Shi'a generally, without explicitly targeting the constituencies of the Bush administration's Lebanese allies... Through strangulation and anxiety about what will next be targeted, Israel hopes to provoke simmering resentment against Hezbollah rather than shocked nationwide anger at an external enemy.
How well this strategy will work remains an open question. Most Lebanese, particularly among the roughly 60% of the population that is Shi'ite Muslim, have shifted toward support for Hezbollah. That pattern is likely to continue, especially given that much of the food, water, medicine and other relief coming to the more than 700,000 displaced Lebanese is coming not from the Lebanese government, but from social service agencies run by Hezbollah.
If Israel launches a full-scale ground war, and there is a lot of debate right now about whether that is going to happen, it's likely that support for Hezbollah will skyrocket. We learned from Vietnam, and we're learning again from Iraq, that if you bomb and invade a country whose citizens are dead set against you, you can kill as many resistance fighters as you want. There will always be more. They will keep fighting you and fighting you. Hezbollah will establish new headquarters. They'll get new rockets. And they will have no shortage of volunteers.
Q. So why won't Israel just agree to a prisoner exchange and put an end to this? And why is the US refusing to call for a cease-fire? Why are they so determined to wade deeper into this mess?
Here's what the left-wing Israeli historian Ilan Pappe has to say about this war:
Retaliating to such a low-key operation with a total war and destruction indicates clearly that what matters is the grand design, not the pretext...the wider Israel's military might expands, the easier it is to complete the unfinished business of the 1948 [founding of Israel]: the total de-Arabization of Palestine.
Israel wants dominance in the region. And so does the US. Israel has always demanded the right to re-draw borders, relocate civilian populations, and throw its military weight around as it sees fit-- although it couches its justifications in terms of innocent self-defense, it is the most belligerent state in the Middle East. It wants a client state in Lebanon, the death of Hezbollah, and nothing less than complete submission from the Palestinians. And the US has a larger project going on as well, the one that started in Iraq and Afghanistan. It wants control of the Middle East. It wants to install puppet regimes, quell any uprisings or demands for real democracy or self-determination, drill for oil and lay pipelines anywhere it pleases.
Syria and Lebanon don't have any oil, but they're key players in the region, and it seems somewhat likely that the current offensive is meant to lay the groundwork for an attack by the US and or Israel on Iran as well as Syria. Calling for a prisoner exchange or a cease-fire now would stop that process in its tracks. Israel and the US want to press forward with this war. And other Arab regimes around the region have their own interests at stake-- Egypt wants to strangle any potential for a resistance movement that might affect the Mubarak regime, and the Saudis benefit from the inevitable rise in oil prices.
Q. Is this World War Three?
Not yet, although it's hard to say what will happen. Syria has made it clear that it will jump into the war if Israel gets too close to the Syrian border, particularly if there is a full-scale ground invasion of Lebanon. The US is stretched to capacity in Iraq and Afghanistan, so it seems likely that it will continue to support Israel in non-military ways. However, some conservatives in the US are calling for full-scale war. Victor Davis Hanson of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, for example, calls for immediate massive air strikes by the US on both Syria and Iran, and writes that the West's reaction to any terrorism from now on should be
Hard and quick retaliation — but without our past concern for nation-building, or offering a democratic alternative to theocracy and autocracy, or even worrying about whether other Muslims are unfairly lumped in with Islamists who operate freely in their midst. Any new policy of retaliation — in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan , Iraq , Lebanon and the West Bank — would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile.
The US is not at a point militarily or politically where strikes on Syria and Iran are a serious option, let alone nuclear war, but another large-scale terrorist attack on American soil could change that. Israel has more to lose from a world war-- it's within easy striking distance of Iran, for starters-- and it is already starting to lose popular support at home for its increasingly bloody war on Lebanon. However, Israel's dependence on the US cannot be overstated-- without American aid, the ultramodern, militarized Israeli state would have approximately the economic power of Guatemala. The US can draw Israel into a major war if it decides that's the best way to pursue American interests in the region.
But that's speculation; so far, it's not World War Three, no matter what Newt Gingrich and Bill O'Reilly have decided. If the US had any desire to stop the conflict and the slaughter of Lebanese civilians, it could do so with a single phone call; so far it has decided that the bloodshed has been worth it, but if the costs become too high or there are unforeseen political consequences, the war could stop now. Our job, then, as socialists in the US, is to raise the political costs of this war to a point where it no longer makes sense for Bush to continue on this insane and bloody path.
Paola's story: Evacuation from Beirut
Hi everyone,
I know this is kind of long...
Our plane landed at Philadelphia International Airport at 7 am on July26th. I have never been so happy to be back in the states. Part of the reason why my heart was filled with so much joy was because we were NOT on a military airbase in turkey (more on that *lovely* ordeal later). I am really looking forward to seeing all of you in the days and weeks to come. Again, I have the best bunch of friends and comrades in the world. I don’t know what we would have done without your love, support, insight, offers for financial help, offers of housing, food, etc. We were really touched and are so glad that we have all of you in our lives. If you ever need the same, we’ll be there.
I would think twice about wishing the evacuation on my worst enemy. Never in my life have I seen such ad hoc arrangements and such gross incompetence. We started out on July 25th. Luckily, some of our friends took us to the departure point near Dubayeh. If they weren’t able to do so, it would have cost us probably over 60$ (US!) because the cost of benzene was rising. In addition, cabbies were more reluctant to take customers from Beirut to other areas because of the danger factor involved. Getting to Dubayeh wasby no means a terribly dangerous journey but the risk factor has been multiplied since the Israeli Army started its bombing campaign. At 6 am, we got on line. Or rather, there was just a group of people and a bunch of Lebanese Army soldiers and some Lebanese police officers. We realized that they were letting people pass a checkpoint in batches, at a really slow rate. We finally had our turn to pass them and stand on yet another line closer to embassy personnel. By the looks of it, there were only a handful of embassy workers. It figures; many of them fled after day one or two leaving us to deal with the consequences of war on our own. By the way,the UN folks were just as bad or worse though we expected this of them because of their history in Lebanon. I heard that on day three or so they took all of the jeeps that they could find and fled. They drove like bats out of hell to the Syrian border and never looked back (fearing that they might get turned into a pillar of ashes like those in the South?). Classic, just classic.
Anyhow… This was about two hours into the whole ordeal. We had to put down our bags so several dogs could sniff at them. Then we could go to the porta potties and wait in yet another long line. Luckily, they set up tents so we didn’t have to collapse from heat stroke. However, the tents didn’t cover all areas so there were chunks of time that we were out in the sun, which was absolutely wretched. We were thankful for the water that we received, though it is really sad that we had to cross our fingers and hope for such basic necessities (i.e. food, shelter, bathrooms, water). We were on line for three or more hours. Then we were directed out of that line and onto the next one. We had more shade but less bathroom options and it became really stuffy underneath the tents. A mother and her family were in front of us. They fled the south with garbage bags and nothing but the clothes on their backs. Their house was destroyed.
Our bags were opened up and inspected by customs officials and then we were placed into yet another line. At least we got to sit down this time. Waited probably around an hour and then we had to haul our stuff across part of a beach to get to the military transport vessel. I was glad that the Marines were at least helping people carry their stuff. I had a full hiking pack, a bag full of food and two other bags so it was getting a bit difficult for me. We were loaded onto a small transport ship. It was clearly made to hold tanks, cars, weapons, etc but not people. Everything was metallic and it was hot enough to be one of Dante’s levels of hell. It was nearly unbearable to sit on the floor and they kept on packing more people in. I have a pretty good stomach but the movement of the ship made me a bit nauseous. Then we floated away to meet the USS Trenton out at sea. The Israeli Gov’t had an air and sea blockade on Lebanon but they were making exceptions for evacuees. The USS Trenton was also a transport vessel. They had to import cots, blankets and other supplies that were necessary for giving 1,800 people a place to rest. We sat in the cargo hold on cots for a couple of hours. We ate some food that I cooked the daybefore and drank all the water that they would give us. Then we were escorted row by row to the upper decks of the ship. We saw several helicopters come in, probably with people who were told to meet at the embassy. The ship floated around for ten hours. We saw several explosions. I think that they were cell phone towers and electrical plants though I am not 100% sure. It was a bit surreal; the war was already fading into something abstract. I was ambivalent about taking it all in; I felt even more hopeless and removed. Lebanon was burning and from that ship, there was really nothing I could do. I couldn’t do relief work, it was hard to call my friends, etc. I had to sit down and tear my eyes away from the skyline because it was just a bit much to watch.
Then we tried to find a place to rest. They were handing out cots and blankets but somehow nothing was getting to us. I kept asking and they kept on saying they would look into it. Then one of the officers told me to go downstairs because that was where they were finally handing out somemore supplies. They were doing it Titanic style (i.e. women and children first) and then everything was gone anyway so I went back upstairs, fuming and empty handed. The sun was really hot and we were already out in it all day. The ship floor was hot and metallic so sitting without anything was really quite uncomfortable.
Part of me can understand the reasons why families were taken care of first but I was angry nonetheless. I felt like as a childfree couple we didn’t matter and that we were a non entity that wasn’t even worthy of a thin sheet (I don’t think that there was a plot to convey such a message but it certainly felt that way after waiting for hours on end). Their concept of families of course was limited to the nuclear family (mom-wife, dad-husband and kids) which was became problematic especially later on when they didn’t take into consideration all of the aunts, cousins, grandmas, who would refuse to be separated (more on this later) and shuttled off on different flights. Never mind what it would be like for other families that don’t fit neatly into that schema. After some time I realized that it was pretty much every person for himself or herself so I grabbed up two blankets from a spot that had three because I hadn’t seen the guy return for a long time and he had three blankets (as one person) and we had none.
I went to sleep as soon as I could only to have a terrible wake up call. It was pitch black on the upper deck and windy like you wouldn’t believe. We tried our best to keep the sheets and our some of our lighter belongings from blowing away. I hunted around for a flashlight but seeing didn’t necessarily make the sheet business any better because it was still like wrestling with an octopus. Getting below the deck for water or the bathroom was insane because of the wind, lack of proper light and steep ladders.
We arrived in Turkey early in the morning, only to wait on the ship in the hot sun for five more hours. We didn’t even bother trying to get something to eat in the mess hall; it was always absolutely clogged with people and their screaming children (who drove me absolutely insane! Annoying anklebiters, arrrrrgh!)
I decided to be out cold for the time on the ship because it was simply too hot to be awake. A long line of evacuees who were waiting to get off snaked around the flight deck. We decided to grab a cot and wait it out. We timed our descent to the line just in time. They were still doing it Titanic style but I said that I wasn’t going to leave Rafy on a military ship so we left together about 10 minutes later which approaches the speed of light by their standards.
There were several embassy people shouting promises of a bed, a shower and hot food, saying that “the nightmare was over.” Whatever. I would rather take my chances with the war in a relatively safe neighborhood in Beirut (Hamra). At least I know that I will have a bed, food and will know what I am in for. The nightmare was just in its early stages, actually. We went through yet another line (this time, more customs) and then we were put on buses that were going to Incirlik Airbase which is near the city of Adana. We were given MREs, which are absolutely hilarious and kind of gross (they are highly processed and several steps above airplane food). They had a heating element which told us to prop the device upright using “a rock or something.” Or something, I kid you not. Then other packages talked about how “nutrition was a force multiplier.”
It took us three hours to enter the base. They had us waiting in buses for about two. The AC was terrible and it got unbearably hot. It really sucked but at least we’re young and relatively healthy; I can only imagine how bad it was for the elderly.
Then they took us in and briefed us, which was another two hours. At least the AC was working. Then they had us line up for room assignments and meal cards. They segregated us all by sex (except for children) but at least Rafy and I were in buildings that were next to each other. We tried to use the phone/internet facility. We had to wait for at least an hour because it was overrun with people. At least I got an email or two through and called my parents.
Then we saw what our rooms were like. At least we had real beds this time, which was a plus and real AC. The downside was that each room had 6 or 8 people on bunk beds. Of course, I was in the women’s building and many children were with their mothers so they were all running around and there was always some kid screaming so sleeping was a bit difficult. All of this made me dislike children even more, if you haven’t noticed.
I woke up when soldiers pounded on the door at 5:30am. They wanted us all to look at flight lists in order to see if our names were posted. Ichecked and neither one of us were on them so I went back to sleep. We woke up, checked our email and looked into breakfast. Luckily, things weren’t as crowded. We decided to make Rafy’s room the base because it had fewer children and people were generally quiet. I regretted the trip back to my room to get a few things because it was swarming with children who were building forts and blocking the door with mattresses.
We sat around and read until we were so bored that we couldn’t read anymore. We were confined to a small area of the base and there wasn’tmuch to do except to read, email, pace and get annoyed. I overheard many interesting conversations. Some people assumed that I knew Arabic and others didn’t. One family was basically doing a cost benefit analysis of the evacuation versus trying to get to places in Syria. They decided that doing the latter, as risky as it is, might have been better than sitting around like sheep. Some were thinking that since they were in relatively safe areas, it might have been better taking a chance with the war.
Then we saw that a new flight list was posted. Rafy’s name was on it but mine wasn’t. We agreed that we wouldn’t leave the other at Incirlik, it was just too absurd. We were given the run around for a bit and then were told to talk to the state department. Naturally, they were overwhelmed. Other people had been split up too because they just weren’t all that organized. Parents were separated from children, cousins were split, grandparents, etc. If they were smart, they would realize that splitting up families was just asking for trouble. Then I realized that they hastily posted a standby list with my name on it. They said that if Rafy didn’t want to go, he could be placed on standby with me or we could both wait for a later flight. We agreed that it was the best course of action. We threw our stuff into our bags in less than five minutes and proceeded to yet another line. We were there for at least an hour. Oddly enough, we met another Rutgers student! They’re everywhere!
Rafy and I were the last people to get on a bus to the airfield. Once we were inside the mini military airport, we waited for another five hours for our flight to arrive. We learned that it was a civilian aircraft (a huge ATA plane) that would take us from the airbase to a civilian airport in Ireland (Shannon) to refuel for two hours and then we would land in Philly intn’l. Meanwhile, we were thinking “Ireland?!” Sigh…
I saw that they had phones and called my parents. Once again, I was glad that I knew some Arabic because I had no idea how to use the phones and the woman next to me saw that I was having trouble and she saved the day.
I tried to sleep for most of the flight but I couldn’t because I was freezing (as usual!). I wrapped my head in a scarf and blanket, put on two shirts and that didn’t really help. I was also glad that we grabbed some extra MREs because they will always beat airplane food.
We arrived absolutely exhausted (or well… I was because I couldn’t sleep properly!) at around 7am and breezed through customs.
Looking fwd to hearing from all of you and seeing you too! I will start to send replies to your personal emails in a few days. Sorry I couldn’t get to it sooner…
Love, solidarity and SAMIDOUN!
Paola
I know this is kind of long...
Our plane landed at Philadelphia International Airport at 7 am on July26th. I have never been so happy to be back in the states. Part of the reason why my heart was filled with so much joy was because we were NOT on a military airbase in turkey (more on that *lovely* ordeal later). I am really looking forward to seeing all of you in the days and weeks to come. Again, I have the best bunch of friends and comrades in the world. I don’t know what we would have done without your love, support, insight, offers for financial help, offers of housing, food, etc. We were really touched and are so glad that we have all of you in our lives. If you ever need the same, we’ll be there.
I would think twice about wishing the evacuation on my worst enemy. Never in my life have I seen such ad hoc arrangements and such gross incompetence. We started out on July 25th. Luckily, some of our friends took us to the departure point near Dubayeh. If they weren’t able to do so, it would have cost us probably over 60$ (US!) because the cost of benzene was rising. In addition, cabbies were more reluctant to take customers from Beirut to other areas because of the danger factor involved. Getting to Dubayeh wasby no means a terribly dangerous journey but the risk factor has been multiplied since the Israeli Army started its bombing campaign. At 6 am, we got on line. Or rather, there was just a group of people and a bunch of Lebanese Army soldiers and some Lebanese police officers. We realized that they were letting people pass a checkpoint in batches, at a really slow rate. We finally had our turn to pass them and stand on yet another line closer to embassy personnel. By the looks of it, there were only a handful of embassy workers. It figures; many of them fled after day one or two leaving us to deal with the consequences of war on our own. By the way,the UN folks were just as bad or worse though we expected this of them because of their history in Lebanon. I heard that on day three or so they took all of the jeeps that they could find and fled. They drove like bats out of hell to the Syrian border and never looked back (fearing that they might get turned into a pillar of ashes like those in the South?). Classic, just classic.
Anyhow… This was about two hours into the whole ordeal. We had to put down our bags so several dogs could sniff at them. Then we could go to the porta potties and wait in yet another long line. Luckily, they set up tents so we didn’t have to collapse from heat stroke. However, the tents didn’t cover all areas so there were chunks of time that we were out in the sun, which was absolutely wretched. We were thankful for the water that we received, though it is really sad that we had to cross our fingers and hope for such basic necessities (i.e. food, shelter, bathrooms, water). We were on line for three or more hours. Then we were directed out of that line and onto the next one. We had more shade but less bathroom options and it became really stuffy underneath the tents. A mother and her family were in front of us. They fled the south with garbage bags and nothing but the clothes on their backs. Their house was destroyed.
Our bags were opened up and inspected by customs officials and then we were placed into yet another line. At least we got to sit down this time. Waited probably around an hour and then we had to haul our stuff across part of a beach to get to the military transport vessel. I was glad that the Marines were at least helping people carry their stuff. I had a full hiking pack, a bag full of food and two other bags so it was getting a bit difficult for me. We were loaded onto a small transport ship. It was clearly made to hold tanks, cars, weapons, etc but not people. Everything was metallic and it was hot enough to be one of Dante’s levels of hell. It was nearly unbearable to sit on the floor and they kept on packing more people in. I have a pretty good stomach but the movement of the ship made me a bit nauseous. Then we floated away to meet the USS Trenton out at sea. The Israeli Gov’t had an air and sea blockade on Lebanon but they were making exceptions for evacuees. The USS Trenton was also a transport vessel. They had to import cots, blankets and other supplies that were necessary for giving 1,800 people a place to rest. We sat in the cargo hold on cots for a couple of hours. We ate some food that I cooked the daybefore and drank all the water that they would give us. Then we were escorted row by row to the upper decks of the ship. We saw several helicopters come in, probably with people who were told to meet at the embassy. The ship floated around for ten hours. We saw several explosions. I think that they were cell phone towers and electrical plants though I am not 100% sure. It was a bit surreal; the war was already fading into something abstract. I was ambivalent about taking it all in; I felt even more hopeless and removed. Lebanon was burning and from that ship, there was really nothing I could do. I couldn’t do relief work, it was hard to call my friends, etc. I had to sit down and tear my eyes away from the skyline because it was just a bit much to watch.
Then we tried to find a place to rest. They were handing out cots and blankets but somehow nothing was getting to us. I kept asking and they kept on saying they would look into it. Then one of the officers told me to go downstairs because that was where they were finally handing out somemore supplies. They were doing it Titanic style (i.e. women and children first) and then everything was gone anyway so I went back upstairs, fuming and empty handed. The sun was really hot and we were already out in it all day. The ship floor was hot and metallic so sitting without anything was really quite uncomfortable.
Part of me can understand the reasons why families were taken care of first but I was angry nonetheless. I felt like as a childfree couple we didn’t matter and that we were a non entity that wasn’t even worthy of a thin sheet (I don’t think that there was a plot to convey such a message but it certainly felt that way after waiting for hours on end). Their concept of families of course was limited to the nuclear family (mom-wife, dad-husband and kids) which was became problematic especially later on when they didn’t take into consideration all of the aunts, cousins, grandmas, who would refuse to be separated (more on this later) and shuttled off on different flights. Never mind what it would be like for other families that don’t fit neatly into that schema. After some time I realized that it was pretty much every person for himself or herself so I grabbed up two blankets from a spot that had three because I hadn’t seen the guy return for a long time and he had three blankets (as one person) and we had none.
I went to sleep as soon as I could only to have a terrible wake up call. It was pitch black on the upper deck and windy like you wouldn’t believe. We tried our best to keep the sheets and our some of our lighter belongings from blowing away. I hunted around for a flashlight but seeing didn’t necessarily make the sheet business any better because it was still like wrestling with an octopus. Getting below the deck for water or the bathroom was insane because of the wind, lack of proper light and steep ladders.
We arrived in Turkey early in the morning, only to wait on the ship in the hot sun for five more hours. We didn’t even bother trying to get something to eat in the mess hall; it was always absolutely clogged with people and their screaming children (who drove me absolutely insane! Annoying anklebiters, arrrrrgh!)
I decided to be out cold for the time on the ship because it was simply too hot to be awake. A long line of evacuees who were waiting to get off snaked around the flight deck. We decided to grab a cot and wait it out. We timed our descent to the line just in time. They were still doing it Titanic style but I said that I wasn’t going to leave Rafy on a military ship so we left together about 10 minutes later which approaches the speed of light by their standards.
There were several embassy people shouting promises of a bed, a shower and hot food, saying that “the nightmare was over.” Whatever. I would rather take my chances with the war in a relatively safe neighborhood in Beirut (Hamra). At least I know that I will have a bed, food and will know what I am in for. The nightmare was just in its early stages, actually. We went through yet another line (this time, more customs) and then we were put on buses that were going to Incirlik Airbase which is near the city of Adana. We were given MREs, which are absolutely hilarious and kind of gross (they are highly processed and several steps above airplane food). They had a heating element which told us to prop the device upright using “a rock or something.” Or something, I kid you not. Then other packages talked about how “nutrition was a force multiplier.”
It took us three hours to enter the base. They had us waiting in buses for about two. The AC was terrible and it got unbearably hot. It really sucked but at least we’re young and relatively healthy; I can only imagine how bad it was for the elderly.
Then they took us in and briefed us, which was another two hours. At least the AC was working. Then they had us line up for room assignments and meal cards. They segregated us all by sex (except for children) but at least Rafy and I were in buildings that were next to each other. We tried to use the phone/internet facility. We had to wait for at least an hour because it was overrun with people. At least I got an email or two through and called my parents.
Then we saw what our rooms were like. At least we had real beds this time, which was a plus and real AC. The downside was that each room had 6 or 8 people on bunk beds. Of course, I was in the women’s building and many children were with their mothers so they were all running around and there was always some kid screaming so sleeping was a bit difficult. All of this made me dislike children even more, if you haven’t noticed.
I woke up when soldiers pounded on the door at 5:30am. They wanted us all to look at flight lists in order to see if our names were posted. Ichecked and neither one of us were on them so I went back to sleep. We woke up, checked our email and looked into breakfast. Luckily, things weren’t as crowded. We decided to make Rafy’s room the base because it had fewer children and people were generally quiet. I regretted the trip back to my room to get a few things because it was swarming with children who were building forts and blocking the door with mattresses.
We sat around and read until we were so bored that we couldn’t read anymore. We were confined to a small area of the base and there wasn’tmuch to do except to read, email, pace and get annoyed. I overheard many interesting conversations. Some people assumed that I knew Arabic and others didn’t. One family was basically doing a cost benefit analysis of the evacuation versus trying to get to places in Syria. They decided that doing the latter, as risky as it is, might have been better than sitting around like sheep. Some were thinking that since they were in relatively safe areas, it might have been better taking a chance with the war.
Then we saw that a new flight list was posted. Rafy’s name was on it but mine wasn’t. We agreed that we wouldn’t leave the other at Incirlik, it was just too absurd. We were given the run around for a bit and then were told to talk to the state department. Naturally, they were overwhelmed. Other people had been split up too because they just weren’t all that organized. Parents were separated from children, cousins were split, grandparents, etc. If they were smart, they would realize that splitting up families was just asking for trouble. Then I realized that they hastily posted a standby list with my name on it. They said that if Rafy didn’t want to go, he could be placed on standby with me or we could both wait for a later flight. We agreed that it was the best course of action. We threw our stuff into our bags in less than five minutes and proceeded to yet another line. We were there for at least an hour. Oddly enough, we met another Rutgers student! They’re everywhere!
Rafy and I were the last people to get on a bus to the airfield. Once we were inside the mini military airport, we waited for another five hours for our flight to arrive. We learned that it was a civilian aircraft (a huge ATA plane) that would take us from the airbase to a civilian airport in Ireland (Shannon) to refuel for two hours and then we would land in Philly intn’l. Meanwhile, we were thinking “Ireland?!” Sigh…
I saw that they had phones and called my parents. Once again, I was glad that I knew some Arabic because I had no idea how to use the phones and the woman next to me saw that I was having trouble and she saved the day.
I tried to sleep for most of the flight but I couldn’t because I was freezing (as usual!). I wrapped my head in a scarf and blanket, put on two shirts and that didn’t really help. I was also glad that we grabbed some extra MREs because they will always beat airplane food.
We arrived absolutely exhausted (or well… I was because I couldn’t sleep properly!) at around 7am and breezed through customs.
Looking fwd to hearing from all of you and seeing you too! I will start to send replies to your personal emails in a few days. Sorry I couldn’t get to it sooner…
Love, solidarity and SAMIDOUN!
Paola
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
More links
Deepa Kumar of Rutgers University, on US Media, Israel, and Lebanese Civilians in Monthly Review:
It is hard to predict when and if the media will stop running images of Lebanese casualties and destruction of Lebanese towns. Unless censored by the state and/or the corporate parents that own them, the 24-hour news channels which constantly need new and sensational images will continue to show them to boost their ratings. And in turn, more of the public is likely to start questioning Israel's actions.
And on the other side of the barricades, Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford University's conservative Hoover Institute, on What Options Are Left?:
Any new policy of retaliation — in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan , Iraq , Lebanon and the West Bank — would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile. If they are not careful, a Syria or Iran really will earn a conventional war — not more futile diplomacy or limited responses to terrorism. And history shows that massive attacks from the air are something that the West does well.
Also, while I'm recommending articles by my friends*, I recommend checking out Pham Binh's article from this April, The Coming War With Iran:
A European diplomat put it this way to [New Yorker writer Seymour] Hersh: “This is about more than just a nuclear issues. That’s just a rallying point. [...]The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next 10 years.” If Iran gets nuclear power, it will be able to counterbalance Israel and make U.S. military attacks on Middle Eastern countries difficult, if not impossible, because the U.S. will have to constantly worry about what Iran will do in response to American aggression.
*I am not friends with Victor Davis Hanson.
It is hard to predict when and if the media will stop running images of Lebanese casualties and destruction of Lebanese towns. Unless censored by the state and/or the corporate parents that own them, the 24-hour news channels which constantly need new and sensational images will continue to show them to boost their ratings. And in turn, more of the public is likely to start questioning Israel's actions.
And on the other side of the barricades, Victor Davis Hanson of Stanford University's conservative Hoover Institute, on What Options Are Left?:
Any new policy of retaliation — in light both of Sept. 11 and the messy efforts to birth democracies in Afghanistan , Iraq , Lebanon and the West Bank — would be something of an exasperated return to the old cruise-missile payback. Yet in the new world of Iranian nukes and Hezbollah missiles, the West would hit back with something far greater than a cruise missile. If they are not careful, a Syria or Iran really will earn a conventional war — not more futile diplomacy or limited responses to terrorism. And history shows that massive attacks from the air are something that the West does well.
Also, while I'm recommending articles by my friends*, I recommend checking out Pham Binh's article from this April, The Coming War With Iran:
A European diplomat put it this way to [New Yorker writer Seymour] Hersh: “This is about more than just a nuclear issues. That’s just a rallying point. [...]The real issue is who is going to control the Middle East and its oil in the next 10 years.” If Iran gets nuclear power, it will be able to counterbalance Israel and make U.S. military attacks on Middle Eastern countries difficult, if not impossible, because the U.S. will have to constantly worry about what Iran will do in response to American aggression.
*I am not friends with Victor Davis Hanson.
Israel and the future of the antiwar movement
WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?
Israel and the future of the antiwar movement
By Sharon Smith July 28, 2006 Page 9
from Socialist Worker
ISRAEL’S SLAUGHTER of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians should be a moment of truth for the U.S. left. The fact that “about 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University Hospital are children of 15 years or less,” according to journalist Dahr Jamail, should dispel the myth that Israel’s latest incursions are acts of “self-defense,” as Israel’s many apologists claim.
The Bush administration’s rush shipment of precision bombs to aid Israel’s onslaught last weekend should be a wake-up call for those on the U.S. left who purport to follow antiwar principles, yet until now have failed to take a clear stand against the Israeli manifestations of the U.S.’s so-called “war on terror.”
To do so would require acknowledging that the U.S.’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq were meant to be mere stepping-stones in a strategic plan aimed at establishing U.S. dominance over the entire Middle East.
With the U.S. occupation of Iraq rapidly descending into bloody civil war, Israel is providing an alternate route toward achieving those shared goals--for U.S. domination over the Middle East ensures Israel’s domination as well.
Look no further than the mainstream media to verify this revelation. The Washington Post argued on July 16, “For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East, U.S. officials say.”
This requires crushing Arab organizations fighting for self-determination in Gaza and Lebanon.
Acknowledging this simple fact, however, also requires admitting the crucial role played by Israel as the U.S.’s historic regional partner in enforcing its Middle East policy.
Yet United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest national antiwar coalition, argued in a July 18 “action alert”: “We condemn Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli civilians, and we condemn the Israeli assault in Gaza and Lebanon.”
The statement repeated the mainstream media’s depiction of Hezbollah’s seizure of Israeli soldiers and firing rockets into Israel as “irresponsible acts.” Echoing liberal commentators, UFPJ criticized Israel for its “disproportionate” response--as if Hezbollah started the conflict and Israel is guilty only of over-reacting.
In reality, the conflict is many decades old and intricately tied to Israel’s historic role as the U.S.’s watchdog/attack dog in the Middle East.
Israel’s ridiculous claim that it attacked Lebanon to get its soldiers back is belied by Hezbollah’s repeated attempts to exchange the two Israeli soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel (a common practice in the past). But Israel has no interest in a prisoner exchange because the captured soldiers provide the excuse for using its full military might against Hezbollah.
Israel’s plan to attack Hezbollah has been in place for well over a year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the Chronicle, “In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal...By 2004, the military campaign...had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board.”
Israel’s goal was clearly articulated on July 22--by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who stated that the United States opposes a ceasefire until Hezbollah has been destroyed as a significant fighting force in southern Lebanon. “I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante,” Rice scoffed.
Democrats have been vocal cheerleaders for Israel, taking turns with Republicans at pro-Israel rallies across the country. At one such rally, Sen. Hillary Clinton condemned the “unwarranted, unprovoked attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and their state sponsors,” calling them “the new totalitarians of the 21st century.”
These accusations are absurd. Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon in 1982--the last of its troops pulling out only in 2000. Hezbollah gained its legitimacy as a resistance movement by finally driving Israel out of Lebanon.
The violence of an occupying force cannot be equated with the resistance of an occupied population, as if both sides are equally responsible for the bloodshed.
But over the last two weeks, the antiwar movement has been reviving on a principled basis, despite the gaping absence of its largest national coalition.
Ten thousand came out to protest Israel’s war on Lebanon and Palestine in Dearborn, Mich. Two thousand came out on a weekday afternoon in New York City. Four thousand came out in Chicago on Saturday. One thousand came out in Boston. In each case, the demonstrators were predominantly Arabs and Muslims.
For these directly affected immigrant communities, no hand-wringing debate was needed to support genuine resistance against U.S. or Israeli war and occupation.
The connection between the U.S. war on Iraq and Israel’s war on Lebanon and Palestine was repeatedly made clear--at the Chicago protest, for example, with chants such as “Free, free Palestine; free, free Lebanon; free, free Iraq”; “Occupation is a crime, from Iraq to Palestine!” and “No justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East!”
The weakness of the mainstream U.S. antiwar movement toward Israeli war crimes is not a temporary aberration, but a long-standing phenomenon.
As journalist Laura Flanders observed, “On June 12, 1982, American activists massed in New York City to call for peace and nuclear disarmament. But the Central Park rally made no mention of the week’s own bombing--Israel’s then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon had just sent Israeli forces into Lebanon two days earlier.” She continued, “A message sent then might have saved a generation of Palestinians and Israelis from 20 years of occupation, fury and fear.”
There are principles--and thousands of civilian lives--at stake again today.
Israel and the future of the antiwar movement
By Sharon Smith July 28, 2006 Page 9
from Socialist Worker
ISRAEL’S SLAUGHTER of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians should be a moment of truth for the U.S. left. The fact that “about 55 percent of all casualties at the Beirut Government University Hospital are children of 15 years or less,” according to journalist Dahr Jamail, should dispel the myth that Israel’s latest incursions are acts of “self-defense,” as Israel’s many apologists claim.
The Bush administration’s rush shipment of precision bombs to aid Israel’s onslaught last weekend should be a wake-up call for those on the U.S. left who purport to follow antiwar principles, yet until now have failed to take a clear stand against the Israeli manifestations of the U.S.’s so-called “war on terror.”
To do so would require acknowledging that the U.S.’s wars on Afghanistan and Iraq were meant to be mere stepping-stones in a strategic plan aimed at establishing U.S. dominance over the entire Middle East.
With the U.S. occupation of Iraq rapidly descending into bloody civil war, Israel is providing an alternate route toward achieving those shared goals--for U.S. domination over the Middle East ensures Israel’s domination as well.
Look no further than the mainstream media to verify this revelation. The Washington Post argued on July 16, “For the United States, the broader goal is to strangle the axis of Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria and Iran, which the Bush administration believes is pooling resources to change the strategic playing field in the Middle East, U.S. officials say.”
This requires crushing Arab organizations fighting for self-determination in Gaza and Lebanon.
Acknowledging this simple fact, however, also requires admitting the crucial role played by Israel as the U.S.’s historic regional partner in enforcing its Middle East policy.
Yet United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest national antiwar coalition, argued in a July 18 “action alert”: “We condemn Hezbollah's attacks on Israeli civilians, and we condemn the Israeli assault in Gaza and Lebanon.”
The statement repeated the mainstream media’s depiction of Hezbollah’s seizure of Israeli soldiers and firing rockets into Israel as “irresponsible acts.” Echoing liberal commentators, UFPJ criticized Israel for its “disproportionate” response--as if Hezbollah started the conflict and Israel is guilty only of over-reacting.
In reality, the conflict is many decades old and intricately tied to Israel’s historic role as the U.S.’s watchdog/attack dog in the Middle East.
Israel’s ridiculous claim that it attacked Lebanon to get its soldiers back is belied by Hezbollah’s repeated attempts to exchange the two Israeli soldiers for Lebanese and Palestinian political prisoners held by Israel (a common practice in the past). But Israel has no interest in a prisoner exchange because the captured soldiers provide the excuse for using its full military might against Hezbollah.
Israel’s plan to attack Hezbollah has been in place for well over a year, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University, told the Chronicle, “In a sense, the preparation began in May 2000, immediately after the Israeli withdrawal...By 2004, the military campaign...had already been blocked out and, in the last year or two, it’s been simulated and rehearsed across the board.”
Israel’s goal was clearly articulated on July 22--by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who stated that the United States opposes a ceasefire until Hezbollah has been destroyed as a significant fighting force in southern Lebanon. “I have no interest in diplomacy for the sake of returning Lebanon and Israel to the status quo ante,” Rice scoffed.
Democrats have been vocal cheerleaders for Israel, taking turns with Republicans at pro-Israel rallies across the country. At one such rally, Sen. Hillary Clinton condemned the “unwarranted, unprovoked attacks from Hamas, Hezbollah and their state sponsors,” calling them “the new totalitarians of the 21st century.”
These accusations are absurd. Israel invaded and occupied southern Lebanon in 1982--the last of its troops pulling out only in 2000. Hezbollah gained its legitimacy as a resistance movement by finally driving Israel out of Lebanon.
The violence of an occupying force cannot be equated with the resistance of an occupied population, as if both sides are equally responsible for the bloodshed.
But over the last two weeks, the antiwar movement has been reviving on a principled basis, despite the gaping absence of its largest national coalition.
Ten thousand came out to protest Israel’s war on Lebanon and Palestine in Dearborn, Mich. Two thousand came out on a weekday afternoon in New York City. Four thousand came out in Chicago on Saturday. One thousand came out in Boston. In each case, the demonstrators were predominantly Arabs and Muslims.
For these directly affected immigrant communities, no hand-wringing debate was needed to support genuine resistance against U.S. or Israeli war and occupation.
The connection between the U.S. war on Iraq and Israel’s war on Lebanon and Palestine was repeatedly made clear--at the Chicago protest, for example, with chants such as “Free, free Palestine; free, free Lebanon; free, free Iraq”; “Occupation is a crime, from Iraq to Palestine!” and “No justice, no peace, U.S. out of the Middle East!”
The weakness of the mainstream U.S. antiwar movement toward Israeli war crimes is not a temporary aberration, but a long-standing phenomenon.
As journalist Laura Flanders observed, “On June 12, 1982, American activists massed in New York City to call for peace and nuclear disarmament. But the Central Park rally made no mention of the week’s own bombing--Israel’s then-Defense Minister Ariel Sharon had just sent Israeli forces into Lebanon two days earlier.” She continued, “A message sent then might have saved a generation of Palestinians and Israelis from 20 years of occupation, fury and fear.”
There are principles--and thousands of civilian lives--at stake again today.
Two more protests in Philadelphia
On Friday, July 28th - at Israeli Consulate, 15th & Locust, support weekly demonstration from noon - 1:30pm; continue protests from 1:30pm - 6:pm on consulate side of street. Bring your own signs, banners, literature. Please respond if your organization can take responsibility for set time slot. Primary demands: Immediate Cease Fire; Open borders for humanitarian aid to Gaza and Lebanon.
On Friday, Aug. 4th (As part of nationally coordinated weekend of local actions) - Protest starting at Federal Building, 6th & Market Sts. at 4:30 to demand U.S. Out of Middle East. Focus on U.S. role in wars in Middle east from Iraq to Lebanon and danger of expansion to Syria and Iran. Focus on profits of oil and weapons manufacturers. March to nearby media outlet to oppose dehumanization of Arabs and Palestinians by media.
Israel deliberately hits UN observation post
How UN Lebanon post was bombed
BBC News
There was fierce fighting in the Khiam area for six hours
Details of the circumstances in which the Israeli air force bombed a United Nations observation post in south Lebanon, killing four UN peacekeepers have begun to emerge.
According to diplomats familiar with the UN's initial report into the incident, the post in the town of Khiam was hit by precision-guided munition, says the BBC's Paul Adams in Jerusalem.
The report says there was fierce fighting in the area for about six hours before the post was hit, during which time UN personnel contacted the Israel military 10 times, urging them to stop firing.
Our correspondent says the UN claims that after each call, it was assured the firing would stop.
The Irish foreign ministry said one of its officers in the UN's Unifil peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, placed six warning calls to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) prior to the attack.
"On six separate occasions he was in contact with the Israelis to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of UN staff in South Lebanon," Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed foreign office spokesman as saying.
"He warned: 'You have to address this problem or lives may be lost'," the spokesman said.
The Associated Press news agency named the officer as Lt Col John Molloy.
The bomb which killed the unarmed peacekeepers - Canadian, Austrian, Finnish and Chinese soldiers - hit the building and shelter of the observation post, near the eastern end of the Lebanese-Israeli border, UN spokesman Milos Struger said.
Israel has launched an investigation.
The UN post was on high ground, in an area once occupied by Israel.
BBC News
There was fierce fighting in the Khiam area for six hours
Details of the circumstances in which the Israeli air force bombed a United Nations observation post in south Lebanon, killing four UN peacekeepers have begun to emerge.
According to diplomats familiar with the UN's initial report into the incident, the post in the town of Khiam was hit by precision-guided munition, says the BBC's Paul Adams in Jerusalem.
The report says there was fierce fighting in the area for about six hours before the post was hit, during which time UN personnel contacted the Israel military 10 times, urging them to stop firing.
Our correspondent says the UN claims that after each call, it was assured the firing would stop.
The Irish foreign ministry said one of its officers in the UN's Unifil peacekeeping force in south Lebanon, placed six warning calls to the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) prior to the attack.
"On six separate occasions he was in contact with the Israelis to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of UN staff in South Lebanon," Reuters news agency quoted an unnamed foreign office spokesman as saying.
"He warned: 'You have to address this problem or lives may be lost'," the spokesman said.
The Associated Press news agency named the officer as Lt Col John Molloy.
The bomb which killed the unarmed peacekeepers - Canadian, Austrian, Finnish and Chinese soldiers - hit the building and shelter of the observation post, near the eastern end of the Lebanese-Israeli border, UN spokesman Milos Struger said.
Israel has launched an investigation.
The UN post was on high ground, in an area once occupied by Israel.
Monday, July 24, 2006
Robert Fisk: Elegy for Beirut
Note: I linked to this a few days ago, but since it's been moved to a pay section, so I'm reposting the text here.
Paradise Lost:
ROBERT FISK'S ELEGY FOR BEIRUT
In the year 551, the magnificent, wealthy city of Berytus - headquarters of the imperial East Mediterranean Roman 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 in front of them.
That was when a tidal wall higher than a tsunami returned to swamp the city and kill them all. So savagely was the old Beirut damaged that the Emperor Justinian sent gold from Constantinople as compensation to every family left alive. Some cities seem forever doomed. When the Crusaders arrived at Beirut on their way to Jerusalem in the 11th century, they slaughtered every man, woman and child in the city. In the First World War, Ottoman Beirut suffered a terrible famine; the Turkish army had commandeered all the grain and the Allied powers blockaded the coast. I still have some ancient postcards I bought here 30 years ago of stick-like children standing in an orphanage, naked and abandoned.
An American woman living in Beirut in 1916 described how she "passed women and children lying by the roadside with closed eyes and ghastly, pale faces. It was a common thing to find people searching the garbage heaps for orange peel, old bones or other refuse, and eating them greedily when found. Everywhere women could be seen seeking eatable weeds among the grass along the roads..."
How does this happen to Beirut? For 30 years, I've watched this place die and then rise from the grave and then die again, its apartment blocks pitted with so many bullets they looked like Irish lace, its people massacring each other.
I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives, and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost the lives of a further 20,000 of its people. I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses. Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore.
They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis - in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside - tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we compare their appalling casualties - 240 in all of Lebanon by last night - with Israel's 24 dead, as if the figures are the same.
And then, most disgraceful of all, we leave the Lebanese to their fate like a diseased people and spend our time evacuating our precious foreigners while tut-tutting about Israel's "disproportionate" response to the capture of its soldiers by Hizbollah.
I walked through the deserted city centre of Beirut yesterday and it reminded more than ever of a film lot, a place of dreams too beautiful to last, a phoenix from the ashes of civil war whose plumage was so brightly coloured that it blinded its own people. This part of the city - once a Dresden of ruins - was rebuilt by Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister who was murdered scarcely a mile away on 14 February last year.
The wreckage of that bomb blast, an awful precursor to the present war in which his inheritance is being vandalised by the Israelis, still stands beside the Mediterranean, waiting for the last UN investigator to look for clues to the assassination - an investigator who has long ago abandoned this besieged city for the safety of Cyprus.
At the empty Etoile restaurant - best snails and cappuccino in Beirut, where Hariri once dined Jacques Chirac - I sat on the pavement and watched the parliamentary guard still patrolling the faade of the French-built emporium that houses what is left of Lebanon's democracy. So many of these streets were built by Parisians under the French mandate and they have been exquisitely restored, their mock Arabian doorways bejewelled with marble Roman columns dug from the ancient Via Maxima a few metres away.
Hariri loved this place and, taking Chirac for a beer one day, he caught sight of me sitting at a table. "Ah Robert, come over here," he roared and then turned to Chirac like a cat that was about to eat a canary. "I want to introduce you, Jacques, to the reporter who said I couldn't rebuild Beirut!"
And now it is being un-built. The Martyr Rafiq Hariri International Airport has been attacked three times by the Israelis, its glistening halls and shopping malls vibrating to the missiles that thunder into the runways and fuel depots. Hariri's wonderful transnational highway viaduct has been broken by Israeli bombers. Most of his motorway bridges have been destroyed. The Roman-style lighthouse has been smashed by a missile from an Apache helicopter. Only this small jewel of a restaurant in the centre of Beirut has been spared. So far.
It is the slums of Haret Hreik and Ghobeiri and Shiyah that have been levelled and "rubble-ised" and pounded to dust, sending a quarter of a million Shia Muslims to seek sanctuary in schools and abandoned parks across the city. Here, indeed, was the headquarters of Hizbollah, another of those "centres of world terror" which the West keeps discovering in Muslim lands. Here lived Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Party of God's leader, a ruthless, caustic, calculating man' and Sayad Mohamed Fadlallah, among the wisest and most eloquent of clerics' and many of Hizbollah's top military planners - including, no doubt, the men who planned over many months the capture of the two Israeli soldiers last Wednesday.
But did the tens of thousands of poor who live here deserve this act of mass punishment? For a country that boasts of its pin-point accuracy - a doubtful notion in any case, but that's not the issue - what does this act of destruction tell us about Israel? Or about ourselves? I
n a modern building in an undamaged part of Beirut, I come, quite by chance, across a well known and prominent Hizbollah figure, open-neck white shirt, dark suit, clean shoes. "We will go on if we have to for days or weeks or months or..." And he counts these awful statistics off on the fingers of his left hand. "Believe me, we have bigger surprises still to come for the Israelis - much bigger, you will see. Then we will get our prisoners and it will take just a few small concessions."
I walk outside, feeling as if I have been beaten over the head. Over the wall opposite there is purple bougainvillaea and white jasmine and a swamp of gardenias. The Lebanese love flowers, their colour and scent, and Beirut is draped in trees and bushes that smell like paradise.
As for the huddled masses southern slums of Haret Hreik, I found hundreds of them yesterday, sitting under trees and lying on the parched grass beside an ancient fountain donated to the city of Beirut by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid. How empires fall.
Far away, across the Mediterranean, two American helicopters from the USS Iwo Jima could be seen, heading through the mist and smoke towards the US embassy bunker complex at Awkar to evacuate more citizens of the American Empire. There was not a word from that same empire to help the people lying in the park, to offer them food or medical aid.
And across them all has spread a dark grey smoke that works its way through the entire city, the fires of oil terminals and burning buildings turning into a cocktail of sulphurous air that moves below our doors and through our windows. I smell it when I wake in the morning. Half the people of Beirut are coughing in this filth, breathing their own destruction as they contemplate their dead.
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.
And the sword continues to cut its way through Beirut. When part of an aircraft - perhaps the wing-tip of an F-16 hit by a missile, although the Israelis deny this - came streaking out of the sky over the eastern suburbs at the weekend, I raced to the scene to find a partly decapitated driver in his car and three Lebanese soldiers from the army's logistics unit. These are the tough, brave non-combat soldiers of Kfar Chim, who have been mending power and water lines these past six days to keep Beirut alive.
I knew one of them. "Hello Robert, be quick because I think the Israelis will bomb again but we'll show you everything we can." And they took me through the fires to show me what they could of the wreckage, standing around me to protect me.
And a few hours later, the Israelis did come back, as the men of the small logistics unit were going to bed, and they bombed the barracks and killed 10 soldiers, including those three kind men who looked after me amid the fires of Kfar Chim.
And why? Be sure - the Israelis know what they are hitting. That's why they killed nine soldiers near Tripoli when they bombed the military radio antennas. But a logistics unit? Men whose sole job was to mend electricity lines? And then it dawns on me. Beirut is to die. It is to be starved of electricity now that the power station in Jiyeh is on fire. No one is to be allowed to keep Beirut alive. So those poor men had to be liquidated.
Beirutis are tough people and are not easily moved. But at the end of last week, many of them were overcome by a photograph in their daily papers of a small girl, discarded like a broken flower in a field near Ter Harfa, her feet curled up, her hand resting on her torn blue pyjamas, her eyes - beneath long, soft hair - closed, turned away from the camera. She had been another "terrorist" target of Israel and several people, myself among them, saw a frightening similarity between this picture and the photograph of a Polish girl lying dead in a field beside her weeping sister in 1939.
I go home and flick through my files, old pictures of the Israeli invasion of 1982. There are more photographs of dead children, of broken bridges. "Israelis Threaten to Storm Beirut", says one headline. "Israelis Retaliate". "Lebanon At War". "Beirut Under Siege". "Massacre at Sabra and Chatila".
Yes, how easily we forget these earlier slaughters. Up to 1,700 Palestinians were butchered at Sabra and Chatila by Israel's proxy Christian militia allies in September of 1982 while Israeli troops - as they later testified to Israel's own court of inquiry - watched the killings. I was there. I stopped counting the corpses when I reached 100. Many of the women had been raped before being knifed or shot.
Yet when I was fleeing the bombing of Ghobeiri with my driver Abed last week, we swept right past the entrance of the camp, the very spot where I saw the first murdered Palestinians. And we did not think of them. We did not remember them. They were dead in Beirut and we were trying to stay alive in Beirut, as I have been trying to stay alive here for 30 years.
I am back on the sea coast when my mobile phone rings. It is an Israeli woman calling me from the United States, the author of a fine novel about the Palestinians. "Robert, please take care," she says. "I am so, so sorry about what is being done to the Lebanese. It is unforgivable. I pray for the Lebanese people, and the Palestinians, and the Israelis." I thank her for her thoughtfulness and the graceful, generous way she condemned this slaughter.
Then, on my balcony - a glance to checkthe location of the Israeli gunboat far out in the sea-smog - I find older clippings. This is from an English paper in 1840, when Beirut was a great Ottoman city. "Beyrouth" was the dateline. "Anarchy is now the order of the day, our properties and personal safety are endangered, no satisfaction can be obtained, and crimes are committed with impunity. Several Europeans have quitted their houses and suspended their affairs, in order to find protection in more peaceable countries."
On my dining-room wall, I remember, there is a hand-painted lithograph of French troops arriving in Beirut in 1842 to protect the Christian Maronites from the Druze. They are camping in the Jardin des Pins, which will later become the site of the French embassy where, only a few hours ago, I saw French men and women registering for their evacuation. And outside the window, I hear again the whisper of Israeli jets, hidden behind the smoke that now drifts 20 miles out to sea.
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?
'Disgracefully, we evacuate our precious foreigners and just leave the Lebanese to their fate'
Paradise Lost:
ROBERT FISK'S ELEGY FOR BEIRUT
In the year 551, the magnificent, wealthy city of Berytus - headquarters of the imperial East Mediterranean Roman 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 in front of them.
That was when a tidal wall higher than a tsunami returned to swamp the city and kill them all. So savagely was the old Beirut damaged that the Emperor Justinian sent gold from Constantinople as compensation to every family left alive. Some cities seem forever doomed. When the Crusaders arrived at Beirut on their way to Jerusalem in the 11th century, they slaughtered every man, woman and child in the city. In the First World War, Ottoman Beirut suffered a terrible famine; the Turkish army had commandeered all the grain and the Allied powers blockaded the coast. I still have some ancient postcards I bought here 30 years ago of stick-like children standing in an orphanage, naked and abandoned.
An American woman living in Beirut in 1916 described how she "passed women and children lying by the roadside with closed eyes and ghastly, pale faces. It was a common thing to find people searching the garbage heaps for orange peel, old bones or other refuse, and eating them greedily when found. Everywhere women could be seen seeking eatable weeds among the grass along the roads..."
How does this happen to Beirut? For 30 years, I've watched this place die and then rise from the grave and then die again, its apartment blocks pitted with so many bullets they looked like Irish lace, its people massacring each other.
I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives, and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost the lives of a further 20,000 of its people. I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses. Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore.
They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis - in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside - tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we compare their appalling casualties - 240 in all of Lebanon by last night - with Israel's 24 dead, as if the figures are the same.
And then, most disgraceful of all, we leave the Lebanese to their fate like a diseased people and spend our time evacuating our precious foreigners while tut-tutting about Israel's "disproportionate" response to the capture of its soldiers by Hizbollah.
I walked through the deserted city centre of Beirut yesterday and it reminded more than ever of a film lot, a place of dreams too beautiful to last, a phoenix from the ashes of civil war whose plumage was so brightly coloured that it blinded its own people. This part of the city - once a Dresden of ruins - was rebuilt by Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister who was murdered scarcely a mile away on 14 February last year.
The wreckage of that bomb blast, an awful precursor to the present war in which his inheritance is being vandalised by the Israelis, still stands beside the Mediterranean, waiting for the last UN investigator to look for clues to the assassination - an investigator who has long ago abandoned this besieged city for the safety of Cyprus.
At the empty Etoile restaurant - best snails and cappuccino in Beirut, where Hariri once dined Jacques Chirac - I sat on the pavement and watched the parliamentary guard still patrolling the faade of the French-built emporium that houses what is left of Lebanon's democracy. So many of these streets were built by Parisians under the French mandate and they have been exquisitely restored, their mock Arabian doorways bejewelled with marble Roman columns dug from the ancient Via Maxima a few metres away.
Hariri loved this place and, taking Chirac for a beer one day, he caught sight of me sitting at a table. "Ah Robert, come over here," he roared and then turned to Chirac like a cat that was about to eat a canary. "I want to introduce you, Jacques, to the reporter who said I couldn't rebuild Beirut!"
And now it is being un-built. The Martyr Rafiq Hariri International Airport has been attacked three times by the Israelis, its glistening halls and shopping malls vibrating to the missiles that thunder into the runways and fuel depots. Hariri's wonderful transnational highway viaduct has been broken by Israeli bombers. Most of his motorway bridges have been destroyed. The Roman-style lighthouse has been smashed by a missile from an Apache helicopter. Only this small jewel of a restaurant in the centre of Beirut has been spared. So far.
It is the slums of Haret Hreik and Ghobeiri and Shiyah that have been levelled and "rubble-ised" and pounded to dust, sending a quarter of a million Shia Muslims to seek sanctuary in schools and abandoned parks across the city. Here, indeed, was the headquarters of Hizbollah, another of those "centres of world terror" which the West keeps discovering in Muslim lands. Here lived Sayed Hassan Nasrallah, the Party of God's leader, a ruthless, caustic, calculating man' and Sayad Mohamed Fadlallah, among the wisest and most eloquent of clerics' and many of Hizbollah's top military planners - including, no doubt, the men who planned over many months the capture of the two Israeli soldiers last Wednesday.
But did the tens of thousands of poor who live here deserve this act of mass punishment? For a country that boasts of its pin-point accuracy - a doubtful notion in any case, but that's not the issue - what does this act of destruction tell us about Israel? Or about ourselves? I
n a modern building in an undamaged part of Beirut, I come, quite by chance, across a well known and prominent Hizbollah figure, open-neck white shirt, dark suit, clean shoes. "We will go on if we have to for days or weeks or months or..." And he counts these awful statistics off on the fingers of his left hand. "Believe me, we have bigger surprises still to come for the Israelis - much bigger, you will see. Then we will get our prisoners and it will take just a few small concessions."
I walk outside, feeling as if I have been beaten over the head. Over the wall opposite there is purple bougainvillaea and white jasmine and a swamp of gardenias. The Lebanese love flowers, their colour and scent, and Beirut is draped in trees and bushes that smell like paradise.
As for the huddled masses southern slums of Haret Hreik, I found hundreds of them yesterday, sitting under trees and lying on the parched grass beside an ancient fountain donated to the city of Beirut by the Ottoman Sultan Abdul-Hamid. How empires fall.
Far away, across the Mediterranean, two American helicopters from the USS Iwo Jima could be seen, heading through the mist and smoke towards the US embassy bunker complex at Awkar to evacuate more citizens of the American Empire. There was not a word from that same empire to help the people lying in the park, to offer them food or medical aid.
And across them all has spread a dark grey smoke that works its way through the entire city, the fires of oil terminals and burning buildings turning into a cocktail of sulphurous air that moves below our doors and through our windows. I smell it when I wake in the morning. Half the people of Beirut are coughing in this filth, breathing their own destruction as they contemplate their dead.
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.
And the sword continues to cut its way through Beirut. When part of an aircraft - perhaps the wing-tip of an F-16 hit by a missile, although the Israelis deny this - came streaking out of the sky over the eastern suburbs at the weekend, I raced to the scene to find a partly decapitated driver in his car and three Lebanese soldiers from the army's logistics unit. These are the tough, brave non-combat soldiers of Kfar Chim, who have been mending power and water lines these past six days to keep Beirut alive.
I knew one of them. "Hello Robert, be quick because I think the Israelis will bomb again but we'll show you everything we can." And they took me through the fires to show me what they could of the wreckage, standing around me to protect me.
And a few hours later, the Israelis did come back, as the men of the small logistics unit were going to bed, and they bombed the barracks and killed 10 soldiers, including those three kind men who looked after me amid the fires of Kfar Chim.
And why? Be sure - the Israelis know what they are hitting. That's why they killed nine soldiers near Tripoli when they bombed the military radio antennas. But a logistics unit? Men whose sole job was to mend electricity lines? And then it dawns on me. Beirut is to die. It is to be starved of electricity now that the power station in Jiyeh is on fire. No one is to be allowed to keep Beirut alive. So those poor men had to be liquidated.
Beirutis are tough people and are not easily moved. But at the end of last week, many of them were overcome by a photograph in their daily papers of a small girl, discarded like a broken flower in a field near Ter Harfa, her feet curled up, her hand resting on her torn blue pyjamas, her eyes - beneath long, soft hair - closed, turned away from the camera. She had been another "terrorist" target of Israel and several people, myself among them, saw a frightening similarity between this picture and the photograph of a Polish girl lying dead in a field beside her weeping sister in 1939.
I go home and flick through my files, old pictures of the Israeli invasion of 1982. There are more photographs of dead children, of broken bridges. "Israelis Threaten to Storm Beirut", says one headline. "Israelis Retaliate". "Lebanon At War". "Beirut Under Siege". "Massacre at Sabra and Chatila".
Yes, how easily we forget these earlier slaughters. Up to 1,700 Palestinians were butchered at Sabra and Chatila by Israel's proxy Christian militia allies in September of 1982 while Israeli troops - as they later testified to Israel's own court of inquiry - watched the killings. I was there. I stopped counting the corpses when I reached 100. Many of the women had been raped before being knifed or shot.
Yet when I was fleeing the bombing of Ghobeiri with my driver Abed last week, we swept right past the entrance of the camp, the very spot where I saw the first murdered Palestinians. And we did not think of them. We did not remember them. They were dead in Beirut and we were trying to stay alive in Beirut, as I have been trying to stay alive here for 30 years.
I am back on the sea coast when my mobile phone rings. It is an Israeli woman calling me from the United States, the author of a fine novel about the Palestinians. "Robert, please take care," she says. "I am so, so sorry about what is being done to the Lebanese. It is unforgivable. I pray for the Lebanese people, and the Palestinians, and the Israelis." I thank her for her thoughtfulness and the graceful, generous way she condemned this slaughter.
Then, on my balcony - a glance to checkthe location of the Israeli gunboat far out in the sea-smog - I find older clippings. This is from an English paper in 1840, when Beirut was a great Ottoman city. "Beyrouth" was the dateline. "Anarchy is now the order of the day, our properties and personal safety are endangered, no satisfaction can be obtained, and crimes are committed with impunity. Several Europeans have quitted their houses and suspended their affairs, in order to find protection in more peaceable countries."
On my dining-room wall, I remember, there is a hand-painted lithograph of French troops arriving in Beirut in 1842 to protect the Christian Maronites from the Druze. They are camping in the Jardin des Pins, which will later become the site of the French embassy where, only a few hours ago, I saw French men and women registering for their evacuation. And outside the window, I hear again the whisper of Israeli jets, hidden behind the smoke that now drifts 20 miles out to sea.
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?
'Disgracefully, we evacuate our precious foreigners and just leave the Lebanese to their fate'
Antiwar rally in Tel Aviv, and some more useful articles
A few more links:
Another Tikkun grab bag, comprised of several articles from across the spectrum. It ranges from some excellent critiques of the war to absolute racist garbage from David Horowitz. (Horowitz is better known for CampusWatch, the witch-hunt web site that targets professors critical of Israeli policy, as well as the full-page ad he published in college newspapers across the country arguing against paying reparations to African Americans.) I’m hoping to write a longer response to some of these articles as soon as I get a free minute. There’s a fairly surprising one in there from an Israeli who is quite sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, but rabidly anti-Lebanese to the point of equating ordinary Lebanese people with Hezbollah. I like Tikkun's approach generally, but I do have a problem with giving right-wing racist viewpoints more of a forum than they already have. You can find "Arabs are evil and deserve to die" all over the mainstream press; it's in giving less ubiquitous and more useful viewpoints a forum that publications like Tikkun really shine. They're particularly good about publishing left-wing Jewish and Israeli critiques of Israel, which I think is incredible valuable.
The United States in Lebanon: A Meddlesome History. This article from Foreign Policy In Focus is one of the most useful I’ve found in terms of clearly laying out the history of American (and, of course, Israeli) intervention in Lebanon. It’s fairly long, but well worth reading.
And from Ha’aretz (though other reports indicate closer to 10,000):
First major anti-war rally draws 2,500 in Tel Aviv
By Lily Galili
More than 2,500 people yesterday attended the first major demonstration against the war, marching from Tel Aviv's Rabin Square to a rally at the Cinemateque plaza. The rally differed from protests that accompanied previous wars. This is the first time that major Arab organizations in Israel - among them Hadash and Balad - arrived in large numbers from the Galilee for a demonstration in Tel Aviv in the midst of a war. They were joined by the left flank of the Zionist Left - former Meretz leader Shulamit Aloni and Prof. Galia Golan, alongside the radical left of Gush Shalom, the refusal to serve movement Yesh Gvul, Anarchists Against the Wall, Coalition of Women for Peace, Taayush and others. These Jewish and Arab groups ordinarily shy away from joint activity. They couldn't come up with a unifying slogan this time either, except for the call to stop the war and start talking. However, protest veterans noted that in the Lebanon War of 1982 it took more than 10 days of warfare to bring out this many protesters, marking the first crack in the consensus. The protest drew some new faces, like Tehiya Regev of Carmiel, whose two neighbors were killed in a Katyusha attack on the city. "This war is not headed in the right direction," she told Haaretz; "the captured soldiers have long since been forgotten, so I came to call for an immediate stop to this foolish and cruel war." The rally, which received wide international press coverage, had an unfamiliar theme. Beside the usual calls for the prime minister and defense minister to resign, this was a distinctly anti-American protest. Alongside chants of "We will not kill, we will not die in the name of Zionism" there were chants of "We will not die and will not kill in the service of the United States," and slogans condemning President George W. Bush.
You can see pictures here.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
