Besieged in Lebanon UPDATE

Paris III and the making of a Puppet Gov

2007-01-26T23:00:00.000-05:00

It seems that much of what I wrote about has come to fruition. Yes, Israel was "defeated" in the "divine victory" but, in the end, the US and Israel have succeeded in forcing the government to confront and disarm Hizbullah. Paris III is a sham of course. 7 billion dollars to Lebanon? Much are loans, like from France. That means, further debt. Much is MILITARY aid (from the US) to the security apparatus in Lebanon being tooled to watch internal dissent and confront internally armed groups (Hizbullah but also the Palestinian factions). This military aid is not to confront Israel or stop their daily illegal fly-overs or other provocative actions. Furthermore, the money will be giving to Lebanon upon reaching "benchmarks" in privatizing the country. In other words, the aid is contingent on forcing the liberalization of the country even if it is against the will and certainly interest of the Lebanese people.

The Left in Lebanon is active. The real left. The grassroots left. They are moving on the ground but few look at them and yes their numbers are small but their energy and insight big. They are distancing themselves from Hizbullah and Aoun's "opposition", which is really a power grab (albeit probably a justifiable one) and also from the corrupt Seniora regime, so eager to sell Lebanon to corporate and elitist interest and yes selling out Lebanon during the Israel aggression of the summer.

I do miss being there though and miss my beloved friends.

IT ALL COMES OUT...UN-NOTICED

2006-10-30T13:01:00.000-05:00

Much has been happening since my last posts. I have little time these days to read and therefore comment. That said, forgive the compulsion to scream into the wind and validate my own analysis over the past month. I do think, however, in this case, it serves an important political purpose.

That is, just as I said, Israel has been suing for peace with Lebanon in their own ways. Olmert a few weeks ago made several overtures to Lebanon and specifying that the offer is to Lebanon only not Syria. This is against the advise of many "leftists" and "realists" in Israel who know that there can be no comprehensive peace with "the Arabs" (and undercutting of the Palestinian position) without talking to Syria.

On the ground, comrades have been organizing many international, local, and pan-Arab conferences around the resistance and the inter-confessional, progressive civil resistance getting little attention in the South. Also, the anti-globalization and anti-WTO groups and NGOs have been organizing to head off the governments plan to integrate privatiztion as a key component of reconstruction.

Finally, there has been no press in the Western press so far about this but several international (Western--so they must be fair of course) have definitively concluded that Israel did use phospherous weapons (therefore chemical weapons) in Lebanon as well as Uranium Depleted warheads. Here is one Arabic article on the matter.

http://assafir.com/iso/today/front/2912.html

The struggle continues --whether in silence or under the light of day.

GAPING LANGUAGE

2006-10-03T09:00:00.000-04:00

Speaking of an-Nahar English edition, I read this below statement as well today on its site. I could not find another article to confirm this article, which is what I usually do. However, this is very likely "off the AP line".

Before visiting Saudi Arabia, Rice told reporters:

"I want Saudi's involvement in the stabilization of Iraq. I want Saudi's involvement in the stabilization of Lebanon, through resources and political support."

He, I mean, she is on a Middle East "tour" to attempt to get Saudi to lead (ie financially coerce or buy off) Arab countries, particularly Lebanon and Syria, on the road to normalization with Israel. There has been a lot of murmuring in Israel, even during the invasion of Lebanon, that Israel has to talk to "the bad guys". Articles are regularly appearing in Haaretz and Maariv insisting that to make peace the Golan will have to be returned and Israel will have to sit down with Syria.

All that said, Rice’s statement is as obnoxious as the abyss-like gape in her two front teeth. It is sick that the Empire, or as Eldridge Cleaver used to called it Babylon, not longer takes care to cloak the arrogant imperialist language of their policies. “I WANT Saudi’s involvement” in controlling the region, in stopping the violence that the US started, in propping up the pro-US government and big business government of Lebanon. Well, in the words of every naggy-neglected housewife (sorry for the sexist language), how about what the people of the region want? First they want you Condi to get braces. Second, they want the US to stop supporting indeed using Israel as an attack dog. Third, they want the US to stop crushing secular democratic movements in favor to right-wing authoritarian regimes that do the US’s bidding to stay in power and to further aggrandize their own financial and power positions.

I can’t help you Condi with any of these except offering my honest professional advice. I can also recommend a good Orthodontist in DC if you want.

Ghajar Means More Than Gypsy, Brother

2006-10-03T08:24:00.000-04:00

Israel "withdrew" from Lebanon on Oct.1, according to the Israeli Information Ministry. They withdrew "except" for an "insignificant" number of troops in Ghajar. What is almost equally repugnant is that al-Nahar English Edition basically released the same press release of the Israeli government. I'll write more on this later. For now, Ghajar is a town that borders Lebanon-Golan-Northern Palestine. It believe that its inhabitants are Alawi and Druze, but not certain. The south of Ghajar was taken in 1967 and annexed along with the Golan (illegally I might add and against a standing UN Security Council Resolution). In 2000, Israel withdrew from the north part of the village in 2000 when they were ejected from Lebanon by the Lebanese Resistance. It is clear that Israel is shoring up its bargaining power in imminent negotiations with the Arab League (which is being pushed by the US) and/or planning to permanently annex Ghajar as a part of Israel.

Resisting in the Streets: Screw You Right-Wing and Neo-Liberal (yes Democrats too) Pundits

2006-09-26T21:13:00.000-04:00

The last post provided an account of the on-going efforts of a group of volunteers from all walks of life, ages, professions, and sects in Lebanon in helping from the grassroots the people of the South rebuild but, in doing so, reinvigorate the ways the Lebanese think and live politically, socially, and culturally. The Civil Resistance is a sign of the vitality and energy of the "Arab civil society", a sign that, despite how mess up we can be (and we can be really messed up), there are and have been strong currents of progressive thinkers, activists, and citizens in the Arab world.

Currently, that resistance continues in other forms and venues. The Beirut Film Festival is going on now. It's been going on since 2001 and indeed improving (although I confess that I like raw, untested festivals rather than the improved, smart and often too slick ones that Beirut Festival is sure to become by mere weight of its quality). They have some rather interesting mainstream and alternative films showing. But, of course, what is as interesting as the films showing is that that films are showing period! The festival has received some press in the international media. But what has NOT be commented on is that BEIRUT DC (Documentary Center), the organizer of the festival, completely transformed itself within days of the bombing and became the media-center (and to some degree logistical center) for the grassroots relief coalition that would become to be known as SAMIDOUN. Personally, I was assisting in media outreach but, due to the effectiveness and efficiency of the volunteers at BEIRUT DC, I quickly became irrelevant.

The organizers there (women and men, Muslim, Christian, and Druze) were ready to sacrifice their year's work for the common good of the victims of Israeli aggression.
Those of you who know me, know that I am not much of an optimist or flatterer. However, these folks at BEIRUT DC need to be recognized and more for just a film festival.

See their site and the festival program at:

BeirutDC.org

Civil Resistance: Week Four of the Rest of Our Lives

2006-09-25T21:54:00.000-04:00

I have written before about and posted message from the Civil Resistance group in Lebanon. Rather than praising their courageous and tireless work again, I want to mention one very important point. TV pundits and Five and Dime intellectuals (as my Tayta might called them in her endearing South Philly accent that obfuscates her impressive knowledge) impugned the Arab world since 9/11 for lacking a "civil society". They accuse Arabs as unable to act and think democratically as they same time they encourage the US government to cut all aid and political ties to the Palestinian Authority when Hamas is legally elected as the will of the majority (elected for that matter only AFTER the US INSISTED that Abu Mazen hold elections after his better/corrupt judgement). All the while, parts of Lebanon and Palestine are being held together by grassroots, multisectarian, democratic, progressive activists and organizations. Civil Resistance in Lebanon is an amalgamation of folks from all ages, genders and sexual preferences, sects, and regions. But moreover, they have been accepted by thousands of rural, mostly Shi'a, poor in the South with open arms. I am not just talking about a group of otherwise conservative rural folk accepting the economic aid of generally educated, socially minded, urbane middle class. I mean these folks in the South, who are basically peasants, homemakers, and tradesmen are allowing, indeed encouraging, the Civil Resistance movement to take on social and educational projects that these aforementioned Western "pundits" would otherwise think incommensurate with the "traditional" "Muslim" way of life. The Civil Resistance Movement are heroic just as those who have remain in South Lebanon are heroic. They face not only Israel aggression but also violent forces of neoliberal privatization and economic policies of the central government. I am posting the Civil Resistance Movement's most recent update and all for donations. I have deleted their call for volunteers because most readers of this blog, I believe, are abroad in Europe and North America. The Struggle Continues.

CIVIL RESISTANCE: Fourth & Fifth Weeks Report
Resisting aggression by reshaping the nature of Lebanese civil society
This document describes projects we have undertaken in the fourth week of our engagement with Lebanese areas targeted by Israeli aggression (Sept. 8-14, 2006).
For a detailed description of our mission, objectives, and resources, please read our document entitled “Civil Resistance,” available on-line at www.lebanonsolidarity.org.
For ways you can help our efforts, please see the last section entitled, “Upcoming Village Solidarity Work.”
Objectives:
1) To enable quick rehabilitation in areas damaged by bombing so that daily lives can recommence in time for harvest, school, and winter
2) To counter the divisive social effects of this and past wars against Lebanon
3) To activate a self-sustaining local economy
4) To provide constructive means for children and their families to deal with the trauma of enduring war
5) To enrol an expanded section of Lebanese civil society in active civilian resistance and solidarity work
SECTION 1
Chronic Medications for Al-Taibe & Markaba
On September 9 we took our supply of medicines to Al-Taibe’s municipality. A call was made from the mosque’s loud-speaker that villagers could see a doctor there and fill their prescriptions. In the course of two hours over 55 prescriptions were filled with the oversight of Dr. Ahmad Marmar, a Al-Taibe native now living in Beirut because of the damage Israeli soldiers caused to his home in Al-Taibe during the month-long occupation of it as a base. The following Saturday we took our medicines to Markaba where Dr. Ahmad Hammoud, a cardiologist and native of Markaba, examined 10 patients and filled 74 prescriptions (c. 150 medicines). Both visits confirmed our worry that villagers are regularly excluded from access to medications for chronic diseases such as diabetes, high blood pressure, and heart diseases and to specialist doctors. We are seeking remedy these gaps in the local medical care by setting up a chain of village clinics (Markaba, Al-Taibe, Adaisseh, Houla, Zibqine, and Silaa) and visitation routes to be traveled by volunteer specialist doctors from Beirut or other urban areas.
For Donors:
We would like to buy the following medicines to distribute to a regular roster of elderly and underprivileged patients. These medicines are costly. We have bought tem already for distribution this month in Al-Taibe, Markaba, and Zibqine.
Adalat, Amaryl, Avandia, Capoten, Co-aprovel, Co-diovan, Codaran, Concor, Corvazel, Covarsyl, Deanxit, Depaqin (chrono), Discotrine, Glavix, Glibomet, Glubophage, Imuran, Indiril, Isordil, Lanoxin, LasixLetrox, Micardisaprovel, Monocinque Pareit, Preterax Stavacor, Tarka, Tegretol, Tenoretik, Topamax, Tenoretit, Vastril, Ventoline, Zestoretic.
Cost of Al-Taibe/Markaba/Zibqine Chronic Disease Medications:
TOTAL: $2000

Playing & Story-telling in Silaa, Yet Again
For the third and fourth weekends in a row we offered children’s entertainment activities in the Maqasid School in Silaa. Each time about 80 children participated. There were more physical games on the playground led by Sami and Mohamad. Fida and Baha read from Samah’s picture books to a group of children aged 3-5 and then played with them “Qala al-qa’id (Simon Says)” and water-balloon tosses. Maha and George led group drawings of the children’s favorite things about Silaa and changes wrought in Silaa by the Israeli bombing. Forty girls in their early teens competed in another boisterous set of Pictionary rounds. The hit of the third week, however, was the séances of musical chairs. The fourth weekend, more volunteers brought new playground games, and Sariya led the older girls in creating their own, personalized Monopoly game sets. The objective was multiple: to encourage the youth’s self-reliance in the face of Israeli threats to destroy their homes and possession over and over, and to enable them to boycott the toy company Hasbro, which has consistently adopted pro-Zionist policies. The girls had fun making up their own street names, chance cards, and currencies. At the end of each hour and a half play session, the children received chocolate bars and either coloring books or picture books, and the organizers all received invitations to stay in the children’s homes. On Sunday, September 17, Malak accompanied 60 children from Silaa to Sur to attend “The Sad Bird,” a play performed by child actors from Ramallah.
For Donors:
We would like to buy supplies for more physical activities and for crafts such as kite-making, doll-making, etc. The money for this project need not involve huge sums to have tremendous impact.

Cost of Activities for 80 Children, ages 4-12:
Books: $20; Modeling clay: $6; Colored pencils: $14; Markers: $15; Scissors (10): $12; Rulers (10): $4; Soccer balls (2 large, one small): $10; Building blocks: $10; Finger paints: $20; Newspaper print roll: $5; Wide-bristled brushes (10): $5; Plaster of Paris and molds: $20; Glitter and sealant: $15; Foam board: $20; A4 Paper: $3; Glue: $7. Chocolate bars $10. Coloring/Picture Books $60.
TOTAL: $276

A Bakery in Zibqine
One of the problems villagers faced during the war was the lack of that major staple, bread. Historically, villagers of the South either make their own saj bread on domestic ovens or, more often, buy bread from Tyre. With the roads to Tyre cut, many villager had to forego bread or make a daring trip that sometimes led to death. As part of our goal of activating a self-sustaining local economy, we seek to establish bakeries for Arabic bread in centrally located villages such as Zibqine, Markaba, and/or Al.-Taibe. For example, a bakery in Al-Taibe could supply bread to that village’s 5000 permanent residents, as well as those of Adchit (750), Deir Siryan (1200), Rab al-Thalathin (700), and Al-Qantara (1500). An oven in Markaba could supply bread for that village’s 3000 permanent residents as well as those of Bani Hayin (750), Taloussa (1000), and Houla (2000). Such a bakery would provide jobs for villagers, enhance their ability to earn an income without having to leave their villages, cut transportation costs, and enable a higher degree of self-reliance during conflict situations.
In Zibqine, the village bakery closed a few months before the war due to insolvency. However, a bakery that is run not for profit but to provide an essential service would be able to cover its costs and remain open. We have assessed how much repairs to the Zibqine bakery will cost (see chart below). Initially, we will provide the flour and other ingredients, and labor will be donated by residents of the village, so that the bread produced will be free. Eventually the bakery will be handed over to the municipality for it to contract the work as it sees fit, but on a non-profit basis.
In Markaba or Al-Taibe a bakery would have to be built. We have begun to look into costs of supplies, generator, site, equipment, and construction; our initial estimate is $80-$100,000. Lebanese-made equipment is available for an automatic or semi-automatic oven.
For Donors:
If you are interested in helping to fund this project or have experience working in the bread-making business, please contact us for a detailed project proposal.

Cost of operations for Zebqine Oven
$
cement 300
sand 200
pebbles 200
floor tiles 800
floor tiles (?) 45
glass 270
paint 500
electricity 300
sanitary 200
concrete works 150
metal door 300
maintenance oven 200
Builder’s fee 500
TOTAL $3,965.00

Clothes for Markaba
Sunday night we delivered bags of clothing for 55 families who lost their homes to Israeli rocket-fire during the war. The day before we had visited the town as a group of 7 volunteers. At the central town park-cum-refugee camp, we met with four residents and split into four teams to head for different sectors of this badly damaged town in order to get precise information about quantities and sizes needed. On September 18, the day following our delivery, Israeli soldiers crossed the “Blue Line” and extended their fences into the land of Markaba.

Cost of Markaba Project:
Clothing for women: pants and shirt or long house dress, underwear, veil if needed, and hygienic pads; Clothing for men: pants, shirt, and underwear; Clothing for children: shorts, shirt, shoes, underwear, and toy packet (crayons, modeling clay, soap bubbles, and either a doll, a ball, a pair of rackets, a puzzle, or a car, all contained in a hand-sewn personalized bag = $4)
TOTAL: $1200, almost all of which was spent locally (a small portion came from donations of clothing in Beirut)

Twinned Schools = Twice the Care and Twice the Strength
Many schools were structurally damaged by the Israeli aggression against Lebanon, and many school populations were socially traumatized both by having to endure life-threatening situations and by finding themselves isolated in their confrontation. Students of Lebanon’s South need help from people outside their natural social networks, and most importantly, they need to share their stories and experiences with other Lebanese students. School-twinning will put student populations from different parts of Lebanon in constant contact with each other. It will enable children in schools not directly hit by the aggression to become part of the process of recovering from the trauma inflicted, such as children at a Beirut school learning about the presence of cluster bombs, the dangers they pose to lives and livelihoods, the means for dealing with them politically and socially. School-twinning will enable children at schools able to offer social services to disadvantaged communities to discover their social relevance and power. Twinning can be applied through joint educational curricula (such as learning Arabic by writing letters to twin classes, or learning about the environment by studying plants and farms on site), through community events (such as school visits, picnics, and summer camps), and through joint social programs (such as fund-raising or awareness-raising campaigns). Students at all grades can be encouraged to learn about their counterparts in another area of Lebanon and learn how to take the initiative to cope with problems facing their fellow citizens. The Association for Volunteer Services (headed by Dr. Patricia Nabti) has already identified 20-30 schools that have been trained in involving their students in social service. We are currently in the process of identifying which school administrations in southern villages that are interested in twinning. Already, we have received a positive response from school principals in Markaba and Al-Taibe.

SECTION 2 – Upcoming Village Solidarity Work for which we are asking your help:
Unlike most organizations currently active in the South, our project surpasses immediate relief and seeks to use the most expanded networks of civilian volunteers. This means returning each week to Silaa, Al-Qantara, Zibqine, Markaba, Adaisseh, Blida, Al-Taibe and Houla. In each of these villages, we are seeking ways to stimulate nation-wide embrace of all Lebanese as equally dignified and deserving inhabitants, to rekindle the local economy, to link schools in areas affected by Israeli aggression to sister-schools in other parts of Lebanon, to provide emotional and intellectual stimulation for children who have endured war, and to foster local civilian resistance through cultural events and symposiums. Some of the applications to reach these goals that we are currently considering or already undertaking are listed below:
1) Memorial lunches, Ramadan meals: Needed: $750 per meal for 1000 residents; volunteer participants willing to spend an evening sharing stories and concerns. Contact: Abed Zahzah, abdelrahman.zahzah@dargroup.com
2) Durable, large-group physical game equipment; plaster, molds, and paint; face-paints; kite-making supplies; doll-making supplies; photocopies for guided, therapeutic drawing sessions.
a. Needed: $150-$300. 8-10 volunteers willing to spend an afternoon each weekend playing with children of one village, for at least one month. Contact: Maha Issa, maha.m.issa@gmail.com
3) Two more villages according to the sample applications = $5000
a. Needed: $2500 per village. 5-6 volunteers (at least two drivers with cars) able to give two days per week to assess needs by visiting villages, purchase supplies, pack them, and deliver them. Contact: Sami Hermez, shermez@princeton.edu
4) Clinic Network for long-term, specialized care
a. Needed: $300 chronic disease medications per village per month; specialist doctors willing to volunteer one or two days a month to visit set of villages. Contact: Fida Shreim, fs25@aub.edu.lb
5) Economic Stimulation and Independence projects
a. Two bakeries for production of Arabic bread for the region from Blida to Markaba to Zibqine; will initially provide free bread through volunteer village labor but eventually will be turned over to the municipality for village income generation. Needed: c. $80,000 in start-up costs (site, building, equipment, supplies, generator). To employ 20-30 people and serve 15-20 villages
b. Water purification plant for production of drinkable water based on near-by sources. Needed: c.$100,000 in start-up costs (site, building, equipment, supplies, generator). Will cover its own costs within 12 months. To employ 10-15 people
c. Carbonated Drinking Yogurt Plant. Contact Sami Hermez
d. Fruit Chips Plant. Contact Sami Hermez
6) Olive harvest, oil processing and marketing
a. Needed: Funds to be ascertained; Volunteers with cooperative agricultural, export, merchant experience
b. Contact: Mohamad Safieddine
7) Boycott lectures, publication material, web-site
a. Needed: Web-site designer, Web master, Graphic designers to update brochures, produce stickers and posters; Volunteers willing to devote one or two days a month to giving lectures and leading discussions. Volunteers willing to prepare petitions in their neighborhoods to their area storesVolunteers willing to devote one or two days a month to lobbying wholesale merchants
Contact Samah Idriss,
8) School Twinning
a. Needed: Funds to be ascertainedVolunteers to develop ideas, prepare proposal, lobby schools, facilitate coordination
i. Contact Kirsten Scheid,

We would appreciate any donations of volunteer time, money, or kind. For sending money from abroad, please send it to the attention of Abdelrahman Zahzah via the NGO Platform Sidon, the account for which is at the First National Bank, SAL, Sidon Branch, #0017-128374-002 USB. The name of the account holder is Hamatto and/or Cheaib, NGO Platform Sidon. The swift code is SINKLBBE.
Please send an e-mail notifying us of your donation to Abed Zahzah, abdelrahman.zahzah@dargroup.com, or Samah Idriss & Kirsten Scheid, kidriss@cyberia.net.lb.
For your record-keeping, we would be happy to supply you with receipts from merchants and affidavits of donation from village mayors.

Torture for Freedom

2006-09-20T18:06:00.000-04:00

It's amazing how transparent GW is (even more transparent than normally) when he is in front of the WORLD community (at the UN). Again, he blamed Iran and Syria for the evils of the world but he again forgot his (and his father's) own dealings with Syria.

The case of Maher Arar is case and point. A Canadian citizen was illegally arrested in New York City after 9/11 in transit to Montreal, then for weeks detained by the FBI, and then "rendered" to Syria (via Jordan). The Syrians subsequently tortured him for ten months, forcing him into false confessions including having trained in Afghanistan where he has never been! His wife AND kids (6 months and 6 years old!) were put on a watch list in Canada as well.

He was finally repatriated to Canada, which recently issued an 800 page study about the rendition. Canada itself and the pig Royal Mounted Police collaborated with the FBI and fabricate evidence against Arar.

GW talks about "living freedom" and bringing democracy to the "peeeeples of the Middle East". These are the same people that his regime illegally kidnaps, detains and tortures people without any due process. The same peoples who are crushed in the streets by the US's best ally, like pro-democracy demonstrations last spring in Egypt. Both Germany and Italy are investigating CIA activities in those countries, particularly secret kidnappings in Milan and in Germany of Muslim residence. "From Beirut to Baghdad" he said in the UN, "people are making choices for democracy" but he makes sure to crush any of those true democratic movements in the interest of oil Corporatacracy and its Zionist attack dog Israel. This is the same man who vigorously has supported the most repressive Israeli government, refused to recognize the DEMOCRATICALLY elected Palestinian government. This “democracy” loving leader is same President who supports the "Jewish State of Israel" in his words, openly rejecting the Land-for-Peace formula established by the UN 30 years ago and the Palestinians Right of Return.

Syria, for the past few years, is a bete noir but GW conveniently forgets how he outsourced torture there (as well as how the US relied on Syria to manage Lebanon in the 1990s).

GW. You're a bad bad bad man, a hyprocrit, and a destroyer of the US, the Middle East, and global security and properity. I think Chavez was right.

We're Lovers Not Fighters

2006-09-19T09:59:00.000-04:00

ATTAC LUBNAN has called for a decommissioning of the Lebanese Army and a recommissioning of it as a reconstruction and aid force.
See:
http://lubnan.attac.org/article.php3?id_article=61
Or in French:
http://lubnan.attac.org/article.php3?id_article=48

Clearly, as an Army, they are worthless except for pounding on their own people who protest against the government. Many Lebanese are not aware of the extremely high salaries top-officers receive and the outrageious remuneration packages they get upon retirement, which reach into the hundred of thousands along with drivers, cars, personal assistants and guards.
In Washington, the few "pro-Lebanese" legislators are pushing for the US to arm, indebt, and train the Lebanese military. The US actually supplied the Lebanese government high-tech surveillance equipment last year under the auspices of the "War on Terror". Of course, the equipment probably was used to monitor Hizbullah's import of weapons and Lebanese progressives as much as Muslim fundementalists who in Lebanon are NOT Shi'a but in fact Sunni and mostly from Trabulous (Tripoli). As'ad Abu Khalil, on his blog, keeps a close eye on how the Hariri mafia in fact have very tight relations to these "fundementalists" (who, in honesty, are really horrible people and are fanatics and do hate Arab Christians and Shia as much as the West).
The US wants to train and arm the Lebanese military to allow them to "take on" Hizbullah and patrol Israel's northern border not protect Lebanon's southern border. The US's policy in Lebanon is probably the most effective in the Middle East. That is, the Seniora-Hariri government is more than happy to become a client-state to American Empire and their interests. Their interests are the interests of the ruling class and clearly are in line US neoliberal economic policies.
The point is that, as an defense apparatus, the Lebanese Army is useless and a huge drain on resources of the Lebanese national budget. BUT I do have to say they are a GOOD LOOKING bunch!!!

But NOT AS GOOD LOOKING as the Spanish!!!!

For the Record: Mr. Sheehi Goes To Washington

2006-09-15T23:37:00.000-04:00

The Arab American Institute (AAI) invited me and six others to a conference in Washington DC to present our stories to participants and congressmen (really a handful of their staff members). I was disturbed by the conference and torn whether I should be disruptive as my instincts told me I should. The AAI paid much of my way therefore I did feel some loyalty. I do respect Jim Zogby's mission although completely and utterly disagree with him, the policies and his assimilationist and conformist vision. I was also told that what I should say should not be "political", that it should "represent the community" and that I should not burn the bridges that the AAI has forged through years of hard work but also forge surreptitiously this summer due to the evacuation crisis.

That said, almost all of the evacuees were well-educated--most connected in some way to the American University of Beirut, three PhDs, one master's, and two or three graduate students studying, and only one high school student (who was very effective and articulate). These evacuees were greatly supportive of my feelings of anger. The AAI really did not want to hear that as it was not on message for them. The fellow evacuees also shared my feelings of being conflicted. All of the evacuees were highly critical of the US government and particularly Bush's and Rice's calculated, callous and discriminatory behavior during the summer. As notable as it is cowardly, the AAI has completely ignored the content of what we said in their press release. While most congressmen and their staffers left by the time I spoke, some remained and a few approached me after. This is the text from which I was supposed to read. I deviated from this script but stayed pretty close to the content below. I wanted to post it FOR THE RECORD.

Senate Office Building (Russell Bldg); Sept. 12

I would like to thank the Arab American Institute and Dr. Zoghby for the generous invitation to be here. I want to make clear that my comments do no represent him or the AAI in anyway. I would also like to thank members of Congress who protested the demand that evacuees shoulder the cost of being evacuated.

This was a point of consternation for most of American citizens as we did not understand how the US could pay 300 billion dollars for the occupation of Iraq but not a few million to evacuate American tax payers. Many of us felt that if the US really wanted to save money all it had to do was pick up the phone and demand Israel to stop their war and push for a political solution.

However, this contrary position is one that is a condition of being an Arab American, where we feel gratitude to those personally who put themselves in harms way for us but also realize that that very predicament was created by the US POLICY FAILURE.

Arab Americans know all too well that Defense Dept provided cluster bombs to Israel despite its past use of them against civilians in Lebanon in 1982 and despite a subsequent interdiction by the Reagan administration and despite the fact that Israel used them in violation of the ARMS EXPORT CONTROL ACT! During its brutal bombing in July, the US rushed fuel and missiles to the Israeli Army as “an emergency resupply”.

[While Senator Finestein co-sponsored an unsuccessful bill to prohibit the export of cluster bombs, she enthusiastically endorsed Israel’s war on Lebanon in a Support Israel Rally only a few days after 54 innocent civilians were killed either in the homes or fleeing in well-marked convoys in seven separate locations in Southern and Eastern Lebanon. I did not read that part because of time constraints.]

The US delivered theromobaric and chemical weapons to Israel along with 5,000 pound laser guided Uranium-depleted missiles, all of which the US military itself dubiously uses in Iraq. The United Nations, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch all independently confirm that these weapons were used against Lebanese civilian populations.

When John Bolton unequivocally stated that Israeli lives were more valuable than Lebanese lives, the last shreds of US credibility in the Arab world were burned and buried with some 400 Lebanese children under 13 years old.

In a recent poll published in a pro-American newspaper stated that 66% of Lebanese consider July and August to be a joint American-Israeli war of Lebanon.

The time has come that the US government take a radically new moral stand in refashioning a radically new Middle East policy to instill Washington with the credibility and the moral leadership that it portends to have.

Following the inspirational actions of the Anti-Apartheid movement, the Congress should immediately cease all military and economic aid to Israel until it adheres to US provisions, international laws, human rights conventions, and UN SECURITY COUNCIL RESOLUTIONS 237, 242, 446, (settlements) and 487 (Golan)—in which Israel is violation. (These are binding Security Council Resoltions--not the innumeral General Assembly resolutions. The US has waged war to enforce Security Council Resolutions in other case.)

This call may sound shocking to some of you. However, for many Americans who have lived, studied, and worked in the Middle East it offers a clear moral stance. Such a stand would signal that the US is finally willing to spend the moral and political capital to establish a lasting and equitable peace and true democracy in the ME.

CONTRADICTIONS: Puppets and Friends; Pakistan and Lebanon

2006-09-15T23:13:00.000-04:00

John Kerry is a putz but a statement he made and redressed by El Presidente (because he acts more like a central American Junta of the kind that the US regularly supported) reveals much.

In attacking the Bush administration, Kerry stated that:

"The real myth is that Iraq, not Afghanistan, is the center of the war on terror...The administration has cut and run while Osama bin Laden and his henchmen hide and plot in a lawless no man's land." This means the border of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Bush replied (no doubt after much practicing in the mirror), "First of all, Pakistan is a sovereign nation...In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we've got to be invited by the government of Pakistan."

ssssssssssssskkkkkkkkkrrrrrrrrreeeeeeeeeeeettttttttchchcchch!

Now hold on.
First, Kerry, to be redundant, is a shmuck. What we got to really do, he says, is violate other people's sovereignty to capture a fanatical killer rather than redress the sources that give his followers inspiration (that is, abhorrent US foreign and economic policy).

Second, Bush's reply really highlights the contradictions of US foreign policy.
A), The US illegally invaded Afghanistan!!! Yes, the Taliban are maniacs but they were fine when Bush's buddies in Unicol invited them to Houston, trying to convince them about laying an oil pipe through Afghanistan only a short time before "they" turned Unicol down and the US invaded.

B.) Let's just play a game. Replace the US (us/we) with ISrael and Pakistan with Lebanon. Now let's re-read GW's quote:

"First of all, LEBANON is a sovereign nation..In order for ISRAEL to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, ISRAEL [has] got to be invited by the government of LEBANON."

Need I say more?

While Seniora is a maleable agent of US pressures, to stay in power he can not be an overt puppet of the US. To stay in power, Masharraf, on the other hand, has to be a US puppet otherwise the fact that he's a dictator who came to power through a military coup and has cancelled legal and planned elections might float to the surface. The US support a dictator in the Muslim world? How shocking.

OIL With Your Tabouli

2006-09-14T14:54:00.000-04:00

My wonderful cousin sent these "before and after" pictures of the Israeli-made oil spill the runs the coast of Lebanon. Isn't there something called environmental or ecological terrorism? Weren't the US government and people up in arms (literally) after Saddam Hussein started to light Iraq's oilfields on fire and dump petroleum into the Gulf? The disaster is even more heartbreaking and horrific when you know the environmental state of the Mediterranean in general...which ain't good.

Let's say that this environmental disaster was not planned by the Israel military. In their own legalistic language, they call it collateral damage. There is other legalistic language that is appropriate here: RECKLESS ENDANGERMENT, LIABILITY, GROSS NEGLIGENCE, and INTENTIONAL WRONGDOING. My attorney-mother might be proud to hear me recite the requirements for criminal negligence. I believe that those requirements are:

1. A legal duty exists for the care to another person. This, I would say, is international conventions on human rights and the rules of war (that is, what is the acceptable behavior toward your enemy, the "another person").
2. This legal duty is breached.
3. The plaintiff must have suffered damages.
4. The plaintiff's damages must have been "proximately caused by the breach of duty".

Guilty. Guilty.
Guilty. Guilty.

[My cousin also sent me an article, which if found reprinted with more pictures at:
http://yalibnan.com/site/archives/2006/08/lebanese_oil_sl.php] The "before" image is taken by photographer George Azar.

CIVIL RESISTANCE: DONATE

2006-09-08T00:56:00.000-04:00

This group CIVIL RESISTANCE has been active since the beginning of August. They attempted to defy Israeli aggression by running supplies to the South during the most intense days of the campaign (they were prohibited by the Lebanese Army). Like the volunteers who aided refugees in July and Aug (and are STILL helping many), these group of volunteers are no less than inspirational than the men, women, and children who have and continue to struggle to rebuild their lives after the everything they knew was blown to bits. They have been active in providing medical help, medicine, psychological counselling, food, child care and education, baby milk, diapers, and clothing to residents returning to their destroyed villages.

CIVIL RESISTANCE: Third Week Report
Resisting agression by reshaping the nature of Lebanese civil society
This document describes projects we have undertaken in the third week of our engagement with Lebanese areas targeted by Israeli aggression (Sept. 1-7, 2006).
For a detailed description of our mission, objectives, and resources, please read our document entitled “Civil Resistance,” available on-line at www.lebanonsolidarity.org. For ways you can help our efforts, please see the last section entitled, “Upcoming Village Solidarity Work.” Objectives:
1) To enable quick rehabilitation in areas damaged by bombing so that daily lives can recommence in time for harvest, school, and winter
2) To counter the divisive social effects of this and past wars against Lebanon
3) To activate a self-sustaining local economy
4) To provide constructive means for children and their families to deal with the trauma of enduring war
5) To enroll an expanded section of Lebanese civil society in active civilian resistance and solidarity work

Upcoming Village Solidarity Work for which we are asking your help:
Unlike most organizations currently active in the South, our project surpasses immediate relief and seeks to use the most expanded networks of civilian volunteers. This means returning each week to Silaa, al-Qantara, Zebqine, and Houla. In each of these villages, we are seeking ways to stimulate nation-wide embrace of all Lebanese as equally dignified and deserving inhabitants, to rekindle the local economy, to link schools in areas affected by Israeli aggression to sister-schools in other parts of Lebanon, to provide emotional and intellectual stimulation for children who have endured war, and to foster local civilian resistance through cultural events and symposiums. Some of the applications to reach these goals that we are currently considering or already undertaking are listed below: 1) Memorial lunches in other villages (greater population than Silaa; a. Needed: i. c.$750 per lunch; ii. volunteer participants willing to spend an afternoon condoling; b. Contact: Abed Zahzah, abdelrahman.zahzah@dargroup.com.
2) Durable, large-group physical game equipment, and photocopies for guided, therapeutic drawing sessions; a. Needed: i. = $150; ii. volunteers willing to spend an afternoon each week playing with children of one village; b. Contact: Maha Issa, maha.m.issa@gmail.com. 3) Two more villages according to the sample applications = $5000;a. Needed i. $2500 per village; ii. volunteers able to give two days per week to assess needs by visiting villages, purchase supplies, pack them, and deliver them b. Contact: Sami Hermez, shermez@princeton.edu. 4) Clinic Network for long-term, specialized care; a. Needed: i. c.$300 chronic disease medications per village per month; ii. specialist doctors willing to volunteer one or two days a month to visit set of villages b. Contact: Fida Shreim, fs25@aub.edu.lb. 5) Olive harvest, oil processing and marketing; a. Needed: i. Funds to be ascertained; ii. Volunteers with cooperative agricultural, export, merchant experience; b. Contact: Mohamad Safieddine, mohamad.safieddine@yahoo.com. 6) Boycott lectures, publication material, web-site; a. Needed: i. Web-site designer; ii. Web master; iii. Graphic designers to update brochures, produce stickers and posters; iv. Volunteers willing to devote one or two days a month to giving lectures and leading discussions; v. Volunteers willing to prepare petitions in their neighborhoods to their area stores; vi. Volunteers willing to devote one or two days a month to lobbying wholesale merchants; b. Contact Samah Idriss, kidriss@cyberia.net.lb. 7) School Twinning; a. Needed:i. Funds to be ascertained; ii. People who can lobby school boards, teachers, parent associations; iii. Teachers willing to participate; iv. Computers and internet access for twinned schools not yet enjoying these facilities; v. Volunteers to develop ideas, prepare proposal, lobby schools, facilitate coordination; vi. Contact Kirsten Scheid, kidrissster@gmail.com

We would appreciate any donations of volunteer time, money, or kind. For sending money from abroad, please send it to the attention of Abdelrahman Zahzah via the NGO Platform Sidon, the account for which is at the First National Bank, SAL, Sidon Branch, #0017-128374-002 USB. The name of the account holder is Hamatto and/or Cheaib, NGO Platform Sidon. The swift code is SINKLBBE. Please send an e-mail notifying us of your donation to Abed Zahzah, abdelrahman.zahzah@dargroup.com, or Samah Idriss & Kirsten Scheid, kidriss@cyberia.net.lb. For your records, we would be happy to supply you with receipts from merchants and affidavits of donation from village mayors.

Blockade Ended?

2006-09-07T09:17:00.000-04:00

They did it! The Lebanese legislators brought down the blockade! Long live Nabih Berri, Walid Jumblatt and all of those brave enough to make their junior legislators sleep two nights in the Parliament. It must have been hell for them! Well, apparently, it is just the air blockade and it was Lebanon who got the air.

The real reason the blockade ended is 1. the Lebanese government capitulated to Germany’s (and Israel’s) demands to formally request the German navy to patrol the sea. Of course, they HAVE NOT ended the naval blockade but won't be able to sustain it much longer now that the Germans will take Israel's naval positions.

The issue of a sea-blockade preventing arms shipments via the Mediterranean is silly. No arms are coming or came into Lebanon by the sea. It is just not logically logistically. However, Israel likes to accompany their aggression with a dose of humiliation and making a European power patrol Lebanese waters is one way to do that. Making Lebanon officially ask the German government for permission to patrol its own borders is forcing them into almost a confession of guilt (as if Lebanese port authorities regularly let in arms).

2. The air blockade ended because Israel was in danger of suffering another defeat. Qatar Airways started to “violate” the blockade and land airplanes at Beirut International without requesting permission from the Israelis. I don’t like Qatar. It’s a real stalwart ally to the US especially in the war on Iraq. However, they took a stance (and know they could because they are such a critical ally of the US, housing the US Central Command for the Gulf in Qatar). In doing so, they embarrassed other Arab countries, namely Saudia Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt, and the UAE. It was only a short matter of time that these countries national carries would have started to break the blockade leaving Israel a choice to be embarrassed or shoot down civilian airlines.

Illegal Detention? Torture? naaaaaaaaah

2006-09-06T19:51:00.000-04:00

Ok. I HEARD IT but I don't know if you did. Bush basically admitted authorizing torture. Transporting "detainees" to illegal and secret facilities was known but no he admitted it. I don't think this is because there was pressure on him. Rather, Bush is obviously getting ready to put on a show-trial at Gitmo. He definately needs something high profile to justify the massive blunders of his thinly veiled imperialism. Or, if not preparing for a show trial, he slickly was able to do something important. That is, a few months ago, the calls for closing that Gitmo down became strongest? Didn't some court rule that trials there were illegal? Now he smoothly made it and issue that the illegal prison in occupied Cuba will not be shut down. Now, the spineless Democrats definately won't say close the prison down because "SEE, we have high profile criminal terrorists there!". There used to be something called Due Process. This country actually has a pretty good legal system but it has been continually violated in this country's history to benefit those with power (this goes back before African Americans were enslaved and then, when freed, dispossessed of their rights then arrested and ilegally incarcerated when they called for equality in the 60s).

The NY Times states:
"Bush asked Congress to clarify want interrogators can and cannot do, and to give them protection from lawsuits in United States courts by detainees who might allege that their rights under the Geneva Convention have been violated. The applicable section of the convention is too “vague and undefined,” he said. When you tie up a prisoner for 16 hours, standing, to a bedpost, with a hood over his head, drench him in water, blast music, urinate on the Quran in front of him, sick and dogs barking at him. That's not blurry, that's cruel and unusual punishment.

The NYT also quotes GW who said that one detainee had told his questioner: “I’ll never forget your face. I will kill you, your brothers, your mother and your sisters.”

Imagine the attitude of that Muslim! We brought his people democracy and pliers and he returns such an attitude. What I want to know is did he say that before or after the interrogator disconnected the electrodes from his balls?

WAR CRIMES Are Not That Complicated

2006-09-04T22:47:00.000-04:00

Look how morally bankrupt and skewed the thinking of Israeli cabinet ministers is. The Israeli newspaper Haaretz (which, if you didn’t know, means The Land, referring to Palestine!), reported that Israeli officials are concerned with a flood of suits which they anticipate will be filed against Israeli officers for war crimes in Lebanon (which is pretty standard stuff for waht they've been doing in Gaza).

“Cabinet Minister Yitzhak Herzog, currently traveling in Finland, said Monday that international conventions granted government officials immunity from prosecution, but that the problem was "much more complicated" with respect to IDF officers, especially retired officers……Cabinet minister Eli Yishai and former justice minister Haim Ramon are among those who have been mentioned as having made especially harsh statements in wartime, during which Israeli ministers were quoted as having advocated "taking down" villages which served as shelters for Hezbollah.”

From: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/758476.html

First, no one is immune, technically, when it comes to war crimes, crimes against humanity or crimes against peace. The Israelis know this because in the decades following WWII, they sent out Nazi-hunters to kidnap ex-Nazi officials living in countries without extradition treaties.

However, you see how confident they are when it comes to high ranking public officials. Sharon killed 30,000 Lebanese and Palestinian civilians in 1982 and, not only did he become the Prime Minister but comatose, he’s almost been canonized.

Second, Herzog’s concern clearly demonstrates that these guys (and, let’s not be sexist and exonerate the Zionist gals too) are completely cognizant that the actions of the Israeli military were/are a breach of international law. They also realize that their talk—aimed at their often blood-thirsty constituents—oversteps the boundaries of accepted morality and public discourse on matters of security, politics, economy, etc.

Finally, just a little lesson: Israelis always say issues are much more complicated" than they seem. That is their way of getting around the fact the REALITY is staring everyone in the face and saying “HEY YOU! ISRAEL IS WRONG. WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS UNACCEPTABLE TO NORMATIVE, UNIVERSAL VALUES”. Saying “it’s more complicated than…” is the opening to self-justification, the blurring of facts, and the deflecting from the issues in which they are clearly in the wrong. In the end, it’s NOT complicated. You drop use chemical weapons, cluster bombs, and thermobaric weapons on innocent children, sleeping in their beds or refugees in their cars fleeing from towns that YOU told them to get out of, and kill them in cold blood: that’s a war crime. You INTENTIONALLY displace a million people, cripple a country’s civilian infrastructure, and use terror as a political tool, that’s a war crime. Pretty simple stuff.

Notice that the White House really doesn’t do that. It just repeat its same old freedom-democracy spiel and bulldozes over you with a tank and infantry division. In Lebanon, the government doesn’t say it’s more complicated. They just change their spiel everyday. Look at our buddy Walid Bey [Jumblatt]. He is the perfect example of how Lebanese leaders count on the Lebanese people to have political amnesia.

Getting Ready for Normalization

2006-09-04T22:41:00.000-04:00

I hate to sound immodest but I really want to emphasis this point that I have been making about Israel's war on Lebanon as an ironic attempt at normalization and how I think that further evidence is proving this as correct.

There has been a push especially by Kofi Annan to try to link the cease-fire to a "lasting piece". I do believe that if Israel had not OVERPLAYED its hand by completely pulverizing Lebanon, they would have successfully been able to lure the Seniora-Hariri government to peace negotiations. This Lebanese government is completely pliable with the will of the US. This is not because they are American agents or something silly like that. It is because their economic interests lay in the same interests as the Washington Consensus. They also know that the big investments won't pour in until there is stability. Yes, Lebanon will be awash in Gulf money. Apart from Saudi and Kuwait, Qatar just pledged $70 million NOT to Lebanon but to Solidere. (No kidding. It is in as-Safir and an-Nahar.) Yes, that the Gulf will float the Lebanese economy. However, the government is hoping to privatize major services that Saudi just can't pick up because it doesn't have the know-how or will (like the Electric industry).

That said, Israel did overplay its hand and Hizbullah, on the other hand, was far more effective in kicking their ass. Consequently, the government's major rival, Hassan Nasrallah, has been instilled with more credibility and political capital than before. Therefore, the March 14 Coalition has to play their 'Urubah (Arabism) card and reject overtures for peace expressed by Israel, Kofi A, and Jesse Jackson.

Hence, today Jumblatt's lacky Ghazi Aridi (who, despite his leading role in the Syria-Out campaign, was the Justice Minister when Aouni students were beaten by Lebanese and Syrian secret police in 1999 in front of the Ministry) rejected vehemently Olmert's invitation to Lebanon for peace talks--as if he's voice of Palestinian solidarity. He had to have such a vehement response because Walid Bey (as well as Saad Hariri and Elias Atallah and others) have almost endorsed the Israeli invasion, used it as a platform to attack pathetically idiotic Syria, and tried to undermine their rivals Hizbullah.

Just another note, The Jerusalem Post noted how the Israeli government is keeping a close eye on the "Arab initiative" that will come out of the latest round of meetings. They are hoping that Kofi's shuttling around will produce the will to make a peace conference.

THAT is why today Olmert said that the pull out of the Occupied Territories is NOT a priority any longer. Israel is shoring up for a larger, more comprehensive round of negotiations and does not want to surrender its bargaining chips.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154526004080&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

"Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism"

2006-09-04T22:17:00.000-04:00

For those of you who know me, you know that I was raised by a devout Maronite mother and a saintly Lutheran father as well as educated in Catholic school, which are probably some reasons why I am, let us say, of little faith. That said, I profoundly respect believers of all creeds who use their faith as a guide to how to make this world a more beautiful and just place to live. Raised a Catholic and regardless of the Church’s many shortcomings, Christian fundamentalist zeal for hate, vengeance, violence, and retribution were antithetical to the teachings of my faith. I have always admired those who find, in my case, in the life and example of Christ, or the teachings of one’s own respective faith, the inspiration to try to make this world a place of love and equity. The Christianity of brotherly and sisterly love (as well as the Islam and Judaism of compassion and social justice with which I am well-familiar) seems to be increasingly overshadowed by a fundamentalism that took hold in the 1980s (in the US as well as Middle East). This intolerant brand of “faith” has now perversely become standard fare as it is the same fundamentalism of the recovering alcoholic and former junkie in the White House. (I know that wasn’t a very Christian thing of me to say but, like I said, I grew up in a devout home but…)

That said, it should be known that several Christian denominations have been publicly denouncing Christian Zionism (which is a key component to evangelical Christian fundamentalism).

"Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism" was signed by:
the Latin Patriarch Michel Sabbah,
the Archbishop Swerios Malki Mourad of the Syrian Orthodox Patriarchate,
Bishop Riah Abu El-Assal of the Episcopal Church
Bishop Munib Younan of the Lutheran Church

Furthermore, in May, World Council of Churches accused Israel of failure "to comply with international law" had "pushed the situation[in Palestine] on the ground to a point of no return”, while in July they were one of the most vocal Christian organizations to condemn Israel’s gross misuse of force against innocent civilians (and doing so, drew much criticism by the Christian Right).

Recently, the Presbyterian Church of the United States as well as the World Council of Churches, have divested in Israel.

For the text of the "Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism":
http://www.j-diocese.com/DiocesanNews/view.asp?selected=238
http://www.holyland-lutherans.org/

Bilal Elamine and Remembering Tyre

2006-09-04T21:07:00.001-04:00

I received this from a friend Bilal Elamine (Bilal El-Amine), who used to be editor of *Left Turn*, but relocated back to Lebanon. He's a wonderful and intelligent man and was due to open his new cafe/community-center called Ta-Marbuta off Hamra (behind Maktabat Antoine) the week the Israelis commenced their war on Lebanon. During the war, he was in Sur (Tyre) and I wanted to publish his letter, albeit in abridged form, to get a sense of the city as much attention was given to Beirut but less to Sur/Tyre (largely because it was inaccessible like most of the villages under siege).

Fear and Defiance
by Bilal El-Amine….

Tyre was not attacked as much as the villages around it, but a six-story building in the middle of town was leveled and before I arrived at the beginning of the war, a high residential building housing the Civil Defense was bombed. There was also the commando raid at the city’s northern end that kept most of us up fearing that the Israelis were invading by sea….I arrived in Tyre on the tenth day of the war just as the remaining inhabitants of the south were beginning to realize that Israel would spare no one.

They all tell us that this assault is different from what they’ve seen from Israel in previous attacks. (Israel has invaded Lebanon twice before in 1978 and 1982, occupied various portions of the country for over 25 years, and launched massive military assaults focusing on civilians and their infrastructure in 1992 and 1996.) People who’ve never left their village were now leaving. They would arrive at the Resthouse shell-shocked and thirsty, hardly believing that they are still alive.

The shape of the war became clear within the first week or so. Lebanon’s infrastructure from the airport to bridges and roads were bombarded and an air, sea and land blockade was imposed, all in the name of preventing weapons from reaching Hizballah. A campaign of terror against civilians quickly followed. People’s homes were destroyed on top of them and those who fled were cold-bloodedly murdered in their cars, vans or buses.

Corpses were rotting underneath all the destruction and for days no one would dare try to dig them out for fear of meeting the same fate. A sandy lot near our hotel was turned into a temporary mass grave for unclaimed bodies. I watched them bury the first wave of about 70, among them 16 children under the age of 12. I saw the smallest coffin I had ever seen, barely a foot long.

But this was not a one-sided war as on so many previous occasions when Israel would simply roll over it opponents in a matter of days, if not hours. I kept waiting for the moment when the Israeli military machine would punch through the thin line of resistance fighters in the border villages and swallow the south whole as they did in 1982. But the moment never came, the Hizballah fighters at the front were unmoved by Israeli air power and no amount of armor could break through them. …. Israel’s murderous air campaign was only increasing support for the resistance.

Most Lebanese could easily see that Israel’s response was completely out of all proportion to Hizballah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers and that something more was at play in the sheer scale of the attack…

After the Qana massacre, the Israelis were forced to suspend their air campaign for two days… The television crew I worked for had been to many war zones from Bosnia to Iraq and Afghanistan and they had not seen anything like it. The smell of death in the border villages like Bint Jbail was overwhelming, hungry cats and dogs roamed its streets for scraps of food, and the flies were merciless.

As we walked among the ruins…. I ran into a group of women, one barefoot and dazed carrying her child, her mouth white with thirst. It took her some time to realize where she was and what had happened. Others were not sure if we were Israelis or Lebanese and were reluctant to come out. We also found many elderly people unable to move. With no one around to help, foreign journalists and their crews carried people on their backs, on stretchers, by whatever means and brought them back to Tyre.

We could barely believe it when the war ended. ….The smoke had barely cleared before hundreds of thousands of southerners loaded their makeshift mattresses on top of their cars and made their way home…They had had enough of living on school floors and in public parks depending on the charity and goodwill of others. They had sacrificed so much—and were no doubt prepared for much more—just to return to their precious south and live in dignity...

Break out the tear gas!

2006-09-03T01:01:00.000-04:00

You hear that the Lebanese Parliament is now having an open ended sit in the Parliament protesting the continuing illegal sea and air blockade imposed by Israel.
Nabih Berri is a genius. "Hey, I got an idea! Now that the bombing stopped, let's all hide in the Parliament and do nothing like we usually do and we'll call it a sit-in just like all the real activists do in front of the UN building DURING the bombing and people will think that we are really brave and care for Lebanon! Hey, we can also inconvenience everyone more by staying here and the cops will close down the downtown again and that way the refugees DEFINATELY won't be able to move into all of this empty space down here!"

My plan. Lock the doors and bring the tear gas!

For The Deniers of Israeli War Crimes

2006-09-02T18:12:00.000-04:00

Last month, while I was engaged in a debate with a few Israelis (mostly American Zionists transplanted to Israel), they insinuated that the use of illegal weapons by Israel was just accusation and had no international confirmation. This was wrong at the time but of course Israel was not letting up on the bombing to let investigators in. That said, there WERE investigations underway by brave independent and international non-governmental organizations. (I wrote about this earlier so if you want info, you can check the archive.)

The point is that I just wanted to drop a few more lines here to document that these accusations were not baseless.

Jan Egeland said that there were 100,000 unexploded cluster bombs. He says, "What's shocking - and I would say to me completely immoral - is that 90% of the cluster bomb strikes occurred in the last 72 hours of the conflict, when we knew there would be a resolution," Mr Egeland said. "Every day people are maimed, wounded and are killed by these ordnance."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1861606,00.html?gusrc=rss&feed=1>

Also, Amnesty International stated that Israel is liable and vulnerable to prosecution for war crimes as "such destruction [in Lebanon] was deliberate and part of a military strategy, rather than 'collateral damage’”.

More specifically, a recent report on Israeli aggression in Lebanon stated that
“Many of the violations ... are war crimes that give rise to individual criminal responsibility. They include directly attacking civilian objects and carrying out indiscriminate or disproportionate attacks. People against whom there is prima facie evidence of responsibility for the commission of these crimes are subject to criminal accountability anywhere in the world through the exercise of universal jurisdiction.”

http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2006/681/681p24.htm

A good friend of mine who has been active in the struggle for African American equality all of her life stated to me that she was pleasantly surprised that, for the first time, she has seen Israel under some criticism in the US or at least criticism of Israel filtering in. I too am happy to see this and do believe that the progressive elements of anti-war movement realizes the intersection between what happen in Lebanon and Bush's war in Iraq (as GW himself said that it's all a part of his vision for the "New Middle East"). But I am not so optimistic that we should expect anyone really holding Israel's responsible in any way for its war crimes in BOTH Lebanon and Gaza. Most folks in DC--from both parties-- will see to that.

URANIUM DEPLETED INFO

2006-09-02T18:03:00.000-04:00

A friend forwarded me this. The prediction might be panic but one knows from the experience of the Iraqi people and US veterans that UD weapons are really bad news. Cancer and environmental ruin. Two more disasters brought to you by the minds of the US industrial military complex and its faithful costumers in Israel.

“If you see any news coverage, you can tell the bombs are DU
because when they hit the ground the tiny DU particles
are on fire and it looks like a fireworks bomb with
showers of burning schrapnel flying in every
direction. This has since been confirmed by
international relief organizations that have gone to
Lebanon post-war and measured radiation levels in the
bomb craters. They were definitely radioactive bombs,
and the signature of DU. So this has definitely been
confirmed.

What I do know is that Israel ordered 100 additional
GBU-28 DU bombs with a 5000 lb warhead in each one.
That is the total equivalent of 250 or so tons of DU.
Those bombs if dropped, would release the equivalent
number of radioactive atoms as 25,937 Nagasaki bombs.
In 1990, the British atomic agency warned that 50 tons
of DU dust would cause an additional 500,000 new
cancers by 2000 (a decade). So the 100 new DU bombs
would cause 2.5 million new cancers in exposed
populations. The population of Lebanon is 3,826,018.
And of course, cancer is not the only illness caused
by DU exposure, it is just the tip of the iceberg.

There is no way that anyone living in Lebanon now can
be assured of not being contaminated with DU at some
level. You are most certainly putting your young
child at risk, and probably the first thing he would
have is diabetes, because uranium and diabetes have
been linked in the scientific literature for some time
now. Kuwaitis have told me their children have an
epidemic of diabetes now since 1991 - almost none
before that. Hiroshima, Nagasaki, and Chernobyl
survivors have high rates of diabetes after exposure
with no genetic background to explain it. When I
talked to Americans and Iraqi American adults who went
to Baghdad in 2003, they stayed three weeks, returned
to the US and had diabetes within 2 months. Their
families in Iraq, with no history of diabetes, were in
an epidemic of diabetes.

But diabetes is not the only illness related to DU
exposure - basically it causes Gulf War Syndrome which
is a web of diseases made very complex and unpredictable by the fact that nanoparticles of DU have an additional particulate effect above and beyond the chemical heavy metal (causes diabetes) and
radiation effect of larger sized particles (greater
than 0.1 microns in diameter). Cancer within 6 months
or a year of exposure has been reported in our
soldiers, and that too is caused by the particulate
effect. Radiation caused cancer takes much longer.

…………
The whole global atmosphere is contaminated now, but
countries where it has been used have high levels of
contamination which are constantly resuspended in the
arid regions. There is no escape……”
---------------------------------------------------
LEUREN BIO:

Leuren Moret was an Expert Witness at the
International Criminal Tribunal For Afghanistan At
Tokyo. She is an independent scientist and
international expert on radiation and public health
issues. She is on the organizing committee of the
World Committee on Radiation Risk, an organization of
independent radiation specialists, including members
of the Radiation Committee in the EU parliament, the
European Committee on Radiation Risk. She is an
environmental commissioner for the City of Berkeley.
Ms. Moret earned her BS in geology at U.C. Davis in
1968 and her MA in Near Eastern studies from U.C.
Berkeley in 1978. She has completed all but her
dissertation for a PhD in the geosciences at U.C.
Davis. She has traveled and conducted scientific
research in 42 countries. She contributed to a
scientific report on depleted uranium for the United
Nations sub commission investigating the illegality of
depleted uranium munitions. She is a Livermore nuclear-weapons lab
whistleblower, an Environmental Commissioner in the
City of Berkeley, and testifies as a depleted uranium
expert in the new documentary film BEYOND TREASON.

Leuren Moret Testimony:
http://www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2003/Leuren-Moret-ICT13dec03.htm

FORGET AID: WE WANT REPARATIONS

2006-08-31T15:09:00.000-04:00

Many Lebanese and foreign officials and pundits are expecting the Donor Conference in Stockholm to assist in the re-building of Lebanon. First, a reality check and some numbers:

15,000 homes (at least)
78 bridges destroyed
630km of roads damaged
$185m of crops destroy,

One million chickens, 25,000 goats and sheep lost (funny for you all who buy meet from slaughtered Monsanto junkies, otherwise known as growth steroid and GMO feed beef and chicken)

Total cost of damage projected at US$3.6 billion

(The above statistic found at the left-wing revolutionary, anti-Zionist rag BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5301624.stm)

The Lebanese government is asking the international community for $75m for temporary housing largely because it is unwilling to open up to refugees hundreds of thousands of square meters of vacant space in the downtown, which could be offered to house refugees especially those thousands in Beirut who lost their homes. (The government is said to be offering upto $30,000 per household in aid to help rebuild homes. They probably did this because, al-Safir reports, that Hizbullah is giving out $12,000 per household (and which I have heard that Hariri's people have now started handing money out to counter).

In this Donor conference, the strategy of the Lebanese government seems simple. (Donor Conference! Lebanon’s going to get pregnant alright! The Seniora-Hariri government ain’t using any protection in this conference.) They will try to get some aid but most of it will have conditions that will eventually further indebt the budget. The funds will finance the redevelopment and re-reconstruction, which, in turn, will be undertaken by companies owned by many of the politicians in government. That is how Lebanon got a $40 billion internal debt (loans taken out by the government from local banks also owned by the same people who own the companies who also are in the government!).

This time around , the government has skillfully envisioned its re-redevelopment and re-reconstruction in terms of its wet-dream to join the WTO. Seniora and others have stated their desire to reconstruct with the help of the IMF. It is also said that Paul Wolfowitz has expressed a desire to personally oversee the World Bank’s contribution to Lebanon.

Several economists are predicting a very bleak future. Kamal Hamdan, who can be a bit self-important, does know his numbers and thinks that Lebanon’s unemployment will reach 20% over the next six months due to the loss of jobs and layoffs, meaning that between 50,000-55,000 will lose their jobs (in addition to the current 9-10% unemployment). Fadi Abboud, head of the Industrialists’ Syndicate, says that 2,000 were lost immediately and 80- 90% of Lebanon’s manufacturing base was destroyed. Ironically, Abboud endorsed the governments desire to join the WTO but started to change his opinion and express concern about accession in the months preceding Israel’s war of aggression.

One anecdote about job loss is Liban Lait whose milk factory, as well as Candia’s, was destroyed by the Israeli Air force and US bomb along with hundreds of their cattle. The company has laid off 180 of their workers because of the damage.

Another economist Mawan Iskandar projects job loss in the industrial sector could reach10,000 along with 2,000 retail workers. Only 80% of those jobs will be recreated he estimates.

Pierre Ashqar, head of the Hotel Workers Syndicate, said thousands should expect to be laid off. This has already begun. As a rejoiner, I should say that this is ONE reason why the Lebanese Hotel Workers Union should have strengthened its ties with the rather organized International Union of Food, Agricultural, Hotel, Restaurant, Catering, Tobacco and Allied Workers' Associations (IUF).

(Much of the information here was found at an Agence France Press article reprinted in the on-line English edition of al-Nahar: http://www.naharnet.com/domino/tn/NewsDesk.nsf/getstory?openform&AAA49B8960E6C67EC22571DB003B1B13)

What I want to know is WHY is the Lebanese going hat in hand to the world asking for aid? First, we know that much of this aid will never be delivered especially that coming from the Gulf. This is the experience of the past where countries like Saudi Arabia make much ceremony about pledging funds which they never deliver. We know that much of this aid will go into the pockets of Lebanon’s oligarchy. Yes, brides etc but the Lebanese are far slicker than that. As I said above, government and party leaders (save only a few parties like Hizbullah, the populist-nationalist al-Tayyar al-watani, and the Communist Party) both own the banks, construction and service companies, and factories that will be the recipients of the aid.

Secondly, and more important, the Lebanese should not be begging the world for money. Israel should pay full reparation for their illegal destruction of civilian homes, factories, and infrastructure as well as the disastrous environmental, economic, and social consequences of its campaign. War or not, their actions are clear violation of international law and human rights conventions and, as traditional not radical jurisprudence dictates, they are liable and responsible to pay the Lebanese people due compensation for its negligence and reckless endangerment.

Th US government could just stop operations in their own illegal occupation of Iraq just for a two days and those funds could be funneled into Lebanese NGOs and activists groups, the only real organization (apart from al-Tayyar and Hizbullah) who have been on the ground helping the victims of this war since day one. I am going to go out on a limb and say that probably won’t happen!

The project continues.

CHAVEZ

2006-08-31T14:04:00.000-04:00

Hugo Chavez is a great leader. There is no doubt about this. He's got an idea that is strange to the North to justly redistribute ational resources (particularly from oil revenue) to the population at large not only the top two percent. Apart from developing economic ties with non-Western power houses in the economic and military development of Venezuela, he's also thinking about international in terms of FAIR and EQUITABLE trade especially in South America and Caribbean. This is an idea that never made it to Europe or the US but Che and Nkruma often talked about it in the 60s. (Che in fact got kicked out, effectively, of Cuba because he pushed his criticism of the USSR to far when he insinuated that the trade was still not fundementally equitable and still was calculated on terms that are fundemental to (and naturalized by) capitalism.

That said, he made a real mistake in standing too uncritically with Iran and Syria.
For leftists, we see correctly that most of the enemies of the US are often the good guys (e.g. Chavez and Venezuela). But we tend often, in reply, to be too accepting of the propoganda of the targeted, villified states, in this case Iran and Syria.
These two countries are no friends of the left, social justice, or human rights.

Chavez should not have stood in solidarity with Bashar al-Assad who is really a more stupid version of his complexly authoritarian father. His relationship with Iran is more complicated of course especially by the two countries are both key oil producers.

His stand with these two countries intends to create a necessary solidarity against US imperialism. The problem is the Syria is not against US imperialism if it allows it to conduct its own business. US imperialism allowed Syria to control Lebanon in the 1990s as the pay-off for not opposing Bush Senior's war on Iraq and Clinton's genocidal sanctions and low-level war. Syria cooperated with the worst US imperialists when the US outsourced torture to it of political prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere.

Chavez should know what both countries do to real revolutionaries and anti-imperialists.

Hasta la victoria siempre!

SOMETIMES 1 out of 7 IS Not Bad

2006-08-31T14:01:00.000-04:00

I just read that Hizbullah destroyed one whole tank column out of Israel’s total seven. That says a lot and there is a lot to be said.

*Israel miscalculated and made Hizbullah politically stronger than any Arab force around.
*Or all of this is just one scenario in the game theory of Israeli military-policy officials, who work intimately with the US, and Israel, in fact, is getting what it wants (a demilitarized Lebanese border patrolled by the international community).
*Israel lost because they didn’t break Hizbullah and 90% of their wounded were military personnel including high ranking officers.
* Lebanon lost, despite Hizbullah effectiveness, because 1100 are dead, a million without homes, and the country’s economy in shambles.

Whatever the truth is I have to confess something shamefully adolescent in me. That no matter how we look at Hizbullah (a party that I think is reactionary and communalist as well as responsible for executing tens of high level Lebanese Communists in the 1980s), there is that guy inside of me who played with GI Joe’s etc who says: WOW 1 out of 7 Merkava Tanks! Damn, that's cold.

These anti-tank missles, fired from the shoulder, are Russian-made and were very effective in piercing Israeli and US made tanks. What kind of advertisement do you think this was for the Russian arms industry especially to the developing world? But just think about it this way, at least a *democratic* country like Russia will get the business and not, say, China...hold on, I forgot are "they" "our" friends or not?

CONTINUING BLOCKADE: Acts of War

2006-08-31T13:53:00.000-04:00

Kofi Annan ordered Israel to immediately cease its illegal blockade against Lebanon. (NO ONE has mentioned that a blockade of a country is considered an ACT OF WAR and, consequently, Hizbullah had the right to fire as many rockets into Israel, if there were aiming at military targets like they said, as they wish.)

I know that Israel’s been in some financial troubles over the past decade, entering in the WTO, and dismantling its national socialist economy. For revenue they should have workshops or maybe mini-courses like Kaplan where they can teach countries in violations of UN Resolutions to “reject” those Security Council resolutions and not get penalized. We’ll, I guess it’s a small market though and they’d be their own best customer.

Finally, I try to avoid Yahoo News (because it stinks) but I noticed an Israeli hack for the Associate Press named Ravi Nessman has CONSTANTLY undercounted the Lebanese dead, which are all civilian and one third of which are under sixteen years old and mentioning the 150 Israelis NOT mentioning that all but around eighteen were military personnel!

I understand that he’s an Israeli propagandist but you might as well put facts in that are generally agreed upon by the international community of journalist, NGOs, the UN, the EU, and even the USA. Ravi’s a nobody so it’s not about him. It is about how the mainstream media (including editors of news organizations—including the editors of Yahoo News and AP news who had to clear this article) are either willfully ignorant, which is not a good quality for a journalist. OR, they are blatantly biased in misrepresenting news out of the Middle East, yes, in favor of Israel. Who would have thought?

HUMAN RIGHT-OFF

2006-08-26T15:39:00.000-04:00

It should be noted that the accusations of war crimes that the more bold-face, aggressive Zionists in and out of Israel denied are being further evinced.

Human Rights Watch published during Israel’s war on Lebanon (Aug.3) a fifty-page report titled Fatal Strikes: Israel's Indiscriminate Attacks Against Civilians in Lebanon. In it, they studied two dozen incidents where Israel used air-strikes or artillery against innocent civilians, specific to these events killing 153 civilians, including 63 children, in homes or motor vehicles . Kenneth Roth, HRW’s director, wrote an article last week or so in the conservative Jerusalem Post, saying that “In none of those cases was Hizbullah anywhere around at the time of the attack…. The case of Kana…after two Israeli missiles killed 28 civilians in a house there on July 30, the IDF initially charged that Hizbullah had been firing rockets from the vicinity of the targeted house. But Human Rights Watch investigators who visited Kana found that there had been no Hizbullah presence near the bomb site at the time of the attack. IDF sources later admitted to an Israeli military correspondent that Hizbullah wasn't shooting at all from Kana that day.”

For the full article, see:
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525892021&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

If one prefers to claim Human Rights Watch is biased, Amnesty International has also accused Israel of attacking civilian targets and insinuated that the Israeli military had committed war crimes. UNICEF and Mercy Corp, who are on record for being critical of Hizbullah, also protested the deliberate attacks on civilians.

If this is not enough, the UN itself, whose Resolution the American’s have engineered, has stated in no uncertain terms its concern with Israeli targeting of civilians and UN personnel.

Most recently, UN spokesperson for UN Mine Action Co-ordination Center, Dalya Farran , said “There are about 285 cluster bomb locations across south Lebanon, and our teams are still doing surveys and adding new locations every day… We find about 30 new locations per day.”

The legality of cluster bombs has been debated. The bomb explodes and releases thousands of mini-bombs, which also explode with the intent to kill people, even with in armored vehicles (not destroy military equipment or infrastructure). Apart from the indiscriminate nature of its killing, cluster bombs have a high “failure” average, which leaves the target area strewn with unexploded and highly volatile mini-bombs, which often kill children.

http://www.bestsyndication.com/?q=082506_israel_cluster_bombs_lebanon.htm

One example of these “failures” is very recent. Hani Hattab, 11 years old, was playing for the first time outside after the cease-fire when he stepped on a cluster-bomb and was killed. His father, seeing this, ran to him, where he too detonated another bomb and died three days later. This is uncannily similar to another story I heard about a boy helping his father harvesting, both dying when they denoted unexploded clusters.

See the Children Rights Information Network:

http://www.crin.org/resources/infodetail.asp?id=9881

Whether or not Cluster bombs are illegal, we do know that by using them in Lebanon, Israel has broken a secret agreement with the US, which promised to sell them as long as they would not use them in Lebanon. That is like selling the keys to a chicken coup to a fox though isn’t it. (Hey, I’m living in South Carolina now!)

“In July 1982, the Reagan Administration announced that it would prohibit new exports of cluster munitions to Israel. The U.S. found that by using U.S.-supplied cluster munitions against civilian targets during its military operations in Lebanon and the siege of Beirut, Israel may have violated its 1952 Mutual Defense Assistance Agreement with the U.S. The U.S. quietly lifted the ban in November 1988.”

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2006/08/18/global14050.htm

It’s a good thing that Israel can be trusted with Uranium-depleted warhead, chemical and thermobaric weapons, and cluster bombs let alone nuclear missiles. Not like Iran, who might follow their fanatical ideological rant and use these weapons on innocent people in the name of security and righteousness…..

IDF STATS: The Blockade Continues

2006-08-26T14:43:00.000-04:00

Some one forwarded me this. It's sick. This is the IDF numbers on their operations in Lebanon. They need to document that they were actually doing something in Lebanon other than getting ambushed and out-smarted by Hizbullah. I suppose the million refugees, the destruction of the Southern Suburbs (including the loss of 15,000 apartments in Beirut alone), and the 1,100 dead isn't evidence enough that Israel was active enough.

Summary of IDF airstrikes during Operation Change of Direction:

More than 7,000 targets struck in Lebanon
15,500 sorties flown over Lebanon, including:
More than 10,000 combat missions
2,000 helicopter combat missions
1,000 helicopter search-and-rescue missions
1,200 transport missions
Over 1,300 reconnaissance missions

Israel Navy Ship. Archive Photo: IDF Spokesperson

Summary of IDF naval operations during Operation Change of Direction:

"Navy vessels sailed over 8,000 hours along the Lebanese coast.

The Navy conducted 2,500 bombardments of targets along the Lebanese coast including missile launch sites, missile launchers, weapons storage sites, coastal roads, other Hezbollah infrastructure, Hezbollah radar installations (we call these ANY telecommunications, radio, and TV transmiting towers), and fuel stations (we called these GAS STATIONS!) and depots.

Blockade of Lebanese coast for 33 days, while permitting over 200 vessels through for purposes of evacuating civilians or providing humanitarian aid.

The naval blockade of Lebanon will continue until such time as a system is implemented to prevent arms smuggling in the area."

For the record, the BLOCKADE STILL CONTINUES and aid is allowed in only with the PERMISSION of the Israeli military.

Coopting the Muslim World

2006-08-26T13:30:00.000-04:00

Europe finally scraped up 9,000 troops to deploy in South Lebanon to monitor the border and serve the interests of the US and Israel. Germany pulled out of committing troops because of its heinous past against the Jews. They have however offered to help with naval operations. That’s ironic because it was announced this week that Israel ordered two Dolphin submarines from Germany (to be delivered in 2010) for $1.3 billion right before their Lebanon offensive (and at the same time they were brutally attacking Gaza). [I wonder where they got the funding for that!?] This adds to their fleet of three submarines but also allows them to deliver their Jericho 1 and 2 nuclear missiles, which they hold in contraventions of nuclear proliferation treaties.

(Israel is allowed to break international treaties and possess nuclear weapons, I suppose, because they have a proven track record in the ethical use of advanced weapons. They'd never use nukes against civilians just like they don't use cluster bombs in densely populated civilian areas, breaking secret agreements with the US. More on that later.)

It is funny how Israel and the US protested about how Hizbullah’s military presence in the South violates the sovereignty of Lebanon and undermines it government. But, both demand an extra-Lebanese military force to act independently of the Lebanese government not to protect the Lebanese people against Israel disregard for Lebanese life and property but to defend the interests of Israel.

That said, now Israel has graciously invited “Muslim” countries to participate in the multi-national force. This is not only a clever publicity stunt, demonstrating how they really are “sympathetic” to the cultural needs and sensitivities of Muslim Lebanese. Rather, in replying to protestations about deploying NATO troops in Lebanon, Israel is now coopting Muslim countries into the “peace process”. Turkey is the chief candidate, of course, The Turkish State has traditionally had designs on Arab lands since Ataturk and has been a staunch ally of Israel, coordinating military exercises with Israel (practicing a two-pronged invasion of Syria, Lebanon, and Iraq no doubt). By effectively drawing “Muslim” countries into the multinational force, Israel directly asking these governments to protect Israel and indirectly forcing the “Muslim world” into a recognition of Israel and its right to security irrespective of its brutal behavior of Lebanese and Palestinian civilians.

These guys wrote the book on game theory. LITERALLY! It is no coincidence that
Robert J. Aumann of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem won the Nobel for Economics in 2005 "for having enhanced our understanding of conflict and cooperation through game-theory analysis."

I really don’t like the last three Star Wars (Episodes 1-3). They are far inferior to the original Episode 4-6. However, if you watch how Palapatine plays the various sides in the movie, you can learn a lot about Israel. Of course, I am not calling Israel an “evil genius”. I really don’t think their last invasion succeeded…or did it? (dramatic music…and fade out).

UPDATE-ABESENCE

2006-08-25T08:56:00.000-04:00

A few folks wrote me and asked me why have I been away from the blog. I just wanted to apologize as I have been a bit overwhelmed, still adjusting to the new surroundings and preparing for classes, which, for me, start in ten minutes.

I have been gathering information to disseminate that should not be dated by the time I post it. Much of it has to do with the increasing evidence garnished by independent human rights groups that Israeli's have engaged in war crimes and crimes against humanity.

There are also a few other issue that I need to confirm like Paul Wolfowitz claiming that he personally wants to oversee the World Bank's indebting of Lebanon!

Keep checking in and I promise to fish khilqi this weekend!

Ma ajmal tahiyati

Towards NORMALIZATION

2006-08-21T02:01:00.000-04:00

Some of you will have recognized that I have been pushing a theory about Israel's campaign. That is, the latest wave of Israeli aggression was a political push towards NORMALIZATION between the two countries. I've written about this elsewhere but the short is that Israel AND the US knew that the demand of disarming Hizbullah would fall on fertile soil in the Lebanese government. While this was a goal, it was not the only goal, which is taking steps towards a unilateral peace between Lebanon and Israel.

In reading about cluster bombs (posted on As'ad Abu Khalil's great Angry Arab blog), I found this quote from an Israeli officer that seems to bolster my theory. The officer, quoted on the condition of anonymity, said:

“I don’t care about the capability of the Lebanese Army,” he said. “What is more important, and here I’m not speaking for the Israeli government, is the understanding that the Lebanese government took control of southern Lebanon. Now we can deal with them as a country and a government, and speak and compromise. This is the huge change this operation created.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/20/world/middleeast/20mideast.html_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin

Perhaps, like that Lebanese general in Marjaoun who surrendered the weapons and barracks to the Israeli Army, we can invite the Israelis to tea. (I swear he did this! There are pictures!) I suppose we could also invite them for metta but you know any one who'd bomb a Red Cross convoy, sleeping children, and migrant workers in fields, would probably be low enough to backwash.

Good night.

NEW STATS

2006-08-21T01:59:00.000-04:00

Some of you have written me asking why I have not been updating the blog. I apologize but I have been busy with the dealings of everyday life and getting ready to teach. I want to thank you for staying current with the blog as well as with the debate on Beliefnet.com. Some of you, I believe, have actually defended me there, which I really do appreciate.

Just some stats for now. These are the official stats release by the Lebanese government:

1,287 people dead (all are civilians except for 43 Army and Police, most of which were killed sleeping in their barracks, probably under their beds. Haram. Allah yarahamhum).

30% of the 1,287 were UNDER 12 YEARS OLD!

4,054 civilians wounded

ONE MILLION refugees (in a country of four million).

An estimated 15,000 apartments destroyed (not including houses, farms, and dozens of factories).

140 bridges damaged or destroyed (hundreds of roads).
[I have been told that it takes SIX HOURS from Zghorta/Ihden to Beirut. It should take 1 hour plus with no traffic).

ATTAC LUBNAN'S OPEN LETTER

2006-08-18T14:07:00.000-04:00

Open letter on the cessation of violence in Lebanon, August 14, 2006.
MIS EN LIGNE LE 18 August 2006

POSTED ON ATTAC LUBNAN'S WEBSITE:

http://lubnan.attac.org/article.php3?id_article=61

A “cease-fire” has been imposed on Lebanon and Hizbullah and ratified by the UN Security Council on August 12, one month to the day after Israel commenced its ruthless and vindictively named “Operation Just Reward”. Israeli disregard for Lebanese and Palestinian life over the past month has resulted in the horrific deaths of 1,110 innocent civilians, 3698 injured, and the official displacement of 980,393 souls, more than one-fourth of the population of Lebanon. The financial cost is in the billions and will effect the growth and development of Lebanon for the next decade as well as destroying the livelihood of tens of thousands of Lebanon’s poorest citizens. The Lebanese people have been subjected to the use of banned chemical and thermobaric weapons as well as two-thousand kilo uranium-depleted warheads. An enormous oil spill (from Israeli bombing) has caused an environmental disaster, potentially damaging the marine ecosystem permanently. The failure of Western and Arab governments to stand up to Israel, who was faithfully executing the Bush imperial agenda in the Middle East, is indictable, while the collusion between Western and many Arab media sources and the Israeli and US propaganda machines has been shameful.

While ATTAC LUBNAN rejects the reactionary and sectarian politics of Hizbullah, we support the right of all Lebanese to resist Israeli occupation as well as the right of all Lebanese to defend themselves from Zionist aggression by all means necessary.

ATTAC LUBNAN condemns Israel’s use of terror in Lebanon as a mechanism for political ends. Using the two kidnapped soldiers as a pretext, Israel’s offensive was not a “war on terror” but a calculated war of terror. Its illegal use of excessive force in Lebanon was aimed to force the neo-liberal Lebanese government to deploy an obviously ineffectual and weak Lebanese Army to the frontier. Israel created a humanitarian crisis, mass suffering and the demolition of the country’s economy to reach political goals, namely force the political process towards normalization” between the two countries. In using terror, Israel blatantly engaged in collective punishment and disproportional retaliation (not self-defense). Therefore, the Zionist State violated Article 50 of the Hague Regulations, Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention and Article 75 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions.

Therefore:

1.ATTAC LUBNAN calls on the international community and Hague War Crimes Tribunal to push for the prosecution of Ehud Olmert and Amir Peretz as well as the ranking officers of the Israeli Army, Air force, and Navy for war crimes and criminal negligence in Lebanon and for violating human rights conventions and international laws both in Lebanon and in Palestine.

2. ATTAC LUBNAN calls on the international community to boycott all Israeli goods, services, products, cultural and academic organizations and events along with boycotting all companies and organizations that continue doing business with Israel. This boycott will last until Israel

a. is prosecuted for its war crimes and criminal negligence;
b. returns all occupied land in Palestine, Lebanon, and Syria;
c. pays reparations to the families of the innocent men, women and children they murdered in cold-blood;
d. pay for the complete reconstruction of infrastructure and property destroyed in its criminal invasion of Lebanon as well as siege of Gaza.

3. ATTAC LUBNAN rejects UN Security Council Resolution 1701 as one more coercive mechanism of control for Israel and the United States, who selectively use and enforce Security Council resolutions at their will. 1701, like 1559, is a violation of Lebanese sovereignty and unfairly strips the Lebanese of their right to self-defense and the liberation of its territory and citizens illegally incarcerated in Israel.

4. ATTAC LUBNAN calls for the immediate resignation of the Lebanese government including the President, Prime Minister, and Cabinet, whose incompetent handling of the invasion and refugee crisis exacerbated the suffering of millions of Lebanese. In addition, all high ranking military officers should be fired, stripped of their rank and pension for dereliction of duty.

5. ATTAC LUBNAN calls on the government to immediately open all livable, uninhabited space in Beirut’s downtown and public arenas such as Biel and the Beirut Forum to refugees. Thousands of square-meters are empty and were renovated and built at the expense of the Lebanese tax-payers. We demand that these spaces be used as temporary and permanent, if need be, housing for refugees’ whose homes have been destroyed.

6. ATTAC LUBNAN also calls on the Lebanese government to reject all aid from Britain and the United States as well as expelling their ambassadors.

7. ATTAC LUBNAN calls on the Lebanese government to decommission its Army and all internal security forces. As these armed and security forces clearly demonstrated little ability to defend Lebanon, we insist that the government recommission all military personal, funding, and equipment into a humanitarian and relief agency. Recommissioned soldiers and officers will rebuild destroyed homes, factories, help replant destroyed farmland, and harvest crops that were inaccessible because of Israeli aggression.

8. ATTAC LEBANON calls for a multi-national force to be deployed inside Israel on the frontiers of the frontiers of Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza as well as lands still illegally occupied by Israel including Shebaa Farms, Kfar Shuba, the Golan, and most of the West Bank. This multi-national force should consist of troops from Venezuela, Brazil, Indonesia, China or non-aligned countries. This multinational force will be responsible for patrolling the Israeli side of the border as to protect the Lebanese and Palestinians from the Zionist State’s its proven record offensive military aggression.

ATTAC LUBNAN also thanks the thousands of comrades all over the world, with a special thanks to our brothers and sisters in Egypt, Iraq, Morocco, Tunis, Switzerland, Belgium, and France for the overwhelming show of solidarity and support. We remain steadfast in our struggle.

RICE IN LEBANON

2006-08-18T08:40:00.000-04:00

At last, I saw the much expected, much anticipated photograph of the Lebanese Army being showered by rice upon his arrival to a village south of the Litani. Of course, the image can be read by Lebanese as a victory of the Lebanese over the overwhelming military might of the Israeli Army, Air Force and Navy. Indeed, the article that I read quoted a Hizbullah resident and shop-owner of the village who was also a fighter. Yes, Hizbullah has "reserves", who live lives and are party rank and file but trained if "God, duty, and country call". Indeed, you will hear from most Hizbullah supporters the understanding that Hizbullah is in fact Lebanon's only defense against Israeli aggression. I am afraid that Olmert's miscalculated response to the kidnappings proved that this is true and indeed the Lebanese Army has never looked so pathetic and weak after weeks of seeing disciplined, armed Hizbullah fid'iyin in action.

The other way this photograph will be read is that the Lebanese Army is the savior of the South, which was held hostage by Hizbullah. The image will be the evidence that, what can be called here as the Olmert-Bush Rice Plan worked. That is, Israel need to bring down upon the malleable Lebanese government compelling force to allow it to deploy the Lebanese Army to the border, which Israel has demanded since its withdraw in 2000. Hizbullah “controlled” or “protected”, depending on which camp you come from, the South under an agreement with the Lebanese government.

While I am not fond of the late, now canonized Rafiq al-Hariri, he was smart enough during his administrations to realize that Hizbullah in the South was one very important bargaining chip that Lebanon could not just given up without a comprehensive, US-brokered peace. Also, apart from messy Lebanese politics, he could not afford, especially as a Sunni from Saida, not to be as a frontline defender of Arabism against the Zionist threat.

Olmert's disproportional retaliation is clearly, as I have been arguing and now proved by several independent investigative articles, a part of a larger US-Israel vision for Lebanon and the Middle East. My point now is that if Israel were smart, it would have launched a limited response to the kidnapping of its two soldiers and then pushed towards diplomatic solutions that, in the world's political atmosphere today, could have easily isolated Hizbullah and won them a lot more popular resentment in Lebanon. This would have been a sounder, more sage way to give the Lebanese government the pretext to take Hizbullah, who is a member of the cabinet, on head-to-head. Indeed, Israel has now empowered Hizbullah beyond its previous ambitions. It has become an international actor and found credibility in the eyes of progressives who have been fighting Muslim fundamentalists and American imperialism for decades.

Weren't they the bad guys?

2006-08-18T00:55:00.000-04:00

I found this accidentally on CNN Kevin Site's "In the Hot Zone" website. This guy has provide the most disgustingly one-side, pro-Zionist coverage on TV (and that says something). Camped in Northern Israel throughout the Israeli aggression, he's been covering like every funeral of every Israeli solider, chasing down every katyusha, and covering every brush fire that they make. It's disgusting but, of course, this is shameless, unethical and mindless US media.

The point is that here is the "Editors" note introducing an interview Milt Bearden who is a "media consultant" to Yahoo News. The guy is ex-CIA. Doesn't that disturb you? I mean, remember when these guys were the bad guys? Remember when we all knew and were disturbed by the fact the CIA's illegal activities from Chile to Guatemala to Cuba to South East Asia to Iran to Ghana?

Ok, the CIA might have been against the Iraq war but that only attests to who overtly arrogant and confident the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld cabal is.

To better understand what's next for the Mideast in the aftermath of the recent fighting between Israel and Hezbollah, Hot Zone Senior Producer Robert Padavick spoke with Yahoo! News consultant Milt Bearden. In a career spanning three decades, Bearden headed the CIA's Soviet and Eastern Europe Division and served as station chief in places like Pakistan and Sudan. He also ran the CIA's covert war in Afghanistan from 1986-1989.

HIGH PRICE OF AIRPLANE COCKTAILS

2006-08-18T00:18:00.000-04:00

I try not to but today I need to rant:

We have heard a lot about the "discovered" plot of some 20 alleged hijackers in Britain and indeed there are articles floating around on the internet that contemplate that this was, in fact, a hoax. It idea pieced together from past plans to hijack planes from the Philippines. I continually argue with many dear people close to me who love conspiracy theories. In the end, I do admit that there is some sort of conspiracy underfoot, the largest and most forceful is CAPITALISM.

In the end, this system conspires to keep wealth in the hands of the few while the many generate that wealth. All the images of falling towers, “valiant” American militarism in Iraq and Afghanistan, and video tapes of Bin Laden, Zarqawi, and Bush speeches tend to wipe away our politico-historico-economic memory. That is, Muslim fundamentalism and al-Qa’idah was not spawned by some degenerate strain of irrationalism within the “Muslim mind” as racist pundits like Patai and Bernard Lewis suggest. Political Islam was created by the direct or indirect US control of Arab resources and wealth. That “fundamentalism” spring forth from most prominently from Saudi Arabia and Iran (born under the Shah, who seized power by an illegal CIA supported coup against a democratically elected leader!) is no coincidence. Israel, in must be understood, does not use America as so many anti-Semites but plays a key role in fact in the control, surveillance, and management of the status quo in the Arab world that has always benefited the US.

Capitalism has dispossessed billions, leaving them with few options among them immigration to the West and/or fundamentalism. Indeed, England’s white supremist culture resented the petty embourgeoisement of brown people, many who are Muslim, at a time when white working class jobs were shut down by Thatcherite and neo-liberal economic policies. As I wrote before (about the Demonstrations in DC), "Muslim fundementalism" has real social, political, and economic contexts that can not be separated from US (and British) racism, imperialism, corporate (particularly petro) interests, and the repressive nature of their client states.

The point in the end is that this “plot” is fishy. Possible yes but fishy. Today, British authorities requested another week to keep suspects incarcerated and, in fact, that some may be released for lack of evidence. The plot came at the perfect time. Israel was pulverizing Lebanon (let alone its war crimes in Gaza which are similar to Lebanon but virtually overlooked), engaging in the use of illegal chemical and thermobaric weapons as well as using depleted Uraninium warheads against thousands of civilians. The story did make a blimp and managed to bump Lebanon from the front pages for a few days.

We must remember and NEVER FORGET that MI-5 and MI-6 like the CIA and the FBI lie. Any one who knows about their collusion with paramilitary terrorists in Northern Ireland will tell you. And yes, the FBI and CIA lie and in fact have a proven record of fabricating evidence especially against brown and black revolutionaries, illegally incarcerating them, if not murdering them.

WASHINGTON DC (and SF) DEMONSTRATION AND BEING RIGHTEOUS

2006-08-13T12:01:00.000-04:00

This essay is posted at http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/middleeastconflict/

Thousands marched Washington DC, yesterday (Aug 12) protesting Israeli and US military actions in Lebanon, Gaza, and Iraq although the focus was mainly on Lebanon. Only a handful of newspapers even on Sunday morning gave it coverage. 5,000 marched according to DC police (you know that they were counting every one of those marchers!) but that’s probably an undercount as I understand it from friends who were there. The demonstration was organized by the ANSWER Coalition, the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation and the National Council of Arab Americans. I heard that Ramzi Clark former US Attorney General gave a nice speech as well as some representatives from ANSWER. Also, some newspapers did report and I was told by friends that contingency of Orthodox Rabbis from Jews Against Zionism were there and made a very touching gesture of embracing leading members of the Arab and Muslim organizers and demonstrators. Another demonstration was organized by the same coalition marched in San Francisco. According organizers there, ten thousand turned out and one person was arrested.

I heard that the demonstration was intense and passionate and that many folks stayed on the page that Israel is in violation of international law and human rights conventions in Lebanon and Gaza. They stressed that this is not a “war on terror” but a “war of terror” by the Israelis on innocent civilians.

I heard that there were a few groups demonstrators who chanted religious saying and provocative statements just as the demonstration was also met by "crack-pots" wearing the Knights Templar costume and holding signs about how "Americans are tired of Muslims". This show of "extremism" happened in London when tens of thousands turned out a week ago and the British press focused on these “jihadis”. The West does not want to admit that the role they have in creating these “jihadis” and their "fundamentalism”. We all know that the US funded, armed, and lionized the mujahidin in Afghanistan (just remember Rambo III). More important, the US (and Israel vis-à-vis Hamas and Hizbullah) encouraged sectarian politics in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq to undercut and undermine the progressive, secular leftist nationalists most obviously the PLO and the Communist Party of Lebanon (whose rank and file were largely Shiite) but many other groups as well. In addition to its financial and political underwriting of Israel’s military and illegal occupation of Palestine, the US supports most dictators and ruling families in the Arab world, all who are egregiously violate the human rights and civil liberties of their peoples. This includes, for the record, a tacit support of Syria in the 1990s. As a price for stability and support on the eve of Operation Desert Storm, Syria was given Lebanon by Secretary Baker and the Senior Bush administration. This tacit support transformed into bilateral cooperation at times including the US outsourcing the torture of suspected “Muslim terrorists” and al-Qa’idah agents to Syria after 9/11.

These “fundamentalists” in the UK, US, and elsewhere are a product of US and British policies home and abroad. “Jihadis” in the UK are clear reaction to decades of British racism. Muslim resentment and anger comes from a half of century of American unwavering support for the most heinous Israeli policies toward the Palestinians, targeting of Muslim and Arabs (no they are not the same) by in and out of the US by the America government, which also has included most recently the abrogation of fundamental constitutional rights of the rights of hundreds of Muslim and Arab immigrants and naturalized citizens and most recently both US and Britain’s callous endorsement of “Operation Just Reward” despite the massive life of innocent Lebanese.

That said, as an Arab-American, I have to say that it is ironic that Muslim and Arab Americans (both Christian and Muslim) are now so critical of the Republicans. Progressive Arabs have told them for decades how Republicans are as sympathetic to Israel as the Democrats. In fact, the Democrats have always been Zionists because the liberals understand, very correctly, that anti-Semiticism is abhorrent. They also accepted the Zionist myth that “the Arabs” actually pose a threat to the existence of poor, isolated democratic Israel, which exists as a fortress of democracy in a sea of Arab tyranny. The Republicans, however, support Israel out of a dangerous ideological affinity to the most right-wing forms of Zionism and paradoxically out of a pernicious form of their own anti-Semiticism. Christian Zionists see the Jews as Biblical people and Israel as the kingdom, which must manifest itself before the Second Coming and, of course, the redemption of all good Christians.

Arab and Muslim-Americans have far too long supported the Republican Party because their conservative social agenda and bigotry conforms to the Party’s platform. Muslim-Americans and indeed Muslims all over the world far too often support the Palestinian Cause and the current cause in Lebanon because Muslims live (and are dying) there not because it is a case of human rights violations. The Muslim world was far too happy to encourage and endorse US and NATO militarism in Kosovo and does not make an issue of the illegal Turkish occupation of northern Cyprus, for example. They have been shamefully quiet on Sudanese policies towards non-Muslims in the South even before the slow genocide in Darfur. Likewise, Arab and Muslim leaders and Muslim philanthropic organizations (both abroad and those in the US whose genuine relief work has been targeted by the FBI under the aegis’s of the Patriots act) are disgracefully silent on the occupation of the Western Sahara.

All that said, friends who were at the demonstration in Washington were pleased and excited not only about the turn out but also about the tenor of much of the march. One can only hope that the horrible month of July, both in regards to Israel’s siege of Gaza and invasion of Lebanon, will be the cold water on the face of Muslim and Arab American communities to see our struggle as a part of a larger struggle that stretches from South America to Africa to all of Asia.

Oh yea, Refugees.. and dead

2006-08-13T09:27:00.000-04:00

The Lebanese Higher Relief Committee has reported officially that 1,056 innocent Lebanese civilans have died, 3,600 injured, 971,361 have been displace.
Do you know that Lebanon only has around four million people? Yes, Mrs. Rush (who was my evil 6th grade teacher) that is ONE FOURTH of the Lebanese population.

Equally bad is that much of the South has no access to aid and relief efforts. Today the International Red Cross's ship was finally allowed to dock in Tyre. The Israelis had prevented the ship from docking for some time. The IRC will delieve much needed aid to 40,000 inhabitants and 16,000 refugees in the city, which has been utterly cut off from aid for at least a week. The Red Cross also reports close to 90,000 people are stranded in remote villages in South Lebanon, completely cut off from food, fuel, and electricity.

This is just TODAY. We really haven't even begun to fathom the reconstruction.There is an environmental disaster in a country that has virtually ignored its environmental needs since the end of the Lebanese civil war. What money is given by the outside (Gulf countries love to promise much and deliver little) will go into companies of the Lebanese oligarchy who are also the cabinent, Prime Minister, and Parliament. I can't even begin to think how it's going to be for the huge amount of poor in Lebanon.

Cease-fire

2006-08-13T09:17:00.000-04:00

Israel has had two traditional political tactics. The first is terror, using its US-subsidized army, which is an integral part of Israeli life in peace-time as much as war. The second is grabbing more land and pump up numbers on their side as to give them a huge political advantage. Therefore, I seriously doubt that Israel tripled its troops to 30,000 (as many as Syria maintained to occupy Lebanon) to crush Hizbullah. They clearly increased troops on the eve of a UN Resolution that already favors Israel to reach the Litani (which it has not done because Hizbullah’s effectiveness and to give them further bargaining power regarding withdrawal.

Haaretz reported that a “senior government source” said “that Israel would not be obligated to withdraw from Shaba`a Farms, even if Annan's investigation determines that they belong to Lebanon.” THIS is the problem. Israel proudly refuses to comply to UN resolutions and demands, let alone international law and human rights conventions. In the meantime, it has effectively used the United States to forge another coercive UN resolution, which most makes demands on Lebanon not Israel, to achieve its political goals. Double standards?? http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749566.html

Even more ironic, I read an article in English saying that the Seniora government has come out stronger than before, standing up to Israel and making Sheba’a Farms an issues. This is right out of the Ghazi Aridi press release. It’s sick. Seniora has show that he’s not only ineffectual and complicity with the Bush “New Middle East” but also a crybaby.

In the end, if you read the blog below, all of this could have happened a few weeks ago as Seniora offered the US and Israel what they wanted. (see below entry: "Opportunity for Change"). No worries. The time that has elapsed only killed mostly Shiite poor (ie opposed to the Seniora goverment because they live in two of the three most underdeveloped parts of Lebanon: The South, al-Biqa, and Akkar) and destoryed more infrastructore that Solidere will eventually take loans out from its own banks, which are paid by the Lebanese citizens, and rebuild the nation's infrastructure. Ya haram.

ECOLOGICAL NIGHTMARE

2006-08-11T18:15:00.000-04:00

It happened a while ago and I meant to say it but just for those of you who don't know in addition to the enormous humanitarian and economic crisis that Lebanon will have to deal with after Seniora gives everything to Israel that it wants, it also has to mop up an enormous environmental disaster.

Apart from the uranium-depleted shrapnel laying around, more than 10,000 barrels of heavy oil covers Lebanon's coast, spilled for Jiyeh's power-plant after the Israelis blew it up in the first days of Operation Trash Lebanon. The spill now drifted to Syria (boy Israel must be sad about that). This is an ecological disaster that is only increasing in scope as clean up has been prevented over the past month.

BEFORE AND AFTER

2006-08-11T17:45:00.000-04:00

I told you before that I am trying to boycott images. Check out my entry below but also my reply to the "doctored photo" controversy that should be posted by tomorrow (Sat. Aug 12) on http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/middleeastconflict/.

However, that said, I thought that this double image was amazing, showing the Southern Suburbs before and after the bombing started.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14252208

You know, Dresden, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki (which the anniversary for the latter two just passed) come to mind. That is, let's say, Hizbullah is all the stuff that Israel and the US says it is (and we know it's not and we who live/lived in Lebanon know Hizbullah better than any one else). Let's say that they really are the bad guys here. Can anyone really morally defend, especially those people who call themselves "believers" just like Olmert and Bush, or justify the mass and indiscriminate demolition of any city (let alone a national and regional capital) and the annihilation of the homes and livelihood of a large percentage of that city's poorest inhabitants (let alone the murder of its innocent inhabitants as in Chiyah just a few days aga)? Can this be justified to fetter out a guerilla movement whose very strength is its immunity to such widespread attacks?

Hey, do you know where those bombs came from? You know who made those planes? Do you know who gave those armament high-tech weaponry, canons and artillery, missiles, rockets, and Uranium-depleted bunker busters that destroyed al-Dahiyah to Israel? It ain't the Father Chanukah if that's what you're thinking but it is Uncle Sam.

LAST UPDATE BEFORE DOWN TIME

2006-08-11T02:21:00.000-04:00

First, Israel told residents to leave Hayy Siloum, Shiyah, and Burj al-Brujnah.
Do you know how densely populated these places are? Plus what are they going to do bomb more Palestinian camps? Yes, Israel has been doing that although it has not recieved a lot of attention. In recent days, a Christian relief organization along with the Lebanese NGO Najdah had to close down some of their operations, notably child/day care, because Ain al-Hilweh camp (near Saida/Sidon) was just too dangerous.

Second, Israel bombed the OLD Manarah Lighthouse. That's just wrong. Once again, Israel is in violation of international law, this time for bombing historical sites.

Third, did you hear that the Israeli Army captured 350 Lebanese Army troops in their barracks in Marj `Ayoun. They took the town left it and then came back and took the barracks. I am not kidding. I guess the first time they missed seeing the soldiers because they were all hiding under their cots. GO ARMY! Like I said before, if Lebanon is going to win this war, they are going to have to tell the Army and the other six or whatever internal security services used against Lebanese (whether by the previous pro-Syria governments or the now anti-Syrian government) that these Israelis with guns are really left-wing Lebanese students calling for democratic change in Lebanon, Egypt, Syria, Iraq, Jordan, Tunis, Algeria, Morocco (including the liberation of the Western Sahara), Saudi and the Gulf states, the Sudan, and let's not forget Djibouti. Man the Army, police, Riot Police, SWAT, Praetorian Guard and all those other Lebanese security apparatuses would be beating the hell out of the Israel Army. Maybe we can get Israel to keep the 350 Lebanese "Army men" and return the 4 teenagers they kidnapped from Baalbek? Hey, it's a silver lining!

Four, I have been seeing a lot of video productions floating around...I mean about Lebanon! Maybe I was bummed out or maybe I just like the people who do ElectronicIntifada but check this out:

http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5473.shtml

Turkey-Syria Detente

2006-08-11T01:43:00.000-04:00

Apparently, according to Syrian state news (as if there is any other there) SANA and al-Jazeera, Syria is making overtures to Turkey, who stated that it stands "in complete solidarity with Syria under the foreign threats to which she has been exposed and to express support to the Lebanese national resistance which is facing the savage Israeli aggression against its country." Apart from these being low level flirtations, I just got to say: HUH?!

1. Solidarity? From one ideologically fascist state to a kindred authoritarian state? Didn't Turkey steal Syro-Arab land Iskandarun in 1939? The French more than happy to accommodate Kemalist expansion to undercut Syrian nationalism? You can ask your Dad or Granny if they remember that!

2. Ahhh, isn't Turkey the most stalwart ally of Israel. Not only do the enjoy trade and "cultural exchange", they also train militarily together. That sounds right and as both Kemalism and Zionism are racist, nationalist ideologies that have historically dispossessed and denied the territorial rights of millions of people, from Palestinians to Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians, and Greeks. Also, both countries illegally occupy land (Northern Cyprus, Palestine, parts of Lebanon and Syria).

3. Funny that these two low-level functionaires should meet now? Check out an article that journalist and friend Paul Cochran sent me today entitled "The War on Lebanon and the Battle for Oil?" by the very sharp Prof. Michel Chossudovsky . It's a thought provoking article about the much overlooked opening of the new oil line between Baku-Tiblisi-Ceyhum (Turkey) pipeline. See:
http://www.kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2006/08/05/5202.shtml

4. Excuse me but is Syria even around? Solidarity with the Lebanese and Syrians? If you are in solidarity, cut off relations with Israel. But apart from that, Syria is a rancid, authoritarian state. Its regime cares as much for Lebanese and Palestinians as GW or Olmert.

5. Finally, Turkey pledged to give 1.2million in aid. Do you know how little that is? If I were Lebanon, I'd take that aid, stuff it in a Katyusha, and aim it at Hariri's fortress in Qoraitem. 1.2 million, the Hariri boys go through that much mustache-combs and hair-gel in a week. Please.

Ok. It’s 2 am and I know that I probably said too much. Turkey-Syria solidarity. What’s the cyber-word for gag?

"Facing West from Arab Country" by Patrick McGreevy

2006-08-11T00:04:00.000-04:00

Prof. Patrick McGreevy, a friend and colleague of mine at AUB, sent me this. While 140 of us foreign professors (mostly with children) were evacuated, Patrick and his wife stayed behind at AUB. While many of us who have ties to Lebanon that reach back years if not decades, who have family, blood, and history there have left, Patrick and his wife, who have only been in Lebanon for two years and is a specialist of 19th century American culture, valiantly has remained in AUB. While he did not have to be, he and his wife were there to see us off at 4 am and in fact stayed until the last evacuee left some four or so hours later. He has been active editorializing the "war" since its first days. I can not express the degree to which I respect him as a scholar, friend, and colleague.

"Facing West from Arab Country"
Professor Patrick McGreevy
Director of Center American Studies and Research
American University of Beirut

US leaders often assert that their policies and actions in the Middle East are intended to influence the perceptions and actions of Arabs. Do they have any idea how things look from here? Daniel Richter’s book, Facing East from Indian Country (2001), attempts to tell the story of early America from the point of view of the Native people who saw their lands invaded from the east. The newcomers, for the most part, did not want to live among the people who were already there: they simply wanted to remove them. It is a revealing thought experiment for most US Americans to imagine their national story from the vantage of those for whom that story was their own doom. Perhaps a similar thought experiment is in order to consider how US attempts to create “a new Middle East” look from the vantage point of the region’s Arab inhabitants.

Gazing westward upon the North American continent, many European colonizers saw a land that seemed essentially empty, a zone for the fulfillment of their dreams and schemes. The North American Natives, if noticed at all, could be seen as part of the emptiness itself: they simply didn’t count as equally human. Richter believes, nonetheless, that a world in which natives and newcomers could live together remained possible until the 1760s when, in the wake of ruthless violence on the frontier, Natives and non-Natives each began to see themselves as essentially different and incompatible. After the revolution against imperial Britain, US Americans appropriated for themselves the appellation “American,” and continued to gaze westward with the colonizers’ vision of a land that was essentially empty. The US became a settler society. The conquest is pretty much over now, if largely unexamined, yet the perspective of facing west remains. We still talk of going “out west” and “back east”.

Gazing eastward toward Jerusalem, Westerners invented the term “Middle East,” a designation that defined the region by reference to their own view point. Edward Said used the word “Orientalism” to describe how Western “knowledge” about the region was interwoven with attempts to control it. The “knowledge,” for example, that Arabs were backward, lazy, violent, and fanatical, meant that their world needed rearranging, and that Western powers such as France and Britain must take up the challenge. More recently, some have suggested a more complex picture. Not all westerners have reduced Arabs to sub-human status. In the years following World War II, many Arabs appreciated the US for its anti-colonial stance, and African-Americans, particularly in the 1960s and 1970s, identified with Arab resistance movements.

For those facing west from Arab country today, however, the US appears as the latest in a long list of Western adversaries and colonizers. Operation Iraqi Freedom was supposed to destroy terrorism at its heart, but it was based on faulty “knowledge,” and has instead created an open wound, a maelstrom of blood. Operation Just Reward, the Israeli-led and US-backed attack on Lebanon, was supposed to create a “New Middle East” by crushing Hezbollah, but faulty “knowledge” again has led to a situation of great danger. The Arab World is not a blank slate awaiting the schemes of Westerners. And it must be said: the creation of the State of Israel was another scheme for remapping the region based on the view that the people already here mattered less than those arriving from the west, and that their lands could be treated as if they were empty. For those facing west from Arab country, this was an injustice, an original sin. All talk of resolution, of Arab hospitality, must begin with this recognition. I hope the time when it is possible for Arabs, Christians and Jews to live together here has not passed. But if Israelis hope to become a settler society like the US that seeks, not to live with the region’s native people, but remove them, they will discover that their “knowledge” is faulty because the eastern Mediterranean is not North America. Instead of melting away from European diseases, these native people are increasing.

I spoke today with a Sunni Arab friend about last night’s horrible rocket attack on Haifa. I mentioned that it may have been an Arab neighborhood that was hit. My friend said: “That is not the point: they are human beings.” I mention this to underline that there is a basis for conversation, although some in Lebanon now doubt that there is a serious partner for peace in Israel.

The Bush Administration encourages Israel to crush Hezbollah, perhaps because many in the US think Israel is a settler society facing exactly the situation their own country once faced. But haven’t Israelis been here long enough to recognize that simplistic example of the eastward gaze called the war on terror? Lashing out will not make Israel safe; such a strategy is based on faulty “knowledge”: it is like plowing the sea. If crushing people will make them capitulate, the people of Gaza would long ago have become docile rather than defiant. There is only one way: the Israelis must talk to their adversaries and negotiate a just settlement that addresses Arab concerns on an equal footing with their own.

SHOOTING BACK AT CHA

2006-08-10T08:17:00.000-04:00

I have to say, Israel and the US are idiots or calculating imperialists (I hope the former). They either miscalculated this whole scenario because now Hizbullah is stronger than ever before not only in the Arab world and Muslim world (yes they are different) but also in the developing world. In the meantime, both Israel and the US are more hated than before by good, moderate folks from all over the world and those two countries (no matter what one may think of them) are, contrary to the wishes of their citizens, less not more secure places. The good thing is that, as the grassroots activism in Lebanon shows and the ground-swell of support for the Lebanese and Palestinians in many South American countries and Europe show, the numbers of secular progressive left-wing anti-imperialist activists, thinkers, and rank-and-file on the ground have ground. As the solidarity manifestations (largely organized by leftists not religious parties) in Egypt, Morocco, and Tunis demonstrate, these social and political organizations are more focused, organized, and committed than ever before to issues of social and economic justice and offering an alternative to political Islam in the Arab world.

Or perhaps, more sinister a plan is underway, as theorized by some including my friend and colleague Mark Levine. That the undermining of a long established Lebanese sovereignty, the radicalization and heightening of internal tensions in Palestine, and the unprecedented sectarian civil war in Iraq are a part and parcel of a larger strategy in “planned chaos” hatched by Cold-war warriors. Heavily invested in the oil industry (which goes beyond energy as we know because so much we forget comes from petroleum based chemicals) have fomented intentional instability. This would fit into a new phase to the social and political under-development of the Arab world that serves the US well financially, justifying the US's support/control of the most fetid ossified authoritarian regimes in the Gulf. While this sounds conspiratorial one really wonders if the United States foreign policy since the inauguration of Bush's regime can possibly be this myopic and incompetent.

That sad thing is that just as Hizbullah grows in political, military, and hence ideological credibility, Israel is really getting beaten. Despite the massive amount of air, land and sea power the Israel Army has committed, Israelis are precisely what they want the least: dead Israelis and rockets peppering the Galilee. Fifteen Israeli soldiers died today. Despite night vision, airpower, artillery, tanks and other equipment that give them far superior fire power, sources including the NYT, Haaretz, and the Israeli news site Ynetnews have reported that the Israeli Army has failed to even pacify the area that they claim are under their control. In 1982, Israel got to the Litani in 48 hours. After almost a month, they still have not arrived at the river. I guess this is what happens when people shoot back unlike the 14 year old stone throwing boys they’ve got use to “battling”. (For example: http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3288870,00.html and http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/748441.html).

WE NEED POWER TO THE PEOPLE, LITERALLY!

2006-08-10T08:11:00.000-04:00

It is late here in the East but early in the morning Lebanon (and forgive me for not proof-reading this long entry). Separated from the internet for some time, I spent the past six hours reading on-line. Reading Lebanese, American, English, French, and Israeli newspapers, blogs, websites. Reading hundreds of emails, calls for action, petitions, and information that friends and comrade have sent to me over the past ten days. Most of you will know more news than me over the past week and I now am the one searching for information, conditions, and the actions on the ground. That said, don’t give up on me. I urge those of you who read this blog for news, information, and analysis that is not easily garnished from the sickening mainstream media coverage, to stay with me and I will be up to speed in a few days.

* I have read in several venues including Anarchists and progressive websites and blogs as well as Israeli newspapers that the righteous brothers and sisters of Israel, Jewish and Palestinian Israelis, leftists and anti-Zionist Israelis, have come out and done brave things in Israel. They have staged protests and events but also chained themselves to the gates of a military post (a brave thing during a “war” in Israel) and throw “feces” and other stuff at Israeli cops. We know this not only because the information sources I mentioned but also because many leftists --especially revolutionary and radical students and activists from Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Iraq and other Arab countries have made contacts and maintain productive conversations via blogs, chat rooms, and emails with radically progressive Israeli Jews who have been sticking their necks out to protest Israel's undeniable aggression.

* Yesterday, Israel imposed a curfew on the South including Lebanon’s fourth largest city Sur (Tyre). We all have also heard about the warning that any moving vehicle will be understood as a hostile and fair target. They also dropped leaflets on al-Dahiyah telling its residents to leave. Does this sound normal? That Israel bullies if not terrorizes civilians in open is suppose to make it acceptable or even just? If the Nazis, who by the way like the Apartheid regime of South Africa (not only against the ANC and other groups in SA but also in neighboring countries), loved to use the catchword “terrorist” to justify their hateful crimes against humanity.

* Power is a serious issue. I read that the power generating damn at Nahr al-Barid in the North was bombed the other day. I have received a lot of emails at AUB about how to conserve and today there was a write up (I think in the NYT) talking to Nadim Cortas the head of AUH about the real possibility of the “nightmare” scenario where there will be not enough fuel to power the generators for life-support. Friend and artist Akram Zaatari sent a plea out as well regarind Saida Hospital, the largest medical center in Sidon, which is not only in desperate need of fuel but also innumerable other provisions. Two tankers are off the coast of Lebanon but no allowed to come it. I think that they are afraid of all the jellyfish. I heard that they explode. Isn’t that what happened to the UN soldiers in the South. They don’t call them “Man-of-War” for nothing.

REFUSE THE IMAGE AND EMBRACE THE FACTS

2006-08-10T08:01:00.000-04:00

In excavating all venues of news and information, one can’t help to be barraged by images. I am, some of you might know, a scholar, part of whose work focuses on visual culture and particularly the history of photography in the Middle East. Yet, I refuse to view these images of human suffering in Lebanon. I urge you to refuse as well. I urge you not only because it is a form of violence and culpability that we all participate in. These images steal as much as instill their subjects/objects of their humanity. (I still have seen few pictures of dead children, for example, that actually have a name and whose lives are not wiped away by their suffering as representative of Israeli callous and cruelty.) Their repetition rips away the individuality of every loss of life. Their tragedy displaces to margins of statistics the hundreds of tragic deaths not shown. These heinous images remove us from the situation, from the urgency of the crimes committed, they ascribe them to the past while the violence is happening right now. Such assertions is not academic theorizing. Indeed, my call to ignore the image poses a challenge for those righteous photojournalists who feel compelled that this is the best way to get out the reality of Israel’s bold-faced aggression. My only solution is to read and to act. To march when there is a march (even if the march is sponsored by bourgeois, self-aggrandizing Arab-American groups or Muslim American associations that pick and chose their tragedy to protest ignoring crimes like Darfur or pogroms in Indonesia). Stand when there is a vigil. Attend when there is a mass or any sort of religious service offered in solidarity to those who are suffering. Attend when there is a teach-in, talk, or presentation. You may already know it already but your body at those events are important. And, wherever you are, write; write your mindless, apathetic congressman/woman or parliamentarian who will most likely ignore you; write the UN; write your local paper; write CNN, FOX, MSNBC, CBC, BBC and all those unethical jingoistic, simple minded standard bearer for American imperialism and fascistic Zionism.

PETITIONS

2006-08-10T07:58:00.000-04:00

Sign any petition that comes across your screen calling for an immediate cease-fire.
They are not much but at least you are on record that you don't like this stuff.

Here are the latest two that folk have sent me:

http://www.aaiusa.org/page/petition/presidentbush

http://www.ceasefirecampaign.org/index.php?id=1

BACK ON LINE: WAR ON THE POOR

2006-08-08T14:13:00.000-04:00

Now in Columbia, South Carolina and resuming my new position at Associate Professor of Arab Culture and Literature at the University of South Carolina, I am back on-line. Folks have been wonderful to me here in SC. But in the meantime, I will need a few days to get back into the swing of things and start reconnecting with people and information and news sources so that I can provide some information that can not be otherwise garnished from mainstream Anglophone news sources.

Last week, thirty-three migrant workers, mostly Kurds, were killed in cold blood in the northern Biqa’ by Israeli bombers. As they were not children nor good Lebanese consumers, their murder did not offer a good photo-op. That said, their murder was calculated and deliberate. Apparently, as you may know by now, Israeli warplanes bombed them two times in a field, coming back a second to finish off the job as those who survived were running away. Anyone who is slightly familiar with Lebanon knows that Syrian Kurdish migrant labor look like workers and can be very easily discerned from Hizbullah fighters who have trademark beards. Israel are either sloppy in their reconnaissance and/or military training or just trigger happy. Either way, they are culpable.

This war is a war on the poor. They are a safe target. Blow up their homes and you know they will be refugees who will have to flood into Beirut and its surroundings and exert huge pressure on Lebanese civil society let alone the government. Killing and dispossessing them will not affect adversely Hariri & Co., whose loyal clientele are working class, petty bourgeois, and bourgeois Sunnis, who are largely from Beirut, Saida (Sidon) and Trablous (Tripoli).

Furthermore, most of these communities rely on Hizbullah or far more corrupt Amal for any political and social access. Numerous studies have shown that Hizbullah’s popularity, in fact, is not because of their ideological content per se. Because of Iran’s bankroll, it was able to provide human services (from medical care to education to employment) to the most impoverished Shi’a communities in urban (Southern Beirut and Tyre) and rural southern and eastern Lebanon. Furthermore, unlike Amal and other sectarian parties in general, Hizbullah, perhaps much to the chagrin of the United States, has a reputation in Lebanon, even among its detractors, for fiscal integrity. The Lebanese state has underdeveloped the South and al-Biqa (and Akkar) where the traditional Shi’s ruling elites, who should have been played pork-barrel politics like the other sectarian leaders (like Franjieh, Karami, Jumblat, etc.) have been notoriously corrupt. Before Hizbullah’s unofficial and Syrian sponsored war on it in the 1980s, the Lebanese Communist Party had a strong following in the Shi’a South precisely for this reason.

REFUGEE PLIGHT

2006-08-08T13:56:00.000-04:00

Despite the valiant efforts of hundreds if not thousands of volunteers on the ground (mostly from NGOs, progressive grassroots groups, Lebanese Red Cross, political parties, and municipalities), Lebanon lacks adequate relief and accommodation centers and equipments. These groups do not have the emergency and relief supplies in place necessary for a tragedy of this kind.

Regardless of the tearful pleas of PM Seniora and the deadpan words of his political master-in-training SaadAllah Hariri, large private spaces (most affiliated with the Lebanese moneyed elite including the Hariri mega-corp) have not opened, as I understand it, their doors such as Biel, Beirut Forum, Murr Stadium, etc, let alone the thousands of square meters in UNOCCUPIED second, third, fourth, and fifth stories in many of the buildings (above the restaurants, stores, and boutiques), in a part of town that some call Solidere (!) in the the center of the city.

Relief organizations and the government lack food and cooking facilities, hygienic materials (detergents, antiseptics, toilet paper, toilet tissues, diapers etc.), pharmaceuticals (especially for the ailing and the elderly), medical equipments (especially for special needs and the elderly), clothes and underwear (all sizes), and cooking facilities (kitchens, gas, utensils etc.)

I have also heard the food and fuel has now rose by up to 100% in some places.

In light of the increasingly undeniable indiscriminate bombing or at least grossly reckless endangerment of civilians, Israeli spokesmen continue to say that the State’s Army (I refuse to acquiesce to the rhetorical ploy and called in “Defense Forces”) is doing everything possible to avert “collateral damage” including warning residents to flee areas (i.e. their homes, businesses, farms, schools and places of worship), which, Israel assures, will be pounded into “dust”.

What is not reported however is that while Israel is “giving a chance” for civilians to leave their homes travel between cities, refugee centers, and villages is extremely dangerous. Travel is dangerous and harrowing partially because of the mass destruction of bridges and roads leading north to Beirut, Saida, and other areas where there are refugee centers. (By the way, major cities like Saida but especially Tyre are having their central districts bombed so those are hardly places for refugees even if fleeing rural folk can get there.) But more so, it is dangerous because Israel continues to target vehicles on the road whether they are cars, trucks, or vans.

After killing some 20-30 people in a two four-story buildings in Southern Lebanon (Aug. 7), the Army spokesman ended, according to NPR, his briefing explaining that “We are human” (implying that they are not monsters and that they make mistakes, I assume). What is ironic that, while a one year old baby and other members of his family lay dead in their pajamas under the rubble their flattened home, Israel has the gall to ask the world to recognize its humanity.

I got to re-study the foodchain because I missed where they taught us that Arabs were not humans or where Israel got the extra-scoop of humanity when God was handing that out.

MASS DEMONSTRATION FOR LEBANON AND PALESTINE

2006-08-08T13:31:00.000-04:00

There are a LOT of demonstrations going on (from major cosmopoli to places like Rotterdam and Florianopolis. Tens of thousands demonstrated in Baghdad. No matter how small some of these are, it is important to go. There are even demonstrations and sit-ins in Beirut. I believe that there is a women's sit-in at the UN HQ. Some of these young sisters are really sharp, strong, and have serious back-bone.

In North America, The A.N.S.W.E.R. Coalition, the National Council of Arab Americans and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation (who I confessedly have never head of) are co-organizing "a National Emergency March on WASHINGTON DC on AUGUST 12, with coordinated marches in Los Angeles and San Francisco, in defense of the people of Palestine and Lebanon who are under brutal attack by the U.S.-backed Israeli government."

If the sisters can organize a sit-in under siege, we should all be out there. MARCH!

Helpful Links

2006-08-08T13:25:00.001-04:00

Here are a few links that might be of some interest. Most are in English and I will try to post Arabic links later:

http://electronicintifada.net/ (Some of the best place to get news about Palestine but also now Lebanon too) They set up:

http://electronicLebanon.net

http://siegeoflebanon.blogspot.com (Open clearing house blog for news, analysis, and frustration)

http://www.angryarab.blogspot.com (comprehensive but becareful...he's angry. And rightfully so!)

sanayehreliefcenter.blogspot.com: Information about the grassroots coalition for refugee relief.

http://www.inquisitor.com/NYDiary/ Beirut diary of a good friend.

http://actionwednesday.blogspot.com/ (good blog from Beirut)

http://www.annd.org/ (Has some great people working for themwho do a lot of good work both under Israeli and WTO siege. The website has become a nice clearing house for info and other sites).

http://sareemakdisi.blogspot.com/ (Some good editorials and analysis from yet one more dangerous professor.)

http://www.lebanonexpats.org/

http://www.epetitions.net/julywar/// (sign the petition)

http://lebanonupdates.blogspot.com/

http://www.justiceforlebanon.com/

http://waronlebanon.blogspot.com

DONATIONS FOR REFUGEE RELIEF

2006-08-08T13:25:00.000-04:00

The coalition (http://samidoun.blogspot.com) at the Sanayeh Relief Center in Beirut (http://sanayehreliefcenter.blogspot.com) is providing relief for 15,000 refugees at over thirty schools. It costs on average of $10 per day per refugee (food, cleaning and hygiene materials, medicines, transportation needs, water, and clothes). The government stated that, even if it had the political will, which it does not, it is incapable of covering more than 13% of the cost for these 15,000.

Some international agencies have helped out but volunteers who I spoke to said that they are in desperate need of funds, even putting their own limited personal funds for relief materials.

If you are able to support the relief coalition, please send your donations to:

In all transfers, the following applies:

Account with institution: BKAWLBBE (this is the SWIFT code)

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

For USD transfers:

The correspondents in USA with their SWIFT BIC codes are:
1. Bank of New York New York USA SWIFT code: IRVTUS3N
2. HSBC Bank New York USA SWIFT code: MRMDUS33
3. American Express Bank Ltd. New York USA SWIFT code: AEIBUS33

For Euro transfers:
The correspondents in France and Germany with their SWIFT codes respectively are:
1. Societe Generale Paris - France SWIFT code: SOGEFRPP
2. Dresdner Bank AG Frankfurt - Germany SWIFT code: DRESDEFF

Even a limited amount will make a big difference under the current very complicated circumstances. All donations will be channeled directly to relief efforts on the grounds and a full report on how these funds were used and dispersed will be prepared and open to the public.

For more information, contact Mr Nizar Rammal at 961-3-908-307 or email him at: nizarrammal@yahoo.com

Infrastructure can be rebuilt (and indeed will be, most likely by Hariri's Solidere at the expense of the Lebanese people as in the past 15 years). However, these refugees, some 750,000, and the hundreds of dead and wounded, are the true victims of the "bootstamp" of Israeli aggression.

Lebanon’s Pain Won’t Be Israel’s Gain

2006-08-08T13:24:00.000-04:00

For those interested, the South Carolina's newspaper The State has published an op-ed piece of mine. It is of importance partly because it provides some sage advice of my son Jad.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/columnists/15114825.htm

NEVER AGAIN...EXCEPT WHEN ISRAEL IS CONCERNED

2006-08-08T13:23:00.000-04:00

Ten years ago, I protested the massacre of women, children, and elderly who took refuge in a UN camp,

Again, Israel massacred at least 56 more sleeping, defenseless Lebanese, 34 of which were infants, toddlers, and children (if you are parent you make such as distinction for your children and we should out of respect for the living and dead parents do the same).

Olmert "regrets" the incident but....of course Hizbullah was launching rockets near by, so he says, Let's stay that's true. Let's say that some fida'i was on the roof and Israel killed those children, would he then NOT regret it because it was a direct and premeditated attack?

This is ridiculous. What a world where Imperialism and naked aggression of the mighty is naturalized and packaged as a gift to its victims.

Tfeh

"OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE": A NEW MIDDLE EAST

2006-08-08T13:22:00.000-04:00

WHAT IS THE PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER WHERE THE PATIENT LACKS ANY SENSE OF EMPATHY AND BECOMES COMPLETELY DISCONNECTED FROM REALITY? IS IT PSYCHOPATH? I WOULD NOT BE SO BOLD AS TO MAKE SUCH A DIAGNOSIS OF THE PRESIDENT. HOWEVER, HIS STATEMENTS REGARDING LEBANON DISPLAY A FRIGHTENING CALLOUSNESS AND AN IMMENSE DISCONNECT FROM REALITY.
HE SEES THE DESTRUCTION OF LEBANON, THE MURDER OF 500 INNOCENT CIVILIANS, ONE THIRD OF WHO ARE UNDER THE AGE OF EIGHTEEN, THE HOMELESS STATE OF MORE THAN ONE-FIFTH OF THE POPULATION, AND THE DESTRUCTION OF MORE THAN ONE BILLION DOLLARS IN PROPERTY AS AN “OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST”.

BUT THEN AGAIN, PERHAPS MY OUTRAGE IS UNWARRANTED AND THAT I FAR TOO OFTEN HOLD SUCCESSIVE AMERICAN REGIMES TO THE MORAL LEVEL TO WHICH THEY PROFESS IF WITH WHICH NOT BEAT THE WORLD. THAT IS, PERHAPS BUSH IS TELLING THE TRUTH AND THAT THE PULVERIZATION OF LEBANON IS COMPLETELY CONCOMITANT WITH THE MIDDLE EAST THAT HIS REGIME HAS IMAGINED. CONDI RICE’S MISSION TO THE MIDDLE EAST IS, PROFESSEDLY, NOT TO SECURE A CEASE-FIRE BUT INDEED A SURRENDER OF THE LEBANESE PEOPLE AND STATE, WHICH SENIORA’S SEVEN POINT PROPOSAL SEEMS TO ACCOMMODATE. THAT IS, SENIORA HAS CAPITULATED TO VIRTUALLY ALL OF THE DEMANDS OF ISRAEL AND THE US INCLUDING THE DISARMING OF HIZBULLAH. RICE’S “PACKAGE OF PROPOSALS” SEEMS MORE LIKE A “PEACE” OR SUBMISSION PLAN RATHER THAN A CEASE-FIRE. THE “OPPORTUNITY” WAS MADE BY THE US’S FAVORITE ALLY (IF NOT ITS LOCAL ENFORCER) AND SEIZED. THANKFULLY, THE CONFLUENCE OF INTERESTS BETWEEN THE SENIORA-HARIRI GOVERNMENT, ISRAEL, THE US AND SAUDI ARABIA FLOW SMOOTHLY INTO ONE ANOTHER, SO THAT SUCH A “CEASE-FIRE” CAN SET UP AN UNJUST PEACE NO DOUBT. THE PROBLEM IS…HIZBULLAH AND THE FACT THAT, DESPITE THE CARNAGE ISRAEL IS INFLICTING ON LEBANON, THEY ARE BEATING THE “IDF”. I MEAN COME ON. ISRAEL “PULLED OUT OF BINT JBEIL TO REGROUP” AND “REDEPLOY” GETTING READY FOR A NEW GROUND OFFENSIVE. DON’T WE CALL THAT RETREAT!

INDEED, THIS OFFENSIVE HAS MADE AN OPPORTUNITY; AN OPPORTUNITY FOR HIZBULLAH TO BECOME A CREDIBLE INTERNATIONAL POWER BROKER IN THE ARAB AND MUSLIM WORLD. SEVERAL NEWSPAPERS IN ENGLISH (E.G. NY TIMES) TODAY ARE REPORTING THAT THE “ARAB STREET” IS BEHIND HIZBULLAH. ARAB MUSLIM INTELLECTUALS FROM ALL OVER THE SUNNI MUSLIM WORLD ARE PRAISING NASRALLAH AND HIZBULLAH. THE US GOVERNMENT AND MANY OF THESE NEWSPAPERS SPEAK WITH SUCH INDIGNATION ABOUT ARABS SUPPORTING HIZBULLAH. I AM NOT SUPPORTING HIZBULLAH, DEFENDING THEM OR PRAISING THEM. HOWEVER, WE HAVE TO LOOK AT THE FACTS ON THE GROUND: IT IS ISRAEL AND THE US WHO HAVE DONE NOTHING BUT UNDERMINE SECULAR LIBERATIONIST MOVEMENTS AND GOVERNMENTS IN THE REGION. THIS IS ESPECIALLY CASE IN PALESTINE, WHOSE SECULARISM WAS A NATIONAL TRADITION UNTIL ONLY TEN YEARS AGO BUT DESTROYED BY ISRAEL (AND THE US) UNDERMINING EVERY EFFORT THAT ARAFAT AND FATAH MADE TO ACHIEVE PEACE (DESPITE ARAFAT AND PARTY BENDING OVER BACKWARDS AND JUMPING THROUGH EVERY FLAMING-HOOP PUT IN FRONT OF THEM BY CLINTON AND BARAK). IT IS THE US WHO SUPPORTS THE MOST AUTHORITARIAN REGIMES IN THE ARAB WORLD, WHO ARREST SECULAR, DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENTS (JUST LOOK AT EGYPT’S IMPRISONMENT OF ITS OWN JUDICIARY IN MAY!) WHILE TALKING ABOUT DEMOCRACY AND FREEDOM. IT IS THE US WHO DISMANTLED SECULAR IRAQ AND PUT IN ITS PLACE A SECTARIAN GOVERNMENT. FINALLY, IT IS ISRAEL WHO ENGAGES IN WAR CRIMES AND MASS TERROR. WHILE ALL THE ARAB REGIMES EITHER TACITLY SUPPORT ITS OFFENSIVE, OR OFFER NO REAL ASSISTANCE, HIZBULLAH IS THE ONLY GROUP THAT CAN SEEMINGLY DETER ZIONIST AGGRESSION OR AT LEAST MAKE THE ISRAEL ARMY “REDEPLOY” AND LOSS TEN SOLDIERS IN ONE DAY. WHETHER THIS IS TRUE OR NOT, THE IMPRESSION HAS BEEN MADE IN 2000 AND DRIVEN HOME IN ISRAEL’S MOST RECENT MISCALCULATION. WHAT LITTLE CREDIBILITY THE US AND THEIR LIP-SERVICE TO DEMOCRATIC CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST HAD IS GONE FINISHED OFF BY BUSH’S AND RICE’S OBVIOUS LACK OF CONCERN FOR LEBANESE AND PALESTINIAN LIFE. WHAT CONTENTIOUS CREDIBILITY ITS NON-DEMOCRATIC ARAB ALLIES HAD IN THE STREET HAS BEEN BLOWN AWAY BY THEIR TEPID REPLIES TO (IF NOT INDIRECT ENDORSEMENT OF) ISRAELI WAR CRIMES. EVERY DAY HIZBULLAH STANDS, EVERY DAY IT HOLDS OFF THE MIGHT OF THE ISRAEL ARMY, EVERY DAY IT INFLICTS CASUALTIES ON THAT ARMY IN THE FACE OF ITS “SAVAGERY” ON ARAB CIVILIANS (BOTH MUSLIM AND CHRISTIAN), THE PARTY AND ITS LEADERS (WHO TALK OF THE BROTHERHOOD AND “LOVE BETWEEN CHRISTIANS AND MUSLIMS” IN LEBANON) BECOME MORE CREDIBLE AS A POLITICAL FORCE AND POLITICAL ANSWER. HOW CAN IT NOT? HOW IS THAT FOR “OPPORTUNITY FOR CHANGE IN THE MIDDLE EAST”?

ISRAEL IN VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AND WAR CRIMES

2006-08-08T13:21:00.000-04:00

Israel’s use of chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction in Lebanon and Palestine is becoming increasingly documented:

1. Israel has been using US made and provided GBU 28 bunker busters bombs or Uranium depleted warheads in Lebanon, a hundred of which were delivered to Israel by the US Dept of Defense after their offensive begun. According to Dr. Doug Rokke, the former Director of the U.S. Army Depleted Uranium project, these warheads are America’s “dirty bomb”, who manufacturing, testing, and use result in various health and environmental effects.

2. There are reports from Gaza as well as Lebanon that Israel is using chemical weapons. This has been reported by al-Jazeera but also a German news agency (see: http://www.kokhavivpublications.com/editions/israel/2006/07/pa-ministry-of-health-israel-uses.php). Rather than chemical, it is likely that there weapons are thermobaric weapons. These “vacuum bombs” are unconventional bombs that release fuel particles into the air and then ignite them. The force of the explosion is similar to a small atomic bomb without the radioactive fall-out, flattening buildings and equipment but also asphyxiating and/or incinerating personnel by sucking that air out of their lungs.

3. See below (“This is Bush’s War”) on the accusations and increasing evidence that Israel is using prosperous bombs in Lebanon.

An official from the World Health Organization (WHO) is supposed to be handed corpses from southern Lebanon tomorrow. Also, the matter has been pursued by a well-known Italian peace-activist Alex Father Zanottelli, who, along with several Italian parliamentarians, have called on the Italian Parliament to set up a commission to investigate if the Israelis are using WMD’s in Lebanon and Palestine.

Thalif Deen writes that Israel is actually in breach of not only international law but also US law. He quotes University of San Francisco Professor of politics Stephen Zunes who states that "Section 4 of the (U.S.) Arms Export Control Act requires that military items transferred to foreign governments by the United States be used solely for internal security and legitimate self-defense…Since Israeli attacks against Lebanon's civilian infrastructure and population centers clearly go beyond legitimate self-defense, the United States is legally obliged to suspend arms transfers to Israel."

Deen notes that the US taxpayer gives US$ 2.3 billion a year to Israel for its military alone. See http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=33993

Earlier this month, Law Professor Marjorie Cohn published a paper regarding Israeli policies in Gaza which also are subsequently appropriate in Lebanon. She states unequivocally that “Israel’s brutal retaliation against Palestinian civilians constitutes collective punishment. Attacks on a civilian population as a form of collective punishment violate article 50 of the Hague Regulations”, “The Fourth Geneva Convention also prohibits collective punishment. Article 33 ...” and “Collective punishment is likewise forbidden by Article 75 of Protocol I to the Geneva Conventions."”

I am afraid that this is just the beginning of a long campaign that we must launch to not only to stop Israel naked aggression and indeed war crimes in Lebanon and Gaza but also to make Israel accountable for those war crimes. Wishful thinking, perhaps but like Che said, “Let’s be realistic. Let’s do the impossible!” And man, history is hard to shake off and that scares some folks…and should.

A few facts (if I may be so presumptuous as to focus on those):

*15,000 U.S. citizens have now left Lebanon.
20,000 citizens from various EU countries, mainly France and the UK, evacuated.
(I don’t have any numbers for Canadians and Australians probably because most people confused them for Americans and British respectively.)

*On Friday, “96 smaller rockets landed” in northern Israel, the Israeli army said. “One rocket hit the top floor window of the main hospital in the Israeli border town of Nahariya. Not casualties were reported.” Not to make moral equivalences or anything but, on the same day, Israel dropped hundreds of tons of bombs on the densely populated city of Tyre, killing ten people. (AP July 28)

* UN states that one fifth of Lebanese people are homeless.

OOPS...again..and again..and...

2006-08-08T13:20:00.001-04:00

"Earlier on Friday, two mortar rounds hit a convoy of vehicles carrying civilians escaping the violence in southern Lebanon. Two people travelling in a German TV car were wounded. The convoy, organised by the Australian embassy, was returning to the port city of Tyre from the border village of Rmeish, where hundreds of people have been trapped by the Israeli offensive. The cars were clearly marked as a press and civilian convoy, and that individual journalists had been in contact with the Israelis who knew about the journey. The Israeli Defense Forces said they did not believe it was one of their mortars but were still checking." Hmmmmm? God, that's strange. Who could have shot that mortar at a convoy with Lebanese and foreigners?

FROM BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5225358.stm

Could it have been the same forces who killed four UN observers or maybe the same group who bombed a house today (Sat July 29) in Nabitiyah, killing a woman and her children?

A radical, Muslim extremist news service called Associated Press noted today that:
"Lebanese civilians have born the brunt of the Israeli onslaught. The woman and her children were crushed in their home by a strike outside the market town of Nabatiyeh, which also killed a man in a nearby house...In another southern town, six bodies were dug from the rubble of a house destroyed by a strike Friday." KATHY GANNON, Associated Press. Her real name is probably Kathullah Hussein Gannon (her last name definately an Anglophonization of the word Qanun...law in Arabic). Sneaky Kathy mixing commentary with news but we got your number! (666 no doubt!)

DEMONSTRATIONS in NYC and, yes, OC!!

2006-08-08T13:20:00.000-04:00

1. Stop the War, Stop the Killing Demonstration
When: FRIDAY - JULY 28th 3:30 to 6:30 P.M.
Where: 2nd Ave. 42nd St. & 43rd St (In front of The Israeli Consulate)

Sponsored By: Arab Muslim American Federation, National Council Of
Arab Americans, International Action Center, Troops Out Now Coalition, Al Awda New York, Al-Khuli Islamic Center, ICNA N.Y, MAS New York.

STOP US SPONSORED ISRAELI TERROR
MARCH ACROSS THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE. NYC, July 29, 2006
What: Stop Us Sponsored Israeli Terror - March Across The Brooklyn Bridge
When: Saturday July 29, 2006 - 2:00 PM 5:00 PM
Where: Cadman Plaza Park, Brooklyn (near the Brooklyn Bridge) March

Israeli attacks on Palestine and Lebanon have reached new heights
with the displacement of almost 1 million people in Lebanon, the
killing of hundreds of civilians in Lebanon, and Palestine, the
destruction of civilian infrastructure; all of which are crimes
against humanity, as the world watches in either silent complicity or
outright support. The United States wants to give Israel enough time
to 'finish the job' and has accelerated shipment of even more;
destructive bombs to add to the Israeli arsenal which includes illegal
phosphorous and cluster bombs being used against the civilian
population in Lebanon and Palestine.

We call on all people of conscience to come out and demand an end to
the US Sponsored Israeli War Crimes being perpetrated against the
people of Palestine and Lebanon.
”Stop the Invasion of Lebanon: End the Occupation of Palestine
Stop US AID to Israel: Free Arab Political Prisoners In Israel”
2. COSTA MESA, CA JULY 29
The GREEN PARTY of Orange County CA (yes, there is a Green Party in OC, my Mom is a member) announces:
Emergency vigil for ceasefire in the Mideast -
Saturday July 29th
7pm - sundown
Triangle Square
(Newport Blvd. & 19th St. - where the 55 Fwy South ends)
Please bring candles, sidewalk chalk, and signs communicating peace,
not hatred.
For more information, please visit www.ocpeace.org
I also heard that there was a vigil in San Diego (I'm looking for the info now).

CAPITULATION. YOU WON. NOW STOP

2006-08-08T13:18:00.000-04:00

I just read in al-Nahar Seniora's Seven Point Plan for a cease-fire, which states that the "deployment of the Lebanese Army to the South" along with an international force and the disarming of all Lebanese militias including Hizbullah. He included Sheba'a Farms (That got 'em! You're the man, Fu'ad!) He also suggested a prisoner swap.

Ahhh. That sounds like pretty much like a full capitulation to Israeli and American demands. I mean, it's more of a "peace proprosal" or downright surrender than a cease-fire. You get your soldiers. You get the disarming of Hizbullah. You get an international force on the border. You get the deployment of the Lebanese Army.

OK, you can stop bombing now and get out of Lebanon (before any more of you get your butt kicked by Hizbullah in Bint Jbeil and you give the Party more credibilty on the "Arab Street" than it has had since 2000).

In the meantime, Ghazi al-`Aridi, the Minister of Propoganda...I mean Information... states that Rome really wasn't a "failure" because Seniora managed to put Shabaa Farms on the table.

Maybe the smoke from the 1 billion dollars in burning buildings, infrastructure, and bodies has gotten this guy high. It wasn't a failure? I mean, Seniora capitulated and Israel is still demolishing the country and killing innocent civilians. Is it me? It must be me.

I suppose Israel also wants Lebanon to pay reparations for Hizbullah's Katyushas and maybe ask it to clean up the mess, take out the garbage, and treat it to dinner and show in Las Vegas too.

In the meantime, Gaza is getting pounded. No brothers and sisters, we did not forget about you!

STATS

2006-08-08T13:16:00.000-04:00

FRIDAY, JULY 28, 2006

New numbers have been released by the Lebanese Minister of Health Mohammad Jawad Khalifeh. 518 killed only 352 of whom have been identified; 1850 wounded, 100 bodies remain trapped under rubble (what they don't say is that many could have been saved if emergency relief teams were allowed to dig them out). 35% of all victims have been under the age of 18.

The BBC reported that the cost of destruction has already reached one billion dollars (that's 1/18th of each of the Hariri children's and wives' personal worth).

The Lebanese government has a website now just for disseminating information, mostly speeches by the Prime Minister Sinora. It’s not ironic that the sections on Schools/Shelters, Aid Distribution, and International Aid are empty. However, the Donations sections work! Thank God! We need to send Hariri and Seniora, and all the other millionaires in the government some cash to help the refugees I heard a few years ago that Lebanon had more millionaires in its government than any other country (from Jumblatt to Murr to Mikati to Mouawad to Franjieh (although not in the government now) to Butrus Harb to Hamadeh to Gemayel and so on). They really must be suffering…Hariri and the tens he has enfranchised not the millions that he and his ruling government have disenfranchised.

Under the website’s section Urgent Needs, I think they need to write: CREDIBILITY.

CLUSTER BOMBS ETC

2006-08-08T13:15:00.000-04:00

With his coconut sidekick Dr. Sanjay Gupta scurrying around Israeli kibbutzes, CNN’s Andersen Cooper on his program 360 (probably because it runs you in circles to obfuscate the truth), reporting from Northern Israel, dedicated much of his show on the Katyusha rockets that are falling on Israel. He concentrated on how they are also packed with ball bearings and sheets that will fragment to make shrapnel. While they admitted that most don’t fall on houses, they stressed the danger of these weapons. (He repeats this on his mind-numbing blog:

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog

On Monday (July 24), Human Rights Watch protested against Israel’s use of cluster bombs (replete with ball-bearings and fragmenting metal pieces) in their current offensive. In his protestation, Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights Watch, predicted the Israeli defense (yesterday) by saying that cluster munitions are “are unacceptably inaccurate and unreliable weapons when used around civilians.”

(see:
http://www.humanrightswatch.org/english/docs/2006/07/24/isrlpa13798.htm)

What is ironic is that the same day the New York Times (not known to be a pro-Arab rag) reported that Maj. Gen. Benny Gantz, the head of Israeli military’s ground forces in Lebanon, acknowledged the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon. These munitions “disperse bomblets over a wide area and have been banned by some countries because of the high number of civilian casualties they cause.”

(see: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/world/middleeast/27mideast.html?ref=middleeast&pagewanted=all)

Ok, let me get this straight. Random and occasional Katyushas falling arbitrarily on northern Israel is morally deplorable. Mass civilian targeting by a highly-organized, trained, and precise national army and air force is regrettable but justifiable. NOW I get it. HUH? Is it me?

DELUSIONAL AMERICA

2006-08-08T13:14:00.000-04:00

Everyone told me while I was in Lebanon how the news etc is just crazy here. It is true.

I just got off the personal phone-call with a friend of my mother’s. He is a retired high ranking government official. I have had several similar conversations with people on email, on the phone and radio (I was on KPFK’s “Focus on the Middle East” last night), and elsewhere since my return. Many Arabs and Arab-Americans, usually petit-bourgeoisie and bourgeoisie regardless of religious affiliation, desperately want to believe that if the US public “really knew” what is going on in the Arab world they would change their opinion of what is happening in the Middle East. If they only got the real information, they would realize that Israel is not a democratic state; the Palestinians and Lebanese are not terrorists, etc. etc. etc.

Unfortunately, this is just not true. Apart from a silly false assumption that the news is not allowed to report “the truth” (whether because of a Zionist or some other conspiracy), the argument is more hopeful thinking than reality. These conversations have proved to me that Americans (of varied political persuasions) really have no interest in being self-critical or recognizing the political constellation of the region; they refuse to acknowledge that the American government is largely responsible for the configuration; and they refuse to believe that their fine and noble ally Israel really is under threat, is acting protect its vulnerable and cherished security, and would never engage in the abuses in which it is currently engaged and has engaged for half a century. It’s like that Freud patient who said, “I know Mommy doesn’t have a penis but really she does have one”. I mean, reality, not rhetoric, ideological acrobatics, or discursive constructs, is staring them in the face and they just refuse to see what is going on. If they acknowledge that Israel is an aggressor, if they acknowledge that Israel is a settler colonial state that has dispossessed millions and continually violates the human rights of millions, then the US’s own political if not moral position is undermined. They will have to take responsibility for the crisis in the Middle East, the rise of loathsome, right-wing religious extremism, and acknowledge that the reasons “they hate us” is because “we” have been screwing “them” for years.

Currently, my friend Prof. Mark Levine and I are involved in a debate with a few other Zionists on Beliefnet.com. You can see the debate at:

http://www.beliefnet.com/blogs/middleeastconflict/

THIS IS BUSH'S WAR

2006-08-08T13:13:00.000-04:00

We arrived yesterday at 3am to California. While there is much to be said about our journey, choc-full of ironies, I will refrain from now. Cut off for 4 days from news, I want to just put out some of the points and news that I have been reading and garnishing from talks with friends. We left on Friday, during which time we saw from the USS Whideybey Island (carrying the Marine 1st battalion Charlie Company, the same company used to attack Fallujah and also the same company blown up at the American Embassy in 1982) three or four pillars of smoke. Two around Zouq Mika’il. We learned that the Israelis were bombing communications (TV and phone) relays including that of TeleLumiere (the Catholic channel I have heard) and the large antenna next to my ancestral home in the northern mountain town of Ihden. Subsequently, communication by phone has been difficult but not impossible depending on the location and whether the line is land or cell.

Most of us knew that it would be “quiet” as Condalezza Rice’s visit was expected. I have been told that the Lebanese Bar Association (not a very radical group by any means) had demonstrated on the same day and many turned out for the quickly organized anti-Condi rally. There have been a few rallies in Lebanon and more scheduled including a DIE-IN as I understand it. I have heard that there were some in Canada but at the same time a Canadian comrade told me that they were “discouraged” if not turned down by the local government (in Ottawa I think) from having it. (If true, could someone write me from Canada and confirm?) Some Israeli comrades sent me an announcement for continuing demonstrations there. An activist from England informed me that her group was also doing a Die-in and was looking for a list (even partial) of the names of the dead. I wondered to her why can’t we have a LIVE-IN! A refusal to die or bend; a refusal of the lies and propaganda; and yes, a refusal of American imperialism through their lackey Israeli satellite (yes, Israel is nothing but a vicious, self-delusional guard dog for US interests).

The past days a few things have been made clear. Apart from the array of other breaches of international laws and human rights conventions, apart from their targeted killings of civilians, and now the targeted killings of UN observers, the Israeli Army is very likely using illegal chemical weapons, particularly phosphorous weapons that ignite fires that are can not be extinguishes. Hanadi Salman in al-Safir reported this quoting a Arab-French doctor, I think, before Pres. Lahoud and Ghazi Aridi mentioned it. Al-Nahar quotes Agence France Presse as having reported that Israel had used phosphorus incendiary bombs and implosion bombs, which suck up the air and collapse buildings (July 25), And even CNN’s Karl Penhaul reported rather sheepishly, after interviewing doctors in the South, that the injuries inflicted on many children and adults seemed to be from the same type of phosphorous weapons that the US admitted to using in Fallujah. On Sunday, I believe, the reporter did stress however non international convention prohibits them (which is a matter of interpretation) but there are conventions on inflicting “indiscriminate suffering”.

The UN's Jan Egeland condemned Israeli’s violence saying that it is “a violation of humanitarian law” and calling their actions “war crimes”. That was before The Guardian reported (July 25) that they Israelis also targeted a clearly marked Red Cross convoy in Sur (Tyre).
Furthermore, I confirmed many of the rumors that I was hearing most notably that the US sold Israel more jet fuel during the first of the bombings.

“The Pentagon notified Congress July 14 of an Israeli request to purchase up to $210 million in JP-8 aviation jet fuel for its military aircraft…..The jet fuel will be consumed while the aircraft is in use to keep peace and security in the region…. improve the security of a friendly country which has been, and continues to be, an important force for stability and economic progress in the Middle East.” (taken from defensenews.com)

More damaging is that the NY Times confirms on July 21st, “The Bush administration is rushing a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel, which requested the expedited shipment last week after beginning its air campaign against Hezbollah targets in Lebanon, American officials said Friday.” While the contents of the shipment are undisclosed, “an arms-sale package approved last year provides authority for Israel to purchase from the United States as many as 100 GBU-28’s, which are 5,000-pound laser-guided bombs intended to destroy concrete bunkers. The package also provides for selling satellite-guided munitions.”

The US is complicit in the carnage produced by Israeli targeting of children, women, elderly, and men in Lebanon (and Palestine). It seems that cracks in Israeli propaganda confirm that this has never been about two Israeli soldiers but a calculated and plan operation aimed at the destruction of Hizbullah, the deployment of an obviously ineffectual and weak Lebanese Army, the forcing of the more than willing pro-American (anti-Hizbullah and anti-Syrian) Lebanese government t into a peace with Israel, and a further isolation of Syria and undermining of Iranian influence in the region (if not sucking the these parties into a regional war where they could be bombed into submission by the US and Israeli military). That is, on July 16, Agence France Press reported that Israel that Defense Minister Amir Peretz said "We do not want to reoccupy Lebanon,…We do not want to get bogged down in the Lebanese quagmire." But today in the Jerusalem Post it is reported Peretz announced the plan to re-establish a “security zone” until Israel’s security can be guaranteed by an international force (that would be weak enough for it to roll over at will, no doubt).

It’s late and I have more to say but I am wiped probably like all the others who traveled four days, jumping from place to allow with little sleep and less notice. I’ll continue tomorrow. Thanks to friends, activists and journalists who are calling me up to contribute to the cause. Please continue to do so. If I can’t do or write something, I can point you to someone who can.

LOST IN THE PROCESS

2006-08-08T13:12:00.000-04:00

Friends, loved-ones, and sympathizers

I am currently in a Red Cross processing center in Philadelphia. My boys and I have been in transit for the past four days, throughout which timje I have been cut off from news from the ground. We evacuees and refugees have heard rumors and I have several emails from friends, sources, and comrades that I have yet to read. I have not heard about the other evacuations. I have heard nothing about Canada or Australia. I assume that many of those Canadians and Aussies are just waiting to get a call? We heard that the French are taking a lot out and I saw the Britons had sent a ship the day before I got out. The US has now made an open call for any American interested to be evacuated, s/he should just show up at Dbeyah (with food and water) ready to wait to get to a ship (Check the US Embassy Beirut website for the local press release). Also, I have heard that the Germans were the only country DENIED permission to evacuate via sea.

I can tell you three things at this time:

1. The situation in Lebanon is worsening. We were helicoptered to a battleship (actually a LSD) from where we saw Israeli jets attacked what I think was radio-tv transmitters and maybe a gas station (because the smoke was really black). The situation in the South is worsening and I have been told by friends in NGOs that their numbers have reached 750,000 and the resources are being stretched to accomodate them. The main suspension bridge in Lebanon (ultra modern by Lebanese standards) was completely wrecked and, I have read, that a few days ago three empty buses were destroyed on the Lebanese side of the border after they dropped off their passagers in Syria.

2. The general opinion of this "war" is insane. The Americans really don't believe or are shocked that Israel would TARGET innoncent civilians! Out of the 350 dead, one third of them have children.

3. The evacuation has been a long and emotional affair. I have so much to say but am torn. As a good friend and colleague, Patrick McGreevy, wrote in an editorial "We are NOT the Story".
However, it is all that I am qualified at this moment to discuss. Yet, right now, two more flights from Cyprus are coming into the center so I can't talk. I miss Lebanon. I miss my comrades and friends and am numb. But I must go and will write tomorrow. Our journey has been generally smooth but very long and very emotionally painful. I will write details tomorrow about how we were helicoptered out of the Embassy to a ship, adopted by a Marine who fought in Fallujah, brought to Cyprus and put up in the Fair Grounds, brought out in the middel of the night on a chartered plane and now plopped in a Red Cross center in the city of my birth. Off to California and then back on line.

Many of my right wing American Lebanese partners here on this trip, blessed America for the evacuation (while also being extremely selfish and rude to volunteers and fellow evacuees) and cursed Hizbullah for allegedly picking a fight with a "wahash" (beast). All I can say, while so many volunteers have been kind and yes the men and women of the Navy and Marines were extremely kind to me and my boys (perhaps even beyond the call of duty), ALL OF THIS COULD HAVE BEEN AVOIDED if Pres. Bush just picked up the phone and insisted Israel NOT indiscrimately bomb the Lebanese back into the Stone Ages.

We are all fine for those who care. And to those of you, both loved ones and strangers, who have sent your messages of support personally for me and in solidarity for the Lebanese people, these messages have meant a lot to all of us. Thank you and keep up the struggle. It's a long way up but we'll all get out of here.

MONDAY, JULY 24, 2006

LEAVING THE PARKING LOT OF LEBANON

2006-08-08T13:11:00.000-04:00

As Lebanon is turned into a parking lot and 500,000 refugees search how to live, my two children and I will be starting our journey to the US and in fact to a new life. We are going, in sort, as refugees. Only one bag each, relocating to the University of South Carolina, where I will be Associate Professor of Arabic literature and cultural studies.

Despite the intensification of the bombing in the South and Southern Suburbs, Beirut has been quieter during the day (mostly likely because the evacuations take place during the day). I fear that since the capital is not feeling as much heat daily now (at night we hear it more) that there will be less pressure on Israel to cease. After all, Beirut is “the ornament of the Arab world”. As Fisk said in his farewell, we look like you and act like you all in the West! Bombing high hem-lines and great bar districts looks bad. Bombing underdeveloped, predominantly Shi’a rural communities or slums, well, that is just sound policy to some.

Israelis are massing at the border. If this is posturing, it is one more miscalculation on their part as there is a general consensus that Hizbullah has repelled them several times. Even those who oppose the Party, who are loyal members of their opposition, begrudgingly admit to its apparent military success. If they do invade on the ground, however, the “war” in Lebanon will be protracted. They can not commitment a massive amount ground troops (as they are suggesting with calling up reserves today), invade, and then withdraw without the holding the Head of John the Baptist. Whether or not they invade, they are engaging in war crimes just by threatening a million civilians and forcing them to evacuate (giving civilians a 2 pm deadline to get out of the South).

I will write from the US when my boys and I arrive. To my loved-ones, friends, and all those comrades who have written in solidarity, I will call and write you as soon as I am able, which could be several days. Although I will be off-line, maintain the pressure on the US and other governments force Israel to cease this madness.

ATTAC SOLIDARITY

2006-08-08T13:10:00.001-04:00

ATTAC LUBNAN acknowledges and thanks the many ATTACs throughout Europe and North Africa who have organized demonstrations and sit-ins in solidarity with the suffering and victimization of the Lebanese people. We also appreciate their vocal and uncomprimising criticism of the State of Israel for their unvarnished aggression and disproportional retaliation against Lebanon, Lebanese civilians, and the Lebanon economy.

We personally have heard from at least ATTAC Belgium, ATTAC Poland, ATTAC Switzerland, and ATTAC France and also know that other ATTACs have been active.

Most recently, ATTAC Maghreb, ATTAC TUNIS, ATTAC LUBNAN, The Egyptian Anti-Globalization Association, and The Syrian Activists against Globalization have issues a strong statement condemning Israeli violence and calling on all ATTACs to protest in front of Israeli and American embassies to unconditionally cease Zionist aggression.

You can find an open letter (in French and English) from ATTAC Lubnan along with the aforementioned group-ATTAC call posted on ATTAC Lubnan's website (http://www.liban.attac.org/) as well as this blog. ATTAC Lubnan communiques can also be found on the website and will continued to be issued throughout the hostilities.

LEBANON/PALESTINE-ISRAEL and US-IRAQ

2006-08-08T13:10:00.000-04:00

In Lebanon, among Lebanese and expats, there has been shock that several polls in the US show that around 60% of Americans support Israeli pulverization of Lebanon, collective punishment, and terror on Lebanese civilians. UN Amb Lightening Bolt Bolten said that there is a moral difference between Israel's wanton destruction and massacres of Lebanese civilians and Hizbullah's arbitrary tossing of missiles into Israel.

I am really starting to understand how the NAZI's took control in Germany. Reasonable folk (let alone progressive ones) must have stood on in awe saying "This can't be real. This guy can't be saying this. People just don't believe this nonsense, do they?" But you know, they DID believe it.

The point is: Look at the way the Israeli offensive (militarily, politically, and strategically overall) has been carried out and the US invasion and occupation of Iraq has unfolded. There are many similarities. The US public largely supported that "war" too until even after the number of dead American soldiers reached 1000 (and is now well past 2000 let alone tens of thousands of Iraqs).

We are scheduled to be pulled out of here at 4 am. Thanks to the vocal protestation of mostly democratic senators and a lot of their constituents, we will be evacuated at the expense of...well us.. as American tax payers not tourists. See you on the other side and hoping for the best for ALL of us.

HEY! GUESS WHO'S NOT BEING EVACUATED TODAY??

2006-08-08T13:09:00.000-04:00

Yes! If you guessed the 150 foreign faculty of AUB (mostly families with children), you guessed correctly! Your prize? Another anxiety-ridden day in otherwise wonderful Beirut (and it really is wonderful when not being violated by Zionist aggression), you will be serenaded by F-16s on their bombing runs, drone planes, and the occasional cacophony (and a real caco too!) of bombing the Southern Suburbs. And more, you will be treated to the background of Chinook helicopters and a view of a fleet of battleships from several countries evacuating hopefully more serious cases of those who live in high-danger areas.

Apparently, Cyprus is chaos: a run on resources, rooms, and flights. The Americans really blew it again and I even heard that the Canadians (yes Canadians!) made a mess of things, failing to prioritize during the first days leaving pregnant women at the dock. (BTW: I have a pregnant American woman waiting to get out living across the hall.)

New plan: Tomorrow (Sat), 4:30 AM!!! Turkey or maybe Cyprus then from the airforce base there, chartered flights to the US. Tomorrow... Should I hold my breath? I am banking we are out of here as 4 am is maximum inconveniences but then again....

LAST UGLY UPDATE

2006-08-08T13:08:00.000-04:00

The tension in Lebanon is palatable. Israel determination to break the spirit of Lebanon is not succeeding. To the contrary. However, it is succeeding in demolishing the country and blowing its economy back into Fatimid era. The Israelis have successfully created an atmosphere of panic and paranoia.
I left Zico House and saw that a police had stopped a car and there was group of men (around 60-80) around it. I was with Ahmad from ATTAC, who has been involved in the relief from its first days. His own parents just arrived in Beirut from a small village outside of Sidon by taking treacherous back roads (I think from the South up through Baaklin). He saw his classmate Hiba (probably around 19 years old) and I saw our friend and fellow ATTAC member Wajih (18) being detained rather forcibly by plain clothed internal security. An angry mob was around the car, which also had two members (I think stringers) of the British network ITN. I tried to talk to Wajih but was not allowed. He asked me to contact his parents. Then tried to talk to the two from ITN but was not allow. It was so loud I couldn’t properly hear the name of the reporter (it ended up being Richard) but heard his network affiliation.
Wajih and Hiba were moonlighting as translators and guides for the ITN crew. They drove by Sanaya Gardens and the TV crew took pictures from the window of the car at which time a crowd of refugees surrounded the car. They seized Wajih and accusing them of being “Israeli agents”. By the time, Ahmad and I showed up, the police and internal security (lots of plain clothes security and secret police) were fighting with the refugees, Hizbullah and hoodlums from AMAL (who basically wanted to lynch these guys) for possession of the four.
During all of this, Ahmad was accosted by AMAL hoodlums when he was talking to Hiba by refugees at which time a plain clothed member of Hizbullah came to his aid. The same thing happened to me. I was roughed up a bit (but not hit and kicked like Ahmad) by AMAL thugs and about to be surrendered to the police because I said “I know Wajih” (therefore I must be a spy). I spoke in the heaviest Arabic accent that I could muster and told them that Wajih was my student and I was a professor at AUB. Once again, another Hizbullah member saved me and told me “Get out of here. It’s not your place. Go home.”
The mob was really angry and AMAL whipped them up more. At one point, someone from the mob grabbed the barrel of the M-14 of a fatigue clad policeman. It was crazy. I ran back and forth to the relief center, trying to get someone involved who knew about dealing with the police. At this point, I did not know what was going on. Who was who and coming from the US and living in Lebanon thought that this was a run of the mill case of police brutality and oppression. Finally, the car sped away with a whole convoy of police cars. Apparently, Hizbullah saved the four from being taken to an AMAL house and probably being beaten. They were first taken to a Hizbullah "safehouse" and then to the police station.
By this time, Ahmad was arrested as some member of the mob (the same one who got me) got him. By that time, I started to be able to identify secret policy. When I went back to Zico House, the cops were trying to close it because they said that an “agent” had run in there. At this point, I knew it was my time to got out of their as calmly but quickly as possible.
New TV reported that the police were holding four “spies” in their custody and that they came out of Zico House!
When I got home, I desperately tried to find out info about Wajih and the journalists but also knew that if I got ITN into it, Wajih and Hiba would be safe. Thanks to Michelle Woodword at MERIP in DC, ITN got a hold of me very quickly. The crew, Hiba, and Wajih were released and subsequently proceeded to an interview with Seniora who apologized to them.
The situation is messed up. Refugees (especially the macho guys sitting around with the women, elderly, and children) are amped up. The cops are always amped up. It was the first time that I was scared for my own safety but more for the safety of my friends. Israeli terror will not win but there is a cost to resistance, a psychological mind set that makes one distrustful and paranoid.

Quick UPDATE

First, the UN finally indirectly accused Israel of war crimes. I hope this is diplo-talk to tell them that they should stop this sh-t. Here is an article on the topic:

http://www.csmonitor.com/2006/0720/dailyUpdate.html

Second, there have been a lot of demonstrations all over the world in solidarity for the Lebanese people in the face of Israel’s war of terror. There was one held today outside the UN Headquarters called by an ad hoc coalitions of civil society groups. I was not there. I heard though that there were a “few hundred”, which probably means round 80-100 people, most Lebanese workers for NGOs and their friends.

REFUGEE RELIEF UPDATE

2006-08-08T13:07:00.000-04:00

I went to visit Zico House today. Wow! So many volunteers doing so many wonderful things. They are doing a great job. I spoke to a lot of friends and met some new folks too. This operation is now taking care of 10,000 refugees housed in 29 public schools. They are providing food, water, bedding clothes, baby food, diapers, hygiene accoutrements, medicine and medical care. It is a massive operation. Meals are cooked in a variety of places including pubs and restaurants like Rendez-Vous (I think, it’s in UNESCO).One student I know from AUB broke down one school in Burj Abi Haidar, which houses 150 refugees with 55 children under the age of two! There are three pregnant women and one among them could pop any day. A lot of other groups have volunteered and the Lebanese Communist Party, despite its ineffective nature and stale language, has opened up its considerable resources and organizing capacity to aid in the relief. There are refugees still in Sanaya Garden. I have heard stories (only second hand accounts) how the Police have tried to move them out because the wealthy neighbors don’t like refugees in the hood.

MUST BE SAID TO BUSH AND CLINTON..HILARY

2006-08-08T13:06:00.001-04:00

Just for the record, this must be said:

1. Israel is not the tail that shakes the dog. Its current invasion and terror campaign in Lebanon fits squarely in with US foreign policy (if that is what we can call the Bush Doctrine). Israel conveniently found an excuse (like the WMD issue) to try to wipe out one of its strongest opponents. I don't buy into the Israeli evil triumverant theory where Syria-Hamas-Hizbullah coordinate moves. Hizbullah and Hamas are two totally different types of organization. Whatever connection there might be, Israel has only to thank itself. In 1992, 400 Palestinian activists (`Abd al-`aziz al-Rantisi being among them), mostly political Islamists (, were deported to Lebanon and lived in a “no man’s land” between occupied southern Lebanon and Lebanese controlled territory. There, Hizbullah not only aided them but allegedly trained them in various sorts of techniques of resistance.

2. This Bush doctrine is psychotic.
3. Hilary Clinton and those democrats who are bending over backwards to support this invasion show that the Democrats have as little moral fiber as they do have backbone to stand up. Indeed, depite their tepid criticism of US “involvement” in Iraq, they too share in the privileges of the war spoils and war profiteering (including defense contracts to their constituencies).
4. Finally, while I am only hearing second hand info, those like Sen Pelosi and Kennedy have called Bush if not on the human tragedy of Lebanon at least on the Bush regime's inactivity regarding refugees and the civilian cost.

TONS OF BOMBS

2006-08-08T13:06:00.000-04:00

All Headline News Service reported today:

"Israeli warplanes dropped an estimated 23 tons of bombs into the southern suburbs of Beirut in daybreak airstrikes Thursday flattening buildings and a mosque. The latest attacks came after an Israeli jet hit a bunker believed to be used by Hezbollah leaders."

I guess when 22 tons is just NOT enough!

http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7004275085

I am really irrated right now. Lots happened at the Sanayah Garden. Friends arrested along with a stringer crew for the British ITN, accused of being Zionest agents by the Police and the secret police. Idiotic New TV, I've heard, reported that the police caught "spies".

FROM THE LEBANESE-SYRIAN BORDER

2006-08-08T13:05:00.000-04:00

Journalist, friend and my former-student, Paul Cochran got stuck in Syria and wrote me from the Syrian-Lebanese border. Apparently, “over 1,000 Palestinians are stuck in no-man's land by the Syrian duty free. They are being refused entry as they only have refugee IDs and no passports, and are sleeping on the grass outside and in themosque. Apparently they will return to Lebanon tomorrow [Thurs]…The humanitarian crisis is spiraling out of control.” Also, he “ talked to a bus driver [who told him that] it took 9 hours to get from Beirut to the border using the mountain roads.” It is usually a two hour drive. Furthermore, “Flights are hard to get, with a five day waiting list insome cases. Those without cash are staying in orphanages, monasteries, and schools.”

US-ISRAELI MISCALCULATING HIZBULLAH....AGAIN

2006-08-08T13:04:00.000-04:00

The American media is just catching onto the fact that you can’t crush the spirit of resistance or Hizbullah for that matter with violence. In fact, every day that Hizbullah lasts they get more popular even among non-Shiites and even among non-Muslims (and Druze)! Israel finally entered ground troops into Lebanon. It reported on Arab media that Hizbullah actually repelled them for two or three days, inflicting high causalities (I heard six Israeli soldiers killed yesterday alone). However, Israeli TV (which is occasionally picked up my Lebanese channels) also showed this yesterday, airing footage of wounded Israeli soldiers!

Just for the record, I don’t like Hizbullah. They are Lebanon’s version of the religious right…to some degree. I think that the religious right in the US and in the White House is far more dangerous. They resemble the sort of Midwest puritanical American religious right that has existed since the religious revival in the early 1800’s (yes 1800’s not 1900). Like that religious right in the US, their moralism comes out of a reaction to the alienation brought on by capitalism and modernity (e.g. consumerism, the seeming “loss” of spirit in the commodification of one’s life, the destruction of communal networks, etc.). I do think that they act irresponsibly sometimes and their stalwart defense of Syria was at times absurd albeit a political necessity for them and not as absurd as the asinine as the loyalty of Lebanese Baathists, fascist Syrian Nationalists, and feudal overlord Sleiman Franjieh. I think that capturing the two Israelis was foolish as it was probably a trap set by the Israelis to justify this offensive. However, any and all Lebanese have the right to organize and carry out military and/or political action against Israel. We must remember, Israel
- regularly violates Lebanese airspace and bombs positions in the South even in 2006 and even without “provocation”.
- illegally occupied Lebanese territory (Shebaa Farms).
- illegally holds tens of Lebanese in prison inside Israel.
- still has never provide a map of tens of thousands of landmines they laid in the South.
Let’s not even get into Palestine for the moment!

Had the Lebanese Forces done this to Syria to free the tens of Lebanese still in Syrian prisons, the international community certainly would not stand by to let Syria destroy Lebanon and target its civilian population.

Despite my own distaste for the party, Hizbullah is a democratic party and the leaders have achieved their position within that party through merit. Much to the chagrin of many of their “democratic” neo-liberal opponents in Lebanon and abroad, they are one of the few parties in Lebanon that are completely clean of corruption. They are far more sophisticated, tolerant, and intelligent than Hamas or certainly the fascistic Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic Jihad, “Qa’idah” (whatever that means) and their like. Early on in their existence, they were smart enough (coming from a pluralistic society) to drop the goal of an Islamic Republic. They have no desire to control non-Shiite communities or compel them to follow the dictates of their narrow interpretation of their sect.

All of that said, the point is this:

Israel and the US have to learn that the massive and calculated targeting of civilian targets and infrastructure in Lebanon only strengthens Hizbullah. Israeli aggression and US endorsement (through military and political aid) of it only gives credibility to Hizbullah. With every day they hold out, with every casualty they inflict on Israeli forces and yes, sadly, with every rocket they heave into Israel, they become more stronger and more credible. The pro-American government has lost what little credibility it has and only the most loyal followers are behind it, fumbling for words and excuses to defend Seniora-Hariri’s passivity.

Israel has expanded the offensive to attacking the Lebanese Army, which is really a joke. We should tell the Lebanese Ministries of Defense and Interior that the Israelis are really Lebanese in disguise, protesting for democratic change and social justice in the Arab world. Then, , the Lebanese government will jump into action. (I can tell you how the government with 24 hours notice deploys the Army, the police AND the Special Riot Force when any progressive group has a demonstration! Usually the Army and internal security forces outnumber protesters three to one. NO joke.) The point being is that the Lebanese Army gets their butt kick and in the eyes of the Lebanese, while the family members, friends, cars, buses, trucks, ambulances buildings, bridges, and factories are being blown up around them, they see Hizbullah standing.
For those of you who think that Israel controls American blah blah blah, that is silly. Israel is the perfect little client state of the US. Look at how they are spinning their invasion. It is exactly out of the US Iraq War Play Book. But like in Iraq, this is not a war on terror but a war using terror for Israeli political ends. There is no “surgical bombing”. The blocks and blocks of destroyed apartment buildings, homes, factories, offices, bridges, etc show that this is a strategic war on the Lebanese people.

THANK YOU and the STRUGGLE CONTINUES

2006-08-08T13:03:00.000-04:00

We were told that AUB will be evacuated tomorrow (Thurs) but I just got a message from a well-connected friend who told me that the evacuation will be “postponed for logistical reasons”. Israel really started to heat things up in this area. I heard several extraordinarily loud explosions around 8 pm local time. I wonder if Israel is playing games.

We will only know tomorrow. AUB will tell us then. The University is also providing a travel allowance to its employees. They really have stepped up and folks Provost Peter Heath, Vice President of Administration James Radulski, the Deans of the respective faculties (mine being Dean Khalil Bitar), and Prof. John Maloy (who watched out for the foreign students) along with the rank and file staff, who braved the situation to be here and made everything work, have to be commended.

Let me write now, just in case it is true that we are being evacuated, that I will be off-line for a while. I don’t know what time we are leaving campus. There will be more than 140 faculty and their children. As one friend said, we are leaving “holding our noses” how we have to leave. Taking a ship under the protection of the same Department of Defense and Department of State that is funding and arming the aggressor in this war is sickening. I heard though that there was such a stink in the US that they will not be charging us for the ride although AP reported today (July 19, 2006) that evacuees “Americans were asked to sign promissory notes to pay for the trip before they could leave.” If they ask me, I am going to point South and say “Hey there goes my promissory notes out of that American made and paid for F-16 dropping a freakin’ bomb on the Beirut International Airport forcing me to be on this damn boat in the first place!”

Yes, I am angry. I’m bloody irate. For now, I have too much to do. I am going to dump as much as I can tonight onto the blog. It has not been uploading well so hopeful it will work. Then when I get to the US and electronic again, I’ll pick up the struggle.

Finally, I do want to thank EVERYONE who has written me, forwarded stuff to me, help disseminate information of the ruthlessness of this inhumane offensive, and helped me get the word out about refugee relief. It has made a difference although the US has done nothing to temper Israel’s policy of terror. (Speaking about Israeli terror, I might have an op-ed piece coming out in NPR but I don’t know. Keep an eye out). YOUR friendship, love, and comradery kept me sane during this insane time.

That said, for all of your media, activists, and comrades who have questions, want interviews, op-ed pieces, contacts here from me or better from those on the ground in Lebanon, I can continue to facilitate those contacts. Email me and I’ll make those things happen.

Until then, I’ll see you on the other side angrier and more sarcastic than ever but at least my two beautiful boys will be safe from undiscerning and indiscriminate Israeli bombing. Much love to you all. KEEP WRITING YOUR REPRESENTATIVES, YOUR PRESIDENTS, YOUR PRIME MINISTERS! Attend rallies (there are quite a few and if there aren’t any, make one!). Protest in front of your local Israeli mission! Spread the word and put pressure on Israel to stop this massacre.

CRUISE MISSILES!

2006-08-08T13:01:00.000-04:00

The press is making it out that the evacuation is some sort of joy ride of a “luxury cruise liner” (MSNBC)! I’m livid. My even more livid mother just wrote me too:

I saw people on the "cruise ship. It is a hell hole. Be prepared to stand the entire distance. If you have any water take it. No food or water and they are trying to get rooms on Cyprus but it is a strain so you are right.

The Norwegians carried and fed all people.

Hey Mom, the Norwegians have an economy that is not based on underwriting the most usurious and unethical war profiteers. When they pay their taxes, they get something that is foreign to the US, real security, education, health care, public services and a “social security”, which translate into a reasonable standard of living for all of their population. And they are not as rich as Sweden even!

And by the way, do you know that the Israelis actually detained the “Orient Queen” (AKA Flaming Rag-Head) on Tuesday because it was carrying Lebanese citizens?! What?! Is Hizbullah now vacationing on Greek cruises? And get this, the BBC reported that a spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry actually took credit for "stupendous amount of coordination" to arrange for ships to evacuate foreigners from some twenty countries. AAAAAAH. How does one express being speechless on a blog? What the…? They create a human tragedy of massive proportions, massacre hundreds of people, tens of them being children under the age of 12, dispossess 500,000 people, then they congratulate themselves on how helpful they were in facilitating an evacuation that they made imperative. Is it me? But hey, at least we get a cruise ship that will take us to Cyprus where my six and twelve year old son can wait anxiously as refugees, traveling to the US carrying only a back pack full of clothes. Thanks Israel. Great job. I’d hate to see if you weren’t helpful!

DEMONSTRATION

2006-08-08T13:00:00.000-04:00

I am pleased that there are lot demonstrations going on world wide. Even in Israel, 2000 comrades protested Israel blind aggression. It is a little upsetting though because Gaza has been under this sort of relentless bombing for some time with much less reaction even in the Arab world. That said, perhaps this will be a catalyst to make connections between the indiscriminant use of violence for political ends by imperialist powers in Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq.

There will be an demonstration here in Beirut tomorrow JULY 20 organized by a coalition of civil society organizations called "Lil Hayat" (For Life) in front of the UN House in Riad El Solh Square in Beirut at 11am. The demonstration will then march to the European Union Headquarters.

Lebanonexpats.org compiled this list of demonstrations below. I am only posting those that will occur not those that have been held.

Everyday
France / Paris Place de Trocadéro : Rassemblement tous les jours de 18h à 21h.Wednesday July 19, 2006
Australia, Sydney - (12 noon - 3PM), at Wynyard Park on York Street Sydney (behind Wynyard station).
Canada / Edmonton Alberta - Rally at (noon) in front of the Albreta Legislature Building
Canada / Ottawa - Rally at (7PM) in front of the parleament hill in ottawa
Canada / Toronto - (8PM)The Youth Group of Our Lady of Lebanon Church is inviting you for a night of prayers for our beloved Lebanon & its great people (Dead & Alive). Location: Our Lady of Lebanon Church. 1515 Queen St. West. Toronto – 416.534.7070 Kuwait - (5:30PM) location coming soon
Switzerland / Geneva - (6 PM) Pont du Mont-Blanc, Jardin Anglais
USA / Boston - (4-7pm) at Gibran Khalil Gibran's sculpture which is at Coplay Place, Boston. People who need more information can email lailakobrossy@hotmail.com or call Laila on 1 857 891 9246.
USA / LA - (4:00 PM to 6:00 PM) Israeli Consulate in Los Angeles 6380 Wilshire Blvd, LA (near Wilshire & San Vicente) Contact (323)
464-1636 for more information
USA / Florida - (12 PM) Place: Turlington Hall - University of Florida
USA / Washington DC - (11 AM) - Freedom Plaza in Downtown DC
USA / Seattle - (5 PM)- Westlake Park

Thursday July 20, 2006
Germany, Stade - (2PM and 3PM) Street: Am Sande
Qatar - (8:30PM) at the Lebanese school.
Senegal / Dakar - (11:00AM) with lebanese senegalese and representative of foreign ambassies
Spain / Madrid - (7:30 PM) from Puerta del Sol to Plaza de Ópera (Isabel II).
Spain / Barcelona - (8:00 PM) Plaça Sant Jaume
Spain / Tarragona - (7:30 PM) Rambla Nova. Estatua dels Despullats
Spain / Lleida - (8:00 PM) Plaça Paeria

Saturday July 22, 2006
Australia, Adelaide - (12PM) at Parliment
house in Adeliade, and may lead to a march thru to Victoria Square.
Australia, Melbourne - (1PM) at the state Library in the city
on Swanston Street
Australia, Canberra - (12:30PM) at the Garema Place
Canada, Ottawa - (11AM) in front of the parleament in ottawa
and we will march to the canadian prime minister office
France, Dijon - (13:30) Place Darcy
Germany, Munich - (3:30 PM) Kalsplatz
Germany, Hanover - Kröpcke Strass
Germany, Frankfurt - (2 PM) - Homburger Landstrasse/Ecke
Friedberger Warte (contact: Tel.: 0172 519 84 13 , 0152 051 251 25, 0162 932 8304 )
Hong Kong - (11:00 AM) in central station Hong Kong
Netherlands, Amsterdam - At the Beursplein
Stockholm/kungstådgården - (1pm)
UK / London - (12PM) march from Parliment sqare to Marble Arch
UK - (12 noon) Whitehall Palace (Embankment Tube)
Sunday July 23, 2006
Vienna - (4PM) center of Stephansplatz
Monday July 24, 2006
France, Valence - rassemblement à 19h à l'Hôtel de Ville.

POWER TO THE PEOPLE

2006-08-08T12:55:00.001-04:00

Volunteers are holding these refugee centers together. We are not hearing enough about this. Apart from the fact that no one knows where Israel will strike next (milk factories, lorries carry food, well-drill truck, homes, businesses, etc), these volunteers are putting in 12-18 hour days. As much as I dislike them, some members of international community (notably the Saudia, Kuwait, and the EU), and some organizations, namely ther rightist populist Tayyar of Aoun, have been generous in providing aid. There is also a lot of anecdotal information how local neighborhoods are assisting refugees housed in their local public schools. I can't confirm this but I know personally that a lot of folks have asked me where they can go to donate food and clothes. Moreover, mostly Lebanese and a handful of expat NGO workers in Lebanon, are making these operations work.

Despite this outpour and despite the fact that these refugees are hardened by Israeli aggression and in fact determined not to have that aggression break their spirit as it has their homes and ability to earn a living, one wonders though how long will food and clean water be available. The local Fire Departments are providing water but it management is a problem. The condition are crowded, extremely hot, and worsening.

Apparently, there is already a problem in securing medicine, while medical doctors fron all over the country have stepped up to provide their assistance.

To avoid problems, I have heard that non-governmental public health specialists will be meeting to try to organized the refugees to organize themselves in the schools as sort of small collectives, where they can manage their own health needs including personal hygiene, delegating responsibilities in keeping their facilities clean, healthy and safe, and managing water, fuel, and food resources. This will prevent communicable diseasesand other avoidable health hazards as well as empower the refugees to run theirown affairs in their respective schools.

At first, many people were criticizing Hizbullah for picking a fight with a beast that knows no boundaries, that has never discerned between civilian and military targets. But in the past days, despite the cowardly rhetoric of the Lebanese government, Fu’ad Seniora, Saad Hariri, Elias Atallah, Walid Jumblatt and others, rhetoric that stops short of endorsing the invasion, I do see a growing defiance of the Lebanese which crosses confession and political affiliation. This defiance will not only break the back of unrelenting and inhumane Israeli aggression but may also break the back of the traditional and neo-feudal oligarchy that so anxiously pushes Lebanon into the neoliberal world. Nahnu samidun!

AUB and Refugees

2006-08-08T12:55:00.000-04:00

A lot of faculty (usually foreign) criticize the administration of AUB. They must be congratulated however in this time. They have done their best to keep folks affiliated with the University safe.

Moreover, after foreigners evacuate, they are going to open up the vacant apartments to faculty, doctors, and staff who live in unsafe parts of Beirut. This is significant as MANY of the workers at AUB are from the South and Bekaa and work in shifts (three 12/hr days, AUB) then off two or three days etc) at which time they go back to their villages and towns in the Mountain, South, and al-Bekaa.

There has been no information released to Americans from the Embassy and any information that Americans, in or outside the University, receive is through the American or Lebanese media. In contrast, the AUB administration, not known for its transparency or clarity of operations, has remained calm and organized. Moreover, the staff and highest levels of the administrations have been open, patient, and generous. In a situation with little good happening, this must be noted.

Refugee Update

2006-08-08T12:53:00.000-04:00

I just spoke to my friends involved in refugee relief. This is the latest.

Currently, there are more than 16,000 refugees housed throughout Beirut in twenty-five schools. The grassroots coalition is assisting 8000 of them and expect the number to reach 10,000 today. The logistics are handled out of Zico House, next to Sanaya Public Park, where two days ago there were 350 refugees sleeping out in the open. Other non-governmental agencies are handling the remaining including the great efforts of the Lebanese Red Cross. These groups are providing food and water, medicine and medical assistance, clothes, bedding and toys. Today, psychologists were brought to help the children cope. The coalition’s media center is based in the documentary center Beirut DC in Furn al-Chubbak.

The government has done NOTHING! One high ranking Army office said that the Lebanese Army donated 20,000 rations, which were kept by the government, who only released 100! While this may be rumor, what is know is that virtually all refugee relief is being conducted by non-government groups and agencies. Basically, the only thing they did is give official permission to relief agencies to open up public schools. In other words, they gave the school principles permission to open the schools for refugees. Even the AUB administration called today for a meeting of how we can help. I assume that the University will open up the empty apartments on campus (mostly those vacated by those fortunate enough to be evacuated….eventually) to Lebanese faculty who can’t be evacuated.

There is a need of donations but more so they are urging everyone to put political pressure on Israeli embassies and the US government to immediate cease the violence as a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions is imminent.

No Evacuation News For Amercicans...No Evacuation at all for Lebanese!

2006-08-08T12:52:00.000-04:00

This is what the Embassy emailed us today:

"The US Department of State and the US Department of Defense continue working on a plan to help American citizens who wish to depart Lebanon to leave in a secure and orderly manner. To assist in the development of that operation, the U.S. Government is sending an assessment team to Beirut to facilitate the safe departure of Americans who wish to leave."

In other word, no information. They've sent us the virtually the same message for the past several days. They are releasing no concrete information. There is to some degree a state of panic among Americans. The conflicting news we receive from relatives abroad, friends in other parts of the country, US media, and live Lebanese media has created confusion and worry.

The Ambassador announced that 350 hardship cases were helicoptered out yesterday and 1000 were scheduled to be taken to Larnaca on the Queen Orient. AUB is organizing the names of foregners to get out and I have been told that we won't be evacuated today. But that same person told me that there were no evacuations of Americans planned at all for today. In the meantime, we know a handful of Lebanese Americans (both Muslims and Christians but hey no Druze!!! but who are not hardship cases) were called to Dubayeh I assume to be airlifted out by helicopter.

I have heard that Sen. Pelosi and Ted Kennedy as well as a few other Democrats have been protesting this slow pace of the evacuation. The former, I have been told, is calling this a Katrina in the making. I confess that, considering Israel’s bellicose threats and intensification bombing throughout the country (which I will talk about later), the Senator might be correct. In the past week, when the American expressed a wish to evacuate Americans by commercial planes using the quickly repaired airport, the Israelis bombed it. When the French announced that they were going to evacuate their citizens from Jounieh’s port, the Israelis bombed it. Seven fleeing Canadians were killed in their car in the South and several non-Western nationals have been killed. Indeed, the significant amount expatriates and foreign nationals (numbering in the tens of thousand) are pawns in Israel’s campaign of terror, a campaign which the US has clearly signed onto to further their own political agenda in the region.

Despite the atmosphere of near panic among many Americans here, I do believe that most American citizens (who want) will be evacuated although it is infuriating that the Marines/Embassy took the well-off or middle class, mostly white, summer study-abroad American students first! By Helicopter, at that!!!! Leaving those Americans with children! Most of these students (no joking) are in training for the State Department and CIA anyway. If nothing else GW’s got to get those “kids” back in time for mid-term elections.

As I said before, however, our plight is one of saving the petty-bourgeois and bourgeois expatriates and Lebanese-Americans here. But we CAN get out (if Israel permits). Despite the terror on the roads even from Beirut to the border, friends of mine have taken a bus to Syria, some deciding to go to Damascus (which I hear is a mad house with no flights) and a few others, more sage and adventurous, are going to Turkey. I have heard that the bus drivers have a relay system, checking the safety of the roads to the frontier every five minutes. This communication is clearly essential as we see that the Israelis bombed a convoy of ambulances and several trucks coming from Syria.

The real HUMAN TRAGEDY is the plight of thousands of Lebanese. Currently, there are a half a million refugees! There are also several calls from whole populations of villages in the South, trapped, unable to make it out, unable to make it to refugee centers, relatives, or major cities (which themselves are not very safe in the South). Whole villages are sending out desperate calls. They have no food, no water, no electricity, no fuel, and no sewer. Thousands are trapped, literally. The Israelis have literally demolished all infrastructure that could get them out, trapping them physically and geographically. But also, the Israelis have shown that they will not restrain from attacking refugees fleeing. On the other hand, trapped families are not safe in their homes either as there have been several incidents of Israeli bombs, launched not from gun ships but fighter planes, destroying homes with their families sleeping inside. Just yesterday, in the town of Srifah, ten houses were bombed, killing nineteen Lebanese, a Sri Lankan, and Sudani. This is a repeat of what happened in ‘Aytrun and Salaa, also in the South, where several children, their mothers and fathers were killed when their houses were bombed.

Americans (French, Australians, Britons, Canadians and other foreign citizens) will eventually get out. One can only hope that there will not be any “accidents” in the process or that Hizbullah won’t be pushed to desperate acts and threaten evacuating civilians. Despite their haphazard lobbing of missiles into Israel, I do trust their discretion more that Israel’s….BY FAR!

I suspect when all the foreigners are out, Israel will really take of the gloves and those who can't leave, will suffer for a considerable period.

NOTES FROM THE FIRST DAYS OF AGGRESION

2006-08-08T12:48:00.000-04:00

Sidon, Tyre, Nabitiyah and other smaller villages are being hammered. Reports of many casualties. Also, refugees fleeing on foot or taking back roads because all major and minor arteries are dangerous and most bridges destroyed. The densely populated neighborhood of Harat Hreik in Beirut is being pounded because that is where Hizbullah TV (al-Manar) and their HQ are (as if any one from the party is actually in the compound!) [Personal note: My son’s Arabic and French tutor lived next to al-Manar. Her house is no more. I wonder how that happened?]

The Lebanese government is completely unpreparted to handle the influx of refugees. By Sunday (July 16) there were 5000 in Beirut (350 sleeping outside in Senayah Public Park). There was no governmental aid. Rather, grassroots groups, NGOs, the UN, and the Lebanese Red Cross jumped into action doing their best.

Israelis air raid several army positions including the one near Falugha knocking out cell phones in The Mountain but also in the north near Batroun at Wajh al-Hajar. Also, the northern second airport of Lebanon bombed at Hamat. Causalities reported.

Beirut, Tripoli and Jounieh’s commercial port (Beirut the major port of the Eastern Med) bombed. Also, fuel reserves at Jiyeh’s power plant as well as fuel depots at the airport destroyed. (I suppose that the Israelis fear that we’ll make them into very big Molotov cocktails? Ya rayt.)

Demonstrations were held in protest of Israeli aggression and solidarity with the Lebanese people in Iraq and Gaza (as well as places like Bangladesh). Can you believe these people? Their countries are being ravished by violence and still they have the courage and energy to protest for cushy Lebanon! As we say in Arabic, I am humbled by their generosity.

Personal Facet of Siege

2006-08-08T12:46:00.000-04:00

On a personal note, there are many facets of the seige of Lebanon.

The political, social, regional, local and humantarian aspects of Israel's current aggression against the people of Lebanon. As a scholar of the Middle East, a left-wing activist, and an Arab Lebanese-American, I will write facts and analysis later.

However, for now, I want to comment on some personal issues about the seige, from the perspective of being a fourth generation Arab-America, with two beautiful children, left to the arbitrary and reckless whims of Israel.

My family and I are relative safe, living in the protected campus of the American University of Beirut. The neighborhood is a distance from the relentless and merciless boming of the Southern Suburbs and the South (although bombing of the suburbs, port, lighthouse, and airport are very audible along with the constant drone of warplanes). Travel is dangerous but we are safe and confident that the Israelis will have discretion not to bomb AUB and infuriate their American sugar-daddy. That said, trapped on campus with tens of whiny American students, from privleged background, can get irritating.

For me as a father and as an American (who had to learn Arabic in my 20s), I am furious, but not surprised, that the American government has allowed Israel to have no restaint and completely destroy Lebanon's infrastructure, terrify its population, and massacre now 2oo hundred Lebanese and Palestinian men, women, and children, many of them in flight.

Furthermore, we have heard VERY LITTLE from the Embassy here. Rumors are flying around. Many other embassies have been in contact with their expatriate citizens (even those like the Swedes who have 5000 living here!). We learn things from the daily, vague press release on the Embassy website and occasionly through the AUB adminstration. Much of the rumor and information comes from relatives in the US and US media outlets.

What we do know is that we will have to PAY for our evacuation to Cyprus. We are leaving literally with the clothes on our backs, only allowed to carry 30 pounds each! The financial losses and strain of Israeli aggression for the Lebanese is going to be mind-boggling but also on a personal note it will have hurt many of us Americans as well.

But the issue is NOT the out-of-pocket expenses. This is minor in the end even for the poorest of us. What is enraging is that the US can spend billions of dollars on an illegal and unfavorable war in Iraq, it can arm and aid Israel to carrying atrocities against the Palestinians, provides them the bombs, planes, helicopters, logistics, and political support to carry out violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and it can find funds underwrite big business in the US, but it can't flip the bill to evacuate its OWN citizens WHO PAY FOR THESE THINGS? I mean, who pays for the US military, which is the largest defense budget in the world? The US government dedicates more funds to defense than health care, education, and housing combined! What do you call evacuating its own citizens if not defense?!!! This is ridiculous and offensive.

Most of my American colleauges here, who are rather conservative on both domestic and international politics agree. In the meantime, the hundreds of Norwegians and 1200 French were evacuated today and yesterday to Larnaca on a ship similar to the “Queen Orient” (great name! geez, why not call it Rag-Head Express?). When they arrive there, they will be flown directly to their respective countries on the tab of their governments!

There is much more to be said about the personal aspect but I don't wan to be like so many other Americans, whing how bad it is as tens of thousands of Lebanese really have it so much worse. In the end, trauma and terror of my children aside, we can get out. Many can't and eating, drinking, and surviving day to day is the real question here.

Besieged in Lebanon: ATTAC LEBANON's OPEN LETTER

2006-08-08T12:45:00.000-04:00

Beseiged in Lebanon

Below find an Open Letter from the alternative globalization and progressive grassroots action group ATTAC LUBNAN:

OPEN LETTER FROM BESEIGED BEIRUT MONDAY JULY 17, 2006 NOT A BATTLE OF EQUALS
Regardless of how one sees Hizbullah's kidnapping of Israeli soldiers (a tactic that they learned from Israeli itself) and its subsequent defense of Lebanon, Israel's response has been an egregious violation of international law and human rights conventions including the Fourth Geneva Convention. We in ATTAC LUBNAN protest to the international community against this gratuitous use of excessive force in Lebanon, the disregard for human life, the deliberate destruction of civil infrastructure, and a calculated plan by Israel to cause a humanitarian crisis of massive proportions. Furthermore, we protest that no US or Western mainstream media outlets, let alone few governments, have reported that this aggression is not only illegal and a contravention of human rights conventions but beyond the pale of any “civilized” nation let alone one that receives billions of dollars in aid from the United States not to mention trade privileges in North America and Europe. Israeli officials have admitted that this offensive has been planned for some time. The truth is that the civilian population of Lebanon, its civil and economic infrastructure, and its overall economy for the next several years are all currently being held as ransom to push Israel’s political agenda. This agenda includes the disarming of Hizbullah and full implementation of 1559 and might also include provoking Syria into an expanded regional war, which would allow the US to open up a full air campaign to target Bashar al-As’ad’s ossified, authoritarian regime and to eliminate through force Iran’s nuclear program. The United States, Great Britain, EU and G8 have virtually exonerated Israel of the massive amount of violence and bloodshed that it is inflicting on Lebanon. Most news agencies are reporting this offensive as if it were a battle between equals. This is NOT a battle of equals. On Sunday, "8 killed in Haifa" was the BBC's and other US media's headline while at the same time 15 children, women, and men were TARGETED and KILLED by the Israeli army. Since that time scores of other innocent civilians mostly children, women, and elderly have been massacred in their homes or in their cars fleeing. This is NOT a battle of equals where 16 Israelis dead equal more than a 184 dead Lebanese, the COMPLETE destruction of Lebanese infrastructure, and millionsLebanese and several tens of thousands of foreigners being held hostage. ON THE GROUND, On the ground, a grassroots coalition leftists and secular groups have now been transformed into a relief service for refugees able to flee the Southern Suburbs or al-Dahiyah with several non-political social groups and NGOs joining in. The Seniora government has taken its time to alleviate the mounting humanitarian and refugee crisis. The government is clearly split with half, including the bloc with which Minister Mouawad and Seniora’s ruling coalition are associated, indirectly and tacitly supporting the siege in hopes of breaking their most well-organized, well-funded, and disciplined opponent, Hizbullah. Consequently, Beirut and all of Lebanon is under a complete state of siege and the Southern Suburbs, which is bearing the brunt of the attack, at least in Beirut, is deserted. What roads, highways, tunnels and bridges have not been destroyed, are highly unsafe as we have learned in Marwaheen where fifteen innocent men, women and children were massacred in their cars on Saturday and several others killed fleeing in their cars since. It is not ironic that they were refugees fleeing their village at the command of the Israeli army only to be executed in their vehicles in flight. When the Guardian reports that Brigadier General Dan Halutz announced today (July 17) that “Nowhere (in Lebanon) is safe” in Lebanon, we clearly see that Israel is carrying out not a military campaign against a sovereign enemy but in fact a clear and deliberate policy of terror in Lebanon.. Mimicking every occupation army in the 20th century, they callously blame all Lebanese civilian causalities and deaths on Hizbullah, asserting they “provoked” Israel’s “justified” retaliation. Isn’t this what Shaykh Nasrallah says when her refers to the tens of Lebanese and thousands of Palestinians in Israeli prisons. Isn’t this the logic of the “resistance” to punish, retaliate or fight Israel who illegally engages in multiple forms of collective punishment not only in their siege of another sovereign country (Lebanon) but also in the past several weeks in Gaza? Yet, Hizbullah’s retaliations if not aimed at military personal is careless throwing a handful of missiles into Israel, praying for them to do damage. Contrarily, Israel has engaged in targeting civilian homes, neighborhoods, cars, minibuses, and fleeing pedestrians with F-16s, Apache helicopters and gunships. The consequence in Lebanon is that most people can't or won't go from town to town to safer ground, as it seems as dangerous to move as to stay put. Consequently, cities and villages in the South such as Sidon, Tyre, and Nabatiyah are completely isolated and cut off. Millions of Lebanese along with tens of thousands of foreign nationals are stranded throughout the country. The pounding of al-Dahiyah, the international airport, and the port is clearly audible throughout Beirut along with an almost constant drone of warplanes over head, dropping flyers whose adolescent, silly, and juvenile quality ALMOST makes one wish for bombs! In addition to a naval and air blockade that is being actively enforced by nightly bombing of several Lebanese ports, Israel has carefully destroyed all land routes leading to Syria except one remaining corridor to the North. Previously, many of us not living in the South or the Southern Suburbs were tense but felt confident that Israel would concentrate on those areas. However, Saturday’s immense attack proved us wrong. The air offensive hit every part of the country. To date (Monday July 17), the Israel air force has bombed regularly the ports of Beirut (which is right next to the cities downtown and bordering densely populated residential areas in East Beirut, Tripoli, and Jounieh ports. In addition to major bridges and civilian fuel supplies to the airport and electricity power plants, they bombed Lebanese Army airport and radar posts but also civilian-owned telecommunications infrastructure. R’as Beirut was hit for the first time on Saturday when Israelis in American made and paid for Apache helicopters blew up the civilian lighthouse on the Corniche (only about 200 meters from the American University). Tyre, Sidon, Nabitiyah and other towns in the South along with densely populated and extremely impoverished al-Dahiyah are however bearing the full force of Israeli aggression as they have been subjected to a relentless and merciless siege by air and sea since Wednesday July 12. These areas along with rural villages have suffered the lion’s portion of the civilian causalities, which has now reached almost two hundred in only six days. REFUGEES AND REFUGEE RELIEF On Saturday, the Lebanese Army shut down an "Open Sit-In" (camp out) in Martyr'sSquare that the coalition of secular progressive groups, including ATTAC LUBNAN, launched on Wednesday in solidarity with the Palestinians under siege in Gaza. Ironically, the Israelis chose to make us comrades of those who have been suffering a horrific siege in Gaza. The Lebanese Army shut us down because we (between 30-100 people at any given time) were camped near the main artery and bridge between East and West Beirut and they feared that it too would be destroyed. Fortunately, this sit-in provided us with a ready made working group that transformed quickly into an on-the-ground and virtually spontaneous refugee relief coalition. See http://sanayehreliefcenter.blogspot.com/ This coalition was sorely needed in the first days of the Israeli offensive. The pro-American Lebanese government and Nayla Mouawad, the Minister of Social Affairs, have done little for these refugees. Only Saturday and Sunday, the government sent out “officials” to ask what is needed only to disappear and never be heard from again. Only yesterday, Monday June 17 did the government open up public schools for these refugees to sleep. These refugees, many among the poorest communities in Lebanon, have few safe places to go as most of them are from the southern Lebanon, which is both inaccessible and equally dangerous. Currently, the coalition based in Beirut’s progressive Zico House and Nadi al-Liqa report that there are several thousands of refugees spread out in twenty-five of public schools in R’as al-Naba’, Hamra, Karakas, and elsewhere. Currently, there are 350 refugees in Sanaya public garden, mostly women, children, and elderly, sleeping without shelter. The coalition has been providing some with food and bedding. However, they are desperately short of food stables, dried milk, baby-formula, sleeping mats, clothes, diapers, and medicine as well as adequate medical assistance. We, ATTAC LUBNAN, urge our friends and comrades and all people of conscience to action for Lebanon. We urge you to contact your government and local representatives, whether in Europe, North America, Asia, Africa, or South America, to call for an immediate and unconditional cessation of violence by the Israelis both in Lebanon and Gaza. We call for you to voice your rejection of Israel human rights violations, use of collective punishment, and disregard for civilian populations.. Finally, we urge our Jewish and Palestinian comrades inside Israel itself to reject the irresponsible and reckless policies of the Israeli government and pressure it to sit with all parties in the region for a lasting and equitable peace. Stephen Sheehi,Beirut, Lebanon
ATTAC LUBNAN