Monday, July 31, 2006

They Will Not Turn us into Monsters

Yesterday evening, as I wrapped one of the most grueling days in my life, one more to add to the growing list of late, I turned to the CNN website and watched one of the clips relating events in the aftermath of the Qana massacre. And this is what I saw. I saw a man of maybe fifty years, standing next to a line of bagged children who, yesterday, could not hide far enough into the ground, who today finally could, I saw him walk towards one of those long stemmed flowering plants, rip a branch with two blooming pink flowers, and throw it on the lifeless small bodies lying on the ground. And he spoke. And I felt ashamed, ashamed and soiled by all the hatred and anger that took me over, and made me into someone I could not recognize. He said: "Our children are dead. But this flower is my answer. They will not turn us into monsters".

No. They won't. Those children never died, and never will. But I, I thank you, today, for bringing me back to life.

Sunday, July 30, 2006

"QANA" AGAIN!!


 

You fucking idiots, you and your stepfathers in the Land of Opportunity where I foolishly reside... How inane and morally, emotionally, and politically bankrupt can you be. Do you really think you can bomb your way out of this? You dare talk of democracy and freedom when our lives are your dregs, our children your targets, and the whole world your shooting range? How dare you, you little sorry episodes of conceited spiteful despicable existence. Go on, keep churning the ground and sowing the seeds of hatred and anger. For soon the crops will grow, and it will be time to harvest. And the harvest will be plentiful, and I hope I will live long enough to see the day.

Hezbollah WANTS civilians to die, and GOD isn't your criminal leadership happy to deliver. Or is your imported state-of-the-crime technology being tricked by the beastly HA forces? And where in the temporal and geographic vicinity of the Qana massacre were rockets launched towards Israel? You don't know, but you trust your P(C)rime Minister for doing the right thing. Every last one of you who finds excuses and justifications to what is happening is as murderous as those who are executing the crime, from Bush to Rice to Olmert to Peretz to dag to KSM. EVERY LAST ONE OF YOU DO YOU HEAR ME? Don't you even have the decency to be quiet and leave us alone? Do you have leave your filthy marks EVERYWHERE? I am telling you sons and daughters of Israel. What goes around comes around, and he who lives by the sword shall die by the sword. You have managed to strip me of my tolerance, my love for peace, my will to compromise for a better future. I have never wanted anything but peace and love for the area, for its people to live in harmony, to thrive together in prosperity and agreement. Your flagrant contemptuous lies and proverbial impunity have made me torch my hopes and ideals and want nothing but retribution. The Israeli-Hezbollah conflict is what you and your puppeted media call this open Israeli war against the Lebanese people. Why? because you know, YOU KNOW that you cannot take out Hezbollah, neither through the air nor through the ground. YOU KNOW that you're fighting not a conventional army but a guerilla, and not a state but an ideology. You know it all, and yet, your arrogance and criminality bear no restraint. I tell you this though. Be alarmed and be careful. What you have done to the Lebanese and Palestinian people over the past sixty years is not going away. Your fake apologies and false regrets won't wipe away the blood of our dead and dying children. Their ripped little bodies buried under the rubble glow brighter than the sun and stand taller than the hill of the Golgotha. And they will come back to haunt you, and drag you down to the darkest corners of hell where you belong. Just remember these words, and live your low earthly lives while you can.

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

MUST LISTEN: Interview with Tina Naccache

You Can Not Kill Us All

"The Silence of the good people of the United States is deafening! How can they not do anything?"

The bluntly honest outcry of Tina Naccache in Beirut, speaking for each and every one of us.

www.unitedforpeace.org
www.mirvat.blogspot.com
www.saveleb.org
www.relieflebanon.org
www.lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com
www.angryarab.blogspot.com
www.reflectionsfromfarmland.blogspot.com
www.libanomio.blogspot.com

Unintentional Omission: This link was courtesy of Delirious. Sorry Deli.

Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The Face of Immortality


Monday, July 24, 2006

PLEASE READ

www.unitedforpeace.org
www.mirvat.blogspot.com
www.saveleb.org
www.relieflebanon.org
www.lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com
www.angryarab.blogspot.com
www.reflectionsfromfarmland.blogspot.com
www.libanomio.blogspot.com

From Rouba:

Our program director at the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUB-MC) emailed me today:

We are still in Beirut. Mad it is…… many displaced with no chance of returning home. The ones I have seen displaced are educated , low middle class whose homes are destroyed and cannot afford to rent and are currently in schools. The humanistic situation is very bad. Almost everyone in the hospital is coming to work and many are actively involved in volunteering. AUB and AUBMC have now a fund which to we are accepting donations which will go to the care of the displaced sick cared for by us at the center. The account is available on the AUB website.

My best regards to all,

Thurayya


AUB has also initiated an AUB Volunteer Relief Group with the aim of providing
support to those displaced and directly affected by the war. This will include visits to refugee groups in schools and public areas and attending to their
medical, health and hygiene needs. Also, it has established a free evening clinic at AUB. It intends to provide, and to seek, accept, and channel support to those needy.

For financial donations to AUB Hospital and to this
AUB intitiative, you can wire transfer funds to AUB's
account with SHBC bank at the following:


Bank name: HSBC
Bank address: Ras Beirut Branch
Account name: American University of Beirut Account
number: 003-013687-100 Bank Swift address: BBMELBBX

The branch is operational, so the money will reach
AUB.
You can also make a donation on-line through our
on-line giving website at: https://give.aub.edu

Make sure that all donations are marked as restricted
for the relief work that AUB Hospital is doing
(Hospital Crisis Fund). Thank you all for all you are
doing.

Sunday, July 23, 2006

Mr. Bush and the Culture of Life

www.unitedforpeace.org
www.mirvat.blogspot.com
www.saveleb.org
www.relieflebanon.org
www.lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com
www.angryarab.blogspot.com
www.reflectionsfromfarmland.blogspot.com
www.libanomio.blogspot.com

Mr. Bush is rushing weapons to Israel, in a brave attempt to reinforce and support the march towards peace and democracy in the region. The same peace and democracy that now flourishes in post-Saddam Iraq, in the aftermath of a war insolently renamed "Operation Iraqi Freedom" when the flagrant WMD lie could no longer be used as an excuse in the eyes of a detached, incredulous world.

Why? Because Mr. Bush is a man of the Lord, he is a Christian who goes to Church every Sunday, and who supports the culture and sanctity of Life. But whose Life? well, let's not fall prey to overgeneralizations.

By life, Mr. Bush means single cell embryos, leftovers from a busy day at an in-vitro fertilization clinic.

By life, Mr. Bush means the vegetative state of an unfortunate Terri Schiavo who spent fifteen years being fed through a tube, and whose rictus and disorderly eye movements were good enough proof that she was alive, aware, and of course, happy.

Oh, and did I mention Life according to nationality? My bad. By life, Mr. Bush means the life of an American soldier or citizen, or the life of an Israeli soldier or citizen. Because, as you know, all lives are created equal, but some lives are more equal than others. Which is why the death toll among Iraqis during and after the war was so carefully documented and shared with, again, a caring, incredulous world. And why 330 dead lebanese civilians, many of whom are women and children, 700,000 displaced in need of water, food, and medication, and a nation dismembered and devitalized don't seem to quite cut it in the face of a military action in which 2 Israeli soldiers were captured and 5 were killed.

Hence the need to rush more rockets to Israel, because there is an emergent need for more dead and more displaced, because there still are power plants working and buildings standing, and the world really needs to make the balance between both sides of the conflict a little more... you know, equal.

Yes, Mr. Bush is no doubt the world's first and foremost life activist, and the driving force that spreads democracy and freedom in the alienated world we live in. Member of "Skull and Bones"? yes of course, why didn't I think of that earlier. Anyway, thank you Mr. Bush for your help and assistance. It would have been a dark dark world without you.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

In the dark shelter
Little girl holds a rag doll
Little does she know

Friday, July 21, 2006

Friends on the Other Side

www.unitedforpeace.org
www.mirvat.blogspot.com
www.saveleb.org
www.relieflebanon.org
www.lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com
www.angryarab.blogspot.com

They're there. And there are many of them. Let's just remember that, and guide ourselves and each other away from blind hatred, towards unconditional peace.


Hi Fouad
here is the translation I made to the article
http://net.nana.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=384137&sid=127
the counter shows that the article was read 7000 times. I hope that for at least few of the readers, it changed something.
tomorrow we have here in Tel-Aviv a demonstration against the war. Somehow I'm not optimistic, but I hope our plea will be heard.

Take care,
Ilana


Khalas. We want to live



"Beirut is in flames, Beirut is Burning

Turn everything into ashes, once and for all

Throw into the fire your conscience and liberty

Tomorrow they might, God forbid, flourish again"



This protest and satirical poem that was written by Chanoch Levine in 1982, was published in its English translation by Rabih Nassar, a resident of Beirut, as a picture on his Flickr stream. Nassar describes himself as "addicted to politics and history", but usually he posts in his Flickr optimistic photos of people and landscapes. But this last week, his album looks far less optimistic. He is one of the online Lebanese activists that the current war made them change their daily routine and express their protest online.



I dove into the Lebanese blogosphere to meet our neighbors from across the borders and to learn about their thoughts about the war. It would be pretentiousness to say that by this journey I could have figured out and fully understood the atmosphere on the Lebanese street.



First, because bloggers by definition don't represent the whole population. Like in the US, where bloggers are far less conservative than the rest of the population, I assume that this is the case also in Lebanon. Second, because of the language barrier , I only focused on blogs that are written in English and not in Arabic. These blogs are probably more connected to the western culture and have a more global point of view.



That is why, I guess, I couldn't find even one blogger that fully supports the Hezbollah. Most of the English speaking bloggers are actually express disgust from Nasrallah and his friends. But this doesn't reduce the Lebanese patriotism and the high critic on the Israeli actions. The main message in the posts from the last week is of distress, and an attempt to arouse the world awareness of the Israeli killing the civilian population and hurting the chances of Lebanon to heal. Here are the voices of four online Lebanese activists.



Protest in Pictures.

Rabih Nassar decided to express his protest with pictures. Although he himself didn't went out to the street to take pictures of the happening in his hometown, in his Flickr photostream he publishes simple collage s that has a strong message.



In on of the collage there is the picture of Shimon Peres, getting interviewed by the CNN, and saying the Israel doesn't hurt civilians. Bellow there is the photo of a Lebanese child that was hit by the Israeli air force.



In another collage, Nassar brings together 3 pictures of Lebanese injured children and one picture of an Israeli's Air force plane. " All those kids are terrorists if you ask the IDF..." He writes below of the picture and explains that the blame is on Olmert, a little man who has been managing garbage collection and illegal settlements in Jerusalem that now tries to prove that he is more militaristic then the army itself.



After I wrote to him a mail, Nassar told me that although Lebanon is very segregated, Hezbollah has large support by many of the Lebanese. He himself is worried from the Islamization and the loss of the Lebanese's government sovereignty because of the Hezbollah, but understands the sympathy that the organizations gets, both because its success to expel Israel from south Lebanon, and because of the charity.



Diplomatic actions could have prevented the war, but "I'm afraid that there are too many interested sides that wanted something like this to happen in our good old bloody middle east".





Mustapha , a graphic designer, is a Lebanese blogger that currently lives in Africa and considered one of the leading political bloggers. In His blog, called Beirut Spring, he says that he is "Trying to understand post-Syrian Lebanese politics and society." On the tagline of the blog there is the picture of Rafik Hariri , the assassinated prime minister of Lebanon, and on the side of the blog, there is a banner saying "Arabs and Muslims Against Terrorism" .



Last Friday Mustapha published a post with the title "Cross-Border Buddies" in which you can feel the enthusiasm on the Lebanese side to make an online connection with Israelis, that is not weaker then the enthusiasm of Israelis to connect with Lebanese.



In this post, Mustapha published a letter from an Israeli guy to a Lebanese mutual friend. The Israeli guy and the Lebanese guy used to share a flat in London, but their ways where separated and now the war put them on the opposite sides of the conflict.



"I am writing to you because of what happened last night in Beirut", wrote the Israeli to his Lebanese friend, after Israel bombed the International airport. "I feel very sorry for that and I really hope none of your relatives or friends were close to the airport or are located in the area where the problems happened. I know it is very delicate to talk about this, but since we are friends and ex-flatmates, I can't but be concerned." Writes the Israeli. "I won't try to justify the attacks, but you probably know that Lebanon is not innocent from the problems in Israel. I just want to tell you this: Whatever happened in the world, wars, terrorists attacks, etc, I will never consider you as my enemy, because we are friends and nothing is stronger than friendship and love."



"[..] In the name of my nation and religion, I am sorry for the innocent who died last night and for the ones who will die in the next days, months, years and centuries. Hope you feel the same when innocent Israelis die. Never forget, that all together, WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD."



Despite publishing this emotional letter, Mustapha doesn't avoid strong criticism toward s Israel. In another post, that one could say it's cheap demagogy, he glues together two pictures into one very difficult to watch. One picture is of two girls from Kiriat Shmona, signing "to Nasrallah with Love" on Israeli missiles before they were launched. The second picture is of a body of a Lebanese toddler that was killed in an Israeli bombardment. Under the post with the cynical title "sealed with a kiss", Mustapha added the plea: "children of the World Unite".



Practical Information how to help to the Lebanese citizens

Maya, daughter of a Lebanese father and a French mother, describes herself as a "citizen of the world". Today she lives in Miami but here blog is about Lebanon and its quest to independence. In here blog she don't speak much about feeling. "I don't have the heart to write about the situation. I am depressed, worried sick about my family, and disgusted at what Hezbollah, Israel and the rest of the world, for that matter, is doing."



But Maya tries via here blog to influence, as much as she can, on the leaders of the world. She published on here blog information about demonstrations against Israel's actions in many places in the world, links to online petitions, and gives information how to help organizations like the red cross in Beirut and refugees organizations.



In addition, Maya wrote a letter in English and French directed to the leaders of the world, in which she demands from them to prevent Israel from hurting the civilian population and to encourage negotiations between Israel, the Hezbollah and the Lebanese government. Few Lebanese bloggers link to Maya's letter and send similar letter also.



Three days after publishing the letters, Maya publishes a response letter she got from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs, currently the single office that bothered to answer the letter. "Don't look at Israel to stop acting in self-defense against Hezbollah, but call upon your own government to fulfill its obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1559 and disarm Hezbollah", they write to her from Israel.



Maya of course doesn't leave the Israeli response without her own comment. "The whole "self-defense" speech we've heard over and over. It's a bunch of BS. Most of the rest of their letter is correct, but still does not account for the disproportionate and uncalled for amount of violence and destruction that Israel is undertaking in Lebanon ".



Khalas, we just want to live.





Fouad, also from Beirut, responded a little suspiciously when I approach him to ask for his permission to use one of his drawings in the article. His fear was that his words will be twisted by an untrustable enemy.



On regular days, his blog called "Welcome to My Lebanese Dream" has nature photos, sketches, political caricatures, poems and thoughts. But this last week his blog stepped out of it regular dreamy mode. In a post in which the title screams KHALAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSS !!! and has a drawing that reminds of "the scream" by Munch, he writes directly to the Israelis:

"To all those who sympathize with us, thank you for your kind thoughts whoever you are. But let me make one thing clear. Yes it is our fault for not being strong enough or united enough to establish the rule of law and spread the lebanese army on all lebanese territory. But there is no love lost between the lebanese people and the israeli leadership.



We have been invaded, abused, bullied, and humiliated by israeli occupation forces for many years. Entire families were butchered by israeli artillery. And now this? do you seriously expect us to believe that leveling this country's frail infrastructure is going to bring you your soldier and bring hizbollah to its knees? we might be weak and divided, but we're not stupid.





We are being punished, that is all. Punished twice, by our own ineptitude, and by your ruthless retaliation. Hizbollah is screwing us over, but so are you. Now do I still want peace with you? yes. Peace not alliance. Peace not friendship. Not because I can't wait for us to hold hands, but because I can't wait for Lebanon to be out of harm's way. We've suffered enough, we've bled enough, we've built and rebuilt enough, and it's time for us to take a break and just live. For a change."

Thursday, July 20, 2006

Ode to my Country

www.unitedforpeace.org
www.mirvat.blogspot.com
www.saveleb.org
www.lebanonheartblogs.blogspot.com
www.angryarab.blogspot.com


 

Look back? But why, it's standing here
And will forever stand

The memory of each burning tear
And every fallen hand

Look up you'll see carved into rock
Each martyr's daunting loss

The bleeding arms that herd the flock
Scourged and nailed on the cross

Wounded and scathed, yet on the edge
Springs life ever so new

Fire on steel on stone on death
And green is what it grew

This is our fate, our raging sun
To live through death's toll

To show how trees in Lebanon
Grow in the barrel of a gun

And how our lives and hopes and dreams
Grow in a bullet hole

Wednesday, July 19, 2006

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE

www.unitedforpeace.org
www.mirvat.blogspot.com
www.angryarab.blogspot.com
www.saveleb.org

Emergency Action to End the War on Lebanon Deliver a Letter to the US Mission of the United Nations Join UFPJ and peace and justice activists: Friday, July 21, 4 -5:30 PM140 East 45th Street (between Third and Lexington Avenues)

We call for the Bush administration to:
* Support a Security Council resolution calling for an immediate andunconditional cease-fire;
* Urge negotiations now to resolve all disputes including the release ofprisoners on all sides;
* Put an end to US blocking of UN action.We will stage a picket outside the mission and deliver a letter signed by UFPJ andother peace and justice organizations.
(See text of letter below.)

While the world is crying out for global intervention to stop the bloodshed, we have been tremendously disappointed by the response from the Bush administration. And instead of rallying the international community to call for an immediatecease-fire to stop further bloodshed, it has blocked the UN efforts to do just that.We condemn all attacks on civilians, and call for the release of prisoners held onall sides in this conflict, including the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah.But while Hezbollah violated international law by attacking Israel and then firingmissiles at Israeli cities, Israel's clearly disproportionate response is an act ofcollective punishment against the Lebanese population -- a serious violation ofinternational law.On Friday, we will go to the US mission to hold our government accountable for theirnegligent response to this conflict. Please join us.


Dear Ambassador Bolton,On behalf of United for Peace and Justice (UFPJ), the largest antiwar coalition inthe United States, we want to express our concern over the escalating crisis betweenIsrael and Lebanon and urge you to support a Security Council resolution calling foran immediate and unconditional cease-fire.We are gravely concerned about the loss of lives on both sides. We condemn allattacks on civilians, and call for the release of prisoners held on all sides inthis conflict, including the Israeli soldiers captured by Hezbollah. But whileHezbollah violated international law by attacking Israel and then firing missiles atIsraeli cities, Israel's clearly disproportionate response is an act of collectivepunishment against the Lebanese population -- a serious violation of internationallaw.While the world is crying out for global intervention to stop the bloodshed, we havebeen tremendously disappointed by the response from the Bush administration. Insteadof using its influence on Israel to stop the devastating attacks on the Lebanesepopulation, it has supported such attacks. And instead of rallying the internationalcommunity to call for an immediate cease-fire to stop further bloodshed, it hasblocked UN efforts to call for an immediate cease-fire.We urgently call on the Bush administration to work with international partners tobroker an immediate and unconditional cease-fire and commence negotiations topeacefully resolve the crisis.We look forward to hearing your response.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Talking Sense..

.. or trying to when my whole being is a broil of intense and often contradictory emotions, and when nothing around seems to make any sense at all.

Neighbors of Israel, caring friends and sworn enemies, peacemakers, warlords, unwary bystanders, some of whom have found the passage to my blog and email, I ask you to please read through this and understand the facts as they are, not as they are being reprocessed and rehashed every minute by each to their own fancy.

Hizbollah, under the leadership of Nasrallah, should have been and was eventually going to be disarmed. The main political figures have been meeting towards that goal for the past few months. True, they haven't reached a definitive way to accomplish that, but the intent and the effort were both there. And for your information, Hizbollah, regardless of its ill feelings towards Israel, has the backing of one million shiites, not because of their ideological extremism, but because of the social and economical welfare they have provided to people who have been trapped under your occupation forces for many years, and people who had always been underdogs of the lebanese diaspora. In other words, we have a powerful armed political and ideological party that has the support of one third of the lebanese population. One whole third. Talk about presence and leverage. Any attempt of the remainder two thirds that don't necessarily support HA or subscribe to its agenda to forcefully disarm it or abolish it from the political scene would have broken out into a civil war. And I am pretty sure you are aware of our sentiments towards internal conflicts, having just stepped out of one devastating one a decade plus ago.

So the chance we had at achieving our peaceful unitarian goals was through political action, regardless of how long it was going to take.

In the meantime, HA maintained its agenda, much more moderately than in the past, because the south was liberated and any justification of hostile acts towards Israel were hard to come by, unless they came in reaction to hostility on Israel's part.

The only two cards left in HA's hand were the shebaa farms, which are a clear diversion of pure strategic importance, and lebanese prisoners in israeli jails, which is a genuine issue that we cannot dismiss under any circumstance. The only difference though, was that the government would normally resort to diplomatic means to solve that issue, while HA resorted, as it usually does, to military action. Military action which was effective at a time when Israel was the invader and HA were the resistance, an excuse that was no longer valid to many if not most lebanese at the present times.

So HA abducts 2 Israeli soldiers in a military operation aimed at freeing some of our own prisoners from your jails. And the response was? the news and pictures speak for themselves. Lebanon is thrown back fifty years, all infrastructure is gone, civilians are being killed by the hundreds, and displaced by the hundreds of thousands, scarcity of food, water, and medication will soon turn into lack thereof, in other words, the magnitude of this social, economical, and humanitarian catastrophe is cataclysmic. In other words, and I cannot contain myself anymore, you fucking destroyed my country and killed my people and god knows how much more destruction, death and suffering will ensue, just because you did NOT want to exchange prisoners! You did all this for two soldiers! Now let me tell you, I am a physician and human life is precious to me more than you think, but THIS?? do you really think, in your heart of hearts, that what you did is SANE???

There are so many people like me who would give anything for peace, and those were the majority in Lebanon, and they were working, albeit slowly, towards disarming HA. And the first screw up HA commits, you blindly and indiscriminately blow everything to pieces? Trust me on this one folks, this is not making you a lot of friends on this side of the border. Don't you think that one HA is enough? Do you insist on every last one of us being your sworn eternal enemy?

Come on you guys. This isn't how peace seekers act. You could have warned us, you could have pressured us, you could have released a couple of our prisoners just like you retreated from our land 6 years ago. But no. You chose to bombard the life out of every last one of us, friend or foe, because your leadership meant to, it wanted to bring us to our knees. It's all but a power trip my friends and neighbors of Israel. You know you won't be able to take out a militia by doing what you did, but you do it anyway. You also knew we were trying to peacefully integrate HA and disarm it, and you didn't care. You could have been reasonable, but you didn't want to. And now, I have feelings that I never thought I would have, or thought myself capable of having, thanks to your peaceful brotherly intervention.

I do not want to be an enemy of peace. I want to embrace it and I want us all to live like brothers. Honest to god I do from the very depth of my being. Please don't let me lose that. Stop your attacks, and let's all try and work together on a decent plan for a better future in this cursed little piece of misery called the middle east.

You Will Remain My Love


 

Sunday, July 16, 2006

This too Shall Pass



My friends, my brethren, my people, my big extended family spread farther than the eye can see, my souls, my bloods, the reason I am alive and still willing to live, I beg you, I beg you as my fingers tremble and my eyes well-up with tears, brace yourselves, join the broken bridges with your outstretched arms, fill the gaping craters with your unwavering pride, build and rebuild with the torn bodies of those who have fallen, keep together, raise the chants of unity, be not afraid but strong, be not angry but resilient, be who you've always been, be alive, stay alive, for this too shall pass. Do not give in to violence, do not embrace it, for there is no victory in killing, but there sure is one in faith, in strength, in unity, in peaceful resolve. The enemies of this nation cannot wipe it out of existence, they cannot kill us all. The hate-ridden hearts and bitter souls will not thrive. They will not persist. What is of stone can be rebuilt a thousand times over, and what is within us, our history, our abiliy to brave all dangers and rise from the rubble stronger still, is what they cannot and will not take away. I say this as my bleeding heart traces its thirty-one years on the streets of the land it fell in love with, the land of giving, of divine inspiration and beauty, the land of all things sacred and all things cursed, I say it as I helplessly watch my land disappear in a dark haze of destruction and death, because I know that this too, as bleak and tragic as it is, shall pass. Just brace yourselves sons and daughters of Lebanon, be strong so I can be strong, survive so I can survive, for you don't know you are all right here with me in this small room in Nashville, and my heart, my spirit, my tears, are with you, today and everyday until a better day comes, until a better life comes, until the very end of time.

Friday, July 14, 2006

Open War


"But what about Lebanon and us the Lebanese?"

"I'm sorry who??"

Thursday, July 13, 2006

KHALAAAAAAAAAAAAAAASSS !!!




We are ALL guilty. ALL OF US. Emergency hiwar watani session??? I am not sure if I should laugh or puke my guts out on the table. Let it be known to all. We are scared, our lives are on the line, our country is history, but it's all our fault. Each and every one of us. These are the people we elected, these are the people we let freely thrive in their little haven of hatred and murderous ideals, and this is us, scared and incapacitated, failing but to point fingers and complain. Well let me tell you this folks, we pulled our pants down and stuck our naked asses out, and now that we're fucked, we really don't have jack shit to complain about.

Addendum in lieu of comment.

To all those who sympathize with us, thank you for your kind thoughts whoever you are. But let me make one thing clear. Yes it is our fault for not being strong enough or united enough to establish the rule of law and spread the lebanese army on all lebanese territory. But there is no love lost between the lebanese people and the israeli leadership. We have been invaded, abused, bullied, and humiliated by israeli occupation forces for many years. Entire families were butchered by israeli artillery. And now this? do you seriously expect us to believe that leveling this country's frail infrastructure is going to bring you your soldier and bring hizbollah to its knees? we might be weak and divided, but we're not stupid. We are being punished, that is all. Punished twice, by our own ineptitude, and by your ruthless retaliation. Hizbollah is screwing us over, but so are you. Now do I still want peace with you? yes. Peace not alliance. Peace not friendship. Not because I can't wait for us to hold hands, but because I can't wait for Lebanon to be out of harm's way. We've suffered enough, we've bled enough, we've built and rebuilt enough, and it's time for us to take a break and just live. For a change.