Some obvious points one should remember before building an opinion

- Others are just like me; I am an Other for other people.

- What I see as right others see as wrong and vice-versa – this does not mean either of us is right.

- Even Muslims can think

- Islam is not a synonym to brain washing – it is a religion like any other

- Killing ‘infidels’ is not an Islamic ritual, in fact it is not even permitted in Islam.

- If one has a beard it does not mean he is evil/hits his wife and kids/ has a Kalashnikov/oppresses his family/will explode soon.

- Allahu Akbar has nothing to do with detonating a bomb.

- Killing the ‘Indians’ (we call the original population of America Indians just because at a certain moment Columbus thought he was in India) was as serious a crime as the Holocaust (it was also a systematic killing of a whole race) – or in fact as any other genocide – yes there were many genocides in History.

- The IRA are also called terrorists but they are not Muslims.

- Iran is not an Arab country

- Yes some women really like being veiled

- Muslim is not a synonym for Arab

- If Bush says so it doesn’t mean it is necessarily true, in fact most of the times it means the exact opposite.

- The Media are not a reference

- Journalism and Fiction use the same language

- Syria is not an Islamic country

- Justice is not a term invented by the UN, and the UN does not have copyright for it.

- You cannot make peace without war – if there was no war you don’t even need to make peace

- The Arabs are Semites too, so they can’t be anti-Semitic because it would be suicidal.

- Fascism is a European invention, and Hitler did not speak Arabic nor Persian

- Arabs and Muslims don’t feel guilt for the Holocaust simply because they had nothing to do with it.

- If many Arabs are dying that doesn’t mean their life is worth less than any other human on this planet or that they don’t really mind.

- Self defense is reciprocal

Day 19 - The Massacre

Today Rice was supposed to arrive to Beirut, she was however not granted entry. It was the first real position taken by the Lebanese Prime Minister, he announced that if she is not coming for an immediate seize fire then she should not bother.

This morning the massacre of Qana was the event that shook the whole country. How much does a Lebanese life cost? Nothing? People went to the UN headquarters in the downtown of the city, it was supposed to be a small gathering like the one held everyday. Tension was much more intense than usual and the crowds which grew rapidly began to break the gates of the HQ, they were enraged, they were angry, they were more than outraged. They broke in and expressed their anger by destroying what their hands could break.

In fact I understood what they felt. No one can protect them from the Israeli crimes; no one even bothers to ask about those who die. This alone gives the Hezbollah a reason to be, this alone is enough to fight back. In 19 days 750 Lebanese civilians have been murdered, every Lebanese soul is worth an Israeli one. Before the Hezbollah kills 750 Israeli civilians no one has the right to call them terrorists. Until now the military casualties on the Israeli side are much higher than civilian ones.

The Israeli explanation was simple; we asked them to leave the town, as simple as that, they forgot however that the roads out of town are destroyed and these people had no way out.

More than half of the Lebanese casualities until this moment are children, the second highest percentage is women and there are some men killed. What does this insulting phrase that the Hezbollah uses civilians as human shields mean? How can they use them as shields when 99% of killings are due to air strikes or artillery shells? If one hides behind a woman during an air strike will it really help him? Do they really think that the Hezbollah fighters are afraid to die? Or that they don’t care about their families? Or even that they are cowards? Don’t they know anything about pride and Shiite culture?

There were confrontations between the Hezbollah fighters and the Israeli troops in the southern villages near the borders. The Israelis were humiliatingly defeated; yesterday they retreated. Today 8 elite soldiers from the Golani regiment were killed in the southern village of Taybeh. The Hezbollah fighters who killed them were not using shields and not to mention human ones. This is not terrorism; this is military confrontation between an invading force and a defense guerilla.

When I saw the pictures of the massacre this morning I couldn’t help noticing how the bodies – those who were still in one piece – were stiff. This is usually due to crisped muscles at the moment of death; they were terrified before they died. Some children had their eyes and mouths open, they were screaming for help when they died. Some of them died after the explosion. Witnesses were talking about hearing screams for many minutes after the explosion. Help could not arrive on time to help those who were wounded and trapped under the rubble – always the roads. The Lebanese Red Cross in the south has now a new mission: to find spaces to burry the dead, to transport them from one grave to another.

This is not the first time, nor is it the worse crime; it is one of these silly things that make these ‘terrorist’ Hezbollah have the will to fight. It is one of the silly small Israeli mistakes that make a whole people in need of protection. It is one of the Israeli self defense episodes that fill these people with hate. I can’t help remembering these images of Israeli kids signing the shells that are fired on Lebanon. Today another gift from the Israeli childhood was received by at least 32 Lebanese kids. They should wish they were able to thank them, however the only thing they are allowed to do is die in silence.

Day 19

I just woke up and heard the TV. I couldn’t understand what it was saying but the tone was menacing. I went to the living room and here it was, I was back in time 10 years to 1996 and the massacre of Qana. I saw the strip on the down side of the screen that said Qana and pieces of people being transported by people that are still in one piece. It was not 1996, it was 2006, the same village, where Christ turned water into wine, an Israeli warplane once again turned civilians into meat. 55 bodies and still counting, it was a shelter where the children of the village were hiding with their mothers.

Now one can seek justification, then when none are found, one can call for accidental happenings, then when it is not enough one can just say that it was the fault of the Hezbollah, and Israelis will not feel guilt. After all why should they? They are fighting terrorism.

These dead people are the children and the brothers and sisters and mothers of people who are still alive. If one doesn’t understand how these people who are still alive will want revenge then one doesn’t even recognize they are people. It is incidents like this one – incident it will be called – that makes the fighters in the resistance ready to die for their cause, after all many of them have already lost their families in Israeli raids.

In 1996 the raid was also on a UN compound where some 200 people were seeking refuge, it was not only one shell that fell, but more than that, all of them died. Yesterday another UN compound was hit leaving 4 wounded from the Indian troops. And the day before another UN compound was hit, leaving material damage. Now when I see this repetitive pattern I can’t understand how an army with perfect accuracy in firing when they want and where they want (they hit very small targets sometimes) can make so many mistakes. It is either that they don’t even care or that they do it on purpose. To compare the violence on both sides is an insult, never forget that a 3ton missile makes a detonation very few people in the world have ever heard and fewer have survived.

Long live democracy. Rice is coming again today.

Terror and democracy

The course of history has many examples of popular movements that appeared due to conditions related to oppression or occupation. If we leave aside the moral aspect of a struggle, on both sides, one can see that these movements are not stopped by the force of guns, except in the case of genocide which would mean the annihilation of the whole population that is resisting (examples can be seen in both the early American history with the ‘Indians’, or the Spanish experience with the Incas).

At the time of the conquest of the Americas, the term terrorist did not exist yet in order to justify the killing of these people however a substitute was there and the discourse relied on the soullessness of the indigenes which represented the moral justification of their killing. In the same logic the term terrorist is being used to justify the killing of populations that defy the dominant force. I believe that this is part of the dynamics of power and discourse.

What appears in recent times is the parallel discourse of democracy, which appears to be paradoxical with the logic of terrorism as it is present in reality. However, when we look closely at these movements that are termed terrorist (Al Quaida is however an exception and more about that later) we can see clearly that they take their power from popular support, which in political terms is itself the essence of democracy even though the form in which the ‘election’ is done is not always a classical one. Movements that are termed terrorist are often liberation movements that were born from their own societies, of course all examples of such movements also present a strategic relation between them and the power that defies the dominant power (the Vietcong and their relations with both China and USSR for instance) This however does not make them tools in the hands of their strategic allies (the Guevara example is perfect in this sense) since they after all rely primarily on their popular infrastructure.

The clash between the two discourses that were promulgated by the same dominant power – democracy and the war against terrorism – has made possible absurdities such as the case of Hamas in the Palestinian elections and Hezbollah in Lebanon. In the case of Hamas, after elections under the supervision of international powers, and a highly claimed honesty from the part of these same powers, the population proved the theory that says that Hamas is indeed a popular movement. The Palestinians voted Hamas, putting forward the clash between the concept of democracy and the right of people to decide their destiny on one hand and that of fighting terrorism as another absolute value on the other. This case made clear that terrorism is nothing but a political tool and judgment which should be defined firstly then have the definition criticized secondly. Instead of reconsidering their judgment the dominant powers went on with an explicit strategy to undo the misdeeds of democracy – thus proving that interests go beyond any of the ascribed goals they proclaimed and nourishing even more resentment from those they regard as terrorists (not Hamas as an organization but Hamas as a population) and giving them even more reasons to act accordingly to fight this dominant power (and thus be even more terrorist than before – since the amount of terror is basically measured by the successfulness of their fight against the dominant power, regardless of the moral aspect of it). This however did not make the people who voted Hamas change their minds on the contrary it made them even more conscious about the necessity of Hamas if they really want freedom or any kind of independence from the dominant power.

When one looks at such movements not simply as a group of people who have a weird hobby of killing other people and themselves along the way, but as having a cause that they believe is worth more than their own lives (which is anyway a hell to live), one can start understanding the dynamics that can make these people resist until their cause is achieved or until their total annihilation not as guerillas but as people.

Al Quaida on the other hand is not a movement that was born to liberate, or achieve a certain identity (it was not a popular uprising), it is a creation made by Saudi money, American planning and Pakistani infrastructure to fight a war against the Soviets, like many of the American creations of the Cold war (the Contra, the Algerian Islamists…). For a more detailed history of Al Quaida a good book is ‘The Clash of Fundamentalisms’ by Tariq Ali.

Day 15

Battles are still going on very intensely on the borders; the resistance is making good scores. Today another truck load of medical supplies coming from the Syrian borders was destroyed by Israeli war planes killing the driver and injuring another civilian.

Interestingly enough 4 UN officers were killed during Israeli raids on their headquarters in the south of Lebanon; one Canadian, one finish, one Chinese and one Austrian. I never understood why Israel kills UN personnel, it can hardly be believed that it is an accident since usually UN headquarters are clearly marked as such, and in this case it was not one raid that killed them but a consecutive series of raids that took 6 hours during which calls were made to seize fire without response.

It seems that Israeli infiltration into Lebanon is facing serious misfortunes especially that they still did not manage to secure the closest village to the borders on which attacks are still being launched.

The Rome summit meeting was as disappointing and ridiculous as it should be, everyone present called for a seize fire but it was faced with a classic American no and therefore no seize fire was demanded. Ironically the Americans are still talking about their worries about Lebanon.

Otherwise I was struck today by the sight of the new Iraqi prime minister talking at the American congress and saying among many other things, that apparently ‘Iraq has been transformed from the land of mass graves to the land of freedoms’. I don’t know how pathetic such a statement can be, since if the prime minister or any of the great congressmen would open their TVs and see the news from Iraq they will be struck by the high scores of dead people and mass graves that are found everyday 3 years after democracy became the new oil of Iraq. Basically there is never less than 30 killed a day in the new land of freedom not to mention the dead bodies found on the streets on daily bases. Also the prime minister did not forget to point out to the fact that more than 20% of the deputies in the new Iraqi parliament are women – however in the land of the great poet of alcohol Abou Nawas women can no longer walk without the company of a male for fear of getting killed it was never so during the Saddam years (not that the were any kind of golden years, however as things are looking they were much better than the days of democracy). What a heaven has Iraq turned into, I am just curious to know why tourism has not yet become the main source of income instead of oil.

I just hope that the waves of democracy that Rice is expecting to arrive to Lebanon are not the same ones she brought to Iraq; this New Middle East seems to be similar to the one I heard described today in the American congress. I can just see our new prime minister doing the same in a few months.

Interrogation

Among all animals that share this planet only one specie invented bombs and ambition.

I always believed - and still do - that violence can simply create more violence, it is one of the many rules of nature, which I believe are more important than any United Nation resolution or human rights declaration. If you attack a wild beast, or yet any beast, it will attack you back.

The war seems to be heading towards more escalation and still more destruction. I fear for Beirut.

If I ever had the choice I would not have chosen to be a human being – but no god has ever asked me.

Can Lebanon turn into another Iraq? Ironically the term Iraq has paradoxically taken the sense of a synonym to chaos and destruction, whereas the US administration regards it, alone, as an example of democratic transition. Is this the essence of this ‘New Middle East’? I ask myself if I really want to be here to find out. And I ask myself if I can do anything to prevent it. But of course I seek no answers.

Did Lebanon ever exist? I cannot remember my past before the 12^th of July; I have forgotten all that I know and most of what I learned during a lifetime of war, peace and alienation. Are these the same people that are dying everyday?

I also ask myself what it would be like to be one of the rulers of the world, to decide when to kill and when to lie. I wonder what they dream about at nightfall. Is every president a killer or a sadistic criminal? I wonder what it is like to decide that I want to kill a people. Was it always the same?

I remember the great battles of history when a king would launch his mighty armies to defeat another king. It was so simple. Violence was so insignificant and pure. Violence had an esthetic value. In history books one can kill thousands in only one sentence. In reality it takes time, effort, and a lot of destruction. In reality the dead are neither words nor sentences.

I am no longer Lebanese, I am a man with no country; I am a context without a ground; I am simply a linguistic structure whose meaning is not its message.

Day 14

Today the operation was given apparently some 10 more days for the Israeli army to get to some victory whatsoever to have a political price for it (this is the solution to the violence that Rice has finally got). Rice was not very good at making peace as much as she was good in prophesizing this terrifying New Middle East. Personally I think I prefer the old one.

Battles are still on near the frontiers. And massacres are still on more to the north; 2 families were killed in Nabatyeh today. Otherwise the Suburbs had a new aerial visit today; some 8 3ton-missiles were dropped over the area, very heavy sound by the way.

Otherwise on a less humanitarian level I saw today pictures from the Lebanese coast – from south of Beirut to the utmost north of the country: A thick layer of black oil caused by the disastrous raids and the destruction of most of the oil supplies in the country (also non-Hezbollah related structures) have left an environmental disaster in the whole coastline. There is no beach anymore not only in Beirut but also in Lebanon. For me, someone who sees his country as the country of the sea I see it as a war crime, actually more than that (the term war crime is a paradox in itself), it is a crime against nature and against life and beauty. Basically the country is ruined, even its nature is destroyed, no more beautiful coats, no more swimming in the Mediterranean no more beach parties, no more summer, no more Lebanon. The beautiful coast of Byblos, one of the most beautiful sights in the Mediterranean is now a black sea of oil and pollution. By the way the Hezbollah don’t usually swim that much.

Beirut is now overpopulated, the center of the city grew from a nearly half a million people to one million in a week. There is a minimum of 700 000 refugees in a country of 4 million inhabitants, this is nearly a quarter of the country. Many of them will have no more house to get back to after the war is over, if it ever ends, since most of them live in the southern suburbs which do not exist anymore.

Day 13

Today Condoleezza Rice arrived to Beirut and we went to welcome her. It was a hunt for Condi. We were not many and we were not organized – however a message had to be sent – of course to no avail.

The news from the field were centered on the battles on the Lebanese borders where the fighters of the resistance were making very good work the summary of the day was 4 soldiers killed, 23 injured, 1 apache Helicopter and 5 vehicles. The fighting is still centered in the village of Maroun el Rass – a strategic point the Israeli army is trying to secure. The village is on a hill that can see northern Palestine. However 13 days have passed and the Israeli army has not secured the area.

During the protest against Rice’s visit Israeli war planes were flying over our heads. The pictures of the protest and the planes will hopefully be posted tomorrow.

As for the questions raised by Andres about the Hezbollah, I will try to make some quick answers for the moment hopefully to elaborate more on the subject later – if I get the chance.

First of all one must ask one’s self what is the definition of terrorist. Then one must ask one’s self about the credibility of the EU and any other international or regional power (including Iran and the Arab summit). The thing is that reality and politics are subjected to power relations and when one talks about any judgment it is always relative to one’s interests. The Hezbollah was not on the EU terrorist list until recently and to put an organization on the terrorist list is simply a political decision (for years European countries – and until now some still – have refused to put this organization on this list). It is not to say that they should not be put or even that they should be put on the list but to point out to the fact that putting it on the list is simply a change of policy regarding Lebanon, Syria and Iran. The Hezbollah is accused to have exploded the American Marines HQ in Beirut an operation regarded as a terrorist one in US (which is normal) but as a heroic one in Lebanon (as the Marines were seen to be an occupying force). This is to summarize why and what is to be put on a terrorist list: A terrorist organization is an organization that is fighting the power that regards it as terrorist – that is when such an organization is seen on the other side of the conflict as a liberating force (which rules Al-Quaida as an absolute terrorist organization – but not Hezbollah or even Hamas).

Secondly to understand the resolution 1559 which demands the end of the Syrian presence in Lebanon and the disarming of the Hezbollah one must also look at how this resolution was adopted in contradiction to all the UN rules and laws. The UN has no right to make a resolution regarding the relation between one country and the other or any resolution that regards the internal politics of a country without one of the concerned countries having filed a complaint. In the case of the resolution 1559 Lebanon was not part of it; it was presented by the French and the American ambassador and was imposed on Lebanon. In fact the internal political problems in Lebanon in the last 2 years and the instability on security level was directly caused by this resolution which was refused by a majority of Lebanese people and politicians at first but was imposed on the government in a later time. When Hariri was killed (and I have reasons to think that he was killed to make way to its imposition) the resolution was back into debate and the first part of it (the end of Syrian presence) was accomplished. However the second part (disarming the Hezbollah) was refused by all the partitions of Lebanese society as being something that cannot be done as simply as that without resolving the cause of the presence of the Hezbollah until this day which is the occupation of the Chebaa Farms in southern Lebanon and the Lebanese detainees in Israeli prisons and the maps to the landmines still present on Lebanese soil. That is without mentioning the whole issue of the 700 000 Palestinian refugees which are still living in camps in Lebanon and which the UN resolution 194 states clearly that they must get back to what is now Israel (however Israel has never even bothered to implement this resolution but did make a war to implement a resolution that concerns Lebanon and which is the 1559). Then there is the problem of the resolution 242 which demands Israel to give back all the territories they occupied in 1967 which include the Chebaa farms and the Golan heights this resolution can also solve the middle east issue but Israel refuses to implement it.

The 1559 was part of a new Middle East Rice is now talking about and Israel is now doing supposedly for the sake of Lebanon.

For the last point which is why Hezbollah killed and kidnapped ISRAELI (and not Jewish – please it is not a religious conflict it is a conflict of power) soldiers I would say simply that this is not the first time and this is something Hezbollah has announced as the only way to liberate the last Lebanese detainees (which by the way were supposed to be released with those that were exchanged after the last kidnapping of Israeli soldiers to release the former detainees some years ago – however Israel did not release the ones remaining and refused negotiations, since then Hezbollah decided to re-kidnap Israeli soldiers to make a new negotiation). One must also look at an important fact that there is a big difference between a military operation and terrorist one – by all standards the last Hezbollah operation is not a terrorist one as it was not aimed at civilians but at soldiers in an area of conflict. Of course I do not take stand in what concerns being with the operation or not however one cannot launch a destructive war and destroy a whole country because of such an operation. Another thing we must also look into is the fact that Israel has kidnapped Lebanese and Palestinian civilians (and also recently Palestinian deputies) from inside their countries and no one has ever resented such operations, not to mention the recent assassinations and the Mossad groups that were captured few months ago in Lebanon and who acknowledged the assassination of 3 people this year and the preparation for further assassinations. It is this tendency to always measure things in an uneven way that makes this struggle one of pride and human rights. And if one looks at the chronicles of the recent war you can clearly see that the Hezbollah did not start targeting civilians in Israel until Israel started bombing the southern Suburbs and killed more than 50 Lebanese civilians in a day of massacres. The first day the Hezbollah targeted only military posts in northern Israel.

What shows from such a big scale and high demand operation is that Israel was actually waiting for a reason to launch this war to implement the last part of the 1559 which Lebanon had agreed supposedly with the UN to solve it with an internal dialogue between the different political groups, however the talk about the defense strategy to be adopted by the government and which was proposed by the Hezbollah and was being accepted more or less made things complicated for US and Israel because if Hezbollah remains powerful Iran will always have a strong point of negotiation later on when the nuclear program will be in discussion, however this too is just one quick idea open to further discussion.

In short everything that happens in the world and especially in the Middle East and more precisely in Lebanon is always subjected to conflicts of power, energy and international politics. One must not misunderstand politics as an aim in itself, it is simply a tool.

And just to stress on Giorgos’s definition the common slogan to describe Israel is to say that it is Terrorist that is on the other side of the border. In here Israel is the symbol of terrorism for both its deeds in Lebanon and Palestine. The US entered the competition of high standard terrorism in its occupation of Iraq (and Afghanistan but Iraq remains the main scare in the Arab mind).

Finally to talk about the destruction of Israel one must first look at what Israel represents for those who lived on the land that was called Palestine not more than 60 years ago and see that yes some people believe that being kicked out of your land and having a new country created on it while your identity has been stolen and you are living in refugee camps for the whole of your life without a passport nor ID papers is something that would motivate you to call for the destruction of this country that was declared on your land. One must admit that Israel (with my respect to the Holocaust and all the crimes committed against Jewish people) was created by the eviction of a whole population more than 2 million Palestinians live in camps – and if you know these people even have legal ownership documents for their lands dated from the mandate period and some from the Ottoman empire. Their lands are now called in Hebrew names and no UN resolution gave them their right to live on their land. Israel is a piece of land that was populated by what is now called Palestinians, they were not peasants nor nomads, actually Palestine was the urban center of the region (my father was born their even though he is from Beirut because his father ‘immigrated’ to Palestine at the time when it was TO Palestine that people from Beirut used to go to make more money). Has anyone who lives in Israel now asked him/herself who used to live in these old houses from the pre-1948 period and why those who lived here left their houses? One does not really believe that people can leave their land to live in refugee camps with their own will. This does not mean Jewish people should be evicted but it means that you cannot occupy a land and declare a country after evicting those who used to live in this land and not expect these people to refuse this fact and do whatever to change it, after all they have nothing else in life but death. The Hezbollah along with many non-religious groups also believe in this cause and therefore call for the destruction of Israel. However this does not mean killing the Jews, but the creation of a long awaited Palestine, which was before 1948 the jewel of the orient. By the way an interesting fact is: there are still Jewish families living in Lebanon, they refused to go to Israel and they don’t even recognize the state of Israel however one disturbing detail is that they actually live in the Hezbollah districts, to be more precise the now destroyed southern suburb of Beirut, if this shows anything it is that the Hezbollah is not anti-Jewish but anti-Israeli.

To answer an anonymous question

As you can well notice you have not identified these ‘armed individuals’, nor did you specify where this context is set. If you want me to give you a context to the armed forces of the Hezbollah then what you have wrote is – and I can say it without fear of contradiction – not something that exists on the devastated land of reality.

Nonetheless this can give me a pretext to make a quick – to be developed – description of this ‘terrorist’ group the world wants to disarm.

Here is an on-the-ground version of BBC’s ‘Who are the Hezbollah’:

In 1982 Israel invaded Lebanon leaving its common stain of destruction all over the country. This operation which was led by Ariel Sharon was supposed to be aimed at getting the PLO out if the country and was supposed to be called the Litani operation (litany is a river in southern Lebanon which was supposed to be the limit of the invasion and talks about repeating this operation are now in vogue). However, Sharon had the ambition to occupy Beirut so he went on until he got into the city and of course the civilian casualties were far higher than this year’s invasion – the invasion lasted 4 months.

After many days and more massacres (the massacre of Sabra and Shatila in which more than 1000 Palestinian women and children and elderly were killed was one of the highlights of the invasion and Sharon was supposed to be on trial for war crimes related to this massacre in Belgium but unfortunately for the victims and fortunately for him he got into a coma) the national resistance movement was launched and was mainly formed by the communist and other leftist groups. However another resistance was also forming, it was the Hezbollah; they started with some spectacular operations like blasting the American Marines HQ and the Israeli army headquarters in the southern city of Tyr and did many suicide bombings against the occupying forces. It was the birth of a new form of resistance inspired by religion and the Iranian revolution.

The Hezbollah was not a political group, nor was it a foreign force, it was formed by the poor Shiite villagers who had their villages occupied and pillaged. After the civil war had ended the new era of the party began – the era of Hassan Nasrallah who became secretary general of the party after the late Abbas el Moussawi was assassinated by Israel. The Hezbollah gained huge popularity due to their credibility compared to other Lebanese parties and to their efficiency in helping those in need of help: they built schools, hospitals, colleges, and helped organize farmers and villagers to make better use of their resources. Another reason why the Hezbollah were popular is the fact that the Shiites of Lebanon had been a marginalized part of Lebanese society and politics until the end of the civil war and the Taef accord which gave them a presence in the political life of the country. The Lebanese political system always revolved around Sunnites, Druze and Maronites, the Shiites were the poor rural population in the south of the country usually subject to Israeli attacks from now and then. The Hezbollah gave them a source of relief and a state within the state, protecting them from Israeli attacks and eventually liberating the occupied land of the south.

One thing that must be pointed out is the fact that the Hezbollah did not participate in the civil war – they were preoccupied with fighting their own war against the Israelis who remained in Lebanon until the spring of 2000.

As for their armed presence, they do not terrorize the Lebanese population whether Shiite or not, they are known to be the most respectable armed forces in the country, and there are many different armed forces in Lebanon (basically even after the civil war was over all the parties kept a certain amount of arms and armed individuals). Discipline and respect is one of their best qualities and if I am to describe some personal encounters it would become too long an essay. As for killing people or shooting at people this is simply nonsense and the records of homicide and diverse shootings in Lebanon can do a better job proving so than I can. During the whole period of relative peace in Lebanon the Hezbollah never used their arms to forward any political or social benefits. That is when you walk in Beirut you will never find an armed Hezbollah individual in sight – however it is true that in their headquarters armed guards are always present, however this is not regarded and should not be regarded as a form of terrorizing civilians. As these guards will not harass you even if you were carrying a bottle of Vodka and going to the building just in front of the headquarters to get drunk at your friend’s place (which by the way does not exist anymore).

The Hezbollah had one internal conflict with the other Shiite group Amal in the early nineties which became a war of influence in the south, however this is something one cannot discredit their whole behavior for.

Another thing one should know about this organization is that its leadership is not summarized in Hassan Nasrallah but in a complex structure of decision making which encompasses many boards or councils which are responsible for the different sectors of work of the party. People from diverse domains of expertise most of which are very highly educated individuals in science, humanities and theology represent the high council of the party. Decision making is not in the hands of the leader but in the hands of specific councils.

As a personality Nasrallah however represents a phenomenon similar to the Jamal Abdel Nasser phenomenon in Egypt. He is a highly skilled orator and a very smart politician who can be as good in speaking to a huge crowd as he can be in a Television interview. His charismatic smile, his moderate speech and his amazing sense of rhetoric makes of him a phenomenon that overcame the limits of his Shiite environment to become an Arab figure of resistance and heroism par excellence.

In short the armed presence of the Hezbollah is not a social issue as much as it is a political one related to the fact that this party has been able to transcend Lebanese influence to become a regional power of resistance that has influenced Hamas to try to copy the example. The Hezbollah has to be disarmed because simply it has made Lebanon a country that can defend itself against its southern neighbor.

Day 12

How interesting it is to see that the United States can so boldly say that they are seeking a solution to the violence that has struck Lebanon while news of a new shipment of US weapons to Israel appears. Why can Israel accuse Iran of terrorism because they sell weapons to the Hezbollah while we cannot accuse the US of terrorism when they sell the bombs that are landing on the children of Lebanon to Israel?

In short, sarcastically Condoleezza Rice will arrive to Israel at the same time that the shipment of laser oriented weapons will, maybe she will be the one carrying them. Ironically she comes to find a solution to the violence; her missiles however are themselves the violence. If one looks at it with innocent eyes the solution is simple: come alone and don’t bring the missiles.

Otherwise it seems that targeting the media and journalists is the new sport – just like Iraq. Apart from the TV antennas that were destroyed yesterday, there was 1 dead and 2 wounded in one of the raids on the antenna of a Lebanese TV station in mount-Lebanon, the LBC (for those who don’t know it is a Christian and very much anti-Hezbollah region and station). Also there was an attack on a convoy of journalists of Al-Jazeera, Al-Arabiya and Al-Manar in the south of Lebanon. And today a woman journalist from the AFP has been killed also in the south. The wonders of democracy are not easy to achieve.

Day 11

Today was the day of land invasions. This however does not mean that warplanes took a rest. The target of the day was antennas for both television stations and cellular phones. After destroying all physical communications, the Israeli army decided to destroy what is left of indirect communications. Now we have no TV, and mobile phones are partly out of order. In a sense this is an introduction for a full scale invasion and probably a way to hide future war crimes.

To make it short, the day was calm in Beirut, we went out which is why the report comes slightly later than usual. I did not go to any humanitarian center today; I spent the whole day in a sleepiness that has its explanation in the amount of stress I am encountering on daily basis. I decided I will not be helping anymore refugees; maybe I will change my mind tomorrow. It was an image I saw when I went to this school where some 200 people were living. I couldn’t help thinking that these people were not in need for food, nor shelter. They simply needed to be called a people. I saw their death in their eyes. Helping them was of no use, they were already dead. It is not to say that they were depressed, on the contrary all I saw was a will to resist, but watching the news one cannot but see their imminent death and the silence that will follow.

The body count until now has exceeded 350 dead among which 170 children. And many reports about the use of forbidden weapons are beginning to appear. Everyone is afraid that the end of the evacuation of foreign nationals will introduce a new kind of violence. The targeting of antennas makes a good argument for them. I am too tired to write a detailed report of today, so I will settle for this much.

Terrorist thoughts

The constant flow of time has no newsworthy value. Broken by intermittent noises of planes passing by or other war-related sonorities, time transcends silence and becomes a continuous event, every second becomes a spectacle.

Is it the end of this piece of land called Lebanon? 16 years since the civil war ended and so many debts spent on the reconstruction. In 10 days everything was gone, everything. Since the last large scale Israeli season of destruction in 1996 that left the country without electricity and with so many deaths and homelessness, another wave of reconstruction was attempted. This time the Israeli rain of violence comes with the biggest destruction ever, bigger than the 4 months invasion in 1982.

When walking in Beirut, or even while driving through, one cannot but notice so many ironic scenes: Banners and slogans from the leftovers of that long forgotten ‘Cedar Revolution’ which got the Syrians out of the country and was praised by all these countries that are now in silence: advertisements praising the country’s imminent rebirth; or better yet the advertisements for tourism in the new beautiful Lebanon. This year was a record year in the number of incoming tourists; ironically it was also in the number of outgoing ones.

I never felt so disoriented in my life. Perhaps now I understand what Iraqi people felt when democracy invaded their country, or what Palestinians have been feeling since justice befell them. This will never end. If I survive this war, it would not be the images of dead children or blackened bodies and pieces of human flesh spread on the fertile soil of my land that would torment my dreams. It would be the memory of extreme power being exercised on you without the ability to even call yourself a victim.

I never believed in human rights, nor did I ever believe in the United Nations. In fact I always thought that these two institutions were the worse productions of human history. Inflicted power becomes hypocrisy, and justice is reduced to rhetoric, this is the post WWII morality.

For someone who has been brought up in a secular leftist environment, where ideals have a relatively realistic importance in one’s life, I find trouble imagining what Lebanon is or what it can possibly be.

Was it always so easy to distort history? Was it always so easy to change facts?

Every historical proof, every empirical study shows that Israel is a criminal state, perhaps the state with the biggest record of war crimes (there is however a strong competition with the US). Nonetheless a sadistic guilt complex gives it the right to kill without having any guilt. I do not deny the Holocaust; I do not even need to. But how is it that this crime has no equal in the history of man? How is it that this crime similar to so many others in history has made it right for the victim to repeat the crime? Why don’t the Incas have the right to a state of their own when millions of them were slaughtered? Why don’t the Armenians have the right to declare a state of their own in France or in England and evict its inhabitants because they chose to and because they were victims of genocide? Why don’t the original tribes of north America have the right to have a state of their own in their own land, but instead are secluded in zoo-like reserves where one can gaze at history with no feeling of guilt? Why is Ahmadinajad called a new Hitler when he asks why the Palestinians should bear the guilt of Europe, and why Israel should be inflicted on those who never participated in the Genocide?

Yes I do not believe that Israel has the right to exist, at least not in Palestine, and yes I wish it never did. If it should exist it should be in Germany, on this point I agree with Ahmadinajad even though I disagree with most of his statements. Nonetheless I also believe in power and reality. Israel is a fact and we have to live with it, but that doesn’t mean it has the right to be unchallenged or the right to kill with no remorse.

I always wondered how justice can be an absolute power when it is a relative judgment. When I was younger and watching westerns starring John Wayne or others I kept wondering why the hero was always the one killing the Indians – even though they were the ones simply defending their homes and land. When I grew up I understood that the hero is always the one who wins regardless of the moral aspect of his struggle.

Is it enough to be ready to die for a certain cause, have a beard and believe in a different religion to be called a terrorist? Were the French who resisted the Nazi occupation of their country terrorists? Were the peasants of South America terrorists? Were the Vietnamese terrorists?

Why is it that any deprived people fighting for their natural (and not human) rights called terrorists? Why is it that a Palestinian whose land is occupied, his identity denied, and his people killed on daily basis called a terrorist when he responds to the violence inflicted on him with violence?

How can the ‘civilized’ world look itself in the mirror when they accept Israel’s killing of civilians in Palestine and Lebanon every day and deliberately (they have smart and accurate weapons supposedly) without moral resentment and while calling for insulting rhetoric of right to self defense, while they call a military operation against Israeli soldiers – these same soldiers who are killing the civilians – a terrorist attack? I do not endorse operations against Israeli civilians, but I certainly do endorse fighting those who are killing my fellow unarmed humans. What is so appalling in all this is simply the pretentiousness of those who appoint themselves defenders of morality or justice. I would not be writing these lines if those who are defending Israel were saying that we are defending Israel because we care not about justice or righteousness but our interests are in supporting its actions in this case supporting its crimes against Lebanon. That would be a statement I would respect and I would even go so far as agreeing with them that their interests are indeed with Israel and if I was in their place I would possibly do the same. It is the hypocrisy which becomes ridicule that disturbs me.

When will the ‘civilized’ world understand that Arabs too are human beings, with feelings and lives just like them? When will those who preach democracy and human rights understand that even those who have a darker skin and speak a different language are humans like them?

Until this day comes I will refrain from believing in humanity and its achievements and refuse all the beliefs it has proliferated.

More from the suburbs

The bridge

Numbers

Mass grave in the southern city of Tyr. Many of the coffins were not identified. The dead were reduced to a number, deprived of any identity or human value. After all if one asks who these families were the answer will always be the key word 'terrorists'.

What is left of the suburbs of Beirut

Terrorist structures?

The highest bridge in the Middle East, one of the monuments of the long Lebanese post-war reconstruction, and part of the long awaited ‘Arab highway’ that links Beirut to Damascus to other Arab capitals has been destroyed by Israeli war planes. First it was targeted in a way that made some holes in it, then yesterday maybe some General decided that this huge structure that took many years and more dollars (40 million) to be achieved should be completely destroyed and thus the pillars were targeted this time completely destroying the highway which fell in the valley. What is the meaning of this?

Day 10

Yesterday night Hassan Nasrallah, the secretary general of the Hezbollah, made an interview on Al Jazeera: a calm rational discussion, like always. He made his arguments regarding the situation on the field, on local politics, and international issues. He was as convincing as always, and so sure of himself that one knows not what to think. He presented his excuses to the family that was killed accidentally by the Hezbollah rockets in Nazareth, and assumed the responsibility.

It is so interesting to see the semiotic value of a bearded man. In the west, thanks to media and fiction, along with the big efforts of Ben Laden a beard signifies hate, evil and radicalism.

Yesterday’s bombing, at least one of the raids, was of big symbolic value. Israeli airplanes destroyed the Khiam prison in the southern village of Khiam, one of the formerly occupied villages, which were liberated by these same Hezbollah in 2000. This infamous prison holds the proofs of Israeli crimes against Lebanese prisoners, something that echoes in media terms the case of Abou Ghreib. After the liberation of southern Lebanon the prison was transformed into a museum, a Hezbollah version of the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam, maybe with less media awareness. When I heard that the prison was destroyed I was disappointed. One of the Israeli war crimes was now in rubbles, it was left to forgetfulness.

Otherwise, more to the north, on the beautiful coastline of Beirut, a strange sight appeared today. The white sand was not able to reach the blue sea anymore, between these two former lovers was now a dark black fluid with a smell that transcends the limits of the beach and reaches the roads nearby. Experts said it was probably aircraft fuel mixed with the fuel coming from the battleships stationed on the coastline of Beirut and the still burning fuel reserves in the Beirut airport. The sea could not spit this toxic material; it was a clear sign that Beirut will have no beach anymore. They poisoned the sea, and now it was dying along with the fish and scorpions that used to be a neutral part of the Middle East conflict.

Things have calmed down relatively in the last two days, at least in the air and over Beirut. It is probably due to the evacuation of the foreign nationals; after this is over most expect that things will become ugly. In other words after evacuating those that should not be killed, it would be easier to kill those that do not count. On the field, Israel is trying to invade on the ground now. However, it seems to be what the Hezbollah is waiting for and for which they are ready. Let them come; at least it would become a confrontation that both sides are able to participate in.

There is a pressing need to define the word terrorism. Actually there is a more pressing need to stop using it in a rhetorical manner, especially that the masses in the whole world have not become more knowledgeable but more susceptible to propaganda and manipulation. It is clear when one sees that George Bush is an elected president. Terrorism is whatever defies the long walk of globalization, and whatever defies the hegemony of the United States or Israel – it is simple: the ‘axis of evil’. How naïve is it to talk about evil when power relations are at stake.

Until this moment more than 350 people have been killed and more than 1000 injured in Lebanon. To make things even more insulting the headquarters of the United Nation forces in southern Lebanon have been bombed twice since the beginning of the attack leaving injuries among the international soldiers. Even their countries of origin did not resent the incident, not to mention the United Nations itself, after all Israel is just defending itself.

Hospitals in the south are now full, dead bodies can no longer be stored in their refrigerators; they must be buried as close as possible, sometimes without being identified. Other bodies are still under the rubbles, their number is unknown. These are not bodies of so called ‘terrorists’, most of them are women and children, people who died in their homes or while escaping their homes. And others were victims of weapons that are banned by the United Nations, phosphorous and cluster bombs have been used in the south of Lebanon. Maybe these were the bombs that the Israeli children were signing and sending to the children of Lebanon, and maybe not. Nonetheless the children of Lebanon are receiving the gifts.

Day 9

It was 9am when I opened my eyes. At 11am there was a march from the UN headquarters to the EU headquarters. Many were hoping it would be successful, but naturally, since hope has forsaken this land long ago, it was not.

Some 200 people were there, they were split into 2 groups within 10 minutes. Some marched towards the EU HQ, others remained. As the crowd marched I couldn’t help overhearing many disappointing words. People were angry; others were just having a good time.

I was filming the action and partly participating. At a certain point the crowd passed in front of a wall on which was written ‘Beware, danger of collapsing’, the scene was more than emblematic it was insightful.

After this episode I had met some friends of mine and we went to help a group of young leftists who are distributing food and other material to the many refugees now living in the schools of Beirut. They call themselves ‘Mouwatinoun’ (citizens). We took the sandwiches that were already prepared by some volunteers and went in the car to distribute them to 2 schools which some 350 people were now calling home. Many do not accept the help and consider themselves more fortunate than others, and therefore prefer to leave their share to those who they regard as more needy. Others are so grateful that one feels bad about it.

Later still we went back to the headquarters, an abandoned house in front of the central park of Beirut, the Sanayeh Park which has been transformed into a relay station for the refugees before they are sent to some school which still has some capacity to welcome them. These people are perhaps what the media calls terrorists, these are the Hezbollah: poor rural families who spent the bigger part of their lives as refugees, because of the so many Israeli raids and the uncounted attacks their villages have known. These families are the infrastructure of the Hezbollah, they are the Hezbollah. They are neither radical, nor are they bloodthirsty, they are warm, loving and attached to their land, so attached that they care not about death.

After I left the HQ, I went to meet some friends to have a drink. The night starts early and ends early now. One of them had managed to escape the forsaken southern Lebanon last night; he was literally a war survivor. We celebrated his safety and had more drinks. It was 7pm and everyone was drunk. At 9 we went home. At 9.05 the raids over the southern suburbs greeted me home.

On the field, today was calm in the suburbs until 9.05pm. However in the south things were not: many Israeli attempts to go into Lebanon; however they faced very hard resistance and were unable to cross the line, fortunately for us. The Bekaa was the subject of the now daily air assaults which left a yet undetermined number of casualties. On the level of human rights doctors in Sida, the capital of southern Lebanon are complaining about receiving strange kinds of dead bodies: some of the victims of Israeli raids on the southern villages are neither burned, nor injured, they are just blackened bodies with a horrible smell, even the blankets with which they are being covered have no blood stains. In short these are symptoms of Israeli use of banned weaponry, weapons for which Saddam was called a terrorist. The written report gets shorter and shorter; however a visual one is in process of development.

Some pictures from today's demonstration

Some pictures from today's demonstration