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
If I ever had the choice I would not have chosen to be a human being – but no god has ever asked me.
Can
Did
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.
posted by walid @ 11:15 AM
5 comments
5 Comments:
(I've just seen this post, and hope that my comment won't be too off-topic...)
Thank you for your reply. I can sense that you are writing with great candor, and appreciate and respect the fact that you are willing to share your opinion in these matters.
First of all, I do not wish to enter a competition of who is more democratic as this is the internal business of a country. I have many objections to my elected officials on different levels, but I think that they are of no concern to people outside of Israel, and should be dealt with in the proper democratic manner.
One of the things I gather from your response is that you feel that the people, army, or leaders of Israel have been carrying a deceitful campaign of aggression against the palestinians and the neighboring arab countries for the past 60 years (to what end, I do not know). I say deceitful because not only are they knowingly bombing civillian targets (reasons for which I can't imagine), but also always claim throughout these years to want peace and defend themselves (which are nothing but excuses). Since facts and contexts can be easily interpreted in many ways, I don't think that I can even begin to counter this belief. Moreover, if deceit is in the core of Israel's strategy, one cannot hope for a solution since it will always argued to be false. I can only speek for myself when I say that Israel has made many terrible mistakes. No "but"s here.
Something that surprised me even more, is the 'breaking into my home' (metaphor?) which appears very much alive in your heart and mind. What puzzles me is that on one hand you said that it is Israel's responsibility to solve this problem (which I whole-heartedly agree), yet on the other hand allowing and legitimizing attacks from your border.
Finally, to answer your question, I have often asked myself what it is like to live in Gaza, and critcized my government publicly many times regarding the meddling in someone else's life. But, what depresses me the most is the fact that while Israel repeatedly attempts to (falsely?) describe a positive constructive future, our neighbors are centered around words such as Resistance, Justice, and Pride. What is your pragmatic solution? (And keep in mind that all indications show that we are here to stay, and like the Arab World we also do not want any other nationality ther than our own.)
uv.
Firstly I do not judge the people of Israel as one whole entity, and even though I believe that many of them are indeed supportive of their government actions in both Gaza and Lebanon (opinion polls clearly show that) however I refuse to generalize my judgements.
Secondly you should know that the Israel issue is not limited to Palestinians but since the first Israeli invasion of Lebanon and its aftermath Lebanon has become an intrinsic part of the struggle of the Palestinians especially that since the first waves of Palestinian refugees came to Lebanon the problems of Israel were in a literal and not very respectful term ‘exported’ to Lebanon. One of the main issues in Lebanese internal politics is the problem of the 700 000 Palestinian refugees: to describe the problem in explicit and non-politically correct terms: no one in Lebanon wants them to become Lebanese, first of all because the country is too small to integrate them, secondly because they will change the demographic balance (or imbalance) of the country in religious terms (the Christians will not be very happy to have 700 000 new Muslims having the right to vote, and the Muslim leaderships don’t want a new competition force in the elections). Otherwise Israel’s problems are not limited to Palestinians because they still have 2 unsolved issues, 1 in Lebanon and 1 in Syria. While the state of Israel is still holding the Golan heights and the Chebaa farms, along with the Arab detainees and the landmines maps of southern Lebanon one cannot talk about leaving Israel alone to solve its internal problems with the Palestinians. When I say it is Israel’s responsibility to solve its problems I meant that it shouldn’t deny the fact that it created its own problems and it alone can solve them by accepting the responsibility that is: implementing all the UN resolutions that have been voted since 1948 and then I can assure you that there will be nothing called Hezbollah anymore nor – and I am not exaggerating – will there be any Hamas (if the resolution 194 and 242 are implemented the 1559 will be very easily done without the need to kill and destroy the whole country). These resolutions however are not in the interest of the current power relations that rule Israel: first the refugees should be back to their homes (194), which makes a huge demographic shift in Israel and which means in democratic terms that the state of Israel would have a new balance in the elections and a much more densely populated neighbour (that is if someday the two-state solution becomes a reality). Secondly the withdrawal from the occupied territories of 1967 which include the Chebaa farms and the Golan Heights, which means Israel, looses strategic points (the Chebaa farms are one of the highest lands in the region and from there you can see northern Palestine, the Golan and southern Lebanon, that is with naked eye). Not to mention the fact that by giving away these territories Israel looses important water resources which is after all one of the main problems the state has. Then there are the issues of the two state solutions, which I think is the only possible one at this point; however this does not mean that the second state should be a small prison deprived of any economical potential and divided into 2 non-communicative entities. This is at this point another discussion. In short Israel’s responsibility is to accept the fact that creating the state that they yearn to - a state that is independent from any influence from its Arab environment and with a limited Arab, or non-Jewish – or even indigene – population has its price. It is in a way funny to have some 200 000 million dark skinned Arabs around a 5 or 6 million blond Jews most of whom still call themselves Russian or whatever, and defend the fact that you have the right to live without any interference and think that you belong here or that you don’t want any other nationality than your ‘own’. I do not want to offend but you can’t really expect Arabs to accept this. Otherwise to anticipate any response on the issue of the 2 state solution or all the political conflict since 1947, I believe that the Arab nations have done bigger errors in this field than Israel did whether in 47, 48, 67, 73, 82… and then the best part during the 90s with the Arafat political phenomenon (or the Arafat-going-political period).
Now we get to why I recognize the Hezbollah operations, and why the northern borders of Israel should not be calm without a price. First let me tell you a story, among many many more. Once upon a time a shepherd was walking his herd along with his young son. They live in a village near the borders and it is after the year 2000, their land was supposed to be theirs once again. As his son was taking the goats further south, some meters from the borders (from the Lebanese side) a gunshot coming from the other side of the borders kills him on the spot. The gunshot was a headshot, without warning. It came from an Israeli post on the other side of the borders.
Without giving back the calmness of the Lebanese borders and the rest of Lebanon by the way (it is not very weird if you live in Beirut to have Israeli planes breaking the sound barrier over your head at 3am, or to have an assassination from time to time that stinks the Mossad) Israel cannot have calmness on its borders, it is an exchange one has to make at a certain point.
One can say that the Hezbollah started the aggression, and one can say that Israel did, it is like the chicken and egg dilemma. However one must also refer to theoretical and historical data that explains the birth of militant groups of resistance. Resistance always begins as a reaction to occupation or oppression never the opposite is true.
The Hezbollah and its missiles represent(ed?) some form of balance of violence, if you kill someone from our side we do the same on yours. Since the Lebanese army has a museum-like arsenal (the most powerful weapon being vintage M16s from the 80s) never has Lebanon managed to have a defence force able to protect its borders from Israeli aggressions (and which I can say without fear of contradiction were often non-defensive, not to say more). One thing you should know long before Hezbollah was formed (in 1982), the south of Lebanon was the terrain of many Israeli aggressions which left memories of massacres of civilians in their villages however at that time Lebanon had a completely different political balance and the Shiites of the south of the country were not yet seen as part of the country and therefore had no protection from both Palestinian militants and from Israeli army, they were simply stuck in the middle.
Regarding the blonde Jews - I have to respond, because it gets me every time :)
My girlfriend is blonde (her family is originally from Argentina). However, approximately 50% of the Jewish population in Israel are Sepharadim which are Jews with Arabic and Persian backgrounds, aside from the other large group of Mizrahim whose ancestors lived in Arab and Muslim lands. To balance the Russians, we also have plenty of people from Yemen and Ethiopia which are darker than you and I combined.
with a big smile i too have to respond. When i said blond, it does not mean the other varieties belong here. I knew it would be irritating and i wrote it anyway. However i should also point out to an argument you made in my favor by replying the way you did: as you have so beautifully wrote it, every percentage comes from a different origin and very few of them come from Palestinian origins (and i admit that there was a large Jewish population in Palestine however not more than 30% in the best cases). Thus, and the conclusion is the most important part, as i said these multicolored and beautifully shaded people do not belong here initially and still are identified partly by their initial origins, as for those palestinians who now live in camps still call the streets in their camps with the names of their old villages in Palestine that now belong to what you call 'israel'. Again i am sorry for making you say this response and i am grateful for your beuatiful illustration of the origins of the Israeli population in Palestine.
I really enjoyed looking at your site, I found it very helpful indeed, keep up the good work.
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