Rasha -- 8 Days of Being Under Siege
These letters were written by a friend in Lebanon. They have been organized starting from the beginning and concluding to the most recent. They are direct accounts that have circulated through various personal lists. they offer a very
sobering vision of the many different aspects of life that are being attacked in this most recent siege by Israel. We will hopefully post subsequent ones in the coming week.
-aa
10 Days of Siege
_____________________________
DAY 1-2
Dear All,
I am writing now from a cafe, in West Beirut's Hamra district. It is filled with people who are trying to escape the pull of 24 hour news reporting. Like me. The electricity has been cut off for a while now, and
the city has been surviving on generators. The old system that was so familiar at the time of the war, where
generators were allowed a lull to rest is back. The cafe is dark, hot and humid. Espresso machines and
blenders are silenced. Conversations, rumors, frustrations waft through the room.
I am better off here than at home, following the news, live, on the spot documentation of our
plight in sound bites. The sound of Israeli warplanes overwhelms the air on occasion. They drop leaflets to conduct
a "psychological" war. Yesterday, their sensitivity training urged them to advise inhabitants of the southern
suburbs to flee because the night promised to be "hot". Today, the leaflets warn that they plan to bomb all
other bridges and tunnels in Beirut. People are flocking to supermarkets to stock up on food.
This morning, I wrote in my emails to people inquiring about my well-being that I was safe,
and that the targets seem to be strictly Hezbollah sites and their constituencies, now, I regret typing that. They
will escalate. Until a few hours ago, they had only bombed the runways of the airport, as if to "limit" the damage.
A few hours ago, four shells were dropped on the buildings of our brand new shining airport.
The night was harrowing. The southern suburbs and the airport were bombed, from air and sea. The apartment
where I am living has a magnificient view of the bay of Beirut. I could see the Israeli warships firing at their
leisure. It is astounding how comfortable they are in our skies, in our waters, they just travel around, and
deliver their violence and congratulate themselves.
The cute French-speaking and English-speaking bourgeoisie has fled to the Christian mountains. A long-standing
conviction that the Israelis will not target Lebanon's Christian "populated" mountains. Maybe this time
they will be proven wrong? The Gulfies, Saudis, Kuwaities and other expatriates have all fled out of the country,
in Pullman buses via Damascus, before the road was bombed. They were supposed to be the economic
lifeblood of this country. The contrast in their sense of panic as opposed to the defiance of the inhabitants of
the southern suburbs was almost comical. This time, however, I have to admit, I am tired of defying whatever
for whatever cause. There is no cause really. There are only sinister post-Kissingerian type negotiations. I can
almost hear his hateful voice rationalizing laconically as he does the destruction of a country, the deaths of
families, people with dreams and ambitions for the Israelis to win something more, always more.
Although I am unable to see it, I am told left, right and center that there is a rhyme and reason, grand design,
and strategy. The short-term military strategy seems to be to cripple transport and communications. And
power stations. The southern region has now been reconfigured into small enclaves that cannot communicate
between one another. Most have enough fuel, food and supplies to last them until tomorrow, but after that the
isolation of each enclave will lead to tragedy. Mayors and governors have been screaming for help on the TV.
This is all bringing back echoes of 1982, the Israeli siege of Beirut. My living nightmare, well one of my living
nightmares. It was summer then as well. The Israeli army marched through the south and besieged Beirut. For 3
months, the US administration kept dispatching urges for the Israeli military to act with restraint. And the
Israelis assured them they were acting appropriately. We had the PLO command in West Beirut then. I felt safe
with the handsome fighters. How I miss them. Between Hezbollah and the Lebanese army I don't feel safe. We
are exposed, defenseless, pathetic. And I am older, more aware of danger. I am 37 years old and actually
scared. The sound of the warplanes scares me. I am not defiant, there is no more fight left in me. And there is
no solidarity, no real cause.
I am furthermore pissed off because no one knows how hard the postwar reconstruction was to all of us. Hariri
did not make miracles. People work hard and sacrifice a lot and things get done. No one
knows except us how expensive, how arduous that reconstruction was. Every single bridge and tunnel and
highway, the runways of that airport, all of these things were built from our sweat and brow, at 3 times the real cost
of their construction because every member of government, because every character in the ruling
Syrian junta, because the big players in the Hariri administration and beyond, were all thieves. We accepted the
thievery and banditry just to get things done and get it over with. Everyone one of us had two jobs (I am not
referring to the ruling elite, obviously), paid backbreaking taxes and wages to feed the "social covenant". We faught
and faught that neoliberal onslaught, the arrogance of economic consultants and the greed of creditors just
to have a nice country that functioned at a minimum, where things got done, that stood on its feet, more or
less. A thirving Arab civil society. Public schools were sacrificed for roads to service neglected rural areas
and a couple Syrian officers to get richer, and we accepted, that road was desperately needed, and there was the
"precarious national consensus" to protect. Social safety nets were given up, healthcare for all, unions
were broken and coopted, public spaces taken over, and we bowed our heads and agreed. Palestinian refugees
were pushed deeper and deeper into forgetting, hidden from sight and consciousness, "for the
preservation of their identity" we were told, and we accepted. In exchange we had a secular country where the Hezbollah
and the Lebanese Forces could co-exist and fight their fights in parliament not with bullets. We bit hard on our
tongues and stiffened our upper lip, we protested and were defeated, we took the streets, defied army-imposed curfews,
time after time, to protect that modicum of civil rights, that modicum of a semblance of democracy, and it
takes one air raid for all our sacrifices and tolls to be blown to smithereens. It's not about the airport, it's what
we built during that postwar.
As per the usual of Lebanon, it's not only about Lebanon, the country has paradigmatically been the terrain for
regional conflicts to lash out violently. Off course speculations abound. There is rhetoric, and a lot of it, but
there are also Theories.
1) Theory Number One.
This is about Syria, Hamas and Hezbollah negotiating an upper hand in the negotiations with
Israel. Hezbollah have indicated from the moment they captured the Israeli soldiers that they were willing to
negotiate in conjunction with Hamas for the release of all Arab prisoners in Israeli jails. Iran is merely
providing a back support for Syria + Hamas.
2) Theory Number Two.
This is not about solidarity with Gaza or strengthening the hand of the Palestinians in negotiating the release of
the prisoners in Israeli jails. This is about Iran's nuclear bomb and negotiations with the Europeans/US. The
Iranian negotiator left Brussels after the end of negotiations and instead of returning to Tehran, he landed in
Damascus. Two days later, Hezbollah kidnapped the Israeli soldiers. The G8 Meeting is on Saturday, Iran is
supposed to have some sort of an answer for the G8 by then. In the meantime, they are showing to the world
that they have a wide sphere of control in the region: Afghanistan, Iraq and Lebanon. In Lebanon they pose a
real threat to Israel. The "new" longer-reaching missiles that Hezbollah fired on Haifa are the message. The
kings of Jordan and Saudi Arabia issued statements holding Hezbollah solely responsible for bringing on this
escalation, and that is understood as a message to Iran. Iran on the other hand promised to pay for the
reconstruction of destroyed homes and infrastructures in the south. And threatened Israel with "hell" if they hit
Syria.
3) Theory Number Three.
This is about Lebanon, Hezbollah and 1559 (the UN resolution demanding the disarmement of Hezbollah and
deployment of the Lebanese army in the southern territory). It stipulates that this is no more than a secret
conspiracy between Syria, Iran and the US to close the Hezbollah file for good, and resolve the pending
Lebanese crisis since the assassination of Hariri. Evidence for this conspiracy is Israel leaving Syria so far
unharmed. Holders of this theory claim that Israel will deliver a harsh blow to Hezbollah and cripple the
Lebanese economy to the brink of creating an internal political crisis. The resolution would then result in
Hezbollah giving up arms, and a buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon under the control
of the Lebanese army in Lebanon and the Israeli army in the north of Galilee. More evidence for this Theory
are the Saudi Arabia and Jordan statements condemning Hezbollah and holding them responsible for all the
horrors inflicted on the Lebanese people.
There are more theories... There is also the Israeli government reaching an impasse and feeling a little wossied
out by Hezbollah and Hamas, and the Israeli military taking the upper hand with Olmert.
The land of conspiracies... Fun? I can't make heads or tails. But I am tired of spending days and nights waiting
not to die from a shell, on target or astray. Watching poor people bludgeoned, homeless and preparing to mourn.
I am so weary...
Rasha.
_____________________________
DAY 3
from Rasha in Beirut
Dear All,
It is now night time in Beirut. The day was heavy, busy with shelling from the air and sea, but so far the night has been quiet in Beirut. We are advised to be bracing ourselves for a bad night, although most analysis is more reading tea leaves at this stage.
I received a wide array of comments regarding my email yesterday. The comments stayed with me all day. I visited friends this morning at their house, people now gather in homes, most cafes In "West Beirut" are closed, streets are quiet. In times like these, the city huddles on its neighborhoods, main thoroughfares are avoided, side roads and back streets are trekked. Gatherings shift to the house of the member of the group whose neighborhood has electricity, whose elevator works, and who has elusive enough familial obligations to house an antsy crowd eager for social exchange.
Amongst that group, I was the only one who seemed to have experienced the weariness, to be genuinely frustrated with having to face another round of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Everyone seemd resigned to endure this dark and sinister moment. Everyone was busying themselves with analysis, speculation. Mind games, fictions, chimeras. I regretted expressing my weariness with the fight, with having to summon the energy to face Israel and defy the destruction of Lebanon. I felt I betrayed a principle, a value, disrespected people's pain and suffering. I know a great great number of people in Lebanon share my sentiments, and the political debates on TV seem to return to the question tirelessly. But still, I felt "smaller" than the historical moment demanded.
I wanted to write this, I needed to come clean to you all. I need to let you know that if you were intrigued/discomforted by the pettiness of my spirit. The cause of this is partly my refusal to acknowledge the gravity of the moment. I don't feel I am strong or courageous enough to face it, to take it all in.
Last night something quite fantastical happened. By this morning, the mood in the country and city was palpably changed. Sometimes it is hard for me to believe that the leadership of Hezbollah are not acquainted with "The Society of the Spectacle".
Last night was a turning point in the confrontation between Hezbollah and the Israeli army. I ought to have drafted a note right after that moment, but I could not find the mental energy to do it. I was so scared and anxious that I became sucked into the pull of minute by minute news reporting and finally succumbed to exhaustion.
You probably all heard about the Israeli warship that was drowned. I am convinced that all of you not privvy to Arab media missed the spectacular staging of the drowning of that warship.
The "showcase" began with Israeli shells targetting Hassan Nasrallah's home in the southern suburbs. As soon as the shells exploded, the media reported them and waited to confirm that he and his family had survived. About half an hour later, the newscaster announced that Hassan Nasrallah planned to adress the nation and the Arab world by phone.
I never thought he was charismatic. A huge majority of people do. He's very young to hold the position of leadership that he does. He's a straight talker, not particularly eloquent, but speaks in an idiom that appeals to his immediate constituency in Lebanon but is also compelling to a constituency in the Arab world that harbors disillusionment, despondency and powerlessness with the failed promises of Arab nationalism to defeat Israel and restore dignity. He is not corrupt, he lives simply, and displays a bent on spartan ascetism. Although he's neither charismatic nor captivating, he has cultivated an aura of sorts, particularly since his son was martyred at age 18 in a commando operation in south Lebanon when it was occupied by the Israeli military. He survived the Israeli attempt on his life last night, and addressed the nation by phone, thirty minutes later. His speech was pragmatic, again spoken in his habitual simple (almost simplistic) idiom from within the Hezbollah rhetoric, obviosuly. The speech was intended to deliver a number of specific messages, answer back to pronouncements by regional leaders and clarify Hezbollah's strategy in the face of the unexpectedly barbaric Israeli attack.
He began by declaring an open war to Israel's assault. He summoned the Lebanese people to unite in this moment of confrontation, transcend petty divisions and rise to the occasion. He promised to deliver victory, based on the long record of victories by Hezbollah. Most powerful and compelling was his response to the Saudi, Jordanian and Egyptian statements issued earlier that day, blaming Hezbollah for bringing the tragedy on Lebanon. The Saudi statement had referred to Hezbollah's actions as "adventurous", the Jordanian as "irresponsible" and the Egyptian as something in both these veins. All three had invoked the pressing need to act reasonably. Nasrallah's response basically said that he is the leader of the only Arab and Muslim political movement to have defeated Israel militarily and forced it to withdraw, the only Arab leader to have been able to shell Israel and pose a serious military threat from without its borders. If his actions were "adventurous" he argued, they were certainly reasonable, but they did not comply to the reason that guides Arab leaders and Arab regimes, rather the reason that animates the common folk on the streets, the reason that defies defeat, the reason that brings victories, saves dignity and does not fear the enemy no matter how powerful his arsenal and allies. He called onto the Arab and Muslim world to stand in solidarity with the Lebanese as they faced, once more, the savagery of the Zionist machine.
His third message was to the "Zionist enemy". He reiterated that Hezbollah did not fear an open war. That they have long been prepared for this confrontation. Interestingly, he claimed that they possessed missiles that could reach Haifa, and "far beyond Haifa, beyond, beyond Haifa", thereby admitting that it was Hezbollah that fired the missile fired to Haifa (until then they denied having fired them). It is not clear what he meant by "far beyond Haifa". Did he mean Tel Aviv? It is not THAT far from Haifa. Did he mean Israeli interests and missions abroad? It was not clear. More terrains for speculators.
His conclusion was all about the showcase... In his message to the Zionist entity, he reminded his audience that he had promised to deliver many "suprises". And now the time has come for the first of the many surprises they have in store for the Zionist enemy, namely the warship that had bombed the southern suburb the night before and was casually sailing in the bay of Beirut was now in flames and its personel was drowning. "Look at it!", he said, this is one of the many surprises we have saved for the Zionist army... And he fell silent.
There is no film footage of the warship being hit because all the cameras had their lenses directed inland, focused on scouting for shells, destruction, victims and tragedy writ large. By the time he had spoken his words, it was too late to catch sight of the warship being hit, all that cameras captured was a huge ball of fire in the open sea, but not much else was clear. Rescue flares flew into the sky from around the ship. Ultimately, it would turn out that all except for 4 from the crew would be rescued/recovered.
The Israeli media began by denying the report, then confirming the warship had been hit, then claiming there were no losses, then admitting four sailors were missing, then claiming the ship was towed to the Haifa port, then admitting it had sunk in the sea where it was hit. This morning one of the three bodies was uncovered by Hezbollah.
The news of the downed warship spread fear in our hearts. We were sure the retaliation would be numbing in violence. Then Hezbollah fired rockets on some settlements in the Galilee and we were all bracing ourselves for a night of hell. Nothing happened in Beirut. The south was shelled, the north was shelled the Beqaa was shelled. Surgical assaults on roads, bridges and the communication network. Slowly but surely, in cold blood the country was being dismembered, ligament after ligament, inland, on the coast, and in the mountains.
In Beirut, the night was quiet. I could not understand how one downed Israeli warship could throw disarray into a military as powerful as the Israeli military.
Nasrallah's calls for solidarity resonnated loudly the next day. Immediately after the spectacular showcase, Hezbollah television was showered with phone calls from Saudi Arabia expressing their support. There were protests supporting him and his mission in almost every Arab city. They contrasted sharply with the reactions from Arab officialdom. He had won his first round against Israel and against the slothful, debilitated and stunted Arab leaderships.
Day 3 of the Siege
Today was a bad day. The shelling started from the morning countrywide and has not let until now. It was particularly brutal in the south. Marwaheen, a village in the south that had been under siege was showered with leafets from airplanes urging its inhabitants to flee because it would be bombed to the ground two hours later. As people gathered up stuff and began to flee, a few were not spared from the shelling, 12 children perished, burned alive on the road walking out of the village. A group amongst the fleeing villagers panicked and saught refuge at a UNIFIL (UN peacekeeping force) base on their road out of the village run by French army volunteers, but they were refused shelter and turned back. I don't know how unprecedented this is but it is certainly shocking.
Nearly all Lebanese ports were shelled today, Beirut, Tripoli, Sidon, Tyre, Amshit and Jounieh. Christian areas are not being spared. The alternative road to Syria (via Tripoli and Homs) was shelled. Bridges in the north of the country and the south of the country were shelled and rendered unusable.
Tonight the shelling is again focused on the southern suburbs, Haret Hreyk and Bir el-Abed. The first neighborhood is where the headquarters of Hezbollah are located. They have been targetted several times and there is extensive damage. The leadership has not been harmed. A great number of the inhabitants have been evacuated, but the afternoon shelling targetted residential areas. I am up, anxious, writing. As if it served a purpose of sorts.
Foreign diplomatic missions are making plans to evacuate their nationals. They had planned to evacuate people by sea, but after today's shelling of the ports, they may have to rethink their strategy. Should I evacuate? Does one turn their back on a "historic" station in the Arab-Israeli conflict? If there is no cause that animates me, how do I endure this? (I could not give two rats' ass about the Iranian nuclear bomb or Hezbollah's negotiating power). I was shamed this morning for having these thoughts... And now, at 1:30 am, as the Israeli airplanes fill up my sky, I am writing them again.
There was much diplomatic activity today, almost all of it secured moral high ground for Israel to proceed with "scorched earth" policy, re-occupy the south to secure its own borders, and disarm Hezbollah after a fatal blow. The meeting at the UN security council yesterday provided Israel with a green light to pretty much do whatever it wished in this country. (My favorite was Bolton, who was focused on the necessity to "take down" Khaled Masha'al -Hamas representative- in Damascus.)
Then there was an emergency Arab League meeting that pretty much determined that the peace plan of the Quartet was defunct and the region was at the brink of an explosion and that they will call for a UN security council meeting at once. If international law was not respected, then the Arab League would resort to other means (and "arms" was not eliminated as an option). Did the Arabs declare war? We don't know, did they intimate war? It would be the most prudish, skiddish, repressed intimation ever in the history of wars.
For now it seems that the battle will take about two to three weeks to wane. There are stated aims and they are within the paradigm of 1559, namely that Hezbollah should give up its arms, and the southern Lebanese border with Israel be secured by the Lebanese army. Hezbollah are not suicidal, unlike the Bin Ladens of the world and other radicals, they want to negotiate a bigger share of the pie in Lebanon. They are aware that in the final count, they will have to give up something, so until a cease-fire seems like an amenable solution to them, they need to register as many victories as possible. The rockets that can reach Haifa is one such victory, because Haifa is an important petro-chemical base in Israel. The Israeli Patriot missiles planted on Haifa that seem not to work are also another small victory for Hezbollah. The drowned warship is another victory.
Israel's strategy is not only to dismember this country and cripple communication, but also to challenge internal support for Hezbollah. People like me for example, complaining about how my life is a small hell and I can't take it anymore, yesterday and maybe a little bit today, well I was an agent of Israel. I was executing the Israeli strategy to break the spirit of the valiant Arabs. In fact the Israeli ambassador to the UN quoted two Lebanese MPs citing how little support for Hezbollah there is in Lebanon. This is the rhetoric. But in point of fact it is true, that Israel has not spared an area at this stage, whether Hezbollah stronghold or not and they want to make us pay for housing Hezbollah in our parliament. Maybe they prefer an Iraqi scenario?
Forgive me if I am losing my mind. I need to end this long diary entry. I would like to end it by congratulating the president of Iran, to whom a nuclear bomb (like the president of Pakistan) is by far more important than his people walking barefoot, illiterate and hungry. But the kind and generous president of Iran "assured" the world that if Israel hit Syria, Iran would show them hell. Never mind Lebanon burning!
Until Day 4 of the Siege.
Love, R.
_____________________________
DAY 4
another account from Rasha in Beirut
Dear All,
Things seem to heating up. Missiles hit Haifa and the shelling on the south and southern suburbs is unrelenting.
Scorched Earth Policy
Ehud Olmert promised scorched earth in South Lebanon after missiles hit Haifa. Warnings have been sent to inhabitants of the south to evacuate their villages, because the Israeli response to Hezbollah will be "scorched Earth". As major roads are destroyed and the south has been remapped into enclaves, it is not clear how these people are supposed to evacuate. And where to. It seems the "sensitivity training" that the IDF went through for evacuating the settlers from Gaza is really paying off, even on the "civilians" because Ehud Olmert offered the hapless inhabitants of the south shelter in Israel. Now that's leadership! Will they be sprayed by DDT as did the jewish populations shuttled from Iraq, Morocco and Egypt in the 1950s and 1960s? Will there be Maabarot (transit camps) ready for them?
They want the 20 kilometers buffer zone and they will burn, destroy and maime to get it. Maybe they should build another wall?
Video-Clip
Al-Manar TV has a video-clip of possible, potential hits to Haifa. Impressive. A missile is loaded, the camera travels over arial views of occupied Palestine and stops at Haifa. The port. Zoom on the petro-chemical reservoirs. Cut to a hand pressing on a green button. The images are accompanied with text in Arabic and in Hebrew. They are conducting their war in images and video-clips.
Proud to be an Arab
I am still in awe with the response from Arab regimes, how utterly proud I am to be an Arab. From Abou Mazen, to the several moral and physical dwarf kings and queens (the Abdullahs and whatevers) to the un-democratically elected representatives, "chapeau"...
I think of all the streets, those who are watching Gaza, Iraq, and now us. Do we not deserve their outrage? Do we not deserve mass mobilizations? Should not Moubarak, and his band of bandits and thieves deserve to be put to shame for their endorsement of the Israeli response.
How does it feel, my beloved friends, Arabs and non-Arabs to watch Beirut go up in flames?
Meanwhile wall-to-wall coverage is only from al-Jazeera, al-Arabiya and the Lebanese TV stations. The "war" is only a news item on Abou Dhabi, MBC, and the other Arab stations...
The Lebanese predicament
So Hezbollah dragged us without asking our opinion into this hell. We are in this hell, caught in this cross-fire together. We need to survive and save as many lives as possible. The Israelis are now betting on the implosion of Lebanon. It will not happen. There is UNANIMITY that Israel's response is entirely, entirey, UNJUSTIFIED. We will show the Arab leadership that it is possible to have internal dissent and national unity, pluralism, divergence of opinion and face this new sinister chapter of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Dictatorships produce mute sheep and sheepherders and radical ideologies.
Rasha.
_________________________________
DAY 6
----- Original Message -----
From: Rasha
To: undisclosed-recipients:
Sent: Wednesday, July 19, 2006 10:08 AM
Subject: Day 6 of the Siege
(Dear All,
The generator shut down before I could end this entry. It's noon the next day now...)
Dear All,
I am drafting this entry in this unusual diary at 11:30 pm, I have about half an hour before the generator shuts down. Most of Beirut is in the dark. I dare not imagine what the country is like. Today was a relatively calm day, but like most calm days that come immediately after tumultuous days, it was a sinister day of taking stock of damage, pulling bodies from under destroyed buildings, shuttling injured to hospitals that have the capacity to tend to their wounds more adequately.
The relative calm allowed journalists to visit the sites of shelling and violence. The images from Tyre, and villages in the south are shocking. Images from Haret Hreyk (the neighborhood in the southern suburb that received the most "focused" shelling) are also astounding.
The number of deaths is yet uncertain, it increases by the hour as bodies are pulled from the landscape of destruction. In the southern suburbs, some people may be trapped in underground shelters under the vestiges of their homes and apartment buildings. And yes, there is a problem of space in morgues in the south and the Beqaa, because none of the towns and villages are equipped to handle these numbers of deaths.
The IDF has destroyed almost entirely the village of 'Aytaroun. Some of the surviving wounded are Canadian citizens. Like the 8 Canadians who died in the building in Tyre (a building that housed the red cross and civil rescue), the Canadian government has had very little regard for them.
Evacuations, Privilege, Solidarity
Today was a particularly strange day for me because I was granted an opportunity to leave tomorrow morning. I hold a Canadian passport, I was born in Toronto when my parents were students there. I left at age two. I have never gone back, for lack of opportunity and occasion, no other reason. I have the choice to sign up for the evacuation, but the European and North American governments have been so despicable, so racist that I don't want to subject myself to a discrimination of that sort. The Swedes, the Danes and the Germans have evacuated their patriots with blond hair and blue eyes. The immigrants that were given shelter to their countries "out of the kindness" of their governments have been systematically left behind; and the guest workers who stayed to enliven their economies and their babies who adjust the dynamism of their demographies, were left behind to fend for shelter under the shells. But I digress. The point I set out to make is that I refuse to be evacuated as a second tier denizen.
I had the opportunity to leave tomorrow by car to Syria, then to Jordan and from there by plane to wherever I am supposed to be right now. For days I have been itching to leave because I want to pursue my professional commitments, meet deadlines and continue with my life. For days I have been battling ambivalence towards this war, estranged from the passions it has roused around me and from engagement in a cause. And yet when the phone call came informing me that I had to be ready at 7:00 am the next morning, I asked for a pause to think. I was torn. The landscape of the human and physical ravages of Israel's genial strategy at implementing UN Resolution 1559, the depth of destruction, the toll of nearly 250 deaths, more than 800 injured and 400,000 displaced, had bound me to a sense of duty. It was not even patriotism, it was actually the will to defy Israel. They cannot do this and drive me away. They will not drive me away.
This is one of the most recurring mistakes that the IDF makes, this is how we see things: THEY have destroyed this country, THEY are taking an opportunity to turn it to rubble and to usher us into oblivion, if there is ambivalence vis-a-vis the wisdom of Hezbollah's capture of the two soldiers, there is unambiguous, unanimous solidarity to stand in the face of Israel's barbaric arrogance. Some people see more in this war, some people see a moment of where the logic/values of the policies of the Moubaraks, the Abdullahs of the Arab world, i.e. the defeatist, pragmatic corrupt sell-outs will be humiliated as well. And I am sure, other people see other things as well.
The roads to Damascus are not safe. Its many different ways are shelled everyday. Drivers know what "calculated" risks to take, I am assured, but one never knows. Everyday the way out becomes more difficult. I decided to stay, I don't know when I will have another opportunity to leave.
The first contingent of Britons was evacuated early this evening. There are two ships, but the evacuation will take place over 3 days. Same for the French and Americans, their evacuations will last for 2 days. While the evacuations are taking place, there was relative quiet. A welcome lull. There was activity in the street, even on the Corniche along the seaside. Refugees from the south, displaced from their homes and provided shelter in public schools strolled in Hamra, looking for a breath of fresh air. A break from the confinement in schools and other makeshift shelters.
Imagine the horror, the sad, sad horror: we are on borrowed time and the only reason we are not under threat, under any serious threat is because the passport holders of some of the G8 countries are evacuating safely to safer harbors. With this relative calm, the sense of impending doom becomes almost palpable, time, space, light and movement are subsumed in an eerie stillness. It feels vaporous and fills the air. As it wafts from room to room, from apartment to apartment, as it turns a corner and moves to another neighborhood, every gesture, every act is a little delayed, slowed, surreptitiously lethargic, every thought lingers too long in the unfinished or inchoate state. This eerie stillness numbs the passage of time and the cognitive perception of things material. Objects seem both familiar and unfamiliar. They are familiar in that they were there the day before and seem not to have moved from their place. They are unfamiliar because they seem to belong to another time, another life. There was another life, I had another life that seems distant and foreign now. The morning is different, noon is different, sunset is different. Another Beirut has emerged. War time Beirut. War time Lebanon. War time mornings, war time noons. Siege time Beirut, siege time morning, siege time sunsets. Everyone else in the world is going about their day as they had planned it or as it was planned for them. The shakers and movers of this world, the fledgling middle classes of the developping world, the 11 million children workers in India, the good-doers and the evil-doers. We are in a different geography of time, of agency, we are besieged, captive, hostage. No chance of Stockholm syndrome this time. Our every move is monitored: every moving vehicle delivering food, fuel, or medicines is monitored, every phone call is listened on, every email read, every dream snarled at, every desire crushed. Israel has the right to explode it to smithereens.
The shelling has not really let, don't get me wrong. It still goes on but it's more occasional, there are more "blank spaces" in between now.
Hezbollah
These "siege notes" have been receiving a number of reponses from Israelis. I have to say that most are of the annoying sort. First, they always begin by noting that I am intelligent and I get commended for my intelligence like Colin Powell gets commended for his English language speaking skills and you wonder what those making these observations expect from you and the world in the first place. Second, they systematically mistake expression of dissent and critique with Arab regimes and official discourse as some sort of a favorable disposition towards Israel. In other words there is, falsely, a tautology between regarding Israel as an enemy country and endorsing radical ideologies of Islamic fundamentalism or rabid nationalism. As if being a democrat, an egalitarian and a feminist implied that one could not have even more profound grounds for being critical of Israel and regarding that country as an enemy country that has sponsored and produced nothing but war, violence, wretchedness, misery, banditry and usurpation. And so heartened by my ambivalence towards this war they recommend that more conversations should take place between Israelis and I. Off course most propose that I make the effort to seek those Israeli interlocutors out. This extreme form of Habermas-mania, that assumes that deep conflicts can be "talked through" is the sumum of hubris. The experience of the peace process is telling: it is clear that Israelis cannot cannot cannot accept Palestinians as human beings whose humanity is of equal value as their own. This is the bottom line. And until that bottom line is changed, there is nothing that a member of a society that builds walls around itself to shut itself off from the world and shut the world from itself can tell me. Punto final.
One of my impromptu (Israeli) commentators warned of my candor, despaired at my position vis-a-vis Israel, and took generously time and space to explain to me that Hezbollah he/she must be crushed because if they were to win, they would destroy Israel and me, because of my values and lifestyle. This view, along with other views salient in western media (particularly American) of Hezbollah betrays ignorance. It is fatal ignorance.
The most gross miscalculation Israeli strategists are making is based on the assumption that Hezbollah is a) not a legitimate political entity in this country, b) its base is made up of extremists and c) its "elimination" would leave the Lebanese construct unscathed. In point of fact, pushing the Lebanese population to "rise up" against Hezbollah, or the scenario of a Lebanese implosion is the worst case scenario for all regional "parties", because the country would then become the jungle of violence and killing that Iraq is today.
Because I am a staunch secular democrat, I have never endorsed Hezbollah, but I do not question their legitimacy as a political actor on the Lebanese scene, I believe they are just as much a product of Lebanon's contemporary history, its war and postwar as are all other parties. If one were to evaluate the situation in vulgar sectarian terms, when it comes to representing the interests of their constituency they certainly do a better job than all the political representatives presently and in the past.
It would be utter folly (in fact it would be murderous folly) to regard Hezbollah as another radical Islamist terrorist organization, at least in the ideological and idiomatic vein of the American intelligentsia and punditry. (There is something about a stubborness to misunderstand that betrays an intent to see a crisis linger or even escalate in the US. If Americans feel better being misguided idiots, Israelis should know better. If the Israeli intelligentsia wants to play deaf like Americans the only outcome will be an Iraq scenario, although I reiterate that Lebanon is not Iraq and the Lebanese are not and will not be Iraqi and will not be manipulated into the barbaric sectarian horror. We've tried that before and it does not work, and we are tired of fighting each other.)
Hezbollah is a mature political organization (that has matured organically within the evolution of Lebanese politics) with an Islamist ideology, that has learned (very quickly) to co-exist with other political agents in this country, as well as other sects. If Lebanese politics was a representation of short-sighted petty sectarian calculations, the lived social experience of postwar Lebanon was different. Sectarian segregation was extremely difficult to implement in the conduct of everyday social transactions, in the conduct of business, employment and all other avenues of commonplace life. And that is a capital we all carry within ourselves, there are exceptional moments when the country came together willingly and spontaneously (as with the Israeli attacks in 1993 and 1996), but there are other smaller, less spectacular moments that punctuate the lived experience of the postwar that every single Lebanese can recall where sectarian prejudice was utterly meaningless, experienced as meaningless.
When former Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was assassinated, the country seemed divided into two camps, the consensus was overwhelming however that we will not revert to fighting one another, to eliminating one another.
If Israel plans to annihilate Hezbollah, it will annihilate Lebanon. Hezbollah and its constituency are not only Lebanese in the perception of all, they are also a key, essential element of contemporary Lebanon. Moreover the specifics of UN Resolution 1559 may have regional implications, but at heart and in essence they can only be resolved within the Lebanese consensus. Israel CANNOT take it upon itself to implement that UN resolution. There is off course sinister folly that Israel should implement any UN resolution considering its stellar record of snarling, snickering and shrugging at every single UN resolution that did not suit its sensibilities.
Hezbollah are not al-Qaeda, Israeli and US propaganda will portray them as much, and that is the downfall of public opinion, that is the tragedy at the root of the consensus that agrees to watching Lebanon burn. In more ways than can be counted they are different political ideologies, groups and movements. First, they are not suicidal. Second, they are not anti-historical. Third, they are a full-fledged political agent at the center of a dynamic polity. Their ideology is not an ideology of doom, they represent as much petty interests of their constituency as they are imbricated in the fabric of regional politics.
Israel, and Channel 2
I was watching Lise Doucet on the BBC interview one of Olmert's underlings yesterday after the speech. This is the folly of the Israelis, and I believe it will be their downfall, ultimately. He was lamenting that Hezbollah hit the "peaceful" city of Haifa, an Israeli city that he described as exemplar of coexistence between Jews, Christians and Muslims. Haifa! An Israeli city? Haifa? The name is Arabic. The jewel in the crown of Palestinian cities... A peaceful haven of coexistence between Jews, Muslims and Christians? My God! It took DECADES for Christians and Muslims to appear on the roster of "human beings" in the ledgers of the Israeli government. Decades of struggle, riots, pain and suffering. And they are still second class citizen, and they are still unwelcome, pushed out, day after day, crushed by the Israeli machine.
This eloquent underling was making the argument that Hezbollah wanted to destroy the city of "coexistence". Off course, he does not care that the city the IDF has currently under siege, the city they are bombing to rubble, the city where the red cross and civil rescue headquarters were shelled to the ground, Tyre, is itself a gorgeous jewel on the Lebanese coast. That it is a GENUINE city of coexistence amongst Christians, Shi'ites and Sunnis. And the delightful town of Marja'yun is also a city where sects and religions co-exist, and Zahleh... and so on and so forth... But no matter, the Israelis have always done this, and eventually, it catches up with them, and in the end, they realize that their narrative is so far removed from reality they have to back track. The key to understanding Israeli's relationship to our humanity lies in a text by David Grossman, one of Israel's foremost novelists, essayists and writers. He wrote it around the time of the First Intifada. Israel was then beginning to come into reckoning that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza was no longer tenable or sound strategy for the well-being of its democracy.
By the second or third of these "siege notes", the emails reached Israel and Israeli blogs. A journalist from Israel's Channel 2 contacted me by email and asked for an interview. I was uncomfortable with the idea at first, for fear that my words be distorted and my genuine, candid sentiments quoted to serve arguments I do not endorse. Exposing oneself with transparency has its charm and price. That journalist seems like a nice person, but I have no reason to trust her and she understands my misgivings. My only defense is transparency. She sent me the set of questions below for me to answer so she can air them on TV or use them for some report. I decided to share them with you all.
1. How your day looks like from the morning. What you did today? did you have coffee? how do you get the news - television? radio? internet?
The routine of our days is totally changed. We now live under a regimen of survival under siege. Those of us still not wounded and not stranded do whatever needs to be done to survive until the next day. Coffee, yes, I have coffee in the morning, and at noon and in the afternoon. Perhaps I have too much coffee. The passage of time is all about monitoring news, checking everyone's OK, and figuring out what has to be done to help those in distress. News are on all the time. All the time, whatever media works.
There is a great need for volunteers to tend to the hundreds of thousands displaced now.
2. Can you describe the neighborhood you live in?
So it will be bombed? No thank you. I live in a very, very privileged neighborhood, far from the southern suburbs. After the evacuation of foreign nationals (and bi-nationals) is complete, everyone is expecting doom and if Israelis decide to give us a dose of tough love as they did in the southern suburbs my life will probably be in serious danger as my family's and everyone who has decided to stay here.
3. Can you say something about yourself - like what you do for living, if you can say.
I organize cultural events and I am a free-lance writer. I used to live in New York city and moved to Beirut Tuesday July 11th. I have no life at the present moment. I try to do a few things over the internet, but that's increasingly difficult.
4. Are you Lebanese or Palestinian?
Both and it gets more complicated I have Syrian blood too. And Turkish and Bosnian. I am the product of the Ottoman empire, and I say it with pride. I know it ires a lot of people. But I am VERY proud to claim my lineage. My father was expelled from Jerusalem in 1948, he and his family lived in a gorgeous home in Talbiyeh. I think it is a day care school now. We own property in old Jerusalem as well and the Atlantic Hotel which was bombed by your "valiant" paramilitary pre-national militias in 1946.
5. In Israel our leaders think that by targeting Hezbollah and other places in Lebanon will make the rest of the local population against them. Is this true?
It is pure folly, but even if it were true it is a terrible strategy, an imploded Lebanon is a nightmare to all, not only the Lebanese but to everyone, does Israel want an Iraq at its doorstep? There seems to be consensus now in Israel over the military campaign. It is because Israelis are not yet pressing their leadership and military the smart questions. Do you actually believe it would be possible to eliminate the Shi'i sect from Lebanon, and that it would go down easy in the region? If the Americans are advising you, duck for cover or move. Need I list their record of wisdom and foresight recently? Vietnam, Central America, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq. If you need to listen to imperialists, find less idiotic ones, at least who have a sense of history. Gold help us all if Rumsfeld is also in charge of your well-being. This war will bring doom to all. Stop, cut everybody's losses. Wars can be stopped before the body count is "intolerable" or an entire country has been reduced to rubble.
6. What is the atmosphere in the streets of Beirut, if you can tell.
Beirut is quiet, dormant, huddled. We are caged, but there is tenacious solidarity. You have to understand that we see ourselves under an unwarranted attack from Israel. The capture of two soldiers DOES NOT justify Israel's response. There has been a status quo for the past 6 years that was well managed. Hezbollah was not in an impasse, the Olmert government was in an impasse. He ran on a campaign to solidify the "new" (illegitimate) borders, finish the wall and finalize the enclave and withdraw into the boundaries of that enclave. The Olmert government did not have the maturity or intelligence to know how to deal with the Hamas government. Your government was guided by arrogance. We, you and us, are here today because your political class is not up to the challenge. I am sorry, but the Hamas government was elected democratically, and there were myriad ways to deal with them. MYRIAD. But this is the stage of your destiny that you have reached, you build walls around yourselves (you to whom the Massada is a foundational trauma/myth!), and you chase barefoot, toohtless, illiterate, hungry people with state of the art military arsenal. And you insist that you are victims, and you insist that you are on the right side of history. All this bulllshit will catch up with you.
7. What is the atmosphere among your friends?
The consensus is solidarity. Our country is under attack. Otherwise, we are an exceedingly plural society every one has a theory and a point of view, and we co-exist. Humoring one another. What do you do when you are under siege? Do you eat one another, cannibalize on one another, or stand in solidarity to weather the storm?
8. Can you go to work, or do you have to stay home? (because some of the workers in the north of Israel did not go to work today)
The largest, largest majority do not go to work. Although it is a form of resilience. If the war goes on for longer, life will have to evolve a different routine. A large part of the work force is impaired from movement. And then there is the random shelling, it's also dangerous to go out. This has gone on from the first day of the siege. The south is now sinking in a humanitarian crisis. Beirut will soon.
(The new regulation by your glorious IDF this morning is to shoot at all moving vehicles larger than SUVs. One was just shelled in Ashrafieh. New danger, new things to look out for.)
9. Whatever crosses your mind.
Let's not go there... It's dark now, and I am too traumatized. I just want this to be over. I am waiting for a ceasefire. Are you? Is that too unmanly for your society? What do you need to see before you cease your fire? You want to hear me expire? You take down Hezbollah, and I am going down with them. Do you know when Hezbollah was born? 1982. Where were you? Was it an exciting summer for you?
10. I, for example, went to my gym class this morning. I am at home now, listening to the radio on one side, writing mails on the other side. Air-condition is on, since it is extremely hot and humid in Tel Aviv. I live in the center of the city. Later I will go to the office. I think life in my city continues but in a lower volume.
Life as it were, or as previously understood, in my city has stopped. No gym classes, and I am accumulating cellulite, hence chances of finding second husband are lessened (can I make the IDF pay for that?). Air-conditioning is dependent on electricity or generator working. Power cuts are the rule now and the generator works only on a schedule. I like it when Israelis report their weather, it ought to have some cathartic virtue, because it's like a reality check one of the few reminders they are in this region and not in Europe. So yes, without air-conditioning and with power cuts, my "semitic" curls produce unruly coiffe and I have to admit, I am enduring siege with bad hair.
I am on email, but that's intermittant between two bouts of "breaking news".
I hope you will wake up to the nightmare you have dragged us into. I hope you will want to have fire ceased as soon as possible. I hope you will deem our humanity as valuable as your own.
Best, Rasha.
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DAY 8
Dear All,
I have to confess that writing is becoming increasingly difficult. Writing, putting words together to make sentences to convey meaning, like the small gestures and rituals that make-up the commonplace acts of everyday life, has begun to lose its meaning and its cathartic power. I am consumed with grief, there is another me trapped inside me that cries all the time. And crying over the death of someone is a very particular cry. It has a different sound, a different music and feels different. I dare not cry out in the open, tears have flowed, time and time again, but I have repressed the release of pain and grief. My body feels like a container of tears and grief. I am sure it shows in the way I walk.
Writing is not pointless per se, but it is not longer an activity that gives me relief. The world outside this siege seems increasingly far, as if it had evacuated with the bi-national passport holders and foreigners.
The past few days have been MURDEROUS in the south and the Beqaa Valley. The death toll has been increasing in a horrific exponential envigorated with the White House giving a green light for the military assault to persist. Beirut has been spared so far, but not the southern suburbs. Today is Day 12 of the war, the Israeli military has conducted 3,000 air raids on Lebanon in 12 days. Out of the total deaths so far, which range close to 400 (numbers are not definitive), almost 170 are children. The numbers of the displaced are increasing by the hour. Have you seen the pictures of the deaths? The mourners in Tyre? Have you seen the coffins lined up? And the grieving mothers.
It is impossible not to grieve with them, it is impossible to shut one's ears to their wailing. It haunts me, it echoes the walls of the city, it bounces off the concrete of destroyed bridges and buildings. In trying to explain what drove Mohammad Atta to fly an airplane into one of the towers of the World Trade Center, someone (I forget whom- sorry facts-checkers) once said to me that Atta must have felt that "his scream was bigger than his chest". That description stayed with me, I don't know if I agree with it, or if that's how Atta felt in reality, but it comes back to me now because I feel that my grief is bigger than my chest and I have no idea how to dissipate it.
The Southern Suburbs
I accompanied journalists to Haret Hreyk two days ago. I suspect I am still shell-shocked from the sight of the destruction. I have never, ever seen destruction in that fashion. Western journalists kept talking about a "post-apocalyptic" landscape. The American journalists were reminded of Ground Zero. There are no gaping holes in the ground, just an entire neighborhood flattened into rubble. Mounds, and mounds of smoldering rubble. Blocks of concrete, metal rods, mixed with furnishings, and the stuff that made up the lives of residents: photographs, clothes, dishes, CD-roms, computer monitors, knives and forks, books, notebooks, tapes, alarm clocks. The contents of hundreds of families stacked amidst smoking rubble. A couple of buildings had been hit earlier that morning and were still smoking, buildings were still collapsing slowly.
I was frightened to death and I could hear my own wailing deep, deep within me.
I stopped in front of one of the buildings that housed clinics and offices that provide social services, there seemed to be a sea of CD-Roms and DVDs all over. I picked up one, expecting to find something that had to do with the Hezbollah propaganda machine (and it is pretty awesome). The first one read "Sahh el-Nom 1", the second "Sahh el-Nom 17". "Sahh el-Nom" was a very popular sit-com (way, way before the concept was even identified) produced by Syrian TV in the 1960s. It was centered on the character of "Ghawwar el-Tosheh", who has become a salient figure in popular Arab culture. I smiled mournfully, at the irony. Around the corner passport photos and film negatives covered the rubble.
Haret Hreyk was a residential area. The residents, I was told by our driver who lived a few blocks away, were evacuated by Hezbollah to other places before the shelling began. Those who refused to leave then, left after the first round of shelling. Haret Hreyk is eerily ghostly, there are practically no people left in that neighborhood. In the two hundred meters radius removed however, life is on-going. Residents testified that Hezbollah was securing food, electricity and medicines to all those who stayed.
Haret Hreyk is also where Hezbollah had a number of their offices. Al-Manar TV station is located in the block that has come to be known as the "security compound" (or "security square"), the office of their research and policy studies center, and other institutions attached the party. It is said that in that heavily inhabited square of blocks, more than 35 buildings were destroyed entirely.
Hezbollah had organized a visit for journalists that day, as they had the day before. They provided security cover for the area for the international media cameras to document the destruction. There was a spokesperson greeting journalists. A small rotund man, dressed in a track suit, fancy sunglasses, a two-day old stubble carrying two state of the art cell phones. He spoke in concise soundbites and was affable. There was nothing menacing about his demeanor, in fact were it not for the destruction around him he looked more like he would be an assistant to Scolari (similar dress code and portend) than part of the media team of a "terrorist organization".
The security apparatus of Hezbollah was also impressive, underscoring the identity of Hezbollah. They were all affable, welcoming, dressed casually and unarmed. They all held walkie-talkies, and when looming danger of another Israeli air strike seemed tangible, they all ushered the group of some 30 (and more) journalists to clear the area. They issued their warnings calmly and confidently.
One of the buildings was still burning. It had been shelled earlier that day at dawn. Clouds of smoke were exhaling from amidst the ravages. The rubble was very warm, as I stepped on concrete and metal, my feet felt the heat.
Israeli Warfare Mystery
Doctors in hospitals in the south have testified on television that they a number of bodies that have reached them have an unusual, unfamiliar skin color. Some of surviving injured exhibit a pattern of burns that doctors have also never seen before. The question is beginning to get attention for the world community of physicians and human rights organization. Israel is suspected of loading its missiles with toxic chemicals. The fear, in addition to their toxicity being immediately lethal on its victims, is that the waters and earth may now be poisoned. The inhabitants of the south may have to suffer from Israel's wrath for a very, very long time, in chilling cold blood.
The as-Safir newspaper, the second largest running daily in Lebanon, has taken up the task to investigate the question.
Beyond the crime of toxic poisoning, the type of shells and bombs used is also astounding. I met a woman who was displaced from the borderig village of Yater. She is a native American, blue blood and apple pie, but with a hijab. She, her husband, her three babies and her husband's family, a total of 14 people were trapped in one room in their house in Yater. On the 6th or 7th day of shelling, she cracked and her kids could not longer handle the violence. Risking their lives, they jumped into their car, and decided to take their chance. They drove straight without stopping, taking circuitous ways when the main roads were impossible to tread. They expected to die on the road. After 14 hours of driving they made their way to the US embassy in the northeastern suburbs of Beirut. They were not aware of evacuations. They were lost on the way, and someone stole her husband's wallet with the 400$ in cash they carried (the totality of their fortune), his green card and her US passport. I came across her at the US embassy compound. She was trembling. She could barely tell her story coherently. She repeated over and over that she had seen houses fly, that the shells made the houses fly in the air and then collapse on the ground. She repeated that she ought not to have gone to the window, but she could not help it, she was curious, and she saw the houses fly.
As a holder of US passport (and real native) she had been allowed into the embassy. Her husband, only a green card holder, was not. The US embassy changed their policy, I was later told by people and journalists, but at various stages in the evacuation, green-card holders were not included in the evacuations plan. Pardon me, in the plans for "assisted departures".
I don't know what happened to the American mother from Portland Oregon and Yater south Lebanon. I know her babies are lactose intolerant and their only food was the stock of soy milk she had with her. She was very young, a face earnest, her skin transluscent white. In her pale blue eyes there was despair and fright that she will not recover from for a very long time.
The Displaced
The displaced have been dispersed in the country. They have been placed in schools, universities, government owned buildings. Aid is arriving, but still in chaotic manner. Volunteers are beginning to get tired. However nothing compares to the distress of the displaced. They are in a state of complete emotional upheaval. Their presence has already changed the habits and rituals of the neighborhoods where they have been placed.
As the sun begins to set and the harshness of its rays begins to dim, you find families strolling on Hamra street (a main commercial thoroughfare in West Beirut). Shops are closed, sandwich shops are closed, cafes are intermittantly open, but the sidewalk provides an opportunity to escape the confinement from the shelter where they been relocated. You can see it in their walk, their body language. Their pace searches for peace of mind, not for a destination, their lungs expand drawing in oxygen to inspire quietude and calm, not for cardiovascular pressure. They have a deep, mournful, sorrowful gaze. They left behind their entire lives, maybe even their beloved.
In Ras Beirut, small backstreets have come to life. To escape the heat of indoor confinement, displaced families relocated to old homes or government-owned buildings, have grown in the habit of placing plastic chairs and their narguiles on small front porches or entrance hallways of buildings. I had to walk home after a long day of working with journalists, two nights ago, and as I zigzagged through these back streets, I was comforted by their gentle presence. They chatted, softly, quietly, huddled in groups, watching the night unfold, fearful of the sound of Israeli warplanes.
The ceaseless newscast from a radio kept everyone informed. It too sounded softly. It was a gentle summer night, and the families dispersed and uprooted surrendered to the gentleness of the night.
On the next block, three young woman stood in line, queuing for access to a public payphone. That too has become a familiar sight in Beirut. People lining at public payphones. They stood, clearly tired but resilient. To my "good evening", I was greeted back with smiles and another "good evening". I was relieved to see that they felt safe, that they roamed the city at night without qualms. How long can they afford to pay for these phone calls is another question. There is a definite need for a long term plan. This emergency solution will soon reach a crisis, and state structures need to be prepared to face the anger and frustration of nearly 500,000 people.
On the next block, a Mercedes car packed with people was parked at a corner, in front of the entrance of a building. The car's doors were flung open and the radio broadcast news. It was a visit. Two displaced families on a nightly visit. Everyone was gentle, and a soft breeze blew with clemency.
