As part of an article on rising travel destinations, Forbes Magazine listed both Tel Aviv and Beirut as some of the locations that Americans are becoming increasingly interested in visiting. As such, an Israeli investment manager called Mark Leibowitz tweeted in celebrating, inadvertently tagging Beirut.com’s twitter account thinking they were the official representatives of the city.
As such, Beirut.com replied from their twitter account that they wanted to be “excluded from the narrative” echoing the ever wise Taylor Swift circa 2016 with her reply to the Kanye West/Kim Kardashian drama. It’s also a narrative they did not choose to partake in in the first place. What they meant was that they wanted their official twitter account not to be associated with such a thing given they’re not representatives of the city in any way. What Mark Leibowitz understood of it was an act of aggression over the statement he made.
Of course, Beirut.com’s reply was not taken on too kindly by the Israeli twitterverse that responded aplenty:
And, naturally, the Mossad intervened.
Of course, such silly hashtag by one of the world’s leading intelligence agencies regarding a country they’re at war with and have been in active conflict with nearly 11 years ago did not sit well with the Lebanese populace on in Twitter.
It hasn’t been a year yet since these threats were made by Israeli politicians against the Lebanese people:
Some of the Lebanese replies though are as follows:
Another day, another drama.
It’s fortunate that hashtags and Twitter wars remain as online media through which people can vent without actual damage being done, or at least damage in the literal sense of the word of what usually takes place when Lebanon and Israel clash.
It’s immensely silly that the Israeli Mossad tried to brush away years of conflict between the two countries with a hashtag as silly as the one they came up with, or that some of the Israelis responding were not aware there’s more to the conflict between the two countries than what began 71 years ago when their country was founded.
If Tel Aviv truly “loved” Beirut, they would refrain their politicians from launching threats at Beirut whenever they want to give a boost to their political credentials, and own up to their own record of attacking Lebanese civilians, admit to the countless war crimes they’ve committed in Lebanon – and that’s for starters. But of course, watch them blurt out Hezbollah as a response.
I may not support all facets of Lebanese censorship or prosecution when it comes to Israel-related entities, but I cannot also stand and watch my country’s own destruction be washed off under a meme.
A Separate State of Mind | A Blog by Elie Fares 
Top marks for this post Elie. Perfect in every way. (Inc letting us enlarge the tweets – as I’m on my atomised phone & couldn’t see them otherwise).
Awww… Care Bears w/ Star of David on their tummies. I wonder if Mossad asked permission from the illustrator (or whoever has the copywrite) to use this sweet children’s icon for their own evil ends. If not they can always send one of their agents to hunt the copywrite holders down in the street & shoot the wrong person as they did in Scandinavia until they shoot the *right person* to death.
Some of these Tweet responses from our Lebanese sisters/brothers are brilliant. Especially “Imma leave this here” + photos & the photos of the Israeli children writing on missiles before *sending* them to Lebanon. Perhaps we should start calling Israeli missiles ‘Israeli post cards’.
This nation (occupying apartheid state) seems to be increasingly filled w/ shameless people. I honestly feel a bit sorry for small children born & indoctrinated into the Israeli school system & militaristic society.
I hope the States are treating you well Elie.
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Zoe, your Nazism is about to meet some Shiite and Sunny Nazism. You will learn lessons in hatred like only Muslims can teach. Farewell.
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@ Jaison
As if being torn to pieces like bloody undone grilled lamb & pulverised under concrete like in an olive press from Israeli missiles signed w/ charming death greetings by little ever so ‘moral’ Israeli girls is preferable to the “Muslims” threat you are imagining in your hate filled following the hive mind.
This is laughable. I would rather be killed by people who are pissed off at me for some misconception of who I am than by people who continue to demonise & dehumanise me DESPITE the fact that I spend countless hours on any given day speaking out against antisemitism.
Regarding my “Nazism”; the German half of my family murdered by the Nazis is I am sure looking upon your statement from The Green Fields/Spirit World w/ the wisdom & knowledge that you are aparently sadly bereft of. I’m imagining a lot of laughter at the cluelessness of this statement now under the Silver roofed home in Valhalla.
Shouldn’t you be off signing a missile meant to kill innocent Marjeyouni & Tyrian & other South Lebanese babies & children & elderly & disabled now? (= everyone who could not/cannot afford to flee incessant Israeli violent attacks). Or is that only done in a very big way in years that end in a ‘6’… 1996… 2006… ? Get ready fellow Libnani… for this complete paucity of human empathy. We have only to wait for the next excoriating massacre of innocent civilians whilst the world goes about it’s victim blaming.
“The Devil whispered in my ear ‘You’re not strong enough to withstand the storm’
Today I whispered in the Devil’s ear ‘I am the storm'” – Justice for Annie Mae Pictou Aquash (Facebook)
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@ Jaison
Here are some poems of mine. Because my house is (apparently) yours. Your bombing your missiles your burning phosphorous your cluster bombs your hatred your paucity of love your xenophobia your theft your lack of empathy…
______________________________
Your troubles taken upon death
Did you thank them
whilst concrete crushed you
Saying:
Chosen people
There is only this way
I am a sparrow caught in an olive press
Deliver your god message
You are a bomb
I understand now
You are a bullet reflected
in an infant’s eye
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@ Jaison
_________________
Marjeyoun 2006:
Your empty broken cribs
& your powdered skulls in ditches
row upon row upon row upon row
The Owl & the Crow & the Raven
& I your wayward daughter
your wandered American sleep
Put my bones in the mass grave
we bought then
when I die
& end this ghostly walk
Their vaunted ‘moral’ bombers
Like Jezebel Priestess of Baal
I loved my enemy
till I was in ribbons
their vaunted book
does not explain
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@ Jaison
________________
Sixty Years On: 14 May:
I am blackness
Blackness scented of zaatar
My skin is no more
I am a splintered bone left in the street
I am a tiny spoonful for a bulldozer
I am thrashed against sorrow
& so sorrow is sick of me
I am a child for each cluster bomb
My skin is lace
I am dead dead dead
I am alive
& yet the world does not see me
I am the gazelle in the hunters sight
Stay still
Run
Which shall I
Either is my fault
(14 May 2008)
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@ Jaison
__________________
‘Why Don’t All the Arabs Just Leave’ You Said:
Scratched they leave
Scraped they leave
Troubled they leave
Traumatised they leave
Orphaned they leave
Childless they leave
Hopeless they leave
Homeless they leave
Landless they leave
Thirsty they leave
Exhausted they leave
Loveless they leave
Burned they left
Limbless they left
Headless they left
Lifeless they left
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@ Jaison
__________________
‘Why don’t the Arabs just leave…’ you said ‘…and go to other Arab countries’
Nobody should die in duplicate
That is WHY
First in the driving out
step after step
the endless leaving
Then round bullets
made for rounder eyes
Repetition
They are walled
they are bombed
leaving
Nigthmares swirl
round the stupid things you say
Love is not fixed
with leaving
Hate is not fixed
with leaving
Leaving is for naught
Who survived the Holocaust
did not leave it
when it followed them
into the sunny kitchen
with the grandchild laughing
thousand yard stare
Stranger things have happened
favourite meals before executions
happiest day ever before death
than your strange love for me
‘Why don’t they all just leave…’
Camps camps camps
are full of them…
(7 May 2011)
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@ Jaison
___________________
I would have lived inside
a cell inside your eye
to see the world as you see it
Then out I came
ejected like debris
& breathing once again
looked & saw
what you saw
from your view clearly
In the light of day
we remain like paupers
begging for a scrap of innocence
when there is none
Above the dark wine sea
we are pitiless
helpless
& not one of us on Earth
can save
each other
though we make pitiful stabs at trying
Show me how to love again
Keep me from knowledge
Astarte weep for your Libnani daughter
stolen like nobody nameless
I walk asking:
Where is my sympathy?
Where is my recompense?
Where is my new Day?
My thread comes apart as I stitch
though it was made from Love
I changed a thousand times
& you not a splinter
not a sliver
not a breath
a thousand homes built on bones
Save us from ceaseless leaving
The silence like a knife
From everything that turns upon itself
like a devouring monster
leaving only
hollow apparition
pretended kindness
paucity of love
Children of rubble
of burning
white phosphorous
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@ Jaison
___________________
‘Away from his house go the skillful ones – the daughters of joyful noise…’
– Phoenician (Ugarit) tale of Aqat
Done you walk
Rising early
A man without borders
For nowhere
No one
Ruins in Lebanon remember our pale days
When mirrors of our cells walked together
Jew & Canaanite
Married to our first mornings
At the soft stem of time
Then we came here
Past the music of history
To not know each other
Ungrateful children
To not know each other in a terrible quiet
That left us
Painted eyes murex coloured girl
Raked clean
Like Jericho smashed
You tried to build your stiff afterworld
on my crushed heart
& you forgot the morning
I took you in
Like a swallow come home
(13 August 2010)
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Zoe, I have to tell you, I couldn’t care less. You are personally responsible for millions of dead Arabs, just in the last few years, following a hundred years of Arab authoritarian rule, which is your fault as well. If you had any sense in you, you would focus on these issues first. But as you don’t, your excuse for a country will walk the way all Arab countries go, into death-lock of faction fighting to the death, and to complete disintegration.
Have a nice day.
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Lol. You apparently have trouble w/ reading comprehension Jaison. (Key word above was “American”). As I’m a New Yorker & billions of our American tax dollars are what supports The $tate of I$rael (in addition to Germany’s billions) – I’m afraid I cannot vote etc. in beautiful Lebanon.
So I am largely powerless in the dystopic fantasy that you have concocted & blamed on me. (Whatever that nonsense you have described is… ?).
Lol. I’m sure every healthy minded person on the planet reading your words would *not* be surprised that you “don’t care” Jaison. No need for clarification there. After your first ever so erudite & knowledgable statement here; where you are convinced you know everything about me a total stranger. Including that I am a “Nazi” – when in fact I had family murdered by the Nazis in Berlin. This must be difficult for you in life – acting only on misguided assumption vs. *truth*. Or trying to get your head round families composed of Germans & Lebanese/Christians & Jews… human beings who love each other…
Thus my having written @ sign before the posts of poems. We all can see & know that you “don’t care” Jaison – it’s quite obvious – so those poems were only meant for *others* to read in *response* to your ever so charming & compassionate words.
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Zoe, that actually puts you in the crosshairs. The Americans are the ones bombing innocent men, women and children all over the middle east, so Jaison is write putting the blame on you. And don’t try to hide as an American, you are a Lebanese and likely to be expelled back home by trump.
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Jill said:
“And don’t try to hide as an American, you are a Lebanese and likely to be expelled back home by trump.”
LOL! My father’s father came here over one hundred years ago & his uncles before that in the 1890s! My mother came here via the Red Cross as a displaced person from Berlin over sixty five years ago. Her father’s grandfather was an English lord – hence perhaps I shall be carved into proportionate divided sections & sent back to England as well! A piece to Deutschland a piece to England a piece to the State of Israel’s favourite bombing destination in Libnan: Marjeyoun.
Furthermore Trump just hired a Lebanese man as director of Health & Human Services. Showing just how nonsensical the above quote about my imaginary deportation is. LOL.
I have grown weary of the uninformed & meanspirited comments on many internet threads.
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Jill said:
“And don’t try to hide as an American, you are a Lebanese and likely to be expelled back home by trump.”
LOL! My father’s father came here over one hundred years ago! My father’s uncles prior to that in the 1890s! My mother came here over sixty five years ago as a displaced person from Berlin via the Red Cross. Her father’s grandfather was an English lord; hence perhaps I can be carved into proportionate segments & sent back to England & Deutschland & the State of Israel’s favourite place to bomb in Lebanon: Marjeyoun.
I am growing weary of the nonsensical & soulless comments in blog threads.
Lol. I *am* “home”.
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@ Jill
AND Trump just hired a Lebanese American man as director of Health & Human Services. So another hole in your theory of my imminent deportation. Lol.
Re. your collective American guilt theory. Does anything I have written give the illusion that I am behind US bombing & drones & militarism? No family members in the military either.
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