Tag Archives: Israel

Lebanon Described in 1982

I’m currently reading the book “From Beirut to Jerusalem” by Thomas Friedman, in which he tells parts of his stay in Beirut between 1979 and 1984, as our civil war raged on.
While some parts so far are not entirely correct or too autobiographical to be generalized, the read is very interesting to say the least.

The excerpt I’m quoting is the most interesting part of the book so far. What rang true in 1982 still resonates today – and Friedman has to be commended for having the mind to see it, especially as an American Jewish outsider whose stay in Beirut was nothing more than an experiment.

“The real problem with the Lebanese today is that they have gotten too good at this adapting game—so good that their cure and their disease have become one and the same. The Lebanese individual traditionally derived his social identity and psychological support from his primordial affiliations—family, neighborhood, or religious community, but rarely from the nation as a whole. He was always a Druse, a Maronite, or a Sunni before he was a Lebanese; and he was always a member of the Arslan or Jumblat Druse clans before he was a Druse, or a member of the Gemayel or Franjieh Maronite clans before he was a Maronite. The civil war and the Israeli invasion only reinforced this trend, dividing Lebanese into tighter-knit micro-families, or village and religious communities, but pulling them farther apart as a nation”

This goes well with a previous description from over 140 years ago. Some things look like they’ll never change.

2012’s Most Powerful Pictures

Buzz Feed has recently published a set of 45 pictures that they’ve called 2012’s Most Powerful Pictures. And the least that can be said about these pictures is that they’re chilling. Some of them are haunting, others will bring tears to your eyes. And they are all supremely striking.

Woman suicide Greece

A Greek woman’s suicide attempt as she’s told she would be laid off work

Bangladesh Riot Beating woman with baton

A woman from Bangladesh defies the police

Palestinian girl punching Israeli soldier

A little Palestinian girl tries to punch an Israeli soldier

Syrian Father saving daughter hospital Aleppo

A Syrian father trying to save his daughter’s life after his city, Aleppo, was shelled by regime forces.

Father begging Bangladesh soldier Myanmar

A father from Myanmar begs a border control officer from Bangladesh not to deport his family back to Myanmar

An American woman mourns her son on Memorial Day

An American woman mourns her son on Memorial Day

Check out the rest of the brilliant pictures here.

The Lebanese Hypocrisy Towards Those Terrorist Children

A friend posted a picture of a dead child yesterday on his preferred social networking website, along with a slur of swear words at the Zionist regime that he figured had taken the life in question. Soon enough, that friend found out that the child in the picture was not an inhabitant of our neighbor to the South but our neighbor to the East. He then deleted the picture. I’m sure he had a good night’s sleep too.

That child, regardless of his nationality, was still dead.

Read the rest of my second NowLebanon post here.

Innocent lives are innocent lives, regardless of nationality. And this applies to those Israeli children too.

The Lebanese University… Of March 8’s Islamization

The Lebanese University in Al-Hadath has become a security zone for March 8’s political parties notably Hezbollah and Amal.

The entry to the university is filled with pictures of Hezbollah’s martyrs, Hezbollah and Amal flags and banners, pictures of Hassan Nasrallah and Nabih Berri. And the administration can’t do anything about it. They even have rooms which they only get access to for secret party meetings. Because Hezbollah and Amal need such rooms inside universities to control the future of the country – what they’re doing on the streets and in the government is not enough apparently.

Even the cafeteria at the university has been overtaken by known Shiite family “Zaaitry” who even run a cellphone shop from there, not allowing any outside food to be brought in to the cafeteria. They control everything that goes on inside the cafeteria, down to the overpricing of items and forbidding people from filming.

The cafeteria of the faculty of business was burned down and turned into a prayer room. And if you speak out against anything that goes on there, you are taken to a room that they call 109 where you are punished until you don’t dare to speak again. Praise Nasrallah day in, day out. Don’t you dare do anything else.

Their reach also extends from the logistic part of the university to its educational aspect. The liberal arts classes have been turned into Hezbollah’s Islamic arts classes. If anything doesn’t conform with Al-Khomeini teachings (he also has a picture at the university), it has to go. For instance, nudity drawing classes are absolutely forbidden because they violate “religion.” Drawing another human without something to cover them up is absolutely against the Sharia. Therefore, it has to go. Never mind that it is part of the official curriculum approved by the Lebanese state. Never mind that nudity drawing is an absolute necessity for any student who wants to to learn that art. No, it’s not acceptable for a woman to see a man’s private part. A female student actually dared to pose in a swimsuit for her colleagues to draw her. The teacher was punished. She was punished. And the students were also punished.

The administration sides with Hezbollah every time. They have their heads to keep. March 8 also has access to the exams that the university gets the students to sit down for – and they’re for sale. And don’t you dare refuse them when they’re offered or it’s room 109 for you.

There’s even a video and a whole article in Arabic about this, thanks to NowLebanon whose reporter was also threatened as she gathered her information to write this article. The threat is available on video too.

I thought the Lebanese university was for the entirety of Lebanon’s students. But it seems that it’s not the case. If you’re not a Shiite student who happens to be with Hezbollah and Amal, don’t you dare step there for a headache-free diploma. Even being FPM or any other March 8 party with predominantly Christian followers is not highly approved. Your liberties will be infringed upon. Your freedom will be limited. Your voice will be silenced. You won’t be able to speak up. Your body will be punished. Your intellect will be taken away… all for the greater anti-Zionist good.

Some people stand by Hezbollah because they’re supposedly fighting Israel. I wonder, how is it fighting Israel in a campus that has absolutely nothing to do with Israel whatsoever? How is this form of cultural terrorism against fellow Lebanese a form of resistance against an enemy we all agree upon? How is taking over a campus like this fighting the so-called Zionist project for the region?

And how is this part of the project of co-existence and protecting one self that some Christian parties, which are allied with Hezbollah, are championing?

If there’s any proof about the ulterior motives of Hezbollah in the country in turning this piece of whatever co-existence we have into an state where only what they say goes, it’s their behavior at the Lebanese University. It starts at a small scale that might go unnoticed. After all, the students don’t dare to talk about it and reporters are afraid to report it. The party officials obviously know of it. They obviously approve of it. And good luck to you if you happen to be born into a family who cannot afford to send you to a university where you will actually get Hezbollah-free education.

And some people are actually appalled that there’s a rise of extremism among Lebanon’s other populations. What other “natural” response could the different segments of Lebanon’s societies have regarding this obvious transgression to every single fundamental right and freedom we were brought up believing in?

And some people are appalled that some Lebanese parties demand the dismantling of the weapons of the party of “God.” What’s the only thing letting Hezbollah dominate the Lebanese University in such a way? Yes, those arms that are there to fight our big bad neighbor to the South.

The Lebanese University is now branded LUI – the Lebanese University of Iran. It even has the picture of the Supreme Leader of Iran there for blessing. You don’t get an education there – you get a crash course with how it is to be an outlaw and to have a whole arsenal to support you on your side – down to every single component of your governing body.

Welcome to the republic of disgrace where your government can’t even guarantee you a proper crap-free education away from Hezbollah’s zealots. Oh wait. They are the government.

The Palestinian Hypocrisy

The Arabs.

Pray for Gaza… you’ve been praying for Palestine for about 70 years. I’m not sure if it should be considered sad that the only thing you know how to do is pray or it’s just you being delusional. You seem not to have gotten the hint: if prayers worked, Palestine would have been liberated, Gaza would be free and everything would be swell. But things are obviously not. Perhaps you should start looking into other options? You know, such as trying to get your governments – hard as that may be – to actually man up and try to change things in Palestine instead of making under the table dealings with Israel while you all pretend as if those things are not happening. In case you don’t know which governments I’m referring to, let me name them: Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt.

Gaza on my mind…. Yes, please tell me more how Gaza is on all your minds. Only when it is bombed. You see, the situation in Gaza was pitiful last year, last month and last week. And yet none of you cared. But whenever shit hits the fan there, suddenly you all become concerned. So you change your Facebook profile pictures in solidarity and tweet accordingly, rejoicing whenever one of your hashtags manages to trend. And panicking whenever an opposite hashtag manages to trend as well. Because that’s rare feat for Arabs on Twitter. Meanwhile, as you legitimately panic about all the children dying in Gaza, at least half of you have no problem in extrapolating the situation in Syria to some cosmic entity then bringing it back to give you some peace of mind as to why the children killings there could somehow be justified (here are some pictures if you feel like ruining your day). But what do I know, I haven’t changed my profile picture on Facebook yet nor will I ever. And that’s surely detrimental to the cause of saving all the children. I’d throw in a line here about religious minorities too but that would be all too much to handle.

The bottom line… a week or a month from now, when the situation in Gaza dies down, you will all change your profile pictures back to some version of a duck-face and you won’t care again. And when all those Facebook events asking you to show compassion to Gaza stop, you’re all going back to your normal lives. But the people of Gaza will not. And you’ll keep on preaching about how the state of Israel needs to be abolished from existence, which is just delusional. But I guess you can pray on that too.

The West.

Pray for Israel… I didn’t know you knew how to pray! Now that is a revelation in itself. Israel is the victim here, you say. Please tell ignorant me how did you get to that fascinating conclusion. Hamas is firing rockets! 12,000 rockets have been fired in the past year on Israel! Cue in the outrage. Or not. How many Israelis died due to those 12,000 rockets? One, two, twenty? How many Palestinians were killed in the past year due to the Israelis? And here’s your answer right there. No, the Palestinians are not terrorists. The only terrorists here are people like you with a mentality that keeps praising the oppressor… only because your media has told you so. Then you get your official spokespeople to come on the airwaves and bestow upon the world their rhetorical questioning: But we don’t get why the Palestinians are doing this! Let’s see… Suppose that they started all of this, the correct answer begins with a big fat O. And in case you couldn’t guess what that was, here it is for you: occupation. But you wouldn’t understand because while you live off your cloud nine, worrying about the few thousand dollars less you’ll be making per year, you’ve never been occupied. You’ve never had to go through life wondering if today would be your last just because a foreign military is present on your land. And you’ve never – ever – bothered to think critically about Israel. So pray you do. And give money to Israel you do. And indirectly kill children, you also do.

Israel on my mind… but of course it is on your mind. How could it not be? The only ally in the region to your countries. The only place where you feel safe visiting. The only place that’s fighting terrorism. The only place where religions are protected. The mini-west in that hellhole of the East. Israel is perfect. Only you don’t know that Arab Israelis are treated as second rate citizens because they’re not jews, you also don’t know that with every day passing, it oppresses the Palestinians in whatever piece of internationally recognized territory they have, but that’s not terrorism. And they don’t have the right to do anything about it because if they do, then Israel has the right to defend itself. And Israel is a beacon for democracy… as long as the same people keep winning. Because if the Israeli left ever dared to win, they’d be assassinated. Instead, you throw at the world the only thing you think you know about this piece of the world while you know next to nothing. And you take your ignorance as scripture. And let Israel be on your mind.

The bottom line… While you freak out about violations to human rights everywhere, I don’t see you seeing violation of human rights that happen to the Palestinians every single day. Because you consider them all as less than people – they are not worth living when they’re infringing the rights of the great Jewish State of Israel. While you get appalled at all the dead children in Syria and other parts of the world, you have no problem not caring about the dead children of Palestine… because one Israeli child died… not knowing that the ratio is like 12:1.

The bottom line. 

This is not a repeat of Goliath and David. The weak Palestinians and their useless rockets and their pitiful stones are not threatening the security of Israel – they could only dream of doing so. And anyone who thinks that the Palestinians are a threat is delusional, ignorant and pitiful. More Palestinians have been killed in the past few days of Gaza airstrikes than all the Israelis whose deaths have caused this. But let’s just tweet about it.  And for the record, I am as unbiased a source as you can get from this part of the world regarding this matter but some things need to be said. You can update your Facebook status now and share this because you’ll be saving a life.