Dove's Eye View

Juan Cole on the Towers of Beirut

Juan Cole speculates on a comment Osama Ben Laden made about the Towers of Beirut.

Professor Cole's essay makes many assumptions about Ben Laden's thinking, but it's worth reviewing. Most people in America seem to have forgotten the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. It was the single most horrible event of my young life, until the sack of my village three years later and the death of my grandmother (events which can be traced back to the invasion which caused so much suffering in my home town). 2,000 people were killed in the refugee camp next door to my village outside of Sidon in the first week of bombing. Israeli soldiers occupied my village, pulled all the men out into the town square and took away the Palestinians to concentration camps. Israel laid siege to Beirut for many weeks, and Thomas Friedman was censored by the New York Times for trying to report on the IDF's illegal use of cluster bombs in the siege. Professor Cole suggests that Osama, too, remembers the destruction of Beirut by Ariel Sharon's forces in 1982, and perhaps believed that hitting New York's towers was an appropriate revenge.

On the morning that I heard of the attack on New York, I did not imagine there was a direct link to the trauma my family and my people suffered in 1982; I merely felt that the horrors visited upon my father's country had now come home to my own. I do believe Professor Cole is on to something here.

I moved to New York City in 1981 because Beirut was lost to me; I love New York passionately, the way one loves a city that one comes to know as a young adult. Her streets and passageways inhabited my dreams for decades, and sometimes I still wander there at night, while slumbering in my bed in Oakland. San Francisco may be a magical city but it has never taken hold of my inner life in the same way. The attack on New York wounded me as deeply as the long war in Beirut did, as if a beloved friend were wounded, not just strangers, not just buildings where I worked and played.

Professor Cole's essay is not a sign of hope, really, except that looking deeply at the heart of matters is always hopeful. Only thus can we understand the truth and perhaps find a right path forward.

May God help John Kerry win the White House and bring some intelligence and courage to American foreign policy.

Roz Bi Shaghria

Arabic rice pilaf with vermicelli noodles.

2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 medium onion, peeled, chopped
3/4 cup dry vermicelli broken into 1-inch pieces
1 1/2 cups long-grain rice
3 1/4 cups boiling water or chicken broth
Salt to taste
2 tablespoons butter

In a medium saucepan, heat the oil over medium heat. Add the chopped onion and fry until translucent, 6-8 minutes. Add the vermicelli and fry until golden, stirring so that the pieces color evenly. Watch carefully because they brown very quickly.

Add the rice and stir until the grains are coated with the oil. Pour in the water or broth and salt; stir well. Cover and cook over low heat 20 minutes or until the rice is tender and the liquid is absorbed. Stir in the butter until it is melted and serve immediately.

Update: roz bi shaghria is even better when you cover it with heshwah before serving - a spicy ground meat mixture with toasted pignole or other nuts.

Makes 6 servings.

Chicken in a Pot

When the weather turns grim, the children's noses run, and the news is gloomy, make chicken soup. It's called Jewish penicillin in some quarters; the Chinese, too, think hot chicken soup restores body and soul. Chicken soup supposedly has antibiotic properties, while the hot liquids relieve congestion.

One hormone & antibiotic free chicken
2 stalks celery, cut in large chunks
2 large carrots, cut in large chunks
1 leek, cleaned and cut in large chunks
2 bay leaves
Parsley
Two onions cut up
Garlic, coarsely chopped, as much as you like

Wash the chicken, salt and pepper all over. Put all ingredients into a large pot and add water almost to cover. Simmer until chicken is quite done. Add more salt. Serve the broth alone, or with added noodles or rice as a first course; put chicken on serving platter surrounded by cooked veggies, serve as entree. Or serve chicken pieces in large shallow bowls with vegetables, covered with broth.

To make the flavors more Arab, add allspice and cinnamon. You could add cooked chickpeas towards the end of the cooking time for a Middle Eastern flavor.

A really Lebanese way to deal with a poached chicken is to use the broth to make rice pilaf (roz bil shagria - with sauteed vermicelli noodles), then serve the boned chicken meat on top of the pilaf. Toasted pine nuts or almonds may be sprinkled overall, along with additional dusting of allspice and/or cinnamon.

Technical Tourist

This link is completely OT to Dove's Eye View, but I love it. Technical Tourist, written by frequent Dove's Eye commenter Alison Chaiken, gives you the nerd's view of what to do in the Bay Area. I realized I must know a lot of nerds, because I can think of dozens of people on my e-mail list who may find this page of use. Tour the GM auto plant in Fremont, visit the US Geological Service Open House, take the ferry to Marin and view the SF Bay Model, tour the Port of Oakland.

Come to think of it, the chicest, trendiest person I know, an arts publicist who prides herself on being apolitical and hyper-fashionable, recommended the Port of Oakland tour to me. Even my fluffy friends are secret nerds.

Alison, if you're reading this - why didn't you include the Cable Car Museum? My brother, the Ph.D. in Geochemistry, just loves this place. You find out all about how the cable cars work, and get to see those cables turning and humming. Is the technology just too 19th century for true nerds?

Update: Somewhere Elsewhere Art Exhibit

Update - the Somewhere Elsewhere Art Exhibit got a great review on the front page of the SF Chronicle's Saturday "Datebook" section.

I was lucky enough to meet the exhibit's curator, Sana Makhoul, at Khalil Bendib's solo show opening Thursday night. Sana is an art historian completing her Ph.D. at San Jose State University; originally from the Galilee, she has lived in the USA for the last fourteen years. She studied at the Institute of Art and Design in Jerusalem before coming to America. She's a lovely, personable woman, and she must be commended for putting this show together. Arab and Iranian artists in this country are not well documented or organized. I will be visiting the show if possible before it comes down on November 5.

Congratulations to Sana for her perseverance and vision! And congratulations to all the artists contributing to the group show.

Khalil Bendib's show in Stephens Hall was a real lift. He produces work in three seemingly disparate media: editorial cartoons; ceramic tiles and Islamic style pottery; and bronze sculptures. His whimsical sense of humor and sure hand can be seen in all of these works, however. I particularly liked the bronze head of a Jewish queen, Kehina (sp?), a heroine to the Berbers, who died fighting the Arab invasion of the 7th century. She is portrayed with a spiral scarf dangling below her disembodied head, as if she's floating, and a pair of bronze hands turned palms up at the base of the pedestal. All the bronze pieces are incredibly tactile - figures of hooded men, a tower of male faces topped with a portable phone. The ceramic tiles are gorgeous and at the same time cartoonish, seductive, amusing. The bowls are based on traditional Islamic designs, with Koranic sayings inscribed in spoke-like calligraphy around the rims.

The party was great too - you should have been there! Good food, a Rai band, lovely people, cool old UC Berkeley building on the edge of a stream.

Marcel Khalife Tours USA

The Lebanese composer and musician Marcel Khalife is now touring the USA, from October 15 to November 15. Seattle, San Francisco (November 4), Houston, Boston, Boulder, NYC, Washington and Chicago, among others.

Tour schedule here.

Khalife is a multi-talented musician and composer who plays the oud, leads a musical ensemble, writes music for ballets, orchestra and film, and tours relentlessly. Don't miss him!

Film: Route 181

On Sunday, October 24th, the 8th Annual Arab Film Festival, San Francisco will host a special event in UC Berkeley's Wheeler Auditorium: a screening of the film Route 181: A Journey Through Palestine and Israel, along with a panel discussion and refreshments.

Co-sponsored with Cal's Center for Middle Eastern Studies and the SF Jewish Film Festival.

From the Arab Film Festival press release. Note that opinions expressed in the following quote are those of the Film Festival reviewer, not the Dove:

"Route 181 is a reference to UN resolution 181 that attempted to partition Palestine into an Israeli State and a Palestinian one in 1947. The Palestinians rejected it as unfair. The Jewish Zionist leaders were also not ready to accept the plan and soon after began implementing their ethnic cleansing program that almost emptied historical Palestine from its Palestinian-Arab population. As a result, and by the end of 1948, the state of Israel was formed on 78% of historic Palestine (much larger than the Partition plan from Resolution 181). The remaining 22% became known as the West Bank and Gaza strip.

"Filmmakers Michele Khleifi, a Palestinian, and Eyal Sivan, an Israeli, choice of this subject matter defies any simple categorization. The film documents individuals (both Israelis and Palestinians; young and old ) whom they meet along the original 181- partition line in a two-month period in the summer of 2002. These chance encounters are fascinating and their depth and wide-ranging scope rewarding. Among the film's many qualities, is that it allows us to "discover" the different experiences of the Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews, both in the creation of Israel and later the experiences of living in the Israel they created. The film depicts the relations they have to each other and towards the Palestinians and Arabs.
...
"The film's strength-paradoxically- is its length, all four and a half hours shown in two segments. This should not put off the viewer, as there is a compelling meditative quality in the viewing experience. As such it avoids the "best of" or "sensational" style which would have left out precious interviews and scenes and would have left the viewer missing the qualities of the more holistic approach chosen.
Instead, the film's length allows for a satisfying feeling of completeness, quenching a need in dealing with the varied and multilayered subject matter. The different encounters are fabulous, the encounters sometimes surreal or humorous, often distressing, but all presented with a levity and poignancy that makes the journey interesting and purposeful.
...
"The cooperation between a Palestinian and an Israeli is a work of love as well as of a shared vision for the land of their birth where past mistakes should not continue to dictate the future but rather inform it. Their interviewing techniques are sharp and at times provocative."

Tickets can be purchased at the theater box office on the day of show. Ticket prices: $12 general and $10 Students/Seniors

Confirmed Panelists:

RUTIE ADLER Hebrew, Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley

GEORGE BISHARAT Hastings College of Law, University of California

Moderated by:
SONIA S'HIRI Arabic, Near Eastern Studies, UC Berkeley

Recipes for Peace Cookbook

The tireless Len and Libby Traubman announce: Palestinian - Jewish Recipes for Peace Cookbook

"Special recipes passed from generation to generation in both Jewish and Palestinian families.
"Our best recipes are not for "fast foods," but take time to prepare, allowing for special relationships to flourish in the kitchen and then around the table as families gather to enjoy their favorites. Having experienced that "an enemy is one whose story we have not heard," we can attest that sharing both food and personal stories are key elements to building sustained relationships, the missing part of the peace process.

"Personal stories and photos of Palestinans and Jews in the Dialogue.

"Short stories about Dialogue participants accompany the recipes, to delightfully illustrate and pass on to you and their children childhood memories of family and food while growing up. Narratives of these memories reveal the deep meaning of the dishes to the families in Dialogue, providing windows into the two cultures about how foods are similarly vital to celebrations, holidays, and identity for both peoples.

"Inspiration and practical ideas for the Middle East public peace process and daily living.

"Special relationship-building features, documents, and guidelines interspersed with inspiration throughout the book will amuse, motivate and inform you about the meaning and purpose of Dialogue at its best. Discover how to begin a Sustained Dialogue, and ideas for events, ceremonies, outreach to the public."

Khalil Bendib Solo Exhibit

Besides opening in the group show mentioned earlier, Khalil Bendib is also having a solo show at UC Berkeley in a separate gallery, opening Thursday, October 21.

From the Center for Middle Eastern Studies Newsletter:

l’Art de Vivre by Khalil Bendib 5:00PM Reception/Exhibit Opening SULTAN ROOM, 340 STEPHENS HALL Featuring Music by The Dunes

Perhaps the most visible Arab fine artist working in America today, as well as a widely circulated editorial cartoonist, Khalil Bendib draws upon both the rich tradition of Maghrebi art that precedes his work and his particular experience of Algeria’s struggle for national liberation. He is the creator of several important public monuments, including the “Alex Odeh Memorial Statue,” an over-life size bronze located at the Orange County’s seat of government in Santa Ana honoring the Palestinian-American regional director of Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee who was assassinated in his Santa Ana office in 1985. A more recent work is “Deir Yassin Remembered,” a memorial sculpture that commemorates the
massacre of the Palestinian village of that name in 1948. It was dedicated September 24, 2003 at the Hobart and William Smith colleges in Geneva, New York, on the edge of Seneca Lake. He was also recently commissioned by the Arab Cultural Center and the City of San Francisco to design a public
mural in Downtown San Francisco, in collaboration with two other artists, and was artist-in-residence at the Legion of Honor Museum of Art in San Francisco from August to November 2002.

The opening exhibit will include music by the The Dunes, a Bay Area-based band that plays a variety of North African Rai, Chaabi, and Berber music combined with Western styles.

Arab and Iranian Contemporary Art Exhibit

Bay Area readers may want to see the Somewhere Elsewhere Art Exhibit at UC Berkeley, from October 19 - November 5, 2004.

Opening reception will be on Tuesday, October 19, from 4-7 pm, at 116 Kroeber Hall, the Worth Ryder Gallery.

The artists are either Arab or Iranian immigrants living in the United States, and the exhibition focuses on the "impact of stereotypes in general, and vilification of Arabs and Muslims in particular."

My dialog buddy Khalil Bendib, the ceramic artist, sculptor, and political cartoonist, is included in the show.