But Why Are You Lebanese So Angry?

A fellow from the Israeli side comments: Michael J. Totten: Shalom Deen.

For Lebanon it's not just scores killed and hundreds wounded; it's sweat, blood, tears, and money invested in an infrastructure and a fledgling economy that will now take months or even years to rebuild. Whatever the fault of the Lebanese government (and reasonable people can argue the extent of it), it is not the time to berate those who have been passionately committed to peace and dialogue for being very angry at the moment.

These words from Shalom Deen were sent to Michael Totten, a rather right-wing pundit who has lived in Beirut and is pro-Israel. Mr. Totten posted My Friend is a Refugee, which generated the sort of nasty comment I've been seeing here at Dove's Eye View. Trouble is, Mr. Totten is 100% pro-Israel, aligned on the right side of the blogosphere. He was shocked and offended at the attitudes. The original post was by a formerly Israel-sympathetic Lebanese who is now abandoning Beirut. He and other likeminded Lebanese (one presumes Christian, Beiruti) bloggers are saying: we reached out to Israel, we gave you the benefit of the doubt, now we hate you.

Note that this is not the Dove's position. I am safe at home in America so I can still afford to refuse to hate. These Lebanese bloggers who had been so pro-Israel don't reflect my views. I make a distinction between people, their ideas, and the actions of their government. I might object to a person's ideas while refusing to label his religion or ethnicity as the root of his mistaken beliefs. This goes for Muslims espousing ideas I oppose as well as Israelis and their supporters.

But please notice that violence, whether Katyushas on Haifa or the full fury of the IDF air force all over Lebanon, forces everybody back into their ethnic/tribal enclaves. On the Lebanese side, we are facing ominous warnings of "either you are with us, the legitimate resistance, or you are against us." I am already measuring my words for fear of jeopardizing my family members on the ground in South Lebanon.

Let me spell this out more clearly. Hizbullah lives next door to my family village in Lebanon. They are the power. Their power is not in planes and tanks. They are organized and this fight is strengthening them politically. I fear reprisals like assassination, which no occupying army can prevent. My family has been asking for Hizbullah to disarm for at least six years now, if not much longer. But we are unarmed civilians. The most powerful voices among us are a blogger and a retired college professor.

But I guess because we didn't bring down Hizbullah ourselves, and we didn't abandon our village, then we just deserve everything we're getting. As do the Shi'ite civilians in the South, the Beirutis, the people of Tyre, Sidon, Jounieh and on and on.

My own anger is not only at the loss of everything we'd hoped for in Lebanon and in the region, but also that my American government has abdicated any possibility of mediating. America has lost all its credibility, and perhaps seems to know it. My government refuses to intervene with diplomacy. There are no grownups in charge, it seems.

These are bad times for people who believe in civil society, the rule of law, and diplomacy. We get to watch the militarists make a mess of country after country, and we don't even get the benefit of the promised peace and security.

Comments

[Jack Donaldson]

Oh Cmon: You just admitted that you have no choice but to be a mouthpiece for Hezbullah (or your family gets hit)...and then in the next sentence you say that the vast majority of Americans who support this action have lost credibility. With whom? Most Europeans are for this as well.

If your family is in danger, by all means stop blogging. But don't be a mouthpiece for the enemy because that is your only option.

If I were living in a country dominated by terrorists, I would want a military force to come in and remove them. Keep your heads low and be safe. Stop blogging if you cannot say how you really feel because of fear of assassination.

This is the first time in history where the victims of a dictatorship/terror state are blogging while a war is going on.

The first thing everyone is noticing is how non-credible it is to read blogs from people who face assassination if they write in the wrong way.

All you MIGHT achieve by continuing to write in this way is that Hezbullah will SURVIVE this war to bother and threaten you forever.

Hopefully this war will weaken the Hezzies enough so that Christian Lebs with guts can finish them off themselves and take your country back.

[Peter]

Jack, how can you read anything Leila has written and claim that she's a mouthpiece for Hizbullah? You either have the reading comprehension of a 6-year-old or you're being deliberately inflammatory.

[Citizen Grim]

I think it's a stretch to say Totten is 100% pro-Israel, or that he's right wing. I would say he's just left of center, actually. And after having read his site for the past year or two, I'd say he's probably more pro-Lebanon than anything else. (Note: He would insist that pro-Lebanon means anti-Hezbollah.) When it comes to his feelings on Israel, he is probably merely sympathetic.

[Slice]

Peter, either you're deliberately ignoring Leila's own words, or....yeah.

How about reading the post before the comments?

[James R MacLean]

Dear Leila,
I keep stopping by, reading, and meaning to leave a comment. I totally sympathise with and admire your attitude. The reason I haven't commented is that I find remarks like the previous one that leave me too angry to compose something civilized.

I can't understand how so many people, looking at the suffering in this region, can be so void of understanding or compassion, to say nothing of common sense (or basic reading skills, really). I honestly don't have much optimism that Mr. Donaldson's miasma of fanaticism can be penetrated by logic or appeals to the historical record, and I'm too distraught to try.

Anyway, I hope you family is alright and gets through this calamity unscathed.

[Haime Wienberger]

The Right of Palestine to Exist

Racism as the policy of so-called democractic states

The Israel leadership was never interested in the plight of the Palestinians. This can be seen by comparing the pre-1945 situation of land ownership in Palestine on the left with Sharon's final solution on the right. In 1945 the majority of Palestine was held by Palestinians and other Arabs, shown in green and the areas largely populated by Jews are shown in orange. Just 60 years later, largely as a result of a progressive aggression and stealing of land, we have ended up with the situation shown on the right.

The plan to steal land

It is not as if any of this has any justifications related to Israel defending itself. This was planned from the start. According to David Ben-Gurion, “After the formation of a large army in the wake of the establishment of the state, we shall abolish partition and expand to the whole of Palestine.” So the decision to expel large numbers of Arabs from their homes and territory and call this Israel was planned a long time ago and advanced on the basis of any pretext. Thus, Ben-Gurion acknowledged that “it is impossible to imagine general evacuation [of the Arab population] without compulsion, and brutal compulsion.”

Brutal compulsion

Such brutal compulsion came in 1947-48 when some 700,000 Palestinians were driven into exile largely through acts of terrorism perpetrated by Israeli forces. These people fled to protect their families against violent death at the hands of Israeli forces. To say such people left "willingly" is an absurdity. No one leaves their homeland unless they feel threatened. Israel has since barred the return of the Palestinian exiles.

"I would never make terms with Israel...."

The moral crime against the Palestinian people has always been understood by the Israeli leadership, but they will never admit this. Ben-Gurion told Nahum Goldmann, “If I were an Arab leader I would never make terms with Israel. That is natural, we have taken their country. There has been anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They only see one thing, we have come here and stolen their country. Why should they accept that?”

The racist policy of continued and increasing dispossession

Since then, Israeli leaders have repeatedly sought to deny the Palestinians’ national ambitions through the racist strategy of dispossession. This reality effectively articulated by Edward W. Said, the Palestinian scholar and one of the most rational voices in this domain until his early death in 2003. He pointed to the reality that the people of Palestine have been, and continue to be, subjected to a sustained policy of "dispossession" by the Israelis. This has been given a broader support as a result of effective cash-based political lobbying in the USA by pro-Israeli groups resulting in the USA supporting an openly racist foreign policy.

Dispossession is designed to place a whole people in an undefined state and above all deny them a national status since then they would be afforded a range of internationally supported and defendable rights as Israel has obtained whilst occupying the land of others. But effectively, dispossession in the case of Palestinians has been supported by the aggression initiated in 1947.

Dispossession is a flagrant denial of rights on religious and racial grounds. Such racism can be seen in Prime Minister Golda Meir’s remark that “there was no such thing as a Palestinian,” and Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s opposition to the creation of a fully fledged Palestinian state and Prime Minister Ehud Barak’s “generous” offer at Camp David in July 2000 to create a set of dismembered Paletinian “reservations” under Israeli control. Lastly the Sharon policy as a "final solution" is where the world provides Israel, by looking the other way, with a free hand is doing what it wants to cut back Palestinian land areas even more through a unilateral action.

The right to exist?

Pressure from violence against occupation and the growing Palestinian population had forced Israel to disengage from some of the territories occupied and to explore a biased territorial compromise, but no Israeli government has been willing to offer the Palestinians a viable state of their own. This is because this would undermine their true objective of dispossession and even weaken their ability to hold onto lands which Ben Gurion admitted had been stolen from them.

It is remarkable how Israeli cash polical lobbying has resulted in so many Western politicians proclaiming Israel's right to exist. It is a rare politician who proclaims the right of Palestine to exist. And yet Israel has grown at the expense of the Palestinians and the State of Palestine as a direct violation of normal principles of human rights and democractic self-determination. One has to question what right a state has to exist which has come into being through the occupation and complete denial of the rights of those whose land it occupies or those it drove away, through terrorism, and whose natural right to return is denied by the occupiers.

The whole process of the "creation" of Israel was based upon violence perpetrated against people who have a right to defend themselves and reclaim stolen territory. This is the issue which the international community needs to address so as to bring about a more rational solution. Israel needs to return considerable proportions of territory it has taken and the International community needs to insist on a guarantee of the right of return of Palestinian families to the terrains thus separated. The right of return of Palestinians is no business of Israel in any shape or form but is, rather, the responsibility of the State of Palestine.

[Patricia]

There is NO "Palestinian" people... Never existed... The Arabs called Palis today are mostly descendents of Egyptian and Syrian fellahin...

There is no right of return for these people... As simple as that...

[leesus]

hmmm...

i agree with the first comment.

if you do not speak against hezbollah, and you do ot act against hezbollah, and you do not move away from hezbollah

-- and hezbollah attacks israel --

Then yes, you may as well be a mouthpiece for hezbollah

peace, freedom, and justice are never free, and have yet to be negotiated into existance. If you will not take a stand against hezbollah, then step aside while others do.

-lee
+++

[Haime Wienberger]

Patricia - the Palistinians are those who inhabited land recognised as Palestine before they were subjected to the terrorist invaders. Such people who were diplaced and yet many still hold title deeds of land and property stolen from them. The invaders have given themselves the "right of return" when most never lived in Palestine before so have no "right of return". On the other hand there is that blind and insane religious fanaticism which talks of right of return and it is this same fanatical mind set which drives the current murder of innocent civilians in the Lebanon.

[Kevin]

I keep hearing about explosions causing deaths in Lebanon followed by 'all of them civilians.' Is this to be believed? I understood Israel to have a pretty good intelligence gathering ability. Isn't it more likely those 'civilians' are part of Hezbollah?

It would make no sense to kill civilians only, so I find it hard to believe that this is what Israel is doing.

[Haime Wienberger]

Kevin - if you track the blood-stained history of dispossession and murder of innocent Arab civilians you will realise Israel military murder civilians with intent - it is a twisted sense that everyone will pay - even innocents - if any Israeli is harmed. Sharon was good at this. Their intent IS to murder civilians - it is their sense of Biblical punishment on the scale of 100 eyes for one eye - just look at what happened in Gaza . the same on a reduced scale.

[Leila]

James McLean - thanks for your comments. I don't read the folks I don't know, except every once in a while to check in. Their words speak for themselves.

War makes people insane, on all sides. Let's hope a few of them are examining their own reactions and measuring them up to their personal ideals. All I can do is examine mine and make corrections as I proceed.

[Leila]

Hi Pete - I think that "deliberately inflammatory" is probably the right phrase for anyone who calls me a mouthpiece for Hizbullah. I've been being somewhat circumspect about my own longstanding opposition to Hizbullah because I have relatives on the ground in Hizbullah territory. We suffered deadly reprisals in 1985 for things that weren't our fault.

The namecallers remind me of the folks on the Arab side who called me a Zionist appeaser last year for flying a kite on the beach for peace.

What a world. War makes people insane.

[Jill]

I don't think America can really negotiate an end to this conflict. Wars end when either both sides decide they don't want to fight or one side defeats the other. Hezbollah wants to fight since otherwise it can't destroy Israel or serve the interests of its supporters in Syria & Iran. Israel wants to fight because it doesn't want to have a sworn enemy in a position to continue threatening it and it doesn't want to be destroyed. So obviously, they aren't ready to stop fighting. Israel has hurt Lebanon and Hezbollah, but Hezbollah hasn't yet been defeated. Hezbollah is unlikely to be able to defeat Israel unless their weapons include extensive chemical weapons from Syria (or they've gotten nukes from somewhere). So one side hasn't defeated the other.

America getting involved now would just postpone the inevitable resumption of violence. We shouldn't have pulled out when Hezbollah murdered the 241 Marines in 1983. That was a mistake that showed weakness and abandoned Lebanon. However, we can't negotiate a peace treaty when both sides are unwilling and we can't physically keep a peace that doesn't exist yet. Sadly, more blood must be spilled until peace can be made.

[Haime Wienberger]

Jack Donaldson says that "If I were living in a country dominated by terrorists, I would want a military force to come in and remove them". Well this is exactly what those trying to help the Palestinans are trying to do because the USA remains on the wrong side simply because something like 25%-30% of the annual income of the US Senate & House comes from the Israeli lobby.

[Haime Wienberger]

Jack Donaldson is critical of the statement that ".... the vast majority of Americans who support this action have lost credibility", and he asks "With whom?" They have lost worldwide credibility because they on this and other occasions have been led by the nose into violent campaigns which only support Israeli interests. Why, because Congress and the House are paid to vote this way. And yet the people who die (e.g. Iraq) and the families who suffer are those of the very many young American men and women in the armed forces - sent to die for causes which turn out to have no justification in fact. This undermines the credibility of the process of democracy through the erosion of transparency and the attempt to fool all of the people most of the time (Lincoln would have been shocked at the gullibility and corruption).
Jack Donaldson asserts that, "most Europeans are for this as well". Oh, really? The only European politician to have followed this blind trail has been Tony Blair. Tony Blair is a member of the "New Labour" party whose leading party fund raiser is, Lord Levy, just happens to be a main Israeli lobbyist and Tony Blair has had the gall to use this man as his "Middle East envoy". Lord Levy was recently arrested by the UK police over the bribes for peerages affair. Currently Tony Blair's ratings have fallen to the lowest level of any post-war Prime Minister... his days are numbered because he has supported the wrong side.

[Peter]

Leila,

Lebanon's fragmentation is proving a huge obstacle to ending the crisis in Lebanon. The more the non-Shiite Lebanese vent their anger at Hizbollah, the more they allow Israel to define the conflict as one of righteous democracy vs. radical Islam, rather than what the conflict is really about: a ruthless assault on Lebanon’s infrastructure, economy, and people.

It is no accident that Israel’s UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman keeps quoting Lebanese critics of Hizbollah. He even has the nerve to say that Israel has Lebanon's best interests at heart.

[Haime Wienberger]

Leilla
Peter is completely right.
This rent-a-democracy has excluded, or otherwise harmed, most of the original population. It has imported most of its electorate, many paid for in cash!
No heart just a brutal strategy.

[Leila]

Thank you all again for your support of a democratic and free Lebanon.

I will try to pass on the message to the Lebanese in Lebanon that they shouldn't complain so much when the IDF wants to inflict pain. If the IDF says it will be painful, it's important not to make noise about it.

Also, I will try to remind everyone on the ground that it's their fault anyway. I am sure that keeping this in mind will contribute to peaceful resolution and security for Israel. And of course it will help the populace get through these regrettable inconveniences.

[Haime Wienberger]

Leila

There is a very good interview with Fouad Siniora who summarises the real issues well. It is on BBC Internet http://www.bbc.com

To get there you need to click on News and then Latest News in Video & Audio.

[Robert]

Leila,

As usual keep up the good work and ignore the schmucks. God knows where they have been hiding but they are in out in force on all the Lebanese blogs.

[Hank Scorpio]

It takes a special kind of sadist, doesn't it, to troll Lebanese blogs and either lecture or gloat at the misery of people whose homes and families are under military attack?

[Poul]

"But I guess because we didn't bring down Hizbullah ourselves, and we didn't abandon our village, then we just deserve everything we're getting. " - pretty much, yes.
the only alternative is for israel to just sit quiet and absorb losses, and why would they do that?

[Leila]

Hank - yep. Sadism is a word I've been using this week, along with heartbroken.

Jonathan, thank you. God help us all...

[Kevin]

Kevin - if you track the blood-stained history of dispossession and murder of innocent Arab civilians you will realise Israel military murder civilians with intent

To do this would take a special kind of conspiracy theorist Haime. History books, the internet, television, and current events show us that arabs are the ones with blood on their hands, not the jews. I'm all for ending the violence, but you are taking the wrong side to task.

[Peter]

Hilzoy of Obsidian Wings has made an interesting list.
http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2006/07/ive_got_a_littl.html

[mtb]

I feel very bad for the Lebanese people who are going through this and everyone on both sides who have suffered.

But I hope you will keep in mind that Israel is content to live a peaceful productive existance in the Middle East. Hezbollah and the Islamists will not cease to wipe Israel off the map. You have heard Ahmadinejad and Nasrallah. Diplomacy simply will not work.

So, we have wonderful peaceful people in Lebanon who do not deserve this ... and Israelis who do not deserve this. What do we do?

[Peter H]

Leila,

I just want to reiterate what I said above: This is no time for Lebanese to point fingers at each other. Regardless of you how feel about Hizbollah, Israel has directed its barbaric war on the Lebanese people, not Hizbollah. You have an IDF that is still smarting from its loss to Hizbollah in 2000, and is determine to crush any force that challenges its dominance over the Middle East, no matter the price to the Lebanese people.

Are you going to let the IDF take advantage of your internal divisions, a.k.a. France 1940? Or are you going to stand together, unite and demand the world stop the IDF's aggression?

Lebanon's survival is at stake.

[Peter H]

Here is an excerpt of a post I left at the Lebanese bloggers:

You don't have to extol the virtues of Nasrallah! I'm just saying, don't point the finger at him, not until Israel's aggression ends. When the aggression ends, there will be plenty of time to finger-point. Keep the focus on mobilizing the world to end Israel's aggression.

I mean, this may seem outrageous to you, but Hezbollah could have valid reasons to point the finger at the March 14 Forces. For example, look at the way Israel has invoked Lebanon's failure to implement Resolution 1559 in support of its war on Lebanon. Doesn't that prove Nasrallah may have had a point when said?:

Without accusing anyone of treason or jumping to hasty conclusions, I am simply saying Resolution 1559 serves the Israeli policies in inciting civil war and creating political chaos and turbulence," Nasrallah said. "We should be careful not to take positions that would harm Lebanon or push it again into disarray and instability," he said.

I'm not saying that Nasrallah is right....only that such debates are what is not needed now. What's needed is creative colloboration on how to mobilize the world to stop Israel's aggression. For example,

(1) Explaining to the American public that this is a war on Lebanon, not on Hizbollah. The Israel lobby has mastered the art of public relations ("hasbara"); you need to do no less.

(2) Writing letters and calling the American media. Again, the Israel lobby has mastered this art, and Lebanon's supporters must do the same.

(3) Working with the Arab public to pressure Arab leaders to end their shameful support of Just Reward. There are plenty of Arab bloggers you can work with in this regard.

(4) Ditto for the European public. Again, there are plenty of European bloggers you can work with.

(5) Work with Israeli peace groups. Are they planning up any upcoming demonstrations against the war in Lebanon? Why not have speakers from Lebanon address the really?

Here are some Israeli peace groups:
http://www.gush-shalom.org/
http://www.alternativenews.org/
http://www.yeshgvul.org/index_e.asp

The Lebanese blogosphere doesn't needs to wage a jihad on behalf of Lebanon. It just needs to show the same level of creativity in mobilizing the world to end Israel's aggression that it did in supporting the March 14 movement.

[Hootsbuddy]

Remain strong, Leila, and try not to be discouraged by some of these mean and unwarranted comments.
I wonder how some of these people would behave if one or more of their family members were being held at gunpoint. My guess is that they would do anything or say anything to bring an end to the situation. Anything!
So speak your mind and let the nay-sayers get over it.

[Jake Hayman]

Dear International Friends of OneVoice,

There are rockets flying into Israel’s Northern towns as far down as Haifa as we write this, while the people of Gaza are in fear for their homes and lives, without electricity and running water. People are suffering, people are dying and people are afraid. It’s a crisis. We are writing to tell you though not to give up on us, or to give up on hope for an end to the conflict.

The situation today makes it very difficult to talk about conflict resolution - to see an end to the conflict. Sometimes it is easy to see the light at the end of the tunnel, at the moment the tunnel is dark. But this crisis and this conflict will end, and we say that with sobriety and rationality. As much as we feel helpless today, as rational people we must see any crisis as an opportunity to rise up and overcome the reasons that brought that crisis.

The situation will come to an end, when we do not know. In the meantime both people suffer so badly. Believe us that no-one is happy with this life. We want everyone around the world to know that we, and many friends and colleagues like us at OneVoice, are working to change this situation. We are ready. We are ready to do anything necessary to help end this situation. We have done so many activities and introduced so many people to OneVoice and it always gives them hope and energy. We can not and will not lose all of this however hard it is at this moment. We will strive to improve this life.

A resolution to the conflict may seem like a dream, but let us dream it and keep helping us do whatever we have to do to make it a reality. The day will never come when Israelis and Palestinians are prepared to accept living with this situation. How far we are from the day when we have a situation we will accept is hard to say, but we will work for it, even as the fighter jets and rockets go overhead, we will work for it.

Thank you,

Saed and Elad

Saed has been involved with OneVoice for around a year. He visits the OneVoice office to meet with other youth leaders and staff at least once a week and has even pioneered his own workshops on OneVoice in Ramallah, which have recruited many new volunteers. He spoke about OneVoice in Synagogues, community centers and campuses during OneVoice’s International Education Program tour to Canada.

Elad has also been volunteering for around a year. He uses his Arabic and Hebrew language skills to speak with both Arabs and Jews about the work of OneVoice and has served to educate and recruit activists in the Region and also in the US, where he spoke at over 10 venues on behalf of OneVoice during their International Education Program tour to New York.

OneVoice is a grassroots, non-partisan Israeli-Palestinian group working to empower moderates to stand up against extremism and seize back the agenda for conflict resolution. At a time when extremists are once again dominating the agenda, its need to exist and to deliver could not be more crucial

[Astrid Larnach]

Leila, how does all this "he said, she said" dialogue help? I see your need to have your point of view heard ( a skill Israel learned early on). My fear is that this type of discussion will lead only to a short term resolution for your nation. All around the world people are wondering " Why do they keep doing this to each other, it's been hundreds of years now?!"

Rehashing the history (not by you but by fellow bloggers) can only fuel future "he said, she said" conflict.

Instead lets look at today's reality -displaced people, bombed villages, children who only know how to hate.

The questions should be how to educate the people who have the power to change our world today about the realities of today's crisis. You have much more chance of getting through to them (especially in the aftermath of the disgusting USA/Iraq war which the American people are finally tired of) by educating them about your plight today, rather than last century.