dear -empyre-
this is a letter from the artist Walid Raad of the Atlas Group.
From the 16 Beaver site.
-cm
Walid --2 letters from beirut -- 07.15.06
Yet another day of bombing all over the place. In the mountain here,
we were subject to about three different bombing runs: 1 to continue
destroying the Beirut to Damascus road; another to destroy the cell
phone antennas; and another to again hit the Beirut to Damascus road.
Just a few minutes ago, the house was shaking again, and I only
assume the Israelis are pounding the same area. The safe areas are
much further to the north, the northeastern enclave, an area
traditionally christian. Listening to Nasrallah's speech tonight was
not reassuring one bit. After pleading with the Lebanese to stand
firm, and after denouncing Arab government leaving Lebanon to pay the
price for Israeli aggression, he asked us all to look at sea and watch
the Israeli gunboat that had been pounding the coast and hills all
day. he said that it was about to be hit by a HizbAllah missile. He
promised that it will burn, that it will sink, that its sailors will
die. It made me sickto my stomach, almost as much as it makes me sick
to hear Olmert, Bush, the Saudi, and Palestinian position about this.
Nasrallah also called for an open war against Israel, and that he
will hit Haifa, and what is behind Haifa, and behind and behind Haifa.
What this means remains unlcear. But clearly it is worrying. Within
minutes of the speech, parts of West Beirut were celebrating. The
city is about to be reduced to rubble, and fireworks are being fired
in the air. Incredible. Al-Jazeera and most local networks pointed
their lenses towards to sea, to look for a missile launch, which came
but was not visible. This is just not good. This is just about to
get worse. I dont know what to think anymore. Pundits are
speculating, making noise: Did HizbAllah need to drag Lebanon into
this mess at this time? How can HizbAllah monopolize the decision to
launch a war, to destroy the country? Others are convinced that Israel
is simply intent on enforcing resolution 1559, namely to disarm
HizbAllah by force. HizbAllah is asking everyone to stand form, and to
be patient. This has happened before and we have triumphed. We will
triumph again, they say. Whatever all this leads to, one thing is
certain, the scale of the destruction is enormous. People are dying
in the south and elsewhere. Too many. The bombing has moved to the
north and in the past hour positions inside Syria were hit. Iran has
said that were Syria to be hit, they will respond. A regional war?
What's going on?
Embassies here are starting to remove their citizens. the French,
canadians, germans, and the americans just announced the same.
I cannot imagine this going on for months, despite what some officials
up high are stating. I assume that the regional ploy is to disarm
hizbAllah. This will only happen if Syria and Iran get something in
return. What is the U.S. willing to grant them? Also, they have to
find a way out for HizbAllah. Which means that their position inside
the Lebanese government will have to be negotiated. They may disarm
them, but they have to give them a way out as well. After all,
HizbAllah represents 1 million folks here. Israel and the U.S cannot
kill them all.
Rumors aplenty, every ten minutes. The news, all of it, Arab and
international, makes me sick. We are stuck with a false choice:
Support HizbAllah, or be an Israeli agent. That is at least what
HizbAllah and their Syrian allies are saying. The Christian right's
position is equally naive. They want to assume that HizbAllah will
just go away. they are wishing it at least. That wont happen, no
matter what. Everyone is miscalculating it seems: HizbAllah, the
Americans, the Israelis, The Saudis, the Palestinians, The French, The
Russians, The Chinese. You name it. The effects on the ground will
remain once this crisis is resolved, and has already generated enough
antagonism to last us another decade.
We are trying to think of what to do. To leave, and be stuck in the
U.S glued to the TV trying to figure out what is happening will be
maddening.
This will clearly get worse before it gets better, and we have not
seen the worse yet. Now, all parties are slowly revealing their cards.
best
w.
This evening ....
We still have the land-line. Cell phones are working from time to
time. Electricity is being rationed. We are getting around 8 hours a
day. Generators provide the rest at this point. It is a situation we
are used to, one that is decent -- even very good compared to what
other areas of the country are living through at the moment.
More idiots on Lebanese TV speculating some more about Israel's and
HizbAllah's intentions. More shelling in the Southern Suburb. More
massacres in the South. More missiles to northern Israel. More
fireworks celebrating HizbAllah's resistance.
Doi we need to say this again and again and again: There is no such
thing as targeted/surgical shelling in a city with hundreds of
thousands of homes, built cheek to cheek. Israel shelled the house of
Hassan Nasrallah. I suppose they thought he would be home enjoying
his afternoon tea at the time. They took out the light house that
stood on the Corniche, lest it send out distress signals that the
world will not see. A family leaving, fleeing its village in the
South was pulverized -- surely the smoke from the shelling blinded the
scope of the gunner, preventing him/her from seeing that the small
people in the car were not extremely short HizbAllah fighters. Should
we tally numbers? Do we need to open more morgue doors b to reveal
yet another mangled body, yet another weeping parent, yet another
angry relative denouncing this or that government? this or that
policy?
Amr Moussa stated tonight, after the spineless meeting of Arab
ministers, that it is clear now that the U.S. has handed Israel a free
hand in solving the Mid-East crisis, as it sees fit. Whether it
decides unilaterally to withdraw from Gaza, from the West Bank, from
destroying Gaza again, from destroying Beirut, etc. I wonder what
took them so long to figure this out. Is the oil in the Gulf still a
weapon in their hands? Surely not, as we are reminded time and time
again. What is the price of oil again? How much of Europe's oil
supplied by the Saudis and the Kuwaitis? How much of the U.S. oil is
supplied by the Middle East? Did we reach 78 USD a barrel yet? Maybe
the Saudis will use some of the surplus to rebuild the country again.
What's a billion dollars when the price of oil reaches 78 USD?
Someone knows this somewhere, and is most likely depending on it.
Israeli cease-fire conditions announced -- as I write this:
-Retreat of HizbAllah fighters to behind the Litani river in the
south.
-Hand-over of all HizbAllah missiles to the Lebanese Army
-Deployment of the Lebanese Army in the South.
On this end, I am tired, and am not able to think straight anymore.
Hoping for a quiet night, and to wake up with a cease-fire declared.
w.
On Jul 17, 2006, at 11:46 AM, Susana Mendes Silva wrote:
Hi to all,
I received this post from idc list, and due to our current
discussion I thought this is live bare life occuring this very
moment in the middle east. This was written by Zena el-Khalil, who
is an artist living in Beirut and revealing to us the motives why
she is staying in the city and making an appeal to stop this
violence escalade:
Tell themthat violence begets violence. Remind them that Lebanon
is their neighbor
and that co-existence is possible. How are we going to ever reach an
understanding through violence? We were so close... We were so
close...
Please stop this brutality!
Still with love,
Zena el-Khalil
I wish I could do something more than just forward...
sms
Begin forwarded message:
From: Judith Rodenbeck <jrodenbe@slc.edu>
Date: July 17, 2006 7:30:22 AM GMT+01:00
To: idc@bbs.thing.net
Subject: [iDC] FW: Another Beirut update
-----Original Message-----
From: zena [mailto:dude@ziggydoodle.com]
Sent: Sunday, July 16, 2006 8:24 PM
To: beautiful beirut
Subject: Another Beirut update
I have started coughing, but I don't know why. I am not sick. I
don't have a
cold. I think it's a reaction I'm having to stress. My body feels
weak. My
mouth is always dry, no matter how much water I drink. And I'm
afraid to
drink too much water because I don't want it to run out!
Last night was probably the most frightful night I have ever
experienced in
my whole entire life. I was so tired and exhausted... have not
slept in
days. When there is finally a quiet moment, the tension in my
stomach and
heart prevents me from falling asleep.
Last night we counted at least 15 bombs falling into Dahiyeh (Beirut
Suburbs).. and these were just the ones we heard. At some point
during the
night, I said to myself that if I didn't at least try to get some
sleep that
I was going to go crazy from fatigue; and that that was what was
going to
kill me. Haven’t been able to eat either, so am losing physical
strength.
It’s all psychological at this point. I know I have to be strong,
and I will
be, but I can't deny what I’m going through. And I think it's
important that
people hear about the downside as well as the bravery. So many of
us are
already working hard to fix things, we are running around Beirut
trying to
get food and water and medicine to people, we are doing things
online, etc,
but it doesn't mean we are not scared, sick or tired.
So, last night amidst the worst shelling we've had so far, I
realized that I
was not afraid of the noise anymore; how quickly you get used to
it. I
realized what was hurting the most was the "UNKNOWN". What is
going to
happen tomorrow? When will this all end? How are we going to start
re-building again? Are the refugees going to be ok? How are the
people in
the south? And why punish a whole country? What is the real plan
behind all
of this? How much worse is it going to get?
My husband and I have been housing foreign "refugees" helping
them to find
their way out of the country. Two managed to leave this morning,
a German
and Swiss. The other two are British and American. The craziest
thing is
that out of all people, the American embassy has been the LEAST
helpful to
its citizens here. The phone line to the embassy has been
practically out of
service. My friend, Amanda, (whom I just met a few days ago, by
the way) had
to hire a cab to take her to the embassy (which is a ride out of
Beirut) and
all they could tell her was that they didn’t know what they were
going to do
and to keep checking the website. Only thing she has gotten on
the website
is that she now knows that there is going to be an evacuation (5
days
later), but when it happens, she is going to have to pay for it!
Yes, they
are saying to their citizens that they are going to bill them for
their ride
out! Can you believe that?!
Trying to evacuate people has put me under stress. The question
is what am I
to do if I had the opportunity to leave? Would I leave? What do I
do with my
friends? My family? My art studio? I have a British passport; I
could be
evacuated with my husband. But what would happen to my best
friend Maya? She
has a very rare and bad case of CANCER! I have been taking care
of her since
she was diagnosed a few months ago and I know that my care for
her is what
has helped her do so well. Her type of cancer is "untreatable", but
ironically, the day the shelling started, her doctor told us her
tumors had
shrunk! Unbelievable- a true miracle. I can't leave Maya!
What about art work in my studio? What about all my brushes and
paints and
glitter and books! All my books! Again- the crazy things that
cross your
mind.
What about our photo albums? All our family pictures? The
memories...
What about the doodles I drew on my balcony a few summers ago
when I was
suffering from a bad break up?
What about all the love letters I have saved? Letters that
document my youth
that I wanted to some day give to my daughter.
What about my other best friend? My dog, Tampopo? My beautiful
Jack Russel
Terrier who has never let me down. Who has always been a source
of purity
and compassion... Who has eyes of an angle... Dogs are not
allowed to
evacuate. My American friend Christine is going to have to leave
her dog
with me; a black pug named Baousi (means Kiss in Arabic). She is
heartbroken! She almost didn't want to evacuate. She went to so many
embassies to try and register with them and see if they would
take her dog.
Don't worry Christine, I will take great care of Baousi.
My sister has been volunteering to help the refugees who are
being sheltered
in public schools. Right now they are calling on Lebanese
citizens to help
out with money, medicine, food, water, blankets and mattresses.
She has been
going to people and asking for money and then going out to buy
medicines for
refugees- her own initiative! My mom has joined in too. a friend
has put
together a website for accepting donations:
http://atrissi.com/helplebanon/
Biggest cynical statement of the day:
Israel has told people to evacuate from the south because they
are going to
annihilate the south of Lebanon. However, the people can not
leave because
all the roads have been destroyed/blocked. And yesterday when
people did try
and leave, the Israelis opened fire on them! A massacre is
happening!
Update on the attacks, as of yesterday:
- Israelis have been bombing the south of Lebanon with phosphorus
and other
chemical bombs.
- Israelis have bombed all ports along the coastline of Lebanon.
- Israelis have bombed all our local army radars and some outposts
- Israelis have bombed/attacked the fire fighting brigade and the
Search and
Rescue Brigade in the South. Innocent civilian lives were lost.
It was a
massacre- the buildings were also housing refugees.
- Israelis have continued to bomb the suburb of Beirut, Dahiyeh &
Haret
Hreik
- Israelis have now killed over 100 civilians and there are
several hundreds
wounded
- … and they continue to bomb the south
- Israelis have started hitting roads that lead to the mountains.
They hit a
main one leading to the Shouf.
-Israelis have hit a gas plant in the mountains
... I can't keep up with what they have hit.
*** Israel has begun to target Lebanese army outposts. They have
killed
Lebanese soldiers. They are no longer just targeting Hizuballah.
They mean
to kill all of Lebanon.
The reality:
Israel is trying to bring Lebanon to its knees. Israel is trying
to destroy
Lebanon and the Lebanese spirit. Israel is trying to turn
Lebanese against
each other. Israel is trying to turn us into animals scrounging
for food,
water and shelter. Israel and the United States of America are
trying to
drag Syria and Iran into this too. They are using Lebanon as
bait. Lebanon
is stuck in the middle. The Americans and Israelis are trying to
launch a
regional war!!
Please help in any way you can. Please pass on the message, this
email-
reprint if you wish. Please tell people what is going on. Please put
pressure on your respective governments to step in and do something.
Lebanon is a peaceful country. We are the only country in the
region in
which people of all religions co-exist peacefully.
It is unbelievable how biased the news is. They are not reporting
the real
damage being caused. They don’t report that the Israelis are killing
innocent civilians. It seems from this end that all they are
focusing on is
G8!
Are the Israeli & US government really just trying to wipe us all
out??
Well, you can tell them that I’m not leaving. And there are many
of us who
are not leaving. We love Lebanon. We love what we have spent our
lives
building.
Tell them about people like me.. who build culture and tolerance.
Who work
for peace and understanding. Who work to educate. Who work to
promote love
and compassion. There are thousands like me here. What about us?
Tell them about people like me, that despite all of this, I have
still not
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