The Arab American Mirror http://www.alif.com/mirror
It couldn't have been more than a few hours after U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala had left Lebanon having just paid the longest US Cabinet-level visit to Lebanon (four days) since 1975. It was a "feel good" visit. Ms. Shalala, the highest-ranking Lebanese-American to serve in office (and who taught English in Lebanon in the 1960s) visited schools in poor rural areas, paid a visit to Lebanon's new president, and debated students at the American University of Beirut. She talked about a new era of "peace and prosperity" for Lebanon.
Since yesterday morning, Israel has been dropping virtual "sound bombs" over Beirut about three times a day. That's more often than I get square meals most of the time. In reality, they've just been swooping their warplanes down over Beirut and other cities breaking the sound barrier and in the process breaking windows, and sending young kids scurrying in a strange attempt to terrorize the population, or convince them of something. But of what I'm not sure.
Yesterday a friend's blonde-haired, blue-eyed 9 year-old daughter, who looked a lot like the girl I had a crush on back in elementary school in Morristown, New Jersey, explained to us how the teachers had instructed them to move away from the windows during sonic blasts. Bouncy and smiling with her new red backpack, she proudly said that she "didn't cry like some of the others." After she dashed inside for lunch, I remembered the hope I had had that a "new generation" of kids might grow up here not knowing war.
And today, a new friend who's recently returned from Stanford to practice as a clinical psychologist complained to me that because of the booms she's been unnerved these past few days and hasn't been able to sleep. I imagine she's holding up, but I wonder how her counseling patients are doing.
I'm really not sure what purpose Netanyahu, the democratically elected leader of Lebanon's southern "neighbor," thinks these brazen acts serve, other than to remind the Lebanese that Israel has enough weapons of mass destruction to wipe Lebanon of the face of the earth for good and the ability to deliver them. Or does he want Lebanese to know that he could turn back the clock to the War era when they flew raids over Lebanon regularly? Thank you very much. As if the Lebanese had forgotten. As far as I know, Lebanon hardly has an air force.
More likely, the sonic booms we've been served fore breakfast, lunch and dinner although at odd hours are Bibi’s creation to get himself out of the political corner he's painted himself into between his own right wing and President Clinton. Though, the more than $3 billion in assistance about $600 per Israeli the US gives Israel each year isn't really in question. To top it off, Netanyahu is under pressure from mainstream Israelis, including many in the security establishment, to end Israel's occupation of Southern Lebanon which has killed at least 20 Israeli soldiers and 33 Lebanese this year. But raiding Lebanon and trying to strike fear in the hearts of the Lebanese out of electoral desperation sure didn't help Peres in the polls, and I don't think it'll work for Netanyahu either.
Israel's erratic actions in Lebanon are a sign that an Israeli leader is in deep electoral trouble. Two and half years ago, Israeli "dove" Shimon Peres was up against an electoral wall with Netanyahu gaining ground in the polls. Peres ordered a "mini"-invasion of Lebanon during which Israel killed over 100 Lebanese civilians when it bombed a United Nations safe haven, an act which they are being sued for in the International Criminal Courts based on new video-taped evidence that Israel was aiming directly for the safe haven.
A few days later, along with many other Arab-Americans, I was in the Old Executive Office Building, discussing the situation with the acting Secretary of State. Little consolation. Peres meanwhile narrowly lost the election in a vote one of my Princeton political science professors described to me over Thanksgiving break as one which "almost made me an opponent of democracy." Although I was not too happy to see Netanyahu elected, I had hopes Israeli leaders would learn a lesson that their Rambo-like forays into Lebanon would backfire, both on the battlefield and at the ballot box. Apparently, they haven't.
This year Israel has raided Lebanon more than a hundred times with its warplanes and rockets terrorizing residents of Southern Lebanon on a regular basis. That's probably more often than even the health conscious among us go jogging. I know it's more than I do. This fall, during the dry season, Israel began using phosphorus bombs to start fires to deforest Lebanon, claiming that Lebanese resisting the occupation were using the forests as cover, what little is left of them.
And if that wasn't bad enough, the U.N. verified that this fall Israel actually succeeded in steeling hundreds of metric tons of highly fertile Lebanese topsoil to bolster farms in the Galilee, giving a new twist to the concept of "Land for Peace." Does Lebanon get the topsoil back if it signs a peace treaty with Israel? In a way, though, these actions just add insult to injury. Israel and it's mercenaries have continued to occupy a significant portion of Southern Lebanon for about 20 years now claiming that the land protects their security. It's a place where thousands of Lebanese should be calling home, except for the fact that they can't live there because of the Israeli occupation.
This isn't the first time I've had US-made and supplied weapons disrupt my life. But that was elsewhere, Israel's other front, the West Bank and Gaza, and before the "peace process" thank goodness times have changed. Don't get me wrong. I'm not against the "peace process" I just wish it entailed exchanging Israeli "security" for some dignity for Palestinians. When I first visited Gaza on a human rights mission 10 years ago just before my college graduation back in New England, it wasn't a place the President Reagan would visit. The Clinton visit shows just how much things have changed. Gaza was my first experience with military curfew (during which tens of thousands of Gazans would spend literally months a year under house arrest) and tear gas (made in good old Pennsylvania where my brother was born).
I probably wouldn't have made it out of Gaza in one piece, let alone in time for my cherry blossom-filled gradation, if it weren't for the U.S. passport I was born with. That fall of 1988, when I helped organize a citizen-sponsored referendum question to voice the opinion that the US should end military assistance to the Israeli occupation, just about every significant Massachusetts Democrat and Republican came out of the woodwork calling us the nastiest of names and opposing our efforts. Needless to say a majority of the citizens of Cambridge Massachusetts voted for our effort . US politics have changed a lot since the 1980s when Arafat and the PLO were outlawed terrorists and much of the credit goes to President Clinton and First Lady Hillary Clinton for their courageous efforts at the While House, at Wye, and soon in Gaza to embrace Palestinians along with Israelis, something that hasn't been easy in the US political system, let me tell you.
Oh, I almost forgot: Best wishes from Lebanon and Happy Holidays.
I really had intended to write a different kind of New Year's greeting filled with stories of successful community development efforts here but I just can't. Maybe next year? Right now I'm just looking forward to Christmas in New York with my family, and New Years in snowy New England with my close friends. In the mean time, I hope you'll all come and visit. It's safe, really. Just bring your ear plugs and don't mind the sonic booms!
