Beirut, you are breaking my heart (and stealing my view)

As seen from our terrace when we moved in in May 2008...

And this is the view now...

Reading material, for it has already been 22 days in Gaza

Israeli Assault Injures 1.5 Million Gazans – Jonathan Cook “Talking of Gaza's civilians, where did they all go? Israel's so-called "war" on Gaza must be the first example in human history of a conflict where there are apparently no civilians. Or, at least, that is the impression being created by the world's leading international bodies, from the World Health Organization to the United Nations. Instead they refer to a new category of "women and children." […] The implication -- one with which Israel is presumably delighted -- is that the rest are Palestinian fighters, or "terrorists" as Israel would prefer us to call them. It also suggests that every man in Gaza over the age of 16 is being defined as a non-civilian -- as a combatant and, again by implication, as a terrorist. In short, all Gaza's men are legitimate targets for Israeli attack.”

War Diary from Sderot – Nomika Zion

“It frightens me to see my town lit up, as if for a festival and decked out with Israeli flags, groups of supporters distributing flowers in the street and people sounding their car horns in joy at every ton of bombs that's falling on our neighbours. I am frightened by the citizen who admitted to me, with a beaming face, that he never attended a concert in his life but that the Israel Defence Forces bombs is the sweetest music to his ears. I am frightened by the haughty interviewer who doesn't question his worlds by one iota.

I am frightened that, underneath the Orwellian smokescreen of words and the pictures of [Palestinian] children's' bodies that are especially blurred for us on TV as a public service, we are losing the human ability to see the other side, to feel, to be horrified, to show empathy. With the code word "Hamas" the media paints for us a picture of a huge and murky demon that has no face, no body, no voice, a million and a half people without a name.

A deep and gloomy current of violence seeps through the dark pores of Israeli society like a grave illness, and it gets worse from one war to the next. It has no smell and no shape but one feels it very clearly from here. It is a kind of euphoria, a joy of war, lust for revenge , drunkenness on power and burial of the Jewish command "Do not be joyful when your enemy falls". It is a morality that has become so polluted that no laundry could remove the stains.”

How to Sell ‘Ethical’ Warfare – Neve Gordon

“The Israeli media continuously emphasises Israel's restraint by underscoring the gap between what the military forces could do to the Palestinians and what they actually do. […] The message to the Israelis is a moral one. The subtext is that the Israeli military could indiscriminately unleash its vast arsenal of violence, but chooses not to, because its forces, unlike Hamas, respect human life.

This latter claim appears to have considerable resonance among Israelis, and, yet, it is based on a moral fallacy. The fact that one could be more brutal but chooses to use restraint does not in any way entail that one is moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have razed the entire Gaza Strip, but instead destroyed only 15% of the buildings does not make its actions moral. The fact that the Israeli military could have killed thousands of Palestinian children during this campaign, and, due to restraint, killed "only" 300, does not make Operation Cast Lead ethical.”

Nieuws

Vandaag ben ik elders te vinden (klik op de titel voor de link): Demonstreren à la Libanaise: Als je hier demonstreert ben je tegelijk ook voor Cuba

Your God or Mine?

So the talk is about marriage, and whether one should or should not get married to a muslim. I’d say yes, but then again, I am biased; I’m about to get hitched with an atheist Sunni. Not that it matters, we’re both products of mixed marriages (sunni-shi’a for him and catholic-protestant for me), and neither of us are very attached to any of the rituals that came with all these religions. To my Arabic teacher, a devout Sunni muslim without a veil, this is still a bit puzzling. She’s perfectly ok with different grades of religiosity, and mixed marriages are not a problem, but no religion at all? How does that work? I explain that we will do a civil ceremony somewhere, and then have it registered in our respective countries.

‘So your kids,’ she says, ‘what will they be?’ ‘Here in Lebanon they will get their (grand)father’s religion, according to the law’, I answer. ‘And in Holland?’ ‘In Holland they won’t be anything until we register them as something.’ ‘They won’t be Christian?’ ‘Unless we have them baptized they won’t be registered as such, no.’

I’ve had this conversation before, and it usually stops here, because the possibility of being ‘nothing’ is a new concept for many. But my teacher was still curious about something, and carefully asked:

‘How about… what will you tell your children?’ ‘Supposing I will have them, I don’t think I will tell them anything.’ ‘You won’t take them to church?’ ‘I don’t plan on doing so, no. I guess they will pick up enough about religion from their grandparents and the people around them, and when they are older and they want to join a religion, they can do so.’ ‘So you won’t tell them God doesn’t exist? That there is nothing?’ she asks, seemingly a little worried about my unborn, godless children. ‘I don’t think it’s up to me to decide whether he exists or not, so no, I probably won’t be telling them that.’

The answer reassures her. But then a more practical issue comes to her mind.

‘But if you don’t have a religion, who do you refer to when you say ‘nshallah’ [God willing] or ‘ya rabbe’ [oh my God]?’ she asks. I try to avoid these expressions as much as I can, because indeed, who am I referring to? but sometimes there is no other option. My answer is the first one of the day that she can really get behind. ‘All of them.’

Forget about Lebanon, worry about Gaza

And the death of the people was as it has always been:as if no one, nothing had died, as if they were stones falling on the ground. or water on the water

Y la muerte del pueblo fue como siempre ha sido: como si no murlcra nadie, nada, como si fueran pledras las que caen sabre la tlerra, o agua sabre el agua.

Pablo Neruda Canto General, 1950

Found on Hakaya, Muzna's blog.