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Syria: Damascus eases border crossing

16 July 2006


DAMASCUS - The government has facilitated the entry into Syria of thousands of Arab and foreign tourists who, for the last four days, have been fleeing Israeli aggression in Lebanon. This has led some to hope that Syria’s attitude could help in mending the frosty relations between the Lebanese and the Syrian governments. Lebanese parliamentarian George Jabbour said that Syria’s assistance “would contribute in getting the two countries’ relations to normal.” He added that Syria “feels now that it is its duty to support Lebanon at this delicate time.” 

Good morning Beirut

Bilal El-Amine Beirut 16 July 2006


Since 1993 and the signing of the Oslo Accords, the Arab leaders, the US and the UN have been saying that negotiations and normalization with Israel are the only way to peace. But we have yet to see Israel make the smallest concession, taking the opportunity to swallow up yet more land, butcher the Palestinian people and continue to imprison thousands. Hamas’ election was but one indicator that ordinary Arabs have understood that successive peace accords have brought them nothing but further misery - only resistance, with all the suffering that comes with it, bears fruit. 

Ghost World, Palestine

Zachary Wales 16 July 2006


They say that when one loses an appendage, the sensation never leaves. One is visited by a “referred pain”. Since 1967, when Israel occupied the West Bank and Gaza, approximately one third of all Palestinians have, at one time or another, languished in Israeli prisons, contributing to a vacuum in family life. Today, as Israel and the United States use the capture of three Israeli soldiers to justify civilian massacres in Gaza and Lebanon, nearly 9,000 Palestinians are held in Israel’s detention facilities. 

Four days of counting explosions in Beirut

Jenney Thorson Beirut 16 July 2006


Friday 14 July, 3:30 am: Awoke to planes overhead and another explosion to the south. Apparently anti-aircraft also, red lights coming up from ground. My roommate Meredith heard three bombs so far tonight or three planes … Now Meredith thinks she’s heard four bombs and/or sonic booms. The anti-aircraft go up as red lights and then twinkle white in the sky. It’s still burning away in the south. The anti-aircraft were coming up not only from the south but from a more easterly neighborhood too. We can hear muezzin (call to prayer) singing someplace not too incredibly far away. 

Gilbert Achcar: Israel's Dual Onslaught On Lebanon And Palestine

Paola Mirenda 16 July 2006


I don’t know for sure what Hezbollah’s real political calculation has been, but they certainly expected a large-scale reaction on the part of Israel, which has already invaded Lebanon several times before. For this reason, it seems to me that their action entailed an important element of “adventurism,” all the more that the risk they have taken involves the whole population. They have actually taken a very big risk in initiating an attack on Israel, knowing its huge military power and brutality, and the population could hold them responsible for a new war and a new invasion, the cost of which the Lebanese people will have to bear. 

The Army Wants Action: The great fiasco

Ran HaCohen 16 July 2006


What is Israel’s running wild likely to achieve? Not much. As for the captured soldiers, any action other than negotiations is gambling with their lives, as their families now start to say out louder. As for the missiles shot from Gaza, the military could not stop them when it was sitting inside the Strip - obviously, it cannot stop them by casual incursions and air bombing. As for Lebanon, the disproportional Israeli reaction made Hezbollah fire missiles at the whole of northern Israel, both at communities that had enjoyed relative quiet since 2000 and at places that had never experienced any Lebanese missiles before. 

Israeli War Crimes Continue in Gaza: 4 Palestinians killed and 10 injured

16 July 2006


Today, 16 July 2006, IOF carried out a pre-dawn raid on the town of Beit Hanoun in the north of the Gaza Strip. The raid comes after IOF had conducted an incursion into the northern Gaza Strip, and then redeployed its forces outside the targeted areas. During last week’s incursion, IOF committed war crimes in contravention of International Law and customs. Today’s raid has thus far resulted in the death of three Palestinian resistance activists by aerial bombardment. In addition, 10 civilians were injured. The raid on Beit Hanoun is part of a campaign against Palestinians that was announced by IOF two weeks ago. 

EI's Laurie King on KPFK Pacifica

Middle East in Focus 14 July 2006


Electronic Intifada cofounder Laurie King lived in Beirut, Lebanon from 1993-1998. For the first two years, she taught the “Cultural Studies III” course at the Lebanese American University (LAU) and, in 1995, became Editor in Chief of Al-Ra’ida, the quarterly journal of the Institute for Women’s Studies in the Arab World at LAU. She has written for the Daily Star (Lebanon), and worked with the Arab Resource Center for the Popular Arts, which undertakes arts therapy with children and teenagers in Palestinian Refugee Camps in Lebanon. Laurie was interviewed by Don Bustany on the Middle East in Focus program on KPFK, California, about current events in Lebanon. 

Hands full of empty words in Chicago

Lora Gordon Chicago, United States 15 July 2006


If I could stop time I would, stop everything from moving forward, not for long, just for a few moments, just long enough to let out the scream that is growing in my lungs making it difficult to breathe. Here I am in Chicago on the hottest day of the year so far, an overcast day where the air is like a swimming pool, where the humidity is so thick you can smell it, feel it wrap around your skin as soon as you step outside. This morning I walked outside into the humid air and thought, immediately: Beirut. 

Palestine to Lebanon: So close, yet so far away

Sami Hermez Ramallah, Palestine 14 July 2006


As I play back what I have seen and heard today in Ramallah, Tel Aviv-Jaffa, and Lebanon, and as I see the Israelis unaffected and showing no mercy for the immorality of their state’s action, I can’t help think about what all this means.  Is it Lebanon’s fate to be the sacrifical lamb of the Middle East as the rest of the Arab leaders remain traitorous masters of rhetoric?  In all honesty, Syria, Iran, Jordan and Egypt should open their fronts.  But they won’t because they aren’t worth the dignity they claim as Arab.  If anything good comes out of this it is that no one should ever question the Arab identity of Lebanon.