From Beirut
An email from a good friend who has just been evacuated from Beirut:
"My lanky Saudi cousin stepped into the living room with his XXL "Real Men Don't Need Viagra" t-shirt. He announced that he had just finished his twenty-third episode of the series Lost. His sister stood up and asked, "Anyone wanna go eat junk?" They returned with salt & vinegar Pringles, two scoops of Nutella in a bowl, and golden Pepsi leftover from the World Cup. His ghetto-fabulous Nokia-mp3 player rang with Sean Paul. His father was calling from Riyadh: he just bought a new blue Lexus ES 30!!The phones ring a couple times an hour, and it's usually the Saudi parents checking up on their kids. Together, they and Mama Hiam make sure the kids stay informed, amused, and sometimes sedated (as happened yesterday). After lunch the other day, I found Hiam plopped on the ground like a walrus playing cards with the grand kids while LBC screened Fayrouz and shots of the blasted Chtoura highway. Heo was sifting through her collection of civil war stories--the one about the polyglot beggar in Hamra who turned out to be an Israeli spy, the one with Hiam opening the door of her Fiat to see three dead bodies with their brains down on the road, and the one about Hiam's illicit one night stand with Ariel Sharon.When anyone calls to check up on her, she begins her hadeeth with, "malee khayfeh, wa ana hal dhul hoon ("Me, I'm not scared and I'm gonna stay here)." And she really has no reason to be frightened. Beirut proper should remain untouched however long this vicious, unjustified attack lasts. Should the Israelis threaten her personal safety, she can go up to the mountains like many Beirutis have already, or the UN will ship her off to Saudi since her daughter is a UNDP official.It's Sunday morning, and, more than 85 Lebanese civilians later, Israeli warplanes are still exercising the right to self-defense. Some American security official called my mobile about an hour ago and told me that I'll be evacuated today to Cyprus. All the Atlanta Syrians/Lebanese are in touch, and they haven't heard anything from the Embassy. When I first felt the Israeli warplanes in the sky, the blood sank out of my body. The whole building quaked as they dropped bombs not too far away on the south end of Beirut. When the sun rose that morning, I could see from my balcony the smoke rising from the Dahyeh power plant. My apartment building is on a hill (Talet el Khayat -- the tailor's hill), and Dahyeh is about 15 minutes away, between my house and the airport. Our balcony faces south.In addition to barricading the country by sea, they also bombed all the runways in the country, mobile service towers, electricity power plants, and of course the vast majority of the roads to Syria (thereby murdering more Lebanese flies in the process).Throughout the mornings and the afternoons, we hear/feel Israeli warplanes flying about, and once I actually saw one from the balcony heading west towards the Med. They are real! not imaginary! real! flown by real people!We have the usual five star lunch (complete with freshly pressed lemonade and fine linens) and just keep eating the buttered artichokes and broiled lamb while the planes buzz and bomb. It reminds me of that scene from the end of HEARTBREAK HOUSE. A part of me felt disgusted to be indulging in such a luxurious lunch (which is the norm at Hotel Hiam) while those white planes were bouncing about. But life keeps on moving as best it can even though the temptation to glue myself in front of the tv/computer/radio is great.They struck Manara, the new lighthouse just 2.5 kilometers down the corniche, and the keys jumped off the table in the foyer. Manara is just after the Bain Militaire and adjacent to the Palace Café where my friend and I joked about a Mediterranean tsunami drowning us while smoking arguileh. I know the lighthouse is exactly two and half kilometers away because it was the climax of my morning jog. Every .5 kilometers along the corniche, there are distancemarkers, leftover from a marathon in Beirut.I saw pictures of Manara on the television, expecting to see a crumbled lighthouse. But actually, only the top was blown to pieces. It was still standing. No, it doesn't symbolize the will of the Lebanese. It's more a demonstration of Israel's technique. It is the precision and the efficiency of the Israeli war on Lebanon that terrifies me. They make a decision to blow out the radar system in the light house in official meetings, and two hours later they do it in addition to scaring the shit out of the city.Before Hizbullah attacked the military ship (all of which we could hear), Israeli jets broke the sound barrier, resulting in two consecutive, very tangible sonic booms. The impact of the boom launches all the parked cars into panic. Not sure how a sonic boom over Beirut is gonna convince Hizbullah to compl{ to Israeli demands, but whatever.It does send the city into a brief state of hysteria. Everyone rushes out onto the balcony, looking for SOMETHING, ANYTHING...but of course the jets are long gone by the time we step outside.We were sitting at a café in Patraciat, and the news was blaring on a big screen. When the news flashed to Mr. Bush, he asserted Israel's right to self-defense and called upon Syria toexert its influence to disarm Hizbullah. We sunk in our chairs and made sure to distance ourselves from the screen.The American government blocks a Security Council resolution for a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, tacitly allowing Israel to tear Lebanon apart like a UGA quarterback raping a passed out blond. How proud I feel to be hopping on this American deus ex machina."
"My lanky Saudi cousin stepped into the living room with his XXL "Real Men Don't Need Viagra" t-shirt. He announced that he had just finished his twenty-third episode of the series Lost. His sister stood up and asked, "Anyone wanna go eat junk?" They returned with salt & vinegar Pringles, two scoops of Nutella in a bowl, and golden Pepsi leftover from the World Cup. His ghetto-fabulous Nokia-mp3 player rang with Sean Paul. His father was calling from Riyadh: he just bought a new blue Lexus ES 30!!The phones ring a couple times an hour, and it's usually the Saudi parents checking up on their kids. Together, they and Mama Hiam make sure the kids stay informed, amused, and sometimes sedated (as happened yesterday). After lunch the other day, I found Hiam plopped on the ground like a walrus playing cards with the grand kids while LBC screened Fayrouz and shots of the blasted Chtoura highway. Heo was sifting through her collection of civil war stories--the one about the polyglot beggar in Hamra who turned out to be an Israeli spy, the one with Hiam opening the door of her Fiat to see three dead bodies with their brains down on the road, and the one about Hiam's illicit one night stand with Ariel Sharon.When anyone calls to check up on her, she begins her hadeeth with, "malee khayfeh, wa ana hal dhul hoon ("Me, I'm not scared and I'm gonna stay here)." And she really has no reason to be frightened. Beirut proper should remain untouched however long this vicious, unjustified attack lasts. Should the Israelis threaten her personal safety, she can go up to the mountains like many Beirutis have already, or the UN will ship her off to Saudi since her daughter is a UNDP official.It's Sunday morning, and, more than 85 Lebanese civilians later, Israeli warplanes are still exercising the right to self-defense. Some American security official called my mobile about an hour ago and told me that I'll be evacuated today to Cyprus. All the Atlanta Syrians/Lebanese are in touch, and they haven't heard anything from the Embassy. When I first felt the Israeli warplanes in the sky, the blood sank out of my body. The whole building quaked as they dropped bombs not too far away on the south end of Beirut. When the sun rose that morning, I could see from my balcony the smoke rising from the Dahyeh power plant. My apartment building is on a hill (Talet el Khayat -- the tailor's hill), and Dahyeh is about 15 minutes away, between my house and the airport. Our balcony faces south.In addition to barricading the country by sea, they also bombed all the runways in the country, mobile service towers, electricity power plants, and of course the vast majority of the roads to Syria (thereby murdering more Lebanese flies in the process).Throughout the mornings and the afternoons, we hear/feel Israeli warplanes flying about, and once I actually saw one from the balcony heading west towards the Med. They are real! not imaginary! real! flown by real people!We have the usual five star lunch (complete with freshly pressed lemonade and fine linens) and just keep eating the buttered artichokes and broiled lamb while the planes buzz and bomb. It reminds me of that scene from the end of HEARTBREAK HOUSE. A part of me felt disgusted to be indulging in such a luxurious lunch (which is the norm at Hotel Hiam) while those white planes were bouncing about. But life keeps on moving as best it can even though the temptation to glue myself in front of the tv/computer/radio is great.They struck Manara, the new lighthouse just 2.5 kilometers down the corniche, and the keys jumped off the table in the foyer. Manara is just after the Bain Militaire and adjacent to the Palace Café where my friend and I joked about a Mediterranean tsunami drowning us while smoking arguileh. I know the lighthouse is exactly two and half kilometers away because it was the climax of my morning jog. Every .5 kilometers along the corniche, there are distancemarkers, leftover from a marathon in Beirut.I saw pictures of Manara on the television, expecting to see a crumbled lighthouse. But actually, only the top was blown to pieces. It was still standing. No, it doesn't symbolize the will of the Lebanese. It's more a demonstration of Israel's technique. It is the precision and the efficiency of the Israeli war on Lebanon that terrifies me. They make a decision to blow out the radar system in the light house in official meetings, and two hours later they do it in addition to scaring the shit out of the city.Before Hizbullah attacked the military ship (all of which we could hear), Israeli jets broke the sound barrier, resulting in two consecutive, very tangible sonic booms. The impact of the boom launches all the parked cars into panic. Not sure how a sonic boom over Beirut is gonna convince Hizbullah to compl{ to Israeli demands, but whatever.It does send the city into a brief state of hysteria. Everyone rushes out onto the balcony, looking for SOMETHING, ANYTHING...but of course the jets are long gone by the time we step outside.We were sitting at a café in Patraciat, and the news was blaring on a big screen. When the news flashed to Mr. Bush, he asserted Israel's right to self-defense and called upon Syria toexert its influence to disarm Hizbullah. We sunk in our chairs and made sure to distance ourselves from the screen.The American government blocks a Security Council resolution for a ceasefire between Lebanon and Israel, tacitly allowing Israel to tear Lebanon apart like a UGA quarterback raping a passed out blond. How proud I feel to be hopping on this American deus ex machina."
posted by James at 1:53 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home