What to do for Lebanon?

(1) Stay informed: Wikipedia, ElectionicLebanon.net, JuanCole.com, DahrJamailiraq.com, beirut.indymedia.org, lebanonupdates, Siegeoflebanon, Tadamon, Daily Star (Lebanese paper), Haaretz (Israeli paper), Jerusalem Post (right-wing Israeli paper), IsraellyCool, Lebanese Bloggers Forum, Lebanese blog Aggregator

(2) Protest the war. You can do this in demonstrations, letter writing etc. to your own government officials and to Israeli embassies. Some resources for this: www.saveleb.org, www.stopwar.org.uk

(3) Support refugees. At least a quarter of the Lebanese population of 4m have fled the country to Syria and beyond or been internally displaced. There are hundreds of thousands squating in schools and other buildings in Beirut with dwindling supplies. Here are some good organisations working with them you can donate to: FDCD, Sanayeh Relief Center, ICRC, Christian Aid, Toys for refugee childen (set up by some friends in Jordan)more donation options

(4) Remember the dead. I'm looking into establishing a Lebanon Body Count, similar to Iraq Body Count, to use media reports to create a record of all those killed (including Israeli civilians). If you'd like to volunteer to help with this let me know. We particularly need people who also speak Arabic/French. Israeli peace activists would be particularly welcome.

(5) Assert the rule of law. Some Lebanese friends are working to systematically document the damage caused by this war to people and property, with a view to making legal redress. Unfortunately it is very difficult to bring cases related to war crimes when a country such as Israel doesn't sign international treaties and otherwise immunises itself, however it's important that we try. Lawyers to research options for cases against the Israeli government, soliders or officials, as well as potential volunteers to help with the documentation on the ground in Lebanon would be particularly helpful. See Sue Israel. Also see excellent reports by Human Rights Watch on war crimes being committed.

(6) Peace March to the South. A group of Lebanese friends are looking into organising a march from Beirut to Qana and possibly to the border (ideally to be met by an Israeli peace march from the South) to highlight the plight of civilians trapped by fear and destroyed roads in the Israeli kill zone, remember all the dead and demand a ceasefire. If this happens international accompanyment and publicist in the media will be critical - consider if you can fly out to the region within the next week, maybe get a Syrian visa and look into flights in preperation. UPDATE: A similar idea is being developed by www.lebanonsolidarity.org who are planning convoys to the South on 12th and 19th August.

Pit Stop Ploughshares - Not Guilty

On 3rd Feburary 2003, five Irish Christian peace activists slipped into Shannon airbase in southern Ireland (through which 1000 US soldiers pass each day) and disabled a US war plane bound for Iraq with their household hammers. Today an Irish jury found them NOT GUILTY, accepting their defence that their action to damage property was intended to prevent a greater crime. This further strengths the precident set in England ten years ago when the Seeds of Hope Ploughshares affinity group damaged a Hawk fighter due for export to Indonesia (and likely to be used for repression in East Timor). This should encourage people everywhere to stand up against violence and conduct civilian disarmament actions.

Casus Bellum: Hizbollah's three grievances

I've just come across an excellent article, written at the start of the current conflict, which lays our clearly the genuine grievances Hizbollah (and Lebanon as a whole) had against Israel as of 12 July. Its by the Council for the National Interest, a lobby group founded (surprisingly) by a veteran Republican Congressman aiming to counterbalance the Israeli lobby in Washington.

"No one is denying the right of a nation or a people to defend itself. But Israel does not have the right to destroy bridges, roads, power stations and international airports in a vindictive show of force, in what will likely be a futile attempt to force the release of the two soldiers captured near the border. The right to defend a nation of people also applies to even the followers of Hezbollah trying to regain still-occupied territory and prisoners held illegally by Israel. There are real issues between Lebanon and Israel that should have been settled with the help of the United States long ago.

(1) Israel failed to keep her promise to make available maps of the 140,000 mines she left behind in Lebanon.

(2) Three small sectors of land overlooking the Litani River [Sheba Farms] were retained by Israel and were the cause of complaints from the government of Prime Minister Fuad Siniora, not just Hezbollah.

(3) The three Lebanese prisoners that were moved by Israel, contrary to the Geneva Convention prohibition against an occupying power transporting prisoners into its own territory, should have been returned long ago.

The U.S. has ignored all three complaints made repeatedly by the Siniora government. The Council for the National Interest delegation to the Palestinian elections also visited Beirut and talked with all factions from the President on down. In almost every case, the three issues cited above were mentioned and an appeal was made for the United States to take some action before it was too late. That was six months ago."

A word from the wise on Lebanon

The backbone of almost every UN mission in the Middle East (and plenty outside it) are invariably Palestinians. The grow up in the West Bank, Gaza or one of the camps in Syria, Lebanon or Jordan and start working in some basic capacity for UNRWA. Gradually they work their way up and prove their worth, and the cream of Palestinian society (highly educated because study is one of the few life options that is open to them) gets skimmed off and dropped into UN missions across the region. Unlike other nationals who can only stomach the Middle East for a year or two, the Palestinian UN employees will stick around for decades - for one thing they have no where else to go, no chance of other similarly salaried employement (by which they are supporting dozens of family and friends back in Palestine who have no hope whatsoever of an income). They also speak Arabic of course, which is surprisingly uncommon for UN missions in the region, and generally flawless English to boot. So if you want to understand what's going on in Sudan, Iraq or wherever, don't go and talk to the senior UN officials, but find a Palestinian somewhere, even in the admin office, and ask them the score.

I was doing just that earlier today and over the course of an hour learnt more about the current conflicts than I would from a year reading the New York Times. Take for example the news just in that Syria has refused to admit a UN delegation on Lebanon if it including Terje Roed-Larson. "This is no surprise" my Palestinian friends said "Roed-Larson is despised in Palestine because of his closeness to the Israelis and Americans and the Syrians know how biast he is. If he returned to Gaza [where he used to be UN envoy] he'd be killed in 24hrs." They also put forward the plausible thesis of a tension between the US and Israel over involving Syria in the current hostilities "The Americans want the Israelis to use the opportunity to ravage Syria as well as Lebanon, but the Israelis are smarter and actually want to eventually achieve a peace treaty with Syria, as they have with Egypt and Jordan, and so they are unwilling to follow the US instructions. The Israelis are past masters at getting the Americans to do their bidding without ever returning the favour." But in the case of Lebanon they are sure that the normally savvy Israelis have made a big blunder: "Hizbollah were actually a very decent foe to have on their northern border. They had clear objectives (the release of prisoners, the return of Shebaa farms) which the Israelis could have negotiated successfully on and, until now, have actually been very restrained in their methods, in spite of all the attempts to paint them as terrorists. However what is likely to emerge out of this catastrophe is a very agressive enemy on Israel's north following the instructions of Iran far more heavily than Hizbollah currently does." In fact they think that combined with the chaos in Iraq the latest Israeli assault is likely to result in an ongoing regional conflict from which Israel will not actually benefit and the people of the region will suffer horrendously.

The end of Iraqi Democracy

Within the next 12 months there is likely to be a bloody Coup de-tat by senior officers in the Iraqi Army and those close to them. It will entail killing of a large number of the leaders in the current (many of whom are aquiantances or friends) and certainly the murder of Ayatollah Sistani and others in the religious leadership. This is the view of some of the most experienced Iraq analysts I know working in Baghdad at the moment. They can even point out the most likely coup leaders. The only thing which is required is for (a) the sectarian violence to get even worse, which its fairly certain and (b) for the US to give a tacit nod of approval. This is beginning to look like their only exit strategy. It will spell the end of for Wolfowitz's supposed dream of a democratic Iraq and more importantly the hopes of the Iraqi people for self-determination. But if it can bring an end to the sectarianism and insecurity than maybe they'll accept a coup with open arms. This is all deeply depressing. Hundreds of Thousands will have been killed, millions impoverished and made refugees and the country's infrastructure devestated - all leading up to a new Saddam. Maybe this won't happen. But some experts seem to be predicting it and quietly hoping for it as well.

Electronic Lebanon

My friends behind the excellent Electronic Iraq and Electronic Intifada websites have just launched a similar aggregator of news and eye-witness accounts: www.electroniclebanon.net

An eye for an eye

The famous Biblical quotation "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" (Exodus 21:23-27) is often misused as a justification for revenge and retributive justice. In fact it was instigated by Moses as a law of limitation. In Genesis there are a number of examples of people who took extreme revenge, massacering whole familes in revenge for an injury. The lex talionis inisted instead that at most the punishment for a crime should be proportionate (and that it should be exacted through a judicial process not on individual initative). Jesus challenged his disciples to go beyond this and apply a restorative justice of forgiveness and love, but let us stick now with the older Jewish law of limitation.

Do Israel's current actions in Lebanon adhere to the Jewish law of limitation? A large proportion of Israelis are secular, but given that its very identity and exclusivity are defined on Jewishness, it seems reasonable to ask whether its action match up to the standards of Jewish law.

The crime: On 13 July Hizbollah crossed into Israel in a raid which captured two soldiers and killed a further eight in the raid itself and the Israeli pursuit back into Lebanon. In the longer term, since Israel withdrew from most of southern Lebanon in 2000 (bar the disputed Sheba Farms area) Hizbollah has sporadically fired rockets into Israel causing occassional casualties (for which Israel has general responded tit-for-tat by striking Hizbollah positions). Since the Israeli attack begun it has intensified the rocket barrage and fired about 700 at last count, killing about a dozen civilians (and claiming to show some restrain by not chosing to targeting sites such as the Haifa petro-chemical plant which could cause significant casualties).

The response: For a week Israel, using its overwhelming military superiority, has bombed targets not only in Hizbollah areas but across the whole of Lebanon. Tripoli a Sunni town and the Christian towns of Zahle & Hadath have been bombed, amoung many others - these are areas where there is next to no support for Hizbollah. Lebanons only airport (which I've flow through 4 times this year) has been devestated, as have many of its roads, bridges, power stations and other infrastructure. The last count I heard on the BBC was 180 civilians killed and 450 injured. More significantly Lebanon's economy, which was finally on the road to recovery 16 years after the end of the civil war, has been set back by many years. Businesses who were beginning to relocate back to Lebanon and tourists who were starting to enjoy the cosmopolitan country will leave and not come back any time soon. This, more than the direct damage and casualties, will be the lasting legacy of the Israeli assault. Hizbollah plucked out an eye and Israel has ravaged the whole body not merely of Hizbollah but of the entire Lebanese polity.

We should not forget that while eyes are turned to Lebanon now, the daily death count in Iraq is often in the hundreds (at least 5818 killed in May and June alone), the level of suffering there is far greater. However, whereas Iraq has been in a fairly hopeless state for years now as a result of American bunders, Lebanon was one of the few areas in the region where things were looking hopeful. The Syria occupation had ended last year and the economy was begining to bloom. Now it is ruined. Killing hope is a very serious crime indeed.

I had a surreal time yestarday evening, sitting down by the Dead Sea watching a beautiful red sun set over the mountains on the Israeli side. I was with some friends (American, British and Algerian) from the UN in Beirut who'd had a 30 hour coach journey exacuating via Syria. They were deeply depressed about what has happened, each with horrific stories of the devastation and the undoing of a city, country and people they'd come to cherish.

Support refugees in Lebanon

I've just received a request for donations for refugee relief in Lebanon from my friend Sam Rizk who runs the Forum for Development, Culture and Dialogue, an arab peacebuilding NGO which works across the region but is actually based in Beirut. They are trying to raise $150,000 for initial work providing food, hygiene and bedding to 1500 refugees from the South. This document provides the background for the relief project and includes details of their account for donations. One of the great dangers of the Israeli assault is that it could re-ignite the civil war. This project which is bringing together Lebanese churches and Islamic NGOs to provide relief to the mainly Shia refugees is the sort of initiative which can help bind Lebanese society together at this difficult time. Please make donations and encourage your churches, mosques, workplaces etc. to take collections for it.

Accounts from Lebanon

I arrived in Jordan at 5.30am this morning. As ever the Hashemite Kingdom is a little oasis of peace in the region. I'm only about 100 miles from Beirut but of course there is no immediate sign of that conflict here. I haven't yet had a chance to talk to many Jordanians, but I intend to do that and join in with any demonstations happening here in the coming days. I emailed a dozen friends in Lebanon and have heard back from only four so far of them saying they're safe. It seem communications are difficult, with one friend saying he had to try 30 times to make an international phone call and another mentioned that even the phone and email for the UN offices in Beirut are all down.

A Lebanese Indymedia activist writes: "The Israeli offensive against Lebanon is an act of aggression against the whole Lebanese people. The IDF claims to be attacking an “infrastructure of terror”, but the attacks on bridges, roads, airports and ships are cutting the country into pieces, threatening to create a disastrous situation by impeding the transportation of food and medicines, and terrorizing everyone. Besides the hundreds killed and injured, thousands of people are fleeing the country, and thousands of people are fleeing from the areas where the bombing is heaviest into central Beirut. Even here in the “safe” parts of the city we can hear the bombs throughout the day and night, and electrical and water supplies are tenuous. Political and civil society organizations here are organizing to help people deal with the effects of the invasion, but there is only so much we can do on our own. We are calling on our brothers and sisters in the rest of the world to do two things to help us. First we call on you to protest at Israeli embassies and consulates, as we hear some groups are already doing. The Israeli government must be held accountable for its criminal and terroristic actions here and in Palestine. We also ask you to send us information about any such protests you carry out. Secondly we are asking you to help us with our work with displaced people here in Beirut. The group we are part of, the Relief Center - Spears, is working in 23 schools in the central areas of Beirut, which were housing more than 5,000 people as of the night of July 15th (we don’t know how many thousands more are in other areas). People there are sleeping 10 or 15 to a room without enough mattresses, and they are only receiving food and water irregularly from the government. Many are children or elderly, and except for trauma centers the only medical care is being provided by volunteers organized by the Relief Center. These volunteers are lacking the medicines and other supplies they need to care for people. Media activists here will shortly be distributing videos documenting the situation in these schools, which will only get worse if nothing is done. Besides the humanitarian aspect of the situation, helping displaced people is crucial to the reconstruction of Lebanon after this crisis ends. One aspect of the Israeli offensive is an attempt to foment tensions between different cultural groups in Lebanon. This is the only way they can hope to achieve their goals without an all-out war, but in the end it would do more damage to Lebanese society than any amount of physical destruction. A broad relief effort is an essential part of avoiding such a disaster. We urgently need money to buy the supplies we need to help the internally displaced population here." We ask everyone who can to send donations, however small, the Relief Committee – Spears in the care of the following two people by bank transfer.

c/o Georges Azzi:
- Bank Name: Credit Libanais SAL Beirut – Agence Sassine
- Swift Code: CLIBLBX
- Client Name: M. Al Azzi Georges Chaker
- Account Number: 0430012080006817356

c/o Bassem Chit:
- Bank Name: SociÈtÈ GÈnÈrale de Banque au Liban – Hamra Branch
- Swift Code: SGLILBBX
- Client Name: Bassem Chit
- Account Number: 007004362092875014 or 007004367092875014

Here is a petition you can sign which a Lebanese friend asked me to publicise. It seems to have been started by the Free Patriotic Movement of Michel Aoun.


An American university professor married to a Lebanese lady writes: "Greetings from a country on the verge of total destruction! I am in Beirut for a few hours this morning because my wife needs to do some medical tests that they only can carry out properly at the American University Hospital. We spent the last four days outside of Bhumdoun, at 1,000 metres, overlooking the burning capital city. For some reason it has been very foggy, so we were spared the sight most of the time. All the alpine resort towns were emptied of Gulf tourists on Thursday and started filling up with refugees from the south and Beirut on Sunday, so supplies are now starting to get tight. If any of you are wondering what you can do to help the Lebanese people, there is really only one way. The country's infrastructure is being systematically destroyed by sea and air, and we expect Israeli land expeditionary forces sometime soon. This week will be hell for us. Please contact your respective governments, local, regional and national, as well as the EU if you live there. The only way to slow down the Israeli war machine and prevent them from totally destroying Lebanon is to make them aware that the world is not only watching them, but also sincerely cares about the Arab populations in the Middle East, Muslim, Christian and secular. There must be an international tribunal for war crimes and crimes against humanity after this carnage. Please do whatever you can to make the Israeli government and Israeli people aware that they (along with everbody else) will be held accountable for their actions. There must he no impunity in this war."

Some more links: A Lebanese discussion forum on the war - already there are 190,000 posts on it. ShoofiMafi is a youth-orientated webzine with some coverage. Human Rights Watch explains the relevance of international humanitarian law to this situation. Finally my journalist friend Dahr Jamail arrived in Syria a few days before this all started and is producing some excellent reports on his blog.

More on our wedding registry...

I'm afraid that the story about our fairly unremarkable wedding registry (in our eyes) just won't die. The latest article is Charity Begins At the Altar in the Chicago Tribune who even sent a photographer around to snap us in London last week. "It might seem that Alexander and Elliott, who fell in love while doing volunteer work in the West Bank, have a one-of-a-kind wedding registry, an altruistic gift list that does not include a single request for place settings or Tupperware. But statistics show they are just one couple among thousands leading a burgeoning, multimillion-dollar trend: using a ceremony that celebrates love as a way to help people caught in the grip of poverty."

UPDATE: Yet more coverage... the Chicago Tribune article has been syndicated around US local papers, usually on 21 July under the title "Giving Cupid a shot at Charity" in Belleville News-Democrat, IL, San Luis Obispo Tribune, CA, Monterey County Herald, CA, Myrtle Beach Sun News, SC, Duluth News Tribune, MN, Macon Telegraph, GA, Biloxi Sun Herald, The State, SC, Bradenton Herald, Kentucky.com, Contra Costa Times, CA, Centre Daily Times, PA, Grand Forks Herald, ND, Charlotte Observer, NC, Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, GA, Kansas City Star, MO, Wichita Eagle, KS... and probably elsewhere (as I didn't run this search until late August by which time Googlenews wasn't picking up articles before 21st July. It was also mentioned in the Christian Century on 8 August, and in the Victoria Advoacate, TX on 13 August.

Attack on Lebanon

"In my judgment, the best way to stop the violence is to understand why the violence occurred in the first place." For once I agree with President Bush. Unfortunately his analysis of causes turns out to be a little limited as he continued: "And that's because Hezbollah has been launching rocket attacks out of Lebanon into Israel and because Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers. The best way to stop the violence is for Hizbollah to lay down its arms and to stop attacking."

Lets step back and give the President a brief history lesson. In 1948 and again in 1967 European Jewish settlers drove millions of Palestinians out of their land. A large number ended up in camps in neighbouring Lebanon, thereby destabalising the newly created country (carved out of Syria by the French to be a Marionite-majority state) with a delicate balance of over a dozen sects (Shia, Suni, Druze and Marionite Christian being the largest). By 1975 the tensions resulting from the presence of Palestinians exploded into the Lebanese Civil War which lasted until 1990 and claimed over 100,000 lives in the tiny nation [Pity the Nation by Robert Fisk is still the classic history of the war]. Israel invaded first in 1978 (but withdrew after UN condemnation) and again in 1982 under Ariel Sharon, initially pushing into the country as far as Beirut (during which Sharon's Phalangelist allies - a Marionite militia ironically styled on the Nazis - notoriously massacred thousands of Palestinians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps). Israel withdrew to the South of Lebanon which it occupied until 2000.

Southern Lebanon, as it turns out, is the heartland of the country's Shia Muslims - largely poor and rural and now the largest grouping, representing perhaps 45% of the population (exact population statistics are a delicate issue in Lebanons political system which allocates certain numbers of seats in Parliament to each sect, but the birth rate of the Shia has caused the biggest demographic shift in Lebanon's history). The presence of Israeli troops and proxy militias catalysed the formation of Hizbollah ("Party of God" in Arabic) as a Shia Islamicist resistance force, with close links to Iran and Syria. When Israel finally withdrew in 2000 Hizbollah naturally claimed this as a victory. A small area on the border called Shebaa Farms remains contested and Israel and Hizbollah have been exchanging fire at relatively low levels for the past six years. Hizbollah has also been calling for a long time for the release of its members captured over the years by Israel.

The Lebanese elections in 2005, following the assassination of former PM Rafiq Hariri, changed the situation dramatically. Firstly Hizbollah became a powerful force in parliament, increasing its representation from 8 to 23 out of 128 MPs (still far below what they would have got in a national proportional representation electoral system). Secondly Syria, which like Israel had been interfering in Lebanon since the Civil War, finally withdrew its soldiers. Although Syria and Hizbollah are traditionally close, the Syrian army probably exerted some restain on Hizbollah (quite the reverse of what Israel may claim) which has reduced since the withdrawal.

So with all this background, my quick summary of causes for President Bush are: Hizbollah (whose identity is based on resistance to the 18yr Israeli occupation), emboldened by its increasing political representation and freedom of action since the Syrian withrawal, has been openly looking for leverage to negotiate a prisoner release. Perhaps imspired by the Palestinian attack on an Israeli military base near Gaza last month, Hizbollah launched one of its largest strikes across the border, destroying two Israeli Humvees, a tank, killing 8 soldiers and capturing 2. Hizbollah then expressed its openness for a prisoner exchange with Israel, something which has happened before.

Instead of negotiations, Israel, with overwhelming military superiority, launched a massive campaign not solely against Hizbollah but across the whole of Lebanon including bombing the airport (which I have flown through 3 times this years, and which some English friends flew out of just a few hours before the first Israeli strike), roads, petrol stations etc. killing over 70 civilians at the current count. Quite apart from the fact that this is collective punishment of the Lebanese people on a massive scale, there is no way Hizbollah is going to roll over in response. This is not going to bring about the release of the two Israeli POWs (who I'd like to see back with their families). What it will do is devesate Lebanon's economy, which had only really begun to recover three decades after the start of the Civil War (Dan Halutz, Chief of Israel's Army, has made the shocking threat to "take Lebanon 20 years back"), kill many more innocent civilians, and possibly reignite the civil war if the Lebanese government is forced to crack down on Hizbollah. Interestingly in both Gaza and Lebanon Israel reacts with much more agression whenever its army is attacked than when there are suicide bombings or other attacks on civilians.

If President Bush would only take his own advice and understand the causes then he would be the best placed person to stop the violence. Sadly this is unlikely to happen. I had lunch today with a Jewish friend in London who posed the question "how does Israel think it can get away with this?" and the answer of course is that it has been getting away with massive collective punishment as "defense" and "response to terrorism" in the West Bank and Gaza for decades (today it even bombed that bastion of terrorism - the Ministry of Economy in Gaza).

Having written all this, I find as usual the Wikipedia community has already done a much better job which will stay updated unlike this blog entry.Here is the BBC's coverage which is ok so far. From more detailed coverage see the Electronic Intifada. Blogs: Joshua Landis, gives the perspective of an American in Damascus. Prof. Juan Cole sees things in the region more clearly from Michigan than most people on the ground. Here is a collections of Lebanese blogs on Open Lebanon.

Our UK wedding

Not content with just one wedding, we had a second ceromony in London last Saturday (8th July) to involve our friends here. It was a really fun day and it was wonderful seeing everyone and watching new friendships (and possibly new romances...) forming amongst our guests. Some photos have been posted online by Tim, which at the moment are the only ones we have - if you took any please could you email them to me in as high a resolution as you can. Here is a copy of the service sheet.

Seasoned Justin & Jenny groupie Milan Rai, among a handful to attend both US & UK halves of the wedding (ust our parents, best man Tim and groomsmen George and Adi), writes more of his always interesting reflections. If anyone else has blogged about the wedding let me know so I can link to it.