Tag: politics

The Day’s Weather and Bombing Reports

It’s been raining the past few days and that makes everyone happy.  There is a general belief that drones and artillery don’t function well in heavy rain so a downpour protects us from attack.  Not sure I believe that.

WhatsApp posts distinguishing between strikes and thunder.

Still, we check weather reports before heading out from home. Sometimes it’s hard to know if we’re hearing thunder, bomber planes, sonic booms from Israeli jets, or an explosion. I’ve learned that the sound of a blast doesn’t travel very far if the wind is against it although last night I heard three loud cracks which friends tell me was the sound of a roadside assassination audible for tens of kilometers.  I hear Israeli bombers as they fly low and, of course, the sonic boom of Israeli jets serving to remind us that they own the skies. The bombing of a building would involve multiple sounds – a boom, screams, and falling rubble.  I have yet to hear such a sequence of sounds. Drones, on the other hand, are so ubiquitous that they are background noise now, like diesel generators and traffic.

A warning from the Israelis to evacuate prior to an attack.

After the weather report, we check the bombing report. These are amply provided by the media and messaging apps. The Israelis generally give a few minutes of warning before striking buildings.  Supposedly they are destroying Hezbollah infrastructure but not everyone is convinced that their targets really are that at all.  There is no advance warning for assassinations, which could involve all or part of a building if the person is inside.

My decision to stay here has been a matter of political geography.  The Israelis are attacking the Shi’a, the sectarian underclass of Lebanon from which sprang Hezbollah. To a lesser extent they are also attacking their old foe, the Palestinians.  My part of town contains two American universities and an American hospital. It’s predominantly Lebanese Sunni and Christian. The general feeling here is that an Israeli strike is unlikely here because the Saudis are protecting the Sunnis and the Americans are protecting the Christians.  Needless to say, Iran’s protection of the Shi’a doesn’t cut much ice with Israel, Saudi, or the U.S. 

Yellow Hezbollah flags interspersed with Lebanese flags on a bridge in Beirut last year. They are no longer there but I won’t let taxis take me home through this territory.

I do leave the neighborhood every day to the hospital to see my stricken friend, Imad.  That neighborhood is almost entirely Christian. Historically, some of the Maronites who live there have been part of the local Falange which sided with Israel against their common foe, the Palestinians, during the proxy war known as the “Lebanese Civil War”.  I insist that the taxis take a particular route to the hospital so I can avoid the Shi’a neighborhoods that stand between mine and the hospital’s. Those areas have been hit a few times of late.

Up to a few days ago, this political geography served me well.  But now Israel and the U.S. have started striking universities in Iran, including those of Tehran, Isfahan, and Shiraz. The devastating hit on the girls’ school in Minrab is increasingly looking like a deliberate strike, according to the latest reports in the press.  The message here is that the legal prohibition against hitting civilians or civilian infrastructure has been cast aside in favor of barbarity and terror.  In return, Iran has announced it will permit itself to strike American universities in the region.  In my neighborhood, the American University in Beirut and the Lebanese American University have gone to online instruction. Friends here say Iran is unlikely to hit these institutions as they have so many Shi’a as students and staff.

Two nights ago I heard two loud booms. I messaged my landlord and he reassured me that it was thunder.  It motivated me to pack a “go bag” and send it along with Imad’s family so I can stay with them outside the city should need arise.  I have already done so once when Israel announced major strikes and we were concerned about falling glass near the hospital. Nothing happened.

My policy remains: when my Lebanese friends in the neighborhood get nervous, I will get nervous. Right now I am focusing on Imad’s recovery and that’s quite enough. When I do leave, I’ll make sure to fly straight to Europe as I don’t trust anyone not to shoot down a commercial flight in this lawless environment, certainly not when schools and universities are fair game.

The gracious campuses of the American universities in Beirut. Left: Lebanese American University; right: American University of Beirut. Iran reports that 21 of their universities have been hit in the current conflict.

Anxiety and Loss

A storefront hit in my neighborhood, understood as lethal political theater for this mostly Sunni neighborhood.

A photograph of my neighborhood in Beirut would show a place little changed by the events of the past few months. True, those begging on the street are mostly Lebanese Shi’a rather than Syrian Sunnis of previous years but the vast wave of Shi’a from the South has returned to their towns and villages if not their actual homes.  If anything, the streets seem a little desolate at times as if the city were permanently stuck at 7 a.m.. Drivers are again going the wrong direction on one-way streets as there is often so little traffic.

But step into this photograph and one immediately senses the change.  The menacing hum of Israeli drones is a continuing reminder that Lebanon, having no air force, is completely exposed.  This is a violation of the ceasefire but what country is going to enforce that?   The humming sound alters how one hears airplane flights overhead – are they Middle Eastern Airlines planes coming in to land or are they Israeli bombers reminding us of who controls the skies?  So far, my windows haven’t rattled so I think it’s just been MEA.

The Lebanese themselves seem at the breaking point.  My pharmacist said that he can’t keep up with the demand for Prozac and other psychopharmaceuticals.  He takes them himself.  Friends who previously coped by gardening or hiking tell me that they are just drinking.  I put one friend in touch with AA and Al-Anon. Unlike in America, where war is a video game called “Shock and Awe”, here war is felt in the gut.  A lawyer friend lost his sister when she was mortally wounded while taking dinner to their 95-year old aunt – the missile that killed her was aiming for a man who was running in her direction. The local hospital had been hit and shuttered. By the time the UN had negotiated with the Israelis for permission to transport her to a hospital in Nabatieh, it was too late.  A journalist friend lost three colleagues in an Israeli attack that injured four others where they had been housed for weeks as they reported on the war in the south.  As Israel has a long history of targeting  journalists no one seriously thinks this was anything but another war crime accorded impunity by the West. Relatives of a friend, a Christian family north of Beirut, bravely rented their family house in the village to an extended family of internally displaced Shi’a only to have it pancaked by an Israeli missile. Two survived.  

But the war has other, less visible effects, like the children whose education was once again interrupted because of security concerns on the roads or the use of school buildings as shelters. Or take my elderly friend from church, a woman in her nineties in general good health.  For months she was unable to find green leafy vegetables at the market as they come from the agricultural areas of the besieged south.  Her intestinal issues became so severe that she now has a prolapsed rectum.  Today I took her to the hospital for surgery tomorrow — a partial colectomy and an exterior bag. Our church is praying for her survival.

Lebanese society has also taken a gut punch.  The million internally displaced fleeing to Beirut and north were mostly Shi’a seeking shelter in Christian and Sunni areas.  Many refused to rent to them, fearing an Israeli strike or for reasons of general antipathy.  The ghosts of the civil war were roused with a fury when the militias like the one down the street from me began breaking into apartments to make them available to those who faced sleeping in their cars or on the street.  This is what it looks like when there is no effective government. The Shi’a have suffered greatly from this war only to have lost power and prestige.  They are feared and resented, they are angry and distraught.  Rubbing salt into the wounds, here is a link to the messages the Israelis left on two surviving homes in the South: https://today.lorientlejour.com/multimedia/1446252/in-images-provations-stars-of-david-soldiers-names-in-khiam-the-israelis-scrawled-messages-on-walls.html

There is an ominous Schadenfreude among some Lebanese over the recent fate of the Shi’a and Hezbollah.  But they have not been spared: Israel hit areas it generally doesn’t strike to the tell the Lebanese that they will suffer a collective punishment if they don’t rid themselves of Hezbollah. That isn’t going to happen.

The so-called ceasefire has been extended although Lebanese trying to return to their homes in the South have been shot at and killed.  Like everyone here, I just try to go about my business as there is nothing to be done. Nasrallah’s funeral is Sunday the 23rd in South Beirut.  Might be a good day to stay home.  We’ll see.