Save Lebanese Civilians
Faleh A. Jabar, an Iraqi intellectual resident in Beirut who has been a leading force in promoting a democratic intellectual culture in Iraq, writes from Lebanon:
Dear All:
This situation in Lebanon is going from bad to worst. Innocent lives are being shattered and threatened in mass.
I need to ask you and other colleagues in the academia to launch a campaign to pressure the US to stop Israeli destruction of bridges, power stations, and end the Israeli blockade to Lebanon. Fuel is running short, and hospitals will come to a stand still, water supplies will be cut short, a total human disastor. Israel's official target is to secure Hizbollah-free south, not to starve four millions and randoumly threaten the lives of all civilians.
I am sixty years old this year, and my life does not matter that much; but I look at the young and shudder: I have young neighbours who need kidney-wash every 48 hours, and there are children with cancer, lot with heart diseases. Cutting power supply means a death sentence to them.
May I add that doctors in Beirut advised that the fate of more than 20,000 patients is at stake. Pregnant women will most certainly suffer. Their numbers are anybody's guess. There are two tankers waiting offshore for Israeli guarantees to no avail. They carry fuel supplies to power plants and vehicles, some 20 odd days.
This is horrible and unbearable. Please do something. Send letters to the UN, EU, the White House, the International Red Cross. This is urgent.
Faleh A. Jabar '
See here for how to send money to the American University in Beirut Hospital for relief efforts.
You can write your political representatives at Congress.org
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/07/2006 06:11:00 AM
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7 Comments:
Dear Dr. Cole,
I have sent this to everyone on my email list and all the Yahoo! groups to which I belong (mostly Muslim and ME groups). It breaks my heart to see what is being done to that beautiful country.
Do you have any knowledge if the great Lebanese singer Fairouz is alive and well?
Thank you.
Dear Professor Cole
Your readership is worldwide
Members of Congress will take no notice of me because I can't vote in the next elections in the US.
I can however write to my Member of Parliament and my Member of the European Parliament.
http://www.writetothem.com/
So is it the US intention to encourage Israel to commit enough atrocities that Iran and Syria will just have to get involved and the US will just have to save Israel by attacking those two countries?
Can there be any other reason for the foot-dragging on a cease-fire?Are we really to believe that Ms Rice thinks it reasonable that mote civilians be killed as the time for ceasefire has not yet arrived.And that by stalling the process Bolton thinks that Hizbollah will be eradicated?
What kind of madness has taken hold in the USA ?
I attempted to make a donation via the AUB site. After filling in my name I was directed to another page in which to enter credit card information. This page, however, was blank and I was never able to continue, despite repeated attempts.
Meanwhile, you see large ads in the NYT from organizations like the United Jewish Federation soliciting funds to help "victims of the violence". But the only victims they are interested in are those in Israel, at a time when hundreds of Lebanese are dying from aerial bombardment. This is obscene.
People who haven't been to the south-beirut Dahiyeh recently might describe it as a "slum". But over the past few years the three muncicipalities there have done a lot to develop the area, and investment money had poured in from (mainly) Shiites in the Lebanese diaspora in West Africa. Parts of Ghabeiri and Haretr al-Hraik had become desirable upper middle-class neighborhoods, and the whole Dahiyeh had been spruced up and cleaned, trees had been planted, utilities rationalized, etc etc.
I find the term "slum" rather demeaning-- like the way westerners and Israelis often use the term "village" to describe what are bustling, full-service towns or even small cities in the Arab world. We should not underestimate either the human or the material cost of Israel's ongoing assault on the Dahiyeh.
Readers can find more information about the years-long upgrading of the Dahiyeh, the post-2000 construction in South Lebanon, and the role Hizbullah's politicians played in improving municipal governance in Lebanon in the big Boston Review article I published on Hizbullah last year.
Ben Hur Speaks His Mind
To the Israelis, the Vatican has made it clear that it views its military offensive in Lebanon as a disproportionate use of force. Israel's ambassador to the Vatican, Oded Ben-Hur, has made counterarguments.
"I say two things: first, that the proportion is to the amount of threat, and (Hezbollah) is putting the north of Israel, a million people, under the threat of missiles," Ben-Hur said.
"Secondly, what is the right proportion? Give it to me. What is it, 10 to five? One to one? One hundred to 1,000? There is no such thing," he said.
The ambassador said he thinks that on a practical level the Vatican understands Israel's motives in Lebanon, and is even sympathetic to Israeli concerns. But because of moral objections, he said, the Vatican asks Israel to "find a way not to retaliate."
"I say, tell us what the formula is," the ambassador said. He argues that Israel's actions are essentially self-defense against an enemy that must be hit wherever they are found.
As for civilian deaths, Israeli officials say Hezbollah is ultimately responsible because it uses civilian areas to stage rocket attacks.
There's also some interesting material in that article about the real Vatican City position in detail.
Privately, Vatican officials are taking pains to emphasize several other points to diplomats:
[1] Lebanese sovereignty must be protected, along with the unity of the country. The fear is that the latest fighting could provoke a new civil war.
[2] Lebanese infrastructure is being severely damaged with each new day of attacks, leaving a huge rebuilding task and sowing widespread resentment against Israel.
[3] The war could deeply impact Lebanon's sizable Christian minority, encouraging a new wave of emigration from a country that, in the Vatican's view, has been an example of relative interreligious harmony.
[4] New efforts are needed to solve the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, which is seen at the Vatican as the ultimate cause and context of the current problems in Lebanon. A resolution of the Palestinian question will come only through bilateral negotiations, not by solutions imposed by Israel, Vatican officials say.
Happy days.
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