Lebanon: Qana II on the Third Week of Israeli War on Lebanon

The war Israel is waging on Lebanon continues to be the focal point of most bloggers in the Lebanese blogosphere. For the third week the posts cover topics such as experiences, expectations and reflections on this situation. This week culminated with the tragic bombing of a shelter in Qana by the Israelis. This incident caused indignation by most bloggers that was reflected in their posts.

Amal as usual expresses her anger and sorrow about the calamity that befell Qana in the following drawing:

Sophie asks in one of her posts: Are Qana's children screams as they are dying Rice's “Pangs of Birth” of her New Middle East?

Pierre Tristam writes an article titled: Massacres at Qana, When “Never Again” Needn’t Apply to Lebanon, in which he brings to our attention the massacre at Qana, ten years ago, by the Israelis before giving his analysis of the one that occurred this week.

Dr. Victorino reflected on the incident saying:

Today, in the early hours of the morning, Tzahal’s noble knights rode over Qana in their shining US-made, US-equipped, and US-paid fighter jets.
It was Sunday, the day of worship in gentile Christian culture.
And Qana is the place where this “weird Jesus cult” started when the beloved King Herod ruled over Israel.

Fouad warned that the seed of hatred and anger sown today will bear dangerous fruits tomorrow:

You fucking idiots, you and your stepfathers in the Land of Opportunity where I foolishly reside… How inane and morally, emotionally, and politically bankrupt can you be. Do you really think you can bomb your way out of this? You dare talk of democracy and freedom when our lives are your dregs, our children your targets, and the whole world your shooting range? How dare you, you little sorry episodes of conceited spiteful despicable existence. Go on, keep churning the ground and sowing the seeds of hatred and anger. For soon the crops will grow, and it will be time to harvest. And the harvest will be plentiful, and I hope I will live long enough to see the day.

Images from Qana here and here (not for the faint hearted) as well as images of the reaction of the Lebanese to this incidence were published by the Lebanese Blogger Forum.

Photos of demonstration against the war were published by Z.

Sophia describes her visit last year to Qana

where the famous biblical wedding took place, symbolises the endless suffering of both Lebanese and Palestinians. Israel knows very well what it is doing by bombing Qana. It is making sure the wounds will never heal ! But Israel can be sure that as long as the wounds are open and even when they will heal, if they will heal one day, there will be no forgiveness to Isarel's war crimes and to their immoral backing by Bush, Blair, Rice and Collaborators !

Michael Totten makes the following political observation which he sees is the result of the attack on Qana:

The (second in a decade) attack on Qana that killed scores of civilians has all but cemented the Lebanese public and Hezbollah together.
Cable news reports that 82 percent of Lebanese now support Hezbollah. Prime Minister Fouad Seniora – whatever his real opinion in private – is now closer to openly supporting Hezbollah in public than he has ever been.
The March 14 Movement (the Cedar Revolution) is, at best, in a coma if not outright dead.

And in the midst of all this Firas advices us to keep a level head:

Let's not victimize ourselves. I think that the question is not how we feel about this or who to blame, but rather what can we do to maintain our existance as sane, dignified and productive people. We need to keep a level head when we deal with this, and not lose track of the fact that the IDF's actions are providing us with more and more moral clarity about our country's plight and unity. We will win the peace by being rational AND by not losing touch with our humanity.

Ahmad posts a long list of atrocities and massacres committed by Israel which he says is by no means exclusive.

Abu kais post the entire statement that Human Rights Watch issued blaming the Israeli Defense Force for the civilian death in Qana.

Doha starts from the war going and ends with the shattered dreams and lives of the Lebanese youth, describing how it has affected some of them:

Yet another massacre in Qana. 57 dead among them 27 children…and counting.
And if this is the story in the south, then the rest of Lebanon has many shattered dreams to gather and rebuild.
Many bygone and shattered dreams. This is what war does. Israel's war on Lebanon has impacted all of Lebanon and all of the Lebanese.
As there are fighters facing up to the Israeli war machine, there are also youth issuing their passports to head out, head out to the unknown, to save the day.
I'll recount some stories, close to home.

Mustapha attempts to answer some of the tough moral questions the Lebanese are facing in this post.

Anarchistian blogged on the air strikes during the first 24 hours of the announced 48 hours of air strike cease fire plus the expected shortage of fuel and its repercussions on the daily lives of Lebanese:

The country is almost out of fuel, and we might not have electricity at all in a week’s time. But life goes on, and we all find ways of adjusting to this “new” life. First and foremost it reminds us that we take some things for granted and fail to understand what life without these could be like. When I was in Toronto in August 2003, a power blackout brought much of the city to a halt, and caused such widespread panic and chaos. Here in Lebanon we’re not at that level of taking things for granted, but we are at a rather high level, and things like these make us think about and be all the more thankful for what we have.

Prof A. A. Khalil received a letter from Israel which states:

I live in Israel and I am a Jew. We don't all support the policies of Olmert or the policies of the Labor party either. And many of us grieve for the loss of lives in Lebanon and Palestine just as deeply as you grieve for those lives. I am sorry that this is happening to your country and I hope and pray that your family and friends will be safe and I hope that not one more Palestinian must die for the crimes of the state, the Israeli state.

Finally EDB posts on hedonistic life style going on elsewhere in Lebanon as the war continues.

I did not hear any news; there were no TVs blasting Al-Manar or even Al Jazeera; not in homes, not in bars, not at the pool, not at the club. Up there, you cannot hear the bombs, you do not see the smoke. My only exposure to the outside world came from a Spanish girl baking in the sun at the side of the pool. She occasionally retrieved news summaries from her cellphone, careful not to spoil her freshly manicured nails, and read them out loud: Ooh, Isra-ayl wizdrooh fram Bint Jbeil…”
Followed by, “Ooh, I zink I got sahnbernt. Let's dreenk Vodka Toneec. It's foh o'clock. Heppi hour!”

10 comments

  • R. Jones

    Let’s just remember brothers..the vast majority of the world is racist. These extreme, poorly educated, and brainwashed fanatics hate Jews and think they run the world.Thus, they believe that when the Jewish state no longer exists they will have true peace. I’m sorry people get hurt, but when you create a government based on hatred, there is no validity. These two terror groups, hamas and hezbollah are no different then the nazis.Their followers are buying pie in the sky. The world needs to look in the mirror and stop blaming the U.S. and Israel for everything. As the song goes” b’fore u accuse me, take a look at yourself”

  • R. Jones,
    ”I’m sorry people get hurt, but when you create a government based on hatred, there is no validity.”
    I am sure you are talking about Israel. This is a government based on hatred of palestinians and Arabs and contempt for their rights.
    Just remember, there is no hatred from Palestinians and Arabs towards jews. During WWII Arab countries could have deported their jews to what they foresaw in the germans as their possible saviours from English and French colonialism. They didn’T. Actually Jews in Arabic countries left these countries only at the incitement of a propaganda emanating from the Israeli state in 1967 !
    We don’T hate jews. We want our legitimate concerns adressed and we want the isareli occupation of palestinian, Syrian and lebanese territories to end and israel to retreat to its previous 1967 borders.
    I want to remind you that all this crisis started with Hamas approving a resolution drafted by fatah and Palestinian prisoners in israel asking for the recognition of israel in its 1967 borders. the wrold feigned ignoring this historical moment and Israel started its criminal incursions in gaza and its criminal agression on lebanon right away to make the world forget that there was a solution, a peaceful solution in sight. Israel never wanted peace. Hatred is on your side. israelis live in a bubble convinced that ‘200 million Arabd want to drive them into the sea’, an old zionist propaganda. If Arabs wanted to do that, thay could have done it long ago. Stop playing victims, you are making every day victims of many arab lives !

  • foxwoodlief

    It is easy to use the suffering of innocents to move the discussion away from truth. Hizbollah uses the death of innocents, provokes the death of innocents for its propoganda war against israel and to solidify its power base. Hate is a great unifyer.

    Focus is lost that Lebannon has been under the control of Hizbollah, Syria and Iran for years. Hizzbollah has never cared about innocent civilians in its history of terrorist attacks. Hizzbollah has never cared about Lebanon when it launches acts of aggression against Israel because of its ideologic hatred of jews and israel. If Hizbollah cared about innocent children then they would disarm, let the Lebonese Army become the legitimate defenders of those children and the Lebonese people and government the legitimate deciders of wether they should go to war with a neighboring state.

    Lebanon was at peace, was rebuilding its society, its economy and taking its place as an example of a multicultural and multi-religous society and a pattern of what the whole area should aspire to be. Hizbollah destroyed the vision, that reality. Hizbollah needs to be held to account for the blood of those dead children.

    The people and government of Israel mourns the loss of any human life. Can “sorry” bring the children back? No. Can Hizbollah renouncing terrorism, disarming, joining the political life of Lebanon, desisting from holding the nation hostage to militant Islam bring them back? No, but it can prevent future generations of children from dying unnecessarily because of an ideology of hate.

    Peace could have been achieved in the region as far back as 1948 if Syria, Jordan and Egypt hadn’t annexed the newly born Palestinian state in its war against the new Israeli state, not to mention the 1967 war or any since. Egypt and Jordan saw the benefits of recognizing the state of Israel and trying to bring about peace in the region because they value innocent lives as well as the lives of their soldiers.

    Hamas and Hizbollah under the influence of Syria and Iran are the biggest threat to the region and to peace.

    There is no such thing as an “ethical” war but the intentional use of civilians as human shields or fodder seems to be the ethics of “religous” fanatics.

  • Ghristeen ghrayeb

    I’m Christeen Gh From East beirut that museure should be blame on Nusrallah Than the Israli That what I think

  • She

    Sophia,

    No hatred from Palestinians and Arabs towards Jews? In the Arab press, the most basic of anti-Jewish stereotypes are displayed with great regularity, and films and television programs that are derogatory towards the Jews are shown by state-run Arab media. In addition, there have been a number of incidents in Europe where Jews were attacked by individuals of Middle Eastern descent, and most recently, a Pakistani (I believe) Muslim in the US entered a Jewish Community Center in Seattle and began shooting, killing one woman and injuring a number of other people.

    And sure, many Jews living in Arab countries left these countries after Israel was established, but an equal number were forced to flee because life under these Arab regimes was becoming increasingly more difficult for them, and that would be putting things mildly.

    I also beg to differ with you regarding the way the current crisis started. Exactly one year ago, Israel disengaged from the Gaza Strip, uprooting settlements and pulling out all of its soldiers (granted, there were no Israelis left in Gaza, but Israel was still effectively in control to some extent with regard to border issues, and this was indeed a problem). The premise was that if the Israelis pulled out of Gaza, the Palestinians would have an opportunity to rebuild the infrastructure that had been damaged by Israel during the Intifada.

    Instead, anarchy reigned, and an increasing number of Kassam rockets were fired over the border into Israeli towns, causing damage and death and forcing Israelis to wonder if the disengagement had been such a wise move. It certainly didn’t help matters that Palestinian Authority officials were making no effort to halt the firing of rockets, yet complained bitterly whenever Israel reacted to these repeated attacks.

    Israel put up with the rockets for quite some time, through the election of Hamas, an organization sworn to Israel’s destruction. The straw that broke the camel’s back was the cross-border incursion into Israel that resulted in the killing of several soldiers and the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit. It was this act that was the catalyst for Israel’s current aggression against the Palestinians.

    As far as the situation with Hezbollah, Israel left Lebanon six years ago, so in theory, there should have been no reason for Hezbollah to continue its actions against Israel, but it did, on a number of occasions. The Lebanese government turned a blind eye to Hezbollah activities, choosing to ignore the fact that a very well-armed militia was operating on its soil and continuously provoking a neighboring country not known for its patience. With its last cross-border attack in which two soldiers were kidnapped, others killed, and Katyusha rockets fired into Israel, Israel lost its patience, and for the past three weeks, we’ve all been witnessing the result.

    Israel is certainly not an innocent victim here, and has made more than its share of aggressive mistakes. That being said, you have painted a very skewed picture of the facts on the ground as they are today with your claims that it is only the Arabs who want peace and that the Arabs are the innocent victims here.

    Perhaps there aren’t 200 million Arabs who would like to see us driven into the sea, but given the vitriolic comments and blog entries I’ve been reading in the blogosphere since I began blogging over a year ago, there are definitely quite a few who seem to believe that Israel must and will be destroyed, and that this will solve all the problems in the Middle East.

    Believe me. There is nothing I or my friends here would rather see happen than peace with our neighbors, a peace where we are all living within the sovereign borders of our own nations, where, at the very least, there is mutual respect, and no more hatred (for that hatred you describe regarding the Israelis, most Israelis, myself included, would say exists on a high level among the Arabs towards us). The question is, can everyone let go of their hatred and their stereotypes? Can we stop being ignorant about the “other” and try to move our region forward instead of dragging it backwards? Sadly, these days I’m not too sure.

  • foxwoodlief

    Growing up a child of the 60s my parents taught me of the coming Apocalypse. The 1967 Israeli war not only stunned the world but electrified my faith. Israel, the People of God and the coming of the Antichrist and the return of Christ. Wow, forty years later and we are right back where we started from. The difference today is that we have two leaders, one in Iran and the other in the White House who believe this crap!

    I woke up from my deluded faith once I saw the facts. The myths we create to give meaning to our lives. Religion truely is the opiate of the people. Where are we going with this war? The Second coming of the Mahdi or Christ isn’t where we are headed but an impending World War? Possibly. We do create our own future and self-fulfiling prophecy is the norm. The problem is complex and goes back more than 60 years. Still, the number one reason this conflict continues is because of hate and the use of Religion to justify killing one’s enemies. As long as the battle is cloaked in the “Children of Light” vs the “Children lf darkness” this madness will continue.

    America gets the blame for a situation created by Europe. The colonial powers, Britain, France among the most aggressive and oppressive, created the current dilema. Even in 1957 it was these two European powers that encouraged Israel to invade Sinai to give them a pretext of going in as peace keepers to punish Nassar of Egypt. If America hadn’t intervened and forced Israel to leave and Britain to withdraw who knows what would have been the result? Fear of Communism then took over and America cast her lot with Israel to counter Russia.

    People also forget that in 1948 a Palestinian and Israeli state were born. The war by the Arabs killed the infant Palestinian state and Syria and Jordan and Egypt absorbed the newborn state. Ever since the war has been not about Land or the interests of the Palestinians but about Jews. Palestine could have been a stable, progressive, wealthy country by now had the Arabs not used them as pawns in their war against the west and the Jews.

    Still, a better solution in 1948 would have been a unified Israeli and Palestinian state, democratic, secular, and not establishing one group to domininate over the other.

    Today the issue is no longer between sovereign states but between Dictators and Fundamentalists. Syria is a dictatorship that oppresses the majority Sunni. Hizbollah along with Damascus and Iran seek to create a great Shiite state, which in itself isn’t evil, but the intent is to expand the Islamic Jihad and conquest to the entire world. Islamists seek to make the whole world an Islamic State. How can they not if they truely believe? Thus the problem of faith. The Jews, in large, have a similar view but feel that only the Messiah when he comes can create their religous utopia. Christians have a similar view, either that the “Kingdom of God” is within or that in some future day Jesus will return and set up his Kingdom on the earth and as such abandoned their goals of a Theocracy ruled by a Pope centuries ago because of the enlightenment.

    Why are 36 dead shiite childred in Lebanon such an outrage in the press and in the arab world but the deaths of thousands daily in Sudan, Somalia, Algieria, Iraq, Pakistan, India, to name a few are not important or cause such a rage? The reason is propaganda because it is against the Jews and Israel. Where is the outrage in civilized muslim countries against the slaughter of jews, kidnapping of jews, indiscriminate killing of civilians in Israel (where Hizbollah missles can’t distinquish between arab christian or muslim Israelis from jews? If Hizbollah kills one jew they cry “Victory” and “God is Great”. If their missles were to hit a school and kill 100 Israeli children they would see that as righteous and just punishment for infidels. The west buys into this crap and thus demonizes Israel’s attempt to protect her very survival. Hizbollah’s stated aim is the death of all jews and the destruction of the state of Israel. Do you think they will be as merciful as jews when it comes to trying to prevent civilian casualties?

    Apocalypse now, that is their cry and the president of Iran’s cry. If Hizbollah really cared about lebanonese children they’d disarm and let the Lebanonese government decide if they want to wage war against their neighbors. Also they wouldn’t use terrorism, hide behind civilians to wage this war, which if it were to be fought should be fought by soldiers. But when do civilians ever NOT suffere in war? look at Hitler and the WWII, tens of millions of civilians killed in bombings.

    If Hizbollah wants peace then let them free Israeli soldiers, lay down their weapons and preach “Love” instead of “hate”. Then what pretext would Israel have but to make peace with the Arab world?

    I see the rise of antisemitism world wide. Jews are blamed for everything from killing Jesus to being behind all wars. The arab press hates jews, not just Israel. To destroy Israel, Arabs could care less if they also killed tens of thousands of the non-jews living in Israel. Human life is not valuable to these hate-filled believers. Without a reformation within Islam they are doomed to become the barbarians of the Middle-ages (Catholics) who will impose their reign of terror and inquisition (against all who don’t believe or those who don’t believe exactly as they do even within their own religon) upon the world. If there is to be another world war, it will be started by Musllim fanatics, not jews.

  • foxwoodlief

    Oh and just as a reminded, in the 1989 funeral of Iran’s Ayatollah Khomeini, a mob of millions (yes, millions) of Iranians stormed the funeral bier and tore Khomeini’s corpse apart in a frenzy to obtain pieces of his corpse. This islamic state has killed teenagers for being homosexual, murdered thousands of its citizens, creates a suicide cult believing that to blow oneself up for Allah is virteous. Hamas, hizbollah, Al Queda, and all these groups feel that to kill with inpunity, to blow up civilians in cafes, on buses, on trains, shopping at markets, to capture civilians and chop of their heads, drill holes into their heads, the list goes on, apparently is what “true” Islam is all about. Israel tries not to intentionally kill innocents but there is a difference between a military assault and terrorism. This military assault wouldn’t have happened if hizbollah hadn’t commited its acts of war against Israel.

    For the tens of thousands of Iraqis killed every year by the so called “resistance” in Iraq, I bleed for you. I cry for you. For every jew killed by a suicide bomber or a Hizbollah missle, I cry for you. For every innocent civilian killed in any war between ideologues, I cry for you. Where are the tears of terrorists? Murderers? Those who violate the commandment of not commiting “murder” and that law is even in the Koran? For the Jewish reporter who had his throat slit in Pakistan, or the innocent Jewish tourist murdered on a cruise ship, or the innocent Iraqi just trying to feed his family and rebuild his life after Sadaam who is blown up, kidnapped and executed as a collaborater, or because he is a Shia or Sunni.

    The hypocracy of the Islamic world is evident in the fact that moderate muslims do not speak out against these crimes when commited by Muslims against Muslilms. More muslims have been killed over the past 30 years by muslims than in all of the wars against Israel (Men, women and children who would not have been killed if arabs hadn’t tried to anilhlate Israel). Still, where is the mass protests, millions in the street protesting the murder of Muslims by Muslims? They fall into the streets over a cartoon, they burn flags and riot when a non-muslim kills (even accidently) a muslim but never for the tens of thousands, millions killed by members of their own faith.

    The Islam that produced the Alhambra, great mosques, centers of learning is a faith I can admire, but the faith of Islam as practiced today raises in me the same contempt I feel for the Catholicism of the 1400-1600s. For all those moderate Muslims, your day will come. The people of your own faith will put you in chains, oppress you, kill you, just because you don’t follow their strict interpretation of your faith. The old sayings, “The letter of the law killeth but the spirit of the law gives life” has been forgotten by these fanatics. When they beat you, cane you in public, chop off your hands, cut off your heads, use terror to control you and to enforce their faith, you’ll have to ask yourselves is this the “all merciful” Allah that I as taught as a child? Just as all those people who refused to stand up against Hitler paid the price of being inprisoned and murdered, we forget that for the six million jews murdered in concentration camps, twelve million non-jews were also killed for being gypsy or catholic or homosexual, or just polish. The killing will start with jews but it won’t end there.

  • Ibrahim Fikri

    Israel was created by the racist Europeans so that they will have no more Jews in Europe. Israel was created from PALESTINIAN LANDS! The lands were robbed from the Palestinians thru’ the Balfour Declaration so that the Euroepean Jews can leave Europe and go to the newly created Israel! The Europeans wanted to have no more problems with the Jews in their lands. No wonder the European Nazis and NeoNazis still attack Synonogue even to this days!

    Remember the “Merchants of Venice” written by Shakespeare. These are exactly what the majority of Israelis are! The Europeans know the real characters of Jews!

    If I’m an Arab Palestinian, I WILL NEVER like let alone love the Israelis! At least one member of the Palestinian families have been killed or forcely driven away from home by the Israelis.

    Very lever for the Zionists to reap the sympathaties from the callous Europeans and Americans by painting Hamas and Hezbullah as “terrorists”. Why not the STATE TERRORISTS OF ISRAEL AND AMERICA!!!

  • Draw Draw, War War

    Slaughter in Qana, Lebanon Courtesy of Amal (via GVO) in the city of Saida (Sidon), southern Lebanon. The blog is quintessentially a sketch book with Arabic annotation; yet with an English title the Qana post spreads beyond the Arabic-speaking world.

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