The Second Lebanon War ended one year ago this week. In the capital of Lebanon they have started to lick their wounds and to restore their wounded and bombarded city for the umpteenth time. During and after the war, Tel Aviv blogger Lisa Goldman connected online with Lebanese friends. This summer she decided to take a risk and visit them, in order to see for herself the truth behind the rumors of the striking similarities between Tel Aviv and Beirut.
The above is the lead-in to my article for this week's Time Out Tel Aviv. I have an English version ready for publication - it will be online by the end of today or tomorrow morning. The cover of the current TOTA refers to the cover of the issue that was published at the beginning of the fourth week of the war:
Time Out Tel Aviv, August 10-17, 2006.
The words mean, "Perhaps it's enough?" It's a common Hebrew phrase that expresses irritation and / or frustration. The idiomatic equivalent in English is "enough already!" The tone of the featured articles, by TOTA editor Amir Ben-David, columnist/film producer Gal Uchovsky, former Haaretz editor Hanoch Marmari and several other contributors, is one of frustration and sadness at the unending, destructive and pointless conflicts in our region. Amir describes his symbolic wartime visit to Haifa and its suburbs, where he grew up; Marmari points out that both Beirut and Tel Aviv have branches of McDonald's, so there goes Thomas Friedman's famous Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention. Gal Skulnik, a 29 year-old translator and editor, responds to an article by Ramsay Short, the former editor of Time Out Beirut, with an open letter that she addresses to her "brothers and sisters in Beirut." In it she describes her horror, frustration and sense of impotence in the face of the war, and she wonders rhetorically how the individual can influence government decisions.
Re-reading those articles, one year after the war, I can feel once again all those strong emotions that bubbled away inside me last year at this time. One year is not very long, after all.
The article can be downloaded from the Time Out Tel Aviv site. It is also reproduced in .jpg format below (click the photos to enlarge). Check back a bit later for the English version.
As promised, I finally added English subtitles to the Channel 10 report from Beirut, plus the follow-up interview with Yaron London and Moti Kirshenbaum that took place the following day. The guy with the curly dark hair sitting next to me is Zvi (Zvika) Yehezkeli, head of the Arab desk for Channel 10.
The media brouhaha has not settled down yet, by the way - which is why I'm having a lot of trouble focusing on what I really want to do: write about my experiences in Beirut, and the people I met (all names will be changed, obviously).
Anyway, below is a summary of Lisa in the media. Rinat has decided that she's not responding, and I don't blame her. I, however, cannot shut up.
By the way, the guys at the Al Jazeera desk in Doha sat on my blog for a couple of hours the day I published my challenge; however, no invitation to be interviewed was forthcoming. Doha, it seems, does not answer. At least now we know for certain what their agenda is. ;) In case there was ever any doubt.
Arabic-speaking friends in Tel Aviv gave me a general idea about what the articles say, but no-one (weep weep) was willing to sit down and do a full translation. If I have any Arabic speaking readers who feel like giving me a very belated birthday present, now would be the time. ;)
Also, I will be on CNN's International Correspondents tomorrow (Saturday), with Fionnuala Sweeney. The schedule is here. Broadcast time for the Middle East is 15.00 GMT, which I guess is 5 p.m. in Tel Aviv and Beirut. North America: 11.00 a.m. ET and 8.00 a.m. PT.
For those on the West Coast, I promise I won't take it personally if you decide that you don't feel like getting up so early on a Saturday morning. Besides, there are re-runs. ;)
And now, if you'll pardon me, I'm going to filter out the media noise and go do something positive: like writing about Beirut.
Over the past few days my report from Lebanon has elicited some very interesting responses.
On the one hand, I have received so many warm and supportive emails from Lebanese readers that I simply have not had time to respond to them all. Those emails came from people who identified themselves as Sunni, Shi'a and Christian. I am more touched and grateful for those emails than I can say. I have also received a lot of feedback from Israelis who saw the report and my follow-up interview on London and Kirshenbaum, and again the responses have been overwhelmingly positive. Quite a few Israelis told me that they never knew Beirut was so beautiful, lively and cosmopolitan, and that they were both intrigued and pleasantly surprised. As far as I am concerned, those responses mean mission accomplished for me.
On the other hand, Al Manar and Al Jazeera have both broadcast reports that are full of misinformation, half-truths and agenda pushing. I do not like being used to score political points or further editorial agendas. I have very low expectations of Al Manar, although I did ask a friend in Ramallah to ask the local correspondent if he would like to interview me. So far, no response. But hey, if you guys at Al Manar do decide that you want to broadcast the truth - just let me know. Your correspondent is most welcome to interview me at home: ahalan w sahalan.
Both Al Manar and Al Jazeera made the following claims in their reports: 1) that I broadcast live from Beirut; 2) that I had help from Lebanese citizens in entering the country; 3) that I used false documents in order to enter Lebanon.
None of these claims is true. What's more, Al Manar and Al Jazeera know that the first claim is false. The Lebanese Minister of Communications, Ghazi Aridi, stated on the record (I saw him make the statement on television) that I departed Lebanon for the second time on 10 July. That is accurate, as the exit stamp in my Canadian passport shows. However, my report was broadcast by Channel 10 on 11 July. How, therefore, can it possibly be claimed that I broadcast live from Beirut?
So here is my challenge to all you guys at the Al Jazeera desk in Doha who check my blog several times per day: interview me, and let your millions of viewers hear the truth. Let them hear that my report about Beirut was very positive - that I described it as a dynamic, open, cosmopolitan and beautiful city. Let them hear that I entered the country with no help from anyone, and that I traveled around the city on my own, on foot and by taxi. Let's tell the truth. The bureau chief in Ramallah has my mobile number. Call him and ask him to set up an interview, and send one of your stringers to my home. I'll even make him a nice cup of coffee, using the delicious Cafe Najjar (with or without cardamon - I'll let you choose) that I bought at duty free before I boarded my flight to Amman.
Yalla, guys. Are you the mouthpiece for Al Manar, or are you really independent journalists who reflect the mood on the Arab street? This inquiring Israeli mind really wants to know. Call me.
Me reporting from Beirut in Hebrew, for Channel 10 news. This photo is taken from the Al Manar (Hezbollah) website.
**Scroll down for update.
I waited to write about my trip to Beirut because I found out a few days after returning to Tel Aviv that Channel 10 news wanted to send me back to do a report for them. Figuring I should try to keep a low profile until after it was broadcast, I left a few loyal readers hanging, without explanation, as I maintained radio silence - so to speak.
And so I went back to Beirut for a whirlwind 36 hours (Monday and Tuesday of this week), recorded a couple of interviews and some footage of various street scenes, flew back to Amman, spent the night at the airport before boarding the 6 a.m. flight, drove straight from the airport to the Channel 10 studio to drop off the raw footage, went home, showered, and returned to the studio to help edit the piece. And then voila, it was broadcast - two minutes after we finished editing. \ To view, copy and paste the following URL into your browser: http://switch3.castup.net/cunet/gm.asp?ClipMediaID=1015892 (Thank you, Andrey!)
For non-Hebrew speakers, I will try to put in English subtitles and upload to YouTube in the next few days.
Anyway, one hour after my report was broadcast on Channel 10, Al Manar, the Hezbollah television station in Lebanon, broadcast its own interpretation of my trip to Beirut on its 9 p.m. news broadcast. And man, were they angry. Apparently, a Zionist agent penetrated security at Rafic Hariri Airport! God knows what I really did in Beirut, because there's no way I just went to do an innocent human-interest story about the mood on the streets of Beirut, one year after the war. Imagine! A possible Mossad agent walked around Beirut with a camera in her hands and no-one stopped her! (for heaven's sake).
I wrote a rather rushed report about my second trip for Pajamas Media, called Beirut, a year later. I'm going to write a series of more in-depth pieces that will be published over the coming days.
Meanwhile, the Sandmonkey summarized for Pajamas Media the outraged reactions amongst readers of Al Manar website and Tayyar, another news site that is allied with the Hezbollah against the current government.
For more anti-Lisa reactions (with a few tempering voices of reason) on a Lebanese message board in English, click here.
And just to counter all that paranoia and hate, I'd like to add the following: a) Today I received several supportive and encouraging emails from Lebanese who read about or watched my report and liked it. b) One of those emails came from a guy who thought I was still in Lebanon, and offered to help me leave the country. c) Never forget that the extremists always have the loudest voice.
Oh, and for readers in Israel: I will be interviewed on London and Kirshenbaum tonight, at 7 o'clock on Channel 10.
More - much more - very soon (as soon as I catch my breath).
