A letter from Lebanon
This was written by a friend. I received it with the subject "Today my heart is soaked in sorrow"
I am writing to so many of you that have sent words of encouragement and hope during these trying times. I thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. You are all very special to me. Many of you forwarded me evacuation information, called congressman, wrote letters to the government and other such acts of caring. I am forever indebted. But it seems that my time in Lebanon is now numbered. Despite my persistent attempts to skip the evacuation (I have already skipped over 4 possible trips out) I will be on a US ship leaving Beirut's port tomorrow. My cousin's husband Mahmoud has finally convinced me that my staying is not safe, that and the fact that Israel dropped a couple of bombs in my neighborhood of Christian East Beirut... as if this area has any connection to Hezbollah. My heart is slowly breaking as I write this e-mail. I do not want to leave this land. Not this way. This is the biblical land of milk and honey. The South of Lebanon is where the biblical story of Jesus turning water into wine occurred. Today it is a wasteland. Nothing is left standing. So much death, so much destruction. Just now the TV reports are showing a bombed out orphanage in the southern city of Nabatieh. Everyone is fleeing. There are over 500,000 Lebanese refugees right now, that in a country of only 4 million. And since Lebanon does not have bomb shelters these people are staying in the open field of parks, the lucky ones get to sleep on the floor of public schools. Yet the destruction continues. Just last night another 39 Lebanese Civilians were killed. The death toll, despite the western medias low numbers is well over 200 right now.
The sick irony is that Israel claims this is a war to free Lebanon and that they want Lebanese soldiers to move to the south. This is ironic as Israel two days ago started a systematic campaign of bombing all military installations. I ask how can a dead army disarm Hezbollah and how is this war for Lebanon when so much has been destroyed. How does bombing churches, hospitals, orphanages, factories that make tissue paper, gas stations, and water trucks hurt Hezbollah. There is too much insanity around me. The leaders fight and the people suffer. And so yet another generation of Lebanese is taught to view Israel as their enemy. War begets war and hate begets hate and this poor little country is inundated with both right now.
I do not want to leave. How can I leave friends and family behind to suffer more of the same. My greatest fear is once all the US citizens have left what will Israel do then. If this campaign has been restrained I do not know what a full attack could look like. There is just nothing left to bomb. There are only citizens. Citizens that are running out of food, water, medicine, and gas. If the siege does not end soon the human tragedy will extend beyond the bombing casualties. And yet in spite of all this pain or maybe because of it there are Lebanese right now in the bombed out parts of Southern Beirut lighting of fire works in defiance of all of their pain or maybe in celebration. Regardless it is a message to the bombers. You may destroy our country you may kill our people, but our spirit will live on that is immortal that cannot be killed. Yet there is hope here for a cease-fire. A hope that is continually broken every-time the US government makes a statement. Europe wants to send an international force to bring peace. Meanwhile the US continues to support this bombing campaign. I ask how? How do you support the killing of innocents and the collective punishment of a nation?
But so I leave. I leave Beirut behind. But it has already left me. The city stands a shadow of its former self. The once bustling downtown is vacant. The streets once filled with old Mercedes Benz taxis vying for patrons are now deserted. Only the courageous and silly drive on main roads now, only the truly defiant walk through the Shia sections of town. This is summer in Beirut. The nightlife is gone. The famous Mediterranean beaches are empty instead filled with empty bomb-shells. But the true Beirut shall stay in my heart. I have seen its indescribably beauty. A beauty that was taken from it yet again. So again it will rise. The jewel of the Middle East with glimmer once again I promise you that and the diversity within Lebanon that makes it so unique will stay and through their common pain will learn to love one another.
The famous Lebanese American writer Khalil Gibran referenced this diversity when he wrote "Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation." Lebanon is a land of divisions. Its land as fragmented as its people. Its rocky unforgiving coast rapidly rises into towering mountains which gradually give way to the bountiful valleys of the Bekaa. Its Churches' bells compete with its Mosques' call to prayer while the streets are filled with a wonderful rainbow of people; some covered in religious piousness others half naked baking in the Mediterranean sun. It is this diversity that is the heart of Lebanon. It is also its hurt. I have lived in Lebanon and witnessed is beautiful heart as well as its inconsolable hurt. Today it is hurting and as a result those divisions are being overlooked for the moment. A country divided is now united in its collective suffering. For or against Hezbollah, Christian, Muslim, or Druze, pro-Syrian or anti-Syrian the Lebanese are united in a pain of death and destruction as they helplessly watched their country being destroyed. I say Pity the Nation who knows only war and not love. And pity its neighbor; a nation forgotten by time a nation fragmented, yet united by pain.
I will see many of you soon, but not before my heart breaks and not before dozens more Lebanese civilians die.
I am writing to so many of you that have sent words of encouragement and hope during these trying times. I thank all of you for your thoughts and prayers. You are all very special to me. Many of you forwarded me evacuation information, called congressman, wrote letters to the government and other such acts of caring. I am forever indebted. But it seems that my time in Lebanon is now numbered. Despite my persistent attempts to skip the evacuation (I have already skipped over 4 possible trips out) I will be on a US ship leaving Beirut's port tomorrow. My cousin's husband Mahmoud has finally convinced me that my staying is not safe, that and the fact that Israel dropped a couple of bombs in my neighborhood of Christian East Beirut... as if this area has any connection to Hezbollah. My heart is slowly breaking as I write this e-mail. I do not want to leave this land. Not this way. This is the biblical land of milk and honey. The South of Lebanon is where the biblical story of Jesus turning water into wine occurred. Today it is a wasteland. Nothing is left standing. So much death, so much destruction. Just now the TV reports are showing a bombed out orphanage in the southern city of Nabatieh. Everyone is fleeing. There are over 500,000 Lebanese refugees right now, that in a country of only 4 million. And since Lebanon does not have bomb shelters these people are staying in the open field of parks, the lucky ones get to sleep on the floor of public schools. Yet the destruction continues. Just last night another 39 Lebanese Civilians were killed. The death toll, despite the western medias low numbers is well over 200 right now.
The sick irony is that Israel claims this is a war to free Lebanon and that they want Lebanese soldiers to move to the south. This is ironic as Israel two days ago started a systematic campaign of bombing all military installations. I ask how can a dead army disarm Hezbollah and how is this war for Lebanon when so much has been destroyed. How does bombing churches, hospitals, orphanages, factories that make tissue paper, gas stations, and water trucks hurt Hezbollah. There is too much insanity around me. The leaders fight and the people suffer. And so yet another generation of Lebanese is taught to view Israel as their enemy. War begets war and hate begets hate and this poor little country is inundated with both right now.
I do not want to leave. How can I leave friends and family behind to suffer more of the same. My greatest fear is once all the US citizens have left what will Israel do then. If this campaign has been restrained I do not know what a full attack could look like. There is just nothing left to bomb. There are only citizens. Citizens that are running out of food, water, medicine, and gas. If the siege does not end soon the human tragedy will extend beyond the bombing casualties. And yet in spite of all this pain or maybe because of it there are Lebanese right now in the bombed out parts of Southern Beirut lighting of fire works in defiance of all of their pain or maybe in celebration. Regardless it is a message to the bombers. You may destroy our country you may kill our people, but our spirit will live on that is immortal that cannot be killed. Yet there is hope here for a cease-fire. A hope that is continually broken every-time the US government makes a statement. Europe wants to send an international force to bring peace. Meanwhile the US continues to support this bombing campaign. I ask how? How do you support the killing of innocents and the collective punishment of a nation?
But so I leave. I leave Beirut behind. But it has already left me. The city stands a shadow of its former self. The once bustling downtown is vacant. The streets once filled with old Mercedes Benz taxis vying for patrons are now deserted. Only the courageous and silly drive on main roads now, only the truly defiant walk through the Shia sections of town. This is summer in Beirut. The nightlife is gone. The famous Mediterranean beaches are empty instead filled with empty bomb-shells. But the true Beirut shall stay in my heart. I have seen its indescribably beauty. A beauty that was taken from it yet again. So again it will rise. The jewel of the Middle East with glimmer once again I promise you that and the diversity within Lebanon that makes it so unique will stay and through their common pain will learn to love one another.
The famous Lebanese American writer Khalil Gibran referenced this diversity when he wrote "Pity the nation divided into fragments, each fragment deeming itself a nation." Lebanon is a land of divisions. Its land as fragmented as its people. Its rocky unforgiving coast rapidly rises into towering mountains which gradually give way to the bountiful valleys of the Bekaa. Its Churches' bells compete with its Mosques' call to prayer while the streets are filled with a wonderful rainbow of people; some covered in religious piousness others half naked baking in the Mediterranean sun. It is this diversity that is the heart of Lebanon. It is also its hurt. I have lived in Lebanon and witnessed is beautiful heart as well as its inconsolable hurt. Today it is hurting and as a result those divisions are being overlooked for the moment. A country divided is now united in its collective suffering. For or against Hezbollah, Christian, Muslim, or Druze, pro-Syrian or anti-Syrian the Lebanese are united in a pain of death and destruction as they helplessly watched their country being destroyed. I say Pity the Nation who knows only war and not love. And pity its neighbor; a nation forgotten by time a nation fragmented, yet united by pain.
I will see many of you soon, but not before my heart breaks and not before dozens more Lebanese civilians die.