At War in … New York

I left Lebanon on the 21st of July, on the 9th day. My job allows me to be away, but I still left. We live in a safer place; still, I understood that without me my parents will have to worry less about food, fuel water and electricity. I understood that this war might take longer than anyone expected. After the second day, the days started to look all alike, except the look of my father. A father who didn't know what to advice his son. Leaving meant taking the risk of driving through Damascus, meant being an easy target to an Israeli jet playing Top Gun. Staying meant stopping time, while the world is still living. I couldn’t take his look anymore. I decided to leave.

I quickly realized that time had stopped despite my being away.

My stay in Paris for few days didn’t help. When I arrived to New York, where my normal life is supposed to be, nothing looked the same. The luggage untouched, are in the middle of my living room, the AC is on but not the lights. I am already on my computer checking the news. F5 is my favorite key: refresh.

I had received emails from a couple of Israeli colleagues asking whether I made it safe (i.e. Top Gun missed my bus on that day). They meant well. I know it, I know them. But I was thinking about the time when we will meet in the hallway, when our respective smile will not mean the same thing, not anymore, not this time. He could be from Haifa, he could be one of those 87%, that at home we call Zionists enemies, those that approve this war. It shouldn’t matter, right? We’re in New York and here we’re all New Yorkers (whatever that meant).

It did to me...

My country is disfigured because some of his countrymen decided so. They had reasons (excuses) to do so. Maybe, everything can be explained even Hiroshima, but that will not change that my next visit to Lebanon will not be the same, that Beirut will be crying its South for some time.

The next day, I am in my office. The internet connection is faster than home. I am checking the news. Another American colleague is around. He came back from Israel not long time ago, before all this started. In the middle of our chat he suddenly says: “I saw on TV many Lebanese expressing their joy to the kidnapping”. He meant, “can you believe this?” I said: “I was one of them” and indeed I was.

How can’t you. By kidnapping these two soldiers, we had just achieved what we have been talking about since 2004; since the Israelis refused to release the remaining three Lebanese prisoners. We were one step closer to resolve a main issue with Israel. We were playing by the rules. But it seems the rules have changed. This last step had a more and unexpected high price. It reminded me these TV shows, where you are winning big time and suddenly you open this hidden card that asks you to give up everything you have. Some of them cry. I never understood how can they? There, it is just a game. Next time I might understand.

What is really tearful is the feeling of unfairness, of incapability facing the storm. It seems like everything is falling on you (and it was), your dreams, your plans are vanishing and you’re watching helpless. Suddenly, your hope concentrates (again) on the resistance. Not that you expect it to stop this massacre, but at least you want someone to say to the world that we exist, that it will not be a “picnic”; and it wasn’t.

One of my friends is in Lebanon, she decided to stay. She writes her daily summary on her blog. Yesterday, she said that the other headlines don’t mean to her as they do for the rest of the world. “Nad, it is the same for me here in New York.” In this city where “heat” is the breaking news. I still can’t get used to people talking in the elevators about normal subjects about other news. When someone says hi to me, with this look that shows he recognizes I am Lebanese and that my country is (again) making the news, I feel it is an invitation for me to tell my story. I don’t. I just say, “fine, indeed it is horrible, but we’re resisting.” Nobody understands my answer. I am sure many relate it to the heat.

As time goes by, I try to do some work, I mean in between two news articles or after I have submitted an answer to one of these Israeli forums, a place where people scream in writing.

One of them today wrote. “It seems we lost facing Hizballah. Olmert should accept it and stop hiding it. We lost!” It started me thinking… What are they really loosing? This guy seemed to announce the beginning of a Holocaust II, the end of the state of Israel, a nuclear missile on its way to Tel Aviv… I couldn’t stop myself from answering this guy.

I had to tell him: “Stop taking it too personally- stop this arrogance”. You might not have been able to crash the resistance. But guess what, everybody knew it. You might not have been able to stop the roquettes. But guess what, we told you from the start. If you stop killing civilians, the resistance will stop hurting your North. It is clear. It was said from the first day. You have a control on that. So stop talking about losing, when the only thing you might loose is OUR land.
I am reading these comments after the 300 roquettes sent to Northern Israel the day after Olmert announced to the world that he won the war. It made me wonder whether we should negotiate getting Tabaria.

You know what, you did loose one thing. You lost the monopole of controlling our destiny. This was few years ago. It is just hitting you...

Hassan Nasrallah is on the news… Everybody is listening in … Israel. In New York, I am hitting my F5 on tayyar.org. I was wondering whether the pilot in his F16 is doing the same … on Dahie!