A Lebanese Christians Point of View

It is normally easy enough for me to dismiss with a smirk some of the simplistic comments that I constantly read or hear from Christians around the world as pertains to events that are going on in the Middle East. These comments hit much deeper at a time when my country is once again hurting beyond pain, under the murderous aggression of Israeli armed forces for the past five days.

It is striking how normally highly reasonable and spiritually aware people can suddenly lose any sense of ethical, let alone Christian, balance when it comes to Middle East conflicts involving modern political Israel.

"Great. All we need is a nuclear-armed Iran led by a messianic president who hates Israel and believes that apocalyptic destruction is a precursor to global salvation," writes David P. Gushee in a recent Christianity Today online column, in reference to Iran's president Ahmadinejad. On the whole, Gushee's article is fairly balanced from a certain point of view, and I suppose within the limits necessary to avoid being attacked and branded by those in our churches who have but disdain for Arabs.

But how is it that he, like so many others, fails to notice that world events in the last few years—even decades—have had as their main catalyst tens of thousands of evangelical Christians with a "messianic" mentality who believe that apocalyptic destruction of all but their beloved Israel will be "a precursor to global salvation"?

"Nuclear-armed Iran"? How about the Israeli jet planes that are bombing, as I write, my country and its population, my sisters, my brothers, my fathers and mothers and grandfathers, my children and nieces and nephews? According to the Lebanese health minister, Israel is even using phosphoric bombs, which are forbidden under international conventions! Are my people to consider Iran more dangerous than this? Are we safely in good hands with such actions? Come with me to Beirut and see how inoffensive Israel is. Ask the thousands of Western nationals that are presently being evacuated by the shipload. Ask the hundreds of U.S. and other Western missionaries that are running for their lives from Lebanon as you read this, through the most dangerous routes. Ask them whether weapons of any kind are in safe hands in any bloodthirsty human hands. And if they were not bloodthirsty, why would they have them? Why would anyone have them?

In the past, tit for tat has been the only way for any Arab country or armed group to get anything from Israel. So once more last Wednesday, Lebanon's Hezbollah ventured into kidnapping two Israeli soldiers in order to force the hand of Israel into a prisoner exchange. "The actual result," Gushee wrote, "is predictable. Israel responds with massive (sometimes disproportionate) force; civilians get killed accidentally along with intended militants."

"Sometimes disproportionate"?! Talk about an understatement to describe a one-week—and still going—machine of annihilation that has destroyed in days what had taken 15 years of reconstruction. Civilians "killed accidentally"?! Explain that to the young mother squatting right now at my parents' home in Lebanon, having just heard her husband was torn into pieces by an Israeli bomb as he was carrying out civil relief in villages of South Lebanon! But of course these civilians were at fault, since they had been warned by Israeli flyers to evacuate their villages the previous night. But to go where? To my father's living room?! They are welcome, but it's getting really full. Tonight I had my finger hovering over my computer's "send" button for at least one long minute before I was able to bring myself to sending to a few friends who might care to receive them, some of the gruesome images of war, of torn infant flesh from my bleeding country.

And then this wish: that "our own government will undertake policies to help foster a reduction of tensions in the region." Oh what wishful thinking! When did it ever?! When did the U.S. ever use anything other than its veto power at the United Nations, precisely in order to prevent policies and resolutions that might potentially have been helpful to my people?

Please, Christians! Let's grow up and get over our childish wishes. If, like me, you had lived through the 17 years of Lebanese civil strife from 1975 to 1991 and were presently facing the real and gruesome prospect of another extended conflict, you'd be far from hoping and believing in any benevolent and sincere peace efforts of any external broker, supposedly neutral.

I'll tell you, if you care, what I think those governments will help foster. I think that some pseudo-biblically motivated Christians with decision power, who believe "that apocalyptic destruction is a precursor to global salvation," are presently working toward provoking a Middle Eastern conflict of regional significance in order finally to settle accounts with Hezbollah- and Hamas-supporting Syria, Iran, Lebanon, and Palestine, who have committed the crime, as Gushee put it, of making their hatred for Israel "crystal clear." And how dare they, since the said state has only been acting as an aggressor and racist colonial state with neighbor-exterminating tendencies from the moment of its inception?

(Of course, I will be accused of being an anti-Semite because of such words. But I will just shrug and sneer at that accusation and say: "What makes you a Semite anyway?" Having just read the holocaust account of Elie Wiesel's Night with tears and deep empathy, having Jewish relatives on my Swiss mother's side who fled Germany to Switzerland during the period of the rise of Nazism, being an Arab Christian with Lebanese paternal ancestry, I have more Semitic DNA in me than most who will be reading this. My ethnic heritage may be a mess, but I can still recognize ethical wrong when I see it!)

As an academic with a Ph.D. from Oxford University and specialist in Christian-Muslim and East-West relations, constantly seeking creative models of conflict resolution and better understanding, all of what I have just written is written in a manner far from what I would normally write or say with a cool head, far from what my Swiss-blood-flowing veins would normally permit me to utter. But then, perhaps academics sometimes owe their readers more genuine feelings, skin-level emotions gushing out of a deeply hurting, frustrated, desperate, and hopeless soul that has had enough of human arrogance and injustice.

Having come to the U.S. at the wrong time to teach a course for two weeks, I find myself at the wrong place at the wrong time, stranded after my country's airport was sent up in flames by Israeli jets. There are two Israeli soldiers imprisoned by Hezbollah hands, 10,000 Arabs in Israeli jails, and one poor soul imprisoned in the U.S. by human madness and bloodthirsty governments.

I am angry at self-centered Hezbollah, which has done the inadmissible of taking a unilateral war decision without consulting the Lebanese government of which it is part, never giving a second thought to the hundreds (perhaps thousands) of Lebanese who will perish as a result of its selfish decision. I am angry that citizens of a nation like Israel, who have so suffered at the hands of others, would allow themselves such an out-of-proportion reaction, oh-so-far from the "eye-for-an-eye and tooth-for-a-tooth" principle that we might have forgiven them. I am just as angry at—I have lost hope in—the international community that is keeping silent and not even budging with an official condemnation of this senseless instinct of extermination. By both sides, I would be lynched for what I have just said, if they had the chance. But what have I got to lose anymore?

Martin Accad is the academic dean of the Arab Baptist Theological Seminary in Lebanon. He was teaching at Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, last week and is now unable to return home.

Middle East 101

i was glad to see this article in the local PA paper this weekend, accompanied by the picture of a kindly middle aged pennsylvanian woman - the author.

with only 1 in 5 American's who even own a passport - it's no wonder our view of the world may not be entirely accurate...

you can find this story by going to Patriot-News
and searching on "MIDEAST TOUR JOLTS PRECONCEPTIONS"
but there is no way to link directly to the story :(

Publication: Patriot-News, The (Harrisburg, PA)
Author(s): LINDA FIGUEROA For the Patriot-News
Date: July 16, 2006

MIDEAST TOUR JOLTS PRECONCEPTIONS

Perhaps, like many central Pennsylvanians of a certain age, my long-held impressions of the Middle East were too influenced by "Casablanca," "Raiders of the Lost Ark" and "Lawrence of Arabia" as well as the media images from news of the region.

My recent study tour of the Middle East blew away all those stereotypes and jolted my view of this part of the world.

I thought that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict was principally religious. After visiting the Palestinians in refugee camps in three countries and understanding the plight of workers such as nomadic Arab Bedouin sheep herders, I can see it is based more on economics, including control of the land and the water.

I envisioned Israel as a small, homogeneous country under constant siege. What we saw was an Israeli military that was quite effectively in control; in fact, it is the world's fourth largest military power.

I perceived that Israel had it all figured out. But, with about 5 million people, including 1.2 million Israeli Arabs, more than 70 political parties and approximately 400,000 guest workers, it has no common culture. There is no common language because few immigrants speak Hebrew. There really is not a common religious base either, as few people are devout Jews and there are Muslims and Christians in residence, too.

I worried about anti-American sentiment. Yet, the people were extraordinarily welcoming. They yelled "welcome" from their cars and "God be with you" from their shops.

They enjoyed practicing their English, and a surprising number spoke or at least understood English. In Jerusalem, Beirut, Tripoli and Damascus, I encountered friendly people who were eager to talk and who could distinguish between us and our government's policies.

I expected to like the food, because it is Mediterranean. That was true, except when I was offered various kinds of olives, cucumbers and hummus on my morning pita bread. A little of that goes a long way. The wonderful fruits included oranges, tamarind, kiwi, apples and bananas, and there are kiosks everywhere selling fruit smoothies -- freshly squeezed orange juice with ice cream in it, which is really terrific on hot days.

I was anxious about danger. In fact, my biggest insecurities were at checkpoints with Israeli soldiers or dealing with airport security in Tel Aviv. There are a lot of guns in evidence in Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon, but it seemed unthreatening and more a form of state-sponsored employment for males.

I expected all Arabic women to wear closely fitting headdresses, the chador, and long-fitted coats to hide their bodies and dresses. I saw that the option to cover up is strictly a woman's personal preference, and many younger women wear a chador with skin tight jeans and stiletto sandals.

I believed things would be relatively bucolic. But major cities, such as Beirut and Damascus, are very cosmopolitan, with museums, clubs and restaurants interspersed with amazing Roman ruins, reflecting their 6,000-year history as the cradle of civilization.

I expected members of Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hezbollah in Lebanon to be aloof, unresponsive, uncommunicative soldiers. I learned that the newly elected Hamas party is proud of its service to the Palestinian people during the last 20 years, including building schools and providing health clinics for Palestinians in and out of the camps. The long-ruling Fatah party is perceived rather universally as being corrupt and having done little for the average person.

And I came to believe that Hamas is willing to enter into a peaceful coexistence with Israel, once Israel stops occupying Palestinian land. Hamas wants a return to the pre-1967 war borders with Israel, while Israel is building a 29-foot tall wall of concrete, cutting through the West Bank and into Arab-owned land. We travelers found that to be in direct conflict with United Nations resolutions and against the wishes both of the U.S. and the European Union. Nevertheless, Israel presses on.

I considered that America was an interested bystander in all of this. I discovered that nearly everyone in the region -- from politicians, the British ambassador to Syria, shop keepers, Bedouin goat herders, travel agency owners and Bir Zeit University students -- believes that America is the largest variable in the Middle East conflict. Every Arab to whom we spoke believes that the United States unduly supports Israel to the detriment of everyone else, and they do not understand why. Their wish is that we use our clout to bring about a fair and just two-state solution to the Palestinian conflict, and soon. The Palestinians have been in this situation for almost 60 years, and their patience is understandably worn thin.

More than anything, after a month of talking to all kinds of people in and out of each country's government, I am amazed and startled by the influence the U.S. has in the region. That regular people, such as us, were received by people at the highest levels of government says a lot about their regard for the U.S. Such high regard convinces me that our negotiators can, and should, step up their pace to bring about a settlement to the conflict that is seen to be fair to both parties and, in so doing, helps restore a positive American image in the Middle East.

LINDA FIGUEROA of Carlisle was part of a recent study tour of Israel, the Palestinian territories, Syria and Lebanon that focused on the status and treatment of the Palestinians.
Section: Review & Opinion
Edition: FINAL

The End of the Virtual World be Upon Us

more specifically - the beginning of the end of the virtual world be upon us.

let me say again; the sky IS falling.

this new threat - is more devious than anything bill gates could come up with - and will make us wish for the good old days of viruses, malware, and spam.

i'm speaking of threats to net neutrality. the easiest way to spin up on this issue is to watch this video. also this page explains the significance of this. and Lawrence Lessig's blog gives us some good context.

at stake is content such as this from brookers ;)

(impressed? her myspace page shows her video blogs have earned her an interview on NBC and a job from them as well...)