Monday, July 31, 2006
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Hanady Salman (friend and editor at As-Safir in Beirut) sent this:
"Three of my colleagues went to
So, hassan was sleeping when it all happened Saturday night. His mom was injured , but she managed to find her way under the rubble and was looking for her kids. She called him , and he answered her. She asked him if he was injured and he said no. So, she went to look for her daughter and husband. She found her daughter’s hand. She tried to take it out , to pull her up. She couldn’t . Then she saw her husband , so she crawled to him. But before that, she caressed her daughter’s hand and whispered to her “forgive me my angel because I can’t help you out of here.”
She saved her husband, thinking that someone had already taken care of little Hassan.
She and her husband spent the rest of the night the closest house, where the civil defense workers had taken them. The next morning, they took them to the hospital.
Hassan was thought dead. They put were they put the other kids. HE woke up in the morning, opened his eyes to see a two year old girl lying next to him. He thought she sleeping. He looked around, and luckily found a man “Ammo, what am I doing here ?” he asked. The man couldn’t believe his eyes.
He took hassan to his parents. When Hassan saw his mom , he started yelling at her “why did you leave me there , alone, sleeping with our neighbor’s kids? How could you? You know, if I weren’t scared I would have followed you home. But it was dark and they were shelling, so I slept again. Where is Zeinab ?”
His mom , Rabab , told him the following “she’s having fun in heaven. There are no Israelis there, she’s happy there”.
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Sunday, July 30, 2006
"More Israeli lies and propaganda: I was watching Fox news again tonight for my daily dose of propaganda. One correspondent was describing how he was allowed to accompany Israeli soldiers to record their attack on Taibeh. The reporter was told by the group's captain that the aim was to destroy all the houses of the village to keep Hezbollah terrorists from using it in the future. The correspondent waited for hours till the soldiers came back, and the captain told him that they had successfully completed their mission. The reporter, who could see Taibeh from a distance, remarked that all the houses still seem to be intact, exactly as they were before the "successful" attack. Not being one to admit defeat, the captain replied (I am not making this up) that the damage was all internal. What the hell does that mean, internal damage!??? So, according to the IDF, here is what happened: after hours of heavy bombardment and erecting a ring of fire around the village, a group of battle hardened interior decorators attacked and changed the interior arrangement of every single house, then retreated with only few casualties. Let this be a lesson to Hezbollah and all other terrorist organizations. What's next, attack of the landscape divisions?
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""We have to acknowledge that they have defeated the Israelis. It's not a question of gaining one more village or losing one more village. They have defeated the Israelis," he said. "But the question now is to whom Nasrallah will offer this victory.""
"What makes this incident all the more horrible is its predictability. This, from the article "Torn to Shreds" in last week's Newsweek:
The Israelis say they are being more careful this time around, not least because they don't want to be forced to stop. "The presidential approval by Bush, the surprising level of support he's giving Israel, the patience he's giving Israel—it looks as if there's a great amount of slack being cut to us," says a senior Israeli security source, who did not want to be identified by name because he is not authorized to speak on the record. "Absent a Qana, it might go on."
In reply, I wrote this:
"Today is a day when we Arabs really should be spared the language and terminology of the American press. "Accidents" and "tragedy" are not the words. Not today, Mr. Dickey. Not any day, Mr. Dickey.
"Nauseating. It started out with "Well, Israel didn't know there were civilians there" and went to "It's all Hezbollah's fault anyway" to "Maybe Hezvbollah actually blew up the building after the Israeli airstrike" when Israel admitted that it was them "Israel didn't know there were civilians there". I've watched it spun ten different ways in about 5 hours."
From the poem Here, We are Staying by Palestinian poet Tawfiq Zayyad (my translation):
"As if we are twenty impossibles
in Ludd, Ramlah, and Jalil
Here...on your chests, we stay
like a wall, in your throat,
like a piece of glass, like a cactus
and in your eyes, a tornado of fire
Here...on your chests, we stay
like a wall
washing dishes in bars
filling glasses for the notables
and wiping floors in the
black kitchens
to distill the bite for children
from your blue canine tooth
Here on your chests, we stay
like a wall
We get hungy...get naked...
and defy..
chant poetry
fill the angry streets with demonstrations
and fill the prison with dignity
and make children...
a revolutionary generation..
after generation..
as if we are twenty impossibles
In Ludd, Ramlah, and Jalil
We here are staying
So let you drink the sea
We guard the shadow of
fig and olive trees
and we plant ideas,
like yeast in the dough
The cold of ice in our nerves
and in their heart the red hell
If we get thirsty, we squeeze the desert
And we eat sand, if we get hungy...
And we shall never leave..!!...
Here we have a past...a present..
and future..
As if we are twenty impossibles
in Ludd, Ramlah, and Jalil...
O, our living root, cling firmly"
"As terrorist groups go, do you think Hezbollah is worse than
Hezbollah is far more extreme than Hamas. Hezbollah is an organization that denies the legitimacy of Israel." (Don't ever use the word "dove" to describe
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Saturday, July 29, 2006
Friday, July 28, 2006
From the poem A Diary of a Palestinian Wound by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):
"I grew up along the wound,
and never asked my mother
what made her a tent at night
I have not misplaced my spring,
my address, and my name
Thus I saw in her dress
a million stars
*
My flag is black
And the port is a tomb
My back is an arch
O, the autumn of the world
which has collapsed in us
O, the spring of the world
that was born in us
my flower is red,
the port is open,
and my heart is a tree!
*
My language is the sound of the stream
in the river of storms
and the mirrors of the sun and wheat
in the arena of war
Maybe I erred in my
expressions sometimes
But I was--I am not ashamed
to say--splendid when I
substituted my heart for
the dictionary!"
I love but by Palestinian poet Tawfiq Zayyad (my translation):
"I love to be able to flip
life over its head for you
and to end tyranny
and to burn every rapist
and to ignite a hell
under our old world
with long flames
and to make the poorest
of the poor eat from
plates of diamonds and gold
and to walk in trousers
of expensive threads
and to demolish his hut...
and to build for him
a palace on the clouds
***
I love to be able to
flip life over its head for you
But...things have a nature
that is stronger than
desires and anger
Impatience is eating you
up, but has it achieved results?
Steadfastness, o people that I love
Patience with misery
Place the sun in the eyes
and steel in the nerves
Your hands can achieve
the most splendid of dreams..
they can make the most
incredible of what is incredible"
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Colonel A.: "There are 400 fatalities."
You don't accept the definition that they are civilians?
Colonel A.: "Our soldiers who are killed in Bint Jbail are also civilians."
I can show you the pictures. This baby does not look like a soldier. Do you feel moral with 400 dead, of whom half are children, according to UN data?
Colonel A.: "The answer is yes. We are not the only country that fights. I see how other countries fight, how the Americans fight, and I have no doubt that we are the most moral army in the world."
The poem Promises of the Storm by Palestinian poet Mahmud Darwish (my translation):
"So let it be...
I have to reject death
and to burn the tears of
the songs that are soaked with blood
and to strip naked the olive trees
from all the fake bushes
And if I am singing for joy
from behind the frightened
eyelids
it is because the storm
promised me wine...
and new toasts
and rainbows
and because the storm
brushed away the sound
of lazy birds
and the borrowed bushes
from the standing trees
And let it be...
I have to brag about you,
o, wound of the city
You are the portrait of
lightening in our
sad nights
The street frowns at my face
and you protect me from
the shadow and the looks
of hate
I will sing for joy
from behind the frightened
eyelids
since the storm hit
my homeland
It promised me wine,
and rainbows
"My land..! My friends!..
My stolen treasure..! My history..
The bones of my father and
grandfather are denied to me,
so how can I forgive?
If they mount the gallows for
me...I am not forgiving
These green villages of ours
have all become our blood
and scattered traces
Ones have remained
and still fighting
with nails...
Do not tell me..do not tell me..!
Even tombstones have been scattered."