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Safi Jouni at his studio. That awesome entrance he crafted himself.


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Safi Jouni's studio, with an unfinished portrait of Ali Yousef Ballout, the 22-year-old Hezbollah fighter martyred in Syria just a week ago. The young man's nickname was Ali al-Hadi, meaning "Ali the Calm One."


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Behind green window was a butcher shop that was open only on Friday, for people to buy meat on their way back from the mosque.


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Goodbye, Lebanon

As published at Unz Review, 12/26/20:





It’s cold yet sunny on this Christmas morning. Standing outside, I’m surrounded by a squadron of winged insects. Dots of light, they hover and meander in air tirelessly. Like drunk pinballs, they jerk, dance and bounce down invisible grooves, and around unseen obstacles. No, they’re more like ponderous thoughts. (Your jumped-up synapses are but flying insects.) Now and then, one would dart decisively, like a jabbing boxer unleashing a right cross or hook, but for what purpose, I have no idea, being no insect, not even a very stupid one.

After nearly three weeks in Beirut, I’m back in southern Lebanon, in a village where life is still tranquil, and signs of obvious economic or social distress are nonexistent, unlike in the capital. Extended families ensure no one starves, or goes without shoes.

The day after I returned, there was collective mourning, however, for a 22-year-old native son had just been martyred in Syria. Within half a day, his body had been brought back, and banners and posters bearing his handsome portrait went up.

At dawn, speakers broadcast a plangent prayer, and this went on, episodically, throughout the day. On foot or in cars, mourners converged on the funeral, with some children dressed in military uniforms. They’re all proud to honor one of their own. With so many Hezbollah fighters clustered, security was airtight.

A community can’t survive if no one is willing to die defending its values.

As if to reinforce this most obvious, yet still often forgotten, truism, I just received a most incisive email from a Lebanese-American, Frank Isabelle.

Born in Columbus, Ohio, Isabelle has been lucky enough to spend many “restful and carefree summers” in his ancestral Lebanon. At the entrance to his grandmother’s village, there’s a mural, “Salima, the village of the resistor Ghassan Saeed, welcomes all.”

Isabelle:

Who is this man Ghassan Saeed? Frustrated with what he felt was a tepid response to the Jewish occupation of Lebanon, Ghassan and his fellow countrymen organized an informal cell to engage in resistance activities. Acting of their own initiative, and without any support from the all too numerous militias of civil war Lebanon, Ghassan was eventually imprisoned in an ambush while his comrade Pierre attained martyrdom. Today, Ghassan works as a mechanic.

Is it possible to imagine such a noble and pithy sentiment adorning the entrance of an American suburb? Of course not. For Americans, nothing seems more natural, more scientific than allowing their life to be rationalized for them. They not only live at the end of history, they also love nothing more than gloating over their static, passive existence. I can’t think of anywhere else in the world where people are proud to be so aggressively babied. But that’s the way it is with Americans.

Too harsh? Hardly. Cowering offensive lineman-sized babies can certainly use a few Younghoe Koo kicks in the ass, to jumpstart them, finally, into battle against their Jewish occupation.

First, though, they must give a shit about their village, hood or subdivision. Isabelle:

Communal life breeds sensitive people. That is why so many poets and martyrs are found among the ranks of the Lebanese, while pornstars and petty thieves are a dime a dozen in the vapid consumerist wasteland of 21st century America […] Every nook and cranny of our [Lebanese] village was crafted by our ancestors, and the trajectory and inertia of our common heritage feels almost inevitable. Each generation adds another level to our living quarters, or expands the garden a little more, or dedicates a new roadside shrine.

All day on Lebanese television, there are scenes of exuberant or somber Christmas celebrations in Lebanon and Syria, and it’s impossible to not be moved by reverent images of Biblical sites, historical churches, lovingly restored frescoes, children praying at home or Holy Communion taken in magnificent settings.

In Muslim-majority Lebanon, folks of whatever faith, or none at all, still retain enough of an innate sense of decency to not put up with any Christmas-capped talking turd or psycho Santas slashing innocents. Unlike in Israel, Christians are not spat on here. Meanwhile, Americans have long been conditioned to laugh at, and even pay for, their own degradation.

*

Most may think of Lebanon as a land of sectarian violence, with religious militias slaughtering each other, but coexistence has actually been the norm. Ancient Christian villages abut Muslim ones.

A short drive away from me is Anqoun. With its large portraits of Nasrallah and 25 martyrs who died expelling Jews, you know you’re in Hezbollah country, but just five minutes away is Maghdoucheh, the most sacred Christian site in Lebanon. Its resilience is worth examining.

The Christians of Maghdoucheh count themselves among the earliest. Saint Paul and Jesus preached in nearby Sidon, visible down the hill.

In 326AD, Saint Helena summoned a Maghdouchian to Constantinople, for she had heard about a sacred cave in faraway Phoenicia. There, the Virgin Mary had sheltered as her son preached, locals believed. Finding the Maghdouchian’s account convincing, Saint Helena sent an icon of the Madonna with baby Jesus to Maghdoucheh, where it still is today, locals believe, inside the cave.

For a millennium, both cave and icon disappeared. After the Muslim conquest, Magdouchians fled to Zahle and Zouk, each a day’s hike away. Abandoning their village, they covered their sacred grotto with earth, rocks and vines.

Returning 900 years later, they could no longer find it, however. Another century passed before the cave was rediscovered, by accident, when a kid goat fell into a hole in the ground. Thrilled, Magdouchians placed their icon inside a new chapel, but twice, it returned by itself to the cave, locals believe, so there it was the other day. In the soft yellow light, three women prayed to it.

Outside the cave, there’s a marble statue of a sitting Madonna, with a plexiglass sign behind her, in French, Arabic and English, “I’m waiting for my children.”

No sightseer, I had been to Magdoucheh a dozen times, but only to visit Abou Jihad “King of the Drink” Liquor Store. This is also Ali the driver’s favorite pilgrimage.

With Ali translating, I asked the 60-ish owner how long she had lived in Magdoucheh? Looking surprised, she answered, “All my life! My grandmother was here, and my grandmother’s grandmother.” On her wall was a mock but life-sized M-16, and two fake pistols, as decorations.

When Israel attacked Lebanon in 2006, some Magdouchians were nervous their village might be targeted by enraged Muslims, but Hezbollah reassured them this would not happen. It backed this up by protecting Magdoucheh and all other Christian villages inside its territory.

*

2020 saw the assassinations of a top Iranian general and its leading nuclear scientist. An explosion in Beirut wrecked its port and hundreds of buildings. Though the war in Syria has cooled down, it persists. To most Lebanese, these attacks are parts of the long-standing Jewish/American war on the Iranian/Syrian/Hezbollah Axis of Resistance (against Israel).

So who’s winning this conflict? Obviously Israel, if you consider how their recent assaults have met with almost no retaliation, and how many Muslim nations have normalized relations with the Jewish state. Just this year, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Sudan and Morocco have done so, and soon, Oman, Pakistan and Indonesia may join them. Israel is here to stay, it’s clear, while the Axis of Resistance is economically crippled, diplomatically isolated and militarily impotent, no?

A closer look, though, will reveal that Israel’s solidity is entirely illusory, for its sugar daddy, slave and hired gun has been economically, politically, socially, intellectually and morally imploded, thanks, in large part, to the machination of Jewish power, ironically.

Driven by spite, hubris and contempt, it doesn’t know when to stop. Wagging the dog for decades, the all-too-clever tail has just about killed it. Uncle Sam has been reduced to a limp and blathering cross-dresser with less than a penny in his pockets.

Ah, but Sammy and his Jewish boss still have plenty of nukes! Going under, they may not hesitate to unleash a bunch. To get rid of the Jewish/American Axis of Evil, this might be the price Lebanon, the Middle East and the rest of humanity will have to pay.

Flying into Beirut two months ago, I suspected explosive events by the end of the year, especially near the American presidential election. Despite continuing turbulence everywhere, life has limped on, however, within the sick terms of our new normal.

In three days, I’ll leave for Cairo, the Mother of the World. Lovely Lebanon is still at peace, and that’s what I will remember. I won’t forget its rocky hills, olive groves, large curtains over entire balconies, old houses still stunning despite much neglect, quirky purse-shaped bread and relaxed, pleasant people everywhere.

Though the next cataclysm seems imminent, it will surely rise from the ruins.

Next Month in Jerusalem!

As published at Unz Review and TruthSeeker, 11/24/20:





Traveling is not just a shifting of the body, but a reorientation of the mind, so here in Lebanon, I can’t help but think about Islam, because I’m surrounded by Muslims, and the fajr call to prayer wakes me each dawn.

Iran’s most advanced missiles are called Fajr, by the way, a mere coincidence, I’m sure. Dispatched to Hezbollah, they have been used to rouse Jews.

Before Lebanon, I was in North Macedonia, and there, my friend Alex would refer to Muslim calls to prayer as “Tarzan five times a day.” As a Christian, Alex resents Muslim encroachment onto his physical or mental space. There is a turf war there, with churches and mosques springing up to assert each camp’s territories. Some old churches are even marked by new giant crosses to declare, “We’re still here.”

In 2016, Israel banned three East Jerusalem mosques from broadcasting their fajr calls to prayer. Netanyahu explained, “I cannot count the times—they are simply too numerous—that citizens have turned to me from all parts of Israeli society, from all religions, with complaints about the noise and suffering caused to them by the excessive noise coming to them from the public address systems of houses of prayer.”

Being in Lebanon forces me to think even harder about Israel, naturally, and not just because Jewish jets fly over my head several times a day. For two generations already, Lebanon has been warped and menaced by Jews, when not outright destroyed by them, with its cities bombed and civilians massacred. In every village or neighborhood, there are public portraits of men, mostly young, who died fighting Jews, and the closer you get to Occupied Palestine, the more numerous these faces appear.

Once the jewel of the Middle East, Beirut is still dynamic, incredibly, though much battered, with Beirutshima the latest assault against it. Gloating over their likely handiwork, Jews rejoiced at that calamity. As with the Holocaust and 9/11, the truth will come out, because it can’t be smothered forever by Jews with their meaningless charge of “anti-Semitism.”

There is no buffer zone between Israel and Lebanon, just a concrete wall or, even more incredibly, a wire fence. From Lebanon, I can see Jewish farms, orchards and houses, but no soldiers, or even people, just a yellow tractor moving in the distance.

At these dicey settlements, the laborers tend to be dark Ethiopians and Yemenis, for Ashkenazim just aren’t desperate enough, though they will be soon, God willing. With a second passport, many are already prepared to become your neighbors.

On the Lebanese side, houses, shops and cafes rush right up to the border. As Jews keep out of sight, Lebanese go on with life.

The border wall is filled with murals and graffiti, with several depictions of Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock, and there’s even a model of it at a traffic circle, next to the wall. A smoking tank painted by “Sara” is accompanied by this taunt, “Merkava / Pride of Israel.” There’s a portrait of a saluting Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah. In southern Lebanon, this Shiite Party of God is the de facto government.

In Aadaysit Marjaayoun, there’s a billboard showing the Iraqi Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis, the Iranian Qasem Soleimani and the Lebanese Imad Mughniyeh. The first two were assassinated by the USA, the last by Israel. The Jewish state is a stone’s throw away.

Even standing on tiptoes, I can’t see Jerusalem. I’m heartbroken. I came to Lebanon primarily to board a cheap van from Sidon to Jerusalem, and inshallah, perhaps that can still happen, and not next year but by Christmas.

In 621, Mohammed was carried from Mecca to Jerusalem by a buraq, a winged animal that’s smaller than a mule and larger than a donkey. As if that isn’t cool enough, that same night Mohammed also met Adam, Idris, Moses, Jesus, Abraham and Allah Himself, on different tiers of heaven. (God was on the 7th floor.)

Mosh’s conduct is most fascinating. When Mohammed told Moses that Allah had commanded 50 daily prayers for Islam, the Jew boss urged the first Muslim to haggle it down to 25, then five, but even that was deemed too onerous, so go back and Jew Allah some more, Mosh urged. Mohammed couldn’t do it, “Now I feel shy of asking my Lord again.”

*

In Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky mentions an Ivan Kramskoi painting, “The Contemplator,” with its solitary figure standing in the cold, transfixed.

The master then riffs, “If you nudged him, he would give a start and look at you as if he had just woken up, but without understanding anything. It’s true that he would come to himself at once, and yet, if he were asked what he had been thinking about while standing there, he would most likely not remember, but would most likely keep hidden away in himself the impression he had been under while contemplating. These impressions are dear to him, and he is most likely storing them up imperceptibly and even without realizing it—why and what for, he does not know either; perhaps suddenly, having stored up his impressions over many years, he will drop everything and wander off to Jerusalem to save his soul, or perhaps he will suddenly burn down his native village, or perhaps he will do both.”

After endless contemplation, and a lifetime of hoarding impressions, the thoughtful man springs into action by destroying his past and going to Jerusalem, where he will be saved, or so he thinks. According to the Midrash, God Himself must go there before entering heaven, “I will not come into the city of Jerusalem that is above until I first come into the city of Jerusalem that is below.” Is there a greater geographical idée fixe?

After trekking 2,000 miles, 13,000 Crusaders reached Jerusalem in 1099. After an eight-day siege, they entered it to slaughter roughly 40,000 Muslims, Jews and even Christians. Kill them all and so forth.

Among the invaders was Raymond d’Aguilers, “But now that our men had possession of the walls and towers, wonderful sights were to be seen. Some of our men (and this was more merciful) cut off the heads of their enemies; others shot them with arrows, so that they fell from the towers; others tortured them longer by casting them into the flames. Piles of heads, hands, and feet were to be seen in the streets of the city. It was necessary to pick one’s way over the bodies of men and horses. But these were small matters compared to what happened at the Temple of Solomon, a place where religious services are ordinarily chanted. What happened there? If I tell the truth, it will exceed your powers of belief. So let it suffice to say this much, at least, that in the Temple and porch of Solomon, men rode in blood up to their knees and bridle reins. Indeed, it was a just and splendid judgment of God that this place should be filled with the blood of the unbelievers, since it had suffered so long from their blasphemies. The city was filled with corpses and blood.”

A year earlier in Ma’arra, Syria, Crusaders gorged on human flesh, by their own admissions. Radulph of Caen, “Our troops boiled pagan adults whole in cooking pots; they impaled children on spits and devoured them grilled.” The quest for Jerusalem, then, can fling open the gate of hell, but it doesn’t have to. When Saladin conquered it in 1187, all he demanded of the vanquished was an exit fee, not unlike what’s required at some shitty airports, still.

This forgiving arrangement clearly irritated many of his followers. Ibn al-Athir, “The Patriarch of the Franks left with a large amount, which God alone could grasp, of the wealth of the churches, such as the [Dome of] the Rock, the Aqsa, the Holy Sepulchre and others. He himself had a comparable amount but Saladin did not trouble him. It was suggested to him that he should seize what he had to strength the Muslims’ cause but he said, ‘I will not act treacherously towards him,’ and all he took from him was ten dinars.”

The Mongols’ surge into the Levant has been dubbed La Croisade Jaune, but joking aside, it’s truer to tag Crusaders as The White Horde, for terrorizing all, they looted, murdered and raped their way to the Holy Land. Going home, though, they brought enough knowledge, wisdom and techniques from the East to revive a dark and slumbering Europe, resulting, eventually, in the Renaissance. Not a bad deal.

*

Before entering the White House, Trump promised to build a border wall, bring outsourced jobs back, drain the fetid Beltway swamp and even prosecute Hillary Clinton. Unsurprisingly, at least to this observer, Trump has done none of that.

As expected, ordinary Americans are hung out to dry, again. More economically hamstrung than ever, they’re also stoked daily, by the Jewish-controlled media, into screaming at, sucker punching or even shooting each other. Though American elections have been rigged for decades, the last one was transparently obscene, so as to trigger left, right and centrist Americans into a battle royale, as they sit back and watch, laughing. Blindfolded, you swing.

Subservient, the American President has only kept his promises to Jews. Iran’s economy is strangled and its top general murdered, the US embassy is in Jerusalem, illegal settlements are kosher and the Golan Heights belongs to Israel. Leaving, Trump has dispatched top officials to Israel to make sure there’s a smooth transition to the next puppets, not that Jews are sweating over that.

They’re only losing sleep over my neighbors, the farmers, petty merchants and mechanics, etc., that make up Hezbollah.

Borrowing from Jews, Hezbollah fighters also wish each other, “Next year in Jerusalem!” Undoubtedly, this is also an acknowledgment, wink, wink, of Islam’s Abrahamic roots.

It’s time for a reconciliation of the Semites, which means the latest white invaders must leave, just like the Crusaders.

Even more benevolent than Saladin, Hezbollah won’t even squeeze a dinar from them.





[for more on Hezbollah, check out Taxi's "Hezbollah the Beautiful"]

Battered But Unbroken Lebanon

As published at Unz Review, 11/17/20:





From this elevated village, you can see the ocean on clear days. So close, it’s only three hours away by foot. For millennia, traders passed by that ridge, right there, on their journey from Sidon to Damascus.

Sidon’s souq is gloriously intact. Once entered, it’s impossible to not get lost for hours, and maybe even permanently. I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that citizens of every country have been swallowed by this ancient warren, but don’t worry, they’re fine, if not home. It’s an Italo Calvino’s kind of a maze.

The souq’s winding passages often darken and shrink to accommodate only wide-eyed shorties. Wandering past, over and under centuries-old stone blocks, you are cushily embraced by the mother of all wombs or tombs, history itself.

Under multiple arches, a brightly hijabed woman steps into sunlight. Two girls, one in pajamas, stand on tiptoes to peek inside a 17th century mosque’s barred window. With so much bending over, women shouldn’t pray near men, it is reasoned.

Inside hovel-sized shops are clothing, furniture, nuts, vegetables, meat, potato chips and sodas, but no Almaza, Beirut Beer, arak or any other alcohol. Men cut hair beneath hushed TVs. Boys shoot pool or sit, zombielike, in front of video games. Eateries dish up tabbouleh, hummus, falafel, bulgur or pizza. Ambling, a coffee seller makes castanets-like sounds with his metal clappers.

Images of a smiling Yasser Arafat, often young and movie-star dashing, dot this souq. For all his missteps and ultimate failure, Arafat is an enduring symbol of Palestinian resistance to Jews, so he’s reverently displayed on many Sidon walls, fridges and coolers.

Lest you think Sidon is all historical and picturesque, I should stress that much of it is banal, modern and even crass. There are two McDonald’s, a Burger King, a Hardee’s, a KFC and a Popeye’s Fried Chicken. At the last, I learnt that “The Trinity” is no eternal mystery but merely “a Cajun combination of bell pepper, celery and onion […] used in Popeye’s gravy, gumbo and jambalaya.”

There are more Mercedes Benzes in Lebanon than just about anywhere else, but they’re not gleaming and spiffy. Decades-old, some are just puttied and duct-taped junks over stubbornly functioning engines.

*

After three weeks in southern Lebanon, I’ve only walked through Sidon twice. Al hamdullilah, I am a country boy, if only temporarily.

Tonight, there’s a wedding in the next village, on the opposite hill. Can’t you hear the tabla, tambourine, flute and violin? Open your window to let that communal, surging joy flush away your misery and bitterness. Notice how nearly all their houses are dark? The entire village is at that wedding, naturally.

In their lurid and sequined abayas, girls on high heels will totter home to change outfits all evening long, so they can reappear, again and again, even more beautiful. Weddings are about the only occasions where maidens can showcase themselves to potential suitors. The young men, too, are resplendent.

(Yes, I’m way too klutzy for the dabke. Tripping over myself, I’d drag the whole line down. With my arms and legs flailing, I’d kick both bride and groom.)

Old enough, surely you remember the Saturday night dances in all these villages? They were canceled by the war and haven’t returned. Alcohol in public places disappeared, too. Personally, I think it’s a shame.

Not everything is lost. There’s still poetry, though more often, it’s declaimed on television and not at a village cafe. At least there’s no Snoop Doggy Dogg blaring from passing cars.

It’s quiet here. Now and then, there are gunshots, but it’s only a hunter, targeting birds. A few times daily, Jewish jets may thunder above the clouds. Stray dogs in heat bark before dawn, and as pale light washes over the sky, the first prayer call wakes and soothes us all.

This morning, we also hear the muezzin announcing a neighbor has just died. Diagnosed with stomach cancer just a month ago, Aleyna was only forty-years-old. Yesterday, she sounded and looked perfectly fine, but such is life. She never married.

In case you’re wondering why women are banned from this village’s funerals, it’s because they had the jarring habit of tearing their clothes off before hurling themselves into the burial pit. Enough, it was sensibly decided. When the deceased is safely interred, women can wail away at the grave.

With running water and washing machines, women are getting soft, we can agree. Only half a century ago, they had no problem walking half a mile down the hill to fetch water from the well, then trudge back up, with a heavy jar on their head, their back military straight, lips smiling, with barely a grunt escaping. When it’s time to give birth, they just squat.

Water is a painful subject around here. After Jews stole the Golan Heights, they diverted much of its water to themselves, thus crippling scores of Arab villages in Lebanon, Jordan and Syria.

In Occupied Palestine, Jews have destroyed hundreds of thousands of Palestinian olive trees. Palestinians harvesting olives are shot at by Jews with impunity. Jews wreck goyim’s livelihood and heritage, when not uprooting or slaughtering them. Honed on genocide, they can’t help it. Just look out your window.

*

Three weeks in Lebanon and I’ve already been to Beirut more times than half the people in this village. Consider Soheil, for example. With a wife and five children, this 36-year-old gardener has seven mouths to feed daily, so why would he go anywhere? He’s visited Beirut maybe twice.

A woman of roughly the same age was hired to clean an apartment in Beirut, so she went there for the first time. Coming and going, she looked but didn’t say much. Was there anything she wanted to see? The airport, she mousily answered, so fine, she was driven there. Seeing airplanes landing, taking off or just parked was so delightful, she was even emboldened afterwards to ask for music on the car radio.

Though I’ve spoken often of being grounded, they simply are, so who’s better equipped moving forward? Who’s more content? Do you have a village to speak of? Do you want one?

Like me, your next village may be your first, if you can reach it.

*

Founded by Phoenicians, Sidon has been ruled by Persians, Greeks, Romans, Turks, Egyptians, Syrians, Arabs and Frenchmen. After a 47-day siege in 1110, it was conquered by Crusaders, with King Sigurd of Norway leading the sea assault. Even Mongols showed up in 1260 to sack it, on their way to Gaza.

Sidon’s treasures have mostly been burnt, shattered, pulverized or carted off, with the Eshmunazar II Sarcophagus squirreled in the Louvre, and the Alexander Sarcophagus sitting in Istanbul.

Although Crusaders controlled Sidon for over a century, all that’s left of their presence is a broken castle, jutting into the sea, and here and there, a freckled face with brownish or red hair.

As the latest invaders of this region, Jews, too, will fade away.

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Lebanese Snippets

As published at Unz Review and TruthSeeker, 11/8/20:






Every village has its idiot, but in Sidon, they're all idiots, Ali informed me as we drove, again, through this gorgeous and mellow city. And they're cowards too, Ali added, chuckling. "They do not like to fight."

"Maybe they're like that because this city is so beautiful." I wanted to say soft, but when speaking to someone with only basic English, you must constantly pare down your vocabulary, and stay away from colloquialism and slang.

"I love Lebanon more than myself," Ali declared. "If no war, Lebanon is so beautiful. Lebanon is the only country with mountain next to sea. We have everything here, snow, beach, everything." Ali nodded towards the hazy mountains on this overly bright day. It is remarkable. In half an hour, you can drive from banana groves to evergreen forests. Many have skied in the morning, then swam in the ocean in the afternoon. "We have everything but a government!" We laughed.

As we passed a woman in blue jeans and long-sleeved black top, Ali smiled and honked. Her face stayed passive. "Do you know her?" I asked.

"No, no, she’s a bad girl."

"A prostitute?"

"Yes." The young lady did arch her back to accentuate her big butts.

"Lebanese?"

"No, Syrian. Maybe Palestinian."

When I remarked that American streetwalkers tend to not be so beautiful, Ali said, "The most beautiful prostitutes are in bars. You go there, see her. If you pay $100, you can have her for seven hours."

“So you know!” I slapped Ali on the shoulder.

“I know, but I don’t go.”

There’s a large Palestinian refugee camp in Sidon. A semi-autonomous community, it has its own schools, clinics and even police. Although its inhabitants are free to come and go, outsiders aren’t allowed in.

Fleeing Jewish mayhem and carnage, Palestinians, Iraqis and Syrians have all fled to Lebanon, and before that, there was a flood of Armenians escaping genocide by the Turks.

Even with its constant turmoil and a shaky economy, Lebanon has also attracted eager immigrants from all over. There are 175 Vietnamese here, working mostly as maids, and many thousands more from the Philippines, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and Senegal, etc.

Traveling up to two hours, Filipinas flock to English-language masses at Beirut’s Saint Francis, and nearby are Pinoy restaurants and groceries. I plan on checking out Le Hanoi, Beirut’s only Vietnamese restaurant, if it’s still cooking after Covid and Beirutshima. It was only 1/3 mile away from that monstrous blast.

*

Meet Christine, a 42-year-old Filipina who’s been in Lebanon for six years. “I love Lebanon, sir. This country give me everything. That’s why I always say, ‘Alhamdulillah! Alhamdulillah!’” Praise to God! Used to calling people sir or madame, Christine extends to me that courtesy. Barely literate even at home, she has managed to learn enough English and Arabic to get by. On some Sundays, she goes to a church in Maghdoucheh.

“Do you understand the sermon?”

“Some, sir, and I can sing.”

“In Arabic?”

“Yes, sir. People look at me. Whoaa!” Christine widens her eyes. “I don’t care, sir,” she laughs. “I sing.”

Going to church, Christine snared a local boyfriend, so she’s also grateful about that. Alhamdulillah! Her husband was a drunk, brute and serial skirt chaser, but after two near-death experiences, he’s become more sober and responsible. Each month, Christine sends money to support their three kids.

Every two years, Christine goes home, a trip that takes two full days. Landing in Manila, she still has to take a 20-hour bus trip to her village on a mountain.

“Look at my daughter, sir.” She shows me her phone.

“How old is she?”

“Twenty-two, sir. She in school.”

“Studying what?”

“Nursing. She almost finish. She tell me, ‘Mama, I want to study more,’ so I say, ‘Don’t worry, I send you money.’ If she want to be a doctor, I send her money.”

“That’s great.”

Arriving in Lebanon, Christine had but a tiny and ridiculous-looking blue suitcase. She had never opened a fridge. She ate so much her first month, she always felt ill. Homesick, she also cried constantly.

“I have three sister in Lebanon, sir. I had four, but she married a nigger.” Struggling to find the right word, Christine’s dark face looks very confused. “A negro, sir, a nigger…”

“She married a black man?”

“Yes, sir. He half black. They in Hawaii now.”

“Wow! But you still have three sisters here?”

“Yes, sir. One sister in Lebanon 27 year!”

“That’s incredible. Do you see them often?”

“Sometime, sir. They live far.”

Darker than all her siblings, Christine was least loved, so haunted by this handicap, perhaps, she tells me she has Spanish blood, and not just a drop or two, but loads of it. “Look at my eye, sir.”

*

In Al-Quala’a, I’m being housed and fed by the blogger, Taxi. Through her, I was also introduced to the legendary journalist, Ali Ballout, now retired. Though not in great health, Ballout can’t wean himself from world events, so he spends nearly every waking hour fixated on televised news or discussion shows from various countries, with only an occasional break to watch goofy, escapist movies, in Arabic, English or French.

On his living room wall, there are framed photos of Ballout with George Habash, Shafiq al-Hout, King Hussein of Jordan, Yasser Arafat, Zhou Enlai, Kim Il-sung, Muammar Gaddafi and Saddam Hussein, etc. In his TV room, there’s one of Ballout leaving prison, looking dapper in a casual suit and holding a cigar, though still in handcuffs.

Ballout was jailed three times, the first in 1973 for reporting a secret meeting between Golda Meir and King Hussein. A year later, Ballout got locked up again for publishing a letter from Saudi King Faysal to Lyndon B. Johnson.

In this region, Ballout had unmatched access to powerful figures and sources of information. He served as a backchannel between Damascus and Baghdad, as well as Baghdad and Washington. Ballout knew Saddam Hussein for over 30 years.

After Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990, Ballout went to Baghdad with a message from the Americans. If Saddam would declare his intention to withdraw within five days, the US would force Kuwait to reimburse Iraq for the stolen oil, plus lease Bubiyan Island to Iraq for 20 years.

As a fellow Arab, Ballout told the Iraqis they should snag this deal, “We’re faced with two choices. We can withdraw and fulfil some of the conditions on our own terms, or they will smash our bones.” Proud and deluded, Saddam ignored Ballout’s counsel.

Preparing to topple Saddam in 2003, the Americans asked Ballout about Saddam’s inner circle. Since Saddam’s totally isolated, a coup would be preferable to an invasion, Ballout said, thus sparing Iraq from destruction. Since this was a key Israeli objective, however, Washington went ahead and smashed that society. Mission accomplished.

On his couch, Ballout reflected, “I liked Saddam. Before he went mad, he accomplished a lot. He could rule his country, but not control his family. Also, the Americans put a lot of pressure on him for nine years.”

Just before he was lynched, Saddam shouted, “Long live free Arab Palestine!” Although Saddam massacred plenty of Shiites, even they admire his sane and rousing last words.

On one of my visits, the TV announced Robert Fisk had just died. “He was a very good friend,” Ballout sighed. “Now, I’ll have to erase his name from my phone.”

*

In 1982, Fisk witnessed the immediate aftermath of the Jewish-sanctioned and abetted Christian militia’s massacre of Palestinians in the Chatila Refugee Camp. Wading into this horror, Fisk leaves the most clear-eyed and damning account:

It was the flies that told us. There were millions of them, their hum almost as eloquent as the smell. Big as bluebottles, they covered us, unaware at first of the difference between the living and the dead. If we stood still, writing in our notebooks, they would settle like an army—legions of them—on the white surface of our notebooks, hands, arms, faces, always congregating around our eyes and mouths, moving from body to body, from the many dead to the few living, from corpse to reporter, their small green bodies panting with excitement as they found new flesh upon which to settle and feast.

[…]

There had been massacres before in Lebanon, but rarely on this scale and never overlooked by a regular, supposedly disciplined army.

[…]

There were babies – blackened babies because they had been slaughtered more than 24 hours earlier and their small bodies were already in a state of decomposition—tossed into rubbish heaps alongside discarded US army ration tins, Israeli army medical equipment and empty bottles of whisky.

[…]

The whole embankment of muck shifted and vibrated with my weight in a dreadful, springy way and, when I looked down again, I saw that the sand was only a light covering over more limbs and faces. A large stone turned out to be a stomach. I could see a man’s head, a woman’s naked breast, the feet of a child. I was walking on dozens of corpses which were moving beneath my feet.

[…]

How could I explain to them that the terrorists had left, that the terrorists had worn Israeli uniforms, that the terrorists had been sent into Chatila by Israeli officers, that the victims of the terrorists were not Israelis but Palestinians and Lebanese?

Jews chased Palestinians into Lebanon, then stoked the tension of this refugee crisis to have them exterminated. With variations, it’s in their playbook.

With groveling Uncle Sam behind them, Jews have illegally dropped cluster, nail and phosphorous bombs on Lebanon.

*

Already in 1948, Jews invaded Lebanon to slaughter up to 58 unarmed men from a village, Hula. This was not a battle, just innocent people being killed, unprovoked. For this crime, only one Jewish soldier, Shmuel Lahis, was court-martialed, but his seven-year sentence was quickly reduced to one, before Lahis was entirely pardoned. Absolved, Lahis would become the Director General of the Jewish Agency for Israel, the largest Jewish non-profit in the world. A butcher of goys became the face of Jewish charity.

Since then, many more Lebanese have been killed by Jews, so the country is filled with memorials that also serve as inspiration and challenge for continued resistance. At the entrance to Al Quala’a, for example, there are ten portraits of local Hezbollah fighters who died fighting Jews. Two were smooth-faced teenagers. Driving by, Ali mumbled, “My brother died in 1987.”

“He was with Hezbollah?”

“Yes.”

“How old was he?”

“Twenty-two.”

Memorials are hung on utility poles, store fronts and private balconies. Though dead young men stare back at you everywhere, they’re less visible in congested, urban neighborhoods, with so many other signs to crowd them out.

Above Sweet Bites in Al Quala’a, there’s a banner of a silhouetted warrior being pierced by a dozen arrows and a lance. It’s Husayn ibn Ali, Mohammad’s grandson. With just 70 warriors, Husayn fought to the death in 680 against an army of thousands. Within sight of this image is one honoring Musa al-Sadr, an important Shiite leader who’s widely believed to have been killed by Gaddafi in 1978. In Bourj el-Barajneh, a Shiite suburb of Beirut, I saw a portrait of General Qasem Soleimani on a soft drink cooler. Whether martyred yesterday or centuries ago, righteous, brave and selfless men inspire people here.

Warring against Jewish invaders in the 1980’s, many Hezbollah fighters dug their own grave and slept in it, to show they weren’t afraid to die. Just as with Jesus, a transcending, redeeming death is celebrated and honored. (Seeing an image of Mary holding Jesus in a butcher’s shop, I simply assumed he was Christian. Taxi, “No, he’s Muslim.” Unlike Jews, Muslims revere Mary and Jesus.)

On Lebanese television, time is always coupled with “Jerusalem,” as in, “Join us tonight for our special program, at 6, Jerusalem time,” and Israel is nearly always referred to as “Occupied Palestine.” Not by choice, Lebanese have been at war, off and on, ever since the Jewish state was founded. They won’t regain normalcy until that genocidal abomination disappears. What a warped nightmare!

Going home, millions of Palestinians can rediscover their truer selves, and so will you.





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[Husayn ibn Ali]


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[Musa al-Sadr]


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Local Hezbollah fighter killed by Jewish invaders.


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Local Hezbollah fighters killed by Jewish invaders.


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With humongous set, Dubai television covers American election.


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Hezbollah television with morning exercise program.


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Sunni television covering protest at French Embassy in Beirut on 11/3/20.


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French television interviewing professor Crystal Fleming of Stony Brook University about American racism, sexism and white supremacist violence should Trump lose.


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