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Sunday, July 30, 2006
More than crazed men involved in this conflict
First of all, a disclaimer:
I am not trying to write an op-ed here. I read something on Haaretz that I thought was insightful. My view on the Middle East crisis is an ever-forming one.
But I do think that a bunch of crazed men, lacking a sense of humanism and rationality, are driving this conflict. Actually, I must say, I think female Israeli soldiers can be just as egomaniacal as the little boys smashing in windows at the U.N. building in Beirut.
Ben Curtis/Associated Press (from the NY Times, Sunday, July 30,2006)
This letter is from someone who probably has a better grasp on Lebanese society than men who readily take up arms to kill their neighbors (as in Israelis).
From http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/743696.html (I will fix links ASAP)
I only included a part of the article, and I highly recommend the entire piece.
An 'e-mail from Nasrallah'
By Tom Segev
A man named Nasrallah whom I don't know sent me an e-mail this week. I thought that he was from Beirut. So I asked, naturally, and with no little hope, if there were a connection. As often happens in dialogues with our neighbors - this was the wrong question to ask. He has no connection to that Nasrallah, he replied, probably in a slightly reproachful tone.
The man in question is Yousry Nasrallah, the Egyptian film director. Recently he had directed the film "Bab al-Shams" ("The Gate of the Sun"), based on the book by Elias Khoury. Nasrallah forwarded to me a public appeal from Beirut, composed by Lebanese theater director Roger Assaf. He's one of the best there is in that country, Nasrallah wrote.
Along with the pope, the French president, the German chancellor and, of course, Israel, Assaf denounced the alliance between Syria and Iran, which has nothing at all to do with the true interest of Lebanon and has brought disaster upon it. His language is poetic. He writes about his dreams of a better world - one in which the children of Israel won't grow up amid the spirit of hatred and nationalist-militarist hysteria, one in which Palestinian and Lebanese children won't grow up amid the spirit of vengeance. He and his friends live in the spirit of Plato and Gandhi and Albert Camus and other humanist philosophers and intellectuals, he said.
Yousry Nasrallah sent me a second e-mail in which he explained the background to Assaf"s letter: "In July 2006, there are people (maybe I should use the past tense) who are neither with Iran, nor with Syria, nor with Hezbollah, nor with Israel. People who do not want to be used by either of these powers as human shields or targets. People who have tried these past few years to build a new Lebanon that is free from all this."
I am not trying to write an op-ed here. I read something on Haaretz that I thought was insightful. My view on the Middle East crisis is an ever-forming one.
But I do think that a bunch of crazed men, lacking a sense of humanism and rationality, are driving this conflict. Actually, I must say, I think female Israeli soldiers can be just as egomaniacal as the little boys smashing in windows at the U.N. building in Beirut.
Ben Curtis/Associated Press (from the NY Times, Sunday, July 30,2006)This letter is from someone who probably has a better grasp on Lebanese society than men who readily take up arms to kill their neighbors (as in Israelis).
From http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/743696.html (I will fix links ASAP)
I only included a part of the article, and I highly recommend the entire piece.
An 'e-mail from Nasrallah'
By Tom Segev
A man named Nasrallah whom I don't know sent me an e-mail this week. I thought that he was from Beirut. So I asked, naturally, and with no little hope, if there were a connection. As often happens in dialogues with our neighbors - this was the wrong question to ask. He has no connection to that Nasrallah, he replied, probably in a slightly reproachful tone.
The man in question is Yousry Nasrallah, the Egyptian film director. Recently he had directed the film "Bab al-Shams" ("The Gate of the Sun"), based on the book by Elias Khoury. Nasrallah forwarded to me a public appeal from Beirut, composed by Lebanese theater director Roger Assaf. He's one of the best there is in that country, Nasrallah wrote.
Along with the pope, the French president, the German chancellor and, of course, Israel, Assaf denounced the alliance between Syria and Iran, which has nothing at all to do with the true interest of Lebanon and has brought disaster upon it. His language is poetic. He writes about his dreams of a better world - one in which the children of Israel won't grow up amid the spirit of hatred and nationalist-militarist hysteria, one in which Palestinian and Lebanese children won't grow up amid the spirit of vengeance. He and his friends live in the spirit of Plato and Gandhi and Albert Camus and other humanist philosophers and intellectuals, he said.
Yousry Nasrallah sent me a second e-mail in which he explained the background to Assaf"s letter: "In July 2006, there are people (maybe I should use the past tense) who are neither with Iran, nor with Syria, nor with Hezbollah, nor with Israel. People who do not want to be used by either of these powers as human shields or targets. People who have tried these past few years to build a new Lebanon that is free from all this."
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