Never has a war been blogged with such immediacy as the recent Israeli onslaught on southern Lebanon. The passion, anguish, and intelligence of bloggers on both sides have been uniquely displayed. In the first of an ongoing series of Blog Digests, Michael Totten sifts through this enormous output and presents the best of these dispatches. Excerpt: Letter to Israel: You Have Made a Terrible Mistake by Carine at Chercheuse d’or in Lebanon Bravo ya Israel... You are destroying Lebanon, and it's the worst move you ever could have made. Everyone who can is leaving. And they're not just going to sit tight until this ends, packed bags waiting by the door... they're looking for jobs outside Lebanon, resettling. The Israeli fantasy of the Lebanese rising up against Hezbollah won't happen. Why? Because Hezbollah supporters will soon be the only ones left in the country. Just a few minutes ago, a dear friend of mine called to say he was evacuating in a few hours for the Gulf. One of the people I thought would never leave. But he has no work here anymore, and he just can't afford to stay. I begged him to promise he'll come back when this is over. The sadness in his voice as he replied cannot be described. "Carine... come back to what?" You are driving everyone away. Why do you hit towns like Ehden and Jounieh, why do you hit LBC towers and Lebanese army installations, if you are only after Hezbollah? The supermarkets are stripped bare, the streets are empty. People simply cannot stay. After you lift your siege, the only people left in Lebanon will be the poor Shia who have lost everything in the war: friends, families, their homes. Even if you succeed in destroying Hezbollah, do you think 100 new Hezbollahs won't spring up from all this misery? And where will the displaced live, now that their towns and neighborhoods have been decimated? A friend in the Chouf reports that his entire town has been taken over by southern Shia-- and their militiamen, who now roam the streets. So the Druze residents of the village have all left. In Achrafieh, Lebanese Forces members have started patrolling at night to make sure displaced people don't try to break into buildings or cause trouble in the streets. It reeks of impending sectarian conflict. The most ironic part, ya Israel, is that Lebanon is the only country in the region that could've potentially, someday, been a friend. A warm peace rather than a cold one. I always heard, from people who'd travelled to Israel, that the two countries were remarkably similar (aside from the big political issues, of course). They said Tel Aviv was essentially Beirut in Hebrew. And recently, the subject of peace had started to enter polite conversation here. No one is talking about peace anymore. Aside from the obvious reason-- no one will forget (or forgive) the atrocities committed here for a long, long time-- people also won't bring it up because it's irrelevant. Peace was usually discussed in the context of it being good for tourism and the economy. What tourism? What economy? Both are dead here. Shops and businesses are closing every day. Most of my friends have lost their jobs. Yes, ok: you had to get your soldiers back. Ok, you wanted to get rid of Hezbollah once and for all. But your soldiers are still missing, and you have made your own country far less safe. You may say that Lebanon brought this upon itself, but that is exactly what people will be saying to you, ya Israel, in the future. You have made the situation much, much worse for yourself. And you have killed something fragile that you ought to have nourished: a liberal Arab neighbor. I don't want to start considering that Lebanon may be dead forever, that the businesses won't reopen, that life won't flow back into Beirut. Because if that is really true, I'm not sure I will ever be able to be happy again. I feel like my heart is dead right now, because this country is and always has been my whole heart. |