Editing the last chapter . . . on Saba and Shatila

I'm going to spend the whole weekend editing and reediting my book. Right now, I'm working the chapter on the Saba and Shatila refugee camps in South Beirut.

As some of you might know, the Saba and Shatila refugee camps home to the single most bloody event in the Arab-Israeli conflict. The massacre was done on the part of the Christian Phlangist Party against unarmed Palestinians. The Israelis armed, supervised, and gave logistical support to these Lebanese Christians as over 4,000 Palestinian men, women and children met their end.

Here is the quote that I used to start that chapter. It's from Chris Hedges.

We are all capable of carrying out acts of evil. That’s the great lesson you learn as a war correspondent, and probably the most disturbing. That the line between the victim and the victimizer is razor thin. That in moments of fear and instability and social disintegration we all have the capacity to carry out acts of atrocity, or at best stand by as silent accomplices. And almost no one is immune. The contagion of the crowds sees to that. When you externalize evil, you turn human being into extractions. Human beings like Muslims, for instance. That no longer grieve, or love, or suffer like we do. But embody a virus that must be eradicated.

Chris Hedges

Christopher Hitchens

"And we followed the trodden path down past the darkness to the bowels below. It was there we found our souls, dancing naked in the lake of fire and a sea of flesh and sweat. . . ." - Eric R.

RIP Chris.

Nasrallah shows himself

On December 6, the south Beiruti suburb of Dahiyeh had a thousands who gathered in the streets. They were celebrating Ashoura--the tenth day of Muharram, and the first month in the Islamic calendar. For the Shia, they are marking the killing of Imam Hussein, the grandson of the Prophet Mohamed, who was martyred in 680.

For a whole slew of reasons, Hassan Nasrallah decided to opt out of his normal on-screen broadcasts. This time, he made an appearance. Himself.

Perhaps it was because he felt that his party message was growing weak. Or that his support was in question. Whatever the reason, the heat is most definitely on The Party of God, as their regional supporters--Iran and Syria--are feeling it from within their own countries. The fiery Islamist who fought Israel in 2006 has waned from the minds of the so-called Arab Street. Nasrallah is now a whole Arab Spring ago.

Anyway, analyze--and over analyze--all you want about politics and "Why He Did It." (Or really, sound off in the comments section if you feel strongly about it.) But the real thing I'm getting at is that I saw a really powerful Al-Jazeera photo spread on the rally, and I thought it'd be something that the Readership of the Casbah would dig on. Here's my favorite pic . . . the guy with the machine gun to Nasrallah's left draws such intensity to the scene.



Update: If you have not seen the Bashar al-Assad interview with Barbera Walters, you should.

Russia is a "Bastion" of Syrian support

Nicholas A. Heras: A good friend, Levantine scholar, and best dude ever to crash around the Middle East with, just wrote a fine piece on Syria . . . and how the Russian regime is it's biggest "bastion" of support. Give it a read. He makes a convincing argument.

Russia: A ‘Bastion’ of Support for the Beleaguered Al-Assad Government

The current Syrian government is facing severe international criticism and diplomatic isolation. One ally of Syria, however, the Russian Federation, stands firmly in support of the legitimacy of the Al-Assad government.

Russia’s December 1^st announcement — that it has completed delivery of advanced “Yakhont” surface-to-sea missiles to Syria — comes at time when the international community is applying intense pressure to isolate the Syrian government. The delivery of the missiles, which completes a 2007 arms agreement between the two countries, is part of a larger “Bastion” coastal defense system delivered by the Russians to the Syrians. Not to be limited to just the sale of weapons, on November 31, the Russian news agency Pravda reported that a Russian naval exercise including a Russian aircraft carrier and its supporting flotilla, planned in 2010, would continue from a Russian resupply base in the Syrian coastal city of Tartus.

This “business as usual” approach to relations with the Al-Assad government is putting the Russian government in a controversial position and possible diplomatic confrontation with the USA, its middle eastern allies’ (mainly Saudi Arabia), and the international community, as it poses a challenge to the latter’s policy aspirations vis-à-vis Syria.

Click here to read the rest at Siyese.com