Civilian Resistance in Lebanon

by Ramzi Kysia

Last week, I made my first trip to South Lebanon since the war began. Having traveled a fifth of the world, and been present during “wars” in Iraq, Palestine, and New York – I can honestly say that I have never seen such complete devastation in my entire life. The only thing that even comes close are the pictures I’ve seen from World War II. Much of South Lebanon simply lies in ruin.

In the South, Israeli warplanes occasionally break the sound barrier, rattling people as they fly off on God knows what missions. Israeli drones constantly fly overhead. The low, insistent hum of their engines serves as a continual reminder that Lebanon is not yet safe.

Bombed out gas stations and the twisted, blackened remains of what once were cars line the roads. The roads themselves are a wreck, pockmarked with craters and covered by fallen bridges, in places completely impassable. There are miles of roads lined with chalk-colored vegetation, so covered are they from the dust of destroyed buildings that you can see no green whatsoever. Almost every single city and village throughout South Lebanon has significant war damage. Almost every single one. The dead are still being pulled from the rubble.

In Qantara, a village of some three hundred and fifty families, twenty-five homes are destroyed, and another fifty seriously damaged. A man passes out pictures of his fifteen year old son in barely controlled panic. He hasn’t seen the boy for nearly a month.

by Adam Shapiro

Each day and night of the week I have been here, I have heard and felt the impact of Israel’s advanced weaponry as it crashes into buildings, roads, bridges and other infrastructure of Beirut. But it is not only concrete and steel that is hit; it is also Lebanese men, women and children, such as the dozens who were killed in the Cheyyah neighborhood a few days ago.

This week, Lebanese, Palestinian and international activists here in Beirut have been meeting and planning a response to Israel’s aggression against Lebanon. Not that we have military technology, or a huge force field to repel the missiles, at our disposal. What we who are unarmed, who believe in strategic nonviolence as a strategy to overcome brute military force, have at our disposal is determination, moral ground to stand on, and a fundamental belief that our human and political rights must be claimed and asserted. This is particularly so in the face of an aggressive force that destroys life and limb and shows no mercy for human rights, human dignity and the ability of people to live on their land.

by Paul Larudee
ISM volunteer in Lebanon

At 8:00 this morning in Beirut’s Martyr’s Square, commemorating the deaths of 33 Lebanese patriots in 1916, the doubts about a Lebanese civil resistance movement against Israel’s invasion of the south were swept away. Only twenty-four hours earlier, the organizers could assure only six cars, no gasoline and an uncertain number of volunteers. Should we cancel? Change the objective? Postpone? After yet another difficult meeting we decided to plunge ahead, with several contingency plans.

This morning, however, we found ourselves with 52 vehicles, two to four volunteers per vehicle and a press corps swarming all around us. Each car sported a large Lebanese flag on its roof and was loaded with relief supplies for residents still in the town of Nabatiyya in south Lebanon after a million of their citizens had been put to flight by Israel’s policy of depopulating the region. After interviews and car assignments, the convoy headed through the pride of Beirut’s historic downtown business district - the section destroyed in Lebanon’s civil war but recently restored with care to its former glory.

The line of vehicles made its way deliberately through the city, pausing occasionally to let stragglers catch up. “What is this?” asked bystanders. “Where are you going?”

“To Nabatiyya.” replied the volunteers with pride. “We are a civil resistance campaign asserting our right to be in our lands.”

Friends,

I haven’t written much since arriving in Lebanon, and we’re afraid this will be short. It is now hours before our convoy to the south of Lebanon takes off. Our eight days here have been sad, frustrating, infuriating, and inspiring all at the same time. As many of you know, I came here as part of a small group, which included my husband, Adam, to explore the utility of establishing an international civilian presence in Lebanon to support the people of Lebanon in confronting Israeli aggression against their country. After a week of lots of debate, organizing, politicking and arguing, we held our final preparation meeting at a café called Taa Marbouta. This is a café that was due to open on July 20th, but because of the attack on Lebanon, the owners changed their plans and instead converted the café into a relief center. In the same building, which still has a brothel on the 4th floor, there are 5 other floors of Lebanese citizens from the south forced to flee by Israeli bombardment and destruction of their homes. Tonight, well over 100 people came to participate in the final preparations, receive instructions, and pick up the rations of food and medicine that we will carry to villagers in the south. While not much in terms of sustainable relief, this effort is meant as a political act to reject Israel’s efforts to impose its will and challenge the international community’s complicity in the suffering of the Lebanese people.

by Paul Larudee

The name Lebanon literally means “the land of milk.” It is one of the names given to a mythical earthly paradise in ancient times, usually located in one’s neighbor’s land, which typically justified the conquest of said neighbor, along with the assumption that your neighbors are barbarians and therefore a lower life form.

Of course, such justification is no longer permitted today under the Geneva conventions. Merely coveting one’s neighbor’s land is not enough, even if your neighbors are barbarians unworthy of life itself. Today we use word “terrorist” instead of barbarian, but even terrorists have rights, at least until John Woo, Donald Rumsfeld and Alberto Gonzales get their way with international law. A “terrorist threat” is therefore required as a security pretext for Israel to take land that it and its founders have coveted since at least 1918, when David Ben Gurion first described Lebanon’s Litani river as Israel’s future “natural” border to the north.

Yesterday the original meaning of Lebanon’s name came to mind as I sat on the transmission housing of a shared taxi on the way to Beirut from Damascus airport for five hours, watching the relatively barren Syrian countryside, which contrasts with Lebanon’s mountainous beauty and verdant hillsides. The tour was necessitated because the only remaining route into Lebanon was the longest possible one; all the rest had been closed by Israel’s bombing of the bridges. This one had no major bridges, so even if it is bombed, a rough detour is probably still possible.