The July War, One Year On..

It’s now one year since the July war began. How time passes..

Protest in Berlin, Germany against the war

(PS: The links are now working)

I was in Lebanon when it all started. My family was preparing for my engagement dinner on July 13th. None of us was superstitious so we didn’t mind the date and thought everything would be smooth. How wrong we were.

When Hezbollah captured those Israeli soldiers, I was so angry with them and thought they had fatally overreached. We all knew Israel would react that way, how could Hezbollah have been so stupid?. 

As we were dancing away at the party in what we thought was the safety of Tripoli, my father in law kept getting newsflashes from fidgety waiters who were listening to the news: “They bombed the airport, should we call it off?” they shakily whispered in his ear. But my father in Law was adamant: don’t tell anyone, the party will not stop.

I was angry at Hezbollah, but thought that “this is not the time to settle scores. We are under attack and we have to stick together”. I offered a grand bargain:

We will support Hezbollah for now. We will unite behind them as long as we’re under attack. We will not criticize them publicly. They are welcome in our houses and in our cities. This is a time for unity, not squabbling.
[but after it’s all over]
We will make it clear to the world that Hezbollah is not speaking for all the Lebanese. We will make it well known that we will no longer accept unilateral decisions pertaining to war and peace

Oh, the Israeli acrimony in the comments section (which I took all off because they were in their hundreds and most of them were swearing anyway). Then came the useless blockade, and I thought: “Israel constantly underestimates the bonds common misery can create. They are using the wrong channels and are needlessly starving an entire nation and making it angrier.”

Israel then started bombing anything and everything, aid pledges start pouring in on Lebanon, with all the sit-ins and protests in many parts of the world, Americans started sending me emails telling me that they don’t hate me, but that governments have the right to defend themselves. 

But that wasn’t what I was thinking of. We lived in terror. Even in Tripoli, the sound of air conditioning sounded eerily like bombers, with rumors that the phone station next to our house is about to get bombed. I designed Tshirts: Stop bombing Lebanon, but no one listened. Even my summer mountain resort wasn’t spared..

The war, the blockade and the internet propaganda dragged on, couples were torn apart, the government and Hezbollah were breaking up, Qana happened again, prompting many questions. To me, it was clear: “Moral clarity: Israel is the enemy” I screamed. Perhaps Israel is doing this all for the water, I wondered.

The Israelis then started bombing communications. They were affecting all the Lebanese. I remember losing my internet connection and my mobile connection after one large kaboom. “I’m writing this article from an internet cafe [..] I’m writing from here because my satelite internet connection is no longer working. My connection suddenly died after I heard a very loud noise outside.” I wrote on July 22nd.

Israel’s war started affecting me personally more and more. I remember crossing a bridge once only to learn the next day that it was bombed by Israel.. 

I wondered back then “why is the world so surprised that we have chosen Hezbollah over Israel?”.

So many things have happened but I’m already too emotional and won’t go on and on. Still, you can read the entire war archives as experienced by me here and here..