❊ Lebanon’s Israel Taboo

I was reading my previous post and thinking: Seriously, how better could this have been resolved?

We never really made up rules on the matter of relating in any way with Israelis. The only universal rule seems to be: If you’re doing it, try to avoid publicity in any way possible. This is why If you live abroad and have some Israeli friends, you try not to mention that in a Lebanese public forum. If you’re Miss Lebanon, you try not to take pictures with Miss Israel, and if you’re a Lebanese army official in the south, you always insist that your coordination with Israeli officials for border control is indirect and is done through third parties.

If the World Press photo exhibit took place, you know there would have been an Assafir journalist who would have loved the scoop of pointing out that there’s a photograph by an Israeli hanging in Beirut. He would then have used it as a sad commentary on the state of Lebanese affairs and how the Lebanese are forgetting the blood of their brothers spilled by the Israelis. Likewise, some journalist in Israel would have picked up on the story and also blown it out of proportion. He would have celebrated the dawning of an era in which Lebanon and Israel are friends..

The problem with this kind of Lebanese censorship is that it’s completely for political consumption. Anne Frank’s diaries are officially banned in Lebanon, but nobody will check your kindle or your laptop to see if you have it in a different format. Politicians often make a big deal out of not attending international conferences because of Israeli presence, but our hospitals happily use Israeli technologies and spare-parts, because they’re “imported from Europe”. Travelers who have been to Israel are banned from coming to Lebanon, but this can be easily resolved by using a different passport that you never used for travelling to Israel (just ask Lisa Goldman)

It all boils down, I realized, to the same golden rule: If for some reason you’re doing it, just avoid being caught in public. The organizers of the world press photo exhibit were caught. A Lebanese way of solving the problem would have been: Replace the Israeli guy’s name with his initials and don’t mention his nationality anywhere. Maybe then you would have gotten away with it.