The Return of Shylock
The BF just got off the phone with a friend of ours who is stranded in Lebanon at the moment -- she and her husband and their children. They're in Beirut, waiting for the U.S. Embassy's notification that the evacuation of Americans is to begin. She stated that some sick American children were evacuated yesterday, and that plans are being drawn up to get the rest of them out ASAP.
According to her information, there are 8,000 Americans eager to leave, yet room on the ships for only 3,000. Evacuation may take from 3 days to 3 weeks, depending upon coordinated help from other countries who have ships in the area. Unfortunately, all those ships are also tied up in the evacuation of citizens of their own, so it's anybody's guess as to who will get out when, and how. She added that everyone around her who can leave (those with dual citizenship or residency in other countries) is doing so -- leaving jobs, homes, everything -- and that the general consensus is that what's happening now between Israel and Hezbollah will make Lebanon's civil war look like chump change.
Which is scary, when you think about it.
On Michael J. Totten's blog, he's posted a letter from a friend of his in Lebanon, Lebanon.Profile, who goes on a rant against Israel for their attacks in Southern Lebanon, calling Israel "vicious" and stating "I tried to sympathize with you . . . I even gave you guys the benefit of the doubt at the beginning of this, as did most Lebanese. Even the Shia, Christians, and Druze in South Lebanon understood your position. Not any more." Totten backs him up, saying that "Israel thinks everyone hates them, and it's not true. But they will make it so if they do not pay more attention to the internal characteristics of neighboring countries . . . bombing neutrals, persuadables, and friends is strategically stupid. And cruel."
But just because some so-called Israel-friends living inside (and outside) of Lebanon turn against Israel when she aggressively defends herself, don't make the mistake of thinking that this is representative of how most Lebanese feel. My friend in Lebanon says that while the Lebanese citizens around her are frightened (and they have much to be frightened about), there is yet spontaneous applause at the sound of exploding bombs, and the talk is of how this is finally the confrontation that may end Hezbollah and its reign of militant Islamism in the region, that this may be the beginning of the welcome end of Syria and Iran's proxy maneuvers against Israel and the United States.
It's a lot to hope for, and the hope for change in Lebanon, for kissing Hezbollah and its ilk a final good-riddance, isn't a hope that's engaged in lightly or casually. These people know the danger they're in, and as I stated previously, anyone who can get out is doing so, but they're not wasting their time blaming Israel, they're laying the responsibility at the feet of their own government, and the governments of the neighboring countries who have been more than happy to use Hezbollah for their own purposes while leaving the rest of the Lebanese citizenry to twist in the wind. In this respect, the Lebanese are the new Palestinians -- used up and tossed aside by their militantly Islamic neighbors, all just to get at Israel.
Perhaps this, more than any reprisal on Israel's part, is more appropriately labeled as vicious.
A comment on the Totten blog entry by a Carine, writing in from Lebanon as the bombs are dropping, states that much of Israel's attacks are "gratuitous" and "cruel" . . . "causing unnecessary billions of damage and losses", while Lebanon.Profile comes back at his critics on Totten's blog with guns blazing, arguing that "the devastation they (the IDF) have wreaked on us is truly horrendous . . . this is not just", but this isn't the whole story, nor is it representative of the hearts and minds of all Lebanese. There are many Lebanese citizens who knew this was coming, that such a confrontation between Israel and its many enemies in the region was inevitable and that any relative calm they'd been living under in recent history was simply borrowed time.
"I tried to humanize the Israelis to my countrymen and stop anti-semitism," claims Lebanon.Profile, and with a straight face, even -- apparently unable to comprehend that Israel is more than confident in its own humanity, thank you very much, and so doesn't really need his condescending defenses -- but with friends like Lebanon.Profile, Carine and now Totten, who somehow expects the IDF to carve Lebanon into tidy little Red State/Blue State neighborhoods and bomb accordingly; with supposed Israel sympathizers who yet hold deep within themselves the opinion that Israel is more than likely the monster in the closet their parents all warned them about, and that they're the more righteous for previously deigning to overlook its "vicious", "cruel", "stupid" and "gratuitous" traits while now reverting back to form and mouthing the stereotypes once the going gets tough (to put it mildly) -- well, who needs enemies?
Before the BF ended the telephone call with our friend who's anxiously awaiting evacuation from Lebanon, he asked her point blank what the Lebanese around her were saying about Israel. Have they changed their minds? Are they angry? Do they think Israel has crossed the line? "Far from it," she replied. "They're all excited that it's finally coming to a head, that perhaps they can finally get Hezbollah dealt with and out of their country, out of their government and out of their lives." To them, she said, the setback in infrastructure, the destruction and the fear, these are all necessarily evils on the path to a far greater goal, which is the freedom of Lebanon from the forces of terror and the grip of militant anti-semitism seething in its southern region.
And unlike Totten's Lebanon.Profile, while many of the people around my friend are preparing to evacuate the country, not a single one of them is preparing to evacuate to Syria. You can take that for what it's worth, but I think the unwillingness of the people around her to evacuate to a nation that is, in a large part, responsible for the chaos and destruction in Lebanon at the moment says a lot about who honestly believes in the humanity of the Israelis.
ADDENDUM
A thousand words . . .
UPDATE:
My friend and her family are now out of Lebanon and in Cyprus, having been given passage to Cyprus on a U.S. Marine Warship. She said the Marines were incredible -- polite, kind, doing everything they could possibly do to help everyone out, hauling luggage, helping children and the elderly wade through water and climb into the amphibious vehicles for transport to the Warship (she said it felt like the evacuation of Normandy). "I would love a coffee and Amaretto," stated my friend's elderly mother, in all seriousness, when she was asked if there was anything she needed. The young marine just cracked a smile: "I don't know about the Amaretto, but I can get you some coffee!" "Oh thank you, darling!" she said, and off he went.
In stark contrast to the efficiency of the Defense Department, it appears that the State Department was a bungling mess throughout the entire evacuation process, with embassy employees yelling at people to go home, claiming that there was no plan for evacuation since Lebanon is an ally of the United States, and all the while completely unaware that the Defense Department had ships on the move and arriving in Lebanon to help U.S. Citizens leave the area.
*sigh*
There are times when I think a military coup might not be such a bad idea . . .