17.1.06

Zoom in Zoom out
What does that mean? Aha. In the first weeks following the assassination of Rafik Hariri, several demonstrations took place in downtown Beirut. The first was called by Nasrallah, the Secretary General of Hezbollah. What did he say? I recorded my thoughts then thusly:

What Isn't Part of CNN
A couple of years ago, I had the wonderful opportunity to sit in an audience of German Christians and listen to the account of one Robert Fisk, a famous British journalist. He presented a landslide of evidence demonstrating how the media corrupts the news each and every day, including the stories he reports. He passed around some "greeting cards" that he was used to receiving, throughout the years of his coverage of Middle Eastern affairs up until the present day. Some were quite revealing and others, well, sinister is an understatement. He put up a slide of an editorial cartoon which showed Thomas Friedman on one side, someone else on the other and Robert Fisk in the middle, Fisk portrayed as a rabid dog and the others, warm, fuzzy puppies. He asked us, "What do you do to a rabid dog?" I think we all know the answer to that question. He also showed actual footage shot in the Palestinian Occupied Territories (somehow synonomous with what could be called, The Country of Palestine) in which sound effects and film editing showed a reality vastly different than the one that was actually shot on location, the edited view spread via syndication. The footage was of the demolition of one Palestinian family's homestead. In the original footage, a crow could be heard clearly. The bull dozers were there but they were, barely audible. The editing crew involved in the production, on the US side had literally eliminated the crow from the soundtrack in order to show that this crappy piece of property was uninhabited by actual life forms. All that could be heard was the sound of industrious bull dozers building immense settlement apartments in the background. The home itself was entirely edited out of the footage but the beautiful and modern buildings which would one day soon belong to Eastern European immigrants shone in the bright light of noon day, a kind of proud wonder at modern mechanics and the construction industry. There were dozens of other pieces Mr. Fisk shared but I think one is enough to demonstrate my point.

Two days ago, Hezbollah leader Sayed Nasrallah staged, perhaps, the largest peaceful demonstration since the days of Mahatma Ghandi. The participants were from all walks of Lebanese society although the majority were Shia muslims from the Bekaa, south Lebanon and the inner city neighborhoods of Beirut like Jiyah and Borj al-Borajne. I watched the protest from a comfortable position, just south of the tarmac, from my living room. I represented only one of the tens of thousands who also support Nasrallah but knew better than to brave the traffic we were certain would clog the narrow streets of downtown Beirut. That was a given. Add to the one and a half million (by French Journalist estimates) at least another 100,000, perhaps 200,000 of us in our homes, clapping, shouting, "Huzzah! There will be no Civil War!" During Nasrallah's speech, when he mentioned George Bush and Condoleeza Rice in order to advise them in a friendly way to take care of US business elsewhere, not here, the crowd overwhelmed his coarse, flu-like voice. It was fine to see Nasrallah break out in a hearty belly laugh as he said, basically, "Come on guys. Listen." He was attempting to diffuse Anti American sentiment which was evident in the crowd as large posters of Bush were beaten on with fists in front of the cameras which were there from every station in Lebanon and several dozens from stations across Asia and Europe. This smile, this open ended and light hearted smile was not shown on CNN. All that was shown was the image of a fiery prophet type mullah, a descendent of the prophet Mohamed himself (hence the name "sayed" indicating this lineage as well as the black top hat instead of the more ordinary white one worn by non descendants who are also "fiery prophet types") beating his fists and trying to overcome the din of the immense crowd with his own voice which was strained to it's extreme with a case of the flu which Nasrallah had been suffering from over the past week, no doubt a reminder of the stress we have all been under in Lebanon.

What Nasrallah advised to the USA was not disseminated to the vast majority of Western households. What he said I will tell you here based on what was told me by a trusted interpreter, my husband of 24 years. Nasrallah told Israel, told George Bush that for them (in the guise of the UN) to demand he give up his right to maintain security in Lebanon against expansivist Israel via the deterrance of heavy weaponry, he required something in return. How logical is that? To ask nicely, to remind the UN, the US and Israel,that Lebanese people spilled their blood and alot of it and lost most of what was then, before the Civil War, called the Paris of the Middle East during a brash Israeli occupation in which nary a building remained after Israeli withdrawal from most areas north of the "security zone". And Israel wants that for what, free? The issue of the immense Golan Heights which at this moment provides over one third of Israel's total water supply looms. It looms over this tiny issue of the Shebaa Farms, a pot hole full of water but only enough for a village or maybe five. Expensive real estate, nothing more and nothing less. He also condemned resolution 1556 as one sided and unreasonable and likely to cause great upheaval in terms of Lebanese security. Isn't that what we always hear on CNN, Israel's Security and the need for same? Isn't that, Israel's prized "security zone" what Nasrallah "liberated" from the covetous hands of a state desperate for more land, more water? Wasn't that called "The Security Zone" or, as I am suggesting, was it something else? As if Israel had a right to use weapons and insurrection to maintain her "security" while devastating the population who chose to resist them? How is it that we fight an individual's right to die, we fight Jack Kevorkian in order that people be forced to live a little longer yet we deny the right of certain individuals the to survive? Nasrallah didn't say that, I did. No, all Nasrallah advised to the dynamic duo called Rice and Bush was that they mind other matters and stay out of a conflict that was being managed by the Lebanese people themselves. When Nasrallah cast his hands over the crowd, sweeping over it like a priest blessing a congregation, he asked "Isn't this democracy?" Isn't that what you want for us?

What happened next?

Several things but most importantly the development of The Opposition. What is the Opposition? Hard to say but their first demonstration followed Nasrallah's by a week or so and to make the crowd look LARGER the camera crews did alot of Zooming in and Zooming out. Nasrallah coined the term Zoom in Zoom out. The Opposition grew and grew and now what is happening? Nasrallah is blamed for the Syrian occupation.

What?

And just why didn't this opposition do something about the Syrians themselves prior to Hariri's assassination? Well, my guess is that they were all on the payroll of key Syrian mob bosses. That's my guess. And now they are going to save us all...and help themselves to lucrative oil contracts for the greasy stuff off shore.

Damn. What next, the plague?

No, it seems that the West always prefers the fiery prophet type, the dumb follower of ancient out-of-date religions. Not the incredibly eloquent statesman that Nasrallah has become. The stateman and strategist that one Israeli commentator called, "The reason we lost. If he'd have been with us, we would have held them down," to paraphrase that comment which appeared in a major Israeli newspaper. Nasrallah has spilled blood to liberate Lebanon and lost his own son to Israeli fire. What has George Bush lost in Iraq other than a few points on an opinion poll? I think GWB ought to consider very carefully his next few steps. A million or more lives depend on it. To support the Shia in Iraq when it serves the purpose of oil revenues and to turn his back on those who've spilled blood fighting for their freedom from Israeli occupation would be the death blow to democracy in the Middle East. It is a tender bud.

George came on the air only moments after Nasrallah's landmark speech reminiscent of something from the Civil Rights wars of the sixties. Bush stated that Washington had a lot of reconsidering to do in the matter of the Lebanon and the Middle East. It is what I didn't hear CNN reveal that worries me most. It really worries me the most. GWB didn't mention the part of the Taif Accords that would demolish the sectarian government here in Lebanon, the one that would make it possible not only for a Syrian pullout, a complete one, but would establish a true democracy representing the majority of the population here which is obviously in support of Nasrallah's viewpoint. George didn't say it, but Sayed did.

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