19 Comments. Add your own...

• 1. KQ | August 19th, 2006 at 6:44 pm

  I think there’s a problem of trust…. shiites of Lebanon don’t trust you.. LF

• 2. Stan | August 19th, 2006 at 8:50 pm

  As Kanye west said: we want prenup, WE WANT PRENUP!, Yeaah

• 3. lynne wooldridge | August 20th, 2006 at 1:13 am

  Ok. Look, I live in the US, and I have been extremely critical of anything that my government has ever done that I felt was unfair, unjust, or harmful to anyone within or outside of the US, I get upset about any injustice that happened a hundred years ago! I am one of those people who believes in treating everyone in the world like –well, like family. I have come to realize that I have been taking so much of what is good about the US for granted. I can complain, march, blog, protest, without being arrested or killed for expressing my views. And here is another thing that recently dawned on me: I am a teacher, and one of the principals that I am required to support and demonstrate in all my dealings with students and families, is respect and admiration for the diversity of the many people who make up this country. Daily, it is my goal to make each of my students (all from different backgrounds) feel accepted, respected, and loved. I am to help them realize their goals. So, the official policy of the education system in the US is to not just tolerate diversity, but to actively celebrate it in our schools. This does greatly benefit our students.
  Question: Couldn’t the diverse people in Lebanon also adopt this principle? When you respect and treat everyone well you cannot go wrong. You can do no harm when you treat everyone well.
  I do meet with suspicion from some of the minority groups, but in most cases, I am able to work with them and develop trust, Not always, but most of the time. We do have a huge challenge in the US to help our minorities feel as though they fit in to our larger society. It is not easy and there are problems–many problems.
  In Lebanon, it seems that if that were a goal, some trust and progress would be made to create the kind of Lebanon that you want and need. I think that there would be fear and mistrust at first, and I see that here in my teaching. I guess it is a go-slow kind of thing, where you cannot let any one situation set back the whole process. There are always going to be people that just seem beyond hope, unfortunately, but perhaps the conversations in this forum will start a new way of thinking and acting.
  I love the dialogue that I read here and the ideas and philosophy that are expressed.

• 4. M. Simon | August 20th, 2006 at 11:06 am

  Have you heard anything about Hizbollah handing out counterfeit money?

  http://powerandcontrol.blogspot.com/2006/08/cash-flow-jihad-meets-aftermath.html

• 5. ilana | August 20th, 2006 at 11:36 am

  Why do you think Israel is the enemy? If Hizbollah was disarmed and renounced it’s aim of destroying Israel, what do you think Israel would do?

• 6. Othello | August 20th, 2006 at 2:01 pm

  N10452 I beleive alas before we ask the Shiites, we have to ask some Christians as to what exactly they want…it is surprising to see some people criticise left and right, just for the sake of criticizing…I mean by this GMA as well as other Christians who are after implementing their ow agendas…at the expense of a beter Lebanon unfortunately…

• 7. lynne wooldridge | August 20th, 2006 at 3:39 pm

  Response to M. Simon: I heard that the money was real enough.
  Ilana: If Lebanon were to offer Israel peace, the people in Israel would certainly accept it. I do not know of any people in Israel who consider the Lebanese people their enemy. Peace between Israel and Lebanon would greatly benefit these two nations as well as providing stability in the entire region.
  The terorism in the Middle East must stop. It makes everyone fearful, edgy, supicious. Dialogue and negotiations will bring peace. To accept peaceful relationships though people have to have open minds. Do you all see any hope of the beginnings of dialogue?
  If people pursue their own narrow, selfish agendas, it won’t help Lebanon.

• 8. N10452 | August 20th, 2006 at 5:12 pm

  Lynne,
  the problem in Lebanon is that we never had the chance to start a dialogue since the 1940s, when Christians and Muslims agreed on a national pact.
  Unfortunatelly this pact was not implemented in a written text but was an oral agreement and that proved to be a deadly error.

  We had a serious dialogue going on for weeks, but when you have a militia wanting to dialogue while threatening with its weapons, you cant get anywhere and the result was war.

  Now is the time for the real dialogue to start.
  lets hope for the best but i am pessimistic.

• 9. ilana | August 21st, 2006 at 7:39 am

  Please Lynne, try and understand comments before you reply to them. My question referred to what N10452 wrote: “we all agree Israel is an ennemy”, i.e. the Lebanese all regard Israel as the enemy, and I asked him why. I didn’t ask if Israelis consider the Lebanese their enemy.

• 10. Cedar1 | August 21st, 2006 at 8:55 am

  ilana,

  Israel is not the enemy. What Israel did in Lebanon recently is called a REACTION. A reaction to the actions of Lebanon’s true enemy, Hizballah.

  What you are possibly suggesting in you are initiall comment is that if Hizballah disamrs, IDF will attack Lebanon. This is a ridiculous thought. Why would Israel attack Lebanon once it becomes stable? Many Lebanese wish to have calm relations with the South and Israel knows that.

  As for your false concern for Lebanon’s security, you must be kidding. Do you honnestly think that Hizballah is a match for Israeli forces? If they really wanted to, they take us off the map regardless if Hizballah is armed or not. If you think that the IDF was giving 100% in the last month, it’s time to wake up.

  The reason why Lebanon wants Hizballah to disarm is because they are a threat to us and our future. Simply put if Hizballah would disarm and renounce their ideology, there would be nothing but prosperity and peace in Lebanon.

  We don’t need Iranian blood money.

• 11. lynne wooldridge | August 21st, 2006 at 1:20 pm

  Ilana: Oh, sorry. I thought that you opened the question up for general discussion and I wanted to respond with what I know.

• 12. ilana | August 21st, 2006 at 7:13 pm

  I think I’ve entered a parallel universe here. For the record, I’m Israeli and I don’t think Israel would attack Lebanon if there was no Hizballah. My question was aimed at N10452 who wrote “we all agree Israel is the enemy” and I asked him why, because I don’t think they SHOULD all agree that Israel is the enemy. What is not clear about this? Of course you can discuss what you like, but it’s quite weird to pose a simple question and have it so comprehensively misunderstood.

• 13. N10452 | August 21st, 2006 at 9:13 pm

  Ilana,
  Regardless of whether Israel would attack Lebanon or not, it has led several wars in Lebanon and keeps on violating its sovereignty on a daily basis, i dont wanna fight Israel but such acts do not make it a friend.
  However you shoult note that Syria and Iran should be considered bigger ennemies for us and thats why i attack Hezbollah, cause it is unacceptable for any Lebanese party to ally with foreign countries against its own people .

  I do want to sign peace with Israel, i sincerely do and hate this state of war that we are in, because i dont see Israel as an eternal ennemy as Hezbollah and Islamists do, but in the same time i cannot defend Israel for the damage it did in Lebanon, regardless if its justified or not.

  Anyone violating my land is an ennemy and anyone doing similar acts to what Hezbollah did is a traitor and a threat to my country’s sovereignty.

• 14. Jim | August 21st, 2006 at 10:06 pm

  lynne sorry for the question, but are you jewish, cz u defend israel alot! wht i can tell u tht both israel and hezb allah had the same contribution in the destruction of lebanon! Dont get me wrong, me as a leb christian i want peace with israel, bt israel in this war did a shity war, they did not accomplish a thing although i wanted them 2disarm hezb alla cz we cnt, hezb allah are stronger then leb people as long as their are people in leb like GMA defending them!This war only brought back pro-syrian politicians in leb, and they are giving us f****d up theories! thts the sad truth, i guess israel have to continue their war iff they want peace with leb and in leb!

• 15. lynne wooldridge | August 21st, 2006 at 11:44 pm

  Jim, I was just reading over the reply from N10452, and was thinking about what he said about how difficult it is to have a dialogue when militias are threatening you. I guess it is impossible. I believe that is a similar situation that Israel is in with Hezbollah. How do you negotiate for peace with people who say that they want you dead? I think that when any of us deal with people that are driven by hatred, we do not win. I think that the government in Israel under-estimated the strength of Hezbollah. I wanted them to disarm Hezbollah–but that did not happen. I wonder if they should try to resolve this diplomatically? Jim, I certainly do not have answers, wish I did. I don’t think that anyone can look at the conflict with Hezbollah and think that anyone won. What a mess!!! A tragedy for so many good people in Lebanon and in Israel.
  Ah, I’ll try to answer your question about my defense of Israel. Please bear with me as I try to explain. I support Israel because I think that it is the right thing to do. I am also Pro-Lebanon. My heritage is that I have a Christian and a Jewish parent, and grew up in a secular household. I do not support Israel because of my Jewish heritage. My mother was French, French was her first language, and I am furious with France right now–have a Boycott France Bumpersticker on my car!! I do not believe in blind loyaty to “our tribe” or “our heritage”. Right is right and wrong is wrong, even in our family. (Of course, right and wrong are often not as clear as we would like). Frankly, I agree with you. I cannot see that anything was accomplished by the war with Hezbollah. Pain and destruction—setbacks politically. Doubts and sadness over the victims and losses on both sides. I subscribe to a geo-political service called Stratfor, which is neutral and unbiased. I just read an article that promoted the idea that a satisfactory solution must be found diplomatically. Thank you, Jim, for you wishes for peace with Israel. And, thank you for your kind response to my post. I am new at using the computer and I think I may be a bit lame at responding. Best regards, lynne

• 16. Yael | August 22nd, 2006 at 1:22 am

  Ilana –are you always a machshefa or was today just a bad day?

  N10452 –we have a common enemy in the Hizbollah -it threatens and harms Lebanon from within and, of course, it threatens and harms us on the other side of the border. If we did not all of us live in such a crazy region of the world then the sensible thing would have been for the Lebanese government and the Israeli government to join forces and jointly run Hezbollah into Syria since Syria loves them so much.

  I certainly don’t consider Lebanon or the Lebanese to be my enemy even though hezbollah, which is made up of Lebanese civilians and even has representation in your government, violated my land and not only recently –although obviously this last was the most devastatingly –but many times in the past. If the shoe were on the other foot and a sub-group of Israelis had the weapons of Hezbollah and came into your sovereign terroritory and carried out attacks unprovoked and our government just sat by –what would you want your government to do. Would you want them to just sit idly by while your people were kidnapped, while rockets fell on your cities or would you want your government to try to stop that sub-group?

  If we all had any sense we’d be banding together to deal with the common threat of Hezbollah, syria and Iran –and I don’t mean just Israel and Lebanon together but also Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia. And then we’d all sit down and work on making good trade deals and encouraging cross-tourism between our beautiful countries and jointly helping ourselves out of third-world economies and fourth-world thinking.

• 17. lynne wooldridge | August 22nd, 2006 at 12:45 pm

  Yael, I have to agree with every point that you made. If the people of the region would come together to work cooperatively, the region would thrive and everyone would benefit. Here is where diplomacy, negotiations, and compromise would really be effective, if everyone entered into these negotiations with a good spirit and the best interests of the people in their region in mind. It is a beautiful region. My friend here in Texas, Luba, owns property in Beruit–she is Lebanese–and she used to travel to Lebanon a few times e year. Last year she stopped visiting and encouraged her daughter who lived there to move to Italy because of the political situation. This was last year, not due to the recent conflict with Hezbollah. The political climate in the Middle East of intolerance and conflict do not benefit anyone and rational, thinking people certainly realize that. If a way could just be found to move forward…The region is so beautiful and each country seems to have something unique and wonderful to offer, but who wants to go there with all the craziness and conflict? I hope that Jordan, Egypt, and others will take the lead and initiate some changes, starting with making peace with Israel. I just read a blog from Jordan and they are worried about Hamas. The terrorists groups are not legitimate political groups that can be respected. The actions in the Middle East of the radical, hate-filled extremists are making everyone afraid of what may come next and it hurts the economic development of the region in every way.

• 18. Steven | October 26th, 2006 at 2:48 am

  Just a friendly remark.
  Lasteausgleichsverfahren!
  I worked like a charm in Germany.

• 19. laurence | January 6th, 2007 at 9:43 pm

  i have lived in the us for 25 years but i keep in touch with what is happening in lebanon regularly. for the shiites of lebanon i have 3 words: get a vasectomy. all what u do is screw the ugly shiite women and father kids you do not want to own up to just to increase your numbers and make berry and nasrallah richer.go live in iran and leave lebanon for the more civilized

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