Beirut Not Some Middle-East Shithole

[Nbadan]

It's a M.E. Metropolis..

http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/2647/beirutaerial6yd.jpg

http://mea707.lrehosting.com/Beirutcity.jpg

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/59/img05872la.jpg

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/4965/img05894wo.jpg

http://img214.imageshack.us/img214/607/img06046wb.jpg

Many more pictures of modern day Beirut are available here. (http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/showthread.php?t=110191)

[scott]

I thought this was an interesting article on Beirut's economic recovery:

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/13860635/

[boutons_]

Before the the 16-year Muslim/Christian Lebanese civil war 1975 - 1991, Beirut was considered to be the Paris of the Middle East. In return, there are a lot of Christian Lebanese in Paris, due to Lebanon being under French influence after WWI. Very wealthy (like the Jews and Palestinians, the Lebanese are natural businessmen and money-makers, eg, the Maloof family), cosmopolitain, the rich, jet-setters from Europe and oil countries made Beirut a very hot spot in the 1970s. And of course the climate is that wonderful Mediterranean climate, never too hot or too cold.

You can tell by the number of US and other tourists, 10s of 1000s, being evacuated now that Lebanon had used the last 15 years to rebuild and become a tourist destination again.

I hope to hell the Lebanese can disarm and kick out the Hesbollah, since it's really the Hesbollah, as proxies/proteges of Syria and Iran, who have provoked this destruction.

[MannyIsGod]

The 2nd picture Dan posted is gorgeous.

[Nbadan]

http://us.news1.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20060713/i/r2857435361.jpg

The Empire Leaves Beirut to Burn
by Robert Fisk
Seattle Post-Intelligencer (Washington)


Some cities seem forever doomed. When the Crusaders arrived at Beirut on their way to Jerusalem in the 11th century, they slaughtered everyone in the city. In World War I, Ottoman Beirut suffered a terrible famine; the Turkish army had commandeered all the grain, and the Allied powers blockaded the coast. I still have some ancient postcards I bought here 30 years ago of sticklike children standing in an orphanage, naked and abandoned.

An American woman living in Beirut in 1916 described how she "passed women and children lying by the roadside with closed eyes and ghastly, pale faces. It was a common thing to find people searching the garbage heaps for orange peel, old bones or other refuse, and eating them greedily when found. Everywhere women could be seen seeking eatable weeds among the grass along the roads ... "

How does this happen to Beirut? For 30 years, I've watched this place die and rise from the grave and die again, its apartment blocks pitted with so many bullets they looked like Irish lace.

I lived here through 15 years of civil war that took 150,000 lives, and two Israeli invasions and years of Israeli bombardments that cost the lives of a further 20,000 of its people. I have seen them armless, legless, headless, knifed, bombed and splashed across the walls of houses. Yet they are a fine, educated, moral people whose generosity amazes every foreigner, whose gentleness puts any Westerner to shame, and whose suffering we almost always ignore...

Common Dreams (http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0723-27.htm)

[ObiwanGinobili]

Hezbollah is so ingrained as a part of the comunity - i doubt they can just "kick it out"

perhaps thru the destruction of thier military arm Hezbollah will focus more on thier social services and thier political aims. They have allready shown an ability to "change thier ways" so to speak - no longer using suicide bombers.

My hope is that the Lebanese gov. will grow some nuts, gain some power, and get control of thier own country. I realize thats difficult for a fledgling democracy just recently out of Syria's tentacles........but I hope.

I've always wanted to visit Beirut - looks lie I'll have to wait awhile.

[DarkReign]

I've always wanted to visit Beirut - looks lie I'll have to wait awhile.

ie Forever

[boutons_]

"thier social services and thier political aims"

... nothing by tactics for winning support of the the poor and disenfranchised where hezbollah wants to set up shop, but Hezbollah's primay goal is that stated by the President of Iran: destruction of Isreal and death to all Jew dogs.

[ObiwanGinobili]

"thier social services and thier political aims"

... nothing by tactics for winning support of the the poor and disenfranchised where hezbollah wants to set up shop, but Hezbollah's primay goal is that stated by the President of Iran: destruction of Isreal and death to all Jew dogs.


True.
But it's too late all ready. They have so entrenched themselves into the community - there is no taking them out.
Only is the lebanese gov. was ABLE and willing to step right into the spots left by hezbollah (clinics, schools, water etc etc) could there possibly be a semi almost smooth transition.

really the only outcome i see to the destruction of hezbollah is a hatred and wrath at america/isreal at about 20x's what it is now. Going on for generations.

sad.

[ChumpDumper]

When did Slomo go to Lebanon?

[boutons_]

While I support the Israeli's need to push back hard at Hezbollah's armed mini-state in south Lebanon, the destruction shown on TV is worrying

However, the Israelis seem to be targeting known Shiite/Hezbollah areas and buildings, not all of Beirut and not every building in Lebanon.

==========



July 25, 2006

Divisions

In Beirut, an Abyss Between Elegance and Chaos

By SABRINA TAVERNISE

BEIRUT, Lebanon, July 24 — The Paul Restaurant is still serving elegant lunches of prosciutto and chèvre. At the Printania, an elegant hotel on a hill east of the capital, stylish guests sip Arabic coffee near a glass display case of éclairs and chilled chocolate mousse.

Some miles away, in the southern suburbs, the destruction from Israeli airstrikes is more earthquake than war zone. Streets have entirely disappeared. Rubble from bombed buildings in some areas is piled several stories high. City blocks, or what is left of them, are ghostly.

In the days since Israeli planes began to bomb Lebanon, this seaside capital has been almost physically split in two, with its largely Shiite flank mutilated by Israeli airstrikes and most of the rest of the city remaining relatively unscathed, if quieter and emptier than usual.

The stark physical contrast reflects a deep and growing divide in Lebanese society between the less affluent, more religious Shiite south and the more urban center, largely of Sunni Muslims, Druse and Christians, which has built and benefited from a long-awaited economic boom.

“The country is going in two totally different directions,” said Ghassan Salhab, a Lebanese filmmaker and a middle-class secular Shiite. “One is, ‘We have an enemy and we need to fight it,’ ” he said, referring to Hezbollah’s supporters. “The other is, ‘We want to live and build and go with the world, wherever it goes.’ ”

For the south, which suffered for more than a decade under Israeli occupation, Hezbollah’s leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, is a folk hero who helped drive out the Israelis. But many middle-class Lebanese who have worked for the past decade to generate an economic revival are tired of war and resent Hezbollah’s capture of two Israeli soldiers in a cross-border raid on July 12.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘How crazy to go wake up the monster,’ ” said Issam Saleh, a secular Shiite and an engineer who spends most of his days writing poetry in the garden at the Paul Restaurant. Hezbollah “knew exactly what would happen, but did it anyway.”

Even so, as the Israeli bombardment of the south drags on, dividing lines have softened: Even those who hate Hezbollah are horrified by the destruction. Now, as the war rages without any foreseeable end, almost everybody has been wondering where their embattled country can possibly go from here.

For Mr. Salhab, who has spent the days since the bombings filming in his now empty neighborhood in central Beirut, the question came sharply into focus through a camera lens, during the evacuation of tens of thousands of foreigners by sea to Cyprus.

“There was the sea and the sky and a boat that came into the frame,” he said, sitting in a crowded coffee shop called Wimpy’s in downtown Beirut. “Then another, and another.

“You have to ask the question: What is next?”

In many ways, divisions have always been the story of Lebanon. In the 1970’s and 80’s, this country’s many sects fought a civil war so bloody that Beirut became a synonym for disaster zone. Later, Israelis occupied the southern portion of the country to drive out the Palestine Liberation Organization. Many Christians initially greeted the Israeli invaders as deliverers. As the occupation dragged on, it was the southern Shiites who suffered most.

But the recent fighting is more troubling, in part because its roots are deeper. Instead of looking to drive out an essentially foreign group — the P.L.O. — Israel is engaged in a conflict with Hezbollah, a homegrown Lebanese one. That group has eagerly plunged into battle, defining it in religious terms, difficult to defuse in talks.

The division burst into the open last year, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators, Christian and Muslim, marched in support of the government after the assassination of Rafik Hariri, the country’s wealthy former prime minister, who had driven the transformation of postwar Beirut from a dead zone to a vacation destination. The marches brought together Lebanese who had even fought against each other in the civil war.

At the same time, Hezbollah and thousands of Shiite supporters organized huge counterdemonstrations in support of Syrian forces that the government was trying to evict.

“It was like a thorn in our hearts,” said a Lebanese businessman, a Druse, who was stranded in the Damascus airport on Thursday after fleeing Lebanon.

In Beirut, the disconnect seemed particularly sharp in the Sanayeh Park, where refugees sprawled on blankets and grimy foam mattresses lay next to evening walkers. At night, Hezbollah songs are sung, annoying residents.

On Saturday evening two women in head scarves, a mother and a daughter, stood across the street holding a bag of potatoes in front of a sparkling apartment high-rise and a sign that read Garden View Apartments.

“They don’t look at us,” said the daughter, Samar Halewei, 37. Her mother disagreed, saying many people in the neighborhood had treated them kindly. The owner of a car on which Ms. Halewei had been leaning got in and drove away, removing her resting place.

Some of the gap between the two Beiruts has roots in historical animosities. On Saturday in Fatqa, a small Christian town north of the capital, an angry mob of men attacked a car that had a sticker of a Christian group that has made an alliance with Hezbollah, throwing things at the car and pounding it with their fists. Hours before, a friend of the attackers, a guard at a nearby television tower, had been killed in an Israeli airstrike, and the men were furious that Hezbollah’s actions had invited destruction on their town.

“They wanted this war,” said a man in a striped shirt named Joel. A cashier at a grocery nearby, Rita Dekmak, began to cry when she started to speak about the dead man. She spoke darkly of Shiite soldiers who been stationed near the tower but left suddenly.

“They all left because they knew,” she said, wiping her tears.

While the bombing has forced thousands of southerners, mostly Shiites, to flee for their lives on roads with broken bridges, often without any possessions, many middle-class residents of the capital have taken refuge in mountain towns just north and east of here.

In Broumana, a resort town a 30-minute drive up a mountain from Beirut, the garden at the Printania Hotel was full of well-dressed guests on Saturday, sipping drinks and enjoying the afternoon. Scenes of absolute desolation flashed on the screen of a large television that had been set up for the World Cup but was now watched avidly for news of bombings and the cconflict. A glass case of pastries stood nearby.

But the longer Israeli planes continue to pound the country, the more the Lebanese find it difficult to stay angry with Hezbollah. Horrific scenes unfolded on the Printania screen: collapsed buildings and vast stretches of rubble in Nabatiya, in the south.

“We’re not Hezbollah supporters, but we cannot excuse what the Israelis are doing,” said Rima Beydoun, a secular Shiite who owns an advertising agency.

“We knew there would be repercussions, but no one expected they would be like this,” Mr. Salhab, the filmmaker, said of Shiite support for Hezbollah. “I am very critical of that part of my country, but I have to put it aside, because we are being destroyed.

“At this point, I can’t just say: Hezbollah, go to hell.”

The situation is made all the more complicated by the nature of Hezbollah. It functions as a civil aid group as well as a militia, helping with schools and in hospitals, and in many cases providing essential public services at times in the years of the war when the government was simply not able. It has a savvy media operation, with a spokesman who takes groups of journalists on tours of the devastation in southern Beirut with a truck that blares Hezbollah fighting songs from rows of speakers.

“It’s a dead end because Israel cannot win,” Mr. Salhab said, finishing his coffee.

The destruction continued in southern Beirut, but Mr. Salhab did not want to film it. He had seen the images on television, but needed a more personal way to understand them.

In the end, he chose to stay in his own neighborhood.

“I tried to film this place which is at the margins of destruction,” he said. “I just wanted to film the strange suspended life there.”

[nkdlunch]

Not anymore. Beirut is a wasteland now.

[nkdlunch]

Not anymore. Beirut is a shit-hole AND a wasteland now.

[Yonivore]

Not anymore. Beirut is a wasteland now.
As it has been, off and on, for the past several decades.

[BIG IRISH]

As it has been, off and on, for the past several decades.


Don't worry- It will come back just like in the past.

It just might be a part of a different county :lol

[cheguevara]

As it has been, off and on, for the past several decades.

try centuries.

But this time is a little different. The Israeli weapons are 10+ times as powerful and sophisticated as anything Beirut has seen in the past.

[Yonivore]

Don't worry- It will come back just like in the past.

It just might be a part of a different county :lol
I believe it will be a Democratic Lebanon, free of Hezbollah, thanks to Israel.

[clambake]

Yoni wakes up and pulls another belief out of his dreamcatcher.

[cheguevara]

I believe it will be a Democratic Lebanon, free of Hezbollah, thanks to Israel.

:lol

Most likely the young Lebanese population will be enlisting into Hezbollah as soon as they can. now more than ever.

[Yonivore]

:lol

Most likely the young Lebanese population will be enlisting into Hezbollah as soon as they can. now more than ever.
Well, for one, the vast majority of Lebanese wouldn't be welcome in Hezbollah due to their religion or ethnic background. You see, Hezbollah isn't an equal opportunity terrorist group.

[Yonivore]

Yoni wakes up and pulls another belief out of his dreamcatcher.
They were already Democratic but with a terrorist element holding their Southern region hostage and with representation in their governing body. If Israel destroys Hezbollah, what's to keep them from returning to a Democratic state without a terrorist element holding their Southern region hostage and without representation on their governing body?

Not as far-fetched as you seem to believe.

[clambake]

They were............WERE.......you said it.

So hezbollah generosity, of hospitals, schools, aid to poverty, draws the line at ethnic background and relegion?

Thats it Yoni, look away from the reality of sides being drawn.

[Yonivore]

They were............WERE.......you said it.

So hezbollah generosity, of hospitals, schools, aid to poverty, draws the line at ethnic background and relegion?

Thats it Yoni, look away from the reality of sides being drawn.
Yep, Hezbollah's generosity of hospitals, schools, aid to poverty, draws the line at ethnic background and religion.

How many Hezbollah-funded hospitals or schools were built in the predominantly Christian portions of Lebanon? How much of Hezbollah's aid to the poverty stricken went to Sunni Lebanese?

They purchased the complicity of Lebanese Shi'ites in the South with these things so they could hide missiles under their children's beds and use their families as human shields.

[cheguevara]

Well, for one, the vast majority of Lebanese wouldn't be welcome in Hezbollah due to their religion or ethnic background. You see, Hezbollah isn't an equal opportunity terrorist group.

So u're saying Hezbolla would turn away a Muslim Arab recruit because he is not Shiite???

mmm what page did you find this fact on?

[Yonivore]

So u're saying Hezbolla would turn away a Muslim Arab recruit because he is not Shiite???

mmm what page did you find this fact on?
So, you're saying there are Sunni and Christian Lebanese in Hezbollah?

[cheguevara]

Dude, Lebanon is 95% Arab and 59% Muslim. Christians are the minority.

So u're saying ther're not. truth is nobody knows.

[Yonivore]

Dude, Lebanon is 95% Arab and 59% Muslim. Christians are the minority.

So u're saying ther're not. truth is nobody knows.
No, truth is that Hezbollah is a Shi'ite organization and that nobody (but you) has ever claimed their ranks included anything but Shi'ites.

[clambake]

Yoni, I am impressed with your daily struggles to fight off the evil of reality. Your loyalty to stick with Bush as he sinks farther and farther below the surface is unmatched. I'm guessing you agree with sending Rice to broker some kind of deal. She is the smallest kid on the playground and has no powers of persuasion. She can only mouthpiece what Bush gives her, which means she is bringing nothing to the table. The world already knows this. When will you catch on?

[Yonivore]

Yoni, I am impressed with your daily struggles to fight off the evil of reality. Your loyalty to stick with Bush as he sinks farther and farther below the surface is unmatched. I'm guessing you agree with sending Rice to broker some kind of deal. She is the smallest kid on the playground and has no powers of persuasion. She can only mouthpiece what Bush gives her, which means she is bringing nothing to the table. The world already knows this. When will you catch on?
I'm sure you have a point.

[MannyIsGod]

Yoni, I am impressed with your daily struggles to fight off the evil of reality.
:lmao