Lebanese Direct Growing Anger at US
And in Beirut’s Shiyyah district, where the Israeli strikes Monday night took more than 40 lives – the largest single-event toll of the conflict – it was a day of digging.
Just after first light, Hassan Dirani pulled several stuffed teddy bears and toys from the rubble, shook off the dust, and gently assembled them on a slab of concrete, with a blonde doll on top. They were dolls his own children had given to families displaced by fighting in the south, who had sought refuge in this “safe” Shiite-Christian neighborhood.
For Mr. Dirani, his emotions were first about the children – three of his remained in the rubble. And second, they were about accusing the US of giving Israel a free hand to destroy Lebanon.
“Thank you, George Bush. Thank you for those ‘smart’ bombs,” says Dirani, whose wife and surviving son were injured in the attack. “I want to ask George Bush: ‘What did our children do to him?’ “
“Even with this, we love the American people. We love peace and respect Americans,” continues Dirani, differentiating individuals from official policies. Unprompted, shell-shocked Lebanese now often skip accusations against Israel, and lay blame on its chief patron.
“I beg Americans not to vote for another butcher and criminal like George Bush,” says Dirani, who works at the environment ministry. Tearfully, he says his small daughter, now entombed, had been sharing her excitement about her upcoming sixth birthday party next week; she wrote out an invitation list of 20 school friends.
“Why does your system and White House do this to us … give smart bombs to throw on our people?” asks Dirani. “What are you going to tell your kids [to explain it]?”
What words can salve those wounds? What price will our children and our children’s children pay for the callous disregard of human life displayed by Israel, the United States and the United Kingdom?
What do you say to a man whose family is buried under the rubble?
There were bulldozers turning over the tons of rubble, a cloud of dust and smoke a mile high over the smashed slums of Beirut’s southern suburbs and a tall man in a grey T-shirt – a Brooklyn taxi driver, no less – standing on the verge of tears, staring at what may well be the grave of his grandfather, his uncle and aunt. Half the family home had been torn away and the entire block of civilian apartments next door had been smashed to the ground a few hours earlier by the two missiles that exploded in Asaad al-Assad Street.
What do you say to a man whose family is buried under the rubble? The last corpse had been a man whose face appeared etched in dust before the muck was removed and he turned out to be paper-thin – so perfectly had the falling concrete crushed him. Mohamed al-Husseini had left New York for a holiday with his young wife and infant child – they were safe in the centre of Beirut – because he wanted to see his family home and talk to the relatives he grew up with.
“Just look what the Israelis have done,” he said, not taking his eyes off the floors of the apartments, now scarcely an inch between them. “I am confused. You know? I don’t know what to do. I could go back to my wife and kid but the rest of my family is in there. They used to live in the south and they survived there. Then they come to Beirut and die here.”
What is there left to say? “Sorry” just isn’t enough, and “stop it” is ignored by the criminals running our government and the shameless poodles of the media who bark on cue.
Art: Shan Wells / Durango Telegraph via Truthout