Since this morning, I have bustled around Hamra, trying to find out what to do in order to get a flight home. This is as much for my family’s sake as mine. Its rather dispiriting to get so many messages of concern – I feel pretty guilty for subjecting everyone to it.
It’s likely that I’ll have to stay here until 20th July, the date of my return ticket. In any case, if I tried to make it over the border to Jordan on my own, it could get very messy. And there are no guaranteed flights out of Amman.
My airline has told me that if Beirut airport is out of action come the 20th, they will ferry me to Amman for my scheduled connecting flight to Heathrow. All I can do now is make the most of North Beirut – the safest place to be.
Yet at the same time, it’s important not to lose sight of what is really happening. At least 45 civilians have been killed in south Lebanon, as Israel pushes up the temperature.
The European Union has castigated Israel’s excessive use of force, yet this appears to count for little when the US swings its support behind Israel’s prosecution. Bush has already referred to Israel being threatened by ‘terrorists’ – a thinly disguised reference to Hizbullah.
Let’s get some perspective here. Around 1500 Lebanese and Palestinian prisoners are being held in Israeli jails. Many have been detained for over 25 years without trial. Yet the capture of two Israeli soldiers – and hence military targets - has given Israel an excuse to launch a ferocious attack on Lebanese infrastructure and civilians – a campaign unprecedented since Israel pulled out of southern Lebanon in 2000.
There is no rhyme or reason to Israel’s tactic. All that counts is rhetoric. Israel called the Hizbullah kidnap an “act of war” – before launching punitive strikes against the sovereign state of Lebanon. Hizbullah is not the only force in Lebanese politics – far from it. There are a wide range of anti-Syrian political forces in the country who are arraigned against Hizbullah’s wider program, if only covertly.
Thus, for Israel to declare the Hizbullah operation as one that had the consent of all Lebanese political parties is nonsense. This is particularly apposite when one considers the fact that 18 religious sects are in Lebanon. Not everyone is a Shi’ite – and of those Shi’ites, not all support the Hizbullah action.
Far be it from me to declare myself an expert on the latest happenings – I’m essentially confined to comfortable Hamra at present, with only CNN available for updates (which is bloody awful).
So, other minutiae of the day… I went to interview Diana Mulkalled of Future TV. I arrived at Café du Paris at 4pm. And waited. You know what’s coming next.
“Andy, I’m really sorry. With everything that’s happening, I can’t leave the office.” She was very friendly and apologetic. I offered to email questions to her, so she could answer them in her own time. She agreed, and suggested I call her tomorrow to see if she could fit me in for a while on Saturday. Despite the goings-on, it was good of her to offer that. She was genuinely apologetic.
I have an interview tomorrow with Ziad Abs of the secular Free Patriotic Movement. I’m not expecting that to go ahead, so this time I’ll check for availability before I leave the hotel! After that, I’m going down to the British embassy for advice. My folks called my travel insurer earlier to see if they would cover a quick flight back.
As if! “Sorry, we can’t cover a flight back in the event of famine, war, pestilence, nuclear disaster, volcanic eruptions, banana skins, traffic jams, hailstorms, or other such events,” they said. Or something like that, anyway. Should have guessed, really.
Ok, let’s finish with frivolous stuff, eh? I went to Pigeon Rock. It took a while to walk there, following the coastal road as taxis and buses thundered past. Just when I thought I was going to faint due to the heat, BAM! There it was...
I couldn't resist doing the touristy stuff around Pigeon Rock. So I got a passerby to take a photo of me by the Rock. Apologies for the terrible shirt, by the way.
I sat in a café carved into the cliff, with Pigeon Rock right in front of me. The waiter brought four bottles of beer in an ice bucket, and while I was tempted to down the lot to escape the worries of the day, I’m glad I stuck at two. I had to walk uphill to get back to my hotel, and the dehydration was a killer!
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