Monday, October 12, 2009

BEIRUT PART THREE: September 18. Sabra & Shatilla




Twenty-seven years ago, from 16-18 September, Phalange forces massacred some 3000 Palestinians in this encampment-cum-ghetto. This Friday afternoon it’s all a-bustle. We drive at snail’s pace through an open-air market. Shoes and cobblers on one side, eggplant and lemons on the other. Behind an olive oil stand we see a mural with a giant photograph, the caption lamenting the murder of innocents in the 1982 massacre: “What is The Guilt She Committed to be Murdered?” The poster advertises a photo exhibition. Here we were welcome to use our cameras and a vegetable vendor encourages us to invited to come and see. We declined in the interest of continuing our tour, the time, our various stages of exhaustion. But I wish we’d gone in. It would have been informative and moving, I am sure.


The healthy hubbub here today belies another reality, one of poverty, despair and grief. Twenty-seven years is not long enough to forget the horror of the massacre. They were, in fact, terrorist attacks, although that’s not what we called them in the newsroom back then.


In 1982, news of the horrific slaughter trickled out for days, weeks, from eyewitnesses and news agencies. The atrocity was committed by militiamen, identified with Lebanon’s Christian factions -- but God knows true Christians like true Muslims would not engage in such despicable behavior. The Israeli Army, which held military control of the area at the time, was said to have stood by, watching, allowing. Orders to let the rampage rage apparently came from above. Nineteen years later Ariel Sharon, Israel’s Prime Minister was facing a war crimes indictment from a Belgian Court (http://tweetmeme.com/story/119009603/). Now its 2009 and I am here for the briefest of moments, reflecting on what’s the same and what has changed.


I was a rookie at Boston’s “Eyewitness News” in 1982 when reports of the killings began to hit the wires. They set the 80s standard for bloody and cruel in regional conflict. The 90s brought us Bosnia and Rwanda. At the time the Israelis were opening their gambit for the occupation of southern Lebanon. Beseiging Beirut was part of the strategy. At first we thought the Israelis were the perpetrators. Then came word that the atrocities were committed by Lebanese -- Phalangists high on hashish and enabled by their Israeli allies, knifed, slashed and shot civilians for more than two days. Untold numbers of families were devastated and traumatized.

I watched the news feeds in WBZ-TV’s narrow screening room. As an associate producer and news writer I was to select footage to run in the broadcast and compose appropriate copy for the anchors to read. Twenty to thirty seconds at a pop to duly inform the Boston public on the subject.

Charlie, one of our reporters, stood by one morning as I reviewed the rushes from the night before. A smart and eager newsman he was curious to know more about the back-story to the gruesome headlines. I told him about Lebanon’s ongoing civil war, some history about the factions, exaggerated stories of religious fragmentation and the real struggle for political equality among citizens who were governmentally identified as religious populations. I talked about the impact of Israel’s presence in the region.

“How do you know so much?” he asked.

“I’ve been studying this part of the world all my life.” Growing up Arab-American in New York City with the nation’s most vocal Palestine advocate for a father bred knowledge as well as courage. Volunteering in Boston with “The Arabic Hour,” a Lilliputian weekly cable program that sought to educate the public and promote mutual understanding, deepened my studies (www.arabichour.org). Looking back I marvel at the prescience of executive producer Michel Haidar and our team, churning out news, cooking, movies and extended interviews on a shoestring. We were Arab Americans boldly going where few like us had gone before: into the media to make a difference. I am of Iraqi descent; the rest were Lebanese of all religious stripes. They tutored me with statistics and by example. I shared my knowledge with Charlie.

Realization dawned on his face.

“Anisa, you’re not impartial. This is your heritage.” It was an accusation. “How can I count on what you’re saying? You’ve got a definite point of view!” He did not need to add that my “point of view” was clearly out-of-synch with the common wisdom of the day. Everyone knew that Israel’s invasion of Lebanon was justified as self-defense and so was its harsh treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories. They were harboring terrorists there. Everyone knew that in the newsroom but me.

I was aghast.

“So, Charlie,” I looked him levelly in the eye. “I guess that means that since you’re a black man I can’t trust your analysis of the Civil Rights movement either.”

He did not like the analogy. “It’s not the same thing,” he demurred. But he was wavering. I know he left our conversation circumspect.

Twenty-seven years later I am at the location of the tragedy, assessing a scene I had the khutzpah to write about from afar. That’s the sad truth about so much reporting: we write what we don’t know. I did the best I could then. Others did, too. In the 27 years since, other Arab Americans and Muslims have begun to enter the news media. Americans are beginning to discern the complexities of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Yasser Arafat, once a “known terrorist,” died a Nobel Peace Prize winner. The December 2008 Israeli crusade against Gaza tarnished its halo. So did the 2006 attacks on Lebanon. And Charlie maybe now would appreciate how hard I’d studied.

I’ve learned much since then, too.

“Camp” I know now, is not an adequate term for this place. These holding grounds for Palestinians who were exiled from their ancestral homes and the generations born displaced after them are bursting at the seams. They should have been temporary shelters. Sabra, Shatila, and so many more “refugee camps” in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the occupied West Bank, are now densely packed pseudo-welfare communities. Multiple generations live spaces designed for nuclear families. Too many people can’t get out; nor can they get in to where they say they want to be, back home in Palestine. Some of those homes still exist; many live only in memory, in carefully guarded deeds, and treasured front door keys.

Something’s gotta give.

We drove on through the lighter, brighter, rebuilt parts of Beirut: past the dazzling Rafiq Hariri mosque that sits proudly next to an ancient and active church, adjacent to Roman columns poking up from an excavation mid-city – all of which is on the former “green line” that separated East and West Beirut during the Civil War. There’s a monument there now.

Fewer headscarves in this section. More trees and bushes, reminding me of Amman, and taller apartment buildings, surpassing Amman’s. In spite of recent history there’s no anxiety in the air. Signs are in Arabic and English.

And in this next to last day of Ramadan I forgot my hunger. That is until we were on our way back to Doha Hills and see the juma’a (Friday) markets lining the road. Gorgeous Lebanese produce in purple, orange, yellow and green. There are goats, sheep and chickens awaiting their maker on the Eid. Two monkeys in a cage.

One day left of Ramadan and a lifetime of learning, insha Allah.

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