Hugh writes:
with more photos from before and after last year's war in Lebanon. They date from July/Aug 2006 and July 2007. They're from "Haret Hreik, the southern Beirut suburb where Hizbollah has most of its offices, and where many senior Hizbollah staff have (had) apartments.
I hope they are self-explanatory until you reach the photo of the three women walking anxiously towards the wreckage of their neighbourhood. That's from last year. The little boys with the Hizbollah flag wandered past on Monday this week - they then stopped and posed for me, but I think this snatched image is better.
The final photo shows a clothes shop where the windows still haven't been fixed. Most of the block above it was destroyed.
There is widespread support for Hizbollah in this part of Beirut - but there are also Haret Hreik residents who are fiercely critical of the Lebanese government for letting Hizbollah trump them by taking a clear lead with compensation and reconstruction. It's politics, stupid."
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Good grief, what a mess. And I don't just mean the rubble...
I second Rachel G's sentiments. This poor country - what they've been through in recent years!
And we wonder at the strength of feeling in the region?
Thought for the Day: Can any individual, let alone an ex British PM who is implicated in military action in the region, sort out the complicated tensions in the Middle East?
Incredible - I truly admire the people that manage to live there and hold families together, I can not imagine the struggles they endure ( I would stress on all sides of this conflict).
We should boycott Israel. All her neighbours can only receive more of the same, unless the entire decent, democratic world stands up to her and her veto toting allies.
Where else in the world would we stand back and watch this happen before our eyes?
What a nightmare. Poor people. Was there any devastation this bad on the other side?
I'm not going to comment on the conflict side of it. I want to hear what Hugh has to tell us this evening.
But I do like the photography. Useful pairs of before and afters. Plus the immediacy of the 'three women' shot.
The last two are weaker because there is no sense of context. They could be any one of a thousand places.
Obviously one cannot and should not gerrymander the news by posing the subject (except for Damien on 'Drop the Dead Donkey', of course). But the boys picture would have looked more convincing walking amongst piles of building rubble. The last one could have been shot in the rougher end of Manchester.
I agree about the grab shot as opposed to the 'posed' version though. Better every single time for reportage.
Nonetheless Hugh does a magnificent job and deserves every credit that he gets on this Blog. The photos are an added bonus, so I'm not complaining.
Si.
Where else in the world would we stand back and watch this happen before our eyes?
Hugh,
Tell it like it is, eh? Keep up the good work, and thanks thanks thanks!
Sis,
I agree the absolute absurdity of the new envoy for 'the quartet', which is itself an exercise in absurdity. Anyone who has actually read the can understand why Hamas do not want to honour the surrender (of Fatah) to it's grossly unbalanced terms.
I'd rather trust a junkie than Blair.
Salaam/Shalom
ed
Here is some vaguely from Lebanon.
I tried to find a way to send it to Ed I earlier, but could not.
Vyle at 8,
Paste the article or it's address here....
(can't believe this is malicious....)
Vyle & JPA,
I'll put up a new page on the , and welcome any articles or links posted as 'comments'.
meanwhile Vyle, thanks for that bit of sunshine in the general gloom. JPA, Thanks, and I'll follow the link.
xx
ed
JPA,
That seems a superb idea! Thanks.
xx
ed
JPA & Ed I (10/11) I got a lot of foreign language so if I posted, it's because I chose blue rather than red.
Vyle,
It's probably still best to post links of interest straight to this Frog as you did at (9).
I'll still welcome anything at the tipiglen blog address in (11), and of you want to email me direct, the address can be found at the tipiglen blog if you click my wee picture. Best to use your name/Pseudonym in the subject line so it won't get junked.
It's amusing to get Giggle to translate some of the pages on the multilingual blog, especially the Arabic.
xx
ed
Oh for goodness sake. The Israeli actions were appalling, even Hezbollah firing their rockets from residential areas doesn't excuse it. But there are two sides to this, though you'd be hard pressed to know it if it was just the ´óÏó´«Ã½ you were depending on for information.
Peej,
"The Israeli actions were appalling"
So, what else is new? When have Israeli actions since 1940 been anything except appalling and arrogant and racist?
Al Nakba, an event which ""
Salaam/Shalom
ed
Peej)
It always takes two to fight. It's the history and the facts that speak the most. Israel and the USA want to dominate the area, they want weak, scared neighbours. Is might, right?
do you live in England Mr/Ms Green. how safe would you feel if Scotland, Wales, both parts of Ireland, France Belgium Denmark and Norway had delcared war on England and the leaders in some of those countries had said they wanted to see England wiped off the map. That's the situation Israel has been in since it was founded. No wonder it's a country on hte defensive, in several meanings of the word.
Peej (15) - that's unfair. I reported from northern Israel on Wednesday. Three interviewees revealed that the Israelis ALSO were 'firing their rockets from residential areas', to quote your posting.
and Simon Worrall (6): I agree about context and photos. I often find it really hard to make a photo which speaks for itself without a caption. But those boys could NOT have been in Manchester - even if hubble-bubble has been driven out of doors by the smoking ban! (the water pipe is hiding under the table).
Many thanks to others for your appreciative comments - I do appreciate them!
Dear admin annie,
When the USA stops protecting Israel, and makes it obey the will of the international community and it pulls down it's apartheid wall and withdraws from the occupied territories and agrees to a viable two state solution and stops crushing an entire people, then I will defend Israel just as strongly as I now defend her weaker neighbours.
Damien.
Thanks again Hugh for your reports and photographs.
The damage to Beirut is horrifying.
Damien -
I'm not sure where you get the idea that Israel's neighbours are weaker than Israel. And even if they are individually (which I don't accept) together they are stronger. In the circumstances Israel's closeness to America is understandable since America is the only country which provides Israel with almost 100% support.
And I notice you didn't answer my question. Perhaps you don't want to admit that if you lived in a country surrounded by declared enemies you would feel at risk and grateful for any support you could get.
Dear Annie,
IF the situation and comparisons you make are valid, then I would be like those Jews and Arabs in Israel who at great risk to their own safety call for the implementation of the UN resolutions from their own Government. My enemy, mankinds enemy, is injustice, elitism and oppression. Israels actions cause them to make enemies from each generation. There will be no peace until the resolutions are followed through, and the refugees can return to their own land. The world would be behind an Israel returned to the 1967 borders.
Damien
Ed (16);
Since 1940, when have the actions of the Israeli people not been... ?
Swap Israeli for Jewish, since Israel did not exist until the latter end of the 1940's. The answer you seek is at Sobibor, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Treblinka, Oswieicim, the Warsaw ghetto, Babi Yar ....
How many examples would you like?
Damien/D. Green;
You've outed yourself as JPA/JohnPearson Allen.
And I could point out that the people of Srebrenica had confidence that the UN troops stationed there would protect them. Peoples who have suffered that kind of an injustice while the world did nothing take matters into their own hands.
It's why Israel behaves the way that it does, it doesn't trust that anyone else will step in to do it for them. And it's why the Palestinian people behave the way that they do. For the exact same reason. They are united by that bond at least.
But I agree whole-heartedly with your point about the 1967 borders.
And I'd be interested to see what would happen if the Palestinians ever try a route of non-violent protest. Rosa Parks arguably achieved more for millions in the USA by sitting in the 'wrong' seat on a bus than all the rockets, bullets and suicide bombs of the Palestinian hardliners have achieved for their people in decades.
Si.
Hello Si.
I use lots of tags. It's anti-ego for myself, and anti-discrimination for the reader. Have a good frog.
Hugh the Hack (19);
Fair point about the Hubba-Bubba in the picture.
Was it you who pointed out just how widespread their use is around the world in a recent piece for PM, or it may have been 'Today'? The import of the piece in question was specifically about the problems of the Hubba-Bubba with regards to the (then imminent) English smoking ban.
I recall the journalist pontificating on whether the smoking ban would kill off that culture in England, or whether some allowance would be made for them. It conveyed a clear understanding of just how widespread the practise is globally. The journo also sampled the pipe and commented on its strength and the quantity of nicotines and tars being much higher than in a cigarette, for example.
I maintain, as a recent 'immigrant' to the Manchester suburbs that parts of Manchester are more dangerous and run-down than Beirut.
:-)
Don't worry about captions. A photograph which makes an immediate impact on the heart and mind needs no caption.
Reportage photography from a war zone is, by nature, more difficult than almost any other kind of photography. Few people manage to convey in an image the sheer horror, fear, smell, elation, destruction of a war zone. Record shots of damage and rebuilding are a stock in trade. Shots comparable to Robert Capa's 'Death of a Loyalist' or his D-Day work, or of the little girl in Vietnam running away on fire from a napalm bomb, are almost non-existent these days.
I suspect that getting that kind of an image will, in future, be the province of the freelance, since employed journalists are subject to their masters concerns over safety.
I gather that in Afghanistan and Iraq many reporters barely set foot outside their hotel door and rely on second-hand evidence to file their stories. Not suggesting that you are one such, by the way. And not because they don't want to, but because their employers insurers won't cover the potential liability.
Si.
D Green (17),
"t always takes two to fight."
In the case of the violent birth of Israel, it mostly took one side to attack and the other to run.
(20 & 23), I second that with bells on!
Annie (18),
You forgot to include in the context that most of the original inhabitants of "England" had been driven out by the new "English". The Israeli form of 'defence' is extremely offensive!
A better , perhaps
Si (24),
"Swap Israeli for Jewish, since Israel did not exist until the latter end of the 1940's. The answer you seek is at Sobibor, Belzec, Chelmno, Majdanek, Treblinka, Oswieicim, the Warsaw ghetto, Babi Yar ...."
Please do not put words in my mouth. "Jews" is NOT the same as "Israelis". I could have put "proto-Israelis and their successors", but I didn't. Those who invented Middle-Eastern terrorism against the British thought of themselves as Israelis, and you know it.
The Arab natives of Palestine (a 2:1 majority) had virtually NOTHING to do with the crimes you refer to, and you know that as well.
Hugh and Si,
The only time I smoked such a device, my host washed the tobacco with water and squeezed it dry to get rid of most of the tars. When it was dry it was mixed with herbal material and a small charcoal disc was lighted and placed on top of it in the pipe bowl......It was an excellent experience.
btw, I am informed that in Afghanistan, the 4wd SUVs favoured by foreign correspondents and others are called "bullet magnets".
Salaam/Shalom
ed
Annie (22),
I think the reference to 'weaker neighbours' was intended to mean the Palestinians held imprisoned in the "Occupied Territoties".
xx
ed