www.talkcyprus.org

[Leyla]

A very close Lebanese friend (who is a Journalist) has written this piece that has been printed in a Jewish publication this week (Jewish News).

PROGRESS LOST by Lina Mahdavi July 28th 2006

Two weeks ago I started getting phone calls and e-mails from people I hadn't spoken to in years. How is your family in Beirut? Are they safe? How do you feel about what's going on in Lebanon? I left these phone calls unanswered and e-mails unopened. For the first time in years the violence in the Middle East had landed on my doorstep.

My family fled Lebanon in 1978. I was a few months old and the civil war was raging. We returned to the country my parent's called home in 1992 and Beirut had been reduced to rubble. Gone was the jewel of the Middle East, but the spirit and the determination of it's people to rebuild it was stronger than bricks and mortar. We returned every year from our home in London to spend summers in Beirut. Watching a new city rise was inspiring.

Beirut became vibrant, full of life, modern and a picture in sandstone. You could no longer see straight through buildings riddled with bullet holes. I grew to love the country I had heard so much about and I was married there two years ago. Earlier this month my sister went out there with my mother and her eighteen month old daughter and that's when they became trapped by the violence we all thought we had left behind.

Lebanon is a country under seige, held hostage by a political faction working under it's own will, certainly not God's and definitely not that of the majority of the Lebanese people. This latest act of war came as a surprise to most Lebanese, who I would like to lend a voice to. My sister was lucky. Two days after the attacks intensified they fled across the border into Syria,then flew onto London, terrified but with our hopes and prayers with them. Those left behind are not so fortunate, from our neighbours to the south in Israel and the thousands who live in the region in constant fear of their lives.

The death toll is too high - it will always be too high when children, mothers and families are dying regardless of the cause, religion or nationality. Mainstream press talk about the reasons behind war, the justification for it and the strived for end result. But why try to justify the disregard for humanity, no matter who's firing the rockets or dropping the bomb?

In Lebanon, children don't understand why they're being kept at home, or why they are under attack. They only understand that Israel 'the enemy' is attacking and a new generation of anti semites is created.

Israeli children live in fear from the random attacks of faceless Arabs who seem to only want to see their state destroyed. Hatred of Arabs intensifies, they are all 'savage muslims and terrorists'.

We are not so different after all.

As well as the horrifying death toll which is rising on both sides every day, a new generation is learning to hate, learning to kill and learning to live with senseless death. This is the true price of this war in the Middle East.

LINA MAHDAVI
IRN JOURNALIST

[Cyprus rules!]

A truly inspiring article!!

I wish your friend, her family and their Country all the best for the future Leyla mou!! And lets hope this madness ends soon! :(

[Leyla]

Cyprus rules! wrote: A truly inspiring article!!

I wish your friend, her family and their Country all the best for the future Leyla mou!! And lets hope this madness ends soon! :(
Thank you Cyprus R, at the moment she is working very hard to get her voice heard as much as possible but at the end of the day who is really listening? ...

[depurple]

It very sickening when you watch the UN just jerking their Gherkins while Innocent people are being killed and people say sorry:
Why Lebanon again?
Why are all the Arab countries who play Mr Big like Iran & Libya just turning a blind eye: Do they know something we don't: Amazing story Leyla and there are so many Lebanese friends of mine who are crying as we speak:
There is a song by WHITESNAKE called
Crying in the Rain:

No one see the heartache:
No one sees the pain:
No one see the tears:
When you crying in the rain:

The world sometimes is such an unfair place!
Ask my grandfather who died after working 50 years in Australia and then watch his beloved Lapithos disappear before his eyes:
50 years working hard in Australia and dreaming of his home (Ulysses only dreamed for 20 years) only to enjoy it for 50 weeks:
So tell where do the Innocent go for answers?
So like in Cyprus and now in Lebanon everyone has pay for the crimes of a few madmen!
My grandfather had to pay for the EOKA B & TMT even though he was missing for so many years!
Sad just thinking about it!