Word: beirutization
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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Nervously eyeing the skies for Israeli warplanes, Hussein Naboulsi, a spokesman for Hizballah, took quick strides as he accompanied foreign journalists through the bombed-out neighborhoods of Beirut's southern suburbs. "Listen to me!" he shouted. "We have to move very fast!" He paused amid the devastation to point out the pulverized office blocks in the Harat Hreik district where Hizballah's headquarters had stood only a week earlier. "Now I have no place to work," said Naboulsi, the son of a prominent Shi'ite Muslim cleric...
...pick up some milk, the shopkeeper was in the middle of a conversation with friends. "I hope the American Administration falls because of this," he told them. "I hope Bush falls." Seeing me, the blonde foreigner, he asked where I was from. I told him: American, but living in Beirut. He smiled and said: "American! Welcome! We hate your government, but we love the American people. You know, we all want to live there!" Syrians have told me this for years, whenever I reveal my nationality. It was reassuring to know that at least for now they still feel...
...When I told them that I had just come from Beirut, one shook his head and said: the Israelis are crazy. I was stunned: no one in Syria seems to actually utter the word Israel. No one says Israeli. Israel features frequently in political conversations, but only via euphemisms or circumlocutions. Now, though, with Israeli tanks massing at the Lebanese border and Israeli warplanes continuing their strikes throughout the country, there is no way to avoid these words. I wonder what consequences, if any, this change will bring - whether Syrians' ability to name the enemy will make Israel...
...Since January, I have lived in Beirut, in a friendly all-Lebanese apartment building just off Sanayeh Gardens, a Sunni Muslim neighborhood in the center of West Beirut that has now become the city's largest refugee camp. I moved here for the opportunities to meet the scholars of all nationalities who come to Beirut on fellowships or research trips. As a visiting researcher at both American University Beirut and Notre Dame University, I found myself immersed in a rich academic environment created by the intersection of Arab, American and European scholarly traditions...
...left that drive hopeful that it could serve as a model for Lebanon, where parties are often feudal arrangements of patrons and clients, based on ethnic or religious affiliations. The first drive had been held in Achrafiyeh, Beirut's most upscale Christian neighborhood. Holding the second in the Bekaa would allow us to reach more Sunni, Shia, and Druze Lebanese-Americans - a chance to demonstrate one of the American ideals I love most: that our diversity is our strength, and that we value all citizens, regardless of race or religion. Those ideals, of course, often aren't honored; the most...