BEIRUT, Lebanon, Nov. 28—Last Wednesday afternoon, I was sitting in a café in Hamra, the traditionally Muslim neighborhood in West Beirut, wondering why my cell phone had stopped working. There were plenty of units left in my Lebanese pay-as-you-go account and I’d charged the handset recently, yet each attempt to make a call or to Read More
AMMAN, JORDAN—By now, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan is winding down his latest Middle East trip, a grueling 11-day tour that has had him hop-scotching from Beirut to Tel Aviv to Tehran to Damascus to Ankara. The trip was organized in order to shore up regional support for a Security Council resolution that ended Read More
TEL AVIV—In the upcoming weeks, myriad Israeli committees and panels will begin deconstructing the Israeli army’s performance against Hezbollah over the summer.
But even before the investigators begin their work, a chorus of politicians and experts have started to debate whether Israel’s fight against Palestinian suicide bombers over the last six years has distracted the Read MoreJERUSALEM, Israel, DATETK?--Fresh from the battlefield in southern Lebanon, disgruntled soldiers from reservist battalion 8101 camped out across the street from the prime minister’s office in a small park and trained their sights on Ehud Olmert. They were there to demand resignations from Mr. Olmert, Defense Minister Amir Peretz and Army Chief of Staff Dan Read More
BEIRUT, Lebanon, Aug. 22—The cease-fire that brought the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah to a halt last week is holding—for now—and Beirut’s neighborhoods, though still eerily quiet and free from traffic, are no longer reverberating to the sound of Israeli bombing raids. Of course, I can’t speak firsthand about the sound of Read More
JERUSALEM, Israel, Aug. 8—Ostensibly, Jordan and Israel are at peace, and have been since 1994, when Jordan’s King Hussein and Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin signed a historic treaty at Wadi Araba. Still, most of the people I spoke to in Amman, where I spent last week, reacted testily, or worse, when I announced my Read More
TEL AVIV—For 16 years, he was Israel’s best friend in Lebanon, a general who commanded a militia of 3,000 that helped the Israeli army keep Hezbollah at bay. At home, he is reviled as a traitor and an alleged war criminal. This week, as fighting raged along the northern border, Antoine Lahad could be found Read More
TEL AVIV—For 16 years, he was Israel’s best friend in Lebanon, a general who commanded a militia of 3,000 that helped the Israeli army keep Hezbollah at bay. At home, he is reviled as a traitor and an alleged war criminal.
This week, as fighting raged along the northern border, Antoine Lahad could be found Read More
The government of Israel appears to suffer from the same mental and moral dysfunctions that afflict the Bush administration: an urge to wage war without any plausible objectives, any viable plan for disengagement, or any rational assessment of costs and benefits. Israel’s second invasion of Lebanon, only weeks old and with considerably more justification, is Read More
AMMAN, Jordan, Aug. 1—We’re now well into the third week of what some Syrian friends of mine have started referring to, utterly without irony, as “the second Lebanese war.” In Gaza, too, of course, the fighting continues. But here in Jordan, where about 65 percent of the population is Palestinian, everyone is talking about Hassan Read More
I'm in a little town in Israel near the Lebanon border, full of reporters. They're flirting, over their expense accounts, as the shells are fired nearby, and the rockets land. At dinner, the restaurant's dog shoved in under my table, afraid of the explosions. Reminded me of home, where the dog is thrown by fireworks Read More
Lebanon’s representative to the United Nations has to find humor where he can these days—even if it is of the blackest kind.
Nouhad Mahmoud, a doleful, middle-aged diplomat with a semi-permanent slouch, allowed himself a rare smile when he was asked about recent interactions with his U.S. counterpart, John Bolton. “No comment,” he said, before Read MoreThe war in Lebanon and Israel doesn’t have much to do with Lebanon, and scarcely more to do with Israel. Lebanon is a land of ancient identities. If you follow events there at all, you come across the name of Walid Jumblat, the Druse leader. But Mr. Jumblat is not just the Druse in the Read More
TEL AVIV, Israel, July 18—The café shift manager snickered at the suggestion that his business had been affected by the threat of Hezbollah rockets spreading southward toward Tel Aviv.
“On account of the security situation?” he said. “This is Tel Aviv. People here don’t care if they live or die …. In any case, there’s Read More