Adania Shibli

Palestinian Writer Adania Shibli Held in Tel Aviv on Suspicion of Spying

What are they saying about US?

Left Exchange

Comments on the Ann Arbor March Saturday, July 29, 2006

I was glad I attended and want to hit as many Lebanon solidarity demos as I can in the coming weeks. But as is often the case, I feel that the message of such marches is messy to the point of incoherence. I tried to imagine what someone seeing us at certain points would think was the point of the march - and if they weren't sure, their confusion would be very understandable.

I'm not sure how to solve the problem, which plagues most lefty demos. People should of course be free and encouraged to bring their own signs, but the end result is often a mishmash of different messages that hampers the goals of the demo from getting across to others.
SB

We had a conversation right after the march that echoes the points that you make here. I said that we should try imagine an uninformed Ann Arborite sitting on state street eating ice cream as we walked by screaming. What did they think? How did we help them better understand what is going on in Lebanon? Did we convince them or anything? Or did we turn them off completely? We have to think about who our audience is and what is the message that we are trying to convey?

With that said, I want to continue doing things that raise awareness about the horrible acts being committed against lebanon. We must move forward but we must continue in such a way that sends a clear, appropriate, helpful message. As you all know, I am not talking about balloons and bake sales here, but you get the idea.

A

After the killings in Qana, it's hard to retain our cool. I have been an advocate for nonviolent resistance since I was an undergrad. I always had experienced unease when folks defending suicide bombers although I understood their point. I felt we (Arabs) would fair better if we took the higher road. I still never believe in tit for tat and I think when you copy someone's 'bad' behavior, you have now sunk to his/her level. That said, something changed in my thinking in the last 6 months and it solidified w/ the recent Lebanese invasion. If you accept the occupation of your home and the killing of your family, you win nothing. You are forgotten in the present. You might win in the history books, but it is a marginal victory.

A couple of years ago a Palestinian friend and fellow WIB organizer made a sign for one of our demos "Zionism = Racism" and she wanted to know who would carry it; she looked at me. I obviously looked reluctant, so she looked at someone else. I could not carry that sign years ago because I did not want to generalize about a whole people/country. After visiting there, I can confidently shout "Israel is an apartheid state" I knew it but I did not want to believe it because it would comprise many relationships and maybe as a leftie Arab I might be seen as more anti-Semitic than someone else who was harshly critical of Israel. It does not matter. Truth is truth and we have to be vocal about it at whatever cost.

A, I understand your point about the ice cream-eating Ann Arborites, but that kid needs to wake up to the reality that as he enjoys his sweet treat, his country is bombing the living hell out of a country.

I think the yelling was a bit much since we were using that megaphone and we could have been more effective if we were in unison. That said, most demos where people shout slogans are pretty harried and inconsistent...don't know if we can 'herd' folks anyway. I am going to talk to them about their jihad chant since many participants might not have agreed or wanted to chant something like that or Israel out of the ME. I am feeling that way right now and if I WANT to shout it, I CAN, but I should not be leading a chant and 'forcing' others to join me.

Nayj

To me, the question is how do we get our ice-cream eater to understand what's going on. How can a march educate and eventually bring others to action? Or get someone to at least think a bit more and pay more attention to something?

My problem with signs such as "Zionism=Racism" isn't that I disagree with their content, but that 98% of the people who will see it don't know what Zionism is. Ditto for one that says "divest." I completely agree, but most people reading it won't know what it means or, if they do, what exactly it refers to.

As I wrote in my first message, these problems are commonplace at lefty marches; I hope I didn't seem like I was singling out Saturday's demo. I think some of it may stem from the fact that lefties tend to run in the same circles, frequently attending events (demos, talks, etc.) where only the converted are present. As a result, perhaps we've lost some ability to communicate with those in the mainstream.

SB

Or maybe we are sick of trying since they seem so mute and useless?

Seriously, you are right on all counts. I am grouchy on all these issues.
Bottom line: as professors, as activists, as lefties, should we dumb it down? And perhaps that is an elitist Q! If you are a UM student or live in a2, wake up to the intellectual life or find out what divestment means. Signs cannot be so simple like 'peace on earth'. For me WIB became too toned down so that our messages became water-downed, non-threatening and then, for me, ineffective. The war(s) have stepped up, so I guess I feel like we have to step up the rhetoric and level of engagement. The ice cream eater will keep eating ice cream and keep ignoring us, so I don't know if he is my audience. I don't know if my purpose is to educate or to make renegade views more visible (not necessarily more palatable). This is the anarchist in me since I never identified w/ the middle of the road contact-your- senator-democrat-and-vote-for-the-a---- kind of leftie. F my shitty Senators who agree to this war and who will continue to do whatever buy votes. Mine is not for sale (& I know neither are yours).

Notice that not many white lefties are out protesting? Why? This current situation has brought out Arabs, angryarabs (there's a cool blog by that name, btw) and the left has been majority white in previous demos. The White liberal movement is usually visible and usually who takes charge of marches,etc. Folks of color don't like to protest because they have a greater fear of arrest, deportation,etc. Anyway, always, the segregations continue and the solidarities that people claim they have do not happen. Where are all the OTHER minorities too? I agree. Where are the Mexicans, the Chaldeans, the Polish, the African-Americans? Each group fights for its own. [Look closely at all those pix of international demos and you see mostly folks of color or whites.]

White liberals, in general not all, do not want get involved because this drama looks likes its between Jews and Muslims (again). This is a nonacademic, not very intellectual generalization, but it is strange how few non-Arabs are out protesting and if they are, it's a candle light vigil for peace. That does not cut it for me right now.

Nayj

July 29, 2006 protest

Video Letter from Beirut's NGO - network SAMIDOUN

West Bloomfield -Dearborn divide

NIRAJ WARIKOO: Why is it when the Free Press published your article about the July 18 Dearborn march, they or you felt the necessity to surround it with an ad for a pro-Israel rally the next day and the article itself larded with views contrary to those of the marchers when they had nothing to do with what was being reported? I've been a journalist for 40 years and I know propaganda when I see it. Your pro-Israel rally article the next day didn't have one line of contrary opinion from opponents of Israel's war, or if it did, it nowhere resembled the previous one.

Your article on anti-Semitism is libelous toward myself and the other 10,000 Dearborn marchers by linking it with a shooting by a deranged man. I just came from another anti-Israeli war march in downtown Detroit where American citizens expressed outrage at Israel's destruction of Lebanon and its targeting of civilians. The idea that to criticize Israel, even by comparing it to the Nazis, is anti-Semitism is calumny.

You are complicit in the massacre that's occurring. Or, did I miss your article as sympathetic to the Lebanese-American people who care about their ancestral home as the one about the Jewish community? I hope so. If there hasn't been one, your letter of commendation from the IDF should arrive soon.

Peter Werbe

Israeli kids and bad manners

Iraqi artists: Detroit and New York

Wafer Shayota
Athir Shayota

Save the Lebanese Civilians Petition

Nancy Ajram: Lebnan Ya Habib El Umor

Nancy performed in Beirut New Year's Eve 2006

Lebanese singer Nancy Ajram has recorded a new patriotic song “Lebnan Ya Habib El Umor” (Lebanon My Only Love) to express her grief over the horror her dear country is experiencing with endless Israeli raids that are killing so many innocent civilians, and destroying the core of Lebanon, according to the singer.

MY GRANDFATHER SURVIVED THREE WEEKS OF BOMBING

By Hayan Charara

Last time I saw my grandfather, I was a sophomore in high school. My 

family barely traveled to Lebanon, and he wasn't the sort who liked 

leaving his village, Bint Jbeil. He owned a restaurant and a house, in 

both of which he raised nine children, the oldest of whom was my 

mother. I talked to him on the phone regularly enough, but my strongest 

impression was from the visit he made back in 1987. He was a bit fat in 

the belly, the way I expected a grandfather to be. And while it was my 

father's side of the family I imagined being "tough" (believing 

wholeheartedly in "like father like son"), it turned out that this 

trait belonged to my mother's father. Mind you, he wasn't 

mean-spirited. He was just a guy who helped his wife raise nine kids, 

plus lived in a country that went through a civil war and a few 

invasions--that'll ruffle anyone's feathers.

A day ago, he was featured on news broadcasts around the world. No one 

had heard from him since the bombings in Lebanon started. A man in his 

80s, living mostly alone, we--his children and grandchildren--didn't 

know what to think. Some of us thought the worst, some hoped for the 

best. I have to admit, I'd say things like, "He's probably in his bomb 

shelter," but after seeing images of Bint Jbeil on the Internet--it 

looked like those cities in Hollywood films after a meteor strikes 

earth--I pretty much thought him a goner.

But there he was, showing up on TV. Beat-up, battered, frail the way 

any person is after hiding in the same spot for three weeks would be, 

especially an old man--but alive.

My grandfather owes getting rescued to his daughter, my aunt Fadia. Her 

son arranged for a Saudi TV crew to take his mother down from Beirut to 

Bint Jbeil--well, all the way isn't possible given the destruction, but 

close enough. Anyhow, She risked her life and headed for Bint Jbeil, 

which is located about five miles north of the Israeli border. Anyone 

who's watched any TV or read any blog in the last couple weeks knows 

how foolish this act was--it's about as suicidal as the drive to the 

Baghdad airport. Except, the "word on the street" (as so many 

journalists like to say) is that while ambulances and civilian convoys 

may be hit by Israeli air strikes, TV crews, apparently, don't have to 

worry about this. Doesn't make sense, but that's another story. My aunt 

went to find her dad.

She made it as close as possible, with the crew filming her every step. 

On the way through the rubble of the town she grew up in--same place my 

father’s house is located--she walked past dozens and dozens of 

corpses, some in boxes. This, a strategy meant to deter dogs from 

eating human flesh. And she found him. Ali--that's his name. He'd run 

out of food. He'd run out of water, too, and his medication. He's 

really old, and he didn't have his adult diapers either. He was bed 

ridden, with the usual sores. The fat belly was gone, too. Common 

knowledge is that TV cameras adds ten pound to the body. The cameras 

focused on him still couldn't make his body look like more than a 

skeleton. But he was alive. Not well, but alive. And that's the most 

any of us had wished for.

He survived the missiles, the bombs, the gunfights, the tanks, and so 

on. I like to think he represents the spirit of the Lebanese people. 

That if I'm lucky, I've got some of that same determination in my 

blood.

Yesterday, my grandfather, Ali Dabaja, became a “hero” of sorts. And I 

expect that today, or tomorrow, the journalists will feature him again. 

This old man, who survived so much, was taken to a partially wrecked 

hospital in Bint Jbeil. And a day later, early in the morning, he died.

Hizballah: A Primer

July 31, 2006
Lara Deeb, a cultural anthropologist, is assistant professor of women’s studies at the University of California-Irvine. She is author of An Enchanted Modern: Gender and Public Piety in Shi‘i Lebanon.

“The trees in the south say, ‘We are Hezbollah.’ The stones say, ‘We are Hezbollah,’ ” said Issam Jouhair, a car mechanic. “If the people cannot talk, the stones will say it.”
from NYTimes August 6, 2006

Ground to a Halt

Gavillero Words by KQuiet

Fernando in Occupied Palestine

Who Grieves for dead Iraqis?

Andrew Greeley Chicago Sun-Times July 28, 2006

Tariq Ali: IN SOLIDARITY

Cultural Boycott of Israel

Palestinian Filmmakers, Artists and Cultural Workers Speak out

Dearborn Fundraiser for Lebanon Relief (update)

ACCESS News, August 10, 2006

$7.5 Million in Medical Supplies to be Sent to Lebanon, Campaign to Continue Fundraising

Over 500 supporters attended the Medical Relief Fundraiser—a joint effort by ACCESS, NAAMA and ANERA—Saturday, August 5, and raised nearly $100,000 to ship 13 containers of medical and pharmaceutical supplies to Lebanon. The net worth of these shipments is approximately $7.5 million. The American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA) reported that the first shipment of medical supplies is on its way to Lebanon via KLM. On behalf of NAAMA, ANERA and ACCESS we thank the contributors who made this shipment possible.

EVEN IF YOU ARE NOT FROM MICHIGAN OR CANNOT ATTEND, CONSIDER WRITING & SENDING A CHECK

Dear Friends,

This past weekend has seen great loss of life in Lebanon. As the crisis wears on, medical supplies are in higher demand and lower supply. Many of the displaced in Lebanon are elderly and children—two of the most vulnerable groups. ACCESS, American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA), and the National Arab American Medical Association (NAAMA) are holding a fundraiser to provide medical relief to the displaced people in need in Lebanon. We have already secured 7 containers ready for shipment, and we are looking to ship more. Each container will cost $7,500.00 to ship. We are asking for your help.

The event will take place on Saturday, August 5 at 7:00 pm at Bint Jebail Cultural Center in Dearborn. Tickets prices are $100, $300, or $500. If you cannot attend your contribution would be appreciated.

Tickets are available At ACCESS or you can contact Dinah Ayna at 313-216-2232. Please make your check payable to NAAMA-MI/Middle East Relief. NAAMA is a 501(c)(3) tax exempt charitable organization. Please send the check to:

ACCESS

2651 Saulino Court

Dearborn, MI 48120

Best Regards,

Noel Saleh

President, ACCESS Board of Directors

LEBANON MEDICAL RELIEF

Saturday, August 5, 2006

7pm – 10pm

Bint Jebail Cultural Center

6220 Miller Road

Dearborn, MI 48126

Support Levels:

Silver Tickets.................$100

Gold Tickets ...................$300

Platinum Tickets...........$500

Corporate Table..........$1,500

(Includes 10 tickets)

Your Support Saves Lives

Detroit Demonstration Today!

attend! and pass the word!

::: Detroit Demonstration :::

against the Izraeli War of Destruction
on Lebanon and Palestine.

Friday, August 4, 2006
Start gathering: 4:00pm

Gather at
E Jefferson and Randolph
(by the Windsor Tunnel entrance)

March at 5:30
to Grand Circus Park
for closing rally.

Call 313-680-5508 for more information

Or go to www.mecawi.org

U.S & Israeli War on Lebanon

Published on Tuesday, July 18, 2006 by the Guardian / UK

If Israel Has the Right to Use Force In Self-Defense, So Do Its Neighbors
The west appears to insist that only one side in the conflict is able to intervene militarily across borders.
by Ahmad Samih Khal
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0718-24.htm

Anders Strindberg:
Hezbollah’s Attacks Stem from Israeli Incursions into Lebanon Thursday August 03, 2006
http://www.palestinechronicle.com/story-08030651743.htm


Stop the Band-Aid Treatment
We Need Policies for a Real, Lasting Middle East Peace
By Jimmy Carter, Washington Post, August 1, 2006

The Water of Cana is Turned Into Blood
By His Eminence Metropolitan PHILIP
Primate, Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America
July 31, 2006

How Can We Stand By and Allow This To Go On?
By Robert Fisk

Mr. Bush Just Doesn't Get It
by Khaled Almaeena, Special to Gulf News
July 28, 2006

Belgian Doctor: Israel Using Chemical Weapons
Expatica, 20 July 2006

Israel and The Land
by Babu Ranganathan July 14, 2006

British PM Tony Blair Urged: Stand up to Bush and Call for Ceasefire
by Colin Brown, Deputy Political Editor
The Independent, 28 July 2006

Helplessly Hoping
Day 21, Troops Home Fast
by Cindy Sheehan, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
July 25,

UN appalled by Beirut devastation

Noam Chomsky - The Murder Of A Nation
Lebanon - Israel Facts the Media Isn't Telling You

A Measured Response? Photos from the Bombing of Lebanon
Warning: Photos are extremely graphic

Visit to Lebanon December 2005

View of American University of Beirut on New Year's Eve, December 31, 2005
Coast in Northern Lebanon
Two views of beautiful Liban!

Lebanon Today: why?

Mobilizing against this war: who's 'Left'?

in ann arbor at a protest organized by arab women
July 22, 2006

I keep waking up at 5 a.m. wondering what new nightmare the Israelis will have in store for us, and now I read that the U.S is sending, pronto, precision-guided bombs to Israel. We are at war now with four countries in the Middle East. We are funding and running war campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq and we are paying for wars in Palestine and Lebanon. As the Bush administration fights valiantly to save the lives of Stem cells, he is sanctioning the murder of innocent Lebanese civilians. He is also speculating rather intelligently that Syria must be behind this.

WE ARE THE IDIOTS IF WE KEEP HIM in office for another year and a half. I kept thinking how much worse can this situation become and it is getting worse! Our economy is horrible especially in Michigan. Houses are foreclosing and families are moving elsewhere because they cannot survive.

At a protest yesterday in Troy, we were told by one passing car, a very typical comment to “foreign-looking” protestors, “Go back to where you come from.”

I was born in this country, right here in Michigan in Detroit. The depth of entitlement and arrogance in this country is incredible. I am not really astounded but sort of puzzled at the way in which people disrespect one another especially when it comes to conflicting political views.

Why am I making this personal? It is personal. My family came from Iraq and the United States has used the rescue pretense to decimate a people and a culture so that not only are more than a million Iraqis dead because of sanctions and a protracted war, but ancient sites, monuments, and historic artifacts have been destroyed or pillaged. Lives will never be recovered and Iraq will never be the same. Palestine can never be the same. And now Lebanon cannot be.

At a protest last Sunday in Ann Arbor at the Federal building, Palestinians, Libyans, Iraqis, Iranians and other Americans came out to oppose the rally that some supporters of Israelis were holding. They would not stomach our presence or our chants, so they sent their children to drown us out with Hebrew song. At one point, a hostile and very poorly mannered man, I have to say, told us, “Why don’t you remove the bombs from your waist?” and I answered him by saying “Why don’t you give me back the $5 million you take from me every day?”

“Oh just shut up” was what he said directly to me in a and sarcastic voice. I told him to shut up. This was not a mature exchange to be sure. We were not at our finest, he nor I.

But the issue here is that I will not shut up. Palestinians, Iraqis, Lebanese WILL NOT SHUT up. Israel and the Unites States want to silence Arabs. The State of Israel and the United States of America are using its military prowess to shut Arabs down. But it won’t happen. No matter how many bombs they drop, we have eyes, and ears, and cousins who run blogs and write poetry and we won’t shut up. We will keep speaking about all these injustices until they are shut down, until they stop using weapons instead of words to end conflict. We are not the violent ones. We are not dropping bombs on innocent civilians!

We are here in solidarity with our brothers and sisters all over the third world where people of color are being slaughtered and the rest of world watches in silence.

Arab American writers, bloggers, journalists, activists, all are speaking eloquently and poignantly to the disaster that is taking place in Lebanon. The destruction of Lebanon, beautiful, vibrant, Lebanon has happened in ten days. It can now be compared to Iraq. We know that Israel and the United States, the so-called “super powers,” have this kind of power, yet we are overwhelmed and shocked at the injustices and callousness with which Israelis have invaded and attacked relentlessly and ruthlessly. Why are we shocked? Have they not been doing this to Palestinians for decades? Have we not seen the same in Iraq? Yes, I am angry at Bush and his rogue thugs. Israeli militants and Zionist extremists are also on my shit list, but who am I really angry with?

THE LEFT in the U.S.! Why have we been sitting on our butts? We have. I know we are doing what we can and most have stayed active, but really, really, we should have been on the street for the last three years. For that matter, we should have been hitting the street and DC all the time every day. We should have organized a crippling and effective boycott of Israeli products and Israeli academics. I am not talking what some of us do as our personal politics. I am talking about collective action and mobilization.

We are all complicit. When will the Left wake up? We don’t need to move to Canada. Why should we leave? We need to fight and change this imperialist state. This kind of crisis rhetoric needs to translate into direct action and mobilization and creative interventions.

If we care about real justice and social equality, then we need to stand up and stand with those who are less visible and whose character is being maligned in the U.S. media in particular. The campaign to destroy Lebanese is the current campaign, but the destruction of Palestine is the real campaign and Iraqis, Lebanese, Iranians, Syrians are all targeted. Those in power know military aggression as the only solution to any and every point of tension. Those of us who do not have governmental power but who are activists, academics, artists, filmmakers, journalists, attorneys, students, from any and every walk of life, we need to speak out. I am not going to write to my congressman because they are complicit in the work of empire and they let us get here. We need to engage in grassroots activism and speak out openly and honestly in writing and in public, making demands of our own and backing it with economic pressure and boycotts and garnering world attention and pressure.

To the left: Wake the hell up! We need a movement that rocks this administration. We cannot wait until we see dead Lebanese children on the Internet and then we are outraged. Dead Palestinians and dead Iraqis, we have been seeing for decades. When are we going to stop this insanity?

I just visited Palestine in early June and I felt like I was in a Kafka novel. Racial profiling and clear, clear racism was embedded in every aspect of Israeli life. Israeli citizens, men and women, walk around with guns to go grocery shopping like it is normal. Women, Israeli citizens not soldiers, shop with their kid and carry giant guns not little pistols. This is not in a war zone. This is the daily life they have chosen so they can protect themselves from Palestinians whose lives they have shattered and continue to shatter. But it is Palestinians who need protection.

This Israeli campaign against Lebanon is the most recent egregious and illegal act on the part of the Israeli military. U.S policy makers and those with political power and military decision-making continue to align themselves with world leaders who are ruthless killers. Those friendships usually end badly as we saw with Saddam Hussein. We had to be responsible for the death of over a million Iraqis to eliminate a tyrant and his family? He is still alive and being treated well in jail; the average Iraqi suffers because of him and instead of him. The Bush administration convinced the American people, who are asleep and lost, that there was a connection between Al-Qaida and Hussein. It was a joke in the intellectual and activist community, but there is nothing funny about our complicity with the worst bloodshed we've seen in a long time. If we cared about humanity, we'd be in the Sudan. I am not advocating for U.S. military intervention anywhere, but the hypocrisy of U.S military rhetoric is more than this Iraqi- American can stomach!

Arab people like other people in the Global South are not treated like humans. A numbers of close friends have gotten emails from supposed friends saying the "Arabs" deserve this; they are animals. Israel is doing what it needs to do to protect itself. The sectarian politics do not just apply to the Middle East. We, Americans, are sectarian and segregationist by policy and by our politics.

I dedicate this march to my students in Dearborn and to all those who are in jeopardy in Lebanon. My friend and colleague, Mary Assel, her grandchildren and daughter-in-law arrived safely in Michigan. We are still waiting to hear about other friends and colleagues, Moulouk Berry and her son Roy and her mom and other relatives who are trapped in the South. Tarek Joseph’s family, Nada Elia’s mother. Mimi Ismail and her mom and sister. Sister Jarmal and all the Lebanese girls and Chaldean nuns in her orphanage in Northern Lebanon. Rashid beydoun’s family in BintjBail and Lara Hamza’s family in Tibneen. Hayan & Waad Charara’s father and his wife and their six year old son, hayan’s little brother who are now in Beirut. Maymanah Farhat's grandmother and aunts who were in the South.

TO the Palestinian-American poet Lisa Majaj who now lives in Cyprus and who was evacuated out of Beirut in 1982 and who now witnesses the same kind of evacuation

To RASHA SALTI WHO IS REPORTING FROM BEIRUT

Fairouz, Fairouz, you cry for Beirut,

To Beirut - peace to Beirut with all my heart.

So how did it come to taste of smoke and fire?

Arab Christian Press Conference

Wednesday,August 02, 2006

Marriot Courtyard
Detroit Michigan

As an activist, an academic, and a writer, I am speaking out against the Bush Administration’s latest assault on Lebanon. This is not exclusively an Israeli war on Lebanon. This is an American war on Lebanon. Besides the billions we give Israel on a regular basis, the Bush administration agreed to send precision bombs to Israel, without the consent or approval of the American people. If the U.S. allows the use of Depleted Uranium like they did in Iraq, then the Americans will be funding the continued campaign to kill innocent civilians and especially children. Cancer rates are extreme in Iraq and survival is exceptional. This is what the U.S. is promising for the Lebanese people as well. Of course we are angry, we are shocked, and we will not accept this indecency. My anti-war position is not to defend a militia group. My anti-war position is on the side of innocent people who are not combatants. Why should we wage war against the people of Lebanon and the people of Iraq and the people of Palestine? The world is seeing us, Americans, as aggressors and as haters of Islam and haters of the Muslim world. This situation is not about religion; it is about diplomatic and reasonable approaches to crisis. Israel and the United States are the ones with powerful weapons and they are destroying a nation in the name of self-defense. No one outside the U.S. believes these lies. Arab Americans are speaking out against the assault on our heritage and our homelands. We are Americans who are asking this administration to respect international standards of human rights and to stop supporting illegal war devastation.

my three favorite sites

1.
blogger Zena el Khalil's "War Diaries of a 30 Year Old Woman"
For more information on Zena el-Khalil’s work visit: http://www.ziggydoodle.com/
To read more of her written entries visit: www.beirutupdate.blogspot.com

2.
this web-log is a response to the war on Lebanon. The artist has posted his poetry, drawings and paintings. Please visit it, refer back to it, link to it on your websites and blogs, and spread the word about it.
http://ibnbintjbeil.blogspot.com

3.
FINALLY, go regularly to Laila Lalami's culture blog for literary reviews and commentaries: http://moorishgirl.com