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Christmas mess |
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Written by Haaretz
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"Lebanon isn't celebrating this year"
Dec. 30, 2006- The toy-sellers in Beirut can already point to the effect that the Lebanon War has had on children: This year, fewer toy guns have been sold than in any other year. The children of Lebanon, at least in Beirut, preferred dolls, puzzles, electronic toys, computers and even toy kitchen utensils over weapons. "Maybe we are finally starting to be normal," a Christian political activist, who is the mother of two and lives in the Ashrafiyeh neighborhood, wrote to me. "It seems to me that we too, the adults, are directing our children more and more to the less violent shelves in the toy stores.
There is enough violence in the streets and we don't have to bring it home under the Christmas tree." This year she and her family will not stay in Lebanon for the holidays; they are going to relatives in Canada, "and maybe we will look into the possibility of staying there for a while."
Forever? "No, not forever, but until things here calm down. There were years when the relatives from Canada came here, home, to celebrate Christmas and New Year's. Now everything is reversed." But in Lebanon things usually don't calm down, and perhaps at long last we will finally be able to meet face to face in Canada.
"Lebanon isn't celebrating this year," explained one of those unknown writers who since the beginning of the Lebanon War has become a pen pal who does not cease to explain the Lebanese reality and criticize the Israeli press that doesn't understand anything. "How is it possible to celebrate when the villains want to make a revolution? I have friends who are afraid that this is one of the last Christmases that it will be possible to celebrate openly in Lebanon. Who knows, maybe in a few years we will have an Iranian Hezbollah government and then you can forget about the holidays."
The writer is known to be someone who panics. During the hot days of August before the end of the war he was certain that Israel was about to occupy Lebanon forever.
The Lebanese press is filled with sad descriptions of shops that stand empty, hotels with few guests and, especially, of families that no longer have any money to buy presents for the children. Tourism has plummeted and retail profits have dropped by an estimated one-third relative to last year.
An acquaintance who regularly sends me lists of new books published in Lebanon wrote in an e-mail this week that "maybe thanks to the trade with the Israelis via the Internet the book businesses in Lebanon will make a bit of money. In Lebanon anyone who has money is no longer buying books. He is buying a ticket out." There are no official figures on the extent of the Christian emigration caused by the recent war in Lebanon. Many of the emigrants declare that they are "only" going to visit their relatives for the holidays, but many friends in Lebanon say this has become a trend, adding that "there isn't a Christian family in Lebanon that isn't considering leaving the country."
In the meantime, some of the country's large companies decided to help out businesses that suffered the most. Before the holidays they gave their employees money to spend at struggling stores. Thus, for example, Nestle gave 12 employees $250 each to purchase toys and gifts at either a children's cancer treatment center or Children's City, a children's charity center.
Michael Bayoud, CEO of Boecker Public Health International, gave $100 each to 17 of his employees to buy goods at shops that have not recovered from the war. Bayoud, who has appeared on every television channel and in every serious newspaper in Lebanon, enlisting several more companies in the campaign but less than $20,000 was spent in total, a paltry sum relative to the volume of sales that stores had expected from this holiday season.
By Zvi Bar'el
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Madness takes over Lebanon.
Militants are fighting in the streets of Beirut. Military guns are on both sides. What is the prospect of such a situation. Aren't the Lebanese fed-up with wars?
23 November 2007
Lebanese President Emile Lahoud left the Baabda presidential palace without handing over the power to a new president. This is the first time since independence in 1943. |
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