Seems a Lebanese Blogger accepted an invitation to Israel.

Although I commend him for his Courage, I doubt he realizes that there's a fine line between Courage and Stupidity.

For his sake, I hope nobody reveals his identity (currently known as 'M').

here's the article about his visit, from Haaretz

Twin cities
By Yoav Stern

On the first day of his stay in Tel Aviv, M., a Lebanese blogger, found himself on the promenade not far from Jaffa. "Jaffa was supposed to be ours, an Arab-Palestinian town. I thought to myself, 'Why the hell did I agree to come here?' but then I turned north toward the Tel Aviv port. I sat in a modern pub and had a glass of wine. There I felt at home," he said.

M. is a man in his twenties who was born in the United States, to where his parents had immigrated in the 1980s during the Lebanese civil war. He would visit his family every summer in Lebanon, and five years ago he decided to go and live in Beirut where he found work in the communications field. M. has been writing his blog, in English, for several years. He wrote live from the demonstrations following the murder of former prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri as well as during the recent war in Lebanon, and provided his readers with personal impressions of the atmosphere in Beirut.

He recently came to Israel for a visit of several weeks as the guest of the Burda Center for Innovative Communications at Ben-Gurion University in the Negev. During the visit, he promised to participate in writing a "good neighbors" blog (www.gnblog.com) in which Israeli and Arab bloggers participate, but his virtual connection with Israel began even before the war. M. examined the Israeli blogs in the wake of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's declarations in favor of wiping Israel off the map. He wrote about this to his Lebanese audience and got many responses from Israeli surfers. A virtual community of Israelis and Lebanese was created, but it disintegrated during the war. According to M., the community consisted mainly of Israelis with right-wing tendencies and of Anglophone origin, but after the war in Lebanon there was a change - Israelis for whom English was not a mother tongue began visiting the Lebanese blogs and responding to them. Among the regular visitors one can find, for example, "Amir from Tel Aviv", "Yohai" and others.

During his visit to Israel, M. met up with many of his virtual friends and foes. He says most of them are from the political extremes - he met many more Jewish supporters of Hadash or Yisrael Beiteinu than members of the Labor party or Kadima. He mulled over many times in his mind whether to come to Israel. For some of his readers, particularly the Shiites, a visit to Israel implies loss of legitimation and credibility. But M. was curious and decided to accept the invitation.

So how does Israel seem in the eyes of a Lebanese? M. says he was amazed mainly by the poverty he encountered in Israel. "You have to understand, in my imagination Israel appeared to be like Jouniya [an affluent town north of Beirut - YS]. I didn't imagine there was any poverty here at all, that there were beggars at the intersections or the Western Wall. In Lebanon there is no such thing; there you can see Mercedes and Lamborghinis on the roads. There is no doubt that the Lebanese perceive Israel differently from how the Israelis see themselves. The Israelis think everyone wants to attack them and that they are weak, while the Lebanese believe that Israel is stronger than it actually is."

M. himself is a Christian, but it takes time to get information on this from him. It is not accepted practice in Lebanon to ask someone so direct a question about so sensitive a subject despite, or perhaps because of, the fact that one's communal affinity plays so large a role in Lebanese society. "There is a different way to know," he says. "First you ask about the family name, or the parents' names. Most of the names are clear and give away the ethnic affiliation, but if that doesn't help, you ask the person where he comes from. There are very few cases where you are left without an answer."

These days M. is busy writing in his blog about the tense situation in Lebanon, about the growing fears of the man in the street, about the suspicions and the emigration of young people of all ethnic origins. He recently wrote: "My work requires me to travel abroad frequently, and every time I return to Lebanon I find fewer and fewer friends are still here." Nevertheless, he says, Beirut is still full of places of entertainment, restaurants and coffee shops, and he says it is very similar to Tel Aviv. "The proximity to the sea and the openness of people in Tel Aviv certainly remind me of the atmosphere in Beirut," he says, "the behavior of the Tel Avivians, too. But when I went into a pub here and a friend said to me that everyone sitting there had probably taken part in the last war in Lebanon, I felt a chill go over me."

tags: israel, lebanon, lebanese, haaretz, tel aviv, beirut, israel war, lebanon war, burda center, ben-gurion university, negev

-finkployd- Courage and Stupidity on BloggingBeirut.com

Expedition to 2ornet El Saoudah
(the black horn or summit, the highest summit in the whole of the middle east and north africa).
Expedition carried out by the Speleoclub du Liban
(4 members from the main branch, and 5 from the northern branch)
Planning by Isam Sbat
(northern branch of the Speleoclub du Liban)

Date: saturday the 24'th 9 am to sunday the 25'th of february at 1 pm
Trip: Begin at 2800m altitude, up to 3088m, then back down to 1000m altitude in sir el dennieh.

Weather: Clear skies day one, snowstorm on day two down to 1500 meters, and rain below
Equipment: Snow racquets, sleeping bags, quickcovers (thermal blankets), high energy content foods and drinks (dried fruit and nuts, chocolates red bull milk) water (4l per person), tents, thermally isolating clothes, various foodstuffs (tuna corn spaghetti tea), headlamps handheld lamps. Maps obtained from the army, laminated for waterproofing, compasses, GPS navigation systems, Camera and camera equipment. A book (Mon Dieu, Pourquoi? By the late Abbe Pierre).
On average 15 Kilos of weight per person.









We started out in Beirut at 6:30 am in order to rendez vous with the team members from the north at the base of the cedars ski slopes at 9. We were ready to go by 9:30.
At first, the army (who operate a ski lift at the cedars ski resort) was hesitant to let us go, as this is obviously a risky endeavour, especially that we would not be coming back untill the following day, and that we would end the trip at a location other than that of departure, so there would be no way for the army to verify that we made it back safely. So we avoided disclosing the full extent of the plan. They eventually let us go.
At the top, we put on our snow racquets, and basically that's when we started having problems:

On February 15, 2007 the toBeirut Group (www.toBeirut.org) successfully hosted a fundraising music event for the Lebanese Red Cross at The Key in London, England.

The line-up was spectacular, the mood was superb, the revelers were drunk by midnight, and the party was an absolute blast.

and... over 5000 USD were raised for the Lebanese Red Cross, bringing the total raised by the toBeirut group to over 20,000 USD!!!

below is the first selection of photographs, straight from the dance floor:

March 2, 2007
Houla, South Lebanon

Source: Mahmoud El Hajj, a 15 year old Lebanese from the town of Houla, South Lebanon was kidnapped this morning by Israeli troops.

Israeli forces crossed the border into Lebanon, near the Sheikh Abbad Shrine, seized the teenager, and rushed back into Israel before the Lebanese Army or UNIFIL could respond.

افاد مندوب "الوكالة الوطنية للاعلام" في مرجعيون سامر وهبي "ان قوات الاحتلال الاسرائيلي اختطفت بعد ظهر اليوم المواطن محمود حسين الحاج من بلدة حولا.


وفي التفاصيل ان الحاج(15 عاما) كان يقود دراجته النارية عند توجهه قرابة الواحدة من بعد الظهر الى محيط موقع العباد من الجانب اللبناني عند الاطراف الشرقية لبلدة حولا، وتجول قرب موقع الكتيبة الاندونيسية العاملة في اطاراليونيفل، ثم توجه سيرا على الاقدام الى مقام الشيخ العباد عندما اجتاز عدد من الجنود الاسرائيليين الشريط الشائك، متجاوزين الخط الازرق باتجاه الاراضي اللبنانية واقدموا على اختطاف الحاج ونقله الى الجانب الاسرائيلي على مرأى من الجنود الاندونيسيين وما يزال مصيره مجهولا.

واكدت قوات الطوارئ في مركز الناقورة حصول خرق اسرائيلي للشريط الحدودي حيث تم تجاوزه لبضعة امتار والاقدام على خطف الفتى.

بيان ل "اليونيفل"

وفي بيان مقتضب للمكتب الاعلامي لقوات الطوارىء الدولية العاملة في الجنوب قبل قليل جاء فيه :" ان الجيش الاسرائيلي اكد لليونيفيل انه احتجز رجلا اليوم الجمعة في المنطقة المحاذية للشريط التقني شرق بلدة حولا الحدودية , وان اليونيفيل تتابع الوضع مع الجيش اللبناني والجيش الاسرائيلي"

tags: israel kidnapping, south lebanon, houla, sheikh abbad, shrine, UNIFIL, lebanese army, israeli troops, mahmoud el hajj

-finkployd- News on BloggingBeirut.com

remember this post? 2006 World Press Photo Contest Winner

here's the Story of the people in the Mini Cooper

---------

CATERING TO A LEBANESE CLICHÉ
World Press Photo Mix-Up
www.Spiegel.de

By Ulrike Putz in Beirut

The World Press Photo of the Year 2006 shows upscale young Lebanese men and women visiting a bombed-out Beirut neighborhood like disaster tourists -- or at least that's what everyone thought.
Bissan Maroun, one of those featured in the photograph, told SPIEGEL ONLINE the true story.

This photo won the World Press Photo Award for 2006.

Getty Images
The story behind the photo is more complex than appearances suggest.

Bissan Maroun got a first impression of what international publicity means when she walked home from a cinema in her hometown of Beirut two weeks ago. Her mobile phone told her she had missed a huge number of calls. Then it rang again. This time it was her mother, who sounded hysterical: "Your picture is on all the TV channels," she screamed. "My children are famous." -- Source: Spiegel.de

BloggingBeirut's Photography has been featured in Beirut UnBuilt - Agitated : Volume #10 by Archis, an Architecture Magazine based in Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

To conclude, allow me to return to something I wrote before the latest Israeli aggression; I’ve written this for my last installation, ‘A Window to the World’: ’Given the right circumstances, the appropriate standpoint (preferable with one’s back against the sea) and the correct angle of vision (preferably looking obliquely), one would have the distinct feeling that all the buildings in Beirut are packed-up and ready to leave; most of them stand on slender columns that would aid them in their journey; their antennas and dish receptors look like fancy hats one might wear on such a voyage; their balconies are empty suitcases and boxes waiting to be filled by the small histories that unfold in every apartment: long hours of anguish and fleeting moments of excitement. At those times Beirut resembles a large horde of escape boats aimlessly fleeing a sinking ship, and it would be the best time to sip a cup of coffee by the sea.’

I want to return to this text to say that I am tired. I am tired of living for the sole purpose of accompanying friends to the airport (or lately to ports of evacuation) in order to bid them goodbye and with them safe journeys. Frankly, I cannot imagine my life far from this place; true, this is the only country I have, but mostly it is here that I learned the meaning of the words ‘here’ and ‘there’. All my life I’ve been measuring the distance between these two points and testing boundaries. My only solace is the firm knowledge that, even centuries after my death, Beirut will always remain the dim and flickering light that guides all those who are lost in the deserts of the Orient, whether real or imagined. So send us your weak, your marginals, your unwanted, your freaks and monsters. In catastrophic times they shall become kings and queens, from under this cedar tree to the ends of the earth. (by Tony Chakar)

high res


high res

tags: archis, volume 10, agitated, bloggingbeirut photography, beirut unbuilt, lebanon, magazine, amsterdam, the netherlands, tony chakar, architecture

-finkployd- Archis on BloggingBeirut.com