The July War, 2006 (Dahieh, Beirut Suburbs in Ruin)

It was the month of July, known here as Tammouz, after the old god of summer and of fertility. In Sumerian-Akkadian his name was Adoun-Aden, very popular in Phoenicia under the name also of Adoni, My Lord, which the Greeks transformed into Adonis.

In this month of July in 2006 a war of a very special kind broke out, one resembling no other, fought between a Great Power with sophisticated arms and tactics and backed by mighty nations, particularly the United States of America, on the one hand and on the other a Resistance strongly united and standing alone, but with God. This was a struggle between Goliath and David, but in this case the ancient roles were reversed.

The Lebanese-Shiite Resistance was David and the invading terrorist state was Goliath. There was a long month of bombardment, of attacks, of hostilities, of destruction and of massacres. The state of Israel, with all its abundance of weaponry, found itself faced with an insuperable obstacle, a line of fortresses.

The United States prolonged the period of invasion and its support for the aggressor, one week, then two, then three, then four, all without any result. The invaders withdrew in humiliating disorder from a resistance both fierce and heroic. The fighting ended with the appearance of the buffer forces of the UNIFIL, separating the antagonists and obliging Israel to withdraw behind lines marked out in red and blue.

The invading terrorist state of Israel had mercilessly bombarded all the infrastructure, including more than eighty bridges, hundreds of factories, power generators, business premises, and churches and places of worship, sparing only the Sunnite areas.

However, the Shiites also have their close cousins, the son of Sarah known both as Isaac and as Israel, and Ishmael son of Haggar, both with one ancestor in Abraham. Is this not a war between brothers? Those on one side refuse to recognize the rights of those on the other and have continued for more than sixty years to oppress and to plunder them.

And we children of the Redemption and of the Light, of the Resurrection, we are invited to pardon and to love those who harm us, who kill us, who transgress us. It is part of our traditions and customs, we must love them and help them whatever their race, color, confession or nationality.

Here is the account of the destruction caused by our ancestral brothers: more than eighty bridges destroyed, thousands of ravaged houses, with mosques and churches, hundreds of thousands of refugees, thousands wounded, hundreds killed, it is tedious to go on. Further, every sector of life was brought to a standstill.

Is that what they call civilization? Progress? Development? Fulfillment? So Homo sapiens evolves toward imbecility and mediocrity. Do we want to see a century like that of Pericles flourish again? The fifth century before Christ, when profound thought was spreading light across the planet, with Confucius in China, the Buddha in India, the philosophers of the Greek miracle, the great prophets of Holy Scripture who foretold the Messiah? How did that come about in those distant times without means of contact or communication?

In various places, the intellect came out with its light in the midst of slaughter and invasions. Great thinkers, great artists, emerged from the surrounding chaos as if protesting against the inhumanity of the morals of the time. Mankind has taken much time to emerge from the bestial condition and from the domination of primitive instincts, and his progress and periods of peace are always under threat.

The rhythm of moral and spiritual progress is not the same everywhere, and those with superior minds and generous hearts are surrounded by those who have remained brutes.

But all aggressors have suffered the same fate, they have broken like waves on the rocks and recoiled in the face of our mountains and of our will to exist and to affirm our right to live. Eight thousand years of glory, of history, and of civilization in the service of all mankind bear witness to this. Whether the aggressor is called Israeli or Ottoman, coming from the desert sands, the North, the South, the East or the West, that aggressor shall always be driven back!

Text: Joseph Matar - Translated from French: K.J.Mortimer

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