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For Many Lebanese,; War Is New Reality: But Will They Stay?

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  • For Many Lebanese,; War Is New Reality: But Will They Stay?

    FOR MANY LEBANESE,; WAR IS NEW REALITY: BUT WILL THEY STAY?
    by Katherine Zoepf

    New York Observer
    September 11, 2006

    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
    the month-long conflict between Israel and the Lebanese militia,
    Hezbollah, and to discuss Lebanon's reconstruction. So far, the most
    concrete result of all this diplomacy appears to be a plan, still not
    yet firm, to lift Israel's naval blockade on Lebanon later this week.

    But even if Mr. Annan succeeds and the Israeli blockade is lifted,
    it will still come too late for Jack Yacoubian, a Lebanese Armenian
    goldsmith that I met in Amman yesterday. Mr. Yacoubian, who is in
    his early 30's, has spent his entire life in Bourj Hammoud, Beirut's
    Armenian enclave. He recently lost his job with a large Lebanese
    jewelry company because the Israeli blockade has made it impossible for
    his employers to ship their products to overseas customers, mainly in
    the Persian Gulf countries; about 170 employees were laid off, he said.

    "I have lost my work; I have lost everything," Mr. Yacoubian said.

    "Many of us Armenians are jewelers, and our business has been ruined.

    Our boss tried to help us; he paid all of us out of his own pocket
    for a whole month, even though he couldn't sell anything. But after
    that it was all over. He finally had to let us go."

    When I met him in Amman's Queen Alia International Airport early
    yesterday morning, Mr. Yacoubian was on his way to seek his fortune
    in Bogota, Colombia, where he has friends that he believes may be
    able to help him to find a new job. He doubts that he will be coming
    back to Beirut any time very soon.

    "I will give it two months, three months, in Colombia, and then I
    will see what is the situation in Beirut again," Mr. Yacoubian said.

    "But I do not feel very hopeful now. I think that Lebanon has many
    difficulties still ahead."

    Whatever promises to aid Lebanon or to support its troops near
    the Israeli border that Mr. Annan succeeds in extracting from Arab
    leaders this week, rebuilding Lebanon's economy will take a very long
    time. Many highly educated or specially skilled Lebanese like Mr.

    Yacoubian, even including some of those who stayed throughout the
    war, are now making very painful and personal choices: about whether
    to stay in their country, or to seek greater stability and better
    opportunities overseas.

    Many Lebanese who fled during their country's long civil war had
    returned in recent years, and thanks in large part to their skills,
    energies and investments, Beirut had once again become a thriving
    Mediterranean capital. But many middle and upper-class Lebanese have
    dual passports, and extended families abroad. They have ambitions
    for themselves and their families that are not necessarily rooted in
    Lebanon, and they have options.

    "How many times in your life can you rebuild everything?" a middle-aged
    Lebanese woman asked me the other week in Damascus. "Two times,
    three times maybe? You rebuild your home, your business two or three
    times. And after that maybe you say, that's enough, and you find a
    home someplace else."

    A extraordinarily cosmopolitan people, many Lebanese, particularly the
    educated elite, are asking similarly agonized questions these days,
    trying to figure out whether the ceasefire will last, trying to decide
    whether they can bear to start all over again in the midst of such
    a tenuous peace. Loving your country is all very well, they say, but
    what good is patriotism in the face of domestic factionalism and the
    constant threat of Israeli attack? What sort of crazy devotion would
    make an educated, ambitious young person forsake other opportunities
    in order to stay in such a place?

    In Beirut last week, and among the groups of Lebanese who remain in
    Damascus and Amman in recent days, I've heard these questions asked
    constantly. How the majority will eventually decide to answer them
    will have a huge effect on Lebanon's prospects for a speedy recovery.

    Among those Lebanese who have already resolved to stay, there is
    naturally some resentment of those who are on the fence. A young
    university professor that I met in Beirut last week spoke witheringly
    of his privileged students, most of whom had fled to Europe or the
    United States with the onset of Israeli air strikes, and some of whom
    have said that they don't plan to return.

    "These kids are rich," the professor told me bitterly. "That means
    they have the chance to decide whether or not they are Lebanese."

    For parents, the questions are even more difficult. It is impossible
    to spend much time in Lebanon these days without hearing a great deal
    about the effects that the war has had on Lebanese children, about the
    unusual tearfulness and aggression shown by even normally even-tempered
    young children. A Lebanese friend, Patrick, spoke of his decision to
    send his 10-year-old daughter to stay with relatives in Europe during
    the worst of the fighting, and then his eventual decision to bring her
    home again, despite some relatives' urgings that he educate her abroad.

    "These children, this generation, knew nothing of war," Patrick said.

    "When I was a teenager, we used to go out dancing, and we'd hear
    explosions. We'd leave the club for a few minutes, pull people out
    of the rubble and take them to the hospital, and then go right back
    to drink and dance. We didn't think anything of it. This was normal
    life for us.

    "I had really thought that for my daughter it would be different,"
    Patrick continued. "I felt angry when the fighting began, and I decided
    to send her abroad, so that she wouldn't see this. But I've decided
    to bring her home. She will start the school year here, whatever
    happens. She is Lebanese, and this fighting, these bombings, are her
    heritage. She is 10 years old; she is old enough to understand."
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