Great hike--Qannoubine Valley

A second time on this beautiful hike for Tom and I, the first for Cam, who was suitably impressed. It is in northern, central Lebanon. We are dropped at the top of a narrow, steep gorge and immediately descend 200 meters on stone stairs above the valley.

You probably can't see the wooden cross in the photo on the right. It is said the Maronites have crosses of wood and hearts of gold.

Kris is the speck in the middle...

The land above the valley is dotted with monasteries and old caves that harbored people from various persecuted religions over the ages. Remains in the valley have been found that date to prehistoric times. Photo at left shows a monastery (sans roof) on the opposite side of the valley. At right is a cave church interior.

UCLA Press release: Peace Pole

For Immediate Use Jan. 21, 2009

As conflicts rage across the globe, UCLA students dedicate campus 'peace pole'

Showing solidarity in their commitment to peace within UCLA's diverse campus community and throughout the world, UCLA students, along with Chancellor Gene Block, will dedicate a "peace pole" at a campus ceremony at noon on Friday, Jan. 23. UCLA's peace pole is a handcrafted monument that displays the message "May peace prevail on earth" in 14 languages. The planting and dedication of such poles by communities interested in making a public statement about peace is a tradition that spans the globe. According to the nonprofit World Peace Prayer Society, there are today more than 200,000 peace poles in 180 countries. Well-known peace pole locations include the Hiroshima Peace Memorial in Japan, the former World Trade Center site in New York City, and South Africa's Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned. Students organized the dedication to show their collective support for peace and tolerance at a university that attracts students from diverse communities and nations around the world. Although several smaller universities in the United States have dedicated peace poles, UCLA will be the first major American university to do so. In addition to brief remarks by Chancellor Block, Homaira Hosseini, president of UCLA's Undergraduate Students Association Council, and Ben Moore, the student who initiated the idea, students will read the peace pole's inscriptions in 14 languages: English, Arabic, Hebrew, Farsi, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Spanish, Korean, Tagalog, Russian, Hindi, French, German and Japanese.

WHAT:Dedication of UCLA peace pole
WHO: Attending the dedication ceremony will be UCLA Chancellor Gene Block and UCLA students.
WHEN:Noon, Friday, Jan. 23
WHERE:Meyerhoff Park, UCLA campus (campus map: www.maps.ucla.edu/campus)
MEDIA CONTACT:Elizabeth Kivowitz Boatright-Simon, UCLA Office of Media Relations, ekivowitz@support.ucla.edu, 310-466-8769

Talk on Palestine in America, and latest stats...

Cam and I attended an interesting talk at AUB (American University in Beirut) this week. The speaker was a UCLA professor, and while the topic was “Palestine in America” the talk was mainly about the remarkably well established infrastructure of Israeli lobby groups in the US. I had no idea! There are countless groups on American university campuses, offering to fly in speakers and even free tickets to Israel to experience life on a kibbutz. Numerous information sites offer biased information under misleadingly trustworthy names (something like Mideast information service), and hundreds of paid employees watch newspaper editorials nation-wide and submit lengthy rebuttals to every anti-Israel piece they publish, forcing papers to run corrections and making them wary of running any provocative piece in future. Example: after the speaker wrote an article for the LA Times that said the wall Israel had built along the West Bank was three times the height of the Berlin Wall, CAMERA, the well-funded “Committee for Accuracy in Mideast Reporting in America”, wrote a 10 page rebuttal analyzing every word. The only factual error that stuck was that the wall separating Palestinians from Israelis is actually only twice the height of the Berlin Wall, forcing the paper to run a correction and to think twice before running another piece by the author again.

And Arab information groups are almost totally absent in that world. There is no well-financed, well organized group countering this information blitz. However the speaker closed the talk by saying that the American public is starting to doubt all it is fed by “spin doctors”, following the Iraq debacle, and that people are starting to question the US’ boundless support of Israel.

Cam adds Aside from the history of Palestine and the Israeli occupation, think of this: Israel has a right of return policy to every person of Jewish decent world wide, yet the people whose land it was only 60 years ago are stuck in refugee camps with no chance of returning, while the few of them left in Israel are stuck in apartheid-style townships lacking proper medical care and a constant supply of food.
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Toll to date in the 22 day siege: 1,140 Palestinians killed, 360 of them children, and 5,150 wounded. At least 600 homes and most infrastructure detroyed. There are 13 Israeli casualties, including 3 from friendly fire, and only 3 civilians. A hospital and a UN food warehouse were bombed this week, and ambulances have come under fire.

Tom's hike

Tom had a hike in Jezzine, southern Lebanon, today. He said it was beautiful--no pix, sorry. On the hike they found an ordnance shell and some geodes. The guide had no hands, having lost them in two separate accidents while clearing mines.

Its Genocide

Wake up America! To date 879 Palestinians killed vs. 10 Israelis, three of those by “friendly” fire. Another 3,700 Palestinians wounded. So many are children. Now Israel is using white phosphorus, which burns the skin and blinds people. People are without electricity, water, food. There is nowhere for families to go to be safe: Israelis have bombed a UN school and even ambulances. They have violated the daily three hour cease fire periods that were intended to allow supplies to enter and bodies to be retreived, and they have ignored the Security Council resolution calling for a cease fire.

Is is our tax dollars, America, yours and mine that purchased the bombs, the aircraft, the tanks that roll and the chemicals dropped from the sky that burn human flesh. Do you hear this side at all in the US??

Hot spots

We do seem to have a knack for picking hot spots to visit. We recently went to Syria soon after the US had bombed Iraqi targets inside Syrian borders, Istanbul during a pro-Palestine demonstration, and Athens in a lull between anit-police riots. And then there is Lebanon. On Thursday three rockets were lobbed into northern Israel and shortly thereafter a few more hit the Bekaa Valley (from Israel). But that seems to have been it. Hezbollah denied shooting them and it looks like cooler heads have prevailed, at lest on that front. Don't get me started on the carnage in Gaza.

Trip factoid

Our Lebanon - Syria - Turkey - Greece - Lebanon tour totalled 3,476 miles, 2,662 of which was by road and rail.