Welcome to Beirut!



Rafik Hariri, a billionaire who helped rebuild his country after decades of war but resigned as prime minister last fall after a sharp dispute with Syria, was killed Monday in a massive bomb explosion that tore through his motorcade.

At least nine other people were killed and 100 wounded in the blast. It raised immediate fears that Lebanon — largely peaceful since the 1990 end of its civil war — was headed toward a new and bloody chapter in its differences with Syria, which maintains about 15,000 troops in the country.

My friend’s wife arrived on Beirut on Thursday. She’s on a business trip for her job and this is the first time she’s traveled to the Middle East.

Before she left, her husband (my friend) and I were discussing the trip, I was asking him what precautions she was taking, thinking how dangerous Beirut could be. My understanding being Lebanon is still very much run by the Syrians through proxy. He said his wife had been told Beirut had really ‘come back’ and since September 11th it had become quite the tourist destination for those in the Arab world not wanting to suffer the ignomy of increased security and profiling in Western nations.

She’s all right thankfully, although apparently she was staying only blocks from where the blast took place. As if the stress of a long business trip in and of itself wasn’t enough - now this.

Makes you wonder how the Israelis can deal with this kind of stuff on a regular basis and stay sane. Is there a question anymore, the rules as we know them in this country are not the rules by which a lot of the rest of the world operates? You have to ask yourself, does it really make sense to approach the world in a naivé fashion thinking the rest of the world will just ‘be nice’ at the asking?