The medium is the message - El Zahora television

by Susan Galleymore

In January, 2007 I sat with a Lebanese family in their toasty-warm living room with my feet near the hot stove and watched television. A perfectly normal activity -- except that their village, Kfar Kila, is less than a mile from Israels militarized border with Lebanon. And the station we were watching, Al-Zahora, shows American troops being blown up by IEDs and shot up by insurgents in Iraq. As a military mom with skin in the game, I found myself compulsively feeding the stove with dregs from the olive harvest -- pressed and dried, olive pits and skins are cheap fuel in Kfar Kila --- until I noticed that everyone in the room was sweating profusely and eyeing me nervously.

The woman of the house intuited my horror and asked, "How is it for you to watch this? Do you have relatives in Iraq?"

Ra'fat translated my response. "My son has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq. Inshallah, he returned to the US physically unharmed. But, since I counsel GIs, I might know the young people shown on that television show. At any rate, whether I know them or not, they are somebodys children -- as are those setting up the IEDs.

We watched the grainy footage in silence. Distance shots of kefir-masked men loading ordnance into outmoded rocket launchers and chanting "Allah-u Akbar, Allah-u Akbar..." then poof, another shot launched at the occupiers. Close-up shots of hasty hands hiding bombs inside animal carcasses on dusty roads; the camera crew awaiting the inevitable patrolling military Humvee full of well-trained but woefully unprepared young, American flesh; a flash and a bang and another unit is sacrificed in a criminal war.

She said, "It is very hard for us, too, to see young people die in this way. And yet, you Americans send more soldiers to fight in a war that you will never win. The Iraqi people will never give up their struggle against this occupation. Nevertheless, our hearts are sore to see the killing."

The man of the house, Ali, mused, "I used to do the same thing when we were fighting the Israelis during their occupation of our country. My wife here nursed our wounded men with a gun slung over her shoulder. Nothing much has changed except that the Americans themselves are fighting in Iraq instead of only supporting Israel to fight us."

The conversation loosened the tongue of the couples son, also Ali, and he and his friend, Ahmed, talked about their war experiences. Just like small towns in America, Kfar Kila had a poverty draft and both young men were recruited by lack of options and the occupying Israelis. Ali junior drove a truck for the Israeli Defense Force (IDF). Ahmed was a combatant for the Israeli-supported South Lebanese Army (SLA).

Many Lebanese consider the SLA the IDFs ferocious junkyard attack dog and they showed little mercy to those who fought with that militia. Both IDF and SLA are implicated in the tortures that allegedly took place at Khiam prison where Ra,fat and I had visited that afternoon. Along with most bridges in southern Lebanon, the Israelis bombed Khiam prison during the summer of 2006 some say because the Israeli government couldn't stand to have the prison structure remain as a finger of guilt pointing, like a reverse Yad Vashem, toward their complicity in abuse and torture. The Lebanese, outraged at the abuses perpetrated there during the occupation whether by Israelis as former prisoners claim or by the SLA as Israel claims -- resolutely refuse to remove the debris.

Instead, they've turned the ruins into a poignant memorial overlooking a stunning panorama with Shebaa Farms in the distance. They proudly illustrate enlarged photographs of the cell blocks -- here the women prisoners block, there the torture chamber that used electricity to inflict pain and, attached to abandoned Israeli military vehicles, portraits of still-missing Lebanese resistance fighters. These prisoners, apparently, were transported to Israeli prisons when the IDF pulled out of Lebanon. If they are not dead, they remain there today.

When the IDF departed Lebanon, one year after Ahmed's induction, he was discharged and left to fend for himself. Given the hostility between local Lebanese and those who served the SLA during the occupation, Ahmed considered leaving Lebanon permanently and accepting the second-class residency of non-Jews in Israel or turning himself into Lebanese government custody. He chose to turn himself in and, after a trial, received a one year jail sentence. He was also tortured -- he displayed the deep scars from knife wounds on his chest and calves -- by Hizbullah members incensed that he'd fought for the SLA.

Ali spent six months washing dishes in a Tel Aviv restaurant before returning home. Both Ali and Ahmed were harassed by Hizbullah after they returned to the village. Later, after it became clear that victims of the poverty draft were doubly victimized when their own people harassed them, Hizbullah relented.

Ali said, "Hizbullah helps our village now. There are no more problems for us from them."

Meanwhile, the IDF patrols less than a mile away. Ra'fat and I had driven alongside the border on our way to Kfar Kila and it was dark when we noticed an Israeli patrol just below us. I had already pulled out my camera and he had stopped the car when, just before I exited, we looked at one another and said, simultaneously, "No. No picture. The flash might invite an Israeli bullet."

Inside the warm living-room of the house bullet-pocked by years of war, I asked Ali senior, "Do you think the Israelis will come again?"

"Oh, yes. Why, they drive their tanks right passed the UNIFIL post whenever they feel like doing so. UNIFIL does nothing to stop them. Perhaps they will come again next summer.

I told him, "All over southern Lebanon I see signs that this country is still trying to recover from last summers bombardment. Every day I hear of people, young and old, dying from cluster bombs lying in olive orchards or fields where young boys herd their sheep. Surely they will not come so soon? Surely theyll give Lebanon time to heal?"

He nods, "Inshallah."

The family smiles at me and nods, "Inshallah."