Following Roger Assaf’s intervention, a person was asked to read out loud one of Assaf’s war letters intitled “nous allons bien et vous?”. Same ambivalence as his speech.
A chairperson then presented the three panelists. A Lebanese poet, a Palestinian journalist (if my memory serves me right) and an Israeli historian.
The Arab speakers were dreadful, especially Salah Stetié. How can one be so arrogant and satisfied with himself. He read us one of his terrible poems on Palestine (“it’s raining rain on Palestine“). And he couldn’t distinguish between the israeli government, the israeli people and jews in general. It was gastly. I do not know why the israeli panelist didn’t walk out or object to what he was saying. She really must be entirely committed to Peace to accept such talk and keep her hand stretched out. Although I respect her commitment, I think it would have been important for her to intervene and clarify things.
To be honest, I thought of walking out myself. But i refrained from doing so and decided instead to read through the document that was distributed to us at the entrance. I stumbled on a text written by Mohamed Kacimi (a writer). His writing lacked so much accuracy. He talked about the syrian colonisation of Lebanon, Israel accomplishing for the second time the arab dream of destroying Lebanon, this oasis of freedom and tolerance… Were the author Christian, he would have been accused of being a phalangist, a right-wing anti-arab militant…
Worried Lebanese 